The Innocent Girl

by Alex Coombs

  Hanlon lacked the advantage of Michaels’ steel-toed work- boots but she was kicking for her life and she put every fibre of her hatred of Michaels into it. He was unbalanced, slightly dizzy now. His blood pressure was falling and he was low to the ground, his centre of gravity off-kilter.

  The force of the kick spun him backwards and his foot skidded on the treacherously slippery floor. Ordinarily, when you slip over, you put your arm out to break your fall. Michaels’ arm was useless to him.

  He fell on to the open door of the lower oven, which protruded outwards like a shelf. It was hinged at the bottom rather than at the side so it could open up and down. He crashed down hard on top of it, but it held. The Germans make very good kitchen equipment. He lay there momentarily on the glass door, winded, with his useless right arm trapped under his body.

  The glass of the oven door was immediately slick with blood. He put his left palm down on the floor of the kitchen to help push himself up and Hanlon stamped as hard as she could on it. All her weight was concentrated on the two-centimetre heel of her shoe, which crashed down like an industrial press, squarely on the back of the chef’s hand. She felt flesh and bone

  give beneath her foot and she cried out in triumph.

  Michaels shouted in pain and involuntarily curled up with agony, snatching his hand back towards him. Hanlon put her foot against his knees and shoved him backwards from the shelf, deep inside the oven.

  His blood on the glass shelf acted like a lubricant and he slid further back across the glass on to the polished, steel floor of the metre-deep oven. Hanlon stepped back, placed the tops of the toes of her right foot under the lip of the oven door, and slammed it shut.

  Unlike a walk-in fridge or freezer, there is no inside safety catch, no inside handle, in an oven. Why bother? You’re not supposed to go in. The oven door is, however, designed to click shut and stay shut, so it can’t be accidentally knocked open.

  Hanlon stood for a second or two, breathing hard, then she stepped back and looked through the reinforced glass of the oven door. Michaels was an indistinct dark mass inside. She could see him moving as he tried to get some leverage. He was trying to squirm round inside so he could kick at the door, but there wasn’t enough room. The door rattled gently, but showed no signs of giving way.

  Hanlon looked down at her torn, bloody dress. She had looked so pretty wearing it in the shop. Now she looked like one of the living dead.

  She suddenly thought of the ‘Women in Policing’ dinner she should be attending right then. Perhaps I ought to go as I am, she thought, they’ll be impressed. She stifled a laugh of pure hysteria.

  With almost hallucinatory clarity, she remembered the shop assistant asking her, ‘Is it for a date?’

  ‘Yes,’ she’d said proudly. ‘Yes, it is.’

  Her stockinged foot idly traced a pattern in the water on the floor that had been destined as her final resting place.

  She thought of Michaels’ words to her, something along the lines of, you banged your head and collapsed. Well, I’ve taken enough of a pounding for that to occur, she thought. I guess round about now, amnesia will set in. That’s what I’ll tell everyone.

  I can’t remember a thing.

  ‘This is for you, Michaels,’ she said out loud.

  She remembered Michaels showing her how the ovens upstairs worked. These were the same, just bigger. Hanlon pressed the power switch on with her forehead. The LED display for the oven temperature flashed, displaying 000. The inside light came on and she could now see his face.

  The oven must have been soundproof. She could see his lips moving, but no noise came out.

  ‘This is for Hannah and Jessica.’

  She turned round, back to the oven, selected the steam function of the Hobart and pressed the on button. The machine made a loud, metallic Kerchunk sound as its function changed from fan oven to giant steamer.

  ‘This is for Dame Elizabeth and my father.’

  Michaels must have known what was happening. His face was agitated; she could see he was shouting and his body jerked frantically, as he tried to break free. It was a pointless struggle. The oven door was toughened glass. You’d have needed a sledgehammer to break it.

  ‘And this is for me!’

  Hanlon turned again and pressed the temperature setting. Michaels had told her he usually had it at a hundred and seventy degrees Celsius, so in tribute she selected that.

  Her face was set and impassive while she calmly watched the LED display on the oven change incrementally, recording the speedily rising temperature, as the scalding steam hissed into the oven.

  In the breast pocket of his jacket, Michaels had placed Dame Elizabeth’s letter to Hanlon. As the steam filled the oven, transforming it into a scalding coffin, he had clawed it out of the thick cotton material. Soaked in his blood and superheated steam, the paper dissolved into illegible shreds. In destroying Michaels, Hanlon had obliterated her past.

  At fifty degrees Celsius, Michaels started thrashing around like a madman, trying desperately to move his skin away from the agonizingly hot metal. His mouth was open in a soundless scream.

  At about seventy degrees Celsius, he must have lost con- sciousness, for he stopped moving.

  She looked at the motionless body inside the oven and nodded curtly to herself.

  Hanlon crossed the kitchen floor carefully and walked down to the freezer.

  Her bag was on the floor still and she upended it. Make-up, tissues, purse, phone and keys fell out. On one of the key fobs was a small universal handcuff key and sitting on the floor, with great difficulty, and several false starts, she managed to get it into one of the locks and twist. She felt it give.

  Her hands were free.

  Quickly she opened the freezer door and dragged out the freezing, but still breathing, body of Fuller.

  She wrapped him as warmly as possible in her coat and called the emergency services. Then still holding her phone, she walked back up to check on Michaels.

  She looked at his dead body, gently cooking away. What was it he’d told her?

  ‘It’s as if my internal temperature was seventy degrees. I’m tough and dry inside.’

  Her lip curled in contempt.

  The oven purred along contentedly at a hundred and seventy degrees. She guessed he’d take a while to cook through.

  Slowly, she walked down the kitchen to open the double doors so she could go outside and call Enver.

  She could hear sirens approaching.

  They hadn’t got far to come.

  67

  Enver and Huss reached the end of the road paralleling the one with the Hanlon address, when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out. It was Hanlon herself. Relief washed over him.

  ‘Where are you?’ he asked. The tone of his question, angry and concerned, jumped the memory of the twenty-seven- year-old Huss back to when she was a teenager, to those few occasions, mainly Young Farmers’ Balls, when she’d worried her father. Enver sounded exactly like him. She half expected him to say something like, ‘I’ve been worried sick.’

  Huss watched intently while the conversation continued. She could piece together what was happening from Enver’s side of things.

  Fuller, alive, innocent. Michaels, dead, guilty.

  Hanlon, about to be taken to hospital for her head injuries, but otherwise OK.

  Enver’s face was one of acute concern. ‘I’ll see you there in about an hour. What am I doing? Oh, nothing much. No, I’m having a walk with DI Huss, showing her London by night. Yes, I’ll see you soon. Bye.’

  Enver sat down heavily on someone’s wall and passed his hands wearily over his face. When he put them down on his thighs, Huss could see his eyes were wet. She decided diplomatically not to notice.

  ‘So what do you want to do now, Enver?’ she asked. It was clear that whatever had happened, or was going to happen, Hanlon would be in no danger from this direction tonight. But the decision was Enver’s to make.

  She wondere
d what had happened to Hanlon, what sort of condition she was in. A part of her was extraordinarily jealous of the woman. How could she possibly live up to such a role model in Enver’s eyes?

  ‘What I want to do is send a message, Melinda,’ he said, with finality. ‘Let’s go and find Curtis’s friend.’

  Enver hadn’t been able to protect her from Michaels but the least he could do was protect her from Arkady Belanov.

  He stood up and put his hand in his pocket, and took out a pair of soft black leather gloves. Huss looked at him questioningly.

  ‘We don’t want anything to get lost in translation,’ Enver explained grimly. He took his jacket off and gave it to Huss to hold. His tie followed. Then he slipped the gloves on and flexed his fingers. He looked huge now in the darkness, lit softly by the glow of the energy-saving street lamps.

  ‘Time for a little chat,’ he said. His voice was quiet with menace, his eyes hard. Huss looked at him wonderingly. This was a side of Enver she had never seen. She knew his history; she knew he’d been a boxer. But she had never considered the innate brutishness that is necessary to reach the top flight as Enver had. When Enver chose to, he could be very violent indeed. They came to the end of the road. Parked diagonally across from them was a white Ford Transit with a huge, burly figure

  at the wheel. It had to be Dimitri, thought Enver.

  They crossed the road.

  ‘Wait here,’ said Enver quietly. Huss did as she was told and watched as Enver approached the van. He tapped on the window and the driver lowered it. She could see his face, a white blur, as he peered out at the thickset stranger with the heavy moustache.

  Enver would never have made anything other than a good journeyman boxer, but he could hit unbelievably hard.

  His best punch was a right hook and it was this that con- nected with the side of Dimitri’s head.

  Huss didn’t see the punch, but sound travels at night and she heard it quite clearly. For the second time in just over a week Dimitri’s cheekbone was shattered. Then Enver yanked open the door of the van and dragged the stunned Dimitri out on to the pavement. Another couple of blows and a savage kick to the ribs.

  Enver bent over the figure now lying half in the gutter and said something, then turned and walked away.

  A couple of metres away, he stopped and walked back to where Dimitri lay.

  ‘Nearly forgot,’ he said. He kicked Dimitri as hard as he could in the groin, then rejoined Huss.

  ‘Time to go,’ he said.

  They walked a couple of streets away, down to the high street, and caught a taxi to Paddington. Enver was completely silent, wrapped in whatever thoughts he had. Huss respected his right to privacy.

  Enver appreciated Huss’s tact. He looked at the stocky young woman beside him and smiled apologetically at her. He hoped he hadn’t alarmed her. Beating Dimitri up had left him feeling cleansed somehow. Huss smiled at him and patted his arm.

  They pulled up outside the station and he decided to wait with her, until her train back to Oxford was ready for boarding.

  He liked Huss. They sat at a table outside the station bar and had a drink, while they waited for her train.

  Now that the earlier tension of the evening was draining away, Enver was funny and warm and considerate. Huss stared at him mistily. Ever the optimist, she thought, it’s like a date, sort of.

  ‘Do you like ceviche?’ she asked Enver suddenly. He stared at her with some surprise.

  ‘What, that raw fish with lime juice on it?’ ‘Yes,’ said Huss.

  ‘No, no, I don’t,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t either,’ said Huss, pleased. ‘What do you like to eat?’ I wonder what she’s on about, thought Enver. ‘I like köfte and shish kebab, that kind of thing. Stereotypical, I guess, but, well, it’s what I like.’ He paused. ‘Grilled meat, and cake.

  I do like cake.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ she said. ‘I like cake too.’

  She nodded, satisfied. She stood up to go.

  ‘I’ll walk you to the barrier,’ he said. There they halted awkwardly. They stood looking at each other, almost in embarrassment.

  ‘Well,’ said Enver lamely, ‘it’s been lovely to have worked with you.’

  Huss smiled at him. Sod it, she thought, then, ‘I like köfte too,’ she said.

  ‘Good,’ said Enver.

  Huss shifted her weight awkwardly from foot to foot. Enver tugged his moustache. The enormous station was brightly lit and had very few people around. It felt almost hallucinogenic. ‘Is it true that DCI Hanlon stabbed a man to death on that island?’ she asked.

  Enver looked at her in surprise. ‘Oh no. Not at all. She didn’t stab him. She killed him with a spear. It was there,’ he made a sketching motion in the air, ‘hanging on the wall. She didn’t bring it with her.’ He shook his head emphatically; that would have been weird, the gesture implied.

  ‘Oh,’ said Huss faintly. How can you compete with that, she wondered. ‘Well, I’d better go.’

  She passed through the barrier and walked towards the train. I won’t look back, she thought. She did, though, and saw Enver’s broad shoulders as he slowly lumbered towards the Underground. Off to see Hanlon, she thought bitterly.

  With a spear. She shook her head.

  She settled down in the carriage and took her phone out. And a book. Fiction is a great consolation, she thought. Huss never gave in to self-pity. She always made the best of things.

  To her delight and amazement, a message appeared on the screen of her Samsung phone.

  I’m glad you like köfte. Would you like to come to my brother’s restaurant some time, if you happen to be in London? Enver.

  Oh, I think I can happen to be in London, thought Melinda Huss. She frowned gently to herself as she answered, and smiled.

  68

  Corrigan sat in the visitor’s chair beside Hanlon’s bed, looking at her with affectionate concern. He was formally dressed in black tie, but with his size and battered face he looked more like a doorman than a senior policeman.

  Her dark, curly hair contrasted with the white of the pillows, and the bandage that ran around her head looked almost chic. She was wearing a hospital gown and seemed frail and childlike in the bed.

  Fuller was making a good recovery in a separate hospital. Parts of him were frostbitten, there was a certain amount of internal bleeding and his skull was fractured, but it seemed he would survive intact.

  Hanlon’s mobile was charging next to the bed, when Corrigan’s phone rang.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said and left the room, closing the door behind him.

  Enver had spoken to him briefly about a threat to Hanlon from some Russians. The Russian mafia, he’d said. Corrigan had groaned to himself. Not content with home-grown may- hem, Hanlon was casting her net further afield. To Enver’s huge relief, Corrigan had told him to fill him in later. The assistant commissioner had watched the expression on Enver’s face and rightly guessed that the DI would be busy trying to airbrush whatever facts made Hanlon look bad, out of the report.

  In the interim, for security reasons, Corrigan had Hanlon transferred from University College Hospital, where she’d been initially taken, to the one at Seven Sisters where Whiteside was being looked after. In fact, he was just down the corridor. Hanlon was high on a cocktail of medication and felt warm, comfortable, safe and grateful to be alive. I could be face down in that drain, she thought drowsily, sleeping with the microbes,

  not even the fishes.

  She propped herself dozily up on one elbow and saw that Corrigan’s long black overcoat with a velvet collar, the one that made him look like a successful bookmaker, was draped over the back of his chair and his briefcase, a kind of man-bag that rather surprised her, was there too. He had been wearing a dinner jacket; only now did it occur to her that he must have come straight from the Mansion House.

  She thought, I wonder. She took her phone from the bedside table next to her and scrolled through the menu, until she came to the nu
mber of the unrecognized mobile that had been giving her the information on Whiteside’s family. She pressed dial.

  A phone rang from the overcoat pocket. One ring was enough. She pressed end call and put her phone back.

  Corrigan knocked and re-entered the room.

  ‘I’m off now, Hanlon. I’m sure DI Demirel will keep me up to speed and you can come and see me when you’re up and about.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ she said sleepily. ‘I’m sorry if I messed up your

  evening.’

  Corrigan smiled. ‘It was very dull, Hanlon. You’d have hated it.’

  She smiled woozily at him. ‘I’ll have my report ready as soon as I can.’

  ‘You do that, Hanlon, and concentrate on leading as dull a life as possible, please,’ said the assistant commissioner.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘No more excitement, Hanlon. I’m on pills for that kind of thing, understand.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Corrigan turned to go. ‘Sir?’ said Hanlon. Corrigan stopped and looked at her.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said simply, and closed her eyes. Corrigan nodded curtly and left the room. A wave of con-

  flicting emotion washed over him. It was the first time Hanlon had ever thanked him for anything. He felt very moved. He closed the door quietly behind him. Hanlon waited five minutes. She had one more thing she needed to do, before she could sleep. She slipped the heart-rate monitor and blood-pressure counter off the fingers they were attached to. She had canulae in the backs of her hands but they weren’t yet attached to any lines.

  She swung her feet down on to the cool, beige lino of the floor. She picked up the book she’d asked DCI Murray to bring in. It belonged to one of his daughters and the request had puzzled him greatly, but he’d done as she asked.

  Hanlon padded in her bare feet, two doors down to Whiteside’s room, and let herself in. The nurses’ station was the other side of a partition with a window and allowed enough light to read by.

  Whiteside lay asleep in his coma and he stirred as she watched. She could see a muscle move in his powerful forearm. She whispered, ‘It’s not called Sleeping Beauty in the original, Mark. It’s called Briar Rose. I’ll read you the opening sentence. Just like I promised you. Everything’s going to be all right, I swear.’