The Death Collector (5 page)

Joe held up his hands. ‘Okay. What is it?’

He knew something was coming. He remembered Carl’s nervousness at the police station, his worry about being overheard, and although he was expecting something bad, the words still hit him like a punch when he heard them.

‘Carl is missing, and I’m scared that he might be dead,’ she said, her efforts to control her tears giving way to deep sobs. ‘You’ve got to help me. You were the last person to see him alive.’

Sam Parker straightened his tie as he arrived at the prosecution office. He signed in at the lobby and then headed into the small lift, his police identification swinging from his neck.

These visits had become more routine for Sam since he’d joined the Murder Squad, or the Major Incident Team, as it was more properly called, although those on the team still preferred the old moniker. It carried more of a buzz when dropped in pubs and clubs, some of the younger detectives using the title like a pick-up line. Sam had been there for a year, drafted in after a few years working on the financial crimes unit.

Murder cases brought the prosecution and police closer together. Someone had died, in this case it was a gang killing, and the only way for justice to be served was for the killer to be found and put away. Everyone involved had different views on the case, but they all shared the same goal: to lock up the person who took a life and hope that he never saw daylight again.

This visit was an important one though, because it was an attempt to rescue the case. The trial was the following week and they were having trouble with witnesses. It wasn’t unusual with a gang killing, a senior man in one gang murdered by a junior man from another – some young wannabe on the way up – but it was so important to keep going. There would still be reprisals, but there would be even more if the killer walked away: one gang would be angry and the other would think it had become untouchable. A conviction would at least keep one more participant off the streets.

But the witnesses weren’t from that world: they were people at a bus stop who saw the murder, the taxi driver who unknowingly drove the killer away from the scene. They were decent people, appalled, happy to stand up for what was right, but eventually the revulsion started to fade and was replaced by fear, especially when their homes were visited by large men in suits, the scars on their knuckles showing their real occupation, thugs and enforcers.

There had been no direct threats, of course, just polite offers of lifts to and from court or entreaties not to worry about giving evidence. But the message they conveyed – delivered with smiles and good manners – filled the witnesses with fear:
we know who you are and we know where you live
.

As the lift door opened, Sam straightened his tie and identification badge. He took a deep breath. He was nervous about the outcome. He would have to report back, and if he didn’t get what he wanted people would remember that, not the reason.

The prosecutor was waiting for him as he emerged from the lift. Kim Reader. He was pleased to see her. Tall and elegant, she was just what he wanted from a lawyer. Kim was smart and assertive with a good legal brain, but she also had enough wit to beguile a jury. She wasn’t the lead prosecutor, a QC would handle the main parts of the trial, but Kim would keep everything turning over just fine.

Sam knew this was a tough case for her. She’d started to use hire cars for her journey to her office. It was every prosecutor’s fear, that the next case might be one they can’t leave behind in the office, the sanctity of their home shattered by a shotgun blast through a window, or worse. Kim didn’t want to be followed, and changing her car reduced that threat, although Sam guessed that her home address wouldn’t be hard to find out. The unwritten code – that those who work in the law are left alone when at home – is obeyed by most, but not every criminal sticks to the rules.

‘Hello, Sam,’ Kim said, smiling as he approached her. ‘This shouldn’t take long.’

She turned to walk back into the office, which was made up of narrow white corridors. The once larger building had been subdivided into small rooms, although some areas were designed for open-plan use. Sam could see heads just above computer monitors along the length of a room, mostly quiet, either admin staff dealing with the day-to-day processing work or lawyers working on active cases.

Kim pointed into a room as she walked along. There was a table with papers separated into piles.

‘I was just going through the case,’ she said, as she walked on. ‘Coffee?’

‘Yes, thanks,’ he said, and followed her into the office kitchen.

As Kim filled the kettle, she said, ‘How’s Joe?’ She didn’t look at Sam as she said it, as if it was just a casual enquiry.

‘My brother?’

‘Yes.’

Then Sam remembered. ‘Oh, that’s right. You were at college together.’ He gave a small laugh. ‘He seems just the same as ever.’

‘Does he?’ Kim said.

‘What do you mean?’

She frowned. ‘I saw him a couple of weeks ago, in court, and he didn’t have that same bounce. He’s always been serious, but now he just seems a bit… I don’t know, like flat.’

Sam shook his head. ‘He’s not said anything to me, but he wouldn’t, I suppose. Actually, I’m seeing him tonight so I’ll speak to him. We have to eat at my mother’s at least once a week – part of a new routine. Our little sister is getting out of control, so the plan is to go round and keep her in check somehow.’

‘Ruby? How old is she now?’

‘Fourteen, but she acts older.’

‘They grow out of it,’ Kim said, as she passed Sam a cup. ‘All you can do is guide her so that she comes out of it intact.’ She took a sip from her own cup and then sounded nonchalant when she asked, ‘So Joe hasn’t found himself a woman yet?’

Sam smiled, guessing that this was the question she had wanted to ask at the outset. When she blushed, he said, ‘If he has, he hasn’t told me.’

‘Let’s go and look at those papers,’ she said, and walked past him, her cheeks glowing red.

‘Carl, missing?’ Joe said, confused, looking at Lorna Jex. ‘I only dropped him off a few hours ago. Why would he be anything other than alive?’

‘He went out last night and he hasn’t come home,’ Lorna said, her jaw clenched, her hands gripping a handkerchief, tears brimming onto her eyelashes. ‘I called the police this morning when he hadn’t got back, and they told me that he’d been let out a few hours earlier, and that he was with you, but I know he wouldn’t have stayed with you. He doesn’t know you.’

‘I dropped him near to your house. I watched him walk up the lane.’

‘What time?’

‘About half past four this morning.’

‘You let a child walk alone down a dark lane?’ she said, incredulous.

‘He said he wanted it that way,’ Joe said, suddenly defensive. ‘He might have just gone for a walk. He’d spent a few hours in a cell. It can make you want the open spaces.’

‘No, it’s not that, I know it. He would have come home, to tell me what had happened.’

Joe rubbed his eyes, fatigue sweeping over him. ‘I understand your concern, but what do you want me to do? It should be the police you’re talking to, not me.’

Lorna shook her head. ‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘I just can’t, and I’m scared.’ She started to cry again. ‘I’m worried about what the police might have done to him.’

Joe tried not to roll his eyes. He was used to dealing with people who were paranoid about the police. He knew now why Carl thought like he did – his paranoia came from his parents.

‘The police let him go, that’s all,’ he said. ‘You really have to speak to them about it.’

‘Did Carl mention the Aidan Molloy case?’

He paused, and then said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t say anything about what Carl told me.’

‘Was Hunter there?’

‘Hunter?’

‘Yes. DCI Hunter.’

The images from the night before rushed at him. The two detectives at the back of the custody suite. One of them looked familiar and now he knew why. Andrew Hunter, although Joe knew he preferred Drew. He was the force ego, ever-present at press conferences, but with a reputation for the ruthless pursuit of criminals. Joe had come across him occasionally, had even gone nose to nose with him once, when Joe had told him that his client wasn’t going to answer any questions. Yes, Hunter had been there, but Joe shook his head. ‘I’m sorry; I can’t say anything, not without Carl’s permission.’

Lorna looked down and nodded. ‘I understand. Thank you. I’m sorry for wasting your time.’

She stood to go, and Joe rose with her, ready to show her out, when she turned and said, ‘If he gets in touch, will you ask him to call home?’

Joe smiled. ‘I can do that for you.’

She was silent as he showed her out of the building, her shoulders slumped, heavy with worry. When he got back to his room, Joe sat down in his chair and then swivelled to look out of the window. He watched as Lorna emerged onto the street. She looked around as she walked quickly away, as if she expected someone to be following her, although the street was quiet. No cars started up. There was no one on the opposite pavement watching where she went.

Joe turned away and looked at his desk again. The room felt too quiet. He reached for the papers from the night before. Carl’s details were written in Joe’s shaky writing, scruffy from the late hour, and Carl’s signature was the same, just a scribble.

Joe exhaled loudly His room seemed too dark, the day did, so he got out of his chair and headed for the door. He needed to feel the sun on his face as some kind of reassurance that this was just a normal day, not one bound up in conspiracies or the threat of redundancy.

He skipped down the stairs, ignoring Marion’s curious glance, and emerged, blinking, into the sunlight. He knew where he was going.

The gardens were quiet now, in that lull after the morning rush of take-out lattes and last-minute smokes, but before the throng of lunchtime sandwiches. He wandered to a bench on one side of the gardens, secluded and quiet. It stood out from the rest. It was new, the varnish on the wood still gleaming, the brass memorial plaque glinting in the sun.

As he sat down, he put his head in his hands. He had to fight to keep the tiredness away, but it was hard. He could hear the movement of people on the nearby pavements, mainly lawyers heading towards the courthouses, spilling out of the law firms and barristers’ chambers. Joe didn’t want to look up because he knew what he would see: confidence, smugness, smartness. He hadn’t become a lawyer to join that crowd, and each day that he saw it, he felt more removed from it. Joe wanted out; it was as simple as that.

He stayed like that for five minutes until he heard the steady click of heels. He looked up. It was Gina.

She had joined the firm after retiring from the police. She knew all the tricks used in interview and was able to spot when the police had got something wrong and were trying to cover it up. Defending people is often just about creating doubt, and Gina could spot a botched investigation.

‘What are you doing, Joe?’ she said.

He sat back and squinted into the sun. Gina was silhouetted against it, her hair gleaming, her figure slender. She was just starting her journey through her fifties and she was wearing it well, regular trips to the gym and never having the worry of children keeping her looks and her figure.

‘I don’t know how much longer I can do this,’ he said.

She sat down next to him. She was holding two files in her hand. ‘What’s wrong? You’re not yourself lately. You’ve lost your smile.’

He looked at the plaque again, wiped it with his hands to take away some of the dust and dirt that had blown onto it.

‘Death,’ he said. ‘It never leaves us. Everyone dies, I know that, so I’m supposed to shake these things off, but that’s not how it should be. I should care, because what kind of person have I become when death doesn’t get to me? So what do I do? Worry when it gets to me and drains me, or worry when it doesn’t?’

‘Who is it, Joe?’

‘It’s nothing, really. You don’t know him. I didn’t until last night. Just some kid at the police station. An early-morning visit.’ He sighed. ‘He’s not even dead. He just never made it home.’

Gina looked surprised. ‘How come?’

‘I don’t know. I dropped him off near his house, just yards away, but he didn’t make it there. I’ve just had a visit from his mother. What if she’s right and something’s happened to him?’

‘Should it have done?’

‘No, of course not, but it’s bothering me. He’s only fifteen.’

‘You’re talking about a client, though. Since when do clients do anything normal? That’s why they’re clients, Joe; they do crazy things and get into trouble.’

‘No, this was different,’ Joe said. ‘
He
was different. Carl, he wasn’t like a regular.’

‘What had he been doing?’

‘Looking into windows at the front of a house.’

‘Burglar or voyeur?’

‘The police don’t know. The householder didn’t want to get involved so it’ll fizzle out.’

‘Whose house was it?’

‘The police wouldn’t say. They mentioned the street but I can’t remember it now. I don’t even know if I made a note of it. If he’s charged, I’ll find out then.’