by crime The King of Terrors (a psychological thriller combining mystery
Tremain retrieved his gun, aiming it at the woman. His breathing was laboured and his eyes betrayed his desire to send a bullet into her back. ‘Now do you believe me? There’s a reason she was kept sedated!’
‘You gullible fools…’ Erica said faintly, her breath pumped from her by the weight of the man.
Lambert-Chide signalled for him to get off her. ‘Don’t listen to her,’ said Tremain. ‘She’s lying. She’s the one.’
‘So you’d like to believe,’ Erica said, rising to her knees. She ran a hand over her head; her fingers came away smeared in scarlet and she glowered hard at Tremain.
‘Shut your mouth, you lying bitch!’ he said.
‘Let her have her say,’ said Lambert-Chide, being helped to one of the chairs. He massaged his neck.
‘Surely you don’t believe her?’ he said.
‘Quiet, Randall,’ he said. ‘Go ahead. Let’s hear it.’
Erica sat up. She glanced briefly at Gareth, who appeared totally dumbstruck. ‘Muller and I were in on this together,’ she said. He’d been tasked with finding this Evelyn Carter woman. OK, so he wasn’t entirely sure why, but that didn’t really matter. What mattered was that he found her and deliver her to you. He wasn’t stupid; he knew she was immensely valuable to you. Knew how much manpower and money you were willing to put into this. The reward for delivering her to you was enough to suggest she was special, very special. After all, it would make him a very rich man.’
Lambert-Chide saw Tremain was about to interject and he held up his hand for him to remain silent. ‘You recruited Muller personally, didn’t you, Randall?’
‘He passed through all the checks.’
‘But it took another, Caroline Cody, to spot what his game was, to double-cross us.’
‘What are you saying?’
He ignored his head of security and addressed the woman. ‘So, tell me who you’d like us to think you are.’
‘Muller figured he’d help things along. He’d guarantee that he’d be the one to find this Evelyn Carter for you. Except that it wouldn’t be the real one, it would be her double. I was working for a small-time modelling agency when he approached me with an offer. He wanted you to think he was hot on the trail of Evelyn, and I helped create that illusion. You were never going to get her, of course; once we had the money we’d divide the proceeds and disappear, a whole lot richer. But he got greedy. He decided that he’d double his chances, by leading you on to believe that Gareth here was her son. Everything, me falling in front of his car, the brooch – an expensive replica; we had all the details from your website – all an elaborate setup. I didn’t mean to end up in hospital; I slipped. But it inadvertently helped convince you that I was Evelyn. We even convinced Doradus, whoever he is.’ She looked over to Gareth, whose face displayed a rising anger. ‘My guess is if Gareth is here then Muller is either dead or has taken the money and run. Either way it’s time to come clean. Game over. I’m pissed off with having those fucking needles stuck in me.’
There was a strained silence that hung in the air for a minute as Lambert-Chide digested her words and marshalled his thoughts. ‘What is it you hope to gain by all this? Even if what you say is true, you can see your position is hopeless. I can’t let you live.’
She shrugged. ‘First of all, this man is no more than an unwilling and unwitting pawn in all this. He isn’t, and never was, that special person you thought he was. Second, my position isn’t as hopeless as you’d like to believe. At the start of all this I took out a little insurance. I paid a visitor to a solicitor and left him a letter in a sealed envelope. If I don’t return to claim it then he’s instructed to open it and act upon the contents. It’s all there, trust me. You and your company won’t come out of this in a good light. Muller knew enough about your secret project for it to damn you if it ever got out. Oh, and don’t feel left out, Tremain, you get a hefty mention too.’
Gareth was reeling with this latest revelation. The knowledge that he’d been nothing more than a helpless tool in someone’s lust for money made his insides boil with rage. He looked over to Lambert-Chide, whose face gave nothing away. He was nodding slowly, his eyes staring at the woman but his mind obviously working over other things.
‘All I ask is you let me go and pay to keep me quiet,’ she resumed. ‘Whatever you do with Gareth is up to you. I don’t care.’
At last Lambert-Chide rose from the chair. He picked up the photograph album. ‘I admire your audacity and creativity.’ The image of Evelyn Carter was smiling up at him. ‘But of course we can prove it in very little time. A simple DNA test from you both will settle things once and for all. Either way, you are mine to do with as I please, in spite of your pathetic insurance policy. Solicitors are notoriously materialistic. A suitable payment will buy silence. And if not, well there are many different ways to get people to stay silent.’
‘You can’t believe her, surely? It’s all a pack of lies!’ complained Tremain.
‘There is the small possibility she might be telling the truth. Time will tell. Take them both away. Put them in the same detention room. I think they need more time to get to know one another.’
Tremain disagreed. ‘I don’t think –’ he began.
‘What have I told you about thinking, Randall?’ he burst angrily. ‘I’ve had enough of these games. Take them away, and you’d better pray that she is telling lies, Randall.’
Lambert-Chide was clearly incensed by all this, thought Gareth. Irate at the fact that he may have been so easily duped. Or perhaps that his plan, his precious project, was in danger of collapsing like a pack of medical cards. Things weren’t looking good, he thought, whichever way you viewed it. If anything, the woman’s revelations had made things a whole lot worse.
With an acquiescent grunt, Tremain hauled the woman to her feet and brandished the gun at Gareth. He glanced over to Lambert-Chide, but the man had his back to them all. ‘If they cause the slightest trouble, Randall,’ he said, his voice a little cracked and husky, ‘kill Davies and take the kneecaps off the woman. Don’t kill her just yet. There’s plenty of time for that.’
Lambert-Chide waited till they’d all left the room and then lifted the photograph album, peering at the images for a good two minutes, his chest beginning to heave, the breath rattling in his throat. Then he threw the album across the room, his cry shrill and banshee-like.
The room was small, no more than six feet square, with no windows, its walls painted an insipid cream colour. A single bulb inset into the high ceiling bathed the interior in a dull, half-hearted glow. The floor beneath them was made of shining black ceramic tiles. Gareth beat at the locked door with his fist. There was no handle on the inside of the brushed-steel door.
‘That won’t do you the slightest bit of good,’ she said. She was sat cross-legged on the floor, her back against the wall and her gaze resting somewhere at a point just in front of her feet. Her hand still had blood between the fingers, her hair matted and bloody.
Gareth groaned in frustration and anger and turned sharply away from the door. What she said made sense, but it galled him all the same to be reminded that he was in a desperate situation that he could fathom no way out of. And what’s more he was stuck with the woman who’d admitted she’d dragged him kicking and screaming, literally, into this damned mess.
‘I don’t care to hear your opinions,’ he snapped. ‘Christ, to think you almost had me fooled back there as well! What on earth was I thinking?’ He found himself becoming infuriated by the nonchalant shrug of her shoulders. ‘I’m in God knows what kind of shit because of yours and Muller’s greed – you think that makes me feel good about things? I’ve been subjected to hell since you came into my life, and I can’t for the life of me see any way this is going to end well.’ He slammed his back against the wall and folded his arms. ‘The lowest thing you did was that you made out you were my sister. You know how that cuts me up? If Tremain doesn’t kill you then I’m tempted to do the bloody job myself!’
She put a hand to her forehead. Held it there a while, shielding her eyes, and then ran her fingers back through her hair. She flinched when she touched the wound. He noticed how absolutely beaten she looked, as if she’d given up caring about anything. ‘What can I say? I’m sorry.’
‘You’re sorry? You’re fucking sorry?’ He let out a humourless laugh. ‘That’s alright then, isn’t it? That’s guaranteed to make everything better.’ He went over to her and she eyed him cautiously. ‘Why has he put us in the same room together? Is he hoping I’ll rip your throat out or something? I tell you, he’s not far wrong on that account.’
She nodded towards the ceiling, to the far corner. He hadn’t seen the tiny plastic box. ‘They’re watching us, listening to everything we say. I don’t know, maybe to see if I’m lying. To see how we behave with each other.’
‘Great,’ he said. ‘It isn’t enough that we’re dumped here like animals.’ He joined her, sitting on the floor. ‘So what do I call you – Evelyn, Erica, Beth – what suits you?’
‘I prefer Erica,’ she said tiredly.
‘Is that your real name?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Suit yourself,’ He closed his eyes. ‘So does she really exist, this Evelyn Carter, or is it all a figment of the old man’s atrophied brain?’
She studied his face closely whilst he had his eyes closed. ‘Would be amazing if it was true, but no, it’s more the latter. Lambert-Chide is living in a dream world of his own making. But there again he has enough money to chase any dream, no matter how ridiculous. Do you miss not knowing your mother?’ she asked.
He breathed heavily down his nose. ‘Yes, I do,’ he said. ‘I guess we all need to know where we came from, who we are. I’ve spent so long hating her for what she did to me that I realise I’ve been consumed by it. It has coloured my life in a way that hasn’t been healthy. I wanted to ditch all that bitterness, and I thought I’d discovered a sister whom I could relate to, to help me get over it. But it turns out I’ve been living in a dream world of my very own making. It was all just too good to be true. She didn’t exist. Turns out she was a con artist all along. Story of my fucking life.’
‘Maybe she had good reason to abandon you,’ she said. ‘Maybe it was for the best.’
‘What do you care?’ he said angrily. ‘Keep your nose out of my business. It’s nothing to do with you. I don’t need to hear your little philosophy on life. For all I know you’re in the pay of Lambert-Chide, this is still all part of the game. I can’t trust anyone. And I ain’t about to start trusting you. So cut the fucking nice lady crap. Another word from you and I really will tear your throat out.’
It should have made him feel better, to get something off his chest. But instead it made him feel worse. He saw her fingering the top of her head. She looked totally beat up, a husk of a person with the insides all scraped out. He bent to her.
‘Here, let me take a look at that,’ he said.
‘It’s nothing. I’ve had worse,’ she said.
He felt so damned cheated. He thought he had a sister. Like coming up on the lottery only to lose your winning ticket. He desperately wanted to hate her also, but his capacity for hate was being spread a little too thin these days.
‘Whatever,’ he said, resting back against the wall and closing his eyes again.
* * * *
40
No Time to Scream
He stared hard at the piece of paper. On it was simply an address scrawled in blue pen. His own handwriting had gotten weaker, more spidery, he thought. Was that a sign of something? A sign of old age? What? Or was it foolish to read something so significant into a series of loose and florid lines on a torn-off page from a notebook? It had become less definite, that was sure, like him. Less definite about things. There was a time once when he knew what he knew and didn’t question things as readily; nowadays everything was there to be queried. Again, was that just maturity kicking in at some point, or the older mind struggling to comprehend? Needing answers. Well he needed one now like never before.
Four months, that’s all he had left. After four months he could close the door on all this and set off into the sunset in his brand new camper van. He didn’t need to be bothered with it anymore. So why was he getting so worked up? Because the force he knew and loved (after a fashion – all love is painful at times) was rotten, that’s why. When it had become so he didn’t rightly know, had never even suspected it was beginning to stink of decay. OK, so it was never perfect, always one or two bad apples to remove from the barrel, always something that happened that pulled the lid on dodgy practices, but this? This went even deeper, like a cancer that had infiltrated it so thoroughly he doubted you could ever get it clean again.
He felt totally crushed by Styles’ revelations. Dismayed to the point of depression. So what? He could easily wash his hands of it, leave them to sort it out amongst themselves, slink off to keep a low profile. After all, look what happened to Wood and Baxter. This Doradus bunch didn’t mess around. But it wasn’t as simple as that. They’d dirtied the thing he admired. He didn’t want to let it go, like Styles had insisted; to lie low and leave it up to him. He was a good police officer, and everything about this was so wrong it was rancid. That cut across the grain of decades of police work. He wanted to have a part in getting it clean again. He wanted to get even, especially with Superintendent Maloney. He bluntly told Styles that he wouldn’t rest until Maloney was behind bars, in spite of Styles’ protests. He’d do his best to crack this case and put Maloney’s head on a platter, and if that meant treading all over MI-bloody-5’s softly-softly approach then so be it. He still had four months left and he was going to use it to good effect. What was the worst thing they could do? Sack him?
Stafford looked at the piece of paper again. He went to the office door and called Styles into his office.
‘Close the door,’ he said and wagged a finger for Styles to come over to his desk. ‘I received a tip-off this morning.’
‘About?’
‘About the murdered Polish woman. It seems a man was seen running away from the flat on the night of the murder, chased by another guy.’
‘Where’d the tip-off come from?’
He waved the paper. ‘An old acquaintance of mine, one Robert Courtney. He’s been down for a number of offences in the past, mainly stealing cars and the like. Nothing major. He’s been going straight, so he says, but has now got a wife and kids to feed. Makes a little extra by feeding me information every now and again. Still has his contacts on the streets. Any light we could shed on this case could help bring Maloney down,’ he added.
‘OK, give it here, I’ll see what we can do,’ said Styles.
‘Bugger that!’ he said. ‘This is still my baby.’
‘You don’t want to do this, Stafford,’ said Styles. ‘Leave it up to us.’ He held his hand out for the paper.
‘Like hell I don’t,’ he said. He pocketed the paper.
‘You really don’t have to get involved any further.’
‘Maybe I do. For my own good.’
Styles looked down at his feet. ‘OK, bring the man in. We’ll both see him.’
He shook his head. ‘Not that simple. He wants me to go to him. We arranged to meet in the Collyhurst area an hour from now.’ He checked his watch: 8pm.
‘Can you trust him?’
‘Getting as you don’t know who you can trust these days,’ he said, and for some reason Charles Rayne’s anxious face and his delivering of his whispered warning sprang disconcertingly to his mind. He shrugged it away.
‘You’ve got to take me along with you then,’ he insisted.
‘But it’s my shout. Let me run things,’ he said. Styles shrugged his assent. ‘Gareth Davies has also gone missing.’
‘Forget him, his alibis stack up.’
‘No, I can’t; somehow the man is involved in all this. I just don’t know how yet. If he’s guilty in some way I want his arse for shoes. If he’s innocent he ma
y just well be in deep trouble and he’ll need my help.’
The car pulled up near a railway viaduct just as a commuter train rumbled across, the lights from its windows flashing down on them as the carriages whipped by. They got out of the car.
‘Why here?’ asked Styles.
They were standing on the edge of waste ground where houses had been demolished. Across from them were empty, derelict Victorian terraced housing, evidence that this had once been a busy and popular area. It had gone downhill fast. There was never enough money, even with the massive amounts spent on regeneration projects in Manchester. Some areas were being raised up, given new life, but some pockets, like here, were slowly sinking into crime and poverty, the recession feeding off these places like a ravenous hound.
‘Because it’s far enough out of the way not to be seen,’ explained Stafford. ‘He’d get short thrift if he were seen talking to me.’ He leant over into the car and took out a torch. Street lighting here was in dreadfully short supply. ‘This way,’ he directed. They picked their way over a rubble-strewn landscape to the row of empty houses, most of the windows boarded up, walls defaced by graffiti. ‘It’s this house on the corner,’ he said.
They glanced around but the place was deserted. Styles pushed at the old door to the house and it swung stiffly open. ‘Wipe your feet,’ he said, grinning widely as he stepped inside, his shoes crunching noisily on broken glass.
Stafford followed, shining the torch into the pitch-black living room, once home to hard-pressed working-class families who worked in the factories, nowadays not even a ghost of a home. ‘Courtney!’ he said. ‘Cut the games. Where the fuck are you?’ His voice came back at him, hollow and otherworldly. ‘Watch out for the holes in the floorboards, Styles,’ he warned, playing the torch beam over the floor.
Stafford narrowed his eyes. ‘You smell something?’ he asked, sniffing the air.