Stay Alive

by Simon Kernick

  As they stepped inside the front gate, Bolt could see that the lights were on behind drawn curtains on the cottage’s first floor.

  ‘Well, someone’s in,’ he said, stopping halfway up the garden path that led to the front door.

  ‘Or they’ve been and gone, and left the lights on,’ suggested Mo.

  ‘Maybe.’ Bolt pulled out his mobile and once again dialled Amanda’s landline. The phone rang for thirty seconds and went to voicemail, but he didn’t leave a message. He turned to Mo. ‘What do you think?’

  Mo stared at the door. ‘It’s possible she’s in there under duress. When did you leave the first message for her on the landline?’

  ‘Hours ago. After we left Vlad’s place.’

  ‘It was daylight then and when we first came by, the curtains weren’t drawn. Which means she’s picked the message up.’ He looked at Bolt. ‘Or someone else has.’

  ‘I don’t like this.’

  ‘Me neither. Shall we take a look round the back?’

  Bolt nodded, and they walked slowly round the side of the cottage. There was a small driveway at the back that led onto a single-track road, and a newish-looking Alfa Romeo was parked there, out of sight of the neighbours’ houses.

  Bolt walked over to it, careful not to make too much noise on the gravel, and felt the bonnet.

  ‘Still warm,’ he whispered to Mo. ‘Do you remember if Amanda drove an Alfa Romeo? I don’t remember seeing one when we went to their house after the murders.’

  Mo shrugged. ‘I honestly can’t remember.’

  Bolt looked at the back of the cottage. The curtains were drawn there as well. ‘Can you do me a favour and get onto Grier, see if he’s still up, and ask him to run a check on these plates urgently?’

  As Mo slipped into the shadow of an old potting shed to make the call, Bolt approached the cottage and listened at the glass. It was silent inside, but he maintained his position for a good minute, and then he heard the sound of a toilet flushing somewhere inside, followed by the sound of footsteps coming closer. Someone was coming into the room closest to where he was standing. Whoever it was cleared his throat, and it was definitely a ‘he’ by the sound he made. Then the room descended into silence once again.

  So there was a man in Amanda’s house, and one who wasn’t prepared to answer the phone. Bolt decided it was definitely time to bring in reinforcements if they were available.

  And it seemed they might be because, as he crept back towards the potting shed, he heard the distinctive sound of distant rotor blades. Turning, he saw two sets of red and white lights in the night sky a couple of miles away, heading in towards Tayleigh. The cavalry had finally arrived.

  He turned back to Mo and, as soon as he saw Mo’s face, Bolt knew there’d been some kind of breakthrough. The excitement was written all over it.

  ‘You’re not going to believe this, boss,’ he whispered when they were both in the shadow of the shed. ‘The Alfa Romeo’s only registered to our esteemed clinical psychologist, Dr Thom Folkestone.’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Bolt, his voice loud in the silence as, suddenly, for the first time, everything in this whole complex inquiry made sense.

  Fifty-four

  AMANDA ROWAN HAD always thought of herself as a good person, but also one who’d made some wrong choices. And one of those wrong choices was Thom Folkestone.

  She’d first met him at university twenty years earlier. Thom had been a real charmer: good-looking; witty and intelligent; interested in philosophy. Amanda had been attracted to him immediately, although it hadn’t been until the second year that they’d started dating. Theirs was an intense relationship. Everything about it was full-on: the sex; the drug taking; and, of course, the arguments. Nothing and no one else seemed to matter when they were together. The whole world was just the two of them.

  It had been fun – God, it had been fun – but there’d always been something unhealthy about their feelings for each other. During one of their more intense rows, Amanda had smashed a wine glass against the wall and tried to slash his arm with it. But Thom had been too fast, and he’d twisted her wrist viciously until she’d been forced to let go of the glass. He’d slapped her too. Hard round the face.

  What followed had been one of the most savage, brutal and amazing bouts of lovemaking Amanda had ever experienced. Thom had had this way of tapping into her dark side, and bringing it further and further into the open and, in the end, it had only been a matter of time before they’d started talking about jointly inflicting pain on someone else. At first it was just that. Talk. What would it be like to kill a girl? Possess her, use her, then simply discard her, like a used toy. Thom had justified it using the Nietzschean philosophy he was so into, with its core belief that the weak were always going to be devoured by the strong. That was simply the way of the world and all she and Thom would be doing was following the path that nature in its wisdom had intended. If she wanted to go on seeing him, he told her, then she was going to have to be a participant, not just a passive observer. And she’d wanted Thom so badly, she hadn’t turned and run when she’d had the chance. He was like a drug to her. An addiction she couldn’t shake.

  And then they’d chanced upon a young French student called Beatrice Magret. The year was 1998 and Amanda had been twenty-two years old. Beatrice had been hitchhiking as Amanda and Thom had driven past her on the way to Glastonbury festival. They’d picked her up, got chatting, and had decided to stop in some isolated woods en route for a joint and a late picnic. They’d smoked a hell of a lot of dope together and time had just seemed to run away from them. Thom had suggested a threesome and Beatrice, as stoned as they were, had agreed.

  But Thom had got carried away and had started hurting Beatrice. Amanda had joined in, holding her down while Thom had finished her off.

  Afterwards, she’d been in shock. They’d killed someone. Thom had told her not to worry about it, that this was nature’s way of natural selection – the strong ridding the world of the weak. But the guilt had preyed on Amanda and she was hugely relieved when it turned out that the police had no leads.

  She’d also forced herself to leave him and break her addiction, and they’d ended up going their separate ways.

  It would be many years before Amanda saw Thom again. By that time she was married to George, another relationship that had already run its course, thanks to the fact that there was no prospect of him providing her with children. She’d contacted Thom through Facebook, found out that he was single, and they’d arranged to meet for a drink in London. She knew in her heart that seeing him was a bad move, but she seemed unable to stop herself and, true to form, the intense relationship they’d had before was immediately rekindled.

  Thom wanted her to leave George, but for a while she’d resisted, and it might just have remained an affair had she not found out about George’s own affair with Ivana, which was when events took a more lethal turn. Thom came up with the idea of killing them both and making it look like the work of The Disciple, using his inside knowledge of the case.

  At first, Amanda had been reluctant, thinking it too risky, but Thom had persuaded her it could be done. After all, had they not got away with murder before? The more she thought about it, the better she liked the idea, and it would serve that philandering bastard George right.

  So she’d agreed.

  The plan itself was flawless. Amanda had got herself an alibi by travelling to London to see her father for the night, already knowing from his emails that George had arranged to spend the night with Ivana at their home. She’d stage-managed an argument with her father (never a problem given his cantankerous nature) and driven back home early. Thom had already let himself in the back door using the keys she’d given him, having earlier blacked out the CCTV camera so it couldn’t record him.

  He’d wanted her to take part in the actual murders themselves, but she’d refused, not at all sure she had the stomach for them, and instead timed her arrival for just after they’d been co
mmitted.

  Thom had been insistent that when Amanda came in the house, she should act as naturally as possible. He wanted her to put all thoughts of what they’d done out of her mind. She had to play the part of an innocent woman right down to the last detail, because that way, when she recounted what had happened to the police, there’d be no way she’d contradict herself. So they’d acted out the whole thing. Her calling out to George as if she was expecting him to answer; the ambush on the landing; her fleeing down the stairs and out through the front door, even the fake tattoo on his left arm. Just to add to the authenticity, Thom hadn’t even warned her he was going to cut her with the knife. Although she’d been furious at the time (as well as in a hell of a lot of pain), Amanda had had to admit it had been a masterstroke on his part. As had been the chase, which had totally fooled the police.

  In the end, there’d only ever been one hitch, and that was the fact that Ivana had managed to scratch Thom’s neck, drawing blood, before he could restrain her properly. Even though he’d done everything he could to clear it up before it contaminated the scene, he hadn’t been successful, and the police had managed to get a DNA sample.

  Although Amanda didn’t like to admit it to herself, she knew it was only a matter of time before the police caught up with Thom, and then her. The problem was that the intense attraction they’d felt for each other all those years ago was still there, which was why she’d arranged for him to drive up to see her tonight, even though they both knew they were taking a huge risk contacting each other at all.

  But, as she backed the Land Rover down the track and into the entrance to her rear garden, her heart still thumping from the ordeal of the last few hours, she knew she was going to have to do something about him, and sooner rather than later.

  Turning round in the driver’s seat, she held up the Stanley knife, using her thumb to expose the blade, so that Jess could see it glinting in the darkness. ‘Make another noise and I’ll kill you, understand?’

  Jess nodded, her eyes wide with fear, and Amanda slipped out of the car, checking her neighbours’ windows to make sure no one was snooping on her. There were old people on either side and, although nosy, they tended to go to bed early, which suited her fine. She was annoyed that Thom had parked his car there, though. She’d told him to park out of the way so that no one would know he was here. Her plan was to spend a couple of days in bed with him, then have him slip away under cover of the night and head back down south. Now it was obvious she had a visitor.

  She was about to phone Thom and tell him to help her with Jess when the back door to the cottage opened and he stepped out into the darkness.

  It had been three weeks since Amanda had last seen him, but the sight of him standing there – tall, broad, hair tousled – sent shivers down her spine. He was her one true weakness.

  Thom came over and they embraced, holding each other tight, her head buried in his neck, taking in his smell.

  ‘Are you all right, darling?’ he asked.

  She sighed, amazed that she hadn’t gone into shock yet. She knew she was tough but, even so, the ordeal she’d experienced had taken her right to the edge. ‘I think so. I just want to make my report to the police, and come back here and be with you.’

  ‘Have you got the girl?’

  ‘She’s in there. Can you deal with her before I get back?’

  He smiled. ‘With pleasure.’

  She opened up the back of the Land Rover and the two of them looked down at Jess, who was shivering on the floor, hands trussed behind her back, mouth gagged.

  Thom let out an appreciative murmur and reached out for Jess’s legs. ‘Now this really is a nice surprise. You’ve surpassed yourself this time, Amanda.’

  The terror was coming off Jess in waves. The woman she thought was her friend had changed into a monster, and there was no one left to help her. She had no idea where she was, just that whatever she’d been brought here for, it wasn’t good.

  Now she was staring up at Amanda and a big, good-looking man in his thirties. The man was smiling at her, and making a satisfied, grunting noise, as if he’d just been presented with a really good meal. He leaned in, grabbing Jess’s ankles, and said, ‘Now this really is a nice surprise. You’ve surpassed yourself this time, Amanda.’

  Jess tried to move away from him, but he dragged her out of the back of the Land Rover easily.

  Then, as they sat her down on the edge of the vehicle, with Amanda holding the Stanley knife close to her face to prevent her doing anything stupid, Jess caught a blur of movement behind them as two figures approached, running.

  Fifty-five

  DURING HIS DAYS in The Flying Squad, the Metropolitan Police’s specialist Armed Robbery Unit, Mike Bolt had been taught that, when ambushing armed robbers, sudden overwhelming force, delivered without any warning whatsoever – be it with fists, guns, or even planks of wood – was by far the most effective means of bringing down men with guns, and could often be achieved without fatalities.

  Bolt hadn’t wanted to arrest Amanda Rowan or Thom Folkestone before the reinforcements he’d called in from Tayleigh had arrived. With just him and Mo on the scene, there was too much risk of one or both of them escaping. He’d already had a good meal and a couple of drinks that night, and Mo, who was short and stout and preferred detective work to chasing suspects, wasn’t the most athletic of coppers, so it would have been far easier to have kept an eye on them from their position behind the shed.

  However, as soon as he’d heard them talking about some girl Amanda had apparently brought with her, he’d known they were going to have to do something. As Amanda and Thom had leaned into the back of the Land Rover and he’d heard the muffled cries of someone inside, Bolt had crept out from behind the shed, motioning for Mo to follow, and approached them from behind.

  Thom had heard them at the last second, but he’d been too late. Bolt raced forward and punched him in the side of the head, putting all his weight behind it. Thom’s head hit the edge of the roof, bounced back, and Bolt grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, swung him round, and drove a knee into his balls, lifting him off his feet.

  At the same time, Mo grabbed Amanda round the middle, pinning her arms, while she screamed and struggled violently, almost knocking them both over. Bolt could see she was holding a Stanley knife, with the blade about an inch exposed, and he knew he had to act fast before she broke free. As Thom fell back against the car, his face contorted with pain, Bolt rained blows down on his face, one after another, literally beating him to the ground.

  Only when he was lying on his side, coughing up blood and teeth, did Bolt turn round to deal with Amanda.

  Mo still had hold of her, but only just. She was stamping on his foot, and trying to drive her head back into his, fighting like a bucking bronco, while he stumbled about, desperately trying to keep his grip.

  And then, as Bolt leaned his arm back to throw a punch at her, she broke free and, with a scream of rage, went for him with the Stanley knife.

  He moved to one side, dodging her easily, his fist connecting perfectly with her jaw as she turned towards him, sending her flying backwards. She tripped over Mo and landed sprawling on her side on the scuffed grass, the Stanley knife clattering out of sight behind her.

  As Mo went over to comfort the terrified girl (a pretty, mixed-raced teenager of around seventeen, who’d been tied and gagged), Bolt walked over to Amanda, who was trying to crawl away. He slammed a foot down into the centre of her back, driving the wind right out of her.

  ‘I don’t normally hit women,’ he said, ignoring the burning in his knuckles. ‘But in your case, I’m happy to make an exception.’ He leaned down so his face was close to her ear, feeling the satisfaction of a job well done. ‘Amanda Rowan. I’m arresting you for the murders of George Rowan and Ivana Hanzha.’

  Fifty-six

  Three days later

  SCOPE SAT ON the edge of the hospital bed, a small bag containing his belongings at his feet, waiting to find
out if they were going to let him go.

  Two armed officers with Heckler & Kochs had been stationed outside his room the whole time he’d been getting treatment for the gunshot wound he’d received in the farmhouse, and they were still there now. He’d also been interviewed twice under caution by detectives from Scotland’s Specialist Crime Division, who’d been very interested to find out the extent of his involvement that night. Luckily, Scope had had time to work on his story. He’d admitted to the killing of the gunman at Jock’s house and taking his gun, but claimed that it was self-defence. When pressed as to why he’d not called the police then, he’d claimed that he’d panicked and gone looking for the family who’d hired the canoes, worried for their safety. He’d denied killing the Russian guy who’d shot at Casey because there was nothing tying him to the scene, but had admitted shooting the two men and the old lady at the farmhouse. Again, though, he’d claimed self-defence, and whether the detectives had believed him or not, they hadn’t actually arrested him which, right now, he was taking as a positive sign.

  There was a knock on the door and a tall, broad-shouldered guy in a suit came in. He had the demeanour of authority, coupled with an underlying hardness you sometimes get with certain big city cops who have spent time dealing with the more serious criminals, a look that was accentuated by his short, military-style haircut and the three vicious little scars bunched together on one cheek. Scope liked him immediately.

  ‘Mr Scopeland, I’m DCS Mike Bolt from the Met’s Homicide and Serious Crime Command.’ He smiled and put out a hand.

  ‘You’re a long way from home,’ said Scope, getting up to shake it, while trying not to wince from the movement.

  ‘Still hurting?’ asked Bolt, sitting down on a chair next to the bed.