by Neil White
Danut grimaced. ‘Mr King not happy with that. He almost fire me, but Mrs King stopped him.’
‘Why would he be angry?’ asked Laura.
‘Because if he fire me, he knows that I tell police everything.’
Laura glanced at me quickly, and I could see her interest quickening.
‘What is everything?’ she asked, her voice slower now, quieter.
Danut looked down. He appeared ashamed.
‘When I take car for valet,’ he said, ‘I not know about dead girl, or else I would not do it. But I did it.’
‘Was it Luke who asked you?’
‘Yes. He was firm about it. He say must get car clean properly.’
‘What could you see in the car?’ I prompted. He had told me his story, but I wanted Laura to hear it from his mouth.
He looked at Laura, and then down at the floor. He chewed his lip, made dust circles with his feet. When he spoke, his words came out quietly.
‘I see blood,’ he said.
‘Where?’ asked Laura. Her anger had been replaced by keenness. She leaned forward, her eyes narrowed.
‘On the steering wheel, and on the driver seat.’
Laura and I exchanged glances. I nodded at her.
‘How do I know that you aren’t covering for yourself?’ she asked.
Danut held his hands out, his shoulders bunched up into a shrug, his face full of regret. ‘You don’t, but I am telling you truth.’
Laura didn’t respond at first. I could sense that she was weighing up Danut’s tale against her gut instinct. It was that instinct that separated good cops from bad ones.
‘What time did Luke get in that night?’ she asked.
Danut shook his head slowly and wagged his finger. ‘Luke was in house all night.’
‘But you said it was Luke who asked you to get the car valeted.’
Danut nodded. ‘He did, but he was not driver. His brother was driver.’
Laura’s eyes widened. ‘Brother?’
Danut nodded again. ‘Luke, he have an older brother. Mr and Mrs King don’t let him come to house, but Luke, he worship him. So Thomas comes to house when Mr and Mrs King out. Thomas take car, and he bring it back.’
‘What time?’
Danut exhaled, and then shrugged. ‘Middle of night. He drove Audi back, I heard it, and then drove away in his own car.’
I looked at Laura. Her eyes were distant now, thinking hard, looking towards the roof. My own thoughts started to come in fast bursts, ricocheting around my head.
It was Laura who spoke first. ‘Where is Thomas?’
Danut shrugged. ‘He live in Blackley. Work too.’
‘What as?’
‘Thomas is doctor.’
‘Doctor?’ said Laura incredulously.
Danut nodded.
Laura and I looked at each other. Why was Thomas King barred from his own family home?
Laura was pulling on her lip, lost in thought.
‘What are you thinking?’ I asked.
She looked at me, and then at Danut. She turned away as she thought and looked at the floor. When she looked back at me, she asked, ‘Do you know a Dan Kinsella?’
I shook my head slowly, Danut as well. But the name sounded familiar. My mind rushed back through the previous few days, as I tried to work out where I had heard it.
Then it came back to me. A smile. Blond hair. The dream meeting.
‘He went to the same group as Eric,’ I said excitedly. ‘He was there the other night. Is he connected?’
‘How did he seem?’
‘He seemed okay. Pretty friendly, engaging.’
Laura went into her pocket and pulled out a photograph. She handed it to me.
I nodded as I saw it. ‘Yeah, that’s him.’ I passed it back. ‘Why?’
Laura didn’t answer. Instead, she passed the photograph to Danut. As he looked at it, he looked at Laura, and then at me. Then he nodded, slowly.
‘What kind of game is this?’ He looked angry, defensive.
‘Do you recognise him?’ asked Laura.
He nodded curtly and handed the photograph back. ‘You know I do.’
‘Who is it?’
‘You know who it is. That’s Thomas King, Luke’s brother.’
Laura looked at me and then looked grim-faced. Straightaway, we both knew what the other was thinking. We were going to see Thomas King.
Chapter Fifty-four
We walked quickly away from Jimmy King’s house. Danut had kept a lookout, and we got out the same way we had got in, by scrambling over the wall. Laura was quiet.
‘How did you know Dan Kinsella was really Luke King’s brother?’ I asked.
She swept her hair back over her ears and said, ‘Part guesswork, part memory, but it sort of fitted. Was there a girl at the meeting who seemed to be with Thomas King?’
I thought back, remembered the girl with red flashes in her hair. ‘Yeah, nice girl. Charlie I think her name was. I got the vibe that she and Thomas might have been getting it together.’
Laura smiled, but it seemed a sad one. ‘It seemed like Charlie read the same signals as you.’
‘You make it sound like there’s a postscript.’
‘He went to see her yesterday, maybe after he strung up Eric Randle. They spent the day together, but when she expected it to get all loved up, he turned nasty.’ She flashed a look at me to let me know that this was all off the record. When I nodded my agreement, she carried on. ‘He told her that he wanted to make her dream come true. The problem was that her dream had been one of waking up breathless, like she was being strangled. He started to grip her around her neck, but this was more than play-fighting. She had to fight him off. She’s still got the marks to prove it.’
‘So you deduced that Dan Kinsella was really Thomas King from that? I’m impressed.’
She smiled. ‘I wish it was that simple. Jess, the girl found tied to her chair. Well, she kept a dream diary, or sometimes wrote her dreams down on pieces of paper, those that she thought were premonitions.’
‘And there was one just like her death scene?’
‘Not far from it.’
‘Like Eric had painted it?’
Laura smiled. ‘Looks like we had the psychics of Blackley lining up to predict it.’
‘Wow, you did well to keep that away from the press.’
She smiled ruefully. ‘Let’s just say that the force isn’t as receptive to the idea as I am.’ She sighed heavily. ‘So it looked like the killer was someone from the group, because whoever was killing the group members was doing it in ways they had already predicted.’
‘That’s sick.’
Laura shook her head. ‘No, it’s just a game for him, a tease. Thomas King isn’t doing this to be sick. He’s doing it because it’s fun.’
‘And to protect himself,’ I added. ‘Kyle’s body confirmed the connection with the abductions. It looks like Thomas was attracted to the group because Eric Randle got himself involved with the family of a missing boy after one of his dreams. It looks like it piqued Thomas’s interest, and so he joined the group to find out more. He stayed in the group because it was a way of deflecting attention, making him look like a potential victim, not the perpetrator.’ Then I thought of something. ‘What about the way Eric died?’ I asked.
She looked at me with interest. ‘You tell me. Did you hear anything?’
I thought back to the meeting, and all the different accounts I had heard. I had made some notes, but they were general, more about the moods, the people. But then I remembered Billy Hunt.
‘There was someone who talked about an old tramp hanging. Someone called Billy Hunt. Eric had even had a dream like that, where there was something around his throat and he couldn’t move.’
Laura nodded. ‘I’ve met Billy. But I think Thomas got lucky with that one. It seems that his attempt at sedating young Kyle went wrong, so when he dumped the body he was able to put the blame on Eric, or so he thought, and still ful
fil Billy Hunt’s dream.’
‘But he went to Charlie’s all wired because he’d just killed Eric?’
‘And because Kyle had died,’ Laura agreed. ‘That was an accident. Remember the cards I told you about: healing hands. He told Charlie he wanted to kill her and bring her back to life. He thinks he is doing the same with families, bringing mothers and sons back together. Kyle wasn’t meant to die.’
‘So when you were speaking to Danut,’ I asked, ‘you thought that it must be someone from the group, because they knew the dreams, and that Dan Kinsella looked the likeliest because of what he said to Charlie about making her dream come true?’
Laura nodded.
‘And so when you heard that Thomas King had returned that Audi with blood on it, the one that had been near to Jess’s house, you figured that if it must be Thomas King, and that it must also be Dan Kinsella, the obvious thing is that they are one and the same person?’
Laura nodded, but she smiled this time. ‘But it wasn’t just that,’ she said.
I raised my eyebrows. ‘Go on.’
‘There’s a huge family picture in the hallway of the house. I saw it when I was there a few days ago. When Charlie gave me a photo of Dan Kinsella, I knew he looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. As soon as Danut mentioned Thomas King, my mind flashed back to the family portrait, and I realised why I recognised Dan Kinsella. He was really Thomas King.’
I smiled, impressed. I thought then about Sam and his missing child. ‘Why has Thomas taken Sam’s son?’
Laura exhaled loudly at that question. ‘I don’t know if he has, but remember that Sam Nixon acted for Luke King. Maybe Sam got too interested in what Luke had to say.’
‘Do you think Luke had anything to do with Jess’s death?’
Laura shook her head. ‘Not with the death. But I think he knows about it, and I think he is trying to protect his brother. They’ve got a sign above the door, engraved into stone. Strength in Unity. It looks like it’s the King family against the world.’
‘And Luke does it by making himself suspect number one?’
Laura gave a thin smile. ‘We can moralise all we like, but sometimes we will do anything to protect our own.’
I looked away at that. My father had once told me how he had allowed someone to get away with murder because to speak out would have made it hard for him and his young family. Morality can be complex.
‘But Thomas King is out of control now,’ I said. ‘A child died, which was not how it was supposed to be. So he killed Eric. Then he tried to kill Charlie.’
‘That was sexual. He was excitable all day, but once things turned smoochy it tipped him over the edge.’
‘It wasn’t sexual before?’
‘No, not at any point. None of the children who were abducted were molested, as far as we know. That was just delusional, some conceit of his, that he could change people’s lives. Jess wasn’t sexually assaulted. She just got in his way when she saw something in a dream. Maybe she told it to the group and Thomas thought it was too close to the truth. If he was discovered, it would put a stop to his good work, so it was a cold and rational decision to kill her in the way that he did. His desire to hurt Charlie wasn’t rational. It was drink mixed with desire, and the real Thomas King bubbled to the surface.’
‘And so, if he has taken Sam Nixon’s boy?’
Laura’s expression was grim. ‘Henry is in real danger, because he’s a hostage.’
‘For what outcome?’
‘That’s why he is in danger, because Thomas doesn’t know yet. Thomas King is imploding, and Sam’s son is the subject in his final message.’
‘A blaze of glory?’
Laura nodded grimly. ‘It’s always the way. Think of Thomas Hamilton in Dunblane, Michael Ryan in Hungerford, the Columbine boys. When they know they have reached the point of no return, it only ever results in death, and that includes anyone who gets in the way.’
‘So what next?’
‘We are not going to move on anyone from the King family until we have something firm. We’re still waiting for the forensic hits from the scene.’
‘Why are they taking so long?’
‘Money. They can pay more to bring the results through quicker, like a queue-jump, but the department has run itself skint on the child abductions through the summer.’
‘And Sam’s son is still missing?’
Laura nodded. ‘They think he wandered off after Sam’s wife passed out.’
‘Sam doesn’t, because he was here, and I know where I’m going.’
‘Where?’
‘I’m going to see a doctor.’
Chapter Fifty-five
Sam went straight to Alison’s office. She wasn’t in, but Sam didn’t care either way. He was going to search her office.
Her desk was small and functional, just chipboard and vinyl, with a computer on top and three drawers. A filing cabinet filled one corner of the room.
He went to the top drawer first, flinging it open, some of the contents jumping out onto the floor. But it was all junk, just pens and paper clips, loose pieces of paper. The second drawer was just the same, except that there were some training notes and copies of the Law Society Gazette, just headlines of gloom about less money.
He kicked the drawer shut and yanked hard on the bottom drawer. Nothing. Just Alison’s court kit. Hair bands, an umbrella, some perfume.
He stood up and looked around. Terry’s file must be here somewhere. If he could find it, he might be able to force Harry into giving up Thomas King. If he won’t do it for Henry, he might do it to save himself.
Then he saw a Post-it note stuck to the monitor. Just two numbers on it: 14. He knew what it meant: the end digits to her computer password, as it changed every two months. He knew her password as he had shown her round the system. Blondie. And there was 14 at the end.
He turned on her monitor and logged in. As the system booted into life, he went to the filing cabinet.
Alison’s files were in alphabetical order, and as Sam went through them he threw them onto the floor, just so he didn’t miss any. He went through each drawer, and still he couldn’t find Terry McKay’s file.
He went back to the computer monitor. He checked in her documents folder. As he sat down in her chair, his eyes scanned quickly through the files and folders. Again, nothing.
He clicked on Outlook. He went back a week and read Alison’s emails. Some were work-related, but many were quick messages to meet for lunch or for a meal. He read those carefully. Were there code names here? What name would Harry use?
He sat back and rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t see anything in the messages. He stood up quickly and went to leave the room. Maybe he would have a chance to look in Harry’s office. Before he got to the door, he realised there was someone standing there. It was Alison.
‘What the hell are you doing now?’ she asked, aghast.
‘Where is it?’ he shouted.
Her cheeks reddened. ‘Where is what?’
‘Terry McKay’s file. His murder file. You took it.’
‘Why would I do that?’
‘To jump the queue,’ Sam scoffed. ‘To keep in with Harry.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’ she yelled. ‘Listen to yourself.’
Sam stepped closer. ‘Do you know where it is?’
Alison shook her head. ‘No, I do not know where it is, and why should I help you?’
‘Because my son is missing.’
She paused at that, and when she spoke, her voice was quiet. ‘I do not know what you think I have been up to, but the threat in this place isn’t from me.’
‘What do you mean?’ Sam stepped closer.
Alison swallowed and looked nervous.
‘Alison? Tell me. I need to know. My son is in danger.’
She looked down at the files on the floor, at the intense look in Sam’s eyes, and thought about walking away. But she spotted something else in his eyes: a plea for help.
‘Jon Hampson,’ she said quietly. ‘I keep seeing him with Harry, and I saw him coming out of your office the other morning. He looked furtive.’
Sam was surprised. ‘Jon? Why would he want it? He’s just a clerk.’
