‘See, it’s courts. Wallahs in wigs…’ he said. ‘I see nothing, I don’t have to report, see?’
I did see. ‘It’s okay, major, you talk to us and you don’t have to talk to anybody else. No courts, no police.’
‘Your word? Officer and gentleman?’
‘My word.’
‘The van was there. The two girls walked up to it. They heard that other girl calling them. Then it all went mad.’
‘They didn’t see you?’
‘No one sees the major. Not if he doesn’t want to be seen.’ He tapped his nose. ‘Special training, you know.’
‘So what did you see?’
‘The first two, they were chatting with the men in hoods, then they pretended to be attacked. Screaming as the other girl came round the corner and started fighting.’
I felt as though someone had punched me in the gut. I’d been played for a fool. We all had. All along.
Hannah Shapiro had set the whole thing up. I’d taken her spiel and swallowed it – hook, line and sinker.
Harlan Shapiro had been the real catch all along and she had been the perfect bait. Perfect for Jack, perfect for me and perfect for Harlan.
Guilt. It’s a powerful motivator.
And a deadly one.
Chapter 84
Kirsty Webb and DI Natalie James stood in front of the exposed safe.
Looking for a series of numbers that would open it, they had been through Chappel’s diary and every bit of paperwork.
Nothing.
DI Webb was convinced that they would be written down somewhere. They always were. When it came to passwords or codes, the public were pretty bad like that.
It was like leaving a key under the doormat, or in a wellington boot on the back porch, or under a flowerpot as millions of people throughout the country did. Might as well just leave the door wide open and a welcome mat for burglars to wipe their feet on.
Kirsty nibbled on a thumbnail, then pulled out her mobile and tapped in some numbers.
‘Dan,’ she said when it was answered, ‘I need your mate Gary’s number.’ She listened for a moment. ‘I’ve got a safe that needs opening, that’s why! It’s a combination dial. And I can’t find the code anywhere… okay, I’ll try that and call you back if I need you.’
‘Who was that?’ asked DI James after she hung up.
‘My ex-husband.’
‘That wise?’
‘I certainly wasn’t wise marrying him.’
‘I meant telling him what you’re up to.’
‘He runs a private detective agency. He’s been helping me.’
DI James threw her a pointed look. ‘Like fast-tracking DNA identification.’
Kirsty nodded. ‘So forth and suchlike.’
‘And this Gary – he’s a security consultant for him?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Must be some agency to run a DNA check that fast, and with the Romanian police.’
‘He’s with Private International.’
‘Yeah. They have resources,’ DI James said dryly. She nodded at the safe. ‘So what’s he suggest?’
‘That we try his date of birth. Most common numeric aide-memoire, apparently.’
‘Aide-memoire, you say?’
‘Dan’s been to college. Thinks he’s smart.’
‘And is he?’ DI James pulled out her notebook and flicked through a couple of pages.
‘He’s smart in some areas, dumb as a box of rocks in the ones that count.’
DI James stepped up to the safe and spun the dial clockwise and counterclockwise a number of times. She paused and tried the handle.
Nothing.
‘Try his number plate,’ Kirsty suggested.
DI James flicked through her notebook, spun the dial again a few times and turned the handle.
Open sesame.
Inside was the laptop that the optician had placed there earlier. DI James reached in took it out and put it on the desk. There was nothing else in the safe.
Kirsty eased the laptop open and pressed the power button.
The computer’s desktop display appeared. A coastal scene – somewhere near Dover, by the looks of it.
The desktop was remarkably uncluttered. Kirsty probably had fifty or sixty icons on her machine’s desktop.
She used the track pad below the keyboard and clicked on the Windows symbol. The system was a few years old and running Vista by the looks of it. Kirsty went to the start function and clicked on recent documents. It revealed a drop-down menu of about ten jpegs. Kirsty clicked on one and a picture filled the screen.
After a moment Kirsty swallowed dryly and nodded to her colleague.
‘Well, there’s your motive,’ she said.
Chapter 85
The Sun was still high in the sky that Sunday.
But it was late afternoon, almost evening, now and a light wind had picked up. The caretaker was doing his final rounds in the cemetery and it would soon be time to lock up.
He looked across at a lone figure, the only visitor left in the park. Kneeling in front of a child’s plot that had a large white marble headstone. Disproportionately large compared with the tragic smallness of the plot. It was more than a headstone, it was a monument in the grand Victorian style.
Fresh flowers had been laid there every day for the last month. Some parents looked after their children in death better than others did in life, the caretaker thought to himself as he glanced at his watch. He’d give it five minutes and then he’d have to lock up. Sad world, he thought to himself for the umpteenth time, in which you have to lock a cemetery against the ravages of vandalism and mischief.
The inscription on the gravestone read: ‘In loving memory of Emily Jane Lloyd: she danced through our lives all too briefly, and now she dances with the angels. 14/2/2000 – 19/3/2009.’
There was a small lidded chalice at the front of the plot among the stone angels and the vases of flowers. The surgeon leaned forward and raised the lid.
If the caretaker had been able to see what was inside the chalice, he would have had far more troubling thoughts about the state of the world than those caused by mere vandalism that he’d had earlier.
The surgeon opened a small handkerchief and removed the object inside. A scarred, burned piece of flesh. A human finger. Or part of it. The surgeon put it in the pot among the others and closed the lid, replacing the container back with the other objects adorning the shrine to the dead girl.
The voice was a soft whisper, almost a chant. ‘Just one more to go, my darling.’
