The Sixth Window

by Rachel Abbott

  ‘I won’t tell anyone,’ she said.

  Lewis wasn’t so easily fooled. ‘No, Scarlett. You don’t believe me. You’re just playing along, and as soon as I let you go you’ll go running to Mummy or PC Daddy and tell them everything, and they’ll call the police.’

  ‘Well what’s wrong with that? If you really are a policeman, they’ll confirm it.’

  ‘You are so innocent, young Scarlett. I’ll tell you why, shall I? The last policeman who worked on this case with me was killed. He wasn’t deep undercover like me – he was working with the team investigating these crimes. To all intents and purposes he was a regular cop, but he was working with me in secret. The only person who knew about him, about any of this, was our handler. And then this cop was killed – mown down, supposedly by joyriders, while he was out walking his daughter’s puppy.’

  Scarlett felt her whole body freeze, tiny prickles piercing every inch of her skin. He meant her dad. She was certain of it.

  She had never told Lewis that her dad was dead; she had lied and said her parents were divorced, and that her dad was a policeman – a very-much-alive policeman. Now she wanted to cry and scream and ask him about her dad, what he had done to make someone murder him, ask Lewis if he knew who had killed him. But then he would know that she had lied to him, and she had to make him trust her so he would let her go.

  He was watching her, his eyes slightly closed as if to hide the emotions concealed behind them.

  ‘Why did someone want to kill this policeman?’ she asked, her voice shaking. She only just stopped herself from saying ‘my dad’.

  ‘Because he was getting too close. That’s why you can’t tell anyone, and definitely not the police. Nobody knows about this operation apart from my handler and his boss. And nobody must know, especially the police. Because at the very top of our list of suspects is a senior police officer.’

  70

  Natalie raced up the metal staircase to the north wing, knowing that once the fierce rush of adrenaline was spent she would collapse like a rag doll. But for now the stress was keeping her going – that and her anger at Ed. Why hadn’t he left things well alone? Why did he have to start digging up things about Bernie now, a man who wasn’t alive to defend himself?

  The photocopy of the note he had shown her seemed to be written in Bernie’s hand. But was it? She was no expert, but Bernie’s writing wouldn’t be particularly difficult to copy, if someone was of a mind to do that. Could Ed have done it to get himself out of the deep hole he had been in since Natalie had spotted the website on his computer? Who was she supposed to believe?

  It wasn’t until she told Ed she needed time alone and didn’t want him to come back with her to the apartment that he had dealt the final blow.

  ‘I’m sorry, Nat. I love you. I think you know that. I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you, and that’s why, as I discovered things about Bernie, I’ve tried so hard to hide them from you. I wanted all your memories of him to be good.’

  ‘They are all good,’ Natalie shouted at him, causing the young waitress to give them a nervous look.

  Ed shook his head in defeat. ‘Think about it, darling. Please just think about it.’ He reached out his hand to cover hers.

  Natalie snatched her hand away and pushed her chair back, rising from her seat to leave. Bernie’s name was going to be dragged through the mud, and she suddenly felt that she was the only one who cared enough to defend him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ed said again. ‘Bernie was my friend, but that website he was looking at didn’t get there by chance, and he had administration rights.’

  ‘So you keep saying, but you’re being ridiculous, Ed.’ Natalie banged her clenched fists on the table and leaned towards him, spitting the words at him. What she really wanted to do was put two hands around his throat and squeeze. He was dismantling, piece by jagged piece, the memories she had of her husband, and he didn’t have the right to do that.

  Ed grabbed her wrists, but she jerked them out of his grasp. Still standing, she glared at this man who she had thought she loved, hating him for what he was doing. It didn’t make sense anyway. Bernie was a self-confessed technophobe.

  People were staring, but she didn’t care. ‘You and I both know that Bernie had absolutely zero understanding of computers. He could no more have set up that website than I could fly to the moon. Whatever the explanation is, it’s not what you’re thinking.’

  ‘Whether he set it up or just had access, it’s the kind of web address that you have to be given by someone in the know. It was hidden on the dark web, for God’s sake,’ Ed said, rubbing one hand distractedly over his shaved head. ‘If Bernie was working with someone else, we need to find out who it was. That’s why I have to report this. I’m going to talk to the guy heading up the new investigation. His name’s Detective Chief Inspector Tom Douglas, and whether you agree or not, he’s going to want to talk to you. The very least I could do is give you warning. Bernie was into some bad shit, and it’s best you heard it from me.’

  She glared at the man who was turning her world upside down, but he wasn’t able to meet her gaze. What was this going to do to Scarlett?

  That thought spurred her to action, and she ran out of the café without a further word and raced back to the apartment. She had to get to her daughter, tell her of these lies, protect her from any further hurt.

  She dashed along the sunlit corridor bordering the courtyard and turned left into the short stretch before their apartment.

  ‘Shit,’ she muttered when the lights failed to come on, but the gloom barely slowed her down. Keeping the fingers of her right hand hovering close to the wall, she made it to the door and raised her hand to knock.

  To Natalie’s surprise, the door swung open. Scarlett couldn’t have closed it properly behind her.

  ‘Scarlett!’ she shouted as she walked through the door.

  There was no answer. The sitting room was empty. Natalie flung open the door to the bedroom. There was no sign of Scarlett, not even a pile of damp clothes on the floor. In fact there was no evidence that she had been back at all. But the door was unlocked and Scarlett had Natalie’s keys. So where was she?

  All she could think was that her daughter had needed her help and she had failed her. The strength left Natalie in an instant, and her body sagged, the taut muscles turning to jelly. She lowered herself onto the edge of the bed, her shoulders bent, arms dangling between her knees.

  ‘I need you, Bernie,’ she whispered.

  *

  Lewis knew Dad.

  It was all Scarlett could think. She wanted to ask him about the case they had been working on, to hear what a fantastic job her dad had been doing, but all she could do was stare at this man who had terrified the life out of her and be grateful he wasn’t going to hurt her. At least, she didn’t think so.

  ‘Can I trust you with this?’ he asked.

  Scarlett nodded, knowing she couldn’t admit to lying to him about her dad if she wanted him to have any faith in her.

  ‘Maybe you could help find out who killed the policeman who was working with you,’ she said.

  ‘I am, Scarlett. Every day we’re getting a bit closer. But do you understand why you can’t tell anyone, not even your mum?’

  Scarlett didn’t want to keep this to herself. It was too big a secret, and the thought of holding it inside threatened to choke her.

  ‘Oh, but my mum would understand. Honestly she would. I’m sure she’d want to help too.’

  Lewis shook his head. ‘No, Scarlett. That’s not how it works. I know you said your dad’s a policeman, but you mustn’t tell him either. It’s dangerous. I can only tell you because nobody’s going to suspect a teenager of knowing anything. But if these people think your mum’s involved, she might be the next one to die, and I’m sure you don’t want that to happen, do you?’

  That hadn’t occurred to Scarlett, and she wished Lewis hadn’t told her. She needed time to think about all this, especially her dad. He
had been a hero, but nobody knew.

  ‘Okay, I won’t tell anyone.’ She looked up into his dark eyes and wished she could read the secrets hiding there. ‘Can I go now, please?’

  ‘Only when you’ve promised me.’ One side of his mouth lifted in a half-smile, and Scarlett knew he was making fun of her, reminding her of when she made him promise not to come into the room while she was getting changed.

  She shuddered at the memory. ‘I promise,’ she whispered.

  Lewis stood to one side, indicating with his arm that she should go in front of him, back through the door down into the apartment building. She did as he asked, but when they reached the top of the stairs Scarlett gripped the banister tightly, putting as little weight on her sore ankle as possible. As she descended, one step at a time, the only sound was her own breathing and the squeak of her trainers on the concrete steps. Lewis’s tread on the stairs was almost silent, and an image flashed through her mind of one of his legs reaching out from behind, winding around her knees, hooking them from under her so she went hurtling down to her death.

  71

  Tom was becoming increasingly frustrated by the lack of results in the investigations that Becky and her team were focusing on. As always, he was overseeing several other cases but these two were getting under his skin.

  He pushed aside the files and reports he had been reading and grabbed a clean sheet of paper and a pen. Starting with Bernie Gray, he began listing facts about the police officer’s life with arrows pointing to questions they needed to answer.

  Was he having an affair, and if so with whom? Did his wife know about it, and was that reason enough to kill him? Did his mistress or her partner have a reason to kill Bernie? Or was it some other kind of relationship, and if it was as manipulative as PC Jenkins had suggested, would that provide a greater motive for murder?

  If Bernie Gray had been killed on purpose, and not by a random joyrider, then it meant his killer had to be aware of Bernie’s puppy-walking routine. How many people would know that?

  If his marriage was falling apart, had his wife secretly been in love with Ed Cooper?

  Bernie had been involved in Operation Sphere, working on finding people grooming young teenagers, predominantly girls. Could that be related to his murder?

  Under a separate column headed ‘Operation Sphere’, Tom wrote down the name Amber Blackwood, the girl who had made the Crimestoppers report before Bernie left the team. There had to have been a leak because the man calling himself Jed had cleared out of his studio before they got to him. Could the leak have been Bernie? Keith had checked through the files though, and Bernie Gray was off duty the day Amber made the report.

  Jennifer Bale had suffered a similar experience to Amber as far as they could tell, and given that the whole purpose of Operation Sphere had been to catch people like the man who had ‘owned’ Jennifer and Amber, there had to be a connection. Tom didn’t believe in coincidences.

  He scrunched the paper into a ball and aimed it at the wastepaper basket. He missed. ‘Bollocks,’ he said, pushing himself up from his chair to pick up his litter.

  A movement caught in the corner of his eye alerted him to the fact that he wasn’t alone, and he looked up to see Becky standing in his open doorway, leaning on the doorjamb with her arms folded.

  ‘Lousy shot,’ she said.

  ‘Lousy everything at the moment,’ Tom said, sitting back down. ‘I know there’s something I’m missing and it won’t come to me.’

  ‘Well, here’s a little diversion for you.’ Becky pushed herself upright and came into the room, closing the door behind her. Tom raised his eyebrows. He rarely felt the need for privacy.

  ‘We’ve got a visitor downstairs who wants to know if you have half an hour for a chat about Bernard Gray’s death.’

  ‘Who?’ Tom asked, still not sure what the cloak-and-dagger stuff was all about.

  ‘It’s Sergeant Edward Cooper, Gray’s best mate, colleague, and his wife’s new lover. He’s one of ours, so I didn’t want the whole department talking about it and rumours flying around. Do you want to see him, or should I do it on my own?’

  ‘No chance, Becky. I want to meet this man for myself – see what he’s all about. He’s a police officer, so he’ll know he’s potentially under the spotlight, given that he’s moved in with his dead mate’s widow, particularly as he claims to have been in love with her for all his adult life.’

  ‘Yes, but he’s hardly likely to have admitted that if he had killed off the opposition, is he?’

  ‘Maybe he’s expecting us to think that. Maybe it’s a double bluff.’

  Becky rolled her eyes. ‘Let’s just see what he has to say, shall we?’ She turned and headed towards the door.

  ‘Can you show him in, get him a cup of tea or something, and I’ll be down in five minutes?’

  ‘What you really mean is, can I play nice and see how confident or nervous he is, assess how he reacts to the mention of his dead best friend and press a few buttons to find out why his relationship with Natalie Gray lasted such a short time? Would that be about the sum of it?’ She gave him a knowing grin, pulled the door open and walked out without waiting for a response.

  *

  Becky observed Edward Cooper quietly for a few moments as he sat in reception. He was leaning forward, rubbing his hands together, interlocking his fingers as if he were about to pray. Then he sat back for a moment or two, then forward again, as if he couldn’t get comfortable. From his demeanour she felt certain there was something there – some fragment of truth that might make all the pieces fit together. The skill would be in finding it.

  Before he had the chance to realise he was being watched she walked briskly towards him, gave him her best smile and held out her hand to shake.

  ‘Thanks for coming in to see us, Sergeant Cooper,’ she said, having introduced herself. ‘DCI Douglas will be down shortly, so I thought we might make a start without him. Is that okay with you?’

  ‘It’s fine. I don’t know whether what I’m about to tell you will help or not, but it’s not something I should keep to myself.’

  ‘Can I get you a drink while we’re waiting?’ she asked.

  ‘Just water, please.’

  Becky organised the water, showed Cooper into an interview room and sat down opposite him.

  ‘Maybe you could start by telling me how you knew Sergeant Gray.’

  He shuffled around in his seat and cleared his throat before explaining that they had been mates at school and had both decided to join the police as soon as they were eighteen.

  ‘And Natalie Gray – when did you first meet her?’

  Cooper narrowed his eyes slightly, clearly uncertain about where this questioning was going.

  ‘We both met Nat the same night. It was at a party when she was in the sixth form at school. We were doing our training at the time. We tossed a coin for which of us got to chat her up.’

  One side of Cooper’s mouth slid up in a half-smile at the memory.

  ‘And you lost?’

  ‘No. Actually I won, but sadly she just wanted to know who my friend was and whether he had a girlfriend or not. It was pretty clear to me that she preferred Bernie, so I backed off and left them to it.’

  For a moment Becky wasn’t sure what to say. This man had admitted that he had been in love with Natalie Gray for years, and yet he hadn’t fought for her when he’d had the chance.

  ‘Tell me about your relationship with Bernard Gray,’ she said, watching him closely to see if there were any chinks there – any indication that he had hated his friend for stealing the love of his life. His face was expressionless, with no sign of grief over Bernie’s death. Equally he wasn’t obviously gloating that he had – albeit briefly – finally won his prize.

  ‘We were good friends. I don’t know what else to say, really.’ He gave a slight shrug. ‘We worked together, and I respected him as a colleague. We socialised a lot, enjoyed each other’s company, had a shared love of films. I�
��m Scarlett’s godfather too. We live in a small village, so obviously we saw each other all the time.’

  ‘What was Bernie Gray like, as a person?’

  Sergeant Cooper stared at the table between them, as if he was trying to conjure up an image of his dead friend. He didn’t raise his eyes to Becky’s as he spoke.

  ‘I’m not sure I know how to answer that. I had always believed he was honest and straightforward, but now I don’t know what to think. He was always up for a laugh, liked to party – which usually meant he drank too much, but he’s not alone there. Natalie was very tolerant. She’s the kind of person who likes to imagine everything is hunky-dory, if you know what I mean. She doesn’t like confrontation and prefers to assume the best in people. She certainly felt that way about Bernie. He could do no wrong in her eyes.’

  Becky detected a slight note of bitterness in Cooper’s voice, and she couldn’t help noticing how quickly he had moved the conversation away from Bernie and on to the topic of his favourite person, Natalie Gray. Maybe it was time to press some buttons.

  ‘So if Mrs Gray always thinks the best of people – which is what I think you’re suggesting – what was so bad about living with you that she had to leave after such a short time?’

  Sergeant Cooper lifted wide eyes to Becky, and it was clear that he had no idea what to say.

  *

  As Tom entered the interview room it was immediately apparent that there was tension in the air. He often wondered how it was that something so intangible could be so unmistakable, but whatever had just been said, it had made Sergeant Cooper uncomfortable.

  Tom introduced himself and sat down next to Becky. ‘Don’t let me interrupt. Where were you up to?’

  ‘Sergeant Cooper was about to tell me what caused him and Mrs Gray to split up.’

  Cooper put both hands palms down on the table in front of him and leaned back in his seat as if to show that this line of questioning didn’t distress him.

  ‘I came here voluntarily today to give you information I thought you might find useful. I really don’t want to get into a discussion about my relationship with Natalie.’