by Eva Hudson
“And that was a problem?”
“Noise is one of the triggers for Kyle.”
“Triggers?”
“You know he’s being treated for PTSD?”
Ingrid sensed Radcliffe stiffen slightly. He threw a glance toward Gurley, who remained expressionless.
“Let’s assume we know nothing at all. We’d much rather hear the facts from you,” Radcliffe said.
Carrie Foster continued. “Kyle was diagnosed around eighteen months ago. But he’s not been right for a lot longer than that.”
“He’s still been on active duty during that time?”
“He’s been going to counseling sessions at the base. His doctor says it’s under control.”
Ingrid made a mental note to speak to the Air Force doctor about Kyle Foster’s condition.
“OK. Let’s go back to the events of this morning. I realize how difficult it is for you to go over things again. But I really need you to tell us everything you remember.”
Carrie Foster sniffed. “It’s all right—I understand.” She snatched a breath.
“Can we start right at the beginning?” Radcliffe said. “Who woke up first?”
“Kyle showered and dressed before the kids woke up. He seemed fine. A little tired maybe—he didn’t sleep that well. You see, he has these nightmares. Has done ever since he came back from Afghanistan. Once a bad dream wakes him, he finds it really hard to get back to sleep.”
“So everything was all right before your children woke up?”
“Yes. Peaceful. Happy, even. Kyle was singing in the shower.”
“What happened after that?”
“Molly woke up. It was time for a feed. She started to cry just as soon as her eyes were open. Her crying woke Tommy. Right away he sprang out of bed—a little A-frame bed the hotel had fixed up alongside ours. Then he started to jump up and down on it. Like I say, he was excited. Kyle told him to stop, but he just bounced even harder. Jumping higher and higher. Until the bed collapsed underneath him.”
“Was he hurt?”
“No—Tommy thought the whole thing was hilarious. Then he climbed on our bed and bounced on that instead. Kyle shouted at me to do something. He swore at me. But Tommy doesn’t listen to a thing I tell him. I was holding Molly by then, trying to pacify her. Trying to stop her crying.” She blinked slowly. “That’s when it happened.” A sob escaped from her mouth.
“Take your time, Mrs Foster.”
The FLO took her hand and squeezed it tight.
“Kyle started yelling at Molly to shut up. When she didn’t he snatched her from my arms and started shaking her. So hard. I tried to grab her back. But he shoved me away and I hit something. I have a big bruise halfway up my thigh.” She rubbed her leg with a fist, staring blankly into space. She was clearly back in that hotel room. Reliving the events of the morning.
“Can you tell us what happened next?” Radcliffe said gently.
“Kyle carried on shaking her. Until the crying stopped.” She swallowed. “Then he threw her on the bed. I mean threw her.” Her eyes were moist.
The FLO grabbed a pack of Kleenex from a pocket and handed it to Mrs Foster.
“Thank you.” Carrie Foster pulled out a tissue and dabbed her eyes. “Then Kyle ran out. Said he couldn’t breathe and needed to get air. As soon as I could, I locked the door behind him, and I called for the ambulance.”
Jack Gurley shifted his position, straightening his back then crossing one ankle over the other before leaning back against the wall.
“He came back just before the EMTs arrived.”
“How long before, would you say?”
She shrugged. “Seconds maybe. I don’t know. Not long.”
“He managed to get back into the room, even though you’d locked the door.”
“I opened it when the manager came. The other guests had complained to him about the noise. Kyle had been shouting. I might have been screaming. I don’t remember. I guess they were worried what was going on.”
Radcliffe leaned closer to Mrs Foster. He lowered his voice. “Where was Molly when the ambulance crew arrived?”
“In my arms. She wasn’t moving. Or making a sound. I thought she was… I mean I thought…” She sobbed again. “One of the EMTs asked me what happened. I hesitated. I didn’t want to believe what Kyle had done. I just looked at him.”
“What did you tell the paramedic?”
“I said Kyle had shaken Molly and she’d gone quiet. The other EMT started to move toward Kyle, his hands up, telling him to take it easy. I guess Kyle panicked.” Her eyes widened even more as she stared at the floor. “He had the EMT moving closer on one side and the hotel manager stepping into the room from the hallway.” Another sob escaped her throat. “That’s when he grabbed Tommy. Picked him up and ran right out the door. Barging into the manager as he went.” She shook her head. Then looked up at Radcliffe, staring into his face. “Why didn’t anyone try to stop him?”
Radcliffe gave her a half-shrug. “No one really knows how they’re going to react in a situation like that,” he said soothingly. “It all happened so fast, they probably didn’t even work out what was going on until it was too late.”
“Someone should have stopped him.” She turned her stare toward the window and Major Gurley. “You’ve got to find them. I want my little boy back.”
Gurley tensed but said nothing. Mrs Foster turned back to the DCI.
“Is there anywhere your husband might have taken Tommy?” Radcliffe asked her.
She shook her head numbly. “He doesn’t know London. Where would he go? Do you think he’s hurt Tommy? Why did he take him? If he wanted to run away, why take my boy with him?”
6
The door into Molly Foster’s hospital room opened and her mother jumped to her feet. She ran to Molly’s bed as it was wheeled back in. Molly looked smaller than Ingrid had expected. She seemed tiny lying in the adult-sized bed. Her short curly hair spread across the pillow each side of her pale face. Her lips were almost colorless.
“Is she OK? What did the scan show?” Carrie Foster asked the ICU nurse dressed in a crisp white short-sleeved tunic and dark pants.
The nurse gave her a warm smile and laid a reassuring hand on her arm. “The swelling in her skull hasn’t got any worse. We’ll know more when the radiologist has studied the scans. He’ll speak to the consultant and then the consultant will come and explain everything to you.”
“How long before that happens?”
“Hopefully before the end of the day.”
“What? That’s hours away.”
The nurse helped the porters position the bed into place and reattached the monitors. She switched the tube feeding oxygen into the little girl’s nostrils from a portable cylinder tucked beneath the bed to a supply coming out of the wall above it. Ingrid was relieved to discover the child was breathing without the aid of a respirator.
“I’m sorry, Carrie,” the nurse said when she’d finished her tasks. “We have one radiologist covering for two of his colleagues at the moment. It won’t affect Molly’s care in any way. You don’t need to worry about that.”
Carrie Foster stroked her daughter’s forehead. She seemed to have forgotten the detectives were even in the room. Major Gurley stood in silence at the foot of the bed with Radcliffe. After a moment DS Tyson cleared his throat.
“We’ll leave it for now, Mrs Foster,” Radcliffe said. “But we will need to speak to you again later.”
The female FLO ushered them all towards the door and closed it behind them.
Once outside, Ingrid took DCI Radcliffe to one side asked him for an update on what was being done to locate First Lieutenant Foster and his son.
“I’ve already updated Major Gurley.” He glanced back towards the room. Gurley was peering through the round window set into the upper third of the hospital room door. “Perhaps you could liaise with him?” He turned to walk away. Ingrid scooted in front of him.
“I’d rather hear it fr
om you.”
“Look, I told you before, whatever’s going on with the embassy and the US Air Force is no concern of mine. You get things sorted out between yourselves.”
“I’m about to call my boss to resolve the situation. I’d like to be able to give him a progress report at the same time.”
Radcliffe puffed out an impatient sigh. “I’ve posted officers at the major train terminals and Victoria Coach Station. We’re going through CCTV footage from the streets surrounding the hotel. We’ve questioned all the guests present at the hotel when the initial response officers arrived. And we have statements from the hotel manager and receptionist.”
“Do their accounts match up with what Carrie Foster just told us?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t they?”
“Just being thorough.” Ingrid looked back towards Gurley. He was speaking with DS Tyson. Tyson was nodding gravely. She wanted to know what they were talking about. “And what about the EMTs… the ahh… paramedics? You’ve spoken to them?”
“They were just finishing their shift when they picked Molly up. We’ve managed to interview one of them, and before you ask, yes, his account matches Mrs Foster’s.”
“Do you have CCTV footage from inside the hotel?”
“It’s a small, family-run establishment. Three star. They don’t have cameras recording their guests’ every move.” He beckoned to his detective sergeant and tapped a finger against his wristwatch. “I suggest you resolve your issues sooner rather than later with Major Gurley. I see no point in you replicating each other’s duties.”
Ingrid watched as Tyson shook Gurley’s hand, then hurried toward his senior officer. Gurley disappeared into the mens’ restroom.
Radcliffe handed her a scrap of paper. “The hotel is only about five minutes away on foot,” he told her. “Ask for Brian, he’s the Crime Scene Manager. He’ll walk you through events, as we understand them, in situ. Help you to picture what happened.” He glanced down at the note. “Pass that on to Gurley if he’s got the gig, would you? I don’t want to be endlessly repeating myself.” He gave what seemed to Ingrid a reluctant smile and briskly walked away.
Ingrid seized her moment. She snatched her cell phone from her purse and called her immediate boss at the embassy, Assistant Deputy Chief Sol Franklin.
“Hey, Sol. Do you have a couple minutes?” she asked as soon as he picked up.
“For you…?”
“What do you know about this case in Bloomsbury?”
“The Air Force guy who ran amok?”
“I feel like I’ve walked into it completely blind. The intel I got from the Met was severely lacking, to say the least. I get the feeling they were surprised I even showed up.”
“Have you met Major Gurley yet?”
“You know about him?”
There was an extended pause. “I didn’t know in time to warn you, if that’s what you mean. I only just got off the phone from the Legal Attaché himself.”
“You did?” Sol hardly ever spoke to the head of the FBI program at the embassy. He normally received his instructions from his next in command, Deputy Chief Louden.
What the hell was going on?
“You’re telling me the Legat is involved with this investigation personally?”
“He just got off the phone from the Pentagon. I gather there was a rather fraught—my word, not the Legat’s—discussion with the Chief of Staff of the Air Force.”
The Legal Attaché and the Chief of Staff? With such big hitters taking a personal interest in the case, Ingrid was surprised Sol hadn’t taken it on himself. “Listen, I realize you can’t give me all the details of your conversation, so I’m not even going to ask, but can you at least tell me who should be liaising with the cops here?”
Another pause.
“Sol—just spit it out. If I’m off the case, I’m off the case. I can live with that.”
“That would be far too straighforward.”
“I don’t understand.” Ingrid kept her eyes peeled on the door to the men’s restroom. She wanted to get this resolved before Gurley reappeared.
“A US pilot on the run in a host nation doesn’t look that good… politically.”
“Politically? Maybe I would give a crap if a fourteen month old girl wasn’t in a coma and an eight-year-old boy hadn’t been abducted.” She turned around and started walking, concerned if she stayed still a moment longer she might feel the need to punch somebody.
“You don’t need to get involved with all the political BS,” Sol said. “That’s my job.”
“So why are you even telling me about it?”
“Because I need to explain the strategy the Legal Attaché and the Air Force big cheese cooked up between them.”
Ingrid didn’t like where she thought this might be heading. She pulled up abruptly.
“You and Major Gurley better start to play nice with one another. You’ve got to work together on this. Show a US government united front.”
Ingrid let out a groan. “I’m not taking orders from that arrogant son of a—”
“You don’t have to.”
“As much pleasure as it might give me telling him what to do, I don’t think he’d agree to follow my orders either.”
“Working together, didn’t I say? You’re going to cooperate with one another. Gurley has his chain of command, you have yours. But on the ground you two liaise with the local cops as a team.”
“I like to work alone.”
“I don’t care. My hands are tied on this one.”
“For God’s sake, Sol.”
“No point in arguing. Just don’t let me down.”
It wasn’t that long ago Ingrid had saved Sol Franklin’s life. She wasn’t about to disappoint him now. She never could. But the thought of working with an opinionated military cop? She felt a wave of heat pass from her chest up into her throat.
A moment later Sol said a brusque goodbye and hung up.
“I’m guessing you just had the exact same conversation as me.” A Texan accent. A voice so close to her ear she felt Gurley’s warm breath against her skin.
She pulled away and wheeled around to face him. “Jesus! What are you doing creeping up on me like that?”
“Don’t tell me, your boss at the embassy, huh?” he said, undeterred. “General Major Walker called me himself. Might have considered it an honor.” He raised a sandy-blond eyebrow at her. “Under different circumstances.” He ran a hand over his buzz cut and put a hat on his head. “Looks like we’re stuck with one another. I suggest we make the best of it. Sooner we track Foster down, faster we can get back to normal.” He held out his hand. Reluctantly, Ingrid shook it.
He smiled a wily smile at her, moving just one corner of his mouth. “As long as we’re clear on one thing.”
“And that is?”
“We both agree that for practical purposes, on the ground… I’m in charge.”
7
Ingrid practically had to break into a jog to keep up with her companion’s lengthy strides. When they’d made it out of the hospital and onto the noisy, bustling Euston Road, she’d made it quite clear there was no way she’d be taking orders from Gurley. He’d merely laughed in her face. After that they continued the journey to the Fosters’ hotel in a hostile silence. Gurley was at least right about one thing, Ingrid thought: a swift resolution to the situation would be best for all parties concerned.
The hotel was situated in a side street just off Russell Square—a favorite location for American tourists on a budget. The slightly down-at-heel, three-star establishment took up four row houses in the middle of a Georgian terrace. Three of the front doors were sealed shut. The shabby exterior looked in need of urgent redecoration.
Ingrid led the way and quickly found a uniformed police constable chatting to a woman behind the reception desk. “We’re looking for Brian, the Crime Scene Manager,” Ingrid said and flashed her badge at him. He pointed her toward the stairs.
“Second floor. You can
’t miss it.”
They tramped up four shallow flights of stairs, still not speaking to one another, and discovered another uniformed policeman on the second floor landing. He directed them to the other end of a dimly-lit corridor. Ingrid peered into the gloom, only just managing to make out two Tyvek-suited crime scene examiners standing outside an open door, talking to a woman dressed in a dark suit and vivid pink shirt. On her feet the woman was wearing overshoe bootees.
Ingrid hurried towards them. She waved her badge in the air by way of introduction and asked for Brian, the CSM. The woman, who was a detective constable, handed Ingrid and Gurley a pair of bootees each.
“I’m not sure they’re big enough,” the detective said, her gaze working its way slowly from Gurley’s feet to his face. “You are rather a tall specimen.”
Gurley glanced down at the small blue bootees and quickly rejected them. “It’s OK, I can see all I need from out here,” he said.
Ingrid couldn’t help but feel a little irritated at Gurley’s attitude. It seemed as if he’d decided this exercise was a waste of his time and wasn’t prepared to participate. She peered into the room.
“That’s Brian’s arse, right there,” the detective told her and pointed to a man crawling on his hands and knees beneath a low couch.
Ingrid slipped the bootees over her shoes and entered the room, taking care to step on the plastic platforms laid out twelve inches apart to get to the other side. “Brian? I’m Agent Skyberg… from the embassy.”
The CSM made a little groan then carefully backed out of the confined space without hitting his head. He wriggled backwards like a man who had learned the hard way not to move too quickly in tight spaces. With some effort, he heaved himself vertical and looked Ingrid up and down. “I was expecting a bloke,” he said, unapologetically.
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“Oh no, not at all. You’ll do nicely.” He smiled a lascivious smile at her and Ingrid prepared herself for a barrage of double entendres and inappropriate remarks about her appearance. “What do you need to know, my lovely?”