Page 45 of The Tapes
Why has Mark got Owen’s wallet?
I sit, staring at the poor man’s driving licence photo, when I realise there could be an obvious answer. I saw the Instagram photo of Owen playing football the night before, with Mark on the same team. Perhaps he left his wallet behind by accident, and Mark took it for him? They don’t necessarily have to be friends to play on the same team – but maybe they were outside of work, and I never knew? After Dina and I identified Mark to Detective Sergeant Cox, she said she would contact him to askabout football from the night before. Had Owen told anyone he was having problems? Did he seem down?
I wonder whether Mark told them he had Owen’s wallet. Whether they have any idea he worked at the same place as the first Earring Killer victim so many years ago. If any of it matters.
It probably would have helped if I’d told Detective Sergeant Cox that Owen had my mother’s cassette.
I’m not sure what to do, though sitting in an office I shouldn’t be in isn’t going to help. I move back to the safe, return the wallet, and push the door closed, which is when I notice something poking out from the slim gap behind. I start to pull and it takes a moment to realise it’s a curled loop of twine. Not quite thick enough to be rope but stronger and heavier than it looks. I’ve already dropped it back into place and started towards the door when I realise what I was holding.
Cox said that Owen hanged himself.
I have no way of knowing what he used – and something like twine is always useful to have around a landscaping yard. And yet…
I don’t know what to do. I could call an anonymous tip into the police but how do people realistically do that? I couldn’t use my own mobile, and phone boxes haven’t been a thing in a long time. Even then, I now realise my fingerprints are on Owen’s wallet and his bank cards. If I somehowdidmanage to get the police out here, I could implicate myself.
I return to the safe and retrieve Owen’s wallet, then drop it into my bag. I’m going to have to come up with a better idea – but that’s for another time. Instead, I hurry to the door, let myself out and then re-lock it. I can still leave the keys in the mailbox, then text Mark to say I’ve done so. No need to let on I was in his office.
All of which would be fine – except the yard gates are somehow open. They were closed minutes before, which means someone else is here.
I get the answer a second later. There’s a flash of Mark’s shiny black BMW, and then his headlights glide across me.
TWENTY-THREE
I’m frozen, unsure whether to dart for the gate, hide in the shadows, or stand still. The headlights were on me for a second, maybe less, arcing wide as Mark swung the car around before pulling into his parking spot.
I daren’t breathe. The car is barely five metres away, idling quietly. Mark is going to open the driver’s door and ask what I’m doing here.
Except he doesn’t. He’s sitting in the car, phone lighting up his face as he talks to someone on speakerphone as if he’s about to get booted offThe Apprentice. His voice is muffled but the anger apparent.
I assume he was on the phone while driving, which is why he didn’t spot me as the headlights silhouetted me against the office. Carefully, so carefully, I take a step backwards, edging into the shadow. One step, two – and then I’m at the side of the office, peeping around the corner towards Mark in his car. He jabs angrily at his phone, then punches the steering wheel before swearing loudly at himself.
A few seconds pass and then he opens the car door and clambers out, before slamming it with an echoing clang. Mark crunches towards the office but, just as I think he’s about to headinside, he stops at the door and pulls out a vape device. He leans against the front of the building and sends a sweet, chocolatey plume of mist into the air as he pokes his phone again. It looks like he’s starting another phone call and, as soon as it connects, there’s no hint of a ‘hello’.
‘I didn’t hang up, you must’ve done,’ he says. There’s a second of silence and then a furious: ‘Well maybe it cut out then? I don’t know.’
A pause.
‘Why would you say that?’ — ‘Oh come off it’ — ‘That’s ’cos you listen to your mum all the time’ — ‘She acts like a psycho, I told you that’ — ‘I didn’t call your mum a psycho, I said sheactslike one’ — ‘It’s not the same thing. If you’re a psycho then you’realwaysa psycho. If you’reactinglike one, then you’re temporarily one’ — ‘Maybe try listening, then. I didn’t call youoryour mum a psycho!’
Mark goes quiet but he’s pacing outside the front door, not quite reaching the corner where I’m hiding, though not far off. There’s a force to his movement, as if he’s trying to stomp a hole through the ground.
When he next speaks, he’s slightly calmer, though perhaps it’s exasperation. ‘Fine. All I’m saying is that they can’t prove anything.’ A pause. ‘Exactly. Just tell them I was with you. We were watching TV. What’s the problem?’
I strain, desperate to hear the other half of the conversation but there’s nothing. Mark’s stopped pacing now and is standing somewhere near the door. He sighs, almost theatrically, as if he knows he’s being watched. ‘We’ll talk about this when I get home,’ he says. ‘I’m at the yard but I’ve got to go.’
Mark has another puff on his vape, then slips it into a pocket, before fumbling in another for keys. A few seconds later, he swears under his breath, then heads back to the unlocked car, where he scrambles inside before returning with a set of keys. Ashe walks, he tosses them from one hand to the other, muttering something incomprehensible under his breath as he nears the office. I’m waiting for him to go inside, so I can dash away.
Only a few seconds now. So near.
Except something cramps in my leg. It happens so fast that I have no time to think, instead acting instinctively as I shift weight from one foot to the other. A crunch of gravel booms through the silent night, just as Mark reaches the door. He stops, looks down to his feet, and then along the line of the office to where I’m huddled behind the corner.
Time slows. Time stops. And then: ‘What do we have here?’
FRIDAY
TWENTY-FOUR
I roll over in bed and reach for Mum’s cassette player. The cord is too short to extend from the plug socket to my dresser, so the device sits wedged half under my mattress.
