Death on the Levels
Page 23
Iris swayed a little, but retained her composure, meeting his gaze without flinching, and George grinned again.
‘Sure, you are. The thing is, I felt that for such an evil cow like you, your head would be right at home on a spike among the gargoyles. After I’ve removed it, of course – with this.’
The large, slightly curved knife seemed to appear in the psychopath’s hand as if by magic and Iris closed her eyes tightly for a second, her hands clenching and unclenching by her sides.
‘God forgive you!’
‘Somehow, I don’t think He will, but c’est la vie – or la mort, if you prefer. Now out you go, on to the roof. It’s only a low sill, so you should have no trouble climbing over it.’
Iris stayed exactly where she was, a new look of defiance on her face.
George sighed. ‘Surely you don’t want to spoil it all, Auntie? You see, it would be a lot easier for both of us if I did what I have to do out there, close to your final resting place. Carrying a decapitated head through the window would be rather messy, don’t you think? It would spoil the overall effect.’
Iris still refused to budge and George sighed again. ‘Looks like I shall have to help you then,’ she said, returning the knife to her pocket. ‘After all, that’s what good nieces do for their aunties, isn’t it?’
Iris tried to stand her ground, but fit as she was for her age, she was no match for the powerful killer and swinging the old woman round to face the window, George propelled her towards it with hardly any effort.
Left with no option but to do as she was told, Iris lifted one foot over the sill, crouching down to enable her to get her head under the top frame, and it was as she did so that she saw the shards of glass lying on the flat roof on the other side. At this point, George’s view was temporarily blocked by the old woman’s body and she failed to see the gnarled hand reaching down to pick up one of the shards as the other leg was lifted over the sill.
The first George knew about it was when she herself ducked her head to climb through the frame and the jagged piece of glass ripped across her face, opening up the cheek and cutting through one eye as neatly as a surgeon’s scalpel.
Her screams were a mixture of demoniac rage and pure agony, and as she tottered towards her aunt, blood streaming between the fingers of the hand that she had instinctively cupped over her eye, Iris shrank back across the flat roof towards one of the chimney stacks, still clutching the bloodstained piece of glass. Her mouth worked silently as she saw the knife once more appear in George’s other hand. Then her back was against the tall chimney and, glancing quickly over her shoulder, she saw that the roof ended just behind the stack and she could go no further. And at that moment she knew that she was dead.
*
Kate was through the front door of the house and racing up the stairs within seconds of hearing the screams. She had no idea how to get to the roof and only knew that there had to be a second staircase or a ladder somewhere on the floor above.
She spotted the stairs to the attic through the open door almost immediately after gaining the landing. By then she was near to exhaustion. Senses swimming. Lungs on fire. The pressure from her pounding heart like a road drill in her eardrums, competing with the high-pitched voice ranting and raving from somewhere above her head. Calling on her last reserves of strength, she managed to haul herself up the attic stairs and clamber out through the window on to the roof – but then she abruptly froze in her tracks.
Georgina Lupin must have heard her climbing through the window and was waiting for her just feet away, blood spurting from a horrific facial wound, which seemed to have obliterated one eye. Kate was vaguely aware of Iris Naylor pressed up against a chimney stack close to the far end of the roof to her right, but she was denied the opportunity of a more thorough assessment of the situation. Instead, her focus was concentrated on Lupin as the killer, screaming and mouthing obscenities, advanced on her brandishing a long, curved knife.
All the police training manuals would have had a textbook solution for this kind of situation but in the reality of that split second, Kate did not even have time to go for the CS gas spray in her pocket. Instead, she was left with no option but to focus all her attention on the knife and the homicidal intent of the mad woman as she backed away from her towards Iris.
She managed to sidestep the first rush, lurching sideways and actually managing to get behind her assailant as the knife ripped harmlessly through the sleeve of her coat. But despite suffering from such a horrendous facial injury and being temporarily thrown off balance, George quickly recovered and, before Kate could capitalize on her brief advantage and reach for her CS spray, the killer had swung round to confront her again – and this time Kate did not fare so well. She managed to avoid the blade lunging at her, but in doing so forgot how near the edge of the roof she had strayed. The next instant her heels had slammed into the low wall enclosing it and, after a second’s desperate wobbling effort to regain her balance, she pitched backwards into space, plunging towards the Edwardian conservatory far below.
*
To Iris Naylor, watching the confrontation from a few yards away, it was all over and it seemed inevitable that her would-be rescuer would be smashed to pieces on the forecourt beneath. But Fate was not done with Kate Lewis yet.
Even as she went over the wall, her flailing arms struck and somehow instinctively managed to lock on to the stone head of one of the gargoyles. She ended up dangling from it, with both arms locked around the long neck, her booted feet treading empty air.
Miraculously, she had escaped what should have been certain death, but as she clung precariously to the ugly stone head, her stay of execution looked like being very temporary indeed when George’s face suddenly materialized over the top of the wall, blood still pouring from the ugly wound she had sustained.
‘Well, well, well, Sergeant, you are in a bit of a pickle, aren’t you?’ the psychopath crowed.
Kate felt the blood from the killer’s wound dripping on to her. The next moment the disfigured face was very close as George leaned over the wall, her knife gently stroking the backs of Kate’s hands.
‘Nice hands, Sergeant. Shall I cut one of them off, do you think? Could you hold on with just one?’
The stone head Kate was clinging to made a distinct cracking sound and she felt it give slightly. Her weight was obviously too much for the ancient sculpture and at any moment it was likely to part company with the wall, this time sending her to her death. In a panic, the toes of her boots scrabbled against the sheer stonework, futilely searching for a hold of some sort, but there was nothing. The knife cut into her wrist and she could tell from the razor-sharp blade that just a little more pressure would sever the artery.
‘Well, maybe just the fingers, eh?’ George went on, obviously enjoying the moment in spite of her own pain and semi-blindness. ‘One at a time, I think.’
The knife cut into her little finger now, pressing down very slowly. At the same moment the gargoyle gave another crack and seemed to pull away from the wall slightly.
George emitted another of her unbalanced laughs. ‘You seem to be on the move, Sergeant. Well, let’s lessen the load, shall we?’
Kate gritted her teeth, waiting for the agonizing pain as her finger was severed, making her lose her grip. But it never happened.
The next instant the knife was withdrawn and George was no longer in her face. Instead, there was a loud commotion on the roof above. As she looked up, George’s face once more appeared over the edge. This time, however, it was different. For one illusory, surrealistic second the face actually seemed to be lunging at her. Then, with the one visible eye bulging with apparent terror and a shrill, rapidly fading scream issuing from the gaping mouth, the psychopath hurtled past Kate, arms desperately clawing at the air in a wild dive. The splintering crash that followed told its own story. Peering down, Kate saw that the shattered panes of the orangery canopy far below had turned a noticeable shade of red in the morning light.
‘Come on, old girl, give me your hand.’
She tore her eyes away from the smashed canopy to stare back at the roof and saw Hayden leaning over the wall towards her, one arm outstretched, a cold, hard look on his face that she had never seen before. For a few seconds she just stared up at him in a state of shock, unable to release her grip on the gargoyle.
‘Quickly now, Kate,’ he said in a much sharper tone. ‘You must take my hand.’
As he spoke, the gargoyle made a grumbling, grinding noise and finally parted company with the wall.
‘Kate!’ Hayden yelled. But she was already falling.
AFTER THE FACT
Georgina Lupin’s departure from her earthly world had been a dramatic one. The impact of her body had demolished a large section of the orangery canopy and the blood from severed arteries not only still dripped from the remaining fragments of jagged glass in the roof’s broken window frames, but with almost the same force as a perforated high-pressure hose had redecorated much of the inside of the derelict building a grisly red. Her corpse had finished up on its back, draped over a rusted, iron-framed table, amongst a litter of broken flowerpots, her single visible eye staring up at the hole in the canopy, as if trying to pick out the precise spot on the roof of the house from which she had fallen.
Roscoe studied the corpse for a few moments, then popped a strip of gum into his mouth.
‘The pair of you don’t do things by halves, do you?’ he said drily, casting a critical glance at both Kate and Hayden standing together a few feet away. ‘And we’ve certainly lost any chance of a nice, tidy confession now.’
Hennessey nodded in agreement, then grimaced. ‘Plus the fact that there’ll be lots of questions from the powers-that-be and the press as to exactly how this happened.’
‘Let them ask,’ Kate snapped, picking up on the underlying insinuation. ‘If Hayden hadn’t done what he did, I would be lying there instead of her.’
It had certainly been a close call and Kate knew it was something that would be indelibly etched on her memory until her dying day. Literally throwing himself forward as the gargoyle had finally torn itself free, Hayden had nearly pitched over the low wall himself in a desperate attempt to save her – only just managing to grab the collar of her coat at the very last moment. For several critical seconds he had hung on to her as she’d dangled over the sheer drop, using all his strength, with his thighs pressed against the wall for leverage, to pull her up far enough for her to grab the top of the wall and haul herself over on to the roof. Things certainly couldn’t have got any closer than that.
‘Strange how Lupin just fell, though, isn’t it?’ the DCI went on.
Hayden seemed unperturbed by the repeated insinuation and the same hard, unrepentant expression that Kate had glimpsed on her partner’s face when he had first appeared on the roof returned with a vengeance.
‘Easy to overbalance on the edge of a roof, ma’am,’ he replied smoothly, ‘especially when you’ve lost the sight of one eye. Dangerous places, roofs, you know?’
‘There was no struggle then?’
The detective pursed his lips for a second. ‘Not as such, no. She just sort of toppled over the edge.’
Roscoe made a face. ‘And not a blow struck in the process, eh?’ he added, plainly unconvinced.
‘Look, what is this?’ Kate snapped. ‘Anyone would think Hayden is the villain here.’
Hennessey shook her head. ‘It’s not that at all, but there’s bound to be an inquiry,’ she pointed out almost apologetically. ‘Professional Standards and the IOPC in particular will want chapter and verse on the incident, especially as the casualty was a vulnerable mental patient.’
‘Vulnerable?’ Kate exclaimed. ‘She was a killer. She murdered seven people, including one of our own, and, as I’ve already told you, she was trying to cut my fingers off as I clung to that bloody gargoyle, with the intention of adding me to her list.’
Hennessey made a deprecating gesture with both hands. ‘I understand all that, Sergeant, but you know how the cookie crumbles these days. Certain people will suspect that we carried out our own kind of summary justice.’
Hayden shrugged. ‘Let them suspect what they want. If they have any real doubts, they can always ask Iris Naylor what she saw.’
‘That’s not likely to happen,’ Roscoe growled. ‘It seems she had a heart attack on her way back to the nick and is in the ITU at Weston Hospital – not expected to survive.’
‘So, Lupin has won in the end then?’ Kate put in again.
Hennessey shook her head. ‘Hardly. This is certainly not the way our obsessed killer would have wanted her vendetta to play out. Just before her heart attack, Mrs Naylor told the officer escorting her to the station that her niece had intended cutting off her head and sticking it on a spike on the roof, among the gargoyles, as a sort of message to the world.’
‘Some might say that would have been quite an appropriate outcome,’ Kate retorted drily.
Hennessey frowned. ‘Surely you’re not suggesting it would have been justified?’
It was Kate’s turn to shrug. ‘Not at all. George was an evil, cold-blooded murderess and she got what she deserved, but Iris Naylor and her sisters had a lot to do with the way she turned out. They made her what she was through their cruel, self-righteous fanaticism and furthermore, we still don’t know what happened to the money Naylor was supposed to have invested in the so-called trust fund set up on George’s behalf – probably never will now. So, don’t expect me to weep for those wicked, hypocritical old witches. There are no innocents in this sordid case. No one is blameless—’
‘Not even you,’ Roscoe cut in again, his Mr Hyde asserting himself over his Dr Jekyll and obviously keen to have his pound of flesh, despite the inappropriateness of the moment. ‘You went off at half-cock, as usual, didn’t you? No wonder you’re known as “Go It Alone Kate”. You should have radioed in with the info on the nutter’s location, not charged off on your own like bloody Don Quixote. If Dipstick here hadn’t called in with the SP when he went after you, we would never have known where you were.’
Kate’s lip curled. ‘Fat lot of good calling in would have done. You arrived after it was all over anyway.’
But Roscoe was in full flood and ignored the remark. ‘Then there’s the small matter of the CID car you were using,’ he snarled. ‘I’m told you actually managed to write the thing off on the way here and dump it in a soddin’ field. Got any more Inspector Clouseau tricks up your sleeve?’
‘That’s enough, Ted!’ Hennessey rapped, conscious of several uniformed officers peering into the orangery through the open door. ‘This is not the time or the place.’
Kate stared at him with undisguised contempt. She was still trembling after her near fatal ordeal and a numbing coldness was creeping up her legs and arms as the shock of it all finally began to set in. She hadn’t expected praise from her boss for saving Iris Naylor’s life or risking her own. In the police service, praise was a commodity that was in very short supply and in Roscoe’s case it was unheard of. But an acknowledgment of what she had been through would not have gone amiss. Instead, it was just the same old cynical Roscoe, full of sarcasm, resentment and bitterness, and, after years enduring his coarse, misogynistic attitude, it was the very last straw for her in her present state of mind.
‘Only one trick left, sir,’ she replied in a tone of pure ice and, reaching into her pocket, she pulled out her warrant card in its small black wallet.
‘You can stuff that as far up as it will go!’ she said as Hennessey gaped at her. ‘I’m done here.’
‘My sentiments too, Mr Roscoe,’ said Hayden, handing over his own warrant card with a grim smile. ‘And I sincerely hope you enjoy the erotic sensatio
n.’
*
It didn’t take Kate long to clear out her desk when she and Hayden were driven back to Highbridge police station by a Traffic patrol and she dumped most of her paperwork in Roscoe’s office. It took Hayden even less time to do the same thing, but as they both walked out of the police station for the last time, the tension between them was almost palpable.
‘So, what do we do now?’ Hayden asked a little too casually in the police station car park.
Kate paused by her car and shrugged. ‘I’ll move out and find a flat somewhere,’ she said.
He shook his head firmly, flinching when he went to grasp her arm and she drew away from him.
‘There’s no need for you to do any such thing,’ he said.
She sighed heavily. ‘You … you saved my life, Hayd,’ she said, ‘and I’m grateful to you for that, but … but you and me – it’s all over. It has to be.’
He shook his head again. ‘No, it doesn’t have to be at all. I have something to show you – someone I want you to meet.’
She stared at him, anger starting to burn inside her again. ‘Someone you want me to meet? You’re not thinking of introducing me to that bit of tail of yours, are you?’
He took her briefcase from her and opened the boot of her MX5 to dump it inside.
‘Just humour me for half an hour, that’s all I ask,’ he said and, taking her by the elbow despite her protests, led her away from her car towards the far end of the car park. ‘It isn’t far,’ he encouraged. ‘We’ll take my Jag.’
Shaking her arm free, she walked ahead of him towards the sleek red saloon.
‘No need for the mystery act,’ she snapped. ‘I know exactly where we’re going.’
But as it transpired, she didn’t.
*
The blonde-haired girl in the bed of the local hospital’s ITU had probably been pretty once, but the ghost-white face, just visible behind the oxygen mask, was now gaunt, almost skeletal, and there were so many tubes and wires connected to her body that she resembled a visitant from another planet.