Father and Son (24 page)

“Nah, you get off,” Joe said, still looking out onto the road.

John didn’t mind. He’d never had much in common with Joe, and three
years at Cambridge hadn’t brought them any closer. Black sheep, white sheep;
their roles were pretty well established by now.

So this was sort of a farewell, he thought, standing there watching
the traffic, knowing that it would be the last time he’d see Joe for a while,
and that it was perhaps for the best; they’d chosen different paths, the
criminal and the college boy.

He’d go and say his goodbyes to Dad, then he’d be away. Finally,
he’d left the family. He was no longer Tony Ray’s boy.

They shook hands.

“I’m off to New Zealand,” he said.

Joe looked surprised. “When?”

“Day or two. Soon as I get a ticket,” he said, patting the pocket
where he’d crammed the envelope.

Joe nodded. “Brilliant. Wish I were comin’, mate. Have a good one.”

And that was it. Joe, never one for many words, went over to the
Transit to check the load. John got behind the wheel of his brother’s BMW and
pulled away, shaking his head at how easy it had all been, and now just a
little disappointed that this final act of leaving the family had been as a
smuggler.

It started to rain. He took it steady, watching in his mirror as
three men from the burger van joined Joe in the Transit. No surprise there. You
don’t want to get hijacked on your own with a load like that.

“What do I care?” he asked himself, easing the Beemer up to eighty
and seeing the sign for Leeds. “I’m done.”

Even the Super’s
come out to see this one. She stands there, listening to the thud of music from
the flat next door, and looks with disgust at the body of their main suspect as
the pathologist finishes his initial inspection.

“Someone tell them to turn that off,” she says.

As she waits for the music to stop she inhales long and hard: damp
carpets and the tang of fried food. As soon as she stepped into the building it
was in her nostrils, the smell of low-rent living, of just-tolerable squalor,
exactly the stink that greets you at half the crime scenes in the city.

Dennis Reid no doubt chose the place deliberately, somewhere nice
and anonymous, no CCTV. A cheap room in a run-down house off the Kirkstall
Road, rows of Victorian terraces full of hard-up students and immigrants,
drug-skags and DHSS. He didn’t choose well enough, though. Someone followed him
here, got into his room, and put four bullets into him. Precision stuff, shots
in the lower legs and the forearms. Then they did
this
.

She sighs at the stomach-churning intrigue of it. It’s vile, but
it’s
good
. A champagne bottle has been pushed neck-first down his
throat, then forced in until it cracked. She hates intrigue. It turns a case
into a puzzle, leaving no room for manoeuvre; either you get the answer or
you’ve got nothing. Bottles, bullets, three victims in a row… What kind of
riddle is it?

Reid’s arms and legs had been fixed to the bedposts with huge
amounts of gaffer tape. God knows how they did it. Bullets first? Must have
been. But someone like Reid would still be reeling, thrashing about, fighting
for his life. The noise? The neighbours?

His head too. There are big loops of tape under his chin and up
behind the headboard. In the cold light of day it looks faintly comical. At the
time it must have been revolting to watch. Intriguing, though.

“Heart attack,” says Michael Coultard, straightening up and removing
his blue latex gloves. “Possibly shock-induced, although he may have been
drowning on his own blood at the time as well.”

“A toss-up, then?”

“I’ll know for sure when we get him on the slab.”

“It’ll make no difference to Mr Reid. Or to us, for that matter.”

“Whereas for me,” he says as the second glove snaps off, “it will be
the source of professional satisfaction. I don’t know what we’ve got here,” he
adds, stuffing the gloves into his jacket pocket and exuding a jovial, almost
callous good humour, his only means of getting through jobs like this, “but it
must count as one of the most horrendous corpses I’ve ever seen. Of the fresh
ones, at least. Anyway, I’ll let you know. One thing, though: he was alive at
the time of the
bottling
. Is that the term?”

Shaking his head, he takes one final look at the deceased and turns
to go. Then he stops:

“How on earth do you crack a champagne bottle like that?” he says.
“It’s almost impossible.”

“More’s the point, why?”

“That, Deputy Superintendent, is absolutely none of my business.”

A minute later they listen to the solid clunk of the Volvo’s door
and the sound of Coultard driving off.

Baron has hardly said a word. He’s standing behind the Super, out of
the way of the crime scene officers, who are busy combing the room. He looks at
Reid’s body, legs and arms out to the four corners of the bed, a big man
reduced to the figure of a rag doll. His lower face is a mess of blood, and his
eyes are bloodshot and bulging grotesquely. His jaws have been forced wide
apart and the flesh at both sides of the mouth has split where the bottle was
rammed in, its thick girth cracked.

One of the SOCOs gets up from his knees, an electric iron in his
hand.

“Could have been this, Gov,” he says. “
Ma’am
, I mean. Some
funny scratches on it, recent by the looks of them.”

Kirk nods, makes her way carefully out of the room. Baron follows.

Outside, Steele is coordinating the door-to-doors.

“Anything?” Baron asks.

“Not much. Rooms on both sides were out till late last night. Still
pissed now, good as; heard nothing this morning. Bloke downstairs thinks
someone was ringing bells this morning, two or three of ’em, y’know, one after
the other, trying to get in. But
he can’t be sure
. Apart from that,
nothing.” He checks his notebook. “Letting people say Reid paid cash up front, a
month, said he was visiting family. Gave his name as David Brown.”

“It’s not torture, though, is it?” Kirk says, wagging her finger as
if the corpse on the other side of the wall is trying to trick her. She may
resent a puzzle, but now that she’s in the game she has to admit that it’s a fascinating
one. “You don’t torture someone by ramming a bottle down their throat, do you
Sergeant?”

“Not if you’re looking for information,” Steele says.

“Roberto Swales,” Baron says. “He might have been tortured for
information. He was definitely kept alive for some reason. Here,” he gestures
towards the open door, “it’s more revenge. Symbolism. Whatever.”

“So whatever Reid knew, the killer knew as well,” Kirk adds, as if
she has just handed Baron and his team a prize clue. “Millgarth in twenty,
Steve.”

With that she leaves, phone already pressed to her ear.

“And Jeanette Cormac?” Steele says, after the Super’s gone.

Baron rubs his index fingers into his brow.

“I haven’t the faintest idea, Sergeant.”

“Cormac wasn’t tortured,” Steele says, cocky as hell, loves the big
cases. “But she’d pissed herself. Happen they didn’t need to torture her?”

“So what was it she knew? Names?”

Steele shrugs a semi-affirmative, knowing he’s onto something, but
smart enough not to lord it over his boss.

“Anything from that laptop yet?”

“Only that she never used names. Then there’s the thing up at the
golf club.”

Baron has already read the surveillance report. Jeanette Cormac came
out of the club looking shaken. Sped off before they could get after her.

“John Ray,” he says. “John Ray blocked ’em in. Deliberate. You see?
It’s him again. He’s scum. And he’s involved in this. C’mon.”

By the time Baron
walks into Millgarth some of Steele’s cockiness has rubbed off on him. Their
main suspect is dead, but Reid is their connection to Lanny Bride, who is now in
the cells again, contemplating his future. And he’s not going to be so calm
about the situation this time.

“Leave Lanny Bride alone,” the Super says as soon as Baron walks
into her office.

“He’s…”

“I
know
. He employed Reid for one day’s work yesterday. We
talked to his secretary. And Bride himself was here all night last night,
waiting for
you
to get around to interviewing him.”

“He’s putting a lid on it. The Leeds bombing. It’d ruin him. So he’s
picking ’em off, one by one. He’ll come out of this smelling of roses.”

“And your evidence?”

Baron is, quite uncharacteristically, speechless.

“The bloke’s just paid fifty million for the Gear Depot,” she says.
“We dragged him out of the launch of his own company. Now he’s back downstairs,
a very, very prickly Henry Moran at his side. This looks like persecution.”

Suddenly Baron isn’t speechless.

“Fuck that,” he spits out.

They both let that one settle.

“Steve, nothing specific is telling me this is Lanny Bride. You?”

“Course it is. Him and the Ray family.”

She blows air from her mouth until her lips flap.

“If John Ray really is involved, should you even be on the case?”
she asks, doing her best at compassion, which isn’t much. “Last year, John Ray
helped you find the killer of that young lass.”

“Aye, Lanny Bride’s daughter.”

“But not everything’s connected, Steve.”

John Ray had caused a good impression with the Super last year, what
with his helpful tip-offs and that certain way he has with people, especially
women. However, what the Deputy Super does not know is that in helping to solve
the murder of the girl, Ray had also switched the evidence, protecting himself
from a five-to-ten-year stretch for theft and laundering counterfeit money. It
is something which both he and Baron, for their own reasons, have kept to
themselves.

“DCI Rollin is interviewing Lanny Bride now,” she says.

Baron’s jaw tightens.

“And unless he croaks for Brinks Matt, the Great Train Robbery
and
tells us what happened to Shergar, we’ll be letting him go and thank you very
much Mr Bride.” She pauses. “Oh, and Rollin is going to be heading up the Reid
enquiry. I’m taking over the investigation as a whole. This is getting messy.”

“And me?”

“Your team stays on Roberto Swales.”

He snorts, checks his cell phone. Hull? How long does it take to
check out a ferry manifest, even one from twenty years ago?

“There was a shipment…” he begins.

“I know,” she says. “You have a couple of men over in Hull, right?”

For a moment they say nothing. The silence inside the office is like
a wall that’s suddenly being erected around him.

“John Ray,” he says, eyes wide, like a kid talking to an adult,
trying to be persuasive. “The common factor. The Rays and Lanny Bride, the way
it always was, Tony, Joe…”

“
Three
murders,” she says, interrupting him. “Three, plus
Sheenan, I reckon. And it’s me that’ll be going in front of the cameras later
today announcing that we’ve got a serial killer in the city and no prime
suspect. So let’s just get on with it, OK?”

“But we do have one,” he says.

“You’ve got John Ray down as a serial killer?
Really?
”

“He has no alibi for any of the murders that I know of.”

“Kills his own lover in cold blood? John Ray?”

“Ah, the charming Mr Ray. Yes, you’re right. He’s got that
je ne
sais quo
. He can’t be guilty.”

She smiles. “Don’t worry, I’m not taken in by his charm.”

Like hell you’re not.

“Ray is a liar and he’s a crook.”

“Motive?”

“Let me find him, I’ll find the motive.”

“Be my guest,” she says. “We’ll be releasing the details at three
o’clock. From then on it’ll be a manhunt.” She consults her watch. “That’s just
over an hour. Until then he’s all yours, Steve. Oh, and get hold of Denise
Denson. She’s not picking up. Tell her John Ray’s face’ll be going out across
the wires. Got it?”

He’s got it.

She’s never seen the
Kawasaki before, and she doesn’t want to know where he got it. They make their
way out of town and up the steep road onto Ilkley Moor, John on the bike, Den following
him in her fifteen-year-old rust-bucket.

Is he going to let the 750cc monster have some throttle, she asks
herself? Will he disappear over the horizon as she putters along in its wake?
No, that’s not his style. And despite everything, he’s still got tons of that.
Style won’t save him now, though.

Her phone is on hands-free. It buzzes through the ancient car
speakers.

“Yes?” she says as she drives.

“Den, it’s Steve. Have you found him yet? Where are you?”

“Harrogate,” she says, first thing that comes into her head.
“Checking out the places we used to come. Betty’s teashop, y’know…”

Shit, shit, shit…

“I know it. Tenner for a cuppa and a bun. Likes Betty’s, does he?”
asks Baron. “That figures. Where else do they have ’em?”

He’s speaking fast, a clipped, bossy urgency in his voice.

“Betty’s? I… I dunno.”

“York and Ilkley, isn’t it? Ilkley sounds more like it to me, a bit
out of the way, up in the moors. You tried there yet?”

“No,” she lies again, watching the bike in front, John’s black
jacket flapping, his broad shoulders huddled against the wind. It always seemed
that those shoulders could take the weight of anything. But now?

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” She’s hardly listening.

“Don’t look for him. There’s another body, and Mr Ray’s our prime
suspect. You hear me, Den?”

“You’re joking.”

“Sound like I’m laughing? An hour and I’m putting out a statement.
Mug shot, the lot. Listen, this last one was bad. Bloke called Reid, ex-IRA. Someone
forced a bottle down his neck till it cracked, hammered it all the way in. He choked
on his own blood. We think John Ray is dangerous. Don’t approach him. Don’t
look for him. Get yourself somewhere safe and lie low. Somewhere he’s never
been, where he’ll never find you.”

The Kawasaki slows down, indicating right. It pulls into a car park
surrounded by purple heather on the side of the moor. He’s waving his arm,
making sure she follows.

“OK, Steve,” she says, dropping down a gear.