The Dead Dog Day (5 page)

‘Around sixty, I think, boss.'

‘Right. Well, most of them will have to stand. Got that working yet?'

‘Almost.'

Adam nodded. Good. He sat down and flicked through his notes again. This was a funny one, and no mistake. Virtually everyone in the damn newsroom had to be considered a suspect, but there were definitely a few persons of more significant interest, and the sooner he started eliminating people, the sooner he'd get it sewn up. He ran his fingers through his cropped blond hair. He was definitely feeling the pressure this morning. A high-profile killing like this … he sat up straight as somebody knocked gently on the door.

‘Come in!'

The door opened and, looking both wary and weary, the programme's production staff filed in.

In the newsroom, Sam had just finished briefing Cora.

‘We won't do updates every day – just when there's some significant news. But I want you to do it Cora. You're back on the road after this week anyway, and you're good at crime. You always get the tone right, unlike some of the others. So if you fancy making friends with the senior investigating officer after our little film show this morning, feel free – it can only help.'

They slipped into the conference room. The email they'd all had earlier just said there was some CCTV the police wanted staff to look at so they could eliminate a suspect from their enquiries, and everyone was speculating in excited whispers. What were they about to see? The low murmur in the room faded as a tall, fair man in a brown jacket raised his hand.

‘Ladies and gents – thanks for coming, I know how busy you all are and what a difficult time this is, so this won't take long.' He paused and smiled. ‘By the way, I'm DCI Adam Bradberry, senior investigating officer. You're probably going to see me around quite a lot in the days to come – sorry about that!'

Sam pressed her mouth to Cora's ear. ‘He's
hot
!' she hissed.

‘Shhh!' Cora elbowed her friend in the ribs. Sam was right though. He really was quite attractive. Actually, if she was being perfectly honest, he was rather gorgeous. Not that she was remotely interested in men at the moment, of course.

The policeman was still talking, ‘… so, if you could all just take a look at this. This man was seen loitering outside the building for quite some considerable time yesterday morning, and for no obvious reason. There may be a perfectly innocent explanation of course, but we need to be sure. We'll be releasing it to the news channels later today, but if anyone here knows who he is it would save us a lot of time.'

He pressed a button on the remote control in his hand and the big screen flickered into life. It was a shot of the front of TV Centre. The police officer pointed to a figure in a hooded coat leaning against the front wall, a metre or so away from the big revolving main door.

‘That's him, there. We have several hours of footage of him – he first shows up around 4 a.m., which is unusual in itself if he's not staff. Comes and goes a bit, then vanishes for good after eight, and we're really not sure what he's doing there. A few times he looks like he's about to come into the building, then seems to change his mind. Then he disappears for a bit – see here? – goes round the corner out of CCTV range, then he comes back. We can't rule out the possibility he might have entered the building through another entrance at some point, and he's not in his position at the front there at the time your boss was murdered, so we need to find him so we can eliminate him – or not. As I said, probably completely innocent, but we need to make sure. I know you can't see his face in this footage, because of the hood on his coat. And I say “his”, but actually, I suppose it could be a woman. Anybody recognise him – or her?'

Cora stared at the screen. All around her, her colleagues were shaking their heads, faces blank. But there was something … something familiar about the individual on the screen. The coat. The way the figure moved. Then, as the images continued, a hand came up and the person on the CCTV pictures rubbed his or her nose. Cora's stomach rolled. She knew that gesture. And yes, she knew that coat too. No, she thought. Please, no. But suddenly, there wasn't any doubt in her mind. Yes, it was most definitely a man. A man she knew very well indeed. A man who'd recently hurt her very badly.

The person the police were trying to identify was Justin.

7

Friday 22
^nd
December

‘Soho, please – the A-Bar.'

Cora slammed the door of the black cab behind her and settled back in her seat as the driver pulled away from the kerb. Normally on a Friday night after a week in the studio she would have checked out of her London hotel and rushed straight back to Gloucestershire and Justin, but tonight there was nothing to go home for. She fished in the little chocolate leather Ted Baker bag on her lap for her lip gloss and smoothed on a final layer, lurching slightly as the cab left the hotel forecourt and joined the evening traffic.

It was eight o'clock, and snowing lightly. Cora's breath steamed up the cold window and she huddled a little deeper into her faux fur jacket. Outside, tightly wrapped people laden with festive shopping bags scurried along the rapidly whitening pavements. The taxi slowed and stopped at a red light on Regent Street, and Cora watched as two excited children in matching blue and white striped hats and scarves hauled their mother towards the massive windows of Hamleys toy store. They stopped, the mother hooking an arm round each child and pulling them close. The display
was
wonderful, thought Cora. A magical Christmas woodland scene, it was filled with movement and colour and light that spilled out onto the darkened street, warming the chill air. Animated fairies looped across a starry sky, sprinkling gold dust onto rabbits and bears gambolling below. On a frosty hillock, mechanical elves jerkily wrapped presents in shiny purple paper. Above them all, a silver moon studded with crystals glittered and shimmered. For a moment, Cora felt the stomach-fluttering thrill she remembered from her childhood but, almost immediately, reality hit and she took a deep breath. It was three days until Christmas, and she was on her own again.

She rested her head against the icy glass of the side window and shut her eyes as the lights changed suddenly and the taxi jolted and moved away. She couldn't get Justin out of her head. Despite the CCTV footage running repeatedly on all the TV news programmes for days now, nobody else seemed to have realised it was him and nobody had come forward. But it WAS him, she knew it was. His face was unrecognisable in the video, but the coat had been the first clue – it was the one she'd given him for his birthday just a few weeks earlier. She hadn't seen him wear it before, but she knew she was right. And then that gesture, when he rubbed his nose … so painfully familiar. There was absolutely no doubt. She'd spoken briefly to the police officer, DCI Bradberry, after the meeting, as instructed by Sam – introduced herself, told him she'd be covering the story for the programme – but she hadn't said a word about what she'd just seen, not to the police, not even to Sam or Wendy. If it
was
Justin, there had to be an explanation. It was just that, at the moment, she couldn't think of one.

It had gone round and round in her head for days – what on earth could he have been doing there? Had he come to see her, to say he'd changed his mind about leaving her? But if so, why hadn't he come in? Why hadn't he just called her? And she couldn't get hold of him to ask him. She'd tried and tried, but his mobile was permanently off, and she had no idea where he'd gone when he'd moved out of their flat. She'd spoken to all his friends, even called his parents, and they had no idea where he was either. Nor, it seemed, had any of them recognised the hooded figure on the CCTV footage, or at least they hadn't mentioned it to her; probably, Cora surmised, because nobody except her would have known he had a coat like that. It seemed he hadn't even told anyone he and Cora had split up. He'd simply disappeared. But she couldn't tell the police. She just couldn't. He might have hurt her, but Justin wasn't a killer – was he?

‘'Ere you go, luv. A-Bar, right?'

The driver's Cockney tones interrupted her musings, and she clambered out of the cab, paid him quickly and ran across the snowy street to the bar. The black-clad bouncer nodded her in, and as she pushed the door open a tidal wave of heat and noise hit her. A Lady Gaga track was booming, and her mood lifted as she weaved through the hordes of drinkers, slipping off her jacket as she made her way to the corner where, she hoped, Sam and Wendy would be waiting for her at their usual table. This was their favourite bar, with a nice crowd normally – not too young but still quite trendy, mostly media and marketing types, too cool to bother with the odd TV presenter who wandered in. The theory was immediately disproved by a middle-aged woman in a plunging scarlet satin dress and flashing bauble earrings who suddenly grabbed Cora's arm, making her jump.

‘Wow! You're that woman off the telly, aren't you? I watch you every morning! Tell me, is that Jeremy as skinny in the flesh?'

Cora smiled weakly. Everyone always wanted to ask about Jane and Jeremy. Jeremy was actually extraordinarily skinny and was the only person she knew who looked even
smaller
on screen than he was in real life, but it would have been disloyal to say so. She muttered something about TV cameras being misleading and politely disentangled herself from the woman, who patted her drunkenly on the bottom and wished her a happy Christmas.

Cora carried on pushing through the crowd. She was attempting to side step a puce-faced man unsteadily pouring champagne from a magnum when she heard a familiar shriek.

‘Cooorrrrrraaa! Over heeeeeere!'

Peering over the heads of the rowdy mob, she could see Wendy, standing on the orange suede banquette that ran along the back wall. She was waving ecstatically, a large glass of red wine in one hand, breasts spilling out of a tight black corset.

Cora mouthed ‘Hi' and waved back, and Wendy jumped down from the bench and disappeared. By the time Cora reached the table twenty seconds later, Sam was sloshing white wine into a glass and pushing it towards her, grinning. Cora squeezed onto the end of the long seat and took a grateful gulp of the cold Sauvignon. The Merlot bottle on the table was almost empty – it looked like they'd been there a while.

‘About time, Baxter!' Wendy poured the last of the red wine into her own glass, at the same time winking lasciviously at a spotty young man in an ill-fitting suit who was standing nearby, staring at her chest as if transfixed. He flushed bright red and turned away abruptly, looking mortified, and Wendy snorted. She'd backcombed her corkscrew curls and, with her pink cheeks and glorious cleavage, she looked like a Titian goddess.

‘Yeah, we thought you weren't coming!' Sam squeezed her hand. She looked gorgeous too, Cora thought – she'd straightened her soft brown bob into a sleek curtain, and a simple white shift dress skimmed her slim body. Cora suddenly wished she had made more effort with her own outfit – she just hadn't been in the mood tonight. She gave herself a quick once-over – soft gold metallic shirt, the top few buttons open to show a flash of cleavage. Then tight 7 jeans and her favourite fabulous Gucci knee-high boots, her only jewellery the diamond cuff bracelet she'd bought herself when she'd landed her
Morning Live
job. She looked OK, she supposed – slightly underdressed next to Sam and Wendy, but it wasn't as if she was on the pull or anything.

She sighed, and then jumped as Sam poked her in the ribs.

‘Oi, you, stop looking mopey. We are out to have fun, fun, fun!'

Cora poked her back.

‘OK, OK.' She took another sip and scanned the room. The bar was heaving, the usual Friday night crowd even more rambunctious than usual with Christmas just around the corner. Further down the orange banquette a plump girl and a man wearing slightly crooked reindeer antlers on his head were snogging fervently. Nearby, a group of office workers, ties loosened and apparently already completely sozzled, howled in appreciation, and without ungluing his lips the antler-wearing man flicked them a V-sign. The girl, oblivious, hitched a podgy leg around his waist, and the watching men leered and cheered. Despite the unpleasantness of the scene, Cora felt a sudden twist of pain. She'd never kiss Justin again. She immediately pushed the thought from her mind. Whatever he was up to, and wherever he was, he had chosen to be there instead of with her, and there was nothing she could do about it. She turned back to the table, suddenly aware she was being spoken to.

‘So I take it everyone knows now? About you and Justin?' Wendy was saying.

Cora hesitated, wondering if she should now mention her fears about the CCTV footage, then changed her mind. ‘Yep. Told my mum and dad last night too. They were quite nice about it actually. Mum was really shocked – she liked Justin, you know? And for once she didn't even go on about the kids thing too much – she knows better by now.'

She gulped down another mouthful. ‘Now, enough – no more horrible ex-boyfriend talk this evening, OK? It's Christmas and I want a nice cheerful night out.'

‘Fine by us.' Sam picked a cashew nut from the bowl on the table in front of her and nibbled it delicately. ‘Can't believe it's Christmas – what a mad year, eh? Seriously, I think the stories we cover are getting more and more bonkers! I mean, look at all the stuff you've done this year Cora – remember the naked ramblers?' She shook her head and washed down the nut with another gulp of wine.

Cora laughed. She'd spent a week in the summer trailing a couple that had decided to walk from Land's End to John O'Groats with no clothes on. Remarkably, they hadn't been arrested till day three, when they'd gone into a supermarket naked to stock up on supplies. They'd actually been really nice people, and once Cora and Nathan had got used to the strangeness of watching the bloke's sizeable willy bouncing along beside them as they filmed, it had been quite a fun time.