Into the Darkness Page 3
‘All right. Look, you stay where you are and I’ll get there as soon as I can. It will probably take me an hour or so from London, OK?’
She let out another wail and told me her address, which I scribbled down on the pad.
I hung up, tore off the sheet of paper and stuffed it in my pocket.
Maya entered the kitchen, her eyes still a little red from crying.
‘I’ve got to go away,’ I said, resting a hand on her arm and explaining how an old friend needed me to help find her missing daughter.
‘God, how awful. She must be out of her mind with worry,’ she replied.
‘I’m leaving as soon as I can.’ I made my way up the stairs to my bedroom and grabbed my daysack hidden in a secure location. I had no clue as to what I’d need but it was already filled with the things I’d used to dispose of the men who had hunted Maya. I pulled the items out, checking they were still in situ and in working order: wire-cutters, a camouflage net, binoculars, night-vision goggles, a Maglite torch with IR filter, an expanding ASP baton in a small pouch that could attach to my belt, a small but punchy taser, and a few other items. I packed some clothes in another daysack, and lastly grabbed my Glock 19 pistol, pancake holster, and double-mag carrier which I’d secrete into a hiding place I had constructed inside my pick-up truck.
‘I’m coming with you.’ Maya watched me from the doorway, bending and straightening her right hand where several fingers had been broken – more exercises she’d been given to help with mobility. ‘I can help you try to find her.’
‘Are you sure you’re up to that? Why don’t you stay here and rest?’ I looked down at the gear, wondering what else I might need.
‘I’m sick of resting! I’ve been doing nothing but resting since I got out of the hospital. Please, I want to help. I need to help. I need to do something useful.’
The tone of her voice stopped me. I looked up at her. Her eyes were steely dark, her jaw rigid. I’d seen that look before when she’d been trying to find out what had happened to Jamie. When she’d stopped at nothing trying to expose his killers. There was no question Maya would be an asset. She was strong, focused and determined. And she had a big heart. Besides, Maya was right. Maybe she needed to do this as much as I wanted her with me. It could give her life a sense of purpose again. Or at least stop her worrying about her own situation for a while. ‘OK. Pack a few essentials and we’ll leave in ten minutes.’
‘I’ll be ready.’ She disappeared to her bedroom down the hall.
I replayed Corinne’s words in my head.
If someone had harmed Tony and Corinne’s daughter, I would kill again.
THE DETECTIVE
Chapter 6
I spent the next three hours at the Jamesons’ property, checking out the house and outbuildings. Forensically, it was going to be a nightmare because there were three large barns, plus fields of rapeseed to the south, woods to the north and acres of land all around.
The Home Office pathologist, Professor Elizabeth Hanley, came and went. Her estimated time of death was between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. the previous morning, but she hoped to narrow it down further during the post-mortem, which would be conducted early the next morning.
I left SOCO there at just gone midnight and headed back to the office to do a little research and call my boss to update him on the crime scene.
‘Damn,’ Detective Superintendent Greene said when I explained the situation. ‘That’s all we need. You’re off in two weeks. I’ve still got no replacement for Richard Wilmott or a new DI since Ellie Nash left.’
‘Yes, how inconvenient, having a couple of murders when we’re so short-staffed. Maybe if we could cut down on paperwork we could free up a whole department,’ I suggested.
Greene huffed down the phone. ‘I’ll have less of your sarcasm, Carter. You’ll have to be SIO on this. You’re all I’ve got. For the rest of the time you’re with us, you can be acting DI.’
There was a time when that would’ve been music to my ears. But I’d always been too unorthodox and outspoken, too independent-minded to toe the party line, which had hampered my advancement up the promotion ladder. After Richard Wilmott had been killed in the line of duty, though, Greene had offered me the acting DI position. I’d handed my notice in instead and accepted DI Nash’s offer to work with her on the new department being set up. Now, I was just confused. I didn’t know what the hell I wanted any more. I was tired of it all. All the bullshit that went with the job. All the people getting away with offences. One thing was sure, though: even if I only had two weeks left, I’d do what I did best – solve crimes.
Greene didn’t give me time to respond; he carried on by saying, ‘Call a briefing for eight a.m.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And keep the forensics contained to just the house and very immediate grounds around it at this stage. We don’t have the budget for searching twelve bloody acres of land!’
‘Unfortunately, criminals aren’t predisposed to conveniently leave evidence in only the immediate area of a crime scene.’
‘Are you questioning an order from a superior officer?’
‘Look, to restrict SOCO’s sweep of the scene is dangerous. We have no direction of travel for the killer. They could’ve left through the open patio doors at the rear of the property, gone through the garden and into the woods. They could’ve disappeared through the field of rapeseed. They could’ve left to the east, through the livery stables, or gone west through Bill Graves’s land. And there could be evidence in any of those places. Evidence that might never be found if we’re hampered by budget constraints from the outset.’ This was just one example of the bullshit I was sick of.
‘When you control the budget, you can make those decisions. But until then, you’ll follow my orders to the letter. I’ll see you in the morning,’ Greene said and hung up.
I grabbed a coffee from the vending machine in the hall. I looked at the murky, grey offering and wondered, not for the first time, if the canteen recycled their dirty dishwater in it. I sniffed it and pulled a face as I spotted a green blob of something I didn’t want to analyse floating on the surface. I chucked it down the sink in the toilets and went back to the office, where I headed to the fridge in the corner of the room, on top of which sat the kettle that DC Ronnie Pickering was so protective over. No one else was allowed to touch the shiny chrome in case they got dirty fingerprints on it. Bless him. He definitely had a touch of OCD. Still, it meant no one else had to make the teas and coffees, which was always a bonus.
I measured out instant coffee granules, opened the fridge, and discovered some bugger had nicked our full, unopened pint of milk, along with a custard eclair that I’d put in there earlier that day. There were more thieves in a police station than anywhere else.
My stomach rumbled. I’d missed dinner earlier and was starving. So, the first job as acting DI would be to put a padlock on the fridge.
I sat at my desk and searched our various databases. Jan and Mike Jameson had reported no crimes in the past, and there’d been no previous incidents at the address. Neither of them had a criminal record. Their daughter, Paula, also wasn’t known to police. Her husband, Grant, was a different story. He was forty-five years old with a string of arrests for drunk and disorderly, possession of cannabis, drink-driving. Last year, he’d been arrested after he’d ploughed into a roundabout while drunk, writing off his car. He’d been banned from driving for eighteen months.
I sat back and tapped my biro against my lips, thinking about Paula faltering with her words. The defensive note when I asked her about Grant. Maybe the Jamesons disapproved of their daughter’s marriage to him, but was that enough for Paula or Grant to shoot them? Plenty of murders had occurred for less.
THE VIGILANTE
Chapter 7
I reversed my pick-up truck out of my driveway and on to the quiet North London street where I lived.
‘So how do you know Corinne?’ Maya asked, clutching the seatbelt across her chest for reassurance.
Maya’s voice cut into the images. ‘If this was eighteen years ago, I’m guessing you knew her from the SAS?’
I glanced over at her inquisitive face. Maya was the only person outside the Regiment I’d spoken to about some of the things I’d done. Things that still haunted me. In the weeks and months we’d spent together since Maya came out of the hospital, she’d wanted to talk about her own situation, and slowly I’d found myself opening up to her in a way I’d never done before. She was the one who’d made me admit to myself that the flashbacks and nightmares I’d been suffering from weren’t healthy. That I shouldn’t cling on to them because of the guilt that tore me up. She’d finally made me start to deal with the post-traumatic stress I was suffering from. And since she’d been living with me, things had been improving. The nightmares were getting less frequent. The flashbacks less intense. And because of what we’d been through together, we had a bond now that no one else could ever understand. I’d thought I’d been saving her, but she was really rescuing me.
‘I was mates with Tony, her husband. We met during SAS selection.’ A picture formed in my head – two younger guys passing each other in the freezing mist during the gruelling daily slogs over the Beacons, finishing Endurance together. To Brunei, in the trees, the same patrol during the jungle phase, and on the run and in the bag together during combat survival. ‘After selection we both went to the same squadron.’ I tried to blink away Tony’s face from my mind and concentrate on the road ahead but it was no use. I could still remember the last time I saw him. It was emblazoned in my skull as clearly as if it was yesterday. ‘He died in 1999, in West Africa. There was a civil war going on at the time, and the British Army was assisting in a multi-national stabilisation force in the country. But it was a nightmare. They weren’t only trying to deal with the rebel groups and armed gangsters, the country’s own army were corrupt, too.’
‘So what happened?’
‘There were many NGOs on the ground, trying to provide humanitarian assistance to the people, and they were suffering badly because of the violence going on – murder, mutilations, rapes, kidnapping, tit-for-tat assassinations. The country was practically lawless. There was an International Development team out there, trying to improve living conditions. One of their projects was a well-drilling programme to provide safe drinking water in a remote village. So the team went out to check on the project, escorted by a small British Army protective detail. But . . .’ I trailed off, a rock-sized lump forming in my throat.
Maya waited.
I ground my teeth together. I hadn’t told this story in a long time. And the person who should’ve heard it from me didn’t want to listen.
‘But what?’ Maya pressed gently.
‘But the team never came back. The last heard from them was an excited message from one of the soldiers in the call sign saying they’d driven into an illegal vehicle checkpoint and were surrounded by armed men. Then there was the sound of shouting and gunfire and communication was lost. A Quick Reaction Force was deployed and found there were signs of a fight. One British soldier was found dead at the scene.’
Maya gasped. ‘And that was Tony?’
‘No. That came later.’ I gripped the steering wheel tight.
‘What happened?’
‘I killed him.’
‘What?’
‘I didn’t pull the trigger, but he’s dead because of me. Because I fucked up.’
Maya reached out and touched my arm. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Yeah. Me, too. It was my fault.’ I hit the steering wheel hard, making Maya flinch.
‘It wasn’t your fault. There was a war going on. It was your job. It was the rebels that—’
I glanced over at her. ‘Don’t say it. You can’t justify what happened. I can’t justify it. It was my fault. And now Corinne needs me to find her daughter, I’ve got to do everything I can to make amends.’ I shook my head to try and push away the past, took some breaths to slow the adrenaline pumping through me. Blinked a few times. Clutching the steering wheel even tighter, I explained, ‘In Stirling Lines, we have a large clock with the names of all the guys who were killed in the line of duty. If your name’s on it, it’s because you “didn’t beat the clock”. Tony’s name’s there. He didn’t beat the clock because of me. We buried him with full military honours in St Martin’s Church. After the funeral Corinne left Hereford. She didn’t want to stay with all the reminders of the life they’d had together there. I didn’t even know she was pregnant.’
‘I can relate to Corinne wanting to move away after Tony’s death,’ Maya said, a thoughtful expression on her face. It was the same reason she’d sold her house after Jamie’s death. It was too painful to stay.
‘If Toni has run away, I’m going to find her. And if she’s been taken by someone, then I won’t stop until I catch who’s responsible and get her back.’
We drove the rest of the way in silence as memories of Tony and Corinne wormed their way to the surface of my brain. Memories that had been dimmed over the years but not forgotten. Memories that I grasped on to again now and clutched tightly.
THE DETECTIVE
Chapter 8
I stifled a yawn as I stood in front of the whiteboard in the CID office, where I’d added the few details of the Jamesons’ murder that I knew so far. I tacked up a satellite map of the Jamesons’ property and surrounding houses and land and stepped back, studying the image.
By the time I’d finished up in the early hours of the morning, there had been barely enough time to go home, take a shower and change into a fresh set of clothes before heading back in to prepare for the briefing. I’d had no sleep, but then I was used to that. I’d turned into an insomniac in the year since Denise had died of breast cancer. There were too many questions rolling around in my head these days, and I didn’t really like the answers.
I sipped a can of Coke and called the SOCO, Emma Bolton. ‘How’re you getting on?’
‘I’m just heading back to the nick, going off duty. I’ve handed the scene over to the day shift. I was going to come up, anyway, and update you on what we’ve found so far.’
‘Great, thanks. I’ll see you soon.’
DC Ronnie Pickering bounded into the room, his permanently ruddy cheeks glowing, his hair still damp from the shower. He was like an excitable toddler who’d just discovered everything for the first time. Full of energy, which meant you could rely on him to do all the head-bangingly boring jobs and research that a lot of detective work involved without complaining, but his initiative and common sense were sometimes lacking. And although he was an intelligent guy, his reasoning and logic teetered between being baffling and downright odd sometimes. I’d wondered on more than one occasion if he had a touch of autism.
‘Morning, Ronnie,’ I said.
‘Morning, sarge.’ He beamed a smile at me, then turned to the kettle and saw it had been moved out of its usual 45-degree angle against the wall that he rigidly lined it up to. He stared at it for a moment, horrified, then adjusted the kettle back into its required position. He moved the box of tea bags an inch over to the left and, satisfied, headed to his desk to dump his manbag.
I suppressed a smile and shook my head, wondering how he’d noticed the misalignment of the kettle but not that the massive whiteboard had a new case written on it. But our personal little quirks were a good thing when it came to a murder inquiry. Sometimes you couldn’t see the wood for the trees, and it took an unusual or different perspective to click something into place. Three people could look at the same
thing and interpret it in three different ways.
‘All right, all?’ DC Becky Harris wandered in, stuffing a cereal bar in her mouth. ‘Oh. You got a job after we’d gone?’ She noticed the whiteboard immediately.
‘Yes. A double murder. Greene will be here for the briefing in . . .’ I glanced at the clock. ‘Five minutes. So I’ll explain all then.’
‘Oh, God. Who are they bringing in to be SIO? Is there actually anyone left? It’s like the Mary Celeste in here.’ Becky shoved the last of the bar in her mouth, draped her coat on the back of her chair, and came to join me at the board, reading with interest.
‘Me.’
She grinned. ‘Really? That’s great.’
‘But you’re going in two weeks,’ Ronnie said as he joined us.
‘Well, we’d better be quick then, eh?’
Detective Superintendent Greene stalked into the office behind us and got straight down to it. ‘Right, what do we have? I’ve got an acute strategic budget-centric breakfast meeting in twenty minutes so please be quick.’
I wondered what that even meant in real-speak instead of corporate buzzword bollocks. ‘What’s that in English?’
‘More central cost-cutting proposals,’ he said, although he didn’t sound quite sure, either.
‘Are we actually police or accountants?’ I asked.
He frowned at me as he perched on the end of a desk and put his briefcase down. We’d had our spats in the past. He’d suspended me before, and although in the aftermath of Wilmott’s murder he’d offered me an acting DI position, that was only because there was no one left to promote, and I was the booby prize. There was definitely no love lost between us. He was too busy with office politics and budgets to be a hands-on copper. From his ivory tower of an office he’d forgotten what life was really like on the streets.
Becky and Ronnie sat at their desks as I stood next to Greene and addressed my team. If you could call it that. Three people investigating a crime like this was woefully inadequate.