The Good Neighbor

by R. J. Parker

  ‘You spoke to him?’

  ‘No. DI Byrne did. Said he wants to give himself up.’

  Leah felt a surge of relief but it was short-lived. Surely that couldn’t be anything to do with the message she’d sent back to him. She’d have to admit to that now. ‘“Give himself up”?’

  Fitch nodded.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Says he’ll phone with a location for later today.’

  ‘Why not straightaway?’

  ‘That’s what DI Byrne asked him. Claims he’s got a few loose ends to tie up.’

  Leah needed to open the window. ‘D’you think I’m one of them?’

  ‘That’s why she sent me to pick you up. There’s an unmarked car getting into position to watch your house. Just for safety. You’re sure your husband won’t return home?’

  ‘I’ll call him and double check.’ Leah shakily took out her phone.

  ‘DI Byrne was only doing it as a precaution but after your neighbours’ story...’

  Elliot’s number rang but she got his answering service. ‘It’s me. Please call me as soon as you get this. Let me know you’re OK.’ Whoever you’re with. ‘And don’t go home, under any circumstances. It looks like somebody did break in last night so the police are concerned he might come back. I’ll explain everything else when I speak to you.’ She hung up.

  ‘You think he’ll get that message?’

  ‘Eventually. I’m sure he’s on a train though.’ But she wasn’t.

  Fitch caught the worry in her expression. ‘If he does call at the house, there’ll be officers in attendance.’

  Leah wondered if Elliot was still in Forley with the woman who had driven him home last night. She still hadn’t begun to deal with that revelation. ‘Do you believe Tate?’

  ‘It’s rare for somebody to give themselves up so soon after a crime was committed but it’s been known.’

  ‘D’you think it’s because I’m a witness?’

  ‘Perhaps. You do realise that didn’t have to be the case though.’

  Leah knew exactly what he meant. Tate didn’t have to let her go. ‘Maybe there’s another explanation.’ Leah so wanted that to be the truth. ‘Of why he was there and why what happened … happened.’

  Fitch sucked in air through his teeth. ‘He’s certainly got a lot of explaining to do.’ He turned right at the roundabout that took them back to Plough Lane.

  Leah wanted to ask exactly how Alice Booth had died. It was a question she’d put at the back of her mind since she’d first learnt of her murder. But she was sure Fitch wouldn’t divulge those details. Maybe his boss would. Leah had to know, even though she didn’t want to.

  The Audi slowed at the traffic lights. A right turn and they would be back at the house. But Leah had changed her mind. If Martin Tate handed himself in then his messages to her wouldn’t be as relevant. She’d told the police that he’d followed her home and had broken in and she was still trying to repel the notion of him being inside her house while she’d been in the shower. But if she could spare herself the ordeal of relaying the contents of the messages…

  She couldn’t plead ignorance of them arriving. She’d opened them and there would be a record of that. But if Martin Tate surrendered she hoped his deceiving her would be secondary to the crime he’d committed against Alice Booth.

  If he didn’t, she had no choice but to give up the texts. Was she just forestalling the inevitable? But maybe there was a larger part of Martin Tate’s story that nobody understood, that he needed to convey to the police as soon as possible.

  She was positive that she wasn’t about to disentangle herself from what had happened, however. If he was lying about his willingness to cooperate, did that make her a prime suspect? Was she already?

  Fitch pulled up in front of the house. Elliot’s car was still parked in the same position. Had they fingerprinted it?

  DI Byrne was just walking out of the gates, talking on her phone.

  With rising dread, Leah got out of the car and took her overnight bag from the back seat.

  ‘All right, on my way there now.’ Byrne hung up.

  Fitch quickly filled her in on the Trents spotting the familiar figure leaving Leah’s house the night before.

  Byrne didn’t look at Leah but tried unsuccessfully to hide her surprise. ‘You’ve left a car there?’

  ‘Lloyd.’

  ‘Send a second car. Make sure they stay out of sight.’

  Fitch relayed the instructions to another officer.

  Byrne turned to Leah. ‘You know about our caller?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re my only witness. If he does give himself up, I want you to be present.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  ‘You want me to confirm it’s him?’

  DI Byrne, seeing Leah’s panicked expression, held up a placatory hand. ‘We’ll find a place to conceal you.’

  Leah felt a sudden rush of anxiety.

  ‘We’ll go in my car.’ Byrne nodded at a white Lexus.

  She focused on Elliot’s blue Vauxhall. ‘Can’t I go in mine? I don’t really want to leave it parked on such a busy road.’

  ‘It’ll be fine. Jump in.’ Byrne opened her car with the fob.

  The locks thudded but Leah was still examining her vehicle. Had they been inside it? She could still see the bottle of red wine on the dash.

  ‘It’ll be perfectly safe. There’ll be officers here for the foreseeable. I need to give forensics their space, so we’ll head back now.’

  Leah felt in a daze. ‘Aren’t you waiting for his call?’

  ‘Somebody’s manning the phone until we get the number transferred.’ Byrne extended her arm, indicating that Leah should walk ahead to the car.

  She complied, got into the passenger seat of the Lexus and slid her overnight bag into the back. The interior smelt overpoweringly of coffee. There was a half-full paper cup in the holder.

  ‘Seat belt,’ Byrne said before she closed her door too.

  Leah obeyed. It was good advice as Byrne pulled jerkily out of the spot and headed back down Plough Lane.

  ‘You must be feeling pretty shaken.’ Byrne tugged her belt on as they slowed at the bend.

  ‘I don’t ever want to go home now.’ Leah wasn’t exaggerating.

  ‘Understandable. Where’s your husband?’

  Everyone wanted to know that, and she still wasn’t sure. ‘Gone to stay with a friend.’

  Byrne nodded. ‘You going to stay with them too?’

  ‘I’m going to visit my father,’ Leah said, deflecting the question.

  ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘Brockford.’

  ‘Nearby then,’ Byrne observed.

  ‘Less than twenty miles from here. He’s got Alzheimer’s, which he’s managing at the moment, but I’m glad he’s close,’ she heard herself answer. Did the police not want her travelling far?

  Byrne nodded. ‘When we’re finished, would you mind leaving the address with me?’

  So that answered that question.

  ‘So neither you nor your husband were aware that the suspect got into the house?’

  Leah shook her head. ‘Only our neighbours saw it. There was no sign of a break-in when your colleague took a look around.’

  ‘He couldn’t have got hold of a house key from you?’ Byrne changed down a gear.

  Leah hadn’t considered that. Another terrifying possibility to consider.

  ‘When you lost consciousness?’

  Acid tingled in Leah’s stomach. ‘I used my key to let myself in.’

  ‘Best you don’t go back until we’ve got him.’

  ‘D’you really think he’s going to give himself up?’

  ‘Stranger things have happened but … no.’

  ‘Why d’you think he called then?’

  ‘Not sure yet. Maybe he needed to find out if we’d discovered the body.’

  Leah wondered if that was because of the message she’d sent him. She flinched as
she reluctantly recalled his lips on hers. ‘Why bother to say he’s going to give himself up?’

  ‘Could be misdirection. Or perhaps he just gets a kick from giving us the runaround. I think he wouldn’t take the risk of speaking to us unless there was a motive though.’

  ‘Is it not possible that there’s a whole side to what happened that we don’t know about?’

  Byrne turned and analysed Leah incredulously. ‘You think he’s innocent?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘Whoever he is, he shouldn’t have been at Alice Booth’s house…’

  ‘Do you know that for sure?’

  Byrne shook her head. ‘And nor should you have. But when you both left Alice Booth was dead.’

  Leah opened her mouth to respond.

  ‘And, after seventeen years in the job, I’ve never seen the sort of mutilation that she sustained.’ Byrne met her eyes, a grimace briefly registering before she returned her attention to the road. Her phone buzzed.

  ‘Yep?’ The detective’s eyes darted as she listened to the short message from the other end. ‘Eleven?’ The officer looked at her dash clock. ‘OK. Get Fitch to co-ordinate some backup and I’ll see you there.’ She hung up. ‘He called the house again,’ she informed Leah. ‘Wants to give himself up at the north gate of Eddington Park at eleven.’ She put her foot on the accelerator.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  For the minutes that followed Leah remained silent as DI Byrne made calls and barked orders while she sped them towards the nearest large town. Eddington Park was just on the outskirts of Middleton.

  ‘And tell Fitch I want somebody covering the east side.’ Byrne hung up and slowed the car as they reached a roundabout.

  ‘You’re going to meet him?’

  ‘Don’t worry. You’ll be in a separate car with another one of my officers. They’re setting up there now. If he does show, you can ID him from your position.’

  ‘But you don’t think he’s going to turn up?’

  ‘If he genuinely wants to hand himself in, he could just walk into the police station. Why this song and dance?’

  Leah had already asked herself that question. ‘Perhaps he likes the attention.’

  ‘No. I think he’s exactly the opposite of that.’ Byrne turned to her and, momentarily, it appeared she’d said all she wanted to. Then she added: ‘This is no spur-of-the-moment homicide. This is a methodically executed crime. Wouldn’t you say his behaviour towards you suggests that? He didn’t have to open the front door to you, did he?’

  Leah wondered if it was a rhetorical question. Did Byrne believe she was part of it, that him letting her in put suspicion on her? ‘Do you really believe I could have anything to do with this?’

  ‘Inviting you in, calling you a breakdown service from the crime scene … that’s not the behaviour of somebody who’s just committed a murder on the premises, is it?’

  But Leah acknowledged that she’d ignored her question.

  ‘So until I can gauge the motives behind that I doubt very much that this meeting is going to be straightforward either.’

  ‘But what if he’s just going to watch us wait for him?’

  ‘You’ll be protected. And you’ll be far enough away from the gates. We’ll do as he says and just hope we can keep up the line of communication.’

  ‘Why don’t you think he attacked me in my house?’

  Byrne gave an exaggerated shrug and raised her eyebrows, as if she were waiting for the answer from Leah.

  ‘I was in the shower. I would have been defenceless.’ She felt a jolt of horror as she considered how close he might have got.

  Byrne nodded, encouraging her to continue.

  ‘Why follow me home, break in and then do nothing?’

  Byrne held up her hand. ‘We’re not positive he did nothing.’

  ‘What else could he have done? I don’t think he took anything.’ But that was difficult to know for sure. Or was Byrne insinuating something else?

  ‘Your neighbours saw him leave. It was late. It was probably assumed he could do so unnoticed.’

  Leah didn’t like Byrne’s choice of words. Did the detective think he’d been in the shower with her? ‘Elliot was due home any moment.’

  ‘Yes,’ Byrne agreed flatly. ‘He was. You’d phoned him about your accident.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Where had he been?’

  Leah hated that she had no answer. ‘He didn’t tell me.’

  ‘Not even when he got in?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He’s your husband. Don’t you talk?’

  ‘No, as a matter of fact.’ Leah tried but failed to keep the anger out of her reply. ‘The only reason we’re not officially separated is because we’re still living under the same roof. I have no idea where my husband was when I was stranded on the road in the dark. Maybe you should ask him and then maybe you can tell me.’

  Byrne sniffed.

  ‘I do know that he was with another woman though because she dropped him off in his own car and then kissed him goodnight. That fact I’ve just gleaned from my neighbours who saw it soon after a complete stranger walked out of my house.’ Her temple pounded but she didn’t regret raising her voice to Byrne.

  ‘OK.’ Byrne nodded slightly and they continued in silence until the police officer gestured ahead. ‘This is us.’

  Leah could see the green rusted railings of Eddington Park on their right. Byrne took a left turn then a right at the end. Halfway along the residential road a man in a tracksuit was standing on the right by some parked cars.

  Byrne pulled them over and rolled down her window. ‘Where’s Travis?’

  ‘Next right, then left. Ottway Crescent.’

  Byrne didn’t reply but pulled sharply away and followed his directions.

  Leah clocked an older bald man with a grey moustache and a beer paunch, who she assumed was another plain-clothes officer. He stood up from the plastic seat of a bus stop and jogged over to the car.

  ‘We can go a street further back if you want.’

  Byrne cast her eyes around the other empty cars in the road. ‘This’ll be fine.’

  ‘OK. There’s a space further down on the right corner.’ He pointed.

  Byrne nodded and positioned the car where he’d indicated.

  Leah looked right and could see the entrance to the park about fifty yards away on the other side of the busy street.

  Byrne switched off the engine and glanced at her watch. ‘Twenty minutes. How’s your eyesight?’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Leah remained in the Lexus while DI Byrne chatted to the other officer beside the car. She peered at the other vehicles around them and then the windows of the stucco houses that lined the street. There were so many places from which he could be watching them.

  A young blonde girl in a bleached denim jacket emerged from a house a couple of doors down. She dropped the wheels of a pram onto the road and crossed it diagonally. Leah watched her as she passed and pushed her infant down towards the park gates.

  Leah checked her phone. It was 10.43. Less than twenty minutes before he was due to appear. Where was Tate now? He had to know there’d be officers dotted around the location.

  Byrne gestured for her to roll down her window. Leah did so and the officer bent down to speak to her.

  ‘I’m going to make my way down there now.’

  ‘You’re meeting him alone?’

  ‘No. But I don’t want to spook him. Fitch will be just inside the entrance. He’s making his way to it from the opposite side now.’

  ‘D’you think Tate’s in there?’

  ‘He might not be coming that way. He may just walk up to it from the street, so we’ve got that covered as well. If he does decide to show, he won’t get away.’

  ‘But you still don’t think he will?’

  ‘We’ll be prepared for every outcome,’ Byrne said stolidly.

  They both watched the young mother wheel her ch
ild to the crossing and pause to hit the button.

  Byrne straightened. ‘That’s Travis.’ She jerked her thumb at the other officer. ‘He’ll be right here with a radio. As soon as you recognise anyone, he’ll let us know.’

  Leah nodded. ‘Are you going to be armed?’

  ‘Fitch will have a taser. Just keep your eye on the gates and anyone in the near vicinity.’

  Before Leah could utter another word, Byrne strode down the side street to join the mother at the crossing. She slid in a small earpiece as she walked.

  Travis immediately opened the boot door hatch. ‘You can see OK from there?’

  Leah turned.

  ‘Slide over to the driver’s seat so you can get a better view. Just keep your eyes front and let me know if you spot him. I’ll stay back here.’

  ‘OK.’ She obeyed and focused on the park gates. Two men in shorts with hipster beards jogged out and turned left.

  The crossing beeps signalled the mother to cross and Byrne followed her to the other side.

  Leah remembered to breathe and could taste the smog from the busy street on the back of her tongue.

  Byrne slowed at the gates and then walked into the park.

  Behind her Leah could hear Travis chewing gum and breathing through his nose.

  Byrne looked left and right and then moved to one side as a male couple holding hands walked out of the gates. She lingered and then strolled out of the gates again and stood on the rampway.

  Leah tried to keep track of the pedestrians hurrying by. It was a stretch to see at this distance, but she already felt they were too close. Could things really end this easily? Leah got the impression Byrne hadn’t encountered anything like this before. Leah would be terrified in her position. What had Tate done to Alice Booth? She recalled the expression on Byrne’s face when she’d stopped short of telling her. Was that because Leah never would have agreed to ID him?

  A movement through the gates. Somebody walking down the main path towards them. It was still early. But he had to be nearby now. Leah narrowed her eyes at the man and recognised his face.

  It was Fitch. He didn’t acknowledge Byrne but seated himself on a bench about ten feet from the gates so he was in profile. That made Leah feel better. Now Byrne wasn’t waiting there alone. If Tate were dangerous, was Fitch close enough to help her though?