by Rob Ashman
‘So when we’ve drunk this, if you would like some fizz?’ he said.
‘Fuck that.’ Kray picked up the Champagne and started to remove the foil from the cork. ‘Let’s have it now.’ She twisted off the metal cage and popped the cork free from the neck.
Millican looked at the pile of dirty glasses in the sink. ‘Did the cleaning maid not call today?’ He walked around the kitchen, opening and closing cupboard doors, then triumphantly pulled out two mugs. ‘These will do.’
He held them while she poured the fizz into the cups and they chinked them together.
‘Congratulations!’ she said. ‘Thank you for coming over so I could shout at you.’
‘Thanks for allowing me to celebrate inappropriately.’
Millican leaned in for a kiss. Kray flinched. Her instinct was to pull away, but she stopped herself.
Their lips met.
It was the softest touch.
She tilted her head and pressed her mouth against his. Her mind was spinning, she had not kissed a man in so long.
His hand moved to her neck and pulled her into him. She felt his tongue slip into her mouth. He tasted of wine.
They floundered around putting their cups onto the worktop. Kray placed her hand on his chest. She could feel the contours of his muscles beneath his shirt.
He wound his arm around her waist, drawing her against him. His hand slipped beneath her shirt, his fingers running over the rippled scars across her back.
She jumped at his touch, and he removed his hand.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—’ he said, his breath short.
‘It’s okay.’ She kissed him hard, guiding his hand back under her top. His body pressed her against the worktop. Kray pushed him away.
‘No,’ she gasped.
‘I just—’
She placed her finger on his lips.
‘No, not here.’ Kray picked up the bottle with one hand and took his hand with the other. ‘Get those,’ she said nodding to the cups on the worktop.
She led him through the lounge and up the stairs.
Chapter 14
This is my third fishing trip in as many weeks. The others came up blank but this time my hopes are high. I sit and wait in the armchair facing the TV. I’ve done all that I can, the rest is up to him.
It has been four months in the planning and getting to grips with the methodical way in which he goes about his business has been a challenge. The strict patterns and schedules have often made me wonder if he had a military background. But that’s a stupid idea – when it is patently obvious this is all he has ever known. After weeks of tracking him I was able to gauge his next move. His predictability was his Achilles heel.
The whole place is in darkness apart from the light of the street lamps washing the room with a pale orange glow. I can feel a cold draft around my feet as the night air blows through the open window in the bedroom.
This is a nice flat, it has two bedrooms, a kitchen, a good-sized bathroom and comfortable lounge-diner. I asked the agent how long it had been on the market and he was suitably evasive. I suspect it has been vacant for a while due to it being located above an Indian restaurant. Even for a curry addict like myself I think I would have to think twice before leasing it; though, as I sit here and the minute hand on my watch sweeps past 3am, the residual smell is making me feel hungry.
This was the fifth property I viewed. The others all had issues of one sort or another – some had alarms fitted while others were too well lit or didn’t have suitable access. This one was just right. I had spent ages casing the outside of the building working out the best method of entry. The bedroom window seemed ideal and my plan was to leave it cracked open, allowing me to gain entry whenever I wanted. However, when I visited the place to have a look around, and the agent dropped the keys onto the sideboard, it was a simple case of creating a diversion and slipping one off the ring. He had previously been banging on about how they have to cut so many copies of the keys to manage multiple viewings. So it seemed rude not to take one. If I had known that was going to happen I could have saved myself a ton of effort. The agent seemed genuinely disappointed when I told him I would not be taking the flat, my acting skills must be improving.
My senses are tuned to high alert and my head is playing havoc with the sounds of the neighbourhood asleep. Every noise has me ready to go, only to come to nothing. Then I hear a cat howl like a baby in the alleyway at the back, I strain my ears and can hear a shuffling coming from outside the back of the property. There is a ‘clunk’ from the bedroom as the window is pushed up, the wooden frame clattering in the runners.
Fuck me, game on.
I ease myself out of the chair and hide behind the door to the living room. The sound of feet landing on the floor wafts towards me on the cold air.
I hold my breath.
It all goes quiet.
The only thing I can hear is my blood thumping through my temples. I catch the sound of carpet fibres, brushing under a door as it opens. Then silence again.
A thin cone of light flashes into the lounge from the hallway beyond, it criss-crosses the floor and walls. The tall, lean silhouette of a man moves into the room scanning the contents with the tiny beam. It’s him.
The beam lands on the Sky box sitting under the TV and he hurries towards it. He pops the end of the pen light into his mouth and sets to work disconnecting cables.
The figure is kneeling down, reaching around the back to the sockets on the wall. I see him tug at the wires to free the devise. He slides it towards himself and tucks it under his arm.
I swing the sock packed with sand, bringing it down hard. He catches sight of me in his peripheral vision and dodges to his right, it thuds into the top of his shoulder and he yelps in pain. I take a backhand swing, but he ducks away and it glances the top of his head. The force of the blow sends him spinning sideways and he lands on his side with his back to me. He turns and throws the Sky box, it smacks me full in the face.
You little shit!
My calm resolve evaporates and now I want to kill him with my bare hands.
He scrabbles to his feet and bolts for the door. I launch myself at him and grab his ankle, forcing him to topple over, landing heavily against the doorframe. He yelps again.
I claw myself over him and straddle his back, he is bucking and lurching trying to throw me off. I grasp his head with both hands and slam it into the doorframe. His hands claw at mine trying to prise them loose, I crack his head against the wood once more and he collapses beneath me.
I roll off to the side and suck air into my lungs. Fuck I made hard work of that.
I grab the back of his coat collar and drag him across the floor, down the hallway to the bathroom. I need to work fast, he is out cold but it won’t last long. My bag is already tucked under the sink. I unzip it and remove a tea towel, ramming it past his teeth to fill his mouth. Then I take a roll of duct tape and wind it across his mouth and behind his head to keep the towel in place. I tip him over onto his front and bind his wrists tight with the tape as well as securing it above his elbows. I repeat the process with his knees and ankles. Before long he’s trussed up like a chicken. I shove him across the floor and heave him over the rim of the bath. He slides in like a wet fish.
I take a few minutes to collect myself and he starts groaning. A few minutes more and he is screaming through the gag while writhing around fighting against his bonds. I stand up and look down at him lying face up in the bath, his eyes are bursting from their sockets the size of pool balls.
‘Hello, Billy.’
Chapter 15
Kray pressed the flashing blue button and took the ticket as it protruded from the slot, the barrier went up allowing her to drive in. This was going to cost her an arm and a leg but it was worth it to get out of the bumper-to-bumper traffic and, besides, by this time the station car park would be full. She was late and couldn’t care less.
Waking up with a man in your bed, after such a long time without one, had
been a shock. Especially when Dr Ding-dong had made it very clear that he wasn’t keen on having breakfast, but rather that he had his mind set on something else to start the day.
Kray had stood in her kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil, and was amazed that with everything that had happened in the past twelve hours, the oddest feeling was making coffee for two. The other thing that felt odd was the fact that she didn’t feel guilty. Not one bit.
She had surprised herself how comfortable she had been baring her scars to him. He was more interested in her to notice, while she was more interested in him to care.
She got out of her car at the fifth floor and made her way down in the lift. As she stepped out into the thin winter sunshine she wanted to bask in the afterglow of last night, but instead she could feel the fury of bitter resentment growing in her stomach. Every step she took the rage grew and grew.
DCI Dan Bagley?
By the time she had reached the main thoroughfare any thoughts of Dr Ding-dong were long gone, replaced instead by a toxic mix of self-loathing and raw anger towards Quade and Bagley. She puffed away on a cigarette oblivious to those around her, storming along the pavement like a one-woman protest march. She bumped shoulders with a man coming in the opposite direction.
‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going,’ she said holding her hand up to cement the apology. He scowled at her and carried on. Kray was so engrossed in her black mood she almost missed it. She backtracked and read the poster in the window.
‘Fuck ‘em,’ she said causing the woman walking her dog to glance over, probably expecting to see a rowdy teenager not a woman in her late-thirties dressed in a smart coat and suit. Kray pushed her shoulder to the door and went inside.
Ten minutes later she emerged with two sheets of paper which she stuffed into her bag. She looked at her watch, 9.20am. She was late and she couldn’t care less.
Kray reached her office to find ACC Quade lurking in the corridor.
‘Morning, Roz, I’ve been looking for you.’
‘Sorry, ma’am, I had car trouble this morning. How can I help?’
At that moment Bagley came around the corner. ‘Hey, Roz, how are you doing?’ He offered his hand, which she took.
‘I’m fine, Dan, I wasn’t expecting you to—’
‘We thought a prompt start was in order and Dan got himself released early from GMP, so we thought why not start now,’ Quade interrupted.
I bet they couldn’t wait to get shot of him. The bunting must stretch all the way down Deansgate.
‘We want to make the announcement at nine thirty, will you be able to do the honours and show me around, introduce me to the team?’ Bagley said with child-like enthusiasm.
‘Yes I can, but can we do the tour about ten to allow me time to follow up on a few items from yesterday and make sure the guys are on track? And I have to pop out at two thirty to pick up my car from the garage,’ Kray lied.
‘I could give you a lift if you want,’ Bagley said trying to make friends.
‘It’s okay, I already have a lift thank you.’
‘Sure, me and Mary could grab a coffee and I’ll see you back here at ten.’ He was grinning like a maniac. Quade nodded and they both scuttled off.
Me and Mary can grab a coffee. Kray sang the words as a schoolyard chant over and over in her head. She busied herself completing paperwork and called Tavener. Her one productive thought on her way into work was to check if they had CCTV installed on the show houses on the Woodland View estate. If they did, maybe they could corroborate Jack Stapleton’s alibi that he was at home all night. Tavener was still chasing up Liz Stapleton’s sister.
‘Oh shit,’ Tavener said mid-sentence.
‘What’s wrong.’
‘I’ve just seen the announcement from ACC Quade.’
‘Yeah, it didn’t go my way.’
‘Roz, I’m so sorry.’
‘Forget about it we got work to do.’ She hung up not wanting to prolong the conversation.
‘Forget about what?’ Bagley appeared in the doorway.
Shit, was it that time already?
‘Oh nothing. Now how about if we start by me giving you the low-down on our live cases?’
‘Sounds good to me.’
The next four hours flew by. Kray had impressed herself with her comprehensive grasp of the department’s workload and issues. Shame ACC Quade hadn’t been there to hear it. She had introduced Bagley to those members of the team who were working in the office and took him around some of the other departments. For many of those they met it was like an old school reunion. Congratulatory back slapping, excited exchanges and the re-telling of old anecdotes. All of which served to piss Kray off.
‘I have to go pick up my car and then I have to chase down some leads in the Cadwell case,’ Kray said, looking at her watch.
‘Yeah, I think you are really onto something with the husband and wife of the little girl he killed. You need to keep me in the loop.’
‘As I said, I’m not so sure it has anything to do with the Singletons. They don’t strike me as—’
‘No, you need to pursue it, they have every reason to do Cadwell harm,’ Bagley interrupted.
Kray went to stand her ground but found herself smiling at him instead. She picked up her coat from the stand and collected her bag.
‘I really appreciate this, Roz and I’m sure you and I will make a great team. No hard feelings eh?’ he said.
‘None on my part. See you tomorrow.’
Kray walked out of CID and down the stairs, two words screaming in her head.
Fuck ’em.
Chapter 16
It was the day my face exploded.
Jono was flown to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, thirty-six hours after being admitted to Camp Bastion. I never did get to speak with him. Corporal Rogers told me that they had to amputate his other leg above the knee because it was full of ball bearings from the blast.
I stayed at Camp Bastion until my wounds had healed sufficiently for me to be posted back to my unit. Five guys that I had never met before welcomed me into their ranks like an old friend. They took the piss out of my face with its criss-cross of scars and said I made Freddy Krueger look like someone from the Nivea advert. It felt good to be back amongst the Brotherhood.
The months passed and I relaxed back into my role with my new team, trying to blank out the terror that had gone before. The faces of Pat, Bootleg, Donk and Ryan haunted my dreams. Their disembodied heads came and went, emerging from a haze of memories only to sink back into the blackness. They never said a word, they would float around and stare at me, cracking the occasional smile and then be gone.
Then life began to change. It started out as an irritant, a tiny blemish on my right cheek that constantly itched. It felt like a gnat bite that you might get while sitting in the garden on a warm summer’s evening. But is wasn’t.
I tried every off-the-shelf remedy the supermarket at Camp Bastion had to offer but it seemed the more creams and potions I applied the worse it got. One morning I got up and it had developed into an angry red swelling beneath my skin. It was our rest day, so I made my way over the Med tent.
‘How long have you had this?’ said the male medic, pushing and prodding it with his gloved fingers.
‘A few months. I reckon I got bitten and it will won’t heal. It itches like a bastard and I can feel it throbbing when I lie down.’
‘It’s infected. I will give you a course of antibiotics and an antihistamine cream. If it doesn’t clear up in a week come back.’
It didn’t take a week. Oh boy, the little fucker loved that antihistamine cream. I applied it in line with the instructions and popped my tabs like a good boy. The swelling got bigger and bigger, and angrier and angrier. The endless itching drove me to distraction and it reached the stage where I struggled to focus when we were out on parole.
‘Maybe it gets worse with the dust.’ One of my new team mates had chirped up following an ex
plosive bout of swearing on my part. That seemed like a cracking diagnosis at the time – you have to love getting medical advice from non-medical people. So, one day I took the added precaution of covering it with a medical gauze while we were out searching for munitions. The bloody thing went into overdrive. By the time I got back the swelling was so bad I looked like one half of a fucking chip monk. It was hot to the touch and throbbed in time with my heartbeat.
I went back to the Med tent and saw a different medic. We went through the same courteous discussion and I left with a stronger course of antibiotics and a stack of dressings to stick on the side of my face.
Three days later I woke in the middle of the night to find my pillow covered in blood. I rushed to the bathroom and to my horror my cheek had split open like a water melon and was oozing both blood and puss. I rushed to the medics who admitted me into a room and set to work.
The next day my cheek ruptured into a volcanic glob of exposed flesh. I freaked out. I saw a specialist who examined me for about fifteen minutes then declared, ‘You have leishmaniasis, a disease carried by sand flies that is sometimes called Baghdad Boil.’
‘Bagdad what?’ I answered not really taking in what he had said.
‘It’s commonly called Bagdad Boil.’
‘What the hell is that?’
‘You’ve been bitten by a female sand fly that has injected a parasite under your skin. The parasite evades the body’s natural defence mechanism by hiding away in white blood cells. There they multiply and eventually the cell wall ruptures, allowing more of the parasites to hide in more white blood cells, and so the cycle repeats itself. It is a progressive infection that results in the skin bursting, as it has done in your case.’
‘Christ! So can you give me some shit to clear it up?’
‘I’m afraid it’s not that easy.’
‘How come?’
‘I will need to run tests to determine which strain of leishmania you have and depending on that we will prescribe a course of treatment. How long do you have left on this tour?’
