Old Evils by Alex Walters

Author:Alex Walters [Walters, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

‘We need to do something, Zo,’ Gary said. ‘We can’t allow this to go on. It’s scaring the hell out of me.’

‘We don’t even know if anything’s really happening.’

‘Come on, Zoe. The phone rang four times this evening before you got back. Every time I picked it up there was just silence.’

‘It might have just been some kind of automated marketing call. We get loads of them on the landline. It’s more or less all we do get.’

‘This didn’t feel like that. I was convinced there was someone at the other end of the line.’

‘Did you hear breathing? Anything like that?’ Zoe wasn’t sure why she was being so resistant to what Gary was saying. She supposed it was partly her usual discomfort with seeking support from others. She’d already asked enough of Stuart Jennings and her colleagues in the force. The last thing she wanted was to go back with yet another problem.

‘It wasn’t like that,’ Gary acknowledged. ‘There was no breathing, no physical sign that anyone was there. I just had a sense that it was more than the line always going dead.’ He stopped, clearly recognising the weakness of his claims. ‘That’s not the point, Zo. The point is that this Liam Crane turned up on the doorstep yesterday, and he could come back at any time. He might be waiting out there right now.’

‘He’s not out there right now,’ Zoe said. ‘There was no one out there when I got back. If he’d been anywhere around, I’d have seen him.’ She wasn’t sure this was true. It had been well into the evening when she’d finally got home from work, following an extensive debrief with Chris Statham and other members of the team, and there were plenty of places Crane could have concealed himself in the darkness. But if he had been out there, why hadn’t he accosted her as she’d climbed out of the car?

‘That doesn’t mean he won’t be back. He wanted to see you, Zoe. He was prepared to force his way into the house, if necessary.’

‘But he didn’t. As yet, we don’t have any grounds for taking further action. A few silent calls doesn’t give us enough.’

Before Gary could respond, the phone in the hall rang again. The sound startled her, as they received almost no calls on the landline. The last one had been the unexpected and disturbing call from Elaine Simmonds.

‘I’ll answer it,’ Gary said.

‘Let me. If it really is Liam Crane, he’ll just go through the same silent routine. If he wants to talk to me like he claims, let him talk.’

‘Zoe—’

Ignoring Gary, she walked into the hall and, after a moment’s hesitation, picked up the phone. ‘Yes?’

‘Zoe Callender?’ The voice was deep, with a strong Estuary English accent.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I want to speak to Zoe Callender.’

‘Who is this?’

‘It’s your father.’

She noted the use of the second person. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Don’t play games, Zoe. That husband of yours will have told you I visited yesterday. He gave me a load of bullshit, but I’m not an idiot.

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