Cold Kill (22 page)

‘I’ve just been talking to Don,’ Jack shouted at him. ‘Where does this weirdo live?’

He looked suspicious and kept on walking, but then Jack saw the memory of his car click into place. ‘Rockley Drive. Number 19,’ he said. ‘Are you going to sort him?’

‘Where’s that?’

‘At the top of the hill, on the right.’

‘And you think that the guy from number 19 did it?’

He shrugged. ‘He’s a fucking weirdo, is what I know. He’s always at his window when the school kids go past, looking through his nets.’

‘And that’s enough for you, is it?’

The visitor slowed down and licked his lips, his tongue flicking over the brown stumps of his teeth. ‘If it was your kid, you’d be bothered,’ he said. ‘It’s not right, that’s all, what happened to Jane.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Don knows my name.’

Jack watched him go and then realised that he had another visit to make, if only to save a life.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

The noise in his head was like a drum-roll as he entered Cleveleys, tense and fast, almost drowning out the shouts.

He had followed Rupert Barker all the way, always two cars between them. When Rupert stopped at a small grocer, he asked people on the street if they knew where Rupert lived. The police crest on his vehicle made someone give him up eventually.

He got out of the car and walked quickly to the doctor’s house, his lips moving in time with the words in his head. He went up the short path and then straight round the back, not looking up to see whether he had been seen or not. Once he was at the back of the house, he saw that the back door was wooden, with small panes of glass in the top half, so that he could see into the kitchen on the other side. He saw that there was an old-fashioned keyhole, and as he went to his knees, he smiled when he saw that the key was still in the door on the other side.

He took his jacket off and placed it over the small pane nearest the keyhole, and then he rammed it with his elbow. The cloth cushioned the noise, and he heard the soft tinkle of glass as it fell onto the floor on the other side. Once he’d reached in to turn the key, he stepped inside.

He closed the door behind him. He was in the kitchen. Then he stopped. There was a radio on. He moved slowly, trying to work out where it was playing. No one shouted out. There was just the soft crunch of broken glass under his feet as he moved through the kitchen. He got to the hall and saw there were two other doors going from the hallway. He looked inside the room nearest to him and saw what looked like Doctor Barker’s snug room, lined by books and photographs. The radio was on a bookcase by the window. He rushed over and clicked it off. All he heard then were the sounds of an empty house. The tick of the clock, the hum of the fridge, the soft pats of water from a dripping tap.

As he moved towards the hall, he paused by a photograph in a dusty silver frame. It was Doctor Barker from twenty years earlier. His hair wasn’t as grey, and he seemed to stand a bit taller. He felt some of the years slide away as he looked at the picture. He looked down to his hands, and they seemed smaller, thinner. He heard small cries, felt the movement between his fingers as tears of rage ran down his face.

He shook the thoughts away and walked quickly out of the room. He knew where to wait. If he stayed by the door, the doctor might be able to get away, or shout into the street. Once he was upstairs though, it would be hard for him to run.

He smiled as the stairs creaked under his shoes.

Jack looked up at Number 19, the house mentioned by Don’s informant. It was a dirty semi-detached house, the windows covered in dust and paint flaking from the door. The net curtains in the front window looked dirty and brown, and the grass in the small square garden was long and unkempt. Jack paused at the gate, worried that the informant might be right and that he would be helping a killer to escape, but something about the house told him that the occupant was not much more than the local oddball.

The curtain twitched as he approached the house, the occupant must have been looking out, and then the door opened before he reached it. A skeletal man looked Jack up and down. He looked like he was on life’s final lap, with grey stubble and purple bags under his eyes, dressed in a baggy grey T-shirt and hair that stood upright like he had just woken up. But the smoothness of his hands and the dart of his eyes told Jack that he wasn’t quite as worn out as he looked.

‘Are you from the council?’ he said. His voice was muffled, as if his tongue was getting in the way.

‘No, I’m a reporter,’ Jack said.

He looked up and down the street, his eyes scared now. ‘What do you want?’

Jack wanted to tell him to leave his house because his name had been given to Don Roberts, but he faltered. Instead, he said, ‘I’m just trying to get a reaction from the neighbourhood about the death of Jane Roberts. Did you know her?’

The man nodded but looked at Jack with suspicion. ‘I know Don,’ he said. ‘Everyone knows Don.’ Before Jack could respond, he said, ‘You haven’t been to any other houses.’

‘You seemed a good place to start.’

‘What do you want?’ the man said again, but he sounded angrier now.

Jack held out his hands in apology. ‘Look, I’m sorry, but your name has been passed to Don Roberts as a suspect.’

The man went pale. ‘What, for Jane’s death? Why would anyone do that?’ His voice was quieter than before.

‘Because it makes the informant look good in front of Don,’ Jack said. ‘I had to let you know.’

The man started to back into the doorway. ‘I’m not going,’ he said, some of his composure coming back. ‘I live here.’

‘I know that. You do what you want. Tell the police. I just wanted to warn you.’

The man pursed his lips and then nodded at Jack, before slamming the door.

Jack didn’t move straight away. He looked at the door, the numbers in white plastic, the bottom of the ‘9’ broken off, paint blistering around the edges.

Then he turned away. He had done what he could.

Rupert Barker walked into his house, feeling foolish after his trip to Blackley. He walked through to his kitchen and put the bag of groceries on the counter, the outcome of a detour to the local shop. He bent down to stroke his cat and then rummaged for the tin of sardines, a lunchtime treat for his sole companion. The cat purred softly as it rubbed his leg, and Rupert smiled. Life was normal again.

Once the cat was nose-deep in the fish, Rupert stepped away and felt the crunch of glass underfoot. He looked to the door. A pane of glass was missing. And the key was missing too. Then he realised that the house was too quiet. He’d left the radio playing when he went out, just to deter burglars. But there was just silence.

He looked around quickly, checking for any sign that things had been moved, the nerves prickling again, like they had ever since he’d rushed out of the police station. He had left for professional reasons, to protect his client’s confidentiality, but the feelings of disquiet hadn’t gone away.

He backed out of the kitchen and pushed at the door of the room at the back. He waited for a shout, but there was nothing. He could hear the creak of the weather vane on the church behind his house, flicking at the clouds as it twitched in the breeze. His finger tapped nervously against his lip. It was still too quiet.

His mind flashed back to the file he had read earlier in the day. Shane Grix. It had all come back to him as soon as he’d seen the name. The tilt of the head, the flit of his eyes, his hands always still on his knees, quiet, withdrawn. He remembered the photographs Shane’s mother had brought in. He never seemed to be joining in. His friends would be joking, grinning, pushing and pulling at each other, but Shane always seemed detached, stood to one side, more of a half-smile on his lips.

No, it wasn’t a half-smile. It was a knowing smile, an ‘if only you knew’ sneer, a deep enjoyment of his secrets. Rupert remembered the struggle to get him to open up, and Rupert felt that he never really had. Shane Grix disclosed what he wanted to disclose, nothing more, and so Rupert could only advise his parents to try and be open with him, to discuss their problems with him, to encourage him to share his thoughts with them.

The sessions had stopped too soon. Shane wasn’t from a problem family, and so there was no need to involve the authorities. They had been private consultations sought by worried parents. He had given them advice until they couldn’t afford it anymore.

He whirled around as he thought he heard something, like faint knocks. He looked through the window, but all he saw was the bamboo as it swished against the fence. Was it the wind, or had it been disturbed?

He stepped back, tried to sink into the shadows of his living room. There was movement outside, he was sure of it. He thought about dialling 999, but he wanted to check that the house was clear first.

But the nerves were making him feel nauseous. His heart seemed to beat too fast, making him gulp down air, his stomach turning.

There was another noise. It was from upstairs. Just a bang, like something had been knocked over. Perhaps it was his cat, but it had been too heavy for that. He peered round the corner into the kitchen. His cat was still eating.

Rupert backed up against the wall. Someone was inside the house, he was sure of that. He thought about the telephone in the hall. He knew he should call the police, but he didn’t want to. Not yet anyway. He worried about the confidences he might end up breaking.

His eyes shot to the ceiling again. There was another noise. The creak of a floorboard. Or was it a door?

Rupert stepped away from the wall and moved slowly towards the door that led back into the hallway, the stairs just on the other side. He tried to move silently, so that he could back away quickly if he saw real danger, make a call and get the police there.

He pulled on the door and the light from the hallway fanned into the living room, just making more shadows. He held his breath, waiting for whoever was in the house to rush at him. But there was no one there.

He exhaled loudly. He looked down at his hands. They were trembling. He thought about how he could protect himself, but he didn’t have any weapons in the house.

He looked towards the stairs and moved slowly towards them, expecting to see Shane there, and then almost laughed to himself as he cursed his overactive imagination. He looked up but the landing was empty.

He put a foot on a step and began to climb. Memories of Shane went through his mind, but he knew he had no reason to be fearful. Shane was a long time ago.

But what about the young woman killed in Blackley?

The stairs went straight upwards with a landing to his left, but the landing was bordered by solid wooden panels, so he couldn’t see whether anyone was hiding there, crouching behind, waiting to pounce. Rupert kept his back against the wall, only the occasional creak of a step or the brush of his clothes interrupting the silence.

He reached the top of the stairs and looked around. He exhaled loudly. No one there.

Then he heard the creak of a door, the sound of someone moving on carpet.

‘Who’s there?’ he said, his voice weak. ‘Shane? Is that you?’ He heard something behind him, the fast rumble of feet along the landing. He turned around quickly, a shout caught in his throat. He went to scream, but suddenly an arm went around his neck.

He fell backwards, pulled down. There was stale breath on his cheek, coming at him in short bursts. He ended up on the floor. Then Rupert gagged as something was rammed into his mouth. A cloth, he could feel it in his throat, his cheeks pushed out. There was someone on top of him, hands around his neck. Rupert tried to push him off, but his opponent was heavy and strong. Rupert reached up and tried to scratch at his face, but there was a scarf there, tight around his attacker’s face. He tried to get more breaths through the cloth, but it was impossible, his attacker’s hands squeezing hard.

As he looked up, the last thing Rupert saw were his attacker’s eyes, calm, cold, his head tilted slightly to one side.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Laura checked her watch as Joe drove along the Cleveleys seafront, her side window open, the salt on the breeze making her lick her lips. It was almost two o’clock.

Laura turned her engagement ring on her finger absentmindedly as she thought about how different Cleveleys was to her home, Turners Fold, even though it was only an hour away. And that was how she thought of Turners Fold now, as home. It had taken a long time before she’d been able to think of it in those terms.

Cleveleys seemed a world away from the dark green of the hills around her cottage. Here, the sky seemed brighter, as it soaked up some of the sunshine that glimmered on the sea, vivid blue to the horizon, not the stone-grey of the Pennines. Turners Fold was like all the other cotton towns in the country, characterised by lost industry and grand civic gestures, where old millstone buildings stood alongside imposing Town Halls and theatres, proud emblems of a prosperous past. The buildings in Cleveleys didn’t brag or boast. They were either small redbrick or whitewashed seaside houses, with stained glass awnings over shop windows held up by ornate pale-green iron pillars. The seafront stretched into the distance, the beach below a mix of pebbles and sand, the sea a distant shimmer.

Laura had taken Bobby to the seaside since her move north, but it had been to Blackpool, and so it had been all noise and tack and lights, and then a dash for the car before the stag and hen night parties took over the streets. She imagined that it would be fun if she was a teenager, or with a gang of friends on a pub crawl, but the pavement stands selling cock-shaped rock told her that it was no place for children. She hadn’t taken Bobby back a second time.

Cleveleys seemed different though. This was tea-room seaside, all buttered bread and afternoon dances. Even though she could see Blackpool Tower in the distance, it seemed like a whole different experience.

‘Something on your mind?’ Joe said.