by Alison Bruce
Why hadn’t he remembered the Rain Check Tree? Why hadn’t he noticed it there when he’d gone in with Phil? ‘Police, let me through.’ A few stepped aside, he repeated himself and pushed forward, through the doorway. And for a moment wondered whether he hadn’t noticed it because it had gone.
‘Move aside!’ he shouted.
But he knew it would be there. Notes promising drinks had been pinned there for years. A round to say congratulations. A pint bought for a baby at birth, redeemable on their eighteenth birthday.
A sorry-I-missed-you drink.
Goodhew was only a couple of feet away from the bar when he saw the first of the white memo-block squares pinned to the upright beam. ‘Police!’ he yelled. ‘I need to reach the bar.’
Someone chipped in with, ‘Queue like everyone else.’
A couple of his mates laughed.
No one moved much, there just wasn’t the space. Goodhew pushed through the final gap between the two nearest drinkers and started snatching at the squares of paper.
The landlord stopped serving. ‘What do you need?’
‘Anything recent.’
The landlord came over and grabbed a handful; Goodhew did the same. ‘How recent?’ the man asked.
‘Last four weeks,’ Goodhew told him.
‘They don’t always get pinned on top, so check them all.’
Goodhew nodded and pulled down the next clutch of notes. The man standing next to him did the same. Goodhew reached for the sheets. ‘Here, let me.’
The man held them out of Goodhew’s reach. Began shuffling them haphazardly. Protruding from under the man’s thumb were the letters ‘S-H-A’. ‘Hand it over now!’ Goodhew barked, snatching the message from the man’s grasp.
She’d written across it diagonally in large block letters, YOUR ROUND NEXT TIME!! And at the top of the sheet, in much smaller writing, the man’s name.
Goodhew held it tightly and turned for the door. Despite the crush of people, their noise and their pub-crawl-addled wits, he broke through in moments, bursting out to Four Lamps and his car.
Now he understood Tony Brett and what the conversation had meant. And he knew why Tony Brett had had no plans to share the identity of the killer of his own children.
Why would he, when Tony Brett thought he could reach the killer first?
FIFTY-FOUR
Matt was still sitting slumped on the pavement when he saw the pulse of police lights against the walls of the whitewashed houses at the Midsummer Common end of the street. He wasn’t particularly curious. He couldn’t imagine the King Street Run taking place without at least a minor emergency. Even so, he gave in to the basic urge not to miss out on anything, and clambered to his feet.
Then he spotted the man pushing through the drinkers and heading into the St Radegund: DC Goodhew.
Now it was Matt’s turn to push forward.
There were two doors to the pub, and he chose the closer. He’d caught his first glimpse of inside just as Goodhew broke away from some activity at the bar and pelted towards the other exit.
Matt backed out of the door and chased after Goodhew, but the detective was both quicker and probably completely sober. By the time Matt arrived at the police car, Goodhew was already inside with the engine running. Matt threw himself in front of the bonnet, shouting, ‘Stop, stop!’ – until he realized that Goodhew was shouting into his radio and simultaneously reaching across to open the passenger door.
‘Get in.’ Then, to the radio, ‘I’ve got Matt Stone.’
From the radio: ‘We’re running his van through ANPR, see if we can track it.’
They signed off and Goodhew turned to look at Matt properly for the first time. His expression sobered Matt in a heartbeat. He had no idea exactly what he was about to hear, but knew it was going to alter the course of his life.
Not Libby . . . no, not Libby.
Goodhew already had the car in gear, handbrake off, foot over the accelerator. The moments before Goodhew spoke seemed to stretch for an eternity. Matt understood: he had to listen carefully, respond accurately. Goodhew was looking at him to make a difference.
‘Matt, we need to find Colin Wren immediately. You’ve known him a long time. Where would he go?’
‘His house – our house if he’s with Dad.’
‘Does he have a key?’
‘Knows where to find it.’
Goodhew radioed that through. ‘Where else?’
‘I don’t know.’ Goodhew hadn’t driven off yet, so Matt knew he wasn’t giving the right answer. ‘Oh, shit, yes, the allotment. Arbury Road.’
That was enough: they shot forward, accelerating towards Arbury.
Goodhew spoke to the radio: it spoke back. Some of it passed Matt by but he understood enough: helicopter scrambled, cars going to multiple locations, ambulance and police in attendance at 57 Brimley Close.
A jolt of shock went through him. ‘What’s happened to Libby?’
Goodhew’s eyes were pinned on the road. ‘We don’t know.’
‘But she’s hurt?’
‘We’re trying to find her.’
No, no, Matt wasn’t buying that. He needed to know. ‘Don’t hide it from me. They’ve just said there’s a fucking ambulance at her house.’
‘Her mother’s been attacked. Her dad’s missing. His car has gone from outside their house.’
‘And you think Colin’s behind it?’
‘Yes.’ Flat, matter-of-fact.
They were rounding Mitcham’s Corner now. Matt had been round here a hundred times in Colin’s van, helping him with planting. Helping his dad to help Colin. And helping his dad keep his job with Colin – that lifeline they’d all been thrown by his dad’s best friend from school. He didn’t want to believe it. The man had been like family, and all the time . . . ‘He killed Nathan?’ His voice hovered between doubt and disbelief. ‘And Rosie? And Meg and Shanie?’
‘Meg really was a suicide. Shanie was killed with insulin, there was none present for Meg.’
‘Okay.’ Matt didn’t know why he said that. It was just his mouth running solo for a minute, while his brain tried to lock on to something else. He just didn’t know what.
‘Matt?’ He swung the car into Milton Road. Goodhew’s voice sounded urgent. ‘Matt?’ he repeated.
‘What?’
‘I said, “Does Libby’s mum have her own car?”’
Matt scowled back. ‘Yes. I thought you people had records of these things.’
‘What’s she got?’
‘Astra. Silver. It’s old.’
‘Registration?’
‘No idea.’
‘How long’s she had it?’
‘Couple of months.’
‘Shame she didn’t put it in her name,’ Goodhew muttered as he passed the sparse details into the control room. In the distant sky Matt saw the flying dot of the police helicopter. ‘Insulin is a registered drug?’ Matt didn’t know whether Goodhew was asking Matt himself, or the radio. Just as he turned to look at Goodhew, the car swung across the road, through 180 degrees and accelerated back towards Mitcham’s Corner.
‘What?’ Matt gasped, then shouted, ‘Turn round, you’re going the wrong way!’
‘Which is Colin Wren’s biggest contract?’
‘Ferry House.’ By far the biggest, hence the innumerable van journeys between home, allotment and Chesterton, passing through Mitcham’s Corner.
‘Is that the only place with their own greenhouses?’
‘Yes, two greenhouses and a small workshop. It’s part of the deal. Colin uses them like they’re his own.’
‘And you know your way around?’
Matt nodded. ‘I’ve worked for him on Saturdays and school holidays before.’
‘So it was Colin who encouraged you to study horticulture?’
‘Yes. And because I love it.’
‘Do the staff and residents trust him?’
‘Absolutely.’ Matt’s tutor had banged home the importance of backing
an answer with evidence. He scooted round his brain for the right anecdote and it hit him like a smack between the eyes. The very thought he’d been unable to grab just a few minutes earlier.
Reading labels, unscrewing jars, reaching on top of cupboards.
Some of the residents lived without the intrusion of nurses and carers, independent apart from the security of an on-site warden. Most of them trusted him enough to let him in their flats, to offer him a coffee and ask him to give them a hand with an occasional five-minute job here and there. Five-minute jobs like helping them count out their pills and check on how many days were left until they needed to renew their prescriptions. He could almost hear the barely disguised puzzlement in their voices: Really? I thought I had more left than that.
And Colin hadn’t been keeping Matt’s dad away from the residents for their own benefit; he’d done it for his own. How many misplaced insulin doses had been dealt with quietly rather than risk an accusation that the resident was showing signs of becoming unfit to cope alone?
He nodded. ‘And Libby would probably trust him too.’ Goodhew was back on the radio, telling them where he was now heading. Matt waited until he’d finished. ‘How d’you know that’s where he’s going?’
They came off Chesterton Road, on to the roundabout at the junction of Elizabeth Way and off again at the turn for Chesterton High Street. They were getting close now. ‘How do you know?’ Matt repeated.
‘I don’t. All we can do is cover as many places as we can, as fast as we can. You shouldn’t even be in the front of the car like this, but now you’re here . . .’
‘What does he want?’
Goodhew shot him a glance. It was enough to convince him that Matt could handle the truth. ‘To kill Libby,’ he replied.
Matt felt a double bolt of pain, heart and stomach twisting in unison. ‘He’ll never get away with it.’
‘He doesn’t need to. She’s the last one.’
FIFTY-FIVE
Sue Gully was alone in the room with Charlotte Stone, and on the table between them was Libby’s laptop. Charlotte could see nothing but the open lid and a partially obscured view of the young policewoman’s face.
From Gully’s side of the table the view was more interesting. Libby’s dialogue with the fictitious Zoe ran on for several pages, but it wasn’t exactly a novel and Gully’s first question sprang up before she’d even started the first page. ‘Have you read any of this?’
‘Just the first page. When I realized what it was, I called DC Goodhew.’
‘Why were you worried if you hadn’t read it?’
‘The girl, Zoe Kipfer, used to be at our school. She got ill and died several years ago, so I knew the messages were fake. My first thought was that someone was posing as her to trick Libby. That’s why I panicked and rang him.’
‘And you read enough to work out that Libby was essentially messaging herself?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Why not read on?’
Charlotte’s attention dropped on to the back of the PC; maybe she was trying to stare right through and catch up for lost time. After a few seconds her gaze jumped back to Gully. ‘I’m not sure. I knew Libby was missing and I just stared at the words and none of them seemed to sink in.’
That made sense. Gully reckoned everyone had that threshold.
She went back to the laptop and started reading. Nothing sprang out at her the way she hoped; there was no ‘don’t-tell-Matt-but-Ialways-meet-his-dad’s-best-friend-in-the-gazebo’ style confession.
Instead Gully was hearing Libby’s anguish, her longing for the truth. The girl was baring her soul in these messages, and she turned out to be bolder and braver than Gully ever would have guessed. Libby had known the picture of Rosie’s and Nathan’s deaths had been wrong. Gully imagined her fear as she held on to that truth when no one official would take her seriously. It was uncomfortable reading. She wished Libby had reached out to her, asked her for help the same way as she was telling Zoe.
Could it have been different?
Gully scrolled down and her frown deepened. She glanced across at Charlotte then back to the screen.
She reread the paragraph, and inside her head her thoughts screeched to a standstill, making the kind of internal sound similar to when her grandmother used to drag the stylus off an old 45 before it had finished playing.
‘Kincaide?’ she blurted.
Charlotte looked startled. But guilty.
‘Michael fucking Kincaide?’ Gully didn’t swear out loud. There was a time and a place, after all, but she was almost overwhelmed with the desire to blurt out every rarely used profanity that she’d ever heard. ‘You and Kincaide?’ she asked again, even though there was zero chance that she and Charlotte weren’t on the same wavelength at that moment.
‘I asked him for advice about Rosie and Nathan.’
‘And he said what? “Let’s discuss it after sex”? I don’t think so.’
‘Look, it wasn’t like that. He seemed okay, approachable – that’s why I thought he might be prepared to help. I explained I just wanted him to have one last dig, see if anything seemed wrong.’
‘Cut the innuendo.’
‘Actually I didn’t mean it in that way. The whole thing was a mistake and I don’t know why you’re so angry about it. At least I didn’t know he was married – there’s no way you don’t know that.’
‘Of course I know, why do you say that . . . ? God, you don’t think I’ve ever had anything going on with Kincaide? Is that what he said?’ At that moment his name became more repellent than an entire book of expletives. ‘I’m not interested in him, and I’m not angry at you. But I’m livid that he abused his position. You were vulnerable, and he took advantage of that.’
‘Right, but I really don’t want it raked over any more. You drop him in it and that won’t help anyone. It won’t help his wife and it certainly won’t help me.’
Gully shook her head in frustration. Focus, Sue, just focus. She didn’t reply instantly, turning back to the screen.
She read a couple more paragraphs. ‘And how long did it go on for?’
‘A few weeks.’
‘Then what?’
‘I worked out what he was really like.’
Gully screwed up her nose. It must’ve been fun while it lasted. It wasn’t even black humour material. Gross.
She started reading again, then stopped.
Charlotte looked at her expectantly, ‘What?’
Right now it seemed the perfect time and place to unleash some profanities after all, and it took all of Sue’s self-control to condense it down to, ‘and Gary flaming Goodhew.’
Charlotte looked instantly shaken. ‘No.’
‘Libby didn’t think so when she wrote this. I’ve seen the way they look at each other when they think no one else is paying attention. I doubt they were just talking when they were alone in King Street.’
‘That’s mad. Nothing happened. Shit, sorry. There was no way I was going to get him in trouble.’ Charlotte blushed. ‘I mean, I do like him.’ Gully reddened more.
‘Sometimes perspective is lost,’ Gully began coldly, but then apologized. Now was the wrong time for any of this.
The door opened just then and DC Charles leaned in and addressed Charlotte Stone. ‘Your brother is with DC Goodhew, and DI Marks would like to speak to you.’
At that mention of Matt, or Gary, or maybe both names, Gully saw hope appear in Charlotte’s eyes and disappear again when she finally realized it was DI Marks who wanted to see her. It wasn’t Gully’s place to judge her; people would do a great deal to protect their loved ones. She gave Charlotte a smile of encouragement. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll come too.’
Gully closed the laptop and brought it with her. Charlotte could deny whatever she liked but Libby’s messages were evidence, and Kincaide and Goodhew wouldn’t be getting away nearly so lightly.
Bastards.
FIFTY-SIX
Tony Brett drove towards Chesterton w
ith his mind clear. He kept moving rapidly, dodging through the traffic with just enough pushiness to provoke shouts and hoots from other drivers.
Behind him, Vicky’s life hung in the balance and somewhere ahead was Libby, facing the ultimate punishment for something that wasn’t her fault. And for reasons she wouldn’t begin to understand.
The blame lay at his own door and he wasn’t avoiding any part of it now. He understood that mistakes had to be paid for, the debt remained until then. But the lesson was twenty-eight years too late and now he’d been made to pay with interest on top.
He’d been down by the river, all those years ago, with Len, Joey, Ross, Mandy and Sarah. It had been pissing down with rain but Joey didn’t mind, therefore none of them did.
They were huddled in a group on the Jesus Lock footbridge; the sides were a metal trellis, and they had spent most of the afternoon either blocking it or making snide comments at anyone who crossed. Rob didn’t understand what teenagers thought it achieved. Superiority? Strength? Respect?
He didn’t understand it even now, but he hadn’t understood it then either.
Depending how you looked at it, Joey was in charge, but Len was the muscle – and it often seemed to Tony that it suited Len that way. None of that mattered now, apart from that day on the bridge.
Tony had spotted them first; he remembered liking the idea that he was about to get listened to for once. ‘Look at that.’ He pointed at the two figures walking up the avenue of trees on Jesus Green. ‘Nobby Wren’s kid brothers.’
They all hated Nobby Wren. He was one of those gangly kids with an Adam’s apple that protruded so far that it looked like his neck had an extra bend in it. He grew plants, for God’s sake. He was nervous, studious, and scored below halfway in the looks department too. An ideal candidate for bullying.
And, if they bullied Nobby Wren, there was no way that Johnnie and Vince were crossing that bridge without hassle. Things escalated; he didn’t think Sarah and Amanda had even been listening when it all kicked off. Tony remembered them looking up when Len grabbed the carrier bag that Johnnie had been clutching with a bit too much enthusiasm. ‘What’s in here, Johnnie?’
