Oleander Soul

by James Arklie

  Unless I go for the simple answer, she thought; I am the killer, I killed them all and I’ve already forgotten that I killed Amal. And what about George? He could be responsible for the recent killings, but not the historic deaths.

  She looked at Small, saw the same tiredness in her eyes that she felt. This was becoming a battle of wills. She asked, ‘You ever come across a murderer who killed but genuinely couldn’t remember?’

  Small shook her head slowly. ‘Don’t degrade yourself, Soul. Don’t go and hide behind the amnesia defence. I killed them in my sleep. I didn’t mean to do it. Never would have if I was awake, your Honour. Been tried, Soul, by killers as desperate as you. They failed.’

  Small waited a few seconds, saw her advantage and gouged deeper into the pain. ‘Surprised you never went for the easy way out, Oleander. You had enough opportunity…’

  Suddenly the monkey in Ollie’s brain shrieked with delight. Smashed the cymbals and started dancing. Ollie was too quick for Small and the slap knocked her sideways out of the chair. Ollie reared over her, ready to do damage.

  ‘You bloody bitch. You don’t know anything about where I’ve been. I’ve woken up in my own puke. Vomit all over me and the floor. I’ve pissed myself, woken up in the shit and stench of my own degradation. I’ve woken up with needles still in my arms. Someone dead in a bed beside me. Gang raped by five men and thrown from the back of a van.

  ‘You haven’t got any idea of the shit I’ve been through. Of the life I’ve led. Of the lives I’ve had to lead just to survive. So don’t you fucking lecture me about right and wrong and taking the easy way out because you don’t know. All you know is how to make life worse for people like me.’

  Ollie paused taking deep breaths. She grabbed the chair and slammed it back to four legs. She looked at Small, held out a hand. Small hesitated, then took it and Ollie dragged her back to her feet.

  ‘But I fight, Small.’ Ollie banged her chest with a fist. ‘In here, I fight. In my heart I know I’m a good person. I battle against myself, against the world. And right now, against the shit that is surrounding me and is all wrong.’ She pointed at the chair.

  ‘So sit down and listen to what I’m about to tell you.’

  * * *

  Two miles away, under a bridge by Regents Canal, a man dressed in black, backed himself into the shadows, lit a cigarette to fight the stench and settled himself down to wait. On the ledge above him was the mobile phone Ollie had left there.

  Less than one mile away Andy Mann went into a mild panic and called the Chief who responded with anger. ‘You’ve screwed up, Sergeant.’

  ‘No, sir. Not a screw up. This was set up. DI Small has disappeared off the radar. That’s what this was all about.’ He struggled to get the words out.

  ‘She’s been taken.’

  * * *

  Ollie checked her watch. She reckoned another ten minutes was all she had before they started tracing Small’s mobile. This would be the first stop. Now she needed Small to help her.

  Small spoke first. ‘Nothing you’ve said goes above my paygrade. I’m a detective who solves murders and here we are.’

  Ollie took a deep breath. ‘This does. And this is the deal I want.’

  She told Small about the extremist plan to kill a senior member of the Chinese Trade Delegation. How they were using her to do it and how Lily and her mother were being held hostage.

  Ollie could see the clouds of disbelief swimming across Small’s face. ‘Who are these extremists? Give me names.’

  ‘I can’t. Yet. Because of Lily and Mum.’

  ‘Tell me the name of the Chinese delegate. We’ll tell the Chinese, they’ll put him and the delegation in the Embassy. No access. Game over.’

  ‘And Lily, Mum and probably me die and the extremists run free.’

  ‘Not if you give me names.’

  ‘I’ve told you…’

  ‘You’re a fantasist, Soul. This is in your head. I think you’re trying to manufacture a way out for yourself. To get away with seven murders. It’s very clever.’

  Ollie hadn’t reckoned on that response. She checked her watch again. ‘See. Well above your paygrade. This happens tonight. I’m offering you the opportunity to smash a right-wing extremist group that is responsible for the death of two police officers and who are about to carry out a political assassination.

  ‘And I will get you the answer to who killed seven people, because that person is somewhere within this whole complicated plot.’

  ‘In return?’

  ‘That’s for the person above your paygrade.’

  ‘And if you don’t deliver my killer?’

  ‘I hand myself in and it will mean that Lily and my mother have been added to that list.’

  Small held Ollie’s eyes. ‘You’re risking a lot.’

  Ollie gave the laugh you do to a stupid statement.

  ‘Not a lot, Small. Everything.’

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Andy watched the trace of Small’s mobile recreated on the screen. It stopped at a hotel around the corner, then it took off towards the City where it seemed to stop at a café, then move on. Cars were dispatched to intercept it.

  Andy looked at the first stop. He knew that hotel. It was a favourite with the better class hookers who attracted the City boys. Soul would know that hotel and Small would never go there unless there was a reason.

  He sprinted from the office, got to reception two minutes later, showed his warrant card and a picture of Soul and was taken to room 109. He called it in as he was running up the stairs with the manager.

  Outside the door was a plastic carrier bag from Lidl. He opened it and recognised Small’s jacket and bag. He took the electronic tag, moved the manager back, opened the door and burst in.

  Small sat opposite him in her underwear. Her mouth was bound with tape and it was wound round her body and arms, binding her to the chair. He knew she was alive because of the fury that raged in her eyes.

  * * *

  Ollie checked into another of her old daytime hotels, keeping her baseball cap on and paying cash. No questions were going to be asked anyway. She bought coffee and a sandwich from the café by the tiny reception desk and took the stairs to her room on the first floor.

  It was ninety minutes later that Small called her with the mobile Ollie had given her. Small sounded more conciliatory. ‘Where do you want to meet?’

  Ollie told her. Small said in ten minutes. Ollie took that as a good sign; they weren’t buying time to mount an operation, but then again, now they knew where she was…

  Ollie wandered out of her room and down towards the café, waiting behind a deep alcove where she could see the main door. She tried to shrug away the tension in her shoulders.

  This is it, she thought. The next few moments will tell me whether Small has betrayed me or taken the bait of the deal.

  She saw a man pull open the door and allow in Small first. Small paused, looked around, said something over her shoulder and started across to a table in the corner.

  Then George walked in. Mobile to his ear. Eyes taking in the room. Assessing, the same way he looked at a chess board with Lily. Straight leg blue jeans, loose black linen jacket, white tee-shirt with an image of a five-black guys singing. She guessed the Temptations.

  He looked good. He looked normal. Like her George. Until he turned to sit and the back of his jacket flared up and she glimpsed a gun.

  She pressed herself back into the wall. What the hell was George doing here? She made herself think it through. The answer had to be that he was a good guy. Small had reported back and George had been assigned. No, too much of a coincidence.

  Or was he already assigned? She thought of the mobile he’d left behind. The pictures of everyone that worked at the café. Was he already watching them? Had she walked into the middle of some terrorist extremist operation that was already under surveillance by the authorities?

  No. Because I am the operation, she thought. Jo called me the tri
gger. They are using me because I am the only person who can carry it out for them.

  That meant Jo had used her twice. They had concerns about this man George who sat in the café for a few hours every morning. Who better to use to seduce him and find out who he really was, but Ollie. She could see them laughing at how clever they were being.

  She swore at herself. She’d downloaded all the information on George’s mobile and handed it, and him, straight to them. No wonder he’d disappeared.

  Now she could see why he’d told her to run; he’d seen her value to whatever his operation was and he needed her free and running, not locked up by Small. George was using her as well. Shit, thought Ollie. Everyone’s using me.

  And now here he is, sitting with Small who is glancing at her watch, impatient. Ollie realised that Small now had a lot riding on this. But how to play it with George was the question.

  Ollie took a deep breath and stepped out. Small saw her immediately, spoke quickly to George who glanced up, said something and put his mobile away.

  This is it, thought Ollie. Game on.

  * * *

  Beneath the bridge the man in black heard the mobile above him ting and then buzz as it received a message. He considered for a few seconds, then reached up, lifted it down and opened the message.

  It was the image of a terrified, crying, young girl clinging tightly to the neck of an older woman. Beside them a man he knew as ‘Hans’ was holding a disposable syringe and looking at them intently.

  He read the caption and grinned. The operation was getting nearer to its murderous conclusion. This is the only way to fight and win this war, he thought. Nasty, dirty, unfeeling.

  * * *​

  Andy stood over the bodies in the suitcases. Forensics, lights, cameras, it was like a movie shoot. The white suits were discussing whether it would be best to remove the cases, bodies and all, or carefully extricate the bodies on site.

  He left them to it and went back up to the Café. It was closed and the only people hanging about were tourists and the odd local trying to pop in for coffee. When they saw all the police and the crime scene tape, they fed on that instead.

  He tried the number for the owner again, but there was still no answer from Joanna Johnson. A car had been sent to her house, but there was no one at home. He remembered the hippy, dreadlocked, sixty something who’d confronted them a while back while they were talking with Soul.

  She was of increasing interest to him because her name appeared several times in their cross-referencing and now they were at her cafe, with three bodies in her basement.

  He called Jules. ‘Can you do a background check on this Joanna Johnson. Go back as far as you can. Place of birth, schools, the works.’ He paused at a sudden thought.

  ‘And Jules, keep your senses tuned in for even a whiff of a relationship with anyone associated with Soul. Her mother, one of the men, any of Soul’s friends.’

  ‘Okay and I’ve done the face graphics like you asked. I’ll start running it when they finish setting up a machine here. The DNA searches and cross-matching is going to take an age though.’

  Andy looked up and hung up as the Chief marched on to the crime scene with long angry strides. ‘Where’s Small?’ His words were clipped, edged with anger.

  ‘Gone to the meeting, Sir.’

  ‘Where are the bodies?’

  Andy led him towards the basement. The man’s anger thundered from every pore like the boom of a bass drum. He’d authorised one of the biggest manhunts ever and Small had gone behind his back to a meeting with his prey without telling him or anyone.

  Except, of course, Andy. Which was why, if he and Small didn’t deliver they were history.

  And now the manhunt had been stood down for some reason. The Chief was in the dark and Small was out of his control.

  Andy left the Chief with forensics and headed towards his car and the office. He checked his mobile for messages. Small had taken him to one side before she left, promising to leak information to him that may help them save themselves.

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  10.30 am – Hotel cafe

  Small made Ollie’s decision for her. ‘This is George Sapphire. He and his team are here to help.’

  He nodded, smiled. ‘Call me George.’

  He waved for coffee. ‘I’ve heard the story, Oleander, and it’s all a bit far-fetched. I need names, some kind of proof.’

  George, formal and distant from the man she knew. The hint of the East End was still there in his voice though.

  ‘The leader….’ Ollie paused, thinking of the two black vans. ‘The person co-ordinating this is Joanna Johnson. Together with some others at the Café. She’s always been a bit radical, but now she’s gone nuts. More than just demos.’

  She told him about the black vans and reeled off the one number plate she’d memorised. Small called it in, then backed it up with a text.

  George’s eyes held hers. She didn’t want to look away anyway.

  ‘And you’re denying anything to do with up to seven murders despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.’

  Ollie found it strange having George talk to her like this. No ‘Babes’, no teasing, no laughter. Had all that been an act?

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘What’s the deal you want if this is all true?’

  She told him. He was expressionless throughout, but just once she caught a flicker of regret in his eyes.

  She hit him off-guard, because she had to know. ‘You married, George? Wife? Family? You ever had to fight really hard, like everything on the line or death hard, to protect someone? Are you willing to do it?’

  ‘No, I’m not married and yes, sometimes I have put myself in harm’s way to protect others.’

  Ollie’s tone hardened. ‘Well, that’s reassuring, George. Because right now, me and my little girl and my invalid mother need someone like you on our side. So, I don’t need you asking me about murders I didn’t do. I want to know what you and your team are going to do to get me out of this shit and save the life of a Chinaman.’

  The gaze between them was like a wire pulled taut and it was snapped by the ping of Small’s mobile. She glanced down.

  ‘Interpol are saying false plates.’

  George took a deep breath. ‘Doesn’t help your cause, Ollie.’ He paused and she saw the mistake flicker across his eyes. ‘I can call you that can I? If we’re working together?’

  Ollie shrugged nonchalantly, glanced at Small who was intent on her mobile.

  George went on. ‘The problem is, Ollie, there’s a lot here that makes no sense.’ He moved a pepper pot on the table like chess piece.

  ‘If you don’t administer the poison, how will they know?’

  Ollie squeezed her eyes looking for the trick, then gave the obvious answer.

  ‘Because he won’t die.’

  George slid the salt across. ‘But if the idea is to kill him here in the UK they can find a way to do that. They don’t need all this elaboration.’

  He plucked a handful of sugar sachets from the pot and laid one down. ‘If we switch the poison for tomato juice, how will they know?’

  Ollie could feel herself blinking with stupidity. Christ, she’d been naïve. George went on, laying another sachet.

  ‘If I go and tell the Chinese and he pretends to be sick or die, how will they know he’s faking?’ George had his head tilted to one side and his eyebrows raised with the question. He laid another sachet.

  ‘Why do all of this just to poison one man?’ Another sachet.

  ‘Who is this random man from China and why him?’ He raised one last sachet high and laid it like a trump.

  ‘And what’s to stop us taking a view of the bigger picture. Think how the Chinese will react if they know we let one of their senior delegates be killed and we could have stopped it.’

  Ollie swallowed. ‘Do that and you will have sacrificed my family.’ Was the George she knew in there?

  George leaned forward and re
sted his chin in one hand, the fingers scratched across a light stubble. He scraped the salt, pepper and sugar sachets towards him as if the winnings in a card game.

  George fixed his blue eyes on her. ‘There is a lot that’s not right here, Ollie. I know it and you know it. Either they’re not telling you everything, or you’re not telling us.’

  Ollie looked from George to Donna Small and back. He gave her a sympathetic smile that said it all.

  Ollie felt like crying. Just for a few hours there, she thought, I had some grasp, some control. I thought I’d broken out of the cycle of manipulation. But I’ve been kidding myself. I’m still under their control. Worse, I’ve thrown myself under the control of the police as well. And I still don’t have a clue what’s going on.

  * * *

  11.00 – London Hotel

  Ollie was back in her room, stretched out on her bed staring at the ceiling. Only George and Small knew she was here. George told her to stay put until she heard from him. She wondered if George knew more than he was saying. He’d offered nothing, all he’d done was ruthlessly unpick her narrative.

  The good news was that she hadn’t been arrested on the spot. The bad news was that leaving her in place meant she had to continue with the planned killing. Worse, he’d made it clear that she was now working for him.

  Ollie wasn’t planning on staying put. She needed to be doing something that would help find Lily and her mother. She had to discover who’d carried out all the killings. And the attack she was being forced into was creating a permanent feeling of nausea in her gut. Doing something would temporarily push it to one side.

  Deep down, she knew the simple solution to all this was to tell the Chinese Embassy and probably sacrifice Lily and her mother. If you remove the target there’s nothing to aim at. Let Small arrest her and charge her. Meanwhile, pile resources into finding Jo and all the other terrorists in the group and if they missed them this time get them next time.

  Someone, somewhere, was going to have to balance the risks and make a decision. Ollie could see that her only real chance of saving Lily and her mother was to influence that decision. To do that she needed to act.