Little Boy Blue: DI Helen Grace 5 (A DI Helen Grace Thriller)

by M. J. Arlidge

  Her phone rang suddenly and Sanderson glanced down eagerly at the screen. But it was just Emilia Garanita – again. Rejecting it, she marched from Helen’s office, slamming the door behind her.

  118

  What the hell was she playing at?

  As her call went to voicemail, Emilia clicked off and threw her phone angrily on to her desk. She and Sanderson had made a pact to keep in touch, but she had the distinct feeling she was being kept at arm’s length. Sanderson wouldn’t have a case at all if Emilia hadn’t given her the story. That whole team – Sanderson included – had been so infatuated with Grace that they’d never stopped to ask any questions of her. She’d had to lead them to Helen’s wrongdoing and she was damned if she was going to be shut out at the moment of triumph.

  She wanted to wait until they had made an arrest before publishing the story. With a suitable tipoff from Sanderson, Emilia could be in position to get a photo of Grace being marched to the cop car in cuffs or driven through the back door in custody. She’d had a four-word text this afternoon, suggesting an arrest warrant was imminent, but since then nothing from Sanderson.

  Suddenly Emilia wondered if she’d backed the right horse. She couldn’t have approached DS Brooks of course – it was clear where her loyalties lay – and everybody else was too inferior in rank. She’d felt certain that Sanderson was the one – she was suggestible, frustrated and lacking in confidence – but, then again, you never know how people will respond when it comes to the crunch. Perhaps Sanderson was just inexperienced at playing the game or maybe she was a little less innocent than she let on. Could she have taken Emilia for a ride?

  She sincerely hoped not. Because Emilia was in a position to do serious damage not only to Sanderson’s career but also to the Hampshire Police in general. She needed them and vice versa, yet they had always treated her badly – at best like an irritant, but more often as a necessary evil. Grace had been a particularly bad offender in this regard – her hostility to Emilia very clear. Often Emilia had been on the back foot in their relationship, but now finally she was poised to attack.

  And her weapon of choice would be tomorrow’s edition with its screaming banner headline:

  COP TURNED KILLER.

  119

  Helen walked quickly towards the back of the store, keeping her head down. She was an odd sight for a cold autumn evening – boots and leathers on her bottom half, but only a thin black vest top above. More curious still were the scratches on her face and arms. She looked a little like she had been dragged through a hedge backwards, which of course she had.

  It was cold in the refrigerated section of the supermarket and Helen didn’t linger, marching to the manager’s office at the rear and pushing inside. Peter Banyard was still unnerved from their first meeting and looked positively shocked now by her second appearance of the day.

  ‘Are you ok? Can I get you anything?’ he eventually said, clocking her strange appearance.

  ‘I’m fine, but I need to ask you another question.’

  ‘I haven’t got your paperwork ready yet if that’s –’

  ‘That’s not why I’m here. I want you to look at this picture, tell me if you recognize this man.’

  Her hand was shaking slightly as she held up her phone for him. On the screen was one of the photos the press had used when they’d ‘outed’ Robert Stonehill several years earlier.

  The manager stared at the photo.

  ‘Do you know him?’ Helen repeated more loudly.

  ‘Well, yes. That’s Aaron West.’

  ‘He works for you?’ Helen continued, insistent.

  ‘He’s one of our temporary workers. We take them on around Halloween, Bonfire Night and so on.’

  ‘Does he work the tills?’

  ‘Tills, shelves, wherever we need him. He does a few shifts a week – has been for a few months now.’

  Just enough time for him to plan Helen’s downfall. He had lifted customers’ credit card details while working the tills, then used their details to purchase his specialist S&M gear – gear that would eventually lead the police back to her.

  ‘Did you check his credentials? His ID?’

  ‘Yes,’ Banyard replied, looking unnerved, ‘although the checks for temporary workers aren’t perhaps as rigorous as for our permanent staff.’

  ‘I bet they’re not,’ Helen snarled back, just about containing her anger. ‘Do you have an address for him?’

  ‘We should do,’ the manager replied, ‘but I’m not sure that will be necessary.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I just saw him out the back. In the locker area. I can take you th—’

  But he didn’t get to finish. Helen was already gone.

  120

  She sprinted across the store, scattering shoppers in her wake. The Staff Only door was fifty feet away and Helen charged towards it, glancing around for someone to help her open it. But there was no one to hand and she couldn’t delay, so she launched herself at it. Her shoulder hit the cheap door hard, wrenching the lock from its socket.

  Two alarmed faces stared at her as she hurried inside – two employees who were about to return to work, dumbfounded by Helen’s dramatic entrance.

  ‘Where are the lockers?’

  For a moment they were speechless.

  ‘The lockers,’ Helen barked.

  One of the workers now pointed to a door on her left. Helen was off again, eating up the yards to the door and pushing through it. To her dismay, the dingy locker room was empty, but Helen sensed movement and now saw the fire exit at the far end of the room swinging gently to a close. Had he heard her coming and taken flight? If so, he was only a few seconds ahead of her.

  Helen burst out into the night, scanning desperately left and right for signs of her quarry. And there he was. Not forty yards away from her down a narrow alley, sprinting as if his life depended on it. Helen took off in pursuit, pounding the concrete as she pushed herself to narrow the gap between them.

  It looked as though the alleyway would lead them back into the main shopping precinct where most of the big stores were to be found. Was that Robert’s plan? To lose himself in the crowds? Helen couldn’t allow that so, even though her lungs were burning, she upped her speed again. The bitter irony of her pursuit wasn’t lost on her – she’d been searching for her nephew for so long and now here he was, intent on escaping her.

  He had now reached the end of the alleyway and darted round to the left. Helen couldn’t afford to let him out of her sight, but she was only fifteen feet behind now. Reaching the end of the alley, she tore around the corner in the same direction as Robert – running smack into a middle-aged man laden with shopping bags. She cannoned off him, falling to the ground, jarring her frame nastily on the concrete floor as she did so. Pain seared through her, but she was already clambering to her feet. Holding her hand up in apology, she sidestepped the concerned shoppers hurrying to help her.

  She ran her eye over the sea of shoppers but couldn’t see Robert. Had he taken advantage of her accident to disappear into one of the main shops? No, there he was. Helen glimpsed his deep-red hoodie, bobbing as he hurried north towards the precinct exit. Shaking herself down, Helen tore off in the same direction.

  The chase was on.

  121

  ‘We’ve just had a call from Wilkinson’s in Shirley. Apparently, DI Grace just left there in a hurry.’

  McAndrew’s tone was hushed. She clearly felt awkward working against their boss, but orders were orders, so she’d brought her news straight to Sanderson and Charlie.

  ‘This is the address of the store –’

  ‘I know where it is,’ Sanderson interrupted. ‘Alert uniform in the area to be on their guard – I want any sightings radioed in immediately.’

  ‘I’ll advise officers in outlying areas to head towards the precinct – they can form a wider net in case she slips through.’

  ‘Was she on foot?’

  ‘I believe so.’


  ‘Good, then we’ve got a good chance of taking her. I’ll take the car down there now.’

  Charlie watched Sanderson head off, her emotions in riot. Since the arrest warrant had been finalized, she had been torn in two. One part of her wanted to do her duty like McAndrew, but the greater part of her wanted to warn Helen of the danger she was now in. She couldn’t call or text her as that would be too easily traced back to her, but perhaps there was a payphone in one of the local pubs? Charlie had the sense that the net was closing on Helen now and, unless she did something to help her, she was doomed.

  ‘DS Brooks is coming with me. You can take point here.’

  It was said to McAndrew, but was aimed at Charlie. Sanderson was looking at her as if she could read her mind, sensing her disloyalty. The eyes of the room were on her now so with a heavy heart, Charlie said:

  ‘Sure. Let’s go.’

  There would be no escape for Helen today.

  122

  Helen grasped the chain link fence and vaulted it in one easy motion, landing gently on the other side. Her nephew had veered away from the city centre as fast as he could, seeking out the footpaths and back alleys that would be deserted as night closed in. Before long he’d reached an allotment and was now cutting across it, heading towards the south of the city. Helen was close behind, running as fast as she could over the hard, rutted ground.

  Had Robert always planned this as an escape route? He seemed to know his way without thinking, avoiding public places and possible obstructions. Normally Helen would have called in her pursuit in an attempt to cut him off, but that wasn’t an option now.

  When they’d first met, Helen would have been confident of winning this contest. Robert was just a young man then – he didn’t have her physical training, nor her experience. Now there seemed to be something different about him. He was leaner, fitter, and she could see that his head was shaved. He had a smooth, militaristic look, almost as if he were the one who had now been in training, preparing to avenge himself on the woman who had killed his mother and ruined his life.

  Robert was only twenty feet ahead but vaulted the boundary fence without hesitation before sprinting on. His levels of fitness really were impressive and Helen suddenly had the nasty thought that it would be she who’d tire first. Clearing the fence, she touched down hard, narrowly avoiding a tree root, then burst forward once more. If she lost him, who was to say when she would get another chance to confront him. It was now or never.

  They had been running for over ten minutes, but Helen knew that Robert’s escape options were narrowing. They were nearing the outskirts of the docks. There were many warehouses, in use and derelict, for him to hide in, but the whole of the Western Docks was fenced off and unless Robert had a craft of some kind waiting for him, he couldn’t keep heading south.

  Up ahead of her, Robert slammed into the dock’s perimeter fence, scaling it as he did so. Helen could see he was wearing gloves, but as he reached the top, he yelped in pain, the razor wire clearly doing its work. But he pushed on through, falling to the ground on the other side, obliging Helen to follow him. She scampered up the links, pausing only at the top to manoeuvre herself through the coiled wires. It would lose her valuable seconds, but it would be disastrous to get caught up in it and a false move would cut her to ribbons.

  The metal teeth of the wire caressed her cheek as she eased her head through, but didn’t draw blood. Twisting again, she wiggled her torso through the gap, feeling the back of her vest tear slightly as it snagged on its way through. Now she could grip the fence on the other side and, pulling her legs through, quickly swung down on to the ground – just in time to see Robert disappearing into Quay 42.

  Helen stumbled as she moved forward – her legs were growing weary of the pursuit – but she drove herself on. Quay 42 was a derelict outpost of the Western Docks and was a fitting place for this endgame to play out. The last time Helen had visited the mothballed warehouses that littered it was to recover one of Marianne’s victims. Perhaps the historic associations were too much to resist – Helen couldn’t believe he’d made his way here by chance.

  She was entering the dock area now – great, empty warehouses looming up on all sides. Helen hurried towards the old dockside, peering into the shadows on either side, searching for her prey. Was he hiding in the shadows, waiting to attack her from behind, or had he come here to make his escape? Peering over into the water, Helen could see no craft, no signs of movement. Turning she cast a look further down the quayside, but it too was deserted. She had been too close behind for Robert to have made it out of the quay completely, so he was here somewhere. Was he watching her right now?

  There were four main warehouses on this part of the quay, all in equal states of disrepair, shattered windows giving a fractured view of the darkness within them. If Helen picked wrong, then he would escape. There was no margin for error now. He was unlikely to be hiding in the first as he had veered round to the left past it when entering the quay. Presuming he hadn’t doubled back, this left three more. The next-nearest one was little more than a shell, the roof having collapsed some time ago. There was plenty of detritus within to provide cover, but the moon that now hung overhead was full, lighting up the interior clearly. It would be a gamble to conceal yourself there in plain sight, so Helen moved on to the last two. Both of these were in good repair and would be smart places to hide, the fire escapes that snaked down the sides providing a possible means of escape if need be. If Helen was being pursued, she would have picked one of these two.

  Helen wrenched open the door to the nearest one and peered inside. It was one vast hangar, littered with abandoned crates and dead pigeons. Again there was plenty of cover but there were no internal walls to hide behind, so now Helen’s gaze strayed to the last warehouse, which bordered the quayside. This was a two-tier building – a series of offices and small units on top of the main hangar. This seemed much more promising, so, making her choice, Helen hurried towards it.

  The main hangar doors lay in front of her, but the fire escape that led up to the second floor intrigued her more, as it would have been out of view when Helen entered the quay complex. She walked forward confidently, then came to an abrupt halt. A dark spot lay on the ground by the steps and bending down Helen dipped her finger in it. Holding it up to the light, she could see that it was blood, glistening in the moonlight, fresh and wet.

  Now Helen moved quickly up the steps. Reaching the top, she paused. There was every chance that Robert was inside. She was about to face him unarmed, with nothing but her experience and training to protect her. If he meant to do her harm, even kill her, then who would ever know that she’d been down here? That she had solved the case? For the first time since this desperate chase had begun, Helen paused to catch her breath, pulling her mobile from her pocket. She sent a quick text, then switching the phone to silent, stepped into the darkness within.

  Immediately, something came at her. She flung her arm up to protect herself, then watched in alarm as the startled pigeon flew away, the sound of his flapping wings echoing around the empty rooms. Any element of surprise was gone now, so Helen pressed on, walking swiftly down the corridor that stretched out in front of her the full length of the building. There were small offices off it and Helen checked them over as she walked past. She wasn’t keen to get caught in one of these – she wanted him to make the first move, rather than walk into a trap herself.

  Her eyes scanned the space ahead of her, looking for signs of movement, and then, in the distance, she saw it. At the very end of the corridor there was a room which was probably the biggest in the building. It overlooked the water, was the width of the warehouse and all roads led to it. And unlike every other room in this decaying edifice, it was emitting a pale-blue light.

  Intrigued, Helen crept forward. As she did so, she spotted a few abandoned bits of scaffolding. Bending down, she picked up a short length of pipe and carried on, getting closer and closer to the office ahead. She was fifteen feet from
it, now ten, now five. Helen stood on the threshold, then pushed into the room, braced to defend herself.

  But no attack came. Was Robert even here? It was hard to make out the outer edges of the room – her eye was drawn to the computer whose weak light she had noticed from the corridor. Next to it on a rickety table was a camping lantern and Helen grabbed it, turning it up. Now the room came into focus – empty coffee cups, an ashtray full of cigarettes, discarded sandwich wrappers, a hoodie hanging over a chair, but also a white iPhone 5 nearby. Helen guessed it was Max Paine’s – but time would tell. And flanking all this, pinned up on the walls were maps of Southampton, picking out Banister Park, Bitterne and the docks.

  This then was Robert’s bolthole – a perfect hiding place from which to plot his killing spree. And as Helen took another step forward, turning the lantern to get a better view of the room, she saw him, framed by the large windows behind him. He was silhouetted against the moonlight, but as Helen stepped closer she took in his face. He looked pale, impassive and oddly effeminate – there didn’t seem to be a single trace of hair on his face, head or neck. She hadn’t seen him in years, and now as he took her in, his blue eyes sparkled malevolently.

  ‘Nice to see you again, Helen. It’s been a long time.’

  123

  The unmarked car hurtled down the road, sirens blaring and light flashing. Even though she was safely strapped in, Charlie held tight to the armrest. Sanderson was wound tight tonight and driving way too aggressively. She didn’t dare say anything, but she didn’t want to become a casualty of her colleague’s desperation to nail their boss either.

  They were heading fast towards Shirley, but as they reached the outskirts, Charlie’s phone pinged loudly. Sanderson gave her an accusing look, as if Charlie had deliberately done this to distract her, before returning her attention to the road. Irked, Charlie pulled out her phone. But as she did so, her finger froze, hovering over the Read button. The message was from Helen.