Dance of Ghosts pjc-1

by Kevin Brooks

  ‘Oh, John …’

  ‘It’s all right,’ I told her. ‘It was a set-up. I didn’t actually do anything — ’

  ‘What was the charge?’

  ‘Kerb crawling and drink-driving. But, like I said — ’

  ‘Kerb crawling?’

  ‘It was a set-up, Ada — ’

  ‘And what about the drink-driving? Were you over the limit?’

  ‘Well, yeah, but — ’

  ‘Shit, John. You could lose your fucking licence.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, looking over at Cal. He was clicking his fingers at me, drawing my attention to the laptop screen. ‘I have to go, Ada,’ I said. ‘We’ll talk about this later. But listen, if Bishop or anyone else from the police calls — ’

  ‘I don’t know where you are.’

  ‘Thanks. I might be in later, but if I’m not — ’

  ‘Just let me know what’s happening, John. All right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Cross my heart …’

  ‘And be careful, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  I ended the call, lit a cigarette, and went over to Cal.

  ‘I’ve got it,’ he said, pointing at the laptop screen. ‘The Nissan’s registered to a Charles Raymond Kemper. Fifty-three years old, no points on his licence, a home address in Leicester.’

  ‘Leicester?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ve done a quick search through all the usual databases — phone listings, utilities, council tax, electoral roll — but I haven’t found anything else so far.’ He looked at me. ‘Does the name mean anything to you?’

  ‘Charles Raymond Kemper …?’ I shook my head. ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘I’ll do some more checking,’ Cal said. ‘See what I can find out.’

  ‘All right, but leave it for now. There’s something else I want you to do. And we need to let Bishop know about the registration number too.’

  ‘Have you got his mobile number?’

  ‘I think so,’ I said, taking Bishop’s business card from my pocket and studying it. ‘Yeah, here it is. What do you think we should do? Just text him the number?’

  Cal nodded. ‘There’s no point in letting him know we’ve got the name too. Do you want to send it anonymously?’

  I thought about it, then shook my head. ‘If he doesn’t know who it came from, he might think Tasha sent it. You know, he might think she’s trying to blackmail him. And then he’ll definitely go after her.’

  ‘Yeah, but if he knows that you sent it — ’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, does it? He already knows that Tasha gave me the number, and he must have known there was a chance I’d remember it.’

  ‘Yeah, all right,’ Cal said. ‘But instead of using your mobile, why don’t we use one of my untraceable phones instead? Just text him the registration number, nothing else, and sign it with your initials.’

  ‘What’s the point? If he knows it’s from me anyway — ’

  ‘He’ll think it’s from you,’ Cal said, smiling. ‘He’ll be 99 % certain that the text came from you, but he’ll still try to trace it, just to make sure. And the trace will take him halfway round the world and back. And eventually, after three or four hours, his IT people will realise that the trace is going round and round in circles, and they’re never going to get anywhere with it.’

  ‘And what’s that going to achieve?’

  Cal smiled again. ‘It’ll keep him busy for a while, waste his time … give him something to think about.’

  ‘And piss him off.’

  ‘Yeah, that too.’

  I smiled. ‘OK, let’s do it.’

  After he’d sent the text, Cal said to me, ‘All right, what next?’

  ‘CCTV cameras,’ I said. ‘Can you hack into them?’

  ‘What kind of CCTV?’

  ‘Just the usual stuff, you know …’

  ‘Town-centre cameras, that kind of thing?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He nodded. ‘No problem.’

  ‘What about old footage?’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘A month or so.’

  He looked at me. ‘The night Anna disappeared?’

  ‘Yeah. I know it’s a long shot, but if we can find any footage of the Nissan around the time that Anna was picked up that night, it might give us an idea of where she was being taken. Do you think you can do that?’

  Cal had to think about it for a while, but eventually he said, ‘Well … I’ve never actually tried hacking into archived recordings, but it should be easy enough. All the public surveillance cameras in Hey are operated by the council, and they probably store the archived footage on hard disks in their system …’ He grinned at me. ‘The security on the council’s computer system is notoriously pathetic. In fact, it’s so ridiculously easy to get into that some hackers think it’s an insult to their intelligence and they refuse to go anywhere near it on principle — ’

  ‘Right,’ I said impatiently. ‘So you can get into it?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And if I tell you as much as I know about Anna’s whereabouts that night, do you think it’s possible to track her?’

  ‘It all depends on the location of the cameras,’ he said, turning to his laptop. ‘All right, let’s see … the first thing we need is a site map of all the cameras …’

  I must have sat beside Cal, watching him do his thing, for at least a couple of hours, maybe longer. It was an incredible experience. Most of what he was doing was way beyond my comprehension, but although I didn’t really know what he was doing, it was impossible not to admire the skill and tenacity with which he was doing it — his fingers skipping gracefully over the keyboard while his eyes focused almost fanatically on the screen … it was entrancing, like watching a genius at work. Of course, the amphetamine was really buzzing through me now, and I’m sure that played some part in the sheer intensity of my enchantment, but still … it was a hell of a thing to witness.

  We didn’t speak very much for the first hour or so when Cal was actually getting into the system, and that was fine with me. I’d done enough talking over the last few days to last me a lifetime, and I was perfectly happy just sitting there quietly, smoking cigarettes and staring dumbly at the inner workings of cyberspace as they streamed up and down the screen.

  Once Cal had accessed the system though, we needed to work together, and that’s what we did for the next hour and a half. Cal asked me questions — what time did Anna leave The Wyvern? what route would she have taken to get to London Road? what time did she get there? what time did she get picked up by the Nissan? — and I did my best to answer them as accurately as possible. We didn’t get all that far at first because London Road was right at the edge of the area covered by the council’s CCTV cameras, but Cal quickly realised that both the railway bridge itself and the neighbouring mainline and branchline tracks were covered by a number of Network Rail CCTV cameras, and once he’d hacked into their archived footage — which didn’t take him long — we finally had the coverage that might just be enough to show us something.

  ‘Now all we’ve got to do is find her,’ Cal said.

  It took us a long time, at least another three hours, and it was a painstakingly tedious task which gave both of us throbbing headaches and aching eyes, but eventually we reached the stage where we’d managed to track Anna — through a series of blurred and stuttered images — from the bottom of Miller’s Row all the way down to London Road. And now Cal had loaded the footage from a camera that was located about fifty metres south of the railway bridge, looking back at the lay-by, and we were both peering intently at the screen, our eyes fixed on the smallish grey blob of a figure that we knew to be Anna Gerrish. We’d seen her arrive at the lay-by at 01.31, and now — according to the read-out at the bottom of the screen — it was 01.47. So far, nothing had happened. Although the picture quality was poor, the view from the camera couldn’t have been better. It showed the whole of the lay-by, the tunn
el entrance/exit, and the road leading towards it from the bridge. There was very little traffic around at that time of night, and none of the cars we’d seen so far had stopped at the lay-by.

  We just had to wait.

  ‘What time did Tasha say she saw the Nissan?’ Cal asked me, without taking his eyes off the screen.

  ‘She thought it was around two-ish.’

  Cal nodded.

  I leaned closer to the screen as headlights appeared in the tunnel … but the car didn’t stop. I watched it drive past the lay-by, approach the camera, and then disappear.

  I said to Cal, ‘Where does this road go anyway?’

  ‘South from here?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘London Road ends at the entrance to the tunnel. After that it becomes Great Hey Road. It follows the railway tracks for a while, maybe half a mile, then there’s a right turn that takes you back into town, but if you stay on Great Hey Road and keep going … hold on, what’s that?’

  Another pair of headlights had appeared in the tunnel, this time moving quite slowly. We both leaned in closer to the screen again. The headlights were on full, the glare making it impossible to see what kind of car it was. But as it approached the end of the tunnel, it definitely seemed to be slowing down.

  ‘This could be it,’ Cal said quietly.

  The car was coming out of the tunnel now, its left-side indicator flashing. It pulled in at the lay-by, and as I watched the grey blob that was Anna walking towards it, I felt an irrational urge to shout out to her — Don’t do it, Anna! Don’t get in the car! But of course, after leaning in through the passenger window and talking to the driver for ten seconds or so, she got in.

  ‘Shit,’ Cal whispered.

  The headlights were still on full beam as the car pulled away, and at that distance there was no chance of identifying the driver. But now the car was coming towards us, getting closer all the time … and we both had our faces almost pressed to the screen … and just as the car was about to pass the camera and disappear from view, another car appeared, travelling in the opposite direction, and our driver had to dip his lights. And just for a second, we had a relatively clear picture of our car. But it was, literally, only for a second, and then the car was gone.

  ‘Did you see him?’ I asked Cal.

  ‘No, it was too quick.’

  ‘Shit.’

  He grinned at me. ‘It’s not live …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a recording, we can watch it as many times as we want.’ He started tapping the keyboard. ‘You didn’t really think it was live, did you?’

  I leaned back in the chair, rubbing my eyes, trying to bring myself back to reality. I knew exactly where I was and what I’d been doing for the last few hours, but I was feeling that slightly odd sensation — a kind of gradually dawning awareness — that can come to you at the end of a really engrossing film. And that, in turn, was making me feel really uncomfortable. Because what I’d just witnessed wasn’t a film … it wasn’t a drama, played out by actors. It was real. A real girl, getting into a real car with a real man … a man who was quite possibly about to kill her.

  There was nothing engrossing about that.

  ‘There,’ said Cal. ‘That’s as clear as I can get it.’

  I looked at the screen. He’d re-run the CCTV footage and frozen it just before the car disappeared from view. The static image was still fairly blurred and grainy, but it clearly showed a man in the driving seat, and a girl in the passenger seat, and when I half closed my eyes and squinted at the faces, it was just possible to see — or, at least, to imagine — that the man matched Tasha’s description, and that the girl was Anna. But, of course, my imagination was probably swayed by the fact that I already knew it was Anna.

  ‘What do you think?’ Cal said.

  ‘Is that the best you can do?’

  ‘I could enlarge it, but all that’d do is make it even blurrier.’

  ‘You can’t get it any clearer?’

  ‘No … I know someone in the States who could maybe clean it up a bit. But he’s really expensive, and he’s got a really long waiting list. He probably couldn’t do it for at least a couple of weeks, probably a month.’

  I leaned forward and squinted at the images again. ‘It could be Bishop …’

  ‘It could be anyone.’

  ‘What about the car?’

  ‘Well, it’s definitely a Nissan Almera — ’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Yeah, but I can’t make out the number plate.’

  I leaned back, lit a cigarette, and looked at my watch. It was just gone four o’clock. Deep down inside me I could feel the faint stirrings of the black place again, and I knew that it wouldn’t be too long before it dragged me down into its void. But it wasn’t quite ready for me yet. And the black pills in my pocket would help to keep it at bay for a while.

  ‘What time does it get dark?’ I said to Cal.

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Six, half-past …? Why?’

  ‘Great Hey Road …’ I said, gazing at the frozen image on the laptop screen. ‘It carries on down to the coast, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Cal said, frowning at me, not sure why I was asking. ‘It takes you out past the Ranges, through all those little villages … and it ends up at Hale Island.’

  I nodded, remembering now. I hadn’t been to Hale Island for years, but when I was a kid we used to drive down there on Sunday afternoons for family strolls on the beach … my mother and father walking together, talking quietly to each other, while I went off on my own … scuffing along the strandline, kicking up junk, looking for jewels — tropical beans, cuttlefish bones, mermaid’s purses …

  I was happy then.

  ‘John?’

  I looked at Cal.

  He said, ‘Are you all right? You look a bit — ’

  ‘Can you see if you can find some more footage of the Nissan?’ I said to him, getting to my feet. ‘Try and see where this guy went with Anna?’

  Cal nodded. ‘I can try … there’s a few more Network Rail cameras that might have picked him up, but that’s before the turn-off back to town. After that … well, I’ll have to check, but I don’t think there’s too many cameras along Great Hey Road.’ He looked at me, frowning again. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m just going to take a drive out there, before it gets too dark.’

  ‘Out where?’

  I looked at the image on the screen again. ‘I’ll start at the lay-by, and then … I don’t know. Just keep going, I suppose.’ I looked back at Cal. ‘I know it sounds stupid — ’

  ‘Yeah, it does. I mean, you’re not going to find anything, are you?’

  ‘I know. But I just need to do something, Cal. Even if it’s pointless … I need to feel like I’m doing something.’

  He looked at me for a while, chewing his lip … and just for a moment he reminded me so much of Stacy. It wasn’t just the family resemblance — although Cal did have the same natural beauty as Stacy — but the way he was chewing his lip and looking at me … Stacy used to do exactly the same thing when she was worried about me, especially when she was worried about my state of mind.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said quietly to Cal. ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘Honestly?’

  I smiled. ‘Yeah.’

  He nodded. ‘OK.’

  ‘So you’ll keep working on the CCTV stuff?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And you’ll let me know — ’

  ‘I’ll call you whether I find anything or not.’

  ‘And if you’ve got the time — ’

  ‘I’ll see what I can find out about Charles Raymond Kemper.’

  ‘Thanks, Cal.’

  ‘Oh, and before you go …’ he said, fumbling around through the clutter on his desk. ‘Hold on … where the fuck is it? I know I put it somewhere … ah, there it is.’ He got up, came over to me, and handed me a flash drive.

  ‘What’s this?’ I said.
>
  ‘The video footage that was on that damaged memory card you gave me … I’ve transferred it all to the flash drive.’

  It took me a moment to realise what he was talking about, but then I remembered — the StayBright case, Preston Elliot and his ball-peen hammer …

  It seemed like a long time ago.

  ‘Was it all still there?’ I asked Cal.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘You’re a genius,’ I said, pocketing the flash drive.

  He smiled. ‘I know.’

  Before I left, I went to the bathroom and swallowed another pill. I knew that I’d pay for it later — because the longer the black place is kept at bay, the blacker it is when it finally comes — but later was later. Right now, my only real concern was how Stacy would have felt about me taking the pills … and as I went over and looked in the bathroom mirror, and my fucked-up eyes stared back at me, I could hear the anger and exasperation in Stacy’s voice as she told me not to be so stupid …

  You don’t need pills, John. You don’t need to keep doing this to yourself.

  ‘I’m sorry, Stace,’ I muttered, pocketing the bottle of pills. ‘I’m just …’

  Just what?

  ‘Nothing … I’m just sorry.’

  15

  The business of death …

  ‘Did he rape her before stabbing her?’

  ‘We believe the wounds were inflicted during the rape.’

  ‘And then he strangled her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did he get into the house?’

  ‘There were no signs of forced entry, so at the moment we’re assuming that Stacy let him in. Which either means that she knew him, or she was somehow tricked into letting him in.’

  ‘Do you know what time it happened?’

  DI Delaney looks through the papers in the file. ‘The pathologist estimates the time of death at between 3.30 and 4.45. Stacy’s watch, which was broken during the attack, was stopped at 4.17.’ He looks at me. ‘You were still at work, John. You couldn’t have done anything.’

  It’s a pointless thing to say, but I don’t hold it against him. I ask, ‘Have you got any witnesses?’

  He shakes his head. ‘Not yet.’