Buried (DC Jack Warr #1) - Lynda La Plante Page 0,91

‘if they’d just got away with a life-changing sum of money, why the hell, two days later, are they shooting each other?’

‘That was Ester,’ said Jack. ‘She’s unstable, but the rest of them aren’t. The diamonds have to be how Dolly bought The Grange in the first place, sir. With all due respect, you haven’t met them. They’re . . . I don’t know, there’s something about them. They’re calm ‒ like they’ve been hiding in plain sight.’

‘Or maybe they’re innocent?’ Anik chipped in.

Jack ignored him and kept his focus on Ridley.

‘We know Angela worked for Ester and had an affair with Mike, whose family has history with Dolly. We’ve been slowly linking them together this whole time, and now Audrey is telling us that her son did the train robbery.’

‘Which I agree with, but—’

‘Call it gut instinct, sir,’ Jack interrupted, ‘but I know we should be looking at these women.’

‘Your “gut” has just spent next month’s overtime budget digging up a grave for no reason,’ said Ridley angrily. ‘I’m the one who’ll get daily flak on that for the foreseeable, not you. You’re all right, Jack. Your newly acquired “gut instinct” has a lot to learn. We’re going after Barry Cooper and when we find him, my gut instinct says we’ll also find the rest of the money and a gang of as-yet unidentified army blokes who were in on the train robbery.’

*

Jack marched the twelve-minute walk to pathology in just under seven minutes. He was fuming. He’d finally found his passion for this thankless job and now he was being ignored. His mind raced with disjointed thoughts and then oddly settled on something he had only read in passing many weeks ago – the name of George Resnick. The entire station had mocked George when he insisted that Harry Rawlins was alive, and hadn’t been blown up in the Strand underpass. Every scrap of evidence was against him, his team was against him, but he knew he was right. Jack recalled how he’d wanted to feel that sort of tenacity. That sort of certainty. Well, now he did. He knew the women from The Grange were up to their necks in this.

As he pushed through the heavy rubber doors into Foxy’s outer lab, his mobile signal died and a call from Maggie was sent straight to voicemail. Jack handed a DNA testing kit he’d bought online to Foxy. One sample was already labelled and ready to go; the second would be taken from the bag of bones.

‘Whose is this?’ asked Foxy, pointing at the first sample.

‘Mine,’ said Jack as he left.

Foxy stood there, shaking his head.

‘And I thought I’d seen everything . . .’

*

‘Hi, darling.’ Maggie’s beautiful voice brought an almost physical relief to Jack. All he wanted to do right now was go home and slide into bed next to her. ‘I just got a call from your dad’s estate agent. The last offer was above the reserve, so it’s been accepted. They want a quick sale and have asked for the bungalow to be emptied. I know you’re in the middle of a lot right now. I’ll come with you, Jack, but I can’t do it for you. Love you.’

Jack leant against the battleship-grey wall and texted Maggie back.

We’ll go tonight.

He paused mid-text. Then,

They don’t need me here.

CHAPTER 23

Ridley had been sympathetic to Jack’s impending family loss and had granted him the time off to go and sort out Charlie’s affairs without comment. Jack got the impression Ridley was happy to see the back of him. The feeling was mutual.

Maggie drove and Jack stared out of the passenger window, his mobile on his lap. For the first half of their journey, she had attempted polite conversation but now she seemed content to mumble along to Queen songs and allow him time for his thoughts. His phone was on silent but each time it vibrated, he checked to see if it was Foxy calling with DNA results. If the bag of bones was a match to him, then his dad was dead. If it wasn’t a match, then his dad could still be alive. Tony Fisher had insinuated that Jimmy Nunn could well be living it up on a beach somewhere, spending someone else’s money. The thought once again popped into Jack’s head that it was even possible – if he was right, and Dolly Rawlins was behind it – that she’d enlisted Jimmy Nunn in the train robbery.

Jack’s gut instinct was in overdrive. What if Craigh had been right when