‘No, Anna, I didn’t kill Eddie. I merely provided access to the house and a sterile syringe. It wouldn’t even have been needed if Eddie hadn’t come back so soon. All they wanted were your father’s notebooks.’ Jamie moaned and struggled at his side. ‘Jamie’s getting bored,’ he said. ‘We should get this over with.’
‘And the people at Bowes Dorrinton?’ Anna persisted. ‘Is this their idea, too?’
‘Oh no, this is what you might call simple self-preservation.
I’ve no other option. But the final decision is yours, Anna. Who is it going to be? Jamie, or you?’
‘How do I know that you won’t let Jamie fall anyway?
After all that you’ve done, why should I trust anything you say?’
‘That’s your choice, of course. But you’re his only chance, Anna.’ Payne relinquished his grasp slightly and Jamie struggled to wrench himself free.
‘Wait!’ Anna blurted, desperately. ‘I’ll do it. You don’t have to hurt him. He won’t give you away. Look, I’ll do it.’ Feeling suddenly weightless with fear, her legs shaking almost uncontrollably, Anna stepped up on to the first and then second rung of the railings. Payne watched, urging her on with his eyes. She glanced below to where the city streets swayed and blurred. So this was how her life would end, in ultimate, futile sacrifice.
‘Anna, stop!’ Another voice rang out over the roof and with overwhelming relief Anna recognised it as Mariner’s.
‘You don’t have to,’ he said. ‘It’s over. Walk away from the edge, Payne. And bring Jamie with you.’ Everything on the rooftop froze. ‘It’s the only sensible thing, Doctor,’ Mariner continued, persuasively. ‘You can’t win this. We know what you’ve done. We have records of your calls.
We’ve just heard your confession. You have nothing to gain by this now. There’s nowhere else to go.’
For what seemed an eternity nothing happened as Payne hesitated, weighing up his situation. Anna halted, poised on the precipice. Seconds ticked by, everything deathly silent, but for the background hum of an ignorant city amplified by the light rain that had begun to fall. Then miraculously Dr Payne began, inch by inch, to move back across the roof towards the policeman. For a moment it looked as if he would comply, until suddenly, as Anna’s foot touched back down on the roof, he shoved Jamie to one side, turned and lunged for the railings.
Mariner and Knox exploded from the doorway as Jamie, panicked by the sudden activity started running towards the outer edge of the roof.
‘No!’ Anna screamed. Mariner took a flying leap at Jamie, bringing them both crashing heavily onto the concrete, but for Dr Payne it was too late. Blocked by furniture and plant pots, Knox couldn’t get to him fast enough to prevent him from hurling himself over the edge to certain death.
The sirens of the summoned back-up team grew louder.
Retaining a tight hold on Jamie’s shirt, Mariner got to his feet and walked over to where Anna stood, dazed and shaking. He put a protective arm around her. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get off here.’
Behind them Knox turned into his radio. ‘Echo Charlie Two-Nine to control, ambulance required at Brindley Place.’
In Anna’s flat, officers came and went and statements were taken. Mariner went down to watch the mutilated body of Dr Owen Payne secured in its body bag and being loaded into the ambulance. When he got back, most of the others had gone, leaving Knox alone with Anna. Jamie wasn’t around.
‘In there,’ Knox told him, gesturing towards the bedroom. Exhausted by two days wandering the streets, for once Jamie was asleep. And as if that wasn’t enough surprises for one day, Knox had made tea. But Mariner declined the offer, so there was nothing more for him to do.
‘I’ll get going then, boss,’ he said.
Mariner saw him out. ‘Thanks, Tony. You’ve done a good job,’ he said.
Knox flashed a sardonic smile. ‘First time for everything.
Put in a word for me with the gaffer eh?’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘I’ll even promise to stay away from his missus.’
‘Is that why—?’
Knox grinned. ‘I was more ambitious then: the Assistant Chief Constable’s wife. Not for nothing was I known as “Opportunity Knox”.’
‘Someone must have found out.’
‘He caught us at it, actually.’
‘You bloody idiot.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Look where I ended up. See you, boss.’
Mariner knew that he should go too, but as Anna hadn’t suggested it yet, neither would he. He walked through to where she was in the kitchen.
‘What made you come back here tonight?’ she asked him. ‘Was it my phone call?’
‘It certainly got me wondering. But when Jamie was picked up he had a mobile phone in his pocket that he must have lifted from Weller—one of his abductors. The manager at St Barnabas gave it to me after you’d gone. We traced the calls on it. Just after I spoke to you, Knox came to tell me that one of the names that featured on the account regularly in the last few days was a Dr Owen Payne. We got here and I saw those.’ Jamie’s pictures were scattered across the table, amongst them the snowflake and the garden.
‘Not bad for a beginner. Thanks for showing up.’
‘It’s what I’m paid to do.’
‘And I’m sorry, I’ve been a bitch.’
‘Well, the last couple of days haven’t been much fun, have they? But if you want to make it up to me—’
‘I probably shouldn’t have hit you though.’ Mariner shrugged it off. ‘That shirt’s a mistake by the way,’ she said, to bridge the awkward silence. ‘I’m not sure that the bloodstain effect really works.’
Mariner glanced down at where blood had seeped through the fabric. ‘No? Well, that’s police work for you.
No respect for fashion.’
‘Let me see.’ Before he could argue, she was unbuttoning his shirt and pulling it loose from his trousers. At one point her fingertips touched his bare flesh making Mariner gasp, but not with pain. A series of raw abrasions an inch wide spread from his stomach down over his abdomen, angry red against his pale skin.
‘You should get those seen to.’
‘I’ll be all right.’
‘Well at least let me clean them up.’ She returned from the bathroom, moments later, with cotton wool. Filling a bowl with warm water, she began gently dabbing at his wounds, tracing their downward progression until they disappeared beneath his waistband. She looked up at him, a mischievous gleam in her eyes, before Mariner felt a tug and heard the rasp of his zip being lowered. Oh God. Why hadn’t he cashed in that prescription?
‘Look,’ he began. ‘I’ve got this…’
But suddenly, uttering an expletive, she jumped back from him, and Mariner turned to see Jamie shuffling sleepily into the room.
‘Want a drink,’ he said, walking over to Anna and tugging her arm.
She gave Mariner an anguished glance. ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed.
Christ, so am I. ‘I’d better go.’ With a silent howl of frustration, Mariner turned away from them and zipped up.
Jamie provided for; Anna walked Mariner to the door.
‘Thanks for everything,’ she said.
‘Don’t you mean, thanks for screwing everything up?’
‘You were there when we needed you.’
‘Now that we have evidence of Dr Payne’s involvement, we can press charges for Eddie’s murder,’ Mariner said, still trying to wrench his mind away from the disappointment.
‘We’ve got a lawyer working on the case now, too.
And if Andrew Todd pulls through, the case against Bowes Dorrinton will be blown wide open.’ He’d make the phone call himself to Ken Moloney first thing in the morning.
‘You and all the other families can look forward to the justice and the compensation you deserve. You’ll be able to get your life back.’
‘If I want it.’ Suddenly she seemed less certain. ‘The last few days have
brought a few things into sharp focus. Look I’m sorry about…’ She gestured back towards the kitchen.
‘Some other time perhaps?’
‘Sure.’ Perhaps.
Outside, the rain had turned into a steady downpour, and Knox, of course, had taken the car. Turning up his collar ineffectually against the torrent, Mariner started towards Broad Street to flag a taxi.
The End.
Author’s Note
The National Autistic Society estimates the population of people with Autistic Spectrum Disorders in the UK to be over 500,000, ranging from those people moderately affected to those with greater difficulties. Whilst professionals are becoming more skilled at diagnosing and managing the condition, the specific causes of autism remain largely unknown. The debate about the link between the MMR vaccine and autism rages on, but at the time of writing the link is far from being proven.
In a small number of cases certain drugs may be used to control the effects of autism. Some of these have been mentioned in this book. However the drug Pinozalyan is entirely fictitious, as is the pharmaceutical company Bowes Dorrinton, and to the author’s knowledge there is no established or hypothesised connection between any medication taken during pregnancy and the onset of autism.
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