No One's Safe: DI Max Byrd & DI Orion Tanzy book 3

by C. J. Grayson

  ‘Right, Brad. I need to head off soon. Feed Sarah and get rid of Lisa. Remember’—he turned to him and pointed—‘no excuses this time.’

  ‘I know!’ Brad spurted quickly.

  Mitch nodded and smiled. ‘Good.’ He stood, pushed his chair in. ‘Have a think about the next four, Brad. I’ll leave that up to you. I’ll be in touch.’

  59

  Saturday Afternoon

  Police Station

  Tanzy had almost finished his report. He picked up his coffee, drained it, and placed it back down by his keyboard.

  The office was quiet for a Saturday. And hot. The sun had blazed through the windows all morning and had created a hot box because the air conditioning was only half working. It was making a sound but not actually doing what it was meant to. The maintenance man had been called and said he’d come in today at some point to have a look at it.

  Tanzy glanced up across the office. Normally, there’d be a few more people in on overtime but there weren’t many volunteers this weekend. The weather had been hot through the week and according to the forecast, it was going to peak on Saturday and Sunday, then it was going to get colder next week. Overtime looked good for the ones who volunteered but it wasn’t mandatory. It would, however, enhance their upcoming appraisals, which was another thing Tanzy had to do today.

  Most weekends, Tanzy or Byrd came in. It wasn’t exactly in their contracts to do unpaid work but as time had passed, it had almost become expected of them. It was part and parcel of being a DI and they both knew that.

  But as Byrd had been off looking after Claire, Tanzy didn’t mind coming in. He had his report to finish and was hoping to catch Mac too. Byrd had informed him that he’d dropped Rachel Hammond’s laptop off at his house for him to look at, also mentioning Mac didn’t seem too keen on doing unpaid work in his own time.

  Welcome to the real world, mate.

  It wasn’t just in the police force, but everywhere. Managers wanted more from their employees all the time. Standards were higher and competition was fierce. What didn’t improve were the wages and that was something that Tanzy would have to grin and bear without making too much fuss. Life was, unfortunately, about pleasing the next in command. If you argued with them or made waves, it didn’t go unnoticed.

  If they were being honest, neither Byrd nor Tanzy had any great respect for DCI Fuller or particularly liked him, but it wasn’t his job to be liked. It was his job to manage them.

  Yesterday, the undertakers came to collect Rachel and Aaron and had taken them to the hospital to be further examined. It was obvious by the video how they died but they needed to make sure. It was not only clear that their man, Mackenzie Dilton, had been involved because of the video he’d uploaded but by finding his card on Rachel’s laptop with a handwritten message.

  Roger Carlton Hot tubs.

  Byrd had told Tanzy that he’d phoned the number written on the back and spoken to him. He said Dilton told him he’d kill them all one by one. And that they deserved it. Byrd had tried ringing Dilton back but had no joy – it went straight to answerphone. He’d tried to trace the phone too but couldn’t.

  It seemed like Dilton knew how to play them. He knew how to stay hidden. Judging by the screen stills of the camera at Napier Street where the house fire was, the wig and tash were obviously fake. They did know his height and build, and that he had, from what Tanzy had remembered, dark brown eyes and a large nose.

  Tanzy’s phone rang. He looked at the caller, noticed her name.

  ‘Hi, Linda.’

  ‘You okay, Ori?’

  He said he was.

  ‘Just checking in. I’m bored at the hotel.’ Fallows had said she was going to pop into town today and would phone either Byrd or Tanzy at some point. She had booked a few more nights in the hotel she was staying but wanted to get out for a while. Sometimes, she explained, it got too much for her, day after day – she wasn’t used to it anymore.

  ‘Nothing yet, Linda,’ said Tanzy. ‘By leaving his card on her laptop, it’s obvious he wants us to have a look at it. Digital forensics is checking it now.’ It reminded him he needed to pop along to see Mac. ‘Are you enjoying our fabulous town?’

  ‘I’m currently in the Cornmill Shopping Centre. Just been to Waterstones. I’m heading back to the hotel soon.’

  ‘Good. Well, I’ll let you know if I hear anything.’

  ‘Speak soon.’

  They both hung up and Tanzy placed his phone near his empty mug. He thought about the day before, finding the bodies that had been pumped with water, thinking about how strange it was, what it would have felt like to have water pumped into your body quicker than it was absorbed. Judging by the screams on the video it wouldn’t have been pleasant. He also thought about how DS Stockdale acted when he turned up. He seemed fidgety, not quite himself. He’d been like that for a little while now, and no matter how many times Tanzy or Byrd had spoken with him, it hadn’t improved. They knew he was having issues at home; he’d told some of the team himself about issues outside of work.

  Tanzy stood, remembering that Stockdale had said he’d come in today to do his report. On his way down to see Mac, he noticed he wasn’t at his desk. He tried calling him, but it went straight to voicemail, so he left a message asking to send over his report when he had the chance.

  Tanzy knocked on Mac’s door.

  ‘Yeah…’

  He opened it and went inside.

  Mac was sitting at his desk with Rachel Hammond’s laptop open in front of him. There were several wires from her laptop to the computer and another wire connected to one of the screens on his wide desk.

  Tanzy closed the door and thanked him for coming in. He replied saying it was no problem but Tanzy didn’t need to be a detective to work out it was a burden on whatever he had planned for the day. Tanzy too had plans with Pip and the kids and had promised to be back by three as they wanted to go to Hardwick Park for a walk and soak up some sun before settling down for a film and takeaway later, so Tanzy wasn’t here to waste any time.

  ‘What have you found?’ asked Tanzy, straight to the point.

  ‘Remember when I checked Jane Ericson’s laptop and found that website that contained much more than it appeared to have.’

  Tanzy took a few steps towards him, frowning, trying to remember, then it clicked. ‘Theend.com or something?’

  ‘Attheend.com,’ Mac said, turning slightly towards him. ‘She’s been on that site a lot, according to her history. The difference we have here in comparison to Jane Ericson’s laptop is that when you go to the site, it comes up with a username and password option. Her username is already there. HammR33.’

  ‘Spell that, please.’

  Mac did letter by letter. ‘We just need the password.’

  ‘Can you not bypass it?’

  Mac pushed his lips out, making a wet sound. ‘Usually, yes. But not on this site. The firewall protection is something which MI5 wouldn’t crack.’

  Tanzy considered his words for a moment and grabbed a chair from his left, then sat down on it.

  Mac leaned over, grabbed a pack of crisps from his desk, opened them, and started munching on them. Loudly. The sound of people eating made Tanzy want to punch the wall. He breathed slowly, trying not to let it bother him.

  After Mac had finished, he threw the empty bag on the desk near another empty bag. Tanzy decided to let it go and not mention it – he would only get wound up. He was there to find out what was on Rachel’s laptop, nothing more.

  ‘So, what would you suggest we do with this then, Mac?’

  The big man shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Ori. It’s beyond my capability. Maybe we should send it away?’

  ‘Okay. Yeah, maybe we’ll need to. Thanks for coming in anyway and having a look.’

  Mac immediately stood and left his office without saying goodbye. Whatever he had planned was obviously more important than cracking this case. Tanzy shook his head a little and stared at Rachel’s laptop screen, open on th
e website www.attheend.com. If only he knew the password to access the site.

  Still in Mac’s office, he decided to ring Byrd. When Byrd answered, he asked how Claire was doing. Byrd said she was sofa-bound watching television and taking it easy.

  ‘What’s happening there, Ori?’

  ‘Mac has been in looking at Rachel’s laptop. He said about the site that she’d visited, that it was the same one as Jane Ericson had been on.’

  ‘Can he access it?’ asked Byrd. ‘I remember him coming stuck with it.’

  ‘Same scenario. He said the firewall is too strong to get in.’

  ‘So we don’t know what this website is?’

  ‘We don’t…’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Byrd, knowing there was more Tanzy wanted to say.

  ‘Whatever it is, it’s why people are dying.’

  Byrd considered his words and had to agree with him. ‘Very likely.’

  ‘I wonder if Danny Walters had accessed the site, too?’

  ‘His laptop would have been burnt in the fire. I didn’t see any laptops there.’

  ‘Or maybe it was there, but we didn’t find it?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Leave it with me, Max. I need to get going…’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To Napier Street. Where this all started. If he had a laptop, it wasn’t collected in evidence so must still be there. I’ll ring you soon.’

  ‘Good luck.’

  Tanzy ended the call, stood up, and put his phone away. He left Mac’s office and headed along to the evidence room. After speaking with Rebecca and signing out the sets of keys that belonged to Danny Walters, he went outside in the warmth of the Saturday afternoon and walked over to his car.

  Soon, he pulled up outside the burnt house in Napier Street, got out, and locked his car, then used the key from evidence to open the door. The smell of charcoal was strong as he made his way down the narrow hallway, pulling on a pair of gloves.

  The stairs in front of him were severely fire damaged. He took a right at the base of them and made his way through the dining room to the long, narrow kitchen. Drawer by drawer, he pulled them open, then tried the cupboards. He found no laptop. He sighed, returning to the base of the stairs. Looking up at them, the smell of petrol and burnt flesh came back to him.

  He was almost certain there was no laptop found in the house inventory that forensics had come across. He knew Tallow and Hope were on the ball so if Walters had a laptop, it hadn’t been left somewhere obvious.

  He entered the front bedroom and couldn’t help thinking about the mother and son who had died in there. He pictured them, the way they held each other over in the corner, the way the mother’s eyes had frozen, looking down at her small son, all bloodshot and black.

  He shuddered at the thought of it as if they were still there inside the room, somehow watching him, begging him to find something that would help figure out who did this to them. His first thought was the wardrobes. There were two of them, one on either side of the chimney breast, built in to the alcoves. He went to the left one, gently grabbed the metal handle, and pulled it towards him. Inside, objects were burnt but not as severe as inside the room. In the bottom half, there were bags of clothes and a suitcase which, when he lifted, seemed to be empty. On the middle shelf, there were smaller boxes, some of them cardboard shoe boxes, half-burnt, while others were made from hardened plastic that had melted and distorted with the heat. On the top shelf, it appeared empty. He rose on his tiptoes and ran his palm across it but found nothing.

  ‘Shit.’

  Going over to the opposite side, he checked the other wardrobe. Other than more clothes, a large box filled with games, and a large plastic tub of toys which were blackened with smoke, there was nothing else.

  He left the bedroom and searched the rear bedroom where he found a built-in wardrobe over to the right of the room, the front of it black and flaked. He pulled it open with a slight crack and looked inside, seeing a rail of clothing and below, boxes of burnt games. One of them was Kerplunk, a game he remembered playing with his own dad many years ago.

  He closed the wardrobe, backed away, and checked around the room, looking for places where a laptop would be but came up short. Back on the landing, he saw a door directly in front of him, unsure how he’d missed it when he was last here. It was more than likely a cupboard, he assumed. He pushed down the handle but it was locked, then he noticed the keyhole.

  ‘Shit,’ he muttered, trying to pull the door towards him harder this time but it wouldn’t budge.

  Then he thought of something and pulled the set of keys from his pocket, tried one and the lock turned. He opened it to find a wooden ladder, then looked up, seeing a closed hatch above him. On the wall to the left, there was a light switch which he pressed, but nothing happened. Then he realised the electricity was off because of the fire. He stepped fully into the cupboard, started to climb the steps.

  When he reached the top, he pushed the hatch up as far as it went and looked into the room, brightly lit with sunlight coming from an attic window. The room which was big, spanning the full width of the house. The floor had been boarded and lined with a carpet that had seen better days. He climbed up and stood fully, the angled roof inches from his bald head. Up there it was warm and clammy, although there was a window, the still, stagnant air was a sign it hadn’t been opened for some time. Mostly the room was empty, apart from the old wooden wardrobe against the wall that backed on to the house next door. He went over and opened it.

  On the shelf in front of him, there was a laptop.

  ‘Bingo.’

  As he reached for the laptop, he paused, hearing something below. He couldn’t be certain but it sounded like footsteps. He listened harder, angling his ear to the open hatch.

  It was probably something outside.

  Then he realised it wasn’t. Someone was walking up the stairs.

  60

  Saturday Afternoon

  Napier Street, Darlington

  Tanzy stayed perfectly still, staring at the open hatch, listening to the approaching footsteps until the house became silent. Had he imagined it? He couldn’t be sure. Very slowly, with the laptop in his hand, he took a few paces towards the hatch.

  ‘Orion?’ he heard someone say.

  He frowned. The voice wasn’t familiar.

  ‘Orion? Are you up there?’

  He appeared at the hatch and looked down. ‘What are you doing here?’ He crouched down, finding his footing on the steps, and descended them. ‘How did you know I was here?’

  ‘I spoke with Max,’ Linda Fallows replied. ‘He said you were here. I tried calling but it kept going to answerphone.’

  ‘I’ve had no missed calls,’ he said, stepping onto the landing, taking out his phone to check it. ‘Must be a bad signal around here.’

  ‘I was going to go back to the hotel, but when Max said you were here, I put it into my phone and realised it was only a few minutes away.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Tanzy asked, pointing to the bags in her hand.

  ‘Few bits. Some make-up. Nothing too exciting,’ she said, then pointed to the laptop he was holding. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Danny Walters laptop.’

  When they were back at the station, they handed the keys over to Rebecca in the evidence lock-up and went into the office. Tanzy glanced left, looking for Stockdale, but he wasn’t there. He still needed Stockdale’s report from the previous day to forward on to Fuller, who’d no doubt, be looking for it first thing Monday morning.

  Tanzy sat down at his desk, placing the laptop in front of him, and Fallows sat on Byrd’s chair and leaned in, interested in what they’d find.

  He opened the laptop, pressed the ON button.

  She was close enough for him to smell her perfume. It was nice. Her blonde hair was long and had been straightened. Her face was nicely done. Her green, emerald eyes were highlighted by dark mascara and eye shadow, easily knocking ten years off h
er. It was the first time that he’d felt a hint of attraction towards her, which he considered a little weird and strange.

  The laptop whirred a little, and the screen came alive. ‘Here we go,’ said Tanzy.

  Without requesting a password, the screen changed to the laptop’s background, showing a couple of columns of folders on the left-hand side. Tanzy placed a finger on the mouse cursor and navigated to the internet icon, then double-clicked.

  He knew he was way off Mac regarding computer knowledge but knew the basics. If the website that Mac had found on both Jane Ericson’s laptop and Rachel Hammond’s laptop was on this one, then it was clear the website was the only thing they’d found linking Danny Walters to those two.

  The internet wouldn’t open.

  ‘Don’t we have to connect it to the Wi-fi?’ Fallows said, unsure.

  ‘Ahh, of course.’ Tanzy connected it, entered the Wi-Fi password, and tried again. This time it opened. He went to the tab at the top of the page and opened the history. The last visited address was www.attheend.com.

  ‘Bingo,’ he said. ‘It’s the same website the other’s used.’

  When the page came up, it was a different scenario to Rachel Hammond’s laptop. The username was there – Dwalt66 – and a password had been automatically saved disguised as eight small asterisks.

  ‘Is that the password?’ Fallows asked, leaning closer.

  ‘Looks that way.’

  ‘Go on it,’ Fallows encouraged.

  Whatever this site was, Tanzy knew it had something to do with why they’d been murdered. It was the only link they’d figured out. He pressed the ENTER key and it went to the next screen.

  A welcome message came up, saying ‘Hello, Dwalt66.’

  ‘What the hell is this?’ Tanzy whispered.

  On the left of the screen there was a box, showing a live camera feed of a dark room, revealing a woman sitting on the floor with her back against the wall. Near her, there were food wrappers and an empty drink bottle.

  ‘What the hell is this?’ Fallows said loudly, shocked by what she was seeing.