Reflections

by Bannister, Jo

  Batty brought him up to date. “The superintendent’s checking out the sheds. Mr Hood went with him.”

  “Good.”

  Brodie was aware of a sub-text. “Why do you say that?”

  Under the sandy brows Voss’s eyes were awkward, hoping she wouldn’t press him. But she waited for an answer, so he had to come up with something he could say in front of a junior officer. “Because the chief’s a copper, not a social worker. If they don’t come quietly, if things get hectic, somebody’s got to try and remember they’re just two little girls.”

  “I’m heading across the bridge,” said Brodie. “Coming?”

  “OK.”

  She needed a hat. If she was going to be out in the open she didn’t want Johnny spotting her before she saw Johnny. As the most striking thing about her appearance was the thick black hair curling down to the middle of her back, the easiest way to disguise herself was to put it up under a hat.

  Unfortunately, this was Deacon’s car and the only hat she could find was a waxed brown thing with a brim that he used to keep rain off his notebook. Pulling it on, Brodie gathered from Voss’s expression that the effect was not so much Vogue as Angling for Idiots. “Come on,” she growled.

  The motorway hadn’t always come this far south. The last section opened some thirteen months before and the services weren’t finished yet. Finishing touches were still being put to the bridge. The clear plastic tunnel from which those who didn’t get out much could watch the traffic thunder beneath was awaiting its last section of weather-proofing, over the north-bound fast lane. A red and white plastic barrier kept travellers from straying too close to the rail.

  As she and Voss reached the gap a little boy in jeans and a backward baseball cap, arms full of take-away food, emerged from the ambling crowd and paused at the plastic barrier, gazing down at the racing lights. Brodie glanced round automatically but couldn’t see who he belonged to. She frowned disapprovingly. However long you’d been driving, however tired you were, you didn’t send small children to fetch supper from a thronged motorway services. Anything could happen to them. There could be any number of dangerous lunatics stalking a place like this.

  Then she remembered there were at least two, and they were children themselves, and concerned herself a little less with the boy in the baseball cap.

  But as they passed him Brodie suddenly linked her arm with Voss’s—causing him to look at her in surprise and trepidation—and putting her face close to his said in an urgent murmur, “Keep moving. Say nothing.”

  Voss had meant to do just that until his superintendent’s girlfriend suddenly attached herself to him. Now he was having trouble remembering which foot had to move next. “You’ve seen something?”

  “Yes. Don’t look now. The little boy with the baseball cap, that we just passed?”

  “What about him?”

  “He isn’t a he. It’s Em.”

  Deacon had had the foresight to switch his mobile phone onto the vibration setting. Even so, when it went off against his breast he started like a shying horse. He took the thing out and answered snappily, “Yes?”

  “Voss here, sir. I’m with Mrs Farrell on the bridge. We’ve just passed Emerald Daws and she’s heading your way.”

  Daniel saw the detective’s eyes widen though he didn’t know why. “Did she see you?” asked Deacon.

  “No. Mrs Farrell’s wearing a”—for want of an adequate description Voss settled for a generality—“hat.”

  “Any sign of the others?”

  “No. But Em’s got enough food for three. They must still be on your side.”

  “Then where the hell are they?” He scanned the jumble of buildings around him like a convoy captain looking for submarines. “Stay where you are, I don’t want them doubling

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  back over the bridge and disappearing into the crowd. Put Brodie on.”

  Brodie took the phone. “Jack?”

  “Can you still see Em?”

  ^‘Yes.”

  “Follow her. At a distance—just close enough to see where she goes.”

  She gave Voss his phone back and hurried after Em, anxious not to lose her in the two-way throng of travellers.

  Em reached the far end as Brodie approached the centre. Instead of continuing towards the garage she turned right. Brodie stopped and, pulling out her own phone, called Deacon. “She’s just left the bridge. Can you see her yet? -she’s wearing a grey denim jacket and a baseball cap back-to-front.”

  “Got her,” grunted Deacon with quiet satisfaction. “OK, Brodie, we’ll take it from here.”

  With Daniel jogging to keep up, he strode across the cracked and empty concrete towards the solitary child, still a hundred metres away. He glanced towards the garage, but though the big estate car was down off the jack now Em wasn’t heading for it. Johnny had found somewhere quiet to wait.

  Em was on a path that wound round the end of the bridge and down to what was effectively a builders’ depot beneath. There were no buildings, just pallets of breeze blocks, stacks of shuttering, some scaffolding, a couple of cement mixers and an elderly caravan. During the day the area would be alive with labouring men, yammering power-tools and casual obscenities, and at night the builders left here those things that were too big to bring each morning. They’d erected a pallisade of steel-mesh fencing to keep it safe, but that was months ago and the corners had gone bow-legged like cowboys.

  Which wouldn’t have mattered if the caravan had been secure, because they could have stored valuables inside. But Deacon could see from here, by the security light hanging under the bridge, that although the door was padlocked the hinges had parted from the wall. Anyone could have squeezed through the fence, got into the caravan and helped himself to the contents.

  Or spent a quiet half hour where no one could see him and even people looking for him would not find him. “They’re in the caravan,” said Deacon.

  Daniel peered but saw nothing. “How do you know?”

  “I’m a detective,” growled Deacon. He used the phone again. But obviously he didn’t get the result he wanted, because he scowled at the thing and shook it. Then he put it away. “I can’t raise Batty and Vickers. You’ll have to fetch them. Tell them to cover the far side of the compound. I'll stop anyone leaving this way Go!”

  Though he was a young man in reasonable health, Daniel was not much given to physical exertion. His work didn’t require it, and his hobby called more for stillness than speed. Like all people without a car he thought nothing of walking quite long distances, but it took something seriously unpleasant behind him to make him run. Deacon’s impatient frown sent him scurrying towards the garage like the electric hare at a greyhound track.

  Deacon enjoyed putting the fear of God into people. He watched Daniel accelerate with the pleasure of a man who has bred a Derby hopeful. Then he looked back to where Em was squeezing through the buckled corner of the builders’ compound.

  You study, you train; you amass experience; you learn from your own and others’ triumphs and disasters; you reach a point where you know, and so does everyone who matters, that precious few people could do your job any better. And still, sometimes, you need luck on your side. Out of nowhere, faster than he could see it coming. Deacon found himself in that situation, and when he needed the luck it wasn’t there.

  As she squeezed through the gap in the fence Em caught her denim jacket on a spike. She put down her shopping, slipped out of the coat and turned back to free it. That’s when she saw Deacon watching her.

  Their eyes met over a distance of twenty metres. For a long second Deacon clung to the desperate hope that she wouldn’t recognise him. She’d seen a lot of big men in overcoats over the last fortnight, he’d spent a lot of time in her house but not that much with her, could she really take one look at his face in the chiaroscuro world under the bridge and know who he was?

  When that second ended he had his answer. Em opened her mouth in a scream of
piercing intensity. Then she grabbed her coat and leaving the food on the ground ran for the caravan.

  It was too soon. An Olympic sprinter couldn’t have brought help yet. For three minutes Deacon would be on his own. He’d spent longer alone facing down more dangerous quarry; but he doubted if the compound was any more secure on the far side than on this. As he squeezed himself like toothpaste through the gap at this corner the girls could be squeezing through the gap opposite and hurrying away before anyone could intercept them.

  He had two options: stay on the outside ready to give chase—knowing that, though his job involved more strenuous activity than Daniel’s, his bones were twenty years older and his body five stones heavier, and it was years since he’d run down a fugitive in a fair race. He could probably make them leave Peris but he wouldn’t catch the girls. Or he could force his way into the compound and keep them in the caravan until help arrived. Whatever his decision, he had to make it now, before Johnny could react to her sister’s scream.

  If he kept his distance she might not use whatever weapon she’d equipped herself with. But if she did, the closer he was the quicker he could stop it. Jack Deacon had never achieved his successes through caution. That was the way of strategists, of tacticians, of policemen who did their best work in offices with calculators. He got his results by grabbing problems by the throat before they had time to get worse. While Em was still running towards the caravan Deacon was on one knee, thrusting his shoulders into the gap.

  In a peculiar way, though the people were moving in slow-motion, events now moved very fast. The caravan door banged open and Peris hurtled through it as if kicked, landing on her knees in the mud with her arms tied behind her. Johnny stood in the doorway, chestnut hair flowing in the traffic’s slipstream, the harsh white light glinting off the knife in her hand, like an icon of Joan of Arc.

  Deacon tried to reach Peris before Johnny could but only succeeded in doing what Em had done—attaching himself to the fence by his clothing. He struggled and felt himself held. Freeing himself, the way Em had, would take only a few seconds. But he didn’t have them.

  Seeing his predicament, instantly understanding that it put him at her mercy in a way she could not have dreamed, Johnny leapt lightly from the step of the caravan and walked towards him, he thought, like a dancer, disdaining to leave a footprint in the mud. Deacon tried to get to his feet, and heard the expensive sound of fabric ripping, but was still held half on his knees when she reached him.

  Until that moment he hadn’t believed, heart and soul, that Juanita and Emerald Daws had done all they were accused of. The pieces added up, it made sense, it explained things that had refused to fit any other pattern, but a part of him had resisted belief. They were children, for God’s sake! They’d got it wrong, misunderstood; there had to be some mistake.

  Now, with Johnny standing over him, feet apart, the knife balanced in her hand, he knew there was no mistake. He didn’t know if she was mad or bad, but he could see it in her eyes that killing had become easy Jack Deacon looked at a fourteen-year-old girl and was afraid.

  He kept the fear inside where she couldn’t see it. “Now then, young lady,” he said with what he hoped was an amiable bluffness, “don’t you think this has gone far enough?”

  Peris Daws, still on her knees, looking at the ground, was babbling in a low, fast monotone. “Everything’s all right. Superintendent. Don’t worry about me. We went for a little drive, me and the girls. We’ll be back before long. Why don’t you go wait for us—?”

  It was patently absurd/and would have been if the woman hadn’t got her wrists tied behind her back. She was chattering with fear. But Deacon knew what she was doing. She was trying to save his life.

  Even Em knew what was coming and tried to prevent it. She gave a high-pitched whine, wringing her cap between her hands, and sobbed out the most surreal statement ever heard on a murder inquiry. “Don’t, Johnny—you’ll get us into trouble!”

  Johnny glanced at her and back at Deacon with a tolerant smile. “Kids!” It took an effort but Deacon smiled back.

  Then she turned the knife in her hand and drove it into him until the point hit bone.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  At its end the bridge rested on a squat tower which hid from Daniel’s view, and also from the constables, events taking place in the builders’ compound. Between pants he explained the situation as he’d left it, and Batty and Vickers sprinted off back the way he’d come.

  As Daniel followed at his own pace, nursing a stitch, he saw three figures, in ascending sizes like plaster ducks, appear from behind the tower and stroll nonchalantly towards the garage. A second later they saw the policemen homing in on them and, abandoning nonchalance as a failed strategy, changed direction and began to run. The smaller ones dragging the other between them, they made for the broad fan of stairs onto the bridge. The crowds that had earlier presented a problem now offered their best chance of escape.

  They did not know that the far side of the bridge was already closed against them. The policemen slowed and spread out, discreetly herding them that way. Dragging Peris with them, the girls disappeared into the illusory safety of the steel and perspex tunnel. The policemen met behind them, waving people off the bridge but not letting anyone else on.

  In another minute the girls would realise they were trapped. Daniel had no idea how they would react but he wouldn’t put money on tearful apologies. He wondered where Brodie was, hoped she was well out of the way.

  Then he wondered where Deacon had got to. There was no longer any point him watching the compound. Daniel was puzzled that, even now the girls were on the bridge. Deacon still hadn’t appeared. With growing unease he started down the spiral path.

  As he rounded the foot of the tower the compound came into sight. So did Deacon—at least, something bulky in a dark raincoat lying along the foot of the mesh fence. Daniel’s heart leapt and he picked up speed again, running recklessly down the steep path. He thought he was going to find the detective dead. He couldn’t think how the girls had eluded him except by driving a knife into his heart. Even as he ran Daniel wondered how he would break the news to Brodie.

  When, at the sound of his gasping, slithering approach, the still mound along the fence raised its head and said in a thick voice, “I need some help here,” relief made Daniel go weak at the knees.

  “Jack,” he panted. “Are you all right?”

  “No, I’m bloody not,” grated Deacon. He was on his side in the mud, holding his thigh very tightly with both hands. “I’m bleeding like a stuck pig.”

  There are some advantages to being small: Daniel wriggled through the fence without difficulty. He knelt by the injured man and moved his hands away to see the extent of the damage. Bright arterial blood erupted from the wound. “Yes,” he said quickly, slapping Deacon’s hands back in place.

  Another side-effect of being small was that, with no hips to speak of, he needed a belt to keep his trousers up. Tightened round Deacon’s thigh it made an effective tourniquet. The bleeding slowed to a trickle.

  “All right,” said Daniel unsteadily. “You’re going to be OK. But I need to get help. Where’s your phone?”

  Deacon shook his head. “She threw it onto the road.”

  Of course she had. She’d smashed Serena’s to stop her summoning help, why would she leave Deacon his? “Don’t worry, I’ll find one. I’ll be back in two minutes. You stay here.” Then Daniel looked at the man lying, shocked and in pain, in the mud at his feet and managed a rueful smile. “Sorry.”

  “Just go, Daniel,” gritted Deacon.

  When he climbed back up to the carpark Daniel found a crowd gathering. He borrowed a mobile phone to call for an ambulance, then he called the police as well. They knew there was an incident in progress, had not known they had an officer down.

  When that was done Daniel faced a dilemma. He could guess why the crowd had gathered and still felt an obligation towards those at the heart of it. But perhaps Deacon
needed him more.

  Then he got lucky. A woman came up to him, scrutinised his pale and sweaty face and saw Deacon’s blood on his hands. “Are you hurt? I’m a nurse.”

  Daniel breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m fine. But there’s an injured man under the bridge. He’s bleeding. I’ve fixed a tourniquet and called an ambulance, but could you stay with him till it arrives?”

  “Of course.” She backed out of the ever denser cluster of people, leaving him to concentrate on the extracurricular activities of his pupils.

  He pushed through the crowd until he found Constable Batty holding it back. He gave an abridged version of what had befallen Deacon and what he’d done about it. “Where are the girls? Mr Deacon wanted me to talk to them.”

  Batty gave a short, entirely humourless laugh. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” When he stood back and Daniel could see past him, he understood.

  After she lost sight of Em, Brodie waited on the bridge. She saw Deacon disappear beneath her and Daniel run towards the garage. Soon afterwards the two constables appeared. But they stopped at the far end of the bridge and a crowd started to collect. There were too many people in the way for her to see why.

  She backed up a little and called to Charlie Voss. “What’s happening? I can’t make it out.”

  Voss had acquired reinforcements: a couple of uniformed officers cordoning off this end of the bridge. A crowd was gathering behind them too. Voss beckoned to her. “I don’t want to have to shout,” he shouted.

  “It’s the superintendent,” he said quietly when she reached him. “He’s hurt. Johnny got close enough to stab him.”

  The colour drained from Brodie’s face. “Is it bad?”

  Voss shook his ginger head. “I don’t think so. Daniel stopped the bleeding and called an ambulance. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.”

  Brodie drew some deep, steadying breaths. “So where are the girls now?”