Neil White 3 Book Bundle - Neil White

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       Chapter Thirty-Five

      Charlie was in Donia’s bathroom when he heard something. It was a knock on the door to her flat, loud and urgent.

      He had been washing his face, just watching the clock move on until it was dark so that he could go back to his office, the cold water waking him up. The police would have searched some of the office, but they were limited in how far they could go, because most of the things worth looking at were in confidential files. They would get a warrant eventually, but Charlie wanted to find out first whether the original video was in the safe. If he knew what was on it, he could go to the police confident that he wasn’t a suspect.

      The water dripped from his face as he stayed quiet, praying that Donia wouldn’t answer it. Then he heard her footsteps, skipping along the hall.

      There were muffled voices, and then heavy footsteps.

      The bathroom went into Donia’s bedroom, and so his hand went to the door handle, ready to rush through. If it was the police, it was time to surrender. He knew he hadn’t done anything. He just needed to convince them.

      He paused when he heard the shouting. That wasn’t the police. Too many expletives, the words hissed out.

      He opened the door slowly, taking a deep breath, wanting to see who was there. The light from the bedroom illuminated his face, and as he stepped out, he was wary of creaks from the floorboards, the carpets too thin to muffle anything.

      The voices got louder. He got to the bedroom door and saw that the hallway was dark. He tried to stop his breathing and listen above the tick of the clock on the wall. His shadow grew in the fan of light from the bedroom door. He stepped back and listened out. There was a male voice, and he was talking. Had Donia let the police in? Or perhaps the two men he had seen at Amelia’s house.

      He peered around the doorway and towards the living room. He could see black clothes and movement. There was no sign of Donia though.

      Charlie flattened himself against the wall. He was trying to keep himself free, but he didn’t know where Donia was, and he felt responsible for her. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before he stepped out again, further this time. There was the rustle of paper, excited chatter. They’d found Billy Privett’s file on the table. It confirmed what he knew, that it was information about Billy Privett that was behind everything.

      His foot made a creak on the floor as he felt his way across the carpet. He looked down. His silhouette spread across the hallway and against the wall on the other side. His skin shot up in goose pimples.

      Charlie took one more step out, and this time he could see who was there. It was the kids who had been hanging around outside the office, dressed all in black. They had followed Donia.

      His eyes looked back into the bedroom for another escape route or somewhere to hide, but there was nothing. The bed was a box frame that went all the way to the floor and any hanging space for clothes was just an open rail. There was a window held by a clasp, not much by way of security, but he was three floors up. It didn’t need to be locked tight. The next thing on the way down was the concrete yard.

      Where was Donia?

      Charlie moved further out, keeping watch on the main door, knowing that if he had to run for it, he had an exit. His heart was beating hard, and he was trying to calm his breathing, certain that they would hear. Then he remembered Amelia’s body. He knew he couldn’t leave Donia, but he wouldn’t be able to handle them on his own. He would have to get help for her. It was no good if they both died.

      He started to back away down the hallway, leaving them to read the file, hoping they would be distracted, but as his footsteps moved backwards, his spine went cold when he bumped into something. Or rather, someone.

       Chapter Thirty-Six

      Ted was silent until they were back in the car, ignoring the shouts of the kids on the steps, Marian watching them go.

      As Ted looked at his lap, his jaw set, Sheldon asked, ‘Who is she?’ his key poised in the ignition, not willing to go until he had an answer.

      Ted turned to him, and there was still confusion in his eyes. ‘She was the girl in the car, the one who leaped on me when the camera was there. That was her, Lucy Crane.’

      Sheldon was surprised. ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘Of course I am,’ Ted said, exasperated. ‘I was talking with her in the car for five minutes, before she jumped on me. And now I found out that she is connected to Billy Privett, and so maybe she did know something.’

      ‘She was always connected to Billy Privett, because she told you she had information,’ Sheldon said. ‘Perhaps she did at first, but then decided that she could just sell you out instead. Or maybe she got scared. She must have had the photographer waiting, and was hoping she could trap you in a blackmail plot, or just sell you out to the papers. But you weren’t interested, and so she had to jump on you and hope the pictures told a different story.’

      ‘I wouldn’t have been interested,’ Ted said. ‘I just wanted to know about Alice, and I still love my wife. We are more distant now, I know that, but I wouldn’t do that to her. She has suffered enough.’

      ‘Lucy is still a link to the case though, but how? She was Billy’s housekeeper. Why didn’t you see her when you went up there?’

      ‘She would keep out of my way, wouldn’t she, if she knew I was on the way,’ Ted said. ‘Do you think she was really his housekeeper? She might have been Billy’s girlfriend, trying to protect him?’

      Sheldon shook his head. ‘No, she was more than that. She’d have no reason to lie to us if she was his girlfriend, and she wouldn’t have disappeared.’

      ‘You’ve still got your identification,’ Ted said. ‘There is a police station just up the road. Can’t you find out something about her?’

      Sheldon thought about that, and then remembered his moment on the church tower earlier that day, and the promise he had made to himself that he would find out the truth.

      He started the engine and drove the short distance to the police station, a one-storey L-shaped block on the verge of being closed down as it waited for a buyer. There was no public reception and so no frosty civilian officer to get past.

      ‘Wait in the car,’ Sheldon said, and then swiped his pass card along the reader. It worked for all the Lancashire stations, and so he found himself at the meeting point of two corridors, the floors tiled, the walls painted in cold light blue. Fire doors intersected the corridors at intervals. It was Sheldon’s first time in the Penwortham station, and so all he could was walk and look for a computer terminal.

      He turned left and when he got to the room at the end, there were three rows of desks filled with computer screens. There were no cells at Penwortham, and so Sheldon realised that it was a hideaway, somewhere for the officers to get their files together without getting landed with an urgent custody investigation, the only risk being a call-out to chase some kids on the Kingsfold estate, the main source of aggravation for the Penwortham force.

      There was only one other person in the room, a young female officer in uniform. She looked up once, curious at first, but didn’t investigate further, satisfied by the identification swinging from Sheldon’s neck.

      Sheldon jiggled the mouse to clear the screensaver and sat down. Once he had logged in, he brought up the intelligence system and typed in Lucy’s name. The pale screen of grids and boxes threw up three people, but the dates of birth narrowed it down pretty quickly. When he clicked on her details, he leaned forward to get a better view.

      Christina was really Lucy Crane, he saw that straight away, except that some of her flirt was missing. It was a picture taken after she was arrested, with rings under her eyes and her hair dishevelled. There was no smile, just a tired and

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