Seven Degress (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 2)

by Lewis Hastings

  “OK, doesn’t sound good. Perhaps something we can help with when this has settled down a bit? I could talk to our Doc?”

  “Thanks. I doubt it would do any good.”

  Unannounced Daniel pulled into a bus stop and applied the handbrake.

  “Do the tears flow every time?”

  “No. Just this time.”

  “Any reason?”

  “I saw the face for the first time John.”

  “And that was a good thing?”

  “It was. Normally the figure is impersonal, faceless.”

  “And today?”

  Cade recounted a story as they sat at the side of the road. Daniel knew they needed to move on with their enquiry, but felt that what Cade was about to say was more important, if nothing else for his own welfare, and a truly brilliant manager would always adopt the ‘two ears, one mouth’ principle. So he sat and listened.

  “In a nutshell that’s it. I never got to attend his funeral. To say what I needed to say. To put my own house in order and to let people know that I loved him. It broke my heart. And it still hurts me John, every single bloody day. Do you have any idea what it is like to be the eldest son and have your eulogy read out by someone else?”

  “No, I cannot begin to imagine my friend.”

  “Well. Today the dream came back. I saw the face of my father and he smiled. All was well John. We made our peace, and he guided me, up and away from whatever it is that haunts me, towards my own salvation, away from the nightmare that invades my every waking thought.”

  “I’m pleased for you Jack. I really am. Can’t have been easy. But you might have some clarity now.”

  He turned the key and re-joined the traffic.

  “We’ll never discuss this again Jack. You have my word.”

  “Thanks boss. Oh, and there’s something else he taught me.”

  “Go on.”

  “To listen to the voices in your head. Sometimes tell them to piss off and go and annoy someone else, but when they keep repeating themselves, there’s a reason to listen.”

  “I’m all ears,” said Daniel as he entered the police parking bay outside St. Thomas’ Hospital.

  “If he found the right people.”

  “Jesus Jack I know you are tired but this is exhausting me!”

  “Call yourself a detective? The Right People. Alex Stefanescu needed to find the right person. A person connected to the diplomatic trade. You are hearing chatter about it from your Human Source staff. We know that this group, the Seventh Wave are ripping us off for thousands but we also know, or suspect, there’s something else, and just lately you’ve had your doubts about one person who is connected to every possible link in the chain.”

  “I need to demote myself Jack. Put me out of my misery.” He was toying with the idea himself now but it was clearly too obvious.

  “Name me the one person who has been involved in getting me up close and personal with the players in this group? The person who managed to get Petrov out of the detention centre, the one who everyone admires? The one person that the government appears to place on a pedestal? Sophisticated, smooth, well-connected…and yet the one person that no-one actually knows a damn thing about.”

  Daniel was staring at Cade, impassive, and finally aware.

  “Boss, you’ve had your doubts too. Tell me you haven’t?”

  Daniel didn’t say a word for almost a minute which spoke volumes, but when he did finally utter them his words were brief and emotionless.

  “Do you really think so? I hate to admit it but I’m one step ahead of you. I’ve felt it for days now. People do strange things when you least expect them to. In his case he has so much to lose. He’s well off, well connected and successful.”

  “He’s all of those things and more JD. But the answer lies beyond money. He’s either being blackmailed, is involved in such a thing and or is the architect of some wonderfully planned attack on the state.” Cade finished and looked at Daniel.

  “How could he Jack?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Cade and Daniel approached the nursing station, identified themselves and asked where both of their staff were located.

  “Not ideal that they are in separate areas Staff,” said Daniel talking to the senior nurse on duty, pretty in an unconventional way, she had a gently slanted but captivating smile and cocoa-coloured hair tied into a perfect bun.

  “Makes my job a lot harder. Any chance we could move them closer together? I have a risk assessment to conduct as they are both potentially still in harm’s way. In doing this I’m also protecting your staff too...”

  He let the last words hang in the air whilst fixing her gaze with his and using all of his well-established charms on a nurse clearly well-versed in such offensives.

  “And if I do that for you, Chief Inspector, I have to do it for everyone.”

  “Of course…” He looked discreetly at her name badge. “Of course…Kellie. I completely agree and understand entirely, but not everyone has been poisoned or shot at. I really need you to pull the rabbit out of the hat for me.”

  He leaned forward and brushed her hand with his.

  “Please.”

  Kellie put both of her hands to her side palms facing Daniel as if pointing at something and almost sang the words “Da-dah!”

  Daniel looked at her blankly.

  “Call yourself a cop? I’m being your magician’s assistant. Leave it with me. For now Mr Roberts is on the Acute Admissions Ward and…Miss O’Shea is in Intensive Care. By the way I get off at 22:00…”

  Cade smiled and interjected as he dragged Daniel along the corridor.

  “Come on boss, we’ve got a risk assessment to write. Thanks Staff Nurse. Much appreciated.”

  They got around the corner and headed to a lift. The doors opened and Cade entered first, pressing a button illuminated in blue. It read L1.

  As the doors slithered to a close, he spoke.

  “You dirty old dog! I never knew you had it in you.”

  “Hey less of the old Cade. Anyway, it’s all a game isn’t it? They love it those nurses.”

  The lift announced its arrival, its stainless steel doors opening as a detached and subtle female voice purred. “Level One.”

  They walked out onto the new floor and looked around for signs.

  “Does Mrs Daniel dress up as one occasionally?”

  “Now who’s crossed the line? This way by the looks of it.”

  They arrived at ICU first. Two armed staff spotted the IDs and moved to one side with a nod and some small talk. Daniel stepped back and allowed Cade to enter the side room. Seeing O’Shea lying in the bed, motionless but evidently alive he made the decision to leave Cade alone.

  “I’ll go and find the other patient mate. Take your time yeah? Looks as though she’s out of it, but don’t forget, they say they can hear your every word. Ring me when you are done.”

  Daniel was about to walk away when he turned and added another few words.

  “Oh, and Jack…don’t forget.”

  Cade looked at his boss curiously.

  “Tell her. While you still can.”

  “Tell her what?”

  Daniel smiled and walked away along the sterile corridor towards the Acute Admissions Ward, passing temporarily displayed works of art by local schoolchildren, each depicting colourful scenes and stories much-loved and only understood by their adoring parents.

  He reached the ward and was directed to Roberts where he found his colleague dozing in a stereotypical hospital bed.

  “No need to salute Sergeant, stay where you are!”

  “Jesus boss you startled me. I thought you were another doctor, come to brutalise me.”

  “Best I don’t ask. Silly question…”

  “Awful it was. I doubt I’ll ever play the piano again, sir.”

  “It was a guitar earlier.”

  Roberts laughed, “Yeah it was wasn’t it.” He winced as he moved, the deep bruising on his lower body was
starting to impact. “Is someone covering for me?”

  Daniel took his cell phone out of his jacket pocket, looked at the screen, decided to answer it later and carried on with the conversation.

  “Yes, Paul Clarke is now officially you.” He let that information sink in before continuing. “They got away Jason.”

  Roberts slumped back into the multiple pillows that jostled for superiority and exhaled slowly.

  “I’m really beginning to hate those bastards boss. How is it they are so lucky all the bloody time?”

  “No easy way to break this to you Jason, but they have a first-hand line of information.”

  Roberts, nursing the mother of all headaches looked straight at his chief inspector and shaking his head said, “It’s not one of my team guv’nor, and it’s not Jack. No way. He’s invested every waking hour into finding this lot – he’s got a few debts to repay but he would never do anything underhand. Never.”

  “Are you expecting me to disagree?”

  “No, just hoping you don’t. I can’t deal with much more. I’ve lost one, nearly another, seen a key witness brutally killed and taken a beating myself.” He adjusted himself in the bed, desperate to get comfortable, before continuing – his speech deliberate as if he was searching for every word. “If a few months ago someone told me a team like that would resort to this level of violence just to steal cash from bloody bank machines I’d have laughed in their faces.”

  “But now?”

  “This morning, when I left for work, I was beginning to think they were just well-organised with a violent element. But now, given what’s happened in the last week, I’m not sure what we are dealing with. There’s something missing in the intel picture.”

  “And that my friend is why you are a detective sergeant. The answer, the sixth degree of separation that everyone goes on about lies very near and is an anagram of Hewett and Complete Bastard.”

  “No?”

  “Yes…Good old, kind old, everyone’s best friend and the government’s pin-up boy himself. And if I get my hands around his manicured bloody neck, I’ll ring it like the last fucking turkey in a Dickensian Christmas novel.”

  Roberts lay with his eyes closed, almost unable to contemplate what he had heard, but burrowed deep for a morphine-laden reply.

  “It was a goose,” was the best he could offer before he succumbed and fell asleep.

  Daniel stepped away and tapped a number into his cell phone and whispered, “No trust me, it was a turkey…”

  “Towards the A2 Johnathan and as fast as you can without being stopped. Head to Chatham, it’s about half an hour from here, if you stick to the speed limits.”

  “It’s at least forty-five minutes and forgive me but I know where bloody Chatham is, what I don’t know is why we are heading there.”

  Stefanescu shuffled to his right favouring the wounded arm.

  “Because that is where we get rid of this car, it’s far too obvious now, every officer in the south of England will be looking for it at some point, if not already. Stay on the motorway and keep just on the limit. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “And when we get to Chatham I take it you lot bugger off and I wait for the next set of instructions like some ever-willing lapdog?”

  Stefanescu said something in his mother tongue which made the other two men laugh – they clearly laughed at everything he said as in translation it wasn’t really that amusing.

  “No, not at all. We have things to arrange, so we will be busy. And you appear to have forgotten that you are coming with us.”

  Hewett said nothing, sitting bolt upright he stared through the tinted glass, neither looking left or right and fixed his eyes on the road ahead as he tried somehow to contain his mind, which had become a cruel windmill of emotions.

  Cade stopped at the door to the private room which was situated at the side of the Intensive Care Unit. He flashed his ID to the loitering and clearly-bored officers and asked for some privacy. They had been warned he was en route so did not challenge him – his look said he needed to be taken seriously.

  He waited a moment, took a necessary breath and entered the room.

  The almost blue-grey of the hospital lighting appeared to highlight the stark whiteness of the sheets that surrounded her, tucked in immaculately, as if she was on display to a mourning public. It was this fact that caught him off-guard – not the constant thrum of machinery or the rhythmic blinking of the blue and green neon lighting. To the average passing member of the public it would have been easy to think she was laid to rest, awaiting her loved ones, intact, whole, but no longer alive.

  Her skin was pallid, but not grey as he had expected and as the doctor had warned him – she had some fight left in her and it lifted his spirits. This girl could survive whatever Mother Nature or Any Other Bastard threw at her. She was breathing, but in a gentle, shallow state. The doctors had previously intubated her and were now trying to allow her to breathe by herself – but it was evident that she was in a comatose condition; alive but absent.

  Cade could feel the emotions, physically, wrapping themselves around his stomach, like a knotted rope, twisting and pulling the life from him. His heart ached so much he felt nauseous, and he was aware of becoming breathless. He tried to compensate by breathing faster but this only succeeded in making him more light-headed. He grabbed hold of the bed and forced himself to exhale. And again, until it passed.

  She hadn’t moved.

  He wiped a sizeable tear from his eye, which had been sitting, waiting for the eyelashes to release their relentless hold.

  He edged up alongside the bed until he was level with her face. The pure-starched sheets were folded perfectly below her chest revealing a hospital-issued and unflattering nightie which gaped awkwardly and revealed a cleavage that had first caught his eye many weeks before.

  He ran his eyes over the clothing and felt for a moment that what he was doing was morally wrong, but he couldn’t stop.

  Did not want to stop.

  He felt that somewhere deep in her current state she would approve. It caused a much-needed moment of levity.

  Her breasts were an agreeable surprise when she had first leaned forward in the office that day; exquisitely shaped, larger than he was ever allowed to imagine them, bridled under their staid, business-like blouse. But the pretty white flower detail on the front clasp told its own tale. Here was a girl that relished dressing up, and, he considered, or rather hoped also enjoyed the thrill of lovemaking.

  He needed no more convincing that she was able to equally make love with her body and her mind – but it was her eyes that actually, really attracted him. They spoke to him, shouted at times, swore too, but always drew him, a Siren to the rocks.

  She was able to hold an entire conversation, by using them without a word being uttered. It was said that they were the window to the soul, and he once found himself daydreaming about their delicate colours and what they concealed in their brief but powerful gazes across the office.

  He formed the opinion that there were two sides to this girl – possibly more.

  One, a strict, almost business-as-usual, industrious and fastidious employee who would appear to the onlooker to have an iceberg exterior, an exterior with only ten percent visible above the waterline that no man had ever been able to conquer, although many had tried.

  When she let her professional guard slip a little, she might – with the right sparring partner – allow a brief moment, an interlude of mild flirtation. But only ever ten percent, not a decimal point more.

  It was the remaining ninety percent that intrigued Cade. He had quickly convinced himself, in his many internal dialogues, that her coolly proficient exterior concealed a submerged, simmering, torrid underside. He didn’t require any convincing that away from work she was likely to be different; in her apartment, the lounge, more relaxed, the bathroom, warmer, revealing, playful, gently adding pressure to a saturated sponge and letting its warm water trickle along her body, she wou
ld control its path, so that she, and she alone would benefit.

  In the kitchen, laying bare her deepest feelings, revealing herself; calm, serene and yet shy, hesitant and almost a little nervous, undeniably mesmerising. She enjoyed it here very much. A step or two onto a balcony to reveal her nakedness to an awaiting world, feeling the cold air snapping at her skin, flushing her body with blood, racing to her extremities. During the day, this was a treat, a not-so-subtle naughtiness that excited her – but at night, under the stars she would step out a little further, revealing more of herself, quietly, daringly hoping someone would be looking at her. Somewhere.

  In the bedroom he was utterly convinced that she would only ever be a completely devoted mistress, in every possible way, perspiring, physical, vocally giving herself up to him at levels she had previously never considered possible let alone likely. She wanted to become enslaved within and by his mind, soul and body.

  Since the early days of teenage development she had stood out from her peers – a shock of dark, curly blonde hair that had slowly darkened and grown to cover her shoulders. She had a misplaced confidence with older men and some would quietly muse at the idea of taking advantage of her. Her looks and physical presence were a heady cocktail to both men and women that she had worked with, and for.

  She was flirtatious – oh without a shadow of a doubt, but this was often mistakenly read, especially by the officers’ wives as a predatory habit. Nothing could have been further from the truth. There were one or two of the compassionate officers that she found attractive, but in a way that was more fraternal than flirtatious. And she knew how to flirt. She knew how to dress – both on and off duty.

  She favoured darker colours but could look good in anything; white was conventionally pretty, virginal with a hint of confidence, but it had to be pure, not off-white. Blue, slightly racier; shades of red lay in her second drawer down, unused, folded, just so. Various other colours competed for attention, grey, purple, cream and even something bought on a complete whim from an anonymous site, shiny, almost cheap. It had forever remained in its wrapping. Cheap and cheerful, and that was not Carrie O’Shea.