“So, what did this guy look like, Lenny?” Reuben asked eagerly.
Lenny shrugged. He had finished preparing his smoke and now stuck it between his lips, inhaling deeply. “Dunno. He was wearing a ski mask.”
“Where did you drive to?”
“A hamburger joint just outside of Manchester. I left the keys in the ignition like I was ordered to and got out the cab and went inside for a coffee.”
“What did you see?”
“I saw nothing!” he protested. “I swear to God Almighty, I saw absolutely nothing! By the time I got my coffee and sat down to drink it, I looked out the window and me lorry was gone. I was shitting myself. I didn’t know whether I’d ever see it again or not. So I just waited. Must have been close to an hour. Then I got a text to tell me to take the lorry and drop the container off as planned. That was it. I dropped the empty container at Peel Port and picked up the load to bring back to London. So, no, I never saw the load. I have no idea what any of this is part of.”
Quinn exchanged a look with Reuben over the top of Lenny’s head. He was inclined to believe him because he didn’t peg Lenny as having the brains to put this type of operation together.
“What’s going to happen now?”
“Did you keep copies of those text messages, Lenny?”
Lenny arched his neck to look up at Reuben. “No. I was ordered to delete them.” He blew smoke into Reuben’s face, laughing as Reuben twitched backwards.
“It doesn’t matter. We can get an order to trace your phone records.” Reuben held out his hand and, reluctantly, Lenny slapped his phone into his palm. “And we’re going to need some names, Lenny. Who called you to set this all up?”
“I told you, I just got a text message. It said my slate would be wiped clean. So, I’ve cooperated with you. Now you gonna leave me alone?”
“Once you give us the name of your bookie, we’ll be out of your hair. Just don’t take it into your head to leave town. In fact, if I were you, I’d lay low for awhile,” Quinn said, but already his focus was being wrenched back to Eli. The man was in bad shape and if Dresden got wind of his threatening outburst his career could be toast.
Chapter 20
Silver’s Health and Fitness Gym, Ealing
Bex entered the twenty-four hour gym with a flash of annoyance. Used to attending the exercise sanctum late in the evening when only the die-hard gym junkies were around, she now found herself surrounded by a throng of lycra-wearing fashionistas pedaling stationary bikes and hiking elliptical steppers. The mirrors in the exercise area reflected fit-looking wannabe models, both male and female, without an ounce of fat.
As Bex passed the mirrored wall she glimpsed her own body like that of a stranger: thin and muscular, her feminine curves stripped away months ago by grief, leaving her with an athletic V-shape of solid shoulders narrowing into flat hips. It was not the shape Zane would have recognized. Nor the hair, cut boyishly short and flipped straight back from her gaunt face. Gray eyes stared back, steely, determined and deep as a well.
She blinked, but the image didn’t flicker or change. So be it. This was who she was now. No longer the woman Zane had fallen in love with.
Shying away from her reflection, she secured a corner close to a group of self-conscious looking men with soft middles who would probably be more comfortable in three-piece suits, and spread out her yoga mat.
After her unexpected scuffle yesterday and a restless night, her body felt tight. She commenced stretching exercises to loosen her spine and limbs and unkink her muscles. Then she moved to the weight area and began plating up an Olympic bar for squats. She was still struggling with the conversation of kilos to pounds so she simply put enough plates on either side until the weight felt right to her. Then she did sets of box jumps and explosive squats, forcing her muscles to continue working through the burn. She followed that up with walking lunges, military presses, sets of shrugs with dumbbells, then back to deadlifts and calf lifts to exhaustion.
When she stopped, thoughts and memories crowded her mind. Neil now had no one to follow in his family’s footsteps. Logically she knew it wasn’t her fault he never saw his grandson, but if she’d had a baby with Zane she could have brought some joy into his life. And her own.
She shook her head, wanting to dislodge the guilt. Zane wouldn’t want her to live in the past, she knew. She bent and picked up a medicine ball and started core exercises. By the time she finished her heart was beating fast and sweat was running down her spine and beading around her face. She was exhausted, her mind was quieted and it finally felt good.
* * *
As she walked back to Georgie’s car, biting into a tuna melt sandwich she’d picked up, she checked her phone messages. There were two from Walt, her former homicide partner who she had left in charge of the halfway house she had established in New York with her husband’s life insurance money.
EZ, Emilio and Chad are three weeks into summer school. Still going strong. I’m kicking their asses out of bed every morning but they’re putting in the work. You should be proud of them. Looks like they’ll graduate high school come August.
And another message.
Terrell got a job!
Bex felt her lips curl in an unfamiliar but uplifting motion. She made a silent fist pump in the air as she walked along the street, ignoring amused stares. Walt’s news was something to smile about.
Georgie had allowed Bex to borrow her aging Honda and, dumping the remains of her sandwich in the trash, Bex slotted herself behind the steering wheel. For her first attempt at driving on the other side of the road she would have preferred an automatic, but Georgie’s car was a stick shift.
She placed her left hand on the gearshift and rehearsed the positions in her mind. The placement of the gears and the pedals was in the correct sequence, it just took practice to use her left hand. But she embraced the effort it required to drive the English streets as a welcome distraction from the nightmarish crash visions that kept trying to invade her mind. She had avoided driving since Zane’s death.
Punching Josh’s address into her phone GPS she set out to make a surprise visit.
Josh answered the door dressed in pajama bottoms and a ragged T-shirt. His scruffy hair fell into his half-closed eyes.
“Looks like I dragged you out of bed.”
Josh’s mouth dropped open into an ear-splitting yawn. “Pulled an all-nighter playing online,” he admitted.
“As long as you’re home and out of trouble, I’m a happy camper. I’ve got a meeting scheduled with the school custodian, but while I’m here, I want to go through the school’s website and see if you can identify the guy who nabbed you.”
Using Josh’s computer, Bex logged onto the Fairbridge House College website, scanning through to find a staff list. There were no administrative or custodial names. Josh flicked through the headshots of the male teachers. Given that it was an all-girls school, Bex was surprised that approximately half of the teachers were male. Didn’t the school worry about teenage crushes and inappropriate behavior? Or maybe that just didn’t happen as much in England?
After a close examination, Josh still couldn’t make a definite ID. “It was too dark to get a clear look at his face. All I could really tell was that he was a pretty tall dude with long arms. ” His lanky frame shuddered.
Next, Bex checked through the group photos in the term newsletters. Trips to Switzerland, music club events, science excursions, maths and debating team successes in various competitions, public speaking workshops and school art exhibitions produced plenty of images of teachers standing beside students. Estimating heights, she picked out two of the tallest teachers and showed them to Josh.
He shook his head, protesting, “He came at me from behind.”
“Pity. A positive ID would strengthen your alibi that you were hanging at the school.” She stood up. “I’ll get going. I’ve arranged a meeting with the school’s custodian, plus I want to call in and have a word with the manager at the gol
f club. We may get lucky there.”
Bex turned to Josh, catching him off guard. His expression looked conflicted.
“What’s up, Josh? Is there something more you need to tell me?”
A touch of uncertainty washed over his face.
“I can’t make it any clearer, Josh. You need to trust me with the truth if you want my help.”
“It’s not about me. It’s Reece.”
Bex was taken aback. “What about Reece? Has he been in touch?”
“His sister phoned me. Reece’s missing. No one’s seen him since he left to meet me on Thursday night. She thought he might have been nabbed by the scum, sorry I mean the cops, like me. But she hasn’t heard anything. Do you think you could check up on him? See if he has been nabbed?”
“Teenage boys sometimes do this,” she said gently. “They take off and disappear for a few days.”
“I promised Steph I’d help.” He set his chin stubbornly.
“Leave the policing to me,” she warned. “Give me some background on Reece. Have you got a photo? Where does he normally hang out?”
“Usually somewhere around the shops on Felspar Street. Reece broke away from the Chistlehurst boys and started his own gang. The Bromendz. Well, they’re not really a gang, more like a bunch of chavs that hang around the shops.”
“Are you part of this gang, Josh?” Bex examined the photo on Josh’s phone. Reece wore a dark hoodie pulled low over his close-set eyes, his arms were crossed over his chest in a tough-guy stance.
“Nah, I can’t be arsed being part of a gang. They’ve got just as many rules as me old man, just different. I like to make my own way. But you know, it’s always good not to piss people off. You never know when you can use a friend.” The worried frown returned to his face. “It’s not like Reece to disappear for two days. I just wonder. What if he went to the school and that guy caught him? You know, the one that tried to nab me. What if he got Reece first and that’s why he wasn’t there to meet me?”
Chapter 21
Fairbridge House College, Bromley
Following the custodian’s directions, Bex skirted the parking lot in front of the administrative block, where she had parked Georgie’s Honda next to the only other car, and walked past the wing of classrooms on the right. Her leather-soled ankle boots clipped along the concrete slabs and echoed against the bare walls. The school profited from being nestled between the manicured lushness of the golf course and the thickly treed parkland opposite the road with a sense of rural seclusion. The empty parking lot and long tracts of unoccupied buildings, however, intensified a more foreboding feeling of isolation.
Bex found the group of outbuildings tagged “Site Manager” and knocked on the door. Ron Thompson had reluctantly agreed to meet Bex, emphasizing how busy he was conducting the furnishings stock take that day. After a minute, Bex rapped more insistently on the door.
“Mr Thompson? It’s DCI Wynter. We have an appointment.”
There was still no response. She checked her watch to make sure she had the correct time. It was possible he was tied up checking the school’s assets and had forgotten the time. She wandered along the perimeter of the buildings. There was no sign of life. The school seemed more deserted than a desert island. Her steps sounded a hollow tattoo.
“Hello?” she called, feeling self-conscious at the loudness of her voice in the silence.
She returned to the door and tested the handle, but the door was securely locked.
She pulled her phone from her jeans pocket, searching for Thompson’s number. Trying to look for him amidst the blocks of empty classrooms would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Almost immediately, she heard a faint ringing from inside the room. The ring tones continued until the call went to voice message. She ended the call.
Had Thompson fallen asleep in his office? Had he had a heart attack or an accident that left him incapacitated? Or had her call to him this morning spooked a guilty man to flee?
“Mr Thompson! Mr Thompson! Are you there?” She slammed both fists hard against the wooden door. Silence was the only response.
There was a window to the side. Cupping her hands around her eyes, Bex peered through the glass. All was still and dark inside. A small desk snagged her attention. It was possible Thompson had collapsed behind it.
The window was locked and barred so there was no access that way. It was also too far from the door to provide an avenue to access the doorknob.
She dialed Thompson’s number again, just to make sure the last time hadn’t been a coincidence. Sure enough she heard the sound of muffled ringing. It was possible he had left the phone unattended in his office while he went around the classrooms. Or he could be in urgent need of attention.
Bex eyed the closed door. It was a standard wooden exterior door fitted with a mortise sash lock. Its satin chrome finish was somewhat scratched, no doubt due to plenty of use. The sensible course of action would be to call the local police and get them to the site. But Bex wasn’t convinced Sergeant Ingram would treat the matter as urgent.
Looking around she could see there was nothing to be used to jimmy the lock. She knew the weak point of any door was the strike plate, where the bolt resided. It shouldn’t be too difficult to kick the door in, although she’d never had to do it before.
She tried calling out one last time, then she used her booted foot to hammer the lock. Her thighs, hips and lower back were strong from months of weight training. She was actually surprised at how easy it was to splinter the trim after a couple of kicks, tearing it away from the doorframe. The released door swung open.
A ripe odor assaulted her the moment she stepped over the threshold. Goosebumps prickled along her arms as she recognized the scent of death. Now she was certain she was going to find that Thompson had cashed in his chips.
The room was little more than a giant box, stacked with shelves containing cleaning equipment. She paced to look behind the desk, but found no body slumped there. Using her smart phone, she rang Thompson’s number and followed the trilling sound around the corner of the L-shaped room to where a large cupboard took up the width of the alcove. As she drew closer the sound grew louder. Puzzled, she yanked open a door.
The top half of a body toppled through the opening.
Chapter 22
Fairbridge House College, Bromley
Stifling a shocked gasp, Bex forced herself to throw open all four doors of the cupboard. Another corpse tumbled out, coming to rest across the first body.
The original body was that of a man in his early sixties. Donning a pair of Latex gloves she grabbed from a box on the shelf, she examined his head. Rigor mortis had set in, casting his face into a grimaced expression. Bruising and congealed blood edged his hairline from a blow to the temple. Automatically she felt for a pulse, but there was none.
The cadaver lying atop his legs belonged to a youth, wearing a hoodie and dark track pants. One skinny ankle stuck out stiffly with an oversized sports shoe, the other foot wore only a sock. His eyes stared up, like two popped out glass marbles. Purple imprints around his neck showed the cause of death. Rigor mortis was already leaving his body. He had been dead longer than the old man.
Her heart thumped. She had a good idea she was looking at Ron Thompson and Josh’s missing friend Reece. She stooped over the teen to take a closer look. He definitely bore a resemblance to Josh’s photo, which would bear out Josh’s story that he was on the school grounds to meet up with his mate and therefore hadn’t done the graffiti left on the golf club walls. But why had he and the custodian been killed?
Fumbling in her pocket, she pulled out her phone to contact emergency services. She stopped her fingers as they tapped out 911. That number wouldn’t work in England. She concentrated, trying to recall the training session they’d had on emergency numbers. There had been a lot of discussion in the class, led by the brash Aussie Jo, because the numbers varied by country. It was triple digits, she remembered. 000? 999? 111? The discussion had bec
ome quite heated. That was easier to remember than the number.
Think, damn it, think! What about 112? That was an international distress number that should work from a cell phone anywhere in the world, shouldn’t it?
As her fingers groped for the keypad, a stealthy sound froze her. She flattened herself out of sight against the alcove wall, only too aware that whoever killed Thompson and Reece might still be in the vicinity.
She held her breath and strained her ears, wishing she had a weapon on her. She glanced towards the cupboard. The bodies had been packed on top of a clutter containing a small cleaning cart, a vacuum cleaner and various brooms and floor polishers. A narrow shelving section was stacked with plastic containers and various aerosol cans of cleaners, stain removers and insecticide.
At the next muffled footfall, Bex grabbed a can, depressing the nozzle so the spray shot straight into the face of the man moving around the corner. He screamed and a shot rang out.
She flung the can at his chest, trying to duck under his flailing limbs. The hand holding the gun connected with the side of her head. Her legs wobbled as the blow knocked her off balance. Still gripping her phone in one hand, she hit the floor. Before she could regain her feet, a brutal kick to the stomach left her retching, unable to struggle upright.
Gasping, she curled her legs inwards, her hands clutched to her chest.
Bex Wynter Box Set Page 24
