Thicker Than Water (Alexandra Best Investigations Book 1)

by Jean Saunders

  They gazed silently across the marsh and scrubland at the shabby-looking motor cruiser that had seen better days. It was moored at the head of a secluded, narrow and sluggish inlet that was probably rarely frequented. The reeds surrounding it were lush and tall and the boat could remain half-hidden for ever, unless anyone was especially looking for it.

  ‘What does it remind you of?’ Gary went on.

  ‘I don’t know. What?’ She probably shouldn’t ask…

  ‘The African Queen. Any minute now, Humphrey Bogart will pop up from the water, scraping leeches off himself—’

  ‘Shut up, Gary. I don’t need this now,’ Alex hissed. ‘Let me think. If Daneman’s on board. we have to make a distraction so that you can get him away to take a look at the bike. You switched the thingys like you said, didn’t you?’

  ‘They’re called plug-leads, and yes, I did. What am I supposed to do with him, anyway?’

  ‘Use your brains — and your fists if necessary.’

  Seconds later she caught her breath as she saw movements on the deck of the boat, and a large, shambling figure came out, looking all around him before making a move. She and Gary crouched down among the reeds.

  ‘He’s coming out. God, how could she ever have fancied him? He looks a real thug. Wait until he’s well away from the boat, Gary, and then you have to get him as far away as possible. Once it’s clear. I’ll go in.’

  ‘Listen, Alex, are you sure this is a good idea?’

  ‘Unless you’ve got a better one, it’s the only one we’ve got,’ she said. ‘Don’t let me down now.’

  She waited until she saw Daneman striding well across the marshy ground before giving Gary the OK to head him off and lure him away as far as possible. But she couldn’t wait too long. She didn’t know how much time she would need, or what state Caroline might be in, she thought with a shudder... and the further away they were when she found her, the better.

  But when she saw that the two men were within sight of one another, she sped off towards the boat. Once on deck, she called Caroline’s name quietly, and immediately realized how stupid that was. Even if she’d shrieked it out, Caroline wouldn’t hear her.

  Ignoring caution then, Alex kicked in the outer cabin door and peered inside. The smell that hit her was vile, and she wondered briefly how anyone could exist in it. Trying not to breathe too deeply, and with one hand covering her nose and mouth, she pushed open an inner cabin door and gasped as she saw the figure hunched up in the foetal position on the bunk.

  Alex would hardly have known that it was a woman except for the long skirt that barely reached her cracked and blood-encrusted feet. There was blood from her forehead seeping into the blindfold. The sight of her smothered any sense of revulsion Alex felt at the stench. Caroline Price was in dire need of help.

  And the fact that she hadn’t even moved... didn’t even know anyone was there... was just too terrible.

  Alex rushed across to the bunk and pulled the gag from her mouth. The woman immediately opened her mouth to scream, and Alex clamped her hand across Caroline’s mouth before wrenching the blindfold from her eyes. She crouched down so that Caroline could see she wasn’t Daneman, and stroked her face with her free hand, trying to calm her.

  Alex could see that her eyes were wild to the point of dementia, and she wouldn’t like to guess how much longer she could have remained sane in this captivity.

  ‘It’s all right, Caroline, it’s all right. I’m here to help,’ she said, choked at the sight of the pathetic figure.

  She knew Caroline couldn’t hear her. It hardly seemed to matter, providing she realized she was here to help. But they daren’t waste time. God knew how effective Gary’s motor-bike ruse would be. Gently, Alex removed her hand from Caroline’s mouth and quickly began untying the ropes that bound her.

  ‘I thought he’d come back,’ Caroline babbled at once. ‘He means to kill me. He has a knife — he’s a maniac—’

  Alex helped her to sit up and then faced her sideways to the daylight so that the deaf woman could read her lips.

  ‘Nobody’s going to kill you. I’m getting you out of here. But we have to be quick. Your father contacted me—’

  Caroline suddenly gripped her hand. Her eyes were huge. She had lost weight and her face was gaunt and angular.

  ‘My father won’t want to see me,’ she wept. ‘I wouldn’t let him help. I hated him. I shut him out.’ Her voice grew husky. ‘How long have I been here? Does he know?’

  ‘He knows. And you’ll see him soon,’ Alex said.

  She was stunned as well as shocked. This was certainly a turn up, but she had no reason to doubt Caroline’s own words.

  All this time she had believed Price was the villain of the piece, having little time for his daughter, when it seemed now as if it had been Caroline holding him off, feeling victimized and defensive because of her deafness. He still needed her money, of course, but still... it could be that blood was thicker than water — or bank-notes — after all.

  ‘We’ve got to get out of here, Caroline. Can you walk?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she mumbled. ‘I’ll try.’

  She stood up, swaying and still dazed. She gripped Alex’s arm tightly, and then sank down on the bunk again.

  ‘It’s no good. He hit me, and my head is swimming.’

  ‘Sit still a minute,’ Alex said. She punched out the numbers on her mobile phone and called for an ambulance. But she knew she had to get Caroline off this boat herself. She couldn’t afford to wait for outside help. If Daneman came back they would both be prisoners. She was strong, but she would be no match for him. A maniac assumed unnatural strength, and she had no doubt now that Daneman was deranged.

  ‘Lean completely on me,’ she ordered.

  Caroline tapped her shoulder, and Alex realized she hadn’t heard her. She faced her again, pity overcoming even her revulsion at what Daneman had done. But there was no time for any sort of emotion now. That could come later. The need for urgency was uppermost now.

  ***

  As usual, Daneman needed to get away from the boat for some peace. Every time the bitch had exhausted her bloody awful caterwauling, she’d started kicking the bunk to try and attract attention, until he’d taken her shoes away. Then she’d carried on kicking and head-butting, until she was in danger of doing herself in.

  She’d never been much of a looker, but she hadn’t been a bad screw, he thought, remembering. Still, he’d be bloody glad when the thing was over and Laver had collected his money and they had completed the deal.

  He’d have to go to ground until then. But then he’d be off, with a new passport in a brand new name. The anticipation of it took his thoughts away from the irritating bitch. Once he was enjoying the good life, she could rot in hell as far as he was concerned.

  He was well away from the boat and thankfully breathing clean air, then scowled as he saw the young man in black leathers walking towards him. The guy had appeared from nowhere. Daneman noted his biking gear, and assumed he was a bird-watcher, though he didn’t look much like one. Not that they came ready labelled, he reminded himself, and it took all sorts. He nodded and made to move on, but he didn’t get the chance as Gary stepped squarely in front of him.

  ‘Hi there, am I glad to see somebody. Do you know anything about motor bikes? I’ve broken down, and I’ve got to get to Great Yarmouth by tonight,’ he invented.

  He knew he was a hell of a lousy actor, but he was doing his best, in view of this lout’s glare.

  ‘I might, but it’s not my line of country—’

  ‘Do you have a mobile phone then? I could call a garage and ask them to come and help me out.’

  ‘I don’t have my mobile with me,’ Daneman snapped. ‘Look, I can’t help you — you’ll have to find somebody else—’

  ‘There’s nobody else around, man. Is that your boat back there? Can I come back with you to use the phone there? I’ll pay for the call,’ Gary said, feeling desperate now.


  But he knew there would be no invitation on to the boat. He saw Daneman’s eyes narrow, and if he read his expression correctly he knew the guy would be deciding that taking a look at the stranger’s bike and sending him on his way was the safer proposition.

  ‘Where’s this bike then?’ Daneman said at last. ‘I don’t have much time for all this—’

  ‘It’s not far.’ But Gary knew the guy was going to get suspicious any minute now. He hoped to God Alex had got to the boat and was getting the woman out. He didn’t object to tackling this thug, but he didn’t fancy having to get into a fist fight and risk ruining his leathers.

  Daneman walked silently beside him for some way, and then stopped, his voice full of aggression.

  ‘I still don’t see it. What’s going on?’

  He turned his head quickly, and in the distance he could see four men advancing cautiously in a wide circle towards the inlet where the boat was moored. His face was puce with rage as he turned on Gary.

  ‘You bastard, this is a trap, isn’t it? I can smell a copper a mile off—’

  Gary gave a forced laugh. ‘You must be crazy, man. I’m no copper—’

  He didn’t get the chance to say anything else before Daneman’s fist caught him right between the eyes and he sank like a stone. He didn’t even hear Frobisher’s shout, or see Daneman race back towards the boat with every intention of holding the woman hostage now. She was his insurance.

  His sides were hurting like hell by the time he reached the boat, but desperation was urging him on. He flung himself on board and wrenched open the cabin door. He’d pull the bitch outside and hold her to him with the knife against her throat.

  It took him no more than seconds before he registered that the cabin was empty, and knew what he had to do. There was no time to think. There was no way he was going to be caught either. No way he was going into captivity himself like a rat in a trap.

  He’d been there and done that, and he always told himself that when it came to the final choice, he’d rather take the other way out. The one way where nobody could touch him.

  Somehow he had always known it would be this way. He felt the excitement of an inevitability that was stronger than fear, more climactic than sex. He was going to cheat them all. And crazed by the knowledge that capture was imminent if he didn’t move fast, he turned on the gas bottle and all the taps on the cabin stove and the tiny oven.

  And once the smell of the gas became almost sweetly tangible, he threw a match into it.

  ***

  Alex saw Daneman turn around, and she had also seen DI Frobisher and his men forming a trap from which he would never escape. All her resentment at Nick’s presence vanished in an instant. Thank God, she thought. Thank God.

  She didn’t see what happened to Gary, and she couldn’t wait to find out; they weren’t safe yet. She and Caroline crawled as quickly as possible through the tall reeds to comparative safety, well away from the boat.

  A few minutes later, Alex’s senses were blasted as she heard the explosion. For an instant she felt as if all her nerves had splintered along with the shock-waves. She clutched the other woman to her, and then realized that Caroline had never even flinched. In the midst of everything else, Alex registered it as the most poignant fact of her life.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Caroline mumbled.

  Alex lifted her head cautiously. She looked back over Caroline’s shoulder to see the flames leaping up from where the boat was moored. She saw Nick and his men racing towards it, shouting to each other. Shouting her name.

  She tried to shout back. To tell Nick she was all right. She was safe. But her voice stuck in her throat and she couldn’t utter a sound. She could just watch the horror of that boat going up in flames, and wonder who, if anyone, had been on it. If Daneman had seen through Gary, and dragged him back there... oh God, what had she done...?

  ‘Alex, are you OK?’

  At what seemed like an age later, she seemed to turn her head in slow motion at the sound of the voice. Through a blur of tears she saw a ghostly figure staggering towards her and she blinked the tears away to see Gary’s bloody face.

  ‘Thank God you’re safe,’ she croaked. ‘I thought you might have been on the boat. You look a hell of a sight.’

  ‘Never mind that. What about her? Is she dead?’

  Alex swallowed hard, then realized she was still holding Caroline tight to her chest and that the woman seemed content to stay there, still clinging to her as if she was a lifeline.

  ‘No, she’s not dead.’

  Intuition told her that Daneman had been killed. But no matter what he had done to her, it would still be a shock to Caroline. They had meant something to one another once. Alex looked directly into her face so that she could understand the words. She tried to speak as carefully and calmly as she could, considering that her own nerves were still juddering all over the place.

  ‘Caroline, the boat has blown up. I’m afraid it was very likely that Daneman — Marcus — was on it —’

  Alex turned her around so that she could see the billowing smoke and flames across the flat expanse of land.

  The reaction was not what she expected. Caroline’s hysterical laughter was blood-curdling, and her eyes lit up with almost demoniacal pleasure. Her nipples peaked against her torn dress as if she was experiencing a sexual orgasm.

  ‘My God, she’s flipped,’ Gary muttered.

  ‘Wouldn’t you, after what she’s been through?’ Alex retorted, folding Caroline in her arms again.

  She was aware of other voices then, and she saw Nick Frobisher running towards her. Thank God he was safe too, she thought... she registered the fact while feeling oddly detached from it all. She had to hold on to her senses as tightly as she was holding on to Caroline, because if she didn’t, she knew she was in danger of flaking out.

  And she needed to see this through to the end. It was still her case... and she had won.

  ‘Christ, Alex, you gave me one hell of a fright,’ she heard Nick say roughly, and then somebody else’s hands were prising Caroline away from her, and she could hear the sound of an ambulance siren somewhere in the distance, or maybe it was in her head... it was all going away from her anyway... receding into the distance...

  ***

  Alex came round to find herself lying on a hard flat surface and with the sickly sensation of moving over bumpy ground. Or as if she was on a small boat. For one horrible moment she knew she should be remembering something very significant about that thought, but she couldn’t.

  She felt very strange. And a guy she didn’t know was smiling down at her, his dark glasses and green shroud making her wonder for a moment if she was dead.

  ‘Feeling better, miss?’

  ‘I’m not ill,’ she said. ‘Where the hell am I?’

  But she recovered fast. She registered that the green shroud wasn’t a shroud at all but some kind of official garment. So she wasn’t ill and she certainly wasn’t dead. She turned her head sideways and saw that there was someone else lying in a similar position. There was an older man leaning over the other person and holding its hand.

  At the sound of her voice the man turned around, and she could see tears in his eyes.

  ‘Good God. Mr Price,’ she stammered.

  She vaguely remembered phoning him, and presumably Nick had done the rest to get him here. She looked beyond him, to where Caroline lay on the second ambulance cot, still ashen-faced, but practically radiant — well, sort of — compared with her defeated appearance on the boat.

  Alex struggled to sit up.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  But it was a superfluous question. She saw the way Caroline held on tightly to her father’s hand, the way she had held on to Alex’s. It was startling, to say the least.

  The memory of why she had been searching for her rushed into Alex’s mind, and she only hoped this family feeling wasn’t going to be crushed when Norman revealed why he had needed to find her safe and well before h
er birthday.

  ‘I’m much better now, and I know I have a lot to thank you for, Miss Best,’ Caroline said huskily.

  ‘For goodness sake, call me Alex. You hardly know me, but I feel as if I’ve known you a long time.’

  ‘So I understand, and I won’t forget what you’ve done.’

  Alex felt her face go hot with embarrassment. If she was intending to reward her, she felt doubly uncomfortable, knowing Norman’s prime reason for wanting his daughter found. Or maybe it hadn’t been his prime reason. Some people found it hard to communicate with one another, and these two seemed to be pretty good examples of that. Maybe.

  ‘Where’s Gary?’ she asked Norman. ‘And what about the other person?’ she added delicately.

  ‘Daneman’s dead,’ he said briefly. ‘Your young man refused any medical help and has gone back to where you were staying to wait for you there. DI Frobisher’s dealing with all the other details and said he’d be in touch with you shortly.’

  ‘Right.’ And that seemed to sum everything up neatly. Thank you and good-night.

  She felt an odd sense of deflation again. It was ridiculous. As far as Alex was concerned, it was a job well done, and yet it wasn’t finished yet. If she was a man, maybe she could have left it at that.

  But she needed to know that these two would be all right, and that Caroline wasn’t going to be exploited by one con-man, having just been saved from another. Even if this one was her own father.

  Caroline’s voice was still shaky. ‘It’s all right, Alex. I know Marcus is dead. And I can’t pretend to be sorry. He was an evil man, I know that now. All he wanted was my money.’

  ‘So did young Laver,’ Norman said grimly, avoiding Alex’s eyes. ‘But at least he made a statement to the police, which I suppose we must be thankful for.’

  ‘So that’s how Nick knew! You see, I didn’t betray your confidence, Mr Price—’

  ‘I know that, lass, and I’m sorry for doubting you.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Alex murmured. But she was fully alert now and wanting to be out of here. ‘Where are we going, anyway? I have to get back to London.’