Driving Dead

by Stephen G Collier

  ‘Don’t trust me then?’ Fiona said, watching, as Parker got up.

  ‘I don’t trust anyone.’

  ‘That’s a good thing in a place like this.’

  Parker left and went into the ladies. She retrieved her mobile and sent a text to Randall’s phone ‘999’ and left the phone on, as agreed.

  Parker returned to the table and made the decision to sit opposite the woman, asking whether she could change her drink.

  ‘You really don’t trust people, do you?’ said Fiona.

  Parker shook her head.

  ‘I’ve been here all the time and nobody has touched your drink.’

  Parker looked at the beer mat, convinced that it had been moved, then looked back at Fiona.

  ‘Honest,’ she smiled. That smile again was less than friendly.

  ‘Anyway, tell me about yourself, Steph. When did you get into England?’

  ‘Only been here a couple of months,’ she said looking around the bar.

  ‘Really? How are you finding us?’

  ‘Overcrowded!’

  ‘Yes, I can understand that, too many immigrants sponging off the government.’

  ‘I’m an immigrant, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Yes, but I assume you have a job?’

  Parker nodded. She expected the next question to be as to where she worked and quickly made something up. The small talk continued for some fifteen minutes or more and Parker did not touch her drink during that time, or do much listening to Fiona.

  ‘Come on, drink up, the night’s still young.’

  ‘Well, I’m not keen on vodka to be honest,’ Parker said. Instantly Fiona’s demeanour changed from being the friendly girlfriend. She leaned forward and looked directly, menacingly, into Parker’s eyes.

  ‘No,’ she said, pushing the glass towards her. ‘I insist!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I want you to, and what I want, I usually get.’

  ‘But I don’t want to,’ said Parker, pushing the glass back and standing up to leave. Fiona stood quickly. She moved out from her side of the table and blocked Parker’s exit.

  ‘Sit – down!’ Fiona hissed.

  Parker stood her ground. ‘I’d like to leave now.’

  ‘I don’t want you to go.’ Fiona took a pace forward, her face inches from Parker’s and placed a hand on her shoulder, pushing her back down into the seat. A man standing at the bar saw what happened and came over to them asking if Parker was all right.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Fiona said, ‘just a husband and wife tiff, she’ll be okay in a jiffy.’

  The man looked at Parker and back at Fiona, shrugged and walked away. Fiona sat down so close to her that she was unable to exit from the table. Sliding closer to her, Fiona said, ‘We have such a party planned for you tonight and tomorrow, so I insist that you drink the vodka that I’ve paid for.’

  Parker looked at her and then around the pub. Nobody was paying them any attention now. Fiona could have stuck a knife into her there and then and nobody would have even paused to look. Parker looked back at her. She was holding the drink and thrust it towards her.

  ‘Drink!’ she growled.

  Parker took the glass and sniffed at it. ‘What have you done to it?’

  ‘Nothing more than being able to enhance our evening together, now – drink!’

  Parker put the glass to her lips, at the same time looking around the pub for her back up. Fiona grabbed hold of the glass to ensure that it stayed at her lips. She tried to put the glass down and stand up. Fiona pushed her down again, Parker falling heavily onto the seat.

  ‘What happens if I throw this at you, as I should,’ Parker said.

  Fiona stared down at Parker, then she picked up her own glass, smashing in on the table. It drew some attention but she indicated to everyone that was an accident.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said, her nostrils flaring, ‘you’d like me to smash this into your face instead.’

  Parker glanced around uneasily to see if she could find some way of getting out from the table. Still nobody was paying any attention. How that sort of thing could go on in a crowded pub and nobody come to help? What sort of country was this that she had returned to? She was blocked in the corner of the seat with Fiona looming over her with the glass and that Vodka. She felt unable to do anything now, but acquiesce to Fiona’s demands and she drank the liquid. Perhaps she could spit it out, into her face, and she held it in her mouth. That would get somebody’s attention, surely?

  ‘And don’t even think about spitting it out,’ Fiona said, as if reading Parker’s mind. She swallowed.

  ‘There, that’s better. Shall we go?’

  ‘Go where?’

  ‘You’ll see.’ She got up and manhandled Parker out from behind the table. Parker’s clutch bag got left on the seat with her phone inside. She wondered why Fiona wanted to move her so quickly. Perhaps the drug Fiona had given her was not working in the way it should be. I could make a run for it, she thought, but her legs weren’t moving properly. Fiona was dragging her out of the pub. Where’s my back up. I didn’t see them. Lights were swimming in front of her eyes, she felt weak and unable to coordinate her limbs. She had to rely on the woman dragging her. Who is she? I don’t know her.

  ‘Everything all right, love?’ the waiter said, as he passed.

  ‘Yes, fine. She’s had a bit too much, that’s all.’ Fiona said dragging Parker towards the doors.

  The waiter grunted and walked on.

  Help me! Help me! Please. But nobody could help Parker for her screams for help were only in her mind.

  40

  ‘Where the hell are they?’ Randall ranted down his phone. He was standing outside the club with a finger on one ear and his phone to the other.

  ‘She can’t have just disappeared. Get your arses into gear and go and find her.’ Randall continued to listen to what he was being told.

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ how the hell did that happen? Look, I know her phone is still on. She sent me a three nines text, so get somebody on to search the mobile network and ping her phone.’

  Randall terminated the call and rubbed a hand through his hair, exasperated at what had happened. He thought perhaps that he was partly to blame. He should have been watching her, instead of babysitting Kirsty Kingsfield. Nobody saw Parker leave, apart from Prentice, who, by the time he got outside, saw that they were gone.

  ‘Shiiiiit!’ Randall shouted, as he slammed his hand against the door.

  As he did so, Jake rolled up in his patrol car, opened the passenger side window and shouted to Randall, ‘What’s up?’

  Randall stepped out of the cover of the club doors and put his head into the open window of Jake’s patrol car. Nighttime revellers were all about Jake’s car, jeering. One guy bumped into Randall as he walked past.

  ‘Careful, mate. He got the bird in response. She’s only gone fuckin’ missing, that’s what’s up.’

  ‘How did that happen?’

  ‘I’m still working on that, but if I find out somebody’s not done their job, I’ll have their balls in a sling.’

  ‘Get in!’ ordered Jake. Randall jumped into Jake’s car and he powered away from the club, through the town.

  ‘Do we have any idea where she was last seen?’

  ‘Prentice said that she went outside for some fresh air and appeared to be followed out by a red-headed woman, but by the time he got out of the club, they’d gone.’

  ‘She’s changed her appearance again then?’

  ‘It would seem so, yes.’

  ‘So where do we go from here?’

  ‘We’ll get a trace on her phone, but that tends to take a while.’

  ‘Can we hurry it along?’

  ‘In progress.’ Randall stared out of the window, as Jake moved the car slowly through the t
own, to see if they could see Parker somewhere.

  The force radio crackled into life. ‘Tango supervisor 1540.’

  Jake answered.

  ‘1540, are you still in town?’ the female operator enquired.

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘Can you attend St Peter’s Way car park and speak to two PCSOs on duty there. They think that they have information pertaining to your search.’

  Jake glanced at Randall, who was still staring out of the car window, searching every face he could see. He was going to make damned sure that whoever was responsible for this abduction was going to pay for it. Jake could see the hard lines on his face, and the scar that seemed more prominent in the half-light of the patrol car.

  A few minutes later, Randall and Jake were out of the car talking to the two PCSOs. They told him that they had seen a woman in the car park earlier in the evening, acting suspiciously. Not that they had anything concrete about her. She just didn’t seem to fit with what else was going on around them at the time.

  ‘What did she look like?’ Randall asked.

  ‘Red hair, dark trousers,’ the first PCSO responded.

  ‘No, that’s not her. The photos show her as blonde.’

  ‘You’re not mixing her up with our pathologist?’ asked Randall.

  ‘No, I’ve met Doctor Kingsfield,’ PCSO number two said. ‘It wasn’t her.’

  ‘She wouldn’t be here anyway,’ Jake said.

  Randall looked at Jake, with a grin on his face. ‘Er… actually she is. She turned up at the club.’

  ‘Where is she now then?’ Jake asked defensively.

  ‘Gone off with Stevens, looking for our suspect and Parker.’

  Jake turned his attention back to the PCSOs. ‘Anything else you can tell us?’

  ‘Yes, she got into a blue Ford Focus, with another woman, who looked as if she’d had a skinful.’

  ‘How long ago?’

  PSCO number one looked at her watch. ‘’bout thirty minutes.’

  ‘Christ, she could be anywhere by now.’

  ‘Tell me you got the registration.’

  ‘Yes, sir, I did,’ said PCSO number one. She passed Jake the details and he was on the radio straight away circulating it.

  ‘At least we know what car she’s in.’

  ‘If it’s her,’ commented Randall.

  They thanked the two PCSOs and made their way back across the car park to their car. As they were about to get in, Stevens arrived with Kirsty. The two CID officers parted company to search in their own vehicle, while Kirsty got into Jake’s patrol car.

  Jake looked at her sternly. ‘What are you doing, Kirsty?’

  ‘I suppose you’re going to give me a lecture as well?’

  ‘I know that would be futile.’

  ‘Correct.’ Kirsty grinned.

  ‘What did Randall say?’

  ‘Told me off for turning up, then asked me if I wanted a drink.’

  ‘What!’ Jake shook his head. ‘Is there no shame in the man? Obviously doesn’t know that you don’t drink.’

  ‘He does now.’

  ‘Man’s gotta do his homework if he wants to impress a girl,’ Jake said in a “Dirty Harry” accent.

  Kirsty smiled. ‘Sounds like a quote from somewhere.’

  ‘No, other than the accent, poorly done I might add – and Jake’s rules for an easier life.’

  ‘Be difficult. They change every week.’

  He gave a short laugh. ‘So why are you here? I told you what was happening in confidence.’

  ‘I have a theory, but I wanted to tell you first.’

  ‘A theory about what?’

  ‘Our killer.’

  ‘Come on then, hit me with your blinding case-cracking theory,’ he said, as he drove out of the car park.

  ‘You know when we went to see Tanya, she gave us a list of so-called suspects for you to investigate?’

  ‘Yes, I remember.’

  ‘I found it strange that she didn’t put her own company on the list.’

  ‘Perhaps she thought that they were beyond investigation, as we had gone to them with a problem.’

  ‘I thought that, so I decided to do some digging.’

  ‘Digging into her or the company?’

  ‘Both. I looked on some websites about her and the company. Did you know that she is a 40% stakeholder in the company?’

  ‘No, but why should that be significant?’

  ‘When we went to see her, she told us she was just an employee and that she’d taken the job when she returned to the UK.’

  ‘That’s right. I remember.’

  ‘Turns out that the US arm of the company was involved in some scandal, developing mind-altering drugs, which either activated or deactivated certain neurotransmitters in the brain. Apparently, fourteen of their supposed volunteers died over a period of eighteen months, and since that time it turns out that ten of them died in road collisions, which have not been explained satisfactorily. But interestingly, her daughter, who we met, is not actually the wayward child we were led to believe. She works for Tanya as a major contributor to the research programme.’

  ‘All sounds a bit far-fetched to me, a bit sci-fi. Mind-altering drugs causing drivers to crash? I can’t believe that for one minute.’

  ‘OK, think about this then. Tanya told us that the drug was based on the date rape drug GHB. Yes?’

  Jake nodded, keeping his eye on the road.

  ‘What does GHB do to you?’

  ‘I don’t really know. I’ve not tried it.’ He chuckled. ‘I’d have to ask my drug recognition trainer for that.’

  ‘Let me tell you. GHB is a mind-altering drug. It affects your ability to remember what’s happened to you, because of the way it works on neurotransmitters in the brain, so it’s not so far-fetched.’

  ‘You think the daughter’s to blame?’

  ‘I’m not sure, frighteningly, it could be either of them.’

  ‘It clearly can’t be the daughter because our suspect is white.’

  ‘But she could easily pass for a well-tanned white woman, if she changed the colour of her hair.’

  Jake slowly nodded in agreement. ‘What happened to her company?’

  ‘The US company closed down and the regulators over there seized all their assets.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Have a guess.’

  ‘Two years ago?’

  ‘Right on the button.’

  Jake pulled the patrol car into a junction and manoeuvred the vehicle, so it was parked just out of sight of approaching vehicles and sat thinking for a moment.

  ‘Shit, so we’ve given her all our evidence,’ Jake exclaimed suddenly, ‘so she can do with it what she likes.’

  ‘She didn’t have it all. Remember? We kept some back.’

  ‘Do you think that’s why she’s been stalling?’

  ‘It pains me to say it, but yes.’

  They sat and took on board the revelation that one of Kirsty’s friends could be their murderer. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘Do you know what really riles me up, Jake?’

  Jake shook his head sombrely.

  ‘I thought she was my friend. We were in uni together. Christ, I don’t half pick up some crap.’

  Jake saw the tell-tale signs of tears welling up in Kirsty’s eyes and the turning of her wedding ring.

  ‘Come on, Kirsty, we don’t know. We’re only surmising. Perhaps Tanya is still your friend?’

  ‘But what if she isn’t?’

  ‘Perhaps we ought to find out.’

  ‘How’s that going to help?’

  ‘One, it’ll put your mind at rest, and that’s all I’m concerned about by the way. And two, we’ll get the evidence we need to close the case.’<
br />
  ‘I can’t see Randall going for it.’

  ‘Randall isn’t going to know, until he needs to.’

  ‘Look, if we go over to Coventry tomorrow to see her…’

  ‘But we can’t just pop in on the off-chance.’

  ‘Of course we can. There are always traffic cars at the hospital. We can say we’ve just been to see a victim of a road death. It wouldn’t look suspicious.’

  ‘But you don’t normally take a forensic pathologist for that sort of thing.’

  ‘Perhaps you went to converse with a colleague and I just happened to be going your way?’

  Kirsty hesitated. ‘OK, that might work.’

  41

  Saturday

  Stephanie Parker

  Parker woke up with a start. She felt cold. It was still dark. She tried to look around, to see where she was. She didn’t recognise anything in the gloom. She realised she was on a bed and tried to move her right arm. It had been handcuffed to a heavy steel and cold bedstead. She gave it a tug. Useless, she knew, but…

  She thought it might be early dawn. The curtains were not very heavy and had some sort of floral pattern reminiscent of the style of the nineteen eighties. It produced a jaundiced hue to the room, but not enough to get a good look around. A dark and yellow hue, a strange and eerie combination.

  She leaned up on her elbow. The room was what her mother would call a box-room. Big enough for a single bed, with little space for furniture. The walls were a plain magnolia, no pictures or ornaments on the wall. There was a small bedside table, on which stood a jug of water and a small, kidney-shaped stainless steel bowl. The sort they use in hospitals. An empty syringe lay in the bottom of the bowl.

  Realising how thirsty she was, she tried to reach the water jug with her free hand, but couldn’t quite reach it.

  It seemed strange to her that, despite being handcuffed to the bed, she was under the covers. With her free hand, she looked under the covers. She was still wearing her bra and knickers, but she also saw that her top and skirt she’d worn the night before had been folded neatly and placed at the bottom of the bed, almost motherly.

  But was it the night before? How long had she been here she asked herself? She looked towards the bedroom door, which was in front of the bed. She could see a light from under the door and called out.