by LJ Ross
CHAPTER 36
Keeley Nicholson spent some considerable time getting ready, that morning.
She chose her outfit with care, discarding anything that seemed too gawdy in favour of a plain black dress and low heels. She dipped her finger into a bottle of beige foundation and spread it over the clusters of broken veins beneath her eyes, dabbing it over the deep lines that had gathered around her mouth, and then brushed false colour against the apples of her cheeks, remembering a time when they’d had a natural bloom. She reached for the small keepsake box she’d forgotten she had, and selected a pair of cheap silver ear-rings Oliver had given her, one Mother’s Day, when he’d been too young to realise his mother wasn’t worth celebrating.
She dabbed at the fluid which leaked from the corners of her eyes, then added a line of deep pink lipstick to her mouth.
Then, she looked at the woman who stared back at her in the bathroom mirror, and wondered when it had all gone wrong.
You killed him, she thought.
You killed him.
She walked unsteadily to the door, and made her way downstairs, where Gaz was prowling the hallway waiting for her.
“About time,” he muttered, and then looked again at his wife. “You look good,” he conceded.
“It isn’t for you,” she said, dully. “It’s for him.”
Gaz said nothing, and propelled her out of the house and into the car, so they could make their way to the mortuary.
She listened to his warnings on the journey across town, and his voice sounded like flies buzzing in her ears. She looked across at him, at her co-conspirator, and wondered if it would be easier to pull the handbrake while they were on the dual carriageway.
“What?” he barked, not liking the strange look in her eye.
She said nothing, and looked away.
Soon enough, the hospital came into view—the same place where she’d brought Ollie and Becki into the world. She’d been different, then—or she hoped she had. She hoped her son and daughter might have at least some decent memories of their mother.
As for their father…
She watched him from the corner of her eye, and thought how funny it was that her one wish for Ollie had come true.
He’d been nothing like his father.
* * *
“The Nicholsons have arrived at the mortuary,” Ryan said, as he and MacKenzie were about to head back to Police Headquarters. “You carry on, Denise. I’ll head back, once they’re done, but I want to see his reaction, if I can.”
“He might be the ‘Gaz’ Lawana was talking about,” MacKenzie said. “Do you want to pull him in, now?”
Ryan thought about it.
“We’ve already got him under full surveillance,” he said. “Let’s show her a picture of him, once she comes around again, and bring them in after that. We can only hold him for so long without charging him, so we need something more solid.”
MacKenzie nodded, and Ryan left her to make his way down to the mortuary to meet the Nicholsons, who had been taken to a specialist viewing area.
He found them with Pinter, who spoke to them in calm, well-rounded tones about what they were about to see on the monitor, explaining the procedure.
They looked across when he entered the room, but said nothing.
“All right,” Pinter said. “I’m going to instruct one of my team to lift the shroud now. Please prepare yourselves.”
He spoke through an intercom, and one of the mortuary technicians lifted a paper shroud to reveal their son’s mottled body. Ryan watched them from the edge of the viewing room and saw the woman’s head drop to her chest with a single sob, but it was the man’s reaction he found most interesting of all.
He didn’t look.
Not once.
Pinter spoke into the intercom again, and the shroud was replaced, following which the screen went blank.
“I want to see him properly,” Keeley whispered. “I want to see my baby.”
“That’s your right, Mrs Nicholson, but I must warn you that you may find it very traumatic,” Pinter said.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, and followed him towards the side door leading into the clinical area. “Gaz? Aren’t you going to come?”
He shook his head and turned away.
Keeley paused at the door, looking down at the clipboard Pinter had left on the table.
“Do I need to sign those?” she asked.
Pinter nodded.
“I’m afraid so,” he said. “They’re to confirm your son’s identity.”
“Bring them with you,” she said, and stepped through the doorway.
After they’d left, Gavin said not a single word to Ryan, and the two men stood at opposite ends of the room, observing one another.
“Must have been hard,” Ryan said, eventually. “Having to make that kind of choice.”
Gaz looked up quickly, then away again, keeping his mouth firmly shut.
“Where’ve they taken the women?” Ryan asked him. “Come on, Gaz. They killed your son, and we’ll prove it, soon enough. Why protect them?”
Still, he was met with silence, and a moment later, Keeley returned.
“Time to go,” Gaz said, and led her out, without further discussion.
* * *
Ryan had almost reached the exit when he heard the sound of running footsteps approaching.
He turned to find Pinter chasing after him, waving a clipboard in his hand.
“Ryan! Wait a minute!”
He couldn’t recall ever having seen Jeffrey Pinter move so quickly, and he wondered what could have possessed him.
“Jeff? What’s wrong?”
“Look at this,” he panted, thrusting the clipboard beneath Ryan’s nose. “The signature page.”
Ryan flipped the pages until he found the official form whereby a person’s next of kin signed their affirmation that the deceased was the person whom they’d identified.
Except, instead of signing ‘Keeley Nicholson’, the boy’s mother had written a single word:
STRANRAER
Stranraer was a town on the shores of Dumfries and Galloway, in Scotland. It was also the closest town to the ferry line which ran from there to Belfast, in Northern Ireland.
Ryan thrust the clipboard back into Pinter’s waiting arms.
“Thanks, Jeff!”
He broke into a run, bursting out of the staff entrance to sprint across the tarmac back to his car, setting his mobile to hands-free.
“Frank? Get onto HM Customs and police in Stranraer, and the same in Belfast,” he said, as soon as Phillips picked up his call. “That’s where they’ll be, unless we’ve missed them.”
“Aye, lad. Who gave us the tip?”
“Keeley Nicholson,” he said. “It turns out she had something left in her, after all.”
With that, he ended the call and flipped the switch on his emergency siren, flooring it all the way back to Police Headquarters.
CHAPTER 37
Mick Donnelly decided that, next time, he was writing in a new clause to his contracts, one which covered unforeseen natural disasters, including—but not limited to—Arctic storms.
He’d spoken to the lads first thing that morning, having expected to find them well on their way to Belfast, by now, but the weather had not been kind to them.
Well, there was nowt he could do about that, and he certainly wasn’t procuring another bloody fishing trawler.
He listened to the man at the other end of the phone line and tried to placate him.
“Look, I’m not happy about this, either,” he said. “They’re ready and waitin’ to get across, just as soon as the ferry reopens, all right? It’s the best we can do.”
More complaints, this time about killing the boy.
“You look after your business, and I’ll look after mine,” he growled. “I’ve got a reputation to look after, and if you let any of them take a lend, the whole bloody house falls down.”
They’d found the miss
ing woman, and she was talking to the police.
Mick was silent, while he thought about what she could possibly know.
“She has no idea about what route we’re takin’,” he said. “The plans changed, remember? She wasn’t here to overhear anythin’ important. Don’t worry about it.”
But he did worry, he worried a lot.
“You concentrate on makin’ sure the buyers pay on time,” Mick advised him. “How’s that lass you picked up, yesterday?”
He’d let him know, tomorrow.
Mick laughed, which turned into a hacking smoker’s cough.
“Aye, you do that. I’ll let you know when we’re home and dry.”
Donnelly ended the phone call and immediately took out the battery on the burner phone, adding it to a pile of others he intended to destroy.
They’d have nothing on him, he thought, and so what if the woman talked? A message would be sent to her, soon enough, reminding her she still had a daughter to think of.
Loose lips sunk ships, so they said.
* * *
Phillips was waiting for Ryan in the foyer of Police Headquarters, when he returned.
“What have you got for me?”
“I’ve been onto the authorities on both sides of the channel,” he said. “The ferries didn’t run last night or this morning, because of Storm Wayne. It’s moved over that way and stopped all the transit.”“Let’s hope they didn’t manage to catch an earlier ferry,” Ryan muttered, as they speed-walked back to the office. “What’s the plan?”
“There’s a bunch of cars and lorries already in the holding zone, checked in and waiting to board the next one. I’ve told them to delay it and search every one of them. Morrison’s given the go-ahead for all of it.”
Ryan made a note to thank her, later.
“We’ve got an All-Ports Warning in place,” he said. “Why weren’t enhanced checks taking place, anyway?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Phillips said, darkly. “What now?”
“Now, we wait.”
* * *
When they returned to the office, they found MacKenzie and Morrison in deep discussion.
“Ryan,” Denise said, moving forward quickly. “I know you’re waiting to hear from Stranraer, but there’s something else you might want to see. It’s about that house you raided, this morning.”
“What about it?”
He followed her across to her desk, where several printed reports were laid out.
“Faulkner started running the swabs, room by room, since you requested a rush-job,” she said. “The first bedroom has come back with a match to someone we know, whose details were already on file.”
“Who? Is it Nicholson?”
“No,” she said, catching Morrison’s eye. “It’s DCI Chambers, from Serious and Organised Crime.”
Ryan laid his hands on the desk.
“Have we checked to see if they’d performed their own search of those premises? We don’t want to jump to conclusions, over the sake of skin particles—”
“It was semen,” she said.
Ryan swore, and then apologised.
“No need to be sorry,” Morrison said. “I already called him every kind of arsehole, before you arrived.”
“Where is he now?”
“I’ve been in touch with his DCS,” Morrison said. “Apparently, he’s working from home, today.”
“There’s more,” MacKenzie told him. “When this came through, I had a quick look back over some of the busts Chambers has been responsible for, over the past couple of years. At least four came to nothing, thanks to minor errors in procedure that could only have come from him, or one of his team. On the face of it, they could be explained away, but—”
“Once might be explained away, even twice,” Ryan said. “But, four errors of the same kind? Call in the Ghost Squad.”
He referred to their colloquial name for their anti-corruption unit.
“Already done,” Morrison said. “I’ve referred that side of things to them, for internal review, but I thought you and MacKenzie might want to bring Chambers in and see what you can get out of him, before they take over?”
“Thank you, ma’am—and for your support, throughout this investigation.”
Morrison put a hand on his shoulder, then left him to do what he did best.
CHAPTER 38
Unaware of the dramatic events unfolding back at Police Headquarters that morning, Lowerson and Yates made their way west of the city towards Bolam Lake Country Park. It was situated in the heart of the Northumbrian countryside, and had been a favourite place of Melanie and her sister, Gemma, when they were children.
“We used to like trying to spot the red squirrels,” she said, as Jack parked the car. “I don’t suppose we’ll see many, today. Look at the weather.”
He’d seen it, and had come prepared with gloves, which he presented with a flourish, to make her laugh.
“We can handle a bit of cold weather, he said. We’re made of strong stuff, us northerners.”
She smiled, and rested her forehead against his.
“Thank you for coming with me,” she said.
“Any time.”
They stepped out into the blustery wind, and began making their way towards the lake, their feet crunching against the icy earth underfoot.
“Gemma and I used to bring our bikes here,” she murmured, remembering two little girls pedalling as fast as they could through the autumn leaves. “Mum used to bring a bag of cheap bread, to feed the ducks.”
He reached for her hand, and they made their way along the circular lakeside walk until they came to a particular tree. Its trunk was old and hollowed out, and had been the hiding place of many a small child over the years in which it had stood overlooking the water. Mel let go of his hand and walked over to it, resting her gloved palms against its old bark, as though she were giving it a hug.
And he realised, this is where they’d scattered Gemma’s ashes.
He followed behind slowly, careful not to startle her.
“Is she here?” he asked softly.
Mel nodded, wiping tears from her eyes.
We scattered her ashes at the base of the tree, then covered them with a layer of soil, so they’d be a part of the earth and the old roots of this tree.
“It’s a beautiful spot,” he said.
He left her there for a while, stepping back to give her the privacy she needed, and was grateful the day was so inclement they had the place to themselves.
Eventually, she stepped back again, and said her ‘goodbye’, until the following year.
“I told her about you,” she said, with a smile. “I know it’s stupid, talking to a tree—”
“It’s a living thing,” he said. “And it’s not stupid.”
She took his hand again.
“Do you want to go back, now?”
“If you can stand the cold a little while longer, why don’t we carry on around the rest of the lake?” she suggested.
“What cold?” he joked, and slung his arm around her shoulders.
“Jack?”
“What?”
“I might change my mind, one day.”
“About what?”
“About getting married.”
His heart caught in his throat. “You don’t need to say that, for my benefit—”
“I’m not,” she assured him. “I’m saying it because I feel it.”
He turned to kiss the tip of her nose. “In that case, I’ll keep it in mind,” he said.
* * *
While Melanie reminisced about her sister’s life, Ryan received news that would alter the lives of seventeen other women.
“Bingo!” he said, turning to MacKenzie and Phillips, who were gathered around the desk while he spoke to the Scottish authorities. “They’ve got the bastards. They found seventeen women stuffed into the back of a transit van, without food, water, toilet facilities or much else. They’ve arrested two men—Nathan “N
oddy” Palmer and Callum Shepton, both of Newcastle upon Tyne.”
“Thank God,” MacKenzie said, sinking back against her chair.
Then, she thought of Lawana and her daughter.
“I thought Lawana said there were twenty women, in total,” she said, leaning forward again. “Discounting Lawana and Chantara, that should leave eighteen, but the authorities have only counted seventeen. There’s one missing.”
Ryan thought quickly, and rang his contact back.
“It’s Ryan, again,” he said, without preamble. “Look, we’ve got a possible discrepancy. Can you take some pictures of the women and send them through to us, urgently? They don’t have to be professional, just phone pictures will do. Okay, thanks.”
“They’re going to send those through as soon as possible,” he said, but felt the same niggling worry that MacKenzie did.
“If one’s missing, they could have dumped a body anywhere,” Phillips was forced to say. “They have no scruples.”
Ryan nodded, and checked the time, which was a little after four o’clock.
“Bring Chambers in, now,” he said. “I don’t want any cosy chats at home, away from the office. I want him transported in the back of a squad car, cuffed, in full view of his colleagues.”
“Thought you’d never ask,” Phillips said, rubbing his hands together. “Anything else, while I’m at it?”
“Yes, you can bring Gavin Nicholson in, and hold him overnight,” he said.
“And the wife?” Phillips queried.
Ryan thought about it for all of three seconds.
“She’s a potential accessory to murder,” he said flatly. “Bring her in, as well.”
* * *
Ryan left DCI Kieron Chambers to stew for twenty minutes in one of the holding cells in the basement of Police Headquarters, before he and MacKenzie made their way down to the Interview Suite to ask a few pertinent questions of a man supposedly tasked with fighting serious and organised crime.
“DCI Ryan and DI MacKenzie, entering Interview Room B, at sixteen-thirty-seven,” he said, and reeled off the date. “Also present are DCI Kieron Chambers and his legal representative, Diana Hepple, of Hepple and Co. Solicitors.”
He ran through the formalities, and linked his fingers on top of the desk.
