by Peter Helton
McLusky was already running through the door and towards the stairs. ‘Send a patrol round there immediately!’ he called over his shoulder.
‘I already have,’ Hayes said quietly. ‘I’m not a complete idiot.’
McLusky took the stairs two at a time. ‘Where is Austin?’ he shouted into the CID room. He didn’t wait for an answer and ran on to his own office, grabbed his jacket and car keys and turned round. ‘Tell him to call me,’ he shouted as he hurried past again, struggling to pull on his jacket without dropping his stick. He hammered down the stairs. Not her place, it’ll be too late. In the car park he slipped in the slush, nearly lost his balance. If he got it wrong now, Ellen Carrs would be dead. She might well be dead already.
He started the Mazda and forced his way out of the car park and into the traffic. Not Kaya’s place: too small, too suburban, too overlooked. If he got it wrong, he’d be kicked off the force. No doubt about it. Perhaps he should have resigned before he got in the car.
Traffic was awful and he had no siren on the rented MiTo. He flashed his lights, used his horn, waved his arms, shouted. He barged across lanes, undertook on the inside, knocked the wing mirror off a slower car, jumped the lights and bullied his way across a junction. The suspension bridge was slower than the southern route, but once across, he’d make up the time. The cycle path along the river … Leigh Woods … Lower Failand, it was all more or less in a line, it was all within easy reach, it was convenient. It was lazy, just like the burials. And Ilkin Kaya was lazy. Benji, get me some cigarettes. Just voices on a phone. It was thin, Austin would say. It was desperately thin. But it was Cullip who’d be behind it; Cullip employed Kaya, and in the recording it was him who gave the order. Go get the bitch. And they had got her.
Once past Leigh Woods, McLusky found an empty stretch of road and put his foot down. The road was wet but clear; there’d be no ice, there’d better be no ice. He overtook three cars at once, only just getting back in his lane in time before the car coming the other way whizzed past, horn blaring. He slowed down a little. If he lost it on the road, there’d be no excuse. He nearly missed the turn-off, braked hard. From here on, it was single-lane. He used his horn on every bend, parping an angry rhythm. If he met someone like himself it would be game over. A fingerpost whipped past, too quick to read; nearly there now.
A hundred yards ahead a car joined the lane from a side track, travelling in the same direction. It was a silver Mercedes S. McLusky stood on the brake, allowing the car in front to gain some distance.
Cullip. McLusky couldn’t see the driver, but he remembered part of the number plate. It was him. It had to be him. It had better be him. Where had he just come from? He checked his mirrors. Nothing but grey hedgerows, bits of dark sky. He slowed a bit more, the Mercedes out of sight Four now. He could go back there, drive up that lane. She wouldn’t be at Cullip’s house; they wouldn’t have taken her there. Nineteenth-century brick dust.
Grab Cullip. He speeded up, chased after the Mercedes along the narrow lane, not using his horn now, swinging through the bends with gritted teeth and diminishing faith. He took the right turn towards Cullip’s house too fast, bumping through the shallow ditch, dragging the side of the car through the hedge without slowing down.
He caught up with him just as he turned into his brightly lit drive. He followed him in, driving inches behind him, finally scraping along the driver’s side of the Mercedes as it came to a stop, blocking the door. Cullip scrambled across, sprang from the car on the passenger side and came around the back to confront his pursuer. He was dressed in a blue boiler suit, gloves and black rubber boots. McLusky waited until the man was close enough, then flung open his door hard. It caught Cullip on one knee and he took a staggering step back, shouting obscenities. McLusky levered himself out of the car. Cullip looked fit and probably went to the gym, so he wasted no time. He swung his stick and hit him on the shin.
‘You maniac!’ Cullip shouted and staggered back a bit more.
‘Where is she?’ McLusky shouted back.
Cullip reached into his pocket. McLusky swung his stick with force and hit him on the elbow. Cullip cried out in pain. ‘Ow, you arsehole! It’s just my mobile!’
McLusky hit him again, repeating his question, then flipped the stick around, hooked Cullip’s leg up and pushed him to the ground. ‘Where is she, Cullip!’
‘Fuck off, you creep, get off me!’
The man’s suddenly high voice surprised McLusky. He brought the stick down across his nose, splattering blood, breaking it.
‘Whatever happens, you’re finished, McLusky,’ Cullip groaned, holding his face, lifting the other arm to protect his head.
McLusky thought he was probably right; he swung the stick high and hit Cullip’s knee hard. ‘I’m using reasonable force here, but I’m in a hurry. We’re moving fast towards permanent injury.’
‘You’ll never save her if you waste time beating me up.’
He landed a crack on his wrist, eliciting a sharp cry and a stream of expletives, but the curses became more pleading. ‘You broke it, you bastard, you broke it.’
‘She’s alive then. I had imagined you’d be watching.’
‘Not the girls, McLusky.’ He tried for a laugh, but failed. ‘Never the girls. If I tell you the place, you’ll let me go, agreed?’
McLusky lifted the stick.
‘Otherwise why should I tell you? Come on. You can’t beat it out of me. A bargain.’
The stick remained suspended. ‘If you send me on a wild goose chase, I’ll come after you and finish you off. I swear I will.’
‘I won’t. Okay, okay,’ he added quickly as the stick started descending. ‘She’s at Hartings Farm.’
‘How do I get there? Quickly now.’
‘Back along the lane, third turn-off. Keep going.’
McLusky gave a grunt of grudging satisfaction. Then he dug his handcuffs from his jacket and clasped them around Cullip’s unbroken wrist, quickly dragging his protesting prisoner by the arm until he could thread the other end of the cuff through the rear door handle of the Mercedes. ‘I lied to you,’ McLusky said.
‘So did I,’ Cullip spat. ‘She’s dead.’
McLusky pulled Cullip’s iPhone from his pocket and lobbed it into the garden. ‘Why? Why kill them all?’
‘Blackmail. One of the bastards was blackmailing me. With a picture of how we killed Wayne. Fuck knows how they took that. One of them sent me bits of it. And bits to the Bristol Herald. We took care of the Herald; we took care of all of them.’
McLusky got into his car and reversed out of the drive at speed. Once back in the lane, he dialled Austin’s number while he accelerated away.
‘Ah, good thing you called,’ Austin began. ‘The patrol that went round Ellen—’
‘Shut up, Jane, and listen. She’s probably dead. It was Cullip and Kaya. Send someone round Cullip’s place. I left him cuffed to his Merc; make sure they caution him, I didn’t have time. I’m on my way to Hartings Farm, near here. I think it’s where the killings were done.’
‘I just found out that Cullip bought it. It’s a derelict farm near Lower Failand.’
McLusky turned up the lane from which the Mercedes had emerged. ‘I’m nearly there.’
‘Be careful, Liam. If the girl is dead, why not wait for backup?’
‘Feel free to join me.’ McLusky terminated the call and concentrated on the way ahead. This lane was even narrower; the hedgerows looked neglected. Only a mile further on, he found it. As soon as the loom of its dark buildings appeared, he killed the lights, stopped and left the car in the lane. Even so, anyone at the farm might well have heard the engine or seen the lights approaching.
A wind had sprung up, curiously mild after the long wintry spell. There was only the faintest light in the sky now, and it took McLusky a minute for his eyes to adjust. He walked carefully towards the buildings. After some steps he paused for a few heartbeats, then threw his stick into the hedge and walked back to the ca
r. Half hidden under the driver’s seat and forgotten until now lay the confiscated shotgun, gold-plated and sawn-off. He was amazed at the confidence the heavy weapon bestowed as he moved swiftly with it up the lane.
Hartings Farm had not been derelict for long but had obviously been neglected for many years. The signs were everywhere. The five-bar gate to the yard stood open but hung on a single hinge; the yard itself consisted of mud and concrete islands in a sea of melting snow; the old brick-built farmhouse was shuttered and partially boarded up, its roof missing several tiles. A row of low, sagging outbuildings contained a profusion of junk and rusting machinery. Confused tyre tracks ran all over the yard, some leading straight towards the closed double doors of a large barn.
McLusky stopped just inside the gate. There were thirty yards of open space between him and the barn. If Kaya was armed and had heard him, then it would happen here, between the gate and the barn. He heard a faint noise from somewhere ahead, a dull thud followed by a thin metallic clang. It was probably the wind. It didn’t sound like a man taking aim. He started to cross the yard in deliberate loping strides. With a loud splash his foot disappeared up to his shin into a black puddle. He stood still while the icy water flooded his boots. There was no more sound. Slowly he withdrew his foot and squelched on, shotgun pointing at the uneven ground, until he reached the wall beside the door. Backup. Should have waited for backup. He crept into the dark along the right-hand side of the building, but his feet instantly snagged on hidden debris among the weeds. He withdrew back to the door, listened. For the fifth time since entering the yard, he felt for the safety catch, making sure it was off. Then he stretched out a hand for the crude wooden handle on the left leaf of the door and pulled. After opening a foot’s width, the wood gave a creak that sounded like a shout in McLusky’s ear. He slid through the gap and advanced a few steps into the cavernous dark, then squatted down, shotgun levelled.
Death. It was faint, but McLusky could smell it. The metallic odour of spilled blood and the stench of bowels and bladder discharged. He held his breath and listened. Not a sound. He held his pencil torch as far to the side of his body as he could stretch and risked a short flash. A few feet away stood a blue van; beyond it McLusky got the impression of a dark bundle lying by a thick supporting beam. No gunshot was aimed at his flashlight. He stood up, clicked it on again and advanced, bent low, stabbing the thin beam into the dark spaces between mouldering junk. He rested the beam on the slumped figure on the ground. It was the girl, still tied and gagged. Her hair and T-shirt were smeared with blood, her face destroyed. All around lay bloodied lumps of brick, concrete and wood. He felt for a pulse at her neck. She was dead.
The door of the van was open. He shone the light inside; it was empty. Engine noise erupted; not here, but close, outside. Bright lights pierced the dark through chinks in the side of the barn. The crunch of tyres as a car sped alongside. McLusky ran. He could hear the car skidding away. When he barged through the barn doors, the brake lights of the silver Toyota flashed at him as the car negotiated the gate and turned left. McLusky ran. Even as he splashed through the yard, he could hear the car braking as it reached the MiTo blocking the lane. As he skidded out of the yard, Kaya threw his car into reverse and screeched towards him. McLusky raised the shotgun and held his breath. No matter where he pointed the gun, he couldn’t miss. His adversary was invisible inside the car but kept on coming. Ten yards, five yards. McLusky swallowed hard. Three yards. He leant into the gun, and when the car was nearly on him, he fired and jumped aside. The rear window of the Toyota shattered; the car slewed into the hedge and stalled.
Silence. McLusky picked himself up and approached the car cautiously. He opened the passenger door, poked the shotgun at Kaya and snatched the keys from the ignition. Kaya was bleeding from his cheek and was holding his shoulder. He looked stunned but wide awake.
‘I’ll call you an ambulance,’ McLusky said.
Kaya looked straight ahead. ‘Fuck off.’
From beyond the parked MiTo several sets of headlights approached. McLusky gently set the shotgun on the ground. His hands were steady as he shook a cigarette from the pack and lit it. Then he walked away up the lane into the dark, in the curiously mild air, smoking, enjoying a last few moments of peace.
They hadn’t come. They didn’t pay up. And he was alive. Three hours he had waited beyond the arranged drop-off time, and they hadn’t come. He had convinced himself that they would kill him. Kill him without paying up, or pay up and kill him when he went to claim the money. But not turning up at all, that he had never expected. There was no sign of them, no sign of the holdall full of money, in the agreed place or anywhere else. He took another turn of Queen’s Square in the strangely mild evening air, strolling along in the dim light. Somehow, he found, he did not feel disappointed. He felt light. As though a weight had been lifted. They had just ignored him. And him with the ferry ticket bought and the car packed and waiting.
He’d go to Spain anyway. It would always be this mild there in winter; that was where this air was coming from, they had said on the radio. He would expose them, of course. Just as he had promised. The picture would get them convicted, no question about it.
He looked for a postbox and eventually found one close to where he had parked his car. When he pulled out the letter with the complete photograph inside, he saw he had stuck a second-class stamp on it but forgotten to address it. He found the biro in his jacket, but now he couldn’t remember the proper address. It didn’t really matter.
The Bristol Herald, he wrote, and posted it. It would get there eventually.
