The Body Under the Bridge

by The Body Under the Bridge (epub)

  ‘Come on, let’s have some initiative,’ Gillard said, punching his fist into his open hand. ‘She could still be alive in there.’

  As if to emphasise his words, there was a bang of some kind from the vehicle.

  ‘Is that ice cracking?’ Hoskins asked.

  ‘Shh,’ said Gillard. They all listened for a few seconds, but could hear nothing.

  The big industrial chillers were already now pumping out a huge amount of heat. ‘Wind the roller door down again,’ Gillard said. ‘Retain the heat. We’ve got to get the temperature in here way up.’

  Tunnicliffe had taken his jacket off, and had found a rusty metal crowbar. He smashed at the passenger-side window, which exploded like a bomb, showering glittering diamonds on to the concrete. Hooking out the glass, he then laid into the ice beyond.

  With the door now down again, the temperature in the vault rose rapidly, and the car began to sweat, water trickling down from the panels and the roof, dripping down onto the floor, puddling by the inspection pit and draining out under the roller shutter.

  The locksmith came back with his blowtorch and set to work on the driver-side lock. He then handed the blowtorch to Hoskins while he used a set of delicate-looking instruments inside the Mitsubishi’s lock. A clunk announced the unlock, but the door wouldn’t open. Tunnicliffe lent his considerable size and weight to the effort with the crowbar. The driver-side window exploded, and the window frame bent under the big man’s strength. Eventually the door creaked open, and more officers could get to work on the ice. From this angle they could see she was clothed, a dark shadow within the translucent ice, the top of her head and hair just six inches from the surface. The locksmith and Tunnicliffe worked on the passenger-side door, trying to wrench it open, while Hoskins used the blowtorch to carefully melt the ice around her.

  Under the bridge/ That’s where you’ll find her/ cold, with the fishes/ drowned by your own hand

  The verse played in Gillard’s head as he chipped away at the ice, and watched the meltwater coursing down over the sills of the car and draining away into the inspection pit. A bang from somewhere low within the car reached their ears. They stopped and listened, the ping and click of the car’s expansion echoing the drip drip drip of the melting ice. Another bang, and a splash, as the vehicle adjusted to the rising temperature.

  One of the female PCs was hacking furiously away at the ice with a screwdriver, her hands mauve with cold. ‘Keep going! She could still be alive, people can live for hours after being frozen,’ she yelled.

  Gillard could now feel some of Sam’s hair, soaked, ice cold. He forced his hand through into the ice and touched flesh beneath the hair. As cold as a glacier. The ice so reluctantly surrendered its grip, merely weeping under the assault of the blowtorch, resisting every blow. There just seemed to be no way to speed up the process. It took a few more passes of the blowtorch before a great lump came off, and Gillard could get his fingers down a narrow gap, to feel further down the face. A nose, an open mouth. If she’s alive, there will be warmth inside. He tried to slide a finger into the mouth, but it ran into more ice, so cold it almost welded his fingertip to her teeth.

  ‘Any warmth?’ Claire asked, softly.

  Gillard shook his head. ‘Cold as stone.’ She’s dead.

  ‘Oh Craig,’ she said, and reached out for his shoulder. There was a chorus of sympathetic noises from the other officers.

  ‘Well, let’s keep going to be sure,’ Gillard said, squeezing his eyes shut, and fighting to control his emotions. Sam can’t be dead, she simply can’t be.

  On the other side of the car Tunnicliffe levered off a huge lump of ice, and said: ‘They can do miracles now with hypothermia, sir.’

  Gillard made a fist of his now-frozen hand and it created a crack above her face, which with his other hand he pulled at. A dinner-plate-sized wedge cracked, and the face was revealed.

  Not Sam. Someone he didn’t recognise. ‘It’s not her!’ he yelled.

  ‘Who is she?’ Otara asked.

  ‘I don’t know, another victim I suppose. But definitely not Sam.’

  There was a rattle and a splosh. ‘Where was that from?’ Hoskins asked.

  Claire looked at him, and then at Gillard. ‘It didn’t sound like it was from the car.’

  Gillard stared in at the body emerging from the ice. He pulled back, and stepped away from the car, a glazed look across his face.

  ‘Oh God, now I understand.’

  Drowned by your own hand.

  ‘We’ve got to move this car,’ Gillard shouted.

  ‘Why?’ Tunnicliffe asked.

  ‘Because he’s buried Sam in the inspection chamber underneath and we’re drowning her in the meltwater,’ he replied.

  ‘It’s impossible,’ Hoskins said. ‘We can’t roll it. Everything round the handbrake is frozen solid.’

  ‘There’s a dozen of us, we could try bouncing it,’ Tunnicliffe said.

  They all gathered around the vehicle, needing only to move it three or four feet to the left. Tunnicliffe, a massive man built like a power lifter, got a careful grip under the front of the vehicle. They all heaved, but with the additional weight of the ice inside, on top of the 1.7 tonne basic weight of the Warrior, it was beyond them. With the hot air blowers going full pelt they were soon sweating. They didn’t have time to keep doing it this way.

  ‘Give me the blowtorch,’ Gillard said. He crawled under the vehicle and was immediately drenched by the pouring meltwater. He quickly found the hydraulic brake cable, melted the ice and burnt through it. Sliding out, he said: ‘Quick, push it further forward towards the exit. Let’s hope it’s not in gear.’

  Sure enough, with Tunnicliffe’s help, they were able to edge the vehicle forward enough for Gillard to get to the metal plate locked over the inspection chamber. There was a bang, and a splash, then another bang. It was definitely coming from the pit in the concrete. The locksmith, lying side-by-side with the detective, worked away on the padlock. It took a full minute, but seemed like an hour. Once it was freed, Gillard pulled back the two metal plates, to discover the pit was already almost full to the brim. A coffin-sized metal locker was floating, its top just two inches above the surface of the water.

  ‘Sam, are you in there? Give me a kick.’

  The response was a furious rattling and sloshing. The metal box was secured by yet another padlock, drawing another sigh from the locksmith. ‘Let’s get the whole thing out of here,’ Gillard said. With the help of a tow rope from one of the police vehicles, and the strength of Tunnicliffe at one end, they managed to haul the box from the inspection pit. The water sloshing around inside made it almost impossible to keep level, but they slid it across the floor of the workshop until there was space to work on it. The locksmith had bad news: ‘The lock’s been superglued, we’ll have to cut it off.’

  ‘We can’t use the blowtorch, it’ll cook her,’ Gillard said.

  ‘Fire service two minutes away,’ Hoskins said.

  ‘Let me try,’ Tunnicliffe said. The box was well made, with a flanged lid and no gap big enough for the tip of the crowbar. There was nowhere for the big man to get any purchase to lever up the lid.

  ‘Quick, the electric drill,’ Gillard said.

  The locksmith obliged, drilling ten quick shallow holes low in the side of the box. Water jetted from within. The kicking and rattling continued.

  ‘Sam, if you can hear me in there. You’ve just got to hang on. The water’s being drained out.’ He feared that she might die of exposure because of the freezing water, even if she didn’t actually drown. He couldn’t imagine any worse way to go than drowned in claustrophobic darkness. Buried alive, but worse.

  Sound of sirens and air horns in the distance proclaimed the arrival of the fire service and an ambulance. Tunnicliffe manually hauled up the roller door again to see a young man sprinting past the many parked police vehicles blocking the access road. He had on a fire service brown jacket, and carried a toolbox.

  T
wo minutes later, with the help of hydraulic cutters, the lid was opened. Sam was inside, drenched, bound almost head to foot in gaffer tape, only her nose clear, arms locked in front of her by cable ties. Gillard borrowed a Stanley knife from the locksmith, and carefully cut the tape from her face. The moment her mouth was free, sobbing began, and he hauled her out and into his arms. For a long time she couldn’t speak, but simply clung to him, her eyes squeezed shut against the unaccustomed light. Everyone else stood back to give them a little space. Her body was frozen, her fingers and toes blue with cold. He carried her over in front of the warm air blasting from the chillers, and let the paramedics do their job. For the next forty-five minutes he held her hand while she was wrapped in warm dry blankets and put inside an exposure bag. He stroked her hair and kissed her cheek.

  Eventually, he stood back and watched her being taken into the ambulance. For a moment he watched his colleagues, many of whom were now working again on the ice. Perry, his daughter still missing, was working away at the slushy mass. ‘Who is she?’ said the female officer working at his side, sweat coursing down her brow as she wielded the screwdriver.

  ‘Another victim. Yet another poor bloody victim,’ Perry said.

  Otara put his arm around Gillard’s shoulder, and encouraged him to go with Sam to the hospital where she would have a check-up.

  ‘I want to nail Harrison. For what he did to her.’

  ‘We all do, Craig. But right now we have got to find out where John’s daughter is.’

  Gillard nodded and made his way out towards the emergency vehicles. He turned back to his colleagues, who were watching him, and particularly to Perry. ‘John, I’ll call you later.’

  The detective inspector nodded grimly.

  ‘We’re going to find Vanessa, you know. Have faith.’

  Chapter Twenty

  At 16 Wensleydale Walk, Melanie Perry came to after a dreadful night. After John had left in the small hours, saying he was going to look for their daughter, she had suddenly felt a great rush of regret. He wouldn’t say exactly why he now thought she was in so much danger. He merely told her to watch the phone, to monitor emails and to keep her eyes peeled. If Vanessa made any contact, she was to text him immediately.

  She stayed up for two or three hours, then fell asleep at the kitchen table before awaking briefly with the dawn chorus in a zombie-like trance. Again and again she alternately dozed off then awoke with a shock to relive the horror of a missing daughter. It was still dark when she went up to Vanessa’s room, which looked like it had been ransacked. Presumably by John. There must be something he wasn’t telling her, and she had a horrible feeling about it. She tried to ring him, but her calls kept going to voicemail.

  Mel stumbled back down into the kitchen and made some coffee, and then noticed that the shed light was still on. That was strange. She changed from slippers into Crocs, slipped an outdoor jacket over her T-shirt and joggers, and padded across in the chill first light of the morning. The shed, foreign territory, was unlocked. It was the place John would always retreat to like an embattled crab when the domestic going got tough. She generally had no curiosity about this masculine cave. She opened the door and realised the fan heater was still on low. Cursing him for the waste of energy, she reached down to turn it off, and then glanced at what was spread across the worktop.

  Letters and cards written by her daughter. She recognised the handwriting, so much like her own. Such a rare treasure trove, from a girl whose entire life seem to be online, who could hardly be bothered to send a single Christmas card.

  She picked one at random, and squinted at it in the poor light. From the second word, her heart was in her mouth. And then the last two lines. They tore from her a ragged heartfelt cry.

  Dearest Kyle,

  Thank you so much for yesterday, I’d never eaten oysters before! I thought they’d be slimy but they were nice. And champagne too! I’ve never stayed in a posh hotel before, my dad is far too tight to ever pay for such luxury. And what we did in that huge supersoft bed, my God! It is wonderful to be with a real man, someone who knows how to please a woman.

  She couldn’t read the rest, for the tears that poured from her eyes. She stumbled blindly from the shed, wailing as she hauled opened the kitchen door and threw herself sobbing onto a chair at the kitchen table.

  How could he? How dare he? With my daughter!

  And from that anguish began to build a towering anger, a fury that in her entire life she had never experienced. Revenge, they say, is a dish best served cold.

  Wrong.

  She was cooking up a gigantic cauldron, which she intended to dish up before the day was out. In the next hour she showered, washed her hair, and dried it carefully. She applied a blood red lipstick and smoky eyeshadow, and dressed in a navy blue skirt short enough to make the best of her legs. She rolled on dark tights, chose a smart jacket to match the skirt and checked herself over in the mirror.

  Going back downstairs, she put on her white Aquascutum raincoat and a pair of elegant high heels. There was one more thing to do. She went back into the kitchen, to the knife block, and drew out the longest knife that they possessed. It was a sushi blade, forged in one piece of steel. It was expensive, and so sharp it had originally come in its own black plastic sheath, covered in warning stickers. She dug through the kitchen drawers until she found the scabbard, and slid the knife in with a satisfying gritty sound. She spotted Vanessa’s college bag, tipped out the contents on the kitchen table, and carefully put the sheathed weapon inside the leather backpack.

  She took a quick look round.

  ‘Goodbye, house,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever be back.’

  * * *

  Gillard held Sam close in his arms throughout the ambulance journey to hospital. She clung to him wordlessly, like a child recovering from a nightmare. The paramedics, after having checked her vital signs, stayed back. It was not until an hour later, when she had been given her first formal examination, that the registrar said she would like to keep Sam in overnight for observation. Only then did she begin to speak.

  ‘I want to go home, Craig,’ she whispered.

  It was another ninety minutes before she was given official permission to go. Craig took her home in a taxi, her head resting on his shoulder almost the whole time. It was halfway through that journey home when she began to cry. Big, gulping sobs that shook her shoulders, tears that wet his face and neck. Her hands blindly delineated his face, feeling the wounds on his ear and along his cheek and the two-day-old stubble growing on his jaw.

  Gillard looked out of the window at the bright morning, the meadows silvered in dew, and the trees in bud. He started to assess the physical and mental toll that the confinement, captivity and claustrophobia had weighed on his precious wife. He was pretty sure that she would never be the same again. And neither would he.

  * * *

  ‘I’m sorry to have to drag you in at this time on a Sunday, Ms Wright, but we’re extremely anxious to trace your partner Kyle Halliday.’ DI Claire Mulholland was sitting opposite Angie Wright in an interview room at Woking Police Station. A matronly female constable sat in with them. It was just before nine a.m. and the detective inspector had been up all night. ‘We are urgently looking for him in connection with a series of murders and abductions across the Home Counties.’

  The woman actually laughed. ‘I think you’ve made a mistake.’ She looked fresh as a daisy in a flowered top, yoga pants and pink glitter-covered trainers: a glossy carapace of self-confidence.

  ‘He’s in Madrid, I’ve already said. He’s usually away overnight five, sometimes six nights a week, mostly in Europe, but occasionally in the US.’

  Ms Wright’s hair was thick and silky, her make-up subtle but effective, highlighting her exquisite cheekbones and clear blue eyes. There was a faint waft of some kind of expensive perfume too. It all looked annoyingly effortless, particularly for this time on a Sunday morning. Claire was needled, and found herself dropping a piece
of information that she had intended to retain until the end of the interview. It would have floored almost anyone.

  ‘Our information, Ms Wright, is that your partner is not abroad, but in the UK and travelling with a seventeen-year-old girl. Were you aware of this?’

  Angie Wright looked utterly unperturbed. ‘I would suggest your information is incorrect. Kyle rang me last night. He’s staying at the Hotel Intercontinental, near Madrid airport. I really think you’ve got the wrong man. Perhaps you could show me a picture of the man you’re looking for?’

  ‘We can get you one a bit later.’ Claire knew they didn’t yet have a single up-to-date picture. The old pictures of Gary Harrison would just confuse the issue. The research intelligence team were working hard to retrieve the photographs of Gabriel Hallam that Ellen Bramley had deleted from her own phone, but that meant delving into the server of the service provider. Results were due any minute now.

  ‘Well that’s it then, you don’t know who you’re looking for,’ she replied, retrieving her own iPhone from her white leather Versace shoulder bag. She swiped and tapped, and then showed Claire the phone. ‘That’s my Kyle.’

  It was a picture of a tanned man reclining by the side of a pool in some sunkissed locale. The face, smiling and sunglassed, was only partially visible because of the deep shade of a sun umbrella, and a raised cocktail, but the toned body would have graced the cover of any glossy magazine.

  ‘Have you another where I can see his face?’ Claire asked.

  ‘He’s a bit shy,’ she giggled, flicking through the phone before passing it across. ‘Try this.’

  The picture was a facial close-up, slightly blurred and clearly without the cooperation of the subject. The big smile, the hazel eyes and the rugged jaw proved it. Halliday was spectacularly handsome. The CCTV of the flying slipper incident had done him no justice. Even as she looked at the image, Claire could sense the interviewee’s eager smile, as if she expected some kind of compliment on the hunk she had managed to snare.