Firetrap

by David Hodges

  But she knew the answer to that even as she asked herself the question.

  chapter 7

  MOONLIGHT – EERIE IN its laser-like brilliance – searing the eyes with the intensity of an ice-cold sun. It washed over the glistening mud, beyond the strip of tourist sand from which the frothing saliva of the Bristol Channel had briefly retreated, and blazed a glaring white trail along Burnham-on-Sea’s deserted esplanade, where the seaside shelters peered over an anaemic sea wall as if watching for the returning tide.

  Kate stopped her MX5 close to the kerb, about a hundred yards from the pier’s domed amusement arcade. Switching off, she sat there for a few moments, studying the esplanade and listening to the ticking of the hot engine.

  What the hell was she doing here? Meeting a suspected double murderer alone on an empty esplanade at two in the morning, with no backup in the wings and, now she no longer had her police radio, with just her own personal mobile phone to fall back on if she needed assistance? It was not only sheer lunacy, but went against every rule in the book. She should have reported the note immediately to Detective Superintendent Davey and left him to sort out a suitable reception committee for Duval, instead of taking on the job single-handed in an effort to redeem herself in the eyes of her colleagues.

  OK, so that could have resulted in the threatened ‘no show’, but at least she would have been playing by the rules, absolving her of any responsibility for the outcome. This way – and she shivered at the salty dankness now creeping into the car – this way, she was not only putting her job on the line if things went pear-shaped, but probably her life as well.

  Shaking a cigarette out of the packet she had ‘borrowed’ from Alf Cross’s desk (even though she didn’t normally use them), she lit up and choked for a few seconds on the acrid smoke.

  Yeah, reporting the note would certainly have been the proper thing to do, but there was one very big drawback to doing the proper thing this time. She was already in the doghouse for allegedly running out on her partners and it didn’t take much imagination to envisage the likely reaction of the inquiry team to the revelation that their tainted colleague had now been contacted personally by the suspected killer; she wouldn’t just be labelled a coward, but seen as actually complicit in the murder plot itself. What a bloody mess.

  Her eyes jerked to the rear-view mirror as headlights flooded the car from behind. Seconds later a souped-up Subaru Imprezza snarled past, the thud of its sound system almost on the pain level as a couple of youths leaned out of the nearside windows, shouting abuse at her silhouette. Then it was gone, the accelerating roar of the powerful engine accompanied by squealing tyres as the car took the corner into a side street towards the town centre at speed.

  For a while longer she continued to sit there, drawing on the cigarette and trying to pluck up the courage to leave the car. Then, glancing at her wrist watch, she saw that the luminous dial registered 1.55 am. She had just five minutes to make the rendezvous. Decision time.

  Stubbing out the filter-tip in the ashtray, she checked that the torch on the front passenger seat was working and, thrusting it into the pocket of her leather coat, reassured herself that the captor pepper spray she had also brought with her was still in the other. All ready then, so what was it to be – go through with the prearranged meeting, or scuttle back to the security of her flat?

  She gave a tight smile and turned up the collar of her coat. ‘In for a penny,’ she murmured. Throwing open the driver’s door, she climbed out into the cold, flinching as the door hinges cracked like pistol shots on the still air.

  A stray dog – a grey emaciated-looking thing – limped its way across the road in front of her as she pressed the button on her key fob to activate the central locking mechanism. The animal sniffed once in her direction, then disappeared down the same side street as that taken by the Subaru. Nothing else stirred on the esplanade.

  She shivered again and drew her coat more tightly about her. It was almost as if the whole resort was under some sort of lock-down; that she was being watched by scores of eyes from behind the unlit windows of the shops and bay-fronted houses lining the esplanade, eyes that were fixed on her every move, anticipating the drama about to unfold before them.

  Her knee-length leather boots rapped out a tattoo on the pavement as she approached the domed pavilion, her hand closing on the captor spray in her pocket in readiness. The site comprised an amusement arcade and several typical seaside shops and takeaways, with the latter end on to the esplanade and the arcade set back several yards across a paved forecourt. She half-expected someone to lunge at her from the shadows of the adjoining sea wall, but there was no one and she released her breath in a rush.

  Moving out to the kerb, she scrutinized the esplanade in both directions, but the only sign of life was in the shape of the same stray dog, which suddenly emerged from the side street opposite and stood for a moment staring in her direction. Then, limping across to her car, it blatantly urinated over the nearside front wheel before ambling off again towards a distant set of traffic lights.

  Where the bloody hell was Duval? Could it be that the mysterious note was nothing more than a hoax? That someone – her colleagues at the nick perhaps – had played a cruel practical joke on her? Or maybe Duval had got cold feet, simply abandoning the meeting altogether? Either way, it would not only mean humiliation for her, but a complete waste of time and adrenalin, which was now running at full blast.

  Muttering her irritation, she was about to return to her car when she heard the piercing whistle. It seemed to come from the other side of the sea wall and it was then repeated twice more. She went closer and scanned the moonlit beach below, one hand shielding her eyes against the glare. At first nothing and then, with a start, she saw the torch flash twice in the blackness under the pavilion pier.

  Yet another whistle and a further double flash to which, on impulse, she responded with her own torch. But that was all she was prepared to do. The original invitation had been to meet by the pavilion pier; venturing under it was not an option as far as she was concerned.

  Again the torch flashed and again she responded in kind, but made no move towards accepting the invitation. It was at this point that she heard the telephone ring loudly. Initially she thought it was her own mobile, but the next second glimpsed a tiny light flickering on top of the wall a couple of feet to her right. For a moment she just stared into the eye of the abandoned mobile phone as if mesmerized. Then, abruptly snapping out of her reverie, she grabbed it and answered the call.

  ‘Can we get on with this?’ The voice at the other end was impatient, belligerent.

  She had to swallow several times before the words would come. ‘Taking a bit of a risk using your mobile, aren’t you?’ she exclaimed, trying to hide the slight quaver in her voice.

  There was a harsh chuckle. ‘Don’t worry, love, it ain’t mine; I nicked it, so no probs. Now, you coming down or not?’

  She shook her head firmly, more to convince herself than anything else. ‘No way. Do you think I’m stupid? You come up here.’

  A loud snort. ‘An’ I ain’t stupid neither. Come up there an’ show meself to your tame pigs? Do me a favour, lady.’

  ‘I’m alone.’

  ‘’Course you are, but you still got only three minutes an’ then I’m out of here. Got it?’

  Before she could say anything else, the phone went dead.

  Bugger it! There was no way she could allow a murder suspect to simply fade into the night, but at the same time, what guarantee did she have that he just wanted to talk rather than up his body count? After all, she was the only witness to the crime and that made her target number one – even if she had very little evidence to offer. And as she turned things over in her mind, it suddenly struck her that she really didn’t have a proper plan of action anyway. What had she intended doing when she met Duval face to face? Make a lone arrest by squirting pepper spray up his nostrils? Hardly realistic under the circumstances, was it?

&n
bsp; Yeah, well, you should have thought about that before deciding to go it alone, shouldn’t you, DC Hamblin? Walking out on the thing is no longer an option. You’re stuck with it, whether you like it or not. Anyway, you’re a copper, aren’t you? This is what coppers do, so get on with it, love, even if you are terrified at the prospect.

  The grey dog had come back and was in the process of checking out the rear nearside wheel of her car as she turned to retrace her steps, but it made off again at a limping run the moment it saw her, denying her the opportunity of giving it a swift kick in passing.

  A few yards from the pavilion a railed plinth marked one of several access points to the beach through a gap in the sea wall. On the other side stone steps dropped down to a walkway topping stepped sea defences, which ran the whole length of the wall, like the seating of an ancient Roman arena.

  Anxious to avoid going on to the beach in her expensive leather boots until she ran out of concrete and conscious of the fact that her earlier dip in the rhyne had already ruined her only other pair, she turned sharp right at the bottom of the steps to follow the walkway along the wall, until further progress was prevented by a wooden fence, forcing her down to the beach.

  She made a face as her boots sank into the crumbly sand and stopped for a moment to listen. At first she thought she could hear the sound of the returning tide, but then put this down to a low, newly arisen wind. She moved on, picking her way carefully round pieces of driftwood.

  Strands of moonlight probed the blackness beneath the pier, touching on silvery pools of water among the forest of supporting piles and creating sinister shadows that seemed to retreat before those tentative laser fingers.

  ‘Where are you?’ she demanded, her voice husky and uncertain.

  There was no reply. She gritted her teeth in a futile effort to control the heavy pumping sensation in her chest and throat. ‘I warn you, I’m armed,’ she lied, fumbling for the captor spray in her pocket.

  Something moved in the gloom in front of her – a shape denser than the blackness – and she heard the slosh of water. She swung her torch in the direction of the sound, but the beam picked out nothing more than the rows of piles.

  She moved closer. ‘I’m not going to play games with you, mister.’ she grated.

  The face of the moon was blotted out by the pier’s superstructure as she advanced a few more steps, the beam of her torch sweeping left to right and back again.

  ‘OK, that’s it – you can get stuffed, you stupid arsehole.’

  She turned back towards the moonlit beach, angry at being trifled with, yet somehow relieved that Duval had decided not to show. It was then that the muscular arm reached out from behind to pin her arms by her sides and a large calloused hand clamped itself over her mouth and nose, cutting off her air supply.

  chapter 8

  LINDA HAMBLIN STOOD in the shadows of the little wooden porch, listening to the rhythmic snores emanating from the open fanlight a couple of feet away. She affected a fleeting smirk. It seemed that the old farts were well under and that couldn’t be better as far as she was concerned; while they snored on, she would slip inside and help herself.

  This was not the first time she had paid a visit to the retirement bungalows in ‘Cemetery Close’, as she had cruelly nicknamed the small development on the outskirts of Bridgwater, and she knew they were always worth screwing. The majority of the elderly residents were either disabled or doolally – or both – and, like many older people, tended to distrust banks, especially after the latest economic meltdown. That meant there was usually plenty of cash stashed away in cupboards and drawers – and she needed that cash badly.

  She had already used up the fifty she had lifted from Kate’s handbag and the ecstasy of her last fix was fast wearing off. Worse still, the tell-tale sweating and shaking, marking the start of the downer which always followed the brief drug-induced ‘high’, had already begun. Soon the nausea and agonizing cramps that accompanied what addicts liked to refer to as cold turkey would set in. Time was running out and although she knew where she could get more of the stuff, even at two in the morning, it was likely to cost her a lot more; it always did. She could only hope that the wrinklies she had selected this time were loaded – and careless.

  She felt no guilt about stealing from elderly people – taking money that they could ill-afford to lose – any more than she felt guilty about stealing from Kate, her own twin sister. She felt no sense of satisfaction either. Ruled by her addiction, it was simply a matter of necessity – of survival even. They had what she needed and because they were old, they were an easy touch; it was that simple – expediency.

  Not that heroin was entirely to blame for the way she was. She had always been weak and self-centred, opting for the easy way out rather than facing up to the challenges of life. Expelled from school at fifteen for pushing cannabis, she had fallen for a crack dealer and then become pregnant by him. She had suffered a miscarriage following her addiction to heroin and after her boyfriend had ditched her, had embarked on a life of crime and prostitution to feed her habit, ending up in a variety of institutions, including nine months in prison for a bungled burglary. During enforced rehab, she had been virtually weaned off the drug. But it hadn’t lasted long and, following her release, she was soon back to her old ways.

  Now twenty-six years old and suffering from the insidious onslaught of hepatitis B and chlamydia, she had been given one last chance to kick the habit and receive proper medical treatment with a lenient suspended sentence for shoplifting. But, true to form, Linda had been unable to face up to the harsh regime of detoxification, which was a condition of her sentence, and had simply walked away from rehab after just a month. She knew her future was bleak, but her slavery to heroin put her craving above all else and it certainly dominated her mind now.

  Creeping past the bedroom window of the little bungalow, she headed down the sideway that separated it from its detached single garage. The back gate opened without protest and she found herself on a moonlit patio accessed from the lounge-diner by aluminium-framed doors. The manicured postage-stamp garden, with the ubiquitous bird bath and timber shed, was enclosed by a high fence, which, though obviously designed to put paid to prying eyes, meant that none of the neighbours could see her either. She smirked again in spite of her deteriorating condition. Couldn’t be better.

  The catch on the kitchen window was broken and, like the gate, opened without a sound. She could hardly believe her luck and there was even a convenient stack of bricks beneath the window to help her to climb in over the sill.

  The stainless-steel draining-board creaked under her weight and her trainers squeaked once on the vinyl floor. Otherwise, she managed the entry with the stealth of a shadow. Yeah, a shadow; she liked that.

  The kitchen door was ajar and from the hall she could hear the sound of a clock ticking. Producing the masked torch she always carried with her, she went through each drawer in turn, starting at the bottom and working up like the true professional, enabling her to work faster without being obstructed by drawers already opened.

  She found the tenners first – a whole wad of crisp ones in the back of a housekeeping diary – then a tin of one pound coins, which she carefully emptied, one by one.

  The cramps started as she straightened up and she swayed for a moment, gripping her stomach with a silent cry as her senses swam. But the scent of money was too strong to resist, greed overruling caution. Finding nothing in any of the cupboards, she crept along the carpeted hall and slipped into the lounge-diner.

  Delicate porcelain figures adorned the middle shelf of a teak unit housing a Bang & Olufsen stereo system, and a couple of oil paintings in flashy gilt frames occupied one wall. Her heart quickened. The porcelain and paintings looked expensive and she knew that the Bang & Olufsen certainly was. This had to be a well-heeled couple, which probably meant a lot more money tucked away – not that she was given the chance to find out, for she was rudely interrupted even before she managed to dip
her hand into the drawer she had bent down to open.

  She hadn’t heard the soft footfalls in the thick hall carpet and only realized she had been rumbled when the lounge’s twin chandeliers blazed, temporarily blinding her and sending her lurching to her feet. The rotund little man standing in the doorway looked vulnerable and faintly ridiculous in his knee-length dressing-gown and slippers, his bandy white legs supported by a steel walking stick in each gnarled hand.

  ‘Gotcha, you thievin’ bitch,’ he grated, his watery blue eyes fixed on his unwelcome intruder with obvious glee.

  Seeing what she was up against, Linda’s fear quickly faded. ‘Out of my way, old man,’ she said, moving towards the door. ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’

  ‘Oh you won’t hurt me,’ the other retorted, standing his ground. ‘My guardian angel will see to that.’

  Linda felt the cramps intensifying and she felt sick, but she couldn’t help releasing a short inane laugh. ‘And which guardian angel would that be?’ she sneered. ‘The Archangel Gabriel?’

  ‘No,’ the old man replied, with a grim smile and pushed the door further back to allow something big and black to push past him into the room. ‘Just Daphne, my Rottweiler!’

  Kate could feel her senses slipping away as she desperately tore her hands free and attempted unsuccessfully to prise the assailant’s hand away from her face. She tried to remember the self-defence techniques she had learned all that time ago at police training school, but her mind was freezing up and all she could manage was a half-hearted backward kick at his shins. Then his foul breath enveloped her as he bent down close to her ear. ‘Pack it in, you silly cow,’ he hissed. ‘You’ll only get me mad.’

  There were cartwheels of light in front of her eyes now and she seemed to be spinning into a black void. His hard voice came again, but more distant. ‘I’m goin’ to take my hand away. Make a sound an’ I’ll wring your neck.’