The Face Stealer

by Robert Scott-Norton

  She released Nixon and ran for the back office and the depths of the police station. Nixon slumped to the floor, gasping for breath.

  9

  The man’s neck had snapped easily. She didn’t know why that surprised her but it did. It was a new experience she was feeling now, but labels for such things eluded her for the moment. Words fluttered through her consciousness but their meanings were lost, nebulous. She couldn’t decide what it was she was feeling. Hunger, exhaustion, shame, delight, fear. It was all the same, and different.

  There were people coming. The lights and noise from the street outside meant trouble. She knew that word. She had to get moving.

  The creature that had once been known as Annie Steerman glanced down behind the reception desk. A constable was crouched in front of another, his arms raised protectively as if shielding his colleague. She discounted the threat and stepped through the debris, feet crunching on broken ceiling tiles. She would need to keep up the pace. Non-threats could wait.

  More men were in the corridor beyond the reception. She sensed them hovering a distance away from her. More non-threats. But she knew that could change.

  She headed left. Double doors opened with a clatter and she found herself in a large space with many tables and chairs. No one was here though. But there was something familiar. Food. That word again. Hunger. For a moment, she paused, not sure which way to go. The smell of food was drawing her back towards the room behind all the tables, but she knew that she mustn’t: nothing must get in the way of finding her target.

  Dismissing the irritating sensation in her stomach, Annie Steerman turned on her heels, and ran back out of the canteen.

  10

  Max followed the constable into the corridor. With the lights out, the gloom stretched into all the corners making the station uncomfortably alien. The small windows at the end of the corridor did little to alleviate the gloom and the whole setting put Max on edge.

  His thoughts kept coming back to Heather being dead. It couldn’t be true and yet the police were convinced enough to arrest him for the murder. The sobs had begun several times at the back of his throat but he knew that if he gave in to the grief, he would collapse.

  They’d made a mistake. The footage he’d been shown had looked real, but that didn’t mean it was real. The resolution of the video clip wasn’t great, and it was in very dark conditions. It would be difficult, and expensive, to fake evidence like that, but—and this bit Max was holding on to—it was not impossible. What was the other alternative? That Max had gone and murdered his girlfriend, and had forgotten the whole thing? He’d been unconscious and tied up. Was it even possible to do what they say he’d done and not remember any of it? Hypnosis, drugs? Could Cindy have done that to him?

  He had to find Cindy and get to the truth of what happened during those hours. He could make her talk. He was prepared to go further than the police would. The detective had said she was recovering in the hospital. That was the other side of town, ten minutes in a car, maybe an hour on foot. Faster if he ran. But first he had to get out of here.

  “Down this way please,” the constable said, indicating Max should walk ahead of him along the corridor leading back to the cells. The constable was antsy, constantly checking behind him as they moved away from the interview room. The corridors were quiet now. No one passed them. In the distance, Max thought he could hear excited voices. Whatever was going wrong here, he knew they were all in danger.

  “Don’t take me back to the cells. Find out what’s happening first. We might need to evacuate.”

  “If we do, the custody sergeant will get you out. Right now, DI Payne’s asked for you to go back to your cell and that’s where I’m taking you.”

  The constable hadn’t put cuffs on him and Max considered running for it. With the disturbance, he reckoned this would be his best chance to get away.

  Noises came from up ahead. People shouting around the corner.

  A gun fired.

  Max and his escort stopped in their tracks. The ringing of the shot tingled his eardrums. Another shot quickly followed, then a third.

  “Let’s go back to the interview room,” the constable said, taking hold of Max’s arm and pulling him back along the way they’d come.

  Footsteps were running in their direction, and he could make out what the voices were saying.

  “It’s still moving! Stop firing.”

  “I suggest we run,” the constable said, and together the two men hurried back towards the interview room. As they approached the next junction in the corridor, they almost collided with a figure who’d come running from the corridor from the left. They slid to a stop before the woman, and Max had seconds to absorb the dishevelled woman’s appearance before she turned to face them.

  It took a second to register what he was seeing, but when he did his mind flashed back to the photos Payne had shown him in the interview room of Heather. This person’s features were completely gone, melted away to a clean smooth finish like the skin of his dead girlfriend.

  The constable reacted and instinctively registering her as a threat, ploughed into her, reaching for her arm and shoving her up against the wall in an effort to restrain her. Max stepped back along the corridor, keeping out of the way but looking up and down the corridor expecting help to arrive.

  The faceless woman didn’t take kindly to the rough force from the constable and she pushed herself away from the wall. The constable yelped in surprise at the sudden force and then she ripped her arm away from him before spinning and punching him in the chest. Max heard something crack and even as the constable tried to get back to his feet, Max lunged for her trying to knock her to the floor.

  She fell and Max landed on top of her. For a moment, they were a scrambling mass of limbs as they both tried to get to their feet. The constable lay against the wall unconscious. Landing a kick to her ribs, Max pushed away from her and pelted along the corridor. Ahead he saw more double doors, but the faceless woman had got to her feet and was giving chase.

  Payne stepped out from a side room.

  Max skidded to a stop.

  Payne looked surprised. His steely eyes stared ahead, behind Max. In his hands he held a gun.

  Max raised his hands, fingers fanned out, shaking his head. “No!” he shouted.

  “Get behind me!” Payne jerked his head to reinforce his statement and Max realised he wasn’t the target. As he ducked around Payne he turned to face the woman bearing down on them both. It was like she didn’t even see the weapon in Payne’s hand, or didn’t recognise it for what it was, or just didn’t care that a gun was being pointed at her. She showed no sign of slowing.

  “Stop!” Payne shouted, but the woman didn’t slow.

  The gunshot cracked the air. Max’s ears rang with the blast. The bullet caught the woman in the shoulder and blood spat out behind her, but the impact brought her down.

  “Thank you,” Max said.

  “Don’t thank me yet,” Payne replied.

  The woman was still moving. She slowly got to her feet. Max saw the blood coming out of the wound on her shoulder, saw how awkwardly she held it as she got to her feet.

  “I told you to stop. I’m arresting you for assault. I’d suggest you stop moving.”

  But the woman showed no sign of doing what she was told. With a sudden burst of speed, she cleared the distance between them. Payne fired again, but her sudden movement made his shot go wild. Before he got another chance, she was in front of him, knocking the gun arm aside.

  Max turned to move, reaching for the doors behind him, but he wasn’t fast enough. The woman grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him back. In an attempt to stop himself losing his balance, he tried to turn, and brought his fist up as he turned. He caught her under the chin with a right upper cut. Pain fired across his knuckles as they hit bone. She barely flinched.

  Her hands pulled at him and with one under his chin, Max felt his feet leave the floor. She lifted him and squeezed her fingers ar
ound his throat. Instinctively, Max brought his hands up and tried to pull the woman’s hands from his throat, but her grip was like a vice. Panic entered his mind. He kicked out with his legs but his energy was sapped. The colours in his vision became dimmer. He knew he was going to pass out.

  Then he saw Payne standing beside the woman. His gun was resting above her ear. This time, there was no warning.

  He fired.

  Blood and flesh and grey blobs spat out from the side of her head as the bullet tore through her head.

  The grip dropped. Max fell to the floor, clutching at his throat, gasping for air. But the woman didn’t fall, instead making a noise like a wounded animal.

  This wasn’t the end of it.

  Payne looked down at Max.

  “Run,” he said.

  Max got to his feet, ignoring the pain. He looked at Payne and saw the strange look in his eyes.

  Then, he turned and ran.

  The gun fired again.

  And again.

  11

  The faceless intruder fell to the floor and lay still at Payne’s feet. Blood pooled around the body and left splatters up the walls. He looked at the gun in his hand—the gun he’d kept hidden in his filing cabinet—and wondered what he was going to do now.

  His clothes were sprayed with blood and looking closer he saw other dark globules of fleshy type material, but he was damned if he was going to touch them. This suit was destined for the bin as soon as he found a change of clothes.

  The woman was dead. He’d made sure of it after emptying the rest of the gun’s rounds into her head. She might not have had a face when she came into the police station; on her exit she was going to leave with only the remnants of a head.

  Nixon ran into the corridor, saw his boss and ran to him. Payne smiled grimly before shoving the gun into a trouser pocket, but not fast enough to escape Nixon’s notice.

  “I’m going to have to take that off you, sir,” Nixon said.

  “Yes, I suppose you’d better.” Payne took it out again and offered it to his colleague.

  Using a tissue, Nixon carefully took the gun from his superior before slipping it into his own jacket pocket.

  Others had arrived so Nixon turned to them and said loudly. “This is a crime scene. I don’t want any more people entering this area. Someone go and seal this corridor.” And then, perhaps rather louder than he needed to he turned back to Payne and said, “You did well to disarm her, sir. I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you.”

  Payne looked Nixon in the eye and held his gaze for a second. “Not quite ready for the scrapheap just yet.”

  Sirens were approaching. The place would be getting full of investigators very quickly.

  “What happened?” Payne asked.

  “There were two of them. Walked in through the front door off the street. I think it was the first one that caused the damage. She must have been carrying explosives. She killed Alan Diggins.”

  Payne sighed. He’d always got on well with Alan. Young man with a young family. Someone would be speaking to his wife later.

  “And this one?”

  “Must have waited until the first one did the damage. She killed Sanders. Almost did me in too.” He rubbed his neck, and Payne saw how red it looked.

  “You need a medic.”

  “No, I’m fine,” he said, then coughed. “Maybe later.”

  “She was after Max Harding.”

  Nixon drew his eyes together. The worry lines he was developing on his forehead appeared. “Are you sure? What on earth for?”

  “There’s an obvious connection isn’t there? I don’t know what happened under the pier last night, but I do know that we’ve a second body to send to the path lab without a face.”

  “Where is Harding?”

  “He left.”

  “Left?”

  “He got away whilst I was dealing with this one.”

  Nixon opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it. Instead he simply said, “OK.”

  “She was like a bloody zombie or something. Nothing was stopping her.”

  “Why was she so interested in Max?”

  Payne shrugged. “No idea.”

  A couple of constables had come back with crime scene tape and were doing their best to fix it up to the walls to block passage through. Happier now the immediate issue was being dealt with, Payne took Nixon by the elbow and steered him back towards the rear of the station.

  “You haven’t got a change of clothes have you?” he asked.

  The police station car park had filled with workers from the police station and around the perimeter, passers-by were stopping and staring at the scene.

  Seeing the blast damage from outside hit home quite how badly they’d been attacked. There was now a gaping hole in the side of the building where the reception entrance had once been. The doors had been blasted away and Payne guessed were now part of the mass of twisted metal and broken glass that had been thrown across the street. It’s a wonder no one on the outside of the building had been hurt. None of the windows on the front of the building had survived, and looking at some of the nearby houses it was clear that they’d suffered too. A car alarm was still sounding intermittently at the edge of the car park.

  Nixon had lent him some clothes which didn’t quite fit but would do well enough for now. Payne had thrown his bloodied clothes in a bin in the locker room and was now wearing Nixon’s civvies. A bit dressy for Payne but he was grateful to be out of that suit. He’d washed his hands until the skin was clean of blood, but then cleaned them some more until they were red raw.

  Fire crews from the adjacent building had been the first emergency services to arrive. A fire engine was parked in the middle of the car park, whilst a team had entered the building. The ambulance teams had been next to arrive, and had been stood around anxiously waiting for the all clear from the fire crews before they were allowed to enter, and even then they were having to wear helmets and protective gear.

  Rumours about what had happened were running fast around the staff. No one had yet had the bottle to approach Payne and ask him what his thoughts were on the attack or to validate their version of events with his own, but it would surely just be a matter of time. Payne recognised the local news team van parked at the petrol station opposite and had already sent Nixon round to discretely remind everyone to keep their mouths shut.

  Payne found DCI Taylor on his mobile by one of the ambulances, away from the rest of the staff. On Payne’s approach, Taylor finished his call and pocketed his phone.

  “How long before we can get back inside?” Payne asked his boss.

  “Still waiting on that. Might not be today.”

  Payne didn’t think he’d ever seen Taylor look so old. A greying staunch figure of a man who’d got comfortable behind his desk, Taylor had always looked intimidating. But today, some of the shell hard exterior had been dented.

  “I’m hearing some disturbing things about what went on in there. Is this something to do with your murder investigation?”

  “It might be,” Payne replied. “There are similarities between the victim and the people that were seen to enter the building and cause this.”

  “The faceless people you mean.”

  “Yes. And one of them was very persistent in getting hold of my prime suspect.”

  “Wanted to shut him up? An accomplice?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Payne thought back to how they acted like animals. How determined they were.

  “It’s a shame neither of the attackers are alive for us to ask.” Taylor stared at Payne, daring him to say the wrong thing.

  “She was going to kill him, sir. I was only protecting my suspect.”

  “And where is he now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If he’s not back in custody in the next twenty–four hours I might start asking questions about the weapon used to take down that attacker. Are you understanding me Inspector?”

  �
��Yes, sir. Clearly.”

  The awkward moment between the two was broken as a black SUV made its way through the car park and stopped beside the fire engine. Its doors opened and out stepped the driver and two passengers. All wore casual attire and carried heavy looking briefcases. The driver caught Payne’s attention. A trim woman in her forties, with shoulder length blond hair. She looked around the car park, said something to the other people in her group, one a younger woman, the other a gruff looking man, and started walking towards Payne.

  Only it wasn’t Payne she wanted to see.

  “You’ll have to excuse me,” Taylor said and started walking towards the woman. Payne lingered where he was, trying to work out what the relationship was between these two. Taylor had straightened as he saw the car pull into the car park, almost like he was readying himself for a confrontation. But he seemed to relax a little as they were talking.

  Payne wandered back over to Nixon who’d found a cup of tea from somewhere.

  “Stuart, get a couple of men together, find some uniforms to help, take some cars and start looking for Harding.”

  Nixon nodded. “Will do.”

  “Try the hospital. His wife’s still in there.”

  “Suffice to say, if he’s not back in a police cell in the next day, my life is going to get a whole lot more interesting. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve had about as much interesting things happen to me today to last a lifetime.”

  “Who’s the lady?”

  “No idea. Have you seen any of them before?”

  “No,” Nixon said. “But they look like they mean business.”

  The woman finished her conversation with DCI Taylor and left to go and speak to the fire chief. This second conversation was even shorter than the first and quickly firemen approached to give them hard hats.

  “They’re going inside? What are they? Where’s our team?” Nixon said.