Safe House (26 page)

He delved inside the pocket of his mackintosh. Removed a mobile phone. Showed me the display.

‘Ring any bells?’

It was a close-up photograph of a man. A headshot. The man was sleeping. He was rugged-looking, with close-cropped hair and a fuzz of stubble below his lower lip. I recognised him instantly. The shock of it made me take a step backwards.

‘That’s the paramedic,’ I said. ‘The one who treated me after my bike accident. The one who said Lena had to be taken in the first ambulance.’

 My response didn’t seem to surprise him. He didn’t challenge it, either. He didn’t remind me that he’d discounted my story about the first ambulance and the missing blonde long ago. I thought that was interesting. I was about to discover it was a lot more than that.

‘You notice anyone outside Teare’s place last night? Anyone hanging around?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Anyone come to the door while you were inside?’

‘There was nobody.’ I scratched my lower arm through the sling. ‘At least, no one that I saw.’

‘Teare mention anything to you? She say anything about being watched?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Nothing like that. We just wanted to speak to her.’

‘You and Rebecca Lewis.’

‘That’s right.’

Shimmin gathered up his phone and slurped his coffee while he prodded more buttons with his thumb. I felt like I needed to sit down. I chose the same stool Rebecca had been sitting on just hours before. Cupped the elbow of my dud arm in my hand. My shoulder was sore this morning. It felt like crushed glass was moving around in the joint.

‘Going to show you something else,’ Shimmin said. ‘It’s not pretty.’

He showed me. He was right. It wasn’t pretty.

It was another image of the paramedic with the soul-patch. This time, the photograph had been taken from farther away, like the first image had been snapped by someone crouching low over him, and then for the second photograph they’d straightened and taken a step backwards. The expression on his face was exactly the same. But I could see now that he wasn’t sleeping. He was dead.

He was lying against a dark-green carpet and a painted skirting board, and his head was tilted on a grotesque angle, pivoted backwards and side-on to his torso, as if someone had tried to pluck it clean from his shoulders. The skin of his neck was swollen and rolled up in folds, like blood and fluids had collected beneath it. It was stained a sickly greenish-mauve.

‘I told you Teare left a message on my machine,’ Shimmin said, his voice sounding a long way away. ‘She asked me to call round this morning before work. I was there by seven fifteen. Nobody answered the door. I went around back. Her patio door was wide open. I found this guy at the bottom of the stairs. Jackie was lying right next to him. I don’t reckon I’ll show you a picture of her.’

I felt the strength go out of me. Felt it drain down through my body and out through my toes.

‘Are you saying DS Teare is dead?’

Shimmin’s deep-set eyes bored into me. ‘Very.’

I swallowed. Tried to stay with it. ‘Am I a suspect?’

His eyes stayed fixed on me. ‘Should you be?’

‘No.’ My voice had gone hoarse. The word was little more than a croak. ‘We just wanted to talk to her about Lena. About the investigation into Laura’s death.’

Shimmin set his jaw. ‘I told you to move on. To leave all that alone.’

‘You knew this might happen?’

He bowed his head. Looked down into the polished granite. I could see the thinning strands of hair on his skull. The patina of blotched skin beneath. ‘Nothing this bad.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

And I meant it, too. Not just because of the horror of what had happened to Teare. But also because I feared I was culpable to some extent. I was thinking about the phone call Rebecca had made to the number she’d obtained from the emergency control centre. Her impersonation of Teare and the denials from the man on the other end of the line. His abrupt end to the call. If he was somehow involved in Lena’s abduction, we’d given him Teare’s name. We might have led him straight to her.

Could the man Rebecca had spoken with have been the paramedic? I thought about telling Shimmin, but I didn’t think all that hard. It was obvious he’d been concealing things from me. That he’d worked to shut down the investigation into Lena’s abduction just as we’d suspected.

‘Did the paramedic kill Teare?’

‘Too early to say. But it looks like they were engaged in a struggle of some kind. Jackie’s hair and her T-shirt were damp. There was water on the bathroom floor. It could be he surprised her when she was about to take a bath. She must have gotten free and made it as far as the stairs. Looks like they fell together and the guy broke his neck. I don’t suppose Jackie had any fight left by then.’

‘Do you know who he was?’

‘No ID on the body. But we’ll find out.’

He looked like he meant it but I didn’t rate his chances. I was getting a clearer idea of the types of people involved in this mess now. I didn’t think they were average crooks or ordinary criminals. I thought they were trained professionals. Capable of anything. Maybe capable of having killed my sister.

‘Is this connected to Laura?’ I asked.

Shimmin glowered at me. He didn’t answer. Didn’t need to.

‘That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Because you mishandled the investigation into her death. Because these people were involved somehow. And now you don’t want me shooting my mouth off. Making life difficult for you.’

‘That’s not why.’ His speech was deliberate. Like he was fighting to control his temper.

‘Then why all this talk about you not being here? You’re covering your back.’

Shimmin snatched up his coffee cup and drank greedily. He pulled a face and set it back down.

‘I’m meant to be on my way to the station. I called in the scene as soon as I found it. There’s a SOCO unit there now. I have to co-ordinate the investigation. Work out where we go with this thing next.’ He took a step forwards. Then he stopped himself. ‘I came here to warn you, is all. To tell you to leave this thing alone. Leave it to us.’

‘So you can bury it? Bury what happened to my sister?’

‘I’m telling you for your own safety. There are factors at work here we can’t control. People playing by their own rules.’

I paused for a moment. Absorbed his words. ‘Based on what you just said, I’m assuming you know what my sister really did for a living.’

‘Bare bones.’

‘My parents told you?’

‘Your dad.’

I drew a sharp breath and felt my ribs smart. It was something I’d been afraid of. Something I’d begun to suspect. My parents knew about Laura’s real job and they hadn’t told me, not even after she’d died. It was impossible for me to believe that Dad could know something like that about Laura and not share it with Mum. It explained how evasive she’d been when I’d asked her about Laura’s connection to Rebecca and it also explained why Mum had hired Rebecca to look into Laura’s death in the first place.

I can’t pretend it didn’t sting. They’d shut me out. And yes, they were probably trying to protect me. To shelter me from the questions that must have been plaguing them since Laura had died. Had her job had something to do with her death? Was her suicide all that it seemed?

I said, ‘You knew what the cottage was used for in the plantation, didn’t you?’

‘I had a sense of what could be up there. The characters who might be involved.’

‘My sister?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Did you have doubts about her death? That it was really a suicide?’

Shimmin pursed his lips. The muscles around his eyes tightened, shrouding them even more. ‘No doubts.’

‘You’re sure? Rebecca had some observations.’

‘What kind of observations?’

‘Mostly it was about where Laura crashed. Almost the whole of Marine Drive is edged by sheer cliff. But Laura went over where there’s a spit of land.’

‘Still a hell of a drop. She didn’t stand a chance. I’m sorry.’

‘What if I asked to see the autopsy report? What if I demanded to speak to the coroner?’

He raised a hand. Patted the air. I wasn’t sure if he was signalling for me to shut up or if it was just his frustration manifesting itself.

‘This whole thing is complicated enough already.’

‘So what are you going to do? Pretend none of it is happening again?’

‘I had my reasons.’

‘Tell that to Teare.’

I thought he was going to swing for me. He looked like he had it in mind. His shoulders had bunched. His right fist had tightened into a hard weight on the end of his arm. But he controlled himself. He held himself in. Then he growled in frustration and raised his eyes to the ceiling. Like he was searching for something there. Patience or forgiveness or strength of will. He shook his head, as if whatever he’d been seeking had eluded him.

‘I need to speak to Rebecca Lewis,’ he said.

I didn’t remind him that she’d been trying to speak with him during the past few days. I didn’t mention that he’d ejected her from his own police station. I just said, ‘I don’t know where she is right now.’

‘You didn’t arrange to meet up today?’

‘We hadn’t made any plans.’

‘So call her. Ask her what her movements are going to be.’

I climbed down off my stool and went into my bedroom to fetch my phone. When I returned to the kitchen, Shimmin had his notebook out, pen at the ready.

I dialled Rebecca’s number and listened to the phone ring. It kept ringing. I raised my eyebrows at Shimmin. Let it ring some more. I held my mobile against my ear until the ringing stopped and a flat tone replaced it.

‘No answer,’ I said.

‘Try again.’

I did as he said. I listened to the ringing. I listened to the flat tone. Same result.

Shimmin said, ‘OK, give me the number.’

I called it up on screen. Passed my mobile across to him. He copied the details into his pocketbook. Then he turned to the back and removed a business card. Plain white stock. Navy-blue font. It had the crest of the Manx Constabulary on the front of it. Shimmin’s contact details below. He laid the card on top of my phone and slid it across to me.

‘Call me if she gets in touch.’

‘OK.’

‘As
soon
as she gets in touch.’ He checked his watch. ‘I have to go.’ He seemed to hesitate, as if he was debating whether to take me with him. ‘I’m going to try and keep your name out of this. At least to begin with. I don’t know how that’ll go. I can’t tell you how long it might last. But I’m going to give it my best shot.’

‘How come?’

‘Because,’ he said, ‘your family has had enough on their plate just recently. And because, lad, I’m not the ogre you might take me for.’

He offered me his hand to shake. It was warm and cushioned. I watched him walk away down my stairs. Watched him walk out my front door. And all the time I was wondering why he’d go out on a limb for me. I was asking myself what was in it for him?

Chapter Thirty-eight

Lena lay curled on the pink duvet in the soundproofed room. Her stomach cramped and gurgled.

The pizza had been limp and greasy and barely lukewarm. But she’d been ravenous and she’d devoured it. And now her guts were squelching and squirming. Belching and burping. Perhaps it was just as well that the room was soundproofed.

Lena calculated that she’d been back inside the room for more than six hours. It was light outside but it was difficult to tell exactly how long the sun had been up because of the coloured film on the window glass. The radio news had said that it was two in the morning when the man had told her to return to the room. She could tell that he’d wanted to sleep. He needed her locked away before he could do that.

She’d tried communicating with the man over the pizza. She’d put her clothes back on, like he’d told her to, and she’d folded out the second deckchair and settled down opposite him. The man had slid a boxed pepperoni across the floor. Lena was a vegetarian, so she’d picked the slices of spicy sausage out of the cheese and tomato paste and piled them up inside the box lid.

‘How long will you keep me here?’ she asked.

The man didn’t reply. He acted like he hadn’t even heard the question.

‘When will you give me to the police? When will I be arrested?’

The man said nothing. He chewed his pizza in silence. A blank expression on his face.

‘Have you called my father?’

No response.

‘Why did they give me to you? They were going to give me to the police, but they changed their mind. Do you work with them? Do you work with somebody else?’

Finally, the man looked at her. He frowned. Inclined his ear towards the radio. Raised a grease-slicked finger to his lips.

Save your energy
, his expression seemed to say.
Don’t embarrass yourself. Just eat and keep quiet.

So she’d chewed her pizza and she’d drunk a litre bottle of lemonade and she’d settled back and listened to the orchestral music. Then the 2 a.m. news bulletin had come on. The same bulletin she’d heard an hour before. And the man had stretched and yawned and told her to get up, and then he’d locked her inside the soundproofed room.

She hadn’t slept. Not for one minute. Not for one second. She still felt groggy but she’d wanted to get a head start on her thinking. She had to think very hard. She had to be focused. She had to concentrate on her situation and find a weakness to exploit. There had to be one. There always was. And she had all the motivation in the world to find it.

She was still thinking, hours later, when she heard the lock
thunk
back inside the door. Then the door opened and another man filled the doorway. She’d seen this guy before, too. He was the driver of the car that had come to pick them up from the beach hut.

He didn’t look all that different from the man with the pizza. Sensible haircut. Plain, forgettable face. A white-and-brown check shirt tucked into a pair of pressed chinos.

‘Bathroom break,’ the man said. ‘And don’t bother getting naked. I’ve seen plenty better. Believe me.’

Chapter Thirty-nine