Safe

by Jane Adams

  “Sykes?” he asked.

  “In a cell. They found Freddie Benson at the foot of the stairs. Concussion.”

  Clarke blinked, absorbing that, trying to get his thoughts in order and remembered suddenly what Kyle Sykes had said about knowing where Lauren and Petra were. He started up, trying to sit, but the pain stabbed through his head once more. Nausea overwhelmed him and he thought that he might be sick or pass out, or maybe both together. Lauren and Petra. He wasn’t sure he had managed to say the words out loud, but he must have done, because Hopkins responded.

  “Someone set fire to the house. Two officers killed, one badly injured. Lauren and Petra are OK, but I don’t know much more than that right now. But it’s not your problem. Your problem is getting better.”

  Clarke told her that he was happy to oblige, or at least, he thought that’s what he said, before he slipped back into unconsciousness.

  Chapter 54

  Lauren watched as the police officer was loaded into the back of the ambulance. She was standing beside the car while Petra did her best to explain the situation to the anxious paramedics. Police officers were on their way, they’d been told, but there was an incident about a mile up the road that seemed to take priority. The paramedic looked expectantly at Petra, as though expecting her to fill in the gaps for him. It was pretty obvious that these two things were related, the injured police officer and whatever had happened at the new housing estate.

  While they had waited for the ambulance to arrive Lauren had taken Petra aside. “They are never going to give up, are they?”

  “Arrests will be made,” Petra had told her. “The information I gave Clarke—”

  “Like going to jail is going to stop them,” Lauren had said. “You know as well as I do that my dad or Gus Perrin or any of them will be just as capable of running their little empires from inside as they are from the comfort of their own homes.”

  Petra had opened her mouth to object and then closed it again. She’d known Lauren was right and there was no arguing with that. Lauren had wondered if Petra would ever feel safe again. Being a police officer might improve her security, if she was lucky, but Lauren had no such protection.

  “The only way they’ll stop is if I’m dead,” Lauren had said.

  Now, as the ambulance prepared to leave, Lauren seized her chance. She knew that the police would be here very soon and, once they arrived, there would be no further opportunity. She knew the car was a wreck, and that she’d be pulled over if anyone saw it with a broken windscreen and the bullet holes in the side, but it was still dark — it was still night — she had a few hours to put distance between herself and Petra. Herself and everybody else. Seconds later, she was in the car and gone.

  When the patrol car finally arrived, they found Petra sitting alone on the kerb, looking utterly lost.

  Chapter 55

  It was a cold and blustery morning when Emily Cairns and her dog took their usual route along the top of the cliff at Burness Head. They walked in all weathers, staying in only when the winds were strong enough to make Emily feel that she might be blown off the cliff at any moment. There was a seat right at the top of the head that looked out across the bay and Emily always paused there, sitting for a few minutes to enjoy the sight of the waves and the occasional seal. Today, there was something on the seat. A backpack and a note, weighed down with stones.

  Emily’s heart skipped a beat. Oh, no, she thought. Surely not. She read the note. It was brief and to the point. I’m sorry, but this is best for everybody. It was signed, Lauren. Hesitantly, Emily went to the edge of the cliff and looked down. There was a car among the rocks at the foot of the cliff, its wheels in the air and fierce waves breaking over it, threatening to drag it further into the sea.

  The news reports later spoke of a young woman hounded by the police, running from her father, caught up in a situation that she could not handle. A tragic life cut short. The story would be picked over in the days that followed as the media chased the arrests that had been made, the revelations about men killed in the cottage by the coast, the undercover officer who had now been suspended from duty pending enquiries and the funerals of the police officers killed in the line of duty, and skirted past the OCGs that the police claimed had been smashed — but which seemed very much intact, to those in the know.

  * * *

  From his hospital bed, Toby Clarke read the papers. Watched the news, talked to those colleagues who visited him. Tried to make some sense of it all.

  Kyle Sykes had been arrested. Other arrests had been made, based on Frankland’s USB drive and as far as Clarke could tell, the strategy of the task force was to sweep up anyone mentioned and then figure out what could be made to stick.

  No one seemed to know how Kyle Sykes had found the safe house. Clarke had begun a list of those who might possibly have known. Craig and Crenshaw, the armed police . . . who else? Theoretically, anyone on the team could have found out. Frustrated, he had put his list aside.

  “We’ll find out who it was,” Crenshaw told him when he came to visit.

  “It could have been you,” Clarke said.

  “Or you. They followed you once. We checked, there was no tracker on your car, but . . .” Crenshaw shrugged. “We’ll find out, you can be sure of that.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  “Gus Perrin has slid smoothly into Sykes’s territory, taken on most of his employees—”

  “He didn’t have employees,” Clarke objected. “They were all responsible for their own tax and National Insurance.”

  Crenshaw gave him a puzzled look.

  “A joke,” Clarke told him. “Probably not a very good one. What happened to Sam Barker and her boyfriend? The statement she made—”

  “Will be held back for the moment until the Crown Prosecution Service has finished faffing about. Sykes will be charged with your attempted murder and we’re confident we can put him at the scene when Harry Prentice was killed. Joe Messenger’s statement has been entered into evidence. The wife is willing to testify if it comes to it, but as she can’t tell the court more than that Kyle Sykes came to collect her husband, it’s likely she’ll be spared the trouble. The CPS will push for charges that can be made to stick. We’ll have to settle for what we can get, Clarke.”

  Clarke nodded, angry but not surprised. “And Sam Barker?”

  “So far as Gus Perrin is concerned, Sam Barker delivered the message he told her to deliver. That she’d had an argument with her boyfriend and that was that. She’s out of the way. If she’s needed, then we’ll bring her back, but there’s no sense endangering yet another life. As for her boyfriend, he’s turned up at his parents’ place. My guess is he’ll be left alone, so long as he keeps his head down. Perrin won’t make waves he doesn’t have to make. He’s not as impetuous as Kyle Sykes.”

  “Impetuous. Is that what you call it?”

  Crenshaw ignored the sarcasm. “Carole Josephs, incidentally, is at a relative’s place down on the south coast. I’m told the publicity has done her career no harm at all. The exhibition is practically a sell-out.”

  Clarke laughed, but there was no humour in it.

  “The great shame is, we lost Lauren Sykes,” Crenshaw said. “That’s the most tragic thing of all.”

  Chapter 56

  Petra Merrow and Toby Clarke had attended Harry Prentice’s funeral together. They had slipped in, after the service had started, and sat silently at the rear of the crematorium. There were not many people in attendance. Most of the people who had known Harry were awaiting trial, or simply didn’t want to be connected with the man who had been killed by the wrath of Kyle Sykes.

  Ruby Messenger was there, and she glanced around and nodded to Clarke as he came in. Then she turned away.

  Earlier, Merrow and Clarke had gone to the motorway services, to the little motel where Lauren and Petra had stayed before going to the safe house that had proved not quite so safe. They had retrieved the notes that Lauren had hidden beneath t
he divan. These had now been entered into evidence. Petra herself was still on suspension and Clarke was officially on sick leave. Neither was sure what was going to happen next or if they still had careers in the police force.

  They had brought flowers for Harry, on behalf of Lauren, and on behalf of themselves. Petra certainly felt that she had learned to know Harry through Lauren’s descriptions of him. Harry had truly loved her.

  “So what actually happened to her?” Clarke asked, as they placed their own floral tributes among the others in the garden of remembrance.

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” Petra said.

  “She’d never have driven off that cliff.”

  “She needed to be dead,” Petra told him. “What else could she do?”

  Chapter 57

  On the day that Emily Cairns had discovered the backpack and note on the bench, Lauren had watched as the car tumbled down into the sea and crashed on the rocks. She felt sorry for the little car — it had taken them a long way. She checked the pebbles, that there were enough to hold down the note and she looked anxiously at the sky, hoping that it wouldn’t rain and soak the note through before it was found. But the dawn was clear and cold, and she thought she would be lucky. Sooner or later, somebody would find the backpack anyway, and she’d left enough evidence inside to make it clear who it had belonged to. She murmured an apology for any shock she might cause to the finder, but it couldn’t be helped now.

  She made her way slowly back to the road. It was about a mile and by the time she got there, her feet were frozen and soaked by the wet grass. There was a single car parked in the car park. The driver was a dark-haired young man and, when Lauren got into the car, two dogs yipped excitedly. There was a bag in the foot well with a flask of coffee, some sandwiches and a warm blanket. Chocolate in the glove compartment.

  “Your car and your dogs?”

  He grinned at her. “Borrowed car and borrowed dogs.”

  “So,” she said, “I suppose I’d better decide who I want to be now.”

  He nodded. “Names are like tattoos, you’ve got to feel comfortable with them on your skin. So take your time.”

  The car was warm. Lauren wrapped a blanket around her legs and sipped her coffee. She had no idea where they were going or where she’d end up but, for the first time she could remember, Lauren Sykes actually felt safe.

  THE END

  ALSO BY JANE ADAMS

  MERROW & CLARKE

  Book 1: SAFE

  DETECTIVE MIKE CROFT SERIES

  Book 1: THE GREENWAY

  Book 2: THE SECRETS

  Book 3: THEIR FINAL MOMENTS

  Book 4: THE LIAR

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  GLOSSARY OF ENGLISH SLANG FOR US READERS

  A & E: Accident and emergency department in a hospital

  Aggro: Violent behaviour, aggression

  Air raid: an attack in which bombs are dropped from aircraft on ground targets

  Allotment: a plot of land rented by an individual for growing fruit, vegetable or flowers

  Anorak: nerd (it also means a waterproof jacket)

  Artex: textured plaster finish for walls and ceilings

  A Level: exams taken between 16 and 18

  Auld Reekie: Edinburghr />
  Au pair: live-in childcare helper. Often a young woman.

  Barm: bread roll

  Barney: argument

  Beaker: glass or cup for holding liquids

  Beemer: BMW car or motorcycle

  Benefits: social security

  Bent: corrupt

  Bin: wastebasket (noun), or throw in rubbish (verb)

  Biscuit: cookie

  Blackpool Lights: gaudy illuminations in seaside town

  Bloke: guy

  Blow: cocaine

  Blower: telephone

  Blues and twos: emergency vehicles

  Bob: money

  Bobby: policeman

  Broadsheet: quality newspaper (New York Times would be a US example)

  Brown bread: rhyming slang for dead

  Bun: small cake

  Bunk: do a bunk means escape

  Burger bar: hamburger fast-food restaurant

  Buy-to-let: Buying a house/apartment to rent it out for profit

  Charity Shop: thrift store

  Carrier bag: plastic bag from supermarket

  Care Home: an institution where old people are cared for

  Car park: parking lot

  CBeebies: kids TV

  Chat-up: flirt, trying to pick up someone with witty banter or compliments

  Chemist: pharmacy

  Chinwag: conversation

  Chippie: fast-food place selling chips and other fried food