Bryant pulled up at the second cordon at the entrance to the old station building.
Three officers were busy questioning pale-faced witnesses who were either leaning against or sitting on the wall. Kim heard a bespectacled young man in his late teens mention “phone” as they passed by.
She spied the train driver in the waiting room sipping a glass of water. A rail official was leaning over him, a hand resting on his shoulder. The driver was pretending to listen, nodding occasionally while staring at the wall opposite. There was only one film playing through his head right now, and it was a film that would stay with him for the rest of his life.
Kim continued walking. She had no words that would make him feel better.
The train was perfectly parked against the platform. Kim realised that the driver would have been slowing to ease into the station. Monty Johnson had gone and stood at the furthest point from the station building so that the train would hit him on its way in.
The train hadn’t been moved since and wouldn’t be until the pathologist said so.
She headed to the end of the platform.
‘What we got, Keats?’
Two crime scene techs were down on the line with him, and Kim couldn’t help feeling relieved that she couldn’t see the state of the body.
Keats heaved himself up onto the platform. ‘What’s this guy to you?’ he asked, removing the latex gloves. ‘Definitely a suicide, according to eleven eye witnesses and I’m guessing that camera up there, so what’s your interest?’
‘He’s the driver of the car that hit Joanna Wade.’
‘Aah, I see. Well, there’s no wallet or phone on him,’ Keats said. ‘Just driving licence in his front pocket, which we used for identification.’
‘Injuries?’ Kim asked.
‘Too many to count just yet,’ he answered with a sigh.
‘Okay, thanks Keats,’ she said, heading back towards the station.
‘Going so soon?’ Bryant asked.
‘Nothing to gain,’ she answered. ‘We know he killed Joanna, and we know he killed himself. Getting a road map of his injuries isn’t going to tell us why he did either.’
Bryant began to speak but she’d already changed direction.
She stood in front of the train driver. Maybe there was something she could say to help after all.
‘Listen, you’re never going to get that picture out your head,’ she said, honestly. ‘And it wasn’t your fault. There was nothing you could have done and right now that’s gonna mean absolutely nothing; but one thing you should know is that guy under the wheels of your train was no saint. He deliberately mowed down and killed a young woman last night, which is something else you should try to remember,’ she said.
He raised his head and looked at her. Nothing would mean anything to him right now. No truth would penetrate the shock shield around him. Right now he wasn’t looking to excuse himself. At this very minute he was happy to absorb all the blame, but once the shock wore off and he was looking to get clear of the misplaced responsibility, he might just remember her words.
‘One second he was messing on his phone and the next…’ He shook his head ‘It was the sound of his body hitting—’
‘His phone?’ Kim interrupted.
The man nodded and lowered his head.
As they’d entered the station she’d heard a witness mention a mobile phone too.
‘Could have just been looking down, guv,’ Bryant said, quietly. ‘These days we all assume—’
Kim stepped away from the driver. ‘But he’s the second person to mention Monty Johnson paying attention to a phone. But why right at that moment, Bryant?’ Kim asked, heading back through the waiting room towards the platform. ‘He’s about to end his life and he’s messing around on a phone. Who gives a shit if you’ve not replied to a message? You’re gonna be dead in a minute.’
‘But Keats said there was no phone.’
‘And I’m saying there is,’ she said, stubbornly.
She walked the platform until she was roughly where Monty Johnson had been standing.
If he was messing with his phone in his final few minutes, then he wanted to communicate something to someone.
They had been sitting in the man’s living room with his partner at the time of death and nothing had been communicated to him. If he wanted to let someone know something he wouldn’t jump with his phone. He would leave it behind.
‘On the ground, Bryant,’ she said, dropping to her knees.
He groaned but followed suit.
‘It’s around here somewhere,’ she said, as they both rested on their stomachs and lowered their heads to the ground.
‘I’ll take the benches over there,’ he said, nodding to the right.
‘Thanks for nothing, buddy,’ she said, realising she’d been left the two vending machines. She would need to get her hand right under there amongst God knows what. But she knew it had to be around somewhere. Either he had thrown it before falling onto the tracks or someone had kicked it out of sight during the initial chaos.
She crawled closer to the drinks machine on the left. The plastic skirt around the bottom was slightly higher, offering more room for her hand.
She closed her, eyes and slid her hand beneath the skirt. Immediately her fingers met some kind of wrapper that she flicked out of the way. She placed her hand palm down and began to pat the floor in a grid-like formation, careful not to miss an area. Her thumb landed in a pile of sticky liquid that she didn’t even want to identify.
She rearranged her arm and turned her head. Bryant was trying to hide a satisfied grin.
She frowned. ‘You’ve got it, haven’t you?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘You did say I should let you get your hands dirty now and again.’
She growled at him and pushed herself to a standing position.
‘Here, it’s clean,’ he said, passing her a handkerchief from his pocket.
She gave her hand a good wipe before giving it back to him. She took the smartphone from her colleague and touched the home button. Surprisingly it spurred into life as all Monty’s icons and apps appeared on the screen.
‘No password?’ Bryant queried.
Kim shook her head as she sat down on the bench.
‘He wanted us to find this,’ she said, scrolling through his call register.
‘You think he took his own life out of guilt?’ Bryant asked.
Yes, that was exactly what she thought.
‘But why not just come to us and tell us the truth?’ Bryant asked.
‘Because of that bloody oath he made years ago,’ she said with disgust.
Having scrolled back to the day before Sadie’s death, Kim found no call made to or received by any name she recognised.
She pressed on his text message icon and her eyes widened as she saw the header for the top message in the box.
The stream held seventeen messages and was entitled ‘Welcome back.’
Eighty
Stacey replaced the receiver and leaned back in the chair, stretching her neck.
The boss had sounded a bit miffed that she would struggle to identify the person who had sent the messages to Monty Johnson’s phone with a pay-and-go handset. With frustration, the boss had explained that it was all there. A message stream that detailed the instruction to kill Joanna Wade along with a promise that the club would welcome him back with open arms. The sender had even told Monty where Joanna would be and at what time.
Stacey had understood but the sender could have admitted to kidnapping the Lindbergh baby while riding Shergar and she still wouldn’t have been able to find out who sent it. And the boss’s final sentence telling her to go home had sounded like an order instead of a suggestion.
Stacey checked her watch. Yes, she had been at her desk for thirteen hours. Yes, she was also mindful of the boss’s words during her appraisal. And yes, she really should think about going home. And she would have done if she hadn’t hit on an old student record, hidden in the Heathcrest archives.
She reached into her bag and took out her mobile phone. Her call was answered on the second ring.
‘Hey babe, just ordered Chinese and am filling two wine glasses with—’