Cut to the Bone (40 page)

Kate wondered at the lies she must have told them. Had they known about James? How could they? They would have put a stop to it, surely? Then again, how many parents really knew what their kids got up to online? They thought they were secure and safe in their bedrooms, obsessing over internet personalities, the way they would over posters of a musician. Instead, they were being silently and stealthily groomed and betrayed.

James Fogg was the one that would get caught. Kate thought about the others out there, the Rachels of the world being slowly turned until they didn’t know who they were anymore. Broken down to be nothing more than dolls, twisted to do the bidding of others.

James Fogg would be a start, though. Kate would find him, and then she would find others like him. She was going to bring justice down on these sick fucks, because that was who she was and what she did.

Chapter One Hundred and Twelve

Kate was fidgety, her chest hurting. It was a dull ache, the build-up of energy or lactic acid. She needed to release it, to be moving, doing something. She had ordered other people to do things, kept her team busy. She had dozens of police officers looking for James Fogg, checking CCTV, speaking to anyone in the vicinity of his house. Hampshire police were out in force scouring the directions Rachel had put together for them. It wasn’t enough.

‘This is crazy,’ said Zain.

They were both in Trent’s office, Kate’s mother still asleep on the sofa. Dr Eric Sandler, the cyber psychologist, had called in via Skype.

‘You got a live one, detective,’ he said. ‘This is the fear, what we’ve been dreading all along. And it’s so tough to warn people. When you’re lonely and reaching out, you sometimes don’t know what’s reaching back until it’s too late.’

‘Like a virtual ouija board?’ said Zain.

‘Something like that, yes. And you have to remember, at that age, young adults just want to be liked, be normal. On top of which, they have hormones racing through them. It’s why they originally developed manufactured pop stars, especially for girls – they go wild for them. Release all their hormones on beings they’ll never attain.’

‘These vloggers – these internet stars – they aren’t pop stars,’ Kate said.

‘Worse, in a way. You see, with musicians, actors, the usual pretty boys, they come with a fortress around them. Managers, PR, security. And they have a lot of media scrutiny watching their every move. They snort cocaine in a nightclub toilet, or get off in the back of a limo, and it’s online within minutes. No escape. So that all acts like a barrier; it stops them messing around with their fans.’

‘And these vlogger guys . . .’ said Zain.

‘It’s the same relationship: the fans worship them, obsess over them. They fill every aspect of their lives with them, and that barrier just isn’t there. It’s direct contact with your idols, and no one is watching. It’s a potential minefield. And the wrong people get involved, and that’s it. You have something like this happen. I’m just surprised it’s not more common.’

‘Maybe it is and we just don’t know?’ said Kate.

‘Yes, there is that,’ said Dr Sandler. ‘I think for these girls it’s like having Harry Styles message them directly. They would do anything – these substitute boyfriends could ask them for anything.’

Her mother’s eyes were open when the Skype call had finished. Kate went over to her, holding her hands, telling her it was OK, where she was, and that despite the lack of blond hair, it was Kate.

‘Hi,’ said Zain, when she was done. He walked towards Jane, held out his hand. ‘Detective Zain Harris. Apologies if we woke you. Can I get you anything?’

‘Some water would be good,’ said Jane.

‘Sure, no problem. You want me to order you some food?’

‘Yes, please, if you don’t mind,’ said Jane.

‘No worries, I’ll get someone in with a menu, or something. I’ll be back in a bit,’ he said, leaving them alone.

‘You have no idea what he looks like, Mother, so don’t even start,’ said Kate.

Jane grinned.

‘I can tell he’s polite. Might be the one.’

Kate groaned inside.

There was a knock on the door. Zain burst in.

‘Sorry, they need you. Now.’

Michelle was in the conference room, the screen playing a video.

‘When did this happen?’ said Kate, her skin goosing and crawling with adrenalin.

‘It was uploaded a few minutes ago,’ said Michelle.

‘Fucking mental, isn’t it?’ said Zain.

‘Yes,’ said Kate.

The scene was familiar. It was a figure strapped to a chair. Kate couldn’t tell if it was at the cottage. It shouldn’t be – that place was crawling with police officers. There was no sound, no message. The picture was the same grey-green tint used on Ruby, bruising visible as shadows on the face.

The figure was crying, shivering. And Kate knew they wouldn’t find him in time. That Daniel Grant was about to be murdered by James Fogg, in the same way Ruby had been.

“You’re next.” She finally knew who that message was for.

Chapter One Hundred and Thirteen

Kate oscillated between frustration and compassion as Rachel ran fingers through her hair and nervously touched her face. Her eyes were roaming the room again; she was worse after meeting with her parents. After Melissa had spoken to her, and Augusta had advised her.

‘You see, I wonder why Dan would put himself in a situation where James could get hold of him?’ said Kate.

‘He can manipulate anyone; you don’t know him.’

‘Yes, but Dan hated him. I don’t think he would willingly want to meet him. Rachel, I think there is something else happening. And I need you to help me, and be honest.’

Rachel broke down again. Her tears – the sobbing, body-wracking, limb-shaking crying – were beginning to grate on Kate. She needed answers, and clarity, because somewhere she pictured James putting a gun to Dan’s head and creating the same montage he had done with Ruby. And however she felt about Dan, she would not allow this to happen.

‘I don’t know anything,’ said Rachel.

‘My client is clearly distressed, and has told you she has no knowledge of Mr Grant’s disappearance,’ said Augusta.

‘Rachel, where did you tell Dan to meet you?’ said Kate.

‘I resent the accusation,’ said Augusta.

‘If you tell me, we can find him. Or do you want to be responsible for another death?’

‘No,’ said Rachel; it was loud – a scream, almost. ‘No, I don’t. Please. Save Dan? I won’t survive it, knowing James did that again.’

‘Help me, Rachel, and I won’t let him,’ said Kate.

‘I called Dan. I told him I knew who killed Ruby. And I told him to meet me by Trinity Square. It’s near his flat, and that’s where . . . He got into the car, when he saw me, and then James –’

‘What time?’

‘I told him to meet me at 6 p.m., so it was then. And when he got into the car, on the back seat, James stabbed him with a needle. It was the same thing he’d used to drug Ruby.’

‘Where did he take him?’

‘I don’t know. He didn’t want me to go, this time. He told me to go home, get a taxi and go home. He said that our alibi had to look real, you see? I had to speak to the neighbours, ask them for something. And stand at the front door, and shout into the house. So it looked like he was there.’

James must have known that with Dan gone, he himself would become a bigger focus. So James hadn’t expected to be caught. Dan wasn’t an escalation; his capture was just his next step. No wonder his hard drives hadn’t been cleaned.

‘Did James say where he was going?’ said Kate.

‘He said he was going to let them be together. Ruby and Dan.’

The same place; to do the same things. Dan was probably already dead, she thought.

Zain was waiting for her when she left the interview room.

‘We had a breakthrough,’ he said. ‘We ran the fake licences James had made. None of them registered to any hire cars. So we broadened the search, ran some of his aliases from the student IDs and a passport. One of them hit. He used the name Derek Childs to hire a car the day before Ruby disappeared, returned it the day after. And he hired another vehicle yesterday. We’ve got a hit on traffic cameras.’

Kate looked at the excitement on Harris’s face, the energised sound to his voice. If he had done this himself, he wouldn’t be so enthralled by it.

‘Let me guess, you spoke to DCI Cross?’

‘I’m resigning in the morning anyway,’ he said. ‘Before you fire me.’

‘No, that’s not what I mean. I was going to commend you on your adeptness. We need all the help we can get right now. No rash decisions, OK?’

‘Right. I got your mother some food, too. She seems settled.’

‘Are you OK to go to Hampshire and start the search?’ she said.

‘Of course,’ he said.

‘Take a chopper,’ she said. ‘You might as well splurge Hope’s budget, while he still has it. I’m sure once the PM finds out that his party’s biggest sponsor is cutting them off, this place will soon start counting Post-it notes and paperclips just like every other police unit.’

Chapter One Hundred and Fourteen

Zain was suspended in mid-air, his head feeling light, as though there was nothing holding his skull up. Seventy-two moving parts that could malfunction. Why did people use helicopters?

‘Rubberdingyrapids,’ he muttered, quoting from
Four Lions
.

He hadn’t been the same with hovering in the air since the shipping container.

The helicopter set down in a field a couple of miles from Dan’s cottage, near to the farmer who owned most of the land. He caught up with DS Helen Lowe from Hampshire police. She didn’t seem all that enthused to see him, probably not as much as she would have been if he were Robin Pelt.

‘Thought it better you land here,’ she told him. ‘There’s some phone reception, at least. I have a car waiting for you, and Michelle Cable called. Said it was urgent. You better call her back before we head off. Near Dan’s cottage you’ll get no signal.’

‘Thanks, sergeant. Do we have any idea yet where James might have taken Dan? Rachel provided us with a route which might give us some clues, at least.’

‘In the pitch dark? I doubt it,’ Helen said. ‘We tried out the route, but the clues were too vague. We have a helicopter searching the area, and patrols are out. There’s an alert out on the registration plate and car. It’s just too massive an area, though.’

‘At least we know roughly where he might be, from the traffic cameras.’

She shrugged.

Zain called Michelle.

‘Listen, something weird,’ Michelle said. ‘Rachel put her battery back in.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘When she was left alone in the cottage, she got scared. So she put her battery back in, and switched her phone on. And she didn’t switch it off when they took Ruby for a drive.’

‘That’s brilliant,’ said Zain. ‘But out here, there’s probably no phone masts anywhere.’

‘No, there aren’t. Coverage is archaic; they might as well have just left their phones off.’

‘I’m guessing we have a rough idea of where they went?’

‘Better than that,’ said Michelle. ‘Rachel has an app on her phone, one that records her food and then works out the calories. Weight loss as well.’

‘I’m not following,’ he said. What did dieting apps have to do with this?

‘The app is a sleeper,’ said Michelle. ‘It masquerades as a weight loss app, but it’s actually collecting location data.’

Zain felt his heart start hammering.

‘If you tell me that the app is tracking this to a satellite, I will bathe you in that expensive toffee shit.’

‘Well, get your overdraft ready, because that’s exactly what it does,’ Michelle told him. ‘It locks into a GPS satellite. I’m sending you the route they took.’

Zain jumped into the VW Helen Lowe had given him and started driving even before Michelle could tell him where he was heading.

The outhouse was four walls made from white stone, with an open doorway. A rusted door was off its hinges, pulled back by force. The floor was covered in flagstones. There was no roof; Rachel had been right.

In the centre of the structure was a cylindrical pile of stones. Zain edged towards it slowly, saw that a metal cover had been kicked over. He was using his phone as a flashlight, the glow weak but enough to see his immediate surroundings. He sniffed what smelled like sulphur. He picked up a loose rock, and threw it in. There was a splash, but it was shallow. He heard the rock hit hard ground as it rolled away. Obviously, a well that had nearly dried out.

Zain turned his phone to shine inside. Was Ruby’s body down there? He peered into the shaft, but there was just darkness.

He thought someone was behind him, and jumped when he saw two figures.

‘Fuck,’ he said, as DS Helen Lowe came into view with one of her team.

‘Did you wet yourself?’ she said. ‘Anything?’

‘Can’t see, but we need it searched. Are you two it? I thought you were going to provide full support to this?’

‘They’re about an hour away, most of them, heading this way. We uploaded the directions you sent.’

Zain had forwarded the same route Michelle had sent to him. The satellite tracking had sent back signals from Rachel’s phone, leading him practically to where they were now.

‘We need to spread out. You got the backbone to search for them in the dark?’ said Zain.

‘Only men need balls to show how tough they are, DS Harris. Us women have toughness inbuilt.’

Zain realised DS Lowe’s colleague was also female.

‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ he said. ‘I work with Riley and Brennan, remember? Toughest cops I know.’

‘We got you a proper torch,’ said Lowe, tossing him a flashlight.

‘Cheers, my phone battery’s dying,’ he said. ‘Shall we?’

They headed out of the outhouse, and chose a direction to go in. He knew they should wait for back-up, but he was too close to not follow a trail. Dan was somewhere nearby, he was sure of it. James wouldn’t know about Rachel switching her phone on; he would be secure in the fantasy that he was still safe.

Zain was convinced he was close.

Chapter One Hundred and Fifteen