by Ashley Dyer
She started searching on her own phone, and the rest of the team followed suit.
A minute later, one of the younger detectives said, “I know it! It’s down the Dingle, sir—near the go-kart track.”
“Which is where, exactly?”
“Sorry, sir. Sefton Street, the big roundabout by the Royal Mail depot.”
“Someone locate it on a map,” Carver said. “I want a post code or grid reference.”
11
The police convoy sliced through rush-hour traffic under the banshee howl of the sirens. Lights blazing and horns blaring, it took less than three minutes from headquarters to the scene.
Ruth Lake had snatched the keys to a patrol car from the board, and with red and blue grille lights blazing and siren whooping, she matched every maneuver of the bright yellow Matrix Mercedes Sprinter van as it steered and swerved and braked, diving from one lane to another at nerve-jangling speed, Greg Carver clinging grimly to the passenger-door grab handle.
The crowd had gathered in a car park adjacent to a health and fitness center, and Lake risked sliding a single look Carver’s way as they swung into it seconds behind the Matrix van. The strobing police lights alternately gave his skin a deathly blue cast and a hectic glow.
The Matrix team’s Serious and Organized Crime Unit was highly trained in managing public disorder incidents; they would take the lead here. Ten officers in body armor piled out, muscling through the crowd to get between them and the wall, and moments later a second police van screamed to a halt on the road above the archway. This was a specialist crew trained in rope access, the plan being to drop a few officers down to the ledge to secure the scene.
“I underestimated the height of the ledge,” Ruth commented.
That should work to their advantage: the sheer face of the wall and the overhang of the ledge above the arched steel doors would act as a deterrent, holding the spectators at bay. The laptops still rested in place, strips of unlit LEDs strung beneath them, like windblown party streamers.
A second later, the place was flooded with powerful light from the Matrix van on the car park and portable “Night Owl” floodlights from the street sixty feet above.
Carver’s detectives, bolstered by the arrival of uniform police, managed the outer perimeter.
The police presence, and perhaps seeing the words “Caught on camera—mobile CCTV” blazoned on the side of the Matrix van, were enough to encourage some of the crowd to disperse. The Matrix team leader addressed the crowd from the van’s PA system, advising them to stay put—they would need to question everyone present—but the area was open on three sides, impossible to contain them all without a greater police presence, and spectators continued to slink away.
Carver nodded to his left. “Over there.” Two of the men had split off from the crowd and were running to the far side of the wall, where the natural bedrock extended all the way to the level of the car park. Cracks in the stone, and shrubby trees growing up the escarpment, would give them hand and footholds.
“They need to be stopped.”
His tone, and his reluctance to meet her eye, told her that Carver wasn’t going to be able to help.
The first of them, a lanky youth, had already started to climb the rock face, making for the ledge as Ruth sprinted from the car, dragging her police ID out of her pocket.
A Matrix cop turned away from the crowd, bellowing, “YOU, STOP!”
Ruth held her ID aloft, pointing to the two idiots about to risk their lives and breach the crime scene. She didn’t turn back after that, but kept running, satisfied to hear the heavy clump of size twelve boots gaining on her.
The second runner was shorter and less athletic; he had just begun to climb when Ruth caught up with him. She yelled for him to stop, but he kept going, laughing hysterically like he was high on something. She leapt, hooked her hand through the back of his trouser belt, and yanked him off the rock face.
He fell backward with a cry of dismay, catching her a glancing blow above her right eye, but she held on to him, shoving him to the ground and whipping her cuffs from her belt as the Matrix cop powered past her to the rock face.
He yelled for the climber to stay where he was, that help was coming.
The lanky male laughed, and from the base of the cliff his friend yelled, “Go ’head, Robbo. Lob ’em down.”
Jeez, he’s planning to throw the laptops down to the mob.
“Robbo” edged right, finding purchase in the rock above the ledge with his fingertips and the toes of his Nike trainers, cheered on by the spectators. He reached the first laptop to whistling and applause, wedged his left hand into a crack in the rock face to anchor himself, and bent to retrieve the laptop.
He snapped it closed, one-handed, and flung it.
The crowd yelled, “Woooo-OH!,” heads turning to watch the laptop skim like a frisbee over the heads of the Matrix cops. Whoever caught the thing must have regretted it a second after his moment of triumph, because the crowd surged inward like prop forwards in a rugby scrum. Officers moved in to break it up.
Simultaneously, several shouts of “Rope!” from above, then a whistle of air as rappelling ropes snaked over the escarpment from the street above.
Robbo continued to work his way, inch by inch, along the grass-clogged guttering attached to the ledge. He reached the second laptop as a Matrix officer rappelled down the cliff, heading directly toward him.
Robbo reached, straining for the second laptop. Overreached—
The guttering gave way under his weight; he scrabbled for something to hold. Stones, twigs, and dirt came away in his hands, and Ruth saw his wide-eyed gape of horror as he toppled forward, off the cliff.
Ruth’s prisoner shouted, “Robbo!”
Someone screamed.
He fell headfirst. Instinctively the crowd splashed backward. There was nothing between Robbo and the concrete below.
He swung face-first with a clang into the steel door under the ledge.
And dangled, held by one ankle.
A Matrix team rappeler had caught him just in time.
Robbo groaned, dripping blood from a serious nosebleed, and the rappeler gently lowered him to police waiting in the car park below.
12
Carver found an e-mail from the Ferryman waiting in his inbox when he returned to base.
Under the subject heading “You missed the wave,” the killer had written: “People get hurt when you don’t pay attention. You need to PAY ATTENTION.”
Carver checked the date stamp; it was sent moments after Robbo fell from the ledge.
He looked up and saw Ruth at his desk. He hadn’t heard her come in, and she was looking at him as if she was waiting for an answer to a question.
“Take a look,” he said, turning the laptop for her to read. “He was there, Ruth.”
“I’ll get a copy of the CCTV recording from the Matrix vans,” she said. “Cross-ref them with the Stone Street scene. Hughes is coordinating evidence collection at Dingle Station. If this bastard left any trace, they’ll find it.”
“Thanks. Anything else?”
“The super wants to see both of us,” she said.
He nodded.
“As of five minutes ago,” she added.
Carver hauled himself out of his chair, feeling a hundred years old.
Detective Superintendent Wilshire made Ruth Lake wait outside his office while he spoke to Carver.
“The injured onlooker is exercising the media,” he said without preamble. “The press office has been fielding suggestions that you were slow on the uptake, that we at Merseyside Police aren’t taking the threat to public safety seriously enough.”
“There was a miscommunication in the Contact Center,” Carver said. “I’ve already spoken to the team leader, and the contact adviser. We’ll work on a protocol to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
“Be sure you do,” Wilshire said. “And brief the Press Office, too.”
Carver nodded, waiting to
be dismissed, but Wilshire seemed in no hurry.
“Look,” he said. “As it turns out, this case hasn’t exactly been the gentle ease-in to work that we intended.”
Carver hated the thought that others had sat around a table discussing his welfare, deciding what they could give the invalid to make him feel useful without taxing his delicate constitution.
He groped for something to say that wouldn’t sound defensive and came up with, “It’s been a good motivator.”
“You never lacked motivation, Greg,” Wilshire said, with a rare flash of humor. “But this is a high-pressure investigation—”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” Carver said quickly, preempting what he feared would be an offer to relieve him of the burden.
Wilshire didn’t look convinced. “You always were your own worst enemy.” He sighed. “All right, you can call DS Lake in.”
Ruth entered with her shoulders back and a quiet calm emanating from her that soothed Carver but seemed to exasperate Wilshire.
“That’s a nasty-looking bruise, DS Lake,” he said, gathering his brows as if accusing her of recklessly head-butting a wall.
Most people would have touched the sore spot, but Ruth kept her hands relaxed at her sides. “It looks worse than it is, sir,” she said.
This seemed to irritate Wilshire further. “For God’s sake, Carver,” he growled. “Sit down before you fall down.”
Carver would normally have politely refused, but he didn’t want to make things worse for Ruth, so he took a chair and waited to see how the storm would progress.
“I wanted both of you to hear this,” Wilshire said. “So there is no confusion about where we stand. ‘Robbo’—real name Wayne Roberts—suffered serious injuries. Broken nose, fractured cheekbone, and a dislocated knee. He’ll need reconstructive surgery on his face.”
Wilshire was a big bear of a man, not good at hiding his feelings, and it didn’t take any special skills to know that right now, he was royally pissed off. Carver just wasn’t sure who with. He glanced sideways at Ruth for guidance, but she seemed to be accepting the proffered facts as helpful information with no emotion or accusation attached to them.
“Mr. Roberts’s solicitor,” Wilshire went on, “is complaining that an overzealous police reaction to the situation caused his injuries.”
“He was interfering with a crime scene, destroying evidence,” Ruth said, her tone mild, but firm.
“You can add inciting a riot to that,” Carver said, remembering the laptop sailing over the heads of the Matrix team officers.
“And endangering the lives of others,” Ruth agreed.
Wilshire didn’t comment.
“Mr. Roberts’s accomplice, Daryl Smith, whom DS Lake prevented from climbing the rock face, has additionally threatened to sue for assault,” he said, flatly.
Ruth’s only response was a slight lift of her eyebrows.
“She probably saved the pillock’s miserable life,” Carver said.
Wilshire scowled at the interruption. “The incident has been referred to the IPCC.”
Carver groaned inwardly: this was the Independent Police Complaints Commission—and would be a huge pain in the backside.
“But those two bozos won’t have it all their own way.”
Carver had to run the last sentence through again before he realized that Wilshire was effectively backing them.
“Mr. Smith was three times over the legal limit for alcohol,” Wilshire went on, “and saliva tests suggest that both he and Mr. Roberts had been smoking cannabis. Blood tests have been taken to confirm the levels, but Mr. Roberts admitted he had been smoking weed all afternoon.”
“It’s a wonder he didn’t float up there,” Ruth said, deadpan.
Carver smiled; Wilshire did not. “The bruise over your eye is evidence that Smith resisted arrest,” he said. “He could be charged with assaulting a police officer in the execution of duty.”
“He fell backward, caught me with his elbow in the fall,” Ruth said.
“Merseyside Police has a no-tolerance policy on violence against its officers,” Wilshire countered.
“Like I said, he wasn’t violent, just uncoordinated—I wouldn’t want to press charges.”
“That will not be your decision, DS Lake,” Wilshire said.
Carver shot her a warning look and Ruth fell back on a well-worn strategy: she gave Wilshire her wide-eyed stare and an ambiguous, “Sir.”
“Will that be all, sir?” Carver said.
“For now.” He dismissed them with a wave of his hand.
Carver waited until they were in the elevator heading down to the incident room before he said, “Wilshire’s doing you a favor.”
“He’s covering his backside,” Ruth said.
“No doubt. But he’s covering yours, too—so let him.”
13
I watch Robbo dive headfirst off the ledge for the twentieth time. I’ve been replaying that moment on video at my studio. That’s got to deserve a nomination for a Darwin Award—pity it was a near miss. From my perspective, his near-fatal nosedive could not have been timelier or turned out better. Far from losing followers who failed to understand the message behind Catch the Gamma Wave, the gains have, in fact, been phenomenal. Social media loves to scream police brutality, and Robbo’s spectacular fall has been played over and over, shared, tweeted, retweeted, and screen-grabbed on thousands of phones worldwide. All the main news broadcasters used it in their bulletins; someone even made it into a GIF. It went viral.
Kharon was very helpful in getting word out after the police switchboard refused to forward my call to Chief Inspector Carver. I decided right then not to spread the news publicly, and when I private-messaged Kharon, he was eager to be involved. He PM’d his followers, giving strict instructions to keep the exhibit under the radar. They private-messaged others. My own video upload netted seven thousand new followers.
All in all, a good day.
14
Day 4, 6:15 a.m.
Ruth Lake drove Carver in sleepy silence. Twilight was paling to sullen dawn, and low clouds promised rain later. She had worked well into the night and would have liked another half hour in bed, but Carver had scheduled a seven a.m. meeting with their forensic psychologist, Dr. Yi.
The streets outside the city center were quiet, and Ruth took advantage of the empty roads, pushing the car to the speed limit, zipping around slow-moving traffic. They didn’t stop for a single traffic light from Carver’s place to the turn into Upper Parliament Street that would take them on the downhill curve to the waterfront.
A half mile on, at the church of St. James in the City, Ruth slowed for the first time.
“What?” Carver said.
“Nothing,” she said. “Tiredness.” She thought she’d seen a gray silhouette, a misty shadow on the brick perimeter wall of the church. She dismissed it as a trick of the dawn half-light and four hours of troubled sleep. But then she saw it again—or one like it—on a broadband street cabinet: a gray, hooded figure, the face obscured in darker shadow. She flicked on the hazards and pulled over to the curb.
Moments later, Carver stood next to her, staring at the figure, spray-stenciled in two shades of gray on the narrow end of the cabinet. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he asked.
“Depends,” Ruth said, snapping a few pictures on her mobile phone. “Are you thinking it looks a hell of a lot like the hooded bogeyman in Tennent’s Fact or Fable? TV program?”
They saw four more of the graffiti figures between the church and their destination: images of the gray, monklike figure ghosting around corners, lurking on the gray walls of Wapping Dock, fading into the stone on which it was painted. Finally, on a reconstructed stone arch—a monument to the history of the dock—its arm raised, a finger pointing toward the police headquarters a couple hundred yards north of them.
Ruth glanced across to Carver. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
Echoing her earlier reply, Carver said
, “Depends whether you’re thinking this bastard is taking the piss.”
With half an hour to spare before the meeting, Carver went to his office, while Ruth Lake went in search of coffee. They convened in his office on the hour.
“Let’s start with the Ferryman’s response to being denied access,” Dr. Yi said.
He was sitting in a chair to Ruth’s left, looking fresh and rested. She tried not to hold it against him.
“As I understand it, he shut down all lines of communication with you?”
“Even social media went silent for the first fifteen minutes,” Carver said.
“We think he direct-messaged a few followers and even they kept it between themselves,” Ruth added.
“So you’re difficult to reach, and he withdraws entirely.”
“Classic passive-aggressive,” Ruth said. That drew a sharp look from Yi.
“It certainly indicates a fragile ego,” he said. “This is a dangerous personality.”
“We know that,” Carver said. “We had a near riot on our hands last night. The question is, do we give him the access he wants?”
Yi looked doubtful. “Appeasing him could have serious repercussions.”
“The repercussions of not appeasing him have been fairly serious,” Ruth said, immediately regretting her sarcasm.
Yi dipped his head, accepting it with good grace.
“Even so, I would advise restraint. Direct dialogue with you could cause him to shift focus, and that carries its own risks.” He left the rest unsaid, but she and Carver both knew the dangers of becoming the target of a psychopath.
“I hear what you’re saying,” Carver said. “But I won’t endanger the public, playing games with this man, so why don’t I tell you what we’ve done already, and then you can tell us if there’s anything else we can do.”
Yi folded his arms and looked at his feet.
In some, Ruth would read his closed posture as defensive—even obstructive. But in Dr. Yi it was a sign of concentration.
