by M. J. Ford
The farmhouse wasn’t a residential building any more – it had been converted into a clinic and offices. In one such room, a slight young man of around twenty wearing pyjamas with a warm coat over the top was seated on a battered armchair, clutching a cup of tea. He had a deep cut on his lip, and his jaw was bruised. Beside him were an older couple, perhaps fifty. The man wore a tweed suit and wellington boots, and the woman a hacking coat and jodhpurs. Paintings and photos of horses covered every wall.
The woman patted the young man on the shoulder and approached Jo. ‘No one will tell us what is going on,’ she said.
‘That’s what I’m here to find out,’ said Jo. ‘Can you explain what happened?’
‘What does it look like? They assaulted the poor boy! Stole our car too.’
‘Do you work here then?’ asked Jo.
‘We own the practice,’ said the woman. ‘My husband and I.’ She held out her hand and gripped Jo’s with surprising force. ‘Kat Spekeman. My husband is Roland – he handles the medical side of things.’
‘And is this your son?’ Jo gestured to the younger man.
‘Good heavens, no. Poor Tim just mans the place at night. He’s a stable-hand. We got here this morning and we found him downstairs, gagged and tied up. He said he’d been there all night.’
‘Would it be okay if I spoke to him?’
‘He’s very shaken up …’
‘But he saw the burglars?’
‘Oh, yes. He saw them all right.’
Jo moved past her, and sat beside the young man. She introduced herself, and learned his full name was Tim Tucker.
‘Tim, can you tell me what happened last night?’
His voice was soft and heavily accented with a West Country burr. ‘I was asleep and I heard a noise. We’ve had a problem with badgers getting into the stores, and I thought it might be that. Came downstairs. The back door was wide open. Then he came out of nowhere and whacked me with a torch. I couldn’t even shout out. He just kept hitting me.’
Roland Spekeman placed a comforting hand on Tim’s shoulder. ‘Bloody animals, some people,’ he muttered.
‘Then what?’ asked Jo.
‘I must have been knocked out. When I woke up I was on the ground, but he’d tied me up, and stuffed a rag in my mouth. There was a girl watching me. She had a gun.’
‘What did she look like?’
‘Blonde hair. A teenager, I’d say. And small. The gun looked massive in her hand.’
‘Did she say anything?’
‘Just to stay where I was, and if I did, he wouldn’t hurt me.’
‘The man?’
‘Yes, he’d gone into the clinic. He was in there for about twenty minutes.’
‘And all this time you were with the girl?’
Tim nodded. ‘She just kept saying I’d be all right if I didn’t move.’
‘Did she seem scared?’
Tim frowned. ‘Not then.’
‘But she did later?’
‘Afterwards, they were arguing. She said she didn’t want to do it – I thought he wanted to kill me and she was trying to persuade him not to.’
Jo paused. Was Megan growing a conscience as the murderous rampage continued, or had it always been there? Just how much of a participant or a passenger was she?
‘And her companion – what was he doing in the clinic?’
‘He’s torn the place apart,’ said Mrs Spekeman.
‘Do you keep drugs here?’
Roland Spekeman nodded. ‘We’re a treatment centre as well as a vet. We take care of most equine ailments. A few years ago, we lost a lot of ketamine when some bright spark realised we had a lot on site. And believe it or not, horse thefts are on the rise.’
‘The girl said the man was hurt,’ said Tim. ‘He needed something for his neck.’
Jo remembered the bandages in the forest, and the one on James Brown’s neck that Saskia Patel had mentioned, presumably from the wound sustained at the Baileys’ home.
‘What would you have to treat an infection?’ she asked Mr Spekeman.
‘It would depend on the location and severity. Something like trimethoprim or metronidazole.’
‘And would those be effective for humans?’
The vet frowned. ‘In the right dose, but a doctor would be a far more sensible option. You think this person wanted antibiotics for personal use?’
‘Possibly. He’s not exactly thinking straight.’
The vet looked bemused. ‘I suppose the cameras will tell us if he found what he was looking for.’
‘Oh,’ said Jo. ‘You have footage?’
‘After the ketamine went missing, we installed them in the yard and in the clinic,’ he said.
Jo hadn’t noticed one outside. It might help to examine the footage to be sure the culprits were Megan and James – not that there was much doubt.
‘Would you be able to show me now?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ said Spekeman.
‘Can I go home?’ said Tim.
‘Of course,’ said Jo. ‘My colleague will take your details, but you’ve been a star.’ She felt oddly protective of the boy. He’d been through quite an ordeal.
‘Kat can drop you,’ said Spekeman.
‘It’s okay, sir – I’ll call my brother.’
‘As you wish.’ He turned to Jo. ‘If you’d like to follow me?’
In an adjoining office, he switched on a laptop and wound back the footage. The screen was split into two halves, each showing the simultaneous external and internal views. At 00.19 a man wearing a balaclava approached the front of the property, with the gun clearly visible in his hands. He vanished around the rear. Nothing happened for almost ten minutes, before he reappeared at the front door and left the way he’d come. It must have been during that window that he overpowered the stable-hand. When he came into frame again, it was 00.43 and he’d removed the balaclava. Megan was with him, and he led her by the hand, with the gun tucked into his trousers. They both entered the front of the house. At 00.46 he was in the clinic, looking through the cupboards and drawers. It wasn’t quite a rampage, because he did at least seem to be inspecting the items closely, but his actions were hurried.
‘Those are the antibiotics,’ said Spekeman, leaning over to pause the video as James Brown took a plastic drawer from a cupboard. ‘Looks like you were right.’
‘How do you think he knew what to look for?’
‘Oh, a basic internet search would tell him that. The dose wouldn’t be obvious though.’
Brown seemed to have found what he was hunting for, stuffing several boxes in his pockets. At the same time, his eyes drifted upwards and into the camera. He quickly picked up a broom from one corner, hefting it by the handle and walked across the room. Next moment, the footage shook, the room blurring. Another apparent blow made one half of the screen go black.
‘Nice try,’ said Spekeman, ‘but we’ve seen you now, boyo.’
‘What was it he took?’ said Jo.
‘Hard to tell from this, but we keep a thorough inventory. We can check while we’re clearing up.’
Jo continued with the tape. Thirteen more minutes before Megan and James emerged. This time the body language was different altogether. He was pulling her and she seemed reluctant to follow. Perhaps not scared, but certainly wary. He practically forced her into the Land Rover, before climbing in himself and driving off.
‘We’ll need a copy of this footage,’ said Jo.
‘Of course,’ said the vet. ‘Anything we can do to help you catch them.’
Jo stood. In the first room, Wethers and Kat Spekeman were talking, and Tim was gathering a bag to leave.
‘Just another question,’ said Jo. ‘After the man came out of the clinic, did he say anything?’
‘He wanted keys to the Land Rover,’ said Tim.
‘And you gave them to him?’
‘I told him they were on a peg in the other office.’ Here he looked sheepish. ‘I didn’t know what e
lse to do.’
‘It’s fine, lad,’ said the vet. ‘It’s just a car.’
‘And then what?’ said Jo.
‘Then they left.’
‘Straight away?’
‘Pretty much. Like I said, they argued. She just kept saying it wasn’t right. She didn’t want to. I think she must have got through to him, because they left me alone.’
Jo didn’t tell him how lucky he was, given James’ spree up until that point. She didn’t want to freak the poor kid out.
But she thought back to the recording. Something about the timings didn’t match. Getting a key didn’t take nearly quarter of an hour, and nor did the argument he was telling her about. Either Tim was misremembering the sequence of events, which wouldn’t be that surprising, or James and Megan hadn’t left immediately after he found the antibiotics. What had they been doing for over ten minutes, inside the building?
‘Do you keep any other valuables in the property?’ she asked.
‘In here?’ said the vet. ‘I suppose the computer might be worth something. The odd painting …’
‘And none of that was touched.’
He shook his head.
Jo thanked them all, and Wethers, saying she’d be in touch. As she was leaving, Kat spoke up. ‘What do you think the chances are of finding the Land Rover? Makes our job pretty hard without it.’
‘Rest assured we’re on the lookout,’ said Jo.
‘She’s got my phone too,’ said Tim.
Jo stopped in the doorway. ‘Pardon me?’
‘She took my phone, while the man was in the clinic.’
Jo held in her excitement. A phone meant GPS. It meant, if Megan had it on her, that they could find her. She could’ve kissed poor Tim right on the lips, but instead she kept her composure.
‘I’ll need the number, if you’ve got it?’
Chapter 27
Stow-on-the-Wold was a tourist trap of antique shops, country-clothing outlets, and restaurants to suit all tastes. Jo had visited with her family once as a girl and remembered only one aspect of the day. She had been dipping her feet in the river that babbled through the town, and eating an ice-cream. Paul had splashed her, and in the movement to get away, the cone had slipped from her hand. The memory of the scoop of raspberry ripple slowly melting into the water as it drifted away was still more vivid than seemed credible. That it should still be with her now, as she sat in the village police station with DS Hugh Wethers, seemed particularly odd given the stakes of the current investigation.
They were waiting on the telecoms team to come back with a location for Tim Tucker’s phone. The question was, why on earth Megan would have taken it. James was surely aware of the police’s tracking capabilities, which left the tantalising prospect that Megan did also, and this was part of her plan. Jo had struggled from the start to see how or why she had turned killer. Now it was beginning to look like she’d had enough of being an accomplice to murder. St Aldates was on standby, as were the armed response unit. This time there would be no mistakes. This time they were the ones with the advantage.
When Jo’s phone rang, it was Heidi.
‘You need to hear this,’ she said. ‘Emergency Comms Centre received a call twenty minutes ago from the number we’re trying to trace. I think it’s Megan.’
‘What did she say?’
‘It’s not that simple,’ said Heidi. ‘Forwarding the audio now. You need to listen.’
* * *
‘… It’s going to be okay …’ a man’s voice, the accent thickly Mancunian.
‘I feel shit.’ A girl said. ‘My stomach …’
‘Here, drink this.’
‘I don’t want to.’
‘Drink it – it’ll help.’
‘I think I need a hospital.’
‘No hospitals. Told you that before. I’m doing this for you.’
‘Did you give me something?’
‘Meg, I’m looking out for you.’
A prolonged groan. It reminded Jo of a contraction. ‘There’s something wrong. James, please … I’m cold. What did you give me?’
‘Here, put this on. We’ll be on our way soon. I’ll find a car.’
‘Then what? They’ll find us.’
‘No they won’t. I know where we can go. Just the two of us.’
Another groan. ‘I don’t want to come any more. I’m scared.’
‘Nothing to be scared of. Come on, drink.’
‘I said, no more!’
‘Then shut the fuck up while— What’s that?’
‘What?’
‘That noise. I heard a beep.’
‘I didn’t hear … Hey!’
The sound of scuffling, maybe a struggle.
‘Get off!’
A pause.
‘Meg, what the fuck?’
‘Give it back! I want to go home. Please, just leave me. I want to go home.’
‘Oh fuck. No, no, no! Why Meg? WHY?’
The next groan was cut off as the clip ended. Jo and Wethers sat in silence for a moment. Heidi had said the ECC had tried to ring back, but no one had answered.
Then Jo pressed play again. Heidi had told her roughly what to expect, but hearing the voices of Megan and James Bailey for the first time was still astonishing, like they were in the room with her.
One question was answered at least. Megan had indeed kept the phone from her brother. She wanted out, as shown in the five seconds of footage as he tugged her towards the Land Rover. She had taken the phone because she wanted them to find her.
Jo stopped the clip after Megan’s fearful question: ‘What did you give me?’
‘Whatever it was, she’s in trouble,’ said Wethers. ‘You think he’s drugged her?’
Jo has a pretty good idea what with. She played the audio again.
‘Meg, I’m looking out for you.’
A few seconds later.
‘… Just the two of us.’
‘Have you got the number for the vet’s?’ she said.
Wethers found it and the phone was answered by Kat Spekeman. Jo got straight to the point and asked if they’d had chance to run through the inventory yet to see what else might be missing.
‘I’m sorry, we haven’t. Roland’s still out doing the morning rounds.’
‘This is going to sound like an odd question, but do you ever carry out abortions on horses?’
Beside her, Wethers’ eyebrows shot up.
‘Frequently,’ said Kat. ‘Though we call it a termination. Normally in the case of abnormalities, or multiple gestation.’
‘And is there a drug you use?’
‘Yes, it’s called prostaglandin. E2 Alpha if you want the full label. An oral medication. We have it here. I mean … You don’t think he would have taken that?’ Jo could almost hear the other woman’s furrowed brow.
‘Would you mind checking the stocks?’
‘Right now?’
‘Please.’
She took the phone from her ear.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ said Wethers.
‘Two,’ Jo said. ‘Not three. The two of us.’ She realised the Gloucestershire detective likely didn’t know about their discovery of the positive test in the woods near Over Kidlington. ‘Megan’s pregnant. I think James has given her something to get rid of it, something he didn’t want the camera to see.’
‘Why?’
Jo thought about the bullets fired at Gregory Bailey. And where they’d been aimed. Not the heart or the head, but the groin.
Let’s just say he didn’t like the father.
‘James has been looking for his sister for years. I doubt a baby fits in with his plan.’
‘Which is?’
‘Like he said. To get away – them and no one else.’
Kat Spekeman returned to the phone. ‘It looks like you’re right. We’re don’t keep much prostaglandin on site, and what we had has gone. Why the hell would they steal it?’
Those groans sounded bad. Really bad. Sh
e was scared.
‘Have you any idea what would happen if prostaglandin was administered to a human?’
‘It is, all the time,’ said Spekeman, ‘normally in combination with other medications to induce abortion. Hang on – that girl hasn’t taken some?’
‘Possibly,’ said Jo.
‘Then she needs to get to a hospital very quickly indeed,’ said Spekeman.
Chapter 28
Jo was on the phone to Vera Coyne when Wethers signalled to her that the phone had been traced. Once a practising physician herself, Coyne’s prognosis was much the same as Spekeman’s, only more dire.
‘Her cardiovascular system won’t be able to cope and she’ll almost certainly die,’ she said bluntly.
‘How long has she got?’ said Jo.
‘I couldn’t tell you without knowing the dose,’ said Coyne. ‘She may already be dead, to be honest.’
After Jo ended the call, she looked at the map on Wethers’ computer pinpointing the co-ordinates from the service provider. It looked to be only four or five miles from the veterinary practice, and maybe seven from their own position. Zooming in in the satellite imagery showed a spot in sparse woodland, just south of a town called Hook Norton.
‘I know the place,’ said Wethers. ‘There’s a sealed rail tunnel nearby. It’s part of the old line to Chipping Norton that closed in the fifties.’
Jo called Dimitriou at St Aldates who confirmed the spot was on the map they’d recovered from the forest.
‘Is the phone still pinging towers?’ she asked.
‘Apparently so,’ said Dimitriou. ‘You’re wondering why he hasn’t destroyed it?’
‘Not really,’ said Jo. ‘I guess he’s on the move already.’
With Andy Carrick still in hospital, she liaised directly with Chief Constable Harden, who was based in Reading, to authorise the tactical response team. Meanwhile Dimitriou and Reeves were hightailing it from Oxford. Harden and Jo joined a call with a DCI in Gloucester by the name of Pettifer, and together put a plan in place. Patrol units would set up along the four main routes out of Hook Norton, all with an armed contingent. Jo, Wethers, Dimitriou and Reeves would meet the two remaining members of the tactical unit at a rendezvous point close to the phone’s location – they selected a small crossroads around five hundred metres to the south. With no direct road access, it would be a case of moving in on foot. Or rather, letting the armed officers do so. Jo could observe their progress via their helmet cameras, but operational control would be in the hands of Gloucestershire, and DCI Pettifer. Harden made it clear that no one was to approach the scene until they had reconned by air.