Dead of night, p.28
Dead of Night, page 28
part #7 of D.I. Tom Mariner Series
Millie fought to calm her racing brain. She tried working her mouth to loosen the tape but it was solid. Already the weight on her chest and the tightness in her ears were growing with each undrawn breath, and seeing her baby boy, lying, asleep, the silent tears began to flow. It couldn’t end like this, please God, don’t let it end like this. The blood pumping in her ears grew louder, then on the edge of her consciousness, she heard the thundering bang of a single gunshot reverberate around the street outside, followed by the prolonged and agonized scream of a woman. Louise! What had she done? Then another sound, close by. Haroon, startled by the noise, woke up and began crying. No, darling, no! Her resources dwindling, Millie desperately tried to propel herself across the bed to get to him before Clarke could. Footsteps hammered back up the stairs towards them. Nooo!
‘Hey, it’s all right. You’re OK,’ and the face that was over hers was not Rory Clarke, but Tom Mariner. The tape was ripped from her face, stinging her skin and letting her heave in great gulps of air, retching and sobbing at the same time. Mariner was yelling and suddenly her arms were free, and tingling. A strange woman soothed Haroon, lifting him gently from the cot.
‘Oh, God,’ she gasped, when she had enough air to speak. ‘Wha – huh-happened?’
‘It’s over,’ said Mariner, putting a steadying arm around her. ‘It was a close run thing, and Louise’s neighbours had the shock of their lives, but we were ready for him.’
‘But Abigail, he had Abigail!’ Millie wailed, drawing the duvet around her. The woman brought Haroon to her, quiet now, and put him in her arms.
‘He had to put the baby in her car seat,’ said Mariner. ‘When he stood up, armed response had one clear shot at him. Back of the head. It was a clean shot, though not very pretty.’
The woman passed Millie her phone from where it had been, concealed underneath Haroon’s blanket. ‘That was inspired,’ she said, with a smile.
‘It wouldn’t have been if he’d found it,’ said Millie, weakly, her heart still pounding against her ribs.
‘We couldn’t pick up everything, but it was enough to give us an idea of what was going on,’ said Mariner.
‘What about the missing girl?’ Millie asked.
Mariner shook his head. ‘We’re still working on it.’
‘I’m sorry. I should have tried to—’
‘No,’ Mariner was adamant. ‘Any questions would have made him suspicious. God knows what he’d have done if he’d realized you were a police officer. It would have added to the danger. You had no choice. You had to play it his way. You’re all safe, and that’s what counts.’
A little later Millie had dressed and was sitting downstairs in the living room. Louise and Abigail had been taken to hospital as a precaution but Millie had insisted that she was all right. ‘I heard you were tough,’ said the unknown woman, putting a mug of sweet tea on the table beside her. ‘I’m Vicky Jesson.’
‘Of course,’ said Millie. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you – all good,’ she added, before Vicky could interject. ‘It’s nice to finally meet you.’ She sniffed the air over Haroon. ‘Oh, I think you need changing, young man,’ she said to her son.
Vicky went to retrieve his changing bag from the pushchair. ‘You’re a pretty hard act to follow, yourself,’ she said, passing it to Millie. ‘Is this the book that put you on to him?’ She was holding the picture book.
‘Yes. Olwen said Rory liked acting out the story, but for all the wrong reasons. Actually, I need to get rid of that before Louise sees it.’
‘Pity, it’s a nice book.’ Jesson was flicking though the pages. She stopped. ‘That’s funny, it looks a bit like—’
‘Like what?’ asked Millie, but she was talking to herself. Vicky Jesson had run out to where Mariner was debriefing the armed response squad.
He couldn’t understand why Vicky would be running towards him, waving a child’s picture book, but she’d certainly got his attention.
‘I think I know where Tiffany might be,’ she said breathlessly.
Once she’d explained, it was obvious and, as they raced back towards south Birmingham, Mariner called Superintendent Sharp to get personnel dispatched to the former hospital site.
They arrived to find the security fencing breached and uniformed officers swarming all over the site. Sharp stood waiting beside a dark grey Ford van, a plan of the site spread out over the bonnet. ‘There’s nothing in the tower itself, so we’ve started on the other buildings,’ she told them.
‘Where’s the linen store?’ asked Mariner. ‘We should start with that.’ They pored over the map. ‘There,’ he said. ‘There it is. Laundry.’ He looked up to get his bearings, then set off at a run towards a building overlooking the water tower, with Jesson in pursuit. Bypassing the ground floor laundry they hurtled up the stairs checking rooms on every floor as they went. The wards and dispensing rooms were in varying stages of neglect, almost bare of furniture and all smelling dusty and damp. They found Tiffany Davey lying half-naked, her hands and feet trussed, and with a coarse sack over her head, in a room on the second floor of the building whose windows, hung with blackout curtains, would have looked out over the tower. The grubby mattress she lay on had been covered with a pristine white sheet. She was severely dehydrated and unconscious, but she was still breathing. Jesson held her close until the ambulance got there.
The room itself had been scrubbed spotlessly clean and to one side was a Formica-topped table, which had on it a CD player with a disc of children’s nursery rhymes, along with duct tape, cable ties and scissors, and the kinds of nose clips worn by swimmers. On the floor of a nearby bathroom they found two sets of discarded and semen-stained scrubs, which Mariner was certain would match Rory’s DNA. In the linen store on the ground floor, among the sheets and pillowcases and surgical gowns, they also found the freshly laundered blouse belonging to Grace Clifton, and Rosa Batista’s T-shirt.
THIRTY-ONE
When they came, a couple of days later, the forensic reports were thorough. Mariner couldn’t share them with Millie directly, but after what she’d been through he thought she deserved to know a bit more about how Rory Clarke had operated. So a week or so after her ordeal he found himself back ringing the front doorbell at Millie’s house. Suli came to the door and Mariner was grateful that he seemed to harbour no hard feelings about what had happened to his wife. While they waited on the doorstep he said as much. ‘Hardly your fault, was it?’ said Suli, with a wry grin. ‘Millie just needs to choose her friends more carefully.’
‘Message received. Again,’ said Millie, appearing in the hallway and slipping into her coat. She leaned up to give her husband a goodbye kiss.
‘So where are you taking me?’ she asked Mariner. ‘Somewhere classy, I hope.’ Leaving Suli babysitting, they went out to Mariner’s car.
‘I thought we’d try the Holly Bush,’ said Mariner, referring to the little, unpretentious hostelry on the Stourbridge Road where he, Millie and Knox had most regularly conducted ‘informal meetings’ in the past. ‘That all right with you?’
‘Why not?’ said Millie.
But when they got there Millie saw that this was more than just a quiet drink. Taking over one corner of the lounge bar were Tony Knox, Charlie Glover and Vicky Jesson. It was the first time she’d seen Charlie since going on maternity leave, and she hadn’t seen Vicky Jesson after the day Rory Clarke was shot, so Mariner left them reacquainting themselves while he got in a fresh round. Tony and Vicky seemed to have started getting to know each other, he noticed, too.
‘How’s Louise doing?’ asked Jesson, when they all had drinks in front of them.
‘I think she’s just about keeping it together for the moment,’ Millie told them. ‘Her mum’s looking after her, and I think when the dust has settled, Louise will move back to be closer to her. Too much history around here. I can’t imagine which is worse, to have your husband killed by your brother, or to find out that your brother is a serial killer.’
‘Jesus, and the rest,’ said Knox.
‘I’m sure the last few seconds of Clarke’s life will stay with her for a long time to come,’ Jesson agreed.
‘She’s getting professional help?’ Picking up his pint, Mariner swallowed a couple of mouthfuls.
‘Yes, she’s seeing someone every day at the moment,’ said Millie. ‘What’s the news on Tiffany?’
‘We haven’t been allowed near her yet,’ Mariner said. ‘She’s still under sedation, and we’re not in any great hurry. But when we do get to talk to her, hopefully we’ll get a clearer picture of how Clarke picked her up, and Rosa and Alice too,’ said Mariner.
Jesson shivered. ‘Creep.’
‘And what about the others?’ asked Knox. ‘Dee, Coral and Hayden?’
‘The forensic reports have helped to answer a lot of questions,’ Mariner said. ‘They found indications that, at some point, Dee was in the passenger seat and the back of the van Clarke had borrowed from his brother-in-law. I think he picked her up when she left work, offered her a lift home. She knew Clarke. He’d been at his comrade’s bedside virtually constantly, so wouldn’t have thought twice about going with him. I think he killed right away and left her in the van, parked up on the old hospital site, until he went back later, in Hayden’s car, to collect her. He must have gone to Hayden’s house by public transport. There was no sign of forced entry, so Hayden must have let him in. Again, Clarke was known to him and could have sold him any kind of sob story, maybe asked for his help as a psychiatrist. Clarke kills him, but lies low ’til the morning so that he can leave the house in Hayden’s car, making it look as if Hayden is just going off to work. But then Coral Norman arrives, so he has to kill her too.’
‘But why leave her there?’ said Millie.
‘Because he was already planning to put Hayden in the frame,’ Jesson said. ‘Coral Norman conveniently helped to strengthen the deception.’
‘And all the time he’s manipulating Greg to help him,’ said Millie.
‘I know Louise thought Greg wasn’t involved in the import scam,’ said Mariner. ‘But it looks as if Rory knew different. Some of those guns had come in from Serbia so he might even have passed them to Greg himself. Easy then to persuade Greg to lend him the van and God knows what else. By the time Greg came to talk to you, Rory was beginning to feel the heat and must have been putting pressure on him. Killing Greg like that was intended to implicate him, but Rory hadn’t thought it through. He was starting to lose it by then.’
As he was talking, Mariner became aware that he was being watched. A tall, mixed-race man was approaching this corner of the bar, looking right at him. Given the subject matter, they’d deliberately kept their voices low, so he was surprised that they would be arousing curiosity. Knox must have also noticed and got to his feet. But instead of sending the onlooker quietly on his way, as Mariner had hoped, Knox shook hands with the man. ‘Hey, mate,’ he said. ‘You found us all right then.’
‘Just followed the smell of bacon,’ the stranger said, with a grin.
Tony turned back to the group, all of whom were by now watching with interest. ‘I’d like you all to meet Carlton Renford,’ he said. Then, with a flourish, and gesturing towards his former boss, he added, ‘And this, Carl, is DCI Tom Mariner.’
Renford stretched across to shake Mariner’s hand. ‘Mr Mariner. Good to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you. And I want to thank you for being so good to my mum.’
Mariner squinted at them both for a moment, trying to make sense of what he’d just heard, and noting from the faces of everyone else around the table, including Millie, he seemed to be the only one for whom this was news. He blamed it on exhaustion, because even when it was explained to him it took a while to sink in.
‘Carl’s one of ours,’ Knox told him, drawing up an extra chair for Renford. ‘We’ve been working together on Athena. He was one of our UCs, except that we’ve just pulled him out.’ Putting a hand on Renford’s shoulder as he sat down, Knox went to get him a drink.
‘And yes, you did see me at Pincott and Easton that night,’ said Renford to Mariner, more than a little sheepishly. ‘We’d been keeping an eye on Greg Easton. We knew he was in trouble, and that he was meeting someone, but we had no idea it was his brother-in-law. I got there and saw the same thing you did, but once you guys turned up I had to get going. I couldn’t risk being arrested.’
‘Were you at my house, too?’ Mariner asked, frowning.
‘Yeah, that was totally unplanned. Mum had a turn and she called me.’
‘A turn?’
‘She gets angina attacks from time to time.’
‘What? She didn’t tell me that.’ Mariner was horrified.
But Carlton was relaxed about it. ‘It’s cool,’ he said. ‘She’s on medication, so most of the time she’s good, but now and again she forgets to take her tablet.’
‘So why have you been pulled?’ asked Mariner, backtracking several seconds. ‘Is Athena over?’ If it was, it might mean getting Tony Knox back, though after this little performance, he wasn’t sure if it would be a good thing or not.
‘Not all of it,’ said Knox, putting a pint of lager down in front of Renford, before sitting back down. ‘But we made an important arrest this afternoon.’
Mariner saw him exchange a look with Vicky, in which she seemed to nod approval. This was becoming more surreal by the minute, making Mariner wonder if it was all a dream.
‘Who?’ said Millie, impatiently.
‘They’ve got the man who killed Brian.’ Vicky said it so softly Mariner thought he must have misheard.
‘Your Brian?’ he said. ‘Brian Riddell?’
She responded with a nod.
‘We picked him up this afternoon,’ said Knox. ‘And for that we can thank Charlie Glover.’
‘Jesus,’ said Mariner picking up his pint. ‘Now I am confused.’
‘Does the name Mark Kent mean anything?’ Knox asked.
It did, but it took a couple of seconds to come back to Mariner. Meanwhile Charlie got there first. ‘He’s the guy I talked to at Sceptre Betting, who kicked off at the Belvedere,’ he said. ‘It was him?’
‘Not exactly,’ said Knox. ‘But do you remember asking him to voluntarily provide DNA?’
‘Of course,’ said Charlie, and Mariner took some comfort from his expression of utter incomprehension.
‘Well,’ said Knox, enjoying the drama of the story. ‘Amazingly the moron complied, and his swab proved beyond doubt that he was not your washerwoman, or the man who attacked Chelsey Skoyles. In fact, it’s pretty unlikely that he would have attacked Chelsey anyway, since he’s actually her cousin. But what it did prove was that he was at the scene of Brian Riddell’s shooting. The lump of chewing gum left there was his. And this afternoon we arrested his older brother, Stephen, on suspicion of murder.’
‘Shit,’ said Mariner. For several seconds it was all he could muster. ‘Well done, Charlie.’ He looked across at Jesson, who seemed remarkably composed. ‘And Vicky, I’m glad for you.’ He raised his glass to her and they all followed suit. Mariner saw Vicky mouth ‘thank you’ to Charlie and Tony.
‘And now,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘I’m sorry to break up the party, but I have children at home who are beginning to get used to seeing their mum again.’
Mariner walked her out to her car. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked. ‘It’s obvious they’d already told you, but still, it must take some getting used to.’
‘Yes,’ said Vicky. ‘And Tony was very kind in there.’ She nodded towards the pub. ‘He left out one important aspect.’
‘Motive,’ said Mariner.
‘Motive,’ she repeated. ‘Do you remember in the Country Girl, when Charlie claimed he couldn’t remember who’d led the investigation into Chelsey Skoyles’ attack?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ said Mariner. ‘It was unlike him.’
‘Charlie hadn’t forgotten,’ said Vicky. ‘He just didn’t want to say.’
By now Mariner had guessed. ‘The investigating officer was Brian,’ he said. He worked through the logic of it. ‘So Brian was shot because he didn’t take the attack on Chelsey seriously.’
‘Brian’s line was that she was a slapper who was asking for it,’ said Vicky. ‘And not surprisingly, her cousins, the Kent brothers, took offence. Quite strongly as it turned out.’
‘I’m so sorry, Vicky.’ Mariner put a hand on her arm. He didn’t know what else to say.
‘It’s fine,’ she said, and she sounded fine. ‘I knew more than anyone what kind of man Brian was. You must have wondered at the time why I didn’t want to go to Lea Green.’
‘It was unexpected,’ Mariner admitted.
‘Brian had been having an on/off affair with a sergeant from there for years and at the time he died, it was very much on. I couldn’t face her.’ Her smile was sad. ‘It would be nice to think that Brian took a bullet for his partner, but really Stevie Kent was just a good shot. Some policemen might be heroes; it doesn’t mean they all are.’ Mariner held open the car door for her and she climbed in. ‘I’ll see you in the morning boss.’
EPILOGUE
On a sunny Spring Saturday, Suzy came to Birmingham and Mariner drove them down to a country hotel in Aylesbury in Oxfordshire. After checking in, Mariner took their bags up to the room. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘You’ll be OK here for a while?’
Suzy held up a weighty academic tome. ‘There must be a residents’ lounge,’ she said. ‘I’ll be fine.’
Leaving her there, Mariner continued on to the nearby Stoke Mandeville hospital. He was shown into a sun lounge with French windows looking out on to expansive lawns dotted with clumps of daffodils, rippling in the breeze. After a few minutes, the automatic door swung open and a young man wheeled himself into the room, accompanied by a nurse in uniform. His legs ended at mid-thigh and across them rested a child’s scrapbook. An ill-disguised catheter bag hung from the back of the wheelchair. Mariner walked across to shake his hand. ‘Private Lomax?’ he said. ‘DCI Tom Mariner.’
