by T. M. Logan
‘He shot them both, Stuart.’
There is a stunned silence before he replies. ‘Who? What are you talking about?’
‘Gerald Clifton’s dead.’ I take a shuddering breath. ‘And Angela’s in a bad way, she needs paramedics here right now, I called an ambulance but they need to hurry.’
‘Ellen,’ he whispers, ‘you need to listen to me and this time you need to do what I tell you. You have to trust me. Can you do that?’
‘Yes.’
‘We’ve got a new trace on Holt, he’s just switched his phone on again and we’ve been able to triangulate the signal. Ellen, listen to me very carefully: he’s there. He’s still in the house. You have to get out. Now.’
65
I creep through the house, shushing Mia on my shoulder, freezing at every sound, my eyes scanning every door and window we pass by. The name drumming in my head with every step, over and over again. Detective Sergeant Nathan Holt. I have this powerful sense that he is watching me, stalking me, ready to strike when we’re within sight of escape. The keys to the Mercedes estate are in a bowl by the front door: it has a car seat for Mia and it’s faster and bigger than my Citroën. I sprint out onto the drive feeling horribly exposed, tear open the rear door, strap her in and scoot around to jump into the driver’s seat in front. Every moment I’m expecting to hear the crunch of gravel, an angry shout, a gunshot.
Go.
It’s only as I’m accelerating down the drive in a spray of gravel that I realise the black saloon car parked there earlier has gone. But I don’t have the headspace for that right now, I’ve promised Stuart I’ll drive straight to police HQ without stopping and meet him there. He texts telling me he’ll meet me in the visitor’s car park, that I shouldn’t stop for anything or anyone, and I send a thumbs-up in reply.
The urge to put my foot to the floor is strong, to let the big Mercedes engine rip and get there as fast as possible. But I’m acutely aware of Mia strapped into her car seat next to me, a new vulnerability in traffic that has me second-guessing every other driver in case they’re going too fast or coming too close. I keep looking over at Mia to check she’s OK in the bulky rear-facing seat, but she seems quite content to suck on a corner of her cloth and gaze out of the window at the dark clouds racing by.
Relief starts to ease through me as I leave the Buckinghamshire countryside behind and hit the outskirts of London, the comforting familiarity of city streets and buildings and people, of safety in numbers. I have kept my promise to Kathryn.
Safe now. Safe now.
As I’m coming into Pinner I pull up at a red traffic light and my phone buzzes with a new message from an unrecognised number.
Remember the abandoned studio complex? Go there now. No police, no calls, no diversions
I turn in my seat, half-expecting Holt to be sitting in traffic behind me or watching from across the street, phone in his hand. But I can’t see him. I fire off a quick text in reply.
Why would I do that?
I’m pulling away when my phone buzzes again in my lap. Another text, no words, just an image, a close-up picture of Noah’s face. His Spiderman glasses are gone. He looks serious, wide-eyed.
Terrified.
The angular black muzzle of a pistol is held at his temple by an unseen hand.
I swerve across the lane, an oncoming taxi missing me by inches and leaving a frenzy of angry hoots in my wake. Noah. My stomach turns over and for a moment I think I might be sick, swallowing back acid in my throat. An unwelcome memory returns, the last words Noah had said to me on Friday as he traced a shape over his little chest.
Cross my heart and hope to die.
Another message arrives seconds later.
Bring the baby to studio 7 and we can trade. Or you can let him die. Your choice.
I can’t drive. I can barely see, the picture of Noah’s terrified face burned onto my retinas. I pull over into a bus stop and sit for a moment, trying to control my breathing and the galloping, crashing of my heart.
My godson. My best friend’s son, her firstborn, a child I have known since the day he came into the world. Not my blood, but as close as I’ll probably ever get. Tara’s sweet, serious six-year-old, who somehow finds himself weighed in the scales with the baby now dozing in the car seat behind me. A stranger’s baby, an infant I promised to protect. Another innocent, a child I have saved from mortal danger. Can I really give her up now? Can I make that choice?
There is no right answer to this. No good outcome. I send a reply, the only words I can summon to mind.
Don’t hurt Noah
What happens to him is entirely up to you, Ellen
I put my head back against the headrest and take one last look at Mia. Her eyelids are heavy as she drowses in and out of sleep, her little cheeks pink and rounded like summer apples. Finally, I tear my eyes away from her and send a reply.
On my way
Hurry. You call the police, he dies
I put the new address into the satnav on the dashboard and pull out into traffic again, hands clenched tight around the steering wheel. The satnav says the studio complex is 2.2 miles away, a mile further than the police station. I follow the directions on autopilot but my mind is elsewhere, scrambling, racing, trying to think of a third solution to this impossible equation. But I can only see two: Noah or Mia. Mia or Noah. It’s that simple.
And by the time I’m pulling into the deserted car park, driving through drifts of leaves and rubbish, I know what has to be done.
My phone rings in my lap.
‘What’s happened?’ Stuart says before I can speak. ‘Why are you not at the station? You should be here by now.’
‘I can’t talk at the moment.’
‘Just park up in the visitors’ area, I’m going down there now, I’ll wait for you.’
‘I can’t, Stuart. Not anymore.’
‘What? I don’t understand, Ellen, what’s going on?’
I glance at the shotgun in the passenger footwell beside me. ‘I’m sorry, Stuart. There’s something else I have to do first.’
‘Tell me what’s—’
I press end and put the phone on silent, driving to the far end of the car park, to the rear doors that I ran out of five days ago. I kill the engine, sitting for a moment in the silence. Preparing myself. Running through it all in my mind.
Mia is dozing again, the motion of driving has lulled her into a contented sleep. I wish more than anything that we could be driving into the police station right now, into safety. For both children to be out of harm’s reach. But it can’t be.
No. This is the only way.
I make one more call, then spread out the big white blanket on the back seat, to get ready for what I have to do.
‘I’m sorry, Mia.’ I brush away a tear and reach for the straps of her car seat. ‘I’m sorry.’
*
The studio complex is just as I remembered it. A cavernous empty shell, the windows milky and crusted with dirt, long wide corridors rich with the smell of mildew and decay. Stacks of plastic chairs, abandoned. Open doors to offices still full of furniture like a Marie Celeste beached on land, an oversized relic of an earlier age, waiting too long for new tenants who will never arrive.
With the baby swaddled loosely in a blanket against my right shoulder, I hurry down corridors, deeper into the complex, following faded signs to studio seven. Turning first left, then right, then left again. I’m greeted by a hint of smoke in the air from the fire set by Dominic Church the last time I was here. Finally I reach a heavy double door with the number seven stencilled on it in faded grey type. I pull the door open, heaving against its weight, and peer inside.
Darkness. I wait for my eyes to adjust, slowly making out shapes on the far side of the big room. A stage set, maybe? A man? Noah? I step into the room and the big door swings shut behind me with a thump as almost total darkness returns.
The air is cooler in here but it’s stale, fetid, as if it has been trapped in here for years. A
coldness creeps over my skin, sweat clammy against the fabric of my top.
‘Hello?’
The word echoes up and away from me, bouncing off a high ceiling before fading to nothing. I use the torch on my phone to cut into the dark. The studio is huge, at least a hundred feet square, everything painted black. A low catwalk runs into the centre, linking to a stage on the far side. I walk slowly towards it, my shoes clicking on the hard black floor.
‘It’s Ellen Devlin,’ I say, my left hand going protectively over the blanket. ‘With Mia, just like you wanted.’
There is no answer. I keep walking, up the three steps onto the stage where long black curtains fall from ceiling to floor.
‘Where’s Noah?’ I say. I’m desperate to see him, to be sure he’s still OK. ‘Where is he?’
No answer, and then—
Light. In a split second the room is flooded with a hundred blinding lights, filling every corner with dazzling brilliance, a hundred bulbs at once, a thousand, filling the room with brightness that forces me to screw my eyes shut and cover my face with a hand. As my eyes slowly adjust, white flashes still dancing across my pupils, I make out a high ceiling filled with metal tracks and gantries for stage lighting, all of it trained on the stage. I squint, and a figure emerges from the dazzling glare on the other side of the studio.
A shape, an outline. A man.
‘Hello Ellen,’ he says. ‘Good to see you again.’
66
Kathryn Clifton
- BEFORE -
The woman’s name was Ellen.
She looked kind. Capable. Like she knew what she was doing, where she was going in life. Kathryn studied her across the little train table, this tall woman in the seat opposite, gazing down at Mia as if she was the most amazing thing in the world. Which she was, of course. Her niece, the miracle baby, all she had left of her big sister, like Zoe had been reborn and given another chance.
Kathryn’s phone buzzed with another text.
He must be tracking you, following in a car
She looked at Mia again and felt another lurch of panic, shivery and cold right down to her feet. She knew the stakes: if he caught Mia, he would kill her and her body would never be found. That was why Kathryn had taken her, why she had run. If he’s tracking me, she thought, maybe I need to give him a trail to follow. A trail that leads him away from Mia.
She couldn’t leave Mia with just anyone. But maybe she could leave her with this woman. Ellen. She looked smart, sensible, normal, as if she would do the right thing. Mia would be safe with her, just for a little while. Not even half an hour. It was either that or get caught – both of them – and that was not going to happen. Kathryn could not allow it to happen. She would be a decoy instead.
Time was running out.
Stay on the train or get off.
Stay on or get off.
On or off.
Now or never.
Kathryn could feel her heart tear a little at the thought of what she was about to do. She made her decision and fired off another text, the replies dropping in seconds later.
Do it
I should get to Marylebone in time to intercept
Be careful
Kathryn found a biro in her bag and a sheet of paper, a delivery note. She turned it over and began to write, watched her hand forming the letters.
Please protect Mia
Don’t trust the police
Don’t trust anyone
She folded the paper once, wrote Ellen’s name on the front and tucked it back into her rucksack.
Do it now. Before you change your mind.
‘Would you be all right with Mia just while I take this call? It’s . . . urgent.’
‘Sure,’ Ellen said, smiling down at the little bundle in her arms, Mia’s tiny hand wrapped around her index finger. ‘Go ahead, we’ll be fine for a minute.’
‘I’ll just be down there.’ Kathryn gestured over her shoulder, down the carriage. ‘I’ll be back.’
Ellen looked up again, her smile fading.
‘Kathryn, are you sure you’re all right?’
‘Yeah.’ Kathryn got up out of her seat. ‘Thank you, I won’t be long.’
She reached out a hand and touched her fingertips gently to the baby’s head, praying that this would all be over the next time she saw her sister’s beautiful baby girl. The panic was making her hands shake and she wondered if Ellen had noticed it. Just go.
She walked to the end of the carriage and stood by the door, calling for a taxi to pick her up from the station as soon as possible. It seemed to take forever for the train to slow, to pull in and stop, and she was first to step onto the little platform at Seer Green. Thrusting her hands into the pockets of her coat, she hurried away from the train. She couldn’t look back. If she did, she might change her mind. But there was a tapping on the window as she walked past, Ellen’s face a picture of confusion, still cradling Mia in her arms.
‘Sorry,’ Kathryn mouthed silently at her.
She turned and hurried away down the platform with a handful of other passengers, through the barriers and out into the car park at the front of the station. There was a pull-in for taxis in the corner, a chain-link fence separating the car park from the platform and the track. She called the taxi firm again to be told – again – that a car was on its way to her.
From here she could see the train as it pulled out of the station, engine grumbling, moving off as it headed south-east towards London. Kathryn felt her veins bubbling with panic, her knees almost buckling beneath her. Oh God, have I done the right thing? She couldn’t take her eyes off the train as it moved away, picking up speed, carrying Mia further away from her with every second. She was still watching the end of the train recede into the distance as a car pulled in behind her. The sound of an engine, a door opening, footsteps on the tarmac.
She turned. Not a taxi driver. A familiar face, his eyes widening in surprise for just a moment as he saw she was alone.
Just her.
No baby.
But he recovered quickly, moved closer to block her escape. In his gloved hand, the glint of something metallic.
‘Hello Kathryn.’
‘You,’ she said.
67
Detective Inspector Stuart Gilbourne faces me across the studio.
A white one-piece boiler suit covers his clothes and he has plastic overshoes on his feet, an angular black pistol held low at his side in one latex-gloved hand. He looks calm, composed. In control.
‘You,’ I say, nausea rising up from the pit of my stomach. ‘You’re the Ghost.’
He gestures at me with the pistol. ‘Put Mia on the floor and take three steps back.’
‘Where’s Noah?’ I say, clutching the baby tighter to me. ‘What have you done to him?’
‘He’s fine.’
‘Bring him out, show him to me.’
‘All in good time, Ellen.’ He gives me a small, cold smile. ‘Thanks again for last night, by the way. I really enjoyed myself.’
I feel dizzy, sick, bile burning the back of my throat. There are a dozen things I want to say, a hundred things. I want to scream, shout at him, hurt him, make him feel a fraction of the anger and fear and betrayal and shame pulsing through me at this moment.
‘You bastard,’ I say. ‘You used me, to get to Mia.’
‘I did what I had to do.’
‘Angela was right about the Ghost.’
‘Half right,’ he replies. ‘She just picked the wrong horse.’
‘That’s why Kathryn told me not to trust the police. She knew one of you was dirty but you’d spun her around so much by that point that she didn’t know which way was up. You or Sergeant Holt. Or maybe both of you together.’
‘The top brass had started to have suspicions. They’d ordered my own partner to keep tabs on me, can you believe that? So Nathan had his own agenda.’
I shake my head. ‘That was the reason why Holt wanted to get a DNA swab from her right at the start, was
n’t it? In case you tried to mess with the results. Maybe switch the sample, replace it with someone else’s so the DNA didn’t connect to you. He wanted to get an untainted sample, independent of anything you might do. But you still managed to intercept it.’
Gilbourne shrugs. ‘I’m his boss.’
‘Why did you kill those women, Stuart?’
‘First things first,’ he says, raising the gun to point at me. ‘Put the baby on the floor. Now.’
‘Not until you tell me.’ I don’t move. ‘Sienna Parker, the first victim. Why did you kill her?’
‘Why do you think I’m going to tell you that?’
‘Because you’re proud of getting away with it. Because it shows you’re smarter than all your colleagues, your forensics people, the boss who thinks you’re past it.’
He studies me for a moment, as if weighing up what to tell me. He lowers the gun a fraction, a smile flickering at the edges of his mouth.
‘Sienna was a greedy whore. And I mean that literally. All I ever wanted to do was keep working, keep on top of things. Stay sharp, like I used to, put in the long hours and the all-nighters. But as you get older it gets harder, you find you need a little bit of extra help to keep your energy levels up. A little bit of a pick-me-up now and again.’
‘It wasn’t Holt who worked on that task force, was it? Human exploitation?’ My mind is spinning, tumbling. ‘It was you.’
‘You’re a smart cookie, Ellen. I knew Sienna from back in the day, knew she could sort me out with some Dex when I needed it.’ Seeing my confusion, he adds, ‘Dexamphetamine. Drug of choice for pilots, soldiers, people who have to keep going no matter what. Sienna sold to me for a while but then she got greedy, decided to try blackmailing me. Unfortunately she’d also told her best mate Louise, who’d dropped a few hints to the pretty little outreach worker who was trying to get them both off the streets.’
‘Zoe Clifton.’