Hold Hands in the Dark (11 page)

Chapter 25

S
am and Dani headed straight to Dale’s apartment. The neighbourhood wasn’t the most upmarket, with a handful of grocery stores operating on a long sidewalk in which most of the buildings were shut up.

              Dale’s place was above one of the stores that were still in business. Sam slipped the key into the lock and pushed the door open against the force of a pyramid of junk mail balanced on the mat behind. The apartment was small but functional and reasonably pleasant.

              ‘Dale was also supporting his family out in Midlothian. This must have been all he could afford,’ Sam explained.

              ‘It’s not a great advert for divorce,’ Dani added dryly. ‘Your place is far nicer.’

              ‘Yeah, well, Janie always worked. She used her own money to re-settle out in Vancouver. I pay alimony for the boys, of course, but my ex-wife always supported herself. Now she’s remarried I’m off the hook anyways.’

              ‘Sorry, I wasn’t intending to pry.’

              ‘Not a problem, Dani. We know each other well enough to share that kind of thing. It’s not something I’d discuss with just anybody.’

              Dani ventured into the bedroom. The bed was made and clothing piled up on shelves in the fitted wardrobe. Sam came in behind her and started opening the drawers in the bedside cabinet. They worked in silence for a while.

              ‘What’s the family house like in Midlothian?’ Dani suddenly asked.

              ‘Real nice. Not a mansion or anything, but a comfortable family home. Like I said, the Faulkners had plenty of barbecues in their yard for colleagues at the department. The kids were safe enough to play in that neighbourhood when they were younger.’

              Dani sat back on her haunches. ‘Dale would have struggled to have even one of his kids stay the night here. How long ago was the divorce?’

              ‘Dale moved out maybe just under two years ago, then the divorce came through a year later. He’s been seeing Cassie about six months.’

              ‘So Faulkner didn’t leave his wife for Cassie?’

              Sam shook his head. ‘Definitely not. I don’t even think the two detectives knew each other back then.’

              ‘Then why did Dale leave his wife, for this? Did Toni kick him out, was she seeing someone?’

              ‘I had a long chat to Dale about it. The separation was his idea, or so he claimed.’ Sam ran a hand through his thick sandy hair. ‘But I believed him, because Toni was really cut up about it. They’d been having problems for a while but she called me several times during that period in tears, asking what was going on in Dale’s head.’

              ‘Did you know what was going on in his head?’

              ‘I thought I did, ‘cause I’d been through the same thing. But thinking about it now, Dale’s situation wasn’t the same. Janie was always pissed at me about the time I spent at work. She didn’t want that life any longer and I suppose I didn’t love her enough to give it up. But Toni didn’t give Dale an ultimatum like that. She wanted him back, cop or not.’

              Dani glanced about her at the tiny, barred window and the damp patches on the walls. ‘Then why the hell did he leave her to come and live in this dump?’

              Sam blinked several times. ‘I don’t know.’

              ‘The separation happened two years ago?’

              ‘At the same time the McNeils were killed.’ Sam’s voice was serious. ‘Do you think there’s a connection?’

              ‘I don’t know yet, but maybe Dale was involved in something that goes back several years.’

              ‘Yeah, I think we need to accept that. Cassie isn’t going to like it.’

              ‘I’m amazed you let her work the case. She’s hardly impartial.’

              Sam shrugged his shoulders. ‘Cassie’s an excellent cop and she knew Dale better than any of us did these last few months. Besides, she wants to feel involved.’

              Dani nodded and said nothing. She understood having a strong sense of loyalty to your team. It was up to her to make sure it didn’t prejudice the inquiry.

              The DCI continued searching through the wardrobe. There were shoeboxes in there with photographs of Toni and their three children at the house in Midlothian, when they were very little. One of the boxes was older than the others. It was battered and bore the logo for Dunlop green flash trainers.

              Dani glanced over at Sam. ‘Did you have Dunlop trainers over here when you were a kid?’

              Sam looked puzzled. ‘Huh?’

              That was all she needed to know. ‘I may have found something.’

              Dani lifted the box onto the bed and carefully removed the lid. Inside, there was a pile of old photos, letters and postcards. She took out a few and handed them to her colleague, Dani examined the rest herself.

              There were photographs of the entire Faulkner clan; Magnus, Sue, Vicki and Dale. In some of them, Sue’s mother, Maeve, featured. The grandmother was standing beside them with her huge beehive of orangey-red hair. A few shots were of the family at the beach on a sunny day. Dani flipped the pictures over. ‘Saltcoats, July ‘71’, was scrawled on the back.

              ‘I’ve got some postcards here,’ Sam said quietly. ‘They’re from Maeve Lomas to her daughter. It seems like she kept the family updated on how Vicki was getting on at school, although the comments are very brief. The cards started being sent to their new home in Midlothian in 1977. The last one was received in ’82.’

              ‘So the family
were
still in touch during those years?’

              ‘Even if it was only Maeve and her daughter.’

              ‘I bet Vicki didn’t know her grandmother was sending them. Maybe she and Sue had a private agreement.’

              ‘But Dale got hold of them in the end,’ Sam muttered. ‘Perhaps he found the correspondence when his folks died ten years back.’

              Dani handed Sam the photographs, their fingers momentarily touching as she did so. ‘There’s one shot here of a family lunch. There are a couple of men at the table along with the Faulkners. I assume they must be Magnus’s brothers.’

              Sam turned it over and read out the date. ‘‘December, 1974’’.

              ‘Just a few months before the Faulkners left Crosbie Farm for good.’ She gazed at their cheerful faces closely. ‘Do those people look like they’re in debt? As if the family is about to be broken up forever, and they’ll have to leave the land they’ve farmed for generations, never coming back as long as they live?’ Dani could feel tears prickling her eyes.

              Sam took the pictures out of her hand and placed them back in the box, which he set aside on the cabinet. He put a hand up to her soft cheek and swept back a strand of stray hair. His lips covered hers, kissing her tenderly at first and then more deeply, as he levered her backwards onto the bed.

              He placed his palm on her smooth stomach, sliding it up under her blouse to gently cup her breast. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he whispered urgently, ‘I’ve missed you so much.’

              Dani could sense the tears were now seriously close to escaping onto her cheeks. She took his hand gently and guided it away from her breast, pulling him into an embrace instead. ‘I can’t Sam, no matter how much I want to. I’ve made a promise to someone, a commitment.’

              The American pulled away, his face flushed pink. ‘
We
made promises to each other once,’ he snapped. ‘You didn’t worry too much about breaking those.’

              Dani took a deep breath. ‘I know. That’s why it’s important that I keep them now. I don’t want to hurt anybody else.’

              Sam shifted so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed, his back to her. ‘It isn’t a question of who happens to be in line when you decide to start playing house, Dani. It’s about the person that makes your heart pound like a jack hammer when you set eyes on them. The one you know you’re meant to be with.’ He turned back around and put a finger underneath her chin, tipping up her face so her eyes met his. ‘If you were married to this guy, I’d back right off. But you aren’t, so in my book, nothing’s decided yet. I love you, Dani. If you decide you love me back then I’ll marry you in a heartbeat. We can set up home wherever you wish - Scotland or the States. I can take my pension anytime, so it’s up to you. Just say the word.’

Chapter 26

D
ani rummaged around in the mini bar. She found a tiny bottle of red wine and wrenched it open, pouring the liquid out into a plastic cup and taking a swig.

              ‘
Damn it
,’ she muttered under her breath, kicking off her shoes and lying back against the fluffy pillows. This was just what she didn’t need right now. A shitload of complications.

              At this precise moment, she was furious with Sam. Dani had left Dale’s apartment, hailed a cab and returned straight to her hotel, telling the detective she’d see him again in the morning.

              Her phone lay on the duvet next to her right leg, buzzing insistently at regular intervals but remaining untouched. ‘
Shit
,’ she fumed again, picking it up and glancing at the notifications. Most of them were texts from James, but one was a missed call from Andy.

              Dani hit the speed dial.

              ‘Evening, Ma’am. How was the journey?’

              ‘Aye, fine. Any update on developments?’ she grumbled.

              ‘Nothing significant, yet. Phil noticed a CCTV camera was installed to keep watch on the communal gardens behind Park Crescent. We’ve been onto the management agency to get the disc from the day Kendrick was murdered released ASAP.’

              Dani sat up straighter. ‘Great, that’s real progress. Make sure the DCS knows that Phil uncovered the lead. If that camera recorded our man going into the back of Vicki’s place, we might actually be able to get somewhere.’

              ‘How are you and Sam coping with the responsibility of flying the flag for transatlantic relations?’

              ‘Don’t even joke about it. Yeah, we’re making a start. There’s plenty of forensic material at the crime scene and the bodies have been officially identified as those of John and Rita McNeil.’

              ‘That sounds like headway. Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t.’

              ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

              Andy laughed. ‘Nothin’ at all! Give my regards to Sam, okay?’

              ‘Yeah, I will, and thanks for keeping me posted.’

              ‘Not a problem, goodnight.’

              Dani felt better after their conversation, more settled. She flicked onto her messages and sent a text to James, telling him that she’d got there safely and she loved him. Then she glanced at the contents of the plastic cup, decided the wine was disgusting and got up to pour the remainder down the sink of the ensuite bathroom. Dani rinsed the cup out and replaced the contents with water, determined to get a decent night’s sleep and put all her emotional energy from now on into solving these three murders.

*

Cassie and Gabe were with Sam when Dani arrived at the department the following morning. It was a relief for the DCI not to be alone with him just yet.

              Sam had the contents of the shoe box spread out on his desk. Cassie Sanchez was examining each item carefully.

              ‘So Dale never showed you these photos or cards? He didn’t mention the childhood he spent in Scotland?’

              The woman shook her head of dark, sleek hair. ‘He never said much about his past, which I thought was because he didn’t want to keep mentioning Toni and the kids. As far as I knew, Dale was born and bred in Richmond.’

              ‘I called Toni last night,’ Sam straightened up and addressed the group. ‘She had no idea that Dale had this stuff stashed away either.’ He cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘I asked her about the split. She gave me some dates of when Dale started to talk in terms of a separation. Toni believes it came from out of left field around the summer of 2014. She was devastated.’

              ‘Isn’t that around the time the McNeils went missing? Maybe that’s when Dale’s past began catching up with him,’ Dani suggested. ‘He may have wanted to keep his family out of it.’

              ‘By totally pushing them away?’ Gabe looked unconvinced. ‘Sorry, Cas, but Dale was always a real family man. He sure loved his wife and kids when I first met him.’

              ‘Then he’d want to protect them, at all costs, wouldn’t he?’ Sam continued the line of thought.

              Cassie took a deep breath. ‘But Dale was happy and settled when he and I got together. We’d talked about marriage. I don’t see what this terrible danger could have been.’

              ‘When did you and Dale hook up?’ Sam asked.

              ‘It was the end of last August, when we went on a department training camp together.’

              ‘Perhaps Dale thought the situation had settled down by then,’ Dani added. ‘He believed it was safe to start a new relationship, to begin living again.’

              ‘Then he received the emergency callout, with the address given as that of the McNeils,’ Sam muttered.

              ‘No wonder he wanted me to stay in the car while he went inside to check things out. Maybe he thought the McNeils still lived there,’ Gabe commented.

              ‘Dale certainly knew them both,’ Dani said levelly. ‘Then that’s where we need to start.’