SHADOW OVER THE FENS a gripping crime thriller full of suspense

by Joy Ellis

  ‘But what about Bryony Barton, guv? We still don’t know where the devil she is.’

  ‘Look, there’s still a chance I’m overreacting. She may have another man in tow. She’s a stunning-looking woman, and she could be shacked up somewhere drinking champagne and being drooled over by some handsome stud, while we run round like headless chickens searching for her.’

  ‘You believe that?’

  Nikki shrugged. ‘No. But I’m not sure what I believe any more. None of us know much about her, do we?’ She took a deep breath. ‘Although strangely I do think she cares for Joseph. I’m going to get someone to check out the local CCTV footage. See where she went when she left here yesterday, then I’m going to check on Linda Kowalski, and you, detective, are going to do as I say and throw in the towel for today. You look knackered, and I need you daisy-fresh, okay?’

  Cat raised her hands in surrender. ‘Thanks, boss. But I’ll be back in early, I promise.’

  Nikki watched the woman leave, then picked up the phone and rang Joseph. She had no intention of telling him about her concerns for Bryony, and she wasn’t too sure about letting on about the latest killing either. Maybe she’d just give him her ETA, then tell him everything over a glass of wine when she got home later.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  ‘I’ve got her.’

  Joseph froze, as the pale, expressionless eyes of Billy Sweet swam into his head.

  ‘And before you say anything, Bunny dear, I want you to listen very carefully. The gorgeous Miss Barton’s life depends on your silence and your full attention.’

  Joseph struggled not to scream obscenities down the phone, but the thought of Bryony being held by that animal kept his mouth obediently shut.

  ‘Naturally you will want proof that she’s still alive . . .’ there was a small giggle in his voice, ‘knowing my past record. And in a moment, I’ll let her speak, but right now, soldier, just listen and follow orders. You will be at the rendezvous in exactly half an hour. You will tell no one, especially your piggy friends. If I suspect anything at all, pretty Bryony will be executed. Assuming you still have a modicum of sense, you will arrive alone at Knot Cottage in thirty minutes. Now, listen to this . . .’

  There were some scraping sounds, a muffled groan, then Joseph heard her voice. It crackled with fear, but he had no doubt it was Bryony. ‘Joseph! Help me! Please!’ There was a tiny break in her voice, then she whispered, ‘He’s insane. He will kill me.’

  ‘Hold on, Bryony, I’ll do anything he wants. I promise. Just hold on.’

  There was a muffled cry, then he heard, ‘Thirty minutes, Bunny-boy, and alone.’ A hissing noise replaced the ugly voice, and then there was silence.

  Joseph stared at the receiver, his face set in an expression of revulsion and fear.

  Very slowly he put the phone down and took a long ragged breath. His first thought was to call Nikki. He was a police officer for God’s sake, and not one to be intimidated by threats. Then he saw Bryony’s face, and heard again the words, “He’s insane. He will kill me.” He of all people knew that she was right on both counts, and thoughts of talking to Nikki faded. He had to go to Knot Cottage, and he had to go alone.

  * * *

  Nikki sat alone in her office. Nothing was making sense any more, and the terrible feeling of wrongness was blocking cohesive thought and cramping her stomach. Bits of conversation filtered slowly into the word soup that used to be her brain, and she dropped forward, elbows on her desk and head in hands. What was it that was really tearing her up?

  The thought came to her as clearly as a Fenland church bell ringing over the fields on a cloudless day. It was Bryony.

  She pushed back her chair and almost ran out into the murder room. ‘Dave! Yvonne! I need you! Now!’

  As she turned back into her office, Dave was right with her and Yvonne only a step behind.

  ‘Bryony Barton. I want to know everything you can dig up on her, and I mean everything.’ She looked at them urgently. ‘This is all I know to date, take it from there, and grab all the help you can.’

  She rattled off the few facts that she knew about the woman and sat back.

  ‘Why is this so important?’ asked Dave anxiously.

  Nikki frowned. ‘I don’t know, but trust me, it is. All I keep thinking is that Bryony arrived out of nowhere and has been Joseph’s shadow ever since, and so has someone else, someone very dangerous.’

  ‘Someone who kills people,’ added Yvonne darkly.

  ‘Exactly. There is something about Bryony that doesn’t ring true, and now she’s missing.’ Her brow knit even tighter. ‘Maybe she’s not after Joseph at all. Maybe she’s after the man we are calling Billy Sweet.’

  ‘The killer?’ asked Yvonne incredulously ‘To stop him, or to help him?’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of either of those options,’ muttered Dave. ‘And there’s another scenario, isn’t there? What if the killer has snatched Bryony? We agreed that he is probably trying to get at Joseph, so who better to abduct than someone he really cares about?’ Dave ran a hand through his hair and swallowed hard. ‘We’d better get to work. Come on, Vonnie. You make a start; I’ll grab a few more bodies and let’s see what we can find.’

  ‘I’ll ring Joseph back,’ said Nikki grabbing the phone. ‘I’m really not happy with him being stuck out on the marsh alone.’

  Joseph picked up almost immediately, and listened carefully to everything she said. After a moment or two he said, ‘I’m okay, Nikki. I can take care of myself.’

  ‘And I think you should come here directly, Joseph. Get off the fen.’ She hadn’t wanted to tell him, but hell, he’d hear soon enough. ‘There’s been another execution. Another Billy Sweet lookalike. You are not safe alone, Joseph. I want you where I can see you, so get yourself here, and fast. That’s an order!’

  ‘Okay. But there’s something I must do before . . .’ His words came out slowly and were edged with concern.

  ‘Believe me, there is nothing more important than getting off Cloud Fen! And if you don’t, I’ll send a squad car to pick you up. Do you understand, Sergeant?’

  ‘Don’t do that, Nikki. I’ll get there as soon as I can. I promise.’

  ‘Be careful, Joseph. If anything happens out there, you are miles from help.’ She lowered the phone back into its cradle but felt far from relieved by the call. Joseph had sounded strained and what on earth did he have to do that was so damned important? Nikki bit her lip. She had no idea what it was, but she was damned sure that for once it wasn’t chopping bloody chilli peppers.

  It took only fifteen minutes to get a basic profile of Bryony Barton.

  ‘You’re sure she has no siblings?’ Nikki demanded of Yvonne.

  ‘Absolutely. Only child of Dr Aaron James Barton, deceased, and Denise Clover Barton, née Bridgewater, of Kendal. Went to school in Carnforth, university at Lancaster, Bio-science degrees, honours, etc.’

  ‘She said that she had a brother who was in the same ward in Greenborough Hospital as Joseph. And she told Joseph the same thing, said it was where she first saw him.’

  ‘Well, that may be correct, but she wasn’t visiting a brother, that’s for certain. Mm . . .’ said Yvonne thoughtfully, ‘. . . but she may have been visiting someone on that ward! I’ll see if the hospital can open up Medical Records for me and get a list of patients treated over the same time as the sarge.’

  As Yvonne disappeared, Dave placed a sheet of paper in front of her. ‘Her whereabouts since she left Lancaster, according to the CV that she gave to her present employer.’ He stabbed a finger onto the page. ‘These were all verified by the PA lab manager. Some pretty technical posts, all with impressive titles that are Greek to me. Then six years ago she went to Germany for an interview, and from that point, things get fuzzy. She seems to have spent four and a half years chasing in and out of the country. One of our lads has identified her as a frequent flier with several major airlines, and all business class. Then bang, she takes a poorly pa
id job with the Public Analyst, buys a bijou property, and becomes Miss Perfectly Ordinary. Weird, or what?’

  ‘Has anyone accessed her finances yet?’ asked Nikki.

  ‘Someone is onto that right now, guv. I’ll go chase it up.’

  Dave left and Nikki tried to calm the turmoil that was churning her guts into a tight knot. She played out an old conversation that Joseph had had with her about Bryony. Bit of a home-lover, he’d said. Didn’t travel much except for the occasional winter sunshine top-up and her older brother was something of a tearaway. All lies. But why?

  She rubbed at her sore eyes, then saw Yvonne approaching the door.

  ‘We’re in luck, guv! Just listen to this! One of the patients on Curlew Ward, who overlapped the sarge by one day, was Kurt Michael Carson. Bryony had to have been visiting the man who has just become the latest victim of Billy Sweet!’

  ‘So they are all connected in some way!’ Nikki banged her fist up and down on her desk. ‘But hell’s teeth, how?’ She closed her eyes and tried to think. ‘What was Carson in hospital for?’

  ‘RTC with a drunk driver apparently, fractured cheek bone and some other minor injuries. The reason he was on the sarge’s ward was they suspected abdominal bleeding. They did an exploratory op, sorted him out and he was discharged.’

  ‘I think it’s time to double-check that our dead guy is the same man.’ Nikki picked up her phone and punched in the number for Professor Wilkinson.

  Rory sounded exhausted. ‘Yes, dear lady. I can confirm that our fresh cadaver has all those attributes, recently healed fracture of the zygomatic arch and a small surgical scar in the upper abdo, amongst numerous old injuries. He’s one and the same, Nikki.’

  ‘Thanks, Rory. Sorry to hold you up, I know how busy you are.’

  ‘Mm, I’d be quite grateful if you could catch this public executioner. I’ve always loved variety, and I’m getting rather bored with identical methods of dispatch, not to mention the crow’s feet that are multiplying around my eyes as we speak!’

  ‘I’m working on it, believe me! Oh, Rory, by the way, what are pharmokinetics?’

  ‘Ah, planning a change of career, are we? Well, it’s the study of how drugs are absorbed into, distributed, then broken down and eliminated by the human body. Your scientist would work closely with each individual patient to make sure that they got the very best from a prescribed drug regime. It’s a very personal, patient-focused thing.’ He paused. ‘I assume you are referring to your friend Martin Durham? It’s the sort of thing that he would have benefited from.’

  ‘No, it’s nothing to do with Martin,’ said Nikki slowly. ‘We have a missing person, and that is her apparent occupation.’

  ‘Complex stuff, Nikki. She must be a bright woman.’

  ‘I’m sure she is,’ mused Nikki. ‘Thank you, Rory.’

  * * *

  Joseph slipped the key from the lock of Cloud Cottage Farm and walked soundlessly down the path. There was little to show of the recent storm. A few puddles in sheltered spots, but the lane had dried out, and air was still and warm. It would have been a beautiful evening, had his mind not been full.

  He had a knife with him. It was carefully concealed in a small cash pocket in the waistband of his chinos. But even so, he felt naked, unprotected.

  Knot Cottage seemed deserted, but it would. Sweet was a pro. There would be nothing on view to attract unwanted visitors. Vaguely Joseph wondered why Billy should even know about Martin Durham’s home, but then Sweet would have been watching Joseph’s every move, and the lonely little cottage was the perfect place for their reunion.

  He wished with all his heart that he could be meeting Billy Sweet alone. To know that Bryony was close by was a distraction. She would be his Achilles’ heel, his weak point. And Sweet would know that. In a military operation Joseph knew that he would have been steely cool, in total command of his responses, his actions and his reactions, but with a woman that you cared about in mortal danger, he had no idea how he would cope. Nothing like this had ever happened before. He slowed down. Except once. With Nikki.

  Joseph gazed upwards into the dark sky, and murmured a small prayer. ‘Keep us safe, keep us from harm, keep us from evil.’

  The lane gave way to the track down to the cottage. Joseph braced himself. He had kept his side of the bargain. He had come alone. Now would Billy Sweet show some sort of respect for his action and spare Bryony?

  He swallowed and involuntarily gave a soft humourless laugh. Who was he kidding? Sweet was a psycho, he wouldn’t recognise morality if he tripped over it. No, if Bryony was to survive, it meant that he must dispatch Billy first, before he killed again.

  Joseph shivered and reached out for the door handle. He wouldn’t be entering in military style. No throwing back the door and charging in all guns blazing. He had nothing in his favour. He could do no more than walk into the spider’s web and keep praying.

  The door swung back silently. He took a step inside, half expecting a trip-wire and a flash of explosive, then when that didn’t happen, he stood in the quiet and listened.

  He knew he was not alone. His senses, still highly tuned to his surroundings told him that. The sound of a breath? The hint of a stirring of the air? A tiny movement in your peripheral vision?

  Somewhere there was a light source. It was very dim, like a candle or a night-light. And in the shadows, Joseph knew that a figure was sitting in a high wing-backed armchair. It was angled away from him, but he saw the legs from the knees down, and the feet casually stretched out in front. He saw desert boots and the cuffs of army fatigues.

  He wanted to leap on Sweet. Take him from behind and crush his windpipe. But he knew that he would never get close enough to even touch him.

  ‘I came alone.’ His voice sounded odd, even to his own ears.

  The figure moved slightly, and Joseph saw the dull glint of metal in Sweet’s lap. The muzzle of a gun was pointing to the only other chair in the sitting room. ‘I knew you would. Sit down, Joseph.’

  Whatever he had imagined, it was not this.

  The light came from a tiny battery-powered storm lantern that stood in the hearth, and in its feeble glow, Joseph saw Bryony.

  ‘Bry? My God! You’re safe!’ There was elation in his voice, and he wanted to rush forward, to grab her, hold her . . . but something stopped him. A trap? He steeled himself, then scanned the dark corners of the room. ‘Where is he? Where’s Sweet?’

  Her voice was little more than a whisper. ‘He’s not here, Joseph.’

  Confusion flooded his brain, and in the absence of a better idea, he moved numbly towards the other chair and sank slowly into it. ‘Bry? The phone call? I don’t understand.’

  ‘My poor sweet Joseph, of course you don’t understand, and why should you?’ There was something like compassion in her voice. ‘This is all such a mess, such a terrible mess.’

  He stared at her, trying to make out the woman he cared so much about, but she was little more than a wraith in the darkness of the armchair. And he had been wrong about the camouflage trousers and boots. Maybe that was what he had expected to see. Actually she was wearing a dark long-sleeved T-shirt, khaki cargo pants and casual suede short boots. It was the gun that really couldn’t get his head around.

  ‘Do you love me, Joseph?’

  He swallowed. It was not what he had expected her to ask him. And not at gunpoint. His mind twisted itself into knots. What was expected of him? What should he say? He took a few deep breaths and calmed himself. The truth had always worked in past ‘I was beginning to think that way, yes.’

  She eased forward in the chair and the light from the tiny lantern caught her eyes. For a minute he thought he saw hope in them, along with the traces of recent tears.

  ‘Then we need to talk, Joseph. Because a lot depends on it.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Dave placed a sheaf of papers on her desk and stepped back. ‘I don’t get it. Bryony is loaded! Accounts everywhere, both here and abroad, a
nd they are just the ones we’ve managed to identify. Heaven knows what other offshore ones she has.’

  Nikki jutted her jaw forward. ‘God! We need to know more about her. Especially what she was doing from Germany onwards.’

  ‘Sorry, but I’m stuck there, ma’am,’ said Dave. ‘She had no regular wage, but very large amounts of money were being paid in, and all untraceable.’ Dave gave an exasperated sigh. ‘I reckon she’s one of those spooks. A spy.’

  Nikki stared at him and a picture of Bryony swam into her mind. Strong, athletic, by her own admission a very strong swimmer, and highly intelligent, even if she made out otherwise. A highly qualified scientist.

  Dave raised his eyebrows. ‘I was joking, guv.’

  ‘Maybe you’re not so wrong,’ breathed Nikki. ‘I think I need the super to make some delicate enquiries to see if any other departments or agencies have interests her.’

  Five minutes later the superintendent appeared in her office doorway. ‘There have been some very hot secure lines active on your behalf, Nikki, but I’m sorry to say that she is not one of ours, and as far I can ascertain, not military or government either.’ He looked anxiously at her. ‘And as I wasn’t warned off by anyone, I’m pretty confident that she’s not in deep cover either.’

  Nikki felt a rush of foreboding.

  ‘Be careful, Nikki,’ the super turned to leave. ‘There are other agencies out there. Powerful ones that we have no connections to, so tread warily, okay?’

  She nodded and watched him go. As the door closed, she lifted the receiver and dialled her own number. ‘Come on, come on!’ The phone rang on until the answerphone cut in. She banged it down and rang Joseph’s mobile, praying he was on the road to the nick. ‘Damn you! Why switch your bloody phone off at a time like this?’

  She threw the phone down, then grabbed it back up as it rang again.

  ‘Joseph?’

  ‘Sorry, dear heart, it’s me, Rory. Just something I thought I needed to mention regarding the late Mr Kurt Carson. I said he had old injuries, and although this may mean nothing, at least two of them were gunshot wounds.’