by Adam Carter
He moved quickly, but even as he was through the door did he see another swinging closed. He heard booted footsteps charging up wooden stairs and realised Welles knew he was onto him. Speeding through the door and bounding up the stairs, Jeremiah burst through the door leading to the roof, and ground to a stop. It had been foolish to run after Welles without thought, Jeremiah knew that now, for Welles stood ten metres from him, a rifle raised to his eyes, his aim steady. He may have been whacko, but Jeremiah knew he was a good shot.
“You again,” Welles said, almost annoyed that Jeremiah was following him.
Jeremiah was still banking on the theory that Welles did not want to shoot the police. At least not yet. He had already moved onto prostitutes, the police were likely the next on his list of collateral damage.
“You should give yourself in,” Jeremiah said. While he did have the power to arrest Welles, Sanders would not like that at all. “Why are you even killing people?”
“Diana.”
“What about her?”
“She’s dead. She went to Australia to live and they killed her.”
“Who killed her?”
“The Australians.”
Jeremiah blinked. “Any Australians in particular?”
“They’re corrupt. The whole damn country’s filled with drugs.”
That was news to Jeremiah. “So your sister was killed by drug dealers. That’s why you’re killing drug dealers?” He waited for confirmation, a nod, anything. When nothing came he just pressed on. “So why kill the dealers in England? What do they have to do with your sister?”
“Nothing. They were just to get your attention,” Welles sneered, smiling.
“My attention?”
The smile faltered and Jeremiah could see Welles did not know why he had just said that. “They need to die.”
“Couldn’t agree with you more. Why’d you branch out to prostitutes?”
“It wasn’t working.”
“What wasn’t? Getting my attention? I’ve been chasing you all night, what more do you want?”
“I ... They’re filth too.”
Jeremiah found himself more curious now than anything. His opinion of Welles was actually changing. He still had no doubt that the man was a fruitcake, but there was something else. Welles did not seem to know why he was doing what he was doing. That he was good at killing people was obvious from the string of corpses left in his wake, and that he was expert at concealing himself afterwards was also clear; but his motive was weak at best. His sister, Diana, had moved to Australia and had been killed in some drug-related crime. That part seemed plausible, but that was where Jeremiah stopped believing anything the man was saying. There was just something to his eyes, something Jeremiah was missing. It was as though Welles desperately wanted to believe in what he was doing, but had no clear idea as to why he was doing it. It likely also explained why he was at the school: he had been baiting Jeremiah and this had simply been a handy place for them to meet, away from other people.
“How exactly did your sister die?” Jeremiah asked. “Wrong place at the wrong time? Or was she involved in drugs somehow?”
“My sister was an angel,” Welles growled.
“So was Satan and look what happened to him.” It was probably not the best of things to have said, but Jeremiah was growing tired of the ceaseless chase.
Welles reacted just as Jeremiah had predicted and opened fire. Jeremiah’s reflexes were beyond those of ordinary men and he was able to evade the shot even as he leaped forward, his fists ploughing into the man’s chest and sending him reeling. The rifle span away and as the two men fell, Jeremiah landed atop his foe. Welles reacted with inhuman speed and Jeremiah staggered in pain as a three inch blade was sunk into his thigh.
Jeremiah rolled away, pulling the knife free and narrowing his eyes at Welles, who was already struggling back to his feet. Welles pulled a handgun and began firing, and Jeremiah propelled himself backwards, cartwheeling to evade each shot. He landed upon his feet and hurled the knife expertly, the blade slamming into Welles’s chest. It should have killed him, but the man was wearing sturdier body armour than Jeremiah had anticipated and the knife only dug partially through. Even so, it was enough to stagger the man, and Welles backed off several steps.
It took Jeremiah too long to realise Welles was heading for the side of the building. Jeremiah began to run, but Welles swung his legs over the side and vanished. Racing to the edge, Jeremiah peered down to see no trace of him. Slamming his fists into the concrete partition, sending stone boulders cascading down, Jeremiah cursed the fates and stormed back to the stairs.
He emerged into the playground just as Lin and the boy were arriving to meet him. “He got away,” Jeremiah said. “There’s something odd about him. He’s not all there, but his reflexes are almost as good as mine. And he pulled a disappearing act at the end only someone of a certain breed can do.”
Lin was looking at him strangely and he realised he had said too much. “You mean he plans well?” she asked.
“Plans well?”
“I saw him jump from the roof. He’d rigged a chute which took him back inside the building. The chute collapsed after him, so by the time you got to the edge you wouldn’t have been able to see where he went.”
Jeremiah frowned. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. What, you think he just disappeared into the ether or something?”
When speaking with Welles Jeremiah had been certain there was something strange about him, something inhuman. But Lin had dispelled such thoughts, and Jeremiah decided in future he would have to start looking for the realistic explanations first.
“You get anything from him?” she asked.
“Only that his sister was killed by Australian drug dealers.”
“Great. Let’s get Geoff back and then see whether Stockwell’s turned anything up yet. And I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
Jeremiah had not realised until that moment just how hungry he was. Looking at Lin as she took the boy back towards the waiting car Jeremiah felt an itch in his gums he had not known in a long time. Yes, he was hungry, but he had far more important things to be dealing with before he could satisfy his hungers.
He hated mysteries. Before he could even think about anything else, he would have this one solved and buried. Buried deep where no one, even fifty years from now, would be able to find it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“I found her!”
Jeremiah had never really thought much of Barry Stockwell. Everyone about the office seemed to like him, seemed to see him as some form of kid brother, but Jeremiah didn’t like to pander to popular opinion. He just saw Stockwell as a nerdy kid who needed to get out more. But Stockwell had been set a task and Jeremiah was amazed – if indeed that was a strong enough word – to discover Stockwell had actually accomplished that task.
“What do you mean you found her?” Lin asked the excited young man. Jeremiah would have asked him himself, but he was too shocked to really say much of anything.
“Diana Welles,” Stockwell yammered. “She’s living in Australia. She eloped there five years ago, got married, has two kids now.”
“Diana Welles is dead,” Jeremiah said flatly, as though saying it aloud made it true.
Some of Stockwell’s eagerness wavered. “Uh, no. She’s living in Australia. I was on the phone to her not ten minutes ago.”
“He said she was dead.” Jeremiah was not all that certain who he was speaking to, but he was looking at Lin as he said it.
“Maybe he lied to you,” she suggested.
“No ... No, he didn’t lie. What he said was the truth, or at least what he thought of as the truth.” He rounded upon Stockwell. “Why did she run away? What did her brother do to her?”
“Do to her? Nothing. She eloped, like I said. Spur of the moment decision, she just ran away with some guy she met. She told her brother about it afterwards, he knows all about it.”
Jeremi
ah was desperately trying to piece this together in his head. “Are they still on speaking terms?”
“Sure. Diana said he was hurt more than angry about it, but they kept in touch. She hasn’t spoken to Welles for about a month now though. She tried to contact him but there was no answer, she was starting to worry. Made finding her that much easier, since she was trying to contact this country at the same time.”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Jeremiah said.
“It makes perfect sense,” Lin said. “Peter Welles lives a solitary life. His only sister hikes off to Australia and he’s hurt but not angry. He gets over it and they’re on speaking terms. Then for some reason he flies off the handle, and his screwed-up brain cycles back to the time between when his sister had left him and when she made contact to tell him she was all right.”
“Yet he knows she made it to Australia?”
“His brain’s confused, Jeremiah. His memory’s a jumble. Right now Peter Welles thinks his sister is dead and he’s concocted this half-baked theory that she’s been killed by drug dealers.”
“It’s too tidy,” Jeremiah said.
“But it makes sense.”
“Which is why it’s wrong.”
Lin folded her arms and pouted something fierce. Jeremiah already regretted having been so blunt with her.
“There’s something more to this,” Jeremiah argued. “You didn’t see the man’s eyes. There’s a plan in there, there’s something we’re missing. I asked him why he’d killed the prostitute and he said it was to get our attention.”
“Well that doesn’t make sense,” Lin said. “He already had our attention.”
“Well,” a voice sounded from across the bunker, “now he has mine as well.” Detective Chief Inspector Edward Sanders was never a man to cross lightly, although as he stormed his way over to his officers this afternoon it was with a fire to his eyes Jeremiah had seldom noted before. Ordinarily was Sanders a calculatingly calm man; he had to be considering his line of employment and the nature of the people under his employ. But there was something unnerving Sanders today, something which had got under his skin and was threatening to peel away the layers one by one until the skeleton was revealed.
“Boss?” Jeremiah asked.
“Drug dealers we can do without,” Sanders said gruffly. “Someone takes a few off the streets, no big deal. We shut the vigilante down, but at least he’s done some good. Now he’s moved onto other people and I want him stopped. You two have had him twice now and let him go. I’m taking you off the case.”
“Whoa,” Jeremiah said, seeing his own reaction mirrored in Lin’s face. “He shoots one whore and suddenly it’s our fault?”
Sanders glowered at him and Jeremiah held his tongue. There was something about Sanders’s face which warned Jeremiah to clam up.
“We know him,” Lin said a little more gently than Jeremiah would have been able to. “We’re your best shot at sorting this quickly, sir.”
Sanders tore his eyes from Jeremiah and settled them on Lin. “Convince me.”
“We have theories on this guy,” Lin said. “We ... We’re pretty much your only chance of getting this finished today.”
Sanders stared at her deeply, and finally sighed, sense returning to him at last. “You’re right. Fine. Come on.”
“Hold on a ... You’re coming with us?”
“No,” Sanders said, halfway out the door already, “you’re coming with me.”
Jeremiah and Lin stared at one another blankly, neither quite knowing what to say. “He never goes out on assignments,” Lin voiced the obvious.
It was the prostitute, Jeremiah knew. For some reason Sanders did not like to see prostitutes killed. But why? Lin had said Sanders had his own little patch of protected ground, where he had girls working safely, but that would not spur the DCI into rashly marching off to hunt down a vigilante. True, Sanders’s vision was important to him, but so was maintaining some semblance of order. There was something they were missing, some special connexion Sanders had to prostitutes. He did not use them, of that much Jeremiah was certain. But that was the only obvious thing which sprang to mind. No, there was something more going on in the mind of Edward Sanders than Jeremiah could guess.
It was something to be filed away for another day.
“It wasn’t us,” Lin said in realisation.
“What wasn’t us?”
“It wasn’t our attention Welles was trying to get, he already had that. He was after the DCI’s.”
It made sense, Jeremiah had to agree, and it had worked too. But why would Welles want the DCI in the field, and how could he even have known of Sanders’s connexion to prostitutes? Sanders was the most secretive man in the entire country; there was no way someone like Welles could have found out he even existed, let alone dug up something dirty about him.
The more they discovered, the more questions were raised, and Jeremiah despised mysteries. However, with the DCI on hand, he could see this particular mystery coming to a close very shortly indeed.
*
The facts didn’t add up, but Lin wasn’t about to argue when the DCI himself was with them. They were sitting cramped in a car, watching the streets for signs of Welles. What they were doing there exactly Lin could not say. Sanders had told her where to drive and when to stop, and had been sitting in the back of the car making no sound ever since. She would not have been surprised should she glance round to find he had somehow slunk out the back door. There had been complete silence in the car for the past hour. The windows were wound up tightly but the heating was broken, so it was fairly cold, especially since they were just sitting there. Lin’s gloves had long ago ceased doing her any good, but she was afraid to so much as blow on her numb fingers because of the noise such a hurricane would create.
She once again ran through her mind what she knew of the area where they were currently parked. It was average, everything about it was average. It wasn’t high-class, it wasn’t poor. There was crime in this area but, so far as Lin knew, nothing to be concerned with. The odd burglary, a mugging or two. She did not recall the last murder in this area, but murders were not as common as everyone seemed to think. That wasn’t to say it was an especially pleasant area to live, but it was certainly as safe a place as she could name.
A man dressed in a Father Christmas costume staggered into view, clearly inebriated, and fought to stay upright. Lin searched the Santa’s face for any signs of familiarity, but if it was Welles he was a heck of a disguise artist. The Santa moved off, slowly, and just as Lin was settling back into her seat a voice from behind said, “There.”
Lin jumped, not having expected the voice, and for a moment stared back at the Santa, still barely in view. But she could see Sanders was not looking in that direction. He was staring straight ahead. There was no one there, and Lin figured the DCI was losing his mind.
“I see it,” Jeremiah said, and when Lin raised her eyebrows at him he said, “There’s a shadow, Lin. Someone’s hiding behind that wall.”
Now she knew what she was looking for she could kind of see it, but how the two men had been able to pick that out she had no idea.
“Stay behind me,” Sanders told them both as he stepped out of the car. “And don’t do anything unless I tell you to.”
Once again Lin wondered why Sanders was even there with them. At first she figured he was angry at the two of them for having taken so long and having found Welles twice and missing him twice. But she sensed there was something more to what Sanders was doing. He had taken this personally, which was insane to even consider. Maybe, she reflected, he just secretly loved Christmas.
She caught Jeremiah looking at her and knew he was trying to read her thoughts. She sensed he wanted her to keep her feelings to herself, to not question any of this aloud. She offered him a slight nod and he visibly relaxed.
They reached the DCI to find him with his back to the wall, still staring intently at that shadow. “Go around, circle him. I don’t want We
lles getting away a third time.”
And then Sanders produced an old revolver from his belt. Lin stared, stunned. It was the first time she had ever seen an officer of WetFish armed while in the field. There were rumours that Sanders allowed the use of guns on certain occasions, yet she had never known for one to be used and certainly had not herself ever taken one in with her. She had received some basic gun training from Sergeant Daryl Flynn, their resident expert on armaments, but figured it had been standard training for WetFish.
She must have been staring because she caught the DCI glowering at her.
“Let’s go,” Jeremiah said, taking her arm and gently drawing her off. Lin said nothing as they trotted away, and glanced back just before they turned the corner. The DCI had ceased looking at them, his attention fully upon the shadow of the hidden enemy.
“We don’t even know that’s Welles back there,” she said quietly to Jeremiah.
“Sanders knows.”
“How? And why bring a gun here? A shoot-out’s going to create publicity, and that’s the one thing Sanders doesn’t want.”
“I think Sanders has a good reason for taking risks, Lin, I just don’t know what that reason is.”
She looked at him hard, trying to work out whether Jeremiah knew anything or if he was simply assuming just as much as she was. “What’s going on, Jeremiah?”
Jeremiah glanced guiltily back the way they had come, did not stop walking and did not raise his voice. “Whatever his reasons, Welles has been trying to draw out the DCI. This whole thing about his missing sister? I think Welles thinks Sanders knows something about her.”
“But his sister’s fine. We know that.”
“But does Welles?”
“So Welles thinks Sanders is responsible for his sister’s death? Why? How would he find out Sanders even exists?”
