A Need To Kill (DI Matt Barnes)

by Michael Kerr

  She tensed herself. Pictured what she would do; leave the chair on the run and make for the stairs. Within ten seconds she would be totally safe. But if someone was in the house, she could just as easily run into him. Having a bolt hole was highly commendable, but not worth spit if you couldn’t get to it.

  The only light on was the small table lamp next to her on the nest of tables. She would turn it off and make her move in darkness. Knowing the layout of the house was to her advantage. An intruder would be disoriented and lose any sense of his bearings.

  Okay, girl, on the count of three. One...

  Lucas watched her from where he stood rock still, back against the wall of the small lounge. If she turned around, he would just lunge forward and smash his fist into her face before she could even think to react. He took shallow, noiseless breaths. He had taken a boning knife from the wooden block on the kitchen counter, but did not intend to use it, yet. He took a step towards her, his footfall silent on the thick pile of the carpet. This was going to be almost too easy.

  The light went out. Lucas was momentarily confused. In the split second that followed, he lost the initiative. He sprang forward and swung his fist at the spot where Carrie’s head had been, but lost his balance as the impetus of hitting only thin air took him forward, twisting, over the back of the chair, to fall off it onto the floor.

  As she leapt to her feet, Carrie felt the draught next to her ear, but was unaware of the scything fist that had caused it. She tripped and fell as something solid smashed into her thigh. Rolled away from it, struggled to her knees, then regained her feet again and headed for the stairs. It was as if she was treading water. She couldn’t seem to run fast enough, then careered into the newel post at the bottom of the stairs, bounced back and fell to the floor with pain flaring in her hip. She grunted, once more struggled up, and set off up the stairs.

  Lucas heard the thud and the grunt. He strode towards it, holding the knife out in front of him. He could see her shape, black on the dark grey of the stairwell. She was halfway to the top. He powered his muscular legs up the stairs, to lunge with his free hand, grasp the hem of her knee-length skirt and drag her down.

  Carrie fell forward and clawed and clutched the edge of a riser. Kicked out with her feet and twisted her head around to look back and down. Holy shit, it was the shaven headed tattooist that she had called to see earlier in the day. The grainy light from a nearby street lamp filtered through the upper glass panel of the front door to give her a glimpse of his grinning face.

  “Gotcha,” Lucas said in a triumphant voice.

  The button and zip at the side of Carrie’s skirt gave, and the polyester garment whipped down her legs. Her attacker’s grin turned to a wide-eyed look of surprise and he flew backwards and tumbled to the bottom of the stairs. Relief coursed through her. She crawled up the last few stairs, reached the top, only to cry out in dismay and renewed shock as warm fingers wrapped around her ankle.

  “No! No! No!” Carrie shouted, and kicked out hard with her other foot, only to scream as a sharp stab of agony shot through her heel.

  “You’re going to die, bitch,” Lucas panted, twisting and pulling the thin knife blade from the sole of her foot as he yanked her back towards him.

  Pure instinct cut in. She was not some limp, dishcloth of a woman who went to mush under these circumstances. She had been trained to react against physical attack; had been assaulted while on duty by drunks and junkies alike. She ignored the throbbing pain and kicked out again, this time driving her foot down with the full weight of her body behind it.

  Lucas felt an eye-watering blast of sheer excruciation as with a loud crack the cartilage in his nose shattered. Any normal person would have been totally distracted by the injury. But he was by no stretch of the imagination a normal person. He let loose a fluid bellow, lashed out and sank the knife into the muscle of Carrie’s right thigh. Used it as a climber would employ a piton to support himself with; hung onto the handle and pulled himself up until his bloody face was level with her rump. He was in his element. The spirited fight had aroused him more fully than he could remember being. At that moment, only what was taking place existed. He had no other consideration.

  He was going to kill her. Carrie knew that. If she was to survive, then whatever she did in the next few seconds would be the deciding factor. Outrage spurred her to act. She did not want to be another of this creep’s victims. If she died at his hands, then it would not be without fighting until her last breath. She whipped over and jabbed her stiffened index and middle fingers into his eyes, and then ripped at the back of his hand with her fingernails. Rubber, not skin. She grasped one of the fingers that was locked vicelike around her ankle and jerked it back with enough force to snap it like a rotten twig. It came free, but she did not feel it break.

  The onslaught was too overwhelming for even Lucas to withstand. He did not even realise that he had lost his grip on her. Pain from his eyes, nose and finger amalgamated to blur his thoughts as well as his sight. He dropped back down a couple of steps and blinked rapidly, trying to regroup.

  Carrie heard herself whimpering like some small wounded animal as she turned and clawed her way up to the landing. The knife wound to her thigh had incapacitated her whole leg. She used her hands and one foot to propel herself along. It was taking too long. As she crawled along the landing to the bathroom, she could see him through the rails of the banister. He was wiping at his eyes. None of the injuries she had inflicted were enough to stop him. She knew that any second he would come after her again. Panic threatened to immobilise her. She had no strength left to defend herself against a further assault. Must make it to the fucking bathroom!

  She made it to the door, reached up and grasped the handle and pulled herself up on to her left leg. Opened the door and hopped across the threshold. An almost debilitating surge of relief flooded her as she slammed it shut.

  Lucas concentrated and sent the pain away to the deep place in his mind that he had invented to hold all emotional and physical discomfort. No bitch cop was going to get the better of him. That would not do at all. He leapt up and raced to the top of the stairs. Saw her hobble into a room and shut the door. As it closed he twisted the handle down and threw his shoulder against it.

  Carrie was hurled backwards. Her legs shot from beneath her and she was off the ground, falling. The back of her head hit the solid wood toilet seat lid, and a single starburst of bright orange exploded in her brain.

  He sat on the edge of the bath and got his breath back. This had not gone to plan. He had been overconfident and underestimated the cop. He looked around. The bathroom door appeared to be impenetrable. Had she managed to lock it, then she would have been safe from him. He would have had to torch the house and beat a hasty retreat. Come to think of it, he would still have to set fire to the place, though. His blood was on the stair carpet, and still dripping from his nose. And how much noise had they made? What if a neighbour was already calling the police? The proposed leisurely torture of the cop, and her subsequent protracted death was now out of the question. What a waste. He had wanted to ram it to her. Screw her arse and cut her throat as he hung on like a rodeo cowboy riding an unbroken mare. She would have been bucking, snorting and rolling her eyes as he first tamed and then dispatched her.

  She groaned and her eyes began to flutter. At least she would see it coming; know that she had lost and was going to die.

  Albert Cole was sitting in his recliner chair reading a Lincoln Rhyme thriller: The Vanished Man. His wife, Bernice, was sprawled out on the sofa watching a soap and dipping her chubby fingers into a large box of Thornton’s chocolates that their daughter, Stella, had given her as a birthday present. Albert was on chapter forty-five. The villain of the piece was about to set fire to the packed tent of the Cirque Fantastique in Central Park. He had just begun a sentence that read, exactly at nine p.m. a spume of fire shot from the doorway of the tent... Albert got no further. The shattering sound of breaking windows caused him to d
rop the book as he jumped up. And Bernice almost choked on a crème caramel, before coughing and spraying chocolate and a brown tooth-marked lump of toffee onto the carpet. Albert ran to the front door and opened it to see smoke and flames billowing from the window frames of the maisonette that they were adjoined to.

  “Outside, quick,” he barked at his wife, going back inside for as long as it took to pick up his mobile phone and roughly push Bernice out into the street.

  The ignited gas and the flash of heat and debris had been deafening, and had blown a passing stray dog off its feet, to land rolling on the hard asphalt. The shock wave that followed passed over it like a strong, red-hot gust of desert wind. And its fur was smoking as it regained it feet and fled to the end of the street and vanished round a corner.

  “Jeeezuss!” Albert shouted as he stopped on the opposite pavement, upwind of the clouds of black smoke that billowed from the downstairs window frames and the doorway. “Are you all right, love?”

  Bernice was trembling. “Yes,” she said. “But what about that poor girl?”

  Albert realised that the pretty police officer was most likely still inside. He had seen her arrive home earlier. But what could he do? Flames were licking out into the night from the burning house. Surely if she had been inside it, then she would not have survived. But what if she was trapped?

  “Here,” Albert said, passing the phone to Bernice. “Call the bloody fire brigade.” And without any hesitation he ran back across the street, bounded over the door that had been blown off its hinges and entered the smoke-filled shell.

  Albert shouted, “Caroline, can you hear me?” There was no answer above the roar of the flames. The smoke was choking him, and his eyes and face felt as though they were frying in oil. He took three more steps and stopped. His hair and eyebrows were singed. He could not breathe. Every time he tried to, sharp, white-hot lances spiked his lungs. It was intolerable. Albert knew that if he did not flee, then he would die. There was nothing he could do. He turned and stumbled through the noxious gloom, hoping that he would find egress.

  Bernice met him at the doorway and dragged him to a safe distance. He collapsed on the grass verge, sucking in heat-charged air between bouts of coughing.

  “You could have gotten yourself killed, you stupid old bugger,” Bernice said, hugging him, almost burning her hands on his scorched clothing.

  Within minutes the sirens could be heard. When the first appliance arrived, a fireman jumped down and asked Albert and Bernice if anyone was inside the burning building.

  “I think so,” Bernice said. “She’s a police officer. Lives by herself.”

  Lucas caught a tube back to where he had left the van. He felt disappointed and cheated. Cutting the cop’s throat had been too quick and painless. But he had had to move fast. He had rinsed his face and plugged his nostrils with cotton wool while she bled out, then rushed downstairs to the kitchen. Found matches and a pile of newspapers and set a good fire going on the settee in the lounge. Went back into the kitchen, turned on all the burners of the old gas cooker, and then legged it.

  The attendant in the car park was not the one he had paid handsomely to park the van. That was good. He drove out with his shades on and the bill of his cap pulled down low. He was hurting a little and feeling angry. He had not had the chance to question the bitch and find out how the hunt for him was going. She might have been able to give him valuable information about Barnes and the team who were intent on stopping his fun.

  ‘You fucked up good and proper this time, dickhead!’

  His mother’s voice was coming through crystal clear and loaded with venom.

  “Stay dead, you disease-ridden whore,” he said to the empty cab around him. “I never needed your advice when you were alive, so don’t start giving it to me now.”

  ‘You think they won’t be able to find one speck of your poisoned blood and be able to get your DNA from it’?

  “I think that from the explosion I heard, the house is an inferno. Maybe just a crater. They’ll be lucky to find enough of the bitch cop to fill a cigarette packet.”

  ‘They’re going to catch you, you inept little bastard. And when they do...’

  He brought the back of his hand up to strike his swollen nose, and began humming Nocturnal Pleasure, an old Meatloaf number. The pain and his loud out-of-tune rendition forced the personality of his mother back into the tunnels of his mind. Better. He had absolutely nothing to worry about. His eyes were sore and bloodshot, his nose was bust, and his finger was sprained and bruised. But what the hell! He would tape his nose and it would heal up. The other injuries were insignificant. The battle on the stairs had been wicked. That was one plucky bitch that’d given as good as she got, for a while. It would have been fun to incarcerate her at Wolfland. Some people had a stronger life-force than others. They were vibrant in spirit and had a tenacity for life that seemed indefatigable. She had been of that persuasion. He almost admired individuals with such qualities. They reminded him of his own unremittingly potent individuality. And despite the evening not going to plan, he still had Julie. And still had Barnes to play mind games with. Overall, life was just a big bowl of cherries.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Tom called Matt with the news about Carrie.

  “A house fire?”

  “Arson, Matt. What was left of Carrie was found in the bathroom. Her throat had been cut, and the knife was up her wazoo to the hilt. If she hadn’t been working the case and personally calling at tattoo parlours, then I wouldn’t be getting the feeling that it’s related. It might not be, but―”

  “Neither you or I believe in coincidences,” Matt finished.

  “That’s right. But it could be a burglary that turned into a bloodbath. Carrie wasn’t the type to back down to an intruder. She would have got mad and thrown caution to the wind.”

  “Had she been burned with cigarettes?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. She wasn’t charcoal, but there was a lot of tissue damage. I’m informed that the body’s blistered-up like a hog on a spit. It’ll take an autopsy to confirm any other wounds or injuries.”

  “How would our boy have known where she lived? She was part of a three-man team, undercover and using an alias.”

  “At the end of her shift she was dropped off at Stockwell to catch the tube to Morden. If it was him, he could have followed her.”

  “If that’s what went down, then they called at his place and he sussed her as being a cop. They struck gold and didn’t know it. But I still don’t see what good it would do him to take such a risk. She obviously didn’t suspect him.”

  “I don’t pretend to know what makes wackos tick, Matt. If it was him, then it narrows the field to twelve calls that Carrie made. How do you want to run with it? We don’t have any trace evidence worth shit. And we know that he’s careful.”

  “Any of them that bear even a slight physical resemblance to the CCTV footage from the museum can be looked at,” Matt said. “A background check should give Beth enough to point him out. And if he did murder Carrie, then he torched her place for a reason. Maybe she injured him. He might have unwittingly left blood at the scene. The techs should be able to retrieve something.”

  “That’s not a given. Seems he turned the cooker on. Fire and gas don’t mix. The house looks like the aftermath of a missile attack. And the water that the fire teams put in turned what was left to ash soup.”

  “I’ll come in now and start putting it together. I’ve got the feeling he’s all but gift wrapped.”

  “Unless we’re wrong and it isn’t germane to this Wolf nut.”

  “It’s something to hang our hats on. Have you told Grizzly any of this?”

  “No. Adams can sweat. He’s getting more heat than I am over this case. I don’t think he’ll be here for much longer. Some prat let it out that he’d been screwing Marsha Freeman. A poster-size blow-up of his starring role in one of her videos got Blu-Tacked to a khazi door on the top floor. His credibility took a no
sedive. I don’t think he’ll be able to ride it out. In fact I know that he won’t.”

  “He’ll get offered a decent retirement package, and walk,” Matt said. “It’s all old school ties upstairs. They cover their own arses, which is something they probably didn’t do at Eton, or wherever they learned how to give a half-decent blowjob.”

  “You give me the impression you don’t like him.”

  “I don’t like to see good space being wasted, Tom. He should be chewed on by the ICC and get busted down to street level. Maybe I could have him on my team and make a half competent cop out of him.”

  “Relax, Matt, he’s not the enemy.”

  “Most of the tossers on the top floor are the enemy within. They juggle with the truth, bend stats and play politics. We’re as expendable as any other foot soldiers in their eyes.”

  “Yeah, well...”

  Matt disconnected and swung himself up off his elbow to sit on the edge of the bed.

  Beth got out at her side and slipped a robe on. “Sounds as if you might be closing in on Wolfie,” she said.

  “Maybe. We had a female officer, Carrie Tucker, wired. She was visiting parlours in the area we think he may operate from, on the pretence of wanting a tattoo of a Celtic design done. The drawing she was showing them was a derivative of a detail found on the body of the burned girl. Whoever did the work was bound to recognise it as being similar to his. At the end of her shift, Carrie was dropped off and took a tube home. Within hours she was murdered, and her house was burned down.”

  “You could be adding two and two together and coming up with five.”

  “It’s all we’ve got. Checking out the dozen places Carrie had called at that day might throw up a suspect. If it does, then we can start digging and see what skeletons are hanging in his cupboard. You’ll be able to see if the guy’s history could be a trigger for the killings.”