I duck down and peer through the gap between the top of the steering wheel and the dashboard.
I watch as Ash opens his car door and pulls something from his pocket. It’s his phone. His own phone. He throws it onto the car seat, then shuts and locks the car again. His face is pale, washed-out, grey, and I can see deep lines on his forehead.
As he limps to the other side of the Volvo to get in, I glimpse the driver’s face as he raises his window.
I know that face. I would recognise it anywhere. It’s one of the men who came to our house. The man who said he was a detective. The man who abducted Ash less than forty-eight hours ago.
56
After Tom ended the call with Philippa he filled the team in on the latest development.
‘Let’s be clear – this murder might be totally irrelevant to our case. We’re going to leave it with the other team to investigate, but I’m heading there now, and we’ll liaise with their DI to make sure we’re not missing anything.’
He looked across at Keith, who had been lining up images on his whiteboard when the news had come through.
‘DI Sims, you’re with me.’
Keith looked both pleased and surprised, although Tom suspected his reaction was more to do with being referred to as DI than being asked to leave the office, the place where his attention to detail was most beneficial.
‘Becky, can you interview Tessa O’Hanlon? Take Rob in with you. Apart from you he’s the only one who’s met Jo, so I think he might be the best bet. If I’m not back when Steve Allman arrives, make sure he waits. I want to speak to him myself. And if you need to go and see Jo, don’t wait for me.’
With that he nodded to Keith, who spent an unnecessary amount of time straightening the piles of documents on his desk. Tom watched as he patted his pockets, one after the other, and imagined him internally ticking off a list. Keys, radio, phone, wallet, notebook, pens. He reached down for a small bag of items he would struggle to carry in the pockets of his smart suit, the contents of which Tom could only guess at. You had to give it to him – he was always prepared for every eventuality.
‘Keith, I’m going. Leave your bloody desk alone. It will still be there when you get back.’
With that, Tom walked towards the door and, with a last glance at his whiteboard, Keith hurried after him.
The body that may or may not be related to Tom’s investigation had been found close to a derelict house between Barton Bridge and the Swing Aqueduct. It was a popular spot; people loved to see the two bridges in action, and Tom could remember bringing Lucy when she was small. There was something magical about a bridge full of water from one canal being swung to one side to allow ships to sail along another, wider stretch of water.
Unfortunately, the man’s body had been found by children. A traumatic experience at any age, but particularly frightening for a child.
Tom steered his car off the main road and onto the track leading to the crime scene. The forensic team were still at work, but the body had now been removed and taken to the mortuary. As Tom approached to give his and Keith’s names to an officer, a woman in white coveralls approached.
‘DCI Douglas? I’m DI Karen Spalling.’
Tom held out his hand. ‘Good to meet you. DI Keith Sims here will be liaising with you, if that’s okay. I think Detective Superintendent Stanley has already informed you that there is a possible, somewhat tenuous link to an ongoing inquiry – you may have heard about it?’
‘Millie Palmer, yes. You think our victim could have been one of the kidnappers?’
‘There’s a faint possibility that he’s one of the two men who took Millie’s father. If he is, I don’t like the fact that it was an execution. That removes any hope we had that Millie’s kidnap, abduction, whatever it was, was undertaken by amateurs.’
Karen Spalling gave him a puzzled look. ‘Was it ever going to be that, given the lengths they went to?’
‘Highly unlikely, but several people close to the parents are associated with performance of one sort or another. There was always the hope that the perpetrators were actors rather than villains. If the deceased was involved, that hope has disappeared.’
Karen nodded. ‘Well, it’s not all bad news. After all that rain there was a lot of mud about and the CSIs have some tyre treads and – even better – a clear footprint. We should be able to get shoe size and possibly make, as it looks like it might have been a trainer. Of course, none of that’s any good unless we have something to compare it to.’
Tom’s phone interrupted them. ‘Keith, I’ll let you get up to speed with DI Spalling. Excuse me.’ He turned away. ‘Tom Douglas.’
‘Tom, it’s Paul Green. It seems your information was correct. Someone is recruiting, and we think he wanted McGuinness dead because Finn was the only man still standing who could identify him.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘Dick Fields followed up on the idea that someone had to have paid a lot of money to have McGuinness murdered, and one of the guards folded completely. It seems the prison officer’s little boy needed some treatment that was only available abroad, and he was trying to raise the funds. He was offered money, and he took it. Sadly his son died the day after McGuinness was killed and now he’s a heap of remorse. Not, I should say, over the death of this particular prisoner. He’s appalled at himself for doing something so shocking, although he says he would do it again a thousand times if it would have saved his son.’
Tom couldn’t entirely blame the officer. He had often asked himself how far he would go to save Lucy. He couldn’t imagine anything that he wouldn’t do, and there would soon be another child for him to protect.
‘Does he know who recruited him?’
‘Unfortunately not, but it seems it’s organised-crime related, which is why Titan’s involved. Can I ask… does your, erm, contact have any idea how we might track this recruiter down?’
Tom resisted the urge to groan. He wished Jack wouldn’t put him in this position. He had a knack of giving some information, but not quite enough to solve the crime.
‘I have no means of contacting him directly, so it won’t be instantaneous, but I’ll do what I can. I do think if he knew who it was, he’d tell us. He knows two things. Guy Bentley always talked about the recruiter as if he was a bent professional – someone in law enforcement. And apparently when he recruited a team none of them ever knew any of the others, so even if one was caught the rest were safe.’
Tom was standing not a hundred metres from the site of a murder – an execution. If the victim was part of the original kidnap team it probably meant he wouldn’t be connected to any of the other members, because known associates would be the first people the police would interview. This was probably a dead end.
‘Paul, do you have any knowledge of what kind of people are being recruited at the moment?’
‘We haven’t got that far yet. The prison officer was approached directly. The only clue we have is that someone must have known about the son and how ill he was.’
A child. In hospital. Tom wasn’t liking this.
‘Do you know which hospital the child was in?’