by M. J. Ford
‘Ms Patel is speaking to her partner,’ said Williams, a formidable female constable from St Aldates who towered a good five inches over Jo.
‘Anything else on the description?’
‘She’s pretty shaken up,’ replied Williams. ‘You should speak to her directly.’
The woman had seen them and finished on her phone with an ‘I love you too’, then walked over.
Jo introduced herself and Carrick. ‘Ms Patel?’
‘Call me Saskia,’ said the woman.
‘Would you like to come and sit in the car?’
‘My husband’s coming to get me,’ said Patel. ‘He’ll be here in about fifteen minutes.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Jo. ‘We won’t keep you long.’
In the car, Andy took the back seat, while Jo spoke to Patel in the front, offering her a bottle of water. She looked very composed given her ordeal.
‘Can you tell me exactly what happened?’ said Jo.
The young woman took a gulp. ‘I’ve already told the others. It all happened very fast.’
‘If you wouldn’t mind telling me,’ said Jo gently.
‘Okay.’ Saskia’s hand was shaking as she screwed the lid back on the bottle. ‘I was driving along, and there was a man came running into the middle of the road. I slammed on the brakes. I knew there was something wrong straight away – he was wearing a balaclava. I put the car into reverse, but he just came charging forward, with a gun. I lost control and went into the hedge back there. He was screaming at me to get out. I froze. I couldn’t move at all. I tried to lock the door but he was quicker, and …’ Patel put her hand to her mouth as her eyes moistened. ‘I thought he was going to … I didn’t know what he wanted …’
‘Take your time,’ said Jo. ‘You’re safe now.’
‘He … he tried to drag me out, but I still had my seatbelt on. He was just screaming and screaming. I managed to get the seatbelt off, and I begged him not to hurt me. As soon as I was out of the car, he waved the gun, beckoning someone else, and this girl in a baggy coat came out from over there.’ She pointed a little further along the street where there was a dusty layby.
‘Can you describe her?’ said Jo.
‘Short, dirty blonde hair. They both looked like they hadn’t washed for a while and the guy really stank. I offered them money, my phone, but he pointed the gun at me, and told her to get in.’
‘How did she look?’
‘A bit scared, to be honest. She was carrying a rucksack, like the sort of thing hikers have. It looked way too big for her. She said she was sorry.’
‘To you?’
Patel nodded. ‘I got the impression she really didn’t want to be there.’
‘But she got into the car?’
‘Yes. So did he. They drove off really quickly.’
‘In which direction?’
Patel pointed ahead on the road. ‘That way.’
Away from the city.
On her phone, Jo fetched up the image of Megan Bailey from the family portrait at her parents’ house. ‘Look closely – do you think this was her?
Saskia squinted. ‘Yes, that’s her!’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Absolutely. She’s the girl from the news, isn’t she? I can’t believe I didn’t recognise her before.’
‘It’s not that surprising given the stressful circumstances,’ said Jo. ‘And what about the man? Any distinguishing features?’
‘He was wearing the balaclava,’ said Patel. ‘He wasn’t particularly tall though.’
‘Build?’
‘Medium – I guess. Not skinny. Not fat.’
‘Accent?’
‘Northern, I think. English though.’
‘Could you be more specific?’
‘Not really. I’ve got family in Bradford. Maybe a bit like that? It all happened so fast.’
‘You’re doing brilliantly,’ said Jo. ‘What about his clothes?’
‘Dark,’ said Patel. ‘Black, maybe. His trousers were cargo pants or jogging trousers. A dark hoodie. Big boots, like army boots. Oh, he had a bandage or something on his neck, right here.’ She touched the side of her own neck.
Jo immediately thought of the blood from the shotgun blast, in the Baileys’ bedroom.
‘Okay, Saskia, we’re nearly done. Can you tell us about the gun?’
‘I don’t know. A black one.’
‘A handgun?’ When Saskia looked confused, she clarified, ‘As opposed to a shotgun?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Patel. She held her fingers about eight inches apart. ‘Maybe like this.’
‘Great,’ said Jo. ‘One more thing.’ Patel nodded. ‘I know you couldn’t see the man’s face, but did you get any idea of how old he might have been?’
Patel sighed thoughtfully. ‘Young,’ she said.
‘What makes you say that?’ asked Jo.
‘I don’t really know. People just move a certain way, don’t they?’
‘I suppose so,’ said Jo. ‘But when you say young, what do you mean?’
‘I think he was younger than me. A grown-up though. Older than the girl.’
Jo, concealing her disappointment, looked at Carrick. ‘Anything to add, boss?’
Carrick shook his head. ‘Saskia, that was incredibly helpful. I’ll talk to my colleagues and they’ll stay with you until your husband arrives. It might be that we need to talk to you again, just to go over a few details, if that’s all right?’
‘Of course,’ said Patel. ‘I just want to go home.’
‘Perfectly understandable. But if you remember anything else, even if it seems completely uninteresting, can you let us know? Sometimes little things come to mind later.’
‘That girl?’ said Patel. ‘Wasn’t she wanted in connection with a murder?’
Jo saw no reason to lie. ‘Yes.’
Patel looked like she was going to be sick. ‘So that man – the one with the gun …’
Jo put her hand across to touch Patel’s. ‘Don’t worry. No one’s going to hurt you now.’
* * *
The husband arrived a few minutes later, and they clung to each other for a good thirty seconds, before beginning a whispered conversation, with their foreheads pressed close together. As Carrick went to tell the uniforms that they could disperse, Jo walked further along the road to the layby from which Patel claimed Megan Bailey had emerged. Over a stile, there was a footpath, leading into woodland overgrown with nettles. Was this where Megan and the mystery man had been hiding? It was hard to imagine they’d walked along the side of the road itself, given there was no pavement and the many blind turns would make it a potentially hazardous place for pedestrians.
She was thinking of the description Saskia had given them. The rucksack and the boots sounded just like the hooded man she’d seen multiple times on the bookies’ CCTV footage. Plus the fact it was a handgun that superficially matched the Xan Do murder weapon. It looked more than ever as if one person had carried out all of the killings.
Saskia’s age estimate undermined the idea this was Megan’s father, but Jo wasn’t ready to jettison the theory just yet.
The more puzzling thing was Megan’s behaviour. Maybe she wasn’t such a willing participant to the unfolding carnage as they’d first believed. Or perhaps she was beginning to get cold feet in whatever larger game was being played.
Carrick called over to her. He was crossing the road towards her, pointing at the sky, where the helicopter was hovering in the distance. ‘Chopper says they’ve found an abandoned car over there. We’ll have to go this way.’
They climbed the stile and pushed their way through the undergrowth on the other side. The path led through a strip of woodland just a few metres wide. The air was thick with the smell of leaf mulch, and insects danced around them. She and Carrick emerged on the far side of the trees, crossing another stile at the edge of a field planted with willow sapplings that reached to her eyeline. The path led straight along the side of the field, but they en
tered the willow, using the helicopter’s position as a guide. There was no indication that anyone had come this way before.
After about thirty seconds, and what she guessed was eighty metres or so, they emerged from the wall of trees to find the car parked right in the middle of the crop, like it had been dropped from above. It was a slightly battered Ford Focus with mud flecked up both wings.
‘Odd place to park,’ said Carrick, with typical understatement.
They passed around opposite sides of the car, peering inside. There was rubbish in the footwells – sweet wrappers, crisp packets, and empty beer cans, and the rear seat had a balled-up sleeping bag across it. The key remained in the ignition. Jo took a handkerchief from her pocket, leant through the open window and started the engine. It turned over a couple of times, but the fuel gauge was bottomed out.
‘Empty,’ she said. ‘They had to dump it.’
Towards the rear, Jo could see now the route by which the car had reached its current resting place, cutting a six-foot-wide swathe through the willow. Maybe they’d made the decision quickly, pulling off the main road and ending up here. Carrick, at the back, said, ‘Rear plate’s gone.’
Jo checked the front and found it was the same.
Carrick popped the boot open.
‘Anything?’ she asked.
‘Ammo box,’ he said. Jo joined him and saw an empty cardboard box with the name of a well-known sport-shooting manufacturer.
‘Must’ve taken them from the Baileys’ house,’ she said.
‘So he’s still got the shotgun,’ Carrick added.
He closed the boot and waved to the helicopter above, shielding his eyes from the sun with his free hand. The chopper turned and wheeled away.
‘They won’t get far,’ he said.
Jo wanted to agree with him. If the road cameras didn’t locate them in the stolen Audi soon, every force within thirty miles would be out looking. The question was, what were they planning? Keeping the shotgun set alarm bells ringing. Most murder weapons were dumped, because they were obvious hard evidence linking suspect to crime. If their guy was holding on to his, that spoke volumes about his mindset. Either he was supremely confident of not getting caught, or he wasn’t intending on ever coming quietly.
Jo turned from the sun, blinking away bright spots, and was about to follow Andy Carrick back in the direction of the road when something caught her eye.
‘Boss …’
He turned back towards her, and she pointed at the car’s chassis, just beneath the rear windscreen.
Someone had written, likely using a fingertip, in the thick dust and dirt than covered the blue paint. The letters spelled, very clearly, a message.
HELP GREG. HE’S COMING.
JAMES
TWO WEEKS EARLIER
He arrived back at the squat just after eight am, entering through the back door. The house would once have been grand, but just about everything had been stripped away over time, even the carpets. He went up to his room on the third floor, passing a couple of open doors where familiar faces were going about the business of blocking out their wretched lives and slowly poisoning their bodies.
At the top of the stairs, the first thing he noticed was the padlock on his door was hanging loose. What the fuck? He considered turning and leaving, getting as far away as possible, but couldn’t. All his stuff was in there.
So instead he crept to the door and looked inside. Dasha, or Desha, or whatever her fucking name was – a stick-thin junkie bitch he’d passed once or twice – was crouching over one of his bags. She must’ve heard his foot on a creaking floorboard, because she stood quickly, staggering a little for balance.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
He saw her pathetic brain ticking away, trying to find an excuse. Her mouth worked silently. He stepped into the room, and she backed away.
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind.’
‘What you making?’ she said, nodding nervously at a pile of stuff in the corner. Wires, some tools, a circuit board, nails.
‘Just a little project,’ he said.
‘I wasn’t nicking.’
‘Go on, off you trot, eh?’
He stood aside so she could leave. She looked at the gap he’d left for her.
‘I promise I wasn’t nicking. Really.’
‘I know,’ said James, with a smile. ‘It’s fine.’
She nodded, wringing her hands, and made for the door. On the way through, he caught her by the hair and yanked her backwards. With a foot behind her leg, he tripped her and dragged her to the ground in the middle of the room, straddling her body. She managed a single squeal before he had a blanket over her head. She tried to claw at his face, but he swatted the arm away, maintaining pressure over her mouth and nose with his other hand. She couldn’t have weighed more than six stone, and it was like manhandling a child.
When she finally went limp, he lifted the blanket, tossing it to one side. Her eyes were still open, in a slightly confused stare. ‘Your own fault, sweetheart,’ he said. He was sweating, despite the cold in the room.
This hadn’t been part of the plan.
But it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. He lifted one of her brittle hands to check the nails. He didn’t think she’d actually managed to scratch him, so there shouldn’t be any of his DNA. He tried to think straight. An autopsy would likely be done – even on a worthless specimen like her – but they wouldn’t rush. And judging by the traffic of waifs and strays coming through this place, there’d be a dozen other suspects when they eventually found her. Besides, no one here knew his name. One of two might give a description, but he couldn’t imagine them getting anything resembling a true likeness.
He hauled the girl to the corner of the room, behind an old set of shelves, and sat her up out of sight of the door. Under her empty gaze, James loaded his things into his two bags – a holdall and a rucksack. He made sure he took every scrap of wire, every nail, every piece of gaffer tape. He rolled the blanket. On the way out, he fastened the padlock again and wiped off any prints. It would be a few days before the decomposition of Desha or Dasha began to penetrate the scrambled consciousnesses of those downstairs.
* * *
He tossed the blanket in a skip half a mile away, and the key to the lock in a bin outside a newsagent at the end of Canterbury Road, the place Megan appeared to be staying.
Her life was still a bit of a mystery to him. After their first encounter, he’d stayed well clear for a full two weeks. Getting close was too risky after that reaction. But for the last seven days he’d been back to Marsh Hill. For the first couple of days she didn’t make an appearance at all, and the panic that gripped him was like nothing he’d felt before. To have come all this way, after all this time, only to have her slip through his fingers …
But on the third day she’d shown up, and since that time he’d worked out her movements, to and from 21 Canterbury Road each day. James still wasn’t sure who the old guy was who lived there too, but he guessed it was her grandfather. He’d never met either of his grandparents, and presumed they were as fucked up as his mum and dad, so probably long dead.
The problem was getting Megan alone. He’d acquired a vehicle and if it came to it, he could probably grab her without too much fuss, but that might get them off on the wrong foot. And he really didn’t need an audience. Ideally he’d have waited a few more days, but Desha or Dasha’s unfortunate interference had complicated things. Getting out of Oxford was a priority. He had to speed things up.
She passed him on her normal route at 8.40, and he tracked her from the other side of the street. He’d rehearsed what to say, of course. Hundreds of times. As long as she didn’t scream, or run – if she just looked long enough at his face, surely it would click into place.
She crossed a park – well, more of a grassy square – on the way to school. He watched her through the hedge, then matched his steps to her, planning to intercept her at the gate on the far si
de.
He was thirty metres away when a white car pulled up, loud hip hop playing through the open window. Megan clocked it, and stopped.
The car window rolled down.
‘Not now,’ said Megan. ‘I’m busy.’
The door opened and a stringy Chinese guy climbed out. ‘I asked nicely. Come on.’
‘I’m going to school.’
The man laughed. ‘So?’
‘You heard her – she’s busy,’ said James, approaching.
She saw him, and looked suddenly alarmed.
The kid smiled. ‘Who’s this?’
‘I … I don’t know,’ said Megan.
‘Something funny?’ James added.
The guy looked back to Megan, as if he’d dismissed James completely from his thoughts. ‘You haven’t been answering your phone.’
‘And you can’t take a hint,’ said Megan.
James set down the rucksack, and walked towards the car. Now the kid reached inside to pick up something. James was quicker, and grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him into the street, where he fell. Megan said ‘No!’
James drove a boot into the kid’s kidney, and he howled in pain. He thought about finishing it then, just kicking the guy’s head in, but he forced himself to back away. His prone victim scrambled towards the car. Across the street, a couple of boys in school uniform were watching them.
‘What the fuck are you looking at?’
They turned and walked away. The young man had started the engine. James managed to get one kick on the rear light as the car sped off.
‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ said Megan.
James laughed. ‘I’m not frightened of kids.’
‘He’s got dangerous friends.’
‘Good for him.’ Megan studied him. ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’
‘I kicked you in the bollocks,’ she said.
