Craig Hunter Books 1-3

by Ed James

  Hunter shut his eyes.

  Bacon…

  6

  Hunter got on the other side of the door and raised his SA80. The air felt like it could burn your skin, even though the sun hid behind the tall buildings around them. He checked down the narrow street. Clear both ways. He gave the nod.

  Terry grinned back. ‘We’ll make a soldier out of you yet, Jock.’

  The other lads laughed along.

  Hunter couldn’t help himself join in. ‘Piss off, you Cockney bastard.’

  ‘That’s why you love me, big boy.’ Terry lifted his rifle and aimed at the door, the wood looking old enough to have been around when they wrote the Bible. He thumped it with his boot. ‘Open up!’

  No response.

  Hunter’s nostrils twitched. Bacon. Someone was cooking bacon. He frowned at Terry. ‘Can you smell that?’

  That pikey oik from Terry’s squad joined in the sniffing. Rat-faced arsehole. ‘Thought they didn’t eat pig here?’

  ‘Supposed to be dirty or something.’ Terry nodded, his eyes narrowing on the door. ‘Or was it sacred? I can’t bloody remember.’ He thumped the door again. ‘Open up!’

  Nothing.

  ‘Right, on my mark.’ Terry looked around them, one by one. ‘Hunter, you’re with me. Rich, Mike, you stand guard here. Nobody in or out. Capiche?’

  A couple of nods. Hunter added his.

  ‘Now.’ Terry jolted forward and his size elevens crunched into the dark wood. The door flew off rusted hinges and toppled inward. The bacon smell got worse, overpowering. Stinking the place out. A wave of heat burst out of the room, like a bloody sauna with too much water on the coals.

  Something clattered inside.

  Terry bolted through the open doorway and came to a dead stop, his SA80 on something in the room. ‘You filthy bastard!’

  Hunter stopped behind him. He almost lost his lunch rations.

  A woman lay naked on a table, strapped down at the wrists and ankles. She twisted her face away from them.

  ‘Craig.’

  A man in a cloak stood over her, holding a branding iron in a brazier, hissing something in Arabic or Aramaic or bloody Iraqi.

  ‘Craig.’

  Then pressed the brand into the woman’s face. Smelled like frying bacon.

  ‘Craig!’ Chantal’s grip tore deep into Hunter’s forearm. ‘Are you okay?’

  The image of McNeill was swimming in front of him, scowling as she chewed. One of the four of her was, anyway. The bacon smelled worse. Acrid, deep-fried, sharp.

  ‘Sorry.’ Hunter shook himself as he stood. ‘Haven’t eaten all day.’ He flashed a polite smile at McNeill and stormed out of the office.

  The woman screamed through her gag as—

  Fat Jimmy waddled towards him, carrying a tray of Krispy Kreme donuts like it was the Ark of the Covenant. ‘See what I’ve got—’

  ‘Not now.’ Hunter barged past and jogged down the corridor. He swiped his card in the reader and pushed the door. Nothing.

  The flesh started to sizzle and pop as—

  Not now.

  NOT BLOODY NOW!

  He took a deep breath. The corridor smelled of coffee. No bacon.

  He swiped again, slowly this time. Click.

  He nudged the door and stepped out of the back entrance into the narrow lane. Blackened bricks on both sides, barely enough for one person to walk down without slicing their arm open. Rain teemed down on his head. He looked up into the sky and shut his eyes. Scottish air filled his lungs, cold and tinged with petrol fumes.

  Cigarette smoke.

  Curry spices.

  Chips.

  He slowed his breathing, sucking in through his nostrils.

  Ten.

  Nine.

  Eight.

  Seven.

  A hand caressed the back of his jacket, sliding up to his neck. ‘You okay?’

  Hunter couldn’t open his eyes. He gulped in more air, tasting her perfume. Sweet and alpine and…

  He opened his eyes and grimaced at her. ‘Another flashback.’

  ‘Shite.’ Chantal leaned back against the opposite wall. ‘Thought you were over them?’

  ‘Me too.’

  She ran a hand through her hair, fanning it out. ‘The bacon triggered it, didn’t it?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Craig. If I’d known—’ Her jaw twitched. ‘Look, I had a…’ She smiled. ‘I know someone who had a smell trigger. Cigar smoke.’

  ‘Cigar smoke?’

  ‘Bit easier to deal with than bacon, I suppose.’

  ‘It’s been years since I had a flashback like that. Years. It’s not like I go past a greasy spoon or into someone’s house and they’re frying bacon and it kicks me off to la-la land.’

  ‘This why you’re a vegetarian?’

  ‘Partly.’

  She tilted her head. ‘You have been taking your meds, right?’

  Hunter managed a nod. ‘Never missed a day.’ He huffed out air. Almost felt the Afghan heat on his skin in the pissing rain. The black Audi was on the street. ‘I’m thinking it’s Rollo-Smith.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Years ago.’ Hunter swallowed. ‘Back in Afghanistan, I had a run-in with one of the monkeys.’

  Her smile twisted into a frown. ‘Monkeys? You racist prick.’

  ‘Christ no.’ Hunter grabbed her arms. ‘That’s what we called the RMP. The military police.’

  ‘The monkeys?’

  ‘Right. So, I thought this guy was investigating me, turns out it was someone who’d just died on a mission. It was pretty stressful.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘Doubt you can, but you know. Those guys are brutal. They don’t give up.’

  ‘And this was in your flashback?’

  ‘Right.’ Hunter huffed out a sigh. ‘And another one. I was back in Iraq. With…’ He swallowed. ‘Terry and a couple of others. We were supposed to find this… cleric, I think he was. The intel said he was training suicide bombers. But we stumbled on his location. Turned out he was also in the habit of torturing and branding women.’

  Her eyes bulged and her mouth widened. ‘I’m not having a go, but why didn’t you tell me about this?’

  ‘Because I blocked it out.’ Hunter dug his knuckles into his eye sockets then stretched out. ‘This was before Terry, you know…’ His mouth was dry as the Iraq air. ‘That guy escaped. We found him later, dressed up in the full hijab, burqa thing. We chased him and…’

  Her eyebrows jolted upright. ‘And then he…?’

  ‘Then he blew himself and Terry up, aye.’

  ‘Christ.’

  ‘Aye.’ Hunter sighed. ‘Or maybe it’s because he’s a captain. Those pricks dropped a clanger, you know? Sending us out on that mission.’ He rested against the door, arms folded. ‘DI McNeill going tonto at me in there didn’t exactly help.’

  ‘You knew she can be hardcore, Craig.’ Chantal leaned on the wall. ‘Sharon’s under so much pressure. The new Chief Constable wants results, not convictions falling apart before they get to court.’

  ‘Stats, bloody stats.’ Hunter ran his hands over his shaved scalp. The rasp took him closer to his safe place. ‘But we got that stoat last year. He’s inside.’

  ‘That’s one case, Craig. And that was based on your investigation.’ Chantal pinched her cheek. ‘Look, there’s the careerist shit, like Shaz needing our investigations to come to something, for us to stop witnesses dropping off the face of the earth when they’re due in court.’ She stared down the lane to the thin sliver of car park, brushing damp hair out of her eyes. ‘But there’s a reason why any of us are in this unit, right? We want to put these raping, abusing scumbags away.’

  ‘Even Elvis. Even fat Jim.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘I agree with you. This isn’t about another one getting away. Sean Tulloch… The damage he can inflict. Again and again. It’ll never stop, Chantal. It’ll never stop.’

  ‘
So, this army guy. Rollo-Smith… Why do people have to have those double-barrelled surnames? What happens to the next generation? Rollo-Smith-Ponsonby-Smythe?’

  Hunter barked out a laugh. Then he rubbed his face, trying to scrape the last fragments of the memory away. ‘Chantal, we can’t trust him. Once we’ve got enough evidence, they’ll pounce and get Tulloch on a court martial before we can arrest him.’

  ‘So, some serial abusing scumbag goes away. Why’s that bad?’

  ‘Because Rollo-Smith will try to cover it over. Trouble with them is…’ Hunter cleared his throat. ‘See if we arrested an American with child porn on his laptop over here, right, we’d send him back there because the sentence is much longer. Right?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Well, the RMP aren’t necessarily interested in justice the same way most investigators are. They've got an agenda. Least that's the way I see it.’

  ‘Right.’ Chantal shook her head at him, her forehead knotting. ‘You need to—’

  Her Airwave blasted out, the sound shrill in the confined space.

  She put it to her ear with a sigh. ‘Go on, Elvis.’ She nodded then jogged off towards the car park. ‘Stay with her!’

  Hunter sped off after her. ‘What’s happened?’

  Chantal zapped the pool car and hauled the door open. ‘Paisley Sanderson’s been assaulted.’

  7

  CHANTAL

  * * *

  Chantal stomped down the corridor.

  Another victim. Another woman lying there, battered and bruised at the hands of Sean Tulloch. While we… messed about. Trying to catch him at Waverley as he waltzed in to her flat thirty-odd miles away and assaulted two police officers, then kicked the living shit out of her…

  Then what?

  Don’t even want to think about it.

  Chantal swerved past a porter pushing an old man down the corridor, looked inches away from death. She squeezed against the wall, getting a scowl. She powered off.

  ‘Wait!’ Hunter grabbed her arm and stopped her. ‘You need to calm down before you go in there.’

  ‘Craig…’ She glared at him, waiting until he let go. The wheelchair trundled past them. ‘I’m calm enough.’

  ‘Bullshit. You’re feeling guilty about it, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well done. You know how I think.’ She gave him a round of applause. ‘Now, do you mind?’ She turned the corner into the next room. ‘Through here, right?’

  ‘Stop!’ Dr Helen Yule caught one glance then dragged the curtains shut behind her, groaning. ‘I should’ve guessed you’d both be involved in this. Just like the last time, isn’t it? You swan around and leave other people to pick up the pieces.’ She held out her long arms like a nightclub bouncer at three in the morning, her stethoscope swaying from her neck. Her glasses slid down, revealing the missing half of her right eyebrow, though couldn’t do much for the vertical scar bisecting it. ‘I can’t let you speak to Ms Sanderson.’

  Chantal was almost out of breath. A pair of nurses milled behind them, whispering to each other. ‘How is she?’

  Yule checked her tablet computer. ‘Well, Ms Sanderson has been savagely beaten. Punched and kicked by someone a lot bigger than her.’

  ‘We had a team at her house to protect her.’

  ‘Well, fat lot of good that did.’ Yule stepped away from the curtains and swished another one open. ‘This is your idea of protection.’

  A woman lay on the bed, two nurses milling around her. Chantal recognised her — the cop who turned up at Paisley’s flat to assist PC Warner.

  ‘PC Smith here is still to regain consciousness.’ Yule tugged the curtain shut. ‘Paisley’s been talking, which is something. Saying she’s sorry, over and over.’

  Chantal gestured behind Yule at the curtains. ‘We need to speak to Ms Sanderson.’

  Yule stared at her for a few seconds. ‘Very well.’ She raised a finger. ‘But this is on the condition that I will terminate any discussion as soon as I deem it harmful to the patient.’

  Chantal smiled at her. ‘Wouldn’t have it any other way.’

  Paisley looked like she was some computer-generated alien in a Star Wars film. Where she wasn’t bandaged, her skin was puffed up, red and dark purple. Dried blood mixed with dark brown iodine on her forehead, sliced open. Her lips twitched, but her words were silent.

  Chantal perched on the chair next to her. ‘Hi, Paisley.’

  She closed her good eye, her lips still twitching. ‘Sorry.’ Louder now, close to hissing. ‘Sorry. Sorry.’

  ‘Why are you apologising?’

  ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.’

  ‘Paisley, who are you apologising to? Is it Sean?’

  She glowered at them. ‘Your fault.’

  ‘What is, Paisley?’

  She waved her hands around her beaten face.

  ‘This is nobody’s fault but Sean Tulloch’s.’

  ‘Made him angry.’ Paisley stared down at her hands. Her right was a claw, seemingly unable to open or close. ‘I should’ve known…’

  Chantal clenched her fists. Listen to yourself. This isn’t your fault. The training — base and generic and empty. Reaching for platitudes when you need to connect with her. Show her you understand. Deeply. Personally. Not just part of the job but trying to fix her life. Trying to stop craven bastards abusing her.

  Tears streamed from Paisley’s good eye.

  Hunter cleared his throat. ‘Is it possible that Mr Tulloch knows we’re talking to you?’

  Paisley waved a hand at her face. ‘Did he do this to the others?’

  ‘So it was Sean who attacked you?’

  She closed her good eye. ‘Who else?’

  ‘As far as we know, Mr Tulloch has only targeted you. Did he say anything?’

  Paisley rolled her shoulder. Losing her…

  ‘I know how hard this is, okay?’ Chantal squeaked the chair forward. ‘How about you take us through what happened?’

  Paisley sucked in a deep breath. ‘I was waiting on those cops of yours to turn up, right? Bored out of my skull cos you’ve got my phone.’ She let out a sigh. ‘Then that Irish cop — Lenny? — he hears something out the back, like when you turned up. So he went outside.’ She nibbled at her lips and rubbed a stream of tears away. ‘Must’ve got his arse handed to him, cos next thing I know Sean’s in the house. The woman cop tried to hit him, but he…’ She scrunched up her face. ‘He knocked her out. One punch. Then, he’s grabbing my hair and… he started hitting me, anyway. Over and over again.’

  Chantal let a breath escape slowly. Jesus. Everything he did to her. The new injuries. This is my fault.

  Hunter scribbled on his notebook. ‘What happened next?’

  Paisley’s good hand bunched into a tight fist. She’d clammed up again.

  Chantal glared at Hunter, trying to shut him up. ‘Paisley, it’s very important that you tell us exactly what happened.’ Paisley’s sobs filled the gap. ‘He hit you a few times. Did he do anything else to you?’

  ‘He left.’

  ‘Immediately?’

  ‘That prick left me on the floor like this.’ Paisley waved a hand down her battered body. ‘Tore all my clothes off and left me there while he had a bloody shower. Said this wasn’t finished.’

  Chantal looked over at Hunter, hope spearing her guts, mixing with bitter revulsion. ‘Did he rape you, Paisley?’

  She ran a finger along the palm of her hand. ‘Not this time.’

  Jesus. How casually she talked about being violated. Like she was going to the shops.

  Hunter sat back with a sigh. ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘Someone knocked at the door.’ Paisley lay back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. ‘That’s when Sean left.’ She made walking motions with two of her fingers. ‘Waltzed out the back door.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘That door opened. A dumpy cow and some boy with sidies had turned up.’

  Elvis saves the day.

 
; Chantal leaned forward and waited until she locked eye contact with her again. ‘Where could Mr Tulloch have gone?’

  Paisley scowled at her. ‘His mum died five years ago. His old man… Never knew him, eh? Got mates everywhere, but I was never allowed to meet them. Must’ve been ashamed of me.’

  ‘He’s got a lot of things to be ashamed of, Paisley, but you’re not one of them.’

  ‘That’s not good enough.’ Sharon’s voice almost frosted up the pool car’s speakers as they sped south. ‘I need him in custody like yesterday.’

  ‘If you’ll let me speak?’ Chantal scowled over at the stereo. ‘Shaz?’

  Sharon paused on the line, huffing out breath. ‘Right. Go on.’

  ‘We’re on our way to her house right now.’ Chantal pulled out into the oncoming lane to overtake a tractor. A Focus hurtled towards them, flashing its lights. She saw Hunter gripping the grab handle tight, eyes clamped shut, but casually slipped back into her lane, getting a blaring horn. ‘If Tulloch is still in the area, we’ll catch him.’ She swept round a cream Mini, in and out just like that. Piece of piss. ‘And we’ve got units guarding his previous victims. He’s not getting away.’

  ‘Right, well, I’ll leave it in your capable hands.’

  Chantal gripped the wheel until it hurt her thumbs. ‘Anything from Rollo-Smith?’

  Sharon left another long pause. ‘I’m keeping this latest development from Captain Flashpants for now.’

  ‘Sure that’s wise?’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  ‘Your funeral. Speak later.’ Chantal killed the call and floored it, the needle dancing past ninety. ‘What a bloody shambles.’

  Hunter let go of the handle. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘Not really.’ Chantal flicked the radio on.

  ‘— Alnwick where Detective Inspector Jonathan Bruce of Northumbria Police has been briefing—’

  She snapped it off again and muttered, ‘That’s all I bloody need.’ She settled back in her seat and flashed him a smile. ‘Can’t believe Elvis saved the day.’