The Ingrid Skyberg Mystery Series: Books 1-4: The Ingrid Skyberg Series Boxset

by Eva Hudson

  “So?”

  “So you’d think his triggers wouldn’t be loud noises. It’s got to be pretty quiet in some isolated room in the middle of the Air Force base.”

  “I don’t think you can say that. The mind’s weird—maybe the drone missions reminded him of his earlier ones in the field and everything’s got mixed up in his head. Who knows?”

  “Still doesn’t seem to fit.” Ingrid removed her phone from her pocket and started turning it over and over in her hand, waiting for Svetlana to call again. She couldn’t put off speaking to her forever.

  “Maybe you should call her back.” McKittrick refilled her own glass.

  Ingrid put the phone on the counter.

  “It was just a suggestion.”

  “There’s something else. On my cell phone. I’ve been avoiding it since this afternoon. But I need to check it out before I talk to Svetlana.”

  “Do you have any idea how little sense your making?”

  Ingrid took a deep breath and started again. “When I found out about the house in Minnesota, I put in a call to a contact I still have in D.C. This afternoon he sent me a photograph of one of the women. The only one who hasn’t been identified.”

  “Are you telling me you haven’t looked at it yet?” McKittrick shoved Ingrid’s glass at her.

  “What if it’s Megan?” Much to her surprise, Ingrid’s voice came out in a whisper. “What if it isn’t?”

  “You have to find out. God, Ingrid, you just have to.” McKittrick snatched up the cell phone before Ingrid had a chance to. “Where is it? In your picture roll? Email?”

  Ingrid plucked the phone out of her friend’s hand. “You don’t need to bully me into it.” Holding her breath, she scrolled through to Mike Stiller’s email and clicked on the attachment. She closed her eyes. She could hear McKittrick’s breath quickening beside her. She opened her eyes and stared down at the image. All she saw was a jumble of random features—somehow the picture wouldn’t resolve into a face. It seemed her brain was refusing to analyze the information it was receiving.

  “Well?”

  Ingrid blinked hard, as if she had grit in her eyes. She continued to look without being able to see. She stared at the image a little longer. Finally the random parts settled into a whole. The woman looking back up at her had drawn features, her face framed by lank, dark hair, her eyes lifeless with dark circles underneath. Ingrid shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s been so long.”

  McKittrick shuffled closer to her and peered at the image.

  “Eighteen years since she was abducted. At least a decade since I last saw a photograph of her.” She shoved the phone back into her pocket. “I can’t tell. Jesus Christ, I can’t even tell.” Hot, unwanted tears sprang into her eyes. She turned away. She didn’t want to cry in front of McKittrick.

  “Bloody hell, it’s hardly surprising. God only knows what that woman’s been through over the past however many years. She probably looks completely different to the way she looked five years ago, even.” She put an awkward arm around Ingrid’s shoulders and squeezed. “You’ve got nothing to beat yourself up about.”

  If only you knew.

  Ingrid emptied her glass and screwed the lid back on the bottle. “You want to take this with you?”

  “Let’s save it till next time. I might drink it on the way home otherwise.”

  McKittrick left a quarter hour later and Ingrid felt so restless she considered following her out the door—walking the dark summer streets for a while until she felt able to calm down. Instead she stepped out onto her roof terrace and drew the night air deep into her lungs. After three or four big breaths she pulled her cell from her pocket and called Svetlana.

  “So, at least you listened to my message,” her mother said in place of a greeting.

  Ingrid hadn’t. She didn’t even realize her mother had left one.

  “What have you found out that we don’t already know from the TV?”

  Ingrid relayed most of what Mike Stiller had told her. She didn’t mention the photograph.

  “This girl must come see Kathleen.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “Then I should go see her.”

  Ingrid was regretting telling Svetlana as much as she had. “Please, Mom. You have to trust that I know what I’m doing with this. I’m working on something that’s going to help. I’ll let you know just as soon as I make some progress.”

  “What? What are you working on? What aren’t you telling me?”

  “I’ve told you as much as I can. More than I should have. You have to promise me you’ll tell Kathleen and no one else. What I’m doing is strictly unofficial. I could lose my job.”

  At the other end of the line Svetlana made a grunting sound. As if Ingrid losing her job wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. She’d never thought much of Ingrid’s work at the Bureau.

  “Is that it?” her mother asked after a long pause.

  “There’s one more thing.” Ingrid hesitated. She wasn’t sure whether it was the fact she was asking her mother for a favor—something she’d managed to avoid since elementary school—or the thing she was asking for that was making her feel so damn uncomfortable. “I need you to send me some photographs of Megan. The most recent ones you have. Go to the copy shop and have someone scan them in for you. Then get Bob or Harry to email them to me, can you?”

  “You think I don’t know how to scan and email? You think I need the neighbors’ help for something like this?”

  Ingrid dug the fingernails of her right hand into the fleshy part of her palm. It was amazing how the most innocuous of statements could insult Svetlana, then how easily Svetlana’s indignation could upset Ingrid. Why wasn’t she immune to it by now? “Great, even better, you can do it yourself.”

  “So, you’re finally admitting you’ve forgotten what your best friend looks like? You wouldn’t be having this trouble if you came back every year for the vigil at Kathleen’s.”

  How could she deny what was true? “It’s for the investigation, not me personally.” As the words came out of her mouth she could plainly hear just how unconvincing they sounded.

  “Oh sure.”

  “Listen, I have to go—there’s someone at the door,” she lied. “I’ll call you again when I have news.” She ended the call and went back inside. Without thinking about it, a minute later she was pulling on her running shoes. Two minutes after than she was sprinting down Sutherland Road.

  No matter what the time of day, the neighborhood she lived in always felt pretty safe, but even if it hadn’t, Ingrid knew she had the speed and skills to get herself out of trouble if she had to. It was something she’d forced herself to get good at after she lost Megan. She pushed her legs a little harder and pumped her arms a little faster, hoping to outrun the memories swarming in her head. Sometimes the technique actually worked.

  Tonight it was futile.

  She eventually returned to the apartment, her muscles exhausted, but her mind still racing. She went to bed, not hopeful she’d get any sleep, all too aware the alarm would wake her in less than four hours.

  Amazingly, she did manage to finally drift off.

  Only to be woken by angry banging on the apartment door just two hours later.

  17

  When Ingrid had asked Gurley exactly how he’d managed to get into her building he’d been evasive, mumbling something about the super letting him in. Except the building didn’t actually have staff on site twenty-four hours a day. Ingrid had decided to let it go, concentrating instead on selecting some suitable clothes to throw on when she couldn’t quite fully open her eyes.

  “Are you drunk?” Gurley had asked when he saw the tequila and glasses on the kitchen counter. He dumped a large backpack by his feet. Its contents clanked and jangled when it hit the tiled floor.

  Although Ingrid didn’t dignify Gurley’s accusation with an answer, she doubted she would have been safe to drive. Mercifully, he told her there was a cab waiting for th
em. “Where are we headed? An airstrip?” she called through the bedroom door. “Did Foster try to steal a plane?”

  Gurley cleared his throat. “I still think that theory was a good one. But no—the sighting was in some place called Willesden. I checked on the map—it’s not that far from here. If you could just hurry it up.”

  They’d made the trip in a little over ten minutes through the empty streets of northwest London. During the cab ride Ingrid had fired questions at Gurley he couldn’t answer.

  “I just got a call telling me the location. You would have too, if your goddamn phone hadn’t been switched off.”

  Now, at just after four-thirty a.m., they were both leaning against an unmarked police car in a side street just off Willesden High Road that had been sealed off at either end. They’d both refused DCI Radcliffe’s offer of a seat inside a car parked further away from the property the team was staking out, not wanting to be so far away from the action. They still felt the police were trying to sideline them.

  After fifteen minutes of being ignored by pretty much every law enforcement officer in the vicinity—and there had to be at least two dozen uniformed officers and another dozen detectives—Ingrid was beginning to regret her decision not to wear a sweater beneath her jacket. Eventually Radcliffe approached them, a grim expression on his face.

  “We’re waiting for the hostage negotiator to arrive.” Radcliffe looked as if he hadn’t made it into his bed at all the night before. The shirt beneath his crumpled jacket was badly creased and there was a long greasy mark snaking down his tie.

  “Why?” Gurley snapped.

  “Because none of us has had the appropriate training,” he answered in a dismissive tone.

  To his credit, Ingrid thought, Gurley didn’t react. “I meant, why aren’t you just going in? You’ve evacuated the neighboring houses, right? Foster isn’t armed, so why not storm the place with all the manpower you’ve got?”

  “We don’t know he isn’t armed. Just because he’s not likely to have a gun, doesn’t mean he hasn’t got a weapon. You are a little gun-focused.”

  Ingrid had to admit Radcliffe had a point. Foster could have easily purchased knives and other tools to use as weapons. They didn’t know what they might be dealing with. “Have you made any contact with him at all?” she asked.

  “We’ve got a couple of tech guys inside the property right now, rigging up a speaker system so that we can communicate without the whole street hearing.” Radcliffe glanced up at the nearest cordon, just fifty feet or so from where they were standing. A few people had started to gather, eager to know what was going on. So far no journalists appeared to have heard about the incident. “The vultures are circling,” Radcliffe said. “I expect pictures have already been sent from onlookers’ mobile phones to all the major news outlets. The camera crews will be setting up before you know it.”

  “All the more reason to settle this swiftly. You have a SWAT team ready to go?” Gurley had started pacing. It seemed to Ingrid that he might go in himself if Radcliffe continued to refuse to.

  “We have two vans of Specialist Firearms Command officers at the ready.”

  “So do it now.”

  “Save your breath. We’re not going in now. And we won’t until we’ve exhausted all other options.”

  Ingrid shuffled sideways so that she was standing between Radcliffe and Gurley. “Who called it in?”

  Radcliffe looked at her, non-plussed for a moment by her question. “One of the other residents in the property. It’s an HMO—house of multiple occupancy,” he explained. “Houses crammed with lots of rooms that have basic cooking facilities—usually a two-ring hob and a kettle—but with shared bathrooms. They used to be called boarding houses in the old days. Or bedsits. Anyway, some bloke saw the boy coming out of the bathroom on his landing wearing a pair of Spiderman pajamas.”

  “I assumed Foster had dumped the boy’s pajamas when he stole the clothes from the laundromat,” Ingrid said.

  “Well then you assumed wrong. They haven’t been found anywhere.”

  “Is that resident still around? Can we speak to him?”

  “He’s been taken to the local leisure center—it’s where we’re keeping all the people that have been evacuated. I could arrange for a car to take you down there, if you like.” He nodded a little too enthusiastically about the idea of sending them some place else.

  “You can go, agent,” Gurley told Ingrid. “I’m staying right here.”

  “These… HMOs,” Ingrid said, “would the landlords rent the rooms out for cash? No questions asked?”

  “Most of the tenants are on benefits… you know, welfare. So generally the rent would be paid by the local council. If any of the landlords can get their hands on actual cash up front, I expect they jump at the chance.”

  “But how would Foster have gotten the boy in with him, without arousing suspicion? God knows their pictures have been all over the news.”

  “That’s what we’d like to ask the landlord. We’re still trying to track him down.”

  A detective who had been hovering nearby whispered something in Radcliffe’s ear.

  “Oh—it’s a landlady, apparently,” Radcliffe said. “At least we’re making some progress—we know the gender, if not the location of the owner.”

  Gurley was shaking his head. “How long before the negotiator arrives? How many hostage situations you got going on this morning, for crying out loud?”

  “She’ll get here when she gets here.”

  “A woman?”

  Ingrid wheeled around and stared up into Gurley’s face accusingly.

  “Hey, take it easy, agent. I’m not commenting on her abilities as a negotiator, but don’t you think after what happened with Foster’s wife and daughter… guys in the military don’t exactly have a progressive attitude when it comes to equality.”

  “She’s the most experienced negotiator on the team.” Radcliffe ducked around Ingrid just so he could square up to Gurley, even though he was a good eight inches shorter than the Air Force policeman. “This is my investigation and we’re following Met protocols. Is that clear?”

  Gurley shook his head resignedly. “Fine. You don’t want my help, I’ll keep my opinions to myself.”

  “At last,” Radcliffe muttered.

  They waited around for another five minutes until eventually the Met negotiator arrived. She disappeared with Radcliffe and two other detectives into a nearby unmarked van.

  “Is that it? We don’t get to hear what she has to say? Oh come on! What happened to close liaison?” Gurley started to make his way toward the van.

  “Sir! Please stop,” an officer called from a nearby patrol car. “You need to stay where you are.”

  Gurley ignored him and marched on.

  “Hey, come on,” Ingrid said. “We can speak to the negotiator later.”

  Gurley turned and said, “I’m sick of being ignored. I’m making a perfectly reasonable request here. I’m just going to speak to the negotiator. Discuss strategy.”

  “Please, I have to ask you not to get any closer to the surveillance van,” the cop called out.

  Gurley spun on his heels. “What you gonna do about it?” He continued toward the van.

  With just a nod from the officer, three more cops ran toward Gurley.

  “Watch out, Jack!” Ingrid warned.

  Gurley glanced over his shoulder, then picked up speed until he was running flat out, his long gangly arms and legs seeming not quite under his control. Just as he was reaching a hand out to the door at the back of the van, one of the cops launched himself at him. The cop flung his arms around Gurley’s shoulders, but the big MP barely lost any forward momentum. His fingers wrapped around the handle of the door.

  Two more cops landed on him, each one grabbing one of Gurley’s arms. With the help of his colleagues, the cop who’d shouted the warning slapped a pair of cuffs on Gurley’s wrists. All four of them then proceeded to lead him to a patrol car, even though he wasn
’t putting up any kind of resistance.

  Ingrid ran over to them. “Come on, guys… cuffs? Is that strictly necessary? Tempers just got a little out of control,” she said, not quite believing the cops’ overreaction. “We’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  But the officer in charge completely ignored her.

  Gurley and the group of policemen surrounding him arrived at the car. One of them opened the door and reached up to place his hand on top of Gurley’s head. The MP ducked down, bending his knees low and shouted to Ingrid, “For God’s sake, Skyberg, don’t let them screw this up.”

  18

  As the officer who’d cuffed Gurley walked past her, Ingrid reached out and grabbed his arm. He looked down at her hand and raised an accusative eyebrow. She quickly withdrew it.

  “I do hope you’re not thinking of giving us any trouble, miss.” His tone was patronizing, his demeanor dismissive. Ingrid detected a faint Scottish accent. Edinburgh, if she wasn’t mistaken.

  “My title is ‘agent’, and I’m not sure what you’ve just done to my colleague is entirely legal. Is he under arrest?” She noticed the officer had three stripes on his epaulet. A couple of ranks below Radcliffe.

  “Why create all that paperwork for ourselves?” he said, an inappropriate smirk on his face. “We’re just letting your friend cool off a wee bit. When this situation is resolved and we no longer consider him a threat to its successful conclusion, he’ll be free to go.”

  “You do know he’s a Major in the military police? He’s a cop, just like you. Can’t you show the guy a little more respect?”

  “If he’d shown us the same courtesy, you and I wouldn’t even be having this conversation.” He held her gaze for a long moment, making sure he’d made his point clear, then turned away to speak to a nearby constable.

  Ingrid had been dismissed. As she was considering her next move, a loud bang echoed from across the street. She looked toward the source of the noise: a sash window had been flung open in the house under surveillance. A dirty nylon curtain fluttered through the gap. Ingrid stared at it for a while, expecting more activity. None came. Presumably the police negotiator had made contact with Foster and that had sparked a reaction. Everyone in the street was craning their necks up toward the window, all holding their breath, waiting for the next move.