Wood walked quickly to the small staircase, its white oak wooden balustrade offering a view to the lounge below.
The first tie was the same as the new one he proudly wore, the second, dark green with silver wings and a discreet number III under the emblem – a legacy of his short but exciting secondment to 3 Parachute Regiment.
He slowly, deliberately knotted the two lengths of silk together so that they became one, then securely tied one end around the banister and the other around his neck.
He raised a cut-crystal glass of Laphroaig, for a brief moment savouring the burning liquid on his tongue. God, it tasted good. He then said farewell to his home, counted his friends, whispered goodbye to his long-suffering wife, said sorry to no one in particular, climbed inelegantly over the banister and started to sing a song from his past.
It was to the familiar tune Battle Hymn of the Republic, or as it was often mistakenly referred, Glory, Glory, Halleluiah!
He sang it with gusto, just as he had so many times before:
The day’s he lived, loved and laughed, kept running through his mind,
He thought about the girl back home, the one he’d left behind,
He thought about the medics and wondered what they’d find,
And he ain’t gonna jump no more!
With the final word sung, he stepped into the void for the last time.
Chapter 34
O’Shea was keeping pace with Cade as they reached Old Queen Street. In their haste, they had forgotten to buy the coffee that they had promised themselves.
Cade was fuelled with adrenaline anyway, so would hardly sleep, and O’Shea was counting on it.
She stopped in the street which had come to life, suits of all types and sizes were wending their way from home to office and back; industrious, financially motivated ants, grey and blue, some checked, some striped
She pitied them all.
“Jack, all I need to know is…”
He portrayed a hurt look and spoke, “Of course, yes, I will respect you in the morning, Carrie.”
It earned him an overly aggressive punch on the chest.
“Bastard, I meant all I needed to know was that I was adding value, doing my thing, proving my worth…”
“Go on.”
“Look, I can’t think of any more things to add…”
At risk of receiving another punishing blow he added, “Neither can I but I just wanted to see you writhe.”
O’Shea was smirking to herself. Her best relationship interactions often occurred when fuelled with adrenaline, but with Cade she seemed to be able to relax, to live. As much as she wanted their relationship to blossom exponentially, she was also painfully aware that Nikolina still being missing was testing his every waking moment, and many of his sleeping ones too.
She could physically feel the vein of excitement coursing through her, and yet she was a little troubled. She had promised herself many years before that there would be no more heartbreak. Contrary to the urban myth, and unlike some, she hadn’t slept her way around the Metropolitan Police but had taken part in an occasional short-term relationship, and each one had left her somewhat pessimistic that any man would ever tick enough boxes to satisfy her.
Since the escapade with Wood, the only vaguely physical interaction she had enjoyed was with an item she had ordered discreetly online – she referred to it in her own mind as her friend. Could Cade change all that?
It was all too soon, perhaps? It was hardly a rebound her for her as her last encounter had been with Wood, and this new man, whom she initially thought of as arrogant, had captured her heart without apparently trying. She had looked into his eyes just once and had instantaneously felt the butterflies flitting from place to place inside her stomach. Every time she closed her eyes and thought of him, they reappeared and were a physical indicator of the impact he had made on her.
Conversely, she worried, momentarily, that she knew actually knew very little about him though. Did it matter?”
Like a pair of college students, they briefly chased one another around the upmarket properties, rousing interest from a few passers-by and a bike courier who swerved expertly to avoid them.
The rider gave them a look. Cade returned it with an added ‘you haven’t got a clue pal, not a clue.’
The rider received the subliminal message clearly and carried on with his day. Cade’s had come to an end.
Scott slowed the patrol boat, turning it into the tidal flow. He knew all too well the dangers of grounding the vessel or striking something under the surface.
He updated both the police and port control rooms and then started to task his crew.
“Dave, let’s get some eyes out on deck mate. Andy, grab a hook in case we need it. Chris, suit up, I need some capability if we need to get up close and personal.”
They were all the same rank, but everyone on board knew who the Master of the vessel was. Scott’s experience was legendary, way beyond policing circles.
“Easy now, easy. There, about twenty foot off the bank.”
He pointed from the cabin as he held the boat against the outward flow.
“Dave, start grabbing some imagery just in case, I don’t like this.”
His colleague pulled a small waterproof Fuji digital camera from his pocket, turned it on and started taking shots of the general scene.
As they drifted nearer, he could make out the top of a wooden frame. It was certainly man-made. It had rope at the apex, fastened rudimentarily but enough to prevent it from falling apart.
Dave Wilcox called back to his skipper.
“Looks like a wooden frame, it’s stood up in the water, no real issue for us, the top is just under the surface, certainly not going to cause any…” Wilcox raised a hand, stopping himself talking.
“Dave? You alright. What have you seen?”
“Just stand by a minute, Scottie.”
He braced himself against the bow and took a series of pictures on the compact camera.
“Stop! We’ve got something here…I can’t quite make it out, but let’s see if we can recover it anyway…”
He stared into the bottle green river as Scott delicately controlled the Colquhoun in the shallow water. The Thames had a history of being a polluted waterway, but as each year passed it became cleaner, even sustaining new marine life. It had issues with silt, just like any river, and its colour could change in a heartbeat, sometimes due to the available light, sometimes the weather and always due to the presence of a boat.
The silt was churning beneath the rear of the Colquhoun as Scott balanced the need to manoeuvre with the constant tugging of the river. He managed to steer her into a position where he could call to Chris Lyons, an experienced crewman and diver.
“Drop the anchor here, Chris.”
Scott could now move the boat into a position that suited the operation, he was now in control, rather than Old Father Thames.
They were joined by a Port of London boat. A brief exchange between the two resulted in the PLA boat heading slightly upstream, where she would remain, offering a visible presence and in turn making the police operation safer.
The Colquhoun was a stable vessel, ideal for river work; safe, secure and well-equipped.
Constable Dave Wilcox leaned out from the stern, demanding his eyes to focus. He strained to see through the gloomy water. As they got closer to the wooden obstruction, he saw it for the first time.
About a foot below the apex of the frame, a dark mass of reddish-brown hair was drifting back and forth in the water. Wilcox traced a line from the frayed ends back to a face.
He leaned out further, peering through the water until it cleared momentarily, allowing him to look into a pair of lifeless, scared, green, opaline eyes.
He knew instinctively that he was looking at a face. He was adamant it belonged to a female, but who was she?
Whoever she was and however she had ended up here she had died a cruel and terrifying death. Somehow Wilcox knew that her de
mise had occurred on the spot where he now observed her; shackled to a basic wooden frame, naked, alone and with her mouth covered in grey tape, tape that was starting to peel as a result of being submerged.
He hoped she had died quickly.
Her wretched impassive face moved gently and rhythmically with the ebb and flow of the river. Her hair swung back through the water, covering her face and settling on her chest before floating ethereally downstream again.
He could now clearly see her upper torso. Her breasts were moving gently in the water, but Wilcox found himself thinking that what lay before him was the least arousing image of his relatively chaotic career.
“Who are you my girl, who are you?” He almost shed a tear.
The face stared through the dark green water straight at him, causing Wilcox to shudder involuntarily. He had recovered a disproportionate number of bodies from the Thames but she would be different. Unlike the others this one was clearly not the result of misadventure.
Chris Lyons was suiting up when Wilcox yelled back from the stern.
“Body!”
O’Shea had got to the front door of the building first. She ran her plastic card across the reader, waited a second, then opened the immaculate door. Cade looked left and right and entered the doorway, his attempt at appearing un-surreptitious failing entirely.
Neither knew what the time was as they were both now beyond exhaustion. The heavy Georgian door closed behind them, darkening the shared hallway.
Occasionally shy, often compulsive and always in control, O’Shea stepped towards the jaded but somehow vibrant Cade, placed her hand behind his head and drew him towards her. The kiss was electric. He responded instantly; she could feel him.
Without waiting for an invitation, he placed his hands expertly down the back of her trousers finding bare skin, he pulled her towards him.
She remembered where she had left her underwear, used and lying on the lounge floor. In the past she would have cursed, worried – worried that a burglar might see them and think less of her, but in the dusky hallway she cared not one iota.
She mirrored his every move, but as she did so he let out an involuntary gasp; bare, abraded skin.
“God, I’m sorry!”
“It’s fine, really.”
It wasn’t. It hurt like hell, but he wasn’t going to accept that a severely grazed arse would get in the way of what they both wanted.
“We can do this…but what about your neighbours?”
“Jack? Here? Now?”
“Why not? I’m too bloody tired to get up those stairs!”
She bit the bottom of her lip. This wasn’t quite how she envisaged things but she was hardly in the mood to stop.
Before she could allow another thought, her blouse was half unbuttoned, half pulled over her head and now lying on the hallway floor. Cade pulled back slightly, admiring the view.
“This feels vaguely familiar,” he said, nodding.
“And so does this.” O’Shea replied, her hand firmly on Cade’s zip. She was clawing at him now, passion overcoming her fear of being caught. His trousers were undone. She lowered herself onto her knees and skilfully released him from his underwear.
He ran his hands through her hair. It felt sticky, tired, and not unlike his own. Somehow the fact that they were exhausted, both dirty and injured, made the situation seem more animal, more desperate, more exciting.
Her dry lips made contact with him. He watched her run her tongue across them, making the whole image even more stimulating. To hell with being caught. To hell with being professional. To hell with it.
She was carrying out the act with real vigour, enjoying every moment. Cade was leaning back against the solid wooden door now, pushing himself into her, stroking her hair, his thumbs massaging her neck.
He ran his hand down her back, undoing her bra. Although it was poorly lit, he could clearly make out the shape of her breasts. They looked as good as they did the day before. He partly wished he could reach them.
This act was going to end soon, he knew it. He tried to take control. Despite not wanting to, he knew that if she continued that it would bring things to an end, for now. He was human after all, and so very weary.
His breathing started to quicken, hers too. She looked up at him, her green-grey eyes looking directly into his. Another act to bring him ever closer to a climax.
“Jesus Christ! Please stop Carrie.”
She quickened, he let her.
He heard a noise outside the door. Not now. No. Not now.
It was the postman, whistling the same non-descript tune that he did every morning. He rammed the various items of mail into the letterboxes, one by one, until each occupant had received their bills, statements and junk mail.
The irony of the postman doing what he was doing wasn’t lost on Cade, who started to laugh. He loved the notion of his fellow man looking through the letterbox to see the normally prim and proper O’Shea, on her knees, doing what she was doing.
Her eyes widened as she looked at Cade.
Cade was busily biting the left side of his lip. He held his hand up – as if to say stop, but O’Shea continued, shaking her head negatively for effect and making the whole thing even more arousing. The tail wagging the dog and very much in control.
Sensing that her very actions might curtail any subsequent activities, she slowed deliberately, occasionally she would stop and make direct eye contact with him. It was incredible. Penny was good at this but he would dearly love to tell her to her face, one day, that Carrie O’Shea was so much, better.
“Carrie…I…”
He was lost for words, focusing his every attention on her, knowing equally that what he was doing was probably, deep-down in the annals of police regulations, a sackable offence and that made it even more sensual.
He had finally met someone that he felt genuinely connected to – mentally as well as physically. With Penny, it was physical. It was, he thought, what she did best, but ultimately, he liked a woman to have an active mind too.
Petrov kept flashing through his own. Try though he might he couldn’t erase the image of her beautiful face.
O’Shea was equally engaged, aroused more than at any time in her life, and for once almost allowing the man to take charge.
His actions were quickening, and she knew she could hear that he was approaching the end. She had been ready for him for at least ten minutes – in fact, she had been ready since the moment she had first looked at him.
She pulled away.
“Don’t you stop Sergeant Cade…not until I say…”
Cade’s phone began to ring.
“No! Not again, for God’s sake Jack ignore it. Please.”
He obeyed her wishes. Whoever it was could leave a message. He hoped they didn’t expect an answer any time soon.
As O’Shea continued to stimulate Cade to the point of frenzy a familiar voice began to talk on the phone speaker.
“Jack, if you are there, pick up mate, please? I need to talk to you…Jack? OK, I guess you are busy, but we just got busier. I’m on my way down to the river. You need to come right now.”
O’Shea stopped instantly.
Cade looked at his new mistress, placed his hands by his sides, palms upright, and shrugged his shoulders.
“Carrie, I promise this is not the end, I want you with a passion you can perhaps only begin to imagine. God knows why because you are a lousy lover, I mean, how many times have we started this now? In twenty-four hours?”
Another punch, but this time followed by a kiss. She tasted of very sensual pastimes, of wickedness and abandoned lovemaking. Her tongue darted among his mouth, seeking out new places. Awaiting the signs of arousal, she paused a second or two, then gently licked his lips whilst playfully unbuttoning his shirt.
“Go on, ring him,” she said pulling away once more, “I don’t fancy you anyway, Cade.”
She was walking up the stairs to her flat, dressing slowly, provocatively, hoping that Cade
would follow.
He was dressed, dishevelled, but dressed, and his phone was already dialling.
“Roberts.”
“Jason, Jack. What’s so important, did we not have a long enough night?”
“Marine Unit have found her, Jack. I’m sorry. Stand by I’ll send you the grid ref, but it’s fair to say you won’t miss us. O’Shea should know where to come. Meet me there and we’ll re-group.”
Cade’s phone buzzed in his pocket.
512907.9N 00839.8W
O’Shea was outside the front of the flat, flagging down a passing taxi.
“I need you to get us onto Grosvenor Road mate, quick as you can please, opposite the power station.”
The driver acknowledged a weary-looking Cade, who was climbing into the back of the iconic London cab whilst reading his cell phone. Cade nodded back.
The driver responded. “There ain’t much opposite the power station love. You sure that’s where you want to go? Nothing ever ‘appens there?”
O’Shea gave a pained smile. “It does today.”
The driver let out a whistle as they approached the scene. It had only taken him nine minutes to travel the 1.8 miles, and now he saw why the woman seemed to be in a hurry.
“You should have said my love, I would have driven faster. Which paper do you work for? Looks like a juicy story. What ‘appened then? Someone die?”
She fished around in her pocket and produced her ID card.
“I’d rather admit to being a cop than to working for a tabloid. How much do I owe you?”
Her terse reply had driven home the message.
“Sorry, my darlin’. I meant no offence. If someone ‘as died then I apologise. Me brother-in-law is a copper at ‘ammersmith. Do you know him? Robbie Greensmith? No? Fair enough. Have this one on me. I was going this way, anyway.”
O’Shea was already walking towards the scene.
A Mobile Incident Unit vehicle had been parked on Grosvenor, directly opposite the disused station that had become more famous since it had been shut down than during its fifty years of generating electricity. Although long-since closed the four unique chimneys stood guard over the river, watching and waiting for the future when people might one day see the site’s regeneration – it was once the largest brick-built building in Europe – and would one day transform and become home to a future, brighter business community.
Seventh (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 1) Page 49
