Chapter 67
I spot the battered white Toyota just as it’s pulling out of the driveway of number fourteen Blenheim Gardens, and follow it on a brief journey to the other side of The Park.
The driver is slow and careful, cautious at junctions and respectful of cyclists and pedestrians—as if they’re on their best behavior.
They pull over on Valley Terrace, in front of another big Victorian house with another big drive.
I guess Wednesday must be a busy day for them, with one booking after another.
Tobias gets out of the driver’s side of the pickup truck and goes to the tarpaulin at the back, lifting out a shovel and a chainsaw from the cargo bed. Helena gets out of the other side and fetches a small carrier of cleaning supplies, checking on bottles of spray and polish.
I park up close behind them and get out. Need to do this now, before she disappears inside the property.
“I know it’s you,” I say as I walk up to her. “I know what you’ve been doing.”
She looks up in surprise. She’s wearing the same pink housecoat she’d worn at our house and seems smaller, somehow, standing on the pavement.
“Hello, Adam,” she says hesitantly. “Can I… help?”
“I know how you got into my house.”
“Sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You invented a fake profile on the WhatsApp group, didn’t you? Sarah@84GT? Pretend you’re a resident so you can recommend yourself to other people, get inside their houses. That’s right, isn’t it? So you can get keys cut and look around, scope them out, find your next target?”
She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, not sure what you’re—”
“Or in my case, steal evidence from the crimes you took part in twenty years ago.”
“What?” She looks around for Tobias, who was carrying his tools around to the side gate but has now stopped and turned around to stare. He begins to walk back toward us.
“When did you meet Peter Flack?”
She frowns, her face a picture of confusion. “Who?”
“Were you a couple, was that it? You were seeing each other?”
“I don’t know that family; I’ve never worked for them. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I want you to stop, OK? Stop all of it, the text messages, the harassment, following my daughter home from school. Cameras, dead animals, threats, the burglary. I know it’s you and Tobias; I’ve got the police involved and I’m not going to let you do it anymore.”
“I don’t know about any of that.”
“And I don’t believe you.”
A heavy red blush is creeping up her neck.
“Honestly,” she says quietly. “We didn’t do anything bad.”
“You’re lying.”
A tear brims in her eye.
“It was just…”
“It was just what?”
“I needed the work. We used to live here but it got too expensive. Then we were on the outside and we had to have a way in, a way to get recommended to people who can still afford a cleaner or a gardener and there aren’t many of those nowadays.
It’s so hard to get enough hours, enough clients, to keep our heads above water.
Please don’t tell anyone. Please. We won’t come back to yours but we need the work; we need all the clients we can get. ”
The tear spills and she cuffs it quickly away, embarrassed.
“Please,” she says again.
Tobias, wearing a black hoodie, lays the spade and the chainsaw on the lawn as he walks up to me. He puts a hand on Helena’s shoulder, whispers something in her ear, then throws a quick look back toward the house, another glance up and down the street.
Then he steps in and hits me with a clubbing punch that comes out of nowhere and catches me just under the eye.
It’s a short jab but there’s a lot of power behind it and I stagger back down the curb as pain explodes in my cheek.
He drops his hands to his sides as if nothing has happened, checks the street again, and leans in close.
“I don’t like you upsetting her,” he says quietly. “Time for you to go. Unless you want me to really do a number on your face.”
“I know who you are, who she is,” I say, pointing at Helena. “What she’s done.”
“You’re deluded.” He takes me by the arm, his grip like a steel gauntlet, and walks me to the driver’s side door of my car. “And I’m not going to warn you again.”
The two of them stare at me from the curb as I drive away.
At the school pickup at St. Jude’s, the darkening bruise under my eye attracts curious stares, not least from Mrs. Pett, Daisy’s reception teacher.
“Looks like a sore one,” she says, watching each of her children out of the classroom door. “How did that happen?”
“DIY accident.” I give her my best grin. “Too clumsy for my own good.”
Daisy is also extremely curious, insisting on studying the bruise close up and discussing at length how it had happened.
At home, this extends into a lengthy game of doctors and nurses, in which she’s the doctor and I’m the poor patient who has to go to hospital and have horrible medicine that tastes yuk but will make you better, Daddy.
A reply from the mystery number arrives while we’re in the middle of the game.
OK. The old RAF base at Newton. Main hangar. 4 p.m. not 5.
If you’re a minute late or if you’re with anyone, your house gets burned to the ground instead with everyone inside it.
This is your last chance.
I check my watch. I’d never been to the old abandoned airbase at Newton, east of the city.
I had no idea what was even left there. It’s only a few miles away but a twenty-five minute drive at least, at this time of day.
The meeting being an hour earlier means I’ll only just make it if I leave straightaway.
I send a response, then write a message to Webber with the meeting location, a stab of hesitation as I remember the anonymous note put through my door only a few hours ago.
Could I trust him?
Did I even have any other choice at this stage? And there was no time.
I press “send” and forward the message to the ex-detective, adding,
I’m on my way now.
We were going to set a trap for a wolf.
Leah is in the dining room absorbed in her phone, school textbooks arrayed across the table in front of her.
“Leah?” I say. “I have to go out for a little while, OK? Can you look after your sister for a bit? Your mum’s going to get Callum from tag rugby after school.”
She nods without looking up from her phone. “Where are you going?”
“Something I have to… drop off. Should be back in about an hour.”
She’s asking another question, but I’m already heading out, grabbing my jacket and keys and going to the car. My head is a whirl of theories and facts, of cold cases and new dangers, the bruise throbbing under my eye.
The old airbase is little more than a collection of old huts, a decaying control tower, and half a dozen hangars overgrown with weeds and moss and every type of greenery.
From what I could remember it was an old Second World War base that had been out of commission for decades.
There is no gate and the fence is torn down in a dozen places.
I drive in and park near the biggest hangar with barely two minutes to spare before the 4 p.m. deadline.
The ground is a patchwork of asphalt squares, with thick weeds growing through the gaps.
It is utterly desolate and deserted. I take the small gray backpack from the passenger seat and walk toward the hangar, looking around for any signs of life.
I message Flack’s accomplice.
I’m here.
Webber and his colleagues in uniform have done a good job of concealing themselves. I can’t see any sign of them at all.
I pull up his number and fire a message to him too.
At the airbase. Where are you?
I walk into the biggest hangar, a mess of rusted machinery and overgrown concrete, everything thick with the smell of rot, and the ancient stink of spilled aviation fuel.
There are large, jagged holes in the roof and the end wall.
Apart from the signs of a few small fires on the concrete, it doesn’t look as if anyone has been in here for years.
My phone rings, loud and tinny in the echoing cavern of the old hangar.
“We’re stuck in traffic,” Webber shouts. “It’s total gridlock here; we haven’t even moved in twenty minutes. Don’t go in on your own. Do you hear me? I’ve got three officers with me—do not go in there alone.”
I end the call without replying.
With his voice cut off, the silence in the old hangar is even more profound. A deep, dull nothingness that seems to absorb sound and light, deadening even the faint sound of traffic from the A52 over the hill.
I check my watch. Five past four.
My phone buzzes with a new message from the unknown number.
Didn’t really think I’d be there, did you?
I’ve always loved the smell of petrol.
I reply to tell them that I’m here at the meeting place, I’ve got everything they asked for. I open the gray backpack and take a picture of the Rolex inside, send it. But they don’t even acknowledge it. Instead, another three messages land one after the other.
Change of plan.
You were going to double-cross me.
So now I’m going to make you pay.
The horrible realization of what I’ve done lands with a sick jolt in the pit of my stomach. We thought we were setting a trap, but the wolf had seen us coming from a mile away.
I’ve always loved the smell of petrol.
My house isn’t safe anymore. I call Dom but his phone rings out without being answered. Jess’s goes straight to voicemail and I leave her a message telling her not to go back to the house when she’s picked Callum up.
“Go anywhere,” I say breathlessly into the phone. “Next door, to your brother’s place, anywhere—just don’t go home.”
I stab at Leah’s number next, shouting at her to pick up.
“Hey, Dad.”
“Leah! I need you to take your sister and get out of the house, OK? Go next door, stay with Mrs. Evans, and don’t let anyone in, all right? No one.”
“Dad, what are you talking—”
“Just do it!” I’m shouting now, but I can’t help myself. “You’re in danger. Get out and don’t go back until I’ve told you it’s safe. Do it now.”
I ring off and sprint for my car.