“Jack,” Tally screamed out loud as the pain between her legs grew and the tearing sensation spread through her abdomen. “Help me Jack!”
And them Miles cried out in shock and agony and suddenly he was no longer on top of her but lying sprawled across the hearthrug, his head bent at a strange angle against the papered wall.
“Jack!” He stood over the inert Miles. He was breathing heavily and his pale face was flushed. “Is he dead?”
Jack shook his head. “Get dressed,” he said “and get yourself out of here. Make sure no one see you.”
“What are you going to do to him?”
“Does it matter?” His look made her all too aware of her messed up clothes and dishevelled hair. Of the blood that she could feel seeping, slick and sticky between her thighs. “Jack...”
“Just go, Tally. Now.”
She hesitated for a moment more and then leapt to her feet, pulling her clothes back in place the best she could and scooping her underwear from the floor. She wrapped the coat tightly around her, grateful that she had taken Rose’s advice and bought something long. She needed the warmth of it now, her whole body shaking as though she had a fever. She stumbled to the front door, remembering only at the last minute Jack’s admonishment to be careful not to be seen. Then she ran for home, tears pouring down her face.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Alec drove to the address Tally had given him. He was unsurprised to find when he reached his destination, that it did not exist. Carson Street ended at number fifty-two. Tally had told him that Jack was living, or staying at sixty-eight.
He considered giving her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she had the number wrong. Then he abandoned such sympathy and called in to base, giving instructions that Miss Palmer should be brought for questioning first thing next morning. He knew he’d have to talk to his boss as well, tell him just how involved he was personally in this whole thing and ask advice. The last thing he wanted was for Tally to get Jack some clever assed lawyer when they finally caught up with him. Someone who’d play the personal vendetta card when it came to court, and Alec was determined that this would come to court. His anger at Jack, even though Naomi had come to no real physical harm, went far beyond anything he had felt in a long, long time.
As he turned back onto the main road, heading for Naomi’s he noticed a car in his rear view, pulling out from the cars parked at the roadside and turning close behind him. At first he paid it little attention, a red saloon with a single occupant keeping about two car lengths behind. Slowly though, it dawned on Alec that he was being followed.
Noting the registration number, Alec called into control and a few moments later had confirmation that the car was stolen, had been taken about an hour before just prior to Alec leaving Tally’s flat.
He called for backup and searched his memory. Had he noticed the car before reaching Carson Street? Truly, Alec realized, he could not recall. The car, a Ford, he thought an Escort, was unremarkable and Alec had been preoccupied by his interview with Tally Palmer, taking little notice of the light traffic.
As they reached the promenade, a scant five minutes from Naomi’s, Alec pulled over sharply to the side of the road. He heard the driver slam on the breaks, then accelerate. The red Escort sailed by him along the promenade towards the fun fair and Alec followed, calling in to the patrol cars he had summoned that he was now the one in pursuit.
Was it Jack, Alec wondered, pretty certain that the answer to that was a definite yes.
The red Escort had picked up speed, not yet driving fast but accelerating steadily away from Alec’s Mondeo. Control called him back. A patrol car was now in position at Radliffe Road, the major thoroughfare that marked the end of the Victorian Promenade and led back, one way into the centre of town, the other thought the outskirts of town and then into open country along the coast road towards Pinsent and Beningford. Alec checked the time. 11.30. Most of the local pubs would be chucking out, their clientele drifting on to the nightclubs in the town centre or rushing to get the last bus home. The streets would be busy. He had no wish for the Escort to turn back towards the town.
“Tell them to get in position,” Alec said. “Block the exit to Radcliffe. If he heads back towards town we’ll have to back off, I’d rather get him on the coast road.”
One car in position, Alec thought irritably. That was never going to be enough. A second was making its way onto the Radcliffe Road further along towards the coast road, but until Alec knew which way the escort would turn, Alec could not even direct it to the most useful position.
Radcliffe Road was in sight now and Alec accelerated, pulling up close behind the escort. Inside the car he could see the driver, though not clearly. A man, he guessed, longish hair, sounded like the descriptions of Jack.
He could see the police car in position across the road, its lights pouring neon blue across the damp tarmac. To his surprise, the Escort seemed to slow, the driver, though he must see the patrol car straddling both lanes, indicated to go right. For a moment Alec was thrown. Was he barking up the wrong tree after all and the driver of the Escort an innocent party? Brusquely, he reminded himself that this was a stolen car, but his hesitation had been enough. The driver of the escort feinted right and Alec saw the uniformed officer in the other car brace for the expected impact, then the Escort swerved, mounting the pavement on the far side of the road, swing back around and narrowly missing a parked car before regaining the correct lane and accelerating away. Alec followed, cursing at himself for not being on the ball and anticipating this. He seemed constantly to be underestimating Jack. Well, he thought that’s the last time I’ll be doing that.
The Escort had a good start and the last thing Alec really wanted was an all-out pursuit, but like it or not that seemed to be what the diver had in mind. In his rear view, Alec could see the patrol car and a call came through from control that at the first opportunity Alec should drop back and let them take over. The driver was pursuit trained, Alec was told. Pull over when you can and let them take it.
Reluctantly, Alec acknowledged. He was angry now, the slow burning that had begun the day Naomi had been attacked fuelled by the thought that he had the perpetrator in his sights. Deliberately, he missed the turn off on a side road and two opportunities to pull over into gaps between parked cars and let the patrol car by. He knew that the second officer would be relaying back to control, describing their route and speed and now, Alec’s failure to comply and he knew in his own mind that he was allowing pride to get in the way and stupidity to cock up what he did not have the skill to do. Reluctantly and with control yelling down his phone, Alec swerved into a bus stop and allowed the marked car to go by, then dropped in behind, doing his best to keep with them.
The Escort had noted the change in pursuit and to Alec’s alarm it seemed to have increased his determination to get away. He must have realized that Alec was a more than an average driver and that now he had something to prove. Twice the car swerved across the central reservation. It clipped parked cars both times and the alarms were sounding as Alec passed. Light coming on in darkened windows. The driver feinted, as he had done at the main junction, appearing to preparing to turn into a narrow side roar before swerving sharply back on line. The first time the pursuit driver lost ground, almost taken in and slowing down, the second time, he had learnt and as they swept down a left hand bend leading out of town and onto the unlit coast road, Alec could see that less than a half car length separated the two. “He’s getting in too close,” Alec informed control. “Tell them to back off. I repeat, back off.”
He saw the patrol car drop back, settle down to match speed about a length behind. Another car was heading for a rendezvous point on the Pinsent Road, Alec was told. The only junction between Ingham and the next town. They were hoping to deploy a stinger, puncture the car’s tyres and slow the chase, hopefully bringing it to an easy end. If he didn’t make it in time there would be no second chance. There were no more turn offs or junctions between t
here and Pinsent itself. He lost sight as the two lead cars swept around another bend, losing them behind a screen of trees. Then control was speaking to him again. “We’ve got a runner. Suspect hit a tree, he’s decamped. Officers in pursuit.”
“Helicopter?” Alec asked hopefully.
“I’ll send a dog man out. He’ll RV in...twenty minutes. Sorry Alec that will have to do.”
Maybe I should go and fetch Napoleon, Alec thought wryly. As he rounded the bend he saw the patrol car on the grass verge, one door open and an officer speaking into the radio. The other, Alec presumed must be off in pursuit. The front end of the red Escort had impacted so heavily with a large tree that Alec was amazed anyone had walked away, never mind escaped fast enough to require pursuit. He eased in behind the patrol car and got out.
“Which way did he go?”
“Into the fields, over that gate,” the officer pointed. “Took off like the proverbial. He’s been hurt though. Have a look at the steering wheel.”
“Alec took the proffered torch. The driver’s door was open and the courtesy light illuminated the interior, but Alec still needed the torch to see, dark against the grey of the steering wheel, what looked like blood.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Alec had not slept or had time to change. Tally had been brought in first thing that morning but had refused to say a word until her solicitor had been summoned and now Matthew Jaques had arrived and insisted on time with his client before the official interview took place.
Alec sat in his boss’s office, nursing a cup of strong coffee and discussing their next moves while Mr Jaques and client made themselves ready for Alec’s next assault.
“I spoke to her agent this morning, “Alec said. “Not best pleased at me using her mobile number or interrupting her breakfast.”
“And?” DCI Dick Travers wanted to know.
“I asked about stalkers. About anyone Tally Palmer might have mentioned that was giving her grief.”
“You’re still going for this blackmail angle?”
“Yes...sort of yes. I don’t think it’s as simple as that. I get the feeling there’s a kind of dependency grown up between Tally and this Jack Chalmers. He’s using her, yes, I’ve no doubt about that. I’ve no doubt either that access to her financial records would show payments she wouldn’t want to account for.”
“Unfortunately, we just don’t have enough to apply for a court order,” Dick reminded him.
“No, I realize that. My guess is that friend Simon was right about one thing. This goes back a long way and probably to the deaths of either Miles Bradshaw or Adam Hunter.” He took a sip of his scalding coffee. “My money’s on Bradshaw.”
“You think she might have killed him?”
Alec nodded. “As you know, I pulled the old case files. A young girl, small and blond, was seen both arriving and running away from the house. She was never traced and the neighbours that reported her couldn’t give any more of a description. There was evidence that Miles had recently had sex. Sperm samples and blood that wasn’t his, and was the wrong group for his official girlfriend. Group B when the girl he was dating was group O. We know she wasn’t there anyway. She was at a family celebration twenty miles away with a pub full of witnesses.”
“Was Miss Palmer interviewed at the time?”
“Only in the general run of interviews that went on at the school. They had the kids in three at a time, asked them if they knew Miles socially, that sort of thing. There was no reason to think Tally had an involvement. She was fourteen, Miles was several years older.”
“And now, apart from your gut instincts, what is there to link her?”
Alec grinned wryly. “Bugger all unless I can get a blood sample,” he acknowledged. “If she’s a B, then maybe DNA analysis would...”
“And how are you going to manage that? There’s no evidence. No reason to suspect a link. Alec, for what’s it’s worth I go with your reasoning about the blackmail angle. I even accept the possibility that this Miles jumped her, raped her and got killed for his trouble. If she was the victim, if she killed him then I can understand her need to hide what happened. How she could have laid herself open to blackmail. But you’ve got to ask yourself, how did this Jack know? Was he a boyfriend she confessed to or what?”
Alec nodded. “That’s why I talked to her agent again. I figured she might have mentioned something. However small if she felt threatened.”
“And?”
“Nothing conclusive. Tally’s like all celebrities, she gets her share of fan male and her share of obsessives. She’s young, beautiful and rich and that can be a difficult combination. All her fan mail is vetted by her agents. Some they send on, the majority they simply send a set acknowledgement and Tally never even gets to see.”
“Any of it threatening?”
“Very little, though apparently there was a nasty incident about three years ago they saw as serious enough to report to the police.”
“Oh? Action taken?”
“No, the police were involved but the sender wasn’t traced but Tally was complaining about a stalker at the time. Someone who came to every public appearance and hung around outside her flat – not here, she was living down in London then. Her agents said it was really that which decided her to move back. She gets more privacy here.”
“And the letters?”
“I’ve contacted the Met, see if they can track the case file. But as far as the agent can remember they said something like, I know what you did. He died because of you and one day you’ll pay for it. They thought at the time it referred to Jon O’Dowd.”
“Nasty, did they go for the newsprint option or the computer printer?”
Alec laughed. “Bits cut from the newspaper apparently and they never made a direct link between the letters and the stalker. The letters stopped coming, there’s been nothing since.”
DCI Travers nodded. “The price of fame,” he grinned. “Ok, Alec, we’ll go with your theories for the time being and see what comes out, but I don’t need to tell you, it’s flimsy at best and certainly not enough for us to recommend DNA analysis at this stage, even if the samples have been kept and it’s recoverable.”
“No,” Alec agreed. “I know that. But the miles Bradshaw case was a murder enquiry. It’s cold, but it’s still open.”
His boss nodded. “And if you were right, she was a juvenile at the time and probably scared as hell. Don’t lose sight of that Alec. And right now your focus is on getting even because of Naomi, not looking for justice for a boy you didn’t even know. Don’t kid yourself about your motives.”
Alec swallowed the last of his coffee before replying then he nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “I’ll keep it in mind. But I’m finding Jack Chalmers, with or without Miss Palmer’s help.” Or yours, he implied, knowing Dick Travers could read him well enough to know.
*
“Miss Palmer, I’d like to know why you chose to send me on a wild goose chase last night.”
“My client doesn’t know what you mean.”
Alec glanced briefly at the lawyer. “The address you gave me,” he continued. “It doesn’t exist. Can you explain why you would send me somewhere that does not exist?”
“My client probably made a mistake. She was tired and stressed and you called at an unreasonable hour.”
“We’ve reason to believe, Miss Palmer, that Jack Chalmers followed me from your flat last night. That he stole a car which he subsequently crashed on the Pinsent Road. He hit a tree, Miss Palmer and left blood on the steering wheel.”
“He was hurt?” It was the first time she had spoken or even moved since Alec had entered the room. “What happened to him. Why would he steal a car?”
“You tell me, Miss Palmer.”
“But is he badly hurt?”
Alec waited. He’d finally caught her off balance and knew he must press the advantage.
She leaned across the table and almost reached for Alec’s hand. Stopping herself at the f
inal moment. “Is he in hospital?” she wanted to know. Her eyes were bright as though tears had gathered and two bright spots of colour appeared on her pale cheeks.
Alec held the ground that he had won. Instead of answering he asked. “Miss Palmer, how long has Jack Chalmers been blackmailing you?”
“Blackmail?” It was solicitor Jaques turn to be surprised. “Detective Inspector Friedman, just what are you suggesting my client might have done that would open her to blackmail?”
Tally sat back, she was frowning at him now. Anxiety replaced in part by irritation. “I want to know what happened to Jack,” she demanded.
“What makes you think I know?” Alec asked her.
“But you said...”
“I said that he’d left blood on the steering wheel. He ran away Miss Palmer after stealing a car, following me to this false address you provided and then leading myself and officers in two marked cars of a chase through Ingham and out onto the Pinsent road. A chase that could have put the lives of innocent people at risk. It’s thanks only to the skill of the police pursuit that he turned out of town and not back into the centre.”
“So, if you don’t have this Jack Chalmers in custody,” Jaques left upon the facts. “You don’t even know, do you that he was the driver of that car.”
No, Alec had to admit. He did not, but he said nothing in reply. Instead, he turned to Tally once more and reminded her. “There’s still the little matter of a false address.”
“Not false; mistaken,” Jaques insisted. “Miss Palmer supplied you with what she thought was Mr Chalmer’s address. If he gave her a false address, she can hardly be blamed, can she for simply passing that erroneous information on to you?”
Alec stifled an irritated sigh. He was tired and hungry and very pissed off and in no mood for smart, expensive lawyers to play games with him. He was wise enough to know however that he needed more if he was going to break through Tally Palmer’s costly defences and when the solicitor rose and gestured for Tally to follow his example, Alec had to let her go. He’s nothing to charge her with, not even wasting police time. Any lawyer worth his salt would argue, as Jaques had done, that she was merely passing information on. If false information had been given to her, there was nothing she could do about it.
Touching the Dark Page 17
