by Simon Hall
Dan thought of Roger Newman and Annette. Another interview with the businessman, but this time carried out in the past tense.
Tears and regrets in place of hope. He could see the spectre with Adam and Katrina, too. The way they waited, the fear of what they were about to hear. But instead came relief, like rainfall in the desert.
‘Sir,’ Claire told Adam, ‘I think we’ve got a lead on the kidnappers.’
Chapter Eleven
He was still there. Silent and unmoving, but she could sense him.
A black shape in the tarry darkness of this eternal night. Watching her. As he had from the start. And would until the end.
And that moment was coming. It was in the air, all around her.
But no easy ending. Instead an inescapable agony.
The smell. So ordinarily everyday, but here and now so fearful, so heavy with fate. In her nose and ears. Her eyes and mouth. Unmistakable, unavoidable, no matter how she turned her head to try to escape.
Petrol. Volatile, vicious petrol.
And the sound. The gentle innocence of a soft rustling. Like the English countryside on many a summer’s day. From the walks she had taken with Dad, through fields and over stiles, on their weekend outings from the city.
The dry sound of golden straw.
And one more noise to reinforce her certainty. To know what surrounded her, and the end which awaited.
Newspaper. Ripped into strips. And crumpled into balls.
Rolled, shifted and positioned. With exacting certainty. To encircle her helpless body.
Ready to feed the flames of the pyre.
Annette tried to gulp, but the gag allowed no respite. She could see nothing and say nothing. She would die blind, mute and immobile.
Able only to wait for the fire. And helpless, feel her skin blister and burn.
She had expected the end so many times. In the van, when she was sick. When the cloth was pulled from her mouth. She was ready for the knotted knuckles of a flying fist.
A lesson. A beating. A punishment. Blood flowing and teeth breaking. The blows growing more frenzied, the pain whitening until the grateful release. Never to come around.
But there was only the thrust of a rag. The sickness wiped away. And the shock of a cold cascade of water.
How she gulped it down. Chewed it from the air, every drop. Until the binding gag was restored.
Then once more readying for the end. When the rumbling slowed and quietened, and the doors opened. The breeze on her face, the hands pulling her, the arms lifting her, carrying her through sightless space. The sound of seagulls in the sky.
She had expected to fly. Soar from the clifftop, at last unbound, until the killing impact. Twisted and broken, her forsaken body claimed by the whispering undertaker of the creeping tide.
No headstone here. No loving memorial to young Annette Newman. No forever remembered and always missed. No last resting place recorded, no black-clad mourners to lament her passing.
But she had found only a cold, hard floor. And distant noises.
The creak of a stair. Mutterings in the darkness. Perhaps a plane flying by. Maybe a bird’s cheerful song.
A secluded door closing. The muted burble of a quiet radio. And always the sound of time passing. The blasting silence of the indistinct, immeasurable, hours.
She was cold now. Shivered, twitched to shift her weight. Her flank was numbed, lying on this slab of a floor. But she was trussed too tight to move.
A trickle of blood ran down her ankle. Dust was starting to settle in her nose, mixing with the petrol, forming the paste of the coming death.
She would smell herself burn.
Annette tried to imagine. To find a refuge in her mind. James, that night on the beach.
Anywhere. Any escape. Anything.
But the darkness was too filled with the dancing terrors of her taunting thoughts.
Chapter Twelve
They ran for the back door. Dan had been expecting a rapid chase up to the MIR, but Adam headed downwards, towards the basement.
These corridors of the police station were much less trodden. There was no banter, none of the continual sound of feet which characterised other floors. It was quieter, darker, had the air of a lair.
The catacombs of Charles Cross, Dan thought, with a reporter’s whim.
In the car park, Adam had cornered the sergeant who was attempting to organise the melee. ‘How long?’
‘Five minutes, maybe ten.’
The detective didn’t reply, instead turned and set off, Claire, Katrina and Dan following.
‘What’re we doing?’ Dan asked. ‘Where are we going?’
‘You’ll see.’
Adam passed the entrance to the control room. They turned a corner. Now they were approaching the end of the corridor. Ahead was a fire exit and next to it another door, a little smaller. It was plain, but strong and well secured.
Only one of the strip lights was working, and it rumbled with a low buzz. Daylight was a stranger to this part of the station. The corridor was tainted with dust and smelt musty, the floor tiles cracked and chipped. The gossamer patterns of a spider’s web stretched from the top of the door.
‘What’s going on?’ Dan asked. ‘I didn’t even know this place existed.’
‘Quite,’ Adam replied.
He fumbled in his pocket, found a fob of keys and picked one out. It was fatter than the rest, shinier and looked little-used. With a begrudging clunk, the door opened.
***
Around the walls were propped signs. Several appealed for witnesses to road crashes, others muggings and one a robbery. Most carried the everyday warnings of the business of policing: the risks of ice, pickpockets operating in the area and the ever-present danger of leaving valuables in your car.
In the corner was a ramshackle stack of old desks and chairs. There were a few abandoned computers too, some which harked back to the days of the ZX Spectrum. Dan reached out to touch one. It was like laying a finger on his past.
A couple of stacks of traffic cones teetered by the door, their hoops smeared with dirt. Guarding them was the curiosity of a line of gnomes. A note attached to the hat of the tallest read, Nicked by students, owner to collect next week. It was dated nine years ago.
At the far end of the room was a metal filing cabinet, and it was there that Adam stepped his careful way.
Dan found Claire by his side. ‘The twilight files,’ she whispered.
Adam was delving hard into the cabinet, wisps of dust taking to the air. Katrina began coughing.
Claire’s radio crackled. Two minutes to the off.
Adam was still bent double. It was as if the cabinet was making an attempt to swallow him.
The click, click, click of turning metal filled the little room. Finally, the detective stood up. He was holding a stained manila folder.
‘Got it,’ he said.
***
Katrina took the wheel, in a manner that was both unexpected and a little alarming. She worked the gears like a racing driver who’s trailing the pack. The car hugged corners and cut a straight line across bends. They had to wait a couple of times for the rest of the convoy to catch up.
‘Where did you learn all this?’ Dan asked, in a voice which he hoped disguised his nerves.
‘Advanced driver training. If you need to speed it pays to know how.’
‘Is that how you got down to Devon so fast?’
‘Not entirely. I caught the train. It’s better for thinking through a case. Besides, it’s only about three hours from London to Plymouth.’ She glanced over, her face unreadable. ‘Very easy to pop back and forth.’
Dan thought he heard Claire make a kind of strangled noise, but it might have been the percussion of another of Katrina’s gear changes.
She’d insisted on driving. It made sense, she told Adam. He was the officer in charge of the case. He needed to be free to make phone calls. He could also read out the contents of the file, tell them about the
two people who were suspected of kidnapping Annette.
As his deputy Claire should sit alongside. Which left Dan in the front, next to her.
The logic was clear. Yet Claire appeared unimpressed, her face flinty. It was most unlike her, a woman with a natural warmth for the world, even on the most difficult of days. Dan wondered if she wasn’t feeling well. She was wearing more make-up than usual. Perhaps it was to cover the effects of some bug.
The convoy of police cars and vans crossed the bridge over the River Plym and headed into the open countryside of the South Hams. Adam was about to start reading the file when Dan saw his moment and interrupted.
‘I’ve got an idea.’
‘Why does that always make me worry?’ Adam replied.
‘Call it a way to make up for my stupid clumsiness.’
As they had jogged out of the police station to join the convoy, a few minutes ago, Dan spotted an officer carrying a video camera. In the blindness of his preoccupation with the case, he collided with the man, knocking the camera to the floor. Bumped off balance, Dan had also trodden on it, breaking the lens. It was all down to the rush, he apologised repeatedly. Wessex Tonight would pay for the repair, or a replacement.
‘That’s not the bloody point,’ the officer remonstrated. ‘It’s the only one we’ve got.’
Adam was eyeing Dan with his special detective’s look. It was loaded with all the suspicion of more than twenty years as a policeman, a generation’s experience of deception.
‘Get on with it,’ he said. ‘You’re not fooling anyone.’
‘It’s just – video can be such powerful evidence.’
‘Really? Thanks, I’d never have thought of that. It is why we bring a camera along – or try to, anyway,’ he added, pointedly. ‘What are you up to?’
‘Nothing, nothing at all. Only that – maybe I can help.’
‘Let me guess. By getting Nigel along to film?’
‘Oh! What a brilliant idea. Just to help you out, of course. To make up for my little accident.’
‘In return for which, you get exclusive pictures?’
‘Well, I never imagined it like that. My only thought was for the interests of justice. But since you come to mention it…’
Adam clicked his tongue. ‘What do you think, Katrina?’
She accelerated the car around a bend, generating the g-forces of a roller-coaster. ‘Dan is right, a recording could be useful.’
‘All right,’ Adam said, when the offending reporter had finished his performance. ‘Now, if you’re quite done with your devious little manoeuvers, would you like to hear who we’re up against?’
Chapter Thirteen
‘The story of Brian and Martha Edwards,’ Adam recounted. ‘An extraordinary and I suppose sad one, too – if it wasn’t for the way it turned out.’
Even the drive through the marvels of the Devon springtime didn’t distract from the story. The trees were lit with candle buds and rained blossom. In the fields, cows and horses watched the wailing convoy pass with that magnificent detachment of the animal world. The meadows and pastures were full of the colours of the warming land.
The Edwards were born in Plymouth and remained in the city. Both were educated – if that wasn’t too optimistic a word – at Eddystone Comprehensive, the same school as Roger Newman.
‘Interesting,’ Katrina noted.
Their criminal careers began modestly. It was clear from the notes that, initially, they were considered small time. They were assessed as not violent, or a significant danger to the public.
One remark from the first of the cases, written by a junior detective, said, All this was about was taking the piss.
‘Hang on,’ Dan objected. ‘What’s that kind of comment doing on an investigation report?’
‘Because,’ Adam replied emphatically, ‘None of this exists. Our little storage room is there for a reason. It’s off computers, off the books and particularly off journalists. Ok?’
‘Well, I—’
‘That’s only if you want to hear more. I could just stop.’
‘Ok,’ Dan submitted, a little peevishly.
‘In which case, do you want to know the remarkable thing about the Edwards?’
‘What?’
‘We think they’ve committed plenty of crimes,’ Claire replied. ‘But guess how many convictions we’ve managed to get?’
‘How many?’
‘It’s a round number,’ Adam said. ‘Very round, in fact.’
‘That bad?’
‘Yep.’
‘How come?’
‘If you let me finish the briefing, you’ll find out.’
Childish as it may be, sometimes the pleasure of sticking out the tongue is hard to resist. Dan contented himself with a shake of the head, but deigned to be silent.
Martha was 22 years old and had just completed a three-year course in forensic science and computing. She graduated with a third class degree.
‘Not exactly a criminal mastermind,’ Katrina observed.
‘So you might think,’ Adam replied. ‘But after a few crimes which we thought could be down to the Edwards, a detective went to talk to her old tutors. Their view was unanimous. She was by far the brightest and most talented student in her year, and one of the best they’d ever seen.’
‘She flunked the exams?’
‘She certainly did. But why – we think it was deliberate. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself with a shining academic record.’
They passed a farmyard, a couple of men working on a tractor, a sheep dog skipping around their feet. At this speed, East Prawle lay twenty minutes to the south-east.
Adam returned to his notes. The Edwards’ first suspected crime involved housing benefit fraud, but with a twist.
They had invented scores of people and bank accounts into which the money could be paid. The fraud lasted for just a few months and was closed down before the council realised. Only following an audit later in the year was the alarm raised. Tens of thousands of pounds were stolen.
‘Pretty mundane stuff,’ Dan commented. ‘Housing benefit fraud is hardly new or particularly clever.’
‘That’s true,’ Adam replied. ‘But – the Edwards chose a council which had just been involved in a child abuse scandal. Its social workers failed to prevent the deaths of a couple of kids.’
‘You think the council was deliberately targeted?’ Katrina asked.
‘We’re sure it was. Because of the money the Edwards stole, we reckon they only kept half. Our investigations didn’t get very far, but there was one thing we did establish. The Edwards made a big donation to some children’s charities. The amount was about half the total estimated to have been stolen.’
The next case was an attack on some large insurance companies. A couple of towns in the Midlands had suffered flooding after torrential rain. Hundreds of residents were forced to leave their homes. The repair bill would run into many millions of pounds.
As people began to make claims, a problem emerged. It was one which will surprise nobody who has ever tried to storm the castle of an insurer to retrieve some of the money they had spent years paying in. The firms started to spin, wheedle and squirm.
Spokesmen claimed there were exemptions. Excesses on a scale sufficient to pay a premiership footballer applied. The list went on and on, and then on some more.
The Edwards took advantage of the companies’ preoccupation with repelling the hordes who had the cheek to expect assistance. Quietly, they began to build up a series of motoring claims. They were relatively small and so hardly checked. But the quantities involved made for significant sums.
Once more, the result was the Edwards keeping half the money, the rest going to a fund set up to help the flood victims.
***
The convoy was approaching the village of Churchstow. Signs pleaded for careful driving. Katrina slowed the car and switched off the sirens. Even those from outside Devon and Cornwall instinctively understand that
the sacred peace of a small community must not be disturbed.
In the field beside a school a group of children halted their kick about to watch the cars, vans and motorbikes. This was a place that very rarely saw a police officer, let alone a convoy.
Sunshine flared inside the car. Dan rolled down a window, Adam did the same.
***
Now came a sense the crimes were growing bolder. The Edwards moved on to target banks.
It was a time when they had been trying to persuade customers to make greater use of the internet. It was quicker and more convenient the banks proclaimed, strangely forgetting to mention it was also much cheaper for them. As for concerns about security, they could be happily dismissed with the airy wave of a banker’s trustworthy hand. The systems were invulnerable.
Such a claim is a temptation too far for any hacker that has ever set finger on keyboard. The Edwards were amongst them. This time, it was mortgage fraud. A series of online applications were made for relatively small amounts, which attracted less scrutiny. Again, many thousands of pounds were stolen.
When finally one of the targets noticed, Greater Wessex Police were called in. But so sure were the banks of their impregnability, it was difficult to convince them they had been conned. And when, at last, the arrogance faltered and they accepted the inevitable, everything was hushed up.
The men in bespoke pinstripe suits decreed that no further proceedings were required. It would be too damaging for the sacred share price.
There were a couple more notes on the case. The banks targeted had been identified as the worst for customer service, whilst still managing to pay senior bosses the kind of bonuses which could fill a calculator’s screen. This time, it was estimated the Edwards took only fifteen per cent of their haul, the rest going to a range of charities.
A note from one of the investigating officers read, fifteen per cent, a standard agent’s fee. So, make of that what you will. On this one, I can’t find myself too bothered we’re not trying to bring charges.
***
Adam checked his watch. East Prawle is Devon’s most southerly village, just inland of the cliffs of Prawle Point. They were fifteen minutes away. The car bumped as it crossed a bridge over a muddy tidal inlet.
