Tom Weaver - The Dead Tracks

A parallel investigation .

I looked between them again. I'd given them the youth club. I'd told them I knew about Leanne. Now it was time to make a leap of faith.

'So where Does Frank White fit in?'

Davidson's eyes flicked to me and then away. A moment of surprise, followed by a ripple of alarm. Phillips stopped turning his wedding band momentarily. 'I don't know what you're talking about,' he said evenly.

'You remember him though, right?'

Phillips nodded. 'Of course I remember him.'

'They're linked.'

'Who are linked?'

'Frank White and Megan.'

'Everyone's linked according to you.'

'Something happened at that warehouse the night he was murdered. You dig far enough in, and you'll find a connection to Megan.'

They both looked at me. I couldn't decide if it was disbelief or panic in their faces. I decided it was panic. I was on to something.

'His death is connected to Megan, isn't it?'

Phillips started collecting up the photographs, feeding them back into the Manila folder. He looked at me. We ask the questions around here, David.'

'Is it something to do with the surgeon?'

A brief pause. Then Phillips leaned over, spoke into the recorder to confirm the time and the fact that he was taking a break - and they both got up and left.

Chapter Thirty-nine

As they were walking out, I requested a toilet break. Phillips asked Davidson to show me where it was, and disappeared through a security door that connected the interview rooms to the main office. Davidson didn't say anything, just led me past the other doors into an L-shape kink in the corridor. There were two further doors around the corner: one for men, one for women. 'I'll wait here,' he said.

Inside, it was cold and sterile. Old metal-framed windows, with iron mesh over the glass. China basins screwed to the floor. No soap. No hot water. Grey-green cubicles minus the toilet seats. Basically nothing you could rip off and use as a weapon. There was the overpowering stench of urinal cake and, as I moved into one of the cubicles, I realized I could see my breath in front of my face. It couldn't have been more than five degrees.

After about half a minute, I heard Davidson start talking to someone. Above the traffic noise from outside, and the constant gurgle from the cistern, I could only make out a few words, but it sounded like Davidson was asking a uniform to stand guard.

I flushed and walked across to the basins. As I was washing my hands, I heard another voice. Male. Low. Almost a whisper.

He was sending the PC off on an errand.

A couple of seconds later, I watched the door open in the mirror above the basin. It squeaked on its hinges. A foot appeared. Then a face.

Colm Healy.

He looked at me, our eyes meeting in the reflection. Then he glanced over his shoulder, out into the corridor again. Ran a hand through his red hair and rubbed one of his eyes. He had the chewed nails of a man who sat up all night unable to sleep — and the yellowing fingertips of a smoker.

I swivelled to face him, flicking my hands dry.

'We've got ten minutes tops, so I'll spare you the small talk,' he said. 'I don't believe you did it. I've read your file. I've heard about you. No record. No blips on the radar. Two years back, your wife dies. And now I'm supposed to believe you're on some kind of… of what? Revenge mission? No. You're not this guy. So you're going to tell me what I want to know, and then I'll help you out in return. Okay?'

'You said all you needed to say last time.'

'Yeah, well…' He faded off. Stood there with his hand on the door. 'That guy you had in that photo you showed me. Milton Sykes. Who is he really?'

I shrugged. 'I don't know.'

'Why's he look like Sykes?'

I shrugged again. 'I don't know.'

'Well, let me give you a head start,' he said. 'I'm gonna give you enough credit to assume you've read up about Sykes.'

I nodded, trying to figure out where he was headed.

'So you remember how the police pinned the murder of Jenny Truman on him, right?'

I went to nod again. Then stopped. He was talking about her dress. I'd overlooked the connection, forgotten it in the blur of the last couple of hours.

'They found her dress behind a board in his kitchen,' I said.

'Bingo. And now they've found Megan's blouse behind a board in your kitchen. I think we can safely assume whoever's pinned this on you has a hard-on for Sykes. He looks like him, and now he wants to be like him.'

'Maybe the guy wants to be like Sykes. Maybe he's somehow involved in Megan going missing. But I don't think he's the man who took her.'

'Why?'

'Because the man who took her worked at the youth club.'

He stopped. Studied me. Looked outside into the corridor then pushed the door shut as far as it would go without fully closing it. 'Is that the lead you gave Phillips and Davidson?' He could see the answer in my face: yes. He rolled his eyes. 'Why?'

'Because I was screwed.'

He shifted on the spot. Looked out through the door again, then back to me. 'How do you know this Sykes guy didn't work at the youth club?'

'Because if he did, why isn't he on their records? For a place like that, you have to pass CRB checks. And if he did that, his picture and his details would be on file at the youth club. But he isn't anywhere near the place.'

'So if it's not him, who is it?'

I didn't answer. Eyed him. Why should I even trust you?'

'Because I'm your only friend inside this house. And you're gonna need a friend. Even if you get bail tonight, the evidence won't go away.'

'Forensics won't find anything.'

'You sure?'

'My prints aren't on the photos.'

'Maybe they're not,' Healy said, glancing out to the corridor again. 'Or maybe they are. Maybe the blood in that blouse is yours. Maybe Whoever's setting you up has been hunting around in your soap and put one of your cock hairs inside the doll. Who the fuck knows? If he's good enough to set you up, he's good enough to finish the job. You wanna wait around to find out — or do you want to try and finish this before you get flushed for something you didn't do?'

'Finish it?'

He looked at me, but didn't say anything.

'What are we finishing, Healy?'

His eyes drifted outside to the corridor again. He was nervous. On edge. It looked like he was about to say something, but then he just cleared his throat.

'Why aren't they linking Leanne to Megan?'

He frowned. 'What do you mean?'

'We both know you're still working her case on the quiet. You're still trying to find out what happened to her. Why aren't they tying Leanne to Megan?'

A lingering look at me. But no response.

'She worked at the same place as Megan. She even looked a bit like Megan. You know all this already. You know the youth club is what ties them together. Everyone here knows that. So why is Phillips telling me they're not linked?'

Silence. I studied him, and realized his nervousness wasn't borne out of being caught; it was out of being caught before he'd had the chance to find out where his daughter had gone. He was fuelled by anger, sadness and revenge. Later on down the line that could become dangerous. But at the moment it was helping him focus. No mistakes. No errors. No slip-ups.

'Look, I'm neck-deep in shit,' I said to him. We can both see that. So I have an agenda just like you. You want to find your girl; I don't want to go down for what they're trying to pin on me. I need to be ready for what mud they sling in my direction next. I need to be armed. You understand that, don't you?'

After a couple of seconds he nodded.

'Good.' I paused, studied him. It was going to be hard to get beneath his skin. He wasn't used to giving things up or sharing information. He looked at me and away again. He was telling me I would have to go first. And I knew, at the moment, with the situation I was in, I didn't have much of a choice. 'Daniel Markham.'