The Taken: DI Erica Martin Book 2 (Erica Martin Thriller)

by Alice Clark-Platts

  It wasn’t her fault. Any of this.

  Everything had changed. As soon as Tristan was dead, she’d had to re-think it all, the perceptions she’d had. She knew what people thought about her, how they laughed at her behind her back: her eccentricities, her devotion to Tristan; the way she had been humiliated by him. But, in all of that, she’d had him. And so it didn’t matter.

  Now they were all caught up in a sandstorm, tossed by the wind of God’s machinations. How she raged at God sometimes. How he had let her down. Even now – look! Sera almost wanted to laugh, thinking about how he toyed with her. Since Tristan had died, everything was shot. But it still wasn’t over.

  Violet knew about Mercy and the others. Sera thought she’d kept it from her, protected her. But yet again, she had failed. Just like last time, just like with the boys. Tristan would strip her of everything before he was done with her.

  At the hotel, Violet had said she wanted to leave.

  Sera looked at her feet pulled together in front of her, at the dust floating around them, caught in the light. Its delicacy seemed to mock her sudden heaviness, her inability to uproot herself, to get going and make everything work again. She couldn’t block out the image of Violet’s face in the cellar. The eyes of the girl, looking at her in such bewilderment. Tears began to fall down her cheeks, dropping in a steady rhythm on to the ground in time with her wretched breathing.

  Violet could not be allowed to leave.

  This was how it had started before. The mesh of emotion, netting her so tightly inside herself that she couldn’t breathe. Back then, she had walked. The boys’ hands in hers. She had walked fast, pushing on through, moving it all on – the hatred, and disappointment and bitter failure.

  Now, though, she was stuck. Nailed down under the weight of her own inarticulacy. She had flung herself into the marriage with Tristan like a beached whale heading out into the escape of white water at last. But she had lost her bearings and grown tired. The only way she had been able to survive, had been to remain mute, bobbing in the shallows, sucking in air when she could. And so she had survived – tired and battered, but alive.

  But now, it was happening all over again – again, she was helpless and turning back to the beach.

  And this time, she was sure to meet her death.

  *

  The bricks of the building were chipped and scarred with age. A heavy board lay across the basement window, blocking any view of the interior. Martin moved to the door and ran her hands over its rough wood. She leaned her ear against it and listened. Something in her drummed insistently. The building looked abandoned, but she felt an energy coming from it . . . a hum of something. She turned back to look the door up and down, taking a breath before putting her shoulder to it.

  She pushed her body weight firmly against the door. Nothing. She hefted again, but it wouldn’t budge. She imagined Sean Egan’s face, tried a further time and was rewarded by a splintering noise. Progress. She pushed again and again until a gap an inch wide appeared at the edge of the door. Now she could get her foot in and use it to jemmy the door open bit by bit.

  Her mind blocked out everything else – Jones, the back-up team outside in the garden, everything – and she made slow but steady headway. Sweat dripped from her face as she continued to push, but she found she wanted to laugh. Why was she even doing this? She would just end up back at the station covered in dust and grime. But something was nagging at her, and she knew from experience that if she didn’t listen to it, it would drive her round the bend until she’d scratched the itch.

  Martin swung her shoulder heavily into the door once more.

  This time, with a loud crack, the rotten wood gave way and the door swung wide open into a dark and musty space.

  Martin’s face tightened as she moved forward. For some reason, the image of her mother flashed briefly across her mind. She touched her radio for reassurance and then stepped into the room.

  45

  Jones skirted back along the wall of the Assembly Rooms before returning to the front garden. She had found nothing on the other side apart from more brambles and a revolting outdoor toilet cubicle, stained with God knows what and smelling to high heaven. The day was hot and a gloss of sweat shone on her forehead. Martin’s name was on the tip of her tongue to call when she saw that her boss wasn’t back in the garden, but something inside prevented her from making too much noise. Instead, she pulled her radio to her lips and softly called Martin’s sign.

  No answer.

  Next she radioed the back-up team: ‘Where’s the boss? She was just here.’

  ‘She hasn’t said anything, Sarge.’

  Jones went to the door and peered into the hall. Again, nothing.

  She made her way around the side of the building where Martin had gone, edging through the brambles, flattening herself against the wall to avoid being scratched. ‘One way to stop squatters,’ she muttered, merely to break the piercing silence. Her breathing was soft and even.

  Suddenly she heard a crack or a pop. She halted as if on a land mine.

  ‘What was that?’ her radio crackled, comfortingly.

  ‘Nothing.’ Her senses quivered, but there was indeed nothing to see.

  ‘Sending someone in to join you,’ came the reply.

  Jones came to the basement and jumped down into the well where Martin had been. She moved to the doorway where the broken door leaned against the wall and poked her head through to look into the room. Flashing a Maglite, she saw nothing except an empty concrete floor and some old shelving.

  ‘Where the hell is she, then?’ Jones said into her radio. ‘Back-up team requested. I can’t find DI Martin.’

  PART THREE

  * * *

  . . . The things we thought would happen do not happen; the unexpected God makes possible . . .

  Euripides, ‘Medea’

  46

  Martin lay groggy and semi-conscious. As the darkness lifted, she instinctively tried to sit up, but a weight kept her down. She struggled against it but it was too much for her.

  ‘Shut up,’ a voice muttered fiercely, the same person who pinned her to the ground, a hand over her mouth. ‘Wait till they’ve gone.’

  The voice – female? – and the bitter smell of ancient ammonia stung Martin into sudden alertness. Her eyes snapped open, taking in her surroundings – where was she? She appeared to be in a tiny outside toilet block, among the tangled vegetation of the garden. The pipes of the missing toilet jutted out from the wall above her head, dripping God knows what on to her. Her head was squashed up against the back of the block, her knees pushed into her chest by the bulk of her assailant on top of her.

  Fear surged through her as she tried to lurch upwards, but her attacker kept her immobilized, leaning into her further, trapping her on the ground. Martin moved her head from side to side as much as she could, trying to inhale some oxygen from beneath the weight of the hand on her face. As she moved, a sharp pain told her that her nose was broken. She tried to reach for her radio but she was too tightly pinned, then heard a voice outside and felt a flush of relief; it sounded like Jones. Martin battled against the mass on top of her, but she couldn’t get any purchase. She scrabbled in vain until the voice receded and finally disappeared. Martin let her head fall back on to the floor in frustration.

  What was going on? She couldn’t see who it was, holding her down. Martin tried to breathe, summon her training, her cool-under-pressure demeanour. But she was injured and vulnerable, and she had no real knowledge of her situation. It was a dangerous place to be, and she knew it.

  The last thing she remembered was standing outside the door of the basement. What then? Tasting crusted blood on her upper lip, she surmised that she must have been smacked in the face by something hard. Her vision was blurry. Shit.

  ‘Let me up,’ she managed to mumble from under the hand, her voice cracked and her throat dry. ‘Don’t make this worse for yourself.’ She tried to get a look at the person in the gloom of
the cramped space, tried to get some moisture back on her tongue. ‘False imprisonment. Wounding with intent. Assault of a police officer . . .’ Her own voice sounded to Martin as if it were coming from someone else.

  ‘Shut up, I mean it. They’re still here.’

  All around them, the quiet of the garden seemed to amplify, punctuated only by a rustle of the trees, the low call of a bird. Something about the voice above her was familiar, the shape of her assailant’s head. ‘Let me up,’ Martin repeated, blinking, trying to get her eyes to work properly.

  ‘You’ll get hurt again. Please.’

  It came to Martin then, like a break in the clouds. The voice belonged to an impassive face, brittle like china in its stillness and composure.

  ‘Violet?’ she said. ‘Is that you?’

  47

  Fielding lay in a bed on the Shearer Ward of the University Hospital. The sun blazed through the window beside him but his eyes were closed to it. He didn’t sleep, but the mental effort of asking the pain in his stomach to leave took all his strength. He could hear the groans of his ward companions as he lay there; the sighs and expulsions of elderly gentlemen reduced to flattened-out skin and bone on the worn, white sheets of the NHS.

  The pain came every few minutes. They had given him an IV drip that pumped fluid into the crook of his arm, but the pain persisted. It stabbed at him with the malevolent gusto of a sugar-crazed toddler. Fielding had worked out its pattern now, he was on to it. He just had to pretend that he was on a journey through the mountains and troughs of this pain, and that soon the evil bacterium ripping through his gut would work its way out and be gone.

  His mother had been in; he’d heard her sniffing and muttering to the nursing staff. But he’d kept his eyes firmly shut. The day was bad enough already.

  He lay, counting his breaths. He could get four in before the pain stabbed again. He was on his second of that round when a shadow fell over his face.

  ‘You’ve got a visitor, Eddie,’ one of the more friendly nurses said, as if talking to a child. ‘Here you go love, sit here. He’s in quite a bit of pain, but he’ll live.’

  Fielding carried on breathing. His mother had un-doubtedly sent his aunt or one of his cousins twice removed to check on him.

  The visitor said nothing. He could hear the click of a handbag clasp and the rustle of a magazine. The pain knifed again, leaving him breathless. Then the blessed relief of it passing. He exhaled.

  In the reprieve, he felt curiosity rise. Who was it in the chair at the end of his bed? He lifted an eyelid to see blurrily past his feet.

  The alarm bell clanged at full volume in the nurses’ station. They looked up hurriedly to see Fielding trying to struggle out of bed, tugging at the wires that ran into his arm.

  ‘Get her out!’ Fielding screamed. ‘Get her away from me! Get her out of here!’

  48

  ‘I mean it, be quiet,’ Violet said.

  Martin heard the aggression but underneath, she also heard the fear, the raw panic of the girl.

  ‘You have to stop this, Violet. You’re in big trouble. Let me help you,’ Martin said. ‘You’ve broken your bail bond. You’ve wounded a police officer. This is – and I’m paraphrasing – a shit position to be in. This whole place is surrounded by police.’

  ‘Shut up!’ Violet began to cry quietly, tears rolling off the end of her nose. She seemed broken, her hard shell obliterated, revealing only a desperately sad and lonely little girl.

  ‘What’s this on your face?’ Martin put her hand up to Violet’s temple where there was a large, purple bump surrounded by a bruise.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ Violet spat, batting Martin’s hand away. ‘You don’t know anything about me.’ She turned and grabbed Martin’s jacket. ‘I’ve hit you once and I can do it again.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re saying, Violet,’ Martin answered, her chin jutting uncomfortably towards the girl; Violet had her by the collar. ‘Just let me go and let’s get out of here. We can sort this all out. Come on.’

  Violet didn’t answer. Martin could see the intake of breath holding the sob at the top of the girl’s throat, the attempt to keep it down causing a vein to stand out on her forehead.

  ‘All I have to do is turn up my radio, just here,’ Martin flicked her eyes towards the top pocket of her jacket. ‘And you’ll be in handcuffs. But if you come with me now – voluntarily – it will be better for you. Don’t you see?’

  Violet shook her head, her lips firmly together. She lifted up the metal bar and pushed it into Martin’s face. ‘I’d use this first,’ she hissed. As she shifted to do this, for a second she relaxed her hold on Martin’s legs. Martin bucked, kangaroo-kicking Violet, smashing her head into the concrete wall of the toilet. Martin leapt to her feet and grabbed Violet’s hands, wrenching them behind her back. As she did so, the toilet door swung open, and Jones was standing there, her baton raised, eyes wide.

  ‘What took you so long?’ Martin gasped.

  ‘Sorry, Boss,’ Jones said, leaning down to release Violet from Martin’s grip, handcuffs twirling in her grasp. ‘Thought you were just spending a penny.’

  Martin scowled at Jones, as she stood up. ‘Come on, Violet. Let’s get you to the station,’ she said, taking in the swirl of blue lights flashing across the garden in the searing sunlight. She went to edge Violet past Jones, who didn’t move.

  ‘Come on, Jones. Out of the . . .’ but Jones’s mouth had slackened and something in her sergeant’s eyes stopped Martin in her tracks. Cold fear slid down her spine as she realized what it was.

  ‘Sorry, Boss,’ Jones said. ‘You always did tell me to watch my back.’

  A thousand thoughts and images flew into Martin’s head like a rustle of dirt-black crows. They settled into stillness, perching on telegraph wires in an apricot sky.

  ‘It’s time now, Violet. Come with me please.’ A voice came from the door.

  Martin craned her head around Jones, knowing who she would see as she did. The petite figure of Sera stood calmly behind her. A shaft of sunlight sought out the turquoise glass of her rings, making the stones glitter and throw their triangular lights on to the knife blade she held, which pointed into the side of Jones’s neck.

  ‘I think it’s you that needs to get out of the way, Inspector Martin,’ Sera said, steadily. ‘Once you’ve let Violet go, of course.’

  ‘Don’t do this, Sera,’ Martin warned. ‘Leave the girl alone. She’s just a kid.’

  Sera dug the tip of her knife into Jones’s skin, creating a tear-drop of blood, causing Jones to close her eyes. ‘If you follow me, I’ll kill her,’ Sera said. ‘Come on Violet. It’s time to go home.’

  Martin unlocked the handcuffs mechanically, her eyes fixed on Jones’s. Don’t worry, she seemed to be saying. I’ve got you. Jones nodded briefly, her jaw resolutely firm. Sera backed away, bringing Jones with her, Violet dragging Jones’s other hand. They backed off the short distance down the garden to the gate, where the hire car was parked.

  ‘Stand down!’ Martin yelled at the officers there. ‘She’s got a knife!’

  Sera pushed Jones into the front passenger seat of the car, her knife at the policewoman’s chest as Violet jumped into the driver’s seat. Sera moved to the back, the knife at Jones’s throat as the car swerved off and down the road.

  49

  Martin flew like a hurricane into her car as uniformed police spilled out of several police vehicles that had skidded into place in front of the Assembly Rooms. ‘She’s got Jones!’ she yelled as Tennant ran up to the driver’s door.

  ‘Boss, you need to wait,’ he said, seeing the blood on Martin’s face. ‘You’re injured.’

  ‘I’m not leaving Jones. Either get in the car or shut my fucking door so I can drive.’

  ‘Yep,’ Tennant nodded, running around and getting into the car just as Martin skidded away from the pavement, talking into the radio as she did so.

  ‘Looks like she’s heading east. Get a chopper authorized
.’

  ‘What’s she thinking?’ Tennant said, his voice tight. ‘Abducting a police officer . . .’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Martin murmured, as the car sped through the Durham streets. Tennant, unnaturally for him, said nothing, waiting for the lead from Martin.

  ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid . . .’ Martin was muttering to herself. ‘Should have bloody known.’ She hit the steering wheel in frustration.

  ‘Ah, it’s not your fault, Boss. You know? How could you have known she’d get her kid to whack you over the head?’

  ‘They should have been separated from the minute Snow’s body was found. We put the child into a hotel room with a manipulator and a murderer.’

  Tennant shook his head, emphatic. ‘Sera’s her mother. If anything, it seemed like a domestic violence case – self-defence against years of bullying. Why would we think Violet was in danger? She’s eighteen, she’s not a child.’

  ‘Violet Snow is about as mature as mozzarella.’ Martin looked in the rear-view mirror, checking that the blue lights were still behind her. ‘I’ve been stupid, Tennant. And now I’m going to have to deal with the consequences.’

  ‘Turn left, and then second right. Hurry . . .’ Sera said, her eyes fixed on Jones in front of her as the car hurtled through the streets.

  ‘Mum . . .’

  ‘Go as fast as you can. Once we get out of the centre, we’ll be okay. Here!’ Sera blurted as Violet wrenched the steering wheel round. ‘That’s it. Careful now. Keep to the left fork and then go with the road. Are they behind us?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Violet checked the rear-view mirror. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Good. Just drive.’ Sera squeezed Violet’s shoulder. ‘You’re a good girl.’

  Jones sat stock-still in the front seat next to Violet. The blade of the knife was still sharp in the skin of her neck. Her eyes moved rapidly, checking the route they were taking. Violet hadn’t gone on to the dual carriageway that led out of Durham; she was heading fast on a smaller road, whipping through small hamlets on its outskirts. A grey and white chequerboard of pebbledashed miners’ cottages flashed by, long abandoned, with boarded-up doors, flaked and rotten doorsteps. The occasional window had the white and red flag of St George stuffed into its crevices, but otherwise there was no sign of life. A hot and empty day, the streets as void as the unnaturally blue sky. Jones tried to catch sight of a signpost.