An Early Grave (15 page)

‘Pay rent.’

‘Do you know who owns the property?’

Mankus shook her head.

‘Agency, we rent from agency.’

‘OK, thank you for taking the time to come here this morning. I may need to ask some more questions, but for now I will leave you with DS Murray.’

Returning to St. Anne Street Station, Tara made plans for her weekend to London with Callum. Murray returned a short while later, looking pensive.

‘So what did you make of that pair?’ he asked, placing himself on the edge of her desk.

‘Didn’t believe a word. I think they rehearsed all of that between them. They know a lot more of what Audra was getting in to before her murder. The Mankus girl was at least thirty; should have her wits about her.’

‘I can tell you that Laima Gabrys speaks reasonable English. They seemed to forget that I met them a couple of days ago. Gabrys told me then about working with Audra at the Bradbury. And that’s not the only thing they got up to. If you have a few minutes, I think you should take a peek at the DVDs.’

Tara winced. Embarrassing watching alone, never mind in the presence of a male colleague, but he seemed to be taking a professional line. She felt that she must do the same.

Murray had a lap-top sitting in a small meeting room separated from their office by a glass partition. She sat down beside him, he clicked on the mouse, a disc whirred in the machine, and in a few seconds an unsteady image appeared on the screen. Murray increased the volume, although at that point the only sounds were a few moans and the hum of background noise. In the first few minutes none of what she saw held any significance, nor was it particularly shocking in its content.

‘Likelihood is that this standard of film was intended for television, the adult channels, of course,’ said Murray. Then he added, ‘The woman who runs the shop in Bootle told me. No images of penetration…’

‘Ok, Alan. I understand. Can you move on to what is relevant?’ A lecture on the making of adult films would not make her feel any more comfortable. She felt herself flush. She wasn’t a prude, but she found it difficult to understand how anyone would seek gratification from watching the likes of this. Murray clicked the mouse a couple of times, and the images switched to new scenes.

‘I think this is the most relevant piece.’

Within seconds the naked body of Audra Bagdonas was clearly visible. Apart from the scene at the mortuary, when a sheet was involved, Tara had only ever seen this girl naked. She lay on a single bed, set against a wall, her head propped on pillows, the naked frame of a man leaning over her. What he was doing was not entirely visible on camera, but it didn’t take much imagination to figure it out.

‘Ok, so that is Audra. We now have confirmation that she was involved in making these films.’

‘Keep watching,’ said Murray. A minute or so passed, very slowly for Tara, and all she could do was wonder what Audra had been thinking and feeling as the man, whose head and face remained obscured, continued having vigorous, unappealing sex with her. She wondered also if Audra actually had been a fully consensual participant. If not, then what she and Murray were watching was a gross act of rape. Had matters cruelly descended from Audra’s rape to her murder? Had her final moments of life been filmed?

Suddenly, Audra and her partner disappeared, and another girl, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, filled the screen. She sat upon a carpeted staircase, a broad smile on thin lips, brown hair lapping at her shoulders. It wasn’t long before a naked male showed up, the girl now obscured by his torso.

‘Ruta Mankus, I would say,’ said Murray as if Tara needed reminding of the girl she’d met just two hours earlier.

‘Not surprising in the end,’ she said. ‘Something was going on with that girl this morning.’

‘Most interesting thing is where all of it was filmed.’

‘I didn’t recognise anything of the house in Treadwater.’

Murray shook his head and smiled.

‘That staircase is in the house where those girls live. In Stanley Road. I recognised it straightaway.’

‘Find out who owns the house.’

CHAPTER 22

She couldn’t help feeling impressed by his efforts. For the first time she actually stood in open space in his living room; most of the papers and many of the box-files were gone. There was a place to sit on the tattered sofa, and the bizarre armchair of newspapers and magazines had been dismantled.

‘What did you do with all the paper?’

‘Out the back for now. I’m hoping it doesn’t rain before the council come to take it away.’ There was a positive lift in his mood, the kind that comes with achievement. He couldn’t help looking pleased with himself, and Tara was happy to give praise where it was due. ‘Come and see the kitchen.’ He led her through the dim hall into a tidy space, where she could now identify a cooker, a fridge and worktops free of clutter.

‘Wow, you’ve got rid of all those foil trays, and you’ve washed up.’

‘You haven’t mentioned my hair.’ He stood before her like a wife itching for praise from her husband. His hair did look better. Clean and trimmed, although it still reached his shoulders.

‘You look great,’ she said, then realised she sounded rather personal. ‘Did you buy some clothes?’

‘A couple of shirts and a pair of Chinos, like you said.’

‘Very good.’

‘And shoes.’

She smiled at his boyish responses.

‘Most importantly, did you have any luck making those appointments?’

‘Some of them. We’re seeing Charlotte on Sunday. Ollie couldn’t give me a definite yes, but told me to call him when we get to London. Anthony Egerton-Hyde, no chance.’

‘Thought as much. He is a government minister, I suppose. What about Georgina Maitland?’

‘Didn’t get to speak with her either, but I spoke to her PA. She took a note of my name and promised to pass it on to Georgina. She’ll be in her office on Friday, so I think we can turn up and assume that she’ll see us.’

‘Are you hopeful?’

‘I think Georgina, if she knows I’m sitting in her reception, will invite us in.’

‘And Justin Kingsley’s parents?’

‘Found Sir Edward’s address in chambers, but I think our visit to him should be a surprise. I don’t think he’ll be too happy meeting the likes of me.’

Delighted with his work, she felt for the first time that a degree of trust had been manufactured between them. If he didn’t trust her advice, he wouldn’t have carried out her list of instructions. Similarly, if she hadn’t begun to trust him she wouldn’t be travelling alone with him to London.

‘Right, I will leave you in peace to enjoy your new house. I’ll pick you up on Friday morning about seven.’

He nodded as a doubtful expression crept over his face.

‘It’s the only way, Callum, if you want justice for Tilly.’

‘You believe my story then?’ She replied with a nod of her own, despite the enormous doubts gnawing at her brain, knowing that when she returned to Liverpool she might not have a job and, if she was entirely wrong about Callum Armour, losing her job might well be the least of her worries.

Before leaving, she remembered one question she had been meaning to ask him.

‘Do you happen to know who owns the house where Audra was found?’

He shook his head.

‘No idea, why?’

‘You have a name written on a receipt from ASDA, Teodor Sokolowski. I found it in your box-file.’

‘Is he the owner?’

‘He is, but would you mind telling me why you have a note of his name?’

He responded with a barely perceptible shrug. In an instant that inkling of trust between them vanished.

‘Before we leave for London Callum, you have a serious think about things. I want to help you, I really do, but I know you’re playing a game with me. I don’t think you’re playing fair.’ She left him on the doorstep, marched to her car and roared off, the noise from the engine a signal to him that Tara was less than pleased.

*

His hopes for dry weather were dashed an hour after DI Grogan left him. A newspaper forecast described it as summer showers, but it was rain like any other rain. Right now it was turning his bundles of paper to a sodden mess. All he had done was to shift his squalor a few yards out of doors, but still it belonged to him. Still his mess. Of course, he didn’t dump all of it. No way. Letters from Tilly, cards from Charlotte, Jian, Ollie, Tilly’s parents and Georgina, he couldn’t bear to throw them out. They were his only link to the past, to the time when he had Tilly and Emily. Sipping hot tea from a chipped mug, he stood amongst it all smothering his bed and littering the floor. Tara would never know he’d kept most of it. Not her business anyway. He remained at his bedroom window as dusk quickly slipped to night, watching the figure out the back, standing in the downpour, a hooded anorak his only protection. Callum wondered what business he had to be standing there, lingering by the alley between two houses. Was he waiting for the pregnant girl, Debbie, or for someone at number six, where Audra had died? Periodically, the stranger lifted his head and seemed to look towards him, but Callum knew there was no chance of his being seen, not in the darkness of his room and the metal screen on the window.

By the time he’d finished his tea, he realised that filling his bedroom with more paper left him without a bed. From now on he would kip on the sofa. Probably safer downstairs, anyway. Before settling down for the night he checked once more on the figure out the back, by peering through the kitchen window. The rain hadn’t ceased, and the stranger was still there.

CHAPTER 23

Around the corner from Callum Armour’s house Tara pulled over, took her mobile from her bag, and sent a text to Kate, asking if she could call on her way home. Kate replied immediately with an invite to supper. Tara was eager to speak with her rather than Aisling, because she knew that Aisling would not take well what she had to say. Kate was more level-headed, less likely to flap under stress.

She shared a flat with Adam, a doctor currently assigned to A & E at the Royal. She was the only one of the three girls who had anything resembling a stable relationship. Aisling was unashamedly watching and waiting for Mr Handsome and drop-dead rich, test-driving a few prospects, while Tara hadn’t managed more than a handful of dates since leaving Oxford. The one relationship she’d had at university had put romantic notions out of her head for life. So said Aisling.

She turned her car into Canning Street in the south of the city and found a parking space thirty yards down from the cream-painted Georgian house, imaginatively transformed into four apartments. Canning Street was a pleasant area, popular with professional couples. Kate and Adam lived on the ground floor on the right hand side of the building. As Tara climbed the front steps she spied Kate looking out from the lounge window. The front door was open before Tara reached it.

‘I pulled some lasagne from the freezer; garlic bread’s in the oven. Do you want a drink?’

‘Water or juice is fine. I still have to drive home.’

‘So what’s all the biz, saying you needed to speak to me and without Aisling?’

The pair of them sat on stools either side of a breakfast bar, the entire lounge and kitchen of open-plan design, with bedrooms and bathroom down a narrow hall to the rear. The entire room echoed from wooden flooring and high ceilings, there being little fabric to absorb the noise. Certainly not the type of place to raise kids. An ultra-modern kitchen, and yet the room retained some original features such as the fireplace, the ceiling rose and sash windows.

Tara told Kate of her plans for the coming weekend. In doing so she had to fill her in with quite a few details of both cases: Callum’s search for the killer of his wife and daughter, and her own, professional objective to find the killer of Audra Bagdonas. Unlike Aisling, who would have interrupted Tara at each and every sentence, Kate listened and allowed her to finish the story.

‘I needed to tell someone, Kate. I can’t discuss it at work. I could be kicked off the force for doing this.’ Neither of them had so far eaten a bite of food.

‘Oh, Tara, why do you always get yourself so emotionally involved in these things?’

‘I don’t.’

‘Yes you do. Same thing happened last year on that suicide case you talked about.’

‘Callum needs my help and, besides, he knows more about the murder of Audra than he’s told me so far. I’m determined to get the truth out of him.’

‘Seems to me that you can’t trust him, and now you’re running off to London together.’

‘I know. I’m ninety-nine per cent sure he’s an honest man, but I’m telling you just in case.’

‘Just in case what?’

‘In case you don’t hear from me. I’ll leave you the details of where I’m going and who I’m going to meet. I’ll text you twice a day. If anything happens, and you don’t hear from me, you pass the information to my Superintendent.’

Kate, just off her shift at the hospital and with no plans for going out, wearing no makeup, the orange in her hair fading, paled at what Tara had to say.

‘We have to tell Aisling; she’ll go ballistic if she finds out where you’ve gone and we haven’t told her.’

‘No, Kate. She’ll insist on going with me.’

‘Not such a bad idea. Maybe I should come too?’

Tara laughed nervously, for a second unsure whether her friend was serious.

‘Please, Kate. I’ll be fine. Telling you about it is only an insurance policy. Nothing bad is going to happen.’

‘We still have to tell Aisling. We were supposed to go out on Saturday, remember?’

Tara’s face was blank.

‘Shopping? Aisling was going to kit you out in labels.’

‘There you are. I’m already gaining from going away.’