The sound of her phone ringing filtered into Jayne’s consciousness.
She was lying on her back on her bed, still fully dressed. She tried to lift her head, but the room swam, as sharp jabs of pain flashed across her brain. She closed her eyes and groaned.
After a few seconds, the room seemed to stabilise, so she opened her eyes again. She reached out with her hand in the general direction of the ringing sound until her fingers closed around her phone. She squinted as she looked at the screen. It was Dan.
She answered. ‘Yes?’ Her voice came out muffled. Her lips were sticky.
‘Jayne, are you all right? You tried to call me, but when I picked up you weren’t saying anything. Just groaning.’
She swung her legs out of the bed, swallowing back the pain as she took a breath. Her ribs felt like they were on fire. She caught her reflection in the mirror on the wall.
Jayne couldn’t remember getting back to her room. She recalled pulling herself up and stumbling towards the hotel entrance, the whole place moving, her feet not finding steady ground, but everything else was a blur. As she looked at the mirror, she could see why. One eye was swollen and bloodied, her lip was fat and red, and a bruise was developing across her cheek. Blood caked her nose, and as she peered closer, she was sure it was less straight than before. Her clothes were torn and blood-soaked.
She hung her head. For a moment, she felt despair, stuck in some small-town hotel after a beating, alone, no friends nearby.
She couldn’t think like that. Don’t weaken.
She forced herself to sit upright and blink back the tears.
There was a clock on the wall. Just after seven.
‘Sorry, Dan. I must have pocket-dialled you.’
‘You don’t sound all right. You didn’t earlier.’
‘Just tired.’ She knew her words were slurred, but she hoped Dan would put it down to too much to drink.
Dan was silent for a few moments before he said, ‘It’s more than that. You sound muffled. I need to know you’re okay.’
She looked at the mirror again. She wasn’t going to tell him, but she couldn’t stop the need to confide, for someone to care about her. ‘I was jumped. A bit of a kicking, but I’ll survive.’
There was a sharp intake of breath at the other end of the line before he said, ‘How bad?’
‘I’m fine, Dan.’
‘How fine?’
She sighed. ‘Sore ribs. Some bruising. A black eye and some hurt pride.’
‘Shit. Come back today.’
‘Am I done here?’
‘Yes, if you’re in danger.’
‘That’s not a good enough reason.’
‘But, Jayne, I can’t be responsible for this.’
‘I’m not the little woman who needs protecting.’
‘It’s not just you. I was threatened with a knife last night, told to stop pursuing this.’
‘A knife? Are you sure it was about this case?’
‘He made it very clear.’
‘I was beaten up for the same reason, because whoever it was told me to leave town. This wasn’t random.’
Dan fell silent for a moment.
‘Dan, we shouldn’t back down, and the last time I checked, I was my own boss, which means I look after myself. I’m no coward, and if some bastard has blacked my eye, I want to know why. I’m staying. No debate.’
Another pause and then, ‘Okay, if you’re sure.’
‘What ideas do you have for me today?’
‘Just follow the trail and see where it leads you.’
She gave a bitter laugh. ‘So far, I’ve upset the retired detective who locked up Rodney Walker and made a violent enemy.’
‘But did you find anything out?’
‘Yes. The right man is locked up but Mark Roberts thought differently. The town has its villain, and some people didn’t like the idea that they’d had it wrong all these years. Then I come along and upset them all over again.’
‘And a kicking for your trouble. It gives us something though. Two more suspects.’
‘Two?’ She winced as she straightened herself, her ribs aching again. She wasn’t sharing Dan’s celebration.
‘Like I said last night, if Rodney is innocent, there’s a real killer who won’t want to be found. Or what about a retired detective who might have bent the rules too much?’
‘Come on, Dan. A retired detective isn’t going to kill a man because he’s been accused of getting it wrong when the killer is still locked up.’
‘That all depends on what Mark uncovered. Back then, policing was different. The rules had changed, but a lot of the old coppers were still around, and they hankered for the good old days.’
‘Good old days?’
‘When dangling people out of windows could obtain confessions, or by getting rough in some dark alley. The eighties changed the rules, but it didn’t change the people. Porter might have been more old-school than he lets on. If we can find out what Mark found out, we might see what excited him so much, and whether it would give Porter any reason to worry. Find out what you can about him? And what about William’s father? How was he? Do you think he’s capable of violence?’
Jayne stared at her face in the full-length mirror opposite the bed.
‘I think he was the one who jumped me. I’d arranged to meet him. but he didn’t turn up. I should have been more careful. He wanted to meet me in a dark part of the seafront. I can’t believe I was so naive.’
‘If you’ve been attacked, it’s not your fault.’
‘Someone was watching me, because I got the beating when I got near the hotel. No one else knew I was meeting him.’
Dan went silent.
After a few moments of nothing, she said, ‘Dan, are you still there?’
‘I shouldn’t have sent you there. I’m sorry.’
‘I’m a big girl now, and it wasn’t your fault either.’
‘Mark Roberts was murdered after spending some time there. You turn up and ask the same questions. I can’t believe I didn’t spot the danger.’
‘That isn’t important, and there is work here I need to finish. I’ve been in Brampton for less than twenty‑four hours and I’ve upset people. There are secrets here, and I want to find them.’
‘Nick Connor isn’t worth risking your life for.’
‘I’m not doing it for Nick Connor anymore. I’m doing it for me, because if this little place is full of dark secrets, however quaint and pretty it looks, I’m going to find them. Nick Connor just gets the benefit of it.’
Dan fell silent again, and Jayne knew exactly what was on his mind. He was scared for her, but she knew how single-minded he could get about a case. In the end, his need to win the case would win out.
‘Okay, but be careful.’
She smiled to herself, despite the pain. She could read him. ‘Have you got any new information?’
‘I checked up on Rodney Walker after your call, and I found out who his lawyer was from old press reports. I want to visit Rodney today, but I’ll need the permission of his lawyer. I called the firm’s emergency number, but he didn’t want to talk about the case.’
‘You called him this early?’
‘Defence lawyers always answer the phone. It’s how the cases start. It was more than just tiredness though. He ended the conversation as soon as I mentioned Rodney’s name.’
‘Child murders must be hard to get over, even for the hard-bitten lawyers.’
‘Oh, they are, but too many like the stories, the anecdotes, and it must have been his biggest case of all.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Speak to the lawyer, Ken Goodman. He knows you’re in town, because I mentioned you. I need a letter of introduction to get into the prison.’
‘And you think Rodney might have the answers?’
‘You’re at the seaside, right?’
‘You know I am.’
‘I went to the east coast a few times when I was a kid. There are a few coves that have rock pools instead of smooth sand, and I used to love lifting rocks there, or kicking limpets. You’ve got to be quick though. You’ve got to give the limpets a swift jab with your foot, because if they don’t fly off the first time, they’ll clamp themselves to the rocks and you’ve no chance of shifting them. Same with the crabs. You’ve got to lift the rock quickly, surprise them. If you don’t, they know what you’re doing and scuttle off somewhere else, lost in the sand they churn up from the pool.’
‘I get your metaphor. I’ve got to keep lifting rocks, but in a way that doesn’t let them know I’m coming, to stop them from clamming up.’
‘Something like that. I didn’t plan the metaphor. But if we’re stretching it as far as it will go, be careful, because the problem with finding crabs was that the big ones reared up the most, nasty and angry.’ He paused before he added, ‘Look after yourself.’
She almost laughed. ‘Will do.’ She clicked off.
As she caught her reflection again, however, she wondered how stretched the metaphor actually was, because dark secrets were only meant to stay in the shadows. She had no idea what would happen if she shone some light on to them. Mark Roberts had tried to do the same thing. And now he was dead.
Her fingers traced the bruises on her face. Perhaps that was the very mistake she’d made. But then she remembered she’d taken a photograph the night before.
She went to her phone and found the picture.
The flash had distorted the colours but brightened the seafront shelters. They were as empty as they had seemed at the time, although the bright burst of light on the photograph took away some of the spookiness. They were transformed from dark chasms to dirty concrete shelters, with cast-iron benches covered in flaking white paint against grey walls covered in graffiti scrawls.
Then she saw something. It was a dark shape by a wall, just at the edge of the picture.
She zoomed in on it and clenched her jaw.
There was the dark shape of a sleeve, black with a silver band around the cuff, fingers flat against a wall, ready to peer round. She remembered the silver band from when she was attacked, like a flash before her eyes as he swung at her.
He’d done this to her. He’d followed her, and somehow knew where she was staying so he could get ahead and wait for her.
She stood, her hand going to her ribs, crying out in pain as she slipped off her top and then her bra. As she lifted her arm, there was a large purple bruise across her torso.
He’d done her well. It wasn’t the first time she’d been beaten up, always smothered by promises that it would be the last time, broken every time.
She’d had the last word on that, but that road had led to here, her life disrupted and feeling sorry for herself in Brampton, beaten and bloodied once more.
Her life was different now though. She didn’t shrink back anymore. Didn’t forgive anymore.
She stepped out of her jeans and knickers and headed for the shower, to wash away some of the damage he’d done.
No matter what he’d done to her, he’d made himself an enemy, and she knew where her next call would be.