by Cari Hunter
“It was a good while ago, I think. We used to meet up in the pub, but then we stopped doing that.”
“Why did you stop?”
“It was all Portia’s fault,” Marcy said quickly. She paused to drink from a mug of black coffee. “She accused Nat of sleeping with her fella, which Nat hadn’t, but then our Darcy sided with Portia and dragged me along.”
Sanne leaned forward, intrigued. She was about to challenge the account when Nelson did it for her.
“That’s not how your sister or Portia saw things,” he said. He flicked back a couple of pages as if to refresh his memory. “They both insisted that Natalie was in the wrong and that she continued a relationship with Portia’s husband after the marriage ended.”
“No.” Marcy shook her head, adamant. “That’s not how it happened. It’s not. Nat’s all right. She didn’t do nothing wrong.”
Sanne frowned. “So have you remained friends with her? Perhaps without the other two knowing?”
“I really wanted to, but I couldn’t.” Marcy worried at the patchy gloss on her bottom lip. “Darcy would’ve battered me.”
“And how did you feel when you saw these murders reported in the news, with Natalie named as a suspect?” Nelson asked.
Sanne watched Marcy’s knuckles whiten around her mug. Her answer came in fits and starts at first, with a stammer punctuating her denial of the allegations. It might have been a natural, nervous response to police presence, but her frequent eye contact didn’t tally with that. After taking a sudden deep breath, she managed to provide a cogent answer.
“I don’t go to the Dog and Duck anymore, and I haven’t seen Nat in months.” She nodded toward the baby monitor on the shelf beside her. “Will this take much longer? Katy’s due her feed any minute.”
“Just a few more questions.” Nelson gave her his best placating smile. “Haven’t heard a peep out of them, have we?”
“They’re fast asleep. They’re both good kids.” She pointed at the photograph above the fireplace, a studio montage of a proud brother cradling his new sister.
Sanne barely noted the image. Her attention was fixed on the baby monitor as she strained to detect the slightest transmitted sound. Despite the green light on its base, the familiar snuffles and grunts of a sleeping baby were strangely absent, and a cold fear slithered along her spine when she realised why. Silently taking out her notepad, she scribbled a question and held it up for Marcy and Nelson to see: Is she listening?
All the colour drained from Marcy’s face, and she swayed, grabbing hold of the sofa. Sanne made a frantic gesture to Nelson to keep talking, and wrote another message: Is she with the children?
Tears started to run down Marcy’s cheeks as she nodded, but she managed to answer Nelson’s questions about which school Leo attended and who his favourite football team was.
“My girls are mad on Sheffield Wednesday,” he said, his voice remarkably calm. He shook his head vehemently when Sanne stood up, but he couldn’t say anything that might alert Acre.
For her part, Sanne fell back on a tried and tested tactic. “Do you mind if I nip to your loo?” she asked. “I’ve got a bladder the size of a thimble.”
Marcy wiped her face. “No, that’s fine. It’s upstairs.”
“Smashing. Thanks.” Sanne caught a glimpse of Nelson’s expression and immediately looked away. To hear him speak, though, she would never have guessed that anything was wrong.
“Marcy, can I ask you about other friends of Natalie?” he said. “Is there anyone she might turn to for help? Anyone in particular that she was close to?” He passed Marcy his contact list as a prompt, and she understood at once, reading out names at random and embellishing with addresses and any other details she could think of. She seemed far steadier now that someone had realised what was going on.
Nelson coughed when Sanne reached the doorway, but she ignored him. They couldn’t safely have any kind of discussion or argument, and she couldn’t see any alternative course of action. They could try to take Marcy from the house and return with backup, but Acre was likely to kill the children in the interim, and Marcy would undoubtedly refuse to go anyway. If they opted to leave the house and keep it under surveillance, they gifted Acre three hostages again rather than two.
“What about Bradford?” Nelson asked. In an implicit signal of consent, Sanne heard him move to sit beside Marcy, aiming his voice directly at the monitor. “Did she have contacts there?”
Shutting the living room door behind her, Sanne hesitated in the hallway for a second, gulping for air. She unfastened the press studs on her baton and CS gas, leaving them loose but still in their pouch. No one would go to the bathroom armed to the teeth. Then, as ready as she was going to get, she took the stairs two at a time, making no attempt to disguise her approach.
Three doors came into view when she neared the landing. Following the tinny echo of Nelson’s voice, she approached the farthest. She had no plan, just a vague hope that Acre might hear her coming and choose to hide somewhere apart from the children. The door of the third room, already ajar, swung open under her hand, and the gauzy green light from the closed curtains showed a bedroom decorated with aliens and spaceships and exploding stars.
“Don’t fucking move!”
The hissed order destroyed Sanne’s hopes in an instant. She stopped dead on the threshold.
“I mean it! I will cut his fucking throat!”
Sanne’s eyes struggled to adjust as a lamp was switched on. When they finally focused, she wished that they hadn’t. Sitting on a toy chest against the opposite wall, Acre was holding Leo on her knee, one hand covering his mouth and wrenching his head back, the other keeping a knife poised at the corner of his jaw. She had bound his hands with tape, and he was shuddering uncontrollably, his gaze set on an invisible point beyond Sanne as a spreading patch of urine darkened his pyjamas. Every time he swallowed, blood trickled down the knife’s blade. His baby sister was asleep in a crib by the wardrobe, apparently unharmed.
“Does your partner know?” Acre asked. “Did that stupid bitch give me up?”
“No! No, he doesn’t know anything.” Sanne kept her voice to a whisper. If Nelson stopped the interview, she dreaded to think how Acre would react. “I came up to use the loo, and I thought I heard one of the children. That’s all, I swear.” She indicated the monitor. “I must have heard that instead.”
The reminder worked. Acre spent a long moment listening to Nelson and Marcy, and then smiled broadly as if satisfied that Sanne was telling the truth. “Well, what the fuck do we do now?”
“Natalie, please.” Sanne instinctively raised her hands. “He’s only a child. Please let him go.”
Acre tilted her head, her expression amused as she appeared to consider the request. “Uh, no. I’ve never liked him. He was always such a cocky little shit.”
“Okay, so you’ve taught him a lesson.” Her hands still out in front of her, Sanne took a step forward. “Swap him for me. No, no, think about it,” she said, persevering over Acre’s laughter. “You kill a kid, and everyone will hate you. You kill a police officer, and some of the folk out there will love you for it. You’ll be a hero to them.”
“Maybe I’ll kill all three of you.” Acre twisted the knife, forcing a thin sob from Leo. “It’s not like I give a fuck.”
“You will, though.” Sanne began to unzip her stab vest. “You know you’re going to prison, and you will give a fuck in there.” She felt the weight of the armour divide as the zip opened. The thin shirt beneath was wet through and stuck to her torso. “If I take this vest off, can I come over to you?”
Acre jerked Leo to his feet, but the knife was no longer in contact with his skin, and she nodded slowly. “It’ll hurt,” she whispered, nicking her tongue with the blade. “I’ll make sure it hurts.”
Sanne ignored the performance and the threat, concentrating on Leo instead, now held by his hair at arm’s length.
“Come kneel by the wall and I’ll let him go,”
Acre said, her teeth and lips blood-coated and her eyes bright with exhilaration. She shook Leo to emphasise her instruction, his skinny legs continuing to quiver even after she’d yanked him upright again. He didn’t make a sound. Too traumatised to cry or beg for help, he fixated on Sanne as if she were the only person left alive in his world.
“It’ll be okay, love,” Sanne told him. “You’re going to run straight downstairs to your mum, all right?”
He grunted, the only sign that he had heard her, and then jumped as her vest hit the floor.
“Wall. Now.” Eagerness made Acre’s voice rise. “I won’t fucking tell you again.”
Sanne had already gauged the distance: three steps to Leo, seven to the wall. She took the first step as a cold draught rippled goose pimples over her arms, bringing with it a familiar smell that nearly made her sneeze.
“Jesus,” she whispered, so close to Leo now that she could almost touch him.
The next command came from behind her, an urgent “Go!” that propelled her forward in a mess of outstretched arms and skidding feet. She collided with the child, driving him to the ground as Carlyle sprinted past.
“Move! Run!” Sanne hauled Leo to his feet and launched him out the door. She lunged toward the crib, but a burst of CS gas half-blinded her, and something thick and hot splashed across her face. A strangled cry from Carlyle made her spin. She saw his body fall to the floor just before Acre’s fist slammed into her cheek. She weaved, stunned, Acre’s hold on her shirt the only thing keeping her upright as black stars sparked across and then faded from her vision.
“Bitch!” Acre screamed, her eyes streaming. She slashed wildly with the knife, opening cuts on Sanne’s arms and chest. Heedless of the wounds, Sanne punched Acre in the jaw. She dodged a reckless return and grabbed Acre’s throat with both hands, digging her fingers into the soft spots and squeezing hard. Acre struggled, kicking out viciously as her mouth flapped and her eyes bulged. Somewhere far away, Sanne could hear Nelson shouting and doors banging, but no one seemed to be coming to help, so she bashed Acre’s head into the wall and then retched when Acre retaliated by thumping a knee into her abdomen.
Winded and gagging, Sanne let herself drop, slipping from Acre’s grasp and beyond the arc of the blade. Her options limited, she aimed for Acre’s legs, diving forward in a clumsy tackle that forced Acre to the floor. They landed badly in a twist of limbs, and Sanne yelped as she felt hands grab her shoulders and drag her clear.
“Stay the fuck down! Stay down!”
Sanne didn’t know whom the command was aimed at. She ducked, but the hands quickly released her, and the boots hammered past.
“Stay—”
A sudden pop and the crackle of electricity made her look up, and she watched Acre staggering backward, the twin probes of a Taser deeply embedded in her chest, before two uniformed officers wrestled her to the carpet.
“Sanne!”
Nelson’s shout came from behind her. Still on her knees, she scrambled over to where he was crouched beside Carlyle.
“Oh shit,” she whispered.
Carlyle was semiconscious and covered with blood that was still pouring from a wide gash in his throat. Nelson shook his head, his hands slipping as he tried to apply pressure.
“Fuck.” Sanne scrabbled about for clean clothes, towels, anything, and settled on a pile of disposable nappies, folding two into place and letting Nelson reposition his hands.
“I can’t…it’s not working,” he said.
“Fucking hell. Where the fuck are the paramedics?” she yelled to no one in particular, clamping her hands atop Nelson’s.
“Three minutes!” an officer shouted back, as he dragged Acre toward the doorway.
Sanne swore again. “You’ll be fine, Sarge,” she said. “You’ll be fine. Just hang on, you’ll be fine.”
The room was quietening as most of the officers left with Acre and the remaining ones fell silent. Every gurgled breath Carlyle took sounded like a tiny victory, and the howl of approaching sirens sent a murmur of expectation through those gathered around him.
“They’re here now. They’ll get you patched up.” Sanne was starting to shiver, her blood streaming down to mingle with Carlyle’s. She kept her hands in place until gloved ones prised them away, and then she slumped back against the wardrobe and let the medics work. She hadn’t noticed it before, but Carlyle had removed his boots to tiptoe upstairs, and one of his navy blue socks had been wrenched off, leaving his foot bare. She couldn’t see the missing sock anywhere.
“San?” Nelson said quietly, lowering himself to her level and touching her shoulder.
She pulled down her shirt sleeve and rubbed her eyes with it. “Are the children okay?” Her voice was so hoarse she hardly recognised it, but she couldn’t remember screaming.
“Safe and sound. The baby slept through most of it.” Nelson took her hand as they watched medics strap Carlyle to a wheeled chair and rush him from the room. “Come on. Someone needs to have a look at you too.”
She shook her head. Nothing was hurting, not really. “I’m all right.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“It’s mostly the sarge’s.” Her breath hitched, but she managed to stop herself from crying. “I should never have come up here, Nelson. You said no, and I should never—I smelled his nasty fucking aftershave. That’s how I knew he was there. I was only ready to move because the smell of him makes me feel ill.” Guttural sobs finally overwhelmed her. When Nelson pulled her into his arms, she buried her face in his chest and wept.
“If we’re playing the blame game, it was me that sent the text asking for backup,” he murmured into her hair. “And then I couldn’t get upstairs fast enough to help you.” His torso heaved as he tried to settle his breathing. “Acre didn’t care who she hurt, San. She’d have killed those children without blinking.”
“I know. God, she nearly did.” Sanne sniffled and tugged Nelson’s sleeve. “And you did help. You helped a lot.”
He didn’t seem convinced. “Leo caught me on the landing. By the time I got in here, it was all over.”
“No, the sarge would’ve died without you. And anyway, Abeni might be happy to hear that you arrived late to the party.” Sanne shifted to examine the damage to her arms. Her shirt was in tatters, her face was throbbing, and she felt sick. “On the other hand,” she whispered, “Meg’s going to fucking kill me.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
“Ta-dah!” Feeling justifiably smug, Meg placed the specimen pot in front of Liz, who eyed the snot-covered pea with disdain.
“That’s disgusting.”
“That cost me half a bag of Haribo,” Meg countered. She rattled the pea against the container. “I think it was worth it, though.”
“If you say so. Sign this for the renal colic in Four, will you?”
Meg autographed the prescription chart obediently. Everyone knew that nurses were the ones in charge of the department. “What’s going on with the boys in blue?” she asked.
The police officers were still on duty by Majors 7. Having spent much of the morning chatting or playing on their phones, they were now conferring in hushed tones, their earpieces pressed in place.
Liz jangled the keys for the drug safe. “No idea. I’ve been inserting a catheter for the last twenty minutes.”
Curiosity got the better of Meg, and she beckoned one of the officers over, a lad who didn’t look old enough to shave. “Is everything okay?”
He was obviously upset, his voice tremulous as he answered. “They’ve arrested the Slasher, out on Malory, but two of the Special Ops detectives have been hurt. I think she’s stabbed them.”
Meg sat down so abruptly that the officer caught hold of her arm.
“Easy, Doc. What’s the matter? Do you know someone on EDSOP?”
“Yes. Detective Jensen.” She searched through her pockets for her mobile, throwing her steth, a tongue depressor, and the bag of Haribo onto the desk, scattering sweets across her paperwork
. “The injured detectives, are they male or female?”
“Don’t know, sorry. It’s mayhem on scene, and we’re only catching odd bits on the channel. You’ll probably find out before we do.”
He returned to his colleague as Meg finally pulled out her phone. No missed calls, no messages. She sent Sanne a text: Call me, and was about to try her number when the Bat Phone rang. Unsurprisingly, the red standby was for the first of the injured detectives.
“Male, approximately forty years old,” Meg repeated in a monotone. Her pen went on recording the details while her brain failed to process any of them. “Do we have anyone else en route?”
“Six-year-old with minor injuries, and a baby girl coming in for a check-up,” the dispatcher said. “And another detective, but I think she’s still on scene.”
Meg closed her eyes. “Any word on her condition?”
“Walking and talking. That’s all I know, sorry.”
That was more than enough for Meg. She hung up and methodically returned her kit to her pockets. She’d stopped hyperventilating by the time she reached Resus, and the pins and needles were fading from her fingertips. The bays had filled up during her escapades with the pea, and she checked the board, glad to have a task to keep her occupied.
“Eight-minute ETA on a hypovolaemic detective with a lac to his throat,” she said to the F2 on duty. “Hey, don’t look so worried. We’ll be able to squeeze him in somewhere.”
*
The paramedic adjusted the blanket around Sanne’s shoulders. “Sure you don’t want those painkillers?”
“I’m sure.” She tried to get up as Nelson came back into Marcy’s living room, but he motioned for her to stay put. “Any news?” she asked him.
“Not yet.”
“I need to contact Meg. If she’s got wind of all this, she’ll be panicking.” She displayed the remnants of her mobile phone, smashed beyond repair. “I can’t remember her number, though. I usually can, I know it, but it’s just gone.”