“It’s a nice headboard, that.” Jason leaned in to study Melody’s picture, finger tracing over the fluted edges and the hint of brass inlay at the top of it. “I know someone what makes these. If it’s special work, he’ll know about it.”
Amy swiftly located the envelope containing the police original under a cluster of mugs and handed it off to Jason. “You said something about the wicked,” she said innocently.
“Cow.” He affectionately ruffled her hair before heading for the door. And Amy realised she hadn’t even flinched.
* * *
Jason rested back against the oak cabinet, hands folded into his armpits against the chill that permeated the workshop. The air was thick with floating shavings and the rich scent of wood oil.
Russell held Melody’s picture in his calloused hands, face twisted with pity. “Poor child. But, to answer you, no—not one of mine, but I do know it.”
Russell disappeared into the back and Jason paced to keep warm, his breath misting before him. The days had turned cold, ice on the cars and crystals on the wet leaves. No doubt the Accident & Emergency department at the Heath was doing a swift trade in banged knees and broken hips. Jason wondered if Bryn and Owain had gone back to the hospital. He didn’t envy them—the place was a crowd at a rugby match, changing by the minute and the most unreliable of witnesses.
“Here, this looks like it.” Russell emerged from his tiny office, carrying a large order book with scribbled names and measurements in pencil. On the open page was a rough square torn from a magazine with a picture of a smiling couple in a hotel room, the same sculpted headboard at the top. “Some lady brought it to me, wanting a copy. That any use to you?”
“Do you have a number for her?” Jason said, already pulling out his phone.
Russell hesitated. “You know I can’t do that, mate. Can’t go selling people’s details on, can I?”
Jason held his temper. “You’re not selling, Russ. You’re helping catch a killer!”
But Russell pulled the order book back, his hostile stare telling Jason that he’d best be on his way. Reluctantly, Jason took back his photograph, placing Melody back, modestly covered by the envelope before leaving Russell to his propriety and his stinking morals.
Jason stomped out into the early morning drizzle, breaking the thin ice on the pavement’s puddles. He’d known Russell since he was a lad. The bloke had been mates with Jason’s dad, but prison changed the way people looked at you. People were afraid of him now, what he might do. Stole a car off an old lady, punched a copper. At least Lewis and the boys had gone away for a victimless crime. Nobody got hurt robbing gold. That was how the neighbourhood saw it.
He got to the car—and stopped. There were flyers on the back window. But this was the middle of an industrial estate, not another car in sight. Who would be leafleting out here?
His hand went to the switchblade in his back pocket. If his mam found out he was carrying it, she’d go spare, but he wasn’t going to be caught unprotected again. It was a deterrent, he told himself. Just to warn them off.
Walking slowly round the car, he pretended to study the gaudy paper squares, while keeping his eyes and ears sharp for movement around him. But a sudden yank at his ankle pulled him to the ground, the air knocked out of him. Fucker was under the car!
Fighting to draw breath, Jason kicked out at the kid beneath his car, but two heavy men crashed down on him, driving his shoulders into the ground and gripping his arms like a vise.
“I hear you’ve been messing with my boys.” Stuart Williams walked into his eye line, shaking his cigarette to sprinkle ash over Jason’s coat.
“They...attacked me,” Jason bit out, still not able to get his breath.
Stuart looked away, exposing the web of raised scars curving around his left eye and over his sharp cheekbone. “Damage has an anger for you, because of how you left his brother in prison, see. But then the cops show up like they’re on speed-dial, and it got us to wondering how you did so little time.”
Shit, they think I’m a grass. “I never—”
“Save it. We figure the cops have eyes on you, round our way. But out here—who’s gonna see?” Stuart placed his boot in the centre of Jason’s chest. Jason gasped. “So, tell us what they know.”
Jason would never tell Stuart anything, even if he had something to spill. He would laugh if he could draw breath, his lungs starting to burn.
A crack whipped through the air and Stuart yelped, ducking behind the car. Were the Cardiff gangs carrying guns now? Jason was suddenly afraid. He knew beatings and he knew knives, but he’d never been shot before and he was in no hurry to try it.
“Let that boy go and get out.” Russell.
Jason tried to raise his head to see what was going on, but he was still pinned.
Stuart slowly straightened, then threw his hands up in surrender. “Look, old man, this ain’t none of your business—”
“I’ll stick my nose where I like,” Russell said sharply. “And unless you want a bolt through your arm, I’d get gone.”
One of the lads holding him down clambered to his feet, paled at what he saw and tugged at Stuart’s arm. Stuart shook him off, snarling. “Fine, we’re leaving. But we won’t forget this, old man. Watch yourself—and your little fag too.”
Spitting on Jason’s jeans, Stuart grabbed his boys and cleared out. Jason got to his feet and reflected that this was getting to be a habit. Road rash was a bitch.
Jason looked over his car to see Russell hovering outside his workshop, a large adze in one hand and a bolt gun in the other.
“Russ—”
“Don’t bring trouble to my door again,” the man snapped and retreated back into his shop.
Jason tore the leaflets from his window screen and threw them into an icy puddle, sick of the whole rotten town.
Chapter Twenty-Two: Voulez Vous Couchez?
“Morning,” Jason said.
Amy grunted in his direction, as emo nu metal raged around her. It was too early for small talk and she had a hangover from cheap red wine.
“Have you eaten today?”
Amy shrugged, gripped by the fast-forwarded CCTV footage on her monitors as her stomach rolled nauseatingly. It was a few minutes before fresh coffee and toast landed by her elbow, and she devoured it like a zombie at a brains market.
However, Jason was still keen to attempt conversation. “I’ve got a clue to the headboard.”
A sharp jab at the keyboard stopped the footage on a gang of goth kids, as Amy licked her fingers clean of jam and tried to flick out tooth-lodged seeds with her tongue. “A clue?”
“My mate showed me this photo, ripped from a magazine, like. It’s from a hotel, but he doesn’t know which one...” Jason trailed off, sounding uncertain of himself.
Amy glanced up at him—he was standing awkwardly too, like he was consumed with self-doubt. Or he’d fallen off his damned uninsured motorbike.
“A hotel makes sense. Anything else?”
Jason massaged his temples, as if that would help the memory flow faster. “A nice hotel. One that business folk stay in. There was this...purple stripe at the bottom of the duvet cover.”
“Purple stripe.” Amy pulled up her browser, fingers flashing across the keys, a series of anonymous hotel rooms scrolling across the screen. “Not great branding...ah!”
The flickering halted, landing on a laughing couple frozen in their artificial mirth. Jason lunged for it. “That’s it!”
“Hmm...big chain. They’ve got six hotels in the Cardiff area alone.” Amy stabbed at the keys, and the printer ejected a sheet with six addresses. “Shouldn’t take more than an afternoon, less if you take the bike instead of the Micra.” She paused. “Oh, the bike doesn’t have tax. Never mind.”
Jason was silent for a long moment. “How do you know abou
t my bike?”
Oh...shit. Amy shrank inside her blanket and picked up her tea. Well, there was just no explaining this, was there? Fuckity-fuck—what a moron, Amy.
She didn’t want to be afraid of him, but that outburst with the window... She hadn’t had a panic attack like that for years. That was the price of letting an unknown quantity into the sanctuary of her home. Yet she hadn’t pushed him away. She hadn’t fired him, like she should’ve done, like any sane person would’ve done. But then she wasn’t quite sane, was she?
But Jason wasn’t angry. “You don’t have to tell me. Just—”
“Dylan ordered parts for a 1940s Harley-Davidson motorcycle totalling two hundred and forty pounds,” Amy said, the words tumbling forth. “You withdrew two hundred and forty pounds the next day. You pay tax for a white X-reg Nissan Micra but not for a motorbike. Neither your mother nor your sister drive. Therefore, it has to be your bike, but it’s not on the road. Well, it’s not meant to be.”
“I’m still fixing it up,” Jason said, and she saw that he was smiling, the last remnants of fear ebbing away. “Doesn’t matter. But that’s a little creepy, yeah? You can just ask me things instead of...finding them out. Through ninjas or whatever.”
“Google know everything about you,” she said, deadpan. “There’s a chip in your brain and it feeds information directly to the web. I’ve cracked their secret code. I am master of the internet.”
“Oh, good to know. Erase that bit where I remember my twenty-first, and try not to look at what’s at the bottom of my wardrobe.”
“Nothing I haven’t seen before.” It was so easy to joke with him. Lame jokes that weren’t funny, but she was out of practice.
Jason just shook his head and picked up the list of addresses from the printer. “You want me to go here now?” he said, flapping the sheet.
“Later is fine.”
He nodded, jamming his thumb towards the back of the flat. “I’m going to fight monsters fungal and filthy in your bathroom.”
Amy lapsed back into silence, the work calling to her, and the images flickered to life again.
* * *
When Jason emerged from the bathroom an hour later, he felt like he needed a turn in the newly scrubbed shower. He padded barefoot into the living room, shoes in hand and jeans turned up to the knees. “There isn’t enough bleach in the world for your flat. But I have conquered it—I am master of the bathroom.”
When there was no response from the pile of blankets, he dumped his shoes and crept forward. Amy was asleep, slumped to the side in her chair, the CCTV images still flashing wildly on screen. Jason found the button to pause it and then looked back at her.
She looked uncomfortable, neck at an odd angle against the chair back, so he slipped an arm around her back and the other under her knees. The effort stretched the scabs across his shoulders, but he was a hard man, tough, like. She didn’t stir as he carried her down the corridor to her room and set her on her bed, spreading the blankets carefully over her.
She snuggled her face into the pillow, pulling the covers up over her shoulder, and Jason smiled, shutting the door quietly behind him and returning the room to darkness.
He lifted the list of hotels from the printer—best get going on this, before the evidence got swept under a cheap mass-produced rug. Picking the first hotel on the list, he looked up the route on his phone as he struggled to settle into the driver’s seat of the Micra. There was no way to get comfortable when your shoulders looked like you’d been scrammed by a sabre-tooth tiger.
On the drive over, Jason started to have doubts. He had absolutely no authority to march in there and demand the names of their guests or their CCTV footage. In fact, he had nothing except a criminal record and a smile. But he had been a blagger since he had learned to talk and so he pulled his leather jacket on over his uniform shirt, slung his bag over his shoulder and walked up to the front desk.
“Afternoon,” he said. “My friend’s already checked in. Lane, Amy Lane. Can you call her and let her know I’m here?”
The perky receptionist beamed at him. “Of course, sir. Who should I say is waiting?”
“Detective Bryn Hesketh,” he said, without missing a beat. “Tell her we need to get going right away—this case won’t solve itself.”
The woman looked him over again, perhaps a new appreciation growing in her eyes. “Detective? Are you...” She lowered her voice. “Is it about those missing girls?”
Jason looked to both sides and leaned forward conspiratorially. “Between you and me, love, it is. That’s why I’m here.”
The receptionist’s mouth formed a perfect O. “Here?” she squeaked.
“I know it’s shocking, but we think he may have brought one of the girls to a hotel.” He put on his best concerned face, stealing a look at the badge pinned to her impressive chest. “You weren’t working on the fourth, were you, Mandy?”
Her eyes were wide. “I was! Was that...when he did it?” She looked distressed and Jason was suddenly afraid she was going to start bawling. “But I was only here ’til nine. That’s when Mikey took over—it was likely after nine, right?”
“And is Mikey working today?”
“No, he’s off for a couple of days—his dad’s not well, see.” She looked troubled by this fact, but then her face brightened. “But we have the cameras. We keep the tapes for a whole month—it’ll be on there, won’t it?”
Jason smiled. “It will. How about you send them over to Central Police Station—mark it with my name, eh? Let me write it down so it gets right to me.” He wrote the detective’s name in his best cop scrawl on the hotel paper, followed by his own mobile number, and the girl snatched it up with a shy smile. Nice one, Carr.
But then the frown was back. “Oh, Detective, I can’t find your friend’s name. In fact, we don’t have a room under that name at all.”
Jason cursed under his breath. “Damn it, must’ve missed her. Still, not a total loss, was it?” He beamed at her and she glowed. Still got it. “You’ll send over that tape, won’t you? We know he can’t have got far and this place is in the hot zone.”
Mandy nodded seriously and promised him that she would send them over right away, once the duty manager signed off on it, and then she’d call him as soon as it was done.
Jason thanked her sincerely, with another devastating smile, and walked out of the hotel. One down, five to go.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Closed Circuit
Bryn marched into the living room and shook a handful of packages in Jason’s direction. “Is this you? Because I don’t remember talking to any hotel managers about CCTV footage and yet here are all these gifts. Oh, and they’re addressed to me, with such notes as lovely to meet you and drop by any time. Explain to me how I met these people when I don’t even know where the damn hotels are!”
Amy looked at him curiously as Jason affected his most innocent smile. “They must’ve been confused when I said I worked with you.”
Bryn exploded. “You don’t work with me! You don’t even work for me! You work for her—” he jabbed a finger in Amy’s direction, “—and that entitles you to get hotels to send me videotapes and complimentary restaurant vouchers?”
So that was where Jason had gone yesterday. Amy had woken up in her bedroom, confused as to how she’d magically flown there, with a sparkling bathroom and a total lack of housekeeper. Cleaner. Whatever.
She defused the situation by shifting from the couch, taking the packages off Bryn and sitting at her computer terminal. She shook out the envelopes, providing a haul of four CDs and two actual videotapes. Disgusting. “I can still process these—just. Everyone should be on flash memory. There’s no excuse.”
Jason went to make a fresh pot of tea. Amy belatedly remembered that she still hadn’t bought sugar and wondered if she should just tell Jason to stock th
e cupboards. He seemed to know what he was doing.
When he returned, Amy had rigged up the ancient VCR and was already fast-forwarding through the first hotel’s footage. “This one is closest to her last-known location.” But the reception area was quiet, only two or three businessmen and one middle-aged couple between midnight and morning, and then it was on to the next hotel.
The second hotel was busier, but there were still no young women fitting Melody’s type. When the third and fourth hotels were also busts, Amy pouted to herself but kept working. Maybe the headboard was actually a common design supplied to hotels. Maybe they’d have to further widen the net, but they had made so many assumptions already.
It was the fifth hotel where they had their breakthrough. “I’ve got her,” Amy said quietly, and the three men crowded round the back of her chair. She froze the picture as a couple entered the lobby, backs to the camera over the main door. Melody’s clothes were now unmistakeable to them, the dress that barely reached past her short coat and her high stilettos, which dragged on the ground. She was unconscious, or already dead.
Her murderer was disturbingly normal. Average height, slightly lean, he wore a waterproof jacket, jeans and a baseball cap, all in dark colours. There was nothing remarkable about him. And they couldn’t see his face. Amy took a still, and pressed Play.
He paused a second in the lobby and then took them through the door to the right of the screen. Melody’s head lolled forward—and, for an instant, there was a glimpse of his face. Half his jaw and nose, a hint of a mouth, but it was there. Amy rewound and stopped the tape, and they all looked at the man who killed Kate Thomas and Melody Frank.
They were so close to him now.
* * *
He was on the national news.
He felt a slight thrill at the thought. Now she would have to notice. How could she help but see what he’d laid before her, when the whole country knew it?
But the report also worried him. They’d found the hotel he’d used for the girl, and there was a picture they’d blown up to show his face—it looked nothing like him. But it did mean he’d have to change his plan, go back to what worked before, away from prying eyes. He couldn’t afford to fail, to fail her.
Binary Witness (The Amy Lane Mysteries) Page 10
