The Final Minute (25 page)

‘How long?’

Again there was the sound of tapping on the keyboard. ‘Well, that’s interesting,’ Jeff said after a pause. ‘Looks like the contract began on April the eighth.’

So Dylan had changed phones the day after Lauren disappeared and the same day that Sean had his car accident. But what Tina really needed to find out was who Dylan had been talking to in the days prior to 8 April because that might well tell her who he’d hired Lauren and Jen out to. And who’d killed them.

‘Is there any way you can get the records for the phone Dylan owned before April the eighth?’

Jeff exhaled loudly. ‘I can try, but it means more paperwork, and more hassle, and your bill’s running up high already.’

‘Do what you can and I’ll pay you in cash the moment you need it.’

‘How about tonight? Can meet up for a drink. Don’t mind coming to your local.’

The last thing Tina wanted was for Jeff Roubaix, or any other business contact she had, to be within a few hundred metres of her front door, but she didn’t fancy driving too far either, and she knew she was going to have to pay him now if she wanted any more favours.

They arranged to meet in her local pub – a place she rarely frequented due to the fact that she could no longer drink alcohol – at eight p.m., before ending the call.

For a few minutes Tina sat in the sunshine with her eyes closed, mulling over what she’d just learned. She thought about Alan Donaldson and his desperation to be reunited with his missing daughter. It hurt her to know there was going to be no happy ending to this story, but she could still achieve justice for Lauren if she continued on her present course. It would help if she spoke to Mike, because he had the authority to gather the information she needed on the various phones she was trying to track, but she knew he wouldn’t help her. Sean would, though. She was sure of that. He was the key to this whole thing.

But where the hell was he?

Thirty-six

I woke with a start from a completely blank and very deep sleep and almost screamed out loud.

A figure was staring down at me, partly silhouetted by the barn’s dim light, with a large dog next to it.

I sat up instinctively and the dog growled, tensing as if readying to pounce.

A woman of about forty, with curly shoulder-length hair and a kindly, attractive face, was bending over me. ‘Calm down, Roman,’ she said to the dog. Then to me, a not entirely unfriendly ‘Who are you?’

I could see she didn’t look particularly scared or angry – but then she did have a big German Shepherd right next to her – so I gave her my best smile. ‘I’m sorry, I was taking a walk and I got a bit lost.’

‘Where are you heading to?’

I rubbed my eyes. ‘Anywhere. I’ve just split up from my wife. It hasn’t been an easy few weeks. I just got on a bus and kept going. I guess I thought I’d keep walking until I found a place to stay.’ I was surprised at how easy the lies came, but then lying had been a part of my job description for most of my adult life, so I really shouldn’t have been. ‘Anyway, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to trespass.’ I slowly got to my feet, relieved that I’d covered the gun with some hay. ‘I’ll be on my way.’

‘It’s OK,’ she said, stepping back to give me some space. ‘No harm done.’

I walked out of the barn and into the sunshine, and looked at my watch. It was almost 4.30. Jesus, I’d been out for hours. The woman and her dog followed me a few feet back.

‘It’s this way back to the road, right?’ I called over my shoulder, pointing in the general direction I’d come from, and thinking I’d wait a few minutes before I came back for the gun.

‘Hang on a moment,’ she called after me. ‘Do you want a drink of water or something before you go? You’ll need it in this heat.’

I knew I shouldn’t. Far better just to keep walking and hoping she didn’t remember me, but that was the thing about being on the run. It was so damned uncomfortable, and the idea of an ice-cold glass of water, or even a cup of tea and a sit-down, was simply too good an opportunity to pass up. I think I must have been a very short-term, impulsive person in my pre-accident life because I turned round with another smile. ‘That would be great, thanks. I’m Matt, by the way.’

We shook hands and the dog growled again, keeping his beady eyes on me and leaving me in no doubt that he wouldn’t hesitate to rip my throat out if given the order.

‘I’m Luda,’ she said.

‘That’s an unusual name,’ I said, thinking that she had lovely blue eyes.

‘It’s Russian. It means “love of the people”. A little bit ironic, given that I’m alone out here in the middle of nowhere.’

I followed her round the other side of the barn, through a thin strip of woodland, and into a field where half a dozen goats grazed and made goat noises in one corner.

‘Is this all yours?’ I asked her.

She nodded. ‘I’ve got five acres. Prices are a lot cheaper round here.’

‘It’s a nice place.’

‘Thank you. It’s very peaceful.’ She turned to me with a playful expression on her face. ‘I don’t usually do this, by the way. Offer strangers a glass of water, especially ones I find flat out in my barn.’

‘I’m a nice boy, I promise.’

‘Does your wife believe that?’

‘You know, I think she does. She wanted us to stay together. It’s me who wanted to split. She’s been having an affair. And not her first either.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

I was sorry too to have to spin her so many lies, but now that I was here it was essential I turned myself into a man she could sympathize with. At this point, I didn’t just want a glass of water. I wanted to sit down, have a cup of tea and, you know, maybe more …

‘It’s OK,’ I told her with a vaguely rueful expression. ‘These things happen.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘It happened to me a long time ago. Once someone close to you does that, it’s hard to go back.’

By this time we’d come to a spacious modern farmhouse, clearly built when architects still cared about creating character and charm, with a decent-sized chicken coop on one side and a series of raised vegetable beds on the other. I had another memory then from my old life – a realization that I’d always wanted to grow vegetables. I’d discussed it with someone once – a woman. I concentrated on trying to remember who, but nothing came.

The farmhouse’s back door was open and I followed Luda and Roman inside, into a big, traditional kitchen with oak worktops and an Aga. Recipe books, some of them ancient-looking, lined the walls. I immediately felt at home but remained in the doorway, striking a formal, unthreatening pose with my hands behind my back as she filled a glass with water and handed it to me.

She watched me as I downed it in one go, and I could tell she was pondering whether to invite me to stay a while. I had a feeling she was lonely out here and got very little company, particularly male. I wasn’t a bad-looking guy, and although my clothes were a little dishevelled courtesy of sleeping in a car followed by a barn, they were still obviously new. I asked Luda for another glass to give her a bit more time to make her decision and drank that one more slowly.

Finally, she asked me if I’d like to stay for a cup of tea.

‘I’d love one,’ I said, and five minutes later we were sat at the kitchen table talking.

We talked a long time, and, like everything else, I’d forgotten how interested I was in other people and their stories. Luda told me that her husband had died six years earlier, the victim of a street mugging that went wrong while they’d been living in London. He’d been stabbed once when one of the muggers either panicked or decided he wasn’t being compliant enough, and unfortunately the blade had pierced his heart. The story angered me. It seemed so unjust that a kind, young, attractive woman should have had her life snatched away from her like that, and it reminded me why I’d become a cop in the first place – to put away pieces of dirt like the one who’d killed her husband. Afterwards, with her dreams of starting a family with the man she loved in tatters, she’d been unable to stay in London, or in her job as a lawyer, and had sold up and moved out here to escape the memories. She’d been here ever since. Money, it seemed, wasn’t a problem, but loneliness was.

‘You won’t believe this but I was a hugely social person,’ she told me. ‘Dan and I used to go out all the time – restaurants, parties …’

I asked her if she missed all that.

She thought about that for a while before answering. ‘I miss company. I miss sharing things. When I came out here I was happy to be alone. I couldn’t imagine anyone replacing Dan. Sometimes I still can’t. But six years is a long time and I’ve been ready to meet someone for a while now. The problem is, there aren’t that many men out here. But I can’t really imagine living anywhere else.’

‘It’s pretty idyllic,’ I said, meaning it. ‘Growing your own food, breathing fresh air every day, a long way from all the crap.’

Luda gave me what I can only describe as a deep, probing look. ‘How about you, Matt? What’s your story?’

So I fed her a long, carefully embellished and perfectly believable lie about how I’d been a salesman in the IT industry for the best part of two decades (no one ever asks too many detailed questions about IT); how I’d married my childhood sweetheart, Sally; how things had been great until her first affair (which somewhat magnanimously I’d forgiven) before finally it had all fallen apart with her second, which had unfortunately coincided with me being made redundant, causing a perfect storm that had left me perilously close to coming off the rails. By the time I’d finished telling her all this, I was almost believing it myself.

I knew what I was doing was repugnant, but the thing was, I was desperate for Luda to like me enough to let me stay the night. I genuinely liked her; I liked her home; most of all, I liked the new, invented me. The ordinary guy fallen on hard times who wasn’t a killer ex-con on the run. I also knew that the longer I stayed out of sight the more likely I was to get my memory back before the police got hold of me, and therefore potentially save myself from another much longer prison sentence. Because if I remembered what had happened to me before the accident, then I’d know why everyone was after me, and maybe – just maybe – I could prove my innocence.

‘My God, it’s 6.15,’ said Luda, looking at her watch.

‘Really? I guess I’d better get going.’ I got to my feet, knowing this was the moment of truth. ‘Thanks ever so much for the tea, and for listening to me. I really appreciate it.’

She didn’t get up. Instead she gave me a clearly flirtatious look. ‘Do you want to stay for supper?’

I tried to appear surprised but happy. ‘Are you sure? I don’t want to impose.’

She smiled. ‘Yes, I’m sure. You seem a nice guy. Sit down.’

So I did.

Thirty-seven

Sheryl Warner was sitting in her front room watching
Coronation Street
and drinking a large vodka Red Bull to wake herself up when there was a knock on her door. She frowned, wondering who it was. She was meeting a couple of mates later at the All Bar One in Islington but that wasn’t until ten p.m.

It immediately occurred to her that it might be Dylan. He knew where she lived and if he’d worked out that it had been her who’d spoken to Tina Boyd about Lauren and Jen, he might want to hurt her, although she wasn’t sure how he’d got through the front door, which was always locked.

But when Sheryl looked through the spy hole, it wasn’t Dylan standing there but a good-looking blonde woman of about thirty wearing a dress with a cool-looking leather jacket on top. Sheryl wondered if she’d met the woman before somewhere, then decided to answer the door and find out who she was.

It was a big mistake.

As soon as the door opened, Pen de Souza smiled and punched Sheryl Warner in the throat, before forcing her way inside, followed by Tank.

Sheryl was gasping for air but Pen knew the blow had only been enough to incapacitate her for a short while. For the moment, she and Tank needed her alive and conscious.

Pen gave Sheryl a hard shove so she fell backwards on to her sofa, still clutching her injured throat, her eyes wide with shock. They got even wider when Pen produced the pistol from inside her jacket and screwed the suppressor on to the end of the barrel. At the same time, Tank walked round the back of the sofa so that he was standing directly behind her. As Sheryl followed him with her eyes, he flexed his gloved fingers menacingly. The look on his face was cold and merciless, and Pen almost felt sorry for Sheryl as she visibly recoiled.

‘Who are you?’ Sheryl croaked. ‘Did Dylan send you? I haven’t done anything, I promise.’ She was crying now.

Pen put a gloved finger to her lips. ‘Calm down, Sheryl, and don’t ask questions. If you do what we say, we won’t hurt you.’

‘What do you want?’

‘Stop crying and I’ll tell you. If you continue to make a noise, though, my friend here will put a gag round your mouth and then things will get unpleasant.’

Pen’s words were delivered in a calm, measured tone designed to put her victim at ease, and it seemed to work. Sheryl wiped away her tears, cleared her throat and sat up. She still looked scared, but healthily so.

‘That’s better. Do you think you can act?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I want you to phone Tina Boyd for me. I have a script for you to read. You have to convince her to come here. If you manage it, we’ll let you go as soon as she arrives. If you don’t, then we’re not going to be very happy at all. Do you understand?’

‘I don’t know—’

Pen cut her off. ‘I don’t want any “I don’t knows”, Sheryl. You need to do this. For your own sake.’

Sheryl nodded, finally understanding that this was life and death for her.

Pen handed her the script.

It was time to set the trap.

Thirty-eight

Tina’s meeting with Jeff Roubaix was always going to last longer than she’d wanted it to. He’d insisted on a few drinks in her local, saying he’d come a long way (which, to be fair, he had), and so for the last half an hour they’d been catching up on things, even though they’d never really been friends.