Miller shrugged and smiled. ‘Let me down gently, why don’t you?’

  ‘We’ve got nothing.’ Forgeham said it matter-of-factly. ‘On your wife’s murder. That’s what you came up here for, right?’

  ‘Still got nothing, you mean.’

  ‘No new witness statements, no fresh leads, no new forensic evidence. I wish I could tell you that we have and I really wish you’d believe that I’m every bit as frustrated about it as you are.’

  Miller nodded, thinking about the new evidence that was sitting in his front room. The photographs and the video. He told himself again that he was doing the right thing by not handing them over. He needed to keep telling himself.

  ‘Actually, I got some fresh information the other day,’ he said.

  ‘From who?’

  ‘Ralph Massey.’

  ‘Right,’ Forgeham said. ‘Well, because you’re a good detective you’ll obviously have taken that with more than a pinch of salt.’

  ‘Not really,’ Miller said. ‘He implied that he knew something and I believed him.’

  ‘Do you not think we’ve looked at Massey? And at Cutler?’

  ‘I’m not sure you’ve looked hard enough.’

  Forgeham stood up. ‘I think we’re about done.’

  ‘Just answer me this, Lindsey.’ Miller stared up at her. ‘Can you look me in the eye and promise me that Alex’s case is still ongoing? I mean, really ongoing? That she hasn’t been . . . shoved on the back burner.’

  Forgeham sat down again and took a few seconds. ‘I never worked with your wife, but I understand she was a good detective and that still counts for something. Now, whatever you think of me, so am I . . . so I really don’t think I need to dignify your question with an answer. Are we clear, DS Miller?’

  Forgeham waited.

  ‘We’re clear,’ Miller said.

  ‘Good. So you know what happens now, yes?’

  ‘Of course I do. You entertain a few wistful thoughts about my declaration of love, then you get on the phone and make a complaint to my DCI, which you subsequently put in writing.’

  ‘That’s right, and because Susan Akers is also a good detective, she’ll do what she’s supposed to and take that complaint higher up. That will add another black mark to your force disciplinary record which, if it gets any blacker, might eventually cost you your job.’ She looked at him and shook her head. ‘And you really don’t care, do you?’

  ‘Not even a little bit,’ Miller said.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Draper thought it was gobsmacking and frankly ridiculous – the stuff these youngsters kept on their phones. He’d heard people say that losing their phone, or even being without it for a couple of days, would be ‘like, the worst thing in the world’ because their whole life was on there and, looking through the mobile he’d paid to have unlocked, he could well believe it.

  Bloody idiots.

  It wasn’t as if Draper didn’t have a phone himself (he had at least half a dozen) but they just did what phones were supposed to do. They made and received calls and (occasionally) texts, but that was about it. He had a computer for all the other important stuff: emails and googling and porn. He also had a diary and a wristwatch and a brain that could hold several bits of information in it at once, because he wasn’t an imbecile.

  Clearly, Andy Bagnall wouldn’t be too worried right now about not having his phone, but judging by all the stuff Draper had found on there, at any other time he’d have been frantic with worry. You know, if Draper hadn’t put that bag over his head.

  There were endless screens crammed with different apps and games, plus photos, videos and more music than anyone would ever have a chance to listen to. There were dozens of books (entire novels, for heaven’s sake) with links to hundreds of articles about movies and TV shows. There were stories he’d written himself about being some sort of super-cool secret agent or something (Draper was unable to get past the first few lines). There were gizmos to monitor weight loss and heart rate and recipes for healthy eating and . . . Draper gave up ploughing through it all in the end.

  Crucially, there were contacts and there were voice messages.

  Listening to the most recent message – left just a few hours before Draper had paid Bagnall a visit three nights earlier – confirmed his theory that Bagnall’s friend could easily have gone round there and retrieved the case before Draper had got there himself. Draper might only have missed the jammy beggar by a matter of minutes.

  Well, now he had most of the details he needed and the jammy beggar was about to run out of jam. Draper might have a bit more work to do to get the lad’s address, but before he went down that road he reckoned the obvious option was simply to ask for it. It couldn’t hurt, could it?

  He could be perfectly reasonable, if he needed to be.

  Having managed to nip up to his room without encountering his landlady, Draper lay back on the bed and made the call.

  It went unanswered, so he waited a minute and rang again.

  ‘Hello . . . ?’ There’d been fifteen seconds of breathing and gulping before Keith Slack had actually said anything. ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Well, seeing as I’m calling from your dead friend’s phone, why don’t you take a wild stab in the dark?’

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘Not even close, Keith.’

  There was more gulping. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Nothing too complicated,’ Draper said. ‘Just the briefcase. The one you stole.’

  ‘I haven’t got it,’ Slack spluttered. ‘Andy had it.’

  ‘Well, he certainly hadn’t got it when I called round. So, if he didn’t have it and you haven’t got it, who the hell has got it?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Slack said. ‘I swear I don’t know.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Please—’

  ‘Last chance, Keith. Look, I’ll make it nice and easy for you. We’ll agree a place and you just pop out and leave it there, OK? Then I can collect it and you’ll never hear from me again.’ Draper wasn’t being strictly up front, obviously. He fully intended to kill Slack at some point later on, just for all the trouble he’d been put to, but that was by the by. ‘How’s that sound?’

  ‘I can’t give you the case, because I haven’t got it.’

  ‘Oh, bugger,’ Draper said. ‘I was hoping this might be easy.’

  Draper didn’t do social media, anything like that; Facebook and all the rest of it wasn’t something he engaged with. To be fair, it would be tricky having any sort of online presence when there were arrest warrants out for him in every county in the UK, several American states and a number of European countries, on top of which it was a proper time suck. He knew what it was, though, and he made it his business to know (sort of) how it all worked. He’d learned how reasonably straightforward it was – if you knew what you were doing – to trace people through their Ticky-Tocks and Twittering.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Slack had started to cry a bit. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’m just saying, Keith. Looks like we’ll have to do things the hard way.’

  He already had a name and number, so finding an address would be a piece of cake, and even if he didn’t know where to begin, Draper reckoned that lowlife who’d unlocked the phone for him would crack it in ten minutes.

  ‘What are you going to do . . . ?’

  Draper hung up.

  He didn’t mind too much, because a lot of the time, the hard way was a lot more fun.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Once he’d left Forgeham’s incident room, waving its occupants a cheery if unorthodox goodbye which only involved one finger, Miller stopped in the hallway to gather his thoughts. It didn’t take very long. He needed something to calm him down and, in the absence of strong drugs and with nothing handy that he could punch repeatedly, he reached for his phone and dialled his dead wife’s number.

  He’d been doing it a lot less, lately. Sometimes, though, the imagined voice of his wife during their conversations at home was no substitute for the real thing. Even if the words were always the same.

  He smiled, listening to the call ring out, knowing that Fred and Ginger’s ears would now be pricking up at the sound of the Strictly ringtone. He pictured the phone in its sparkly red case, charging on a table near the door where he always left it, when he wasn’t scrolling through it late at night in search of answers he never found.

  The phone Alex had left behind in the dressing room at the Majestic.

  The phone her killer had called that night, luring her to her death.

  ‘This is Alex and I can’t talk right now, because I’m out somewhere fighting crime, or doing serious damage to a bottle of red. Either way, beep, message, you know . . . ’

  Once he’d hung up, Miller took a minute, then made a second call, keen to find out how Finn was doing. Mary told him that she’d left straight after breakfast. ‘We couldn’t stop her,’ Mary said. ‘She wouldn’t even let me put something on those bruises. She’s so stubborn, Declan.’

  Miller did not need telling. He thanked her again and trudged the two flights back down to find Xiu waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. He could tell that she knew exactly where he’d been.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  She could also see that he’d been crying.

  ‘Allergies,’ he said.

  ‘What are you allergic to?’

  ‘Where do you want to start? My wife being dead. The fact that the people charged with finding her killer are about as useful as a sniffer dog with a heavy cold. Oh, and also several varieties of soft fruit, but unless you’ve got any gooseberries in your pocket I doubt that’s the problem.’

  ‘Right . . . ’

  ‘So.’ Miller rubbed his hands together. ‘Any major progress?’ He waited. ‘Any minor progress? Has what DI Sullivan laughably calls media saturation yielded anything useful?’

  ‘Well, there’s a woman who wants to see you in reception.’

  ‘Ooh, is it Anneka Rice?’

  ‘I didn’t get her name,’ Xiu said. ‘She’s got something she wants to show you on her phone.’

  ‘I hope it’s a funny dog video,’ Miller said. ‘Or one of those with lots of people falling over.’

  Xiu was about to ask the obvious question when her phone rang and she stepped away to take the call.

  ‘Because I could do with cheering up.’

  The woman sitting patiently opposite the reception desk was, he reckoned, somewhere in her mid-thirties, though she could also have been ten years older than that. Miller could usually tell when a suspect was lying and it was a matter of pride that, more often than not, he could spot the one thing that was out of place at a crime scene, but he was about as skilled at guessing a person’s age as he was at quantum physics or conjuring.

  ‘I gather you’ve got something to show me,’ he said.

  ‘I certainly have.’ The woman stood up and thrust out a hand, which Miller dutifully shook. ‘I hope it’s useful . . . only I saw the piece on That’s Lancashire – you know, after the national news – and they showed a picture of this man you’re after.’ She grimaced. ‘He doesn’t look the sort you’d want to take home to meet your mother, does he?’

  ‘No, he doesn’t,’ Miller said. Not unless you wanted her bumped off.

  ‘And I know it was mainly about some dreadful murder . . . in connection with, that’s what the newsreader said, but it also mentioned an incident at the railway station and that’s when it clicked.’

  ‘What clicked?’

  ‘I was there, you see. A few days back, when there was all that commotion.’

  ‘You were at the station?’

  ‘I was meeting my sister who was coming in from Hebden Bridge. I was just hanging about because the train was delayed, as per usual, and when it all started I filmed the whole thing. That’s what you do these days, isn’t it? These lads were running like billy-o, so I just pointed my phone, like you do . . . and I was right there when one of them jumped over the barrier outside the toilets and conked this other poor bloke on the head with a briefcase. A right nasty whack he gave him.’

  Miller stepped closer. ‘Can I see?’

  The woman pressed a button and raised the phone so that Miller had a good view. To begin with, the footage was a little chaotic and blurry. He heard the shouting and saw Bagnall racing through shot, but then the focus shifted to the second lad. Miller leaned in to get an even better look as the lad ran towards the barrier and vaulted it, the swinging briefcase smacking (with a satisfying clunk) into the head of a man he knew to be Wayne Cutler. Sadly, there was no close-up of an injured Cutler to enjoy, but there was a nice clear close-up of Andrew Bagnall’s friend.

  Miller hit pause and stared at the young man that he, Draper and probably Cutler were all looking for.

  He saw the mistake he’d made.

  ‘Is it any use?’ the woman asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Miller said. ‘I’m an idiot . . . but you’ve been incredibly helpful.’

  ‘Well, just doing my bit.’

  Miller took out his phone and began to search for a number. ‘Thank you so much . . . and thank you to your sister.’

  ‘I’ll give the man at the desk my name, shall I?’

  As the woman was walking away towards the desk sergeant, Miller was already talking to Natalie Bagnall. He apologised for bothering her again and for the fact that he wasn’t calling with any real news. Then he asked if she possibly still had that school photograph to hand. She told him that she did and went to fetch it.

  While Miller was waiting, he watched the woman giving her details to the desk sergeant. He was trying not to get overly excited, knowing that there was still one major hurdle to negotiate.

  ‘Got it,’ Natalie said.

  ‘OK, sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,’ Miller said. ‘Is the photo in colour?’

  ‘Yeah, but why—?’

  ‘Is there a kid with red hair?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I mean, there’s usually a carrot-top in every class, right? There was certainly one in mine, so fingers crossed.’ Miller waited.

  ‘Yeah, there is. Big daft grin on his face an’ all.’

  ‘What’s his name, Natalie?’

  Half a minute later, when Miller had hung up, Xiu came charging into reception. ‘I know the name of Bagnall’s friend.’ She was waving her phone. ‘That was James Holloway. His brother got back to him and—’

  ‘Keith Slack,’ Miller said. ‘That’s the name of the lad we’ve been looking for. Yes, I know you’re tempted to bow down and pay homage, but there’s really no need. I’d’ve got it a lot quicker if I hadn’t jumped to conclusions.’

  Xiu just stared.

  ‘I thought Andy Bagnall almost said the name, when he came round to my place that night with the briefcase. It was a nickname, though, you see?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘I should have borne that possibility in mind. Remember what I said to you about nicknames? I told you they were important.’

  ‘That’s not exactly what you said—’

  ‘So, not Ji— as in short for Jimmy. Gi— as in short for Ginger!’ He shook his head. ‘An easy mistake to make, I suppose, but I’m still cross with myself—’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Miller—’

  ‘Now we just need an address—’

  ‘I’ve already got it.’

  ‘Oh . . . OK then.’ Miller looked at her. ‘Top stuff, Posh.’

  ‘It wasn’t difficult.’

  ‘Right, then. To the Batmobile!’

  They moved towards the exit. Xiu caught the woman’s eye on their way out and smiled, a little embarrassed. ‘It’s actually a Honda Civic,’ she said.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Keith Slack had been sick twice already since the man had called and it felt as though he could make it a hat-trick at any moment.

  It wasn’t like he hadn’t been scared before. He’d actually been scared plenty of times. He was scared when he nicked the briefcase for a kick-off and that was before he knew what was in it. He’d even been a bit scared when he was stabbing that kid in the arse with a compass and, now that he thought about it, he’d been scared most of the time when he was at school. And a lot of the time since he’d left, come to that, even when he’d been acting the big man.

  It was just a question of how well you hid the fear.

  This was different, though. This was . . . oh, God . . .

  He ran into the toilet and chucked up again, but by now it was just liquid. He wiped his face and came back into his front room. He fell onto the sofa, pulled his knees up to his chest and lay there close to tears.

  People talked about being ‘scared to death’ when they saw a spider or a zombie film or whatever, but this was actually the real thing. Well, scared of death if you were being picky, but either way, that man on the phone had sounded like he meant business and, seeing what had happened to Andy, death suddenly felt like a real possibility.

  Slack closed his eyes and tried to decide what to do.

  He’d already double-locked the front door and made sure the back door was bolted, but he wasn’t sure that would be enough if the man really wanted to get in. He had Slack’s name and his phone number, so it was only a matter of time before he found out where he lived. Andy would have locked the door too and look what good it had done him.

  He lay there and ran through his (limited) options.

  He’d thought about legging it to his parents’ but the last thing he wanted to do was put his mum and dad in danger. The man on the phone might think they had the stupid briefcase, and Slack didn’t reckon he’d have much compunction about hurting them. Hurting anybody, come to that, so it wasn’t like Slack could ask anyone else to put him up either.