Cold Kill (21 page)

Rupert stood up quickly and marched to the exit. He couldn’t do this. When he got outside and felt the soft caress of summer again, he let out a long sigh and let the breeze dry the sweat that had spread across his forehead. It was time to go back to his life. He wasn’t prepared to give up the one thing he still had: his reputation.

He walked quickly to his car and climbed in. He felt his pulse slow down when he heard the engine rumble to life, and as he pulled out of the car park, the police station fading in his rear view mirror, he gave a relieved smile.

He had done the right thing.

Everyone looked round when there was a knock on the door of the Incident Room. It was one of the civilian workers from the front desk.

‘Yes?’ Carson said.

‘There’s a man at the desk wanting to speak to someone about your murder case.’

Laura exchanged glances with Carson and Joe. ‘Who is he?’ she asked.

‘Someone called Rupert Barker. He seems nervous.’

Carson looked at Laura. ‘Sounds like he needs your gentle touch.’

‘Or maybe any touch but yours,’ she said, and then stood to follow the civilian worker back through the police station.

Laura walked out of the Incident Room and towards the doors that separated the waiting room from the main body of the station. As she looked through the doors, Laura could see one of the local solicitors, a wannabe glamour-puss, sitting next to her client and preening in the glass, and there was someone in a tracksuit, but he didn’t look much like a Rupert.

There was a room behind the glass kiosks, where the counter staff went when they had to make some enquiries they were trying to keep secret from the customer. Laura put her head round the door. ‘Where did he go?’

The counter assistant looked up from the note she was writing and then back out through the glass.

‘He was here a minute ago.’

Laura looked through the glass in the door again. ‘He’s not here now,’ she muttered under her breath, and then gave the door a push and went into the foyer. She was met with a couple of blank glances, apart from the solicitor, who was still flicking at her long hair and smiling at her reflection.

Laura went towards the exit doors and then out into the sunshine. She looked along the line of parked vehicles just outside the front doors and saw a car starting to pull away. She tried to make out a number plate, but he was too far away. A departing police van then blocked her view.

Laura pointed at the camera in the corner of the foyer as she rushed through. ‘How can I view what has just been recorded?’

The woman behind the counter shrugged and then pointed upwards. ‘In the CCTV room, I expect.’

Laura walked quickly through the station and headed for the stairs, avoiding the lift, a confined space. Laura got nervous whenever she felt closed in. She hadn’t always been that way, but a bad experience a year earlier, when a case had ended up with her being trapped in a small space, had made her this way. If there was a way to avoid them, she would take it.

She headed for the top floor as quickly as she could, her legs aching from her efforts the night before. She was out of breath when she burst into a small room that was dominated by a bank of television screens. There were images from around Blackley, the town centre and Saturday night flash points, along with some of the major traffic routes out of town. The CCTV operator looked up, his eyes taking a second to re-adjust from focussing on the screens.

‘Do you have the foyer downstairs monitored?’ she asked.

He shrugged and nodded, then pressed a couple of keys. An image of the entrance downstairs was displayed on one of the centre screens.

‘Can you wind it back ten minutes?’ she asked.

His tut was barely audible, but Laura heard it, although she focussed on the screen instead as the footage was rewound.

‘There!’ she said quickly, as a figure seemed to walk backwards out of the station. When the operator pressed the play button, Laura watched as the figure walked in.

He seemed old and small, his head bald, his features pointed. He seemed uncomfortable, nervous, as if he wanted to say something but would be quite pleased if he never got the chance. As he sat down, Laura watched as he shifted in his chair, crossing and uncrossing his legs, biting his lip, his hand running over his scalp as if he was brushing hair that had long since lost the battle with time, glancing up as two police officers strode through on their way out of the station. When it was his turn to go to the counter, he seemed to hold back, and although he held his nerve long enough to speak to the lady at the counter, he stepped away quickly after that and looked at the floor. He sat down for a short period and then he left, as if he was no longer uncertain, more determined to get away than he had been to enter.

‘Have you got any external footage?’

He tutted and pressed a couple of keys, and then a view of the car park appeared on one of the screens. Laura watched as the man walked quickly to a car. As he climbed in and reversed, there was a good shot of the number plate. She jotted it down and said, ‘Save that footage,’ and then ran out of the room. The CCTV operator barely acknowledged her demand.

She went into the room next door and found a spare computer terminal. Once she had logged in, she did a check on the number plate. Rupert Barker. The same name as given by the man who came in.

Laura headed for the stairs again. She knew where she was heading next: to see Rupert Barker.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Some kids looked at Jack’s car as he drove onto the Whitcroft estate. They had the usual hoods and loose fits, with more menace than the black hair and pale faces of teenagers seen in the better parts of town, where rebellion was just a phase. Jack knew that they were trying to work out how to spoil someone’s day, and their eyes had settled on Jack’s relic from the seventies, the Calypso Red paint blistering on the front wings and the windscreen covered in dust and squashed flies.

Jack hadn’t stayed long at the court. There wasn’t much going on, and he wasn’t in the mood to write up any of Hoyle’s speeches. Instead, Jack decided to return to the estate, to find out more for the feature Dolby had pencilled in for the weekend edition.

He was sorting out his voice recorder, deleting old interviews to clear some space, when the security van drove up to the front of his car, stopping inches short. Another car pulled up close behind.

Jack put down his dictaphone and watched as the two security guards got out of the van, their arms hanging away from their body. It wasn’t a friendly visit. They walked towards his car, and then stopped and folded their arms. Then Jack’s passenger door flew open and someone jumped into the seat. Don Roberts.

Jack was shocked. He looked back to the security guards, who were both grinning at him now. DR Security. Don Roberts. He should have guessed.

‘Let’s get this over with,’ Don said, turning towards him.

‘There is no
this
,’ Jack said, trying to hide the nerves in his voice.

‘Have you reconsidered?’ Don said.

‘About writing an appeal for information?’ Jack said, and then shook his head. ‘No, I haven’t.’ He tapped his finger nervously on the steering wheel.

‘Why won’t you help me find Jane’s killer?’

‘Because of what you will do when you catch him.’

‘Which is what?’

Jack looked at Don. He saw the clenched fists, the scar that ran from one corner of his mouth. But then he saw something else. It was confusion. In Don’s eyes, Jack could see that he didn’t know why his daughter had died, why something so awful had visited him. There was pain and grief and anger, and the determination to avenge his daughter’s death in the only way he knew how: through violence.

‘You would do exactly what any father would want to do,’ Jack said. ‘Kill the bastard who murdered your daughter. But I’m sorry, I can’t help you do that.’

Don looked down, and Jack wanted to look away when he saw the tremble to Don’s lip.

‘Would that be so wrong?’

‘Yes, in my world.’

Don clenched his jaw but didn’t respond.

‘Go to the police,’ Jack said.

Don shook his head.

‘You don’t want the police poking around your life,’ Jack said. ‘That’s your choice. But as bad as it sounds, you need to get the sympathy of the public to get the information you want, and so stand with the police, as a grieving parent.’

Don put his hands on his knees and clenched his fingers around the kneecaps, his knuckles turning white. Jack became aware of the silence. He could hear the gentle crackle of the branches on a silver birch. The soft creak of springs as Don moved in his seat. The rhythm of leather heels as an old man in a grey suit walked towards the shops.

Don’s shoulders slumped and the clench in his jaw softened. He looked at Jack, and there were tears in his eyes.

‘I’ve never had to do anything like this before,’ Don said, and for the first time Jack saw the anger slip away, leaving just grief, and it looked deep and raw.

Jack looked out of his windscreen at the two security men. They were looking away, oblivious to Don’s distress. Jack turned round to face him and said gently, ‘Tell me about Jane.’

Don didn’t wipe away the tears. They rolled down his cheeks as he took a deep breath to compose himself. ‘What can a father say about his daughter?’ he said. ‘Loyal, loving, beautiful.’

‘What about the last time you saw her?’

Don looked at Jack for a moment before answering. ‘It was just an ordinary night. Jane was going out, and so was I, just to my old local.’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Quiz night. How fucking mundane is that?’

Jack didn’t interrupt. He wanted Don to talk it out. He wasn’t planning on using it, but he wanted to find out more, so he could pass it on to Laura. Don may be unwilling to help the police, but Jack thought differently.

‘I was getting ready upstairs and so I never got chance to say goodbye,’ Don continued, ‘but why would I make a point of it anyway, because it was just a routine Saturday? I thought I would see her the next day.’ He paused, and then said, ‘She had a boyfriend, you know.’

‘What about him?’ Jack said, trying not to let on that he already knew.

‘I wasn’t supposed to know. Jane told me they’d finished.’

‘Why did she lie to you? Did you have a problem with him?’

‘He wasn’t good enough for her.’

‘So how did you know they were still together?’

‘Because people report back to me,’ Don said.

‘She was a grown woman. Why couldn’t she choose her own boyfriend?’

‘She could, but there is a thing called family.’

‘But you stopped her from seeing someone, and so she had to creep around, which made her walk alone that night.’ Jack watched carefully for a reaction.

Don’s fists went pale as he clenched them hard around his knees. ‘You make it sound like it was my fault.’

Jack shook his head. ‘You weren’t to know. But tell me this: why don’t you want the police involved? That is the question everyone will be asking. Why aren’t the parents at the news conference? Why wasn’t she reported missing earlier?’

‘Why should I be scared of the police?’ Don said. ‘You tell me, before you put it into print: what is it that I do?’

Jack realised then that he didn’t know too much about Don Roberts, apart from the rumours that he was the one to be feared.

Don nodded angrily at Jack when he didn’t respond. ‘So you don’t know much?’ he said, with a sneer. ‘Be careful what you print.’

‘How much have you read about Jane’s death?’ Jack said. ‘Some people have said some pretty cruel things on the internet.’

Don chewed his lip for a moment, and then he nodded slowly. ‘They’re sick,’ he said, ‘but let me say just one thing: say it to my face, because that’s the thing with the internet. Everyone’s a fucking hero when they’re at the keyboard, talking up the fight, but it hurts just the same whether it’s said to your face or from behind a screen. So if you print any of this, that’s my message to whoever they are: say it to my face.’

‘What have you found out so far?’ Jack said. He tried to make it sound innocent, a throwaway question, but he over-played it, and Don spotted it.

‘That is for me,’ Don said, and he leaned closer. ‘I know who you are, I asked around, and so I know who you live with. Do not underestimate me.’

Jack tried to meet his stare, but in his eyes he saw the look he recognised from the faces of the hardcore criminals who turned up in court sometimes. Not the thieves or the Saturday night fighters, but the career ones, the ones who played for high stakes. It was a look that told him that there were no limits.

They were interrupted by the security guards turning round to talk to someone who had grabbed their attention. It was a man with lank, greasy hair and stubble on his cheeks. He looked around furtively, his hands in his jacket pockets, his shoulders hunched. He was edgy, the paleness to his skin giving away the tell-tale signs of drug dependency. He was talking fast, making the security guards look towards Don, who opened the car door and stepped onto the pavement.

As Don slammed the car door shut, Jack wound his window down to listen to what was being said. He heard the word
paedo
and
weirdo
, and then part of an address.

Jack leaned out of his window. ‘I need to go. Could you move your van?’

Don gestured for one of the security guards to move it, and as he reversed Jack watched Don reach into his pocket and produce a roll of twenties. He peeled two off and gave them to the informant, but before he was able to scuttle away Don reached out and grabbed him by the back of the neck. There was some finger pointing, and Jack could hear the angry hiss of Don’s temper. The addict nodded quickly, and then Don pushed him, making him stumble to the floor. He picked himself up and walked off quickly.

He was around the corner as Jack pulled away. Don was in deep conversation with the two security guards as he went.

Jack caught up with the informant, who was walking quickly, looking back as he went. Jack pulled alongside and wound his window down.