The Dead Tracks

Chapter Seventy-three

It was almost 9 p.m. by the time I got to Derry Road. Police cars were lined up at the entrance to the alley that led through to the Dead Tracks, the entire street cordoned off. The taxi dropped me off at the southern end. I waited while a uniformed officer radioed through to Phillips to tell him I'd arrived. A minute later, he lifted the tape and I ducked under and moved along the pavement, towards the eye of the storm. Windows were open. People were looking down. Sirens were painting the concrete blue. There was the smell of food in the air, drifting out from the houses, and the coolness of imminent rain.

In the middle of the street were two specialist firearms officers. One of them was at the rear of their vehicle, checking a Heckler & Koch MP 5 submachine gun, a Glock 17 holstered at his hip. The other was inside the front of the car, on a phone, writing something on a piece of paper he had pressed to the dashboard. Beyond was a Mercedes Sprinter police van. Two officers were stationed outside. Spread around them in a vague semicircle were a series of marked cars. Next to one of them, I could see Phillips and Hart talking to one another, Hart pointing towards the closed rear doors of the police van.

Inside was Aron Crane.

Hart looked up as I approached; Phillips too. Both of them nodded. They didn't want me here, and I didn't want to be here. But when they'd tried to question Crane about where Jill really was, he said he'd show them — as long as I was there. They had a look on their faces I could read as clearly as if it was printed on a billboard: I was tied up in this somehow. But the only thing I knew for sure was that there was something ominous about this whole thing. Something dangerous and sinister.

He'd tracked Jill for months himself, while he forced Markham to lure in Megan and Sona. I imagined he liked the idea of pursuing the wife of the man he'd killed. It massaged his ego. His sense of power. His control. And now, for all the men and the cars and the show of force, there was only one person directing everything: Aron Crane.

Phillips told me he'd be with me shortly, and then both he and Hart turned their backs on me, shielding their conversation. I didn't care. I didn't need to know their strategy to know that everything about this felt wrong.

Around them police officers gathered. Some with dogs. Some with flashlights. The two SFOs fell in next to the rear of the van, eyes taking in the scene. One of them fiddled with the slide on his Glock. He removed it from its holster, checked it, then returned it. Any moment, the doors were going to be flung open and Crane would be sitting there, looking out. He'd love the chaos he'd created.

Finally, Phillips and Hart finished talking, and Hart wandered off. Phillips had the air of the man in charge. Hart was a career cop. Solid, dependable, bright but not a natural. He'd progressed through the ranks based on decent results and saying the right things. Phillips was different. He could play the game, but he was good at his job too. People would wait for Phillips to give the command.

He came over to me.

'Crane will be handcuffed throughout,' he said, bypassing any sort of greeting. 'Two uniforms up front with flashlights, a couple more at the sides. The firearms officers will be either side of him the whole time — and they'll also have torches.'

He paused as a female officer came and asked him a question about whether he wanted the press pushed back even further. He told her yes, and turned back to me.

'Have you been in?' I asked.

'Yes.'

'Find anything?'

'No. Crane told us the body is about twenty minutes' walk, but wouldn't tell us in which direction.' He stopped, must have seen something in my face. We've done a risk assessment and believe we have all the angles covered.'

'It'll be pitch black in there.'

'We wait until morning and Jill might be dead.' He was right, but it didn't make me feel any better. 'A paramedic and two dog-support units will be coming too; one will go out front, another will trail behind us. And that just leaves DCI Hart, myself and you.'

'Are you taking forensics in?'

'No, they'll be on standby. We'll wait to see where he leads us, and then I'll call Davidson.' I looked around me and spotted Davidson talking to a uniform on the other side of the police van. 'We're already taking too many people with us.'

Nearby, one of the SFOs cranked the chamber on his Glock.

'They're a precaution,' Phillips said. 'A man with six women to his name isn't a man worth taking a risk over.'

Six we know about, I thought, and then looked to the alley leading to the woods. 'What about his lawyer?'

'He called him, but he never showed up.'

'How come?'

'Crane wouldn't say.'

I eyed Phillips. 'I don't like this.'

He didn't say anything. But in his eyes I could see what he was thinking: I don't like it either. For a moment, something passed between us: a second where we both considered backing out. But then Phillips must have cast his mind back to the risk assessment they'd done at the station, the planning, the officers he was taking in with him, and figured they were as prepared as they could be. Maybe he was right. I certainly hoped he was. But that didn't settle my nerves. Because I knew Crane now. He wouldn't lead us to Jill unless he had a way to skew things in his favour.

'Don't engage him in conversation unless you have to,' Phillips said. This is a game to him. We're not playing the game. What we want is to find Jill.'

I nodded. Ultimately, Jill was all that mattered.

'Once we've done that, we call the forensic team and we get the hell out.'

Hart appeared from my left. 'Mr Raker.'

'DCI Hart.'

'We ready?' he said to Phillips.

'Yeah, we're ready.'

'Okay. Let's do it.'

He gestured to one of the uniformed officers to open the rear doors of the van. The two SFOs fell into a position either side, the H&Ks across their chests pointing down at an angle to the floor.

A hush seemed to settle across the scene.

The Mercedes' doors clunked open.

Aron Crane sat just inside the van. His wrists were handcuffed. From our position it was hard to see his face as shadows from the interior cut across him. Then he raised his head and the orange glow from the street lamps and the blue flash of the police sirens bloomed against his skin, and he was frozen for a moment in an eruption of colour. His eyes glinted. He scanned the crowd in front of him, looking for someone. And then, when he stopped, I realized who.

The piece of shit is looking for me.

As he was being helped out of the van, our eyes met. He nodded once and then looked away. The team heading towards the alley fell in around him and started moving. Phillips and Hart walked me towards the group, slipping in behind Crane, with the dog team bringing up the rear. Crane glanced back over his shoulder and pinpointed me immediately. This time a hint of a smile broke out on his face.

And then we headed into the Dead Tracks.