He closed his eyes briefly and saw hers, wide and filled with terror as she’d fallen from the bridge. It had given him a sleepless night but, in the end, there’d been no other choice. It was nothing personal. If anything, it was her own damn fault for being such a nosy bitch. If she’d gone home rather than hanging around to wheedle into other people’s affairs, she would never have got herself killed.
It had been a hell of a job finding Victor’s mobile phone down by the burn and he wasn’t sure what information would be logged by the telephone company. That was a worry but he’d always used a throwaway, pay-as-you-go mobile phone when arranging an exchange. Good luck to Ryan and his band of merry men making that connection in a hurry. He ran his hands over his head, smoothing down the hair he had left, then straightened his tie. In another minute, he’d put a call through to his solicitor.
It was time to brazen it out.
*
Lowerson and Yates were parked conspicuously on the tarmacked driveway leading up to the main entrance of the house and were ideally placed to see anybody entering or leaving the estate. Another police car was parked beside the farm entrance on the off-chance Henderson would return via that route. The idea was for him to know he was being watched. In fact, Ryan had given explicit instructions that he wanted Martin Henderson to be sweating by the time they pulled him in for questioning the following morning. “Hard to believe nobody else was available to do the surveillance,” Yates grumbled. “What if we get an update from the FIU?”
“They’ll call you,” Lowerson said. “Or they’ll call Ryan.”
They fell silent again, watching the empty driveway for signs of approaching vehicles.
Lowerson let out a long sigh.
“So, why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself?”
Yates continued to look ahead, already feeling nervous about what he might ask, or what she might say.
“Why do you want to know?”
Lowerson made an irritable sound.
“Some people call it making friendly conversation,” he said, not bothering to keep the sarcasm from his voice. Over three hours had passed since they’d begun their surveillance duty and, since she’d barely spoken a civil word the entire time, it was beginning to feel like a hostage situation—where he was the hostage.
“What, ah, what do you want to know? I’m not a very interesting person.”
“Gee, I don’t know; the usual stuff. How old are you? Where are you from? Why did you join the police force? How long have you had a crush on Ryan?”
Her hands clenched on the wheel.
“What? What makes you say that?”
“Oh, come on”—he flapped a hand in the air—“it’s written all over your face.”
Melanie almost buried her head in her hands.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Lowerson shrugged and looked out of the side window but all he saw was the reflection of her pale, anxious face.
“Look, it doesn’t matter,” he told her. “I’m sure nobody’s noticed.”
“You did,” she muttered.
Lowerson opened his mouth to tell her that it was only because he had a personal interest, then snapped it shut again. There was only so much rejection a man could take in one week.
“Well, I’m not going to sky-write it, am I? We’ve all had crushes at work. They pass quickly enough,” he added, hoping fervently that his would pass sooner rather than later.
“It’s embarrassing,” she surprised him by saying. “I feel like an idiot.”
He could relate.
“You’re being too hard on yourself,” he said, turning around in his chair to face her. “You’ll snap out of it, once you get used to working with him. He’s human, like the rest of us.”
Yates nodded but didn’t seem convinced.
“He’s also getting married,” he felt bound to point out, and Yates looked down at her hands.
“Why don’t you tell me about yourself?” she said quickly, desperate to change the subject.
Lowerson gave her an understanding smile and was happy to play along if it helped her to relax. He could almost hear the nerves buzzing inside her head and it was starting to make him edgy.
“I was born and bred in Gateshead. I have an older brother, Mike, who lives in Edinburgh and works as a software engineer. He’s married with a couple of kids, which makes me ‘Uncle Jack’. Cool Uncle Jack,” he corrected himself. “I’ve just bought my first home and I have a cat called Marbles.”
“You do?”
Lowerson lifted a self-conscious shoulder.
“I’d introduce you to her but Marbles gets very jealous of other women.”
Yates chuckled.
“I’m saving up a deposit for my own place,” she confided. “It seems a long way off, though.”
“Stick to your goal and you’ll get there in the end,” he said, casually inspiring her to carry on.
There was a short, comfortable silence before Yates spoke again.
“Do you think Henderson has done a bunk?”
Lowerson shook his head and pointed toward the driveway. Sure enough, the headlights of a car could be seen motoring along the empty road. It slowed as it approached and the driver caught a glimpse of them sitting at the top of the road, then accelerated past them with an angry jerk of gears.
Yates started the engine and they moved slowly after him, repositioning themselves near to the estate manager’s cottage so they could keep a closer eye on Henderson for the next hour or so, when a patrol car was due to relieve them.
“Henderson had to come back,” Lowerson remarked eventually. “He’s got nowhere else to go.”
*
Henderson hurried inside the estate manager’s cottage and slammed the door shut behind him, breathing hard. He hadn’t expected to find a surveillance car waiting for him and he began to wonder if the police knew more than he thought. He needed to take care of business.
Galvanised, Henderson went from room to room shutting the curtains and bolting the doors. He needed to check every corner of the house and divest it of incriminating evidence, a task that required utmost privacy.
When he entered the kitchen, his eyes fell on a pair of his shoes sitting on the drying rack next to the sink, their soles sparkling clean from lashings of bleach the previous day. It wasn’t enough to clean them, he realised. He needed to get rid of them altogether, like he had done with the clothes he’d worn. They were now a pile of ash along with the papers he’d shoved in his boot earlier, now burnt to cinders on a bonfire near the Scottish border.
But if the police got a search warrant, they’d find those shoes and ask him why they were covered in bleach.
Stupid!
Why would anyone clean their leather shoes with bleach? He might as well stamp ‘GUILTY’ on his forehead and be done with it.
Henderson was so consumed by his own ineptitude that it was a while before he noticed the simple white envelope lying on the kitchen floor, where someone had slipped it beneath the door. He reached for it with trembling fingers and removed a sheet of paper bearing a typed message:
I KNOW ABOUT THE VALIANT.
MEET ME IN THE ARMSTRONG ROOM
AT 9 P.M. TOMORROW.
DON’T BE LATE.