by D. S. Butler
Tom Bradley was in a slightly better mood now. The last two stops had been very quick, and he’d managed to catch up a little. Maybe he wouldn’t end the day with a penalty payment, after all.
If he could put his foot down and make the next two deliveries in good time…
Then, at the worst possible moment, he saw a long line of traffic in front of him. He groaned and slapped his palm against the steering wheel.
Why could he never catch a break? Everything was always stacked against him. That was it, he decided. If he got a penalty payment today, then he was looking for a new job in the morning.
As he came to a stop behind a grey Hyundai, Tom pressed a few buttons on his satnav. Maybe there was a shortcut, a cut through he could use to avoid this traffic.
Growing angrier by the minute, he enlarged the screen and tried to work out the different routes available. The satnav was supposed to help him avoid traffic. The gadget was a waste of space. He had a sneaking feeling it enjoyed making his life a misery.
But Tom worked out if he took the next left he could cut the corner, and that would certainly save some time.
Impatiently, he drummed his fingers against the wheel as he edged the van through the traffic until finally he spotted the turning. He indicated and accelerated hard, misjudging the size of the gap available, which earned him an angry glare from a black-haired woman in a VW Passat.
Tom held up a hand in apology.
Then he pulled around the parked cars and accelerated. He had to get to his next delivery point in five minutes or that was it. He’d have to admit defeat.
He turned right into the next road and stopped at a pedestrian crossing as a young woman and a small boy, both eating ice-creams, strolled across the road.
“Come on,” Tom grumbled. “I haven’t got all day.”
Oblivious, the woman and the boy took their time. The little boy, smiling through a smear of melted ice-cream, held up a hand and waved at him.
With a grunt of impatience, Tom waved back. Yes, he was running late and people dawdling across the road were annoying, but he wasn’t a heartless monster.
Once they were safely across, he accelerated hard again, glancing down at the satnav to check he was going the right way.
When he looked up, he couldn’t understand what he saw. The message his eyes sent his brain didn’t make sense.
A young woman sprinted across the road. She was almost naked, and her long hair streaked out behind her as she suddenly changed direction and veered in front of him.
Tom slammed on his brakes and the van’s wheels screeched on the tarmac as it skidded towards her.
He’d known then, in that fraction of a second, that he wasn’t going to stop in time.
It was the worst moment of his life. There was nothing he could do.
He was going to hit her. It was inevitable.
She turned at the last moment, her eyes wide as the van slid towards her.
Then he winced at the dull thud.
“No, no, no,” Tom mumbled desperately as he fumbled with his seatbelt and tumbled out of the van.
Was she underneath? Had he driven over her?
He didn’t want to look, but he had no choice. He patted his pockets, looking for his mobile phone.
She lay motionless on the tarmac. A single trickle of blood snaked its way along her forehead.
He hadn’t driven over her, thank goodness. She’d hit the bonnet and been knocked further along the road. But it didn’t look good. She wasn’t moving.
He leaned closer. She had a head injury, and they were really bad, weren’t they?
He fumbled with the phone, cursing the screen lock on his phone. His fingers felt like sausages as he tried to dial 999.
“Ambulance, I need an ambulance,” Tom shouted down the phone as soon as the call was answered.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Mr and Mrs Pohl and their two children occupied the second address on Mackinnon’s list of residences that were close to the bus route and had reported a recent bedbug infestation. They lived in a ground floor flat in a converted Georgian house.
Mackinnon pressed on the intercom, and after a dull buzz, a male voice tinnily echoed out of the small speaker.
“Yes?”
“Mr Pohl? This is DS Mackinnon. We spoke earlier.”
“Of course, come in.”
The dull buzz sounded again and the lock clicked. Mackinnon pulled open the door and stepped inside.
The entrance was large and spacious, and the floor was covered with an intricate black-and-white tile. Against the wall were old-fashioned mailboxes for the tenants. A sweeping ornate staircase led up to the next floor.
It had to cost a packet to rent a place like this. Proof bedbugs could live anywhere. They didn’t care how much money you had.
Daphne Carson had been a disappointment. There was no link between the Carsons and the missing women. He was hoping to get more out of Mr and Mrs Pohl. Although he hadn’t spoken to her husband, Daphne Carson was a very unlikely suspect. Of course, it was bad policing to rule them out completely, but Mackinnon thought it unlikely Daphne or her husband were involved in Ashley Burrows’s death and Tammy Holt’s disappearance.
Directly ahead, a tall thin man with a shaved head stepped out of the ground floor flat and moved into the hall.
He stood by the open door, smiling as he waited for Mackinnon to approach.
“I hope you didn’t have any trouble finding the place,” he said.
“Not at all. It’s a lovely building.”
Mr Pohl nodded. “Yes, we’ve been here three years. Now the children are getting bigger we really should think about a larger apartment or even a house, but we’d hate to leave this place.”
“How old are your children?”
“Kelly has just turned six, and Samuel is eight next month.”
He stood aside so Mackinnon could enter the flat. Tinted lighting had been installed in the coving, reflecting on the sleek, highly-polished wooden floor and bright white walls.
Mr Pohl led Mackinnon into the kitchen, which was filled with every kind of gadget imaginable. There were three coffee machines, an electric pressure cooker, some kind of huge multipurpose food processor as well as a bread machine.
“Can I get you a drink? Coffee perhaps?”
“A coffee would be great, thank you.”
The air was cool, thanks to the air-conditioning. There was a barely perceptible hum in the background. Nothing like the units they had back at the station.
Mr Pohl busied himself with one of the coffee machines, putting a bright purple capsule into the opening at the top and pressing a flashing button as the machine gurgled into life.
He grabbed the milk from the fridge and then turned to Mackinnon. “How exactly can I help you?”
“We’re interested in cases of bedbugs in the area. It’s related to a crime we’re investigating.”
Mr Pohl’s eyebrows crept up his forehead. “Really? I can’t imagine how they’d be involved in a crime.” He chuckled. Then grew serious. “I hope it’s nothing too terrible.”
“Horrible things,” Mr Pohl said, walking back to the coffee machine. “Do you take milk or sugar.?”
“No thanks.”
“Are you happy sitting here?” he asked, nodding at the kitchen table, “or we could go through into the living room?”
“Whatever is easier.”
“In here then,” he said putting the two coffee mugs on the table and sitting down. “Don’t tell my wife, but I’m terrified of messing up the living room. The cream carpet cost a small fortune, and the furniture is all cream too. Not a very practical colour.” He chuckled.
“Is your wife at work?”
He nodded. “Yes, Claire works at the hospital. Shift work. Not an easy job. But luckily I work from home, so I can pick the kids up from school.”
“Mr Pohl, could you tell me when you first noticed the bedbugs?”
“Please, call me Nigel. It
was about a week after we got back from holiday. We’d been to Italy, had a great time, but we all returned to find we had been bitten. I thought it was just a delayed reaction to mosquito bites we’d had on holiday. But after a week or so, we realised we were still getting bitten. Poor Samuel had the worst of it. He was absolutely covered in bites. The school even called us in to ask what was wrong with him. They thought it might be chickenpox.”
“Why were Samuel’s bites so bad? Were they in his room?”
“Yes. The pest control chap who dealt with the problem said that’s where most of the little critters were hiding out. He found most of them nestled between the wooden slats on Samuel’s bed. He thinks we brought them back in our suitcases. We’d never been bitten before going on holiday, you see. So it makes sense.”
Mackinnon nodded. “And when was this?”
“Beginning of June.”
Mackinnon made a note. “And they are gone now?”
“Thankfully, yes. The pest control company did a fantastic job. They were really thorough with everything. We did get a bit paranoid. I washed every item of clothing we owned at sixty degrees! Horrible business. I scared myself witless by reading about the bugs on the Internet. I learnt far more than I wanted to about bedbug resistance to chemicals and pesticides and how they’re increasing rapidly.” He grimaced. “But we’re one of the lucky ones. We got the apartment treated really quickly after we noticed getting bitten, and we let our neighbours know, and they haven’t had any bites at all, so we think we’re in the clear now.”
“I’m glad they got rid of them so quickly. From what I’ve learned, it’s quite a problem in the city.”
“That’s what I read, too. Not just London but all over the world. In fact, it’s much worse in New York.”
Mackinnon ran through his list of questions, and Nigel Pohl answered them readily. Nigel was the type who made interviews easy. He had nothing to hide, and he’d had no previous bad experience with police to colour his attitude, so he was open and transparent. Either that, or he was a very good actor.
Again, Mackinnon couldn’t help feeling that this was another dead end. He’d been so sure that the bedbug bites on Ashley’s arms were an important clue, but so far chasing up reported incidents had been a waste of time.
“Do you mind if I ask about your neighbours? Are they families, couples?”
“There’s a family on the floor above us. They’ve got a new baby. Seven weeks old and a bit of a crier.” He pulled a face. “Poor things. I think it’s been a shock to the system. I saw Paul the other day, and he looked like a zombie. I don’t think he’s getting much sleep. Above them, is an elderly couple. They’re Swedish, but they’ve been settled over here for years. Magnus and Tilda. Lovely people.”
“And there’s no one else in the building? No men living alone?”
Nigel hesitated. “I don’t like the sound of that, to be honest. You’d tell me if we had something to worry about, wouldn’t you?”
“We have to ask these questions to be thorough, but no, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”
Nigel nodded slowly but didn’t look convinced. “They’re our only neighbours and we know them pretty well. No single men in the building.”
“What about in the houses next door?
“Well, I can’t say I know them too well, to be honest. I think they’re rented out, and the tenants change pretty regularly.”
“Do you know anyone who lives in the area called Brendan?”
Nigel templed his fingers beneath his chin and looked thoughtful. “No, I can’t say I do. Sorry.”
Mackinnon finished up with a few more questions and then drained his coffee.
“Right, I think I’ve taken up enough of your time. Thank you for being so helpful and thank you for the coffee.”
“You’re welcome. I hope you solve the case soon.” Nigel Pohl got to his feet and led Mackinnon out of the kitchen.
They walked past a closed door and Nigel nodded at it. “It was nice to take a break. I’ll have to get back to work now.” He didn’t look happy about it at all.
“And what do you do for a living?” Mackinnon asked.
“I’m a copywriter. Adverts mostly.” He brightened. “In fact, you might have heard one of my ads on the radio. Have you heard: For nappies, get Dr Sprinkles’, no more night-time tinkle tinkles?”
Mackinnon was not so much surprised by the words of the jingle but the fact Nigel Pohl had sung them.
“Um, no, I don’t think I’ve heard that one.”
Nigel shrugged. “Oh, well. It was only on regional radio stations,” he said, opening the door to his office.
It was a small room with a desk facing the window and one tall bookcase. A laptop sat in the middle of the desk.
Nigel Pohl pressed a key on the keyboard and the laptop screen illuminated. A word document was open but it was blank.
“I’m working on something new now,” he said.
Mackinnon raised an eyebrow.
“Yes,” he nodded sadly, “I know it’s blank. It’s the story of my life. I’m waiting for inspiration to strike.”
Tom knelt beside the young woman lying on the road. He’d taken her hand in his and was praying.
He hadn’t prayed since he’d left school, but it seemed the right thing to do.
Why was the ambulance taking so long?
People were so selfish these days. He’d seen vehicles barely move an inch when an ambulance came up behind them with its blue lights flashing and siren blaring. He’d even seen other cars try to slip in behind an ambulance, trying to get to wherever they were going faster.
Society was falling apart.
Tom sniffed and ran a hand through his hair.
“You’re going to be all right,” he told the woman for the fiftieth time. “The ambulance is nearly here. I just need you to hold on, okay?”
He felt a slight pressure on his fingers and stared down at his hand. “Was she responding? Could she hear him?
“My name is Tom,” he said. “I’m going to stay with you until the paramedics get here. Is there anybody you want me to call? What’s your name?”
She didn’t move her head, but her lips parted, and a bubble of blood appeared at the corner of her mouth. “Tammy,” she said softly.
Was that Tammy? Or did she say Lammy? No, it definitely sounded like Tammy.
“Listen to me, Tammy. You’re going to be just fine. I promise. Try not to move.”
He’d seen that on TV shows. After someone had been in an accident, it was a bad idea to move them in case they’d suffered a spinal injury. “I just need you to keep nice and still for me, okay, Tammy?”
“Yes,” she breathed. “Don’t leave me.”
Her fingers tightened around his. Her grip was getting stronger. That was good, wasn’t it?
“Don’t you worry. I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”
A crowd had gathered at the side of the road, and a woman in flip-flops ran over to them. “Oh, no! What happened?”
Tom glared at her, feeling irrationally angry.
As if he was going to tell her the gruesome details with the poor woman lying on the floor in front of them. Besides, wasn’t it obvious what had happened?
Tom ignored her question. “I’ve called an ambulance. We are waiting for it to arrive.”
The woman shot him a worried look and then said in a loud whisper, “Why is she only in her underwear?”
That was a more astute question. Tom had to give her that, but Tammy was conscious, and it was rude to talk about her as though she wasn’t there.
“That’s not the most important thing right now,” Tom said. “We’re just concentrating on…”
Sirens sounded in the distance.
“It won’t be much longer, Tammy. I can hear the ambulance. It must be just around the corner.”
Tammy didn’t speak but clutched his hand tighter.
She didn’t have any clothes on her, so she certainly wo
uldn’t have any ID. He was sure the paramedics would ask for her details when they got there.
“Can you tell me your last name, Tammy?” he asked, ignoring the growing crowd around them.
Tammy took a couple of shallow breaths and then said something like, Hole or Halt. He couldn’t quite work it out.
“All right, I’ll tell the paramedics your name as soon as they get here. You’ll probably want to get in touch with your family. Do you want me to call anyone for you? You don’t seem to have a phone on you,” Tom said, stating the obvious.
He was babbling, but he wanted to keep her talking. He wanted her to stay conscious. He needed her to be okay.
Tammy whimpered. “It hurts.”
“I know, love. As soon as the paramedics get here, I’m sure they’ll give you something for the pain.”
Tom looked over his shoulder. Why was the ambulance taking so long?
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Charlotte stared at her computer screen and a smile slowly spread over her face.
It was him. She was sure of it.
The search had taken far too long but finally she’d found a match for their suspect. She navigated to the print screen button on the database page and selected the closest printer. She was ninety-nine point nine percent certain Brendan Maynard was their man, but before announcing it to the rest of the station, she needed to double check all her details.
As the printer hummed into action, she re-read the file.
Brendan Maynard, twenty-eight, of seventeen, North Quay Road.
Thanks to the centralised system pulling data from sources all over the city, they even had a photo of Brendan Maynard. He had no driver’s licence, but in this case a City of London bus pass provided the picture. These days everything was digitalised or moving that way. She was glad. It made her job easier.
Charlotte stared at Brendan’s picture.
He had brown hair, brown eyes and a neutral Caucasian skin tone.
Was this the man responsible for Ashley Burrows’s death and the abduction of Tammy Holt? There was nothing about the image that suggested Brendan was anything other than an ordinary man, but Charlotte was probably staring into the eyes of a killer.