by Bo Brennan
“You seem to know your stuff.”
Shayla raised a shoulder. “I did some medical studies.”
“Must come in handy when the Tall Trees geriatrics run riot with the cutlery.”
Her hand stilled on his chest. Her eyes darted to the door, seeking her escape route.
“Don’t.” Gray covered her hand with his. “You don’t need to run from me, Shayla. I went looking because I wanted to help you. I still do. But people I cared about died in that fire, and I need to know why.”
She stood rooted to the spot for a long moment, her expression tortured as she weighed her options.
Gray hoped he was it. The only option she had left. If she ran again, he didn’t have the energy to chase. “Let me help you,” he pleaded. “Make my friend Charlie’s death worth something. Please.”
Her fingers curled around his and she gave a sombre nod. “Okay. But you need hospital treatment and rest first.”
Gray wearily shook his head. “I’ll agree to rest, but hospital’s out of the question since I’m guessing you slipped past a police guard.”
Shayla grimaced and raised her plastered arm. “It was a bit more than a slip,” she said, swinging it like a tennis racquet. “Different town, different hospital?”
Oh God, she’d clocked a copper. And one of his sister’s mates to boot. “Trust me. They’ll have it covered.” Knowing India, every hospital in the county would be covered by now. . . probably the country.
“All right, Miss Medical Studies.” Gray drew a deep breath and stood up. “You left or right handed?”
“Right. Why?”
“You’re gonna need it.” He opened the junk drawer and began rummaging, the exertion set the big red eye weeping again. By the time he grabbed a tea towel, blood pooled in the waistband of his jeans.
“I’ve got fishing line and a sewing kit,” he said, tossing them onto the side. “How are your needlework skills?”
Shayla’s eye’s widened. “Rusty.”
“Between us we’ve got two decent hands.” Gray gave a weary smile and dropped back into the chair. “I’ll pinch, you stitch.”
Chapter 45
Tuesday, 13th March
Portsmouth, Hampshire
Shayla Begum stared down at him, his fingers curled around a baseball bat as he slept. His taut torso was battered and bruised, but the gauze dressing at his shoulder showed no signs of seepage, her rusty stitches had held. For once, she’d done something good.
Gray Davies did good every day. He was a good man.
He deserved answers.
He deserved better.
Far better than anything Shayla’s presence would bring. Where she went, death and despair followed. She couldn’t allow it to find her here, not with him.
She silently climbed from the bed he’d insisted she take, while he bedded down on the floor beside her. In this neat three-bedroom terrace, the master was the only first floor room with a viable escape route in the event of a fire – a window opening onto the flat-roofed bay of his lounge. He’d thought of everything before rest. Taped the letterbox closed, changed the smoke detector batteries, triple-checked the locks on the windows and doors. Even took a fire blanket and extinguisher to bed.
For the first time in a long time, she’d slept soundly last night. Safely. Shayla smiled at the memory of how Gray Davies had even managed to make her feel safe when she was trapped underneath a bus. A living, breathing guardian angel, he’d saved her again and again and again.
One day she’d repay him. For now, she’d do everything in her power to save him.
Winchester, Hampshire
India banged her fist against the townhouse door and stepped back, looking up at the curtains covering the first-floor window.
Nothing stirred, not even the dawn chorus.
Ashvindar Singh slept like the dead.
He was definitely here; the cab was parked outside.
She raised her fist and hammered relentlessly, a booming base beat that couldn’t go unanswered. And it didn’t. The bedroom window next door swung open, a cranky middle-aged woman hung out. “Give it a rest. People are trying to sleep!”
Right result, wrong resident. India ignored her, continued banging.
“If you don’t stop right now, I’m calling the police!”
“I am the police,” India said, glancing up at her. The woman slept in full make-up, and hair rollers. “What can I do for you?”
“You can quit bloody banging!” the hot mess snarled.
From the corner of her eye, India saw the desired door crack open and promptly start closing again. “No you don’t,” she said, ramming her boot in the gap and her warrant card in the door opener’s face. “Ashvindar Singh?”
Sleep crusted eyes narrowed at her through the crack. “Maybe.”
“What’re you hiding for?” she said, forcing the door with her shoulder.
“I’m not, I was sleeping.” Wide eyed and alert, he backed along the hallway as she entered uninvited. “I thought you were here for my neighbour.”
He was dressed for a workout, his trainers laced and tied. The cabbie either slept fully clothed, or was ready to run. India eyeballed him, every fibre in her body tuned to trouble. “If I was, I’d be knocking their door, not yours, Mr Singh. I take it you are Mr Singh?”
“Yeah, I’m Ashvindar Singh,” he said, putting his hands up. “What am I supposed to have done?”
India held out the picture of Shayla Begum climbing into his cab. “You gave this woman a ride from the hospital yesterday afternoon. Where did you take her?”
There was instant recognition in his beady black eyes. “Headbourne Worthy,” he said.
A tiny village abutting Nazreem Sinder’s. “Narrow it down to a house number and street.”
“She got out at the corner of School Lane and Worthy Road.”
“Where did she go from there?”
Anger flashed in his eyes. “How should I know?”
India moved her jacket, revealing the cuffs at her waistband.
He sighed and ran a hand over his tufted bedhead. “Look, she paid, I left. Got an airport run to Luton. Check with the cab office, they’ll confirm I was working all night. My shift starts again in a few hours. Can I go back to bed now?”
India stared at him. She’d only asked where he’d dropped Shayla Begum off. He’d answered with an alibi for the entire evening. “Yep. Thanks for your time. I’ll see myself out.”
As she stepped through the door, she noted the ropey potted palm beside it. From the parched disturbed dirt at its base, a shaped wooden handle protruded. India knew exactly what it was, she’d seen one recently. Concealed under the counter of the hunting and fishing shop where she’d bought Colt’s gift.
The Paedophile Unit, New Scotland Yard, London
Colt strolled into the office with two Dunkin’ Donuts boxes and placed them on the table outside the tea room. On the rare occasions he drove into work, the M3 services provided a welcome pit stop before the horror of the M25. “Don’t say I never get you lot anything.”
“Good morning, sunshine.” Maggie smiled and handed him a mug of coffee. “Lie-ins and donuts. Loves me a bomb scare,” she said, digging in.
“It’s getting stupid. Third time this month,” Colt grumbled. “It’s carnage out there, traffic’s a nightmare. Station’s still shut now. Think I’ll be driving in for the foreseeable, Mags.”
Maggie cocked her jaw, seemingly unhappy at being relieved of her chauffeur duties. “Some banker called Basil probably left his briefcase on the platform again.”
“Banker Basil or Semtex Sammy, it’s still a pain in the arse. I can’t run the department if I can’t bloody get here.”
“Bet you wished you hadn’t moved to the sticks now, guv.” Nathan stuck his foot up on his desk, ugly fluorescent cycle clips gathered the bottom of his trousers. “Could’ve biked in with me. Terrorist tossers can’t fuck with pedal power.”
Colt stared at his normally s
uave sergeant. “They can seriously fuck with your street cred though, Nate. What have I missed?” His gaze moved to the cardboard box, addressed to him, sat on the edge of Nathan’s desk. “I thought I told you to get rid of this shit.”
“It’s just arrived,” he said, dusting sugar from his chin. “The courier had one for the commander too. I reckon you got the bra and he got the thong.”
Clorindar almost choked on her coffee. “I don’t think that will be happening anytime soon.”
Maggie stilled mid-munch, glaring at Nathan.
“What?” he cried. “Someone once found Uncle Ali attractive enough to marry. Share the love, people. Hot stuff here’s already received two bras, a thong, and three marriage proposals this week. Could be double Ds of the lacy kind in there.”
Clorindar sniggered behind a caramel nut ring.
“Oh for Christ’s sake,” Maggie said. “Put them out of their misery and open the bloody thing, will you.” She passed Colt the scissors from the pot on her desk and reached for the ringing phone, shushing them all to silence.
Clorindar and Nathan watched eagerly, betting on the contents in chuckled hushed tones, as Colt slid the blade along the tape and prised open the lid.
He peered inside, eyes narrowing at the blizzard of polystyrene packing balls. Too long in the tooth to plunge his hands in, he shook the contents out onto Maggie’s desk. “Commander for you,” she mouthed as an avalanche of little white beads rolled into her lap and cascaded to the floor.
And then the gift landed under her nose with a thud.
“Jesus Christ!” she shrieked, dropping the phone and leaping to her feet.
Her reaction had the whole office out of their seats, angling for a decent look. No one was laughing now. The silence was deafening.
“What the hell is it?” Maggie gasped as Colt prodded it with a pen.
Frowning hard, he peered up at her pale frozen face. “It’s a foot, Mags.”
The silence was shattered as alarms rang out. Colt raised a hand, holding back his team as he moved to the unit’s secure door. Further down the corridor, a bunch of bodies moved. The commander had sounded his panic button.
Chapter 46
Hampshire CID, Winchester
India chewed at her cheek and glanced again towards Firman’s office. He’d specifically requested she come in for an update and he’d been stuck on the phone since she’d arrived. Not that she had much to tell him. Shayla Begum was scent on the wind, and checks on creepy cabbie Ashvindar Singh had yielded nothing, not even a rumour in the intelligence files. The system said he was clean, India’s system said otherwise.
“You hollered?”
India looked round to find Smith and Wesson approaching her desk. PC Paul Smith had a fermented black egg for an eye. “How’re you feeling?” she asked.
“Stupid.” Kate Wesson chuckled.
Paul gave his partner serious side-eye. “Sore.”
India pointedly cleared her throat and handed him a bulging bakery bag. Smithy smiled as he looked inside. “Feel up to knocking a few doors for me this afternoon?” she asked. “The cabbie who picked up Shayla Begum dropped her in Headbourne Worthy.”
Paul Smith grimaced. “Headbourne Worthy? There’s bugger all there except watercress beds and scarecrows.”
“There’s a lovely little church,” Kate said. “Almost sits on its own island.”
Paul jerked his head mockingly. “Didn’t have you down as a bible basher.”
“More a trail basher,” she said. “My weekend walking group stops there for a packed lunch sometimes.”
“Bet they’d rather stop at the pub,” he snorted.
Kate smiled sweetly. “There isn’t one, Danish.”
“But there are two-hundred and sixteen houses, apparently.” India turned her monitor to show them the Parish Council website. “I knocked all the ones on School Lane this morning, didn’t see a soul.”
“Well, you won’t,” Paul said, pulling out a pastry. “They’ll all be out working an eighty-hour week in the city to pay for their posh postcode in the sticks. The Worthys are the villages of the damned these days. Prices are off the scale. We can go litter the place with posters if you want, but you’ll be hard pushed to find more than tumbleweed to talk to before the weekend.”
Smithy always chose the easy option, India looked to Kate for confirmation.
Kate shrugged. “He’s right. Besides, places like that call us if the paperboy changes, if someone had seen a battered Pakistani woman in a hospital smock roaming the streets the phones would’ve be ringing off the hook. You sure it was Headbourne Worthy?”
“That’s what he said.” India looked at the photocopy of the cabbie’s licence, unease stirred in her stomach. “Reckons he dropped her at the corner of School Lane and Worthy Road.”
Paul loomed over her desk, dropping bits of pastry on her paperwork. “That him?”
“Yeah, Ashvindar Singh. You know him?”
Kate and Paul looked at each other, shaking their heads.
“Watch your backs if you come across him,” India said, flicking flakes of food off her desk. “He’s a wrong ‘un. Keeps a machete behind his front door.”
“I’m not surprised,” Kate said. “If my surname was Singh, I’d have a rocket launcher behind mine. The council have just given the National Front the go ahead for another demo this weekend.”
India shook her head. “Idiots.”
“Us or them?” Smithy wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “We’re the ones who have to police it. Wherever basher Begum’s holed-up, she’s better off out of the city.”
India sighed and rocked back in her chair, a grudging respect building for the spirited young woman who remained one step ahead of them all. “Right, cut the hair off Pocahontas’s missing posters, and smother Headbourne Worthy in them,” she said, standing up as Firman’s office door finally opened. “Shayla Begum went there for a reason. Someone must know something.”
Portsmouth, Hampshire
Gray Davies woke with a start. He could smell burning.
Hauling his achy arse off the floor, he looked to the bed.
Shayla was gone. The smell of smoke remained.
With every sense on high alert, he grabbed the fire extinguisher and hurried down the stairs, seeking out the source. The letterbox remained taped. The lounge was clear. No raging inferno, no smoke alarms activated. But the smell lingered. In the silence a faint snap and crackle reached his ears. Pulling the pin on the extinguisher, he burst through the kitchen door.
Shayla jumped and dropped the butter knife, it skittered across the floor to him. “I burnt the toast,” she said. “Cooking one handed isn’t easy.”
“Shit, sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Gray put the fire extinguisher down and picked up the knife, raising his hands in apology as he placed it in the sink. “I thought you’d run out on me.”
She looked down at her fidgety feet. “Can’t run anywhere, haven’t got any shoes,” she said, tugging awkwardly on the bottom of the shirt she was wearing. “Or anything else.”
Oh, underwear. Gray blushed, suddenly aware he was in his own. “We can sort all that. I need to get online and order a new crash helmet. Hammer hands took a chunk out of mine. We should probably measure your head and get you one that fits properly.”
“I’m a fifty-four,” she said, surprising him. Nobody knew their head size, unless they rode a motorbike or wore a uniform. “But don’t go to any trouble, I’ll be out of your hair on Friday.”
Gray’s brows rose in question. “Why Friday?”
“I have somewhere to be. And you won’t need me anymore.” She waved her plaster cast towards the table. “You’re well rested, now you eat.”
Gray lowered himself into a seat, wondering where she needed to be on Friday. “I should be making you breakfast. Technically you’re my guest, and you’re injured.”
“I’ve had worse. And technically it’s lunch, since it’s nearly noon,” she said, placin
g a plate of bacon, eggs, and beans in front of him, followed by a stack of toast.
He jerked his head round to see the oven clock. “Christ, I’ve slept for half the day.”
“Your body had a fair amount of blood to replace, and almost half of it is water.” She handed him a glass. “Drink. You need to keep your fluids up.”
Like a hospital patient he did as he was told, staring at her as he drank. Shayla Begum had a bedside manner he could well get used to.
She smiled and sat down at the table opposite him with a bland piece of buttered toast and tea.
“Where’s yours?” He poked the yoke with his fork, a river of sunshine flooded his plate exactly how he liked it.
She screwed up her face. “Not my thing.”
Gray dropped his gaze back to the sunshine soaked bacon. “You’re a Muslim aren’t you. I should get rid of . . .”
“Actually, I’m not a big eater. And I don’t do religion. God is not my friend.”
Uncomfortable in his ignorance, Gray frowned. Knew nothing of this stranger in his home. “Then why were you at the church?”
“I had nowhere else to go.” She left the table and threw the crusts of her toast into the bin and set about washing the plate one-handed.
Pursing his lips, Gray put his knife and fork down. Her answers were always clipped, just enough to answer him without giving him anything at all. He wanted to help this woman, needed to help this woman. She wasn’t going to make it on her own, so why the hell couldn’t she just let him help? “My friend lost his life saving yours. You need to start being straight with me, Shayla, or we’re both going to end up dead.”
All that greeted him was silence. He rose from his seat, took her shoulders and turned her to face him. “Look at me.” When she didn’t, he cupped her face in his hands and lifted her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “I’ve saved your life three times, why the hell won’t you trust me, Shayla?”
