Kill Me Again Part 16

Maggie quickly pulled a brush through her hair and reapplied her lipstick. She didn't want to give the police the impression that anything was wrong. Fixing a smile on her face she turned to her sister.

'Suze, I need you to take the children out,' she said. 'I'll get them. Can you go quickly, please? I don't want them to be distressed by a visit from the police.'

Her sister looked up from the screen of Maggie's laptop, an enquiring look on her face. 'Sorry I hope you don't mind. I wanted to check Facebook but it was already open. I didn't think you used it?'

'I don't.'

'So who's Patricia Rowe? It was her page that was open.'

'What? Oh, it's nothing. She's relevant to a case I've been working on.'

'What's this, then?' her sister asked.

Maggie was getting more and more worried about time, but she spun the laptop round towards her to see what Suzy was talking about. It seemed she had found Mrs Rowe's photographs and had clicked through to an alb.u.m. The photos were displayed full screen, and the one she was looking at was of five kids aged from about ten to mid-teens. Only two were looking at the screen. The others were all involved in fixing their bikes. The bike at the front, centre screen, had a yellow frame, a red suspension fork and a bright green seat stay.

Duncan's bike.

A boy was crouching in front of the bike adjusting the chain, his back to the camera. Maggie couldn't see his face, but there was something about his hair and the way it grew at the back. She clicked on the next picture. The same group were now all standing in front of their bikes smiling. Except for the boy with the multicoloured bike. He was scowling.

She turned shocked eyes to her sister as the back door opened and Josh charged in. She snapped the lid closed.

'Lily's fallen over, Mum. She's hurt her knee.'

Suzy stood up. 'I'll see to her. We'll go to the shops and see if a few sweets or an ice cream will help it to get better, shall we?' she said, turning to Josh. 'Come on. I'm sure Mummy won't mind if we borrow her car.'

Maggie didn't hear her. All she wanted to do was open her laptop again, blow the picture up and check what she had seen. But she didn't need to. She knew. The boy in the picture was Duncan.

37.

If Julian Richmond was surprised to see Tom again, this time accompanied by a young woman, he didn't show it.

'Come in, Tom. I hope you've got some news about Leo,' he said, a friendly smile failing to mask his underlying anxiety.

'I'm sorry to bother you again,' Tom said. 'This is Detective Inspector Becky Robinson. I'm afraid we don't have any news about Leo, but I wanted to ask you about one of your employees, if that's okay.'

Julian looked surprised but lifted his shoulders slightly as if to say 'Whatever' and showed them into the house. Once again they made for the kitchen. The radio was playing, and he walked over and turned it off.

'Sorry,' he said. 'I need the radio at the weekend. Now Leo's not around I can go the whole two days without speaking to another soul, and it feels as if my vocal cords have seized up if I don't sing or whistle along.'

Tom decided he liked this man. He seemed honest and genuinely sad that things hadn't worked out with Leo.

'What's this about one of my employees, then? I think they're a relatively honest bunch. You'd like to think that comes with the job, really.'

Tom smiled. He had met a fair number of accountants whom he might have considered borderline on the honesty front, but decided to keep that thought to himself.

'It's a man called Adam Mellor. I gather he works for your firm?'

'Adam. Yes, he's in my team. A bright guy, impressive in front of clients. Why are you interested?'

'I'm sorry, Julian, I can't say at this point. It's all a bit vague, but his name has come up and I'd like to hear about him. We've tried to talk to him, but he seems to be on leave.'

'That's right. It was a last-minute thing. He was supposed to be coming to Haydock Park with us all last Sat.u.r.day you remember I mentioned that to you? He was coordinating the event. I phoned him in the morning to say we had a spare place as Leo was going to be a no-show, and he called back later to say he wasn't going to be able to make it either. Somebody in his family had died that morning, so he asked if he could take some leave. He's going to be away for another week, I think.'

Tom said nothing and avoided meeting Becky's eyes.

'Tell me about him, if you wouldn't mind. Anything you know about his background, his character. It will help us create a picture.'

Julian was a smart guy, and Tom could see that he was weighing up whether to go along with this or not. But then he gave a small nod of the head, as if convincing himself that Tom was okay.

'I knew his father he's dead now and he admitted to me before we appointed Adam that there had been some difficulties when he was growing up. But when Adam was at university his father paid for some pretty intensive counselling that appeared to be effective. Of course, Adam's in his thirties now, so I think his wild youth is well behind him. His father asked me to give him a job as a favour, and I agreed. I haven't regretted it.'

Julian stopped for a moment and looked pensive. 'I wonder who could have died that mattered to him? I always got the impression that after his father pa.s.sed away he no longer had anything to do with his family what remains of it.' He shrugged.

'What about his character?' Tom asked.

'Hmm. He's not that popular with his colleagues, I have to admit. I'm told the girls think he's a user, and the guys think he's power-hungry. But, as I said, clients love him because he flatters them and they're aware of his wealthy background. He makes no effort to hide where he comes from, and I think some of them are impressed.'

'How did his family make their money? Do you know?'

'I do. They're quite famous locally. An ancestor on his father's side was something to do with the original Manchester s.h.i.+p Ca.n.a.l company. A shareholder, I think. He made his money and got out before the decline in s.h.i.+pping and moved into other growth areas. I believe he was a major shareholder in what was originally the London and North Western Railway. Adam's father always considered himself a world authority on Manchester transport.'

It wasn't until they were in the car and driving away that Becky risked a glance at Tom. He had saved one question for last with Julian Richmond, and Becky had watched his face as he asked it.

'Did Adam Mellor ever meet Leo?'

Tom hadn't been able to get out of that house quickly enough when Julian answered. Clearly he hadn't wanted to be rude, but they needed to find Adam Mellor, and the sooner the better.

'Yes, he did,' Julian had responded. 'He was one of a crowd of colleagues from the office that Leo and I b.u.mped into at Cheltenham.'

Tom had nodded his thanks, as if it was something of a throwaway question, but Becky knew Julian wasn't fooled. She saw the man's eyes narrow, but he said nothing. There was nothing to say.

Now Tom was driving, and Becky was already on the phone, issuing instructions. They needed to make sure they used every means possible to track down the van that Mellor had been driving and check for any other vehicles he might own. She would bet her life he had a flash car. Tom glanced at her sideways as if to say 'You've got to be joking' when she asked somebody to check with Mellor's family to see who had died. But she was just doing her job leaving no stone unturned. He could have been telling the truth. Not that she believed he was for one second.

Becky also asked one of the team to check up on his education and where he was in 2003.

'You think he was involved back then, don't you?' She looked at Tom and he nodded. 'And now?'

'He'd met Leo. He was suddenly called away. He's stalking a woman who looks like Leo and like the women who have been killed. Of course he's involved. He's the best the only lead we've got until we can find out who phoned Hayley Walker, or who she went out to meet.'

'Are we still interested in the backgrounds of the people who worked with Hayley?' Becky asked.

'Yes, and I want Louisa Knight brought back in. Hayley seems to have been friendly with lots of people but doesn't seem to have had any particularly close friends. We need to get a picture of Adam Mellor and ask Louisa if she recognises him. Has he ever been involved with the hospital at all, or with any of her colleagues? Had she seen him with Hayley? We should have asked Julian for a picture, but if you ring him I'm sure he'll oblige. He didn't miss a trick, there, did he? He knew we were interested in Adam for all the wrong reasons.'

'If you're sure it's him, why are we looking at the people in the cardio department still?'

'Because I don't think we can a.s.sume that Mellor is acting alone, plus somebody phoned Hayley and they're not admitting to it.'

Becky glanced sideways at Tom. She could hear the strain in his voice, the fear that another girl might be killed. And the horror that the third girl might be Leo.

'We'll get him, Tom.'

Tom nodded. 'I don't know how Maggie Taylor fits into all of this. But one thing I am d.a.m.n sure about is that Adam Mellor knows what's happened to Leo. We have to find him, and find her.'

38.

A broken window pane was allowing gusts of cold damp air into the room, and Leo shouted until her voice cracked, hoping and praying that somebody would hear her. She couldn't get to the window. Her ankle was chained to one of a row of green metal pillars that reached up to the high ceiling in the vast s.p.a.ce. Overhead the remnants of fluorescent light fittings hung, the tubes either dead or long removed. The floorboards had been pulled up in parts, gaping holes revealing another huge open s.p.a.ce one level below where she sat. But that was no help. There was n.o.body on that floor. There was n.o.body else in the building.

She guessed she was in some kind of old mill, judging by the size, shape and regularity of the tall windows. There weren't many derelict buildings like this left in Manchester; they had almost all been converted into apartments. She knew they were in Manchester because they hadn't travelled far, and she was sure she was at the back of the building because just as n.o.body could hear her, she couldn't hear anything either. The silence was oppressive, dead. The days were bad enough, but the nights were h.e.l.l, and her wounds were sore.

Leo couldn't believe how stupid she had been. She remembered the rain streaming down her windows and how miserable she had felt. When she had heard the doorbell, she had been sure it would be Julian, come to forgive her for being such an idiot. She hadn't even checked the peephole, and when she opened her front door and saw an arrangement of flowers so vast she couldn't even see the face of the delivery man, she had been stunned by what she a.s.sumed was Julian's generosity, especially as she was in no doubt that the argument the night before had been down to her.

The delivery man had muttered that it might be easier if he put the flowers down somewhere in her apartment, so she had let him in. That's when she had seen his face, and the second man. And the masks. Those horrible s.h.i.+ny plastic faces with their fixed grins.

She had been pushed backwards. She hadn't known there was a chair behind her, and for a moment it felt like one of those dreams in which you are falling forever. Just as a dreamer wakes with a jolt, Leo had crashed down onto the chair, its softness not lessening the sick lurch to her stomach as she landed.

Once she had been bound and gagged one of the men left. She had seen his face reflected in the mirror only a glance, but it was enough. She would know that face anywhere if she saw it again.

And then the wait had begun.

'Sit. Keep quiet. We'll go when your neighbours are asleep.' She had tried moaning loudly, but he had thumped her in the stomach.

'Got to keep that pretty face looking perfect,' he had whispered against her ear. His skin was smooth and carefully shaven. He didn't sound like a Manchester thug and there was a slight hint of garlic about him. Not strong, just reminiscent of a good meal. But no cigarettes or beer.

She had tried to keep cool. There was nothing she hated more than showing weakness. And she could cope with the punches she had taken enough as a child, although that was a long time ago now.

She heard him in the kitchen, opening the fridge and then emptying something liquid down the sink. She heard a few soft thumps and guessed items were going into a bin liner. She knew what he was doing: he was ridding her house of perishable food not that there was much. People would eventually come looking for her, and if the alarm wasn't to be raised they would have to believe she had left from choice. n.o.body leaves milk to sour in their fridge when they go away.

It was in the silent hours of early morning as the world slept when the second man returned and they ushered her downstairs and into a car that smelled of good leather. The driver had left the car and disappeared for about five minutes. Leo heard the pa.s.senger door open and a rustling noise. Then she caught the smell of roses and lavender and knew the man had been back to collect the evidence the flowers and the rubbish.

Why had she been targeted? She tried hard to keep calm, to quash the rising panic in her chest, to work out what to do, but there didn't seem to be any logic to it. And now here she was, trapped and hardly able to move, in the same place she had been for days. They didn't come often, and when they did, they wore their masks. Both men were tall well over six feet and both appeared to be well dressed even when they came in jeans. Her gag and blindfold had been removed, although that did little good. With one ankle and one wrist firmly secured, she only had the use of one hand to eat and drink.

She had been certain she would be able to escape. The chain holding her leg was firm, but she'd thought that if she could free her arm she might be able to find something that she could prise one of the links open with. A cable tie around her wrist was attached to a second chain, wrapped around a different pillar, and she had yanked on the plastic tie as hard as possible in the hope that it would snap. The men had been clever in their positioning, though. Her arm was attached behind her, the leg in front, so it was hard to exert any real force.

When she heard them coming, she had tried to cover her sore, bruised arm with her sleeve, but one of the men had walked over and pulled the sleeve back. Without a word he had left her to the first man, the slightly shorter of the two, and disappeared. She didn't know why not a word had been spoken but she sensed that this was not good news for her.

And that's when it had happened. That's when she knew that she wasn't going to be able to escape not now, not ever.

The taller man had come back into the room, clutching a plastic bag from which he had withdrawn a number of items. Leo could see what looked like a pair of scissors but with extra-long handles, and a pair of fine tweezers. The man laid them both down on the upturned box where her water was usually left. Then he opened a small packet and withdrew a thin curved piece of metal that seemed to have some thread attached. Using the tweezers, he grabbed a chunk of the flesh of her arm and gripped it tightly.

She knew what was coming. She recognised the thin, hooked metal for what it was. A suture needle.

With practised skill the man inserted it into her arm, over and over again, suturing the plastic tie around her wrist firmly in place, the agonising piercing of muscle and flesh ensuring that any movement she made would tear her arm to shreds.

39.

A second phone call from the police informed Maggie that Mr Douglas had been delayed but would be with her in about fifteen minutes. Maggie didn't know whether to be pleased or frustrated. She couldn't understand why they needed to see her. She had told Bill Shaw everything she intended to say, so what they hoped to gain from visiting her, she had no idea.

Maggie needed time to think, and fifteen minutes wasn't enough. On the other hand, if the police arrived right now, at this very minute, they would know something was up. She could feel how flushed her face was, and as she looked in the mirror, she could see the distress and confusion in her own eyes. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and scrubbed the remains of her lipstick off. With her pink cheeks, she looked like a china doll.

Since Suzy had shown her the photo, Maggie's head had been all over the place. Her heart was pumping was this finally a clue to who Duncan was? But how would it help her to find him? If the photo of the boy with the bike was Duncan, Patricia Rowe must know something about him. Perhaps she knew his mother. Perhaps they had lived near Mrs Rowe and he had been a friend of some of her children.

Maggie looked hastily at her watch. She had to get in touch with this woman she wanted to know who Duncan really was.

She went back to the Facebook post that contained the images of the children and saw there were a few comments. Most were from people praising Patricia Rowe for the work she had done with children, but one was from a Stacey Meagan. It simply said 'Happy days'. Could that mean she was one of the children in the picture? All the girls seemed quite a bit younger than Duncan.

Maggie clicked on Stacey's name and didn't learn much as her privacy settings hid her posts from people she didn't know. Maggie browsed and found a few photos that matched Stacey's profile picture. If she had to guess, she would have said that Stacey Meagan was in her mid-twenties, but it was hard to know for sure. She returned to Patricia Rowe's page and saved a copy of the photo of the children with the bikes, returned to Stacey's page and opened a message. She had never heard back from Patricia, and given the lack of activity on her page, maybe she had given up on Facebook. But Stacey Meagan was another option.

She thought through the words carefully, but she had only minutes left until Tom Douglas arrived. When Maggie set up her Facebook account she had done it using her middle name and her maiden name. She had never posted anything and found the whole idea a bit spooky, but had wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Now she thanked some divine ent.i.ty that she didn't believe in for the fact that she had made that decision.

My name is Grace Peters. I wonder if you could help me, please? I see you've commented on this picture, and I would like to know a little about the boy with the multicoloured bike.

Maggie added the saved image to the message.

I would be grateful if you could give me some information about him.

She stopped to think. Would she give out somebody's details to an unknown person on Facebook? Of course not.

I am a solicitor. If this boy is now the man I am trying to trace, I believe getting in touch will be to his benefit.

Whether the woman would believe her, Maggie didn't know. But people seemed prepared to expose their most intimate secrets on Facebook for the world to see, so she probably wouldn't bother trying to check 'Grace's' credentials.

She sent the message and jumped up from her chair, pacing the room. They would be here any minute.

The house phone rang. Maggie hoped and prayed it would be the police, saying there had been a mistake and Tom Douglas wouldn't be coming after all.

'Maggie Taylor,' she answered, hearing the quiver in her voice. Phone calls didn't seem to bring good news any more.

There was no sound from the other end of the phone.

'h.e.l.lo?' she said quietly, certain that it was going to be the man threatening her again.