Gone to Ground (29 page)

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry. I didn't know if I should come. Andrew would kill me if he knew."

But Andrew was in Amsterdam.

Helen invited her in.

Her name was Brenda and she was twenty-two. She had a one-room flat in Shepherd's Bush, but Andrew had promised he'd find something larger when the baby came. No, she hadn't seen so much of him lately, but he was extra busy at work, she knew that. And she knew about Helen too. Andrew had told her in a drunken outburst—trying to make her jealous, she supposed.

Now she was frightened, she said, that Andrew might change his mind about the baby once it was born, although he'd promised he wouldn't. She'd even said, early on, when first she'd known she was pregnant, that she'd, you know, have something done, but Andrew had said no, that would be wrong.

Tears stung Helen's eyes.

She made Brenda tea and held her hand. She shouldn't worry, everything would be fine. Andrew and herself, it was nothing too serious, just a fling. You know what men are like. Once the baby comes it would all be all right, she'd see.

Helen had walked with her as far as the tube, then noted down the numbers of several white van men from a newsagent's window and phoned them from her mobile as she packed. Unable to face her parents, she rang her sister in Stevenage.

"You're a bloody fool," her sister had said, when she'd heard Helen out. Gold comfort and strong gin and tonic; a bed in the spare room for as long as she wanted, as long as Gary didn't kick up a fuss. She could do a bit of babysitting maybe, earn her keep.

She had moved to Cambridge by the time Andrew tracked her down. His face, smiling, at her door. "Hel, come on, let me in. It's freezing out here and I've driven bloody miles. One cup of coffee and I'll be on my way."

He waited until she was at the sink, rinsing the mugs, before standing close behind her, his body pressing against hers, his breath on her neck.

"Andrew, don't..." But she shuddered and shook and her voice caught in her throat.

He took her on the kitchen floor and then, later, in her bed, and by the morning he was gone, leaving her feeling hollow and raw.

Never again.

But when she should have been playing Gloria Gaynor's "I Shall Survive," she was listening to Emmylou Harris's "Loving You Again." And when he phoned three months later, two in the morning, and swore that he loved her and had nowhere to go, she told him to go to hell. But when he knocked on the door and she saw his face, she let him in, lying to herself that he could sleep on the settee.

She went into therapy. Talked about her dreams, about issues of self-esteem. She grew up. By this time she was working with Will and something of a corner had been turned. She liked her job, she even liked herself. Gould it really be that simple?

The next time Andrew called, she put down the phone. And then the next. And the next. Till he stopped phoning.

It wasn't until she was in the hospital that she saw him again.

Tell him. Please, Will. Tell him not to come.

She took the letter in her hand. Opening it would be like opening a door. She tore the envelope and the pages it contained into shreds and dropped them down into the pocket of her dressing gown; the next time she went to the toilet, she would flush them away.

Right now, she had to phone Will and pass on what Lesley had told her about Howard Prince.

RASTRICK'S TEAM WAS WORKING THE CAMBRIDGE-Newmarket connection, cross-referencing available records and compiling a list of offenders between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five who showed a propensity for street violence or taking and driving away.

Of the thirty-four names, eleven were currently serving sentences ranging from six months to five years; one had left the country, and two others had died in the same road accident, when a nearly new Mercedes they had stolen had gone headlong into a lorry laden with aggregate on the All, ten miles short of Thetford. The lorry driver had escaped with cuts and bruises and was still suffering from shock. Both of the youths, cousins who were seventeen and eighteen years old, had been pronounced dead at the scene.

Which left twenty at large, all told, fourteen of whom were subject to ASBOs or on probation.

Adam. Liam. Shane.

Daryl. Stuart. Eddie.

Brian. Kyle. Jason.

Matt. Stuart again. Another Adam.

Alex. Daniel. Mark.

Jon. Darren. Jamie.

Rob. John.

The next task was locating them and bringing them in for questioning. Some of the addresses on file were still current, but by no means all; the probation service was able to provide some, and social services provided others. Telephone call after telephone call. Officers driving round back doubles, climbing stairs, knocking on doors. Their enquiries being met with surprise, confusion, sudden bouts of amnesia, circumlocution, barefaced lies.

After three days of diligent searching, fifteen had been found.

Adam Priestley was number fifteen.

Number fifteen in a long day.

Priestley was eighteen, but looked younger. Skinny, with a pitted face, his mouth was small and his eyes too wide. Five foot six at best. The number one crop he'd paid for at the barber's was doing him no favours whatsoever. The kind who, as a kid, was forever being bullied at school, the last to be chosen, the butt of jokes. There was a small silver ring in his left ear; dragon tattoos at the side of his neck and on the back of his right wrist.

Faced with two plainclothes officers, by then tired themselves, Priestley blinked, scratched, and fidgeted incessantly on his chair. Questioned, he denied everything. Didn't know what they were talking about. Didn't know anything about any car. He was home. He was out. He was watching a video with his mates. He wasn't there. Looking almost pleased with himself, Priestley sniffed loudly then chewed at a broken piece of nail.

Fuck this for a game of soldiers, Rastrick thought, watching on video; I've had kids like him for dinner before now, dinner, breakfast, and tea.

"Okay," he said, stepping into the room. "Why don't we all take a break? A breather? Go on, bugger off, get yourselves down the canteen. I'll keep Adam here amused."

The recording equipment switched off, Rastrick eased himself into a chair.

"Right. Adam. Time to stop pissing about. I ask you questions and you give me answers. Only this time, the truth, okay?" He stared at Priestley hard. "Okay? We understood?"

"Yes." Almost too faint to hear.

"Understood?"

"Yes."

"Good. That's better. Now, whose idea was it to take the car?"

Priestley blinked. "Wh-which car?"

"The Escort."

Priestley blinked. "Which Escort? I don't know 'bout any Escort."

"The one you left wrapped round a lamppost on the Newmarket Road."

"I never..."

"You weren't the driver?"

"No. I don't..."

"They wouldn't let you drive."

"No, that's not..."

"Lucky to let you sit in the back, I shouldn't wonder."

"That's not right."

"They did let you sit up front. They let you drive. Is that it? Too fast round that bend, doing your best to straighten out. Bang!" Rastrick slammed the flat of his hand down in front of Priestley and Priestley jumped. "Into the fucking post. Happen to anyone. Total write-off. Lucky to get out of there alive, all three of you. You and who was it? Stuart and Kyle? Eddie and Shane? Your mates? Mates of yours?"

Priestley shivered and shook his head as Rastrick leaned forward. "Names, you arsehole, that's what I want. Alex and Liam? Daryl and Mark? That who it was? With you in the car? Running away? Running away from what you did?"

Rastrick's face was inches away now, almost touching.

"What you did? You and these pals of yours? Big men. Hard. Is that how it felt? Couple of students you all thought it'd be fun to beat the holy shit out of. Couple of gays. Teach them a lesson? That what you were doing? Teaching them a lesson? You and Daniel? You and Darren? Well, you taught him a lesson right enough, one of them. Died, didn't he? You know that? You know one of them died. Killed the poor bastard, that's what you did. You, Adam. You. How's that make you feel? Make you feel more like a man?"

Rastrick pulled his face away, not far, his voice a whisper now, a caress.

"They'll put you up for it, you know that, don't you? These mates of yours. That's what they're doing out there now. In rooms like this. Just like always. Giving you up. Letting you take the blame. Adam put the boot. Adam had the iron bar. The knife. Adam whose idea it was in the first place. Adam who drove the car. You're dead meat, son. Hung out to dry. Rest of your life inside, and you know what that'll mean? Kid like you. Small. Small bones. Small like a girl. They'll put lipstick on your mouth and buy you a dress. A pretty little dress."

As Priestley jerked back, the chair he was sitting on slipped away under him and he fell to the floor, legs thrashing, feet drumming the ground.

"Jesus Christ!" Rastrick said, throwing open the door and shouting at the officers waiting in the corridor. "He's shat himself and now he's throwing a bloody fit. Get in here and stop him swallowing his tongue, then take him off and hose him down."

Will was having a slightly better day. When the first of Richard Fenwick's calls had come in, it had been routed to Will, who had failed to grasp the significance of the name. Only on the second occasion did he remember who Fenwick was and return the call. Inside five minutes a car had been dispatched to bring Fenwick to the station.

When he arrived, Will ushered him into his office, shook his hand, sat him down and offered him a drink of tea or coffee, which he refused.

Fenwick fiddled nervously with the knot of his tie, shuffled his well-shined shoes, fidgeted with his tie again. "I only hope I'm not wasting your time," he said.

"Best let me be the judge of that," Will said.

"Only when I spoke to one of your colleagues..."

"Detective Sergeant Walker."

"Yes. She wanted me to describe the person I saw outside Stephen's house—Stephen Bryan—and, well, I didn't make a very good job of it, I'm afraid. It was difficult, you see, remembering, and I didn't want to say the wrong thing, send you off on a wild goose chase. Only you hear about that, don't you? The police, going after the wrong person—all in good faith, I realize—but because the information they have is incorrect."

He paused and coughed, lightly, into the back of his hand.

Will leaned back and crossed his legs. Traffic droned by outside.

"Do you have some new information, then, Mr. Fenwick? Is that it? Something's jogged your memory?"

"Yes. Yes, sort of. At least..." He broke off, uncertainly, cleared his throat and started again. "Last night, no, sorry two nights ago now—before I first phoned—there was this item on the television news. The local news, that is, it comes on after the main bulletin, just ten minutes, five or ten. It was about this new development beside the River Trent, in Nottingham. Fancy flats and all that kind of thing. At first I couldn't understand why it was on at all. I mean, it's not exactly local, Nottingham. But then I realized, the man who was responsible—not the architect, but the man behind it all—he lived locally, local to here, so it was about him. How he'd made one fortune, lost it all, and then made another. Howard Prince, that was his name. I wrote it down, so that I wouldn't forget."

Will was sitting forward now, forearms resting on his desk. "What about him?" he asked.

"He was the one," Fenwick said. "It was him that I saw, outside Stephen's house. As soon as I saw him, I said to myself that's him."

Will could feel the adrenaline running through his body.

"You're sure."

"Yes. Yes, I think so."

"You think so or you're certain?"

"I think I'm certain."

"Certain enough to swear in a court of law?"

Fenwick took a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and wiped the palms of his hands. "I don't know."

Will leaned back and for an instant closed his eyes. "You said, when you saw him on the television you recognized Prince as being the same man that you saw in front of Stephen Bryan's house a few days before he was murdered?"

"Yes, but..."

"The same man you saw a day later driving past the end of the road?"

"Yes."

"Then you are sure?"

"Yes. I mean, I thought so at the time. I just don't know if I could stand up in court, under oath, and swear they were one and the same person. I'm sorry. I thought if I told you..." He pulled out his handkerchief again. "I shouldn't have come. I'm sorry. If I wasn't more certain, I should never have said anything at all. I realize that now."

Will pushed back his chair. "Mr. Fenwick, you did absolutely the right thing. There's no question of that. Now just hang on here while I get you a glass of water. And then we'll go through everything again. Slowly. In your own time." He rested a hand on Fenwick's shoulder as he went past. "There's nothing to worry about, nothing at all. You're doing fine."

The Lord giveth, Will thought, as he stepped out into the corridor, the Lord giveth and He taketh away. Another of those bits of flimflam from Sunday School that come back to haunt you when you need them least.

THE ASSISTANT CHIEF CONSTABLE HAD SUMMONED BOTH Rastrick and Will Grayson and then kept them waiting the obligatory twenty minutes or so, cooling their heels in the outer office; both men feigning indifference under the watchful eye of the ACC's secretary, a redoubtable woman of indeterminate years, who fingered the keyboard of her computer with the deftness and concentration of a concert pianist.

"What's he up to in there, Enid," Rastrick said around the ten-minute mark, "sorting out his golf date for Saturday? Short of a four? Wants someone to caddy, does he?"

Enid, if indeed that were her name, shot Rastrick a scornful glance and kept her counsel.

"Anyone'd think we didn't have better things to bloody do," Rastrick grumbled.

Will said nothing: if they'd been doing things better, they would neither of them been there.