First to Die

by Alex Caan

  ‘What are we waiting for?’

  ‘For that bitch to die,’ said Nathan. ‘Once I know that for sure, then it’s over. But if your colleagues come in before, they won’t risk rescuing her if it means you might be hurt. No matter what you say.’

  Zain heard it then. The screaming. It was coming from one of the fridges. Leanne was inside, and he knew then she had been given more of the neurotoxin. It was too late for her. But he had to try. There was no other way he knew to be. Even if it meant that he would die too.

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Zain knew he needed to engage with Nathan. To understand him, to gain time. He had to free himself and at least attempt to save Leanne.

  ‘What will you achieve by her death? Do you think this is what Robert would want?’

  Nathan roughly pulled Zain’s hair, and spat into his face.

  ‘Do not mention my boy. Understand? Or I will end you right now.’

  Nathan shoved Zain’s head forward, but in doing so misaligned the needle. It was now resting against the lower part of his skull. If Nathan tried, he might struggle to stab Zain quite as effectively as before. Still, Zain needed a few more minutes to execute his plan.

  ‘Will killing her achieve anything? Let her go. There is still time. Don’t you want to live your life? Don’t you owe it to Esther? What will she be left with?’

  ‘She will be fine. You don’t understand. Esther is a mess, and all she has is a mother’s love. I have both. Enough love for a father and a mother.’

  ‘This isn’t the way. Death is never the way. You know the ones that will suffer will be the people they leave behind. Like you. Leanne will die. What about her family? She’s someone’s daughter too?’

  ‘They should be ashamed of themselves, raising a cold-hearted murdering bitch like her. And don’t tell me anyone will miss Julian Leakey. The arrogant, selfish bastard. Now keep your mouth shut. Or you will die with them.’

  ‘Not today.’

  Nathan looked confused, but he had given Zain a window, and Zain had taken it.

  Nathan had made a stupid rookie mistake. Everyone used plastic tags these days to tie people up, but Nathan had used rope and Zain knew how to get out of a dozen different knotted ropes; he had only held firm until he knew where Leanne was and what was going on.

  His hands now free, Zain fell to the floor, and kicked out with his legs, toppling Nathan over. He jumped on top of him, and kneeling on Nathan’s back, grabbed the wrist of the hand that held the syringe. Nathan tried to manoeuvre and plunge it into Zain, but Zain cracked Nathan’s head on the concrete floor, once, twice. Still he tried to stab backwards at him with the needle.

  Zain twisted harder, until he heard something break, and Nathan screamed, dropping the syringe.

  ‘Where’s the key?’ said Zain. ‘Where’s the fucking key?’

  Zain could still hear Leanne screaming.

  He grabbed Nathan by the throat, and dragged him to his feet, checking his pockets, and then pulled him over to the freezer Leanne was in. He pushed Nathan against it, and asked him again. Nathan just laughed. Zain hit him another time.

  He tied Nathan’s hands, using triple knots so there was no way he could get free, while he started to break the lock on the freezer.

  ‘Let her die,’ Nathan was saying. ‘She’s a murdering bitch. She killed my boy. And let me die. Please. I want to be with Robert.’

  ‘He doesn’t want you. You lost all right to him the moment you killed Julian. And the others. Now where’s the key?’

  Zain tried again, but the padlock on the fridge was solid steel and new, the chains around the freezer thick and heavy. Zain looked around for pliers or anything he could use as leverage. Nothing came to hand.

  ‘It’s inside. With her,’ Nathan told him.

  ‘You fucked-up bastard.’

  ‘They all deserved it.’

  ‘They made a mistake. They made a bad decision. What about all the lives she has saved?’

  Zain kicked at the freezer, Leanne’s voice louder and more terrible. Her screams had become animalistic. Zain felt helpless. What could he do? How could he open a metal box? There was no phone anywhere; the only thing he could do was go and get help. But it would be too late.

  Maybe it was already too late.

  Zain heard something smash. A door. He looked up. He realised they were in the basement. Someone had smashed the door to enter it. Finally, help. He started shouting, just as Nathan started wailing. Then there was smoke. They had thrown a gas canister into the room, Zain started choking on it, and fell to his knees. He could see Nathan suffering in the same way.

  Then there were boots, and shouting. Zain got up and ran towards one of the figures that had just entered. The figure must have panicked, mistaken Zain for Nathan. The armed and dangerous Nathan carrying a deadly neurotoxin.

  Zain heard the gun fire, felt the impact.

  Then nothing.

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  Kate looked at the broken figure of Nathan. He was wearing make-up, wrapped in a cloak, sitting across from her in the interview room at the PCC headquarters. It was hard not to feel sorry for him, despite the things he had done. Yet he had done those things, and she would not offer him sympathy. Images of Zain seared her mind.

  ‘Let me die,’ Nathan kept saying. ‘I want to die. I want to be with Robert.’

  Kate was not engaging with those words. She didn’t want him to enter an insanity plea, or for his lawyer to claim he had mental-health issues. Nathan Lake needed to face the consequences of his actions.

  Kate hadn’t even let her own father and brothers get away with the things they had done, so there was no way she would let Nathan do so now.

  ‘Nathan you are charged with some extremely serious crimes,’ she told him. ‘I need you to explain to me exactly what happened.’

  ‘Maybe you should present your evidence first, before assuming my client has anything to do with these allegations,’ his lawyer told her.

  Kate provided the evidence they had accumulated. From Nathan’s van being spotted near the address in Earl’s Court, to a hire car he had set fire to on Bonfire Night.

  ‘You see, DS Harris said he thought something was odd about that night. Just before the explosion. He remembered what it was afterwards. The men facing off with the police, they weren’t wearing Anonymous outfits. They were thugs from a right-wing outfit, there to clash with what they perceived to be a threat to security. The only people wearing the cloaks and masks were the figure that set fire to the car, and someone with them. I believe that was you. And Julian Leakey was with you.’

  Nathan stared at her, but didn’t disagree.

  ‘Why did Julian agree to come with you to St James’s Park? Especially after what you did to Freya in front of him?’

  Nathan smiled, and touched his lips.

  ‘Is that what you think happened? Julian Leakey killed Freya Rice, the evidence is clear, DCI Riley.’

  ‘Circumstantial, I think,’ said Kate.

  ‘No. It’s clear. Julian killed her,’ said Nathan. ‘I watched him do it. Oh that was a pretty sight. I was in control then. They were dancing to my tune.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I asked them both to meet me there. Freya, I told her who I was. Julian, the dirty little man, I met online. He thought he was coming to have sex with me. When he turned up, Freya was already tied up. He didn’t know what to make of it. And that’s when I injected him with the neurotoxin. And then I played him the video, of what it did to that mouse. And he begged me to save him. Do you know what that was like, DCI Riley?’

  ‘Nathan, I suggest you—’

  ‘Fuck off. You’re going to get paid whatever I say, so just shut up. I’m talking to DCI Riley here.’

  ‘I can imagine. You had begged them to save Robert.’

  ‘Yes. What Esther doesn’t know is that I visited their offices. AREL. And I met with Julian and I begged him to save my child. And I met Freya, and I did th
e same. They didn’t listen to me. And then here he was begging me to save him.’

  ‘And what did you do? What deal did you make with him?’

  ‘I told him: if he killed Freya, he would live.’

  ‘But there’s no cure, you can’t be cured.’

  ‘He didn’t know that. And the selfish scum, he did it. He barely hesitated, he just picked up that knife and stabbed her.’

  Kate watched Nathan as he recalled the details, disgust on his face at what Julian was capable of. And then he smiled.

  ‘And with her dead, I drove him to St James’s, told him that’s where the cure was. He wanted to live so badly. Just like my Robert did, just like me and Esther wanted our son to. And Julian would do whatever I said to him. I took him to a place in the park I had found before, far enough away from the protests for his screams not to be heard, and hidden away from anyone that might pass by. And then I watched him die. Nobody heard him. Except me. His every last breath leaving him. In agony. And it felt so so good, DCI Riley. Finally, I had done something for my son.’

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  Stevie was holding Zain’s hand. It was cold. The doctors had induced a coma to reduce the swelling to his brain. He’d been this way since the night that he was shot. Since the night she had shot him.

  She still couldn’t recall properly what had happened, what she had thought; only that someone was coming towards her. And she’d reacted too quickly, firing her weapon before she was sure. How could she mistake Zain for Nathan? And now here he was. The bullet had lodged into his head, too close to his brain. He had been saved by his skull, but the bullet couldn’t be removed. The surgeons said it could pierce the brain if they tried. Once the swelling had subsided they might try. They said his ventromedial prefrontal cortex was badly damaged. Stevie had no idea what that meant, but the surgeons said it would mean he would probably not be the same again.

  ‘I’m so sorry Zain,’ she said, squeezing his hand tighter. There was no response.

  *

  Kate was in the conference room with her team. Minus Zain, it felt incomplete, but also too familiar. Zain in hospital having been injured in the line of duty. His life, her duty of care. She had failed to protect him yet again.

  Kate didn’t make eye contact with Stevie. She was a mess, clearly hadn’t slept or eaten for days. She was at the hospital every chance she got, trying to will Zain awake. She was also under investigation for shooting a fellow officer.

  ‘Nathan Lake has been helpful shall we say,’ Kate told them. ‘He confessed to killing Julian Leakey using a neurotoxin that Mark Lynch had supplied him with. The two had become intimate friends after meeting at a bereavement-support group.’

  ‘Why did she kill Mark?’ asked Michelle. She was still referring to Nathan as Natasha.

  ‘In his mind he was freeing him. To Nathan the only freedom was to be reunited with his son. He wanted to reunite Mark with his parents. It made sense to him.’

  ‘But she did it so grotesquely?’

  ‘Nathan believed you had to suffer before you crossed over. He knew his son was OK, and that was because he had suffered so much. He wanted the same for Mark.’

  ‘That is twisted,’ said Rob.

  ‘Nathan Lake suffered the loss of his child in heinous circumstances, and his life fell apart. Through all of that he was also going through a massive change in terms of his biology. The pressure and the stress must have driven him to extremes.’

  ‘Everyone gets stressed; we don’t go out and kill people.’ Rob looked embarrassed as Stevie held him in a cold stare.

  ‘What about Natalie? Why did he kill her?’

  ‘Natalie had been following Julian, despite the restraining order. She followed him on his last day, to Earl’s Court and to St James’s Park. She then followed Nathan home, as he made his way back to Stepney Green. After she was questioned by . . . DS Harris, she realised Nathan must have been involved. She went to congratulate him. Only he wasn’t done. He still had to kill Dr Sue Lewis, and Leanne Birch. So he played Natalie’s own game, and followed her home.’

  ‘Then killed her to keep her quiet.’ said Rob.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And he knew about Dr Lewis? How?’

  ‘He kept tabs on her. On all of them. We found printouts, files. He was aware of what they all did, the men and women that had killed his son. He was obsessed with them, and had been planning his revenge for years.’

  ‘It’s so sad,’ said Michelle. ‘I can only imagine what losing a baby would do to you.’

  Kate didn’t know if she agreed. There seemed to be no excuse for doing the things that Nathan had done. Esther had lost just as much, and yet she was managing to cope with life. Whatever form that took.

  ‘Is Leanne going to survive?’ Michelle asked.

  They had managed to get Leanne out of the freezer, and into an isolation bubble. There was no cure for the neurotoxin, but caught early enough, she might pull through. The medical staff at the Royal Free had transfused blood multiple times through Leanne and put her in intensive care.

  ‘The doctors said if she can survive the first twenty-four hours, there is a good chance she will be OK,’ said Kate.

  ‘And Zain? Is he going to be OK?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Kate, looking at Stevie who was leaving the room. ‘I hope so.’

  Epilogue

  Two Months Later

  It was another battle she had fought and lost. PCC Justin Hope had demanded that Zain return to her team.

  ‘He is a mess, still in rehab. There is no way on earth he can come back to work for us. The sort of things he will have to deal with, the sensitive nature of the role? No.’

  ‘I want this to happen,’ said PCC Hope, from behind his steepled fingers. Kate would be let go if she didn’t agree to this.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s one of the best. I think he belongs with us.’

  ‘He’s managed to get himself stabbed and shot while working for us,’ she told him. ‘He is not well. The doctors don’t think he ever will be. No, sir. I will not have him working with us and putting all our lives at risk.’

  Hope had to pull out his trump card. The images from the file DCI Raymond Cross has shown him were still swimming in front of his eyes. He could not let that man expose and humiliate him, destroy everything he had worked for.

  ‘My demand is simple enough,’ DCI Cross had said. ‘Zain is going to come back and work for you.’

  And here was DCI Kate Riley, blocking him as usual.

  ‘If you do this, I can make the charges against Stevie go away,’ he told her.

  There it was. Kate left to choose between two of her team. Her loyal, misguided in their abeyance to her, team. How could she refuse?

  She stormed out. PCC Hope watched her go, and called DCI Cross.

  *

  Kate was at her desk, her anger in her mouth, unable to speak. How had she got to this stage where someone like PCC Hope was able to control her? She should make the decisions over who was in her team; she had to work with them. Her phone buzzed.

  ‘DCI Riley? This is DCI Raymond Cross.’

  What was he doing calling her? Kate didn’t respond beyond acknowledging it was her. She wasn’t in the mood for pleasantries.

  ‘Zain asked me to look into something for you. Anya Fox-Leakey. He wanted details of her private accounts in Panama. I think he felt he had something to prove to you.’

  Kate felt something inside herself soften.

  ‘I pulled in some favours and found you your money trail. You can bring her in for questioning if you wish. The evidence I am about to send you will be enough.’

  Kate ended the call and waited for the file to arrive. And considered what to do about Zain.

  *

  Zain was in his own room at the rehab centre in Bloomsbury. Kate had visited on multiple occasions, and her presence here was no longer awkward.

  ‘They still can’t take it out?’ she asked.


  ‘No. They won’t risk it. It’s stopped moving, but a bang to the head . . . it might pierce the brain. It’s sitting there, too far in for them to remove it, not far enough for it to kill me.’

  A bullet to the brain. People used that phrase so casually. And here he was, with an actual bullet in his brain.

  ‘Have you still got any symptoms?’

  In his mind a litany: my dreams are horrendous, I have hallucinations when it’s really bad. Headaches, the need to sleep for twenty-hour periods. I wake up some mornings and half of my body is frozen for hours, so I lie and stare at the ceiling. I feel as though I’m not human, and I know nothing can fix me.

  ‘Nothing serious,’ he said instead.

  DCI Cross had been the day before. He said his offer for SO15 would have to be rescinded, but Zain would be offered his old job back and he urged him to take it.

  ‘When you’re ready though, it’s the only offer you will get, Zain. No one else will want you on their force.’

  And here was Kate. Offering him his job back again. He accepted, knowing full well he was an even bigger mess than he had been the last time he came back.

  *

  He watched her walk. She seemed disturbed, preoccupied. Thoughts that had nothing to do with him, when in fact he was all she should really worry about. The process had begun. Soon Kate Riley’s father would be free, and he knew about Kate’s whereabouts. Question was, would she run and hide again?

  The FBI were under an obligation to protect her. And now that her cover had been blown, she would be a priority for them to move. If anything happened to her, they would have a tough time explaining it away.

  But would she run? She had once, and the watcher had no doubt it was for her mother’s sake more than anything else that she had done so. Would she do it again? Or stay put, stubborn and determined?

  It didn’t matter so much for him. He was no longer waiting for her father. He had done his bit; there was money waiting in a fund. And as for Kate Riley, he was about to show her what vengeance and payback were all about.

  *

  Kate was tired. She walked through Queen Square, the Institute for Neurology behind her. She found a vacant bench in the square, and sat down.