Dead Guilty

by Michelle Davies

  It took her five paces to find it. There, screwed up on the floor where Ruiz had tossed it earlier, was a chewing-gum wrapper. Cinnamon flavour.

  The bastard. He’d dropped it right under their noses.

  ‘Hey, you got a bag?’ she called out to Shah. He hurried over, pulling a plastic evidence bag out of his pocket, Walker and Paulson in close pursuit.

  ‘Ruiz dropped this when he was here earlier. It’s like he wants to be caught.’

  ‘I don’t know how we didn’t notice how similar he and Johnnie are,’ said Paulson.

  ‘When they were younger perhaps, but Johnnie’s long hair makes it harder now,’ said Shah.

  ‘Yeah, but all it took was a red baseball cap and a false ponytail and Ruiz was the spit of his old friend again. I bet that’s who’s really on that photo with the hire car,’ said Maggie. ‘I bet it’s also him who attacked those women in Es Cana – Annika said he and Johnnie regularly went clubbing in Ibiza together. Johnnie’s been the gift of a patsy for him – not only do they look alike, but Ruiz knew Johnnie had lied to the police about being in Saros in 2009. Thanks to Johnnie’s own stupidity, it hasn’t taken much effort for Ruiz to point the finger at him. I’ll bet you anything there’s a paper trail for the lease of the disused cafe that leads right to Johnnie’s door, because Ruiz will have set it up that way.’

  Jasso, who’d joined the group, grimaced. ‘I suspect she’s right.’

  ‘So where the fuck is Ruiz now?’ asked Paulson.

  Maggie stood up. ‘George can help us with that.’

  The group went over to where George stood. She had no time to dwell on the look he gave her, or the shiver she felt from standing so close to him.

  ‘Have you still got that card from that villa company?’ she asked him.

  He fished it out of his wallet and handed it to her. She pulled out her phone and began dialling Valeria the sales rep’s number.

  ‘You said Johnnie gave you this.’

  George nodded. ‘Yes, he said someone he knew in Saros had been talking about investing in property out here and Johnnie thought we should look into it. The friend recommended this company.’

  ‘I bet that someone was Ruiz,’ said Maggie. ‘It’ll be another part of his paper trail.’

  As the call was about to connect, she handed her mobile to Jasso.

  ‘My Spanish is terrible, so you should do this. If I’m right, Ruiz will have bought the villa in Johnnie’s name.’

  The rest of them stood silently while Jasso addressed Valeria in rapid Spanish. They all exchanged looks as he said ‘Johnnie Hickman-Ferguson’, then he abruptly motioned the action of scribbling in the air.

  ‘Someone needs to write this down,’ he hissed. Shah obliged, pulling out his notebook and pen.

  ‘Can you repeat that please?’ Jasso said in English. ‘Villa Concorde, 2818 Camí de la Ladera. Right, got it. Gracias.’

  He hung up.

  ‘You were right,’ he said, passing back the phone. ‘It is in Johnnie’s name. I need to arrange tactical support. Julien Ruiz is a very dangerous individual and may be armed.’

  ‘How long will that take?’ Walker demanded.

  ‘Thirty minutes, maybe more.’

  ‘We can’t wait that long,’ said Maggie. ‘If Jade’s not already dead, she could be soon.’

  Jasso hesitated.

  ‘You know, she’s right,’ said Walker. ‘I don’t want a dead girl on my conscience just because we waited for the cavalry. We’ve got this.’

  ‘Okay, but I’m in charge and I decide how we do this,’ said Jasso firmly. ‘I’ll have some uniform officers join us. You can go with them,’ he ordered Walker, Shah and Paulson. ‘Maggie, you come with me.’

  As they went to leave, George grabbed her arm. She glanced at the others, fearful they might notice, but they were already walking ahead.

  ‘Be careful, Maggie,’ said George. ‘This Ruiz bloke sounds really scary.’

  She nodded. ‘I will.’

  His next words tumbled out in a rush. ‘I know I said we could forget about last night, but I don’t want to. I want to see you again. I don’t know where things stand with your boyfriend, but if there’s a chance for us . . .’

  ‘I have to go,’ she said. ‘I can’t talk about this now.’

  She felt like she was betraying Umpire all over again even talking to George. But as she walked away, she knew it wouldn’t be the last conversation they had.

  78

  The temperature in the hills was far hotter than anything they’d experienced by the coast and Maggie could feel her skin already reddening beneath the blazing sun as she silently trailed Jasso round the side of Villa Concorde. She could see why it was the perfect hiding place for Ruiz to keep Jade captive – from the outside it appeared derelict, with the windows shuttered and the overgrown garden resembling scrubland. Anyone passing along the remote road would never suspect for a minute it was being occupied.

  Jasso had his regulation pistol held out in front of him at arm’s length, left hand supporting the weapon held in his right. It rattled her to think that he might be forced to use it if Ruiz was armed and that Jade could get caught up in the crossfire. Walker had begged Jasso to bring Ruiz in alive and let the courts deliver justice for Katy, but the inspector could give no such guarantee. They had to hope they could get to Jade before it was too late.

  Walker, Shah and Paulson were quietly circling the other side of the villa in the wake of two of Jasso’s officers, who were also armed. Two more were staking out the perimeter of the property’s land, in case Ruiz decided to make a run for it.

  As the two parties met at the rear of the villa, Jasso issued instructions to his officers in a low voice.

  ‘Say it in English!’ Walker hissed.

  Jasso glared at him, but complied.

  ‘I shall go in through the front entrance while my officers will enter through the kitchen door you just passed. You must all stay here, where it is safe – that is an order. When it’s all clear, I will call for you.’

  Jasso slunk off in one direction, while his officers went in the other.

  ‘Fuck this,’ said Walker. ‘Let’s go back round the front.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we do as he said?’ asked Shah in a fierce whisper.

  ‘Nah, the boss is right,’ said Paulson. ‘Let’s go where we can see what’s happening.’

  Because of where she was standing, Maggie was first to lead the way. Moving slowly and as silently as she could, she inched round the side of the villa, her baton drawn. Suddenly, there was an almighty crash and Jasso fell headfirst through the glass of an upstairs window. There were gunshots, then the front door burst open and Julien Ruiz sprinted through the garden and vaulted over the fence into the scrubland that surrounded the villa. He was covered in blood and where his left eye should have been there was a livid scarlet mess of tissue.

  Without thinking, Maggie took off after him. She heard Walker calling her name but she ignored him and ploughed on, her eyes trained on the blue of Ruiz’s T-shirt as he dived through bushes and darted round trees.

  Despite his injury, Ruiz kept going. He was about half a mile ahead, but he was slower than she was, his pace and agility impeded by the flimsy deck shoes he was wearing. Gaining on him, Maggie saw his ankle turn as he swerved to avoid a tree and she knew this was her chance. He was hobbling now, barely able to jog. With a final burst of speed she caught up with him and threw herself at his back, sending them both flying to the ground. Ruiz yelled in pain, but managed to roll out from under, sending her crashing into a bush with spiky leaves that clawed at the flesh of her bare arms. Panting, she got to her feet and saw Ruiz had done the same. They stood a few feet apart, his one good eye boring into hers. The injury was sickening to look at and very new, but it filled her with hope – Jade must’ve done it, which meant she must still be alive.

  ‘It’s over,’ she said. ‘You need to give yourself up.’

  ‘I am not going to prison for that
bitch,’ Ruiz snarled.

  ‘Jade’s alive?’

  ‘Not her,’ he spat. ‘Annika.’

  ‘You really did all of this just because she rejected you?’

  Ruiz panted heavily as he spoke; he looked like he’d lost a lot of blood.

  ‘She told us everything, Julien. She didn’t fancy you and you didn’t like it, so you decided to get your revenge by going after other women. You’re not much of a man though, are you, Ruiz? You could only get them by hurting them? No wonder Annika thought you’d be a crap lover.’

  Everything she said was designed to provoke a reaction and it worked.

  ‘Have you ever loved someone so much you’d do anything to be with them?’ he yelled at her. ‘I wanted to make Annika my wife and the mother of my children. She was everything I wanted in a partner. But no, she said I was sexually impulsive and had no control when it came to women and that I wasn’t capable of being in a committed relationship.’

  ‘You think snatching Katy off the street and killing her was the way to show Annika she was wrong about you?’ Maggie asked him scathingly.

  ‘You don’t understand. I did it to prove I could wait until after we’d had three dates to consummate the relationship, like Annika said she wanted. So I practised being patient on other women.’

  Maggie gasped. ‘You mean that Katy was an experiment?’

  ‘If you’re asking was she a means to an end, yes.’

  Maggie was reeling. ‘All those women you tried to abduct – Lara Steadman, the victims in Es Cana . . . you wanted to practise being the perfect boyfriend on them?’

  ‘Yes. Most of the women I meet are sluts,’ Ruiz said matter-of-factly. ‘They will have sex with me within half an hour of meeting. It’s so easy. I needed girls who already had partners, who wouldn’t succumb too soon.’

  ‘Your accent – Jade’s fiancé said you were British.’

  Maggie recoiled as a rictus grin spread across his face, morphing him into someone she didn’t recognize and wanted to recoil from.

  ‘Oh, but I can be anyone I want to be, officer,’ he said in a perfect British accent that betrayed no hint of his Spanish roots. ‘I have an aptitude for languages,’ he added, now with a German twang. ‘My tutors at school said I was most gifted.’ Finally, French. ‘I have travelled Europe and, wherever I have visited, the people there have presumed I am a native.’

  With growing horror, Maggie suddenly realized Ruiz’s victims could number far more than the few they knew about. How many other women had he lured into his experiment with flattery and compliments who were now too ashamed to come forward and admit what he’d done to them?

  Maggie could hear footsteps crackling in the scrubland behind her and felt a pang of relief that help was coming, but didn’t turn round.

  ‘Why did you kill Katy?’

  ‘I had to: she was willing to have sex with me after only the first night. She begged me, in fact. I was very angry, because it meant I was back to square one. So I had to get rid of her.’

  Maggie boiled with fury. ‘She was probably terrified you were going to kill her and thought the only way to not get hurt was to let you rape her, you bastard.’

  Ruiz’s one good eye widened.

  ‘Really? I hadn’t thought of that.’

  Maggie clenched her fists at her side. She could quite happily rip his other eye out with her bare fingers.

  ‘Why did you dispose of her body like that?’

  ‘It was fun,’ he shrugged. ‘The excitement of almost getting caught near the ponds was thrilling.’

  The man’s a psychopath, she thought with a shudder.

  ‘So why stop now? The emails you sent, the chewing-gum wrapper you dropped this morning, trashing the restaurant – you wanted us to catch you.’

  His shoulders sagged. ‘I am tired of making all the effort. I want to settle down now and have my children.’

  Maggie laughed incredulously at his crazed notion that he could just move on from this as if nothing had happened.

  ‘I don’t think Annika has been swayed by your experiment,’ she said.

  Suddenly he turned on her, teeth bared.

  ‘What about you, DC Neville? Do you always wait for the third date? No, I bet you’re a slut, just like all the others.’

  As he suddenly lunged for her, a shot rang out. Ruiz slumped to the floor and blood began to blossom from the wound in his shoulder. Paulson and one of Jarso’s armed officers scrambled past her to check his pulse.

  ‘He’s still alive,’ said Paulson. ‘We need an ambulance.’

  ‘There’s already one on the way,’ said Walker, coming towards them.

  He took Maggie by the arm, concern etched deep on his features. ‘You okay?’

  ‘A bit shaken up, but I’m fine.’

  ‘You did great, Maggie,’ said Paulson. ‘We heard everything.’ He had his fists pressed against Ruiz’s chest to stem the bleeding. ‘I’m not letting the fucker die – there’s a prison cell waiting for him where he can rot for the rest of his life.’

  ‘What about Jade?’ Maggie asked Walker.

  ‘She’s alive and unharmed. She’d managed to lock herself in the bathroom after stabbing him in the eye. She’s a very brave and very lucky young lady.’

  ‘And Jasso?’

  ‘Multiple fractures but he’ll live. Shah’s with him.’

  Maggie stared down at Ruiz’s prone body.

  ‘There are more victims out there, boss. I don’t believe Ruiz has sat twiddling his thumbs for the past ten years, waiting for Katy’s anniversary before staging another abduction. He’s been practising, honing his craft. This goes way beyond wanting to win Annika over; it’s about the control he can exert over women.’

  ‘I agree. I think that when we look at the places he’s visited in the last decade we’ll find others. The number of victims could run into the hundreds.’

  79

  Patricia was on the balcony, a glass tumbler in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other. She’d drunk quite a volume already but Philip saw no point in pulling her up on it. Instead, he went to the kitchen and fetched a glass for himself.

  ‘May I?’ he asked, holding the glass up.

  She poured a healthy measure, which to both their surprise he knocked back in one gulp.

  ‘Another?’ she asked.

  ‘Why not? It feels like we should be celebrating, doesn’t it, finally knowing what happened to Katy and with the person who did it in custody, but instead all I want to do is drown my sorrows.’

  Her smile was tinged with sadness. ‘I agree. It’s bittersweet. I’m very thankful the Reynolds girl survived, though, and we should drink to that. Here’s to Jade.’

  She raised her glass and, as he did the same, Philip’s thoughts turned again to Clive Reynolds, as they had many times during the past few hours. He must be overjoyed to be reunited with his daughter and overwhelmed with relief she was safe. At some point, when it was appropriate, he would write to him. Even though the photograph hadn’t been as it appeared and Johnnie was innocent, Clive was respectful in showing him first and he should thank him for that.

  ‘When will Ruiz appear in court?’ Philip asked, knowing his wife would be up to date on everything that was happening.

  ‘It depends on his injuries.’

  Ruiz was now in hospital in Palma, under armed guard.

  ‘Do you want to stay until the hearing?’

  Patricia shook her head. ‘I’m ready to go home now.’

  They had decided, together, not to have any kind of ceremony, private or otherwise, for Katy in Saros. Instead, they were going to plant a tree at home in her memory. One that was beautiful and delicate, like she was.

  After Ruiz’s trial they would never return to Saros again.

  George poked his head out of the door.

  ‘Mind if we join you?’

  ‘Of course not,’ said Patricia.

  He and Declan came out onto the balcony, each with a bottle of beer in han
d.

  ‘What a day,’ said Declan. He looked haggard and Philip guessed why. Jade’s description of her incarceration, fed back to them by the police, had left none of them in doubt about what poor Katy went through.

  ‘Have you spoken to Johnnie?’ Philip asked George.

  His son nodded. ‘I tried to convince him to come over, but he’s in a pretty bad way. He blames himself for introducing Ruiz to Katy. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we went down to the marina tomorrow and he’d already set sail.’

  Philip felt nothing but sorrow for his and Patricia’s godson. None of this was his fault. He hoped Johnnie wouldn’t become a stranger to them after this.

  Patricia set the bottle of vodka down on the ground. ‘I’ve been thinking, Declan. When we get back to London, you and Tamara should come for dinner.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Philip blurted out, taken aback. His wife hadn’t had a kind word to say about Tamara in almost ten years. Declan looked equally sceptical.

  She nodded. ‘I’ve always blamed Tamara for stealing Katy’s happiness and I was too caught up in my own grief to think how she must have felt losing her best friend like that. The thing is, I know Katy would have wanted her to be happy and she would’ve wanted you to be happy too, Declan. I think, in her own way, she would have approved of your relationship. You found solace and stability – isn’t that all any of us are looking for, really?’

  She raised a hand and gently stroked Philip’s cheek. George fought back tears as he watched his parents.

  ‘I know I’m bloody impossible to live with and the way I am makes you feel inconsequential at times, but you do know there is still no man I would rather have at my side in life than you, don’t you? I’m so very sorry I don’t show it enough.’

  Philip was so moved he couldn’t speak. Patricia set down her glass next to the bottle and, for the first time in a long time, they held each other as they cried.

  The fussing was starting to get to Jade, everyone clucking around her like she was a fragile ornament that needed careful handling. Her dad was the worst: he wouldn’t stop crying, kept saying he blamed himself for not coming to rescue her. But she hadn’t needed rescuing, she told him – she took care of herself and that was down to him. He’d taught her self-reliance and instilled her with an iron will to survive that she hadn’t even known she possessed until the last few days.