The Blow Out

by Bill Rogers

  Melissa expelled her breath and gulped a mouthful of air. And another. And another. Told herself that she had to relax. Lay on her side clutching the inhaler just in case. Her heart was racing and she felt dizzy. But she was still alive.

  Chapter 70

  DAY SEVEN – SUNDAY, 22ND OCTOBER

  ‘No! Please, no!’

  A phone was ringing. Shrill, insistent.

  Jo opened her eyes, rolled over, and picked up her handset. ‘Aggie?’

  ‘Jo? Are you alright?’

  Jo’s throat felt like sandpaper, her mouth dry, her lips parched. Encouraged by the sense that finally they were getting somewhere, she’d worked all night, along with most of the team. She’d left for home as dawn was breaking, intending to shower, change, grab a bite to eat, and go straight back in. The mistake she’d made was to lie down on the bed for a moment. She had woken . . . she stared at the phone . . . two hours later.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I just woke up.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Aggie. ‘If I’d known . . .’

  Jo levered herself upright, her head against the wall. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘it’s good to hear your voice.’ There was a long pause. Jo wasn’t sure if they had been cut off. ‘Aggie?’ she said. ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘Yes, Jo, I’m here. I was just plucking up the courage to tell you.’

  Jo sighed. Here we go, she told herself. I knew I’d blown it on Friday night. She steeled herself. ‘Tell me what?’ she said.

  ‘That article I was writing? About Melissa’s disappearance?’

  ‘And the total incompetence of the police?’ Jo sensed Aggie reeling at the other end of the line, as though she’d slapped her in the face. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘That was a cheap shot.’

  ‘No more than I deserved. It’s in this morning’s Observer. Actually the police don’t come out of it too badly. It’s more about getting the public onside. Humanising Melissa. Getting them to care. Encouraging them to report anything suspicious, look in outhouses and sheds – that sort of thing.’

  Jo was too tired to care. She had bigger fish to fry. ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she said. ‘But you needn’t have worried. I’m not the SIO on that case.’

  ‘I know, but . . .’

  ‘Seriously, Aggie,’ said Jo, swinging her feet off the bed, ‘I’m fine with it. Let it go.’

  ‘Thank you so much,’ said Aggie. Her relief was palpable, even over the phone. ‘I was worried sick about how you’d take it.’

  Jo stood up and stretched. ‘When you get to know me better,’ she replied, ‘you’ll realise I have a thicker skin than that.’

  ‘How is the hunt for Clements going?’ Aggie asked. ‘It’s all over the media. On the NCA and GMP Twitter feeds. There’s a photo of him in most of the Sunday papers.’

  Jo was glad to hear it. She couldn’t fault Helen Gates for the way she was managing the Press.

  ‘We’re making progress,’ she replied, conscious that she was deliberately giving as little away as possible. And what did that say about the trust in this relationship? ‘But I won’t be happy until we’ve caught and charged him.’

  ‘Do you want me to come over and help you move the rest of your stuff out?’ said Aggie. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be out of there by midday tomorrow?’

  Jo cursed. She’d lost track of what day it was. ‘I’ll do it tonight,’ she said.

  ‘What time do you want me there?’

  ‘No!’ said Jo, surprising herself with the force of her response. The memory of having put Abbie’s niece in danger was still fresh in her mind. There was no way she was going to allow history to repeat itself, least of all with someone she’d grown to love. ‘You have to stay away from me until we’ve caught him. It isn’t safe to be around me.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Aggie. ‘Please, Jo, you’re scaring me.’

  ‘And promise me, Aggie, that you won’t start shadowing my investigation too. The unsub isn’t just dangerous, he’s now desperate and unpredictable. I wouldn’t be able to do my job properly for worrying about you.’

  ‘What about you? Who’s going to be watching your back?’

  Jo started walking towards the bathroom. ‘I’ll be fine, Aggie,’ she said. ‘Now you’ll have to excuse me. I’ve really got to go.’

  Chapter 71

  ‘Did you go home like I told you to?’ Jo asked.

  Nick Carter shrugged, and grinned sheepishly.

  ‘You didn’t, did you?’ she said.

  ‘Somebody had to brief the early shift,’ he replied.

  Jo threw her bag down on the desk. ‘Now you’re playing the guilt card.’

  ‘I managed sixty winks in the conference room,’ he told her. ‘You’d be surprised how comfy that executive chair is. It tilts right back. You should try it some time.’

  ‘At least I had a shower,’ she replied. ‘Has anybody mentioned that you stink, Nick? You could do with a shave too.’

  He took it well. ‘Good honest sweat,’ he said. ‘And it’s a good job I did hang around. Have a look at this.’ He handed her a small blue hard-backed notebook in a transparent evidence bag.

  ‘Is this one of the ones from the lock-up?’

  ‘It was dusted for prints before we had a good look at it,’ he told her. ‘But you don’t need to break the seal. I’ve left it open at the relevant page.’

  Jo turned it over. On the second of the two open pages was a list of names handwritten in fine black ink. The first four had been crossed through, but she could still tell that they were those of the victims who had already been attacked: O’Neill, Grimshaw, Dewlay, and Rand. Three dead, one on the mend. And then three more names, clearly added at a later date: ACC Helen Gates, DI Joanne Stuart, and Eric Manson.

  ‘At least he’s spelled your name correctly,’ said Nick, trying to make light of it.

  ‘Why no mention of Mwamba or Sarah Weston?’ she wondered.

  ‘Good question,’ he replied.

  ‘Andy Swift was right,’ she said, handing back the notebook.

  ‘Your pet profiler?’

  ‘Forensic psychologist. He said that the closer to the unsub I got, the more he’d see me as an obstacle. What we both forgot was that Helen Gates is even more the face of the investigation than I am.’

  ‘You going to give her the good news?’ said Nick.

  ‘You haven’t?’

  He shuffled his feet. ‘I thought it’d be better coming from you.’

  ‘While I’m doing that you’d better find out who Eric Manson is. And make sure we’ve still got eyes on Henry Mwamba. I take it we’ve still nothing on Clements or his motorbike?’

  ‘Unfortunately not. It’s only a matter of time though.’

  ‘Time we haven’t got.’ Jo sat down. ‘I’ll get on to ACC Gates, then I’ll check on DI Weston. You crack on.’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am!’

  He threw a mock salute, spun on his heels, and exited at speed. Jo watched the door close behind him and slumped back in her chair. Though Nick hid it well, she suspected he was still smarting from the fact that she’d made it to DI first, and that she’d basically been parachuted in over his head to lead Operation Alecto. She’d tried so hard not to treat him like a junior. But it was easy to forget when the pressure built up, and especially when she was physically tired and irritable, like now.

  She sighed and picked up the phone. ‘Ma’am,’ she said, as soon as Helen Gates picked up. ‘I have an update for you.’

  ‘Finally!’

  Jo launched into her report before the ACC had the chance to begin a diatribe. When she’d finished she could tell that Gates was in a much more generous and sombre mood.

  ‘It’s a while since I’ve had a death threat,’ she quipped. ‘I suppose I should be flattered.’

  ‘It’s serious, Ma’am,’ said Jo.

  ‘I know that. But has it occurred to you that Clements may have deliberately left that notebook there for you to find, and this is his way of tr
ying to wrong-foot us? Make us take our eye off the ball?’

  ‘I had wondered when I saw that neither Henry Mwamba nor DI Weston were on the list.’

  ‘And what was the other name?’

  ‘Eric Manson.’

  ‘Have you found any connection between that name and Operation Alecto?’

  ‘Not yet, Ma’am.’

  ‘So he could be another distractor. Put there to get us wasting our time chasing shadows while he goes after his real targets?’

  You’re not just a fourth-floor paper shuffler then, thought Jo. It had been easy to forget that Helen Gates had been a formidable senior investigator before she was dragged kicking and screaming upstairs as part of the Force Diversity programme.

  ‘That’s quite possible, Ma’am,’ she replied. ‘But I can’t afford to ignore this Manson as a potential victim. If anything were to happen . . .’

  ‘I know. Duty of care. Rigorous testing of every piece of evidence. They’d have our guts for garters.’

  Jo was relieved to note her use of the plural possessive pronoun.

  ‘Speaking of duty of care . . .’ Gates continued. ‘I’m not being vaccinated with something tested on mice on the off-chance that this lunatic might take a potshot at me. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am.’

  ‘Are you having one?’

  ‘No, Ma’am.’

  ‘There you go then. What do you plan to do now?’

  ‘Check on DI Weston and Henry Mwamba, and make sure that everything is being done to track down Clements and his motorbike.’

  ‘I can’t believe that he hasn’t been spotted yet,’ said Gates. ‘He’s had more coverage than David Beckham.’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am. I gather you’ve done a great job with the newspaper coverage.’

  ‘Don’t patronise me, SI Stuart,’ said Gates softly. ‘And speaking of newspapers, is there any truth in the rumours about you and that Polish reporter?’

  Jo had been dreading this. She took a deep breath. ‘If you mean, are we friends?’ she said. ‘Then yes, Ma’am.’

  ‘Just friends?’

  ‘We’ve had a meal together, two or three times. That’s all.’

  ‘Mmm,’ said Gates. There was a long pause. ‘Be careful, Jo,’ she said. ‘Mixing business and pleasure is a slippery slope in our world. Try to remember that.’

  Chapter 72

  ‘Are you sure this is right?’ said Max.

  ‘It’s exactly where Mrs Hammond told us,’ the uniformed sergeant replied. ‘She only lives a quarter of a mile down this lane, and there’s nothing else between her and this place.’

  ‘And nobody lives here?’

  ‘Not according to her, nor as far as we’re aware. The former occupant went bankrupt. Put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.’ He shook his head. ‘Took me a good six months to forget it and I wasn’t the first responder.’

  ‘How long ago was that?’

  ‘Two years this Christmas Eve. He died intestate. They’re still trying to track down surviving relatives. A cousin in Canada, they think. Another in Australia. They didn’t communicate, so there’re no correspondence addresses to go on. Not that there’s much to inherit apart from the land, a four-hundred-year-old farmhouse and a couple of falling-down barns, and they’ve been stripped of anything worth stealing.’

  ‘Could be squatters?’ said the firearms team commander.

  ‘With a top-of-the-range SUV?’ said the sergeant. ‘Unlikely.’

  Max stared again at the infrared display on the screen of the drone operator’s laptop.

  ‘Anything?’ he said.

  ‘Not a dicky bird,’ came the reply. ‘No vehicles present. No significant heat sources from any of the buildings.’

  ‘Not a cannabis farm then,’ said the sergeant, half-joking.

  Max gave him a withering look. ‘This is a missing twelve-year-old girl we’re talking about,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry,’ the sergeant mumbled.

  ‘That doesn’t mean,’ continued the drone operator, ‘that there’s nobody in any of these buildings. This is the best kit out there, but it can’t see through slate roofs and thick stone walls.’

  Max opened the car door and got out. He stepped across the narrow ditch, grasped one of the wayward branches of the hedge with a gloved hand and hauled himself onto the grassy bank.

  Across two sloping fields, at the top of a rise, he could see the cluster of stone buildings backlit by the late afternoon sun. The nearest woodland, a small circular copse, was over half a mile away. Anyone fleeing across the fields would be easy to spot even without the drone.

  He made his way back to the car and summoned the team leaders to join him by the entrance to the farm track.

  ‘This is how we’re going to do it,’ he told them. ‘I want just five vehicles to start with. I’ll be in the first one with Mark Hamblett, who as most of you know is the AKEU negotiator, and Sergeant Watts. Behind us will be the two firearms vehicles, then the dog unit, and finally one of the search team Transit vans with the Enforcer. We’ll stop just short of the yard so as not to obscure potential tyre track marks. The drone will stay here with the Forensics unit and the rest of the search team. The drone operator will keep us apprised, by Comms, of any movement. Any questions? No? Right, let’s do it.’

  Nobody spoke as the procession of vehicles bumped their way up the rutted farm track. They would all, like Max, be running through the range of scenarios ahead. A tense hostage negotiation, a deadly firefight, a nervous pursuit across the fields, a dramatic and successful rescue. Or the possibility that this was all a waste of time. And, worst of all, that they might find Melissa . . . only not alive.

  ‘Stop here!’ Max ordered as they approached the gap in the wall that served as the entrance to the farmyard. He turned to look over his shoulder. ‘You stay here, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘I need you to listen in to the Comms channel in case something crops up I should know about.’ Then he undid his seat belt, exited the car and waved the firearms commander over.

  ‘I intend to alert potential occupants to our presence by using the loudhailer,’ he said. ‘If there’s a response, we’ll follow it wherever it takes us using the normal protocols. If there’s no response then I will accompany the officer with the Enforcer and as many of your team as you consider appropriate to check the house is clear.’

  ‘That will be four then,’ the firearms commander replied. ‘The others will provide cover out here, front and back. If the house is clear, we’ll repeat the exercise on the remaining buildings. Permission to deploy?’

  ‘Go ahead,’ said Max.

  They watched as the officers exited their vehicles. Six of them came forward and hunkered down behind the stone wall, their weapons trained on the windows of the farmhouse. Two further officers began to make their way along the wall towards the rear of the building. While they waited, Max went to the trunk, took out the loudhailer and checked that it was fully charged.

  ‘Good to go,’ said the firearms commander.

  Max switched the hailer on and held it to his mouth. His words bounced off the stone walls and around the farmyard. He had to speak slowly and pause between each phrase so that the echoes did not obliterate the one that followed.

  ‘Armed Police!’ he said. ‘This is the National Crime Agency. You are surrounded. I need you to come to the front door, one at a time, with your hands raised where we can see them. Do it now!’

  The tension was raw. Almost physical.

  ‘Armed Police!’ he repeated. ‘Come to the door now. One at a time, with your hands raised where we can see them.’

  Max lowered the loudhailer and spoke into his radio mic.

  ‘Foxtrot Alpha Romeo,’ he said. ‘Is the drone capturing any sign of movement?’

  ‘Negative to that,’ came the reply. ‘No movement.’

  ‘Right,’ said Max, ‘we’re going in.’

  Thirty seconds later the door hung inwards on a single hinge. Max waited as
the two pairs of firearms officers worked their way from room to room. His heart thumped in response to every shout.

  ‘Clear!’

  ‘Clear!’

  ‘Clear!’

  ‘Clear!’

  ‘Clear!’

  Now the only sounds were footsteps on the stair treads and heavy breathing.

  ‘All clear,’ said the last of the officers. He paused, and pointed back the way he had come. ‘You might want to start with the bedroom on the left.’

  Max climbed the stairs, his mouth dry, his palms slick with sweat. The door was open and the light was now on. He stepped inside.

  The first thing that hit him was the acrid smell of methane and rotten eggs. He didn’t need to look in the bucket to know what that was. It was the bed beneath the window that drew him.

  The duvet lay crumpled on the floor. The wrinkled bottom sheet had a yellow stain running down its centre. A hood lay on one of the pillows. As Max stepped forward, something hard cracked beneath his foot. He stooped, pulled back the duvet and revealed a Ventolin inhaler.

  Chapter 73

  Jo rang the phone number that Sarah Weston had given her. It went straight to voicemail.

  ‘Sarah, it’s Joanne Stuart,’ she said. ‘We now have definitive proof that Clements is the perpetrator. Please take this seriously and give me a ring back as soon as you get this.’

  ‘Damn!’ she said as she speed-dialled the NCA headquarters in Pimlico. ‘Please don’t go walkabout on me.’

  ‘National Crime Agency, how can I help you?’

  ‘This is Senior Investigator Joanne Stuart calling from Manchester. I urgently need to speak with Sarah Weston. She’s part of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection team.’

  ‘I doubt anyone will be in,’ he replied. ‘It is Sunday. But I’ll try her extension.’ A nervous forty seconds later, he was back. ‘Sorry,’ he told her. ‘There’s nobody answering. I checked with the call handler. She hasn’t been in since she signed out on Thursday afternoon. Her diary showed her as having been up in your neck of the woods.’

  ‘I know. She was booked on the 20.17 back to Euston yesterday,’ she told him.