Chris Mooney - The Dead Room

She gave the operator the plate and her mobile number, then switched to the camera and took several pictures of the van. The camera lens wasn't powerful enough to focus on the front plate.

The door opened. The man who stepped out had a round, shaved head. She wondered if this was the same man she'd seen last night wearing the tactical vest and night-vision goggles.

The man buttoned his light grey suit jacket and started running. Darby snapped pictures, catching sight of the slight bulge from the handgun he wore on his belt.

Baldy shoved his way past the throng of reporters and cameramen, then grabbed the elbow of a TV cameraman dressed in jeans, sneakers and a white shirt. Sunglasses covered his eyes and he wore headphones over a baseball cap.

More pictures and then she quickly zoomed in on his face and managed to get a good, clear shot of Baldy speaking into the cameraman's ear. The two pushed through the crowd and were off and running.

Darby kept taking pictures as the van backed on to Cranmore. A screech of rubber and someone slammed on their car horn. Watching the van's tyres spinning with smoke, she wondered if Baldy had a police radio or a scanner in his car. Maybe someone had called to tip him off.

The East Boston address listed on Ben Masters's licence belonged to an abandoned automotive garage called Delaney's. The sign, with its faded red lettering on wood bleached from the sun, sat above a front door boarded up with plywood sheets. All the windows had also been boarded up and sprayed with graffiti. Two big padlocks secured the chains wrapped around the chain-linked gate for the car park. Weeds grew out of cracked asphalt.

Did the garage hold some sort of significance or value for Ben? Or had he simply chosen this site because it was abandoned? It was maddening to wonder.

She turned around and drove up a street of triple-decker houses. She would need to buy a pair of bolt cutters on the way home, and find a hammer and a crowbar. She could come back with them tonight. The Charlestown house sitting on the corner of Old Rutherford Avenue and Ashmont Street was painted a robin's-egg blue. Jamie did three drive-bys to check the windows. They were all dark. No vehicle was parked in the driveway.

Idling at the stop sign, she looked across the street to the white mail box spotted with rust. Gold decals for the number '16' were taped to it. She didn't see a name.

She pulled to the side and double-parked against the cars filling every empty spot along the narrow one-way street. She hit the button for the hazard lights, left the minivan running and stepped out tugging the brim of the Red Sox baseball cap to push it further down her forehead. Sunglasses covered her eyes and Dan's old Red Sox windbreaker covered the shoulder holster and Glock. She had swapped it for the Magnum. If something went down inside the house, she didn't want to leave the police anything that could connect her to Belham.

A quick glance to make sure no one was watching and then she opened the mail box. It was stuffed with letters and catalogues. Thank God. She pulled out a handful of envelopes and quickly rifled through them. All bills, every one addressed to the same person: Mary J. Reynolds. Another glance to make sure she was alone and then she shoved them back into the mail box and turned her attention to the aluminium screen door.

Beyond it, an old wooden door that looked as if it had been installed a century ago. The wood around the oval glass built into the centre had warped and cracked from water. Two deadbolts. They looked new.

Pressing her face up against the screen, she saw a dark foyer and a hall of dingy white walls and scratched hardwood flooring. At the far end, a kitchen with cardboard boxes stacked on the worktops. Some of the cupboards had been left open. The shelves were empty.

Jamie rang the doorbell and ran back to her minivan. She pretended to be talking on Ben's mobile while watching the house out of the corner of her eye.

The front door didn't open.

She had Ben's keys in her pocket. She could try unlocking the door now. No, not yet. She had to be sure no one was home. She had to be sure. She drove away to look for a place to park.

The last time she had stepped foot inside Charlestown was years and years ago as a newbie cadet fresh out of the Boston Police Academy. Back then, during the early eighties, the Irish gangs had ruled every inch of these streets. Now, with all the mob leaders dead or behind bars, a wave of gentrification had swept through the town, stripping the old neighbourhood establishments to make room for upmarket restaurants, coffee shops and antique shops more in line with the tastes of the new upper-middle-class residents who had gobbled up the overpriced houses and condos. This new Charlestown reminded her of a slightly less ritzy version of Beacon Hill – old brick buildings with no back gardens, just window boxes and the occasional tree planted on the cracked pavement. No garages, maybe just the odd driveway big enough for a single car. Just like Beacon Hill, every Charlestown resident who owned a vehicle had to squeeze it into a sticker spot along the street.

Half an hour later, she found a tiny car park attached to a brick building belonging to an accounting firm – and within walking distance of the house. She squeezed the minivan into the last spot and left it running for the air-conditioning.

She placed the battery in Ben's phone, turned it on and dialled directory inquiries.

'City and state,' the operator said.

'Charlestown. Mass… ah… ah…'

'Massachusetts?'

'Yes.'

'Name?'

'Mary… ah… ah… Reynolds. Ashmont… ah… Street.'

Jamie heard the click-click-click of a keyboard on the other end of the line as she grabbed the pad of paper and pen that were in the glovebox.

The operator connected her free of charge. Jamie pictured Ben's name and number being displayed on the house phone's caller-ID. If the man in the Hawaiian shirt or anyone else was inside, she hoped he'd see Ben's name and pick up.

On the eighth ring, when no answering machine picked up, she hung up. No one was home.

Raindrops plopped against the windscreen. The sky had grown darker. It was going to start pouring any minute. Good. People stayed inside when it rained. Jamie got out of the car and started walking.

Ben's Palm Treo had a tiny but fully functional keyboard and a 2? 2 colour screen with a numeric touch keypad. She touched a button and up came a screen with icons for voicemail, contacts and a call log. A gold bell blinked in the top-left-hand corner of the screen. She touched it with her fingernail. Ben had three missed calls and two new voicemails.

She accessed the voicemail, then hung up when the mechanical voice asked for a PIN number. She didn't need a PIN number to access the contacts.

Three contacts: Judas, Alan and Pontius. No full names or addresses, just different phone numbers.

Judas and Pontius. Her years of Catholic school delivered the obvious glosses: Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus' disciples, had betrayed God's one and only son; Pontius Pilot, the Roman governor, had condemned Jesus to death.

Were the two names some sort of code? Again she recalled Ben's comment about being some sort of undercover cop.

She checked the call log. Eight calls, all from Judas. She wondered if Judas was Mr Hawaiian Shirt, the man who had driven Ben and the suited man to Belham in the BMW. She suspected he hadn't been caught by the police. The news hadn't reported anything. She had checked the TV and radio.

She removed the battery. No way to track the mobile signal now.

A heavy rain broke out, drilling the streets and parked cars. She started running.

When she reached Ashmont, she looked at the building directly across the street from the Reynolds home. Most windows were dark but she spotted several glowing with light. She didn't see any shadows moving behind the glass.