by Tania Carver
The Creeper thought hard. This was difficult. This didn’t feel right at all.
Remember. What we discussed. People are coming to the boat. You need to get out of there and not leave anything behind. What we talked about. What we planned. Remember?
He sat down beside the inert body of Rani. Tried not to look at her. He closed his eyes, forehead furrowed. Thinking. It took some effort, but, yes, he remembered. He told her so.
At last. That wasn’t so hard, was it? We got there eventually, didn’t we?
He laughed, thinking that was what she wanted him to do.
She ignored him. You remember what to leave?
‘Yeah, no problem.’ He wanted to please her once more, make her happy again.
Good. Now—
‘What about you?’
What d’you mean?
‘You. Lying here, on the floor. With your eyes closed. You’re talking to me and you’re not talking to me. What am I going to do with you?’
Just . . . just leave, leave me there.
‘Like a husk? Another husk? You mean put it with the others?’
No, no time. Just leave it there.
He felt a sharp stab of pain in his heart. ‘But, but you said this would be the one. The one body you were going to stay in. Forever . . .’
Well, plans change, don’t they?
Her words, harsh. He didn’t like that. It upset him. Made him feel like crying.
‘I’m sorry . . . I didn’t, didn’t mean to . . .’
It doesn’t matter. Just leave the husk there and do what I told you. Can you do that?
‘I won’t let you down. Promise.’
Good. Now, when you’ve done that, there’s somewhere I want you to go to.
He listened. She told him. Asked him to repeat it back to her until she was sure he understood.
Good. I’ll talk to you soon.
And she was gone.
He looked down at the husk. Sighed. Felt that stabbing in his heart once again. What a shame. He had thought that this was it. This was them back together forever. He should have known better. Should have known things wouldn’t work out.
Oh well.
He looked round the boat, knowing this was going to be the last time he would ever see it. It didn’t feel like home. Not really. But then nowhere ever did. Not any more. No place felt like home. Not if Rani wasn’t in it.
Felt tears well up. Swallowed them down. Wouldn’t give in to them. Not again.
But he was going to meet her. She had said so. Would this be the real Rani? No more husks? He hoped so. But then he had thought so before and been disappointed.
Still.
His eyes fell on the box in the corner. He smiled. That would help. That would be something to look forward to.
Fire. He liked the fire. It was power.
And he liked having power.
No longer caring about the husk on the floor, but checking it didn’t need another punch to keep it quiet, he crossed over to the box in the corner, opened it. Looked in.
Everything just as he remembered it.
Yes.
Fire was power.
And he was going to use it.
85
The circus had arrived.
The armed response unit had been hastily assembled in an old abandoned warehouse at the far end of Haven Street, along from King Edward Quay where Ian Buchan’s boat was moored.
It reminded Phil of the kind of desolate, empty, run-down place - all rusting metal supports, crumbling walls, rubble-strewn floors and partially destroyed roofs - that he imagined spies being exchanged in during the Cold War. Or the kind of location in which producers of TV spy dramas held end-of-episode shoot-outs. As he watched the armed response unit check, lock and load their weapons, he hoped that was just fanciful thinking.
He refused to carry a gun. Wasn’t even firearm trained. He disliked guns intensely, in any shape or form. Knives were worse, he knew that, but if he couldn’t disarm a potential aggressor with his mind and wits, or at the most with his hands and stick, he wasn’t being truly effective as a police officer.
He disliked the armed response unit. Thought the whole of CO19 - the Met’s supposedly elite force responsible for training all armed officers in the country - were a bunch of macho, fascist cowboys who hid behind the uniform while committing acts of barely licensed villainy. He was also intelligent enough to know that wasn’t a popular opinion for a serving officer to hold, never mind express, so kept it to himself. Most of the time. But he did admit there was a time when they were needed, a necessary evil. And this was one such occasion.
He snapped the Velcro tapes shut on his stab vest, pulled it down, making sure it fitted snugly but not tight enough to restrict his movements. He turned to the team, saw a bunch of hard-faced men standing there, in the kind of mental and emotional zone reserved for sportsmen and cage fighters. If they were superheroes, aggression would be their superpower and it would explode from their fingertips like lightning.
Their senior officer, Joe Wade, was addressing them.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Here’s the objective.’
He gestured at his laptop, placed on a folding table that had been brought along specially.
‘This boat. King Edward Quay. Out of here and to the left. About two hundred yards along the quay. The target is on the boat. He may be armed. He is certainly dangerous. He may also have a hostage with him.’
‘Detective Inspector Rose Martin,’ said Phil. ‘She was with DCI Fenwick when he was stabbed.’
Wade nodded, acknowledged the interruption, continued. The team were well drilled, well organised. While Wade marshalled his team into sections, Phil tried to calm his nerves. Anni had given him a description of the layout, which he had passed on to Wade. He wouldn’t be entering the boat until Wade’s team had secured it and brought Ian Buchan out. And, hopefully, Rose Martin. Then, with the area secured, he would enter.
Wade finished his address, looked at Phil.
Phil nodded. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I just want to emphasise once more that this man is dangerous. He’s an ex-soldier who brought his training home with him. And he’s been making full use of it in this town recently. Be aware. Oh, and one more thing. This is also a missing persons case. We need him to tell us where they are. So please, don’t kill him.’
A few of them laughed, thought he was joking.
He wasn’t.
‘OK?’ said Wade, putting on his helmet, ‘let’s go.’
86
‘You’ve had some real cowboys in here . . .’
Marina was sitting at Anni’s desk back in the bar, looking through the reports Fiona Welch had made. She wasn’t impressed.
‘Did no one check this?’
Anni looked at her, uncomfortable. ‘Phil wasn’t happy.’
‘I’ll bet he wasn’t. And he shouldn’t have been the only one. What was Ben Fenwick thinking?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Anni, ‘but he was doing it with another part of his anatomy.’
Marina looked at her, open-mouthed. ‘What?’
Anni turned away. ‘Sorry. Said too much.’
Marina looked at the files before her, back to Anni. ‘Tell me.’
Anni pulled up a chair beside Marina, leaned in, dropped her voice. ‘Rose Martin, the missing DS? Ben and her were getting it on.’
Marina nodded. ‘And that impeded his judgement?’
‘He’s a man. You know what they’re like. Especially at work.’ She saw Marina’s reaction. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean—’
‘That’s OK. I know you didn’t.’ Since Marina and Phil had initially got together during a case she had a right to be cagey about criticism.
‘He paid too much attention to her. Allowed her to influence the investigation. Same with Fiona Welch.’
‘Didn’t anyone see this? Try to stop it?’
‘Phil did.’ Anni smiled. ‘He ended up punching the DCI’s lights out.’
Marina smiled. ‘G
ood for Phil.’ Then she thought of the situation Ben Fenwick was in, felt immediately guilty. ‘Anyway. Moving on. This profile. A child of nine could have come up with something better.’
‘We think now she did it deliberately,’ said Anni. ‘To lead us to Anthony Howe.’
‘I know Anthony Howe. Taught by him and worked with him. He was an arrogant letch but he wasn’t capable of this. Where does Fiona Welch work?’
‘The hospital. But she’s also doing a Ph.D. at the university. This allowed her to teach, she told us.’
‘And Ben Fenwick found her.’
Anni nodded.
Marina wasn’t impressed. ‘He should have asked for a forensic psychologist. And if he got a clinical psychologist he should have had a qualified one otherwise their opinion won’t be recognised. Fiona Welch must be an assistant, right?’
Anni nodded again. ‘Looks like it now. Maybe she told him she was qualified.’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised. She’s clever, though. Inserted herself right at the heart of the investigation, tried to influence it, control it even. I’m surprised Phil went along with it.’
‘He didn’t seem to be on the ball.’
‘Why not?’
Anni was reluctant to speak but knew she had to. ‘I don’t know. Something was distracting him.’
Marina nodded, not wanting to say anything further. ‘Well, whatever. He saw through her eventually.’ She sat back, ran her hands through her hair, thinking. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got. She’s manipulative, she’s controlling. She fed you a false profile that pointed to Anthony Howe. Who was someone she knew, someone who taught her.’
‘Someone she held a grudge against?’
Marina nodded. ‘I’d say that was very likely. Especially if she went to talk to him alone. And the suicide attempt followed. She’s manipulative all right.’
Marina rifled through the files on Anni’s desk. Brought over the post-mortem report on Adele Harrison. ‘And then there’s this . . .’ She looked through it. ‘I get a completely different feeling from the profile she gave based on this. Maybe it’s because I’m just looking for something different but it doesn’t feel right. Not at all.’
She picked up the phone, called Nick Lines. He answered.
‘Hi, Nick, Marina Esposito here. Listen, this PM on Adele Harrison . . .’ She looked through it. ‘I’ve read it and got a couple of things to run by you. Just a theory, but here you go. These injuries. Do you think there’s any chance this wasn’t sexually motivated?’
She listened to his reply.
‘I’ll tell you. Because they strike me as overkill, done to make us jump to conclusions. Mislead us. All this genital mutilation . . . it doesn’t seem consistent with the rest of the injuries. I mean, clearly they’re sadistic and there’s a lot of hatred there that’s been acted out, but . . .’
She listened again. For quite a while. Her eyebrows raised.
‘Interesting. Very interesting. Thanks, Nick.’
She put the phone down. Anni was looking at her, expectantly.
‘Well?’
‘He agrees. Thinks the sexual mutilation could have been done as a cover-up. No sign of actual penetrative sex, just aggression. And he did tell me something else.’
Anni leaned forward, irritated she was being made to wait.
‘He’s got the preliminary DNA results back from Adele Harrison’s body. Three sets.’
‘Three?’
Marina nodded. ‘And there’s something very interesting about one of them.’
But she didn’t get a chance to say what it was. Because at that moment Mickey Philips strutted into the bar looking flushed but exultant, and told them Mark Turner was in an interview room, ready to be cracked.
He looked between Anni and Marina.
‘So what d’you reckon?’ he said. ‘Good cop, bad cop or what?’
‘Let’s have a little chat,’ said Marina.
87
The sun was beginning to wane, getting paler, lower, more distant. The home-time traffic trying to escape Colchester was well into its gridlock of the Colne Causeway all the way through to the Avenue of Remembrance, drive-time radio of one sort or another soundtracking the long journey home. The other world going about its daily business while, down on King Edward Quay, Phil stood behind a rusted metal fence watching the armed response unit, weapons ready, take up their positions around the target houseboat.
Wade gave the signal. The team moved swiftly and silently into place. Phil found he had stopped breathing. Forced himself to start again.
The takedown was smooth. One team surrounded the boat, giving back-up and support if needed, the main team boarded. Over the gangplank, on the deck, down the stairs. A battering ram of testosterone, muscle and metal knocking down all before it. Screaming, shouting, creating noise and confusion for the target, years of training making them able to operate with clinical clarity of thought and precision timing within that confusion.
Seconds. That was all it took.
Seconds.
Joe Wade made his way back up on deck, looked over at Phil, shook his head. Phil ran over to him, joined him on the boat.
‘Gone,’ Wade said, unable to hide the disappointment in his voice. ‘But he left his hostage.’
Phil was straight down into the belly of the boat.
Rose Martin was being propped up by an officer, his gun at his side. Her hands were tied behind her body, her eyes wide with fear, pain and shock. Phil crouched before her.
‘How you feeling?’
She just stared at him, eyes roaming and pinwheeling in terror, like the rescue was just another weapon in the armoury of pin to be inflicted on her.
‘Rose, it’s me, Phil Brennan.’ He took her face in his hands. ‘Rose . . .’
She flinched from his touch but he kept his hands there. Tender but firm. Eventually she managed to bring her eyes back into focus, look at him. No words, but definite recognition.
‘Yeah, it’s me. You’re safe now.’ He smiled, emphasising the point.
She nodded, going along with him.
‘Good. There’s an ambulance on its way. We’re going to get you to the hospital now. You’re OK. Everything’s OK.’ He turned to the officer at her side, pointed to the plastic cuffs attached to her wrists. ‘Can we get these things cut off?’
The officer took out a knife, cut them through.
‘Not standard issue, but I’m glad you brought it along,’ said Phil. He took over from the crouching officer, helped Rose to her feet.
‘All right?’
She nodded once more, rubbing her wrists. ‘He . . . he . . .’ Her mind slipped somewhere else, somewhere unpleasant. ‘I tried to stop him, but he . . . oh God . . .’
‘Never mind that now,’ said Phil, wishing that just the act of saying those words could make things better but knowing that it couldn’t.
‘I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry . . .’ She grabbed hold of his vest, clung to him.
‘Don’t worry. You’re safe. Let’s get you out of here.’
He started to move her, walking her slowly across the floor. As he did so, he took in the walls. The photos, magazine clippings, images of women with their eyes scored out.
Nutter, he thought, using the kind of technical term he was sure Marina would approve of. He scrutinised the images as he walked, taking Rose to the stairs.
Then froze. He had seen one of the pictures before.
And he knew where.
He began to move her with more of a sense of urgency. There was somewhere he had to be.
‘DI Brennan.’
He turned. The officer who had freed Rose was standing at the far end of the boat, looking down. He had flipped the lid on an old, wooden box, scarred and battered, and was staring inside.
‘What is it?’ said Phil.
The officer looked up. ‘Get out now, sir.’ Then louder, more generally, ‘Out now. Everyone off this boat, now. Go go go . . .’
Phil didn’t need t
o be told twice. He hurried Rose, who had jumped hearing the officer’s voice and started sobbing, up the stairs as fast as he could. On the deck and over the gangplank. He hurried her away. Behind him, armed officers were running for cover.
Phil just managed to make it back to the fence he had been behind at the start of the operation. He didn’t have time to settle because a huge wave of heat, forceful and strong, knocked him face down into the road.
He lay there, panting for breath, eyes closed. Not daring to move, wondering whether his legs were broken, his head still had hair, his back still had skin or whether it had been ripped off in the explosion. His ears more than ringing, sounding like he was stuck inside a tunnel with two highspeed trains passing each other at the same time.
He opened his eyes. Moved his legs. They still worked. Pushed himself up to his elbows. No real pain in his back. Got slowly to his feet.
He had managed to get outside the blast radius and was, apart from cuts and aches and gravel burn to the side of his face, relatively unharmed. He looked round. The warning had been given in time. No one had been caught in the blast.
The boat was belching out oily black smoke, flames licking their way up to the sky. On the Colne Causeway, the other-world inhabitants were staring out of their cars. People in the opposite flats coming to their windows, doors.
‘We need a fire crew here ASAP,’ Phil shouted, then looked round for Rose Martin. She was lying on the ground, curled up in a foetal ball. Unharmed.
‘Bastard was waiting for us,’ said Wade, walking up to Phil. ‘Must have been tipped off. We’ll get him.’
‘See she gets to a hospital,’ said Phil, walking off.
‘Where you going?’ said Wade, clearly not happy at the paperwork he was being left to face alone.
‘I’ll be back,’ said Phil. ‘Just have to go talk to the person who can tell us where he is.’
88
Mark Turner looked like an unremarkable man sitting in an unremarkable room.
His longish, dark hair was swept to the side in an identikit student indie manner, his clothes - jeans and a T-shirt - were dull, boring and uniform. Even the nonsensical slogan on his chest was nothing but a regulated attempt at individuality.