by J. S. Monroe
“Please come,” she manages to whisper before the phone slips from her hand to the ground.
CHAPTER 57
Tony queues at the police roadblock, waiting to leave the village. Window open, he taps impatiently on the roof of his old BMW. One hundred sixty-two thousand miles and counting. He hopes they’re checking for people rather than for registration. It’s been a while since he bothered. He’s tried ringing Jemma on the cell phone he gave her, but it went straight to voice mail.
She has no idea how close the cops are to arresting her. They will recover more than enough DNA in the bed she slept in. She can’t stay in the forest any longer. The cops will widen their search until they find her: officers, sniffer dogs, choppers.
He’s next in line to be checked at the roadblock now. Two young cops, looking for a woman who’s right under their noses. The car ahead has a roof box, which the jackasses insist on being opened. He watches, happy to see them waste their time.
It was soon after Jemma arrived, after she revealed a knowledge of their house’s layout, that he first began to wonder. Was Jemma Huish returning to her childhood home? He had recognized the name of the village when Laura originally found it during their early house-hunting days, knew he had read about it somewhere. He had dug out his old newspaper cuttings, the ones on amnesiacs, and had come across a big bundle of stories about Jemma Huish, her court case and mental condition, the house where she grew up.
Unfortunately, the house wasn’t for sale, not yet, but they both loved the village so they rented a bungalow for a year. Tony made inquiries and was told by the house’s elderly owner that his young tenants would soon be moving out and that he was ready to sell. The house was theirs when he was ready. Laura liked the place, even if it was smaller than she had hoped. There was no need to tell her that “Huish” was on the list of previous owners. In the meantime, the village store came up for sale, and Tony converted it into a café and gallery. They still had enough money left to buy the house, but it conveniently prevented them from purchasing anywhere bigger, as Laura was secretly hoping. Tony couldn’t wait to move in, intrigued by the possibility, however slight, that Jemma Huish had once lived there and might one day come back. She hadn’t been seen for years, whereabouts unknown.
And she ticked all the right boxes.
Then, a month later, a mysterious woman turns up on their doorstep out of the blue. Tony couldn’t believe his luck. Didn’t dare. She looks just like Jemma Huish, suffers from amnesia and is even more beautiful than the newspaper reports. He suggests her name might be Jemma—with a J. A crude attempt to trigger something, to dispel the fog of forgetfulness. Thank God he talked her out of a DNA test—as soon as the police have a match with Huish, they will take her away. He isn’t going to let that happen.
It’s his turn at the checkpoint. The cops search the trunk, ask him where he’s going (food shopping for the café—he’s had a bunch of greedy cops to feed all morning). They wave him through with no grief. Unusual for him. Laura’s the only complication. He wishes she was staying at her mom’s for longer, but the cops want her to give a statement. She’s rung him several times, but he’s got no desire to talk to her. Not yet.
He senses something’s wrong as soon as he pulls up at the ammunition shelter. It’s too quiet, even for this remote corner of the forest. He steps out of the car, checks that no one is around and walks through the brambles to the entrance.
“Jemma? It’s me. Tony.”
No answer. She might be sleeping. He walks down the steps and shines his phone inside. Her suitcase is next to one wall, lid still open, clothes spilling out. The roll mat and sleeping bag are curled up next to it, alongside his radio, which is on quietly. Maybe she has gone out for a walk.
“Jemma?” he calls up the steps, louder this time. “Jemma? We need to go.”
More silence. He walks back into the shelter and squats down next to the suitcase. Holding a blouse up to his nose, he breathes in her scent as he searches through the rest of the clothes. What’s he looking for? He closes the lid and notices two zipped compartments on the outside. The larger one is already open. Sliding his hand in, he finds a leaflet for the Excess Baggage Company. She must have picked it up at Heathrow, when she was looking for her bag.
He reaches for his cell phone to try Jemma again, but stops to listen. Cutting through the silence of the forest is the sound of an approaching car.
CHAPTER 58
Silas pulls up next to Tony’s old BMW and waits. Strover is sitting next to him. She was meant to be meeting Laura, Tony’s wife, off the train, but she was a no-show and is not answering her phone.
“He’s got to have heard us coming,” Silas says, staring ahead, hands still gripping the steering wheel. He’s never liked this forest, not since he found his son sleeping rough in it once. Where others see peace and tranquility, he sees only loss and isolation. At least it’s not a pine forest. They’re the worst: dark, lifeless places.
“Why do you think Tony was lying?” Strover asks.
“Where to begin?” Silas likes the fact that Strover is keen to learn. Flattered too. “Unnaturally calm, speech too slow, telltale stillness in the body language.”
After the interview in the café, Silas had sent out Tony’s BMW’s registration number to all the village checkpoints with instructions to conduct a particularly thorough car search if they saw him—long enough for Silas to be called. It wasn’t long before he got a message saying that Tony’s car had been spotted waiting to be searched. By the time Tony was making idle chat at the checkpoint, Silas had joined the back of the queue and was waved through at the appropriate moment, following Tony up the hill at a discreet distance. He’s convinced that Tony has led them to Jemma. He just hopes to God she’s still alive.
“What’s his motive?” Strover asks.
“Other than taking sexual advantage of a confused and vulnerable woman, you mean?” He turns to look at Strover, who is calm, focused. “I don’t know yet. It depends on who Jemma turns out to be, doesn’t it?”
“Do you think she’s Jemma Huish?” she asks.
“You’re the one who saw her.”
Strover doesn’t reply. Silas is still annoyed that Susie blocked him from talking to Jemma. It could have saved a lot of time. They’ll just have to wait for the fast-track DNA results on the hairbrush and bedroom samples, due back in a couple of hours. Whatever the findings, Tony has perverted the course of justice by concealing the woman’s whereabouts. And he could be holding an individual against her will. His excellent vegan mac-and-cheese balls aside, he’s also a deeply irritating individual.
“Okay, let’s go,” he says to Strover. “Walk around the back in case he tries it on, but I’m expecting him to come quietly.”
Tony’s head appears above the shelter as they push through the brambles. When he sees them approaching, he pauses for a moment and then continues up the steps, both arms held above him. Christ, this isn’t Compton. Silas hates the force’s increased use of guns, what it’s already done to community policing in Britain.
“She’s not here,” Tony calls out. “I thought she was, but she’s gone. Left all her stuff.”
It’s not what Silas is expecting.
“Did you bring her out here?” Silas asks, as he starts to frisk him. It must be catching. The guy’s not under arrest, not yet. And Silas doesn’t suppose he’s carrying a gun, even if he is from New York.
“She ran off from the pub,” Tony says, as Strover heads down into the shelter. He’s lying again. “Called me up, asked me to come out here.”
“I didn’t know she had a phone.”
“We lent her one of our old ones.”
“That was good of you.”
Tony smirks as Silas sees Strover coming up the steps behind them.
“There’s a roll mat, sleeping bag and a suitcase full of female clothing,” she says, walking
over to join them.
“No sign of Jemma?” Silas asks.
She shakes her head. It’s enough for Silas. Tony doesn’t look the cross-dressing type.
“Tony Masters, I’m arresting you on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice by obstructing a police investigation,” he says, trying not to savor the words too much. He nods at Strover, who produces a set of handcuffs and clips them onto Tony’s wrists while Silas reads him his rights.
“This is some kind of joke, right?” Tony says, as they walk over to the car. “I mean, what exactly have I done wrong here?”
“How long have you got?” Silas is about to elaborate when his phone rings. It’s the Force Control Room. He hangs back to answer as Strover bundles Tony into the car.
“We have an immediate commitment in your area. A white female threatening to kill a woman she’s holding at knifepoint. Armed response are on their way. The boss thought you might want to know—she’s calling herself Jemma Huish.”
CHAPTER 59
Luke can see the Blue Pool up ahead and forces himself to keep running, despite a growing tightness in his chest. He should have gone on more runs with Chloe. He hopes Laura’s okay. After her call urging him to come quickly, Luke had dialed 999, explaining that his friend, Laura Masters, had just phoned him from the canal towpath and sounded in trouble. He was worried that he might be wasting police time, but they had taken his call seriously, explaining that they already had reports of an ongoing incident in the area. They wouldn’t elaborate, which worried Luke even more, made him run faster.
It’s as he gets close to the Blue Pool that he spots two figures near the towpath to his right, on the way down to the wishing tree. He stops in his tracks, breathing hard. One of the people he recognizes at once as Laura, the other looks like Jemma. At first he thinks she is hugging Laura from behind, both arms around her upper body, but then he sees that in one hand she is holding a large knife. It’s pressed against Laura’s throat.
“Stay back,” Laura says to Luke. “Don’t do anything. It’s okay.”
The other woman nods.
Luke is still one hundred yards from them. He wants to call the police again, because Laura looks far from okay. But both women are watching him, and he daren’t do anything that might inflame the situation.
“Shall I phone someone?” Luke calls out, careful not to mention the police.
“Jemma’s already dialed 999,” Laura says.
She’s talking more quietly now, and Luke can barely hear her from where he is standing. He glances behind him to see if anyone is coming. The towpath is empty. The canal is deserted too. And then he hears the distant sound of a police siren.
Luke tries again to get a better look at Jemma, but it’s hard from this distance and she’s partially concealed behind Laura. There’s a new wildness about her, as if she’s been living rough, not like the quietly spoken woman he met in the pub on the first night. Where has she been? He feels helpless just standing here. He wants to walk up to them both, remove the knife from her grip, but the sight of the blade at Laura’s throat checks any impulse to act.
“Stay away, please, Luke,” Laura begs, as if reading his thoughts. “She’ll kill me if you come any closer.”
A moment later, four armed police officers seem to arrive from nowhere. Three fan out and take up positions around Laura and Jemma, keeping their distance, a fourth officer runs down toward Luke, dropping to one knee in front of him and raising his gun to his shoulder.
“Get back,” the officer barks at Luke, signaling furiously with his hand.
There’s an authority in the officer’s voice that Luke finds hard to ignore. He starts to retreat but not before he sees Detective Inspector Hart arrive on the far side of the towpath.
CHAPTER 60
Silas knows at once from Jemma’s body language that she’s not bluffing. She’s locked the other woman from behind in a firm hold, and the knife is tucked under her chin. A smear of red suggests she might have already drawn blood—nothing more than a nick, he hopes.
Four Authorized Firearms Officers have arrived already, dispersing around the target. Silas had passed their vehicles on the towpath, just down from the train station. He doesn’t recognize them. Patrolling the region 24/7, AFOs are often from out of the area. They don’t have enough firearms work to keep them busy, so they regularly attend routine inquiries if they’re the closest officers, Glock 17 pistols at the ready. So much for gun-free community policing. These four have come down the towpath with their rapid-fire weapons: Heckler & Koch MP5s. Their presence now feels way too heavy-handed, an inappropriate show of strength for a woman in a fragile mental state, even if she has history with a knife.
“Jesus, what a mess,” Silas says under his breath.
The woman being held is Laura, Tony’s wife, according to Luke the journalist, who dialed 999 after receiving a distressed call from her. Silas recognizes him standing farther down the canal, the only other person in the vicinity. One witness and he has to be a bloody journalist. Tony is still in the car up at the train station with Strover, who is briefing response officers. Silas thought about bringing Tony along, but he’s not sure where the American’s loyalties might lie if it came to the crunch—with Jemma or with his wife?
“Stay away from me,” the woman with the knife shouts at the AFOs. If only Silas had got here before them.
He walks over to the senior AFO, a sergeant, keeping an eye on Jemma.
“Let me talk to her first,” Silas says. “DI Hart, force negotiator.”
“She’s right on the edge,” the sergeant replies nervously. It must be catching. This is Silas’s manor, his case, no place for outsiders. Or inter-force collaboration. Where’s the sergeant from? Some rural village at the other end of the country? Silas moves toward the two women, trying to concentrate on the scene in front of him, the protocols he must adhere to in a spontaneous firearms incident.
He hasn’t got much time. As soon as the call from the control room came through in the forest, he had asked to speak to the Force Incident Manager. He and Silas go way back, hence the tip-off about Jemma Huish. The FIM had authorized the initial armed deployment, but he won’t be running the show for much longer. Tactical advisers, intelligence liaison and God knows who else will have been contacted already, and a Tactical Firearms Commander will soon assume control.
Until then, Silas has a window in which to bring this to a peaceful close. It’s been too long since his last refresher course as a force negotiator, but no one needs to know that.
“Tell your officers to pull back,” he says to the sergeant.
The sergeant reluctantly signals for his colleagues to retreat.
“My boss will be taking over in five minutes,” the sergeant says, as Silas approaches Jemma.
Silas and the sergeant’s boss go way back too, but they are definitely not old mates.
“And until she does, you let me negotiate,” Silas says, still looking ahead.
It’s obvious the sergeant resents having to answer to plainclothes. And Silas knows he shouldn’t be blurring the lines between commanders and negotiators, but the situation is dynamic and decisions must be made quickly. No one is better qualified. He is the one who knows about Jemma Huish, saw what she did with a knife twelve years ago. He’s not going to let that happen again. That day changed his life, prompted him to move back to Wiltshire, try to be a better cop. A better dad. He glances across at Jemma again. He won’t tell her they’ve met before, in case it starts something no one can stop.
“Keep away,” Jemma shouts, picking up on the tension between the two men. Her voice is frayed with fear.
Silas puts both arms out in front of him, trying to calm her, calm everyone, his eyes locked on to hers. He’s transfixed by the sight of the woman he hasn’t seen for twelve years. Where was she living before turning up here in the village? Off grid.
Uncared for. She looks frightened, terrified, unrecognizable from the person in the news reports, the young woman he saw being led away in handcuffs, sobbing at what she had just done, her best friend lying dead in his blood-soaked arms. The system’s let her down. Washed its hands of her. He needs to give her a way out, remove the blame for what she’s doing now, holding a knife to an innocent person’s throat.
“Where’s home?” he asks, glancing at Laura, who looks even more scared. “Since you were discharged?”
“What’s it to you?” Jemma fires back.
“Just curious. You’ve done well. Model recovery. You don’t want to ruin all that.”
She seems to respond to the flattery, her taut face slackening a little around her mouth.
“You have no idea what it’s like,” she says. “How hard it is. The voices.”
“Oh I don’t know.” He pauses, taking a deep breath. “My son, Conor, he was twenty-one last week. Spent his birthday in the Fleming Way multistory car park in Swindon. Super-strength marijuana didn’t agree with him at uni. Now he’s homeless. Won’t take his meds either.” His close colleagues know about Conor—he’s been brought into the station enough times—but it will be news to the AFOs. A gift to the sergeant. “Why did you come back?” he asks. “To the village?”
She looks at Silas and then at the AFOs, kneeling down behind him, the barrels of their MP5s lowered grudgingly to the ground. By telling them to retreat, he’s calmed everyone down, but he’s also put Jemma beyond the twenty-five-feet range of a Taser. He glances around. More uniforms have arrived. One of them, a woman, he recognizes as the commander, here to take over. Just his luck she’s decided to turn up in person. She would normally assume command from the comfort of the control room.
He needs more time. Is Jemma about to act? Listen to the voices? Repeat what she did twelve years ago to her friend at uni? He must keep her talking.