by Mistry, Liz
Gus shrugged, his expression bored, as he slipped a packet of chewing gum out and offered it to each of the room’s occupants, pointedly omitting to offer any to O’Rourke. ‘Of course, the fingerprints we found on the oxygen bottles and the hoses match yours, so there’s really no doubt that you hooked the kids up. The big question is, how much of the rap are you prepared to take for the whole operation? Give us The Matchmaker and maybe you could spend your sentence in solitary away from all those other prisoners who, despite their own transgressions, still adhere to a moral code that compels them to want to castrate kiddy diddlers like you. What do you say?’
The sneer remained in place. ‘No comment!’
Gus popped a stick of chewing gum in his mouth and chewed, before speaking again. ‘Well, I’ll just offer the same deal to one of the others you know. Maybe the one that we picked up in Thornton. The one who had Molly.’
O’Rourke’s flinch was fleeting, but Gus noticed it with satisfaction. He smiled ‘Oh, didn’t I tell you we’ve got Molly?’ Gus tapped the table with one finger. ‘You’re not the only route to the big man, you know. Oh no. Whichever one of your little band of merry men squeals first, is the one who’ll get the best deal.’
O’Rourke lifted his hands and rested them on the tabletop. He began to scratch his wrist with a rasping sound, releasing a flurry of dry skin.
‘Fuck off,’ he said, but Gus was sure his tone was less certain than before.
Gus looked pointedly at O’ Rourke’s wrist. It had begun to bleed slightly now. ‘Oh, ok.’
Gus stood up and moved to the door with Sampson following, before the other man turned slightly in his chair. ‘Let me talk with my lawyer and then we’ll talk a deal.’
Gus smiled. ‘Really? Well, you can talk to your lawyer for as long as you like; as for the other, well, I wouldn’t hold my breath if I was you. First piglet to squeal gets the deal… Oink, oink.’
Chapter 98
Saturday 11:30am
It had been snowing for hours. Gus had got nothing useful from Devlin O’Rourke so he’d been put back in the cells where he could wallow in his own filth. Now it was time for Gus to speak with Jamal Asif again. Armed with the photos in a manila folder, Gus and Sadia entered Interview Room six where Jamal waited with his solicitor, Amy Winters.
Amy looked up when he came in. ‘Look Gus, I know this is important but as soon as Jamal’s IDed the man he saw, I’m taking him back to the safe house for the night. The weather’s not improving and Jamal needs his rest. He’s frightened and tired.’
Jamal sniffed. ‘Am not frightened. Just let’s get on with this. Let me see the photos.’
Gus took them out the folder. Sadia switched on the recorder and Gus introduced those present before handing the pictures over to Jamal. He explained, for the tape, that Jamal had been given fifteen photos to look at.
‘Take your time Jamal, there’s no rush. It’s important you don’t make a mistake, ok?’ said Sadia.
Jamal nodded and began to look at the photos one by one whilst everyone else looked on. Finally, he got to the last one. He looked at it and then scowling he flung them all on the table.
‘He’s not there. I knew you lot would all stick together. He’s not fucking there.’ And with no warning he scraped his chair back and jumped up abruptly, sending his chair flying and glared at them. Amy gently led him back to the chair that Sadia had set upright again. Tears poured down his cheeks and his shoulders heaved.
Gathering the photos together into a pile, Gus tried to think. He had no doubt that Jamal was telling the truth. So, who the hell had he seen? Who the hell was The Matchmaker? He waited till Jamal hiccupped to a halt before speaking. ‘Look Jamal, the photos we showed were only of the people Ms Winters and Naila could remember passing in the corridor in the way back. We’re not giving up on this. I’m going to see if I can do some more prying to find out who else was around at the same time as you and we’ll bring you back in tomorrow to look at more photos. We’re not doubting your word, nor are we trying to cover up. If the bastard who did that to those kids works in this police station, in whatever capacity, we will find him and we will punish him. You have my word on that.’ Gus thrust out his hand towards Jamal who glared at it for a good ten seconds before grudgingly taking it and giving it a quick shake.
‘Now Jamal, I’ll send a sketch artist over this afternoon and I’ll come by some time tomorrow with Naila and Ms Winters to show you some more photos. I don’t want you to talk about this to anyone. No point risking word getting to him.’
Gus was frustrated. His gut told him Jamal was telling the truth, but he was running out of options. He hoped the sketch artist would come up with the goods.
Chapter 99
Saturday 6:30pm
Gus felt frustrated. He’d got nothing more out of O’Rourke; and Compo was still running possible locations in Thornton. He felt like the day had been wasted and all the while Molly Graves was enduring God knows what sort of trauma. By the time it’d got to 5:30pm, he’d told everyone to pack up and get home and he’d left to brief Nancy before leaving himself.
The walk back through Lister Park made Gus’s thigh ache unbearable, but at least it cleared the caffeine fuzz from his head. Snow fell in vertical sheets, covering Sophie Ryder’s Minotaur and Lady Hare sculptures with a frosting that made them look vaguely aggressive, in a comic book way. By the time he reached Marriner’s Drive, he was wet, cold and dragging his leg slightly. His shoulder muscles bunched together like a clump of herniated intestines. When he finally reached his drive, he sighed deeply, bit his lip and almost crawled up the steep slope, before falling through the door into his hallway. Slamming the door shut behind him he lay on the carpet and allowed the welcome warmth of his central heating to engulf him, as he painfully massaged life back into his dead thigh.
Showered and medicated, he lay on his couch flicking through the TV channels – a spare part in his own home. He wore a pair of trackie bottoms and his oldest t-shirt, one with Bob Marley’s righteous dreads flowing across his chest. If he turned his head slightly to one side, the faint whiff of Gabriella’s overly-expensive perfume wafted into his nostrils from the cushion cover. Cursing, he pulled the cushion from behind his head and lobbed it at the telly, knocking over the framed wedding photo that taunted him from above the screen. Of course, it hit the table as it fell and shattered, sending slivers of glass all over the carpet. Cursing some more, he pulled himself up and bending to pick up the frame, stood on a shard of glass. Hopping into the kitchen, he lobbed the frame and photo into the bin, before slapping a plaster on the blob of blood that had appeared on the sole of his foot.
Focussed now, he dragged out the hoover and cleared up the glass. Then, black bin bag in hand, he sauntered round the living room, tossing in the few photos of Gabriella that remained. Satisfied, he surveyed the room with a grim smile. He gathered up the floral cushions that had always given him a headache and tossed them in the bag too. Next went in the stupid John Lewis paintings that he’d always hated because they had no meaning, other than they matched the wallpaper. What the hell was that all about? Buying random pictures of squares because they matched the colour of your walls?
With a sudden whoop, he hurried into the hallway and opened the cupboard under the stairs. He knew it was in there. He’d refused to get rid of it and Gabriella had refused to hang it. Stretching right to the back, he finally found what he was looking for. A few seconds later, he exited the cupboard, a stray cobweb hanging from his dreads and a smile on his face. In his hands was a huge picture frame. Holding it out at arm’s length, he studied it for a minute and then he went through to the living room and positioned the picture where the discarded canvases had been.
He stood back, arms folded across his chest and studied the charcoal sketch of Bob Marley. Each of his dreadlocks had been sketched in the form of a serpent, intertwining in a sinewy riot of life. He stretched out a hand and touched the inscription at the bottom of the drawing: ‘To
my best friend, Dread McGuire, love you mate, Greg.’
He was just wiping away a tear, when he heard hammering on his door. Who the fuck could that be? Before turning away to answer the door, he cast a final glance at the picture and in a quiet voice said, ‘Love you too, mate.’
Walking along the hallway, the security light illuminated a quartet of familiar heads against the pane. He flung open the door and cocked an eyebrow at the four people huddled on his doorstep, shivering and covered in snow.
Alice’s huge eyes peered out from between her oversized black bobble hat and the coils of her equally large scarf. ‘We walked all the way here from The Fort, Gus. We’re frozen and wet and sooo tired and…’ she hesitated, ‘we brought provisions.’
The last sentence was delivered in triumph. On cue, Sampson and Compo stepped forward brandishing bulging bright orange Sainsbury’s bags. Sadia stepped forward and pushed a bottle, tightly wrapped in the same familiar orange plastic into his hands ‘… and libations!’ she said.
Gus grinned. ‘Funny, I don’t remember inviting you lot over.’ He shrugged and unwrapped a bottle of Glenmorangie. ‘But what the hell, come in, let’s have a party.’
Alice kicked slush from her Doc Martins and stepped through the door, followed by the others. ‘We got snowed in, Gus. Traffic’s at a standstill on Manningham Lane and we couldn’t face hanging out at The Fort all night. You don’t mind do you?’ She shrugged out of her coat, thrust it at Gus, kicked off her boots, rubbed her hands together and marched through to his living room.
‘Fuck’s sake! You’ve given the place a makeover since the other day.’ She flung her small frame onto the couch and, head on one side, studied the picture on the wall. ‘Better taste than Gabriella, I have to say.’
Sadia, who’d followed Alice through more hesitantly, stood transfixed, hands on her hips before the picture. When Compo and Sampson joined her, she turned to Gus her brown eyes glistening with unshed tears. ‘That is gorgeous, bloody beautiful. I once saw something similar online. It was of Marc Bolan with his curls drawn as serpents. It was great. But this?’ She shook her head ‘Phew, this is amazing, what a talent!’
Gus felt himself choking up, but he managed to smile. ‘Yeah, Greg, the artist, was really talented and I was lucky to have him as my best friend.’
Alice reached out her hand and squeezed his arm. ‘He was lucky to have you as his best friend, too, you know?’
Gus tilted his head to one side and laughed humourlessly. ‘Yeah? So fucking lucky I killed him!’
Alice shook her head and jumped to her feet, standing right in front of Gus glaring up at him. ‘Don’t you go all fucking maudlin on me, Dread McGuire. You were there for him always. Do you think he’d have been able to live with himself if he’d survived after killing Becky and little Billy? No fucking way.’ She prodded Gus firmly in the chest ‘You, on the other hand, can and will live with yourself, because you know you did the only thing you could in the shittiest of circumstances, ok?’
Gus looked down into her fierce little face, and then glanced round at the other three members of his small but very effective team. Sampson, Compo and Sadia looked embarrassed, but each of them held his gaze. He smiled and slung his arm round Alice’s shoulder. He pulled her towards him, in a quick bear hug, before spinning her towards the kitchen. ‘Go get glasses, we’ve got a fine malt whisky to open in Greg’s honour.’
Alice grinned and got the glasses. An hour later the phone went and Gus, as mellow as his whisky, picked up. ‘Yo? Hey Naila, how’re you?’
As he listened, his expression became serious. His forehead creased in a frown and he stood up and began to pace the room. ‘Shit, are you sure? Ok, thanks.’
He released a huge breath and turned to face the others. ‘Naila’s just remembered who else she saw when she was with Jamal and you’ll never believe who it was.’
Chapter 100
Sunday 8am
Scrunched up on the sofa in Wendy’s front room, Beth gazed unseeingly at the fading embers in the fire place. She hadn’t slept the previous night. Her thoughts kept replaying that awful moment when Scream man snipped off Molly’s finger. Molly’s scream, even now, reverberated in her ears. She was thankful to Wendy and her husband Paul for putting her and Sam up, yet she felt she was intruding. Paul was kind, but despite her dazed state, she was well aware of the concerned looks that passed between the couple. Now, Wendy had sent Paul off to Morrison’s. Beth felt guilty at hounding him out of his house, yet at the same time she knew he was probably secretly relieved to get away from the oppressive atmosphere.
In her hands, Beth cradled a mug of cold coffee with a scummy milk layer on top that rippled every time she moved her hand. Wendy reached over and took the mug from her, before picking up a log and throwing it onto the fire. Beth didn’t respond. Sam slept soundly upstairs and Radio Four played gently in the background. Wendy sat back down opposite her, her eyes worried. ‘Beth, what are you thinking?’
Eyes huge and dark-rimmed, Beth turned to her and stretched out her hand gripping Wendy’s arm firmly. ‘Why did Molly go on about being veggie? It makes no damn sense.’
They sat in silence for few minutes. Then Beth turned to Wendy her face serious. ‘That’s it. Molly was giving us a clue. She was telling us she’s near South Square café in Thornton. That’s why she went on about being veggie. That must be where they’re keeping her, she must have recognised the area. Why else would she say that stuff? And what was it she said at the end – we’re all square or something like that.’ Beth jumped up, grabbed her phone from her bag and with trembling fingers called Gus.
Chapter 101
Sunday 8.15am
Despite the litre bottle of Glenmorangie that they had demolished the previous night, Gus’s team were energised. The phone calls from Naila and Beth had injected some purpose into the investigation.
The snow had continued to fall steadily overnight and Gus had issued sheets, blankets and towels to his team and was pleased they’d come over. Until Naila’s call, the atmosphere had been jovial and, for Gus, their presence in his home and the addition of Greg’s picture had obliterated all lingering traces of Gabriella.
Now, after a fry-up provided by Sampson and a trek through the crisp snow, they were back at work and the buzz in the incident room was almost tangible. Frissons of excitement seemed to ricochet off the walls, sparking adrenalin as it went. Gus barely noticed the tension in his shoulder and thigh as he watched his team work. The smell of coffee combined with the sweat of hard work was like perfume to him. He knew they were getting somewhere. Compo had initiated a geo-profile programme to try to locate the hazy images they’d extracted from the kidnapper’s recording. He’d limited it to a ten-mile radius round South Square in Thornton. One of the images, Compo reckoned, was of a distant bridge type structure, but unfortunately they couldn’t make it very clear.
Pouring himself a mug of black coffee and downing his pain meds Gus turned as Compo banged him on the shoulder. Despite having breakfasted at Gus’s house not an hour earlier he held a bacon butty in one hand. Gus grimaced slightly, as a dollop of brown sauce landed on his T- shirt. Seeing Compo’s flushed face, he just picked up a tissue and mopped up the spillage without saying a word.
Compo’s woolly hat was pushed so far back on his head it was barely holding on. Strands of brown curls escaped, making him look a combination of a scarecrow and a mad scientist.
‘Finished the analysis of those images on Alex Graves’ PC, Gus. Looks like they were bounced around about a trillion times, but I eventually got it. He didn’t upload the images. They were planted.’
Gus frowned. ‘Planted?’
‘Yes, I’ve not finished investigating yet, but it looks like they were uploaded to his PC by a third party who, wait for it, uploaded them from the police child sex offenders’ image database. They then bounced it around the globe and finally inserted it into his hard drive. Clever.’ He bit into his butty. Gus tried to ignore his masticating
jaws and the contents of his mouth as he continued. ‘…but, although it was clever, it weren’t next level clever, you know?’
Gus grinned and shook his head.
Compo swallowed a large mouthful, coughed dislodging splatters of soggy bread over Gus and said, ‘Well, too hard for you to do, but quite easy for the likes of me.’
Alice who’d wandered over to listen hid a smile and winked at Gus who ignored her.
‘What are you saying, Compo?’ asked Gus.
‘Well, it’s almost like whoever put those images on Graves’ PC, weren’t right bothered about us realising they’d been planted. Maybe even wanted us to find that out.’
‘Hmm.’ said Alice, ‘that adds up really. It’s another way of punishing Beth isn’t it? Sow the seed of doubt about her current husband. Torture her by thinking she’d exposed her family to a paedophile, not once, but twice. Clever really.’
Gus perched on the edge of his desk. ‘Sounds logical. My only worry is why would they make it easy for us to find that out, Compo?’
Compo shrugged, took another bite of his butty and chewed. ‘Obviously either they’re just not that computer savvy, or, like Al said, they wanted us to know they’d been planted.’ He frowned. ‘But if they could hack our databases to get the images that indicates a greater computer awareness than the way they uploaded it to his PC.’ He shrugged again. ‘Don’t know what to say, Gus.’
Gus tapped his finger on his lip, then took a slurp of coffee, turned to Alice and said, ‘We better let him go. Get that arranged through his solicitor and then contact Beth to explain the situation. Oh, and let the officers keeping an eye on her know to expect him to turn up there. Meanwhile, Compo, you keep on with that and see if you can come up with anything else, ok?’
Gus had printed off more photos to show Jamal, including an image of DCI Wentworth. Sampson looked at it. ‘Do you think it’s him, Gus?’
