The Dead Tracks Read online

  I could feel the tension travel down the line. He was answering for himself, not the two of them now.

  'Same here,' Caroline said quietly.

  People connected. Events connected. Nothing is coincidence. I said goodbye, then dialled Jill's mobile. She was out somewhere. In the background I could hear people talking.

  'I'm not disturbing you, am I?'

  'No, not at all,' she said. 'I'm doing some shopping'

  'Can I ask you a couple of questions?'

  'Of course.'

  'Do you ever remember Frank mentioning the name Megan Carver?'

  A pause. Wasn't she that girl who went missing?'

  'Right.'

  'I don't think so.'

  'He never mentioned being involved in the search for her?'

  'No. Why do you ask?'

  I paused. You have to ask her — and there's no easy way to phrase it. 'Mind if I ask why you decided to come to the support group this week?'

  'What do you mean?'

  I mean I'm already working the Megan Carver case, and then you turn up and I end up looking into your husband's death as well. And now I find out there might be some kind of connection. 'I just wondered about the timing, that was all.'

  She hesitated. I rode out the silence. There didn't seem to be a lot of mystery to Jill. The grief she felt for her husband seemed real; the shyness seemed genuine. I couldn't see anything behind her reasons for coming to the group other than to get over the death of someone she'd loved. But, even so, the timing was too perfect. She'd all but asked me to look into Frank's death forty-eight hours after the Carvers had first brought me Megan. London was a city of seven million people, and yet somehow I'd ended up with both cases within two days of each other.

  'David, I don't know…' She paused. 'I don't know what you're asking me.'

  'Frank's name came up in relation to Megan, and I'm trying to work out why. Because Megan is the case I'm working at the moment. The one I told you about. I'm not accusing you of anything, I'm just trying to find the connection.'

  'I swear to you, I didn't know they were connected.'

  All I had to go on was her voice. The tiny movements in it; the rise and fall of the words. She was either telling the truth or she was a flawless liar.

  'I was struggling to cope,' she said. 'That's why I came to the support group. It's been nearly a year, and it's just not getting any easier. I thought the group might help.'

  'Did you know I attended the group?'

  'No.'

  'Had you heard of me before?'

  'Absolutely not.'

  I paused for a moment. 'Okay.'

  'That's the truth, I swear.'

  'I believe you,' I said, but wasn't sure if I was committed to what I was saying. Even if she was telling the truth, something was out of kilter somewhere. 'I just needed to be sure.'

  'I understand.'

  Now she sounded like she was lying. I'd offended her by suggesting she'd arrived at the group with an ulterior motive. Some hidden agenda.

  We said goodbye, her voice quiet and distant, and then I turned to the file again, flipping back to the start. I worked it hard: every line, every entry, every detail. But, after twelve pages, the second read-through was the same as the first. No connections. Not to people, not to events and, most importantly, not to the girl I was trying to find.

  Then, on page thirteen, I found something.

  Midway down, one of the techs had recovered a series of grey hairs. DNA tests revealed that they didn't belong to anyone present at the scene - because they weren't even human. They were from a dog.

  A greyhound.

  No one recalled seeing a dog at the scene, and the warehouse was kept locked up so wouldn't have been home to any strays - which meant someone brought the hairs with them. Police would have assumed they'd come from a living room somewhere, or a kitchen. But I knew instantly they didn't come from a house.

  They came from the Dead Tracks.

  * * *

  Chapter Thirty-five

  As I moved into my road, I could immediately tell something was up. People were standing at the top of the street in the pouring rain looking down towards my house. Blue light painted the buildings and flashed in the windows. Crime-scene tape fluttered in the breeze. An officer was stationed just behind the tape. He watched me approach, eyes narrowed, trying to get a fix on who I was, and what I might want. As I continued my approach in the car, he looked like he was about to tell me to turn around. Then he got a glimpse of my face and recognition sparked in his eyes. He looked behind him. There was a crime-scene van and three cars parked outside. Two were marked. One, a Volvo, wasn't, but had a lightbar flaring on the front dash. As I stopped the car short of the tape, the officer shouted something and two men emerged from my driveway.

  Phillips and Davidson.

  I got out of the car. 'What the hell is this?'

  Neither of them said anything. Phillips led the way, a long black coat trailing behind him like a cape. Davidson followed, a cup of takeaway coffee in his hands, the merest hint of a smile on his face.

  'David,' Phillips said.

  We were either side of the crime-scene tape. Phillips looked back at the house. A crime-scene tech was coming down the driveway now, carrying a shoebox. It was one of the ones I'd had stacked in the spare-room wardrobes; full of stuff belonging to Derryn that I hadn't yet sorted through. It was inside an evidence bag.

  'Where's she going with that?'

  Phillips didn't reply. Davidson shrugged.

  I glared at Phillips. 'Everything in there belongs to my wife'

  'Calm down, David,' he replied.

  'Calm down?'

  'Calm down.'

  'I want that box back now.'

  'Listen to me,' Phillips said, and his eyes flicked to the crowd at the end of the road. Automatically, I turned and looked towards Liz's house. It was dark. No one home. I didn't want her to see this. 'Just calm down,' he said again, 'before you make this worse.'

  'What are you doing in my house?' I said, ignoring him. 'Have you even got a warrant?'

  Phillips felt around in the pocket of his coat and brought out a piece of paper, sealed inside a waterproof sleeve. He held it up.

  'Did you lie on oath to get this?'

  He didn't reply, just handed it to me.

  I looked at it. In the lack of light it was difficult to see the specifics, but I spotted my name at the top and a signature at the bottom.

  'Who the fuck signed off on that?'

  'I need you to come with me,' Phillips replied.

  'Why would I do that?' There was definitely a smile on Davidson's face now. I looked at him. "You got something to say to me, fat man?'

  He shrugged, still smiling.

  Phillips audibly sighed. 'Okay, David, we're going to have to make this official.'

  Davidson now had a pad in his hands and — despite the rain - was busy writing down what I'd just said. Even as the rage boiled in me, I knew I had to cool off to avoid saying something I'd regret. But when I looked again at the tech loading the shoebox into the back of the van, anger fired in me for a second time. I ducked under the tape. The uniformed officer made a move towards me. Phillips noticed and held up a hand.

  'David,' he said.

  'You better have a damn good reason for being here.'

  Phillips nodded. 'David Raker, I'm arresting you on suspicion of the abduction of Megan Carver. You do not have to say anything —'

  'What?'

  '— but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, anything which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be used in evidence. Do you understand what I've just said to you?'

  You've got to be kidding me.'

  'Do you understand, David?'

  I glanced at the two of them. Davidson was still writing. Phillips looked between me and the PC standing to my side.

  'David?'

  I stared at him.

  'David, do you understand — y
es or no?'

  Behind him, Davidson continued writing.

  'Yes or no?'

  I looked at him. 'Yes.'

  He nodded at the PC again. I heard the metallic rasp of a pair of handcuffs and then felt the officer come up behind me. He guided my arms around to my back and sat them at the base of my spine. Cold, wet metal fed around my wrists and locked into place. In front of me, Davidson made a point of forcibly adding a full stop on to the end of whatever he was writing.

  'This is crazy,' I said.

  Phillips placed a hand on my arm. Time to go.'

  * * *

  This is the Beginning

  She had a mattress and two blankets for when she slept. An hour after his second visit of the day, when he would throw down the liquid for her face and the cotton wool to apply it with, the lights would go out, plunging the room into total darkness. The lights would come on again the next day, for the first visit, when he came with her food. With the lights out, all she had was silence.

  Some nights, early on, she would yell at the top of her voice, trying to get someone to hear her. When a week passed, she started trying to reason with him when he came in. At ten days, she told him the mattress was uncomfortable. Finally, at two weeks, she changed tactics when he came in with her food.

  'I'm going to kill you, you bastard!'

  She only tried once.

  After she screamed at him, he paused. Straightened. Looked down at her. A smile broke out on his face; a thin line, like a slash from a knife. As it formed, his mouth peeling open, she realized it wasn't a smile at all. It was a warning. He was telling her that, even if she never slept again, she wouldn't see him approach. He'd do what he wanted to her, come for her when he needed her.

  And all she would see was a flicker in the darkness.

  Sona woke. It was pitch black; the middle of the night. She rolled over on the mattress, springs popping beneath her, and pulled the blanket up to her neck. As she did, she heard something beyond the silence for the first time since she'd been taken: the gentle patter of rain. It was coming down somewhere distantly, softly, consistently. When she shut her eyes and tried to concentrate on the noise, it sounded like it was hitting a metal grate.

  pffffffff

  Her eyes snapped open.

  The hole was bricked in dark colours all the way up, so there was no definition to her surroundings. No chinks of light. She couldn't even see her own hand in front of her face. Everything vanished in the darkness, and all that remained was sound: a very gentle rumble now, reverberating through the floor of the room above and down the walls of the hole; and the rhythmic beat of the rain.

  She lay there with her eyes open. As she counted the time in her head - thirty seconds, a minute, two minutes, five minutes — the rain started to get harder. At ten minutes, she could feel herself getting tired again. Her eyes drifted closer together. She opened them and stared into the darkness for another sixty seconds. Then she closed them, too tired now to fight the onset of sleep.

  pffffffff

  She moved quickly, sitting up on the mattress. What was that? The sound had been closer this time. She expected to be able to see something, maybe just the smallest mark against the darkness. But there was nothing. No light. No shapes. Everything was black. She reached out in front of her, to where the sound had come from. Leaned a little way forward. Pressed her other hand against the floor for support.

  And then it came to her.

  She realized what the sound had been.

  Static.

  Torchlight erupted from the corner of the hole, blinding her briefly. She brought a hand to her eyes, automatically reacting, but a leg kicked her supporting arm out from under her and she fell forward, hitting her face against the floor. It dazed her for a moment, white dots flashing in front of her. When she rolled on to her back, he was standing above her, a foot either side of her body, a smile cutting across his face.

  Behind him, propped against the wall, was a ladder.

  He'd come down, into the hole, and she hadn't even heard him.

  She tried to wriggle away from him, getting as far as she could, but he placed a boot on her throat and pinned her to the floor. Static from the speakers in the room above.

  'This is the beginning,' he said.

  Even up close, it was hard to make out his features clearly. He'd turned the torch away from himself, shining it to the left. Shadows cut across him, little pieces of the night clinging to every fold and crease in his face.

  This is where you give me my life back.'

  In the blink of an eye, the man took his foot off her throat and lifted her up off the floor of the hole. She went to fight him, went to kick or punch or bite, but he was too quick. He punched her in the side of the head — a fast, efficient jab, right at the corner of the eye - almost hissing at her as he moved.

  And then she toppled sideways on to the mattress and blacked out.

  * * *

  PART THREE

  * * *

  Chapter Thirty-six

  They took me to the same station as before, but this time I wasn't going to be walked straight into an interview room. The same custody sergeant that had greeted my arrival the first time was perched at the front desk, looking down through his half-moon glasses. He glanced at me, then at Phillips and Davidson, and buzzed them in. The three of them led me in the opposite direction to the interview rooms, through two sets of doors, into the custody suite. Behind me, Phillips pushed a metal gate shut until it locked. Davidson moved off to my left. The sergeant slid in behind a desk, introducing himself as Fryer, and asked Phillips to undo my cuffs. Up front, he told me my rights. Every couple of sentences, he paused to ask if I was clear. They hated the Police and Criminal Evidence Act more than any of the men and women they arrested. Anything missed, any mistakes, and a solicitor would dismantle the case.

  Fryer produced a camera from under the counter. Police liked to get the pictures out the way in case, for any reason, injuries were sustained inside the station later on. He took three photographs. Once he was done, he invited me across to a table where the fingerprint kit sat. The whole time, Davidson watched. I glared at him, but he just stared at me blankly.

  Next, Fryer asked Phillips to go over his account of the arrest. It was the reason Davidson had been taking notes.

  Except Phillips didn't need them. He'd committed pretty much everything to memory. When he was done, Fryer turned to me and asked if I had anything to add; in effect, he was asking me if I wanted to dispute Phillips's account. I shook my head.

  The rest of the booking in took twenty minutes. I emptied out my pockets and everything was logged, gave them my belt and shoelaces, then Fryer reminded me of my rights again, and asked me if I wanted to call anyone or inform a solicitor. This time I said I wanted to make a call, and Phillips directed me to a room behind the booking-in area. It was small with reinforced glass panels, one table and one chair—both bolted down - and a telephone on the wall. They left me there. I watched them go, and then dialled Liz's mobile. After three rings, she picked up.

  'Hello?'

  'Liz, it's David.'

  'David,' she said, and sounded pleased to hear my voice. 'How are you? I popped over yesterday, but you must have been out.'

  'Liz…'

  She immediately sensed something was up. 'Are you okay?'

  'I'm under arrest.'

  'What?

  The police turned up at my house earlier…'I paused. 'They've made a mistake. They've somehow tied me to the disappearance of Megan Carver. I don't know how, but… Look, I don't want to talk about it too much over the phone. I just need your help. Can you get here?'

  'Yes, yes, of course,' she said. 'The only thing is, I'm not in London.'

  My heart sank.

  'Where are you?'

  'I'm up in Warwick seeing Katie.'

  I remembered her walking down the drive to her car before eight that morning. Warwick was eighty miles away. An hour and a half on a clear run. Except Sunday
night on the motorways into London wouldn't be a clear run. Even if she left now, it would probably take her a couple of hours. If I was unlucky, even more.

  'David,' she said, and her voice was suddenly quiet and controlled. 'What is it they think you've done?'