Charley (9 page)

‘Want one?’ she asked me, filling a large mug.

‘No thanks, Sarge,’ I said, shaking the rain from my jacket and hanging it off the back of my chair.

‘Lois,’ she said, coming over and standing next to me as I sat at my desk.

‘Sorry?’ I asked.

‘That’s my name,’ she smiled. ‘I prefer it to Sarge, Skip or Boss. We’re a small team. Like I said last night, you’re amongst friends here, Tom.’

I glanced over at Jackson and wondered. ‘Thanks, Lois,’ I said, feeling uncomfortable calling my sergeant by her first name. At
training school and when I worked in uniform, I had always called my supervisors by their title, and I had grown used to it. Maybe it was different in CID, but I could never imagine Harker letting me call him by his first name, whatever that may be.

‘Get much sleep?’ she asked.

‘Some,’ I said. I thought of Charley and what she had told me. My heart raced and I found it difficult to look at Lois.

‘You look beat,’ she said, then took a sip of coffee.

I looked away. She seemed rather too interested in what I had been doing today. Did she know that I’d taken Charley for breakfast? I started to panic. Had someone seen us? Did she know? Did they all know?

‘Just tired from last night, I suppose,’ I said, switching on my computer. ‘I couldn’t get it out of my head. What with having to go and tell the Underwoods that their daughter was dead.’

‘Not up to the job?’ Jackson asked from behind his file.

‘I’m up to the job,’ I said.

‘We’ll see,’ Jackson said, closing the file and placing it on his desk.

I almost wanted to laugh. His marine-style haircut glistened with gel, and he wore the tightest T-shirt I’d even seen – it could have been sprayed on. He obviously wore it to show off his muscles. He could’ve been mistaken for a life guard – all that was missing were the skimpy shorts and flip-flops.

‘What’s that s’posed to mean?’ I asked, wishing now that Lois had made me a cup of coffee so I could hide my grin behind it.

‘What’s the joke?’ Jackson asked.

‘Nothing,’ I smiled.

He gave me a distrustful look and said, ‘You know what? I don’t think you’re too tightly wrapped, kid.’

‘Cut it out,’ Lois said. ‘Give the guy a break. Tom just needs time to settle in.’

‘Well, he’d better settle in real quick,’ Jackson said. ‘Kerry
Underwood’s ex-boyfriend is in the interview room.’

‘Her boyfriend?’ I asked. ‘What’s her boyfriend got to do with this?’

‘While you were stressing yourself out over the Underwoods, me and the Skip were out knocking on doors,’ Jackson said smugly.

‘We went and spoke to the landlord of the Pear Tree Inn where Kerry had been drinking last night with some friends,’ Lois explained. ‘It seems that she was having quite a good time until her ex-boyfriend, Jason Lane, put in an appearance. The landlord said it got quite nasty between them. He was just about to throw Lane out when Kerry stormed off.’

‘Has Lane got any previous?’ I asked, wondering if he was who Charley had claimed to see in her flashes. I was desperate to know more about him. What did he look like? How old was he? What colour car did he drive? But I had to be careful; I didn’t want Lois or Jackson to become suspicious. They couldn’t know that I had any information from a source that would be considered unnatural –
supernatural
!

‘Just a bit of drugs and an assault,’ Jackson said, tossing the file he had been reading onto my desk.

I opened it and scanned Lane’s old custody record. He was last brought into the station eighteen months ago for possession of cannabis. I read the arresting officer’s notes and my heart leapt into my throat: Lane had last been arrested out at that old disused house by the railway lines.

I closed the file, and looked at Jackson. ‘So you still think that Kerry Underwood took a short cut across the tracks?’

Jackson ignored my question. ‘We viewed the CCTV from inside and outside the pub. You can see the row taking place. Lane looks to be quite agitated and at one point he even raises his hand at her.’

‘Does he hit her?’ I asked.

‘No,’ Lois said, putting down her mug of coffee and taking some
statements from her desk. ‘You don’t see him hit her on tape at least. But according to these statements we took from Kerry’s friends, he did get nasty with her and called her all sorts of names.’

‘Like what?’ I asked.

‘The usual stuff,’ Lois said, glancing down at the statements. ‘Filthy bitch looks like a favourite.’

The word ‘bitch’ made the hairs at the nape of my neck stand on end. The man in Charley’s flashes had called Kerry a bitch too.

‘Kerry left the pub first,’ Jackson said. ‘You can see that on the CCTV. She turns left in the direction of home and the railway lines, but then we lose sight of her. Lane leaves a few minutes later, but goes to the car park at the back of the pub where he gets into his car and drives away. That’s the last we see of him.’

I didn’t know how hearing all of this made me feel. Part of me felt excited that what Charley had told me was true, but another part of me felt sick because I knew what had happened once they had both left the pub. But if Lane didn’t admit to it, how would I ever prove it without saying what I had done and how I had implicated Charley? I looked at Jackson. ‘So you don’t believe Kerry took a short cut any more?’

Jackson smiled at me and said, ‘I’m even more convinced of it.’

‘How do you work that out?’

‘Can’t you see what happened last night?’ he sighed as if he were trying to teach a child their ABC. ‘Kerry goes out for the evening with her friends. Matey-boy Lane shows up. They get into a row and she storms out. He then follows her in his car. He tells her that he’s sorry and just wants to talk to her. It starts to rain, so not wanting to walk home, she gets into his car with him. They drive around, and the row flares up again. He then tells her to get out, dropping her near to the railway lines. It’s now pouring with rain and freezing cold, so Kerry decides to take the short cut, collapses or trips because of too much booze and
wham
! She gets hit by the train. End of story, case closed.’

‘Is that what you think happened?’ I asked Lois.

‘It looks that way,’ a voice says before she can answer. It was DI Harker, standing in the open doorway of his office.

‘But …’ I started.

‘But what?’ Harker asked.

‘If it’s such an open and shut case, why bring in Jason Lane for questioning?’ I quizzed.

‘To cover our arses,’ Jackson said.

‘To cross all the Ts and dot all the Is,’ Harker said.

‘Was she drunk? I asked Harker.

‘Still waiting for the toxicology reports. The PM was done earlier today.’

Then, with my heart starting to thump and that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach again, I said, ‘What about Kerry’s mobile phone?’

‘What about it?’ Jackson asked.

‘Has it been found?’

‘Nope.’

My heart began to slow, but there were a couple of questions I needed to ask, to fully put my mind at rest. ‘Has anyone tried to triangulate it to find out its location? Has anyone been in contact with the phone company to try and get a print out of any texts or calls that might have been made?’

‘Faxed over the data protection forms earlier, but the phone company reckons it might take a few days for them to get back to me,’ Jackson said. ‘As for trying to trace the phone, it was probably smashed to pieces beneath that train and you know as well as I do, if the battery is dead or missing they won’t ever be able to track it.’

Charley had said that the killer had thrown it away. But how could I tell them that I knew that?

‘Is there something on your mind?’ Lois asked, tearing me from my thoughts.

‘Huh?’ I said, desperate to hide the worry that she had
obviously seen on my face.

‘It looks like something’s troubling you.’ She smiled, but I couldn’t be sure if it was genuine or not. It was one of those smiles that said,
Come on Tom, you can tell me you took that pretty young girl to breakfast and she told you lots of stuff about what really happened to Kerry Underwood. The pretty girl knows what really happened up at the railway tracks because she saw it in her head like lightning bolts. Go on, you can tell me all about what she saw. I won’t be angry with you, because I’m your friend
.

Is that what she was really thinking behind her smile? ‘No, there’s nothing wrong,’ I said. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Good,’ Harker said, ‘because I want you to go and speak with Jason Lane. See if you can’t get him to tell us what happened last night after he left the pub. Jackson will go with you.’

Jackson was already heading for the office door. ‘C’mon,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and see what this muppet has to say for himself.’

Jason Lane wasn’t anything like I had expected. Kerry seemed to have come from a good home with respectable parents. I doubted if they would have approved of Lane if they had ever met him. He sat on the opposite side of the interview room table from Jackson and me. His acne-scarred face was tilted downwards, so he didn’t have to look at us. His long greasy hair hung in his eyes and his nose piercing glimmered in the light from the overhead fluorescents. He had an untidy goatee with flecks of ginger in it and his leather jacket was so worn and faded it was no longer black but a washed-out grey. The guy looked a mess, and I saw that he wasn’t in control. He slumped forward in his chair, and in the confines of the poky interview room, I could smell the distinctive scent of weed.

‘Are you ready?’ Jackson asked him.

‘Ready for what?’ Lane mumbled, without lifting his head.

‘To talk about what happened last night,’ Jackson shot back, and I could sense he was going to enjoy interviewing Lane. He was
also going to take great pleasure in showing off his interview skills to me. Jackson laced his fingers behind his head, and leant back in his seat. ‘Wakey-wakey, sunshine.’

Lane said nothing.

‘Have it your way numb nuts, but you don’t get to leave here until you’ve told us what happened to Kerry last night,’ Jackson said, as if he had all the time in the world.

‘But …’ I said, ‘you’re not actually under arrest. You’re free to go at any time, though we would like you to stay and help us figure out how Kerry came to be on those railway tracks last night.’

Jackson scowled at me and opened his mouth as if to say something, when Jason spoke.

‘I can’t believe she’s dead,’ he whispered. His voice sounded broken, as if he had been crying.

‘What do you expect if you dump your ex-girlfriend in the middle of nowhere in the dark and the—’ Jackson started.

‘I didn’t dump her anywhere,’ Lane croaked, and this time he did look up. I could see his eyes were red and sore.

‘What happened?’ I asked, keeping my voice quiet.

‘We had a row in the pub,’ he sniffed, wiping his nose on his jacket sleeve. ‘She left and I went after her.’

‘Tell us something we don’t already know,’ Jackson sighed impatiently.

‘I went after her because I felt bad for upsetting her …’ Lane started.

‘I’d feel bad if I called my ex-girlfriend an effing bitch and waved my fist in her face,’ Jackson sneered.

I shot a glance at Jackson. He continued to lean back in his chair and I could see he was enjoying seeing Lane distressed. I turned back to look at Lane. ‘Go on, Jason,’

‘We broke up a few months back,’ he explained, looking up at me through his straggly fringe. ‘Kerry didn’t like some of the people I hung about with. She said I was different when I was with
them – you know – I used to act like a knob. So I finished with her, I put me mates first. I soon realised that she was right, of course, and I tried to get back with her, but she’d moved on and wasn’t interested. I hadn’t seen her for a few weeks, not until last night. I didn’t know she was going to be in that pub. When I saw her, I couldn’t help myself, I had to go and speak with her. But her friends started to butt in – you know, take the piss and stuff. They never liked me. Kerry started to join in and I lost my temper, that was all.’

‘So what happened after you left the pub?’ I asked, not giving Jackson the chance to cut in.

‘I drove around for a bit,’ Lane said and sniffed again. ‘But I couldn’t find her. I took the route that she would have taken home, but she’d gone. It was like she had vanished.’

‘Bullshit.’ Jackson sat forward. ‘Why are you lying to us?’

‘I’m not lying,’ Lane said, still refusing to look at Jackson.

‘Yeah you are, and that causes me a problem.’

‘What problem?’ Lane asked, his voice dropping to a whisper again.

‘You’d only be telling lies if you had something to hide,’ Jackson said.

‘I haven’t got anything to hide,’ Lane said, looking down at the table.

‘So what happened?’ There was a moment’s silence, before Jackson said, ‘I’ll tell you what happened shall I? You went after her. You got her into your car – perhaps she didn’t come willingly? Then once you had her trapped, you drove her out to some desolate spot like that deserted lane. And let’s be honest, Jason, you would have known that place would be deserted as you’ve spent enough time up there smoking gear – you’ve even been arrested up there.’

‘That’s not what happened,’ Lane said.

Jackson wasn’t listening. ‘So you’ve driven up to that remote spot and you’ve begged her to go back out with you. She refuses and you get angry – you’ve already told us that you got angry with
her. You told us that didn’t you, Jason?’

‘Yes,’ Lane nodded. ‘But …’

‘And we know that you’ve got previous for violence. You’ve been nicked in the past for assault …’ Jackson continued.

‘But …’

‘So, Kerry tells you to get lost and that just makes you even angrier,’ Jackson went on. ‘You lean over and try to kiss her, put your hand up her skirt to show her what she’s been missing. But Kerry won’t have any of it because she knows what a loser you are. All her mates know what a loser you are. They’ve just been laughing at you, mocking you. How dare they? You’re going to show her that you’re not a loser. You’re going to show that bitch that you’re not some kind of joke. You’re going to show her what a real man you are. But she manages to escape. You go after her and she runs in fear. Kerry’s scared of you, so in a panic, she runs through the dark, blinded by the rain. You run faster, calling her a bitch and waving your fists just like you did in the pub. But this time it’s worse for poor Kerry, because it’s just you and her and she doesn’t have her friends’ protection. And being the pathetic coward that you are, you hound her down onto those railway tracks. Then, when she thinks that she has escaped you, she looks back to see if you’re still behind her and in doing so, she trips and falls. But she can’t hear the train coming towards her, because all she can hear is you screaming Bitch! Bitch! Bitch!’ With each word, Jackson slammed his hand down on the table. ‘That’s what happened isn’t it?’ he screamed. ‘You’re as guilty as if you pushed Kerry in front of that train with your own hands!’