Last Gasp

by Robert F Barker

  Without Megan’s illuminating presence it seemed colder, less welcoming than he remembered, even allowing for what had happened the night before. He stared out of the window, wondering where she was. His feeling of foreboding was growing. He wished she would walk in right then. He would happily take a bollocking over the mess in the kitchen.

  He rang The Duke, gave him an update and told him he would keep him appraised. Then he rang Claire Trevor, still at Shepherd’s, and told her he potential scene he needed her to do. ‘Just one room, mainly.’ From her response, he could tell she wasn’t pleased to have scenes queueing up.

  Morning dragged into afternoon. With the house, garage and out-buildings there was a lot to cover. The Forensic team turned up around two. Claire had left the Shepherd scene in the hands of her deputy and called in another team for the Poplars. She’d showered and changed, and was in a different vehicle with new kits. He showed her the Playroom and ignored her reaction.

  ‘I need to identify anyone and everyone who has been in here.’ He paused. ‘There may be traces of Gary.’ She swung round, shocked. ‘There may also be blond hairs that match those from the other scenes.’

  ‘It’s a big room. There’s a lot of equipment that will need to be done.’

  ‘Take as long as you need.’ he said.

  As time passed without any word on Megan and nothing coming from the search, Carver’s anxiety rose, steadily. He kept checking his voicemail, and with the MIR, but there was no news. The only message was from a DCI from Professional Standards wanting to speak to him urgently about Angie. Stuff him, he thought. His disciplinary enquiry could wait.

  He rang Rosanna. She was calm, but sounded a little off-hand. He told her where he was, what was happening.

  ‘How long will it take?’

  ‘The rate it’s going, all day.’

  They talked about when he might be home. She told him to make sure he ate something. Bennett had already arranged a fish and chip run to the shop in the village. She changed the subject.

  ‘I checked the shed this morning. I think someone’s been in there again.’

  ‘Really?’ He thought on it. ‘I’ll arrange to get it alarmed. I’ll get our CPO on it. Nothing missing?’

  ‘Not that I can see.’

  ‘Good. I’ll ring later, let you know how it’s going.’ By the time he hung up he thought – hoped - she’d thawed a bit. He went to see where everyone was and how they were doing.

  The team had started at the top and were working their way down. They’d done the attics, were just finishing the first floor and would soon start downstairs. He returned to the kitchen and picked his way through the meagre collection of plastic bags and envelopes containing the bits that had been deemed, ‘promising’. Nothing jumped out, though he took a long look at the notepad from the side of Megan’s bed. On it was the impression of whatever she’d written on the previous sheet before she ripped it off. An Ezda, or light test would reveal what it said. He wandered out to the front just in time to see two of Bennett’s team, a PC called Darren, and his partner, Judy, coming out of the garage. Judy pointed something at the up-and-over door and it started to lower.

  He diverted in their direction. 'Wait.’

  'There’s nothing there boss,' Darren said. The door closed as Carver arrived. 'We’ve been right through it.'

  'Open it up again.'

  Judy pointed and the door rolled up. Megan’s gleaming Mercedes-Convertible stood next to the empty second bay. He stared at it.

  'How’s this here?' He turned on Darren and Judy.

  Darren was immediately defensive. They’d witnessed the two DCs being interrogated at the gate.

  'No idea. We were just told to do the garage. It’s clean.'

  But Carver was out and already heading back down the drive, fast. As he reached the gate, Dan and Tony were pouring coffee from a thermos. Dan held it up.

  'Want one Boss?'

  Carver said to Tony, 'I thought you said she drove out in her car?'

  'She did,' Tony said, stiffening.

  'So how come her Merc’s still in the garage?'

  Tony relaxed, a question he could answer.

  'She didn’t take the Merc. She used the four-by-four.'

  Carver blinked. 'What four-by-four?'

  'The one she keeps in the garage, next to the Merc.'

  He blinked again. 'How long has she had a four-by-four?'

  Tony looked at his partner. 'Dunno. Far as I know it’s always been there. I think she uses it sometimes instead of the Merc.'

  Carver’s mind raced. He’d seen her Merc many times, but never a four-by-four.

  'It’s here all the time?'

  Tony became wary. 'Like I said, she must just use it now and again.'

  'It’s definitely not used by anyone else? Someone who comes and goes?'

  'No,' Tony said, sure of his facts.

  'Who’s it registered to?'

  Tony’s newfound confidence disappeared in a flash. 'Er… her I assume.'

  Carver’s voice took on an edge. 'You did check it when you logged it out?' Standard protocol. All vehicles entering or leaving an O.P. are subject to an owner’s check.

  Tony turned pale. 'Er, well with it not being a visitor, I didn’t think there was much point.'

  Carver’s hand shot out. 'Show me the log.'

  Dan Hewitt, who had been following every word, dropped his beaker of coffee and dived into the car. He came out holding a clipboard which he handed to his grim-faced boss, at the same time exchanging a nervous look with his partner. Tony shrugged.

  Carver scanned down the log sheet showing the past twenty-four hours’ comings and goings. He pointed to an entry timed at 2320 the previous evening. It read, “MC out of OP. Driving Toyota 4X4” followed by a registration number.

  ‘Is the number right?' Carver asked.

  Tony looked to Dan.

  'Yes,' Dan said. He sounded more hopeful than sure.

  Carver passed the sheet to Tony. 'Run it.'

  While Tony made the call, Carver paced. Dan watched, nervously. When Tony emerged from the car, his face was red. He read from his notes.

  'It’s registered to a Tracy Redmond, 18 Oakfield Avenue, Heaton Chapel.’

  Carver froze. Then he turned and started running back towards the house. As he ran he shouted, ‘JESS. WE’VE GOT HER.’

  Chapter 63

  Heaton Chapel is one of Stockport’s smarter suburbs. Oakfield Avenue comprises solidly-built, mainly detached houses with decent sized gardens to front and rear. They got there just as dusk was falling, Carver, Jess and Alec Duncan. Carver had reasoned that Tracy Redmond wouldn’t recognise Alec the way she would Jess and, possibly, himself. As they cruised down the avenue, checking house numbers, Carver noted that most of the cars had German Marques, with the odd Jag for good measure.

  Jess pointed ahead and to the right. ‘That’s it.’

  Fronted by a low wall, number eighteen’s garden had been block-paved to provide an open parking space. To the right was a garage with a metal up-and-over door, next to it a wooden gate set in a high wall. There was no car, four-by-four or otherwise. Carver drove past, parked up then twisted round in his seat. ‘Suss it out, Alec.’

  Alec was gone five minutes. When he returned he said, ‘No sign of anyone. No lights. I knocked next door. They’re an Asian family. Only Mum in at present. The way she describes her neighbour, it sounds like our Tracy, and her Toyota, but they don’t see much of her. She keeps herself to herself and is out most of the time. She thinks the car was here around nine this morning, when she went out. It definitely wasn’t here when she came back about two this afternoon.’

  Carver checked around. It was now early evening. The occasional car drove past, a few pedestrians as well. Commuters returning home.

  Jess said, ‘What about a warrant?’

  Carver looked at her. Most times with a case like this, he would be careful to follow the book. But right now lost time could mean the differe
nce between life and death. He shook his head. ‘A warrant would take hours. Besides-,’ He turned to Alec. ‘We don’t need one if we’re in pursuit of a suspect.’

  It took Alec only a moment to pick up. ‘Now that you mention it, I think I did see a blond woman through the window, though it might turn out to have been just a reflection.’

  ‘Carver nodded. ‘In that case…’

  They all got out. Before Carver locked the car he delved in the boot.

  Jess rang the bell while Alec checked the gate. It was locked. When no one came, Jess rang again. Still no answer, Carver slipped the crowbar from under his jacket and passed it to Alec. Seconds later, the back gate was open. They slipped through and around the back. Along the back wall, the windows and doors were in good order. Metal-framed and hard to force without noise and effort, like Megan’s back door. Around the other side they found another door in a recessed porch. It was older, with separate top and bottom glass panels. The recess meant sound wouldn’t carry. Carver wasn’t overly fussed, but there was no point drawing attention if it could be avoided. Alec made use of the crowbar again and they were in in less than a minute, with only the bottom panel smashed.

  They found themselves in a utility room off the kitchen. There was a strong smell of take-away. They soon saw why. The kitchen sink was piled with discarded oriental-style food containers and half-eaten remains. The ripe smell told Carver some of it had to be days old. From what he could see, the mess was at odds with the rest of the house. Whoever had been there recently had other things on their mind than clearing away supper. Carver went through into the hall, stopped and listened. The house was silent. If anyone was in they’d have heard them entering.

  He called out. ‘Hello? It’s the police. Anyone home?’ No answer.

  Several doors led off the kitchen and hallway. He nodded to Jess and Alec. ‘Check down here. I’ll look upstairs.’

  On the first floor landing he counted seven doors. Towards the back of the house there was another flight of stairs going up. The two front rooms were bedrooms. One had a double bed that had been slept in but not re-made. A woman’s room, items of clothing hung off wardrobe doors and handles. The dressing table was crammed with make-up items and traces of a perfume he didn’t recognise lingered. The other front room had twin beds, both made up and unslept in. A third door opened onto an airing cupboard containing bedding and towels. Next to it was a bathroom, and next to that a separate toilet. He noticed that the water in the toilet bowl carried a reddish tinge. He checked out the bathroom. It was dusty and looked like it hadn’t been properly cleaned in a long while. In the combination bath/shower were some blue towels, some of which were marked with dark, reddy-brown stains. A foul smell emanated and he stepped back. ‘Phwoar.’ About to leave, he glanced in the hand-basin. Lying across the plug-hole was a vicious-looking hunting knife, the sort with a serrated edge towards the end of the blade, which was clean. The sixth room was piled with junk against one wall. Bags of clothes, cardboard boxes, bits of furniture. The seventh, overlooking the back, was kitted out as a gym. There was a runner, a cross trainer, weights, benches and assorted fitness equipment. Whatever else Tracy was, she liked to keep fit.

  He was about to mount the back stairs when Jess called up. ‘Jamie?’

  He retraced his steps and looked down into the hall. Jess was at the foot of the stairs.

  ‘Anything?’ she said.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘There’s something down here you need to see.’ There was a strange tone to her voice.

  She waited while he came down, then led him back through the kitchen, into a living room then another room off. It looked like it was used as some sort of den. A long table was pushed up against the wall. It was covered in papers, some loose, some bound, and piles of folders. There were also photographs, bound together in booklets in a way that looked familiar. Jess indicated a pile of papers she’d pulled out. He could see why. They were also bound, but with pink ribbon, as court documents often are. Trial depositions.

  ‘Take a look.’

  He moved closer. Tracy Redmond was, or had been, a barrister. Court papers weren’t particularly significant. But two items drew his eye. One was a list of criminal indictments. Before he’d read a word something in his sub-conscious marked them as familiar. But it was the second item, a sheet of paper with the name of the case emblazoned across the top in stark, neat, court script that took his breath away and sent his senses reeling. REGINA - V - HART. The reference to the court circuit – ‘In the County of Lancaster’ - sealed it. These were Edmund Hart’s defence documents.

  ‘What the-?’

  She touched his arm. ‘And there’s this.’ She handed him a photograph.

  It looked like it had been taken at some formal social event. The washed-out colour and hair styles suggested it was several years old. It showed an attractive, blond woman in a revealing red dress and with a black leather collar about her throat.

  ‘That’s Tracy,’ Jess said.

  It took Carver less than a second’s study to realise that the man whose face he recognised at once, and in whose arm Tracy was entwined was not her client, as the presence of the court papers could have suggested, but rather, her boyfriend, lover and, no doubt, Master.

  Carver felt a chill run through him. He turned to Jess. She was wearing a grim expression. ‘We were right.’ He said.

  She nodded.

  Carver’s mind raced. Tracy being connected to Edmund Hart raised all sorts of questions, and implications. The most obvious was, she could be the much-argued-about missing accomplice. But even as the several trains of thought occurring threatened to carry him away he remembered. He hadn’t finished upstairs yet. Instinctively, he looked up, as if seeing through to what lay two floors above them. A feeling of dread crept into him. Turning away sharply, he headed back the way he had come, leaving a surprised Jess staring after him.

  ‘Jamie?’

  ‘There’s another floor yet,’ he called back.

  She hurried after him.

  He went straight to the back stairs and started up. Near to the top, a stout door barred his way. He tried the handle. It was locked. There was no sign of a key. He called back over his shoulder and past Jess who was right behind him.

  ‘ALEC, I NEED THAT BAR.’

  Moments later, Alec appeared and handed it up.

  Carver jammed the flat end between the door and the frame and heaved back. Some of the frame splintered but the door sprang open. He went up and in, Jess and Alec following.

  Outside, darkness was falling. But twin skylights in the roof let in enough of the fading light for Carver to see it was another dungeon-type playroom of the Megan Crane variety. It covered the entire roof space and contained the sorts of ‘furniture’ with which they were all now familiar. Behind him someone threw a light switch.

  He didn’t need to turn to see her. As the room lit up, she was there right in front of him. Hanging by the neck from a rope anchored to a roof-beam, she was naked, her hands tied behind her back. Scattered around, were items of clothing that looked like they had been cut, or torn from her body. She was hanging at an angle facing away from them, towards the front of the house. Her head had fallen forward so that her dark hair hid the face he didn’t need to see to know would be blotched and bloated.

  ‘Ahh, Christ.’

  Behind him, Jess whispered, ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘Fuck-ing Jesus,’ Alec said.

  Directly under her, the killer had piled some sheets. Once white, they were now stained a dark crimson-brown. Her legs and torso were streaked with blood. Carver remembered the knife in the sink in the bathroom.

  For several moments none of them moved. There was no immediate need. Urgent action of the life-saving variety was not going to be called for.

  Eventually, on shaking legs, Carver started forward. As he stepped, carefully, around her, he was surprised to realise he was actually crying. Real tears. When he stopped in front, his heart was beating f
aster than he could ever remember. Already, feelings of guilt - and failure - that would outweigh anything he had experienced in the past were threatening to overwhelm him.

  I’m sorry Megan. I’m so sorry.

  He looked up at the horror before him.

  I’m sorry. The only words that would come.

  He made to reach up to her, but it was as if his arm was stuck to his side and he had to make a conscious effort to get it to move. His hand shook as his fingers neared the cascade of hair obscuring the face that had once been so beautiful.

  I’m sorry…

  He felt its silkiness against his skin as he brushed it aside. He didn’t particularly want to gaze on the features that would bear no resemblance to how they had been, but he knew he must. He owed her that much. He focused through his tears, parted the dark curtain, and gazed upon her – and leaped back several feet.

  ‘FUUUCK.’

  Wide-eyed, he stared at her for several seconds, before sinking to his knees. Then he tipped his head back, and let out a howl of anguish that echoed round the room and made Jess clamp her hands to her ears.

  It wasn’t Megan.

  It was Angie.

  Chapter 64

  During Edmund Hart’s trial for the murders of six, High Class Female Escorts, Carver learned much about himself. In the weeks and months following, he learned a great deal more.

  Up to that time, Carver’s understanding of what it feels like to suffer what is often referred to as a ‘breakdown’, or to experience real, debilitating ‘stress’, was sketchy, at best. He knew, vaguely, that ‘stress’ is something people suffer when work or personal pressures become more than they can cope with. But he had little personal experience of it. He didn’t know what it felt like to be properly ‘stressed’. He wouldn’t. He loved his job. He was lucky in that his personal life had never derailed in any of the ways people’s lives sometimes do, the single exception being his divorce from Gill. His health was good, and his finances were, more or less, under control. In work he’d always coped with whatever the job threw at him, including the responsibilities that come with running a Major Crime Investigation. What he’d never realised however, was the extent to which that coping ability was linked to his own self-image. Carver had always viewed himself, and took pride in doing so, as someone who always, ‘did the right thing’. As someone once pointed out, it would have been during his formative years that he developed a strong sense of ‘right’, ‘wrong’, and ‘justice’. As he grew into adulthood this understanding became his moral compass, though it didn’t necessarily follow that meant being a slave to, ‘the rules’. If serving ‘justice’ meant bending them, or even subverting them all together, then so be it. Given his job, it was as well that this tendency was balanced by a strong sense of professionalism. And though a band of grey often separated white from black, he was clear about when and where to draw the line. As his career progressed, these attributes served him well. By the age of thirty, he’d made Detective Inspector, occasionally filling the SIO role in respect of, if not yet first tier, then certainly second tier, major crime. At no time did he give any thought to what influence his father may, or may not, have had on his career progression.