‘Remember who pays your wages. Without the police, you wouldn’t have a roof over your head.’
As he ran his fingers through his hair, Ruby could tell he had taken some heat from DCI Worrow. It must have annoyed him being told off by a woman half his age and with a tenth of his experience. But it was not her fault Worrow was keeping close tabs on him, and Ruby would not back down now. She thought of the scruffy flat that she could barely afford on her police wage, and the luxury accommodation that Nathan had gifted her months before. It elicited another smile, much to Downes’s annoyance. It always wound him up that she had another side to her that he could not access, and she had no intention of making him any the wiser.
‘You gave me the all-clear to do some digging, and I’ve risked my neck getting my hands on that intel report. I’ve sacrificed everything to get where I am, but you still question my loyalty.’
‘Look, I don’t doubt you mean well, I’m just saying you make me nervous. We’ve got a good team out there. I don’t want your shady dealings dragging us down. If you know where Crosby is, you’d better call it in. Headquarters want a result, and they want it yesterday.’
So that was what this was all about: a knee-jerk reaction to publicity surrounding the murder. ‘The last time I checked it was innocent until proven guilty. You’re having a go at me for defending everything that this job is about. I’m trying to catch the killer – the real one. So I won’t be making any hasty arrests to suit the powers that be.’
Downes frowned, his lips pursed tightly together. ‘The order’s been given. You’re to arrest Crosby as a matter of urgency.’
Ruby rose. Her superiors could give all the orders they wanted. As a British police constable, the decision to arrest lay squarely on her shoulders. She was well within her rights to turn them down. They could always instruct another officer, who would happily comply, but Ruby was the only one likely to come close enough to do it.
‘I’ll make us a brew,’ she said, taking his empty cup from his desk. She was parched. Despite their differences, she would harbour no ill feelings. He was just looking out for her in his own infuriating way.
‘Fine,’ he said as she opened the door to leave. ‘Have it your way. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
‘Understood, boss, I consider myself warned.’ Nudging open the door, she left his office to join her team.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Ruby and Nathan had many special places dotted around East London, and the range was one of them. A far cry from what was offered to firearms officers in the Met, their meeting place was nothing more than a derelict building with thick concrete walls and smashed windows. Soon the machinery would move in for its demolition, and Ruby found it sad that many of their old hang-outs had since been rebuilt to make way for redevelopment. Still, they could not take her memories.
She could feel the heat of Nathan’s glare. His individual attention was afforded to the few people he trusted to meet alone. His ability to enter a room without making a sound used to drive her mad when they were together. It was a long-practised trait, expertly crafted over the years.
Thunderclouds rolled outside, casting a grey hue on the concrete walls as the last rays of the sun were absorbed. ‘Nathan,’ she whispered, carefully sidestepping the dirt and shingle underfoot. She cast a glance to the left, making out a bullet hole in the graffiti-daubed wall, and smiled as she remembered putting it there.
With a row of tin cans set up in front of them, Nathan was showing her how to shoot for the first time. Giddy with excitement, she giggled while he wrapped his arms around her from behind. He whispered in her ear, his warm breath sending shivers down her spine as he told her off for not concentrating on the gun.
‘This is a deadly weapon,’ he said. ‘It’s no laughing matter.’
She cleared her throat, aiming the revolver at the tin can ahead.
‘Don’t hold it like a cup and saucer,’ he said, adjusting her grip. ‘Put your support hand to good use; keep your thumbs together. Now, wrap it around here, like this. It’ll help with the kickback.’
Ruby shifted her hands into position.
‘Now, aim and shoot,’ Nathan instructed.
Taking a deep breath, Ruby squeezed the trigger, jerking as the weapon recoiled. A wisp of smoke rose from the barrel of the gun. It had felt heavy and clunky in her hand, and she wanted to throw it to the ground. Nathan made it look so easy. It was louder than she expected, and the power of the weapon had jerked her hand, hurting her wrist and making her gasp.
Nathan gently released the gun from her grasp, clicking on the safety latch. Soft laughter escaped his lips as he stared at the bullet hole in the wall. ‘Jesus, Ruby! Did you have your eyes closed or something?’
‘I might have,’ Ruby said, flushed with embarrassment. ‘I’m rubbish at this, aren’t I?’
Nathan smiled. ‘You’ll get better.’
And she did. After six weeks, she was confidently handling the firearm. It was a comfort to know it was something she could fall back on. Being caught with a gun could put her in prison, but Ruby justified it in her mind. Her job was becoming increasingly dangerous and, if officers in the US were allowed personal protection, then why wasn’t she? She had always felt ill-equipped for her role, but knowing she had a gun close at hand helped her sleep at night. It was her personal protection and, if it came down to it, she would make good use of it.
Glass cracked underfoot, a product of the smashed windows. Stepping out from the shadows, Nathan stood before her.
‘Alright?’ he said. Like her, he seemed glad to see a friendly face. Dressed in his black jacket, combats and Dr Martens boots, he looked more like a member of the SAS than a criminal on the run.
‘How are you?’ she said, taking a step towards him.
‘Be a lot better when you find out who’s responsible for these murders.’
Ruby wished she had some good news to impart. Persuading her colleagues to widen their search for a suspect had been like wading through treacle, and it pained her to laugh at their jokes about who would get to bang him to rights first.
She crept through the empty building, Downes’s words echoing in her memory as he commanded her to bring Nathan in. Their belief in Nathan’s guilt always came back to the same thing: if he were innocent, he would not have run away. The fact there had been a scalpel involved made them all the more assured in their decision. Nathan’s dad, Jimmy Crosby, was no stranger to the knife back in his day. They didn’t nickname him the butcher for nothing. Ruby had wanted to say that Jimmy was dead and gone, but she kept such information to herself, loath to raise suspicion.
Nathan tensed as a police siren speared the silence.
‘It’s OK,’ she said, ‘I wasn’t followed.’
‘You sure about that?’ Nathan said, his hand hovering on the pocket of his combats.
Ruby nodded, her heart skipping a beat. He was armed, and that could spell trouble. ‘I’m trying to clear your name, but it keeps coming down to the same thing. People are asking why you’re on the run.’
‘So I’m public enemy number one with Shoreditch’s finest on my case.’ He spoke with a thin smile. ‘Any closer to finding the real killer?’
‘I’ve been in touch with your mum. We’re going through a list. . .’ She turned away from the intensity of his gaze. ‘It’s just that some of the stuff – putting someone in hospital because they refused to serve you?’ She shook her head. ‘It’s grim reading.’
‘That had nothing to do with me. Lenny’s a liability, more now than ever.’
‘Then why can’t you leave him behind? He’s not worth your loyalty. It’s because of him that you’re in this mess.’
Nathan’s voice softened, and he placed a hand on Ruby’s forearm. ‘He’s my brother, the only one I’ve got. Aren’t you any closer to sorting this out?’
‘Oh no, I’ve been twiddling my thumbs all morning,’ she said, regretting the words as soon as they had left her mouth.
Like two pieces of dry flint, Ruby and Nathan began to produce sparks. It was always the same when they were both under pressure. They were too alike, with neither one of them wanting to back down. She exhaled a terse breath, unable to contain her annoyance.
‘I’ve been working 24/7 on this case. It wasn’t a game to Ellie Mason when she had her organs ripped from her chest.’
‘I know, I know,’ Nathan said. ‘She wasn’t much older than Cathy.’ He took Ruby by the hand. ‘Promise me you’ll keep an eye on her while I’m away. Don’t let me down.’
Ruby’s response was instant. ‘I’m there for you, you know that. And I don’t need your family giving me the heavy hand to do it.’
‘Lenny.’ Nathan groaned. ‘Has he threatened you?’
‘Does the Pope pray?’ Ruby said, her mouth rising in a wayward half-smirk. ‘I can take care of Lenny, but I don’t appreciate your mum getting in on the act.’
Darkness shadowed Nathan’s face. ‘Don’t answer back to him. It’s not like the old days, I’ve seen what he’s done to people for a lot less.’
‘Maybe I’ve been wrong,’ Ruby said, in an effort to change the subject. ‘I shouldn’t have dismissed Danny Smedley so quickly. Maybe he’s committed Ellie’s murder and sold her organs on to someone to use against you.’
‘The old days. . .’ Nathan muttered under his breath, withdrawing into himself as he recalled a memory. He returned his attention to Ruby. ‘You’re wrong, it’s not Danny Smedley.’
‘But it could be,’ she said, tapping her lower lip with her fingers. ‘He might have an accomplice – someone who has it in for you.’
‘It’s not Smedley because I know who it is.’ Swearing under his breath, he ran his fingers through his tousled hair. ‘Why didn’t I think of him sooner?’
‘Who is it then?’
Nathan’s face tightened. ‘Perhaps it’s best if I sort out a confession first.’
‘You’re setting your men on him? Is that what it is? Because if anything happens to the suspect, you’ll never be free. You’ve got no choice, you have to play this by the book.’
‘Alright, I’ll tell you, if you just listen!’ Nathan said, grasping her by the arms.
She could see it in his eyes. He was building up to admit his involvement in something she would not want to hear. ‘Just spit it out, will you. Who did this?’
Nathan’s attention was on the flash of headlights outside. ‘You set me up,’ he said as police cars screeched to a halt in the yard.
Ruby gasped in horror as DI Downes launched himself from one of the cars below. ‘What? No, I didn’t. He must have followed me and called for backup.’
Stepping back from the window, Nathan pushed his hand in his pocket and drew out his pistol. ‘I’m not being taken in,’ he said, his face conflicted. ‘Not today.’
Chapter Twenty-Five
April
Her bones aching, April took a sharp breath as she returned to consciousness once more. She recalled her last memory; the doctor pushing a thin syringe into her vein as the walls of the room closed in around her. The blanket had fallen to the floor. The leather chair was cold beneath her body as she writhed beneath the doctor’s touch. Staring at the damp spores on the ceiling, she had not wanted her last memory to be of the doctor’s face but she could not block out the smell of his breath, wet and raspy, his grimy fingers sinking into her flesh as he pinned her down. Gradually her struggling had subsided as the liquid drug clawed her back to the darkness once more.
Goosebumps rose on her naked flesh, and she felt the tug of foreign objects in her skin. Her eyes followed the small clear tube embedded in her arm to the pouch of clear fluid dangling from a rusted metal hanger at her side. Lower down, she felt the drag of something cold between her legs. Sharp panic brought her thoughts into focus. It was a urine catheter. She’d had one once before when she was giving birth to her baby. Just how long had she been here?
She craned her neck forward, turning her gaze to the full-length mirror at the end of her bed. Her mouth dropped open as she stared. There, under the gloom of a single lamp, her reflection offered up a ghoulish display. Dry air scratched against the hollow of her throat as she tried to scream. Her chest heaved. A pale-skinned red-haired woman stared back at her in dismay. She had sculpted eyebrows, and her eyelashes, which felt heavy as she blinked – they were red too. Her eyes focused on her mouth, a plump pink Cupid’s bow. She pursed them together and was rewarded with a sudden stinging sensation. What had he done to her? She blinked away the tears forming in her eyes. She could cry later; she had to get away. April twisted in the chair, trying to drag her thin wrists through the tight leather straps. Clawing at the arm rests with her fingernails, she noticed the clear sparkly polish as it glittered under the surgeon’s light. Was there an inch of her body that the doctor had not interfered with?
Her stomach tightened in a spasm, not from hunger but something else. Her body was still coming down from the drugs. She emitted a groan, as a slice of pain ripped through her, wanting to draw up her knees but noticing for the first time that her ankles were restrained too. Panic induced a beaded sweat, which gathered on her forehead. Just what had he planned for her? Was this a kinky game? Were there cameras? Had he been having sex with her while she was unconscious? But she would have felt it. And her body was devoid of the bruises she had suffered in the past when men had forced themselves on her. Was he taking pictures?
Her attention was drawn to the tray of surgeon’s tools, and the scream she had been holding made its escape. It was a loud and furious cry, filling the room and sending the creatures gathered under the newspapers scattering like billiard balls across the floor. The sight of so many rats would once have terrified her into submission, but there were far worse things in store. Wriggling against her bindings, she wanted to topple the chair. A slice of fear stopped her in her tracks. She was too scared of what the rats would do to her on the floor. In the distance, a train shuddered past. She could hear the carriages cutting through the night air. Carriages filled with people she could not reach. Her sense of desolation grew. She had to fight if she wanted to get out of this alive.
Ignoring the pain in her wrist she continued to wriggle her left hand, each effort punctuated by short, quick intakes of breath. April clasped her thumb and little finger together, narrowing her knuckles as she worked them through the tight space. Her heart skipped a beat as her hand slipped through the unforgiving leather strap. She shook it quickly until feeling returned, then yanked out the tubes invading her body. Fluid slapped across her breasts as one jerked forward like an impotent snake, but she didn’t feel it because she was intent on undoing the buckle of her right wrist. With shaking fingers, and both hands free, she undid the straps on her ankles, her ears trained on the corridor outside. Any second now he could return.
Wrapping the blanket around her, she slid from the surgeon’s chair. But her legs felt hollow, and it took three steady breaths until she could advance on the table of instruments before her. Rats squeaked their annoyance. Stepping forward, she wrapped her fingers around the scalpel. Shock began to pervade her body. Picking up the blanket, she told herself she would get out of this; she would slice the face of anyone that dared come near. Crumbling plaster bruised the soles of her feet as she hobbled across the cold floor. There were no clothes to be seen, yet something told her she was not the first person to be brought back to this space. Was this where Ellie spent her last moments?
Slowly she ventured into the corridor, seeking the light that would guide her outside. The air was cold and sharp in her throat as she tried to accustom her eyes to the sudden darkness. Staggering, she left behind the sounds of the humming generator and nesting rats. Her grasp around the scalpel tightened as she stepped cautiously down the corridor. In the distance, the faint orange glow of street lights bec
koned from afar. The sounds of her jagged breath echoed around her, but it was impossible to slow it down as adrenalin quickened her heartbeat in preparation for escape. As she turned the corner, blanket gripped in one hand and scalpel in the other, she did not see the dark figure reach out until it was too late. The pain was instant as he bent her wrist backwards, forcing her to drop the blade to the floor. Her cries were extinguished as a knee came up to her stomach, winding her until she was bent over in two. Weakly, she kicked and punched as the doctor hoisted her onto his shoulder. She pounded his back, kicking the hands wrapped tightly around her thighs.
‘Get off me,’ she cried, tears streaking her face. Screaming for help, she shook and wriggled until he was forced to loosen her to the floor. ‘Oh my God,’ she gasped, catching sight of herself in the mirror for the second time. ‘What have you done?’
Silently he stared, wordless and unrelenting. And then it came. The high-pitched squeaking she had heard in her dreams. Except it wasn’t a dream at all: it was the rats. Soon the room was filled with the pitter-patter of rodent claws as the slick black rats gathered around her, dancing at her feet. April emitted a strangled cry, tears coursing down the edges of her cheeks. Unspeaking, the man watched her behaviour as if observing a creature in the zoo. The nipping, the scratching, she could barely stand it, as the rats clawed at her ankles and legs. It was only then that she noticed she was standing on crushed glass. She squinted in the dim light as the broken shards gleamed on the floor, cutting into the soles of her feet and adding to her discomfort. Blood oozed from her skin, sending the rats into a frenzy as they sniffed and scratched at her ankles and feet.
‘Help me,’ she cried, pleading with her tormentor.
Slowly, the doctor approached. Instinctively she opened up her arms to him as he offered to pick her up from the floor. Anything was better than this hell, she thought. They would eat her alive if she stayed in that spot for too long. Tired and weak, she had little defence, and she sobbed in his arms as he gently cradled her naked body. She was having a nightmare, she told herself. None of this was real; soon it would be over. She hiccupped as the sobs subsided, barely noticing the needle as it withdrew from her arm. Gratefully, she fell back into the recesses of sleep.
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