‘I’m all too familiar,’ Trevayne replied grimly, ‘with the kind of help provided by the British criminal justice system.’ An ominous pause. ‘Besides,’ he went on, ‘you can’t undo what’s done.’
Cox bowed her head.
‘No,’ she said. ‘No, we can’t.’
She looked at Thomas; he was still frozen in a grimace of fear, a rabbit pinned by a predator. She hesitated. Trevayne was unstable, unpredictable; she was walking through a minefield here. One wrong step …
‘I can’t bring Stan back,’ she said carefully. ‘But I can bring the people who killed him to justice – with your help.’
‘Be honest, copper.’
‘My name’s Kerry. DI Kerry Cox.’
‘Whatever your name is, don’t try and muck me about. Don’t try and trick me. And don’t tell me you want to help. You don’t want to help the likes of me.’
There was a note of self-reproach, even self-loathing, in Trevayne’s low, husky voice. There’s something I can use, Cox thought – then hated herself for thinking it.
For thinking like a copper?
‘I know what you’ve done, Robert. You’ve done bad things, terrible things. I’ve seen it with my own eyes – the pain, the suffering you’ve caused.’
For the first time Trevayne raised his voice a fraction.
‘I’ll not be judged by you, woman.’
‘I’m not judging you. And d’you know why? Because I know what you’ve been through, what was done to you – what … they did to you.’ She leaned in towards the phone. ‘Robert, I understand.’
A long silence. Cox glanced up at Thomas; he was shaking now, all over, the loose skin of his throat trembling, the reflection of the ceiling-light vibrating on the lenses of his glasses. She hoped to God he wasn’t going to have a heart-attack, or a stroke – Christ, where would that leave her?
At last, Trevayne spoke again. He sounded composed, even polite.
‘I’m going to tell you two things, Inspector Cox. Two things I want you to be very certain about. One: you say you understand. You don’t. Hear me? You don’t. That’s one. Two: this, inspector, this is not over.’
‘What if I told you that Mr Thomas is here with me because he’s in custody? He’s under arrest, Robert – for all the things he did back then. He’s in a jail cell, and if I have my way –’ she glanced up balefully at the trembling solicitor general – ‘that’s where he’ll stay. You can’t get to him; you can’t touch him.’
Trevayne’s response was immediate, faintly amused: ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that if I were you.’ Then, in a brisk, businesslike voice, he said: ‘I want to talk to Thomas. Off speaker. In private.’
Cox hesitated – looked thoughtfully at Thomas. The man had heard what Trevayne had said, that was clear; he was staring at Cox abjectly, lost in fear and bewilderment.
She lifted her eyebrows questioningly. After a long moment, Thomas gulped, tilted his head an inch forwards. She’d take that as a ‘yes’.
She blipped off the speaker and handed Thomas the phone. He held it quaveringly to his ear.
‘Hello?’
Trevayne’s voice was audible to Cox only as a distant mutter.
‘Yes,’ Thomas said. ‘She’s here, but she can only hear me, not you.’
Then he listened, eyes downcast, for perhaps ten seconds. Passed the phone back to Cox. She glanced at the screen; Trevayne had ended the call.
‘So are you going to tell me what he said?’
Thomas seemed to be coming out of his funk, now he could no longer hear Trevayne’s voice. He nodded weakly.
‘He said, “There are no innocents,” and then Numbers fourteen, eighteen.’
Cox frowned. Didn’t ring any bells. Prison numbers? Numbers that signified something back at Hampton Hall?
‘And what,’ she pressed, ‘do you think he meant by that?’ To her surprise, Thomas smiled thinly.
‘Your ignorance is showing, inspector. That’s Numbers with an upper-case “N”. The biblical book, fourth in the Pentateuch? Our Mr Trevayne is, you’ll remember, a devout Christian.’ He clicked his tongue, looked to the ceiling. ‘The man’s hypocrisy takes one’s breath away.’
‘That’s a bad bloody joke, coming from you.’ She looked across at PC George, who’d been sitting silently, bug-eyed and enthralled, while Trevayne had been on the line. ‘Stay with him, will you? I’ll just be a minute.’
In the corridor she grabbed a passing uniform, asked where there was a computer she could use. The man directed her to a side-room, where four humming PCs were wired up. She sat at one, fired up a search engine. What was it again? Numbers, fourteen, eighteen.
It brought up multiple pages of results. Lots of religion on the web, Cox reflected; lots of violence, lots of porn, lots of hate, lots of religion.
The first link showed her that what she was after was written ‘Numbers 14:18’ – it meant Chapter 14, Verse 18, of the Old Testament Book of Numbers. She clicked through to an American website that brought up the relevant passage framed in a pop-up box.
Cox read it through. Shuddered – read it again.
The Lord is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers –
She felt a darkness closing in, cold and malevolent, as she read.
– upon the children unto the fourth and fifth generation.
Cox stared at the final line.
Oh, Christ.
Back to the interview room. Didn’t bother to take her seat or restart the tape. She slammed both hands down on the table.
Thomas looked up at her, taken aback.
‘Inspector, I –’
‘Family,’ she snapped. ‘Don’t you know a threat when you hear one? What family do you have? Any nearby?’
He gaped, completely thrown.
‘I, well, there’s my son and daughter, of course, Dominic and Ginny, but they’re both overseas with their families. Ginny’s in the south of France – she’s got two children in school out there – and Dominic lives in New York; his boy Jeremy is grown up now, a little girl of his own, although –’ He broke up, looked up at Cox – fear, gut-deep terror, once again flooded his lined face.
‘What?’
‘My great-granddaughter. Abigail.’
Unto the fourth and fifth generation.
Cox gestured at PC George, indicating that he should get ready to put out an urgent call. Snatched up her pen.
‘Where is she?’
‘She’s only five years old,’ Thomas whimpered.
‘Where is she?’
Stammering, Thomas forced out the name of a boarding school, St Katherine’s – a high-end place just a few miles to the south-west.
‘Jeremy wanted to have her schooled here,’ he gabbled. ‘He and Anna are only in New York for a short while – he’s got a two-year internship with PwC. He didn’t want Abi flying back and forth, not at that young age. He thought it would be better, and Mary and I agreed – it’s about stability, we said, what a young child that age needs is stability …’
Cox watched him levelly. Thought of Stevie Butcher, Colin Carter, Robbie and Stan Trevayne – how much stability had they had?
Thought of poor little Tomasz Lerna.
Nausea threatened to overwhelm her.
George had already gone to put out the call. She gathered up her things and went out – left Sidney Thomas, solicitor general, sobbing and babbling to himself in an empty room.
28
Four cars, sirens wailing, blue lights smearing the dark sky, streaked through the Surrey countryside. Cox, at the wheel of Greg Wilson’s beaten-up Renault, had to drive hard to keep up. As she drove – the little car lurching dangerously on the bends, protesting as she forced it up to speed on the straights – she strained to hear the brittle, refined voice of Mrs Helen Tufnell-Mathers coming over the hands-free.
‘I said,’ the woman repeated fretfully, ‘that
I shall go and check on the girls now.’
Tufnell-Mathers was Abigail Thomas’s housemistress at St Katherine’s. She’d been unnerved by Cox’s call but so far she was keeping her head – the woman had guts, Cox had to give her that.
‘Be careful,’ Cox warned, rocketing past a ‘Stop’ sign. ‘Don’t take any risks. Check the doors and windows are soundly locked, but don’t go outside unless you really have to.’
‘Are you on your way?’
‘We are. Just a few minutes away.’
It was a half-truth: sure, they’d be there soon, with a few carloads of suburban bobbies, but Cox didn’t know how much good they’d do. A SCO19 firearms team was what they needed to take down Trevayne, and they’d take a while to scramble out of London.
‘Please stay on the line, inspector,’ said Mrs Tufnell-Mathers. ‘I’m heading up there now.’
‘I will, Mrs Tufnell-Mathers. I’m not going anywhere.’
Wilson, holding on tight in the passenger seat, muttered that according to the satnav they were approaching the school grounds now.
‘Please, call me Helen,’ the woman said. ‘It’s no time to stand on ceremony.’
Cox smiled. She was starting to like the well-spoken housemistress.
‘Okay, Helen. I agree – I’m Kerry.’
‘I’m coming up to the girls’ wing now. It’s blustery outside; can’t hear you too well, Kerry.’
‘I’m still here.’ The car’s sweeping headlights picked out a gold-lettered wooden sign on a high stone wall: St Katherine’s School for Girls. She braked hard, took a sharp right into the school’s driveway.
‘There’s no sign of anything amiss, here,’ Tufnell-Mathers reported. Some of the tension had gone out of her voice. ‘I had a quick peep inside, and the girls are all sound asleep, by the look of it. The doors all seem secure. And the windows – oh, but …’
She broke off. Cox braked hard, the car skidding sideways in the deep gravel.
‘Helen?’
Faint noises – a thump, a clatter; a grunt; a high winter wind, battering on the windowpanes.
Cox looked at Wilson.
‘It’s happening,’ she said, her voice loaded with dread. ‘He’s here.’
Just up ahead, the Esher coppers were piling out of their cars. Cox jumped out into the wet, buffeting storm, lifting her injured arm – God, it ached from the drive – to shield her eyes from the lateral driving rain.
She raced up the driveway. The other officers had parked in the shadow of the school, a towering three-storey structure of off-white stone. Tall windows – a modern addition – were spaced across the front of the building. Cox looked up; all across the school, lights were coming on.
The officers were milling, disorganized, talking over one another. She was, she saw quickly, the most senior officer there; time to take charge.
‘He’s already here,’ she said, loud as she could. ‘Repeat, the suspect is on the premises.’ Turned to face them, blinking in the rain. Wiped her hair from her face. ‘I’m DI Cox, from Scotland Yard. Do as I say, and –’
And what? And everything will be fine? A dozen officers, hands on their batons, stared back at her – anxious, jumpy, pumped-up, clueless.
‘Well, just do as I say,’ she finished.
She dispersed the officers in teams of three, told them to fan out through the school grounds, to cover as much ground as they could – to keep the risks low, to do it by the book – for Christ’s sake, to be careful. Robert Trevayne was dangerous. She had the cracked ribs to prove it.
Tense with worry, she watched them move off into the darkness, hi-viz patches glinting in the light from the windows.
There was a scream, from somewhere in the upper storeys, towards the west side of the main building. Cox spun, quickly taking in the possibilities. A narrow, cobbled passageway led into the darkness down that side of the school; an archway in the centre of the building led through, she guessed, into a central courtyard, from which all areas could be accessed.
She squinted through the rain at the cobbled path. Could you, she wondered urgently, get a car down there?
‘Hey! You. Sergeant.’ She called back one of the officers, a black-bearded man she’d seen at the wheel of one of the patrol cars. He jogged back keenly.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Move your car across here, quickly.’ She half-turned, gestured to the opening of the pathway behind her …
An engine roared madly. She saw rain on grey metal. At speed, striking sparks from the school wall with its offside wing, a Merc – Trevayne’s Merc – came hurtling up the path – heading straight for her.
She dived, fell, her cheek scraping into the ankle-deep gravel. She felt the noise of the car, felt it right through her body, like the noise of shell-fire, as it veered, barely in control, across the driveway, scraping through the gravel barely a yard from her outsplayed feet.
Looked up; saw the Merc fishtail crazily as it spun toward the exit, smashing the wing-mirror from one of the parked patrol cars.
Someone was screaming, a woman. Cox rolled over – felt blood wet and warm on her face, her ear. A woman was running towards her, from the pathway. She was stumbling, limping; there was a dark flash of blood across her brow.
‘Helen!’ Cox screamed, over the chaos of the Merc’s receding engine roar, officers yelling and running, girls screaming as doors banged and upstairs windows were flung open.
The woman stopped, bewildered, lost in the rain and noise. Wrung her hands helplessly. Cox, scrambling to her feet, screamed again: ‘Helen!’
This time, Tufnell-Mathers heard. She turned her head towards Cox; her expression was empty, bereft – a face of grief.
‘He’s got her,’ she yelled. Choked on a sob, looked around wild-eyed, looked back at Cox. The blood mingled with the rain and streamed down her face. ‘He’s got her.’
If she failed, if she lost Trevayne or pushed him the wrong way, or if Wilson’s knackered car gave out now, Abigail Thomas would die. It’s that simple this time, DI Cox. The Renault howled as she hammered the gas pedal, roaring out of the drive and on to the main road in a clattering shower of gravel.
She’d no radio, no way of contacting the rest of the officers; they were behind her, she knew, somewhere – but she had a visual on the grey Merc and she wasn’t going to wait about for them to catch up.
A glimpse was all she’d had: a brake light flaring red a hundred yards down the road as the Merc screeched round a tight left-hand bend.
Now the car was just two dots of light in the distance. Way off. Getting away.
Cox winced, narrowing her eyes, as her rear-view mirror flared with light; one of the patrol cars, siren screaming, hurtled past her, fast and reckless in pursuit. It’d be the black-bearded sergeant; after Cox, he’d been in the best position to respond.
She wished him luck. The patrol car was already way in front of her and gaining visibly on the distant Merc.
But she wasn’t about to take any chances. She kept on at top speed, the needle quivering at seventy, seventy-five – kept on pushing the Renault to its limit.
Up ahead, she saw the twin lights of the Merc vanish abruptly – a bend in the road, Cox guessed. The patrol car, following, close now, within fifty feet, went the same way. Then Cox heard a gunshot, a scream of rubber on asphalt, another shot. What the hell … ?
There was a loud, sharp scraping noise, a heavy thump. Someone going off the road. Cox said a quick prayer; hauled the car through the turn at speed, injured ribs shrieking at the effort.
It was the patrol car – out of action, overturned by the roadside. Must’ve veered up the left-hand verge, overbalanced as it slewed along the kerb; the wall of a concrete culvert had torn away the driver’s door. Smoke rose from the crumpled bonnet.
Cox quickly saw why it’d crashed – braked hard, spun the wheel desperately. Another car, unmarked, was parked at an angle across the road. Behind it, she saw lights, uniforms, guns, set, purposeful faces
…
A SCO19 roadblock. She swore fiercely, wrestling to bring the skidding car under control. Great work, guys …
What was that, to the left? A break in the kerb, an opening in the steep verge – the armed response guys must’ve figured it was too narrow for a car. Trevayne had obviously disagreed; he must have come this way – or else he’d vanished into thin bloody air.
One of the SCO19 officers had stepped out from behind the roadblock, was gesturing at her self-importantly. Cox ignored him. She gunned the engine, bringing the car out of its spin – plunged forwards, down through the opening.
It was narrow, unpaved, barely more than a bridleway, heading steeply downwards through a deep stand of pine-trees. No one in their right mind would bring a car down here. Maybe a desperate killer; maybe a desperate copper.
The Renault bucked over potholes, rocks, ditches. Her arm and ribs ached from gripping the wheel. The windscreen wipers whined back and forth.
Red brakelights flared up ahead.
She had an edge here; not much of one, but something. Off-road, Trevayne had lost his main advantage: the Merc’s vastly superior road-speed. On a main road, he could have put his foot down and lost the Renault for good in five seconds flat – he’d already outrun her once. Here, with Trevayne struggling along the muddy, broken-up track, lights glaring full-beam to pick out the way through the pines, they were pretty much on a level footing.
They were also, she realized uneasily, heading away from any place where someone – anyone – might pass by; into empty countryside – into darkness.
If and when the cars stopped, it’d just be the three of them: her, Trevayne and poor, terrified little Abigail Thomas.
She drove on. Just focus on those brake lights. Just focus on getting it right.
Up ahead, she saw, the Merc seemed to be faltering, slowing, lurching lopsidedly across the track. Hope clutched at her, hope wound tightly up with a primal, physical fear. A puncture, a broken axle?
Or a trap?
She kept up her speed, closing the gap; the Merc was still moving, still ploughing forward in spite of its difficulties. Cox wondered how she was going to bring the bastard to a halt; there was nowhere near enough room to overtake, and she doubted the Renault had the power to run the bigger car off the road – and how could she, anyway, with Abigail Thomas in there with him?
Twelve Deaths of Christmas Page 29