Unfinished Business

by Heather Atkinson

  Brodie’s eyes were sherry cask once again as he glowered out of the window. “Just Nat as usual moaning that she had to deal with Ricky, the selfish cow.”

  “Is he any better?”

  “He’s calmer, thanks to his meds, they’ve had to adjust them again. She didn’t do anything though. He’s just a burden to her, she forgets he’s her big brother, that he sacrificed everything to protect her…” Brodie broke off and looked away, not wanting her to see the pain in his eyes.

  Cass knew exactly what Ricky MacBride had done to protect his younger siblings and it ate at Brodie every day but Natalie didn’t share his sense of guilt, she wasn’t hindered by a conscience like he was. But it didn’t stop her asking for her other brother’s help when she needed it now Ricky was unable to do even the simplest things for himself anymore. The Creegan case was getting to him because he’d gone through what Lauren and her brothers had, in fact the trio reminded him of his own family, only Seth was more like Natalie and poor Ricky was Lauren. That left Brodie as Mark, which she knew would piss him off no end. However they had no matriarch to oversee them all, Brodie’s dad had murdered her in front of their children. Hannah MacBride’s death was the driving force behind Brodie’s never-ending fight for justice.

  Cass wanted to say something that would make him feel better, but the words didn’t exist. All she could do was act as a sounding board for him. “At least he’s calm again. That’s something.”

  “I should be there, he’ll want me with him.”

  “Let Nat pull her weight for once, it’ll teach her a lesson that you have a life and you can’t always be there. You’re here to help catch a serial killer, you’re not on holiday. She does sod all all day, it’s her fucking turn.” Natalie MacBride made her furious. She’d met her many times, usually when she came to the office wanting Brodie’s help to fend off the bad people she inevitably ended up entangled with. In Cass’s book she was an even bigger waste of space than Sarah Creegan. Once Nat had the audacity to threaten her when she’d given her a few home truths but she’d soon learnt the error of her ways when Cass had thrown her across a table.

  “Maybe you’re right?” he said.

  “I am right. You can see Ricky when you get back, he’ll understand. Unlike Nat he knows what you do is important.”

  “He wanted to join the police too, he would have been good at it, if his mental health hadn’t let him down,” said Brodie sadly.

  “Yes he would.” Ricky was even bigger than Brodie, a huge hulk of a man with the same amber eyes, only his were constantly sherry cask. The rage that permanently possessed him meant he could never be released back into society, the threat he’d pose would be too great. Usually his anger was managed by the drugs but sometimes, as had just happened, it broke free and only Brodie or Nat could tame it.

  “Looks like Mark’s leaving,” said Cass, spying movement outside the shop. “Quentin returned a couple of minutes ago.”

  They watched Mark glaring at them, briefcase in hand. He jumped into the Audi and roared past, scowling at them as he went by.

  “He’s not going to tell us anything, we’ve pissed him off too much,” commented Cass.

  “I don’t need him to talk anyway. Shit, I have to call Clarke about that missing girl.”

  The call was unsatisfactory. Clarke was unwilling to tell him much and was more curious about how Brodie knew of Emily’s disappearance. Brodie extricated himself from the awkward phone call before he had to answer any uncomfortable questions and sat in silence, brooding through the windscreen.

  “Well?” Cass eventually said when it became clear he wasn’t about to speak.

  “He didn’t tell me anything new, except that Emily disappeared after a night out clubbing. Her friend thought she spotted her talking to a man but she was so drunk she couldn’t remember a thing about them.”

  “Great,” sighed Cass. “Now what?”

  “Let’s find Seth.”

  “That should be fun. You didn’t manage to plant another tracker on him, did you?”

  “I didn’t bother to try. He found the last one. We’ll just have to drive around until we find him.”

  They tried the bar where he worked and his local boozer but apparently he hadn’t been in either all day and he wasn’t due in work until the following evening.

  “We know he’s not at Maggie’s because we’ve just been there,” said Brodie. “Cass, if you were a nasty wee shitebag where would you spend your days?”

  “Doing nasty wee shitebag things.”

  “Exactly. Haines and Johnson are locked up so he’s not with them.”

  “Seth will be busy moving in on their businesses while they’re out of commission.”

  “True and where would he go to do that?”

  “God only knows. We could stakeout Maggie’s house and wait for him to come home?” she suggested.

  “It might be our only option.” He tutted when his phone started to ring, interrupting his thoughts. “It’s Clarke,” he said, puzzled before answering it. “No, I’ve no idea where Seth is, we’re looking for him ourselves.” He glanced at Cass triumphantly. “I fucking knew it.” He covered the mouthpiece to speak to her. “Seth’s The Carver, they’ve got proof.”

  “Big shock,” she said dryly. “We’ve been trying to tell them that.”

  Clarke wittered on for a bit longer before hanging up.

  “Well, how do they know?” said Cass.

  “They’ve got him on CCTV with the missing girl, Emily Spencer. He was careful to avoid the camera outside the nightclub but he didn’t know there was one outside a pub a few doors down. It caught them together looking pretty cosy.”

  “That’s not proof. We don’t even know that The Carver has her yet.”

  “It gave them what they needed to get a search warrant for his house, or should I say Maggie’s house.”

  “I bet that pleased her.”

  “They’re there right now, the search is still ongoing but they found some items belonging to the previous victims, jewellery mainly, they were listed as what they were wearing when they disappeared.”

  “Trophies?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Not really a surprise, is it?”

  “No but at least they’ve got something concrete on the bastard.”

  “I’ve just had a thought Boss,” she said. “If Seth was following in his father’s footsteps then that might mean he looked up to his dad and what he was doing. What if he hates Mark for killing him?”

  “Mark didn’t kill him.”

  “Everyone says he did. It might be you who’s wrong.”

  Brodie pursed his lips. “I’m not. Everything that happened in London is linked to what’s happening here. We know Bryan schooled Seth.”

  “And Mark.”

  Brodie pulled at his phone so hard he almost ripped his jacket pocket. “Shit, how do they know that’s Seth on the CCTV footage and not Mark?”

  “I’m sure they’ve thought of that already.”

  “Clarke,” he barked into the phone. “You’re sure that’s Seth on the footage, not Mark? Right, fine.” He hung up and scowled at the phone. “He said he’s not a complete cretin and Mark was with Sarah when Emily was taken. They can round it down to an exact time because of the date stamp on the footage. Seth has no alibi - he wasn’t at work and he wasn’t at home. Plus there’s all the trophies in Seth’s room.”

  “I thought Maggie would have alibied him regardless.”

  “She would have but she let slip that she thought he was at work at the time before she realised why the police wanted to talk to him.”

  “Oops. Bet she’s kicking herself now.”

  “I’m thinking Bryan Flynn had a shed that was the base where he planned his murders and practised his artwork. What if Seth’s got the same?”

  “There’s no shed at Maggie’s house.”

  “No but he could have something somewhere else - he could be renting a garage, a shed, a storage locker
. The Carver keeps the women for a couple of days before going to work on them. He couldn’t keep them at his ma’s house.”

  “If he’s any sense he’ll have it under a false name.”

  “Probably. Ah, Jesus.”

  “What?”

  “The aunt, Jenny. What if she had another property none of the Creegans have mentioned yet?”

  “Possible. We need to check Land Registry but won’t Clarke have thought about that already?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. He might not consider an aunt who died years ago.”

  “It’s fortunate I asked Ross to do the searches on all properties owned by the Creegans and Aunt Jenny before I left Glasgow.”

  Brodie had the urge to kiss her, not for the first time. “You wee beauty.”

  “Aren’t I just? I hope you remember that when it comes time for doling out the Christmas bonuses.”

  “I don’t give Christmas bonuses.”

  “Maybe you should start?”

  “Keep working like this and I just might.”

  “I’ll give Ross a call.” Cass’s face was inscrutable as she spoke to their colleague in Glasgow. She hung up and sighed. “Jenny only owned the house, no other properties.”

  “Shit.”

  “By the way, Ross and Christian had to sort out the paedo Derek Collins. They kicked the living hell out of him and put him in intensive care after he tried to break into a house where he knew a fourteen year old boy was alone while his parents were at work.”

  “I knew the sleazy bastard would try something like that,” said Brodie. “A sex offender never changes his spots.”

  “They’ve also made sure everyone in the neighbourhood knows who and what he is. Looks like he’s going to get a nice new identity and address in another part of the country but our contact will make sure to tell us where he’s going. We won’t let him drop off the radar.”

  Brodie nodded. “That was good work by Christian and Ross, they were watching him closely.”

  “I’m glad you said that because they set fire to your office.”

  “What?” he roared. “My office?”

  “Apparently they only went in there for the pen stash.”

  “And how did that lead to them nearly burning the place down?” he demanded.

  “Something about spilling coffee on the plug socket, flames, smoke, chaos.”

  “Please tell me the place isn’t ruined.”

  “No, it’s not ruined, just a bit…overcooked.”

  “The silly wee shites,” he spat, dragging his phone from his jacket pocket.

  “Brodie, take it easy. No real damage was done. It was only a small fire and it was put out quickly enough. An airing and a lick of paint and it’ll be fine. They’ve already started redecorating it.”

  “Themselves?”

  She nodded.

  “Christ, can they be trusted even to do that?”

  “I’m sure they can. It was just a wee accident.”

  His expression darkened. “I’ll be having serious words with that pair of wallopers when I get back.”

  “Go easy on them, they did good with Derek Collins.”

  “Which is the only reason why they’re not going to get their arses kicked.” He pushed thoughts of causing Ross and Christian enormous harm aside to concentrate on the task in hand. “The tracking device. I need to look more closely at where Seth went when it was on him.”

  “I thought he went to Sarah’s?”

  “Yes but where did he go after that? I was so busy concentrating on the fact that he went to Sarah’s that I didn’t look after that. We need to get back to the hotel, I need my laptop.”

  Back in Brodie’s room at the hotel he ripped his laptop case in his haste to get the computer out and set it up on the small desk beneath the window. After logging into the system he sat back to study Seth’s movements.

  “After I dropped it in his pocket he went back to his ma’s, probably to drop Maggie and Lauren off,” he said excitedly, staring at the screen. “Then he went to work, where he stayed for six hours.”

  “Where did you plant the tracker?”

  “In his coat pocket.”

  “Just because his coat was at work doesn’t mean he was.”

  “True but it’s a reasonable assumption. He left the bar at midnight, we can confirm that with his employer. Then he headed straight to Sarah’s house where he stayed for twenty minutes, like we already know. Then he went to an address in Salford.” He frowned. “It looks to be in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Perfect for meeting with a pair of drug dealing scumbags or stashing a kidnap victim,” said Cass.

  Brodie jotted down the coordinates. “Let’s go. We might just be in time to find Emily Spencer.”

  “Shouldn’t we call Clarke?” said Cass as they sped down the stairs, bypassing the lift, and out the door.

  “Let’s see what’s there first. I don’t want to drag him away from searching the Creegan house for something that might turn out to be a waste of time.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Brodie was tense as he drove furiously through the city, terrified they’d get there too late and Emily would end up mutilated with her throat cut. Cass sat in the passenger seat with her laptop on her knee, frantically trying to find out what was at those coordinates and who owned it.

  “Careful,” she exclaimed when he went round a bend a bit too fast, her laptop almost sliding off her knee.

  “Sorry hen,” he said absently, concentrating hard on the road.

  She righted herself in her seat and started stabbing the keyboard. “Right, looks like it’s a storage unit.”

  “Storage unit? The ideal place for hiding a woman you’ve abducted,” replied Brodie.

  “I’m just bringing up the company’s website,” she said, big eyes scanning the screen. “It’s a self storage unit, everything’s automated. It’s quite a new thing in the UK and it’s not far from Seth’s house in Salford.”

  “Here we are,” said Brodie. “Right on the main road. Not very private.”

  “Inside a storage container you have complete privacy. No windows.”

  They rolled to a halt before a set of large metal gates.

  “How do we get in?” he said. “There’s no one around.”

  Cass pressed a few more buttons on the laptop. “You book a unit and your phone number is stored in the gate, then you just tap in your number and the gate opens. Nice and anonymous.”

  “Shit, we don’t have Seth’s phone number.”

  “Clarke could get it.”

  “You want to call that slick prick in so he can steal my thunder?”

  “It’s an electronic keypad, you can’t pick that lock. We’ve no choice.”

  “Fuck it,” he growled.

  Cass looked out of the window. “There’s a man in a hard hat staring at us.”

  They watched the man in the luminous orange jacket and yellow hard hat open the gate and make his way towards them.

  “Something wrong? Forgotten your phone number?” he said in a way that indicated it happened all the time.

  “Who are you?” said Brodie.

  “I’m the site manager. Can I help?”

  “We’re working for the police,” said Brodie, causing the man’s smile to drop. “One of your customers could be stashing a woman in one of your storage units.”

  “Is this some sort of joke?”

  “No joke. I’m deadly serious.”

  Brodie’s expression convinced him he wasn’t exaggerating. “You said you’re police? I want to see ID.”

  “We haven’t got time for that. Open the gate.”

  “No way. Anyone can come along and say they’re police. Show me your warrant cards.”

  “Look, we don’t have warrant cards, we’re working as consultants for Manchester Police.”

  “If you think you can break into those units you’re wrong. They’re solid steel and our CCTV streams to our head office, so we’ve already got your car and
faces on camera. If you don’t leave I’ll call the police.”

  “Good,” retorted Brodie. “Ask for DS Clarke. He’s the one in charge of the investigation.”

  “What investigation?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Get out of here, you look well dodgy.”

  “Listen you Manc tosser…”

  “Brodie, please,” said Cass. She looked to the site manager. “We’re not trying to cause trouble. A potential murderer who is currently being sought by the police could have a woman locked in one of your units right now and the longer we argue about it the closer she gets to death.”

  Cass must have been more convincing than Brodie because he said, “alright, wait here. I need to contact head office.”

  As the site manager went back through the gate and locked it behind him Brodie took out his phone. “I suppose I have to call Clarke because that nobhead isn’t going to let us in.”

  CHAPTER 18

  They heard the sirens approach just as the site manager was returning. The man looked almost panicked and it took him a couple of attempts to open the gate, making Brodie laugh. The man hung back when Brodie unfolded himself from the car, suddenly not feeling so superior with his hard hat and clipboard.

  Clarke’s car screeched to a halt, a young, enthusiastic detective constable at the wheel. They were followed by a marked police car and a transit van, which Brodie guessed contained scenes of crime personnel.

  “Seth has a unit here?” demanded Clarke, striding up to them, looking grim.

  “You’ve still not found him?”

  “What do you think?” Clarke snapped. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Sorry, it’s been a tense day.”

  “We might have some good news for you. Seth came here two days ago and spent over an hour here. He’s got something in there.”

  “How do you know?”