Darke

by Matt Hilton

  She would like nothing better than to personally arrest the individual conspirators, but that was asking for too much. As it were she ensured a member of her team accompanied a raid where possible, and it pleased her when Korba informed her that Hettie and Zane were en route to custody: he deserved the collars. She’d love to have seen the look on Hettie’s face when he snapped on the cuffs but out of necessity, she’d joined the team targeting Derrick Lewis, the gunman. It turned out to be a bust.

  Porter shocked Kerry with his response to the news that Hettie and Robson had conspired to bring down Swain. He actually admitted he’d been wrong, when demanding Funky’s arrest earlier, and gave what might have been an apology, if he hadn’t then twisted the narrative, where it was his motivational guidance that had driven Kerry to solve the case. She didn’t care who received the kudos; she only cared that justice would be done as she’d promised Mr Ghedi. Besides, any congratulations were premature. She needed another four criminals in custody, and charged.

  She was run ragged for hours, attending six different scenes, and three police stations including New Scotland Yard, before she returned to her own nick, and was bombarded with questions and requests from all sides. Throughout, she kept a clear head, professionally directing the operation to locate and apprehend those still out standing. At first opportunity she went to the custody area.

  She approached McManus’s cell first, and lowered the flap on the door. Zane was curled up on a thin blue PVC mattress, his back to the door, and his arms wrapped over his head. He was awake, aware he was being observed, but refused to acknowledge her. Kerry said nothing. He wormed across the mattress, jamming up against the wall as if he could escape her ire. She counted to twenty in her head, then slammed shut the flap.

  Hettie was the only woman presently in custody, locked in the furthest cell away from her cousin’s.

  Kerry paused. She drew in a steadying breath, before lowering the flap. When her face wasn’t a target for Hettie’s manicured fingernails, she leaned closer to the letterbox-sized slot. Hettie was seated on her mattress, with her knees drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around her shins. The incriminating white flesh where her sapphire ring used to be was bold against her permatanned skin – Korba had seized the ring in evidence from her jewellery box at home. She rocked back and forward, until Kerry caught her attention.

  Neither woman spoke.

  Words were unnecessary, because their expressions said everything. They held the tableau for a long time.

  Kerry was first to glance away, except it wasn’t a victory for Hettie.

  Erick Swain hunkered against the opposite cell wall, dressed as before, still adorned with the cuff jutting from his wrist. His expression differed significantly though. He was no longer bereft. He glared at Hettie with a depth of hatred Kerry had rarely witnessed. Kerry stared at him, long enough for Hettie to follow her gaze, to what was to her a blank wall. Again their gazes clicked, and now Hettie’s was quizzical. Kerry ignored her, looking again at the dead man.

  How long had Swain been in the cell? Possibly the instant he disappeared from the GaOC office yesterday evening he’d gone directly to Hettie, to punish her betrayal, and had later accompanied her to custody in the rear of the police van. He must have quickly realised he was physically incapable of harming her, but still exhibited his wrath. Apparently Hettie was immune to his threats and curses because she remained totally unaware of his sinister presence. Swain — in life — was a person unused to being ignored, in death he would have to get used to it.

  If only that was true. There was one person who couldn’t avoid him.

  He finally looked at her.

  There was no obvious transition from Swain crouching, to flying at her. Kerry jerked, but didn’t fully retreat. He came up short, his eyes locked on hers through the observation slot.

  ‘I’m not speaking to you here,’ Kerry said.

  Hettie misconstrued her meaning. ‘I’m not speaking to you either, you bitch. So you might as well piss off till my brief gets here.’

  Swain turned to regard her. ‘Shut your fat mouth, you slag!’

  ‘You’re wasting your time,’ Kerry said.

  ‘We’ll see about that when he gets here,’ replied Hettie, meaning her solicitor. She stuck up two fingers. ‘Now shut it and fuck off.’

  Swain swept across the room voicing a wordless roar, began slapping and kicking Hettie. She was unmoved, apart from wrapping her arms tighter round her knees and shuddering as if chilled to the bone. She turned on her side and adopted a similar foetal position as Zane, as if unconcerned. She’d no idea of the videoed evidence Kerry had against her, and fully expected Dopey Dave Barnes to have her released the moment he arrived. Kerry couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when it dawned on her it’d be many years before she enjoyed freedom again.

  Swain loomed over his ex-girlfriend, chest heaving — did ghosts breathe? Perhaps the mechanics of rage were carried across from the physical to the ethereal body, a memory performed by the shade of the once corporeal form. Kerry supposed they would breathe, as would a hallucination given life in her mind. Maybe Swain’s assault on his ex was Kerry manifesting her own hatred of the woman through his actions.

  ‘You’re wasting your time trying to speak to her I mean,’ she said. ‘She can’t hear you, any more than she can sense you beating the shit out of her.’

  Hettie’s face turned towards her, though her blond locks concealed her expression. ‘You what?’

  ‘Do me a favour,’ Kerry said, this time for Hettie’s ears. ‘Just shut your fat mouth, you slag!’

  Swain’s attention shifted to Kerry. He slow-clapped her choice of words.

  ‘That’s the first and last time I’ll be your voice box,’ Kerry promised him in a harsh whisper.

  Hettie muttered under her breath, but she was largely ignored now. Swain moved for the door, even as Kerry raised the flap. Then he was before her in the corridor, and offering her a conspiratorial grin.

  ‘Don’t know what you’re looking so bloody happy about,’ she said.

  ‘You’re right. I’ve every reason to be seething, and I am. But you know something, Kezza? For a copper you aren’t a complete twat.’ He jerked his head at the cell door. ‘I’ve been trying to let Hettie know how I feel about her betrayal, and what you just said to the slag, it felt kind of satisfying. Not as satisfying as ripping her lying tongue out, but,’ he thumped his balled fist repeatedly against his sternum, ‘it got me right here.’

  ‘I didn’t say it for your sake.’

  ‘I know. But I don’t care. That bitch needed to hear it; she did, and that’s good enough for me...for now.’

  Kerry led him a few paces from Hettie’s cell. They were unobserved — rather she was unobserved — but she couldn’t take the chance of being witnessed effectively talking to herself. ‘I need your help,’ she whispered, ‘but not here. Can we go somewhere more private?’

  ‘Bloody hell! This is a turn up for the books. I thought all you wanted was to be rid of me, now you’re begging for my company.’

  ‘I’m hardly begging. I need your help to catch the others. It’s in your best interest if you help me.’

  ‘And if I do, you’ll uphold your end of our bargain?’

  ‘I have to catch Robson first,’ she said, taking care not to agree to his extreme wishes. ‘And when I do, you’ll tell me what you know about the Fell Man?’

  ‘I should have you kill every one of those bastards for setting me up,’ Swain said. ‘But, yeah, I offered a deal. What kind of man would I be if I went against my word?’

  ‘The exact same piece of shit you always were?’

  Swain laughed. ‘I’m beginning to like you, Kezza.’

  ‘The feeling isn’t mutual. And stop calling me that.’

  He checked all around, hamming up the clandestine nature of their discussion, then whispered out the corner of his mouth. ‘So where do you want me?’

  ‘Meet me in the parking gara
ge,’ she said, ‘in five minutes.’

  He nodded. ‘You’ll know it when I’m there. I’ll be the one wearing the handcuffs,’ he said and jiggled them for effect. He offered a wolfish smile as he faded from existence.

  He disappeared not a second too soon.

  Janice Beverley, a member of the civilian custody staff entered the corridor, making her rounds. If she was curious why Detective Inspector Darke was standing mid-corridor facing an empty cell, she didn’t mention it. She’d assume that Kerry had checked on their sole female prisoner, but she’d a box to tick too. She lowered the flap on Hettie’s cell door and looked in. ‘Everything OK, love?’

  ‘Piss off and leave me alone,’ Hettie snapped.

  ‘Cup of tea or anything?’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  Janice closed the flap, looked at Kerry. ‘Just charming,’ she said, and gave a low chuckle as she continued her rounds.

  As Kerry arrived at the custody desk two burly coppers struggled in with a prisoner — a skeletal man in shabby clothing. A rank unwashed stench wafted off him, a comingling of sweat and sour alcohol with an undertone of tomcat piss. He swore savagely at the custody sergeant, who dispensed with formalities and commanded the coppers to immediately put him in a cell. They dragged him away, still swearing madly, to a cell set apart from the others, reserved for obnoxious drunkards.

  ‘Another day in paradise,’ the custody sergeant moaned, as he reached for a can of air freshener.

  And people wonder why coppers grow cynical, Kerry thought.

  ‘I’ll have my guys come back shortly to do interviews,’ Kerry informed him.

  ‘Take your time,’ he said, spraying the area, ‘they aren’t going anywhere. It’s that stinking git I want shot of.’ He meant the drunkard, whose belligerence was now aimed at the officers currently searching him in his cell.

  Kerry buzzed herself out of the secure area, into the nick. It was jumping with activity. She paced along a corridor, avoiding the notice of her colleagues, and found the stairwell to the subterranean parking garage.

  She fully expected Swain to be waiting for her, lurking in the shadows where he belonged.

  But he was unaware that she was setting a test. Not for him, if he were of her making he’d do as she imagined. The test was to determine if she was going out of her mind or not. If she was nuts, he couldn’t help her.

  31

  The basement car park was dimly lit. The overhead lights were sparse and dusty, netted with grimy cobwebs. Concrete stanchions upheld the upper floors of the building, throwing slanting shadows across the floor, and doorways were nestled in shaded alcoves. The atmosphere was redolent with exhaust fumes, perished rubber and the damp smell of standing puddles. Not a place where anyone hung about for long, so ideal for Kerry’s purposes.

  It was cloak and dagger stuff, but necessary to set her thoughts at rest. If she could determine the truth behind her visions, she could at least begin to manage them — through intervention or otherwise. If she was losing her mind, she’d a responsibility to seek care with her issues. Despite her life being governed by her quest, she was still conscientious, still a detective who’d pledged to uphold the law, and she hated lying to everyone around her; her superior officers; her closest colleagues; her lover; and especially to herself. It was a situation she couldn’t, or shouldn’t, maintain.

  Doctor Ron explained that the construct of belief was a contradiction in terms. He’d largely convinced her that “seeing was not believing”, because the mind often grasped at false beliefs because they were easier to come to terms with. Erick Swain’s ghost was a construct she’d built in response to contending with a number of traumatic experiences. Nothing about her encounters with Swain’s ghost should convince her otherwise. Even the way he’d attacked Hettie, and those vile names he’d called her…Kerry wished she could do the same to the bitch. So, was Swain her puppet? If so then she wasn’t beholden to his demands, though he could still prove useful in leading her to the Fell Man. If he was a manifestation of her suppressed guilt, then there was something more powerful waiting to lead her to her sister’s abductor.

  As if she was given life by thought, Girl materialised, flitting between two of the upright columns. Her footsteps were soundless and left no trace of her passing through a dirty puddle that had settled at the mouth of a blocked drain. Kerry didn’t follow her movement, convinced that Girl would secrete herself in a dark alcove to watch while she played tit-for-tat with her id.

  ‘Where are you, Swain?’ she whispered.

  He was a no show.

  ‘You keep turning up like a bad penny, so where the bloody hell are you when I need you?’

  She completed a full turn, checking all the darker corners of the basement. Some of the bays held parked vehicles, but most were empty.

  ‘Swain?’

  ‘Peekaboo!’

  She spun around sharply at his voice. She still couldn’t see him.

  ‘Stop pissing about, Swain.’

  ‘Cooey, cooey! I’m over here, Kezza!’ Swain rose from a crouch behind her car. He dangled the handcuff. ‘Don’t you recognise me?’

  She bit down on a response. Nodded at the car. ‘Get in.’

  He didn’t move.

  ‘What, you need me to unlock the door first?’

  ‘Just wondered where you were taking me.’

  ‘We’re going nowhere. I just want some privacy. I don’t want anyone overhearing us…’ Why the hell did she bother explaining? ‘Just get in, and stop messing about. I’ve another meeting to go to soon...’

  ‘It’s a bloody cop car,’ he said, ‘I have an aversion to sitting in them.’

  ‘I bet this is the first time you’ve been allowed in the front. Get in, Swain, and be quick about it.’

  She aimed her electronic key, disengaging the locks, as she approached.

  Swain was inside. Seated in her place. ‘Shift,’ she snarled, as she dragged open the door. She began climbing in before he moved, and felt a mild electrical charge crawl across her skin: a psychosomatic response? Despite the mild discomfort, she settled in the driving position, happy he’d drifted to her left. She scowled at him.

  ‘What? You didn’t specify where in the front I could sit.’

  ‘You’re just being a dick. Now pack it in and listen up.’

  ‘It turns me on when a woman gets bossy with me,’ he said.

  ‘And we both know where your choice in women got you.’

  His forced joviality dissipated. ‘That’s a low blow, Inspector Darke.’

  ‘But it’s also the truth. Apparently Hettie’s sense of loyalty was as fake as her plastic boobs. You never suspected she was plotting to ruin you?’

  ‘No. She’s the last person I’d expect betrayal from. I don’t expect any sympathy from you, but it hurts. Worse even than when I hit the ground that time. When I smacked into the concrete, it was over in an instant, this is…well, it’s tearing me up inside.’

  Kerry studied him. His words sounded heartfelt, and seen in profile, without the smarmy grin, he appeared pitiful. She could forget for a moment that he was a despicable creature. Almost.

  ‘I think I’ve enough on her to prove she was involved in the murder of the Ghedis, and conspired with the others to frame you for the crime. She’ll get her comeuppance, Swain, but she’s not the only one responsible. We have Zane McManus too, but...’

  ‘Yeah, the big-eared shit. After everything I did for him too.’ His face had grown sharp again, his jawline tightening.

  ‘In my opinion he was being used by Hettie. It doesn’t diminish his involvement, but I’m doubtful he played any part in the planning, and was coerced into it by his cousin.’

  ‘Don’t underestimate Zane,’ Swain warned. ‘He acts like a dope but he’s sly. Trust me, he won’t have taken much convincing by Hettie to betray me; a handful of cash, a snort of cocaine and a blow job, buys the likes of him. Still, I’m surprised he went over to Robson. He hates niggers more than I do.’r />
  ‘Stop with the racist crap, will you?’

  ‘I’m not being racist. They call themselves niggers these days, don’t they?’

  His question didn’t deserve an answer.

  ‘I was about to say that I need to find the others from the Nine Elms Crew. They’ve gone under the radar.’

  ‘You and me both,’ he concurred. ‘I want Jermaine Robson dead and buried.’

  ‘So you can continue your feud with him? Surely there’s more to the afterlife than carrying on the same bullshit you did here?’

  ‘Who knows what happens in the afterlife? You’d think I’d have an inside track, but I’ve no clue. I’ll tell you something for nothing: I didn’t see any white light or Saint Peter, or ol’ Nick with a toasting fork, either. All I know is I’m still here, and I won’t be happy until Robson’s messed up as badly as I was. Before you do him, you should ram your truncheon up his arse and let him feel what it’s like to be eternally fucked!’

  ‘Before I can do anything I need to find him.’ She stared at him intently. ‘That’s where you can help me.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘By finding him and telling me where he’s hiding.’

  ‘And how am I meant to do that?’

  ‘You know stuff. Secrets.’ She curled up her lip as she quoted his words back to him. ‘There are no secrets in the underworld. Well, if that’s true, then you’ll know his safe houses, the places where he holes up in times of trouble. I want you to check them out, see if you can locate him and his cronies. And don’t forget—’ This time she paraphrased his words ‘—even the doors to a safe house are no kind of barrier. Ghosts can walk through walls.’