Keep Her Close

by M. J. Ford

  ‘We tried to keep each other’s spirits up,’ said Rita. ‘We talked about trying to escape. Malin thought she could get the cuffs off if she dislocated her thumb, but she passed out with the pain. Then we tried to wrench the radiator off the wall.’

  Later, they wondered if they could tempt Jack close enough and incapacitate him, but by then Malin was too weak, and Sophie too scared. They’d offered Pryce money, given him the numbers of their parents, but he wasn’t interested. Malin started sleeping for long periods and even when she was awake she’d stopped making much sense. When she got delirious she kept talking about a girl called Anna.

  ‘She was worried that something had happened to her,’ said Rita.

  When Pryce had returned today, she could tell something had happened. He’d seemed more animated. Rita had thought he might actually let them go, even when he started spreading petrol. It was only when he took Sophie and she heard the engine of his van that it really sank in that he was going to kill them.

  She broke down in sobs again, and threw her arms around Jo. ‘Thank you,’ she said, over and over again.

  Carrick held out his phone to her. ‘I’ve got your parents, Rita. They know you’re safe.’

  As the young woman took the phone, Jo turned away to give her some privacy.

  ‘How’s the shoulder?’ asked Carrick.

  Jo pulled aside her top with her good hand. The joint was swollen, already bruising, and she couldn’t lift her arm above neck height. ‘Pretty fucked,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll drop you at the hospital if you want?’

  The phone rang. Unknown. They could still trace it later, even if they couldn’t call back.

  ‘Hello, Josie,’ said Pryce.

  His voice was the same, but not. He sounded like a different person entirely. ‘Where’s Sophie?’

  ‘She’s with me,’ he said.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘You still don’t understand, do you? I shouldn’t be surprised, but I’ll admit it’s a tad disappointing.’

  ‘I have no fucking clue why you’re doing this.’

  ‘You will,’ he said. ‘We’ll speak soon, Josie.’

  ‘No, wait—’

  The line went dead.

  Chapter 31

  Rita Prakash was reunited with her mother and father at St Aldates. There were floods of tears. Nabil arrived shortly after, too. After a tense stand-off, a family liaison officer ushered them into one of the interview rooms. Jo let the paramedics look at her injuries in the CID room. They reckoned the knee was a torn ligament. They strapped it heavily as she sat at her desk. Her left shoulder they put in a sling. The phone from Pryce didn’t leave her hand the whole time.

  Heidi was sorting the trace on the unknown number, but even with the best will in the world, it looked like it would be twelve hours until they could get a result. And if Pryce had been willing to leave Malin and Rita in a burning building, Sophie Okafor might not have that long. The Armed Unit remained on standby.

  Dimitriou continued to monitor the ANPR network, in case Pryce’s car appeared, though no one at St Aldates held great hopes that it would. The TV was on, showing aerial footage of the smoking school in Little Baldon. The press were fully briefed on the current state of play. Two girls rescued, one still missing. Pryce’s picture was circulating. DCI Stratton hadn’t come off the phone for more than a few seconds at a time. There was a continuous comms link open with Thames Valley Central Command in Kidlington.

  Word came from the hospital in the early afternoon that Malin Sigurdsson was conscious and talking, with her mother Hana at her side. Nicholas Cranleigh gave an interview on the news, thanking the police, but calling already for an investigation. Heidi wondered aloud if he’d still be on Stratton’s Christmas list after all this was said and done.

  As the world swirled around her, Jo stared at the phone. Creasey, the Bath detective, had it wired up to a console, ready to track any incoming call. Jo willed it to ring. Pryce held all the cards, because he had the only thing that mattered now – a terrified teenage girl.

  Stein drifted in, drinking a cup of tea, and holding another, which he placed on the corner of her desk.

  ‘Why isn’t he calling?’ Jo asked.

  ‘This whole enterprise has been about bringing you pain,’ said the profiler. ‘I wouldn’t expect him to stop now.’

  Jo had to ask. ‘Do you think he’ll kill her?’

  Stein slurped. ‘I think the only thing that’s stopping him is that it will mean an end to your suffering.’

  Jo shook her head. ‘I just don’t understand. Jack’s been in the force for seven years. His father was police too. He’s put criminals away. We’ve looked at his career records and there’s no hint of corruption. Nothing iffy at all.’

  Carrick came past holding a folder. ‘We have found something, though. Those prison visitor records came through for Tyndle. Guess who went to see him twice in the lead-up to his release?’

  ‘Jack?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So did they know each other?’

  ‘That’s not clear. But we spoke to a former boss of Jack’s, who wrote his principal reference before he enrolled with the Met’s fast-track recruitment programme. He told us Pryce suffered a really bad period, a couple of years into his employment. Took three months off work for bereavement. His partner killed herself.’

  Jo felt light-headed. ‘So, nine years ago?’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Carrick.

  The truth hit her like a sudden, unexpected gust on a calm day, throwing her bearings into disarray.

  One two zero three.

  The 12th March.

  ‘You okay, Jo?’ said Carrick. ‘You’ve gone white as a sheet.’

  The moment of dizziness passed, and she was steady again. But the outlook had completely changed.

  ‘I know why all of this is happening,’ she whispered.

  * * *

  The leaflets she’d been given, when she’d lost her own child the Christmas before, said it was common to blame yourself at first. Mistakes of diet, strenuous activity, even mental health, were all explanations grieving mothers reached for to explain the inexplicable. But there was no compelling evidence that any of those things could harm a foetus in the womb. The fact was, around a third of conceived embryos were simply unviable, and the human body was a finely tuned machine. It wasn’t Mother Nature being ruthless; there was no moral component – it was inexorable biological imperative.

  But in Jack Pryce’s case, the violent death of his unborn baby on the 12th March, ten years earlier, had been eminently avoidable. The course of action leading to it had been painstakingly recorded in a coroner’s narrative verdict, a set of decisions by other characters that day: Frank Tyndle, P1 and P2, aka Benjamin Coombs and Josephine Masters. And what had been officially deemed a tragedy in the final act for those individuals – the end of a police chase in which a foetus had died in utero, for Jack Pryce it was just the first shocking scene, the inciting incident of a horror story that had claimed his fiancée as well.

  Jo wondered how he’d persuaded Tyndle to help. Had he even told him that he was the partner of the woman in the ambulance that had overturned? Lizzie was her name, Carrick told them after searching out the files. Lizzie Mackintosh, soon to be Lizzie Pryce. When Jo and Ben’s lives had moved on, Jack and Lizzie’s hadn’t. They’d remained trapped in a hell of grief that Lizzie had seen only one way to escape. A hell partly of Jo’s making. Or at least that’s what Pryce clearly believed. Cause and effect. Sin, and punishment to be exacted. He, the one to exact it.

  A quick check of his record confirmed it. He’d joined the police around a year after his fiancée killed herself. Had he joined the police for that purpose, to get at her, and for that purpose alone? It was almost unfathomable. Maybe at first he’d actually wanted to do good, as he’d claimed in the car to her. But it couldn’t be a coincidence that he’d asked to transfer just after the Dylan Jones case. Seeing her na
me in the paper – seeing her celebrated as a child’s saviour – it must have been too much. She wondered who it was who’d scratched her face out in all those images. Maybe Stein was right, and the real psychopath wasn’t Tyndle at all. It might have been Jack Pryce who couldn’t bear to look at her.

  The phone was ringing, and the other detectives gathered round, with the Chief Constable too. Jo answered it on speaker.

  Pryce’s voice filled the room. ‘Hello, Josie. Worked it all out yet?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, her own voice hoarse. ‘I understand now, Jack. You don’t have to hurt Sophie.’

  ‘Are you telling me what to do, Josie?’

  ‘I’m just saying, she’s done nothing wrong.’

  He laughed. ‘Neither had my fiancée.’

  ‘Jack, it’s me you want, isn’t it? Let Sophie go, and you can have me.’

  ‘How did I know you’d say that?’

  ‘It’s the only way this ends,’ said Jo. ‘They’ll lock you up, but at least you’ll have killed me.’

  They hadn’t had time to rehearse any of it, but no one interrupted.

  For a long time, Pryce was quiet. ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he said at last. ‘I assume you’re tracing the call?’

  Stratton shook his head.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. The DCI scowled.

  ‘Come alone, Josie,’ said Pryce. ‘I mean that. You’ll understand, I’m not planning much after today, so if I have to kill Sophie, I’ll do it in a second.’

  ‘I’ll come alone, I promise. Can I speak to Sophie please?’

  ‘Be here in an hour. I’ll be waiting.’

  He hung up.

  Everyone was looking at her.

  ‘Why did you tell him about the trace?’ asked the DCI.

  ‘Because he’s not a fucking idiot,’ said Jo.

  ‘Looks like he’s in the village of Little Pelham,’ said Nina Creasey. ‘Tiny place. It’s about five miles away.’

  ‘Get the armed response team out there,’ said the Chief Constable.

  ‘No,’ said Jo. ‘He’ll kill her.’

  ‘She could be dead already,’ said Stratton.

  ‘And if you send in the AR, she’ll be dead for certain.’

  ‘You can’t go in alone,’ said Carrick. ‘He’s got a gun.’

  ‘There’s no other way,’ said Jo. And really, there wasn’t.

  People crowded back into the briefing room. Twenty minutes had passed already. It would take fifteen to get to Little Pelham. As well as Stratton and the CID team, plus the two detectives from Bath, there were five armed response officers and their sergeant, Menzies, plus the Chief Constable, and six uniformed officers. The windows were misted with the heat from all the bodies.

  Carrick displayed the satellite map on the screen, and pointed to a small clutch of buildings on the west bank of the Thames. ‘Little Pelham.’

  ‘Why there?’ said Stratton.

  ‘The call’s been traced to the church,’ said Heidi. ‘It’s unmanned in the week – the local vicar is based in Dorchester, so it’s a chaplain who takes the Sunday service. We can get a key.’

  ‘It’s quiet,’ said Carrick. ‘It might be one of the places he scouted when he was looking for somewhere to keep the girls. The good news is there’s no way he can get away. One road in, one out.’

  Sergeant Menzies spoke up. ‘What about civilians, local residents?’

  Carrick pointed to what looked like a manor house beside the church. ‘This whole complex is the office of an environmental charity, Oxford Green. We’ve put in a call, and told them to get staff to a safe location. All fourteen are accounted for, and are currently in the cellars. The next nearest house is three hundred yards away. We couldn’t ask for a better location.’

  ‘We could get a couple of men into the upper floors of the house,’ said Menzies. ‘And maybe approach the graveyard from the north. It looks like there’s decent tree cover.’

  Jo spoke up. ‘If he sees you, he’ll kill her.’

  ‘He won’t see us,’ said Menzies, grim-faced.

  ‘You can’t be sure about that. He’s been a step ahead from the start. He knows our procedures. And he’s a triple murderer now. One more body won’t give him much pause.’

  ‘I’m inclined to agree with Detective Masters,’ said Stein. ‘He may have selected a graveyard for poetic reasons.’

  ‘Poetic reasons?’ said Menzies, with a barely concealed sneer.

  ‘I mean he might not be planning to leave at all,’ said the profiler.

  ‘Respectfully,’ said Menzies. ‘If this guy’s as crazy as it seems, the only way to stop him is a bullet in the head.’

  ‘You’re not going to have to face Sophie Okafor’s mum,’ said Jo. ‘Sometimes it’s more complicated than kicking down doors and spraying bullets.’

  The Chief Constable stood up. ‘All right. Enough. Menzies, keep your men away from the church-side of the building. We’ve no idea where exactly Pryce will be when we get there. And without seeing what’s on the ground, we don’t know what the line of sight will be like between the house and the church. Jo, we’ll put a wire on you. Any chance you get, let us know the geography, and any safe ways to approach.’

  ‘If he sees an earpiece …’

  ‘We’ll keep comms one-way. You won’t be able to hear us, but we’ll hear you through a mic.’

  ‘He’ll shoot her as soon as she’s in sight,’ said Carrick.

  ‘I suggest we put her in a vest,’ said Menzies. ‘If he shoots and misses, or shoots non-lethally, we might have time to swoop in and end it.’

  ‘Agreed,’ said the Chief Constable. ‘Are you sure about this, Jo? We can’t force you.’

  Jo felt the eyes of the room on her. She owed it to them. She owed it to Natalie Palmer. Maybe she even owed it to Pryce himself.

  ‘I made a promise,’ she said.

  As the room broke up, she went back to her desk. Lucas had texted again.

  Please. Let’s talk. I don’t want to lose you, Jo.

  She wasn’t going to reply, but as her eyes fell over the open files littering the CID work station, they fell on the coroner’s report on Pryce’s fiancée, Lizzie – she’d cut her wrists in the bath. Jo wondered if she’d actually said goodbye, and if it had been Jack who found her.

  She texted back. I’ll call later.

  Menzies brought her a bulky vest similar to the ones his team wore. She’d worn one before, on raids, but this seemed very different. In those cases she’d never believed there was an actual bullet with her name on it.

  Stein was hovering. ‘You know, I admire you for what you’re doing.’

  ‘Tell me, honestly, do you think he’ll let her go?’

  ‘The endgame’s approaching. We’ve only got pawns. Our position is weak.’

  Menzies clipped the straps of the vest, and tightened the straps. As he did so, Jo had an idea. ‘Not if we cheat.’

  Stein smiled. ‘It’s hard to cheat at chess.’

  Jo looked at Menzies’ side-arm. ‘What if I’m not a pawn?’

  * * *

  Jo drove slowly into the sleepy village of Little Pelham, between the denuded and tangled hedgerows iced with frost. If it weren’t for the occasion, it would have been picture-perfect. Her knee was throbbing, despite the painkillers, and she’d ditched the sling to give herself a fraction more mobility. The vest she wore was level II body armour – it would stop a low-calibre round, and from what Rita had said, Pryce only had a handgun.

  ‘No sign of anything so far,’ she said.

  ‘I’m one hundred metres from the house with the AR team,’ said Carrick through the car’s speakers. ‘Awaiting confirmation that we can approach.’

  The armed unit had parked a mile outside the village, proceeding on foot via the bridleway. Jo passed the entrance to Oxford Green, and could see the spire of the church. Between the two was a small copse of bare trees.

  ‘You should be able to come into the house from the rear,’ she said.
They’d pick up her voice through the phone on the passenger seat, and the microphone she wore just under her collar. ‘But I’m not sure you’ll get a view on the church.’

  ‘Understood,’ said Carrick. ‘I’ll tell Menzies to get men in position on the upper floors.’

  Jo pulled up about fifty metres from the church.

  ‘Getting out now,’ she said.

  ‘Good luck, Jo,’ said Carrick. ‘Remember, we’re not far away.’

  But not close enough, thought Jo. I’m on my own from here.

  She left her phone on the seat, took the one from Pryce and shoved it in her back pocket. Despite the cold, she was sweating as she walked with a limp towards the lychgate, eyes scanning the trees and the graveyard beyond for any sign of movement. She had no idea if Pryce was a good shot or not. His file didn’t indicate any firearms training at all, but hitting anything with a handgun at more than twenty yards was unlikely without serious skills. If he was waiting, close by and with a very good aim, she might not feel anything at all. Might not even hear the gun go off. It was a fucked-up thought, and doubly fucked-up that it might be her last.

  The church was Anglo-Saxon – a squat, square tower at one end. The iron-strapped wooden doors that filled the archway were closed. The graves were mostly a collection of stubby headstones, many at angles and mottled with age, their inscriptions illegible. But around the far side of the church, hidden from the windows of the manor house, stood some more ornate sarcophagi which she guessed were Victorian from their elaborate statuary – weeping angels and ornate floral carvings. Poetic, indeed.

  The stained-glass windows were dull and completely opaque under the wintry sky. If he was watching her from inside, she’d never be able to tell.

  ‘I’m here!’ she called. ‘Jack?’

  A light breeze carried the vapour from her breath up into the spindly branches of a beech tree. The cold swallowed her words without echo. The seconds passed. Nothing moved in the churchyard. The adrenalin seeped slowly, unlocking her limbs and leaving her shivering.

  ‘Jack?’ she called again. ‘Sophie?’