Cross and Burn (36 page)

S
tacey’s speed had always been a thing of beauty. Working at less than full stretch thankfully hadn’t blunted her skills. Within half an hour of Carol sending her text, Stacey had replied with a hyperlink to a cloud-based application. Tapping the link took Carol to the fruits of Stacey’s searches.

Under Gareth Taylor’s name was a list: date of birth, National Insurance number, driving licence details, passport number, address, vehicle registration number, bank details and current account balance, and the name of his employer, Tellit Communications. He had no criminal record and a first-class degree in computer science. Photographs from his passport application and his driving licence were next. Then came a separate list of details for his late wife. A note from Stacey read,
Can’t find a UK bank account. No employment history after marriage. NHS records for both coming later.
At the bottom of the report, there was another note from Stacey.

Carol read the note with an increasing surge of excitement. A viable suspect. She didn’t know much about Gareth Taylor, but already she had more belief in him as a potential killer than in Tony. She forwarded the link to Paula, adding a note:
Check with ANPR for any sightings of Taylor’s vehicle near body dumps, or homes and workplaces of victims. Am going to stake out Tellit office/Taylor’s house.

The address Stacey had supplied for Gareth Taylor’s workplace was on the other side of the city centre, so Carol decided to change car parks. But before she did, she called Stacey. ‘Brilliant job,’ she said as soon as Stacey answered. ‘Does Tellit have a staff car park?’

‘I’ll get right back to you.’

Five minutes ticked past to the sound of Carol beating time on her steering wheel. Then her phone beeped. The text from Stacey read,
No dedicated car park. But discount parking in Ramshorn Street multi-storey.

Ten minutes later, Carol was cruising the car park, looking for Gareth Taylor’s red BMW. She found it on the third floor but she couldn’t find another slot with a view of his car. She sat for a moment with her engine idling, wondering what to do next. Now she knew where his wheels were, she could always leave the car park and set up outside. But she’d have to be careful where she chose. Leaving the multi-storey, drivers could turn left or right. If she parked facing the wrong way, she could be stranded, given the appalling turning circle of the Land Rover. Or she could circle round inside the car park, taking temporary station in areas that weren’t, strictly speaking, parking spaces.

In the end, she settled for a side road a little further down the street. She could emerge quickly enough on his tail from there, she reckoned. The Land Rover was about as far from an ideal surveillance vehicle as it was possible to get, especially in the city centre, but the one advantage it possessed was its height. She could stay several cars behind Taylor and still remain in touch with his car. At this time of day, nothing moved faster than a crawl in town anyway, so it wasn’t like she was going to lose him at the lights.

All the same, Carol knew she would have to find another solution if the surveillance ended up lasting any length of time. Wrong vehicle, not to mention that she was sitting on a double yellow line. She daren’t leave the Landie in case she got ticketed, clamped or towed. Now she was beginning to realise how much she’d taken for granted when she had still been a copper. How in hell did private eyes manage any kind of effective stake-out?

Luckily for her nerves, she didn’t have long to wait. Barely twenty minutes had passed when the scarlet nose of Taylor’s BMW stopped at the exit barrier. He turned right, and Carol fell in behind him with three cars between them.

Their progress across town was slow, the rush-hour stream of buses, cars, vans and trams clogging the tight mesh of streets that had been built for horses and carts two centuries before. But as they left the city centre and moved into the outer suburbs, the traffic thinned and Carol had to work a bit harder at staying in touch but unobtrusive. From the route Taylor had taken, it looked as if he was heading home. Carol couldn’t help wondering where he was in his murderous cycle. Did he have another victim lined up? Was there already another woman in captivity? It was clear that he kept them before he killed him. Might he be headed back to an imprisoned victim right now?

The short-term answer to her question came just before the ring road, when he pulled off into an out-of-town development packed with the traditional selection of carpet warehouse, fast-food outlet, discount sofa store, white goods and computer emporia and a sprawling DIY megastore. For a brief uncomfortable moment she was right behind the BMW. She hung back while he parked in a distant area of the car park then watched as he jinked through the lines of parked cars to arrive at the DIY store entrance. He paused to retie his shoelace, and as he set off again, she could see he had a slight but noticeable limp. Just like Tony.

‘Yes,’ Carol hissed triumphantly. She left the Landie in the first available slot and ran after him. By the time she made it through the door, he’d vanished from sight. She hurried up to the aisle that bisected the shelves at the midway point and walked briskly along, scanning in both directions as she went.

She spotted him in the locks and home security section, checking padlocks and chains. It was a terrible cliché, but she supposed clichés only reached that status because there was truth in them. She turned down the next aisle, then came up behind him, pretending an interest in brass and chrome door furniture. He didn’t turn his head. He selected a heavy padlock and started walking towards the rear of the store. Carol followed, keeping her distance and constantly ready to turn aside and examine whatever was on the shelves.

He was making for the trade counter, she quickly realised. Even though this was a different chain from the store she used for her own building requirements, they all had a similar layout. Taylor clearly knew his way around, making straight for the doorway that led to the timber-cutting area. He must be ordering or collecting made-to-measure wood, she thought. She found a vantage point where she could keep an eye on the doorway without looking suspicious, and stared unseeing at a catalogue of bathroom fittings.

Time trickled past, but Taylor didn’t reappear. At first, Carol wasn’t concerned. She knew from experience that it could take a while to straighten out a customer’s requirements, especially if several different pieces were being ordered. But after ten minutes, she began to feel uneasy. This wasn’t right.

At last, after twelve minutes had passed, she walked into the timber-cutting area. Behind the counter, a man in company livery was going through a sheaf of paperwork, comparing it to a computer screen. Another assistant leaned against a rack of different woods, deep in conversation with Gareth Taylor.
Fuck.
Carol crossed to a bin of scrap wood and rummaged through it, as if she were looking for something in particular. She pulled out a piece of plywood, pretended to check something on her phone, tutted and replaced it, then walked out.
Fuck.

She returned to the bathroom fittings, cursing herself for her lack of patience. All she’d had to do was wait, but she couldn’t even do that. Tony’s words echoed in her head. ‘We all make mistakes, Carol. Sometimes they’re more expensive than others.’ She pushed him to one side in her head, hoping this wasn’t going to be one of the truly expensive ones.

Another fifteen minutes crawled by. And then the man from behind the counter appeared in the doorway, reaching above his head to grasp a metal shutter. Galvanised, Carol hurried over as he hunkered down to padlock it shut. ‘Are you closed?’

He looked up at her. ‘Aye. We close at half five. If you want some timber cutting, you’ll have to come back in the morning.’

‘Damn,’ she said. ‘I wondered – is there a loading entrance here, so I don’t have to trail my wood through the store?’

The man straightened up. ‘Not officially, like,’ he said. ‘But we’ve got a roller shutter at the rear for deliveries – we let people drive round and load up.’

She turned away, hollow with anger and disappointment. Not only had she made Taylor suspicious, she’d lost him. He’d clocked that she was taking an interest and he’d shaken her off. He could be anywhere now, doing anything. And she had nothing on him except a limp and Tony’s theory based on a dead wife. Even Bronwen Scott would struggle to make something out of that.

Carol trudged to the exit, all her earlier exhilaration gone. Maybe she should call Paula and the pair of them could work out what to do next. But the way things were going, if justice was going to be served, Carol wasn’t going to be the waitress.

At least driving a Land Rover Defender meant you never mislaid your vehicle in a car park. The high Landie stuck out even among the pick-up trucks and fat clumsy 4x4s. Head down, thinking hard, she set off. Given how full the car park was and how busy the store had been, it was surprising how few people were in sight. A cluster round the burger van, but mostly it was deserted. Unsurprisingly, Gareth Taylor’s red BMW was no longer parked where it had been. She’d obviously lost him.

As she approached the Landie, Carol raised her arm over her head and pressed the door release button. It was always a bugger, this remote. You had to be right next to the driver’s door before it conceded and the locks clicked open. She decided to let the dog out for a quick pee before they set off for wherever they were going next, so she turned away from the driver’s door to walk round the back.

That was the only reason she saw Gareth Taylor coming at her with the taser.

C
arol’s message had given Paula a dilemma. Tracking Gareth Taylor’s car using the ANPR system wasn’t a problem in itself. But in the byzantine world of contemporary police administration, every search had to be justified. And somewhere down the line, she’d have to explain why she’d asked for this particular search at this particular time. An alert defence lawyer might well pick up on the fact that she had actioned a search at a point when Gareth Taylor’s name had never appeared in the official investigation. ‘Woman’s intuition’ wouldn’t cut it, she knew that much.

As usual, when faced with intractable problems, Paula sought refuge in nicotine. She sneaked out of the incident room and huddled in a quiet corner of the car park, inhaling and thinking. She couldn’t see any point in coming clean to Fielding. Her DCI was so committed to the idea of Tony Hill that she would reject any lead emanating from him as automatically tainted. But if Paula left her own paper trail in her notebook, pointing the finger at the defence as the source of a tip-off, she might just get away with it. It would have to be a paper trail, though, since there were no texts from Bronwen Scott in her phone and she wasn’t about to give Carol up as her source.

Satisfied that she’d come up with something that would cover her back, Paula returned to the incident room and sanctioned the ANPR request. Because she was Fielding’s bagman, nobody questioned her authority and the data wheels started turning. She was about to go in search of her boss when DC Pat Cody called her over. ‘Got a funny one here, skip,’ he said, tapping his screen with a chewed ballpoint.

‘What’s that?’

‘We put out a routine request for any female misper reports. A bloke phoned in this afternoon. Control passed the details on to us. I don’t know if it’s owt to do with us, but it’s a funiosity, as my gran used to say. His name’s Rob Morrison and he’s Director of Operations at Tellit Communications’ Bradfield office.’

‘Tellit?’ Gareth Taylor’s workplace. Anything unusual connected to Tellit set the alarms flashing on Paula’s radar.

‘You know, the mobile phone and data network company? Apparently they started a new Director of Marketing this week, a woman called Marie Mather. She didn’t turn in for work this morning but one of the staff took a call from her husband saying she’d been rushed to hospital with a suspected burst appendix. This Morrison guy decided to send flowers, so he rang Bradfield Cross to find out what ward she was on. And they’ve never heard of her. He tried the cottage hospital and they said the same. Her mobile’s turned off, there’s no answer to her home phone and the number he has for her husband goes straight to voicemail.’ Cody scratched his head with the end of his pen then stuck it in his mouth like a cigar.

‘She might be skiving off. Having a fun day out with her old man,’ Paula said, not believing it for a moment.

‘She might, except that she’s just started this important new job. “Strategic”, your man Morrison called it. And here’s the thing. She’s thirty-one, blonde, blue eyes, medium height and build and a professional woman. She fits our victim profile to a T.’

Paula felt a buzz of adrenalin surging through her. ‘Which would mean that the suspect we have in custody isn’t the killer.’ She couldn’t help smiling at that realisation.

Cody made a face. ‘Not necessarily. I called this Morrison bloke. She left work about an hour before Hill checked in here. If he’s keeping them before he kills them, he could have stashed her before he walked in here.’ His turn to smile. ‘That’s the kind of brass neck a proper serial killer would have, isn’t it?’

‘Only in a film,’ Paula said repressively. ‘Have you told Fielding about this yet?’

He shook his head. ‘It’s not long in.’

‘OK. Send a couple of uniforms over to her home address to see whether Mr and Mrs Mather are having a duvet day. Meanwhile, check with Bradfield Cross admissions. Maybe Mather is her own name and she was admitted under her married name. See whether anyone was brought in with a suspected burst appendix. Let’s get our ducks in a row before we bother the DCI with this.’ She didn’t quite know what to make of this latest information. But if there was any chance at all that it might exonerate Tony, she’d strip Marie Mather’s life to the bone.

Years of frontline policing kicked in and, faced with danger, Carol acted instinctively. She gave a banshee yell and lunged towards Taylor, aiming to knock him off balance. But he was equally quick off the mark and fired the taser before she covered the few feet between them. Her cry was cut off abruptly but her momentum carried her forward and he held out his arms to catch her before she hit the ground. He staggered under the impact but managed to keep his footing, thudding into the side of the Land Rover.

Taylor quickly looked around, but nobody seemed to be paying them any attention. He half-dragged, half-carried Carol round to the rear of the Landie, his brain efficiently processing the options. As soon as he’d got the big back door open, he’d be secure from prying eyes. He could chuck her in the back and improvise. If there was nothing to tie her up with, he could bang her head on the floor and knock her out for long enough to get her back to his place. That would show the bitch the kind of man she was dealing with. Who the fuck did she think she was, tracking him across the city like he was a common criminal? Well, he had her now. He’d soon show her who was boss. Finding out who she was and what she thought she was doing would be an unexpected pleasure.

He reached up and pushed the door handle upwards. It was stiff, and he grunted with the effort. As he struggled with the catch, Carol regained control of her limbs. She blinked repeatedly for a few seconds as he tried to get the taser aligned in his hand. The she snapped back into full consciousness. The arm that had been hanging loose at her side swept up in a long looping punch that connected with Taylor’s ear.

He yelped, instinctively clapping his hand to the side of his head and letting the taser fall to the ground. Carol saw it fall, but he still had one arm gripping her close and she had no chance of reaching it. She pulled her arm back for a second punch but he saw this one coming and grabbed her wrist.

But Carol didn’t mind fighting dirty. She ducked her head and clamped her teeth round his wrist, clenching her jaw as hard as she could. Simultaneously, she brought her knee up sharply between his legs, making satisfying contact with his balls.
Bastard, bastard, bastard.
Taylor’s breath shot out in a long squeal and he let her go. But as he let her go, he rammed his fist hard into her gut, forcing the air out of her lungs in a searing rush. Reflexively, she released her bite and gasped for air. They reeled around each other like a pair of late-night drunks.

Carol lunged to the ground, aiming for the taser. But he wasn’t giving up. As her hand closed around the black plastic, he stamped hard on her wrist, numbing everything below it. He leaned over her and grabbed the taser. ‘You fucking bitch,’ he gasped as he pressed the trigger. Her body jerked and twitched then lay still.

This time he’d get the Land Rover door open before he lifted her up. He strained at the handle again, pushing it upwards. But as soon as the catch released, the heavy metal door catapulted towards Taylor, the edge catching him in the middle of the forehead. He clutched his head and staggered, tripping over Carol’s prone body and crashing to the ground. A flying bundle of black-and-white fur flew through the air and struck him in the chest, taking him down. Taylor heard the deep terrifying growl of a hostile dog as he hit the tarmac. He took his hand away from the bump on his forehead and saw gleaming white teeth bared inches from his face. He screamed.

Groggy but almost in control of her limbs, Carol pushed herself upright and shouted ‘Help!’ at the top of her lungs. What the fuck was she supposed to do now? She had no handcuffs, no authority. Taylor was squirming at her feet, screaming at Flash, who had him pinned down, front paws on his chest, slavering mouth dripping on his face. A couple of blokes had peeled away from the hot-dog van and were running towards them. Carol reached inside the Land Rover and pulled out the lovely new tack hammer she’d bought only a few days before. It wasn’t heavy, but she knew she could do some serious damage with it if she had to. With her free hand, she pulled out her phone and called Paula. She had a funny feeling it was going to be a long night.