Chase The Devil: (DI Jake Sawyer series Book 5)

by Andrew Lowe

  Coleman looked up from the monitor. ‘Absolutely. Myths, shared rumours. Tales that grow taller in the telling. And there are places that become synonymous with events, usually emotional or negative. Rillington Place, Cromwell Street. Hungerford, Lockerbie. It’s the places with grim histories that seem to be favoured by the explorer crowd. Asylums, hospitals, slaughterhouses. Darren said he knew his mother wouldn’t approve and would worry about him.’ He turned the monitor to face Sawyer. ‘He got interested in it through a boy he met at school.’

  ‘Stuart Sutton.’

  He smiled. ‘I believe so. A young woman came to see me a few weeks ago.’

  ‘Virginia.’

  ‘That’s right. I showed her this video. It’s from a trip that Darren took with Stuart, a few months before he disappeared. I loaned him my old camcorder. It was an ancient thing that used those micro cassettes. He took away the cassette, but the camcorder was set to transfer video to the hard drive.’ Coleman switched the video window to full screen. ‘I transferred the video a couple of years ago before I sold the camcorder in a clear-out. Didn’t even know it was there.’

  The footage had been filmed at night. It showed a brief shot of a wire fence, then flashes of brickwork. Distorted crunches of audio.

  The image stabilised to reveal a teenage boy standing in front of a wall in a dark room. He held a torch at his side, pointing the beam up to the ceiling, casting his features in a pale, flickering light. Shadows fluttered on the wall behind.

  ‘Right. Yeah. We’re here again. There’s me, The Great Explorer. And my colleague, who has promised not to shit out this time when he hears a little noise.’

  A voice from behind the camera. ‘Fuck off, Stu.’ Darren’s voice. Sawyer glanced at Coleman, who raised an eyebrow.

  ‘We’re going to have a look round the main building here. But before we go in, I thought you might want to know a bit about me.’

  An awkward pause. Sutton nodded to the camera.

  ‘Oh, sorry.’ Darren again. ‘So, where are we at the moment?’

  Sutton dipped his head, revealing a shaven head with scars from razor nicks at the peak of his scalp. He looked up again. ‘This is what we call a hot place.’

  ‘And so you don’t want to tell us the location, right?’

  ‘Yeah, you can’t just share all the hot places. There are rules. They’ll get taken over. You get reported.’

  Sawyer looked at Coleman. ‘Do you know where this was filmed?’

  Coleman shook his head. ‘We never spoke about it. And it’s too dark to tell from any features or fittings.’

  Sawyer leaned forward as Darren laughed from behind the camera. ‘Must be loads who know about this place.’

  ‘Nah.’ Sutton gave a slow, robotic shake of his head. As the left side of his face passed through the light, the camera caught a glint from a stud in his right earlobe. ‘This is not well known, which is why it takes a great explorer—’

  ‘Like you.’

  Sutton laughed. ‘Like me. To find it.’

  ‘And that’s pretty much the code of urbexers, yeah?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Sutton gave a simian pout. ‘Some people are dumb, though. They stick up their hero shots. Bragging, yeah? But you’re not supposed to say anything, reveal the location. And also, this place is hardcore. Nobody would want to come here.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Sutton pushed the torch into his chin and shone the beam up over his face. ‘Because it’s haunted.’

  The movement of the torch made Sawyer shudder.

  His father. Shotgun under the chin.

  ‘Fuck off, Stu.’

  Clustered gore on the ceiling, dripping.

  Sutton collapsed in laughter. ‘No, man. It’s true. I know a few people who’ve been here. There’s some creepy shit going on. People have seen a weird guy who haunts the place. A demon.’ He shifted the torch up so the beam highlighted his staring eyes. ‘Some say it’s the Devil himself.’

  The video cut out.

  Coleman smiled. ‘Boys will be boys.’

  28

  Sawyer closed the blind on the deepening dusk and stood in front of the bedroom mirror, topless. He slowed his breathing, watching his shoulders rise and fall, then slipped into the first movements of the second Wing Chun form, Chum Kiu (‘Searching for the Bridge’). Precise turning, synchronicity in movement to generate power for strikes and blocks.

  He had replayed the trail from Episode Three of the Virginia Mendez podcast. The words spoken by Stuart Sutton were a match to the video he had seen at Greg Coleman’s.

  You can’t just share all the hot places. There are rules.

  Some people are dumb, though. They stick up their hero shots. Bragging, yeah? But you’re not supposed to say anything, reveal the location.

  He was stepping into Virginia Mendez’s footprints now. So close behind he felt he could reach out and touch her.

  She hadn’t interviewed Stuart Sutton at the time of recording Episode Three. She had seen this video and recorded the audio, perhaps without Greg Coleman’s knowledge.

  Had she gone on to track Sutton for the trailed interview, or was it just bluster? Her boyfriend had said she was meticulous, well prepared. It was hard to believe that she would have trailed a new interview without securing it first.

  He showered, fed Bruce and himself—Fish Selection in Jelly; pasta with pesto and courgettes—and sat on the sofa, gazing at his muted reflection in the TV screen. He stared ahead as he ate, tuning in to his churning thoughts, reaching for something close to meditation.

  He startled, almost dropping his fork.

  The scene unspooled in front of him: an overlay of agony. The shouts, the sounds, the barking dog.

  And lately, always a new detail. As if his mind was growing weary of protecting him from the worst of it.

  Caldwell, cold and efficient, looming over his mother as she held out her hands, trying to fight him off.

  Before, Sawyer had felt a sensation close to a fast-acting headache. But now there was no warning, and the past fused with the present instantaneously, with no distinction.

  Jessica swiped at the hammer, as Caldwell brought it down, over and over.

  It was happening there in front of him, on the living room carpet, as real as rain.

  With each blow, her cries grew shorter and more strained; terror and pain replaced by distress and confusion.

  She called out to him. ‘Why?’

  She tried to speak again, but Caldwell silenced her with a hammer blow to her mouth, crushing her jaw.

  The intensity was increasing. Each episode seemed to engrave the horrors deeper into his mind. Sawyer not only feared the next flashback: he knew that each one would serve to amplify the next.

  He screwed his eyes shut and leapt up from the sofa.

  He squinted, keeping his gaze from the scene and opened a kitchen drawer. He took out the packet of balloons, canister of nitrous oxide, and a stainless steel whipped-cream dispenser, bought as part of his attempt to step up his culinary game earlier in the summer. He stumbled into the bedroom, where the bed seemed to hover in the centre, with the rest of the room a shimmering aura. Sawyer fell onto it, knees first, and inflated the red balloon with shaky breaths. He unscrewed the cap on the dispenser, locked in the canister and fitted the balloon over the end. He squeezed the pump trigger, filling the balloon with nitrous oxide, and pinched tight.

  He fed the balloon into his mouth, wrapped his lips around the end, eased up the pinch, and inhaled, allowing the gas to surge into his lungs. He fell back onto the bed, tasting the sickly sweetness.

  The room around seemed to solidify again, as Sawyer smiled to himself at the blissful rush of dissociation. He was numb, weightless; he let himself drift away from the vision, his eyes darting around the bedding and furniture, marvelling at the shifting visual geometry: glowing outlines, interlocking circles, liquid colour. And he felt it all lifting: the leaden sense of being tethered to events long gone, to the
pain from the past. All of that existed now in a place impossibly distant, as he wallowed, without a care, in amniotic serenity.

  After a couple of minutes, the effect began to recede, and Sawyer found himself back in the real world, on his bed, in a cloud of his earthy aroma, his training dummy in the corner.

  He lay there for a while, breathing deep and slow, waiting for a tickle of nausea to subside.

  He stood up, checked his pockets, peered through the window blind.

  The fields across the road were blackened by night, their thresholds now grey outlines at the base of Kinder Scout.

  Sawyer threw cold water onto his face and headed outside onto the porch. He stared up the road towards the Hayfield crossroads, and checked his watch.

  29

  Sawyer vaulted a dry-stone wall and ducked through a gap in the boundary fence. The moon lurked behind the clouds, but he kept low and stayed in tree cover until the field dipped to an open expanse of pasture with a cluster of outbuildings and a distant farmhouse, windows unlit.

  He glanced back up the ridge, turned on his torch, then followed another stone wall down to a scrubby edgeland near a long, flat-roofed building with fractured machinery poking through an open entrance. He scurried past and veered off left, wading through the dense grass towards the trees and a rotting old shed with a hole in the roof.

  Sawyer stopped, crouched, and observed the shed.

  Glowing from within. Probably a small fire.

  He shuffled through the grass, keeping eyes on the shed, trying to make an angle for a look inside.

  A figure—large, male—stepped out and tended to a small woodpile, his back to Sawyer. He crouched, seemingly absorbed in whatever he was doing. Sawyer edged towards him, taking slow and silent steps.

  The figure paused for a second before standing up and turning towards Sawyer. The light from the fire glinted off something metal in his hand.

  Knife.

  Sawyer rose to his full height and shone his torch towards Austin Fletcher. ‘There’s a perfectly good Travelodge up in Glossop, you know. Twenty minutes’ drive.’

  Fletcher looked to Sawyer’s left, then right, scanning the fields.

  ‘Where’s the Fiesta?’

  Nothing from Fletcher.

  Sawyer took a couple of steps forward. ‘We should talk. One or two issues to resolve.’

  Fletcher turned his gaze back to Sawyer. ‘Closer.’

  Sawyer nodded. ‘Really? Isn’t this where you say, “That’s far enough”? Or is that too chatty for you?’ He held Fletcher’s gaze, locked in on his pinhole eyes. ‘Got something to show you.’

  Fletcher raised his weapon—an evil-looking hunting knife with a serrated blade—and walked towards Sawyer. They were less than ten metres apart.

  Sawyer raised a hand, looked over his shoulder.

  A vivid green point of light appeared on Fletcher’s white T-shirt, hovering over the heart area. He stopped walking and looked down, then followed the beam up to the ridge behind.

  ‘Laser sight,’ said Sawyer. ‘Sniper rifle. Military grade. Semi-automatic. You probably know it from your adventures in the SAS.’

  Fletcher turned his gaze back to Sawyer.

  ‘Keep the knife if you like. That’s okay. This won’t take long.’ He pulled out his phone and navigated to an image of Maggie, bandaged and bruised in her hospital bed. He raised the device in the air and turned the screen to face Fletcher. ‘This is my friend. You’ve been watching her. I’ve seen your pills, Austin. Creatine, yes? Maybe they’re giving you a few issues with impulse control? Anger?’

  Fletcher narrowed his eyes and studied the screen.

  Sawyer dropped his voice, sounded a grave tone. ‘Did you do this?’

  Fletcher shook his head. He looked past Sawyer, squinting towards the source of the light.

  Sawyer pocketed the phone. ‘Why?’

  Fletcher stared at him.

  ‘Why are you still here? Stalking me, spying on Maggie? You won. You took away my leverage over our mutual acquaintance. You got the gun. Strickland’s gone up a few floors now, though. I don’t think he’s that interested in me, or you, any more.’ Sawyer took a couple more steps towards Fletcher. ‘There’s been substantial mission creep since he first set you on me. So. Why don’t you just fuck off?’

  Fletcher’s granite features crumpled into something resembling a smile. ‘No gun.’

  A rush of epiphany. ‘You didn’t find it?’

  Fletcher fixed him with those empty eyes. ‘No. Gun.’

  ‘Well.’ Sawyer inhaled the muggy air, catching a sour whiff of silage. ‘This is awkward. Have you got a cigarette?’

  Fletcher frowned. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a packet of L&M cigarettes.

  Sawyer took the stub from Maggie’s house out of his pocket and held it up. ‘Here’s one I prepared earlier. Same brand. Except…’ He flicked the stub to the ground. ‘There’s no DNA. Nothing. Someone let it burn down, snuffed it and left it outside my friend’s house.’ His phone vibrated in his pocket. ‘Someone who is pretty keen to put you at the scene of a serious assault, and who would be sure I’d find out about it.’ He took out the phone. The Caller ID was withheld. ‘I think we both know who this someone was. An old friend of yours.’

  Fletcher dropped his gaze. ‘Dale.’

  ‘Who needs enemies, eh?’ Sawyer took the call. Sharp, rapid breathing at the other end. Muttering. Self-soothing. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Oh! Mr Sawyer. Sorry. Detective Sawyer. This is Lewis Vaughan.’ He paused, caught his breath. ‘It’s Ginny. Virginia. She… She came back.’

  Part II

  THE ASPHALT WORLD

  30

  The dogs howled and snarled as their handlers attached sturdy chain leads and dragged them back to the side of the clearing. Two teenage boys set about the temporary fencing, yanking out the supports and lifting away the metal barriers.

  A thickset middle-aged man took a shovel and began to transfer a pile of dirt back into the edges of the recessed pit area, lit by two tripod halogen lamps.

  He peeled off his polo shirt and turned to a group of men lurking beneath the trees in a cloud of marijuana smoke. ‘Anthony! Clean up the fucking mess and get your arse in the van. You can smoke that shit later.’

  Anthony’s mates shoved him forward, cackling. He snatched up a metal bucket, sloshed soapy water over the earth at the centre of the pit and scrubbed at a patch of gore with a large hand brush. He was skinny, all elbows and knees, with a grimy, loose-fitting T-shirt. ‘Fuck’s sake. There’s teeth down here. What the fuck are we cleaning up for, anyway, Uncle Mark? No cunt will find this once you’ve filled it in.’

  A pick-up truck crawled down from the dirt track at the edge of the wood. Mark Bishop stopped shovelling and waved it through. The headlights picked out his lank hair and white, flabby torso, in contrast to his sunburned cheeks. ‘Anthony, I swear you’re fucking special needs.’ He got back to the shovelling. ‘Do you want to go away for six months? If they investigate, they’ll dig all this up. This way there’s no evidence, see? Thinking ahead. If we could breed fighting dogs that don’t bleed, it would be a lot easier.’

  ‘It’ll happen one day,’ said one of the teenagers, as he gathered up the barriers and slid them onto the truck’s cargo bed.

  ‘Yeah, in your fucking head,’ said Anthony.

  Bishop smiled. ‘Definitely nothing happening in there. Don’t think there ever has been.’

  He laughed, dry and breathless. Anthony snorted his approval, but the other teenagers shrugged and wandered away, dragging a couple of stocky dogs with them.

  ‘What’s this, Uncle Mark?’ said Anthony, holding up a long wooden pole with a loop of rope attached to one end.

  ‘Break stick. Chuck it in the back with the other stuff.’

  A small crowd of fight fans lingered, laughing and smoking. Bishop called to one. ‘Drinks on you, Dex?’

  An elderly man in a crumpled trilby waved a hand. ‘You’re
having a laugh. I’m down two hundred quid. Where’d that canario come from? Fucking ringer.’

  ‘The one with the cropped ears? It’s been doing the rounds. Owner says it’s one win off Grand Champ.’

  ‘Shouldn’t allow them,’ said Dex. ‘Not fair on the other dogs.’

  Bishop laughed. ‘That’s the whole point, mate. Fair fights would be dull as fuck. I’ve seen some last nearly two hours. Dogs breathing out their arse, pissing blood. Nobody’s a winner. I’ve had to finish a few off with this before.’ He held up the shovel. ‘Kennels in Ukraine and Bulgaria, in-breeding off winners’ bloodlines. Usually pit bulls.’

  Dex sneered and walked away.

  Bishop wiped sweat from his head with a hairy forearm. ‘You’ll be back. Next time, don’t just bet on the big fuckers.’

  The barking faded as the handlers moved off in separate directions, into the trees. The watchers drifted away, and Anthony finished scrubbing and joined the teenagers as they shuffled towards the sparse woodland at the edge of Hayfield village.

  Bishop latched the flip-up door on the truck and pumped his fist twice on the side. The vehicle rattled up onto the track and drove away.

  Despite the hour—just gone 2am—the air was parched and soupy, and Bishop felt the age in his calves as he trudged down the walking track towards the security lighting at the wool factory perimeter. He could have jumped in the pick-up, but it was his habit to slip away alone after a fight, hoping it might strengthen a claim of casual involvement if the worst happened.

  A sizeable broad-shouldered man had peeled away from the onlookers near the close of the final fight and waited in a clump of trees at the base of the slope, where the walking track joined the factory road. He watched Bishop slope away from the track and turn the corner towards the housing estate.

  The man followed at a distance, hurrying through the pools of street lighting, slowing as he passed through patches of darkness where a few vehicles were parked. He ducked along a side road, unlocked a bottle-green compact van and took out a backpack. Ahead, Bishop stopped to light a cigarette, then carried on past a row of converted semis.