by Andrew Lowe
Ash headed back down the path, alongside the broad driveway. He side-stepped through the narrow foot entrance by the wrought-iron gates and sauntered down the main road. He turned off into a side lane, and climbed into Sawyer’s Corsa, parked on a verge behind a tall hedge.
He slumped into the passenger seat, turned to look at Sawyer, who had his eyes fixed on his phone. ‘Mission accomplished. Whatever the fuck it was.’
Sawyer took out his earphones and looked up. He held out an open palm, and Ash took the listening device out of his inside pocket and handed it back. Sawyer smiled. ‘Must be a strange feeling. Bringing some good to the world. What did the woman look like?’
Ash shrugged. ‘Bog standard. Like, old. Whatever.’
‘Tall? Short?’
Ash squinted at him, incredulous. ‘Short. But not like a little old lady type, you get me? Not bad for her age, like.’ Sawyer raised his eyebrows. ‘Fuck off, man. Not like that.’ He sat back in the seat. ‘Why can’t you do this shit yourself, anyway? You get off on scaring old ladies?’
Sawyer looked out at the lane. Sparse flurries of snow fell on the farmland at the outskirts of Hartington. ‘I had to be sure he was at this address. And I showed you the newspaper report. I can’t be seen here.’
Ash sighed. ‘Listen. I don’t want your dirty secrets. Was the email address real?’
Sawyer nodded. ‘Couldn’t risk them checking and finding a fake.’
‘Listen, man. I’ve had a rough week, yeah? Can we get out of here now?’ He stared at Sawyer. ‘Are we cool?’
Sawyer started the engine. ‘For now. But you need to find some better friends.’ He glanced at Ash, as he drove away. ‘Or we’ll be seeing each other again soon.’
62
Sawyer stood before the bedroom mirror, shirtless. He switched to Wing Chun horse stance and flashed out a few limbering punches. He stood still, eyes closed, and took a deep breath in through his nostrils. He slipped into horse stance again, and executed the precise disciplines of the third Wing Chun form, biu gee. Darting fingers.
Elbow strikes, finger strikes, rapid changes of direction to avoid attack and prepare for counterattack. He measured out each motion and transition. Nothing for exhibition, nothing unnecessary.
He showered, and layered up for the weather. Outside, the snowfall was thickening; he sat on the bed and stared out at the flakes, fluttering through the dark.
He took out the burner phone and called Walker. Again, it rang for a long time before he answered. ‘I thought you were screening me for a second.’
‘Lot going on, sir. As you can imagine.’
Sawyer headed out of the front door and stepped onto the porch. ‘Shame you’re still a man down.’
‘Well…’
He climbed into the Corsa. ‘Matt. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to finish this.’ He propped the phone in the dashboard mount and switched it to speaker, then took a pair of leather gloves out of his pocket and put them on.
A pause from Walker as he moved into a different room. ‘What do you mean?’
Sawyer started the engine and moved off, taking the road down through Castleton. ‘The children, the dead men. It’s the same perpetrator. Harrison Briggs.’
‘The son of the tech entrepreneur?’
‘Yes. Like I said, he’s using the MEETUPZ network to support the paedophile hunter group, Justice For Kids. Probably others, too. I think he’s also used it to reverse-groom the men into the meetings at the stations and Lud’s Church. The disgust for them, the use of a long-range and silent weapon. Clinical, surgical. He sees them as parasites, invaders. Similar to medical anomalies. Aberrations, to be removed, taken out of the system.’
‘But what’s this got to do with the children? If he’s culling paedophiles for the greater good, in the name of his murdered sister, then what’s he doing with the children?’
Sawyer slowed for traffic near the Sparrowpit turn-off. ‘I’m not sure. But I know he’s behind the abductions. When Holly was found, there was new anger in the killings. I’m certain that her death wasn’t intentional. She escaped. Probably underestimated the conditions and the cold.’
‘You’d have to be pretty desperate to do that.’
‘Or determined. Remember her parents’ comments about her being “wilful” and “pushing boundaries”? I don’t think Holly Chilton was the type to sit and take whatever Briggs was doing, or planning.’
Walker took a moment to absorb it all. ‘So, how do you connect him with the abductions?’
‘The anger of Holly’s death changed something, made him less patient. There’s a mission, a project. The pace of the abductions has accelerated. He might even have taken enough children to see it through now.’
‘But how do you know he is taking the children?’
‘He’s not. His mother is. Lynette. She would have taken Mia from the first Christmas market in Bakewell, and I was there when she took Amelie from Hartington. There’s a picture in the old gaming magazine. She’s standing outside with Harrison. Cold day. She’s wearing yellow gloves. I’m sure the woman who took Amelie wore yellow gloves. And I take it you know about the fibres found on Holly’s body?’
‘Uhuh.’
Sawyer squeezed the accelerator and pushed on, through the snow. ‘I’ll send you the links to all this. Remember: You’re going to finish it. You’re going to finish it tonight. Tell Keating and Shepherd you put it together. Might not be the best idea to say you had help from me. The mention of yellow gloves is in the statement I gave at Hartington. Pitch it to them as soon as you get my links, and the address. It’s a big house, about twenty minutes on foot from where Holly was found.’
‘How do you know the address?’
‘Complex subterfuge.’ A pause. ‘Googled it. Cross-checked with the electoral register. You can see the place on Google Street View, set back from one of the adjoining roads. I think the children are there, and the logic supports a Section 17. There’s threat to life and limb, grounds to question both the mother and son. Dive on this now, Matt. Get it under Shepherd’s nose. And bring a decent-sized team. We’ve no idea what’s inside that house.’
Sawyer turned into the lane where he had waited for Ash, and parked on the verge.
‘Where are you now?’
He reached over to the passenger seat and pulled on his chestnut-brown balaclava. ‘Text me when you’re near. I thought I’d have a quick look around.’
63
Sawyer crunched through the snow, across an open field. He stayed low, close to a line of withered trees, and aimed for a perimeter hedge at the back of the three-storey building. Lights were on: a faint red glow from a room on the ground floor, bright yellow from the third floor.
He tracked the hedge from its furthest corner, along the back and down the side of the house. There were three weak points where the vegetation had thinned out enough to accommodate a person. But the branches were still dense and gnarled, and he would be risking injury, perhaps leaving blood or fibre traces. Sawyer pulled the balaclava tight over his face, and selected the gap that looked like it would offer the least resistance. He shouldered into the hedge and picked his way through the clawing bramble until he could prise it apart and squeeze through to the other side.
He was at the bottom of a double-level garden: plants and flower borders below, with a shallow stone staircase leading up to the moonlit back wall of the house. The windows were all closed and covered, but he could just make out a narrow path at the top of the staircase, leading round to a gap between house wall and hedge. He listened. Distant cars, the odd night bird, and a vague rumble of running machinery, somewhere around the front of the building.
Sawyer crouch-walked up the staircase, peered around the wall, and edged into the gap. He reached a wooden door: old, but sturdy, with an outmoded cylinder lock. He took out his kirby grips and prepared the kinked wrench and pick combination. The lock was basic, but the internal plug had grown rigid with age, and it took him a tense ten minutes to t
wist and feel his way through and get the door unlocked.
He eased down the handle and pushed open the door, wary of immediate threat, particularly dogs. He waited, and listened for a while, then moved inside and closed the door behind him.
A short passage with a stone floor connected to a laundry room on the right and a cluttered storage area off to the left. The house smelt damp and sour, with a deep-set chill that made him shudder. He brushed away the snow and inched forward, taking slow, silent steps.
Sawyer turned on his phone light at a low brightness, and pointed it at the floor; it gave just enough glow for him to see a few feet ahead. He turned a corner and passed through a long galley kitchen, towards an internal door with a large glass panel. Weak light filtered through from a corridor beyond the door. He squatted and shuffled forward, pushed up against the kitchen units, in case someone walked past the door and glanced through the glass.
He reached the door and edged it open. The machinery sound increased in volume: a low, steady rumble, punctuated by rhythmic bumps and thuds. Was it music? As he crept along the corridor, the sound grew richer, more complex: a relentless pulse of bass feedback; a cycling three-note guitar figure; vocal howls and groans which rolled in and melded with the fuzz, then splintered and faded. The sounds pitched and swelled like a dark liquid, flowing through the corridors.
Sawyer reached a corner, and pressed up against the wall. He raised his phone light higher to pick out an object which faced into the next corridor. It was a shooting target, mounted on an easel before a backstop net, which hung down from the ceiling. An unlit picture lamp sat above the target. He edged his head around the wall, to get a view around the corner. The corridor facing the target was more like a long hall: broad and gloomy, with several closed doors. He could just make out furniture and cupboards at the far end. Wall cabinets, chairs, a sofa.
He stayed close to the wall, and edged around the corner. Now, it was clear that the music was coming from somewhere near the far end of the hall; it was vast and pervasive, but still oddly muffled. Halfway down the hall, a carpeted staircase led up. He climbed the steps, moving faster, keeping his eyes on the landing above, knowing that any sound of movement would be swallowed in the storm of the music.
At the landing, Sawyer turned and pushed up to the first floor. Another long, hall-like corridor led both ways, into darkness. The steps carried on up to the top floor. He covered his phone and looked up the stairs, squinting. There was definitely light up there.
He pressed on, relieved to get some distance from the devilish soundtrack. He was used to drone guitar, ambience, repetition, but this was more extreme: monolithic, designed to disturb, drained of melody.
The top-floor corridor was shorter, lit by bright light from a glass-panelled door near the far end. Up here, the music was vague and muted, but still simmered away below, unbroken.
Sawyer pushed up against the wall and moved towards the door. If someone walked out into the corridor, his position would at least buy him a few seconds before he would be spotted: enough to spring away and dash into cover, behind the wall at the top of the staircase.
Voices. Soft and low, from inside the lit room. Children.
He reached the door and checked along both sides of the corridor, then peeked through the glass panel, into the room.
The walls were bare, but the room was decorated in loud, friendly colours: yellows, purples, bright blues. A large side window looked out across the snow-covered fields behind the house, with a closed skylight above. On the far wall, a grid of gym lockers sat behind a long wooden bench. In the centre of the room, individual tables and chairs had been arranged in rows of three, facing a portable whiteboard and large desk and chair.
It was a classroom.
Three young children sat at the desks, sullen and distant. Sawyer recognised two: Mia, and Joshua Maitland. The third, a redhead, he assumed was Amelie Clark. All three wore black blazers and matching V-neck sweaters. The girls wore skirts; Joshua, in black shorts, sat nearest the door. Sawyer ducked under the window, crawled to the other side of the door, and peered in again. From the new perspective, he could see that each child had a thick metal collar visible above the sock on their right leg.
There was a side door, ajar, at the front of the room, behind the whiteboard. Sawyer adjusted the balaclava, eased the main door open and stepped inside.
Amelie and Joshua were angled away from the door, talking to each other, but Mia spotted Sawyer and gasped. The other two turned to him, and he held his finger to his lips with one hand, and his other hand out in front, palm down, bobbing it up and down to suggest quiet.
In the time it had taken Sawyer to acknowledge the children, Lynette Briggs had emerged from the side room. She froze, stared at him. Her shoulders slumped and she felt her way across to the desk chair and sat down, eyes fixed on Sawyer’s masked face.
Sawyer glanced at the children, and took a step closer to the desk. ‘Where’s Harrison?’ He kept his voice low, almost whispered.
‘Who are you?’ Her voice was solid, unwavering.
Sawyer raised his head. ‘I asked first.’
Lynette drew the chair up to the desk. ‘Harrison is in his study. He’s going out soon.’
‘In this weather?’
Lynette forced a smile. ‘He’s a hardy soul.’
‘What are the ankle collars?’
Lynette stayed still, at the desk, glaring at him.
‘You can’t save us!’ It was Joshua, on his feet. ‘We’re not allowed to leave.’
‘Joshua!’ Lynette scolded him, but he continued.
‘We have to wear them. He’s got a bracelet, and if we go too far he gives us a shock. Holly told me—’
‘Joshua!’ Lynette sprang up from the chair. ‘Sit down and be quiet.’
He lowered himself back down. The two girls kept their eyes fixed on the floor.
A moment of silence. The distant thrum of the music.
Sawyer angled his head, gesturing to the corridor. ‘Is that Harrison’s choice? Good job you don’t have neighbours.’
Lynette dropped her eyes to the desk. ‘As I say, he’s going out tonight.’
Sawyer nodded. ‘And that’s his psych-up music?’ He stepped closer to the desk, around the side, where he could see Lynette’s hands down by the drawers. ‘What’s going on here?’
She didn’t look up. ‘You’ll have to talk to Harrison about that.’
Sawyer glanced at the children; they were all watching now. ‘Whatever this is, it’s finished. Derbyshire’s finest are on their way.’ He leaned around the desk, only a few feet from Lynette now. He took out a pair of handcuffs and stepped closer.
Amelie had started to sob. ‘Are you the police?’
Lynette smiled. ‘No. You heard him, dear. They’re on their way.’
Sawyer pounced forward and grabbed Lynette’s left arm. He fixed one end of the handcuffs to her wrist and tightened the ratchet. She bowed her head, offering no resistance. He pulled her chair to the back of the room and fixed the other end to a sturdy radiator pipe that ran across the bottom of the far wall, holding her firmly in place.
He patted her down for phones or weapons. Nothing.
Lynette kept her gaze on the floor, holding that strange little smile. She was mid-sixties, but Sawyer was struck by how much older she looked up close, and how easily she had wilted. She seemed more relieved than resigned.
Sawyer checked the desk drawers. Folders, papers. Nothing practical or threatening. ‘Now, are you going to tell me what is going on here?’
He froze.
The rumbling two floors below had fallen silent; the music had stopped.
Lynette had left the top drawer on the right side of the desk open. Sawyer moved around her and pushed it shut, revealing a small white button built under the rim of the desk.
Lynette sneered at him. ‘As I say, you’ll need to talk to Harrison. He’s expecting you.’
64
Sawyer told the ch
ildren to stay in the classroom, and moved out into the corridor. He aimed his phone light at the floor, and crept down the first staircase, pausing every few steps to listen.
No sight or sound of movement below.
As he reached the first floor landing, the music reared up again, startling him. It seemed louder this time: booming bass, rasping guitar, guttural growls and bellows. He continued down to the ground floor hall and approached a large door at the near end: the source of the music. When he had first entered the house, the door had been closed; now, it was open a few inches, and leaked a deep red light that cast the corridor in a fiery haze.
Sawyer pressed against the wall at the foot of the stairs, and looked down the hall, towards the sofa and the crossbow target, scanning for movement. He reached the door and eased it open, staying out of sight at the edge of the frame. Luminous red flooded the hall, and the music ramped up. He moved around, through the frame, and inched forward into the room.
Red light blazed down from a vast, shadeless bulb in the tall ceiling. The room was cavernous, with fat candles flickering in shallow metal dishes, spaced out across the dark-wood floorboards. There was no furniture, apart from a minimalist music system with stacked speakers, a wall of bookcases, and a bottle-green sofa on the far side, beneath a huge window covered by a Venetian blind.
Sawyer squinted, adjusting to the change of light. As he edged further into the room, he saw movement from the sofa. A long, slim figure had been reclining across its length, but now it shifted and rose up to its full height, dappled in shadow from the blind. The figure was at least a foot taller than Sawyer. At this distance, the features were vague, in almost total silhouette, but there were flashes of colour at the top and bottom of the body: silver from large-framed spectacles; red and white from the shoes. Harrison Briggs took a small step forward, measuring the distance with his stalk-like legs. He held his hands down at his sides, clenching and unclenching his spindly fingers into fists.