by Peter James
A movie called Big Night was showing at the Duke of York’s at nine o’clock tonight, and Glenn really wanted to see it. It was now ten to six. If he left right away, he’d have time to play with Sammy for an hour and read him a story, have supper with Ari, and then maybe she’d let him go out to see it, even though he’d been out last night. Hell, last night was work.
Most people had already gone home. The room was quiet. Outside, the air was cooling down, it was going to be a humdinger of a beautiful evening. Maybe he’d give the movie a miss, catch it on video in a few months’ time, and instead fire up the barbecue, sit out in the garden, share the evening with Sammy and Ari. Open a cold bottle of rosé. He stood up, hitched his jacket off the back of his chair and slung it over his shoulder. A barbecue sounded good. And he was starving.
He was heading for the door, thinking about a spicy chicken marinade recipe, when his phone rang. He stepped back.
‘Glenn Branson,’ he answered.
Crackle at the other end. Someone on a radio, patched through by a PNC operator. ‘This is Charlie Delta Four-Two-Zero. I’m a uniform patrol car in Kensington and have your suspect vehicle Blue Ford Mondeo, Romeo Seven-Five-Nine Kilo Golf Charlie under observation. He is heading west along Kensington High Street.’
Trying to contain his excitement, Glenn asked, ‘Can he see you?’
‘We’re in dense traffic. I’m several vehicles behind, I’m being careful, I don’t think he would have seen me.’
‘Stay with him, but for God’s sake don’t let him see you. Is anyone travelling with him?’
‘He appears to be alone.’
‘Do you have any description of him?’
‘I’m afraid I’ve only seen his car from behind so far.’
‘Well done, well spotted. I’m very grateful. Do your best to stay with him. Have you called for back-up?’
‘Yes. He’s indicating right. He’s making a right turn into Holland Road.’
Glenn listened, tense.
‘OK, we’re moving up Holland Road. Approaching Shepherd’s Bush roundabout. Heavy traffic, we’re still well back.’
While the police officer was giving his commentary, Glenn opened the map where he had earlier drawn his pencil lines. Goel was within the zone he had drawn, although that still did not tell him much.
He continued to listen, frightened that he was going to hear that they’d lost him. But instead, the officer raised his voice. ‘He’s turning into a drive! I’m stopping . . . waiting . . . OK, I’m going forward again. I’m passing now, got it! He’s driving into a double garage, remote controlled up-and-over door, I’m going round again, get the address for you. This is the rear of the house, I’ll check the front.’
Glenn pressed the phone to his ear as if he were drawing lifeblood from it. Dr Goel . . . Dr Goel . . . Goel . . . you and I are going to have a cosy chat . . . you’re going to tell me all about your interest in Cora Burstridge . . . and you are going to tell me what your real name is.
Crackle of static then the police officer’s voice again. ‘I have an address. Four-seven Holland Park Villas. London West one-four.’
Glenn scrawled it down triumphantly. ‘Can you keep it under surveillance without being observed?’
‘No problem.’
‘I’m on my way,’ Glenn said.
He tore the address from his message pad, then sprinted out of the office and down to the car port.
As he came out of the building, he saw a young uniformed police constable, Nick Goodwin, with whom he had worked before joining the CID, getting into a marked Vauxhall patrol car. He ran over to him.
‘How long are you on duty for, Nick?’
‘I’m lates, till midnight.’
‘Fancy a fast drive to London? I could do with the twos and blues to get me through the rush-hour traffic. It’s an emergency.’
The constable looked hesitant. ‘I’m meant to be doing my beat.’
‘I’ll take responsibility,’ Glenn said. ‘My neck on the block.’
Chapter One Hundred
Conserving what life remained in the battery as best she could, Amanda switched on the torch for just a few precious seconds at a time, to check on her prisoner.
He was still unconscious, but his breathing sounded a little stronger and that was good. She needed him to come round and tell her how to open the door.
She had bound his hands and legs with strips of fabric she had torn from the clothing of the cadavers, and she’d staunched the flow of blood from the deep gash in the back of his head with a strip of cloth she’d soaked in her wash bucket. The floor was awash with blood and she was scared he might have lost too much and wasn’t going to survive.
Kneeling beside him, she shone the torch in his face and patted his cheeks. ‘Michael?’ she said, urgently. ‘Michael, wake up.’
What the hell was the secret of this door? She’d searched his clothes and his wallet for some electronic gizmo that might do it, but had found nothing other than his mobile phone. She switched it on again now. It beeped reassuringly, then the same signal appeared in the window as appeared each time.
NO SERVICE.
She tried dialling anyway: 999 then SEND . Musical chimes followed.
No bloody signal.
With the torch, and the light from the dial of the phone, she had enough to tell the time by. It had been just past two when Michael had come in here. Now it was almost six. He’d been unconscious for four hours. And she knew the date now, from the tiny window on his watch.
Friday, 1 August.
She had gone to the stock-car racing with him on Sunday, 27 July.
Five days.
That was really scaring her. She knew it had been a long time, but not five days. And this meant that if people had been looking for her they hadn’t found her in five days. Would they ever?
Maybe they would now that she had Michael Tennent down here. People would start to wonder where he was and would be looking for him.
Six p.m., Friday, 1 August.
The end of the week. Would Michael Tennent be missed over the weekend?
She patted his cheek harder. ‘Michael! Michael, wake up!’
He grunted.
She snapped on the torch – the beam so weak now it didn’t hurt her eyes – and shone it in his face. His eyelids were moving. One opened. She held the beam under her chin so he could see her face.
‘Michael?’
Both eyes open now. Bewildered. Hard to gauge what he was registering. Even so, she remained wary. She glanced at the bonds holding his arms, checking they were secure.
‘Michael, tell me how to get out of here. Just tell me how to open the door.’
He stared at her, saying nothing.
Shining the torch directly into his face she said, ‘Michael? Can you hear me?’ The faintest hint of a nod. ‘Tell me how to get out of here.’
Michael felt as if he was staring through binoculars at the sun. His retinas were scalding; the inside of his skull was ablaze. Through it, Amanda’s voice.
‘Michael, for God’s sake, tell me how to get out of here!’
Thomas Lamark, back now in the sanctuary of his den, switched on the speaker, and heard the thing saying, ‘Michael, we are both going to die if you don’t tell me how to open the door.’
Good, it hadn’t killed him. He’d been afraid that it might have done: it had hit him so hard. He needed to remember its strength when he went down there.
He wound back the voice-activated tape-recorder to see what he had missed while he had been out. He pressed PLAY. Only the thing’s voice. Then the masculine grunt. Good. Dr Michael Tennent was coming round. Impeccable timing! He needed to get started now because he was sure time was getting short.
A police car had been behind him along Kensington High Street. He’d caught glimpses of it in his rear-view mirror up Holland Road, and he had seen it again, some way behind him, just as he turned into his garage.
He needed to hurry, although once he got i
nto the shelter he could disconnect all the exterior handles and lock the doors from the inside. It would take them hours to drill through and get them open – and that would only be after they had found the right equipment and got it into the house.
If he hurried, he would have more than enough time to remove the thing’s breasts, using the brilliant surgical technique he had just witnessed, and allow Dr Michael Tennent the privilege of watching the whole procedure. Afterwards, he could watch the thing bleed to death.
And after that? After that Thomas would have achieved redemption. After that he could move forward once more with his mother’s blessing. Get back to a normal life again. But that was way ahead, somewhere in the future. Right now, he must concentrate on the present.
Happy that you killed my mother, Dr Tennent? Happy now? Sleep easily in your bed at night, do you?
A groan through the speaker. Then the thing’s voice again. ‘Michael? Please, wake up! For God’s sake, wake up!’
Dr Michael Tennent made an incomprehensible sound.
His voice was sounding stronger. This was good.
Thomas pulled the neck strap of his night-vision goggles over his head, and tugged on his radio headphones. Then, remaining tuned into the fallout shelter, he opened the drawer in the tallboy at the back of his den where he kept his surgical kit.
His knives gleamed out of their black felt cradles inside the hand-tooled leather box as brightly as when he had last used them, at college, thirteen years ago. He tested the blade of the scalpel against his index finger: just as keen as it had always been. He closed the lid and secured the clasp, removed also a fresh pack of hypodermic syringes, then carried them down to the kitchen and opened the fridge door.
From a plastic container marked SALAD CRISPER, he removed a small vial of curare and a larger one of adrenaline. The adrenaline would help the thing stay conscious during its operation. From the closet where spare light bulbs were stored, he took a roll of duct tape.
Then he went down into the cellar.
Amanda never heard the door open behind her. She was sitting in the darkness, right beside Dr Michael Tennent, listening to his breathing, coaxing him back into consciousness.
‘Michael! Come on, Michael! Tell me about the door. Do you want me to hurt you? I don’t mind hurting you, Michael. I’ll hurt you as much as it takes to get you to tell me about the door. So you might as well tell me now.’
Michael, slow, confused, said, ‘Door. What – what door do you mean?’
‘The door to this room, Michael.’
Thomas watched them through his lenses. Dr Michael Tennent and his bit of fluff. The thing. A green figure hunched on a green floor. It moved forward, then suddenly the whole chamber exploded into brilliant light.
Thomas closed his eyes in shock, dazzled. The thing had a torch! He opened his eyes again, bracing himself. It switched off the torch. Back to cold green light again.
Relief.
Dr Michael Tennent must have brought the torch. He needed to move, now, while the torch was off, while he had surprise with him. He checked the palm of his hand. The needle was in place, held securely by the sticking plaster.
Stepping forward swiftly, noiselessly crossing the floor, until he was right behind it.
Amanda felt a sharp prick in her neck. And at the same time she heard a cheery voice.
‘Pre-med!’
Chapter One Hundred and One
Glenn, in the passenger seat, watched the road ahead. PC Nick Goodwin was driving at ten tenths, flat out, total concentration, in the fast lane of the M23, the speedometer needle jiggering over the 120 m.p.h. mark. Vehicles ahead moved sharply out of the way the moment they saw the blue flashing lights in their mirrors.
Glenn liked Nick Goodwin. He was a quiet, serious man in his mid-twenties, good-looking, with neat dark hair and a tidy nature. Dependable. He rarely showed emotion.
The constable reached up and pressed the two-tone siren button to warn off a car that was weaving erratically, the driver probably trying to change a tape.
The traffic was thickening as he neared the M25 turn-off. Friday-night rush-hour hell. They were forced to slow down.
‘How’s your little one, Glenn?’
‘Sammy, yup, he’s coming up to four. He’s a good kid, love him to death.’
‘Having any more?’
‘Ari miscarried last year. But I hope so. Want lots of kids. You?’
‘Any day now. Our first.’
‘No kidding! Going to be at the birth?’
‘Yes.’
‘Magic,’ Glenn said. His personal radio crackled. He heard his call sign and responded. It was the PNC operator. ‘We have the householder’s name for four-seven Holland Park Villas. Gloria Lamark. Golf London Oscar Romeo India Alpha. London Alpha Mike Alpha Romeo Kilo.’
For several seconds, Glenn was silent, absorbing this information.
Gloria Lamark.
Dr Terence Goel lived at Gloria Lamark’s house? Or was he a frequent visitor?
Had the once great Gloria Lamark had a lover with a false name, a false address, an entire false identity? Had she known he was a fake?
Then he remembered, last night, Simon Roebuck had reacted strangely when he had mentioned Gloria Lamark’s name. As if it had struck some chord with him. Why?
He tried to recall their conversation. Roebuck had been talking about a case he was working on of two missing women, Tina Mackay, which was a big news story, and another woman: he had thought there might be a connection between them. Had Roebuck made some connection between these women and Gloria Lamark?
A Dr Terence Goel connection?
Gloria Lamark dies. Then Cora Burstridge dies. A man who calls himself Dr Terence Goel, who seems to live at Gloria Lamark’s address, gets stopped for driving erratically in London last Saturday night. He goes to Cora Burstridge’s cremation but does not get out of the car.
Dr Terence Goel, you are really bothering me a lot.
He picked up his radio handset and requested to be patched through to DC Roebuck at Hampstead police station. He wanted to know exactly what the name Lamark had meant to him.
A gap was opening in the traffic ahead. Siren wailing, lights flashing, Goodwin bullied them through it.
Chapter One Hundred and Two
The lights were on now. Michael, muzzy and confused, could see that he was lying in a concrete walled chamber. Out of the corner of his eye he could make out a figure, someone with brown hair, lying on the floor, motionless. Amanda had blonde hair.
The figure was too motionless. Dead.
He tried to move, first his arms, then his legs, but could not. His head was pounding, he felt sick. He tried to speak but his mouth was clamped shut by something that smelt unpleasant, faintly oily, and he could only make incoherent sounds. If he threw up he would choke on the vomit.
Dr Goel, a strange pair of goggles hanging around his neck, was kneeling on the floor in front of him, holding a length of rope. ‘You are going to enjoy the show, Dr Tennent. I’ve given you the best seat in the house. I shall look forward to your reaction. You might like to write a review afterwards. Perhaps for the British Medical Journal? If you wish to communicate with me, best to do it through your eyes.’
Suddenly Goel pulled hard on the rope. Michael’s wrists shot up in the air, then a brutal jerk ripped his chest and shoulder muscles as his arms took the full weight of his body and he was hauled upwards until his feet were clear of the ground. He was left hanging.
Helplessly, he watched Goel leave the room. Then he tried to move his legs apart, but they were too tightly bound, as were his hands. His thinking was becoming clearer. Amanda waking him. Angry. Desperate. Threatening.
Where was she now?
What was Terence Goel doing here in Gloria Lamark’s house?
He tried to struggle but the pain in his shoulders became worse. He bent his legs back until they touched something hard, the wall behind him. For an instant he got a purchase, a fraction of a s
econd’s relief on his arms, then they slipped and his arms and shoulders took his full weight again with an even more agonising jerk. It was hard to breathe like this and the pain from his shoulders was making it difficult to think clearly.
A clattering sound snapped his attention to the door. A metal table on wheels was coming in through it. Someone was strapped to the table; he saw white, bloodstained trainers, blue, bloodstained jeans, a white, bloodstained T-shirt. His throat tightened. Amanda: strapped down on that trolley, cords binding her legs, midriff, arms, a breathing tube in her mouth, eyes wide open, staring at him, being pushed in by a tall figure in green surgical scrubs. And in that instant a terrible, silent scream shook every cell in his body.
Amanda. No. Amanda. Oh, God, no, no, no, no, no.
Goel took his time, lining up the table squarely in front of him. Michael watched him, took in the tray of surgical instruments attached to the side of the table, the hideously calm way in which Goel checked Amanda’s pulse, then her blood pressure. He twisted inside at the pitiful sound of the choked groans and grunts as she tried to speak. Tried to catch her eyes to give her some reassurance that whatever nightmare they were in, somehow they would find a way out of it.
But she did not once look at him.
Dr Goel went out of the chamber, then returned carrying a large radio cassette player. He set it down on the ground, switched it on, and Michael’s voice boomed around the chamber.
‘This is Dr Tennent speaking. Gloria, would you please give me a call as soon as you get this message. I’m afraid I upset you this morning. It might be helpful if we had a quick chat over the phone.’
Goel pressed STOP and stared up at Michael. Finally, Michael connected. Now he realised who Dr Terence Goel really was. And now he understood the chilling words of Dortmund.
Avenger of Blood.
In disbelief he stared back. Is this what it was all about? His error of judgement with Gloria Lamark?
