***
I was in the car now; my hands tied and a bag over my head. One of them put a gun to my temple, making sure I laid down low on the back seat. This was not good.
It's amazing how many different types of thought go careening through your brain in such situations. Work, home, family, all manner of crazy schemes to make your escape, death. Yet, so few of them are helpful; in a practical or emotional sense.
I couldn't tell where we were going thanks to the combination of sensory deprivation and stress. It proved too difficult to judge how much time had elapsed before the car came to a halt. I thought perhaps an hour and a half but it could have been a lot more or a lot less.
There was a sudden, intense pain in my skull and everything went black.
25. Come On And Rescue Me
The bar thrummed to the soundtrack of a DJ in one corner. A young guy learning his trade, one hand holding a headphone earpiece in place, the other fiddling with his decks. The music was not really to Stark's taste but stomaching it was a means to an end.
Stark sat at the bar, sipping on his diet coke. Giving up alcohol had been difficult. Not many people took his abstinence seriously at first - a Scottish teetotaller? Aye right! His pals ripped the piss out of him more relentlessly than usual for a time but, eventually, Sheena became their slagging of choice.
Being sober helped him do a better job but it allowed him to overwork. He could never cry off a job on the basis that he was incapable of driving or making lucid decisions. But, the real reason he abstained was Carrie. His beautiful twin sister. His best friend. His crushing guilt.
Carrie's boyfriend, Frank Massey, ran his own insurance brokerage. Separated, father of three teenage kids and ten years older than her. No-one approved of their relationship, with his mother being particularly vehement in her objection. Stark always felt uneasy in the guy's company; boastful, overbearing and one of those people who'd always try and outdo you if you relayed an amusing anecdote or slightly tall tale. He liked a drink.
No-one realised what was going on until it was too late. It started as psychological abuse. Controlling, jealous, unreasonable outbursts and restrictions placed on her social life. Friends were gradually excluded and discarded. The family were next. Stark found it harder and harder to make contact with Carrie or engage her in a conversation if she did happen to answer her phone. Slowly, they became estranged. Then, it turned out, the physical abuse began in earnest. He should never have let it happen. He should have known.
He was working when her call came through, an incoherent, rambling, outpouring of regret and apologies. Stark's alarm bells rang and he flew to her. Smashing down the door of the flat, he crashed into the bedroom, where she lay motionless on top of the covers. Blue lips, translucent pallor, chest stilled. Frantic resuscitation attempts by him, then an ambulance crew, failed to rouse her. Things were never the same again.
The woman came into the bar with two friends. Small, blonde and buxom, definitely his type. The smile shone from her face like a flashlight whenever she broke it out. Stark engaged eye contact, returned the favour smile-wise and they got chatting. He still had it.
She was fun, ditzy and enthusiastic. All the signs were pointing to an end to his drought and a chance to release some of that pent-up frustration causing his lusting after Katz. Then the phone rang.
***
Garry Black stood in the station locker room donning his gear. The call to DI Stark had been a bit difficult. The poor bastard was out on the pull when Garry called and, according to him, about to go home with the best looking girl in the bar. However, as Stark didn't drink, he was able to come straight over to the station. It was not for Garry to know that on that very afternoon, Steve had become a wanted man by his own side. When he explained what Steve did to Leo, it only confirmed to Stark that Welch was their Citizen V. At least, it would once they'd rescued him from an immensely pissed-off gangster.
Stark also made a difficult call - to the DCI. Hargreaves' permission to go after Welch was vital and, despite the lateness of the hour, it would have annoyed him a whole lot more if Stark ploughed on without it. Thankfully, the Chief's reaction was softened because he already witnessed the wayward cop's exploits on YouTube. There would be no way for Hargreaves to outdo the levels of vexation he demonstrated once he reached the end of that little horror show.
Garry expected to be sent home and be put on report for failing to inform anyone of Steve's exploits. In a time of surplus manpower and unlimited budgets, that may well have happened but, as the clock ticked past 1am, DI Stark needed every available, trained officer he could get his hands on. The reprieve was only temporary mind you, Garry knew that, but the priority now lay with finding Steve and Abby before Leo Corantelli got carried away. He didn't care much for Abby Hester but he didn't wish her any real harm.
Stark, Katz and a couple of other cops gathered in the briefing room. Stark laid out the basic situation regarding the alleged kidnap of a fellow officer. Right now, he was waiting on a call from the Serious Organised Crime Unit or SCD7 as it was shortened to internally. They were currently working on a long-running case against the Corantelli family and their associates. The chief of the unit spoke to Hargreaves and agreed his team would cooperate in the rescue of Steve.
Stark addressed the slowly increasing bevvy of cops.
“Ok, here's where we're at. We have a police officer and his alleged mistress, kidnapped by a very grumpy gangster. This is not a good combination of factors.
“Unluckily for him, and luckily for us, the SCD7 have been tailing Leo Corantelli recently and have a fix on his vehicle. The car has been located in Essex at a farmhouse on the outskirts of Chelmsford. We need to get organised and get out there as quickly as we can. We think from the text message, sent to Sergeant Black, that our target already has about an hour's head start on us and that's only going to grow. Every second lost might be critical.”
Stark paused, little noise coming from the audience; a picture of intense concentration.
“Right, you all know the drill. The Armed Response Team will lead the way. Good luck and stay safe.”
There was a rousing chorus of 'yes, sir!' and various other exclamations of agreement before the room cleared and everyone made for their vehicles.
In the car, Katz and Stark hardly exchanged a word. The darkness was riven by the snake of red and blue lights. Sirens blared intermittently as dozy, early morning drivers failed to look in their mirror, or failed to notice the approaching column and made to pull out of junctions or enter roundabouts.
In the lead vehicle, Garry checked his weapon for the umpteenth time as the metropolis of London faded behind them and the open country of rural Essex opened out either side of the road. The tension was building enormously. Garry began biting his fingernails, which drew a disapproving look from his driver for the evening. It reminded him of that guff people spouted about there being more bacteria under your fingernails than there was in a toilet. For want of a better word - shit! He'd run the risk of biting his nails any day over licking the bowl.
The radio operator guided them in via the satellite tracking system and, as they got within a half mile, they switched off the lights and sirens. Then, as they rounded a corner, the ground dropped away below them and Garry saw the farmhouse.
Lights were on in at least two downstairs rooms and one upstairs. The building looked substantial; brick-construction, two storeys high and set back from the road in at least an acre of ground. There were three vehicles in the driveway - a black BMW, a black Range Rover and a small, light-coloured coupé which he wasn't sure about and couldn't decide between a Hyundai or a Kia.
They stopped a few hundred yards short of the house. Stark ran up to the two lead vehicles containing the armed officers.
“Right, has anyone had a look with night vision?”
The team leader, Don Pierce, got out of his car to talk to Stark.
“Yes, DI Stark, we've had a look. There are three vehicles but we haven't seen any peopl
e yet. There's been no movement across any of the windows and, as far as we can tell, the vehicles are unoccupied.”
Stark looked at his watch; it was two-thirty. The kidnappers would have had more than enough time to kill Steve if they were so minded. If they'd been torturing him, then who knew what sort of state he might be in. The paramedics were on stand-by, with an ambulance parked about a quarter of a mile away in case they needed it. He was pretty sure they would.
“OK, we don't have a lot of time; an officer's life is in danger here, a civilian as well as far as we can tell. What do you think, Don?”
The AR team leader only took a second or two to respond, he'd spent the journey working through scenarios.
“I'll take my team in quietly. We'll do as quick and thorough a recce as we can, ensure the vehicles are secured, then I'll send four in the front and two in the back. Have the rest of your lot ready to follow as soon as we give the signal, ok?”
“Right, understood. Good luck, Don.”
Pierce nodded, got back in his car and the AR team drove down to the front of the house.
When the team got to the entranceway, Pierce noticed the security lighting on the outside of the building. If they were to proceed any further the place would light up and they would lose any chance of taking the kidnappers by surprise. He took out a small, lightweight air pistol and shot out the bulb. It popped rather more loudly than he'd have liked and a few seconds later he realised he was holding his breath while he waited for a reaction. Nothing and no-one stirred. He exhaled.
Pierce gathered the team, indicating that four of them, including himself and Garry, would assault the front, while the other two officers would go around the back of the building. With a couple of gestures, they crept forward across the driveway towards the parked cars: all three vehicles were locked and unoccupied.
Garry made his way to the window, crouched down below it. He held up a small mirror, tried to get some sort of view inside. The curtains were fully shut and he could not make anything out. This would put them at a disadvantage. They had no schematic of the building and no guarantee the layout would be sympathetic to them storming in.
Pierce's radio suddenly erupted in his earpiece, making him start, even though the officer was whispering.
“Sir, this is McGowan. We have two hostiles down outside the back door. Over.”
“Ok, McGowan. We're going in the front. Proceed with due caution on my command. Over.”
The front door had no handle, which meant the lock engaged when it was pulled to. One of the team took a small battering ram and smashed it against the door as Pierce shouted, “Go! Go! Go!”
The door gave way easily and the four officers moved in with weapons raised and adrenaline surging. At the back, the other two team members also made their way inside. On the road outside, Stark and his team set off with sirens blaring and lights flashing.
“Armed police! Lay down your weapons!” shouted Pierce as they walked through the hallway.
The first room on their left was a small drawing room with bookshelves, a heavy, oak desk and a couple of leather easy chairs. No kidnappers.
In the first room on the right, they walked into a scene of utter devastation. It was a much larger lounge with a smattering of appropriate furniture.
A woman, presumably Abby Hester, sat tied to a dining chair; unconscious or dead. A burly man lay on the floor with a pool of blood framing his head. In an armchair, sat Leo Corantelli, his head lolling backwards and his throat cut from ear to ear like some kind of gruesome, exaggerated smile. In the middle of the floor stood Steve Welch, blood dripping down his hand and arm and a strange, faraway look in his eyes.
“Drop your weapon!” shouted Pierce.
Steve let the flick-knife drop to the ground and just looked at them blankly as Stark and Katz burst into the room.
“I, I....” was all he could muster before he was cuffed and taken out to a car.
Stark looked around him in shock.
“Holy crap, Batman! This is going to take a bit of explaining away don't you think?” The rhetorical nature of the question being observed by all present.
“How's the girl?”
One of the AR team looked back at him and said, “Weak pulse, but breathing and alive, sir.”
“Good, get the paramedics in here now and let's clear the place for SOCO. They are going to be very busy boys and girls tonight!”
26. A Hard Case
The thought of interrogating Steve Welch troubled Stark. He was one of their own, with an exemplary record - even a couple of commendations for bravery in the line of duty. What the hell was the guy thinking about with all this vigilante nonsense? Stupid and nonsensical as that was though, it wasn't the worst of it. To follow all that up with the slaughter (and there was no other word for it) of those guys at the farm...that took a certain kind of mindset. There had been talk of getting a shrink in but Stark managed to persuade the DCI to let him talk to Welch first. Katz would sit in with him for the experience, under strict instruction not to contribute.
The interview room looked no different than normal but, at the same time, nothing like normal. His chair scraped the floor as he pulled it back to sit down and the noise nearly cut Stark in half. He'd been less nervous doing his first interview all those years ago.
Welch, sitting forward in his chair, with hands clasped together on the table top, rolled his thumbs round each other incessantly and chewed on his bottom lip. His clothes were articles of evidence now and, as a result, his outfit consisted of a rather unflattering set of white overalls. He looked tired and overwrought; his eyes wet and bloodshot, his skin blotchy and dry. As Stark prepared his papers it struck him that Steve Welch was a big man - brawny. The kind of guy you'd want at your side in a serious situation. The kind of guy to be careful not to cross.
Once again, he fired up the tape and completed the formalities.
“Steve, I have to tell you that this is a first for me in more ways than one.”
The big firearms officer didn't engage Stark with eye contact.
“I've interviewed a couple of coppers for things before but nothing on this scale and no-one as senior as you.” Stark paused but there was still no response or acknowledgement.
“I understand you've had nothing to say for yourself since we brought you in. Well, now's the time for that to change. I need you to try and explain what the hell happened in the farm house first, then maybe, once we've shed some light on that débâcle, we can move onto the Citizen V stuff?”
Welch shuffled uneasily in his seat, sat back, looked up at the ceiling and sighed.
“What is it, big man? Boring you, am I?” snapped Stark.
The other cop slowly lowered his head to look directly at Stark and smiled wearily.
“Look, DI Stark, it's quite simple, I don't remember anything about the farmhouse. One minute I was being coshed in the back of a car, the next I was standing in the middle of a room full of dead bodies and cops. I have absolutely no idea what happened in between.”
Stark snorted. “Come on, Steve, you'll need to try harder than that. Jesus man, you were covered in the blood of the victims and holding a knife. It's not plausible that you have no recollection of murdering the four men in that house.”
Welch shook his head, “That's all I've got. I don't know what happened. If I killed those guys, it was in self defence, and calling them victims is stretching the meaning of the word more than a little don't you think?”
“Whether they were fine upstanding citizens or gangland scum, it makes no difference to the law. You murdered them and you'll be going down for it.”
“I don't think I did murder them!” shouted Welch, “I would need to have been compos mentis to take down four men don't you think? Four, big, well-trained men at that.”
“I don't know, Steve, I'm no psychiatrist but I think it's much more likely you're lying to me and you are perfectly aware of what you did.”
This time Welch slumped back into
his initial pose and started twirling his thumbs around each other again.
“Ok, let's forget about them for a minute and move onto your alter ego.”
The big cop looked up quizzically.
“Citizen V, Steve, Citizen V. Then again maybe it should be Citizen W? What do you think, Welchy?” taunted Stark.
“I think you're off your head, mate. I had nothing to do with all that shit.”
Stark looked at Katz, who had been remarkably well behaved so far, but she remained impassive. Impressive and delicious.
“Steve, I'm going to call a halt to this nonsense for a wee while. I'd like you to go away and have a think about how you're going to continue with this interview. I'll be back in a bit.”
With that, Stark closed down the interview and headed off to the incident room. Katz tailed along after him.
***
I didn't really know what the hell was going on here. I wasn't lying to Stark when I said I had no recollection of how I got from unconscious in the car to standing amongst corpses in the farmhouse. It was a total fucking mystery. If I was tooled up for the job and alert enough, I probably could have taken those dudes down and I would have; if it was the only way to stop them from killing Abby or me. But slitting Leo's throat...with his own knife...that was something else.
I couldn't think straight. Things had spiralled way out of my control now. Garry did what he thought was right but it landed me deep in the brown stuff. The Leo situation was going to make it look like a dead certainty I was Citizen V. I didn't have a plausible alibi for the farm and when I sat and tried to work out where I'd been when the escalations of my revenge pranks took place, I had nothing concrete, nothing that would seem anything other than flimsy. Nothing that could be corroborated by a credible witness.
I was in deep trouble and I knew it.
***
Stark Contrasts (An Adam Stark novel Book 1) Page 12
