by Bo Brennan
She strutted off towards the hospital entrance, Sangrin's glare stabbing at her back with the force of a thousand knives. She did not have a problem with authority, and she certainly didn't have one with men. She had an all-encompassing problem with fuckwits and dipshits. And it was non discriminating. She hated them all equally.
Entering the hospital stairwell, she paused with one hand on the rail and the other on her hip. Breathing deeply, she erased Sangrin from her mind, and centred herself for the job that lay ahead. She'd worked hard for this collar and it was a big one, a real chance to finally prove herself. “I will not fuck this up,” she murmured, and sprinted up the stairs.
Chapter 61
Knightsbridge, London.
'In position. Eyes on target.' Colt rolled his head when India's voice came over the radio. He'd missed her last night and woken lonely and tense. Should've shouted it out, then they could’ve enjoyed passionate make up sex. He wondered if she 'got it.' Understood why her omission had pissed him off so much. He doubted it. Hadn't been entirely truthful with himself until this morning. The worst thing about the whole situation was how much it hurt knowing she still didn't trust him.
“She's out.” Maggie elbowed him in the ribs and spoke into her comms set, “Confirm visual unit 3.”
“Confirmed,” Bob's voice crackled through the radio from his position in an unmarked car on the other side of the church.
Colt lifted his binoculars and watched their undercover from Charing Cross waddling across the cemetery to the shade of a sprawling oak tree. Usually she was a good looking girl, with few female friends. Today, however, she looked rotten. He could almost smell her from across the street. “You went to town on the chip fat, Mags,” he murmured.
Maggie grunted. “When I strapped on the baby bump the bitch said she could get used to it. I told her getting used to being a single parent was tons more fun.”
Colt huffed in acknowledgment. If she was in the cemetery, their man had taken the bait. He hated being out of contact, but they'd had to sacrifice a body wire for a baby bump. He bit his lip and rested a hand on the Glock holstered at his shoulder. It gave him little comfort that armed units were monitoring her every move, and even less that Maggie had a loaded gun anywhere near the woman shagging her husband.
A car horn sounded and Colt diverted his binoculars to the red Renault idling at the cemetery gate. “We're on,” he said.
With his heart banging against his rib cage he relayed instructions to the team as Maggie pulled into the traffic, tailing the Renault at a distance. The Firearm Unit's unmarked van sat at the junction up ahead. Colt ignored it as they passed, fixed his eyes on the rear view mirror until he saw the van nose out into the traffic behind them.
The Renault took a left onto Brompton Road, and a right onto Cromwell. “He's heading in the direction of the NLF,” Maggie said tilting her head to keep her eyes on the vehicle beyond the two bulky black cabs between them.
“Shit!” She slammed the brakes and horn in unison as an open topped tourist bus pulled out in front of them at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
“Get round it, Mags. Get round it!”
By the time she had, the Renault was gone.
“Fuck it,” Colt spat. “We've lost our visual. Who has eyes?”
“I'm on it,” Bob said. “He's taken a right, right, right onto Exhibition Road.”
“Stay with him. We're turning now.” Maggie yanked the wheel hard right and into the path of oncoming traffic, forcing a cyclist onto the pavement amid an angry blast of horns. He kicked the passenger door as he re-joined the road, and angrily gesticulated to his helmet cam. Colt pressed his ID against the window. The enraged cyclist didn't back off. He followed as Maggie made the turn into Exhibition Road, his legs frantically pumping the pedals as the armed transit van catching them up squeezed him onto the pavement once more.
Colt craned his neck, he couldn't see Bob's car. “Where are you, Bob?”
“Taking a right, right, right onto Princes Gardens,” Bob's voice came back. Colt frowned. He wasn't taking her to the New Lives Foundation; they’d already passed that on the corner. “Another right, right, right,” Bob said. “Fuck. He's going through electric gates. They're starting to close. What should I do?”
Penny Cordwell's broken body in the toilets at Waterloo flashed into Colt’s mind. He made the split second decision based on losing one officer or two. “Stand down, Bob,” he said as Maggie made the turn onto Princes Gardens.
“Boss, I can make it,” Bob said.
“Stand down!”
“I'm in!”
“Fuck!” Colt punched the dashboard as Maggie made the right turn and was confronted with closed metal gates. He leapt from the car and ran towards them. They were stuck fast. The driveway twisted to the left and out of sight. He had two officers in there. He looked up at the perimeter wall and ran back to Maggie. “Get the car over there. I can scale it.”
Maggie wasted no time, slammed the car in reverse and tucked it tightly against the perimeter wall. The van pulled up behind them, back doors opened, bodies in full combat garb spilled out. Inspector Pauline Slater joined him on the car bonnet, clambering onto the roof, while another trained his MP5 on the angry cyclist coming at them.
Beyond the wall shots rang out.
“Get down,” the firearms officer screamed at the cyclist.
“Get through those fucking gates, now!” Inspector Slater screamed at her team.
As Colt and Pauline went over the wall, the van engine gunned and rammed the metal gates. Maggie dragged the cyclist into the back of her car as two of the armed unit dragged the remainder of the gates away for clear passage.
Weapons drawn, Colt and Pauline moved across the lawn towards the house. As the van screeched to a halt outside the front door, its occupants piled out with a battering ram. One of them approached Bob's car, driver's door lying open up ahead. The firearms officer made a cutting motion across his throat and ran through the obliterated doors of the house.
Colt's heart faltered in his chest and he broke into a sprint. As he reached the car he saw those stupid fucking loafers he wore poking out from the front of the vehicle, and prayed his feet weren't in them.
But they were.
Everything was intact. His bulletproof vest and shirt unmarked. A small dark hole between his eyes was all that was different. So why the fuck was he just lying there? Colt dropped to his knees at Bob's side and shook him. “Get up you stupid fucker. Get up!” He grabbed his vest and pulled him up. His body came, but the back of his head stayed on the driveway, his brain and skull fragments splattering the stones as Colt shook him. “Why didn't you stand down you stupid fucking bastard?”
As rapid gunfire rang out above his head he huddled over Bob, desperate to protect him. The bitter stench of gunpowder mingled with blood and death. The noise rattled his brain and pain ripped through his head. He glanced up, deaf and disorientated, to see Pauline Slater standing over him - MP5 smoking in her hands - aimed at a bald man holding a gun falling to the floor just feet away.
She grabbed Colt by the vest, half dragging half yanking him awkwardly to his unbalanced feet and forcing his head down. When she got him behind Bob's car she kicked the back of his knees and he fell like a drunken bum to the ground. Looking up at her he struggled to focus his eyes as she raised her hands and tapped her ears. “Vertigo. It will pass. You're not hit,” she shouted and then fanned her palms downwards when he looked towards Bob. “He's gone. Stay down.”
He nodded, didn't think he could stand up if he tried. He felt like he was inside a washing machine on a spin cycle. The whole side of his fucking head hurt, but he was relieved, and thankful, that he hadn't been shot. Shot like Bob. Bob. He hung his head on his drawn up knees as bodies bustled around him, and meat wagons and ambulances arrived en masse.
He sat like that until a body slid down the car next to him and a warm arm slipped around his waist. He looked up to see a wet eyed Maggie looking back a
t him. “Bob,” she mouthed, her bottom lip trembling. Colt slipped an arm around her shoulder and held her as she cried.
Chapter 62
“Chief,” Inspector Slater shouted as she rough handled Lord Professor Barrington into the back of a meat wagon. “You're gonna want to see this.”
Colt waved away the fussing paramedic and staggered past the lifeless covered mound on the drive - which fifteen minutes ago had been his friend and Sergeant, Bob Green - feeling like he was pissed.
“Sorry about the ear,” she said as they went into the house. “But baldy was going to blow your brains out.”
Like he'd blown Bob's brains out. Colt couldn't even raise the weakest of smiles. “Thank you,” he said rubbing the side of his head. “What have you got?”
Pauline Slater grinned. “Shit loads.”
She led him up a sweeping staircase to the first floor where Maggie stood, notebook and pen poised, talking to two young girls. Colt put a hand on her back. “You don't have to do this, Mags.”
“I do,” she murmured without looking his way. “Meet Tracey and Casey, formerly of Sasha and Melissa’s foster home. We've got Karen McGregor and Haltingbury's missing under sixteens on the second floor. In total there are forty three young women in varying stages of pregnancy, and most of them we've never heard of.”
Colt raised a half smile for the girls. “Sasha and Melissa have been missing you,” he said.
Tracey protectively cradled her bump. “Are they okay? Is Mel all right? It was her birthday on Monday. He didn't get her did he?”
Maggie glanced up at him then with sad eyes, and Colt swallowed hard.
“Oh no,” Tracey cried clenching her fists. “I tried to tell them but they wouldn't listen. I couldn't get out, they nailed the window shut.”
Colt watched as Maggie led the sobbing girls away to the fleet of waiting ambulances. Tracey was the one the Latvian hooker had heard screaming when she was giving birth. It wasn't her birthday. It was Melissa's. He crossed to the window of the minimally furnished single room. Claw marks gouged through the paint and worried at the nails hammered deep into the sash frame. He glanced down at the concrete apron below. The girl was so worried about Melissa's fate, she'd been prepared to risk her own life and her unborn child’s to reach her.
“Chief,” Pauline tugged at his arm and Colt startled. She raised a hand. “Sorry. The medics have just given us clearance to enter the sweet shop,” she shouted, over accentuating each word.
The sweet shop? Colt frowned as he followed her back downstairs and along a corridor. She tugged off her helmet as she pushed the door open. And Colt's jaw hit the floor.
Row upon row of incubators and cots lined the room as far as the eye could see. He moved among them staring in horror at all the new-born babies with tags hanging from their feet. He paused to peer into one of the cots, wanting a closer look at the tags, and a little boy giggled back at him.
“Don't be shy,” Pauline Slater said swinging her MP5 onto her back and stooping into the cot to pick him up. The baby giggled again as she placed him in Colt's reluctant arms.
He tilted his head to read the tag. Rubin. “I wonder if that's the baby’s name or the buyer’s name?” he said.
Pauline's eyes widened and she fanned her hands. “Pipe down,” she said. “You'll start them off.”
Colt glanced around. He couldn't hear them, but could see the babies were stirring, guessed they were grumbling too. India’s Billy Lewis could be here. “Give the order to Winchester,” he mouthed.
Royal South Hants Hospital, Winchester.
“This is Inspector Slater, S019, reporting. We have four including main target in custody. Three fatalities. One officer down. Proceed with caution, Winchester.” India fell back against the corridor wall as the woman's voice came over the radio. Who the fuck was Slater? And where the fuck was Colt?
“Put DCI Colt on,” she said into the comms set.
“He can't...” the woman started.
“Put him on now.” She didn't care who was down, as long as it wasn’t him.
“Kane,” Sangrin snapped over the radio. “Just get your arse in there and get the bloody job done.”
“Shut the fuck up, Sangrin. The only voice I want to hear is Colt’s.”
“India, I'm here.” Her breath caught as his voice boomed over the airwaves.
“No need to shout,” she said turning the volume down.
Her stomach fluttered as she heard a smile in his voice. “Burst eardrum,” he said. “We've got a fully operational baby farm this end. Barrington and Markham are both in custody. We're shipping your man Markham down to Winchester for the murder of Lisa Lewis. Go get Johnson. And be careful.”
India gave an approving nod. The prospect of getting Marky Markham in the interview room was almost as exhilarating as finally getting Johnson in there. “On my way.”
She looked up to see Johnson out of the confines of the secure baby unit, observing her from across the corridor. Tugging her cuffs free of her waist band, she dangled them from a finger as she walked towards him. “Dr Dale Johnson,” she said. “I'd like you to come with me, please.”
Johnson beamed her a wide smile, turned on his heels, and ran. “He's running,” she said into the comms unit as she took off after him, indignant that Sangrin might get him after all. The mere thought made her pulse race along with her legs.
For a doctor, he wasn't very fit. India rapidly gained on him as they ran the lengthy corridor. She was just yards away from a rugby tackle when he disappeared through a side door. She followed him through it and into a stairwell, her radio crackling for an update and Johnson nowhere to be seen. Shit. “I've lost him,” she panted surveying her options. “West of the Paediatric Unit.”
“Where?” Sangrin said. “You're breaking up.”
She tugged the radio from her vest, trying to get a better signal. Finding herself at the distinct disadvantage of not knowing how far she'd run, or if she was still in the same hospital department, she checked the outside of the door. There was nothing on it. No indicators anywhere. “The long corridor west of the Paediatric Unit,” she said. “Target entered the stairwell. I don't know if he went up or down. He could be anywhere. Advise.”
All that came back was static. “Fucking thing,” she spat twiddling with the knobs to no avail. The sound of a door slamming somewhere above her, reverberated down the stairwell. “Going up,” she said into the handset, unsure if anyone was listening, and set off up the stairs, radio crackling in her hand.
Sangrin's voice was far more irritating when his demands were shouted in broken bursts. So much so, that when the radio slipped from her sweaty palm and bounced down the concrete steps she didn't go back for it. Left it where it fell. Her attention focused solely on the single exit door at the top of the final flight.
She had no idea where it led. Anything could be beyond it. India braced her foot against the door, keeping her body low she kicked it open, hoping it wouldn't take out a group of geriatrics, or kids, loitering on the other side. It didn't. Brilliant sunshine, balmy summer air, and a spectacular view over the whole of Winchester City greeted her.
Without so much as the clumpy handset to bash his brains in with, she stepped out onto the hospital roof with just handcuffs, a stab vest, and her wits for defence.
Cautiously, she edged around the air vent obscuring her vision, and made her way to the centre of the roof where just the city lay behind her. Planting her feet wide, she called him out. “You disappointed me, Doc. I really didn't have you down as a runner. You're a wife beater. I expected you to take a pop.”
“Why do you think we're here?” Johnson grinned as he emerged from behind one of the air vent structures to her left. “It's the only part of the hospital without any cameras.”
India raised her brows. He was deluded, but at least he was out in the open. “Seriously think you're gonna give me a slap and walk right out of here, do you?”
“I have friends in high places
, Detective. They'll make sure I do.”
“You're a baby snatcher and a murdering bastard.”
“I'm a god, who works for the greater good.” Johnson spread his hands wide like the new messiah, white coat of trust and honour billowing around his legs in the summer breeze. “You've got nothing on me. Won't find anything either.”
“Your kiddy fiddling father-in-law is in custody. Coppers are crawling all over that baby farm as we speak. They'll find Billy Lewis.”
“Oh no they won't,” he harped like a pantomime villain. “I'm the good guy. They won't find a shred of evidence to connect me to the old man's business either. They'll find plenty on your friend Arabella, though. She'll sign whatever I tell her to.”
India shrugged. “What can I say? You beat her up, so it's no surprise you'd stitch her up too. But what's in it for you? You've got jack shit without her and her father's money. If she goes down, your lavish luvvie lifestyle goes with her.”
Johnson gave a hearty laugh. “Your Sergeant is right about you. Breasts instead of brains. The same affliction as my poor wife unfortunately. But, at least she served some purpose. She did provide me with the sole Barrington heir, whereas you, my dear, are simply making up the equality quota.”
India's stomach twisted. He'd already broken his son's arm. Fuck knows what he would do if all that stood between him and a fortune was that little boy. “Your wife is stronger, and smarter, than you think,” she said. “It won't take much for me to convince her to talk. Especially if she thinks you'll be left with Hector.”
“You've done enough talking,” Johnson said carefully rolling up his sleeves. “They'll find nothing. My new friend Sergeant Sangrin will confirm your warped obsession with me, not to mention your propensity for violent outbursts. The internal hospital cameras will show me running from my stalker. If there were any cameras up here, they'd show me teaching you a valuable lesson. But, unfortunately for you, my actions will be deemed self-defence. Your Sergeant will owe me a drink. He's already got his own tab at the Concordia Club.”
