Oleander Soul

by James Arklie

  Then she was lifted and thrown inside the van. There was the weight of a body on hers and a forearm forced one cheek sideways and hard into the floor. Shock, then fear pulsed through her body as she realised she was lying on plastic. Easily cleaned, easily disposable. Then something pricked her neck.

  Ollie woke one hour later. She was lying on a bed, something covering her eyes. She breathed in sharply and deeply and held it as seconds ticked by in a deep silence.

  Then the fug cleared from her brain and she remembered what had happened. Panic sent her into a rigid, writhing ball of muscle. A female voice she recognised said quietly, ‘Release her.’

  Tape was ripped from across her eyes and she blinked into the light. Jo smiled at her. Eyes appraising, superior, smug. She was flanked by two men in dark tee shirts. White, hard faces, cropped hair, arms folded across chests. They looked at her differently, ambivalence in their eyes.

  Ollie pulled herself upright. Felt new aches in her body. ‘Jo? What the fuck is going on?’

  ‘Probably not had time to watch the news, have you?’ The smile stayed on her face. Glacial. ‘Demonstration that turned into a riot. Petrol bombs thrown. Stores looted and set on fire. Two policemen shot, one dead, one critical.’ Jo glanced at the two men.

  ‘A good afternoon of radical, extremist action, don’t you think?’

  Ollie moved to get off the bed. Jo held up a hand. ‘Stay.’

  Ollie felt a fear growing in her. Her brain was firing synaptic messages in a million different directions, desperately trying to compute what was happening, what it all meant for her. She sensed this was the culmination of what had been happening to her over the last nine days.

  She twisted her head and body protectively, following Jo as she circled the bed. A phrase from schooldays came to her. ‘The Kraken Wakes’. The monster of nightmares rising from the seabed. Uncoiling tentacles, baring its teeth, rearing up in its own putrifying stench to summon chaos and fear.

  That was Jo. Her long Rasta locks, the slippery smile, the hard, cunning, mad eyes, her slow, winding, careful movement.

  Jo stopped. ‘And you, Oleander, are about to become the latest star. You are about to take the word extreme to a new level. Your name is about to enter the history books.’

  Ollie launched herself at the door. A muscular male arm wrapped itself around her waist and threw her back on the bed.

  Jo’s voice hardened. ‘Okay, Ollie. Time for business. First things first.’ One of the men stepped forward with an iPad.

  ‘Lily and Alesha. Not gone out to play and not having a dementia moment. Lily thought she was going to play with Anna’s daughter, but Anna is one of us. A ruse to kidnap her. And Alesha, we popped round and then a little injection.’

  Ollie looked at the picture of Lily cuddled up as best she could to Alesha in her wheelchair. Her mother looked confused, Lily terrified.

  Anger and fear flared. ‘You hurt them and…’

  ‘Save it, Ollie. You’re no threat to me. You’ve been manipulated into a corner. You’re dancing to my tune. I’ve just made it worse by helping the police find more evidence against you. They think you’re a serial killer, a very dangerous lady.’ She moved to the foot of the bed.

  ‘Good news is, Oleander, that I can offer you a way out.’

  Ollie watched darkness and triumph dance across Jo’s eyes. ‘You’re going to kill someone for us, Ollie. Someone very important.’

  *​ * *

  Donna Small didn’t have the warrant in her hand, but she told two of the officers to take out the door. They smashed it in with a ram and piled into the apartment ahead of her making lots of noise. It was empty.

  Small crashed her fist into a table. The chess board and pieces jumped and toppled. ‘She’s done a runner. Taken her family with her.’

  Andy had his mobile to his ear, already putting out requests for an all-persons alert at train stations, ports and airports. Small was pulling on clear gloves and was lifting and throwing down cushions angrily. This case was really getting to her. Nothing fitted and until she could get her hands on Soul, nothing would.

  Andy had paused and was looking at the chess board. Then he looked at the motorised wheelchair. He walked into the bedrooms. The drawers were being turned out, but they were full of clothes. On the daughter’s bed were two dolls, two bears and a cuddly elephant in a neat row.

  He went back out to Small. ‘Nothing’s gone, Boss. All their possessions are still here.’

  Small dismissed the observation angrily. ‘That’s what happens when you run in a panic.’

  Andy was shaking his head. ‘That chess set was the daughter’s pride and joy. She was cleaning the pieces last time we were here. And she’s left her dolls.’

  He pointed at the motorised buggy, but before he spoke a uniform came out holding three food bags. ‘Not sure if this is evidence or not, Ma’am.’

  Small looked at him impatiently. ‘What’s in them?’

  Andy held one up to the light of the window. ‘Hair. Three hair samples.’

  They all looked at each other, then Small turned to the uniform.

  ‘Get them logged and take them to forensics. Now.’

  She tried to think positively. An old lady in wheelchair, a young girl of ten and a tall black woman with blond hair. They can’t be that bloody difficult to find.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The men moved Ollie to the kitchen. She sat at the kitchen table opposite Jo. One of the males stood at the door. He’d been joined by a female. She overheard a whispered conversation. The woman expressing surprise. ‘Is this the one all the fuss has been about? Wasn’t expecting her to be black.’

  Why am I so important, she thought? What am I to them? They’d worked hard to destroy her life over the last nine days, but for what? She glanced at a manila folder on the table, guessing she was about to find out.

  Then she looked at Jo. Her brain had stripped away the false veneer of the Café and she saw it for what it was; a front, a cover, for radicals, extremists, terrorists, unsmiling assassins.

  Ollie also saw the pattern in what had been happening to her. ‘Let me understand this, Jo. I’m guessing that this Mike Stockton Marston was one of you. He used Amal to force me onto the streets. That makes me homeless. You know me and my fights with authority and the chances of me getting help there were zero. Meaning that eventually, I would come to you for refuge.’

  Jo smiled. ‘I would have called you anyway.’

  ‘Then, the apartment and the money. Giving me the safety and security for Lily and my mother that I am desperate for, handed to me on a plate. Too good to be true, Mum said. Was it somewhere to keep an eye on me while you prepare me for whatever this is all about?’

  Jo’s smile had become one of real amusement. Ollie went on. ‘And Mark Anderson? Was he really infatuated with me again or just playing a game? Someone else to keep me under control?’

  Jo had picked up the folder as if she was bored. Ollie went on, glancing at the male and female by the door. ‘But why did you have to kill them? Was it to frame me and increase the police pressure on me? You said it, I’m damned in the eyes of DI Small. Whatever it is you want me to do, there is no way it can offer a way out.’

  Jo had removed some papers and a photograph from the folder. ‘It may come as a surprise, Ollie. But I didn’t kill them…we didn’t kill them. So….’ Ollie felt her breathing stop. Jo smiled. ‘You’re the one with the personality disorder. The one who had treatment.’

  Ollie breathed into the terror that filled her. ‘You can stop all this manipulation shit now. Sowing disorientation and seeds of doubt, trying to keep me confused.’

  Ollie heard her own, unconvincing voice and Jo just gave her the silent, superior smile. Which means that either I killed them, or someone else did. And the only other person in the frame was George.

  Jo’s voice slid calmly into her terror like a knife. ‘Anyway, Ollie, we are where we are and there’s a job to be done if you want to save L
ily and Alesha.’

  Jo waved a picture in front of Ollie and placed it on the table.

  ‘Remember this man?’

  Ollie looked down at the smiling Chinese face, with dark, glittering, happy eyes and cropped black hair. A white shirt and tie, rather than the drab navy-blue round collared uniform, denoted him as a senior Chinese official.

  It took Ollie only seconds to understand and then she buried her face in her hands. Oh my God, no.

  Jo was laughing out loud now and sharing a smile of triumph with the couple at the door. ‘I can hear the tumblers dropping and the door of realisation opening.’

  And now Ollie knew what this was all about. Three years ago, when the Chinese trade delegation last visited the UK, she was working for a high-class pimp. He was black, loud, covered in bling and confident as a fox in a hen house. His name was ‘Danny’ and they’d been at school together.

  Danny made himself a fortune supplying women to the delegation. There were some stimulants in there as well, coke, Viagra, Benzedrine. She was one of the girls and one of the couriers and Sammy Lee Cheong had demanded her every night for a week. Calling her his ‘Black Pearl’. He was fascinated with having a tall, lithe black girl in his bed.

  Now he’d been targeted by these extremists because they knew that Ollie could get close when no-one else had the opportunity.

  All three of them were smiling at the shock on her face. Jo spoke.

  ‘Guess what, Ollie? Your smiling Chinaman is back with this year’s delegation. Only tomorrow night, after you’ve given him the time of his life, you’re going to kill him.’

  Ollie was shaking her head in disbelief, but Jo was relentless.

  ‘I hope you’re thinking of Lily and Alesha.’

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Donna Small sat in the top floor conference room with an angry Assistant Commissioner, her direct Boss, DCI Jim Flanagan, DI Joe Tanner and DS Ellie Samuels. Out of the wall-sized window she could see the Thames and a hell of a lot of London. At the other end of the table were people from media relations and HR.

  Between them all they were in charge of the investigations into the murders of Mike Marston, Mark Anderson, Amal Khan and WPC Jane Morgan. Together with the reopened investigations into the disappearances of Stephan Khan, Billy Jones (assumed murdered) and Emmanuel Soul.

  The AC made a point of counting them on his fingers as he said each name.

  ‘I make that seven deaths.’ No one would have corrected him even if his addition had been wrong.

  ‘And we have one suspect who has been arrested twice and released and has now disappeared.’

  Funny thing, thought Small, how people in power have the knack of turning what were the right actions at the time into crass, wrong decisions that will destroy a career.

  She thought about defending herself but decided against focusing his annoyance on her. But he turned on her anyway.

  ‘Have you caught her yet?’

  ‘All persons, Chief. Ports, air…..’

  ‘Okay. This is a manhunt. Someone must have seen this family somewhere in the last few hours.’ He looked at the lady from media relations.

  ‘I want blanket media coverage. Swamp social media. Emphasise this is serious and what she’s done. Not to be approached. Find someone who’ll put up a reward. This Soul has lived with the low life. My guess is she’s run there, but we know they’ll give her up for the right money.’ He looked out at the view of London. His London.

  ‘We have to protect this City. I have riots on my hands, petrol bombs, another officer dead, a terrorist running around with a bloody gun. Knives. And that’s just today. I need intel and I want that woman.’ He focused on Small again who realised the extremists had now been upgraded to terrorists.

  ‘And if she has links to these terrorists, or is supplying them or acting as a courier…’

  His face told Small what would happen to her personally. He looked at each face in turn. The focus at the end of the team talk. ‘I want her in here, by the morning. Preferably alive. But right now, she’s a tangible threat and if it stops even some of this, then dead will do.’

  Small returned to her office. Andy was there. He read her face.

  ‘Bad meeting, Boss.’

  She let out an exhausted, exasperated sigh. ‘Rip it all down. Again Andy. We go over it again and again.’ She rubbed at the tiredness in her eyes.

  ‘There’s something seriously wrong. And we’ve missed it.’

  * * *

  They moved Ollie to the kitchen of the house. They’d made her put on a pair of thin white protective gloves. Beside her, were Jo and two different males. One of them had a flat, chrome box. There was also a bottle of red wine and a glass.

  Ollie looked down at the gloves, looked around her. This is surreal, she thought. This is something out of a trip on drugs. Or seen through a mind that is riddled with madness. They’re coming to take me away, haha, heehee.

  Jo and one of the men stepped back, the threat of their presence didn’t recede with them. The remaining male glanced at her then opened the catches on the box. Inside were six glass vials, each the size of her little finger. The vials held a clear liquid.

  ‘It’s only water.’ The male indicated the wine and the glass. ‘Pour him a glass.’

  Ollie turned on Jo. ‘What the fuck is this?’

  ‘We’re teaching you how to administer the poison.’

  Ollie saw it as more than that. They were getting this process into her mind, hands on. Pour him a glass. Practice killing him in your mind. Get your mind used to the murder you are about to commit. Make it become a commonplace action, made without thought for the consequences.

  Joanna’s voice bit harshly into her hesitation. ‘Don’t think about it, Ollie. Do it. And if you’re going to throw up, do it now in the rehearsal.’

  Oleander swallowed the panic in her throat and reached for the bottle and poured the wine almost to the brim.

  The male asked, ‘Is that his normal size?’

  Oleander nodded. ‘He only has one.’

  ‘Okay, now pick up the vial in your right hand and hold the body. Now with your left thumb and first finger, snap the top off at the waist. Be firm and positive.’

  She tried but couldn’t do it. He reached from behind her and held her hands. ‘Like this.’

  He twisted her hands sharply and the top parted with a ‘snap’.

  ‘Hold on to the top. It will be contaminated. If the poison touches your skin, you die as well. Now pour the contents into the wine.’

  Oleander watched three drops come out. There was still a drop left.

  ‘Leave that. Don’t try and shake it out. Now put the top into the palm of your right hand and using your left-hand peel off the glove like this.’

  She pulled up and the glove came off with the vial and top securely held inside the pocket it formed.

  ‘Now with your right-hand peel off your left glove so that it contains the other glove and the vials.’

  Oleander pulled and the glove rolled up and over the other and into a ball. Buried securely in the middle was the broken vial and the dummy poison. She held the rubber ball of glove in her right hand. Sweat rolled into her right eye, but she left it there to sting and keep her sharp. Remind yourself what this is, she told herself. A lesson in how to murder someone.

  The male was still speaking to her in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘Now put the gloves into the bottom of the bin and drop some tissue on top to conceal it.

  Jo poured the wine back into the bottle and the male laid out more gloves and another vial. Ollie realised they were going to make her do it again. She stared at Jo, knowing her eyes were full of pure hatred.

  Jo read it. ‘Hate me all you want, Ollie. But this is bigger than you and me.’ She pointed at the gloves. ‘Put them on because this has to be faster and it has to be perfect.’

  Day Ten

  06.00. Offices of Small and Mann

  Andy fell asleep just after three am. Small l
asted another hour, using the pen on her iPad to move images and evidence around on the interactive white board. Getting nowhere, she gave in to frustration and exhaustion.

  At six am her mobile woke them both.

  ‘Small.’ She dug at the tiredness in her eyelids with her fingertips.

  ‘Forensics. The three samples of hair. I’ve three names for you. All missing persons.’

  Small eased the ache in her back as she walked to the board. ‘Go on.’

  She wrote the names and watched the frown of disbelief grow on Andy’s face. She thanked them for working through the night.

  Andy was shaking his head. ‘Full house. But what the hell? Why would Soul have kept samples of their hair all this time. Carried them with her? That woman’s been through all sorts of shit, there’s no way she could have held onto things like that.’

  Small brought up pictures of the samples in their bags. ‘She hasn’t. I’m no housewife, but self-sealing food bags weren’t around then. We’ll check it later, but I reckon five years, tops.’

  ‘Maybe her mother kept them?’

  ‘What, a love locket of hair from a man who was murdered and another from a man who walked out on me? And why Stephan? He was Soul’s partner.’ Small tapped the pictures thoughtfully with her pen.

  ‘And she had to take the hair before Billy Jones was murdered because there is no body. Same for Emmanuel, you can’t take a sample from a person who’s not there.’

  ‘Took them before, Boss?’

  Small shook her head. Too much of a stretch. ‘We keep saying the same thing, Andy and asking the same question - why would Soul have done this, or that?’ She stepped back and brought up pictures of every deceased person.

  ‘You ask that question enough times and eventually you have to accept the answer that your brain is shouting back at you.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Because she didn’t do any of them. Someone else did.’

  Small tugged her jacket from the back of her chair and took Andy to the all-night caravan out front of the station gates. They refueled on coffee and bacon and egg baps.