Drawing Blood

by J G Alva

  “Like what?”

  “Like Gavin Thompson’s wallet, for one.”

  “Ah.”

  “He still had it on him. A good thing too, considering how his face was pulverized, otherwise they might have had trouble identifying him…” Fin saw Sutton’s face. “Bollocks. Sorry, Sut. I can be a bit insensitive sometimes.”

  “It’s…okay.”

  “There was £130 in it, untouched.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yep,” Fin said, grimly cheerful.

  “Okay. What else?”

  “There was no evidence that anyone was looking for any items of value,” Fin said. “No opened drawers, no rifled clothing. It was as if what they took was what happened to catch their eye as they were walking out the door.”

  “A lazy burglar?”

  “Or erratic perhaps. I can’t say conclusively it wasn’t a robbery…but you can see why I have my doubts.”

  “Maybe he got rattled when the police turned up.”

  “You mean, they got rattled,” Fin corrected.

  “What’s the biggest thing that makes you think there was more than one intruder,” Sutton said. “Even with the testimony from the surveillance team contradicting you.”

  Fin smiled and rubbed the side of his nose.

  “The officer who survived, DC Laurie, he said he saw the car pull into the drive, and a man get out. We know the car was stolen, so that’s a dead end. Anyway, the guy who gets out is the tall guy with the dark hair, their chief suspect. So this BFG-“

  “BFG?”

  Fin stopped.

  “Big Fucking Guy.”

  “Right.”

  “This BFG gets out of his car and then goes through the gate on the side of the house. No lights come on in the house; this is what made the officers suspicious enough to decide to investigate. That, and the shouting. According to DC Laurie, when they entered Gavin was already on the floor with the BFG standing over him, and the next thing he knew was that he was on the floor, stunned, bleeding, and in pain. The officer who died, Detective Speedwell, had his head crushed with a ceramic mortar – you know, a mortar and pestle? – which was what was also used on Gavin, and DC Laurie got stabbed in the back, effectively paralysing him. He regained consciousness, but the BFG was already gone, leaving behind the bodies of Detective Speedwell and Gavin Thompson.”

  “Yes,” Sutton said, and felt some unpleasant emotion move through his chest.

  Fin didn’t notice, and continued.

  “Two trained police officers surprise one single burglar who has accidentally killed a man and he overpowers them?”

  “It could happen. As you put it, he’s a big fucking guy.”

  “How did DC Laurie get stabbed in the back if he was facing this BFG?”

  Sutton thought, and then gave Fin a tough smile.

  “The second man came in through the back door,” Sutton said.

  “You got it. Was Gavin Thompson…was he a good friend? I’m talking about the case and I keep forgetting he was your friend.”

  “It’s okay,” Sutton said. “And yes, he was a good friend. Although we hadn’t spoken in a while.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Honestly?” Sutton said. “I don’t know. I think…I think he was ashamed.”

  “Why ashamed?”

  “His wife died, and he didn’t handle it well. He shut everyone out. I’ve been thinking about it, and it was so unlike him that I think he felt ashamed about the way he had treated all the people who knew him, all his friends. And he was too proud a guy to apologise.”

  Fin frowned, thinking about it, and then shook his head.

  “Anyway, I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Gavin was taken from his bed.”

  Sutton frowned.

  “What?”

  Fin nodded.

  “The files and photos and drawings would have us believe that he was at his chopping board on the kitchen island with his back to the door when the BFG entered, but that simply can’t be true. There’s simply not enough physical space between the back door and that chopping block to creep in without banging somebody in the back with the door. And if you throw a scuffle between two police officers and two attackers into the mix, then there’s simply no way you can make it work.” Fin stared at him, his face serious and almost pained. “BFG arrived at 10:53 in the evening, so it’s safe to assume Gavin was in bed. If you go into his bedroom, you can see that the bed is unmade-“

  “I saw it,” Sutton said.

  “But you could almost infer that someone was in it, and having a not very good night’s sleep.”

  “So he heard the BFG come in, got up-“

  But Fin was shaking his head, and the words died on Sutton’s lips.

  “There’s a baseball bat under his bed. A Louisville Slugger. If you heard what you thought might be a burglar, would you go down and investigate unarmed?”

  No. No one would.

  “Gavin was pretty stocky, wasn’t he,” Fin said.

  “What?”

  “The autopsy report has him at fifteen stone three.”

  “Yeah. He was stocky. And tall. A little over six foot.”

  “So it would have been more sensible to subdue him beforehand. Being a big guy and everything. Chloroform over the mouth while he slept. And then, when he was subdued, it would have been difficult getting him down the stairs. If it was just one man.”

  “But why take him downstairs? If they were robbing the place.”

  Fin held up a finger, a triumphant look in his eye.

  “That’s the question, isn’t it. Were they robbing it? It’s meant to feel like they were, but when you look closer, it’s not consistent. My guess, for what it’s worth, is that they wanted something from him. He knows something, or knew it, and they were there to abduct him. Perhaps they were going to take him away to interrogate him. The two officers showing up spoiled their plans. They panicked. They killed the officers but assumed more would be on the way – I mean, they didn’t know that Gavin was under surveillance, they probably just assumed someone had gotten suspicious and called the authorities. So instead of abducting Gavin, like they had originally planned, they killed Gavin so nobody could find out what he knew. What he had.”

  Sutton was horrified at this new turn of events.

  “And what was that?” He asked, but he thought he might already know.

  Fin narrowed his eyes and tilted his head back.

  “Probably whatever it is you have in that lockbox.”

  “Did you find a key?”

  Fin shook his head.

  “Nope.”

  Or were they after the £7,540 he had found in Engineering for Dummies?

  “Shit. They might have taken it. Maybe Gavin had it on him.”

  “Yeah. Can you get it open? You know, with a blowtorch or a crowbar or something?”

  Sutton smiled grimly.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  *

  The lift was still broken when he returned to his flat on the Baltic Wharf Estate.

  It had been broken for some time. He had the idea that it was never going to be fixed, despite the extortionate maintenance fees he and his neighbours had to pay. The top floor was a costly luxury, and not just to his wallet; although he endeavoured to keep as fit as he possibly could, it was a long climb, and took its toll; it was almost with pleasure that he began to feel only the dullest ache in his calf muscles as he neared his destination: he was in good shape.

  But perhaps he shouldn’t feel so good. Gavin was dead and in his grave, and the little he had found out hadn’t really revealed anything about what had happened. What did he have? Besides a tarnished image of the old friend, honest hard working husband turned criminal. Why had he done it? Was the money he got from selling the electrical goods bought with credit cards from fictitious accounts enough to ease his financial worries? It didn’t seem that it could be, not with the risk involved. Or had it simply been a ca
se of watching enviously as his co-workers got away with it, time and time again? Had Gavin felt, after everything he had been through, after the death of his wife, that he deserved more, like all those bright shiny things he had seen on TV? He would have told himself that it was a soft, unimportant crime. After all, he wasn’t hurting anyone, was he? But try as Sutton might it was almost impossible to marry the Gavin he had known with the one Detective Hill had painted so starkly, a man who blithely stole as was his wont; the two images simply wouldn’t mesh. Maybe tragedy and grief had skewed him, so that who he was was not what he had once been.

  Was there a rotten apple amongst his co-workers and fellow scammers? Perhaps someone who had invested more in the credit card fraud, or had planned more from it, and who resented Gavin enough to want to harm him, even kill him, for what he had done, or failed to do, which led to it being exposed? He needed to talk to the people involved, but that would mean getting passed Detective Hill. Could he go around him? After all, as Hill had freely admitted, the fraud side of it wasn’t his case. Could Sutton then perhaps go to the man in charge of that investigation? It was worth a try, but he would have to think of some way to do it; it was too much to expect that he could just walk in and get what he wanted.

  He was so consumed with his thoughts of Gavin that he almost missed the alarm. A long time ago, somebody who had disapproved of a younger Sutton Mills’ attempts to investigate a theft had waited for him in the hall outside of his waterfront apartment with the intention of opening up his face with a set of keys. He had not succeeded, but after he had been taken away to an institution that catered for that particular mind set, Sutton had thought it prudent to install some sort of motion sensor in case somebody a little faster and a little smarter decided they might try the same thing. As he reached the top of the stairs on that last flight he caught the flashing light out of the corner of his eye. It was a small device, mounted against the wall at ankle height. When the invisible beam was broken it flashed green for a full minute in which it could be deactivated with a code. If it had been broken once but had detected nothing more in the first ten minutes it turned orange. If it flashed red, then the intruder was still moving about up there.

  It had turned red.

  He saw it, and in the next moment a figure launched itself at him from behind the corner.

  Sutton ducked, and a fist glanced off the top of his head, certainly less than a gentle tap; white light flashes suddenly filled in his vision. The man revealed himself, standing on the top step, a giant looking down on him. In a small portion of a second Sutton could feel the adrenaline, could feel the hot energy rushing through his veins, and everything was bright and clear and real, like a grain of sand under a microscope: he could see it all. The man started throwing punches. One fist Sutton ducked clear underneath, but at the same time he lost his footing and slipped down a step. Another fist went in to the top of his right arm, deadening it. This was no good. The angle was all wrong, and if Sutton couldn’t get some kind of advantage a fist was going to land in a soft spot and put him out of action.

  He had to do something quick.

  Squatting a little, he waited for a gap in the tirade of punches and put a fist into the side of the man’s left knee.

  His attacker cried out, but it didn’t stop him; instead, it seemed to aggravate him further, as more punches rained down on Sutton.

  Sutton put his arms up, shielding his head, like a boxer. The punches were deadening his arms. Got to do something.

  Sutton thought he might know what.

  He backed down on to the next step.

  With the added distance, and the angle, his attacker was having some trouble reaching him.

  Sutton went down another step, then another, luring his opponent on to the same uneven footing as himself.

  The man came down; there was nothing else he could do.

  Whether it was the lower angle, or the lighting, or the close way everything appeared to Sutton in glorious Technicolor, the man appeared huge. He had to come down one more step to reach him, and he did, raining half a dozen punches in quick succession on to the top of Sutton’s head and shoulders. As this brief flurry was about to run out of steam, Sutton went in under an arm and brought his right fist up from below his belt with as much force as he could muster, planting it into the man’s gut. The breath went out of his attacker, and before he had a chance to do anything Sutton took hold of his shirt and pulled him up over his head, so that for a moment he was held suspended above him – no mean feat, the man was of considerable size, and even though it felt comparatively easy Sutton knew that muscles and joints would complain later – and in one swift motion he turned and threw him down the stairs. One of his attacker’s hands clutched at Sutton’s face, but it felt gentle and unimportant. The stairs were concrete, uncarpeted, and cruel on human flesh. The man had cleared a good five steps before he came down on his side, grunting in pain, and slid the rest of the way down to the landing, one arm slung over his head, his legs akimbo. It could only be the man who had killed Gavin; the description Hill had given Sutton was the same. The man was tall, not stocky but possessed of a certain ungainly strength. He was wearing black jeans and a dark jumper over a white t-shirt or vest; it had pulled up to reveal dark hair around his navel. One arm of the jumper was torn, and through the tear Sutton could see pinprick wounds: needle marks from a hypodermic.

  As Sutton started down the steps toward him, the man got to his feet with surprisingly agility. He clutched his side, obviously in pain. He stared. Rarely had Sutton seen such an intensity of hate on another human being’s face. The blue eyes were wide and staring, and his need to kill was clear in them. The skin of his face had a tough leathery texture, as if it had been baked under a hard sun. A scar puckered the skin at the corner of his mouth, severe and ugly. He was in his forties, dirty, his hair so dark it was almost black, and sticking up from his head as if he had only woken moments before; there were some indistinguishable lumps matted into it. They stared at each other; it seemed to last for a long time, but in truth could only have been five seconds, before the attacker turned and fled. Sutton heard his hurried progress as he clattered down the steps, and then dimly the bang of the door as he went out through it.

  Sutton didn’t know it, but he was he was grinning.

  This was what he had been hoping for: the hornet’s nest, prodded into responding.

  The only question was, who had it been?

  *

  CHAPTER 8

  NOW

  He had a plan.

  He had spent the night fitfully, trying to sleep and not really succeeding, except for the occasional brief dip into unconsciousness. Without a watch it was hard to tell, but he couldn’t have gotten more than half an hour in any one sitting, not before the cold made his body so uncomfortable he woke up shivering. His clothes were not enough to maintain his body heat – he had been stripped of his wool coat, as well as keys, phone (obviously) and belt – and inactivity meant that what little heat he had quickly leached away.

  As dawn began to creep into his cave, he gave up, and instead stood and stretched his muscles and jogged on the spot to warm himself up. He felt terrible: tired, cold, stiff, aching, hungry, with another headache building behind his eyes. He supposed desperation pushed his mind into thinking of a plan for escape: he couldn’t last another night. Desperation, and further examination of the hole in the ceiling.

  His torch probed the dimensions of the hole, and in doing so he found a pipe protruding from the gap between the ceiling and the floor above. Straining, he could see a crawl space: the gap left for piping and insulation between the wooden floorboards and the concrete ceiling below.

  It looked just big enough to accommodate his frame.

  Now, he struggled with the dentist’s chair.

  It was surprisingly heavy, and must have had additional weight built into the base to keep it from moving too freely, as most of the dentist’s chair was hollow aluminium piping and leather seating; no
weight there. But it was like moving a refrigerator.

  As it moved, it ground a track through the concrete floor, the sound like a nail going through his head and making his headache worse. He understood now why it had been left behind: too much trouble to get it up the stairs. He pushed it out into the hall and then, agonisingly slowly, was able to coax it to the edge of the hole. He had to position it as close to the hole as he possibly could, otherwise when he stood on it he would not be able to reach the pipe, the only thing he assumed would be sturdy enough to support his weight after the leap.

  Before he jumped, he drank half of the water. Even if his leap was successful, he didn’t know how long he’d need to be squeezing through the crawl space before he found a way out. Hopefully not too long, but why take the chance?

  He didn’t know if there even was a way out.

  Stop it. Stop thinking it.

  He couldn’t stay, it would kill him as surely as a bullet. This way, at least he had a chance.

  But the fear wouldn’t listen. It kept trying to gobble him up.

  He also ate two of the sandwiches, and then waited an hour for his body to digest them. He’d need the strength.

  The problem was light. He couldn’t hold the torch and expect to grab the pipe, and he couldn’t grab the pipe in the dark. The solution was not ideal, but he hoped it would be enough: he tucked the torch into his belt, turned on and shining upward. He also took the teddy bear. He didn’t know why, except that it held some significance for somebody. It was only small, so fit comfortably into his trouser pocket.

  Climbing on to the dentist’s chair, he almost had a heart attack as the chair tilted toward the hole, but he was able to use his weight as a counterbalance, and the chair steadied.

  God. He was going to die.

  Everybody had to go some time.

  Fine, okay, fine. Just not now. Not right now.

  Slowly, carefully, he got his feet under him, and then rose to his full height.