Authors: Tim Weaver
'Because
I was screwed.'
He
shifted on the spot. Looked out through the door again, then back to me. 'How
do you know this Sykes guy didn't work at the youth club?'
'Because
if he did, why isn't he on their records? For a place like that, you have to
pass CRB checks. And if he did that, his picture and his details would be on
file at the youth club. But he isn't anywhere near the place.'
'So
if it's not him, who is it?'
I
didn't answer. Eyed him. Why should I even trust you?'
'Because
I'm your only friend inside this house. And you're gonna need a friend. Even if
you get bail tonight, the evidence won't go away.'
'Forensics
won't find anything.'
'You
sure?'
'My
prints aren't on the photos.'
'Maybe
they're not,' Healy said, glancing out to the corridor again. 'Or maybe they
are. Maybe the blood in that blouse is yours. Maybe Whoever's setting you up has
been hunting around in your soap and put one of your cock hairs inside the
doll. Who the fuck knows? If he's good enough to set you up, he's good enough
to finish the job. You wanna wait around to find out — or do you want to try
and finish this before you get flushed for something you didn't do?'
'Finish
it?'
He
looked at me, but didn't say anything.
'What
are we finishing, Healy?'
His
eyes drifted outside to the corridor again. He was nervous. On edge. It looked
like he was about to say something, but then he just cleared his throat.
'Why
aren't they linking Leanne to Megan?'
He
frowned. 'What do you mean?'
'We
both know you're still working her case on the quiet. You're still trying to
find out what happened to her. Why aren't they tying Leanne to Megan?'
A
lingering look at me. But no response.
'She
worked at the same place as Megan. She even
looked
a bit like Megan. You
know all this already. You know the youth club is what ties them together.
Everyone here knows that. So why is Phillips telling me they're not linked?'
Silence.
I studied him, and realized his nervousness wasn't borne out of being caught;
it was out of being caught before he'd had the chance to find out where his
daughter had gone. He was fuelled by anger, sadness and revenge. Later on down
the line that could become dangerous. But at the moment it was helping him
focus. No mistakes. No errors. No slip-ups.
'Look,
I'm neck-deep in shit,' I said to him. We can both see that. So I have an
agenda just like you. You want to find your girl; I don't want to go down for
what they're trying to pin on me. I need to be ready for what mud they sling in
my direction next. I need to be armed. You understand that, don't you?'
After
a couple of seconds he nodded.
'Good.'
I paused, studied him. It was going to be hard to get beneath his skin. He
wasn't used to giving things up or sharing information. He looked at me and
away again. He was telling me I would have to go first. And I knew, at the
moment, with the situation I was in, I didn't have much of a choice. 'Daniel
Markham.'
He
flicked a look at me. 'What about him?'
'I
think that's the guy who took Megan.'
'But
we interviewed him.'
'Obviously
not well enough.'
'Why
him?'
'Because
Megan was sleeping with him.'
A
pause. '
What?'
'And
she was pregnant.'
'
What?'
He hardly moved. Just stared at me. Then, finally, he rubbed a hand
across his forehead and turned away. 'By Markham?'
'That's
the assumption.'
Something
flashed in his eyes. There and then gone. A moment's thought that it was Leanne
and not Megan who had been pregnant. A young girl, scared and alone with a man
she thought she'd known - but hadn't really known at all.
'Who
told you this?'
'One
of Megan's friends.'
'And
she didn't think to tell the police?'
'She
was warned off.'
'By
who?'
'Charlie
Bryant.'
'The
dead kid?'
I
nodded. Healy knew the case intimately: all the files, all the names, every word
of every interview. He didn't need me to explain who they were or how they
fitted in.
'How
much of this do Phillips and Davidson know?' he asked.
'Just
that Megan might have been seeing someone at the youth club. They don't know
about the pregnancy.'
'Why
would he warn her off telling the police?'
'I
don't know yet.'
He
looked at his watch. 'What have you found out about Markham?'
I
thought of the flat. The emptiness of it. The message behind the bathroom
cabinet. 'He's definitely involved.'
'Meaning?'
'His
flat. He's not living there any more, but something's up. I can show you when I
get out of here, but I need you to get what you can on him in the meantime. His
CRB check came up clean, so there's nothing on record. But there must be
something'
Healy
nodded. His mind was turning things over. Outside in the corridor, a noise. A
door opening and shutting. Healy looked out. 'Where's PC Harrison?' said a
voice.
It
was Davidson.
'He's
gone to look for you.'
'What
are you doing here?'
'Keeping
an eye on your suspect.'
A
short silence. I could sense the suspicion passing along the corridor. 'What
the hell's taking so long?' Davidson asked.
'He's
having a shit,' Healy replied.
'Tell
him he's got one minute.'
'You've
got one minute,' Healy shouted, looking off to his left, where the stalls ran
in a line. Outside in the corridor the same sound: a door opening and then
closing.
'I
gotta go,' Healy said.
'What
do you know about Frank White?'
A
tiny movement in his face.
'Healy?'
'He
was one of the coppers killed in that shoot-out down in Bow.'
'I
know Phillips is working another case parallel to this one. I know because he
told me. I know Frank White and Megan are connected somehow. Something happened
that night at the warehouse.' Healy didn't say anything. 'Am I right?'
Again
he didn't reply, just pulled the door back and peered out into the corridor.
When he saw no one was there, he pushed it closed again and looked at his
watch.
'Do
you want to find your daughter or not?' I asked him.
'What
kind of a fucking question is that?' He shifted on the spot and looked out
through the door again, then back to me. 'I'll call you. We'll meet somewhere
safer.'
'This
is bullshit, Healy. We had an agreement.'
He
opened the door and paused.
And
then he left.
About
fifty minutes later, I was waiting on the front steps of the police station for
a taxi. Kaitlin had come through for me. She'd told them that there was a guy
at the youth club Megan had become friendly with - but that was as much as she
knew. I'd been released on bail, without charge. Technically, I was out 'before
charge', which meant that once forensics had finished their analysis and the
police had chased down the lead at the youth club, they'd be back for me. Healy
was right: I had a couple of days to try and find out the truth, or they'd be
pulling my life apart and coming at me even harder.
I
called Liz. She was stuck on the motorway, about ten miles out of London. When
she answered, she sounded surprised and confused.
'I've
been released,' I said.
She
paused. 'How come?'
'On
bail.'
'Yeah,
but how come?'
'When
you get back, when I've sorted out a few things, I'll take you for a drink,' I
said to her. She didn't reply. 'And I won't leave anything out.'
Again
she didn't reply, but I could sense a change, even along the phone line. She
could hear my last words for what they were. A confession. I'd lied before;
told her things that weren't true and hidden things that were. And all the time
she'd sat at my side and defended me in front of the law, knowing there were
parts of my life, decisions I'd made, that might never break the surface.
But
now I was signalling a change.
I was
telling her things would be different; and in a strange way, perhaps admitting
that next time we were together I wouldn't pull away from her. I wouldn't have
doubts. I'd take her hand, and I'd step off the cliff.
And I
wouldn't look back.
An
hour after they'd come for me at the house, a separate team had been through my
office. As I opened up and walked inside, I could see mud on the carpet and
damp footprints where detectives had stood at filing cabinets and been through
the drawers of my desk. My computer had been left on, the screensaver — a blue
cube — bouncing back and forth across the monitor. I walked around, trying to
figure out if they'd taken anything, but nothing had been removed.
I
filled the percolator and then dropped into the chair at my desk. As coffee
started to soak through the filter, I let my mind turn over, back to everything
they'd found at the house; to the interview; to Healy hanging me out to dry.
I'd
given him Markham. He'd given me nothing.
That
wasn't how it worked.
As
soon as I left the station, I'd called Spike and asked him to track down
Healy's home address and mobile number. I didn't mind how it played out: with
Healy, or without him, it didn't bother me. But I was going to get what I was
owed.
Pulling
my keyboard towards me, I brought up Google. Megan had disappeared on 3 April.
I put the date into the search engine and punched Return. Over 115 million
hits. Encyclopaedias, blogs, newsletters, press releases,
Facebook
posts, Flickr albums. I moved through the first few pages, trying to spot
anything remotely connected to the case. But apart from news stories posted in
the aftermath of her disappearance, there was nothing. Flipping back to the
first page, I went to a site that listed every major historical event — births,
deaths and everything in between - that had taken place on 3 April. I was
hoping something would leap out from somewhere, a spark. But instead I got more
of the same: nothing.
My
eyes drifted from the monitor to some paperwork on my desk. Hard copies of the
pages from the London Conservation Trust site. I'd printed them out for
reference. Alongside that was the email the LCT had sent Megan six days before
she disappeared. It was dated 27-03-11.I traced a finger along the numbers and,
as I did, a feeling stirred in me, as if I'd drifted close to something. A
recollection. A memory. I stopped, brought the paper closer to me. Studied the
numbers.
Was
there something in the date?
I let
the feeling go for a moment and did a search for the date Leanne had gone missing:
3 January 2011. It took about thirty seconds to realize it wouldn't lead
anywhere. It was exactly the same story as the Google search for Megan — except
there was no major press this time. Megan had ticked all the right boxes:
white, wealthy, bright, beautiful. Leanne was different. Physically not quite
as attractive, educationally middling, working-class background and - unlike
the Carvers — with parents who didn't have a picture-postcard marriage. Leanne
was mentioned once in the
Evening Standard
and once in the
Metro.
I clicked on both stories, one after the other. Both were two paragraphs long,
and both had the same quote from Healy asking Leanne to come home. At the end
it listed the number for a missing persons helpline.