Keep Her Close

by M. J. Ford

  Stratton moved alongside Jo. ‘We have a team turning his place upside down now,’ he said. ‘There’s a nationwide bulletin issued for his car. Our priority is to find him first, then press him for the location of the other girls. We’ll be putting out a national appeal for information too. He can’t get far.’

  ‘Do we know why he’s doing this?’ asked Dimitriou. For once, he didn’t have a quip ready.

  ‘Not at the moment,’ said Jo. ‘As far as I’m aware, I met Pryce for the first time the same day you did. We’ve had a good working relationship until now.’

  ‘Move it, all of you,’ said Carrick.

  The team dispersed, and Stratton caught Jo by the elbow. ‘Masters, I think you should go to the hospital – get checked out.’

  ‘No chance. I’m fine.’

  ‘With all due respect, you don’t look it. There may be side effects to whatever he incapacitated you with.’

  ‘I think I know what it was already,’ said Jo. ‘I need to speak with Vera Coyne.’

  * * *

  She opened the files on Natalie Palmer. Cropper and his team had drawn a sketch of the scene, including the bridge, the skid marks and the blood spatter on the road. From the measurements, it looked like the blood spread over a distance of some thirty-six feet. It had struck her as odd before, because for Natalie to have travelled that far suggested a significant impact not borne out by her injuries. The skid mark itself was over seventy feet long, and didn’t start until about twenty feet beyond the bridge. She’d thought that meant he’d put the brakes on after the impact, but now she had another thought entirely.

  She called the pathologist.

  ‘What can I do for you, detective?’ asked Coyne.

  She explained. ‘I’ve been looking at the files on the Natalie Palmer hit and run, and wanted to run a couple of things by you.’

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘The auto forensics team have said that the vehicle skid marks indicate braking from a speed of approximately forty to fifty miles per hour. Does that speed tally with the injuries Natalie sustained?’

  ‘Almost certainly not,’ said Coyne, ‘but we don’t know at what stage of braking the collision happened. The vehicle could have been travelling much slower at the moment of impact.’

  ‘Here’s the thing, though,’ said Jo. ‘I don’t think the blood spatter indicates that.’ She looked at the diagram as she spoke. ‘The first blood on the road occurs before the rubber marks even appear.’

  ‘You mean earlier in the vehicle’s progress?’

  ‘Indeed. So that means it hit her at forty miles per hour at least, maybe faster. You said you’d expect more leg trauma.’

  ‘At that speed, I’d expect multiple fractures,’ said Coyne, ‘and severe internal and external bleeding. But there’s another possibility.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘It might not have been the van that hit her at all,’ said Coyne. ‘The van could have been an innocent passer-by, who saw something and braked hard.’

  ‘That doesn’t fit our current intelligence,’ said Jo. ‘There’s another thing though. You said Natalie had traces of ketamine hydrochloride in her lungs.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Is it possible to knock someone out with that, say if it was ingested in liquid form?’

  ‘I wouldn’t advise drinking it,’ said Coyne. ‘Even a small dose could be fatal.’

  ‘What if it was soaked in a rag?’

  ‘You mean like chloroform, in the movies?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Coyne paused. ‘I’m probably not best qualified to answer. You should ask an anaesthetist.’

  ‘But in your opinion?’

  ‘Yes, I expect it would have a soporific, numbing effect, and in a large enough dose, or prolonged exposure, it would render a person unconscious.’

  ‘Thank you, Dr Coyne. You’ve been very helpful.’

  She got off the phone, and turned to Carrick. ‘I don’t think Natalie was a hit and run,’ she said.

  ‘No?’

  ‘I think Pryce snatched her from somewhere between Jesus College and her home, incapacitated her with the same ketamine he used on me, then put her in his van.’

  ‘So how did she end up in the river?’

  ‘I think she woke up and panicked. I think she jumped from the moving vehicle. They have a door release from inside, right?’

  He nodded.

  Jo pointed at the diagram. ‘She jumps here, where the first blood stain appears. He realises, brakes, and she comes to a stop around here, where the last blood was found. He’s stopped further up, gets out and rushes back. She’s trying to get away. She’s suffering the come down of the ketamine, and a head injury. One way or another, she falls in.’

  ‘Okay, it’s a good theory.’

  ‘But you know what it means if I’m right?’ asked Jo. ‘She wasn’t there at random. He was taking her somewhere.’

  Understanding dawned on Carrick’s face. ‘Somewhere that required him to use that road.’

  Jo’s eyes went immediately to the images of the girls sent to her mum’s home, and specifically the iron pipework Carrick had thought was industrial. Only now she looked at it again, she knew at once it wasn’t the case.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Jo. ‘I think I know where.’

  * * *

  Carrick’s speedometer touched one hundred and ten. With the head-start Pryce had got, it wouldn’t be quick enough. An armed unit was coming too, and two squad cars, but they hadn’t wanted to wait. They easily cut through the traffic on the A4074, and Jo caught glimpses of the drivers’ astonished faces as they streaked past.

  Not industrial pipework, but a radiator. One with a hefty, cast-iron column design. Maybe nineteenth century. Hard to imagine where it could be, except in a really old building. And that had been the clue. An old building that made sense of using the Little Baldon route.

  It was a small clutch of buildings, not marked on her GPS, but clear on the map. Less than a kilometre from the Little Baldon bridge, shielded by trees on two sides, and gently sloping farmland on the others, labelled ‘Prison (derelict)’.

  Brookhampton Borstal, aka ‘Buggers’ Palace’, where Harry Ferman had transported juvenile prisoners in the early years of his service.

  They drove through the sleepy village of Little Baldon, slowing to eighty, then accelerated out the other side. Jo saw the column of smoke in the distance. Something that way was on fire.

  ‘Oh no …’

  * * *

  She’d done everything she could. The fire engine was still eleven minutes out. AR unit six. Ambulances, she didn’t know.

  The road up to the former prison was a single track of tarmac, and when the austere building swung into view through the trees, there were flames coming through the ground floor windows right of the door. Brookhampton looked like a manor house designed with the intention of punishment; a symmetrical block of brown stone, with a neo-classical façade and two jutting wings. All of the tall windows were cracked or missing, and the outer walls had been redecorated with patches of graffiti. There was an old guard tower, and fence posts around the perimeter, circling a yard, but the fencing itself had been removed. Jo could almost imagine boys being marched outside by a drill-sergeant type – hair cropped close to their skulls, stripped of any innocence by the treatment they’d received in juvenile detention. The Borstal system had been abolished in the eighties, when politicians had finally accepted that the Victorian ethos of harsh discipline and borderline imprisonment and brutalisation of young offenders had no obvious benefit to them or to society.

  Carrick pulled up twenty yards from the front of the building and they climbed out, rushing towards the scallop-shaped front steps. There was no sign of Pryce’s car. Jo heard screams coming from inside at once.

  ‘Bolt-cutters,’ she said to Carrick, then she ran up steps, through the open door, onto bare floorboards. Apart from a few scattered chairs, there was no furniture. The walls were scarred
with more spray-can daubings. Frayed electrical wiring hung from the ceiling where the light fittings had once been.

  ‘Malin? Rita?’ she called. Smoke hung in the air, not dense where she stood, but thickening. She could smell petrol. She moved from the vestibule along a wide corridor towards the threatening glow of the fire. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Upstairs!’ called a voice. ‘Please!’

  Jo felt the temperature rising now, and turning a corner, saw flames licking up a wall and along the balustrade. She’d never been so close to a fire like this before, so fierce and chaotic. Her feet stopped of their own accord, as if every fibre of her being rejected her will to move forwards. Plastic was burning somewhere, rolling blacker, acrid smoke along the ceiling. She took off her coat and held it over her nose. The stairs were completely smoke-filled. It was impossible to see what was at the top. The heat prickled her skin. She’d seen the aftermath of house-fires before. Recovered the bodies of those caught unawares. They’d had a day’s training with the fire service. The smoke could overcome you quicker than you’d think possible, confusing and disorientating as it diminished the oxygen in the blood and brain. She could feel it messing with her head already.

  Carrick came along towards her, brandishing the cutters.

  Suddenly part of the ceiling burst inwards, showering plaster and ash down onto the stairs. Jo shielded herself with her arms, and most of the pieces slid off. She smelled burning hair and brushed the cinders from her head. The next breath she took seemed to contain no oxygen at all and her windpipe tightened in reflexive protest. She pushed on up the stairs, finding a cleaner spot, and took a deep, instinctual breath. Mistake. It only made her cough even more. Carrick grabbed her and pushed her head down so that they were crawling. Jo had no idea if they’d be able to get down the same way they’d come up.

  ‘Where are you?’ she called.

  She thought she heard a voice, but it was almost impossible to work out exactly where the sound was coming from. The smoke boiled, and the carpet had already burned away in patches. The heat felt like a hot shower on sunburn. Then Jo saw movement to the right, through a door. A person.

  ‘Andy! In here!’

  It looked like an old classroom, with tiers of roll-top desks. There was no fire, but plenty of smoke. Malin Sigurdsson lay on her side, completely still, arms trailing limply to the radiator. Rita Prakash was curled in a ball, her top pulled up to cover her face, but she lowered it to say. ‘I think she’s dead.’

  No Sophie Okafor.

  Carrick went to Malin first, and cut through the link in the cuffs. Malin’s arms flopped.

  ‘Get her out,’ said Jo. She took the cutters and freed Rita, who jumped at her and clung on. ‘It’s okay. We’re police. Where’s Sophie?’

  Rita wouldn’t let go. ‘He took her,’ she said.

  Carrick hoisted Malin into his arms and rushed out of the room.

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Jo.

  ‘I think so. He said he needed her.’

  Jo had no time to process it. ‘All right, let’s get you out.’

  She supported Rita from the room and blindly back towards the stairs. The smoke was making her feel dizzy, stinging her eyes so she could only open them briefly. She couldn’t see Carrick at all. For the first time, she felt not just afraid, but in fear for her life.

  A tremendous rumbling sound seemed to come from below, and the floor under their feet shook. Rita whimpered in her arms. Then Jo saw that the stairs had gone, collapsing into a twisted pile of flaming timbers. The heat and smoke that rose up was so great she stumbled back from the inferno.

  ‘Is there another way out?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Rita.

  They hurried along the corridor, past the room where they’d been imprisoned, but it was a dead end. Jo had no sense of direction anymore. It didn’t seem like a building at all, set out with any sort of logic. It seemed a labyrinth of fire. A hell.

  In the distance, she heard the faintest sounds of sirens. Fire engines.

  Hungry tongues of flames lapped along the ceiling towards them. There was a door to her left, but it seemed locked when she tried it. ‘Let go of me a sec,’ she said.

  Rita didn’t want to, but Jo forcefully detached her clinging fingers. Jo put her shoulder into the door, and it didn’t budge. She slammed as hard as she could, and the pain almost made her knees crumple.

  The smoke was thickening all the time, and she knew they didn’t have long. ‘Help, dammit!’ she said. Rita threw her weight at the door too, with a similar result. ‘We go at the same time,’ Jo shouted. ‘One … two … three!’

  This time something crunched in Jo’s shoulder, ligaments tearing or a bone slipping some way it shouldn’t. For a few seconds she was completely frozen, the shoulder throbbing, before a choking cough racked her body and doubled her over. She could almost feel the smoke, coarse and deadly, flooding her airways like black cotton wool. Clogging her lungs. Rita, crying, slid down the door. ‘We’re going to die.’

  ‘Not on my fucking watch,’ Jo said. ‘Out of the way.’

  Rita stayed where she was, so Jo grabbed her arm and pulled her roughly aside. She took a step back and aimed a foot at the lock, cradling her injured shoulder. Basic training, years ago. The key was momentum, a good run up, using all your weight, your hips. And not to aim at the door, but to visualise a point eighteen inches on the other side. She remembered the tactical instructor well – muscles on muscles. He looked like he could have kicked over a tank, Ben had said.

  She lifted her foot and drove every ounce of power through the heel, right beside the keyhole.

  She barely felt any resistance at all and the door flew open. Rita looked amazed, whimpering as she hurried through. There was an office on the other side, with empty shelves, grey filing cabinets, a sink in the corner and a rather grand desk under a single, intact sash window. Jo went straight to the window, tried to hoist it up, but it was painted shut. Of course it was. But single-pane. She bent her arm, told Rita to stand back, and drove her elbow into the centre. It shattered into large segments. Jo stood on the desk and kicked out the rest with her feet. Looking down, she saw they were right over the steps leading to the front entrance. She could see Malin, lying on an ambulance stretcher, Carrick looking up. The other units were there too.

  Smoke flooded out behind her. The ground looked a long way down.

  ‘Get the van underneath,’ shouted Carrick to the ARU.

  The van manoeuvred into position, but it could only get so close to the front of the building because of the steps. She couldn’t lower Rita down. ‘We’ll have to jump,’ she said. It looked like twenty feet plus.

  ‘I can’t,’ said Rita. ‘It’s too far.’

  The fire was coming through the door like a living thing, searching for them. Carrick and the AR team spread out around the van. ‘We’ll go together,’ said Jo, taking Rita’s hand.

  ‘No …’ She pulled back.

  ‘Trust me,’ said Jo. ‘I’ve not gone through the last few days to die in here.’

  Rita looked momentarily confused, and the resistance in her grip vanished. Jo took the chance and pulled the girl with her, leaping out. Rita screamed, and the pull of gravity was sickening.

  It was too far, and as their feet slammed down on the roof of the van, pain shot through Jo’s knee. Rita went forwards, Jo to the side. She slid off the back of the van, lifting her hands to break her fall. But she fell into bodies, and they caught her before she hit the paving stones. As she found her feet, Rita was sobbing in the arms of one of the armed squad.

  Jo staggered, then limped, reeling back from Carrick. ‘Malin?’

  ‘They’re trying to stabilise her,’ he said.

  ‘He’s still got Sophie.’

  She hobbled towards the car. Her knee kept buckling.

  ‘Jo, stop!’ said Carrick. ‘We need to regroup.’

  ‘He’ll kill her.’

  ‘Wait, are you Josie Masters?’ said Rita quie
tly. She pulled away from the officer, her cheeks streaked with ash, and reached into her pocket. ‘He said, if you made it, to give you this.’ She pulled out a phone. ‘He made me memorise the code – it’s one two zero three.’

  Jo took it, and entered the numbers. She went through to the contacts, but there were no numbers stored. Nothing in the call logs or messages either.

  Come on, you sick fuck. What are you waiting for?

  Chapter 30

  Malin Sigurdsson was taken away in the ambulance, breathing but unconscious. From what Rita told them while the paramedics checked her over, it sounded like the girl from Oriel was suffering severe dehydration and starvation. Pryce hadn’t fed either of them, and the only moisture they’d managed to get was from licking condensation where it collected on the windowsill.

  The fire service was still struggling to get control of the conflagration, even with three engines, and didn’t want to enter the building because of the obvious structural risk. Their shouted communication and the thump of jetted water on masonry soon receded into the background. Jo had written off finding anything of use inside anyway. The paramedics wanted to check her over, but Jo told them it could wait until after she’d spoken to Rita.

  ‘It’s really important, Rita,’ she said. ‘Did he say anything at all about where he might be taking Sophie?’

  ‘I’m sorry, he didn’t. He barely spoke to us at all.’

  She told them everything she could, but there wasn’t much they didn’t know or Jo hadn’t guessed. Pryce had pushed her off her bike in the alleyway before her army fitness class, and used something to knock her out. She’d woken in the van, watched over by some guy in a balaclava, and screamed her head off until he pointed a gun at her. When Pryce had let her out, it was at the Borstal, and he’d secured her next to Malin, then left, returning the next day with Sophie. She had a similar story too – snatched by the man with the balaclava, with Pryce the driver. A two-man job.

  The three girls had no idea why they were there – all the psycho had told them was that his name was Jack, and it was all for Josie. Only Sophie had seen the other man without his balaclava and she said he was horribly deformed.