Who's Next?: A completely gripping and unputdownable crime thriller (Detective Lockhart and Green Book 2)

by Chris Merritt

  Lockhart picked up his pace to a sprint.

  Ninety

  I grab Iris Lockhart by the arm and half-pull her up the stairs. She’s shuffling and groaning with the effort, making a massive deal out of it. As if I’m trying to make her climb Everest without oxygen. I could live without this. But there’s no other way up, given that the piece of shit elevator is out of action. It takes for ever, but eventually we reach the top.

  ‘Get out there,’ I tell her, shoving her through the door and onto the roof.

  She stumbles, falls forward and crashes to the concrete, crying out at the impact. Probably broken her wrist or hip or something, like old people do when they fall over. The rain is hammering down and already soaking into her nightdress. I feel no pity for her. She looks up at me defiantly, clutching her arm.

  ‘Daniel won’t let you get away with this,’ she says, a hard edge to her voice. Then she grimaces in pain and rolls onto her back on the wet ground.

  ‘Shut the fuck up,’ I tell her.

  Now I just need Daniel to arrive. He won’t do anything risky when he gets here, not with his mum one good kick away from a heart attack. I’ve been fantasising about killing him for the past two weeks. The final act of retribution for what happened to me, for the old life that was taken away from me, before a new life can begin, and I’ll—

  The wind goes from me as I hit the deck, my forehead slapping the ground. It’s like a sack of rocks has been dropped on my back from above and, a second later, I realise it’s him.

  Lockhart is here already, before me, behind me, above the exit door, and he’s got the step on me now. How in fuck’s name did he?… But there’s no time to think about that. There’s only time to fight.

  He’s wrapped his arms around me, pinning me down, but I half-roll and manage to throw a headbutt backwards. I hear it connect with his face and know I’ve done some damage. I try another but it misses. Then I feel an arm snake around my neck, like he’s trying to choke me out, so I open my mouth and bite him. Hard.

  He growls and the arm goes slack a second, so I fling an elbow behind me. It hits him, but he keeps moving, shifting his weight. For a second, I can feel the pain in my head where it met the concrete and, as I struggle to get free, a fist collides with my face. My vision explodes into a shower of white dots on black and, before I can recover, he’s on top of me.

  I hear him yelling at his mum to get downstairs. To go. And he punches me again.

  I can taste my own blood. Or maybe it’s his, from where I bit him.

  I put up my hands in defence. But it doesn’t work.

  He’s in the zone, just like me when I kill.

  And the punches keep raining down.

  Then a thought pops into my head: it wasn’t meant to end like this.

  Lexi looked out through the windshield at the pouring rain, and wondered what was happening up there. Dan had told her to stay here. He was probably right. Blaze Logan was a violent serial murderer with zero empathy who’d kill anyone that tried to stop her. Dan was tough; he was an ex-soldier with training in how to handle this kind of situation. It was his mom who was in danger. And what could Lexi do with a busted ankle? She was best off waiting until the help arrived from Max Smith and the others. Yeah, that’d be the sensible thing to do. Stay right here.

  She unbuckled her belt and opened the door, levering herself out and into the storm.

  Putting as much weight as she could on her good leg, she hobbled over to the stairwell closest to the car. It wasn’t where Dan had gone, but it looked as though it led to the roof. The pain of that short distance was almost too much to bear, needles jabbing her ankle every time it flexed. She was relieved to see an elevator just inside the door.

  Then mad as hell to find it broken. She swore aloud.

  Supporting herself on the wall, she followed the stair signs around the corner. It was eight floors to the roof. She gripped the handrail and, one step at a time, began to half-hop, half-drag herself up.

  Smith was in the back seat of a patrol car, racing along the road she imagined Lockhart had taken a few minutes earlier. Riding up front were the uniformed officers they had roped in to help search the park where the Braddock suspect had attacked Green. They’d had to let that bastard go, for now, if he wasn’t already long gone. The call Green had just made from the guvnor’s phone trumped any other emergency.

  Smith briefly wondered what the two lids in front of her had bargained for when they started their shifts earlier this evening. They probably hadn’t anticipated going after a serial rapist, let alone a serial murderer. But the woman driving knew what she was doing, taking the other side of the road to bypass lines of traffic while the guy beside her used the blues and twos to clear a path when needed. Both of them looked calmer than Smith felt, her pulse going like the clappers in anticipation of catching this killer, a woman like no other she’d encountered.

  The challenge was going to be keeping low profile when they got nearer the location. Lockhart had told her about the potential risk to his mum, and Smith already knew how volatile Logan could be.

  Smith had an Airwave radio in one hand, her mobile in the other, and was working both furiously to co-ordinate the arrival of the MIT surveillance cars from Chelsea as well as more local units. Khan had changed direction and was on his way, too.

  Whatever happened, there was no chance of Logan getting away this time.

  Lockhart felt as though someone else was in control of his body. The sides of his vision had whited-out, and all he could see were his fists pounding Logan, crunching against the bones of her face, drawing blood. It was as if watching Logan hurt his mum had flipped a switch and he’d gone beyond the fight-or-flight Green always talked about, beyond survival instinct, and into some other state.

  Revenge mode.

  Then the image came to him. That house in Afghanistan.

  Suddenly, he was on top of the Taliban sniper, striking his head over and over.

  For a few seconds, Lockhart didn’t know where he was.

  And he froze.

  Ninety-One

  I knew it wouldn’t end like this. That it wasn’t supposed to finish this way. And, sure enough, Lockhart is bottling it. He’s stopped hitting me, his eyes are wide and unfocused, like he’s seen a ghost, and I feel some of the tension leave his body. I don’t need any further invitation.

  I take my chance.

  Grabbing his wrists, I pull one forwards and push the other back. Then I throw my legs over his shoulders, locking my right ankle under my left knee behind his back. I squeeze my thighs and I can feel them tighten around his neck in the triangle choke. There’s nothing he can do, now.

  No escape.

  In Mixed Martial Arts, this is the point where your opponent taps out, the referee steps in and the fight is yours. But there’s no referee here, and no rules. One of us is getting thrown off this roof. And it’s not going to be me.

  So I show him no mercy.

  I squeeze until his body goes limp, and I know he’s passed out. I unlock my legs and slide away on the wet ground, getting out from under his dead weight and standing. I take a moment to breathe. Then I kick him, hard, in the ribs, and again, harder. He’s unconscious, but it’s still satisfying. I can picture the detective in LA who screwed me over. Who ‘failed’ to find any criminal negligence by the film company for my accident. And I kick and stamp some more. I hear something crack.

  Now, it’s time to finish this.

  I grab Lockhart’s feet and begin dragging his body towards the edge of the roof. He’s heavier than he looks.

  I smile to myself, thinking about the mess he’ll make when he hits the ground.

  It’s a long way down.

  Smith had made sure that the uniformed officers she was with killed the lights and sirens at least two minutes before they arrived, then parked the patrol car out of sight behind the adjacent housing block. She told one officer to stay in the vehicle with the radio, ready to direct the backup when they arriv
ed, and took the other officer with her.

  Against the driving rain, they advanced cautiously towards the location they’d been given by Lockhart, a junction of two roads with high-rise flats on one side, and an empty, closed industrial park on the other. The right-hand block was the address Lockhart had given for his mum’s place. Assuming Lockhart was right about Logan targeting his mum, that was the most likely spot to find them. But the building was enormous, eight storeys tall and spanning an entire block.

  At the far end, she noticed the guvnor’s Defender, half up on the pavement. It was empty. It made sense that he was someplace inside the block, but where was Green? She’d been with him in the vehicle as he drove here, because she’d made the phone call. Smith dismissed the question for now; the priority this minute was working out where to go.

  She knew that half a dozen others from her team were on the way, plus more uniforms, and she’d need to deploy them once they arrived. If Logan was in the building, then covering each exit they could find was the most logical course of action.

  Lockhart’s mum’s flat was number eighty-two, four floors up, but they’d have to be very careful about how they approached it, given the threat Logan posed. Maybe a walk past by a plainclothes detective, once everyone else was in place, to get eyes on—

  Smith’s planning was interrupted by a sight that immediately looked wrong.

  An older woman, small and frail, had limped out of the nearest stairwell at the bottom of the building. She wore a nightdress and was soaking wet, her thin white hair plastered to her head. She was clutching one arm to her chest, and appeared to be in pain. Smith had never met Lockhart’s mother, but it was a fair guess that’s who this was. She ran over.

  ‘I’m DS Max Smith. I work with Dan Lockhart.’

  ‘I’m his m-mum, Iris.’ The poor woman was shivering. She raised a bony finger. ‘Daniel’s up there,’ she gasped. ‘On the roof.’

  ‘The roof?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Shit.’ That made it more complex than if they were inside an apartment. Smith needed a moment to think. She took off her down jacket. ‘Here you go.’ She wrapped it around Iris Lockhart’s shoulders.

  ‘Thanks,’ she stammered, her teeth chattering.

  ‘Is he with Blaze Logan?’ she asked. ‘That’s the woman who’s been on the news about—’

  ‘Yes. She’s up there, too. They were fighting.’

  ‘Was there another woman with your son?’ asked Smith, gesturing towards the block. ‘Late twenties, about the same height as me, long dark hair?’

  ‘Nope. Didn’t see no one else.’

  Where the hell was Green?

  ‘Can you get to the roof another way?’

  ‘Yeah, there’s a stairwell at each end. And a fire escape on the side.’

  Now Smith knew where Green was. And her threat assessment had just gone up a notch. There was an unarmed, untrained civilian up there in the company of a serial murderer.

  She heard an engine and turned. The first car had arrived. Khan was behind the wheel. And he had his game face on.

  After what felt like a lifetime hauling herself up hundreds of steps, climbing half of them on her hands and knees, teeth gritted against the pain in her ankle, Lexi emerged onto the roof. Wind and rain battered her face as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. Her brain took a moment to process what she was seeing. Then the dread began to seep into her stomach.

  A hundred feet away, Blaze Logan was bent over, dragging Dan towards one side of the roof. He was on his back, legs together and arms spread wide like a crucifixion, his body offering no resistance. Was he dead? Was she going to throw him over? They were almost at the edge.

  There was no time to think. Lexi had to act.

  ‘Hey!’ she yelled.

  The woman stopped, and slowly turned her face up sideways towards the sound. An image came to Lexi from a wildlife documentary she’d seen, where a lioness had dragged its kill into the bush. Just like the lioness, Blaze had blood on her cheeks and around her mouth, her eyes so dark they appeared dead. A predator with her prey.

  Then she smiled, a slow, wicked, malevolent grin. She let go of Dan’s ankles, his legs slapping against the concrete. For a moment, Blaze stood over him, like she was checking for signs of life. Then she stamped on his face. Lexi winced at the sickening sound it made, involuntarily shutting her eyes.

  When she opened them a second later, Blaze Logan was walking towards her.

  Ninety-Two

  All Lexi wanted to do was run over to Dan, to make sure he was still alive, to get him help. But all she could do was stand still, rooted to the spot by fear. She was the prey, powerless to move as the lioness approached. As if playing dead was the best way to survive. Blaze Logan made the briefest stumble, but kept her balance and was now just a few yards away from Lexi.

  ‘You a cop?’ she demanded.

  ‘No,’ replied Lexi, hoping Blaze couldn’t see the tremble she felt in her legs. ‘I’m Dan’s therapist.’

  Blaze snorted a laugh. ‘His therapist?’

  ‘And I’m his… friend.’ She wasn’t sure where that line had come from. She knew it would achieve nothing with Blaze, except maybe increasing the risk of something bad happening.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I was with him in the car.’

  ‘I told him no backup.’

  ‘I’m not backup.’

  ‘No shit. You can’t even stand up straight.’

  Lexi tried to hold her nerve. Her heart was hammering in her chest, her pulse thumping in her neck. She had no doubt this woman would kill her, given half a chance, if it suited her.

  Blaze looked past her into the doorway from which Lexi had just emerged. ‘There any more of you?’

  ‘No.’

  Blaze narrowed her eyes and sniffed, as if trying to smell the lie.

  ‘I swear,’ Lexi added. ‘It’s just me.’

  ‘So, what the fuck do you want?’ Blaze almost seemed amused by Lexi’s presence, as if it didn’t even register as a challenge, merely a distraction.

  Lexi hesitated. Flexed her hands. ‘I want to tell you,’ she began, her mouth dry despite the rain now drenching her, ‘that I know what you’ve been through.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She had to hold firm, to give Smith and the others longer to get here. To buy Dan some time… if he was still… Come on, Lexi.

  ‘I-I know about the accident on set,’ Lexi continued. ‘I know it wasn’t your fault, and you want someone to take the blame. That’s why you’ve chosen these people, for what – or who – they represent. They become the figures of your hatred. And every time you beat one of them to death, it’s like it restores you, somehow.’

  Blaze took a couple steps forwards. ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘I’m a psychologist,’ Lexi replied. ‘I researched the accident, put it all together.’ She paused, searching Blaze’s expression for any hint of understanding, of empathy, of mercy. There was nothing. Lexi had to appeal to the psychopath. What motivates a psychopath? ‘I know you want payback.’

  Blaze said nothing. She looked as though she was working out her next move. But Lexi had her attention, at least.

  ‘I can help you get revenge,’ said Lexi.

  ‘What, by helping me drop Dan Lockhart off the side of this building?’

  ‘No. I’m talking about the man who assaulted you at the bus stop. He’s done it to a whole bunch of women, me included. You were strong enough to fight him. And you were the only one who saw his face. Tell me what you remember about him. Something distinctive about his appearance. Anything at all could help catch him. You’ll want to get the hell away after tonight, I’ll bet. But we can look for him in London. Stop him hurting anyone else.’

  ‘I don’t give a shit about anyone else.’

  ‘I know.’ Lexi held up her palms. ‘But you do want revenge for him stabbing you, right? He’d get a long time in jail. And you know what happens to ra
pists inside. He’ll pay for his crimes, believe me.’

  Blaze took one deep breath. Lexi knew she could flip back into attack mode in a second, if she said the wrong thing. Made the wrong move. Stopped playing dead.

  ‘Let me get him back for you,’ said Lexi. ‘I want him to pay too, whoever he is.’

  Blaze seemed to be considering the offer. It seemed like a whole minute before she spoke again, though it was probably just a few seconds.

  ‘OK,’ she said. Then she described a detail about the rapist’s face.

  A chill ran through Lexi’s body, because she recognised it. And she knew who he was. She felt sick, unsteady even on her good foot.

  Eight floors below, an engine revved, and a siren whooped.

  Blaze half-turned towards it. ‘You lied about the backup,’ she stated.

  ‘I didn’t.’ Lexi swallowed. ‘I promise.’

  ‘Stay right where you are. I’m going to finish this, now. And if you try and stop me,’ she said calmly, ‘you’re going over the edge. Understand?’

  Lexi nodded silently.

  Blaze began walking away from her. She pitched a little to one side before regaining her balance. ‘I hope someone’s filming this,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘It’s showtime.’

  Smith had thought she was getting things under control. Where the others had hesitated, Khan had volunteered to go up the stairwell. His objective was to help Lockhart detain Logan. Failing that, he was simply to protect Green and get her out of there. It was a brave thing to do.

  There were paramedics on the way, too. Smith needed one to look after Iris Lockhart, who appeared to be slipping into early-stage hypothermia, and others for… well, it all depended what happened on the roof. She had been thinking about heading up herself to give the guvnor some backup when the unthinkable had happened.