Maggie had no idea how she managed to get through the rest of the day. She hadn"t wanted to go into the office, but she knew the future was uncertain and before long her job might be the only thing she had to support her and the children. So she stuck it out to the end of the day. She had spent every moment since lunch on her own, thinking, making deals with herself, evaluating the options. And now it was just after six and she was no nearer to a solution.
Josh had sent her a text from Suzy"s phone asking her to pick him up from his football practice, and for one awful moment she had worried that she was going to be terribly late. There had been an accident on the motorway, and traffic had been backing up on all the main roads. But she was nearly there now, and only about ten minutes late, thank goodness.
She turned onto the side road that led to Josh"s school, surprised not to see a flood of cars coming in the opposite direction full of muddy kids in football kit. Maybe practice had overrun. As she got closer to the school, though, a knot of worry started to build inside her. There were no lights on. The school was in darkness.
She turned into the entrance but the gates were locked. There was n.o.body there.
Where the h.e.l.l was Josh?
Maggie had never picked him up from football before it had always been Duncan. Where was her boy?
She pulled her phone from her bag and quickly dialled home.
"Come on, Suzy, pick up the b.l.o.o.d.y phone," she said quietly, desperate for her sister to answer.
"h.e.l.lo?"
"Oh, thank G.o.d, Suzy. I"ve come to school to pick Josh up and everywhere"s in darkness. I don"t know where he is there"s n.o.body here." She couldn"t control the panic in her voice.
"s.h.i.t, I"m sorry, Mags. I should have insisted on going back for him. He said it would be better if you picked him up. Do you want me to try to find a number for somebody from the school the head teacher, or somebody?"
"I don"t know. I"ve let him down, Suzy. He didn"t need this."
"Is there another entrance to the school playing field?" Suzy asked.
And then it came to her. The school only had a small field, and football practice was always at a nearby park. But which one? What had Duncan said about football practice? Think, Maggie. Think.
Then it came to her. It was quite a big park not huge like Heaton Park but it was open all the time, so at least Josh wouldn"t be locked in. It had to be there about ten minutes" drive away.
"Got it," she shouted down the phone and hung up.
Surely his teacher wouldn"t have left him there alone? But that wasn"t the point. With everything that had happened, Josh would think she wasn"t going to come for him.
She slammed the car into reverse to get out of the school"s entrance and set off in the direction of the park as fast as she dared, praying that she had the right place.
The problem with the park a.s.suming she had chosen the right one was that there were several entrances, and Maggie didn"t know which one was closest to the football pitches. It wasn"t helped by the fact that with the overcast skies it was now nearly dark.
"Oh Joshy, I"m so sorry, sweetheart," she said to herself as she drove into the first entrance she came to. Not only was he totally confused about his dad disappearing; now his mum had failed to pick him up. She was fairly sure that the usual time was six and it would be nearly twenty past by the time she got there. He must be worried sick.
Into her head came an image of her telling Josh about his father who he really was, what he had done. She couldn"t do it. Whatever else happened, her children mustn"t grow up believing their father was a monster. She couldn"t let that happen.
There was a small, but empty, car park ahead, and she raced into it, slamming on the brakes and abandoning the car where it stopped. She couldn"t see any goal posts. There were some rugby posts poking up above some trees over to her right. Maybe the football pitches were near.
"Josh," she shouted at the top of her voice. "Joshy, where are you darling?"
There was no answer.
She was suddenly hit by a mad thought. Could Duncan have come to watch today hidden in the bushes and then taken Josh himself? It was the sort of thing he might do. He would want to let his son know how much he was missing him. She hoped and prayed she was right, because it meant Josh was safe. Equally she hoped she was wrong, because how was she going to explain to Josh that his daddy wasn"t coming home just yet?
She started to run, but her heels sank into the muddy turf. It didn"t seem to have stopped raining or snowing for more than five minutes since they had arrived in Manchester, and the ground was sodden. She stopped for a moment and kicked her shoes off, bending to pick them up. She tried to run and shout at the same time, but she was soon out of breath.
Finally she saw some football goals up ahead, but as she had expected the field was deserted.
A sob broke free. Oh G.o.d, where was he? She forced herself to calm down.
"The teachers would never have let Josh stay here on his own," she muttered to herself. "It"s more than their pensions are worth."
He would be safe. She just had to find him.
Beyond the football pitches she spotted another car park much closer than the one she had used. There was a lone car parked there, not a car she recognised. She raced towards it. Suddenly the field was flooded with light as the car"s headlights came on, then went off. The driver was flashing her. She sped towards the car as fast as her failing legs would take her.
A man stepped out from the driver"s side and moved to stand in front of the car. He was backlit by the headlights, and all she could see was a stocky build, legs planted apart.
"Mrs Taylor?" he asked.
"I"m Maggie Taylor, yes. How did you know?"
"Because your son is in my car."
Maggie stopped dead in her tracks. "Is he okay?" She didn"t like this man"s tone.
"He"s fine."
"So why hasn"t he got out of the car?"
"Because he"s asleep, thank goodness. He"s been crying for nearly half an hour. He has it in his head that you"ve left him. I don"t know why I didn"t ask but maybe I should."
Maggie was about to scream, "And what business is it of yours?" but she recognised that this man was close to reporting her to social services.
"I"m so sorry," she said. "My husband usually picks Josh up, but he"s away. Josh sent me a text from my sister"s phone, but I thought I had to pick him up from school, so I went there."
The man looked at her. His mouth was set in a tight line, as if he was disgusted with her as a mother. As well he might be, she thought.
"Who are you, if you don"t mind me asking?" Maggie said.
"I"m Archie"s dad. He and Josh are in the same team."
"Where"s Archie then?" Maggie"s suspicions were not yet fully allayed.
"In the car. They played a hard match and won, by the way."
Maggie could hear the subtext As you would have known, had you been here but she had no idea what to say.
At that moment, the pa.s.senger door flew open and a little boy came hurtling across the gra.s.s. "Mum," he shouted and flung himself at her.
What were she and Duncan doing to this child that had made him so scared his mummy wouldn"t come and get him?
"I"m so sorry, Joshy. I"m so sorry, sweetheart." She looked up at Archie"s dad. "I appreciate you looking after him like this."
His face said, "Well somebody had to," but he kept the thought to himself.
"Josh came over to my car with Archie. The coach isn"t one of their teachers, and I guess he thought Josh was with us, so he left. Anyway, no harm done."
"I can"t thank you enough," Maggie said, dropping her shoes so that she could reach out and shake his hand without letting go of Josh with the other arm. "You could have driven off and left him."
The man barked out a laugh. "I don"t think many parents would do that. Do you?"
She forced a smile as they said their goodbyes. Maggie picked up her shoes, and she and Josh turned to make their way back to her car.
They had just reached the rugby field when she noticed it or rather Josh did. He was looking towards the car.
"Mum?" he said.
Maggie followed his gaze. Her car was still slewed sideways in the car park, but it wasn"t alone any more. Beside it was a van. A white van.
And standing, one on either side, were two tall men. She knew then.
She knew they had come for her.
55.
Since her interesting discovery that another person was trying to track down Michael Alexander, the search for him had leaped to the top of Becky"s priority list. The fact that he had disappeared without a trace had set off every alarm bell and convinced Tom more than ever that Alexander knew something about the murders twelve years ago. Whether he was involved now or not was a different issue.
Tom had spent hours with Becky looking at the details of the victims. If they accepted the theory that only one of the victims was important to the killers and the others were distractions, they had to try to work out which of them provided the key. Hayley Walker, the girl who Becky had mistaken for Leo didn"t appear to have any enemies, as far as they knew. Mich.e.l.le Morgan was a prost.i.tute, but all the reports suggested that her pimp was devastated that she was dead, and the other girls said she never had a bad word for anybody. Or was the focus somebody else another victim for whom there was a motive a third victim? Would that third victim be Leo? Had she been abducted and held until they were ready to kill her, and if so, was Leo still alive? Or had her body not been found yet? Or would Maggie Taylor be the third victim, and if so, why?
Adam Mellor had met Leo, and it seemed highly likely that somebody driving his van was following Maggie Taylor. They all looked so much alike, it was as if the same person was being killed again and again.
Becky had started to flag. She had forced a couple of cans of c.o.ke down in an attempt to keep going and now felt as if she was going to explode. She rubbed her stomach as she scanned the forensic report that Jumbo had sent through. It was disappointing. The shopping trolley the second victim had been found propped against had produced a plethora of fingerprints, as one might imagine, but they were mostly smudged. Those they had been able to isolate didn"t reveal much of interest. A couple were linked to people known to the police, but only for petty crimes. They would have to be followed up, of course. The trolley was riddled with DNA too and germs, no doubt. Since reading an article a couple of years ago about the percentage of trolleys dirtier than public toilets, Becky had made sure she always carried wet wipes in the car to be used immediately after she finished shopping.
There was no useful CCTV footage of anybody stealing a trolley from the appropriate supermarket, and even if they nicked somebody for the crimes and their DNA was on it, a good lawyer would claim that the perp had done his shopping at the supermarket where the trolley had originated. The chances that he had used that very trolley were pretty slim, but the possibility might be enough to influence a jury.
Becky scoffed at the thought. The ways people got off crimes they had obviously committed had ceased to wind her up years ago. She just felt mild disgust that sometimes the bad guys left the dock laughing in the faces of the police.
Her thoughts were interrupted as her desk phone rang. "Becky Robinson."
"Hi gorgeous. It"s me."
"h.e.l.lo, you," she said, a small smile playing around her lips. She had been a bit off with Mark for the last few days, which was completely out of order. All because of one hug from her boss. She felt ridiculous, like a groupie swooning over some pop star. Yes, Tom was s.e.xy, and she couldn"t help noticing it from time to time. But she shouldn"t allow her childish fantasies to get in the way of a good thing, and she was going to make it up to Mark as soon as this case was over.
"Listen, babe-" he started.
Becky was quick to interrupt. "Mark," she said, drawing out the vowel sound in a warning tone.
"Okay, okay. I know, "Don"t call me babe." I forgot, sorry!"
She smiled again. "Go on what did you want to tell me?"
"What, apart from the fact that you"re a s.e.xy little thing, and I"ve got great plans for you tonight?"
This time she laughed. "Shut up, idiot. But thanks for lightening my day. If I manage to get away at a suitable time I"m looking forward to your plans already."
Mark"s voice turned serious. "Well, if that"s true it might be better if I don"t tell you my thoughts on your case. You might not get home at all."
"What is it? What have you found?"
"Don"t get too excited, Bex. It"s nothing specific, but it"s a line of enquiry I think you"ll want to follow. When I was at school, I did a project on the history of transport. I think that"s when I got interested in trains. Anyway, I remembered one of the names in the project was Tobias Mellor."
"With all due respect, Mark, I don"t think a school project thirty years ago is going to help."
"Shut up, smart a.r.s.e, and listen. Knowing that somebody called Mellor is a person of interest to you, I looked old Tobias up again, and apparently he moved his investments from the ca.n.a.l to the railways when it became clear that the ca.n.a.l wasn"t going to be as commercially successful as everybody had hoped. So that might explain why your Mellor who is the great-, great-, not sure how many greats grandson of Tobias, may have chosen Pomona and Mayfield for his dumping grounds twelve years ago, if indeed he is your perp. I"ve racked my brain to try to come up with other likely transport-related locations where they could keep a person hidden for a long period without discovery, but the obvious ones are no good."
Tom had asked Becky to have Mayfield station checked as soon as he knew Leo was missing, but it was no longer the place it had been twelve years ago. The roof had been dismantled and planning permission granted to convert it into an entertainment venue, so it was obvious n.o.body was hiding Leo there. And there was nowhere to hide anybody at Pomona well, n.o.body alive anyway.
"There are a couple of choices I"ve discounted," Mark continued. "There"s the whole area around Victoria arches, under the train station, and there"s the tunnel created when the Manchester underground was being built before it was abandoned. I don"t know if anybody would be able to get into either of those, even with Mellor"s skills and knowledge, and getting an unwilling human or a deadweight into the Victoria arches area would be nigh on impossible. Which brings me to the other option. At the time old Toby invested in the railways, he also put a considerable percentage of his fortune into cotton mills."
Becky wanted to say, "Thanks for the history lesson, but cut to the chase," but she knew Mark was enjoying this, and she owed him a few minutes of her time at least.
"Okay, so we all know that the cotton industry declined early in the twentieth century, leaving empty mills all over the place. But the Mellor family weren"t short of cash, so they hung onto them. A lot of them. Almost all of the mills have now been converted into apartments."
She knew where he was going and wanted more then ever for him to reach the punch line.
"But not quite all of them. I"m not sure how many are still derelict, but there are a few. You need somebody to do a proper check, of course, but I"ve looked up the name of Tobias Mellor"s company. It"s called Onerarias Holdings."
"Nice simple name, then," Becky said.
"It means "freight" in Latin, apparently." Mark paused. "Does that help at all, sunshine?"
Becky detected a slight note of uncertainty in Mark"s voice for the first time, and she realised that for the last couple of days he must have been wondering if he had done something wrong.
"It doesn"t help a bit, Mark," she said slowly, keeping her voice level. She paused. "It"s only b.l.o.o.d.y brilliant, and you are a superstar."
"All part of the job," he responded, but she could hear the smile in his voice.
"No, it"s not. It"s your day off, to start with, and this has nothing to do with the British Transport Police."
"I meant it"s all part of the job as your man, babe."
She knew he had added the word to wind her up, and she grinned as she hung up. But the smile only remained on her face for moments. This sounded like a good lead, and she needed to see Tom as soon as possible. In the meantime she was going to grab one of the team and get them started on searching for these properties.