Chapter Twenty-Nine
Hammers pounded in May Fraser’s head. She sat up and groaned. Memories of the nightmares flooded back, and she swore.
It was all the fault of that wee slag Megan. She hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since she failed to come home on Saturday, and the bloody police weren’t doing anything about it. All they said was she’d gone walkabout before and she would come back when she was ready. But this time was different, she could feel it in her water. Besides, she was her mother, and a mother always knew.
It was something to do with that perv along the landing. She’d seen the way he looked at Megan, and the silly wee slag had laughed, enjoying the attention. She knew, she just knew, he had something to do with it. Him with his sidelong looks, and the way he avoided her eyes. Maybe the wee slag was shacked up with him. She wouldn’t put it past her.
Well, they weren’t going to get off with it, she’d go along right now and confront them, and if Megan wasn’t there she’d make him tell her where she was. Bloody perv should never have been housed beside decent folks anyway.
She heaved herself out of the bed, struggled into the skirt she’d been wearing for the past month, pulled her tee shirt on, rammed her feet into a pair of fleecy slippers, and charged out of the flat. The wind on the landing whipped at her red hair, but it was already a tousled mess so it didn’t make much difference.
The door to the perv’s flat hung open. May thumped on it but when she got no answer she walked in. The kitchen was a mess, a mountain of dirty dishes in the sink, more dishes and pots and pans cluttering every surface, rubbish spilling out of a waste bin. May tutted and turned her back on it. A faint sound of music filtered through the living room door. Without hesitation she gave it a shove. ‘Where’s my bloody Megan?’ she roared when it swung open.
The music continued to play, but the body on the floor looked very dead.
* * * *
Kate threw her jacket over the back of her chair, stuffed her shoulder bag under the desk, and returned to the team room. She looked round at the empty desks and flickering computer screens, before walking over to Bill at the coffee machine.
‘Where is everybody?’
Bill shrugged. ‘You know as much as I do. Want a coffee?’
Kate peered at the brown liquid in Bill’s paper cup. ‘Think I’ll give it a pass.’
She marched over to the whiteboard and studied it. ‘What did you make of Mrs Carnegie?’
‘She seemed calmer today. I’m not sure if that’s a good sign or a bad one.’
‘Mmm, she seems convinced Jade has come back. D’you think it’s possible?’
Bill shrugged. ‘It leaves a lot of unanswered questions if she has.’
‘I’m not sure Mrs Carnegie would have opened up as much if you hadn’t been present.’
‘Why would you think that?’ Bill wondered what Kate was thinking, but her face gave nothing away.
‘I don’t know, she seemed to relate to you.’
‘Maybe it’s because I was part of the original investigation, and I’m the one she’s had contact with about this question of Jade’s return.’
‘Mmm, whatever. It could prove useful though, provided you don’t get drawn in.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Bill resisted the urge to run his finger around his collar. He didn’t want Kate to know how much she had unsettled him.
A waft of air signalled the door opening. Kate turned. ‘Ah, the wanderers have come back.’
Sue dumped her bag on the desk and strode over to join them.
‘There’s been a development, ma’am. DC Cartwright acquired information about Jade’s contact with Gregson and she persuaded the ISP to give us a physical address for the contact. We went out to investigate and have confiscated the computers.’
‘You found Jade?’
‘No, ma’am. The occupants were obviously nothing like the person we’re looking for, but I think we should keep them on our radar. We’ll know more once Jenny has plumbed the depths of the computers.’
* * * *
The gold chain slid through Diane’s fingers onto the table. Without the bead, the chain was nothing, the policewoman should have taken it as well, but she hadn’t. Instead, she’d slipped Jade’s bead into a small polythene bag and left the chain behind.
Emma burst through the door. ‘I saw the police driving off. What did they want?’
‘They should have taken the chain,’ Diane said.
‘What?’
Diane looked up at the daughter who was not Jade, and could never take her sister’s place. ‘They took Jade’s bead but they left the chain.’
‘Why did they want the bead?’ Emma sank to her knees in front of Diane’s armchair and grasped her mother’s hand.
‘They said it was for evidence.’
‘Evidence of what?’
‘I don’t know, they just said evidence. Maybe they’ve got a lead on Jade. Maybe it’ll help them find her.’
Emma’s grip on Diane’s hand, tightened. ‘I doubt it. They must have another reason but for the life of me I can’t think what.’
‘They will find her. I’m sure of it. Bill Murphy, he’s the sergeant, he promised me he would find her.’
‘That’s impossible. You must know in your heart Jade’s never coming back. How could she? She’s been gone too long.’
‘He said he would find her, and I trust him.’ Diane snatched her hand from Emma’s grasp. ‘I sometimes think you don’t want her to return.’
‘What’s going on down here.’ Ryan appeared in the doorway. ‘I heard raised voices . . . ’
‘Nothing,’ Diane said. ‘Are you finished working on your computer?’
‘Yes, that’s Tony’s website finished. I just need him to approve it, before I upload it to the web. You working today, Mum?’
Diane nodded.
‘I’ll drive you in after lunch.’
Emma scrambled to her feet. ‘I’m off. I came home to collect a folder I forgot this morning.’ She ran upstairs and back down again with the folder in her hand, and left the house without a backward glance.
Diane leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. She must try to be nicer to Emma, now Jade was coming back.
Chapter Thirty
‘You ready to go, Mum?’ Ryan adjusted the strap cutting into his shoulder. His laptop was a hefty one, a powerful beast built for work, unlike many of the flashier ones meant for play.
Diane emerged from the kitchen. ‘I was cleaning the sink, can’t leave it in a mess.’
Ryan smiled and kissed her on the cheek. ‘When was there ever a time you left anything in a mess? Let’s go.’ He opened the front door, escorted her down the path and helped her into the car.
‘You’re becoming quite the gentleman,’ Diane said.
Ryan shrugged, got in the driving seat and drove off.
The drive to the club was a silent one, and Ryan kept sneaking looks at his mother who seemed to be lost in her own thoughts. Even her hands, normally active picking and twisting at anything she was wearing, were clasped loosely in her lap. She wasn’t herself and it worried him. Maybe she was planning to go off again, on her futile hunt for Jade.
There was plenty of room in the car park behind Teasers, too early in the day for the punters to be fighting over spaces. But he noticed Tony’s flash BMW, and a couple of other cars, one of which he thought was Phil’s. A shiver crept down his spine. Phil had a strange effect on him, something about the man’s eyes, hypnotic and compelling. This strange attraction was combined, oddly enough, with repulsion, and he didn’t trust himself to stay away.
Suppressing the sinking feeling in his stomach, he helped his mother out of the car. Diane seemed more fragile than usual, her thoughts far away. He wanted to reach out to her, wrap her in his arms, but they were not a demonstrative family and the moment passed.
By the time he fished his laptop bag out of the car she was already putting her key into the lock on the back door. He hurried over and followed her into the club and along the corridor to the cleaners’ cupboard where she would leave her coat and gather her equipment, ready to start work. But she still hadn’t spoken, and seemed to be in a world of her own.
‘I’ll wait for you after I’ve finished with Tony, and take you home.’ His words sounded loud in the empty corridor.
Diane nodded.
Ryan hesitated, reluctant to leave her, afraid she wouldn’t be there when he got back. Afraid she’d go off looking for Jade again. But Tony would be waiting for him, and Tony wasn’t a man you kept waiting, so he hurried along the corridor and through the door into the public area of the club.
The foyer was deserted, although a buzzing sound came from behind one of the doors. As there was no sign of the doorman, he opened the door and looked in, but it was one of the other cleaners vacuuming a bar area.
‘I was looking for the doorman,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a meeting with Mr Palmer.’
She switched the machine off and tucked a lock of hair under the scarf she wore on her head. ‘You’re Diane’s boy. I’ve seen you here before.’
Ryan nodded. He’d made a mistake following his mother in the back door instead of coming to the front entrance. Too late to rectify that now, though. ‘There’s usually someone here to meet me,’ he said.
‘You’ll find someone upstairs.’ She bent and switched on the machine. ‘I’ve got to get this finished and I’m all behind.’
Ryan took his hand off the door and let it swing shut. The stairs were in front of him, a dark chasm leading upwards, to the lap dancing club, and Tony’s office, and Phil.
* * * *
May Fraser stared at the body with horrified fascination. She’d seen a dead dog before, but never a human body. He looked peaceful, lying with his arms crossed over his chest, but there was something funny about his eyes. It looked as if something was in them. She leaned over for a closer look.
She flopped into the armchair. What sick bugger would want to shove beads in the dead sod’s eyes. OK, so he was a perv, she’d seen the way he watched the young girls on the estate, hanging round near the school gates when they were all going home. But that was no reason to mutilate his body. Kill the bugger, sure, but that should be enough.
‘What you done with my Megan then?’ She stared at the body on the floor.
A flickering red light caught her eye. It was coming from the computer on the desk. Megan’s computer used to do that when she hadn’t been on it for a while, and she’d seen her daughter twiddle the mouse to wake it up.
Curiosity got the better of her and she heaved herself out of the chair, stepped over the body, and moved the mouse. The monitor sprang into life and May watched fascinated while pictures of schoolgirls flashed over the screen in a relentless slideshow of photographs. Some were everyday photographs of girls, but others verged on the pornographic.
‘I knew you were a bloody perv.’ She poked the body with her foot. ‘You got photos of my Megan in there, do you?’ She sat down to watch.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d been watching the slideshow before she saw Megan, but there she was, in the street, on the landing, coming out of school, down the shops. The bugger must have been stalking her.
May stood up, maybe Megan was in the flat. She went from room to room, but Megan wasn’t there. That was when she decided she’d have to call the cops. But she’d need a phone to do that.
She looked around, but couldn’t find a phone in the flat. If he had a mobile it would be in his pocket.
The computer was still running the slideshow, although it wasn’t Megan now. The body lay at her feet and she stared at it, considering what to do.
She knelt on the floor. The bugger was dead, he wouldn’t mind if she went through his pockets, but she’d have to touch him, and that gave her the willies.
Steeling herself, she put her hand in one of his pockets, and then another one. The phone was in the third pocket she tried, along with a tenner. She extracted both, stuffed the tenner in her pocket – he wouldn’t need money where he was going – and phoned the police.
After she switched the phone off she placed it into her pocket. It was a nice iPhone, and she’d never had one of those before, pity to waste it.
The cops had said to leave the flat, but May Fraser settled down in the armchair and continued to watch the monitor, hoping to see Megan again.
* * * *
‘There’s a Mrs Fraser on the line for you, Bill.’ Blair waved the phone receiver at him.
Bill scowled. ‘Can’t you tell her we don’t have any fresh news about her daughter?’
‘No can do. Says she’s found a body, and you’re the one she wants to talk to.’
Swearing under his breath he hurried over to take the phone from Blair. Damn, a body, probably Megan. That was all he needed. The DI would blame him for messing up the investigation and she’d never be off his back now.
He lifted the receiver. ‘What can I do for you, Mrs Fraser?’
‘You can get off your fat arse and come out here.’
Bill held the phone away from his ear.
‘That bloody perv along the landing’s been topped, and I can see my Megan on his computer screen. What you going to do about it?’
‘What d’you mean, he’s been topped?’
‘Just what I said. He’s been bloody topped.’
‘You mean he’s dead?’
‘Isn’t that what I just said? He’s as dead as a bloody doornail, couldn’t be any deader. And he’s got queer green beads in his eyes. Weird, that’s what it is.’
‘Where are you, Mrs Fraser?’ Bill pulled a paper pad in front of him and got ready to scribble.
‘I’m in the bloody perv’s flat, that’s where I am.’
‘Where is this flat?’
‘Along the landing from me. I already told you.’
Bill sighed. ‘Which end of the landing?’
‘You should bloody know, it’s the one I saw you going to yesterday.’
Bill’s hand tightened on the pencil and the point snapped when it dug into the paper. ‘Paul Carnegie’s flat?’
‘Yeah, I think that’s his name.’
‘Are you in the flat now?’
‘Yeah, that’s what I told you, and my Megan’s on his computer screen.’
‘What you need to do, Mrs Fraser, is to leave the flat now. Don’t touch anything. Go and wait in your own flat until we arrive.’
Bill scribbled the address onto a piece of paper before hurrying over to Blair’s desk. ‘We’ve got a body, get the police surgeon and the SOCOs there pronto. I’ll let the DI know, she’s going to want to check it out.’
Bill grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair and hurried over to where Kate and Sue were deep in discussion.
‘We’ve got a situation. Paul Carnegie’s body has just been found by Mrs Fraser. She says he’s been topped. It seems genuine because she also says he’s got green beads in his eyes.’
Kate turned to face him. ‘Right, first thing we need to do is alert the scene of the crime officers, and the police surgeon, of course.’
‘It’s in hand, ma’am. Blair’s onto them now.’
She nodded her approval. ‘Well, what are you waiting for? We’ll need to get out there.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’