Trust No One (10 page)

Chapter 9

By the time Marie left the shop, it was already dark, the early evening gloom intensified by the unyielding rain. Jesus, this was a miserable time of year. Winter hanging on, no sign of any green fucking shoots. She made her way down the side of the building to the car park. It was a dreary place, a down-at-heel industrial estate on the outer fringes of Trafford Park. The car park was nothing more than a square patch of concrete sandwiched between the two parallel rows of factory units, lit by a single street lamp on the corner of the access road. Hers was the only car left, parked in one of the three spaces reserved for the print shop.

She thumbed open the car's remote locking, pulled open the door and flung herself inside, immediately securing the doors behind her. She realized that she'd involuntarily glanced into the back seat, her mind subconsciously reliving the horror film cliché of the killer appearing in the rear-view mirror. Get a grip, woman.

As she was about to turn the ignition, she was startled by a sudden explosion of sound. It took her the moment before her heart started beating again to realize that it was nothing more than her mobile phone. Liam's fucking ringtone.

She fumbled for the phone, expecting another perfectly mistimed call from Liam himself. But the number wasn't Liam's. It wasn't a number she knew, but it was naggingly familiar. As she pressed the call button, she realized that it was the unknown caller from the previous evening.

‘Hello?'

There was an intake of breath, as if someone was preparing to speak. Then silence.

‘Hello?'

She glanced at the phone's screen, wondering whether she had lost the signal, but the line still seemed to be open.

‘Anybody there?'

Impatiently, she ended the call. She contemplated calling back, but concluded that, if it was anything important, they'd call again.

She started the engine, feeling calmer and back in control as she reversed out of the parking space. As she slipped out of reverse, she reached to flick on the headlights.

The silhouetted figure caught in the beam nearly stopped her heart again.

She slammed her foot on the brake and peered through the windscreen. Then she lowered the side window and thrust her head out into the chilly air.

‘Christ, Joe, you scared the shit out of me.'

Joe shuffled embarrassedly forwards, hands thrust in the pockets of his donkey jacket. ‘Sorry. Wasn't expecting you to pull out like that.'

‘I thought you'd gone.'

‘Changed my mind. Decided to go for a quick one on my own. A quick two, actually.' He gestured vaguely back towards the print shop building. ‘Think I left my phone in the shop. Hope so, anyway. Either that or I've lost it.' He leaned forwards, hands on the car door, rain dripping off his hair, pressing his face into the open window.

She couldn't recall ever seeing Joe use his mobile in the shop. ‘Did you look in the pub?'

‘Yeah. Thought it must have fallen out of my pocket. But there was no sign. So I'm hoping it fell out in the shop somewhere. It should be switched on, so I can use the office phone to call it if I need to.'

‘Good luck, then.'

‘Thanks. Did you manage to get the VAT stuff finished?'

She'd almost forgotten her excuse for staying behind. ‘I was feeling pretty knackered, tell you the truth. Thought I'd just mess it up if I carried on. I'll finish it in the morning.'

‘Good decision. There's still time for another quick one if you want to wait while I track down my phone.'

‘Not tonight, Joe, thanks all the same. Really am tired. I wouldn't be great company.'

‘OK. Next week, then.'

‘Yeah. Next week. Promise.'

He smiled and straightened up, his face wet from the rain. ‘See you in the morning.'

She raised the window, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. She should wait and offer him a lift home, in weather like this. His flat was only a short bus ride away, but it wasn't a night to be waiting at bus stops.

Her hand hovered again over the window control. Then she put it back on the steering wheel and shifted the car into first gear. As she accelerated down the access road back out towards the M56, she glanced into the rear-view mirror and saw Joe still standing in the rain, gazing after her.

She should have given him a lift. She could even have made the effort to go back to the shop and help him track down his bloody mobile. But something had stopped her.

She was turning out on to the main road before she realized what it had been.

He'd gone to the pub for a quick one. He'd had two quick ones, he'd said. At least two halves. In Joe's case, more likely two pints. Bitter, his preferred drink. Two pints of bitter.

But, as far as she could tell, there'd been no trace of alcohol on his breath.

Her mind was still churning as she turned off the motorway and took the filter lane back in towards the city centre. She couldn't start building paranoid fantasies about Joe Maybury, of all people. And on the flimsiest of pretexts. It had been raining and windy, for Christ's sake. Joe could have swallowed a packet of mints before leaving the pub. It was hardly grounds for suspecting him to be . . . well, what, anyway? What exactly was she afraid of?

If her position had been compromised – if Kerridge or anyone else was on to her – she was potentially in some danger. But even Kerridge would think twice or three times before taking action against someone who was, to all intents and purposes, a police officer. Killing Jake was one thing. He was one of their own, a potential key witness, and his death would be a warning to others. But there was no mileage in stirring up the kind of shitstorm that would result from the death of an undercover officer. The smart move would be to frighten her off his patch, make enough trouble to ensure she was taken out of the field. Undermine her credibility as a possible witness. Which might be exactly what he was doing.

She came into the city centre along Deansgate, and then turned off left towards Salford. She was still getting to grips with Manchester and its bloody one-way systems. Even now, she constantly found herself trying to take what appeared to be the most obvious route to some destination, only to discover that her path was blocked by the sudden sweep of the tramlines or some jumble of filter lanes that allowed her to drive in any direction except where she wanted. But at least now she could navigate back from the print shop to her flat without getting lost.

She pulled off the main road into the network of side streets that led to the apartment block and the entrance to its underground car park. It probably wasn't where, given a choice, she'd have opted to live. She'd have preferred to be out of the city, maybe somewhere down in leafy Cheshire. But it was pleasant enough, she supposed, in its own way. The flat was spacious and nicely furnished. The block was located on the edge of the city centre, and she had a partial view of the higher landmarks – the new Hilton, the CIS Tower, almost compensating for the fact that most of her windows overlooked neighbouring apartments. And – above all, given her current frame of mind – the place felt secure, built for the kind of residents who had a little more money than had been usual in this part of the city.

She waved her electronic pass through the car window at the entrance barrier and drove into the car park. There was even a reserved space allocated to her flat, just a few yards from the lift. For someone in an advanced state of paranoia, the place was usefully reassuring.

She parked up, grabbed her handbag, locked the car and, with only a single glance over her shoulder at the brightly lit underground space, she pressed the call button on the lift.

As she watched the descending indicator lights, she felt the vibration of the phone in her pocket followed by the shrill buzz of Liam's ringtone. This time, she calmly pulled the phone from her pocket. Not Liam – she assumed he'd time his call for some far less convenient moment – but the same number as before. She pressed the call button and held the phone to her ear.

‘Yes?'

She half-expected another silence. Instead, a voice said, in what sounded like a stage whisper, ‘You're on your own now?'

Just what she needed. A perv. ‘Tell you what,' she responded amiably, ‘why don't you just go right off and fuck yourself?'

She was about to end the call when the voice said, ‘I'm calling about Jake.'

She paused, her finger resting on the button. ‘Who is this?' She glanced back behind her at the deserted expanse of the car park, feeling suddenly uneasy. She had taken the opening question as some loser's half-arsed attempt at intimidation. Now she recalled that the first call had been terminated at the moment that Joe had appeared unexpectedly by her car.

‘We need to talk,' the voice said, still semi-whispering. ‘Tonight.'

‘I don't think so,' she said, keeping her voice even.

There was another silence. ‘I was an associate of Jake's. You don't know me.'

‘So give me one good reason to trust you.'

‘Jake sent you something.'

She hesitated before replying. Too long, she thought. ‘Tell me who you are.'

‘We need to meet.'

‘If you've got something to tell me, just say it.'

‘Somewhere public, then. The place you used to go with Jake on Saturday mornings.'

‘If you say so.'

‘Nine thirty, tomorrow morning. I'll know you.'

She opened her mouth to find some response, but the line was already dead. She thumbed back to the ‘last call' number and pressed the send button. There was a moment's silence, then the repeated mantra: ‘Call failed' in her ear. She tried again with the same result. The number was unobtainable.

She could ask Salter to try to track down the number. But she knew already that it would not be registered, or would be registered to some party unconnected with her mysterious caller. A pirated SIM, discarded after use. That might mean something or not much. Jake had always mixed with people who put a high premium on being untraceable.

But this was someone with an interest in Jake. And who now, for whatever reason, seemed to have an interest in her. In her current state of mind, that was disturbing, though she couldn't decide whether that made her more or less inclined to accept his invitation.

That decision could wait till the morning, she thought, as the lift doors opened. She entered, waved her entry card at the electronic sensor and then pressed the button for the third floor. As the lift rose, she glanced at the CCTV camera that stared unblinking above the doors.

The corridor was as silent as ever. There were three flats on the floor and all were occupied – she'd even met her neighbours once or twice, waiting for the lifts. But most of the time there was little sign of life. It was the kind of place that attracted bored businessmen, living away from home during the week, working late at the office for lack of anything better to do. Just like her. Maybe she should have responded more positively to the overweight man who'd made a halfhearted pass at her as they waited by the lift a few weeks back. Perhaps they had more in common than she'd thought.

She slid the entry pass into the slot in the door and waited for the click and green light that signalled the door was unlocked. But nothing happened. She cursed, and inserted the card again, wondering quite how this system was better than a simple key. Still nothing.

It wasn't the first time. Usually, it was because she'd allowed the card to rest too close to her mobile phone, or so Kev the caretaker had told her. It was a pain in the backside, because the only option was to seek out Kev himself, who spent most of his time sitting around in his tiny flat, but was reliably elusive when actually needed. She swore again, louder this time and, in frustration, jammed hard down on the door handle, as if she might break in through brute force.

To her surprise, the handle dropped and the door opened.

She gently pushed back the door, her unease returning. She could see nothing unusual, no sign that anything had changed while she had been away. She paused, holding her breath, listening hard.

Nothing.

She stepped into the hall. Still nothing but the usual sounds of the flat – the flat click of the central heating thermostat followed by the distant rumble of the boiler firing up. The gentle rhythmic ticking of the warming radiators. The dripping tap that was waiting for a new washer.

She opened the first door on her left, her bedroom, and turned on the light. Empty, and as far as she could see, undisturbed. She moved quietly, opening each door in turn – the en-suite bathroom, the second bedroom, the small kitchen. No one and nothing.

Finally, she pushed open the door at the end of the hallway. The main living room. Empty, of course. She waited a moment before switching on the lamp, watching lights from the surrounding buildings, the distant glow of the city centre.

She wasn't sure how much longer she could keep this up. It was one thing to walk this tightrope when things were under control. But nothing seemed under control now. Maybe she was losing the plot, but it was beginning to seem that nobody else had much idea now what the plot should be anyway.

She moved into the kitchen, her mind already fixed on the bottle of Rioja waiting for her.

Then she stopped and looked back into the living room, her finger frozen on the light switch.

She didn't know at first what had caused her to hesitate. The room was apparently undisturbed. There was a sofa, two armchairs, a desk facing the window that she used when working at home. On the desk was a scattering of papers relating to the business, bits and pieces of office paraphernalia – stapler, hole punch – and her laptop.

Her laptop.

That was it. She always left her laptop open. Liam chided her about it, because it allowed the screen and the keyboard to become dusty. But it was a habit, just one of those things she always did.