by Matt Brolly
‘So you’re not in charge of the case?’
‘No, I shouldn’t really be here.’
‘So what would happen if I phoned up your boss? The Brummie, what’s his name?’
‘DCI Bardsley?’
‘Yes, him.’
‘I don’t know. Could be a rap on the knuckles, could be a suspension.’ The lies dripped off his tongue as if he’d practised them many times before.
‘Well, I haven’t got all day,’ she said. ‘Ask me if you’re going to ask me. Can I get you a tea?’
‘If you’re making one,’ said Lambert.
The woman unfolded her arms and boiled the kettle. Mentioning Sarah May had obviously helped his case. Even the toddler smiled, tilting his head mimicking his mother.
‘It’s a bit awkward, Miss Richardson.’
‘Laney.’
‘Laney, but it’s come to my attention that Kwasi left a note for you.’
The woman’s back tensed as she poured the hot water into two chipped mugs. ‘Who told you that? My solicitor? I didn’t think they were allowed to tell you such things.’
‘No, it wasn’t your solicitor.’
The woman twisted her head to her shoulder as if Lambert was a magician who’d performed an unbelievable trick. ‘I don’t know how you know about it then. It scares me to death just to think about it.’
‘Can I see it?’
She handed him his tea and left the kitchen. The toddler glanced over once more at Lambert and began to wail.
‘Hold on, Kyle,’ she shouted, returning with an opened envelope which she thrust into Lambert’s hands. She swiped her child from the highchair and pulled the boy close, the child’s sobbing fading into the tired fabric of her sweatshirt. Lambert took out the letter which was thirty or forty pages long, double-sided A4.
‘Your husband was busy,’ he said.
‘I didn’t even know he could write,’ she replied, deadpan.
‘Could you summarise it for me?’
‘Sounds like some sort of fantasy story, though there are parts of it I can believe. Are you going to sit down?’ she said, pointing to one of the kitchen chairs. ‘It seems he got into some money trouble a few years back, which is no surprise. Though the lying bastard never told me how much debt he was in. We own this place believe it or not. Bought it years ago from the council. He remortgaged and remortgaged but we could still just about get by. But what he hadn’t told me was that he’d started gambling again.’
Lambert nodded, keen not to interrupt.
Laney sat on one of the chairs, the toddler falling asleep in her arms. ‘Yeah, but not the normal sort of gambling though. Not a few quid here and there on the horses. That would be too easy for him. It lists it all in there,’ she said, pointing at the letter. ‘He was doing private bets with someone or other. The sums got larger and larger. They kept giving him credit, and of course he kept taking their money until he’d reached some sort of limit.’
‘Did he say who these people were?’
‘No, not really. He said they weren’t the sort of people you should owe money to. But that wasn’t the real problem. They threatened to take the flat away you see so he became desperate. He said he’d heard about someone who helped in these sorts of situations. It all makes kind of sense now. He spent the last five years working nearly every day, sometimes day and night. We’d go weeks without seeing him. In the end it became too much and we split up.’
‘So he went to this person for a loan?’ asked Lambert.
‘That he did. You’ll read about it there. Kwasi was never the best with words but he sounded terrified. The man gave him the money and he’s been working for him ever since.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Unimaginable things. Things I’m surprised he had the stomach for. He was scared of spiders you know, even the smallest one I had to rescue from him, tiny ones. He would scream down at me in the middle of the night when he was watching TV. “Laney,” he’d shout, “there’s a spider on the wall.” He’d make me get out of bed in the middle of the night.’ The woman laughed. ‘Silly bastard,’ she said, wiping her eyes with her free hand. ‘Anyway,’ she continued shaking her head as if trying to dislodge something from her hair. ‘So he worked for this guy, Campbell, and then he starts getting scared.’
Lambert flicked through the pages, a mixture of blue and black biro on plain white paper, the handwriting barely legible. He skimmed through to the last couple of pages. The handwriting here was twice the size, scrawled in childish font as if written by someone else. The document made little sense.
‘You see, he was scared. The man had summoned him and he’d just heard about a friend of his, Sam Burnham. He was murdered a few weeks back, I’m sure you know. It was the same…’
‘I know,’ said Lambert.
‘Anyway, he thought he was in trouble. So he wrote that.’
‘Why didn’t you show it to the police?’ asked Lambert.
‘Read it. The Campbell guy sounds like a mad man. Well, he obviously is, isn’t he? Look what he did to Kwasi and that other guy, Sam. I thought if I let you lot know and you didn’t find him he’d come for me.’
‘Is there something else, Laney? Something you’re not showing me.’ The woman placed the child down onto a small cloth sofa, and walked to the kitchen sideboard. She opened the top drawer and pulled out a second envelope.
‘You know his name is Campbell,’ said the woman.
‘Yes,’ said Lambert, trying to keep the growing excitement out of his voice.
‘Well, this is where he lives,’ she said, handing him the envelope.
Chapter 42
The man’s outline blurred into view. May squinted through her one good eye, the other sealed shut from the initial attack.
‘Some water?’ said the man.
May attempted to speak, the words lost in her throat. A dry rasping sound escaped from her mouth. The man pulled her hair back and parted her lips. May maintained eye contact as the cold water trickled down her throat. She struggled, her wrists and ankles bound tight on a cast iron chair as she choked on the liquid.
The man released his grip. ‘More?’
It had been at least twenty-four hours since she’d been taken. She couldn’t remember anything about the journey from outside the hotel to her current location. She’d awoken in the darkness a few times, her limbs heavy, her body desperate for liquid. Each time she’d tried to stay awake only to fall back asleep within seconds. She wanted to accept more water, though feared the liquid was drugged.
‘It’s merely water,’ said the man, reading her thoughts.
May nodded and he tipped more water down her throat. Her body was damp with sweat. She’d wet herself during the night, her underwear and trousers were damp and sticky. ‘Can I have a shower?’ she asked, her voice little more than a rasp. She knew the answer but wanted to start a dialogue.
‘I’ll bring you some food later,’ he said.
May fought the drowsiness, the remnants of whatever drug he’d pumped into her still circling her bloodstream. ‘What happened to Sean?’ she asked, remembering the glint of silver. Her ex-boyfriend’s vacant eyes, the slash of red on his neck.
‘He won’t be troubling you any more, Sarah.’
‘And me. Am I going to be one of your victims?’ She needed to keep him talking. Adrenalin flooded her system as she asked him the question. She tried not to think of his previous victims. What they’d endured before their death. Her mind was still sluggish as she tried to reconcile this new information. She remembered each of the victims, desperate to discover their connection to the man who stood before her. The man who was now walking to the door.
‘I sincerely hope not,’ said the man, switching off the light and closing the door.
Chapter 43
He had to hand it to her. Laney Richardson was one hell of an actress. She’d played her role to perfection: the grieving ex-wife. The reluctant and practised way she’d revealed the details of the lette
r Kwasi had left her.
It was all staged. Lambert was being further drawn in. What began with the photos sent to Klatzky was now reaching its conclusion. The killer was drawing him in, snaring him into a trap. Only, this time his potential victim was wise to the trick.
He studied the two documents on the journey home. With his smartphone he took pictures of each page and emailed them to his account. The more he read, the more he became accustomed to Kwasi’s handwriting style. The words began to flow, though the language itself was often incoherent. The more he read, the more he admired Kwasi. It sounded as if everything he did was for his family, knowing that if he didn’t do as Campbell asked then the man would come after his ex-wife and child.
The last entry came from his time at the hospital, following his altercation with Lambert. He must have posted the envelope to his ex-wife before escaping from police custody.
From the second envelope, Lambert took out a lone piece of paper, on which was printed Campbell’s address. He couldn’t call Bardsley, Nielson, or even Tillman for that matter. He had to consider Sarah May’s safety.
The letter was a trap. If Campbell was the Souljacker, and the killer of Samuel Burnham and Kwasi Olumide, then it sounded unfeasible that he would have allowed such a slip up, that he would have so readily given away his address, unless he wanted Lambert to come to him alone. If Lambert told the police about the note they would never find Campbell at the house. He was one step ahead of them all.
In the document, Kwasi wrote about attacking Lambert in Bristol, how he’d been instructed to pick up Lambert alive. Then the style of the letter changed. The handwriting became wild, as if a child had scribbled it. ‘The man Lambert surprised us,’ he wrote. ‘He broke my fucking leg.’
Back home, Lambert noticed one of the two locks on his front door was unlocked. Lambert distinctly remembered double locking before he’d left that morning. Despite his hangover, he recalled Nielson’s glare as he bent down to the second lock. It was after midnight. He’d not given a spare set of keys to Klatzky and he presumed Sophie was still at the hotel. He peered through the windows and pressed his ear to the front door. He thought he could see a shadow moving within.
He put a key into the Yale lock and twisted it slowly, groaning inwardly as the door creaked.
He left the door ajar as he tiptoed down the hallway.
‘Is that you, Michael?’ said Sophie, as he reached the kitchen.
‘Jesus, Soph, I thought we had burglars.’
‘Burglars who shut the door after them?’
‘What can you say, they’re a polite lot around here,’ said Lambert. The memory of last night’s revelation rushed him. He gazed at Sophie’s stomach where the alien body grew.
‘I’m going to Mum and Dad’s for a week or so. I’ve asked for some leave from work.’
‘Have you told them about…you know,’ said Lambert nodding his head towards her stomach.
‘No not yet, it’s too early for that.’
‘Look, Soph, I’m the one who should move out. I’ve been thinking. You can have the house. We can sort something out financially.’
‘Let’s not rush into anything,’ said Sophie. ‘I know it must have been difficult for you to hear that last night. Let me go away for the week and we’ll talk when I come back.’
‘Okay,’ said Lambert, though he couldn’t see what else there was to discuss. ‘Is it possible to borrow your car?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Are you sure you want to drive it?’
‘Bit of an emergency,’ he said.
‘You want it now?’
‘Yes please.’
She handed him the keys. ‘I’ll get a taxi. You know where I’ll be,’ she said, kissing him on the cheek.
‘You’re leaving now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Be safe,’ he said, ten minutes later when the taxi arrived.
‘And you.’ She pulled him close, surprised him by kissing him hard on the lips. He watched her walk to the taxi and closed the door.
After she’d gone, he ran upstairs and logged onto The System. He sent a delayed, encrypted email to Tillman telling him where he was going. He timed it to be sent ten hours later which would give him enough time to cancel it if needed. He ran a search on the address Kwasi’s widow had given him. The house was owned by a company called Oblong Industries. It was a holding company, the director’s names were figureheads from a company formation firm. Lambert would need a warrant to find out the actual owner’s name. By then it would be too late. He shut down The System. To the left of his desk was a walk-in wardrobe. Lambert pulled a row of hanging shirts to one side, revealing a wall safe. He punched in an eight-digit code and opened the safe door. He hesitated, then reached in for the gun.
He’d acquired the gun, a Glock 22, whilst working for The Group. It was a gun he’d used on secondment in the USA some years before. Tillman had issued him with an official firearm at the time but Lambert had decided he’d needed a backup weapon. It was easy enough to come by. He strapped on the harness and holster. The harness was so new the leather creaked as he strapped it around his body. He pulled on his jacket to cover the gun and practised accessing it with quick, rapid movements. An action he’d practised thousands of times before, in those initial months in Tillman’s department. He clicked a magazine in place and placed the gun into the holster.
Outside, the streetlights glistened in the night air. Lambert hurried to Sophie’s car which was parked opposite the house. If Nielson or any of his colleagues appeared now and discovered him carrying the weapon Lambert would face a custodial sentence. Even Tillman would struggle to help him.
Sophie’s car was two years old. She’d purchased it with the insurance money from the crash. It was the first time Lambert had sat in it. It was a different make and model to her last one, but the fact that it came from the insurance money had been enough for Lambert to avoid it.
But there was no time to hire a car. Campbell wanted him there alone and if it was his best chance to save Sarah May then he was prepared to take that risk. He punched the address into the satnav on his phone, and followed a route around the south circular.
Memories of the accident threatened to engulf him at every turn. If he let it, he knew his mind would play tricks on him. It would create visions of Chloe in the passenger seat, seatbelt on, kicking her legs in excitement as Daddy drove her through the night to her grandparents’ house. Lambert used a trick he’d learnt from the internet to keep the memories at bay. He took the images of that night and imagined placing them in a box, locking it tight with numerous unbreakable locks and chains. The psychologist he’d had to endure for the year following Chloe’s death would no doubt have said it was an unhealthy form of repression but he needed it to work now.
He turned his thoughts to Sarah May. He was sure she was still alive and this fuelled his urgency. He weaved through the traffic, getting used to the light controls of Sophie’s car. Soon he was in the backwaters of Surrey, his satnav guiding him through single-track lanes in the countryside. He passed the occasional house wondering how people could live in such solitude. He’d decided long ago he didn’t need to speak to people all the time but he liked having them around.
The ETA on the satnav stated he was two minutes away. He slowed the car preparing himself for whatever lay ahead. ‘You have reached your destination,’ said the electronic female voice. Before him was the entrance to a muddied lane. Twisted vines grew over unkempt bushes. It didn’t look as if there was enough space to manoeuvre the car through the narrow gap. He wanted to go by foot, not announce himself to Campbell. He drove three hundred yards further along the road until he found a small layby. He parked Sophie’s hatchback into the space, driving the left side of the car into thick brambles so there was enough space for other vehicles to drive by.
He switched off the car and thought about calling Tillman or Bardsley for backup. He considered the pros and cons, and decided Campbell would not tolerate such intrusion. It w
as only a hunch but it was all he had. The best chance of finding Sarah May alive depended on him going alone. It was pure instinct and instinct had served him well in the past.
He patted the gun in his inside jacket pocket and left the car. It was almost pitch black, no streetlights illuminating the night. Clouds blocked out the stars, and the odd drop of rain dripped onto Lambert’s head. He stopped a hundred yards from the lane spotting a hole in the bushes which lined the dirt road. He clambered beneath hoping to find a less obvious route to the house.
His jacket caught on a loose vine. It pulled at the material ripping the skin beneath. Lambert muttered under his breath as a brief wave of pain ran up the left side of his body and vanished, leaving only a dull ache in its wake.
The house was visible from the other side of the bushes. It was a derelict building swamped by trees and unkempt bushes. As he edged closer he made out the front garden. Overgrown grass darted upwards from chipped patio slates. Lambert saw a solitary light burning in one of the downstairs rooms.
A lone car sat in the driveway. A silver Mercedes, the one which had followed him from Bristol. Lambert crept along the pathway, using the downstairs light of the house as a guide. A gate separated the house from the woodland. The top of the gate was covered in a thick, slimy substance. Lambert pushed both hands down onto the gate and thrust himself over, landing with a squelch into a puddle of mud. He wiped the walking boots he’d bought for the journey on a grass verge, and pulled out the gun
He edged closer to the house, trying to keep to the shadows. The downstairs light was to his left. He waited for movement but nothing stirred. He pressed his body up against the house. The bricks were coated with lines of uneven stone which pulled at his jacket and skin. He moved towards the back of the house. A wood-panelled door led to a kitchen area.
Lambert pressed the handle and was surprised when the door opened. He edged into the kitchen and surveyed the room. He held the gun in front of him, cautious of any possible surprises. The kitchen lent weight to the argument that the house was uninhabitable. The air was ripe with the stench of mouldy food and something else, a bitter acrid smell.
