The Fall of Winter

by Ian W. Sainsbury

  She kept talking and Winter's skin went cold under the silk robe. His emergency retirement plan, locked behind a chain of fake IP addresses in a dozen fake names, gave him five boltholes. Lot six named all of them.

  "Herr Blüthner wants me to tell you why he bought the hotels. It's a remarkable story. He was travelling between New York and London on a commercial airline one night. His private jet had developed a last-minute fault, although subsequent events led him to believe it was sabotaged. He took his seat in first class with one other passenger. When they reached cruising altitude, the passenger approached him. A young man, polite, well-spoken. Huge, like a wrestler, Herr Blüthner said. For a moment, he wondered if one of his enemies had arranged this meeting, in which case it might be his last.

  "He was wrong. The young man wanted to discuss you, Mr Winter. He told Herr Blüthner about your retirement plans, and how you intended to fund them. He hacked your computers years ago. Herr Blüthner was impressed enough with his skills and patience to offer him a job. He declined. He preferred to work alone.

  "This young man expressed…" Lot six tutted. "Ah, English words. Sometimes, the right one escapes me. Wait… animosity. The young man in first class expressed a long-held animosity towards you. He passed on the information necessary to arrange today's troubleshooting and suggested Herr Blüthner keep bidding at your auctions so as not to arouse suspicion. And here we are."

  She stood up. Winter prepared himself to act. He looked into her eyes, watching.

  "Oh!" she said suddenly. "I nearly forgot. First time nerves. Sorry. The young man's payment. He only wanted one thing."

  "Which was?"

  "A message. For you."

  Winter suddenly knew he had been wrong about her. She wouldn't hesitate. He braced himself to move, but found he couldn't. He wondered if this was how fear felt.

  "Bedlam Boy is here."

  Lot six shot Winter in the stomach first. She took a step closer and shot him in the shoulder. The pain was shocking, and Winter gasped and retched. The next bullet tore into his neck, and, as he wheezed, air and blood escaping through the fingers he pressed against his throat, she shot him a further five times, the last three in his head.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The last time Debbie Capelli had been in hospital, she'd had her tonsils removed. At eleven years old, hospitals were glamorous, mysterious, exciting places. The staff treated kids like royalty. She remembered lying back in bed with everything done for her. Her parents brought gifts, and the daily ice creams continued long after her sore throat had gone.

  Everything was different now. The yellow-walled room they wheeled her into after surgery wasn't glamorous. The nurses who came in to see her every hour weren't the breezy, funny, angelic presences she remembered, but tired and harassed. Every time she opened her eyes during the first twelve hours after they removed the bullet, she saw a different face checking her charts, adjusting the IV bag, taking her temperature or blood pressure.

  By lunchtime the second day, she'd regained her appreciation for the National Health Service. Easy to be complacent until it stopped you bleeding out in your spare bedroom.

  One cliché that turned out to have a basis in fact was the hospital food. Either the stew Debbie ate at lunchtime was tasteless, or her medication prevented her from identifying the meat. The dessert that followed was much too sweet. She ate it anyway. As she spooned it into her mouth, she remembered the paramedic who'd squeezed her hand in the ambulance as they roared away from the house.

  When the doctor came to see her, she was still crying into the remnants of her blancmange.

  "Are you in pain? I'm Mrs Gopal, the surgeon who removed the bullet in your leg. Does it trouble you?" Debbie sobbed louder. Gopal patted her on the shoulder while scanning her charts. Perhaps the medical students with the worst bedside manner gravitated towards surgery. Debbie took the tissue Gopal proffered and blew her nose.

  "I'm fine. Just glad to be alive."

  "Oh. Good. Yes. You lost rather a lot of blood. We gave you a transfusion." Debbie wondered if some of Gopal's brusque manner could be down to her gender. The police force still dragged its heels regarding equality. Debbie got called 'love' by the occasional commissioner, and few promotions had come her way compared to male colleagues.

  "No sign of internal bleeding. You'll need a crutch for a couple of weeks. Do you have any questions for me?"

  Gopal looked at her watch as she said this. Debbie decided against playing the sisterhood card.

  "No. Thank you. For saving my life."

  "You're welcome. Try not to get shot again."

  This last may have been an attempt at humour, but it fell flat, as if someone who had never found anything funny was imitating a comedian. The momentary grimace as Gopal acknowledged her failure suggested that might not be far from the truth.

  The surgeon said, "Hm," and left.

  Debbie must have dozed off, because it was dusk when she next opened her eyes and looked through the window at the bare, wet branches of the tree tapping at the glass.

  Someone had brought her bag. The local police, perhaps. It was on the chair next to the bed. She should check her messages. Part of her didn't want to find out what had changed since she'd arrived. There was a strange comfort in staying inside this odd bubble, the pain relief making everything soft focus, a smear of Vaseline on a camera lens.

  Debbie didn't listen to that part of her, being the practical, stolid, reliable daughter of Reg and Doreen Smith. When she pulled off a plaster, she did it with one quick tug. When she ended a marriage, she did it with a bonfire of Italian suits in the garden and a note saying Up yours.

  She reached in and pulled out the phone, then frowned at it for a few seconds. It wasn't her phone.

  It powered on without a code. It was a decent smartphone. Better than hers. Unusual in one regard, though. The home screen contained the bare minimum of apps. Debbie pressed the call button and checked the history. Empty. No messages, either. There was, however, a folder named Debbie. She clicked on it. It contained two files. One named Winter—audio only—and another named Rhoda.

  Debbie went back to her bag and found her earbuds. She listened to the audio first. Poor sound quality. When she recognised one of the voices, and realised what was being discussed, Debbie assumed the muffled recording was because the device had been hidden. Three voices spoke: one female, two male. When the female referred to one of the males as Winter, Debbie held her breath. Twenty-seven seconds later she released it, her fingers tight around the phone. She had just heard Robert Winter order Elliot Ling's execution. Ling, an independent London mayoral candidate, had gone missing shortly after announcing his candidacy.

  She had him. Finally, she had him.

  The short video made for compelling viewing. It played like a cheap horror film. Debbie had studied the information around Rhoda Ilích's extraordinary murder. It was one thing to read the report, but quite another to see Tom Lewis look into the camera before picking Ilích up and tossing her from the top of a Parisian landmark like an unwanted doll.

  "Christ on a bike."

  Debbie turned the phone off and put it back in her bag, finding her own. Three messages. One from her dentist. The other two from DI Matt Drummond, recently promoted and keen to please.

  Did you hear? Winter's dead. Bet you feel better already!

  His second message ended with a thumbs-up emoji. Glad you're not dead!!

  While she processed the news about Winter, a nurse put his head around the door. "Visitor for you. Are you up for it? Police. Detective Chief Inspector Barber."

  Debbie took a ragged breath. For the first time since regaining consciousness, she wondered how she looked. Like shit, presumably. Oh well.

  She'd expected a visitor from her own station, but not this soon, and not DCI Barber. Yes, she'd been shot, four armed men found dead at—or near—the Pakefield house. Villages in north Suffolk didn't see many multiple homicides. She expected to give an initial statement
to the senior officer of the local Major Investigations Team. Barber making the trip surprised her.

  Her boss looked her up and down, the expression on her face not exactly sympathetic.

  "Hello, Guv." A weak smile was the only response.

  Detective Chief Inspector Barber sat down in the only chair. Ten years younger than Debbie, a high flyer on her way to greater things. Barber made lists and set targets. With a reputation for shrewdness and efficiency, she didn't have a single friend in the department. Debbie liked her.

  Barber produced a paper bag full of grapes and ate them while staring at Debbie. The silence got awkward.

  "Guv, I—" Barber held up a finger. "Shh. Hope you didn't think these were for you."

  She carried on eating. "I'm bloody starving. Took forever to get here. Why do some people retire to the arse end of nowhere? Bloody hell."

  She reached further into the paper bag and produced a peeled boiled egg, taking three bites to consume it. She looked for something to wash it down with, finding only Debbie's glass of water. Barber raised her eyebrows, Debbie shrugged, and the DCI took three big swallows, emptying it.

  "That's better. Right. Not dead then?"

  "Apparently not."

  "Doctor says you lost a lot of blood. If the bullet had been a millimetre to the side, blah, blah." Barber picked at a piece of grape skin which had lodged itself between two of her front teeth.

  "Yes. A close thing. Good job the ambulance got to me in time."

  "Wasn't it just? We'll come back to that. You can give your official statement later. Tell me what happened."

  Debbie looked up at the ceiling. "Winter's dead."

  Barber said nothing. Debbie looked back at her. "Were you going to tell me?"

  "Probably." The younger woman didn't look surprised that Debbie knew. Police officers gossiped. "Winter will still be dead after you tell me what happened."

  "How did he die?"

  Barber tutted, but answered. "Multiple gunshot injuries. They found his body on the beach. Naked."

  At the word beach, Debbie's pulse rose.

  "Not Pakefield beach," clarified her boss. "Now that would have been interesting. Virgin Islands. St Thomas. He entered the country on December twenty-seventh under a false name. Between then and his corpse being washed up yesterday morning, there's no trail at all. Nothing. He vanished."

  "Not completely. Someone found him," said Debbie.

  "Yes, they did. Now, then, DI Capelli." Down to business. "One ambulance and three police cars attended the house in Pakefield. The front door was open, and paramedics found you slipping in and out of consciousness in a bedroom with a bullet in your thigh. The police found four male bodies. Two shot, one knifed. A crushed windpipe did for the last chap. Four Heckler and Koch submachine guns recovered, plus one Chukavin sniper rifle with a night scope. Would you like to tell me what happened?"

  Barber had another go at a stubborn strip of grape peel, sliding it out of her teeth. She flicked it at the wall where it stuck. She did all of this without taking her eye off her subordinate officer.

  Debbie thought of the video on the phone in her bag, showing Tom Lewis murdering Rhoda Ilích. She looked at her boss, who held up a warning finger.

  "Answer carefully. You took annual leave at short notice, you haven't been hassling us daily asking about the investigation at Winter's house… your behaviour has been unusual. Very unusual. Make this statement good, Capelli."

  Debbie reached for her water before remembering the glass was empty. Barber didn't offer to top it up. She thought of the twelve-year-old Tom Lewis facedown in his murdered parents' garden, leaking blood and bone from the bullet hole in his head. Tom, who stumbled through life afterwards, unable to settle, his life choices narrowed by that bullet.

  "I don't know, Guv. I remember making a cup of tea. There was a knock at the door. When I opened it, someone shot me. After that…"

  Debbie shook her head to convey confusion and memory loss. Barber's expression suggested she wasn't having any of it. "After that, what, exactly?"

  "Nothing, Guv. I passed out."

  "You passed out."

  "Yes, Guv."

  "Right. Well, while you napped, here's what the initial physical evidence suggests. Your blood was found downstairs by the front door. Which is where you said you were shot. There's more of your blood—a lot more—in one bedroom. Not the one they found you in. There's blood there too, of course. The first bedroom had a smashed window. A rope was hanging from the chimney into the back yard. Your blood was on the rope. And on the chimney. The chimney, DI Capelli. Ringing any bells?"

  "No. Sorry."

  "Are you? So, these armed men—mercenaries, judging by the equipment, the Russian sniper rifle, and tattoos suggesting they were ex-military—dragged you around the house, including a trip to the roof. Then they were set upon by assailants unknown. In the ensuing contretemps, they were all killed. Does that sound about right?"

  Only Barber would say contretemps. Debbie shrugged. "Or they turned on each other for some reason."

  There was a very long silence after this. When Barber spoke again, her tone was calm, deliberate, and frostier than a frozen Siberian lake during a particularly cold winter.

  "You're not a stupid woman, Capelli. If you tell me nothing, there's a good chance we'll never know what really happened up there. You know that's not the way I operate. I expect honesty and transparency from my officers, if they wish to continue their police careers. Am I making myself clear?"

  "Perfectly."

  "So what really happened?"

  Debbie sighed.

  Barber stood up. "Last chance. The 999 call was made by an unidentified male. The mercenaries were dead by then. Want to change your story?"

  Debbie closed her eyes. "I was unconscious. I have no idea who they were or why they were there."

  She didn't open her eyes again until she was sure Barber had left.

  The taxi driver helped her with her few belongings when Debbie left hospital four days later. She gave him the address of a Lowestoft hotel. Forensics were still busy at the Pakefield house, but she should be able to pick up her belongings tomorrow and head back to London. She stared out of the window as they drove. An unfamiliar world slid past the glass. A parallel universe, maybe, where Winter was dead and a thirty-two-year-old brain-damaged man could, somehow, be two people, one of whom was, well, what exactly? Even thinking about Bedlam Boy made her afraid all over again, but she kept returning to the memory like a tongue unable to avoid probing a painful cavity.

  No official word from Barber yet, but Debbie knew it would come. Her career was over. Unless she gave Barber Tom Lewis. She took the phone out of her bag as the cab followed the A47 south, past holiday resorts, pubs, caravan parks, and a golf course. Bedlam Boy had given her the evidence to make him a wanted man. A multiple murderer. She'd watched him kill. He did it with the lethal efficiency of a carnivore. No compunction. No remorse.

  She turned the phone over and over in her hands as the taxi drove through Lowestoft. A huge wind turbine dominated the skyline.

  "Excuse me? Can you stop for a minute?"

  The taxi driver pulled over and she got out, her crutch in one hand, the phone in the other. "Back in a sec."

  She limped to the end of the street, following the flashing orange lights reflected in the shop windows. Rounding the corner, she saw it: a bin lorry, chewing up trade refuse as it inched up the street. She walked around to the rear and lobbed the phone between the metal-crushing jaws.

  She was fifty-four years old. And her pension pot was healthy enough. She'd survive leaving the force. With Winter dead, the idea of going back held little appeal.

  She limped back to the waiting cab.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The lorry driver had a nervous laugh. He couldn't help it. Under stress, he found it hard to stop himself laughing. And the adrenaline was pumping tonight, because he'd never made this trip before.

  When he pulled his
truck into the vast concrete lorry park at Calais, the darkening sky meant most vehicles had turned on their headlights.

  The X-ray and CO2 checks were automatic. He drove the forty-footer through the narrow lane where cameras and sensors scanned the vehicles emissions and contents. His contacts had told him not to worry about it, but he couldn't stop a laugh escaping when he went through without setting off any alarms.

  The CMR check came next. Despite being in France, the hut beside the barrier was manned by UK Border officials. The middle-aged man took the CMR document, which detailed the contents of the trailer. The docket claimed his trailer contained tinned anchovies. This made him laugh before he could stop himself.

  "What's so bloody funny, pal?"

  The driver looked across at the grey-headed man in the booth. Short hair, clean shaven, immaculate white shirt under a blue jumper stretched over a pot belly. The driver wondered how he looked to the official, with his baseball cap, long hair, beard, and Lee Scratch Perry T-shirt. The pot-bellied man checked the papers again. The driver wondered if something had gone wrong. He had followed the lane they'd told him to follow, so this should be the right customs official. Unless this was the wrong lane. Another set of giggles escaped his lips.

  "Christ's sake!" The official banged his fist on the door of the cab. The driver stopped laughing. "What's wrong with you? You're new, right?"

  "Right. Yes. I'm new. Sorry. I laugh when I'm nervous."

  "Jesus. Well, that's just brilliant, isn't it?" The man curled his lip in disgust, then pointed a thick finger at the driver. His voice was low, and he spoke fast. "You'd better get your shit together. If you screw up, you go to prison. Not just you, though. Pull yourself together, all right?"

  The driver took a few deep breaths, composed himself. The official was right. There would be no reward if he didn't obey the instructions. He held out his hand for the documents. The official stamped them and handed them over.

  "Good. You're nearly there. Don't talk to anyone, okay? And don't screw up. Jesus, where did they find you?"