by TM Logan
I walked down off the bridge and tramped through the long grass to the series of concrete semi-circles that formed the theatre seating, each deeper than the next, until I was in a depression in front of the stage. The theatre building itself, a two-storey wooden façade on a one-storey base, was locked and shuttered for the off season. The amphitheatre looked tired and sad and windswept, as if it had been abandoned to the elements now that winter was on its way.
There was no one around. I went back to the middle of the bridge, checked my watch, sent another message.
I’m here
9.18 a.m. Me
I had barely put the phone back in my pocket when the reply came back:
So am I.
9.18 a.m. Ben mob
I spun around, the phone still in my hand, to look behind me.
The path was empty. The open-air theatre still abandoned for the winter. No signs of life. I searched the treeline across the lake from left to right, trying to spot him as my heart thumped harder in my chest.
He has a gun, remember.
Suddenly – now that it was really happening – it occurred to me that coming here on my own, to a half-deserted city park, was maybe not such a good idea. The meeting time I’d given to the police was still more than half an hour away. Maybe they’ll be early.
Maybe not.
Maybe they won’t come at all.
I checked over my shoulder again and then went back to studying the treeline, scanning right to left this time, looking for any movement or shape or colour that would give him away.
That was when I saw him.
28
Ben was on the far side of the lake, maybe fifty or sixty metres away, just standing there. Wearing the same jacket he’d worn on Thursday night: the Louis Vuitton, the one Mel had told me cost more than a thousand pounds. He had on a black baseball cap and was carrying a long blue canvas sports bag that looked slack and half empty, but weighted down in the middle. As if it held something long, thin and heavy.
I stared at him for a long moment, trying to make sure it was him, waiting for him to make a move, give a signal, show some sign that he had seen me on the bridge and recognised me. But he just stood there, absolutely still, staring back across the choppy water of the lake. It was the first time I had seen him since Thursday evening and I was trying to work out what I was feeling, through the surge of emotion.
Anger at his betrayal. Sadness at all the lying. Determination that this would be the end of it.
The rough stone of the bridge parapet was coarse beneath my fingers. It was clear now why he had chosen the bridge for our meeting: not because it gave a perfect all-round view of the surrounding heath, but because anyone standing on it was elevated, exposed, raised ten or twelve feet above everything else. Because if you were standing on the bridge, it would be very obvious if you were alone or not.
And still he stood there. Him on one side of the lake, me on the other. He put a hand in his pocket and put a mobile phone to his ear. He spoke, listened briefly, spoke again, then put the phone away. He raised a hand in a wave, then turned and walked away up the path.
Now what – follow him? Why not? I wasn’t going to let him just walk away after bringing me all the way out here to this place.
I walked down the bridge’s incline to follow him, keeping my eyes on him all the while. He had a big head start on me and was walking quickly, not looking back. He reached the fork in the path and took the left-hand side, quickly disappearing from view behind the screen of trees that led back to the entrance. I broke into a jog, my footsteps loud on the path. Can’t let him get away. I cut across the grass to gain on Ben a little more, but the path looped away behind the trees and he was still out of sight.
I reached the fork and stopped. There was no sign of him. Shit. Running further, retracing my steps from earlier, the path curving in a big semi-circle around to the left as it went back to the car park. Ben was still nowhere to be seen. I stopped, panting with the exertion, looking around. How had he got away from me so fast? He’d had a head start, but even still . . . I looked around, cold October air scouring my lungs. There was no wind, the trees were completely still. A high-pitched whistle of birdsong far off in the distance.
I was completely alone.
Or was I?
Maybe he hadn’t run off at all. Maybe he was hiding here, nearby. Watching me. Stalking me. Laughing to himself. There was lots of cover, dense bushes and trees standing close together, lots of places to conceal yourself. I looked around quickly, with a powerful sense that I was being watched. Listened hard, my ears straining for the tiniest sound that would give him away.
Off the path, a flash of bright blue stood out against the autumn undergrowth. Ben’s sports bag. The one he’d just been carrying. It was only a few feet off the path in a small clearing. A quick calculation told me that straight through the trees here would bring me out into the car park.
He had taken a shortcut to get there before me.
Moving branches aside, I left the path and headed into the undergrowth. Twigs scratched and snagged at my coat and jeans. Ducking my head, I pushed on and through, the bushes closing up behind me and hiding me almost completely from the path. The bushes were heavy and wet, streaking my clothes with water. A low branch scratched my cheek. Another stabbed the back of my hand.
The blue sports bag was slack and unzipped. I nudged it with the toe of my shoe, feeling it yield under the pressure. I picked it up. Empty.
So he took the gun out?
I stopped for a second, an icicle of realisation sliding into my stomach.
Ben’s here, with a gun. Full of hate and anger and jealousy. He’s led you here, got you where he wants you.
There’s no one else around.
No witnesses.
You idiot.
He had played me to perfection.
Shit.
The bushes and trees were thick around me. Lots more places to hide. No fast way out. Where the hell were the police? I’d asked them to meet me here, given them the time and place.
Maybe they weren’t coming.
Crouching down, I listened to the sounds of the woodland. The drip of moisture from overnight rain. The wingbeats of a bird high overhead. Faint sounds of rustling in the fallen leaves. Expecting at any moment that Ben would step around the trunk of a tree and level his shotgun at me.
Can’t stay here.
My sense of direction had never been brilliant, but it seemed that a route directly away from the path and slightly to the left would be the quickest way back to my car, and safety.
I stood up and ran.
Pushing back the undergrowth, branches cracking as I ploughed through, head down, ignoring the scrapes from protruding branches, ducking and weaving between tree trunks, a thick carpet of leaves beneath my feet. Hearing my own breathing loud and laboured in my ears. Imagining Ben appearing in front of me. Or maybe I wouldn’t see him. Maybe I’d just hear the shot.
Where was he?
I kept on running, my legs getting heavier. Stumbled into a dip and almost fell, barking my knuckles on a tree stump as I struggled to stay upright.
Just get back to the car. Get the hell out of here and don’t make the same mistake again. Worry about the rest later.
I burst through the last line of bushes and out into the car park, breathing hard, streaked with rainwater and dirt, shoes caked in mud, tree-branch scratches on my hands and face. Clutching the blue sports bag in my hand.
But I was too late. Ben’s white Aston Martin was gone.
29
There was no sign of Ben anywhere. The only people in the car park were a middle-aged man and a younger woman getting out of a nondescript saloon, him in a dark jacket and tie and her in a charcoal-grey trouser suit. I studied them as I got my breath back, hands slack by my sides, panting hard from my run through the trees. The woman was slim and attractive in an uncomplicated way, with dark brown hair tied back in a ponytail. The man was a good ten years o
lder than her, maybe forty, with a day’s worth of stubble on his face and his tie at half mast even though it was not yet 9.30 a.m. He wore a hangdog, almost apologetic expression, like he’d seen a lot of life and didn’t care for most of it.
‘Joseph Lynch?’ he said, walking over to me.
‘Yes?’
‘My name’s Detective Chief Inspector Marcus Naylor, Metropolitan Police.’ He indicated the woman next to him. ‘This is Detective Sergeant Rachel Redford.’
We all shook hands and I gestured back towards the way I’d come.
‘You missed him. You literally just missed him.’
‘Who?’
‘Ben Delaney. He was here. Just left, must have been right before you arrived.’
Naylor looked at his watch.
‘Didn’t get the message from morning briefing until half eight, and we came straight here,’ he said in his flat south London accent. ‘Thought we might be early. You said ten o’clock?’
‘He was early. So was I.’
‘Ah. Shame.’
He seemed to notice the bedraggled state of my clothes for the first time.
‘Are you all right?’ he said.
I was still trying to get my breath back. Hadn’t realised how out of shape I was.
‘Fine. Just a bit out of condition.’
‘You were running.’
‘Wanted to catch Ben before he left. And then . . .’ I suddenly realised how foolish it sounded, but I had started the sentence now and had to finish it.
‘And then?’ Naylor repeated, raising an eyebrow.
‘Then I thought he might have been, sort of . . . lying in wait for me, so I legged it back here to get to my car.’
Naylor put his hands in his pockets, regarding me with a quizzical expression.
‘Lying in wait for you? Why do you think he would do that?’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘So I’ve heard. But you didn’t actually talk to him?’
I shook my head.
‘Saw him, but not close enough to talk. He was texting me.’
‘You sure you’re all right?’ Naylor said again, indicating my right hand. ‘You’re bleeding.’
‘It’s fine, it’s nothing.’ A line of blood trickled between my knuckles where I had caught it on a tree branch. The knuckles were barked red raw from where I had lost my balance and almost fallen over, the hand stiffening up already.
‘What’s in the bag?’ Naylor said, indicating the blue sports bag in my other hand.
I’d almost forgotten I was holding it.
‘Oh, this? Nothing. It’s Ben’s, he dropped it back there.’
‘Are you sure it’s his?’
‘He was carrying it earlier. I think it might have had one of his shotguns in it.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘It looked like he had something in it just now. Something long and heavy.’
‘But he left the bag behind?’
‘I found it in the bushes back there.’ I held it out to him. ‘Here, take a look.’
Naylor didn’t take his hands out of his pockets.
‘Rachel, would you mind?’
His colleague was already round the back of their saloon car, opening the boot. Returning with a large, clear Ziploc plastic bag. She opened it and held it out to me, so I could drop the sports bag into it.
As she sealed the bag I realised she had put on white rubber gloves.
Naylor said: ‘Thanks, Mr Lynch. So we just missed him, did we?’
‘By a couple of minutes at most. He left in a white sports car with a personalised plate.’
‘Didn’t see one.’ He turned to his colleague. ‘Did you, Rachel?’
‘Nope,’ she said, writing something on the Ziploc bag in black marker. It was the first word I’d heard her utter.
‘Since we appear to have missed the boat here,’ Naylor said, ‘would you have some time to talk to us now?’
‘Sure.’
‘At the station?’
‘No problem.’
Naylor opened the back door of their saloon car.
‘Great. Shall we?’
‘Can I follow you in my car?’
‘Probably easier if you ride with us. It’s an absolute bugger to park near the station anyway, especially on a weekday. Rachel can drop you back here to your car after we’re done, if you like.’
I studied him for a moment, trying to read him, to work out what he was thinking. His left ear was cauliflowered like a rugby player’s – tight head prop, I thought randomly – and he had a small white scar curling below his lip. His eyes were a very pale, icy blue, and gave nothing back. Before this weekend I had never in my life spoken to a policeman for longer than required to ask directions. Now I’d met three in as many days.
Assuming they are actually police.
‘This is going to sound a bit weird,’ I said. ‘But aren’t you supposed to show me your ID, or something?’
Naylor looked pained, as if I’d offended him.
‘Do you not believe that I’m a police officer, Mr Lynch?’
‘No, I mean yes, it’s not that. It’s just that I’m not really sure what to believe, these last few days.’
A trio of geese flapped noisily overhead, squawking to each other. Naylor kept his eyes on me.
‘Really?’ He produced a black wallet ID from his jacket pocket. I looked briefly at the picture on his warrant card – name, rank, collar number – alongside the crest of the Metropolitan Police before he snapped it shut again. ‘Bad weekend?’
‘Bad doesn’t really cover it, to be honest.’
I got in the back seat and DS Redford pulled the Ford smoothly around in a semi-circle, back out to the exit onto the main road.
‘Sorry to hear that,’ Naylor said to me over his shoulder.
‘I had sort of assumed that young officer I met on Saturday would be the one who came out this morning. Didn’t realise they’d send a detective chief inspector.’
‘Things have moved on a bit since Saturday.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Let’s talk at the station.’
We passed the rest of the journey in silence.
30
For the second time in three days, I found myself in the reception area of Kilburn Police Station. There were a couple of tramps sitting half asleep on the back row of seats and a bored-looking custody sergeant behind the counter who nodded at Naylor as we came in. Redford punched buttons next to a heavy security door and it opened into a bare corridor with three doors on each side. The last door on the left bore the black plastic nameplate ‘Int Room 3’. Inside were four chairs and a table. Redford gestured for me to take a seat.
‘Tea or coffee?’ she said. She had a clear, kind tone to her voice which made me instantly warm to her. I couldn’t tell what her accent was, but it wasn’t London. Something northern.
‘Tea, please. Milk, no sugar.’
She nodded and disappeared, closing the door behind her.
Before this weekend, I had never been inside a police station except for a bike-coding day they’d held at Harrow Road last year. It was a thoroughly depressing place, as was this one. The interview room was a case in point. Bare walls, four nondescript plastic chairs and a plastic-topped table that was pock marked with cigarette burns. I guessed the table had been there long before the smoking ban.
There were no missed calls or messages on my phone. I wondered again what had happened with Ben at the country park. Maybe he’d clocked the detectives before I had, and panicked? Not smart to get caught by the police with a shotgun in a gym bag. I typed a new message to Ben.
Why did you leave the park earlier?
10.33 a.m. Me
The door opened again and DC Redford came in with a steaming cup of tea in a Styrofoam cup. She set the cup down in front of me and I sat up straighter, assuming we were about to start.
‘Is your colleague joining us? I asked her.
�
�He’s just sorting a couple of things out,’ she said. ‘Back in a minute.’
She disappeared back into the corridor, closing the door behind her. I looked at my watch. Monday morning at 10.34 a.m. should mean a Year Ten class on Of Mice and Men, but instead I was here in a dingy police station waiting to be interviewed about Ben bloody Delaney. I stood up and went to the barred window. Beyond the police station car park there was a railway siding with tracks butted up next to each other, a dozen steel lines crossing my view in parallel from left to right. Grey high-rise blocks looming up behind. Drops of rain spattered the window.
My phone remained obstinately silent. I typed another text to Ben.
What the hell was this morning all about anyway? If you’ve got something to say to me, just say it
10.35 a.m. Me
The door opened again and Naylor came in with Redford behind him. They took the two seats opposite me, both holding white mugs of tea. Naylor’s mug had the words ‘Property of the BOSS’ in large red letters on its side. Redford had a brown cardboard folder and a notepad under her arm.
Naylor’s chair scraped loudly on the floor as he pulled it into the table.
‘Sorry about the delay,’ he said. ‘Let’s get started, shall we?’
He took a small digital Dictaphone out of his pocket and set it on the desk between us, a red light blinking on-off-on-off.
‘You don’t mind if I use this, do you? Saves me making notes.’
‘Of course.’
‘Great,’ he said, clasping his hands on the table in front of him. ‘So: Benjamin Delaney. As you know, his wife reported him missing on Friday and we’re trying to establish his whereabouts, so thanks for coming in on Saturday to talk to PC Khan and also giving us the heads-up about this morning – much appreciated. I’ve read through your statement, and those made by your wife and Mrs Delaney, and I’ve got a few questions.’
‘No problem.’
‘Mr Delaney’s a friend of yours, correct?’
‘He was.’
