Night Angels

by Danuta Reah

  She was on her feet, one arm dangling uselessly, trying to orient herself and get back to the centre, her only route to the safety of the road. And then the moon came out, and he was kneeling on the ground, frozen in the moment, his hands feeling at a bag that had burst open in his fall. He didn’t look up as the thin light illuminated the yard but reached around him, his hands drifting above, but not touching, the shattered bottle, the long-stemmed goblet that rolled to stillness as she watched, the dark stain soaking into the moss. She heard his whisper, ‘No!’ as the sound of sirens blotted everything out and cars screeched to a halt in the lane and figures came running through the door of the advice centre and she knew that Farnham had heard and had understood.

  20

  Hull, Monday evening

  Matthew Pearse didn’t look at the officers teeming round him. He crouched protectively over the broken glass and the dark liquid seeping into the moss, over the long-stemmed metal cup that gleamed in the torchlight. One of the officers attempting to get him to his feet kicked it, and Pearse screamed as if the foot had landed on him, ‘Consecrated!’ Farnham pulled Lynne away from the melee into the relative seclusion of the off-shot. ‘Are you hurt? Are you OK?’ Then, seeing that she seemed undamaged apart from the stains on her jeans where she had fallen, he said, ‘What the fuck did you think you were doing?’

  She flexed her fingers and found the feeling was starting to come back in her injured arm. ‘I’m OK. There was something going on in the basement,’ she said. ‘Anna Krleza…’ They were going to be too late, because she had not asked the right questions, because she had let herself get distracted between the needs of two investigations.

  ‘They’re getting in there, Lynne. What the fuck were you doing?’ She had never seen him angry before.

  ‘This,’ she said, showing him Nasim’s book that was still lying by the side of the sink. ‘Nasim Rafiq wrote a lot of it down – names, addresses…I don’t know. I came to get it.’

  He started to say something, but a shout from across the yard pulled him back. Lynne followed him. The boarding that had apparently covered the passage leading from the street to the yard was being pulled away. Lynne recognized the scraping sound she’d heard before Pearse attacked her. ‘He came through there,’ she said.

  It wasn’t a passage, it was an entrance into the warehouse, steps leading downwards into the darkness. At the bottom of the steps was a right-angled turn, and a short passage ending in a door. There was another door to the right, leading to the space under the stairs. Farnham shone his torch through. The tiny, tiled room had recently been used – there was a mattress that had been slept on, a cardigan thrown across the blanket. A small cubbyhole contained a tap, a drain and a bucket. There was no one there. Farnham pushed open the door at the end of the short passage, and the basement opened out in front of them.

  It was a church, Lynne thought, looking at the line of candles that guttered with the disturbance of their entry, then steadied. A line of candles led between brick pillars towards a stone table on which a three-branch candelabra had burned low. Two of Farnham’s team turned on their flashlights, and the candle flame paled as the shadows retreated and the room became a dusty brick basement. Lynne turned and turned again, expecting at any moment to see the huddled shape of a body, to see Anna Krleza at last, her face a secret behind the blood and shattered bone. She had felt the weight of the mallet, the strength of his arm. Her shoulder was a dull ache, but the movement was coming back. Maybe it wasn’t broken.

  Someone called out from the far side of the room. Lynne looked across and saw a metal door, pitted, heavy. One of Farnham’s officers was trying to open it. He wrestled with the handle and looked at Farnham. ‘It’s locked.’ She recognized the young constable, Des Stanwell, and for a minute, the picture of Gemma Wish-art floated in front of her face. Some kind of posh student type…She felt a cold clarity and a sense of distance as if she was watching everything from a long way away. Farnham’s voice was urgent: ‘Get that door open!’ Someone pulled a loose bar from one of the windows and made an improvised crowbar.

  The door resisted, then swung open. They fell back instinctively from the wash of foul air carrying the stench of old corruption and sharper, more recent smells, vomit, urine. Just for a moment, they were frozen around the figure that had slumped out of the space as the door opened, the figure who must have been pressed against the door as the air went. Anna Krleza. She was so small. Lynne registered the bruised hands and the torn nails, and knew that she was in the place where Katya had died; that Katya, too, had struggled in that confined crypt in the muffled dark as the air was used up and her cries and shouts couldn’t breach the air-tight seal on the door.

  But Anna Krleza was still alive – just.

  Matthew Pearse sat at the table with his face in his hands. He had said nothing since Farnham had cautioned him, but now he looked up towards Lynne and said, ‘Anna?’

  Lynne looked at Farnham. He nodded. ‘Anna’s alive,’ Lynne said. ‘I don’t know any more than that.’

  ‘Too late,’ Pearse said. ‘I was too late. I should have…yesterday. But I was weak. She’d tried so hard.’

  ‘What do you mean, Mr Pearse?’ Lynne said. ‘You were “too late”?’

  ‘To save her,’ he said. ‘To save her.’ His hands moved restlessly. ‘It’s hard for them,’ he said. ‘They don’t know, they don’t understand. Judge not, Inspector, that you be not judged. If they are not fully aware of their sin, how can they be condemned?’ He sighed. ‘But sometimes – there is full awareness and the intention to continue with the sin. If you have repented and then knowingly sin again, can your repentance ever have been true? Or are you condemned eternally to the pit of Hell? Anna tried so hard, but she was going back to her old ways. I had to save her.’

  Farnham leant forward. ‘And the other three?’ he said. Pearse looked at him. ‘The woman we found at Ravenscar?’ Pearse bowed his head in assent. ‘Who was she?’ Farnham said.

  ‘I never knew their names.’ Pearse was rubbing one hand restlessly round the other as though he was trying to relieve cramp or stiffness.

  ‘The woman who came to you for help?’ Farnham went on. ‘The one you took to the hospital?’

  ‘Oksana,’ he said. ‘That’s her name. She told me that.’

  ‘And was she going back to her old ways?’ Farnham said. ‘Did you have to save her too?’

  ‘She wanted an abortion,’ Pearse said. ‘She told me when we got to the hospital. Then she cried. She knew it was wrong. She hadn’t cried before.’

  Lynne felt her breath tight in her throat. She thought about Katya/Oksana, young, frightened, crying the tears of relief that she had, at last, found somewhere safe. How had Pearse got her to leave?

  He seemed to see the question in her face. ‘I told her that the men were looking for her and she wasn’t safe,’ he said. ‘She was very frightened of them. Of one of them. I told her I could take her somewhere safer.’ He had met her at the car park entrance. ‘She knew she could trust me,’ he said.

  Lynne wanted to close her eyes. She was aware of Farnham shifting in his chair beside her. ‘And the other one?’ he said. ‘Gemma Wishart?’ Lynne could read his unspoken question. You raped and tortured her. Are you going to tell us you were saving her?

  ‘I didn’t know her name,’ Pearse said. ‘I told you. Gemma.’ His voice was soft. ‘That’s a pretty name. She showed me the way. I didn’t mean for her to die, but I left her, and when I came back, she was dead.’ His face twisted slightly at the memory. ‘She must have fought so hard to escape. She was…Her face was…But that was when I understood. That was when I realized what I had to do. It was stormy that night,’ he said. ‘When I put her in the sea. It was the spring tide.’ He smiled at them. ‘Nearly a year ago. I’m glad you found her,’ he said.

  There was silence in the interview room. Nearly a year ago. Pearse had started killing nearly a year ago. Lynne could hear the electronic tick of the wall clock, sudde
nly loud. It seemed to pulse with the words in her head: How many? How many? How many? She looked at Farnham, whose face was tense with the shock of realization. He leant towards Pearse, forcing the man to look at him. ‘And the woman in the hotel? At the Blenheim?’ Pearse’s look of blank incomprehension was more convincing than any denial.

  Then there was a knock at the door. It was Anderson. ‘There’s something come through, sir,’ he said. Farnham paused the interview and gestured Lynne to come with him. Anderson started talking as soon as the door was shut. It was a moment before Lynne could take on board what he was saying ‘It’s the communications people,’ he said. ‘They’ve only just contacted us. The cell phone, the Angel Escorts cell phone. Someone used it this afternoon. I’ve got a location on it. It’s over in Sheffield. A place called Lodge Moor.’

  Farnham looked at Lynne. ‘That’s where Luke Hagan lives.’

  Glossop, Monday evening

  The light was starting to fade by the time the meeting finished, and by the time Roz left Manchester, it was dark. She’d had to negotiate the city centre in the rush hour, feeling an irritated impatience with drivers who seemed to assume that telepathy or second sight was an attribute all drivers had. Didn’t they ever have to negotiate unfamiliar city centres? A four-wheel drive took advantage of a slight hesitation to cut in front of her, forcing her into the wrong lane. Ignoring the bad-tempered horns, she slowed and held up the traffic as she eased left, making them make way for her. She thought about the manoeuvrability of Luke’s bike, the way he could always weave in and out of fast-moving traffic queues, leave the hot and angry cars behind him as he accelerated into the distance.

  It was after half-past six by the time she was beyond the urban sprawl of Manchester, and the roads were quieter. The rush hour was over, and she lost some of the heavy traffic when she turned off towards Glossop. She was running later than she’d said. Perhaps she should have phoned Luke sooner, let him know she was held up. She was approaching the viaduct now, the high bridge that carried the railway line across the road, winding through the small patch of countryside that had not yet been swallowed up by the creeping cities.

  Glossop was an attractive town of dark stone, with the high hills and moorlands to the north and to the east. But to her, tonight, it was a long main road that was always longer than she remembered, a featureless drive past garages, supermarkets, and an old church that had been converted into a warehouse. She was approaching the square now, where there would be a place to pull in and make her promised phone call. She was late, and Luke would be getting worried. She should have phoned sooner. She saw a parking space and pulled in rather abruptly, prompting an irritated beep from the car that had been crowding her since she had turned towards Glossop.

  She rang Luke’s number, doing a quick estimate for the rest of her journey. She should be there in half an hour. She looked at the sky as the phone was connecting, and saw the clouds low on the hills, heavy with rain. Three-quarters of an hour, play safe. If the clouds were down she’d have to go slowly. The phone was ringing now, then it clicked. Luke’s voice: ‘Leave a message and I might get back to you.’ She felt a stab of disappointment. ‘It’s me,’ she said. The perfect message. This is me, is that you? Meet me here in five minutes. ‘It’s Roz. I’m running late. It’s seven-fifteen and I’m just leaving Glossop now. There’s cloud on the hills. Give me three-quarters of an hour.’ She kept hoping he’d pick up the phone. He often ignored his calls, let the machine take them. But he didn’t. Up yours, Hagan.

  She was tired. She wondered what the chances were of getting some coffee in Glossop. She decided she couldn’t be bothered, couldn’t be arsed to get out of the car and go in search. Luke would fill her up with one of his caffeine infusions as soon as she got back. It wouldn’t be long now. Then she remembered that he was going to tell the police today about the photographs. She remembered his half-joking, ‘You’ll find me in custody when you get back,’ and felt a twinge of anxiety.

  She drove on, and the lights of Glossop thinned, became the lights of individual houses and then she was driving in the dark as the road began to climb in front of her, falling away to empty land on her right. There was the last house ahead of her as the road curved to the right. Its windows were dark. The rocks were higher now, with the thin grass of the peat moors that rattled as the wind shook them. The first wisps of cloud were drifting in the air in front of her, and she slowed down, slowed again as the mist became thicker and the road reduced to just a few feet ahead as her lights reflected off the fog.

  Her phone rang, and she groped across the seat to pick it up. It would be Luke, responding to her message. She didn’t dare take her eyes off the road, but picked the phone up and pressed the answer key. ‘Hello? Luke?’ It buzzed and crackled in her ear, and she thought she could hear someone laughing but it was hard to be sure, then the signal cut off.

  21

  Snake Pass

  The fog was getting thicker as the car climbed. Roz was crawling now, peering through the windscreen, trying to see the road ahead. Once, a car loomed out of the mist, dangerously close, swerved and disappeared down the hill. Now she felt as though she was isolated on an empty track that vanished invisibly behind her and in front of her, the mist luminous against the dark of the night. The road was still climbing. She wasn’t at the top yet. There was something in the road ahead of her. She strained her eyes trying to see it, and then it moved, revealing itself as a sheep as it hurried away from her light.

  Then she was out of the cloud and the road curved away in front of her, winding round the rocky edges towards the summit. She accelerated, trying to get as much distance as she could before the mist came down again. As she reached the top, the wind was blowing, whipping away the last of the cloud and making the car judder. She was on the top now, the road straight and narrow in her headlights, running across the winterdead moor with its dark peat pools that gleamed as her lights caught them.

  Once she was across this bit, she would be heading off the tops, down towards Doctor’s Gate. Then there was the long run off the foothills of the Pennines, through the conifer forest and past the dams. Then, finally, back, to coffee and comfort, and Luke. She felt a jump of optimism, and then the anxiety she’d felt in Glossop. Don’t anticipate trouble. He’d have let you know. She was nearly at the stones marking the start of the long and winding descent. She could see a light in the mirror behind her.

  Then her engine cut out. Just like that, without warning, it was dead and the car was rolling to a halt. The wind whipped across the moors and the car rocked. She slammed the gears into neutral and turned the ignition key again and again. Nothing. What…? Luke had filled the tank that morning. The car was running fine. But the cold feeling that was coming over her had nothing to do with the cold outside or the sound of the wind. Gemma vanished. Gemma came back across the Snake…beat her up and then strangled her…and then he posed her obscenely in a hotel bathroom…and what else? What else? What else? She was reaching for her phone as the sound of an engine reached her. It was the irregular beat of a V-twin, and relief flooded through her as she saw the unmistakable shape of Luke’s Black Shadow as it pulled into the side of the road in front of her.

  ‘Luke!’ She opened the door and got out as he leapt off the bike and ran towards her. He’d come to meet her. He was worried enough to come to meet her. But something in her mind was saying No! and she hesitated. Then he was there, and he grabbed her arm, pulling her towards him. And his fist slammed into the side of her head.

  Everything stopped. She fell back against the car, her head cracking against the door as it whipped back, and she couldn’t move. Her hands, her feet, wouldn’t obey the instructions her mind was sending to them. She slumped on to the wet ground and she could see his feet, his boots, as he walked towards her.

  Hull, 7.30 p.m.

  Lynne felt the frozen impotence of inaction. Farnham had been on the phone to Sheffield within seconds of getting the information from Anderson, and
a team had left at once for Luke Hagan’s. And the cell phone was silent again. Lynne tried to picture the scene. She knew Lodge Moor, the high road and the houses exposed to the wind that blew from the bleak emptiness of Redmire Moor. She heard the click of a lighter behind her, and for the first time in ages she felt the deep need to inhale nicotine into her lungs, as the sharp smell of the smoke drifted across her face.

  A phone rang, and she jumped. Farnham swore under his breath. It wasn’t the phone they were keeping free for the Sheffield team. She could hear the sound of conversation behind her, and someone came across and spoke briefly, quickly, to Farnham. He looked at the waiting group. ‘That was Sheffield,’ he said. There was a puzzled murmur. ‘Another query. They’ve only just tied this in with our investigation. They found the body of a man on Sunday morning, near the university. He’d been strangled, with a ligature.’ He looked at Lynne. ‘It’s Marcus Holbrook,’ he said.