by Mark Roberts
On the way to the first of two calls they were due to make that night, Cole had listened in grim silence to White’s theory about who had been leaking secret information.
Behind his car, in a black BMW, two officers from Professional Standards watched him with cold detachment, and Cole had the feeling that whoever was in the house had had a good hard look through a crack in the curtains at those gathering outside.
‘Who are you, calling at this hour?’ She had no accent and sounded stern and cold.
‘My name’s Detective Constable Barney Cole. Can you open the door please and let me in, Mrs White?’
She opened the door quickly, beckoned him in and glanced up and down the road at other spacious detached and semi-detached houses before shutting the door at speed. ‘Has something happened to Carol?’ she asked.
‘No.’ He offered his warrant card but she didn’t look at it.
‘Is that her out there in the car?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Do you mind if I make a brief phone call?’
She said nothing, so he dialled the eleven digits of Carol’s mobile number and waited. His ring tone sounded, but there was no accompanying sound of a mobile ringing in the house.
‘What setting does your son use on his mobile phone?’
‘He doesn’t leave it on silent, in case he misses a call, in case it’s to do with work.’
Upstairs Carol’s three-year-old son started crying.
‘Be brief and to the point!’ she ordered.
‘Is your son Kevin here?’
‘He’s on duty, doing some overtime.’
Cole had met Detective Sergeant Kevin White once. A tall, well-spoken man with a reputation as a two-sided coin. He handled the victims of crime with a rare sensitivity and perpetrators with black iron.
He’s not going to be the leak, thought Cole, listening to the cries of Carol’s child escalating in volume.
‘What’s this to do with, please?’ Mrs White asked, ascending the stairs briskly.
‘We wanted a point of view from him on our current investi-gation.’
‘He’ll be back here in the morning. I’ll tell him you called. Close the door on your way out.’
She stopped at the top of the stairs and pointed in the general direction of Cole’s car. ‘She really shouldn’t be involving other officers to mediate in the mess she made of their marriage.’
‘She isn’t doing any such thing, Mrs White.’
*
Back at the wheel of his car, Carol asked, ‘How did it go?’
‘He’s doing overtime.’ Cole pulled away and turned the corner on to Cromptons Lane.
‘Oh!’ She sounded quietly surprised. ‘I suppose so. He usually resists but he really doesn’t get on with his mother, so... it figures.’
‘Next port of call then, Carol?’
Cole looked in his wing mirror. Just behind them, the officers from Professional Standards followed, silent and dead-eyed like a pair of sharks beneath the surface of a jet-black sea.
He held on tightly to the steering wheel and, shuddering, wondered if someone had walked over over his grave.
Part 3
Dance of Death
Day Three
Friday,
25th October 2019
99
00.01 am
‘Wakey wakey!’
Justin Truman upended a bottle of water over Hawkins’s head. The man rolled his neck as he lifted his slumped head and half opened his eyes.
‘Open your eyes wide!’
He blinked and his eyes bulged as he came fully to life and aware of where he was and who he was with.
‘Read this!’ Truman showed him a piece of paper.
Hawkins’s lips moved as he read the words, stopping halfway through. His fleshy face fell to stone.
‘I’ve decided, as this is going to be my final outing, I’m going to do something I’ve never done before, something maybe I should have tried earlier on in my career. We’re going to do things a little differently. This time, Christopher, you’re going to read all the words... Lies are your weapons, the truth is mine and every single word on this piece of paper is absolutely true. I’m going to film you and this film will go viral on the internet within hours. So try your best not to look and sound like the snivelling piece of shit that you truly are.’
Hawkins didn’t move or speak.
‘What are you waiting for?’ asked Truman.
‘I can’t do it.’
‘You can. You must.’ Truman picked up the Stanley knife and extended the blade a couple of centimetres. ‘You can either do it with or without your balls attached to your body.’
With a poke of his toe, Truman sent the chair and Hawkins on to his back.
‘I’ll do it! I’ll do it! I’ll do it!’
‘I’m going to start filming. When the phone is pointing at you and I say the word now, you read the words on my paper. Nothing more, nothing less.’
Truman pressed record and turned a full circle, filming at head height. He tilted the phone up and turned another circle. He stopped, held the camera at arm’s length and pointed it at himself.
‘Hello, Eve. There’s someone here I’d like you to meet.’
Truman started at Hawkins’s feet, ran the phone slowly along his leg, across his body and settled on his face.
‘Now!’
100
00.10 am
As Annabelle Burns entered the interview suite, Clay held her eye until she sat opposite her and said, ‘You have the right to a solicitor...’
‘I’ve done nothing wrong. You told me you wanted to speak to me about Caroline. Why would I need a solicitor for that?’
‘I do want to talk to you about Caroline but I need to talk to you about other matters.’
‘Then just do it. No solicitor!’
As Riley finished formally opening the interview, Annabelle asked, ‘What’s happening with Lucien?’
‘We have a woman in custody at the moment called Christine Green. Christine is denying all knowledge of Lucien and Lucien is denying all knowledge of her. Do you know Christine Green, Annabelle?’
‘No.’
‘Sure?’
‘Certain.’
‘When are Bulky Bob coming out to collect your fridge?’
‘Tuesday morning.’
‘They don’t collect in your area on Tuesday mornings. Your lies to cover your lies are full of holes.’
Annabelle looked around the space. ‘This room could do with a really good clean.’
‘We’ve got Christine Green’s phone.’
‘Good.’
‘If you don’t know Christine Green, why did you phone her up on your mobile at one minute past nine am this morning?’
‘This is a mistake on your part!’
‘Shall I remind you of what was happening at that time this morning? We were gathering outside your house. I was in your front garden and you were in the bay window of your bedroom. I saw you. You were on the phone and you looked very agitated. In fact you were pacing. I’ve asked you twice today who you were calling and twice you told me Bulky Bob. That was a lie.’
‘I received a missed call. I didn’t recognise the number. I didn’t know if it was important or not. I didn’t know if it was anything to do with Lucien. I worry about Lucien. I called back the number. The woman I spoke to didn’t tell me her name. I told her my name and the woman said, I’m sorry, I don’t know anyone of that name. I must’ve dialled a wrong number. Sorry. Then she hung up and I didn’t give it another moment’s thought. It’s a coincidence.’
‘A coincidence?’ echoed Clay. ‘It’s got to be the world’s biggest set of coincidences ever. Do you know what Christine has in common with Lucien?’
‘How could I know?’
‘They’re the only two people in Liverpool running Vindici fan websites.’
‘It would only take an hour to get this room spotless.’
/> ‘This room is cleaned twice a day and there’s nothing wrong with it. Stop changing the subject. It’s extremely probable that I’m going to be charging Lucien and Christine with murder. It’s that serious, Annabelle. If you know anything, you need to stop playing games and tell me.’
In silence, Clay watched Annabelle freefalling inside herself.
‘Lucien...’ Her normally strident voice was soft and she sounded twenty years younger. ‘On one level, Lucien is a rather straightforward young man.’
Clay and Riley looked at each other with mutual disbelief.
‘You only have to look at the walls of his room to know that. Action heroes, sexy young women. He’s body conscious and a little bit too vain for his own good but he’ll grow out of that in time.’ Annabelle looked hard at Clay. ‘But a killer? Never.’
‘Annabelle, we’ve got Lucien’s medical records.’
Annabelle looked at Clay as if she was either telling the most profound lie or had achieved something impossible.
‘Ever worked at Alder Hey, Annabelle?’
‘Once, briefly. I think I need a solicitor.’ She looked around as though a solicitor was going to magically appear out of thin air. ‘I want a solicitor.’
‘That’s not a problem,’ said Riley.
‘You took his notes from Medical Records when you were at Alder Hey, didn’t you? But you couldn’t take the records that his GP was holding, could you?’
Clay felt the arrival of an incoming text on her iPhone.
‘Why have you lied about Lucien’s age, Annabelle?’
She said nothing but dabbed at the back of her left hand with a tissue.
‘Lucien’s not sixteen, is he?’
‘Like I said, I want a solicitor.’
Clay looked at her phone, clicked on the text icon and showed the screen to Riley as she formally closed the interview.
‘I’ll take Annabelle to Sergeant Harris.’
As Riley walked Annabelle to the door, she said, ‘We’re putting you in a cell.’
The door closed and Clay double-checked the screen of her iPhone.
A black screen peppered with points of light. A triangle within a circle, a clip of film to be played, and a single word in white above this.
Vindici.
101
00.25 am
As Clay pressed play she was filled with a sense of dread and awe.
A slow-turning panorama in a dark space full of what appeared to be candles, an imitation of a clear night sky but her instinct told her this was indoors. She listened and heard ragged breathing from nearby, but not from the person turning in a circle and making the film. In the background, she heard the outside world in the rumble of traffic, the clanking of a heavy vehicle going over a large bump in the road and traffic moving in both directions.
A much brighter light in the distance showed a cavernous space.
The angle of the camera changed. It was pointed upwards and again the person holding it turned a slow circle. The quality of the darkness changed and the night came into the view through tall panels of glass high up on the walls of the building. She absorbed the darkness and wondered, Where? Where are you, Justin?
The door opened and Riley slipped into the room, next to Clay.
‘Justin Truman’s sent me a film clip. It feels like now.’
The circle stopped and the angle dipped to reveal an altar dressed with red silk dahlias. The camera focused on a statue of the Virgin and the Infant Jesus, a framed picture of an eight-year-old girl, a statuette of a Weeping Child and a selection of sweet food, sugar skulls and candy skeletons.
‘It’s the real Vindici,’ said Clay as a sensation like pins and needles overtook her scalp.
The phone rose up and Justin Truman’s face appeared in half-light.
‘Hello, Eve. There’s someone here I’d like you to meet.’
He smiled and she felt as if her spirit was rising through her head.
‘Eve,’ said Riley. ‘Are you OK? You look—’
‘I’m all right,’ said Clay, drinking in the silent smile on the screen of her iPhone.
She saw a bare foot and above this a black metal square with a glass facade. The person was male and tied to a chair. The thighs were like rubber and his genitals were buried in body fat from the base of his belly. Fat hung in inelegant triangles from his sagging pectorals and when the camera settled on his face, Clay had no idea who the naked man was.
Another text came through to her phone.
Just watch this, she said to herself.
‘Now!’ said Vindici.
‘I am a convicted paedophile,’ said the fat man, ‘and I am about to pay for my sins. I am alone in a building with Justin Truman, known around the world as Vindici.’ His eyes welled up and tears spilled down his face as he made a whimpering noise in his throat. ‘This building is close to where you once lived as a child, Eve. The device strapped to my leg is a bomb.’
Clay pictured the shape of the windows.
In a blur of light and action, the man was upended from the floor and sat up straight on the chair. The camera stayed on him.
‘Read!’ said Truman.
‘Vindici is going to sit on a chair next to me. He is going to strap a bomb to his body. He is going to sit with me.’
She listened to the way the huge space hollowed out the man’s voice, the echo in the dark.
‘There is another text. Look at it but do so quickly because time is of the essence. You have twenty minutes to save me and Justin Truman. Please, please, Eve...’
‘Stay on script or I’ll slice the time in half!’
‘Twenty minutes. You have to come alone, Eve. If you bring anyone else into the building, Vindici will blow up both of us and whoever else in there, you included, Eve.’
She watched as Truman focused on the bomb on the man’s leg, activating the digital clock. ‘Time starts now, Eve!’
Clay’s adrenaline surged as the red digits on the clock face started counting down and the man started weeping uncontrollably. The film froze.
She left the room at speed, speaking urgently: ‘Block off Edge Lane at the mouth of the M62 and the junctions to Hall Lane and Mount Vernon. We need to flood the area with officers. No sirens. Quick as lightning but quiet with it.’
‘Leave it with me,’ said Riley.
Then Clay opened the text and saw a photograph of a young man with a head full of blond curls, smiling and seemingly without a care in the world.
Recognising his face, she felt sick.
‘Hendricks, Stone and yourself: I want you to meet me outside the Littlewoods Building. Bomb disposal and paramedics. No one’s to know what’s been demanded of me except the three of you.’
‘Why the fuck should you, Eve? Let them blow each other sky high.’
Clay glanced at her watch, sprinted to the car park, heard a clock ticking inside her head and the wind rising in the storm outside.
Twenty minutes to drive from Garston to Edge Lane and explore a derelict building bigger than many cathedrals.
‘The hostage is called Christopher Hawkins. He’s in his mid- to-late fifties, and he’s a paedophile. The other man’s Justin Truman and I’ve got to get them both out alive.’
102
00.25 am
At Ryman’s Court, a 1960s purpose-built three-storey apartment block nestled at the edge of Gateacre Village, Detective Constable Barney Cole checked the numbers on the square silver buzzers on the intercom, and found number seven.
‘Are you sure you want to come inside this time, Carol?’
‘Yes I do. I felt like a total coward sitting outside Kevin’s mother’s house.’
‘You’re not a coward. You’re clearing your name beyond any doubt. You have the right to do just that.’
He pressed seven and nothing happened. Cole looked up at the windows and saw many lights on in many flats. He pressed again and heard Alice Banks’s voice, husky and disturbed from sleep.
‘Alice, it’s Bar
ney Cole. Can I come in please?’
The intercom buzzed and they made their way to the stone stairs leading to Flat 7 on the first floor. Cole noticed that the only footsteps he could hear were his own and wondered why Carol was being so careful not to make a sound.
‘Let me hang back a bit,’ she whispered. ‘Come and get me if there’s anything I can do.’
At Alice Banks’s door, Cole knocked. He saw Carol fade into the shadows near the door to the stairwell. Within moments, Alice opened the door, dressed in a red silk dressing gown and matching slippers. Her dark hair tumbled on to her shoulders and she emitted a subtle but expensive perfume.
Not for the first time, Barney Cole doubted Bill Hendricks’s sanity after he’d knocked her back at the Christmas party.
Alice turned on a lamp in the corner of her living room.
‘Lovely flat, Alice.’
‘You haven’t come here to study interior design. What’s up?’
‘We’ve had a tip-off about the leak and so we’re systematically going through everyone on the team, eliminating them from the list of suspects.’
‘Dare I ask? Has Carol been eliminated?’
‘Probably, but she still has some way to go.’
He looked out of the large plate-glass window and saw the sleek car in which the Professional Standards officers waited, their vehicle blending almost perfectly into the night. The double-glazed window blocked out any sound from the streets outside and he was impressed by the quiet calm of Alice’s living space.
‘Give me a minute and I’ll get my phone, iPad and iPod together.’
He tried not to notice the swell of her buttocks and the narrow flare of her hips as she walked into the bedroom. In the half-lit kitchen he saw an opened bottle of wine on the drainer. Two glasses and two plates were stacked above the dishwasher. She had obviously had company that evening.
‘This is everything,’ she said, returning to the living room and placing them on the wooden chest in front of her black leather sofa.
