by R T Green
Alone, Daniel’s eyes fell back to the girl’s face. She couldn’t stop a shudder, shivers of dread turning her blood as cold as the freezing night had made the rest of her.
Murder was one thing, but whatever sick pervert did this took gruesome to a whole new level.
Her head had been twisted round, her face pointing in a direction that wouldn’t normally be humanly possible. Clearly that was what had killed her.
But before that she’d been savaged, the red-coloured snow on the ground around her testament to that.
And her screams had been silenced, in the most brutal way possible.
Her lower jaw had been wrenched downwards, almost severing it from her face.
She didn’t get time to dwell on the horror the poor girl must have endured. Suddenly, white-suited people seemed to be everywhere, silver cases full of forensic technology clunking to the ground around her, a canvas protective tent erected in minutes.
Assia Kapoor, head of forensics, eased her away from the body, saw the look in her eyes. ‘You ok, Jane?’
She nodded, unconvincingly. ‘Sure... there’s a blue substance spattered over her... and we noticed a scrap of something that looked like skin caught in a fingernail...’
Assia put a gloved hand on her arm. ‘This one got to you, huh?’
She nodded, unwilling to actually say the words that would confirm it had.
The girl in white smiled reassuringly. ‘My turn now. Leave it to us... whatever story she’s got to tell, I’ll do my best to read it.’
Daniels turned away, walked slowly further along the alley, a lot less dark then as the forensic team’s tripod lights penetrated the blackness. A few tiny snowflakes had begun to fall again, the beam of the lights making them appear much bigger as they drifted gently to the ground in the still night air.
She shivered again, folded her arms together, and panned her eyes around the grim surroundings. The alley served the rear entrances of the shops and restaurants fronting the main street. It seemed to go on forever, a mess of doorways, waste bins and rat-infested clutter.
She glanced at her watch. One in the morning. There was little they could do until it got light, but then would come the painstaking task of combing every bit of the alley. Whoever had ended the girl’s life in such a horrendous way was long gone, that much was certain. Maybe he’d left some kind of clue, but even if he had, finding it in the clutter of the alley was unlikely. The only real hope was that Assia and her team would come up with something useful.
She turned back towards the lights, her steps slow and laboured, her eyes gazing unseeing at the rough asphalt a few feet in front of her. The blue substance on the girl’s body was worrying her. So was the piece of what appeared to be skin caught in her fingernail.
Given the epic events of five weeks ago, an uneasy feeling was building in her mind. MI6 had issued a confidential memo to all London police forces, asking them to be aware of the remote possibility a few of the occupants of the spaceship could have survived the fall when it disintegrated.
Surely this couldn’t be connected?
Yet again a shiver ran through her, shook her whole body. But there was nothing more she could do, not on a dark snowy night. Forensics would need a few hours at the scene, and then a few more in the lab. As soon as it got light she and her team would comb the alley, but the best thing right then would be a warm bed and a few hours sleep.
Although she was getting the feeling the dread turning her gut inside out wouldn’t make that too easy.
Chapter 131
The light was fading, as another day came to an end. Through the bars covering the tiny window set high in the far wall of the small room, Kayla Jones watched the blackness come. She felt her stomach churn again, the dread of the impending night doing its best to bring the tears.
It wouldn’t be too long before he came to her once more.
She couldn’t see through the window, the dirty obscure glass allowing light but not vision. Even if it had been clear, the chains shackling her ankles to the foot of the rusty old bed would never allow her to reach it.
The bare mattress smelled of damp, seemed like it had been in the featureless room for ever. The old walls of her prison were streaked with brown, stains from water seeping from above turning to black mould that he didn’t bother to clean away.
She closed her eyes to try and ward off the tears of despair. He didn’t like it when he saw her crying, grew angry, told her it wasn’t helping her welfare.
He seemed to care about her, despite…
He brought her takeaway food; pizzas, burgers… sometimes subs in the daytime. And he gave her a strange drink that tasted unlike anything she’d ever had before, told her it was full of good things to keep her healthy.
She had a thick duvet. It looked new. It kept her warm through the cold nights, and when the rats scurried around the floor beneath her, and the desolation of her life became hard to bear, she used it to cover her head and pretend she was somewhere nice.
She had books to read. Sometimes they helped too, taking her away to other places in her mind.
She’d tried to keep count of the days. This was the fifteenth night, maybe the sixteenth. It was getting harder to remember. Her clever, intelligent mind seemed to grow foggier by the day, the nothingness dimming her ability to think clearly. For her, that was almost as painful as the physical abuse.
Not being able to think clear thoughts was just as crippling as everything else.
She’d been enjoying university life, but a place granted to her by merit not money had proved harder than she’d thought. Studying mechanical engineering, the cost of literature and practical aids needed to get through the two-year course had proved too much.
Facing the decision to quit or find the money, she’d chosen the latter.
She wasn’t a quitter.
Selling her body seemed like the easiest and quickest way to solve the problems. Asking around, she’d worked out that three months on the streets would get her through. Three months demeaning herself, gritting her teeth and thinking of England… and then she could move on to better things.
It hadn’t been three months. Innocent and anything but street-wise, he’d come on her fourth night on the game. He’d seemed nice, in no hurry to have his way. They’d eaten in a small local bistro, drank wine and chatted. He’d asked her a lot of questions, but somehow in the kind of way that had made her want to answer.
She knew now why he’d asked them.
It was fully dark. Next to the bed, the tiny lamp that gave off hardly any light had come on, as it did each night. A pang of nervous dread wafted through her.
Every night had been the same. There was no reason to think it would be any different now.
Instinctively her gaze locked onto the metal door. That had a tiny opening in it too, again covered by bars. From her bed she couldn’t make out anything through it, just another damp wall a few feet beyond. It must be a corridor, leading to the other rooms.
She wasn’t alone. Sometimes she would hear the clunk of doors closing, the heartbreaking cries and occasional screams of other girls in the echoing distance.
It brought the tears, knowing others were suffering just like she was.
When he first brought her here, she’d tried to work out where she was. The old rusty bed seemed like it had been in the room for years. The lower part of the walls had once been painted in a dark-brown, the upper part cream.
It reminded her of the old hospitals she’d seen in vintage movies, except for the bars at the window and door. But it had to be some kind of long-abandoned medical facility.
Long abandoned.
There wasn’t much hope of ever being found.
A sound. Her heart began to thump against her ribs. The ordeal was about to begin. The same ordeal as every night. He would do what he wanted, and then give her an injection. A short while later, he would bring nice hot food, like he was sorry for what he’d done.
Always the same.
She could hear him, outside the door, talking to another man in a language she couldn’t understand. He’d never been alone. At least one other person was there, perhaps more. Some nights as she lay awake she could hear the muffled sound of voices, hear footsteps walking along the corridor.
It didn’t seem like they ever went home, back to a wife who knew nothing, or a warm comfortable bed. Perhaps, for some inexplicable reason, they lived in this hell-hole too.
The door creaked open, he was there. He came to the bed, the stupid Spider-man mask on his face, black gloves covering his hands. ‘How are you today, Kayla?’ he asked. She didn’t answer, just nodded reluctantly, her spirit gone. He unlocked the shackles. ‘Please turn over now.’
He always said please.
She turned onto her stomach, felt his gloved hands around her pelvis, lifting her to a kneeling position on the bed, parting her legs. And then he was inside her, thrusting hard but not viciously.
Her eyes closed, she forced her thoughts to somewhere else. She could hear his grunts as he moved in and out of her, his hands gripping her hips, firmly but not harshly. In a single minute he was done, slipping out of her, climbing off the bed.
‘Please turn over again.’ She did as he asked, adjusting the white gown to cover her nakedness. ‘Thank you,’ he said, as he always did. He lifted the sleeve of the gown, and she winced as the needle pierced her arm. And then, three minutes after he first walked in, he was gone.
And Kayla turned onto her side, closed her eyes in a vain attempt to stop the tears.
But they wouldn’t hold back, poured unchecked down her cheeks and dampened her pillow.
As they always did.
Chapter 132
My dad looked like he was about to burst into tears. Tami already had, his arm tight around her as she tried to pull herself together and ask the million-dollar question.
‘What will happen to you back in London, Madeline?’
I couldn’t answer her. I really wished I could have. But the harsh fact of my life right then was that nobody knew what my fate would be, least of all me.
Zana wasn’t the only one heading back to a dangerous uncertainty.
It wasn’t a nice feeling.
My dad tried to smile. ‘It’ll be ok, kid. They’re not going to throw you into the Tower of London when you helped save the world.’
His smile was laced with uncertainty and fear. And he knew it. ‘That’s not helping much is it?’
‘I committed murder, dad. Maybe the good stuff will help me avoid the gallows, but it’s not going to be pretty.’
Tami let out another sob, my dad raised his eyes to the clear blue late-morning sky, like he was seeking some kind of divine intervention from above. Which sure as hell wasn’t going to come.
I pulled them both close, a group hug full of emotion and damp cheeks. Then my dad took my hand. ‘Give us a couple of days to sort stuff out, then we’ll come to London, ok?’
‘Dad? I can’t ask you to do that. Your home is here… and I’ve got Zana, and good friends.’
Tami found a smile, poked me in the ribs to make a point. ‘You didn’t ask us, Madeline. We made the decision ourselves. You and your father lost each other, but then a few weeks ago you were reunited. Neither of us want to lose you again, no matter what.’
My dad grinned. ‘And do you seriously think I’d be happily relaxing on a palm-fringed beach in a tropical sun with a Carib in my hand, while my favourite daughter is thousands of miles away in sub-zero temperatures, going… going through…’
‘Going through hell, dad?’
‘Didn’t want to say it in those words.’
‘And I’m your only daughter, so quit with the favourite crap.’
We laughed together. Then we hugged together again. Then they turned away, walked across the small clearing, looked back and waved as they reached the tree line, and disappeared into the forest to head back to the car.
It didn’t feel so bad, watching them go. Somehow, knowing they’d be in London in a few days made our parting temporary. Thank you, Tami and dad. I’m not sure which one of you suggested it first, but I’m so glad you did.
I’d prepared myself for a final goodbye. Even as we’d stepped out of the shuttle into the small clearing to say that goodbye, I’d believed that given what I was heading back to, I wouldn’t be in a position to visit Tobago again for a very, very long time.
Now, even though it will likely be with a visiting order and through a glass security screen, at least it won’t be too long until I see my dad and my new mum again.
As I turned back to the shuttle’s steps, the tears tried to come. Damn me and my emotions. But at least this time they weren’t just tears of heartbreak. Something else was there as well.
Through the mist I saw Coop in the hatchway. ‘How long have you been there? You been eavesdropping on my family goodbyes?’
He laughed. ‘Nah… just got here. But at least it’s only for a few days, yeah?’
‘You knew then.’
‘Sure I did. I know everything, remember?’
He stepped onto the ground next to me, saw the desolate look in my eyes and pulled me into him, knowing exactly what I was about to say. ‘So, mister know-it-all, what’s going to happen to me in London?’
‘Ok, maybe I don’t know everything.’
‘Truthfully?’
‘Hundred percent honesty, kid. Ain’t got a clue what’s in store for you, Zana, or any other fucking thing come to that. We’s all heading into the unknown. But you ain’t gonna have to wait too much longer. Zana sent me to find you. Lift-off in fifteen, Maddie.’
He kissed me on the forehead and headed back into the shuttle, grinning… after I reminded him yet again not to call me Maddie. The feet that Tami had freshly bandaged before she left felt easier, getting me up the three steps to the hatchway without too much pain.
Reaching for the close button, I hesitated a moment, looked back across the clearing to the forest thirty yards away. I’d been in Tobago just less than five weeks, and for someone who until recently didn’t possess a heart, experienced a lifetime’s worth of mind-blowing emotions in that short time.
And yet despite it all, the pesky thing was still there, beating away stronger than ever.
I shook my head, pressed the close button, and watched as the hatch dropped down, slowly shutting away my Caribbean experience.
Tomorrow was a new day, a new story.
Best not to think about it.
______________
Chapter 133
Duncan Scott spoke to his driver, asked him to throw a left to try and avoid the gridlocked London traffic. A route through the side streets would add at least a mile to the journey, but still be quicker than crawling at almost zero miles an hour on the main roads.
He pulled a frustrated face, to no one but himself. He didn’t really have the time for it, but he had to make the trip, and make it now. In a few hours his team would be back from Tobago, and there was someone he had to see before they returned.
He pulled another frustrated face, this time at the traffic doing its best to annoy the hell out of him. London seemed to have come alive again, just when he needed it to stay quiet. But he knew you couldn’t keep a good Brit down, even if the capital’s population had been shell-shocked into submission for the last five weeks.
A hostile spaceship sitting right over you tends to have that effect.
Even if it was only there for a couple of hours before it disintegrated into flaming dust.
Christmas was a strange festivity this year. Despite the chaos, people seemed determined to keep hold of the season, pretend everything was normal. But even when the streets of Central London were reopened three weeks ago, a strange, unearthly atmosphere hung over everywhere. Christmas shoppers came to buy, but for some reason many left with few purchases.
City traders and investment bankers got their end-of-year bonuses, but the mood on the stock exchange was subdued. The extrava
gant parties were still full of the wealthy and the socialites, yet somehow the glitz had lost its shine.
The human race had discovered they weren’t the masters of the universe after all.
And realized just how close they came to annihilation, had it not been for the desperate actions of two women.
One human, one alien.
He’d spent the day itself with his family, much of it in quiet reflection. As the head of DIAL, the secret department of MI6 that since the epic day was no secret anymore, the Department for the Investigation of Alien Life had been catapulted in a matter of hours to an organization of global importance.
Even leaving aside the work involved in containing the threat and cleaning up the streets, it took some getting used to.
And then yesterday, the discovery of the alien escape pods brought a whole new perspective to things. Now his team was flying back in an alien shuttle, and in a matter of hours he would have to brief them on the latest developments.
But before that, there was someone he had to see.
The driver spoke, wrenching him away from his thoughts. ‘We’re on the A2 now, should be there in fifteen minutes, sir.’
‘Thank you, Mike.’ They’d cleared the side streets, turned back onto the four-lane highway that would take them to Bexleyheath. His thoughts turned to the meeting he’d arranged, and he tried to work out what to say that wouldn’t sound completely crazy.
It wasn’t easy to find the words. It was completely crazy.
The beams of the headlights picked out the sign at the entrance to the drive of the Four Pines Nursing Home, and a pang of nervousness shot through him. Meetings with the PM, military leaders, and leading journalists angry for the truth had nothing on this.
Quaking in his shiny black shoes, he was about to meet a frail, ninety-two year old woman.