Stronger Than Death

by Andrew Lowe

  Sawyer took the recorder and stood up. ‘Final stage?’

  She nodded. ‘That’s when we go there in person. To the lane. To the place where it happened.’

  Outside, he climbed into the Mini and switched his phone back on. His heart raced; he could feel the pounding against his shirt. The images fluttered: his brother’s body, his mother’s hand, the raised hammer. But, despite Alex’s logic, he wasn’t interested in fixing his own mind. He just hoped the reliving would unlock more detail, give him some sight of the man behind the balaclava.

  He checked his phone. Several missed calls from Walker.

  He called the number.

  ‘Sir?’ Walker sounded frantic. ‘Are you there? Sorry. Here? Are you on your way?’

  Sawyer started the engine. ‘Are you with Jamie Ingram?’

  Commotion in the background. Walker speaking to someone. ‘Hello? Yes. I mean, no. I’m at Jamie Ingram’s place, yes.’

  ‘I’m about fifteen minutes away. What’s up?’

  ‘I couldn’t reach DS Shepherd at the safe house. He just called. Said he can be here in half an hour.’

  Sawyer’s phone buzzed. Probably Shepherd.

  He pulled the car away and turned on the lights. He shouldered the phone. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s Ingram. We’ve been running together. Up in the woods behind the house. Mornings and evenings, around this time. He was complaining yesterday about how I was slowing him down. I went to the toilet. Just for a couple of minutes. He’s gone, sir. By himself.’

  Sawyer squeezed the accelerator. His leg flashed with pain. ‘Where are the OP guys?’

  ‘One is here with me. The other is looking for Ingram. I followed the route for a while, but it’s getting dark. He could have gone anywhere.’

  51

  Jamie Ingram dropped his head and drove forward, bull-like, into the trees. It felt good to finally open the taps and push himself. The police guy was a casual runner: 5K twice a week. He was always off the pace: panting after 2K, suffering at 4. If the big, bad murderer had jumped out of a tree, he would hardly have been in any state to fight him off. If anything, the roles would be reversed: Jamie would be the one doing the protection.

  He caught the trail by the ridge that sloped down towards the Primary School on Alport Lane. It was mulchy underfoot, and as the trees became too dense and low-hanging for comfortable running, he veered back onto the usual route: a circular track through open forest that would have him back in Youlgreave in fifteen minutes.

  Jamie looked up through the spindly canopy. The sky was almost covered now, close to black. The race was on. He would need to really fly to be home by nightfall.

  He squinted through the gloom, his attention caught by a blot of colour up ahead. As he got closer, he saw a figure in a yellow high-viz vest sprawled face down across a clump of fallen leaves, just off the track.

  He slowed. The figure was short and slight. Male. He wore black tracksuit bottoms and bright red Nike trainers. All the gear looked new.

  Lightweight. Probably his first run. Over-reached himself.

  ‘You okay there?’

  As Jamie approached, the figure rose onto all-fours, head down. He moaned and turned his head slightly. He was a young guy in his late twenties. Jamie suppressed a laugh at the man’s yellow head sweatband, also new-looking.

  ‘Probably low blood sugar,’ said Jamie, holding out his hand. ‘Let’s get you up. Classic rookie mistake. You should start with short runs, mixed with periods of walking.’

  The man stumbled to his feet and turned towards Jamie. He held up a red-and-black can, only slightly larger than his hand. A fine white spray billowed into Jamie’s eyes. He cried out in surprise and twisted away. But the man followed his movement and kept spraying, keeping his aim on Jamie’s eyes and nose. Jamie clamped his eyes shut and rubbed at his face, swiping away the liquid.

  He tried to blink, to coax his eyes open. But his eyelids were in spasm, and hot liquid streamed down his cheeks. He dropped to one knee, roaring in agony. His eyes and face blazed with a paralysing heat, like instant sunburn. His nose streamed and he shook his head, shedding tears and snot.

  The spraying stopped, and Jamie ducked his head away, terrified of another burst. The burning intensified, and he covered his eyes with both hands, protecting them from further spray while trying to force his eyelids open with his thumbs.

  He jerked forward, and had to steady himself with a hand to the damp earth. He hit his head on something hard. He toppled, face first into a mound of brittle leaves.

  52

  ‘How long has he been gone?’

  Walker closed his eyes. He was trembling, struggling to keep his breathing steady. ‘Almost an hour now.’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’ Sawyer turned to the Observation Point officer: a hefty man with receding hair and a high forehead, gleaming with sweat. ‘Where’s the other guy? Has he seen anything? Heard anything?’

  The man lifted his walkie talkie. ‘Just checked in. Nothing.’

  ‘Call him back here. I want both of you on the house. DS Shepherd will be here soon.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Walker. ‘I didn’t know. He knew we were there, said he didn’t mind. I thought he was getting used to it all. He must have gone out of the back door.’

  ‘How long are his evening runs?’

  ‘Half an hour. Sometimes forty minutes. His early ones are longer.’

  Sawyer thought for a second. ‘Show me the usual route.’

  Walker led the way, up to the end of the road and out to a wide field which rose away from the houses and blended to dense woodland. ‘There’s a path here. The trees thin out a bit. He walks onto the main track and follows it through the woods. There’s a steep bit that probably gets you through to the main road over the ridge. We usually veer off, though. Circle the fields, end up at the road on this side. Then it’s a five-minute walk back to Ingram’s.’

  Sawyer pushed forward, up into the trees. He tried to favour his good leg, but the ground was soft and uneven, and he stumbled over loose branches, wincing through the pain as he corrected himself.

  ‘Are you okay, sir? What happened? Shepherd wouldn’t say. One of the others said you’d been shot.’

  Sawyer stopped to rest. ‘Let’s get through this and I’ll tell you the whole gory story.’ It was dark now, and he turned on his phone light.

  Walker did likewise. ‘I’ve never been shot.’ He sounded regretful.

  ‘I don’t recommend it.’

  They found the base of the walking track and climbed up, joining a more open route that ran parallel to the ridge. It was heavy going for Sawyer, and he struggled to hide his discomfort.

  ‘We should split up,’ said Walker.

  ‘No, we should not.’

  Walker looked at his phone. ‘Decent service here. You could take the ridge. I could follow his typical running route. We can meet up further into the woods.’

  ‘We could do that,’ said Sawyer. ‘But we’re not going to.’ His voice wavered. The pain was impossible to ignore now. ‘Let’s stick together. Get higher up. Hopefully, the lights from the road will give us—’

  A shout, off in the distance, deeper into the woods. Male.

  Walker turned to Sawyer. ‘That’s Jamie!’ He sprang forward, stopped, turned again. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Wait! I’m okay. I can speed up once the ground levels off.’

  Walker’s eyes widened. ‘We can’t wait. We’ve got to go. Stay on the main trail and catch me up.’

  ‘Walker! Stay here! You don’t know—’

  But he was sprinting away, his phone light bobbing like a firefly. ‘He needs help now! Catch me up, sir.’

  Sawyer sucked in a deep breath and drove himself forward, after Walker. Each right step rewarded him with a jagged flex of pain. He had to stop several times before he reached the level section of walking track where the trees thickened. No sign of Walker.

  He hobbled on, keeping his phone light train
ed on the ground ahead. He was in so much pain now, he could barely put pressure on his right leg. Instead, he hopped forward on the left, scraping the right along the loamy ground, kicking away the undergrowth.

  The ground inclined, and he stopped to listen. Traffic rumble, rising up from Alport Lane, over the ridge.

  Footsteps. Crunching. Moving away, somewhere ahead and off to the right.

  And something else. Spluttering. Coughing.

  He pushed on, through retreating branches, into a broader stretch of track.

  He called out, to the body lying prone in the middle of the path. It was Walker, clutching and clawing at his neck. He gazed up at Sawyer, his wide eyes drowned in tears, his mouth opening and closing like a beached fish.

  Jamie Ingram’s body lay off to the side, further into the trees. He lay face down, perfectly still. Ankles cuffed. Wrists cuffed behind his back.

  Walker thrashed his legs above the ground, running in mid-air. Sawyer called up his phone number-pad and dialled 999. He crouched by Walker and reached out for his hand, lifting it away from the wound in his throat. The hand was warm with his blood.

  He thought of his mother’s palm. The blood, beaded on the tips of the short grass. Smeared and splashed across the leaves and soil.

  Walker pulled his hand away, pressed it onto the wound.

  Sawyer gave Ingram’s address to the emergency dispatcher, along with directions from there along the trail. He ran through the details quickly and clearly, gripping Walker’s wrist, maintaining connection. There was so much blood, too much blood, cascading down Walker’s neck, pooling around his shoulders. It slurped in and out of the cavity in his neck as he tried to breathe.

  Sawyer hung up and lay his phone on the ground, light shining upward. He shrugged away his jacket and tore off his shirt, twisting it into a long rope of fabric. He lifted Walker’s head and wrapped the shirt around his neck. He applied pressure to the area around the cut: plugging the gap, stemming the bleeding.

  ‘Try to breathe slow, Matt. I know you’re scared, but try to slow your breathing. I’m here. I’m doing what I can. I’m doing the right thing.’

  Walker’s eyes bulged with the effort of calming himself. He ground his legs into the dirt.

  Sawyer rested a hand on Walker’s forehead and leaned in close. ‘Take yourself away somewhere, Matt. In your mind. Somewhere happy. Go there. Go away from this.’ The eyes stared up, the gaze drifting away. ‘Look at me. Focus on me and take yourself there. I’m with you. I’ll go with you. Away from the pain. You’re over the worst now. The shock and the panic. Help will be here in a few minutes. We’ve just got to keep you calm. They’ll put you together again. Then we can have words about you running off by yourself.’

  He kept up the pressure on the wound. He knew it all depended on the depth of the cut. He could tell by the blood’s relatively calm flow that the killer had missed the carotid artery. But there might still be too much blood loss, oxygen starvation.

  Sirens. On the road over the ridge.

  Walker was trembling now, going into shock. Sawyer kept eye contact, but Walker’s legs had stopped thrashing.

  ‘We’ll get you back, Matt. You did a good thing. You tried to help. You tried to stop it. You couldn’t do any more.’

  The shirt was heavy with blood now. Sawyer applied more pressure, but Walker was still, his stare frozen.

  He had tried to help. He had tried to stop it.

  But he could do no more.

  53

  Sawyer and Shepherd sat opposite each other, heads bowed, in the corridor at Cavendish Hospital. Further down, by the nurse’s station, the lift door opened. Keating burst out, saw them, and hurried along the corridor.

  Sawyer and Shepherd stood in unison, and turned to face him. A nurse dashed out from behind the desk and followed Keating.

  He anticipated her protest and shouted, without turning. ‘Detective Chief Inspector Ivan Keating!’

  Sawyer held up a hand, slowing him. ‘He’s alive. Critical. In theatre now. His throat was cut. Missed the main artery but nicked the windpipe. I got there minutes after it happened, sir. Did what I could.’

  Keating’s expression was black with fury. He stared at the floor in silence, waiting for more.

  Shepherd looked at Sawyer. ‘The doctor said they’ve stabilised him but it’s impossible to—’

  ‘Why was Detective Constable Walker alone?’ Keating kept his gaze on the floor.

  ‘I was with him,’ said Sawyer. ‘But I couldn’t keep up, because of my leg. Ingram gave him the slip and went for a solo run. The killer must have been waiting for the opportunity. Walker probably disturbed him. He had to leave Ingram’s body behind.’

  Keating nodded. ‘One of the OPs said that Walker tried to contact both of you, over half an hour before you got to Ingram’s house.’

  Shepherd cleared his throat. ‘I was at the safe house with Amy and Ava Scott, sir. Didn’t pick up the call straight away.’

  Keating raised his eyes to Sawyer.

  ‘I was resting,’ said Sawyer. ‘Your orders.’

  ‘Ingram was pronounced dead at the scene,’ said Shepherd. ‘Stab wound. Lower back. Kidney. Didn’t have time to bleed him out like the others, so he cut his throat, too. Much deeper than Walker. Myers and Moran are there with Sally’s team.’

  Sawyer stared past Keating. A group of nurses had gathered at the station, drawn by the commotion. ‘He knew about the running routine. But he could have staked it out. I think he also knew that Ingram was refusing heavy protection, refusing to scale back his runs. He wouldn’t have planned an ambush otherwise.’ He turned to Shepherd. ‘OP guys all check out?’

  Shepherd sighed and shook his head. ‘Watertight.’

  ‘Reassign them to Kim Lyons’ place. Immediately. He’s near the end of his project now. He might be crazy enough to try and wrap it up tonight.’

  ‘We should take her to a safe house.’

  Keating shook his head. ‘She won’t go. Wants to stay in her own home. Double the OPs outside her place. Surveillance detail on a five-mile radius. Firearms officer on shift, on the door. Spot checks. Nobody gets within shouting distance of the place. And if anyone tries, I want to hear about it. DI Sawyer. Get back to your rest.’

  Sawyer drove home in a trance, under a midnight blue sky. By the time he reached Edale, the desolate fields were glowing in the approaching sunrise, making him crave an extension of night. Extra time. The space to repair his mood, and gather himself for the terrors to come.

  He slipped into the cottage and made himself a cup of tea, staring at his warped reflection in the hissing kettle. He stood still, and watched as it rattled to the boil, smothering his image with steam. He ached for purification, renewal.

  He found a packet of paracetamol and limped into the bedroom with his tea. He set down the mug on the bedside table, and allowed himself to fall forward, face down into the mattress.

  And then his phone was buzzing, and he was awake. Two hours swept away in an instant.

  Sawyer twisted round onto his back and sat up. Weak morning light outside. Headache. Dry mouth.

  He took two paracetamol with a gulp of cold tea and checked his phone. Shepherd.

  Phone me back

  He made the call. Shepherd answered immediately.

  Sawyer drew in a breath, held it. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Survived the op. They’ve put him in an induced coma. Brain swelling. Looks like he was hit with something before having his throat cut. Maggie’s here with his girlfriend.’

  Sawyer exhaled. ‘You still at the hospital?’

  ‘Yeah. Managed to shut my eyes for an hour or so in the brightly lit relatives’ room.’

  Sawyer’s leg sent out a pulse of pain. He rummaged in the drawer for ibuprofen. ‘Did you manage to—’

  ‘Haven’t even seen him yet. He’s gone, though. Intensive Care. I did ask the doctor, but he said there was no telling what might happen next. He might wake and be able to speak. He might b
e under for a few days, maybe even a couple of weeks.’

  ‘Will he live? Will he survive it?’

  ‘Doc said there might be cognitive impairment.’ He went quiet for a few seconds. ‘I’m going back to the office. Sorry about the cliché, but now it’s personal. Let’s get this bastard.’

  ‘Twenty minutes.’

  54

  Sawyer stepped out of the lift, not bothering to disguise his limp. It was early, and only a few of the desks were taken. As he crossed the floor, he could feel Moran’s sunken eyes on him, tracking his progress. Myers sat at a spare desk in the far corner, staring ahead, mesmerised by his kaleidoscopic screensaver.

  Shepherd followed Sawyer into his office and closed the door. Sawyer wrapped his jacket around the back of his chair and sat down. ‘Four murders. One attempt. What’s new?’

  ‘Firearms officer with Kim Lyons,’ said Shepherd. ‘Protection doubled. OPs round the front and back. I’m staying in the spare room. One of the other DCs, Murphy, is covering when I’m not there.’

  ‘Missus not happy?’

  Shepherd shook his head. ‘Missus not happy. Moran went to the Archives at Kew. He found the end of Joseph Dawson’s line in the indexes. April 2008. As you predicted, no document or note to indicate what he changed it to. We have a big list of names that were registered at that time, though. Myers cross-reffed it with local chemistry graduates, but no hits.’

  Sawyer took Shepherd’s tactical pen out of the pot and twiddled it around his fingers. ‘He might have studied but not graduated. Let’s get closer to the centre. Dawson himself. This thing about wanting to start again. He was angry at his given parents, rejecting them. Get someone to check the hospital records on the day he was born. Obstetricians on duty. Who might have delivered him? Get some names. Cross-check with the deed poll list.’