No Way Home

by Jack Slater

  ‘Exactly.’

  Pete grunted. ‘I’ll speak to her and we’ll get back to you.’

  He put the phone down and sat still as his brain absorbed what he’d been told. Doctor Brian Letterman was saying Tommy was a psychopath. That he had a wiring problem in his brain that, though it was treatable while he was still young, meant he had no ability to feel empathy and, beyond that, actually enjoyed causing pain and distress to others.

  He shook his head. That couldn’t be true. Not Tommy. His son. Yes, there was such a thing as justifiable retribution, and there was no reason, in Pete’s book, not to feel a certain satisfaction in achieving that. But cruelty for the sake of it? No. He’d never seen anything like that from Tommy. Never heard about it either, apart from the things he’d read last year in Simon Phillips’s report on him, compiled as part of the investigation into his disappearance.

  But that report had included testimony from several people – teachers, kids, and even one or two parents of other kids. It had even included quotes from Annie. So was he simply in denial? Was he refusing to believe what was in front of his face just because it referred to his son? His boy? The product of his own efforts as a father?

  As insufferable as he was, was Brian right?

  Pete drew in a long breath and let it ease gently out.

  Was Tommy mentally ill? Or was it all just a product of the time he’d spent with Burton, preceded by the bullying he’d suffered and finally reacted against at school?

  Bullying that, as a father, Pete acknowledged, he should have seen the signs of and dealt with long ago. That was his guilt to bear. He’d let Tommy down.

  Well, he wasn’t going to do that again. Now and for the rest of time, he would be a father first and a copper second. But that didn’t answer the question. Was Tommy mentally ill? Or was he just suffering from the stresses he’d gone through in his short life?

  Pete wasn’t a psychologist or a psychiatrist. He didn’t know all the ins and outs of the mind’s complexities. But he did know his son. He’d raised him. Lived with him. Watched him grow. Perhaps not been there as much as he might have – or should have – but…

  They’d had some good times together, some fun times. Fishing in the upper reaches of the Exe and further down, beyond Topsham. Playing football in the park on weekends. Trips to the beach and so on.

  But then, as his mood began to lift with the pleasant memories, another, darker one flashed up, bringing him back down with a grimace as he recalled a trip to Exmouth when Tommy was the same age as Annie was now. They’d been on the beach. Annie was playing in the sand in front of them, happily building the biggest sandcastle Pete had ever seen while Tommy ran down to the sea for a swim. He’d been spotted by a bunch of lads. Four of them, Pete remembered. They had crowded towards him, calling out. Pete had been sure he’d heard the term ‘piglet’ used and had been about to intervene when Tommy suddenly lashed out. In a lightning-fast series of moves that Pete had had no idea he was capable of, he’d headbutted the closest one, smashing his nose, kicked another in the crotch hard enough to fell him, punched a third one in the throat and faced up to the last one, daring him to come get some of the same.

  When Tommy advanced on him, the lad had run, but what had worried Pete at the time was that, on returning from the chase, rather than avoiding the other lads, Tommy had walked up to them, stomped on the head of the one he’d kicked, grinding his face into the sand, then kicked the one holding his throat hard in the kidneys before grabbing the one with the bloody nose by the hair and dragging him, yelling and struggling, into the sea.

  At that point, unsure what Tommy was planning and with Louise shouting beside him, worry had abruptly morphed into fear and Pete had finally reacted. He ran down to the surf as Tommy dropped his victim face-first in the shallow water.

  ‘Tommy!’ he’d shouted as he ran. ‘That’s enough. He’s learned his lesson. Leave him be.’

  Asking Tommy about it later, Pete had learned that a teacher had given the boy lessons in self-defence after seeing him getting picked on on the playing field one day.

  Shaking off the memory, which he’d pushed aside for years, putting Tommy’s actions down to youthful disregard for consequences and overreaction to long-term bullying, he phoned the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital, using the direct-dial number for the ward Louise was working on. When the call was eventually picked up, he immediately recognised the voice on the other end. ‘How the hell do you get away with leaving a phone ringing for that long before you pick it up?’

  ‘Pete? Is that you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s called having more important things to do. You want Lou?’

  ‘Please, George. How you doing?’

  ‘Too bloody busy by half. Apart from that, not so bad, though. You?’

  ‘Running round like a headless chicken. Just had a call about Tommy, though, so needs must.’

  ‘Oh, right. Hold on, I’ll get her for you.’

  The phone clattered on the desk as she set it down, and moments later there was a scrape as it was picked up again. ‘Pete? What’s up? George said you wanted to talk about Tommy?’

  ‘I was just talking to the resident psychiatrist at Archways. Bloody waste of oxygen. He and his colleague there have decided Tommy should go in for therapy sessions, which they’ll continue after his release, and they want our permission.’

  ‘Hang on. Therapy for what? What do they reckon is wrong with him?’

  Pete winced. He’d been hoping to steer her past that question. She was definitely back on the ball – which, while being awkward at that moment, was a huge relief in the larger scheme of things.

  He sighed. ‘Antisocial Personality Disorder.’

  There was a moment’s silence as she absorbed and translated that. Then: ‘Never! No way! Just ask Rosie Whitlock. She wouldn’t agree with that for a second.’

  ‘I know. But that’s what they’re saying.’

  ‘And will he know we’ve agreed to his entering this treatment?’

  ‘Ultimately, yes. But in the immediate term – I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, I suppose, if it works, it won’t matter if he finds out afterwards. But it definitely wouldn’t help for him to be told right off the bat.’

  ‘So, you’re OK with it, on that understanding?’

  ‘Well, I don’t agree with the diagnosis, but even if it’s partly right or close to right, we’ve got to give him every chance we can, haven’t we?’

  Pete was nodding in agreement. ‘Right. I’ll call him back then. Go round there if I need to.’

  *

  ‘So, it turns out Mrs Singh knew a lot more than she was letting on,’ Pete said as he joined the rest of his team at their desks. ‘I’ve made a copy of her statement for each of you.’

  He handed them out and sat down, reading it thoroughly for the first time himself while they brought themselves up-to-date.

  Dave looked up first. ‘So, was this a revenge attack then? For one of these women? Or by one of these women?’

  ‘It could be. Either way, I’m convinced it was a woman who did it.’

  ‘Why?’ Jill demanded.

  ‘The pepper spray, for a start. It tends to be women that carry that stuff. For self-defence. Then there was the condom on the passenger seat. Still in its wrapper, granted, but why would it be out on display like that if he wasn’t intending to use it?’

  ‘To threaten?’ Dick suggested. ‘Or brag?’

  Pete nodded. ‘OK. Maybe. Then there was the fact that the child locks were set. And the way he treated his wife.’

  ‘So, if we accept that it’s a female perp, are we talking revenge or self-defence?’ Jane asked.

  ‘The pepper spray and condom point towards self-defence,’ Pete replied. ‘But they’re not conclusive.’

  ‘Well, for all the hours I’ve spent on the PND, I haven’t come up with any likely suspects for a revenge attack,’ Jane admitted. ‘Although that doesn’t mean it wasn’t one.
It could be a victim who never reported it. Like the two you were asking Singh’s widow about.’

  Dave was shaking his head. ‘I don’t get it. Why wouldn’t you report something like that?’

  Jane turned to face him. ‘Have you any idea how many attacks are not reported every year in this country? Not just rapes, but assaults in general?’

  ‘If they’re not reported, how would I?’

  ‘Well, it’s a lot. A hell of a lot. And, as for why, would you want to sit there in court and have some smart-arse barrister trying to embarrass and confuse you in front of everyone, accusing you of lying while he forces you to relive the whole thing in every painful, terrifying and shameful detail?’

  ‘But if you’re telling the truth, you’d want the guy punished and off the streets, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘What – to save some hypothetical person you don’t even know? And put yourself through Christ knows what kind of hell in the process? Where would your priorities lie, do you think?’

  ‘Well, if you’re right, there’s no question about where hers are. We’ve got two victims that make that perfectly obvious.’

  ‘Yes – now, when it may be too late, in her eyes, to go back and do anything about it legally. Maybe she’s been threatened again – or felt threatened. Or she could have seen something. But, for whatever reason, it could be that now she regrets letting her attacker get away with it and wants to put that right.’

  ‘This is all speculation,’ Pete said. ‘What can we do to find out if any of it’s true?’

  ‘Catch her?’ Dave suggested.

  ‘Clever-dick,’ Jill muttered.

  ‘No, that’s him over there.’

  ‘I said clever.’

  ‘Oi!’ Dick protested. ‘What happened to respecting your elders, Titch?’

  ‘Respect’s like common sense,’ Dave told him. ‘It’s out of fashion these days. Is there any CCTV at that second crime scene?’

  Pete nodded. ‘Yes. It’s being collated at Middlemoor as we speak. There’s seven different possible sources.’

  ‘Seven?’ Dick exclaimed.

  ‘The benefits of living in a yuppy paradise,’ Dave said. ‘They’re paranoid somebody might nick one of their hard-earned Rolexes.’

  ‘By the time that amount of footage gets searched, the bloody thief’ll have got old and retired. And most of it’s damn near useless, anyway.’

  ‘At least it can give us the basics,’ said Jane. ‘Male or female. Black, white or brown. That’s more than we’ve got now.’

  ‘I’ve been working on the second victim’s last pickup point,’ Jill put in. ‘Wherever it was, it wasn’t pre-booked and the meter doesn’t narrow it down much either. Subtracting the time we know the car was stood idle still gives a possible range of up to eight miles. It depends on the precise arrival time.’

  ‘Which the CCTV will give us when it comes back from HQ,’ Dick pointed out, picking up his phone. ‘I’ll give ‘em a nudge, shall I?’

  Pete nodded.

  ‘The only thing I have been able to get is his mobile phone records,’ Jill continued. ‘Nothing useful in terms of calls, but it does give us a series of timed locations I can put on the map to see what that tells us.’

  ‘Well, that’ll be a start,’ Pete said as, beside him, Dick began speaking to someone on the phone.

  Moments later, he ended the call and looked up. ‘They’ve got something.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ‘Who’s they?’ asked Dave.

  ‘Middlemoor. The CCTV team.’

  ‘Got what?’ Pete asked.

  ‘Footage of the taxi stopping, down at the Friars Green apartment complex, and a suspect getting out of it and walking away.’

  ‘Walking?’ Dave queried.

  Dick tilted his head.

  ‘That takes some bottle when you’ve just killed somebody. Any identification?’

  Dick shook his head. ‘Only that she’s female. Dark clothes. Peaked cap. No facial shots.’

  ‘Which way did she go?’ Pete asked.

  ‘Over the footbridge towards the quay.’

  ‘So, Graham should be able to pick her up downstairs. Did they give you an exact time?’

  ‘She went out of sight of the Friars Green cameras at 9.42.’

  ‘Are they sending us over the footage or stills from it?’

  ‘The file’s too big to email, so they’re going to burn it to disc and send it down here, but they said they’ll pop a couple of stills across in the meantime. You might have them by now.’ Dick nodded at Pete’s computer.

  Pete wiggled the mouse to bring up the screen and clicked into his email account. The latest message, one minute ago, was from Middlemoor HQ. He opened it up and found two picture attachments. Downloading both, he opened them, sent them to the printer and peered at them side by side on his screen. One was a grainy sideview, obviously a blowup from a distant shot. The other was closer, a back view as she walked towards the footbridge. The detail was better, as was the lighting, but it told him little that the other one didn’t.

  ‘Slender. Youngish-looking. Job to say how tall she is from these. She’s white, though, not Indian. Hair looks to be up under the cap so you can’t see its length, but it’s dark. If you get them off the printer, Ben, you can all have a look. I’ll take a pair down to Graham and see what he can find for us.’

  Ben hadn’t regained his seat when Pete’s phone rang. He picked it up. ‘DS Gayle.’

  ‘Pete. It’s Andy. I just got a call from Mick Douglas, over in St Thomas.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The target’s home to roost. No telling how long for, mind.’

  ‘OK. Tell Mick not to let him leave in the car. We’re on the way.’ He put the phone down. ‘Let’s go. All of you.’

  Chairs scraped. Ben dropped the printouts on Pete’s desk. It wasn’t until they were out of the squad room and heading for the stairs that Jane asked, ‘Where are we going, boss?’

  ‘To arrest Shafiq Ahmed, all being well. Mick Douglas has got eyes on. He’s gone home at last.’

  *

  Pete turned off the sirens as soon as they passed the railway station on the far side of the river, but left the blue lights flashing in the grille and on the parcel shelf. A second later, he heard Dick do the same in the car behind him. He checked the mirror. Dick had left his blue lights on too. He reached for the radio.

  ‘DS Gayle for PC Douglas. What’s his status, Mick?’

  ‘Still inside as far as I can tell. The whole family’s in there. Kids got home a couple of minutes ago.’

  ‘OK. We’re a minute away.’

  ‘Roger.’

  He keyed the radio again. ‘Dick, you take Dave and Ben around the back. We’ll take the front.’

  ‘Will do, boss.’

  Pete turned left off the main road and killed the blue lights. They were now in an area of mostly Victorian housing – terraces and semis interspersed with more recently built houses, private garages and business premises. Pete went straight over a small crossroads. Behind him, Dick turned left. He would take the next street across so that they could come in from behind the house. Pete pulled over to give him a chance to make up the extra distance then started forward again, driving steadily down the road, between parked cars on both sides. Checking the door numbers, he judged they were getting close now. A stretch of pavement showed on the left, with nothing parked in front of it until, at the far end, the back of a black Toyota with a yellow taxi sign on the roof. He pulled in, parking tight up behind the taxi, and keyed the radio. ‘Which door, Mick?’

  ‘The blue one, just by the front wing of his car.’

  ‘Roger. Where are you, Dick?’

  ‘Just about to leave the car. There’s an alleyway through from here. Looks like another one crosses it, down between the back gardens.’

  ‘Perfect. We’ll give you thirty.’

  ‘Roger.’

  Pete counted down in his head, then reached for the radio. ‘Dick?�
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  ‘In position, boss.’

  They opened the doors and he keyed the radio one last time. ‘Go, go, go.’ Then, with doors slamming, they were running for the blue front door. Pete stepped through the gate. The garden was barely three feet from front to back. He hammered on the door. ‘Police,’ he shouted. ‘With a warrant. Open up.’

  Voices sounded from inside, high-pitched and panicked.

  He hammered on the door again. ‘Open up now.’

  He heard the click of the latch. The door cracked open, a female face peering through the narrow gap, surrounded by bright pink and gold silk.

  ‘Mrs Ahmed?’ He showed her his badge. ‘Police. Open the door. We’ve got a warrant.’ Closing his ID wallet, he shook out the warrant sheet with one hand while pushing the door with the other. She stepped back, letting him open it.

  ‘Where’s your husband?’

  He glimpsed two small faces peering from a door further back on the left.

  ‘He’s…’

  ‘We know he’s here. He was seen arriving and his car’s outside. Where is he?’

  She blinked rapidly. ‘Upstairs.’

  ‘Jane. With me.’ He hurried past the woman and up the narrow stairs, Jane’s lighter feet sounding behind him while Jill stayed downstairs with the wife.

  ‘Shafiq Ahmed,’ Pete called as his head rose above first-floor level. ‘Police. We’ve got a warrant for your arrest.’

  There was a door in front of him at the top of the stairs, another off the landing to his left. Glancing around, he saw a third behind him. No movement from behind any of them.

  ‘Shafiq Ahmed. Police. Come out now.’

  He reached the top of the stairs. Still no sound except from below, where Jill was talking to Mrs Ahmed. He reached for the handle of the door in front of him. Shoved it open.

  Bathroom.

  At the far end, the shower curtain was down and pulled around. Pete stepped in, snatched it aside. Nothing.

  Behind him, Jane had gone to the nearest bedroom. He heard the door slam open. As he turned back, she called, ‘Clear.’

  ‘Clear,’ he replied.

  The front room then. He stepped past her, heading for it. Three long strides and he was reaching for the handle when it opened in front of him.