cock-up as conspiracy.’
‘If you say so.’ Salter pushed back his chair, as if preparing to leave. ‘Though there’s another consideration.’
‘Which is what?’ Welsby already had another cigarette between his fingers.
‘Those incidents I mentioned. They’re more interesting when you look at them all together.’
‘How so?’ Welsby’s head was outside the window, wreathed in billows of smoke.
‘There was one link between them. Different types of job. Different people involved. But if you track up the food-chain, it’s the same party in the frame every time.’
Welsby spoke around his cigarette, neck twisted to peer back into the office. ‘The suspense is fucking killing me.’
‘Kerridge,’ Salter said. ‘Every time. The party was Jeff Kerridge.’ He paused. ‘Now maybe that’s something we ought to talk about, guv.’
There was a curse from beyond the window. It took Salter a moment to register that Welsby had fumbled his cigarette so that it had fallen back into the room. Welsby swore again and stamped his foot down on the office carpet. He stared ruefully down at the scorch mark and then back up at Salter.
‘Now look what you’ve done,’ he said. ‘You’ll get me bollocked by Health and fucking Safety as well as by fucking Facilities.’
Chapter 9
By the time Marie left the shop, it was already dark, the early evening gloom intensified by the unyielding rain. Jesus, this was a miserable time of year. Winter hanging on, no sign of any green fucking shoots. She made her way down the side of the building to the car park. It was a dreary place, a down-at-heel industrial estate on the outer fringes of Trafford Park. The car park was nothing more than a square patch of concrete sandwiched between the two parallel rows of factory units, lit by a single street lamp on the corner of the access road. Hers was the only car left, parked in one of the three spaces reserved for the print shop.
She thumbed open the car’s remote locking, pulled open the door and flung herself inside, immediately securing the doors behind her. She realized that she’d involuntarily glanced into the back seat, her mind subconsciously reliving the horror film cliche of the killer appearing in the rear-view mirror. Get a grip, woman.
As she was about to turn the ignition, she was startled by a sudden explosion of sound. It took her the moment before her heart started beating again to realize that it was nothing more than her mobile phone. Liam’s fucking ringtone.
She fumbled for the phone, expecting another perfectly mistimed call from Liam himself. But the number wasn’t Liam’s. It wasn’t a number she knew, but it was naggingly familiar. As she pressed the call button, she realized that it was the unknown caller from the previous evening.
‘Hello?’
There was an intake of breath, as if someone was preparing to speak. Then silence.
‘Hello?’
She glanced at the phone’s screen, wondering whether she had lost the signal, but the line still seemed to be open.
‘Anybody there?’
Impatiently, she ended the call. She contemplated calling back, but concluded that, if it was anything important, they’d call again.
She started the engine, feeling calmer and back in control as she reversed out of the parking space. As she slipped out of reverse, she reached to flick on the headlights.
The silhouetted figure caught in the beam nearly stopped her heart again.
She slammed her foot on the brake and peered through the windscreen. Then she lowered the side window and thrust her head out into the chilly air.
‘Christ, Joe, you scared the shit out of me.’
Joe shuffled embarrassedly forwards, hands thrust in the pockets of his donkey jacket. ‘Sorry. Wasn’t expecting you to pull out like that.’
‘I thought you’d gone.’
‘Changed my mind. Decided to go for a quick one on my own. A quick two, actually.’ He gestured vaguely back towards the print shop building. ‘Think I left my phone in the shop. Hope so, anyway. Either that or I’ve lost it.’ He leaned forwards, hands on the car door, rain dripping off his hair, pressing his face into the open window.
She couldn’t recall ever seeing Joe use his mobile in the shop. ‘Did you look in the pub?’
‘Yeah. Thought it must have fallen out of my pocket. But there was no sign. So I’m hoping it fell out in the shop somewhere. It should be switched on, so I can use the office phone to call it if I need to.’
‘Good luck, then.’
‘Thanks. Did you manage to get the VAT stuff finished?’
She’d almost forgotten her excuse for staying behind. ‘I was feeling pretty knackered, tell you the truth. Thought I’d just mess it up if I carried on. I’ll finish it in the morning.’
‘Good decision. There’s still time for another quick one if you want to wait while I track down my phone.’
‘Not tonight, Joe, thanks all the same. Really am tired. I wouldn’t be great company.’
‘OK. Next week, then.’
‘Yeah. Next week. Promise.’
He smiled and straightened up, his face wet from the rain. ‘See you in the morning.’
She raised the window, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. She should wait and offer him a lift home, in weather like this. His flat was only a short bus ride away, but it wasn’t a night to be waiting at bus stops.
Her hand hovered again over the window control. Then she put it back on the steering wheel and shifted the car into first gear. As she accelerated down the access road back out towards the M56, she glanced into the rear- view mirror and saw Joe still standing in the rain, gazing after her.
She should have given him a lift. She could even have made the effort to go back to the shop and help him track down his bloody mobile. But something had stopped her.
She was turning out on to the main road before she realized what it had been.
He’d gone to the pub for a quick one. He’d had two quick ones, he’d said. At least two halves. In Joe’s case, more likely two pints. Bitter, his preferred drink. Two pints of bitter.
But, as far as she could tell, there’d been no trace of alcohol on his breath.
Her mind was still churning as she turned off the motorway and took the filter lane back in towards the city centre. She couldn’t start building paranoid fantasies about Joe Maybury, of all people. And on the flimsiest of pretexts. It had been raining and windy, for Christ’s sake. Joe could have swallowed a packet of mints before leaving the pub. It was hardly grounds for suspecting him to be . . . well, what, anyway? What exactly was she afraid of?
If her position had been compromised – if Kerridge or anyone else was on to her – she was potentially in some danger. But even Kerridge would think twice or three times before taking action against someone who was, to all intents and purposes, a police officer. Killing Jake was one thing. He was one of their own, a potential key witness, and his death would be a warning to others. But there was no mileage in stirring up the kind of shitstorm that would result from the death of an undercover officer. The smart move would be to frighten her off his patch, make enough trouble to ensure she was taken out of the field. Undermine her credibility as a possible witness. Which might be exactly what he was doing.
She came into the city centre along Deansgate, and then turned off left towards Salford. She was still getting to grips with Manchester and its bloody one-way systems. Even now, she constantly found herself trying to take what appeared to be the most obvious route to some destination, only to discover that her path was blocked by the sudden sweep of the tramlines or some jumble of filter lanes that allowed her to drive in any direction except where she wanted. But at least now she could navigate back from the print shop to her flat without getting lost.
