The Innocent Ones

by The Innocent Ones (retail) (epub)

  Porter wasn’t in the mood for the sport. He needed information, and if the constable had some, Porter wanted it more than he wanted the collective amusement.

  ‘Follow me,’ he said, and then to Louise. ‘You too.’

  They walked along a narrow corridor, past frosted-glass doors to a room at the end that Porter used for his office, although he spent more time in the Incident Room, wanting to hear whatever was going on with the investigation rather than relying on what was filtered up to him.

  Once in the room, the constable said, ‘I heard Ruby has been found along the old road.’

  Porter’s eyes narrowed. The old road was the local name for the country track that led to where Ruby had been found. ‘Go on.’

  The constable swallowed before he spoke. ‘I stopped someone, sir, coming along the old road on the night Ruby went missing.’

  Porter tried to keep his rising temper in check. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘You asked us to keep a look out for suspicious vehicles, and to stop people on the way out of town. I’d stationed myself near the end of the old road, thinking that if someone wanted to leave town they might take the old road rather than one of the main roads. I saw him. I hadn’t been there long, perhaps ten minutes or so, when I stopped him. He was going too quick. That’s what drew my attention.’

  ‘How quick?’

  ‘I can’t say exactly, but he was in a rush. His headlights were bouncing. I flicked on the blues and he pulled over.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He just apologised, said the road was quiet so he was enjoying the night. I looked in his car, but I don’t remember anything in it. He was on his own and I let him go on, but I heard about the body being found and it came back to me. I remember thinking back then how skittish he was, nervous, not really listening to me, but I couldn’t lock him up because of that.’

  Porter stepped closer to him. ‘Why am I finding out now?’

  ‘We were monitoring people leaving town. He was coming back in, not leaving.’

  The constable was staring ahead, trying not to focus on the flush in Porter’s cheeks.

  ‘Can you remember the car?’

  ‘A white Mondeo.’

  Porter kicked the nearest desk, making the young officer flinch. ‘That’s him! It makes him local, too, because he’d taken her away and was coming back into town. We need to know everything. Description. Details of the car. Can you remember what he looked like?’

  ‘I can do better than that, sir. I gave him a producer. I checked the book. He brought in his insurance and licence two days later.’ He handed over a scrap of paper he’d been holding in his hand. ‘His name is Rodney Walker.’

  Porter took it from him and read it, before his smile started to spread.

  He turned to Louise – ‘Come on, we’ve got something’ – and headed for the door.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Present Day

  Dan locked his office. Margaret had gone home a long time before and the whole place was silent. It still felt strange to be his own boss. And more than that, being the boss to other people, the person who decided on wages and holidays and where they should have the Christmas party.

  He’d worried about fees before, but that was only because he had a target. Three times his salary, that was the norm, so that there was enough to pay his secretary, his own wages and running costs, and a little bit extra for Pat Molloy. Now, it felt like he was chasing all the money he could, so that his job felt different.

  His mind went back to earlier in the day, when his client was acquitted, the magistrates deciding that it wasn’t illegal to prune your bushes naked, provided that you kept your hands on the secateurs and didn’t look like you were enjoying it too much. His client was ecstatic and spoke of looking forward to the warm weather ahead.

  Dan had advised him to proceed with caution, but he wasn’t sure his client was listening. He was too busy pumping his hand with delight, promising to get Dan a present, asking whether Dan would prefer wine or whisky. Dan took some heat out of his pleasure by suggesting that he paid the rest of his bill promptly.

  His client made the appropriate promises and headed into a pub close by.

  That was the problem with cases like his, Dan thought, as he’d watched him go. He’d had his own sweet victory, but he lived on the same street as those people who came to court to give evidence against him. They won’t forget it, nor forgive him. There will be peace for now, but it will be short-lived, no doubt broken by some drunken gloating by Dan’s ecstatic client.

  And then Dan would get some more work. There was no point in hiding from it. Dan knew that for his own bills to be paid, he needed other people’s lives to take a turn for the worse.

  But that was why he did the job. The drama, the excitement, the small storms. This, the administration, the stress, had never been part of it.

  He let out a long sigh and looked up at the sky, fancying the cool pleasure of a glass of wine. Perhaps even the bottle. The evenings were getting longer as winter became spring, but the day was starting to lose its shine. The western fringes were turning deep blue and the eastern edge of the town was starting to burn red, promising some sunshine for the next day.

  Dan turned away for the short walk home. He left his car there more and more, preferring his slow unwind as he walked. Another day finished, one more small drama played out in a decaying courtroom, Jayne on the other side of the country researching another. The shops were all closed, only the taxi rank open.

  He was looking down as he passed it, his briefcase swinging in his hand.

  Someone jumped out in front of him.

  Dan gasped, surprised, and stepped back.

  The man was short, his physique young and lithe, lost in over-baggy jeans and a black coat, his face obscured by a bandana pulled up and over his face, his hair covered by a black baseball cap. It was the lout uniform, worn by so many of his young clients, but this was no cry for help. This was a threat.

  The man produced a knife from his jacket pocket. It was small but glinted in the fading daylight. He jabbed it forward.

  Dan felt the blood drain from his face. His mind raced through all the scenarios he’d ever gone through whenever he thought about what he’d do if confronted by a knife attacker. Rush him. Hit him. Stand up to him. Brazen it out.

  None of them made any sense when facing the threat of a shining blade being thrust towards him. All he felt was the paralysis of fear, not knowing if he was seconds away from the end of his life.

  Dan held up his hands. ‘What’s going on?’ His mouth was dry. ‘You want money? I’ll get my wallet. Calm down.’

  ‘It’s not about money.’ He raised the knife. Dan could see his threat in the gleam in his eyes. ‘It’s about Nick Connor.’

  Dan was confused. He lowered his hands. ‘I don’t understand?’

  The man came closer. ‘It’s a message, so listen carefully. Stop what you’re doing. Stick to what Nick has told you. Don’t go hunting.’

  Dan tried to summon up all his nerve. This felt like it was on his turf, about his case. ‘And if I don’t?’

  The man stepped forward and pressed the blade against Dan’s cheek.

  Dan went still. The blade was warm from being in the man’s pocket. It was sharp against his skin.

  ‘Use your imagination,’ the man said. ‘The same goes for your pretty assistant.’

  Before Dan could respond, the man turned and jogged away. Message delivered.

  Dan swallowed and closed his eyes. He bent over and sucked in gulps of air. He held out his hand. It was shaking.

  Chapter Nineteen

  1997

  Rodney Walker’s house was suburban and ordinary. A red-brick semi with a tarmac drive leading to a concrete garage decorated by shingle. Porter knew not to be beguiled by that. The one thing he’d learned from his police career was that real menace came quietly. Everyone thinks they can spot the threats, like the unkempt man mumbling to himself by the school
gates, or those who talk brash and loud in the town centre bars. But they were wrong. Those people were easy to avoid, because their danger shone like a warning beacon.

  The real threat lay in people like Rodney Walker, who hid behind quiet respectability and revelled in their anonymity. They could operate undetected, but in their minds they lived behind enemy lines, always ready to strike.

  The white Mondeo was there, gleaming, as if it had just been through a car wash. The young constable might have thought he was doing the right thing today, but he should have done it a week earlier, when there was a chance of forensic traces. He’d taken his orders too literally. Police talent needs more creative thinking.

  That didn’t mean there’d be no evidence to be found, because people forget the trail. Walker might have vacuumed the boot, but did he get rid of the vacuum bag? And where would he have put the contents? In the bin?

  It made it more painstaking, searching for that stray hair, but a murdered child made it worthwhile.

  Louise turned to him. ‘What’s our brief? Arrest him?’

  That made Porter smile as he realised that he’d fallen into that other habit developed through a long police career: he assumed everyone was guilty. ‘Let’s see how it plays out. The custody clock will start ticking if we bring him in, and we don’t know how long it will take to get any evidence. But let’s see what happens when he feels the pressure.’

  No one was watching them as they approached the front door. There was the sound of children playing somewhere, laughs and giggles, but the street had the suburban calm of a neighbourhood that was safe. People who worked hard and looked after their gardens.

  He banged hard.

  The door was opened by a tall man with thinning dark hair, wearing stonewashed jeans and a grey V-neck that was tight to his body. His eyes darted between Porter and Louise. ‘Yes?’ His tone was defiant, but there was a slight tremble to his voice.

  Porter made a mental tick in the something to hide column.

  They identified themselves and Porter asked if they could have a talk inside.

  For a second, he seemed as if he was about to object, insist on his right to refuse, but whatever mental fight was taking place resolved itself by a decision to not raise suspicions.

  He stepped to one side. ‘Come in.’

  The living room was the first door off a carpeted hallway, a large space with a bay window and a fireplace that looked dated, with small green tiles. The room carried through to a dining area with a view to a window beyond. There were two children playing in the back garden, a small boy running around an older dark-haired girl, her hair cut short, scowling as he teased and poked her before running around the lawn, as if he was trying to goad her into a game of chase.

  Rodney must have spotted him looking, because he invited Porter to sit in a chair with his back to the window.

  ‘No, thank you, I’ll stay standing. I don’t think I’ll be here long.’

  Rodney pursed his lips.

  ‘You were stopped driving along the old road on May Day, late in the evening.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Where had you been?’

  ‘Do I have to answer that?’

  ‘No, but you’ll make me wonder why you don’t want to.’

  ‘I can live with your unsatisfied curiosity.’

  Porter adopted a more conciliatory tone. ‘Mr Walker, help us out here. We’re looking for whoever snatched a young girl and buried her in a shallow grave in some woodland along the old road.’

  Walker flinched. Was it because it had become more serious than whatever he thought was behind their visit? Or because he’d just realised the body had been discovered?

  ‘We need to eliminate you if you’re not involved. Whatever you were doing up there, we don’t need to tell anyone else. Mrs Walker will never find out.’

  Walker glanced towards his children outside. Porter could see the calculations going on in his head, wondering whether to bluff them or refuse to co-operate. ‘There is no Mrs Walker.’

  ‘There’s no need to be coy then.’

  Porter looked towards Louise and gave a slight nod to the children, before he sat down.

  Louise left the room.

  ‘Where’s she going?’

  ‘Oh, she’s a sucker for cute kids, and they look adorable.’

  ‘She’s no right to talk to them.’

  ‘Why, what will they say? About how you leave them alone in the house whenever you go out at night, for drives along the old road?’

  Louise appeared in the back garden. Both children went quiet. Louise crouched down and began to talk. The small boy was talking to her and pointing towards the garage.

  Rodney had been watching her and he became more animated, his eyes wide. ‘I want you both to leave.’

  ‘I will, if that’s what you want, but I’ll need to talk to my colleague first. She won’t hear me through the window.’

  He pulled out his phone from his pocket, a small Nokia. He tutted as he tried to find his contacts, using keys to navigate that were too small for his thick fingers, before finding the number he was looking for.

  Louise began to scramble in her pocket, pulling out a thick black handset. ‘Hello?’ Porter heard her voice with a microsecond delay after seeing her mouth it through the window, enough to be noticeable.

  ‘Mr Walker wants us to leave, but you’re having such fun. The little boy was pointing towards the garage. Does he want to show you something? Call it community engagement.’

  Walker jumped to his feet and pointed towards the door. ‘Get out, now.’

  Porter moved the phone. ‘What are you scared of, Mr Walker?’

  ‘I’ve asked you to leave.’

  ‘And do you think anyone will know that? The neighbours will have seen you let us in, and my statement will say how you let us look around, always the genial host.’ He put his phone back to his ear. ‘Mr Walker says you can look in his garage.’

  Porter clicked off and sat back, a smirk on his lips.

  Walker looked paralysed, his mouth open, taking deep breaths.

  Porter didn’t move or say anything. Silences are meant to be filled, and guilty people always overfill them.

  Walker stayed quiet, but his tension was obvious from the tight clench of his fists.

  More than ten minutes passed, Walker glaring at him all the time, before Louise appeared on the other side of the window, something dangling from the pen she was holding up.

  It was a belt, red plastic. A child’s belt, judging from the size.

  As Porter’s mind flew back to Ruby, in white jeans and a red belt, pop group T-shirt, Walker closed his eyes and swallowed.

  Porter gripped his wrist. ‘Rodney Walker. It’s over.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Present Day

  Jayne buttoned her coat as she looked out over the harbour. It was sunny, but she was right about the wind. It was crueller than back in Highford, sharper and cleaner. Gulls wheeled and cried, and men shouted as plastic crates were stacked up nearby. The aroma of fishing boats was strong, old and cloying and oily, and the saltiness in the air made her lick her lips.

  She was staying in the same hotel used by Mark Roberts: Waves, a small red building on the harbour. The drive had been long though, nearly three hours, over the barren moorland of the Pennine ridge before it turned into industrial West Yorkshire, old coal mining towns now centred on out-of-town retail parks. This had given way to wide open countryside, the road twisting and turning, sometimes her car the only one for miles, except for when queues built up behind tractors that spewed mud over the road. She needed a rest.

  There wasn’t time to relax though. The investigation had to get moving and she didn’t know how long Dan would tolerate her swanning around seaside hotels at the firm’s expense.

  Her room was acceptable, just about, none of the corporate finishes of the chain hotels, but she wasn’t the one footing the bill, which eased the discomfort. A st
ained kettle sat on a Formica tray, a chipped mug alongside, and her bed covering was nylon and crackled with static every time she touched it. She thought about a shower, but the mould collected at the bottom of the shower curtain put her off.

  Instead, she unpacked her bag and headed out.

  Her first stop was the hotel owner, an austere woman in her fifties with hair that was swept back but close to her head, the light caramel hue giving away the dye, who’d introduced herself as Glenys and handed over the room key as if she thought Jayne was about to trash the place.

  There was no one around the reception desk, so Jayne had to knock on it to attract her attention. Glenys appeared after the second knock, although Jayne was convinced she’d only been through the doorway, well within earshot.

  ‘Is everything all right with your room?’

  Jayne resisted the temptation to present a list and instead brought up a picture of Mark Roberts on her phone, taken from a newspaper report of Nick Connor’s arrest. ‘I’m here looking into an old guest of yours. Do you remember him?’

  Glenys took the picture and peered through glasses that had been hanging on a chain. She pulled a face and shook her head. ‘I don’t know him. Why are you asking?’

  ‘I work for a law firm. It’s connected to a court case.’

  Her gaze darkened. ‘Is this an insurance scam? This hotel has a good record of—’

  ‘No, it’s not connected to the hotel. He’s a murder victim. He stayed here before coming to my town, so we’re working our way backwards, seeing what we can find out.’

  ‘Murder?’ Glenys’s eyes acquired a new keenness.

  ‘Yes, in Lancashire. Are you sure you don’t remember him? We’re trying to find out why he was in Brampton late January, early February.’

  Glenys’s face showed her excitement, Jayne’s visit turning into something interesting, so she concentrated a little harder but eventually shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, no. Sometimes guests don’t talk to us much, and we don’t have a bar, so there’s nowhere for them to relax with us.’