The Family Lie

by Jake Cross

  In her eyes was a subtle intensity that unnerved him. He could imagine criminals wilting before her in interrogation rooms.

  ‘She ran away from us all, Nick. Right when you were dumping the money, when everybody was looking elsewhere.’

  Worry and suspicion were firing up anger, but he dampened it. ‘She ran when she heard that name, but not for the reason you think. Not because she’s involved in this. She ran because she thinks she knows who took Josie. How can you not see that? How the hell did you become a detective?’

  In her eyes there seemed to be sorrow – for him. As if she felt he was naïve, or just stupid. But he suddenly didn’t care. Right then, as he was saying it, he knew the truth.

  ‘That’s it. Jesus Christ, that’s where she’s gone. That scrapyard.’

  He stood up. She copied. ‘You’re staying here, Nick.’

  He realised the detective had already made plans to visit Watson-Bruce Salvage in search of Anna. And Josie.

  ‘You think she’s hiding out there. With my daughter and fifty grand, preparing for a new life. I think hearing the name Watson-Bruce told Anna exactly who’s got our daughter and she’s gone to that scrapyard to save her. Doesn’t matter which, because Josie’s there either way. So you’re going to take me with you. Or I go on my own. Also doesn’t matter which. Because I’m going either way.’

  Jane was in the playroom, trying to kill time by working out a jigsaw by feel alone, when Nick entered to say goodbye to her. And: ‘I promise I’ll get Josie back.’

  She held out her hand for his. ‘Don’t blame yourself, Nicky.’

  ‘Someone needs to. I should have stopped them taking her. It wasn’t like I was asleep and they sneaked in. I confronted them. I had a chance to stop this.’

  ‘And you were lucky you didn’t get killed. At least Josie will have a father to come back to.’

  They hugged. As he turned, he found Middleton watching from a doorway for a second time that day. This time Anna’s father didn’t vanish, though. He waved his mobile. ‘I’ve just had a call, Jane. A break-in at my garage. I need to go talk to the security company. Will you be okay here?’

  She nodded. ‘There are still people to call. I need to be here when Josie comes back. And Anna.’

  He nodded. And left without a word. His car was pulling away as Nick exited the house.

  On the pavement, Nick stopped to take in the empty spaces on the street, where some of the visitors to the house had parked. But those people had gone now: the Family Liaison Officer, the search team, the forensics team; one by one they had left, probably to continue their jobs at a station or lab. And the foul detective, Nabi, had been sent away by his boss to chase up a dangling end on some other investigation. Their absence at the house, the settling quiet in the rooms, had begun to give a feeling of wind-down, of finality, like a stabling of the air. Like the endgame. He couldn’t shake the feeling that this trip to the scrapyard, where answers, and his family, might be kept, would be where that stable air was disrupted, and the storm would open up to play out the final act in this drama. Closure was drawing close.

  But a happy ending wasn’t guaranteed.

  Eleven

  A few miles outside Northampton was Harpole, and half a mile north of it was Watson-Bruce Salvage, nestled in woods and fields and boxed in by a hill and two roads that met in an L-shape. Apart from a desert oasis of running liquid gold, the last thing Nick expected to see on the smaller of those two tracks was what they came across in a large lay-by around a bend.

  Four, he counted: vans. Six: cars. Four: motorbikes, two of them off-road machines, and like their riders conspicuous because they didn’t have Northamptonshire Police livery.

  ‘A raid?’ Nick said, shocked, but happy. A blitz attack on the scrapyard would give the kidnappers no time to… hurt Josie or Anna. Miller affirmed as the DS slipped the car in behind a van. But that was all she gave him apart from an order to stay in the vehicle. She and Bennet got out to meet an approaching man clad in not much less than full riot gear. Nick buzzed with energy and impatience, knowing Josie could be just a few hundred metres away, but he stayed seated. They could easily have refused to bring him and he didn’t want to be sent away now. Not that he would have gone.

  Miller was back a couple of minutes later, with some rules.

  ‘Okay, I’m not the boss here today. We’ve enlisted another police force, but it’s their old show, and we can’t be ungrateful. They’ll secure the site before we go in. They’ll let you in afterwards, my friend, but only if you stay by my side. They’ll strike quickly to preserve evidence, then call us in.’

  ‘Josie?’

  ‘They know about Josie. But we still have to wait. And they can’t go in just yet, I’m afraid.’

  He’d remained calm and patient on the way down, partly out of fear that rushing might mean finding Josie dead all the sooner. Now, though, with the scrapyard within reach, with Josie minutes from being in her father’s embrace, Nick felt all his pulsating impatience and rage bubbling up. He could have sat still more easily on burning coals. So:

  ‘Why?’ he hissed. ‘We’re right here.’

  ‘Apologies. But please be calm. We have to wait because there’s another site.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The entire Watson-Bruce clan, they’ve been involved in the scrap trade for ever. And petty crime. The chap who opened this place, like decades ago, one of his kids runs it now. Robert Watson-Bruce. A daughter called Rhona runs another scrapyard, which is way up north. I only just learned this, sorry. That other scrapyard is in Sunderland.’

  Sunderland. A solid connection there, which decreased the chances that Watson-Bruce Salvage was a red herring; but Nick could only focus on the fear that—

  ‘Josie might be up there, is that what you’re saying? A hundred miles away?’

  ‘We don’t know. I’m sorry. Northumbria Police have a team tasked with storming that place. Both teams are to go together, and we’re having to wait for things to be ready up that end. We really should be grateful, my friend, because this has all moved very quickly.’

  ‘Because my daughter’s in danger.’ He grabbed Bennet’s iPad from the empty driver’s seat. He’d earlier been shown a series of aerial photographs of the site, with Xs to mark intriguing spots. Three of those had been walls of smashed cars, but there were a couple of outhouses, a metal shed by a stream, and the main house, where the owners lived. And what Nick looked at now: a rotting old caravan in a shrubbery-infested corner. It looked abandoned, except that it was connected to a generator and gas tanks.

  Suddenly, he was certain Josie was being kept there. But that location was at the far end of the site, easily two hundred metres from the entrance. Not even trained cops on motorbikes could get there quick enough to stop someone slicing Josie’s throat, and Anna’s, when they heard the front gate booted in.

  ‘Let me go in alone. I’ll sneak in, and I’ll say I ran from you, so no one gets in trouble. I’ll get into that caravan before – why not?’

  She’d been slowly shaking her head. ‘I know you feel a bit impotent, but we need to preserve evidence, especially if Josie isn’t present. These people cannot be allowed a chance to destroy that evidence. So both sites go down at once. After that, we’ll go in. You’re not here, Nick, to kick open doors. You’re here so Josie, if she’s here, can ride home right there on the comfy back seat with her dad instead of a bunch of strangers.’

  Nick didn’t miss that she hadn’t painted Anna on to that comfy back seat. ‘So it’s nothing to do with needing me to negotiate with my wife in case of some stand-off?’

  Miller’s lack of answer was answer enough.

  The team way up in Fatfield, Sunderland was ready to rock, so the order came through and engines kicked into life. The bikes were faster, but they held back bar one, whose rider would determine if the gate was locked, and if it was, a van would change that. It was only a thirty-second trip.

  The compound was inside a flimsy corr
ugated iron fence held up by wooden posts, the gate thick and sturdy but also secured only by wood driven into earth. But there was no need to smash it open.

  As the strike team rounded the last corner, a mechanic who’d just slipped out for a cigarette, froze and watched what seemed like an entire police force bearing down on him. Tyres screeched, doors opened, and an army emerged. Miller’s car pulled into the other side of the road.

  The shocked employee was a bearded young man, big, muscles upon muscles, as if he’d personally hoisted every wreck into the yard from the corners of Britain. He stood before the open gate like Hercules guarding the entrance to Heaven, arms folded, as if his untold thirteenth labour was to stop anyone from entering. But he stepped aside as officers got close. And he said nothing as they pushed through the gate and ran inside, followed by cars and vans and bikes. He was approached by an officer with paperwork. Miller exited the car and accompanied someone inside the scrapyard.

  Nick felt like a guy sidelined at a party. He watched the gateway and prayed a police officer would emerge with Anna, with Josie in her arms.

  ‘Nabi didn’t turn up at the station,’ Bennet said, which made Nick look up. But the DS was on his phone, probably to his boss, who was still inside the scrapyard. ‘I don’t know. I’ll have someone call him.’

  ‘Why are you talking about him?’ Nick snapped. ‘Forget him. What’s going on inside there?’

  Bennet held up a hand for silence. Nick returned his eyes to the carpet and tried not to let the wait burn him up.

  Bennet signed off and said Nick’s name. Nick didn’t look up.

  ‘My boss just got news. The phone you tossed in the River Don has been analysed. The first male caller was somewhere close to Bongo Bingo, but moving away, towards Sheffield. It was tracked by a number of cell towers. The final tower was only a mile from your home. We think he was the man Anna must have met when she ran.’

  ‘Don’t say it like that. Like it was all part of her plan.’

  ‘The second caller, who contacted you at the train station, must have been the quad rider. You were transferred to him because he needed pinpoint timing to get you to toss the money from the train at the right moment.’

  ‘So, what, three teams now?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Just two. I would guess that the female caller is being directed by ringleaders here at ground zero because she can make calls on the move. That way we’re looking further south while the main players operate up here. A distraction. Both males were in Rotherham city centre originally. One stayed behind. Just the quad rider. CCTV covering your garden showed four perpetrators and there’s no reason to believe we’re dealing with a larger number.’

  ‘Have you found that damn quad? They don’t exactly blend in.’

  ‘It must have transferred to a larger vehicle. We’re on the CCTV and seeking witnesses. But it all takes time, Nick.’

  Time. Time was something he could feel eroding his mind from the inside out, like acidic cerebrospinal fluid.

  Bennet said, ‘These traces are going – Wow, Nick, what are you doing? Stay in the car.’

  ‘I need a piss,’ Nick said as he kicked open the door and got out.

  A lot of woodland had been erased for the salvage yard. Just inside was a shipping container turned into an office, and there was a dirt tennis court behind it. A wide dirt track led to a large open area split into a grid by short rows of cars stacked high, like walls. The rows might have denoted an orderliness upheld at the start of trading, but deeper in it was obvious to spot where laziness and space-saving became the order of the day. The ground was littered with fragments of cars, the aisles were no longer ruler straight, and here and there loose cars lurked like the homeless. In places walls of cars had toppled and vehicles had been left overturned and smashed. At the back were crushed vehicles and mountainous metal hills.

  The high-definition aerial map Nick had studied had also shown him that the line of trees running up to the compound along the side of the road was thin. Behind, a stream that ran parallel right up to the compound wall, then veered left to follow it. The Watson-Bruce clan had utilised as much ground as they could.

  He started to walk across the road, towards the trees. He glanced back to see Bennet climbing out of the car. The detective jerked a thumb towards the bushes on the other side of the road.

  ‘Don’t play about, Nick. Piss this side.’

  Probably not the first time a police officer had heard such a line from a guy planning to make a break for it. He wasn’t about to be surprised today.

  ‘Stop, Nick. Come on, man.’

  Nick was in the trees a second later, just feet from the iron fencing. Eight steps later the trees vanished, so abruptly he almost sailed out into the river. The bank was barely wide enough for him. He stumbled along, water a foot to his left, the sagging corrugated fence a foot to his right. He could clearly hear the raid taking place: police yelling for people to stop, come out, put that down, and their targets bellowing their confusion.

  A hundred metres along, by which time his ankles were burning because of the sloped, summer-hardened earth, the fence and the river turned sharply right, and immediately around the corner he found a section of the barrier that had been broken and replaced by wood. And not set properly. One side leaned inwards, creating a V-shape that he was able to step through.

  The mêlée he’d imagined taking place inside had calmed. Nobody was running, nobody was being pinned down. He couldn’t hear the whine of bikes on the hunt across fields. It wasn’t a drugs cartel stronghold, after all. Men in grimy coveralls were standing around, talking to the police, while other police strolled here and there, looking into nooks and crannies. Some way ahead, one of the outhouses had its door open and there was an officer in the doorway. Beyond that he could see the house, which looked like it was made of corrugated iron painted blue, and this had a police presence outside, too.

  But closer: the caravan. A half-naked guy so tanned he looked like a tree stump sculpture was in the doorway, shaking his head at two officers standing before him. He seemed to be reluctant to let them inside.

  It was all the stimulus Nick needed.

  He rushed that way. Someone shouted for him to stop. Hearing this, the two officers at the caravan turned his way, then stepped into his path. He knew he probably looked like a madman.

  ‘Where’s my daughter, you bastard,’ he yelled, just feet away now. He felt he had the momentum to power through police, tree sculpture and door without missing a beat. But it didn’t happen.

  The wall of police met him and he stopped dead. His feet skidded on the dry earth, like a cartoon character building up to a sprint off the line. ‘No! Get off me. My daughter might be in there!’

  But they didn’t get off. He was lifted by powerful arms. He of the scaly brown skin looked on with puzzlement, but not a shred of fear. One of Nick’s flailing arms got free and accidentally hit flesh. The next instant, he found himself face down in the dirt, hands behind his back and someone’s knee in his spine. Over all the noise he was making, and the orders to calm down, and the vocal confusion of Mister Wooden, Nick actually heard the click of handcuffs snapping on to his wrists. But, worse than all of that, he noticed movement through one of the caravan’s windows. A police officer, already inside with Oak Man, who hadn’t refused entry at all.

  Which meant he had nothing to hide.

  ‘Anna and Josie aren’t here,’ he heard a female shout. He turned his head, cheek scraping against the arid land. Miller, of course, approaching in that casual and patient way of hers. The officers released him and he got to his knees. The cuffs were removed as Miller squatted before him.

  ‘Dominic Watson-Bruce isn’t here, either. Nor is his father, who is off abroad on holiday. No one claims to know where they are or when they’ll be back, and no one knows anything about a kidnapped girl. Apologies, but we didn’t expect to find your family here, Nick. But we did find something we expected.’

  Once the strike
team had determined that there wasn’t a kidnapped child on the premises, although there were some illegal aliens, Miller and her crony had entered the main office to speak with the boss. They came back with a pencil-drawn map of the compound. The two detectives and Nick, free now of his handcuffs, started walking through the maze of walls of cars, and around lonesome vehicles abandoned like lepers. Near the eastern fence, top end, was Zone M-12: a stack of smashed cars eight wide and three high, all missing tyres, windows and doors. No plates, either, but up close he could see registration marks painted in small script onto flanks or bonnets. The pile of wreckage, the scrabbly earth and the burning sun gave an apocalyptic feel to the scene, like something from a Mad Max movie. Bennet approached the middle of the wall and pointed at a blue car in the middle row. Dented to hell, roof half-crushed under the weight of the vehicle above, and Nick stared for a few seconds without realising what he was seeing. Until he noted the registration scrawled on the askew bonnet.

  It didn’t make sense. ‘You came here for this? Why? What’s going on?’

  Bennet didn’t answer. He slipped alongside the Venga beneath the blue car. Nick turned to Miller, demanding an answer with his eyes.

  ‘Yes, Nick, I’m sorry, but we came here for the car. We need to confirm that this is your wife’s old Fiat Punto.’

  Nick squeezed into the small gap between the Venga and its neighbour and looked inside the Punto. Bennet was on the other side, each man’s head visible across the seats. The steering wheel was gone, perhaps sold on at some point. It was weird to see this car again after so many years, and somewhat sad to think that it hadn’t been crushed and turned into Pepsi cans, but had been left to rot. He’d driven this thing in just summer shorts, but now didn’t even want to touch it.