Brian Freemantle - Dead End

‘Why?’

‘I’m trying to find out what’s going on, just as you are!’

‘It’s our job to find out what’s going on: that’s what we’re trained for,’ said Benton. ‘We don’t want you playing amateur detective, Mr Parnell. Apart from that being dangerous, you might foul things up for us, which would mean no one will ever find out what’s going on.’

‘Dangerous?’ isolated Parnell.

‘Someone’s already been killed!’ said Dingley, letting his exasperation show now. ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that, having failed to put you in the frame for it, whoever murdered Ms Lang might make a move on you?’

‘No. No, it hadn’t,’ admitted Parnell, incredulously. ‘My lawyer… no, it doesn’t matter…’

‘Everything matters,’ said Benton. ‘What about your lawyer?’

‘He told me to be careful not to give the Metro police any excuse to come at me again… driving, stuff like that. But I never thought beyond that, to there being some physical danger from anywhere else.’

‘Think about it now. And take your lawyer’s advice,’ said Benton.

‘But most of all take ours,’ added Dingley. ‘Let us do the investigating.’

‘That’s all I did, tried to find out about the other man.’

‘Which we’ll now do,’ said Dingley.

‘If someone did make a move against me, it could help, couldn’t it? If they made mistakes, I mean.’

The silence seemed to last a long time before Dingley said: ‘And if they didn’t make a mistake and managed to kill you, it maybe wouldn’t help us at all and certainly wouldn’t help you.’

‘You weren’t thinking like a bad movie script, setting yourself up as an intentional target, were you, Mr Parnell?’ said the other FBI man.

‘No!’ denied the scientist, honestly. ‘I was thinking that if something happened… if I thought something happened… something occurred I thought was odd… I could tell you.’

‘You do that,’ pressed Dingley. ‘You tell us, don’t go off on your own.’

‘I’ve already given that undertaking,’ insisted Parnell. ‘So, I need numbers where I can reach you?’

It was Dingley who offered the cards, Benton’s as well as his own. Parnell saw there were cellphone listings as well as the field office land lines. ‘Day or night,’ said Benton.

‘I’d like to keep in touch, hear how things are going,’ said Parnell.

‘You got the numbers,’ said Dingley. ‘We’ll probably need to get back to you when things come up we haven’t covered.’

‘What’s come up so far?’ demanded Parnell.

The two agents exchanged looks. Dingley said: ‘Anything we tell you, we’re telling you. Only you. If it turns up in a newspaper or on television it could wreck the investigation, you understand?’

‘Of course I understand.’

‘We’re concentrating on forensics at the moment,’ said Dingley.

‘And you found what?’ pressed Parnell.

There was a further hesitation from the two men. Parnell said: ‘I told you I understood!’

‘There are some marks, dents, on the rear fender of Ms Lang’s car that our people don’t think were caused by it going over the edge of the gorge,’ disclosed Benton. ‘They think she was hit, shunted, in the back several times…’

‘Being chased, hit and hit again, not knowing who or what it was

…’ imagined Parnell.

‘Something like that,’ agreed Benton.

‘Seat belts!’ broke in Parnell. ‘The police officers told me Rebecca was outside the car when she was found – that she hadn’t been wearing a seat belt. But seat belts were a thing with her. She always wore one: that’s how her parents died, not fastening theirs. Was Rebecca’s broken?’

‘We haven’t been told it was,’ said Dingley. ‘Our forensics guys aren’t helped by everything being moved and collected from the scene

…’ He paused before saying: ‘There’s going to be another autopsy, too. By our pathologists.’

‘The seat belt’s another mystery, to add to all the rest,’ said Benton.

‘Could it be significant?’ asked Parnell.

‘It’s something to flag,’ accepted Benton.

‘I interrupted you,’ apologized the scientist.

‘They’re not happy about the damage to your car, either,’ continued Benton. ‘They don’t think the dents and the paint loss was caused by your car being hit by another vehicle. The damage is too regular. They think it was more likely caused by being hit and scratched by some sort of implement or tool. If another car had been involved, it’s almost inevitable that some of its paint would have been left on yours. There’s absolutely no trace.’

‘Something else,’ remembered Parnell. ‘I got the impression that the police already knew about the damage to my car, before they questioned me. But I hadn’t reported it to Dubette security. During the day, there must be what, three, four hundred cars in the lot. Maybe more. How come they knew about my car, among all the rest?’

‘How indeed?’ echoed Dingley.

‘You discovered the damage on the Thursday?’ queried Benton.

‘Yes.’

‘In the lot?’

‘Yes. When I went to get into the car, to go home.’

‘What time was that?’ took up Dingley.

Parnell shrugged. ‘I can’t be precise. Late. Seven thirty, eight o’clock.’

‘Half-light?’

‘Getting that way. The lot’s lighted, of course.’

‘What about paint on the ground? Anything at all?’

Parnell shook his head, recalling the courtroom examination. ‘I don’t remember seeing any. Looking even. I just thought it was a car-park knock. One of those things.’

‘It was certainly that,’ said Benton. ‘You go through this with the deputies?’

‘Maybe not in quite so much detail,’ said Parnell. ‘You going to talk to them?’

Benton smiled at the question. ‘We’re going to talk to just about as many people as we can. And maybe it was worthwhile letting you in on the preliminary forensic findings after all.’

‘You are going to find out who did it, aren’t you?’ said Parnell.

‘We’re going to try our damnedest,’ promised Dingley.

Parnell felt self-conscious, embarrassed, concentrating upon everyone around him as he left the FBI field office and went into the multi-storey car park to retrieve his car, checking the mirrors before and after driving out, trying to establish whether he was being followed, which he couldn’t. Remembering what one of the Bureau agents had said, Parnell decided it was just like being in a B movie, but tried to convince himself that it was the sort of precaution they were advising, but couldn’t do that either. How long would it have to go on? Until the unknown they were caught, he supposed. What if they weren’t? Howard Dingley’s parting remark hadn’t sounded particularly hopeful. Parnell didn’t think he could maintain the vigilance forever – wasn’t sure he could maintain it even over days or weeks. It was a frightening conclusion, frightening enough for it to stop being embarrassing and become unsettling reality. Parnell tried to check his mirrors all the way to McLean and, with the Dubette building in sight, came close to hitting a suddenly braking car in front because he was studying the reflection of vehicles behind.

He reached the pharmacogenomics division – still an object of attention as he walked the windowed corridors – disorientated, knowing it would be difficult to keep his mind undividedly upon the priority work in which he’d decided to involve himself. Initially, however, he didn’t try. He shook his head against Kathy Richardson’s gesture that she had some messages, and securely closed against interruption the office door he recalled telling the staff would always remain open. He dialled Barry Jackson’s office number. Parnell was connected immediately.