Eyes of the Wicked

by Adam J. Wright

  “Sorry, love,” Battle said. “Something’s come up and we might be close to cracking this case. Christmas dinner is going to have to wait.”

  He heard her sigh. “I don’t care about our dinner arrangements, Stewart. I’m worried about you. This snowstorm is closing in. I can barely see anything beyond the window. Are you all right out there?”

  “I’m fine,” he told her. “We’ve discovered a lead and I’ve got to follow it.”

  “Of course you have,” she said, understandingly. “You do whatever you have to, but just check in with me every now and then if you can, just so I know you’re okay.”

  “I will,” he said. He almost added, “I promise,” but he knew that he was going to be as busy as hell trying to secure the arrest of Michael Stokes, and he didn’t make a promise he might not be able to keep.

  “I’ll see you when you get back,” Rowena said.

  “Okay, love.” He ended the call and rested his head back against the headrest, watching the snow whirl and dance around his car. He finally had a name and an address. If all went well, Michael Stokes would soon be in custody and Teresa and Gemma Matthews would hopefully be found safe and well.

  The next couple of hours would be crucial to ensuring that outcome.

  He picked up his phone again and opened the recent calls list. Finding Chris Toombs’ number, he pressed it and waited for the call to connect.

  “Toombs,” the tech said as he answered.

  “It’s Battle again. I want you to look into something for me. A property near Cold Kirby.”

  “Thinking of moving there?” Toombs asked.

  “No, I have an address of interest and I want to know anything you can find out about it. Particularly who lives there and if there are any licensed firearms at the property. I don’t want any nasty surprises when we raid the place later.”

  “I can do that,” Toombs said. “What’s the address?”

  “Grantham Farm, Cold Kirby.”

  “Got it. I’ll get back to you if I find anything interesting.”

  “Thanks.” Battle hung up.

  He called the Murder Force incident room. The phone was answered by DC Tom Ryan.

  “Ryan,” Battle said, “get a team together. We’re carrying out a search warrant. Grantham Farm, Cold Kirby.”

  “Yes, guv,” the DC said. “How big a team do you want?”

  “I want as many people as you can get hold of. And an ambulance.

  The passenger side door opened, and DS Morgan climbed in, bringing a flurry of snow with her. She was carrying a laptop. She closed the door against the elements and said, “The warrants are being applied for, guv. We should hear back soon.”

  Battle nodded. “We need to get a team together to carry out the raid and the search. I just hope Teresa and Gemma are at the property and he’s not keeping them somewhere else.”

  “That’s something I wanted to talk to you about, guv,” she said, opening the laptop. “Yesterday, you asked me to look into the cold war shelters. I found something that might be useful.” She tapped on the keyboard and a map appeared on the screen, covered with red dots.

  “It turns out the Ministry of Defence built over a thousand underground bunkers in the fifties and sixties. They’re called ROC Posts and were supposed to be shelters for members of the Royal Observation Corps if Britain came under nuclear attack. They were closed down in the early nineties. A lot of them were demolished by landowners but some are still intact. There’s a group trying to preserve the ones that are left, and I got a list of locations from their website.”

  She pointed at the map. “These are the bunkers that haven’t been demolished.” Placing her finger on the touchpad, she deftly zoomed in. “There’s a bunker near Cold Kirby.”

  Battle looked at the village of Cold Kirby on the map and the red dot north of it. Teresa and Gemma could be in there, locked in the darkness, fearing for their lives.

  “Let’s get over there,” he said. “The team can meet us at Grantham Farm. I want to have a look at that bunker.”

  “Yes, guv.” She closed the laptop and opened the door. A blast of cold air chilled the interior of the Range Rover and Battle shivered. After Morgan had closed the door, he waited for the heating to kick in before typing Cold Kirby into the SatNav.

  The display told him it would take 45 minutes to get there. That probably meant well over an hour in this weather.

  At least if he made a move now, he had a better of chance of getting to the farm before the roads became impassable, which was certain to happen fairly soon.

  He needed to make sure he got to Grantham Farm before the snowstorm cut it off from the rest of civilisation.

  If the storm closed in and no one was at the farm to save Teresa and Gemma, they had no chance.

  Chapter Thirty

  Christmas Day, 2:48 p.m.

  “That’s great news,” Dani said, feeling a rush of exhilaration now that they had a name and address for their suspect. “Do you want us to assist with the arrest?”

  “No, you might as well stay there,” Battle told her. “No need to drive down here in this weather. Find out if Stokes was a patient there.”

  “Will do, guv.”

  Battle hung up and Dani slipped her phone back into her pocket.

  She looked at Sheridan, who was literally sitting on the edge of his seat. “His name isn’t Samuel; it’s Michael Stokes. He’s 28. They’ve got an address, so I think an arrest is imminent.”

  Sheridan nodded. “I just hope Teresa and her daughter are all right.”

  “So do I,” Dani said. She hoped that the fact Stokes hadn’t had the women for long might mean they were unharmed. If Battle could get to the address in time, he could avert another tragedy.

  The door to the inner part of Larkmoor House opened and Sheila Hopkins came through it, looking harried. She saw Dani and walked over to her. “You wanted to see me?”

  Dani stood up. “Yes, I’d like to ask you about someone who may have been a patient here in the past.”

  Sheila nodded. “All right.”

  “Does the name Michael Stokes mean anything to you?”

  “No, I don’t believe so.” Sheila frowned. “How long ago was he here?”

  “We’re not sure he was here at all,” Sheridan said. “It’s a possibility we’re looking into.”

  “Michael Stokes,” Sheila said under her breath, as if trying to jog her memory. “Michael Stokes.” Realisation seemed to suddenly dawn on her face. “We had a Vera Stokes here a long time ago. I think her son’s name was Michael. Yes, I’m sure of it. He visited her once or twice while she was here.”

  “How long ago was this?” Dani asked.

  “It must have been nine or ten years ago.”

  “Was Tanya Ward working here when Vera was a patient?”

  Sheila thought about that and then said, “Yes, she was. In fact, I’m sure Vera was under Tanya’s care.”

  “Why was Vera a patient here?” Sheridan asked.

  “If I remember rightly, she had some sort of breakdown,” Sheila said. “She’d been a patient at Larkmoor before, so she was brought here for a second time.’

  Sheridan nodded. “I see. Did you remember her from her previous stay?”

  “No, it was the first time I’d seen her.”

  “And how long have you worked here?”

  “Nineteen years.”

  Sheridan looked up towards the ceiling and narrowed his eyes. “So she was here nine years ago, and at least ten years before that. She’s obviously had mental issues for most of her life.”

  He turned to Dani and said, “We should probably pay her a visit. She might know what her son’s been up to.”

  “Do you know her address?” Dani asked Sheila.

  “I can get it from the records. Everything is on the computer.” She paused. “Although I’m not really allowed to give that kind of information out.”

  “Listen,” Dani said. “I think I know the address anyway. Gra
ntham Farm, Cold Kirby. Could you just confirm that for me?”

  “All right,” Sheila said, nodding. “I’ll check that.”

  As the nurse walked back through the door that led to the inner part of the hospital, Dani said to Sheridan, “If Michael has some sort of issue with his mother, it stands to reason that they might live together. If Sheila confirms it, I can let Battle know that Vera is at the address he’s going to be raiding later. He’ll probably want to take a mental health professional with him when he arrests Michael. It’s bound to be a stressful situation for Vera.”

  Sheridan nodded.

  Dani stared out through the glass doors at the driving snow. “If Michael met Tanya ten years ago, why did he wait all this time before he took her?”

  “A trigger,” the psychologist said. “He might have had conflicting emotions regarding Tanya all that time ago, confused her with his mother in some way, but he didn’t do anything because his rage towards his mother hadn’t grown to uncontrollable levels then. It lay dormant inside him until something triggered its awakening. Whatever that trigger was, it probably happened three weeks ago when he took Abigail, perhaps a short time before that. It built up inside him and the result was Tanya’s murder and Abigail’s abduction.”

  “Maybe his mother can shed some light on it,” Dani suggested. “She might know what’s been going on in Michael’s life recently.”

  “Especially if they live in the same house,” Sheridan said.

  Sheila returned with a sheet of notepaper. “Vera doesn’t live at Grantham Farm anymore. That was her address when she was admitted here the first time, when she was sectioned by her husband twenty years ago.”

  “Her husband?” Dani asked.

  Sheila nodded. “Jonathan Stokes. Vera was here for almost a year.”

  “So when she was here the second time,” Sheridan asked, “Did Jonathan visit her as well as Michael?”

  Sheila shook her head slowly. “I don’t think so, but I really can’t remember.”

  “Did a girl called Ruth ever visit her?” Sheridan asked.

  “No, I don’t think so. I don’t remember any girl.”

  “Is that Vera’s new address?” Dani asked, motioning to the piece of paper in Sheila’s hands.

  “I’m not sure I can give that out.”

  “Sheila, this is important.”

  Sheila hesitated. “This is about that mother and daughter who went missing, isn’t it?”

  Dani nodded.

  The nurse handed the paper over. “This is where she was living when she came here nine years ago.”

  Dani read the address and pulled her phone out of her pocket. She rang Battle and got his voicemail. “We’ve got the address of Michael Stokes’ mother and we’re going to interview her,” she said. “We’ll be at Wild Row Farm, Sleddale Road, Westerdale.” She hung up and muttered, “Bloody voicemail.”

  “He’s probably got no signal,” Sheridan said. “I’m surprised the entire network hasn’t gone down in this weather.”

  She nodded. “If we’re going to get over to Westerdale, we’d better get a move on. Thanks, Sheila, you’ve been a great help.”

  The nurse nodded. “Be careful on those roads. God knows how I’m going to get home when my shift finishes.”

  Pocketing the piece of paper, Dani stepped through the main door and into the windswept car park. The falling snow was so thick that she could barely see her Land Rover. When she climbed in behind the wheel, she placed the paper on the dashboard entered the address into the SatNav.

  While the car heated up, she rang the incident room. Her call was answered by DC Ryan.

  “Ryan, it’s DI Summers.”

  “Hello, guv. We’re all just about to leave. The arrest warrant has just been granted for Michael Stokes and we’re just gearing up to get over to his gaff. I assume you know about all of that.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I need someone to do some background checks for me.”

  “Oh. Well, like I said, Battle has told us to get up to Grantham Farm ASAP.”

  “All right. Put me through to…” she searched her brain for the name of the tech she’d met earlier. “Chris Toombs.”

  ”All right, guv, I’ll just find his extension.” She heard him tapping on a keyboard. “You’re not getting in on the action, then?” he asked as he was typing.

  “No, I’ve got something else to do.”

  “Putting you through now,” he said. The line went dead for a few seconds, then she heard Toombs’ voice.

  “This is Chris Toombs; how may I be of service?”

  “Chris, it’s DI Summers. I need you to look into something for me.”

  “Okay, shoot.”

  “I need any information you can find on a Jonathan Stokes. He’s the father of—“

  “Whoa, déjà vu!”

  “Sorry?”

  “Jonathan Stokes’ name just turned up in a search I did for DCI Battle. Jonathan and Vera Stokes are the registered owners of the farm where the arrest team is going. Grantham Farm.”

  “Okay. Well, I’ve just found out that Vera Stokes is now living at a different address. Or at least she was nine years ago.”

  “Wild Row Farm,” he said.

  “That came up in your search as well?”

  “I did some digging. Vera inherited Wild Row Farm from her father fifteen years ago. I guess she owns both Grantham and Wild Row, since her husband, Jonathan Stokes, disappeared eighteen years ago.”

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “I’m putting you on speaker. Tony Sheridan is here with me.” She clicked the speaker button on her phone. “What do you mean he disappeared?”

  “He left Vera and their two children, Michael and Ruth. Moved abroad, apparently.”

  “Eighteen years ago?” Sheridan asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “Two years after he had Vera sectioned,” Sheridan said to Dani. “Maybe he couldn’t stand living with her after she returned from the hospital. She’d been gone a year and he was the one who sent her away. That’s bound to put a strain on any marriage.”

  “Maybe,” Dani said.

  Sheridan said, “Chris, do you know where Jonathan Stokes lives now?”

  “No idea. Do you want me to look into it?”

  “No, that’s not necessary. I just thought he could throw some light onto what’s been happening in that family.”

  “You’re interested in Michael’s background,” Dani said.

  He nodded. “Aren’t you?”

  “I’m more interested in seeing him behind bars.”

  Sheridan shrugged. “Fair enough.”

  “Thanks, Chris,” Dani said. “I’ll let you know if we need anything else.”

  “Okay, have a good one, and don’t let the storm get ya.” There was a click as he hung up.

  Sheridan took out a notebook from an inner pocket in his voluminous jacket and scribbled something into it with a pencil.

  “So the timeline looks like this,” he said. “Twenty years ago, Jonathan Stokes had his wife Vera committed to Larkmoor House. Michael would have been eight years old. Two years later, Jonathan walks out. Michael was ten when that happened. Then, nine years ago, she had a mental breakdown and spent time in hospital again. So Michael would have been about nineteen. This may be where the resentment of his mother comes from. He feels she abandoned him.”

  “If he had abandonment issues, surely they’d be directed at his father,” Dani said.

  Sheridan shrugged. “The thing is, these events happened a long time ago, but his rage wasn’t triggered until about three weeks ago. He frowned at the notebook in his lap. “There’s something we’re missing here.”

  “Well, while you think about that,” Dani said, putting the Land Rover into gear, “We need to get over to Vera Stokes’ house before all the roads close.”

  “Yeah, sure,” the psychologist said, still staring at his notebook. He picked it up and examined the page of spidery writing. “Where is Ruth in all
of this? I mean, I’ve theorised that she’s dead, but when did she die? How? Sheila can’t remember her coming to Larkmoor to visit Vera nine years ago. Was she already dead at that time? That long ago?”

  “We can ask Michael those questions when he’s in the interview room,” Dani suggested, driving out of the car park and onto the main road. Visibility had been reduced to no more than a few feet beyond the Land Rover’s bonnet, so she had to drive slowly and carefully to make sure they didn’t come off the road.

  It took them half an hour to get to Sleddale Road. The SatNav could only direct them to the general area of the farm, so while Dani drove the Land Rover slowly through the thick snowfall, she and Sheridan looked for a sign that might indicate where Wild Row Farm was located.

  “There,” Sheridan said, pointing at something in the trees by the roadside.

  Dani followed his outstretched finger and saw a small wooden sign that had the name Wild Row Farm carved into its snow-blasted surface.

  “I assume there’s a road that leads to the farm,” the psychologist said, “but I can’t see one.”

  He was right. If there was a road or track that led to Wild Row Farm, it was covered with a blanket of snow.

  “We’ll have to go on foot,” Dani said, pulling the Land Rover over to the side of the road and killing the engine. As the sound of the motor died away, along with the whirr of the windscreen wipers, the sound of the wind howling along the road became noticeable, along with the pat pat of snowflakes hitting the car roof and windscreen.

  Dani realised how utterly alone they were out here.

  She checked her phone. No signal.

  “Right,” she said, “let’s see what Vera Stokes can tell us about her son.”

  Together, they exited the Land Rover. It was getting dark, so Dani went to the boot and retrieved two large torches. She handed one to Sheridan.

  They found a gap in the trees that indicated where the hidden road was buried and trudged along it in the dark, their torch beams illuminating trees on either side of them and yet more snow.

  After what seemed like an hour of walking but was probably a lot less, Dani thought she saw a light ahead. She wiped melted snowflakes from her eyelashes and squinted.