Safe

by Jane Adams

  There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone. Then his contact said, “There have been developments you should know about. There’s something going on at the Perrins place, reports of assaults and abduction. We’ve sent a couple of officers over. And you should also know that a serving officer has been murdered. DCI Frankland was found dead at his home earlier this morning. And it’s a nasty business, Clarke. It looks like they tortured him to death.”

  It was Clarke’s turn to hesitate. He looked at Petra. How much should he admit to knowing? “I thought Frankland was retired?” he said.

  “Officially, yes. Unofficially, no. Clarke, you know as well as I do that a handler can’t just walk away from his undercover officers.”

  Clarke decided he should keep quiet about Petra for the moment. “What do you think they wanted from him? Does he have any connection to the Perrin or the Sykes OCGs? If so, this makes it even more important to keep the girl safe.”

  “It does. OK, Clarke, I’m guessing you have more of an overview of this than you’re letting on. I’m going to trust you. I’m going to let you call the play on this—”

  “You’re telling me the safe house maybe isn’t safe?” Clarke said.

  “I’m telling you I don’t know. I’m telling you there are rumours that I don’t like.”

  Petra had taken Lauren’s notebook. Ask him about Henderson, she scribbled.

  Clarke was puzzled but complied. “Are any of those rumours about DCI Henderson?”

  Silence on the other end of the call was the only confirmation he needed.

  “Right, so we really are out in the cold then?”

  Clarke did not wait for a response. He hung up the phone and then switched it off. “Why Henderson?”

  “Because I saw him at Billy Hunter’s house. You know he gambles beyond his means, don’t you?”

  “I didn’t, no.”

  “So what do we do?” Lauren asked.

  Her eyes looked very large and dark in the dim of the car, Clarke thought. “You go with Petra, you find yourselves a cheap hotel somewhere, or whatever Petra thinks is best and you hold in there. I’ll give you the address of the safe house, in case you need a backup plan. But I’m not sure how much we can trust it. I’ll try and work something else out in the meantime. Have you got money?” he asked.

  Both women nodded. “Enough for now,” Petra said.

  “And I still have my gun,” Lauren told him. He saw a flash of humour in her eyes, unexpected but oddly welcome.

  “I don’t want to know about your gun,” he said. “By rights, I should have taken it off you the moment I saw it.”

  She laughed. “Like you could have done,” she taunted. Then she grew more serious. “Where are you going? You’re going to confront Henderson, aren’t you?”

  “If he is a traitor, then we need to know.”

  “And you think he’ll tell you?”

  “I have to try and find out what’s going on. And for that, I need to go back home, scout around, see what I can find out.”

  Lauren looked at Petra, who nodded. “I’ll send a message to the new phone. I’m not going to tell you where we are, just that we’re OK. Call me back on that number, but only when you’re sure it’s safe to do so. Here.” Petra handed him a small, tissue-wrapped bundle. “Three more SIMs. Be careful.”

  “Did you report the body?” Clarke wanted to know.

  “Frankland was my friend,” she told him. “I wasn’t going to just leave him to the flies.”

  Lauren grabbed her bag and Clarke watched as the two women walked away, keeping to the shadows.

  Chapter 40

  Freddie knocked on Carole’s door. When she opened it, he said, “You’ve got to bring her back down again. Something’s happened.”

  Carole glanced back at Sam, who was still sitting on the bed, then looked at Freddie with renewed terror in her eyes. “What has happened?”

  Freddie shrugged. “It seems the boyfriend was stupid enough to go to the police. You lent him your car — he should have just kept on going. But no, the idiot had to report an assault. Had to claim a kidnapping. There are two uniformed officers downstairs now waiting for Sam to come down and tell them everything is fine. That it’s all been one big misunderstanding.”

  Sam stood up. She looked hopeful. “I can leave with them,” she said.

  Carole sighed. “Sam, the cavalry’s not arrived, so don’t push it. Now you just go downstairs, and you tell them it’s a big fuss over nothing.”

  “And if I don’t? What if I ask to leave with them?”

  “Well, you can ask,” Freddie told her. “But believe me, girl, they won’t welcome it. They just want to get out of here. They’re just going through the motions, like their boss told them to.”

  “I suppose they work for him as well, do they?” Sam practically spat the words at Carole.

  “Probably not,” Carole said. “Ask yourself, would you want to walk into a house like this? Knowing what you do about my father? And remember, there’s only two of them, and if Gus Perrin chooses to say that they walked away, got in their car and drove off, how are you going to prove otherwise?”

  “Won’t they have radioed in, or something? Won’t they have told their colleagues where they are?”

  “I’m sure they would have done,” Freddie told her. “But just because they were somewhere at one moment, does not mean they’re going to be there the next. And if a dozen witnesses say that they drove off, and we don’t know where the hell they are, how could you prove different? Now get your arse downstairs.”

  Carole led the way, with Freddie bringing up the rear. She knew that Freddie was exaggerating, but probably only a little bit. She knew that Kyle Sykes made people disappear on a regular basis. Sykes certainly didn’t care which side of the law they were on. She suspected her father shared the same views. She certainly wasn’t going to risk anything at the moment. All Sam had to do was agree that everything was fine and they could go away.

  The two officers, both looking very young and very vulnerable, stood in the middle of the large living room. It surprised Carole at first that the police had not sent anyone more senior to deal with Gus Perrin. Someone’s just ticking boxes, Carole thought. Marty’s claims had to be followed up, but someone was making certain nothing would be made of them.

  She didn’t know who was in her father’s pocket. Had never wanted to know. But evidently, in diverting just a routine patrol to check up on Marty’s statement, they were both covering their backs and sending the message to Gus that this was not going to be logged as anything resembling a priority call-out.

  These two have probably never seen so many smartly suited and heavy-set men in one place at one time, she thought.

  Her father sat, centre stage, his face expressionless. Carole felt the chill of that look. Knew how angry he really was. She extended her hand ready to shake and approached the nearest police officer. “I’m Carole Josephs,” she said, “and this is my assistant, Sam. Sam Barker. I understand you want a word with her.”

  “There’s been a report. A man came in to report an assault on himself, and to say that this young lady was being detained against her will.” The officer eyed Carole and then turned his attention to Sam. “So if you’d like to come with us and make a statement . . .” he trailed off.

  Carole sighed impatiently. “Let me guess, it was Marty who called at the police station, and Marty who made the complaint. He and Sam had a set-to earlier this evening and, well, I’m afraid I intervened. He was getting rough with Sam, so I clouted him. If you want me to come and make a statement to that effect, I’ll do so in the morning, but it’s pretty late. I’m sure we all just want to get to bed.”

  As if the officer realized for the first time that she and Sam were still fully dressed at four in the morning, the young policeman frowned.

  Carole read the look. “We’ve been having a bit of a family celebration,” she told him. “I have a new exhibition — I’m an artist. Sam h
as been so tremendously helpful in setting it up, and she’s practically family, so of course, she joined us.” She was aware that nobody else in the room had spoken or even moved since she’d come in. That it must seem very strange to these two observers. They must have realized that the atmosphere was anything but celebratory, but she just wanted them out of here, just wanted Sam safely back upstairs, and her father to calm down. Suddenly she felt extremely weary. She couldn’t go on like this, it was just all too stupid.

  “And is this true, Miss Barker? That you and your partner had a disagreement and—”

  “I’m fine,” Sam said flatly. “Please go away. It was just an argument, just a misunderstanding.”

  She couldn’t have been more unconvincing, Carole thought and the two police officers evidently thought so, too. She could feel the mood in the room shift and guessed that so could they. One of them moved towards the door. “Miss Barker, if you’d like to go and make a statement in the morning, and you too, Mrs Josephs? So we can just clear this up once and for all.”

  “I’ll see you out,” Carole said, and before anyone could object, she had opened the living-room door and led the way into the hall.

  She watched them go down the steps to get into their car, silently urging them just to disappear into the night and go back to the business of giving out speeding tickets or picking up drunks. She was profoundly relieved when they pulled away. She didn’t think her father would have been stupid enough to do anything drastic, but you never could tell, and as she had told Sam, there were plenty of witnesses to back up any story he chose to create afterwards.

  She leaned against the closed doors for a moment, wishing that she could have gone with them and taken Sam with her. But she still felt a responsibility to the two other women upstairs and anyway, even if she’d tried, she really didn’t think her father would have allowed them to leave. Her moment of calm was interrupted by screams coming from the living room.

  Carole ran across the hall and flung the door open. “What the hell?”

  No one else had moved, but Sam now knelt at Gus Perrin’s feet, one hand wrapped around the other. She was sobbing. Tears of pain ran down her cheeks.

  Gus Perrin looked across at his daughter. “And if I catch up with that boyfriend of hers, it won’t just be the fingers that get broken. Make sure she understands that.”

  Carole hurried to Sam’s side, lifted the younger woman to her feet and half carried her from the room. Somehow, she got her upstairs and back onto the bed. Two fingers of the left hand were broken and crooked and already black with bruises.

  “I’m sorry,” Carole said. “I am so, so sorry.”

  * * *

  Marty had made a statement, then been left alone in the interview room while the police officer went to make calls. It seemed as though he’d been gone for a very long time. Marty tried again to call Sam, but her phone was still switched off. He had Carole’s number, so he tried that. Nothing.

  Almost an hour had gone by since the officer had left. Marty got up and tried the interview room door. To his horror, it was locked. He tried the handle, twisting and turning. There was nothing happening.

  Marty began hammering on the door, shouting at the top of his voice. It seemed like an eternity before somebody answered from the other side. “You all right? Hang on a minute, the door’s jammed. These old latches, sometimes they stick.”

  Marty stepped back from the door, watching as the handle was jiggled and the door itself tugged back and forth in the frame. Eventually, something clicked and the door opened. The uniformed officer that he remembered from the front office stood there. He looked apologetic.

  Marty pushed past him, heading down the corridor towards the front office. He was terrified that the man might try and stop him. The officer just shouted after him, something like “Are you all right, Mr Baines?” but Marty was already out of the door. He went to where he had parked Carole’s car, but it was no longer there. Marty swore.

  He began to walk to where he remembered there was a taxi rank. The streets were empty, but he could not shake the feeling that someone was watching his every move.

  Chapter 41

  Toby Clarke desperately wanted to go home to shower and change and maybe get some sleep, but as he drove back into town, he was aware that the morning briefing would have begun and he should really be there.

  DCI Henderson glanced across as he opened the door. On realizing who it was, his expression changed up a degree or so from his usual mild annoyance. He didn’t like to be kept out of the loop, Clarke realized, and he had been out of communication since the previous evening. Henderson would not be pleased about that. He would especially not be happy that his old divisional commander had raised the alarm, had even contacted the gold command of this division, trying to track Clarke down. Henderson would have taken that as a personal slight.

  Not that Clarke cared about any of that. Henderson was now a suspect in his eyes. Possibly a dirty cop.

  He perched against a table at the back of the room, aware that all eyes had swivelled towards him and as quickly swivelled away, focusing with unnatural concentration on their boss. Hopkins was sitting at the back and passed him a collection of briefing documents, earning herself a share of Henderson’s silent irritation. Clarke glanced through the sheets she’d given to him and then he too turned his attention back to his boss.

  It seemed little progress had been made on the murder of the three men found on the waste ground. Crime scene photographs, names and addresses and intelligence summaries now covered a large board, but this had been moved off to the side of the room. The space behind Henderson was now occupied by images of the late DCI Frankland. Petra had described the crime scene to Clarke but even so he was taken aback — not by the fury and ferocity with which the man had been attacked, but by what had obviously been a slow, methodical and excruciatingly painful process. He had seen people who had been tortured before, but not like this. Frankland’s body was covered in short but deep cuts. Three of his fingers had been removed. And finally, presumably when they were done with him, he’d been carved open from throat to pubic bone like some horrible parody of a medical post-mortem.

  “Fucking hell,” Clarke muttered. He saw Hopkins stiffen and then nod slightly. If all they’d got out of him after all that was that there was an undercover officer within Perrin’s organization, Frankland must have had more courage and endurance than Clarke even wanted to imagine.

  At the front of the room, Henderson was listing the injuries in the order in which the post-mortem had revealed they probably happened. Time of death was barely an hour before Petra had found him, Clarke realized. She had been bloody lucky. Had she chosen to stay at home that night and not gone to find out why her handler hadn’t been responding to her ever more urgent requests for contact, she would have been scooped up by Perrin’s men and probably have become yet another corpse for the police to puzzle over.

  Knowing that he had to tell what he knew, or at least part of it, Clarke raised his hand. Like being back in school, he thought. Henderson paused mid-flow and then said with the heaviest of sarcasm, “It seems that our prodigal has something to say. Should we listen to him, boys and girls, or should we make him wait his turn?”

  Clarke couldn’t be bothered with all this. Henderson might be annoyed now, but there would be worse to come. And besides, what Clarke now knew about his boss meant that he didn’t particularly care what the hell he thought any more. He made his way to the front of the room, aware again that every eye was upon him and that you could now hear the proverbial pin drop.

  He placed the briefing papers on the desk and turned towards his colleagues. “I’ve been in contact with the UC that Frankland was protecting,” he said. “We believe she is currently in a place of safety. And for the record, I don’t know where that is, but DCI Frankland died protecting her.” He pointed at the board, gesturing angrily. “I couldn’t have withstood that and I don’t think anyone here could have done. The Perrins know
who she is now, but that wasn’t through Frankland — that was through their own process of elimination. So we now have Gus Perrin realizing that for the last three years, he’s had an undercover officer very close to him. We also have Kyle Sykes knowing that his daughter was responsible for Charlie Perrin’s death. So we have two very dangerous men who now feel personally slighted.”

  A ripple of disbelief made its way around the room. Henderson began to speak but Clarke got in first. “Be assured, I know this from Lauren Sykes herself. She shot Charlie with his own gun. Which explains the forensic anomaly I talked about in the post-mortem report.”

  “And what, Perrin had him shot in the head with his own shotgun just to cover it up?” a disbelieving voice demanded.

  “I’m assuming something of the sort,” Clarke confirmed.

  “So, where’s the girl now?” Hopkins asked.

  “Lauren Sykes is still alive, and safe. We know that she was on the run with Harry Prentice, who is now dead. From evidence found so far, and a dying declaration made by Joe Messenger, Sykes found him but the girl had already gone. The Perrin and the Sykes OCGs were due to be, shall we say, joined in unholy matrimony, but the girl put paid to that, and for the record, it was because Charlie Perrin tried to rape her. Before we look into that particular killing, we need to protect her from being murdered herself. As you are aware, her father has now declared Lauren Sykes to be a missing person, so her picture is all over the newspapers, all over social media, all over the television. We now have two women to protect. Lauren Sykes, and one of our own.” He tapped one of the photographs on the board. “And if nothing else, we owe it to DI Frankland to catch the bastards that did this.”

  A murmur of approval. This is what they wanted right now. They were getting more fired up by the moment — and so was Henderson.

  “My office. Now.”