CAPTIVE ON THE FENS a gripping crime thriller full of twists

by Joy Ellis

Above the rattle of her laboured breath, she heard a commotion coming from the ground floor of the cottage. A manic, high-pitched scream, a thud and a groan, and then more sounds of someone blundering around and sending furniture crashing.

  Then there was silence.

  Nikki tried to get a grip on the iron bed leg to pull herself up from whatever was pressing on her ribcage. She had partially extricated herself and begun to wriggle free, when she heard a low moan, and realised that she had been immobilised by the full weight of Niall Farrow’s body.

  ‘Niall! Oh God! Niall!’ She pushed herself to her knees and carefully turned him over, to see the dull gleam of a metal knife handle sticking from his upper arm. A great dark patch of blood had already oozed through his clothes, and in the pale light, she saw his eyes roll up, showing only the whites, and then he began to shake.

  She eased herself behind him, supporting him and holding him to her, as if she were comforting a child. Gently she laid him down and pushed her rolled up jacket beneath his head and screamed for Joseph.

  Instead of Joseph, Yvonne appeared in the doorway, and with a cry, she threw herself down beside her crew-mate.

  ‘Shock more than anything, I think,’ breathed Nikki. ‘Although that wound is bleeding like hell. We’d better not remove the knife, but can you pack it with something?’

  Without hesitating, Yvonne tore off her jacket and then her uniform blouse. She balled the white shirt up and wrapped it around the blade, gripping it tightly. ‘I’m not using anything from this foul dump on my boy,’ she muttered.

  Nikki pulled her radio from her pocket. Thankfully it had not been damaged in the scuffle. For once in this remote area, there actually was a signal, so she immediately radioed urgent assistance required and told them their exact location. Then she knelt down again and checked Niall’s pulse.

  After what seemed forever, his eyes began to focus, and then he gasped loudly with pain and shock. ‘What . . . ?’

  Yvonne gripped his hand. ‘Relax, muppet. Paramedics are on their way.’

  ‘If they can find this cesspit of a place,’ he croaked. ‘And why do you have to call me “muppet?”’

  ‘They’ll find it.’ Nikki assured him. ‘Our vehicle is up on the lane, so they’ll not miss it.’

  ‘And you are “muppet” because you are the Most Useless Police Person Ever Trained,’ Yvonne said smiling at him. ‘And don’t try to deny it.’

  ‘Nikki, are you alright!’ Joseph lurched into the room, one hand held tightly against his forehead.

  ‘I’m okay, it’s Niall who is hurt. She was waiting for us, Joseph, she stabbed him.’

  Joseph fell on his knees and ran his hand gently through Niall’s hair. ‘How the hell am I going to explain this to my daughter?’

  ‘Very carefully, I should think.’ Niall managed a weak smile. ‘Hell, this hurts!’

  Nikki touched Joseph’s arm and beckoned him away. ‘Did you get her, Joseph? She went straight down the stairs.’

  He shook his head. ‘No. We heard the noise, but we were checking an old outhouse attached to the cottage. By the time we got back to the living room, she was behind the door. She pushed it into my face and knocked me off my feet.’ He removed his hand to reveal an ugly purplish lump, ‘She was like a mad thing. It was bizarre. She half ran, half hobbled outside. As soon as I’d stopped seeing stars I chased her, but then we heard you calling. I sent Yvonne to you, but when I looked for the girl, she had disappeared. I think she’s hiding somewhere. Will you be okay here if I go back out there to look for her?’

  ‘Yvonne will look after Niall. I’ll come with you. She’s completely deranged, so we’ll stand a better chance together.’

  Yvonne nodded. ‘We’re fine. And don’t worry, I’m not going to lose the best sidekick I ever had, especially when he’s engaged to the sarge’s daughter. I’d get drummed out of the force.’

  By the time Nikki and Joseph had got outside, a wind had got up and dark thunder clouds were gathering. The marsh looked cold, grey and desolate.

  ‘Where could she hide in this place? Surely we’d see her.’

  Joseph scanned the bleak marshland. ‘She was heading towards the inlet. She could easily lie down in one of the drainage ditches below the reed line. Let’s go that way.’

  Nikki ran across the uneven boggy ground beside Joseph. ‘Dina! Dina! We are here to help you!’ She knew it would do no good, but she felt better for trying.

  They were almost at the water’s edge when Joseph touched Nikki’s arm and held his finger to his lips. He pointed.

  Nikki could see a scrap of pale material lying between some clumps of sedge.

  ‘If she runs,’ whispered Joseph, ‘our best chance is a pincer move and we just bundle her down to the ground. We know she’s unarmed and she must be tiring. She’s definitely injured, or something is wrong with her. The way she was running — she was scuttling along, it was really odd.’

  ‘Okay, let’s go then.’

  They split up, one to the right and one to the left, and ran towards what was lying in the reeds.

  Dina Jarvis rose up and with a blood-curdling scream, ran straight for the water.

  ‘The tide is coming in, Joseph! Don’t let her get too far ahead or we’ll lose her!’

  Nikki plunged on after her. The wind carried Dina’s voice back to them. She was calling to her mother to wait for her. Nikki shivered as she ran.

  ‘Dina! Wait! We can help you!’ The water was already above her ankles, and Nikki knew how easy it was to get caught by the undercurrents.

  Then Joseph hurtled past her and threw himself on the wild and unkempt figure. They crashed into the water and for a moment Nikki couldn’t see what was happening. Fear gripped her. Then the dark waters broke, and Joseph was staggering towards her with a figure limp in his arms.

  ‘I’ve got her! Let’s get her back to the cottage and find some blankets. She won’t last long if we don’t get some warmth into these cold bones. There is nothing of her.’

  As they fought their way through the wind, across the marshy terrain, the rain started to lash down.

  ‘Oh, marvellous!’ cursed Nikki. ‘As if we weren’t bloody wet enough! I think we could do with some divine intervention, don’t you, Joseph? Come on, you’re the one with connections.’ She pointed skyward.

  ‘Prayers already answered,’ he gasped. ‘Look.’

  As Nikki looked up she saw a line of blue lights making their way across the lane towards them. ‘Oh, thank God for that!’

  ‘Don’t worry, I already have.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  That night, tired and weary, Nikki and Joseph waited for news of Dina Jarvis.

  Niall was being kept in overnight for observation after an operation to remove the knife from his arm. He had been lucky, the wicked old blade had missed severing his brachial artery by millimetres, although it had nicked the cephalic vein. He had been pumped full of antibiotics, stitched up and told that although he couldn’t work for some time and would need physio, he would definitely be fit enough to enjoy his engagement party at the weekend.

  Nikki yawned. ‘He denies it emphatically, but I’ve been going over and over what happened in the godawful room. It was Niall who pushed me, not Dina, as he claims. He pushed me out of the way and got between me and that knife. He saved my life, Joseph, as sure as eggs is eggs.’

  ‘Which makes my future son-in-law, a bone fide hero, I guess?’

  ‘It does, and his commanding officer is going to hear about it first thing tomorrow.’ She yawned again. ‘Tamsin looked distraught.’

  Joseph nodded, ‘Didn’t she! I hoped it wouldn’t make her think twice about marrying a copper, but,’ he laughed softly, ‘I underestimated her. She told me that it really brought home to her how important our work is, and how necessary our presence is when things go wrong.’

  ‘That lass has changed beyond all recognition.’

  ‘She has grown up, Nikki. She’s a strong woman now, and I think she
’s going to make a damned good policeman’s wife.’

  ‘And you will stop fretting over her?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Good. But nevertheless I hated to see you so affected by Lilli and those other poor girls.’

  ‘Some cases really get to you. It’s unavoidable, isn’t it?’ Joseph looked at her.

  ‘If you have a heart and are still capable of compassion, yes, they do.’

  ‘And that poor kid, Dina. When I lifted her from the water she was soaked through, but she still weighed nothing. She was so emaciated it was like picking up a bundle of clothes with no body inside them.’

  ‘After what she’s suffered, I’m not actually sure if I want her to survive. Is it cruel to think that way?’

  ‘Of course not. You just don’t want her to suffer even more.’

  Nikki’s phone buzzed in her pocket. ‘DI Galena.’ She listened for a few moments then thanked the caller and punched the air. ‘Yes! They’ve identified the mole!’

  Joseph heaved a sigh. ‘So our Jessie can come home!’ Then, ‘But who was it?’

  ‘A young PC, sadly. He didn’t show up for work today, but the desk sergeant had an anonymous call giving his name. They went round to his place, but he’d already gone.’

  ‘That’s really bad news.’

  ‘Apparently the kid had a lot of problems, some of them financial. Maybe Carver’s boys caught him at a low point.’

  ‘Why are you making excuses for a rogue cop, Nikki Galena?’

  ‘Because I’m getting older, and things don’t seem as black and white as they used to.’

  A tall thin man with dark-rimmed glasses walked in and held out his hand. ‘DI Galena? I’m Dr Levin and I’m looking after Miss Jarvis. I’ve been given a little background information, but could you tell me any more about how she came to be in this condition?’

  Nikki explained as much as she felt was appropriate, and the doctor sighed. ‘As soon as we had stabilised her, we needed to operate, I’m afraid. She had a massive infection and she is still in a critical condition.’

  ‘What happened to her, Doctor, to make her so . . .’ Joseph wasn’t sure how to explain the odd gait and the fact that Dina had been almost bent double when she tried to run. ‘Her body so twisted in that way?’

  ‘She has undergone what I can only describe as butchery. It was apparently an attempt at aborting a foetus. The abominably inept “operation” caused severe haemorrhaging and infection, and later, massive and agonising adhesions formed.’ The doctor stared at their shocked faces. ‘Sorry to put it so bluntly, but there it is. And she still has a weird cocktail of drugs in her blood. Analgesics, anti-inflammatory drugs, hallucinogens and a few other things that we haven’t yet identified. From her general condition, and from what you’ve just told me about her incarceration, I suspect she had regularly been given a variety of drugs for her pain as well as to keep her docile.’

  ‘Poor little devil,’ whispered Joseph. ‘And to think she once had a chance of singing and dancing professionally.’

  Nikki shuddered. Her own brother! Her twin brother! How could he? ‘And the operation?’

  ‘We’ve really just done what we can to make her more comfortable. She had severe sepsis, so we had to remove infected tissue and try to reduce the bacterial load.’ He frowned. ‘If she survives, she should consider more radical surgery sometime in the future.’

  ‘And her chances of surviving?’

  ‘Impossible to guess at this point.’ His pager began to bleep. ‘Sorry, got to go.’ He paused. ‘I’d say she’ll recover from the physical injuries. As to her mental state, that’s not mine to call.’ He hurried away, then called back, ‘Mind you, if they can get her safely through coming off the drugs, the whole event might seem to her like a really bad trip. Believe it or not, people have survived worse than this.’

  ‘Not convinced,’ said Nikki to the man’s retreating back. ‘I can’t think of too much worse than what she’s gone through.’

  ‘Me neither. Shall we go home?’

  ‘Yes.’ Nikki linked her arm through Joseph’s. ‘Oh yes!’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Greg Woodhall’s room no longer looked like a lost property office. Even his desk was tidy. Nikki and Joseph sat opposite the superintendent.

  ‘Hired a daily help?’ asked Nikki lightly.

  He rubbed his hands together. ‘More or less. New office manager actually, and he enjoys a challenge.’

  ‘He must,’ murmured Joseph. ‘Or maybe he’s just a masochist.’

  ‘Now, now, Joseph, it wasn’t that bad.’

  Nikki raised her eyebrows.

  The conversation stalled. There was serious business to attend to and none of them really wanted to deal with it.

  ‘You’ve been back to the place where Dina Jarvis was confined?’ Greg asked.

  ‘Yes, sir, forensics are working the scene now. It has been photographed and evidence has been collected, but it does seem as if no one else was involved. It was Dominic Jarvis alone who abducted her.’

  ‘We found a series of notebooks, sir, not diaries exactly, but he was an inveterate note maker. There were memos everywhere. I’m sure when we piece them together they will answer some of our questions about his state of mind.’

  ‘What about the drugs he fed her?’

  ‘We spoke to his GP. Dominic had convinced him that he suffered from a condition called CRPS, or complex regional pain syndrome. Its symptoms are excruciating pain in certain areas following a simple knock or bruise. The intensity of the pain bears no relation to the injury. It is a difficult condition to prove or disprove, and the GP issued a repeat prescription for very strong painkillers. We think he gave them to Dina.’

  ‘He stole others from the psychiatric hospital, but mainly he bought whatever he could from dealers,’ added Joseph. ‘We found ketamine, barbiturates, PCP, LSD in the form of microdots, and roofies, sorry, benzodiazepines, bit like rohypnol.’

  ‘All of which I suppose can cause hallucinations, altered states of reality, nightmares, memory loss and paranoia.’

  ‘She’s lived for two years in a drug-induced hell, all because her brother was either a control freak or eaten up with jealousy. I think prior to that, he subjected her to years of psychological manipulation.’ Nikki shuddered.

  ‘And she found an outlet for all her pent-up emotions in Ryan Ruddick and their sex games,’ Joseph said. ‘Which should have caused no harm really, but we believe she made the mistake of telling her brother that she was pregnant.’

  ‘I saw some marginal notes in one of his medical books. They referred to the fact that he was only doing it, because he loved her and would stand by her even though she had done something so terrible that everyone would shun her, everyone except him. It made me feel sick.’ Nikki shifted uncomfortably in her chair. ‘The bastard.’

  Woodhall frowned. ‘I know that some of the time she was drugged and locked in her room, but couldn’t she have found a way to escape?’

  ‘We also found restraints attached to her bed, sir. I think he took no chances whenever he was away. And we are thinking, from what we have seen, that he led a double life. Partly in the comfortable town house, and partly with her on the marsh.’

  ‘And we would never have opened a new investigation if you hadn’t been hunting down Freddie Carver.’

  Nikki nodded. ‘The connection was tenuous, wasn’t it? Linking her to Freddie’s talent scout, Gibson Ash, but we got there, didn’t we?’

  ‘And now Jessie and Graham can come out of protection?’ asked Joseph.

  ‘It’s being arranged as we speak. Oh yes, and the Met have found the remains of Carver’s first wife, so along with all the other charges, here, in Derbyshire, and down south, I’m certain that Freddie Carver won’t ever taste freedom again.’

  ‘Bet the Spanish villa that he hated so much doesn’t look so bad to him now,’ laughed Joseph.

  ‘Let’s take bets on where he goes, shall we?’

&
nbsp; ‘I’ll put a fiver on Wakefield,’ said the super. ‘Biggest Cat A in Western Europe.’

  ‘I’d prefer Belmarsh,’ mused Joseph. ‘It holds the most dangerous men in the country and has that infamous “prison within a prison” facility.’

  ‘I’d put my money on Frankland.’ Nikki sighed. ‘I’d love to think of him sharing the good life with Huntley and Sutcliffe and the rest.’ She sat back and looked at her two colleagues. ‘Does this mean we can actually afford to relax again for a while?’

  ‘Once you’ve cleared the mountain of paperwork that these cases have generated, I’d suggest some leave. How does that sound?’

  Nikki sat up. ‘Do you know, that sounds absolutely great!’

  Greg and Joseph stared at each other, wide-eyed. Had they heard right? Was Nikki Galena actually agreeing to take a break?

  ‘I think Eve deserves a treat after what she did for Jessie Nightingale. I’m going to suggest a holiday. My treat.’ She grinned at Joseph. ‘I could probably just stretch to taking you too, if you fancy it?’

  ‘Oh dear, it’s a lovely thought, but someone will have to stay and hold the fort.’

  Joseph clasped his hands together, looking pathetic. ‘Greenborough has never had to manage without you before. I’m not sure how we will cope.’

  ‘Oh bollocks, Joseph. Just bugger off and arrest someone, will you?’

  * * *

  Graham Hildred stepped into the house that had once been his happy home with Jessie.

  ‘It’s not changed a bit, Jess.’ He wandered around, running his hand over familiar objects, picking up ornaments and carefully putting them down again. ‘You know, all the time I was away, I remembered the smell of our home. Wood smoke, those smelly dried flowers of yours, and the herbs you hang in the kitchen to dry.’ His voice faded. ‘I never thought, although I always hoped . . .’ He walked over to the fireplace. ‘What’s this?’ He looked at the birthday card. ‘But your birthday isn’t until summer!’ He picked it up and read it. Tears filled his eyes. ‘You bought this for me? Even though I could have been dead? Or run off? My poor Jess, you had no idea what had happened, had you? Yet you still clung on.’