by David Hodges
‘You can’t get out of here, you know,’ Wadman mocked, though she noticed that his breathing was ragged and his words ended in a bubbling sound, as if he were suffering from a bad attack of catarrh.
‘Doors all locked, Kate,’ he went on, ‘and I have the keys.’
She thought about the window in the chapel of rest, but knew she would never be able to get Lewis through it in time. ‘It’s all over, you know that, don’t you?’ she blurted, playing for time and trying to pinpoint his position. ‘Give it up.’
Another hard laugh. ‘Funny, that’s more or less what Pauline Cross said,’ he replied. ‘Before she stuck me, that is.’
In spite of her predicament, Kate stopped short and gaped into the blackness in disbelief.
‘Pauline?’ she choked incredulously. ‘Pauline stabbed you?’
A pained grunt. ‘She did that all right. Bloody hurts too. Knocking off Alf was her idea, see. Nice insurance pay-out at the end of it. Only she got greedy.’
Squeak, squeak, squeak. Much closer now, but somehow Kate could not get her legs to work.
A cold hand had reached into her head to clasp her brain in a vice-like grip, rooting her to the spot. Pauline a murderess? Impossible. She’d doted on Alf. They’d been together for years. And yet … and yet … it all added up. The way she had recovered so quickly after Alf’s death, then made a point of following Kate to the café to quiz her in such detail about the murder enquiry. Alf had not been the most discreet of people, so she would have known all about the operation and where the surveillance vehicle was to be parked. It would have been so easy for her to plan the whole thing.
She shuddered, the horrific implications of it all chasing round inside her head. ‘I – I don’t believe you,’ she whispered into the darkness, trying to convince herself more than anything else.
‘Then maybe you should ask your DCI,’ he mocked. ‘She’s been having it off with the bitch for weeks. Maybe they planned it all together.’
Kate was immune to further shock. Her numbed senses lacked the capacity to absorb anymore, but even as the sharp crack of a floorboard jerked her back to reality, it was already too late.
The powerful smell that suddenly reached out of the darkness towards her was sweet and raw – the smell of death. Even as she instinctively threw herself sideways into Lewis, bowling him over and losing her grip on the scalpel, which slipped from her fingers, a solid towering mass slammed into the wall beside her with a reverberating crash, recovered and launched itself at her again.
This time there was no escape and she found herself pinned against the wall by the stretcher in an agonizing blast of pain. Then Wadman was on her, powerful hands closing round her face, foul breath enveloping her as his wet lips brushed against hers in a mocking caress.
She felt her head being twisted sideways, tried to resist, grasped his wrists with both hands, kicked out at his legs, but all to no avail and, as her face was forced against the cold wall, she prepared herself for the sudden violent wrench in the opposite direction that would snap her spine.
It never came. The sudden crash was a deafening combination of ripped metal and splintered wood. Immediately the grip on her face relaxed. Laser-like white beams cut through the flood of flashing blue light that once more stained the walls and ceiling and shouting voices accompanied the sound of heavy boots hammering into the hallway. The cavalry had arrived – and this time they had no intention of knocking!
Seconds later the hall lights blazed into life, searing her eyes. There were uniformed figures all around her. Gradually her eyes accustomed themselves to the glare and her gaze took in the demolished front door, the crumpled form of Hayden Lewis on the floor beside her and the pale face of Roz Callow staring blankly at the ceiling from the wheeled stretcher as it was gently pulled away from her by a scowling DI Roscoe.
It was a good few minutes before it fully dawned on her weary tortured brain that it was all over. Sanity had finally been re-established in her turbulent nightmare world and, miraculously, she had survived probably the closest call of any she had experienced in her short eventful police career. But her relief was soon tempered by another more sober realization – Larry Wadman was nowhere to be seen. In the pandemonium, he had seized his opportunity and escaped into the night.
chapter 28
KATE STARED AT Detective Inspector Roscoe in disbelief. ‘Vanished?’ she echoed, her voice shaking with emotion. ‘He can’t have just vanished.’
Roscoe made a face. ‘Seems like he scarpered out the back door as we come in the front,’ he growled. ‘Bastard could be anywhere by now.’
‘Not with his wound he won’t be – what about the blood trail?’
Roscoe shrugged. ‘Pitch black out there,’ he said, ‘and bloody moon’s deserted us. Dog van’s en route, but it’s likely to be another half-hour before it arrives.’
He scowled, thrusting his head forward aggressively. ‘What the hell happened here, Kate? We get a radio alert from Roz Callow and when we turn up, what do we find?’ He tapped the fingers of one hand with the index finger of the other. ‘A pool of blood in the flat upstairs, what looks like some sort of explosive and a load of detonators and timers in a bedroom cupboard, a flaming knife lying in the hallway – plus the DCI sparko on a stretcher and Hayden Lewis lying on the floor with a busted nose.’ He took a deep breath. ‘And you claim it’s all down to some psycho undertaker now on his toes somewhere after being stabbed by Alf Cross’s missus – who, incidentally, also seems to have gone AWOL.’ He shook his head. ‘Sounds like some soddin’ off-the-wall TV who-dunnit to me.’
Kate shivered in the draught from the open front door. ‘A who-dunnit that happens to be real,’ she said, her tone pure ice. ‘Maybe you should ask Pauline Cross for her take on it – if you can find her.’
Roscoe lit a cigarette and drew in the smoke so deeply that he ended up in a heavy coughing fit. ‘Lads going round to her place as we speak,’ he wheezed. ‘Not that I expect them to find her at home if what you say is true.’
Kate watched as two ambulance men wheeled DCI Callow on a stretcher to the front door. ‘You could always have a chat with Roz in the meantime,’ she said drily. ‘I’m sure she would be only too happy to “help you with your inquiries”.’
He grunted, ignoring the sarcasm. ‘Tried to,’ he said, following her gaze, ‘but she’s away with the fairies right now. From what you’ve already told me, though, you can bet your life the guv’nor will be on her case the moment she gets back from cyber space – and I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes then for anything.’
He studied her critically, pulling on his cigarette. ‘You OK?’ he observed. ‘You look like a corpse.’
She gave him a thin humourless smile and thrust her hands into the pockets of her coat. ‘Well, thanks,’ she replied, ‘I very nearly was.’ Turning her back on him, she walked over to a wheelchair being pushed after the stretcher by an ambulance woman. Lewis looked up at her, his face an even worse mess now than it had been, with mauve patches under both eyes in addition to his bloodied nose. He forced a smile when she touched his hand. ‘You should see the other chap,’ he said, reading her thoughts. ‘He’s a right mess.’
She gave a short laugh. ‘I’ll come to the hospital just as soon as I’ve finished here,’ she replied. ‘Don’t try chatting up any of those nurses while my back’s turned, will you?’
He chuckled. ‘Might be difficult fighting ’em off,’ he replied and waved weakly as the ambulance woman wheeled him out through the front door, ‘especially with my good looks.’
Then it was Roscoe at her elbow again. ‘Guv’nor’s on his way,’ he said, nodding at the radio in his hand. ‘He’ll need to be fully briefed on this.’
She turned to study him sourly. ‘You mean he finally wants to hear what I have to say?’ she queried and, turning up the collar of her coat, she headed for the half-open back door. ‘Well, he knows where to find me, doesn’t he?’
Roscoe gaped, then abruptly recovered and went aft
er her. ‘You can’t just leave,’ he exclaimed, holding the door shut.
She wheeled to face him. ‘And why not?’ she retorted. ‘After all, I’m officially on holiday, aren’t I?’
Hauling the door open and pushing him aside in the process, she drew back her shoulders and marched briskly out into the yard. The rear gates were now wide open and a couple of uniforms gave her an appraising glance as she stepped past them into the lamp-lit street. She smiled grimly. Nothing changed, did it? Still less the one-track mind of the average male – copper or not. But she didn’t care. She was still alive – alive and finally exonerated – which was all that mattered. It was time to look forward to a new beginning. OK, so Wadman was still at large, but, with his wound, he would probably turn up dead in a ditch in a couple of days. As for Pauline Cross and Roz Callow, they were matters for the inquiry team to sort out and were not her concern anymore. She smiled, feeling good about things for the first time since the murder inquiry had begun. It was all over at last, justice had been served in respect of Andy Seldon and Alf Cross and she was free to think about herself for a change. Maybe she and Hayden would get together after all and, with her career back on track for the first time in days, her future was starting to look promising again.
The Jaguar’s sleek body gleamed with frost and she had to exert some pressure on the driver’s door before it swung open with a loud ‘crack’. She didn’t notice the dark smears on the windscreen or the small card trapped under the right-hand wiper blade until she had slipped behind the wheel. Then, frowning, she climbed back out again and pulled the card free.
At first she thought someone had left her a snotty note because she had parked the Jag in their space, but when she studied the card in the light of her torch, she felt a cold clammy hand descend on her shoulder.
The front of the card was just like any other printed business card, but there the similarity ended, for it was neatly inscribed with the name and address of ‘Wadman & Son, Funeral Directors’ and, turning it over, she saw that there was a handwritten message scrawled on the back. ‘Sorry I missed you, Kate,’ it said. ‘See you soon … Twister’.
after the fact
THE FUNERAL OF Mary May was not very well attended. That could have been due to the fact that Bristol were playing at home, of course, with many would-be mourners choosing to go to the match instead, but it was more likely that few people had actually known the reclusive old woman in the first place and therefore her passing had attracted little notice, even in the village where she had lived for much of her life.
In any event, her send-off proved to be an unremarkable formality, fraught with problems and memorable only in the fact that it was the very last internment to be managed by the funeral directors, Wadman & Son. The funeral director himself had vanished, the hearse had developed a puncture and was late and it was pouring with a sleety rain, which hammered the windows of the little chapel and gushed from the overfilled gutters in milky torrents. Even the sandwiches supplied for the wake back at the village hall had been put out too early and were already curling at the edges as the hearse finally turned up at the crematorium.
‘Funny business about Mr Wadman, isn’t it?’ one of the mourners commented to Albert Price as she arrived, shaking the rain over the polished wooden floor from her black umbrella, her sharp eyes alight with curiosity.
‘Most peculiar,’ he agreed, still suffering from shock and knowing very little about the circumstances, apart from the fact that the funeral parlour had for some reason become a crime scene and he had been lumbered with Mary May’s funeral as a result of Larry Wadman’s dramatic disappearance.
The only saving grace was that the coffin, which he had left open in the chapel of rest the day before just in case any relatives or friends wanted a last viewing, had been sealed with its long brass screws, presumably by Larry, ready to be loaded into the hearse. The police had therefore allowed the funeral to go ahead, as planned. But Price still could not get his head round what Larry had been doing in the funeral parlour so late in the evening, or why he had chosen to disappear. Mary May had already been properly prepared for her final journey, so there had been nothing for Larry to do, apart from polish his shoes for the big day. All very strange and what was so frustrating about it all was the refusal of the police to enlighten him or to allow any of the staff inside the funeral parlour, save the pall-bearers who had had to collect the coffin and load it into the hearse. And today would have to be the day when Mrs Price was due to clean the mortuary refrigerators, wouldn’t it? Most inconvenient!
Inside the light oak coffin, with its polished veneer and smart imitation brass handles, Pauline Cross stared into impenetrable blackness – as she had done for the past twelve hours. Paralyzed from Twister’s deadly attack, but still fully conscious, she had been aware of every movement as the coffin was placed in the back of the hearse by the pall-bearers, but totally helpless and unable to utter a sound or so much as lift a finger.
Even after a night of futile effort, she still desperately tried to will the motor cortex in her brain to awaken; to stimulate the nerve impulses that would force her frozen muscles and sinews to work; to enable her to hammer on the lid of the coffin with her fists and scream through her parched cracked lips ‘I’m alive. I’m STILL ALIVE.’ But her body remained inert, her vocal chords silent, her physical system in total suspension.
The service was short and simple, the eulogy a stammering self-conscious delivery by an estranged daughter who had not seen her mother for the past eight years after a monumental family row, but had now made the trip from deepest Wiltshire to pay her last respects – and, of course, to stake her claim to Mary’s house and meagre savings.
In the tight claustrophobic confines of the long wooden box, which had been made to take a much slighter frame than her own, Pauline mentally prayed for deliverance as the funeral service commenced; to be forgiven her sins just like the Bible promised, granted that one last chance the scriptures were always crowing about. And, as she did so, she suddenly saw Alf’s white face loom before her immobile gaze – none of the hate she would have expected in those brooding brown eyes, just pain and sorrow as he stared down at her with a tenderness she would never have thought he possessed. Andy Seldon joined him too, peering closely at her and shaking his blond hair in gentle reproof. She tried to shake her own head, tried to close her wide-open eyes to shut out her ghostly visitants, but her facial muscles remained taut and unresponsive and, as if sensing her torment, both faces then abruptly began to fade, becoming tiny specks of light in her sea of stygian blackness and she was alone again, wondering if her sanity had deserted her in the same way as the rest of her vital functions.
And it was at this point that the clergyman began speaking, his muffled voice on the crematorium microphone intoning the final words of committal; extolling the virtues of eternal life and the promise of redemption in the hereafter.
She felt the loud clonk as the coffin started to move on the catafalque, heard the piped music begin to play, which was abruptly cut off following the ‘crack’ of a steel door closing. Then, after a brief pause, the sudden roar of powerful burners and within her tortured brain a voice screamed and screamed.
By the Same Author
Slice
Copyright
© David Hodges 2011
First published in Great Britain 2011
This edition 2012
ISBN978 0 7198 0654 4 (epub)
ISBN978 0 7198 0655 1 (mobi)
ISBN978 0 7198 0656 8 (pdf)
ISBN978 0 7090 9305 3 (print)
Robert Hale Limited
Clerkenwell House
Clerkenwell Green
London EC1R 0HT
www.halebooks.com
The right of David Hodges to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
