by Ashley Dyer
“Listen to yourself!” Shauna said. “Can’t you see it’s not right, what you’re doing?”
“No,” Ruth said. “No, I can’t.” She began shaking. She couldn’t control it.
“Well, I’ve tried, and I’m too tired to keep on trying,” Shauna said. “You’re not listening. I can’t keep explaining if you won’t listen.” After a moment, she seemed to reconsider and went on in a gentler tone, “I’m sorry, love. I didn’t come here to upset you. But you have to leave him alone.”
“I can’t,” Ruth said again. She was crying now, tears streaming down her face; and she was angry that she was crying in front of her tutor; angry that he was hearing things she had tried to keep secret from her university life; furious with Shauna and Adam for putting her in this position.
She wiped her face with both hands and clenched them into fists at her sides.
“I love him,” she said, her voice choked with emotion, but she regained control by digging her nails into her palms. “He’s all I’ve got.”
“Nevertheless,” Shauna said, and Ruth saw steeliness in the set of the older woman’s jaw, in her steady gaze. “He’s a child—”
“Oh, come on—”
“A ‘looked after’ child, in local authority care,” Shauna said, speaking over her protestations. “And as his legally appointed carer, it’s my responsibility to keep him safe.”
“Safe? What d’you think I’m going to do to him?”
“You’re already doing it,” Shauna said quietly.
They stared at each other in hostile silence for a few moments, then Shauna spoke again. “Your tutor is witness,” she said, and Ruth saw a flash of alarm in his eyes. “You have been warned. If you try to contact Adam in any way: by phone, e-mail, social media, or letter, he will go to the police. If you call the house to speak to me, I will construe that as an infraction. If you happen to see him on the street, turn around and walk away—” Ruth shook her head. “Or he will prosecute, and he will win.”
Ruth clasped her arms across her chest to still the shaking; her knees threatened to buckle under her.
Her tutor cleared his throat and spoke for the first time since Ruth’s outburst.
Practically whispering, as if he was afraid she would blow up again, he said, “Even if the harassment isn’t proved, Adam could get a restraining order. But it wouldn’t look good, having something like that on your record.”
Shauna nodded in grim satisfaction. “Did you hear that? I’m telling you this for your own good,” she went on, relentless. “If you care about your future . . .” She left the rest unsaid.
Ruth took a breath and looked around her. The office was deathly quiet; everyone else had gone home or was out knocking on doors. Nine years ago, yet thinking about that day still had the power to send shock waves through her. That was the last time she had spoken to Shauna. She picked up her mobile, selected the phone icon, and stared at it until the numbers blurred.
Uttering a gasp of disgust, she flipped the phone over and slapped it facedown on the photograph. Nine years, and not a word. She didn’t owe Adam a thing. And what if he makes good on his threat? Complains of harassment even after all these years?
She would take this to Carver, say she’d just found him in her latest trawl-through—he wouldn’t suspect a thing. Adam would be picked up and brought in for questioning like any other lowlife.
But a second later, she was keying in Shauna’s number from memory. One final hesitation, then she thumbed the dial icon.
Shauna answered immediately.
“Shauna, it’s Ruth Lake.”
“Ruth?”
“Please, don’t hang up.”
“Of course I won’t, love,” Shauna said. “What’s the matter?”
“Adam,” Ruth said, reaching for the calm that she was known for as a cop, had believed was an immutable part of her nature. “D’you know how I can reach him?”
A pause.
“I’m police now,” Ruth said, silently cursing the clumsiness of her phrasing. “I mean this is police business. I don’t want to hassle him, but I do need to ask him a few questions.”
“Oh, love . . .” Shauna said, and the ground seemed to drop away.
He’s dead, Ruth thought. I got it wrong. This man isn’t Adam at all. Adam is dead, and no one told me.
Shauna was speaking and she forced herself to listen: “He moved out years ago. Six . . . seven, was it?”
“He didn’t keep in touch?”
“For a while,” Shauna said. “But you know how it is.”
“He didn’t say where he was living?”
“No . . . See, he just sent birthday and Christmas cards. Handmade, though,” she added, with a hint of pride. “He always was good at art.”
“So you’ve no idea how I could contact him?”
“Sorry, Ruth, love,” Shauna said. “He never gave a return address.”
Ruth thanked her and hung up. She’d done all she could; now would be a good time to tell Greg Carver what she’d found.
Instead of which, she began typing Adam Black’s name into the PNC database.
22
Greg Carver lay on his bed, waiting for sleep to claim him. An hour later, he was wide awake, staring at the ceiling. He decided he would count backward from one hundred; if he hadn’t dropped off by then, he would abandon the attempt. Ten minutes later, he sat up, feeling simultaneously exhausted and wired. This wasn’t getting any easier.
His eyes slid to the two sleeping pills lying next to a half glass of water on his nightstand. He would regret it in the morning, but what the hell.
He swallowed both at once, grimacing against the bitterness, wishing for the millionth time that he could find oblivion in a quart bottle of whisky, like he used to. But that was out of the question—even the smell of the stuff gave him wild flashbacks and hallucinations.
“Christ,” he murmured, closing his eyes and waiting for the drugs to kick in.
The bed began to rock, and his eyes flew open. The ceiling seemed to grind down in shuddering motions, then recede again.
Vertigo. It’ll pass.
The rocking increased. He screwed his eyes shut and held on to the sides of the mattress to steady himself.
He thought he caught a faint whiff of whisky, though he hadn’t had the stuff in his flat in three months. The aroma asserted itself, despite his rationalization. Damp hay, honey, a hint of caramel. His favorite single malt—
The bed tilted alarmingly, and, startled, he opened his eyes again. He was in his sitting room. Now the reek of whisky was overpowering, choking. He had a bottle in his hand; he felt it slip through his fingers, heard the dull thunk as it fell to the rug.
He opened his eyes.
Gun!
A flash of flame.
PAIN.
Silence . . . Shadows.
Ruth stared into his eyes.
You’re dreaming. That’s over—finished with. Wake up.
Bzzzziiiiippp! He recognized the auditory hallucinations he often experienced after sleep.
The realization summoned him back to a kind of reality. He was in his own bed, in his apartment.
You need to move.
Even before he tried, he knew he could not. Sleep paralysis. He knew what would follow: his half-aware state would fail him, and he would be dragged back to that night; to the dark presence, oozing malice like an evil stench. To terrifying vulnerability, and powerlessness.
The room seemed to darken.
It’s happening. For God’s sake, MOVE.
His heart was hammering, but his limbs refused to obey him. He drove every ounce of his strength into the muscles of his right arm. And felt his finger twitch. Really felt it.
Wake up, wake up, wake up.
But he felt himself slipping back into sleep. He made one final effort. His right hand jerked and it felt as if he were tearing his real self from his dream self. He could swear he heard the ripping sound as the two separated.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, despite his dizziness and disorientation, terrified that otherwise he would be clawed back, paralyzed and defenseless, into that nightmarish state.
His phone lay on the bedside table. He picked it up and thumbed to the phone log. A dozen outgoing calls to Emma, his wife. She hadn’t been near since his release from the hospital or replied to a single call—hadn’t even texted. He tried one more time.
23
Day 5, Evening
Ruth Lake logged out of her computer and checked the time. With the evening briefing wrapped up, Greg Carver would be waiting for his lift home. Checks on Matlock had confirmed that he had been working part time as a security guard at a pub in the city center, was known to be handy with his fists, and was miraculously free of the debilitating health problems he’d manifested during a Department of Work & Pensions benefits assessment last summer. His place of work had not seen him since the previous autumn.
The pickpocket working the crowd at the gymnasium car park had been charged with theft and possession of stolen goods, and house-to-house officers had found a witness who saw a white van with “shiny windows” parked on the pavement of Grafton Street, which overlooked the sandstone cliff, forty minutes before Catch the Gamma Wave lit up. She’d been on her way to do some shopping; her return home was delayed by the police road blocks and all the “hoo-ha” as she called it, so she couldn’t say when the van had driven away, but it was gone when she was finally allowed through an hour later. The witness didn’t get a plate number, but a detective would start checking CCTV in the area first thing.
Just another dull day at the office.
Ruth’s desk phone rang and she scooped up the receiver, trapping the earpiece against her shoulder as she shrugged on her jacket. The caller announced himself as a “contact resolution officer”—a call handler in the old system. “What’s up?” Ruth said.
“I’ve got someone on the line, wants to speak to DCI Carver, but I can’t raise him.”
“Okay,” Ruth said, raising her voice over a murmur of conversation and shuffling of chairs. “You can put them through to me.”
“Sarge,” he said, “I think it’s your guy.”
Ruth covered the mouthpiece with one hand and rapped on the desk with the other. People stopped midaction, all eyes on her. “You might need to cancel your evening, folks.”
She didn’t hear one groan of complaint.
Locating Ivey, she said, “Tom—see if the boss is in his office.”
The young detective left at a run. A special constable—the new face she’d noticed the day before—jumped to his feet, eagerness in every muscle. She sent him in the other direction, then spoke into the phone: “Okay, put him through to my mobile, and get a trace on it.”
Her mobile phone rang a few seconds later, and Ruth ducked out of the incident room to check on Ivey’s progress. He stood halfway down the corridor, at Carver’s door. He shook his head.
Hell.
Ruth exhaled, hit the answer icon, and announced herself.
“I know who you are,” he said. “And I asked to speak to DCI Carver.” His nasal Midlands tones were definitely overdone. Their dialect expert had established that the real accent underlying the fake was local to the Merseyside region, quite likely Liverpool.
“He’s not in his office,” she said, calm and polite.
“I warned him about not paying attention.”
“And he listened to that.” She waved Ivey over to her, miming “phone” as she continued to talk to the killer. He handed over his work handset, as Ruth continued:
“If you dial the emergency number, day or night, you will be put through to me, or the chief inspector.”
By now, she had dialed Carver’s number on Ivey’s phone. It was switched off. “I’ve tried his mobile and can’t get through,” she told the caller.
“Looks like he didn’t listen, then, doesn’t it?”
“That’s not the case,” Ruth said. “Some parts of this building have signal blocking for security reasons.” She was improvising. It was true that they had Wi-Fi blocking in some rooms—but there was no reason why Carver would be near one just now. “He could be consulting with senior ranks . . .”
The lie had the desired effect. “He should be,” the killer said, and she heard a note of satisfaction in his tone.
“We’re trying to locate him,” she said.
The special constable appeared at the end of the corridor, shrugged his shoulders.
“As soon as we do locate him, I’ll put him on the line,” Ruth went on.
She mouthed Keep looking to the special, and he vanished through a doorway.
Ivey had stopped a PCSO coming the other way and was speaking softly to her. He looked over the woman’s shoulder and pointed farther down the corridor.
“Stand by,” Ruth said, hurrying toward him.
Ivey opened the door to the men’s room. “Sir, we’ve had a call,” he said. “Uh, sir?”
Ruth brushed past him; Carver was standing at one of the sinks, holding on to it like he was afraid to let go.
“Wait outside,” she told Ivey. “Watch the door.”
Ivey stepped outside, and the door swung closed behind him.
Carver lifted his gaze to hers in the mirror, his face gray, and she held up her phone.
“Him?” Carver said.
She nodded, then mouthed, Are you okay?
He nodded wearily, taking the phone.
Carver repeated the Ferryman’s instructions aloud, naming the location. Ruth knew that the call handler would be listening in, and the Operational Command Center would already have dispatched rapid response units, but everyone on the murder inquiry needed to know the situation. She cracked the door and relayed the information to Ivey. “Tell the team to get moving,” she said.
This done, she gestured to Carver to keep the conversation rolling, but by now he looked as gray as the vinyl flooring.
She held out her hand for the phone, and he managed to gasp, “Hang on a second, Detective Sergeant Lake wants to speak to you.”
Ruth took the handset, but the Ferryman was gone.
“Contact Center, are you still on the line?” she asked.
“Still here,” the calm, implacable voice said.
“Did you trace it?”
“He pinged off two towers, but it’s not enough to triangulate. Sorry, Sarge.”
Ruth glanced over to see Carver’s reaction. He was leaning with his back against the wall, and he looked near collapse. She peeked outside and saw Ivey leading the pack as they piled out of the Major Incident Room. Some would inevitably make a pit stop at the men’s room, and they did not need to see Carver like this.
She held up both hands, palms out. Ivey nodded, showing he understood, and promptly dropped a stack of files, swearing, apologizing, arguing, creating exactly the kind of commotion she needed to get Carver out of the men’s room and into the nearest stairwell. She half carried her boss up a flight to the turn in the stairs and sat him down.
“Don’t move,” she ordered, although she doubted he would be able to stand unaided, let alone go anywhere.
She poked her head around the fire exit door and there was Ivey, still holding back the horde, face cherry red, cops cursing him for being in the way. He glanced up and she gave him the thumbs-up. With an agility that belied his earlier clumsiness, he scooped up the files and stepped aside. Ruth held the door, ushering the cops down the stairwell, shouting words of encouragement and instruction, but she stayed Ivey with a look.
When the last booted echo faded to silence, Ruth posted Ivey to guard the fire escape door and returned to Carver. He was sitting exactly where she’d left him, his head bowed, his elbows resting on his knees.
“What can I do?” Ruth asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “I’m fine.”
“Yeah,” she said, “you look great.” He gave her a sharp look, and she added, “boss.”
He huffed a laugh. “One o
f these days, Ruth . . .” He stopped to take a breath.
“I’ll go too far?” She raised an eyebrow. “We both know that ship sailed long ago. Do you need to go home?”
“No. It was just . . .”
“What?” she said. “A flashback?”
He didn’t answer but hauled himself to his feet, using the banister. His color was a little better.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Okay,” she said. “Where?”
He kept hold of the banister with both hands and jerked his chin, indicating the direction his team had just taken.
“You’re kidding,” she said. “You can’t go to a crime scene, the state you’re in.”
“Ruth—”
“You really want Wilshire to see you like this? Greg, I can’t keep covering for you.”
“I didn’t know you were keeping a tally.” The cold look in his eyes told her that he resented her help as much as he needed it.
“C’mon, now,” she said. “There are things I can do inside this building, but out there, I have no control—everyone with a mobile phone will be recording us as soon as we turn up.”
He held her gaze, and after a few seconds, he nodded. “What d’you suggest?”
“Go to your office,” Ruth said.
“What am I supposed to do when I get there?”
“I dunno,” she said. “Do what SIOs do—make a few calls, push some paper around.” That drew another sharp look. “Sorry, boss, you really can’t intimidate me looking like”—she couldn’t think of a simile that didn’t include the word “shit,” so she gestured to his face and finished—“like . . . that.”
He managed a bitter smile, and she softened.
“Give yourself space to breathe, huh?”
He hesitated, ran a hand over his face, but she knew he’d seen sense.
“I’ll call you when I get there.” She started down the stairs then turned back. “I get that you don’t want to talk. But people are asking questions. For now, it’s just a few sideways glances and mutterings over coffee, but you know how it can escalate.”
