The Taken: DI Erica Martin Book 2 (Erica Martin Thriller)

by Alice Clark-Platts

  51

  ‘She’s dead,’ Martin said, in a strangled voice. She felt light-headed as she stood from taking Violet’s extinguished pulse, images of the girl flashing through her head: Violet sitting, spiky and brittle, in the boarding house, at the police station. She said nothing more, merely turned to the stairs to go up on the bridge.

  ‘Boss, wait. You need back-up. She’s armed,’ Tennant called after her.

  Martin didn’t reply as she made her way up the stairs. Her heart pounded, adrenalin blistering through her, making her breath shallow. A plea ran through her head as she climbed – please don’t let Jones be dead. None of this made any sense. Why had Sera done all of this? To cut the throat of her own child; it was vile.

  Rain coursed down Martin’s face, in place of the tears she would never cry for Violet. But she felt her death like a hole in her stomach. She felt the responsibility for it; she had been too slow. Madness was always capricious, yet she should have been wise to its prospect. And so, she was to blame.

  The walkway over the bridge was narrow. Its walls edged in on Martin as she made her way across. The interior was pockmarked with nooks and corners.

  ‘Sera,’ Martin called, her voice battling against the pounding rain. ‘Where is Sergeant Jones? Come out now. Let’s put an end to this. Give me Jones.’

  She carried on, shuffling forward in the racket of the heavenly drowning. She locked away the panic at Jones’s whereabouts, her anger at Violet’s death, and forced her voice to be calm and free from aggression. ‘Come on, Sera. It’s wet, and you must be tired. Let’s sort this all out. Tell me what happened; let’s try and work it out.’

  Ahead, Martin’s vision was blocked by a concrete strut that stuck out like a wall in the middle of the bridge. Who designed this place? Martin thought. It was like a hell on earth, a brazen middle finger at the poor sods who had to live here. A park? A community centre? No, a useless lump of concrete, ripe for drug addicts and rapists. Martin hitched her stab vest a little as she began to broach the wall.

  ‘Jones, are you there? Are you injured?’ Martin wiped her face free of the rain that spattered loudly on the bridge. She couldn’t hear a thing.

  ‘Sera, I’m going to come round this wall now, okay? So I want you to pass me your weapon. Put it on the floor and skid it across to me. The armed response team are here. Don’t let’s get anyone else killed.’

  A blast of rain-soaked wind spat into Martin’s face. She leaned into it, creeping forward. ‘I’m coming now, Sera. Hand me the knife. It’s over.’

  Martin reached the edge of the wall and paused, leaning against it, taking a breath. She spun her head around at a sound, and saw Tennant and an armed officer approaching on the bridge. The officer with the gun came forward on silent feet, close to Martin by the corner of the wall.

  As he did, a black-handled knife with a four-inch blade skidded across the wet concrete into their path, just beyond their reach, its blade taunting them through the rain. Martin felt perspiration itch under her jacket, the sound of rushing blood hammered in her ears.

  ‘Is that everything, Sera?’ Martin called out, her voice steady. ‘Why don’t you come out with your hands up just to make me happy, eh? Come on, now. Let’s get out of this. Let’s end this, Sera.’

  With another blast of thunder, the police helicopter made a turn above them in the sky, the noise of its engines drowning out the sound of the rain. Martin took her opportunity and leapt for the knife. She moved to one side, her back against the concrete of the bridge. Kicking the knife towards the other officers, she whipped her head around the corner of the block.

  ‘Officer down! We need the paramedics,’ Martin shouted as soon as she saw Jones lying on the floor. She moved forward, pulling Sera’s arms behind her and putting on handcuffs. ‘Are you all right, Jones?’

  Jones nodded, her eyes dim. ‘Knife wound, Boss. Arm . . .’

  Martin shoved Sera to Tennant so that she could kneel down next to Jones, her hand on her shoulder. ‘You’ll be all right, Jones. Surface wound, I reckon.’ Martin turned away with worried eyes to the sky beyond the bridge. ‘Where are those medics?’

  Tennant began to lead Sera away as the green figures of the paramedics ran up to Jones. As Sera retreated, bound by the handcuffs, her head twisted round and she eyeballed Martin. Her look made Martin involuntarily recoil. She had never seen such cold hatred followed by the crumpling of features into complete despair. It was as if ties had been loosened behind Sera’s head, those ribbons that had held her controlled and calm for all this time. But now her mask fell sodden and useless into a puddle on the ground, and she was revealed as she truly was – embittered and lonely, and utterly filled with rage.

  52

  The storm had disappeared, dragging the summer with it kicking and screaming. It left a day dripping with disappointment in its wake: pavements stained with water, anticlimactic clouds on the horizon.

  Martin reached the hospital as soon as visiting hours would allow. She pushed gently into the room where Jones lay with her head against the pillow. Her eyes were closed, causing Martin to halt on the room’s boundary, uncertain whether to go in. But Jones opened her eyes and smiled, moving her unbandaged arm to beckon Martin inside.

  ‘How are you, Jones?’ Martin asked quietly. She sat carefully on a chair next to the bed, snatching a look at Jones’s arm, wrapped in white and placed carefully across her body.

  ‘I’ll be out soon. Might be a while before I get back to spin bowling, though,’ Jones answered.

  Martin nodded and a comfortable silence settled between them.

  ‘She’s in custody?’ Jones asked after a while.

  ‘Yep. Charged with Violet’s murder. She won’t get bail.’

  Jones moved her head away from Martin and gazed out of the window. ‘I’m sorry, Boss. I tried . . . but there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t move.’ Her mouth turned down in an expression of sadness.

  ‘I know, Jones,’ Martin said, patting the blanket on the bed as if she were patting Jones’s hand. ‘There’s no one to blame apart from Sera herself.’ Martin bit her lip, the reality of it punching her in the stomach. Violet was dead and she had failed to protect her.

  ‘Will we get her for Snow’s murder?’ Jones asked, turning her head to look at Martin again.

  ‘Tennant’s prepping the interview for later,’ Martin said. ‘There’s still no real evidence though, is there? I mean, the assumption is that, yes, she did it. But I still don’t know why she planted the nightdress. We need a confession . . .’ She shrugged, the words tailing off.

  Jones stared down at her hands, then looked back up to meet Martin’s gaze. ‘I’m sorry, Boss,’ she said again.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I kept telling you that Violet was the one. You know, with the cross in her nightgown and everything. I didn’t get why you didn’t suspect her.’

  Martin shook her head. ‘This family isn’t what it seems, Jones. It feels like we haven’t even scratched the surface yet.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ Jones replied, ‘because Sera talked a lot when we were on the bridge. Rambling. Like she was in a dream, about her mum and dad and . . .’ She closed her eyes for a minute.

  ‘Are you okay, Jones?’ Martin asked.

  ‘Yes. She mentioned the twins. I don’t know. She didn’t say more. She went off on one about wanting to keep them with her. That that was all she’d wanted, and now she knew how to do it . . .’ Jones tailed off.

  ‘I need to go back there,’ Martin said. ‘Work out where Sera came from. If you’re all right, Jones . . .? Just get some sleep,’ Martin said, getting up from the chair.

  ‘Yes, okay. But what . . . where are you going?’

  Martin touched Jones’s shoulder gently, before withdrawing her hand. ‘I’m going to find out about Sera. I’m going back to Peterlee.’

  Martin drove through the streets of Peterlee, not really knowing what it was she was looking for. She drove in again to the Sunny B
lunts estate and walked past the Apollo Pavilion and over to the house where Sera had grown up. The eyes of the house were dull, reflections from the windows shielding its secrets. She inhaled the wet air, taking in the grey of the skies and the threads of mists that hung low over the roofs. There was nothing here any more.

  She got back into her car and carried on driving. On a whim, she pulled over as she saw the sign to the Peterlee cemetery. As she got out, she was surprised at the strength of the wind whipping up her hair before she realized that the cemetery sat right on the edge of the coast, facing the sea.

  There it was, beyond the stern backs of the gravestones. It felt like a mirage after the greyness of the drive and the drag of the weather. The sea was bottle green, dipping and curling below clouds slung claustrophobically above, yet light seemed to shine beneath it, glowing warmly; white froth marking the tips of the waves. The salt stung Martin’s nostrils and she breathed in deeply. It was beautiful.

  As she walked between the graves, the cemetery shrugged off its austere appearance. For all of the plots, without exception, were decorated in a rainbow of flowers. Some flowers were paper or plastic, but many were fresh, placed carefully against well-considered headstones engraved with poems and photographs and football colours. Martin had never seen a graveyard like it.

  She started at the back, moving slowly along the rows, reading the inscriptions. She took her time, thinking about the fates of these people, young and old. She moved on, gradually making her way to the front line, towards the sea. It was cold in the wind, and she pushed her hands into her pockets. Taking a break and straightening, gazing out to the horizon, she noticed a selection of graves set back a distance from the others. She wandered over, taking a band out of her pocket and pulling her hair into an untidy ponytail.

  As she approached, Martin saw immediately that the solitary section was for children.

  The graves were tiny: little angels’ heads, open pages of the Bible, and teddy bears, all covered in a carpet of multi-coloured flowers.

  A flower lent not given . . .

  Sleep our beautiful angel . . .

  Born asleep, too special for the earth . . .

  Martin pulled up short. She felt tight in her chest, something was pushing into her. She rubbed her heart, trying to breathe, to take in the sea air. She turned her back on the graves, tried to focus on the blue before her. The image came into her head of her laughing with Sam. The joke she’d made about the blood. How she always seemed to deny herself what it was she really wanted.

  She shut her eyes tight and was confused to discover tears, wet on her cheeks. She let out a sound which felt like a laugh, but deeper, as if it came from the very core of her. She sank to the ground, and put her face in her hands and gave herself up to it. She was crying.

  She sat there for a few minutes sobbing, her knees pulled up to her chest. At last, it passed. She wiped her face, then rubbed her hands on her trousers. She didn’t have a tissue in her pocket and had left her bag in her car, so she tried to clean her nose as much as possible, conscious that mascara would be streaked down her face.

  She pulled herself up to stand and breathed out loudly. She was aware of being totally alone, there in that cemetery. Nothing between her and the ocean, and at the back of her, the remnants of life. That was all that remained: statues and headstones and memories of people who had disappeared from the earth, who had turned to dust.

  Life before her, and death behind.

  Martin lifted her chin and turned back to the headstones. And straight away, she saw it:

  Peter and Michael Snow

  Remembering our angels

  Taken too soon

  3.3.1986–22.1.1988

  Martin crouched down in front of it. The headstone was simple: white with a ribbon etched into the front above the epitaph. Martin shook her head, thoughts flying around it.

  At the bottom of the stone was a small vase of flowers. Martin looked at them with a sudden jolt.

  The flowers were violets. And they were fresh.

  53

  Martin paused with her hand on her office door. She couldn’t bear to go in, to see her desk again – with its piles of paperwork, her computer blinking at her, the lack of pictures on the walls. It was all so depressing. She had to interview Sera soon but before she did, she needed to get her thoughts straight. It still confused her, why Sera would have wrapped the cross in Violet’s nightdress if she had murdered Tristan. Why had she wanted to frame her own daughter?

  She did an about turn and headed back down to where she had come from. Pushing open the doors from the main reception, Martin inhaled a gulp of the street air. It was damp from the recent downpour, puddles lay on the pavement, rainbows of oil slicks greasing their surfaces. She drank in the air, relishing the remnants of drizzle on her face.

  Tristan Snow. Narcissist. Married to Sera. Who, judging from Martin’s interview with Jonah Simpson, had been brought up by another narcissistic man; a man filled with his own anger and resentments. Patterns in families, chains from which you could never break free. Victims of ego, seeking out yet more torture from even worse monsters. As such, the idea of the woman smashing her husband over the head with his own exorcism cross wasn’t that unrealistic.

  All well and logical. But would she want to set her own daughter up for it? Martin pressed the button at the pedestrian crossing and then ignored it, running over the road through the traffic, horns blaring as she went. That seemed improbable at best. And so was Jones right? Was it Violet who had taken her father’s life? And still the other possibilities lurked. Mercy Fletcher, or Vicky Sneddon; Jonah Simpson; the seemingly countless people who had wanted Tristan Snow dead.

  Martin took the fork up on to Elvet Bridge and marched on, into the Market Square. There was the Marquess of Londonderry again; still green, still looking down his copper nose at all who passed him. Martin headed in the direction of the river. She could think there. She ran down the steps at Framwellgate Bridge and was at once enveloped in the lush display of summer that the River Wear put on at that time of year. The trees lining the riverbank seemed to bend to meet her, settling her, making her feel at home. She tramped down the path, watching the mist from the recent rain gradually dispel over the water.

  Sera Snow. A woman who lived in the constant shadow of death. Had she known about her husband’s abuse? If she had, how had she lived with it? And how had her twin boys died? Had they really been hit by a lorry outside Blackpool, or was there yet another secret lurking there, something more horrific to imagine? This was a woman, after all, who had slit the throat of her teenage daughter. Martin couldn’t shake the mental image she had of Violet lying on the pathway underneath that weird space-age bridge. Her doll’s face frozen pale, the gaping gash of red underneath, and her dark hair framing her face for eternity.

  What kind of woman did that?

  Martin dodged out of the way of a lone runner on the riverbank and sank on to a convenient bench. She leaned forward over her knees, gazing at the wet earth, at the peaty orange of the strewn leaves. How was she going to start with Sera? Something tugged at Martin. Did she feel pity for this woman? Or was pity the only way she could get her brain to accept the terrible things the woman had done? Wasn’t that what forgiveness was, in the end? Just a word for moving on, putting an event in its place after you’d stopped caring about it? But Martin did still care about it. She cared about it very much.

  She closed her eyes and breathed in the scent of bark, the dank aroma of the swirling waters before her. Because if you still cared – if you still had that fire of all-consuming emotion – you could never forgive. It would be the same as having starved for a month and then depriving yourself of your favourite food.

  Look at her motive, Martin thought. Look at why she’s done what she’s done. An idea flitted on the periphery of her consciousness, dancing on the edges, calling to her.

  She thought about it, about forgiveness. She thought about the competing emotions she had felt
when Jim had left her. The relief at the same time as the searing humiliation. And then later the hurtful reality that maybe Sam didn’t care about them us much as she did. What would Sera have thought, watching her husband with her sister? Could there be a more blistering betrayal?

  And then it crept into her thoughts, slowly, line by line: the way in to Sera, the way to get her to speak. She was a Christian woman after all – whatever she’d said to Violet – and Martin remembered it from her own days at Sunday School, when she had stared out of those stained-glass windows, barely listening to what the vicar had said. There was one verse, one song, which had always stayed with her . . . what was it? Solomon something . . . Set me . . . set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm. But then how did it go? Something like, love stronger than death or as death and then . . . Martin turned away from the river and hurried back to the station. It had come to her in a rush:

  For love is as strong as death; and jealousy is as cruel as the grave . . .

  54

  Sera was pale and drawn, her hands unmoving on her lap. She sat folded in on herself, shielding herself with invisible wings on the plastic chair behind the interview table.

  She had been waiting for over an hour there at Martin’s request. Martin wanted her exhausted, at the end of her tether after the episode on the bridge, in the hope that, finally, she might break her silence. Sera had signed the appropriate form in front of the duty custody officer, waiving her right to legal representation. Martin didn’t like interviewing in the absence of a lawyer but there was nothing for it. That was the hand she’d been dealt.

  Martin examined her subtly, feeling instinctively that Sera had used silence as protection for all these years. That something about what had happened in the marriage with Tristan, between her sister and her, meant she had become mute. As cruel and silent as the grave.

  Martin missed the stolid presence of Jones next to her. Instead, Tennant sat beside her taking notes. She squared her shoulders. What would it take for Sera to speak? What was the key to unlocking her words? Tennant turned on the interview tape and Martin repeated the words of the caution.