by Conrad Jones
“Does that matter to you?” Brendon laughed. “Because it doesn’t bother me one way or the other.”
“Janice is pregnant.”
“Nothing gets past you does it, Detective?”
“I am obviously concerned about her well being.”
“She’s alive for now.”
“Can I speak to her?”
Brendon looked at her and grimaced. Blood was congealing on her face; her lips and mouth were blackened with it. “Not just now, but she is alive.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Alec said calmly. “Why have you taken her? What do you want, Brendon?”
“What do I want?” He paused and grinned to himself. “I want an airplane fully fuelled at John Lennon airport and a million Euros in used notes.”
“I can’t see that happening, to be honest,” Alec said flatly. He could sense that Brendon was taking the piss.
“You’re not taking me seriously are you?” Brendon giggled.
“Not really,” Alec played along. “No one in their right mind would ask for Euros. They might crash next week and you’ll be broke.”
“True.”
“You dropped off the map for a year,” Alec said trying to turn the conversation back on track. “I assume you have kidnapped Janice Stirling for a reason. So what do you want?”
“Well firstly, it will really piss off her fat husband. It’s been worth the effort just for that.”
“Okay, so you have scored a point against Sergeant Stirling. Is that what this is all about?”
“I want to know what my options are,” Brendon flopped onto the settee as he spoke. He thought that he would be feeling pumped and aggressive but he just felt knackered. The adrenalin had worn off and the excursion of dragging Janice up the stairs had sapped his energy. He almost wished he had just turned himself in. It wasn’t as much fun as he thought that it would be. “I heard some of your news reports and realised that I can’t hide forever. Some of the coverage was entertaining. I especially enjoyed the Crimewatch special, which you appeared on, although it was mostly bullshit.”
“What was bullshit, Brendon?” Alec tried to engage him in dialogue. He didn’t know where Brendon was mentally. Talking to him was the only way to explore his mind and determine if he was suicidal or not. A suicidal kidnapper was not something that Alec wanted to encounter, especially when he was a killer and the hostage was pregnant.
“Your bullshit about the Butcher!” He shouted. “Trying to stitch me up with killing all those women and burying them on Crosby Beach, you should be ashamed of yourself.” He sounded genuinely offended.
“You didn’t do that?”
“No.”
“Who did you kill, Brendon?” The line went quiet and Alec looked at Annie. She shook her head and shrugged and then waved her finger in a circular motion near her forehead. Alec had to agree with her, he was a lunatic. “You didn’t kill Lacey Taylor?”
“No.”
“We found your DNA all over her, Brendon.”
“I didn’t say that I didn’t kidnap her,” he paused. “I did.” Alec left the line silent to prompt him to continue. “And I fucked her, but you know that anyway, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“But I didn’t kill her.”
“Who did?”
“Gary Bissell topped her.” Brendon had thought about blaming Gary many times. So many that he thought it might actually be true.
“Okay, let’s say that I believe you for now,” Alec said slowly. “Did Gary kill Charlie Keegan too?”
“Yes,” Brendon laughed. His hand went to the hunting knife at his side. He remembered how easily it had sliced through the muscle and how difficult the sinews in the neck were to sever. It was the weight of the blade which allowed him to chop as well as slice, otherwise his head wouldn’t have come off. “Gary was mad. He cut his fucking head off. He was a nutter!”
“When we were investigating the poisoning at your house, we took some samples before you raced off in the BMW, you remember?” The line remained silent so Alec continued regardless. “Their blood was in your car,” Alec sounded confused. “Help me out here and tell me why that was?”
“It’s not that fucking difficult to work out, Sherlock. Is it?” Brendon felt smart for a change. “I helped him to dump the bodies, of course. He made me do it. He was always bullying me, ever since school.”
“What about her dog?”
“What about it?”
“Did he make you dig up her dog and plant it in Richard Tibbs’s garden?”
“Yes.”
“Why would he do that when Tibbs had fingered you?”
“Because he was my mate.”
“Why did he kill them?”
“Who knows?” He snorted. “He was a fucking looney tunes!”
“He must have had a reason.”
“Ask him,” Brendon’s tone soured. He was bored with the line of questioning.
“He’s dead.”
“Is he?”
“You know that he is.”
“Tough.”
“We found his parents this morning,” Alec said. He was fishing for a reaction.
“You leave them alone,” Brendon said. “They’re nice people.”
“You liked them?” Alec asked. He turned to Annie and frowned. He wasn’t sure if Brendon was playing dumb, or if he had actually lost the plot. What he didn’t want to do was anger him.
“They didn’t know about any of this. They’re nice people.” He repeated angrily. “They are old and they didn’t know anything. They just let us hide the vehicles there.”
“Did they let you stay there?”
“A couple of nights and they didn’t know that I was in trouble with the police.”
“They didn’t know you were on the run?”
“No!” Brendon shouted. “If you even think about charging them for harbouring a fugitive, or whatever other shite you can come up with, I’ll toss this bitch off the balcony!”
“Calm down,” Alec said soothingly. “We can’t charge them with anything.” Alec frowned and looked at Annie.
“You need to keep it that way too.”
“He sounds concerned for them,” Annie whispered. She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. “He’s in total denial,” she said quietly. “Or he’s gone over the edge.”
“What do I do?” Alec turned off the microphone so that Brendon couldn’t hear him. “I have to be straight, or he’ll think I’m playing him.” Annie nodded and agreed. “We think he killed them but if he really doesn’t know they’re dead, then watches the news, we’ve got problems.”
“We have to be straight,” Annie said.
Alec thought about his next words carefully. “I don’t understand why you would do that if you thought that they were nice people,” Alec said. He was risking provoking him but couldn’t see any option. “I mean they helped you, so why?”
“You don’t understand why I would do what?” Brendon snapped.
“The Bissells.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“They’re dead, Brendon.”
“Bollocks.”
“It’s true.”
“When?”
“We found them today.”
“You’re lying.”
“I am telling you the truth.”
“What happened to them?”
“When did you last see them, Brendon?” Alec ignored his question.
“I haven’t been there since Sunday,” he said excitedly. Alec could hear his breathing, quick and shallow. If he was feigning surprise then he was doing a good job. Alec couldn’t get a handle on what was happening. “They were fine three days ago. You’re winding me up!”
“Why would I?”
“Because you can,” Brendon scoffed. “You lot don’t need a reason.”
“They are dead.” Alec rubbed his chin and frowned at Annie. She looked as baffled as he was.
“What happened to them?”<
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“They were found in suspicious circumstances, Brendon. That’s all that I can say.”
“Does that mean that they were murdered or what?”
“We think so.”
“This is a game of some kind. You’re taking the piss out of me, aren’t you?”
Annie nudged Alec and scribbled on a piece of paper. He read it and nodded. “Unfortunately not,” Alec said sadly. “Have you got the television on?”
“No why?”
“Take a look on the North West news. The camera crews will be at their petrol station.” They had taken a gamble pressing the point but Annie had pointed out that if he watched the news later and knew that they hadn’t told him that they had discovered their bodies, then he would think that they were lying to him. He had to know that they were being completely honest and open with him. The life of Janice Stirling and her baby depended on it.
Brendon grabbed the remote and switched the television from standby. He clicked on the news channels and he selected BBC North. The screen was split between images of the Bissells’ garage and the siege at the townhouse. A reporter was trying to find a sound-bite which described the tenuous link between the two crime scenes. The headlines read, ‘Elderly Couple Found Slain’. He swallowed hard and banged the remote against the side of his head. “No, no, you are setting this up,” he shouted down the telephone. Brendon was furious. “You have set this up, you arsehole!”
“Why would we do that?”
“To fuck with my head.”
“I don’t want your head messed up, Brendon,” Alec said quietly. “I need your head to be clear and calm. We want you to let Janice Stirling go and walk out of there yourself. We can talk things through, once everyone is safe.”
“Bollocks,” he shouted. “This is another one of your games, like linking me to those women. You can fuck off, you bastard!”
“Brendon, this is not a game.”
“I don’t believe you,” he growled. “You get Stirling on the phone in the next ten minutes, or this bitch is dead.”
“I can’t do that, Brendon.”
Brendon slammed the phone against the settee. “You must think that I’m stupid. Well I’m not. I never have been and I never will be.” He shouted at the handset despite it being disconnected. “I’ll show you how stupid I am.” Brendon grabbed Janice’s mobile phone and dialed Jim Stirling’s number.
Chapter 52
“What is he playing at?” Annie asked confused. “He must have killed the Bissells. I mean who else would have any reason to?” She continued. “We need to get him to talk, Guv.”
“Get Jim down here immediately,” Alec ordered. “It might keep Ryder on the ground for now. We don’t want him going over the edge.” Annie picked up her mobile and dialled without any further discussion. It made sense to send him back to the station, but they couldn’t deny Ryder’s demand either. The comms unit crackled and the camera tech answered. After a brief exchange, he turned to Alec and pointed to the screens.
“Here we go,” he said. “We’ve got eyes and ears on the top floor.” The screens showed the inside of the townhouse from different angles. Brendon Ryder was holding a mobile phone to his ear and pacing up and down. His lips were moving but there were no words coming out. He was muttering incoherently. His face was dark and angry. In the middle of the room a petite female was slumped in a chair. Her head dangled against her chest, her clothing was smeared with blood. The gathering stared at her intently. “She’s breathing,” the tech said. “I can see her chest rising and falling. She’s alive.”
“Look here at the staircase on the first floor,” an officer from the firearms unit said as he pointed to another screen. “The stairwell has been barricaded. There’s no access from the ground floor.”
“We could potentially gain entry on the second floor balcony at the front of the building, or from the fire escape at the rear.” Another officer added. “Either of those options are going to give him advanced warning that we’re rushing him. Janice Stirling would be dead before we got to the stairs.”
“We might not need to go in at all.”
“Let’s hear it,” Alec said enthusiastically. The tactical team, were right in the fact that there was no way of rushing Brendon Ryder without giving him enough time to kill Janice. It was either a long range shot from one of the snipers or nothing. Having another option was a bonus.
“Our surveillance boys are telling me that the walls between the houses are timber frame and breeze-block construction.”
“We could knock a hole in that with a hammer, Guv.”
“We could punch through that, never mind a hammer!”
“Are we aiming to take him alive, Guv?” The TFU officer spoke quietly. “Because if we’re primarily concerned with getting Janice Stirling out of there unharmed, then we should be looking at using a thermal imaging scope and some 7.62 ammo. A Heckler and Koch HK33 could penetrate that stud walling easily. One quick burst of fire would take him out. He wouldn’t even know that we were there.”
Alec sat back and sighed. He looked at Annie and shrugged. She smiled thinly and he could see from her expression that she favoured that as an option. As long as Ryder was two metres or so away from Janice, Alec agreed with her, although he had to try to negotiate him down first. Part of him was hoping that they would have no choice but to take that option. “Get your men in position to do that,” Alec said to the firearms officer. “I want every option available to us ready to go.” He looked at Annie as the specialist left the vehicle. She nodded her support of his decision and nothing more needed to be said. “If he thinks that he’s safe in there, he’s sadly deluded.”
“He’s not the brightest bulb on the tree, Guv.”
“Obviously.”
“Did you get hold of Jim?”
“He’ll be here in five minutes,” Annie replied. “He’s asking for permission to switch on his mobile,” Annie raised her eyebrows. “We told him to switch off after the text from Ryder?”
Alec nodded. His face crinkled with concern but any communication was better than none. “Tell him to answer it, but spell it out that Janice is in mortal danger if he pisses that lunatic off.”
Chapter 53
The sirens wailed as the police interceptor raced through the traffic towards the river. It was less than a mile from Canning Place Police Headquarters to the riverside developments. It lurched to the left as the driver swerved to avoid a lumbering cement truck which pulled out, despite the blue and twos being deployed.
“Sorry, Sarge,” the driver apologised as the vehicle lurched wildly. Jim Stirling frowned and held on tightly. His mobile vibrated in his hand. He glanced down at the screen and his heart nearly jumped out of his chest as he saw that it was a call from Janice’s phone. The Albert Docks went by in a blur and he only glanced at the Liverpool Wheel as they sped along the dock road. The officer tutted and shook his head. “I would stop and book that fucking idiot if we weren’t in a hurry!”
“Turn off the sirens.”
“What?”
“Turn off the siren!” Jim shouted holding up the mobile. The driver saw the screen flashing and blushed. He switched off the blaring noise and made a thumbs up gesture. “Slow down,” he added. “I need to think clearly.” The uniformed driver took his foot off the accelerator and the vehicle slowed. Jim looked at the screen and remembered what Annie had told him. ‘Switch your phone on but remember that Janice is in mortal danger if you piss him off. Mortal danger. Mortal danger. Mortal Danger.’ It seemed to echo around his mind. He took a deep breath and answered the call. “Stirling.”
“Finally!” Brendon snapped. “I was about to give up and take it out on your missus.” Brendon instantly felt better. He knew anything that he said about Janice would cut Stirling to the core. “She’s not looking her best, if I’m honest. I had to give her a slap or two, might have been three or four actually, but she has a sharp mouth doesn’t she?” He cocked his head in anticipation of what Stirling’s res
ponse would be. Anger, aggression, threats to kill? Who could tell so early in the game?
“She can be a little sharp if you get on the wrong side of her.” Stirling felt anger rising like burning bile in his throat. The urge to scream and vomit at the same time was incredibly strong. He knew that whatever happened, he had to bow down to Ryder. “Please don’t hurt her.”
“I’m sorry,” Brendon said sarcastically. “I couldn’t quite hear that.”
“I said please don’t hurt her.” Swallowing his pride wasn’t an issue. If Ryder told him to stand on one leg naked and sing One Direction songs, then he would. “Did you hear me that time?”
“Yes, I heard you.” Brendon said slightly deflated. He wanted a confrontation. At least, he had thought that he wanted a confrontation. Now he was here, he wasn’t so sure.
“I am very sorry about that day in the diner,” Stirling said as genuinely as possible. “I was out of order to try to embarrass you in front of your family.”
“You were,” Brendon sounded almost surprised. “I was going to shoot you for that.” He tried to sound like his stepfather but failed miserably. John Ryder never threatened anyone. A rival would never know that he was going to be shot, until he was on the floor bleeding to death. “I could have had you shot anytime.”
“I know that you could have and I’m grateful that you didn’t,” Stirling said, trying to sound as contrite as he could. The giant Anglican Cathedral loomed up on the left as they turned towards the riverside developments. Puffy white clouds, tinged grey at the edges, ballooned across the sky above it. He watched them and remembered climbing up the bell tower with Janice a few months earlier. They were both born and bred in the city but had never been inside either cathedral. Stirling was embarrassed by his lack of knowledge about his home. The view from the top had been worth the muscle-mashing walk up the hundreds of stone steps that led to the roof. “I’ve changed a lot since I got married to Janice. It’s opened my eyes.”
“I bet it has,” Brendon laughed, “marrying a hooker will do that to a man. I bet she’s showed you things that you didn’t think possible, hasn’t she?”