Outside it was dark and the traffic on the main road had built up. I fumbled in my coat pocket for my phone and switched it on hurriedly. My hands were shaking and I silently cursed the fact that Emma had ever become involved in this case, and that I hadn't done more to stop her.
The phone rang to indicate that there was a message. I pressed the callback button and waited while the number rang twice.
It was Emma. She sounded breathless and excited. Static screeched in the background. 'Sorry about this, Dennis, but the job's got the better of me. I'm on the hard shoulder of the M4, somewhere near Swindon. I've just had a call from Simon Barron. He thinks he's onto something, but he's worried. He's saying that the people we're looking for have definitely got an insider on the murder squad. He wants to meet me at some offices over in Wembley. He says there's someone there he wants to introduce me to.' She gave me an address, adding that it was on an industrial estate near the new stadium. 'He must have found out about your involvement as well. Not that he knows who you really are, of course, but he knows that you're an investigator working the case, and that you've been speaking to Jamie Delly and Dr Cheney. And also that you've been helping me. He said I should call and get you over there, too. So I'm driving up there now. It's…' there was a pause while she checked her watch, 'five to one, and I'm about an hour and a half away. Hopefully, see you there. Call me. I really think we could be onto something here. Talk soon. Bye.'
The world seemed to melt around me, and the cars passing by became lost, watery silhouettes as I realized that I was too late, and that I'd surely helped Emma Neilson into her grave. An hour and a half away at five to one. It was now five past four. Even if she'd hit heavy traffic and got lost, and her journey had taken double the time, she'd still be there by now. And possibly dead.
The message ended, and I scrabbled at the phone with shaking hands, pressing 5 for redial.
Her mobile rang. And rang. Then went to voice-mail. I left a message as I hurried down the road towards the car. 'Do not go to that meeting with Simon Barron,' I shouted into the mouthpiece, making no effort to hide the panic in my voice. 'He's the insider on the murder squad, the one we want. If you go to that meeting, he'll kill you. I'm serious. If you get this message, call me back straight away.'
I rang off, then listened to her message again, writing down the address of the meeting place in my notebook. The car was two minutes' walk away – one minute if I ran – and I was on the right side of town for Wembley, so, traffic permitting, I had a chance of making it there in the next half-hour.
A cold wind whipped across the Colindale Road and I pulled up the collar of my jacket and tried to do the distance in a minute, running as fast as I could and dodging between faceless passers-by, not knowing what I was going to find when I finally stopped.
39
It had started to rain again as I turned off the roundabout and into the huge Wembley Park industrial estate. The road that ran through it in a shallow incline towards the immense building site that was the new football stadium was already busy with the first wave of commuter traffic. Huge, featureless business units and warehouses, swathed in the dim half-light of neon signs and glowing street lights, reared up on both sides, while every fifty yards or so another road branched out, clustered with further monotonous examples of the same bland architecture.
I was sweating, my hands sticky on the steering wheel, peering through the rain for the turning I wanted. I couldn't seem to see it. The site of the new stadium with its giant looping arch loomed closer and closer. It meant the end of the estate. It meant I'd missed the turning and wasted another precious few minutes. I could hear my heart hammering in my chest. Imagined Emma at Barron's mercy, and knew that my actions, my stupidity and my selfishness had helped to get her there. One victim in a long fucking line. I counted to ten in my head, urging myself to stay calm, to detach myself from the situation. To push her image out of my mind.
Another turning appeared on the right. I slowed down, looking for the road sign. The car behind me honked impatiently. I ignored him and slowed further. Then I spotted it, squinting through the windscreen wipers, my nose inches from the glass.
It was the one.
I pulled into the middle of the road without indicating and waited for a gap in the oncoming traffic. The car behind me couldn't get through and beeped again. I still ignored him. He beeped a third time. I felt like jumping out of the car, pulling the.45 and blowing out one of his headlights. Instead I closed my mind to everything except the task ahead, my fingers drumming loudly on the steering wheel, waiting.
There were ten yards between two of the cars coming towards me. Hardly a gap at all, but it was going to have to be enough. I took my chance and accelerated across, looking ahead for the offices of a company called Tembra Software.
The road was about a hundred yards long and dotted with storage units and warehouses. It came to a dead end in front of a large 1960s-style concrete building four storeys high, that was swathed in darkness apart from two illuminated windows on the third floor. A concrete wall topped with long ornamental black railings like spears bordered the plot, separating it from the businesses on either side. There was a rectangular concrete sign about two metres high at the entrance to the building's main car park. The sign was unlit, but as I drove towards it I was able to make out the darkened lettering: TEMBRA SOFTWARE. I was in the right place. The gates to the car park were open, but there were no cars inside and I could see from the tired state of the building's exterior that Tembra must have gone out of business some time ago.
I slowed down and pulled up at the side of the road twenty yards short of the entrance. I needed to make my decisions carefully. Barron was expecting me. He knew I'd come here in search of Emma because the bastard had been one step ahead of me the whole time, using Blondie to pick off all those potential witnesses whose information could help to solve the Malik/Khan murders. I was no longer in any doubt that Barron had been a participant on that night seven years ago, that he'd been one of the five people in the room when Heidi Robes had been murdered, because I couldn't believe that he'd be protecting these people unless he was one of them. And now he was finally tying up the loose ends. He'd finish off Emma, then finish off me. I wondered if he already knew my true identity, and, if so, whether that was why he'd told Blondie not to kill me if I turned up at Andrea's place the previous night, but to leave me there with the murder weapon and the corpses. Dennis Milne, the killer, returns.
I got out of the car and closed the door quietly. Behind me, the traffic rumbled endlessly past on the main road through the estate, but it was quiet at this end. The warehouses on both sides of the Tembra building had their shutters down, and appeared deserted. There was no sign of Emma's car anywhere.
I looked up at the two lights on the third floor. There was no one in either of the windows, no flickering shadows, but I felt sure that Barron was in there, and that if he was, so was Emma. This was definitely the place where he'd want to finish this thing; in the darkness, away from any witnesses. I figured he wouldn't have anyone with him. He was trying to cut all links between himself and the crimes of his past. It would be far better to operate alone on this one and be safe in the knowledge that he wouldn't have anyone else to deal with later. That meant he'd either be by the front door waiting for me to come in that way or, alternatively, up on the third floor (in my opinion the more likely location). He'd know that when I turned up I'd come inside to investigate, because I'd want to know whether or not Emma was still here. He'd be able to watch for my arrival far more easily from the higher vantage point. So that meant that the front door was probably free.