Scared to Death: A gripping crime thriller you won’t be able to put down

‘Well, I’m pleased to hear that,’ Wallace said gruffly, his face creasing into a frown, the expression at odds with his words. He glanced over to Callan. ‘You may have heard that we share a relative.’

Callan gave a non-committal half-nod. He hadn’t heard and the information was irrelevant to him. He wouldn’t view or treat Gold any differently because of it.

Leaning back against his desk, legs crossed at the ankle, Wallace slid his hands into his pockets. ‘So how are you finding the Special Investigation Branch, Gold?’

Gold’s slender fingers moved to smooth the collar of his shirt, a collar that was already starched and ironed within an inch of its life.

‘Good, sir, I’m enjoying it. I’m enjoying the autonomy, the freedom.’ His voice was too loud for the small office, as if he was struggling to pitch his volume at the correct level.

Callan, leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, watching intently, realized with surprise that Gold was tense, stressed. There was a prickliness, an antagonism to the atmosphere in the room that hadn’t been present earlier, when it was him and Wallace.

‘Yes, I’m sure that the Branch is an interesting place to be,’ Wallace said. ‘Make the most of it, eh. Spend as much time as you can with Captain Callan here. Learn from him.’

A brief nod and Gold’s eyes swivelled to meet Callan’s. ‘If there’s nothing else, I’ll get back to the interviewees.’

Callan glanced at Wallace before replying, but Wallace wasn’t looking at him. He was gazing down at the carpet, his face creased again into that frown.

‘Yes, you go. I’ll join you in a minute.’

Turning, Gold left the room without another word.

Callan straightened. ‘If that’s all, Colonel, I’ll get back too.’

Tugging his glasses off, Wallace massaged the bridge of his nose with two blunt fingers and sighed irritably. ‘Make sure that you involve Gold in every aspect of the case. Keep an eye on him for me, will you? It’s important to pass on your expertise to junior officers and Gold is bright and talented.’

The request was no doubt motivated by family connection, perhaps a favour Wallace owed to that relative he had mentioned, and the entreaty needled Callan. He hailed from a long line of factory workers, was the first in his family not to have ended up on the shop floor purely because politicians hadn’t yet got around to closing the local grammar school and he’d been smart enough to win a place. His father had died fourteen years ago; his mother lived in a modern terraced house in a secure gated development in a nice part of Aldershot that he paid for. He had made his own way in the world from the age of sixteen, reviled others who hadn’t done the same, some of that feeling motivated, he recognized, by envy.

‘Yes, sir,’ he muttered, making his way to the door. Jesus. This investigation was going from bad to worse and it had hardly begun.

15 (#ulink_59e1c62e-b2d1-5910-9de3-780f1a3688f5)

Marilyn stared at the snowstorm on the screen in front of him.

‘Is this mid-winter in Alaska?’

Workman sighed. ‘Old CCTV, sir.’

Tipping back on his heels, Marilyn blew air through his nose. ‘You can say that again.’ His gaze moved from the screen that covered the A & E reception desk, entrance hallway and sliding doors to the outside, roamed across the other screens in the bank of monitors, five screens wide, four high, twenty in all, each relaying a fragment of hospital turf, the top right-hand monitor blank, the camera feeding it presumably broken, searching for a good view of the service road outside Accident and Emergency. He couldn’t see one. ‘What about the camera outside, covering the service road?’

‘Vandalized last week,’ Workman said.

Ka-ching. One chance in twenty and he’d hit the jackpot. ‘Great. So this is it. This is all we have to go on.’

‘It’s not their priority, sir.’

‘No, don’t tell me. Failing to notice babies and telling middle-aged men who are beyond help to give up smoking is, though,’ he snapped, ignoring the sideways glance that the hospital security guard shot him.

Pulling his reading glasses from his pocket – a purchase he’d been forced to make last month when he’d found that his arms no longer extended far enough to hold his newspaper at a distance whereby he could read the text – Marilyn sat down and slid the chair, on its squeaky plastic wheels, closer to the screen.

‘Play that segment again, please,’ he said to the security guard.

‘The bit where the man comes in pushing the baby?’ the guard asked.

‘Yes.’

Fuzz on the screen while the segment was rewound. Then an empty A & E foyer, the sliding doors closed, dark outside their glass panes. Suddenly the doors slid open. A pram appeared on the screen and right behind, the man pushing it, visible only from mid-chest down.

‘He’s carrying an umbrella,’ Marilyn said.

‘Which makes sense, considering it was pouring,’ Workman murmured.

Marilyn nodded, focusing on the screen. ‘Dark jumper, dark trousers, dark coat, sensible shoes.’

‘Sensible shoes?’

‘Pause, please.’

The grainy image froze. Marilyn pressed his finger to the screen.

‘Clodhoppers.’

The shoes were thick-soled, the type of shoes that would be sold at Clarks as ‘built for walking’.

‘Malcolm Lawson was certainly the sensible-shoe type,’ Workman said.

‘He was that.’

‘It could be him,’ she said.

‘It could be me.’

‘You don’t wear sensible shoes, sir,’ Workman said, glancing down at his £300 Edward Hill pebble-grain leather brogues.

Fairpoint.

Marilyn turned to the guard. ‘Play it until the man leaves the hospital, disappears from view, but the sliding doors are still open. Pause with the doors open, please.’

The guard’s eyebrows rose in query.

‘The background. He could have driven to the door.’

‘Not allowed.’

‘Midnight? In the rain? Who’s out there objecting?’

They waited while the man dressed in dark clothing parked the pram, stooping to take one last long look at baby Harry before he straightened, turned and exited the building, walking right, diagonally across the service road, out of shot.

‘Now,’ Marilyn said.