The Carrier (42 page)

‘All right,’ I say eventually. ‘I drew a stupid conclusion.’

‘The other picture, the first one . . .’ Charlie leaves the sentence hanging.

‘I tore up the other picture. It doesn’t exist any more. Thug X. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to hear it.’

‘The man in the photograph you tore up was Jason Cookson,’ says Waterhouse.

‘I knew you’d say that. I knew it.’

‘I’m saying it because it’s true.’

It should make no difference. I walked in here knowing Jason Cookson was responsible for what happened to me; why do I feel as if he’s used Waterhouse as a conduit to attack me all over again, as if evil has crept one step closer?

‘Gaby, there’s something I need to tell you that might come as a shock,’ says Charlie.

Can you be shocked when you’re already in shock? In an ideal world, the second shock would cancel out the first. Jason Cookson would cancel out Wayne Cuffley; neither of them would exist.

‘Gaby?’

‘What?’

‘Jason Cookson’s dead. His death wasn’t natural or accidental.’

Good. Good to both statements.

‘Gaby? Did you hear what I said? Jason’s been killed.’

‘I heard,’ I tell her. ‘I’m glad.’

‘Jason Cookson and Francine Breary.’ Proust stood in front of the whiteboard where their enlarged photographs were displayed. ‘What do they have in common? Come on. No answer too obvious.’

‘Both murdered,’ said Sellers.

‘Except that one, detective. Try harder.’

Sam had nothing to offer, obvious or otherwise. The two glasses of wine he’d poured down his throat when he got home last night had taken the edge off the image of Jason Cookson’s dead body in his memory, but he was paying for it this morning. I must be getting old, he thought. Since when were two glasses of wine enough to give him a fuzzy head the next day?

‘Two people you wouldn’t want to be in a relationship with,’ Gibbs said. ‘Both abusive to their partners in different ways.’

‘Evidence?’ said Proust.

‘Kerry Jose’s description of Tim and Francine Breary’s marriage, and a catalogue of horrors from Cookson’s ex-girlfriend.’

‘Hearsay,’ said Proust. ‘Still, I don’t think we doubt any of it, do we? So, now that we’re all but certain it was Cookson who terrorised Gaby Struthers, it’ll be interesting to hear what she has to say about what happened on Friday, assuming Waterhouse and Sergeant Zailer manage to get anything out of her. If she won’t talk, it’s probably because she’s too embarrassed to go into the kind of detail we’ve had this morning from Cookson’s ex Becky Grafham: forced to stand naked on a chair in the middle of the room with a noose round her neck attached to a light fitting, stripped and penetrated with a tube of lipstick for going out with too much make-up on. Et cetera. Put that together with what Kerry Jose told Sergeant Zailer about the suffering inflicted on Tim Breary by Francine, and we might conclude . . . what? Oh, come on, it’s not hard! Is the world any worse off without these two in it?’ Proust hit the whiteboard with the back of his hand.

‘So we’re on the killer’s side?’ Gibbs asked.

‘We’re on the law’s side. That said, we’re probably not looking for the usual self-seeking pond scum, but for an altruist with a strong sense of justice. Anyone fitting that description spring to mind?’

‘Lauren Cookson,’ said Gibbs.

Sellers chuckled.

‘I’m being serious. When Gaby Struthers came in on Friday, I suggested to her that Lauren might have killed Francine Breary. Gaby said no, Lauren would think it was unfair to murder someone.’

‘She might have made an exception for Jason, assuming he subjected her to the same kind of torture he put Becky Grafham through,’ Sellers pointed out.

‘She’s got an alibi,’ said Sam. ‘Jason was killed between midnight and 4 a.m. on Friday night, provisionally. Lauren was—’

‘It’s not possible to kill someone provisionally, Sergeant.’

‘The timing’s provisional, I meant. The post-mortem will confirm it.’

‘And when it does, Lauren Cookson’s alibi will still be worthless and an insult to every serving police officer and every victim of violent crime in the Culver Valley, because the same liars providing that alibi, Dan and Kerry Jose, also said that Jason Cookson was at home on Friday from 4.30 p.m. onwards. Perhaps he was, but if so, he was also being murdered during that period, which no one mentioned. I’d call that a significant omission – wouldn’t you, Sergeant?’

‘Yes, sir. I tried to ring the Joses and Lauren first thing this morning. I drove round there too. No one’s answering any phones or doors.’

‘Good,’ said Proust.

‘Good?’

‘What’s the point in talking to them?’ the Snowman barked. ‘What’s the point in listening to them? They do nothing but lie. Let’s discount everything they’ve told us and use our brains instead. Lauren Cookson
doesn’t
have an alibi for Jason’s murder – not one that’s worth anything.’

Sam nodded, embarrassed. He wouldn’t have needed to be reminded of this if he hadn’t been hungover.

‘The Dower House Disobligers didn’t report Jason Cookson missing on Friday night,’ said Proust. ‘This tells us what?’

‘They knew why he wasn’t at home,’ said Gibbs. ‘They knew he was busy being killed somewhere else, and they knew who was killing him. It could have been one of them, or someone known to them: Gaby Struthers, maybe. Either way, they knew.’

‘Wouldn’t it have made sense for them to report him missing, in that case?’ Proust asked. ‘That’s what they’d have done if they were innocent and had no idea where Cookson was.’

‘It’s possible they needed time to cover their tracks,’ said Sam. ‘They wouldn’t want anyone looking for Jason while they did that, so they pretended he wasn’t missing. Though obviously that contradicts what happened next.’

‘So, what, they changed their minds?’ Proust frowned. ‘Decided to roll Cookson’s body across our car park in the direction of your feet instead?’

‘The decision to dump the body at the nick could have been a deviation from the original plan,’ said Gibbs.

‘It was certainly a deviation from Cookson’s plan to help his friend renovate a house on Saturday,’ Proust said. For a few seconds, the hint of a smile hovered around his lips. ‘All right, let’s search everywhere Cookson’s likely to have been killed: break into the Dower House if you have to. Sean Hamer’s home, Gaby Struthers’ hotel room . . .’

‘Gaby’s work?’ Sellers suggested. ‘Lauren’s parents’ places?’

‘All of the above,’ said Proust. ‘And . . .’ He stopped and leaned to his right, looking past Sam. ‘PC Meakin, that door ought to be closed. Since it isn’t, I suggest you put yourself on the other side of where it would be if it were. And assume the bearing of a man who’s happy to be ignored until the end of a case briefing, keeping in mind that no one cares if you’re happy or not.’

‘Sir, there’s a man downstairs asking about Francine Breary’s murder. I thought I should nip up and tell you. He wants to talk to a detective.’

Proust inhaled ominously: the breathing equivalent of pulling back the bow in anticipation of firing the arrow. ‘There are four men
up
stairs asking about Francine Breary’s murder, Meakin. You’ve just interrupted them.’

‘He also wants to confess to a murder, sir. Nothing to do with Francine Breary, he says.’

‘I see. One of those. He wants to stand in reception and say, “murder” as often as he can?’

‘He could be a crank, sir, but he reckons he killed someone on Friday night – a man called Jason Cookson.’

‘What?’

Meakin took a step back as Sam, Sellers and Proust all moved towards him at the same time.

Jason Cookson, dead. Lauren’s husband. The man who attacked me.

‘Right,’ I say for the sake of saying something. The sound of my voice is proof that I’m not alone; if I were, I wouldn’t bother to speak. I can’t let Charlie and Waterhouse see how much trouble I’m having processing each new piece of information. It’s lucky mind-reading is impossible; mine at the moment would be illegible. They’d probably have me sectioned.

I wish Wayne Cuffley were dead too, though he probably had nothing to do with what happened to me on Friday. His warning was the same as Jason’s: stay away from Lauren. That’s enough to make me wish him dead. He might not have done what Jason did to me, but I’m sure he would have approved.

‘Who did it?’ I ask.

‘You mean who killed Jason?’

For about five seconds, I wonder if I might have murdered him, then filed the memory in an inaccessible part of my brain to avoid giving myself away.

I wish I hadn’t ripped up the photograph. An urge grips me: to look at his face and savour the knowledge that it’s rotting in a morgue somewhere. Nearby, probably; it would make sense for the morgue to be near the police station.

I would like to see Jason in the cold lifeless flesh, stripped naked on a tray in a long, silver drawer. Is there a tactful way of asking?

‘Jason was killed between midnight and 4 a.m. on Friday night, early hours of Saturday morning,’ Waterhouse says. ‘Exactly when we can’t account for your whereabouts. I’d like to know where you were. I think Sergeant Zailer’s already spoken to you about legal representation . . .’

‘I don’t want a lawyer. I wish I had murdered Jason Cookson, but I didn’t. If I were a plagiarist like Tim, I might try and take the credit.’

‘Gaby, we don’t for one second think you killed Jason,’ says Charlie. ‘I know you didn’t.’

‘No, you don’t. You’ll only know for sure if I tell you where I spent Friday night.’

‘Go ahead,’ says Waterhouse. ‘The sooner you do, the sooner I stop asking myself if you pretended not to be able to identify a man you had good reason to want dead.’

‘Between midnight and 4 a.m.? I was in the Proscenium Library’s car park on Teago Street.’

‘In your car?’ Charlie asks.

‘Most of the time, yeah. I arrived at about eleven and stayed till seven fifteen the next morning.’

‘Teago Street?’ Waterhouse frowns. ‘I’ve been to the Proscenium – it’s on The Mallows.’

‘The entrance to the car park’s on Teago Street, behind the library,’ I tell him. ‘It’s a private car park with a big gate and a keypad. Only staff and members know the code. It’s generally pretty empty after six when the library closes, and always totally empty after eleven, eleven fifteen. Any members who’ve parked there to go out for dinner or to the cinema or theatre are gone by then. Talk to the librarian, May Geraghty. Ask her for Friday night’s CCTV footage from the car park – she’ll be in ecstasies. She’s prouder of her top-notch security system than any normal person who isn’t obsessed with rare books could possibly imagine.’

‘CCTV?’ Waterhouse passes another silent message to Charlie with his eyes.

‘There were two break-ins last year,’ I tell him. ‘All the members clubbed together to pay for the cameras – a fiver in most cases. People whose lives revolve around antiquarian books aren’t generally very well off. I put in more than half of the money. It felt worthwhile at the time, to protect the Proscenium’s collection, and it feels even more worthwhile now.’ Without my contribution, the cameras wouldn’t have been affordable; I wouldn’t be able to prove I didn’t kill Jason Cookson.

‘So if I watch this footage, will I see you?’ Waterhouse asks. ‘Or just your car?’

‘You’ll see the car drive in and stay there all night. That’ll be exciting viewing for you. Once or twice you’ll see me get out of the car, stand next to it crying, then get back in. You’ll be in the middle of your seat. As in: not at all on the edge of your seat,’ I say in response to Waterhouse’s puzzled frown. ‘That’s what Tim used to say about boring films: “I was in the middle of my seat throughout.”’

‘Why did you get out of the car once or twice?’ Charlie asks.

‘To prove to myself that I wasn’t trapped in a small metal box. It was more than twice. Three or four times, maybe. Mostly, I felt safest in the car with the doors locked, but then I’d start to panic about not being able to breathe, running out of oxygen. What if I couldn’t open the door and get out if I needed to? What if the locks had jammed? I had to get out into the open air when I started thinking like that.’

‘But then you’d get back in and lock the doors again, knowing the effect it would have on you. Inviting the panic to recur.’ Waterhouse sounds unimpressed.

Is he serious? ‘I was inconsistent, yes. Well spotted. Sorry, are most victims of terrifying attacks more focused than I am? Do they dust themselves off and immediately set about pursuing a coherent goal?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘Though you’re not what I’d call typical.’

‘Really? I suspect I’d have to visit another solar system to find anything you’d call typical.’ I turn my chair so that I’m facing Charlie. ‘I couldn’t stand next to the car all night. It was freezing. I couldn’t . . . I felt as if the cold would kill me if I stayed out in it, and I didn’t know where he was – Jason. He could have crept up on me again. I was in an empty car park in a silent part of town, no one around. I know it sounds stupid.’

‘It doesn’t at all,’ Charlie says.

‘He attacked me outside my house when I thought I was totally safe. There was no warning, I didn’t hear him coming. What was to stop him doing it again?’ I laugh, surprising myself as much as Waterhouse and Charlie. ‘If I asked myself that question now, I’d have an answer, wouldn’t I? Violent death. The best possible answer to the Jason Cookson question.’ I like the sound of my voice saying those words: as if I coolly planned his extermination. ‘How was he killed?’
Did he suffer enough?

‘Can you fill in a gap for me?’ says Waterhouse. ‘You were attacked behind your house early evening, but you didn’t arrive at the Teago Street car park till eleven. Where were you in between?’

‘Driving. I drove to Combingham airport and back, twice.’ More atypical behaviour; I wonder if Waterhouse will be able to cope. ‘I didn’t want to risk going to the Proscenium car park too early in case anyone else was there and saw me.’

‘Why Combingham airport?’

‘No reason in particular. I drive there all the time. I couldn’t think of anywhere else.’