Tom Weaver - The Dead Tracks

'So, what - you just hang around outside her house?'

'She left a weird message on my phone. She didn't say anything — it was just ten seconds of silence - but when I called her back she didn't answer.'

And then it all shifted into focus: the night before, she phoned and didn't answer, and then she'd been odd when I'd called her on the landline. Because Crane had come for her at home. The first one had been a distress call. She must have made the same call to Phillips as well. But Crane had found out — and the next time I rang her, Crane had made her tell me everything was fine. Probably with a knife at her throat.

'I didn't like it,' Phillips continued. 'So I went round there…' He glanced behind him, even though the door was closed. 'And I managed to get into her house' . Just like Ewan Tasker had suspected. 'But she wasn't there. She was gone.'

I looked at him. 'She called me in a panic one night and said she thought someone had been watching her place. It was you. She saw your car.'

'It was me. It was my car.' He paused. A long-drawn- out breath. 'Frank and I had a kind of… arrangement. A promise we made.'

'You'd look out for each other.'

'Right. If either of us…' He stopped briefly. 'Look, when I made that promise to Frank, when we made that promise to each other, it was one I never believed I'd have to see through. But now I do. So from time to time, I check in on Jill. I went past her place a couple of times on the way to the station yesterday evening. That night you're talking about, when you went round, I guess I didn't hide well enough. It had been a long day.'

I didn't say anything. Just stared at him.

'You're pissed off,' he said. 'I get it.'

'Do you?'

He nodded, trying to defuse the situation. 'Believe it or not, I do.'

'So where's Jill?'

'We don't know.'

'She wasn't in his place in the woods?'

'No. Seven dead women were recovered from there - none of them her.'

'Seven?'

'We found Susan Markham's body in a wall cavity.'

She hadn't been placed with the others. No coffin. No formalin. Which meant he obviously didn't see her as part of his plan. She was just bait to reel Markham in. The other women — even Leanne — were something else. All blonde. All blue-eyed.

All worth keeping.

'Anyway,' Phillips said. 'Jill wasn't there. We tore that place apart.'

'She's not back home?'

'Hasn't been back. Hasn't been anywhere as far as we can tell. Not home, not to work, not with her family.'

Crane knows where she is. 'He won't tell you?'

'He's not said a word. But we found photos of her in his hideout. Pictures of her, her house, her friends. You were in some of them.' His fingers drifted to his wedding band and he leaned back in his chair. 'He took her, I think we both know that.' Finally his eyes moved back to mine. 'Look, David…'

I knew what was coming, and I wasn't about to make it easy for him.

'I know you could use what you know against us.'

'You're damn right I could. What you did with those women…' He didn't say anything, just looked at me. I felt the anger prickle beneath my skin as I watched him, waiting for him to justify what he'd done. 'It was wrong.'

'Agreed.'

'But you did it anyway?'

'By keeping Glass unaware we were on to him, we were within touching distance of the Russians. That doesn’t make it right. That doesn’t erase those women. But now we have everything, murders, drugs, prostitution, people-trafficking, gunrunning, money-laundering. Was it a sacrifice worth making?' He shrugged. 'It depends where you're standing.'

'You had a legal and moral obligation to tell their families.'

'Try standing next to the body of a ten-year-old prostitute who has had every hole in her body ripped to shreds. Or at the back of a van that's just brought seventeen women and kids into the country, all of whom have suffocated to death because the van has no ventilation. Or next to the imported guns or the shitty drugs that are killing people, day after day. Things aren't so clear.'

'They look clear.'

He leaned forward. 'Seven women, or seven ten-year-olds?'

'It's not about choosing — it's about doing it all.'

Phillips smiled. You're an idealist.'

'Maybe so. But you were wrong.'

Phillips started turning his wedding band again. Then he glanced at his watch. We haven't got time for this. We need to find Jill.'

'So find her.'

He eyed me again but didn't speak.

What's going on here ?

'Hart tells me we should cut a deal with you,' he said eventually, 'and, given what you know, I think he's right. But what about your new friend Healy?'

'What about him?'

'You willing to help him?'

'Help him how?'

'He's going down, David. Once he's well enough to walk out of that hospital, it'll be in a set of cuffs. Then he'll be up in front of a judge. Then he'll be behind bars. You know what they do to bent coppers on the inside?'

'So?'

'So, we're willing to go easy on Healy in return for a favour.'

'Which is?'

Phillips paused. 'We need you to interview Aron Crane.'

Chapter Seventy-one

Phillips led Liz and me to a small room with a metal shelf full of electronic equipment and a huge one-way mirror. Through it, I could see Aron Crane seated in the interview room, alone, handcuffed to a metal arch welded into the table. He was staring at the wall, his nose broken and bruises dotted down the side of his face where I'd connected with the shovel. If nothing else, it made me feel good to have hurt him.

Next to the audio equipment an officer sat at a computer, headphones on, a live colour CCTV image onscreen. Also inside the room were Jamie Hart and a uniformed superintendent. I recognized him from the last time I'd been brought in for questioning. He stood and came across to meet us. Shook hands with Liz, but not with me. He introduced himself as Ian Bartholomew. The top cop at the station. He thanked me through gritted teeth for my co-operation, but didn't seem keen on the idea of turning a blind eye to what had happened with Healy and me. It was obviously Hart and Phillips who had persuaded him to go this route. After Bartholomew was done, he seated himself at the back of the room and nodded at Phillips.

'He's only spoken for about a minute since we brought him in,' Phillips said.

The door to the room opened up and a uniformed officer brought a trayful of shop-bought coffees in. I didn't have to put up with machine effluent now they needed my help. I took one, peeled the lid off it and watched Crane. He was absolutely still.

'Play it,' Phillips said to the man at the computer.

The officer clicked a couple of options on the screen, and seconds later a square of CCTV footage appeared. Phillips and Hart in the interview room with Crane.

'You can't stay silent all day,' Hart said.

Crane was looking down. He glanced at Hart, held his eye for a moment and then turned his attention back to the surface of the table. In the corner of the screen was a counter. 01:57:43. One hour, fifty-seven minutes into the interview and he hadn't spoken once.

'You can contact a lawyer any time you want,' Hart added. 'It's your legal right to do that.' Nothing. No response. 'Come on, Aron - where's Jill White?'

Crane sniffed.

'Why don't you tell us about David Raker instead?' Phillips offered.

I turned to Phillips. He didn't meet my eye.

On-screen, Crane finally looked up. 'Why would I do that?'

'He interests you.'

'Does he?'

'In your hideout you had pictures of him on your wall.'

Crane pursed his lips, as if he suddenly realized Phillips was right. 'I'll tell you what,' he said. You get Raker in here to talk to me, alone, and you get your confession.'