Die Alone

by Simon Kernick

  The suspect turned to the other cops. ‘This man’s assaulting me. Are you going to stop him? I don’t know why he’s accusing me of all this.’

  ‘Sir, I think you’d better let him go,’ said one of the cops.

  Mo appeared at his shoulder. ‘Come on, boss, leave it alone.’

  ‘Yeah, do what your mate says, eh, boss? Leave it alone.’

  The suspect smirked as Bolt’s grip on his shirt tightened. He thought of Tina, maybe dead already. Then he thought of Leanne. Their life together. Their retirement plans.

  He let go, and shoved the suspect back against the car.

  ‘If we find Tina Boyd’s body, then I swear to God you’ll go down for murder. Twenty-five years minimum.’ He looked over at the second suspect, a younger guy in his thirties who was standing facing the car with his head down. ‘And that goes for you too. Twenty-five years.’

  The second suspect didn’t react.

  Mo tugged at Bolt’s arm. ‘Come on boss, we’ve got to keep looking for her.’

  Bolt turned to the armed cops. ‘All right, take these two to the nearest station and keep them there. We’ll take this up later.’

  With that he turned and walked back to the car, knowing that for Tina time was running out fast.

  If it hadn’t run out already.

  47

  ‘I once had a client who despised her husband so much that she didn’t just want him dead, she wanted him to suffer very, very badly beforehand. I didn’t ask why. That wasn’t my concern. My concern was, as it always is, to do my job and get paid, and this particular job was comparatively lucrative. It took some planning and some help from a colleague who’s no longer with us, but eventually I managed to get our target, shaken but unhurt, to a nice quiet place, just like this one. My client wanted to have her husband’s death live-streamed to her at home, so we set up a link. I changed into some splash-proof clothing, and got to work. I used a cordless drill on him. It was a long, unpleasant job because the client was very specific about what she wanted done, and it took him well over an hour to die. I got no pleasure from it. None at all. Contrary to what you might think, I’m not a sadist. But I was paid to do a job and I did it efficiently and well. I’ve been paid to do a job here too, Tina, and it’s entirely up to you how painful we make it.’

  The hood was ripped off Tina’s head, and she stared up at the woman she knew as The Wraith.

  She cut a terrifying figure. She was wearing a ‘Scream’ mask and a white plastic painter’s smock that ran all the way from her neck to her knees, and in a gloved hand she was holding a cordless power drill, with a thin bit already attached.

  ‘I’m going to ask you some questions,’ she said, ‘and if you give me the right answers you’ll be left here alone and alive, and once I’m safely on my way out of the country, an anonymous call will be made to the police and you’ll be freed.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ said Tina. ‘You said that last time. Then you shot me.’

  The Wraith smiled. ‘And somehow you survived. I’ve read up on you, Tina. You’re a survivor. I admire that. I’d rather let you live if I can. We can never have enough strong women in the world.’

  Tina watched as she placed the drill on a nearby worktop, then looked round the room. They were in what looked like a cavernous mechanic’s workshop with large ramps on either side of them, and tools littering the floor, but no cars. The chair she was tied to was made of wrought iron and had been chained to each of the ramps, which was why it was impossible for her to move it.

  She took a deep breath. Behind the door opposite her she could hear the muffled voices of the men who were guarding her. There was no escape. She knew that.

  ‘So what do you want?’ she said at last.

  The Wraith turned back to face her. ‘What I want is not to have to use the drill on you, Tina. I also heard you were stubborn. Sometimes that’s a good trait. Today, it definitely isn’t. So, my first question to you is this: who was the individual who collected Mason by car from the woodland near your house on Saturday evening?’

  Tina hesitated. It was one thing betraying Ray when he was out of the country, but to give up the names of Steve and Karen Brennan, a retired couple grieving for the loss of their daughter, to the Kalamans was a much harder proposition, especially as the Kalamans were ruthless enough to go after them. Or worse still, send this psycho bitch to get them.

  ‘I won’t tolerate hesitation, Tina. Answer me.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Tina. ‘Ray organized it all. He told me the less I knew about the details the better.’

  There was a pause. Then The Wraith picked up the drill again. She switched it on, the sound a thin, metallic shriek, reminding Tina of long-ago, stomach-churning visits to the dentist.

  She stood in front of Tina, the bit whirring manically. ‘Perhaps we should start with an easier question,’ she said above the noise of the drill. ‘Are you right-handed or left-handed?’

  Tina swallowed, knowing what was coming. Suddenly absolutely terrified, she knew that she was going to have to give the Brennans up.

  Still she hesitated.

  Without warning, The Wraith drove the bit into Tina’s left hand between two of the knuckles, pushing down hard.

  Tina writhed in agony, eyes shut, teeth tightly clenched, a low, desperate howl rising up from inside her, but she was being held firmly in place by the straps, and The Wraith’s free hand which was on her forearm.

  The pain seemed to last for ever. Tina tried to lurch forward to headbutt her tormentor but she could hardly move. Helpless as the bit split through her palm before being slowly, ever so slowly, withdrawn.

  The Wraith turned off the drill and quickly and expertly placed a strip of dressing over the hole in Tina’s hand. Blood ran out from under it, dripping first onto the chair arm, then onto her leg.

  The pain began to fade as shock and adrenalin took over, but Tina’s fear remained exactly the same.

  ‘You did well keeping quiet while I did that – I’d thought we might need a gag,’ said The Wraith amiably, stepping back and looking down at her, her dark eyes sparkling behind the mask. ‘Now that was just a little taster. The next insertion is going to be through your anklebone, and I can tell you, having administered it before, that the pain dwarfs what you’ve just experienced. So once again, who was the person who picked up Mason?’

  Tina took a series of deep breaths as she tried to stop herself from panicking. Knowing that if she gave the answers, she was signing her own death warrant. Knowing that if she didn’t, the torture would simply continue until the woman got the answers she wanted. It was an impossible choice. She was damned both ways.

  Once again she hesitated.

  It was a bad move. The Wraith’s eyes narrowed in anger beneath the mask and she picked up the drill again, switched it on, and grabbed Tina’s face, coming in close. ‘You’re trying my patience, bitch,’ she snarled, and pushed the drill into Tina’s hand a second time, forcing it all the way through to the palm before ripping it back out.

  This time Tina screamed, or tried to, but The Wraith’s gloved hand was covering her mouth.

  Suddenly all she could see was the drill bit, dripping blood and torn flesh, taking up her field of vision, coming closer and closer.

  ‘Are you going to talk, bitch? Or do we miss out the ankle altogether and just go for your eye?’

  Tina nodded frantically.

  The Wraith removed her hand and took a step backwards, looking down on her with eyes like flint.

  Tina swallowed, trying to ignore the pain and the blood pumping out of her hand, trying to fight down the rising panic that threatened to overwhelm her.

  ‘OK,’ she said tightly. ‘I’ll talk.’

  48

  Mike Bolt was driving in the direction of Tottenham High Road while Mo sat beside him with a laptop open on his lap, trying to narrow down a location for Tina into something manageable, when the radio burst into life.

  ‘Tango 4 to all
cars, we have an issue here. Over.’

  Tango 4 was one of the ARVs carrying the suspects who’d been arrested a few minutes earlier. Bolt knew that each suspect had been put in a separate car so they could no longer communicate.

  ‘Tango 4, this is Beta 1,’ said Bolt urgently. ‘What’s the situation?’

  ‘I’m the situation, Beta 1,’ said another voice. ‘I’m one of the men you’ve just nicked. I’m a UCO in deep cover with the Kalamans. I can’t even give you my real name.’

  ‘But you know where Tina Boyd is?’

  ‘Yes I do. My problem is, if her location comes from me, it could blow my cover and jeopardize the whole Kalaman op, and I can’t have that.’

  ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘She is at the moment.’

  ‘What the hell’s that meant to mean?’ demanded Bolt, who was losing patience fast.

  ‘They’re bringing someone in to question her. They’re sure she knows where Ray Mason is.’

  ‘This is life and death,’ Bolt told him. ‘Where is she?’

  The UCO sighed loudly. ‘Jesus, this isn’t good. OK, they’ve got her at a place called Premier Motors. It’s down at the bottom of Hartland Road, close to the railway line. You reach it down an alleyway. There’s a signpost at the end.’

  Mo was already typing the details into his laptop. ‘I’ve got it,’ he said. ‘Take the next left. According to this, it’s a four-minute drive.’

  Bolt slowed the car down to take the turning. ‘Beta 1 to all units, did you get that?’ he shouted into the radio. ‘Go to Premier Motors Hartland Road now. Tango 4, how many suspects are holding her? And are they armed?’

  ‘This is UCO, Tango 4. When I left, there were two suspects, both IC1 males, both armed, guarding Tina Boyd. And as I said, I think there may be a third either en route or there now. But you have to do this without blowing my cover.’

  ‘We’ll be able to come up with something,’ Bolt promised, taking the turn and accelerating as other units announced that they too were on their way.

  ‘See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?’ said The Wraith with a smile.

  Tina felt sick. Dressing had been applied on the second wound but she was still bleeding from the palm, and a grapefruit-sized bloodstain had formed on her jeans. But her sickness didn’t come from pain, it came from her guilt. She’d betrayed the Brennans, told this monster who they were, and how Steve Brennan had picked up Ray and transferred him to France.

  The Wraith finished typing something into her phone, then picked up the drill. ‘Next question. What’s Ray Mason’s phone number?’

  ‘I don’t know. We both threw away our burner phones.’

  ‘But you’re communicating with him. I know that. And if you say you’re not, then this is going in your ankle right now.’ She had already removed Tina’s left shoe and sock ready for, as she put it, ‘a quick insertion’. Tina knew the injury would make her lame for life, but also that if she gave out this last bit of information then her life could almost certainly be measured in minutes, if not seconds.

  But what choice did she have?

  ‘Yes, we are.’

  ‘How?’

  Tina took a deep breath, gutted about what she was on the brink of doing, the thought of that drill through her ankle making her do it. ‘Email. We communicate in the drafts section so no messages actually get sent.’

  ‘Ah, a very useful method,’ said The Wraith. ‘I use it myself sometimes. And what is the email address?’

  Tina told her, giving away her final nugget of information.

  ‘Down to the end and turn right, boss,’ said Mo, holding onto the dashboard as Bolt raced down the road, wondering what kind of undercover operation allowed a UCO to take part in an armed abduction of a civilian without telling his superiors about it. But he had little time to think about that now. If the Kalamans were sending someone to get Ray Mason’s whereabouts out of Tina they would almost certainly have her killed afterwards. Which meant they might already be too late.

  He braked hard as he came to the junction then turned right in a screech of tyres.

  ‘OK boss, we’re on Hartland Road now. Straight down, and it’s just before the railway arch on the right.’

  Bolt could see the arch already, a quarter of a mile ahead, and he pushed his foot down hard on the floor, barely slowing as he came to a speed bump, hitting it so hard the car actually lifted off the ground, hoping no one was foolish enough to step out in front of him.

  ‘This is Beta 1, our ETA is thirty seconds,’ he shouted into the radio. ‘I repeat: thirty seconds. We’re going straight in.’

  ‘Beta 1, this is Tango 1, we’re right behind you, heading west on Hartland Road.’

  Bolt glanced in his rear-view mirror and saw one of the unmarked armed surveillance cars following. He looked at Mo, who’d now put away the laptop and had a hand hovering above his gun holster. He looked utterly terrified, and Bolt felt for him. Mo had never fired a gun before. He wasn’t an action man cop. He was a detective. Bolt was different. It had been a long, long time since he’d fired a gun, but even now, this close to retirement, he felt that familiar buzz at the prospect of action.

  ‘It’s going to be OK, Mo,’ he said. ‘We’ll resolve this peacefully. No one’s going to do anything stupid.’

  The arch loomed up in front of them, and Bolt saw a yellow signpost saying Premier Motors on the wall just in front of it. He slowed the car and swung it into a huge turn, driving straight at the set of locked gates at the end of the alley, just as a train rumbled by overhead.

  ‘Thank you for that, Tina,’ said The Wraith, putting the phone away in the front pocket of her jeans, and taking off the splash-proof smock, letting it fall to the floor. ‘I’m glad it didn’t have to get too messy.’ She turned round and pulled a short-barrelled pistol from her waistband, chambering a round as she turned back towards Tina.

  Tina’s insides did a somersault as she stared down the gun barrel. ‘You lied,’ she said.

  The Wraith smiled beneath her mask. ‘You knew I would.’

  ‘I haven’t given you all the information,’ Tina blurted out, thinking fast. Doing anything to extend these last few seconds. ‘Ray and I have a code we always use. Kill me and you’ll never know it.’

  ‘Don’t waste my time,’ said The Wraith, still pointing the gun at Tina’s head. ‘You’ve got three seconds to tell me, or I pull the trigger anyway. One …’

  A sudden burst of shouting came from the room next door, and seconds later the door to the workshop was flung open from the outside, and a man in jeans and a shirt appeared in the doorway, already in a firing stance.

  The Wraith was already ducking behind Tina, using her as a shield, and the man was still in the process of shouting ‘Armed police!’ when she opened fire on him, the noise of the gunshots intensely loud in the room. It was that quick.

  He fell backwards, landing on his back, as The Wraith ran behind one of the raised ramps, keeping her gun trained on the doorway.

  A second later an arm holding a gun emerged round the frame and Tina saw Mike Bolt’s head appear.

  ‘Get back!’ yelled Tina as The Wraith fired another shot, the bullet bouncing off the frame in an angry wisp of smoke, narrowly missing Mike.

  Tina’s first thought was that The Wraith was trapped, but then she ran towards the other end of the room, using the ramp and the shell of an old car as cover, and Tina saw that there was a roller door there through which vehicles could be driven in.

  The Wraith hit a button and the roller door started to rise. At the same time, Mike poked his head back round the frame, saw what was happening, and ran inside the room, pointing his gun towards her.

  ‘Armed police, drop your weapon!’

  The roller door had only opened about a foot but that was enough for The Wraith and she dived down and rolled through the gap, out of sight.

  Bolt didn’t get a good shot at the shooter in the Scream mask, and even if he had it would have been unlawf
ul to take it if his life wasn’t in danger, and at that point it wasn’t. That was the thing about being a police firearms officer in the UK. You had to make split-second decisions, knowing that the onus was always on you not to pull the trigger. Because in the worst-case scenario – and he’d seen it happen several times before – you ended up facing a murder charge just for doing your job.

  As the shooter rolled under the door and out of sight, Bolt stole a quick glance over at Tina who was sitting tied to a chair in the middle of the cavernous workshop, looking pale and shocked but still very much alive – and felt an immediate burst of relief.

  ‘We’ve got you, Tina!’ he shouted as he raced towards the roller door, gun outstretched, taking a quick look over his shoulder to see Mo come running into the room, a gun in his hand and a phone to his ear as he called an ambulance for the plainclothes cop who’d just been shot.

  Everything had happened incredibly fast, but that was the way with extreme violence. It exploded out of nowhere, and you had to know how to react to it. Bolt had been in this kind of situation before, albeit a long time ago, and he knew what he had to do. They had one man down, two more with the prisoners, and the other ARVs were still en route.

  Bolt was on his own. And he knew he couldn’t let this shooter get away because by the way she moved, she was a woman, which meant she was almost certainly the person who’d killed Mary West.

  As he took off after her, he felt a burst of exhilaration. There was no fear. There wasn’t time for that. He didn’t think about Leanne or the fact his life was good and a sunny, warm retirement for them both beckoned. He was in the moment. Concentrating with every ounce of his being; he raced towards the roller door, now already risen a good five feet, and, bending down, ran under it, and out into a yard facing the railway line.

  He spotted her almost immediately. Unlike virtually all other suspects in a similar situation, she wasn’t running. Instead, she was in a two-handed shooting stance, less than fifteen yards away.