‘Really, Maddie? Your arranged meeting didn’t show. So you drive straight back with no cover car watching your back, chatting about who-knows-what. Then you leave in your personal car from the station car park and you drive straight home, still not paying attention, I assume. You go for a run every day, right?’
‘I have been.’
Harry shook his head, his anger building. ‘And the same time, same route, you said. All your training, Maddie . . . You’ve forgotten who you are. You’ve forgotten what you are! Rhiannon is gone. She’s gone because of you!’
Maddie’s eyes were wide and unblinking, now they rested back on Harry.
‘But if someone followed me, why take Rhiannon?’ Her eyes flicked back to the tree, where the blade still stuck out from puncturing her name. She sucked in a breath, her hand went to her mouth and she stepped back out onto the path. She turned left and walked with purpose the way they had come. Harry watched as she emerged from the cover of the trees to be drenched in the sunlight. She stumbled a little and her body drooped to the point where she was bent double, her hands rested on her knees. He knew this was her moment to realise what he had already. She turned back to him. He had stayed still, his phone still in his hand, and she had to shout for him to hear. He could hear the strain in her voice.
‘I got to here, Harry! You called me and I turned back, but I was right here!’ Harry didn’t reply, but he did start to walk towards her. Her attention fell back to the floor as if she was searching for something. As he got closer, he could see that her eyes were glazed over. She was lost in thought, close to being consumed by panic. She lifted her head as he got close to her.
‘It was supposed to be me, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Harry said. His anger was seeping away a little. Maddie was suffering; he could see that. She had been careless and she was now realising just what that meant, but he had been taking out his own frustration on her. He should have been here. He should have been focussed on the investigation, on watching his colleague’s back. But he wasn’t. He was sitting outside a halfway house, useless and bitter.
‘Whoever this is . . . why did they want me?’ Maddie said.
Harry put his hand out to rest it on her shoulder. He leaned in, forcing her to make eye contact with him.
‘We find that out. We find Rhiannon. Simple as that. I need you focussed, Maddie. I was harsh. This isn’t your fault.’
‘Focussed? You were right . . . I’ve forgotten who I am. I’ve been careless.’ She stiffened. ‘We need to find her, Harry. I need to put this right. I messed up!’
Harry nodded. ‘We need to put this right.’ He detected a quiver in her lips. He had been too harsh. He needed to build her back up.
‘And we will.’
Chapter 24
‘Coffee?’ Harry said then turned away from his colleague before she had a chance to reply. He pushed open the door to Loaf Café on Sandgate’s High Street. A young woman smiled from behind a counter to his left. ‘Black coffee, strong,’ he said. He turned to where Maddie stood in the doorway. She still held the door open and stared at him.
‘You want to get a coffee? Now?’
They had walked the path back to Sandgate’s seafront just as soon as a search team had turned up to do a more thorough search. Harry had asked for hands and knees and raking up the bark. They would fan out from where the knife was still pushed through Maddie’s card. It would be painstaking and slow at a time when they needed to be anything but. Harry had also seen the CSI van flash past. Their focus would be on the knife, initially, he couldn’t see too many other forensic opportunities there, but they would also survey the wider area. A fingerprint hit was the best they could possibly hope for; it could give them a swift result. DNA could provide something in twenty-four hours but even that might be too long. Harry wasn’t hopeful. Even the dumbest burglars these days were aware enough to put a pair of gloves on.
He considered that they needed to stop and think. They couldn’t rely on the scene to give them the answers quick enough. Maddie was the key, and right now she wasn’t functioning. Harry knew this was partly his fault; he had reacted badly. He was struggling to fix it. She had taken herself away to sit on the low wall of the promenade while they had waited for the search team. She looked to be staring out to sea, no doubt using Harry’s words to beat herself up.
‘We need to step back for a moment and talk it out,’ he said.
‘What? We need to be out there finding her, Harry!’
‘Go and sit down.’ Harry’s anger flooded back all at once, it was all he could do to conceal it in a hiss. He turned back to the young woman who was still peering at him over the counter. He felt Maddie bang into his arm as she pushed past him.
‘And a white coffee.’
The woman nodded. Harry sucked in a breath to calm himself then walked over to the table Maddie had occupied. She was sitting with her back to him, her phone to her ear.
‘Who are you calling?’
‘Vince. I missed his call. He’s heard what’s going on. He wants to come in early for his nightshift to help. I figured he could come in and crew up with me. He can—’
‘Hang up the fucking phone, Maddie,’ Harry snarled.
Maddie’s mouth flapped open. He leant forward, his eyes fixed on her, refusing to let her off the hook. He heard a tinny version of Vince’s voice from the phone’s speaker. ‘Hello? Mads? Hello?’ She lowered the phone and ended the call without breaking away from Harry’s stare. Her face and neck were suddenly flushed. The phone started vibrating almost immediately. Maddie let it ring out on the table. The silence between them remained for another few moments.
‘We need to stop and we need to think. Someone pre-planned the abduction of a police officer. They were waiting for you while holding a large hunting knife. Why?’
‘I don’t know!’
‘Your previous life . . . your undercover work in Manchester . . . any suggestion that has followed you down?’
‘Nothing I am aware of.’
‘The media releases for the boy covered in blood, or Jarod Logan for that matter . . . did your name get mentioned at any point?’
‘No. Why would it?’
‘Okay, then. Let’s run with the assumption that the person making that call from Stone Street set up that meeting. Let’s further assume that same person followed you out and is responsible for taking Rhiannon. That being the case, we have three options as I see it. First, that person was targeting the officer on the case because he has some link to that boy and is upset that there’s an investigation at all. Second, they have nothing to do with the boy but they have become aware of you running it and they saw an opportunity to isolate you. Third, their intention was to isolate a police officer, any police officer, and this gave them an opportunity.’
‘I don’t think it can be about me. If we’re saying I was followed home from work then they know where I live and there would be other opportunities. Taking Rhiannon makes it less likely of getting another chance at me. And my card at the scene . . . that wouldn’t make sense either? If you’re after me, don’t tip me off.’ Maddie was starting to think again.
‘The card as a whole doesn’t make sense,’ Harry said, ‘unless it’s someone you upset in Manchester and they are trying to mess with you maybe? Make you suffer?’
Maddie shook her head emphatically. ‘The people I was in amongst up there are vicious criminals, of course they are, but they’re business people, too. They would deal with a problem like me quickly and quietly. I would suffer, I know that, but it wouldn’t be like this. I would just disappear — no one else involved. No clues stuck to a tree either.’
‘Okay. So we’re left either with someone linked to the boy or an opportunist targeting police and after anyone they can isolate.’
‘I’m not sure which one is more likely,’ Maddie said.
‘It doesn’t matter anyway. We need to cover off both. But the business card . . . that’s our biggest lead.’
&
nbsp; ‘It’s our only lead, really.’
‘Which means we know where to go next, doesn’t it.’
‘It does?’ Maddie suddenly looked excited.
‘It does. And you need to make some calls on the way. Your old boss up in Manchester for one. We just need to be sure there’s nothing on their radar about you. We don’t rule anything out completely. Then we need to call someone on Rhiannon’s team. We need that update we kept putting off. We need to know everything Rhiannon found out and everything she did to get it. Everything. Get what you can over the phone but we’ll need to run through any material Rhiannon has in her day book — anything on her desk, too . . . any scraps of paper . . . her personal locker — everything.’
‘Okay.’
Harry stood up over his full coffee. Maddie did the same. They both made for the door with new purpose.
* * *
Harry knew the Ports Café. He had stopped there on a pursuit driving course previously. It wasn’t somewhere he had ever wanted to return to. He thought it an ugly building overall. It looked like it had started its life as a small, detached bungalow, but was now extended on just about every side, growing to match the increase in passing trade. Distinctive green tiles formed a sloping roof that looked to be reaching out and gathering in the newer built areas that jutted out of its base. The whole of the extended front and its two sides were largely glass and the sun was aimed straight at it. The patrons sat to the front had pulled cheap-looking blinds to try and abate its strength. It seemed that spring had arrived all at once.
The café was in the throes of its lunchtime rush. Harry took a moment on the threshold. He immediately matched a couple of middle-aged men sat on their own at separate tables to one of the numerous lorries stacked in silent formation on the area of hard standing they had just crossed. It was just as easy to match the numerous tables of tradesmen to the transit vans and the family taking their elderly parents out for lunch to the polished, seven-seater MPV that was nose-in and close to the entrance door. No one looked out of place. Harry walked to the empty counter. He was aware of Maddie close behind him. The door to what Harry assumed to be the kitchen was just beyond it. He considered just pushing through and announcing himself but decided he would wait — for a minute at least.
The door opened in half that time. A man walked out backwards. He turned to reveal two laden plates. He didn’t acknowledge the two detectives or break his step to sweep past them and out onto the café floor. When he returned, he took a pad out from his apron pocket and put it down on the counter. His pen was readied.
‘What can I get you?’ He cleared his throat as he finished his sentence. His voice sounded strained — a sign of tension, perhaps? There was an accent, too. Harry thought it might have been Italian.
‘Maybe I should get you a wet-wipe?’ Harry said. The man looked up at last. He looked puzzled at first then his face broke into a nervous smile. He lifted hands that were blackened at the fingers. It looked like dried grease, the sort that gathered on an engine bay.
‘I have scrubbed and scrubbed. They are clean, believe this or not.’
‘And your jeans?’ Harry said. The man’s black apron was by far the cleanest part of him. It looked brand new, still with straight lines running down the material like it had just unfolded from a packet. In contrast, his blue jeans seemed to have the same black dust over most of both legs, with the knees taking the brunt.
‘These are probably a lost cause, no!’ He still wore a grin but it dropped away pretty quickly. Probably when he realised Harry did not.
‘You don’t strike me as the waiter type.’
‘You got me there!’ the man replied. ‘I help out sometimes in here when it gets busy. But I can help when the trucks need a bit of attention, too. This is my main job.’
‘This is busy is it?’ Harry made a show of looking round. They were still the only people at the counter. None of the tables appeared to have anyone still waiting for service. The man shrugged.
‘The woman who works here . . . I assume she’s just out there in the kitchen?’ Harry said.
‘Woman?’
‘The waitress. My colleague, here, met her last time she came in.’
‘Her apron was a little more worn in,’ Maddie said.
The man glanced at her very briefly. ‘I can take your order. There are gloves — new ones. I’ll put them on to bring your food. I was just in a rush.’
‘A rush?’ Harry had no doubt of that. The man looked like he had been dragged from a truck repair and pushed into the kitchen while an apron was hurriedly lifted over his head. Maybe around the time the two officers had entered.
‘I hear the pancakes are good.’ Maddie said.
The man had readied his pen again. He was leaning over it, using it as something on which to focus. Harry waited for him to look up. It took a count of two.
‘They took those off the menu. Shame. They were my favourite, too!’ The man seemed to force a chuckle.
‘That is a shame,’ Harry said. He fell silent. The man was back to staring down at his pen.
‘So . . . anything else?’
‘You know who I work for, right?’
The man looked nervous. ‘You ask a lot of questions, you see a lot of things, so I think you must be police.’ He snorted to show that he found that amusing. Harry didn’t.
‘Are you known to the police? Do you have a record?’
The man’s eyes flickered from Harry to Maddie and back. His tongue flickered out to wet his lips. He leant on the counter, his arms locked out and tensed.
‘Are you here for food or are you here for me? I am just worker here!’
‘I get that. The waitress who was here . . . it’s very important that I speak with her.’
‘The waitress?’ Now he pouted like he was unsure.
‘She works here,’ Maddie said. ‘I met her.’ She stepped forward, too, increasing the pressure on the man.
‘Sure, I know who you mean. She is not here.’
‘She’s not?’ Harry said. He had been leaning forward on the counter. Now he pushed off and stepped back. He turned to a shuffling noise. Someone else had joined the queue behind them. The waiter looked delighted, as if it might let him off the hook. Harry had no intention of doing that.
‘I will be with you in just one minute, thank you,’ the man said. He fixed back on Harry and shrugged.
‘She is not. I am cover. So if I cannot get you anything I will need to serve these nice people here.’
‘You have her name and phone number though, of course you do. I’ll take that for now.’
The man shrugged again. ‘I do not. I do not speak with her away from here. There is no need.’
‘Her name?’
‘I don’t know. We don’t really work together. She is not the talkative type, you know.’
‘Excuse me, are you in the queue?’ Harry heard a voice behind him. Maddie answered it firmly:
‘Yes.’
‘I need to help these people. This is business here. We cannot be upsetting customers!’
‘My colleague here gave her card over.’ Harry paused, but not for a verbal confirmation — he knew he wasn’t going to get that. ‘Do you still have it?’
‘Not to me she did not.’ He stepped further back, his hands lifted. He glanced back to Maddie, who stayed quiet.
‘But you know about it?’
‘I know nothing about this!’
‘Of course you don’t. There’s a manager, right? An owner?’
‘Not here.’
‘No one else is here?’
‘No one else. This is why I am here! I just fix some lorries. I use the site. It is an agreement. Sometimes I help out if they are really in need.’
‘Who pays you?’
‘This is not for pay!’ he laughed as if the notion was ridiculous.
‘You work for free? Out of the goodness of your heart?’
‘The drivers . . . they have petty cash — a budget to keep the
ir lorries on the road for minor repairs. I speak with them. I help them with the work. Maybe with the parts. They do not know England. I can source what they need.’
‘I bet you can.’
‘I can. They pay me for this; it is how I earn my money. The people here . . . they let me use the site. They do not let anyone else. It is a good deal. Sometimes I help in here to keep them happy. I need to keep them happy!’
‘The card . . . where is it?’ Harry flicked back to his original question, trying to catch him off guard.
‘I do not know! Maybe she throw it away?’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Because you want me to say something! I do not know.’
Harry moved back to leaning on the counter, this time his fists took his weight, he pushed himself so far forward he could feel pain in his knuckles. ‘She might be dead,’ he growled. It was out of the blue, out of context to someone who had no idea what he was talking about, but the man opposite him froze, all his movements stopped, his lopsided smile dropped away, as if Harry’s words had frozen time itself. It was just for a moment, but long enough.
‘Sorry?’
‘Maddie, here, she came here before with a young girl. She’s twenty years old. She’s missing.’ Harry used another silence. The man stepped back again, avoiding eye contact. ‘I need to find her. Her disappearance has something to do with here, with your pancakes. If you don’t help me and something happens . . .’
‘I do not know about this! I cannot help. I would help if I could. I do not want people hurt!’
‘I think you can help. I think you know more.’ The silence was longer this time but still it didn’t prompt a response. ‘I saw the cameras on the way in. What do they store to?’ Harry moved on again.
‘Store to?’
‘We’re going to need to review the footage. Some store to a hard drive, some to a cloud. I just need to know before I make arrangements for someone to come out and download what we need.’
‘The CCTV does not work. I have never known it to.’
Harry scowled. ‘This place is twenty-four-seven, right?’
HE WILL FIND YOU an absolutely gripping crime thriller with a massive twist Page 25
