Fall From Grace (35 page)

Turning and heading back up the track, I went to the boot and used the torch to find a crowbar I kept taped to the underside. As I ripped it away I felt a twinge in my upper arm, my elbow, in my collarbone. It delayed me for a moment, the pain becoming more and more difficult to ignore, but then I slammed the boot shut, got in at the wheel and cranked the car into gear. As quickly as I could, I reversed back up the slope.

After hitting the grass, I kept going, further and further back in the direction of the tor. When I was forty feet from the track, swaddled in the night, I killed the lights and the engine, got out and hurried back to the treeline. Suddenly the crowbar felt heavy in my hand – maybe because of my injury, maybe because I didn’t know what was coming in my direction – but the tyre was still sitting in the middle of the road. And as I found a space behind an old, crooked oak tree, I knew that was exactly where I needed it to be.

Ten seconds.

Twenty.

All of a sudden, headlights seemed to appear from nowhere, a quarter of a mile down the track. They swept across the treeline as the road snaked from left to right, but it was impossible to tell what car it was, or who was at the wheel. The lights were too bright, the inside of the car too dark, the rain too heavy. As the car got closer and closer, I could see huge fists of water pounding against the windscreen, each one opening like a lesion on the glass, before running off again.

Maybe it’s Reynolds
.

Maybe he’s forgotten something
.

But then, finally, the car stopped, the door opening, and the soft sound of music carried off, through the rain to where I was crouched behind the tree.

The driver got out, eyes on the tyre in the middle of the road.

It was Melanie Craw.

53

I moved out from behind the trees and down on to the track, Craw silhouetted briefly by her headlights. When she formed again, she was watching me through a wall of rain, her eyes moving from the cuts on my face, to my arm, then off to the dark of the house.

‘What’s going on, Raker?’

She had to shout above the storm. I moved closer to her, trying to think about the reasons she might have come all this way. ‘Craw. What the hell are you doing here?’

‘What happened to you?’

‘What are you doing here?’ I said again.

‘You ever answer your phone?’

I frowned, confused, then felt around in my pocket for my mobile. Rain splashed against the display as I checked it – but I could read it clearly enough.

No missed calls.

‘You never even called me,’ I said.

She looked taken aback. ‘I called you three times today.’

I looked at the phone again. ‘No.’

‘Yes. Three times.’

She dug around in her own pocket and brought out her phone, holding it up for me to see. I took a step closer. In her Recent Calls list was my name: once at two-forty this afternoon; the second time an hour later at three-thirty-one; the third time at five-ten.

I checked my phone again.

Nothing.

‘I didn’t get a single call from you,’ I said.

She studied me, a flicker of suspicion in her face, then put her phone away again and pointed to my arm. ‘What happened?’

‘What are you doing here?’ I said again.

‘I got a call from Derek Cortez at lunchtime.’

Cortez: the retired cop in the village
.

‘Cortez? Why?’

‘He said he saw someone coming up to the house.’

‘Yeah. Me.’

‘Well, I know that now.’

‘So you came all the way down here, just to be sure?’

She looked at me, and it was clear that wasn’t everything. ‘He said he saw someone up here three days ago.’

Reynolds
.

He’d come to set up his makeshift alarm system. But three days ago, the case had barely even started. Three days ago, I was only just arriving at the members’ club to meet Craw. Yet he already had knowledge of our meeting, even then. He’d already been a step ahead. Then I remembered something he’d said to me back at the house, less than thirty minutes ago:
I’ve been watching you for a while now, and you’ve never had a clue
.

‘What happened?’ Craw asked, her eyes back on my injuries.

‘Did you pass anyone on your way up here?’

She frowned. ‘No. Why?’

I glanced at the house. ‘Let’s go somewhere else.’

‘What’s wrong with here?’

Maybe you should be the one that’s scared
.

‘Here’s not safe any more.’

My car was battered, broken, and the engine had developed a gentle tick, but it worked – just about – so, after Craw helped me to change the tyre, I led her back into Postbridge, and then south-west towards Princetown. Staying on the moors was a risk: it was lonely and isolated here, and I could be got at again without anyone noticing. But that was also what gave it its edge: with no one else around, it would be easier to see someone coming.

My first priority was to stay off the radar until I knew Annabel and Olivia were definitely safe. Nothing mattered but their sanctuary. Once Task had them secured, then I’d think about my next move.

Given everything I’d found out about him, even if I decided backing down was the best way to survive, the reality was Reynolds wasn’t going to want a loose end. Even if Franks was still alive, even if Reynolds did to him whatever it was he was trying to do – find him, kill him – Reynolds would be back for me. I fought now or I fought later, but either way I fought. When it came down to it, Reynolds would never let me just walk away.

As the lights of Princetown emerged from the blackness of the moors, we traced its northern fringes, rain lashing at our cars, sheep scattering in the fields either side of us, and I kept returning to the same questions. Why would Reynolds let me go? Why not take me out of the equation tonight, at the house, while he’d had the chance?

Eventually, the answer came to me.

Even if I didn’t have a clear sight of his motivation yet, I realized Reynolds was in the same position as I was: he didn’t know if Franks was dead or alive. He hadn’t found him yet. All he had was a series of dead ends. What he needed was a fresh approach. Someone with new ideas.

That was where I came in.

By telling me to stop, he probably banked on me reacting. He’d expect me to do the exact opposite. He’d know enough about me to realize I wouldn’t just down tools and walk away from a case. That wasn’t how I was programmed.

So now he was going to try to use me.

Watch me.

Tail me.

He was going to let me lead him to Franks.

And then, once he had the truth, he would bury me in the ground.

54

There was a small twenty-four-hour service station on the Plymouth road, just south of Tavistock. At the smeared windows of its café was a series of moulded plastic booths, each one occupied by lorry drivers making the journey from north to south, loaded up with deliveries for a new week. I pulled into the car park and headed right to the back of it, using the shadows and the lorries as cover from the road. Craw followed. After I switched off the engine, it ticked over, rattling as if something had come loose.

We made our way around to the front. Inside it was quiet but not empty: a couple of people looked up, but most didn’t even acknowledge us, the majority with cups of tea in their hands and newspapers laid out on the table in front of them.

The decor was tatty: worn, laminated surfaces; paint-blistered walls. There was a scratched counter behind which a grey-haired man in his sixties stood, half turned towards a serving hatch. A woman of about the same age was talking to him from the other side. The whole place was like a time warp, perfectly encapsulated by the fact that the radio was playing songs from the seventies.

We ordered coffees.

In a broad Devonshire accent the guy said he’d bring them over, so I led us to the far corner of the café, as far away from the windows – and everyone else – as possible, and claimed the space against the wall. It allowed me to keep an eye on the doors.

I turned my attention to Craw. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been sleeping well. Her eyes were ringed by soft grey lines, her skin pale. She’d had the hood up on a black parka, but as we sat down she removed it and unzipped her coat, running a hand through her short, rain-slicked hair. She was wearing a charcoal jumper with a black-and-white pattern on it that looked like a shattered chessboard.

‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

I nodded. ‘It’s been an interesting night.’

‘Shouldn’t you see a doctor?’

My shoulder was feeling easier now, the process of changing gear on the drive down working some of the stiffness out of it. ‘I think it’s just bruising.’

‘Your car looks pretty bruised as well.’

I smiled. ‘Yeah. That’ll definitely need a doctor.’

The guy brought our coffees over. After he was gone, Craw emptied two sachets of sugar and a ton of milk into hers. In a strange way, it surprised me: if I’d had to guess, I would have had her down as black, no sugar.

‘I think you might have been trying to call my old number,’ I said, showing her my phone. ‘I sent you a text with the new number in it.’

She frowned. ‘Really? When?’

‘Yesterday.’ I checked my watch. It was one-thirty on Monday morning. ‘Or maybe it was the day before yesterday. Anyway, I had to change my phone. Reynolds was tracking my movements through my old one.’

She seemed genuinely shocked. ‘In order to do what?’

But she knew already, and – unsurprisingly – that seemed to knock her off balance. The confirmation that there was a hunt for her father. The implication of what was to come if Reynolds got to him – if he even found Franks alive.

‘What does Reynolds want with Dad?’ she asked.

My eyes moved out to the café, ensuring we weren’t being watched, and then out the front, into the night. Thick condensation had gradually taken hold at the windows.

‘There were these two cases your dad worked. The murder of an eighteen-year-old girl called Pamela Welland back in 1996, and the murder of a drug dealer called Simon Preston in 2011. I think they might be connected to his disappearance somehow. Maybe they’re even connected to each other.’

‘How?’

I paused, thinking back to what Murray had told me: that Simon Preston had been living with someone.

A woman called Kay
.

I recalled the map of Bethlehem that Franks had drawn, and the photos Reynolds had in his possession too – and then the argument Preston’s neighbour had overheard about a hospital. But what, if anything, connected all of that to Pamela Welland? Was it Preston? Was it his girlfriend? Was it the hospital? Whatever the truth was, it was clear some part of the answer lay at Bethlehem, and as that idea began to solidify, it struck me that, in four hours’ time, it would be low tide at Keel Point beach. I rolled my shoulder and felt a twinge next to my breastplate. It was easier.

But not as easy as I needed it to be.

Plus there were other, more immediate issues.

I had to ensure Annabel and Olivia were safe before I did anything else, let alone getting across to Bethlehem. But even once Tasker called me to tell me they were fine, I’d have to think through every move. Because, with every move, I had to be prepared to fight: Reynolds was going to try to follow me, try to use me as bait to draw out the truth about Franks. If he thought I’d figured him out, or even if he thought it wasn’t working in his favour, he’d put me down.

‘Raker?’

I looked back at Craw, realizing I’d drifted off. Her head was tilted slightly, some of the hardness gone from her face. Maybe it was the hour, or my lack of sleep, maybe the pain in my shoulder or the adrenalin draining away, but I thought, perhaps for the first time, how attractive she was. She’d always tried to hide it away, and I understood the reasons for that. She’d built her reputation on exactly the right qualities: talent, intellect, instinct, understanding the psychology of people, a refusal to retreat. In an environment like the Met, dominated by men, she’d beaten them at their own game.

‘Your girls,’ I said to her. ‘I never ended up speaking to them. I’m not sure you even told me their names.’

She eyed me. It was clear she hadn’t been expecting this, and it was equally clear she wanted to protect them from whatever was going on with their grandfather.

‘Maddie and Evelyn,’ she said finally.

‘How old are they?’

‘Thirteen and ten. Why?’

‘Do you ever feel like you’re putting them at risk?’

Frowning, she leaned back in her seat. ‘At risk?’

‘Doing what you do.’

Her arms were crossed, fringe in a diagonal sweep across her forehead. No make-up except for maybe a hint of mascara. No earrings, even though her ears were pierced.

‘No,’ she said.

I nodded.

‘Why, do you feel like you’re putting your daughter at risk?’

Belle says you’ve put us in danger
.

‘I hoped I wouldn’t,’ I said to her. ‘But I think maybe I have.’

Craw was still eyeing me, the hardness back in her face; the mix of impassiveness and suspicion I’d got to know so well. ‘The work you do, it comes with a risk.’

‘And yours doesn’t?’

She shrugged. ‘Police work has its risks. I’ve been physically attacked. I’ve been threatened countless times, and not just by scumbags out on the street. Sometimes by my own people. But, most of the time, the rule of law helps protect you. You do things in the right way, at the right time, with the right preparation, you lessen the risk to everyone.’

I didn’t want to go over old ground with her, fighting her on the reasons why I did what I did; my justification for sometimes ignoring the rule of law. I didn’t break the law often, but when I did, it was because the law didn’t work. I broke it because it got in the way of finding innocent people. Deep down, she knew my way was just as effective as hers. Perhaps even deeper down than that, she could see the ways in which it was better. If that hadn’t been the case, she never would have asked me to find her father.