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CHAPTER
49
IT’S DARK BY the time Adam makes it to the house. He follows directions through a normal-looking suburb, past a school, a church. A nice village, somewhere Adam might like to live one day. He dismisses the thought. In a different world. For a different person. Not him.
He pulls into the neatly tarmacked driveway and shuts off his engine. Wellington boots are racked up on sticks outside the front door, a dog bowl alongside. He rings the bell and a man answers.
“DCI Bishop?”
“Detective Shepherd?”
He holds out his hand, smiling warmly. “Call me David. Come in, come in. You don’t mind dogs, do you?”
A large black Labrador comes bowling toward him, tongue lolling, tail wagging enthusiastically. He immediately deposits a line of silver drool on Adam’s trousers.
“Ah, sorry about that,” Shepherd says, pulling the dog away. “Disgusting beast, but we love him.”
Adam smiles. He appreciates the moment of levity and bends down to rub the dog’s ears. “It’s fine.”
He’s shown into a cozy living room. A fire burns in the hearth, and the dog slumps down next to it with a sigh. Shepherd offers him a drink; Adam asks for coffee. The man leaves, and Adam settles back into the comfortable chair.
In the warmth of the fire, the comfort of the room, Adam feels his eyes closing. He can’t remember the last time he had a good night’s sleep. Before this all started. A week ago. Before they found the bodies.
Helplessness, worry, claws at his insides.
“I’ve been following the coverage on the news. I wondered if you’d call.” Shepherd puts the cup of coffee on the table next to Adam, pulling him out of his disquiet. “I saw you went to the house.” He sits down across from him and rests his slippered feet on a small stool.
“I’m sorry to bother you.”
“Not at all. Retirement is, well …” He shrugs. “The old detective instinct never leaves. You’re thinking Elijah Cole’s involved?”
Adam’s surprised. They hadn’t shared the details with the press. But the older man has clearly been paying attention.
Back then, DS David Shepherd had been one of the first detectives on the scene. He wasn’t SIO; that dubious privilege had fallen to a DCI called Frank Langston, but he was long dead. Shepherd was the man on the ground, conducting the interviews, at the time only in his mid-thirties. Now, twenty-six years later, he’s retired to a nice house in the country. Slippers, Labrador, log fire. And still fascinated by the case. Leaning forward, keen to hear Adam’s answer.
“We believe so, yes,” Adam replies. “He knows things about the investigation that he could only be privy to if he was involved.”
“Or he has someone on the inside?”
“Maybe, yes. But I can’t think who. I trust my team.” Adam pauses. How much should he share? But it’s good to talk about it all with someone who understands. “He’s behind it. Or it’s someone doing it to impress him. Either way, Cole’s enjoying himself.”
Shepherd nods. “It wouldn’t surprise me. Devious bastard. He always hated losing, caused many fights in the early days in jail by cheating at poker and blackjack. He knew the ins and outs of that place—kept everyone on their toes, staff and prisoners alike. Charmed his favorites, blackmailed the others.”
Adam shares what the guard told him, and Shepherd nods. “That sounds like him. Selectively releasing rumor and innuendo to suit his own needs. He played games with the psychiatrists sent to assess him. They refused to see him in the end. He was smarter than they were, that was for sure.”
“They said that?”
“’Course not,” Shepherd snorts. “But Cole certainly thought he was, and I’m inclined to agree. He got away with all sorts of shit in his first few years in that jail. Found out he was running some sort of free clinic, even diagnosed one of the screws’ daughters with cancer. Probably saved her life.” Adam thinks of the guard that morning, his arm across his throat. “You’re familiar with the original case?” Shepherd asks.
“Yes. I’ve been through all your files. But it’s the stuff that isn’t in there I’d like to know about.” He knows the scratches on the wall were left out. What else might there have been? “Your thoughts at the time. Your suspicions.”
Shepherd pauses. “In relation to what?”
“Did you think there were more victims?”
The man nods slowly. “I certainly think there would have been if the daughter hadn’t called us. We didn’t have a clue until we turned up that day. Not a single suspicion it was Cole.” He picks up the mug next to him and cradles it in his hands. “I’d been assigned to look into the mispers—four of them. All women, same ages, same body types, so we thought there was something dodgy going on. But Cole was nowhere near our suspect list.”
“I thought there were five women?”
