The Siren

by Alison Bruce

  He saw her fingers move, folding in as if to grip another imaginary hand.

  He looked up and down the track once more. There was still nothing to see. But, even so, he knew the helping hand wouldn’t be his. His feet had become rooted, and the pounding of his heart had overtaken his ability to act.

  He looked away again. The field next to him was part of a nursery growing ornamental trees that were trained up bamboo canes. In one row were slender shrubs with weeping pink leaves. They looked like stick men draped with occasional chunks of flesh.

  He felt sweat squeezing out on to his forehead and he hoped he wouldn’t throw up.

  FORTY-FOUR

  It was one continuous road to Burwell, and Goodhew knew it well. A few twists through village streets then the open countryside: centuries old farmland with small communities gathered every few miles along the old highway.

  The road zigzagged through ninety-degree bends in Swaffham Bulbeck, and on past the white sails of the windmills at Swaffham Prior.

  Then fields. Immense flat fields that stretched out towards the distant low horizon.

  The rain had stopped at the outskirts of Cambridge. Here there was mellowing sunlight, and the dome of the sky was skimmed with grey cloud combed into parallel lines, like ribs.

  In the far distance, the sky seemed to exaggerate the earth’s curve. pushing it downwards.

  Pylons strode from right to left, like giants disappearing into the distance, vanishing as mere specks twenty miles away.

  Goodhew noticed another speck, this one ahead of him, just a dot moving through the air.

  The police helicopter.

  As he reached the edge of Burwell, he didn’t slow, but raced through the place at double the speed limit. He willed that no one would step off a pavement. He willed that the housing would soon finish. The village was only two miles from end to end, but each one of them felt like ten.

  He finally broke out on to the open road, and now he could see the dot of the helicopter again, but this time it was hovering.

  Telegraph poles followed the road, running alongside his car. They marked the way ahead, flitting past him with increasing frequency. The hedgerow dropped back, and in the distance he could see the level crossing.

  He heard Marks: ‘We can’t stop the train.’

  The crossing was still a mile away, but he was closing in at sixty. He saw the red warning lights start to flash and the barriers begin to fall.

  Goodhew yelled to Marks, ‘There’s no one there!’

  But, as he said it, his eyes were drawn to where the helicopter hovered half a mile to his left.

  ‘The other crossing,’ Marks shouted. ‘To your left, over to your left.’

  Goodhew skidded into Cockpen Road, saw the freight train rumbling through the first crossing even as he made the turn.

  The second crossing was two hundred yards straight ahead of him.

  Cars littered the side of the road. People stood with their doors open, staring at the Renault Megane stationary on the track.

  Goodhew held his line, furiously hitting his horn and leaving them to find their own way clear.

  He heard the frantic warning of the locomotive’s horn, the squeal of the brakes the driver was now applying one and a half miles too late.

  A moment before the impact Goodhew prayed.

  Prayed he was fast enough to miss the train. And slow enough not to kill them all.

  He broke through the crossing barrier, a crack and splinter which had barely begun to register before being swallowed up by the impact of metal on metal, as he slammed into the rear of the Megane.

  His airbag launched itself, his eyes closed, and he flopped into its bulging arms.

  He didn’t know where he’d ended up, or whether his car lay in the path of the train.

  He kept his eyes shut, and waited for one long second. He prayed everyone else was clear.

  And not dead.

  The train’s brakes still screamed as it roared past, rocking the patrol car on the remains of its suspension.

  Then there was silence, and he opened his eyes, saw the grey clouds. They weren’t shaped like ribs at all but train tracks. The blue sky faded, the sunlight fingering it the colour of gone-off milk.

  He spoke into the radio’s earpiece. ‘Get an ambulance.’

  But the device was dead; he pulled it off and threw it to one side.

  Someone opened his door, told him not to move.

  He looked down at his legs, and knew for certain that they still worked. He hauled himself out then, stumbling towards the wreckage of the other car.

  It had smashed through a picket fence into the derelict garden of the crossing keeper’s cottage, so that only the driver’s-side rear corner hadn’t ended up in the rubbish-filled enclosure. Its indicator blinked at half speed.

  The car’s front end had joined two abandoned VW Campervans and a wrecked towing caravan.

  Most of the damage was to the back. The boot was crushed into the rear passenger area, the rear windscreen was gone, staved in by the weight of Goodhew’s car. The rear seat had doubled over, leaning against the back of the front seats.

  Four or five onlookers had already gathered around. They had pulled the front doors open and they were leaning inside. No one was checking the back, or even trying to open the rear doors.

  He pulled a man aside and peered into the front. He saw Stefan first, slumped forward, with eyes gaping. Next to him was Kimberly. Blood was running from her forehead, and PC Rimes was holding her hand.

  ‘Riley,’ Kimberly kept repeating.

  ‘Where is he?’ Goodhew had to ask it twice before his question filtered though to her.

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know.’

  Rimes spoke calmly. ‘Help’s coming.’

  Goodhew grabbed at the back door; it wouldn’t open, twisted too far out of shape to ever again separate from the body shell. He reached through the broken side window and twisted the seat back into a more upright position – revealing Gully’s face.

  Her eyes were half-closed, her pupils immobile. A dark pool, still shiny, coated the seat. Streaks of blood had dried like earth stains on her cheek.

  ‘Sue,’ he whispered. Then louder, ‘Sue.’ He heard the desperate tone in his voice and tears pricked his eyes. ‘Sue,’ he said again.

  He put the back of his hand to her nostrils and felt her breath tickle his skin.

  He stretched his arm in further, reaching for her hand, squeezing it in his.

  ‘Sue, talk to me.’

  Her eyes didn’t move but she spoke, barely moving her swollen mouth. ‘What?’

  ‘Talk to me.’

  ‘It hurts.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Tears rolled on to his cheeks.

  ‘Help me.’

  ‘We’ll get you out in a minute. Just hold on. Talk to me. It was the only thing I could do. I never meant to hurt you.’ He wiped his eyes with his cuff.

  ‘Riley?’ she muttered.

  ‘Do you know anything, Sue?’

  ‘He’s in the boot.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘He is,’ she insisted. ‘I saw him being put there.’

  A coldness passed through Goodhew, knowing he had rammed the back end of the car hard enough to compress it by at least two feet. He’d pushed the upright section of the back seat out of the way in order to reach Gully, but from the first he could only remember watching for some movement from her. He’d never checked behind the seat. ‘Sue, I need to fold the seat down on you again. Will you be all right with that?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s just for a second. I need to look in the boot.’

  ‘OK.’

  He let go of her hand and reached across to the nearer rear-seat headrest and gave it a sharp tug forwards.

  Gully drifted up through the fog of sleep, near the surface but not quite breaking through it. She heard Goodhew’s voice, muffled and faint, like he was speaking in another room.

  She was talkin
g to him in that other room, too, letting words slip out without her brain’s say-so.

  He was doing something with the seat now, trying to fold her up in it, or something. She heard him draw a sudden breath, then say, ‘Thank God, thank God,’ over and over.

  He took her hand. ‘Which car is Riley in?’

  ‘Not this one.’

  ‘I know, Sue, but did you see him in the boot of another vehicle?’

  Her voice became quieter, until he seemed to be finding it as hard as she was to distinguish the poorly formed words.

  ‘Sue, say that again.’

  ‘Can’t remember. It was red. Small saloon.’

  ‘And Craig drove it?’

  ‘No, he drove us . . . then moved Stefan from back here to the driver’s seat. You wouldn’t know that if we were dead, like we’re supposed to be.’

  He pulled away from her for just a second and she heard him shouting, ‘Over here, quick.’ He squeezed her hand again. ‘Help’s coming, Sue.’

  ‘Can you stay?’ She hoped she hadn’t blushed. ‘Stefan’s dead, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Anita?’

  ‘Not sure. Listen to me. You need to stay awake, Sue . . . Sue.’

  She thought she was awake, but he repeated her name several more times before she muttered a response. ‘Why do people play games?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Goodhew replied.

  ‘Do you?’ she persisted.

  ‘I try not to.’ He added, ‘When I crashed into you, I never wanted to see you hurt.’

  ‘Hmm,’ she replied.

  She wondered why she was still talking, she felt so tired. Too many questions, too much effort . . . God, she wanted to sleep.

  Why did he keep bugging her?

  His voice kept on though, chipping away at her, dragging her back. Making her think about words. And he sounded so strange. She listened more closely; he sounded sort of choked.

  ‘I didn’t have a choice . . . the train would have hit this car. It was the only thing I could think to do.’

  Gully listened, wondering what he had to cry about. She squeezed his hand and concentrated on opening her eyes. She managed to get him into an intermittent fuzzy focus. He looked a mess – perhaps he was in shock and just needed to talk. ‘No wonder you don’t drive,’ she said, making an effort.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, you’re crap at it, aren’t you?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ He still sounded distracted. He let go of her hand and she heard him shouting something about an ambulance. She didn’t want him to go.

  He stroked her cheek. ‘How are you feeling?’ He smiled at her.

  ‘I won’t smile back at you in case I dribble,’ she whispered.

  Behind him she saw the vague shape of a torso appear, dressed in paramedic green.

  ‘You’ll be OK,’ Goodhew told her, and gave her hand a squeeze before finally letting it go.

  FORTY-FIVE

  The paramedics all wore the same closed expression, the one that allowed them to view the scene whilst avoiding any personal interaction that might scar them later. Kimberly had concussion, blood loss and showed signs that she was under the influence of some kind of sedative. Meanwhile, Sue Gully had also suffered a head injury and they were struggling to keep her conscious. They would talk to her, calling her by name, but all the time thinking of her in terms of vital signs and body trauma, concentrating on the medical know-how that would deliver her safely from the scene of the accident to the handover at A and E.

  Goodhew turned away and found himself face-to-face with DI Marks.

  ‘How are they?’ Marks asked.

  Goodhew muttered a one-word reply, ‘Alive,’ and continued to walk away from the wreckage.

  Marks followed him. ‘They were facing certain death.’

  Goodhew stopped in his tracks. ‘I know, that’s the logical way to see it, but that doesn’t change the fact that their injuries were caused by me driving straight into them.’

  ‘Not Stefan’s most likely though. Kincaide said he seemed totally unresponsive before impact. It’ll be interesting to see his postmortem results.’

  Goodhew changed subjects. ‘Craig Tennison abducted all of them, he wanted it to look like Stefan had cracked and gone on a murderous death spree.’

  ‘And if that locomotive had hit them, it could have been a very different story.’

  Marks didn’t need to elaborate: Goodhew was more than capable of picturing the carnage that would have resulted. He’d seen cars disappear under lorries, leaving nothing larger than a bonnet badge to identify the vehicle’s make or model. He could still see the train bearing down on them, and now, in his mind’s eye, it sliced through the helpless car, devouring its occupants. They remained mute, however, while his head filled with the scream of those futile brakes. Goodhew recognized it as a sound that would now stay with him for a lifetime.

  ‘Gully’s certain she saw Riley being put into the boot of a small red saloon. The rest of them were transferred into that Renault, which Craig Tennison then drove on to the track. I guess he must have dumped the van then.’

  Marks nodded. ‘I have the chopper searching for the van right now, within a two mile radius initially, then widening gradually.’

  Goodhew frowned. ‘That’s over twelve square miles, but reduce the radius to a mile, and there’s only three and a half square miles to cover. We have the best odds of finding it within that distance unless, of course, he’s still driving it.’

  ‘That would be too risky. He knows we’re looking for it, and anyway he had the option of this other car.’

  Goodhew studied his boss for a moment, then looked away, his gaze falling on the spray of sparks sent flying by the cutting equipment, as the firemen fought to dismantle the Renault.

  IV bags hung alongside, their diminishing fluids glinted in the watery sunshine. Every person in his field of vision was working with purpose; he could see the medics trying to keep Gully and Kimberly stable while the fire crew worked towards releasing the two injured women and the body of Stefan Golinski. The scene was being recorded by police photographers, while other officers were collecting evidence and further back was a camera crew belonging to a news syndicate. He scanned the scene again, in every case each person’s motivation was clear and drove each task they undertook.

  For the first time, Goodhew began seeing a more complete picture of Craig Tennison. Nick Lewton, Rachel Golinski and Jay Andrews had all fallen victim to the same signature attack. Anita McVey, too, except that in her case he’d been too rushed or too distracted, and the fatal kick had been delivered inaccurately. None of these people had been strangers to him, but his method required the use of force without hesitation. No doubt, also, Jay and Nick had been far from the first.

  Tennison was smart never to have been caught. Brute force alone was rarely the only skill involved when such crimes had gone undetected for so long, and yet he still appeared to be working for the Lewton family rather than breaking out on his own.

  Goodhew began speaking before his thoughts had finished forming, but he felt sure they were making sense. ‘If Tennison wanted to kill Riley, he would have left him in the car with the others. He’s ruthless enough to do it. So now he’s got a child on his hands, yet this isn’t a random little boy but one belonging to his employer’s family, so whatever he stands to gain by this is personal.’

  ‘He’s taking a huge risk, though. If he’s caught with Riley, the game will be up.’

  ‘Here’s a better question, why put Riley in the boot? Even if he were strapped in a car seat in a state of distress, no one would have taken much notice of him because that photo most people have seen is one of Jay Andrews as a toddler, not Riley himself.’

  Marks eyes narrowed. ‘So what are you thinking?’

  ‘By hiding Riley in the boot, there’s no possibility whatsoever that we are likely to pinpoint where or when he was handed over.’

  ‘OK,’ Marks said slowly, �
��now explain a little more because, right now, I haven’t a clue what you’re getting at.’

  Goodhew nodded in the direction of the level crossing, ‘Ten-nison’s plan was for them all to die – I guess to make it seem as though Stefan had committed suicide and decided on taking Kimberly with him. Tennison would then be able to pretend he knew nothing, as long as he couldn’t be placed anywhere near the Transit or its occupants. He could say that Stefan handed over Riley to him as the last decent act of a desperate man.’

  ‘For that to work, Tennison needed to know for sure that both Stefan Golinski and Kimberly Guyver were dead.’ Marks turned to survey a full 360-degree scan of the countryside. ‘To be convincing, he would have called us at the earliest opportunity. He couldn’t hang on to Riley a moment longer than necessary, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he was parked somewhere nearby, watching for the collision. That means you scuppered his plan.’

  ‘And now he doesn’t know what to do with Riley?’ Goodhew felt suddenly restless and took a couple of involuntary steps in the direction of the nearest patrol car. ‘He must know we’re on to him.’

  ‘And he’ll be panicking, but he doesn’t yet know whether Gully or Kimberly will be in a fit state to be interviewed. Maybe that gives us an opportunity.’

  Goodhew bit his lip thoughtfully. ‘How up-to-date is the press?’

  ‘They simply know there was an incident at the level crossing, with one fatality.’

  ‘Why not announce that the others are seriously injured, and that the police are still waiting to interview them.’

  Marks shook his head but didn’t actually refuse. ‘Or, better still, that there were no survivors.’

  Goodhew was surprised to see that his boss was giving his idea serious consideration. This wasn’t the kind of misinformation that could be smudged or glossed over later.

  Marks’ phone rang before he reached his final verdict. ‘DI Marks,’ he answered. ‘Who?’ then ‘Really?’

  Goodhew watched Marks’ expression intently, wishing he could hear what the caller was saying, especially as whoever it was seemed to be speaking twenty words for each short phrase grunted by Marks in response.