Free Cold Kill by Neil White

there for a while, he hadn’t, and his traces might have gone.’
    Carson turned away. ‘I guessed as much.’
    ‘So what now?’ Laura asked.
    Carson sighed in frustration. ‘Unless Mike Corley can tell you anything new, we wait for the phone call that gives him up, or for the post-mortem to yield something. Apart from that, we just hope.’

Chapter Thirteen

    Jack was sitting in his car, writing the story on his laptop, his phone plugged into the side, acting as a modem. This way he could send the story straight to Dolby when he had finished. He was by the Whitcroft estate again, feeling like he was spinning plates as he moved between court and assignments, looking again for quotes for the feature.
    He sat back and stretched his fingers. The murder story was done. It was short, with just a description of the murder scene and the bare details from the press conference, padded with the ongoing grief of the Corley family. It told everyone what they needed to know, that a young woman from Blackley had been murdered. The police hadn’t released much else.
    He read through it, saved it, attached it to an email, and then sent it to Dolby’s inbox, all from the front seat of his tired old Triumph Stag.
    He looked at the estate through his windscreen. It was nearly six, and he saw people returning from work, some of the ones he had seen earlier in the day. There were some kids ahead, in their late teens, sitting on bikes and watching young girls walk past with their prams. The soft glow of a cigarette passed between them, although from the way their fingers snapped for their turn it seemed that the paper contained more than just tobacco. People who spotted them in time crossed over when they got near. The tallest of the group leaned to talk into a white van that had pulled up alongside them. It was the same security van Jack had seen earlier. He noticed letters on the side this time: DR Security.
    Jack put his laptop away and strapped the bag over his shoulder as he climbed out of his car. There was no point in putting it into his car boot, because the group had seen it. He pulled out his voice recorder and hovered near the shops. Every time someone came near, Jack asked if he could speak to them about the problems on the estate, or whether the police were doing enough, but no one seemed keen. They just rushed into the shop or kept on walking. It looked like he was going to have to do the door-to-door stuff. He glanced over to the group again. They were still watching him.
    Jack headed away from the shops and towards the first cul-de-sac. He was about to knock on the first door when he heard the sound of tyres scraping along the kerb behind him. As Jack looked around, he saw that it was the white security van.
    ‘Can we help you?’ the driver said through the open window, his hands fat around the steering wheel.
    Jack bent down to his level, and said, ‘No, I’m fine.’
    The driver and his companion were just as Jack expected, bulky and wide-necked and tattooed.
    ‘I’ll put it a different way,’ the driver said. ‘What are you doing?’
    ‘Just doing my thing,’ Jack said.
    ‘Which is what?’
    ‘It’s my thing, not yours, which sort of ends the conversation,’ Jack said, and then he turned to walk away.
    Jack didn’t expect the conversation to end there, but he had to let them know that he wasn’t intimidated.
    ‘No, it doesn’t,’ said a different voice.
    Jack turned around and saw that they were both out of the van now. They were dressed identically: black trousers and black silk jackets, with hair shaved to the scalp. The second man was much shorter than the driver, and one thing Jack had learned from seeing drunken pub fights is that the big man will hurt you the most, but the little man is more likely to start the fight.
    ‘Okay, let’s talk,’ Jack said. ‘Who pays for your services?’
    The two men exchanged glances, less confident now. ‘What do you mean?’ the taller one said.
    ‘Just