Blood List

by Ali Carter

  Back in the car he’d headed for the Carpenters Arms for lunch with the girls before he made the trip down town to Kirkdale’s Police Station which was where he was now. Andrew shifted around on a hard plastic chair at the front desk area waiting for Harry to come back in, and wondered just how this sarcastic, sceptic, hard-nosed DCI who saw everything in black and white, was going to react when he handed over a long turquoise dress and dry cleaning ticket. He’d managed to persuade the cleaners to let him keep the original receipt if he signed it – ‘item received’.

  Just then Harry appeared around the corner and walked briskly along the corridor towards him having satisfactorily re-fuelled en-route at Brenda’s Buffet Wagon in Market Square. On reaching Andrew he gestured sharply for him to walk with him to the elevator and they rode to the 4th floor where all those wearing pips on their shoulders had their offices.

  After exiting the lift they walked through a corridor and a couple of sets of double doors before Harry stopped at his own. Now inside, Andrew sat opposite him and Harry slid a white paper bag of barley sugars across the desk. Andrew took one before sliding a larger white paper bag back to the officer. He watched as Longbridge lifted the top edge with his finger. Harry’s eyes widened then glanced back up at Andrew. He pulled the dress partially out of the bag until it was obvious it was going to be full length then sat back and looked at it for a few seconds. Slowly, resignedly, he leaned forward to open a top drawer and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Harry really didn’t want to, but he did it anyway. The turquoise doodling from his chat with Molly three days previously was passed across the desk. After Andrew picked it up, they both sat and looked at each other with a new mutual understanding – for Harry’s part it was a renewed respect of all things ‘mumbo jumbo…’

  Andrew now really needed to get back to the Courier to write up the Sarrandaire crime report – and to check on Jenny. He figured he should also update Stella as well or she’d not be happy at all, and made a mental note to ring her later. With the discovery of the turquoise dress and the fact Harry had started to share some of his thoughts on the case, Andrew could feel the momentum… it felt like a storm was brewing.

  ***

  TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 27TH

  SOMEWHERE ABOVE THE HUDSON RIVER – MANHATTAN ISLAND

  At 45, Ethan James had been a ferry pilot flying light aircraft to customers across the Atlantic for over 15 years. Taking the dangerous Southern route, straight across the ocean, instead of the safer Greenland, Iceland, Faroe Islands and on to the Shetlands off mainland Scotland, was just typical of his nature. That was known as the more sensible cautious Northern route, the one the youngsters started with, just as he’d done himself.

  There had been a few seriously scary trips during the last decade, but then Ethan did tend to live on the edge. A born in the wilds Canadian, he was no stranger to the ‘grizzlier’ side of life, although even he realised he couldn’t carry on with these contracts for much longer, particularly the hazardous Southern crossing.

  This time necessitated flying his own Cessna 208, however, from a private airfield outside Brooklyn, and for a very different reason. As always he’d doubled checked every instrument was spot on, including the crucial GPS, and was exceedingly grateful he’d been able to get the installed ferry can re-fit done in time – to run out of fuel halfway across the pond wasn’t exactly an option. Even so, a 125 litre Turtle Buddy gas pack sat behind him next to a survival kit, the vital ‘bathroom bottle’ on the shelf to his right – and his Provigil safely in his pocket to keep him awake. It was going to be a long flight.

  Now the Hudson was five thousand feet below him, the weather predictions were fair to middling, and he felt good… well, reasonably okay anyway. As he reached forward to check a dial, thoughts turned to Emily Stone and why he was doing this crazy drop for her. He wouldn’t have bothered if it was purely because she’d caught him in a clinch with his sister-in-law Jodi at that hotel. Those McCarthy Stone book launches seemed to be bloody everywhere lately… His wife Faithe was Emily’s best friend, and Jodi her younger sister so it wasn’t exactly ideal, but no – he was mainly doing it because she’d also discovered he’d expanded a little with a few ‘extra’ deliveries. This was payback time in exchange for zipped lips. Emily had changed though – there was definitely something different about her, she was harder, colder, sharper… and he suspected the content of the package on its way to England with him was testament to that.

  Well – at least it wasn’t ticking…

  THIRTY-TWO

  Emily checked her watch. They were due to touch down at 9.55 a.m., she wound the hands forward five hours – jet lag here I come she thought resignedly.

  As she looked out of the window a swathe of white boulder clouds gazed back, and all her reasons for coming home began to bubble like a cauldron. She’d left Gareth at the airport completely subdued, they’d not really discussed anything on Saturday evening after Jenny had interrupted what was supposed to be their crucial ‘life talk’, and he’d been away at an event over the following two days. In her heart of hearts she knew if he hadn’t already, he would probably be tempted to start drinking again – and she also knew that would be entirely her fault.

  Her mother was dying, not easy news to process for any daughter, but Emily hadn’t seen her for the best part of eighteen years and now deeply regretted that. However, it was other decisions she’d made back then, leading to the loss of a daughter that had increased her overwhelming feeling of guilt and emptiness. Feelings she just couldn’t shake off. Three of five very important people who had massively affected her life so far – and the other two were about to learn the meaning of the boomerang effect…

  An announcement came from the cockpit that there was ten minutes to approach, Emily folded her untouched magazine, put it into her handbag and waited for further instructions.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, as we start our descent, please make sure your seat backs and tray tables are in their full upright position. Be certain your seat belt is securely fastened, and all carry-on luggage is stowed underneath the seat in front of you or in the overhead bins. Thank you.”

  So… soon she would see her mother, possibly for the last time, meet her adult daughter for the first time, and finally deal with the bitter and acrid memories, the ashes of her past that she’d choked on daily for all these years… Well – as Ethan would say; “Best you suck it up Buttercup…”

  By the time she’d landed, gone through passport and customs, retrieved her bags from that God awful carousel and picked up the hire car, it was nearly lunchtime. She wasn’t impressed with the deep scuff across her Louis Vuitton roller case either. Normally that would have rankled with her all the way to the hotel, but this trip there was a whole lot more than agents, authors, books, clothes and bags to worry about.

  As the road stretched out in front of her with almost two hours driving still ahead, Emily seriously began to wish she’d just got a cab. She wasn’t unduly tired having slept unusually well on the plane, but it would’ve been nice not to have had the worry, to be able to use the time to work out a few things more concisely, to be able to plan, unfettered by traffic lights, roundabouts and GPS instructions.

  It was 3.00 p.m. by the time she pulled up outside the Kirkdale Grange Hotel, booked in and taken the lift to her room. Now she was tired. Shoes kicked off and strong coffee brewed, she lay on the bed with the realisation front and centre of what was actually about to unfold. Even Jenny didn’t know – not all of it. She sat up, reached for the coffee and sipped – good, but not as good as Elio’s on the corner of 23rd.

  Emily lay back on the bed in serious thought for a moment. Had she made the right choice? She hoped she had. In all reality there hadn’t been anyone else who would’ve understood it all, but she still prayed the somewhat flakey twentysomething would be able to handle what was to come. With her going soft on Miles again, and she understood why – she ju
st couldn’t afford any weakness and distractions, Emily seriously wondered if Jenny was about to become a liability.

  She checked her watch for what felt like the hundredth time. 3.45p.m. Ethan would be here sometime during the evening and she didn’t want those two meeting each other. That little double booking would have to be strictly organised, there couldn’t be any complicated introductions and reasons given as to why he’d turned up as well. Better text Jenny later and get her to come tomorrow instead.

  There was also the need… want… to go and see her mother before Ethan arrived, and that wasn’t going to be an easy meet by any stretch of the imagination. Luckily the nursing home was very close by so she should be there and back in twenty minutes and still be able to spend a good two hours with her before he was due.

  Emily swallowed the rest of her coffee, swung her legs off the bed and slipped her shoes back on. Reaching for her bag and car keys she took a deep breath, summoned her best power pose and walked back out of the door towards her childhood…

  Old Mary knew if she returned often enough her niece would come home one day, and the girl needed to know – she needed to know everything. It was the hair that alerted her – it was completely unmistakable.

  She waited in the shadow of the tall trees, watched keenly as the clearly elegant and now very rich woman exited the silver Mercedes and walked up the steps into the nursing home. It had been twenty long years since she’d last seen her and even then always from a distance, the last time there had been any physical contact was well over 30 years ago. It was now or never.

  Rosemary Emmerson looked a good deal older than her 70 years due to her vagrant lifestyle; she was very scared and very ashamed of her appearance. Nevertheless she walked as quickly as she could from the shadow of the tall trees, and at a safe distance, followed the redhead up the steps into the building and back into both their pasts…

  Emily sat in a visitors’ chair and watched her as she slept. Her mother seemed so frail, seemed so…… old. The nurse had said to wait for her to wake up naturally; Margaret needed to sleep as much as she wanted to. So here she was, after eighteen years, waiting the last few minutes before a historic volcano opened – and spilled its guts all over her life.

  She got up and looked out of the window while she waited. Kirkby Pike soared majestically in the distance, dominating the landscape behind the small town that lay just outside Kirkdale. Kirkby-Over-Sands, the town where she’d grown up, where she’d been happy before it had all started, before the nightmare had begun.

  She didn’t even hear the door open behind her, notice quiet footsteps pad gently into the room. It wasn’t until her mother stirred and she’d turned round to see if Margaret had woken, that Emily had come face-to-face with a dirty, scraggy-haired old woman with clothes that matched perfectly. Then all of a sudden she did notice something, the stale odour that had followed her in. Her right hand flew to cover her nose and mouth…

  “What the… who the hell are you?! I’m getting security!” Old Mary looked scared then, froze where she stood, eyes wide in horror until from the bed there came a weak voice they both knew.

  “Em…no… Em… It’s Rose… it’s your Auntie Rose…”

  Rose Emerson looked from her niece to her sister as tears began to well up and threaten to streak her grimy face. Margaret Rowlands lifted a tired hand and gestured for them both to come closer, she spoke very softly and breathlessly due to her weakened heart, and began to explain…

  “Emily…” her breathing laboured, “it’s my fault… I turned her away, all… . those years ago… and…” she was gasping now, “and I… I did it twice.” Emily noticed there was an oxygen mask lying on her bed, she picked it up and put it over her mother’s face but Maggie Rowlands pulled it away.

  “Mother please…” The usually hard-faced New Yorker began to feel some emotion now, the past was all becoming very real, and her mother appeared to be fading right before her eyes. Not only that, it had begun to sound like there were additional important family issues, ones she had no knowledge of. Well, why should she? She’d done a runner all those years ago…

  “She… needed… my help… the second time… with the boy bairn…” All through this Rose Emmerson had sat quiet, fiddling with her hands, and even Emily had softened to her obvious distress.

  Rose wiped a grimy arm across her face and pushed a greasy tendril back behind an ear. Quietly she began to speak…

  “Ain’t no use in no mithering, nor runnin’ tears – tis done and tis garn.” Emily and her mother looked quizzically at each other over Rose’s speech and dialect – it was nothing like their own.

  “Rose… why… your speech?” asked her sister breathlessly; “Was that Davey? Did he… force that too?” She tried to sit up then, eyes wide, but Emily made her lie back down.

  “It were his want, his way, an’ now I can’t be a changin’ – even if I did want it so, even now he be larng dead an’ larng garn…” She looked back at Emily again – it’d been so long since she’d swung a little girl up into her arms after she’d run up that hall to see her all those years ago…

  The next hour unfolded with Emily desperately trying to compartmentalise two very different emotions. Firstly an acceptance that her mother, who she’d not seen for years, had obviously faded a lot faster than she’d imagined, and an aunt she knew nothing of who would clearly need help, and secondly… the very different and darker reason she’d flown over three thousand miles back home for – and Emily knew she mustn’t let the one weaken her resolve of the other.

  And then there was her daughter…

  ***

  DESERTED AIRSTRIP – KENDAL, CUMBRIA

  Wednesday 5.00p.m.

  Ethan brought the Cessna into a slow, smooth and easy descent before he skilfully landed the light aircraft on the desolate airstrip. Desolate that was apart from the pre-arranged pick-up. Once down he was more than grateful, and unusually, crossed himself as the plane slowly ground to a halt and he’d killed the engine. It hadn’t been an easy flight even by his standards – it was always a challenge, but this time he’d experienced a seriously hazardous crossing. With a fast ice build up on the wings at several points it had necessitated a drop in altitude to search for some warmer air to dissolve it. Ethan had really thought that this time he was on for a fast short trip downwards.

  Now though it was time to shrug all that off and just forget about it, dwelling on the negative was something he simply didn’t do. There had been a couple of dodgy hours back there and now it was over, it was on to getting this job done and a damned good kip when the last lot of Provigil wore off. Well – after a large Vindaloo and a couple of beers anyway.

  He zipped the package into his overnight bag, swung himself out onto the steps and jumped to the ground. The private car sat waiting. Ethan walked across, opened the door and slung his holdall onto the back seat before he slid in beside it. The deep sprung quality and soft leather felt exceptionally good – time to relax and let someone else do the driving…

  He was asleep in minutes.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Jason crept stealthily through the gap in the hedge and made his way round to the back of the stables. His head was all over the place now and not with his voices. It has to be here somewhere, it just has to be! He repeated it over and over to himself, prayed he’d find it without too much trouble. There was only one Morgan on the drive which meant it likely Charlotte and Miles were either out together for the evening and could return at any moment, or one of them was still on the premises – time was of the essence.

  He pulled back the heavy bolt as quietly as possible, opened the top, then bottom door and pulled them both open. His torch was flicked to low beam as he went inside and lit up the stable with a soft glow. It was still the same. The smells, the hay, everything was still there apart from the horses. The memory of what happened a few weeks ago suddenly hit him, what h
e did – what the voices made him do. His face flushed with shame as he stood there, head slung low, and looked up under his fringe at the empty stalls. He hadn’t realised the effect his return would have on him.

  Jason swung the beam slowly across the floor and started to randomly kick at the hay. It was thick though and not a small area to sift through as it had been used as a double stable. He dropped to his knees and started to make a more detailed search through the dense covering, looking methodically now as he went across the top from left to right and worked his way down to the centre – still nothing.

  “Is this what you’re looking for?” He spun round with a gasp of surprise. Charlotte stood above him, back leant against the door frame, arm up as she watched the silver bracelet swing backwards and forwards from the forefinger and thumb of her left hand. Jason was too shocked to notice what she had in her right.

  Overwhelming panic set in then and violent nausea threatened to deliver more than a wave. He tried to lift himself out of the hay to stand up, but his legs simply refused to support him. She advanced quickly, made use of the moment as he scrabbled like an upturned crab, his hands and feet kicked out, pushed away from her till he could go no further, until his back was quite literally up against the wall.

  Then after the lunge, he felt a deep searing pain punched into his left side under his ribs, and the diamorphine began to render all the muscles in his body totally flaccid – the roof, the walls all swirled and swam into the dark together – till they joined him on the floor…

  Charlotte thanked her lucky stars the Flood boy was a lightweight – short, slender and not too muscular at all. Even then he wasn’t easy to get into the sacks she had waiting outside, or to drag round the back of the stables to the waiting car in the lane. It’d been quite a job to heave the body across uneven ground through the gap in the hedge and hoist it into the boot. Thank God the Morgan’s a low rider she thought; it would’ve been a real problem with the Range Rover. Appreciation is needed here though, she reminded herself, he’s actually made my job a lot easier – saved me considerable time him returning to the murder scene of my darling horses. Well – now their deaths have been avenged and two jobs neatly tied up this evening. Yes, very convenient his turning up tonight – fitted in nicely with a little car mechanics that needed attention…