“Will there be a postmortem?”
“Oh, I suspect so, given his age, job and how it happened.”
“It was a road accident, wasn’t it?”
“Well, he was riding a motorcycle when he had an accident. That much is true, my dear. But coming off the machine is not what killed him. In my humblest of opinions, you understand?”
“I do. Go on. Is there something I’m missing?”
“One hundred percent.”
He rolled down the sheet to reveal the massive bruising and linear cut which ran from shoulder to shoulder.
“I’m no doctor but I suspect what had happened here is your friend has hit something that was more rigid than him, in doing so it has caused him to dismount from the machine at a great rate of knots and has left this mark just here.”
“A weapon? Was he hit first? Or after he came off?”
“No. I believe not. Simpler than that. Unpleasant and no doubt planned, but simpler nonetheless. There are no other significant marks, a bruise here and slight contusion there. You are welcome to look.”
“No. Thank you that won’t be necessary.”
“My diagnosis is a broken neck. The weapon? If you want to class it as one was a wire, across the carriageway. He has hit it and it has struck here, ridden up, and the helmet has taken some of the blow. I suspect you will see the marks on the helmet just as I did. It’s in that bag over there.”
“Thank you.” She didn’t mean it, but it helped.
“If you ask me the helmet kind of saved him.”
“I don’t understand. My colleague is dead.”
“But he still has his head, my dear. And that makes our job a whole lot easier.”
Like most police officers, she had seen her fair share of bodies. Too many, perhaps. Her first was a hanging. She found him in the summer months, putrid, his blackened skin rotting onto the wooden hall floor of a quiet house in a pleasant street in suburbia. Literally walked into him, her face colliding with his lower body in the half light of the hallway.
She had clawed at her face, trying to rid him from her as one would with a spider’s web.
He didn’t even leave a note. She had never forgotten her first. Could even remember his name and date of birth. He visited her now and then, in her dreams, so vivid that when she woke she couldn’t tell, for a second, whether it was real – or just a nightmare.
It took her a year to recover. At least that’s what she told the force psychiatrist.
She sat, inhaled and said mid-sigh, “Oh Steve...tell me what happened.”
She couldn’t say anything else. Nothing else seemed even remotely appropriate.
A blackbird sang out somewhere in the grounds of the hospital, confused into thinking it was daytime by the bright lighting that illuminated the grounds. It was a pleasant song; it reminded her of her childhood when she used to stand and listen to one in her bedroom, window open, she could clearly hear it calling to a mate. She would often look down to the end of the garden to see her father, whistling back at just such a bird, oblivious to his audience. It always made her smile. It did now. She missed him terribly, too.
McGee came from a strong family with respectable values and one that expected her to teach, so she studied English, ironically not far from where she now sat alone in her car crying.
She hadn’t disappointed her parents – more a case of a surprise. But she had done well, and that was all that mattered. They were always proud to show her course photograph to anyone that would spare a moment to look. But they noticed how much she had changed. The ‘job’ made you tough, gritty, cynical – able to cope.
She’d only learned to swear when she joined the police and at times she could match an irate fishwife. Or as her colleague Nick Fisher had once said, ‘She’s a lovely lass, as pure as the driven…but at times she’s like a nun with Tourette’s.’
She gripped the leather wheel of her beloved Mini. Gripped it so tight the blood retreated and revealed pure ivory.
“You absolute bastards.” She almost spat the word out, punching the rim of the wheel, slipping and sounding the horn. The blackbird stopped, then flew away.
Bridie turned the ignition key, ramped up the heater then hit dial on her phone which connected to the hands free system. It was even later than when she had received the similar call, but the boss needed to know, regardless of the time – ‘That’s why they get the big bucks’.
It’s how it was, up the chain, down the chain.
“Jason Roberts.”
“Guv. It’s Bridie.”
He allowed her to vent, to cry for about a minute, then asked the question.
“It’s OK, DS McGee, tell me, tell me what’s troubling you?” He chose the formal approach to solicit the information he needed. He could sense that good news was not going to be forthcoming.
She spoke quickly. “Church had a crash, was in a crash, crashed his bike. He’s dead.” It was the best she could offer.
“OK.” He took a moment to clear his own head, started counting his staff, working out who he had lost.
“Was this an accident Bridie?”
“No boss. It wasn’t. How did you know? Someone, some…”
“Say it. It will do you good.”
“No. If I start I may never stop Jason. Somebody pulled a wire up across the road, waiting for Church…for Steve, to pass by, then almost decapitated him. Whatever the agenda, there was no need to do that.” She fought back the tears once more. “We’ve got a problem, boss, and it’s getting worse.”
She was right. This was no time for management buzz words – or Mingo, as the staff called it and often played, waiting for a well-worn phrase to complete a line or the whole grid.
“I’m completely with you Bridie. Right now if I could get my hands on them, in a dark lane, or a quiet corner of an industrial estate – I’d happily shoot them.”
“That’s the thing though, boss. You say them. But who are we dealing with? Do you know? Because if you do, it’s long overdue for a briefing to the troops. We need to push this out beyond our team. That’s Steve gone, probably Cynthia and Carrie is missing too. Are we even safe?”
“I honestly don’t know. I’ll be raising this up the food chain first thing in the morning. We’ve got an enemy and need to locate him. The cavalry is coming. My problem is I’m told we have to keep the lid on this, so how do I throw it open to every man and his bloody dog, but still maintain an air of covertness?”
“Bugger being covert boss – this is way beyond that now, surely. We’ve got people dead, people missing, God only knows what might be happening to them. Isn’t a hand-filled candle enough to alert you to the fact that what’s going on is far from normal?”
“Bridie. Please. I need you to understand that this is bigger than our team. Greater than the Metropolitan Police, even. You were at the briefing.”
“But the briefing told me two-fifths of fuck all boss!” She was getting angrier by the second.
“It told you that there are players at another level. It told you that documents are missing, that those very items could see the United Kingdom as we know it fall to its knees. We are talking billions Bridie.”
“So this is just about money? Money over people?”
“I am afraid so. Right now we need to focus on that. Not our colleagues, who may or may not be missing, presumed dead.”
“Permission to disagree?”
“Granted. Try to get some sleep. You’ll be fine.”
“Thanks, boss. Keep your enemies close and all that. You sleep well too.” Neither would.
The final call of the night was made by Roberts to Cade.
“It’s me. How’s the hotel?”
“Strange time of night to ask? Do you work for Trivago now?”
“Funny. I am officially allowing you to release the dogs of war, Jack. You are unchained. No longer a copper, not bound by our rules. I know you will resist for a while, but I need you to follow what the Home Secretary said to us jus
t before she left.”
“I thought she was saying it with her tongue firmly in her rather lovely cheeks, Jason?”
“So what if she was? I took her at her word. And that, let me remind you was this, and I quote. ‘Do what you need to do to rid us of this evil. I will back you, completely.’”
“Fair enough, she did. So why the change Mr Company Man? You’ve always played by the rules, been the nice guy.”
“And you haven’t Jack? Come on, tell me you haven’t once wanted to bend the rules and I’ll apologise.”
“Not once, Jason. It made me who I am. So come on, what’s changed?”
“They’ve killed one of my best detectives earlier tonight.”
“They?”
“It’s them. Has to be. Too brutal to be a common thief.”
“You saying they are not common thieves?”
“Forget that, Jack. It was Church. They almost beheaded him, wire across a road, hit him, on his motorbike. Filthy bastards, I mean it…”
Cade thought before he replied. Anything he did say was at risk of being a platitude, and they both knew they were clichéd beyond the norm.
His cheeks puffed air out until he continued with what he hoped would be the right thing to say. “It’s OK, my friend. Be angry. I’m very sorry, Jason, he was a really good bloke. I understand. I really do.”
“Really?”
“Really. Don’t forget I helped your boys fish Nikolina out of the Thames once, brushed the mud from her lips so I could kiss her goodbye. Shed a tear onto her face, tried to wipe it off, but just made more of a mess. I understand. But as you say, I don’t have to be quite so rigid in my adherence to the rules now. However, there’s still the matter of the law…”
“There are no laws from here on in. None at all. If it means the end of my career, then so be it, but let’s start taking the fight back to them instead of being so bloody British.”
“Then so be it. I’d say let’s have a cup of tea in the morning, but a scotch may be preferable?”
“Possibly. I’d be pissed though, Jack. Can’t handle the stuff, late at night or over breakfast, and I’m more Scottish than English.”
“Since when?”
“Since I slipped from my mother’s womb – as an ocean liner slides down those slippery planks into the sea, after being belted around the face with a champagne bottle.”
“Jesus, you had a rough start in life, DCI Roberts.”
“It was a metaphor ex-Inspector Cade. And yes, I’m Scottish, more Jockney than Cockney my son.”
“Well, you learn something every decade. As metaphors go it’s one which may never allow me to sleep again. I was going to mention how many men went down on that ship, but at this time of the night it could be misconstrued – and after all, it’s your mother we are talking about.”
“Goodnight, Jack. See you in a few hours. And thanks.”
“Pleasure mate. What for?”
“I’m not entirely sure.”
He laid back down and asked his mind to switch off. Each time he told it to stop thinking, it did, twice as fast and then the tune started. The same bloody tune that starts, and creates a self-imposed loop, over and over again, until half an hour before the next melody is the alarm.
“I hate you, Cade.”
He lay for at least an hour, thinking of Steve Hall, and Cynthia Bell, of Clive Wood, the first of his team to lose his life, and then he turned his mind to Carrie. He knew somehow that Bell was dead. O’Shea was a different proposition. If anyone could survive it was that girl. She had caused him some real issues over the years; common assault, not so common assault, stabbings, allegations, counter allegations, and more. It was the night she had been poisoned and left for dead in her apartment that he saw her true spirit, realised what a thoroughly stubborn cow she was. Wherever she was he hoped she was OK, prayed she was, and he hardly prayed anymore.
Chapter Thirty
She was also wide awake, had no idea of the time, she had been counting the hours the best she could, watching the light change in the dimly lit room, working out approximately where they were in the scheme of things. It got dark early, and it got cold too. She began to question whether she could make it through another night – the sense that she had heard her friend and colleague breathe her last hit her again, and she began to cry. It was a quiet expression of sorrow, for she wanted no one to know about her weakness for her fellow human.
What have you done with Cynthia? Her family needs to mourn her. To lay her to rest. You cold-hearted thugs.
It was so cold. She now wanted to die. Would be quite happy to.
Next to her, Lucy Thomas was in the same state of mind.
“Why can’t they just kill us?” She whispered.
“I don’t know, but they can bloody well start with you. You are the reason we are here. The reason Cynthia is dead.” O’Shea was doing nothing to disguise her anger.
“Hey sweetheart, this has nothing to do with me.”
“Anyone who is or has been connected to these arseholes needs reminding that when they had the chance to kill them, they should have done. I mean, what do you see in him, anyway? He’s hardly Mr Romania 1987, is he?”
“He was loving. He treated me well.”
“Oh please.” O’Shea would have spat in her eye if she had been able to reach. “It was for money. There was no love between you. An impotent psycho and an overweight tranny.”
“How dare you? I am so not overweight.”
It would have been funny if they were somewhere else other than captives in a rundown factory, miles from anywhere and yet, ironically, only miles from somewhere.
“You are so. I can’t believe that people even refer to you as a female. You’re a bloody insult to female kind.”
“There’s no such word, Carrie.”
“Well, there bloody well is now Derrick, or whatever you’re really called. I mean, how can you be classed as a woman? If I really force my eyes to look I can see that you aren’t. It stands out a mile.”
“Why thank you for the compliment, honey. Considering how cold it is I’ll take that.”
“You’re a bloody freak. You should have been around when PT Barnum was recruiting. A woman with stubble on her stomach? Whatever next? Christ, what a mess. It’s official, I bloody hate you, and if that toothless bastard of a boyfriend of yours doesn’t kill you, trust me, I will. With my bare bloody…”
She stopped. Thomas had hissed at her. It wasn’t a ‘I’ve heard enough from you love’ type hiss, more a ‘Please, stop, they are coming back’ noise.
She remained quiet for a moment.
Nothing.
The problem with the buildings was their disconnected nature, footsteps were difficult to detect, and it was easy for anyone to quietly walk up to their room and listen or act without warning.
Both Thomas and O’Shea had adapted well to their surroundings. Both knew that their time was limited. It felt like weeks since they had been brought to this desolate place, when in fact, it was only days.
Dehydrated, hungry, cold and afraid. Four elements that colluded to make their hosts fear for their lives, but equally plead for their deaths.
“I’m sorry, Carrie.” He was sobbing again.
“Yeah. I’m sure you are. Look, I may need you to be strong. If we have any chance of getting out of here alive, we need to work together. Agreed?”
“Of course. What is your plan?”
O’Shea stared at the dark outline of the magnolia-painted ceiling and tried to come up with something that resembled sensible.
“Honestly, mate. I haven’t got a clue. Slowly edge out of the room, down that rough track and then hitchhike back to the office? Might do it in six months, maybe a year. Leave it with me. After all, I’ve got fuck all else to do.”
“You swear, like a trooper girl, should have been in my game.”
It brought a bizarre sense of relief, strapped to a rigid table, freezing cold and raw from their own urine burns.
>
“I get it from my old man. True Londoner. I reckon we are no more than an hour from the city. Put me down on the ground and I find my way back, like a homing pigeon. We are away from built-up areas, and traffic, but I can hear vehicles somewhere in the distance – busy too, almost never stops. I think it’s a motorway. Or a bridge, there’s a noise I can’t put my finger on.”
“I can’t put my finger on anything right now, sweetheart. God, I’m hungry. My head is splitting. Can you hear my stomach? Can you?”
“Lucy.”
“Yes?”
“Shut up.”
The footsteps increased in volume until both captives were aware of people in the doorway. They were back.
Satisfied that his remaining prisoners were still in situ, and beyond reach, Constantin ate with his men. They had gathered in a room and feasted on Indian takeaway. It was the finest thing they had ever eaten. They were so hungry that every spice could be tasted. Paid for in cash, they chose the place that looked like it needed the trade. No cameras and staff that were willing to lie if necessary.
The scents drifted across from the room to O’Shea and Thomas. They were even hungrier – genuinely starving. O’Shea could differentiate between the chicken and lamb dishes, smell the coriander, the turmeric, garlic and ginger. She would willingly murder someone for a spoonful, she’d even stoop so low to eat it off a homeless drunk’s fingertips.
Constantin had earned the admiration of his team in a matter of days. Despite his physical appearance, he had an aura about him that the younger men appeared to acknowledge and respect.
They knew he had a reputation as a cruel man, however, he also had a gift – killing people in inventive ways. They had watched as he expertly removed the woman’s hand and sent it as a message to the policeman. It was inventive. Cruel, but creative. Whether he had intended for her to bleed to death was unknown.
To a man they had decided it was better the devil you know and on the subject of malevolent behaviour, four of them knew they had an unsavoury job to do as soon as they had finished eating.
Seven of Swords (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 3) Page 29