Burning Truth: An Edge-0f-The-Seat British Crime Thriller (DCI BOYD CRIME THRILLERS Book3) (DCI BOYD CRIME SERIES)

by Alex Scarrow

  Now here I am, shitting myself in a fucking Days Inn.

  He should never have taken that fucking phone call from Sutton. His psoriasis had flared up again with the stress, and his feet were scab-covered and raw with the endless scratching.

  Sutton – dead. Shit.

  And if they checked Sutton’s phone… They’d know he’d called.

  They’d know that I know what happened.

  He reached down and scratched at his bare feet again.

  53

  ‘Hold on a flipping moment,’ said Okeke. ‘Isn’t that him?’

  She pointed through the plate-glass window to a smokers’ area outside. Boyd had been busy studying the Starbucks and Burger King queues, having scanned the indoor eating area with no luck so far.

  She punched his arm to get him to look the other way. ‘Over there! Outside!’

  Boyd turned to see a sad-looking picnic table and bench surrounded by discarded cigarette butts and an overflowing cigarette bin. There were two men smoking there: one standing and chatting animatedly on his phone in a work suit, that end-of-the-day look about him – his tie hanging loose around his unbuttoned collar.

  The other was sitting down and staring out at the parked cars. He had a khaki canvas fisherman’s hat on that looked naked without an array of fishing tackle, a red-and-white polka-dot short-sleeved shirt and a pair of baggy tracksuit bottoms. He was fidgeting, one hand vigorously scratching at one of his flip-flop-clad feet, the other holding a cigarette to his lips. He was sucking, puffing, sucking, puffing clouds of smoke like a diesel train ready to set off.

  He turned his head slightly and Boyd got a better look at his face – that distinctive boxer’s nose. He’d grown a thick dark beard over his Punchinello chin, though.

  ‘That’s him,’ confirmed Boyd.

  ‘So what now?’

  ‘Gently, gently. He looks about ready to jump out of his skin.’ He suspected if they approached him together looking exactly the way they did, like two plain-clothes coppers on a mission, he’d bolt like a rabbit.

  ‘Go out there,’ Boyd said. ‘Light up, share the table. Chat him up.’

  ‘What?’ Okeke yelped.

  ‘I mean, just chat. Nice day, mate? Lovely weather we’re having – that sort of thing.’

  ‘And what are you going to do?’

  ‘I’ll approach from behind. When I’m close enough, you can – very unthreateningly – introduce yourself. If he runs, hopefully he’ll run right into me.’

  Her expression relaxed. ‘He doesn’t look like the hitman type, does he?’

  ‘Not even close,’ replied Boyd.

  Okeke emerged from the service-station concourse and pulled out her packet of Berkeley Blues. She slowed down to a casual amble as she neared the table where Jacobs was sitting.

  ‘Mind if I…?’

  He looked up at her and shrugged absently.

  She sat down on the bench just as the man on the phone finished his cigarette and tossed it away, all the while ‘yup-yup-yupping’ on his phone.

  Jacobs looked as though he’d forgotten he had a cigarette between his fingers; the ash had built up and was drooping forlornly.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ said Okeke suddenly. ‘You got a light, mate?’

  Jacobs stirred from his thoughts and patted his pockets. ‘Uh, yeah.’ He passed her his lighter.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. She lit up and took a couple of eager puffs – and that wasn’t acting, she was busting for a smoke. She handed it back. ‘Thanks. You’re a lifesaver.’

  ‘No probs.’

  Okeke noticed Boyd making his way towards a different exit and then lost sight of him.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she said.

  He glanced at her. ‘What?’

  ‘I said, are you okay?’ She wondered for a second if she’d buggered this up by being too forward.

  ‘Yeah, fine,’ he answered, finally waking up to the fact his fag had nearly burnt down to his knuckles. He took a pull, then tossed away what was left.

  Shit. He’s finished.

  ‘Only…’ Okeke continued quickly, unsure what was going to come out of her mouth next. ‘You look really stressed out.’

  He shot her a suspicious look. Okeke nodded down at her feet and did a little tip-tap with her shoes on the ground.

  ‘I’m fine. I’ve got things on my mind.’

  ‘Ah.’ She nodded and smiled. ‘Fair enough. A fag’s a good way to clear your head, right?’

  ‘Right,’ He nodded in return, then made to get up from the table.

  Shit. Come on, Boyd!

  ‘I’ve got problems,’ she blurted. Jacobs didn’t appear to acknowledge her. ‘I think someone’s…’ she began.

  And now Jacobs stopped. Bitten by curiosity. ‘Someone’s what?’

  ‘Someone…’ She had no idea what to follow that with, then decided a version of the truth might work. ‘Someone’s after me.’

  His frown deepened as he remained poised to stand up.

  ‘My husband. If he finds me…’ She realised she’d better push some emotion into the words. ‘I-I think he m-might hurt me.’

  Jacobs shrugged. Curiosity satisfied. He got up.

  ‘Please!’ Okeke managed to whimper. ‘Don’t go.’

  ‘I’ve got my own shit to deal with,’ he replied.

  ‘Then just –’ she grabbed her packet of cigarettes – ‘have a cig with me. Please?’ Okeke was surprised at her performance. ‘I… just for a minute or two. You don’t need to talk to me. Just…’

  Jacobs tilted his head, evaluating something. He sat back down. ‘Okay. For a couple of minutes. Then I’ve gotta go.’

  Okeke smiled gratefully. She pulled one of her Berkleys out for him.

  ‘No, I’m good,’ he said, waving it away. ‘I’m smoked out.’

  She finally spotted Boyd approaching casually from behind – although his idea of casual seemed to be an unconvincing pantomime of whistling tunelessly, hands shoved in both pockets.

  ‘So… is your fella here?’ asked Jacobs. ‘At this service station?’

  She needed to spin this out for a few moments longer. ‘I… I left him this morning. But… I know he’ll follow me.’

  ‘You got a smartphone?’ he asked.

  She nodded. ‘An iPhone.’

  ‘Then you should probably set your Location Services to off,’ he said. ‘Otherwise you might as well be leaving a trail of signal flares behind you.’

  She nodded, acting shocked. ‘Oh my God… you’re right.’ She pulled her phone out and pretended to swipe away at the screen.

  ‘It’s under Privacy,’ he explained.

  ‘Right. Yeah. Thank you. Oh my God.’ She fiddled with it for another few seconds, then looked up. ‘Thank you!’

  Over his shoulder, she could see Boyd was now dawdling barely ten feet away, looking as innocuous and invisible as the Angel of the North. He took his final steps to the picnic table and sat down on the same bench as Jacobs. Jacobs lurched at the jarring weight landing beside him.

  ‘Hello, Darren,’ Boyd said quietly.

  Jacobs’ eyes suddenly bulged with fear. He scrambled to get up, but Boyd grabbed his wrist firmly. ‘It’s okay, mate. We’re police.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Okeke. ‘I was distracting you.’

  Jacobs spun round, looking for signs of anybody else closing in on him.

  ‘It’s just us,’ said Boyd calmly. ‘If you call out or struggle, then you’re going to attract more attention: security, uniformed cops and comms traffic. I’m thinking you don’t want that, right?’

  Jacobs shook his head. ‘Who… who sent you?’

  ‘No one. We’re investigating a murder,’ replied Okeke. ‘Your name came up.’

  Jacobs looked at her. ‘Sutton’s murder. Right?’

  She nodded.

  He turned to look at Boyd. His eyes rounded. ‘You don’t think it was me, do you?’

  ‘No,’ said Boyd. ‘I don’t. But I think you might have an i
dea as to who it was.’

  ‘We know Sutton reached out to you, not long before his death,’ added Okeke. ‘You got a reason why that might be?’

  Jacobs’ eyes were almost comically wide, swivelling between her and Boyd.

  ‘He… he was ready to talk to me,’ said Jacobs.

  ‘Jesus Christ.’ Boyd sighed, exasperated. ‘Talk about what?’

  That question and the frustrated way in which he said it seemed to relax Jacobs a little. ‘Promise me. You really are just coppers?’

  54

  Warren and O’Neal returned to the Incident Room with a number of small evidence bags containing a variety of memory sticks. It was half five and DS Minter was on his way to the kitchenette with his dirty mug.

  ‘Evenin’, lads. You were gone awhile.’

  O’Neal lifted the bags. ‘Shop CCTV footage. What do I do with them, sarge?’

  ‘You mean… can I dump them on the desk and register them as evidence tomorrow cos I want to knock off?’

  O’Neal nodded sheepishly.

  ‘No such luck, sunshine. You need to enter them in the evidence log, and then drop them into Sully’s office, or whoever’s on duty, for them to extract the files?’

  ‘First thing tomorrow?’ O’Neal tried again hopefully.

  Minter shook his head. ‘Evidence chain, O’Neal, isn’t it? You know that. You and the boy wonder get it done, and then you can bugger off home.’

  O’Neal sighed. ‘Oh, come on.’

  ‘Whose name is filled in on the bags?’

  Warren showed Minter. ‘O’Neal’s.’

  ‘Ah, well, it’s got to be you, then. Hasn’t it, O’Neal?’ He smiled at Warren. ‘You on the other hand are free to go.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ O’Neal looked at Minter. ‘It’s only my name because I was holding the Sharpie!’

  ‘Fancy a quick pint at the pier? Seeing as we’re both off duty…’ Minter asked Warren.

  Warren grinned. ‘Yeah, actually. Sounds good.’

  ‘Oh, piss off,’ said O’Neal. ‘The pair of you.’

  55

  Jacobs opened the door to his hotel room and waved them both in. Boyd wrinkled his nose at the stale odour filling the room. He could see pants and balled-up socks on the floor and a couple of KFC cartons on the side table.

  ‘Not expecting guests, I see,’ he said drily.

  ‘I’ve been extending my stay every day,’ said Jacobs. ‘Sorry about the mess – I’ve not let the cleaners in for a couple of days.’ He pushed some dirty clothes off the end of his bed and snatched up his underwear, tossing it into an open overnight bag. ‘Sit. Sit.’

  Boyd sat on the end of the bed. Okeke took the chair beside the small desk.

  ‘You want tea? Coffee?’

  Okeke looked at the kettle and the plastic tray it sat on, surrounded by torn open and empty coffee and sweetener sachets. ‘No, we’re good, thanks.’

  Boyd gestured for Jacobs to take a seat too. He looked as though he wanted to stay on his feet, ready to run. ‘Please,’ said Boyd. ‘Just sit down, take a breath and calm down.’

  Jacobs relented and finally let himself sag down into a chair.

  ‘Right, that’s better,’ said Boyd. ‘Now, this isn’t a formal police interview. I’ll start by saying we’re not after you as a suspect, okay? We just need to know what’s going on.’

  ‘I need protection!’ said Jacobs quickly. ‘They’ll come for me next. I know it!’

  ‘Okay, well, let’s begin with that. Who are they?’

  ‘The Lambda Club.’

  ‘And who’s that?’ prompted Boyd.

  Jacobs dropped his head and laughed despairingly into his lap. ‘A dining club.’

  ‘A dining club?’ Boyd repeated, not sure he’d heard that right.

  ‘It was an Oxford dining club,’ said Jacobs. ‘For rich boys who liked to party.’ He leant to one side and dug into his overnight bag, pulling out a tattered blue cardboard folder. ‘I presume you’ve heard of the Bullingdon Club?’

  Okeke shook her head. Boyd had a vague recollection, but since Jacobs had started talking he wasn’t going to interrupt.

  ‘It’s a rich boys’ dining club at Oxford. Eton, Harrow, Charterhouse old boys only. You must have seen that famous photo? The one of a young Boris, a young Cameron, a young Gideon Osbourne – all posing in tailored cavalry-style evening jackets?’

  That was as much as Boyd knew, other than that they had a habit of smashing up the restaurants they frequented.

  ‘Well, the Lambda Club was the same kind of thing. Another private club for well-connected young prats. They also liked to call themselves the “Oxford Spartans”.’ Jacobs shook his head. ‘They saw themselves as the elite. The crème de le crème.’

  ‘Right,’ said Okeke. ‘Charming.’

  ‘I didn’t know anything about them until I started to dig into Laura Khan’s death in 2017.’

  ‘Who’s she?’ Okeke asked.

  The name sounded familiar to Boyd. He vaguely recalled a suicide.

  ‘We’ll get to her,’ replied Jacobs. ‘Let’s start with the Lambda Club. They had these once-a-year initiation parties for new members. Like that old Bullingdon thing of sticking your cock in a dead pig’s mouth for shits and giggles. But, you see, initiation nights aren’t really about the piss-up and laughs.’

  Boyd thought that was exactly what they were about – drunk young brats arsing around. He shrugged. ‘So what are they about, then?’

  ‘They actually have a more serious purpose,’ Jacob’s said. ‘They’re about creating a bond, a code of silence. It’s about forcing everyone present to partake in some act that could, in the wrong hands, be compromising, reputation-ruining. Shagging a dead pig’s head is exactly the kind of old-boy nonsense they indulged in to ensure a code of silence, to ensure a “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” arrangement exists between members of the group. That’s what Initiation Night is all about.’

  ‘So… the Lambda lot had their very own version of the pig’s head thing, did they?’ Boyd asked.

  Jacobs scratched absently at his left foot. For the first time Boyd noticed how sore and scabbed they were. As he scratched, flakes of dry skin cascaded onto the carpet.

  ‘So?’ prompted Okeke.

  Jacobs sighed. ‘So… on this one Initiation Night, something happened. Things went too far.’ He reached into his folder and pulled out a photograph of a young woman. ‘This is Amy Cheetham.’ He handed it to Okeke, since she was closest. ‘She was a first-year student at Oxford. She was invited as a plus-one and had no idea what kind of party it was.’

  Okeke passed the photo to Boyd. He found himself looking at a girl only a couple of years younger than Emma. A girl who beamed a smile at the camera that spoke of a travel bag full of big dreams and plans for the future.

  ‘She never came back to her halls. She went missing,’ Jacobs said.

  ‘And no body?’ asked Boyd.

  Jacobs shook his head.

  ‘Was there an investigation?’ Okeke asked.

  ‘Of course not. None. It remained a missing persons case until it quietly dropped off the radar.’

  56

  ‘I reached out to Sutton about five years ago. I knew he was a member of the Lambda Club at about the same time that Amy Cheetham went missing,’ said Jacobs. ‘I managed to doorstep him with that question. Face to face is always the best way.’ He shrugged. ‘If you don’t get an answer, you can still get a cheeky reaction photo.’

  ‘And?’ Okeke pressed him.

  ‘He looked like he’d shit himself right there on the doorstep. Didn’t tell me anything – but he took my card.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Boyd, ‘and we’ve got Sutton’s phone record that shows he rang you very recently.’

  ‘He did. Yes.’

  ‘Why? Why after all this time?’ asked Okeke.

  ‘He was ready to spill everything,’ Jacobs said.

  ‘We’ll get to that in a minute,’ said
Boyd. ‘I want to know how Chris Lewis fits into this. I spoke to his wife and she said that he went to have a drink with you the night he was killed.’

  Jacobs nodded. ‘I wanted Chris to partner up with me on the story. He had credibility. I, being a convicted News of the World hack, didn’t, obviously. I told him my suspicions, which weren’t much to go on, to be honest – but it was enough to bring him in.’

  ‘Someone must have been watching you,’ said Boyd.

  ‘Yeah. When I found out the next morning that Chris was dead –’ he reached down and scrubbed vigorously at the heel of his foot – ‘it scared the fucking shit out of me.’

  ‘So what did you do with the story?’ asked Okeke. ‘Over the last five years, I mean.’

  ‘Absolutely nothing,’ Jacobs replied. ‘Zero. I was petrified to go near it. Then Sutton rings me up, out of the blue, discloses the whole bloody thing, and tells me to get it into the papers if something happens to him.’ Jacob’s grin turned into a jittering laugh. ‘And look what happened to him.’

  Jacobs pulled out a newspaper cutting from his cardboard folder. Boyd recognised it as the Mirror. The picture was the one of the fire engine’s rear sticking out of the driveway, the two stone eagles and the low flint wall.

  He laid the cutting on the writing table, then reached into his folder and took out a glossy photograph of a motorway overpass, which he placed next to it.

  ‘This is where Laura Kahn supposedly hung herself,’ he said. ‘I’ll explain who she was in a minute. I took this picture right after the police managed to cut her down.’

  Boyd stared at the two images sitting side by side. ‘Shit,’ he murmured.

  ‘You see it?’ Jacobs said.

  Boyd pointed to the overpass. Barely detectable among the other graffiti tags was the same inverted ‘V’ symbol that had been sprayed on Sutton’s wall. He picked up the images for a closer look.

  ‘The Greek lambda symbol,’ Jacobs said, nodding. ‘The symbol the ancient Spartan warriors used to have on their shields.’

  ‘The Spartans,’ muttered Boyd.