Jack Be Nimble (Knight & Culverhouse Book 3)

by Adam Croft

  ‘Frank? It’s Wendy,’ she said as she noticed Luke follow her out, carrying both coats. ‘Listen, can you check an address for me please? It’s for a Paul Kinsella. Owns the costume hire shop on Eastfield Road. Cheers.’

  ‘Shit, I’ve just had a thought,’ Luke said, while Wendy waited for Frank to check the address. ‘If he runs a costume hire shop—’

  ‘Yes, he’d have a policeman’s uniform,’ Wendy said, cutting him off. ‘That’s how he gets people’s trust and managed to avoid suspicion on the night Emma and Marla were killed.’ She span on her feet as Frank Vine’s voice came back on the phone. ‘Seriously? Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck! We’re about twenty minutes away, but I’ll call her now.’

  ‘What is it?’ Luke asked, jogging to keep up with Wendy, who was now sprinting across the car park to her car.

  ‘Paul Kinsella’s address. 19 Mark Street. He lives next door to Suzanne Corrigan.’

  61

  8th November

  Suzanne had allowed herself one small glass of red wine. Although she knew she’d probably have to dash out at some point within the next few hours, she needed to steady her nerves.

  She leant back on her sofa and closed her eyes for a few moments, letting the alcohol work its magic as she tried to calm her brain and let the noise quieten down. Just as she was about to drift off to sleep, the ringing of the doorbell jolted her awake and back to reality.

  She looked at her watch. Almost midnight. Far later than most reasonable people would think about ringing someone’s doorbell, but that was Mildenheath for you. She walked to the front door, her slippers scuffing against the laminate flooring as she shuffled her way.

  Taking off the chain and turning the key, she glanced through the eyehole before opening the door and smiling pleasantly.

  ‘Oh, it’s you.’

  62

  8th November

  ‘Fuck, there’s still no answer,’ Luke said as Wendy sped down the dual carriageway touching one hundred miles an hour. They’d shave a good amount of time off the journey, but it’d still be a good twenty to twenty-five minutes before they’d reach Suzanne Corrigan’s house.

  ‘Don’t worry. Uniform will be on their way. They’ll be there before us. We’d just better hope they make it in time.’

  ‘I’ve had a thought,’ Luke said, putting the phone in his lap. What if Paul Kinsella’s out there in uniform? I mean, we don’t even know what he looks like. What if he’s milling around with the specials and guys from other forces?’

  ‘I don’t think he’ll risk that,’ Wendy replied, speeding past a dodgy-looking white van that she’d be tempted to pull over in any other circumstance. ‘They’d be able to tell, surely.’

  ‘Not necessarily. A fancy dress costume, yes, but a proper replica uniform for theatre or film hire? The whole point is they’re meant to look real.’

  Wendy took a couple of moments to compose her thoughts. ‘Right. Call Culverhouse. Ask him — no, tell him — not to send uniform in. If he asks why, tell him... Tell him to trust me.’

  Baxter tried to stifle a laugh as he found Culverhouse’s name in his phone’s contacts list. ‘Do you really think he’s going to go with that?’

  ‘I don’t know, but it’s got to be worth trying. Tell him we’re ten minutes away. At the most.’

  Debbie Weston parked her Cavalier up outside number 21 Mark Street. It looked pleasant enough, but she was in no position to admire the architecture, noticing the bright red front door was slightly ajar.

  As she got closer, she could hear a mobile phone ringing inside. It stopped, then started again. She pushed open the door and called inside.

  ‘Hello?’

  No answer. She walked in and found herself immediately in Suzanne Corrigan’s living room. The only sign of life was a half-drunk glass of wine on the nest of tables next to the sofa.

  ‘Hello?’ she called again.

  Still nothing.

  She peered up the stairs, but was met with darkness. Putting her foot on the first step, she slowly made her way up, calling out as she went.

  As she reached the top of the stairs, she could hear a murmur from what seemed like the back bedroom.

  She walked up to the door and put her ear up against it, listening. That murmuring again.

  Debbie put her hand on the doorknob and slowly turned it, hearing it creak and squeal slightly as it turned. With a click, the door opened and Debbie peered inside to find Suzanne Corrigan’s eyes glistening in the moonlight, silver tape plastered over her mouth as she murmured and whimpered, tied to the bed, her eyes pleading desperately.

  She took a step towards Suzanne and reached out to loosen her bonds, but was stopped dead in her tracks by the sudden sound of a man’s voice.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I was you.’

  Fortunately for Culverhouse, he’d managed to stop the uniformed officers reaching Suzanne Corrigan’s house just in time. They were barely fifty yards from the turning into her street, but he’d managed to hold them off. He still wasn’t sure why he’d done it, but he knew that a hunch from Wendy was often right. Having glanced at his watch, he knew they probably had a couple of hours before the Ripper would kill again, so decided to trust Wendy’s judgement.

  Despite that, he’d called Baxter straight back, demanding an immediate explanation. Luke told him everything about the costume hire shop and Wendy’s theory that Paul Kinsella could be disguising himself as a uniformed police officer. The only way they could make sure he couldn’t get near Suzanne Corrigan — assuming he wasn’t already there or in his house next door — was to go in themselves.

  He personally cleared Wendy and Luke to go to Suzanne’s house in their unmarked vehicle, knowing that he’d have to stay where he was and make a very interesting call to the Chief Constable.

  ‘Who are you?’ Debbie asked, backing into the room as the man walked towards her, staring down the barrel of the pistol. He was dressed in a police uniform, but Debbie knew instinctively that this man had never been a police officer in his life.

  ‘Who am I, or what’s my name?’ the man replied, in a calm voice, smiling.

  ‘Both.’

  ‘My name’s Paul. And I think you know who I am. Who are you?’

  Debbie’s calves hit the edge of the bed and she could step back no further. ‘My name’s Debbie. Put the gun down and we can talk.’

  ‘Are you a copper?’ he asked, his eyebrows raised and head cocked slightly to the side.

  ‘They’ll be surrounding the house as we speak. They’ve got armed units trained on the house,’ Debbie lied.

  Paul Kinsella laughed a deep, guttural belly laugh. ‘Don’t be stupid. If that was the case, they wouldn’t have sent you in. You’re alone. I know you are.’

  Debbie tried to stop the fear showing in her eyes, but it wasn’t easy.

  The flash of light seared through the window only for a second or two as the noise of the police helicopter became a deafening roar. It was brief, but it was enough for Paul to glance towards the window, allowing Debbie to knock the gun out of his hand and slam the heel of her hand up into his nose.

  As the gun skidded across the laminate floor, Debbie scrambled to undo Suzanne’s bonds, her hands shaking uncontrollably as she did so.

  She glanced over at Paul. He seemed to be unconscious. For now.

  Finally, the ties came loose and Suzanne was on her feet, clambering across the room and yanking the door open. She was already halfway down the stairs when Debbie decided to forget trying to find the gun and to follow her instead.

  Just as she reached the bedroom doorway, she felt the firm grip of two hands around her right ankle as the ground rushed up to meet her.

  63

  8th November

  Wendy’s car squealed round the corner into Mark Street, and she immediately saw the familiar sight of Debbie Weston’s battered old Cavalier parked right outside Suzanne Corrigan’s house.

  ‘Fuck! What’s Debbie doing here?’ she yelled, yank
ing the handbrake and flinging open her door.

  ‘Shit, Wendy, look,’ Luke said, pointing at Suzanne’s front door. ‘I don’t like the look of that.’

  ‘Get onto the DCI. Tell him what’s going on,’ Wendy said, making for the house.

  ‘No! Like hell am I letting you go in there. You call him. And stay outside the house. I need you to keep an eye out.’

  Before Wendy could argue, Luke had skipped up the front step and was in the house.

  The light was on downstairs, which was odd as it seemed like no-one was in the house. The half-drunk glass of wine said otherwise, though.

  Luke was careful to keep quiet, treading gently as he stalked through the house, careful not to make himself heard.

  As he reached the top of the stairs, he glanced into the spare bedroom and saw Debbie Weston sitting on the bed, with a man in a police uniform knelt behind her, his arm around her neck with a gun pressed to her temple.

  ‘Your friend here just did something very silly,’ the man said, through gritted teeth. ‘I have a plan and I need to stick to it. I don’t get very happy when people change my plans for me.’

  ‘Put the gun down,’ Luke said, holding one hand out at arm’s length, trying to placate the man. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want my number five back. I want my Mary Jane.’

  ‘Suzanne? You can’t. She’s gone,’ Luke said, not knowing where Suzanne was.

  ‘What a shame. Because I’m going to get my number five, whichever way,’ the man replied, pressing the gun harder against Debbie’s head. ‘And if it’s not going to be the one I wanted, it’s going to be your friend here.’

  Culverhouse was on his way to Mark Street as quickly as he could, driving at fifty miles an hour down Mildenheath High Street whilst talking to Wendy on his mobile. Not something he would have condoned at any other time, but this was different.

  ‘Uniform just radioed in to say that Suzanne Corrigan got away,’ he said. ‘She’s with them now, by the old grammar school. What’s going on down there?’

  ‘I don’t know. Luke’s gone inside, but I’ve not heard anything yet,’ Wendy replied.

  ‘He’s done what? The fucking idiot. Whatever you do, don’t follow him. I’ll be there in two minutes.’

  ‘Why don’t you take me instead?’ Luke said, his voice quivering as he spoke. ‘Leave Debbie alone. She’s not done anything.’

  ‘She lost me my number five!’ Paul yelled, his eyes mad and bloodshot.

  ‘It’s over. Why put yourself through even more? Why take more lives? You’re young. If you give yourself up now, you might get back out again. If you kill a copper, you’ll never get out. Not these days.’

  ‘You’re assuming they’re going to catch me,’ Paul said quietly and calmly.

  ‘They will. Believe me, they will. They already have.’

  Paul snorted and guffawed as Luke watched the snot drip from his nose. ‘If that was the case, I’d be in the back of your car in handcuffs, not sitting here watching you snivel as I hold your friend’s life in my hands.’

  ‘Listen, you don’t need to do this,’ Luke said, holding his hands out. ‘Just let her go. It’s over now.’

  Before Paul could respond, the figure of Jack Culverhouse bundled in through the bedroom door. ‘Right, pack it in, knobhead.’

  Startled, Luke tried to speak. ‘Guv, I—’

  ‘Save it, Baxter. I know a real gun when I see one. What’s that, Paul? Another little toy from your shop? What is it, theatrical replica? Starting pistol?’

  Paul broke into a smile, showing his glistening white teeth as he loosened his grip on Debbie’s neck and turned to point the gun at Culverhouse. ‘Well, why don’t we find out?’

  Without a moment’s hesitation, seeing Paul’s finger begin to squeeze the trigger, Luke threw himself towards Culverhouse, pulling him to the floor as the deafening shot rung out, the sound echoing and reverberating around the room.

  Debbie took her chance. She braced her leg against the wall and shoulder-barged Paul as hard as she could, knocking him off balance.

  As she pulled away and turned to aim a kick at his head, she noticed he had already recovered and was cowering in the corner, pointing the gun at her once again.

  Before he could speak, the sound of the armed response officers thundering up the stairs momentarily stunned Paul.

  ‘Bit late, lads,’ he said, cocking the gun. ‘I’m afraid the damage is done.’

  With a swift movement, he placed the barrel of the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

  ‘Suspect down!’ the first armed officer yelled into his radio. ‘I repeat, suspect down!’

  Wendy rushed into the room and went straight to Debbie, checking she was alright and comforting her immediately.

  Culverhouse, however, was less than happy. ‘Will you fucking get off me, you great lump?’ he barked in Luke’s ear from his face-down position on the floor, not seeing the deep crimson liquid that was soaking into his shirt.

  Wendy took a moment to process what was happening as she looked over at her fellow officers. ‘Luke? Luke, can you hear me?’

  ‘Fucking get him off me!’ Culverhouse yelled, wriggling like a beached whale.

  From Luke, there was no response.

  ‘Fuck. Luke? Luke, can you hear me?’ Wendy shouted into his face, pressing her two fingers into the side of his neck to check for a pulse. She felt the panic rise up in her chest. ‘Guv, call an ambulance. Now.’

  64

  8th November

  Mildenheath Hospital didn’t hold happy memories for Wendy. Whenever she’d visited on work it had inevitably been depressing, as hospitals and police work tended to be. Even her private visits had been ones to want to forget, from her parents’ deaths to her brother’s hospitalisation after a drug overdose. The solemn mood that accompanied her, Culverhouse and Debbie Weston this time, though, was something she’d never felt before.

  Being a police officer was a job that carried a certain amount of risk. All officers knew that. But none actually expected to be shot in the line of duty. Especially not a CID officer, who was generally kept away from the front line.

  There had been incidents in the past, of course, but nothing quite like this. Wendy herself had been hit by a car whilst chasing a suspect on foot not long ago, and as a result had suffered a miscarriage. That had been bad enough, but it had been a strange sort of private pain. The death of a person whom only she had ever known. Hearing the frantic sounds of the medical team battling to keep Luke Baxter alive was something very different. It was the desperate anguish of the life of a colleague — a friend — hanging in the balance. The unspoken truth was also that it could have just as easily been any one of them.

  Luke’s aunt, Shirley, was inconsolable, looking like a lost puppy as she kept glancing up at the door to the intensive care unit, desperate to be allowed in but told by the doctors and surgeons to stay outside and try and keep calm. Her other nephew, Luke’s older brother, Sam, was doing his best to console her.

  For Wendy, she wished desperately she could say something to them. She’d been in that position herself, when she’d found out what had happened to her dad. It wasn’t something she wished on anybody and she felt every bit of Shirley and Sam’s pain.

  Just as she was considering trying to say something to them — some words which could go some way towards reassuring or comforting them — the door to the intensive care unit opened and a middle-aged female doctor came out and sat down with Shirley and Sam.

  From where Wendy was sitting, she couldn’t hear the words the doctor said, but the reaction from Luke’s aunt said everything. As she saw Shirley’s world fall apart in fits of hysterical sobbing, Wendy knew exactly what had been said.

  65

  9th November

  The mood in the major incident room was far more sombre than it otherwise would’ve been. Yes, they’d managed to avoid the fifth murder, but it had come at a huge cost. Not only had they failed to get their
man alive, but the death of Luke Baxter had had an enormous impact on everyone who worked at Mildenheath CID.

  It was rare that any officer was lost on operational duty, and it was even less likely for a CID officer. For Jack Culverhouse and Debbie Weston, the outcome was particularly bittersweet. As far as they were concerned, Luke Baxter had died a hero. He’d put himself in harm’s way to save Debbie and had given his life in protecting Culverhouse.

  Even Wendy had to admit that she’d come to respect Luke somewhat after they’d cleared the air earlier that night. She was thankful that they’d been able to do that.

  The local and national news channels were all running the story about how a brave police officer had been killed in the line of duty whilst saving the life of a serial killer’s fifth intended victim. Suzanne Corrigan’s name was, once again, all over the papers but this time it wasn’t as part of the byline. There were the predictable calls from some areas of the media for the police to explain why the public at large weren’t made aware of the threat that had existed, but that wasn’t something the Chief Constable felt obliged to answer at that moment in time.

  The police were still trying to come to terms with why Paul Kinsella had done what he’d done, as well as how. Finding his victims had been fairly straightforward — his mother’s inability to keep anything to herself had helped with that. His home was being searched at that moment in time, and the officers had already found notebooks full of plans and names — many of them scribbled out. The lucky ones. From what they could ascertain at this early stage, it seemed that one of his female friends had been sexually assaulted a few years earlier, and the police had failed to charge the suspect. Judging by the scribblings in his notebooks, his mind was far from stable and he seemed to consider it perfectly justified to take innocent lives in order to prove his hypothesis that the modern day police force were no better than Victorian plods.