Stay Alive

by Simon Kernick

  They worked through the house, moving quickly. Because the place was so tidy, it didn’t have a very lived-in feel, but it didn’t look much like a show home either. The furniture was old-fashioned and worn, and most of it had probably belonged to Hope’s mother. It was the same with the pictures on the wall. They were old prints of animals and country scenes and reminded Bolt of the ones in his grandparents’ old house. There were no photographs on display anywhere. In fact, there wasn’t much of anything – no books; a handful of CDs and DVDs; a few stacks of old utility bills – and certainly nothing that might suggest that Leonard Hope was a prolific and extremely dangerous serial killer. The only computer equipment he owned was an Acer laptop in his bedroom, and there was nothing untoward in the recent Internet history. He liked to visit news sites, and several of the pages he’d viewed referred to the police hunt for The Disciple, and the murders of George Rowan and Ivana Hanzha, but then he also liked to visit cookery and DIY sites. Officially, the terms of the search warrant didn’t allow for a search of the hard drives of any computer on the premises, but Bolt made a copy of the hard drive anyway, figuring he could at least trawl through it unofficially.

  Every five minutes, he received a radio update from the DS running the current surveillance team. Hope was still making deliveries, and none of the team knew how many more he had to make, but in the two days they’d been following him, he’d been back at 6.01 and 6.06 p.m. respectively, which meant they had to keep an eye on the time.

  As it happened, it took Mo and Bolt barely half an hour to cover the whole house. As well as searching in every available bit of storage space, they’d also checked for any false walls, loose pieces of carpet and floorboards, under which a knife could be concealed, but without success.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Mo, joining Bolt at the top of the stairs. ‘Either he’s very careful, or he’s innocent.’

  ‘He’s not innocent,’ said Bolt, who was having difficulty keeping a lid on his frustration. He’d been expecting to find at least some clue to Hope’s guilt, even if it was just a few books on devil worship, or some perverted porn in the Internet history of his laptop. Very few serious criminals hid all traces of their guilt, especially those who had no obvious reason to expect a visit from the law. He exhaled loudly. ‘There’s still one place left to look.’ He pointed to the hatch above their heads that led into the loft.

  Mo looked at his watch. ‘Have we got time? It’s 5.15. He’s not going to be that much longer.’

  ‘He’s in Hayes at the moment, according to Grier, so even if he turned round and came straight back here, he’d be a good half hour. We’ve got time.’

  ‘Did you see a ladder in here anywhere? Because I didn’t.’

  Bolt frowned. ‘No, I didn’t. And we searched the place well enough.’

  ‘So he probably never goes up there.’

  ‘Or he doesn’t want anyone else going up there.’ He grinned at Mo. ‘Come on. Jump on my shoulders. I’ll get you up there.’

  Mo pulled a face. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’

  Bolt shrugged. ‘Well, it’s either that or I get on your shoulders.’ At six foot three and weighing just short of fifteen stone, he was a lot bigger and heavier than Mo, who stood barely five foot eight.

  ‘This is going to look very silly, boss.’

  ‘Then it’s a good thing no one’s going to see us then, isn’t it?’ He went down on one knee and leaned forward.

  With a shake of his head, Mo came over and gingerly sat down on his shoulders, while Bolt got slowly to his feet directly beneath the hatch. ‘Christ, I think you need to lose some weight,’ he muttered.

  ‘I have. You obviously need to get to the gym more.’ Mo hauled the hatch open with a grunt.

  There was a sudden sound of something falling, and Mo yelled out and threw himself backwards off Bolt’s shoulders, sending the two of them crashing to the landing floor.

  Bolt landed badly, the side of his head striking the corner of one of the walls. He turned round and saw that Mo had actually fallen back through the open door into Hope’s bedroom, and was in the process of sitting up unsteadily and rubbing the back of his head. ‘What the hell was that all about?’

  Mo pointed. ‘Look.’

  Which was when Bolt saw the two-foot metal spike impaled in the landing carpet directly beneath the hatch, and barely an inch from the sole of his foot. Two lead dive weights had been tied to the spike to make it fall faster, and the whole contraption was attached to a taut length of cable that ran back into the darkness of the loft. What was certain was that it could easily have killed either of them if Mo hadn’t reacted when he did. ‘Jesus Christ, he booby-trapped it.’

  Through the shock of their near miss, Bolt felt a sense of elation, because now he knew for certain that Leonard Hope was their man. No innocent person would install a device designed to kill anyone who tried to break into their loft. He had to be hiding something up there.

  At that moment, the VHF radio in Bolt’s jacket crackled into life. It was DS Dan Grier, the head of the surveillance team. ‘Bravo One to Omega. Target X is now heading west on the A40, just passing the Polish War Memorial.’

  Bolt sat up, wondering if Hope was on his way back home. ‘Omega to Bravo One. What’s the traffic like?’

  ‘Thinner than usual, and he’s making good time. I’ve got him going about fifty at the moment. Have you found anything useful yet?’

  Bolt looked at the spike again. ‘Not sure,’ he answered, ‘but whatever you do, don’t lose him. I repeat: Do not lose him. And keep us posted of his progress. We’re going to be in here a few minutes yet.’

  ‘Come on, boss, let’s just get out of here,’ said Mo as they got to their feet. ‘We’ve got enough to charge him with now thanks to that bloody thing, and we can send the specialists up there later to check for any booby traps.’

  Bolt could see that Mo was shaken up, and he couldn’t blame him. He was shaken up too. But he was also curious. ‘I want to know what he’s hiding. I’m going up. I’ll have to get on your shoulders.’

  ‘But boss . . .’

  ‘Look, I’ve sweated this case for six months now – we both have. If this is our man, I want to know now.’

  Seeing that he wasn’t going to persuade him otherwise, Mo reluctantly bent down and waited while Bolt clambered onto his shoulders and slowly lifted his head into the gloom of the loft.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ he said, shining his torch inside and seeing the crudely painted pentacles lining the walls. ‘We’ve got him.’

  Twenty-four

  ‘OMEGA TO BRAVO One. Give me the target’s current location.’

  Bolt could hear the sound of his heart beating as he stood on the landing next to the metal spike still impaled on the floor. In his free hand, he was holding a clear plastic bag containing a still-bloodied hunting knife with a serrated edge, and what appeared to be two bent teeth on the blade where the pathologist had suggested they’d be. The chances of it not being the murder weapon in at least three of the murders had to be as close to zero as you were going to get. Bolt had found the knife within a couple of minutes of clambering into the loft. It was taped to the inside of the water tank, where Hope had made only a cursory attempt to hide it.

  There was almost certainly plenty of other evidence against him up there as well. There’d been a desktop computer on a desk in one corner, and Bolt was certain it would provide a wealth of information. The loft – festooned as it was with Satanic symbols, and scrawled messages celebrating violence and death carved into the walls and supporting beams – was clearly the place where Leonard Hope relived his bloody crimes, and Bolt didn’t want to spend any more time up there than he had to. A SOCO team could deal with all that. The important thing now was simply to get this bastard into custody, and fast.

  ‘Bravo One to Omega. Target is proceeding south on Hangar Lane, just passing the turning to Beaufort Road now. At this rate and in this traffic, ETA is somewhere between five and seven mi
nutes. Are you still inside? Over.’

  ‘We are, and we’re coming out now. We now have definite evidence that Hope’s our man. I repeat: definite evidence, and we need to make an arrest ASAP. I want your whole team to follow him back here. We’ll be waiting in our car on the street. As soon as he parks up, we take him down. Is that clear?’

  ‘Bravo One to Omega. Clear as a bell. We’re on him like glue.’

  ‘Just make sure he doesn’t spot the tail. We can’t afford to mess this up.’

  Bolt replaced the radio in his jacket pocket, keeping the mike open so he could hear the chatter of the surveillance team as they escorted an unsuspecting Leonard Hope right into the trap that they were laying for him, then turned to Mo. ‘Right, are you ready?’

  ‘Don’t you think it would be best if we get a TSG team down here?’ asked Mo, who was still looking a little pale as he followed his boss down the stairs.

  Bolt smiled grimly. ‘The bastard’s caused me more sleepless nights than I care to remember, and that booby trap of his almost killed us, so I think we deserve to be the ones to make the collar.’

  ‘To be honest, I’d just as happily leave it to the TSG. I’m a lover not a fighter.’

  ‘As I’ve heard many times, my friend, but don’t worry. I wouldn’t put a Lothario like you at risk. You can hang back until we’ve got him safely under control, then join in. That way you can pretend you’re both.’ Bolt felt a sense of elation as they walked back to the car. They’d finally got the man who’d haunted his dreams, and made his life a misery these past few months.

  But as they got back to the car, the surveillance chatter took on a renewed urgency. As Bolt yanked the radio out of his jacket, he heard Bravo One, DS Grier, shout that the target was making a break for it.

  ‘Omega to Bravo One,’ Bolt yelled into the handset, ‘what the hell’s going on?’

  ‘Bravo One to Omega, suspect has just made a sharp turn into Woodville Gardens and is now heading west. He’s going fast. I think he must have spotted the tail, although I can’t see how.’

  ‘Omega to Bravo One. Take him down now. We’re on our way to meet you. Confirm the vehicle he’s driving.’

  ‘White Ford Ka van with Speedy Mail Couriers written on the side.’

  As DS Grier reeled off the registration number, Mo started punching keys on the car’s satnav.

  ‘Find Woodville Gardens,’ Bolt told him as Grier’s voice came over the radio again, telling them that Hope had now made another turn, narrowly missing a woman pedestrian. ‘He’s driving like a lunatic,’ shouted Grier. ‘We may have to abandon the pursuit.’

  ‘Omega to Bravo One, stick with him!’ Bolt shouted into the radio as he pulled away from the kerb. ‘We can’t afford to lose this guy.’

  ‘Up to the end of the street and turn right,’ said Mo. ‘We might be able to intercept him.’

  ‘Call backup. I want this whole place flooded with coppers, plus helicopters. If he escapes, we’ve had it.’

  Bolt barely stopped at the end of the street before swinging a hard right, and accelerating away. He couldn’t believe that Hope had spotted the tail five minutes from home after it had been glued to him for the previous forty-eight hours. It was bad luck in the extreme, but that no longer mattered. The important thing was to stop him, but Bolt knew full well that if Hope continued to drive like a lunatic, especially in winding residential streets like this, and with darkness beginning to fall, they’d have to abandon the chase. The rules of police pursuits in the UK are some of the strictest in the world, and Bolt knew it wouldn’t just be him who suffered if something went wrong – like a civilian getting injured, or even killed – but every other copper involved as well. But he wasn’t prepared to give up now, not when they were this close to a man who’d murdered nine people.

  ‘Next left,’ hissed Mo, interrupting his conversation with the emergency dispatcher.

  Bolt yanked the wheel, making the turn, imagining what the media would say if The Disciple escaped now. There’d be a firestorm, and he’d be right in the middle of it.

  ‘Bravo One to all cars!’ shouted Grier over the radio. ‘He’s just turned into Hillcroft Crescent, now heading north. He must be going sixty! Oh shit—’

  ‘Omega to Bravo One, what’s going on?’

  ‘A car’s just pulled out in front of us . . . He’s blocking the road . . . We’re trying to pass.’ Bolt heard the sound of horns, and cursing. ‘Bravo One to all cars, we’ve lost the eyeball. We think he might have turned into Park Hill.’

  ‘All right, boss, we’re near,’ said Mo. ‘Make a left here.’

  Bolt barely slowed up as he turned into yet another residential street, the tyres of the Audi A4 he was driving wailing angrily. It was almost dark now and he knew he was going to have to be careful not to get in an accident. A primary school loomed up on the left, then a church. He saw a mother walking hand in hand with two young children and, hearing his rapid approach, she turned and gave him an angry look, motioning for him to slow down, although he wondered if she’d be quite so annoyed if she knew the identity of the man he was after. On the radio, the different cars of the surveillance team were communicating in short, urgent bursts, but it was clear that none of them had Hope’s van in their sights.

  ‘Okay, boss, left again up here. I think we may be able to cut him off.’

  Gritting his teeth, Bolt made the turn.

  ‘Park Hill’s just up here on the right. It’s about another fifty yards.’

  But Mo had barely finished speaking when a white van came hurtling out of a side road, clipping a car parked on the other side, before righting itself and driving up the street away from them.

  Bolt didn’t even bother to read the registration number. He knew it was Hope and he slammed his foot hard on the accelerator, giving chase.

  Up ahead, a car was coming down on the other side of the road, but it was veering out towards the middle. Hope, who was rapidly picking up speed, swerved to avoid it, hit another parked car and lost control of the van completely, scraping another couple of cars before mounting the pavement and smacking into a wall.

  ‘Right we’ve got you now!’ yelled Bolt triumphantly. Only fifty metres separated him from Hope’s van and the speed he was going he’d cover the ground in a few seconds, and then finally they’d be able to take him down.

  Up ahead, a figure jumped out of the van and sprinted away from it, while the car that had been coming the other way pulled up on some double yellow lines, its driver opening the door to get out.

  Bolt sounded his horn to warn the driver to stay in the car, making no attempt to slow down.

  ‘Careful, boss,’ said Mo, gripping his seat, as Bolt raced towards the stricken van.

  And then, as they drew level with the turning from which Hope’s van had emerged only a few seconds earlier, a sudden glare of headlights loomed up out of nowhere as a car came flying out far too fast, shunting the Audi in the side like a bumper car and sending it spinning round a hundred and eighty degrees in a sickening shriek of metal. Bolt didn’t have time to react before they hit a parked car sideways-on and came to a crunching halt.

  For a second, neither he nor Mo moved. The other car was a few yards away, smoke rising from its ruined bonnet. Both occupants – a man and a woman – looked shocked but otherwise unhurt, and Bolt recognized them instantly as two of the surveillance team.

  Then his instincts kicked in. Jumping out of the car, he shouted for Mo to follow him, and took off after Hope at a sprint. He could make out the faint wail of sirens coming from more than one direction, but they were still too far away to be of any help, and there was no immediate sign of the rest of the surveillance team. Grabbing his radio, he was about to shout his current location, but realized he didn’t know the street name, so pocketed it. Right now he was on his own. And, full to the brim with adrenalin and aggression, that suited him just fine.

  He couldn’t see Hope any more, but there was no way he’d be hiding behind one of the
cars. He’d be trying to put as much distance between himself and his pursuers as possible. There was a left turning up ahead and Bolt took it at a sprint. He didn’t have time to look for a road sign but just kept running. Unlike Mo, he not only liked to keep fit, but also to make his own collars. Too many times these days, the detectives left it to the TSG, the Territorial Support Group (the Met’s version of the Riot Police), to arrest the suspects, but for Bolt there was nothing better than taking down the person you’d been hunting. It was one of the great joys of the job and he felt a real exhilaration now as he ran alone down the cool, night street, ignoring the pain in his side from the impact of the crash.

  Hope was in his sights now, thirty yards away and running, which was when Bolt noticed something strange. It looked as if he was on the phone. They’d always been convinced he was working alone, but it suddenly struck Bolt that maybe they were wrong. Maybe he had an accomplice. Serial killers had worked together before. It was rare but not unheard of, and, in this case, it made sense. It was no easy task to control and restrain a couple, but if there were two of you . . .

  Bolt redoubled his pace, his footfalls heavy on the pavement. Hope was a big man and well built, but Bolt felt sure he could take him alone if he had to.

  Hope must have heard his pursuit because he pocketed the phone and looked back over his shoulder, suddenly increasing his own pace, but he was nowhere near as fast as Bolt, and barely fifteen yards separated them now. Bolt felt his excitement growing. Hope was running like a desperate man, his gait ungainly, and there was no way he could keep it up for much longer.

  When there were only ten yards between them, Hope turned into another side street, almost tripping over his feet in the process, and Bolt sensed victory. So much so that he didn’t even slow down as he followed his quarry round the corner, and was subsequently completely surprised to see Hope right in front of him, swinging an arm through the air.