by Jem Tugwell
I felt exposed and vulnerable. I needed a weapon. I could see some expensive looking knives in a wooden block.
Emma took a pace around the island and I matched it with one of my own, keeping the gap constant, heading for the block of knives.
‘I wanted you to know the truth. I wanted you here to play a little game with Zoe.’ She sneered at me. ‘You’re so pathetic. All your blundering around got you nowhere. You had no idea.’
‘You can’t do anything, my signal’s showing that I’m here.’ It was a deliberately stupid thing to say. She had killed Mary with duplicates and Suppressors. She could do the same to me, but I was playing to my audience. I had Zoe to save.
My hand touched a drawer handle as I took another step right. I pulled the drawer open hard and it banged against its end stops. I reached in and grabbed the contents and threw them at Emma. Oh, shit. Five blue microfibre cleaning cloths fluttered and folded, mocking me in the air and landed on the island.
Emma laughed. ‘Wrong drawer,’ she said, grabbing a glass of water from the counter and hurling it at me before pulling another drawer open.
The glass flew in the air. It sang past my ear as I ducked down and it crashed against the wall behind me.
As I straightened, I saw Emma’s right arm was back, preparing to throw a large wooden meat tenderiser.
The hammer flew towards me, spinning end over end. As it flashed past my ear, I heard the small whooping noise as it rotated like a tiny propeller, then it smashed into the wall.
I heard her running. As she got near, she jumped, using her hands on the edge of the worktop to lift her legs towards my body and smash her shoes into my chest, pushing me off my feet. My arms flapped as I tried to keep my balance, but I went over backwards.
I landed, and a stab of pain flared in my shoulder as it pressed onto a piece of the broken glass. My back felt wet and I hoped it was from the water and not my blood.
Emma was on me, her knees straddling my hips as she started to pummel me – a blur of well-timed pairs of punches, each delivered with feeling. She was focusing on my head, each blow snapping it backwards. Bouncing it against the floor and generating more fog.
I jabbed up at her face, but I couldn’t get any real weight behind it. No room for a backswing when you’re lying on your back. I raised my left hand, trying to reach her neck and push her back to stem the torrent of blows. It worked. My arms were longer than hers and I managed to land a few more punches.
She shifted her weight, twisting away from my fist. She was reaching behind her for the tenderising hammer. I groaned – it was too far for me to reach. If she got that then it would be game over. I had nothing.
I pushed up hard with my left hand as I dropped my right, waving it around me. All I found was water and tiny fragments of glass; nothing big enough to cause serious damage to her, but glass in the eye would hurt. I picked up a small shard of glass between my fingers and I tried a roundhouse punch.
My fist landed on her head, the glass slicing a cut into my fingers. It did me more damage than her.
She twisted some more. I could see her fingers inching closer to the hammer.
My hand dropped back to the floor and hunted again for something I could hurt her with. Nothing, but I remembered an old self-defence trainer saying anything could be a weapon if it hit somewhere soft and vulnerable. What did I have?
My hand dug in my trouser pocket, reaching for an old business card. I pulled one out and gripped it hard between my thumb and finger so that one corner pointed out.
Emma’s right hand was pulling back, high and proud and about to smash my head in with the hammer.
Last chance. I invested all my remaining energy into this one last move. I shoved up as hard as I could, thrusting my card towards her eye, hoping the corner would make contact. It did, followed by my thumbnail, both making inroads into the soft, squishy white of her eye.
She screamed in demented rage and clutched at her face. Her right hand still held the hammer. I wrenched it from her and swung. The metal side of the tenderiser hit her head and smashed into her temple. The crunch of bone and Emma’s wail pierced the silence of the room. The momentum of the blow pushed her half off me.
She stayed that way for a moment, frozen in time, and then slid down and collapsed onto the floor, one leg still across my body. I lay panting, waiting for some of the fog in my head to clear.
66
DI Clive Lussac
I shoved Emma’s leg off me and pushed myself up onto my elbows. Failing to blank out the screaming pain in my shoulder and the ringing in my head, I checked Emma for a pulse as she lay unconscious. It was there, strong and urgent.
I heard a bang from along the hall. Zoe. I shook away an image of her swinging like Mary from a belt. Feet banging on a door. Seconds from death.
I stood up and grabbed the island to stop myself from falling straight back to the floor. I waited for the swirling sensations to pass and staggered back along the entrance hall, bouncing from one wall to the next. My frantic shouts for Zoe echoed through the house.
I stopped at the first door, opened it and looked in on a small study, neat rows of old library books. No Zoe.
I checked behind me for Emma – I could still see one inert foot through the kitchen doorway.
I ran to next door but found only an empty lounge. Zoe, where are you?
I burst into the dining room.
Zoe was lying on her back, taped to one of the dining chairs, which must have rocked over backwards. All I could see was her side, but she must have heard the door open because she glanced over her shoulder. She would have been expecting Emma to come back for her as I saw fear pushed away by relief.
I rushed over to her and pulled the tape from her mouth. ‘Boss, thank God,’ she croaked.
‘You OK?’ I said.
‘Get me out of this fucking chair.’
Joy surged through me – she was OK. I shivered when I saw her blood. I grabbed the chair and lifted it back upright.
She was a mess. Her face was bruising – angry red lumps all over. Blood trickled from her nose and her lips were split and swollen.
‘I guess I’m not looking my best,’ she said.
I could have cried. She still had the strength for humour despite everything she had been through.
‘She killed Mary,’ she said.
‘I know.’ An image of Mary on the door flashed in front of me. I tried to wipe it from my mind and looked at Zoe’s shirt, which was missing nearly all its buttons. Her skin showed a scattering of small cuts and drying blood.
‘Fuck,’ I said.
‘I was her toy.’
I cringed and tried not to think about the pain of what Emma had done to Zoe.
‘Where is she?’
‘Unconscious in the kitchen.’ I looked around the room and saw a knife and roll of tape on the table. The knife was the missing one from the kitchen block. It was light in my hand and from the way it sliced through the tape holding Zoe to the chair, it must have been incredibly sharp. Zoe flinched away from it when it came near her skin.
‘She used this, didn’t she?’
She nodded. I finished at her legs, and she was free.
She stood and tottered, testing her legs but they held, and she reached up and removed the Suppressor and threw it on the table. She rubbed at her neck. I could see that each movement hurt.
‘That looks like her work,’ she said, indicating my face.
I touched my cheek, flinching every time my fingers landed. The bump Alfie had given me was swamped by the new damage. In the aftermath of the fight, every swollen nerve ending was shouting for my attention.
‘Yes. Shit, her hands were fast.’
Zoe peered at my back. ‘You know you’ve got glass sticking out of you.’
I half jumped with the shock of pain as she touched me. ‘Is it bleeding much?’
‘No.’
‘Leave it in,’ I said, nodding at the door. ‘Let’s get her.’
Emma had seemed so small and quiet that she hadn’t really registered as a suspect. I had been too obsessed with Art. I had let my dislike of him run the investigation. My experience and skill had disappeared over the years I had neglected them, but at least we could have a press conference and tell the waiting country that iMe was secure. We could celebrate. Well, as much as iMe and FUs let you.
Zoe pulled herself upright, steeling herself to see Emma again. ‘She’s going to pay.’
I led the way back down the entrance hall towards the kitchen, opening and closing my fingers around the handle of the knife. Emma would need to come through me to hurt Zoe again.
Emma’s foot had been across the doorway, but now all I could see were puddles on the ceramic tiling.
‘Wait,’ I said, and took two steps forward.
I could feel Zoe right behind me. She wanted to be part of it.
I stopped in the doorway, half expecting to see Emma coming straight at me again, but the room was quiet. A quick loop around the island revealed nothing.
I looked at Zoe then at the block of knives. I groaned.
Two knives were missing.
So was Emma.
67
DI Clive Lussac
‘What do you mean she’s gone?’ Bhatt’s icy displeasure almost froze my ear.
‘She was out cold… I thought Zoe was… She can’t have got far, and we need help to search.’
Bhatt put me on hold. I hoped she was negotiating the freeing-up of some more staff. I waited, and I shrugged a don’t know to Zoe’s raised eyebrow question.
Bhatt came back on. ‘I’m sending two drones. ETA about eight minutes. They can buzz the area.’
‘Anything else?’
‘I’ve got eight Uniforms in four cars coming to you. They can help, but they’ll be fifteen minutes.’
I hung up the call and turned to Zoe. ‘Drones and backup are coming, but we can’t just wait. We need to search.’
Zoe was shaking from the shock. Movement must have opened some of her cuts and little wet red stains decorated her shirt.
‘You OK, Zoe?’
She nodded a lie. ‘Let’s find her.’
‘Did you see anyone else here?’ I asked.
Zoe shook her head. ‘I had a hood on, and it felt like she brought me straight into the dining room after we arrived.’ She paused as an idea flashed across her eyes. ‘She kept calling me Four and talking about someone called Three. She must have someone else.’
‘OK, run a scan.’
She typed and paused. ‘No one showing but us. Not that I trust iMe anymore.’
‘We need to search the house.’
‘I’ll go downstairs, you can go up,’ Zoe suggested.
She had guts, but that was plain reckless. ‘No, we’ll go together.’
She started to protest but her heart wasn’t in it, and I sensed that it was tinged with some relief.
***
We went room by agonising room. Every door was a potential trap, and every scuffed footfall we made confirming our position.
The ground floor was empty, so we climbed the stairs. As my head peaked over the landing and scanned around, I felt most exposed. It would be the best place for Emma to attack. A well-timed kick to my head would send me sprawling backwards down the stairs and I would take Zoe with me. Two for the price of one, but she wasn’t there.
‘This is a big house just for Emma,’ I said.
‘She must have money, but why get such a large house?’
We tracked around the upstairs but found nothing other than immaculate rooms, each one spotless and tidy. Beds were made, and neat towels hung in shiny bathrooms.
Downstairs again, we repeated our tour in case Emma had returned while we were upstairs. We ended in the garage, but that was clean and empty as well.
‘Why does she need a garage?’ Zoe asked.
Like the majority of people, Emma didn’t have a car. There was no need with all the circulating on-demand taxis and most had converted their garage into a usable room.
I scanned around the built-in cabinets. They reflected back the lights in their gloss surfaces. The painted floor shone. I opened a cupboard and looked at the neat rows of small screwdrivers. ‘And why have all these tools?’
We’d searched and drawn a blank in the house and garage.
Zoe looked thoughtful. ‘Where did she keep Karina and Alan?’
She was right. Nowhere we had seen looked like it had held a reluctant guest.
‘Not in the house. Too many absorbent fabrics and carpets. There would have been a mess when she cut Alan up.’
‘The garage?’ Zoe said.
‘Maybe, the floor could be washed clean, but there are too many tools to leave someone locked in there.’
‘OK, she must have run,’ I said. ‘Somewhere safe. But where?’
68
DI Clive Lussac
It was after eleven, and I hadn’t slept much last night. The day had been a blur of doubt, Winter and rushing about. I had been fuelled by nerves and now I felt exhausted. Maybe it was the after effects of having a crazy woman battering my head, or the relief of finding Zoe alive.
The investigation had been a shambles and that had to change, but without a signal Emma could be anywhere and the CCTV cameras were useless street decorations. There was no point in wasting time chasing around aimlessly.
My head cocked at a distant buzzing.
‘That’s the drones,’ Zoe said, ‘and the backup’s nearly here.’
‘Program the drones to run a search pattern. Start at the house and get them to circle out. Their thermal imaging cameras should find her in the dark.’
‘Not if she’s broken into a building.’
‘You’re right. Send four of the Uniforms to go door to door. Get them to check everyone’s gardens and outbuildings.’ It felt good to be decisive. ‘And get two to search here again.’
In the old days, I would have searched for Emma’s car. That wouldn’t work now but her friends, family and neighbours might yield something useful. It was a good enough place to start.
‘Get the remaining two Uniforms to search online for friends and family and go check them out.’
Zoe nodded as her fingers typed out the instructions.
I jumped up and sat on Emma’s kitchen worktop. My heels left small black smears on the shiny doors as they dangled.
If Emma gave us the slip, she was either going to run or go to wherever she kept the victims.
She might head for the coast and find a skipper willing to risk the Channel Blockade. Although the border was tight, protected by a legion of officers and technology, it was designed to stop people getting in, not getting out.
Having been on the receiving end of her fists, I didn’t think it was her style to run but I messaged Bhatt and asked her to liaise with Border Protection.
‘Where did she keep Karina and Alan?’ I asked.
‘She must have kept them somewhere close. She’d want to visit,’ Zoe said.
‘Has she got an accomplice? We’ve always assumed a single killer, but what if they kept the victims at the other person’s place.’
‘OK, who? Esteban? Art? Dave?’
‘Emma said she’d found Art. I know we won’t believe the results anymore, but check for signals.’
I waited while she did.
‘No Emma. No Art. No Esteban. Dave’s at home.’
Esteban was off-grid again. ‘When the two Uniforms searching here are done, send them to Esteban’s friend’s house in Bagshot.’
Zoe pursed her lips in thought and winced. A fresh spot of blood appeared on the side of her mouth. ‘Do you think Emma and Esteban are in it together?’
‘I don’t know. Bagshot is close…’ We were guessing, and I didn’t feel that lucky. We needed something else. ‘Can you trace Emma’s signal over the last year? One plot with all the signals at the same time.’
‘Probably.’
Zoe threw her HUD
at the wall in Emma’s kitchen, and I watched as she hunted through the menus. After some dead ends, she found an option that looked like it would do the job, and her Buddy scampered off with the request.
The wall redrew with a map centred on Emma’s home. Each signal from the last year showed as a small dot and Emma’s home was a large bright blob in the centre of the map. Lines glowed for each journey Emma had made: infrequent trips were dim, but her commute to work was bold and bright.
Several other bright lines showed the routes of Emma’s frequent journeys, but only one really stood out.
‘What’s there,’ I asked, pointing at the bright blob at the end of the line.
Zoe scrolled, zoomed in, then centred the wall on the blob. The map showed a house up a long driveway surrounded by fields and trees. It looked like a perfect location to keep someone. Nice and secluded with no nosey neighbours.
‘It’s her parents’ old home,’ Zoe said, as she checked the details of the house. ‘She inherited it four years ago.’
It was a possibility, but we needed more before committing. Emma could be at the end of any one of the other lines.
‘She might have built some sort of cage to keep people in. If she did, then she would need materials.’ And iMe keeps everything, I thought. ‘Can you search her bank transactions?’
‘Sure.’
More menus and clicks and the wall drew with Emma’s last year’s bank transactions. Zoe filtered out all the food and everyday purchases, but we still had a few pages of data. Nothing recent looked interesting, so Zoe paged through to the older transactions.
‘Click on that one,’ I said, pointing at a line that read ‘Custom Metal Ltd’.
Zoe did, and the invoice for the payment came up: two lengths of metal chain. The delivery address was Emma’s parents’ house.
‘Looks hopeful,’ Zoe said.
I nodded. ‘Go further back.’
Zoe selected the previous two years.
The screen redrew with more entries for Custom Metal Ltd and several for building materials, wood, fixings and tools. Lots of orders for electronics. All delivered to the same isolated place.