by T. M. Logan
‘What do you think he was looking for?’
Keep him talking.
‘For the baby,’ I say quietly. ‘For Mia.’
‘So you know she’s in mortal danger.’
The call on my mobile connects and a tinny female voice asks me which service I require.
‘The police,’ I say loudly. I leave a pause before adding, ‘They told me about the Ghost.’
The tinny voice replies but I can’t hear her properly. ‘The police are incompetent,’ Leon says in my other ear. ‘Their investigation into the Ghost was riddled with it, mainly because your friend Detective Inspector Gilbourne is an incompetent, old-school cop desperate to cover up his own failings. Desperate to conceal the fact that the case was botched from the start when he let Dominic Church slip through his fingers. Church is a clever guy, I’ll give him that. But trust me, I’ve been researching and writing about his kind for almost twenty years, I’ve lived their cases, lived their crimes, and I know a psychopath when I see one.’
‘So where do you fit in, Leon?’
‘I can help you.’
‘Help me?’
‘We can help each other. I protect you from Dominic Church, you can get to the baby, take her somewhere safe. Church is never going to allow that second DNA test to be done.’ He pauses, his voice dropping lower. ‘Which means her time is almost up. And if she disappears, the story disappears with her, do you see?’
‘What on earth makes you think I’d want to help you?’
‘Because it’s the only way, and because you’re a good person, Ellen. I trust you. Can you trust me?’
I raise the mobile and hear the police operator’s voice again, loud and insistent as if she’s repeating herself.
– street address or location if you are in immediate –
‘You attacked me, Leon,’ I say. ‘Now you’ve tracked me to the Northolt Premier Inn and you’re threatening me again.’
‘Of course I’m not threatening you, I’m trying to—’ He stops abruptly, and when he comes back on the line there is a note of disappointment in his voice. ‘Who else are you talking to, Ellen?’
‘You’re in the car park at the back of the building and you know I’m on my own here.’
He sighs audibly down the line.
‘You’re in way over your head, Ellen. And that child is going to pay the price.’
There is a soft click as the hotel phone goes dead.
I put the mobile to my ear and give the police operator my details again, telling her about Leon’s previous attack at my house. She asks me to stay on the line until officers can be sent to check the area, and not to open the door to anyone. I chance another look out of the window, but the car park is empty. No sign of Leon down there.
Sitting in the dark, mobile phone pressed to my ear, everything boils down to two options: go or stay. Wait for the police and then get out, get to my car and take my chances, knowing he’s out there somewhere close by. But go where? Or I can sit tight, stay here until the morning, hope that a visit to the hotel by uniformed police will convince Leon to stay away. Keep the door locked and the security latch on until daylight, hope he doesn’t get into the hotel in the meantime, hope he doesn’t get up here to my—
There is a sharp knock on the door.
59
I freeze, a chill creeping over my skin. The knock comes again, louder and more insistent this time. I can’t believe how fast he’s got up here from the car park. Maybe he just called the landline to confirm where I was.
‘He’s here,’ I whisper to the police operator. ‘He’s at the door.’
‘Do not open it, under any circumstances,’ the voice comes back. ‘Units are en route.’
‘How long?’
‘A few minutes. Stay calm and stay on the line, madam.’
I check for the third time that the security latch is flipped, muting the TV into silence. Creeping nearer in bare feet, I squint through the spyhole, the fisheye lens distorting the corridor into a crazy hall-of-mirrors version of reality. There’s a dark-clad figure with his back to the door. He turns to knock again and I feel a wash of relief, every muscle in my body relaxing in unison.
It’s DI Gilbourne. He knocks once again and this time I open the door.
‘Hey, Ellen. I was just passing and I thought I’d check in with you, make sure everything’s all right.’ He stops, studying my face. ‘Are you OK? You’re white as a sheet.’
‘Leon Markovitz,’ I say quietly. ‘He found me, he knows I’m here.’
‘When?’ Gilbourne says, his eyes narrowing.
‘Just now. He was downstairs, phoned me from right outside my window.’
‘Markovitz was here?’
I nod and he raises a finger to his lips. He walks noiselessly down the corridor to where it turns at a right angle, then does the same on the other side, before checking the stairwell and the fire exit door.
‘All clear,’ he says, returning. ‘Who are you on the phone to?’
He takes over my call to the police control room and tells them he’ll meet the uniformed officers as they arrive.
‘Wait here,’ he says to me. ‘Don’t open the door to anyone except me, OK?’
He gets out his own phone and heads back to the stairs as I shut the door. I sit down at the little desk again, top up my wine and take a heavy swallow, my hand shaking as the adrenaline slowly recedes. I hate to admit it to myself but I feel safer with Gilbourne nearby and I’m glad he’s here. Not because he’s a police officer, or a man. Because he’s an ally. Because it means I’m not on my own, even if it’s only for a little while.
He knocks on the door ten minutes later, his deep voice full of concern, and tells me they’ve done a sweep of the whole site and the surrounding area, finding no sign of Markovitz or his car.
‘Are you OK?’ he says. ‘You looked a bit shaken up before.’
‘I’m all right,’ I say. ‘I think. Thanks for . . . you know. Coming over. I appreciate it.’
He nods, smiles, but says nothing.
‘How did you know I was here?’
‘I didn’t. I called in at Tara’s house on my way home and she told me.’ He gestures over his shoulder with a thumb. ‘Listen, I’m going to stay downstairs for a bit, in my car. Keep an eye out in case he turns up again. I don’t like the idea of you being here on your own if he comes back, especially after what happened the other day.’
‘Do you think he will come back?’
‘Hard to say, he’s a very unpredictable guy. Better safe than sorry though. You sure you’re all right?’
I feel another rush of gratitude for this man, a warmth spreading in my chest. Standing there in a hotel corridor with his tie askew, his day of stubble, the fresh clean scent of his aftershave.
‘I appreciate it, Stuart, but you don’t have to stay. Saturday night, I’m sure you’ve got other places to be. Better places.’
He gives me a wry grin and shrugs his shoulders. ‘Not really. Married to the job, that’s me.’
I almost don’t say it. But then I jump in before I can change my mind.
‘Well, if you are going to hang around for a bit, you might as well be in the warm rather than freezing down in the car park.’ I indicate the open bottle of French red on the desk. ‘Either way I could use some help with this bottle of wine, otherwise I’m going to end up drinking it all myself and that never ends well.’
‘Shouldn’t really, I’m driving.’ He smiles again, his eyes crinkling at the edges. ‘But I can stay with you for a bit if you like, in case Leon reappears.’
‘I’d like that. Thanks.’ I gesture to the armchair by the window and he turns it around to face the room, sits down.
‘So,’ he says, crossing one leg over the other. ‘What did Leon have to say this evening?’
I outline the conversation, Leon’s offer to protect me from Dominic Church while I somehow spirit Mia away to a safe place.
‘To protect you?’ Gilbourne gives a disbel
ieving shake of his head. ‘After assaulting you in your own house with a potentially lethal weapon? I find that a bit hard to swallow.’
‘Me too.’
‘To be honest, Mia will be a lot safer when both of them are off the street. Both him and Church. That’s as simple as I can make it.’
‘Can’t you just arrest them?’
‘Once we get a DNA match – definitely. Until then, we don’t want to spook either of them, risk them disappearing off the radar, dropping out of sight for good. We’ve been keeping an eye on them these last few days, waiting for one of them to make his move. Dominic’s tried to persuade you to talk the Cliftons into leaving the property at Prestwood Ash. We believe Leon burgled your house, looking for information that would lead him to Mia, and he’s obviously tracked you here to this hotel. We still haven’t discounted the idea that they’re working together.’
‘So let me help you. To bring them to you, to keep Mia safe. I could ask to meet them, arrange a time and a place where you can grab them both.’
‘Ellen, I don’t want you exposed to any more danger than you have been already. And I suspect they’d be wise to an approach like that – not that I don’t appreciate the offer. But you’ve done enough already.’
I look at him over the top of my wine, wondering whether to tell him about my conversation with Angela, trying to gauge how close his partnership with Holt really is. At the police station they seemed like very different men; Gilbourne calm and sympathetic while Holt was aggressive and impatient, full of his own self-importance. Good cop and bad cop, I suppose. But it feels like there’s more than that between them, a deeper division. Do they like each other, professionally? Personally? Do they get on?
‘You should probably know something else.’ I tell him about my visit to Prestwood Ash this afternoon, and if he has questions about how I found the Clifton family, he keeps them to himself. I relay Angela’s concerns about DS Holt and the way he’s been with Mia. ‘Also, Holt followed me this evening, on the drive back here.’
‘He what?’ Gilbourne frowns, sitting forward in his chair. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I assume you didn’t ask him to do that?’
‘No.’ He stands up abruptly, paces to the window and back. ‘No, I didn’t. You’re absolutely sure it was him?’
‘Yes. Angela Clifton said he came to their house on his own, talking about taking Mia away, doing DNA tests. She said she got a really weird vibe from him. Didn’t like him at all. And I have to say, I know what she means.’
Gilbourne is not looking at me anymore. He nods slowly, as if just realising something for the first time. ‘What else did Angela say?’
‘She thought Holt was in touch with Kathryn too, before she ran.’
He sits back down heavily in the armchair. ‘I see.’
‘When Kathryn got off the train on Tuesday, when she left Mia with me, do you know if someone intercepted her at Seer Green? All this time I was thinking it was Dominic Church, but do you think it might have been DS Holt?’
Gilbourne shakes his head. ‘We’ve still not got a clear line on what happened to her when she got off that train. The pathologist thinks she died on Tuesday, between 4 p.m. and midnight, which leaves us a lot of time still unaccounted for.’
‘What about CCTV at the station?’
‘There’s one camera up there but it’s not worked for years. Not really a lot of call for CCTV at these little country stations.’ He sits forward in his chair. ‘Listen, are you sure it was Nathan following you today?’
‘He had a baseball cap and sunglasses on but I’m pretty sure, yes.’ I nod, slowly. ‘He was driving a dark coloured Ford Focus, grey or black.’
‘Standard issue pool car for use by MIT detectives.’ He sighs, looks at me, looks away. He takes a pack of cigarettes from his jacket, flips it open with his thumb, closes it again and replaces it in his pocket. Finally his eyes come back to mine. ‘I shouldn’t be telling tales out of school, but . . . ah, Christ.’
I let the silence spool out for a few moments but he seems reluctant to fill it.
‘What is it, Stuart?’
‘Nathan’s been . . . strange these last couple of weeks. Jumpy. On edge. I really don’t know what’s going on with him.’
‘How long have you worked together?’
‘A couple of months. He was seconded in from the human exploitation task force.’
‘Exploitation as in street prostitution?’
Gilbourne glances up at me, then looks away. ‘Amongst other things, yes.’
With an unpleasant sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, I remember the news articles I read this morning.
‘All three victims of the Ghost were linked to street prostitution, two sex workers and Zoe Clifton, who was an outreach worker with a charity that tries to help women get off the streets and put their lives back on track.’
He doesn’t acknowledge me.
‘Ellen, can you do me a favour?’ He reaches out to me and his fingertips come to rest lightly on my forearm. ‘If Nathan—’ He stops himself, his voice suddenly thick with emotion. ‘If DS Holt contacts you, follows you, turns up at your door, you need to let me know straight away. Promise me you will?’
‘OK,’ I say quietly. I feel safe for the first time in days. ‘I will.’
Gilbourne still looks shell-shocked, all the colour drained from his face.
‘You know what?’ he says, eyeing the half-empty wine bottle. ‘Maybe I will have that drink. Just one glass.’
‘Afraid I haven’t got glasses, just plastic beakers.’ I fetch another clear plastic cup from the bathroom and fill it with the Grenache.
He shrugs. ‘I don’t suppose it makes much difference, really.’ He taps his beaker gently against mine. ‘Cheers, Ellen Devlin.’
We both take a drink.
‘I’m not going to get you in trouble with your boss, am I?’
‘To be honest,’ he says, blowing out a breath, ‘I’m past caring what my boss thinks.’
60
We sit in silence for a moment, me on the bed and him by the window in the armchair. The TV is on mute and it suddenly feels very quiet in this little hotel room, the two of us together with an open bottle of wine on the bedside table. Gilbourne shifts in his seat, putting his beaker on the floor.
‘So tell me about you, Ellen,’ he says, his head cocked slightly. ‘You’re a bit of an enigma.’
‘Not much to tell, really.’
‘Why do you care about Mia so much? You could have walked away, but you didn’t. That’s a rare thing.’
‘Is it?’
‘Believe me, I’ve been around the block enough times to know more than I ever wanted to about human nature. Most people would have handed that baby over at the first opportunity and never looked back, been glad to get away. Or they wouldn’t even have volunteered to help in the first place. But not you.’
‘Just trying to do the right thing, that’s all.’
He studies me, eyes locked on mine as if he can see right into my soul, until a frown creases his forehead.
‘There’s more to it than that though, isn’t there? Don’t tell me there isn’t.’
I take a breath. I realise I’m about to open myself up in a way I haven’t done for years, tell him a story that only my ex-husband and my best friend have ever heard.
‘There is, yes,’ I say finally. I take a swig of heavy red wine, feel the warm buzz as the alcohol hits my bloodstream. ‘There’s more to it. The truth is, it’s not exactly the first time I’ve been in that situation.’
Gilbourne frowns. ‘Really?’
‘Not on a train. Somewhere else, a while back.’
‘When you were in the navy?’
I nod silently.
After a moment, he says gently, ‘What happened, Ellen?’
I sit back against the headboard so I can face him properly, begin telling him about one day a decade ago when I had still been in uniform, all the memories, the images, still a
s fresh in my mind as if it happened last week. Operation Ellamy, 2011 – as Libya tore itself apart in a bloody civil war, civilians were caught in the crossfire and the Royal Navy was dispatched as part of the UN-backed intervention to protect them. I had been leading part of the humanitarian relief effort that went alongside, flying in food and medical supplies to refugees using helicopters from HMS Ocean.
‘On the second day we found a makeshift refugee camp on the outskirts of Benghazi.’ Now I’ve started telling him, I find I can’t stop, the story picking up its own momentum. ‘A couple of hundred civilians displaced by the fighting, terrified they would be singled out as rebels by government forces. I wanted to take them out on the helicopters, take them back with us onto the ship for a few days until the situation had stabilised. Until it was safer. We’d had reports of mass shootings.’
‘But you couldn’t take them?’
I shake my head. ‘I was overruled by my commanding officer. He told me it wasn’t our mission. We were to provide “relief not rescue”, he said, and if we started pulling civilians out, a trickle would turn into a flood and we’d be overwhelmed. But the civilians, they thought we were there to rescue them, to take them somewhere safe. They all started gathering around the helicopters. When they realised we weren’t going to take them . . . it was awful. They knew the government forces were close, what would happen if they found them. One of the mothers . . .’
My throat is thick. Gilbourne gives me a sympathetic smile, waits for me to continue. I take another mouthful of wine, swallow it down painfully.
‘One of the mothers had a baby only a few months old. She made her way to the front of the crowd and she was talking to me non-stop in Arabic, wouldn’t leave me alone. She singled me out, not because I was in charge but because I was a woman, I think she thought I would be a mother too. When she realised we were leaving, she . . .’ I pause to take another breath, determined to keep my voice steady. ‘She handed her baby over to me. She gave me her little boy, told me his name was Hassan, just put him in my arms and backed away. I guess she thought I’d be able to keep him safe. And so I’m standing there, surrounded by my guys and a crowd of desperate civilians, the rotors are turning on the helicopters, dust flying everywhere, and I’m right in the middle of it all holding this tiny baby blinking up at me with his big brown eyes. It was just crazy.’