Nowhere to Hide

by Alex Walters

  ‘Could be,’ Salter said. ‘Might be relevant to McGrath, as well.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Got a guy here on secondment. DI from Greater Manchester Police. Working as evidence officer on the Pete Boyle case.’

  This was interesting, she thought. If Salter really was in Boyle’s pocket, why would he bring in an outsider to support the investigation?

  ‘Don’t know how useful it’ll be. If we hadn’t got this extra resource foisted on us, I’d struggle to justify it.’

  ‘Foisted on us?’

  ‘Long story. But, yeah, it means we can pay Boyle a bit of extra attention. There’ve been a spate of killings across the north west. All apparently gang-related, but not obviously linked to each other. Could be Boyle marking his territory. Telling the competition to get the fuck out of there.’

  ‘Better than saying it with flowers.’

  ‘They all look like pro jobs. It’s another possible route into Boyle. Thought it might be a good time to up the ante a bit’

  ‘And where do I come in? Why’d you want me to see this guy?’

  ‘Background, really. You got closer to Boyle than most of us.’

  ‘Not much. You sure it’s worth the risk? If he’s a DI with the GMP he’s likely to be recognisable.‘

  ‘He’s recognisable, all right. But if he meets you outside Manchester, the risks are pretty limited.‘

  ‘Don’t you think we should set the threshold a bit higher than ‘pretty limited’, Hugh? We can’t afford to compromise the operation. Or me.‘

  ‘There’s no risk. Anything that gives us any more chance of nailing Boyle has to be worth it.’

  ‘Okay, Hugh. Against my better judgement and all that. When did you have in mind?’

  ‘How about tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow? Christ, Hugh, you really do push things to the limits, don’t you?’

  ‘Well, if you don’t like working weekends–’

  ‘For God’s sake, Hugh, it’s not that. I just think we ought to set up a meeting properly.’

  ‘It’s not an international summit. Just meet him for a coffee. Give him your thoughts on Boyle.’

  ‘But what’s the rush?’

  ‘We’ve only got this guy for a month or two, I imagine. Want to make the best use of his time. Once you get started with McGrath, it’ll get harder to pull you out for things like this.’ Salter paused in a manner that she recognised. He’d saved up some last little titbit for last. ‘Anyway, you should be flattered. It was his request to speak to you.’

  ‘Piss off, Hugh. He can’t even know I exist.’

  ‘Well, he wouldn’t, except that young Hodder’s helping him out. I imagine he mentioned your involvement in our little escapade last year.’ Little escapade, she thought. One dead villain, one corrupt cop, and the two of them escaping by the skin of their teeth. She wondered what Hodder had said. Wet behind the ears he might be, but he was no fool.

  ‘And he asked to see me, this DI of yours?’

  ‘Very keen. He’s just trying to pull together whatever background we’ve got. He’s been through all the files, but he thinks you might be able to give him some more personal stuff.’

  ‘I can’t see I can give him much, Hugh. Most of what I know will be in the files anyway.’

  ‘He’s a smart cookie, this guy. You know what it’s like. Half the time in this job you don’t know what you’re looking for. If you just take him through your impressions, he might come up with something.’ Another pause, this time indicating that Salter was building up to one of his attempts at humour. ‘Anyway, you don’t want to pass up the opportunity. He’s not my type, but the girls in the office think he’s a bit of a looker.’

  Girls in the office, she thought. Salter used that kind of phrase with a supposed edge of irony, but it reflected his view of the gender divide. Present company perhaps just about excepted. ‘Well, we’ve few enough of those,’ she said. ‘What’s his name, this guy?’

  ‘Brennan. Jack Brennan.’

  She was silent for a moment, holding her breath, but couldn’t prevent herself from laughing. ‘Jack Brennan, Hugh? That would be the Jack Brennan?’

  ‘I imagine we’ve the same one in mind, yes.’

  ‘No wonder they’ve foisted him on you. I bet they won’t be in much of a rush to take him back.’

  She thought she’d pushed him too far. Salter was rhino-skinned in most respects, but he never responded well to being laughed at. But finally he gave a forced laugh to match hers. ‘Well, maybe. But he’s a good cop. A good detective.’

  ‘I know that, Hugh. A bit too good, some might say. But he’s not made many friends.’ She succeeded in restraining another laugh. ‘That why you’ve taken him on, Hugh? There but for the grace of God and all that?’

  ‘I didn’t have much choice about taking him on. They were keen to get him out of the heat. And you’re know what we’re like for manpower. Thinner than a supermodel on hunger strike. We’ll take anything we can get. But you’re right – he’s not that different from me.’

  ‘I’ll judge that when I meet him, Hugh. Difference was you risked your life to expose a corrupt bastard who’d put all our lives at risk. Everybody says Brennan grassed up a popular cop to save his own skin.’

  ‘Not how he tells it. He’ll probably bend your ear on the subject. Seems to do that with most people he meets. By the way, speaking of the devil, I hear Welsby’s making progress. Not enough for them to take the bugger out of hospital and stick him back in Belmarsh where he belongs, but enough that’s he’s likely to stand trial after all. Maybe there is a God.’

  ‘I thought it was God who’d left him in limbo,’ she said. She didn’t want to think about Keith Welsby, not just now. She didn’t want to think about what might happen if he stood trial. She and Salter would be key witnesses, even if she were allowed to retain her undercover anonymity. She’d have to relive everything. She’d have to give answers under oath. Most of what she’d said in her witness statements at the time had been accurate. But Salter had inveigled her into bending the truth about one or two aspects of his own role. Salter wouldn’t have too many scruples about perjuring himself on issues that weren’t, in the end, even particularly germane to the case against Welsby. But she might have more difficulty. ‘So what’s the news?’

  ‘Apparently he’s getting more responsive. Be a while before he’s fit to stand up in court, though, I’d guess.’

  ‘Justice for all,’ she said, sardonically. ‘Okay, so when do you want me to meet Brennan?’

  They spent a few more minutes sorting out the details. Saturday lunch, she suggested, in a cafe-bar just outside the city walls in Chester. A bit off the main drag, less risk of them being spotted together. She was even more concerned now she’d discovered Brennan’s identity. His picture had been in the newspapers once or twice when the story first broke. Not exactly a celebrity, but someone whose features might be familiar to those who, for whatever reason, were interested in such things.

  She switched off the phone. It was still early, not yet five. She sat silently in the anonymous room, conscious of the silence of the deserted estate outside. Earlier, there’d been the odd car passing, mums bringing their children back from school. Soon, working husbands and wives would start arriving back, settling in for the weekend with a takeaway and a bottle of wine. But for the moment there was peace.

  For Marie, it felt less like a moment of rest than the calm before the storm. She walked over to the front window, gazing out at the monotonous view, house after house bathed in the late afternoon sunshine. Nothing to see, no sign of human life. Further along the road, she could make out the rear of a dark saloon and, for a second, felt a frisson of anxiety. She moved to get a better view. Not a Mondeo. Empty. Nothing to worry about.

  Her head was filled with too many things. Salter. Brennan. Welsby. McGrath. Peter Boyle. And, of course, Liam. There was no chance now of returning home this weekend. She told herself that she’d had no choice. But
she knew that she’d offered only token resistance to Salter’s request. And what did that tell her? That she was afraid to go home?

  Well, maybe. But she had a job to do. A serious job that she couldn’t just step away from because things weren’t going well in her personal life. A job that might literally be a matter of life and death. A job that needed her full concentration.

  Yet at the moment she felt she was giving it anything but.

  8

  When he woke, it was already dark. There’d been nothing else he could do in the meantime. Better to get some rest. Stay sharp for what was to come.

  He fumbled in his rucksack for the things he needed. A bottle of water, a couple of cereal bars. Keep his energy levels up. He climbed out of the sleeping bag, carefully rolled up the bag and the thin foam mattress and stuffed them into the rucksack. He’d leave a few traces, but there was no reason they’d even think to look in here. And he was confident that nothing, not even his DNA, could be linked to the person he now was.

  He glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. Nearly eleven. Time to prepare himself, then he could watch and wait until the lights went out. Allow time for her to get to sleep. Not crucial, but it would make everything easier. There was no power in here, so he’d have to wait in darkness. He could see but not be seen. He was used to darkness.

  He stood in the middle of the room, stretched his arms above his head, and began his usual exercise routine. It was partly just another superstition by now, like holding the photograph to his forehead. If he kept everything the same, it would all work out. But it was good sense, too. He kept himself fit, but this was about priming himself for the moment. Making sure he was alert for anything that might get thrown at him.

  He spent ten minutes with the stretches and bends. Then, slightly out of breath, he picked up the water bottle and made his way to the window. There were lights in most of the houses, but otherwise no sign of life across the estate. Cars were parked up for the night. Soon, there would be a few people returning from evenings out. He wouldn’t make a move until after midnight.

  He could see the house clearly from here, its outline visible through the sparse leaves of one of the trees that lined the road. An attempt to make the estate seem more like somewhere you might actually want to live.

  There were still lights on in the house. He was fairly sure she was alone. He’d been watching for several days now, and had seen no sign of visitors. She’d come and gone as he expected. Sometimes he’d followed her. Most times, after a while, he hadn’t bothered. He knew where she was likely to go, and she’d sprung no surprises.

  Even if there was another person there, it would be an added complication, but nothing he couldn’t handle. He had everything planned out. He didn’t know the exact floor plan of the house – he hadn’t dared to make himself too visible to any watchful neighbours – but it would be similar to this one, with the layout inverted.

  When he’d first arrived here, days earlier, he’d been unsure how to manage the surveillance. The estate was too exposed, too uninhabited, too fucking middle class. He couldn’t afford even to be seen driving up and down too much. Some bastard from the neighbourhood watch was bound to report him as a potential house-breaker.

  The first couple of times he’d left his car in the unobtrusive spot he’d identified, hidden among a cluster of cars overspilling from the neighbouring houses. But he knew that someone would eventually spot his unfamiliar car and start wondering who owned it. Then, after a day or two, he’d found a better solution. A few doors down from his target, on the opposite side of the road, there was an empty house, with a ‘For Sale or Let’ sign outside. The owners had presumably relocated for some reason and had not yet been able to sell their current property. He’d returned, late one night, having left his car tucked away in a backstreet half a mile away, feeling his way across the meadow that backed on to the back garden of the uninhabited house. He’d climbed the rear gate and let himself in. Neither the locks nor the alarm system had delayed him very long.

  The place was ideal. It had clearly been unoccupied for a few weeks, and most of the furniture had been removed. He travelled light when on an assignment, his rucksack containing only the essentials for sleeping, eating and hygiene. The place still had running water, so he had everything he needed.

  He’d been there for a couple of days, keeping out of sight during the day. It gave him the ideal vantage point to watch her comings and goings, with little chance of his being spotted. The only risk was that someone – the estate agent, the owners – might turn up unexpectedly. But even if someone came, he could hide himself from any superficial search of the place, and he’d left no obvious sign of his presence.

  He’d been able to keep a good eye on her, waiting for the word to come down. And now it had. He’d received the signal that afternoon – the usual untraceable text sent to a mobile he’d discard once the assignment was complete.

  Tonight. Time to complete the job. It was a relief. He prided himself on his patience, taking time to ensure that everything was in place. But now he’d done all that. It wasn’t a difficult assignment logistically. She lived and spent most of her time alone. Her movements were relatively predictable. She was living in an ordinary house which would provide no access problems. All he needed was the signal to proceed.

  Even so, he didn’t rush. He waited till after midnight. The lights had been extinguished in most houses. Wage-slaves who needed their sleep. A solitary car had passed by just before twelve, but now everywhere was silent. The lights in her house had been turned off forty or so minutes before.

  He methodically finished packing up his rucksack, had a final check around the house to make sure that he’d left nothing behind, and pulled on his short black jacket. Everything was black – jeans, T-shirt, jacket. He wore a black baseball cap with the peak pulled down over his face, just to render identification more difficult if he should be inadvertently caught by CCTV. But his garb was ordinary; if you passed him in the street, you wouldn’t register him.

  He let himself out of the rear door, securing it behind him. He’d reset the alarm before exiting, so there was no obvious trace that anyone had been there. He took a deep breath of the chilly night air, and made his way down the side of the house, out into the street and across to his target.

  The roads were deserted, but it was important not to become careless. All it needed was for some late night busybody to spot him acting suspiciously and the police could be on their way before he knew it. But once he was out in the street, he walked confidently down the centre of the pavement rather than skulking in the shadows. If anyone caught sight of him from one of the overlooking windows, they’d assume he was making his way home from a night out. Even here, there must be a few residents – teenage children, for example – who didn’t assume that every journey had to be made by car or taxi.

  As he reached the house, he paused, as if to adjust the rucksack on his shoulder, taking the opportunity to glance quickly around and make sure he wasn’t being observed. Then he moved quickly up the driveway and made his way to the rear of the house.

  He peered in through the kitchen window, making out the small glows of red and green indicators on various kitchen appliances. As he’d expected, the layout of the house was an inverted equivalent of the house he’d just left. He spent a few minutes examining the locks on the rear doors and patio windows, working out what sort of alarm system would be in place. He’d already registered that there was a security spotlight activated by a movement sensor. He stuck close to the wall, outside its range.

  He reached into the rucksack and brought out his small, neatly arranged box of tools. It took him only a few silent minutes to unlock the rear door, and little longer to ensure the alarm was disabled. The alarm was, as he’d expected, a relatively sophisticated model, but well within his capability. Once inside, he propped the rear door slightly ajar to provide a rapid exit route.

  He stepped through the kitchen into the hallway, pausin
g to reconnoitre the interior of the house by the dimmed beam of his small flashlight. There was nothing unexpected. The main living room off to the right. A slightly smaller living-cum-dining room to the left. A small downstairs lavatory and washroom. All very bland, impersonal. The house of someone who had been here for only a short time, and was not expecting to stay much longer.

  He made his way slowly up the stairs, keeping his feet close to the wall to minimise any risk of creaking wood. The main bedroom was directly ahead at the top of the stairs, and he assumed that this was where she would be sleeping. The door was slightly open and, moving silently, he eased it wider and peered inside.

  He was momentarily disconcerted to see that the large double bed was unoccupied and apparently undisturbed. There was an en suite bathroom at the far end, and he carefully flashed his torch towards it, wondering if he’d timed his arrival to coincide with her getting up.

  He held his breath and heard the rhythmic breathing from behind him. He stepped back out on to the landing. There were two more bedrooms, with a bathroom between them. He moved forward a step or two, listening hard. The breathing was coming from the further room, which overlooked the road. He wondered whether she’d picked the room because it made her feel more secure; with the vain hope that she might hear someone approaching. Like that grassing bastard up in Yorkshire – he’d picked the perfect spot, upper windows looking down on any intruder approaching up the only footpath. He’d kept a shotgun primed and ready, like a medieval king protecting his fucking castle. Fat lot of good it had done him.

  He gently pushed open the door. She was lying asleep, half covered by a flower-patterned duvet. Her head was to one side, facing towards him. She was wearing some kind of nightdress, her shoulders bare, and she looked, he thought, quite striking. If you liked that kind of thing.

  He always thought, at this moment, that it was best simply to trust your instincts. He’d had his approach ready, but he liked to respond to circumstances, use what the scene presented to him. Another superstition, perhaps, but it meant that he was less predictable. There was no recurring pattern for some smartarse profiler to spot.