Blood Runs Cold_A completely unputdownable mystery and suspense thriller

by Dylan Young

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘I thought Sergeant Woakes would have—’

  ‘What’s Dave got to do with it?’

  ‘He said you’d sanctioned it.’

  ‘Justin, you are making no sense at all. Did you have a rough night?’

  ‘No.’ Holder sounded angry. Not like him. He caught himself and said, in a more measured way, ‘No, ma’am. Just a very confused one.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  Holder sighed. ‘Me and Ryia were ready to take the sample yesterday. It all worked out fine. I followed Morton out, watched him have a smoke. I was about to nick the stub when Sergeant Woakes turns up in full golf gear and nabs it in an evidence bag.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You didn’t know?’

  ‘No, I did not know. What’s more, I saw him last night and he never mentioned any of this.’

  ‘You were with Dave Woakes last night?’

  ‘I was with my sister,’ Anna said, very carefully, ‘and we bumped into him in a bar. He said nothing about it.’

  ‘This is doing my head in.’

  ‘Not half as much as it’s doing in mine. Did he say why he was at the golf club?’

  ‘He was togged up. Said he was meeting a friend there.’

  Another friend?

  ‘Justin, I didn’t sanction anything. It is possible that Dave was indeed at the golf club and wanted to lend a hand. But I did not send him. I know you and Ryia are more than capable.’

  ‘Thanks for that, ma’am. That’s a relief. Ryia was well cheesed off.’

  ‘I’m sure she was. Still, you did get the evidence?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK. Good. Then no harm done. I’ll see you tomorrow, Justin. Enjoy the rest of your day.’

  Anna picked up her coffee and sipped, but Holder didn’t ring off. Static crackled between them. Did he want to say something else?

  ‘Justin?’

  ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘Come on, spit it out.’

  ‘It’s just… since he arrived… things aren’t the same. And the way he was dressed at the golf club, it wasn’t subtle. I was worried that…’ He tailed off.

  ‘Right. I’ll speak to Dave about this—’

  Holder interrupted her. ‘So worried that I convinced Ryia we ought to follow Morton and get another sample. We did. He usually has a final cigarette when he gets out of his car at home. Uses an old bucket inside the front gate as his ashtray.’

  Anna smiled. Holder had done his homework in this case.

  ‘And I know it’s technically theft, but I got a friend of mind in Forensics to run the DNA sample today. She’s been threatening to show me how she does DNA extraction and the new Rapidspot tech. Ninety minutes from loading the sample to accessing the NDNA database, she said. And she was right. It’s amazing. She’s always banging on about enzyme buffers and resins to stop DNA degradation and vortexing the elution and stuff…’ he paused, realising he was rabbiting. ‘Anyway, I got her to show me on Morton’s fag-end sample.’

  Anna was shocked. If they’d taken evidence from Morton’s property, it would not be admissible. But it had never been meant for the courts. This was for elimination and she hadn’t heard Holder as anxious as this ever before.

  ‘And?’

  ‘The DNA on the cigarette from Morton’s garden is a familial match, but not the one found at the rape scene. So, it’s not the golfer we’re after, ma’am; it’s his brother, the paramedic.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I know. So, Riya suggested we check in on Peter Morton and here’s the thing: his wife had just been on the phone with Trinity reporting him missing. He didn’t come home after his shift yesterday. She thought we’d called in to talk about that.’

  Anna sat down at the little table. She kept quiet, giving Holder the floor.

  ‘We’ve just come back from visiting Dominick, the golfer whose DNA we now have. He has properties in Benidorm as you know. He spoke with his brother yesterday evening. Joked with him that someone at the golf club had been sniffing around nicking cigarette stubs. His golf partners thought it might be drugs related.’

  ‘So, someone saw Woakes pick up the cigarette butt?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘And now our suspect has flown the nest?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Looks like it.’

  Heat rose in Anna’s face.

  Shit.

  ‘Right, first thing tomorrow, get on to the Border Agency, see if Peter Morton’s actually left the country. If he has, talk to the National Crime Agency. He’s no longer just a person of interest, he’s wanted on suspicion. That way they can get in touch with the Spanish Police’s Fugitive Unit and they can find him for us if that’s where he’s gone.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ She heard the instant change in mood in Holder’s voice.

  ‘What a balls-up,’ Anna said.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  She killed the call, exhaled loudly and immediately rang Woakes’ number. He didn’t pick up. She left a message for him to call her back and paced.

  The call from Holder had left her confused. What was Woakes playing at? Was this a genuine helping hand, a question of being coincidentally in the right place at the right time, or was Woakes collecting badges in the hope of a gold bloody star?

  Angry, Anna did what she always did when she needed to vent: put on some running gear, tied the laces of her trainers, slid on her backpack and left the flat.

  After what she’d been through with the Willis case, the normal reaction would have been to at least choose a different route to the one where she was attacked and almost killed. But that was not Anna’s way. She jogged across the common, busy with late-morning walkers, relishing the sun’s caress on her neck, hit the pavements and ran exactly the route she’d taken the morning when Charles Willis shot her with a tranquilliser dart. Her only concession was to have her PAVA spray and telescopic baton in her backpack. She’d also taken some extra classes with the physical instructors at HQ. All a little after the horse had bolted admittedly, but in her line of work, she knew with absolute certainty there would be other wild horses.

  She ran until the sweat blocked her vision. Quite apart from the physical benefits, running for her was a tool. With her body distracted, her mind had free reign. Frustrations and problems were turned over in the background of her consciousness, dissected and, more often than not, some kind of decision reached. If she’d been an author, plots would have been resolved on her runs, or characters devised, the muse invoked. Today, her mind flitted between what Holder had told her, seeing Woakes in the Milk Thistle and a sunny park in Clevedon, but frustratingly, she didn’t know what to make of any of it. So much so that when she reached Horfield Common on her return, she paused to take on some fluid and rang Woakes again.

  Still no answer.

  Annoyed, she rang off just as a BBC news alert came up on her phone and distracted her. Another North Korean missile test dominated headlines as it had done for weeks and she flicked across to read the feed. The abduction of Blair Smeaton appeared halfway down. She called it up and a video clip of Blair’s mother’s appeal for information played. Anna watched it all the way through. It was depressingly familiar. Another vivid echo of the Willis case. Anna was never sure how much media appeals helped. They hadn’t helped the young girl Willis had taken then, and they were unlikely to help Blair Smeaton. Yet many people would see the video she’d just seen and empathise with Blair’s mother’s dread. The exact same dread Rosie Dawson’s mother would have felt nine years before.

  Sympathy and empathy were all very well, but they would not help catch the people who had done these terrible things. It was harrowing viewing made all the worse by knowing one could do very little. A frustration shared by the majority of the millions of readers and viewers.

  But Anna was not one of that majority.

  She could and had done something about catching these killers.

  Ten

  Blair heard the
door opening above her. A trapdoor into the cave. She looked up and saw the dog man standing there.

  ‘Hello, Blair.’

  She thought she heard her name but she wasn’t sure. She couldn’t hear properly without her aid. But it didn’t matter. He was a bad man, like Kirsty had told her. And though there was nowhere to run to, like Kirsty had told her, she found somewhere to hide. The man couldn’t move fast in the small cave, and the steps up to the doorway were narrow. She knew she had time.

  Blair grabbed the duvet and scuttled across to the hole in the ground she’d found after spending most of the previous day moving the stone. It hadn’t been easy. It was big and heavy and the only way she could do it was by sitting on the floor and using her arms as anchors behind her against the wall so she could use her legs to push the stone. But she had pushed it, slowly; inch by inch she’d pushed it so that it was wide enough for her to look into. Then pushed it all the way off the raised lip of the hole. When it toppled it cracked in half; the noise had frightened her, but it made pushing the final half off much easier. It left a hole big enough for her to climb into using her hands and feet and bum to scuttle down. It was gravelly and damp at the bottom but it was deep. Too narrow and deep for the dog man, she hoped.

  ‘Where are you going, Blair?’ said the man. ‘Come on out. I’m going to take you back to your sister and your mummy.’

  He clomped down the steps into the basement and Blair made herself as small as she could. She couldn’t see him now. She sat down in her hole, knees to her chest, eyes squeezed tight shut, the lantern at her feet filling the space with light. She could see her grubby knees and dirty hands.

  ‘BLAIR!’ the man yelled.

  She heard that alright. And then he was there, above her, his big face filling the hole opening. ‘COME OUT, NOW!’

  Blair shook her head.

  ‘Can you even fucking hear me?’

  He moved away but then came back and dangled his hand into the hole. Something dropped in. Pink, small. Her hearing aid. She put it in, switched it on. Sound came back.

  ‘Come out of the hole, Blair. People are waiting for you, Kirsty is waiting for you, your mother is waiting for you.’

  Blair shook her head.

  ‘I know you’re scared. I know it was a shock when I had to take you like I did, but you’re safe now. The bad people have gone. We’re on a big adventure, you and me. And once we’ve finished it, you’ll be on your way home. Don’t you want to see your mum?’

  Blair nodded.

  ‘Then come out and we’ll go.’

  Blair shook her head.

  ‘Come on, you must be hungry. I’ve got food. Bread and ham and crisps. All up here waiting for you.’

  Blair shook her head. She watched his face change then. Like a shadow moving across the sun. It darkened, flushed a deep purple before he leaned back and roared. When he looked back at her, he wasn’t smiling. She didn’t know what he was thinking but it made him ugly. When he thrust a hand down into the hole, stretching for her, reaching with clawlike fingers, it took her by surprise. She cowered, hands over her face. But he was too big. He could get his head and one arm in the hole but not the rest of him. And even with his long arm he couldn’t reach her. He grunted and spat and swore. It went on for what seemed like a very long time. Blair put her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut.

  When she took her hands away later after counting to fifty, the noise had stopped. She heard him walking. Back and forth, pacing. It stopped and his face came back into the hole above.

  ‘If you don’t come out, I’ll put the stone back and you’ll rot in there.’

  The cry came from somewhere deep inside, but she put her hands over her ears and her head down. She didn’t want to hear what the dog man was saying. And inside her she knew it wouldn’t work because the stone had broken.

  She felt water sprinkle on her head and knees. She looked up. He was there again looking down at her. Looking down and shaking his head.

  ‘Sorry, Blair. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t do that. I brought food, and wipes for you to clean yourself. I want you to look nice for when you see your mummy.’

  She closed her eyes and put her hands over her ears.

  ‘FUCK!’ screamed the dog man. ‘I don’t have time for this. I don’t have fucking time. We have to go now. If we don’t go now I’m going to have to leave you here for days. Do you hear? Do you fucking HEAR?’

  Blair waited. She heard him stamp back and forth for long minutes. Heard a thump as if he’d hit the wall with his hand. She looked up and saw his bulk above her. Heard the click and saw the flash of a camera. Several times. She listened hard and heard him walking back up the steps. Heard the door opening and shutting and then nothing.

  She strained to hear, strained hard and turned the aid up to the top level that sometimes whistled… but not today. And when she listened extra-hard, she heard him breathing. Fast breathing, like he’d been running. She didn’t know how long she waited but it ended quickly. His face appeared. Angry and ugly.

  ‘OK, stay there. Stay in your hole. But I will be back with something to prise you out of that well.’

  She heard him walk away, up the steps, the creak of the hinges, the door thudding shut. Still she waited and waited and waited, trembling in her dark hiding place. She listened again extra-hard and there was no breathing. Slowly, stiff from sitting with her knees bent, she stood. The walls of the hole – he’d called it a well, hadn’t he? – were 6 inches either side of her shoulders. She leaned against it with her back, put her hands behind her and slowly pushed herself up, bracing with her feet, like a caterpillar. She fell back once because she thought she’d heard a noise. The walls were rough and it helped with purchase but the climbing made her legs and arms shake. When she was almost at the top, she knew he wasn’t there because he would have grabbed for her by now. With one eye on the trapdoor, she pushed up and out and sat with her legs dangling, looking around at what was left. There was food. Packets of ham and bread and crisps and coke.

  She was hungry. She hoped Kirsty would be proud of her for hiding from the man. She hoped her mum wouldn’t be too upset. Blair pulled the duvet around her and wondered what day it was back home. Maybe it was still Sunday. Mum made a dinner on Sundays and let her and Kirsty watch films.

  * * *

  He sat in the car outside the building containing Blair’s cave, heart racing, livid. He thumped the steering wheel with his open palm hard half a dozen times until the pain stopped him.

  She’d ruined it.

  Ruined everything.

  Now, it was too late. Far too bloody late to get her out, drive across the bridge and trek to the venue safely. He needed time to do that. And it would have meant rushing things. And he didn’t want to rush things. Not this time. Too much depended on it.

  He hit the steering wheel again and glanced at the building. She may be out by now, laughing at him because she’d found the fucking well.

  Little bitch.

  He’d make her pay. He’d make her pay so much. But he couldn’t do it now. He exhaled, shut his eyes and tried to breathe easily, let the anger subside. He fired up the engine, drove out and headed back towards the city, letting the road take him while his mind contemplated and rationalised.

  After a couple of miles, he’d calmed down enough to consider his options. He had appetites and sometimes they raged inside him. But he was also a pragmatist. So yes, he’d been thwarted but he also realised he had more time. She was safe. She was secure. So what if she hid in the fucking well? He already knew of a way of getting her out. A simple way. But one that needed a bit of preparation. It was hopeless trying to get it done today. He’d have to wait for another opportunity. He had work commitments after all and it was important he kept to his routine. But with a little bit of tweaking he might manage the end of the week. He would manage it.

  Delicious anticipation ran through his veins like a drug, remembering her defiance in the well hole. Spirited, that one.
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  When he got back to where he lived in a sleepy street in a sleepy suburb, he backed his car in so that the boot faced the garage, got out and opened the garage door before popping the boot.

  Inside it was loaded with equipment. In a closed tool box were his cameras, both compact video and digital SLR. They would need to go into the house. But the rest were things he stored in the garage: a roll of plastic sheeting, nylon rope, duct tape, a large rucksack and a smaller toolbox that did contain tools, but not of the kind any sane mechanic would ever have seen or used.

  He placed them all carefully on a workbench at the rear of the garage, walked back out and locked the garage door. He removed the camera equipment from the boot, locked the car and entered the house, suddenly realising he was very hungry.

  Eleven

  Monday

  The office was warm though it was only seven thirty on Monday morning. Anna still thought of it as ‘the’ office, despite the fact that the name on the door was hers. She had the windows open and the door ajar to try and encourage some air flow. But the atmosphere was sticky. She hoped the morning wouldn’t be.

  The squad trooped in in turn. Khosa and Holder kept their conversation low, beyond earshot. Anna busied herself with summarising her impressions from her visit to Clevedon until Woakes arrived. He did at a minute after eight. No coffee this time, just him, full of it, all smiles and waves.

  Anna stuck her head out. ‘A word please, Dave.’

  ‘Said I’d give Forensics a buzz. Are you OK with getting Morton’s DNA premiumed? I didn’t think you’d want to wait for a slot—’

  ‘Now.’

  The smile didn’t falter, but it became childlike, inquisitive.

  ‘Shut the door,’ Anna said when he was inside.

  Woakes sat and adjusted the creases in his suit trousers. ‘I waited for you on Saturday. Got a better offer, obviously.’ His tone was all cheeky chappy.