Firetrap

by David Hodges

  Kate took a deep breath. ‘That means so much to me, Pauline, it really does.’

  Pauline took a sip from her coffee, possibly to hide her own embarrassment. ‘You must come round and see me again, Kate,’ she said, and made a face at her own coffee. ‘Then I can make you a proper cuppa.’

  ‘I’d like that.’

  Pauline set her cup down. ‘Kate,’ she said earnestly, ‘I’d really like to know what happened on the night of – of … you know.’

  Kate felt her stomach churning as the images returned, but for a moment she said nothing, simply stared into space.

  Pauline reached across to put her hand on her wrist again. ‘I know this must be terribly difficult for you, Kate,’ she persisted, ‘but it would help me to understand things a little. Can you see that?’

  So Kate told her, slowly and distinctly, stirring her coffee idly as she did so and watching the specks of undissolved granules chasing each other round the half-empty cup like tiny renegade atoms.

  When she had finished, Pauline sat for a moment in silence, tears brimming in her eyes. Then she swallowed hard, wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and gave a brief smile. ‘I gather the police are looking for someone called Duval?’ she said.

  Kate nodded. ‘But I believe they’re on the wrong track,’ she replied.

  Pauline stared at her. ‘You’re saying it was someone else?’

  ‘I – I think it’s possible Terry Duval was deliberately framed.’

  ‘Good heavens. What makes you think that?’

  Kate lowered her gaze. ‘It’s just a hunch.’

  ‘But DCI Callow tells me you didn’t get the number of the Land Rover that was used or see what the driver looked like.’

  Ah, so the Wicked Witch had been talking to her. Surprise, surprise.

  ‘That’s true. It was too dark and he was wearing a hooded coat.’

  ‘But surely you must have seen something?’

  Kate bit her lip at the implied criticism, then said almost as a defence, ‘Well, I did get a glimpse of him when he ran me off the road last night and it wasn’t Terry Duval, I know that much.’

  Now Pauline was all ears and she stared at her intently. ‘Brilliant. What did he look like?’

  Kate shrugged. ‘Heavy build, bearded – I reckon about forty – and wearing a heavy coat and a baseball cap.’

  Pauline’s face fell. ‘Not much to go on there, is there? Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to criticize.’

  Kate gave a faint smile. ‘Much the same view the DCI had anyway,’ she replied, ‘so don’t let that worry you.’

  She was tempted to unload the rest of her story on Pauline, desperate to convince her that she had not walked away from Alf’s murder, but was doing her level best to nail his killer on her own. But in the end she decided against it. Pauline’s change of attitude towards her was a relief, but sharing too much with Alf’s widow at this stage could be dangerous, especially if, as Kate suspected, she had Callow’s ear.

  ‘And you think Alf’s killer is after you as well then?’ Pauline went on, apparently unaware of Kate’s hesitation.

  ‘I think it’s highly likely, yes.’

  ‘And that he murdered your sister too?’

  Kate nodded again. ‘He must have thought she was me,’ she said. ‘Which means he’ll be back once he finds out his mistake.’

  Pauline glanced around her nervously. ‘Then maybe we should get you home,’ she said. ‘You can’t be too careful. I’ll call you a taxi.’

  Kate shook her head. ‘Thanks, but I’ll get Hayden to do the honours, if you don’t mind. He’s sort of watching over me and I don’t want to hurt his feelings.’

  Don’t want her to know that I’m likely to be staying at his pad either.

  Pauline patted her arm and smiled. ‘Understand perfectly.’ She stood up. ‘And I must be getting back too. Ring me when you want to call round, won’t you?’

  Kate nodded, squeezing her hand in response. ‘You can count on it,’ she said with a smile, more relieved than she cared to admit that Pauline had made the effort to clear the air between them and that they were finally friends again in spite of all that had happened.

  But her smile quickly evaporated as she returned Pauline’s departing wave through the window. A dark blue Honda Civic car was parked on the opposite side of the road, a heavy-set man dressed in a grey anorak and pork pie hat sitting in the driving seat smoking a cigarette. Almost at the same moment he glanced towards the cafe, perhaps conscious of her stare, only to look away as a sort of reflex action when their gazes met. Guilt. Then, apparently unnerved, he tossed his cigarette out of the window, bent forward to start the engine and drove away, taking care not to look in her direction again.

  Detective Inspector Roscoe should have been supervising the murder scene at Jury’s Yard or her flat, but it seemed someone had decided that watching her was a greater priority. No prizes for guessing who that someone was and Kate wondered what Detective Superintendent Davey would say if he knew his DCI was waging a private vendetta against one of her own officers – but there again, perhaps he knew that already.

  It had turned even colder by the time Kate left the café and she stood for a few moments on the pavement, watching the traffic trundling past and wrestling with more personal worries that crowded her mind. She should not have agreed to meet Hayden back at the nick, but made some excuse about having other things to do. She was afraid that she was getting too close to him – after all, they had been just colleagues before all this business and now she had slept in his house, used his shower, eaten his breakfast and had even been offered the loan of his second car. What did that make her? So they had not slept together yet, but the way things were going, it would not be long before that actually happened as well.

  She realized she was wrong to have wound him up by stripping off in front of him at the hospital. It had been an act of stubborn defiance – a perverse desire to get under his skin and shock his pompous old-fashioned principles – but he may have seen it as a come on, which was the last thing she wanted. OK, so she did like him, liked him a lot, but for weeks she had been repeatedly telling herself that she was not looking for any new relationships – not since finding her long-term ex in bed with a couple of call-girls – and here she was sliding right into one. She needed time to get over that last betrayal and even more time to get over the nightmare of the past few days.

  The decent thing to do, of course, was to telephone Hayden and cancel their arrangement, but she knew that that would lead to questions, protests, maybe even an argument, and she just couldn’t face all the hassle in her present state of mind. So, feeling a heel, but desperate to find some space for herself, she called a taxi and fifteen minutes later paid him off about fifty yards from her flat.

  The police were still there. She recognized Callow’s Audi car straightaway, parked behind a marked SOCO van, and the uniformed officer on the main door of the building was obviously vetting all comings and goings. She ought to have known the place would still be a crime scene; it was only on TV that the police finished a forensic examination in a couple of hours. As the tenant, she had a right of entry, of course – to collect clothing or any personal belongings she needed – but that would mean seeking the authority of Callow first and she was in no mood for another sparring session with Hayden’s Wicked Witch of the North. Not only that, but there was also quite a crowd of reporters and camera crews milling about in front of the building and they were the last people she wanted to tangle with.

  Turning away from the scene, she headed across the street towards the town centre. She had no idea what she was going to do when she got there – Bridgwater wasn’t exactly the most inspiring of places – but she had to waste some time before returning to her flat; probably after it was dark when most of her colleagues were safely tucked up in a bar somewhere. But if she thought she could simply slip away unnoticed, she was sadly mistaken.

  ‘Kate Hamblin?’ the unfamiliar voice greeted. ‘Ca
n I have a word?’

  He was young, with the build of a whippet, and he materialized at her elbow as if from nowhere, a broad grin on his baby-face. She muttered an expletive and quickened her step.

  ‘Local radio,’ he explained, practically thrusting his mic into her face as he paced her effortlessly. ‘You are Kate Hamblin, aren’t you? Detective Constable Kate Hamblin?’

  ‘No comment,’ she snapped, pushing him aside as he tried to get in front of her to block her path.

  ‘So who’s the dead woman in your flat then?’ he persisted. ‘I hear it could be your sister.’

  ‘Sod off,’ she grated.

  ‘Any connection between her murder and the killing of those two coppers?’

  Kate tried to ignore him, but a quick glance across the road told her that he was about to become the least of her worries. His antics had caught the attention of his colleagues gathered outside the block of flats and their heads had gone up like a pack of African wild dogs suddenly scenting prey.

  ‘Just leave me alone, will you?’ she snarled, lashing out at him with such force that he lost his balance and ended up sprawled on his back in front of her. Seeing the look of shock on his face as he hit the pavement gave her a real sense of satisfaction, but it didn’t last long. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that some of the other reporters had now broken away from the group and were heading across the road towards her at a trot.

  Bugger it. Now I’m really in shtook!

  Her instinct was to run – to head for the nearest side-street or alleyway and find somewhere to hide – but even as the thought flashed through her mind she knew it was out of the question. In her present physical state a brisk walk would have been painful enough without trying to do the minute mile. But just as the pack closed in for the kill, help came from a totally unexpected quarter.

  She hadn’t heard the vehicle approach, but the next instant the big Land Rover Defender had mounted the kerb beside her, its horn blasting and the door swinging open to slam into the reporter as he struggled up on to his knees, knocking him flat.

  For a second she just stood there, staring into the vehicle, her mouth hanging open in astonishment. ‘Get in,’ Terry Duval shouted from the driving seat, a small black pistol in one hand levelled at her head. ‘Like now.’

  Duval only missed the rest of the pack by a matter of inches as the vehicle roared away with a squeal of tyres – fish-tailing for the first hundred yards before he decided to dump his pistol into his lap and regain full control. Then they had swung sharp left into a narrow side-street and were heading for the relative safety of the main road, leaving the press clamouring in frustration amid the choking black clouds of diesel smoke that trailed in the Land Rover’s wake.

  They had made it – got clean away before the vultures had realized what was happening – and in any other circumstance Kate would have felt an immense sense of relief, and not a little triumph, over such an audacious rescue. But strapped into the ‘suicide seat’ of an old, probably unroadworthy Land Rover driven at breakneck speed through busy streets by a desperate armed criminal gave her little cause for relief or triumph.

  And now that the media threat to her was gone, another doom-laden thought occurred to her. She had been seen by half the country’s press climbing into the vehicle of a wanted murderer. Whether or not the reporters had managed to clock who was behind the wheel, they had nevertheless all seen the Land Rover – some may have actually captured its number on camera – and it wouldn’t take them long to find out who it was registered to. She doubted that any of them – including the dazed youngster they had bowled over – had seen the gun in Duval’s hand, so it would have looked as though she had climbed aboard the Land Rover of her own free will in a bid to escape awkward questions.

  Thinking of Callow and the suspicions her behaviour had already aroused among her colleagues, it dawned on her with a sickening jolt that even if she did manage to get out of this mess alive, the hole she had been digging for herself ever since the nightmare business had started was likely to become the grave of her career.

  And as if to reinforce the point, seconds after reaching the main road and turning towards Bristol, the scream of sirens suddenly erupted from behind. Peering into the nearside mirror, she saw the glitter of blue flashing lights approaching from behind and closing fast.

  chapter 18

  THE LITTLE THATCHED cottage looked deserted. Twister sat in the old green van he used for the conveyance of cadavers to the morgue or his funeral parlour and watched the place from the opposite side of the road. Even he had had to accept that the Land Rover was too conspicuous for what he had in mind this time. He just hoped the young girl who manned the telephones in his office during the day didn’t receive any calls for his services while he was away. Albert Price, his deputy, who effectively managed the operation of the business for him, had taken the afternoon off to visit a sick aunt in Yeovil, so there was no one else in the office to handle any new bookings. He had already been tied up for several hours dealing with the last minute arrangements for the funeral of Mary May, which was due to take place the following day, and he couldn’t afford any more distractions from the far more important task of recovering his electronic tracker.

  He frowned thoughtfully as he studied each of the cottage’s windows in turn. Like most old properties, it looked a bit gloomy inside, but no lights showed and there was no sign of movement. He could see the Mini parked on the gravel drive at the side, but Hayden Lewis’s distinctive Jaguar was conspicuous by its absence. The bastard was probably at the nick.

  So where was little Miss Katie? According to his information, she was still unofficially suspended – garden leave as they apparently called it – so, as he’d already surmised, she certainly wouldn’t be at work. And after discovering the body of her sister in her flat, she would hardly feel like returning to the very place where it had happened – even if her colleagues were of a mind to allow her access to the crime scene, which he doubted. Not that she would be able to get away from the flak wherever she went. AM Radio had been full of it: the body of a woman found in the flat of local detective, Kate Hamblin, and believed to be that of her twin sister; the police refusing to officially confirm or deny whether it was linked to the murder of their two officers and the killing of the proprietor of a local vehicle recovery garage; and the claim ‘from an inside source’ that the latest two victims had both been found with their necks broken. It was the sort of story that was going to run and run, and he wasn’t surprised when his mobile activated and he saw the number registered in the display.

  He’d wondered how long it would take the organ grinder to ring him when news of the killings got out, but he wasn’t in the mood for the inevitable slanging match and ignored the call. Instead, he pulled on a pair of gloves and climbed out of the vehicle, looking quickly left and right as he crossed the road. It was time to take a closer look at the ‘chocolate box’.

  As he’d already guessed, no one was at home and repeated knocking produced only the indignant screeching of a seagull, which had been perched on the thatched roof above the porch and immediately lifted off in a panic. He ducked through an arch of honeysuckle on the opposite side of the cottage to the driveway and followed a path to the back garden. He made a calculated judgment on there being no security system installed and forced one of the antiquated French doors. He waited tensely for a few moments and was rewarded by continuing silence. Good, no audible alarm. A quick glance round the small living room inside provided the final confirmation. No infra-red sensors either, so it was unlikely that there was any kind of security system covering the place.

  Reassured, he went through the cottage with great care, methodically searching each room in turn and leaving not a single cupboard or drawer unchecked. But he drew a complete blank; there was no trace of his tracking device.

  He scowled. It was vital that he recovered the thing. When he’d originally fitted the tracker, he hadn’t anticipated that it might be discover
ed before he’d had the opportunity of retrieving it, so while he was reasonably sure he had not left any prints or DNA traces on the tiny box or the batteries that were inside, he couldn’t be absolutely certain. With his form, even the slightest risk of a match being made by some switched-on forensic expert was one risk too many and even if he had nothing to worry about in that respect, were the tracker to be passed to the police inquiry team, at the very least this would raise some awkward questions, which could jeopardize everything.

  The problem was what to do next. He had no idea if and when Kate Hamblin or Hayden Lewis would return to the cottage. Yet the only way he would be able to find out what had happened to his tracking device was by interrogating them in his usual persuasive manner. It seemed therefore that he had little option but to sit it out until someone put in an appearance. That, of course, could involve a very long wait, but then he had done it all before and this time he was determined there would be no mistakes.

  Kate’s gaze was fixed on the Land Rover’s nearside mirror as if mesmerized.

  ‘You’ve got a tail,’ she blurted, her voice breaking up as she thought of the pistol still in his lap and the likely consequences of a confrontation with an unarmed traffic officer.

  Duval’s eyes flicked to his interior mirror. ‘Don’t worry,’ he retorted, ‘I’ll soon lose him.’

  She tore her gaze away from the mirror, biting her lip. ‘What, in this thing? You’ve got to be joking. That’s a high-performance traffic car.’

  ‘No joke,’ he threw back and without warning wrenched the steering wheel to the right, cutting across the road in front of an articulated lorry laden with cars.

  Kate was presented with the nightmare vision of a towering mass of steel and glass bearing down on them. Then, a split second later, the cab of the lorry slewed round under the force of sudden violent braking and its own trailer swung out as if trying to overtake it in a deadly jack-knife that threw it across both carriageways like the annihilating arm of a demolition crane.