by Adam Carter
He thought a moment. “You’re not national?”
“Just local,” she reiterated. “Who cares what the country thinks, eh? Let’s just make sure this town knows who you really are.”
Searle looked away, glanced at the redhead behind her. “She with the paper too?”
“Yeah. She’s our care in the community project.”
“Care in the ...?”
The dark-haired woman leaned in closer and whispered, “Gets her out the house. She’d only be dribbling into the sofa otherwise.”
Searle didn’t understand what she was talking about, but he could see in the dark-haired woman’s eyes that she really didn’t want to have to bullet-point it for him. He glanced at the redhead, who seemed to realise she was being observed, for her gaze had up until this point been wandering around everywhere. He offered her a sheepish wave and she raised her own hand with a frown and waggled her fingers. He understood at last.
Searle spoke quietly to the dark-haired woman. “You’re a nice woman, doing this for her.”
“Anything to get a story, Jack. Besides, it’s what budgets are for.”
Searle opened the door and the dark-haired woman smiled. “Come along, Foster.”
Searle locked the door and headed into the living room, where the two women were loitering. They seemed to be looking or listening for something, and he guessed what it was. “I live alone,” he told them.
“Good,” the dark-haired woman said. “Foster, take a look around. See what you can find.”
Searle frowned. “Look around? What are ...?”
A fist swifter than any he had ever known connected with his stomach and doubled him over. The dark-haired woman looked down on him with disdain and he realised he had just made a terrible mistake. Perhaps even more of a mistake than what he and the guys had done a year ago.
He lay moaning on the floor. Thompson knew she had hit him hard, felt like she should have hit him harder. The guy was practically crying and she felt sure he was one of those who would be peeing himself by the end of her interrogation. Looking down upon him, Thompson felt no pity whatsoever. Jack Searle was a monster of the lowest order and he deserved everything coming to him. In her time serving WetFish, Thompson had associated with a lot of criminals, and it had always been the people who hurt children she hated the most. Presently she was changing her opinion very quickly indeed.
“Make sure the door’s properly locked,” she told Foster. “And the place is empty,” she added when Foster was halfway out. Foster was not a field agent. She was a numbers person, and she was good at psychology, which was why she was always useful to turn to for speedy information. But Foster flinched at the punches, choked at the blood and would likely faint if she was ever in an officer’s presence when they actually killed someone. Thompson did not know whether Foster had ever seen a dead body before, but if she didn’t like it there was always a toilet somewhere in the flat where she could throw up her guts.
Thompson grabbed hold of Searle and dragged him into the armchair. His eyes showed confusion more so than fear, so she belted him across the face with the intent to change that. He tried to speak, and she hit him again. “You answer questions,” she told him. “I don’t want to have to suffer your voice more than I have to, do you understand?” She paused. “That was a question.”
“Yes.”
“Good.” She found a wooden chair and turned it about so she could sit on it with her arms resting across the back before her. Her eyes were narrowed as they examined Searle. He did not appear interested in making a run for it, or of trying to find a weapon with which to fight back. Thompson had expected the six men she was after to be boisterous apes, but she had selected Searle as her beginning for a reason. He was the loosest cog in the group’s hate machine, the one least likely to venture his own opinion or to question the wishes of the others. She could use him. That was, if she managed to resist killing him first.
They sat there for several minutes in complete silence, Thompson never taking her eyes off him. Finally Foster returned and said, “Everything’s secure.”
“Good. Want to take a seat, Foster? This may take a while.”
“I, uh ...”
Thompson’s gaze slowly drifted across to Foster. Foster shut up and silently located a seat some way off to the side, out of the way. Thompson was beginning to wonder whether her little joke about Foster earlier wasn’t that far off.
“I think you know why we’re here,” Thompson told Searle.
“Smith.”
“That wasn’t a question,” Thompson told him. She slowly withdrew something from her boot, and watched as Searle’s eyes widened in abject horror. The knife had been given to her by an old friend, for her sixteenth birthday present. It was taken from an old World War Two bayonet, the M1 M1905E1. The blade was short enough to conceal in her boot, long enough to cause enough damage to count. The handle was thin and Thompson had added a rubber grip to it. Whilst wearing her biker’s gloves it made certain she never lost her hold upon it. It had always been her most treasured possession, from the man she had most looked up to in her whole life. She did not use it often, and when she did it was more for intimidation than causing actual harm, but when she did she liked to think Dan was looking down upon her. Whether he was proud of her achievements she could not say, but she was doing her best in a country that didn’t want to help itself, so sacrifices had to be made. Morality, she had been taught, was always the first thing to go.
“A year ago, six people put a man in hospital,” Thomson said slowly. “That man still hasn’t woken up. His killers walked away from court last week. Tell me, Jack, do you think that’s fair?” She pointed the knife at him, as though to indicate he should speak. “That was a question, by the way.”
Searle tried to speak, but his throat was dry. He coughed, licked his lips unconsciously, and said, “What do you want from me?”
“Answers a question with a question,” Thompson said airily. “That won’t do.”
“Are you going to kill me?”
Thompson kissed his throat with the blade, drawing it slowly up to his chin. All the while she had not moved from her seat. She stared deep into his eyes. He had set his jaw firm, trying desperately not to move, although his entire body was shaking. She knew if she didn’t say something soon the whole room was indeed going to stink of urine, and that was something she could have sorely done without.
“I spoke with Lorenzo this morning,” she said. “You do know who Lorenzo is, right?”
She waited for a response and Searle nodded his head. She was even good enough not to cut him while he did so.
“He’s a mite upset,” Thompson continued. “Now, I don’t know Lorenzo, and I don’t know Smith. Not well anyway. My point is that there’s no reason to go after either of them because they don’t know I’m here.” She liked to plant a seed in his mind that there was a chance she would not be killing him after all. “There were five other men involved in the attack, Searle. I want them. Are you willing to help me get them?”
“Larry,” Searle said. “Larry and Harry Jones, Dick Porter ...”
“I know their names, Searle,” Thompson sighed. “Unlike some people, I don’t go around beating up random people. I actually do my research so I can go and beat up specific people. Let’s start with the twins, because they’re the worst. How could I get to Larry and Harry Jones?”
She could see Searle’s mind working frantically. “The hang out at the Red Lion.”
“Yeah, I know that. That research I mentioned? OK, look, this isn’t working is it?” She sighed, rising from her chair. “Looks like I’m going to have to just slit your throat and figure out a way to go after the others myself.”
“No!” Searle cried as Thompson grabbed him by the shirt, pressing the knife against his cheek.
“No?” she asked. She had expected to revel in the man’s fear, but Jack Searle was pathetic. No matter how much research Thompson had done on these six men, she had known
she would not actually know them until she came face to face with them. But now that she was holding Searle at knifepoint she realised how much of a waste of human life he was. It wasn’t that he was beneath her killing him, it was just that she wondered why his mother hadn’t done it when he was born.
“I can help,” Searle all but wailed. He turned terrified eyes upon Foster, as though she was liable to jump in and save him. “Please! I can help you.”
“I don’t know,” Thompson said, wrinkling her nose. “I really was looking forward to killing you, Searle. It’d have to be a big lot of help to stop me doing that.”
“What do you want? Whatever you want, I can do. Please!”
And something inside of Thompson just snapped. She hurled him across the room and he fell crashing through a table. “Is that the look Smith gave you when you were pounding his head in?” She leaped upon him, pummelling his face. Blood flew in the air in wide arcs, soaked through Thompson’s biker gloves, but she hardly even noticed. “Is that how he pleaded for his life when you six big strong men pushed him to the ground?” She dragged him to his unsteady feet just to throw him over her shoulder to smack against the floor. Thompson’s knee came down upon his chest, her knife held horizontally beneath his chin. Thompson’s heart was pounding, her breath was ragged, her control gone; and as she looked at the crying, bleeding, broken form of Jack Searle a part of her wanted to throw the entire department to hell and go after these six men herself. It would mean publicity, the end of WetFish, and the loss of any respect Sanders had for her. He had given her a long leash already on the trust that she could handle it.
It wasn’t fair to throw that trust back in his face.
She stood straight once more, shoving her knife back into her boot. When she spoke it was deadpan, her eyes staring trembling daggers of hatred into her enemy. “You will arrange a meeting. I’ll give you the time and address. You will contact the others and get them in one place at one time. And then you will attend said meeting and do precisely as I tell you. Do you understand?”
Searle nodded, bleeding into the carpet.
Thompson took out a notebook and scribbled the details before tearing out the page and dropping it on the broken man. She somehow resisted the urge to kick him. Foster preceding her, Thompson closed the door quietly. It would not do to disturb the neighbours.
CHAPTER FOUR
“If you don’t mind my saying so, Jen, I think you’re taking all this a little too personally.”
Thompson stopped so abruptly Foster almost collided with her. They had made it back to the street, where Thompson’s bike was parked. Foster had wanted to take a car, but Thompson would have only ended up throwing her out the window. Thompson turned to the other woman with a sturdy expression, willing to hear her out. “What?” The bark in her voice told them both what a lie that thought was.
“Well, I know you’re assigned to arrest them or kill them or whatever, but you don’t have to be so angry about it all the time.”
Thompson’s eyes narrowed. She wondered briefly whether Foster was pushing her for a reason, or whether she was just dense. “When I want your opinion, Detective, I’ll ask for it. So if you don’t have anything constructive to say, just keep your trap shut.” Thompson turned back to her bike and wrenched the helmet loose to put over her head.
“I’m not one of your perps, Jen,” Foster was raging. “You can’t just beat me up and push me to the side whenever I say something you don’t like.”
“No, but I might knife you in your stupid face if you don’t shut up.”
Foster was taken aback and even Thompson didn’t know why she had said that. The two women were on the same side, after the same goals. There was no reason to treat Foster like dirt, but there was also no way Thompson was willing to apologise for having done so. Thompson grunted as she mounted the bike. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“That an apology?”
“You prefer to walk?”
“Maybe I do.”
Thompson shook her head sourly. “Suit yourself.” And she took off. If Foster shouted anything after her she did not hear it. Nor did she really much care.
Thompson revelled in the wind and the sun as they battered her, and she allowed herself to forget about Searle and Foster and anyone else. Thompson could not say why she was getting so angry about this case but was thankful Foster had not simply put it down to her own sexual persuasion. Thompson made no secret of who she was and how she chose to live her life and didn’t care what people thought of her. In the main she found no one cared quite as much as everyone expected them to. There were a few idiots, but then there were always a few idiots. She often wondered what her life would have been like had she been born fifty or a hundred years earlier. During her youth she had fantasised about living in a large stately home, having to hide her secret affairs with the scullery maids in case her disapproving family should ever find out about her.
She shook the memory away. It had been a long time since she had even entertained that particular fantasy. In her youthful dreams she had been living her life on the edge, ever courting social disaster. Reality, as always, was a far crueller mistress.
The bunker was not far away when she sighted someone familiar and she slowed her bike to get a look at what he was doing. Charles Baronaire looked more uncomfortable than she had ever seen him. He was sitting on a stool in the middle of the street while two middle-aged women bustled about him with powders and make-up. Baronaire had more than once expressed a strong dislike for women who wore cosmetics and the thought of such being applied to Baronaire made Thompson smile. There were various other people hanging around, some with heavy equipment. Two men notably carried portable cameras, although they didn’t look very portable to Thompson.
She pulled up and parked, entirely ignoring the protestations of the various people around her.
“You forgot to give him a red nose that honks,” she shouted across to the make-up girls. “And big slippers.”
Baronaire scowled as Thompson dismounted, removing her helmet to stride over to him. “This is ridiculous,” he said, stifling a sneeze.
“It’s not ridiculous, Detective,” a young woman replied tersely, standing opposite him and tapping her feet impatiently. “You were too pale for the cameras. They would’ve made you look like a walking corpse.”
Thompson regarded the other woman then. She was a little on the thin side, but wore her natural blonde hair long and straight. Her features were a little pinched for Thompson’s tastes, but introduce a couple of laughter lines and Thompson would certainly clear her schedule for her.
“What?” the woman barked and Thompson realised she had been staring.
“Detective Thompson,” she said, extending a hand. “I work with Baronaire.”
The woman shook the proffered hand unconsciously. Her mind was clearly on the shoot, which did not seem to be going so well. “Maybe you can talk some sense into him then,” the woman said.
“Sure,” Thompson smiled. “For a name maybe?”
The woman appeared annoyed, but then realised what Thompson meant. “Sorry, you’re right. Laura. Laura Matheson. I’m the presenter who’s supposed to be shadowing Detective Baronaire, but we don’t seem to be doing much of that.”
“Detective Baronaire,” Thompson mused. “Well, a mighty fine shadow he casts, I’m sure.” Both women looked then, although Baronaire did not seem to cast a shadow at all, which was curious. Thompson shook her head. The day she was having, even the sun was playing with her mind.
“Help?” Baronaire asked.
“Sorry, Baronaire, work to do.” Thompson threw her helmet back on. “But play nice with the lady, will ya? And try to make her smile a bit.”
As Thompson started up her bike once more she heard Matheson say to Baronaire, “What did she mean by that?”
Baronaire closed his eyes as eyeliner was applied. “That she fancies her chances.”
“With what?”
“With you,
dear.”
The look of revulsion on the woman’s face was the last thing Thompson saw as she drove off. She could have been angry at the sight, but Thompson was not an angry person. It was strange that a lot of people thought she was, while in truth she had passed angry a long time ago. But she was not taking up any causes, was not out to change the world. Right now all she wanted was to be left alone. That would have been more than enough for her.
Besides, she knew Baronaire’s scathing remark back to Matheson would have been far better worded than anything Thompson herself could have come up with. She smiled as she drove. If there was one person in the whole country who had her back, it was Charles Baronaire.
She pulled into the bunker, glad to be back on familiar territory. She had a few hours before she had to meet with Searle again and intended to get some of the paperwork done now so she could just go to bed once the six men were dealt with. She should have perhaps been trailing Searle, but there wasn’t much harm he could do. He didn’t know her name, or even that she was a detective. The worst he could do was make a run for it, and if he was that unreliable there was very little she could use him for anyway. And if he did run, it would only make her job of getting the other five together all that much easier.
“That was fast.”
She had only just sat at her desk when Sanders appeared from nowhere. He wore a bland expression, which was not unusual for him, although she sensed immediately it meant this time he was hiding something. “Going out again later,” she told him. “I’m letting things stew for a while.”
Sanders made a show of looking around. “No Foster?”
“She wanted to make her own way back,” Thompson replied, keeping her head down in her papers.
“You didn’t abandon her then?”
Thompson sighed, pushed back in her chair. “I take it she’s called in, accusing me of all manner of things.”
“No. Haven’t heard a peep out of her. I just know what you’re like, Detective.”