by Jane Adams
The second officer had run upstairs to Alastair. He came down again, calling to his colleague as Jake stepped into the hall. The officer was trying to be calm, advancing slowly down the stairs, his hands a little outstretched and his voice as steady as he could make it, telling Jake to put his weapon down.
Jake took a step back towards the kitchen door, keeping his exit clear, and the officer seemed to take this move as uncertainty. But Jake was only repositioning for attack. This man was older, more experienced than the one he’d dealt with outside. Jake let the man come on, to give him the feeling that he might be getting somewhere, bring him close enough to strike and wait to see what opportunity offered him.
He lowered the wrench slightly, let his shoulders relax and took another step towards the door, the move bringing him around so he faced the bottom of the stairs. The officer took another step down, still talking to Jake, the tone calm and measured, more and more certain that he was in control.
Even when Alastair appeared on the landing, the man neither faltered nor turned, just raised his voice a little to tell Alastair not to move, then turned his attention back to Jake.
Jake allowed him one more step, then moved forward with a speed that had the man reeling even before the blow was struck. He fell forward, almost taking Jake with him, one hand clutching at what was left of the right eye, where Jake’s blow had landed.
Jake did not wait to see what damage he had done. Alastair had taken a moment to respond, but now he was running. Jake took the stairs two at a time, catching up with him at the bedroom door, reaching forward to slam it just as his father’s hand touched the handle.
‘I think you should come with me,’ Jake said.
* * *
Below him, in the hall, Jake could hear the policeman’s voice. He must have a radio or a mobile. He obviously hadn’t hit him hard enough.
He reached out and grabbed Alastair by the arm, swinging him around and twisting the wrist against the older man’s back. Alastair gasped with pain, his knees buckling as his arm was taken further up his back. Jake kicked at Alastair’s legs, dropping the wrench and grabbing at the other arm, pulling back so that his father hit the floor face-first. He bound Alastair’s hands tightly with the ducting tape, opened the knife and picked up the wrench, which he shoved through the belt of his trousers. Then he pulled up on Alastair’s bound hands and forced him to his feet, turning him around so that he could see the knife. Then, with the knife blade pressed against Alastair’s back, Jake forced him down the stairs. The officer he had injured still lay on the floor, blood pouring from his face, the eye closed and the surrounding skin already turning blue. Jake kicked the radio from the man’s hand, then kicked the officer in the head, the blood spurting from the growing wound. He left him screaming on the hall floor as he forced Alastair out through the kitchen door and into the night.
Chapter Twenty-One
Tuesday, July 2
Mike was woken at two p.m. with the news that Alastair had gone and two officers were down. He was dressed and at the house only twenty minutes later.
First reports were confused. One officer; though wounded, had managed to call in. He didn’t yet know about the other one. Road-blocks were being set up — Mike encountered one, hastily arranged, a police car pulled up across the road and an officer with a torch stopping what traffic there was — but they had little hope of tracking Jake. Fast as the response had been, he still had the jump on them.
An ambulance and two police cars, blue beacons creating artificial daylight, stood in front of the house. Peterson was on his way, Mike was told. One officer was still conscious, about to be taken away in the ambulance. The other had not been so lucky and had been declared dead at the scene.
‘What happened here?’ Mike asked one of the uniformed officers who’d been first on the scene.
‘A bloody fuck-up,’ the man said. ‘We don’t know for sure. Jenkins, the man who died, he was coming out of the back door when he was attacked. Bowen must have hit him about a half-dozen times. Moran, he’s likely to lose an eye, but he’s lucky to be alive. And he’s still conscious, sir, just. Claims he got a good look at our man.’
Mike glanced towards the ambulance. It was about to depart and he had no wish to delay it. ‘You’ve someone going with him?’
‘Yes, sir, and there’s an ARV unit been actioned. If Bowen knows there’s a witness, he might have a second go.’
Mike nodded, wondering what the hospital would make of an armed response unit in its emergency room. He was surprised that the man had been allowed to live. Did Jake think he was more seriously injured than he was, or had he been in too much of a hurry to finish the job?
He walked round to the back of the house. The body still lay on the floor, waiting for the duty surgeon and the pathologist to arrive. Some officers stood beside the fallen man, while others were still putting up a cordon, separating the house and gardens from the fields beyond. Light from the kitchen showed the way the lock had been forced, giving Jake access to those inside. It was, as the uniformed man had said, an almighty cock-up, Mike thought.
Peterson had arrived by the time Mike returned to the front of the house. He was talking to the uniformed police.
His face was grave as he came over to Mike. ‘We’re going to look even bigger bloody fools,’ he said. ‘And we’ve a dead officer into the bargain.’
‘They should have been armed,’ Mike said. ‘It was madness to think Jake would pass this one by. I want protection for Charlie at least until the Crimewatch thing is over. And for Maria too, now she’s no longer with her sister.’
Peterson nodded. ‘Lot of good it did here,’ he said.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mike did not want Maria to hear about Alastair on the morning news, so he called her himself when he returned to Honiton at seven that morning. She was shocked, devastated. Mike had not realized that, emotionally, she had so much riding on being able to talk to Alastair Bowen; so much hope that he might lead them to Essie.
‘I’m coming down to you,’ Maria told him abruptly. ‘I can’t stand it, just sitting here, trying to work when there’s nothing I can do to help.’
‘Stay there, Maria. It’s too dangerous here, you must see that.’
‘Nowhere’s safe, Mike, and no one, not until he’s put away. Wherever I am he could come for me.’
‘We’ll arrange protection for you.’
‘And much good that will do. Look, Mike, I won’t be argued with.’
She hung up then and when Mike tried to call her back she’d switched to the answerphone.
Sighing, he put the receiver down, not bothering to leave a message she’d refuse to hear.
* * *
‘Why don’t you put an ad in some of the nationals?’ Liz asked Charlie, ‘or in the Dorchester Herald. We know he reads that. He knew all about Macey.’
They’d been listening to Charlie telling them about the message he’d left on the news groups. So far, there’d been no response from Jake Bowen.
‘It’s an idea,’ Charlie agreed, ‘though there’s no guarantee he reads the small ads.’
Macey nodded thoughtfully. He’d come here to get Charlie’s reaction to Alastair’s kidnapping and to talk about the Crimewatch programme. Charlie’s responses would make it into the late edition.
‘How about the Lonely Hearts column?’ Liz asked.
‘Maybe,’ Charlie agreed thoughtfully. Jake had been known to pick up potential models that way. ‘I could give it a go, what is there to lose?’
Macey laughed harshly. ‘Mark my words, advert or no advert, all you have to do is wait for long enough and Jakey boy will come to you.’
Liz ignored Macey’s almost gleeful attitude. ‘It should go in as a small display ad,’ she said. ‘We do them in bold type surrounded by little black hearts or flowers. Really makes them stand out.’
‘Did it work for you, then?’ Macey asked her. ‘Or are you still looking, darling?’
Liz paid h
im no attention. ‘What do you think?’ she asked Charlie.
‘That it’s a good idea.’ He pulled a pad and paper towards him. ‘How many words can I have?’
‘Best keep it short. I think you can have up to thirty words, but make it snappy.’
Charlie was deep in thought, doodling on the comer of the pad. ‘It’s got to be something he would know at once,’ he said. ‘What do people usually put in these things?’
‘Oh, things in common, the sort of person you’re looking for, that kind of thing.’
Charlie thought about it. ‘Vincenza’s place,’ he said. Referring to the house where Jake had stored some of his more spectacular work. It was where Charlie had received his injuries, Jake having booby-trapped the safe he’d used for storage.
This was something Jake could hardly miss.
Charlie scribbled a sentence on the paper, amended it, scribbled again, then read out the result.
‘J,’ he said. ‘Remember Vincent’s place? We should meet again. Regards, Charlie.’
* * *
Jake watched his father wander through the basement rooms. He’d left the doors wide open and the camera running so that he could observe the old man passing from room to room on the CCTV screens, study his reaction to the different settings Jake used as backdrops for some of his more unusual films.
Alastair sat down briefly on the single bed in a room full of bondage equipment and decorated by a full-length mirror that covered most of one wall. Jake saw him studying himself in the mirror, a look of pain in his eyes and confusion, as though he wondered how he had found himself in such a place.
Then his father went back into the largest of the basement rooms. Essie lay on her pile of towels in one corner, sleeping restlessly. She’d had a fever this last day or two and Jake knew, as he watched his father go to her and touch her face with his fingertips, how dry and hot the skin would feel. He could sense it as though he felt it with his own hands.
She was quite seriously unwell. No real food, probably not enough fluids and the effects of such long periods of sedation had taken their toll.
Jake left his room with its bank of television screens and, with a sawn-off shotgun resting easily across his arm, went down to the basement, checking his father’s position through a peephole in the door before going through.
‘She’s sick,’ Alastair said as Jake entered.
‘I know.’
‘Why take the child, Jake? What do you plan to do with her?’
Jake sat down on the basement steps and pondered the question as though he’d given it no previous thought. ‘I’ve not decided yet,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d leave that up to you.’
Alastair winced. ‘What have I to do with it? I don’t even know this child.’
‘You need to know a child to care for her?’ Jake asked. He sounded surprised. ‘What do you think to my workplace, Alastair?’
‘Your workplace. This is where you make that filth.’
‘Some of it. The rest I make on location.’ Jake smiled. ‘Some real stars have lived here for a time. Julia Norman, for instance. Beautiful girl, and so versatile.’
‘And does anyone survive this place?’ Alastair asked him. He was looking at the child, but, Jake guessed, thinking of himself.
‘Not so far,’ Jake admitted.
‘And you plan to kill me too?’
Jake nodded slowly. ‘I expect so,’ he said. ‘But not today. At least, not so long as you behave. They’re doing a real Jake Bowen This is Your Life show on the television later on tonight, I thought you might like to watch it with me.’
Alastair shuddered, suddenly cold. ‘And the child?’ he asked again.
‘Oh, she can watch too,’ Jake said.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Late Tuesday evening Jake brought Alastair upstairs. He kept him covered with the shotgun and guided him into the living room, where the television was already on.
‘Sit there,’ he told him, directing Alastair to an old-fashioned dining carver, with wooden arms and a high back. He kept the gun pressed against Alastair’s throat while he secured his hands to the chair with plastic cable-ties and his ankles to the front legs with tape. ‘Behave yourself,’ Jake told him, ‘and I’ll free one hand later to let you have a beer while we watch the programme.’
Alastair struggled against his bonds when Jake left the room, but it was of little use. The heavy plastic of the ties bit into his wrists and his efforts to move threatened only to overturn the chair. When Jake returned only moments later with Essie in his arms, Alastair had already given up. In his mind he had begun to prepare himself to die and he was amazed at how little it mattered any more.
Jake had put fresh towels on the sofa and he lay Essie down, propping her head with cushions. He’d given her no more of the sedative since midday and she was semiconscious, restless and confused. She had started crying for her mother in the brief moments of lucidity that came and went, and watching them both on camera, Jake knew that her whimpering had begun to irritate Alastair.
‘Quite a little family,’ Jake commented, glancing at his father, He leaned over the child and whispered to her with a show of tenderness and deep concern, ‘Be quiet, Essie baby. The film about your Uncle Jake’s about to start and Uncle Mike might well be in it too.’ He straightened up and turned back to his father. ‘Now, about that beer.’
True to his word, he freed one of Alastair’s hands, opened a can for him and let him hold it. He’d made popcorn too. Alastair watched as he gave a small piece to Essie, placing it in her mouth, but she couldn’t chew, didn’t even seem to realize that it was there. He shook his head as Jake waved the bowl in his direction, a chill running through him at the sight of his son’s slight smile.
‘Well, all the more for me then,’ Jake said.
They sat together in the comfortable room, the large blue sofa piled high with cushions, the lights softly shaded and the curtains closed against the threat of a summer storm announced by a rising wind. Jake smiled and relaxed as his life story unfolded on the flickering screen. Alastair watched his son, unable to take his eyes from Jake’s calm face.
On screen, the presenter said, ‘We pick up the story of Jake Bowen when he was just fifteen years old and well known in his local community for a film of quite another kind.’
Jake had talked about himself as the next John Pilger, Alastair remembered, told local journalists that he had high hopes of a career as a documentary filmmaker, righting wrongs and telling the world the truth. He’d been convincing too, almost persuaded Alastair on occasions.
‘Ah, that was a great year,’ Jake commented. ‘You know the funny thing? I thought for a brief time that was where I wanted to be. Front line, changing the world.’
‘Was that why you made the other film? Raped that girl?’
Jake raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, so you do know about that. I was never sure. Max tell you, did he?’
Alastair said nothing.
‘It was the power thing,’ Jake volunteered. ‘That was it with both those films. A power thing. Pretty heady stuff when you’re just fifteen, not that you’d understand that.’
‘Understand what? I understand that you abused the trust we all put in you. Abused that girl too, you and Max.’
‘What trust?’ Jake asked mildly. ‘Now, be quiet, I want to hear what they have to say.’
They sat in silence as Jake drank his beer and watched the TV; the slow procession of his life. Alastair in turn watched his son. They made little mention of the early films, the ones that built his reputation in the industry. Jake had still been living with his parents then, and Alastair remembered the shock he had felt when he had realized what kind of films his son made. Jake had been proud of what he did, though, talked about it like an art form, always pushing the envelope of acceptability, always fighting for the best production values he could get with the equipment he could afford. Alastair knew it would annoy his son, though he gave no outward sign, when the presenter merely skipp
ed through a brief commentary of Jake’s early career in film, noting only that he first came to police attention after a raid on a sex shop in a Leeds back street. They missed out too on what Jake had described as his constant search for authenticity, mentioning only that he sometimes intercut his images with library footage and seemed to have an obsession with the links between sex and death.
Charlie Morrow described the day he had been injured in the blast that Bowen had prepared, his burns showing in every detail in the studio lights, every ridge and furrow that mapped his face, the way the dead skin pulled at the comer of his mouth and half closed one eye. Alastair watched as Jake leaned forward to get a closer look.
‘Wonderful,’ Jake whispered softly to himself. ‘A wonderful effect.’ He glanced across at Alastair. ‘Do you know,’ he asked him, ‘just how much it would cost to produce something like that? You’d need a top effects artist to get it any other way.’
Alastair had no reply.
They moved on then to Jake’s more recent crimes. The killing of a woman called Marion O’Donnel, whose body was found in a burning car. The murders of Caldwell and the others and finally the death of Julia Norman only two weeks before.
Jake sat forward, watching intently as Peterson talked about the latest outrage.
‘This young woman was a gifted artist with a stunning future ahead of her. The death of a young person is always tragic, but this, this needless, wasteful death, seems to me especially sad. As if this is not difficult enough to deal with, we have reason to believe that Jake Bowen is implicated in the kidnapping of a young child, Essie Holmes, snatched from outside her school.’
