The Burying Place

by Vicky Jones

  Amanda replied with a chilling smile. “Of course. It’s you, isn’t it? Because I plan on taking you with me when I dump my mother. You can scrub the boat afterwards, so there’s no trace. My dad has a small boat. We brought it up with us when we moved here. It’s ironic that my mum didn’t want to sell it after my dad died, and now she’s gonna end up in it. The police think my mum’s topped herself anyway, so they won’t be surprised if the body floats onto the beach if I do end up fucking up.” She shot a withering look at The Fisherman, who looked as if he wanted to gut her like a monkfish right that second.

  The Therapist leaned across the table. “But it’s wrong, Amanda. Don’t you see? This is all my fault. If only I hadn’t got you all involved in my mission to rid the town of scumbags. I’ve created a monster with you, Amanda. It was never my right to bring justice to the town. I’ve been selfish, I know that now. I was trying to come up with ways to try and stop the pain of losing my daughter. But it doesn’t stop. It’s always there when I wake up and when I go to sleep. All I’ve succeeded in doing is bringing normal people into a world they should never have become a part of. A world of shame, torment and guilt. They wanted justice and they tried to do it the right way, but because I was grieving so much, I told them there was only one way, and that was to get that person eradicated by us forming a kind of chain where everybody had their own part to play. I admit, I was impressed and surprised that it went so smoothly. But at the end of the day, three people’s remains are now at the bottom of the ocean, and that’s because of me. I don’t want to look out my window and know that there's another body out there too. I’m pleading with you, Amanda. I don’t want you to do anything you will regret. We are both grieving for people we lost and loved very much. It sounds like the police are on your tail anyway. The walls are closing in, Amanda. But you can still take control as to how this ends.”

  After a few seconds of him finishing, Amanda began to clap. “What an impassioned speech. Have you been rehearsing that one?”

  The Therapist lowered his head. “Amanda, please.”

  The group watched with bated breath. In front of them, Amanda seemed to be thinking over The Therapist’s words. For a moment it looked as if she would agree, but as quickly as that hope rose, it was dashed seconds later by a sly grin that draped itself across her lips.

  “Nope. Not interested. You forget, I actually get a fucking buzz from doing this. Did you not hear me in therapy? You, doctor, gave me a reason. A purpose. When I hear somebody’s last breath, I get a rush from it. I can’t explain it. And when I get away with this, I’ve got a couple of others I’d like to see at the bottom of the sea too.” She pushed her chair backwards, the wooden legs screeching against the cold stone floor adding to the group’s misery. “Or, if you want it your way, I’ll do it on my fucking own, and you’ll all go down with me. I don’t give a fuck either way.”

  “Amanda, come back. Think about what you’re doing. The lives you’re wrecking,” The Therapist called out, but Amanda’s ears were deaf to reason. Adding insult to injury, she slammed the door shut behind her.

  “What the hell do we do now? She’s lost it!” The Gardener yelled. It had only been a few minutes or so since Amanda had left them in the basement, each person in a similar state of panic.

  The Therapist stood bereft. He sat down and buried his head in his hands.

  “We can’t just let her sink us. Someone must have an idea,” The Teacher piped up.

  As if regaining his composure, and his senses, The Therapist looked directly at The Copper. “Come with me.”

  “Where are we going?” The Copper replied, refocusing his eyes.

  “My house first to get Amanda’s address. This ends. Tonight.”

  Chapter 21

  “Amanda? Are you home?” Poppy called through the letter box. No answer.

  She scrabbled in the darkness underneath a rock next to the door and picked up the spare key. After letting herself in, she walked into the kitchen and placed the key, her phone and a bag of shopping on the counter. Just as she began unpacking it, a crash underneath her feet startled her. Walking over towards the utility room, she saw that the washing machine door was open, the clothes from it already neatly hung up like they were when she’d left last time.

  The crash came again.

  Poppy looked down at the rug beneath her. “Amanda? Is that you down there?” She peeled back the rug and hooked her fingers around the silver ring on the hatch. Hearing another ominous crash, she yanked the hatch upwards and peered down into the blackness. “I’m coming down.” She put a hand out to steady herself as she descended the first few steps, before locating the light’s pull cord. “Sorry, Amanda, I didn’t know you were ho-”

  Moments later, Poppy saw the bricks of the cellar spinning around. With an almighty thud, she landed at the bottom of the steps in a heap. Lifting her head out of a cold puddle, she saw an upturned bucket. Next to it was the base of a chair. Poppy looked upwards to see a dirty figure tied to it. Bound, gagged and covered in wine splashes, Diana Walker’s eyes conveyed an emotion that was completely confusing to Poppy. What should have been relief was translated into pure panic and sorrow. Realising she was lying in Diana’s shit and piss, Poppy grimaced and struggled to sit up. The crashes now made sense, as all around Diana’s feet were shards of broken glass from the wine racks she had rocked her chair into. Poppy brushed off the glass, then looked back up towards the light from the hatch. Her blood turned to ice when she saw the reason for her fall.

  “Why the hell can’t you stay the fuck out of my business?’ Amanda growled.

  A baseball bat, now splattered with red blotches from Poppy’s cracked head, hung limply in her grasp.

  “Too many people have gotten hurt. I caused this mess. I need to do the right thing now,” The Therapist said over and over again as The Copper drove.

  “We all got involved in this for our own ends, Rich. You can’t keep blaming yourself.” The Copper looked over at him for a moment too long, almost missing the turn off to Amanda’s house. “Shit,” he said, swerving at the last second.

  “I need to ring that detective. We’ll never get there in time.” Baker called the number from the card Rachel had given him. He drummed his fingers against the car door as he waited for her to pick up. “Detective? It’s Dr. Richard Baker. I didn’t tell you everything about Amanda. She’s dangerous. You need to get over to her house, now. We’re still twenty minutes away. Her mother is in serious danger. What? Don’t you see why there’s been no sightings of her? Because she never left the house. I know you searched it, but not everywhere. I’ve only just remembered what Amanda told me a while back in one of her sessions. She was grounded once for stealing a bottle of wine from her mother’s prized collection? Yes, that’s right. Diana Walker had a cellar conversion when they first moved in. I think she’s down there. It’s the only explanation. Yes, she’s alive. I think. But she won’t be for much longer if you don’t get there quick. Oh, and by the way, Amanda’s father owned a shotgun. He left it to her in his will. I thought it best to warn you.”

  Rachel hung up the phone and called for Michelle. “We need to get to the Walker house. And we’re going to need backup.”

  “I’ll call the local units,” Michelle replied, picking up the phone. Rachel reached over and plunged her finger into the hook switch.

  “We also need armed response units, at least two in case she really has got a bloody shotgun and this becomes a hostage situation.”

  In less than ten minutes, Rachel and Michelle had made the journey to the Walker residence, arriving just after two marked response units. Thankfully, both drivers had turned their flashing blue lights and two tones off well before reaching the address in accordance with Rachel’s earlier instructions that all units responding were to make a silent approach. They also had the foresight not to park directly outside the address, so as not to tip Amanda off.

  The four response officers looked towards Rachel for guidance as she
alighted from the car. Holding up a finger for them to wait a moment, she rushed around to the boot to grab her personal protection equipment. As she donned her ballistic vest, she spotted Richard Baker and another man standing across the road watching them.

  “Where the hell did they come from?” she asked herself, then turned to face Michelle. “Tell two of the uniforms to make their way around the back, but not to engage anyone until I’ve carried out a dynamic risk assessment. For the time being I want them to put in a visual containment. The other two are to go either end of the street and put up cordon tape. I don’t want anyone but the Old Bill coming down this road until we know exactly what we’ve got.”

  As soon as Michelle had gone off to deliver her instructions, Rachel stormed across the road to confront the two men standing opposite. “Who are you?” she demanded, looking directly at The Copper, “and what are you both doing here?”

  “DC Ben Taylor. From Helston CID. I was in the area and saw the sirens as I was driving down the highway. Thought I could help in some way?” He flashed his warrant card.

  Rachel nodded. “Why are you here?” she demanded of Baker.

  “I…I thought I might be able to help?”

  Rachel’s eyes narrowed as she considered this. Though, if he’d really wanted to help, he should have said something when she’d visited him. If he had, all of this could have probably been avoided. “For the moment, I want you both to stay back. I’m going to try and talk to Amanda before the ARVs arrive. Hopefully we can resolve this without anyone getting hurt.”

  “But before you do, I need to tell you the full story, well, the short version…” Baker said. The arrogant manner he’d had with Rachel previously was now completely gone.

  “It’ll have to wait.”

  Baker opened his mouth but Rachel was already halfway back across the road.

  “Can you see anything through the window?” Rachel asked, pulling out her phone.

  Michelle shook her head. “Nothing.”

  Rachel dialled Amanda’s number. If she could hear Amanda’s voice it might give her a good indication of her mental state. It rang until it went to answer phone. Rachel cancelled and tried again, only to get the same response.

  “How long until the ARVs arrive?” she asked Michelle, who was monitoring her Airwave radio through an earphone.

  “They were a long way off when we called for backup,” Michelle said. “Latest ETA is five minutes. Also,” she said, pulling a dour face, “I’ve just heard that Hargreaves is making her way down to the scene to take over as Incident Commander.”

  Rachel grimaced at that and then took a deep breath, forcing herself to consider the situation with complete detachment. Had Baker not mentioned the shotgun in his call to her earlier, her immediate reaction would have been to call upon a Personnel Support Unit, of Level II public order trained uniform officers clad in full riot gear, including NATO helmets, to carry out a rapid entry with long shields and secure the premises and everyone inside it. However, the possibility of a firearm being present—Rachel had checked with the licencing officer while en route and he had confirmed that she did indeed have a shotgun licence—cranked the risk assessment up from ‘unknown’ to ‘high’. The fact that she had a licence didn’t automatically mean that Amanda still possessed a shotgun. Even if she did, according to the licencing officer’s notes on her application, the secure gun cupboard she’d claimed that it was locked in was located in the loft, which meant that she probably wouldn’t have ready access to it and that it would take her a few minutes to get it out and load it.

  They needed to establish an RVP at a safe distance away from the venue and await ARV arrival. An armed containment would then be put in place and the Authorised Firearms Officers would initiate contact and call the occupiers out in a controlled fashion. If Amanda was inside on her own, and she refused to cooperate, the situation would become a siege and the police response would be to just wait her out. The problem in this case was that Amanda wasn’t alone; she had her mother as a hostage. A girl with mental health issues who had access to a firearm, and who was holding her mother—a woman she appeared to hate—hostage was potentially a recipe for disaster.

  “I know it goes against all the rules, but I’m tempted to wander over there, knock on the door and just act normally,” Rachel said.

  “What? Are you mad?” Michelle replied, horrified at this idea.

  “Think about it,” Rachel said. “How many times have we been there recently? There’s no reason for Amanda to suspect that Doctor Baker has tipped us off. The chances are that she’ll open the door as normal and won’t suspect a thing.”

  “Unless she opens it with a gun and blows a hole through your chest,” Michelle countered. “I’m not worried about you but it would be a terrible shame to ruin that lovely designer blouse you’re wearing.”

  Rachel smiled at that. “Call the guys covering the back,” she instructed. “See if there’s any sign of movement.”

  Michelle did this, talking quietly into her lapel microphone. She listened to the reply with a frown of deep concentration plastered to her face. She nodded and turned to Rachel. “All quiet; no sign of any movement at all.”

  By now, several more units had arrived, along with an ambulance containing ballistic injury trained paramedics. It was standard practice for one to be called to a firearms incident like this and the control room had automatically done so. An RVP had been set up at the end of the road and Rachel spotted Inspector Kay Peters, the Divisional Duty Officer for the late turn shift, padding towards her, using the building lines as cover.

  Christ, this is turning into a fucking circus, Rachel thought, half hoping that she hadn’t called all these resources out for nothing and half hoping, for Diana’s sake, that she had.

  “What have we got then?” Peters asked as she fixed her cap over her short blonde hair and straightened her ballistics vest.

  Rachel indicated Amanda’s house and gave her a quick run down.

  “So, no gun has actually been seen?”

  Rachel shook her head. “No, this is all based on information from her shrink. He reckons she’s very unstable and on the verge of losing control. Plus, she has a shotgun licence and we have reason to believe the gun is on the premises.”

  Michelle stiffened and placed a hand on Rachel’s arm, pointing towards the house. “Look.”

  Through the front window of the house, they saw Amanda walk casually across the living room, holding what appeared to be a glass of red wine in her hand. A moment later, she had vanished from sight and the light had gone off, leaving the house in darkness.

  “For someone who’s meant to be on the point of losing it, she looks pretty chilled out, if you ask me,” Peters said, raising a questioning eyebrow at Rachel.

  “I agree with your assessment,” Rachel said. “I’m going to go and knock on the door. If the ARVs arrive before I get back, deploy them as usual, Kay,” she said to the Duty Officer. “You have control until I get back or Her Royal Highness arrives to take over.”

  Rachel pulled her Airwave radio out of her pocket and twiddled the channel selector until she came to one of several back-to-back channels that officers could talk to each other freely on during stakeouts and other operations. “I’m going to be on channel five so I don’t interfere with the main working channel,” she said, plugging in the cord for her earpiece and then unwinding the cord. “Can you listen in case it all goes wrong and I need to shout for help? Keep me posted on what’s going on out here. I’ll call you forward as soon as I can.”

  “I think I should come in with you,” Michelle said as soon as Rachel reached her.

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Rachel said. It was one thing for her to risk her own life, but risking the life of a junior colleague didn’t sit well with her.

  “She’s used to seeing us together and besides, two on one might make Amanda think twice about doing anything stupid.”

  “OK. Get your Kevlar vest on. Be sharp th
ough, if I need you. Understand?” She gave Michelle a knowing look.

  “Copy that.”

  “Be careful in there, both of you,” Peters said. “It’s a lot of paperwork for me if you get yourselves shot.”

  Taking a deep breath, Rachel and Michelle began their walk up to the house. As they approached, they saw that the front door was open a crack. They stepped closer, their backs against the fence, mindful to try and avoid triggering the security light. Once at the front door, Rachel turned to Michelle. “Stay vigilant,” she whispered.

  Michelle clasped Rachel’s forearm. “What are we going to do if she answers and she seems perfectly normal, bearing in mind that, if Doctor Quackface is right, she has a gun somewhere?”

  “Whatever happens, we’re going in under Section 17 to search for Diana, so as soon as I give the signal, let’s restrain Amanda and cuff her for everyone’s safety.” Rachel patted her chest, feeling her hand thud against Kevlar plating. “Let’s hope, if she does have a gun, she shoots us here and not in the head or the legs,” she said with a devilish smile. It was a typical gallows humour joke brought on by nerves, but it got a smile out of Michelle.

  Rachel raised her hand to push open the front door. “Hello,” she called out.

  There was no response. Inside, she could hear the TV playing. After exchanging glances with Michelle, she padded into the hallway.

  “Amanda? It’s Detective Inspector Morrison. Are you home?”

  A crash from underneath her made her look over towards the utility room. As she made a slow track over there, using the wall as a guide in the darkness, a lamp clicked on in the living room.

  “Hello, detective inspector.”

  Rachel spun round to find Amanda sitting in an armchair behind her. “Hello, Amanda,” she replied, forcing her voice to remain calm despite her rising heart rate.

  Something metallic in Amanda’s hands glinted in the lamplight, causing Rachel’s blood to run cold.