by Tim Ellis
‘We’ve interviewed staff and some of the older children in the crèche, but what happened is as it was described to you and your wife – a nurse arrived smiled, chatted and took Jack as if it had already been arranged. We had a clear description of the suspect, but now you’re telling us that it’s not valid, so we’re back to square one.’
‘So, you have nothing – no useful information, no effective intelligence and no evidence that could be used in a court of law?’
‘I’m not going to lie to you, Inspector – the investigation has stalled.’
‘I’ll take my wife out of here. She doesn’t need to know yet that she’ll probably never see her son again.’
‘I don’t need to tell you that you’re both off the case with immediate effect?’
‘No.’
‘No involvement or interference of any kind. And if there’s any contact, or a ransom demand . . . ?’
‘. . . I should let you know?’
‘It’s tempting for parents to want to get involved . . .’
‘Don’t worry, I know the procedures, Ma’am.’
‘Good. Obviously, if there’s any news, you’ll be the second person to find out.’
‘Sir!’ Richards said.
‘It’s the rules, Richards.’
‘But . . .’
He took her by the elbow and frog-marched her back to where Angie was sitting looking forlorn.
‘You didn’t mention anything about her being your sister,’ Richards said.
‘It’s not relevant, and don’t you say anything either. There’ll be time enough afterwards for it to get complicated. Right, let’s get out of here. I have to go down to the mortuary. You take your mother to the cafeteria and stay with her.’
‘But . . .’
‘I’ll be back shortly. Tell your mother what we know about Zara Roche so far.’
‘Okay.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘Get her out of here,’ Xena said to Hignett.
‘I’ll need to take her to the hospital to get the head wound checked out, Ma’am.’
‘Do what you want with her.’ She was only concerned about Stick now. ‘Just so long as she ends up back at the station to be formally charged.’
‘Will do, Ma’am.’
The ambulance arrived shortly after Hignett had bundled Paula Milburn down the stairs. Xena heard the siren long before two paramedics clattered up the stairs with a holdall full of spells, potions and juju charms.
‘My name’s Greg, let me in,’ the young male paramedic with blond hair said, moving her gently to one side. Under different circumstances she might have bandied a few choice words with him, but not today. Today he had to focus on keeping Stick alive.
She looked around the room and saw four pickling jars with screw lids sitting on the mantelpiece like grizzly ornaments. Inside each one was a human body part – a heart, a pair of eyeballs, a pair of hands and a tongue.
Greg and his female partner worked quickly and efficiently. Between them they inserted two intravenous cannulas – one in the back of each of Stick’s hands – and connected up bags of Hartmann’s Solution to the Venflon butterfly valves. The female forced the liquid from one of the bags into his vein within a couple of minutes, and then replaced the bag. While she did that, Greg was busy sealing the knife wounds as best he could and checking Stick’s vital signs.
‘Charge the defibrillator at two hundred,’ Greg said to his partner.
She plugged it into a wall socket, while he flipped Stick over onto his back, tore open his shirt and stuck gel pads on his chest..
‘It took a few valuable seconds for the mobile defibrillator to charge, but eventually she said, ‘Ready,’ and passed him the paddles.
‘Clear,’ he said, and shocked Stick.
Stick’s back arched like the Severn bridge.
Greg checked Stick’s pulse, shook his head and said, ‘Increase it to three hundred.’
The woman passed him the paddles again.
‘Clear.’
When Greg checked Stick’s pulse this time, he nodded. ‘Okay, let’s get him to the hospital before we lose him. God knows what damage those knife wounds have done to his insides.’
Xena realised that tears were streaming down her face and she’d stopped breathing herself. She took a deep breath, and realised that Stick was the only person in the world she cared about.
The paramedics lifted Stick onto a fold-up stretcher, threw everything on top of him and made their way down the stairs.
She followed them down.
‘Are you coming with us?’ Greg asked.
‘I’ll follow in the car. I have a couple of phone calls to make first. Don’t let him die, Greg.’
‘We’ll do our best.’
Xena grabbed the car keys from Stick’s trouser pocket, and then stood back as the back doors were slammed shut and the ambulance sped away with the blue lights flashing and the sirens blaring.
She would have liked nothing better than to have gone with Stick and made sure Greg kept him alive, but she had some tidying up to do.
First, she phoned the Chief.
‘To what do I owe the pleasure, DI Blake?’
‘We got her, Sir.’
‘That’s good to hear.’
‘But she got DS Gilbert.’
‘Meaning?’
‘She must have jumped him from behind as he entered the living room of her house. He had at least six stab wounds in his back.’
‘He’s dead?’
‘No, Sir. Barely alive, I’d say. The paramedics have just taken him to King George Hospital in the ambulance.’
‘Bloody hell, Blake. Did you go into the house without back-up?’
‘We knocked – twice, but there was no answer.’
‘You know that doesn’t mean anything.’
‘I know, Sir. It’s my fault. Back-up arrived just as we were going up the stairs to the second floor of the town house. I stopped to talk to one of the officers, but Sergeant Gilbert carried on up the stairs.’
‘You know there’ll be an inquiry?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘What about the woman?’
‘PC Hignett had to hit her a couple of times with his baton to stop her stabbing DS Gilbert any more than she had, so he and his partner have taken her to the hospital to get her injury checked out, and then they’ll bring her to the station where she’ll be formally charged.’
‘No mistake?’
‘She has the body parts in pickling jars on her mantelpiece. I’m just about to ring forensics.’
‘Okay, Blake. Do the minimum to get things moving, and then go to the hospital – I’ll see you there.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘And good work, Blake.’
‘Gilbert did the good work, Sir. All I did was let him down.’
‘Don’t be too hard on yourself. Twenty-twenty hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it’s only good for teaching us the error of our ways.’
She phoned the Duty Sergeant, told him what was happening and asked for a police presence. Then, she explained the situation to the duty forensic officer, and told her to get off her arse and arrange for a team to attend the crime scene.
Next, she called Jenifer. ‘Get over to King George Hospital – Stick’s been stabbed.’
‘Oh! Is it bad?’
‘There’s no point in lying to you. Yes – it’s bad.’
‘Oh God!’
‘I’ll see you there.’
‘I’m on my way. Thanks for calling me, Ma’am.’
Did she need to call anybody else? Her head felt as though it was stuffed with cotton wool, ball bearings and Styrofoam. She couldn’t lock the front door of Paula Milburn’s house, and there was a danger of someone wandering in off the street and contaminating the crime scene. The chain of evidence would be laughed out of court.
She knocked on next door where Stick had helped himself to the rock, but nobody answered. She tried the other side. A youn
g woman in her twenties answered the door. She had piercings in her nose and top lip; bright red hair and matching lipstick, and a torn t-shirt showing a cleavage that Xena could only dream of. A snot-nosed toddler clung to her leg like a limpet mine.
‘Yeah?’
She decided that there was no point in asking this woman to help her. ‘Never mind.’
‘I hate the way people make snap judgements about me based on the way I look. I have a Master’s degree in biological medicine and work in the medical research laboratory in Harlow. What do you want?’
Xena produced her warrant card. ‘I need someone to make sure that nobody enters the house next door, and if necessary sometime in the future swear to that in court.’
‘Why?’
‘The woman’s been arrested. She nearly killed my partner, the front door is broken and it’s now a crime scene.’
‘What’s wrong with you guarding it?’
‘I need to get to the hospital to see if my partner is going to make it or not.’
‘How long?’
‘No more than half an hour. More police and a forensic team are on their way.’
‘What’s the hourly rate?’
‘You can . . .’
‘Well, what do you expect from someone who looks like me?’
‘I apologise for stereotyping you and jumping to erroneous conclusions.’
‘Apology accepted. Yeah, me and Tommy can do as you ask. Tommy likes nothing better than kicking his football against next door’s garage door. Give me a couple of minutes to cover my tits up.’
‘Yes, that would be advisable.’
‘I saw you looking.’
‘Only out of envy.’
‘Everyone thinks I’ve got a nice pair, that’s why I show them off.’
She went inside, put Tommy in a padded jumpsuit and wrapped herself in a fur-lined coat. ‘Okay, you’re free to go.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Tamsin Denby.’
‘Thanks, Tamsin.’
‘No problem.’
‘And don’t go into the house yourself.’
‘I know the rules.’
Xena hoped she did. She climbed into the car and set off to the hospital.
***
He walked down the stairs to the mortuary and found Doc Riley up to her elbows in the slimy internal fluids of an old man’s chest.
‘I suppose you’ve heard, Doc?’
‘Heard what? We don’t hear much down here. Very few people come to visit, but you can hardly blame them. There’s a stigma attached to the dead and the mortuary, which hasn’t been helped by the spate of zombie movies, let me tell you.’
‘My son Jack has been abducted.’
‘Surely not?’
‘From the crèche upstairs.’
‘That’s awful. I’m sorry for prattling on.’
‘Don’t be. What’s awful is that the person who took him is my twin sister.’
‘Can you tell me what these genetic experiments were about?’
‘Dr Orvil Lorenz was looking into the possibility of there being a genetic basis for good and evil. I don’t know why, but four of the five sets of twins were considered failures. Zara and I were the fifth twin pair. I was the control, while Zara was the experimental twin. She was considered a success.’
‘Based on recent events, I would say so. Okay, let me take some samples.’ She stripped off her rubber gloves and washed her hands. Then she took two blood samples from him, and wiped a swab around his mouth. ‘There, that should do it.’
‘Thanks, Doc.’
‘Don’t thank me yet. It all seems a bit far-fetched if I’m being perfectly honest.’ She waved the samples she’d taken in his face. ‘The proof will be in the pudding.’
‘I understand.’
He was in the corridor on his way back upstairs when his phone began vibrating.
‘DI Parish?’
‘Do you want to see your son again?’
‘For someone who’s meant to be intelligent, that’s not a very intelligent question.’
‘Catch the lift up to the top floor and then call me on this number. If you tell anyone where you’re going, your son will die.’
The call ended.
What choice did he have? Afterwards, he’d be held to account, but for now he had one choice only – follow Zara’s instructions.
He walked to the lift, stepped inside and pressed the button for the fourth floor. No wonder DCI Miller and her team couldn’t find Zara, she was still inside the hospital.
On the fourth floor he called the number.
‘Find the stairs to the roof, and then come up and join me and Jack.’
The call ended.
As he followed the signs to the stairs, he had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Would she let him have Jack back unharmed? He doubted it. Why go through this elaborate charade if she wasn’t planning to take his son from him? Maybe trying to do this on his own was a serious error of judgement. Maybe he needed snipers from CO19. It was all too late. Whatever happened, he would have to live with his decision.
He stepped out onto the roof.
The freezing wind smacked him round the face and tunnelled its way beneath his clothing. He wasn’t dressed for standing on roofs in the bleak midwinter.
He could hear a helicopter somewhere overhead in the darkness and the wind whistled in his ears.
Now what?
His phone vibrated.
‘You took your time,’ Zara said.
‘What do you want from me? Where’s Jack? Where are you?’
He heard laughter, but it wasn’t the sound of laughter – it was the sound of evil.
The noise from the helicopter grew louder, and then that’s all he could hear. Now was not the time for it to land on the roof.
Unless . . . Unless there was a CO19 officer on board.
But where was Zara?
He had to shield himself from the downdraft of the rotor blades.
Then the black helicopter came into view just beyond the edge of the roof.
And as it did, he knew exactly who was piloting the helicopter.
The face of evil stared down at him.
Then an arm shot out of the open window. The hand at the end of the arm was holding the ankle of a young boy.
Horrified, he watched as the hand opened and the child fell – not onto the roof – it plummeted past the roof and onto the concrete below.
He ran to the edge of the roof and saw his son lying on the ground below. People began gathering around his dead son and staring up at the roof.
All he wanted to do was join Jack.
Why?
Why had she killed his son?
The noise from the helicopter faded.
He crumpled to the ground and cried, and knew that his soul had been broken in two.
***
Stick was still alive when she reached the hospital. They’d taken him straight to the operating theatre and the surgeons had been working on him for a couple of hours by the time she arrived.
While Jenifer was sitting on a chair in the corridor dabbing at her eyes, she was pacing up and down the chequered linoleum like a caged wolf. She’d expected the Chief to be here, but he wasn’t. Maybe he’d been waylaid by something more important. Although she couldn’t imagine what might be more important than the life of one of his officers.
‘He’ll be all right, won’t he?’ Jenifer asked.
How the hell did she know? Was she a doctor? No, she wasn’t a fucking doctor. ‘Of course he will,’ she said, sitting down next to her and putting her arm around Jenifer’s shoulders.
‘Why did she stab him?’
Stop asking me stupid questions. I have no idea why the crazy bitch stabbed him. ‘Why does anybody do anything, Jenifer?’
The doors to the operating theatre opened and an Asian man in blue scrubs came out and stood in front of them.
‘Are you the next-of-kin of Mr Gilbert?’ he asked Xena.
‘No, Miss d’Arcy is,’ she said, indicating Jenifer. ‘Well, is he all right?’
‘We’ve done all we can.’
‘What does that mean?’ Jenifer asked.
‘It means that it is up to him now. The next twenty-four hours will be crucial.’
Xena’s brow furrowed. ‘Give us a percentage on his chances of survival, Doc.’
‘I’d say fifty-fifty.’
‘You’re not being very helpful.’
‘I can’t predict the future, my dear.’
The operating theatre doors opened again. Stick was wheeled out on a trolley connected up to tubes and wires. Nurses hovered round him like angels of death – or angels of life.
She and Jenifer followed, like mourners following a hearse.
***
She’d bought everything new.
First, she went into a department store and found new clothes that would do for a couple of days. They weren’t the type of clothes she would normally be seen dead in, but they’d just have to do until she had time to do some serious shopping. She bought a black bra and boxer shorts, a black Iron Maiden: Aces High t-shirt, a pair of faded worn jeans and a leather studded jacket. A male shop assistant kept eyeing her up, but she didn’t know whether he wanted to report her to security or have sex with her in the changing room. In the end, she decided that someone who didn’t have the bottle to do either wasn’t worth her time.
After she’d paid for the clothes, she went to the ladies and put the new clothes on. The old clothes she left next to the washbasins – someone might like them.
Next, she bought a new pair of boots at a shoe shop and placed the old ones on top of a litter bin in the street.
She bought the same-sized rucksack, but with more pockets and zips. Then she went into an electrical shop and bought a new laptop, tablet and phone. She’d already wiped the hard drive of her old laptop; there was nothing on the tablet; and she crushed her phone underfoot.
As far as she was concerned, she was bug free. Unless, of course, they’d embedded a microchip inside her when they were repairing the gunshot wound. If they had, then she was screwed.