Chapter 4
Running along parallel to the industrial estate, the only sounds Stefan could hear were the wind, the sound of his own breathing and the occasional swoosh of cars as they passed him, their beams lighting up the path in front of him. After the third car passed him, stirring up a flurry of slush and drenched his thin trackie bottoms in the process, Stefan realized he was too visible on the main road. He should have stuck to the periphery of the estate where shadows and bushes offered some cover from any would-be pursuers. He’d just changed direction to head back into the estate via a gap in some bushes when he heard the sound of a larger vehicle approaching. The hairs on the back of his neck sprung up and he dived flat onto his belly. He had no idea if they were after him or not yet, but he couldn’t help feeling on edge. From his prone position on the grass he eyed the van as it neared. It was a white transit and it was driving more slowly than the weather conditions necessitated. Stefan held his breath, praying they wouldn’t see him and, when they continued past the spot where he lay, he exhaled slowly. He was sure it was Bullet and he was equally sure he was looking for him, so it was just as well he’d decided to head back into the estate. How the hell had they been alerted to his absence so quickly? Then he puzzled it out. One of the men he worked beside, slept beside, was a snitch.
He’d just decided that he could risk moving when he heard the sound of a vehicle revving up and sure enough the white transit was revving backwards. In a panic, Stefan crawled over to the gap in the bushes and slid through. He’d just re-entered the estate when he heard the van doors open, followed by frenetic barking and Bullet’s guttural tone breaking through the night.
‘Go get him, boys.’
Shit, they’d brought the bloody dogs. Legs pounding, Stefan tore between buildings looking for some way to escape, the barks and growls growing nearer as he ran. Finally, he saw a huge industrial bin and, wondering if he was sealing his fate, but having no other choice, he pulled himself up, slid the rolling lid back and dropped in on top of a pile of cardboard boxes. After closing the lid, he burrowed to the bottom of the bin, covering himself with layers of cardboard and once more prayed the dogs would lose his scent.
Sounds from outside were muffled and it was difficult to decide if his pursuers were coming any closer or not. He could hear barking and yelling, but it was distorted. The heat generated by the cardboard warmed Stefan up slowly and he began to think that his safest bet was to remain here till the dead of night and then make another bid for freedom. He could catch some sleep and he’d be dry and warm. He smiled. The mere thought of not having to move for a few hours, not having to listen to other peoples’ bodily functions, not having to smell the great unwashed, was like a gift to him. He sighed, reassured by the silence that had descended outside.
A sharp rat-a-tat-tat somewhere near his head shattered his reassurance. Someone was out there banging on the side of the bin. Stefan held his breath and his body stiffened. Maybe it was one of the workers out for a smoke. He strained his ears. He couldn’t hear anything else – no dogs, no voices. Maybe whoever it was had gone.
Then it came – a coarse singsong whisper penetrating the plastic bin – taunting and at the same time chilling him. ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are.’
This was followed by ferocious yelping and Stefan knew the game was up. The lid was thrown back and a bright torch shone into the inside. In a last-ditch attempt, Stefan remained still and silent, but it was no good. Whoever shone the torch followed that by pushing a long prod through the layers of cardboard. When it connected with his body, Stefan braced himself not to react, then the electric current from the Taser had him yelping in pain as his entire body shook for a moment and then became numb. Seconds later, two of Bullet’s henchmen dragged him from the bin and flung him in a heap on the wet ground. The dogs salivating and over-excited pranced and jumped close to him, taking the odd nipping bite before they were yanked back by their owners.
‘Oh dear. This makes me very sad, you know. It also makes my boss very sad.’ Bullet tilted his head to one side and laughed. ‘Actually, it doesn’t make him sad so much as angry.’
He waved his phone in the air. ‘He told me to hit you where it hurts and boy, am I going to enjoy doing that.’ He gestured to his thugs who dragged Stefan, feet trailing through the deserted industrial estate to where the transit van waited. As they flung him in and slammed the door shut, Stefan was glad that he was the only one to be punished. He couldn’t bear it if Maria had to suffer any more at the hands of these brutes.
Chapter 5
It had taken Xavier over an hour to drive to the old farmhouse in the middle of the moors and it was only courtesy of his police scanner that he’d been able to avoid the patrol cars and the crime scene itself. He took a moment to get in character. His code name, Xavier, made him feel quite sophisticated. Xavier in the X-Men was a visionary … an intellectual … a leader – all the qualities he himself rated highly. He allowed himself a grin as he acknowledged that his aims were more in line with Magneto’s than Xavier’s. It amused him to subvert the idea of a superhero; after all, heroes were all in the eyes of their beholders, weren’t they?
Looking through the windscreen at the snow-covered yard, Xavier’s good humour dissipated a little. The weekend had started off fine … in fact, until this morning, it had been great. The Community Liaison Conference had been amusing. He’d been asked to speak at the session on modern-day slavery and that had given him a buzz. All those people from social services, policing, education, local government, politicians and the like hanging onto his every word. Then there was his down time … that had been satisfying, or rather she’d been satisfying.
When the phone call came, his rage had clouded his mind for a moment. Bloody Stefan Marcovici! Xavier made a point of not knowing their names – too bloody many of them to remember anyway – but Stefan Marcovici had become a risk to the entire operation and so Xavier had to sanction drastic action. That in itself didn’t bother him. No, what bothered him was that he’d not been there to witness it, but Cyclops, his right-hand man was right. Bullet and his cronies could deal with it. In fact, they’d enjoy it. Besides which, he needed to distance himself from this and just as well, because now he had these two fools and their mess to deal with and that was on top of the existing problem of Adam Glass’s betrayal. Seemed like trouble did come in threes, but by the end of the night his minions would have cleaned it all up and it would be back to business as usual.
The one sensible thing the idiots had managed since picking up the bint who was following them, was to get as far away from the scene as possible and head for safe house number two. Why they’d shot her, he didn’t know, and why they’d decided it was best to throw her in the back of the van and cart her here was beyond him. That’s what comes when you have to rely on lowlifes. He inhaled deeply and took a moment, releasing his breath slowly.
Now that he’d switched off his headlights, the only light source was the moon and the few stars visible between the snow-heavy clouds. It was like some dystopian wilderness and that was just what he wanted; silence with no nosey parkers around to meddle.
No sign of the van, so they must have hidden it in one of the outbuildings. Smart move. Not that there were many passers-by, but best to be safe. They’d done well, he supposed, to black-out the windows. No light escaped from the sides and the gas heaters they’d transported up weeks ago negated the need for an open fire and the subsequent telltale smoke. To the casual eye, the building and outbuildings looked deserted, just as they should. He’d chosen this old house because of its location. Far enough from the touristy moorland walks, yet not so far that he couldn’t have the goods transported to anywhere in the district in record time. His men had been trained to be on the lookout for over-curious nosey parkers and as per his instructions, none of his deserted properties were used to store his assets for more than a few weeks at a time.
He employed a random rotation model that had served him well: neither his rivals nor the authorities had shown any interest in his doings so far. He smiled. Even if they had, he was so far removed from the dirty end of things that nothing could be traced back to him. Even the goons inside were unaware of his true identity and that was the way he intended to keep it. What was it they called it? Plausible deniability?
Before exiting his ‘borrowed’ vehicle, he got his game face on. Well, actually it was a balaclava, but it served the same purpose. He wasn’t exactly pissed off by what had happened today. Other than a minor inconvenience for himself and the waste of a Sunday afternoon that could have been better spent screwing his mistress, it was mere irritation, but combined with the other stuff, it niggled. Not because he personally felt under threat – he was secure in the knowledge that nothing could end up at his doorstep – but because he hated incompetence, hated needless complications. In his experience, complications left to their own devices could unravel and that’s why he’d elected to come here himself. If he couldn’t deal with Marcovici, he could deal with this cock-up … make sure it was tied up with no loose threads.
However, he had a role to play and play it he must. The fact that he enjoyed taking on a bullying persona was just an added bonus. He stepped out of the vehicle into a couple of inches of snow, glad that he’d changed his clothes before heading off here. Even without the snow, none of his premises were what you’d call muck-free and as he found himself up to his ankles in mucky slush, he grimaced before heading to the door and rapping three times.
The door opened a crack to reveal a wide-eyed Danny Boy. Immediately the door opened all the way to allow him access. ‘Hi, boss.’
The lad’s tone was high pitched and the way his pistol shook, despite being pointed at the ground, betrayed his nervousness. The X-Man smiled. It was always good to keep them on edge. No point in letting them get complacent. They needed to know exactly who was boss. He grunted and brushed past the lad making his way into the dimly lit living room where Danny Boy’s brother, Jason was huddled on a rickety wooden chair in front of the heater. Jason jumped to his feet as soon as the door opened, casting a nervous glance at his brother.
The two of them were fairly new recruits and this was their first solo job. The fact that it had gone so awry was clearly making them antsy and Xavier intended to capitalize on that. ‘Tell me!’
As Xavier grabbed the chair, whipped it round and straddled it backwards, Danny shuffled over next to his brother. ‘We picked up the package like we were supposed to and were heading to the safe house to await further instructions. Then Jase noticed we were being followed, like. She kept coming up close and then lagging behind and then right up close again. She were on her phone and …’
‘You panicked?’
Relief flooded Jason’s face as he nodded.
Keeping his tone conversational, Xavier inclined his head slightly to one side. ‘And do I pay you to panic?’
Again, the boys exchanged worried glances and Xavier had to swallow a chuckle. This was such fun. He hardened his tone. ‘Then what happened?’
Words splurged out of Jason’s mouth like diarrhoea in a shithouse. ‘We braked really hard and she rammed into the back of us and Danny got out of the van and shot her. But she wun’t dead and then we saw that the package had punched out the back light.’ He gulped in a breath before continuing. ‘And so we shoved her in the back with him and kicked him a few times till he conked out. Then we came here instead of the first safe house.’
‘Why did you do that?’ Xavier jumped to his feet, his body full of bristling anger as he paced the room, nervous energy zapping off him like thunderbolts as he moved. The two idiots in front of him had no idea what to tell him … no idea at all. That’s what happened when you relied on inexperienced yokels. They made mistakes and then had no idea how to rectify them, so instead they compounded them.
‘What possessed you to bring her with you?’
Danny Boy bit his lip, like a 2-year-old. ‘Thought she might talk otherwise? Thought it best to keep her close, like.’
Give me strength. ‘And who is she?’
This time the colour drained from Danny’s face and Xavier thought he was going to be sick, so he looked at Jason. ‘Well?’
Jason blinked. ‘Dunno.’
Lowering his voice till it was barely a whisper, Xavier, punctuated each word with a pause. ‘You … don’t … know?’
Both men shook their heads and Xavier jumped to his feet, sending the chair toppling across the floor and began pacing. They’d had one simple transportation job to do. Not rocket science, not complex, not requiring more than a half-functioning brain and yet still they’d messed up. Messed up big time. Okay, so it wasn’t disastrous, but they didn’t know that. They had to be taught a lesson. Mistakes could be fatal and they needed to learn not to make any more. He stopped pacing and spun round to glare at them. The younger one backed up a step, glancing at his brother, looking for guidance.
‘It’s stupidity that gets us into this sort of mess. Things have been under the wire and I’d intended to keep it that way until we had full control. Now you imbeciles have scuppered that. Now we have to react and if there’s one thing I hate doing it’s reacting. Reacting implies a lack of control. Reacting adds variables over which we have no control.’
He glared at the vacant looks on the boys’ faces. Before this day was over, they would no longer be reacting, they would have learned their lesson … the hard way.
Xavier kicked the toppled chair and it crashed against the wall, making the brothers jump. ‘Take me to them.’
It was almost comical the way they scampered to the door, in their willingness to please. ‘They’re in the van in the barn.’
Xavier smiled. He’d already decided that they needed to dispose of Glass, after all it was his stupidity in trying to escape that had landed them here in the first place. Now that they’d got the bank account codes off him there was no need to keep him alive. How he’d had the gall to syphon money from his deals, Xavier couldn’t understand. The idiot would pay dearly for trying to cheat him, but perhaps nature would have done its job and the cheat may have frozen to death. That still left the problem of the woman … but hell … they’d just have to dump the bodies separately.
Using torches, the three men made their way through a fine drizzle of rain to the ramshackle old barn. Xavier was pleased to see that despite the isolated location, they’d still padlocked the doors shut. Maybe they weren’t quite as useless as he’d first thought. Perhaps he’d give them the benefit of the doubt this time. After all, he, Xavier, was nothing if not merciful and help was hard to come by these days.
Danny Boy opened the back door and Xavier jumped up. His torch danced over the male body sprawled near to the door.
‘What you waiting for? Get the fuck up here. Find out if he’s still with us. Then get the body disposed of. Get a move on.’
Jason jumped up. ‘Yes, boss.’
‘He dead?’ Xavier’s tone was hopeful.
Jason went over and held two fingers on the man’s neck, before looking up at his boss, shaking his head. ‘Nope, still alive.’
Ah well, that wouldn’t last. Xavier turned to the other figure, his torch dancing over her face taking in her blood-soaked coat and blouse, the paleness of her face. Shit! It’s her! Would you fucking believe it? ‘She’s a pig, you idiots.’
Jason placed his fingers on her neck, then looked up, all colour wiped from his face. ‘Aw crap, boss. She’s a dead pig.’
Dumping the body of a lowlife was one thing but killing a police officer and then disposing of her was another. Xavier didn’t feel quite as generous towards his two goons, now that he saw the extent of the mess they’d created. But he had more to worry about … much more. He couldn’t be sure that there was no forensic link back to him. The last thing he needed was to be drawn into the investigation of a murdered police officer and held up to any sort of public scrutiny. Not when he had a family and a legitimate job as well as his other sidelines to consider. ‘You got a spot in mind?’
‘Leave that to me and Jase. We’ve got the dump spot all sorted, like. We won’t let you down. Not again.’
‘They both need to be disposed of. But separately. She needs to be dumped where she won’t be found for months – the middle of the moors or somewhere. And him …’ Xavier kicked the prone man. ‘Finish him. And make sure you use the usual forensic measures – yeah?’
‘Eh?’ Jason looked puzzled, but his brother nudged him and said, ‘Bleach, ya tosser. Bleach.’
‘Okay, I’m counting on you. Get on with it.’
Chapter 6
By the time Nikki, with the help of the young police officer, had coaxed her Vauxhall Zafira back to life at the crime scene and managed to set off back to Trafalgar House, it was getting dark and although the snow had stopped, the clouds still looked heavy with the promise of more to come. In truth, whilst the young lad had got out the jump leads Nikki always kept in her boot for such emergencies, and managed to manoeuvre a patrol car into position that allowed the leads to reach both vehicles, Nikki was on the phone barking instructions to the officer Archie had commandeered to oversee things till Nikki and Sajid got back. She was more than capable of jump-starting her car. She’d had to do it on numerous occasions recently and was now seriously considering bumping the purchase of a new car battery higher up her priority shopping list than new DMs for herself. Damn car! Her hands were freezing, her toes were numb, and she was better employed sitting in her marginally warmer car organizing things than fannying about in the slush getting colder. Besides, as her car engine sputtered to life, the officer, unlike herself, was dressed for the weather. She gave him a thumbs-up as she backed down the narrow lane, and stopping when she drew level with him, she wound down her window. ‘Remember, no telling DC Malik about this, okay?’
As the grinning officer shook his head, Nikki frowned. ‘In fact, no telling anybody, yeah?’
‘Lips are sealed, Detective, lips are sealed.’
Satisfied, Nikki nodded put her window back up and, wishing that her vehicle would choose today to spontaneously burst heat from its contrary fan, set off.
By the time she reached the station, the promised snow had started again and Nikki was glad she’d missed driving in it. Entering the Trafalgar House car park, she was pleased to note the absence of the media. Last thing they needed was this leaking before they had a chance to speak to Springer’s next of kin. She ran up the steps to the officers’ entrance at the back of the station and jogged up to the incident room, bursting through the door, causing it to bang against the wall and rebound back almost hitting her in the face. Dodging it, she moved into the room and cast her eyes round. Apart from Sajid, a couple of uniformed officers momentarily looked up from their computers at her entrance. Otherwise the room was deserted. Everybody else was either at home or out following up the limited leads they had on Springer.
‘Ah, you’re back.’ Sajid, alerted by her dramatic entrance, turned around from the crime board he was creating. At the top he’d scrawled, ‘DS Felicity Springer’ and underneath ‘Abducted/Missing?’ ‘Was beginning to wonder if that chunk of metal you call a car had finally given up on you.’
Hoping that the officer who’d helped her would keep his side of the bargain, Nikki tutted. ‘Oh, ye of little faith. Course it didn’t let me down. Pure gold, that car.’
Ignoring Sajid’s disbelieving snort, she bent down, undid her DMs and peeled off her sodden socks before swiping a discarded newspaper from one of the cluttered desks. Scrunching it up, she stuffed pages of it into her boots and then placed them and her socks onto the heater.
‘Fire risk.’
Nikki raised her middle finger at her colleague and glanced round. ‘Archie?’
Sajid tilted his head towards Archie’s office. ‘In there.’
Nikki began to march towards it, but Sajid’s next words stopped her in her tracks. ‘Wouldn’t go in. He’s not alone and he’s not a happy bunny.’
‘Oh? Who’s he with?’
‘The big boss.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Something’s going on, Nik and whatever it is, it’s serious. You should’ve seen Archie. I thought he was going to explode.’
Nikki looked at the blinds that now obscured whatever was going on inside the room. That was strange in itself. Archie rarely lowered the blinds, preferring an open-door policy, or, as Nikki suspected, he really liked to keep an eye on what was going on in the office. Archie had been acting strangely all day. Agitated and off-kilter. Then, of course, there was that really strange and secretive request he’d made. Now he was ensconced in his office with the big boss, blinds closed. Detective Chief Superintendent Eva Clark was pretty much a hands-off boss. If she wanted to see Archie, she’d normally request his presence upstairs in her office, so what had prompted her to come down here? What the hell’s going on? ‘How long they been in there?’
‘She arrived just as I got back.’
Nikki exhaled and then walked over to stand beside Saj. ‘Okay, let’s deal with the Archie situation later. We need to focus on Springer. Did we get some officers sent over to interview the hotel staff? We can’t rule out that it may have been a planned and targeted attack.’
‘Yep, I asked them to grab any CCTV footage they could, just to be sure. Everything from Friday afternoon through to ten o’clock this morning, when the conference officially ended.’ Sajid frowned.
Nikki knew her partner well enough to sense his discomfort. ‘Spit it out then.’
‘It’s just, apparently someone else already requested copies of the hotel’s CCTV of the conference.’ He paused. ‘All of it.’
Nikki shrugged. ‘No big deal. As long as we’ve got it, that’s fine. Maybe Archie was on the ball and requested it.’
Saj nodded. ‘Yeah. It was Archie who requested it.’
Nikki nudged his arm. ‘There then. No big mystery.’
‘Well, that’s just it, Nik. Archie made the request at 10.47 a.m.’
As his words sunk in, Nikki exhaled. She pulled out a chair and sank into it. ‘You sure?’
‘Yep. I even phoned the hotel myself to double check.’
‘Shit! What’s going on?’
‘No idea, but it’s damn weird that Archie put in that request almost an hour before we got the call from Springer.’
Nikki agreed. This was strange and if she and Saj were to be able to do their job, Archie needed to start sharing with them. There was something off about all of this and Nikki needed to get to the bottom of it. She cast another impatient glance at Archie’s office and for a second considered barging in then and there and demanding to be told exactly what was going on. Fortunately, good sense prevailed and instead she focused on the task in hand. She’d deal with Archie later. ‘Have we got a copy?’
When Saj nodded she said, ‘Well, let’s at least have a look at Springer leaving the hotel. We can start following her journey from the hotel to when she disappeared.’
They huddled over the computer with the largest screen and Saj fiddled to get the recording to the right spot. ‘She signed out at 9.57 a.m., so here’s the footage of the front entrance and hotel car park from eight-thirty.’
They fast-forwarded the recording, keeping an eye out for any transit vans or anything else that stood out. At one minute to ten, Felicity Springer exited the hotel, pulling a trolley case behind her.
