Chapter 46
Forty-Six
Gina
O’Connor drove them to Jackson and Curtis Dunton’s house.
Gina stepped out of the car as O’Connor drove ahead to find somewhere to park.
She tapped the window and opened the passenger door to the unmarked police car where PC Smith was sitting in the front eating a chocolate bar. ‘Any action?’ she asked.
‘The son went out with the dog a while back and as far as I’m aware, Jackson is in. He hasn’t come or gone since I’ve been here.’
‘So, you haven’t seen Jackson at all?’
‘No. The lights are on and there is a flicker from behind the curtains downstairs suggesting that there’s a telly on but I haven’t seen anyone.’ He looked at her. ‘Any chance of leaving you and O’Connor here for fifteen minutes? I’m desperate for a pee and there’s a McDonald’s down the road.’
‘Yes, go, and I’d love a coffee. Could you grab O’Connor one, too? It’s going to be a long night.’ She pulled a twenty-pound note from her pocket and passed it to PC Smith. ‘Get one yourself.’
‘Thanks, guv.’
O’Connor walked back towards them and got in the back of the car as PC Smith stepped out, leaving her in the front and O’Connor in the back.
While updating him with what PC Smith had said, she checked the rear-view mirror, watching as the PC walked down the path and turned left towards the McDonald’s on the main road.
‘The son can’t be much longer if he’s out walking the dog,’ O’Connor said.
‘On the contrary, what is he? Eighteen? He could be gone all night or for a week.’ Gina leaned back in the seat, her gaze not leaving the house.
‘You’re right.’ His shoulders dropped and he yawned.
Gina half wondered if she should call Jacob to step in but refrained from saying anything.
O’Connor would go back home and end up missing his wife like crazy.
Her colleague wasn’t used to this pace, not like she and Jacob were and his lumbering was getting to her a little.
‘We could do with knowing if Jackson is actually in the house. Maybe we should take a closer look.’ They both needed a bit of action to get the answers they needed and to wake up a little.
She opened the car door and stepped back out onto the frosty pavement, glad she’d brought her woolly gloves with her.
She took them out of her pocket and pulled them on.
O’Connor pulled his hat on as he followed her. ‘Are you sure this is a good idea, guv? What if he sees us?’
She shrugged. ‘We just tell him that we’re following up on something and if it gets bad, well we actually have a warrant to arrest him.
It’s not ideal as we need to know if he’s holding Dustin somewhere.
’ She let out a long breath. ‘I still can’t fathom that scene out at the Victorian house.
We found Jackson’s bank card there. It all seems too obvious.
But we saw that message to his son from Brian, about a dark path, and that is consistent with OpenMeSmiler.
They’re connected to all this somehow, I just don’t know how.
First things first, we need to know if we’re watching an empty house because we have better things to be doing if we are. ’
‘Does he have a doorbell camera? I can’t remember seeing one when we came here last.’ O’Connor stopped just before the house, hanging back behind a tall hedge.
Gina peered around. ‘I can’t see any cameras and there isn’t a doorbell.
We’re in the clear.’ She skirted around the car on the drive, peering in through the side windows as she passed.
There was nothing on the seats or in the centre console.
She didn’t know what she expected to find – a neon sign with OpenMeSmiler flashing away?
She headed to the first window, where the blinds were down but she could see a little through the slats.
‘It’s a study.’ She beckoned for O’Connor to follow her and cringed at the heaviness of his feet as they hit the ground.
He half tripped on an uneven slab and stumbled into the window, tapping it as he landed. ‘Damn.’ He stood up straight as if waiting for someone to burst through the front door with a bat.
She had to be careful, drawing O’Connor into things like this.
He wasn’t as fast thinking as Jacob. If he wasn’t careful, he’d be the one to get them caught out and that could seal Dustin’s fate.
He muttered something under his breath and rubbed his arm.
She held her finger to her mouth, hoping he’d stop being noisy and let her listen.
He kept still and she didn’t hear a thing.
They were in the clear. She glanced up at the bedroom windows.
The curtains were open and a lamp lit up one of the rooms, or was it more of a blue hue, like that of a computer?
Old-fashioned lace netting covered the window.
She stared hard but saw no one behind it.
She stepped onto the porch and tiptoed to be able to see through the half-moon window at the top of the door.
An overspilling laundry basket and a dog bed filled the narrow hallway.
Light flooded through from the kitchen, and again, there seemed to be no one around, not even the shadow of a person.
O’Connor’s phone beeped. ‘Sorry.’ He switched it off.
Gina raised her brows at him. He could have got them caught yet again but thankfully, no one had been alerted.
She was half tempted to tell him to go back to the car but she kept her mouth shut.
On stepping onto the grass where she hoped to be able to see through the thin gap in the curtains, she almost fell backwards as loud dog barks filled the night air.
She grabbed O’Connor’s arm and pulled him back towards the car, just in time to hide from Curtis as he came around the corner.
They ducked and O’Connor fell to the tarmac, the thud obscured by the barking dog.
Her heart hammered in her ribcage as she peered underneath the car.
The Alsatian snarled and jumped in their direction, only held back by a lead. ‘Rex, pack it in, will you?’ She peered around the bonnet to see Curtis struggling to get his key out of his pocket. ‘Rex, stop it.’
The dog caught Gina’s eye and began snapping on the end of its lead, pulling with more urgency now.
Curtis turned his key in the lock and stepped into the house, dragging the snarling dog with him and Gina placed a hand over her heart as she too fell in a heap on the ground next to O’Connor.
‘That was close, guv.’
‘It certainly was and we’re no nearer to knowing if Jackson is actually in the house.’
She flinched at the slam coming from down the road and she knew that it was PC Smith getting back into his car. ‘Shall we grab those coffees and watch from afar?’
He nodded.
They crept alongside the car and back onto the path.
She glanced back, disappointed that she hadn’t got what she came for.
Curtis closed his curtains, turning the blue hue to a bluish line in the gap.
A song by Drake blasted out. Her heart jumped as someone opened the front door.
A man in a thick overcoat with a hat pulled almost over the top of his eyes, hood concealing most of the top half of his face, stepped out of the house.
‘I think it’s Jackson.’ She grabbed O’Connor and linked her arm in his and pretended to laugh.
‘Actually, I can’t be a hundred per cent but he’s just come from the house.
’ The man didn’t notice them at all. He started running and darted onto a path behind the houses.
‘We can’t lose him. This might be Dustin’s only chance.
’ She sprinted towards the path. Behind Jackson and Curtis’s house was a lane but no sign of the man.
An engine roared from behind the trees. She fought her way through a cut in the hedge, pushing the dangling branches aside, then she crossed the patch of grass and burst through the bushes at the other end only to catch the tail end of a white van turning a corner.
She ran to the road and moments later, O’Connor caught up and ran to the end of the road, but Gina knew he had no chance of catching the vehicle.
It was well gone. He raised his arms in the air and let them drop before turning back to her.
She clenched her fists. ‘I think we just lost our only chance of saving Dustin.’