Hope Dies Last

by Deborah Finn

  “Lester,” he heard a shout. “You were there on the night she died. What do you have to say?”

  He stopped for a moment and looked round. “This isn’t a political matter,” he said. And he turned and walked through the sliding door.

  The desk sergeant nodded in recognition. “Take a seat, Mr Gallagher. I’ll let DI McIntyre know you’re here.”

  Gallagher sat down and watched the clock tick from five o’clock to quarter past. The bastard was deliberately leaving him to stew. He didn’t pull out his phone, didn’t read the leaflets strewn around. He stared straight ahead, working over his thoughts. Poor Marilyn, such a bright girl. He had thought she had such a future. He could never have guessed she’d crack like that, just walk out on him. He heard the door from the back office open, but he didn’t look up until he sensed the figure walking towards him. He swivelled his gaze towards McIntyre, his face impassive. He stood, and this time didn’t offer his hand.

  “Thank you for coming in,” said McIntyre.

  Gallagher nodded. “Of course,” he said. “Whatever I can do to help.”

  McIntyre nodded and gestured with a hand. “This way,” he said. He lifted an electronic pass to open the door and held it wide for Gallagher to pass through in front of him. “Corridor to your left, Mr Gallagher.”

  Gallagher waited for him to lead the way down the featureless corridor and through another secured door. McIntyre opened a door to his left and entered. He walked across the small room and around to the back of the desk, gesturing for Gallagher to take the visitor’s chair. It was his office. There were books on the shelves, paperwork on the desk, even a framed photograph. Gallagher nodded slightly, taking in the significance of it. No recording devices, no second officer. This was a chat. He felt like his chest had inflated with helium. His shoulders lifted, his spine relaxed and stretched. He took the seat indicated. “I’d like to help in any way I can,” he said. He held McIntyre’s eye as the officer nodded thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair.

  “I’m just hoping you can fill in a few gaps,” he said. “There seem to be a lot of gaps in Marilyn’s Souter’s life.”

  Gallagher nodded. “I guess so. I’ve no idea what became of her after she walked out. I don’t even know why she did it. Have you figured that out? She had some kind of breakdown or something?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  Gallagher shrugged expansively. “I’ve no idea, not really. One day she was there, and then she just never turned up again. We contacted her, of course, but she wouldn’t respond, wouldn’t answer the phone, didn’t reply to letters.”

  “So what did you do? Did you go round to her house?”

  “No,” Gallagher shook his head. “We had next of kin details. Her father. We called him. All he would say was that she wasn’t well.”

  “Wasn’t well? That’s how he put it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And then?”

  Gallagher pushed a long breath out, scanning his memory. “I guess we would have followed procedures, you know. Sick pay, half pay. Eventually she was dismissed. There wasn’t much else we could do.”

  DI McIntyre nodded. He leaned forward and made a note.

  “You didn’t know she was pregnant?”

  “No,” Gallagher said firmly. “I heard that, on the news, what her father said. We had no idea at all. She’d said nothing. If we’d known, well of course, there might have been a question of a maternity break. But she’d said nothing.”

  “It would have been about the same time,” said DI McIntyre.

  “When she left, you mean?”

  “Yes. We’ve tracked down some hospital records.”

  “You have?”

  “They’re patchy though. It looks like her medical records got lost at some point.”

  “Right.” Gallagher nodded solemnly. “But she had the baby?”

  DI McIntyre raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Yes,” he said, with a faint smile. “There was a baby. But that’s where the trail ends.”

  “You don’t know what happened to the child?”

  He shook his head. “Her father says that she was thinking of having the baby adopted. She was depressed all through the pregnancy.”

  “What about her boyfriend?”

  McIntyre tilted his head enquiringly.

  “Maybe he’s got the kid,” Gallagher said.

  DI McIntyre looked at him steadily. “The boyfriend dropped out of the scene while she was pregnant. We’ve spoken to him of course. As far as he knows there was no adoption, and we’ve certainly found no record.”

  Gallagher pulled a face. “So where’s the kid now?”

  “You’re very interested in that.”

  Gallagher shook his head. “No,” he said. “I mean, it’s strange isn’t it? Wouldn’t anyone want to know?”

  McIntyre nodded. “We know where she was recently. She seems to have been using a different name. But the years in between, we’ve no idea.”

  “Really?” Gallagher said. “She changed her name?”

  “She did. And she was living alone. No child.”

  “Right,” said Gallagher. “God, what a strange story. And she was such a bright, ambitious thing, you know; for her to have ended up like that.”

  “Like what?” said McIntyre.

  “You know, living under a false name, scraping by.”

  McIntyre pursed his lips. “I didn’t say she was scraping by.”

  “Didn’t you?” said Gallagher. His mind raced ahead. “Sorry, I just assumed that she was living, you know, kind of like a refugee. False name and all that.”

  “She was as it happens. How astute of you to have figured that out, without any information.”

  Gallagher smiled. “Well, I’ve seen a lot of life, you know.”

  “I bet you have,” said McIntyre. “And then she turns up at the Sheraton, on the night that you were there. Funny that, isn’t it?” He leaned forward, all curiosity.

  “I don’t know,” said Gallagher. “Is it? It was a big do, lots of people.”

  McIntyre laughed. “Not many refugees I’ll bet.”

  Gallagher laughed with him, watching him. “Not my kind of thing really, but you’ve got to show your face, you know.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” said McIntyre. He leaned forward and made another note. Gallagher watched his careful, neat handwriting. He couldn’t read it from here. What the fuck was he writing down anyway? “You were there all night?”

  Gallagher nodded.

  “Sorry,” said McIntyre. “I didn’t make myself clear. You were downstairs at the function all night?”

  Gallagher cast his eyes around as if trying to remember. “I don’t honestly recall. I guess so.”

  “What time did you get to the hotel?”

  Gallagher smiled tightly. “I really don’t know. I’d have to check my diary.”

  “Right,” McIntyre said as he pulled a folder over from the left side of his desk. He flicked it open and ran a finger down a list. “Five o’clock,” he read off. He looked up and smiled as though he’d been helpful.

  “If you say so.”

  “Hotel register says so,” said McIntyre. He traced across a line in the file. “Room service,” he said. “Half past six. Steak and chips. Does that ring a bell?”

  Gallagher gave a tiny nod of acknowledgement. “You know everything, it seems.”

  “Not yet,” said McIntyre. “But we’ll get there.”

  “I hope so.”

  “It’s a laborious process, but it works,” said McIntyre. “We need to talk to everyone who was there that night, cross check who saw who and when. We’ve got a matrix. It’s surprising how often a simple process like that will tell you what you need to know.” He smiled at Gallagher, as if this was very good news.

  Gallagher nodded. “Like I say, whatever I can do to help. Bring it on.”

  “My sergeant will go through it with you,” McIntyre said. “I’m afraid it might take some time, an
d I know you’re a busy man.”

  “Perhaps we can arrange another appointment,” Gallagher suggested.

  “Absolutely, Mr Gallagher. Absolutely,” said McIntyre. “We’ll want to see you again.”

  It was winding down. Gallagher smiled, felt his breathing relax. “Well, if that’s everything?”

  “Oh well, before you go, there was just one thing.” McIntyre slid some still images from a plastic folder. He looked at them, then turned them around and pushed them across the desk to Gallagher. He spread them out, three pictures, side by side.

  Gallagher stared down at them, moving his face woodenly from one to the next. Jango caught full face looking up at the lift; Jango and Farren carrying the box through the lobby into the hotel; another of them carrying it out of the hotel. He looked up at McIntyre. “What are these?”

  McIntyre shrugged. “We don’t know,” he said. “Not yet.”

  Gallagher shook his head. “Means nothing to me.”

  “You don’t know these men?”

  “No,” said Gallagher.

  “You’re sure? Look at them again.”

  “I don’t need to. I don’t know them.”

  “OK,” said McIntyre. “Did you see them on that night? You might have seen them at the hotel.”

  “I’ve never seen them in my life.”

  McIntyre leaned forward and wrote a note. Gallagher could feel the heat rising inside him. The bastard was doing it on purpose, trying to wind him up. But he had nothing.

  “Can I go now?”

  McIntyre gave a little private smile. “Anytime you like, Mr Gallagher. You’re free to go.”

  Gallagher pushed his chair back.

  “But I’ll just have to buzz you through the door,” McIntyre added.

  Gallagher sucked in a breath and waited. He felt like a schoolchild waiting on a teacher as McIntyre sauntered down the corridor. He buzzed the door open and held it wide.

  “We’ll be in touch,” he promised as Gallagher walked through the door.

  Gallagher nodded grimly and headed down the corridor. He wanted a drink and he wanted to crack someone’s head, and he wanted them in that order. He pulled his phone from his pocket, ready to call Steve. He felt weary when he saw the number of messages. He connected to the answer phone and punched through the menu. His feet stilled on the lino corridor as the first voice reached his ear. Martin Halton. He pressed replay and listened again. OK, he had the bastard’s attention now.

  He walked out of the station and onto the street. The press were still there, shouting and pushing up towards him.

  “Lester! Over here!”

  He turned to a camera flash. He didn’t smile. He raised his hands, gesturing for quiet.

  “Please, can we have a little respect!” he shouted. He waited for the noise to abate. “I’m here, you’re here, because of Marilyn Souter, who tragically lost her life last week.”

  “Was she more than your PA?” someone shouted from the back.

  Gallagher allowed a momentary shadow of distaste to cross his features, but he didn’t reply.

  “I hadn’t been in touch with Marilyn for more than a decade, but of course I want to give the police any help I can, though I fear I know nothing that could really help. I appeal to anyone out there who might know anything at all about Marilyn’s last days, please come forward and do what you can to bring her killers to justice.”

  He raised a hand to signal the end, and started moving down the steps.

  “You were there on the night she died.”

  Lester carried on walking, looking at his phone. He was pursued by voices.

  “Do you know more than you’re letting on?”

  Ignore them, he told himself. They didn’t follow him. He could hear them dispersing behind him. They’d got their soundbite and now they were onto the next story. Pack of vultures.

  Lester raised a hand and flagged down a taxi.

  “Maximilian’s,” he said. “You know it?”

  The taxi driver looked at him in the rear view mirror and nodded. He pulled out into the traffic. Gallagher leaned back in his seat. At times like this, he wished he still smoked. He felt himself being watched, and he looked up to see the driver still studying him in the mirror.

  “What?” Gallagher said.

  “You’re that guy,” the driver said.

  Gallagher rolled his eyes. “Care to elaborate?”

  “Been down the police?” he asked. “I saw it on the telly, when they picked you up.”

  Gallagher sighed. He hadn’t had time to look at the footage, to see how it was playing. “They did not ‘pick me up’,” he said.

  “Oh right,” said the driver. “You helping with enquiries?” He laughed. “That’s how they say it, isn’t it.”

  Gallagher shook his head. “Just drive, alright.”

  Maximilian’s was quiet and Gallagher sat on a stool at the bar. “I’ll have the Islay malt, no ice.”

  “Double?” the bartender asked. He had an Irish accent, was about fifty. He looked Gallagher up and down.

  Gallagher rubbed his eyes. “At least,” he muttered.

  The bartender smiled and sat the drink on a coaster in front of him, then went back to drying glasses with a cloth. Gallagher knocked it back and pushed the glass forward. The bartender refilled without comment. Gallagher scrolled down through his messages. Steve was getting wound up about the press. Head office was getting wound up about the press. Everyone was wound up. Jesus Christ.

  He sipped his way slowly through the second glass; felt the heat seeping through his body and spreading through his limbs. He rolled his neck, felt the pressure in his head easing. Why had he even got into this? They were all a bunch of tossers at head office. He didn’t need it.

  All he needed right now was for it to go away, whatever was this scheme that Marilyn and Halton had cooked up between them, he wanted it gone. The kid was the evidence, she’d said. He rubbed his face roughly. Did that make sense? The kid was the evidence. He guessed it did. The timeline looked bad. They knew about the pregnancy, they knew when she’d dropped out. They knew where she was when she died. If that kid had his DNA, that was all the proof they needed to build a case against him.

  But he had the kid, he reminded himself. That was sorted. And Martin Halton could bleat all he liked, but he had nothing on him. He smiled as he remembered they’d taken the woman too. That was perfect. If it was just the kid, then there’d be a storm. A missing kid: a big search, police everywhere. But what was he to say now? His wife had run off with his kid? Happened all the time, especially to adulterers.

  Gallagher stretched and let out a deep sigh. He had options. Maybe he didn’t have to finish off the kid. Maybe if Halton was running scared, then that might be good enough? But it would always be there. There’d always be the risk. He’d be laying himself open. But it was an option.

  He shoved a note across the bar and told the bartender to keep the change. He felt a lot better. Things were looking up.

  Twenty Nine

  Martin was sitting on the sofa when the phone buzzed in his hand. He looked down at it. It was Gallagher. He pressed the button and lifted the phone to his ear. His chest was heaving.

  “What have you done with them?”

  “Done with who, Martin? What are you talking about?”

  Martin struggled to control the anger and fear raging through his body. He wanted to throw the phone across the room. He wanted Gallagher to be there right now so he could get it out of him.

  “You know what I mean,” he managed to say. “What have you done with my wife and child?”

  “Your wife and child, Martin? I have to say I really don’t know what you mean.”

  The voice was so confident, and so completely unsurprised. Martin felt a huge chasm open up inside him. He had them. He really did. It was obvious. That knowing tone, that edge of aggression. It was almost impossible to hold back the flood of rage. He closed his eyes and breathed hard. He couldn’t lose it now.
Gallagher was dangerous. He was dangerous and he had Beth and Ben.

  “Look, Gallagher, I don’t care what you’ve done. I don’t care about the past or about Marilyn. Do you understand? It all means nothing to me. I just want my wife and child safely home.”

  There was a momentary silence and Martin’s heart soared painfully in his chest. Had he done it? Had he managed to say the right words?

  “You want to be careful making allegations like that.”

  “I am NOT making allegations,” Martin roared. “Didn’t you hear what I was saying? All I want is Beth and Ben back home.”

  “I wish I could help you with that, Martin. I really do. You sound really stressed. Let’s hope they turn up, eh?”

  “Turn up? What do you mean, turn up?”

  “Always best to stay calm at times like this,” Gallagher advised. He laughed softly. “You know what they say, you keep your head and everyone keeps their head.”

  “What the fuck are you saying? Are you saying if I shut up they’ll be alright? I’ve already told you... I’m not a threat.”

  “No, I hear that, Martin. And you’re right. You really don’t want to be a threat to me. I’m not the kind of man to threaten.”

  A cold sensation trickled through Martin’s chest. “Where are they? Please, just let them go.”

  “I have to go now, Martin. My advice is you calm down. Stop these wild accusations.”

  The call ended. Martin looked at the phone in his hand for a moment and then pressed to call the number back. The call was stopped. He tried again with the same result. He threw the phone on the sofa and stood up. He paced across the room, his mind spinning but getting nowhere.

  What should he do? Of all the ridiculous things, he found himself wishing that Beth was there so he could ask her what to do. He squatted down, put his head in his hands, trying to think. OK, don’t panic. Think clearly now, come on.

  He had them. Until that call, anything was possible. They could have lost track of time somewhere, be round someone’s house. But that wasn’t possible now. He hadn’t admitted it, but it was obvious. Martin crumpled on the floor, thinking of his son. He needed his Dad to protect him, and he didn’t even know where to begin. Martin allowed himself a moment of weakness, and then he sat up again, trying to pull himself together.