by AD Davies
He stepped inside. “How long have you…?” He gestured awkwardly to the bundle of human being, wires and tubes.
“Half an hour.”
“No, I mean—”
“Joke, Murphy.”
He ventured further inside, stopping well short of the bed. Murphy never faced the man down, but he was all too aware of what he did. What he was capable of. Once upon a time, anyway.
Alicia said, “When I came home from America, I contacted Katie. I don’t know why. I was injured, recovering.” She could still feel the scar on her belly, the stretched tissue tender whenever the baby boasted another growth spurt. “For some reason, I was thinking about her. She asked if I’d come with her.”
“Why?”
“Therapist. She was doing okay, but when she accepted the truth about him, she basically disowned her dad. Met no closure. Thing is, seeing him like this, alive but unable to answer her questions … it set her back. She’s worse now. Drinking heavily, stuck in the past, grasping for an end to all this.”
“Does she know…?” Again he gestured awkwardly, this time at Alicia.
“No, she doesn’t. It might send her over the edge. When Richard does finally die—and he will—I’ll wait a bit, have a chat with her. If she’s stable, I’ll explain how it all happened.”
Murphy smoothed his moustache with his thumb and forefinger. “I think she probably learned that at school.” Alicia was about to call him an idiot, but he interrupted with, “Joke.”
“Okay,” she said. “How did you find me?”
“Your mum.”
“My mum knows I’m here?”
“No, but she knew you were going to visit your baby’s dad, and she was hoping I could figure out who he is. I said I’d try. But no promises.”
Alicia frowned, chilled by a thought. “How does she have your number?”
“We met when you were recuperating, remember?”
“Right. But exchanging phone numbers?”
Murphy looked at his shoes, then at her. “We’re not sleeping together.”
“Eww, I wasn’t even thinking that.”
“Sorry.”
“I am now, oh go away!” She tipped her head sideways and hit the side of it, as if dislodging water. “Nope, your hairy arse is stuck bobbing away over my mum. On my couch too, you dirty bugger.”
“Alicia…”
“Right, sorry, go on.”
Murphy trained his eyes on Richard’s heart monitor, consistent now, but Katie insisted its rhythm varied occasionally.
He said, “She was worried. Wanted me to call her if you were doing anything stupid or dangerous. I asked her to do the same. Of course, I didn’t mention following a suspected murderer through the woods at night. Alone. But when she said you were visiting the dad, it wasn’t hard to find you.”
“And?”
He pulled up a chair and fixed on her. “It’s not healthy.”
“I know.”
“It’s really silly. Torturing yourself.”
“It feels … right.”
“Here.” Murphy handed her a memory stick. “It’s all the surveillance intel on IROMOV. They’re still watching, but it’s getting harder to justify the budget. Plus the armed guard, maintaining the super-injunction through the courts. The press are already clamouring for access. They know the school is bring patrolled. And that the first two killings are linked. The Sentinel has connected the machete attack. Everyone wants to go public, and it’s getting harder to stop the reporting. The national security angle is holding, but only barely.”
“Cancel the prom and impose a restriction of movement order on the IROMOV guys.” She stared at the stick. “Why are you giving that to me?”
“Belt and braces. Paulson ordered the prom shut down, or moved to a secret location, but the kids objected, and so did their parents. When the parents objected, Commissioner Rhapshaw crumbled and the prom is back on. Full protection detail, full surveillance team.”
“Ridiculous.”
“I know.” He waggled the memory stick. “You going to take it?”
“I’m on leave.”
“I know. But Stevenson has a niggle. A worry. A theory. I’d like to see if you agree. Plus … I figured it might distract you. From … this.” He jabbed a thumb at Richard. “Call it closure. For you. From this case. Might make it easier to let go of this one.”
“Closure.” Alicia accepted the stick. “Thanks.”
“Now let’s get out of here. Your mum said there’s Cuba Libra at your place.”
“Oh yes.”
“And one more thing, Alicia.”
“What?”
“My arse really isn’t that hairy.”
SATURDAY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Alicia awoke at 9:00 a.m. and could not remember one single time in her adult life that she did not make police work the first thing she thought of. She wallowed in bed for thirty minutes but her bladder dragged her to the bathroom. When she fixed herself a coffee and poured some Coco Pops, she hit the living room to find Robbie was already up and drinking a pint of water.
“I think I drank your share,” she told Alicia.
“Between you and Murphy, you did.” Alicia sat in the big chair. “I made sure it was even.”
“You’re an evil bartender.”
“And fresh as a daisy.”
Alicia ate her cereal as the breakfast news played quietly. She could get used to this routine.
The pair chatted about plans for the next week, about Alicia’s mum going home remarkably happy, and how it was better this way. Mother and daughter had a better understanding now of where the other stood, and what would be acceptable compared with what used to be acceptable a hundred years ago.
Robbie eventually went back to bed, and Alicia was left alone with her thoughts. The first time Richard Hague popped in there, she booted up her laptop and inserted the memory stick Murphy gave her.
Stevenson has a niggle. A worry. A theory. I’d like to see if you agree.
She listened to the conversations recorded from within the compound, picking up on anger and confusion. Before Bill was arrested he seemed to act as leader whenever Kuno was absent, although they deferred to her when they could. Bill toed the line and even quoted her when calming fractious discussions. If that didn’t work and the scene threatened to spill into outright argument, he fell back on his philosophical side, asking questions instead of requesting calm, questions for the aggressors to consider, lasting long enough to defuse the situation.
It worked better with some than others.
Vernon Slater started as receptive, but soon progressed to it winding him up further. When that happened, Norman took him for a walk. Although nothing could be heard of their further conversation, video showed the pair on the archery range.
Later, she watched some actual, honest-to-God, drone footage (no wonder the budget was close to bursting), and listened in to Nick Shepherd consulting on the arrest with the two chief superintendents, Paulson and Nixon. With Philosopher Bill in custody, it took two-to-three hours for that news to filter through to the Institute, and although most expressed annoyance, it wasn’t despair. And when Kuno informed them later that night of his death, the main reaction was sadness.
They did not seem like a group who just lost the man preparing to lead them into battle.
Battle.
Why was she picturing a battle?
Because of the cops inside the school. But that was silly. Not counting Kuno, there were only six members remaining. Six who were not dead, incarcerated, or under an arrest warrant for absconding from their approved probationary residence.
A bomb was ruled out early due to the sniffer dogs. No firearms sequestered in the school, confirmed for the same reason. Chemicals typically used by terrorists—anthrax, sarrin, that sort of thing—were also tested for via a spectral measurement, a device that can pick up the smallest of whiffs if anyone prepared it recently in an enclosed space. They even brought
in an MI5 unit to scan for radioactive material.
All zero.
So what was the plan?
What was Stevenson’s niggle? His theory?
She watched more footage of the residents performing banal hobbies shot at various angles and degrees of zoom, from both before and after Bill’s arrest: archery, fishing, clay pigeon shooting, an impromptu magic show in which Norman Faulkner performed card tricks and seemingly impossible close-up illusions…
That she couldn’t spot Stevenson’s niggle was more troubling than anything.
Bill’s death.
The children found in the forest.
The tongueless paedophile.
Richard bloody Hague.
No matter how vile, no matter how troubling, they were all the past.
Backfill Bobby was the present.
And presently, he was annoying the crap out of her.
She opened other files, older ones they already reviewed this week. A random sample of those residents who abandoned the place. She chose a couple who had already been arrested and returned to prison pending a review of their probation. Both jailed for assault charges, not known to one another before IROMOV, and handy with their fists. Another three, all picked up and sent back inside, at least temporarily: all three for varying degrees of hand-to-hand combat, two choosing their girlfriends as their opponents, the third an old man.
She barely noticed, at 1:00 p.m., as Robbie informed her she was shooting out to Asda.
But then a mental roadblock sprung up and started to annoy her. No way round or over it. It just appeared and sat there, jamming all Alicia’s thought traffic.
As soon as Robbie left.
…shooting out to Asda…
The only thing she could pick up on was something so thin, so silly, she didn’t think it could possibly be Bobby’s niggle.
She called him anyway.
“Alicia, why are you calling?”
She said, “Weapons. It’s weapons, isn’t it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your niggle.”
“Murphy’s been to see you.”
“Yeah. Don’t yell at him too loud. He’ll have a hangover. But I’m right, aren’t I? The remaining IROMOV guys can shoot. Guns, bows, knives … they like weapons.”
Stevenson paused, as if considering his next words carefully. “Alicia, they’re more interested in making the bloody prom go on without a hitch. They’ll concentrate on the IROMOV guys later, once the big money people are happy.”
“Looks like I’m waking Murphy up after all.”
* * *
He was already awake, of course, but for a man of his garrulous years a hangover is an all-day celebration of sticky tongue, thick head, and fume-enhanced burps. Yet he didn’t seem to mind as Alicia showed up at his two-bed terraced house in a nice part of Leeds. He wasn’t officially off the case, as such, but operational control was now with the CTC, overseen directly by Janine Paulson. As he explained to her. Twice.
The second time she asked was just to annoy him.
“Not feeling glum anymore?” Murphy asked her.
“Nope.” She had pushed those annoying emotions away and burst from her apartment with a heavy spring in her step. Didn’t quite resort to changing her stretchy pregnant-lady leggings and shapeless t-shirt, but Murphy wouldn’t mind. “I need you to work your magic and get that prom cancelled.”
* * *
Stevenson declined to call Paulson on the phone, instead insisting they present their findings with a united front. In person. Like Murphy, he was unofficially off the case, starting afresh with Alicia’s duties on Monday, but was required to make himself available to anyone requiring information on the IROMOV investigation.
So it was with only a little trepidation that Alicia persuaded Murphy to wait for him so they could all turn up at Excelsior Academy together.
By the time she talked Murphy around, rendezvoused with Stevenson, and drove out to the school, it was already 4:00 p.m. They encountered a stroke of luck as they flashed their IDs, the guard having remembered Alicia—although not Murphy—from earlier in the week. Armed police were visible up at the main building, and from what Murphy could learn, all the children were forbidden from fraternising outside of that cordon.
Fraternising.
“Mr. Swank’s words,” Murphy said as he pulled into the car park beside Paulson’s vehicle.
The trio were greeted at Nigel Swank’s front door by a uniform nobody recognised—presumably from Harrogate—and he checked their IDs against a list. They were not on it, but Alicia gave him her best smile, made a big deal of her desire to sit down and yet another reference to her need to pass water, and the officer disappeared inside.
It was Paulson who opened the door next.
* * *
Against her better judgement, Paulson admitted PC Pixie, Old Man Murphy, and DS Stevenson. She led them to the living quarters where Nigel Swank, Commissioner Graham Rhapshaw, and Chief Super Daniel Nixon liaised with their various stakeholders via telephone, FaceTime, and Skype.
Swank kept in touch with mothers and fathers, some of whom were on their way up from London after a busy week and a Saturday morning of ruling the world, planning to whisk their offspring away in the morning. Rhapshaw, meanwhile, took on the MPs of said parents, those making forthright noises to impress their most influential constituents, and Daniel Nixon, along with Paulson, coordinated between the armed patrols here and the surveillance team at IROMOV.
“They’re all shooters,” Stevenson said, once he snagged everyone’s attention. “The remaining residents all know how to use deadly force against others. And are willing to do so.”
Paulson thumbed through the one-sheets Stevenson prepared for her. “But this has always been about influencing others. Taking banal and unthreatening people and turning them. I thought that was the point.”
“It still is,” PC Pixie said. “I’m sure someone in the school, on this property, will be helping with whatever they have planned.”
“You know,” Paulson said, “I could be in trouble just talking to you about this case. I have a duty of care—”
“Think of it as my hobby.” She grinned one of those dumb grins. “And I’m good at my hobby. Look, this has to mean something. Do we have eyes on them right now? At the compound.”
Nixon made a call.
Swank said, “This is ridiculous.”
“No,” Murphy said. “It’s frightening. That you’re willing to facilitate this, play on the children’s desire to have this damn prom, to water down the danger…”
Murphy’s words slowed, and Paulson clocked both Alicia and Stevenson eyeing Swank, then looking away.
Murphy sped up again. “You water down the danger so you can keep the kids happy, and they don’t complain to their parents, so you, the man who lives in a mansion at their expense, you get to shine. Well, you need to weigh this risk, mister—”
“All present and accounted for,” Nixon said, hanging up with Nick Shepherd.
“I’m sorry,” Paulson said, trying hard not to focus too much on Nigel Swank. “This new intelligence is disturbing. I strongly advise that we put this prom on hold, at least until we can bring charges against the final IROMOV members, or root out whoever they have coordinating from the inside. Be it a student … or a teacher.”
Swank gripped the lapels of his cloak, one in each hand. If he noticed the additional attention cast upon him, he didn’t show it. “Don’t be preposterous. At this short notice, I’ll get pilloried. And so will you. The children are already getting dressed, putting their faces on. I haven’t seen them this energised since we won the local rugby league.”
“Mr. Swank,” Alicia said. “This is more important than your reputation.”
“If the police are doing their jobs correctly, there will be no risk to life. You’re talking about these people having guns, having bows and arrows. Surely the twenty or so officers you have positioned on the grounds can
manage to fend off half a dozen hooligans.”
The trouble was, he was right. All the suspects remained under the watchful eye of an elite unit, and even if they somehow slipped out, it’s not like they’d be equipped to take on these men.
Alicia said, “But nothing so far has been as it seems. They failed as much as they’ve succeeded, but their successes have been brutal and unexpected.”
“Sleight of hand,” Stevenson offered.
“A magician.” A series of creases formed on PC Pixie’s forehead and she bit her thumbnail as she paced to the window. “We dismissed Norman Faulkner because of his past as a spy. Tolya, they called him.”
She stared across the grounds, this window having a great view of the school itself, the enormous mansion with both wings down opposite sides, the main school in the centre accommodating the great hall where the prom would play out tonight. Paulson had stood at this window herself a lot already today, stiff and observant, considering the welfare of the school’s charges.
“Graham,” Alicia said, turning to the group. “I know you have higher level issues to think about, but what if I’m right? And not only me. Backfill Bobby, Donnie Murphy, and judging by her expression, Chief Superintendent Paulson is coming round too.”
Paulson wasn’t quite there yet, merely considering the logic, so she was reluctant to offer even the slightest affirmation. She said, “It’s your decision, sir.”
Graham Rhapshaw breathed loudly, hooked his thumbs into his belt in a mirror image of Nigel Swank and his professor-like stance. “While the main suspects are still under surveillance, I can’t justify interrupting a very important evening—”
A loud crack split the air outside. Not a boom, not a gunshot, but enough to make every head turn.
“What the hell was that?” Paulson demanded.
But no one offered an answer.
* * *
Nick Shepherd could hardly believe what he just witnessed. His team were covering the remaining six male members of the Institute, even though they had split into three groups. The long-range lenses were enough to maintain good visuals, and the one up-close radar mic provided sound for anyone in the vicinity of the main building.
