by Paul Finch
She ran forward, panting, a fresh breeze relieving her nose and throat and her stinging eyes. The sky, a blaze of moon and stars after the red-tinged darkness below, dizzied her, but she tottered on, feet drumming on what felt like tarmac laid over wooden boards. She realised that a tall, tapering structure standing fifty yards to her left was the steeple. That was a shock, but it only really struck her that she was on the care home’s roof when she half-tripped over a curved aluminium hood capping the top of a ventilation shaft.
How safe it was to be up here, she didn’t know. It felt flimsy, the pitch-covered boards cracking and groaning under her feet – and then suddenly ending in three rows of bricks rendered greasy with moss, and beyond those a sheer drop. Lucy only just stopped in time, teetering on the edge, the vast moonlit spread of the ornamental lake lying in front of her. Directly below, some eighty feet down, was the driveway. About ten yards to her left, a couple of feet beneath the parapet, a stone gryphon-like creature, with a curved back and beaked head, jutted menacingly out, its upper portions caked in bird droppings. Some ten yards further on, there was a Tolkienesque goblin, and beyond that, maybe thirty feet down, she saw the top of the stone pediment on which the care home clock was displayed.
‘You bitch!’ came a voice strained with exhaustion.
Lucy turned and found Alyssa Torgau limping towards her from the shattered door.
Before Lucy could speak, Alyssa pointed her pistol one-handed and pumped its trigger. A succession of metallic clicks followed. The girl’s swollen, sweat-soaked face twisted with fury and disgust, but she threw the empty gun away and came on regardless, this time reaching into the combat webbing at her back and pulling out a huge knife. It was the same type of weapon that Ivana had wielded, the same type of weapon Alyssa herself had produced in the cellars at St Clement’s, with a medieval-style cross-guard and a heavy blade serrated down one edge. Alyssa raised it in her right hand as she approached, holding it upright, a gesture designed to show that she knew how to use it.
Lucy had been considering fighting the teenager, trying to overpower her physically. But she had no doubt that Alyssa’s father had trained her well. Plus, there was this knife.
‘I’m going to enjoy this,’ the girl drooled. ‘I’m so going to enjoy this.’
Lucy darted right, trying to run along the narrow band of bricks edging the rooftop, but her feet slipped, and she almost pitched into the abyss, only preventing it by sliding to a stop and windmilling her arms. Alyssa continued her pursuit at a walking pace but snickered. ‘You are so out of your depth …’
Lucy was starting to think this was true. It was impossible to describe how tired she felt. She had no weapons with which to resist. All she could do was turn and back away, veering across the tar-coated planking, hoping to God that it wouldn’t simply collapse and drop her down into some empty, dust-filled dormitory.
When it didn’t, she ran again, heading across the roof towards the other side. Who knew, she might find the top of a fire-escape stair. Or perhaps there’d be ivy she could clamber down.
Yeah, right.
She came to the next parapet more quickly than she’d expected, finding herself high above a central courtyard, where vegetation grew wild and jungle-like from a central quadrangle surrounded by paved walkways and benches. Again, it was an eighty-foot drop, and there was no means of descent. The nearest window ledge was a good twenty feet down, and no more than a couple of inches wide.
‘Why don’t you do it?’ Alyssa taunted her, advancing across the roof in slow pursuit, breathing more easily now, clearly regaining her stamina, and still holding her blade aloft. ‘It’d be quicker than what I’ve got planned for you.’
Lucy ran again, awkwardly, with weary, clumping footsteps, in no real direction. The structure of the steeple lay dead ahead, but before she could even reach it, she spied another level of roof, made from sloping slate-work atop a brick wall at least twelve feet high, which completely barred her path. Again, she changed direction, hobbling alongside the wall, slapping her hand on the bricks to steady herself. Glancing right, she saw Alyssa moving parallel to her some twenty yards away.
‘Alyssa,’ Lucy stammered. ‘You have to be mad to keep doing this. What do you think you’ve got to gain?’
‘It’s simple,’ the girl replied. ‘We carry on where the old man left off.’
‘There is no we any more. Can’t you see?’
‘You’ll pay for that too, you prize bitch!’
‘For God’s sake,’ Lucy said. ‘You’re still young enough to wriggle out of this. You’re only … what, nineteen? It’ll be easy to sell the story that you were led, that you were influenced by an evil man.’
‘You dare talk about him like that!’
Lucy stopped trying. She needed to save her breath anyway. Plus, it was all lies. Alyssa was so deeply embedded in this horror, and so far into the age of adult responsibility, that it was difficult to envisage her drawing anything other than a full-life sentence – and at nineteen that was a long time. So, the options were still fight or flight. Since she was unarmed, the first was out of the question, so she ran again. But this time forward instead of away, heading straight for her tormentor – who halted, confused, swapping the blade around to wield it dagger-like – but then swerving left, putting all her strength into one final dash, hoping to arc around the girl and make it to the steps leading back down to that hellish vault.
Alyssa needed only to run sideways to intercept, but with a crunching crack, the girl’s right foot broke through the tarred planking, dropping her down past her ankle.
Unable to believe her fortune, Lucy ran on, straightening up for the open doorway, which beckoned only fifty yards away. And then, incredibly, she too lost her footing, tripping over a flap of dried tar. She went sprawling, landing on her hands, face and chest, the blow so brutal that it knocked the wind out of her.
Fateful seconds passed before she could lever herself up and look around. Alyssa had already hacked herself free with the blade and was only a few yards away, coming more slowly, more prudently, but still smiling, still hefting the knife.
‘Sweet Jesus …’ Lucy breathed.
‘Don’t blaspheme,’ Alyssa cackled. ‘You’ll be meeting him in a minute.’ She held the blade higher, the moon catching it, flashing silver. ‘Well … maybe a bit longer than that.’
And then a police siren sounded.
Not in the distance, but very close by.
Not only that, there was a light-show. A blue radiance was suddenly swirling on the lake in a repeating pattern.
Alyssa dashed past Lucy towards the parapet, which creaked loudly when she halted on it.
Lucy glanced up and around, startled.
‘No!’ Alyssa screeched, her shoulders hunched with disbelieving rage. ‘No! I don’t believe it! I don’t …’
The aged bricks beneath her feet creaked again. Then one of them noisily cracked.
‘Alyssa!’ Lucy shouted.
The bricks gave way.
With a squawk of terror, Alyssa tottered where she stood, half turning as mortar and masonry visibly crumbled under her – and then fell from sight.
Amazement lending her extra strength, Lucy sat bolt upright. Breathing hard, she scrambled towards the roof’s edge on all fours. The first thing she saw when she reached it and gazed down, was her own Jimny – halted about thirty yards along from the main building. Its blue lights still swirled, but its siren had ceased.
‘Sister.’ She almost laughed. ‘Oh, my lovely Sister Cassie.’
‘You cow …’ came a choked rasp.
Lucy glanced downward, and to her astonishment, saw the Torgau girl hanging one-handed from the head of a gargoyle. Even as Lucy watched, the clenching fingers slid through bird-filth, losing their grasp.
‘Quickly … here!’ Lucy flattened her body against the roof and thrust her own right hand down. ‘Grab hold.’
Alyssa reached up, and struck at the extended arm with her knife, sl
ashing a deep wound across the back of the hand. Lucy yanked it back with a yelp both of pain and astonishment.
‘You slag!’ the deranged girl snarled, her face a mass of sweat and straining muscle. ‘You cop slag!’
She slipped loose, but even as she descended, at incredible speed, she flung the knife upward. It twirled past Lucy’s head, missing it only by inches.
A split second later, there was a crunch of bone and flesh.
More numb and exhausted than she’d ever been, Lucy rose slowly to her feet. She couldn’t take her eyes off the gory spectacle down on the drive.
‘Like you said, love,’ she muttered, ‘quicker than what we’d have planned for you.’
When Frank McCracken sat down at one end of the boardroom table, the room itself was empty, aside from Wild Bill Pentecost, who was already seated at the opposite end. The Chairman was even greyer-faced than usual, and uncharacteristically ruffled.
‘All this over a breach of protocol, Frank?’ he said.
Gingerly, McCracken adjusted his sling. ‘If only it were, Bill … I reckon we could shake hands and walk away again.’
Pentecost pondered that, but not for long. ‘Just tell me what’s really going on.’
‘You obviously haven’t heard yet. But you will soon.’ McCracken regarded him long and hard. ‘Detective Constable Lucy Clayburn. You know her?’
Pentecost frowned. ‘She gave me some grief at the hospital.’
‘And you put a contract out on her last year.’
‘Ahhh.’ Now, the Chairman seemed to recall. ‘I thought the name was familiar.’
‘You ought to have remembered it, Bill … that trio of numbnut freelancers you sent blew it totally.’
‘In retrospect, I should have sent the Ripsaw Man.’
‘From what I’m seeing this year, his operation wasn’t much better.’
‘I’m losing my touch, then? Is that what this is? I’m putting my trust in people I shouldn’t, Frank?’
‘Yes. But that’s not what this is.’
‘Now, wait a minute … wait a minute.’ Pentecost looked thoughtful; he even raised a forefinger. ‘Clayburn? You tried to get me to call that contract off, if I remember rightly. In this very room, you tried to persuade me otherwise.’
‘I tried to appeal to your common sense. Yeah.’
‘She was connected to that Red-Headed League investigation, wasn’t she?’
McCracken nodded. ‘That’s right.’
‘And then, when those idiots missed the target, you negotiated a deal with the Robbery Squad … made it all go away.’
McCracken nodded again.
Pentecost gave one of his rare cold smiles. ‘You were a busy boy on our behalf, back then, weren’t you, Frank?’
‘Maybe I’m a better team-player than you’ve always thought, Bill.’
‘And especially on behalf of this DC Clayburn.’
‘Maybe I’m a better father than I always thought.’
Pentecost stared at him confusedly. Then he looked amused again, as if everything was now explained. ‘You’ve got a daughter, Frank? In the filth?’
‘Shocking, isn’t it?’
‘What’s shocking is how you managed to sit on it for so long.’
‘It’s not been as long as you think.’ McCracken adjusted his posture again. ‘I only found out myself a couple of years ago. But it’s been difficult, I’ll admit.’
‘Do her gaffers know about this?’
‘They do now … as of today.’
‘Which is why you’ve also decided to break the news?’
‘She left me with no choice.’
‘And this is something you think we couldn’t have worked out?’
McCracken smiled grimly. ‘Let’s not pretend, Bill. You’d never have trusted me again. And I’d never have trusted you … especially when my back was turned. I mean, I’d have struggled to trust you anyway, purely on the grounds that you green-lit Torgau to send his dipshit daughters to do O’Grady. You think I wouldn’t twig it … that a pair of newbies would leave evidence linking the hit to me? Not conclusively maybe, but putting me under police surveillance for years to come, paralysing me as a contributor. Making me completely expendable.’
Pentecost shrugged, half-smiled again. ‘At this level of command, Frank, it’s the prudent ones you’ve got to be wary of. The sensible ones, the good advice-givers. Because blokes with brains are rarely content to be servants for long. Though I’m not sure that even your big brain is going to do you much good from now on. You having a copper for a daughter … who’d a’ thought it, eh? That’s the kind of problem that won’t be resolved simply by me disappearing, you know.’
‘That depends on the rest of the guys,’ McCracken said. ‘They’re all on their way here now. Some may already be here. We’ll need to see how they respond to the new, typed-out deal that Mick Shallicker will shortly be circulating among them.’
‘So … this is a complete change of management?’
‘Certainly is. And under the new administration, contributions to central funds will be far less onerous.’
Pentecost looked scornful. ‘You really think it’s that simple?’
‘We’re talking the likes of Benny B and Nick Merryweather, Bill … yes, it’ll be that simple.’
‘Just out of interest, how much?’
‘Prior to today, we each paid seventy-five per cent. You then raised it to eighty-five. I’m only looking for fifty.’
Pentecost snorted. ‘You enrich those cretins, Frank, and you empower them. They’ll end up building their own princedoms again. Suddenly, we’ll be back in a twelve-way war.’
‘Not we, Bill.’
There was a lengthy silence.
‘And that’s your final word?’ the Chairman said.
McCracken nodded.
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Pentecost took the grip of the sawn-off double-barrelled shotgun that he always kept screwed to the underside of the boardroom table, swivelled it lengthways and pulled the trigger twice.
Nothing happened.
Until McCracken slapped his good hand on the table, leaving two cartridges there.
The men gazed at each other, faces graven in rock. Pentecost finally cracked another half-smile. This time he seemed genuinely amused. ‘I should have wondered why you were waiting in here alone after last Thursday’s meeting.’
‘Yes, you should.’ McCracken drew the Walther from inside his jacket. ‘Of all your recent errors, Bill – and there’ve been plenty – that was the worst.’
Outside in the lobby, Mick Shallicker waited. Some of the other underbosses were still to arrive, and those already here he’d ushered into the lounge. He was standing there alone when a single pistol-shot echoed from the boardroom.
A second passed, and then its door opened a few inches.
‘Mick,’ came Frank McCracken’s voice. ‘We need a clean-up crew. Meanwhile, start sending my fellow directors through to the office. One at a time.’
Chapter 47
By the early hours of the morning, the whole of Santa Magdalena had become a crime scene. The dilapidated structure of the care home glimmered blue as innumerable beacons swirled lazily along its drive, maybe a dozen police vehicles intermingled with CSI vans. The main building had already been cordoned off with incident tape, while an outer cordon had been deployed around the perimeter of the grounds, including the lake. Nobody moved in the inner circle unless they were clad neck-to-toe in Tyvek. A few yards to the right of the building’s main doors, a couple of detectives and medical personnel stood in discussion alongside the unmoving shape of Alyssa Torgau. Near to them, but outside the inner cordon, seemingly oblivious to the presence of the corpse, DSU Nehwal and a couple of her oppos from Serious pored over a collapsible trestle-table, on top of which a number of foolscap sheets had been spread out, all now encased in protective plastic. The cardboard cylinder bearing the bulldog logo, from which they’d been carefully extricated, was propped alongside t
hem, also inside an evidence sack.
‘We’ve just heard from the hospital,’ someone said.
Lucy glanced up from where she’d been sitting glassy-eyed on the low wall at the edge of the water. Beardmore stood there. He’d removed his Tyvek coveralls and was now straightening his lapels and the knot of his tie.
‘Tessa’s going to be okay,’ he said. ‘Severe concussion, that’s all.’
‘I hope she’s not going to get into any trouble, sir?’
He shrugged. ‘She shouldn’t have come up here alone.’
‘Yeah, but from what I’ve heard, the van that led her out here was running under a duplicated plate rather than a dummy one. There was an actual vehicle of that make and model, with that same registration mark, owned by a legit firm. She had no cause to assume she was tracking a wrong un.’
He pondered this.
‘She was just following her nose,’ Lucy added. ‘Having a bit of a snoop. Isn’t that what good detectives do?’
‘She could’ve called it in when she heard the baby.’
‘Come on, sir. Moment of panic. She probably would’ve done anyway, but they clobbered her as soon as she ran inside.’ She shook her head grimly. ‘It fooled me too, I’ll be honest.’
‘Yeah, well, to tell the truth, Lucy … it’s you that’s giving me the headache. Not Tessa.’
She glanced up at him.
‘Aren’t you supposed to be on sick leave?’ he said.
‘Oh,’ she sighed. ‘It’s a long story, sir.’
‘And what’s all this “sir” business?’
‘Sorry, Stan. I’m not quite with it.’
‘You don’t believe in making my life easy, do you?’ he said. ‘How can I put you forward for a commendation when you weren’t even supposed to be here?’
Even in her current state of mind, Lucy was surprised by that. ‘A commendation?’