by Tim Ellis
The man grunted as he lapsed into unconsciousness.
What he didn’t need was the man calling out and warning the second man, or trying to get himself free. Don’t react to the enemy’s actions, anticipate them.
He used an old apron that he found hanging on the back of the kitchen door to secure the man’s ankles and tie them to his wrists, and he used a scarf to tie around the man’s mouth to stop him calling out.
Once he was sure the man wouldn’t cause him any problems, he made his way out to the main hallway. The second man was still upstairs.
He waited.
It wasn’t long before he heard: “Everything okay down there, Rick?”
He could have pretended to be Rick and responded to the second man’s request for information, but he had no idea what Rick sounded like, so he kept quiet. If Rick didn’t answer, the man would come down to find out why. If Dark did answer and got it wrong, someone would end up dead. He could easily have killed both men, that’s what he’d been trained to do, but they were potential witnesses and he was hoping they’d be more useful alive than dead.
The events in the second video jumped into his head. It was a meeting in a bar between Higham and another man he didn’t know. The man paid him a hundred thousand pounds on the understanding that Higham would bury a body in the foundations of one of his construction projects. It wasn’t the cash payment book that got Alfred Flagg killed. It was the receipt book and the second video. It was also what the two men had come to Wincey Adams’ house to retrieve. They must have been following him. He was surprised he hadn’t spotted them behind him.
He heard a creak on the stairs. The entrance hall was too open to get close to the second man, so he returned to the library and waited. He didn’t have to wait long.
‘Rick?’ the second man called, as he pushed the library door open and edged inside.
Dark kicked the door from behind, which sent the man staggering sideways along the wall. He tried to right himself as he fell, but to do that he had to drop the gun he was holding in his left hand.
When he saw Dark, he scrambled on all fours to retrieve the weapon, but he’d already lost any foothold he might have had on the situation.
‘I wouldn’t,’ Dark said pointing Rick’s gun at his head. ‘As you’re down there, sit back against the wall.’
The man did.
Dark kicked the man’s gun out of reach. ‘Mask off.’
‘Go fuck yourself.’
Dark trod on the man’s ankle, increasing the weight applied until he removed the mask.
‘That’s better. I always like to see who I’m talking to. And, in case you were wondering, Rick’s hog-tied in the kitchen. So, it’s just you and me in here. Who sent you?’
The man didn’t respond. He looked less like a criminal, but not by much. His eyebrows were thick and bushy, his nose large and bony, and his lips unusually large.
‘I’m not a great believer in torture, but having said that, I do think it has a place in the scheme of things. So, let me ask that question again: Who sent you?’
He didn’t answer.
Dark shifted his weight forward onto the man’s ankle. ‘You’ll notice I’m keeping my foot on your ankle, which is slightly stronger than the skinny bones in your lower leg. Gradually, I’ll move up, and soon, we’ll be able to hear a nice satisfying crack as your fibula snaps. We might be lucky and achieve a double break. I’ve never experienced either, but I’m told the pain is . . .’
The man sucked air in through his teeth. ‘Jeffrey Higham.’
‘From Whitchurch?’
‘Yes.’
‘What were your instructions?’
‘To recover the incriminating evidence at any cost.’
‘Do you know what the incriminating evidence is?’
The man hesitated.
Dark shifted more weight onto his right foot and rolled it over the man’s ankle.
‘Two books, and two video files on a memory stick.’
‘Do you know what’s on the video file?’
‘No.’
‘Well, you can relax. I have the book and the memory stick. I’ve already sent a copy of the file to a reporter I know, and it’ll soon appear on the internet.’
‘Shit!’
‘You should thank me. Now, you’ll only spend fifteen years in prison instead of the rest of your life.’ He threw the man a plastic restraint. ‘Lie face down, hands behind your back and loop it around your wrists.’
The man did as he was told.
Dark applied the same method as he’d used on Rick to tighten the restraint, and then helped himself to the rope ties hooked around the window drapes to tie up the man’s ankles and connect them to his wrists.
He phoned the Duty Sergeant.
‘Sergeant Withers?’
‘It’s DI Dark again.’
‘Chatterton and Hetherington turned up, didn’t they?’
‘Yes, and they were rewarded with tea and biscuits for their efforts.’
‘That’s good. What can I do for you, Sir?’
‘After they’d left, I had a visit from two armed men. Thankfully, no one was injured. However, they’re both trussed up awaiting transport to our five-star hotel.’
‘I’ll send a van, Sir.’
‘Also, I need a man called Jeffrey Higham arresting for conspiracy to murder, among a number of other crimes that he’ll be charged with in due course. He’s the owner of Whitchurch Architectural Partnership on St Ann Street, but as it’s Sunday, I expect he’ll be at his home address.’
‘We’ll pick him up, Sir.’
‘When you’re booking him in, make sure you take his fingerprints and ask Forensics to take a DNA sample from him. I’ll be in later to assess the situation.’
‘No problem, Sir.’
The line went dead.
He phoned Hendrik.
‘Hello, Mister Dark.’
‘Did you get my email?’
‘Yes.’
‘Just put the two files in storage for the time being.’
‘Will do.’
‘See you later.’
‘Okay.’
He ended the call.
‘You can come out now,’ he called to Mrs Adams and her daughter.
While they were exiting the panic room, he went to check on Rick in the kitchen. The man was groggy, but awake.
‘Don’t worry, Rick. I’ve called ahead. You’ll soon be tucked up snug and warm in five-star police accommodation with your pal. We’re just waiting for the chauffeur-driven limousine to arrive and then you’ll be on your way.’
He returned to the library.
‘Is everything all right, Inspector?’ Wincey Adams said.
‘Just fine. There’s one of them in the kitchen, and you’ve met the one here. The one in the kitchen is called Rick, but I didn’t catch the name of this fine fellow. I’m expecting their transport to arrive at any time, and then we’ll all get out of your hair.’
‘You’ve been no trouble. Would you like another cup of tea while you’re waiting?’
‘Coffee would be good.’
The meat wagon arrived with four officers inside. They removed the two men from the premises, took the two silenced weapons. He decided to transport the two books and the memory stick himself.
After bidding Mrs Adams and Melanie goodbye, he drove to Portman Therapy on Windmill Street for his twelve o’clock. He checked the clock on his dashboard – quarter to six – a long way past twelve.
***
‘Sanguivoriphobia!’ Doctor Justine Bird said. She was in her late forties, and the ravages of time were beginning to peek through the veneer – a wrinkle on her forehead beneath the light brown hair, a small hardly noticeable subcutaneous lump in the crease of her nose, a patch of discoloured skin on the back of her hand, an annoying skin thread on her neckline – they were all clues to the fickle nature of time, and he wasn’t immune to it either.
They were sitting in the psychiatrist’s off
ice. He could smell a mixture of antiseptic and expensive perfume. Some men could name a woman’s perfume, but he’d never been one of those men. All perfume smelled the same to him. She’d poured him a coffee, but he was nearly full-up with coffee.
‘As you can imagine, it’s a very rare phobia. As far as I’m aware, there have only been two documented cases in America, and the patients were both women. However, like most phobias it is often triggered by a traumatic event in a person’s life.’
He sighed. He was hoping that the doctor would hand him the killer, or at least a suspect, on a plate. What now? His strategy of hope still wasn’t working. He had two dead bodies and nothing to go on. His only lead had been Joseph Corbyn, but he’d become a victim instead of a witness. The Rohypnol might have been traceable in the past, but anybody could get their hands on the drug these days. The hawthorn stakes weren’t traceable, and the bible reference pointed to someone who was killing people because he thought they were vampires.
Would there be more murders? Could he be looking for a serial killer who was being compelled to murder vampires by God, or someone who had a mission to rid the world of undesirables? And vampires – if they existed – would certainly be classified as undesirables?
‘Have you considered that your killer might be a woman?’
‘A woman?’
‘Yes. As I said, the two documented cases so far have both been women.’
‘An interesting suggestion. I’ll have to explore the idea.’ Could the killer be a woman? He hadn’t really thought about the killer’s gender, but he’d naturally assumed it would be a man. Maybe it was a woman. A woman could certainly get close enough to inject Rohypnol into a man’s neck, which would disable them and prevent the need for a struggle or any restraint being used while a wooden stake was hammered into the heart. It also wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that a reasonably strong woman could manhandle a man of slim build – similar to both Toby Flagg and Joseph Corbyn – into either the lock, or a waste bin.
He stood up and offered his hand. ‘Thanks for your time and expertise, Doctor. And I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I had a plan this morning, but it’s been one of those chaotic days. Things were going fine until I had to deal with the young girl; then a second body was reported in Marple; and there was gun-toting killers in Wilmslow . . . Yes, today’s definitely been one of those days you want to forget.’
‘It’s absolutely no problem, Inspector. I’m glad I could help.’
‘You have – in more ways than one.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
He walked into the station at eight-thirty, and went straight down to the custody suite.
‘You have three people belonging to me, I believe?’ he said to the Custody Sergeant – Moses Wheatley.
‘I do, Sir.’
‘I’d like to speak to Jeffrey Higham. I don’t want to interview him, just speak to him.’
‘Do you want a witness, Sir?’
He nodded. ‘Yes. Come with me and stand outside. I don’t want him saying later that I beat a confession out of him.’
‘No, we wouldn’t want that on my watch.’
Wheatley grabbed the keys, led Dark to Higham’s cell and opened the door.
Dark stepped inside the cell. ‘The elusive Jeffrey Higham.’
‘Dark, I presume?’ Higham said. ‘I wondered when you’d get here.’
‘Wonder no more. Here I am. I’ve not come to interview you though, I just wanted to let you know that I have the payment and receipt books, and the memory stick with the two video files on it. Also, the two men you sent to retrieve the items are also enjoying our hospitality.’
‘The books and the videos will never see the light of day. Too many important people are involved.’
‘Oh, I think you’re wrong, Higham.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘Anyway, I’m going to pass your case onto other people, but I have a couple of questions for you.’
‘And those are?’
‘Toby Flagg was your son, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘Last Monday, did you meet Toby at Rose Hill train station?’
‘No. He called me, and we arranged to meet in the pub along the road – the Wayfarer. I waited an hour, but he never came. I thought he’d changed his mind, and then I discovered that he’d been murdered.’
‘And you didn’t kill him?’
‘Why would I?’
‘He might have threatened to expose you as his father?’
‘I wouldn’t have cared. My wife and I never had any children, so I would have been happy to have recognised him publicly as my son. Have you found his killer yet?’
‘No. Arthur Flagg’s murder, and that of your partner Alan Doyle and his family fifteen years ago led me along the wrong path.’
‘I wanted Miranda to leave Arthur, but she wouldn’t. And then, of course, events took on a life of their own. My biggest regret was not getting to know my own son.’
‘Well, you’ll have lots of time to dwell on that, Higham.’
Higham laughed. ‘I won’t last five minutes in prison. You’ve seen the names in those books. I’ll be dead long before the case ever gets near a court.’
He nodded at Sergeant Wheatley to lock the cell door. ‘Thanks, Sergeant.’
‘Do you want to speak to the other two prisoners, Sir?’
‘No, thanks. As I said, I’ll be passing the case off to others less capable than me at Central Park tomorrow, so I expect they’ll get transferred to the cells there.’
‘I’ll make a note in the custody log, Sir.’
He walked to his office, made himself a coffee and called Isherwood.
‘Yes?’
She sounded impatient and out of breath again. Maybe that was her normal telephone manner.
‘I’ve not called at a sexually inconvenient time again, have I, Ma’am?’
‘You’re a bastard, Dark.’
‘I’m sure you’ve mentioned my parentage before.’
‘What do you want?’
‘It’s more about what you want, Ma’am.’
‘What I want is for you to stop ringing me in the middle . . .’
‘You wanted me to call you when I’d uncovered the secret of 14 Hawthorn Drive.’
‘Go on. I’m all yours.’
‘I doubt that, Ma’am.’
‘Well?’
He told her about the panic room, the two cash books, the two video recordings on the memory stick and the two men Higham had sent to retrieve everything.
‘You’ve solved the case then?’
‘Yes and no. There are still some unanswered questions, and still some evidence that needs to be brought into the light of a grey day, but I’m finished with the case. I’m going to pass the payment book and contract list onto the Fraud Squad; I’ll give the receipt book and the memory stick to my colleagues – if I can call them that – in the SCD at Central Park, and I’ll pass what I know about ACC Vickers’ corruption onto Professional Standards.’
‘And you’ll sit back and watch them fuck everything up?’
‘Oh, I’m sure they will, but I won’t be observing the apocalypse, Ma’am. If you recall, I still have the murder of Toby Flagg to solve, which was my original case.’
‘Are you any closer to solving that?’
‘No. And as you’ve probably seen on the news, Joseph Corbyn was found in Brabyns Park.’
‘Killed in the same way?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, good luck with that. Oh, and I see you’ve really stirred up a hornet’s nest at Blackpool.’
‘Not just there, Ma’am. After you left this morning, I received a call from the Chief Constable . . .’
‘Congratulating you on a job well done?’
He grunted. ‘If only life were that simple, but sadly . . . He wanted me to sweep what had happened to Alicia Glover at Abingdon Street Police Station under the rug of many crimes.’
‘Surely he would
n’t do that?’
‘They say that power corrupts. Anyway, I told him I wasn’t prepared to do that. So, he threatened me with excommunication unless I complied.’
‘Jesus!’
‘What he didn’t realise, was that I was recording the conversation, because I knew what was coming, and that nobody would believe my word against that of an esteemed Chief Constable.’
‘And then you uploaded it all to the internet?’
‘The least I could do.’
‘There’ll be consequences, Dark.’
‘I’m well aware of that, Ma’am. Also, he’d called DCI Campbell-Pegg, and said it was her duty to compromise the child’s evidence to protect the good name of the police force.’
‘I can’t believe he’d do that?’
‘Nor me, but there it is. Anyway, the DCI nearly succumbed, but I saved her integrity just in time. Also, I obtained the services of an advocate to represent Alicia Glover, and while I was at the Glover house, five armed police officers from Blackpool arrived with a Court Order to take Alicia into custody. Fortunately, I had some friends who turned up to help me .’
‘It sounds like a fairy story, Dark.’
‘As long as you’re the fairy, Ma’am.’
‘I think it’s going to be an eventful day tomorrow.’
‘It’s been an eventful day today, Ma’am. Anyway, I’ll let you get back to your exercise regime, and I’ll no doubt see you at Central Park tomorrow morning.’
‘Goodnight, Inspector.’
He put the phone down and began writing a list for Lake:
Lake,
I’m at Central Park annoying Henn and giving a press briefing. While I’m away, some information and some tasks. Do the tasks first.
I checked the CCTV at Montague’s Safe Deposit Storage – nothing of any use.
Jeffrey Higham is in the cells if you want to go down and stare at him. He won’t be there for long. Yes, he’s Toby Flagg’s father; he’s also the man in the Rhyl photograph with Miranda Flagg; but he’s not a match for either of the two men in the E-FITs from Rose Hill train station, which begs the question: Who were they?
