That could still be, yet Vogel’s every instinct was beginning to tell him it wasn’t and that, however extraordinary, Willis was Aeolus.
He checked his watch as he walked along the corridor towards Hemmings’s office. When he’d asked her and Willis to return to base, Saslow had said they’d been nearly at Avonmouth. They could not possibly have got back yet, but there was increasingly less and less doubt in his mind that Dawn Saslow was in very great danger. He was going to be right on edge, until she and Willis returned. If they returned. He preferred not to think about that.
All he could do was to continue to hope that his decision to make a softly, softly approach had been the right one and that Willis/Aeolus was arrogant enough not to be alerted to impending danger.
AEOLUS
How dare they insult my intelligence like this? Did David Vogel really think for a moment that I wouldn’t realise what his urgent new development was? Did he really think I wouldn’t act to protect myself? I have always had a contingency plan. A number of contingency plans, actually. I have always been ready to deal with any eventuality. After all, I am Aeolus.
People like Vogel and the Saslow girl are just minor inconveniences to me. I knew what I had to do as soon as Saslow received that call. It wasn’t going to be difficult for me. I, more than anybody, know how to make myself disappear.
First, I had to deal with the Saslow girl. Then, I would give my orders to Vogel. He would have no choice but to obey me. The wind obeyed me. I am the ruler of the wind. I have the power of the wind. I can raise a hurricane with a blink of an eyelid. Saslow was still unconscious from the second blow I dealt her. I made sure she would be under my control when she came around. Her upper body was restrained by the seat belt. Her wrists were still cuffed. I used her own handcuffs on her legs, clamping them around her ankles. She would not kick me again.
Saslow was a small girl. Nonetheless the cuffs were not quite big enough, when I pressed them shut they dug into her flesh. I didn’t care about that. I never deliberately set out to hurt anybody. But when people challenge me, I must eliminate them. I always triumph. I am Aeolus. I must never allow such paltry outside forces to try and threaten me.
I let Saslow’s head fall onto my shoulder. Anyone we passed, who might glance into the car, would almost certainly think she was sleeping.
The girl was now the key to my survival. She would make it possible for me to move on to the next stage of my life.
I needed to get away. I needed to go to another country. I knew what my choice was. I needed to be somewhere where cooperation with the United Kingdom was rarely an option. Somewhere I already had contacts in organisations which would welcome my special abilities. I had money. Not a lot, but enough to keep myself while I rebuilt my existence.
And I had my people, many more than Saul, Al and Leo. I could not always summon them at will, nor could I always deny them when they came to me. Sometimes I could make them wait. Other times I had to allow them to take me over at once. When they come to me and I become them, sometimes it is I, Aeolus, who has summoned them. Called them up at will. But sometimes it is as if they summon me and I have answered their call. They are my people.
As for Willis, poor Willis, he was never more than the cloak within which I wrapped my real selves.
If he disappears for ever, he will be no loss.
I am Aeolus.
TWENTY-NINE
Hemmings stared at Vogel.
‘No,’ he said. ‘No.’
‘Well I can’t be sure, sir …’
‘I think you are, Vogel, you know it in your gut, don’t you, man?’
‘I feel it, that’s for certain, sir,’ said Vogel.
‘What about DNA and fingerprints? Willis’s will be on record like every serving police officer in the UK. If he’s our killer then his DNA would have come up as a match on the national data base straight away, wouldn’t it?’
‘Apparently not and I can’t explain that, sir. Not yet. We’ll have to look into it. Meanwhile, I think we need to take every precaution. All being well, Willis and Saslow should be back within fifteen minutes or so.’
Involuntarily, he glanced at his watch again. If they are coming back, he thought. If Willis was still sticking to his reliable copper personae and hadn’t totally transformed himself into Aeolus. It didn’t bear thinking about. If anything happened to Saslow, Vogel would hold himself responsible for the rest of his life.
Hemmings was speaking. Vogel heard him from afar. He made himself listen properly. He and Hemmings could only deal with the situation as it now was.
‘So let’s get an armed response presence here, right away,’ Hemmings was saying. ‘Low profile, keep them out of sight. Then as soon as Willis and Saslow are in the building we separate them. Get Saslow out of the firing line, before the armed response boys do the arrest. Got it?’
Vogel had it.
‘I’ll call them in,’ said Hemmings.
He did so at once on his desk phone.
‘They’ll be here within twenty,’ he said. ‘We may have to play a holding game for a bit, if Willis and Saslow get here first. Keep Willis sweet. String him along a bit.’
Vogel stared at Hemmings in silence for a moment.
Sometimes, just sometimes, he thought the detective chief inspector was from another planet. Keep him sweet? String him along a bit? This could be a man who had killed three times in cold blood and those were only the killings they knew about. This could be a man who did not know who he was from one day to the next, and who, if Vogel had correctly understood Professor Freda Heath, could swing in and out of his various murderous identities almost by the minute. Vogel felt totally out of his depth and that had never happened to him before.
‘You know what sir, I’m not sure if that’s going to be possible …’ he began.
‘If he comes back here with Saslow, then surely it will be,’ said Hemmings.
Vogel did not entirely agree, but saw Hemmings’s logic.
‘It’s if he doesn’t come back with Saslow that we need to really worry,’ the DCI continued.
Vogel didn’t need telling that. He was already desperately worried.
When Saslow came round, she had no idea where she was. For just a split second, she could not even remember what had happened to her. Then she saw Willis and she remembered it all. That’s when the pain hit her, surging though her body. The second blow had been much harder than the first. She realised she’d been concussed, more than that, she had been rendered unconscious.
He was standing at a table and seemed to be sorting through the contents of a box. He had his back to her. She tried to speak. Her head hurt, a lot. Her right cheek hurt worst of all. Without thinking, she tried to raise a hand to touch it. She was still handcuffed behind her back. Her ankles were handcuffed too. She realised she was half-sitting, half-lying on a concrete floor, with her upper back against a wall. She wriggled, involuntarily struggling to move, but she was chained to the wall. Willis had looped one of the cuffs on her wrist through a thick, metal chain.
She looked around her. She was in some sort of dimly lit room without windows. This was her prison now. The air was dank and heavy. She wondered if it was underground.
She wondered if she would die there.
She was finding it difficult to breathe. It felt as if her nose and throat were blocked. She tried to speak again, but was aware only of a gurgling sound. Willis turned around then. Only, she could barely recognise him as Willis. The man she’d thought of, not really as a friend like some of those she worked with, but certainly as a close colleague, perhaps her closest colleague. Someone trustworthy upon whom she could rely. This was not Willis. This was some madman, with eyes cold as ice.
He moved towards her. Willis was tall, a good six feet, and the celling in the room was low. He couldn’t quite stand up fully. So he walked with his head slightly bowed and when he stood above her, his bent upper body loomed over her. He reached out with one hand. Saslow was absolutely terri
fied. Was this it? Was he going to kill her? She cowered away from him, as best she could given her handcuffed hands and feet.
‘Don’t worry, you snivelling bitch, I can hardly bare to touch you,’ he hissed at her. Then she saw he was carrying a plastic bottle of water. He placed the neck of it between her lips and tipped. She gulped down as much as she could, desperate for it. Her throat seemed to clear. Then water began to dribble down her chin. She couldn’t take any more. Mercifully, he removed the bottle before she choked. She gasped for air. Her breathing seemed a little easier, but she could barely speak. Her voice was little more than a whisper.
‘What are you going to do with me?’ she asked.
‘That depends on your friends, your police friends,’ he said. ‘If they follow my orders, I will tell them where you are. Then they will come for you, I suppose. If they disobey me, well, you will die, eventually.’
She heard herself begin to sob.
‘What did you expect?’ he asked coolly. ‘You aren’t a total fool, are you?’
Saslow was suddenly aware that she was losing control of her bladder. She knew that fear did that. She had seen it happen, but never thought it would happen to her.
‘I need to go to the toilet,’ she said. ‘Quickly.’
He shrugged.
‘There is no toilet here,’ he said.
She heard herself pleading with him.
‘Please, I need to go. I can’t hold it much longer …’
He shrugged and turned away.
She couldn’t help it. She began to urinate. The liquid poured from her, seeping through her clothes and leaking on to the floor. He turned back to face her.
‘You filthy, filthy bitch,’ he growled.
Then he stepped towards her and slapped her twice across her already battered face. She screamed with pain. He stepped back and just stared at her.
‘I couldn’t help it,’ Saslow stammered, aware that anything she did which offended him, would only make him more dangerous. ‘I told you I needed to go. I couldn’t stop it.’
He stepped towards her again and began to unlock the handcuffs on her wrists.
‘If you try to struggle I shall hit you again,’ he said. ‘And this time I shall not be so gentle. If you want a chance of living, do not resist me. Never resist me.’
He removed the handcuff on her right wrist. The one on her left was still fastened to the chain, which attached to the wall.
‘You are alive only because you are useful to me,’ he said. ‘I am not a common criminal. I do not kill or cause pain unless I have to. I am Aeolus, I am the ruler of the winds. I am honourable. I now seek only safe passage. If I am given it, I shall tell them where you are. If not, I shall never reveal your whereabouts and you will not be found, Dawn Saslow. I am telling you this because I want you to know that, if that is what happens, it will not be my fault. It is not part of my plan that you should die.’
He then fetched a bucket from the far side of the room, which he placed beside her.
‘Your toilet, madam,’ he said. ‘Although it seems you know how to do without one.’ His lips curled with distaste.
He went back to the table and brought to her the box he had been sorting through. In it were some basic supplies: packets of biscuits, tins of meat, baked beans and two more bottles of water.
‘You have provisions here to keep you alive, until they get to you. There’s probably enough for a week or so. I would expect them to get to you before that, long before that. Indeed, if they don’t, I suggest you conserve your rations, because that means they have double-crossed me. If they double-cross me, I shall tell them nothing and your life will end here.’
He leered at her. She made herself try to think. What could she say, what could she ask for that might help her?
‘Why don’t you unchain me and free my legs?’ she asked. ‘The handcuffs are too small for my ankles. My feet have gone numb. After all, you said you didn’t want to cause me unnecessary pain. You said you were honourable. And what am I going to do? I accept what you say. I will never be able to get out of here, once you have gone, unless they come to get me.’
‘I do not take unnecessary risks,’ he said. ‘You will remain cuffed and chained. You will just have to hope that Vogel does not try to be clever, that he does my bidding. Then you will be freed. Then and if.’
She made one last attempt to talk to him. He was Willis after all. The man she had worked alongside for almost six months – or at least that was one part of him. Perhaps, if she appealed to that part of him, she might get through.
‘John,’ she said. ‘C’mon. You and I have always been chums. I would never do anything to harm you. Set me free and I’ll try to help you.’
‘Who is this John?’ he asked. ‘I know no John.’
As he spoke, she realised it was hopeless. He turned and walked to the far side of her prison. She watched him pick up a suitcase, clearly pre-packed. Ready for this eventuality, presumably. She realised he was now going to leave her. He took a small torch from his pocket and turned it on. Then he flicked a switch on the wall. The terrible, little room was plunged into darkness, apart from the narrow beam from his torch.
She lost control again then. She’d done her best to engage him and failed. It was over now, probably for good. She began to scream. She could no longer see his face, but she could hear his voice all right. That awful, hissing apology for a voice, half-pompous and half-threatening, the voice that was not Willis any more. The voice that was Aeolus.
‘Make all the noise you like,’ he said. ‘Scream and scream with all your might. You will not be heard. Nobody will hear you.’
She was lying in her own urine and she could feel her bowels beginning to move. She had no control at all over her body any more. She was aware of him leaving though, and the sound of some sort of very heavy object sliding across the floor. Then he’d gone and there was only darkness.
She was quite alone in her stinking, black prison.
THIRTY
As promised, the armed response boys arrived within twenty minutes and concealed themselves strategically, both in the car park and inside the building.
Willis and Saslow had yet to return.
Vogel was beginning to get very nervous indeed. He tried to make use of the waiting time by studying Willis’s file and collating everything he knew about the DS. It wasn’t a lot. Willis had graduated as a mechanical design engineer at a Manchester college and worked briefly in construction, before totally changing tack and moving to Bristol to join the Avon and Somerset Constabulary. Vogel had been vaguely aware that Willis had an engineering background, but he had little knowledge of the DS’s early life. After all, Willis barely talked about it.
It had never occurred to Vogel to question Willis’s career switch. Many officers joined the force from very different walks of life. But, if Willis was Aeolus, why on earth had he decided to become a policeman? Vogel had no idea.
An alert had been put out for Willis’s vehicle, with an instruction that no approach should be made, but any spotting reported at once to MCIT. The region’s CCTV units were also alerted, but results from this source would not be immediate. Footage had to be collated and checked. As the minutes passed, Vogel continued to wait uneasily for the return of Willis and Saslow or news that the vehicle had been spotted. The tech boys were swiftly able to identify the location from which a signal had last been picked up from Saslow’s phone. It was an industrial cul-de-sac just off the Avonmouth Road.
A squad car, already located nearby, was sent to investigate cautiously. They called in within minutes. To Vogel’s dismay, they reported that there was no sign of Willis’s vehicle or either officer believed to have been travelling in it, but they did have some disturbing news.
‘We’ve found a phone,’ said Constable Jamieson. ‘It looks as if it was thrown against a wall. The screen’s smashed and the back’s fallen off. The sim card’s been removed and it’s dead as a Dodo.’
‘Is it an Iphone
seven plus, with a blue, sparkly case?’ asked Vogel with trepidation. He and Saslow had the same phone, only hers had that sparkling case on it, and she’d actually once threatened to get the pink version for Vogel. They were both Apple devotees and liked to have the latest technology.
‘Yes, sir. We found a case like that, too.’
That was not what Vogel wanted to hear. Clearly this was Saslow’s phone. He slumped in his chair behind his desk. This was the calm before the storm. There was no point in waiting and hoping any more. Willis and Saslow were not returning. Vogel steeled himself to take control of the situation and be ready for the next course of action.
He stood up and headed for the incident room.
It was then that his mobile rang.
The caller was Willis.
Vogel felt his heart thumping in his chest.
He pushed the green button and spoke, in as level a voice as he could manage.
‘John,’ he said.
The voice which responded didn’t sound like Willis at all.
‘If you do exactly as I say, nobody will be hurt.’
It was the voice of someone who expected to be obeyed. It was confident and clear as an English public schoolboy’s, but with more than a touch of a rarely heard accent. Latin, thought Vogel.
‘Go on,’ he said, struggling to keep his voice level.
‘I need to leave the country,’ Willis continued. ‘I shall not trouble you again. I have a place to go. I have a plan. I always have a plan.’ There was a pause. ‘I am Aeolus. I do what I wish, when I wish.’
Vogel’s heart seemed to do somersault inside his chest. He could barely breathe. He waited. There was only silence.
‘Go on,’ he said again.
‘I need no help from you, not any of you. Alone, I am enough. I need only for you to clear a passage for my journey and not to stand in my way. You may well spot me, on the road or elsewhere, as I begin my journey. You may well spot me as I board an aircraft or a ship or a train. Yet you will not apprehend me. You will do nothing to hinder my passage.’
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