He put it to the test, indicating, pulling over, stopping outside a Tesco Extra on Cricklewood Broadway, watching to see if the van followed suit. It kept coming, no sign of indicating or slowing down. Past him in a flash, but Porter tensed. It couldn’t have been level with him for more than a fraction of a second, but he was sure of one thing. The driver had been looking across at him.
He went to pull out, give chase, follow them until a chance presented itself to confront them. A horn blared, and he slammed on the brakes, narrowly missing a BMW. He watched the van continue up the road, trying to time a gap in the traffic, but when he finally managed to rejoin the road, the van was nowhere in sight.
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Styles looked across at Tessier, hunched over the wheel, wondering if the car looked tilted to the right from behind. The initial rush following his discovery of Grantham’s lie had receded on the forty-five-minute journey, and he was starting to think bringing Gus along might have been overkill. The guy could probably bench-press Styles and Grantham combined. Styles had a foot in height and forty years on Grantham and, despite the connections building up, Styles couldn’t shake the notion that for a man like this to have been able to commit as well as cover up these acts, at his age, felt like a stretch. Nonetheless, all roads seemed to lead to Kiln Green at the moment.
They pulled up in the same spot Styles had previously. He checked his watch. A little after four. No guarantee Grantham would be here still, but better to take a chance than call ahead and warn him. Besides, there was always a chance they could talk their way in and get another look at those gloves even if he wasn’t.
The main gates were still wide open, and as they approached, a mop-haired young man appeared from the left-hand spur that ran off the circular concrete area, pushing a barrow full of soil. He was headed straight across their path, lost in whatever tunes pumped through his headphones, noticing them late and almost steering into them.
‘We’re looking for Daniel Grantham,’ Styles said, as the lad popped one headphone out.
‘I think he’s in the side garden,’ he replied, looking Tessier warily up and down.
They followed his directions, coming out into a walled garden about the size of a five-a-side football pitch. Winding paths disappeared between bushes sporting an outrageous display of colourful blooms. Styles had never been the green-fingered sort. Mowing the lawn was his definition of gardening, but even he took a moment to appreciate the canvas Grantham had stamped his mark on. He told Tessier to stay put while he wandered around the path, unsure if this was the only exit. Didn’t hurt to block it off, and also made for a less intimidating sight with only him doing the searching.
It didn’t take long. He found Grantham sitting on a low plastic stool, secateurs snipping at a bush like a sculptor. Styles couldn’t help but glance at the hands wielding them, wondering if they had the strength to overpower, to choke, to bury. He was wearing a pair of those long gauntlet-style gloves, different to the pair Styles had seen, though. Grantham glanced up as he approached, eyes squinting against the sun, and took a few seconds until Styles saw recognition dawn.
‘Detective Styles, did you forget something?’
‘Afternoon, Mr Grantham. No, I just have a few more questions I’d like to ask you if that’s OK?’
Grantham took off a glove and dragged the back of his hand across a sweaty forehead, before standing up. Styles saw the secateurs dangling in the other, still gloved hand, choosing to ignore them and fix a friendly smile instead.
‘Of course, ask away.’
‘I thought we might use your office again,’ Styles said, tilting his head up at the sky. ‘Take a break from the heat.’
‘Erm, yes, of course. Follow me.’
He set off deeper into the garden, away from where Tessier stood waiting. Clearly more than one way in and out of the walled garden.
Styles debated leaving Tessier where he was, but thought better of it.
‘I’ve got a colleague along for the ride with me, just back by the entrance,’ he said. ‘Mind if he joins us?’
He didn’t wait for an answer, and popped his head back around the corner, waving for Gus to follow.
‘This is Detective Constable Gus Tessier,’ he said, noting that unlike most people, Grantham showed no reaction to Tessier’s size, instead offering a short hello and welcoming nod, before leading them out of a side gate, and around into his glass-walled office.
‘Can I get you gentlemen a drink?’ he asked once they were inside.
‘We’re good, thanks,’ said Styles, answering for both. ‘Sorry to trouble you again so soon, Mr Grantham, but there’s a few things I needed to follow up on, to do with the case we spoke about.’
‘Of course, please, ask away,’ the older man said, bending slowly, reaching underneath the bench and opening a small fridge that Styles hadn’t noticed on their first visit.
‘When we spoke about Victoria Park earlier, you mentioned you used to take your grandchildren there.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ he said, twisting the cap off a bottle of water and taking a sip.
‘And you also said you hadn’t been into the city since the start of last year.’
‘Mm-hmm,’ said Grantham.
‘When we have a case like this, we come into contact with a lot of people,’ Styles said, treading carefully, aiming for as soft a set-up as possible in case he was wildly off the mark with this. ‘And where there’s any kind of connection, we look to rule people out of our enquiries, even where there’s no direct evidence of them doing anything wrong. With the flowers at the scene being from your collection, I’m sure you can understand why we’d be interested in talking to you.’
Grantham’s eyes narrowed a touch. ‘I can, Detective, but I’m not sure what more I can tell you?’
‘Let’s just say you’re somebody we’d love to rule out,’ Styles said bending the truth diplomatically. ‘Here’s the thing,’ he said, watching closely for a reaction. ‘Your car was picked up on three separate occasions heading into London over the last twelve months.’
‘Must have been my son,’ Grantham said. ‘He uses it now and again.’
Styles shook his head. ‘I’m wondering if you remember why you went into London on …’ He took out a notebook, flicked to the right page, and read out the dates. ‘18th August, 10th November and 26th January?’
Grantham replaced the cap on his bottle, put it down and folded his arms. ‘There must be some mistake, Detective. I’ll ask Harry. I’m sure it’ll have been him.’
‘The images show you as the driver, Mr Grantham. There’s no mistake. It’s a while back, though, so I can understand you making a mistake with dates, but it’d really help us to know why you travelled in on those dates.’
‘Wait a minute, didn’t they say on the news that those bodies you found had all been there quite a while? Why would it matter to you even if it had been me driving?’
‘The January date in particular would be really useful to us,’ Styles continued as if Grantham hadn’t even asked a question.
‘What’s so bloody important about January?’ Grantham asked, trending more towards irate and impatient than kindly grandfather.
‘A young girl went missing that day, Mr Grantham. She still is.’
Grantham’s face was somewhere between disbelief and denial.
‘And what? You think I had something to do with that?’ he said, his voice rising now, shifting from one foot to the other, clearly agitated.
‘As I said, Mr Grantham, with you previously saying you’d not been there in over a year, we’d just like to rule you out and move on.’
‘And I’d like you to leave.’
‘Excuse me?’ It was more of a reflex response from Styles. He’d heard Grantham fine. Just hadn’t expected him to put up the defences quite so vociferously.
‘I was happy to speak when you were asking for help. I gave it, and now you’ve got the nerve to turn this back around and say, what? That I h
urt these children? That I killed them?’
‘I never said that, Mr Grantham, I just—’
‘Oh no, you were far too polite to come out and say it. You just want to “rule me out”,’ he said, making air quotes for the last three words. ‘Well, I’m not prepared to stand here in my own place of business and be accused like this, so if you want to continue to rule me out you can do it through my solicitor.’
Styles held Grantham’s angry gaze for a second, gave a slow nod and looked across at Tessier, who returned the gesture.
‘You’re sure you’d rather not talk this through with us now, sir? It’d be much easier for everyone if we just kept this less formal, no need to come down to the station, that type of thing?’
‘I’m happy to do whatever my solicitor advises. Stephen Holmes, of Holmes, Friedman and Warner,’ he said, uncrossing his arms, burying hands deep in pockets. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve still got a lot to do. You know your way out.’
He turned away, hauling a bag of compost from underneath one of the benches, dropping fistfuls into a row of small plastic pots. Styles looked at Tessier, who shrugged and headed for the door. Styles joined him, stopping level with Grantham.
‘Give me a call, either with a time you and your solicitor can come in, or just to talk. Either way we’ll speak soon. One child is missing. Nine are dead. This isn’t going away, and the sooner you get out from under it, the sooner you can get on with doing what you do best.’ He pointed through the glass at the bursts of colour, beautiful even through dirty panes. ‘Enjoy the rest of your day, Mr Grantham.’
They walked back to the car in silence, and it wasn’t until they’d pulled back out into the road that Tessier spoke.
‘Went quite well, I thought.’
Styles turned to him, about to ask if he’d even been in the same room, when he saw the smile split Tessier’s face, and the big man laughed. Styles shook his head, looked back at the road, but couldn’t help bust out a smile of his own.
‘Doesn’t exactly make him look less suspicious, does it?’
‘Definitely hiding something,’ Tessier agreed.
‘Oh shit,’ Styles said, slapping a palm off the wheel. ‘I forgot to ask him about the gloves. Probably wouldn’t have let us near them anyway, the way that went.’
‘Don’t know about that. I got plenty close,’ Tessier said, reaching into his pocket, pulling out a clear plastic bag and holding it out so Styles could see the brown leather glove inside.
‘Gus, what the hell did you do?’
‘He’s hiding something. Either he’s our guy, and we need to move fast to stop him hurting anyone else, or he’s hiding something bad enough to lie to the police. Either way, we need to know.’
‘And what? We just pop back tomorrow and say the glove we stole matches evidence at a mass grave? Come on, Gus, it won’t stand up at the station with his solicitor, never mind in court.’
‘You want us to go give him it back?’
‘We do that now, he’ll have us both up in front of the IOPC.’
‘What then?’ Tessier asked, slapping the bag against a palm.
Styles gripped the wheel, stared at the road ahead, thought of Libby Hallforth. Asked himself how far he was willing to go to get justice.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Porter didn’t see the van again. Twice he thought it had been lurking half a dozen cars back, but when he slowed down, pulling over a few times, it turned out to be a completely different vehicle. The feeling stayed with him all the way to the match, a slow-spreading itch across his shoulders and down the back of his neck. Eyes on him from somewhere, someone, but who?
He pulled up five minutes before kick-off, just in time for the twins to sprint across, ignoring the shouts from their coach.
‘Uncle Jake, Uncle Jake, Uncle Jake.’
Two voices blurring into one, both bouncing like Tigger, balls of energy. He bent down, promised a pound per goal and saw their eyes widen, spending the money before it was earned.
One last glance over his shoulder, back at the car park and beyond onto the road, but no van in sight. He turned, seeing Kat waving at him from the touchline, and sent the boys scampering back to join their teammates.
‘Thought you were a no-show,’ she said when he reached her.
‘Promised, didn’t I?’
‘Like that’s stopped you before,’ she said, immediately regretting it. ‘Sorry, sorry.’ She held up one hand, bending down and grabbing a thermos with the other. ‘You’re getting better, I’ll give you that. More down to Evie if you ask me, though.’
‘Hey, I’ve sacked off interviewing an important suspect for this match, I’ll have you know.’
‘Oh no,’ she said, hand to her mouth. ‘You mean a shoplifter might walk free all for the sake of the big game?’
‘Yep, all your fault,’ he said, making no attempt to dodge the half-hearted punch to the arm.
She poured a coffee for each of them, and they settled into the usual flow of pseudo-barbed banter that siblings excel at. Prodding, poking, but never causing any actual harm. The ref blew his whistle to start proceedings, and it felt good to switch off, even for a short while, lose himself in the flow of the game. Sixty minutes later, and three quid lighter thanks to two goals from Tom and a belter from James, he walked with them back to the changing rooms, digging in his pockets for change.
‘Mine was better, though,’ said James.
‘I get more money,’ Tom said, half-smirking.
‘Not fair.’ His brother pouted. ‘I would have had two if that stupid idiot hadn’t fouled me.’
‘You set one of Tom’s up, though, mate, so that gets you a bonus fifty pence,’ Porter said, flipping him an extra coin. James’s face lit up. Tom frowned, but only for a moment, then Jake saw him nod after a second, seeing it for the peacekeeping gesture that it was. Switched-on kids, these two.
‘So you and Evie seem to be getting on famously still,’ Kat said, not quite a question, not quite a statement, and looked over at him, clearly expecting a response of some sort.
‘Yeah, she’s nice, I like her.’
‘She’s nice, I like her,’ Kat mocked in a bad impression of him. ‘You need to rein in those feelings there. If you’re not careful someone might think you actually care about the girl.’
‘Yeah, well …’ He started to respond but stopped mid-sentence, looking over Kat’s shoulder, off beyond the car park. A white van, sitting parked up on the main road. No logos or markings, just the dark outline of a person in the driver’s seat.
‘Wait here,’ he told her, and set off in a jog towards the van, a few hundred yards away. He hadn’t even covered half of the distance when it started to move. No indicators, just whipping its front end around in a tight one-eighty and zipping off, out of sight before he could reach the spot it had occupied.
Porter was breathing heavily, part exertion, part adrenaline. Who the hell was following him, and why? He wasn’t imagining this. He kicked himself for reacting in the first place. Why had he not just made a beeline for his own car, walking so as to not alarm them, then driven up and boxed them in?
Glancing back towards the changing rooms, he saw Kat watching him, too far away to see her expression, but if she thought for a second that he’d brought danger anywhere near her kids, she’d tear a strip off him. Was it danger? Impossible to say for sure, but surely nothing good could come from having your own personal stalker. His phone rang before he had time to catch his breath.
‘You OK, boss?’ Styles asked.
‘Yeah, I’m fine. What’s up?’ said Porter.
Styles gave him a run-through of the trip to Kiln Green, and Porter used it as a chance to slow his breathing down, scanning the road. Kat had gone inside now. He’d smooth things with her in a minute.
‘I want him in first thing tomorrow,’ Porter said when Styles had finished. ‘Who’s his solicitor?’
‘Alread
y on it. Called them on the way back. He’ll speak with Grantham and let us know.’
‘What about the gloves?’ Porter asked. ‘You get another look at them?’
Was it his imagination, or did Styles hesitate a beat too long? ‘Nothing on that front yet.’
‘Alright, it’ll have to be enough for now to just get him in, find out what he’s hiding. So, he literally gave away nothing when you saw him?’
‘Not when we saw him, no, but there’s something else about those trips he made in.’
‘Come on then, don’t make me beg.’
‘It’s not just that he came into London. Gus has been looking back through the ANPR data on his phone. He didn’t just come into the city. He tracked through the full journey, and Grantham’s car was clocked on all three occasions passing within a few miles of the Hallforths’ flat.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
It was fair to say Styles had looked better. He had mentioned Emma’s pregnancy-related insomnia a few times now, how he’d likened her constant shuffling in bed to sleeping next to a sack full of hyperactive hamsters. Porter clocked the dark circles under his eyes. He knew better than most how it felt. To not find any peace at night, bordering on light-headed from tiredness. Not so much now, but in the months that followed Holly’s death, a crap night’s sleep had become the norm.
‘We still on for the interview with Grantham at two?’ he asked.
‘Hmm? Oh yeah, his solicitor called back to confirm the time.’
‘OK, leaves us plenty of time to go over the approach, then.’
‘Yeah, about that …’ Styles began.
Porter recognised that tone in his sergeant’s voice, knew he wasn’t going to like whatever came next.
‘I need to head off around half one. Emma’s got an appointment.’
All That Is Buried Page 20
