by Joy Ellis
The man winced when he considered the last question. ‘Nothing, Chief Inspector. They knew nothing. Ben’s whole life was spent keeping Elizabeth safe, and working on ways to drag every penny from our father’s estate to allow us to rebuild Windrush.’ He gave a little shrug. ‘Although I’m sure that he won’t be surprised when you tell him what happened. Our family is beyond dysfunctional.’ He let out a long sigh, ‘It would have been kinder to put us down when they found us. Like drowning a litter of feral kittens. They should have known that we would never survive in a supposedly sane world.’ He paused. ‘Especially when some of them began to suspect what might have really happened at Alderfield.’
‘To your parents?’ Kate asked calmly.
He nodded.
‘The police believed that you were responsible for both your parent’s deaths?’ added Jon.
‘After what my father and my mother put as through, we were no longer responsible for anything.’ Philip gave a cheerless laugh. ‘But yes, they suspected as much. The problem was, the police saw things that no-one should see, even though we children had decided that we would never talk about what happened. The horror of what they found in that house clouded their judgement. We were damaged then, detectives, and we are damaged now. They should have locked us away and allowed us to rot, and then twelve girls would not have died.’
‘Can I ask one last question, Philip?’ One small point still bugged Jon. ‘We never found any photographs of Toby. Not at the farmhouse or anywhere. Why was that?’
Philip gave a small smile. ‘There were very few pictures ever taken of any of us, Sergeant, but Toby had strange eyes. They were so pale that in some lights he looked as if he had no pupils, and the camera always picked that up. He looked either blind or dead.’
Dead eyes. The vision of a man with dead eyes bending over the dying Jamie Durham filled Jon’s head. That answered a lot.
Kate thanked Philip, then they left the interview room, but as they began to move down the corridor, they heard the sweetest voice singing a lullaby behind the locked door. And this time, it didn’t turn their blood to ice; it melted their hearts with sadness.
CHAPTER FORTY TWO
‘It’s tonight! Ten thirty, location to be advised.’ Rosie snapped the phone shut. ‘We’re on!
As Rosie and Scott slipped out of their car and moved away into the darkness of the tree-lined lane, Jon felt a surge of mixed emotions. The woman he cared about; and frankly there was little point in denying that fact anymore; was walking into danger. But another woman, who he had also cared about, may finally be about to get some justice served. For her it was far too late, and it would never be enough, because Valerie was dead. And although Cade hadn’t physically killed her, but he had caused her death as surely as if he had wrapped his fingers around her throat and squeezed.
‘Ready?’ Kate asked, fastening her stab proof vest
‘Everyone is in position.’
‘Are you okay with this?’ Kate touched his arm lightly, ‘Considering your feelings in a certain direction?’
Jon’s jaw dropped. ‘I thought I was the psychic?’
‘You don’t have to be a clairvoyant to pick up on that kind of thing, my friend.’ There was a smile in her voice. ‘You just have to be a woman.’
‘I’m impressed.’ He grinned as he checked his radio. ‘And in answer to your first question, I’m fine. Sometimes you need to take extreme measures, especially when you are dealing with someone who thinks they are above the law. If Rosie is up for this, then so am I.’
‘For Valerie’s sake, I’m glad.’ Kate moved silently away from their vehicle and towards the ramshackle collection of huts and outbuildings that were scattered around the old grain store.
Jon caught her up, and stayed close to her shoulder. ‘Scott has produced some very tasty covert spy-ware for this operation,’ he whispered. ‘That lad has left nothing to chance. Those designer glasses have a camera embedded in one of the spectacle arms, and everything he sees is relayed to the lads in the van. They have an HD digital video recorder and everything is being backed up, along with anything we hear on Rosie’s wire.’
‘Well, we’ve sent in the bait, we just have to pray that the big fish will swim in the pool tonight.’
The grain store had been abandoned years before, and the big circular room at the base of the silo made it a rather different venue for the party. Rosie guessed that it had been chosen because there were no neighbours for miles.
She smiled lasciviously at the man on the door, and whispered, ‘I said, I’d be back, didn’t I?’
He nodded and made no effort to disguise his interest in her low-cut boob tube.
‘Hope you don’t mind, I brought my boyfriend.’ She nodded her head towards Scott, who was staring with apparent disinterest at the weird surroundings. ‘Seems to me you get more fun here, if you have someone to play with.’
‘You should have come and found me, sweetie.’ He ran a finger slowly down her bare arm. ‘We could have had some fun.’
‘You were far too busy, handsome.’ She looked across to Scott, then back to the doorman, leaned closer and whispered, ‘Should I leave him behind next time, what do you think?’
‘I think that’s a really good idea, babe.’
‘Petra.’ She said.
‘Nice name. I’m Lenny.’
‘I’ll remember that.’ Rosie blew him a kiss, then went and draped her arm over Scotty’s shoulder, thinking, Oh yes, sunshine, I’ll remember that.
After almost half an hour of wine, lager and trance music, the partygoers were beginning to loosen up. Scott had found what he decided was the optimum spot for people watching, especially the older men that were slowly collecting in the shadows.
‘Sorry, detective, but we need to either dance or snog, unless you want to stand out from the crowd.’ Rosie draped an arm around his waist and drew him closer, ‘You choose.’
‘No offence, Flower, but dancing will give me more chance to see who’s coming and going through that back door.’
‘None taken, groove away.’
‘Shit, was it like this last time?’ asked Scott, as a couple of kids who looked about twelve, started getting busy on a wooden bench.
‘You ain’t seen nothing yet, Scotty-boy.’ Rosie took a sip from her bottle of beer. ‘Just like I ain’t seen our bloody target.’
‘Maybe he won’t show. He knows Toby Tanner is dead, and he was linked to the parties.’
Rosie leaned over his shoulder. ‘No, he’ll be relieved that Tanner’s out of the picture. Harlan Marsh is under his thumb, and he thinks we are far too busy tiding up Windrush to worry about anything else.’ Rosie swung her body around in time to the ‘four to the floor’ drum-beat. ‘He won’t be able to stay away from his dirty little enterprise, I’m counting on it.’
Another twenty minutes went by, and Rosie began to wonder what they could do next that wouldn’t be the talk of the mess room for the next five years.
‘Jackpot.’ Scott moved closer, turning her slightly, as if in an embrace, but actually to get a direct view of two men who were standing just inside the back door. ‘Cade,’ muttered Scott, ‘…and bang in my sights. Hope you’re seeing this, guys?’
Rosie eased around to Scott’s side and recognised the high ranking policeman instantly. The greased back hair and the glasses were no disguise this time. ‘All we need now is to get something on him that he can’t wriggle out of.’
The music pulsed and the ravers gyrated and swayed around them. ‘Rosie! Watch him!’
Rosie leant down, ostensibly to pick up a bottle from the floor, but knelt for a moment, her eyes trained on Cade, as he took a roll of notes from the other man and pushed them into his pocket.
Then Rosie saw Cade beckon a dancing teenager over, talk to her for a few moments; then gently push her towards the man who stood next to him. Then the girl, with the older man’s hand draped over her shoulder, left through the back door.
‘Do we go now?’
asked Scott edgily.
‘Hang fire.’ Rosie had seen two girls, more to the point, two totally wrecked girls, approaching Cade. ‘Oh lovely! Keep it up kids, let’s see what he does. Is he on camera, Scott?’
‘Centre stage. This couldn’t have gone better if we’d set it up.’
As they watched, the two teenagers flirted unmercifully with the older man, and to Rosie’s delight, he began to reciprocate. First, a kiss, then a hand on a cheekily postured buttock, then the hand slid around the girl’s tight mini-skirt and began to slide beneath the shiny material.
‘Gotcha, slime-ball! Time to go! All units!’
Rosie and Scott threw their beer bottles to the ground and hurried forward, side-stepping the dancers and the kids on the floor, and made directly for Cade.
‘Perhaps you’d like to come with us, sir.’ Without waiting for an answer, they bundled the man backwards through the door and into the back room. ‘James Cade, I’m arresting you...’
‘Like hell you are!’ Cade swung around like he was possessed, and flung Rosie backwards into the wall. Air rushed from her lungs and she doubled over in pain.
‘Scott! Don’t let him get away,’ she breathed, as she clasped at her ribs. Then she saw Scott hesitate, staring at her with a horrified look on his face. ‘Leave me, you idiot! I’m just winded. Nail that bastard!’
The night had turned into chaos. Blue lights flashed and flared. Men and kids were running in all directions, and the squeal of tyres and engines joined in with the techno music that still throbbed in the air.
Cade ran out and across the concrete back yard towards the spot where he had concealed his car. Scott raced after him, fitter and faster by far, but he didn’t have the incentive that Cade had to get away.
Suddenly Cade stopped, picked up a length of wooden fence post from a pile of rubbish, and swung it with all his weight behind it, straight into Scotty’s mid-drift.
Scotty went down like a wounded animal, and Cade ran on, and straight into the path of Jon Summerhill.
Jon didn’t attempt to talk to the man. He just charged at him, and took him clear off his feet in a tackle that any Saracen would have been proud of.
Cade hit the deck, then scrabbled desperately to get free of Jon’s weight. And Jon allowed him to. Just enough, so that he could make another attempt to run, and then Jon hit him.
He felt the impact jarring all the way from his knuckles to his shoulder, and he was happy with that feeling. He rubbed his clenched fist, stared down at the unconscious figure. ‘It’s not much, Val,’ he muttered, as he took his cuffs from his pocket. ‘But I hope it makes you feel better.’
As he leant over Cade and snapped the cuffs into place, he felt a gentle hand ruffle his hair. He turned, and for one second, saw long chestnut hair, hazel eyes and a smiling face. And then it was gone, and four other faces took her place.
Kate stared coldly down at Cade, and then the expression changed to one of triumph. ‘Let’s see you try to wriggle out of this one, Chief Superintendent.’
‘I hope you’re right, ma’am,’ Gary moved to her side, ‘I’ll only believe it, when I see a new name on his office door.’
Rosie, still out of breath but otherwise unhurt, slipped her arm through Jon’s and held him tightly. ‘Where the hell did you learn to hit like that?’
‘Anger Management Classes. And it works a treat!’ Jon took her hand. ‘And well done to you two, great job.’
Scott grimaced. ‘Our pleasure! I reckon it was worth a couple of cracked ribs just to see that haymaker, Sarge.’ He grinned admiringly at Jon. ‘Just remind me never to upset you!’
THE END