Cold Kill (34 page)

‘Simon Abbott?’

Laura nodded. ‘That’s what Jack said. Do you know him?’

‘He’s a beat bobby, on the town centre patrol, the shop-lifters’ circuit. He’s the right height, I suppose, but why would he do that?’

‘When you find him, you can ask him,’ Laura said. ‘And check the duty rosters on my desk. See if he was on duty when the emails were sent from the station.’

‘What are you doing?’ Joe said.

‘I’m going to find Ida.’

‘Carson said you weren’t supposed to be alone.’

‘I’m not a child,’ she said. ‘Now we’ve got a name, you should have him locked up pretty soon.’

Joe nodded and walked towards the station doors. Laura went to her car and set off towards the town centre, where she thought she had seen Ida not long ago.

Her intention was to park her car and then walk. Ida wouldn’t know much about Blackley, and so she would stick to the major roads, perhaps not even venture out of the shopping zone. Laura checked her watch. Five o’clock. She left her car in one of the multi-storeys and started wandering.

It was thirty minutes before Laura saw her, as the crowds thinned out and the shops started to close. Ida wasn’t alone. There was a another woman alongside her, taller, younger. They were walking slowly, Ida’s eyes flitting around as she looked at people as they passed her. Laura followed them for a few minutes, and then she realised something else, that it was just men Ida was looking at, as if she was looking for traces of Shane, the adopted son she thought was dead.

They walked slowly until they got to the end of a line of shops. When they turned around to walk back the same way they had come, Ida stopped dead. She had seen Laura. She began to look around, as if an escape route was about to appear at her side. The woman with her looked confused, and then angry as Laura went to Ida and grabbed her gently by her elbow.

‘Mrs Grix, we need to talk.’

‘Who are you?’ the other woman said angrily.

‘It’s all right,’ Ida said, and then, ‘what are you doing here?’ Her expression was a mix of fear and confusion.

‘I work here,’ Laura said. ‘The question is really what are you doing here?’ When Ida looked away, Laura pulled her to one side and said, ‘Come on, let me buy you both a drink.’

The other woman stepped forward. ‘Please tell me, who are you?’

‘I’m the detective who spoke to Mrs Grix yesterday about Shane,’ Laura said, and as she studied the woman’s face, she remembered her from the photographs in Ida’s house. ‘Is it Amanda, Shane’s sister?’

Laura saw her anger fade. Amanda nodded but didn’t say anything.

Ida allowed herself to be led to a small coffee bar in the precinct, Amanda following meekly behind. It was filled with shoppers making their slow way home, the passage through the tables made difficult by bags and boxes on the floor. They found a space at the back, and Laura went to buy the drinks. When she returned with three coffees, Laura said, ‘Talk to me, Ida.’

Ida sighed and looked down for a few seconds, and when she looked up her eyes were watery. ‘Is it Shane?’ she said.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Just the things I read in the paper,’ she said. ‘They said that Doctor Barker’s murder was connected to someone over here, and so I read about them. They sounded like Shane, but it can’t be him, because Shane is dead.’

‘How certain did the police seem back then?’ Laura said.

‘They told me they were sure, and they showed me some of his things. And it seemed like they were right, because Shane never came home. Back then, I had no reason to think that they weren’t right.’

‘But now you’re not so sure?’

Ida took a drink of her coffee before she answered. She kept looking down as she spoke. ‘Doctor Barker thought it was Shane, I know that now, and he was a clever man, so if he thought it was Shane, well, maybe it is.’

‘So that’s why you are here,’ Laura said.

Ida tapped the side of her cup, her expression lonely and morose. ‘I want to find him,’ she said. ‘I know what you think he did to those women, and if he killed them, he should pay for that, but he’s my son. He’s not my flesh and blood, but I brought him up. I did all those things for him that a mother should do, and I think of him as my child.’

Amanda snorted angrily. ‘And he threw it back in your face,’ she said.

‘Don’t say that,’ Ida said, sounding hurt.

‘Oh, come on, you know it’s true. He ran away as soon as he could, and it ruined everything.’

‘He wasn’t a bad boy,’ Ida said. ‘He was just different.’

Amanda sat back and scowled. ‘He used to watch me getting changed,’ she said. ‘I didn’t tell you then because it didn’t seem important, because I used to hit him when I caught him. He used to push the door open and peep through the gap.’

‘That’s not a nice thing to say,’ Ida said.

‘But if he is alive and has killed these women, then he was always like that,’ Amanda said bitterly, and then folded her arms. ‘I just thought you ought to know.

Laura saw the resentment of Ida’s natural child, that the cuckoo had got all the attention.

‘What will you do if you see him?’ Laura said.

Ida shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Tell me how he was adopted.’

Laura saw a flash of panic in her eyes, some long forgotten fear resurfacing with a jolt.

‘What do you mean?’ Ida said.

‘Just that,’ Laura said.

Amanda looked at Laura, and then at her mother, confused.

Ida looked worried, and wrapped her hands around her cup even more tightly.

‘I’m not interested in whether it was a crime,’ Laura said. ‘I just need you to tell me what happened.’

Ida looked at Amanda for a few seconds, her eyes filled with silent apology, and then she said, ‘Shane’s mother was a young girl, from here, Blackley. Emma she was called. She got herself into trouble, and she didn’t want to bring him up on her own. Emma’s mother was an old school friend, and she arranged it.’

So there it was, Laura thought, confirmation of what Jack had told her.

‘How?’

Ida sighed and wiped her nose. ‘We agreed that when the baby was born, I would take him in and treat him as my own. We had Amanda, but she took a long time to come, and we didn’t want to wait that long again, because we would be too old to adopt if we did, and so this seemed like the best way. It suited both of us.’

‘It didn’t suit the baby’s mother,’ Laura said.

Ida shook her head and sniffled. ‘Even the money we handed over was just frittered away.’

‘What, you bought Shane?’ Amanda said, incredulous.

Ida looked up, and Laura saw shame on her face.

‘It was supposed to give Emma a fresh start,’ Ida said. ‘She signed the papers, but it seemed like it made it worse.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We kept in touch with Emma’s mother at first, but she stopped calling us, because Emma just spent the money on drink, and then it was drugs. It was supposed to help her, but I don’t think it did. And when Shane found out, like I told you before, it seemed to make him more cruel, more angry, except that Shane being angry was different to most people, because he didn’t shout or anything. He simmered. Yes, that’s what it was. He would get angry in a quiet way, and then take it out on me in a cruel way. Pieces of jewellery I liked would go missing, and then I would find them mashed up, broken. That was Shane all over.’

Laura reached across and held Ida’s hand, felt the tremble between her own fingers. ‘You did what you thought was right, I know that.’

Ida looked into Laura’s eyes, and Laura could see the turmoil, the regret, and the guilt for that decision made all those years ago.

‘Do you think it is Shane?’ Ida said.

Laura gripped Ida’s hands tighter and nodded. ‘Like you said, Doctor Barker thought it was Shane, and he died the same day. So if you see him, remember that Shane is dangerous. Don’t try and speak to him. Call us.’ Ida didn’t respond at first, and so Laura gave her hand a shake. ‘Promise me, Ida.’

Ida nodded eventually and looked down, although Laura wasn’t convinced by the response, because Ida let go of her hand and wrapped it around her own cup again, defensive once more.

‘Do you have any photographs of Shane we can use?’ Laura asked.

Ida nodded and then reached into her bag. She pulled out a small colour photograph, the corners creased, as if she had spent the afternoon with it clutched in her hand, comparing the young boy to the men in their thirties walking past. Which, of course, Laura guessed that she had.

Laura looked down at the image. The tilt of the head, the straggly blond hair, the half-smile, as if he knew something no one else did.

‘Is there anywhere I can take you both?’ Laura said.

‘Could you please take us to Emma’s mother? She lives in a home now. I’ve got the address,’ Ida replied, producing a scrap of paper from her bag.

Laura smiled and patted her hand. ‘Of course, I can do that.’

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Jack ran into the
Blackley Telegraph
office, setting off the door buzzer and flashing a smile at the woman behind the counter, who was reaching for her bag.

‘We’re closing, Jack,’ she said.

‘I know, I’m sorry,’ Jack said, out of breath. ‘Is Dolby in?’

She smiled and nodded that he was, and so Jack ran through.

Dolby was near the window, talking to one of the sales assistants as she put on her coat. He looked over towards Jack and was about to say something, but Jack pointed to his office. ‘Me first,’ he said.

Jack pushed open the door and paced up and down as Dolby sauntered over.

‘Jack, what’s the rush?’ he said casually, although he didn’t sound pleased. ‘I’m just applying the same amount of effort as you are to my fucking Whitcroft article,’ and then he sat down heavily, making his chair creak as he leaned back and propped his feet on the desk.

‘I’ve got something better than that, and it ties in with the murders,’ Jack said.

‘But that’s not the article I commissioned,’ Dolby said, raising his voice.

‘Forget about that. This story is much better,’ and Jack told him all about Manero’s and the link between Don Roberts and Mike Corley.

Dolby pulled a face and then began to applaud, mockingly. ‘Well done. Prize-winning, but not good enough for this paper. It all rests on some middle-aged drinker with a grudge, and we can’t prove it’s true. We can’t run stuff like this unless it’s cast-iron screwed tight, because a libel action would bring us down.’

‘So that’s it, we just ignore it?’

‘Jack, we’re a newspaper, not some local victim group. We need to stay afloat. Newspapers are dying, you know that. It would only take one good kick from a High Court judge to finish us.’

‘What if I can get you proof?’

Dolby sighed and sat up straight, his hands palm-down on the desk now. ‘If you can, I’ll look at it again, but until then it’s just pub gossip.’

He sat back in the seat of his van, the engine off, just waiting. She wouldn’t be long.

The day had been spent idling, trying to quell the clamour in his head. He could push the noises back sometimes, but it took concentration and he didn’t want to make the effort. They had been like a rolling chant, urging him on, to kill her, that just one more would give him the high he needed. He didn’t believe it, he had been let down too often, but the need had been inside him all day, unfulfilled from the night before.

It was too quiet, as if the world was waiting for him to act. A fly danced in front of the windscreen and then settled on the glass. He went to switch on the wipers to get rid of it, but he stopped. Leave it, he thought. He watched it as it tapped on the windscreen, and he thought he could hear it, just squeaks on the glass.

He closed his eyes. It must be the lack of sleep. He couldn’t hold it together for much longer. And how was he supposed to sleep, with all of that fucking noise? The whispers and then the shouts.

He snapped his eyes open quickly. He couldn’t fall asleep. Not now. There wasn’t much longer to wait, he knew that.

And as he thought of her again, he felt his arousal grow. It had been there all day, like an ache, but it was stronger now.

He glanced towards his passenger seat. The handcuffs were there, and the gloves. Was this to be the last time, a climax to match the first time?

He smiled. Not much longer.

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Laura dropped Ida and her daughter at the rest home where Emma’s mother lived, and decided to leave them to it. It was early evening now, and she was anxious to get back to the station.

The rest home was near the canal, just further along from the police station, and she only had to drive through an industrial estate for the quickest route back. She wanted to be there in case the PC Abbott lead turned out to be useful. Her route took her towards the dark band of the canal, the towpath running alongside, long grasses trailing on the water and flies buzzing around something on the surface. She stopped at a junction, and as she looked along she saw a familiar figure jogging along the canal towpath, her head bobbing up and down in time with her steps. Rachel Mason.

Laura watched her as she ran past, transfixed for a moment by Rachel’s ponytail as it swished along the back of her Lycra vest, her shoulders muscular, a bottle of water in one hand, the small white wires of her headphones connected to a music player that was clipped on to a band around her arm.

Laura looked away. She didn’t need to see Rachel’s pert little arse to remind her that she wasn’t in the shape she ought to be. Laura glanced at herself in the rear view mirror. Those laughter lines didn’t disappear anymore. The memory of her last run came back to her and she shuddered.

Rachel appeared in the rear view mirror. The sun was getting low and so she had to squint as the evening rays put everything into silhouette.

She put her car into gear and set off. She glanced down the side streets as she drove, those that headed towards the canal, and then came to a stop at the next junction. She was looking along the road, waiting for a gap, when something troubled her, just a sense that she shouldn’t go on. Had she seen something in one of the empty side streets? She rewound her journey in her mind and tried to sift through the images. All she’d passed were long strips of industrial units, some large warehouses with lorries parked behind high fences, some small square brick blocks. But she had seen something, she knew it.