Born in a Burial Gown

by Mike Craven

  He needed a weapon and he needed one now.

  Towler’s description of the bullet came into his head.

  It’ll penetrate the skull at twenty feet. But only just.

  He was damned if he was simply going to lie down without a fight. He wasn’t pulling the trigger when he knew the chamber was loaded. There would be no Russian roulette for him.

  Fluke ran towards his car.

  Cross fired. Fluke heard the bullet hit the stone walls of the cottage behind him, and even though he knew the bullet had already missed him, he instinctively ducked.

  He kept running.

  Cross fired again. Missed again.

  Fluke reached the driver’s side and dived through the open door.

  Cross fired at the car. The bullet hit the windscreen but bounced off, a small chip appeared. The type TV adverts urge you to fix before cold weather turns it into a crack.

  Cross must’ve come to the same conclusion as Towler. He lowered the gun and ran towards the car.

  Fluke struggled to get himself into a driving position. The BMW’s engine was already on.

  He pressed his foot on the brake and wrenched the gearstick into drive.

  Cross stopped running. He paused for a second. He raised the gun again and pointed it directly at Fluke’s head.

  Neither of them moved.

  Now it was a bit more even. Car versus gun. Stalemate.

  Someone had to make the first move and Fluke decided it would be him.

  He took his foot off the brake and slammed the accelerator to the floor. Like all automatics there is a slight pause but the BMW was new and German engineering is unrivalled. The engine screamed as the turbo kicked in. The thick tyres bit into the gravel drive and the car lurched forwards, pushing Fluke back in his seat.

  Cross didn’t fire, but he didn’t seem to be panicking either. He was clearly waiting for Fluke to get nearer. To get within his gun’s effective range. He simply stood with his two-handed stance and waited.

  The car narrowed the gap to forty yards, accelerating all the time.

  Cross still didn’t fire. Even from that distance, Fluke could see he had a wry smile on his face. Bastard’s enjoying this.

  It was a test of nerves. The longer he stayed upright, the greater chance he had of hitting Cross but there was also a far greater chance the bullet would pierce the windscreen.

  Twenty yards. Fifteen. The car continued to accelerate. There was an imperceptible change in the revs as the automatic engine moved up a gear. Fluke kept his eyes fixed on Cross, and his right foot pressed to the floor. The engine screamed in defiance.

  Ten yards. He was in Cross’s effective range.

  A flash from the gun’s muzzle and a hole appeared in the windscreen. Fluke felt the bullet graze his ear. A sharp burning pain, instantly smothered by adrenalin.

  Fluke braced himself as Cross’s face filled his vision. The smile was still etched onto his face. A split-second before impact, he tried to jump out of the way.

  He’d left it far too late. There was a sickening thump as the car smashed into him.

  He heard a scream of pain. Cross was thrown in the air like a rag doll. Crumpled. Arms and legs splayed out helplessly. The car kept moving forward and Cross’s airborne body slammed into the windscreen before disappearing out of sight.

  Fluke could barely see where he was going through the cobweb of cracks and the car was bouncing uncontrollably on the uneven drive. Fluke leant back and braked hard.

  Nothing happened. He was going too fast for the tyres to grip the loose gravel.

  Time slowed as the car went into an uncontrollable skid.

  Fluke looked up.

  The stone pillars that stood either side of Tait’s drive filled his vision. The car was going nearly forty miles an hour as it raced towards the one on the left. Fluke wrenched the steering wheel to the right but it was useless. It was like driving on sheet ice.

  He flung his arms up in front of his face just as the car smashed into the pillar.

  The BMW Fluke was driving had crumple zones designed to absorb some of the impact of a car crash. The bumper and grille collapsed.

  The rest of the car was still going forty miles an hour, however. It wrapped itself around the slate pillar. The tortuous sound of metal and stone as energy was transferred was deafening. The forward momentum caused the rear of the car to lift off the ground.

  Eight milliseconds after the BMW’s computer detected an impact, it deployed both airbags. The driver’s airbag was located in the steering wheel and the hard plastic cover exploded out and struck Fluke in the face, breaking his nose instantly.

  Thirty milliseconds after impact, the airbags inflated.

  As the car came to an abrupt stop, Fluke’s body continued to travel forwards. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and his chest, cushioned slightly by the deployed airbag, slammed into the steering column. Although his torso’s momentum had been stopped, his head continued forward. With a sickening thud, it was driven into the broken windscreen.

  Externally, Fluke’s body had been stopped by the airbag, steering column and windscreen. Internally, all his internal organs continued moving. Heart, lungs, liver and kidneys all moved forward until they were violently stopped by his skeletal system and other organs.

  The human skull has evolved over eons. Solid bone shields had provided the brain with a double layer of protection against the trauma humans had been most likely to encounter. But humans have outpaced evolution. The protection the skull has afforded the brain for thousands of years has been made obsolete by modern things like car crashes and deceleration.

  The brain is suspended in a liquid called cerebrospinal fluid, a fluid that allows the brain to maintain its density without being damaged by its own weight. As Fluke’s head hit the windscreen his brain moved through the fluid and struck the front of his skull before rebounding back to hit the rear.

  He immediately started losing consciousness.

  He bounced off the windscreen and fell back into the driver’s seat. The rear wheels, still spinning, fell back to the ground.

  From jumping into the car to coming to a dead stop had taken less than ten seconds.

  Fluke fought to stay awake.

  There was an unwelcome smell. Burning rubber and diesel. Even this close to unconsciousness, Fluke knew the car was on fire. He was going to burn to death. The BMW’s ruined engine finally gave in and stopped. Fluke could hear ominous ticking as it cooled. As his brain shut down, all nonessential organs and the sweet release of darkness clouded his vision, Fluke started to have auditory hallucinations.

  The sound of men shouting something he didn’t understand.

  ‘Armed police! Armed police! Armed police!’

  Chapter 40

  At the third attempt, and only after adding a full can of Zippo fuel, Fluke managed to light the fire pit. Flames shot up into the clear winter sky.

  Abi cheered.

  ‘What we doing, lighting a fire or summoning the Rohirrim?’ Bridie asked.

  ‘Ha, ha,’ Fluke answered with a smile. Sarcasm and knowledge of Lord of the Rings. He put down the mesh lid, gently pulled Abi away from the flames, and sat in one of the chairs surrounding it. With his one good hand, he reached forwards and enjoyed the heat.

  ‘How’s the arm, Ave?’ Towler asked.

  ‘Better thanks. Can’t say the same for the nose. Still can’t breathe through it.’ Apart from the broken nose and a badly sprained wrist, it was only the cuts from the broken glass that had caused him any problems. He’d needed several pints of plasma to stop the bleeding but Leah had been waiting in A&E when he arrived, and despite the protests from the trauma consultant, had overseen his immediate care. All things considered, Fluke had come out of the crash relatively unscathed.

  A veteran of countless broken noses, Towler said, ‘It’ll get better, probably be another week though.’

  A silence settled over the group. Even Abi seemed to sense it was a time to be quiet.
r />   They’d discussed the remnants of the case before they all sat down for a winter barbecue. Cross had been badly injured but had survived.

  ‘Typical marine, can’t even crash into someone properly,’ Towler had said.

  Fluke nodded. He felt the same way sometimes. Cross had got off lightly. Far more lightly than the real Gibson Tait. He’d been found in his own compost heap. A .22 bullet hole in the middle of his forehead.

  ‘Looks like he’s going to get away with it, though,’ he said.

  Bridie and Towler looked at him with a start.

  ‘You gonna tell us what happened then?’ Towler was the only who knew Fluke had been allowed to see Cross.

  A concession the Chief had secured before Cross was extradited back to the States. He’d had to make a full statement detailing the crimes committed while in the UK and the Chief had argued that Fluke was the only one who’d be able to tell if he was leaving things out.

  ‘Not really supposed to be to honest, Matt.’

  ‘And?’

  Fluke grinned at them both. He’d already told Skelton, Jiao-long and Vaughn.

  Fluke had woken in hospital with a headache that only morphine could reduce. Leah had been there within five minutes of him waking, all business-like as there was actual work to do. Towler had been second through the door. He’d told Fluke that Cross was on the floor below. Two broken legs, a cracked spine and severe concussion. Everything else had been superficial. He was expected to make a full recovery.

  ‘Has anyone interviewed him?’ Fluke had asked.

  ‘You’re fucking joking, aren’t you? No one’s getting in to see him. It’s gone political. Us country bumpkins have got no chance of getting in. The Yanks want him isolated. Reckon he’s a threat to national security. Wankers.’

  Bridie had arrived within the hour.

  ‘All you have to do is say “no” if you don’t want to go out, Avison. There’s no need to take these extreme measures.’ Despite her grin, there was genuine concern behind her eyes.

  Within a week, he was discharged. Instead of going home as directed, he’d driven straight to HQ and entered the Chief’s office without knocking.

  ‘Ah, Avison. Right on time.’ He was sitting at a table with Chambers and a man in a suit he didn’t recognize. ‘I was telling Mr Mortimer here that you wouldn’t do as you were told and would be on your way here instead.’

  The man in the suit stood up and offered his hand. Fluke awkwardly reached with his left. His right arm was still too sore.

  ‘Mr Mortimer was just laying out the ground rules for your interview with Cross.’

  ‘Sir?’ Fluke said. It wasn’t going as he expected.

  ‘You didn’t think we’d let him out the country without getting something back, did you? The Home Secretary might be bending over for the Americans, but we aren’t. Part of the extradition agreement is that he makes a full statement of what he did here. If he misses anything out then he stays. He thinks he can cut a deal over there so he’s pretty keen to get back, as you might imagine.’

  Fluke looked at Mortimer. He didn’t look happy. Fluke realised he hadn’t been told who he worked for. The intelligence community it was, then.

  ‘Mr Mortimer will sit in with you. If Cross tries to tell you anything about his life before he got here, the interview will be terminated.’

  ‘Why me, sir? Why not a spook?’

  ‘You’re the only one who’ll know if he’s missing something out. We can only speak to him the once. We have to get it right first time.’

  In the end, it had been easy. Eager to make sure his extradition didn’t fall through, Cross was eager to talk.

  He was being held in a secure hospital room in the Cumberland Infirmary. Armed guards were outside the door. He was immobile but alert. One of his wrists was handcuffed to the metal bed frame.

  Fluke took a seat near the bed. Mortimer took one near the rear of the room.

  ‘Who hired you?’ Fluke asked.

  Cross told him. It was as Fluke suspected. A nobody thinking he was a somebody. A dot.com millionaire who couldn’t bear to lose. He’d been a victim of Samantha’s. Instead of paying, he’d tried to kill her at the drop. She was too good for him but she knew her card was marked in the States. She’d fled back to the UK. Cross had been hired to find and terminate her.

  The FBI had already arrested dot.com. Some of the crimes in the case had been committed in the States. Soliciting murder. He’d never see the light of day again.

  ‘How’d you find her?’ Fluke asked. ‘She’d changed her appearance. You had no idea what she looked like.’

  ‘No. But I knew what she did. As long as she kept on doing it I knew I’d catch up with her. It’s what I do. It was time-consuming but the result was inevitable.’

  ‘I want more details than that, you prick,’ Fluke said. ‘If I walk out, the deal’s off. You can fucking rot here.’

  ‘Empty threat, Mr Fluke. We both know as soon as I can walk, I’m going home.’

  Fluke said nothing. Cross stared at him and realised that Fluke wasn’t bluffing.

  ‘I knew she was back in the UK. I came over and started tracking her. I monitored the police computers for drugged rapes, ones where the victim had disappeared. Every time I found one I had someone search your PNC for me. I was looking for name searches in the same town with no hits. It was laborious but eventually, I found one of her victims. He refused to speak to me, but at least I knew my methods were working. The next victim I found was in Birmingham, the one after than in Glasgow. All rich men with too much to lose.’

  Fluke nodded. It was a variation on how he’d thought it had happened. He understood how Cross had tracked down old victims. He didn’t yet know how he’d managed to get ahead of her though. Cross was just getting to that part.

  ‘The next man I spoke to was a landowner in Norwich. Landed gentry, I think you call them. He was with her when she got a phone call. Before she could hide the screen he’d seen the number. He recognized it as a Cumbrian area code. 01229 apparently. Kendal. He knew the code because he had a friend up there he goes grouse shooting with.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So. What if this was her researching a potential victim. She must select them somehow. She’d get most of her intel before she arrives in a city. That’s how I’d do it anyway.’

  ‘So you came to Cumbria to look for her?’

  ‘How do you catch a ghost, Mr Fluke?’

  Fluke shrugged.

  ‘You wait for the ghost to come to you. So yes, I came to Cumbria. A calculated risk but I literally had nothing else to go on. Nothing at all. This had been the only slip up she’d made and it could’ve meant nothing. I monitored all drug-assisted rape allegations in here through a contact I made in your police force, hoping for a break.’

  ‘Gibson Tait?’

  ‘No, not Gibson Tait. He was her contact it seems. I had someone else. I don’t think they even knew they were breaking the law.’

  ‘And she did go back to work?’ Fluke said, thinking of Kenneth Diamond.

  ‘Yes, I had a break. A rape, drug-assisted, was reported. The victim couldn’t remember her attacker. It fit the profile. I now just needed to identify him before she could get paid. Before she became invisible again.’

  ‘Bit of a stretch,’ Fluke said.

  ‘I was could only work with what I knew about her. I knew her methods. Knew she chose men without criminal records. She didn’t want the police identifying them. It would have defeated the purpose.’

  ‘How’d you find him?’ Fluke knew how FMIT did it but it wouldn’t have worked for Cross. He’d have needed to find Kenneth Diamond to find Samantha. They found Samantha first.

  ‘I persuaded my man to search your PNC to see who’d made searches without hits. Searches for men in Cumbria who weren’t on the computer.’

  Fluke understood. Samantha had asked Gibson Tait to see if Kenneth Diamond was on PNC. He wasn’t, but the computer recorded the search anyway. Cross
had simply got someone to check who was looking at names without results. He could probably narrow it down to a couple of days before the rape was reported. Fluke knew Samantha had asked Tait for one final check to make sure nothing had changed.

  Cross continued and confirmed Fluke’s suspicions. ‘There were eight names in the period I specified. I spoke to four of them. Pretended I was a detective from the rape team. The first three didn’t know anything.’

  Shit!

  Fluke remembered getting an email a few days ago about a man impersonating a police officer investigating a rape. Two separate complaints if he remembered correctly. Nothing had been stolen and CID hadn’t been putting too many resources into it. Fluke hadn’t given it a second thought.

  ‘The fourth man was Kenneth Diamond. As soon as I explained what I was there for I knew it was him. He tried to tell me he was being blackmailed and that he was innocent. I removed him from his property without difficulty, he thought he was being arrested. I moved Diamond to the empty house next door. Took him into a cellar they used to store cheap wine.’

  ‘You tortured him.’

  ‘I got what I needed.’

  ‘You’re a psychopath.’ Fluke remembered looking at Diamond’s face. It was so swollen, his features so badly mutilated that it had been impossible to tell what he looked like.

  ‘Maybe,’ Cross conceded. ‘But I needed information straight away and I needed to be able to rely on it, I didn’t have much time. From what I understood from my client, she doesn’t wait long to get paid. She approaches her victims, demands cash and expects it straight away. I needed to get to the drop before her.’

  Fluke reached for the water jug and poured himself a glass.

  ‘He told me that he was a powerful man although I’ve since found out that it’s his youngest son who leads the organisation. He threatened me, he begged me. He told me his family were out looking, and I knew she’d disappear if those idiots got within a mile of her. I had to be sure he was telling me the truth first time. I was only going to get one chance at this.’

  Fluke’s jaw tightened. Nathaniel Diamond was anything but an idiot. If he ever found out who’d killed his father he didn’t think there was a cave dark enough or a safe house so remote that he wouldn’t find Cross.’