DEAD AIR (Henry & Sparrow Book 2)

by A D FOX

  She peeled off the gloves and shoved them on top of the other litter. Then she slid the bagged tin into her satchel, breathed out slowly, and walked back to the city centre.

  This is evidence, Kate. So you’re going to take it straight back to the station, aren’t you?

  ‘Yes,’ she told herself. ‘Of course I am.’

  Because the last time you messed around with evidence you nearly got suspended, remember?

  ‘True, but I also probably saved my own life with that action.’

  Oh for fuck’s sake! You’re not REALLY thinking of taking this to Lucas, are you? SERIOUSLY?

  Kate shook her head, as if her other self was walking along next to her, staring her down. She hadn’t decided. What did the tin tell them, anyway, even if Finley’s DNA was all over it and the baked goods inside? He would happily admit to leaving that tin for Josh to find, she was sure. Her interview with him earlier had revealed that any number of the Warner family M&S biscuit tins could be lying around the BBC Radio Wessex premises. Finding one alongside Sheila’s body didn’t mean Finley had carried it up there, killed her, and then left it as some kind of bizarre calling card.

  And she, amid all the other questions, had actually forgotten to ask about the tin left outside the gate for Josh to find. Now that she had it, she could show it to Finley in a second interview, tomorrow, along with the one found on the roof - see if the tins triggered any response.

  Or you could take this one to Lucas.

  Hmm. She couldn’t help thinking it. Lucas might be able to pick up something straight away from this tin. Better still… both tins. Did she dare go back to the station and collect the other one?

  Kate - stop it. You’re not thinking straight. Go home, get some supper, get some sleep. Talk to Kapoor about this in the morning and ask for permission to show both tins to Lucas Henry before you bring Finley back in.

  It was definitely the most sensible course of action and she would definitely have done it.

  If only she hadn’t then turned a dark corner and walked straight into Lucas Henry.

  20

  Lucas had finished a leisurely dinner with Mariam and then walked her to her car, giving her a warm peck on the cheek before heading off along the side street to find his motorbike.

  ‘Look, dear one,’ she had said, pausing as she unlocked her Beetle. ‘This thing with Kate Sparrow isn’t going to go away. You might as well take my advice and talk to her. Get it all out in the open.’

  He hadn’t argued. He hadn’t agreed either. His policy, for many years now, had been simply to go with the flow. If their paths crossed again; if the patterns led him back to her… well, then he might think about it. Might see it as a sign. And they would meet again, of course. The inquest for the Runner Grabber case was only three weeks away; he and Kate would be in the same court room. They would have to see each other. He felt jangly at the thought. Good jangly? Bad jangly? As ever, where Kate was concerned, it was both. Sid buzzed with anxious static just at the thought of her. Jangly, yeah.

  Twenty seconds later he rounded the corner into the poorly-lit side street where he’d left the Triumph, and jangly suddenly peaked as he smacked straight into Kate Sparrow.

  She gave a shout and raised her arms in an instinctive martial arts defence pose and then, a second later, did a kind of shocked cough, and stepped back, peering up at him, open-mouthed. Her scruffy ponytail fluttered in a sudden breeze and her wide eyes glittered. ‘What the flying fuck?’ she murmured.

  ‘Well, yes, nice to see you too,’ he responded.

  ‘I was just… I…’ She shook her head and blinked. ‘Lucas… have you been following me?’

  He looked past her shoulder and then back over his own, raising both palms. ‘Um… is it possible to follow someone by walking directly at them?’

  She shook her head and wiped a hand down over her eyes. ‘Sorry. I’m just… really tired. And a bit spooked. I was just thinking about you and then - bang!’

  He screwed up his face. ‘Not sure whether I should be charmed or scared. When you start thinking about me, shit usually hits the fan not long after.’

  ‘Oh, shit’s been hitting the fan pretty much non-stop for the past thirty-six hours,’ she said, leaning against a Pay & Display machine and hugging her satchel to her chest.

  ‘Any leads on Dave Perry?’ he asked, suddenly wondering about the vibrations from that satchel.

  ‘It’s not just Dave Perry now,’ she said. ‘There’s been another one.’

  ‘Another one?’ he echoed. ‘Shit. Is Wiltshire the serial killer’s county of choice now?’

  She closed her eyes wearily. ‘Feels like it today.’

  ‘Who else?’ he asked.

  Kate opened her eyes and regarded him for a moment, gnawing on her lower lip. ‘I shouldn’t say, but… it’s bound to get out soon anyway. It’s Sheila Bartley.’

  He put his hands to his mouth, genuinely shocked. ‘Seriously? No! My aunt loved Sheila. She met her quite a few times. Jeezuz. What happened to her?’

  ‘Much the same as happened to Dave Perry,’ said Kate. ‘But on the antennae on top of the radio station this time. Gaffer-taped up again. Mic sock in the airways.’

  Lucas felt genuinely appalled and quite personally affronted. Sheila was someone from his youth; a benign and comforting presence on the radio on days when his mum could tolerate the noise. Those were the good days. He had always associated Sheila Bartley with warmth and stability. ‘Who would do something like that?’ he muttered.

  ‘Funny you should ask,’ said Kate. She gulped and looked around.

  ‘There’s nobody here,’ he said, not needing to check. ‘So you might as well relax your death grip on that satchel and show me what’s inside it.’

  ‘It’s evidence,’ she said. ‘Probably useless evidence, but still something I felt compelled to burrow into a bin for.’ She opened the satchel and produced the source of some very interesting patterns that had been winding through his mind for the past couple of minutes. Inside a plastic bag he could see the red tartan and stag’s antlers of a Marks and Spencer’s shortbread tin.

  ‘I think this-’

  ‘Sshh, don’t tell me,’ he said. ‘Wait.’

  He put out a hand and rested his fingertips on the tin. As soon as the connection was made he felt a belt of shock which made him suck in his breath and blink. She was watching him carefully. ‘Are you getting something?’ she asked.

  He stepped away and pressed his hand to his chest, flattening Sid against his skin beneath his jumper to ease down the prickles and stings that were chasing around his ribcage like static. He shouldn’t know this. It made no sense. He had seen the body but he had not touched it. He had stayed well clear of the crime scene. All he had done was report it - he was not involved.

  Even so.

  ’Whoever held that tin,’ he said, ‘also gaffer-taped up Dave Perry’s face.’

  21

  Josh Carnegy was pissed off. Dave Perry was dead. It was a shocker, but nobody had liked him much. True, the guy had been a bit of a legend and very good at what he did. Josh had grown up listening to him. It would be hard for everyone to fully accept that The Voice of Wessex was now permanently silenced. And in such a macabre way.

  But he was more pissed off than freaked out. Larkhill had dropped boulder-sized hints over the last few months that he had him in mind for breakfast. Josh had done his time on the overnight shift, charming all the oldies, the cabbies and the truckers and having next to no social life - and he really deserved this. But recently he’d begun to think he’d be stuck in the midnight shift for another decade - maybe two. Because Dave fucking Perry had become too much of a personality and he wasn’t leaving the hot seat unless someone killed him and dragged him off it.

  So now someone had killed him. He was gone. And who did Larkhill get to step in? Fucking Sheila Bartley! It was beyond belief. After all he’d done. He’d cornered Rob by the staff coffee machine after he’d spoken to the police t
hat afternoon, and demanded to know why.

  ‘It’s just temporary,’ the manager had told him, shoving coins into the slot and not meeting his eye. ‘At a time like this a familiar voice… a safe pair of hands… it’s what the listener wants.’

  Josh would have said more, but then Gemma had been marched past them by two of the coppers, looking pale and shocked. She’d texted him later, to say she’d been released and something about a text from her phone being sent to Dave Perry on Friday night… a text she knew nothing about. He felt bad for Gemma. He knew her from their old hospital radio days and they sometimes swapped texts or calls. She had been saying for weeks how she would love him to get breakfast. She hated working with Dave Perry.

  Josh walked through the dark towards SBH, still seething. To top it all, Larkhill had taken him off air tonight. Just like that! He’d phoned to say he didn’t want Josh to have to handle all the Dave Perry fallout when he was alone on air - and so the station frequency had just opted over to the English Regions feed and some banal overnight guy based up in Manchester. Josh knew his fans would be furious. For a moment there, though, he’d thought Rob was going to add that he would need a good night’s sleep because he was going to come in and do breakfast. At last.

  But NO. Such. Fucking. Luck.

  ‘Josh - your time will come, I promise,’ Rob had said. ‘But not like this. It wouldn’t be good for your brand, showing up in the middle of all this hysteria. Trust me. We’ll talk about it when everything’s settled down.’

  Yeah. Right. He knew he should have stayed at home but he was charged up and fizzing with the injustice of it all and Rob had given the impression he might be pulling an all-nighter at SBH so… he might as well drop in and keep the boss company. Be useful. Get him talking. Cement his position. He’d put way too much work in to let this slip away now.

  He reached the building and was surprised to see all the flowers and cards had disappeared from the front steps. Hmm. The listeners wouldn’t like that. He guessed it might be the police, trawling for clues. As if the killer would be dumb enough to show up with a bunch of evidence tied up in a ribbon or written in a card.

  He took the side road to the back gate, pulling his ID out of his jeans pocket and dragging its elastic out of the yo-yo clip so he could buzz in. The sensor beeped and flashed green in response and the tall iron gate clunked as the electronic lock disengaged for three seconds. He pushed it and entered the car park. The lighting was very low and he found himself shivering involuntarily, as if someone was crouching in it, watching him. Ghosts, maybe. There ought to be a few around here.

  Then there was a thud and a metallic rumble. Instinctively he pressed himself back into the dark alcove of the staff doorway, watching from the shadows as the heavy duty security shutter across the garage began to rise. A thin strip of light began to grow fatter across the tarmac as the garage revealed itself. The two VERVs were parked inside it, along with a couple of BBC Radio Wessex liveried pool cars, still and dark. But at the far end, the old radio car was starting to move, pulling out of the dock, its headlights sweeping across the far brick wall and arcing around.

  What the hell? It was gone eleven. Who would be going out to do an OB at this hour? Maybe it was Malc, driving his beloved broadcasting antique home for some engineer’s TLC.

  But as the car swung out and past him, still pressed, invisible, into the alcove, he could see it wasn’t Malc in the driving seat.

  Josh gaped and felt chills sweep over him.

  What the actual FUCK?

  22

  Kate left Salisbury Police Station with a large bump under her jacket; as if she’d been suddenly and speedily impregnated by an alien. The motorbike helmet she was hiding had been borrowed from Traffic. It wasn’t a bad fit and she didn’t think anyone would notice it was gone. It had been up on a shelf in there for months, gathering dust.

  Lucas was sitting astride the Triumph in a side lane a minute’s walk away, waiting for her to climb on and ride pillion with him. She had tried to get him to travel in the Honda with her, but he’d been adamant.

  ‘No. Not a chance. One - I’m not getting into another police vehicle unless I’m tasered into it.’ He’d shot her a dark look and she’d smiled guiltily - his recent adventures with tasers had been partly down to her. ‘And two - the bike is going to be much better. We’ll be going off road.’

  ‘How can you possibly know that?’ she’d said.

  He touched his chest and his head and shrugged. ‘I just do. So get on the back.’ He’d indicated the motorbike, parked just behind her.

  ‘I’ve got no helmet,’ she’d protested.

  ‘Live a little.’

  ‘No - we’re way more likely to get stopped if one of my colleagues spots me without a helmet on!’

  He conceded it was a fair point, so she’d left him to bring the bike to an agreed rendezvous and made her way back to the station to get that helmet. She was mightily relieved that she hadn’t encountered anyone else after slipping in through the staff entrance around the side.

  She rested the helmet on the back of the long leather seat and pulled her hair out of its scruffy, drooping ponytail. Let loose, it allowed for a better fit. She put on the black protective shell, clipping it under her chin. She was happy it was a nondescript civvy helmet and not a police one which would flare up like a beacon in passing headlights.

  ‘It’s a good look on you,’ said Lucas, raising his eyebrows. Taking the piss. ‘If you keep your bag tight between your front and my back, it’ll help. I’ll be in contact with the tin that way, more or less, while we’re riding.’

  She nodded and did as he suggested, getting astride the seat behind him. She was glad of the barrier between them; having to wrap her arms around his waist was quite intimate enough without pressing her chest and belly up against his spine. He glanced back at her, through his lowered visor, to check she was ready. She tucked her feet up on the rests and held up one thumb and then the engine throttled up and they moved, sedately, away. It wasn’t like they’d roared off into the night like a scene from Easy Rider, but she still felt a tremendous surge of excitement as they picked up speed through the darkened streets. She had no idea where Lucas was taking her and a large part of her was scared. Really scared. Because she strongly suspected she was going to be meeting a killer this night.

  Assuming she hadn’t already met one.

  Lucas was in a state of extreme flux. The dark frequencies emanating from that tin reached out into the night, tracing down through Sid in a strong silken thread, diffusing through his chest and then shooting out somewhere around his solar plexus to throw surging tendrils and arrows across their route. It was hard to simply describe it as a mind-map - this kind of navigation seemed to suffuse his entire being. He was being guided to the west of the city and out into the countryside. Had he been alone it would have been intense enough. He would have zoned completely into the dowsing state and followed his instincts without too much analysis. Not thinking too hard was often the key to the most efficient dowsing.

  But wrapping her hands around his waist was DS Kate Sparrow and that threw a whole load of conflicts across his dowsing state. He should probably have left her behind and gone alone… but there was no way she was going to hand that tin over to him if she wasn’t coming along too. He supposed he should be glad she hadn’t radioed for back up and brought the whole cavalry along with her. She was bending the rules again - which must mean she had some level of trust for him. Maybe he was wrong in his suspicion about her suspicion about him..?

  Stop it. Focus.

  Sid was right. More important matters were at hand. Because as well as a strong essence of the person he was increasingly certain had killed two BBC presenters, Lucas was picking up a quickening dread that more death was coming. The last time this had happened, he’d been proven spectacularly right, as the woman riding pillion with him could testify.

  The energies weaving through him and plunging ahead into the dark November ni
ght had more dimensions than he could explain, one of them being time. Sometimes they could reach their probing fingers backwards for years or even decades… and sometimes they reached out and brushed the near future, warning him that time was not on his side…

  23

  Finley could not believe his luck. He had dreamed about this moment for years, ever since he’d first shown up at the Wiltshire Show with Mum and Dad when he was nine. It had been a sunny August day and the show was full of farm animals and fairground rides. There were exhibitions of dog agility, falconry and even some scaled-down Motocross in one of the penned fields.

  There were marquees full of arts and crafts and food; cheeses and honey and home baking. You could bring your pet along and enter it into the Best Pet competition and he’d brought his guinea pig, Gloria, in a travel cage. The smell of the hot grass and straw, the canvas and the candy floss, he remembered it still.

  But his most golden memory was the moment they encountered the BBC Radio Wessex outside broadcast unit - a caravan with open sides revealing walls hung with poster sized images of the station and its presenters. And, on its burgundy carpeted floor, a desk at which two real life presenters sat, with big headphones on and microphones, clad in grey spongey windsocks, positioned in front of them. To one side of this mobile studio sat the radio car, its mast reaching up high above the crowd that had gathered there to put the faces to the voices they were all so familiar with.