by Chris Ewan
She almost turned back. She almost pulled the car around in a fast circle and sped away. But an inner resolve she couldn’t quite fathom or shake made her rush out and hurry towards the open front door.
Mike Renner monitored her approach from the top of a flight of stone steps, sucking some kind of protein shake through a plastic straw.
Lloyd felt a flutter of nervous excitement in her throat; the sudden thrill of acting on the fly. The notion crept into her talk.
‘Something happened to your face, Mike? You look like you’ve been in a brawl.’
There were butterfly stitches across his forehead and nose, and his bottom lip was fat and swollen. He was tilted to one side, favouring his right leg, as if he’d injured the left.
When he swallowed and pulled the drinking straw away from his mouth, Lloyd noticed that his teeth were strikingly white.
‘You shouldn’t have come here. You’re making a big mistake.’
He had a slight lisp as he talked. Lloyd’s grandmother had been just the same when she’d first had dentures fitted.
‘Oh, Mike.’ She flattened her hand on his chest as she passed him by. ‘This is just the latest in a long list of mistakes I’ve been making recently.’
Connor Lane was waiting in his study but he didn’t turn to greet Lloyd when she entered the room. He was facing a large picture window with his legs parted and his hands in the pockets of the well-tailored trousers he had on. His shirt was white and fitted and looked to have been designed for an Italian male model twenty years his junior. Lloyd had seen photographs before but just a glimpse of his profile made her realise how much more handsome and powerful he appeared in the flesh.
‘DS Lloyd. How very plucky of you to come here alone.’
There was a slyness to his disregard for her that pierced Lloyd. His gaze was fixed beyond the window and the lawn, as though he was searching for something out on the lake, yet he seemed aware of her every movement.
She thrust her hands into her pockets and squeezed her squash ball. It felt to her as if he knew exactly what she was doing.
She said, ‘I came here tonight because there are some things I need to tell you.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as that I know Nadine Foster is your source inside the Protected Persons Service, Mr Lane. I know she has been for some time. Tomorrow, my superiors will know it too. Unless for some reason I delete the email I have queued on my laptop to send.’
‘I haven’t the first idea what you’re babbling about.’
But he did. He was too dismissive, too nonchalant, and it just made the sting of Foster’s betrayal all the sharper for Lloyd. She’d confided in Foster. She’d trusted her. And look where it had got her.
It was the trip that Foster and John Young had taken to talk with Lane and his lawyer that had first triggered Lloyd’s misgivings. Outwardly, the visit had seemed pointless. So why had they come?
Her suspicions had been focussed on Young to begin with. She’d watched him log in and out of his computer enough times to learn his password. She knew his routines. Three days ago, she’d let herself in to the incident room in the middle of the night and had accessed his computer terminal. She’d searched for anything out of the ordinary and had found nothing at all.
Then she’d tried Foster’s desktop. She’d memorised her password, too. And it had told her everything she needed, and really hadn’t wanted, to know.
She said, ‘Foster is the information gatherer for our team. It’s her job to pull together the data that streams into our system for any ongoing investigation. She received border-control flags against Mike’s name, and also a known associate of yours called Aaron Wade. The flags showed that both men flew into Hamburg on the same flight shortly before Nick Adams and Kate Sutherland arrived in the city. A more recent alert tells me Mike flew back to Manchester out of Switzerland. Alone.’
‘So I took a break.’ Renner came around from behind her to perch on the armrest of a wingback chair. He slurped his drink. ‘Big deal.’
‘It is a big deal because Foster deleted those alerts from our system. She buried them without passing them along. I’m guessing our tech team will also be able to prove that she went into our system back before all this mess started to find that Kate Sutherland had been relocated to the Isle of Man. She sold you that information, Mr Lane. It’s what enabled you to send a man to kill Kate. Or try, at least.’
‘What a fascinating theory, DS Lloyd. But it sounds to me as if all you have is evidence that one of your colleagues has acted improperly. I don’t believe you can link her behaviour to me.’
Lloyd knew he was probably right. Lane was too careful to leave a trail that would lead to him directly. She guessed that he’d paid Foster in cash or in kind. That could account for Foster’s fine clothes, her nice handbags and jewellery. It would also explain why she’d been prepared to make the trip to the Lake District with Young. She’d had intel to pass on and a payment to collect.
She turned to face Renner. If Lane wouldn’t look at her, she’d make certain that he would.
‘I know why you were in Switzerland, Mike. And I’m guessing by your appearance that it didn’t go as well as you’d planned. I hope not, anyway.’
‘My holiday you mean?’
‘Holiday. Right. So what’s with the injuries? Why the new teeth?’
‘I was in a car accident. A stupid prang.’
‘Did you report it?’
‘Didn’t see the need. I was the only one hurt.’
‘What about Wade? Didn’t he make it back with you?’
‘How would I know? He had holiday plans of his own.’
Lane turned his head slightly, though only for an instant. His gaze drifted over her, dismissed her, returned to the view.
‘Was there anything else before you leave, DS Lloyd?’
‘Just one thing,’ Lloyd told him. ‘In my time with the force, I’ve always believed in following the rules. I’ve been a stickler for procedure and it’s isolated me from my colleagues. But lately, I’ve started to think I’ve been wrong. Maybe following procedures is what allows men like you to thrive, Mr Lane. And maybe I hid behind those rules and procedures because it was the safe and easy thing to do. Maybe it stopped me from doing what is right.’
‘Men like me.’
‘Exactly.’
‘I do hate to be tiresome, DS Lloyd, but is that some kind of threat?’
‘No threat. It’s really more of a personal revelation.’
‘I see. And what exactly am I supposed to take from this . . . epiphany of yours?’
‘Nothing. Or something, if you choose to. That’s entirely up to you. But it was important for me to come here and tell you. And that’s it, really. That’s all. Except to say that I’ll be watching you from now on. You too, Mike.’
She waited a moment more, then turned to leave. She thought they might stop her, or call after her, but they simply let her go, as if her visit had been of no consequence whatsoever.
And perhaps it hadn’t been. Stepping out the front door, she couldn’t tell if what she’d said had been enough, for her or for Lane. So why had she come, exactly? Because, she realised now, she’d had a need to confront the beast at the end of her quest in the hope she’d see something in his eyes that would tell her what it was she was really searching for. But Connor Lane hadn’t allowed her even that satisfaction. His eyes had belonged to the lake.
Letting go of her squash ball, fumbling for her keys, she rushed towards her car, suddenly paranoid that the gates wouldn’t open when she reached the bottom of the driveway, that somehow she might never leave.
But as she opened her door, her thoughts turned to the argument Kate Sutherland claimed to have witnessed between Helen Knight and Russell, down by the old boathouse, and she looked off along the sloping lawns towards the gleaming black caul of the lake, spying, in that instant, what she supposed had fascinated Connor Lane so.
Down by the water’s edge, near a sm
all outcrop of trees, was the flash and bob of torchlight.
Chapter Seventy-Seven
The old boathouse looked close to collapse. The roof was sagged, the timber bowed and flaking, the foundations sinking into a boggy inlet at the edge of the lake and the base of a rolling mound of lawn.
Miller passed his torch to Kate while he removed a set of bolt cutters from his backpack. He fitted the jaws around a corroded padlock and hasp and snipped the lock free. The boathouse doors had dropped on their hinges and wouldn’t budge to begin with, so Miller cleared away a compacted ridge of mud and leaves with the toe of his boot, then worked his fingers into the gap beneath one door and lifted and pulled until it wrenched open, releasing a swampy aroma of stagnant water and rotted algae.
Kate went in ahead of him, spraying the torch around. There wasn’t a lot to see. Fishing nets and oars were hanging among the decaying joists in the roof space and a vast old sideboard was butted up against the back wall, the timber bare and marked by scratches and dings. Miller watched as Kate crept closer and slid open the drawers, freeing clouds of dust.
‘Crap.’ She reared back, wafting her hand in front of her face. ‘There’s nothing here.’ She coughed. ‘I was wrong, Miller. I’m sorry.’
Miller didn’t reply. He was crouched low, smearing his fingers through the dirt and grime that coated the cement floor.
‘I don’t understand it.’ Kate turned around, the torch beam whirling with her. ‘I was sure there had to be something about this place.’
‘Maybe there is. Point that torch over here.’
Kate stepped closer and centred the beam on the area of muddy ground around Miller’s hand.
‘Look.’
There was a gouge in the concrete, approximately half a metre in length, extending in a shallow arc from just in front of one leg of the sideboard. Kate pointed the torch towards the leg at the opposite end and found a matching groove.
‘Help me to move this thing.’
Kate tried, but the sideboard was a mighty piece of furniture and she couldn’t shift it at all. It was different for Miller. He spread his feet wide and strained his back and managed to shunt the sideboard a short distance out from the wall.
‘I don’t have the strength,’ Kate told him.
So he came around and used the same technique and moved the sideboard about the same distance. He kept switching ends, pulling and pushing, shunting the unit in small increments.
He straightened, stretching his back, then ducked and felt around in the space behind the sideboard while Kate cast the torch beam from left to right.
‘There,’ she said, and pointed the beam at the outline of a crude hatch cut low in the wall.
There was no handle or latch. Miller tried pressing the panel, thinking it might pop open. It didn’t, but he spied an area of peeled and grazed wood to one side and reached into his backpack for a hunting knife. He unsheathed the blade, wedging it into the crack, wiggling it sideways, forcing the hatch open on concealed hinges.
A smell of mud and stale air wafted out. Miller took the torch from Kate and aimed it along the opening, lighting up a cramped makeshift tunnel carved into damp earth, supported by timber joists and beams. It was just about big enough for him to crawl along, maybe.
‘Gross.’ Kate nudged him aside and grabbed the torch to take a look for herself. ‘Why wasn’t this found before? The police must have searched this place after Helen’s body washed up.’
‘Depends who searched. Depends who Lane paid off.’
‘Or threatened,’ came a voice from behind.
There was the scuff and scrape of footsteps, then a sudden dry click and a new torch bloomed in the fuggy darkness. Miller and Kate snatched their heads up from behind the sideboard. For a moment, all Miller could see was the white dazzle of the beam. Then the torch was lowered and his sight began to clear and he glimpsed a face he recognised. Unfortunately.
‘Kate, meet DS Lloyd. She’s the one who’s been looking for us both. She’s the one who believes I killed Sarah and Melanie.’
‘Not Melanie.’ Lloyd took a step closer. ‘Anna Brooks, maybe.’ She flashed the torch in his eyes again. ‘What happened to your face? Not a car accident in Switzerland, I hope.’
Miller didn’t say anything. He was thinking of the tunnel behind him and of the secrets it might contain. He was thinking of how close he’d got to them. And he was thinking of the knife in his hand.
‘So what’s down the spooky hole?’
‘That’s what we’re here to find out.’
‘Well, don’t let me stop you. Let’s all take a look.’
The tunnel wasn’t long. Five metres, maybe less. Miller was first through, followed by Kate. Lloyd came last but the chamber the shaft opened up in was too cramped to contain the three of them, so she remained prone on her stomach and elbows, peeking out from the mouth of the tunnel at the tiny dome that had been carved from the compacted mud and clay all around.
The earth in the middle of the space had been formed into two long mounds, ringed with pebbles. A handwritten plaque was nailed to the wooden struts behind each mound. The first read: LARRY LANE. The second read: TO A DEAR AND CHERISHED MOTHER, DIANE LANE.
A wooden cross and a crinkled laminated photograph of the couple had been pressed into the clay above the graves. Unlit votive candles were propped in tiny crevices.
‘Connor and Russell’s parents.’ Kate said, and Miller looked up at her colourless face in the torchlight. He was stooped with his back against the dank mud wall, wetness soaking through to his skin. ‘Do you think Russell did this?’
‘He must have,’ Lloyd put in, angling her own torch to see more clearly, her cheek grazed with mud. ‘But what does it mean?’
‘Problems for Connor,’ Miller told them. ‘Problems that have been lurking here and troubling him for years. Problems that begin again as soon as we get out of here and Lloyd calls this in.’
But Miller was only halfway right.
The problems did begin immediately, but not for Connor Lane. They began for Lloyd and Kate and Miller when they crawled back through the tunnel to find that Connor was waiting for them with a torch of his own, and that Mike Renner was flanking him with a revolver clenched in his fist.
Chapter Seventy-Eight
‘So you’ve uncovered our family’s grubby little secret. Good for you. Or not, as it happens.’
Connor shone his torch into Lloyd’s face, then Kate’s. They lowered their heads, raising their hands. But Miller wouldn’t allow him that satisfaction. He stared into the harsh white light with a burning intensity of his own.
‘Please, you can give the attitude a rest. And get against the wall. All three of you.’
Connor lowered the torch and Miller blinked hard against the translucent shapes floating before his eyes, looking towards his backpack, which he’d left close to the tunnel opening. He was thinking of the SIG he had inside. Of the bolt cutters he might use. He still had the knife in the back pocket of his jeans. Maybe he could reach for it.
‘You.’ Connor fixed the torch on Kate. ‘Throw that backpack over to me. Slowly. Good. Now step back in line with the others. I want you all to hold hands.’
Miller was in the middle and he felt Kate’s fingers squirm inside his right hand as Lloyd fumbled for his left. It felt oddly intimate to be holding hands with Lloyd, after she’d been searching for him for so long.
‘You have a choice, Detective Sergeant.’ Connor swung the torch beam towards her. ‘You could step over to this side of the room, behind Mike. We could talk about your possible role in the most favourable outcome from this situation.’
‘Tell me about the family secret.’ Lloyd was acting as if she was the one with the gun. Which was impressive, because Miller could feel her hand shaking. ‘Russell killed your parents, didn’t he?’
‘Hmm. How best to answer that? Or should I even care? None of you can leave here alive, if I do. You understand that, don’t you?’
Mi
ller squeezed Kate’s hand. He wanted to let her know Connor was wrong. He wanted to signal that he had a way out. But he wasn’t sure that he did. He couldn’t get to his knife without letting go. And once he let go, Renner might shoot.
‘But, as it happens, I’m going to have to explain things to Mike here, anyway.’ Connor hitched his shoulders, grimacing at Renner. ‘It’s a shame you had to find out like this, Mike. I don’t believe Russell ever told you, did he? I know the two of you are close, though perhaps not as close as you imagined.’
Renner’s pupils were pinpoints of darkness in the dazzle of the torch. He was breathing hard through his nose, his free hand balled into a tight fist, the revolver pointed towards Miller.
‘Russell is burdened by guilt, if that helps,’ Connor went on. ‘It’s his cross to bear. He was the one who found Mum and Dad down on Dad’s boat. They were yelling and screaming, out of control. He rushed to the house to get me and I ran back with him. Dad was raging at Mum, calling her all kinds of things. He said she was having an affair. Did you know that, Mike?’
Renner shook his head dumbly, transfixed by Connor. Miller began to wonder if he might have an opportunity to try something after all.
‘Dad said he could prove it. He said she’d been cheating for years, he was getting a divorce and she’d get nothing from him. Mum saw us watching and it seemed to change something in her. She told him she was glad it was over. That she didn’t love him any more. That she hated what he’d become. We were on the bank when Dad first struck her. He’d hit her before, hit us, too, so neither of us moved to begin with. But this time he didn’t stop. He pummelled her face and he kept hitting her when she fell on to the deck. Then he strangled her.’
Renner peered at Connor, his face slackening. He took a half-step towards him, faltered.
Miller was fixed on his revolver, willing him to shift his aim. He was readying himself to burst forwards and make a grab for the gun.
