by Michael Kerr
Ricky thought it over. Knowledge was power. Barnes hadn’t driven south of the river for no good reason. He nodded to Sammy and Henry, and they reluctantly left the office to go out into the yard.
“Okay, Barnes, spit it out,” Ricky said.
Matt sat on the edge of the desk and took a cheap pay-as-you-go mobile phone from the inside pocket of the car coat he was wearing. “I know what you’re capable of, Lister,” he said, fixing the gangster with a look he usually reserved for paedophiles, rapists and serial killers. “You had DCI Gordon Rennie murdered, and let me know it, so I don’t underestimate what you’re capable of.”
Ricky said nothing.
“I’m not wired,” Matt said. “So don’t worry about entrapment. I don’t expect you to admit a thing, but you need to know that sending that dummy round to my house was probably the most stupid thing you’ve ever done.”
“Is there a point to this drama?” Ricky said. “I’m a busy man, and you’re running scared.”
Matt grinned, punched a number into the phone, turned the volume up and held it out for Lister to take.
Ricky gave it some thought, and curiosity won out. He took the phone and held it to his ear.
“Mr. Lister,” a monotone voice said.
“Who’s asking?” Ricky replied.
“A guy that owes Barnes a big favour. He’s asked me to look out for him and everyone close to him. All you need to know is that I know everything about you, Mr. Lister. I know where you live, and that your wife’s name is Fiona, and that your daughter, Lorraine, is a school teacher and lives in a detached house on an estate in Guildford with an IT geek called Stuart Palmer.”
“Are you threatening me?” Ricky said. Because if―”
“Shut the fuck up and listen, because this is the one and only time you will ever speak to me. Pray that nothing happens to the man sitting in front of you, or to those he values, because if it does it’s game over for your family first, and then you.”
The line went dead and Ricky looked at the phone as if it was a hand grenade about to explode in his hand. “You’re a fucking cop, Barnes,” he said through gritted teeth. “You can’t do this.”
“It’s done, Lister,” Matt said, taking the phone from the gangster’s hand and pocketing it. “If you’ve done your homework, you’ll know that I don’t bluff. The guy you just spoke to is a ghost; a secret weapon that I can rely on. There’s no way you can trace him, and he will do what he said he would. I don’t play by the rules against people like you. If you come at me, then be prepared to lose everything. I fight fire with fire.”
Matt got up and walked to the door without a backward glance. Clements and Norton were standing outside as he left the office. He smiled at both of them in turn, and as Clements walked passed him, he grasped Norton by the wrist, twisted the man’s left arm to straighten it, and rammed it with all his force against the door jamb to fracture the giant black’s elbow joint.
Henry screamed and fell to his knees, and Matt kneed him hard in the side of the head and stepped back.
Sammy turned to face Matt with his fists clenched.
“Leave it,” Ricky called out, and Sammy stopped in his tracks.
“Good call,” Matt said. “Make sure that you keep your dogs on tight leashes, or things will only escalate, and we don’t want that to happen, do we?”
Ricky did not reply. Matt hadn’t expected him to, but hoped that they had an understanding.
Right or wrong, he felt good as he stopped at a Starbucks in Bermondsey and went in to buy a large cup of regular black coffee to go. A couple of minutes later he was parked again near the Chop House on Butler’s wharf. He got out and walked to the river’s edge. Tower Bridge was close by, and the Tower of London was almost opposite him. He took his time drinking the strong coffee, and then ditched the cup in a waste bin and made a call on his regular phone to Phil Adams.
“How’d it go, boss?” Phil said. “Did he buy it?”
“Yeah, hook, line and sinker. Thanks. You did a great job. Get rid of the phone I gave you.”
“Will do. Are you on the way in?”
“Yeah. At the moment I’m parked up near Tower Bridge, just chilling. Any progress with the cases?”
“Nothing yet.”
Matt disconnected, took out the untraceable Burner phone that he had given Lister to talk to Phil on, to switch off, wipe and then throw in the Thames. As it hit the water and sank, it crossed his mind that thousands of weird and wonderful objects must lay buried in the mud that lined the great river’s bed. He had read that the city had been founded by the Romans over two millennia ago, and that knowledge fascinated him. What would a centurion think if he could be returned to ride the Eye and behold the Shard, Gherkin, and all the other buildings that stood where once the soldier had lived within an ancient walled city? Heavy shit! The bottom of the Thames would be a veritable treasure trove for archaeologists. He sighed, concentrated his mind back on the here and now and strolled back to his car and drove away.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
He stayed in the ramshackle hut all day. The hunger pains receded, but he needed to drink something. He was parched and could not sleep properly, only doze fitfully, to wake a score of times as he suffered nightmarish dreams of being hunted down by silent, grey figures that meant him harm. He wanted his life back, but knew that this was his life now. He could only go forward, and would have to forge a new future hour by hour, day by day, knowing that he was a fugitive, and that he could no longer be John Gibson, a professional man with a wife and daughter. Everything he had known was now like a dream. He had gone through some kind of altered state; had raped and killed young women, bludgeoned a young man to death, and could hardly believe that he had been responsible for the crimes that he had committed. He had always been law-abiding, and could not understand what had infected him and changed him into a monster. He still felt that he was the same person who had been a loving and caring man. He had been a hard-working husband and father, until something inside him had snapped and unravelled like a rotted elastic band. He had become powerless to control dark urges that welled up and would not be denied. Had it been a chemical unbalance in his brain? Perhaps he had a brain tumour that had transformed him from who he had been to something different. It didn’t matter. He still felt an overwhelming sense of self-preservation, and would do whatever necessary to remain free. He could not bring himself to envisage being caught and incarcerated. And he was not sure that he would be able to summon up the courage to take his own life, and so he would have to escape.
As dusk fell and the forest grew dark again, John made his way north, stopping by the side of a stream to drink too much of the cold water, to subsequently throw up on the bed of leaf litter that lay rotting on the floor of the forest. The moon was bright, and he looked up and saw the same face that had stared down at him since he had gazed at it in wonderment as a child. He remained knelt on all fours and cried his heart out, wishing that he was an innocent kid again. He was overwhelmed by shame, and knew how devastated his mum and dad would be when they realised that their only son was a sexual predator and murderer.
Doug and Ruth Porter were watching a zombie DVD as they snacked on cheese and biscuits and drank red wine, giggling at the absurdity of supposedly dead people staggering about and attacking the few living survivors that were apparently the only food that the walking dead had on their menu.
Doug Porter worked at the High Beech Visitor Centre, and Ruth was a partner in a small florist shop in Waltham Abbey. They were both thirty-one, had met as teenagers at a Simply Red concert in ninety-eight, and tied the knot with a wedding at a Scottish castle in oh-six.
The rustic cottage that the Epping Forest District Council provided them with was a piece of heaven to the couple. It was called Forest View, but Ruth and Doug called it the Magic Cottage, and both loved the secluded property, that stood in a clearing over eight hundred yards from a B road that they reached by way of a narrow dirt track barely wide eno
ugh for the old canvas-topped Jeep that Doug drove, though ample for Ruth’s small Micra.
John saw the glow of lights up ahead, though only sporadically through the trees and bushes that separated him from what he supposed was a house. Approaching it slowly he felt immediately revitalised to a degree. The thought of decent shelter to stay at and the prospect of food and a hot drink spurred him on.
Reaching the fringe of the clearing, he stopped and hunkered down, though he knew that anyone looking out from a lit window would not be able to see him in the darkness. He was desperate. This would make an ideal refuge, but he had no idea how many people were inside. Probably a family, and the man of the house may own a shotgun; many country folk did, and were probably very security conscious, knowing that outlying houses were attractive to burglars.
He made a full circuit of the cottage. There were two vehicles standing at the side of it, next to what appeared to be a woodshed, which he moved stealthily towards and came to a door that had a padlock and hasp on it. Withdrawing the wheel brace from the waistband of his jeans, he forced the long end of the tool into the old, soft wood that the hasp was screwed to and worked it backwards and forwards with downward pressure until the flattened end – that was intended to remove hubcaps from wheels – protruded from the bottom of the hasp. He levered the brace backwards, and with only a barely audible creak the rusty screws were drawn out and the hasp came away.
He opened the door just wide enough to allow him access, to be followed into the shed by a breeze that was strong enough to disturb loose sawdust and send fine particles of it whirling into the air like dust devils. He almost sneezed, but managed to suppress it. Closing the door, he faced the interior of the large shed. Moonlight through a large window illuminated the far end of it, which was packed with cut logs. Nearer to him was an old bench equipped with an electric saw. An assortment of garden tools hung from the walls on hooks and nails. He needed a weapon, and as though he were in a store like B & Q, he appraised what was on offer. Reaching up, he selected a hand scythe and almost cut his thumb open on the honed sickle-shaped blade. It would have to do, for most of the other tools were too cumbersome. He also picked up a handful of heavy duty plastic garden ties that he supposed were used to fasten around stakes to support saplings and the like. They would make ideal restraints.
Back outside and carrying a set of wooden ladders that had been hung on brackets in the shed, he made his way to the rear of the house, extended the ladders and leant them up against the wall, for the top of them to rest just below a window that had been left slightly open, no doubt to facilitate a flow of fresh air. Perhaps the occupants would close it before going to bed, but that would be too late.
“Did you hear something?” Ruth said, picking up the remote from the coffee table and muting the sound on the TV.
Doug listened, but could only hear the wind soughing through branches of the many trees that almost encircled the clearing.
Ruth waited for a few more seconds, and then shrugged her shoulders and hit the button again to bring back sound to the movie that was almost at an end.
“Do you want another glass of wine before we go to bed?” Ruth said, stopping the DVD as the credits rolled.
“Why not?” Doug said. “I’ve got the rest of the week off. I’ll just go for a pee.”
Doug walked up the stairs with a smile on his face. As far as he was concerned, life was nigh on perfect. He and Ruth had everything that they needed, and most of all each other. He loved his work in the great outdoors, and couldn’t think of a single thing that he would change. He considered them to be very lucky in this age of austerity and uncertainty. So many people were suffering hard times, could not make ends meet, and were without stability as everything seemed to spiral ever downwards.
He lifted the lid, peed, and flushed the toilet before collapsing to the floor. He didn’t even feel the blow that rendered him unconscious, and was oblivious to the fact that he had been laid low by a wheel brace to the side of the head.
Using two of the plastic garden ties, John secured the inert man’s wrists behind his back with one, and his ankles together with the other. He walked down the stairs with the wheel brace he had just used in one hand and the scythe in the other. The door at the end of the hall led into a kitchen where a woman was standing with her back to him at a counter, picking up a bottle of wine. He liked what he saw. She was slender, with long dark hair that shone under bright light from the fluorescent tube on the ceiling. And all she was wearing was a short cotton nightie that clung to her body, with a fold of the material trapped between her buttocks. He became hard, and was amazed that even in such a dreadful predicament he could be thinking of sex. His cock had a mind of its own, though, of that he was certain.
“Will you take the cork out of this bottle, please?” Ruth said, turning, expecting to see Doug in front of her, but freezing as she was confronted by a tall, slim man in dirty clothes, with a haunted look in almost black eyes that were staring at her with a mixture of lust and menace.
She somehow held on to the bottle and the corkscrew, and raised them defensively and shouted, “Doug.”
He grinned and raised the scythe and waved it in the air. “He can’t hear you, sweetheart,” he said. “Put those down, or I swear I’ll cut you to pieces.”
Ruth had not experienced anything in life to help her know how to deal with a confrontation like this. But she did know that she was facing a life or death situation. If she put the corkscrew and bottle down, then he may rape and kill her. She needed to be strong, to find the grit to not allow him to harm her.
She could feel hysteria building in her mind, but a surge of adrenaline empowered her to act. She tightened her grip on the neck of the bottle, swung it against the edge of the counter and felt and heard the glass shatter. Wine gushed out to flood the tiled floor, pool on the counter and spray her, spattering her face, neck and nightie in a deep red tide, as particles of glass stung her.
“Get out of my fucking house,” she said. “Because I’m not going to back down to you.”
He was unsure of what to do. He did not want to risk being hurt. He had never been faced with someone armed and ready to defend themselves against him. But he would not leave, because if he did she would phone the police, and that would be the end of him.
Ruth saw the flash of apprehension in the man’s eyes. For a second she believed that he would back down and flee from the house, but she was wrong.
Without any warning he threw the wheel brace as if it was a Bowie knife.
With a grunt of pain Ruth fell to her knees, dropping the broken bottle and corkscrew, to press both hands to her chest, where the makeshift weapon had struck her with enough force to incapacitate her. The pain was overwhelming, and as she moaned and unsuccessfully attempted to regain her feet, he was next to her, knocking her back down, and fumbling another two plastic ties from his pocket to secure around her wrists and ankles.
A sense of total relief overcame him. He sat on the kitchen floor unmindful of the wetness of the wine that soaked through the seat of his jeans. He now had a refuge. This was the first step to making a fresh start.
He raided the fridge. Drank chilled milk from a container, and ripped the film from a plastic tray to eat several slices of the ham inside it.
With his thirst slaked and his hunger lessened, he felt more relaxed as he dragged the woman into the lounge by her hair and propped her up in a sitting position against the front of a three-seater settee.
Ruth stared up at her captor. She could have screamed, but knew that doing so would be a waste of time. There were no other houses nearby, so she would not be heard. Her only concern was Doug. She wanted to believe that he was okay, but was sure that he wasn’t.
“What’s your name?” John said as he placed the wheel brace and scythe on the top of the coffee table.
“Ruth,” she said. “What have you done to Doug?”
“Trussed him up like you. He’s okay, but will probably have a he
ll of a headache when he comes round.”
Ruth wept with relief.
He watched her cry, and realised that the power of love between two people could be used as a weapon against them, to keep them under control as each feared for the others’ safety.
“Do you know who I am?” he said.
Ruth studied his face and her eyes widened with recognition. His face had been on the news. He was wanted for rape and murder, and now he was here in the flesh, sitting on her settee and talking to her. She nodded but said nothing.
He said, “I’ve got nothing to lose, Ruth. I need somewhere to stay for a few days. If you help me, I promise that when I leave, you and Doug will be left tied up but unharmed. But if you do anything to cause me grief, I’ll cut your hubby’s head off with this,” and he once more picked up the wicked-looking hand scythe and pressed the razor-sharp tip against her cheek, just below her left eye.
“I’ll do whatever you want,” Ruth said. “Please let me see Doug.”
He lowered the scythe, down between her legs to caress the inside of both thighs in turn with the flat sides of the blade, and then further, to slice through the nylon tie that held her ankles together.
“Get up, and be sure that every move you make is nice and slow,” he said. “You only get to try and do one stupid thing and Dougie dies. Do you understand that?”
Ruth nodded and climbed unsteadily to her feet. Her chest ached from the impact of the wheel brace, but she knew that the injury was the least of her problems.
“After you,” John said. “Go up to him, and if he’s awake, explain what’s happening.”
Ruth walked out of the room and along the hall to mount the stairs.
He followed her up, keeping well back, just in case she lost the plot and tried to mule kick him. He wasn’t about to trust her. He knew that if she was given the chance to turn the situation around, then she would. ‘Trust no one’ was a seriously good credo to live by. Almost everyone was looking out for their own interest at the expense of others.