Alex Barclay - Blood Runs Cold

Gary nodded. ‘It started about eight p.m. last night. The manager of the bank was sitting with his wife watching a movie. One of these goons shows up at the door in his nice blue and yellow shirt with a couple Blockbuster DVDs in his hand, so it looks like they’ve forgotten something or are getting some delivery, whatever. When they open the door, bam — four guys are inside, no masks. They get the couple into the living room and tie them up. Without saying one word. So this couple have no idea what is going on. And get this — the men really do have some DVDs to show them. Hardcore porn. Off the charts. And one of the guys zips open a sports bag. He gets the bank manager’s wife to kneel down and keep her eyes on the television set. Then behind her, so he thinks only the husband can see, he starts taking out every one of the fucked-up toys they’re using on the screen in front of them. And the wife’s watching all this in the reflection. Meanwhile, another one of these animals is literally jacking off in the corner. Then the first guy gets the remote control and pauses the movie.’ He turns to the husband and says:

‘Would you like to see this performed live?’

This woman’s husband doesn’t even say no. Poor bastard just says, “You can do what you like to me. Please do not touch my wife.”’

‘Oh my God,’ said Ren. ‘That is horrific.’

‘Then the guy with the sports bag leaves the jack-off guy with the toys and the wife — so you can imagine what happened next. And they killed the husband anyway.’

‘And the wife?’

‘Lived to tell that tale,’ said Gary.

‘Jesus Christ Almighty,’ said Ren. She sat down at her desk. ‘Is there any hope of her ID-ing these guys?’

‘Their faces reflected in a porn flick … not exactly ideal,’ said Gary.

‘Welcome to Colin Grabien’s mirror,’ said Ren. ‘And what about the bank?’

‘They brought the manager to the bank,’ said Gary. ‘He opened up. At this point they were wearing blank white masks. They got away with a hundred grand.’

Ren nodded.

‘We didn’t catch it on camera,’ said Gary, ‘but someone did lose a mask at the scene. It’s gone to the lab. There were traces of saliva on it.’

‘For what it’s worth,’ said Colin.

‘So we get blank masks,’ said Ren. ‘And saliva. Like, “We’re not giving you a mug shot this time, but we’re giving you DNA”?’ said Ren. ‘Something tells me that DNA is not going to be worth shit.’

Nobody responded.

A chill ran across Ren’s shoulders. She shook it away.

‘So,’ said Gary. ‘Billy Waites …’

‘Billy Waites,’ said Ren. ‘The Brockton Filly is in an excellent location for through-traffic, so a lot of people stop off there. You’ve got I 70 to Breck. Then south on Highway 9 past Quandary, then you’re through to Alma, Fairplay, then Highway 285 back to Denver — basically the back route. You’ve got properties on huge tracts of land there …’ Everyone is looking at me .

Gary was frowning. ‘And Billy Waites himself?’

‘Yes, well, I trust that Jean Transom trusted him, for one,’ said Ren. ‘So that’s what I was saying about the location. He sees a lot. He could be very useful. And, yes, he is a smart guy, as you said, Gary. So he’s a good person to have on our side.’

‘You think he is on our side?’ said Colin.

‘Absolutely,’ said Ren.

Bob Gage stuck his head in the door. ‘Ren, you have a visitor. Patrick Transom is in the conference room, he’d like to talk to you.’

Shit. Shit. Shit . Ren glanced at Gary as if he would go talk to Patrick instead. He looked like he hadn’t heard any of it.

‘OK,’ said Ren. ‘Thanks, Bob. Could you tell him one minute?’

Patrick Transom was sitting forward on his seat, his hands clasped in front of him on the conference-room table.

‘Hello, Mr Transom.’ Ren stood up and shook his hand.

‘Hello, Agent Bryce.’

‘Please call me Ren.’

‘OK. And call me Patrick. I just want you to know I’m not someone who would normally just show up like this, so I’m sorry, but I guess I’m feeling at arm’s length. I know you don’t need family members bearing down on you when you’re trying to do your job. But … I’ve left messages and … I felt you would be the type of agent who would return them. That’s the impression I got from you when I met you.’

I am like that. I — normally — am . ‘Thank you, yes. But it’s been extremely busy here,’ said Ren. ‘We have so many agents working on it, the detectives from the Sheriff’s Office … and every phone call, witness statement and lead is being followed up on. As you can imagine, this is generating even more leads, and on it goes. To be honest, I wanted to make a phone call to you that was — “OK, Mr Transom, we have these solid leads and they are XYZ …” As it stands — and I hope this doesn’t sound negative — I have not got enough to raise your hopes or mine.’ That, and the fact that I was too busy fucking a C.I. last night .

Patrick looked crushed. ‘Even if I knew that,’ he said. ‘That would help. I might be able to manage my expectations. I mean, should I give up on you ever finding the body?’

Yes . ‘It’s not my place to tell people what they should or should not give up on. It’s your call. But I will say that I think it’s important we all stay positive. Things are moving along. But it’s a waiting game.’ I can’t believe I used that expression .

‘It’s hard to wait,’ said Patrick. ‘I didn’t want any of this. The last person I thought I’d be was someone who had to show up at a Sheriff’s Office to ask about the investigation into their sister’s murder.’

‘Well, I’m sorry you had to show up here at all,’ said Ren. ‘It shouldn’t have come to that.

I … don’t think I got those messages about you calling.’ Shut up .

His face changed. ‘Well, I did leave them,’ he said. His voice was tight.

‘Because we’re in temporary offices at the moment, we can all be quite hard to pin down. There’s a lot of coming and going,’ said Ren.

Patrick stood up. ‘Well, I’m going to leave you to it, Ren,’ he said. ‘Thank you for taking the time. And … I have a good feeling about you. That you’re going to find … the person who did this.’

Jesus Christ. I deserve this today . ‘Thank you,’ said Ren. ‘I promise I will do everything I can.’

As soon as he left, she ran to the ladies’ room and threw up. I am a loser. I am a terrible human being. I’m not human, in fact . She washed her face at the sink. As she was drying it with paper towels, the phone beeped.

Hey. Hw r u? Billy.

Ren’s heart started pounding. She deleted the text. She brushed her teeth, fixed her face and tried to do as much of it as she could without looking herself in the eye. She ran into Mike in the hallway outside.

‘Hey, Ren.’

‘Hey, Mike.’

‘I was looking into the RUTH folder for you,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t track down who “Ruth” was. There was no corresponding file in Jean’s office or on her computer, so it was a dead end. I did talk to the parents of the other children in that file, or the children themselves — some of whom are adults now. Jean hadn’t been in contact with any of them any time recently.’

‘It’s weird that the folder is called RUTH and Ruth is the one girl whose file isn’t in the folder.’

Mike shrugged. ‘I know.’

That night, Ren sat by the payphone at the inn with a ten-dollar phone card she’d bought at City Market. She barely knew how to use one. She scratched off the number with her nail, dialed a central number, punched in a code, dialed another number. There was a long wait before she was connected.