by Neil White
‘I’ve got something,’ she said, and held up the disc. ‘It’s not Simon Abbott we’re looking for.’
‘What is it?’ Carson said, moving towards her.
‘Joe talked about the killer being Mr Invisible, about his frustration at being just an anonymous little man,’ she said. When Carson folded his arms, she continued, ‘What if he isn’t a police officer after all? What if he is just someone who works here, who floats around the station, ignored by all of us?’
Carson’s lips pursed as he thought about that. ‘What’s on there?’ and he pointed towards the disc.
‘I’ll show you,’ she said, and went to one of the computers and opened the disc drive. As the software loaded, she said, ‘It’s one of the drivers. Is there anyone more invisible? They get full access to everything, to deliver files and exhibits, but do we ever really notice them?’
Carson started to nod. ‘It would fit,’ he said.
‘So watch this,’ Laura said, and leaned forward to take control of the computer. She took the footage forward to where Rupert came into the police station.
As Carson watched Rupert, Laura said, ‘We thought yesterday that the killer knew that Rupert would recognise the methods he’d used, or else he knew that Rupert had been to the police station.’ Laura watched for Carson’s reaction, and when she noticed the slight widening of the eyes as the driver came into view, at the stutter in his walk, and the way he loitered by his van, Laura knew that Carson had seen what she had.
‘Does it look like him?’ he said, his lips tight, a flush to his cheeks.
Laura nodded. ‘Very much,’ and then she watched as Carson ran from the Incident Room.
The other detectives crowded round to look at the footage.
‘We know who he is now,’ she said, almost to herself. ‘We’ve got him.’
Suddenly, Carson came crashing through with one of the drivers, dressed in a blue jacket and trousers, a Lancashire Constabulary crest on his chest.
‘Who is that?’ Carson barked, pointing at the screen.
The driver looked scared, not used to having people shouting at him, but he took a deep breath as he realised that this wasn’t some minor enquiry.
‘It’s Peter Williams,’ he said.
Carson slapped him on the back and then told him to sit down. ‘Stay there,’ he said. ‘Don’t call anyone, don’t speak to anyone,’ and then Carson gestured for Laura to follow him. As she ran out of the room, she felt a certainty that they were almost there.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Carson drove quickly away from the station.
‘Do you think he’ll be expecting us?’ Laura said.
‘Murderers are always expecting us, because they know we don’t give up. He’ll have his story worked out. I just don’t want him getting rid of any evidence before we get there.’
Laura looked out of the window, her jaw set, her mind working its way through the different stages of guilt. She should have got a better view of him. And just a couple of hours earlier, could she have done more? She should have rushed him, but she hesitated and let him get away.
They had to cross town to get to where Williams lived, along terraced strips and up a long climb away from the town centre that took them towards the town’s hospital, which overlooked the green roll of the moors, an antidote to the glass and steel of the hospital building.
Laura’s phone rang. It was Archie, one of the detectives from the squad. ‘I’ve just spoken to the agency that recruits the drivers for us,’ he said. ‘He joined us six years ago. He said that he had been working as a motor cycle courier in London, and then a delivery driver, but both companies have since gone bust. His national insurance number was checked out, and he had no convictions, and so all the tests were passed.’
‘What about his personal history?’ Laura said.
‘That’s where it gets interesting,’ Archie said. ‘They’ve pulled his application form, and he said that he went to school in Stoke, but I’ve just tried to find it on the internet and it doesn’t seem to exist.’
‘So he’s got a made-up past,’ Laura said, catching Carson’s gaze as he drove.
‘At least some of it,’ Archie said. ‘He does have a clean driving licence, and so he is official.’
‘Except that if he is Shane Grix, he was supposed to have been murdered in a London alleyway,’ Laura said, and then she paused as she thought of something. ‘I’ll call you back, Archie. I’ll just give Sandy a ring.’
She went through her contacts list to find the number of her old London colleague. The phone rang out until she heard the London chirp. ‘I need another favour,’ she said.
‘Make it quick, darlin’,’ he replied. ‘I love a friendly voice, but it’s Saturday night and I’m in the boozer.’
‘Which one? The Green Man?’
‘Yes, why?’
‘Because you’re only across the road from the station. Could you go across and look in the Shane Grix murder file?’
There was a sigh. ‘Laura, the night’s just getting going. I’ve had too many drinks. Don’t make me do this.’
‘You’ll get the credit for solving that murder if you do,’ she said. ‘See if there is a list of Shane’s associates in the file.’
‘There is,’ he said. ‘I was looking at the file the other day, remember. We couldn’t track down most of them, because they were like him, homeless and drifting, keeping away from people like me.’
‘Look for a Peter Williams,’ she said.
Laura could hear his deliberations, but she knew that he would do what she asked, because for all the city boy charm he thought he had, he was a good copper at heart.
She smiled as he said, ‘Give me a few minutes, the file is still out. I’ll call you back.’
Carson glanced at Laura. ‘Are you thinking that the young man killed in the alleyway is really Peter Williams?’ he said.
‘We can guess that it probably isn’t Shane Grix,’ she said. ‘And so if it isn’t him, who else can it be? He must have stolen his identity when he killed him and started again.’
Carson frowned and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Perhaps it’s even simpler than that.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Maybe Williams was killed because of his identity, so that Grix could come back up here and do this.’
‘What, targeted murder?’
Carson nodded. ‘Why not? Perhaps Williams was his route back up north, where he could return and be anonymous, because Williams looked like him and so might pass for Shane once he was set on fire.’
Laura looked down when she felt her phone buzz in her hand. It was Sandy from London. She could feel the tension in the car as she listened to what Sandy had to say. When he’d finished, Laura thanked him and then turned to Carson. ‘It all fits,’ she said. ‘Peter Williams was one of the people on the list. They were seen together a few times before the body was found, sleeping in the same shelters. He was a couple of years older and had been in London a year longer. But he was invisible. Grew up in care, no family to speak of, and so he just headed south.’
‘And no one to look for him when he didn’t go home,’ Carson said.
‘That’s right,’ Laura said, nodding. ‘He wasn’t a suspect, just one of Shane’s friends, and so the police in London weren’t hunting him down. And like Sandy said, Shane was just another London homeless. They die all the time.’
‘So he came back north and ended up in Blackley.’
‘In the same town as Shane’s real mother,’ Laura said. ‘Now that is too much of a coincidence. So if Peter Williams really is Shane Grix, we know why he is here, to be near his real mother.’
‘Hopefully he can tell us all about it in a minute,’ Carson said, as he turned onto a long straight road of terraced houses lined by old Fords and souped-up small cars, all smoothed out rear ends and tin-can exhausts. Carson scraped his wheels along the kerb outside an end-terrace. Laura jumped out and ran for the door, dirty
white PVC. She heard Carson behind her.
‘Just go in,’ he said, puffing as he ran. ‘We’re not waiting for an invite.’
Laura reached for the handle, expecting it to be locked, but instead it swung open in front of her. There was no hallway, so that the door opened straight into a small square living room. She could see the kitchen behind, a square room of the same size.
‘Peter Williams?’ she shouted, but there was no response. She saw that the back door was closed, and so she guessed that he hadn’t run out through the yard.
The room in front of her was unremarkable. There was a flat screen television and cheap leather furniture, with a coffee table in the middle of the room, covered in old cups and flakes of rolling tobacco. There were no photographs on the wall, nothing to make it homely, just woodchip painted in cream.
The stairs ran out of the corner of the room, and she was about to head for them when she noticed a small cupboard built into the space under the stairs. She used her toe to open the door, and as it swung open she was surprised. She had expected old coats and a vacuum cleaner, but there was a computer on a small desk, along with a small blue chair, crammed into the space. There was no light.
Carson appeared on her shoulder. ‘It must get cosy in there,’ he said. ‘It must help him with the fantasy, to shut himself away, just the colours on the screen bouncing around the walls. We’ll get the computer unit to have a look, see if we can find his emails.’
‘Let’s try upstairs,’ she said.
Carson trailed her again, and as she climbed the stairs, she thought the house smelled musty and stale. It was the smell of beds that didn’t get changed too often, or carpets that had never felt the hum of a vacuum cleaner.
There were two bedrooms upstairs, one on either side of the stairs, along with a bathroom. Laura got a glimpse as she went past. It was old fashioned, with an avocado-coloured sink splashed by toothpaste and soap scum. There was only one toothbrush on the sill.
The rear bedroom was just a dumping ground, with bin liners filled with old clothes, some books piled up in one corner.
Laura backed out of the room. She wanted to see what was in the main bedroom. She stood in front of the door and gave it a push, letting the view inside slowly reveal itself. The curtains were open and the street light outside made the room bright.
The bedroom was like the nest of the house, simple and cheap, no frills, with old white bedding and chipped brown cupboards. There was an old coffee cup next to the bed.
‘No woman’s touch?’ Laura said.
Carson brushed past her and flicked the light switch as Laura went to a wardrobe opposite the bed and opened the doors. When she saw what was inside, she whistled.
‘What is it?’ Carson said.
‘Police uniforms,’ she said. ‘Yellow jackets, caps, full tunics, equipment belts.’
‘It would explain how he is able to convince them to talk to him,’ Carson said, coming up behind her. ‘That’s Abbott’s number,’ he pointed to the collar number on the jacket. ‘Abbott will get it for losing a uniform, but where is Williams?’
Then Laura’s phone rang.
Chapter Sixty-Four
‘Don Roberts has got him,’ Jack said, as he drove too quickly through the town centre.
‘What do you mean, got him?’
‘I’ve spoken to Emma, Shane’s birth mother. She saw Don and two of his men dragging Simon Abbott away.’
‘We don’t think it’s Simon Abbott,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m in Shane’s home, looking at a wardrobe filled with Abbott’s uniforms. It looked like Shane used Abbott’s name as a cover when he spoke to Emma, so that he could hear her story. But Shane worked for the police as a driver.’
‘So they’ve got Shane?’
‘He’s not here, and so I’d guess so.’
‘How long have you known about Shane?’ Jack said.
‘What do you mean?’
He stopped speaking as he came to a junction. He wasn’t really sure what he was looking for. Emma had only given him a general description, because she couldn’t remember the street, just the area. So he had driven along rows of houses, the streets lined by cars, and now the bright pub lights were in front of him, glittering beneath the brooding shadow of the viaduct in the distance, the route for the trains that snaked through the hills and connected all the old cotton towns.
‘How many people have seen him today?’ Jack said.
‘Me, and Rachel,’ she said.
‘And how long have you known the full story?’
‘Minutes ago.’
‘So Don knew before you worked it out, and I can guess that you didn’t tell Don Roberts,’ Jack said. ‘So who else could have told him?’
Laura didn’t answer for a few seconds, and then she said, ‘I’ll speak later,’ before the phone went quiet.
Jack threw his phone onto the passenger seat and carried on with his drive through the town centre again, once more on the one-way loop, trying to spot a building that was different from the pubs, clubs and takeaways, peering through the groups of short-sleeve muscle and tight white skirts. The town centre petered out eventually into industrial units and derelict back streets, the shadows filled by women who traded themselves at night, their skirts high, small glittery bags slung over their shoulders.
He had driven two circuits already, and guessed that he’d been spotted by the police who looked out for kerb crawlers, but he kept on driving. Then he saw it: David Hoyle’s car.
Jack almost missed it. It was parked in the shadows of a high brick wall, away from the streetlights, but he spotted the chrome spokes, just catching enough of a gleam. As he drove towards it, his headlights caught a sign: DR Security.
The night went quiet when he turned off the engine.
‘Don’s got him,’ Laura said to Carson. Emma saw Don take him.
‘How would Don know?’
‘Rachel.’
Carson looked over, scowling. ‘What are you saying?’
‘She got nearer than I did. Really close. How else would Don find out?’
‘You need to be absolutely sure, McGanity, before you accuse her.’
‘It fits,’ she said. ‘Shane is snatched around the same time Rachel left hospital, after all this time looking for him. Bit of a coincidence, don’t you think? Once Don had a name and an occupation, it wouldn’t take him long to find him.’
‘Let’s go ask her,’ Carson said. ‘It’s on the way to Don’s house, and I’m being sent the wrong way by some pisshead related to the killer.’
Laura followed him outside and jumped into the car, and then she gripped the door handle as Carson accelerated away.
Laura watched the houses flash by, tall Victorian rows, with stone-framed bay windows and stained glass above the front doors, most divided up into bedsits and dole flats. Carson braked hard for a speed camera, the bright yellow box catching the glare from his headlight, making a small crowd of young men clustered by a lamppost look up startled. From the way they quickly walked separate ways, their hands back in their pockets, Laura knew that a street deal had just been thwarted, although there would be a reunion as soon as Carson was out of sight. Darkness brought out the night rats. A job for someone else on a different day.
Carson turned into a steep terraced street as a short cut, the hill so sharp that the houses looked like they were leaning against each other for support, clinging onto the slope. Laura’s feet dug into the mat, phantom-braking as the car raced towards the junction at the bottom. The lights were still showing red, but they started to change just as they got closer. There was just the first flicker of a green light as Carson flew through, brightened by the orange flicker of sparks as the exhaust caught the tarmac and the hill bottomed out.
Laura knew they weren’t far away, some of the landmarks were familiar now, as the terraced strips gave way to the gentle curves and leaves of suburbia, and then Carson swung into the bright new boxes of
Joe’s estate before coming to a halt behind Joe’s car.
‘You better do the talking,’ Carson said. ‘It’s time for a gentle touch.’
The front door opened before Laura could get there, Joe Kinsella blocking her way.
‘How is she?’ Laura said.
Joe shook his head. ‘Not good. And I know why you’re here. You want her to be examined for forensics, but she won’t go, and I’m not going to make her.’
‘Why won’t she go?’
‘Right now, she’s embarrassed, violated, and doesn’t want to think of her intimate examination being read by her colleagues,’ Joe said. Laura was about to say something, but Joe held up his hand. ‘I know what you’re thinking, that she has nothing to hide, but that’s how she feels right now.’
Laura nodded and sighed. ‘I understand, but that isn’t why we are here, and it’s not just a get well visit.’
Joe looked confused. ‘What do you mean?’
‘We think we know who Rachel’s attacker is,’ she said. ‘A police driver called Peter Williams, although he is really Shane.’
Joe’s mouth opened in surprise, and then he looked down, and Laura could almost see the thoughts racing through his mind. Then he looked up.
‘Of course, it makes sense,’ he said, his eyes wide. ‘Not a low-ranking police officer, but someone who floats around the police station, overhearing stuff, the person you never notice coming into the room. Mr Invisible. So have you got him?’
Laura grimaced. ‘That’s why we need to speak to Rachel.’
‘What do you mean?’
Laura reached out to Joe and placed her hand on his. ‘Joe, I’m sorry, but I think Rachel knows who her attacker is. I think she recognised him.’
Joe shook his head. ‘She would have told someone.’
‘She already has,’ Laura said. ‘Don Roberts.’
Joe looked surprised at that. ‘Why would she do that?’
‘Revenge, Joe. She knows what Don Roberts will do to him, and we think Don has already got him. I identified him from the footage when Doctor Barker came to the station, and no one could have leaked it so soon. So the only way Don could have known is if Rachel told him.’
