by Wes Markin
He closed his eyes, slept and dreamt of greatness.
Lacey Ray spent the morning feeling nauseous and, as she sat behind the desk in Dr Holden’s office, staring at the little turd, she considered projectile vomiting. Then, hopefully, Stan, the rapist standing behind her, would come to the doctor’s aid, and she’d be close enough to lurch forward and bite his nose off …
‘You seem a little off-colour Lacey. Are you menstruating?’
‘I didn’t sleep so well, doctor. It is important to sleep well. You should enjoy your last few nights doing so. Especially while you’re still intact.’
Holden smiled and slid something over the table to Lacey. ‘This might make you feel a little less sick.’
She stared down at the printed photograph of Tobias.
Last night, Lacey remained calm throughout an ordeal that would have destroyed the minds of most because she’d never been at the mercy of emotion. Yet, right now, she felt her heart surging.
My boy. All grown up. Seven! How wonderful …
She stroked his pale face. My handsome boy …
‘Dead behind the eyes,’ Holden said.
Lacey ignored the irritant and continued to stroke her boy. Her chains jangled.
‘Are you crying?’ Holden said. ‘Jesus, are those tears real?’
Lacey looked up. ‘Michael Yorke is a man of integrity. There are few of them in the world. Have you got a pen, Doctor? You’ll need to write this down and deliver it word for word to him.’
Yorke was in the car with Gardner when the call from Dr Holden came through.
‘It worked, Detective. She crumbled.’
Yorke glanced at Gardner with widened eyes. She, too, wore the same intense expression.
‘She wants me to read this to you: “In the letters I destroyed, he spoke of a favourite café in which he sometimes wrote his letters. Although he didn’t name the café, he provided details of some of what he could see. In one letter, he described a skate park. In another, a duck pond and some botanical gardens. I used Google Earth during my internet time. There’s a place in Roundhay park which fits the descriptions. It’s called Swan Café”. That was all.’
‘Internet time?’ Gardner said.
Yorke glared at Gardner. She really couldn’t help herself!
‘Who’s that?’ Holden said.
‘My partner. It’s fine.’
‘Yes, our patients are given internet time. Similar to library time. They can use it for news, research, entertainment. There’re strict controls and they’re always observed. For example, they don’t use social media and make contact with anyone.’
This didn’t concern Yorke. The only thing that concerned Yorke right now was the fact that Dr Louis Mayers frequented Swan Café. It was the biggest lead to date. After thanking Holden, he contacted Rosset to tell him.
‘Jesus, well done, Mike.’
‘I’m going to head there right now to talk to the staff and the owner,’ Yorke said. ‘I suggest that you ask some of your team to start identifying CCTV spots in the vicinity. At some point, recently, Dr Louis Mayers strolled into that café. Catch him on CCTV, potentially track him to his vehicle, and with ANPR, we could have him before sundown.’
After hanging up, he pulled over to put Roundhay Park into the SatNav. He noticed his hands were shaking slightly. The adrenaline was coursing through him.
Twenty minutes.
His phone rang again. It was Patricia. As he was stationary now, he put the mobile phone to his ear. ‘Hi Pat.’
She was crying.
‘Pat? Are you okay?’
‘No, Mike. It’s Lexi …’
‘What’s happened?’
She coughed on her tears. ‘Terrible—’
‘Pat, what’s happened to Lexi?’
‘Her father, the fucking monster, beat her. Her and Ewan both went to tell him about their engagement, and he just lost it.’
‘Where are they both now?’
‘Ewan is okay. He pulled him off her, but …’ She started to cry again. He’d never heard her like this. He felt the familiar cold in his neck. No … no … not that. Please, not that.
‘He fractured her skull. She’s in intensive care.’
‘Jesus … and?’
‘They don’t know. They’re about to operate on her.’ She cried again. ‘Mike, please, I need you.’
‘I’m coming. It’ll be hours, but I’m coming.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Keep me updated. I love you …’
He explained what had happened to Gardner, forcing back his own tears. ‘Her father’s a religious nut, and dangerous. He probably thought that Lexi was abandoning him and their religion for heathens!’ The shaking Yorke was experiencing prior to the phone call had now intensified.
‘Mike.’ Gardner clutched her arm, ‘Are you alright to drive?’
‘I’ll be fine. I need to drop you off. Can you catch a train or bus back to the hotel?’
‘Roundhay is near where you jump onto the motorway, Mike, just drop me there. I can get a head start on interviewing the owner and the staff at Swan Café before Rosset has even briefed his team.’
‘You’re not a police officer, Emma.’
‘Bullshit, I’m not. When this is done, I want back in.’
‘It’s good news …’ He could still feel the tears threatening. ‘But it’s not legal—’
‘Drop me off, Mike. You’ve got enough on your plate. Besides, I’d just get a taxi there anyway.’
Gardner wondered why Mayers had chosen Café Swan as a place to reflect and write his letters. The small, circular shack really wasn’t anything special. The place didn’t even feel centrally heated, and Gardner felt no warmer after leaving the snow outside.
There were about seven small tables around the café. Each one festively decorated by an unlit candle in a ‘Merry Christmas’ holder. There was no one else in the café, but it was still early, and it looked as if it was only just opening.
Leaving her ski jacket on, she took a seat by a bookshelf. She took a quick look and grabbed a copy of Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Someone came to the counter from the kitchen. It was a young girl at the counter, late teens, early twenties at a push, and so probably not the owner.
‘You order at the counter, Miss,’ she said.
‘Ah, okay.’ Gardner stood back up and walked to the counter. ‘How much for this book?’
‘Up to you. Just a donation. I read that for my A-levels. I found it unnerving. Heathcliff, especially.’
‘Cruel men often have that effect,’ Gardner said. ‘Can I get a Cappuccino please? My name is DI Emma Gardner. Do you know when the owner is in?’
‘That’d be my parents. Neither are here today. I take on most of the shifts during my holidays … Chocolate on your Cappuccino?’
‘No thank you. So, you’re on break from Uni?’
‘Yep. Would you like anything else with your coffee?’
Gardner pointed at the flapjacks. ‘One of those please. What do you study?’
‘Philosophy Major, Psychology Minor.’ The young lady said lifting the plastic dome and taking a chunk of flapjack out with tongs. ‘These are lovely. I helped Mum bake them.’
‘And gluten free,’ Gardner said. ‘Which means they will agree with me. What’s your name please?’ She took out a notebook from her bag.
‘Lyra Cross.’
‘Your mother and father?’
‘Lydia and Malcolm Cross.’
Gardner wrote it down. ‘Your family had this café long?’
‘Since I was ten.’
‘Living and working together. I bet you’re very close. They must miss you when you’re away.’
‘I’m never away. I go to the university here.’
‘The University of Leeds?’
She nodded.
Gardner’s heart fluttered. She unzipped her ski jacket and reached in for the photograph of Louis Mayers. She put it on the counter. ‘Do you recognise him?�
�
Lyra stared at the photo. Gardner watched her. Her eyelid twitched, and she chewed her bottom lip. It was difficult to read into this though because she’d been awkward to begin with. Most nineteen-year-olds often were when in conversation with the police. ‘No … sorry.’
‘Look again, Lyra. We think he works at your university and we think his name is Dr Alexander Harris.’
Lyra obliged. ‘Maybe … there’re a few older professors. This could be one of them I guess, but he doesn’t lecture me.’
‘We have reason to believe he sometimes comes to drink coffee in here. Stands to reason. It’s a stone’s throw from the university.’
‘I’m sorry, I’ve never seen him here.’
Gardner slipped the photograph back into her inside pocket. ‘You’ll be at University studying during term time. I assume that’s when he comes in, during his lunch hour perhaps? Is it okay if you contact your mother and father, Ms Cross? It really is important that we try and find this particular man.’
‘Of course … what’s he done?’
‘We don’t know that he has done anything. We just need to eliminate him from our inquiries.’
‘I’ll bring the coffee and cake over to you and then head into the kitchen to phone Dad. Is that okay?’
‘Of course.’
‘And you’ll keep an eye on the café in case anyone comes in while I’m out back?’
Gardner nodded.
At the table, Gardner chewed on her flapjack and stared out of the café window. A small family were feeding the ducks despite the sign instructing them not to do so.
Suddenly, for no explicable reason, Gardner didn’t just feel cold, she felt very alone too.
Yorke knew he was exploiting his position by breaking the speed limit, but he’d given everything he had in the name of justice over the years, so now with a family emergency, he’d forgive himself for this lapse in responsibility.
If a camera caught him, or if he was sighted by a fellow officer, his plate would be run. They’d identify him as a DCI, and no chase would ensue, although he may be questioned on it later. Still driving at past ninety for the best part of four hours was not something he was relishing or enjoying. He was already exhausted from a whole week of bloody driving.
Fortunately, the weather was on his side, and the roads weren’t congested. Patricia was phoning in regular updates, but they offered very little because Lexi was still in surgery. They were trying to relieve some swelling on her brain.
He was glad Lexi’s father was in custody. For all of his religious pretence, Art Franco was nothing more than a cruel and violent bully. Yorke would love a run at him in the interrogation room, but correct procedure would prevent that from ever happening.
Now, as he drove, he felt swamped in guilt. Hadn’t he also responded with shock, or rather, horror, when Ewan and Lexi had announced their engagement? Okay, he may not be a vicious, aggressive bible-basher, but had it not demonstrated a certain narrow-mindedness?
He gritted his teeth, stabbed at the accelerator, and prayed to God that Lexi would be okay.
Lyra Cross felt funny. She closed the door which separated her from the café floor and leaned against the kitchen sink.
She knew Dr Alexander Harris. Not only was he a popular lecturer at her university, but he also came in regularly to drink coffee. Often, if the café was quiet, and she herself was between lectures, or on a day off, they would sit and chat.
He was enigmatic and charismatic, full of anecdotes, and wisdom. He seemed as passionate about philosophy as he was about psychology, so they could spend many hours discussing Plato and Aristotle.
Why had she lied? He was an older, very experienced man, who could take care of himself. If the police came looking for him, there should be nothing to prevent her from doing her duty … nothing. Why was she suddenly feeling protective of him? He could be dangerous …
She picked up the phone and dialled a number she knew, but had no recollection of ever learning, or using before. It felt suddenly right. This was her duty to Dr Harris. He needed to be protected from the police officer who had just come into the café. He was the one in danger.
Yes, it felt right … yet illogical … what was she doing? Was it possible to stop herself?
‘Hello?’
‘Dr Harris?’
‘Yes, who is this please?’
‘Lyra at the Swan Café?’
‘Ah, my dear. I guess someone has come looking for me then.’
‘Yes, Doctor, a police officer. A woman.’
‘Inevitable, I guess. Is she alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘She thinks you’re phoning your father, does she not?’
‘Yes … Doctor Harris?’
‘Yes, dear?’
‘I’m not sure what I’m doing.’
‘You know what you’re doing. Close your eyes for the moment and remember that warm day in June, when we confronted Descartes’ philosophy. You remember?’
‘Yes. I think therefore I am.’
‘Do you still feel warm, Lyra?’
‘Very.’
‘Good. Here is what I want you to do.’
‘Anything you say.’ She listened carefully to his instructions.
Afterwards, he said, ‘And if anyone else comes into the café, you must tell them you do not know who I am. Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Bye, Lyra.’
‘Bye, Doctor.’
Despite the cold, Lyra did feel warm now. She could feel the sweat on her brow. She took off her jumper and opened the door out of the kitchen.
The detective was just finishing her coffee.
Lyra Cross didn’t know why she was feeling this way, but she did know that Dr Harris made her feel ever so safe. And right now, she really didn’t want to let him down.
Outside Lexi’s hospital room, Yorke and Patricia hugged. It was a harder embrace than it had been the previous evening when they’d been reunited following several days apart. In fact, partway into the embrace, Yorke realised that Patricia was using him to keep her upright.
‘Her face, Mike … before they took her into surgery. Her face―’
‘The doctor just told me it went well.’
‘―It was so pale. Like the bodies I see.’
‘Stop thinking like that—’
‘The ones I see day in day out.’
He came out of the embrace and held Patricia by her shoulders. He looked into her bloodshot eyes. ‘She’ll make it.’
‘He practically knocked the life out of her.’
‘And now she will heal.’
Yorke kissed his wife on her forehead and then went into the hospital room to see Ewan and Lexi.
Coming out of the fog, Gardner hoped that what she’d just experienced was a nightmare. But as the fractured pieces glued themselves together in front of her, she realised it was wishful thinking.
The face of Dr Louis Mayers carved itself out of the chaos, and a hand closed over her face to stifle her scream. Her obsession with finding Topham had led her straight into hell …
… Gardner had headed straight for the Cross household after Lyra had provided the address. It took half-an-hour on foot from the café to Chapel Allerton using her mobile phone for directions. On route, she considered contacting Yorke on the way to update him but decided against it. He’d looked completely traumatised by the news about Lexi and was driving at God knows what speed. It was safer to give him some space.
When she reached the road where the Cross family lived, she saw that many residents had decorated their houses with Christmas lights. The Cross residency itself had erected a twinkling reindeer in the front garden.
After she’d rang the doorbell several times, she heard a young man’s voice from behind the door. ‘Is this DI Emma Gardner?’
‘Yes. Who’s this?’
‘Matt, Lyra’s brother. Could you come around to the back? I don’t have the key for the front door, and Dad’s just put
some coffee on in the kitchen.’
‘Yes … no problem.’
The snow had built up high around the side of the house, and Gardner was pleased she’d opted for sturdy boots. It was proving to be a particularly cold close to the year, and Gardner was glad, more than ever, of her job at Marks and Spencer’s. The sizeable employee discount had allowed her to restock her winter wardrobe.
In the back garden, Gardner noticed the two oak trees at the rear. They stood side-by-side like a pair of sentries. Their twisted, snow-covered branches seem to reach out, tense, and ready to strike. She shivered.
Behind her, a patio door slid open. She assumed that the lanky young man wearing a bow tie and a brown tweed jacket was Matt. ‘Please come in.’ He said, tucking his black curtained hair behind his ears.
‘Lyra didn’t say she had a brother,’ Gardner said.
Matt took several steps back to allow Gardner access through the door. ‘Ashamed of me, probably.’ His smile was awkward. He clearly wasn’t used to attempting humour.
As she stepped in through the patio door, she asked. ‘Your father?’
‘In the kitchen. He wants to know if anyone else is coming? He’s only made enough coffee for three.’
‘No, just me.’ Gardner looked around the room. It was an office of some kind. ‘Is your mother not here too?’
‘No. Dead I’m afraid … last year.’
Two things bothered Gardner about this. While he slid the patio door closed behind them, she quizzed him on the first thing. ‘I’m sorry … Lyra didn’t mention that.’
‘Didn’t she?’ Matt locked the patio door and slipped the key into his pocket. He turned. ‘She has struggled to come to terms with it.’
The second thing that bothered Gardner was Matt’s matter-of-fact way of reporting his mother’s death. It lacked emotion.
