by Adam Carter
“It doesn’t really matter what day you end up celebrating it,” Jeremiah said. “Jesus wasn’t even born in December, you know.”
“Gee, told you that did he?”
“Hey, if I knew him I’m sure I’d’ve come up with a better nickname than Gee.”
This was one of those times Lin chose to ignore him. They had arrived at their destination anyway and as she parked the car Lin retrieved her gloves and made sure her coat was done up before she even thought about opening the door. She worked slowly, waiting for Jeremiah to notice something. He was so lost in whatever he was thinking about that he didn’t realise until they had both stepped back out into the cold. Lin saw her breath flow from her freezing lips the instant she was back out into the cold, her final breath screaming to be allowed back inside her body where it was warm.
“This isn’t where we’re supposed to be,” Jeremiah noted.
“Nope.”
They were meant to be checking out all the known locations for their quarry, but on the way over Lin had had a sudden idea. There were eyes and ears all over the streets of London and instead of running around after someone they were not liable to catch, Lin felt it best to actually start asking people. Hugging herself tight, Lin approached the door to the building and knocked soundly. Jeremiah hung back, keeping a lookout, although she couldn’t think why.
After a few minutes Lin saw movement behind the glass and the door opened to reveal a woman of about fifty years. She was short, sour-looking, but well-tempered enough. She was tucked up in a dressing gown which was not standing the cold well now the door was open, and her eyes were bleary with sleep.
“Sorry, Hilary,” Lin said. “It’s kind of an emergency.”
The woman sighed, eyed Jeremiah behind her, who offered a mischievous wave, and said, “You’d best come inside, you’re letting in the cold.”
Lin wiped her shoes on the rug, thankful that Jeremiah closed the door quickly after him. The room they were in was large, bearing several tables and seating areas. Lin seldom went there, but it was always a good place to get information. It was a shelter for runaways and organised by a woman named Laurenson. Laurenson likely had family to spend the holidays with because Hilary Duck was the person in charge that night.
There were people in London who denied the existence of runaways, thought that all orphaned or problem children found their way to foster homes. But often the problem wasn’t with the children, but the parents, and if kids repeatedly ran away from foster homes, pretty soon people stopped looking for them. There were so many children who needed help it was seen as a priority to help those who actually wanted it. It was a sad admission even people in the business had to accept, and Lin tended to avoid places like this if only so she could sleep at night.
But she had gleaned some good leads from this place before, and if there was someone on the street killing people at the very least the kids needed to be warned.
Lin took a seat and saw Duck coming out bearing a tray of steaming tea. Lin gratefully wrapped her hands about the hot mug, noted Jeremiah’s polite acceptance of the drink although he set it down and promptly forgot about it. Duck herself waddled off to find a seat of her own (and Lin felt bad for even thinking that), and with a big sigh which told the detective she knew she wasn’t getting any more sleep tonight said, “What can we do for you?”
“Peter Welles,” Jeremiah said without preamble. “We just found another of his victims not five minutes’ drive from here.”
“Are the kids all in?” Lin asked.
“Tucked up safe and sound,” Duck said, glancing nervously to the door which led to the stairs. When she spoke next it was with a lower voice. “And I’d appreciate you not scaring them, Detective. They know the dangers out there and they’re careful. If this crazy guy wants to kill them he’ll do it whatever precautions they take.”
“True enough,” Jeremiah said, and Lin felt a pang of anger that he agreed so readily with her request, even though runaways were not, so far as they were aware, in Welles’s sights. “And it is Christmas,” he added. “Let the little tykes live their fairy tale lives.”
Hilary Duck fixed him with a somewhat baleful glower. “I don’t think any of the children here live fairy tale lives, Mr Jeremiah. It’s why they’re here.”
“They’re here,” Jeremiah said, a wry smile tearing the corners of his mouth, “because they don’t fancy facing the realities of the real world.”
“If you talked to them for five minutes, you wouldn’t be saying that.”
“Why would I want to talk to them at all?” Jeremiah asked. “Plenty of time for that when they’re arrested for burglary or drug abuse.”
“Anyway,” Lin said, “back to Welles. Hilary, have you seen anything? Have any of the kids mentioned him at all? Mentioned anything unusual out there?”
“No,” Duck replied, her angry eyes turning now to Lin, although some of that was dissipating. Lin made a mental note to thank Jeremiah later for stirring up the middle-aged woman so.
“Welles is planning something big for today,” Lin pressed on. “We know he’s looking for a big hit, we just don’t know what he’s going to do. Please, Hilary, we need some help here.”
Duck looked away, and Lin felt her pleading had finally got through. It wasn’t even as though Lin was faking her desperation: they literally had nothing to show for all their efforts and Welles had publicised that something bad was going to happen that day. Finally the rotund woman looked back to Lin and the detective could see she had relented. “I’ll talk to the kids in the morning. The proper morning I mean. When they wake up.”
“We couldn’t talk to them now?” Jeremiah asked. “So we don’t have to bother coming back?”
“In the morning,” Duck said sharply, her eyes narrowing at him once more. “And if any of them know anything,” she said to Lin, “I’ll call you. There’s no need for either of you to come back unless it’s to distribute presents to the kids.”
Jeremiah grunted at the very thought and headed for the door. “Thank you,” Lin said, rising and reluctantly setting down the still-warm mug. “I’m sorry to bother you, Hilary, but we really have nowhere else to turn.”
“It’s what this place is for,” Duck said, although any good cheer the woman may have had had been summarily destroyed by Jeremiah’s inane rudeness.
The cold hit Lin once she was back on the street, and she pulled her coat up to protect her neck for even the short walk back to the car.
Jeremiah was sulking by the looks of things, kicking at stones and muttering to himself.
“What was all that about?” she asked as she reached the car.
“What?”
“Back there? What’s with you, man?”
“Lin, there are two things I don’t like. Charity and mollycoddling. And that place stands for both those things in spades. There are other centres in this city, better centres, where kids are taught life-skills, given a future, a purpose. People like that Duck woman run places like that because they feel sorry for kids who have a bad time. I don’t feel sorry for kids – I don’t feel sorry for anyone. You have the wrong attitude running these centres and yes the kids will end up in prison.”
“So what would you suggest instead? You say there are better centres in London; why are they better?”
“Because there’s a vast difference between giving kids a dosshouse and giving them an apprenticeship. We live in a nanny state, Lin. If we didn’t, our department wouldn’t be necessary.”
Lin was too tired to argue, and even agreed with him in principle. But, so far as she was concerned, so long as the kids were off the streets she was happy. Still, this was far from the time to debate such. She was cold and wanted to get this wrapped up so she could go write her report. Then maybe, for a change, she could get home before Christmas Day actually ended.
“Where do you think we should be looking then?” she asked. “If you’re so hot against any ideas I have.”
“I think w
e should make him come to us. And I have just the thing in mind.”
Lin didn’t like the way he smiled, but then Lin never liked the way he smiled. She knew she wasn’t going to like this one bit.
CHAPTER THREE
No one quite knew what problem Peter Welles had with the world. After his first murder the media had been all ablaze in their attempts to discover his motives, to dredge up every insignificant piece of his life which might have pushed him to the murder of a well-known drug dealer. Welles had been identified by several locals as the man who had pulled the trigger and there was no doubt of Welles’s guilt. A quiet man who was always willing to lend a hand to anyone who needed it, Welles had no family in the country and no close friends. He held a nine-to-five job in an office and spent his evenings in front of the television. One hobby he did seem to have was to attend regular council meetings discussing the growing problem of drugs in the neighbourhood. He regularly called the police whenever he saw a suspected dealer, but there had been very few arrests made.
It seemed Welles had one day snapped and taken the law into his own hands. Then he had disappeared.
Lin remembered the story well. As she had been reading it in the paper a while back she had an inkling this might end up in her department’s lap, even though this wasn’t in their official remit. Lin and Jeremiah belonged to a division of the London police known as Operation WetFish. A legal but highly unorthodox division, it was the duty of WetFish to clean up the mistakes of the courts. All their cases, however, had to have gone to court first. This guy Welles hadn’t even been caught yet, let alone tried for his crimes.
But Lin knew her DCI well. Detective Chief Inspector Edward Sanders was a man attempting to save his city from the human detriment determined to spread its grubby criminal tentacles. He was probably a good man at heart, he had good motives anyway. He should in fact have welcomed a vigilante roaming the streets taking out random drug dealers. Instead Sanders had reacted badly, wanting this man off the streets no matter what it took.
Lin had no idea how she was supposed to do this one quietly. And if there was one cardinal rule at WetFish it was never to step out of the shadows.
Since that first murder several more had taken place, and Welles’s M.O. was all over them. The police had gone to his house and found a cache of illegal firearms and enough ammunition to sink a battleship. There was ample evidence Welles had moved out, however, and if he had left so many firearms behind Lin could only imagine how many he actually had in his collection.
The dealer she and Jeremiah had found in that alleyway the previous night was only the latest, but there were strong rumours that Welles had something big planned for Christmas. Whatever that was, Sanders wanted it stopped. And he wanted it stopped immediately.
Still, she wasn’t quite convinced Jeremiah’s idea held much merit.
Welles had been a quiet man at work, but not necessarily an unpopular one. His generous nature bought him a few friends, although it seemed he was close to no one as such. However, there was one woman, Claire Pearce, who had known him better than anyone else at work and it was to her house they had driven at one o’clock Christmas morning. As Lin parked the car she could not help but wonder what they were even doing there.
“She’s already talked to the police,” Lin reminded Jeremiah. “If she knew anything about Welles that could help, she would have already told us.”
“We tried this your way, Detective, let’s see what my way gets us.”
Lin had to concede that was only fair, but doubted Pearce would appreciate being woken up so early for no actual reason. Lin started suddenly from where she was still sitting in the warm car; she had seen a downstairs curtain twitch.
“Not such a bad call after all then,” Jeremiah said, boldly approaching the door. Lin once more stepped into the cold and hastened to his side. The front door to the house was open before she even got there, and a slim woman of perhaps twenty-five years ushered them in. Lin was fumbling with her own identification card, although it seemed Jeremiah’s was sufficient for her, although Lin hadn’t seen him produce it.
Once inside Lin was growing warm again and Pearce led them to the living room, which was spacious, cosy in a single-woman sort of way, and above all warm. There was a gas fire made out to look like burning logs, and it was pumping flame at maximum. Lin desperately wanted to remove her gloves and socks and warm herself by the fire, but figured Pearce might find that a tad rude.
“He’s struck again hasn’t he?” Pearce asked, her hands shaking, her wide eyes almost teary.
“Another drug dealer,” Jeremiah told her. “Small-time dealer, no one important. This isn’t his big hit and we have to nail him before he makes it.”
“God, I can’t sleep for this,” Pearce said, sitting down so she didn’t just fall over. “I haven’t slept in two days, knowing he’s working up to something big today.”
Lin looked from one to the other and it suddenly dawned on her that there was a reason Pearce had let them in so easily.
“You know Jeremiah?” she asked in a tone colder than the air outside.
“I’ve been keeping an eye on Miss Pearce,” Jeremiah said. “In case Welles came back.”
“How chivalrous of you.”
Pearce, however, was too afraid to catch any of Lin’s condescension, and so long as Jeremiah feigned humanity there wasn’t much of a problem Lin could actually have with it. This case had only just been assigned to them and the rules of WetFish were you stayed out of other departments’ hair whenever you could. She figured Jeremiah may even have asked for the assignment, but that was ground she had no desire to tread at that moment.
The important thing was stopping Welles. She could handle Jeremiah later.
“Last time we spoke,” Jeremiah said, “you said he hadn’t tried to contact you. But there was something else.”
Pearce glanced to Lin, who raised her hands and said, “Hey, pretend I’m not here.”
“Pete was always a nice guy at the office,” Pearce said, “but sometimes he was too nice, yeah? I mean, not just to me specifically. He’d always make the tea run, that sort of thing. Would get moody if someone else ever did it. Like it was his job or something.”
“If he didn’t have much of a life outside of the office,” Lin suggested, “it was probably his way of trying to fit in. Buy friends and all. Sorry, forgot I wasn’t here. Carry on.”
“Pete liked things to be ordered, and he liked to be in control.”
“Which still doesn’t explain what made him go Punisher on the underworld,” Jeremiah said, trying to think it through but coming up blank. “He’s a control freak, we know that already, but you don’t start killing drug dealers just because you want to control people.”
“Maybe,” Lin said, “he thinks drugs control people, so he takes out the drugs? They’re his rival?”
Jeremiah shrugged. At least, Lin thought, he was listening to her now. Her theory made sense, but still didn’t explain why Welles had just snapped like he had. Unless he was using the drugs himself, and there had been no evidence found to support this back at his house. Everything had been clean and relatively tidy; the fridge had been stocked with pretty much healthy food, a few ready meals thrown in for good measure. In fact aside from the arsenal Lin got the impression there was nothing found at his house which would incriminate him in anything nuts. It didn’t change the fact he had gone whacko with his gun collection though.
“We’re missing something,” she said aloud. “Something big.”
“What we’re missing is Welles,” Jeremiah said. “We find him, it doesn’t really matter why he’s doing what he’s doing. Quite frankly I don’t much care the reasons, Lin. Claire, why was he all alone anyway? Didn’t he ever talk about friends outside of work?”
Pearce shook her head. “Never. And I know he didn’t have any family, because he told me one time.”
That was interesting, Lin thought, in that Welles did have a family, albeit a small one.
The only known relative was a sister, but she had disappeared years ago. There were indications she had moved to Australia, but none of the officers dealing with the case had been able to find anything concrete and Lin hadn’t herself chased the lead. If Welles was dismissing his sister’s existence it might prove useful.
“He knows I talked to the police,” Pearce said, bolting to her feet, more afraid now than ever. “He must be reading the papers, he knows I talked to you.”
Jeremiah smiled, laid a reassuring hand upon her shoulder. Lin almost believed he was genuine, but there was nothing genuine about Jeremiah. “Don’t worry, I’ve protected you this far haven’t I?”
Pearce stopped shaking, which was amazing from where Lin was looking, and when Jeremiah told her to take a deep breath she did so, and it was as though a wave of calm passed across her body. Jeremiah smiled, released her shoulder, and turned back to Lin. “We should get going.”
Lin blinked, stared at Pearce. Where only moments ago there had been a quivering wreck, there now stood a woman with defiance shining through her eyes. She had never taken Jeremiah to be an especially trustworthy man, but it seemed he was a master of inspiring confidence. Lin said goodbye to Pearce and the two officers showed themselves out.
“That was surprising,” she said to Jeremiah once they were back into the cold. “How’d you even do that?”
“Confidence, Lin,” he said as he moved round to the passenger side of the car.
It was true. He was the most confident man she had ever met. Opening the door, all Lin could really think about was being warm again, although as she pulled the door she saw a strange cord attached to the inside; a cord which she had just snapped.