Buried (DC Jack Warr #1) - Lynda La Plante Page 0,51

his arm vaguely over the bureau before heading towards the kitchen.

As he left the lounge, he grinned to himself. He thought he sounded just like Ridley ‒ authoritative, commanding, intelligent. Ridley was exactly the kind of copper Anik aspired to be. He wanted nothing more than to be able to dish out an order and then walk away from his subordinates, knowing that they’d do as he asked out of total respect . . . so it was a good job he didn’t turn around or he would have seen the PC, who was twice Anik’s age, making a ‘wanker’ motion with his hand.

Anik knew Mike’s kitchen would probably be grubby, seeing as they were now nine days into the investigation, but the food in the fridge was way older than that. He gagged as he opened the fridge door and the smell of the cheesy milk hit his nostrils. In addition to the milk, there was a heavily sprouting red onion, half a bottle of white wine, several bottles of beer and a leaking breast of chicken in an open food bag.

The sink was piled high with dirty mugs, each patterned on the inside with several brown rings of varying shades, dating back weeks. Mike definitely wasn’t a man who could survive for long living alone. He needed to be looked after.

As Anik progressed through the flat, each room was a different degree of filth. There were no surprises and definitely no hidden millions. Less than one hour later, the tiny, one-bedroomed flat had been searched from top to bottom. Anik’s final instruction to the PC was to bag all of Mike’s shoes, so that their treads could be compared to any footprints found at Rose Cottage.

Then he bellowed, Ridley-style, ‘I’ll be in the car!’ and left.

Once on the pavement outside Mike’s flat, he realised that ‘I’ll be in the car!’ would have been a far more impressive exit if he was the driver and actually had the car keys.

*

Mike’s Portakabin contained a grey metal desk with three drawers, a grey metal filing cabinet, two fake leather office chairs and a plastic yucca plant. The desk drawers were pretty much empty apart from the proverbial half-bottle of cheap whisky and two glasses. There was also a chewed pen lid and some paper clips, but nothing else.

Jack flicked through a desk diary, while Laura leafed through files in the cabinet.

‘These are all clients. Low-end security, mainly night shifts. There’s a packing factory, a private hospital, a bit of door work. Nothing exciting. His last few jobs might be worth a look into – see if they could have got him into trouble with anyone.’

In the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet was a grubby old sleeping bag.

‘He sleeps here sometimes.’

Laura stepped outside. Round the back of the Portakabin was a set of deep, wide tyre tracks.

‘Excuse me!’ she shouted to the warden.

‘Range Rover,’ he said before she could ask. ‘Second-hand’s my guess, ’cos new you’d be talking fifty or sixty thousand and Mr Withey didn’t have that. It sometimes sat back there all night, which isn’t strictly allowed but I assumed he’d had another row with the missus and they both needed a little bit of space, so I let it go.’

Laura smiled her thanks and stepped back inside Mike’s Portakabin.

‘He’s on the ball for an old fella.’ She sat on the edge of the metal desk, facing Jack. ‘No laptop. You think he never had one or did he just work from his mobile?’

‘This diary’s mainly work related,’ Jack mused. ‘When he writes down jobs, he includes a lot of detail. Full names, addresses, phone numbers, an outline of what’s needed. Which makes other pages with less detail stand out as maybe hiding something. On the day of the fire, he’s written “RC. 2 a.m. Del.” RC could be Rose Cottage. Who do we think Del is?’

Jack’s mobile pinged and a text message from Anik popped up. Jack read it out.

‘No laptop at the flat. Must be there.’ Jack quickly typed something back and waited for the ping. ‘Anik says it’s all paperwork at the flat. So I don’t think Mike’s got a laptop.’

From nowhere, Laura suddenly got all personal.

‘How’s your dad?’

Jack suddenly felt very guilty for having not thought about Charlie all day, but he definitely didn’t want to have a conversation about him now.

‘He’s going how he wants to go.’

Laura put her hand on Jack’s arm, looked deep into his eyes, gave him a sympathetic tilt of the head