Dead Guilty Read online

  Were it not that she didn’t agree with a single word of his hypothesis, Maggie might have conceded that Inspector Jacob Jasso was doing a good job of arguing against the inarguable link between the cases of Jade Reynolds and Katy Pope. It was four hours since she’d found Jade’s engagement ring submerged in the pond on a severed shop dummy’s hand, and the team from Operation Pivot had been invited by Jasso to attend a briefing at the station in the centre of Saros old town.

  ‘We have now had four reported sightings of Jade in the same car with the same man at different places on the island, the most recent being first thing this morning, before the discovery of Jade’s ring in the pond. The last caller said she and the man she was with were embracing and appeared happy. Based on this call and the others, I believe that Jade either threw her ring away when she decided to leave Saros to be with this gentleman and someone picked it up and decided to play a joke on the rest of us by dumping it in the pond because of all the press interest in the anniversary of Katy Pope’s murder, or Jade did it herself, to distract from her leaving.’

  From the corner of her eye, Maggie could see Walker chewing the inside of his mouth. He was probably dying to proclaim the theory as ‘bollocks’, as she was too, but they still had to tread carefully. The discovery of the ring had done nothing to convince Jasso there was a need for British officers to take on a greater role in the search for Jade, even though their Commander had authorized them to delay their return to the UK if necessary. Walker had at least persuaded Jasso to have the ring thoroughly examined: the dummy limb and the ring were currently on their way to the Spanish mainland to be tested for forensics, although their submergence in the pond meant there was no hope of finding fingerprints.

  The Commander and Walker had discussed whether additional officers might be needed to join the Operation Pivot team if they stayed on but had decided for the moment to keep it to the four of them. Until they received an official invite to participate in Jasso’s investigation, it would be hard to justify to the budget crunchers.

  As Jasso droned on, Maggie was finding it difficult to concentrate. An extended stay in Saros would mean her missing Lou and the children’s visit on Saturday. She thought about asking them to rearrange for another weekend, but it wasn’t fair on Jude and Flora, who, judging by the texts her nephew had sent her, were both really excited.

  Her mind strayed to the Popes. She hated having to leave them to come to the station now George wasn’t there. The discovery of Jade’s ring had triggered a wave of grief that had floored them both: as Patricia put it, they knew Katy was dead and never coming back, but the loss of her amethyst ring had hung over them like a dark cloud for ten years. Someone copying their daughter’s mutilation and using another ring to do it felt like salt being poured into their wounds.

  Before she left, Maggie had broached the idea that they should get an earlier flight home, as their return trip was booked for the following Tuesday morning. But Philip had been the one to say no, they should stay, because the entire point of their visit was to hold the memorial service and that still hadn’t happened. They shouldn’t go home without it taking place.

  Maggie stifled a yawn and forced herself to concentrate. Jasso was once again citing the witness reports of seeing Jade happily wrapped around another man as proof she wasn’t dead or had been abducted.

  ‘Even your newspapers are saying it.’

  Walker and Maggie exchanged looks. They were acutely aware how skewed the coverage had been so far and for Jasso to cite it as proof was troubling.

  ‘See for yourself.’ Jasso beckoned to one of his officers at the back of the room who had a couple of newspapers draped over his arm like a towel. ‘Show them.’

  The officer held them up. The Sun’s splash was an interview with an ex-boyfriend of Jade’s who was claiming she’d cheated on him too. The other newspaper was The Times, which had a story less prominently displayed on its front page with the headline SIGHTINGS RULE OUT KATY POPE LINK IN MISSING WOMAN HUNT.

  ‘I wonder where they got that angle from,’ said Walker darkly.

  Jasso ignored him.

  ‘We have finite resources and cannot waste time looking for someone who doesn’t want to be found,’ he addressed the room at large. ‘It has therefore been decided that we shall scale down the search.’

  ‘I think you’re making a terrible mistake,’ said Walker, visibly seething.

  Jasso mirrored the DCI’s anger. ‘You sit there and tell me I’m wrong, but what proof do you have that she’s been taken? I’ll tell you – none. No witnesses, no forensics, nothing.’

  Walker didn’t contradict him, because Jasso was right. They hadn’t produced any concrete proof beyond the chewing-gum wrappers and Jasso wasn’t convinced there was anything sinister about Mason being handed a stick of gum by the man at the bar. All Walker was going on was Martos’s theory. Looking at the two men glowering at each other across the room, it struck Maggie that this was becoming a battle of egos as much as experience.

  Walker rose to his feet and motioned at her to do the same.

  ‘Thank you for allowing us to attend your briefing,’ he said tightly, as though it was a battle to force the words through his lips.

  They went outside and congregated in the shade of one of the flat-topped trees that seemed to line every street, which – from asking Annika – Maggie had learned was called a holm oak.

  ‘There must be something we can do to make him see sense,’ she said peevishly. ‘He’s scaling back the search while God knows what is happening to Jade.’

  ‘I know, but I don’t know what else we can do right now, other than keep digging away ourselves to find out what’s happened to her. Jasso has his own agenda he’s sticking to, and that’s to prove history isn’t being repeated in Saros. You know what it’s like when someone questions a case you’ve worked on – it makes you defensive. I think that’s what’s happening here with Jasso. He won’t consider any other possibility because that means facing up to the fact that the police investigation he personally worked on ten years ago was such an abysmal cock-up the killer’s swanned back to Saros to have another crack.’

  ‘All the more reason for him to want to stop history repeating itself, surely?’

  ‘You’d think,’ said Walker wearily, wiping the sweat beads that had broken out on his forehead. ‘This bloody heat is doing me in. I can’t think straight.’

  ‘Do you want me to drive back?’ she asked.

  ‘No, I’ll be fine. There is something else I want you to do, though.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Retrace Jade’s footsteps from when she left the beach to the first sighting at the roundabout near the marina. I don’t think Jasso’s lot have done it properly, so I want to make sure we do.’

  ‘Sure. What are you going to do?’

  ‘I think I should go to see Jade’s parents. I want them to know we’re considering staying in Saros for the time being,’ he said, wiping his forehead again. ‘They need to know they’re not alone here.’

  56

  ‘Ouch.’

  The splinter of wood Jade had managed to pick off the edge of the bedside table scratched the delicate skin of her wrist as she tucked it up her sleeve. She wasn’t sure if it was sturdy or long enough to stab through skin, but it should do some damage to an eyeball, which was her intended target even though the thought of it made her feel a bit squeamish. It was something her dad had taught her and his voice had rung in her ears during the many hours it had taken her to pick at the wood.

  If all else fails, go for the eyeballs, love. Jab them with your thumbs, fingers, keys – whatever you can get your hands on. Trust me, that’ll make whoever attacks you wish they’d never bothered.

  She had never yearned for her dad as much as she had these past two days. Even her desire to see Mason was trumped by a certainty that, if Clive Reynolds knew where she was, he’d be getting her out of there and taking care of her. It was what he’d always done, since
she was little. He was the one who’d taught her to stand up to bullies, encouraged her to play football and climb trees and do anything just as well as boys, and it was he who’d pushed her to do well at school because qualifications are important, love. I didn’t get any, so I know what I’m talking about. The slew of GCSEs she’d achieved was the reason she was able to get on the Nursery Nursing diploma course; Clive said the day she graduated was the proudest of his life.

  Jade tried not to dwell on why he hadn’t come for her. She had to believe he was trying everything he could to find her, but that it wasn’t easy being in a foreign country where you don’t know the language. She’d even managed to make herself laugh thinking about it – as much as she loved her dad, he was no Liam Neeson. Clive Reynolds was so short he could probably fit in Liam’s pocket.

  She pushed herself up into a sitting position. Her skin was clammy and she didn’t feel well, but it was probably because she was starving hungry, the last thing she’d had to eat now a distant memory. The bottle of water on the bedside table she’d finished as well. Before he’d left her alone again last night her captor had removed her wrist binds and handcuffed her left hand to the metal frame of the bed, so she could use her right one to drink and to also reach for the chamber pot to bring it closer to the bed. She’d almost wet herself in the time it had taken to shuffle off the mattress, pull down the pyjama bottoms and knickers and angle her body near enough to use it. It helped that she’d been able to remove her blindfold though – he’d said she could, as long as she waited until he’d left the room first. She’d been too scared to disobey.

  Then she realized he’d removed her engagement ring and that had set her off again. She’d cried so much in the past two days she was amazed she had any tears left.

  An hour later, she heard him return.

  Jade, lying on her side, tucked her right hand up her left sleeve and curled her fingers around the piece of wood, ready.

  It was a few moments before he came to her room, however. She could hear him walking through the villa – she’d made the assumption that’s what the building was because the shutters obscuring the windows were the same as the ones they had in their villa – opening and closing doors. She had managed to keep track of the days and knew it was Thursday and she wondered who he was that he wouldn’t be missed. Round her way, Thursday was the start of the weekend, when everyone went out. The thought of not seeing her friends made her want to cry again.

  He was humming a tune to himself, an upbeat little number that made her angry. How could he be so cheerful when she was like this? She was going to enjoy sticking the splinter in his eye. She hoped it hurt like hell.

  As he came into the room, she went through the pretence of rousing from a supposed sleep, eyelids flickering open slowly. Immediately he commanded her to shut them again, and when she did he came over and told her to sit up so he could release her from the bed frame and put the blindfold over her face. He was so close she could smell coffee on his breath.

  Jade tensed as she felt her wrist be freed and the blindfold go on. He was behind her now, about to fasten it. She didn’t know exactly where his eyeballs were in relation to her position, but she was going to have a damn good guess.

  With a cry, Jade thrust the piece of wood over her shoulder in the direction of what she hoped was his face. Her hand slammed against something and an agonized, high-pitched scream ripped through the room. Jade spun round, sending the unsecured blindfold flying, to see her abductor on his hands and knees, back to her, clutching his bloodied scalp as he sobbed in pain. She might’ve missed his eye but the wood was sticking out at a ninety-degree angle and wasn’t going to come out easily.

  Now she had to move fast. Legs still shackled, she half staggered, half crawled for the door. If she could just make it outside, she could lock him in and go and get help.

  She was almost at the threshold, heart pounding from the effort, when she felt two hands grasp her ankles and pull her back.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere!’ he roared.

  Jade fought as hard as she could but he was far stronger and managed to drag her across the floor on her stomach towards the bed. Then he roughly rolled her over so she was on her back – and that’s when she finally saw her abductor’s face again. He was better looking than she remembered and to her surprise he was wearing one of those fancy black suits that celebrities wore on the red carpet. Then, before she could say anything, he jabbed another needle in her neck.

  57

  The stretch of beach where Jade was last seen was right in front of the hotel where her parents were now permanently based. The new arrangement had been organized by Lyndsey Shepherd, who appreciated why they wanted to be close to the last place they’d seen their daughter and had persuaded the hotel’s manager likewise.

  Maggie slipped off her shoes as she reached the sand and revelled in the warmth beneath her bare soles as she crossed to the sun loungers the Reynolds family and Mason had occupied two days ago. Walker wanted her to retrace Jade’s steps, so here she was, at the start of them. Another family, with two small children, were using the loungers now, so Maggie went as close as she could without attracting attention, then turned her back on the sea and stared in the direction of the walkway and the Eroski mini-mart Jade had left the beach to visit.

  Her stride purposeful, Maggie walked back up the beach and went to the store. Its manager had given a statement to Jasso’s team to confirm Jade never made it inside, which was backed up by CCTV. Maggie stood in front of the entrance for a moment as she contemplated where Jade might’ve gone next.

  The first supposed sighting of her was at a junction past the marina and the most direct way for Jade to have got there would’ve been by walking along the front. But, supposing the sighting was false and she had been snatched, it would surely have been somewhere far more secluded, where the abductor wouldn’t be seen or disturbed. There was a long, narrow street that ran up the side of the mini-mart, so Maggie set off along it.

  She took her time, drinking in her surroundings and scouring every building facade. Most of them appeared to be residential properties, their balconies adorned with the paraphernalia of everyday life. On one she saw three adult-size bicycles stacked together; on another what looked like a week’s worth of washing was drying.

  Further along, the sun’s reach diminished as the buildings grew taller and Maggie was grateful for the coolness that enveloped her. She wasn’t suited to a hot climate and she knew what Walker meant when he said the heat made it impossible to think straight.

  She could see the main road up ahead and the buildings began to morph in anticipation, with shops replacing the apartments again. Most of them were derelict apart from one store selling tourist trappings, its front hidden from view by a vast array of inflatables. Had Jasso’s team spoken to whoever worked here? The door was locked, however, and a sign stuck to it declared that it would reopen in an hour’s time.

  Frustrated, Maggie cleared a path back through the beach toys and looked up the street. The main road was about ten metres away, and parked cars lined the kerbside. Any one of them could be used as a getaway vehicle if someone wanted to make a quick exit. She looked around again and her gaze fell upon the building opposite, a former cafe that had been boarded up. Crossing the street to it, Maggie peered through a narrow gap where the boards didn’t quite meet. There was light coming from a window at the back of the cafe so the inside was illuminated; judging by the dust motes circulating, it didn’t look as though it had been open for some time.

  Hang on, she thought. If the cafe wasn’t being used, why had the dust been disturbed?

  She gave the door a shove but it wouldn’t budge, locked tight by an old, rusting padlock. But when she examined it more closely she could see it wasn’t as old as it appeared, but had been roughed up to look that way. Her pulse quickening, she decided there had to be a back way in, an entrance where deliveries could’ve been made, perhaps. She walked up the street to the main road, e
xamining every doorway but rejecting them all as a possible means in. Then she rounded the corner and saw it – a wooden louvre door adorned with a sign that erroneously stated there was an electricity sub-station behind it. The hazard symbol stamped next to the words was probably enough to stop curious types venturing further, but not Maggie.

  Kicking as hard as she could, she managed to cave the lock in and the door swung open. She moved slowly along the narrow passageway that led into the back of the cafe. There was a door right ahead and whoever had been there last hadn’t been bothered with security, because it was unlocked.

  Inside, the first thing she noticed were the drag marks on the floor. Something heavy had been pulled along, creating tracks in the dust and grease that lined the tiles. Cautiously she ventured onwards, passing through a storage area that still held catering-size tins of tomatoes and olives. There was another door ahead that led into the kitchen area and, as she crept forward, her heart suddenly skipped a beat. Peeking out from under one of the industrial-sized stoves was a bundle of diaphanous pink fabric that, unless she was very much mistaken, matched the sarong Jade had been wearing when she went missing.

  Maggie scrabbled in her bag for her phone. Walker picked up on the first ring.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Boss, you need to come. I think I’ve found where Jade was being held.’

  58

  It was seven in the evening before Maggie finally found a window of time in which she had a minute to herself. Walker had done the sensible thing and called Jasso as soon as he saw the sarong for himself. The inspector wasn’t happy at being summoned and, determined to stick to the line that nothing untoward had happened to Jade, had tried to argue that it might not actually be hers, or that she could’ve dropped the sarong in the street and someone else picked it up. Walker came back at him with both barrels, demanding he explain its presence in a disused cafe that, according to the owner of the store opposite, hadn’t been opened in three years. Backed into a corner, Jasso agreed to have the cafe forensically examined and allowed Maggie to take a picture of the sarong on her phone to show Jade’s family.