Behind Dead Eyes (DC Ian Bradshaw #2) - Howard Linskey Page 0,71

Jimmy McCree?’ asked Tom. ‘That’s the million-dollar question.’

‘He had to,’ said Bradshaw. ‘He must be permanently worried about undercover cops infiltrating his empire. Everyone who works for him would be vetted, even casual bar staff.’

‘McCree has been cosying up to local politicians lately,’ said Helen.

‘Then hold that thought,’ said Tom, ‘it could lead us somewhere. McCree is linked to Joe Lynch, who is Frank Jarvis’s successor as leader of the city council and Frank’s daughter worked for him, albeit indirectly. That could of course just be a coincidence.’

‘The north-east is a small world,’ Bradshaw reminded him.

‘Did you get anywhere with Sandra’s university pals?’ asked Tom.

‘I looked up a few but they all stuck to their original script. In her first term, Sandra Jarvis was a nice, kind, personable soul but when she came back after the Christmas break she seemed different. She was withdrawn and sullen, she missed lectures and tutorials and stopped going out with friends but she never gave a reason for this.’

‘No word about drugs?’ Tom asked.

‘Not a dickie bird,’ said Bradshaw, ‘but there was one thing that isn’t in our case files – unless you found it today in Newcastle.’

‘What?’

‘Her other job.’

‘What other job?’

‘One of her mates told me Sandra volunteered at a centre that helps vulnerable kids. It was the first I’d heard of this, so I assumed Newcastle were looking into it as it’s on their patch.’

‘There’s nothing in the case files,’ said Tom, ‘believe me, I read every bloody word. It took me all afternoon.’

‘How could that have been missed?’ asked Bradshaw.

‘Cock-up or conspiracy?’ wondered Tom.

‘That’s what we need to find out. Apparently Sandra wanted to work with young offenders when she graduated.’

‘Rather her than me,’ said Tom. ‘Where did she volunteer?’

‘Her friend reckons a number of places but she’d been helping out at one for troubled teenagers most recently.’ He checked his notebook for the name. ‘Meadowlands.’

‘Why do these places always have such idyllic-sounding names?’ asked Tom. ‘Bet it’s a hell-hole.’

‘The kids there are some of the more challenging ones: young girls who got into drugs or prostitution, some of them have been abused by their own family members. Awful stuff, and all before the age of sixteen.’

‘Do you think we might be able to speak to the girls there?’ asked Helen.

‘That’s going to be tricky,’ Bradshaw told her, ‘reporters dealing with vulnerable young people.’

‘I’m not a reporter, Ian,’ Tom reminded him, ‘I’ve been hired by the police to provide expert analysis.’

‘Fair enough,’ conceded the detective.

‘That wasn’t the only thing not in the case files,’ Tom said. ‘The photograph of Sandra Jarvis buying her ticket at the train station is missing.’

‘You mean it’s been removed?’

‘I don’t know, possibly.’

‘Like you said, cock-up or conspiracy? It’s probably just fallen out of the file. I’ll ask them to find it for us.’

Despite his frustration at the lack of clear progress in either case, Tom felt energised somehow. He realised it was because he was no longer digging into the Sandra Jarvis or Rebecca Holt cases on his own. He was part of a team again; the same team that had blown the lid off the Sean Donnellan and Michelle Summers cases, and their work had already begun to bear fruit. Ian had uncovered the sordid truth about Lonely Lane, following one brief chat with a police sergeant, then he had discovered Sandra’s link to the Meadowlands care home. Helen meanwhile had found the reason for the closure of the Highwayman pub then given Tom an intriguing story about Frank Jarvis’s private life. Tom felt as if he was moving three times faster now they were both on board.

‘What are you looking so smug about?’ asked Helen.

‘Nothing,’ he said.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The foreman made Tom wear a hard hat and high-visibility vest in matching canary yellow before he would let him onto the site that morning. Freddie Holt was waiting for him there. He was standing on a large gantry erected on the edge of a former brewery which was being levelled for redevelopment.

‘You’re the journalist,’ observed Holt, but he was not interested in handshakes or pleasantries. Instead he said, ‘Take a look at this. What do you see?’

Tom Carney surveyed the huge expanse of land before him. Aside from rubble poking out of the mud where the brewery once stood, there wasn’t much to see. ‘A derelict site.’

Freddie Holt sighed, ‘Is that all?’

Tom was beginning to get the picture but he felt no great desire to humour the older man. ‘A graveyard,’ he offered facetiously, ‘the wreckage