by CJ Carver
She rattled the handcuffs. Fidgeted. A stack of European magazines stood on her bedside table – Le Figaro, Deutsch, Elle – but she refused to look at them. She didn’t want them to think she was relaxing, making herself comfortable. She looked around at the windowless green walls, the grey linoleum floor, and wished she could meditate. She would have liked to be sitting serenely instead of being a restless mess. Anxiety gnawed in her stomach like a trapped animal. Acid kept rising in her throat. A side effect from the tranquillisers? Or was it simply her body reacting to being in a state of never-ending fear?
She tried to concentrate on Dan. Dan, who would move heaven and earth for her. He would have put Aimee with her grandparents, and would be on his way to rescue her. His love was a gleaming sword. These people would fall before him by that sword. Where was he now? Was he nearby? How would he find her?
Her thoughts were interrupted by two nurses. She recognised both. The sturdy one carried a metal kidney dish containing a syringe and some cotton wool and tape, the other with the pretty round face held a rubber tube.
When the pretty nurse went to wrap the tube around Jenny’s upper arm, Jenny snatched her arm aside. ‘N’yet,’ Jenny snapped.
The dumpy nurse held up her syringe. Jenny saw it was empty.
‘Blood,’ said the nurse. ‘OK?’
They wanted a blood sample. Jenny shook her head.
Both nurses walked outside. They returned with two male orderlies. Both were over six foot and as square and solid-looking as a pair of industrial boilers.
Jenny relented.
The nurses took her blood. They were surprisingly gentle, the older one making soothing clucking noises when Jenny flinched, but it didn’t stop her feeling deeply frightened.
When they left, she sat alone in the bed with tears seeping down her cheeks.
Come and find me, my love.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Lucy returned to Irene’s bedside to find the cousins had gone to get something to eat. She could hear the sounds of beeping. Muted voices. As she fetched a chair – planning to sit with Irene until Mac arrived – a male nurse, early twenties, appeared.
‘You’re family, I take it? We’re not allowing anyone else to see her.’
She almost said yes, but at the last minute decided to be prudent. ‘Actually, I’m with the police.’ She showed him her warrant card and gave him ten brownie points when he studied it carefully. ‘But I’ve met Irene before, OK? I’m not cold-calling. I just wanted to see how she’s doing. Has she woken up yet?’
‘She came round earlier, which is a good sign, but she’s on powerful painkillers so she’s only conscious for short periods.’
‘Is she out of danger?’
‘Pretty much, but we’re going to keep her here until we’re comfortable she’s stabilised enough to be moved to another ward.’
‘It’s OK if I sit with her?’
He hesitated. ‘I’m supposed to ring DI Boden when she awakes. He wants to be the first to talk to her.’
‘I understand,’ she said. ‘But is it likely Irene will be up for a police interview in the next ten minutes?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘Her injuries are pretty severe.’
‘Look, I’ll sit with her for a bit and if she does wake up, I’ll call the DI straight away.’
‘I’d rather you called me,’ he said.
‘I’ll come and get you immediately,’ she agreed. ‘You first, then the DI.’
Somewhere, an alarm rang, muted but insistent. His head clicked round. The nurses were rising from their station, moving fast towards a curtained cubicle to the right. He hesitated until one of the nurses turned to wave him over.
He said, ‘You know the score . . .’
While he sped away, Lucy settled next to Irene. Gone was the broad-shouldered handsome woman and in her place lay a fragile-looking elderly creature who looked as if she was on her last legs. Her eyes were closed, eyelids puffy and grey. Her hands, broad and square-tipped, lay slack on the pale blue blanket. A thin tube ran into a bruise on the inside of her arm. More tubes ran from her nose and up around her ears, down her chest. Machines hummed quietly and soft plastic bags dripped.
‘Jeez, Irene,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve looked better, you know, but apparently you’re on the mend. They’re going to move you to another ward soon. Good news, eh?’ She took a breath. ‘Not such good news about Adrian though. The cameras show you stepping in front of him but they still got him. You were incredibly brave. I’m really sorry he’s dead. He seemed like a nice man. And then there’s Jenny Forrester, Dan’s wife. She’s been kidnapped . . .’
As she talked, she was reminded of another victim she’d visited in hospital last year. A girl in a coma who later told Lucy she’d heard every word she’d spoken. Apparently Lucy’s conversations had helped her regain consciousness and although the news Lucy had imparted at the time had been shocking and awful, it had helped the victim come to terms with what had happened in a strangely holistic way.
Lucy spoke softly, half-closing her eyes, letting her mind drift over everything she knew. The list of the dead. Aleksandr and Elizabeth Stanton. Adrian and Polina Calder and their children Jessie, Felix, Sofia and little two-year-old Tasha.
Why had they killed the children? She recalled the bloody mess the bullet had made of Jessie’s chest. The girl’s look of terror. Her mind began to spit yellow again, wanting to tell her something, make a new connection. It was something to do with the children. Staging accidents. The word suicide. Three strands, each with similar colouring and interlocking shapes.
Lucy let her thoughts drift as she continued to murmur to Irene, her legs crossed in front of her, staring at the pale grey curtain, and she just about had a heart attack when she felt a hand touch hers. She had to swallow her shout.
Irene’s deep brown gaze was on Lucy, dazed and dulled with painkillers, but she was struggling to push past them. ‘Where . . .’
‘I’ll get a nurse,’ Lucy told her.
‘No. Is she – where –’
She was fighting to sit up. Lucy’s stomach rolled at the thought she might rip stitches trying.
‘Nurse,’ Lucy repeated. She sped along the ward until she found the male nurse in front of a computer at the nurse’s station. ‘She’s awake,’ she told him.
His face lit up. ‘Great. Let’s see how she’s doing.’
Lucy waited on the other side of the curtain while he ran his checks. When he reappeared, he gave Lucy a nod. ‘She’s doing really well but I can’t see us moving her for a while, though. I’ll call the DI.’
Lucy slipped through the curtain. Put her hand on top of Irene’s and said, ‘You’re doing really well, OK? As you no doubt heard.’
Tears coursed down Irene’s face but she didn’t contort her face, or try to hide her pain. ‘Adrian,’ she said in a thick, ragged whisper. ‘He is dead?’
Lucy said gently, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know you could hear me.’
Her mouth started to convulse. ‘And Elizabeth? They have killed her too?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Lucy said again.
Irene’s head stirred on the pillow. ‘I have to know.’ Through the fog of drugs and injuries, something in her face glinted fiercely, hard and bright as steel. Lucy remembered what Adrian Calder had said about his wife: She’s a strong woman, like her mother.
‘But why did they kill Adrian?’ Irene said. ‘I do not understand.’
She gazed at nothing and for a moment Lucy thought she had drifted away, succumbing to the drugs, but then her hand tightened on Lucy’s. She whispered, ‘Why kill Elizabeth? She is not related. Aleks, yes. But his wife? I think they are cruel. I think they like the killing.’
Lucy stared at Irene. ‘What do you mean, Elizabeth isn’t related?’
‘She does not share the same blood as Aleksandr. Adrian did not share the same blood as Polina but they kill him too. They have no mercy.’ The steel flashed once again. ‘When
will they stop? When there is none of me left?’
Suddenly a firework detonated in Lucy’s brain showering yellow and red. All the hairs rose on the back of her neck and along her arms. She scrabbled furiously through her handbag for her phone.
It was about the family blood!
Lucy’s fingers flew over the keys, searching the BBC website until she found the report on the Bristol family annihilation story. She scanned the news reports, and then she found it. Apparently Oxana had married Philip Harris in 1984. Her maiden name was Stanton.
Lucy’s heart was pounding. Her skull felt too small for her brain.
‘Are you related to Oxana Harris?’ she asked Irene breathlessly. ‘She used to be Oxana Stanton before she was married.’
‘Who?’ The woman rasped. She looked genuinely puzzled.
Lucy heard Aleksandr’s voice wind through her head. I don’t just have relatives in England but in Australia too.
‘What about Lewis Harris, Oxana’s son?’
After a long moment, Irene said, ‘No.’ Her eyes began to go cloudy and her breathing dipped. She was beginning to slide back into sleep. Tears continued to trickle down her face.
Lucy ran outside. Called DI Penman.
‘I need to know if Oxana Harris, née Stanton, was related to Aleksandr and Elizabeth Stanton.’
As they spoke, it soon became clear that although the victims shared the same surname, they didn’t appear to be related, but Lucy wasn’t easily put off. She continued asking questions, probing and pushing, trying to see if there was a link between the two families. Finally, she asked, ‘Can you check and see if anyone, er, unusual or foreign, visited them before they died?’
‘Like who?’ The DI’s tone was curious.
‘A smartly dressed pair in their early thirties, posing as a Polish couple. Ivan and Yelena Barbolin. They’re actually Russian.’
Long silence. She heard some rustling followed by tapping noises that she guessed was a keyboard. ‘Visitors . . . hmmm. A South African relative dropped by just after the New Year. Finch Stanton. We interviewed her . . . she’s doing a family tree for her father in Cape Town . . .’
For a moment, Lucy couldn’t believe it. She’d found a connection. Her mouth opened and closed. She cleared her throat. ‘Finch Stanton is related to Adrian Calder.’
‘You’re kidding.’ The policeman sounded stunned.
‘Yes, she’s a cousin of some sort, but whether she’s related directly or through marriage I couldn’t tell you. But she is definitely related.’ She took a breath. ‘Nothing on a Mr and Mrs Barbolin? The Russians?’
When he said no, she explained who they were, and that they’d shot Adrian Calder in the hospital and also possibly killed Aleksandr and Elizabeth Stanton.
‘You think they might have set up Oxana Harris’s murder?’ His tone was disbelieving. ‘And her son Lewis’s?’
‘It’s a possibility.’
‘Jesus Christ. I’ll get the SIO to call you as soon as I can.’
Lucy hung up. Her ears were ringing, her head buzzing.
Why were the FSB killing the Stanton family?
And what about the survivors? Lewis’s wife had survived the drowning and Oxana’s youngest son, Ben – who Oxana had apparently adopted – was still alive. So was Jenny Forrester. Did that mean they didn’t share the same blood? A sense of urgency descended upon her. She had to warn the rest of the relatives. Get them to safety.
Before she called Mac, Lucy quickly checked Google to see that there were thousands of Stantons registered as living in the UK. The police would have to get in touch with the South African cousins and get a copy of their family tree in order to track the right ones down.
The cousins.
Her stomach clenched. The near-miss by that car now looked far less like a freak event. Had it been a failed attempt on their lives?
She raced back to Irene. She needed to warn Robin and Finch. She needed to know why the Stanton family had been targeted. But the Russian woman was comatose. She was out cold and didn’t respond to Lucy’s touch. Frustrated, battling the urge to scream, Lucy went outside. She paced the car park, making phone calls while she waited for Irene to awake.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Mac did his best to conduct his investigation from his car making phone call after phone call in between checking the satnav to make sure he hadn’t missed a vital turning. By the time he parked his car and walked into the hospital, three police forces were conducting their own inquiries into the Stanton murders and every other police force had started looking at any recent deaths of Stantons with a questioning eye.
He ran the gauntlet of the media at the hospital car park entrance, camera lenses following his every move. They’d pore over his photograph and when they found out who he was, the brighter sparks would put two and two together and things would go ballistic. The sooner he found answers the sooner he could stick a cork in the media and prevent a nationwide hysteria.
His senses quickened as he approached the café, where he’d arranged to meet Lucy. He couldn’t believe it. Here he was, in the middle of one of the biggest cases of his life, with fifteen people murdered, maybe more, and he was getting that feeling again, the one he always had when he knew he was going to see her.
He spotted her before she saw him. She was at the counter, buying a coffee. She wore tight jeans tucked into boots and a sweater coloured a sort of soft mulberry, which clung to all the right places and seemed to make her skin glow.
‘Hey,’ he said as he approached. She swung round, eyes alight, and he felt his heart lurch. God, she was gorgeous.
‘Coffee?’ she asked.
He didn’t have time to stop. He was here to talk to the cousins, talk to Nicholas Blain or Baker or whoever he was, keep on top of the investigation, keep pushing it forward, taking on a thousand and one things that needed doing urgently, but he said, ‘Great.’
‘Another cappuccino, please,’ she told the counter server before turning back to Mac. ‘Anything else you’d like?’
You, he thought but instead he said, ‘A toastie would be good. I’m famished.’
They ate standing up at another counter that overlooked a shop selling get well cards and trinkets. Lucy brought out her phone, sent a text. ‘To the cousins,’ she told him, ‘to let them know where we are. Blain’s being discharged. He knows he mustn’t leave until he’s seen you.’
Mac ate his toastie while she filled him in. Drank his coffee.
‘So,’ he said. ‘You’ve found your hornet’s nest.’
‘Yup.’ She gave him a grin.
He couldn’t help it. He grinned back.
‘I leave you alone for two seconds . . .’ He was shaking his head in mock despair, but he couldn’t stop smiling inanely. And even better, nor could she.
‘Lucy.’ A man’s voice.
Both of them looked around.
Nicholas Blain – aka Baker – was holding out a furled black umbrella to Lucy. ‘You forgot this.’
‘Thanks.’ She reached out and took it from him.
‘I have to say, it was one of the best debriefings I’ve had,’ Blain told Mac with a smile. But he wasn’t looking at Mac. He was looking at Lucy. ‘I’d happily get savaged by an attack dog any time if it’s Lucy who’s sent to my hospital bedside.’
‘Blain . . .’ Lucy said warningly, but she was blushing.
Mac had never seen her blush before and felt such an intense rush of jealousy he would have liked to have planted his fist in the centre of Blain’s smug, smiling face.
Lucy turned to include Mac. Her cheeks were still pink. ‘You know each other, right? DI MacDonald. Nicholas Blain. I mean, Baker.’
When Blain put out a hand, Mac was tempted not to take it, but he couldn’t refuse, not in his job.
‘Call me Nick,’ said Blain as they shook.
‘DI MacDonald,’ said Mac stonily.
Lucy stepped aside. ‘I’ll leave you guys to it, OK?’
/> Blain’s eyes returned to Lucy. He said, ‘I’ll call you later.’
Lucy didn’t respond. Just walked away.
For a few seconds Mac imagined Lucy with Blain. How Blain put his arms around her. Kissed her. How she kissed him back. And at the same time something fell loose from his soul.
When Blain looked back at Mac, the smile left his face. Mac realised his body language had shifted. He was like an animal growling at a competitor who was approaching his mate. Back off or I’ll tear your throat out.
He looked Blain straight in the eye, held his gaze. Blain looked at the space where Lucy had been, then back at Mac. Amusement rose. The smile returned.
The two men held gazes.
It was the equivalent of a glove being thrown down.
May the best man win.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Dan was on the Embankment waiting for Ozzie, walking back and forth alongside the RAF war memorial in an attempt to keep warm. The temperature had dropped to just below zero and snow was forecast. As he paced, a text came in from Emily at Six, attaching two files. Immediately he forgot the cold, the bleak grey of the Thames, the lowering cement-coloured sky. His whole being was concentrated on his phone.
The first file was labelled Ivan Golov. The photograph confirmed that it was the same man who was currently being worked on by Ibro and Mirza. The second was a file on Ivan’s FSB partner, Yelena Mayask. Dan read both reports to see both agents had seemingly unimpeachable records with the FSB. Yelena was single and seeing another FSB agent. She had a four-year-old boy from a previous relationship, whose grandmother helped looked after him. Ivan was married, no children. He appeared to be faithful and wasn’t a womaniser. He earned a fair wage. No gambling debts or prostitute bills or expenses fiddling that Six had found.