by John Barlow
“John Ray,” he says. “John Ray blocked ’em in. Deliberate. You see? It’s him again. He’s scum. And he’s involved in this. C’mon.”
Chapter Forty-seven
By the time Baron walks into Millgarth some of Steele’s cockiness has rubbed off on him. Their main suspect is dead, but Reid is their connection to Lanny Bride, who is now in the cells again, contemplating his future. And he’s not going to be so calm about the situation this time.
“Leave Lanny Bride alone,” the Super says as soon as Baron walks into her office.
“He’s…”
“I know. He employed Reid for one day’s work yesterday. We talked to his secretary. And Bride himself was here all night last night, waiting for you to get around to interviewing him.”
“He’s putting a lid on it. The Leeds bombing. It’d ruin him. So he’s picking ’em off, one by one. He’ll come out of this smelling of roses.”
“And your evidence?”
Baron is, quite uncharacteristically, speechless.
“The bloke’s just paid fifty million for the Gear Depot,” she says. “We dragged him out of the launch of his own company. Now he’s back downstairs, a very, very prickly Henry Moran at his side. This looks like persecution.”
Suddenly Baron isn’t speechless.
“Fuck that,” he spits out.
They both let that one settle.
“Steve, nothing specific is telling me this is Lanny Bride. You?”
“Course it is. Him and the Ray family.”
She blows air from her mouth until her lips flap.
“If John Ray really is involved, should you even be on the case?” she asks, doing her best at compassion, which isn’t much. “Last year, John Ray helped you find the killer of that young lass.”
“Aye, Lanny Bride’s daughter.”
“But not everything’s connected, Steve.”
John Ray had caused a good impression with the Super last year, what with his helpful tip-offs and that certain way he has with people, especially women. However, what the Deputy Super does not know is that in helping to solve the murder of the girl, Ray had also switched the evidence, protecting himself from a five-to-ten-year stretch for theft and laundering counterfeit money. It is something which both he and Baron, for their own reasons, have kept to themselves.
“DCI Rollin is interviewing Lanny Bride now,” she says.
Baron’s jaw tightens.
“And unless he croaks for Brinks Matt, the Great Train Robbery and tells us what happened to Shergar, we’ll be letting him go and thank you very much Mr Bride.” She pauses. “Oh, and Rollin is going to be heading up the Reid enquiry. I’m taking over the investigation as a whole. This is getting messy.”
“And me?”
“Your team stays on Roberto Swales.”
He snorts, checks his cell phone. Hull? How long does it take to check out a ferry manifest, even one from twenty years ago?
“There was a shipment…” he begins.
“I know,” she says. “You have a couple of men over in Hull, right?”
For a moment they say nothing. The silence inside the office is like a wall that’s suddenly being erected around him.
“John Ray,” he says, eyes wide, like a kid talking to an adult, trying to be persuasive. “The common factor. The Rays and Lanny Bride, the way it always was, Tony, Joe…”
“Three murders,” she says, interrupting him. “Three, plus Sheenan, I reckon. And it’s me that’ll be going in front of the cameras later today announcing that we’ve got a serial killer in the city and no prime suspect. So let’s just get on with it, OK?”
“But we do have one,” he says.
“You’ve got John Ray down as a serial killer? Really?”
“He has no alibi for any of the murders that I know of.”
“Kills his own lover in cold blood? John Ray?”
“Ah, the charming Mr Ray. Yes, you’re right. He’s got that je ne sais quo. He can’t be guilty.”
She smiles. “Don’t worry, I’m not taken in by his charm.”
Like hell you’re not.
“Ray is a liar and he’s a crook.”
“Motive?”
“Let me find him, I’ll find the motive.”
“Be my guest,” she says. “We’ll be releasing the details at three o’clock. From then on it’ll be a manhunt.” She consults her watch. “That’s just over an hour. Until then he’s all yours, Steve. Oh, and get hold of Denise Denson. She’s not picking up. Tell her John Ray’s face’ll be going out across the wires. Got it?”
He’s got it.
Chapter Forty-eight
She’s never seen the Kawasaki before, and she doesn’t want to know where he got it. They make their way out of town and up the steep road onto Ilkley Moor, John on the bike, Den following him in her fifteen-year-old rust-bucket.
Is he going to let the 750cc monster have some throttle, she asks herself? Will he disappear over the horizon as she putters along in its wake? No, that’s not his style. And despite everything, he’s still got tons of that. Style won’t save him now, though.
Her phone is on hands-free. It buzzes through the ancient car speakers.
“Yes?” she says as she drives.
“Den, it’s Steve. Have you found him yet? Where are you?”
“Harrogate,” she says, first thing that comes into her head. “Checking out the places we used to come. Betty’s teashop, y’know…”
Shit, shit, shit…
“I know it. Tenner for a cuppa and a bun. Likes Betty’s, does he?” asks Baron. “That figures. Where else do they have ’em?”
He’s speaking fast, a clipped, bossy urgency in his voice.
“Betty’s? I… I dunno.”
“York and Ilkley, isn’t it? Ilkley sounds more like it to me, a bit out of the way, up in the moors. You tried there yet?”
“No,” she lies again, watching the bike in front, John’s black jacket flapping, his broad shoulders huddled against the wind. It always seemed that those shoulders could take the weight of anything. But now?
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” She’s hardly listening.
“Don’t look for him. There’s another body, and Mr Ray’s our prime suspect. You hear me, Den?”
“You’re joking.”
“Sound like I’m laughing? An hour and I’m putting out a statement. Mug shot, the lot. Listen, this last one was bad. Bloke called Reid, ex-IRA. Someone forced a bottle down his neck till it cracked, hammered it all the way in. He choked on his own blood. We think John Ray is dangerous. Don’t approach him. Don’t look for him. Get yourself somewhere safe and lie low. Somewhere he’s never been, where he’ll never find you.”
The Kawasaki slows down, indicating right. It pulls into a car park surrounded by purple heather on the side of the moor. He’s waving his arm, making sure she follows.
“OK, Steve,” she says, dropping down a gear.
Chapter Forty-nine
They get coffee from the Cow and Calf Snack Bar. Not bad, although nothing like the kind of stuff John had taught her to appreciate. The coffee they’d drunk on those magical weekends in Madrid, Seville and Barcelona was so strong it made you growl with pleasure as you sipped it. Once you’ve got used to that, everything else is just bath water in varying strengths.
“You know,” she says, leaning on the filthy bodywork of the Astra, “I never understood why they call them the Cow and Calf. They look nothing like.”
There are two rock formations some fifty yards above them on the moors. The larger of the two is a kind of natural amphitheatre, with high sides, describing an almost perfect circle, enough room for a church inside. It stands proud against the grey sky, its stone dark and forbidding.
Next to it is a single lump of rock, about the size of a house. It looks modest, almost forlorn, alongside its far bigger neighbour. Both formations are popular practice sites for local climbers; several are here now, one or two freestylers,
others with ropes.
He blows his coffee, takes a sip. The wind cuts across the moor, buffeting them until they shiver.
“Gotta call ’em something,” he says, the paper cup in one hand, the other stuffed deep into his pocket.
He’s trembling more than Den. And it’s not just the cold. There’s dried blood on his collar, his suit’s a crumpled mess, and the gash above his nose is beginning to swell. The man at the snack bar had almost turned him away.
“Big Tit, Little Tit, could’ve been,” he adds.
“That wouldn’t make sense,” she says. “You don’t get big and little tits. Not next to each other, I mean, on the same chest.”
“Give me two minutes on the internet.”
John Ray. Facing a murder charge – two – and he’s still joking. She wants to take his hand, to touch him, anything. But this isn’t the time. And he’s not asking.
“I went to see her,” he says, looking up at the rocks. “Last night. She knew everything about the bombing. Must have. How else could she have known to speak to Roberto? And Lanny.”
“Lanny knew where she was staying, right?”
“Dunno. She gave him her card. Yesterday, at the golf club.”
“Did she write anything on it? Did you see?”
“Yes. Don’t know what, though.”
Den watches as a climber scales the Calf in less than a minute, his hands and feet finding their holds with swift precision, as if he’s done it a hundred times.
“Had she been tortured? Like Roberto?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You said it looked as if they’d tried to get information out of Roberto. But Jeanette?”
He shakes his head. “When they got to her they must have known.”
“Or she was so scared she gave it up.”
“Gave me up. Don’t you see?”
He looks down at the gentle sprawl of Ilkley along the broad valley bottom behind them, and puts his coffee on the bonnet of the Astra.
“I’ve been out of range,” he says, fishing his iPhone out of one of his jacket pockets then finding the battery in another.
“I’d noticed,” she says, watching as he reassembles the phone. “I bet you’ve got five dozen missed calls from Steve.”
“Does he know you’re with me?”
“Not just yet,” she whispers.
They both look down at the phone.
“So, what’s it to be, my friend?” she says, managing a smile. “You gonna ring him?”
“My friend? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’m your friend, John. But I’m about the only one you’ve got left. And in an hour you’re gonna start having a lot more enemies.”
He thumbs through the messages.
His eyes narrow. “Shit. She left me a voicemail.”
The wind picks up. Without a word they get into the car.
“Five o’clock yesterday,” he says, looking with undisguised horror at the phone.
John?
It’s Jeanette’s voice. She speaks clearly, almost a monotone. He can imagine her frowning as she speaks.
The Semtex came into the country in champagne crates. Four men involved in the shipment, plus a courier. Your brother, Sheenan, Roberto and Reid. You know who the courier was. They won’t stop, John. I’m telling you, they won’t stop. I should have warned you sooner. I’m sorry. I tried. Get away. Now. Do it now.
Then, as an afterthought:
Look after yourself.
“Again?” he says.
“I heard.”
“They must have seen me. The night I brought the van over. They must have seen my face. Sheenan, Roberto and Reid, waiting there for the pick up. Now it’s just Reid and me. And he’s coming for me. On Lanny’s orders, I bet.”
“Reid’s dead. This morning.”
She tries to gauge his reaction.
There is none. There’s nothing left, not a drop of emotion to wring out of his big, exhausted body.
She gives it a few seconds. Shifts in her seat.
Then, hardly knowing what she’s doing, she grabs his hair and yanks his head around until they’re facing each other, close enough to smell each other’s breath. She pulls his hair hard, shaking his head from side to side in a sudden fit of desperation.
Nothing.
He seems on the verge of losing consciousness.
With her other hand she slaps the side of his head. He doesn’t lift his hands. Lets her do it. Again. Then again.
Panting now, she looks around, at the moors, the car park. There’s nobody to see them, no one’d hear her, not in this wind. She’s alone in a car with him. What if Steve’s right?
She releases her grip.
Still he doesn’t move. But a tear is making its way slowly down his cheek.
“I killed a baby,” he says quietly.
“No, John, no…”
“Two weeks old. I killed it.”
“You didn’t.”
He coughs, pulling out a hanky too late to catch a flood of bile as it courses up from his stomach. The car fills with the stink of old alcohol and chlorine as it pours onto his thighs and trickles through onto the passenger seat.
“Look,” he says, fumbling with his phone.
“C’mon, John. This can’t wait. Ring Baron. Or I will, whatever…”
“Look! This is what I did,” he says, his hands shaking as he prods the phone’s tiny screen, looking for something.
“Shall I ring?” she says, still looking around. “They’ll have someone pick you up.”
“Watch,” he says, as he finds the YouTube clip.
Reluctantly, she watches it with him.
There’s something about the tiny screen, the way it seems to cram images into a space way too small for them. Especially old video. Everything appears indistinct, unreal. The people look like faded, indistinct versions of themselves. Older. Familiar.
The young man emerges from the rubble, holding a dead baby…
Suddenly he fumbles with the phone, pausing the video and holding the phone close up to his face.
“It’s him. He’s the father,” he says.
“What?”
Too late. The car fills with the shrill ringtone of her phone, making the speakers in the doors rattle.
“You not going to answer that?” he says.
She lets it ring, six, seven times.
Then she answers.
“Den?” The voice is Baron’s. “Ilkley. We’ve got a team on the way.”
John freezes. But only for a second.
Den is already shaking her head, imploring him with her eyes, no, no…
“Den? Are you there? It’s Steve…”
John’s already reaching for the door handle.
No, no, she’s telling him, mouthing the words silently. Begging him not to go. It’s not what it looks like. No, no, no…
He pulls himself quickly out of the car, a man betrayed, but accepting it. Then he pauses, smiles, his face full of love and forgiveness.
A second later he’s on the bike.
“…Den! Answer for christsake. Den?”
“Yes, I’m here,” she says as the Kawasaki thunders into life, throwing up a massive cloud of gravel and dirt as it catapults out of the car park.
“Den!”
“I don’t know anywhere else in Ilkley,” she says, watching as the bike quickly becomes a spot in the distance, then disappears over the crest of the nearest hill at a hundred miles an hour.
Chapter Fifty
He pushes the bike hard, leaning down until his stomach touches the tank, the heavy, guttural vibrations of the engine sending his body numb. The Sunday traffic is light, and he weaves through it easily, horns sounding behind him, cars pulling out of the way as he flies past.
Three strokes? Bollocks to your three strokes. You’ll tell me this time, Dad. All these years and you’ve been trying to hide it, to ignore it. Well it won’t go away now. Joe and Lanny were importing Semt
ex for terrorists, and you knew about it. You must have done. Looked the other way, eh? Not any more.
He sends the engine into a deafening whine as he drops down through the gears, eases onto the bypass, then lurches forward again as he takes it straight back up to fifty, sixty, seventy…
Made your confession, did you, Dad? Tell the priest, mea culpa, and all is forgiven. Well, that’s no good now. You knew. Lanny and Joe couldn’t have done it on their own. A bit of advice, a useful name here and there? Tony Ray wouldn’t have been involved, oh no, that’s not the way to stay out of jail all your robbing, lying life. But you knew, Dad, you knew. And now Lanny’s gonna have me killed, like he’s had everyone else killed.
It’s started to rain, a fine, constant drizzle. His jacket is buttoned up, but it billows with the wind at the back. He feels the rain on his neck, little streams running along his back like cold fingers of metal slowly taking hold of him.
Lanny and Joe? They were ambitious, never passed up an opportunity. But then Joe decided to use his little brother. The most dangerous part of the operation, and they sent John Ray, fresh out of university, to do the dirty work. Did Dad know that? Could he have stopped it? Would he have?
Only one way to find out. Look him straight in the eyes. Three strokes? His eyes still work.
He pushes the Kawasaki harder, almost losing control as 750ccs take him screaming through the wind and rain.
Chapter Fifty-one
Where has John gone? Den asks herself, taking it a little slower as she too returns to Leeds. It’s not a long drive when the roads are clear. He should be safely locked up in Millgarth, or lying low somewhere, if he knows what’s good for him. Does he, though? She’s not sure. But she knows he’s not a murderer.
There’s something else on her mind, something that’s been nagging her all morning.
Dare she?
She has more information than Baron.
Looks at the clock. An hour, that’s all she’s got.
Dare she? Last shot?
She thinks it through. Reid’s dead. They’re all dead. All those involved in the shipment. Baron doesn’t know it yet, he doesn’t know the connection. But she does. They’re all dead, apart from John. And he’s next.
