DON'T SCREAM an absolutely gripping killer thriller with a huge twist (Detective Jeff Rickman Book 3)

by MARGARET MURPHY

  A row of black cabs was parked on the rank opposite and the cabbie second in line leaned out of his window as they passed. Hart seemed to miss a step and Foster could have sworn a look passed between them, then the driver pulled his head inside the cab and looked straight ahead.

  Maitland’s apartment and offices were on the twenty-fifth floor of a new glass-fronted tower block. The receptionist announced their presence to Maitland on the phone. ‘Mr Maitland will send someone down to meet you,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Foster said. ‘We’ll find our own way.’

  They walked down a tiled lobby that gleamed like polished onyx, past displays backlit with pale green light. Recessed glass shelving held sculptural flower arrangements, and etched glass signs directed them to the residents’ café and gift shop. He noticed Hart taking it all in and couldn’t resist asking, ‘Thinking of putting a deposit down?’

  ‘Living in an aquarium?’ Hart dismissed the green, glass-filtered lighting with one encompassing glance. ‘Doesn’t appeal.’

  He smiled, stealing another look at her. She wore a cream linen jacket over her short-sleeved blouse. The cut emphasised her waist and the colour, her tan.

  She arched an eyebrow. ‘See something you like?’

  Always. But he wasn’t about to let her know that. ‘I’m just not sure what you think you’ll get out of talking to Maitland.’

  ‘Maitland is the only real link we’ve got to Mark.’

  ‘And?’ Foster said. ‘There was a definite “and” in there.’ They stopped at the lifts — a bank of four, set into a wall of waxed beech planking.

  ‘And . . .’ She exhaled. ‘Here’s my daft question: what if Davis stole the missing drugs?’

  Foster thought about this as the lift door opened and then closed behind them with a self-satisfied sigh as they stepped inside. ‘Mark Davis is stupid enough to nick the gear on impulse. But he’d have to’ve been on hand when the deal went down.’ He grimaced. ‘Mark’s not what you’d call management material, and he’s definitely not a candidate for hired muscle — when I knew him, he couldn’t punch a hole in a wet Echo.’

  ‘You knew him four years ago,’ Hart said. ‘A lot can change in four years.’

  ‘So you keep telling me, but everyone we’ve spoken to says he’s been well into drugs since then — and we’re not talking the performance-enhancing kind.’

  She acknowledged this with a slight dip of the head. The lift decelerated and the doors swept open with such a flourish that Foster half-expected a fanfare. They stepped out onto a hushed landing. Mint-coloured carpet, curved glass walls.

  ‘Even if he did fall over the stuff and have the nerve to pick it up and run, how did he get away? We had two helicopters and a hundred cops watching the perimeter. As for Maitland going after Mark — course he would. But Maitland’s more a bullet to the back of the head type than someone who’d torture an innocent victim.’

  They followed the curve of the wall, past PR and IT businesses, a couple with logos including the word ‘inspired’.

  Foster was about to comment, when Hart said, ‘You’re sure Maitland would be there when the deal went down?’

  ‘No question. A deal that big, he’d be there.’

  ‘So maybe Mark escaped the same way Maitland did.’

  Foster smiled. ‘Maitland’s smart and quick — and probably owns a few cops. Mark, on the other hand, is thick and slow and owns a rusty old Ford Focus.’

  ‘You’re telling me this is a waste of time,’ Hart said.

  ‘I’m just saying there’s a lot of ifs attached to that one “What if?” But like Kim said, even scum like Maitland would help to protect a baby, wouldn’t they?’

  They drew level with Maitland’s apartment door.

  ‘Let’s hope so,’ Hart said. ‘’Cos the way I remember it, she didn’t seem too sure.’

  * * *

  They were ushered into a boardroom that would put the CEO of an international oil company in the shade. Maitland sat at the end of a conference table that could have doubled as a spare runway for John Lennon Airport. A balsa wood model occupied one third of the table, and adjacent to Maitland, a grey-faced man in a suit.

  Lawyer? he wondered. Architect?

  Maitland waited for them to walk the length of the room before acknowledging their presence. ‘Yes?’

  Foster made the introductions and Maitland glanced at their warrant cards without interest.

  He was dressed smartly, but a Toxteth scal in a designer suit, Foster thought, will always look like a Toxteth scal in a designer suit. The other man, however, looked like he’d been born in his merino two-piece.

  He smiled nervously under Foster’s scrutiny. ‘Do you want me to—’ He made a move to stand, but Maitland stopped him.

  ‘No need, Bernie. They won’t be here long.’

  ‘I could tidy up some of the figures.’ From the gleam of sweat on Bernie’s forehead, it was clear he’d rather be anywhere else.

  ‘Bernie . . .’ Foster said.

  The man obliged by adding, ‘Carter.’ He bit his lower lip, evidently chagrined that he’d fallen so easily for the ploy.

  ‘Bernie Carter the accountant,’ Foster said, committing the name to memory. ‘Don’t mind us. Personally, I’d be fascinated to hear how you plan to make up for the two million your boss lost on Tuesday night.’

  Carter darted a look at Maitland.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t get the joke,’ Maitland said.

  ‘You should do,’ Foster snapped back. ‘It’s on you.’

  He saw a flash of temper in Maitland’s face, and Hart shot him a warning look — they weren’t here about the drugs operation, they were here to find out about Mark Davis. But Foster suddenly recognised the balsa model.

  ‘This refurb.’ He bent to get an eye-level view of the four-storey brick building, its courtyards and parking bays, the dinky trees and greens for the residents. ‘It’s the old warehouse, isn’t it? Where the drugs bust went down. I got to admire your nerve, Maitland.’

  Maitland smiled. ‘You should be thanking me,’ he said. ‘Redeveloping an area reduces the crime rate.’

  ‘Still,’ Foster said, ‘it must be a choker, losing the money and the drugs.’ They held each other’s gaze for a dangerous moment.

  He saw a muscle twitch in Maitland’s jaw. ‘State your business.’

  Foster moved around the conference table and tilted his head to peer at the columns of figures on the accountant’s sheets of paper. Carter looked about ready to fling himself bodily onto the paperwork to save it from his impertinent gaze. ‘Mark Davis.’

  Maitland matched his terseness. ‘What about Davis?’

  ‘He’s been on every news bulletin since yesterday morning, Mr Maitland,’ Foster said. ‘Don’t come the innocent.’

  ‘I’m aware you’re looking for him.’ Maitland stared at them without emotion, but Foster could feel the murderous intent coming off the man in waves. ‘I just don’t see what it has to do with me.’

  ‘Mark works for you.’

  ‘He used to.’

  ‘Give him his cards, did you?’ Foster turned to Hart. ‘We’ll have to check with the Inland Revenue — ask for a copy of his P45.’ With a witness present, you could only go so far in accusing a man of being a drug dealer.

  ‘He did odd jobs,’ Maitland said. ‘For pocket money.’

  ‘We heard different,’ Hart said. ‘We heard he was your Weights and Measures Man.’

  ‘You heard wrong.’ The gleam in Maitland’s eye said he meant to find out who had been talking to the police.

  ‘We need to find Davis urgently.’ Hart glanced at the accountant. ‘He snatched a baby from the murder scene.’

  Maitland’s gaze followed hers for the briefest moment, and Carter’s grey complexion became paper-white.

  ‘The baby,’ Maitland said. ‘Of course. Anything I can do to help.’

  ‘That little detail slip your mind, did it?’ Foster had to admire Har
t’s reading of the situation — even an animal like Maitland didn’t like to look insensitive to the plight of an infant.

  Maitland sucked his teeth, then managed a sympathetic smile. ‘I’m afraid there’s not much I can tell you — Mark was unreliable and volatile. He was unsettling the clients.’ He shrugged. ‘I had to let him go.’

  ‘Who would he run to?’ Hart asked.

  Foster wouldn’t normally have let it slide that Maitland’s ‘clients’ were junkies and prostitutes, but Hart often got more out of interviews than he did, and he was willing to concede her more diplomatic approach had the edge on his.

  Carter shuffled his papers together and cleared his throat. Maitland gave him one look and the accountant spread the papers out again on the table, his hands trembling slightly. The man’s anxiety seemed to help Maitland regain a measure of equilibrium. He folded his arms and gazed at DC Hart.

  Hart wasn’t intimidated. ‘Is there a friend he might go to? An associate?’

  ‘You should ask Sergeant Foster.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘It’s a tragedy, what happened to that poor girl,’ Maitland went on, as if he hadn’t noticed Foster’s outraged exclamation. ‘Mark was always a tragedy waiting to happen.’ Maitland looked at Foster through half-closed eyes. ‘Isn’t that right, Sergeant Foster?’

  From the corner of his eye, Foster saw the accountant staring at him. Was he enjoying this? He only had to glance in Carter’s direction and the man picked up a pen and pretended to scan the lists of numbers in front of him.

  ‘Just answer the question, Maitland,’ Foster warned.

  Maitland pushed harder. ‘Mark was just a big kid, really — liked to hang round with the hard lads — eh, Sergeant?’

  ‘You wanna watch your mouth.’ Foster leaned forward on the balls of his feet, ready for a ruck.

  But Maitland wasn’t a man to back down easily. ‘Mark thought you were magic. “Foz the joker”, “Foz the marine”.’ His wide-set eyes had a manic gleam in them. ‘Funny — he never mentioned “Foz the cop”.’

  Hart moved in — no more than a fraction — but enough to break the head-to-head. ‘We’re just trying to find Bryony safe, Mr Maitland.’ Foster heard the reproach in her tone, and he turned his temper down a couple of notches. ‘Does he have any friends or family who might shelter him?’ she asked again.

  Maitland made a show of thinking, ended the pantomime with a shake of the head. ‘A man gets that low, he doesn’t have many friends.’ His gaze skimmed Hart’s contours, as if seeing her for the first time, liking what he saw.

  Hart returned Maitland’s stare with cool dignity, and a measure of contempt. ‘You need to account for your whereabouts on Tuesday night.’

  Maitland was stung — it didn’t show in his face, but there seemed to be an increase in the electrical static in the room. ‘I’ve already done that,’ he said. ‘In an interview with one of your colleagues, yesterday,’ he said evenly. ‘I was released without charge.’

  ‘You were released on bail,’ Hart corrected.

  She waited for an answer and Foster again saw anger cross Maitland’s face like a passing shadow. Good on you, Naomi.

  The accountant stared at Naomi with a mixture of horror and fascination, a hungry anticipation just beneath the surface, and Foster had the sick feeling that Carter was the kind of physical coward who liked to see men like Maitland lash out in temper — who even got a thrill, being close to a man capable of sudden violence.

  Foster readied himself to intervene, but Maitland seemed to shake the tension out of his shoulders before answering. ‘I spent the evening at a dinner party with my solicitor, Mr Yates, of Jarrow, Klipman and Yates,’ Maitland said. ‘You can check with him.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s been fully briefed,’ Hart said. ‘But we will check anyway. And the hours between midnight on Tuesday and eleven a.m. on Wednesday?’

  He stared at her. ‘What would I gain from killing the girl?’

  ‘Spoken like a businessman,’ Foster said.

  Maitland gave him a hard look.

  ‘Mr Maitland?’ Hart said.

  Maitland exhaled through his nose. ‘You’re coming after me for the murder because you can’t make the drugs charges stick — un-believable.’

  ‘You can answer the question here or at the station,’ Hart said. Maitland locked eyes with her, but when she refused to back down, he shook his head, smiling a little.

  He might be a thug, Foster thought, But he knows when he can’t win.

  ‘Okay. Here’s how it went — you might want to make notes. Dinner party ended late, I drank a bit more than I intended. Stayed the night at my solicitor’s house, rather than drive home — wouldn’t want to break the law.’ He flashed Hart an unpleasant smile. ‘Wednesday, we got up late — bit of a hangover, to tell you the truth.’

  Foster smiled back. ‘You wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you in the arse.’

  * * *

  ‘What now?’ Hart asked. Heading down the hill, they were walking into the wind. It snatched Hart’s words from her lips and lobbed them halfway up the street.

  ‘Now we’re gonna waste another hour checking with his slimy solicitor, knowing full well he’s gonna back up anything that lying bastard says.’ Foster was still stinging from Maitland’s remarks. What stung worse was that he had allowed himself to be rattled.

  ‘Another hour?’ Hart repeated.

  They turned the corner into King Edward Street, headed for the car park. ‘Yeah. Another hour.’

  ‘Mark’s a loner with no family or friends we know of. Up to now, we’ve been chasing shadows. Maitland is a definite associate — it was a good line of inquiry.’

  She was right. Foster knew it, but he’d felt impotent in the face of Maitland’s jibes — he’d had no comeback because he couldn’t reason himself out of the responsibility he felt for Davis. He should have told Hart what he was thinking, but the comfort Foster sought from women was of a more physical kind.

  ‘Yeah, well . . .’ he muttered, and carried on walking.

  He wanted to recover his good humour, make some weak joke about Sally the telephonist and late-night sax. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it, not right now.

  ‘Maybe if you hadn’t antagonised him so much—’

  ‘Sorry, Naomi,’ he said, a bit too heavy on the sarcasm. ‘Being a mere man, I find it hard to be nice to vicious scumbags who deal in drugs and trade on other people’s misery.’

  She took a couple of steps, turning to block his path. ‘That,’ she said, ‘was uncalled for.’

  She was right. Naomi had handled the interview far better than he had. He was too angry to apologise, but she must have seen something like regret in his face, because she took a deep breath, and walked on. When she spoke again, she sounded conciliatory. ‘Look, Sarge.’ She had to raise her voice above the bluster of the wind. ‘I know this is hard for you. Mark—’

  ‘Who said this was about Mark?’

  ‘I didn’t say it was.’ They stopped again at the entrance to the underground car park. ‘We all feel for Bryony, we all want her back safe. Maybe you more than most.’

  He wasn’t a complete prick — he saw she was trying to give him a way out of the row that had been building between them all day, but Maitland’s taunts had got right under his skin, needling and burning like an attack of hives. Mark had admired him, looked up to him, and he’d let things slide, allowed them to lose touch. He’d known in his heart that Mark wouldn’t survive outside of the care system without a lot of help — help that he should have offered.

  ‘Don’t think you understand me,’ he said, ‘’Cos that’s . . .’ He nearly lost it and had to take a moment before finishing. ‘That’s just not possible. What would you know about me, anyway, Naomi? I mean, how could you begin to understand?’

  ‘At least I’m trying, instead of wallowing in self-pity—’

  If it had been Maitland standing where Hart was at that moment, Foster might have t
aken a swing at him. But Maitland was safely tucked away in his glass tower, so Hart took the brunt of his anger and self-disgust.

  ‘Let’s get this straight. I don’t need your sympathy, or your understanding.’ He was contradicting himself. He knew it and he hated himself for it, but he couldn’t stop. ‘What I need — Constable — is for you to do your job and stay out of my face.’

  He wasn’t sure how long they remained there, buffeted by the wind, while a single gull sobbed overhead. It felt like minutes, rather than seconds.

  He had no right to pull rank on her when he’d been anything but professional dealing with Maitland. He’d probably be facing an assault charge, if Hart hadn’t been there, calming the situation, keeping him on track. A part of him wanted Hart to yell at him. At least then he could have yelled right back, could have used it as an excuse to pour out the impotent rage he really felt — for Mark, for Jasmine and for Bryony — for all the kids who got mashed by the system, bent out of shape before they ever got the chance to grow into the people they could have been.

  But she didn’t. She just turned and walked away.

  Chapter 19

  Mark stirs, imagining himself underground in the sewers and tunnels of dockland Liverpool. He clutches a bag to his chest. Something squirms and cries within the canvas webbing. He is anxious he will lose it and hugs it closer as he passes a huddle of kids around an oil drum. They suck smoke from a hose-pipe stuck through the side of the drum. The sweet herbal reek of hash triggers a craving in him like a hunger pang.

  It begins to rain. At first, it’s just a few drops, but soon it’s falling fast in hard, straight sheets. He looks up and sees he is now outside, on the street. The raindrops pelt down like missiles, bubbling and boiling on the road, filling the gutters and spinning into drains barred with steel teeth. The current tugs at his ankles, he loses his footing and is carried like flotsam by the undertow, swept along with waste paper, old cans and bottles.

  The jaws of the drain creak open with a groan like a subterranean beast, and he bobs and spins, dragged closer and closer to its hungry maw. He turns, swimming against the current, grasping for an anchor, but the kerbstone looms several feet above him and he can’t find a grip in its steep sides.