Truth or Die

by Katerina Diamond

  ‘Wait here, I’ll go and check it out,’ he said.

  ‘Not a chance.’

  She knew what he was thinking, he could see it on her face. She was right behind him as he walked to the front door. He rang the bell and there was no answer.

  ‘They’re gone,’ a voice shouted from across the road.

  Adrian turned to see the door to the house opposite open and an elderly gentleman standing in the doorway.

  ‘Lorry came this morning, a big ‘un. Left about an hour ago.’

  ‘Did Dr Pike say where they were going?’ Adrian pulled out his warrant card and walked across the road to speak to the man, Imogen following.

  ‘His wife’s Japanese; he said they were moving back to Japan because her mother was seriously ill.’

  ‘Thank you. When was this exactly? Do you remember?’

  ‘I think it was around nine in the morning. It was weird, though, because I used to talk to Kimiko a lot and I’m sure her mother died a few years ago.’

  Imogen turned to Adrian. ‘Japan? We don’t have an extradition agreement with them; if he’s gone, he’s gone.’

  Adrian handed a business card over to the man. ‘Thank you for your help, sir. Could I ask your name?’

  ‘My name is Graham Parsi.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Parsi. I don’t suppose you remember the name of the lorry company?’ Adrian said, pulling his notebook out and scribbling the time, name and other information on the page.

  ‘I think it was Chadwycks.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  They walked back over to Pike’s house and looked into the windows. Everything was gone. No pictures on the walls, no rugs or chairs or bric-a-brac, nothing. In terms of timing, this solidified his guilt in Adrian’s eyes. It took some time to organise shipping to another country and so Pike had been planning on leaving for a while, probably from the moment Hugh Norris was murdered. The other murders were just to get his affairs in order before he left. Maybe he hoped that he would get away with it. Effectively he had got away with it, though.

  They got back in the car and Adrian started the engine.

  ‘What do we do now?’ Imogen said.

  ‘Japan? It’s Heathrow or Gatwick, he’s got maybe an hour head start on us. We call it in and then we have to get in touch with the Met police at both Gatwick and Heathrow, so they can be waiting for him. He can’t be there yet. We need to get Gary to check and see if Pike has tickets for anywhere and to find out where the Chadwycks lorry was taking all his stuff. Maybe we can intercept his belongings, as well. All the main players are dead apart from Pike; we can’t let him get away.’

  ‘Do we just follow him without any evidence?’ Imogen asked.

  ‘It’s our best lead right now; we need to speak to him at least. If we wait for confirmation before we start driving then he just gets further away from us.’

  ‘How do we keep Parker out of this? Do we keep Parker out of this?’

  ‘He’s gone. If he wasn’t, then Marcus Pike would be dead. He won’t be back. He’s got no reason to return. We just have to concentrate on bringing Pike in for now. Let’s get in the car and start driving. I reckon he would go A303, then via the M3 onto the M4 rather than go to Bristol and around. There’s some major delays on the M4, they announced it earlier, so he would want to join that as late as possible if he is going to Heathrow. Gatwick makes more sense to go M3 anyway. You can call the DCI and we can get in touch with Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire police on the way; they can be on the lookout for his car.’

  If Adrian had to then he would take the blame, lose his job or go to prison for this. For now, the murders would be attributed to Finn Blackwell; he had confessed to two of them in front of Adrian, it wouldn’t be that difficult for Adrian to say he remembered more from the night of the fire, to cover for Parker. If he did this though, everything Gary said was right.

  Adrian had been disappointed when they didn’t find Marcus’ dead body in that house. Who had he become? More lies. Adrian couldn’t help but feel that he was stacking karma up against himself. He had to stop making decisions outside the law. He knew the difference between what was just and what was legal, but he had no right to make those decisions. Adrian was becoming someone he didn’t recognise.

  Imogen squeezed his fingers and he knew he had to change. He had to get back to the simplicity of the law, to stop imposing his own morality on others. He was putting Imogen in danger. Was there any way back for him now?

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Adrian had just driven past Yeovil when Imogen finally finished speaking to DCI Kapoor on the phone.

  ‘She’s going to call us back, but for now we keep going. Gary is suspicious about the lack of mention of Marcus Pike in all the documentation they have,’ Imogen said.

  ‘What if we don’t get to him in time? What if this is a double bluff?’

  ‘He doesn’t have that much of a head start on us. If they can find out where he is flying from then we can get to him.’

  ‘What if it’s neither of those airports?’ Adrian said, trying not to think the worst.

  ‘The DCI checked and neither Exeter nor Bristol have flights to Japan today. Chadwycks have confirmed the containers are off to the city of Sapporo on the island of Hokkaido, which is where his mother-in-law lived. The neighbour was right; she was already dead. The DCI is getting someone onto the Road Policing Unit with Pike’s reg number. The ANPR will pick it up hopefully and confirm we are going the right way if they get no luck with finding out where he’s flying from. Don’t forget, at this point he has no idea we are onto him. He thinks he’s got away with it. Now that Finn is dead as well there is no way to link him to the murders. He doesn’t know that we figured the game out, or that we linked him to previous students.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’

  Imogen turned to Adrian. ‘What’s going on with you? You’re not yourself. Are you sure you should be back at work? Being held captive in a burning building can’t have been much fun. Maybe you need to see the station shrink? There’s no shame in it; I had to.’

  ‘No. I’m fine. Just tired and worried this scumbag is going to get away. How could they get away with this shit for so long without anyone noticing?’ He couldn’t tell her what was really bothering him.

  ‘Because kids do stupid stuff, kids commit suicide and have accidents. We all just write them off as kids doing irresponsible and dangerous kid things. Who would think of a scenario like this?’

  ‘I guess. I just find it hard to swallow that this has been happening under our noses for so long.’

  The phone rang; it was Gary. Imogen put it on loudspeaker.

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘The Automatic Numberplate Recognition has picked him up going past Stonehenge. It’s a bottleneck there at the moment, so the traffic isn’t moving anywhere. You should be able to make up some miles. Where are you now?’ Gary said.

  ‘Just coming up to Wincanton, so just over half an hour. I’ll put the woo-woos on and we can get there in twenty minutes. Are there any local police in the vicinity?’ Adrian asked, putting his foot on the accelerator as Imogen reached into the glovebox for the siren.

  ‘The DCI is worried about the jam sandwiches spooking Pike and so they are setting up a roadblock near Andover before the road splits off. There should be enough time to do that before he gets there the way the traffic is at Stonehenge.’

  ‘What’s a jam sandwich?’ Imogen asked unhelpfully.

  ‘Police car. They used to have a red stripe through them, completely doesn’t apply any more,’ Gary explained.

  ‘The road is pretty clear here, so we should be able to make some headway,’ Adrian confirmed.

  ‘I’ll call again with any developments.’ Gary rang off.

  Imogen put the phone away and gripped the dashboard as Adrian moved as fast as he could. If she was talking, he couldn’t hear her. He was so focused on getting to the target that everything disappeared except the road ahead of him.

 
; ‘We can do this. We can get him,’ Adrian said eventually.

  Maybe if they got Pike he would feel less guilty about letting Parker go – again. He knew he couldn’t let two killers go in as many days. What would be the point of him then? He found himself slowly pressing down harder on the accelerator. He wasn’t going to let Pike get away. He couldn’t.

  ‘Careful, Miley. There’s a roadblock up ahead. We’re going to get him no matter what. We know where he is; he isn’t getting away with it,’ Imogen said, her voice low and soothing but also slightly panicked.

  He couldn’t slow down though; he had to keep going.

  ‘We’re making good headway, only eighteen miles to go. Any updates from Gary?’

  ‘He says Pike’s still on the A303, but he’s coming to the end of the bottleneck and he will be out the other side soon enough.’

  Adrian had to get there before he got away. He watched the speedo climb until it was almost at the 100 mph mark. He had to make sure he paid attention to the roundabouts dotted along the road. He could do this though. The steering became lighter and he had to concentrate on not moving even a little or he might hurl the car into a country pub. He could get to where Pike was in ten minutes at this speed. Ten minutes, that was all that separated them. Did Pike even have a clue they were onto him? Was he watching over his shoulder? Or did he think he still had the luxury of today and tomorrow, maybe the weekend? After all, he had eluded them thus far.

  They approached the bottleneck and Adrian was forced to slow the car down. The cars in front all started to pull away from the centre of the road as the siren approached. He drove the car through the centre and continued to gain ground on Pike, wherever he was. The traffic after the Amesbury bypass was steady and moving at a decent pace; they were gaining ground.

  ‘We’re only a few miles from the roadblock now. He is somewhere between there and here,’ Imogen said.

  Adrian put his foot down again. The stretch of road in front of them was long and tilted upwards and to the right. He could see a long way ahead. His eyes narrowed on the cars up in the distance. At some point, their flashing lights would come into view of Pike’s car and he would make a move for it. Natural instinct when you are being chased. As Adrian weaved in and out of the traffic, he realised he had been almost completely ignoring Imogen. He had to admit to himself that he was feeling guilty for lying to her; he didn’t need a police-mandated shrink to tell him that. He didn’t see that he had any choice though. The selfish thing would be to tell her the truth, so they could share the burden, but he wasn’t going to be selfish, he was going to take this on himself.

  ‘Look!’ Imogen said, pointing at a car a mile or so ahead of them; it was speeding up.

  It was entirely possible, of course, that it was some other shady character on the run from the law, but it was much more likely that it was Marcus Pike, finally feeling the noose closing around his throat.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Adrian muttered under his breath to no one but himself.

  Pike’s car disappeared around the bend up ahead and Adrian accelerated to catch it, his heartbeat thrumming in his chest. He was almost there, he had almost got him. They were closing in on Pike and it wasn’t far until the roadblock. They were coming up to Andover. As Adrian pushed forward, he saw smoke up ahead. A car – Pike’s no doubt – had tried to swing round on the slip road onto Weyhill and slammed into another car coming the other way, the right way. Adrian pulled up to the car and they both saw the driver’s side was open. On the passenger side, a woman who must be Kimiko Pike was groaning, bloodied head against the window, the airbag deployed in front of her.

  ‘I’ll see to her. You see if you can find Pike; he must be on foot somewhere. He’s clearly not up this slip road.’ Imogen got out of the car and slammed the door. Was she annoyed with him?

  ‘He went that way!’ a man in a car further back called out. He pointed back towards the A303.

  Marcus Pike was running, to where Adrian didn’t know. Starting the car again, Adrian drove forward the two hundred feet Pike had travelled and stopped the car. He jumped out. Pike was an old man and so he was never going to outrun a car. As Adrian rushed forward, Pike climbed a brick wall. Adrian realised that they were on top of a railway bridge that ran over the London-bound train tracks.

  ‘Stop!’ Adrian called out.

  ‘I’ll jump! Just let me go,’ Pike shouted.

  ‘I can’t do that,’ Adrian said. ‘Get down and we can talk.’

  ‘There’s nothing to talk about! Did Finn talk, is that how you knew about me? I didn’t think he would.’

  ‘Finn told me lots of things. Please get down off that wall.’

  Pike looked over his shoulder at the train tracks below, clearly trying to gauge whether he could make the jump or not. There was no way he could land that fall and then be able to get up and run afterwards. Still, Adrian watched as he considered it.

  ‘I knew this lot would be the ones. You know? There was something about them. I should have kept Caitlin Watts around, but she was about to crack and I couldn’t risk it; she would have kept Finn under control though. She kept all the boys under control. She was a great find.’

  ‘How long had it being going on?’ Adrian tried to ignore his personal feelings about what Pike was saying, that Caitlin was coerced into sleeping around as part of their sick little game. It was tantamount to prostituting her.

  ‘It was just me and Coley to begin with. A gentleman’s bet twenty-three years ago. But then the others joined in over time. Lassiter was the most recent addition.’

  Pike was confessing, this was not a good sign. He was going to jump. There was a distant sound of sirens, coming; Imogen had obviously called for back up.

  ‘Do you have a list of the students you brought into the game?’ Adrian said, stalling. As soon as the other police officers arrived on the scene of the crash, Imogen would make her way to him and she could help persuade Pike to hand himself in. The fact that Adrian hadn’t been able to talk Finn down had knocked any confidence he had in his own negotiation skills.

  ‘No. I have destroyed everything, you won’t find a shred of evidence against me.’ Pike turned and looked down onto the tracks again.

  ‘You won’t make it; it’s too high! Get down.’

  ‘I think we both know it’s too late for that,’ Pike said before turning his palms face out and closing his eyes. Adrian lunged forward as Pike tipped backwards, his fingers just centimetres away from his jacket that whipped up as he fell. He couldn’t make it in time. Adrian’s hands gripped at the wall and he looked over the side. The train was passing through. Pike’s arm lay by the side of the track and Adrian heard the screech of the train’s brakes. He was dead.

  A myriad of mental images, combined with what Adrian had seen, forced his breakfast to the surface as he turned and threw up on the pavement next to the brick wall. Imogen’s hand rested on the small of his back; he had not seen her run over to him. Overcome with emotion, he turned and put his arms around her. It had been a long week and an even longer case. He could only hope that it was over now. He made a promise to himself as he felt her arms around him. He would never lie to her again. If he did it would destroy them and she was too important to let go.

  ‘What happened?’ Imogen said.

  ‘He jumped,’ he said, pulling away, embarrassed by his momentary emotional weakness.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she said.

  ‘I will be. What about you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m just dandy. Looking forward to putting this case behind us finally.’

  ‘Maybe we could get away together for a few days,’ Adrian said.

  He desperately needed a holiday, but he didn’t want to be away from Imogen right now. He wanted to move forward and he wanted it to be with her.

  ‘I’d like that. Have you anywhere in mind?’

  ‘As long as you’re there, I really don’t care where we go.’

  ‘I know exactly what you mean,’ Imogen s
aid. He could tell she was thinking about kissing him and what was left of his professionality fought hard not to oblige.

  More police cars arrived on the scene and Adrian composed himself. He had to lie one last time to put this all behind them. No one could ever know that Parker had been in the house with him when Finn Blackwell died.

  He turned to Imogen. ‘Let’s hope this is the end of it.’

  They would work through the names of the students they had gathered and speak to the very few who had come through the game unscathed. Coley, Lassiter and Mitchell’s murders would get lumped in with the rest, and Adrian would go back to praying that Parker stayed away. Even if his gut told him that was unlikely, he was allowed to hope, wasn’t he?

  Acknowledgements

  Firstly, I would like to say a huge thank you to the people who read this series. I love hearing from you through my Facebook page or on twitter. I’m also extremely grateful to those people who leave Amazon reviews, because I love seeing what you guys think.

  Thank you also to my family for putting up with me leaving half empty notebooks and scraps of paper everywhere.

  Thanks to everyone at Avon Books, my wonderful publisher, for my great covers and all the hard work you put in. Thank you as well to Phoebe Morgan, my editor, who does an excellent job of turning my messy first drafts into something people want to read.

  Thanks to Diane Banks and Kate Burke at Northbank Talent, for working so hard on my behalf. I absolutely couldn’t do this without you. Thanks as well to Ciara and James.

  Thanks to Jeremy Fewster, for advice on the scenes I hate writing.

  Thanks to all the book bloggers who support me and take part in the blog tours on my novels, as well as writing kickass reviews. You do a fab job and I really appreciate it. Also thanks to the Book Clubs on Facebook, including TBC and The Fiction Café – keep reading books!

  Thanks as well to my fellow moderators in Crime Time Book Club on Facebook.

  To my crime writing friends, thank you for being the most brilliant bunch. After years of feeling like the weird freak who says wildly inappropriate stuff in social situations, I met you lot. You are all wildly inappropriate and I love hanging out with you. I finally found my tribe.