Dan drove. He’d had just two drinks and didn’t think he’d be over the limit. And anyway, he knew the roads better than Jayne.
Jayne was sitting forward, straining her seat belt, trying to see the way ahead. ‘What’s happening, Dan?’
‘Like it sounds. Nick’s a killer. He was all along. He killed Mark Roberts for Leoni, because of course she wouldn’t do it herself, not now she’s learned better ways to do it. That’s why he’s moving away, because his case has exposed Leoni.’
‘Did you tell him about Leoni?’
‘I didn’t have time, and I don’t think he knew anything anyway. Leoni has a different surname now. Whatever reason Leoni gave for needing Mark dead, it didn’t have to involve her killing two children, but he must have seen her when she came into the courtroom. Leoni. She kept that first name, and she was there, in full view. That’s when he knew who she truly was. When I looked back, I thought he’d be more excited, but he had his head in his hands. But he’s still a killer. He fooled us and we freed him, and Barbara’s with him.’
‘That doesn’t mean he’s going to harm her. He’s just got out of prison. He won’t want to go back. It’s something else. Like your conscience troubling you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You thought it had a happy ending. Now, you know that it’s just one more guilty defendant getting away with it.’
‘I’m allowed to feel let down.’ He drove faster, the terraced houses blurring past, his hands tight around the wheel. The park wasn’t far away. He didn’t know what to expect when he got there, but there was something slightly off-kilter.
Then he remembered.
‘Something Barbara said is bothering me,’ he said. ‘We were speaking at court, when we were waiting for the verdict. Porter was still there, and he asked her what she was going to do with the recording we made, where he told us about his part in it all. Barbara said that she was going to write an article, using the recording and her son’s notes. She made it sound like it might be cathartic.’
‘Sounds reasonable.’
‘I thought so at the time, and I was too busy worrying about the verdict to think more about it, but it niggled me, and my mind kept going back to it, but I couldn’t work out why.’ He braked hard at some red lights, the dark shadow of the park ahead. ‘But now I can’t help thinking about which notes they are.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘She said she was going to use Mark’s notes, but which notes would they be? Her whole involvement was based upon the murder being connected to whatever he was writing, designed to stop him writing it, but she didn’t know what it was. His laptop was gone, and his notes too.’
Jayne thought about that. ‘Perhaps she meant what she’d worked out since?’
‘No, she was very specific about it. Mark’s notes. Not my notes, but Mark’s notes.’
‘Are you saying she’s dodgy in some way?’
‘I’m wondering whether there is more going on with her than she is letting on. Think about it. Who’s been directing us in this investigation? Barbara, that’s who. Why did you go to Brampton?’
‘Because she’d discovered that Mark had been there.’
‘At every stage, it was Barbara who nudged us along to the next discovery.’
‘It was Chris who sent me to Wakefield though, told me to follow Leoni’s trail, just like Mark must have done.’ She frowned. ‘They seemed strange at court today.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Like they knew each other. Remember, the whole point about me going to Brampton was to find out why Mark had gone there; but if she’d met Chris, she’d already know.’
‘Are you thinking they were working together?’
‘It would make sense, because Chris didn’t believe in Rodney’s guilt, so he found an ally in Mark. And when you think about it, every part of the case has been led by Barbara or Chris, all explained by some invoice or bank statement she’d found, or Chris directing. It wasn’t about helping Nick. It was about us coming to the same conclusion she’d reached.’
‘But she did that to get Nick out of prison, so she could find the real murderer.’
Dan raised his eyebrows. ‘Except the police information suggests that he is the real murderer.’
The lights changed to green. Dan accelerated hard.
‘She wanted justice for her son,’ Dan said, shouting above his engine noise. ‘That’s what she’s always said. When Nick was acquitted though, I thought she’d look pleased, but she was the opposite. More determined, serious.’
‘She’s with Nick now.’
‘Exactly. She came to the pub and asked him to accompany her to the park. What was the phrase? For a moment of reflection?’
‘What, you think…?’
‘I don’t know, but we’re about to find out.’
He swerved across the road and scuffed his tyre along the kerb as he stopped outside the park entrance.
The park was semi-circular in shape, the entrance just a small alley at the end of a street of houses. They walked into it, slowly, wary of the darkness. A path ran along the top of the park to a similar entrance on a parallel street, with another tracing the edge in a wide loop. Highford lay below, so that during the day it became somewhere for dog walkers and young parents with prams to stroll with a view of the town. At night, the town below was set out in glittering lines and swirls of orange street lights. The struts of a climbing frame were visible as a skeletal silhouette over a cluster of bushes.
‘Where was Mark Roberts found?’ Jayne asked.
Dan pointed along the path that ran closest to the houses but hidden from them by the trees behind. ‘Just there, by a bench.’
‘Barbara can’t have gone in here,’ Jayne said, shaking her head. ‘I can’t see or hear anyone. Try calling her.’
Dan scrolled through his contacts until he found Barbara’s number. When he pressed call, there was a flicker of light in the distance and the sound of a light ring. It rang out twice before being cut off, the light extinguished. ‘She’s over there. Come on, we’ll go in.’
‘But why didn’t she answer?’
‘We ought to find out.’
As they walked along the path, the world behind them seemed to disappear, swallowed straight away by the dark and the silence. They had to focus to keep an eye on where the path was, the grass edges barely visible.
Dan shouted, ‘Barbara?’
No one answered.
‘I can’t see them,’ Jayne said.
Dan stopped and gripped her arm. ‘Listen.’
Low grunts and moans drifted towards them.
Jayne pointed. ‘That way.’
They increased their pace, every nerve on edge, tensed. The skeletal frames of the playground began to emerge as they got closer. A slide. A see-saw. The moans got louder. The sound of someone in pain.
Then a voice. ‘Don’t come any closer.’
It was Barbara.
They stopped. Dan called out, ‘You all right?’
She didn’t answer, so Dan stepped forward, trying to penetrate the darkness. An outline of a figure appeared.
Jayne pulled her phone from her pocket and flicked through the apps, until she found a flashlight app. She pressed it, and the playground was illuminated by the sharp beam.
She screamed, almost dropped her phone, before putting her hand over her mouth.
Dan said, ‘Oh fuck,’ before adding: ‘What have you done?’
Barbara was standing, breathing hard, her hair tangled, a hammer in her hand. Blood dripped from it and her face was spattered red, her eyes wild and bright in the light.
Someone moved by her feet.
Dan held his hands out as he got closer. He spoke softly, trying to calm her. ‘Barbara, put the hammer down.’
The figure moved again, tried to raise its head, grunted and collapsed again.
It was Nick.
‘Barbara, why?’ Dan was still edging forward.
‘I wanted justice for my son. I’ve always said that.’
‘Free Nick, that’s what you said.’
‘Free Nick and get Mark’s killer. That’s what I’m doing.’ She jabbed the air with the hammer.
‘But when did you think that? Today?’
‘All along.’
‘What, it was all just so you could do this?’
‘Do you think there’d be justice if he went to prison? Your kind of justice, maybe, but not mine. Not for what he did to my boy.’
‘But how do you know that?’
‘I had Mark’s notes. I know what he found, because the police didn’t care about the whole story. The man who rented out the cottage where Mark was staying let me look around and his laptop was there. The police didn’t want his stuff, because it was a robbery gone wrong, correct?’
Dan stepped closer. ‘But Nick? How can you be sure?’
She raised the hammer and screamed, ‘Get away!’ Her eyes were wild.
The light wobbled as Jayne watched the scene.
‘You’d try to stop me,’ Barbara said, panting hard, animalistic. ‘That’s your world, where everything is just a process.’ She spat the word out. ‘For people like me, who’ve lost someone, it needs more than a process.’ A deep breath. ‘This pig would be out in fifteen years, with most of his life left. What about Mark’s life? Or my life? No, he had to feel what Mark felt. In the dark, scared, no one to help him. Except, here you are, superman, always the saviour.’
Jayne shouted as Nick moved, his hand reaching upwards, towards Barbara’s leg. His face glistened with wet blood, his hair matted, grotesque. He opened his mouth, blood covering his teeth.
Barbara screeched. She brought the hammer down. It thudded into his head. He went flat to the ground, his arms splayed. Barbara carried on, each strike wet, a sound like hitting fruit, three, four, five times, until she sank to the ground and dropped the hammer.
She was kneeling in Nick’s blood. She put her head back and let out a loud wail, before it turned into sobs and her head sank into her chest.
Blue flashing lights strobed the night, an engine driving hard.
Dan and Jayne didn’t move, both stunned. Barbara cried into her hands as she waited for the police to come. Running footsteps sounded on the path, a torch brightening the scene more than Jayne’s phone.
They stepped back as the police ran past. There were houses overlooking the park. Someone must have called them.
Jayne was about to put her phone away when she saw a text. Out of habit, she checked the message.
It was from Chris.
Got Leoni. She’s done something in an old folks’ home. Someone came out screaming. Police there.
Her hand trembled. What did he mean he had Leoni? And the police at a rest home? Then it struck her. Dan’s father.
She looked to him, but he had his phone to his ear, his hand over his mouth, stumbling towards a bench further along.
She hadn’t heard his phone ring, but then she remembered that he always kept it on silent, vibrate only. Disturbing court hearings with phone ringtones never goes down well.
She went to him, knelt in front of him and took his hands in hers.
When their eyes met, there were tears in his. ‘That was the rest home. My dad’s been killed.’
She swallowed and closed her eyes, before nodding and saying, ‘I know. By Leoni.’
‘What, how do you know? How long?’
‘Just now. Chris has got her.’ She passed him her phone.
He wiped his eyes and read the message. His voice hardened. ‘Call him.’
‘Why? We should tell the police.’
He shook his head. ‘No. I want her.’
Jayne hesitated, but she knew she was feeling only a small part of Dan’s torment.
She called Chris and, when he answered, whispered into her phone, ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m not telling you. I just wanted you to know that I’ve got her.’
She glanced towards the police officers near Nick, Barbara in handcuffs. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to find somewhere dark and kill this bitch. I just wanted you to know that you did a good job. Now, this one is for me. And Ruby.’
‘No, please, Chris, you don’t have to do this. You’ve arrested her, that’s all. If anyone asks, this conversation never happened.’
‘For what? A murder no one believes she did? Some suicides no one believes she took part in?’
‘What about today? You said she’s harmed someone else. The police will be looking for her.’ She took a deep breath and glanced at Dan. His jaw was clenched, his stare fixed straight ahead. ‘It was Dan’s father.’
‘The lawyer, the one you work for?’
‘Yes, him.’
Chris fell silent and Jayne wondered whether he’d lost signal, until he asked, ‘Is he with you now?’
‘Yes. He’s in front of me.’
‘Tell him he can join in the fun.’
‘Chris, where are you? What can you see?’
Jayne could hear the steady whoosh of traffic noise in the background.
‘Near a canal. There are boats, all clustered together. There’s a tall chimney by some wasteland. I’m heading for there. The motorway will drown it out.’
‘Chris, please don’t.’
‘If Dan wants his revenge, he needs to be quick, but if the police arrive here, it’ll be over before they get out of their car.’ Then he clicked off.
Dan stood. ‘Where are they?’
‘Near the motorway. There are canal boats and a tall chimney.’
Dan thought for a few seconds before saying, ‘I know where that is. Come on, we’re going.’
‘But what about here? The police?’
‘We’re witnesses. They’ll find us.’
And with that, he set off for his car, marching this time, his fists clenched by his side.