by Andy Maslen
She read on, dry-eyed, the background burble of the exhibits room gradually fading to silence, as the pathologist detailed the tissue damage, both external and internal that had occurred, as she put it, ante-, peri- and post-mortem. Before, while, and after she died.
Stella wiped her hand across her forehead. It was clammy to the touch. Her stomach had tightened to a hard, painful knot. Her teeth, and the muscles of her jaws that were clenching them against each other, were aching.
Reaching out with a trembling hand, she clicked the mouse to close the file. She logged out. She stood, walked out of the exhibits room to the ladies’ toilets. Entered a stall. And vomited into the commode. She flushed, then she sat for a while, focusing her energy on not screaming.
When she emerged, she had decided what she was going to do.
First, she would track down her family’s real killer.
Then she would look him in the eye as she inflicted intense pain upon him. The kind that came from being burnt alive, for example.
Finally, she would kill him.
Which meant she would need equipment.
The preliminaries could be handled using the sorts of items one could purchase quite legally in kitchen shops and DIY sheds. They could wait until the weekend.
But there was one item that would be better procured at work.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Suffer the Little Children
ALTHOUGH SHE’D NEVER participated in one of the Met’s long-term undercover operations, Stella was friendly with plenty of coppers who had. The aim was usually to infiltrate a pressure group and gather intelligence, though the odd crossover outfit distributing leaflets in shopping centres during the day and bombing research labs at night might also be a target. The trouble was, the animal rights people, the greens, the anarchists were getting smart and running the kind of background checks on willing new converts that wouldn’t look amiss inside the shadowier organs of government.
The old, “just call me John” routine didn’t work anymore. You had to have a full ID workup, from birth certificate on to driving licence and passport. And the method of doing it was now taught in the force. Anyone who’d read some of the old sixties spy books would know of it, but that didn’t mean it didn’t work. Plus, being the cops, you found that the wheels of state ground rather faster than they would for some freelance assassin.
Before she went any further with her hardware, Stella wanted something else badly. Something she felt she could use to stay hidden.
The morning after reading Lola’s autopsy report, she spent thirty minutes Googling country churches in Hertfordshire. Then she took her bike out, heading for the M1 motorway. After an hour’s ride north, she took the slip road at Junction 10 and made her way into the countryside.
The first five churches she visited had plenty of graves, but none that would serve her purpose. Flashing along a lane lined with hawthorn hedges and enjoying the sensation of the Triumph’s weight shifting beneath her as she negotiated the alternating left- and right-hand bends, she made her way to a long, strung-out village called Offley, not far from Luton Airport
Leaving her bike parked under a walnut tree at the edge of the single-track road leading through the village, she made her way to the church: St Mary Magdalene. It was secluded, with a large graveyard. The tower of the church was red brick and appeared to be much newer than the flint and exposed wooden beams that comprised most of the rest of the building. One end featured a curious, blank-walled stone box with crenellations and four small turrets at the corners, as if a child had built a castle for her knights and forgotten the windows.
Stella hadn’t come for the architecture, however, but for the graves. One grave in particular. She hadn’t found it yet, and she didn’t know who’d be buried beneath the sod, but she’d know it when she saw it.
In a corner of the churchyard, birds were singing in a tumbledown apple tree that had partially collapsed under the weight of its own branches. Poking around among the mottled and lichen-speckled gravestones, Stella felt the hairs on the back of her neck erecting. Something flickered on the very edge of her peripheral vision, and she whirled away from the tall, grey stone she’d been inspecting. But there was nothing to see. Just graveyard jitters, Stel. Let’s keep looking, shall we? The sun had come out from behind a cloud and its warmth penetrated Stella’s bike jacket, heating her back and bringing a light sweat to her brow and top lip.
After twenty minutes, she still hadn’t found the child’s grave. She was sitting on an old tree stump, drinking from a metallic purple water bottle she’d packed in her daysack and closing her eyes against the sun, when a light cough made her look up with a jerk.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” The speaker was a slim young man in a tweed jacket and jeans, with a cleric’s black shirt and dog collar. He extended his hand. “I’m sorry I startled you. My name’s Luke, appropriately enough. Luke Terry. I’m the vicar here at St Mary Magdalene.”
Stella took the vicar’s hand reflexively and shook it, noting his dry palm and strong grip. No bookworm, this priest; must be one of those muscular Christians she kept reading about.
“It’s my name too,” she said. “Mary, I mean, not Luke.”
He smiled. “Are you here doing genealogical research? We get quite a few people here now that tracing family trees has become so popular, what with the shows on TV and so forth.”
She shook her head and reeled off the speech she’d prepared, just in case. “I’m a researcher for a production company, well, a location scout, really. We’re making a film where a character loses a child in infancy and we need a gravestone. I don’t suppose you have any, um, you know–”
“It’s OK,” the vicar said, “you can say it. Dead children here? They’re with our Lord now, and I’m sure He will ensure their ears aren’t burning. As a matter of fact, there are one or two of the poor little souls buried here. Come with me, I’ll show you.” He stuck his hands in his pockets, rucking up the jacket at the back, and strode off.
Stella walked behind the vicar, admiring the curve of his backside in the jeans as he took her between two rows of stones towards the corner with the apple tree. He stopped and pointed at a low, square stone in polished black granite, the inscription carved with sharp edges and picked out in gold paint.
“Here’s one of our little guests,” he said. “She died just a few years ago. Meningitis. Terrible thing. We saw her at Messy Church the previous Sunday, and she was gone by teatime the following Tuesday.
Already dismissing this gravestone as not fit for purpose, Stella felt a show of emotion of some kind was called for, and knelt in front of the grave marker to read out the few words carved there.
“Tallulah Harriet Foster, 18 July 2004 to 6 September 2005. Taken from us too soon. Safe with Jesus.” She stood, brushing a few crumbs of mud from her knees. “Poor baby.”
Then, as if hit by a storm, Stella’s knees buckled and she collapsed to the ground. “Oh, my poor baby,” she cried out. “You were taken too soon. Much, much too soon.” Sobbing, she leant forward to cradle the hard granite in her arms, resting her cheek against the cool stone.
For a while, she stayed there, until her sobs subsided into a soundless heaving before stopping altogether. She looked round. Luke was standing there, watching her. He held a folded white cotton handkerchief in his outstretched right hand.
“Here,” he said, his voice low and reassuring. “Take this.”
She took the handkerchief, wiped her eyes and blew her nose.
Getting to her feet she offered it back to him but he shook his head.
“Keep it.”
“I’m sorry. What must you think of me? I don’t normally go around bursting into tears at the graves of strangers.”
Instead of speaking, Luke took a step towards her and drew her right arm through his own. Then he did speak.
“Why don’t you come and have a cup of tea with me inside? There’s nobody about, so we won’t be disturbed.”
Stella allowed herself to be led by this quiet, confident man into the cool interior of the church. She looked around at the wall hangings, the windows, the plaques set into the floor and the flowers at the altar.
“It’s very beautiful.”
“Thank you, but the true beauty of a church isn’t visible in its decor or the monuments to the great and the good. It’s present in the love that people share with each other and with God. Now, here we are, the vestry. Or, as my wife likes to call it, Luke’s lair. He put air quotes around the name, though Stella thought it barely warranted the emphasis.
The little room was painted in a nondescript shade of institutional pale green. It had a simple clothes rack with some embroidered green, white and gold robes hanging from it. A desk and chair with a second chair for a visitor occupied one corner. And, on a small table beside two armchairs, a kettle, mugs, teapot and jars containing coffee granules and teabags.
Five minutes later, they were sitting opposite each other in the padded chairs, sipping some fairly awful instant coffee.
Noting her wince, Luke smiled. “I know. Hardly organic fair trade Kenyan estate-roasted, is it? So, let me ask you something, Mary. Have you lost someone yourself recently? A child?”
She was about to deny it, but the fleeting sense of having been observed in the churchyard when she arrived, coupled with the evidence of her obvious distress, made her change her mind. She nodded.
“My daughter. A year ago. She was five months old. It was a hit and run driver. Didn’t stop.”
“I am sorry for your loss, truly, I am. Our daughter is only a year old, and I try not to worry when she’s not with me, but it’s hard. Did they ever catch the person who did it? The police, I mean. Prosecute someone?”
Stella took another sip of the coffee.
“No. Not really.”
“Not really?”
“We’re still looking at the case.”
Luke frowned. “We?”
“They, I mean. I said we because, you know, I’m helping them. Pushing them. Keeping them focused. You know how it is. Look, I don't want to take up any more of your time. Didn’t you say you had two children buried here?”
Luke put his mug down on the table.
“Yes, I did. If you’re sure you’re OK?”
“Yes. Thank you. I’m fine.”
The grave was knee-high. A weathered golden-grey stone of some kind with an angel carved in relief at the top. No metallic paint this time, just plain letters carved into its smooth, flat front.
Jennifer Amy Stadden
b. 5 January 1978
d. 20 April 1980
“Suffer the little children to come unto me.”
“Car crash,” Luke said.
“Pardon?”
“Jennifer died in a car crash. Her mother had been drinking. It was before my time, but my predecessor knew the family and spent some time bringing me up to speed, as they say, with all the stories of the parish.”
“Would you mind if I took a photo, for our director?”
“Be my guest,” Luke said, spreading his hands wide. “As I said, where Jennifer’s gone, no harm can ever come to her again.”
Stella tapped her phone’s screen a few times, making sure that the dates were properly in focus.
“Thank you. Luke,” she said. “For the coffee and, you know…”
“I hope you find peace,” he said. “God bless.” Then with a soft, sad smile, he turned and walked back to the church.
Stella was back at Paddington Green ninety minutes later, calling the official police liaison at the General Register Office, the government department that deals with issuing copies of birth, marriage and death certificates. She explained what she wanted and read out the details of her soon-to-be alter ego, Jennifer Amy Stadden.
The woman at the other end told her it would take a few days to order up and print the birth certificate and did she, Stella, know that she’d have to contact the Passport Office direct for the passport and the Department of Transport for the driving licence? Stella confirmed that she did.
With the documentation for her new identity now being assembled, Stella refocused on the next, and most difficult, phase of her campaign.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Armoury Tour
THE FOLLOWING DAY, Stella took up a position in the ground-level car park at the rear of the station at 10.30 a.m. From her vantage point sitting on a low wall, she could see the rear door of the armoury. She lit a cigarette and waited. Ten minutes passed. Then another ten. She consulted her watch. Ten to eleven. She’d give it another ten minutes then leave it till after lunch. The nice-looking assistant armourer, an ex-soldier called Nick Probert, had told her that his boss, Danny Hutchings, usually took a cigarette break sometime around ten forty-five. “Regular as clockwork,” he’d said after they’d been chatting in the canteen a week or so earlier. “Likes to beat the crowd.”
Now she perched on the wall, watching the steel reinforced door for any sign of movement. Finally, it swung outward and Hutchings emerged. He looked left and right, then saw Stella and strolled over.
“Hi. I’m Danny. Haven’t seen you on smokers’ corner before,” he said, by way of greeting, his accent from somewhere in south Wales.
Stella offered him one of her Marlboros. He took the proffered cigarette and, as she clicked her lighter for him, steadied her hand with his own before drawing in a lungful of smoke then releasing it upwards in a long plume.
“God, that tastes good,” he said. “Thanks.”
Stella lit another cigarette for herself. “I’m Stella. Cole. I’m a DI on the Murder Squad, but I’ve been on compassionate leave for a year.”
He looked into her eyes, brow furrowing. “You the one who lost her family in that FATACC?”
She nodded, hissing out smoke between her teeth. “That’s me.”
“I’m sorry. You’d just left when I took up my post. Everybody was talking about it. They got the guy though, didn’t they?”
She wrinkled her nose, deciding in a flash not to reveal what she now knew. “They did. A little toerag called Edwin Deacon. But it was only death by careless driving. It should have been death-by-dangerous, at the very least.”
“That’s not right, that isn’t. I mean, just because the bastard was behind the wheel. If he’d used a handgun or something, well, that’s game over right there.” He blushed. “Oh, God, sorry. That was gold medal insensitive.”
She offered a small smile. “Don’t worry, Danny. People have said worse. Anyway, it’s a long story, and we’ve only just met. How about you? How did you get here?” Hutchings smiled and pushed up his left shirtsleeve to reveal a tattoo: a laurel wreath surrounding Saint George and the dragon, with a crown and plume at the top.
“What’s that? A regimental crest?” Stella asked.
“Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. I was a sergeant. Bloody loved it too, I did. Iraq, Afghanistan, Belfast, Germany, Kosovo. I went all over. But after the financial crisis, the army had to make another round of cuts, and suddenly I got my papers. Redundancy, just like I was some bloody metal basher in a factory somewhere.” He took another long drag on his cigarette. “Didn’t fancy private work like a lot of the boys go into, so I applied to the Met. This job came up, and I walked it. Don’t get to shoot any of them. The guns, I mean, except for test-firing and a bit of training from time to time. But I’d rather work with weapons than anything else, so it could be worse, you know? Even if I do have an audit every six weeks. Just a glorified storeman at that time, I can tell you.”
“Do you know what they’ve got me doing?” Stella asked, moving an inch or two closer.
“What’s that?”
“Filing. I’m on the admin task force. I’d sooner be counting bullets for you than scanning in old witness statements.”
He smiled at this. “Any time you fancy a tour, just let me know.”
She checked her watch, though there was nobody in the exhibits room to monitor her comings and goi
ngs. “How about now?”
He looked over his shoulder at the steel door to the armoury, then back at Stella, smiling broadly. He winked. “Why not? Come on.”
She pushed off from the wall and followed him in.
Inside, she watched as he waggled his laminated plastic ID at a control panel to the left of the access door that led to the inner area of the armoury.
“Okay, so this is the sign-in/sign-out area, where you lot come and pick up and return your weapons. You ever draw a weapon on duty, Stella?”
“I did a firearms rotation, but nowadays I let SCO19 do all the shooting.”
“Probably very wise. Anyway, you come here and swipe your ID. That registers on our system what you’ve taken out. You always have to get it countersigned by two armourers, so me plus one of my assistants. Then, at the end of the shift or whenever you’re finished with it, you hand it back, swipe your ID again and then it’s on the computer that we have it, not you.”
Hutchings pointed at a large steel box mounted on a wooden table. The box had a steel pipe about two inches in diameter protruding from the top at a forty-five-degree angle. “Any idea what that is?”
She shrugged. It’s the clearing box. I just told you I did a forearms rotation. Weren’t you listening? “None. Surprise me.”
“Clearing box. Full of sand. You stick the barrel of your Glock or whatever into the pipe, then work the slide twice to ensure there are no rounds left in the chamber after you’ve dropped out the mag.”
“Does anyone ever forget?”
He laughed, a warm sound that reminded her of Richard for a split second.
“Had a new DS just a couple of weeks ago. Forgot to clear his weapon and had his finger over the trigger. Fucking idiot discharged a Glock 17 in here. Everybody hit the deck while a nine-mil hollow point goes ricocheting off the floor.”
“Loud?”
“Loud? You’ve been on the range, right?” Stella nodded. “They’re loud out there, okay? So, imagine it in a room this size with no acoustic deadening furniture or fabrics. Bloody deafening, it was.”