The Dead Tracks

Chapter Seventy-four

On the other side of the factory beds, everybody stopped. We'd reached the gate. No one had said anything on the way over. We'd walked in silence through the crumbling remains of the buildings and the dumping ground around it. Police torches had swung from left to right, and for brief moments the flashlights had reflected in the windows remaining in the factory shells and in the shards of shattered glass at our feet. But once we were off the concrete and facing the woods, the darkness got thicker and the light shone off into the night and didn't come back again.

We filed through the gate one by one. Crane looked back at me from the other side, and in the glow of a passing flashlight nodded again. Phillips noticed and looked at me, as if some kind of secret message had passed between us. This was all working perfectly for Crane: he was creating conflict between people on the same side, and he hadn't even uttered a word.

Up front, one of the dogs barked. Everyone stopped.

Phillips moved ahead of the pack and joined the handler. The two of them began talking as the spaniel on the end of the leash looked towards a swathe of black on our right. Behind me, the second dog, a German shepherd, was gazing in the same direction as the spaniel, its nose out in front sniffing the air. Phillips turned around and told one of the uniformed officers to shine his flashlight into the undergrowth. A second later, a patch of thick, tangled bush was illuminated beyond two great big chunks of oak tree. No sign of anything. Just tall grass swaying gently in the breeze, and light drizzle passing across the circle of torchlight.

We moved on.

The woods were incredibly dark. The canopy was fully covering the path now, keeping out any brief glimpse of moonlight and any synthetic glow from the street behind us. All we had were six flashlights — two up front, two at the sides, two attached to guns - passing back and forth across the path and what grew at its edges. I should have brought one, I thought. Once again I was relying on other people when the only person I trusted was myself.

A little way down, one of the officers must have seen something reflect back at him. He stopped. About twenty- five feet further along, caught in the light from his torch, I could see the first of the abandoned railway lines, cutting across the trail.

We'd been walking for about ten minutes when the dogs started barking again. Both of them this time. They were facing right, into the woods, noses out, eyes fixed on something. Three of the uniformed officers shone their lights into the undergrowth. The trees, leaves, grass and bushes were freeze-framed for a second, rain coming down harder now.

Phillips went up ahead again and chatted to the same handler as before. This time there was no breeze and everyone could hear what they were saying.

'Could it be an animal?' Phillips asked.

'Might be,' came the reply, but the handler didn't sound convinced. The dogs were so highly trained they could smell human blood. They'd been inside collapsed buildings and followed trails to survivors. They could sniff out drugs and guns and explosives. They weren't going to be disturbed by a hedgehog. Everyone was thinking the same, and a couple of them looked to Crane, as if momentarily seeking assurance. He wasn't even turned towards the noise. He just faced ahead, into the darkness.

A couple of the officers carrying torches moved off the path and into the undergrowth as far as they could. Grass fell under their feet and then sprang back up again around them. Beyond the tree trunks, cones of light moved left and right.

'Anything?' Phillips asked from the trail.

'Nothing,' one of them shouted back.

They reappeared about a minute later, dew shining on their trousers and stab vests. Crane looked back at me for a moment and smiled.

'You got something to say?' I asked him.

Everyone glanced at me, then at him. The smile was gone. It had lasted long enough for me to see but no one else. Most of the officers' eyes were back on me now.

'Calm down, Mr Raker,' Hart said from in front of me. 'And you -' pointing at Crane '— keep your bloody eyes on the path.'

About five minutes further on, we hit the clearing I'd found a few days before. The spot where Markham had left Megan for Crane to find. The rain sounded heavier as it fell through the gap in the leaves.

'Pitter patter, pitter patter,' Crane started saying. A few of us looked at him. His head was down, handcuffed wrists together in front of him. Titter patter, bang, pitter patter, bang'

Phillips stepped towards him. 'What did you say?'

Crane looked up. 'Sorry?'

'What did you say?'

'Pitter patter, pitter patter. The rain, DCI Phillips. It's coming down hard now. We'd better move on, or we're all going to get soaked.'

Crane scanned the group. Two uniforms up front, torches straying across the path. The two SFOs either side of him. Both dog handlers up ahead now, framed in the flashlights. Two other uniforms either side of us, one standing in the tall grass of the clearing, one on the edge of the woods. The paramedic next to me. Phillips and Hart next to her. Then his eyes fell on Phillips.

Something was up.

In that moment, I knew we should have been turning around and heading back the other way. Crane was a killer and a liar. Trusting him was suicide.

'Wait.'

Everyone looked around at me, including Crane. Phillips was annoyed, but edged a couple of steps back in my direction. 'What is it?'

'This is…' I shook my head, glanced at Crane. 'This is wrong'

Phillips studied me for a moment, saying nothing. But then he turned to Crane. In the expression on his face, I saw that he felt the same as me. But I also saw that he wasn't going to back out. Not now. Not after getting all this signed off. 'Where's Jill?'

'It's not far now.'

'You better not be messing us around here, Crane. If this is all a joke, I'll flush you down the toilet — you understand that, right?'

Crane smiled. 'It's not far now,' he repeated.

We all fell back into position and continued along the path. Under the canopy the rain wasn't as hard. It fell as a mixture of intermittent droplets and drifting drizzle, swirled around in front of us by a gentle breeze that wheezed and groaned. About a hundred yards on, someone's radio crackled, the sound amplified by the oppressive quiet. It was one of the SFOs'. He reached to his belt and adjusted something on his Airwave handset. Except for the rain and the sound of the wind, we were back to complete silence.

Then something cracked in the woods on our left.

Everybody stopped. The dogs were straining on their leashes, noses out again, staring into the dark. 'What can you see?' one of the handlers asked. The spaniel sniffed the air then returned to its original position, primed for whatever had made the noise. Two uniforms moved to the edge of the woods and shone the torch in again. Another one followed about ten seconds later.

I looked along the line. One SFO was facing the opposite way, into the woods on the other side from where the noise had come. The other was watching the uniforms examining the area. We'd bunched together, and I realized Crane was closer to me all of a sudden. So close I could have grabbed him by the throat and stopped this before it got out of hand. To my left, Hart was standing in the grass at the edge of the woods; Phillips a couple of steps behind him, eyes fixed on the dark.

Another crack.

The SFO who was watching the other way glanced over his shoulder. The paramedic looked too, her fluorescent jacket shining in the passing torchlight. One handler moved into the trees, then the other followed. Within twenty seconds, Crane and I were virtually on our own, only the SFOs for company. The rest of them were beyond the treeline, torches flashing back and forth, or were watching on the edges of the forest.

'Do you remember what I said to you, David?' Crane whispered. One of the SFOs' eyes flicked to him. His hands tightened on the barrel of the MP 5. The other one saw his partner's movement and did the same. I nodded at them both that it was okay, but they didn't move. They were eyeing Crane with suspicion. 'That we had a connection?'

I didn't reply, but in my head I was trying to figure out what this was about, and why he was trying to engage me in conversation. As the torches passed in semicircles, I could see the officers' silhouettes form and then merge again with the dark. Hart had his mobile phone out, flipping it over inside the palm of his hand. Phillips was next to him.

'I shouldn't have been so cruel about your wife.'

I looked at him. What are you doing, Crane?

'Earlier. I shouldn't have said those things about her.'

'Do yourself a favour and shut the fuck up.'

One of the SFOs made a move forward. I glanced at him, then at Crane, then turned back to the woods. The beam from a torch cut out about twenty feet beyond the tree line. A couple of seconds later it flickered back on. One of the uniforms swore, cursing the batteries.

'I'm the same as you, David.'

I looked back at him. His face was blank: no expression, no hint of humour. He just held my gaze. I glanced at the SFO and stepped in closer to Crane.

'I already told you: we're not the same.'

'Sure we are,' he replied, and stopped, smiling. You figured me out. My wife. The child she was carrying. I always thought I hid it quite well. But I suppose you must become quite attuned to loss when you spend so much time around it. These cases you take on, they're full of it. And, of course, you have all those memories of your wife inside your home. All the photos. The home movies. Her music collection sitting there in the corner of the living room, untouched.'

'Be careful,' I warned him.

He looked around, eyes scanning the darkness. 'All I'm saying is, I understand. I get you. I lost someone, you lost someone. I kill, you kill.'

I flashed a look at him. 'What?'

A smile wormed its way across his face. 'I know all about that case up north, David. And I'm not talking about the cosy little picture you painted for the police.'

I glanced at the SFOs, then back to him.

'Oh, come on,' he said, and made a tut-tut sound. He dropped his voice to a whisper. The SFOs were studying us both now. 'I saw you on the news after what happened up there, just like everybody else. You spend enough time around loss, you pick it up in other people.' He paused. You spend enough time around killers, you can do the same.'

'You're insane.'

'You're a killer, David. A reluctant one, I'll admit. But a killer nonetheless. I can see it in you. I can read you just like you can read me. So, you and me… we're the same.'

Crane winked so only I could see, and backed up a couple of steps, opening himself out to the SFOs again. Above the sound from the woods and the whisper he'd been speaking in, it would have been hard for them to hear anything. But they knew something was up.

'Don't worry,' he continued, winking again, 'your secret's safe with me. But you might want to try and remember what it felt like to, you know…' He made a gun sign with one of his hands and pretended to fire it. You might want to reacquaint yourself, is all I'm saying'

I looked at him. I might want to reacquaint myself with firing a gun.

'What are you talking about?' I asked again, but he didn't reply, and out of the woods came the search teams. They were finished. Phillips looked over at us, suspicion in his face, and then everybody started to fall back into position. 'Phillips - wait.'

He fixed a stare on me. 'What now?'

'We need to go back.'

'Why?'

I glanced at Crane. He was staring at me, his face blank. 'He's got a plan. Some sort of fucked-up plan. I don't know what it is, but someone's going to get hurt.'

Phillips looked between us, then at Hart. Hart was gazing at me, as if he believed I was the one with the plan. What did he say?'

'Something about me needing to fire a gun.'

'What?'

'It's riddles. Just a bunch of…' I glanced at Crane again. Nothing in his face now. He'd wiped it clean. 'Look, I know you feel the same: everything about this is off. We're walking into a trap, and until we figure out what it is, I think we need to go back.'

Phillips scanned the group. Everybody was either staring at him or me, and I knew we weren't about to turn around. He may have had the same instincts as me, but this was a challenge to his decision-making. His planning. His position. If he backed down now, he said to everyone here, I made the wrong choice.

'We move on,' he said quietly.

'This is a big mistake, Phillips.'

'Raker,' he spat back at me, 'you're not in charge here. You have no opinion. You have no choices. You follow my orders and that's it. Are we clear?'

'This is a mistake.'

'Are we clear?'

This was for show now. He didn't deserve a reply. He believed exactly the same as me, felt something was off just as I did, but he was overlooking it to save face. I let my silence hang there, in between us, and then the group started walking again.

Phillips turned to Crane again. 'Where's Jill, you weaselly piece of shite?'

'It's not far now.'

'You said that a quarter of a mile back.'

'I mean it this time.'

The rain started making a chattering sound against the canopy. As we moved across another piece of rusting railway track, the wind picked up too, blowing in from our right. Leaves snapped. Grass swayed. About a minute later, one of the torches flashed past a patch of grass, coiled and twisted around the trunk of a sycamore. Some of it had come loose and was moving, making a gentle sigh like a voice. I watched a few of the team directing their lights towards it, as if they thought they'd heard someone speaking. But it was just this place. The buried secrets. The lost lives.

Then one of the torches passed a shape about sixty feet in front of us.

The light swung back: it was one of the crates from the hideout. Five feet square. Cyrillic printed on the side. It sat on its own in an oval clearing on the right of the trail, where the woods bent away and then came back in further down. We all stopped.

'What's that?' Phillips asked.

'That,' Crane replied, 'is Jill.'