Dead Silent (34 page)

Mike Dobson looked around his cell. There was no natural light, just neon panels fitted into the ceiling spreading a weak light around the white tiles and concrete floor.

He had been there a couple of hours, reflecting on his life, on how it hadn’t amounted to much. A sales job and an empty house. There was one way out, the coward’s exit, but they had taken his belt and laces and there were no beams or hooks; the cell door swung open on a long metal rod concealed within the door casing, so he couldn’t even use his shirt sleeve as a noose.

He couldn’t remember much about the arrest. It came back to him in flashes, faded and distant. The cuffs too tight around his wrist, the journey to the station. He knew the streets, had driven round them all his life, but they seemed altered now, as if he knew he was seeing them for the last time. He remembered the feel of the sun on his face as he came out of the van. How long before he would feel that again? And the clang of the doors as he was taken inside. Sounds suddenly seemed to echo and he was no longer in charge of his life. Questions, signatures, and they had only ever talked about Hazel. No one mentioned Nancy Gilbert.

He looked at the wall when he heard the screaming from the next cell start up again. Kicks landed as soft thuds against
the cell door. It had been going on since he came in. Someone would walk down the corridor and shout for the occupant to be quiet, but that only made it worse.

Mike put his hands behind his head and lay back on the plastic mattress. It felt cool against the heat coming from his body. He closed his eyes and thought about Hazel. He brought one hand to his face to see if there was anything left of her smell, but there was nothing. He had washed it away, just like he had soaked away the dust and dirt from his suit.

He sat up when he heard the rattle of a key in his cell door. As it swung open, he saw a man there, tall, in a crisp white shirt, with a perma-tan and bright teeth, his boots polished to a gleam and his black trousers pressed razor-sharp. The man came in and closed the door behind him, although he didn’t lock it.

‘Don’t think about running through,’ the man said. ‘There are people at the custody desk and at least two sets of doors that need keys.’

Mike scuttled back to the wall so that he could feel the coldness of the tiles through the back of his shirt.

‘I’m not going to run,’ Mike said. ‘I’ve nowhere to go.’

‘Do you know why you’re here?’

Mike nodded and looked down. ‘Hazel, the girl from last night, so I was told.’

‘Anyone else?’

Mike looked at his visitor. ‘Who do you mean?’

The visitor smiled and sat down on the plastic mattress. ‘You know who I mean.’

Mike shook his head.

‘Nancy,’ the visitor said.

Mike felt the room start to swirl, the tiles fusing into white streaks; when he looked at his hands, they seemed as if they belonged to someone else, detached from him, as if he had
become just an observer of his own body. They knew, he realised. They had always known.

‘I found her,’ the visitor said. ‘I was one of the people who dug her up.’

Mike looked at him, trying to focus, but the visitor sounded distant, drowned out by the rush of blood through his head.

‘Are you Roach?’ Mike asked.

The visitor smiled. ‘You know my name.’

‘I read about you,’ Mike said. ‘I followed the story.’

‘You had a special interest, Mr Dobson,’ Roach said.

Mike nodded and tugged on his lip. ‘Tell me something.’

‘Go on.’

‘How did she look—Nancy, I mean—when you found her?’ Mike said.

Roach was silent for a moment, and then he said, ‘She looked scared. Dirty and bloodied. Paint and splinters under her nails.’

Mike swallowed. His mouth tasted acidic.

‘This is your second chance, Mr Dobson,’ Roach said. ‘Make it right, for everyone. Tell them what you know.’

Mike didn’t say anything for a long time. He didn’t notice when Roach left and his cell became empty again. There was just the sound of his breathing and the regular thumps in his head, the drumbeat of Nancy’s fists on the wood.

I was running Bobby’s bath when I heard Laura come into the house.

The story had gone in and Harry had called to hack and cough his approval, but there was still only silence from Claude. So I was distracted as I knelt on the bathroom floor, bubbles all over my forearms and my trousers wet from the
water that had splashed over the side. Bobby was in his room, selecting toys for some water fun.

I looked out of the open window as Bobby climbed into the tub, feeling the last few moments of sun on my face. I heard the heavy clump of Laura’s boots as she came upstairs. She hugged Bobby when she saw him, and then she put her arms around me, her mouth against my neck.

‘We got him,’ she whispered. ‘Mike Dobson. He’s in the cells. It’s nothing to do with Nancy Gilbert yet, but I’ve tipped the wink to Joe, told him to make sure he is in the interview, just in case Joe can turn it round to Nancy.’ She gave me a squeeze. ‘Thank you for that.’

I turned around and cupped her face in my hands. ‘My good deed for the day. I just hope I can repeat it tomorrow.’

‘Why tomorrow?’ she asked, but when she saw my raised eyebrows, she nodded in comprehension. ‘Claude comes out, doesn’t he?’

I nodded. ‘Front page in the morning, and then a press conference.’

‘Whereabouts?’

‘The Lowry, in Manchester.’

Laura laughed. ‘That will annoy the brass. A different force might get to the arrest first. No appearance on the lunchtime news for the local boys.’

I smiled. ‘I think it’s so Harry doesn’t have to change trains.’

‘Should I do anything?’ she said.

I shook my head. ‘Just pretend that we haven’t had this conversation.’

Then I heard my phone ring downstairs. I peeled away from Laura and ran quickly to answer it. When I jabbed at the answer button, Claude’s baritone was loud in my ear.

‘You’ve done well, Mr Garrett.’

‘Don’t thank me yet,’ I said. ‘Dobson might be back on the streets by midnight.’

‘Maybe so, but at least the jury will be able to wonder about him now.’

‘So what about you, Claude? Did you get the message from Susie? You go in the paper tomorrow, and we’ve got a press conference.’

There was silence for a few seconds, and then he said, ‘I suppose now is a good time.’

‘Damn right, Claude. If Dobson is charged, then you don’t get your say, because we’ll have to stay quiet until his trial.’

‘Perhaps, Mr Garrett. Perhaps.’

‘We need to meet.’

‘Midnight,’ he said. ‘I’ll call you later.’

‘Why so late?’

He chuckled. ‘It’s Susie,’ he said. ‘You know how women are. She wants one last evening. I’ll call you.’

And then the phone went silent.

When I turned round, Laura was there. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

‘Nowhere yet,’ I said. ‘I just have to wait here.’

She smiled. ‘It doesn’t have to be boring.’

When the cell door opened again, there were two men standing behind the white shirt of the jailer. They were important, Mike Dobson could tell that from their fake smiles of reassurance. He reckoned junior officers would have been more disapproving. These two were fully-fledged, been-around-the-block sort of officers. Mike almost smiled. They had judged him already, he could tell that.

He thought he would feel afraid, but he didn’t. You become what you pretend to be, and his life had turned into a lie. Now, he felt relief, not fear; he was almost glad that the hunt was over. He stood up and held out his hands.

‘Is it time, gentlemen?’ he asked.

They exchanged quick glances before the gaoler said, ‘Mr Dobson, come this way please.’

Mike followed them along the corridor until he reached the custody desk. No one spoke to him until the custody sergeant put a clipboard on the desk, and Mike saw where he had signed it when he was first brought in, his signature shaky.

‘Are you sure you don’t want a solicitor?’ one of the suits said, the older one, his Lancashire accent blunt and broad, his moustache neat and trimmed.

Mike shook his head. ‘I want to tell my story.’

‘This is a serious allegation, Mr Dobson. I really think you ought to have a lawyer with you.’

‘I know that,’ Mike said, ‘but I want to tell you what happened.’

The sergeant looked at the two men and shrugged. ‘It’s his choice, gentlemen. You need to get him to an interview room.’ Mike guessed the subtext:
before he changes his mind.

Mike was taken to a small room along a different corridor, windowless again, with just enough space for a wooden table and four chairs. There was a machine in the corner with blinking blue lights, and a red plastic strip ran around the room, like the sort he’d seen on buses to tell the driver to stop; a sticker saying ‘do not press’ indicated that it was a panic alarm.

‘This is a digital recorder,’ one of the suits explained, the older one, pointing at the machine in the corner. ‘We don’t use tapes any more.’

Then the younger of the two men introduced himself. Joe Kinsella. He was more casual, with no tie and no shine to his shoes. He seemed gentle, his voice soft. The other man was Alan Nesbitt. There were bold creases ironed into the arms of his shirt that matched the sharp parting in his hair. Call me Alan, he said. Mike smiled. They were being very pleasant to him.

When the recording started, Mike just nodded in the right places, that he understood the caution, that he had waived his right to legal advice, and then he said his name boldly when the time came. They told him it was just a routine interview, to get his story, to check whether they would look further into it.

When they asked him to tell them what he knew about Hazel, Mike looked at Joe Kinsella. ‘Have you ever been lonely?’ he asked.

Alan started to say that their personal lives weren’t relevant, but Joe held out his hand to stop him.

‘What do you mean?’ Joe said.

‘If you’ve been lonely, you might understand what I’m talking about when I tell you my story,’ Mike said. ‘And I don’t mean just having a few empty hours to kill, but real, never-ending loneliness, where your life stretches ahead of you and you just cannot see it ever getting any better.’

‘Did Hazel stop you being lonely?’ Joe said.

Mike shook his head. ‘No, not Hazel,’ he said, and he leant forward, more animated now. ‘She was a sweet girl, I enjoyed spending time with her, but she reminded me of someone.’

‘Who did she remind you of, Mike?’

Mike looked at the two detectives and listened to their breathing, and knew that he had their attention.

‘Hazel reminded me of the woman I killed,’ Mike said, and then he sat back, his arms folded.

Mike saw Alan react to that. A widening of the eyes, and then a few fast blinks.

‘Who did you kill?’ Joe asked. Mike looked at Joe. He had hardly reacted.

‘You know who I killed,’ Mike said. ‘That’s why the policewoman spoke to me. That’s why the reporter has been looking for me.’

Mike watched as Joe scribbled something in his notebook. Joe was left-handed, he noticed, and he crooked his wrist over so that he could write. Mike tried to read it, but the writing was small and untidy.

‘Tell me who,’ Joe repeated.

‘I’ll say the words if you want,’ he said, and he put both of his hands on the table. ‘It was Nancy Gilbert.’

Even Joe Kinsella reacted to that. His eyes widened with
surprise and, when Joe looked to his colleague, Mike added, ‘Claude Gilbert’s wife.’

Joe’s brow furrowed for a moment, and then he leant across the table, closing the space between them. ‘Tell me about it.’

Mike nodded and breathed out slowly, a tear suddenly appearing on his cheek.

‘I’ve been waiting to do this for twenty-two years.’

I was watching television, except that I wasn’t really. There was some reality programme on, desperate people hoping for celebrity, but it was just voices and flickering lights to me.

I was sprawled along the sofa, Laura lying next to me, her head on my chest. Bobby had been in bed for a couple of hours and I was watching the clock tick onwards, worried that the midnight meeting would get called off.

Laura looked up at me. ‘It will be fine,’ she said, and she stroked my chest.

I smiled. ‘How did you know what I was thinking?’

‘Because you’ve been twirling my hair around your finger for the past five minutes.’ She gave me a playful poke in the ribs.

I laughed and let go of her hair. ‘Maybe I just like touching it.’

‘I can tell the difference,’ she said, and then she straddled me, so that her hair was in my face. She moved her head gently, playfully, her hair tickling my cheeks, and I pulled her towards me until I felt the soft push of her lips.

‘I need someone to take my mind off things,’ I whispered. ‘Can you do that?’

‘That’ll take care of the first minute,’ she said. ‘What about the rest of the evening?’

It was my turn to give a playful poke, which turned into a tickle, and then a wrestle, until she stopped and sat up. She looked around, her face serious.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘Did you see that?’

‘See what?’

‘A flash. I’m sure I saw a flash.’

I looked towards the window. ‘Maybe there’s lightning somewhere,’ I said. ‘It feels muggy tonight.’

I stood up and went to open the front door, looking up into the sky. It was warm outside, and it seemed like clouds were building up, but it didn’t feel quite ready for lightning. I stared around, but there was nothing there but the blackened outlines of the hills around the cottage.

I turned around, saw that Laura was now sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms folded on top.

‘Nothing there,’ I said.

Laura shook her head. ‘There was something. I’ll go outside and check.’

‘No, no, I’ll do it,’ I said, going to get my shoes.

I stepped outside carefully, looking around. I heard Laura draw the curtains in the living room, but that just made things darker. I tried to peer into the shadows.