Detective Mike Croft Series Box Set

by Jane Adams

‘You see, I always keep my promises,’ Jake told him as they drove away.

  When Jake next stopped the car Charlie could hear the ocean through the open door. Jake left him for a brief while and returned with a sawn-off shotgun in his hands. He took a knife from his pocket and cut the tape that bound Charlie to the seat, then stood back and let him struggle free.

  ‘This way.’

  The gun directed Charlie along a narrow crazy-paved path between borders filled with flowers. The air was cool and sweet. Charlie could just make out a whitewashed house. The door was open and a soft light burned inside.

  They entered through the kitchen, a large square room with windows on two sides and another door leading through to a narrow hall. There were stairs going up and other stairs going down through yet another door of painted wood that could have passed for an under stairs cupboard. Charlie had to duck his head to go through, but then the passage ceiling grew to more than normal height as it passed below the stairs. He counted fourteen steps, then another open door. The gun was tight against his back now as Jake reached around and switched on the light. Fluorescent beams blinded Charlie for a moment and he almost fell down the two steps just inside the door. He blinked rapidly, trying to adjust, and Jake prodded him with the gun to move him forward, then closed the door and sat down on the higher of the two steps.

  The room was empty but for a mattress on the floor. Through another door, Charlie could glimpse a toilet and wash bowl and he noted that the room was warm. A vent overhead was feeding in heated air from the rooms above.

  ‘Finished looking?’ Jake asked him, smiling at Charlie.

  ‘There isn’t much to see.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ From the pocket of his jacket Jake produced the digital camera he so loved to use and raised it to his eye, the gun resting across his lap but one hand still in contact with the trigger. ‘Now strip,’ Jake ordered.

  * * *

  Frank Bennet and his wife were not used to being out so late, but they were going to a family wedding and Frank’s shift pattern meant they’d had to start out late in order to get there for the Saturday morning. Em had managed to sleep a little while Frank was out at work, so she drove while Frank dozed in the partly reclined seat beside her.

  She didn’t like night-driving very much but it did have the advantage, she thought, that there was no one else around and she was so looking forward to her niece’s wedding.

  Music played quietly on the radio, something soft and classical that Em recognized from an advert on TV. She was in a relaxed mood, paying little attention to the road ahead. When the tiny apparition appeared in its little pink T-shirt her first reaction was to scream and swerve the car onto the grass verge, missing the hedge and ditch by inches.

  Frank woke from his doze in equal shock.

  ‘What the hell, woman? What did you do?’

  He thought she must have fallen asleep at the wheel and blundered off the road.

  ‘A child, Frank, a little girl. She’s on the road.’

  * * *

  Jake was fascinated by the scars on Charlie’s body. He’d made him remove his clothes and even the pressure bandages that wrapped his upper body and his arms until finally Charlie stood naked in the centre of the room.

  And Jake had filmed him, recorded every inch of Charlie’s frame, like a sculptor admiring his handiwork.

  ‘Did it hurt you, Charlie? Does it hurt you now?’ he asked. ‘Can you tell me how it feels to let so much of you burn and shrivel. What is it like when people stare at you, wondering what happened to you and if it’s catching? Tell me about it. I want to know.’

  For a brief time, Charlie put up with this humiliation, fear of the gun keeping him in his place. Then he grew sick of it, decided that Jake was going to kill him anyway and, if he was going to die, then he was going to do it with his clothes on and his dignity intact. He bent, picked up his shirt and began to put it on.

  Jake lowered the camera. ‘What are you doing, Charlie?’

  ‘Getting dressed. You’ve had your money’s worth, the side-show’s closing.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve finished.’

  ‘Don’t you? Well, I have. You’ve got me here because of that baby and you’ve freed her now. God willing, she’ll be all right. You want to kill me for putting my clothes on, then go right ahead. I’m not playing your stupid games any more.’

  Jake smiled at him, a slow grin spreading across his face, then raised the gun level with Charlie’s head.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  6 July

  By seven on the Saturday morning, Essie was in hospital in Swindon and Maria was with her.

  She had spoken to Jo and the Kent police were driving Essie’s parents down with a full escort. They should have arrived by mid-morning and Essie’s ordeal, everyone hoped, would be coming to an end.

  Peterson watched Maria as she sat beside Essie, stroking her hair and talking softly to her. Coming close, he crouched down beside the bed. ‘I know it’s a lot to ask,’ he said, ‘but anything she can tell you now that might give us some clue?’ Peterson knew all too well that once the parents arrived it would be impossible. They’d just want to get away from it all and it might be weeks before they allowed the police to talk to the child again.

  ‘I’m doing what I can,’ Maria reassured him. ‘I want to get Charlie back as much or more than anyone. He saved Essie’s life, I’m sure of that.’

  * * *

  Macey was already in his office. Looking at Liz, he wondered if she’d even left since last night. She looked as exhausted as he felt. He was desperately trying to knock the story into shape, ready for the early afternoon edition, and it would be passed to the news agencies, maybe even direct to one or other of the nationals after news of Essie’s release and Charlie’s trade broke on the breakfast shows.

  Peterson had authorized Macey to release the entire story, hoping that it would capture the public imagination and shake something loose.

  Liz was deeply upset about it all. She was relieved for Essie and her family, but had been crying for Charlie most of the night and her eyes were red and sore.

  At eight fifteen Mike arrived. He’d already spoken to Maria and had something to add to Macey’s story.

  ‘Essie told us they were near the sea,’ he said. ‘We want that released, so we’re passing it straight to the media across the board, but Peterson said you were to have the full version now and play it for all it’s worth. Jake took her out of the house and onto the clifftop. She remembers him carrying her and thinks it was only a short way, through a garden. He held her over the water and she saw the sea below her, a long way down. He had hold of her only by an arm and a leg and she thought he was going to let her fall. She thought she was going to die.’

  ‘Oh, God,’ Liz said.

  Macey was silent for a moment. ‘I’m assuming you want me to quote that in full,’ he said.

  * * *

  By ten Mike was conducting the morning briefing. A grid-pattern search by helicopter had been assigned, shadowed by those on the ground. The search was concentrating on the miles of coastline, each unit taking a number of properties gleaned from the guides and estate agents’ details Jake might have used five years before.

  ‘You’re probably looking for a lone male,’ Mike reminded them. ‘Though we can’t rely on that. You have basic descriptions in the written brief, but you must remember that Jake Bowen changes his appearance to suit. The properties on your lists are all well off the main roads, some very isolated, so the slightest sign of trouble and you call for back-up. We want no heroics and no more dead officers.’

  He waited, letting his gaze travel around the room and hoping that his words were sinking in.

  ‘Questions?’

  There were a few, but everyone was eager just to be getting on.

  ‘Remember’ Mike emphasized as the meeting broke up and he was worried by the slightly gung-ho attitude he sensed in the room, ‘you call in every location as you get there
and the result immediately you’ve got one. I want to know where each and every officer is at all times. We’ve got armed units standing by all along the coast road. Don’t hesitate to call on them.’ He gestured to the stack of strike-proof vests on a nearby table. ‘They’re to be worn,’ he said. ‘I know it’s hot and I know they impede you, but we’ve got enough dead to bury without adding to their number.’

  He watched the men and women assigned to him file out of the incident room, knowing that this scene was being repeated all along the coast. Road-blocks had been set up. Jake Bowen had to be somewhere close by. They just had to find him.

  Please God, he thought, let’s finish this today.

  * * *

  Jake watched as the helicopter flew overhead for the second time that morning, then he walked back, barefoot, through his garden.

  He stood in his kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil and watched the mid-morning news on the portable TV. The news was full of him: Essie being found and Charlie Morrow being lost; the mobilization of every available officer up and down the coast; all leave cancelled on his behalf.

  He made instant coffee — strong and black, very sweet and scalding hot. He sipped it slowly as he watched the bulletin, then took his coffee with him upstairs to his viewing room.

  Charlie Morrow seemed to be asleep. Jake switched the camera angles, examining Charlie as he lay on the single bed. He pulled in to focus on the big man’s face, studying the network of scars and patchily growing beard, the rough, stubbled areas between a network of red polished skin.

  His breathing slow and even as he slept.

  Charlie was not asleep, not deeply. He had dozed a little from time to time, but the dead silence of the soundproofed room was not conducive to his brand of relaxation. Anyway, he found it hard to sleep at all without his pills.

  Lying on the narrow bed, sensing that Jake was watching him, Charlie forced himself to keep very still, to pretend a lack of concern he could not feel. He tried not to imagine what Jake had planned for him and concentrated his thoughts on what might lie ahead should he finally get out of here.

  He listened to the faint noises carried by the heating pipes, straining his ears for the slightest clue to Jake’s movements above his head. He tried to imagine what the day must be like outside. Hot and dry, close enough to the sea to hear the roar of the tide, taste the tang of salt on the air and hear the cry of birds.

  Lying there, fooling Jake into thinking he was still asleep, Charlie made up his mind that whatever Jake might have in mind, he wasn’t going down easy.

  * * *

  Peterson and Maria had arrived back at the incident room in Honiton. Calls from the operational units were already coming in, each report being plotted on the maps pinned to the office walls. Mike snatched a moment to greet Maria before being called away and Peterson too was immediately swallowed up in the organized confusion.

  Maria perched herself on the edge of one of the desks, suddenly surplus to requirements. The effects of the last days were beginning to catch up on her in full measure.

  She wanted to crawl away somewhere and get some sleep. She wanted news to come in saying that Charlie had been found, Jake arrested and all of this was over and done with.

  Staring at the red and blue pins scattered over the maps, she tried to second-guess the pattern of the search, to imagine Jake’s reaction as he felt the net closing in on him. Maria wondered what would happen if they reached the end of this intensive search, the close of this incredibly expensive day, and Jake had not been found.

  * * *

  Jake had spent a little time watching Charlie on the CCTV screens. He was not the most cooperative guest he’d ever had. He refused to beg, refused to panic, even declined to shout, and for the last two hours had remained on the mattress fast asleep.

  Jake began to gather his things together: his passport in the name of John Phillips, sales rep, and a spare in another name; his credit cards and, again, a couple of others he had acquired along the way. It always amazed him how helpful and un-nosy the banks could be, provided you kept money flowing through their accounts.

  He also packed a bag and stowed it ready in the boot of his car. It left one question: what to do with Charlie Morrow?

  * * *

  In Dorchester, Macey watched the latest bulletin on a portable television someone had brought into the office. He was booked for an interview later on that day, together with Peterson and Essie’s mum. It was likely to be an emotional affair. And Macey’s exclusive coverage of the story had been sold in reworked forms to no less than three of the national dailies and one of the major Sunday broadsheets. Macey had hit pay-dirt.

  Liz sat down beside him, staring at the screen.

  ‘You should be pleased,’ she said. ‘You could cut any deal you wanted right now. Any story you wanted to write.’

  ‘Not any deal,’ Macey said slowly. ‘And not any story. The only one I want to write just now, love, would say that Charlie’s safe and well.’

  Liz turned to stare at him, for a moment not certain whether to believe him or not.

  ‘You really mean that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I really do.’

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  By lunchtime, Charlie had grown tired of his own silence. He lay on his back on the single bed and recited poetry, dredging from his memory the fragments of verse inflicted on him from primary school on.

  He had begun, he estimated, about half an hour before, with nursery rhymes, and amazed himself with just how many he could remember. Exhausting those, he’d graduated to passages of Shakespeare he’d been forced to learn, line by line, comma by comma, in his early years at grammar school.

  ‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow . . . You hear me, Jake? Quite an actor I could have been, given half the chance. Fancied myself as Hamlet, but I didn’t fit the tights. You listening to me, Jake? I’ll bet you are.’ He paused a moment, waited for a response. ‘You going to get your arse down here and talk to me, or what? You’re a lousy host, you know that? You don’t come down here, Jake, it won’t be just the poetry. I might be forced to sing.’

  * * *

  Mike was at the road-block on the Dorchester road when Macey finally caught up with him.

  ‘Rumour is you’ve had a couple of false alarms?’

  ‘I won’t ask where the rumour came from. There’s been nothing concrete, Macey.’

  ‘Mind if I tag along when you leave here.’

  ‘You’d follow me if I said no.’

  ‘Damn right I would. I’m going nuts back there.’ He hesitated for a moment before asking, ‘You think he’s dead?’

  ‘I don’t know, Macey. Depends what Jake had in mind.’

  ‘I keep thinking, you know, if I’d got there sooner—’

  ‘There’s nothing you could have done.’

  ‘I’m not certain I believe that.’

  ‘What you believe, Macey, quite frankly doesn’t matter. We got Essie back and we’ll find Charlie Morrow. Jake’s been calling the shots long enough.’

  Macey watched him walk back to his car, shoulders set square against argument. ‘You really believe that, do you, Inspector Croft?’ he asked. ‘Or doesn’t what you think matter any more either?’

  * * *

  By one p.m. Jake had decided it was time to leave. He listened in to Charlie’s monologue one last time — the microphones he’d rigged up fed the sound through to the viewing room.

  Charlie was singing a very unmusical rendition of something from Gilbert and Sullivan. He seemed to know only about half the words, making up the rest as he went along. Jake listened for a short while, amused at Charlie’s version of the sorrow of a policeman’s lot, wondering how long Charlie’s change of mood would last and slightly regretful that he would not be hanging around long enough to find out. He switched off the basement sound and left his prisoner totally alone. The appeal of killing Charlie was just not there if there wasn’t time to set it up properly and film the
action. In Jake’s philosophy, if you couldn’t do things right, they were often better left undone. He put the rest of his essential gear into the car and left the house, he thought, for ever.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Jake got all of half a mile, driving down the single-track lane towards the main road, before being met by a police car on its way up. He was forced to back up the way he’d come, the police car following closely and finally parking across the exit from Jake’s yard.

  ‘Can I help you, officers,’ Jake asked. ‘I hope it won’t take long. I was about to go out.’

  ‘Anything special, sir? Maybe you could phone if you’re going to be late for an appointment?’

  ‘No, nothing special.’

  ‘Well, then, if we could just step inside?’

  Jake gave in as gracefully as he could, relieved he’d stowed his luggage in the boot and not on the back seat of his car. One officer followed him inside. Jake glanced back, curious as to what the other might be doing. He was speaking into his pocket phone, consulting a map and a list which he’d taken from the car.

  * * *

  The call came in to Honiton that a double-crewed unit had another possible. The third so far.

  ‘Lone male, fits the general description, sir; and he seems a bit edgy.’

  ‘Who wouldn’t be?’ Peterson questioned. ‘OK, give me the location and I’ll put the nearest back-up on standby.’

  Peterson listened, matching the details to the grid reference. The property was right slap-bang on the coast. He signed off, prepared to call the other units in.

  * * *

  ‘What’s this all about?’ Jake asked the officer who’d followed him inside.

  ‘Have you seen the news today?’

  ‘About the policeman and the little girl? Yes. Yes, I have.’

  The other officer joined them now, moving to the other side of the small kitchen as though wanting to keep Jake in full view. Jake realized that he was being far too stiff, that they were not at ease with him. He tried to compensate.

  ‘Can I offer you some tea?’