The Lying Kind: A totally gripping crime thriller

by Alison James

  ‘Not here in Torrevieja, you mean?’

  He nodded. Rachel scrutinised his face for the tells of deception, but saw none. ‘When did you last see him?’

  He thought for a moment, polishing a wine glass on a cloth. ‘Maybe two, three summers ago. On holiday, with la niñita. His little girl.’

  ‘And if he was here in Torrevieja at the moment, where would he be? Where does he stay?’

  ‘But he’s not here,’ Cristian repeated stubbornly. ‘If he was here, I would know this. I know everyone in this town.’ He flapped his towel around the bar area to indicate that this was his kingdom, then rearranged his shirt front to display the optimum amount of pectoral muscle. ‘Peoples tell me everything.’

  ‘What if he was hiding – if he didn’t want anyone to know he was here?’ Rachel persisted.

  Cristian gave a Hispanic shrug and went back to polishing glasses. ‘When he’s here, he stays in Apartamentos Playa Soleada. But he is not here; this is the truth.’

  Rachel googled the apartments while she was finishing her sangria. They were just round the corner, which would explain why Gavin was a regular at Discoteca 33. She walked past on her way back to the hotel; showed her warrant card and the photo of Gavin to the building manager. He was also adamant that Gavin wasn’t staying there, and even offered up all the last month’s CCTV tapes from the lobby by way of confirmation.

  ‘Maybe,’ Rachel told him. ‘I’ll get back to you.’

  * * *

  Back at the hotel, she sat with her right leg raised on pillows, a makeshift ice pack on her knee, and Skyped Brickall. On a plate in front of him was his evening dietary staple – pizza laden with hot sauce – and his mood was buoyant.

  ‘Turns out the trial’s actually quite good craic.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Of course it doesn’t hurt that the junior barrister on the prosecution side is a stunning brunette.’

  Rachel grinned. ‘Asked her out yet?’

  He tapped the side of his nose. ‘Let’s just say I’m working on it… How’s your jammy little skive on the Costa?’

  Rachel sighed. ‘I’m pretty sure Harper’s not here in Torrevieja. I’ve got a load of CCTV tape to go through tomorrow.’ She added: ‘It could prove useful, I suppose.’

  Brickall inhaled from a can of lager. ‘What’s your gut telling you, Prince?’

  ‘That we’re wide of the mark. I’ve been looking at the photo of Gavin and Andy together at some beach bar every time I made enquiries, and something was bugging me. I’ve remembered what it was. The same building they’re in front of appeared in most of the photos of them in Michelle’s albums. Hold on a second…’

  She reached for her phone and sent the image to Brickall so that they could look at it together. The bar in the background had a tin roof, a coconut-palm pergola, and the exterior walls were painted bright turquoise, daubed with blocks of bright red and green. Over the entrance hung a driftwood sign with lettering burned into it by hand. Rachel zoomed in as far as she could and could just about make out the name: Tiago’s.

  ‘Hang about,’ said Brickall suddenly. ‘It’s obvious, you plank. The red and green rectangles are the Portuguese flag. They’re in Portugal.’

  Before Rachel had a chance to reply, he consulted his phone and held it up triumphantly to his laptop screen. ‘Here you go: Tiago’s Bar in Albufeira. It’s the Algarve.’

  Rachel shook her head slowly. ‘Shit. Andy did say they’d travelled all over the Med. So d’you reckon he could be in Portugal?’

  ‘Only one way to find out.’

  * * *

  The next morning, Rachel phoned Nigel Patten’s assistant, Janette, and enlisted her help in getting to the Algarve.

  It was not straightforward. If she flew, she would have to change planes in Lisbon, but there were no available seats that day anyway. Or the next day. If she drove all the way, she wouldn’t be able to return her Spanish-registered car in Portugal. A train would take eleven hours, which she couldn’t face. The resourceful Janette suggested she drive to Seville, leave the car, and take one of the very frequent buses from there to Faro.

  ‘I definitely think that’s your best option. You’ll be able to get to Albufeira by early evening, no problem. It’s a longish taxi ride from Faro, or there’s a train that only takes twenty minutes.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Rachel didn’t point out that this route would still mean at least five hours behind the wheel. Her gammy leg was hardly Janette’s problem. She downed a couple of painkillers and hit the road, reaching a hot, dusty, traffic-clogged Seville in the middle of the afternoon. A woman at the car rental office saw her limping pathetically with her luggage and offered the services of one of their pickup drivers to drop her at the bus station.

  Brickall texted her as she was climbing onto the coach for the two-hour trip to Faro.

  You on your way to the Algarve?

  I’m now on leg two of the journey. It’s a remake of Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

  Her own leg was very painful after nearly six hours in the car, but she kept thinking of Howard’s warning about opioid abuse and avoided taking more painkillers. Instead she gratefully accepted a plastic tumbler of wine from one of her fellow travellers, and slept most of the way over the border.

  * * *

  At 9 p.m., Tiago’s Bar was about half full. No doubt revellers were thinner on the ground in October than during the summer season, but it had been a hot day and people were lingering at the beach for one last cold beer, and to watch the informal volleyball match that was taking place.

  Rachel sat at one of the plastic tables and ordered a glass of vinho verde and – because she hadn’t eaten all day and was ravenous – a paper plate of chips. There was only one waitress serving, and Rachel beckoned her over and showed her the photo of Gavin Harper sitting outside this very bar.

  ‘Do you know him?’

  She shook her head. ‘Sorry, I no English.’ But there was something there in her eyes: a flicker of recognition. After she had wolfed the chips, Rachel took her glass of wine and wandered a few yards away to a rocky outcrop, where she sat down. And waited.

  At about eleven, the sound system was switched on, complete with flashing strobe lights, and gradually more people started to arrive, spilling out onto the sand in a rowdy gaggle. Cigarette tips lit the night sky like fireflies, and there was a heady whiff of marijuana. Suddenly, Rachel spotted a familiar figure strolling along the fairy-light-bedecked path that led from street to beach. She had been looking at him for the past two days, so there was no doubt in her mind.

  Gavin Harper.

  She waited until he was a few feet from the front of the bar, then walked over. ‘Excuse me.’

  He froze.

  ‘Gavin Harper? I need to talk to you.’

  He thrust his chin down, spun on his heel and started sprinting back towards the road. Rachel dropped her beer bottle and took off after him, but her sandals gave her no purchase on the uneven sand and she stumbled. Once she was on the path, she steadied herself, but the torn ligament made it impossible to pick up any pace, and Gavin had vanished into the maze of darkened streets.

  ‘Fuck!’

  Wincing with pain, Rachel bent double to catch her breath, then limped back to the sanctuary of her hotel.

  Eight

  If Rachel Prince had a temperamental default setting, then it was ‘stubborn’.

  But on this occasion, she was forced to accept that she needed backup. Waking up the next morning in her basic hotel bedroom, she decided she would phone Patten and discuss the possibility of more personnel being sent from London. He wasn’t available, but she was at least able to ask Janette to email a copy of the reported sighting of Lola Jade in Portugal.

  A British holidaymaker had phoned the police information line while they were on holiday in Albufeira.

  ‘My wife and I were on the way to the beach and we saw a youngish man with brown hair leading a blonde girl along Rua da Bateria. We agreed
that it looked a bit like Lola Jade Harper, and she was around the right age. She didn’t appear upset or distressed.’

  But the date was 3 August, and Gavin Harper disappeared from Eastwell in late October. Perhaps someone else took Lola to Portugal and kept her there for a while until Gavin could slip away without suspicion. His brother Andy?

  She texted Brickall.

  Try and find out if Andy Whittier left the country during July or August.

  Before she could do anything else, she needed caffeine. She wandered into the old town, with its pretty mosaic-tiled streets, and sat outside a tiny pastelaria with a coffee and a pastry.

  It was still early, and the narrow street fairly empty, so Rachel had a good view of the people who were strolling past. Her heart lurched in her chest when she spotted him. He was wearing sunglasses and had a baseball cap pulled down low, but the dolphin tattoo on his arm gave him away. Gavin Harper.

  Rachel leapt to her feet, almost knocking over her table, and walked briskly but unobtrusively down the street after him, gaining on him before he had the chance to spot her. He sensed rather than saw her, and broke into a run, but shoppers and gossiping locals disrupted his sprint, allowing Rachel to get close enough to grab his T-shirt.

  ‘Hey! Stop! I need to talk to you.’

  A gaggle of people gathered, attracting the attention of a uniformed national guard. Thinking Rachel was being mugged, he drew his baton and pinioned a resistant Gavin by the wrist.

  ‘Get the fuck off me!’ he snarled, trying to struggle free from the guard’s grip, lashing out with his free arm.

  Rachel wrestled her Interpol warrant card from her jeans pocket and showed it to the guard. He nodded and muttered a few words into his airwave set, and within seconds a police van arrived and Gavin Harper was bundled unceremoniously inside.

  * * *

  ‘Where’s Lola Jade?’

  Rachel sat opposite Gavin Harper in an interview room at the local headquarters of the Guarda Nacional Republicana. She had been at pains to explain that he wasn’t yet under arrest, but that it was in his best interest to talk to her.

  ‘I don’t know.’ He spoke angrily, ‘You can’t keep me here, Constable…’

  ‘Detective Inspector. Prince.’

  ‘Detective Inspector, I’ve done nothing wrong. I haven’t done anything to Lola. I swear on my life.’

  She looked into his eyes. He looked straight back, unflinching.

  ‘So why on earth did you leave the UK and go on the run?’

  ‘Because everyone was pointing the finger at me and I couldn’t deal with it. I needed to get away.’

  Rachel was sceptical. ‘Without even telling anyone? Not even your brother?’

  His face clouded slightly. ‘I didn’t want any hassle for them. I didn’t want them being asked about where I was.’

  ‘But if you’d done nothing wrong, why would they be hassled? And why were people “pointing the finger at you”’ – she made quote marks – ‘in the first place?’

  Gavin shrugged. ‘Because me and Michelle were getting divorced. And it was getting very messy.’

  Rachel made a mental note to revisit the divorce proceedings. ‘Okay, forget the why for a second – how did you do it? You were on an international watch list, but there’s no record of you leaving the UK.’

  He spoke coldly this time. ‘I’m not going to answer any more questions. Not without a lawyer.’

  Rachel ignored this.

  ‘So the semen traces found on the floor of Lola’s room, containing your DNA?’ She folded her arms, but kept her voice level and unemotional.

  ‘I just told you: I’m not answering questions.’

  Rachel sighed, suddenly overwhelmed with tiredness and the longing for Brickall’s infuriating yet reassuring presence. Double-handed interviews worked so much better. ‘If you want an English-speaking lawyer, that’s going to take a while to organise. In the meantime, you’re going to be the guest of these nice Portuguese gentlemen.’

  * * *

  The body search conducted during Gavin’s booking revealed a labelled set of keys for an apartment block on the Rua Cel Aguas. With him locked in a police cell, Rachel and a young Guarda called Bruno drove there, gloved up and began a fingertip search of the third-floor one-bedroom apartment.

  There wasn’t much to examine: just a rucksack with a few clothes in it, a charger in a box that had held a cheap disposable mobile phone, and an iPod plugged into a portable speaker. There was milk and beer in the kitchen fridge; a half-eaten box of breakfast cereal and some tea bags in the cupboard. One toothbrush, some deodorant and a disposable razor in the bathroom. A couple of towels had been used, and both sides of the bed appeared to have been slept in. Bruno bagged the towel, the toothbrush and the bed linen for DNA sampling.

  The nightstand’s drawer revealed a passport and credit card in the name of Andy Whittier. So that was how he had done it: exploiting the resemblance between himself and his brother. Rachel handed them to Bruno to bag.

  ‘We finish now?’

  ‘Hold on. One second.’

  Something made Rachel go back to the rucksack and re-examine it, turning it inside out. There was a padded interior pocket, which she unzipped, pulling out a small child’s nightgown: white jersey material scattered with red, yellow and blue stars. The label said ‘Ages 5–7’. She held it up.

  ‘Meu Deus!’ breathed Bruno.

  ‘Quite.’

  She bagged it up and, once they had retrieved the building’s CCTV recordings from the management office, they drove fast back to the Guarda Nacional building, with Bruno pressing the heel of his palm frequently on the car horn.

  Rachel spent the next two and a half hours reviewing the CCTV footage from the apartment block, but the only images of Gavin were of him alone. She asked for him to be released from the cell and brought back into the interview room, where she laid the nightdress on the table between them.

  ‘Recognise this?’

  He looked surprised. ‘Where did you find that?’

  ‘In your rucksack. It’s about to go to our forensic lab to be tested. My bet is that it’s going to have two sets of DNA on it. Yours and Lola’s.’

  ‘It must have been in there for ages. I used that rucksack when Lola and I went to a campsite in Rhyl last summer. My cousin has a place down there.’

  Rachel kept her expression neutral. ‘We’ll corroborate that. Obviously. Right… I’ve requested a lawyer and a translator, who are going to come and speak to you.’

  ‘How long will that take?’

  ‘A few hours. But the GNR here are going to remand you in custody anyway while I get a European arrest warrant issued.’

  ‘You can’t fucking arrest me: I haven’t done anything.’ His body language was pure aggression, and Rachel thought back to the photos of Michelle’s bruised arms.

  ‘I’m afraid you have,’ she said coolly. ‘Use of a false identity document happens to be an indictable offence. That means extradition rules apply. In other words, the Portuguese authorities now have to send you back to face trial. And I get the undoubted pleasure of escorting you back to the UK.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake. You can’t do this!’ He slammed the flat of his hand on the table.

  She paused in the doorway, as Bruno and one of his friends pulled Gavin to his feet. ‘Carry on like this and you’re going to be travelling home in a pair of steel bracelets.’

  * * *

  The flight from Faro landed at Gatwick the following evening. As soon as Rachel had handed over Gavin Harper and the exhibits to a uniformed team from Surrey Police, she texted Brickall.

  Found Harper. He’s got some explaining to do.

  He replied straight away.

  We’re all at the Pin, loser.

  Succinct, she thought. And also insolent. Par for the course. She went back to her flat, showered and changed out of her grimy travelling clothes, applied some make-up, then headed to their work local, the Pin and Needle.

&nbs
p; ‘Look what the cat dragged in,’ crowed Brickall, but he gave her a comradely slap on the shoulder and bought her a glass of red wine. The place was crowded, but they carved out a couple of feet of space at the bar.

  ‘Still in a good mood, I see,’ Rachel observed. ‘Oh, crap!’

  She had just spotted a familiar figure on the far side of the bar. Howard. ‘My personal trainer,’ she explained to Brickall. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see him here.’

  ‘Ooh – a personal trainer now, is it? Get you.’

  Brickall was tipsy, but not too tipsy to notice the faint pinkness in Rachel’s cheeks, or the way she kept glancing over in Howard’s direction. ‘Oh, I get it,’ he said with satisfaction.

  ‘Get what?’

  ‘You fancy him, don’t you? It’s obvious.’

  Rachel shook her head rather too vigorously. ‘Fuck off, Brickall, it’s not that. We had an argument, and I was rude to him.’

  ‘That never stopped you before.’

  She gave him the finger before jostling herself out of the corner she was penned into and limping in Howard’s direction. He did a comedy double-take when he saw her, and she realised it was because he hadn’t immediately recognised her, with her freshly styled hair, tailored shirt and red lipstick complementing her newly acquired Mediterranean glow. He was used to seeing her bare-faced and in sweaty disarray at the gym.

  ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m with my wife.’ He pointed at a table at the far side of the room, where an attractive red-headed woman was sitting with that awkward air of the pub-goer who doesn’t yet have a drink.

  ‘Oh, I see.’ She collected herself. ‘Sorry, I didn’t realise you were married.’

  He held up his left hand, displaying a gold band. ‘Not a good idea to wear a wedding ring while you’re boxing.’

  ‘Okay, well… I just wanted to say sorry. I was rude to you. About the tramadol.’