The Night Caller: An utterly gripping crime thriller Read online

  More often than not they sat at Nan’s table. They bridged the gap in their ages, Nan by teaching Jade how to cook; Jade liked to think she bought a certain youth culture to the table. And Emma shared her wisdom on raising a child singlehandedly.

  ‘So, I don’t have to give the baby away?’ Jade had asked, wide-eyed.

  Emma and Nan had exchanged a horrified glance. ‘Of course not. If you want this baby, then nobody can make you give it up,’ Emma replied.

  ‘And you wouldn’t, you don’t go giving up babies for adoption. In my day, they’d be raised within the family. In fact, my great aunt’s sister was actually her daughter, you know.’ Nan sniffed, shook her head. ‘You all help out, you don’t go giving children up to strangers.’ Nan had leaned across the table, her ample bosom resting on the surface as she pointed a finger at Jade. ‘Your parents make me ashamed, they forget where they came from, living all fancy in their ivory tower over in Altrincham; they’ve forgotten their roots!’

  It was where the bond started, too, between Jade and Emma. Because Emma wasn’t all that much older than Jade, only ten years, as they forged a tie, the single mother who was showing the teenage mother-to-be the way, and that went even deeper than blood.

  Ten

  DAY THREE

  When Emma woke up there was no moment of blissful ignorance. It had been there in her dreams, hovering around the edge of her consciousness.

  Jordan.

  Missing.

  Drowned.

  Presumed dead.

  She threw back the duvet and groped for her phone. A new text message.

  Rebecca.

  Em, I’m thinking of you, can I come and see you, can I do anything? X

  Emma breathed deeply, clutched the mobile to her chest. She hadn’t given any thought to her work place or her colleagues, she hadn’t even called them. Obviously they knew. She grunted: everyone knew, it was all over the news, the papers. It was everywhere. And Rebecca had texted her. They sat side by side in the medical centre every single day. They got on famously at work, and the younger woman managed to make Emma laugh throughout the nine-to-five.

  Nobody else does that, Emma thought now. Nobody else in my life makes each day a pleasant, simple joy.

  Suddenly, deeply, Emma missed her normal, day to day life. She missed Rebecca ferociously; their banter, the team work, the laughter about their regulars, like Mrs Wilkinson and her recurring gout. And the ease of their friendship.

  Quickly, Emma tapped out a message in reply.

  Thank you Bex, it would be really great to see you. X

  She pressed send, hoping Rebecca would visit, hoping her friend could take her mind off her situation for a while, and immediately feeling guilty that she wanted to feel something other than loss, grief and worry.

  Putting the phone away, Emma cocked her head, listening for sounds in the still and silent house. There were none.

  Downstairs, she had a quick cup of tea, grabbed her coat and slipped out of the back door, down the garden, back into the ginnel where she had been less than twelve hours earlier.

  She took the same route as she had last night, averting her gaze as she walked past the flowers on the railing by the pub. Maybe she’d look at them on her way home.

  In the daylight the waterways were so different. Last night they had been spooky, frightening, especially with the mist that clung to the surface of the canal, so that she’d been unable to see if anyone was there, lurking, ready to push—

  Belatedly she remembered the noises, the chain clinking and banging against something and the footsteps that trailed her as she walked. She shook her head fiercely, not willing to go there. Instead she focussed on the path in front of her; beyond it, the towers of the new Media City buildings shimmered in the winter sunlight.

  There were geese here today, in the Ontario basin and some on the walkway. She headed towards them, not caring that they hissed and spat at her, almost wanting them to bite her, or strike her with their great wings. Ontario basin and Canadian geese, Emma thought idly, maybe we will move to Canada. Jordan would love it there…

  Suddenly breathless, she stopped and leaned on the railing of Erie Basin. It was early but it was more deserted than it should have been. Where were the divers? Where were the police boats with the frogmen and the officers sweeping the water with their long poles? They’d been here yesterday, and the day before. Had they given up already?

  Suddenly furious, and glad that she could now feel an emotion, she pulled out her phone and pressed the number that DS Flynn had put in for her.

  ‘Emma, how are you?’ Her greeting was sharp and clear, no emotion in her voice. For some reason it infuriated Emma more.

  ‘Where are the divers?’ she snapped. ‘I’m down by the canals and there’s nobody here. Have you called them off?’

  ‘Emma, it’s…’ Carrie trailed off, her words fading into nothingness before coming back, strong once more. ‘The divers have finished their search in Salford. Reports are still being put out further down, I can assure you—’

  ‘Fuck you!’ said Emma, voice trembling. She ended the call.

  Her hand shook, her arm reached back, muscles tensed to hurl the phone into the water.

  But he might try and call you.

  She closed her eyes, imagined it, her phone ringing, her son dialling. No reply from her mobile which lay at the bottom of the canal.

  She bought her arm down, slipped her phone back into her pocket.

  Carrie placed the phone back on the table, staring at it for a moment before turning her attention to the list of Jordan’s contacts at the university. The words swam in front of her eyes and sighing, she pushed the paper away.

  Emma was right to be angry. To her, to the mother, it must seem like they didn’t care. Carrie rapped her knuckles against the arm of her chair as she wondered where the boy’s father was. There was nobody else except the kid and the mother at their address. A home just like her own used to be. With only one difference: when tragedy had befallen Carrie’s mother, she’d had another daughter still at home… Not that it had done her any good.

  She picked up a biro and folded her fingers around it, felt the jagged edge where it split in her grip.

  The divers had been pulled from the scene because Carrie and her team couldn’t prove where Jordan had gone in. Because the top brass shied away from the likelihood of the urban legend of the Pusher. But he was there, he was real, Carrie knew it in her bones. Yet she couldn’t tell the mother that, could she? And she had no intention of stopping searching, for young Jordan Robinson or his killer.

  She shoved the chair away from the desk and stood up, dragging on her high-vis coat.

  ‘Paul?’ she called.

  He poked his head through the open door.

  ‘Come on,’ she said.

  ‘Back to the canal?’ He was on it, ready to snap to attention. Serious and bright-eyed even though he’d had about as much sleep as she had.

  ‘Are we anywhere on interviewing the people who stay in the warehouses?’ she asked.

  ‘They don’t talk.’ Paul raised his shoulders and let them slump in a gesture of defeat. ‘I mean they literally don’t talk, they don’t even say they didn’t see anyone. They’re just… it’s like they’re not there, not present.’ He tapped the side of his head.

  Carrie grimaced. And don’t I know what that’s like, she thought.

  ‘Any ID on the man walking with Gary Fisher?’

  ‘Nothing, not yet,’ he added, seeing her downcast expression.

  ‘Jordan’s mobile phone?’ she pressed on.

  ‘GPS shows the last location triangulated around Riverside Drive, so either he left it at home or switched if off before he left the house.’

  Carrie flipped back through her notes. ‘His mother said he definitely took it with him, she remembers him putting it in his pocket.’

  ‘So it’s turned off then,’ commented Paul. ‘Or someone took it and it’s not been switched on again.’
/>
  Carrie paused at the desk to sign out the pool car. ‘What do you really think, Paul, about this?’ she asked as they made their way through the corridors to the garage where the pool cars were kept.

  He sneaked a sideways glance at her. ‘I think if we could afford the manpower to patrol each and every waterway constantly, then we would no longer have this problem.’ He spoke carefully, cautiously, his usual manner.

  She breathed deep through her nose, blew it out. It steamed the air ahead of them as they emerged from the police station. It wasn’t an answer, or more rightly, it could be any answer.

  It didn’t matter anyway. She knew.

  Carrie knew.

  They moved towards the car park, Carrie ahead of him, striding with purpose.

  No more deaths, she promised herself. This ends now.

  * * *

  ‘Do you know this boy?’ Carrie shoved the photo of Jordan Robinson in the face of everyone she encountered. ‘Take a good look, you might have seen him around the bars here, or at the uni.’

  They all knew of him, from the newspapers, the local TV news. But nobody seemed to actually know him.

  ‘It’s ridiculous, he was young, all these kids should know him, but nobody seems to have had anything to do with him,’ she complained to Paul.

  ‘We can go to the uni,’ said Paul helpfully. ‘Teachers, fellow students, they’ll all know him. Maybe he just didn’t mix round here, with this lot.’

  Carrie nodded. The urge, the need to do something to get some more information on this victim tearing at her insides.

  * * *

  ‘Jordan Robinson, Business and Management.’ The tutor, Julie Newham, barely glanced at the photo of Jordan which Carrie held. ‘Too close to home now, all this.’

  Carrie felt her jaw working at the teacher’s seemingly accusatory tone. Biting back words which wouldn’t do to emerge, instead she said, ‘You were Jordan’s tutor while he was here. Can you tell us about him, who he hung around with, what he was like?’

  Julie took off her glasses and flopped into a chair. Crossing her legs, she pushed her shoulder-length grey hair back from her face.

  ‘There’s not much to tell. He came in, sat down, did his work and left.’ Julie leaned forward, an elbow on her knee now and gazed at Carrie. ‘Nothing about him stood out. He wasn’t a troublemaker, he wasn’t the slowest or the brightest. He was just… here. And now he’s not.’

  ‘Interests or clubs he was part of? A football team? Anything like that?’ Carrie knew her tone was desperate and she didn’t hide it.

  Julie shrugged.

  ‘Friends? Mates, someone he always sat with in your lectures or seminars? Or the other end of the scale, was he bullied, mocked?’

  Julie raised her shoulders to her ears and let them drop. ‘What can I tell you?’

  ‘Really?’ Carrie stared at Jordan’s photo. ‘Mrs Newham, Jordan was a good-looking boy, he was young, just nineteen. There are hundreds of bouquets of flowers lining the canal for him. Someone must have known him!’

  ‘It’s always the way, someone dies in the vicinity and suddenly they’ve hundreds of friends.’ Julie leaned forward, studying the picture upside down. ‘Jordan Robinson will now be the most popular kid in this university.’ She flashed a smile, but it was sad and bitter. ‘Maybe they’ll erect a statue in his honour.’

  * * *

  ‘God, how unhelpful was she?’ whispered Paul as they exited the university, their heels echoing in the hallway.

  Carrie didn’t answer. The woman, that teacher, Julie Newham, seemed tired, worn down by years of fighting. Fighting for her students, for their rights, for their safety. Fighting to be heard, to be listened to, for everyone to pay attention. Fighting for so long she’d all but given up and accepted her lot. Carrie swallowed audibly. Carrie could easily become Mrs Newham in twenty years’ time.

  ‘Girls,’ she mused, trying to get her mind back on Jordan.

  ‘Huh?’

  Carrie pulled out the photo, studied it again. ‘He really is a good-looking young man, the girls must have flocked around him, surely.’ Carrie slipped the picture in her pocket, looked back at the university building behind them.

  ‘School’s nearly out,’ Paul said, glancing at his watch with a wry smile. ‘You want to wait for some girls to come out?’

  In answer Carrie sat down on a nearby bench.

  * * *

  The same response, over and over as groups of students flooded out of the building at the sound of the bell.

  Sadness, fear, recognition of the boy in the photo, but nothing more to offer. Carrie’s patience snapped.

  ‘Did you leave flowers, sign a card?’ Carrie jerked her head in the approximate direction of the canal where Jordan was alleged to have gone in.

  The girls, a cluster of blondes with flawless, contoured skin and silky straight hair nodded eagerly. One of them held the photo in her hand. Her eyes filled with tears which miraculously didn’t spoil her mascara.

  Carrie snatched the photo back. ‘Why would you do that, when you clearly didn’t even know him?’

  Strong arms on her shoulders, Paul drawing her away from the open-mouthed girls.

  ‘Sorry, it’s just bloody frustrating,’ Carrie muttered.

  ‘Drink?’ he asked, tentatively.

  She looked pointedly at her watch, didn’t bother to answer him.

  Paul cleared his throat. ‘So, we’ll come back tomorrow, ask Jordan’s lecturers about him. Perhaps go to one of his seminars, speak to people who actually sat with him.’

  She nodded, offered him a weak smile. He was doing his best, they all were. But it wasn’t enough.

  ‘We’ll come back tomorrow,’ she confirmed, still staring at the university building.

  Back at home, Emma pushed herself off the wall where she rested and headed for the stairs, intending to pack her overnight bag with the few essentials she would need. The plans came fast now; she would book a hotel further along the canals, once she had found out where the divers were working. She would move along with them, from hotel to hotel, staying in anonymous rooms where nothing reminded her of him, and she would be there when they found her boy.

  She stalled, realising she needed to let Jade know where she was going. Backtracking, she hauled open her door, moved down the path and up to Jade’s house. As she raised her hand to knock, a voice called her name. Emma turned around.

  At first she didn’t recognise the woman who stood at the end of the path. The blonde hair, the red scarf, the tasteful black winter coat.

  ‘Em, I heard the news, I had to come…’

  ‘Tina!’ That she hadn’t seen her oldest friend for years didn’t matter as Emma lurched forward.

  ‘Emma, how are you, what the hell has been happening?’ Tina asked as they stood in the freezing cold.

  Emma felt her mouth set in a line. Before she could reply, Jade’s door opened.

  ‘I thought I heard you.’ Jade’s smile faded as she looked Tina up and down. ‘Em, are you okay?’

  Eleven

  DAY THREE

  ‘This is my friend, Tina. I was just coming to tell you I have to go away.’ Emma looked at Tina. ‘I don’t have much time, can we talk here?’ Without waiting for an answer, Emma hurried into Jade’s house, past Jade, dragging her friend down the hallway towards the kitchen.

  ‘Jade’s lived here for years, ten years, she’s been a godsend these last few days,’ explained Emma to Tina, and Jade softened at the acknowledgement of her efforts, pleased that Emma seemed to have forgotten that Jade hadn’t dared go round the instant she found out the news.

  Tina raised her hand in what might have been a wave. ‘I know Jade, we’ve met before; your barbeque, Em, remember?’

  Emma looked blank, but Jade remembered all too well. It had been a classic British summer day. Nan had still been alive, sitting queen-like in a deckchair. A fence panel had blown down between their two gardens and their guests had wandered from lawn to lawn. Nan’s ol
d bingo-buddy, Jerry, had been the chef, wielding sausages on the prongs of a fork. It had been a lovely day, and then, late in the afternoon, Tina had turned up with her kids.

  Emma had run shrieking down the garden, enveloped the stranger and her brood in a giant hug. Jordan had sidled up to the woman’s son. Jade had stood in the shadow of the old extension, the one from which she had fallen years earlier, watching from the sidelines as the newcomer took over the whole show.

  She had been loud, the spotlight on her, and she gave off the same vibes now, thought Jade as Tina picked up Nia and cuddled her.

  Irrationally, Jade wanted to take her child from the woman’s arms, but she hugged herself instead. Maybe Tina had changed, maybe she’d done what they all had – grown up, settled down, calmed down.

  ‘Your daughter is beautiful, how old is she?’

  And at the polite, quiet words Jade relaxed a little.

  ‘This is Nia, she’s four.’ Jade arranged a smile on her face. ‘Coffee, ladies?’

  ‘Yes, please. Strong and black for me,’ replied Emma.

  ‘Not for me, I can’t actually stop,’ said Tina with an apologetic glance at Emma. ‘It’s a flying visit, the kids are on half days and I have to pick them up at lunchtime.’

  Insensitive, thought Jade, noticing the way that Emma winced when Tina so casually mentioned her children.

  Jade patted Nia on her head as the little girl made her way past, en route upstairs with an armful of bears, before making a black coffee and handing it to Emma, and stepping back and standing helplessly in the doorway. What now? Was she supposed to leave the two women to it, to some privacy, in her own house?