It was his move. While she was alive, there was a chance of getting his money back; when he had his money, he could think about payback — for now, he had to play along, but he also had to play smart. ‘Search the car,’ he said.
Megan finished dressing as they checked out the sun-visors, the door pockets, the upholstery, the glove compartment, under the seats.
‘Clear,’ Warrender said. ‘What about the laptop?’
‘I’ll need it to get the rest of your money back,’ Megan said.
Doran thought about it. ‘All right, but it goes in the boot.’
Megan shrugged, and continued buttoning her blouse, maintaining an insouciance that made her look elegant despite the white streaks of damp chalk on her skirt and jacket.
Warrender placed the laptop in the boot of the car, and Doran caught his eye. She wasn’t going to have this all her own way.
Chapter Forty-five
Detective Sergeant Foster looked over Naomi Hart’s shoulder, trying not to crowd her. She clicked on the Internet Explorer icon and quickly highlighted the Liverpool Police Authority address in the dialogue box at the top of the screen, over-typing it with the web address Megan had sent.
‘Virtualhero.net,’ Hart read. ‘Sees herself as a righter of wrongs, does she, Sarge?’
‘I doubt it,’ Foster said. If nothing else, Megan was honest about her dishonesty. ‘It’s just a wind-up about a conversation we had.’
Hart clicked the ‘go’ button next to the dialogue box. ‘She seems to’ve taken it to heart, though.’
He shrugged, and they waited for the screen to load. It went dark and Foster stole a look at Hart. Her face was slightly flushed, the nape of her neck pale and slender. She seemed to notice his scrutiny and turned, a small frown of annoyance creasing her forehead. ‘What?’
‘Nothing. Just wondering why you keep calling me Sarge,’ he said, to cover for the fact that for a moment he had been lost in admiring her. ‘I mean, I thought we were on first-name terms.’
She turned away again. ‘Don’t know what you mean, Sarge.’
Foster sighed. ‘Would it help if I said I appreciate it?’
She glanced at him, suspecting sarcasm. ‘Appreciate what?’
‘You not telling me I told you so.’
She hesitated, then nodded, her silence saying far more than words.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I know I acted like a dickhead.’
She seemed taken aback. After a moment, her expression softened. ‘We all do, from time to time,’ she said. ‘So long as you don’t make a habit of it.’
‘I’m working on it.’
She slid him a sly glance. ‘It’ll take a while before I let you live it down, though.’
Foster rolled his eyes comically and Hart smiled. Letters began to appear on the screen. ‘I think we’re in,’ she said.
The letters were in gothic style, pulsating in red and gold. When the word was complete, Hart read, ‘Warlock. Is that her web handle?’ She caught Foster’s look and said, ‘Her handle — nickname — whatever.’
‘Beats me,’ he said.
Wisps of greyish light, ethereal as smoke, drifted across the screen, gradually taking form and solidifying into a figure in a midnight blue cloak with pointed hood; a sinewy hand gripped the gnarled staff traditional to wizards throughout folklore. The figure turned, its cloak trailing glitter, shimmering, like stardust. The Warlock had the archetypal white flowing beard and sharp nose; the grey eyes though, were, without doubt, Megan’s: intelligent, amused, but with the heat of passion behind them.
‘It’s her, isn’t it?’ Hart breathed, staring into the eyes as if trying to find Megan beneath the mask.
‘Yeah,’ Foster said, his chest tight. ‘I think it’s her.’
Rickman arrived for the briefing with a document wallet tucked under one arm. ‘New development?’
‘You could say that.’ Foster stood to one side to allow Rickman a clearer view, just as the bushy eyebrows drew down into a frown and the figure began to speak.
‘Turn up the volume, Naomi,’ Foster said.
‘Volume?’ Hart blinked. ‘Lee, I don’t have speakers on this machine.’
‘Bloody hell! Why didn’t you say?’ he demanded, missing entirely Hart’s reversion to his first name.
‘You didn’t tell me you wanted sound,’ she said, indignant.
Rickman stepped in. ‘When you two have finished arguing, you might want to follow me.’ They glanced guiltily at each other, then hurried after Rickman. He led them to his office, where he swivelled his laptop so that all three could see the monitor. ‘Do your stuff,’ he said.
Hart accessed the website again and the same introductory sequence loaded. ‘Don’t worry, it doesn’t look like you’ve missed anything.’ Hart sounded huffy and Foster felt a little shamefaced — that had always been his trouble: mending bridges, then tearing them down before anyone got to set foot on them.
She accessed the control panel and turned up the volume as Warlock turned to face them. ‘I’m playing the guilt card again,’ it said, or rather, they said — it sounded like a congregation, reciting a prayer in unison. Foster thought he could hear Megan’s voice, undisguised, among the female voices in the upper register. The image seemed to flicker and stutter and for an instant, Warlock’s face changed, and Foster thought he saw Megan, smiling, sharing the joke. He felt light-headed and sick.
‘Will you save me?’ the myriad voices chanted.
What the hell had she done?
‘What’s this about?’ Rickman asked.
‘Nothing,’ Foster said. ‘Something I said, earlier.’
‘Another of your cryptic conversations?’ Hart asked.
The screen went dark and, alarmed, she reached for the mouse. Rickman stayed her hand, and a moment later, they saw two faces. The lighting was poor, but Patrick Doran and Megan Ward were both easily recognisable.
‘We’ve got visual,’ Rickman murmured.
The screen was split into four, all showing the interior of a car. Two images, one of Megan and one of Doran, filled the top half. The lower half of the screen was divided into a view through the rear windscreen on the left and the front view on the right.
‘She’s off her head,’ Foster murmured. ‘No, scrub that — I’m off my head, thinking she’d let it go.’
‘She came to you?’ Rickman said.
‘No,’ Foster continued scrutinising the images, trying to work out the location from the blurred exterior shots. ‘Phone call. I should’ve known a girl like that would go it alone.’
‘She’s a woman,’ Hart said.
‘And it seems to me she’s been making her own decisions for some time now,’ Rickman added.
Foster rounded on him. ‘And why is that? It’s not like she had a choice, is it? Her mother in and out of hospital with depression. Her brother in prison; Megan spending half her young life in care.’ Rickman, of all people should understand that.
‘Whatever her reasons, we have a situation,’ Rickman said evenly. ‘We need to work out the best way to deal with it. How’s she sending the images?’
‘WiFi.’ The question was directed at DC Hart, but Foster answered.
They both looked at him, surprised.
‘I’m a fast learner,’ Foster said. ‘So I’m told.’ Uncomfortably aware that it had been Megan who’d told him.
‘She’s using more than a laptop for this bit of technical wizardry,’ Hart said. ‘Miniature cameras and a link to the internet at the minimum — but you’d still expect to see some wiring, a bit of cable.’ She stared at the screen, trying to penetrate the grainy darkness of the image. ‘She must have some serious kit.’
‘Paid for on somebody else’s credit card, I’ll bet,’ Foster said, filling the silence because he couldn’t stand the sound of his heart pounding in his ears.
‘Where are the cameras?’ Rickman asked, scanning the three images. He had seen the minicams Traffic Division used, and there was no way they c
ould be hidden on the dashboard of a car. ‘Doran isn’t stupid — why doesn’t he see them?’
They stared at the screen, trying to find some sign. Hart began to shake her head, then froze. ‘The infra-red detectors for the alarm!’ she exclaimed.
‘I still don’t . . .’ Rickman said, squinting harder.
‘You’re not supposed to. Look at the angles: left to right, gives you Megan in the driver’s seat; right to left, gives you Doran. She’s replaced the infra-red sensors with wireless minicams. She must have the front-view camera fixed to the mounting for the rear-view mirror. God knows where the fourth camera is.’
‘She’s set herself up as bait. Stupid cow is suicidal,’ Foster muttered.
‘Is this live?’ Rickman asked.
‘There’s no way of telling,’ Hart said.
‘When did she text you?’
Foster continued staring at the screen, sweating. This was torture. What the hell kind of person gave you a link to her abduction and didn’t give you a single landmark?
‘Lee?’
He shook himself. ‘What?’
‘The text—’
‘Sorry, Boss. Um, I dunno — ten — fifteen minutes ago?’
‘I think we have to assume it’s live,’ Hart said.
‘What do we do, Jeff?’ Foster asked. Say you’ll help her. Normally, he’d have said it straight out, but Naomi’s presence in the room stopped him.
‘The way I see it,’ Rickman said, his attention focused on the screen. ‘We can try and locate her, move in, and interrupt what might be a perfectly amicable conversation . . .’
Foster swallowed. ‘Good idea. Let’s go with that.’
Hart glanced at him, seeming less than impressed, then she turned to face Rickman. ‘Or,’ she said. ‘There was a definite “or” in what you just said.’
Rickman tilted his head in apology to Foster. ‘Or we can sit back, watch the show, see how it ends.’
Chapter Forty-six
‘They’re on the move,’ Foster said. The view through the windscreen see-sawed wildly, showing black sky, a few orange flashes, then white road surface, too blurred to make out any detail. Finally, it fizzed and blacked out entirely.
‘Shit!’ Foster resisted an urge to rattle the monitor, but only just. ‘We’ll never find her now.’
‘We’ve still got the rear view,’ Rickman said, ‘It looks like a rough surface — give it a minute to settle down.’
As they watched, holding their breath, Patrick Doran turned to Megan. His blue eyes looked almost black on the screen, his dark Irish good looks marred somewhat by lack of sleep.
‘You wanted to talk,’ he said. ‘Shall I pick a topic, or have you got something in mind?’
She turned right onto a made road surface — or so Foster guessed, since the rise and fall of the rear view ceased.
Megan glanced in the mirror. ‘When I’m sure Mr Warrender has stayed put, I’ll tell you.’
Rickman reached for his desk phone and put a call through to Special Ops to request armed response backup and aerial support. ‘They need a location. Lee? Naomi?’
Hart and Foster peered at the screen.
‘It’s so damn dark,’ Hart complained.
‘Wait a minute.’ Foster pointed to a low, white-tiled frontage, reminiscent of a 1960s public toilet, just visible through the rear screen. ‘Isn’t that the fire station at Canning Place?’
‘Could be,’ Hart said, doubtfully, then it was gone from the viewfinder.
The car slowed at traffic lights, sweeping right. The forward view was still blank, and the rear showed them nothing but a glare of blue-green against darkness, as they passed the lights.
Foster pushed his fingers into his hair and left them there, almost crazy with frustration. ‘Woah!’ He leaned in to the laptop. Had the windscreen view just flickered? But the right lower portion of the monitor remained stubbornly dark. Just as he was beginning to despair, he saw a sparkle, a flash, and then the twin domes of the Royal Liver Buildings appeared on-screen, their granite frontages reflecting so much from the spotlights that they seemed almost to fluoresce. ‘Oh, you beauties,’ he laughed.
No need to explain to Rickman, he saw them as plainly as Foster did. ‘They’re heading north on Strand Street,’ he said, talking into the phone to the comms officer who was relaying his instructions. ‘Just shy of the Liver Buildings.’
‘Wait wait wait,’ Foster said, falling easily into surveillance mode. ‘She’s now turned right right right into — Where the fuck is that?’ he asked Hart.
She peered at the monitor. The camera gave virtually nothing left or right of the windscreen, and the camera’s depth of field was equally poor: sodium flare from the streetlights on a wet road surface, together with the blinding dazzle of approaching headlamps from an oncoming car made identification difficult.
‘James Street? — or Brunswick?’
‘No, Brunswick is one-way, the wrong way,’ Foster said.
‘Shit — sorry, Lee — the picture’s hopeless. Oh, God, and now she’s turning left.’
Rickman hooked a map out of his desk drawer and Hart spread it out next to the laptop. ‘The eye in the sky has been deployed,’ he told them.
‘Left again,’ Hart said. ‘Could that be Dale Street?’
‘Right right right,’ Foster said, his gaze fixed on the computer screen. The car turned right again at the end of the street, and a frontage he thought he recognised came into view. ‘I think . . . Is that . . .?’ His eyes darted right and left, looking for a definite point of reference, but the image was out of focus. ‘I think that’s Exchange Station.’ He stared harder, as the car swept towards an arched building with an iron clock fixed to the side of the building. ‘It is. It’s the old railway station.’ The façade had been renovated and the iron gates at the wide, Norman-style arches painted and gilded. It was unmistakable.
‘What’s the time?’ Hart asked.
‘What’re you on about?’ Foster demanded.
‘The time — on the clock.’ Hart grabbed the laptop and swivelled it towards herself. ‘Eight-twenty,’ she said.
Foster checked his watch. ‘We’re on real time,’ he said.
‘Tithebarn Street,’ Rickman said into the receiver. ‘Keep well back.’
‘Heading right right right into —’ Hart checked the map. ‘Hatton Garden.’
‘They have eyeball target,’ Rickman said.
Foster and Hart exhaled in unison. ‘What now?’ Foster needed action.
‘Organise three teams,’ Rickman said. ‘Tell them to get to the city centre, fast. Surveillance only. I want constant radio contact. The comms room will organise a frequency so we can talk to each other and to the eye in the sky. Armed Response is already in the area — we do not want to get in their way.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘We watch and wait — see how the mop flops.’
Foster stared at Rickman. ‘Are you smoking wacky baccy, or what?’
‘I need you here,’ Rickman said.
Foster looked ready to argue, but he seemed to change his mind and satisfied himself with a resentful look. ‘I’ll get the troops rallied, then, shall I?’
‘Sir.’ Hart recalled Rickman’s attention to the computer, and Foster slipped out of the room.
‘I’m putting you on speakerphone,’ Rickman said to the helicopter pilot.
Hart found the control panel on the computer and turned the volume up to maximum.
‘Satisfied?’ Doran asked.
‘Not yet,’ Megan said. ‘But since it’s harder to hit a moving target, I feel a little safer.’
‘I gave you my word, Megan.’
‘But you’re a ruthless man, Mr Doran,’ Megan said.
He looked at her, his face closed, the only hint of emotion a slight twitch of the muscle along his jaw. ‘I prefer to think of myself as practical.’
‘So, I really don’t need to worry, once I’ve returned your money?’
&nbs
p; ‘Of course not.’ It was said smoothly, without hesitation.
‘He’s lying through his teeth,’ Hart said.
Megan looked directly into the camera, almost as if she had heard.
‘She knows,’ Rickman murmured.
The helicopter pilot’s voice, muffled and crackling, broke in from the speakerphone. ‘Target turning right right right into Dale Street.’
‘Where the hell is she going?’ Rickman asked, but Megan was talking again.
‘I’m more of a dreamer, myself,’ she said. ‘But I do have a practical side — I have made contingency plans.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Your money is stored in a high-security facility, requiring fingerprint and retinal scan analysis.’ She tilted her head. ‘Which should guarantee I’ll stay alive at least long enough to get you your money.’
‘Failsafe,’ Rickman urged. ‘Tell him you have a failsafe.’ But she didn’t.
‘I told you,’ Doran said, sounding controlled, patient, sincere. ‘All I want is my money.’
Megan sighed, a long, relieved, grateful sigh.
Shocked, Hart said, ‘She’s as good as told him he’s free to do her in after he’s got the cash.’
Rickman shook his head. ‘She’s laid the bait. Doran just took it.’
‘Foster’s right. She is suicidal.’
Rickman stared at the screen. ‘I don’t think so. But she is putting a hell of a lot of trust in us doing our job right.’
They were still in the business district; traffic was minimal on Friday night: the bars, cafés and restaurants that served the office workers were closed or empty.
Hart squinted at the screen. ‘Isn’t that the Brunswick pub?’
Rickman looked closer, catching a glimpse of the brightly lit Victorian alehouse as it slid past. They were on Tithebarn Street again.
‘Confirmed,’ the helicopter pilot said. ‘Target seems to be circling the business end of town.’
Hart smiled. ‘Clever.’
Rickman frowned in question.
‘She’s using office networks — piggy-backing their WiFi signals,’ she explained. ‘The networks don’t shut down just because it’s the weekend — this is when they get all their number-crunching done.’
SEE HER DIE a totally gripping mystery thriller (Detective Jeff Rickman Book 2) Page 32
