Tanzy got in front of her, and carefully made his way across the incomplete landing, switching focus between his footing and another ahead in case Dilton came flying out. When he reached the doorway, he took a left and stepped inside, the truncheon tightly gripped in his hand, fully extended.
In the corner, Mackenzie Dilton was stood, staring at him. He had nowhere to go. A window was to his left but didn’t open.
‘Dilton…’ Tanzy whispered.
Dilton didn’t say anything and appeared calm.
‘You’re coming with me,’ said Tanzy, stepping into the room.
Dilton slowly shook his head. ‘I have more work to do.’ His voice was rough, raspy, full of determination.
Tanzy smiled widely. ‘You’ve done enough.’ He held the baton high up behind him and made his way over, watching Dilton carefully, anticipating what he might do. There was nowhere to go. He was cornered.
Fallows held off a little, not wanting to get too close to the monster who’d evaded her seven years ago but stared at him with wide eyes.
‘I need you to put these on,’ Tanzy said. He grabbed some cuffs from his pocket and threw them over to him. They landed near his feet, the sound pinging around the room.
‘Go on, put them on.’
Dilton silently stared, defying his order.
‘You either put them on or I’ll make you—’
Tanzy felt the blow to his head a split second before he passed out and helplessly collapsed to the floor with a thud.
Dilton stared wide eyed at Fallows. ‘Linda, what are you doing here?’
She dropped the brick she’d picked up near the door and smiled at him.
69
Monday Afternoon
West Cemetery, Carmel Road
As soon as the man in the digger had cleared enough earth around the coffin, he jumped out, grabbed two long straps he’d collected from the shed when he went to get the digger, and went to the open grave.
‘Here, hold these,’ he said to Byrd, who took them from him. The man then lowered himself into the hole, using his strong hands to steady himself onto the surface of the coffin with a thud. He’d dug enough earth bedside the coffin, so stepped down, the lid of the coffin now at knee height, and pulled the lid open quickly.
Byrd, Leonard, Cornty, Weaver, Timms, and Grearer watched him with wide eyes in anticipation from the ground above.
Inside, was DS Stockdale. He lay silently and still.
‘Is he alive?’ Byrd asked.
The gravedigger lowered his hand into the coffin and placed two fingers on the side of his throat to find a pulse. He looked back up and nodded twice.
‘Right, let’s get him out.’ Byrd turned to Weaver. ‘Amy, ring an ambulance, please.’
With tears in her eyes, she nodded and pulled out her phone.
The man in the grave lowered himself and, with his hands, dug some of the earth from underneath the coffin, just enough room for him to get the straps through. He struggled but managed to get one under, then moved down near Stockdale’s feet and did the same. Once he’d got the straps under, he apologised to Stockdale, who looked to be moving a little more, and closed the coffin lid, then grabbed the other sides of the strap. One at a time, he threw them up.
‘Help me up,’ the man said, holding his hands up in the air.
Byrd grabbed one of his hands, Cornty grabbed the other and together, they heaved him up, almost pulling his old arms from the sockets.
‘Great work,’ Byrd encouraged him when he was out of the hole. He then took hold of one side of the strap that went around the top end of the coffin. Leonard went to the other side, grabbing the opposite end of it. Timms and Cornty grabbed the other strap, standing opposite each other, the six-foot hole in between them.
‘On three,’ said Byrd. ‘One. Two. Three.’
They all started to pull up slowly. They knew it would be heavy but didn’t expect to weigh the same as an elephant.
‘Jesus,’ Leonard said, struggling with the weight of it, his palms already burning. When the undertakers carefully lowered coffins into the hole, apart from doing it properly, with years of experience and training, they wore gloves.
A minute later, they had managed to lift the coffin above the hole and followed the gravedigger's instruction to pull the coffin away from the hole and lower it to the grass. Byrd opened the lid. ‘Phil?’
He leaned in, placed a hand on his cold face. ‘Phil?’ He gently tapped his face. Stockdale’s eyes flicked open for a second, but he didn’t move.
‘Amy, where’s that ambulance?’ shouted Byrd in her general direction.
‘On its way, sir.’
Byrd nodded and looked back at Stockdale.
‘Should we move him, boss? Get him out in the open?’
Byrd shook his head at Cornty. The idea was good, but he didn’t want to risk moving him, not knowing if he was injured or not. ‘Phil, are you hurt?’
Stockdale didn’t respond.
Leonard told Byrd he would go find Tanzy and Fallows, see if they needed help. Byrd agreed and asked Cornty to go with him. They ran across the field towards the wall that Byrd said they’d climbed and jumped over it, landing on a man-made path on the other side.
‘Where did they go?’ Cornty asked, looking around. The path went under a cluster of trees in one direction, and in the other, bordered the stone wall until it went out of sight. In front of them, was woodland and clusters of bushes.
‘In there?’ Leonard said, pointing at the house Cornty had noticed through the hedging.
Cornty nodded and went first, stepping over the uneven ground and through the array of hedges until he reached the abandoned path leading to the house.
‘Surely, they’re not in there?’ Cornty said, frowning.
‘Worth a check,’ Leonard replied.
As they stepped through the open doorway, they heard something upstairs. Floorboards creaking. They froze, looked at each other for a moment, then Leonard went first, making his way carefully up the stairs, mindful of the broken wood underfoot.
‘Hello? Police here,’ shouted Leonard, grabbing his truncheon from his trousers. Cornty grabbed his own, gripping it tightly in his right hand, a few steps behind Leonard. He reached the top and turned. ‘Hello – is there anyone here?’
As he stepped onto the patchy landing, a shadow shifted ahead of him, causing him to look up. From the front bedroom, someone stepped out.
‘Jesus, boss,’ Leonard said.
Tanzy was unsteady on his feet, his right hand pressed firmly on the side of his head, covering the blood on his face.
‘What the fuck happened, boss?’ Leonard said, leaning in to have a closer look.
‘Dilton. He was here,’ Tanzy managed to say, wincing in pain.
‘Where’s Linda Fallows?’
Tanzy painfully shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’
70
Monday Afternoon
West Cemetery, Carmel Road
‘You okay, boss?’ Cornty asked Tanzy, helping him away from the house. Leonard was on his other side. They reached the wall.
‘Think you can climb it?’ Leonard asked Tanzy, staring at the cut on his head.
Tanzy nodded. ‘I’ll be fine.’ With the aid of Leonard and Cornty, Tanzy managed to climb over the high wall and drop down on the other side. His head was thumping in agony. Leonard and Cornty climbed over a few seconds after.
‘What was Dilton wearing, boss?’ Leonard asked, finding his feet.
Tanzy slowly stood up, the blow to his head affecting his balance and ability to move one hundred percent. ‘Black t-shirt and blue jeans,’ he said, wincing at the pounding inside his head.
Leonard pulled his radio from his belt clip and spoke into it. ‘We have a suspect in the nearby area of West Cemetery off Carmel Road, who we believe to be Mackenzie Dilton. He’s just attacked one of our officers and is wearing a black t-shirt and blue jeans. Keep your eyes peeled.’
‘How’s the head, bo
ss?’ Cornty asked him.
Tanzy gave a slow shake of the head. ‘Not good.’
‘Can you remember where Linda went? Has he got her?’
Tanzy clamped his eyes shut as he struggled across the grass. ‘She – she was behind me, and then I felt something hard hit me, then I was out…’ Tanzy thought hard. ‘There may have been someone else there.’
‘Did you hear anyone else in the house?’ Cornty asked.
‘No.’
Leonard frowned, thinking of the possibility. If the only person who was there was Linda Fallows, could it have been her? What reason would she have to attack Tanzy? She’d travelled up from Essex to help them with the investigation, allowing them to see reports from a similar thing that Dilton could have been responsible for seven years ago.
It didn’t make any sense.
Byrd heard what Leonard had said on the radio and told Weaver to wait at the car park they’d passed on their way in. It was about halfway up on the right hand side. ‘If he travelled here in a car, he might go back to it. Black t-shirt and blue jeans. Go keep an eye out.’ He grabbed PC Timms' attention who was standing with PC Grearer. ‘Eric, go with her, please.’
Timms nodded and together with Weaver, went back to the path, and jogged along the narrow road to the car park.
Byrd looked away from Stockdale for a moment. ‘Where’s the ambulance at?’ he asked no one in particular, then spotted Tanzy walking over with Leonard and Cornty. ‘Ori…’
Everyone else looked over, noticed the blood on Tanzy’s head and down his neck and arm.
‘Jesus, Ori. What happened?’ asked Byrd, frowning at the damage.
‘I don’t know,’ replied Tanzy, lowering his hand for a moment. Byrd leaned in to have a look.
‘Nasty.’
‘I had him cornered, Max. He was right there. Then something hit me from behind.’
Byrd considered his words. ‘Where was Linda?’
Tanzy smiled sadly. ‘Behind me…’
A frown found Byrd’s face. ‘You don’t think?’
Tanzy shrugged. ‘Why would she?’
On the road behind them the sound of an ambulance siren was heard, gradually getting louder until it stopped on the grass to their right. Two paramedics jumped out, dressed in green, and ran to the back and opened the rear door. The driver picked up a walkie talkie from the dash and said something in to it. One pulled out a stretcher and the other grabbed a hip bag, looping it over his shoulder.
Byrd waved them over, pointing to the coffin. They nodded, dropped down on their knees beside it, and looked inside to assess the situation. The one with the stretcher placed it down on the floor beside the coffin and the other grabbed a few things from the bag and placed them down on the floor. They evaluated the position and wellbeing of Stockdale after checking his pulse and getting a rough story of why he was there.
On the count of three, with the help of Byrd and Leonard, they lifted Stockdale up and lowered him down on the stretcher. One of them grabbed a bag valve mask from the kit and place it over Stockdale’s mouth with the expandable string around the back of his head, then started squeezing the bag to force some fresh air into Stockdale’s lungs; something he was in desperate need of.
The third paramedic, the driver, who was talking on the walkie talkie, ran over, noticing Tanzy had been injured also.
‘Let me have a look at you,’ he said to Tanzy.
Tanzy lowered his hand to let him inspect the cut.
‘What hit you – a brick or something?’
‘Something like that,’ Tanzy said quietly.
The blood was still flowing from the wound.
‘Right, you need to come with us, too.’ The paramedic turned to Byrd, assuming he was the man in charge. ‘He’s coming with us – we need to get this sorted. It’s bad.’
Byrd nodded. ‘Okay.’ He looked at Tanzy, and asked, ‘You want one of us to come along?’
Tanzy shook his head.
‘No chance. Go and find the sonofabitch.’
Byrd nodded with a look of determination on his face.
71
Monday Afternoon
West Cemetery, Carmel Road
Weaver and Timms reached the car park halfway down on the right. It wasn’t big, totalling roughly thirty spaces, half occupied.
A bald man with a black t-shirt and blue jeans.
That’s who they were looking for.
Up on the left, was a couple in their eighties, slowly plodding along with walking sticks. The man was dressed for the sun in a short-sleeved shirt tucked into grey trousers that appeared both too big and long for his legs. The lady walking beside him was slight, dressed in a blue two-piece and black tights over bony knees. It made Weaver feel hot just looking at her.
‘Excuse me,’ Weaver said, slightly out of breath. ‘Have you seen a bald man in a black t-shirt and blue jeans?’
The elderly couple looked at her strangely, then gradually shook their heads. They probably didn’t know what day it was.
‘Okay, thanks,’ Weaver said, moving on, scanning the area.
‘A bald man in a black t-shirt you say?’ a voice said from behind.
Weaver turned, as did Timms, and saw a man standing on the grass verge near a row of freshly laid flowers, with a watering can in his right hand, wearing a pair of thin, white overalls. Looked to be a caretaker.
‘Yeah. Have you seen him?’
The man nodded twice. ‘Sure. He was here a minute ago. Got into a blue Ford Focus.’
‘You sure?’ Timms asked, sceptical.
‘Yes. He was running from down there.’ The man pointed down the narrow road, back to where they’d just come from.
‘Was he alone?’ Weaver this time.
‘Yeah. As far as I could see.’
‘This blue Focus,’ Timms said quickly, taking a few steps toward him. ‘You didn’t happen to see—’
‘It was a twelve reg. Looked in good nick, apart from a scratch on the back passenger quarter.’
‘You remembered that well?’
‘As I said, he was running. It stands out in a place like this. It was parked just over there.’
They followed his finger to the empty space, then thanked him. Weaver pulled the radio from her hip. ‘We have a possible vehicle for Mackenzie Dilton in the area of Carmel Road. Twelve reg. According to a witness, there’s a large scratch in the back quarter, passenger side.’
She put her radio back and had a quick scan around. They left the man, made their way back to where they found Stockdale. The ambulance was parked up on the left with the rear doors open. Inside, DS Stockdale lay on a trolley with something over his mouth and a few wires coming from him. There was a jump bag fixed to a metal pole by his side, feeding him something but nor Weaver or Timms knew exactly what. To the right side of the van, Tanzy sat upright with a bag of something cold wrapped in a cloth on his head to keep the swelling down.
They took a left and returned to the grave where they found Byrd, Leonard, Cornty, and Grearer. They were talking about something but stopped when Weaver and Timms approached.
‘Find the blue Focus?’ Byrd asked.
‘No.’ Weaver frowned wondering how he knew but remembered saying it through the radio, which was fed to anyone that was tuned in to the same channel.
Mackenzie Dilton took a left when he came out of the cemetery and powered through the gears along Carmel Road. When he reached Hummersknott Avenue, he veered left, following the winding road a few minutes until he reached Baydale Road, turned left, and stopped roughly fifty metres up at the side of the road.
It was warm inside the car. He cracked the window allowing mild air to seep in. Opposite, there were children playing in one of the front gardens, throwing a tennis ball between them. A boy and girl, a few years apart, likely brother and sister. He smiled towards them, thinking about what life would be like with a brother or a sister. He hadn’t had the most privileged upbringings, missing out on what some would consider normal
and because of that, it had maybe shaped him into what he was.
Lost in a state of thinking, he snapped back to the present when the passenger door opened. He glared to the left, watching her climb in quickly, and closed the door. She was panting for air.
‘We need to ditch the car,’ he told her.
‘Why?’
He nodded at the radio. ‘One of them said about a blue Ford Focus, twelve reg, with a scratch on the back.’
Linda Fallows sighed. ‘We can just get another one. Right, come on, Mack. Let’s get going. We have more work to do.’
72
Monday Afternoon
Police station
Byrd turned the engine off and pulled his key out, sitting for a moment in deep thought. Picking up his phone, he found Linda Fallows number and called it. As he guessed, it went straight to answerphone.
‘God’s sake…’ he whispered. His head was battered. He didn’t know what to think. Why would she travel all this way from Essex to help them with this investigation and do something stupid? She wouldn’t, would she?
But where was she?
Had Dilton taken her? Killed her too?
Byrd had no clue, but he needed to know. Needed to find her. He pushed open the door and stepped down onto the tarmac. The day was hot, warmer than before. Sweating profusely, he took off his thin jacket and carried it in his dirty, bloody hand he’d need to clean when he got inside. Maybe get one of the first aiders to look at them.
Walking over to the entrance door, he remembered what Dilton had said on the video he’d posted online. They deserved it. That he deserved it.
What had Stockdale done?
He opened the door of reception, stepped inside, and smiled at Lisa behind the desk before heading for the door on the other side. It wasn’t long before he was at his desk. Weaver, Cornty, and Leonard had made it back before him and were at their own desks. Weaver was telling another PC what had happened.
At his desk, he hung his jacket on the rear of his chair and sat down. His first job was to ring PC Josh Andrews to ask for an update on Tanzy and Stockdale, who he’d asked to accompany them at the hospital and keep him up to date. He knew Tanzy’s blow was bad but not life-threatening. Regarding Stockdale, he knew he’d been without oxygen for a while, so it could take some time before he’s one hundred percent. Following his recovery, questions would need to be asked on how he was there in the first place.
No One's Safe: DI Max Byrd & DI Orion Tanzy book 3 Page 24
