by Neil White
‘What else can it be?’ Gina said. ‘There was something about that car that he didn’t want the police to see. So here’s the plan. You find out more about Proctor’s burglary and what he was up to on the night. I’ll speak to someone on my old team, see what I can find out about Ellie’s case. We’ll meet as soon as I can set something up.’
‘No, I’ve a better idea,’ he said. ‘I want to go back to the scene of Henry Mason’s murder. Meet me there, with someone from your old team.’
Gina thought about that, before saying, ‘Give me some time. I’ll call you when I’m ready.’
‘It’s a plan,’ Sam said, and scraped his chair as he stood up. His day suddenly had a purpose.
Forty-nine
Joe sank back into a shop doorway as Sam left the café. The shop was closed, one of many shuttered up on the street; those still in business were mainly charity and bargain shops, the rows of despair broken only by payday lenders and bookmakers.
Joe didn’t watch Sam, he didn’t want to risk a stray glance back alerting his brother; instead, he listened out for the sound of an engine. It seemed to be a long time coming, and he wondered whether Sam would suddenly appear in front of him, but eventually an engine turned over. He sighed in relief. He didn’t know what Sam would do if he saw him but Joe didn’t want the argument. He peered around the corner and watched Sam’s car pull away, then stepped out and went into the café.
Gina was sitting with her hands round her cup. She looked up and smiled as he sat down, although it was filled with sadness.
‘Thank you,’ Joe said.
‘I’m still angry with you,’ Gina said.
‘I know, and I’m sorry, I can’t say it enough, but it’s something I’ve lived with for a long time.’ He sighed. ‘What did you tell Sam?’
‘Just what you told me to say.’
‘And what’s he going to do?’
‘He’s going to look into the burglary some more, try to link it with Henry Mason’s murder. I said I would find out more about any other killings Proctor might have been involved with. That means Ellie’s too. I’m going to see someone from my old squad to get an update.’
Joe nodded and took a deep breath. ‘What about me? Am I a suspect yet?’
‘Sam didn’t let on if you are, but you’ll be on the list soon enough.’
A tetchy waiter came over and asked Joe for his order. He ordered an espresso – he needed the kick. ‘Will you keep me up to date with what’s going on?’
‘And not tell Sam?’
‘That’s right. For now.’
‘He’s your brother. And Ellie’s too.’
‘I know, but he’s a cop. If he thinks I’ve killed someone, he won’t let me walk away from it.’ Before Gina could say anything, he added, ‘And I wouldn’t walk away from it either. I know in my conscience that I didn’t do it.’
‘Good to hear.’
Joe’s espresso appeared in front of him, and he took a sip before saying, ‘And I know who did.’
Gina looked stunned. Her mouth opened as if she was about to say something, but she stopped herself, surprised. ‘How? I mean, who?’
‘I’ve been following Proctor again. He went to see someone this morning – Gerald King. He’s the man. I had a look inside his house.’
‘You broke in?’
‘Do you think breaking and entering is my biggest concern right now?’
‘So what happened?’
‘He caught me, then he confessed to the murder in Worsley. Proctor knew he’d done it too, and he’s got proof: photographs of Gerald running away. Proctor guessed he was being set up and sent someone along in his place. Just someone who needed a hundred quid more than he needed to know why he was waiting for someone. Now Proctor’s blackmailing Gerald King. Fifty grand.’
‘Wow!’
‘Yeah, that’s what I thought. Gerald has to buy Proctor’s silence or else he sends the pictures to the police.’
‘Proctor won’t. He won’t want the police anywhere near him.’
‘Why not? They’re going to speak to him because the victim used his car. What’s he got to fear? They haven’t got him for any other killings. In this, he plays the lucky victim, perhaps some remorse for the poor sap he sent along in his place.’
‘But why did this man do it?’
‘Simple: Proctor killed his daughter. On the same spot where the man was killed last night.’
Gina’s face betrayed her shock at that, her mouth open, eyes wide.
‘Proctor’s been at it for years,’ Joe said. ‘Gerald was sent what he thought was proof. Pictures of a notebook belonging to his daughter.’
‘But he got the wrong man.’
‘He didn’t know that. It was getting dark and he had to be quick, because Proctor is stronger than him; he couldn’t afford a fight. What he got was all of his pent-up anger spewing out. Now? He’s devastated. He just wanted revenge for his daughter. Her murder led his wife to kill herself. He was consumed by anger, hatred, but until he had the email, he had no focus, no target.’
‘What if he’d said no, or reported it to the police?’
‘The person behind the emails said he’d burgled Proctor and he had his daughter’s things, because he’d stolen Proctor’s box of souvenirs. If Gerald called the police, he’d get rid of everything. He had something Proctor wanted back, and there was a man who wanted his daughter’s killer. All he had to do was arrange the meet. Gerald had never seen Proctor before, but he was given the choice over where to do it. That was where he made his mistake, because he made it too symbolic. The place where his daughter died haunts him.’
‘But Proctor was suspicious, so he sent someone along in his place.’
‘It looks like it.’
‘What’s Gerald going to do now?’ Gina said. ‘And why are you helping him?’
‘Because he’s a link with Proctor. I’m just following the trail to see where it ends. Gerald tried foul means and it went wrong. I’m going to try to keep him going for fair. We want to prove that Proctor killed our loved ones. For me, it’s Ellie. For Gerald, it’s his daughter.’
‘And then what?’
‘Gerald will hand himself in, for the sake of the victim’s family. And I’ll defend him.’
‘Are you sure? How do you know he won’t try to blame you, or just skip the country?’
‘He’s a good man deep down, just tortured by Proctor,’ Joe said. ‘And now Proctor is making it worse by blackmailing him.’
‘What if Gerald kills him when they meet?’
‘It’s possible,’ Joe said. ‘But the look in his eyes told me that he’s done with murder. He’s not natural born, unlike Proctor.’
Gina frowned. ‘It’s a large amount to find. It would take some time to work out how to finance it.’
‘I’m guessing that Proctor is confident he can sit this one out and wait for his cash. I want to make sure he gets that part wrong. We need to find out more about him.’
‘There is one person I could ask,’ Gina said. ‘Mrs Proctor. Let’s see what she has to say for herself. She might just let something slip.’
‘Good idea.’
‘And you?’
‘I’ll wait to see what else turns up today. For the most part, I’m just trying to avoid the police.’
‘I’ll call you,’ Gina said, getting up.
She paused as she passed him, then bent down to kiss him on the cheek. ‘Stay safe, Joe,’ she said, and then she was gone.
Fifty
Gina took a deep breath. She was outside Proctor’s house. The driveway was empty and she’d spent some time watching the house for any sign of him. She hadn’t seen any. No tall shadow in the windows. No, it was Proctor’s wife she was after, hoping to get some kind of insight into the man, from the woman who knew him best.
Gina popped a mint into her mouth, the booze still strong on her tongue, and walked towards the front door, the sound of her heels drowned by the rumble of a passing bus. She’d gone home first to
put on a suit. If she was going to play a part, she might as well look like it.
The house wasn’t what she’d expected. It was large, once imposing and grand, but in what had become bedsit-land. The short concrete driveway was cracked in places and grass tried to assert itself. Gina fastened her suit jacket. She rang the doorbell and breathed out into the palm of her hand. Still bad. When the door opened, she smiled.
The woman in front of her seemed nervous, her eyes wide and darting from side to side. Her hair was cut short and simple and she was wearing a cardigan and trousers, greys and muted blues. She was a woman who didn’t want to be noticed.
‘Hello, I’m Gina Ross,’ she said. ‘I’m from Honeywells Solicitors.’
Before Gina had the chance to say anything else, the woman put her hand to her mouth and said, ‘Is it about the money? About Mark’s accounts?’
That stalled Gina for a moment. ‘Why do you think that?’ she said.
‘Are you here to sue us, to tell us we’re going to court?’
‘No, I’m not,’ Gina said. ‘It’s about Mark’s case, his arrest the other night.’
She looked confused. ‘Arrest? I don’t understand? The police were here earlier. They thought he was dead, but he’s not, and now they’re looking for him.’
‘Can I come in please?’ Gina said.
‘But Mark isn’t here.’
‘You can still help me, though.’
The woman paused as she thought about that, and then, as if remembering her manners, she stepped aside. ‘Of course, I’m sorry. Go through.’
Gina eased past her and looked around. She’d learned through her police career that a person’s house was a barometer of their personality. So often she had been to houses with a BMW on the drive and yet holes in the furniture, as if all that mattered was how those outside the house perceived them. She’d been to untidy houses that were dirty through lack of care and substance misuse, and other times because the occupants’ lives were too busy, with laughing children and chaos.
Proctor’s house was different to that. It was quietly grandiose, in that it was bigger than they needed, with a wide and open hallway with rooms going off it, and a banister that curved upwards like a grand gesture. The contents didn’t quite live up to it, however, with a stained pine dining table and bookcase in one room, and a stiff-looking sofa in another, straight-backed and purple. As Gina was shown into the main living room, there was nothing of warmth. The walls were painted light grey but weren’t brightened by flowers or pictures. Instead, there were photographs in black frames of a young woman, a girl really, her arms round an older woman who bore a resemblance to Proctor’s wife. There were no books or magazines strewn around, no cups on tables, nothing to suggest that it was a room where anyone relaxed.
‘Call me Helena,’ the woman said. ‘Sit down, please.’
‘Thank you,’ Gina said, and sank into the sofa, the cushions insubstantial.
Gina was wondering if Helena was going to offer her a drink but she didn’t. She sat down on the chair opposite but perched forward, her hands on her knees, her legs tightly together.
‘I just need to know more about your husband,’ Gina said.
‘Why?’
‘Because we’re defending him. We need to know what story to present to the jury, or whether anything in his past can give him a defence.’
‘What has he done?’
Gina tried her best at a sympathetic smile. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t tell you.’ If she did, Helena would realise that Gina was going way beyond what she would do for a burglar.
‘But is he going to court?’
‘I don’t know. Possibly not.’
Helena seemed satisfied with that. ‘Mark’s a good man,’ she said.
‘But you mentioned the money, his accounts?’
‘I didn’t mean anything by it.’
‘So tell me about him,’ Gina said. ‘What’s his story?’
‘Why haven’t you asked him?’
Gina leaned in, and Helena did the same. She was a follower, not a leader. ‘You know what men are like. They keep things back to make themselves look good. Sometimes you’ve got to find other ways to help them.’
Helena smiled. The sisterhood thing had worked.
‘A normal childhood, so he said,’ Helena said. ‘He grew up in Ancoats, although he doesn’t see his family any more.’
‘Oh, why’s that?’
‘He doesn’t tell me so I’ve stopped asking. They didn’t come to our wedding. I tried to find out about them, I wanted to invite them as a surprise, but Mark got angry when I told him I’d been trying.’
‘Did you get to meet them?’
‘Only his sister, Melissa. She was a little bit haughty, if you want my opinion, and I don’t like to speak badly of people. Nothing obvious, but she’d been living down south and thought she was a bit special. As soon as I mentioned Mark, she scowled as if he was nothing but a bad memory. There was some big falling out, I know that much, but he won’t talk about it.’
‘Families are like that,’ Gina said. ‘Has he been in trouble before?’
‘No, never. He has his business and works hard.’
‘What sort of business?’
‘Financial investments.’
‘But you don’t think he’s doing very well?’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘You thought I was here to take him to court.’
‘I know, I’m sorry. Some of his clients get angry when he can’t pay them back quickly enough. One came here and started shouting, and I almost called the police, but Mark stopped me, told me that the customer is always right. He paid him, but well…’
‘Go on.’
Helena looked at the ceiling. Her chin trembled and tears brimmed onto her lashes. ‘Please don’t tell him this, but I found some accounts once, and they were different to his normal ones. I’ve seen those, the ones he sends to his clients, with balances showing how the investments are growing. These were different, just a handwritten log, and I recognised Mark’s handwriting. Like a list of names with dates and numbers alongside, and a running total.’
‘Where did you find these?’
‘He used to keep them in a blue metal box in the workshop, padlocked. I thought it was some kind of toolbox, for a drill or something, but I suspected something, so I looked inside. There were these logs, and other things; photographs and trinkets. I heard him coming so I had to put it away. I think he’s moved the accounts now but everything else is still in there. It’s been locked ever since.’
Gina felt a tremor of something significant. She tried hard not to give anything away, a skill honed through years of policing, where the killer questions are best coming after some indifferent casual ones, where you trap someone in a lie and then throw in the evidence that proves otherwise.
‘Have you challenged him about it?’
Helena gave a small laugh. ‘He’s a man; he’s allowed some secrets. It’s how they are. It was none of my business.’
‘Can you show me?’
‘Why are you so interested?’
‘Just curiosity,’ Gina said. ‘You made it sound interesting.’
‘He’s my husband,’ Helena said. ‘It would feel like betraying him.’
‘Where’s his workshop?’
‘Just at the bottom of the garden. It’s my father’s old workshop really, but he’s dead now, so Mark uses it.’ She frowned. ‘Spends all night down there sometimes. I don’t know what he does. Reads books, I think, with his candles burning. He likes candles.’
‘Don’t you ever ask him?’ Gina said. ‘It seems so secretive.’
‘It’s where Mark goes to relax,’ Helena said. ‘I don’t mind. A man needs to relax, don’t you think? He works hard and he doesn’t want me jabbering on about my day.’ She blushed. ‘I’m his wife. It’s my job to serve him, keep him happy.’
Gina bristled but didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to get into an argument about conjugal
roles.
‘I’d seen the box before,’ Helena said. ‘I’d been curious, and one day he left his keys behind when he went out. I had a look.’
‘Does Mark know you’ve looked inside?’ Gina said, trying to sound casual, but she could detect the keenness in her own voice.
‘I don’t think so. He’s never said anything. I’d just have to say sorry and hope he was all right with that.’
