Blood Ties

by Jane A. Adams

  Alec watched in silence as Gavin’s car pulled up and blocked Susan’s in, as he dragged Naomi from the car, as she fought back, and then Susan’s indecision.

  ‘He’s been here before, I think,’ the building supervisor said. ‘We had complaints about someone in a red car hogging the space. Mrs Rawlins’ ex has been here too. She took out a restraining order against him some time ago, so the downstairs neighbour, Mrs Richards, she took it upon herself to make a note if he ever came around. She told me the other day he’d been here.’

  ‘Dean, go and see if she can pinpoint when,’ Blezzard said.

  ‘She’s the lady who called us,’ Dean said.

  ‘Oh, she’ll know,’ the supervisor told them. ‘She’ll have a record of the date and time and duration of stay, if I know her. She’s a one-woman neighbourhood watch, is Mrs Richards. Bless her, she’s on her own and doesn’t have a lot else to keep her interested.’

  Alec ran the recording again, trying to discern more about Naomi’s state of mind and that of Gavin. It was easy to see how Susan was coping.

  ‘He looks nervous,’ Alec said. ‘Can we zoom in on the knife?’

  The supervisor fiddled with something and focussed in on the hand holding the blade. ‘Looks like one from the cottage,’ Alec said. ‘I noticed them because the handles are unusual. Sort of pierced metal. His hand is shaking,’ he added. He took a deep breath.

  ‘We’ll get to them,’ Blezzard said. ‘Alec, she’ll be all right.’

  Dean reappeared with a list in his hand. ‘Last Tuesday at about eleven thirty,’ he said. ‘And Thursday at ten in the morning. Mrs Richards is sure she’s seen Gavin Symonds here before too. She’s almost certain it was on the Thursday morning and he was talking to Susan’s ex.’

  They soon pinpointed the dates and times she had specified on the CCTV. Brian, uncharred and still living, walking across the car park. Susan giving him the cold shoulder. Brian again; Susan shorter with him this time. A glimpse of the red car in the background. Then Gavin walking over to Brian as he stood by the car. The two of them leaving a short time after and, as Brian’s car left the car park, Gavin’s pulling away just ahead.

  ‘So, you were right,’ Blezzard said to Alec. ‘They did know one another.’ His mobile rang and he stepped away to take the call.

  ‘What is it?’ Alec demanded, when the call was finished.

  Before he could reply, Blezzard’s phone rang again. He held up a hand to silence an impatient Alec and listened, then thanked the caller. ‘They’ve been spotted at Eddy’s place,’ he said. ‘I’ve told everyone to hold back. We’ll get the negotiators in.’ He nodded to Dean, who went to make the call.

  Alec grimaced; he knew from experience that they would take their time getting there. Negotiating teams had to be called, mobilized, briefed, and got to the scene, often from a good distance away. Like tactical firearms units, they were always around but not always where you wanted them.

  ‘And the other phone call?’

  ‘The post-mortem on Brian Rawlins won’t be done until tomorrow, probably, but the preliminary examination shows that the fire was not the cause of death.’

  ‘He’d been stabbed,’ Alec said.

  ‘Once. Just below the ribs.’

  With the knife Gavin was still using, Alec thought.

  THIRTY

  ‘Get out of the car,’ Gavin said.

  Naomi complied. They had driven out into the countryside; she knew that from the way the road surface had changed and the number of bends had increased. It was very quiet now, just birds singing and that faint susurration, born on a fresh wind, that she associated with the Levels.

  ‘We’re at Eddy’s house,’ she guessed.

  ‘So what if we are? Get inside.’

  ‘I can’t see,’ Naomi reminded him. ‘You’ll have to show me the way.’

  ‘You, help her,’ he snapped at Susan, and Naomi heard the other woman move around the car, felt her take hold of her sleeve.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Naomi asked.

  ‘Not really. No, I’m sorry, I couldn’t run, I—’

  ‘Shut up,’ Gavin said, ‘and get inside.’

  Naomi could imagine him anxiously looking around. She’d have expected the CSI to still be here now that the cottage was a major crime scene. Yes, it was possible they could already have left, but someone would have been keeping an eye on the place, surely. She heard Gavin opening the door. ‘Did you see anyone on the road when we came in?’ he snapped.

  ‘What? No, no one.’ Susan sounded too distracted to have noticed, anyway.

  Naomi tried to imagine what may have been happening. With luck, someone would have seen Gavin taking them away, would have called the police. Someone would have guessed where Gavin would take them, would have officers watching. They would be found, they would be safe. With luck.

  Of course, it could be that no one saw, no one acted, that the forensic officers had simply finished and left and Alec would be cross because she wasn’t answering her phone.

  She preferred the first option, Naomi decided.

  ‘Get in there,’ Gavin demanded, and Susan turned to the left of the hall and led Naomi into what she remembered had been Eddy’s office. ‘Sit down over there.’

  Susan led her to the couch in the corner of the room and they both sat down.

  ‘Now, shut up and stay put.’

  She heard him leave and the door close, heard something being dragged in front of it. Didn’t he realize that the door opened inwards?

  She didn’t actually think he was aware of anything much any more, not in any logical way, which was worrying in that he may no longer see the logic even in keeping them alive.

  ‘What will he do with us?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Naomi told her. ‘We’re his insurance.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Yes. Are there windows in this room?’

  ‘One, why?’

  ‘So we can get out.’

  ‘Are you crazy? He’ll hear us. Where would we go?’

  If she was right, then someone would see them getting out and rescue would not be far away. But was she right? ‘Is it big enough to get out of?’

  ‘It’s small, but I suppose so.’

  ‘See if you can get it open. Just open it and then come back over here. Do it fast.’

  ‘What?’ Susan was squeaking with fear now.

  Naomi turned to her and reached to grasp her by the shoulders. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘if I could do it I would, but you’re the only one in the room with all five senses intact at the moment, so it’s up to you. Go and see if we can get out through there.’

  ‘No. I can’t. He’ll hear and he’ll come back.’

  ‘Then you’d better be quick, hadn’t you?’ Naomi hardened her tone. ‘Look, help might be on its way, but we might have to help ourselves. I want to be prepared, and while you’re about it, look for anything we might be able to use as a weapon.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Susan, get a grip. Now.’

  She heard the other woman draw a deep and very shaky breath, but then felt her get up and heard her start across the room, pausing at every slight sound. She heard the slightest click as the latch was lifted on the window, the louder metallic scrape. She held her breath as Susan flew across the room and fell back on to the sofa. Both women listened intently but Gavin did not come back into the room.

  ‘I tried it,’ Susan whispered, ‘but I think it must be painted shut or something. I couldn’t get it to budge. I daren’t push it any harder in case he heard.’ She paused, evidently thinking about it. ‘I never saw that window open,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t come in here much. It was Eddy’s room.’

  OK, plan B. ‘Anything we can use as a weapon? Is there a fireplace?’

  ‘Just an electric fire in here. I can’t see anything.’

  A sound in the hall silenced them. Dragging away whatever he had stood in front of the door, Gavin came back in.

  ‘How long
are you going to keep us here? It’s cold.’

  ‘I’m thinking,’ he said. ‘You know, I searched this place. He was supposed to have stuff here, stuff he found. Where is it?’

  ‘His finds are all in that cabinet over there,’ Susan said. ‘But there’s nothing valuable. He didn’t find anything valuable.’

  ‘So you say.’ He snorted in disgust. ‘I mean, look at this place. Not even a decent computer. The old guy had nothing. Nothing. I reckon that solicitor of yours is winding you up. Look at the state of the bloody house. That’s not worth a damn either. He was a fraud, a phoney. He had nothing. Nothing.’

  ‘I don’t want anything from him. He was a friend. Whatever he left me, I’d much rather have Eddy back.’

  ‘Right, sure you would. Do you know what that old man was really like? Not just a phoney and a fraud, but a blackmailer. He killed my father, drove him to suicide. He persecuted him and wore him down until he didn’t know what to think or how to cope any more and he drove his car into a frigging wall. Your Eddy was a murderer. That’s all he was. He deserved what he got. I just wished I could have made it slower, that’s all. Slower and more painful, just like it was with my dad.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Susan protested, and Naomi realized that was absolutely true. They’d been busy discovering the truth about Eddy Thame but Susan had been out of the loop.

  ‘Don’t you? You make me sick, you really do.’

  ‘Eddy was kind. He was gentle. He never hurt another human being in his entire life. It’s you that deserves to die. You!’

  ‘Yeah, right. Dear old Eddy, kind sweet old Eddy. Let me tell you what he really was. He was cruel, devious, unforgiving. He didn’t give a damn for what he did to me, to my dad, to our family. He hounded and hounded and my father killed himself because of it and anyone that can’t get their frigging head around that deserves what Eddy got. And that ex-husband of yours? He thought he was too clever for me, didn’t he? Thought he could just turn around and walk away.’

  ‘You killed Eddy and Brian, didn’t you?’ Naomi said.

  ‘Damn right, and damn right there’s nothing to stop me killing you. Who’s going to know?’

  He left and slammed the door behind him, dragged the useless barricade back across.

  ‘He killed Brian? And Eddy? And what did he mean about Eddy?’ Susan demanded. ‘You know, don’t you?’

  Naomi sighed. ‘Eddy discovered that Gavin’s father had caused the crash,’ she said. ‘He couldn’t get enough evidence for the police to make an arrest, so he took things upon himself. He made sure Gavin’s father never forgot his guilt.’

  ‘And he killed himself?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, my God.’

  ‘Eddy never stopped grieving,’ Naomi said gently. ‘It stopped him from thinking rationally about some things. He couldn’t let it go.’ Trouble was, she thought, neither could Gavin.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Blezzard pulled on to a narrow track alongside a copse of trees, joining officers already assembled there. Someone handed him a pair of night-vision glasses and he looked back towards the cottage before passing them to Alec.

  ‘No movement since they arrived. We don’t know where in the house anyone is. Any eta on the negotiators?’

  ‘No,’ Blezzard said.

  Alec looked. The cottage appeared quiet and empty, only the red car giving any hint at occupation. Behind the house he could see the garden stretching out into farmland, bounded by stream and hedge. Beyond that he could just see the point at which the path ran from the bend in the road and across the fields. Before coming out here they had looked at computer maps and Google earth and Alec now had a good sense of the lie of the land. They had discussed what Alec had seen the day he had gone to Eddy’s cottage; the day Gavin had hit him over the head.

  ‘If there’s anyone in the kitchen, then they can see down the full length of the garden if you leave the lights off. So approaching from the rear is difficult. You’d have to stay in the shadow of the hedge and then make your way round to the front through the little gate. From the front you’ve got cover, but as you get close the hedges block the view from the house. You’d have to be in Karen’s room, though, to see the road, so anyone in the house would be as blind to what was going on as anyone trying to get near.’

  He thought now about the way Gavin had probably gained entry. Through the landing window. Alec wondered if he could do it, make the climb without alerting Gavin or pulling the downpipe from the wall. Gavin was a good bit lighter and somewhat shorter than Alec.

  He kept those thoughts to himself, knowing they’d be met with an immediate negative from Blezzard.

  ‘So, what now?’ he asked.

  ‘We wait. We call the house phone and see if Gavin answers. If he does, we try and build up some kind of rapport and then hand over to the negotiators when they get here.’

  ‘And how long will that take?’

  ‘Who knows,’ Blezzard said. ‘They’re on their way, that’s all I know.’

  Alec sighed and leaned back against the car. It had been a long day. It seemed like forever ago that he and Naomi had gone to see DI Bradford, or even since they had spoken to Gavin’s mother. Now the early dark of a winter evening had closed in and cut them off, it felt, from the rest of the world.

  Blezzard left his side to go and speak to the officer who’d been on scene when the car had arrived. It had already been dusk, difficult to see much, but he had been able to identify a man and two women, one woman leading the other inside.

  Abruptly, Alec made up his mind. A couple of weeks before, he had been ready to blame his friend, Mac, for acting without reference to anyone else. For not confiding or trusting. Now, he knew he was on the verge of acting in much the same way, but he could not just stand by and wait. He’d seen Gavin on the CCTV recording and knew that man was now long past being rational in his thinking. He was past the negotiating stage, Alec was sure of that.

  There were a dozen officers standing around in the gathering gloom of the copse, chatting quietly. Content to wait. Another time and Alec might have been one of them. It was odd, he thought. All of this indecision he had suffered lately about his future, his aspirations, his career, and yet, in a sudden moment of clarity, he realized that all the agony had been wasted. It was the next minutes that would decide everything that would happen in the coming years, not just the coming hours, and it needed no thinking about, in the end.

  He stepped back, behind Blezzard’s car and into the deeper shadow of the trees. No one was looking his way and Blezzard was deep in conversation, poring over a map spread out on the bonnet of a car, scrutinizing by torchlight what they’d previously looked at on the computer screen. He had the images in his mind, fresh and strong and reinforced by the view through the night-vision glasses. He wished, for a moment, that he could have taken them with him, but the officer who’d lent them to Blezzard had taken them back and dropped them on to the seat of the car Blezzard now stood beside.

  Alec knew what he was doing was foolish and, on all sorts of levels, that it was wrong, but he couldn’t help himself. A few paces and he was out of the woods and on to the road. A solid surface beneath his feet, Alec turned and began to run.

  ‘Do you think they’ll have noticed we’re missing yet?’ Susan seemed to have calmed down a bit. Boredom will do that, Naomi thought. Boredom will take you to the point that you almost wish something, anything would happen, just so you can break the tedium by being scared again. She knew, because she’d been in a situation like this before. A little like this, anyway.

  ‘They’ll know. They’ll be looking for us. Likelihood is they’ll have a very good idea what happened. You have CCTV at the flats?’

  ‘Yes, CCTV and Mrs Richards.’

  ‘Mrs Richards?’

  ‘The old lady who lives on the ground floor on the right as you come in. She sees everything. She lives on her own and likes to sit beside her bedroom window, watching the
comings and goings. She can see the street from there. It’s not much of a view but she seems to enjoy it.’

  ‘Good,’ Naomi said. ‘Every crime scene needs a Mrs Richards.’

  Susan almost managed a laugh. ‘How come you’re so calm?’

  ‘Oh, don’t be fooled. I’m not, but I’ve learnt it doesn’t help to panic. I’m trying very hard to follow my own advice.’

  ‘What do you think he’s doing?’

  ‘I have no idea. He’s so quiet.’ It was hard, she thought, to build any kind of rapport with your captor when they didn’t actually come and talk to you, and he’d not been back since just after Susan had tried to open the window.

  Maybe they could try the window again.

  ‘Is it dark in here?’

  ‘Very. Why?’

  ‘Do you think you could switch the light on?’

  ‘Won’t that make him mad?’

  ‘I don’t know. Is there a desk light or a small lamp or anything?’

  ‘Um, yes, a standard lamp.’ She got up and switched it on. It was close to the sofa; Naomi didn’t think Susan would have had the nerve to cross the room again to find it.

  ‘Do you want to try the window again?’ she asked hopefully. She felt Susan shake her head.

  ‘No way. I told you it was stuck.’

  ‘OK, it’s all right. I won’t ask again.’ At least the light might be visible, she thought. If there was anyone out there to see then they’d notice the light and know what room they were in. Wouldn’t that help?

  Sighing and suddenly deflated, she slumped back against the cushions of the sofa and closed her eyes.

  ‘Naomi!’ Susan’s voice interrupted her thoughts. ‘Naomi, I think he’s coming back!’

  Alec found the path with little difficulty. He followed the bend in the road until the thick hedge gave way to a stile. As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom he could make out the flat field, the hedge and the large bulk that was Eddy’s house. Forgetting the actual path, Alec set off across the field, heading straight for the cottage. He couldn’t run here, the field being too wet and claggy and his footwear not exactly appropriate for the task. He slid and slipped and felt as though he was trying to run through treacle, or wet beach sand that sank beneath his every step. He wondered if they’d missed him yet.