In for the Kill (A DI Fenchurch novel Book 4)

by Ed James

  Another pump of his hand. ‘I want to stay, you know?’

  Fenchurch clutched his daughter’s hand tight, hoping against hope that she’d never let go again, that he’d be able to keep her close forever. ‘When you were born, your mother was the same age as you are now. I wasn’t much older. She dropped out of uni.’ He pinched his nose. ‘She got an Ordinary degree. Went back and did a teaching course when you were at nursery.’

  ‘I never knew.’ Chloe waved at Abi’s room. ‘Was it as bad as this?’

  ‘None of that . . .’ Fenchurch sighed. ‘. . . hyperventilating. That rocking back and forth. Like she’s got a demon inside her. When you were born, I spent the night in the room with her, going through all the breathing exercises, holding her hand. I felt useless, but I kept her sane, I suppose. I was there.’ The familiar prickle inside his nostrils. ‘Jesus. I couldn’t cope if I lost her.’

  Chloe reached over and brushed a tear off his cheek. ‘You cry a lot?’

  ‘After you— After what happened, years after, I saw a counsellor. She told me I’d spent too long keeping it inside, turning myself into this empty husk. I couldn’t feel anything. When I started to let it out, I couldn’t stop. But I felt something again. All the pain. All this horror. Losing a child. And . . . I’m supposed to stop that shit from happening to other people but . . . But it happened to me.’

  Chloe tightened her grip.

  ‘Even with all that, I wouldn’t change bringing you into the world. You were lucky, in a way. Could’ve had a much worse fate. You ended up with bad people, but they didn’t bring you up badly.’

  ‘How? How did that happen?’

  ‘Someone I can never forgive, he saved your life. He—’

  ‘Simon?’ Fenchurch’s dad was by the corner, frowning at them. ‘What—’

  Chloe bounced over to him, wrapping him in a hug. ‘Grandpa!’

  Fenchurch frowned. ‘What the hell?’

  Dad tried to prise himself out of the hug, but she kept hold of him. ‘Simon, I’ve— Oh, shit.’

  Jim appeared in the hallway, clutching a coffee. ‘Evelyn phoned up and booked another couple of nights.’ He took a sip. ‘Ian.’ Then his eyes bulged. ‘What the hell? What’s— Have you been meeting her behind our backs?’

  ‘Jim, Chloe asked me to—’

  ‘You’re a selfish prick, Ian Fenchurch,’ Jim snarled. ‘What the hell’s going on?’

  ‘We’ve . . .’ Dad grimaced. ‘We’ve been meeting up. Every other week. For a coffee and a chat, you know?’

  Fenchurch got between Dad and Chloe, nudging her. ‘You didn’t think to tell me?’

  ‘Son, we—’

  ‘I asked him not to.’ Chloe dipped her head. ‘I couldn’t . . . couldn’t.’

  ‘Why him?’ Jim held out his hands, coffee spraying through the lid of the cup, spattering the walls. ‘Chloe, you remember us, don’t you? I’m Grumpy. She’s Mumpy. Don’t you remember?’ He reached over and grabbed his granddaughter. ‘Chloe, it’s Grumpy! You remember—’

  ‘Shut up!’ Chloe slapped his hands away. ‘Shut up!’ She pushed him back, sending his coffee flying through the air, and ran off down the corridor.

  ‘Shit.’ Fenchurch navigated the spreading coffee puddle and followed, hobbling through the hospital, trying to push through the burn in his knee. He lost her in the hospital entrance. He stopped by the WH Smith, spinning around, trying to find her.

  Her disappearance eleven years earlier flashed in front of his eyes. Standing outside their flat, searching for her. Screaming.

  He set off for the front door, almost skipping. She was at the cab rank, getting in the back of the first taxi. ‘Chloe!’

  He cut into a run and grabbed her arm. ‘Chloe, stop!’

  She pulled the door. ‘Get away from me!’

  ‘Chloe!’ Fenchurch hauled the door out of her reach. ‘Chloe!’

  ‘Oi!’ The cab driver tugged at Fenchurch’s jacket. ‘What the hell’s going on here?’

  ‘I’m police.’ Fenchurch let go of the door and showed him his warrant card. ‘This is my daughter. She’s . . . It’s complicated.’

  ‘She doesn’t want to speak to you. Now, cop or no cop, you clear off or I’ll smash you into next week, mate.’

  ‘Don’t . . .’ Fenchurch stared him down. ‘Don’t even begin to think that . . . My wife . . . Her mother . . . She’s upstairs. My son might die!’

  ‘Mate, I hear a lot of bullshit stories and that’s reeking.’

  Fenchurch ignored him, focusing his attention on his daughter. ‘Hear me out!’

  ‘Mate, you need to—’

  ‘It’s okay.’ Chloe got out of the cab and nodded at the driver. ‘We’re cool.’

  ‘Listen, sweetheart, if he’s beating you or raping you or—’

  Her head dipped. ‘It’s nothing like that.’

  The driver glowered at her for a few seconds. ‘Then piss off. Pair of you. Freaks.’ He grabbed the door and smiled at a man in a tracksuit. ‘Where to, sir?’

  Fenchurch led Chloe over to the hospital wall, downwind of the smokers. ‘You can leave if you want, but at least explain it to me. I want to understand. I want to know how you feel. I want to help.’

  ‘Grandpa . . .’ She let out a sigh. ‘You and . . . Abi. You were too much. I couldn’t deal with it.’ She grabbed her hair, bunching it tight round her ears, like the pigtails she’d had when she’d been taken. ‘The DNA evidence. I know who I am, what happened to me, who my parents . . . who they were, what they did to me.’ She chanced a glance at him. ‘Who my parents really are. But I can’t deal with it.’ She glared at him. ‘You can’t understand how hard it is to deal with something like this.’

  ‘Really?’ Fenchurch took his time. ‘Someone took my daughter from me. I know how it is. But I want to understand what you’re going through. Chloe, I want to help.’

  ‘I can’t even remember . . . that little girl who got abducted. I can’t remember being her. And finding out that my parents did this to her?’ She grabbed the hair at the side of her head and tugged it up to show the deep scar in her skull, surrounded by a bald patch. The sight of it stabbed Fenchurch in the heart like a spear. ‘They took her from me, as well as you. All those memories . . . They’re gone.’ She let her hair down again. ‘The only thing I remember, the only memory those bastards left me with was . . . Grandpa.’

  ‘Dad . . .’

  ‘I remember him, but I don’t remember you. He’s the only thing I can connect to. Wasn’t too hard to find him. I met up with him, on the condition that he didn’t tell anyone.’ Her finger dug under her hair and rubbed at her scar. ‘I found it easy to talk to him.’

  Joy and hate burnt in his gut. ‘That old bastard.’

  ‘He’s not so bad.’

  ‘No, he’s not.’

  ‘Don’t know about you, but I’m starving.’ She let her hair flop down. ‘Grandpa said you like Mexican?’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The server put the hot plate of sizzling chicken down near Fenchurch. Could almost taste it in the air. A flamenco version of a Tom Waits song blasted over the stereo.

  Fenchurch tapped out a text to his dad. The server pointed at the card machine, so many tattoos on his hands that there was scarcely any skin visible. ‘Fifteen eighty, mate.’

  Fenchurch tapped his card on the machine and picked up the basket. Two silver tubes and two lemonades, straws poking out of the top.

  Chloe was in a booth by the door.

  Fenchurch set the tray down and shrugged off his jacket. ‘Dig in.’ He sat and grabbed his tube, started unwinding the tie. ‘I’m starving.’

  ‘Me too.’ Chloe bit into the top of her burrito and chewed hungrily. She swallowed it down with a sip of lemonade. ‘Thanks for this.’

  ‘Don’t mention it.’

  Fenchurch watched her devouring the burrito, happiness tingling in his chest. ‘So you like burritos?’

  She frowned at him. ‘Love them.’

>   ‘You know, I can list the London Chilangoes in order of quality. Even tempted to visit the Manchester one and see how it compares.’

  ‘That’s . . .’ A laugh burst out of her mouth, along with half a pinto bean. She brushed it away with her napkin. ‘Jesus. I thought I was bad.’

  ‘I got hooked when I was based in the States, working with the FBI, catching serial killers.’ He took another big bite. ‘Can’t live without them now.’

  ‘Last summer I worked at a camp near Chicago.’ Chloe chewed slowly. ‘We’d go to this little Mexican canteen every day. Looked horrible from the outside, but the food was so good.’

  ‘Never judge a book by its cover.’

  ‘Never.’ She brushed her hair behind her ears. Fenchurch caught a glimpse of her scar. ‘When were you based over there?’

  ‘2008 and 2009. Your mo—’ Fenchurch grimaced through the acid gnawing away, drums beating in his ears. He chewed, couldn’t taste a thing.

  And it hit him like the hot sauce. Abi. Convulsing. Shaking. Sedated. No idea if his son was going to pull through, if . . .

  ‘Abi and I had separated. I’d moved out. More like been kicked out for being a selfish prick. Bought a flat but kept searching for you. Obsessively.’ He swallowed again, like the whole burrito was stuck in his throat. ‘I asked to be given something I could really get stuck into, that’d make me forget. So my boss sent me over there to work with the serial killer task force. Supposed to become a subject-matter expert. Spent most of the time in Miami, which is a hellhole. Hunting down this guy who . . .’ He exhaled slowly. ‘You don’t want to know. Anyway, I got homesick. Worried that you were . . . My boss sent me to Glasgow, spent six months there. Similar MO to . . . to the guy in the States. Caught the guy. But I wasn’t getting any closer to finding you. Further away, in fact. Much further. So I applied for the job I’ve got now. Same grade, same pay, but I could handle the work in my sleep. Freed up a lot of my time to hunt for you.’

  ‘I didn’t know . . .’ Chloe took a sip of lemonade. ‘Think she’ll be okay? Abi?’

  ‘I hope so.’ Fenchurch shrugged. Caught himself. ‘That’s what kept me going, you know. Hope. It’ll kill you if you let it.’

  ‘It paid off, didn’t it?’

  ‘This time.’ Fenchurch held his burrito in front of his mouth. ‘I used to have these dreams about you. Still do.’ He tried to bat away the dream of her coming on to him. ‘A lot of them were you and me in a park, sitting and talking. Sometimes they were about how I’d stolen your sweets. Then they’d turn weird, but . . . it kept me going. Through all that. It kept me going. We were watching basketball.’

  She frowned. ‘Basketball?’

  ‘You remember?’

  She picked up her burrito and stared into the mush. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I can take you there.’ Fenchurch reached into his pocket for a packet of wine gums and tossed them on the table. ‘It’s in Shoreditch. I used to take you there. You loved it. Used to eat these.’

  She stared at the bag, chewing slowly. ‘What did I say about being too forceful?’ But she was smiling. The ice was melting.

  ‘How’s your degree?’

  ‘I’m enjoying it, even though it’s much harder than I expected.’ She sucked in a blast of lemonade. ‘But I love London. I hated growing up in Dorchester. So boring. Nothing ever happened there.’

  ‘Too much happens here.’ Fenchurch put his burrito down. ‘I meant it when I said I could give you some money when I sell my flat. I want you to have it. I want to help.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Isle of Dogs. It’s decent. Bought it off plan when . . . your mother and I split up. I was a wreck, staying with your grandparents.’ Fenchurch got an image of his mother in her deathbed, worrying about her missing granddaughter as much as the cancer eating her flesh. ‘It’s worth a decent amount now.’

  ‘Thanks, but I don’t want anyone’s charity.’

  Just like her bloody mother . . .

  ‘Chloe, if . . . all of this shit hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have had to buy the bloody thing.’ Fenchurch reached across the table and grabbed her wrists. ‘That money would’ve been your college fund. I don’t want you to have a shit life. You would’ve been fine. I just want the best for you. We both do.’

  Chloe stroked his hands for a few seconds, rubbing slowly. ‘Let me think about it, okay? I’ll talk to Pete about it.’

  ‘He’s your boyfriend, right?’

  She nodded, a warm grin all over her face. ‘He’s great, you know? He totally gets me.’

  ‘Is he on your course?’

  ‘We were in the same tutorial for a side course last year. Can’t even remember what it was. Some piece-of-piss half-course. Conversational French, I think. Yeah, it was. Really basic and I’ve got an A-level in it.’

  ‘And they still let you do it?’

  ‘Didn’t say I couldn’t.’ She gave a shrug. ‘So that’s where I met Pete.’

  Fenchurch didn’t want to mention the age gap. His phone blared out. Not Jim — Loftus. ‘Shit, I need to take this.’ He felt trapped, unable to decide between staying and going.

  ‘It’s okay.’ Chloe smiled at him. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ She picked up her burrito. ‘Scoot.’

  Fenchurch walked over to the wall and rested against it, just inside the front door. Close enough so he could still watch Chloe, close enough to smell the fresh tray of steak. ‘Sir.’

  ‘You okay?’ Loftus was out of breath.

  ‘I’m fine, sir. Just . . .’ Pain jarred in his knee. ‘Had some bad news.’

  ‘Oh.’ Loftus cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, well. I need your assistance.’

  Fenchurch left him hanging for a few seconds. ‘What with?’

  ‘Dawn and I are in with PC Thwaite. While we don’t yet have your statement, with, ah, what’s happened, well, there’s something in your daughter’s that we need to verify. Could prove crucial.’

  Fenchurch frowned over at Chloe. Got a smile. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s about the actual target of the shooting. We’d been operating on the basis that it was Zachary, but . . . Well, there’s no connection we can find between him and Thwaite. Now Chloe, Jennifer, whatever she’s called. She . . . In her statement, she said that she thought Zachary wasn’t the target.’ Loftus paused. ‘You were.’

  Fenchurch focused on Chloe, got a warm smile in return. Couldn’t cope with losing her again. With someone shooting her.

  How cruel it’d be, to spend all that time looking for her, only for him to be the one who went, leaving a hole in her life. One that she would remember.

  ‘It’s possible, sir. She did push me over. But I don’t see why I would be a target. Nobody knew I’d be there.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. Do you know where she is?’

  ‘With me, sir. It’s . . . complicated.’

  ‘I understand. Would you mind speaking to her about it?’

  ‘Will do, sir.’

  ‘Good stuff. Okay, well, I’m off to tear into the IPCC. Keep me apprised, okay?’ Click.

  Fenchurch pocketed his phone. Loftus . . . Some of the time he seemed fine, but every so often it felt like he could just destroy Fenchurch. And he seemed close to Mulholland. Too close.

  Fenchurch walked over and sat opposite Chloe. He picked up his burrito. Wanted to eat it, but he had a bad taste in his mouth. He rested it on the carton and sucked down some lemonade.

  ‘You seem tense.’ Chloe was still chewing. Took as long as her mother did, grinding each morsel fifty times, unlike the one chew Fenchurch did. At most. ‘Who was that?’

  ‘My boss.’

  ‘He used to work with Grandpa, didn’t he?’

  Docherty . . .

  Another bite at Fenchurch’s gut. ‘No. That’s someone else, and a whole other story.’ He finished his lemonade. ‘Back at the university, that shot. You saved me, pushed me out of the way. I can’t thank you enough, but . . .’

  Her turn to dr
op her burrito. ‘I’ll take that.’ She grinned at him. ‘It’ll do.’

  ‘No . . . You said they were aiming at me. Not Zachary?’

  ‘I wish they’d shot that prick.’

  ‘You hate him that much?’

  ‘Worse.’ She gasped. ‘Can’t believe I . . .’

  ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘It’s not. I was dating a Nazi. Based on how he looks. Found him on Tinder. I mean, Jesus.’ She rolled her eyes at him. ‘It’s how it works now. Everything’s online. I hate it.’

  ‘I thought the idea was you get to know the real them, then you meet up?’

  ‘Trouble is, Zachary doesn’t know who he is. There’s just a great big hole at the centre of his soul.’ She picked at the last inch of burrito. ‘I didn’t know who he was at the time.’ She pushed her tray across to the middle of the table. ‘Go on, say it.’

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘That I like older guys?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s the Nazis I have a problem with.’

  She smiled again. ‘I’ve done some philosophy. Been reading Karl Popper. You heard of him?’

  ‘Doesn’t ring a bell.’

  ‘There’s this thing he calls the paradox of tolerance. If you extend tolerance to the intolerant, they’ll destroy the tolerant ones and tolerance with it. They live outside society, so you shouldn’t tolerate them. Defending tolerance doesn’t mean you have to tolerate the intolerant.’

  ‘I like that.’

  ‘And Zachary is intolerant. Christ, I should’ve spotted him a mile off.’

  ‘It’s called growing up.’ Fenchurch dared a grin. ‘Your mother hates him. She was angry when he was voted in at your university. When I met him, I didn’t trust him an inch.’

  She snatched off a length of foil and started balling it up. ‘Should I trust you?’

  ‘I’d rather I earned your trust. But it’s a different situation, anyway.’

  She nodded. ‘About that money . . . You don’t know how difficult things have been for me since . . . they were arrested. Not that they were rich.’

  ‘I meant what I said about the money. It’s yours. Even if you never speak to me again, I want to make sure you’re okay.’ A shiver ran up Fenchurch’s spine. ‘But that video. Jesus, please take the money so that you don’t have to do that.’