Beautiful Death

by Fiona McIntosh

  ‘Fuck!’ Jack murmured to himself and then dug in his pocket, desperately hoping he hadn’t imagined it. He pulled out Kate’s scarf. ‘I’ve got her scarf. Get them moving!’ He replaced the radio, feeling yet more adrenaline pouring into his system. ‘Angela, now you prove yourself. Go dark as we get close to High Beech — I don’t want us to be spotted. Head over there,’ he pointed. ‘Just follow that road around.’

  Hold on, Kate, just hold on, he urged silently, staring at his phone, the line still open, his screen brightly exclaiming that she was on the other end.

  Geoff Benson was thrusting his warrant over the reception desk at the Elysium Clinic, enjoying the look of panic on the faces of the staff, knowing their high-profile guests would need but a whiff of police presence to send them scuttling back to the far-flung cities they hailed from.

  Geoff tried to ease their anxiety. ‘We’re not here to disturb any of your guests; we’re looking for Dr Charles Maartens, please.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said a new brisk voice. Geoff turned to see an elegantly dressed forty-something woman in a business suit clicking toward him in heels, her make-up perfect. Why would anyone look like that at this time of the night, he thought irrelevantly. ‘May I help you, er…?’ She stared at the warrant he flashed near her well-tailored chest. ‘DCI Benson?’

  ‘Forgive my impoliteness but who are you?’ Geoff began.

  ‘I’m Agatha Mitchell, head concierge. How can we help you?’

  Concierge? Sounded like a resort. ‘Well Miss Mitchell —’

  ‘Mrs,’ she corrected.

  He started again. ‘We’re looking for Charles Maartens, Mrs Mitchell.’

  ‘Dr Maartens left hours ago,’ she said irritably.

  ‘You’ll have to try him at his home or perhaps more sensibly at the MaxilloFacial Unit at the Royal London Hospital tomorrow morning.’

  ‘We have reason to believe he’s still on the premises, Mrs Mitchell.’

  She looked at Geoff now as if he were dirt on the bottom of her shoe. ‘Inspector Benson, might I —’

  ‘That’s Detective Chief Inspector, Mrs Mitchell,’ he corrected her, a sweet tone to his voice. ‘And let me assure you we have no wish to disturb the clinic or its guests, but we do believe Dr Maartens is still on the premises … possibly in the outbuildings.’

  She frowned. ‘I can’t imagine why,’ she said, her tone brittle.

  Geoff worked hard to keep his calm. ‘With your permission, Mrs Mitchell, my people will quietly and unobtrusively look around, if that’s possible? We have no desire to disturb your guests.’

  ‘DCI Benson, your very presence disturbs our guests. Is Dr Maartens in trouble?’

  ‘We would appreciate his help with our enquiries into a case.’

  ‘A case?’ she repeated. ‘At nearly 9 p.m.?’

  ‘A murder case. Several murders in fact. You might know of it. It’s been on the television and the killer has been dubbed the Face Thief.’

  Agatha Mitchell recoiled. ‘What on earth could you want to speak with Dr Maartens about in connection with that? Unless, of course, you need his assistance with details of facial surgery. Truly, DCI Benson, I can’t —’

  ‘Mrs Mitchell. I can get a warrant to search the clinic and that certainly would disturb your famous and high-profile and ever so private clients … in fact I’d make sure of it as my revenge for you wasting my time while someone’s life is in jeopardy. It is believed that the man we are looking for has knowledge of the whereabouts of two missing women. Whether it offends your sensibilities or not, I plan to speak with Dr Maartens.’

  ‘And is Charles Maartens the man you think responsible?’

  ‘I’m not at liberty to say, Mrs Mitchell. Just let my people go about their business without causing us any problems.’ Geoff said politely but firmly. In fact, police were already moving around on the grounds. ‘Where are the outbuildings?’

  Mitchell looked astonished. All her high-handedness had vanished as she pointed, alarmed, across a grassed area into the shadows of trees about five-hundred metres away. ‘Across there. Four buildings. Unused to my knowledge and —’

  Geoff didn’t wait for her to finish. ‘Go!’ he said to one of his colleagues, turning back to glare at the concierge. ‘Don’t even think of picking up that phone and ringing over there. This is PC …’

  ‘Rawlins, sir,’ said the young man.

  ‘PC Rawlins will remain here with you.’ Geoff had no time for any further pleasantries and ran out after his colleague, sprinting across the manicured lawns, but taking care to remain in the shadows.

  Despite their best efforts at secrecy, Maartens had seen Geoff‘s team approaching. He was about to leave in his tiny hired hatchback, having sensibly left his late-model navy BMW in London so that none of the staff would know he was on the premises. As far as they were concerned, he’d left the clinic just after 4 p.m. that afternoon. He had parked the rental car in a side street some half a kilometre from the clinic and walked to the outbuildings, heading cross-country to a small opening he had long ago cut in the huge hedge that surrounded Elysium, protecting it from prying eyes. In this way he could access the outbuildings without anyone knowing he was there. And he’d taken the precaution of killing the single low light he’d used as soon as Kate Carter and the dead prostitute had been removed from his operating rooms.

  He had told Tom on security that a couple of cars would be arriving around 8 p.m. to pick up some stuff from the outbuildings that he would leave outside. He’d assured the security guard they’d only be on the property for a few minutes to load up, and asked him to let them in and out without hassle. He’d even told Tom the make and model of the cars, so it sounded official. False names for the drivers had also been supplied, but Maartens knew that by 8 p.m. Tom was usually cold, barely interested and yawning. He would simply wave the drivers in and out, unlikely to even step out of his small cubby and the relative comfort of its bar heater. Fifty pounds as a thank you had helped, but Maartens had made it his policy to tip Tom regularly, so the man would never know the difference between simple thanks for doing a good job or hush money — for doing a good job of an entirely different nature.

  Maartens turned off even his tiny torch now, tidying up in the moonlight that spilled through the windows, now that the storm had blown through and the night was still again.

  His plan was to return cross-country the way he’d come. The rooms were pristine; he had no qualms that any forensic clues had been left behind. As it was, after each round of surgery they’d taken the precaution of cleaning every inch of the rooms thoroughly, so he knew this final wipe-over didn’t need to be much more than superficial. He was confident no traces of Kate Carter would be found.

  His intention was to drive quickly back to Heather’s. She would provide an alibi if he needed it. Heather Preece wanted so badly to become Mrs Charles Maartens that he knew he could get her to say anything to protect his safety, his wealth — and her future. It wouldn’t enter her mind that he might have done something illegal, not even if the police were involved. He’d already warned her to make sure his car was parked directly outside her mansion apartment so that friends, neighbours — anyone, in fact, who knew them — would attest, if asked, that Charles Maartens had spent the night with Heather Preece.

  Perhaps tonight he would finally ask her to marry him. He’d had the stone a long time. It was a fabulously large oval diamond — one he was sure Moshe Gluck would have salivated over — that he’d decided to keep from a cache a friend of his had brought out of Africa. He’d always known he’d need to impress Heather’s family with the ring, but then again, no wife of his was going to sport anything that wasn’t extraordinarily eye-catching. Heather would do it justice. She was equally eye-catching, but she was also cold and vacant. Her mind felt most at home teasing over which of the latest handbags from Prada to buy. She had little interest in his research other than how it might keep her youthful in years to come. But her family name was reputable,
she made him look good and she genuinely loved him, silly girl.

  All of Heather’s friends were married. Most already had their brood under way. Heather was anxious to secure Maartens — he knew this, and he was a major catch, after all, far better than the merchant banking or stockbroking husbands of her peers. Charles was interesting, handsome, sophisticated and forever gracing the social pages. His Hollywood looks and his bank account meant he could be anywhere on the planet anytime he liked. His career was stellar and his profile perfect. The problem for Heather was that Charles was not nearly as shallow as she was, and although no one, not even his colleagues, could ever understand how he might justify the means to the end, he was genuinely wedded to his work. He loved his work. He especially loved knowing he had the power to change lives, improve lives, restore lives. And now he was chasing the ultimate dream — giving life, albeit through a new identity.

  He was having one last look around, running through a mental checklist, when he heard a muffled sound. At first he thought it was nothing, a couple of squirrels bounding across the lawn, perhaps, but a sixth sense told him to take a cautious look. To his alarm he saw shadows moving through the trees.

  ‘Fuck!’ he growled beneath his breath. How could they be so close? What had gone wrong? No time to linger on it. He was already in a dark tracksuit and runners, ready to flee on foot if necessary. He snatched his backpack and with care tiptoed to the side door. With luck they hadn’t surrounded him yet. He’d have to take the long way round, running along the Lea bank and making his way back to the car — or perhaps he’d just leg it to the nearest train station and get to Heather’s place at Battersea as fast as possible.

  He just had to hold his nerve. Stepping outside into the cold, he took a deep breath and then he was running.

  Kate could hear the man with the balaclava busying himself outside the car. She couldn’t imagine what he was doing, but she could hear him opening and closing the doors of another vehicle so maybe he had met up with a companion, or perhaps that was his means of escape? She realised she couldn’t hear any voices, so presumed he must still be alone. If that was the case then he planned to leave her Fiat here … wherever here was.

  She watched, terrified, as he walked — his arms laden with stuff she couldn’t make out — around to the back of her car, just inches from where she was lying uncomfortably squeezed into the boot.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she yelled.

  ‘Shut up,’ was his reply.

  Kate could hear him fiddling around beneath the car. She could feel the car moving as he pushed against it, making a clunking sound. What was he doing? It was otherwise silent outside and very, very dark. Through the inkiness she could just see the outline of trees.

  What was the worst she could imagine? She tried to dream up the most intolerable end to this miserable affair and decided that if he doused the car with its own petrol and set it alight then things couldn’t be any bleaker.

  ‘Right,’ she whispered, determined to hear her own voice, trying to steady herself somehow. ‘That’s as bad as it’s going to get and you’ll die of smoke inhalation before the flames get you.’ She didn’t really believe it, but it helped to say it.

  She screamed when he shocked her by opening the boot. He was holding a knife.

  ‘Don’t,’ she begged, her resolve forgotten. Stabbings were her nightmare.

  He reached down and slashed the bonds at her ankles. ‘Get out,’ he said, half dragging her, taking her the long way around to the driver’s side.

  ‘What do you want?’ she said, feeling especially pathetic that that was all she could think to say in this terrifying scenario. She so desperately wanted to be brave, to go down swinging punches or kicking knees, defiant to the last second of her life.

  ‘Get behind the wheel,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I say so and because I’m holding a knife, sweetheart.’

  ‘What kind of fucking loser are you anyway? I’m presuming he’s killed or had killed everyone else who’s been involved in his dirty affairs,’ she bluffed. ‘What makes you think someone isn’t waiting outside here … where are we, anyway?’ she finished incongruously, realising she was standing in a forest with a man in a balaclava.

  ‘I’m too smart to get trapped by the likes of him, darlin’; you’re not so smart so you’re the one who does the dyin’.’

  ‘And you’re comfortable with that, are you? Killing a helpless woman?’

  ‘Killing a pig? Yeah, I love it. I’ll brag about it to me mates.’

  ‘You’re the pig,’ she said and thought about taking that kick she so badly wanted to, now that her feet were free, but he had her half in and half out of the front passenger seat — and he also had a nasty hunting knife. She really didn’t want that plunged into her belly.

  ‘Get all the way in,’ he said, sounding almost bored now. ‘Into the driver’s seat.’

  ‘What are you going to do, then? Run me down a ravine or something?’ Kate felt stupid even talking to him but it bought her a few more precious seconds, just in case the cavalry was coming.

  He ignored her, winding down her window slightly. Then it all made sense as he fed a tube through the gap at the top then wound the window back up as far as he could.

  Then he used some old T-shirts to stuff the gap in the window to achieve a makeshift seal. He was going to poison her with carbon monoxide.

  ‘That’s it, darlin’. I’m off now. Sweet dreams, eh? If you want my advice, don’t fight it, all right? Inhale as hard as you can because it’s quicker that way. Pretty quick in somefink this small anyway. P’raps four or five minutes before you black out. Your heart will stop a bit later but you won’t know much about it, being unconscious and all that. Well, that’s a pretty polite death, darlin’.’

  Helplessly handcuffed and shocked, she didn’t even fight him when he pulled the seatbelt around her and strapped her in.

  ‘There we are,’ he said. ‘Bye sweetheart.’

  The man in the balaclava turned on the ignition.

  28.

  ‘He’s running!’ Ellie yelled just as one of her burly colleagues broke down the front door. Geoff and his two sidekicks had begun circling the main outbuilding and were the only people outside, it seemed, as Ellie shouted the news. Geoff squinted into the darkness, just making out the retreating shadow of a man, presumably Charles Maartens, running at a furious pace. Without pause, he took off after him.

  Geoff was big, and too many people assumed that meant slow. All they had to do was ask Jack Hawksworth about training with Benson and they’d learn that ‘The Bear’ might be a very large man, but his fitness matched his size and he was surprisingly fleet of foot. He used all of that speed and stamina now to hunt down Charles Maartens, whom he was sure couldn’t possibly want to get away as badly as he wanted to wrap his fingers around the surgeon’s throat and squeeze.

  At least he thought it was Maartens. He had no way of knowing from this distance. And the figure was in a tracksuit with a beanie pulled low over his head. If he got away now they’d have no proof it was the surgeon running away.

  Geoff was sucking in air, gradually narrowing the gap between himself and his prey, and although Maartens had now hit flat ground and clearly had a destination in mind, Geoff was still gaining speed from the downhill terrain. He didn’t care that it was slippery or that he wasn’t wearing ideal shoes for running. He was single-minded in his purpose. This man knew where Kate Carter was.

  Behind him he could hear various police officers thudding along. He hoped Ellie had directed some of her colleagues to spread out in various directions so they could trap the fleeing surgeon in a pincer-like movement, but he could not slow down to check.

  Geoff wondered where exactly the doctor was planning to go. He seemed to be running straight at the hedge. Was he planning to crash through it? He didn’t think the surgeon stood a chance against whatever the hell that huge hedge was grown from. And then, impossibly, just as the f
leeing man arrived at the hedge, he disappeared.

  ‘No!’ Geoff roared his anger. He hit the flat at a great rate and rapidly covered the distance to where he was sure he’d seen Maartens slip through. Barely able to breathe, pausing fleetingly to suck in huge breaths, he searched for an opening, desperately scrabbling at leaves and twigs.

  ‘Torch!’ he gasped.

  Ellie was upon him first. She too was breathless.

  ‘Shit, you’re fast, sir,’ she gasped admiringly. ‘But how did he get out?’ She quickly unbuckled her torch from her belt.

  Before she could even flick on the switch Geoff had found the opening and like the bear of his nickname had fought his way through it, dragging part of the hedge down with him.

  He let rip with a load roar on the other side because there was nothing. No sound, no running figure, no streetlight to help him.

  Maartens, or whoever he’d been chasing, had vanished.

  The police search unit surprised Jack with its speedy arrival. He was just toppling out of the car in his speed to find Kate as they pulled up.

  ‘Great work,’ he said to the man in charge. ‘We’re about five hundred metres from a clearing called High Beech,’ he added, urgency sharp in his voice.

  ‘We know it, DCI Hawksworth,’ the man said. ‘Who are we after?’

  Jack pulled Kate’s scarf from his pocket. ‘This belongs to DI Carter. She’s been taken into High Beech clearing, we think, by a person or persons likely to be armed and dangerous.’

  ‘Well so are we, sir,’ the man replied grimly. ‘Was she driven in?’

  Jack nodded. ‘I think so. But we’ll go the last five hundred metres on foot. Then he won’t know how many of us or which direction we’re coming from.’

  The man pulled a face. ‘Not much chance for the dogs to follow a trail, then.’

  Jack was already moving away rapidly. ‘Just go in. At least if they bark and her captor hears us coming it might just save her life. I’ve got to go. Send the ambulance behind us.’