Philip Brennan 03-Cage of Bones

by Tania Carver

  It did. The key turned. The door opened.

  He had had the key cut when he was still on the force. The records room was always difficult to get anything out of. Chits had to be completed, requests made, and, like the slowest library in the world, eventually someone would turn up with the correct box. Or more often than not, the incorrect one. So he and a few of his colleagues had got their own keys cut. Not strictly legal, or even following procedure, but when they were working a case, it could often mean the difference between catching a criminal and letting them go. And it could all be covered up afterwards. So no harm done. Not really.

  Criminal records were now on the Police National Computer and just a click away. As were police personnel records. But previous case files, especially ones that went back over thirty years, were kept here. And that was what he wanted.

  Don slipped inside the room, closed the door behind him. Found the light switch. And once the overhead strips had come to life, looked around.

  Rows and rows of metal shelves piled with boxes and boxes of files. Supposedly in order, but Don could tell from the way some boxes were sticking out at angles or had their lids missing or had just been left in haphazard piles in the aisles, their paper cascading all around them, that it wasn’t necessarily so.

  Still, he had to believe that what he was looking for was accessible. Otherwise he was in for a long day. And probably night.

  He could have told them in the office that he was coming here. That he wanted to cross-reference something with the cases they were working on. But he hadn’t. He didn’t know who on Phil’s team he could trust. He knew who he couldn’t. That was a given. But until things became clearer, he was on his own.

  He put on his reading glasses, walked up to the nearest shelf. Scrutinised the date that had been written there. Began walking.

  He resisted the temptation to look in any of the other boxes apart from the one he was searching for. There was a sizeable part of his life in this room. Memories of a career held in paper and cardboard. Maybe he would take a look. But that was for another day. For now he had something specific to do.

  It took some searching, but eventually he found it. A small shiver of triumph ran through his body as he did so. He took the box down, placed it on the floor. Squatted down beside it. Opened it. Took out the file on top, started to read.

  Felt that surge of adrenalin course through him again.

  Yes. This was it. This was the right box. Oh yes.

  He read on. Closed the folder, took out another one.

  And felt the adrenalin surge even faster.

  Smiled.

  ‘Gotcha,’ he said out loud.

  He was about to take out another folder, go through that, when the door swung open.

  57

  Marina walked into the main MIS office. It didn’t feel right somehow.

  Usually when the team were working on big cases, they based themselves in the bar, extra bodies were drafted and briefed, overtime allocated. The whole thing upgraded. But not this time. It seemed to Marina that Glass was actively working against that. Trying to keep two investigations going in as small a way as possible. It went beyond budget balancing and penny-pinching, she thought. It was as if Phil’s team were being punished for something.

  The team were still working hard – possibly even harder, if the activity in the office was anything to go by – but there seemed to be something missing. And Marina reckoned she knew what that was.

  Phil. Or his leadership, at least.

  He was absent from the office in more ways than one. She still didn’t know what was wrong with him. She had thought at first it must be their relationship. Some problem with that. With her, even. But seeing him at work showed it went deeper than that. He was distracted, mumbling when he should be giving clear orders. Absent when he should be present.

  And she couldn’t work like this any longer.

  She took out her phone. Hit speed-dial. Waited.

  He picked up.

  ‘Hey,’ she said, ‘where are you?’

  ‘Home,’ he replied.

  ‘What? What are you doing there?’

  ‘I, uh … ’ His voice trailed away.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I got wet. Needed to change my clothes.’

  She asked the obvious question next.

  ‘Chasing a suspect. Up at the hotel. Well, I thought he was a suspect. But he … yeah … ’

  Marina sighed. ‘Phil. We need to talk.’

  Silence.

  ‘We do.’ She turned away from the rest of the office, cupped her hand over the mouthpiece so no one could overhear. ‘Whatever’s going on, you need to talk to me about it.’

  More silence.

  Her voice dropped further. ‘I thought it was about us. Just about us. But I’ve seen how you are at work. And Phil, it’s not right. You need to talk to me. Whatever’s going on, you need to talk to me.’ Her voice even lower. ‘We’re in this together. Remember?’

  A sigh. She waited.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, eventually. ‘You’re right, I … ’ Another sigh. ‘I don’t know … I just … don’t know … ’

  ‘Well at least we’re communicating,’ she said.

  She heard him laugh. ‘Yeah.’ Then another sigh. ‘Oh God … ’

  ‘Look. We don’t have to talk about it now. Let’s do it later. OK?’

  ‘Marina, you don’t understand. It’s … I don’t know.’

  ‘OK. We’ll talk it through. Get it sorted.’

  There was another silence on the line.

  ‘Glass was on at me earlier,’ he said.

  ‘Joy,’ she said. ‘What did he want?’

  ‘Well, amongst other things, I’m not smart enough. I need to dress more like a copper.’

  ‘How horrible.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. So I’m having a look through the wardrobe now. Trying to find something … ’ He tailed off again.

  ‘Phil? You there? Phil?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘Oh, that’s just perfect.’

  ‘What is?’

  He gave a little laugh. ‘Glass should be careful what he wishes for. He might just get it. Or my version of it, anyway.’

  Marina smiled. This was more like the old Phil back again.

  ‘Can’t wait to see it.’

  Another silence. Then, at last: ‘I think I’m … ’ his voice shrinking with each word, ‘I’m … cracking up … ’

  Marina felt her heart break. ‘Oh, Phil … ’

  ‘I just … I’m … I’m losing it … ’

  She started to talk again, but he cut her off.

  ‘I’ve got to get ready. Get back to work. I’m going to the hospital to check on the kid. See Anni. Anything to avoid Glass. I’ll … I’ll see you later.’

  And he hung up.

  Marina was left with a dead handset. She slipped it into her pocket, didn’t move. The office was still in full swing, activity all around her, but she couldn’t move. Stood still as a statue.

  Then she snapped herself out of it. No. She had to do something.

  She had to find Don, talk to him. Maybe he could help her, shed some light on what was wrong with Phil.

  She left the incident room.

  Set off down the corridor looking for him.

  58

  Rose Martin had driven up and down the street three times. Not because she was practising any kind of surveillance. Just because she couldn’t find a parking space. And now that she had finally found one – at the opposite end of the street, nearly round the corner, useless if she did want to do surveillance – she was angry.

  Very angry.

  She had done some checking before coming back here. Found out a few things about Faith Luscombe. She had gone into the town centre, to the main CCTV control room. Asked to see footage from two nights previous of New Town. Specifically the corner Faith Luscombe had been working from.

  Nothing. No cameras on that stretch. Probably why Faith had chosen it.
From what Donna Warren had told her, Rose had worked out what time Faith had been there, and from her ultimate destination had worked out the route the car would have taken out of town. That kind of requisitioning would take time, she was told. She gave her best smile, flashed a bit of cleavage and said she would be very grateful if it was done as quickly as possible. They would see what they could do.

  Her next stop had been to see Nick Lines at the mortuary. He hadn’t been pleased to see her, although with his bald head and cadaverous appearance, he never looked pleased to see anyone. She asked to look at Faith Luscombe’s body.

  ‘If you’re sure,’ he had said. ‘It’s not pretty.’

  ‘I can take it,’ she had said, not sure if she could.

  He was right. It wasn’t pretty. Rose struggled to keep her eyes on it.

  ‘Is there … anything you’ve picked up about it?’

  ‘We haven’t done a post-mortem, if that’s what you mean,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t requested. Cause of death was being mangled by two cars. No surprises there.’

  ‘So nothing unusual?’ She felt her heart sinking. She had been sure there would be something. Hoped there would be something.

  ‘Just this,’ he said, pointing to the sole of her right foot. ‘This mark. Looks like a brand.’

  ‘A brand? Like a cow?’

  ‘Could be,’ he said. ‘Some of the extreme body modification crowd go in for it too. One step up from the ubiquity of tattoos. And much more painful, of course.’

  ‘Would she have been into that, d’you think?’

  He frowned. ‘Not sure. If it had been on her arm or body, I’d have said yes. Show it off, flaunt it. But on the sole of her foot? I don’t know.’

  ‘Have you seen anything like it before?’

  ‘Never. Not like this, anyway.’

  She thanked him for his time and asked for a photo of the brand. Then went to see Donna Warren once more.

  She turned the ignition off, sat there in silence for a few seconds. Counting her breaths. Slowly in, two, three, four, slowly out, two, three, four. Controlling herself. Like Marina had encouraged her to do. She didn’t want to give the woman credit for anything, but this had helped. Simple really; she should have thought of it herself. Take a few seconds, breathe, calm herself down. Then, if there was still some residual anger hanging round in her system, channel it into whatever she was about to do. Simple.

  Especially when it involved Donna Warren. Channelling rage in her direction would be a pleasure.

  Rose hated being made a fool of. Always had done. Refused to put up with it. All the way through training at Hendon, she had worked hard to make sure she was never the butt of jokes. Never bullied or picked on. She always stood up for herself, always gave as good as she got. Sometimes too much so. When her attitude began to be commented on, to threaten her future plans, she knew she had to rein it in, find new coping mechanisms. And she had done. It was obvious, really. Subsume the rage, channel it. Into career advancement. Into making sure she was better than the rest of her year at everything she did. Into being the youngest DI in the Met. The highest flyer.

  But it hadn’t quite worked out that way.

  And none of it was her fault.

  She checked her wing mirror, looked down the street at Donna’s house. Studied it. Sat like that for several minutes. There was nothing to see. No one came or went; she didn’t see anyone at the windows or the door. Nothing.

  Rose ran a few options through her mind. Quickly rejected all but one.

  She nodded to herself. Got out of the car, locked it, began walking down the street. Hyper-vigilant all the time.

  She needn’t have been. No one watched her, approached her, moved away from her. The only other people she saw were a young couple, both wearing tracksuits but, from the unfit, lumpen shape of their bodies, going nowhere near a gym. They were coming down the road pushing a buggy with a child inside it, bulging Aldi bags hanging from the handlebars.

  Rose smiled to herself. I might have a few issues, she thought, but at least I’m not as bad as them.

  She approached Donna’s front door. Stood before it. Before she could raise her hand to knock, she felt that old familiar rage bubbling up inside her. Looked at her hand. It was shaking. She put it in her jeans pocket, breathed in slowly once more. Out once more.

  When she was composed, she knocked.

  As soon as her hand was away from the door, her stance changed. She was ready. When the cheap whore arrived, opened the door, Rose would be on her. Inside, door closed behind her, and then her lesson could start. See what happened when you played Rose Martin for an idiot. See how far that attitude got her. She wouldn’t do that again in a hurry. No. She’d be begging and pleading for another chance, screaming how sorry she was. How she’d never do it again. Yeah. Just wait. Just you see.

  Nothing. No answer.

  Sighing in irritation, Rose tried the door again. Waited.

  Nothing.

  Another angry sigh. Not in. After all that, not in.

  Rose looked round, hoping to see Donna walking towards her. Didn’t happen. Even the lumpen couple and their child had disappeared. No one about.

  Rose turned back to the door. Smiled.

  She could still give Donna a surprise. In fact, this way, the surprise would be that much bigger. A much better way to show Donna just who was in charge. She would be terrified.

  Giving a last check over her shoulder, making sure there was no one about, no one watching her, Rose turned back to the door. Took out a set of lockpicks in a leather case.

  Got to work on Donna’s front door.

  So happy with herself, she could have whistled.

  59

  Marina found the door to the records room. Turned the handle. Open. She went inside.

  ‘Don? You in here?’

  No reply.

  She looked down the first aisle. It was exactly as she had expected it to be. Long rows of shelving piled with old cardboard boxes. Dark in there, especially for daytime. Bad, infrequent overhead lighting. Several of the tubes were buzzing, flickering. Strobing the room.

  Like in a horror film, she thought.

  Then mentally pinched herself. Don’t be so stupid. This was Southway police station in Colchester. Not The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue.

  She paused, listening. Called again.

  ‘Don? You there?’

  A noise. Down at the end of one of the aisles. Someone was in there with her.

  ‘Don, it’s Marina. Are you … ’

  A figure detached itself from the shadowed end of the aisle. Moved towards her.

  ‘Don? Is that you?’

  The figure moved into a pool of flickering light.

  Marina let loose a breath she didn’t realise she had been holding. ‘It is you. I thought for a minute it was … ’ She stopped, sentence unfinished. ‘What have you got there, Don? What are you doing?’

  Don was frantically stuffing something inside his jacket. From the look on his face, it appeared that he wasn’t pleased to be caught doing it.

  ‘Marina … ’ The flickering overhead light picked out his eyes, lit by a strange cast. Not a pleasant one.

  Marina was beginning to get scared. This wasn’t the kindly old grandfather who looked after her daughter. This was … someone she had never seen before.

  ‘Don, what are you … ’

  Papers successfully hidden inside his jacket, he advanced towards her.

  60

  Donna turned the car off Barrack Street into her own road. Slowly eased it along, looking for a parking space. One foot hovering over the accelerator, ready to drive off, speed away at the first sign of trouble.

  Ben sat next to her, silent but full of unanswered questions. He had started asking them as soon as she had stopped crying and let him go, standing outside the car earlier that day. She hadn’t had the strength to argue, shout or contradict him. She had even tried to answer him, although what she could tell him was limited. But s
omething the boy had said had made her think. At first she had dismissed it, but once she had stopped and thought, she realised that what he had said might be important.

  ‘Have you got her storybook?’

  ‘No,’ Donna had said straight away, not knowing what he was talking about. ‘No storybooks.’

  ‘Mum always had her storybook.’ Ben had sat down on the ground on his own. Kicking at the hard-packed dirt of the forest floor with the heel of his shoe, working up a cloud of dust and grit. ‘She wrote in it all the time. Said it was her life story. Said it was important to someone.’

  ‘Yeah, well we don’t have it, so it can’t be.’

  More kicking, more dust. ‘Said it was important, though. Said someone would want to read it one day and pay her for it.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Donna had lit up a fag, ignoring the boy. Just about everyone she knew thought their life story was fascinating. Thought it was so unique someone would pay a lot of money for it. Well Donna had read misery memoirs. Knew there was nothing unique about them. W. H. Smith had a whole section of them. Tragic Lives. Why the hell would anyone want to read about someone else’s tragic life? Losers.

  But no wonder Faith wanted to write about hers. There must be a lot of money in that kind of shit.

  ‘That’s where she went, isn’t it?’ Ben had stopped kicking the dirt. He looked up at Donna. ‘When she went out. She was going to sell her storybook.’

  Donna had been about to answer the boy, give him some dismissive reply, not even diverting breath from her fag. But she stopped. Thought about what he had said.

  ‘She told you that? She was going to sell her storybook?’

  Ben nodded, head down, fascinated once again by the dust.

  Donna didn’t move. Stared straight ahead. Thinking. About what the boy had said. About what it meant. About all the vague stories Faith had told her in their time together: her childhood, her escape, her life with Ben. All the drunken stoned hints she’d dropped about her plan, how she was going to get revenge and make money in the process. About how she would sober up and pretend she had never said anything.