Cry for Help (23 page)

'Now,' he said, 'we're going for a drive.'

Chapter Twenty-two

Friday 2nd September

Half past eleven at night, and the incident room was teeming with activity. People were taking calls, typing, carrying bundles of paper between desks - all of them working a little quicker than usual. The door seemed to be constantly opening and closing, with officers either bringing in fresh information or taking actions away. There was a buzz to the place, a feeling of energy. The team was pulling harder now, because they all knew that in the last few hours everything had changed.

Currie glanced around and thought:

It should feel like we're closing in.

Normally it would have, but despite the activity around him, he was frustrated. Itching to move.

He and Swann were sitting across from each other at the far end of the room, beneath the whiteboard. Currie had spent the last twenty minutes making his own notes in the A3 pad he kept on his desk, but the only thing he seemed to have created was a mess.

He put his pen down and looked at the information on the wall.

Swann raised his eyes from the screen. 'You okay?'

'It feels like we should be doing more.'

'Doesn't it always feel like that?'

A rhetorical question.

Currie said, 'Found anything interesting so far?'

His partner only grunted in reply - what do you think? - and continued to work at the computer. Earlier on, the IT tech had provided them with a CD full of stills from outside the shopping centre where Julie Sadler's phone had been used. Swann was now clicking through them, one photo at a time. Not looking for anything in particular, but looking regardless, because it had to be done.

That task summed up the whole investigation. They'd always been left chasing witness statements, opinions, conjecture: following up every possible lead, no matter how insignificant. Currie had contented himself with that before, because a methodical approach would eventually yield results. If they checked everything, the killer would only have to make one mistake, and they'd catch him off the back of it. Now, it felt like they should be more active.

'But we're doing everything we can,' Swann said.

Currie nodded, but he wasn't convinced.

There were two new names on the board. The first was TORI EDMONDS. Several people in the room were attempting to trace her whereabouts - all of them, so far, without success. There might still be an innocent explanation for her disappearance, of course, but he was sure something had happened to her, and it was this conviction, more than anything, that made Currie need to be moving. Negotiations were in place to access her mobile phone records, but the time involved in arranging that was as frustrating as every other aspect of the case.

The other new name on the board - the one that bothered him equally, in its own way - was DAVE LEWIS.

When they'd interviewed Lewis for Julie Sadler's murder, Currie had been convinced he'd heard the name before, but couldn't remember where. This afternoon, he'd dug it out. When Alison Wilcox has been killed, they'd thrown the Eddie Berries abduction to another team. Priorities. That team had briefly looked into it, then thrown it to the bottom of the pile. Currie had scanned the details in a spare moment the week after, and been pleased to see they'd at least spoken to Drake and Cardall. Both had visited Tori Edmonds at Staunton Hospital the afternoon of Eddie's disappearance, and then gone - where else - to The Wheatfield. A photocopy of the log-in book from the hospital was included in the file to corroborate their story. Dave Lewis had been there too: his name appeared directly under theirs, and he'd left at the same time. So he was connected to that investigation, and now he was doubly connected to the murders.

The person who fled from Tori Edmonds's house when he and Swann arrived had not yet been identified, but Currie would bet money it had been Lewis. Since then, he hadn't returned to his flat and his phone was switched off. Someone had been at his office too - and run when officers showed up. No signs of forced entry. They'd soon have a green light on searching the premises, but that didn't concern him so much as where Lewis and Edmonds were right now.

'How are you doing over there?' Swann said. 'Made any breakthroughs? '

'Ha.'

On the sheet on his desk, Currie had written Lewis's name in the middle. Lines then spiralled out to other names, the vast majority accompanied by question marks and scribbled queries. Some crossed, others went nowhere.

'Okay,' Swann said. 'The usual. Talk me through what we know.'

'We know Dave Lewis dated one of the murdered girls.'

'Julie Sadler.'

'He also dated Tori Edmonds, who now appears to have been abducted by our murderer.'

'Agreed. And where is Lewis now?'

'We don't know. But we know he's run from us at least once, probably twice, and isn't showing up in any of the places he should. What we don't know is why.'

Swann clicked the mouse. 'Bingo.'

'And then there's the fact that, aside from Charlie Drake, Lewis was the last person to see Alex Cardall alive last night. Which brings us to Eddie Berries.'

'Sam, you're not listening to me. I said ''Bingo''.'

Swann's face was pale blue from the light of the monitor in front of him, and he'd stopped clicking the mouse. He wasn't even blinking.

Currie walked around and leaned on his partner's desk - then froze as he saw the image that was on the computer screen. Dave Lewis, in black and white, was turned slightly towards the camera. There was just enough of his face showing to be sure it was him.

'Entered the shopping centre at 11.57. Left again at 12.09.'

You're wasting time with me when you should be out there finding the man who did it.

'We had him,' Currie said. He realised it was precisely this fact that had bothered him the most when they'd written Lewis's name on the whiteboard.

'Yep.' Swann folded his arms, breathing out heavily. 'And we'll get him again.'

The department didn't have anything as grand as a canteen on this floor. Instead they had a small room, which Currie recalled had been a toilet in a previous life. They'd ripped out most of the fittings and stuck a fridge, counter and cupboards beside the sink, and a coffee machine and water-cooler against the far wall.

Currie clicked through on the machine: black, no sugar. It hissed and spat, the liquid rattling down into the small plastic cup.

There was no way he could have known, of course, but still: he was furious with himself. Full of anger and frustration. They'd had Lewis right there in front of them, and they'd let him go. As simple as that. And now Tori Edmonds was missing. Currie kept going back over what had happened, and it all seemed so obvious to him.

If they dug back far enough, he was sure, they'd find something connecting Lewis to the other victims. As it was, they hadn't picked up on him until Julie Sadler. During the interview, Currie had mistaken the shock he'd seen on Lewis's face for surprise that Julie was dead, but now he could see very clearly what it had really been - that Lewis was beginning to panic. He'd thought they were closing in on him. When they'd released him, he'd figured there might not be too much time left, and so he'd started to accelerate.

He moved the first cup out of the way and added another.

Click, whirr.

Of course, it was always easier to blame yourself in hindsight, wasn't it? But Tori Edmonds was still missing. If she died, it would be because of them. Because of what they hadn't done. Yes, hindsight made things easier, but it didn't mean the repercussions would be any less devastating, or the mistakes that led to them any more excusable. That kind of reasoning didn't change a thing. Never had, never would.

As he took the two cups of coffee back along the corridor, the only questions still remaining hung over Eddie Berries and Alex Cardall. He couldn't see how they fitted into this. It was possible they were unconnected, but Currie didn't think so. Lewis had been there the day Drake and Cardall abducted Eddie, and Cardall had met up with Lewis just before he was killed. It couldn't be a coincidence, but he had no idea how those strands came together.

They'd know more when they had Lewis in custody.

And Tori Edmonds home. Safe and sound.

He pulled the office door open with his foot and put Swann's coffee down on the table beside him. His partner was resting his elbows on the desk, his face in his hands. Currie knew Swann must be annoyed with himself as well, because his fingers were messing up his hair and he didn't seem to have noticed.

'Coffee,' he said.

Swann looked up slowly.

Currie frowned. 'What's wrong?'

'Pete Dwyer just called. His team's finished itemising the contents of Alex Cardall's flat.'

Currie blew on his coffee. 'And?'

'They found a stash of heroin and money hidden beneath loose floorboards in the bedroom. And guess what else?'

'Dave Lewis?'

Swann shook his head. Almost laughed.

'Even better than that,' he said. 'Alison Wilcox's mobile phone.'

Chapter Twenty-three

Friday 2nd September

The man stayed on the phone for the whole journey, giving simple directions whenever we approached a junction, staying silent the rest of the time. As we made our way towards the main roads he hung back a little, keeping that same cautious distance between us, and when we joined the ring road he ordered me to hold a steady pace, then allowed his own car to drop even further behind. Even though the other traffic was relatively sparse, I soon lost his vehicle amongst it.

At least it gave me the chance to think. Despite the hum of danger in the air, I was trying to be rational. Everything I knew about him, I was filing away.

I knew he was male, that he could drive, that he either owned or had stolen a car. He understood technology: computers and mobile phones. He had thought all this through, and was being scrupulously careful as he carried it out. At the same time, beneath that precision, he was full of rage - contempt and hatred for me. The way he spoke, it was as though I was responsible for all this. Just like the note he'd left me at Tori's, in fact - the way the neat handwriting contrasted with the jumbled, barely-controlled grammar, as though his temper kept slipping from his grip.

So far it was just small details and impressions. But I was used to working from those during my routines. If you got enough then eventually they added up to a larger picture.

'Right at the next lights.'

'Okay.'

We left the ring road and began to wind our way into the edges of an estate. A row of local shops on the left was shuttered up, the ridges stained with graffiti. The houses were all squat and flat: boring buildings that looked like they'd been patted on the head once too often and would bite the next thing that touched them. A moment later, I saw that his car had reappeared in the rear-view mirror, the same maddening distance away. He'd measured and timed all this perfectly.

'Round to the left,' he told me. 'Park up underneath the second streetlight, then turn off your engine.'

I took the corner, slowing the car slightly as I passed the first, then coming to a halt directly beneath the second. Amber light fell in through the windscreen. I killed the engine and heard the sudden, startling tapping of rain on the roof. The windscreen began to speckle with water, distorting into yellow spider webs.

Behind me, the man parked up just round the turning, allowing more space between us this time.

I glanced either side out of the windows. I had no idea where we were. There were residential houses on the left, with hard, grey faces. On the other side of the road, tarmac lots sloped off behind spiked metal fences, stretching away to single-storey warehouses. A phone box, its glass smashed in, stood back-to-back with a post box on the sodden grass verge.

'Why this place?'

'You'll find out.'

I peered in the mirror and saw it. A CCTV camera on the first lamppost, pointing my way. He'd parked up just short of it.

'So what happens now?'

'Now, you open the box.'

'Okay.'

Nervous as to what I might find, I pulled at the flaps and they sprang open easily. At first glance, the box seemed empty. It was only when I tilted it towards me that something rattled, and then I saw a few strange shapes inside. The contents resolved themselves, and I pushed the box back across the passenger seat.

Clothes.

'The police take an inventory,' the man said. 'Someone close to the victim is asked to say whether anything's missing.'

I tried to suppress the horror I was feeling.

'But who's going to notice a pair of jeans?' he said. 'Or a top? Especially someone who cared so little.'

'Why did you keep them?'

'Because they were precious to me. Take out the phone.'

'What?'

'The fucking mobile. It's on top.'

I reached in and found it. As I lifted it out, the backs of my fingers brushed something soft, and I recoiled. Only clothes. But they were tainted by the circumstances in which they'd ended up here. He'd taken them while a girl was lying emaciated and dead in the room beside him. Julie . . .

'Turn it on.'

It was an old Nokia model: you had to stick a fingernail in the top to activate it. I pressed the button, then waited as the mobile powered up, an image swirling on the screen.

'Go to sent messages. There's only one. Open it.'

I clicked through and selected it. The message appeared.

Hey there. Sorry for silence. Am fine, just busy. Hope u r too. Maybe catch up sometime soon. Tori

Oh God.

'This is her phone?'

He ignored me. 'Press forward, then go into contacts. You'll see a girl called Valerie in there. Send her the message.'

I'd been right earlier on: the man was trying to set me up. But you couldn't just transfer guilt from person to person like that. The police would know. Surely he didn't believe this was going to achieve anything.

He might if he's crazy.