The Dead Tracks

Chapter Twenty

I stared at Healy across the interview room. 'What are you talking about?'

He glanced at the door, then back to the photo on the desk in front of me. 'You ever heard of Milton Sykes?'

I frowned. 'The serial killer?'

'Right. Old school. Kidnapped and killed thirteen women just over a hundred years ago and buried them so well no one's ever been able to find them. Sat there happily admitting he'd taken them, but wouldn't tell the police where he put the bodies. Probably thought he was Jack the Ripper — all smoke and mirrors and mystery — but all he really was, was a fucking arsehole.'

I glanced at the photo. 'So?'

'So if someone's given that to you, they're taking the piss.'

'It's not Milton Sykes.'

'It looks exactly like him.'

'It's not Sykes.'

'It's Sykes. Open your eyes.'

I shook my head. Short of screaming in his face, he was unlikely to understand how certain I was. 'I'm telling you now, this isn't Milton Sykes.'

'Face it. You've been taken for a ride.'

This is a still from CCTV footage taken six months ago.'

He took a step back towards me, the smell of aftershave and coffee coming with him again. His eyes flicked across the photograph, as if satisfying himself he was right. Then he shrugged. 'Look, believe whatever you want to believe. I don't care whether it is or it isn't. It doesn’t help me either way.'

'So what helps you?'

'What?'

'You're not interested in Megan. So what are you interested in?'

He was at the door now, fingers wrapped around it. He opened it a fraction and looked out through the gap. When he saw no one was coming, he turned back to me. Glanced at the photograph. Picked up his pad. Didn't say anything.

'Come on, Healy.'

Two uniformed officers had stopped outside the door, chatting.

'Why are you standing here now?' I asked.

He looked out into the corridor again, nodding at the officers. They nodded back, before saying goodbye to one another and disappearing from view.

'I have my reasons,' he said.

And then he was gone.

They made me wait outside the CID office when we were done. Through the door I could see Phillips and Davidson at the back of the room, close to a wall full of photographs, chatting to someone. I recognized his picture from the papers: DCI Jamie Hart.

He was thin, gaunt, with closely cropped blond hair, and wore the tired, put-upon look of a man who spent most of his life inside the walls of the station. His eyes, though, were different: fast, bright, lively, darting to meet mine every few seconds as Phillips, perched on the edge of his desk, spoke to him.

As I waited for them, I took in the walls of the office: the photographs, most too small to make out; a map of the city, littered with tacks and scrawled all over in marker pen; pieces of notepaper pinned adjacent to that; and — off to the side - a thin, vertical series of stickies with numbers on each: 2119, 8110, 44, 127, 410, 3111, 34. Something next to that also caught my attention: a blown- up black-and-white photocopy of Megan. It was the same picture I'd found of her on her digital camera, standing outside the block of flats. What have they got on her?

I glanced at Phillips and Hart, then removed my mobile phone. The best bit about voluntary attendance was that you didn't have to sign over your personal effects. I raised the phone in front of me so it looked like I was texting, then quickly went to the camera option, zoomed in and took the best shot of the wall that I could manage. It was blurry and half lit - but it would have to do.

Seconds later, Phillips led Hart out towards me.

'David,' he said, as he came through. 'This is DCI Hart.'

We shook hands. I made a show of pausing briefly, as if to send a message, and took in Hart properly. Then something else registered with me: Hart and Phillips were both DCIs. They worked out of the same station. They even worked out of the same office. Usually there was one ranking officer and a series of sergeants and constables.

Here, the balance was off. Ten officers maximum, two of whom were DCIs. It was top heavy in a way I'd never seen before.

'I understand you're working my case,' Hart said, disrupting my train of thought. There was a smile on his face. I didn't know him well enough to tell whether it was genuine or not - but somehow I doubted it.

'Yeah, looks that way.'

You think this Bryant kid was murdered because he knew Megan?' he asked, launching straight in.

'I doubt it,' I lied.

'So what's your take?'

'Charlie Bryant had a disrupted last year or so. From what I can tell, he wasn't spending a lot of time at school, so he had to be spending his time somewhere.'

'And?'

'And maybe he got in with the wrong crowd.'

'His father too?'

I smiled at Hart. He was trying to corner me. I didn't want to lead myself anywhere I didn't have to go, so I just shrugged and said nothing.

'Petty stealing,' Phillips said, picking things up, 'a little vandalism, underage drinking - that's the wrong crowd where Charlie Bryant comes from. Having an eight-inch blade put through your chest? Not so much.'

I shrugged again for effect, but Phillips was right. Charlie Bryant wasn't from the bad part of town. He wasn't even from the okay part. His corner of north London was affluent and safe. Crime in his road was swearing at old women. Despite that, I stuck to the argument: 'It's been a while since we were teenagers, DCI Phillips. It's not the good old days any more. You leave your back door open now, you come home to no house.'

Phillips studied me, eyes fixed, brain ticking over. He didn't look convinced, and I made a mental note to watch him. He was switched on and bright. That made him dangerous.

'So,' I said, 'if we're done, I'll be off.'

'Fair enough,' he replied, and held out his hand. I shook it. 'Remember, the Bryant murders are a police matter now, David. That means the police are dealing with it, and we don't need anyone getting in the way. And we absolutely, one hundred per cent, will not be sharing any information until we're ready to do so.'

I nodded. 'Sounds like a plan.'

'It does, doesn’t it?' he replied, then jabbed a thumb over his shoulder to the office. Davidson was sitting at a desk, watching us, an expression like a pitbull. You have a think about what we discussed. We're all after the same thing here. We all want to know why Charles Bryant was killed like that - and we all want to find Megan.'

Inside the office, I suddenly saw Healy appear, a fresh mug of coffee in his hands. He glanced towards us, momentarily stopped, then moved away and out of view.

Yeah, we all want to find her, I thought. Just some of us more than others.