DEAD AIR (Henry & Sparrow Book 2)

by A D FOX

  ‘So… why am I here?’ he asked. ‘I don’t understand.’

  Rob and Donna looked at each other and then back at him. ‘You’re a bit dim, really, aren’t you, Finley?’ said Donna. ‘You really haven’t worked it out yet.’

  Finley shook his head. He thought he maybe had worked it out, but he didn’t want to say it out loud. If he didn’t say it, it might not be true.

  ‘You’re taking the blame for the murders,’ she said. ‘For Dave Perry and Sheila Bartley.’

  Finley’s throat clogged up. He felt sick. ‘Sheila Bartley too?’ he whimpered.

  Rob sighed and shook his head. ‘That was a pity. Sheila just said the wrong thing. She told me she saw me near the murder scene on the night I killed Dave. I knew if she told the police that, they’d trace it back to me sooner or later. We had to stop that happening. The police found her gaffer-taped to the aerial on the roof of Salisbury Broadcasting House a few hours ago. We didn’t want to do it like that but we realised it had to look ritualistic. Do you know what that means?’

  Finley nodded. ‘I watch TV,’ he said.

  ‘Because we knew we had to get the police looking somewhere else and you - I’m afraid - with all your station visits and your calls and your endless bloody tins of cake, were always going to look guilty. Especially when you started stalking Josh in the dark, you fuckwit.’

  Finley felt wounded. He’d done those things to be accepted. Because he cared. Everyone had always been so lovely to him when he went into Radio Wessex. Except Dave Perry, of course. He sniffed. He’d loved Sheila. He felt tears welling up in his eyes when he thought of her, taped up to the aerial, cold and dead. Suddenly he went very still, realising he was the one taped up to an aerial now.

  ‘But… wait,’ he blurted. ‘This doesn’t make sense. If you kill me like you killed the others, how can they think it was me who killed them?’

  Rob laughed. Actually laughed like one of those TV psychopaths. ‘I won’t be killing you, Finley,’ he said. ‘You’ll be killing yourself.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘OK - enough with the backstory,’ said Donna. ‘We need to get this thing done. Get in the car and follow me down the hill. I’ll show you where to go.’

  ‘What? Wait! What are you doing?’ Finley squawked. ‘You can’t drive the radio car with the mast up! It’s dangerous!’

  ‘Yep - it is,’ said Rob. He took the remote out from the car, held it up, and pressed it. The aerial started to vibrate and Finley stared up in panic. He was taped to it. He could get caught up in it!

  But only the top section, just a metre in length, sank into the cylinder below it before stopping. It was still at nearly full height when Rob got into the driver seat, slammed the door and started up the engine. The mast up warning alarm went off immediately, but Rob ignored it.

  Donna got into her Jeep and began to drive down the hill. Rob turned the Ford around in a slow circle and Finley stared out across the field in horrified silence as he was carried across the sloping grass, his head jarring against the metal pole behind him with every bump and dip. He flung his hands up and gripped the mast just above his head. He should be ripping the gaffer tape off but, as the car picked up speed, he was too scared to let go. What were they going to do? He just couldn’t work out what was going on. None of it made sense.

  The car rocked and swayed as it rolled down the hill, unsteady with its centre of gravity thrown out by the mast, like a top heavy boat on a grassy sea. Finley wondered if it was too late to get his phone out and dial 999, but then he remembered his phone was in the car, in the cup holder where he’d left it. He was sitting at the base of an incredibly powerful transmitter but he could do nothing to make contact with anyone.

  29

  ‘They’re coming this way!’ Kate grabbed Lucas’s arm. ‘We’ve got to get out of sight!’

  Lucas looked up and shook his head. ‘This is not good,’ he murmured. ‘This is really not good.’

  ‘Come on!’ she said. ‘They’re heading straight for us. The lights are going to find us any moment and then…’

  Lucas seemed to finally get the message. He turned and ran with her, stumbling across the dark turf as the car headlights painted shafts of brightness through the night air. Thankfully the beams missed them by a couple of metres as they ran. Lucas took hold of her hand. ‘I can’t use the torch,’ he hissed. ‘I’m dowsing our path. Stick with me.’ Sid was really putting in overtime tonight. Lucas suddenly angled them away to the left and then said ‘Stop - wait - slow down. There’s something here.’

  She could just about make out a dark bulky shape. She put out her hand and found what felt like a rough panel of metal. Feeling up and over it, she encountered the slap of cold water.

  ‘It’s a drinking trough,’ said Lucas. ‘For cattle. Get on the other side of it. Fast.’

  They pulled themselves along and around its chilly lip, hand over hand, and dropped into a crouch on the compacted mud at the far side. Here they had a barrier to hide behind - and not a second too soon. The car headlamps flooded through the air above, casting a black block of shadow safely across them. She leaned out carefully to peer around the edge, her face screened by some high, scraggy weeds growing at its corners. Her heart pounded crazily; she tried hard to get it under control, grabbing the plasticine in her pocket again and mashing it between her fingers.

  The cars rolled to a stop at what looked like the precise place she and Lucas had been standing thirty seconds ago. His dowsing forecast had been spot on about that. It made her shiver to think of it. But why? Why did they want to stop right there? There was nothing but grass.

  The drivers got out of their vehicles. It looked like a man and a woman. In the light of their headlamps she could just about make that out. She was squinting and trying to study their features when Lucas nudged her and whispered ‘Look at the car on the left. On the top.’

  She did so and was shocked to see a third figure up on the roof. Her eyes travelled up further and she made out the pale gleam of a mast, rising high above the vehicle. ‘Shit - Josh was right - it’s the radio car! What the hell is Finley doing?’

  ‘Finley’s doing nothing,’ said Lucas. ‘He’s the one on the roof.’

  ‘But what’s he up to?’

  ‘Nothing. He can’t get down. He’s been taped there.’

  Kate went to get up but Lucas grabbed her arm and pulled her back down. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Unless you’re packing a gun under that jacket. Which you aren’t.’

  ‘Those other two… they’re just about to stuff his airways with grey foam and choke him to death!’ she hissed. ‘I’m not letting that happen.’

  ‘They’re not going to do that,’ he said.

  ‘How the hell do you know? You’re just a dowser, Lucas, not a bloody clairvoyant!’

  ‘I don’t need to be a bloody clairvoyant,’ he said. ‘Just look at where they are. What they’re doing. If they wanted to gaffer him up and choke him to death, they didn’t need to drive down the field. They wanted that precise location.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked, her eyes locked on the figure on the car roof.

  He sighed. ‘Look up.’

  She shook her head. ‘It’s the sky!’

  ‘No. Look again. With your actual bloody EYES.’

  She took a deep breath and tracked her eyes up the mast and then further up to the purple-black sky above. She could see nothing except a handful of the brighter stars piercing the canopy of thin, high cloud. And then… suddenly… she could see something. A long, thin, black line. Next to it, another long, thin, black line.

  ‘Ooooh fuck,’ she murmured, as realisation dawned. ‘Overhead power cables. They’ve parked it directly under overhead power cables. Why the hell would they do that?’

  ‘It’s time to think of something,’ said Lucas. ‘Fast.’

  Kate dug out her phone and reminded herself it was dead. ‘How much juice is in your mobile, Lucas?’ she asked.

  ‘I told you before - the
re’s no time to get your guys here, even if we could get a signal.’

  ‘We don’t need a signal. Just a torch beam,’ she said. ‘And a shitload of bluff.’

  ‘I want to go home,’ said Finley. He sounded so sad. So pathetic. He wished he’d paid more attention when Dad had said ‘Finley - you need to focus on some other things in your life. Not just the radio station. You’re wasting your time. You could be doing so much more.’

  Dad had been right. He had been stupid, stupid, stupid. Now he was going to get murdered and it was all his own fault for being so stupid. Once they had parked he looked up into the sky and understood what was going to happen. He started tugging at the gaffer tape, desperate to get off the roof, but Rob and Donna were back and she was pointing the rifle at him again.

  Rob said: ‘Stop struggling, Finley. It’s too late. Don’t worry about it. You won’t feel a thing.’ He had a remote controller in his hand and he held it up. ‘I’m going to take the aerial fully up. It’ll hit the power cable and you’ll be dead before you know anything about it.’

  ‘It’s wrong! It’s not fair!’ he cried, sounding like a little kid. He thought he might wet himself too, like a little kid, he was so scared. ‘I didn’t kill them,’ he wept. ‘Don’t say I killed them. I liked Sheila. She was kind to me.’

  ‘It won’t matter,’ said Rob. ‘Once this is done it’s all over. We won’t need to kill anyone else. I’m going to make Josh the breakfast show presenter - the main guy. You should be glad about that.’

  ‘He… he was never coming tonight, was he?’ said Finley, tears tracking down his face. ‘There was never going to be a special OB. You cheated me.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, hit the button,’ said Donna. ‘Let’s get it done.’

  Rob nodded. He pressed the button and the aerial began to vibrate and hum and the top section started rising up. In spite of the gun levelled at him, Finley began to scrabble at the tape, but he already knew it was too late. He had about ten seconds before he was electrocuted. He thought about Mum and all she’d done for him… and hoped she wouldn’t believe their lies.

  Rob Larkhill was wired and nervous. Donna was so impressive, standing there with her rifle raised, not a tremor to be seen. He wasn’t really cut out for this, though. With Dave Perry he’d been so full of hate and anger he had made himself into a killer. Although it was definitely premeditated, it was still a crime of passion.

  Without Donna helping, he wasn’t at all sure he could have killed Sheila. Donna had hatched the plan to get Radio Wessex’s local treasure up on the roof once she realised that Sheila could bring the police to their door. ‘She’s always going on about her stargazing saddos,’ Donna had said, in his office, yesterday morning. ‘Tell her she can take them all up on the roof for the next alignment or meteor shower or whatever. I’ll take her up to scope it out, then I’ll give her some hot chocolate with a bit of Rohypnol in it. She’ll be totally gaga by the time you get up there. She won’t even notice when we tape her up. She’ll go quite peacefully. It’s not like she’s got much to live for, is it? Just that stupid cat. Her only daughter’s on the other side of the bloody world.’

  He had no idea how Donna happened to have Rohypnol, but he didn’t ask. It had made perfect sense and, amazingly, in the midst of all the pandemonium around the station, with the fans piling into reception and the staff crowding the newsroom and getting their police interviews done, they’d pulled it off.

  He’d even found another of those M&S biscuit tins from Finley to place at the scene, covered in his DNA and fingerprints. Just like the one he’d put outside by the gate for Josh to find the night before. It was clever, like using Gemma’s phone to send that text to Dave last Friday and getting him to show up in the darkened BBC car park, thinking he was going to score sex with someone less than half his age; the fucking pervert. That had been Donna’s idea. Yes, they had been very clever.

  And now, the final scene. Finley taking his own life, in the ritualistic way he’d killed the others, overcome with remorse. Again, his prints and hair and skin cells were all over the car, while Rob Larkhill, wearing his peaked cap and ever-ready gloves, had left nothing significant. And even if some of his DNA was picked up - so what? He was the station manager. He had been showing some visitors that radio car only last week.

  Along with the signed suicide note, this was surely a done deal. When he reported the radio car missing the next morning, and the police saw it leaving on the security camera footage (he’d been careful to sit too low in the passenger seat to be seen) then it was only a matter of time before they found Finley’s body, the remote control dropped from his dead hand, and his note in the car. It would make one hell of a story. When it all hit the nationals and network, BBC Radio Wessex was going to be massively on the map. On the dial, too. RAJAR figures were going to soar as casual listeners tuned in, riveted, to find out how the presenters were managing this tragedy live on air.

  So when he finally pressed the button on the remote he was certain it was for the best. For everyone. For him, for Donna and for the station. Even the listeners. He’d done a lot of people a massive favour and only a handful would suffer for it.

  He counted down the final seconds of Finley’s life, backing away a little, with Donna, in case of sparks or leaping electricity from above. He wondered if he would get to ten.

  “STOP! POLICE!’

  ‘DROP THE GUN!’

  ‘DROP THE REMOTE!’

  Rob jerked around, his thumb falling off the remote button and pausing the raising of the mast. He couldn’t see anything except a torch beam waving in the air further down the field. The voices were loud and authoritative. He thought he recognised DS Sparrow… but the male voice he didn’t know. He was suddenly sick with terror, his blood pressure roaring in his ears.

  ‘DROP THE GUN!’ yelled the woman, again. He realised that Donna had swung around and was pointing the rifle in the direction of the torch light. ‘YOU ARE SURROUNDED BY ARMED POLICE!’ went on the voice. ‘IF YOU DON’T DROP THE GUN RIGHT NOW YOU WILL BE SHOT!’

  ‘Fuck!’ breathed Donna. ‘Alright!’ she yelled, holding the rifle above her head. ‘I’m putting it down. Slowly…’

  ‘DO SO - AND THEN RAISE BOTH YOUR HANDS!’ yelled the policewoman.

  ‘THROW THAT REMOTE DOWN!’ yelled the male officer. ‘THEN RAISE YOUR-‘

  But he didn’t finish the sentence because Donna had suddenly darted sideways, behind the Jeep, taking the rifle with her, and started running away into the darkness. Rob stood frozen to the spot. He was aware of a tearing sound off to his left. Finley was trying to get away. Out of pure, perverse, anger Rob dropped to the ground and held the remote to his chest, pressing the button once more.

  ‘STOP!’ shrieked the female officer and he could hear panic in her voice. He guessed the police snipers would be tearing into him at any second but he didn’t care. He wouldn’t go to jail, at least.

  The aerial was rising again and Finley was screaming. He couldn’t have more than five seconds left. He’d taped himself up so securely - always so very happy to please the BBC - he wasn’t going to make it off that roof.

  There was a crunch as someone landed heavily on Rob, forcing the wind out of him, and smashing the remote out of his hands. A man with wild dark hair and a beard punched him hard in the face and he just had time to see the top of the mast stall, less than a hand’s width from the overhead cable.

  He howled with rage. He’d come so far. He’d so nearly pulled off the perfect crime. For Donna. He’d done it all for Donna. Where the fuck was Donna?

  30

  The woman with the shotgun had vanished into the darkness and Kate was aghast. She had no idea where she had gone. Kate flared the torch around in all directions and caught the momentary gleam of the heel of a boot as its owner legged it up the field.

  ‘STOP!’ she yelled again, tracking wildly with the torch but unable to find the escapee again. She guessed the woman, who’d been dressed for the far
m, knew this spot well and could dodge and weave through it with ease. Even so, she gave chase, trying not to think of the loaded shotgun. ‘YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE!’ she bawled. ‘WE’VE SET UP ROADBLOCKS AND A CORDON!’

  But she knew her words were paper thin. Anyone could glance around this cold, dark valley and work out that not a single other glimmer of torchlight, reflective vest or whirling flash of red and blue was out there, signalling any back up at all. There was no helicopter chopping the air overhead and sending down a searchlight. There was no two-way radio chatter. Her fakery had rested on two loud voices and one mobile phone torch.

  She tripped on an unseen root and landed face first in the thistly grass. With a curse, she rolled over, realising that her torchlight was now doing nothing more than picking her out as a target for some shotgun practice. She switched it off and held still, trying to quieten her heavy breathing and listen. Behind her she heard scuffling noises as Lucas dealt with the man he’d floored. There was no electrical crackle or bang, so she guessed they had at least stopped Finley Warner’s death by electrocution.

  The gunwoman would have to be hunted down later. Her partner in crime would probably give her up eventually - and Finley might well be able to identify her. Better still, the car she’d driven in, assuming it was the Jeep and not the station’s radio car, would lead them to her. Kate got carefully to her feet. It was time to call it a night.

  She turned back to the pool of light between the two vehicles, noting that Lucas had the man well under control, down on the grass, while Finley appeared to be tearing at the tape around his waist. With luck there would be a decent signal near that transmitter mast, or perhaps on a mobile somewhere in one of the vehicles, and she could finally call in the back up she’d invented. This could all be tied up within hours.