by Iain Cameron
She dialled his mobile but it diverted to the answering service. She tossed the phone into her in-tray and spent a few minutes opening post and checking emails, in case he’d sent her something late last night. A few minutes later, she called his mobile again followed by his home phone. They both defaulted to their answering services.
A few members of the Condor team sat in huddles, working at computers or standing by the window having a natter with colleagues and sipping coffee. She cleared her throat. ‘Does anybody know where DI Henderson is?’
‘No, no idea, sarg,’ DC Phil Bentley said. ‘I haven’t seen him this morning.’
‘Nope,’ DC Steve Evans said, ‘I ain’t seen him around. Have you tried his office?’
On another day, such a stupid comment would be slapped down with a cutting riposte but instead she threw Evans a dirty look and returned to her computer screen. She knew Henderson’s girlfriend Rachel worked for The Argus but not if the relationship was on or off, as Henderson had said they fell out big-time a few weeks back. She drummed her fingers on the desk, debating the issue in her mind for several minutes before exclaiming, ‘what the hell,’ and picked up the phone.
‘Hello Rachel, it’s Carol Walters.’
‘Hello Carol, how are you?’
‘I’m fine, I–’
‘Last time we met, you were looking for a sports top. Did you get it?’
‘I did, in a mountaineering shop, if you can believe it, and now I’ve joined a gym. I did my first spin class this week.’
‘Well done you. How did it go?’
‘Knackering. It’s the hardest work I’ve done for ages.’
She laughed. ‘I’ll stick to Pilates.’
‘Did you see Angus last night?’
‘No, I told him I was staying in to wash my hair. Only partly true as I was also finished off an essay for my Open University course.’
‘How’s it going?’
‘Like your spin class, it’s knackering.’
‘Ha. It’ll be worth it in the end. You don’t know if he got called away to a meeting or something.’
‘No, I don’t. He didn’t show up at the office this morning?’
‘No, but I suspect it’s nothing. More than likely there’s a meeting in his diary he forgot to tell me about.’
‘You know what he’s like.’
‘I sure do. Talk to you later. Bye.’
She walked through the double doors and opened the door to Henderson’s office. If he’d been inside and the door closed for a while, a wave of coffee and the aroma of Paco Rabanne would flood out, or closer to lunchtime it might change to egg and cress or tuna, but instead it reeked of cleaning fluids and furniture polish.
She thumbed through his desk dairy but found nothing unusual and no urgent notes were lying on the desk or stuck to the monitor screen. She walked out and headed downstairs. Huddling close together and sheltered from the wind by the side of the building, she joined a small throng of ardent smokers.
It was true of Sussex Police and every organisation she had ever worked for, but this strange cabal of nicotine addicts, standing out in all weathers and braving a barrage of insults from a growing band of former smokers who sneered with an elevated sense of smugness, were often better informed and more savvy about what went on inside the building, than either the senior management group or the Human Resources department. In the past, she’d learned about organisational changes, disciplinary action and affairs between colleagues, before everyone else in her team, but this time they were as devoid of information about DI Henderson’s whereabouts as everybody else.
Suddenly, as if struck by an idea or an impulse, she shouted a hasty ‘bye’ to the curious onlookers, before running into the building and dashing upstairs, two steps at a time. At her workstation, she grabbed her jacket and car keys and commandeered, rather than requested, DC Phil Bentley to accompany her, his punishment for not helping earlier.
Walters didn’t hesitate this time as she guided the car through lines of parked cars to the exit. When they arrived at Seven Dials, the area looked devoid of commuters, now on their way to offices and shops in London, but busy with the arrival of mums for a spot of retail therapy or a coffee after dropping the kids off at school. Whatever the reason, free parking places were as rare as hen’s teeth.
The only space available close to Henderson’s flat wasn’t a space at all and painted with a set of double yellow lines, but knowing the bulldog-like tenacity of Brighton traffic wardens, Walters left her ‘Police Business’ sign visible on the windscreen. It wouldn’t stop them issuing a ticket but it would buy her some time as they dithered about what to do.
Henderson lived on the top floor of a renovated Edwardian terrace, the front door secured by a phone entry system. After pressing Henderson’s bell several times and calling his home phone and mobile without reply, Walters rang the bell of his ground floor neighbour, Mrs Grant. Walters didn’t know the woman but Henderson told her she was a nosey old bat who spied on everyone who lived there, as he would often see the curtains twitching late on a Friday or Saturday night when he and Rachel stood by the door fumbling for the keys, and one another most likely, while they tried to open the door.
She cursed as a heavy lorry rumbled past, just as a response squawked from the metal box. She leaned closer to the wall.
‘Hello, can you hear me? Hello. Is that you Mrs Grant? This is Detective Sergeant Walters from Sussex Police.’
‘Oh, Sussex Police you say? We’ve got one of them upstairs, a policeman I mean. Detective Angus Henderson, he’s called. He’s a nice man, a very nice man.’
‘I know Mrs Grant, he’s my boss and I’m trying to reach him. I’m getting no reply from his buzzer. Can you please let me in so I can knock on his door? I need to speak to him urgently.’
‘Oh, oh, I’m not sure. How do I know you are who you say you are? There’s been burglars and all sorts around here lately, yes there has.’ The box went quiet for several seconds. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Hold your warrant card up to the window so I can see it. Angus said I should always ask.’
Walters pressed her ID card to the window and a few moments later the lock on the door unlatched with a light ‘clunk.’ The two officers raced inside and ran upstairs. Outside Henderson’s flat, Walters banged on the door with her fist in a succession of short bursts, pausing for several seconds in between to listen for any signs of movement.
A sudden noise made Walters jump but it wasn’t the DI returning with an empty bin or a bag of shopping in his hand, wondering what they were doing there, but Mrs Grant, wheezing and grunting as she wearily climbed the stairs. Walters stopped banging, pulled out her phone and called his landline followed by his mobile. She heard the muffled ring of the house phone but despite putting her ear to the door, she couldn’t hear his mobile.
Mrs Grant coughed and wiped her mouth with the paper handkerchief she carried. ‘He went out last night sometime after ten o’ clock, but now I think about it, I don’t believe I heard him come back in.’
‘He might have returned while you were asleep,’ Bentley said.
‘Oh, no, no, no, young man. I’m sure I would have heard, yes I definitely would. I don’t sleep well you see, never have.’
‘Think carefully, Mrs Grant,’ Walters said, ‘it’s important. Are you sure he didn’t come home?’
‘I go to bed late, after midnight most nights,’ she said, ‘and the slightest noise wakes me. No, no, he didn’t come back. I’m sure of it now. Positive, in fact.’
The detectives dashed to the car leaving Mrs Grant standing at the door, wondering what all the fuss was about. Walters made up for her slow driving earlier in the day by gunning the Golf through the gears as they made their way out of Brighton; if traffic cops wanted to pull her over, they would need to catch her first.
FORTY-ONE
The back door of the Land Rover Defender slammed shut and Max Baris walked back into the barn. Henderson was dozing in the chair and was woken up
suddenly when a boot whacked the side of it.
‘Let’s go Henderson. We’re getting the fuck out of here. I want no funny stuff, remember?’ He tapped the pocket of a smart leather jacket where the bulge of a gun spoiled the shape.
He grabbed Henderson’s arm and in a sort of hop-hop dance, they made their way to the car. The pain had eased off while he sat in the chair but he suspected he was getting used to it. The height of the passenger seat presented a bit of a challenge and by the time Baris pushed him in, the daggers in his leg returned with a vengeance; he began sweating and his leg throbbing like the ticking of a grandfather clock.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked when Baris climbed in behind the wheel and started the engine.
‘We’re going to a place I know and when we get there, I’m going to fuck-off and leave you behind and you’ll never see or hear of me again. You’ll be left in the middle of a big field with a phone nearby, but not so close it won’t take you a couple of hours to reach it.’
The lying bastard. Having killed three, maybe four women already, why would he stop there? If he’d killed Kelly Langton and Amy Sandford with impunity, why not him? He shuddered at the thought and the helplessness of his situation; he felt so useless. His thoughts were interrupted when the car bounced over a bump on the uneven track and a fresh bolt of pain shot up his left leg.
While Swift had been packing his things, he’d spent time examining his injuries. Until the excruciating move to the car, his right leg gave him less bother than before and only appeared bruised, but the left, the one which took the impact of the fall, was fractured in a couple of places and the edge of a bone could be seen pushing out against the skin.
In all his training and experience he’d always regarded the inside of a car as a weapon and not a cage, a major failing in many popular crime dramas on television and thriller movies. If he was in the driving seat, and even if the passenger had a gun, there were several options. He could drive fast and attract the attention of a passing patrol car or CCTV camera. If out in the country with no cameras or police cars, he could drive fast and suddenly stamp on the brakes, and hope the rapid deceleration would dislodge the weapon or confuse the passenger. A third more drastic course of action would be to crash the car.
As a passenger, his aim would be to grab the wheel, keys, knock the car out of gear, easy to do in an automatic, or pull up the handbrake; any combination of these would most likely stop the car. This was the position he found himself in now, but he was unable to do any of these things or in any way take on Swift, as he was young and fit and would be a formidable opponent, even if Henderson himself were not so incapacitated. He realised he had no choice but to follow whatever plan occupied the space in the twisted man’s head.
At the bottom of the driveway, they turned into Adversane Lane and the car slowed as Baris reached over to the low shelf beside Henderson, the Defender’s poor excuse for a glove box, his eyes straying from the road as he did so. The car wobbled a few times and Henderson couldn’t help but think it presented the ideal opportunity for him to attack. A few moments later, he found what he was looking for: sunglasses, and soon the car started moving once again to his destiny.
Up ahead, Henderson spotted something he thought he would never see again. A police patrol car headed towards them. His sense of elation fell flat when he realised no one knew where he was last night and with the patrol car showing no lights or urgency, it was more likely they were answering a local call about a stolen wheelie bin or a faulty burglar alarm. He waved to try and alert the two officers inside, despite the distance between them, but stopped when a forearm smashed across the chest, leaving him doubling up in agony.
To his relief, the officers in the Mondeo did spot him and the car swung across the carriageway, blocking the road. Baris muttered profanities under his breath, his neutral expression turning malevolent and steely and for a moment, Henderson was convinced he would ram them. Instead, he braked sharply and executed a three-point turn, some twenty yards from where the two officers sat in their car, and sped off in the opposite direction.
Henderson was puzzled and annoyed by the police tactics. Neither officer got out of their vehicle and tried to approach the Land Rover, nor did anything to stop them turning and driving away. If this was their idea of a rescue, they failed at first base.
He tried to recall details from the OS map that he and Sally Graham had looked at. He knew a main road lay a couple of miles ahead after they got through the village of Adversane, but he also remembered a number of smaller roads leading off towards little villages and hamlets. If Baris knew the area well, he could hide out in the heart of the countryside and elude them for weeks.
In places, the road was narrow and twisting with open fields on one side and a high wooded bank on the other. They were fortunate it was quiet, as Swift drove fast and close to the centre of the road and the lack of any manoeuvring space on either side would give an oncoming driver little chance of avoiding them.
They drove past a small collection of houses, the pace unrelenting and Henderson winced, fully expecting a car to come out of a driveway or a side road at any minute. They approached a steep bend, forcing him to slow down, but before accelerating into the straight that followed, a red VW Golf came rushing towards them. DS Walters owned a red Golf; surely not?
Confirmation arrived seconds later when it made the same manoeuvre as the patrol car had earlier when it turned across the carriageway and blocked the road. Remembering the patrol car, he glanced in the wing mirror to see if it still was following and there it was, keeping its distance and instantly he knew their tactics were to box them in. It was a risky thing to do, as none of the officers knew Baris had a gun and how he would react to being cornered.
The speed of the Land Rover decreased and Baris appeared to be caught in two minds, whether to carry on and try to force his way past the Golf or turn and take his chance with the patrol car which took up a position some distance behind, giving him a longer section of road to build up speed.
‘You devious bastard, Henderson. You led me to believe no one knew you were at my place last night. I ought to shoot you right now.’
‘I didn’t organise this, how could I? You saw my phone, it’s busted.’
He accelerated hard and headed straight for the Golf. Up ahead, Walters, and a male figure looking a lot like DC Phil Bentley, abandoned the car as if it was full of wasps, and dived into a nearby hedgerow. On either side, Henderson could see a profusion of green leaves and a blur of bushes and up ahead in the windscreen, the bright red bodywork of a VW Golf looming larger and larger.
He gripped the upper handrail and was about to clamp his eyes shut when the Land Rover swung to the right and clipped the rear end of the Golf, shunting it to the side. The bang pushed the Land Rover off course and Baris wrestled with the wheel to correct his position and stay on the road; he succeeded and soon they accelerated away.
A quarter of a mile later, close to Adversane village, the main road not far beyond it, and with no sign of the rescue posse, Henderson felt sure Baris was getting away. Without warning, he stamped on the brakes and the car slowed. He hauled the steering wheel and turned into a gap between the trees where they bumped down a path before smashing through a gate into a field.
At first, Henderson thought he had lost control of the car or panicked, but he soon realised it was a pre-planned move as the Land Rover was better equipped at driving over the uneven ground of a field than either the Golf or the Mondeo patrol car and in a matter of minutes, he could see the broken gate diminish in size in the wing mirror. With an open field up ahead and only flimsy fences to stop him, Baris would be long gone before the Sussex Police helicopter could make its way from Shoreham Airport, providing of course, Walters had the sense to scramble it.
FORTY-TWO
The noise the Defender made when it smacked the rear end of Carol Walters’ recently purchased Golf sounded like a sonic boom, as she hunched down in the briar and nettles. The
y were trying to untangle themselves from the stinging and scratching vegetation when the police patrol car came alongside and asked if they were ok. She replied they were, and they headed off in hot pursuit.
She said she was ok, but underneath she seethed. It wasn’t because she loved the car but over time it had become her saviour. If she was ever late for work in the morning, which happened about ninety per cent of the time, this car got her there on time, so even though they didn’t share a huge amount of love, she had grudging respect, and felt livid if anyone damaged it.
With a level of grit and determination surprising DC Bentley, who at 27, was ten years her junior, she clambered her way out of the ditch, and grabbed his arm and hauled him up the slippery embankment to the road. Rather than cry about the damaged rear end, the smashed light cluster, and one of the wheels stuck in a ditch, she set about removing the loose pieces of plastic and metal and instructed Bentley to push from the front while she got it started and tried to reverse out.
To her surprise the car started first time but it took three attempts to remove the front wheel from the ditch as the tyres struggled to grip the damp grass. Before getting back inside, Bentley used his foot to sweep small bits of debris into the roadside while Walters revved the engine, her impatience and anger evident.
Before the door closed, they roared off in the same direction as the patrol car, the accelerator pedal not far from the floorboards. They were travelling so fast, she almost missed the turn, difficult to do as the site was marked with all manner of splintered wood and broken fence posts and the road splattered with mud. After a hard stab of the brakes, she made the turn.
The Golf charged through the gap in the gate into the large field and at once, a violent shaking reverberated throughout the car and inside the bodies of both occupants, as the wheels hit furrow after furrow.
