A noise to the left caught her attention. She took a step towards the old plant room. It was a sound she recognised.
She moved closer and listened again.
One Hundred Two
‘Sit, and don’t move,’ Bryant said, closing the door to the bookshop behind him. The youth took a seat at the signing table. ‘And keep your hands where I can see them.’
He placed his hands in front of him on the table beside a pile of books waiting to be signed.
‘What’s going on?’ the store manager asked, stepping forward.
‘We have a situation,’ he said as Tyra rubbed the area behind her ear.
‘But we need to get this—’
‘It’s cancelled,’ Bryant said flatly.
‘You can’t do that,’ Kate said, flicking her hair and frowning. ‘You’re not high enough to make that—’
‘As the senior officer in attendance, I absolutely can. Dynamic risk assessments are performed on the spot. As there’s been a public order offence and an injury before the event has even begun, it would be foolhardy to allow it to continue.’
‘I’m really fine,’ Tyra offered, glancing at the pile of books.
He understood that Tyra might want to go ahead, and he was pretty sure Kate Sewell did too, but it was no longer their call. If he allowed it to go ahead and a further incident occurred it would be his neck on the line.
‘Send ’em away,’ Bryant said, nodding towards the crowd outside.
Yeah, the boss might receive a couple of complaints, but she’d support his decision. The visiting celebrity had been attacked and allowing the event to continue was reckless.
Everyone stared at him as though he was going to change his mind any minute. He wasn’t. And if the collateral damage of that decision was some people losing a few quid from the loss of sales of a book about an extra-marital affair, he’d sleep easily enough when he went to bed.
He stared at the door to make his point.
‘I’d like your superior’s name,’ Kate said as her face filled with rage.
‘DI Kim Stone; you’ve met her a few times already, and if that’s not high enough, go for DCI Woodward at Halesowen police station; but before any of that I’d like you to take out your phone.’
‘Excuse me?’ she said as the store staff left and began talking to the waiting crowds.
Bryant held out his hand as Kate frowned.
‘Just for a minute.’
She reached into her bag and handed him the iPhone that had sat beside her on the yoga mat when they’d visited her house.
‘The other one,’ he said, referring to the one that had sounded from the other room.
‘I don’t have another one,’ she lied.
He considered continuing this conversation down at the station, but he needed to resolve this right now and find the boss.
He turned to the kid sitting at the table.
‘Give me your phone, buddy.’
He hesitated.
‘Right now, you’re in a lot less trouble than she is.’
The kid took out his phone and opened it with his thumbprint.
Bryant scrolled through the messages and shook his head, returning to the call register. He pressed on the third one down.
Kate’s bag began to ring.
‘That’s the phone I was asking for.’
‘I don’t get it,’ Tyra said. ‘You two know each other?’
‘Not only do they know each other, but this lady, who has been taking such good care of you, instructed this fella exactly what to do.’
Tyra shook her head. ‘No, you’ve got it wrong. She would never—’
‘Arrange someone to physically assault you? I’m afraid that’s exactly what she did, Ms Brooks. More hype, more publicity, more bookings, more money.’
Genuine tears filled Tyra’s eyes as she turned to her agent. ‘How could you?’
Bryant watched as the ruthless woman considered finding some kind of lame explanation. She realised she couldn’t and just shrugged in response.
‘Tyra, if you lay down with dogs, you are going to get fleas,’ Bryant said, putting both phones on the signing table. ‘This will be continued down at the station.’
Now, he just needed to find someone to stay with the three of them.
‘Hey, Bryant, need some help?’ said a familiar voice from behind.
‘Penn, thank goodness,’ he said, looking around at his colleague.
‘Stace has gone straight to the control room to check on CCTV.’
Of course she had.
‘Right, don’t let these folks out of your sight until I get back.’
Penn looked around. ‘Where’s the boss?’
‘That’s exactly what I want to know,’ he answered as he turned and left at speed.
One Hundred Three
In the few seconds it had taken for her to clarify the source of the noise, the week had flashed before her eyes and information gleaned from people around her started to fall into place.
She heard the crackle of the radio and pushed the door open.
‘You don’t want to do this, Chris,’ she said to the security manager, who was sitting beside the bound and gagged superintendent. A knife glinted in his hand.
A flutter of the police officer’s eyelids confirmed the woman was still alive.
Chris stared at her as she continued to edge into the room, but not too far. She didn’t want to spook the man into doing something rash, and if she could keep the door open, anyone in the corridor would see the shaft of light coming from the room.
‘You don’t understand.’
Kim was surprised at the lack of emotion in his tone. She heard nothing but resignation. As though he’d already committed the crime and was holding out his wrists for the handcuffs. She had to steer him away from that mode of thought, or the act of using that knife wouldn’t matter because in his mind he’d already done it.
‘It doesn’t have to end like this, Chris. She’s still alive,’ Kim said. ‘Just like Archie; you kept him alive. No one else has to die.’
Lena’s eyes flicked between the two of them, and Kim couldn’t help wondering if the woman wished she’d have been a bit nicer to him earlier in the week. Maybe then she wouldn’t have made herself into such a target.
‘You don’t get it,’ he said, losing patience.
She lowered herself to the ground. She had to create an intimacy with him, get him to focus his attention on her and not his hostage. The blade was moving perilously close to the tender skin of her wrist.
‘I do, Chris, I get it,’ she said, sitting on the floor. In doing so, she’d had to let the door close behind her, aware that there were no breadcrumbs to her current location. No one knew where she was in staircase 9. Previous experience told her there was no signal beyond corridor 8.
‘I understand that you didn’t want to hurt anyone; that you wrote to me after we met at the EPT briefing. You begged me to stop you from killing. You didn’t want to kill the woman in the park, but you’d been challenged, goaded into doing it.’
He nodded. ‘It’s there, you see, the voice. It’s in my head, always there, telling me what to do. I thought that once I fought back it would get better, but it got worse.’
The way he closed his eyes as though blocking out the sounds caused her to wonder if they’d been right in the first place: the voices were in his head. It wasn’t the first time she’d dealt with a split personality, but that time only one of the personalities had been doing the killing. The other had been unaware.
‘The messages,’ he said. ‘I kept getting messages. I’d think it was all over and then I’d get another message.’
Could he have been sending the messages to himself?
‘The crimes escalated, didn’t they, Chris?’ she asked. ‘It started with crimes that didn’t hurt anyone and then it turned violent. The sexual assault of Lesley Skipton was you, wasn’t it? She was leaving the music festival: an event that you managed,’ Kim said,
remembering the details of the crimes. ‘Rhona Stubbs, the homeless lady you killed, was close to a housing development that was being looted. The site was being guarded by your team.’
These were the facts that had run through her mind outside the door, along with the fact that Noah had to have been someone she’d met before the press conference on Monday. The letters had indicated to Reginald that the person would appear to be a decent, upstanding guy: almost the exact words Bryant had used to describe this man. They had focused all their attention on Ella, and they’d been looking the wrong way the whole time.
‘I’d had the text and I wanted you to help me. I trusted you to help me. I knew you were the only one to stop—’
Chris stopped speaking as Lena made a choking sound.
Shit, this was taking too long. The woman was struggling to breathe.
Kim had to convince him to take the gag off her. Right now, she didn’t care that she was a police superintendent, and an unpleasant one at that. She was a victim in very real danger of losing her life.
‘Shut up,’ Chris spat at the officer. Rage burned in his eyes.
‘Chris, it’s not too late. No more innocent people have to die,’ she pleaded.
His expression changed to disappointment mixed with regret, and she could tell she was losing the bond she’d been trying to establish.
‘I thought you understood.’
Damn, what had she said wrong?
The knife in his hand nicked at the skin on Lena’s wrist. Blood appeared instantly.
‘Please, be careful, Chris, you could cause some damage there,’ she warned. The tip of the blade was perilously close to the artery.
His eyebrows drew together.
‘Why would I be careful when it’s what she’s been doing to me all my life?’
One Hundred Four
‘Tell her, go on, Lena, tell her,’ Chris screamed, loosening the gag.
Lena gasped before shaking her head, confused.
‘I have no clue what you’re talking about, Mr Manley. I arrived here with Tyra Brooks, there was some kind of commotion and you dragged me up here.’
Kim looked from one to the other. What the fuck was going on?
Lena turned her way. ‘Officer, I suggest you disarm this—’
Kim ignored her. ‘Hang on. Chris, are you saying Lena Wiley is your sister?’
He pointed the knife at her and nodded. ‘It has to end, and it will only end in death.’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous,’ Lena cried, having found her voice. ‘You’re out of your mind. You’ve fixated on me. Don’t believe a word he—’
‘I believe him,’ Kim said quietly as the final pieces fell into place.
The first murder and the third murder had taken place on Monday and Wednesday. Both days that Lena had been in the area for the INEPT meetings. Her derision of Chris at the meetings had nothing to do with viewing him as inferior. She simply hated him.
Lena had been in close protection about ten years ago before joining the police, Chris had told her. She must have helped protect Nicola Southall during the death threats. That’s how she had her phone number.
‘You called Nicola and arranged to meet. You knew she’d see you because you’d protected her from abuse and threats in the past.’
Kim remembered what Alison had said about competitive siblings ending up in the same line of work. Lena was a police officer and Chris had tried. He had been set to join the force until that one incident of public order had ended that career path; instead, he had made a career in private security.
‘Nicola who?’ Lena asked, keeping up the pretence, but Kim could see the wavering in her eyes.
‘You’ve been goading him the whole time. Using your scratches to keep score, to flaunt in his face that you were ahead and then sending him a message to goad him into following suit.’ She turned to Chris, the knife forgotten for the moment. ‘What the hell happened to you as kids?’
She glanced between the two. Lena’s gaze was no longer filled with confidence. She had put more together than she’d imagined.
‘I happened,’ Chris said. ‘I was born, and Lena didn’t like that very much. She’s abused me since I can remember. She was almost three when I was born, pinching and scratching me when I was small. As I got older, she’d creep into my room at night to hurt me. She’d put a pillow over my face to try to kill me.’
He glanced at her as though waiting for some kind of rebuttal. She simply stared at him with cold hatred in her eyes.
‘Our parents were not the loving or demonstrative kind, but they did like babies. When I came along, Lena got no attention at all. I tried to tell them what she was doing, but they wouldn’t listen. They called me careless and clumsy and almost convinced me I was hurting myself. They didn’t want to believe they had a child capable of violence and hate at such a young age, and if they did believe me they hoped it would just sort itself out.’
‘So what did you do?’ Kim asked, wondering what he could have done as a small child being physically abused by his sister, with parents who turned a blind eye.
‘One night I waited for her to come and I punched her in the face. I thought it would stop. I thought that if I stood up to her she would leave me alone, but she didn’t. The torture just changed, and as we grew up we competed for attention, stupid stuff at first but Lena would always raise the stakes. She’d do something and then tick me for my turn.’
‘But couldn’t you just walk away?’
He shook his head. ‘No, because I want to win too. I have to beat her. I have to show her she’s not in control, that she’s not better than me. All my life she’s been there, in my ear, haunting me. It’ll never end as long as she’s—’
‘Oh, you pathetic piece of shit,’ Lena said in a tone filled with boredom.
Kim wondered if she’d forgotten who was holding the knife.
‘You are ridiculous. You’ve always been a follower. You’re weak and have no will of your own. I define you, you ineffectual prick. Everything you have is because of me. I made you. I moulded you. It’s beyond ridiculous that you would ever consider hurting me. You think you want this to stop? I’m the only person in your life that has meaning. No wife, no girlfriend and no real friends, because you’re invisible, you’re nothing. No one ever remembers you. You’re like a glass of water: colourless, tasteless, devoid of personality and totally forgettable.’
Kim watched silently as every barb hit its mark. Still he didn’t use the knife. She could see the control that Lena had over him. Right now, this was between the two of them and Kim had no clue how to stop him using the weapon in his hand.
Lena continued, ‘I validate you, you pointless wanker. Everything you’ve achieved was because of me. You’ve followed and tried to compete on every level. You think you’re better than me when all you do is equal what I’ve done. You never get ahead.’
‘I took a little boy,’ he said in a childlike voice.
‘And brought him back unharmed, so what was the fucking point in that?’
As the exchange continued, Kim saw two things: the way their lives had always been and something else – Chris was also seeking approval from his older sister. And then she got it: if Lena was the only person who had paid him attention as a child, it was her attention he craved now, as well as her approval.
And if Lena had the sense to understand that, there was a chance they could all leave this room unharmed.
She now understood that Chris had reached out to her specifically because she’d stood up to his sister in that first meeting. It was what a small part of him wished he’d done years ago.
Kim was silently praying that Lena would use her influence to ensure everyone’s safety, because right now no one knew where any of them were.
‘You’ve never surprised me, Chris,’ Lena said with a heavy sigh. ‘You’ve never exceeded my low expectation of you. Not once have you taken the initiative and proven yourself worthy of any affection or respect.’
&nb
sp; Yes, she got it, Kim realised. Lena knew what he wanted from her. She could use that influence to ensure everyone’s safety. Tell him to drop the knife, Kim thought. He’ll listen.
‘You’ve never liked me,’ Chris whined.
‘You’ve never given me a reason to. You’re vanilla, Chris. You’re boring and predictable. You don’t take risks. You allow yourself to be led, to be manipulated. You’re pointless. Right now, you have the chance to do something spectacular and you don’t even realise it.’
This did not sound like she was trying to get him to put the knife down. This sounded more like a goad, a call to action and somehow that action was going to include her.
Some people used their power for good and others did not.
Kim knew she had to somehow break this bond.
‘Don’t listen to her, Chris,’ she said.
He glanced her way, as though he’d forgotten she was there.
‘It’s your one chance, brother, to show me what you’re made of. You wanted a police officer in the public eye. Well, there’s one right there. She’s alone. Kill her and we get to leave and no one—’
‘Ignore her, Chris. She’s doing what she’s always done. She’s trying to—’
‘You could give us back our freedom, Chris. Let her live and we both spend the rest of our lives in prison. I’ll be protected, but a pretty boy like you will be gang—’
‘Chris, wake up,’ Kim snapped, trying to remove that picture from his mind. ‘She’s using you to get out of facing justice for all that she’s—’
‘How could I not respect the man who set us free?’ Lena asked, shouting over her.
Damn. Lena was offering him everything he’d ever wanted from her. Attention, respect, even affection.
All Kim could offer him was a lifetime in prison. She was losing the battle, but she had one last shot, she realised, as he moved to the centre of the room at equal distance from them both, demonstrating that Lena had turned his attention her way.
She was sitting against the double doors, and she knew there was no way out. Her only choice was to play the same game as his sister.
Deadly Cry: An absolutely gripping crime thriller packed with suspense (Detective Kim Stone Crime Thiller Book 13) Page 26