Ready or Not (30 page)

             
‘I need your help,’ he said. ‘Please, Kate. I promise not to let you down.’

             
She looked up and met his warm brown eyes. She wanted to believe him, but the risks just seemed too much. If Neil was anything like the man Claire had spoken of just hours ago, even Chris might be unable to protect her. The man’s behaviour was irrational; uncontrollable. He had duped her into trusting him, as easily as the three murdered men seemed also to have fallen for his charm and his lies. He was totally unpredictable.

             
She breathed deeply, in through her nose and out through her mouth in an attempt to calm herself. There’d been a hundred times in the years since she’d first met Chris when she had wanted him to hold her hand as he just had, but like all her encounters with men, it was wrong time, wrong place.

             
Kate cleared her throat and tossed her head, flicked away the stray hair that had fallen into her face. She tried to clear her mind of all other thoughts and think lucidly about the facts that had been presented to her. The three men. Adam. A missing son. Neil.

             
Adam.

             
She looked up at Chris, loosening her hand in his.

             
‘Adam,’ she said quietly, the penny dropping like a meteor and wreaking even further confusion.

             
‘Dean,’ she said, her thoughts jumbled. ‘Dean mentioned an ‘Adam’,’ she mumbled.

             
‘What is it?’ Chris asked. ‘What are you thinking?’

             
‘I need to speak to Dean Williams,’ she said, rising quickly.

Forty One

Downstairs in the cells, Nathan Williams was banging on the metal door, demanding to speak to a solicitor. Kate slid open the narrow shutter in the door and glared into the small room. Nathan appeared inches from her; his greasy, rodent face sneering at her like a rat in a cage. Kate resisted the urge to poke him in the eye.

             
‘I want my fucking phone call,’ he spat. Kate took a step back, careful to avoid the flecks of saliva spraying from his mouth. Her face showed only disdain. She slowly checked her shirt for spit then looked back at him, pursing her lips and narrowing her eyes.

             
‘Say please,’ she taunted him quietly.

             
Nathan kicked the door in frustration. With any luck, thought Kate, he’d break his toes. He was just about to start shouting again when she slammed the shutter closed in his face.

             
‘Bitch!’ he yelled from behind the door.

             
Kate made her way to cell five, where Dean Williams was being held. She opened the shutter; Dean was sitting on the hard, bare concrete bench, his bulky knees pulled up to his chest. He couldn’t have looked more pathetic if he’d had his thumb stuck in his mouth.

             
He sat up quickly when he heard the shutter rattle. ‘Where’s Dawn?’ he asked.

             
‘With her daughter,’ Kate said flatly. Like you care.

             
Dean looked at his feet. Too late to feel sorry now, Kate thought. It was going to take a hell of a lot more than a glum face and a few pathetic words to convince a judge that he felt even an ounce of regret for what he’d inflicted on Stacey Reed.

             
‘This man Adam,’ Kate said. ‘What did he look like?’

             
Dean breathed heavily through his nose and his mouth turned down, his lower lip hung loose as if to catch stray words. ‘About my height. Five ten, five eleven.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I didn’t pay that much attention. Blond hair.’ He raised his arms, unable to recall anything more.

             
Kate sighed impatiently. Neil’s hair was dark, not blond.             

             
‘Would you recognise him if you saw him?’ she asked.

             
‘Yeah.’

             
Kate went back to the desk and called for a PC. After cuffing Dean, the officer led him upstairs to the room where Matthew still sat in front of the monitor. He ran the tape back and pulled up a chair next to him, indicating for Dean to sit. Kate stood behind them, her own eyes also fixed on the screen. She was still finding it hard to assimilate what she had witnessed, and was apprehensive of what was possibly still to come.

             
‘Say if you see him,’ Kate instructed. ‘But only if you’re certain.’

             
The screen came to life. The dancers moved in and out of shot and staff moved up and down the bar. Dean kept watching. His interest was absorbed by one of the dancers in the background when Joseph Ryan came into shot, went to the bar, ordered his drink; turned and leaned with his back against the bar. There was no reaction from Dean.

             
Adam – Neil – appeared in shot. Kate looked away, not wanting to have to see his face again. Just the thought of him made her feel nauseous and the knot in her stomach had tightened like a vice, twisting her insides. She had heard of people living double lives, but usually in the exaggerated plotlines of crime movies: not in real life. How could one person live two lives and maintain the pretence so convincingly and maintain it for so long?

             
Almost instantly, Dean sat forward. ‘That’s him,’ he said, gesturing with both handcuffed hands. ‘Dark haired one, b’there. He had blond hair before though.’

             
He turned to Kate. ‘Who’s the other one?’

             
‘No idea,’ Kate said lightly. ‘Maybe it’s his friend from ‘The Sun’.’ 

Forty
Two

Chris, Kate and Matthew convened in Chris’ office with much needed strong black coffee. Someone had been to fix the machine on Chris’ floor, although it still needed one good kick to get it going, just for old time’s sake. They sat around his desk. Kate looked ill at ease and Chris already regretted having to ask her to take part in a set up to trap Neil Davies, or Adam, as he seemed to prefer to be known. If there had been another way he’d have taken it, but this was the best and quickest way of ensuring Neil Davies didn’t try to do a runner.

             
Kate pressed her fingers against her eyelids. ‘Stacey Reed,’ she said, thinking aloud. ‘Why was he involved?’

             
Matthew drummed his skinny fingers impatiently on the desk. He looked agitated, uncomfortable. Chris shot him a look and he stopped.

             
‘I don’t know,’ Chris said. ‘It might not be the same bloke. Dean might be mistaken.’

             
Kate looked at him doubtfully. It was too much of a coincidence not to be the same man, and they both knew it. Neil had persuaded her that he was a vulnerable, caring man. He had persuaded, or threatened, Claire Morgan into hiding his son for him and lying to the police. Chances were he had persuaded three dead men to trust him with their secrets and they had paid for that mistake with their lives.

             
In light of all that it was quite plausible that he had been able to cajole the two idiots in the cells downstairs into kidnapping a child in order to claim money that didn’t actually exist. But why would he do it? What could he have possibly gained from the kidnap of a child he didn’t know and who had nothing to do with him?

             
‘How close did you get, Kate?’ Chris asked.

             
She looked at him and held his stare, aware that Matthew was watching her and waiting for her response.

             
‘Do you have to?’ she asked, lowering her voice and nodding towards Matthew. If they really had to have this conversation – which she knew they would - she’d have preferred not to have an audience; particularly one that consisted of a young, overly-interested PC.

             
‘No offence,’ she said, turning to Matthew.

             
‘None taken,’ he replied casually.

             
‘Three heads are better than one,’ Chris said, although with Matthew as the third brain he doubted the veracity of his statement. ‘We can’t do this on our own,’ he explained. ‘We need to know as much as possible about this man. We’re going to need a team as back up, just in case.’

             
‘Just in case of what?’ Kate asked, her nerves already jangling. The words ‘back up’ rarely inspired confidence.

             
‘Nothing’s going to happen to you,’ Chris tried to reassure her. ‘Anyway, you’ll be in a public place. He’s not going to do anything when there are other people around.’

             
Kate raised her hands. ‘How do you know that?’ she asked, her voice rising. ‘He’s already bludgeoned three people to death. We know what he’s capable of. He’s capable of just about anything, by the looks of it.’

             
‘He only seems to attack men,’ Matthew offered.

             
‘And his sister-in-law and daughter,’ Kate added bluntly.

             
Matthew pulled a face, lost for words. Kate sipped her coffee whilst Chris updated Matthew on what had been revealed at Sophie Davies’ house that afternoon.

             
‘He’s got a thing for you then has he?’ Matthew asked, sitting back in his chair. He eyed her questioningly. The look annoyed Kate.

             
She looked at him incredulously. ‘A thing?’

             
‘Yeah, you know. He likes you.’

             
Kate sighed impatiently. Matthew seemed incredibly young and immature for his twenty eight years at times. ‘Is there a point to this?’

             
‘Yes,’ Matthew said calmly. ‘My point is he’s not going to do anything to harm you if he has feelings for you. You’ll be fine.’

             
Fine, Kate thought: great. She wanted to suggest that perhaps Matthew do it instead, considering his certainty in the lack of danger involved.

             
Chris nodded, attempting to put Kate’s mind at ease. ‘It’s a fair point. He seems to trust you, Kate.’

             
She didn’t believe that was necessarily true. If Neil had trusted her, then surely he would have told her where Ben was when he was supposed to be missing. If he trusted her, or had any feelings for her at all, he wouldn’t have lied to her. He would have trusted her with the truth about why his children had been taken away from him. Why had he even sought her out in the first place, when he knew where Ben was all along? And why had he taken Ben to Newport to start with?

             
And why the hell was he involved in the disappearance of Stacey Reed?

             
‘Where’s the best place for you to meet with him?’ Chris said, thinking aloud. ‘We need somewhere open - somewhere there are plenty of other people around. This needs to be during the day too, not in the evening. It’s too risky otherwise.’

             
At the word ‘risky’ Kate flinched. Chris noticed and apologised quickly.

             
‘What about the park?’ Matthew suggested. ‘It’s Saturday tomorrow – there’ll be plenty of people about. You could meet him at the coffee shop by the kid’s play area.’

             
Chris mulled over the idea. ‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘We can keep an eye on you there without being spotted. Arrange to meet him at midday at the coffee shop. Call him first and we’ll go from there.’

             
Kate reached for her phone, hesitated and changed her mind. She put the mobile on the desk, staring at it as if it may explode.

             
‘I don’t want to do this any more than you,’ Chris said, glancing at the phone, ‘but we can’t let this bastard get away with what he’s done. Try and get a hair from him.’

             
Kate laughed loudly, the sound sharp. ‘A hair?’ she repeated scathingly. ‘What – you’d like me to pull one from his head without him noticing? Excuse me, my dear, but I’d like a hair to remember you by?’

             
Chris leaned towards her. ‘This is important, Kate. Another person’s hair was found on the scarf that was covering Joseph Ryan’s head. If we can match the DNA we’ll be a damn sight closer to nailing him. Take one from his jacket. Do what you have to.’ He paused. ‘Use your imagination.’

             
Kate didn’t like the insinuation. Chris had moved away from her; she looked to him, but he refused to meet her eyes. It was as if he didn’t want to be anywhere near her and certainly not close enough for physical contact. He was angry, and it showed. He hadn’t yet forgiven her for getting close to Neil Davies, Adam: whatever the bloody hell his name was.

             
Feeling awkward, Matthew got up, excused himself and left the room.

             
‘We don’t know that he’s murdered anyone,’ Kate said, trying to convince herself that this may be true. ‘Yes, we’ve found out that he’s a liar. Does that make him a murderer?’

             
‘And a violent alcoholic,’ Chris added, as though she needed reminding. She thought of Neil trying to strangle his sister-in-law. Pictured him hitting his own daughter.

             
‘Kate, all three men knew this mysterious ‘Adam’. He was the last person seen with Joseph Ryan. If he’s innocent, why hasn’t he come forward, why hasn’t he told us? Why hasn’t he told you? He’s guilty as hell. We just have to prove it.’

             
She pictured the man as she had last seen him; staring right at her with that brooding, piercing gaze. She had wanted so much for him to be one thing that she had been blinded to everything else.

             
Now she understood the secrecy around him.

             
‘You’re right,’ Kate admitted, ‘I know.’

             
‘Let’s get this done and let’s see if we can get you a bit of time off afterwards. God knows you could do with a break from this place. I’ll speak to Clayton, see what I can do.’

             
‘I’m sorry,’ Kate said suddenly.

             
‘What for?’

             
‘Being a terrible judge of character, for one,’ she said. ‘I never meant to hurt you.’

             
Chris paused. ‘Why would you have hurt me?’ he asked.

             
A fleeting glimpse of a drunken union, all those months ago when her father had died and Lydia had just left Chris, passed before Kate’s eyes. She blinked as though to fight back the memory. She didn’t want to remember that night; not now, when things were complicated enough. She didn’t want to remember how she had let him close then pushed him away again, fearing rejection from a man whose wife had only just left him and, she knew in her heart, he wasn’t ready to let go.

             
It was Kate’s turn to reach for Chris’ hand. She held his fingers lightly and avoided looking at his face.

             
‘Someone knows something about Daniel,’ she said quietly.

             
For a moment Chris said nothing. The air between them was filled with an awkward silence that seemed heavy with words they were both unable to speak. Kate felt his fingers tighten in hers slightly then he pulled his hand away from hers.

             
‘Andrew Langley,’ she explained when Chris didn’t pursue the revelation. ‘If I’ve got the right one, he’s a private investigator based in Bristol. He told one of the desk sergeants to tell me he’s got news about Daniel. That was all he said.’ Her hand clenched into a fist and she banged it against the side of the desk. ‘And now I can’t bloody get hold of him.’

             
Chris had turned away from her and when he looked back he didn’t look pleased that she might be closer to finding out what happened to her brother. Instead, he looked tired. Kate couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t that he didn’t want her to have closure; he just didn’t want to see her hopes built up only to be dashed down again, and it had already happened so many times before.

             
But never like this.

             
Never from someone who might genuinely know something concrete.

             
Chris cared, and it was because he cared that it hurt him to see her chasing what, deep down – like so many others - he believed was just a ghost.

             
‘I wish…’ Kate said suddenly, just as Matthew came bursting into the room holding another coffee. Kate gave her head a quick shake, urging Chris not to mention Langley or Daniel in front of Matthew.

             
‘I forgot to ask if anyone else wants one,’ Matthew said. If he’d noticed the tension in the room, Matthew didn’t give anything away. He wasn’t that clever, Kate thought; he hadn’t noticed.

             
Both Kate and Chris shook their heads, refusing the offer of another coffee.

             
‘You made the call yet?’ Matthew asked.

             
Kate reached again for her mobile, dialled Neil’s number, which she had retrieved from the note he’d given her on Wednesday and pressed call. After three rings the phone was answered.

             
‘Neil?’

             
‘Kate. Where are you calling from?’

             
His voice was light with his usual confidence. Where before it had sent a shiver through her, it now sent a chill and Kate tightened her grip on the mobile. A voice in her head told her she’d never be able to get through tomorrow without being caught out.

             
‘I lost my mobile,’ she explained briefly. ‘Um…’

             
Chris raised the palm of his hand, urging Kate to stay calm. She met his eyes. She had already let him down too many times; she couldn’t do it again. If she couldn’t get through tomorrow for herself, she would have to do it for Chris. She would have to do it to try and put things right.

             
‘I really enjoyed last night,’ Neil said.

             
‘Yeah. Me too. Actually,’ she said, quickly changing the subject, ‘I was wondering if you’d like to meet up tomorrow?’ Kate didn’t want to think about last night. She needed to look ahead now, and to keep looking.

             
She felt her heartbeat quicken and tried to breathe deeply to calm her nerves.

             
Chris gave her the thumbs up.