Gallowstree Lane Page 22

Robyn had officers positioned outside on the street. They’d run the length of the building, back and front, but they couldn’t see him. She’d summoned the helicopter but it had been busy, hovering over the Thames at Richmond where a member of the public had reported seeing a body in the river that later turned out to have been an inflatable mattress.

  Robyn had remained optimistic. Escaping through the Velux had been a desperate act, surely. There was no way off the roof. But it was a long terrace, with a curve, and she didn’t have enough officers to stake out the length of it. Confident that King was sitting one leg either side of the ridge regretting his impulsiveness, she nevertheless called her office to conduct urgent intelligent checks on the street.

  When the chopper arrived, they couldn’t see King, either on the roof or in the garden. That was when the intel came back. King had an associate who lived seven doors down, Charlie Douglass. The helicopter, still hovering above, confirmed that this house also had a Velux. Robyn had run to the house, but there was no reply at the door. She put the door in with the big red key but there was no one home.

  Sarah felt sick. She hadn’t been able to resist the detail of the fuck-up, but what she really needed to know was had King already been arrested when he was allowed to use the toilet.

  Yes, he had been.

  And the grounds given were?

  Intelligence.

  ‘But I’d just got different grounds …’

  ‘He was already on the roof when you called.’

  Sarah called Fedden. He didn’t exercise the same restraint as Sarah had.

  ‘What the fuck were you thinking!’

  It appeared to have been a rhetorical question, because when Sarah interrupted to explain, he shouted over her.

  ‘I had briefed her to say CCTV. What THE FUCK were you doing changing the grounds?’

  Thank God they were talking to each other on the phone and not face to face, because this was not the time for a stand-up row.

  ‘We have to protect Ryan,’ she said. ‘We have to arrest him.’

  ‘It’s a total cock-up.’

  ‘Can you get hold of Kieran? He’ll have something we can nick Ryan for.’

  It was gone three in the morning, only forty minutes since King had avoided detention, and Sarah was sitting in Fedden’s office. With his wide, sweaty body, his spread legs and his little hands stretched flat on his desk, he called to mind a damp and furious bullfrog.

  The manhunt team, anxious to make good on DS Oakley’s error, was pulling out all the stops to locate King.

  Baillie was on speakerphone.

  ‘We’ve no evidence King knows where Ryan lives or even that he’s going to target him,’ he said, holding his nerve. ‘I’ve got hold of Kieran. He’s working on an arrest strategy for Ryan.’

  The necessary actions had been identified, taken and duly noted. There was a plan and it was recorded. Everything was looking professional. The shit storm had been tidied up.

  But as soon as Baillie cleared the line, Sarah and Fedden gave in to that stand-up row.

  ‘None of this is actually fucking necessary,’ Fedden said.

  ‘It’s not my fault she let him use the toilet.’

  ‘But why did you have to change the arrest grounds?’ He raised his voice. ‘Angels dancing on a fucking pinhead!’

  ‘Not if the judge strikes out all our evidence because we lied!’ Sarah shouted back. And that seemed to be the end of it, because what else could be said or achieved? She got up and left.

  Too wired to do anything, she went outside. She smoked and worried and hated herself for worrying. If King was found and arrested, there would be no consequences. It would all be the proverbial storm in a teacup. These things could feel cataclysmic but afterwards, when the dust settled, the issues shrank and disappeared. She reminded herself; not everything she feared happened.

  There was still no sign of dawn. She stubbed out her cigarette and walked back upstairs. She left a voicemail for Kieran asking for a call back, then began to read through the updates on the Jarral interviews.

  The team had been developing the investigation. As expected, the registration plates on the vehicle found in Jarral’s garage did not match the vehicle identification number stamped on the chassis. And the VIN itself showed it to be the vehicle Jarral had hired at 14:03 hours, less than an hour after Lexi had called Michelle Roberts. But there was more conclusive evidence than this: a bus-lane camera had caught Jarral behind the wheel of the damaged Touareg shortly after Lexi’s death.

  The evidence must have felt overwhelming, because Jarral had dropped his no-comment approach and offered an explanation for what had happened that stopped short of murder. Sarah scanned the summary of the prepared statement his lawyer had offered.

  I did not intend to harm Alexandra Moss. I wanted to speak to her urgently and she had been avoiding me. When she saw me she started to run. I accelerated and lost control of my vehicle …

  Avoiding me: that was a bloody understatement. Sarah remembered that broken shoe and the tyre tracks over Lexi’s body.

  Avoiding me.

  Maybe it was the choice of words that did it. Maybe not. Sarah went into the main office and asked Elaine to come to her office.

  Elaine stood behind her as she clicked through Operation Perseus’s files.

  ‘So this is the shared drive,’ she said. ‘I want you to start viewing the CCTV. We’re trying to tie Shakiel Oliver to the murder of Lexi Moss.’

  Elaine rubbed her eyes. ‘It’s a lot for me to view. Why are you not briefing the whole team?’

  Sarah took off her glasses and rested them on the table. She rolled her chair back on its casters.

  ‘Knowledge of Perseus is not authorized outside the operation until the initial arrests have been made.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Sarah.’

  ‘The clock is running down on Jarral’s arrest. I need you to get started on this while we’ve still got time left to pressure him. If we’re going to get the other conspirators, we need him to crack. And let’s be honest, it might have been Jarral driving the car, but it was Shakiel who decided to kill her.’

  ‘The thing is—’

  ‘It’s all on me. I’ve recorded it as an action. Log everything you do. Don’t try to hide anything. I’m making it clear: it’s my orders. You don’t know it’s not authorized.’

  Elaine raised her eyebrows. ‘Because I’m stupid?’

  ‘Stupid enough for plausible deniability?’

  ‘Christ, Sarah. You’ve got to know something’s wrong when you start using a phrase like that.’

  ‘It’s not morally wrong and it’s not illegal either. It’s disobeying an order and the order is what’s wrong. The bosses are prioritizing Perseus over the murder investigation. Lexi was passed between those men like property and then they killed her to prove a point. I want to nail them.’

  ‘Ask for permission.’

  ‘And be told no again? Then you really can’t watch the CCTV.’

  Elaine shrugged. ‘I dunno.’

  ‘No one will notice that we accessed the Perseus material before we were authorized.’

  ‘Like they’d never have noticed if we’d lied about seeing King on the CCTV?’

  ‘That’s different.’

  ‘It is?’

  ‘That’s misrepresenting the evidence. Completely different. And it could cost us the charge against King. He may not even be on the CCTV. But this? We won’t lose a murder charge because I didn’t do what I was told.’

  ‘But you might lose your job.’

  ‘No, I’m right, and you don’t lose your job if you’re right. I’m going to grab some sleep in my office.’

  OPERATION PERSEUS: THE ARREST PHASE

  WEDNESDAY 12 OCTOBER

  40

  Ryan lay staring at that same old annoying cobweb. What time was it? Too early, that was for sure. Problem was that if he closed his eyes, the same stupid thoughts started banging around again inside his head like wagons on a ra
ilroad track. He’d tried to persuade himself that you could do a dangerous thing and afterwards your life hadn’t changed at all.

  Thorpe Park: him and Spencer, sitting next to each other in the chairs, waiting. They’d goaded each other onto the ride. Yeah, man. Detonator! Bombs away! They’d watched one girl get off and Spence had said, ‘Ry, you is more of a pussy than that pussy.’ And Ryan had answered him with a grin. ‘Bruv, forget about that chick.’ And after that they’d had to do it. They’d slapped each other on the back and egged each other on.

  Soon as the harness had locked shut, Ryan had been face to face with fear. They were going to drop him a hundred feet and if something went wrong he wasn’t in control. When Spence turned to him and asked if he was all right, he’d felt as though his face was paralysed.

  ‘I’m cool.’

  Can you get off? he’d wondered. Can you tell them you’ve changed your mind?

  Afterwards Spencer had teased him. ‘I tell you, you was shitting yourself.’

  ‘No, man. You was shitting yourself. Let’s go on the Slammer next.’

  This would be OK too. He just had to get through that bit before the drop. Not think about the gun waiting for him in Shakiel’s expensive black and green leather bag. Him and Spence: all the laughs they’d had. His best mate. He’d always miss him, always. Never have a mate like him again. Spence would never even have been on Gallowstree Lane if it wasn’t for him. He could do it because he owed it to Spence.

  A sudden flush of remorse threatened him but he wouldn’t give in to it.

  If you can’t escape a thought lying still then you have to get up and move about. He pulled on his clothes and moved towards the door.

  Someone stirring upstairs. He turned the lock and was already down the walkway when he heard the door opening behind him. He waited to hear her shouting, but this time his mother just stood in the doorway and said nothing.

  41

  ‘Fucking hell, Sarah.’

  ‘Let’s not get into it. Have you got something to nick Ryan for?’

  Kieran was on speakerphone and Sarah was slotting a pod into her coffee maker. Her sleeping bag, on the camp bed in her office, was still warm.

  ‘There’s a snatch. We’ve got the phone and him on tape admitting to robbing it.’

  Sarah picked up her pen. ‘Perfect. Thank you. Give me the details.’

  ‘You don’t need the details. The local robbery squad are going to nick him. We’re already on it. They’ve knocked on the victim’s door and shown her images of local suspects.’

  Sarah thought of those rows and rows of tiny thumbnails of faces and protested. ‘No one ever identifies from WADS.’

  ‘They do when I’m running it and protecting an op I’ve been working on for two fucking years.’

  There was a pause. Sarah knew how it had been: the robbery victim gently coaxed in the right direction into identifying Ryan from the set of photographs. It didn’t matter. He’d stolen the damn phone! Wasn’t this what she’d asked for? Ryan would be arrested, and safe. It bothered her, and it bothered her that it bothered her. She was tired. She’d managed less than sixty minutes dozing on the camp bed.

  Kieran said, ‘That’s all right. You don’t need to thank me.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Not happy?’

  ‘No. Yes. I am.’

  Kieran’s voice was not unfriendly. ‘Ever heard the story of the frog and the scorpion, Sarah? The scorpion asks the frog—’

  Of course, Sarah thought, that would be a story he approved. ‘Yes, I know it. The scorpion bites the frog. It’s in my nature. Your point is?’

  ‘My point is you want Ryan nicked and I’m helping you. You ran the arrest your way. I’m not criticizing you. I should have anticipated that. Now I’m running this my way. It’s in my nature. The robbery officers are on their way over to his flat right now. The ID by the witness will be irrelevant in the end because Ryan will plead. The Perseus evidence is overwhelming and it will be that that sends him down. In the meantime, he’ll be remanded – and safe. Like you wanted.’

  Sarah stretched out in her chair. Like a kind of death, sleep took her again. She dreamt not of the frog and the scorpion but of a driving blizzard and a snake asleep in a deep drift of snow. The farmer in his snow-weighted boots happens on it – so pitiful, sluggish, nearly dead. He reaches down, lifts the poor snake, puts it in his coat, begins to trudge back towards his house, where a fire burns. Revived by the warmth of his body, it stirs.

  She woke with alarm. She should dream it again, dream it right. But how could she do that? Her phone was ringing and into that waking moment stepped Ryan with his I’ll-never-trust-you eyes and his jeans hanging down around his hips. She grabbed her phone. This would be the update on his arrest. What a relief. But the news was something entirely different.

  42

  ‘Are you sure, Mum?’

  Lizzie switched her phone onto speaker and put it on the table. She picked Connor up. He had woken grizzly and his eye looked sore and swollen. She heard her mother, tinny and distant.

  ‘Lizzie. It’s not a problem.’

  ‘Only I might be finishing late because of something that’s happening at work, and the nursery won’t keep him after six.’

  ‘I can hardly hear you.’

  Lizzie scooped her phone up with her right hand. ‘I’m really sorry. I only found out last night.’

  ‘It’s fine. I can still go to the gym and be there by five.’

  ‘Don’t tell Natty.’

  Lizzie’s mum tutted. ‘I don’t know why you say that. Natty understands you need help. Anyway, it’s an opportunity to see my little Connor. How is he?’

  Lizzie patted Connor’s bottom. ‘He’s got a mozzie bite that’s bothering him.’

  ‘Have you put ice on it?’

  ‘Yes, Mum. I’d better dash, or I’ll be late.’

  ‘I’ll pick him up. Will you tell them?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll tell them.’

  43

  The door opened swiftly. Ryan’s mother pulled Sarah inside and shut the door. She had a bruise to her eye.

  Standing in the hall, she said, ‘They told me not to call police.’ Her face was drawn, her hands restless.

  The robbery officers who’d been sent to arrest Ryan had warned Sarah. She’d met them in a petrol station a couple of miles away from the house. They’d stood on the forecourt in their stab vests and T-shirts and jeans. Two blokes and a small fiery girl.

  ‘Hysterical,’ one of them said.

  ‘Dragged us in and slammed the door shut behind us.’

  The bigger bloke laughed. ‘Never had that happen before. Normally we can’t get in.’

  Their radios were clipped to their stab vests, chattering away, and Sarah imagined Loretta, terrified of their noise and confidence. She’d been told not to tell police, but here they were at the door, loud as a brass band. There’d been a couple of minutes of cross-purposes, the officers said. Loretta asking them how they knew; them trying to establish if Ryan was in the house. In the end she’d grabbed one of the blokes by the lapels and shaken him.

  ‘Why aren’t you listening to me? They’ve taken my daughter! If they know I’m talking to you, they’ll kill her.’

  That’s when they’d called the duty officer on his mobile.

  Sarah, looking at Loretta now, saw mainly confusion and terror. Somehow sense had to be made of this, and quickly. She said, ‘Sit down and tell me exactly what’s happened.’

  But Loretta gripped her arm so tightly it hurt. She didn’t even seem aware what she was doing. She hissed. ‘What if they come and you’re here!’

  ‘I’ve got no Met ID on me. Nothing. No warrant card. No radio, just a phone. Anyone comes to the door, I’m your social worker. I’ve got officers on standby two streets away.’

  Not much seemed to be getting through.

  ‘You need to trust me. We’ve never lost a kidnap victim.’

  Loretta was shaking, ignored tear
s slipping free from the edges of her eyes. ‘I think they killed Spence.’

  ‘I’m not underestimating them.’

  Loretta met her eyes, holding her gaze with a desperate intensity.

  Sarah said, ‘I know you’re terrified, but you need to keep it together for Tia’s sake.’

  They sat together at the tiny kitchen table. Sarah listened.

  ‘They’ve been here once before. The guy’s got a tat on his neck. A bird. I opens the door to him and straight away he’s inside. Got another bastard with him. White guy. Looks like a mean little weasel. They’ve both got a blade in their hands and the guy with the tat, he’s pushed me up against the wall. “Where the fuck is he?” he says, and I says, “I don’t know,” which is the truth. He puts his face right up against mine and says, “Your son’s a snitch.” I can’t even think straight. I don’t say nothing. He says, “What’s his number?” and I say, “I don’t know,” and he gets the knife and he pushes it right against me. Look.’

  She lifted her T-shirt. Sarah saw an inch-long cut below the navel. Loretta, seemingly uninterested in the wound, had already dropped the shirt.

  ‘He says, “Stop lying.” I says, “I’m not. I don’t know what’s happened with his phone. His old number ain’t working and I don’t know a new one.”

  ‘I’m thinking that Tia’s in the house, upstairs in her room, and that if they’re going to hurt anyone it best be me. But the weasel has gone looking for Ryan, and next thing I hear shouting and banging and he’s dragging Tia down the stairs by her hair. She’s got braids and some of them have come out. She’s crying. The other one says to her, “You know Ryan’s number?” and she says, “Yes.” And I shoot her a look. If she knows his number, why hasn’t she told me? Them two. Sometimes they hate each other, sometimes they’re thick as thieves.

  ‘So the guy with the bird tat says to Tia, “You’re going with my mate and I’m staying here with your mum, so you better not fucking do nothing, know what I mean?” He shows her the knife and I try to catch Tia’s eye, like to say once you get outside, but she’s pulling her jacket on. It’s all happening real quick and I can’t think. Too late I tries to fight the guy to give Tia a chance to get away, but he punches me and I’m on the floor. For all her lip, she’s a good girl, Tia, always looked after me, and I guess she’s not going to risk anything. She goes with them. I hate myself for that. And he waits until he gets a phone call and then he says, “You better not call police. You do that, she’s in trouble.” And I start saying stuff like what do you mean? and what are you doing with her? and all that, but he just pushes me in the chest and says, “Stay here and shut the fuck up and wait.”’