by Nic Roberts
Diana's eyes shot open at that, red from strain and probably exhaustion. Her head worried back and forth, and a whine escaped her lips from deep inside her throat.
"Please... You can't... Please, don't leave,” she muttered, a tear streaking down her soot-covered cheek despite how depleted on water she must have been. "Please, I can't—"
"No one's going to leave you," Lawrence assured her, glancing to Olivia once again. "I shouted for the team before I came down. I'm sure someone's at the top of the ladder by now.”
Olivia nodded, her lips pressing into a smile despite the horror in her stomach. Perhaps it was closer to a grimace, after all.
“Diana, is it okay if Lawrence goes out to check for backup?" Olivia asked, pressing Hershel's hair off of her forehead, sticky with sweat. She whimpered but still nodded her head.
Wordlessly, Lawrence rose to his full height and slipped out the door toward the ladder, leaving Olivia and Diana alone for a moment.
"Please don't—" she winced. "Please don't let Clara see me like this. I want to wait until I'm more… presentable."
Olivia’s heart splintered a bit at the thought that Constable Hershel felt too vulnerable to see her girlfriend. It was simply devastating.
"She helped us find you, you know?" Olivia explained with a smile. Some part of her registered that Dean was barking orders to get a pulley system rigged if HART weren’t on scene yet, but mostly she found herself focusing on the woman in front of her. Help would come.
"Of course, she did." Diana’s lips opened into as much of a smile as she could muster. She hadn't been down there all that long, Olivia realised. How come she was in such poor shape?
"I'm proud of you," she whispered, giving the Constable’s ankle a squeeze. It earned her a pitifully weak scoff.
“For what? For getting kidnapped?" Diana half joked weakly, but Olivia could hear the shame laced within her tone.
"For surviving," Olivia enunciated. "You pulled through.”
"Yeah, and let Katie get murdered.” She spat out the words, bitter and desolate. “So even the whole ‘preserve life’ thing didn't exactly go my way.”
Olivia eyes wandered over the broken woman in front of her. Survivor’s guilt had a cruel way of overshadowing relief.
“No one is responsible for what happened to Katie except for her killer, " she countered. She understood the pain, though. When she had lost Rhys in the terror attacks, all she could hold on to was the fact that she might have been able to save him, if only things had played out differently. And that whilst her family had celebrated her safety and bravery, his had crumbled over the coffin that held his body. How could she not feel guilt over being the one to survive?
"Did you catch him?" Diana’s voice brought her back from the brink of that dark place, her eyes, darting underneath her eyelids.
"We did," Olivia assured her, though a voice in the back of her head reminded her that it was entirely possible Joel Turner wasn’t operating on his own. "He's in police custody as we speak.” Another smile spread across Diana's features.
"Good,” she let out with a cough.
Dean peeked his head into the room.
"HART has got a rig set up,” he explained. “I thought it best to have you checked over once you’re up and out. Do you want me to carry you over, or do you want to have a go by yourself?"
Conflict warred across the constable’s face.
"Let me help you up," Olivia offered, cradling her fingers behind Diana’s head to help support her as she moved to sit. A groan, followed by a sharp wince, escaped Hershel's lips. As she sat, Olivia noticed a dark gash across her right shoulder. Lawrence's jacket had covered it, but now it stood out, a dark smear that had soaked through a crude bandage.
“What happened to your shoulder?” Concern knit Olivia’s eyebrows together.
“Can’t… remember,” Diana exhaled, clearly struggling to sit. “He must have drugged me. My memory is… fuzzy.” Emotion seemed to fight its way across Hershel’s face after that comment. She was half delirious with whatever isolation and injuries she had sustained; Olivia was anxious to get her to the paramedics.
Maybe they need to come down and assess her first,” she reasoned to her partner. “We could…”
“No!” Diana interrupted, her voice the strongest it had been since they’d found her. “Get me out of here first. I need to get out…” Panic threatened to erupt in her voice. “How long have I been down here?”
Olivia could hear Hershel’s heart twist in pain as she asked the question. She exchanged looks with her partner.
“Believe it or not, less than 24 hours,” he replied, his voice warm. Once again, Olivia found herself stunned by his demeanour under pressure. He always did such a good job of calming those he spoke to when need be.
A broken sob erupted from Diana and echoed throughout the room.
“We just need to get her out,” Lawrence decided. He locked eyes with her before giving a curt nod, and without another word, he reached out to scoop Diana up, holding her close to his chest. She opened her lips as if to protest but immediately crumpled into Dean’s frame, her sobs increasing in volume and intensity instead. He held her close as he rose up, pushing toward their exit.
Olivia walked with them, hand on her partner’s back to help steady him.
“It’s going to be okay,” she repeated, over and over again.
And while she couldn’t do anything to erase the trauma that Hershel had gone through, for once, she truly believed that statement.
14
Getting PC Hershel above ground was arduous work, but they got there eventually. As soon as she reached the top of the ladder, the paramedic team were on top of her, getting her oxygen and checking her obs. Her wound was nasty but something she would recover from, especially if they started antibiotics quickly.
Olivia didn’t want to think about what would have happened if it had taken them longer to find her. Every time she considered it, she let herself gently push away from that dark headspace. She couldn’t bear the thought, not after how much she had been through in the past week.
PC Turner sat in one of the many police cars parked outside of the house, biding his time in cuffs. As soon as Olivia had figured out that he was there, she stormed toward him.
“Who are you working with?” she had practically screamed in his face as she peeled open the side door to gain access to him. He looked up at her, eyes wide.
“I don’t know what you mean, Inspector,” he replied, and though his face remained open and confused, she could see the smirk that played just under his lips. She curled her hand into a fist around the collar of his black polo shirt, dragging him toward her despite the fact that he was cuffed inside of the vehicle. He gave out a pitiful yelp of pain, drawing attention to them, but Olivia didn’t care. She curled her other fist, pulling it back at eye level.
“Tell me who your partner is, you son of a bitch,” she swore, voice dark.
“I work alone, Inspector,” he answered, the smug expression on his face begging to be wiped off. “I wouldn’t want to share my delicious work with anyone else. I’m greedy like that.” He smiled at the last statement, sinister and cruel. Olivia screamed, and she may have socked him in the face if it were not for Dean grabbing her in the moment, holding her fist back.
“Let’s go, Liv,” he urged, wrapping his other arm around her waist to gently pull her away from the vehicle. “This isn’t how we’re going to get justice.”
And as much as she wanted to disagree, she knew he was right. She’d never seen herself as one for vigilante justice, but the thought of Turner made her reconsider, if only for a moment.
Dean saw it in her.
“I know you hate him. I do, too,” he sympathised. “But we won’t be doing our jobs unless we interview him the right way.”
SOCOs were still examining the building, and while both detectives were exhausted, they knew it would be best to stay on scene—at least for a bit longer.
&
nbsp; Raj had been right to make the call about the fridge. They’d discovered no less than seven internal organs stored in various Tupperware containers and not much else. It made Olivia’s rage burn all the brighter. How many people had Turner slaughtered for his own perverse game? And where the hell were they?
Beneath the rage, though, she felt something far more dangerous. Dread, thick and heavy, had begun to coil itself around her throat. Soon she’d have her own personal noose. It wasn’t even fully the victims; that was awful, but it was something she had learned to deal with.
It was Diana. The constable was about to go through an agonising recovery. Olivia remembered the survivor’s guilt that had clung to her after the Oxford Street Terror Attacks. Every morning, she woke up and asked herself why she’d survived when Rhys hadn’t. It had been a devastating weight to carry with her—one that she still held onto just over a year and a half later. Diana had clearly known Turner’s last victim, possibly had seen her murdered right before her very eyes.
The thought made Olivia shiver. No one should have to experience something like that.
The paramedics were still treating the traumatised officer at the scene when a solo car made its way up the drive, and out of it, Clara burst out, racing up toward the house’s entrance.
“Make sure Diana’s ready,” Olivia whispered to Dean before running up to meet her friend.
“Where is she? Is she okay?” Desperation tugged at the analyst’s voice. “No one will answer any of my questions.” Her arms instinctually grabbed on to Olivia to hold herself up.
“Hey,” she soothed, steadying her. “She’s going to be fine. They’re still over there treating her, but she’ll pull through. She’s a fighter.”
And then Clara broke down, sobbing in her friend’s arms.
“I was so worried,” she muttered against Olivia’s shoulder.
“I know,” Liv reassured her. “Because you care, but she’s going to do great.”
Dean appeared in the doorway after a few more moments. The two women looked up at him expectantly.
“She’s asking to see you.” He answered their question without it having to be spoken aloud.
Then Clara was off, tearing through the house to find Diana. Olivia trailed behind her as quickly as possible, watching her friend’s braids swing as she ran.
“Di!” Clara’s voice held so much emotion in it. Grief. Gratitude. Love. She had rushed to her girlfriend’s side before Olivia even had the opportunity to turn the corner into the room the paramedics had based themselves in.
Clara had flung herself onto Diana’s torso, expertly dodging her fresh shoulder wound. The officer smiled at her girlfriend, tears evident in her eyes.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” the tech analyst confessed. “That bastard’s lucky I wasn’t here, or he’d be leaving the building in a body bag.”
“Olivia nearly did exactly that.” Hershel chuckled, glancing over to the detective who had situated herself against the door frame of the room.
“Thank you for finding her.” Clara’s face crumpled a bit as she lifted her head to thank her friend; Olivia simply offered a smile.
“We couldn’t have done it without you, love,” she replied.
After giving a lopsided smile at her comment, her friend turned her attention back to her girlfriend.
“You don’t have to talk about it at all unless you want to,” Clara assured her. The thought that they would eventually have to ask her for witness testimony flared in Olivia’s mind, but she gently pushed it away. For the time being, all they needed PC Hershel to do was recover. “But if you want to, I’m here.”
“I know.”
Olivia marvelled at how much weight two simple words could carry with them.
“I’ll leave you two be,” she decided, lifting herself away from the doorframe. “I hope you recover quickly, Diana. You’re in good hands now.” Olivia spoke gently, encouraged at the smile the officer gave her in return. And with that, she retreated back into the hallway where Dean observed from the shadows.
“Is she going to be okay, you think?” he asked.
Olivia nodded.
“She’ll pull through just fine.” The fact that the woman would soon face a barrage of questions and the inevitable trauma that had been inflicted upon her weighed heavily on Olivia’s mind, but she once again set it to the side. That would have to wait for another day.
“You’re right,” Lawrence agreed, although his voice seemed to indicate a glimmer of doubt. “Let’s take a look around the house, shall we? See if we can find anything of use.”
Olivia nodded her agreement, grateful to be back in sync with her partner.
“Thanks for always having my back, Dean.” It wasn’t often that she voiced her gratitude of having him around, and the look on his face made it clear that he knew it.
“Any time, Liv,” he replied.
15
The house revealed relatively little in the grand scheme of things. They found one bedroom that looked like it could have been occupied; an old mattress sat on the ground, blankets laying askew on top of it. The bathroom held a single toothbrush and deodorant. And of course the kitchen kept the money shot: seven perfectly preserved human organs, tucked away for a later date. It made Olivia wrinkle her nose in disgust just to think about it.
The two ventured down into the cave for a second time, this time wielding gloves and powerful lights. As they examined the crevices of the room, she began to feel more and more confused.
“If he had a kill room, why did he murder Rosie Whitford and Charles Harrington out in the world?” she wondered. “Why not take them here? He obviously had the capacity to do it.” The pieces weren’t lining up.
“Maybe it’s the thrill of killing out in the wild that does it for him,” Lawrence offered, causing Olivia to recall the way the shadowy killer had hovered over her. He had been enjoying himself, taunting her as she laid on the ground, helpless.
“But then he brings Diana here and Katie. Kills Katie in front of her? There’s never been a witnessing component as far as we’ve seen thus far,” Olivia pondered aloud. “His M.O. almost feels schizophrenic, but he’s clearly an organised killer.”
They silently let those thoughts sink in for a moment.
“If there were more obvious signs that Turner was working with someone else, I’d absolutely have to agree that you were right and we were dealing with two killers,” Lawrence offered. “But as it is… I’m just not sure Liv.” His confession made her heart drop. She knew it was just an instinct thus far, but an instinct that tugged at her incessantly.
“Listen, Dean, I heard both the man who attacked me last night and Turner when he was immobilised on the ground. They sounded similar, but… Turner’s voice didn’t ping as familiar at all. I don’t think he’s the one who got me.” The admission came with a wave of emotion Olivia hadn’t been expecting. Before she realised it, tears were brimming in her eyes as she recalled the feeling of helplessness as she laid on the ground, dizzy and afraid.
“And I want to believe you, I really do,” Lawrence replied, his words stinging worse than a slap could. “But it’s also my job to be objective, and you’ve suffered at least one concussion and your fair share of battery in the past, what... 24 hours?”
“That was below the belt, Dean,” she seethed, her voice acidic.
“I’m... I’m sorry.”
And looking at his eyes, she could tell he was. Indecision pained his face, conflict between trusting his partner and looking at the facts waging a battle in his head.
Olivia pursed her lips together and shook her head, turning away from her partner so he couldn’t see her tears.
How were they supposed to catch the other murderer if she was the only one who even believed he existed?
* * *
After what must have been an hour or two, Detective Superintendent Collins arrived on the scene, his lips dead set in a grim expression.
“Lawrence, Austin,” he
had called out after surveying the scene. Both detectives hurriedly made their way toward him.
“Excellent job finding PC Hershel,” he stated, giving the two of them an approving nod.
“Thank you, sir.” The statement felt hollow as it left Olivia’s mouth. But what else was she supposed to say?
“We’ve taken Joel Turner to be processed at the station,” he continued. “You’ll interview him tomorrow. And it will be a clean interview, do you understand?” Olivia could feel her face twitch at the insinuation—or perhaps at the thought that she couldn’t wrap her hands around the disgraced officer’s neck. “I want you both fresh for that interview, so I’m sending you home. You’ve both seen a lot tonight. Some very harrowing stuff. Be proud of yourself for saving a life then get some rest.” Lawrence looked ready to protest. “That’s an order.”
The inspectors sighed in tandem.
“And Detective Austin,” Collins added, locking Olivia under his gaze. “Nothing else extreme until you’ve healed from your concussion, you hear?”
Olivia’s cheeks flushed despite her exhaustion, letting her head bob resolutely a couple of times in agreement.
“Good,” he nodded. “I’m glad we have an understanding. I don’t want to be forced to confine you to your desk, but don’t think I won’t if you keep jeopardising your safety.”
Olivia hadn’t been thinking of it like that—hadn’t really been thinking at all about her own well-being, if she was being honest with herself.
“Understood, sir,” she muttered out, doing her best to avoid eye contact. She received a gruff acknowledgment in the form of a gentle huff.
And then he was gone, off to assess the scene. That was the price they paid to have a hands-on superintendent.
“Well,” Lawrence half sighed, and it was then that Olivia saw the exhaustion sprawled across her partner’s features, too.
