by Neil White
Carson looked at Joe before turning back to Doctor Pratt. ‘McGanity’s left, your right, so that your left arm is over her, pressing down.’
Doctor Pratt nodded and went to stand by Laura’s side. Laura watched as his left hand went to her neck. She swallowed as his hands went around her throat, pressing gently.
‘Look how even my hand is around the neck,’ the doctor said. ‘The curve of my hand, my index finger and thumb, are right under her jaw, and I could push right down, if I wanted to. She would find it hard to move her head.’ He smiled down at Laura. ‘Which, of course, I wouldn’t do.’
Doctor Pratt stepped away and then went over to the other side. Laura closed her eyes for a moment as she felt his hand go around her neck once more.
‘Look at my left hand now,’ he said. ‘I have to contort my arm to get it evenly around her neck, because my left arm is by her side, not over her. I could move her head towards me, I suppose, but the pressure would be different. I would be pushing the head back, not down, and so Laura would be able to move her head around, perhaps make it harder for me to throttle her. And so the most natural way for me to throttle someone from this side with my left hand is to have my hand tilted, so that the tips of my fingers are right under the jaw, more vertical, with my thumb lower down, so that the pressure comes from the base of the thumb, not the curve of the hand.’
‘You could straddle her,’ Carson said.
‘I could,’ Doctor Pratt said, ‘but the killer didn’t.’ He pointed towards Jane Roberts. ‘Look at the bruises from the killer’s thumb. They are much lower down than the bruises from the fingers, which suggests that the killer was to her right side, to the left from the killer’s angle.’
‘Why make it difficult for himself?’ Carson said.
Doctor Pratt pointed towards Joe. ‘He got it right. It leaves his right hand free to relieve himself.’
As Doctor Pratt stepped away from the table, Laura slid off and back onto the floor. As she straightened herself, she saw the diener smirk at her, recognising her discomfort. She turned away.
‘So once I’ve dissected the neck, I’ll know for sure,’ Doctor Pratt said.
‘Will you do that first?’ Carson asked.
The doctor tutted. ‘Everything in its proper order, Inspector. Got to pop the skull and empty the chest cavity first. Are you going to wait around?’
Carson glanced towards the door and then back at Jane Roberts. ‘How long will it take?’
‘A couple of hours.’
Carson shook his head. ‘No, thank you, Doctor, we’ll keep on with our enquiries. Call me when you’ve come to your conclusion.’
Doctor Pratt nodded at Carson and then winked at Laura. ‘Thank you, Inspector.’
Carson looked at Laura, then at Joe, and then he headed for the door. When he realised that no one was following him, he turned around and bellowed, ‘Come on, we haven’t got all day.’
Joe smiled at Laura. ‘He’s getting queasy in his old age,’ he said, and then went to follow Carson.
Laura watched as Doctor Pratt pulled down his plastic visor and reached for a scalpel.
She turned away. Maybe Carson was right, that it was too early in the day to watch this.
Chapter Twenty
Jack went to the Blackley Telegraph office first. Dolby was in his room, a large cup of coffee in front of him.
‘I should have made you buy me this,’ Dolby said, chewing on a granola bar.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Because my idea worked,’ Dolby said. ‘The phone has been ringing all morning. It seems like your article about the police failing has touched a nerve. I’ve just had the press officer on the phone to me, asking why I’m attacking rather than helping.’
‘It must give you a glow,’ Jack said. ‘But, yeah, I owe you one, for keeping my name off it. Just make sure the cheque is paid to the right person.’
Dolby tossed the granola wrapper into the bin and lifted the lid off his coffee. ‘I don’t know why I buy this crap,’ he said, grimacing as he took a sip.
‘Because it makes you feel big to talk Italian when you buy a drink?’
He pointed and winked. ‘You’re on form today, but I know you’re not here to talk about my brunch. What can I do for you?’
‘Have we been asked by the police to hold anything back?’ Jack said. ‘Are you hearing any rumours?’
Dolby shook his head. ‘The police don’t speak to me anyway, and they always hold something back.’ Then he frowned. ‘Why do you ask? You’re the one with access. The sweet nothings drying up?’
Jack smiled. ‘Laura won’t talk about stuff like that, because she knows that you’ll print anything to sell a paper.’
‘Okay, let’s cut the sexual tension in here,’ Dolby said, his hands held up in mock surrender. ‘What have you got?’
Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out the emails. ‘I’ve been getting these.’
Dolby took them and began to read, and Jack knew he had his attention when the polystyrene cup went onto the desk. Dolby looked up. ‘Who are these from?’
‘I don’t know. They came last night, and then more this morning.’
Dolby’s mouth opened as if to say something, but then closed it and sat back in his chair, tapping his lip with his finger. ‘It could just be bullshit, some crank wanting attention.’
‘Possibly,’ Jack said, nodding. ‘But there is another possibility.’
‘Go on.’
‘They could be from the killer.’
Dolby looked at Jack, and then back at the emails. ‘Murders attract attention-seekers.’
‘I know, but could you rule it out?’
Dolby handed them back to Jack. ‘I’m not going to run a story on them. If it is some crank, the publicity could backfire.’
‘I’m not asking you to run it yet.’
‘So what are you asking?’
‘I’m going to speak to Laura, and if there’s anything in it, see if they will give me exclusive access.’
‘Okay, talk to them and let’s see what we can do.’
‘Provided they will work with us,’ Jack said. ‘The poison piece you got me to write won’t make you popular.’
‘So go in as freelance. Just make sure you sell the scoop to me.’
‘It will mean that you’ll have to work with the police. Can you do that, Dolby?’
‘Jack, I will do anything that makes people buy this paper.’
‘I thought as much. I’ll get back to you,’ Jack said, and walked out of the office, emails in hand.
Chapter Twenty-One
Laura checked her notes, just to make sure that she had the right address. She needed some fresh air, to take away the mortuary smells that had locked into her nostrils, and so she headed out to speak to Adam Carter, Jane’s ex-boyfriend.
Adam’s house surprised her. Jane Roberts had been brought up by a crook, and Laura had expected her background to guide her lifestyle choices. But this was suburbia, middle class, plain and ordinary, with a driveway for two cars, an open-plan lawn, and a white garage front, which was probably filled with tools and rubbish, waiting for a tip-run rather than a car. There were mock shutters around the windows and the bricks looked new and clean.
The front door opened before Laura got there, and as Laura reached into her pocket for her identification card, the woman who answered the door said, ‘No need, we were wondering when you would call.’ She seemed almost too young to have a son old enough to be Jane’s boyfriend, with her hair flicked over her face and her figure trim in tight jeans and a T-shirt. She stood aside, and as Laura walked down the hall to the living room at the back of the house, the woman went to make a drink.
Laura didn’t sit down at first. Instead, she tried to read the family from the surroundings. The house was clean and well-furnished, with flowers on the window sill that framed the small garden outside, the space consumed by a conservatory. Laura caught a glimpse of the dining room, through an archw
ay from the room she was in, and the formal place settings and another vase of flowers showed how the occupant wished to be viewed: on the way up.
As the woman came in with a cup of tea, Laura said, ‘Are you Adam’s mother?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Call me Tracy.’
Laura took the drink from her, and as Tracy sat down, gesturing for Laura to join her, Laura saw sadness behind the politeness; a redness around the eyes, the nervous way her finger scratched at her cup, the flicking of her hair.
‘Be gentle with Adam, he is really upset about all of this,’ Tracy said.
‘Why did they split up?’
‘He didn’t tell me,’ and then she gave a small laugh. ‘I’m his mother. I’ll be the last one he’ll tell.’
‘I’ve got a little boy,’ Laura said. ‘Is that how it ends up?’
‘How old?’
‘Eight.’
‘Enjoy it,’ she said. ‘You’ll find it hard when another woman becomes more important, and the only thing you know about your son is that he won’t tell you anything.’ Then she seemed to remember who she was talking to. ‘That isn’t to say that he has done anything wrong. I mean, there’s nothing sinister or anything.’
Laura didn’t react. People who had something to hide usually revealed more when they tried to fill the gaps.
‘Has Adam got a new girlfriend?’ Laura said.
Tracy shook her head and gave a sad smile. ‘It was only Jane,’ she said. ‘She brought trouble though. And I don’t mean Jane herself. She was a sweet thing, but her family caused trouble for her and for Adam.’ She sighed. ‘He’s a good-looking boy. It would be disrespectful to Jane right now, but he won’t be single for ever.’
Before Laura could ask anything else, there was the rumble of feet on the stairs and then a tall slim young man came into the room.
Laura saw that Tracy’s description wasn’t motherly blinkers, and the camera hadn’t lied. Adam was a good-looking young man. Just over six feet with tousled dark hair and soft brown eyes, Laura guessed that he wouldn’t get lonely once the mourning period ended. Laura stole a quick glance at his hands, to see whether they showed any signs of worry, bitten fingernails or skin, but there were none.
‘Are you the police?’ he asked.
Laura nodded.
He looked down at his mother. ‘You can leave us alone,’ he said to her.
‘No, I want to stay,’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, his voice firmer this time.
Tracy considered him for a moment, and then stood to leave the room. Adam waited until the door closed, and then he looked at Laura and said, ‘You’re here about Jane.’
Laura nodded. ‘Yes, and I’m sorry to intrude, but we need to find out who killed her. Can you tell me when you last saw her?’
‘We split up a month ago,’ he said, but he looked away as he said it.
‘You’ve no need to pretend, Adam,’ she said. ‘We know you were still an item. We’ve spoken to her friends.’
He looked down and nodded, and when he looked up again, Laura saw that his eyes were red.
‘I wasn’t supposed to see her anymore,’ he said.
‘Why not?’
‘Her father.’
‘What do you mean?’
Adam sat down and rested his head against the top of the sofa.
‘I’d been threatened,’ he said eventually.
‘By Jane’s father?’
He nodded. ‘He doesn’t like my career choice.’
‘Which is?’
Adam looked at Laura. ‘I’ve applied to join the police.’
Laura was surprised. ‘Good choice.’
Adam scowled. ‘Don didn’t think so.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I got my degree in law, and my mother wanted me to be a lawyer, had bragged to all her friends, but there are no jobs anymore.’
‘Law isn’t the career it once was,’ she said. ‘And you chose the police because it was better than nothing?’ When Adam didn’t respond, Laura added, ‘It’s okay, I’m not on the recruitment panel. I joined because it’s all I ever wanted to be, and I haven’t been disappointed. You’ll enjoy yourself.’ As Adam nodded to himself, she asked, ‘So how did Don Roberts take it?’
He looked up. ‘Not well,’ he said. ‘He told Jane not to see me anymore.’
‘So what did you do?’
Adam blushed. ‘She was a grown woman, but her father made it difficult. She would say that she was going to a friend’s house, and then we would meet up in town. But his friends would follow her, and so she had to make really complicated journeys to get there.’ He shook his head. ‘One of his apes threatened me, told me that if I saw Jane again, Don would hurt me so that no girl would ever look at me again.’
‘Is Don that anti-police?’
‘It seemed like a gut reaction at first,’ he said, ‘but then it became about disobeying him.’
‘When was the last time you saw her?’
Adam looked down at his hands and then rubbed one palm with his thumb, as if he was wiping away a stain.
‘Last Friday, the day before she went missing,’ he said eventually, and his hand went to wipe away a tear. ‘We went to the cinema and then came back here.’ He blew out, tears running down his cheeks now. ‘Mum and Dad were out, and so we had the place to ourselves.’ He shrugged. ‘Well, you can guess what happened.’
‘Had you made any arrangements to meet up again?’
He nodded. ‘The following night.’
The night she died, thought Laura, but she didn’t say it. ‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘We had agreed to meet in the Black Bull in town. There’s a door at the back that leads to a car park.’
Laura nodded that she knew it. She remembered it from her brief spell in uniform, when the young constables would shine torches in there after the pubs had closed, trying to frighten couples who preferred the convenience of the car park wall to the warmth of the bed.
‘She was supposed to walk straight through the pub, and then we were going to jump in a taxi and go somewhere on our own.’ He took a few seconds to compose himself. ‘I waited for more than an hour, and I tried her phone but she didn’t answer.’
‘Why didn’t you call us?’
‘What could I say,’ he said. ‘I just thought her father had caught her going out, or had followed her or something.’
‘Did you try to call her again?’
‘A few times,’ he said. ‘There was no answer, apart from just once, but no one said anything.’
That surprised Laura. ‘When was that, the answered call, I mean?’
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He pressed the screen a few times, and then he looked up. ‘Monday afternoon. Just before three.’
‘We think Jane died on the way to meet you.’
Adam paused and took a deep breath to compose himself. ‘I thought maybe she had left her phone at home and her father had answered,’ he said. ‘If he had known it was me, there would have been trouble.’
‘But what about Jane’s killer? He could have been the one who answered?’
‘Maybe the killer and Jane’s father are the same person?’
‘Do you believe that?’
He shrugged. ‘He’s capable of it.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Just stuff Jane’s told me.’
‘Like what?’
He scratched the side of his mouth with his finger, and then looked to the ceiling when he heard the vacuum cleaner start upstairs. Adam’s mother was being conspicuous despite not being in the room.
‘He likes money and he likes power,’ he said. ‘He used to turn a blind eye to drug dealing in the clubs where his boys ran the doors, because he would get a cut. The agreement was that if they got caught, they’d keep their mouth shut and take the hit from the court. Except that some of them didn’t like the idea of prison, and so they told the police all about the arrangements. Those tha
t talked didn’t work again. There was a rumour that one didn’t walk again. Now, it’s the protection rackets he likes, except that he calls it security. He’s a big man in a small world. Those who won’t pay the money get hassle from the local idiots, just juvenile stuff, like shit through the letterbox or eggs at the window, but a couple of people have had petrol poured into their hallways.’
‘So he was worried about having a policeman’s wife as a daughter?’
‘It was worse than that,’ he said. ‘She was thinking of joining too.’
Laura was surprised. ‘Did Don know about this?’
Adam nodded. ‘Now you know why he told us to split up. He thought I was a bad influence.’ He gave a small laugh. ‘I don’t think Don got the irony.’
‘Do you have a picture of Jane that we can use?’ Laura said. ‘Her family isn’t cooperating at all.’
Adam nodded and left the room. As she listened to the thumps of his feet on the stairs, Laura wondered whether everything she’d heard made Don Roberts more of a suspect. She glanced up when she heard movement in the hall, and saw that Tracy was watching her.
Adam bounded back into the room, holding a photograph. ‘Is this okay?’ he said, as he passed it over.
Laura looked down, and the corpse from an hour earlier was brought to life. She was laughing in this photograph, her hair thrown back, full of zest and life. It looked like a holiday shot, Ibiza or somewhere, her arms tanned in a pink vest, the sky bright blue behind her.
‘Perfect,’ Laura said, and for a moment she felt some of Adam’s sadness, that someone so young and beautiful could end up like she did, abused and dumped in the woods. She tried to look convincing when she said, ‘We’ll find her killer. I promise.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jack was outside the court when he managed to speak to Laura. Her phone had been switched off, because he had been trying to get hold of her since his conversation with Dolby, and so he had gone to court, looking out for sidebar scraps. The clock had moved onto twelve and the court had emptied, so he tried again. When Laura answered, it sounded like she was outside.
