Operation WetFish, Vampire Detective: Ultimate Omnibus Volume 1 of 4 (Operation WetFish, Vampire Detective Ultimate Omnibus)

by Adam Carter

  “I thought you said Becky was your friend,” Stenning said, oddly.

  “She is. Why?”

  “Then why are you calling her White?”

  Baronaire realised Stenning had a cannier mind than he had given him credit for; but then perhaps he would need one to have got away so long with what he did.

  “You seem to have a strange sense of righteousness here,” Baronaire told him, his gaze wandering about the flat. All his powers may have been dulled by the daytime, but that did not mean they were entirely gone. His senses, for instance, were still superior to most people’s, and Baronaire used them now to his full advantage. Stenning did not use conventional date rape drugs, but whatever he used he would likely keep somewhere in the flat. Baronaire had no doubt a great many substances had been confiscated when he had been first arrested, but since no conviction had come out of it he could only assume the police had never found what they had been looking for. His sharp sense of smell, however, was sifting through the various aromas of the flat in search of something he could not recognise. Carpet cleaner was very strong, as was the smell of the fish he had bought for his dinner. There were other scents too: a strong sense of tea from the kitchen and dirt from his soiled shoes.

  There was no sensation that there were any foreign odours in the flat.

  Nor was there any grass or soil between the shop and the flat. In fact, the more Baronaire concentrated on that single smell, the more he could detect it upon Stenning’s clothes, his person, under his nails.

  “You’re a clever chap, Jack,” Baronaire told him. “Keeping the drug here would have been stupid, obviously. But burying your supply and digging it up as needed ... that’s genius.”

  It was only part bluff, but Baronaire was relieved when Stenning’s face turned as white as Thompson’s alias. He chose not to elaborate upon his accusation, for to go into too much detail when he was only half-guessing would have handed the man enough of a rock to slip under and hide. Baronaire had been in enough of these situations to know when the idiot was about to convict himself.

  “What do you want?” Stenning asked, ashen now. “You want money? Is that it? I can get you money.”

  “I don’t want money. I want you down at the station telling them it’s all a misunderstanding.”

  “If I give myself up, I’m going down for life. With or without the drugs as evidence.”

  “I don’t care about you being sent down, Jack. Just go to the station and drop the charges against my friend. You can stay out of prison for all I care. I just want my friend out of there.”

  “And what am I supposed to say?”

  “I don’t care. Just lie to the police. You got away with it last time, you can do it again. Tell them you’d both been drinking and you came onto her and she didn’t like it. Just tell them something and get my friend out of there.”

  He could see by Stenning’s face that he had him. Letting Stenning walk was not a good option, but he was too high profile now to kill. They would have to wait at least a year before they did anything to him, by which point he may well have assaulted a dozen more women. Perhaps the regular police would catch him, but somehow Baronaire doubted that very much. Still, right now it was all about trying to help Jen Thompson.

  “All right, I’ll do it,” Stenning said. “But I’m not confessing to anything.”

  “Just so you do it.” He paused. “Well, what are you standing there for? Get down to the station.”

  Stenning looked as though he was going to argue, but then he opened the door without a word and motioned for Baronaire to precede him. Once they reached the ground they went their separate ways, although Baronaire’s way was to follow him. With any luck this would be enough to get Thompson released, yet in Baronaire’s experience things were never quite so easy.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It was entirely against regulations, but then there was nothing about this situation that was regular. Detective Inspector Sophia Harrison had been in the job long enough to know you never spoke with a prisoner alone. If you gave a prisoner ammunition they would place you against the wall and shoot you with it. But she had also been in the job long enough to know when the duty sergeant would agree not to see that she had wandered over towards the cells, and if her story could be backed up by enough colleagues there was no evidence a prisoner could use against her.

  Over the years she had spoken to perhaps half a dozen prisoners alone, and never without exceptional circumstances. With all the strangeness of this case, she was willing to make such an exception here as well.

  She opened the cell door to find the prisoner doing one-handed press-ups, her back to the door. She had removed her top while she exercised, and even from behind Harrison could see how well-muscled this woman was. She did not have the form of a professional body-builder, and seemed able to know the precise point at which to stop her workouts before they turned her into a powerhouse. She was the most physically fit person Harrison had ever met, yet did not want to stop feeling attractive.

  Apparently the prisoner had not heard Harrison’s approach this time, although instead of stopping did she flip about to work the other arm, pressing down and up in a slow, methodical fashion. Harrison could see the brassiere the prisoner wore was thick, black, utilitarian and non-descript. But it was the woman’s toned stomach which held Harrison’s interest, for this was her first personal observation of the striking dragon tattoo which travelled across the woman’s belly with the grace of a serpent slithering through the grass.

  “See something you like, honey?”

  Harrison snapped her eyes from the tattoo and looked directly at the prisoner’s face. “I want to talk to you.”

  “I don’t see fat-guts.”

  “Detective Williams is a good cop.”

  The woman did not answer this, and Harrison felt she was even agreeing with her. The continual up and down motion, however, was disconcerting to watch.

  “Would you stop that?”

  “Why?” the prisoner asked.

  “Because it’s annoying.”

  “Making you feel threatened or turning you on?”

  “Anything out of the ordinary frustrates me. And there’s nothing ordinary about you and your faux-solicitor.”

  The prisoner stopped her exercise, sat on her cot and used her top to mop at the sweat pouring from her brow. She rubbed the garment furiously at her hair, and when she was done it was an unsightly mess.

  “I could get you a towel, you know.”

  “It’s about all that rag’s good for.”

  “So you admit it’s not your usual attire?”

  The prisoner leaned against the wall, her chest rising and falling in a controlled rapidity which bespoke of someone who could likely run a mile without her pulse quickening. “What exactly do you want, ma’am?”

  “Ma’am?”

  The barest flash of annoyance crossed the prisoner’s face, and Harrison felt her own heart racing. Williams had not wanted to say too much, but she had heard one or two rumours herself over the years. No one believed them, and they were never substantial enough to even really be considered rumours. But Harrison was viewing this case with different eyes now, and she was on the lookout for titbits she would ordinarily have missed.

  “I want things back to normal,” Harrison said. “I want to be able to arrest criminals and put them behind bars. Ideally I want Stenning, but I think we both know he’s slipped through our fingers now.” She paused. “Both our fingers.”

  “I wasn’t hunting Stenning.”

  “I’m not here to argue with you, miss. I just thought you might be interested in justice.”

  “Go on.”

  “I’ve been advised that if I let you go, things wouldn’t come back on me. You’d walk out and no one would ever mention you were even here. Is that true?”

  The prisoner hesitated. That alone told Harrison something of the truth. “I don’t know,” she surprisingly said. “If this is between me and you, I don’t know
what would happen.”

  The two women had locked eyes by this point, probing the other for information while at the same time guarding their own secrets. They were willing to share, but not totally. At least not until the other revealed something of their own secrets.

  “Your friend,” Harrison said. “What is he?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How did he do that thing in the interview room?”

  “Annoy you, you mean?”

  “He got me to attack you.”

  “He has a way with people.”

  “I get the hypnosis, even though I don’t believe in it. I get that he might have hypnotised me into attacking you, but how did he do the thing with the tape?”

  “What thing with the tape?”

  “Wiping it.”

  “He wiped the tape?”

  And then it struck Harrison that this woman truly did not know what she was talking about. Whoever Dick Reynolds was, whatever he was, the prisoner knew nothing about it. “Perhaps,” Harrison said, “he’s a better magician than even you realise. I have a question for you, but I doubt you’re going to answer it.”

  “Then don’t ask it.”

  “Are you a police officer?”

  The prisoner’s eyes narrowed fractionally. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “Why would you think that?”

  “Because you act like I would if I’d been arrested by another department while working undercover. At first I thought you were a vigilante, but now I’m not so sure. Your friend, magician or otherwise, is certainly not a solicitor, and you weren’t at that club because you wanted to be there.”

  “Maybe I just have nothing better to do with my life than drowning lowlifes.”

  “I don’t want to do this in an interview room,” Harrison said, trying to choose her words carefully. “If there’s another operation at work here, tell me. Give me a contact name. Someone I could phone and get the OK to set you free. If you’re in the force you must have a DCI.”

  The prisoner laughed, shaking her head sadly, and Harrison could see something incredibly pathetic in the motion. This was a sad, lonely woman working a job which offered her no stable reward.

  “I don’t know what’s going on here,” Harrison admitted, “and I have a feeling I’m not supposed to. But when your solicitor comes back I want you to talk to him. Maybe one of you could give me some answers. I know you probably have your own job to do here, but I’m not losing mine for you.”

  “Losing your job? Why would you lose your job?”

  “Because when you take your friend’s voice off that tape it’s enough alone to get me suspended. I’m beginning to get the feeling that it’s coming down to a contest between the two of us. One of us will likely be out of a job by the end of it, if we’re lucky. The difference is you know why all this is happening.”

  The prisoner lowered her eyes. “I’m sorry if that happens. I don’t know your record, but you seem like a good cop.”

  “Then work with me. Stop treating me like an enemy here.” She could see she was getting through to her at least in some way. “Just promise me you’ll think about it.”

  “I’ll think about it,” the prisoner said without hesitation, her eyes filled with wariness. “But I can’t promise anything.”

  “I don’t expect you to.” She glanced back to the corridor to make sure they were still alone. “That knife.”

  “The one I said I took from Stenning?”

  “It’s yours, isn’t it?”

  “You expect me to answer that?”

  “My brother was in the army. There was one time in the Falklands it looked bad for him. He was wounded: news came back to us that he was dead. But it was misinformation, a communications error. He wasn’t even that badly hurt, but that ... that was the worst thing I’ve ever been put through. I imagined getting all his things sent back to us, shipped over from his barracks or whatever it is soldiers lived in over there. I remember trying to think of something he might have valued, something he might have wanted me to have. All I could think of was his uniform, which I guess I wouldn’t have been allowed to keep anyway.

  “When I saw you take down Stenning I knew you’d been army-trained. When I saw the knife I thought it fit in with your vigilante lifestyle. But the more I’m thinking you’re not a vigilante, the more I’m wondering about the knife. It belonged to someone else, didn’t it? Someone who trained you how to fight. And I guess you want it back.”

  The prisoner had not spoken during this, although Harrison could see by her expression – half angry, half upset – that she had hit closer to the truth than she had realised. “If you’re trying to blackmail me ...”

  “God, no. I’m saying even if you walk out of here, the knife’s being confiscated. But I have a feeling you want it back. And I want you to have it back. So you still have something to remember whoever it was who trained you.”

  Silence filled the cell and Harrison decided there was nothing more to be said.

  “I should go. I shouldn’t even be here. Let me know if you want anything.”

  But as Harrison reached the door, the prisoner said in a small voice, almost lost to the wind, “Thank you.”

  It was enough to still Harrison’s rapidly-beating heart. It told her she was right about possibly everything, and that even if one of them had to lose her job today, at least this woman would retain her memories, and her honour.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  An unusual thing happened an hour after Detective Inspector Harrison had left Thompson’s cell. Thompson had been trying to keep her mind occupied so she didn’t have to think about how bleak her future was, no matter what happened. The desk sergeant had opened her door and told her she was free to go. At first Thompson thought it was some kind of trick, but as she followed the sergeant to the front desk and was handed back all the meagre possessions she had come in with, she began to realise it was all true.

  “But I don’t understand,” she told the sergeant. “What’s happened?”

  The answer came from behind her, and she could see Detective Williams standing there, an expression of curious distrust upon his face. “Stenning dropped by. He explained the entire thing. Said it was all a misunderstanding and that he doesn’t want to press charges.”

  “But I was arrested for trying to kill him.”

  “I didn’t say it made sense. If you want to go back in your cell, you’re welcome to it.”

  “No,” Thompson replied quickly, realising she was only damaging her own release. “Did he confess to anything?”

  “Of course he didn’t confess to anything. Now do everyone a favour and go home.”

  “What about the knife?”

  “You mean Stenning’s knife?”

  Thompson bit her lower lip. She knew to admit it was hers would put her back in the cell, and so long as she was free she could think of a way to try to get it back. Lowering her eyes, she walked towards the door without voicing even a goodbye.

  “One more thing,” Williams said. Thompson stopped, allowing him to approach. He spoke quietly, clearly not wanting the desk sergeant to overhear him. He did not speak aggressively, but Thomson could tell he was concerned about someone, and that someone was likely Harrison. “I don’t know who you are,” he told her, “and I don’t care. When you walk out that door I don’t want to see you or that magician friend of yours again. You get out of Sophia’s life and you don’t bother her ever again.”

  “I don’t mean anyone any harm,” Thompson told him. “Particularly not the good guys.”

  Williams grunted. “Then keep walking, miss. Do Sophia a favour and keep walking.”

  Thompson departed the station and inhaled deeply of the cold winter air. She was free, but this was far from over. She needed to get back to the bunker and see whether she still had a job to go back to. She could not blame Sanders if he wouldn’t let her come back, but she had to form a case to keep her at work. It would not be a strong enough case; Thompson had seen officers disa
ppear from the bunker before. Since Sanders discouraged familiarity, she had never discovered the reasons for their disappearances. It was possible they had died or had chosen to move on. Perhaps they had found lives for themselves and transferred to a regular department. But Thompson did not doubt that some of them at least had been let go due to circumstances similar to her own.

  Someone cleared their throat behind her, yet as she turned to the sound she was surprised to find it was not Baronaire. Detective Inspector Harrison stood there, had been waiting for her to walk this far from the station before she approached. She was carrying what appeared to be a shoebox and maybe wanted Thompson to believe she had just returned from the shops.

  “I’m a free woman,” Thompson told her flatly. “I should leave you to your work.”

  “That was a little odd, what Stenning did.”

  “Maybe the guy has a conscience. Who knew?”

  Thompson made to walk past her, although Harrison said, “He’ll attack again. Several times before we catch him.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not going to ask you questions, Rebecca.” She smiled slightly. “By your reaction to the name I’m guessing it’s not real?”

  “The name’s real enough, it just doesn’t belong to me.”

  “Do I outrank you?”

  Thompson hesitated.

  “I’m not asking for anything,” Harrison pressed. “I was just curious whether I outranked you.”

  Thompson shrugged. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Which is a good answer because it might well mean you’re not in the force at all.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I have a proposition.”

  Thompson eyed her warily.

  “I think you were after Stenning in the club, just as I was,” Harrison continued. “I don’t want you to confirm anything, by the way. But I think we were both after him. And because we got in each other’s way, he’s still walking the streets. I don’t like that, and you don’t like that. I want to change it.”