by Ashley Dyer
If his personal radio wasn’t damaged by the impact, there could be hope for Bill—having an ambulance on-site was a good move.
“What about the team at the scrapyard—are they managing?”
“Only one carful turned up. The occupants are watching from a distance, but they’ve been no trouble. Stand by.” He spoke to one of the call handlers, and a second later, came back with, “They just left.”
Carver rang through to Tom Ivey’s desk. “Anything happening on the Ferryman’s Instagram?” he said.
“I was about to buzz you, boss,” Ivey said. “He’s redirecting them—‘Change of venue,’ he says. ‘Wanna visit my bricks-and-mortar gallery? It’s Open Day.’ Bloody hell—he’s sending them to the warehouse.”
Carver relayed the information and Farrow rung off. Immediately, his mobile buzzed again.
It was Sergeant Rayburn. “The warehouse is burning,” he said. “Fire Service has been alerted and I’ve requested all patrols able to assist.”
“Bill Naylor could be in there, Rob,” Carver said. “The suspect, too.”
“The rear of the building’s been breached,” Rayburn said. “And we’ve got rubberneckers and troublemakers turning up at the scene. We’ll have to clear them before firefighters can move in. I think the suspect’s legged it, though.”
“Because?”
“When we rolled up, four cars suddenly sped off, heading in different directions.”
Carver closed his eyes. “Diversionary tactic,” he said. “The Ferryman is in one of those cars.”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Rayburn said. “But we don’t have the personnel to give chase.”
Carver heard someone call Rayburn’s name.
“Okay—gotta go.”
“Be safe, Ray,” he said.
“Where’s the fun in that?” He heard the smile in Rayburn’s voice.
80
Ruth Lake stood on Simpson Street, in the heart of what was known as Liverpool’s “Baltic Triangle.” The area was still under development, so it had an interesting mix of high-end apartment conversions of Victorian properties alongside low-end unit rentals with leaking rainwater pipes and buddleia bushes growing from cracks in the walls.
Carver wasn’t picking up, so she’d left a voice mail on his mobile, giving him a quick rundown of her inquiries. The council had suggested three suitable places where Adam might relocate after the compulsory purchase of his old studio. And here she was, less than a mile away from the police HQ, in a four-story redbrick building that must have provided both warehouse and office space back in the day, but now housed a furniture warehouse, upholstery service, and a range of small businesses dealing in bespoke art and craft work. The lower windows were protected by steel rollers—open at this time of day; the windows of the first and second floors with grilles. Cars lined either side of the street.
Ruth stepped inside. The listings at the bottom of the damp and drafty stairwell said that MadAdaM’s studio was on the third floor. She returned to the pavement to try to work out which of the latticed windows would be his, and noticed that the upper two floors, though begrimed by salt river-spume and fifty years of neglect, were free of bars, shutters, or grilles.
She caught a glint of something bright at a third-floor window. An almighty crash, then glass cascaded from above. Ruth ducked and turned away, instinctively shielding her eyes. Immediately after it, a large object; it hit the ground, exploding on the pavement only yards from her. She heard the punk, thock of punctured metal as the shattered object sent shards of pottery in all directions. Car alarms blared; someone screamed.
Ruth rose from a crouch and saw the frightened face of a woman behind the wheel of a Ford Focus. A section of white display plinth was embedded in the roof of her car. Ruth beckoned her out, and she obeyed, but began walking toward her.
“Get to the other side of the road,” Ruth yelled, glancing up to check the window above. Its frame was twisted and broken, and glass bejeweled the street. A man came out of nowhere and dragged the woman out of the way. Two teenaged boys emerged from a café opposite and began recording on their mobile phones.
“POLICE,” she bellowed. “Get back inside.”
By now, Ruth had her work phone in her hand. She hit the emergency button.
Ducking behind a car on the far side of the street, she kept her eyes on the window as she called in her location and shouted a request for backup. She couldn’t hear the reply, nor could she hear any further signs of struggle above the constant blast of car horns and the screech of alarms. A man appeared in the doorway of the warehouse block, hands in his pockets. Looking perplexed, but not particularly worried, he called over to her:
“What’s to do, love?”
“How many people are on the premises?” Ruth shouted.
“Can’t say about the rest, but on the ground floor—three staff, six customers,” he said.
“Can you secure the doors from inside?”
“Yeah.”
“Do it,” she yelled. “Don’t open it for anyone but police in uniform.”
A car had stalled at the corner of the street, the driver’s side pockmarked by debris from the shattered plinth. The driver scrambled across to the passenger side and climbed out. Ruth waved him over and tugged him to a crouch next to her.
With cars blocking traffic in both directions, it should prevent people driving into danger.
Ruth heard the distant wail of sirens.
The car alarms were silenced, one by one, until there was nothing but the ghosts of blaring horns in her ears.
A chair tumbled out of the studio window, and Ruth heard a scream from above.
The man next to her swore, then crossed himself, and Ruth made a decision.
“I’m going in,” she said into the phone. With her mobile clipped to her belt, and still in a crouch, she deployed her Casco baton, then ran across the street and ducked inside the entrance.
A crash echoed from above—wood against wood. Then nothing. She took the concrete stairs two at a time, peeking around the corner at each turn, but nobody showed their face. On the third floor, she saw that the studio door was open. An eerie quiet had descended.
A man poked his head out from the next-door premises; he looked terrified. Ruth shooed him back inside, mouthing “Police.” Then mimed, Lock it.
Flattening herself against the wall next to the open door, she heard a soft flump and recalled the awful spectacle she’d seen at Karl Obrazki’s flat.
Bracing herself, she announced herself as police.
“Show yourself!” she shouted.
Silence.
“If you are able to speak, make yourself known.”
Nothing.
Finally, she inhaled shakily, steadying herself on the outbreath.
“Adam?” She waited but heard no sound. “It’s me, Ruth.” She kept her tone calm, conversational. “Look, I know things have been tough for you, and I’m truly sorry for that. Whatever you’ve done, I’ll try to help, but you have to stop now.”
Still no answer.
She eased the door wider with her fingertips and saw the art teacher, Graham Milner, lying facedown on the floor. Blood pooled around his head, and there were cuts to his neck. He was ominously still.
Ruth positioned the baton over her right shoulder, adjusting her grip, tightening her fingers around it.
Standing in the doorway, she did a rapid check of the area: side to side, ceiling.
Smashed glass, artwork, and photographs littered the floor. She recognized some of the sketches as outline plans of the Ferryman’s exhibits, and her heart contracted.
Adam . . . Oh, Adam . . .
On the wall opposite, next to the gaping window, a large canvas. It depicted a woman, one eye as big as a dinner plate. Ruth recognized the subject as her mother. Inside the pupil of the eye, a reflection—a boy child—Adam at the age of six or seven. In the foreground, her back to the viewer, a younger female. Ruth could tell by the slope of th
e figure’s shoulders that she felt sad and helpless, gazing on the woman and child.
It’s me, she thought. Adam had painted her as she had been at nineteen, and she knew with complete certainty that this was the missing painting, Battered Wife.
Her throat closed.
81
Carver heard the sound of running footsteps in the corridor.
Tom Ivey burst through the door without knocking; he was gripping his injured arm with one hand, and the bruising around his eye was livid against the ghastly pallor of his skin.
“Ruth hit the red button,” he said.
The room tilted suddenly. “Where is she?”
“Simpson Street in the Baltic Triangle.”
Carver snatched up his mobile, remembering Ruth’s call. “What’s the situation?”
As Ivey filled him in on the details, Carver found Ruth’s voice mail and listened for a few seconds. “It’s Adam Black’s studio,” he said.
“An armed response unit is on its way,” Ivey said. “But she went inside.”
“Oh, jeez . . .” Carver rang through to Farrow at the Contact Center. “Sitrep on the Baltic incident,” he said.
“We’ve got units on the way,” Farrow said.
“We need to evacuate that building.” He finished the call and spoke to Ivey. “Can you drive?”
Ivey looked confused.
“With that.” Carver jerked his chin, indicating the injured arm. “I’m not cleared to drive—can you drive?”
“Yes. Certainly. Absolutely I can,” Ivey said.
“Let’s go then.” Carver grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair, and his eye snagged on the list of art competition rejects, still only halfway checked, on his desk. “Oh, hell.”
He snatched up the stapled sheets and the document seemed to scintillate color. You’re reading your own aura—calm the hell down. He steadied himself and told Ivey to sort out transport. “I need to make a couple more calls,” he said.
Ruth eased carefully into the room. At the base of the wall to her right, a tarpaulin sheet. Her brother was slumped next to it. He had a knife in his hand.
“Two males, Graham Milner and Adam Black,” she said for the mic. “Both unresponsive, Adam Black is in possession of a knife.”
Keeping her eyes on Adam, Ruth crouched to check Mr. Milner: he was alive. She relayed the information, then went to her brother and gently took away the knife before checking his pulse: it was thin and thready. “Black is disarmed,” she said. “Need paramedic unit urgently.”
A coil of orange nylon cord lay nearby—it was a good bet this was the cord found near Professor Tennent’s abduction site. A groan from Milner; he was coming to.
Seeing Ruth, his eyes widened.
“Mr. Milner, it’s all right,” Ruth said. “I’m Sergeant Lake—do you remember me?”
She bent to him, but he whimpered, tried to fend her off.
“Try to lie still,” she said. “You’ve had a head injury, you could have a fracture.”
He didn’t seem to understand her, seemed to be unable to articulate.
The sirens of the first responders were drawing close, so she set the knife down out of reach and tried again to reassure him. “It’s all right,” she said. “You’re safe. D’you hear the sirens? That’s police and ambulance.” He sobbed, clutching at the cuts on his neck.
“We’ll get those seen to,” she said. “Don’t worry, the paramedics will be here any second.”
Milner’s eyes were wild with fear. He tried to peer around her, to get a view of Adam.
“He can’t hurt you,” she said.
He shook his head, tears welling in his eyes.
Ruth heard the thud of boots on the stairwell; Matrix team, or Rapid Response Unit. They would be armed. She called out to them, identifying herself, and the sound of boots on concrete halted.
“I have two seriously injured males in the room,” she said. “They are not armed. I repeat—they are not armed.”
She stood and moved toward the door.
Three things happened at once: her personal phone buzzed, Adam cried out, and she tripped headlong onto the glass and debris on the floor.
She got to her knees, feeling glass pierce the fabric of her trousers.
Milner was standing over her. He kicked her Casco baton away and slammed the door shut. His foot came back a second time. Ruth dodged that one, but he landed the next, and she felt a rib crack. Milner hauled her backward by the scruff of her neck across broken glass and splintered wood. She couldn’t find enough traction to fight him. He slammed her hard against the wall at the back of the room and, winded, she slumped to the floor.
Carver arrived at Adam Black’s studio as Matrix team officers were guiding frightened tenants out of the building. The area was gridlocked, and they’d been forced to abandon Ivey’s car a couple of streets away. At the police tape, an officer in uniform was in a quiet but clearly heated argument with a bystander.
“Listen to me,” the man was saying. “It won’t take a minute. I need to—”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the cop said. “You’re not going back in there. Now get behind the line.”
“You people bundled me out of my own premises without even a please, thank you, or kiss my arse. I’ve got projects near completion in there. Sensitive information.” The business owner was thin and rangy, with protruding eyes and a nervy manner that suggested hyperthyroidism—or a serious amphetamine habit.
“The place has been cleared,” Carver said, flashing his warrant card. “Am I right, Constable?”
“All except the premises on the third floor—”
“Right next door to my office.” The man was shouting now. “What if this madman decides to poke around?”
“What makes you think he’d want to?” Carver said.
“What are you getting at?” The man’s colors flashed off a high-alert warning.
“Our priority is public safety,” the Matrix cop said.
The man snorted.
“Sir,” Carver said. “Mr. . . . ?”
“What’s it to you?”
This guy is paranoid, Carver thought.
“It’s not safe in there,” Carver said. “You won’t be allowed back in until it is. So please move behind the tape.”
The Matrix cop touched the man on the elbow and he jerked away, but he turned, allowing himself to be guided to the scene tape, where he shifted from one foot to the other, glaring angrily at the cops, and periodically glancing up at the shattered window on the third floor.
“Who’s in charge?” Carver asked. He saw Sergeant Rayburn talking to four of his team over by one of the two Matrix vans in attendance and said, “Never mind. I see him.”
Carver walked to the van and waited for Rayburn to finish giving instructions. “Operations said you were pinned down at the warehouse fire.”
“As soon as word got out about the hostage situation, the Ferryman’s fans blew away like smoke,” the Matrix team leader said.
“Well, I’m glad you’re here. You got my message?”
“I got it.” Rayburn fixed him with a look. “How sure are you?”
“Milner was one of the earliest applicants to submit work to the Alderson Bank art competition,” Carver said. “He was rejected with no right to appeal because he was over the newly imposed age limit by one day.”
“Ouch.”
“This was eight months ago. For five solid weeks he bombarded the competition website with complaints—sometimes twenty a day. He spammed the bank’s Twitter account and even made threats. Mr. Fenst was subjected to some of the worst abuse. Milner only stopped after his department head received a letter of complaint from the bank and he was brought before the dean of the college for a disciplinary hearing—his second in two years.”
“The disappearances started when?”
“Six months ago.”
“When all this stuff kicked off. That’s a hell of a coincidence,” Rayburn said.
An
image of Karl Obrazki came into Carver’s head, and he felt a sudden chill.
“What?” Rayburn asked.
“He placed a penny in Karl Obrazki’s mouth—it was dated 1978—the year Milner was born.”
Rayburn shook his head. “Can’t expect to follow the weird logic of a crazy bastard like that.”
“I don’t think he is crazy,” Carver said. “He’s calculating and heartless, but . . .” He remembered Dr. Yi’s words on narcissists’ fragile egos.
Rayburn shifted restlessly. “Can we reason with him?”
“For now, maybe, but the forensic psych warned us that he’s likely to respond with blind rage if he feels slighted or threatened.”
Rayburn laughed mirthlessly. “He’s got half of Merseyside Police waiting to lay hands on him. I’d say he’s already having a lousy day, mate.” He glanced around the crowd as if calculating the risk to their safety. “Just how unstable is he?”
“I’ve put a call in to Dr. Yi,” Carver said. “He’s in session at Ashworth—I’ve made an urgent request for someone to go and dig him out. But if you want a layman’s assessment, Milner has already torched one warehouse—it’s only a matter of time till he gets it into his head to make that double.”
Rayburn nodded, a deep groove appearing between his eyebrows as he absorbed the information.
“So,” Carver said. “What’s the plan?”
“We tested the strength of the door—it’s solid,” Rayburn said. “The only other option is to rappel in from the rooftop, and to do that, we need eyes in there.”
82
Ruth tried to fight, but her ribs burned and she felt sick; in a moment, Milner had her hands tied. He worked on Adam next. Ruth tried to pull him away from her brother, but he backhanded her, smacking her head against the wall a second time. She slid sideways, the room tilting alarmingly.
Just breathe, Ruth . . .
She eased herself up, assessing the situation.
The door was barred. The hall outside quiet, but she knew Rayburn and his team would be busy. Adam was fading in and out of consciousness.
