by Maynard Sims
“I’m here for Violet Bulmer,” he said.
The nurse picked up a clipboard and consulted it. “IC5,” she said. “Just up there on the left.”
“Thank you,” Harry said.
“Just two visitors at the bedside,” the nurse said.
“It’s just the two of us.”
“Yes, but Ms. Bulmer already has one visitor.”
“It’s okay, Harry. I’ll wait here,” Susan said, and crossed to one of the two seats against the wall and sat down.
“There’s coffee there,” the nurse said to her, nodding to a silver vending machine farther along the corridor. Susan smiled her thanks. Harry walked along and found IC5.
He could see Vi through the large, square window. She lay on her back, her head propped up on a pillow, a clear oxygen mask covering her nose and mouth, and an array of wires snaking from different parts of her body, connected to a vital signs machine. Harry was hurled back in time eighteen months, when he had visited an ICU at a different hospital to see his boss and friend Crozier after Simon was attacked and left for dead on the Embankment, next the River Thames.
Another year and another friend, lying in a hospital bed, fighting for their life.
Jason sat at her bedside, looking ashen, his curly black hair awry, cheeks streaked with tears.
Harry entered the room. “How is she?” he said
Jason had his gaze fixed on Violet’s sallow face. “Not good,” he said. “The doctor said she’s had a major coronary. It was lucky I went round to her house when I did. Another half an hour or less and she would have died.”
Harry sat down on the other chair at the bedside. “Can she hear me?”
“She shows no sign that she can. I came with her in the ambulance, and she hasn’t acknowledged my presence yet. The doctor wants her kept quiet.”
“What’s the prognosis?”
“Too early to tell, but he did say that given her age and her condition, she should make a complete recovery.”
“I’ve never known her ill before. I know she was in hospital earlier in the year, from injuries sustained during your abortive investigation, but I’ve never known her ill.”
Jason chuckled. “No. Vi’s a tough old bird. Her energy levels put me to shame and she has fifteen years on me.”
“How did you two meet?” Harry said.
“She used to be a volunteer prison visitor, and she would come and see me in Wandsworth.”
Harry’s eyebrows rose slightly. “What were you in for? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I was a naughty boy back then. Nothing serious. Stealing cars, a spot of housebreaking. Nothing violent. Vi came to visit me once as part of her volunteer work, and kept coming back.”
Jason continued to stare at Violet, but behind his eyes, he’d drifted back in his mind. “She’d visit and we’d sit there and talk for hours. I told her about the psychic experiences I’d had since childhood, and she shared some of hers. We had a connection. She helped me out when I was released. My parents had chucked me out and I had nowhere to go. Vi let me stay at her house until I’d got myself back on my feet. I found a job in a pub, bar work, that came with a flat above the pub. I did that and lived there until she asked me to provide backup on a case she was working on. I quit the pub and I’ve worked for her off and on ever since. I suppose you could say she took me under her wing.”
“You two seem very close.”
“She means more to me than my own mother,” Jason said, and Harry saw the tears start to well again in his eyes.
Harry reached across the bed and laid a reassuring hand on his arm. “She’ll get over this, Jason. She’ll pull through.”
“Yeah,” Jason said. “As I said, she’s a tough old bird.”
“Not so much of the old.”
They both turned to look at Vi, whose eyes were half-open and staring at them.
“Good to have you back, Vi,” Harry said.
Jason made a sound in his throat, somewhere between a cheer and a sob, and held on to her hand tightly.
“It’s all right, Jason. I’m not dead yet.” Her voice was weak, no more than a whispered croak, and he had to lean forward to hear her clearly. “It’ll take more than a heart attack to make me shuffle off this mortal coil,” she said, and gave a small laugh.
The Irish nurse bustled into the room. She had obviously been keeping a close eye on Violet’s progress. “If you gentlemen could wait outside,” she said and pulled a thermometer from her tunic and slipped it under Vi’s tongue.
“What do you think she was doing to bring this on?” Harry said when they got outside the room.
“When I got to the house, I found her in the sitting room. She had lit candles everywhere and incense sticks burning, so I should imagine she was roaming.”
“Roaming?”
“She has her own technique for freeing her astral self and letting it wander, searching for things and going to places that would be impossible to get to in her corporeal state.”
“What do you think she was searching for?” Harry said.
“I would have thought that was obvious. We still haven’t found Alice yet, and it’s been over three weeks since she went missing.”
“I wonder if she found her.”
“The fact that she’s lying there now in intensive care, wired up to a heart monitor and other things, I would say yes, she probably did. Or came close.”
“Shall I take you back to the Wellington, or do you want to go home?” Harry said as he and Susan drove out of the hospital car park.
“My car’s parked at Waterloo Road,” she said. “You can take me back there and—”
“Sorry the evening’s been such a bust,” Harry said, interrupting her.
“I was going to say, you can take me back to the station to pick up my car and then you can follow me back to my flat. You can come in for a nightcap.”
“But I don’t drink,” Harry said.
“Then I’ll make you coffee. Or is it cocoa for you geriatrics?”
“Cheeky cow,” Harry said with a smile.
Susan let them in to the flat. It was on the first floor of a purpose-built block on Swan Street. “Excuse the mess,” she said, leading him inside.
Harry looked around the cluttered lounge, at the stacks of magazines, piles of CDs and a desk that held an old iMac and piles of household bills and fliers for local takeouts. There was an open can of Red Bull next to the computer, sitting on a CD she was using as a coaster.
She moved a pile of official-looking papers from the seat of a brown, cloth-covered couch and dropped it on the floor.
“Take a seat and I’ll put the kettle on.” She walked out to a small kitchenette and Harry heard the kettle being filled. She put her head back through the doorway. “Coffee?”
“Please.” Harry said, pulled a copy of Police magazine stacked in a pile by the window, and flicked it open.
Susan came back into the living room a short while later, carrying two steaming mugs of coffee. “Black, no sugar,” she said. “Instant, I’m afraid. I hope that’s okay.”
“It’s what I drink at home.”
She sat down next to him on the couch, leaned across and kissed him on the lips. Harry put his hand behind her head and pulled her closer. “I’ve never kissed a police officer before,” he said when they broke the embrace.
“How was it?” she said.
“Hmm. Arresting.”
“Oh, please.”
Their lovemaking ebbed and flowed, torrid and gentle in equal measure, but always passionate. Susan had a slender body, with firm breasts and a tight, flat stomach, and Harry took great pleasure exploring every inch of it with his hands and tongue. When he slid his hand down the smooth, flat expanse of her belly and through the neat bush of her pubic hair, she opened her legs slightly and m
oaned softly as his fingers probed the moistness.
“Not bad,” she said when they were spent. “For an old man.”
He slapped her playfully on the buttocks. “Not bad yourself,” he said and lay there looking up at the hairline cracks on the ceiling, listening as her breathing changed into something deeper and more rhythmic, and he realized she was asleep. He pulled the duvet up to cover her shoulders, then rolled over. He was asleep within seconds.
He awoke suddenly, disoriented, trying to grasp where he was, then felt Susan move slightly beside him and remembered. He slid his legs from the bed and padded across to the window.
It had rained and the road below was slick, reflecting the orange light from the overhead street lamps. Somewhere a cat yowled and another answered it. A dark van moved slowly along before turning the corner at the end and disappearing from view.
She was out there somewhere. Alice, the self-styled goddess, with a murderous streak. Lips brushed his neck. He hadn’t heard Susan rise and cross the floor to where he stood.
“Can’t sleep?” she said.
“I can’t switch my brain off,” he said “I drift off and have visions of Vi, in her hospital bed, with Alice standing over her holding a five-bladed knife, and then I wake up.|”
“Drink,” she said with a yawn. Her normally sleek bobbed hair was ruffled and astray, and she’d pulled on a tartan robe that was at least three times too large for her, swamping her slight frame. She looked younger, smaller and adorable.
“Do you have any tea? Coffee won’t help the insomnia.”
“Sure thing,” she said, pecked him on the lips and went out to the kitchen.
When she came back with the cups, he was still standing, gazing out through the window.
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking I owe it to Vi to find her niece.”
“You have tried. We all have.” She took her tea across to the bed and sat, crossing her legs under her and pulling her robe down to cover her knees. “I don’t see what else we can do. We have half the Met out there looking for her, and her photo’s been circulated to other forces throughout the country. I wouldn’t say it’s a full-scale manhunt, but it’s pretty damned close.”
“I appreciate all your help with this,” he said.
“No problem,” she said. “Come back to bed.”
He took one final look along the street and joined her on the bed, where they drank their tea and made love again, before falling asleep until the buzzing of Harry’s cell phone awakened them a few hours later.
Chapter Thirty-One
“Mr. Bailey, it’s George Logan. I’m sorry to call you so early, but Violet’s in hospital, and I really didn’t know who else to call.” There was note of hysteria in his voice.
Before Harry could respond, George continued. “It’s Tim. He’s been arrested. They’ve taken him to Hitchin police station. They have him in a cell. They’ve locked him up, Mr. Bailey.”
He sounded at the end of his tether.
“Why?” Harry said calmly.
“Possession of a class A drug.”
“Shit,” Harry said under his breath. “Did the police give you any idea what drug it was?”
“Methamphetamine,” George said, his voice suddenly cold. “That was the drug that bastard Strasser got Alice hooked on.” And then he started to cry. Huge, racking sobs that traveled down the phone line and made Harry feel sick and slightly useless.
He should have seen this coming. Alice was still out there, alone. She was an addict, and she’d have the need to feed that addiction, and who better to help her in that quest than her loyal and loving twin brother? Her Apollo.
“Who was that?” Susan said, concerned at the anguish that had settled over Harry’s face and the deep lines of concern etched into his brow.
“George Logan. Hitchin police have arrested Tim, his son and Alice’s twin brother. I’m going to have to get over there.”
“I’ll come too,” Susan said.
“Haven’t you got to go to work?”
“It’s my day off. I’ll come. I might be able to help. We’ll just shower and go,” she said.
“Thank you,” Harry said.
“No problem. You’d do the same for me.”
He looked at her steadily and felt a surge of affection flow through him. Yes, he probably would.
They took his car. Harry drove up the A1 while Susan made some phone calls.
“Possession with intent to supply,” she said. “He must have had a lot of the stuff on him.”
It had started to rain again, and the wipers were working hard to clear the rain and spray from the windscreen.
“It wasn’t for him,” he said. “It was for Alice.”
“How can you be sure?” Susan said.
“I’ve met him. He shows no sign of being a user. A cigarette smoker maybe, but no drugs, I’m sure.”
“Then if it’s for Alice, he knows…”
“He knows where she is. Yes, that’s what I was thinking.”
Harry left Susan talking to the desk sergeant while a uniformed PC led him to an interview room on the first floor. Tim was sitting there at a table, a plastic cup of water in front of him. He looked terrified. The PC followed him into the room and closed the door, taking up a position beside it.
Harry had used his Department 18 identity card to get him this meeting, and having Susan Tyler with him hadn’t done any harm either, He was grateful she was with him. Her presence oiled wheels that would have otherwise been slow to turn.
Harry sat down at the table and stared across it at Tim Logan, who was looking at anything in the room apart from him. Harry sat back in the chair, crossed his arms—crossed his legs. “Where is she, Tim?”
Tim stared down at the desk.
Harry sat forward and rested his elbows on the table. “Tim, look at me. Where is Alice?”
Tim gradually dragged his gaze up to meet Harry’s. The fear was still in his eyes, but there was something else as well. Defiance.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Harry had to keep his anger in check. He spoke quietly but firmly. “I’m talking about your sister who you used to play with when you were children. I know the meth was for her.”
“It’s mine,” Tim said.
“And we both know that’s total bollocks. I’ll bet you’ve never taken anything like it in your life. You’ve probably enjoyed the odd spliff or two at parties and suchlike. But crystal meth? No. I don’t believe it. It’s in a different league. Why don’t you give yourself a break and tell me the truth?”
“It’s mine,” Tim said again.
Harry shook his head. “Tim, you had enough methamphetamine on you to keep most of the junkies in Hertfordshire going for a month. Where did you get the money to pay for it?”
“I paid for it. I have a job.”
“In a burger bar, yeah, slapping ground beef onto a griddle for minimum wage. You’re earning barely enough to keep your motorbike on the road, let alone buy this amount of gear…is that what you call it, gear?”
Tim looked at him blandly and shrugged.
“Who’s your supplier?”
“Some bloke.”
“Does he have a name, this bloke?”
“I don’t know. I met him in a pub. The Horseshoes. I didn’t ask.”
Harry sighed, loudly, and sat back. “You’re full of shit,” he said. “You didn’t get a name because there was no bloke.”
“Where did I get it from then?”
“I don’t know, Tim. Where did you get it from?”
“You’re so bloody clever. You tell me.”
“Where’s Alice, Tim?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Harry stood up. The room was small and windowl
ess, and there was a single radiator, spewing out dry, sleep-inducing heat. Harry’s armpits were growing damp. He walked from the room and stood outside to take a breather.
This was going nowhere. He wished he’d brought Jason with him. Jason was more of an age with Tim, and had built a rapport with him. But Jason had other things on his mind. Violet for one.
“Harry.”
Harry turned and Susan was walking along the corridor towards him. At her side was a man, thin-faced, with black, wavy hair and piercing blue eyes. He was about Susan’s age.
“This is Detective Inspector Frank Ryman. He might be able to help.”
Harry stuck his hand out and the two men shook. “Tim Logan. He’s the brother of the missing girl, Alice, right?” Ryman said.
“Yes, he is.”
“According to Susan, she’s a meth addict, and you believe Tim got the drug for her and might know where she is.”
“I’ve just questioned him and didn’t get anything out of him.”
“I tried earlier to get some answers from him regarding his possession, but I drew a blank too. I was considering releasing him on police bail and putting a tail on him. I’m thinking now that we could kill two birds with one stone here. We want to find his supplier; you want to find the girl. If we put him under twenty-four-hour surveillance, then it’s only a matter of time before he leads us to, if not one, then both of them. I understand that his sister’s being looked at as a murder suspect.”
“Yes,” Harry said. “I’m afraid she is.”
“Then using the manpower is justified.”
“I think it’s a good plan,” Harry said. “So, yes, I’d say it’s justified.”
“Good, only I have to square it with my superintendent. Costs are one of his hobbyhorses. He watches us like hawks to see we don’t waste public money. Sometimes it’s like trying to police with one arm tied behind our backs. Can I liaise with you, Sue?”
“Sure,” she said, and gave him her contact card. He looked at the card and put it in his shirt pocket. “Great. I’ll set the wheels in motion,” he said, and leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “Lovely to see you again,” he said. “Mr. Bailey.” He nodded at Harry, turned and retraced his steps.
