Sweet Murder: A Blackbridge Novel

by J. S. Spicer

  “What the hell does that even mean, Travers?”

  “No idea, sir. Maybe it’s just a part of his ritual. The point is it’s another link to the shop. I’d say this place is important, to both of them.”

  “Fine. Right.” Heritage looked around. Officers had been strategically stationed to cordon off the next street, without showing a visible presence. A few hovered uncertainly, waiting for orders. Waiting on a decision from Heritage.

  Max suddenly saw the kind of pressure that weighed so heavy on the shoulders of his superior. If he’d ever wondered if he wanted to aspire to the role of Chief Superintendent, at this moment he thought it would be the worst job in the world. On most days it looked as though Heritage just bellowed and bullied his way through, barking orders and getting all the grunts below him to do all the real work. But today, on a case like this, top news story, high profile, and terrifying for the inhabitants of Blackbridge, the buck stopped firmly with the Chief.

  “OK, we need to establish once and for all if Doyle is also inside that building. As much as I want to apprehend Felix Vine, I don’t want a hostage situation on my hands.”

  “The front windows are boarded up, but there’s an alley running behind that block, sir,” offered the constable, blushing slightly when Heritage’s eyes locked onto him.

  “Will you be able to see inside from this alley?”

  “One way to find out,” said Max. Standing around was making his brain itch. He preferred to be doing something.

  “Be careful, Travers. If Vine sees you…”

  Max knew what was at stake. “The alleyway should provide decent cover, and maybe it will give us a view inside the premises. Bryan Doyle’s phone has been switched off since his little TV stunt, and nobody’s seen him. We need to know, one way or the other, sir.”

  “Fine. Take Patel here with you. I’ll coordinate from this side, tighten the noose. He’s not giving us the slip again, whatever happens.”

  Max didn’t need telling twice. With the constable hot on his heels, he hurried down the street. Patel knew the area well, and as he gasped along in Max’s wake advised the best route to the alley without being visible to the building that Vine had entered.

  It only took a minute to find the mouth of the alley. Max halted to assess his surroundings.

  “How far along is the Doyles’ old shop?”

  “At the other end of this row, the shop was the corner unit.”

  Max moved off again, slow this time, cautious. “Keep close to the fence,” he instructed. “We could be spotted from those upper windows if anyone looks out.”

  The alley smelt of piss and rotting food. Bins overflowed every few feet, each encased in a halo of flies. It made navigating the alley stealthily a tricky prospect. Halfway along the debris was of a quieter sort; weeds and crumbling brickwork. The buildings in this half were empty, abandoned to the silence and dust until somebody saw fit to come along and renovate. Eventually they’d become slick offices or stylish apartments like those cropping up in nearby streets, like the place where Andrew Trent had worked. Andrew had been killed in a place not unlike this. It had been only a short time ago that Max had been called to attend the crime scene beneath the Black Bridge, but he felt like he’d lived several lifetimes since then. The case had rocketed out of control, spiralling wildly until it made his head spin. Felix Vine had come to town and carved his name into its history with gruesome certainty. Max wanted it over. He was weary of the horror that had stalked these streets. It had to end.

  The last building was accessed by a broken gate, dangling pathetically on rusted hinges. Max peered through the partially open gateway. A cobbled yard only about ten feet across stood between him and the rear of the property. Like the front, boards were nailed across the windows. The door too was boarded and padlocked. The boards over the window on the left were pulled out on one side. Had Vine broken in before today? Or was it just the work of local kids? Empty buildings always seemed to attract bored teenagers. Either way it was a gap, an opportunity too good to pass up.

  Max snuck into the yard, still closely shadowed by Constable Patel.

  Crouching beneath the loose boards of the window they listened. Max heard voices. The look on Patel’s face told him he heard it too. Vine wasn’t alone. It had to be Doyle. Patel had said the door was already open when Vine entered. Doyle’s family had owned this place, probably still did, which meant Bryan could have the keys.

  Max felt the anticipatory tingle of an arrest at his fingertips. Despite Heritage’s urge of caution he also felt an urgency pushing him on. Doyle had lived in the same house as all the other victims, so why would he be stupid enough to meet with the murderer? Whatever the answer, Max didn’t want any more bodies. He came to a decision.

  “I’m going in,” he whispered.

  The young man’s eyes widened with surprise and warning.

  “We need to know what’s going on,” Max told him, cutting off any protests. “You stay here, cover this exit. OK?”

  Patel didn’t look happy about it, but gave a grim nod.

  The trickiest part was lifting the broken section of boarding without too many creaks and groans. Patel carefully held it to one side whilst Max squeezed himself into the gap. He slithered onto the window frame on his belly, pulling himself along inch by inch, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness within as he slowly eased the rest of his body through the window. The floor was filthy but relatively clear of obstacles, just a few empty crates stacked near the walls. When Max’s feet found the ground he gave Patel a thumbs up, and the constable gently lowered the board back into place, blocking out the sunlight and leaving Max breathing musty air in the gloom. He guessed this must have been a storeroom; a narrow space with just the one window he’d climbed through, and a door opposite. It was closed. Max snuck across the intervening space to press his ear to the door.

  CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

  They surrounded the area with officers, all quiet and discreet, not a siren or uniform would be noticed from the empty building at the end of the block. They closed in with almost military stealth and precision. No-one wanted to mess up, this was by far their best chance. Their quarry was cornered, cut off. They were ready to pounce, but they had to know first if he was alone in there. Officers watched from vans and street corners and through windows of surrounding premises.

  Lorraine and Heritage had stationed themselves in the boardroom of a PR company. Their first floor offices looked down tantalisingly onto the front entrance of the building where Felix Vine had last been seen. Heritage was growling orders through his phone continually; checking in with each location, ensuring there was no weakness in the net he’d cast. Lorraine had arrived late, was still catching up with the logistics, but the most important facts were that Vine was inside, and that Max was round the back of the building trying to ascertain who else might be in there.

  The thought of Max had her insides broiling with a tumble of confused emotions. She should never have allowed him to kiss her, should never have let him get so close. The case had become personal for them both, chipped away some of the professional detachment that she usually held up as a shield to ward off emotional incursion. Max, damn him, had always had a way of wearing her down, he did it furtively, patiently, so she didn’t realise he’d wormed his way back in until it was too late. She’d thought after their relationship had ended so disgustingly a year ago she would never be stupid enough to fall for his bullshit charms again. He was a good detective, hell in most respects a decent person, but a crap boyfriend. She almost felt sorry for Jennifer Kim, almost, but not quite.

  Lorraine stood still, near the glass of the floor to ceiling window, watching the street intently, aware of her boss pacing furiously behind her, all the time grumbling into his phone as he kept in touch. A few moments silence from him followed by a sharp expletive pulled her attention back into the room.

  “Sir?”

  “Travers isn’t picking up.” He jabbed again at the keypad of his
phone, switched ears. Lorraine caught his eye for a second, long enough to see the concern hidden beneath the bad-tempered bluster.

  “Patel, what’s happening? Where’s Detective Travers?”

  Heritage paled then flushed anger. “He’s what! I’ll fucking kill him, assuming I get the chance!” The Chief pulled the phone away from his face for a second, gave it a look of loathing, then pressed it back to his ear. “Listen, you stay put. I’m sending you some back-up.” He cut the call with a look of disgust.

  “Sir?” said Lorraine, again.

  “Travers has entered the building. They couldn’t see the interior but heard voices and he found a way inside.”

  “Shit!”

  “Shit, indeed, Pope,” said Heritage. “Shit indeed.”

  “I’ll go sir,” she volunteered before he could dial again.

  The pause was momentary but noticeable. “Very well, let’s keep a lid on this.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  As Lorraine trotted down the stairs to the ground floor exit she mulled over the fact that not so long ago she wouldn’t have had to volunteer to oversee a junior officer in a tricky position. Heritage would have asked her, knowing her to be dependable, straight and focussed. Max was the hothead, the one who needed reining in every now and then. Was the Chief starting to tar her with the same brush?

  She hurried out the back door, winding her way around the back of the building to avoid being seen by anyone inside the old shop.

  What the hell was Max thinking, entering that place without permission from above, without adequate back up in place. Vine had killed five people in quick succession, tried to murder another, one of their own. There was no doubt about how dangerous the man was, no question that caution was necessary. The building was surrounded, there was nowhere for Vine to go, Max knew that. The constable on the phone had told Heritage they’d heard voices within, voices plural. That’s why he’d gone in, she was sure. To both establish the identity of the other person and, more importantly, to ensure they didn’t meet their end inside the old sweet shop.

  Lorraine jogged along the pavement until she was about twenty yards from the building, then she slowed, treading with silent feet, approaching from a direction well away from the windows.

  **

  Bryan Doyle was sweating way too much. Things were not going to plan. Before him was a murderer with a big knife, and a jittery woman waving a gun around. To make things worse he didn’t understand what Felix meant by a path back to him. The guy was raving, that much was clear, upset over an old photo album.

  “Listen, Felix, it was so many years ago. I honestly don’t know what happened to the album.”

  Felix’s face contorted with something like anguish, he seemed to flinch. “You just tossed it, didn’t you?” His accusation looked pained. Bryan had to play his hand carefully. Felix was getting emotional; he had to try and manage that, use it to his advantage, not have the guy fall off the deep end.

  “No, that’s not true.” Time for some lies. “I honestly don’t know what happened. I think it was lost during moving. We left Station Street, you know that, right? My parents moved house a couple of times after that. By the time I left for uni the album had been lost. I tried to find it, Felix, you have to believe me.”

  The tension in Felix’s face slackened a little, but his grip on the knife didn’t. Bryan focussed on the other man’s face, watching for any shift in expression. What he saw gave him some hope; a trace of doubt.

  “I want to help, Felix. That’s why I came here. That’s why we both came here.” He gestured to Jasmine, close by, still tearful and trembling. Still armed. But the gun had lost focus. She held it before her, but it was no longer trained onto Felix, instead it had drifted to the space between the two men. Bryan could hear her jerky breath as she battled her emotions. Across the room he was willing her to hold it together. Felix, reminded of her presence, turned to her. Bryan had been right, he saw as clear as a sun-drenched day; Felix was besotted. As his eyes fell on Jasmine they melted with the same dreamy, delusional adoration that Bryan had witnessed in Felix as a boy.

  Bryan Doyle lived his life talking himself into and out of things. But he also knew when to shut the hell up. Felix and Jasmine were standing less than six feet apart, staring at each other. Felix, locked into his own gormless, clueless fantasy world, smiled fondly at Jasmine. Bryan on some level marvelled that anyone could be so blind. Why was he smiling? The woman in front of him had tears gathering on her cheeks, her shoulders shook with terror, and she was holding a loaded gun out in front of her. Yet Felix smiled; like he’d just bumped into a dear old friend on a day out.

  As bizarre as the scene was, Bryan knew he had to take advantage. With Vine focussed on Jasmine, he slowly, almost imperceptibly, inched closer. Felix had momentarily forgotten he existed, which was fine by Bryan Doyle. He hoped Jasmine wouldn’t give him away, but she seemed transfixed, albeit under a cloud of fear, by the killer grinning stupidly at her.

  “I’m glad you kept the scrapbook,” Felix said. “After I went back home, it was all I had to remember that summer. The summers before then, and all those afterwards, they were all so bleak, so empty. But that year, that year I was really alive.”

  Some of Jasmine’s fear left her. She shook her head, either in denial or incomprehension. As Bryan crept ever closer behind Felix he noticed she swung the gun sideways, once again aiming at Felix. “You’re still alive, Felix,” she told him, her voice brittle with bitterness. “You lived that summer, and then that autumn, and every season, and every year since. Not like Justin. Not like my brother. His life ended in 1989. Because of you.”

  The gun raised several inches. Now it was aimed at his head. Now Felix was taking notice of it. But he still wasn’t afraid, rather he looked sad.

  “I let you down,” Felix whispered with shame.

  “Let me down? You ruined my life!”

  Bryan Doyle heard the rage in her voice, saw the grip steadying the gun, the finger hovering over the trigger. He paused.

  In front of him Felix dropped his head, lowered his knife. “I’m so sorry.” Again his voice was a whisper, barely audible in the empty old building. “I failed you. I couldn’t do what you asked.”

  Confusion found its way through Jasmine’s rage. Her eyes sought Bryan’s, full of a question he didn’t want to answer. This might be his only chance.

  Bryan Doyle leapt at Felix Vine, throwing his arms around him and wrestling him to the ground, one hand gripping the wrist that still held onto the knife.

  Jasmine stood over them, watching the two men writhe, each trying to gain control of the knife, each red-faced and filled with desperation. Felix’s words echoed in her brain, spinning her off her axis; ‘I couldn’t do what you asked.’

  Their struggles became more violent, punches thrown, elbows painfully employed. She took a step back as their tangled legs thrashed across the filthy floor. For several long moments she was impotent with indecision, the heavy weight of the gun in her hands alien, unnatural.

  Then the fight for the knife took a turn, one of them gaining the upper hand in no uncertain terms. Jasmine’s indecision vanished completely.

  She fired.

  CHAPTER FORTY SIX

  For several minutes Max pressed his ear to the storeroom door. He couldn’t make out what was being said, or who was speaking, but identified two male voices. It wasn’t conclusive, but for his money he was in no doubt that Bryan Doyle was inside with Vine. The voices on the other side remained muffled. In frustration Max tried to peer through the keyhole. It was so dirt-clogged he saw nothing and didn’t dare poke at it for fear of making noise. The voices seemed to get even quieter, then he heard another, a third voice, a woman.

  Who else was in there? How many of them were there?

  He needed to see.

  Max’s hand found the door handle. Even as he questioned his own actions he applied pressure, just the tiniest bit. With painstaking slowness he pushed on the hand
le, moving it millimetre by millimetre, his body rigid with the effort of maintaining control, of not letting the minute movements create even the smallest sound.

  It still puzzled, still bothered him. Why would Doyle want to lure Felix Vine to this place? What was in it for him? Would he really risk an encounter with a serial killer just to try and milk some ego-boosting publicity?

  He pushed speculation from his mind, focussed on gaining access to the room beyond. His priority for now was keeping everyone safe, and arresting Felix Vine. Dragging Doyle over the coals for interfering with their investigation might be a bit of icing on the cake. But for now he had a job to do.

  The handle eased down, his hand ached from the effort required to move so unnaturally slowly, to be kept so rigid for so long. Eventually it was pushed into a downward position and would go no further. Max tentatively tried forcing it further, worried the latch may not have fully disengaged. When he was sure it was fully depressed he took a deep breath.

  The plan for the door was the same as for the handle. Silently manoeuvre it to get him one step closer to seeing inside. Then the sounds on the other side changed. There was a loud thump which caused the wooden door to quiver. Voices turned to grunts and cries, followed by thuds and scraping sounds. Max recognised the sound of a fight when he heard one.

  He threw caution aside and pushed hard on the door.

  It shuddered but didn’t open.

  Max was horrified. Was the door locked? Had he given himself away and lost the element of surprise?

  The noises through the door hadn’t ceased; a struggle still ensued.

  Perhaps they hadn’t heard him over their own noise. He tried again. More careful this time but still with force, pushing his weight both down onto the handle as well as pressing hard against the door.

  This time it did move, a little, sliding open only a centimetre or two before resistance pushed back. Max noted the resistance wasn’t around the lock in the centre, but rather at the base. Something must be obstructing it on the other side. Again he pushed, making headway a centimetre at a time. All was not lost, not yet. The sounds of fighting continued and Max was increasingly confident he could get the door open, perhaps still unnoticed if he was really, really lucky.