No Smoke Without Fire (A DCI Warren Jones Novel - Book 2)

by Paul Gitsham

  Regardless, he had no intention of stopping now. He had the resources to continue what he was doing, fulfilling the desires passed on to him by his father indefinitely. And if and when the time came for him to answer for his crimes — well, he had the shotgun and, failing that, the bottle in his pocket. He’d answer directly to God and ask for forgiveness for himself and his father. There was no way he would stand before a jury of his peers, to be locked in a cell for the rest of his life.

  He carried on stepping towards the car. He didn’t know which police officer he was about to kill first; he presumed that the pair were those two damned detectives, Jones and Sutton. He looked forward to killing them, remembering the smug look on Jones’ face as they’d stared each other down during that first encounter at the farmhouse. He’d backed down then, unable to afford to be arrested for resisting arrest. Then there was that small, pig of a man, DI Sutton, who’d sneered contemptuously during each encounter. It didn’t matter which one he shot first; they both needed to die.

  The chloroform was making his head fairly buzz now, and he took shallow breaths. One more step. He stumbled slightly, but corrected himself. He started to lift the shotgun.

  * * *

  Crouching behind the driver’s door, Tony Sutton watched helplessly as the man advanced towards the passenger side of the car; it was clear that he intended to shoot Jones, then continue around the car and finish him off also.

  Two cartridges. He’d fired one already. Sutton had caught a glimpse of the gun before he’d thrown himself behind the car — it looked like a double-barrelled shotgun. That meant he had one left then he had to reload. How long would that take? The problem was that unless he was a lousy shot, that one bullet would almost certainly kill Jones. Even if Sutton disarmed him afterwards, it would be cold comfort. He glanced over at Jones, who raised a single finger. One. He’d done the same calculation.

  Sutton turned his attention back to the approaching figure, stumbling slightly in the snow and weaving from side to side. His voice had sounded slurred. Was he drunk? High on drugs? Either way it was their only advantage.

  The two detectives had only known each other since the summer; had really only become friends in the past few months, but their minds were working as one tonight. A single nod from Warren was all it took.

  Sutton leaned forward to the central console. The car was fitted with standard police lights, complete with a choice of sirens. The one Sutton chose was a deafening blare, designed to move cars out of the way by basically scaring the shit out of their drivers.

  It had the desired effect, the shotgun discharging harmlessly into the trees as Stockley leapt in surprise.

  That was Warren’s cue. He burst from behind the door, throwing himself forward. Immediately he realised his mistake. Both his mistakes, in fact. First, he wasn’t as quick over the snow-covered underbrush as he thought he would be. Second, a skilled shooter like Stockley could reload a shotgun very, very fast, especially when he already had the cartridge in his free hand and only bothered to load one barrel. And with Warren at such close range and getting closer, he wasn’t even going to need to aim. Warren was still the better part of ten feet away when Stockley snapped the breech closed and started to raise the weapon one-handed.

  The snowball wasn’t particularly good, but, as anybody who had been ambushed would tell you, the surprise factor was what really counted. Sutton’s snowball hit Stockley squarely on the side of the cheek. Instinctively he spun to his left, from where the projectile had come.

  Warren dived forward, more of a stumble than a rugby tackle if he was honest, and slammed his head into Stockley’s midriff. The two men crashed backwards in an ungainly heap. Warren immediately grabbed at the arm holding the shotgun, rolling on top of it. He felt the barrel digging into his ribs and prayed that Stockley’s finger was nowhere near the trigger. Using his free arm, he punched the inside of Stockley’s elbow. The man grunted in pain and Warren felt the arm go loose.

  If he thought that was the end of it, he was sorely mistaken. With a guttural shout Stockley swung his free hand around in a wild haymaker, connecting soundly with Warren’s left ear. Warren rolled onto his back, stunned.

  Stockley knew he had no choice; the gun was gone. Letting go, he pulled his numbed arm from underneath Jones’ insensate form and scrambled to his feet. Before leaving, he delivered a final kick to the man’s ribcage before turning and stumbling off into the woods.

  * * *

  Lying on his back, Warren sent a prayer of thanks to Felicity and Jeff for their thoughtfulness. The thick padding on the coat had turned a potentially bone-crunching kick into something less.

  “Guv!” Tony Sutton skidded to a halt next to Warren.

  “I’m fine, Tony. Check out Jemima. Get an ambulance down here and let the armed response units know the score.”

  Sutton nodded and scrambled back to his feet, jogging over to the slumped body next to the delivery van. Taking one last deep breath, Warren rolled to his feet. He looked longingly at the shotgun, but left it where it was. Tempting as it was, he wasn’t a licensed firearms officer and he’d find himself on a murder charge if he used it.

  As he’d wrestled with Stockley on the ground Warren had caught the sweetly pungent odour of the chloroform that he’d spilled down his front. After Professor Jordan’s initial suggestion that some sort of sedative, perhaps chloroform, had been used to subdue his victims, Warren had looked up the chemical on Wikipedia. It was extremely volatile, meaning it evaporated really quickly. That was why it was so good as an inhalant. It also meant that over time it would evaporate away. Warren remembered from school that evaporation happened faster at higher temperatures, but he had no idea what effect the evening’s freezing temperatures would have on the evaporation of chloroform.

  Regardless, it was an advantage that he intended to exploit. Stockley had sounded slurred and seemed slightly uncoordinated. Was it the effects of the chemical? Would that last until the armed response units arrived? Or would it wear off enough for him to implement the back-up plan that Warren was sure he must have? The man was clearly deranged, an evil sexual predator controlled by his urges. If he escaped their net, how long would it be until he struck again?

  Ignoring Sutton’s shouts, Warren headed into the woods.

  * * *

  Stockley crashed through the trees, his breath labouring and his head spinning. It was like being drunk. He stumbled again, falling to his knees. He wobbled as he stood up and had to hold onto a tree branch to regain his balance. Somehow he reoriented himself and started again.

  Up ahead he heard a rushing noise. It took a moment for his befuddled brain to fully comprehend what he was hearing, and then he felt a surge of relief. It was the river, his pathway to the small grove where he’d concealed the Transit van. All he had to do was get to the bank, turn left and follow it for about three hundred yards until he came across the dirty old coat he’d found in the back of the van and hung from a branch as a marker.

  Emerging from the trees, he saw the glint of water. The noise was much louder than he remembered from a week ago, the recent rain and snow having increased the flow substantially. The river was ancient and had cut a deep channel into the land, the banks as high as fifteen feet in places. It wouldn’t do to fall into it and he didn’t trust his balance, so he kept away from the edge.

  Turn left, he remembered dimly. His legs seemed to be working on their own now, disconnected from his brain as he placed one foot in front of the other. Suddenly he felt his stomach lurch and he stumbled to his knees throwing up violently. Nausea came over him in waves. Nevertheless he pushed himself to his feet. Look for the coat, he commanded himself, look for the coat.

  The coat. What was so significant about a coat? He stumbled again, face first into a pile of snow. The sudden shock of the cold startled his brain into alertness. The coat. Of course, he’d spilled chloroform down it. No wonder he was feeling so ill. His fingers were numb, their co-ordination all gone, but somehow he m
anaged to unzip the front of the jacket. Squirming on the ground, like a snake shedding its skin, he worked his way out of it and rolled over. He gasped at the fresh air, before grabbing another handful of snow and rubbing it into his face.

  Already his head was clearing, the cold air and freezing snow chasing away the cobwebs. He scrambled to his feet, shivering. The coat was an expensive, all-weather sort and so he’d only worn a light sweater underneath. His head was covered in a thin bather’s cap to stop any hair getting on his victim and he wore latex gloves — neither of these provided any warmth and he knew that he had to get to the van as soon as possible. He prayed the warm-air blowers worked.

  Turning to the left again, he resumed his trek.

  * * *

  Following Stockley hadn’t been hard. He’d left a trail of destruction and footprints visible to even the poorest of trackers. Warren picked his way rapidly through the trees, following the trail, pausing every few paces to listen for signs of an ambush. Away from the glow of the vehicle lights, Warren’s eyes had soon adjusted to the dim moonlight and he could see reasonably clearly.

  Just how badly affected by the chloroform was Stockley? Breathing in the fumes from his soaked jacket had clearly had some effect, but how long would it last? Would it get worse with time, or would it wear off? Had the man still got the presence of mind to remove the coat? If he had, how long until he overcame the effects?

  Warren paused again, leaning against the trunk of a tree. His hands were so numb with cold that he couldn’t tell if the tree had the roughness of an oak, or the smooth papery bark of a silver birch. His new jacket was fantastic, but he’d forgotten the gloves and woolly hat that he kept in his old one.

  After a few more paces, he stopped again, listening carefully. In the background he heard a dull roar — there was a river running through this part of the woods, he recalled from the map book. But what sort? The book hadn’t really given any indication; it could be a small, meandering brook, a rapidly flowing stream, or a gushing river for all he knew. It sounded as if there was a substantial amount of water rushing along, but he acknowledged that alone in a darkened forest, on the trail of a murderous rapist who’d demonstrated that he had no compunction against killing police officers, his mind could be exaggerating the sound.

  He resumed his careful passage, the sound of the river getting louder. Up ahead, the light filtering through the trees started to take on a different quality, brightening and then, almost without warning, Warren found himself in the open.

  The rush of the river had become a dull roar. Looking to his left, Warren spotted a lone figure, picking his way carefully along the narrow border between the river bank and the tree-line. He didn’t appear to be wearing his coat any more, but still seemed to be wobbling a bit.

  How long would it take him to recover fully? Warren didn’t know, but he knew he couldn’t let that happen. He had to take his chances whilst the man was still off balance and not thinking clearly.

  Ducking back into the tree-line and hoping that the noise of the river would mask his approach, Warren moved as quickly as he could, travelling parallel to the river. Stockley seemed to be moving with a definite purpose now; he looked like a man with a clear destination in mind. Moving a little further into the woods, Warren drew alongside the man. Suddenly Stockley stopped and turned, looking into the woods. Warren froze. Stockley reached up and started tugging at something hanging in the trees. He clearly hadn’t spotted Warren.

  Then, to Warren’s puzzlement, Stockley started to put on what he’d pulled from the tree. A coat? What on earth was a coat doing hanging from a tree? There was no way the man could have foreseen what was going to happen to the coat he was wearing, so why was one hanging there. Coincidence? Warren couldn’t accept that. What then?

  A marker, Warren realised. Some way of knowing when he’d walked far enough along the river bank. Moving slowly, so as not to draw attention to himself, Warren turned on the spot, searching. Finally he saw it, moonlight reflecting off the mirrors in its headlamps. Stockley’s means of escape.

  * * *

  Stockley wrestled with the coat that he’d found in the back of the Transit van. He wasn’t a large man, but the previous owner had clearly been small, maybe even a woman or child. It didn’t help that he could barely feel his fingers and he was shivering so violently that he thought his teeth would break.

  Barely a dozen metres away, concealed by the trees, sat his salvation, its keys already dangling from the ignition, the doors unlocked. A pretty safe gamble, he’d decided, out here in the middle of nowhere. He wanted to get in, start the engine and race down the dirt track that led to freedom, but he knew that he was close to hypothermia. He needed the jacket.

  All of a sudden he heard the thrum of a helicopter above and a bright light shone down upon him.

  “It’s over, Stockley. You’re surrounded by armed police. The helicopter above has thermal imaging. There’s no escape. Come quietly, nobody needs to get hurt.” Warren stepped out of the tree-line, barely twenty feet from Stockley.

  The appearance of the helicopter had surprised Warren almost as much as it had Stockley; he hadn’t thought the helicopter flew in this sort of weather. Regardless, he decided to capitalise on the moment. The most important question was — had it been dispatched to supply support for the armed response units? Or was it here because the ARUs were still delayed?

  Either way, Warren had seen no evidence yet of any armed back-up, so it would seem that, even with the helicopter hovering above, he was still on his own. Nevertheless, there was no need for Stockley to know that…

  “Give it up, Michael. There are trained snipers surrounding the area — you know you can’t escape.”

  He was right, Stockley realised. It was over. Unless he did something about it, the next step was his arrest and then that was it. Prison. He shuddered at the memory. Visiting his father in there had left him with nightmares. The cold grey walls and solid steel doors. The smell of disinfectant everywhere that still couldn’t quite overcome the smell of fear, of hatred, of despair. Every time he’d left the prison, he’d thrown away the clothes he was wearing and stood underneath a scalding shower until the hot water ran out.

  He’d made his vow long ago. What would it take to make them shoot him? If he attacked that bastard Jones, would they put a bullet in his head? End it for him in a millisecond?

  No, probably not, he realised. They’d aim for the body, the centre-mass. Maybe he’d be dead, maybe not. Maybe he’d be paralysed, incarcerated not just in prison, but in his own body as well. And maybe they’d not even shoot him. Weren’t they encouraged to use non-lethal weapons like TASERs these days? Fifty-thousand volts of excruciating agony, then on with the cuffs.

  No, it would have to be by his own hand. He reached into his trouser pocket, surprised to find the bottle intact. Pulling it out, he gripped it numbly between thumb and forefinger and started to unscrew the lid.

  Warren stood in the tree-line, waiting for Stockley to make his move. Where the hell was the armed response team? he asked himself for the thousandth time. He cast his gaze around the woods surrounding him, desperately searching for his back-up. Nothing. But then would he see them anyway? Dressed in matt-black, like some sort of twenty-first-century ninja, they could be standing three metres from him, with Stockley square in their infra-red sights, and he would be none the wiser.

  Stockley was also looking around, like a rabbit caught in headlights — or a deer for that matter, thought Warren ruefully. The man reached inside his trouser pocket and Warren tensed. Expecting a knife or other weapon, he was not expecting to see a small bottle.

  Warren watched as he struggled to unscrew the cap. What was he doing? The cyanide he realised; the man was going to kill himself. A surge of anger ran through Warren’s blood. Not on my watch, Warren vowed.

  The man was a killer; he had to answer for his crimes. He had to stand in the dock and face his victims’ families as justice was handed down. Then he had t
o spend the rest of his life in prison. No way was he going to take the easy way out.

  Without really formulating a plan, Warren raced forward. Concentrating on getting his numbed fingers to unscrew the bottle’s cap, Stockley didn’t notice Warren’s movement until it was too late. Warren rammed into him, knocking him to one side. The bottle flew out of his grip, landing in a pile of snow a few feet away. Warren was holding onto Stockley’s lower body with all of his might, trying to stop the man from scrambling free to retrieve the bottle. Not for the first time in his police career, Warren wished he’d extended his self-defence training beyond the required courses. A working knowledge of judo would come in useful right about now.

  Fortunately, Michael Stockley was no martial artist either and the best he could do was batter away at his opponent’s body, trying to find a spot where the coat’s padding was thinner.

  For his part, Warren simply hunkered down and took the blows; where the hell was his back-up? He’d be black and blue in the morning, but his attacker couldn’t get enough of a swing to do any real damage. The coat that Stockley had tried to force himself into was restricting his movement, whilst the biting cold and lingering effects of the chloroform robbed him of his strength.

  Finally, Warren decided to seize his chance. Relaxing his tight grip on his assailant’s ribcage, he pushed back, lifting his head. He felt the crown of his head connect solidly with Stockley’s chin and he fancied he could hear the clack as his teeth snapped together. Warren let his grip go completely now and Stockley reared backward, widening the gap between them as Warren had hoped he would.