by Daniel Cole
Winter moved aside as the tour group descended upon The Bronze David and headed over to speak with Chambers, who looked to be struggling with his radio.
‘This is Chambers. Go ahead.’ He received only an assortment of clicks and crackles in response. ‘Repeat: this is Chambers. Go ahead!’ he half-shouted, this time receiving an assortment of tuts and headshakes from the geriatric crowd who were straining to hear their guide as it was.
‘Who was it?’ Winter asked him.
‘No idea. This bloody weather …’ He huffed. ‘I’m going to find a phone. You stay here.’
‘OK.’
‘Don’t move.’
‘Got it.’
‘We’re leaving the second I get back.’
‘Right.’
Apparently satisfied, Chambers hurried away to flash a member of staff his ID card, Winter using the time to walk around some of the other pieces while the tour guide continued his spiel:
‘… and of course depicts the biblical account of David and Goliath, which I presume we’re all familiar with?’
A sea of grey hair bobbed up and down in reply.
‘… Now, while not the original, this replica, cast in the late eighteen hundreds, is a work of art unto itself.’
Winter strolled over to the next statue, keeping one eye on the door for Chambers.
‘… a perfect copy of Donatello’s masterpiece in every way but one …’
Ears pricking, he joined the back of the audience.
‘… Can anyone tell me what?’
Everybody looked blank, but then a frail hand rose in the air.
‘Yes?’
‘The sword … or lack thereof.’
‘Very good! Front seat for you on the way home,’ joked the guide. ‘Now, does—’
‘Hey! Excuse me!’ called Winter, pushing his way to the front. ‘Excuse me!’
‘Can I help you?’
‘What was that?’
‘I’m sorry, sir, but as you can see, I’ve got my own group to—’
‘About the sword!’ Winter raised his voice over him. ‘What about the sword?’
‘That it doesn’t have one,’ replied the man irritably.
‘Yeah, I can see that.’
‘But the original does. In Florence, David is still holding the weapon he used to take the giant’s head.’
A look of mounting concern on his face, Winter shoved his way free of the crowd and tore out of the hall after Chambers.
‘Evan?’ asked Marshall, the rain hammering painfully against her scalp. It was clear that he was afraid, his bloodshot eyes suggesting that he’d been crying as he grasped the bag tightly like a security blanket.
‘Detective … Marshall?’ he asked, his voice deep yet having a childlike quality to it.
‘That’s right,’ she smiled. ‘There are a lot of people looking for you.’
He frowned, unable to hear her over the rain.
She took a stride towards him.
‘Do not take another step!’ barked the voice in her ear.
Shooting an angry glare at the reception area, Marshall turned back to the giant:
‘I said: there are a lot of people very worried about you!’ she shouted. ‘Where have you been?’
‘With Robert.’
‘Is he here?’ she asked, looking up at their illuminated audience.
‘No.’
‘Do you know where he is?’
‘No.’
‘But he knows that you’re here?’ she asked him, edging a little closer.
‘Yes,’ Evan nodded, looking nervously at the armed officer to his left. ‘He told me to give this to you or Detective Chambers only,’ he said, patting the bloated bag in his arms.
Watching the bomb squad arrive on scene in the background, Marshall’s face betrayed no reaction as she turned her attention back to the ominous gift from Coates. Fearing the answer, she knew the question she had to ask next:
‘What’s in the bag, Evan?’
The phone on Chambers’ desk started to ring for a third time, prompting Lewis to actually get up and answer it on this occasion:
‘DS Chambers’ phone,’ he said, taking a sip of his tea.
‘Lewis?’
‘Chambers?’
‘Where’s Marshall?’
‘Apparently she went to deal with some sort of incident down in the lobby.’
‘What sort of incident?’
‘Some sort,’ he reiterated.
‘I need you to do something for me. Is there a sketchbook anywhere on my desk?’
Taking another leisurely sip of his drink, Lewis glanced over the piles of paperwork besieging the computer:
‘That would be a negative.’
‘Shit … Is any of Marshall’s stuff there?’
‘Yes. Her coat and her bag.’
‘Look in there,’ Chambers told him.
‘Ummm. I don’t feel very comfortable with—’
‘Just do it!’
‘OK! OK!’ said Lewis, stealing a quick look to see who was about before he started rummaging through a colleague’s personal possessions: ‘… Got it.’
‘Good. Take it downstairs to Marshall.’
‘But she’s—’
‘Put me through to reception and then take it straight down to Marshall. Tell her whatever she’s dealing with, it can’t be more important than this.’
‘What’s in the bag, Evan?’
He offered it out to her.
‘Do not take it from him,’ Nighton buzzed in her earpiece.
‘Evan, you’ve done what Robert asked,’ said Marshall softly. ‘So, I need you to just put the bag down and step away.’
He shook his head: ‘He told me to give it to you.’
‘I can’t take that from you. I need you to put it down for those people over there,’ she said, gesturing to the bomb disposal officers waiting close by.
‘No!’ he yelled, beginning to get worked up.
As he retreated from them towards the building, a chorus of clicks emanated from the officers’ weapons.
‘Wait!’ shouted Marshall, holding her arms out desperately on seeing the fear and confusion on his face.
Nighton was in her ear again:
‘Don’t you do it. I mean it, Marshall. Don’t take that bag from him.’
‘He’ll run if I don’t,’ she told him decisively, forcing a smile onto her face before slowly approaching the terrified man.
Tentatively, he handed over the almost weightless bag.
‘OK, Evan. You’ve done it. Now I need you to do exactly as I say, all right?’
He nodded.
‘I need you to get down on your knees.’
‘But … it’s wet.’
‘I know. But you have to.’
With great effort, the enormous man got down onto the ground yet still stood fractionally taller than her.
‘And I need you to put your hands behind your head.’ Watching her demonstrate, he interlocked his fingers. ‘That’s right … just like that.’
‘Move in! Move in!’ bellowed one of the officers, Evan shooting her a look of betrayal as he was shoved onto his front and his arms restrained.
‘Detective Marshall,’ buzzed Nighton. ‘I want you to gently place the bag down and walk back towards me.’
Slowly, she followed his instructions, the bomb squad swarming in as Nighton came rushing out to meet her:
‘I’ve got Detective Chambers on the phone for you.’
Re-entering the building, Marshall frowned on seeing her sketchbook out on the reception desk and picked up the receiver:
‘Chambers?’ she asked with a sniff, water streaming from her wet hair.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Easton’s giant just turned up outside.’
‘… Alive?’
A puddle began to form around her feet, her saturated clothing freezing where it clung to her skin:
‘He wanted to give us something: a bag … from Coates.�
��
‘What was in it?’
She glanced out at the group waddling about almost comically in their cumbersome protective gear:
‘Bomb squad’s looking now.’
‘… Have you got your sketchbook?’ he asked her.
‘Yes.’ Picking up on the urgency in his voice, she decided not to enquire how it got there.
‘The Bronze David,’ he told her.
She flicked through the pages, each one another life lost, until she reached the penultimate picture:
‘OK?’
‘Is he holding a sword?’
‘Huh?’
‘A sword. Is David holding a sword?’
She stared down at Coates’s sketch: ‘… No. Why?’
Turning to Winter, Chambers shook his head, both men sharing the same troubled look:
‘He drew the replica,’ said Chambers, desperately trying to put the pieces together. ‘Why would he draw the copy?’
Across town, Marshall’s expression mirrored her colleagues’ as she watched a member of the bomb squad pick up the large sack and start walking towards the building.
‘They’re bringing in the bag now,’ she told Chambers, the pages of the sketchbook flipping of their own accord as the officer came in from the storm.
Looking decidedly unimpressed, he dropped it at her feet:
‘Safe,’ he told Nighton, in a way that implied he’d wasted their time.
‘What’s in the bag?!’ Chambers demanded.
With the phone clamped between her ear and shoulder, Marshall crouched down. Cautiously, she started to pull the drawstring opening apart to peer inside. And then she reached in, plunging her hand deep into the brittle contents.
‘Marshall, what is it?!’ he asked again.
‘… Leaves,’ she replied, removing a black and brown handful that cracked between her fingers. ‘It’s just leaves.’
‘Laurel leaves?’ asked Chambers as Winter paced anxiously.
‘Hard to tell,’ said Marshall. ‘They’re all dead. But … yes. I think so.’
‘Why send us a bag of dead laurel leaves?’ he pondered out loud.
‘Eloise!’ Winter gasped, grabbing Chambers’ arm, his eyes wide with fear.
It took a moment for the pieces to fall into place – the bigger picture they had been missing all along: Coates leaving them the sketchbook, drawing a replica of a statue that never fit the pattern, the missing person guaranteed to catch their attention, and an empty threat against one of their own – all conspiring to push their already limited resources to breaking point, leaving him free to complete his work.
It was always all about her.
‘Marshall,’ said Chambers with an audible tremble in his voice. ‘I need you to find out where Eloise was taken.’
Winter stared at him in confusion as Marshall asked: ‘… Taken?’
He hadn’t wanted them to find out like this.
‘… I had her arrested earlier this evening,’ he admitted, now suspecting he had made a mistake.
‘You did what?!’ yelled Winter, shoving him backwards into the wall, his fists clenched.
‘When were you going to tell us this?’ asked Marshall, her concern outweighing her anger.
‘Just find out where she is,’ said Chambers. From the look Winter gave him, he knew that he would never forgive him for what he had done. ‘Tell them he’s coming for Eloise … Tell them to send everyone.’
CHAPTER 33
The city lights blurred into a neon dreamscape as Winter sped them through the traffic, Chambers relinquishing the keys, knowing that his own unresolved issues would only slow their progress. Feeling acutely aware of the pins that held his leg together, he gripped tightly to the seat with both hands, afraid that the car might flip every time they took a corner at speed.
‘Can you get that? … Chambers? … Chambers, pick it up!’ Winter yelled at him, swerving round the car in front, only narrowly missing an oncoming lorry.
The radio was chattering away, inaudible over the engine noise, its feeble orange backlight lost in the kaleidoscope of colour beyond the windows. Releasing his grip, he reached out for the handset:
‘Chambers. Go ahead.’
‘They never made it back to the station. No reply on Eloise’s phone or the officer’s radio,’ advised Marshall, the panic in her voice evident, the wail of sirens coming through the speakers jarring with their own. Winter glanced over at him, too many emotions to read painted across his face. ‘We’re en route to the flat,’ she continued. ‘Local unit is three minutes out.’
‘And the team at the woods?’ asked Chambers, now holding a hand against the dashboard just to stay balanced.
‘They’ve been alerted.’
Winter put his foot down when the traffic lights ahead turned red. Dropping the handset, Chambers grabbed hold of the door handle as they reached the junction, headlights coming at them from all directions, the sound of squealing brakes and car horns everywhere and then fading into the distance as they continued on.
Shaken, he groped around for the transmitter: ‘Received. Out.’
‘There they are!’ said Winter, gesturing to the line of flashing blue lights tearing across the bridge.
Swinging the wheel round, they were both thrown fleetingly from their seats as the car mounted the kerb and careened over a pedestrianised area – and then again as they returned to the road on the other side, Winter accelerating aggressively up the ramp that led onto the bridge. As the traffic pulled aside to allow them past, he stamped his foot to the floor, quickly catching the rear of the convoy.
‘Come on. Come on. Come on,’ he muttered under his breath.
A road sign flashed by.
‘Her flat or the woods?’ Chambers asked him. It wasn’t his decision to make with so much at stake.
The slip road started to form, the tarmac offshoot widening with every metre they travelled. Still undecided, Winter edged over the road markings, hovering half-in, half-out of both lanes as the fork in the road materialised.
‘Her flat or the woods, Winter?!’ cried Chambers, straightening his legs to push himself back into the seat.
Manoeuvring fully into the exit lane just as the metal barrier rushed past the windows like a train travelling in the opposite direction, Winter changed down a gear, the strobe of their colleagues’ vehicles flickering in and out of view as he undertook them one by one.
Against the backdrop of a city sparkling in the rain, the summits of iconic skyscrapers claimed by the clouds, the cluster of blue lights continued along one of its countless concrete veins like the insufficient antidote to a systemic illness.
All but one: a single dancing light breaking away from the others.
A single dancing light, alone in the darkness.
Units were already on scene by the time Marshall jumped out of the car and sprinted inside, passing several of her colleagues on the stairs. She burst into the apartment to find two uniformed officers administering first aid to another, who was lying perfectly still, barely breathing, on the living-room floor. There were clear signs of a struggle.
‘Eloise?’ shouted Marshall. ‘Eloise!’
‘There’s no one else here,’ one of the officers told her. ‘But the door was locked from the inside.’
She frowned at him.
‘Neighbour heard screaming earlier,’ announced one of the herd of people squeezing through the doorway. ‘She presumed it was just music or on the TV.’ He must have seen the look of utter desperation on her face because he then added: ‘I’m sorry.’
She glanced down at the incapacitated man at her feet:
‘Ambulance on its way?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Tell them pancuronium bromide. Got that? Pan … cu … ronium,’ she said, already heading through to the bedroom. ‘We’ve got blood in here!’ she called, following the crimson trail to a pair of stained scissors lying on the carpet.
‘It’s not his!’ confirmed the officer tendin
g to his colleague.
‘Radio!’ demanded Marshall, someone rushing over to hand her theirs.
‘Chambers. Winter. Come in.’
Flinching when the passenger door glanced a wooden fence post, Chambers reached for the handset as Winter waterplaned them through the flooded entrance of Wimbledon Common and raced down the gravel track road.
‘Go ahead,’ he replied over the scream of the engine.
‘She’s not here. Repeat: she’s not here!’
‘Detective Marshall!’ called the officer whose radio she’d borrowed, her heart sinking on seeing the look on his face as he gazed into the wardrobe in the corner.
‘… Wait one,’ she told Chambers, bracing herself for the worst as she rounded the bed, only now noticing the blood smeared on the wooden door. She took a deep breath as the officer moved aside. Expecting to see a body, her mouth fell open on peering straight through the wall into the apartment next door.
She turned to her dumbfounded colleague:
‘Grab two others and go round the front … Go!’ she told him when he failed to move, stepping inside the dark wardrobe and pushing the hanging clothes along the rail as she passed through an arch of carefully removed bricks into a nightmarish version of the room she had just left.
Discarded frameworks stood empty, lethal and open like giant mantraps waiting for her to stray too close. The dark walls, grey on first inspection, were in fact graffitied sketches layered atop one another … hundreds upon hundreds of them, each a work of art. And a head of human hair lay in the very centre of the room, as if the floor had swallowed a person whole. With hesitation, she knelt down and picked up the damp wig of tangled black hair as the front door burst open.
‘Jesus Christ,’ she muttered, holding the radio back up to her mouth: ‘Chambers? … Chambers, come in.’ The speaker just wailed with feedback. ‘Chambers, come in!’
‘Mr Christopher Ryan,’ she heard one of the officers read aloud as he flicked through a handful of post addressed to the seven-year-old corpse currently residing in the medical examiner’s freezer.
‘Chambers!’ she tried again, resting her face in her hands in defeat.
‘Marshall?!’ he yelled into the handset, gravel stones striking the car like bullets as they sped through a gauntlet of moving trees.