Desolate Sands Crime Book 5 (Detective Alec Ramsay Crime Mystery Suspense Series)

by Conrad Jones

  “I need water,” she gasped. Janice looked around for a kitchen. There was a door to the right and another staircase directly above the first one. “I feel faint.”

  “Stay there,” he sighed. “One wrong move and you are dead. Understand?” He looked at her suspiciously. She remained kneeling while he walked to the door and opened it. Switching the light on, Brendon disappeared into the kitchen. Her mind turned everything into makeshift weapons, a heavy vase, a small table, a marble ashtray, but with her hands tied they were all useless. She heard the clink of glass and the sound of running water and then he was back within seconds. He held out the glass and then tutted when he realised that she was tied up. It angered him, despite the obvious fact that he had tied her up. “Here!” He held the glass in front of her face. She moved forward slightly to drink and he moved it away, tormenting her. He put it suggestively close to his groin. “Here!” He laughed sourly, moving it again as she neared. “I thought you wanted a drink?” She wavered, nearly losing her balance. Her thirst overwhelmed her shame as she desperately followed the water.

  “Please, I can’t do this. I’m exhausted.” She sighed heavily and sat down on her heels and waited for the taunting to stop. He lifted the glass an inch above her forehead and tipped it slightly. Cold water splashed onto her face. It ran into her eyes and then down her neck, trickling beneath her neckline.

  “I bet you’ve had a few facials in your time, eh?”

  “Hundreds,” she replied flatly. “I even enjoyed some of them. Now can I have a drink or not?”

  “Not!” He hissed and threw the water into her face. She squeezed her eyes closed tightly and lapped at the water which ran near her lips with her tongue. “You’ve got a smart mouth on you, slut. Well you can gasp.”

  “Arsehole,” she said beneath her breath. The little water that she had salvaged helped but was not nearly enough to quench her thirst. “I can’t wait for Jim to get a grip of your scrawny neck. He’ll snap you like a twig.” Janice couldn’t help herself. Insulting him was all she had left. Brendon grabbed her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilted her head back. He smiled and his eyes seemed to glaze over. It chilled her to the bone.

  A flash of white hot pain shot through her brain. A concussive blow stunned her. A millisecond later she felt the fragile bones in her nose crack under the force. The coppery taste of blood filled her senses. She didn’t have time to scream, unconsciousness took her instantly. Somewhere in her subconscious, she wondered if she would wake up buried in the sand.

  Chapter 49

  Brendon grabbed her by the ankles and dragged her to the second flight of stairs. It was impossible to drag her up the staircase with her hands still tied behind her back. It crossed his mind to drag her face down but he thought that her chin would crack against every step. At best, that would break her teeth and choke her and at worst she may bite off her tongue and bleed to death, or break her neck. He needed her alive for the time being. Taking the survival knife from its sheath, he sliced through the tape and grabbed her wrists tightly with both hands. He took a deep breath and then dragged her up to the next floor. Her chest wheezed as her back hit each step. It was harder than he thought it would be. His thigh muscles burned with the buildup of lactic acid and his breathing became labored. Pulling a limp body up a flight of steps would have taxed a fit man, let alone a slouch like Brendon Ryder. Keeping fit had never been his thing. He spent his life wearing tracksuits and sportswear, yet the only time he visited a gym was to sell drugs. His passion for football only extended to watching it from a bar stool. The last time he had seen a football outside of television was at school. His stepfather used to say that the only thing he wasn’t addicted to was exercise.

  On the way up, he paused twice to rest and groaned in agony when he reached the top. He dumped her on the carpet and slumped on the floor with his back against the wall, while he caught his breath. Sweat trickled from his brow into his eyes and tiny rivulets ran down his back. He sighed and looked around for inspiration. He had half an idea forming in his mind. All he had to do was stop anyone from following them. It sounded simple enough. Along the hallway, three doors led into the bedrooms, two doubles and a single. He had been using the master bedroom so he was familiar with the furniture in there but he had a good idea what was in the others. There was more than enough to block the stairs and slow down any potential pursuers. He didn’t have much time.

  “Don’t you go running off anywhere now, will you?” He prodded Janice with his boot. Her face was swollen and bloody. She moaned but she didn’t move. He stood and walked into the spare double room. It took him four trips to toss the mattress, the base and the wardrobe down the stairs. The wardrobe wedged sideways at an angle which was more luck than judgment but with the weight of the mattress and its base behind, it would difficult to shift. By the time he had emptied the single room too, his impromptu barricade was complete. “No one is coming up here fast,” he said smiling at his achievement. He rested for five minutes before dragging Janice to the top floor. In his opinion, it took a heroic burst of strength to pull her up to the top floor without stopping once and he clapped his hands together when he dropped her. When they reached the top, she was coming round slowly although her eyes were so swollen it was difficult to tell. He sat her on a chair and used curtain tiebacks to fasten her around the waist. It wasn’t the most secure binding but they were four floors up and the stairs were impassable. He had an automatic and the knife. She was going nowhere.

  The helicopter was the first sign that they were coming in force. Brendon heard the rotors approaching. He walked to the balcony doors and slid them open. It was warm outside and the air was tinged with the scent of the sea blowing in off the river. The sound of gulls squawking drifted on the breeze. He looked up from the balcony and protected his eyes from the glare of the sun with his hand. It flew over the St John’s Tower towards the river and appeared to drop as it neared. Above the sound of the helicopter, sirens wailed in the distance. They seemed to be coming from all directions, although they would only be able to approach from one. His stepfather had owned the townhouse from new and it was used as a safe house for his employees who were on the run, or for visiting business associates. It had four floors which overlooked the river and a single garage beneath. Within walking distance of the Pier Head and the city centre, it was the centre property of a terrace of seven houses. Brendon was on the fourth floor looking down, when the helicopter took its second sweep overhead.

  The ground support would arrive soon but he wasn’t too concerned. He wasn’t trying to escape or hide any longer. It was his idea to tell them where he was and so far things were going to plan. If indeed you could call it a plan. He wasn’t sure that you could but it was the best that he could come up with. He had taken a valuable hostage; not just a random but someone who meant a lot to his adversaries. His defensive position had height, which historically meant that he had the advantage over his enemies and he had blocked the stairways to protect his rear. They wouldn’t be able to rush him up here and he would have the option to negotiate with them for days, if he felt the need to. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to achieve yet but taking a position of strength increased his choices. There would be no point in demanding a plane or a boat. Escape wasn’t an option. His twelve months in hiding had drained all his cash reserves. He had no money, no passport and no friends. The only people that he knew who were willing to help him had done all that they could. The police news blitz had pushed him over the edge and out of hiding. That was what made him angry and so he took something that he knew was precious to his pursuers, Janice Stirling.

  The first police vehicles came into view and he smiled as the convoy of flashing blue lights grew longer. He felt flattered by the size of the taskforce that they had dispatched to catch him. They poured into the access road and then fanned out to form a semicircle on the car park in front of the townhouses. Armed officers sprang from the vehicles, took cover behind them and trained their wea
pons on him. As the last vehicle deployed its officers, he counted thirty weapons pointed at him. It might have been overwhelming for some but Brendon didn’t feel intimidated by the show of force. Yes, they had more men and more weapons, but it hardly mattered. He wasn’t going to try to shoot his way out; there was no point in that.

  Brendon thought that weapons were strange things, as they were only dangerous in the hands of someone who was totally willing to use them against another. Brendon had seen many armed men in his time, yet only a few actually used them to hurt or kill. Few of the young men that carried knives could actually slash or stab another human being. They were carried as a deterrent, in the hope that the mere presence of the weapon was enough to avoid an attack. He wondered how many of the men and women below would happily shoot him if they were in a one on one situation, without questioning the moral issues which surrounded taking a human life. Most of them probably, yet he knew that some would not. There were many weapons threatening him but in this instance, the only weapon that mattered was the one which was in his hand. That single firearm could be used to determine the outcome of his stand. Brendon Ryder was the only one who would decide if the hostage lived or died.

  He looked along the line of vehicles and stared at the faces of the plain clothed officers but he couldn’t see Stirling. They were some distance away and some were covered by dark glasses, some with balaclavas but none of them had his size or stature. Movement to his left caught his eye. A sniper team had reached the roof of an adjacent building. The shooter and his spotter bent low as they ran across the roof, before taking up position behind the cover of a low safety wall. The sniper shouldered his rifle and Brendon grinned as he imagined the cross-hairs being lined up on his forehead. He raised his middle finger and spat in their direction. The wind took his globule of phlegm and blew it back at him. The green goo landed on his right sleeve and he brushed at it wildly. “Eeeh, dirty bastard,” he hissed as he wiped it off. He blushed red and wondered if the sniper had watched him spit on himself. The spotter had binoculars on him. He didn’t think they would shoot him yet, not without some dialogue.

  His attention returned to the assembled force below. Their numbers were growing. A white articulated lorry turned into the approach road. He guessed it was the mobile incident unit. Once that was deployed, they would try to make contact. That’s what happened on the television anyway. Get set up, put the kettle on and then call the baddie and persuade him to give up. Nine times out of ten everything turned to shit and the baddie gets blown to bits, but hey ho, that’s television. It would be boring if they gave up straight away. He was almost looking forward to talking to them. It would be fun making Stirling squirm and beg for the life of his whore. His options were limited, that was a fact, but this way he could force Stirling to beg and at least he could find out the answers to some burning questions. They would ask him what he wanted and he was struggling to come up with an answer. Most baddies had a list of demands but Brendon didn’t want anything. That would baffle them. Even Morgan Freeman couldn’t negotiate that one.

  Chapter 50

  Alec looked at the HD screens which were fixed to a bank of surveillance equipment on the left-hand side of the incident unit vehicle. Officers from the Tactical Firearms Unit were debating points of access and exit to and from the townhouse. The trailer was crammed with senior officers from different departments, all eagerly waiting for orders. “How’s Jim holding up?” a familiar face asked him. He couldn’t place a name to the face but he knew that he was TFU. “I haven’t seen him around yet, where is he?”

  “I’ve sent him to Canning Place,” Alec replied seriously. “However this goes down, I can’t have him on scene.”

  “We could do with him here to break a hole in the wall.”

  “Let’s hope we don’t need to call him down here, shall we?” Alec humoured him. He meant well but he wasn’t in the mood for jest. “Are the Surveillance Team on scene yet?”

  “They’re here now.” Annie pointed to four men in black body armour who were entering the vehicle. She waved them over and they made their way to the screens.

  “He’s on the top floor,” Alec pointed to the main screen. The camera images changed. “Can we get eyes on the rear fire escape again?” The camera tech nodded and brought up the rear of the townhouses again. “Okay, we have to assume that John Ryder used this place for business, as it’s never been rented out. If it was a bolt hole, it will be well prepared as such.” He indicated a series of metal landings attached to the rear elevation. “There are landings which are connected by a series of folding ladders. There’s access to the fire escape from every floor.”

  “Correct,” the tech agreed. “There are four landings, which run the full length of the terrace. Someone escaping from the rear landings could reach the ground at these three points, here, here and here.”

  “Which means they could have a vehicle or some form of escape in place at the back,” Annie said.

  “Right.” Alec agreed. “Check the alleyways to the rear for a vehicle or a motorbike, which looks like it may have been parked there for a long time. Annie is right, Ryder may have keys stashed in the house for an escape vehicle parked behind.”

  “We’re on it, Guv. There’s a team searching the alleyways, here and here and the access roads here and here,” the tech nodded. “My concern is an exit built between the townhouses. If Ryder did use it as safe house, there is a high probability that they built access between them. There could be conjoining doors between them on any of the floors, the garages or the loft space. We’re waiting for the Land Registry to tell us who owns the other townhouses, just in case.”

  “Don’t wait for them,” Alec said. “I want them all evacuated and send our teams in to search for any possible exits. He brought one property down with a gas explosion. We have to assume that may do that again. Evacuate them immediately.”

  “Guv.”

  “What about the sewer system?”

  “We’re waiting for detailed plans but the planning permission drawings don’t show any large networks beneath that area.”

  “We need eyes inside that townhouse,” Annie said turning to the surveillance unit. “Can you get us eyes on every floor, starting with the top and working down?”

  “We can get snake-cams in there immediately. As soon as we have access to the adjoining properties, we’re up there.” The four men turned and left to collect their equipment and get to work.

  “We’ll get them into those houses now,” Alec said. “I’ll have my teams start with the evacuation of adjoining properties and work outwards. We need those cameras in place.”

  “Is there a negotiator on the way?” Annie asked from the rear of the group. “We have the number for the landline, Guv,” she added.

  “We’re not waiting for them to arrive,” Alec said. He reached for the number and glanced at it. “We need to get Janice Sterling out of there. Are we all live with the sniper teams?”

  “Yes, Guv,” the tech said patching them in. “Alpha team ready?”

  “Roger that.” A voice crackled. “No clear shot.”

  “Beta team ready?”

  “Roger that.” A second voice answered. “No clear shot.”

  “Roger that, Alpha and Beta teams, standby.” He looked at Alec and nodded. “They’re set and ready, Guv.”

  “I want them patched in at all times,” Alec ordered. “If they get a clear shot at any point then I want to know about it. I have a feeling that this bastard knows that he is leaving there horizontally and that’s fine by me.”

  “Guv.”

  “Get him on the phone,” Alec said rubbing the dimple on his stubbly chin. He had a bad feeling about the situation. “While we get set up, let’s see what he wants.”

  Chapter 51

  Brendon heard the telephone ring and it gave him a start. His heart jumped as the shrill tone echoed through the house. Janice Stirling stirred. She was tied securely to a stiff back chair, her head lolled loosely ont
o her chest. Blood ran freely from both nostrils. He looked at the phone and weighed up if he would be in the line of fire if he answered it. It was situated on a small table next to the settee. The sniper team was making him nervous. He decided that he could reach it safely without making himself too much of a target. Picking up the cordless handset, he walked across the room and looked out of the rear window and listened to the caller.

  “Brendon Ryder?” Alec asked. Brendon watched uniformed officers scouring the streets behind the house. If climbing down the rear fire escape had crossed his mind, which it hadn’t, it was no longer an option. “Is that Brendon?”

  “Yes.” He scanned the surrounding buildings to the rear. A second sniper team was positioned on the roof of an old leather mill to cover any escape down the fire exit.

  “Is Janice Ryder still alive?”

  “Stupid question,” Brendon scoffed.

  “Why is it stupid?”

  “If I say no, you’ll kick the doors in and shoot me. So I am not likely to say anything but yes, am I?”

  “That depends if you’re planning on living much longer or not.”