Chloe- Never Forget

by Dan Laughey

  Sant went on: ‘You were the intended target, but luckily you bear a striking resemblance to your young-at-heart mother which explains the mix up made by the killer. So there she is, lying dead on a bed, and you realise it’s a case of mistaken identity, but you’re too scared to call the police. Instead, you confront Jake and threaten him into silence. If he cries wolf, you’ll blame him for a murder he didn’t commit.’

  There was a poise to the girl as she latched onto every word.

  ‘Next, you and Oliver devise a plan. For one reason or another, you don’t want your mother to be found. After all, she was hardly the maternal role model, was she? But you’ve another motive for keeping things under wraps. As well as being scared of your would-be killer, you’re curious. So you go into hiding partly to escape death and partly to play the detective, with a little help from Oliver and friends including someone who’s now a friend of mine: Mia.’

  Those dark eyes stared into his. He knew he was right.

  ‘So you and Oliver conceal your mother in bin liners and transport her the short distance from Moorland Avenue to Oliver’s place on Brudenell Mount, leaving her in a dark corner of a cellar where she won’t be found anytime soon. Conveniently, your mum’s flight to Amsterdam on the first leg of her round-the-world tour is due to depart imminently. That means no-one will miss her if it’s assumed she’s abroad. Therefore, you’re safe in the knowledge her death will go unnoticed. But to make it appear she has flown away to distant shores, it is necessary for you to fly away in her place, so you splash on make-up, dress in her clothes, take her pre-packed luggage and use her passport to board her flight to Amsterdam. Then you buy a ticket for the next flight home using your own money and passport, leaving your mother’s baggage behind. Still right?’

  No answer, but Sant knew what he was saying was helping her make sense of events she’d set in motion by boarding that flight incognito.

  ‘Once you’ve taken care of your mother’s whereabouts, so to speak, you spend the rest of the summer getting your friends in on the private-detective act. At the same time you woo Sergeant Dryden with sexual favours in return for insider knowledge, eventually arranging a meeting between him and Sheila at Kirkstall Abbey on that fateful night. By mid September you’ve disappeared altogether. And you end up here, in this fine but rather expensive hotel, in this room booked under a friend who also happens to share your dislike for fascist, racist scum.’ Sant paused before saying: ‘Like Dr Tony Gordon.’

  ‘That man is pure evil.’ She said it more clearly than anything she’d said yet.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell someone and seek protection? As well as the police, you could’ve appealed to social services. Yes, you did the wrong thing covering up your mother’s murder, and maybe you were worried about fessing up, but for your own safety, why didn’t you blow the whistle and let us know?’

  ‘I… someone was following me.’

  ‘Dryden?’

  ‘Well, him too – though for a different reason. Liam was a good guy, even if he did become… obsessed with me.’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘I – I can’t say.’

  ‘I don’t want to pressure you, Chloe, but the sooner you tell us the truth, the better for you and everyone else.’

  ‘I… need time.’

  Sant didn’t have time. He needed answers now.

  ‘Did Tony Gordon kill your mother?’

  She stared out of the window and down to City Square – now deserted with the exception of a lorry and a very large tree, soon be stood upright and bedecked with lights. A bad recorder player rounded the corner, blasting out his pathetic jingles.

  After a long silence she stared back at the two detectives.

  ‘I think so,’ she said softly.

  ‘And did he kill Liam Dryden, Kate Andrews, Callum Willis and the others on that bus?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It’s possible.’

  ‘And Sheila Morrison?’

  She nodded decisively this time. ‘Poor dear Sheila.’

  ‘And he tried to kill you, too, because you knew too much. What you knew about the past threatened to destroy the fascist fraternity Tony Gordon adored.’

  ‘I told him too much.’

  ‘He wants that video, doesn’t he?’

  ‘At any price,’ she said with feeling.

  Sant took a sip of cold coffee and left it at that. He waited for the distraught girl to make eye contact before continuing.

  ‘Your friend Sheila’s sad demise was set in train on Halloween, Chloe, and I don’t mean Halloween 1984; I mean this Halloween. Someone followed her home after her liaison with Sergeant Dryden. A few days later Sheila – now calling herself Marie Jagger – was kidnapped and tortured. Her abductors, it seems, tried to force information out of her; information about your whereabouts and the whereabouts of this elusive video.’

  Chloe drew in breath. ‘I’m… so sorry for her – for them all. If I’d had the courage to deliver the video to Liam myself instead of using Sheila, things would’ve turned out differently. But I wanted her to be involved. Sheila was the one who’d done all the legwork back in the eighties. It was her case really; her investigation, not mine. And besides, Liam wanted to see her in order to verify what I was telling him. Sadly, I made a big mistake. I forgot to tell her, and him, that I’d removed the tape from the loft of her old house. Sheila must’ve assumed it was still there and told Liam the same.’

  Sant nodded. ‘We found a Post-It note in the grounds of Kirkstall Abbey. Her former Dufton Approach address was written on it. Dryden must’ve dropped it after she’d handed it to him.’

  ‘I knew it,’ she sighed, clasping her hand over her mouth.

  ‘Where’s the video now?’

  ‘I – I told you. I’m not sure.’

  He still didn’t believe her, nor did he feel like pressing her further.

  ‘She was a brave woman, Chloe. You chose a loyal informer. She took one hell of a battering, but I doubt she gave an inch to her aggressors. Whatever their demands, she refused to meet them. Eventually they gave up demanding – and did away with her.’

  The floodgates re-opened again to the full force of grief. Sant knew when enough was enough. He signalled to Capstick and they left the girl they’d found to mourn bereavements she’d unwittingly engineered.

  Capstick sat on the floor, his back leaning against the wall at one end of the corridor, his gaze glued on a point about twenty yards away. He was following orders: watching Chloe’s room at all times; making sure she didn’t go anywhere until support arrived; and keeping a look-out for Oliver Mosley and video cassettes exchanging hands.

  After calling Holdsworth and instructing her to take over the surveillance of Mosley’s Granby Terrace home, Sant had gone off to put in an urgent request with Gilligan for a firearms unit to search out Tony Gordon.

  Which left Capstick playing the part of nanny for a screwed-up girl. Not exactly a glamorous detective’s lot, he brooded. One of the maids had brought him coffee and a Danish pastry, lightening his mood considerably, but once the sugar rush had died down he was back to feeling sorry for himself. Why did his boss give him such menial tasks anyway?

  Maybe he wasn’t the brightest button in the box, but he had time on his side and wanted to learn new skills, embrace new experiences, and develop what his chief officers fancifully termed a portfolio of personal attributes. Sitting around in hotel corridors was doing nothing for those career aspirations.

  Try though he might to curse the man, Capstick couldn’t shrug off the awe he felt for his partner. Mentor would be a more fitting description. He’d learnt a lot from Sant. Thanks to him, he was gaining new insights each day not just on CID work and the job of catching criminals, but on life and its minutiae. No university degree or online course could teach him that – but DI Sant could. He was like the father Capstick had never had.

  Midnight came and went, and by three o’clock the detective constable was wilting. Another coffee and pastry woul
d do nicely, but the maids were busy preparing for the morning’s breakfast. He could have murdered a full English, but he dared not deviate from his night-watchman role. That would be remiss of him.

  By four Capstick stirred from half-slumber. What was that noise? He listened. There it was again. The twisting of a knob and the squeaking of hinges. And room 856 was its source. He rose to his feet, rubbed his tired eyes, found himself staring at the sight of Miss Lee leaning out of her door. A pink silk gown was straddled far enough up her right leg to reveal most of her upper thigh. He stood and waited. What was she doing? Surely she wasn’t going anywhere in a night gown.

  She curved her head in both directions, settling her black eyes on him. She held the stare for what seemed an eternity, then beckoned him over with an insistent finger. He hesitated, hypnotised, before slowly sauntering towards her. By the time he’d reached the door, left agape, she was nowhere to be seen. Unsure what this meant, he knocked.

  ‘Hello, do you want me?’ he called.

  No answer.

  He took a few tentative steps into the lavish décor. The lights were out except for the two bedside lamps. One of the windows was half-open, the curtains rippling in the ensuing draught.

  ‘Hello – Miss Lee?’

  ‘Can you help me?’

  She’d asked him a question. He still couldn’t see her or where her voice had come from. Perhaps she was a ventriloquist.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In the bathroom.’

  I don’t like the feeling of this, he said to himself, adrenalin rushing to his head. He gently pushed open the bathroom door and peered inside, a gust of steamy aroma filtering through his nostrils and clouding his NHS specs. He rubbed the lenses dry with his shirt sleeve and replaced them. The steam had now lifted and there she was, her naked back facing him, her oval face symmetrical in the oval frame of the wall mirror. Her arms at full span, she was holding out a long white silk shawl. She held his astonished look in the mirror and then said coyly:

  ‘Can you help me with this?’

  ‘Umm – what?’ Capstick blurted, his legs wobbling.

  She twisted her slender neck to face him and smiled.

  ‘My blindfold, silly. I want you to tie it for me.’

  He dropped his jaw to the floor.

  ‘Now look here, Miss Lee,’ he protested. ‘This is no time for games. I’m here to supervise your well-being and I draw the line there, if you don’t mind my saying.’

  ‘But I do mind your saying, DC Capstick, and if you’re going to be difficult, I will scream very loudly and wake up half the hotel. You see, by rights you shouldn’t be feasting your eyes on my bare flesh. It was your misjudgement to heed my call, and now you’ve gone and misjudged, so you’d better do what I say.’

  He shrugged. She was cleverer than he was – that much was certain. He’d been snared in her web and had to obey. He swallowed hard, unsure whether to curse his misfortune or revel in it.

  ‘Are you going to offer a hand or twiddle your thumbs?’

  Jesus, she spoke like Julie Christie, no grain of northernness in her. What more could he ask for? He moved towards her, sucking in the jasmine air, almost slipping on the tiled floor. He steadied himself and with her back still to him, he took the white shawl she was holding out in front of her and carefully knotted the ends at the back of her head, trying not to pull her long dark hair. She adjusted the front of the shawl over her eyes and turned to him.

  ‘Thank you, sir. Now guide me to bed.’

  Capstick stood frozen. What was she playing at? Calling him sir? He wasn’t her teacher, for crying out loud.

  A grin formed around her lipsticked mouth. ‘Is it your first time, sir?’

  He didn’t answer; couldn’t answer.

  She placed a manicured nail to his lips. ‘That’s just fine by me, sir. I want you to teach me everything you know. Now clasp my shoulders and show me the way.’

  He did as he was told, trying to stifle an erection harder than any he’d experienced before. Jesus, it was so hard it was painful. He led her in robotic fashion to the side of the four-poster, his legs less certain than hers. Then he applied as little force as possible to indicate she could lie down.

  She did as he commanded (or pretended to) and curved her calves inwards to accentuate their beauty. Then she reached out an arm and whispered: ‘Come to me, sir. I’ve been waiting so long.’

  Capstick was sweating – profusely. It was like a fever, but no bad fever at all; like an unbearable temperature that was, at the same time, life-giving. He could bear it no longer. The only way to rid himself of the heat flowing inside his loins was to let nature take its course, let the animal within out.

  He ripped off his shirt, pulled down his trousers and flung his weight on top of her. She gasped in surprise but showed no resistance, instead pulling him towards her and letting his hairy chest caress her breasts.

  When it was over, half a minute later, Capstick was reminded of the time, as a student, he’d rushed to catch a train and had missed it by seconds. The fact he’d missed the train was nothing remarkable, but the blissful sensation of the subsequent ejaculation left him confused, electrified. That mundane yet vibrant encounter with his own potency, he realised in hindsight, had taught him the meaning of life in its purest strain.

  But this was his first experience of sex with a woman, and nothing quite like the blood-warm surge that rolled over his soul in those precious moments would ebb and flow through him again.

  The next thing he knew, Julie Christie was offering him a drink, placing it to his lips as she straddled him, smiling down at his naked self. It looked like champagne. He tried it. It tasted like champagne, with a little extra kick. Could things get any better? He sipped the fizz and smiled back at the perfumed beauty on top of him.

  Suddenly a new sensation flowed through him, literally draining every drop of energy in his muscles and bones, and now he was panting not in orgasmic bliss but fatigued panic. He fought to keep his eyes open, to keep in view all the carnal delights of his immediate other, but the battle was done. He was dead to the world.

  As Capstick snored and grinned and snored and grinned, dreaming deeper than he’d ever dreamt, the screwed-up girl who’d played him for a masochist, then seduced him with the flick of her wrist, was busy preparing her getaway. She flung on jeans, an overcoat and a curly blonde wig that made her look twenty years older, before scurrying down eight flights of stairs in case anyone was manning the lifts. Once she’d reached the ground floor, she took a deep breath and sprinted out of the hotel foyer without daring to glance back.

  Chloe was in luck. A solitary taxi purred like a kitten fifty yards away, waiting to whisk her away from the scrutiny of people she didn’t trust… not yet. She knew what she needed before she could engage in further dialogue with Detective Inspector Sant. Evidence

  She gave directions to the drowsy taxi driver and paid the fare in advance. Then she called Oliver, praying his phone hadn’t been tapped. She told him where to meet her and what to bring. That was all. Then she sat back and rehearsed in her mind what she would do next. All this time she was completely oblivious to an unwelcome truth: her taxi was being tailed.

  An hour later, back at the hotel, Capstick opened his eyes, yawned in satisfaction, lifted his heavy head from the duck-down pillow, directed a smile at the dream babe by his side. Instead, he got a full frontal view of two stubble-faced uniforms chomping Belgian chocolates in their toothless gobs while pointing out his bare nature. He’d been stood up – and down below was as flaccid as a prune.

  ‘SHIT!’ he yelled, visions of a Julie Christie blow job and breakfast in bed banished from his dozy head forever.

  After getting clearance from Hardaker – standing in for Gilligan – to organise a firearms unit in pursuit of Tony Gordon, Sant had one person on his mind above all others: Mia. Until he saw her or someone who could tell him how she was coping with the after-effects of her abduction, nothing else would come int
o focus.

  He asked for her at the HQ enquiry desk and was told that she was currently under the care of the victim-support department. The civvy manning the desk had a message too. Mia wanted to talk to him urgently. He supposed that was a good sign; a sign she was coming to terms with what she’d been through.

  He found her under the supervision of a professional specialising in psychological trauma. To his surprise, she was laughing and joking and dunking biscuits into steaming hot tea. When she saw him she stopped laughing, ran to embrace him, kissed him gently on the lips, and took him to one side.

  ‘Carl, please don’t hold this against me – ’

  ‘It’s fine. I know about you’re involvement with Chloe. You wanted to help her. I don’t blame you.’

  Mia looked deep into his tired eyes. Sant knew the look. It spelt trouble. ‘I’ve just had a call from PC Tanner’s wife.’

  Sant stared at the mug in her hand. It was lucky she was holding it and not him, otherwise it would have been on the floor in pieces by now.

  ‘But… how – ?’

  ‘I can’t explain now. All you need to know is that Chloe asked me to try various techniques to improve Frank Tanner’s memory.’

  ‘But how did you trace him?’

  She put a finger to his lip. ‘I’ll explain later. Needless to say it was Chloe who had all the answers. She’s the mover and shaker behind the scenes. You’ve gathered that by now.’ He nodded. ‘Anyway, we visited PC Tanner a couple of times, but try as we might we didn’t get anywhere. At least, that’s what we both thought.’

  ‘Go on,’ urged Sant.

  Mia drew breath. ‘It seems he’s remembered something all of a sudden. He’s behaving out of the ordinary. Mrs Fleming – that’s his wife; his name’s Nigel Fleming these days – well, Mrs Fleming has just called to tell me she’s worried. Her husband got out of bed at three am and left home wearing nothing more than his nightclothes and uttering something about taking matters into his own hands.’

  ‘Is he suicidal?’