‘Louise? Is that you? Is everything OK?’ As she passed the front door, Millie noticed a blob of colour through the frosted glass that she was certain hadn’t been there earlier, and when she went and looked through the lounge window, she saw that a car like Greg’s had been reversed onto the drive. ‘Shit, there’s something weird going on here,’ she said to Mariner, her voice low. ‘I’ll call you back.’
‘No — wait!’ said Mariner. But his instruction fell on deaf ears. Millie was already on her way to investigate.
Chapter Thirty
Easing her weight onto each tread, Millie ascended the stairs to the landing. She could see into the nursery as well as the spare bedroom to her left and the bathroom in front of her, but a door further along to the right was partially closed. It must be where Louise was resting. Creeping along the landing Millie gave the door a gentle push. ‘Louise, are you alri . . .?’
Louise was very much not alright. As the door swung open, Millie caught sight of her friend cowering at the far end of the bed, her back pressed against the headboard and her eyes wide with terror. Looming over her at the foot of the bed, and standing parallel with Millie, was a man whose left arm was outstretched. In his hand was a gun, the muzzle of which was just inches away from the soft, downy head of Abigail, who lay fast asleep in her cot. Instinctively Millie hugged Haroon tighter. Rory turned slowly towards her. He was tall and well-muscled under the dark T-shirt. Millie noticed too the razor-sharp creases in his combats and the highly polished boots. Olwen was right, Millie thought. He was strikingly handsome, but something behind those eyes was cold and flat.
‘This is nice,’ he said, as if it were a social occasion. ‘Abigail’s little friend.’ A cry escaped Millie’s lips but she quashed it immediately. ‘Smart move,’ he said. ‘I can’t stand crying babies, so it would be a mistake to wake either of them. Now, as long as everybody does as they’re told, no one needs to get hurt. I’ve just come to collect my two princesses.’
‘You can’t,’ said Millie, struggling to keep her voice even. ‘Olwen will be back—’
‘I don’t think so,’ he interrupted. ‘When dear old Olwen gets to the supermarket, she’ll find she’s got a slow puncture. I know Olwen. She’ll be too scared to drive with that. And Louise will come with me willingly enough, won’t you, Lou? Now that there’s no Greg, someone’s got to take care of you both.’ As he spoke, he moved away from Millie and round to the other side of the bed, to the end of Abigail’s cot. He looked up at Millie, his eyes narrowing. ‘Put the baby in here and get over there with her,’ he said gesturing towards Louise. ‘Do it slowly. No sudden movements.’ The gun bobbed in his hand, perilously close to Abigail’s head. ‘We wouldn’t want this to go off, would we?’
Millie felt impotent. She could do nothing without endangering her son’s life, so, with trembling hands, she placed Haroon carefully in the cot, arranging his blanket around him.
‘Move!’ said Rory.
Millie hurried to the other end of the bed and made to sit down beside Louise.
‘Wait,’ Rory stopped her. ‘Take off your clothes.’
‘What?’
‘You heard.’
With an agonised glance towards Louise, Millie began removing her clothes. Soon she was down to her underwear, feeling exposed and humiliated, and fighting back tears.
‘That will do,’ said Rory, looking her up and down. ‘Get face down on the bed,’ he commanded. Millie did as she was told. As she did, a bundle of cable ties landed beside her, inches from her head. ‘Tie her hands behind her back, then tie her ankles,’ he said to Louise.
‘Tighter!’ Rory barked, as she fumbled with the plastic strips and Millie gasped as the hard nylon cut into her skin.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Louise whispered.
‘Now turn her over so I can get a good look at her.’
Louise rolled Millie over, pinioning her arms beneath her. She keened with pain and shame, aware of Rory’s eyes, crawling all over her.
He wiped a hand across his mouth. ‘And now my Princess Lou,’ he said eventually. ‘We’re going on a little trip. Greg’s car is ready in the drive. Go and get in the passenger’s seat. I’ll follow you down with Abigail. And remember, much as I love Abigail, if I get even the tiniest hint that you’re doing anything to draw unwanted attention to us, I won’t hesitate for a second.’ To make his point, he released the pistol’s safety catch with a crack, right next to Abigail’s head. Louise moaned.
‘Go!’ he snapped.
Casting Millie a final anguished look, Louise left the room. Now they were alone, Rory walked round to where Millie lay. Up until now he had kept the gun rigidly trained on the babies, but now he brought it round to point at her. Now that he was standing over her, Millie could see how aroused he was. With a steadying breath, he reached down to squeeze his crotch, exposing, in that instant, the inner conflict between sating his desire and making his escape. From the recesses of her frightened mind Millie saw a way to delay or even thwart him. Her fear was real enough. All she had to do was let him see it. ‘Let me go,’ she whimpered. ‘Please let me go. My baby needs me.’
Transfixed, he rubbed his hand the length of his erection.
‘I could help you with that,’ Millie whispered, glancing down. ‘Why don’t you let . . .?’
But she’d gone too far. Disgust contorted his expression as he thrust his face into hers. ‘Does your husband know he’s married to a fucking whore?’ he spat.
Impatient now and moving quickly, he put down the gun and took a roll of duct tape and a penknife from his thigh pocket. Cutting a long strip, he pressed it down hard across Millie’s mouth. She whimpered with pain, tasting salt as a tooth drove through her lower lip.
‘Do you know how long it will take you to suffocate?’ Rory asked conversationally. ‘First of all, the skin of your face and eyelids will start to haemorrhage as all the tiny little blood vessels burst. Then, after a few painful minutes, starved of oxygen, your organs will shut down, one by one, starting with your brain. Hypoxia.’ As he spoke, his hand dived into his pocket again. Millie couldn’t see what he took out, but when he reached out it pinched her nose, blocking out the air. She felt her eyes begin to bulge and smart.
‘It would have been nice to spend more time with you,’ he said. He drew out a phone, held it up to Millie and took several photographs. ‘But not a complete waste.’ Then, through a haze of terror, Millie watched as, with astonishing tenderness, he lifted Abigail from the cot and laid her along his arm, concealing the gun underneath her. Then, without a backward glance, he left the room.
Millie fought to suppress her burgeoning panic. She tried working her mouth to loosen the tape but it was solid. Already the weight on her chest and the tightness in her ears were increasing with each undrawn breath and seeing her baby boy lying asleep, silent tears began to flow. It couldn’t end like this. Please God, don’t let it end like this. The blood pumping in her ears grew louder, then on the edge of her consciousness, she heard the thundering bang of a single gunshot reverberate around the street outside, followed by the prolonged and agonised scream of a woman. Louise! What had she done? Then another sound, much closer. Haroon, startled by the noise, woke up and began crying. No, darling, no! Her resources dwindling, Millie desperately tried to propel herself across the bed to get to him before Clarke could. Footsteps hammered back up the stairs towards them. Nooo!
‘Hey, it’s all right. You’re OK,’ and the face that loomed over hers was not Rory Clarke’s, but Tom Mariner’s. The tape was ripped from her face, stinging her skin and letting her heave in great gulps of air, retching and sobbing at the same time. Mariner was yelling and suddenly her arms were free, and tingling. A strange woman soothed Haroon, lifting him gently from the cot.
‘Oh, God,’ Millie gasped, when she had enough air to speak. ‘Wha– huh- h-happened?’
‘It’s over,’ said Mariner, drawing the duvet around her. ‘It was a close-run thing, and Louise’s neighbours had
the shock of their lives, but we were ready for him.’
‘But Abigail — he had Abigail!’ Millie wailed. The woman brought Haroon to her, quiet now, and put him in her arms.
‘He had to put the baby in her car seat,’ said Mariner. ‘When he stood up, armed response had one clear chance. Back of the head. It was a clean shot, though not very pretty.’
The woman passed Millie her phone from where it had been, concealed underneath Haroon’s blanket. ‘That was inspired,’ she said, with a smile.
‘It wouldn’t have been if he’d found it,’ said Millie weakly, her heart still pounding against her ribs.
‘We couldn’t pick up everything, but it was enough to give us an idea of what was going on,’ said Mariner.
‘What about the missing girl?’ Millie asked.
Mariner shook his head. ‘We’re still looking.’
‘I’m sorry. I should have tried to—’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Mariner was adamant. ‘Any questions would have made him suspicious. God knows what he’d have done if he’d realised you were a police officer. It would have added to the danger. You had no choice but to play it his way. You’re all safe, and that’s what matters.’
* * *
A little later Millie was dressed and sitting downstairs in the living room. Louise and Abigail had been taken to hospital as a precaution but Millie had insisted that she was all right. ‘I heard you were tough,’ said the unknown woman, putting a mug of sweet tea on the table beside her. ‘I’m Vicky Jesson.’
‘Of course,’ said Millie. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you — all good,’ she added, before Vicky could interject. ‘It’s nice to finally meet you.’ She sniffed the air over Haroon. ‘Oh, I think you need changing, young man,’ she said to her son.
Vicky went to retrieve his changing bag from the pushchair. ‘You’re a pretty hard act to follow, yourself,’ she said, passing it to Millie. ‘Is this the book that put you onto Clarke?’ She was holding the picture book.
Millie nodded. ‘Olwen said Rory liked acting out the story, but for all the wrong reasons. Actually, I need to get rid of that before Louise sees it.’
‘Pity. It’s a nice book.’ Jesson was flicking though the pages. She stopped. ‘That’s funny, it looks a bit like—’
‘Like what?’ asked Millie, but she was talking to herself. Vicky Jesson had run out to where Mariner was debriefing the armed response squad.
He couldn’t understand why Vicky would be running towards him, waving a child’s picture book, but she’d certainly got his attention.
‘I think I know where Tiffany might be,’ she said breathlessly.
Once she’d explained, it was obvious and, as they raced back towards south Birmingham, Mariner called Superintendent Sharp to get personnel dispatched to the old hospital site.
They arrived to find the security fencing breached and uniformed officers swarming all over the site. Sharp stood waiting beside a dark grey Ford van, a plan of the site spread out over the bonnet. ‘There’s nothing in the tower itself, so we’ve started on the other buildings,’ she told them.
‘Where’s the linen store?’ asked Mariner. ‘We should start with that.’ They pored over the map. ‘There,’ he said. ‘There it is. Laundry.’ He looked up to get his bearings, then set off at a run towards a building overlooking the water tower, with Jesson following hard on his heels. Bypassing the ground-floor laundry they hurtled up the stairs, checking rooms on every floor as they went. The wards and dispensing rooms were in varying stages of neglect, almost bare of furniture and all smelling dusty and damp. They found Tiffany Davey lying half-naked, her hands and feet trussed, and with a coarse sack over her head, in a room on the second floor of the building whose windows, hung with blackout curtains, would have looked out over the tower. The grubby mattress she lay on had been covered with a pristine white sheet. She was severely dehydrated and unconscious, but she was still breathing. Jesson held her close until the ambulance got there.
The room itself had been scrubbed spotlessly clean and to one side was a Formica-topped table, which had on it a CD player with a disc of children’s nursery rhymes, along with duct tape, cable ties and scissors, and several nose clips, of the kind worn by swimmers. On the floor of a nearby bathroom they found two sets of discarded and semen-stained scrubs, which Mariner was certain would be matched with Rory Clarke’s DNA. In the linen store on the ground floor, among the sheets and pillowcases and surgical gowns, they also found a freshly laundered blouse belonging to Grace Clifton, and Rosa Batista’s T-shirt.
Chapter Thirty-One
When they came, a couple of days later, the forensic reports were thorough. Mariner couldn’t share them with Millie directly, but after what she’d been through he thought she deserved to know a bit more about how Rory Clarke had been operating. So a week or so after her ordeal he found himself back ringing the front doorbell at Millie’s house. Suli came to the door and Mariner was grateful that he seemed to harbour no hard feelings over what had happened to Millie. While they waited on the doorstep he said as much. ‘Hardly your fault, was it?’ said Suli, with a wry grin. ‘My wife just needs to choose her friends more carefully.’
‘Message received. Again,’ said Millie, appearing in the hallway and slipping into her coat. She leaned up to give her husband a goodbye kiss.
‘So where are you taking me?’ she asked Mariner. ‘Somewhere classy, I hope.’ Leaving Suli to babysit, they went out to Mariner’s car.
‘I thought we’d try the Holly Bush,’ said Mariner, referring to the unpretentious little hostelry on the Stourbridge Road where he, Millie and Knox had conducted ‘informal meetings’ most regularly in the past. ‘That all right with you?’
‘Why not?’ said Millie.
But when they got there Millie saw that this was more than just a quiet drink. Taking over one corner of the lounge bar were Tony Knox, Charlie Glover and Vicky Jesson. It was the first time she’d seen Charlie since going on maternity leave, and she hadn’t seen Vicky Jesson since the day Rory Clarke was shot, so Mariner left them all to get reacquainted while he got in a fresh round. Tony and Vicky seemed to have started getting to know each other, he noticed, too.
‘How’s Louise doing?’ asked Vicky, when they all had drinks in front of them.
‘I think she’s just about keeping it together for the moment,’ Millie told them. ‘Her mum’s looking after her, and I think when the dust has settled, Louise will move back to be closer to her. Too much history around here. I can’t imagine which is worse — having your husband murdered by your brother, or finding out that your brother is a serial killer.’
‘Jesus, and the rest,’ said Knox.
‘I’m sure the last few seconds of Clarke’s life will stay with her for a long time to come,’ Jesson agreed.
‘She’s getting professional help?’ Picking up his pint, Mariner swallowed a couple of mouthfuls.
‘Yes, she’s seeing someone every day at the moment,’ said Millie. ‘What’s the news on Tiffany?’
‘We haven’t been allowed near her yet,’ Mariner said. ‘She’s still in hospital, and we’re not in any great hurry. But when we do get to talk to her, hopefully we’ll get a clearer picture of how Clarke picked her up — and Rosa and Grace too,’ said Mariner.
Jesson shivered. ‘Creep.’
‘And what about the others?’ asked Knox. ‘Dee, Coral and Hayden?’
‘The forensic reports have helped to answer a lot of questions,’ Mariner said. ‘They found indications that, at some point, Dee was in the passenger seat and the back of the van Clarke had borrowed from his brother-in-law. I think he must have picked her up when she left work and offered her a lift home. She knew Clarke. He’d been at his comrade’s bedside virtually constantly, so she wouldn’t have thought twice about going with him. I think he killed her right away and left her in the van, parked up on the old hospital site, until he went back to collect her later in Hayden’s car. He must have gone to Hayden’
s house by public transport. There were no signs of a forced entry, so Hayden must have let him in. Again, Clarke was known to him and could have sold him any kind of sob story, maybe asked for his help as a psychiatrist. Clarke then kills him, but lies low ’til the morning so that he can leave the house in Hayden’s car, making it look as if Hayden is just going off to work. But then Coral Norman arrives, so he has to kill her too.’
‘But why leave her there?’ said Millie.
‘Because he was already planning to put Hayden in the frame,’ Jesson said. ‘Coral Norman conveniently helped to strengthen the deception.’
‘And all the time he’s manipulating Greg into helping him,’ said Millie.
‘I know Louise thought Greg wasn’t involved in the import scam,’ said Mariner. ‘But it looks as if Rory knew different. Some of those guns had come in from Serbia so he might even have passed them to Greg himself. Easy then to persuade Greg to lend him the van and God knows what else. By the time Greg came to talk to you, Rory was beginning to feel the heat and must have been putting pressure on him. Killing Greg in those circumstances was intended to implicate him in the women’s murders, but Rory hadn’t thought it through. He was starting to lose it by then.’
As he was talking, Mariner became aware that he was being watched. A tall, mixed-race man was approaching this corner of the bar, looking right at him. Given the subject matter, they’d deliberately kept their voices low, so as not to arouse curiosity. Knox must have noticed too and got to his feet. But instead of sending the onlooker quietly on his way, as Mariner had hoped, Knox shook hands with the man. ‘Hey, mate,’ Knox said. ‘You found us all right then.’
‘Just followed the smell of bacon,’ the stranger said, with a grin.
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