by Ben Oakley
“Yes, well, the night shift comes on at eight and I needed to speak to them all. It turns out I may have good news for you. We had a patient in room 18 for six months on a Section 3 order, seven years ago. One of our care workers remembers her well.”
“Go on.”
“She was diagnosed with psychotic depression for reasons we couldn't pinpoint. She was in the room for one month prior to the refurbishment and five months after. There's no doubt it was her.”
“Her name?”
“Natalie Richmond.”
My heart sunk. I was half expecting some revelation to land in front of me at the top of the hour but this wasn't it. She was a random girl who's name had never popped up before.
“I've never heard of Natalie Richmond. Does anything stand out to you?”
“Not really. She was discharged after six months and never heard of again. Mostly that's a good thing, it means we did our job right, sometimes it's not so good but that's the way of the world.”
“Way of the world,” I repeated. “Thank you for letting me know.”
I hung up and sighed at Stansey who was looking at me for any new titbits of information. She shrugged her shoulders and wanted to say something but looked unsure about it.
For the next two hours, I talked with Stansey about how we worked out it was Foster and how I had come to learn she really was who she claimed to be. All the time I was eagerly awaiting a call to my mobile to tell me about Foster's arrest but nothing came and I couldn't get through to anyone.
I told Stansey about Natalie Richmond but she hadn't heard the name either. We did a little research on her and discovered she had vanished off the face of the Earth about five years earlier. The trail went dead and there were no photos of her to go by, aside from a few medical descriptions of her.
We worked out that Natalie Richmond might have been Foster's first victim, a test subject if you will, but there was nothing concrete on it. Stansey said she would look deeper into it and find out what happened to her, but I wasn't holding my breath.
Suddenly, my landline started ringing on the other side of the room and it took me a bit by surprise. It pierced my ears and forced my attention towards it, it hardly ever went off and it got me panicking again. I checked the time and it was coming up to half-eleven. Thirty minutes before midnight and I still hadn't heard from anyone.
“You gonna get that?” Stansey said.
I flashed back to Jess in the bar, telling me to answer the call. The whole thing was a blur. I wasn't focusing properly but I stood and traipsed over to the phone.
“It's rare this phone even rings,” I said.
“Maybe they got him?” she replied.
I closed my eyes tight to open them wide, trying to keep myself awake. I picked up the phone.
“Hello?” I said.
There was no immediate answer. I looked at Stansey and shrugged my shoulders, about to hang up when a familiar digitised voice crackled through the speaker of the phone.
“Thirty minutes, Detective Lake.”
Forty Nine
A dizziness came over me that I couldn't fight. This was meant to have been over. What devilry had come back to haunt me at this late hour? I reached out and rested one hand on the desk, struggling for a decent intake of air.
The voice repeated over and over in my head.
Thirty minutes. Thirty minutes.
“Who is this?” I managed.
“Do you really wish me to spell that out for you?”
“Yes,” I really did.
I heard a familiar chuckle on the other end.
“You huffed and puffed and my house still stands.”
“Foster?”
Stansey grabbed my arm and I beckoned her away, shaking my head, silently telling her not to talk. She put her hand to her mouth and her eyes widened.
“The Blood Streams are about to claim their next victim.”
I couldn't focus, the world fell from me and a greyness took over everything. The room became blurry and a tunnel vision of light surrounded me. Stansey grabbed my arm and looked at me with an intent I'd never seen before, pulling me back into the present moment.
She whispered, “you can do this.”
I didn't know where she was getting her strength from but she empowered me with it. I found myself standing to attention with a more determined understanding of the situation at hand.
I lifted the receiver again and spoke into the phone, “where's Paine?”
“Awaiting the journey into the great beyond. We all have to take it sometime.”
“And yours will be sooner than you think.”
He chuckled again, “we all jump on the same bandwagon of time and ride its wave to the simple inevitable conclusion of death itself.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” I said. “It's how we choose to live with time and with ourselves that makes the difference of who we truly are.”
“Was that wisdom?”
“It's the difference between you and me.”
“I've been right in front of you the whole time and you never even knew it.”
“The difference is that you will burn in hell – and I will not.”
I put the phone down gently and sighed. Stansey was looking at me with a confused look on her face.
The landline rang again, I looked at it for a few moments before reaching to the back of the phone and yanking the line connection from it. The phone went dead and the incessant ringing left the room, and my head.
“What are you doing?” Stansey asked.
“You're the key to all of this,” I said to her.
“I haven't done anything wrong,” she said, slightly intimidated.
“I know you haven't but the answer has been right in front of me the whole time.”
“But I haven't been right in front of you the whole time.”
“No but it started with you.”
“It started with you, Harrison, not me. He chose you. You're the key, not me!”
“How could I be the key?”
“What's been right in front of you the whole time?” she asked.
I sat back in the chair and looked back to the screen. Jeez, I thought we had this in the bag. I scrolled through some of the files and found the one I'd named Hallberg's Note.
I opened it and the text filled the screen.
“What's that?” she asked.
I didn't answer, instead falling into a succession of questions in my head. If Mel was right and the transcript referred to The Suicide Pool of Epping Forest then where was Foster? The house under his middle name was right there in the heart of the ancient lands. In the middle of a forest dotted with ponds and streams.
Was it his mind he was telling me about? Was the reference to being devoid of all life, the way he viewed his own mind? But it didn't help me find him. What was hidden from the sunlight? The darkness. Where was a place where the birds were silent and wildlife stayed away? The sewers? It could be but then which sewer? London was criss crossed with Victorian sewers and modern ones.
I rubbed my head and squinted, “oh shit,” I said. “What have I missed?”
Grabbing my mobile phone, I hit the speed-dial for Detective Berg. He answered straight away.
In a forlorn voice he simply said, “Berg.”
“He's not there is he?”
“No, but it's the bloody bastard alright. He's got photos of some of the victims before they were murdered. And there are items belonging to some of them. He must have been spooked.”
“I don't think so. Any idea where he might be?”
“We've put out a suspect photo to all stations and departments, it ain't gonna be long before he's caught.”
“Less than thirty minutes, Berg,” I reiterated.
“And what do you want me to do about it? He's around here somewhere. We've zoned off the forest and got teams scouring it looking through outbuildings, sheds, anywhere he might be holding Paine. Unless you've got anything else, then he's gotta be here somewhe
re.”
“Will you keep me updated?”
“Why?”
“Berg!”
“Fine, anything new I'll fire it your way.”
I looked back at Stansey who was looking at the note on the screen. “Anything new on Stansey King?” She shot a look at me.
“Nothing. The girl vanished.”
I abruptly hung up and raised my hands to calm her before she spoke, “I just wanted to know if they had anything that's all.”
“Did they?”
“Didn't sound like it.”
“Harrison, what's been in front of you since this started? There must be something?”
I raised my eyebrows and shook my head. “They're searching Epping Forest now, if he's there, they'll find him.”
“We're gonna run out of time and you know it. Think!”
“Alright, so you called me on my phone when I was sitting in the bar.”
“And it would have been difficult to get your number you said, right?”
“Yeah but not impossible.”
“What's next?”
“Nothing links to a location,” I said, frustrated. “I've been on the canal and all around it, through the neighbouring parks and in the towns and I have been missing something, I know it. I just can't place it.”
“Maybe it's not somewhere that's on the canal?”
“He held you in his Epping Forest house, Stansey, they found evidence of it there. I'm sorry.”
She breathed in, “please focus.”
I jumped to my feet and looked at the map of Camden, “I've got nothing.”
“You've already given me a location,” she said.
I turned, “what do you mean?”
“You said when I first phoned you, you were in a bar.”
I frowned and struggled to work out what she meant, “yeah but you can't hide someone in a bar. And it's not in a forest is it?”
“Why does it have to be in a forest?”
“Because it's where Foster's main house is.”
“But he's not there,” Stansey said, frustrated as well.
“If something was going down in the bar then I'd know about it. I've stood outside The Ribnik on numerous occasions these past few days. I had my hand on the door, hoping, pleading this was all a dream and Jess was alive.”
“What did you say?” she asked.
“Do you want me to repeat it?”
“What's The Ribnik?”
I sighed, “it's the bar, it's the damn bar where Jess used to work. The place where I answered your call.”
She turned back to the document on the screen and tapped it with her finger. I didn't know what she was doing but it was bugging me.
“Ribnik,” she said to herself, “Ribnik.”
“It's a bar, Stansey, there's no connection.”
“What if there is?”
She turned to face me and moved away from the screen to let me see Hallberg's note again.
“I don't understand,” I said.
She spoke in a foreign language, “se nahaja ribnik.”
I stared at her, “What does that mean?”
“Se nahaja ribnik – there is a pond.”
My mind froze and the thoughts charged around my head, trying to work this out.
“What are you saying?”
“I was born in Slovenia, I know the language.”
“So?
“Ribnik in Slovenian translates as pond in English.”
Then it hit me, “oh my god!”
Foster wasn't holding Paine captive in Epping Forest, he was down the road in The Ribnik Bar.
Fifty
I was jogging along the street from my house to The Ribnik, my phone to my ear, desperately trying to get hold of anyone in authority.
I had to insist Stansey stay in the house. There was no way she could be involved any more in this despite her pleas that she should be there to help. She had already assisted in more ways than I ever thought she could and her part had been played. For that she deserved all the praise that would no doubt be headed her way afterwards and I'd make sure of it.
She wanted power and I gave it to her, I told her to phone the emergency services and send them all to The Ribnik Bar. Then she was to remain in the house until I returned.
Thankfully Berg answered.
“Berg, listen to me. We were wrong. Foster is at The Ribnik Bar in Kentish Town and he has Paine with him.”
“How do you know?”
I was getting out of breath, “pond translates as Ribnik in Slovenian. We were looking in the wrong place. London is one of the most ancient settlements in the country.”
“Isn't that the place you drink at?”
“Berg! Send everyone here now!”
“Shit, Lake! We've got half the Met up here in Epping Forest.”
“Turn them around now!”
“It's gonna take at least twenty minutes to get SCO19 down there!”
I stopped a few doors along from The Ribnik. Come on Harrison, quick deep breaths, focus on the matter at hand.
“Dammit,” I said, “then I'm going in alone.”
“Do not go in there alone, Lake, wait for us to handle this.”
I looked at the time on my phone, “you said twenty minutes right?”
“At least.”
“Paine dies in ten. I'm going in.”
I hung up and put the phone back in my pocket. Time had moved so fast as it always did. I could hear the bustle of the streets in the distance and music blaring out from an apartment opposite.
Edging closer to the bar, I felt the sudden urge to avenge Jess's death but knew it wasn't the right thing to do. Paine was the prime reason to go into the bar but I couldn't forget what had happened to Jess.
I strolled calmly past the windows as if I was a normal member of the public. Then I stopped at the door and quickly looked in through the small window at the top of it. I could see nothing but an empty bar draped in shadow. The beer pumps had been covered with towels and the spirits had been taken off the glass shelves and I assume stored away somewhere. Anything to not tempt a passing burglar.
Except it was exactly what I was going to do; break into the place. The front door wasn't the way to do it. I remembered being in the bar when deliveries came in. The lorry would park at the front and then roll the barrels through the side alley – to the cellar door.
I walked to the alley and peered around the corner of the wall. No one was there. No light was on and it appeared nothing untoward was taking place. For a moment I suspected I had made a terrible mistake but it was Stansey's voice and strength that drove me on.
The building backed onto its own private brick-floored yard with empty beer barrels stacked all over the place. Jess had once told me she purchased the barrels from one of the breweries with the intention of creating a seating area from them but had never got around to it. Otherwise, the empties were usually collected when the next delivery came in.
Creeping through the alley, I noticed how high the free-standing wall was on my right. Must have been three metres, about half the height of the bar itself. No wonder if felt so dark. I stuck my head around the corner at the end and saw the cellar doors. The rear fire exit door of the building was directly above it and if I could get into it then at least I would be able to make a more silent entrance.
I tip-toed around the metal cellar doors and reached for the fire exit doors but they didn't budge. For a moment I thought they might have been alarmed which would have alerted the entire neighbourhood to my arrival. It was going to have to be the cellar doors unless I broke in through a rear window.
The steel cellar rod which unhooked the handle was resting against the wall nearby. I took a deep breath and ever so slowly pushed the rod into the gap and turned it. There was a very slight noise but not enough to wake the dead. It was easier than I expected but then I had to lift it. My biggest worry was lifting it too slowly and then not being able to hold the weight of it.
I grabbed
the handle of the cellar door and lifted it quickly. It creaked ever so slightly. I could just about see the steps headed down into the darkness. It was then the butterflies went crazy in my stomach.
Lowering one half of the door to the ground, I realised I could slip in without opening the other. I heard Berg's voice in my head.
Do not go in there alone.
Except I had no choice and so I lowered myself to the first step and edged my way into the cellar of The Ribnik.
Fifty One
In America they have guns, the British have stun guns, and I had a slim steel rod as my weapon. I had never fired a gun but I would have felt so much safer with one right about then.
I stood off the final step and onto the cellar ground, my heart was thumping against my chest. I was sure it was going to break through my ribcage, as unlikely as it sounded. I was even surer that my heartbeat could be heard by others hiding in the shadows near by.
As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I noticed a dim light from the far side of the cellar, it enveloped a slightly ajar door with a soft orange haze. The smell of stale beer and old barrels combined with the natural mould really threw my senses off.
But this light, where was it coming from? I walked past another set of steps that led to the bar area through another hatch. It appeared to be nailed shut but I couldn't make it out to be sure. Up ahead, the light was seeping in through an old wooden door and for the life of me I couldn't work out what it was for. Maybe it was another storage room or drinks room?
I didn't know as I'd never heard it mentioned. I knew some of these old buildings had access to even larger cellars but I'd never heard Jess mention it to me before. I then had to assume it was a holdover from its original use as a church. Maybe they didn't develop the crypt?
I heard a little clattering coming from behind it and then a groan from a female and it stopped me in my tracks. Jeez, we were right. They were here underneath The Ribnik.
Approaching the door, I held the steel rod above me ready to bring it crashing down on Foster's head. They were right behind the door, I could feel their vibrations. I got close enough to spy through the gap at the side and saw that the room dropped downwards, even lower than the cellar floor by at least two metres.
