The Silent Man: A British Detective Crime Thriller (The Harvey Stone Crime Thriller Series Book 1)

by J. D. Weston

  But Myers knew now. He understood that whatever tremble in that parallel world had opened Carver up had rippled through into Myers’ world. There was a shift in power. He considered what Carver had said. A young girl had been killed. It was London. It happened too often. No ID and no clues as to why she had been killed. He thought of Jennifer Standing and how close she had come to the same fate.

  Perhaps there had been a tremble in some other dimension? Perhaps that’s why the killer showed up when he did? Perhaps in another world he hadn’t showed up? Perhaps then Carver’s girl would be alive?

  “Perhaps,” he whispered.

  He leaned through the exterior doors and fished his wallet from his pocket to open the security doors. But then he stopped. There were two small meshed windows inset into the doors to his right, and through them, he could see the duty officer maintaining the records in the evidence room. He stood as a shopkeeper might, leaning on the counter waiting to offer his wares.

  Myers held his wallet up once more and the doors buzzed then clicked open.

  “Afternoon,” said the officer behind the counter, and he stood up straight, waiting for an instruction.

  “DI Carver just submitted a girl’s belongings,” said Myers.

  The man nodded. “Yes, sir. About ten minutes ago.”

  “Was there a lot there? Can I see?”

  “I’ll need a ticket, sir, if you want to take-”

  “I just want to look. Right here will be fine,” said Myers.

  The officer nodded again, glanced up at the doors, and then disappeared behind a corner.

  Myers knew what it would be. Perhaps there had been a tremble in that other world. Perhaps the two worlds had shifted course somehow. By an unexplainable intuition, Myers knew what the officer would produce.

  But he still felt a stab in his heart when the officer returned with a plastic tray and a Louis Vuitton bag sealed in a plastic evidence bag.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  There were several houses across East London that were, in one way or another, owned by John Cartwright. The portfolio changed as months went by. The houses were used for a variety of purposes. On occasion, John would offer a released felon a place to find their feet in return for favours. Other times, the houses would be used to store items that needed to be kept away from prying eyes; robbery hauls and high-value items. Occasionally, the houses would be used as safe houses. They were a place for somebody to stay until the heat had died down and new faces adorned the walls of police stations’ most wanted boards.

  Harvey knew many of the houses, but as the portfolio changed and only John and Sergio knew what they owned and under what fictitious business’ name, there was no way anybody but the two of them could compromise their plans. It was a security protocol that wasn’t based on trust. Just principles and best practise.

  The Horns Road house that Sergio had divulged was such a property. Harvey knew the road well. It stretched from the A12 in Newbury Park to Barkingside. It was a busy road with heavy traffic and suited John’s purposes well. Busy residential areas so close to London were often full of transients. Nobody would pay a blind bit of notice to a few strangers entering a house.

  Harvey parked his bike in a side street named Hamilton Avenue. He left his helmet in the back box, locked it, and walked to Horns Road. A quick glance at two of the houses told him which way the houses were numbered. He turned left and made his way to the safe house. Checking with discretion the insides of the parked cars was a habit he’d formed from Julios. A safe house should be kept safe and what he was about to do would break all the rules. The cars that passed were mainly single occupants. None seemed to even see him. The area was heavily populated with Asians. Their community was strong and there was even a local mosque to facilitate their religious needs. The community had done well in London. Each of the bay-windowed Victorian houses were worth well over one million pounds and the cars that were parked along the roadside were anything but old scrappers. None of the parked cars were occupied and none stood out as being suspicious.

  Breaking protocol was one thing. But drawing attention to a safe house by entering from the rear would have been ludicrous. People knocked on doors all the time. So, Harvey knocked.

  But doors to safe houses were usually closed and locked. They didn’t usually push open with the slightest touch. He checked behind him and glanced up the street as casually as he could.

  There was nobody about. A car passed but the woman driving paid him no attention. He entered and closed the door behind him without making a sound, and then he waited for a full minute, listening to the sounds of the building, listening for movement anywhere.

  But there was none.

  There were rules to using a safe house, rules designed to avoid the safe house becoming conspicuous. Curtains should be opened and closed in the morning and evening but under no circumstances must the occupants dwell on either the ground floor or at the front of the house. This limited the usable space to the rear bedrooms, which was one of the reasons John preferred the old Victorian houses. There were usually two rear bedrooms. Lights should be used as if the house was being lived in normally. But under no circumstances should the lights be used in the room where the occupants were dwelling. This limited the occupants’ usage of the house even further. The rule wasn’t a major concern in the summer but staying in one of John’s safe houses during wintertime was akin to a prison sentence.

  Nobody without strict instructions from John was to visit a safe house that was in use for whatever purpose.

  They were John’s rules, and nobody ever broke them.

  Until now.

  Harvey knew the downstairs rooms would be empty, but he peered inside the living room. It was furnished to look as if it was lived in. But the photos on the walls were all cheap prints and the framed wedding photos on the mantelpiece had been ripped from magazines.

  The kitchen space had been used. Harvey felt the kettle and found it to be warm. Not hot. Just warm. There were tea and coffee jars on the work surface and a small spillage. That would be Donny. Harvey knew Julios well enough to know that he would have cleared up a spill. Through the kitchen was a back door. It was wide open, and Harvey could see a narrow garden path leading to a rear gate.

  The gate was also open.

  He felt his pulse flutter then ease. Something was wrong. Even if Julios and Donny were only just unloading the car, they wouldn’t have left all the doors open. Julios wouldn’t have. Harvey knew that much. But Donny was a wild card. When you were the only legitimate son of a millionaire criminal, rules were of little significance.

  He was tempted to bolt up the stairs, but he crept. He winced when the fourth stair creaked, and he shifted his weight to the edges of each step. The stairs led from front to back, which meant the first bedroom on Harvey’s left was the first of the rear bedrooms. The door was ajar, but Harvey heard no movement from inside. He checked the other doors. They were all open, but he could see little of the insides from where he was standing.

  He tugged his knife from inside his jacket with his right hand and pushed the door to bedroom one with his left. The hinges announced his arrival, but still he stood back until he could see inside.

  It was empty, save for a single bed, and the curtains were closed. Harvey moved inside. He lowered the knife and peered through a gap in the curtains. Julios’ car was parked in the alleyway. He would have unloaded the bags through the rear entrance. There was an ancient sports holdall on the bed. Harvey recognised it as Julios’. It was leather with the name of an old sporting brand printed on the side. Julios had little requirements for a new, expensive bag. He was a frugal man.

  Donny, on the other hand, would have brought as much as Julios would allow. There was no way Donny would survive a spell in a safe house without some kind of entertainment.

  Harvey stepped outside. Nothing had changed. The doors were all as they had been. There was still the same smell of dust in the air. Harvey moved to the second bedroom
, the only other room at the rear of the house. He peered around the door. A large double bed occupied most of one end, upon which were two suitcases. They were unopened as if Donny had just put them down. What was more likely was that Julios had carried them up the stairs to stop Donny whining about how heavy they were.

  There was nothing out of place. He stepped into the room, unzipped one of the cases, and flipped the lid open. Just to make sure they were in fact Donny’s. Among two neat piles of clothes was a selection of DVDs and a games console.

  They were Donny’s.

  He pulled the lid closed, zipped it up, then strode into the front bedroom only to be greeted by a cricket bat to his gut. The force of the blow knocked the wind out of him, and he doubled over with barely enough instinct remaining to roll out of the way.

  The bat landed beside him and he rolled once and sprang to his feet, sucking in air and feeling his way to the window, his eyesight blurred, his eyes streaming tears. There was just time for him to see a white blur move from the room through the doorway.

  Harvey ran at the shape and hit the wall. He clutched at his gut as he stepped onto the landing and his eyes refocused. The man was on the stairs moving fast. Harvey hurled himself at him. He felt his legs collide with the wooden banister rail and heard the splinter of wood. He hit the man with full force and grabbed for his neck. They both rolled down the stairs in a bundle of clawing fingers and grappling hands.

  It was the other man that hit the floor first. He landed face first with Harvey’s arm around his neck.

  “Where’s my brother?” said Harvey, and he increased the pressure.

  With the man’s legs on the stairs and Harvey’s weight on top of him, the man had little room for manoeuvre.

  But still, he said nothing.

  Harvey added some weight to the man’s spine, and he screamed out in agony. He was less than half the man Asif had been. Harvey needed him to speak.

  “Where have you taken him?”

  Harvey leaned forward to stare him in the face, keeping his knee in the small of the man’s back.

  The man spat in his face and Harvey pulled back on his neck, twisting his head and finding that place where the nerves end and brittle bone is all that stands between life and death.

  The man sensed his predicament. He breathed a cry and a whimper. He moaned a prayer.

  And still, he said nothing.

  His eyes closed and the corners of his mouth tweaked to bare his teeth. And as Harvey pushed the limits of the man’s spine and a prayer sang out in a hoarse and foreign whisper, his chances of finding Donny and Julios grew slimmer.

  The body fell limp in Harvey’s hands. The man’s skull thudded on the floor as the last of his breaths escaped, and his foot gave a final, involuntary twitch. Harvey lashed out at the wall in anger.

  He held his head in his hands and dropped to a frustrated crouch as the odds stacked against him weighed heavy on his mind. The sight of Julia in her blood-soaked dress. The dead driver who Harvey had shot. Asif, the brave man who had outwitted Harvey even in the midst of torture.

  And now a useless, crumpled piece of meat that lay at the foot of the stairs in one of John’s safe houses.

  But, amidst the fog of self-hate and loathsome thoughts, hope showed itself. The swing of the bat. The roll down the stairs. Even during the chaos of the fight, Harvey had heard something.

  The noise hadn’t registered at the time. But somehow, his subconscious had noted it.

  He searched the man’s pockets which, in the kurta, were deep and wide. But he found what he was looking for and hope became a reality.

  He left through the back door and found a black BMW parked behind Julios’ old Subaru. He hit the key fob. The lights flashed once, and the locks popped up.

  He checked both ways and then opened the car door. The door pockets were full of takeaway food wrappers. He pulled them out and dropped them on the carpet, then emptied the contents of the glove box.

  Harvey sat back and let his head rest on the back of the seat.

  Hope was a futile mistress.

  He climbed out and was about to close the door when he caught sight of something. He sifted through the pile of trash and found something that wasn’t rubbish.

  And she smiled at him the way only hope can.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The rumble of chatter in the first-floor office ceased in unison when Myers burst in through the doors. The pause would have been worthy of a well-rehearsed orchestra. He grabbed the first available phone, dialled the number from memory, and waited. Thirty pairs of eyes stared at him while the line connected and the unhurried ringing began.

  “Pick up, pick up,” he mumbled.

  But nobody answered.

  He stared around the room looking for someone who knew and liked him well enough to carry on with the calls. He found nobody. One by one, they returned to their tasks and the rumble of chatter resumed like the sections of the orchestra supporting the lead violin.

  He slammed the phone down.

  “Sir?” said Fox, more out of duty than anything else. “Is everything okay?”

  He found her in the mass of staring eyes, but the words failed him. It was just a whim. Just a terrible, terrible thought. He was wrong. He had to be wrong.

  He said nothing.

  Allenby must have sensed the change in atmosphere. She appeared at her office door and followed the stares.

  Myers backed away. He had no allies in there. He nearly stumbled on the fire escape stairs from trembling legs and, for that reason, isolating his car key on a bunch of five keys was impossible to do while he ran. It was at this moment that his wallet decided to catch on his pocket lining, and he fought with it beside the security doors before tugging it free. He ran to his car, tossed his wallet inside, and fumbled once more with the ignition barrel. He had already put the car into first gear when the engine fired, and the car lurched into life. A few moments later, he slammed on his brakes as people walked across the entrance to the police station car park. Ordinary people in their own unhurried, ordinary lives.

  He honked his horn and waved for them to get out of the way. But the only responses he received were a look of confusion from an older man and a dirty look from a young mother pushing her pram.

  The exit cleared as he edged forward, and it was then that Myers wished he had a faster car. He’d seen the movies. Cops drove V8s and slid their cars around corners. It was all Myers could do to get his old motor up to fifty miles per hour, then he had to slow for a roundabout. He manoeuvred his car through the traffic to an ensemble of car horns and he floored the accelerator onto the main road out of Romford.

  He checked the clock on the dashboard, which was an hour slow. He’d never got around to changing it since winter. It was 5 p.m. She should be at home. She would have walked or taken a bus. Myers considered the route. He thought about every conceivable way the bag could be hers.

  But his panic only served to raise his already racing pulse and lift his blood pressure. He stopped at a set of lights that crossed the A12 dual carriageway. He gave serious consideration to pulling into the oncoming traffic and working his way across the busy road. But it would be a lethal game of frogger. The cars were doing in excess of fifty miles per hour and his old motor was too large and cumbersome for such a move.

  His fingers danced on the wheel. He checked the rear-view mirror every few seconds, but for what, he didn’t know.

  People had mobile phones in their cars. Some even carried them, large, brick-shaped devices that must cost a fortune to run.

  But Myers did not.

  The lights changed, and in a heartbeat, Myers resumed his impatient driving style. Two lanes of traffic crossed the dual carriageway, and if there was a gap, he moved into it, then hung on the bumper of the car in front, pushing for the next gap.

  “Come on,” he shouted, and slapped his hands on the wheel while he hovered in second gear waiting for the traffic to speed up.

  He moved back
to the outside lane, cutting off a beat-up, old work van. The driver honked his horn and leaned out of the window, hurling abuse. His curses fell on deaf ears. Myers was in a world of his own. The driver moved his van closer so that it filled Myers’ rear-view mirror. The road changed to a single lane and the drivers ahead were patiently performing a zip formation. Myers stayed as close as he could to the car in front, but the car to his left saw the move and closed him off. He braked and the van nudged him, rocking the old car on its floaty suspension. There was no time to stop and look for damage. His car was a wreck and the van had seen better days. Instead, he checked his driver-side mirror, glanced ahead once, and pulled out into the oncoming traffic.

  He knew there would be chaos. He knew he’d anger people. Cars swerved and pulled to one side. One car screeched to a halt, narrowly missing the car in front. Myers eased himself through the gap, saw the turning ahead, and floored it.

  Only mildly aware of the chaos he’d left behind, Myers navigated the back streets he knew so well with ease. He knew where all the potholes were. He knew the places where he had to stand his ground. The old engine was smelling hot. The smell of hot oil was emanating from the vents.

  But he was close.

  His sweaty fingers slipped on the steering wheel, but he pushed on, working the old gears as hard as he could. Then, finally, he screeched to a halt in the first space he saw.