The Dead Tracks (63 page)

    After
the search of the Dead Tracks was completed, a smaller forensic team went over the
burial site Crane had discovered to recover what was left of the thirteen women
Milton Sykes had murdered. They found twelve. The thirteenth grave had animal
bones in it, but no human remains. Even before an anthropologist had got close
to the bodies, I knew what their conclusions would be. Sykes knew the woods
better than anyone: the tiny ravines, the trails, the clearings, the hiding
places. He'd lived on its edges all his life. Crane had lucked out by finding
the twelve Indian women, but inside those fifty acres, tied to the roots of the
place, Jenny Truman would remain hidden. And as long as she lay hidden, maybe
there would always be a feel to its paths. A sense that something was trying to
get away, to claw its way out of the ground and finally find peace.

    The
investigation into Russian organized crime continued after Crane was sentenced,
and police visited him frequently in prison in the months after, trying to
build a case. No one outside the task force knew how much Crane was willing to
play ball, or how much he even really knew, but I heard from a couple of people
that the prison service had rolled out an unofficial protection detail on the
advice of the police - to prevent Crane being got at on the inside - and that
they were closer to Akim Gobulev than they'd ever been.

    Maybe
that was true. But I hoped, most days, the police remembered the sacrifice
they'd made to get there. Six dead women, including Leanne. Three more — Megan,
Sona and Jill — lucky to be alive. Susan Markham. And then Crane's own wife and
child.

    Eventually,
I went to visit Jill at home. She still had heavy bandaging around the top of
her forehead where surgeons had sewn her skin back on to her scalp. But
otherwise she looked good. Minimal bruising. little visible damage. She made
some coffee while I stood at the kitchen door listening to her description of
the night the man she thought was Aron Crane had come for her.

    As we
talked, she played with the St Michael pendant at her neck, occasionally
glancing at the photographs of her husband looking down at us from the
mantelpiece. I saw a lot of myself in her at that moment; having to remind
herself over and over that the one person she could rely on, the one person she
could trust most in this world, was gone for good. And as I left her house and
walked to my car, I realized - after what Crane had done to her - it might be a
long time before she gained enough distance to trust again.

    Megan
was discharged at the same time as Jill. She'd suffered bumps and bruises but
the baby was fine. James and Caroline Carver picked her up at the hospital,
crying among a scrum of photographers as they walked her back to the car. Soon
Megan was crying too. She told them she was sorry for the secrets she'd kept,
and sorry for ever believing Daniel Markham. When they got home, the tears
stopped for a while as the Carvers told her everything that had happened while
she'd been gone. And then they took their pregnant daughter back upstairs to
her bedroom and the Carvers—James, Caroline and Megan—spent ten minutes on the
edge of her bed, holding each other, while Leigh played on the floor beside
them.

    Megan
gave birth to a baby girl a week early. They called her Faith. She wouldn't
ever know her father, and - given everything he had done — maybe that was for
the best. But, one day, Megan might tell her of the things she'd had to endure
to bring her daughter into the world — and how it was worth every moment of the
doubt and fear she'd experienced along the way.

    The
Healy family finally buried Leanne on 3 November. It was a big Catholic
ceremony in a huge church near their home in St Albans. The Irish side of the
family flew over from Cork, packing the aisles at the front, and Leanne's friends
filled out the middle. I sat at the back next to Phillips, Chief Superintendent
Bartholomew and a couple of other members of the task force who had helped
Healy, in those first few weeks after her disappearance, to try and find
Leanne.

    Until
the shoot-out at the woods, Healy wouldn't have wanted Phillips there, and
Phillips wouldn't have come. But in the bullet Phillips had taken in the leg,
and in the wounds Healy had taken in his chest, they had some common ground. As
well as that, Phillips had agreed to stand as a character witness for Healy at
his review hearing. It was a selfish gesture in many ways, there as a way to
prevent Healy from talking publicly about everything the task force had kept
suppressed. But Phillips was highly rated and it would look good for Healy to
have him there. At the wake afterwards, they talked uncomfortably for a while —
Phillips signed off on sick for a month; Healy indefinitely suspended pending a
review by the Directorate of Professional Standards — and then Phillips hobbled
away on crutches and headed back down to London.

    Most
of the others who'd been there with us that night weren't so lucky. Jamie Hart
had spent his first three days rigged up to life support after a bullet
perforated his lung and lodged in his throat. Forty-eight hours later, his wife
decided to turn the machine off. Three uniformed officers had also been killed,
and the paramedic died on arrival at Whitechapel. The SFO who had provided the
cover for me had taken a bullet, but survived, and so had one of the dog
handlers. Aron Crane might not have fired the guns, but he was responsible for
a bloodbath.

    When
the sun started falling in the sky, I left the wake and walked back across
Verulamium Park to my car. As I started the engine, I looked up and saw Gemma
Healy coming across the grass towards my BMW. She was in her late forties, but
wore it pretty well: dark hair, a petite frame, tiny creases funnelling out
from green eyes, and a strength and assurance in her movements that suggested she'd
known pain and handled it better than her husband. For a moment, I thought she
was heading to the church. But then she continued towards me and waited while I
buzzed the window down.

    'Hello,'
she said softly. She also had an Irish accent, stronger than her husband's.
'We've never met before, but I know who you are.'

    I
smiled. 'I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing.'

    'It's
good,' she replied, and managed a smile. 'I just wanted to thank you for what
you've done. Away from my husband.' She paused, corrected herself. 'Ex
husband.'

    'I
don't understand.'

    'He
needed you. He needed someone strong to rein in his excesses. I don't know what
you found in that place, and I don't want to know. But I was married to Colm
for long enough to know that, in order for you to get him there, in order to
contain him, you would have had to have been strong enough to face down his
arrogance, his anger and his resentment. And as I can tell you from personal
experience, that takes some doing.'

    I
nodded, not entirely sure how to respond.

    'So
thank you,' she added quietly.

    She
went to walk away, and, as she did, I killed the engine. She looked back at me,
brow furrowed, eyes moving back and forth across my face.

    'Has
he ever told you why he did it?'

    She
knew what I meant. Subconsciously she reached to the spot on her face that he
must have struck, and brushed it with a couple of fingers. Then she shook her
head.

    'It wasn't
the affair,' I said, and watched colour briefly fill her cheeks. 'It was the
fact that he thought everyone had turned their backs on him.'

    'He
still shouldn't have done it.'

    'I
totally agree.'

    'And
I can't forgive him.'

    I let
her know that I understood that too. 'I know why you walked away from him. I
even know why you did what you did. But the isolation you felt before you made
that decision, that's what he felt in those last few months. That's what he
felt when we were looking for your daughter. You hated him. Leanne hated him.
He had a case that completely consumed him. But he bottled it up and he pushed
it down, and something had to give. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying
that, if you felt he'd turned his back on you, then I think he might have felt
the same.'

    She
studied me, but didn't say anything.

    'I'm
sorry,' I said. 'This is none of my business.'

    'No,'
she said, and held up a hand in front of her. 'It's fine. I just… the Colm
you're telling me about isn't the Colm I've come to know over the past year.'

    I
told her that I understood, and started up the car.

    Gemma
studied me, as if she was about to ask me something, but then turned on her
heel and started walking away. After about five paces, she stopped and looked
back at me. 'How long Does it take?' she asked gently.

    I
looked at her, her eyes glistening in the half-light of the evening. Healy had
asked me the same question two days before, and I wondered why they would both
think I had the answer. Perhaps I still carried a sadness around with me, a
stain in the fabric of my skin. Or perhaps they saw faint signs of hope, of
recovery. A man who had been through the darkness and was standing in the light
at the other end.

    You
say goodbye to them eventually,' I replied, the sun disappearing beyond a copse
of trees behind us. 'But, the truth is… you never let them go.'

    The
sound of the shower woke me at six-thirty. As I slowly stirred, I lay on my
back and looked up at the ceiling, steam crawling out through the partially
open bathroom door. The bed was empty and the bedroom was cold. I pulled the
duvet up and rolled over, studying the photograph of Derryn on my side table. I
knew every inch of her face so well: the shape of her eyes, the way her mouth
turned up when she smiled, the pattern of her freckles, the curve of her body.
Next to the frame was a black coffee, steam rising from inside the mug.

    The
shower stopped.

    I sat
up, sipped on the coffee and watched through the gap in the door. The noise of
the shower door opening. An arm reaching to the rail for a towel. One side of a
body, water droplets running down the skin, tracing the waist and the hips.

    Outside,
rain spat against the window.

    I
glanced at the picture of Derryn again and then went to the window. The first
pinpricks of day pierced a smear of cloud beyond the houses opposite. I pulled
on a pair of boxers and watched one of my neighbours filling his car full of
junk. When he was done, his wife came down the drive to him, kissed him, and
watched him pull out and disappear along the road.

    'Morning.'

    I
turned. Liz was standing looking at me, a towel around her, her hair darkened
by water and sitting against one of her shoulders like a thick tail.

    'Morning,'
I said, smiling, and held up the coffee. 'Thanks.'

    'You're
welcome.' She moved around to my side of the bed, then perched herself on the
edge. I sat down next to her. 'How are you feeling?' she asked.

    I
looked at her. She blinked, a little water breaking free from her hairline and
running down her cheek.

    'I
feel good. You?'

    She
nodded. 'Sorry it's so early.'

    'Are
you in court today?'

    'No,'
she said, her eyes moving across my face. 'I'm driving up to Warwick to see Katie
again. She's meeting with an investment bank about a graduate programme next
week. I'll give her the old mum-to-daughter pep talk and then we'll probably
head into Birmingham and go shopping'

    'You
excited about seeing her again?'

    'Very.'

    I
remembered the photographs of them I'd seen at Liz's. Katie looked a lot like
her mum. She was also beautiful, except with even longer, darker hair.

    'I'm
sorry.'

    I
looked at Liz. 'For what?'

    'For
just having to leave like this.'

    'You're
not just leaving,' I said. You're leaving to see your daughter. That's the best
kind of excuse.' I took another sip of coffee. 'And in any case, this is a mean
cup of coffee to depart on.'

    She
leaned into me and kissed me. When she moved away again, her eyes were fixed on
mine. She looked like she was expecting me to flinch.