by K Pierce
‘You watch too much television, especially the American kind it seems. It’s not really like that you know.’ Nat touched her arm, keeping her hand there a few seconds longer than necessary. Emily’s stomach clenched at the contact. ‘Come on.’
Nat led her away from the desks and down a corridor. At the last door she paused and knocked lightly. Emily heard movement inside and muted voices. The door swung open and revealed Barry’s weary face.
‘Morning ladies.’ He stepped back and waved them through. Emily saw two whiteboards near the far wall, each flipped over to show its back. Stacks of papers and manila folders were spread face down on the table.
‘You don’t accuse me of being one of those too often.’ Nat shrugged out of her jacket. She gestured around the table. ‘Emily, this is Phil and Ryan, I think you’ve met.’
‘Briefly.’ She nodded at them and thanked Phil quietly when he pulled a chair out for her.
Nat placed Emily’s phone on the table and looked at each of them in turn. ‘He’s still happy for Emily to meet up with him today. He’s shown no signs of suspicion or apprehension, so I don’t think he’s clocked us.’
‘Where?’ Barry said.
Nat picked up the phone and scrolled through the messages. ‘There’s a quaint little coffee shop called Joys in Bransford.’ She read. ‘Nice and public, how about we meet there at around 6?’
‘He suggested somewhere public?’ Phil frowned. ‘So, he meets up with them and they just go with him willingly?’
‘I’m a lesbian.’ Everyone turned to look at Emily. ‘I mean, I’m not going to go anywhere with a man who thinks we’re on a date. Are you sure this is him? He must know that I’d cause a scene if he tried anything, especially in public.’
‘We’re only assuming that it’s a man.’ Ryan chipped in. ‘It could very well be a woman. It’s not common but also not unheard of for a serial killer to be female.’
Nat saw Emily’s eyes widen at the term and shot Ryan a look. He suddenly found the table top very interesting. ‘Emily,’ she started, ‘we’re going to be with you every step of the way. Since it’s a twenty-minute drive Phil will follow you up there in his car. It’s unmarked so there’s less chance of us being spotted. Barry and I will be in the coffee shop with you and we’ll wire you up so that Ryan can monitor you the whole time. There’ll be uniformed officers strategically placed to move in on our word. You’re going to be fine. We’re going to catch this freak.’ The conviction in Nat’s voice did little to calm the raging nerves in Emily’s stomach, and the nausea she’d been feeling ever since they’d told her about Annie refused to fade.
‘Did you bring something to wear like I asked?’ Nat asked quietly. Emily nodded. ‘Ok, we’re going to set you up in Barry’s office. It’s nice and private. We’ll finalise our side of things out here and then once you’re dressed we’ll figure out the best way to mic you up.’ When Emily didn’t respond she ducked her head to catch her eyes. ‘Are you ok with that?’
‘I could murder a stiff drink.’ She winced. ‘Poor choice of words.’
Nat smiled sympathetically. ‘A brew is about as strong as it can get right now.’
Emily nodded, and Ryan escorted her out. She didn’t look back.
17.
Heavy clouds had gathered as the afternoon turned to evening, and it begun to rain. Left alone in Barry’s office, Emily had nothing to do but watch the small droplets that spattered against the window. The glass had steamed in places but from up here she could see most of their small town. Headlights and taillights blinked at her as people made their way home from work or started their night out on the town. She imagined, briefly, what their lives were like, where they went and what they did. Then her mind wandered to what He could be doing right now. He was down there somewhere. She shivered; even inside the warm office she felt chilled. A tiny earpiece was tucked under her hair, which spilled down around her shoulders, and it crackled to life every now and then as they checked sound levels or whatever, something else that Emily knew little about. A small heart pendant, carefully hiding her microphone, sat on the rise of her chest.
Ryan had gone through everything with her. Don’t touch the earpiece as it could draw attention to it. Don’t touch the pedant as it could interfere with the sound. Don’t do this, or that. Do this. Do that. It was an overwhelming amount of information to take into her already fried brain.
Nat had hovered around throughout and said very little. While Emily was changing, she stood respectfully out in the hallway but when she walked back in and saw the tight black jeans and red fitted jumper Nat hadn’t been able to hide the look of appreciation or the blush that followed it. Emily hadn’t been sure how to feel. Should she be flattered when she was about to put her life in the hands of a madman? Her conflicting feelings irritated her. Now was not the time or the place, and after all of this she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to put her life, or her heart, in the hands of another human.
Emily turned away from the window when the door behind her opened. She’d expected Nat and found that she was disappointed when it was Phil standing there expectantly. ‘Ready?’ He asked.
‘As I’ll ever be.’ Emily said quietly and picked up her coat.
They rode down in silence. Phil scrolling through his phone and Emily wondering where this night was going to take her. No matter what happened her life wouldn’t be the same at the end of it, that much she was sure of. Fear crept into her thoughts and she began to tremble.
‘Emily?’ It took her a moment to realise that the voice was in her ear. She wasn’t sure if she should answer. ‘It’s ok, you don’t have to answer.’ Nat’s voice was soothing. ‘I know what you’re thinking, and you’re going to be fine. Phil’s a good guy and he’ll look after you until you get to us.’ Emily looked up to find him smiling at her.
‘She must mean that. She never says nice things about me.’ He said.
They walked out into the cold night air. Emily pulled her coat a little tighter, careful not to brush against her microphone too much. A sleek black Audi was parked next to hers. Phil pulled out his key fob and its lights flashed. ‘Won’t you be a little conspicuous in that?’ She asked.
‘Nope, they’re ten a penny these days. You might not always see me, but I’ll know where you are, and I’ll be here, ok?’ She swallowed hard and he smiled sympathetically. ‘Don’t worry, Ryan’s tracking the phone Nat gave you too. We’ve got you.’ She nodded.
The roads through town were busy with the evening traffic but once Emily pulled onto the country lanes everything stilled and the orange glow from the streetlights disappeared completely. Her headlights cut bright swathes through the blackness, lighting up the bare hedgerows and trees and making the familiar seem ominous. She glanced in her mirror, relieved to see Phil’s car behind her.
She rounded a bend and her lights dimmed a fraction. She frowned. They came back to life for a second before they died completely. ‘What the…’
‘Emily what is it?’ Phil’s voice was low in her ear.
‘My headlights have gone off.’
‘Try your sidelights and high beams.’
She flicked the switch. ‘Nothing.’
‘Ok, pull over and I’ll have a quick look.’
She tapped the brake. Nothing. Her heartbeat sped up, thumping against her ribs. She pressed the pedal harder this time. Still nothing. ‘Phil…’ she couldn’t hide the rising panic as she attempted to guide the small car around the twisting bends in the dark. ‘My brakes aren’t working!’
‘Phil? What’s going on?’ Barry said through the earpiece.
‘I don’t know!’ She heard him take a breath and when he spoke again his voice was eerily calm. ‘Emily, take your foot off the accelerator and start downshifting gears, let it drift to a stop. If you need to stop quickly then gently pull on the handbrake. Don’t panic, I’m right behind you.’
She did as she was told, letting the car lose momentum around the bends. Finally, it slowed enough to p
ull on the handbrake and she juddered to a stop at the side of the road. Bright lights appeared in her mirror, blinding her, as a car pulled up behind her own. ‘Phil is that you?’
‘Yeah it’s me.’ His headlights dimmed. ‘Guys, we have car trouble.’ She heard him say. ‘What do you want me to do?’
Barry was the one who answered. ‘See if there’s anything you can do. If not, leave her car and bring her in yours but keep her out of sight. If she’s spotted with another person, especially a man, then we’re blown.’
Phil stepped out of his car and Emily pressed the button for the window, surprised to see it work.
‘So, the windows work?’ Phil said.
‘Everything except the lights and the brakes. I don’t-’ They both heard the engine at the same time. Emily looked in the mirror. No lights. The roar got louder. Phil straightened just as a dark shape sped around the bend.
‘What the-’ And then he was gone.
18.
Barry grabbed at his head as the scream pierced his eardrum. Nat was instantly on her feet and out of the café door, car keys in hand. He stumbled after her, clawing to get the earpiece out as Emily continued to shriek. He yanked open the car door as it turned over and the engine roared to life. Nat was frantically trying to get Emily to stop screaming and tell them where she was. Barry tossed his earpiece into the ashtray and pulled out his phone. He fumbled at the screen, swearing under his breath when he dropped it into the foot-well. ‘Ryan?!’ He practically yelled when his call finally connected. ‘Where is she?’
‘They’re about four miles out, on the back roads. Smithy Lane. Phil’s mic is out, and I can’t get his phone to connect.’
Barry didn’t want to think about what was happening but the sounds that had come over the airwaves before Emily had started to scream gave him an idea. ‘We’re on the way, ten minutes out tops.’ He hung up. ‘Nat, Smithy Lane. Phil isn’t responding.’ She nodded, weaving around cars and pushing her foot down harder. Barry grabbed onto the door handle as they drifted around a corner, horns honking in their wake.
‘Emily?! Emily, I need you to talk to me.’ Nat’s voice was low and strained now. Emily’s screams had turned to little more than whimpers in her ear. ‘Emily? I’m here. Can you hear me?’ She swung the car sharply to the right, streetlights fading behind them and concrete turning to hedgerows and trees. A car flashed passed them in the dark, headlamps blazing as it hurtled around the bend and disappeared the way they’d just come. Nat blinked away the black spots in her vision.
‘Nat slow it down. We don’t know what we’re gonna find.’ Every fibre of her being told her to ignore him but when he placed a hand lightly on her arm, she lifted her foot a little. Her hands ached, and her palms were sweaty from gripping the steering wheel so tightly.
Barry’s phone let out a shrill ring. ‘What do we have?’ He listened intently and relayed the information to Nat. ‘Not this coming bend but the one just after that. Emily’s car is on the side of the road and her phone hasn’t moved.’ Neither one of them speculated on why that was. Even though Nat was reassured by Emily’s breath in her ear she had yet to say anything and that was never a good sign.
They approached the final bend and Nat eased up completely on the accelerator. The car crawled along the road and their headlights captured the bumper of Emily’s. Nat pulled over, shouldered the door open and slipped quietly into the night.
Emily was curled up on the driver’s seat of her car whimpering softly. Her window was wide open, letting in the frigid night air and adding to the tremors that already shook her body.
‘Emily?’ Nat slowly pulled the door open, unprepared for the woman to launch herself into her arms. She managed to keep them both upright as they stumbled backwards into the road. Emily let out sob after sob, mumbling something that Nat couldn’t quite make out. ‘Emily, it’s ok.’ She soothed. ‘It’s ok…I’m here…what happened? Where’s Phil?’ That started a fresh wave of tears.
‘Nat.’ The voice behind her was quiet but the tone was all too familiar. She knew before she’d even turned around what it meant but nothing prepared her for what she saw.
Phil lay half on the road, half in the sodden ditch. His body was twisted into an unnatural position. His usually perfect hair was matted to one side of his mangled face and he was only wearing one shoe. Barry was crouched beside him, fingers covered in blood as he attempted to find a pulse. He shook his head.
In the distance sirens wailed, blue strobes flashing across the countryside like a sad, melancholy disco. And then suddenly everything seemed to move in fast forward; there were vehicles and people swarming the area. Paramedics, uniformed cops, the coroner. Tape was put up around the perimeter, there were shouts as instructions were relayed, streaks of white and blue as the photographer’s flash battled with the lights of the emergency vehicles. The place was alive, and it was because one of their own was not.
Nat was leaning against the bonnet of their car watching the paramedics wrap Emily in a foil blanket in the back of the ambulance. They went about their routine checks, making notes on clipboards and asking Emily questions. She still hadn’t said a word about what had happened.
Spotlights were hastily erected and crime scene techs placed markers and scribbled their findings. There were no skid marks on the road, nothing to suggest that anyone had tried to stop or even slow down. Until Emily confirmed or denied it, they were working under the assumption that this had been deliberate.
Barry stepped up beside her and tucked his phone into his pocket. He’d been on it ever since the first cars had arrived. ‘They’ll be an investigation into what went wrong and why.’ He paused for a beat. ‘I offered to step down.’
‘What did they say?’
‘That if I step down it looks like it was my fault.’
‘It wasn’t your fault. And you shouldn’t step down.’
He sighed. ‘I should’ve put two people on her.’
‘So that two people could’ve been killed instead? Or to make it easier for him to see us coming?’
‘We don’t know it was him but if it was he seemed to have no trouble seeing us.’
She turned to look at him and raised an eyebrow. ‘Her lights and brakes failed on this empty stretch of road in the arse end of nowhere. Someone pulls up to help her and is mown down.’
‘See, this is why you’re a copper. Superior observation skills.’
‘I think,’ she started, ‘that our doer was the one that was supposed to pull over and help her. This here,’ she gestured at the hedges around them, ‘is where he was going to kill or abduct her. Just like Annie.’
‘Why didn’t he? He killed Phil so why not just take her too?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe he thought someone else might’ve been in the car with Phil? Or she was making too much noise? He’d lost the element of surprise by then so maybe he just didn’t want a fight? At the end of the day he’s lowlife fucking scum and a coward.’ Nat pushed off the car when a paramedic approached. ‘How is she?’ She asked.
He scratched at his balding head with a purple gloved hand. ‘She’s obviously in shock but has adamantly refused to let us take her to hospital. I was hoping that one of you two could persuade her otherwise.’
‘I’ve got it.’ Nat said.
Climbing up into the ambulance she squinted at the bright interior. Emily kept her gaze fixed on the floor, even when Nat lowered herself onto the gurney next to her. ‘Hi.’ Nat said. No response. ‘So, you can talk to the ambulance guys to tell them you won’t go to the hospital, but you can’t talk to me?’
Emily shifted beside her. ‘I got your friend killed.’ She whispered.
‘What?’ Nat gently grasped her shoulders and turned Emily towards her. ‘This isn’t your fault. None of it. Do you understand that?’
‘I went on that stupid site. My car died. If I hadn’t - ‘
‘If you hadn’t then it would be some other girl sat where you are right now. Or maybe even lying in that d
itch.’ Emily finally looked up. Her eyes were red and swollen, and Nat had the sudden urge to pull her close and never let go. She dropped her hands from Emily’s shoulders and cleared her throat. ‘Please, can we go to the hospital? Just to get you checked out.’
‘I hate hospitals.’
‘I don’t think anyone actually likes hospitals.’ Nat smiled. ‘But if it makes you feel any better, I can call Fiona to meet you there.’
Emily looked away. ‘Can you come?’
‘Will you tell me what happened if I do?’
Emily closed her eyes and nodded. Nat waved at the paramedic loitering by the door. He closed it without a word and the ambulance rumbled to life.
The ride was quick and quiet. Nat could feel Emily trembling beside her. She shuffled closer and wrapped an arm around Emily’s shoulder. Nat pulled out her phone and fired off a message to Barry explaining where she was going.
They were ushered through A&E and into a cubicle as soon as they reached the hospital and Nat was certain that Barry had called ahead. A pretty, blonde nurse pointed at the chair in the corner and Nat took a seat, watching as the woman bustled around Emily taking her vitals and writing on a chart. When she was finished, she flashed them both a smile and disappeared back through the curtain.
The hospital was noisy. Metal clanged, children cried, and several different voices carried through the flimsy fabric surrounding them.
‘Full circle, huh?’ Emily looked over at her questioningly. ‘We met here.’
Emily nodded slowly. ‘We did.’
‘And now we’re back.’
‘We are.’ Emily’s fingers worried at the corner of the hospital blanket over her legs. Nat pulled her chair closer to the side of the bed so that she could be heard without raising her voice.
‘Tell me what happened tonight.’
There was a pause while Emily gathered her thoughts. ‘We were driving down the lane and my lights flickered.’ She frowned. ‘Then they just went out. When I tried to pull over, so he could have a look, the brakes wouldn’t work.’ Her voice was a detached monotone and it didn’t escape Nat’s notice that she wouldn’t use Phil’s name. She gestured for Emily to continue. ‘He talked me through stopping without my brakes and pulled in behind me.’ Silent tears were slipping down her cheeks, but she hadn’t noticed, or didn’t care. ‘He was talking to me at the window.’ Her eyes widened as she relived the moment. ‘Then he was just…gone.’