The Siren

by Alison Bruce

  His trousers were urine-soaked and dripping on to the hard floor.

  Goodhew stepped forward and checked him for any slim chance of life.

  Nothing.

  Rob remained silent, his feet anchored but his body swaying ever so slightly. Goodhew persuaded him to go out of the room and sit down somewhere. Rob made it through the doorway, then slid on to the carpet, slumping heavily against the nearest wall. He glanced back in the direction of Tennison’s office, turned pale and tucked his head between his knees.

  A folded note lay on the nearest upright chair. It was handwritten, using a black marker pen, so the ink had bled through to the reverse. Neither of them touched it, but deciphered what they could through the back of the page.

  It’s all gone wrong. There’s nothing left.

  There was more, folded out of sight.

  ‘Suicide?’ Goodhew pondered aloud.

  ‘Maybe. But I’m not convinced.’

  Marks and Goodhew stood side by side, staring silently at the body. Goodhew had no idea what Marks was thinking, but then he rarely did. For his own part, he realized how little they knew about Craig Tennison. He had no criminal record and, apart from that, they knew nothing of his private life. Maybe Rob the doorman was right, and there wasn’t much for him aside from the Celeste. Tennison was wearing a club T-shirt at the time he died, having chosen a fit that stretched slightly across his chest and his biceps. Now that his body had slackened, he just looked overweight and middle-aged, but Goodhew knew this man had possessed the strength and bulk to kick the life out of several victims.

  And developing a lethal technique like that hadn’t come overnight. Who knew how many others had fallen victim to his violence in the years preceding his assault on Jay Andrews? Keeping himself out of suspicion all that time had undoubtedly required ingenuity too.

  Marks began making phone calls and Goodhew turned towards the computer. ‘I’d still like to check the security footage.’

  Marks scanned the desk. ‘Go ahead.’

  The PC was on stand-by, and burst back into life almost immediately. The software controlling the cameras had been left open on the screen, with a separate window for each of the six devices employed, currently displaying a live feed of key locations around the building. Goodhew clicked on the one labelled Back Door, which showed the rear of the Celeste Club and a small yard with sufficient parking space for two cars.

  ‘This one’s not recording.’ He tried one of the other CCTV feeds. ‘In fact they’re all off.’

  Marks leant closer. ‘Since when?’

  ‘Nothing for the last forty-eight hours.’

  Goodhew checked for the obvious, calling up lists of files deleted in the last two days, and searching for any others created or modified during that time too. He found nothing.

  ‘We shouldn’t be surprised,’ Marks remarked. ‘He didn’t remain free all these years by leaving a trail of evidence.’

  ‘Or by getting grassed up.’ Goodhew stared down at the keyboard, and found himself thinking about something Tamsin had said. In fact it was just about the last thing she’d said to him, but definitely the most useful: Why would he hurt Stefan and Rachel?

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Kimberly lay on her back, her body straight with her ankles touching and her hands resting at her sides. She realized, as she regained consciousness, that she was in a hospital bed. She’d arrived there by stretcher and had barely moved a muscle since. Her sleep had been heavy, so she had no idea how much time had passed. She remembered she’d been drugged and her body still felt reluctant, tempting her to drift off again, but at least nothing seemed to hurt.

  She thought of Riley, then. Had someone really told her that he was safe – or had that only been a dream too?

  She wondered whether she’d now open her eyes and discover that she’d missed days rather than hours. The thought scared her for reasons she didn’t totally understand, but it made it illogical to hide herself away in sleep any longer.

  There were three other spaces on the ward but none were occupied and even the area around her own bed was devoid of any personal effects – no clothes draped over the nearby chair, the bedside locker empty and no flowers or get well messages on top of it. She hoped the absence of the latter items meant she was still a new arrival. Someone had left a jug of water and a half-filled clear plastic tumbler next to her bed. She took a sip but the water tasted stale and nowhere near as refreshing as the business card she suddenly spotted protruding from under the jug.

  A phone rang at the nurses’ station. The voice that picked up and answered was warm but firm. ‘Miss Guyver? No, not yet.’

  ‘I’m awake,’ Kimberly called out. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hold on.’ The nurse brought the handset into the room, but hesitated before handing it over. ‘I can just give them a message if you like?’

  ‘No, no,’ Kimberly began struggling up on to one elbow.

  ‘Careful, you’ve had quite a knock and some nasty bruising.’

  Kimberly smiled ruefully. ‘I’m just finding that out.’ She made it as far as a half-sitting position, and waited while the nurse jammed an extra pillow behind her spine. ‘OK,’ she nodded, and held her hand out for the phone. ‘Who is it?’ she mouthed to the nurse first.

  The nurse beamed. ‘Your boyfriend, Jay.’

  There was a certain look that appeared on Goodhew’s face when his thoughts were interlacing and combining and percolating. Marks had seen it before on only a couple of occasions, but recognized that the end product would be worth waiting for.

  The first officers were arriving, so he turned away to deal with them. When he looked back across the interview room Goodhew had gone.

  PC Bell came over. ‘Are you looking for Goodhew? He was at the top of the stairs when we arrived, talking on the phone and pacing around. But he said to tell you two things.’ Bell held up two fingers and bent each back in turn. ‘Firstly he reckons there’s no chance that this is suicide and, secondly, he was going to the cemetery. Then he shot off like a rocket . . . you know, like he does.’

  Marks pursed his lips together and chose to say nothing. Even the next moment, when he received a call to say that Kimberly Guyver had absconded from her hospital bed, he had nothing else to add.

  Of course it hadn’t been Jay on the phone but the call still gave Kimberly the incentive to find a quiet moment in which to slip in and out of the adjoining ward, successfully raiding it for clothes, cash and a mobile phone. She felt no guilt although she hated any kind of debt. But it was the need to clear a greater debt that played on her conscience, and now made her leave the building. She guessed she could have met him on the ward, but she didn’t want nurses telling her when she was allowed a conversation, and for how long. And she didn’t think they would have been happy to let her out of her bed to make her way along to the patients’ lounge.

  She’d had her fill of official authority over the last few days. She was grateful for it, too, but it would be better when she could leave this chapter of her life behind.

  It was 1 a.m. but she felt like she was finally stepping into the daylight. Her whole body ached and she was forced to walk slowly as she left Addenbrooke’s Hospital main building and crossed to the taxi rank. She wore only the clothes she’d snatched – just jeans and a jumper, with nothing else underneath. The night air tickled her bare skin and made her shiver.

  She sat in the front, next to the driver, and asked him if he minded turning up the heater. The hot air poured out immediately, leaving her feeling no better, so she put it down to exhaustion. Then, a few minutes later, she began to wonder whether it was due to shock or her injuries. Her head began to pound, she touched her scalp and winced as, for the first time, she realized the skin was held by a thick welt of stitches.

  She was still shivering as they turned into Mill Road, and by then she realized that she was scared. She assured herself that she had nothing to fear any more, that she was there with her olive branch, and only paving the w
ay to a better future.

  She wished she could have arranged to meet somewhere else, but where else wasn’t deserted at this time? In any case, the cemetery had never scared her before. Hadn’t it always felt like her home ground?

  She slid her hand into her front pocket to pull out a stolen twenty-pound note. Her fingers found the business card first, then she delved deeper and retrieved the money at the same time.

  The card was a standard size, and blank apart from the mobile number scribbled across it in biro. She couldn’t remember how it came to be on her bedside table or if he’d given it to her, or even if she’d seen him write it, but she’d instantly known that it came from DC Goodhew. She guessed he’d now be asleep, or too far away to come, but, for the first time since leaving Addenbrooke’s, the shivering stopped.

  He answered almost instantly, and she told him where to find her and hung up before he tried to ask her what she was doing there.

  Now she was inside the graveyard, and waiting at the grave of 3192 Shoeing Smith T. Smith of the Suffolk Yeomanry. The grave was white marble and lay just a few feet from the circular footpath at the very centre of the cemetery. On any clear night it glowed like the moon, making it easy to find. She knew, without reading the inscription, that he’d died on 30th November 1914 at the age of 37.

  In the past she had felt sadder for him than for the younger casualties, figuring that he’d been old enough to understand what he had to lose. Now she realized it wasn’t just about age, but how much value you put on your life. The voice in her head that kept her reckless was unexpectedly still.

  She tried to remind herself that there was nothing to fear, and told herself to rehearse what she needed to say. Then, behind her, she heard the heavy tread of a man approaching.

  She felt her legs turn leaden and the shivering return. The last thing she would remember was the night becoming blacker and the warm trickle of blood as it spread across her scalp.

  Goodhew took Marks’ car and sped away, though he doubted he could make it there in under five minutes. He radioed in immediately but the station was close to Mill Road and he doubted there was anyone else who could get there faster.

  He tried the mobile Kimberly had used to ring him, but she still didn’t reply.

  When she’d first rung he’d imagined her still on a ward at Addenbrooke’s, connected up to a gadget or two, and groggy maybe from sedation. He’d listened to a few seconds of her apologizing for bothering him, I know I’m wasting your time and I know I’m safe now, but . . . then she told him where she was going. She had a head injury, it wasn’t even safe for her to be out of bed. He wished he could have shouted at her the moment she said she’d left the hospital; instead she hung up, never giving him enough time to tell her he knew who she was meeting and how much danger she was in.

  He drove up Mill Road and as close as possible to the cemetery entrance, then jumped out of the vehicle and ran in through the gates. He could just pick out the line of the footpath, but stayed on the grass next to it and moved silently towards the centre circle.

  There were trees and shrubs to skirt, and he was edging round what surely must be the last clump when he heard an abrupt movement. He crept to one side of the nearest tree and bent down to get a view beyond its low-hanging branches. No one was visible from that angle, but he could pick out a small rustling sound, so he inched towards it. He was only a couple of yards from the clearing, when it stopped. The stillness triggered him to action: he ducked under the final branches and into the open.

  A fox stared back at him, its muzzle bloodied, a dead rabbit at its feet.

  Goodhew realized then that there was still another clump of trees between him and where he needed to be. And from the other side came a voice, a flash of torchlight, and the first half of a rapidly smothered scream.

  Goodhew ran.

  Kimberly regained consciousness. She wasn’t in the hospital now but somewhere cold and damp. The cemetery. She remembered the blood too and winced as she touched her scalp. A clump of her hair was missing around the stitches and they were coming apart, but that didn’t bother her as much as she thought it might. It would be OK, and it would heal.

  She guessed she’d passed out and wondered whether she’d missed him. She thought he’d wait for her, then she thought DC Goodhew would have come too, but there was now no sign of either of them. The nearest headstone felt solid enough, so she gripped it and pulled herself upright. She picked out the shape of a nearby grave; Father Daniel lay there, buried in 1921. There was an empty space on his headstone as though he hadn’t expected to remain alone. Kimberly knew this grave and that was when she realized she’d wandered away from the centre.

  A moment later she spotted him, standing about thirty feet away. He wore jeans and white trainers, and he stood still for several seconds before he turned through 180 degrees, then did the same in the opposite direction. He called out her name, his voice soft, with no anger in it. Perhaps he already knew the truth, so perhaps there would be no awkward moment before she told him. Simply the embrace of forgiveness.

  ‘Kim,’ he repeated.

  ‘Over here,’ she responded.

  He moved in her general direction. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Here.’ She raised one hand, still gripping the headstone with the other.

  He still hadn’t picked out her exact location, and stopped, his white trainers planted squarely. Suddenly his tone changed. ‘Are you fucking with me, Kimberly?’

  She released her grip and slid down on to the grass. It wasn’t because of the swear word he used, since he swore all the time, like other people would use a noun or a verb. It was the use of her full name that rattled her, something she’d picked up on just weeks after they’d met. He continually used nicknames or abbreviations when he spoke to you and that was fine, but when he was talking to you and started using your full name, it meant you were in the shit.

  Deep fucking shit.

  Dougie Lewton only used full names before sackings or when dishing out beatings. He used them when he was angered beyond reason, and when his mind was set on wiping out anyone who dared oppose him.

  And, of all the graves in the cemetery, she was hiding behind one of the smallest. She kept totally still with her face and hands concealed behind the stone. The rest of her clothes were dark but she knew it was just a matter of time before he found her.

  Think.

  Think.

  Think!

  ‘I never killed Nick,’ she yelled. ‘Craig did it, but I didn’t know until yesterday.’

  A torch flashed close to her, illuminating Father Daniel’s stone first, then swinging towards the one next to hers. The beam seemed to intensify even as it closed in. Then he was on her, and she tried to shout out, but the scream was knocked from her lungs.

  He pinned her down, his sheer bulk preventing even her hands from moving. ‘You thought you’d stabbed him to death, though, didn’t you?’

  She nodded silently.

  ‘And Stefan and Rachel helped you dump his body. Then you didn’t even know whose kid you were pregnant with. And you had Nick’s baby, and kept Riley from us.’ He pushed his face close to hers, his breath hot and damp as he hissed her name. ‘Kimberly, you should have died under that train.’

  He glanced over his shoulder, and she instantly knew what he was planning.

  ‘You’ll get caught,’ she gasped.

  He shook his head and a moment later hauled her to her feet, then almost immediately threw her to the ground at the foot of a tall, weathered headstone. He pressed his foot on to her chest and began to rock the stone. She knew it wouldn’t take long for him to topple it. Fragments of stone started peppering her face, confirming the trajectory the whole monument would follow.

  ‘I will, you see, because I have a fucking alibi,’ he announced, as the tombstone began to visibly sway.

  The next moment was a blur. The dust was stinging her eyes, making her blink. It seemed like a dark shadow had passed over her, springin
g from nowhere and flying in a low arc, finally demolishing the grave and taking Dougie Lewton down too.

  There was a terrible silence, then she wiped her eyes clear. And saw DC Goodhew now quietly cuffing her winded attacker.

  ‘Fucking useless alibi, Douglas,’ she muttered as she watched Goodhew read him his rights.

  The single-engined plane touched down on a private airstrip in Norfolk. It taxied to the end of the runway but waited only ten minutes. The pilot knew by then that the plan to swap places was done for. And, without an alibi to put him in the air over another country, Dougie Lewton was done for too. The pilot knew when it was best to keep a distance, so he took off again and set a course for Europe.

  EPILOGUE

  One Month Later

  The email had started tentatively, and ended with a jokey comment followed by a couple of exclamation marks. But ultimately it was only the sentence in the middle that counted for much.

  I’ve handed in my notice and I wanted you to hear it from me first.

  He had found it in his in-box the morning after Dougie’s arrest, and now, four weeks and two days later, it was time for a final round of after-work drinks.

  Mickey Flynn’s American Pool Hall stood halfway down Mill Road, in a modern, purpose-built club that looked like a sports hall from the outside. Beyond the exertion of a walk to the bar and back, there wasn’t much about the interior that hinted at any connection with physical fitness. Activity was split between a cluster of poker tables and an L-shaped arrangement of pool tables running alongside two adjoining walls.

  Their party of eleven included three detectives and two PCs. It was an unusual place to have leaving drinks and, judging by the looks of recognition that greeted them, a number of the regulars agreed. But, after the first round, they grouped themselves round a couple of the pool tables, and forgot about everyone else.

  Bryn and Goodhew’s grandmother were playing doubles against Mel and Aaron Young, while Goodhew himself pulled up a chair next to Sue Gully. She was wearing a baggy T-shirt over a pair of belted men’s jeans, claiming that any tighter garments were still uncomfortable. Her right arm remained in a plaster cast and sling.