by Bo Brennan
Husband. Diversion. Shouldn’t be here.
It was cold and calculating. Perfect. A terrorist attack would tie up all of the south’s emergency services. It was the perfect time to take someone out – especially with Colt and India dead. But India wasn’t dead. She swiped at her face with her filthy jacket sleeve and took faltering backward steps as the medics worked.
And then she was running.
Searching for her car.
She found it further up the street, bent and battered, the windscreen blown. She scrambled across the hot bonnet and dropped into the debris strewn seat. Keys still in the ignition, the old jalopy started first time.
And then she was driving, speeding, swerving. A convoy of blue lights and sirens forced their way into the crippled city as she forced her way out to reach the rural back route home.
Four minutes to midday she arrived. No sign of Nisha Fisher’s car in the clearing. No sign of any vehicles at all. All quiet, peaceful. Paradise lost. She abandoned her car around the back of the houseboat and jumped across to the deck, pounding her fists against the door.
She almost fell inside when Gray opened up. “Oh my God,” he cried, grabbing her as she stumbled. “What the fuck happened to you?”
“Give me the phone,” she shouted, rifling his pockets. “Give me the fucking phone!”
Her hands trembled as she called Nisha Fisher. “It’s Kane. Change of plan. Meet at the marina,” she said, as soon as Nisha picked up. “I don’t give a fuck where you are, turn around. Turn around now!” She tossed the phone back at Gray and peered through the porthole window. Nisha was on the lane. Seconds away from the dirt track that would lead whoever was following her straight here.
Someone was about to step from the shadows.
“You’re bleeding,” Gray said, fussing. “Tell me what’s wrong. You’re scaring Priti. Shit, India, you’re fucking scaring me!”
Priti. She snapped her head around to see her wide eyed and shaking on her sofa. “This is your fault,” India said, launching at her and pinning her by the throat. “Tell me who it is. Tell me who’s doing this.”
Gray grappled her into a bear hug, shouting for her to stop. India wasn’t stopping, she had nothing left to lose. “Tell me her husband’s fucking name or I’ll kill you myself,” she screamed, squeezing her airway tighter. Priti gurgled, her eyes bulging. “Tell me!”
“Get off her!” Gray wrestled India to the floor, where he used his full bodyweight to keep her there. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Priti rolled off the sofa next to them, coughing and gasping for air.
Gray reached for her. So did India – wove her fingers through short, black hair and dragged her across the wooden floor to meet her eyes. “What’s his fucking name?”
“Ali,” she cried out. “Ali Hussein.”
India stared at her, unable to comprehend. “Colt’s commander?”
“Yes,” she whimpered. “Yes.”
A momentary stillness descended on the room, until Gray rolled off India and unfurled her fingers. “Jesus Christ, he killed that girl and her baby.”
“Shareen went to the police. They hid her, pretended she was dead. Now she is dead and they’re trying to kill me.”
“They killed Colt.” The world stopped as India turned away, covered her face with her hands and curled into a ball on the wooden floor, sobbing. And then she felt the vibration in her cheek of a car closing in. “They’re here.”
She sprang to her feet and grabbed the shotgun, broke it and checked it was loaded. “Get her out of here. Bathroom window and through the woods to the marina,” she said, stuffing the pockets of her filthy, tattered jeans and coat with cartridges.
Gray fumbled with the phone. “I’m calling the police.”
“There are no fucking police,” India said, knocking the phone from his hand. “No fire engines, no medics, no military. They blew up Colt’s car in the city centre!”
“Then it’s me and you,” he said, moving for the gun cabinet, ready to take up arms. Ready to fight. “I’m not leaving you.”
India turned the gun on him. She’d said the same to Colt, before divine intervention fucked up her day, her life, her everything. Now divine retribution was all that remained, and it was solely hers to take. “You left me when you brought death to my door and lied to my face. Get her to Nisha and make her spill her guts, or I’ll spill them right here,” she said, jabbing the barrels in his chest, forcing him and Priti into the bathroom. “Go. And don’t ever come back.”
Chapter 72
India listened at the bathroom door until she heard the window bang, and then crept in behind them and followed them out. She dropped to the deck and swung over the side to solid ground, watching Gray and Priti disappear through dense scrub into woodland, well on their way to safety.
And then turned her attention to the throaty exhaust out front.
She knew that car, she’d been in that car. Felt the thrum of its engine when she lay broken on the floor, and remembered it well. Now, from her vantage point underneath the boat, she could see it too.
And she could see who killed Colt.
As Doug Henderson drew his Glock and cautiously climbed the wooden steps, India cocked the shotgun and took aim. “Surprise. Toss the gun, Dick. They’ve gone.”
His neck in a brace, Doug Henderson turned his whole body to squint into the shadows beneath the hull. “Thank God you’re all right. I got here as soon as I could. Maggie thought you were with Colt in the city centre. A bomb’s gone off at the mosque.”
“It went off under Colt’s car, and we both know who put it there.”
“Yeah, the National Front by the sound of things. Got all the hallmarks of the recipe found on Councillor Cooper’s computer.” He went to holster his weapon.
“I said . . .” India stepped from the shadows. “Toss. The. Gun.”
He eyed her tattered, filthy clothes. “You were there?”
“Yep. I watched Colt die. Just like you wanted.”
Henderson grimaced and slowly descended the steps, Glock held loosely at his side. “Not quite how I wanted. He said he’d kill me if I touched you again.” He gestured to his injuries. “The man gave me no reason to doubt him. All I wanted was the girl, and you wouldn’t give her up, would you?”
India’s empty eyes stared down the barrels at his battered face, following as he circled for his motor. “Last chance, Dick. Toss the gun now, or pick a barrel. Right gets you heavy choke, a relatively clean kill at this distance. Choose left, and I will gladly fill every fucking square inch of you with lead.”
“What’s the plan, Kane? Call the cops? Last I checked that was us. Well, me. You’re disgraced, remember?”
“That’s right, I am.” India flipped the selector switch right, shifted aim and pulled the trigger.
He went down with a scream, Glock bouncing into builder’s rubble as lead ripped his kneecap to pieces.
“Does Commander Hussein know you hid his wife?” she asked, advancing on him. “That was for his niece, by the way. Clorindar. Nice girl. Colt thought very highly of her. Did. Hussein. Know?”
“No! Nobody did. He buried her! She came to me because he was fucking a schoolgirl!”
“Nobody knew? Not even the Home Secretary?” India stamped on his wounded leg and stooped to relieve him of the gun concealed at his ankle. “Close call,” she said, tossing it to join the Glock. “Are you sure about that, Dick?”
“Yes, I’m fucking sure!” he screamed. “Jesus Christ. I covered it up because I loved her, and after all that, she left me for a fucking priest.”
“Colt was right. He was still a man,” India mused, and then she frowned. “Are you harbouring a hero complex, Dick? Wouldn’t dropping the naughty Muslim commander guarantee you his nice Muslim wife?”
All guns gone, Doug Henderson gripped his shattered knee with both hands, sweat drenching his skin and soaking his clothes. “The naughty Muslim commander didn’t kill Becky Adams,”
he gritted out. “Shareen did. You happy now? You got your answers. Call me a fucking ambulance.”
“All the ambulances are busy helping the good people who had their limbs blown off today. You’re not a good person, Dick,” India said, raising the gun. “And I’m not a happy one.”
Henderson raised a bloodied hand. “It’s not like in the movies, Kane. Taking a life ain’t easy.”
“Gets easier every time, though.”
“The killed stay with you.” He pressed the heel of his hand to his head. “In here, partying day and night.”
“This one’s for the priest.” India put the gun in his face and pulled the trigger. “Welcome to my party, Dick.”
Chapter 73
The river incapable of washing today’s sins away, India Kane traipsed numbly to Colt’s place and curled up in his bed. His pillow still smelled of him. She buried her face and breathed him in, imagining him there. Slipping her hands beneath to hug him tight, she felt something alien that didn’t belong there.
Angular edges. Small and square.
She lifted the pillow and stared at the purple box, Asprey London inscribed on the top.
A sob caught in her throat as she opened it. The platinum and diamond band never given, a promise forever unfulfilled. She slipped it on her finger and started at a noise outside.
A chopper overhead. News vultures circling. Relaying mosque misery live feeds to hate hungry households. Reloading the shotgun, she headed outside to find the chopper gone . . . but glimpsed movement in the scrub. Backing into the doorway, her eyes scanned the treeline, head counting eight. Dressed head to toe in black, weapons raised.
A Tactical Assault Team.
A firefight was out of the question. She’d be sporting more holes than a sieve before she had the chance to reload. None of them spoke, none of them moved. It became clear they were providing cover when a convoy of blacked out vehicles arrived, tooled up suits spilling from every door, shooters and sharp, shaded eyes trained India’s way.
Henderson had more friends than she thought.
“Drop your weapon,” one of the suits ordered from just yards away.
India said nothing, simply directed her aim at his chest. Kept the safety off and her finger on the trigger. If she was joining Colt, she was going out in a blaze of glory. If anyone flinched the talker was going down with her, and the rest of the suits were close enough to cop a good load of lead from the spray.
In her peripheral vision, someone emerged from the back of one of the cars. “Please, put the gun down, Detective Kane,” the woman said, stepping into her target line and signalling the suits to stand down. “There’s been enough bloodshed today.”
India stared at the Home Secretary. “Most of it spilled by your lot.”
The Home Secretary glanced over at Henderson’s lifeless feet poking out of the hardstanding hole, and shook a thin cigarillo from a silver case. One of the suits lit it as soon as it touched her lips. “Doug Henderson was one of my best operatives,” she said, completely unfazed by the shotgun trained on her. “Until he went rogue and started passing information to the network to cover up his misdemeanours.”
“Misdemeanours?” India’s trigger finger itched. “Did you know Commander Hussein’s wife killed Becky Adams?”
“Yes, and quite frankly it was a blessing when she killed herself.”
“But she didn’t kill herself, did she?”
“No. The Singh brothers did. And I’m embarrassed to admit, even though we’d infiltrated their operation, you discovered that before me. I knew Doug was involved with them on some level, but I had no idea Shareen was still alive, until AJ Colt told me her body parts were arriving in his fan mail. Of course, along with the small matter of a dead Singh brother still outstanding, we now have the additional complication of who Commander Hussein buried in her grave.” She took a long drag on her cigarillo, and blew smoke in the direction of Henderson’s temporary resting place. “If I remember rightly, his wife upped and left three years ago too. I suppose we should check if anyone’s heard from her since.”
Growing weary, India sighed. “Why didn’t you charge Commander Hussein?”
“What with?” The Home Secretary spread her hands and ash dropped to the deck. “He didn’t commit any crime. Becky Adams was sixteen when they met, and sixteen when she died. He wanted that child. Wanted to leave his wife for Becky and the baby. Can you imagine the scandal?”
“I can see the mess.” India’s nose twitched as the wind changed direction and the smoke drifted inside, sullying the scent of Colt and making her insides hurt. Her finger stroked the trigger. “He’s taken everything from me.”
“Only I can do that.” The Home Secretary handed her cigarillo to a suit, who dutifully stubbed it out on the sole of his shoe and pocketed the butt. She was never here. “We’ve been tracking Henderson for months, following his every move.” She pointed up at the oily darkening skies. “Satellite images show what went on down here today.”
“Do I look like I care?” India said.
“You should. I’m offering you a lifeline.”
“I don’t have a life. He blew it to pieces.”
“And what would you say if I told you AJ Colt isn’t dead? That you, your brother, and your lover can still come out of this unscathed?”
India’s eyes narrowed. “I’d say when your lips are moving, you’re lying.”
The Home Secretary held out her palm, a suit filled it with an iPad. She took a cursory glance at the screen, and looked back up at India. “May I?” she asked, gesturing to the steps. “You might want to put the gun down for this.”
India’s eyes darted to the treeline. The Tactical Assault Team hadn’t moved a muscle. They’d also had clear unobstructed shots for the duration, and none of them had taken one. Death would be a welcome release. India engaged the safety and rested the shotgun against the doorframe.
The Home Secretary climbed the steps with the iPad held high. “AJ Colt’s in surgery, having part of his car removed from his lung,” she said. “He was airlifted to the major trauma centre at Southampton General Hospital. It boasts some of the finest surgeons, trauma specialists, and facilities in the country.”
As the images of Colt scrolled across the screen, India grabbed the iPad and slumped to the floor.
The Home Secretary stood over her. “It’s all to play for, India. But it’s a pay to play deal. My men can take you and Grayson Davies in, and charge you both with murder, ensuring neither of you see the light of day again. Or, I can take you to see Colt and we can discuss a little proposition I have. A payment plan, if you will. What’s it to be? Pay to stay, or locked away?”
India started retching. “Colt.”
The Home Secretary gestured two of her men forward. “The MTC has strict infection controls, get her cleaned up and in the car. The rest of them can clean this mess up.”
Southampton General Hospital MTC
Silent suits lined the corridor to Intensive Care.
“He’s in the room at the end,” the Home Secretary said.
India stood in the lift, afraid to move. Afraid it wasn’t true. And more afraid it was.
“You don’t have to see him, but it may influence your decision. As I said in the car, the choice is yours. You can leave with them right now, pick Grayson up on the way,” the Home Secretary said, gesturing to her men. “But I’d rather you left with me.”
India’s feet began to move, trepidation building as she reached the doors and pushed through them. Amid the wires, the tubes, the machines, lay everything that made her life worth living. AJ Colt. The space in her bed, the hole in her heart, the stillness in her chaos, the light in her dark. The better part of her, and everything she could never be.
Her personal paradise.
And she would do whatever it took to keep him safe, make him stay.
India kissed his head, his cheeks, his eyelids, his lips. “I love you, Abel James Colt.”
The steady beep of the m
onitor changed as his heart rate increased.
She slid the ring from her finger and placed it in his palm, closing his own fingers tightly around it. “Wait for me to come home.”
Chapter 74
Epilogue
The Daily Herald
Friday, 20th April
135 YEARS FOR ASIAN GROOMING GANG
By Ryan Reynolds, Crime Correspondent
A gang of ten Asian men who groomed vulnerable white girls as young as nine by plying them with drink and drugs have been jailed for a total of 135 years.
The men were found guilty at the Old Bailey yesterday of conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with children under the age of 16, rape, and multiple other offences.
The hearing took place amid tight security with armed officers inside the courtroom and guarding the Old Bailey building as large demonstrations from far right protesters took place outside.
The trial was dogged by violent clashes and controversy with the head of New Scotland Yard’s Child Abuse Command, Ali Hussein, stepping down from his position before the first witness took the stand.
The Senior Investigating Officer from the Met’s elite Paedophile Unit Detective Chief Inspector AJ Colt, himself a victim of a National Front bomb attack on a Southampton mosque last month, was in court to hear the sentencing.
When asked if he felt vindicated for the controversy caused when his team served legal papers on the defendants at their local mosque, he said, ‘There is no hiding place. Wherever you are, England, India, I will find you.’
The Home Office, London
“Malik’s here, ma’am.”
“Send him in,” the Home Secretary said.
