The Dark Winter dam-1

by David Mark

  ‘It’s locked,’ she says breathlessly, over the sound of the wind. She locates the letterbox and pushes her fingers in, pressing her face to the gap through which a sliver of yellow light emerges. ‘Police,’ she yells. ‘Police.’

  She looks through the letterbox again. Presses her ear to it.

  ‘Anything?’ asks McAvoy.

  Tremberg screws up her face as she turns to him. ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’ Distractedly, she waves her hand at the wind, as if motioning for it to be quiet. ‘I can’t hear. You try.’

  She moves aside and McAvoy presses his ear to the gap. Angles his head and shouts ‘Angela Martindale! Are you in there? Police. Open up.’

  There is no mistaking the sound. It is human. Afraid. A guttural, animal roar of timeless, faceless terror.

  Tremberg has heard it too, but her attention is distracted by sounds from down the road. The smokers from the Bear are pouring out into the street, drawn to drama like flies to shit.

  She looks back at McAvoy, about to tell him to break the door in, but he is already running at the entrance.

  The door comes off its hinges, smashing backwards as if ram-raided, and McAvoy spills into the foyer of the bar. There is a pain in his shoulder and he tastes blood where his teeth collided too hard on impact, but he pushes such sensations from his mind, shaking his head to clear his thoughts.

  He drags himself upright, pushing down on the broken door, feeling a long, jagged splinter slide under his skin.

  ‘Sarge!’

  Tremberg takes his arm and hauls him upright. They stand on the muddy wooden floor, blinking in the light. The bar is empty. Some abandoned shopping bags stand by a bar stool. There are dirty glasses on the bar top.

  ‘Hello.’

  The word sounds comical in the abandoned space.

  Then the scream comes again.

  McAvoy whirls round, searching the near wall for a doorway. Finds none. Begins running for the far end of the bar. He puts a hand out and grabs the brass rail that runs along the varnished wooden top. Without thinking, he picks up a dirty glass. Almost stops as he sees the body behind the bar.

  ‘Helen,’ he yells, spotting the entrance to the toilets. ‘Behind the bar!’

  Without drawing breath he bursts through the swing door and clatters into a plaster wall. To his right are the entrances to the ladies’ and gents’ facilities. With the glass in his right hand, he kicks out at the door to the ladies and throws himself inside.

  The room is bathed in blue neon, emanating from a single strip light in the ceiling. There is a broken mirror on the far wall and two cubicles, both with half open doors.

  Angie Martindale is wriggling on her back on the floor. Her skirt has been pushed up to her waist. Her leggings rolled down to her ankles. In the unnatural light, the mess of blood around her pubic region looks tar-black and already clotted. Her hands cover her face, and gasping sobs escape between her fingers.

  McAvoy stands immobile. The scene feels unreal, somehow. As though it is happening to somebody else. He feels suddenly cold and clammy, as if he has woken from a nightmarish sleep to find himself bathed in sweat.

  ‘In … in there …’

  Angie Martindale is raising a blood-soaked finger, ghoulish and spectral, pointing at the door to the nearest cubicle.

  Instinctively, McAvoy bends to lean forward, to put his ear closer to her mouth, to hear her words and make sense of them.

  A figure leaps over the cubicle door, black-clad and balaclava’d, body ducked low, leg protruding, like a steeplechaser clearing a hurdle. McAvoy looks up. Feels his world slow down, minimise and become this moment. This now. This boot, with its caterpillar tread, crashing towards his face.

  At the last possible moment he jerks his head back. The boot whistles past his jaw, but the figure that comes behind the kick is too bulky to avoid and McAvoy feels all the air leave his body as the man crashes into his chest and slams him back into the wall.

  The impact with the brick is sickening and for a moment McAvoy feels himself beginning to slip and sink into a black treacle of unconsciousness. The glass falls from his hand. Smashes on the tiles. His head is ringing. He can smell blood. Exploding lights dance on his vision.

  And then he realises there is a figure in his arms. That in his arms a black-clad man is struggling and kicking, ramming elbows in his ribs and aiming kicks at his shins, trying to extricate himself from a bear hug McAvoy did not know he had applied.

  The moment of realisation, the returning to his skin, causes him briefly to relax his grip, and in an instant he feels a strong forearm against his jaw, pushing head back against the wall as a fist slams into his ribs.

  McAvoy drops his hands, pain shooting up his spine to explode in a concussive headache, and he barely gets his hands up in time to stop the next right hand that impacts with his cheekbone and forces him back against the wall.

  There is no room to fight. He cannot draw his hands back to swing a punch. Cannot step forward for fear of treading on Angie Martindale.

  He takes another punch to the chest.

  Lashes out with a boot. Misses. Lashes out a right hand and slaps the place where his attacker’s head had been a moment before.

  Christ! he thinks, though the pain and the fog. This guy can fight.

  He’s angry, suddenly. Fucking furious. Feels himself galvanised by a rage terrible and raw.

  He puts one of his boots against the wall to his rear and pushes himself forward, managing to grab his attacker’s flailing arms. He propels them both across the tiled floor, slick with blood, cluttered with entangled limbs, and feels a satisfying thud as the man’s spine slams back into the cubicle door. McAvoy grunts and slams him again into the hard wood. Feels his opponent weaken. Takes the man’s head in his hands. Feels the wool of the balaclava. Slams his head into the door. Takes him by the throat in his left hand and slams a right into his guts. Feels him double over. Brings back his right hand to drop a haymaker from on high.

  The door bursts open.

  Helen Tremberg stands in the doorway. Her extendable baton is clutched in her left hand. She is holding her right up as if she is directing traffic.

  She opens her mouth to speak. To tell the black-clad man that this over? To tell Angie Martindale that she will live? The words never make it to the air.

  In one fluid motion, the man in black produces a blade. Whether it be from a pocket or a sleeve, McAvoy cannot later say, but one moment the man is doubled over, falling to the ground, fingers in fists, and the next he is swinging a blooddrenched blade in a great sweeping backhand arc that slices across Helen Tremberg’s arm.

  McAvoy’s shout of anguish comes before Tremberg’s scream, but in an instant the tiny space is ringing with roars of pain and despair.

  The man in black lunges forward and grabs Tremberg by the neck. Spins and hurls her into McAvoy’s path as he slithers and tries to find purchase on the slick floor. She hits him hard in the middle and both officers fall, landing heavily on Angie Martindale’s legs.

  By the time McAvoy has yanked himself back to his feet, the door is swinging closed. He staggers forward and yanks it open, running into the bar, only for a forest of arms and legs to grab him at knee, waist and shoulder height. He clatters down hard on the wooden floor and spins onto his back, lashing out with angry kicks and bitter yells at the men standing above him, trying to pin him back to the floor.

  He tries to find his feet but an arm fastens around his throat and he pushes himself backwards against the brass rail, feeling the man on his back gasp as the air shoots from his lungs.

  ‘Police …’ gasps McAvoy. ‘I’m police.’

  The pressure on his neck eases in a second. McAvoy looks at the people around him. Half a dozen assorted drinkers. The regulars from the Bear. Two short, fat men, a middle-aged guy in shorts, a petite woman with too many earrings, an old man with greying Elvis hair and a tall, skeletally thin man in a white shirt who looks to be missing an arm.

  ‘We thought
…,’ says one.

  McAvoy pushes past them. Clambers over the wreckage of the broken front door and emerges, gasping, in the street.

  Frantically, he looks both ways. Left. Right. Back into the belly of the bar.

  Then up to the sky, as he realises he’s gone. That he had him in his hands, and let him go.

  He opens his eyes wide and stares deep into the snow-filled swirling black clouds, and screams the only word that does the situation justice.

  ‘FUCK!’

  CHAPTER 17

  ‘Don’t say a word,’ says Pharaoh. ‘Don’t fucking breathe.’

  She walks behind the bar and reaches up to the top shelf for a half-pint glass. She holds the glass under the optic and pours herself a double vodka, which she downs in one.

  The investigation team is assembled in the front bar of Wilson’s. Colin Ray is lounging in a hardbacked chair, his tie unfastened almost to his navel. He’s chewing nicotine gum and looking pleased with himself. Sharon Archer, as ever, is at his side. She’s got a packet of crisps open on the table in front of her, and is eating them as quietly as she can.

  Sophie Kirkland and Ben Nielsen are standing at the bar, watching Pharaoh. They arrived together a few minutes ago, grumbling about the parking and shaking snow from their hair onto a floor thick with muddy bootprints.

  McAvoy is resting against the fruit machine by the side entrance. Through the frosted glass he can see the fluorescent yellow jacket of the officer guarding the entrance. Two other constables are stationed at the front doors. The road has been cordoned off, but the crowd outside is still close enough to be a cause for concern. Some of the faces in the crowd had been snarling the last time McAvoy had poked his head out of the front door. He wonders whether it’s even worth trying to tell them that he feels worse about Angie Martindale than they do. And he’s the one who saved her life.

  Pharaoh stands behind the bar. She closes her eyes. Breathes in and out for a full thirty seconds. Slowly, without saying a word, she pulls a thin cigar from a pocket of her coat, lights it, and draws the smoke deep into her lungs. She exhales precious little of it.

  ‘She’s not dead,’ says Pharaoh eventually. ‘This is a good thing.’

  She stops. Takes another drag of the cigar.

  ‘Helen Tremberg will be OK too. That’s another good thing.’

  Another drag. Another puff of smoke.

  ‘What’s not a good thing is the fact that the first I knew about all this was when I got a call from ACC Everett asking me for an update. Apparently he’d been at a funeral with the Grimsby Central superintendent when the super’s desk sergeant rang for advice on whether or not to assist the Serious and Organised Crime Unit with their murder investigation, and kick in the door of a city-centre flat. Asks me how Angela Martindale fits into the Daphne Cotton investigation. Or the Trevor Jefferson case, for that matter. You remember those investigations, yes? So the ACC asks me for chapter and verse. Puts his finger in his ear and waits for enlightenment. I was a little less than impressed to get that call. Even less so when I found myself about to tell him that I’d never heard of her. That I don’t know why on earth two of my officers are insisting that a poor uniformed constable kick her door in and make sure she’s not dead.’

  McAvoy raises his head. Opens his mouth. Closes it again.

  ‘And now I find myself in Grimsby,’ she says. ‘I have an officer bleeding. I have another holding a piece of balaclava. I have a woman on her arse in a pub toilet with cuts to her foo-foo. And I have quite a lot of questions. Do you think perhaps now might be a good time for somebody to give me one or two answers?’

  There is silence in the room. Colin Ray shrugs, but takes the time to turn his head and give McAvoy a wink that is in no way a gesture of comradeship. Shaz Archer follows his lead, and with a less interrogatory glare, Ben Nielsen and Sophie Kirkland also swivel. All eyes are on him.

  ‘Looks like you’ve been nominated, my boy,’ says Pharaoh, and there is no friendliness in her voice.

  McAvoy looks up. His ribs throb like a migraine and his back teeth feel loose in his gums. He feels sick at the thought of explaining himself, and ill to his bones at having had a murderer in his hands and letting him slip away.

  ‘There’s a link,’ he says, and his voice sounds like a schoolboy’s. He closes his eyes again. Tells himself to just get it over with. To lay it out and hope it makes sense the way it had seemed to a few minutes before, when his fingers closed around the strong, wiry arms of the man kneeling above Angela Martindale, and he realised he had been right. Right to follow his nose, and right to smash the door in. Just wrong not to tell his boss along the way. He wonders what it says about him. Wonders if it is his own arrogance that prevents him from even considering sharing this with his superior officer. In the heat of the moment, in the rush of adrenalin, in the white-hot moment of certainty that he was about to confront a killer, it had all been forgotten.

  He looks away from them all. Imagines he’s talking to himself. Laying the information out on a white page.

  ‘On the day of Daphne Cotton’s murder, ACC Everett asked me to visit a Barbara Stein-Collinson to break the news that her brother had been found dead at sea. His name was Fred Stein. He was the sole survivor of one of the trawler tragedies off Iceland in 1968. He’d escaped in a lifeboat with two crewmates. They died. He didn’t. A week ago, he set off with a documentary crew to tell his story and to put a memorial wreath over the spot where his ship went down. While on board, he disappeared. Got upset during an interview, went outside for some air and vanished. A few days later he was found dead in a lifeboat. Not one of the ship’s lifeboats but one that had been brought on board specially. So, an elaborate suicide? Feeling guilty for being the one that got away? Possibly. But it felt wrong. Long story short, I got in touch with a writer called Russ Chandler. He’s a resident at Linwood Manor …’

  ‘The nut-house?’ Sharon Archer is incredulous, as if he’s just told her his informant is a nonce.

  ‘He’s drying out. Got a drink problem. Anyway, he telephoned me today and wanted to know when we were picking him up. Started talking about Trevor Jefferson’s phone records …’

  Several of the officers begin to hold up their hands and shoot each other confused glances. ‘Trevor Jefferson? The hospital guy?’

  ‘Yes. It transpires that as well as being the man to broker the Fred Stein deal for the TV company, Chandler had also approached Trevor Jefferson some time ago with a view to writing a book about solitary survivors. People who had been the only ones to survive.’

  McAvoy’s eyes find Trish Pharaoh. Her arms are crossed and she’s biting at her lower lip, but she’s listening, and the subtle nod of her head suggests she understands what he is going to say.

  ‘Jefferson survived a fire that killed his wife and kids,’ says McAvoy, trying to find a face he feels comfortable talking to. ‘Wasn’t a scratch on him.’

  He stops again, waiting for somebody to ask a question.

  ‘And how does this lead to Angela Martindale?’ asks Kirkland quietly. She looks genuinely confused and her eyes are still red from the shock of seeing Tremberg sitting in the back of the ambulance, having her slashed arm wrapped in gauze.

  ‘Angela Martindale was another person Chandler had been in contact with. She was the only surviving victim of a man the press called the Bar-Room Butcher. He raped several women in pub toilets. Carved his initials on their private parts. Stabbed them to death. Angela Martindale survived her injuries. Testified. She was the one who got away.’

  McAvoy catches Pharaoh’s eye. She nods again, telling him it’s OK to proceed.

  ‘Daphne Cotton was the victim of a machete attack as a baby,’ he says meaningfully. ‘Everybody she loved was cut up by militants. Hacked to bits. In a church. She survived. She was the only one who did.’

  After a moment, Colin Ray readjusts his pose. He slides himself into a more upright position. He appears to be listening.

  ‘Vigilante?’
>
  McAvoy shakes his head.

  ‘It doesn’t fit,’ he says. ‘Sure, with Jefferson I can understand it. Especially if he’s the one who set the blaze. But Stein? Daphne Cotton? Angela Martindale? What have they ever done to anybody?’

  McAvoy is interrupted by the sound of the toilet door swinging open. A forensics officer in a white suit and blue face mask enters the bar, a tray of evidence bags in his hands. He looks at the assembled officers and realises he’s walked in at a bad time. He puts the tray down on the nearest table. Looks at Pharaoh and mumbles ‘same footprint’ through his mask before ducking out the side door. An icy gust of wind and a smattering of street noise enters the room to fill the void left by his departure.

  ‘Footprint?’ asks McAvoy, gazing at Pharaoh.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sergeant,’ she says, voice dripping with sarcasm. ‘I know I didn’t share that piece of information with you. I hope you can forgive me. It wasn’t deliberate. It’s just that as senior investigating officer, I rather thought me knowing was sufficient. Frustrating, isn’t it?’

  ‘So it is the same guy, yes? The one who did Daphne?’

  Pharaoh nods. ‘It looks that way.’

  Nielsen turns to McAvoy. ‘You’ve seen him twice.’

  ‘Yes,’ he says, trying to show that he already feels sufficiently bad about it to be spared any abuse, however richly deserved.

  ‘Was it the same guy? I mean, did he have the same build? Same physique?’ Nielsen smiles charmingly. ‘Same teary blue eyes?’

  McAvoy finds himself absurdly pleased that Nielsen remembers his description off by heart. It makes him feel better to know that somebody has been paying attention.

  ‘There’s no doubt. I only got a glimpse of his eyes but they were the same. Blue. Red-seamed. Wet, like he’d been crying.’

  ‘And the victim said the same?’

  ‘Yes,’ replies McAvoy. ‘It was hard to get much sense out of her, but she was clear. He’d been crying. Sat above her for an age with his pants down and his knife drawn and did nothing but sob.’