Her Last Breath: The new crime thriller from the international bestseller (Sullivan and Mullins)

by Alison Belsham

  Please God, don’t let the killer have tattooed her yet.

  He ran on, following a system of always taking the left branch when the tunnels forked. He hit dead ends and retraced his steps, returning to the last junction to take the right-hand option instead. Every tunnel looked identical to every other one. The constant rush of the sewage, now bloated with gallons of rain, made it hard to think. He saw no glimmers of light, apart from his own torch. He switched it off at regular intervals to see if he could see signs of any other lights. The only sound he heard was that of his own feet running on brickwork and splashing through the stinking puddles. But gradually he realised that the sound of his footfall was being completely drowned out by the growing roar – the rain that was falling so heavily across the city was running down the drains into the sewers, swelling the volume exponentially.

  He stopped for a moment, out of breath. The tunnel he was in was narrow, and the slightly raised edge he was running along was close to the level of the rushing water. He wondered if it was still raining outside and how the system coped with such a prolonged downpour.

  ‘Liv? Can you hear me?’

  The only answer was the splosh of sewage slapping against the bricks.

  He carried on, wondering if Rory had managed to get a search party into the system. He was determined to find whoever had been down here and taken one of his men. And if the killer escaped them today, he would hunt him down relentlessly until justice was served.

  ‘Liv?’ he shouted. ‘Are you here?’

  He wondered how many entrances and exits the system had. He would need each one cordoned off until they were absolutely sure there was no one still down here.

  A noise up ahead in the tunnel startled him. A stone sliding against another stone. It might be nothing or it might be everything. He turned off his torch and tried to listen but the din of the water was too loud. He turned the light back on and kept going. He felt sure he could sense something ahead – the hairs on the back of his neck were rising.

  He carried on running in the direction of the sound.

  He very nearly missed it, but above his head he caught a brief flicker of light – then it was gone. He stopped in his tracks and shone his torch upwards. There was an iron ladder bolted to the wall a couple of feet back. He craned his neck to see where it led. A circular opening cut through the roof of the tunnel, a way out. Shoving his torch into his jacket pocket, he grabbed the bottom of the ladder and started climbing up the narrow chute.

  He could see no light above him and he was ascending in total darkness. The rungs were slimy and hard to grasp. The whole structure seemed shaky and he wasn’t convinced it would stay on the wall. He climbed as quickly as he dared and as quietly as he could, all the time listening for sounds above as the roar of the water diminished below him. But he couldn’t hear anything.

  After about fifteen feet, the chute widened and he stopped to get out his torch. A couple of feet above him, there was a metal hatch. Gripping his torch between his teeth, he stretched a hand up to push against the rusty opening. It gave way, opening a crack, through which he could see flickering light. The hatch was heavy, but by bracing his back against the wall of the chute and his feet on the ladder, he gained enough purchase to be able to push it up.

  The hatch opened, grinding on rusty hinges. Then, before he could stop it, it carried on back to fall with a clang onto a stone floor.

  Damn!

  He’d given himself away. If there was anyone up here, they knew he was coming. He stepped up another rung and put his head through the opening. Then he got one arm up onto the edge so he was able to shine the torch round the space he found himself in.

  The white beam of light played off stone walls and across the sides of sarcophagi.

  Francis knew this place.

  He was in the crypt of St Catherine’s.

  Footsteps sounded on stone beyond a doorway at the far end of the brick-vaulted space. Francis pushed himself up from the chute and onto the stone floor. He looked around. A black sports bag had been left in one corner, gaping open, and a cordless drill was lying on the floor next to it. Further along the same wall, on a low stone tomb, a tattooing iron and battery pack, a small glass bottle, bits and pieces . . .

  He swung the torch beam to the other side of the crypt, and his breath caught in his throat.

  Lying bound and facedown on a larger tomb was a young woman. At first, in the flickering light, Francis thought she was wearing jeans and a white top, but as he went towards her, he realised she was naked from the waist up. Her hair covered her face in dripping skeins and she was shivering violently.

  ‘Are you Liv Templeton?’

  62

  Saturday, 2 September 2017

  Alex

  Alex was furious. Beyond furious. They hadn’t gone more than a hundred yards down the tunnel when Rory turned back.

  ‘Where we going?’

  Rory hadn’t answered him. Instead, when they reached Angie, Rory unclipped his cuffs from his belt. Then he looked around until he found what he was looking for. A few yards up the tunnel there were the iron fittings for an old ladder. There were only the bottom three rungs – the rest was long gone.

  ‘Alex, come here.’

  ‘What the hell?’ said Alex.

  Rory had held the cuffs out. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he said. ‘But until things are totally clear . . .’ He gestured towards the metal framework on the wall.

  ‘No way, man,’ said Alex. ‘I haven’t done anything. I need to find Liv.’

  ‘I’m not giving you a choice,’ said Rory. ‘I don’t want to leave Angie down here on her own. Let me cuff you voluntarily. If you don’t, I’ll charge you with resisting arrest.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ said Alex, but he’d grudgingly held up one wrist.

  Now he wished he hadn’t complied so easily. He employed his full body weight to yank at the metal fixing he was handcuffed to but succeeded in doing nothing but grind the rusty metal against his wrist. He roared with pain and anger.

  ‘I didn’t do it. You need to let me go.’

  His scream echoed through the sewer, incoherent above the noise of the torrent less than three feet from where he was standing. Mackay was long since out of earshot and the policewoman seemed oblivious to his presence as she bent over her dead colleague. He tried again to wrench himself free, then kicked the brickwork of the tunnel in frustration.

  ‘Fuck!’

  Liv was somewhere down here and at the moment he could do nothing to help her. He didn’t trust the police to put her interests first. The man had killed an officer and Alex knew what that meant. They would be out to get him. They’d probably send armed police in after him and Liv would be caught in the shootout.

  ‘You!’ he shouted at the woman, desperate to make himself heard. ‘Hey!’

  She didn’t even look up. In the faint light of the torch that lay beside her on the ground, Alex could see that her shoulders were shaking. She was crying. He felt bad about that, but it wasn’t going to help Liv.

  There was a slight lull in the noise of the water and he tried again.

  ‘Hey, officer!’

  This time she heard him. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, then used her other hand to smudge the tears from her cheeks. She stood up ponderously, like a woman sleep walking. Alex watched her, willing her to come to him, to do the right thing. The noise level had risen again and when Alex looked down, he realised that the course of filthy water was creeping closer to where he was standing.

  The woman stood still, staring at him.

  Alex took a deep breath of the fetid air and pointed at the water. ‘You need to let me go. The level’s rising. I think we should get out of here.’

  She didn’t answer him but looked down at the body of her colleague. Raw sewage was lapping along the length of one of his legs. Finally she re
acted. But instead of coming to release Alex from the cuffs, she turned back to the dead policeman. She went to his head and inserted her hands under his shoulders. She tried to drag him clear of the encroaching water, but the floor was slippery and she couldn’t gain enough purchase. She skidded, a foot flew from under her and she sat down heavily, with one leg extending into the stinking channel.

  ‘Take these cuffs off me and I’ll help you,’ said Alex.

  She didn’t hear him, but struggled to her feet and made another attempt to move the body. This time she was marginally more successful, shifting her colleague almost a foot back from the edge of the flow. Then she stopped, overcome with emotion as she contemplated his dead form. Alex could tell she was crying again.

  ‘Please,’ he shouted. ‘We need to get out of here.’ He drummed his frustration on the wall with a fist. Liv needed him. He’d failed Tash – and now he was about to have another death on his hands. The fight drained from his body and he leaned against the brickwork, trying to keep his weight from tugging against his wrist. The smell was getting to him – he wanted to throw up. The water was rising faster now. He slid his feet back against the wall to avoid letting his trainers flood, but there was little more he could do if the volume of sewage continued to expand.

  In the distance, a sudden loud roar finally made the policewoman look his way. The noise was rushing towards them.

  ‘Undo me,’ shouted Alex. ‘There’s a surge coming.’

  She picked up the torch and came over. He recognised her from when he’d been in custody.

  ‘You’re Angie, aren’t you?’

  She nodded. ‘You’ve got to help me, Alex,’ she said. She put the torch on a ledge halfway up the sewer wall and rummaged in her pocket.

  ‘We need to get out now, or we could drown.’ It wasn’t the death he’d envisaged for himself.

  ‘We’re not leaving Tony.’

  ‘Tony?’

  She looked over at the body.

  Jesus.

  Alex bit his tongue. There was no point arguing with her until she’d released him, but there was no way he was risking his life over a dead copper. The sewage level had risen rapidly and was now lapping at his ankles. He could feel the strength of the current already tugging him downstream. Once freed, there would be nothing to hold onto and they’d have to battle their way upstream to the nearest escape ladder.

  Angie grabbed hold of him as she fought the onslaught. She still hadn’t found the keys, but she looked across to where Tony had been. His body was gone and she let out a cry of anguish.

  Pulling her hand out of her pocket, she lunged forward and grabbed at something in the black water. With a shriek of exertion, she pulled on it. She had the body by the foot and then, with superhuman effort, she dragged him back towards where Alex was still cuffed to the wall. She was soaked, head to toe, in sewage, and Alex could see her retching as she struggled with her colleague’s body.

  ‘Let me free and I’ll help you,’ he shouted.

  ‘I can’t let go of him,’ she said.

  ‘Pull him here and put him behind my legs,’ said Alex. ‘I’ll keep him steady while you undo me.’

  The water was halfway up his calves and the force was growing stronger. Angie was nearing exhaustion point and he was still trapped.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  Did she really still think he was the killer?

  More likely the woman was in shock and it was making her indecisive.

  ‘If you leave me here, I’ll drown.’ Alex could feel the sewage level creeping up his legs. He was starting to panic. He shut his eyes and counted to ten, willing Angie to do the right thing in the meantime.

  When he opened them again, she was pulling the body towards him. In the strong current of shit, piss and rainwater, she was making slow headway but, inch by inch, they were getting closer. Alex’s heart was in his mouth as he watched her battle with the flood – would she get to him before it became too much for her and knocked her off her feet? If that happened, he might as well give up hope.

  Seconds turned to minutes as she moved one way and was then tugged back just as far or further the other way.

  ‘You’re going to have to let him go,’ said Alex, but she couldn’t hear him.

  Finally, she was close enough and reached out to grab one of Alex’s legs. He braced it against the tunnel wall as she pulled Tony’s body closer. Once he was able to, he hooked his other leg over Tony’s torso and pressed the body back hard against the wall.

  ‘Now undo these bloody cuffs so we can get out of here.’

  Angie looked up at him blankly.

  ‘The keys . . .’

  ‘In your pocket,’ said Alex.

  Something inside her snapped awake.

  ‘Of course,’ she said. She put a hand in her pocket and drew it out again. Alex saw a glint of metal in her fingers and breathed a sigh of relief.

  But he breathed it too soon. A sudden surge took the water level above his waist. A heavy torrent of filth hit Angie in the small of her back. The breath was expelled from her lungs with a loud ‘Oomph!’ and she catapulted forward. Alex saw the handcuff keys fly from her hand, into the mire. She disappeared under the surface, arms flailing, then bobbed up again.

  Alex stuck out one of his legs as far as he could, desperately hoping she’d be able to reach for it. As he did so, the strong rush of filthy water snatched his other leg from under him, where he was pressing Tony against the wall. The body was swept away, crashing into Angie as she reached for Alex’s foot. He was left hanging by his wrist from the ironwork on the wall. Alone. And the sewage level was rising faster than ever.

  63

  Saturday, 2 September 2017

  Francis

  Francis untied Liv and gave her his jacket to put on. It was soaked with sewage but at least it would cover her and give her some warmth. The girl was in shock, and even when Francis had explained who he was, she continued to shake with fear.

  ‘You’re safe now, Liv.’

  She nodded but her eyes were blank.

  There was no question that he could leave her here on her own while he chased down her abductor, so he helped her to her feet and guided her towards the doorway at the far end of the crypt.

  ‘No,’ she said, stopping abruptly.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘That’s where he went – when he heard you coming.’

  ‘He won’t be there now, Liv. That leads up into the church, and he’s sure to be trying to put as much distance as he can between us.’

  Reluctantly and still shivering, she let him lead her up the steep stone steps that emerged against the south wall of the vestry. The church was dark and silent, so Francis switched on the lights in the small, cluttered room. It seemed mundane and homely, a world away from the events of the last hour.

  But things were far from over.

  He turned to Liv. She was clutching his jacket tightly across her chest and seemed to be waking from the stupor of shock.

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘I’m okay, I think. He hit me a couple of times.’ Francis could see the beginnings of a bruise forming at her hairline on the left side of her forehead.

  ‘He didn’t tattoo you?’

  She shook her head. ‘He was going to, but he heard you coming.’

  The girl’s back had looked untouched when Francis had found her. She’d had a lucky escape.

  Over the next five minutes he got busy on the phone, arranging for an ambulance and for a female police officer to come and take Liv’s statement. He instructed the duty sergeant at John Street to call Liv’s mother. He spoke to Rory briefly – the sergeant had organised all the available uniformed officers to search the sewers.

  ‘But, boss, there’s a problem. Southern Water have advised me to get everyone out – the sewage leve
ls have been swollen by the rainwater. They’re dangerously high and a lot of the tunnels will become impassable. I’ve put out the order to evacuate.’

  ‘Quite right. What about Angie?’

  ‘I’ve sent a team in for her.’

  ‘And Tony?’

  There was a long pause. ‘They’ll bring the body out too.’

  ‘Shit.’ Angie and Tony. He should never have sent them down there. ‘Get everyone out of there now.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Did you leave Mullins at the station?’

  ‘No, I left him with Angie, so she wouldn’t be alone.’

  ‘What?’ Francis bit back an expletive. ‘I told you to take him in. D’you think he stayed with her? He’s desperate to find Liv.’

  ‘I cuffed him to the wall.’

  This time Francis couldn’t restrain himself. ‘Jesus Christ, Rory. The water’s rising fast. If the rescue team doesn’t get there in time . . .’

  There was silence at the other end of the line.

  ‘Fuck!’

  ‘Sorry, boss.’

  ‘We don’t have time now. We’ll talk about it later. The killer escaped through St Catherine’s, so organise a city-wide search. I’ll try and get a description of the man from Liv.’

  He couldn’t afford to stay here and wait for the ambulance. He needed to be coordinating the search.

  ‘Liv, I’ve got to go back to the police station. I’m going to call the verger here to come and sit with you until the ambulance or your mother arrives. Is that okay?’

  She nodded. She’d been crying while he’d been on the phone. She needed warm clothing, a hot drink and a familiar face. The shock and cold were taking their toll.

  Jered Stapleton was happy to oblige when Francis called him and took only a couple of minutes to get to the church from where he lived nearby. Francis shook his hand and thanked him for coming.

  ‘I’ve got another officer on the way here, but in the meantime, would you be able to sit with her?’