by D. S. Butler
‘I told you, it’s not Churchill. He’s not involved.’
‘Right. So who is?’
‘Do you really want to know?’ Leo laughed. He was enjoying stringing her along.
‘Yes. You said you’d give me a name. So stop playing games.’
He cocked his head to the side, eyes narrowed, cheeks red from cold. ‘You want to know who issued the order to despatch your dear friend, DCI Shaw.’
Karen swallowed back the bitterness. ‘Yes.’
‘It was ACC Fry. Of course, I’m not allowed to refer to him like that. I have to call him Eagle. Can you believe it?’ He snorted. ‘Eagle. The ego of the man is unbelievable. My code name is Sparrow. He picked that too . . . What’s the matter, Karen? Cat got your tongue?’
Sophie had the phone pressed hard against her ear. She hadn’t heard every word clearly, but she’d certainly got the gist.
She turned and looked in horror at the man standing beside her. Assistant Chief Constable Fry.
‘What’s wrong?’ he said, slightly out of breath from walking in the deep snow.
For a moment, Sophie couldn’t speak. Words caught in her throat, but eventually she managed to squeak out, ‘N . . . nothing.’
‘Who was on the phone?’
‘Wrong number.’
He snatched it from her and looked at the screen. ‘Is it still connected?’
‘I—’
He shouted down the phone, ‘Sparrow!’ Then he threw Sophie’s phone on the ground. ‘Come on.’
They struggled. Sophie snatched her phone back, but he grabbed at her elbow and yanked her along, pulling her down the slope.
Sophie tried to pull away, but he was much stronger than her. ‘No, wait! I think we should wait for backup.’ Sophie tried to stop their momentum. ‘It’s not safe—’
‘Stupid, stupid Sparrow.’ Fry spat the words out as they continued down. His face was flushed with rage.
‘Who’s Sparrow? I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Sophie said, looking around desperately for a way to escape.
ACC Fry gave her a sharp look. ‘I think you do, DC Jones. That’s the trouble.’
Sophie shook her head, staring at him as their steps grew faster until they were running down the hill. How could this be happening?
The assistant chief constable. He was so high up. How could he possibly be involved in this?
‘How could you, sir?’ Sophie said quietly. ‘How could you betray the police service and the officers you’ve worked alongside for so long?’
‘Oh, do shut up, you self-righteous little fool,’ Fry said. ‘Keep moving. We need to find them.’
‘Why are you so bothered? You don’t care about Karen.’
He shot her a look then, and understanding dawned. Sophie realised he didn’t want to find Karen to save her. He wanted to kill her, and Sophie was now expendable too.
She knew too much. She couldn’t possibly get out of this alive.
She’d wanted to help, but she’d messed up. She’d brought Fry, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, straight to Karen.
Sophie shouted out to warn her.
The two figures were moving near the trees. Had they heard? She couldn’t tell. But before she could shout again, ACC Fry raised his fist, and the blow that hit the side of her head knocked Sophie off her feet.
Her body crumpled. Her face hit the snow, hard. She tasted the metallic tang of blood, and then everything went black.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
‘Sparrow!’
Karen’s spirits sank even lower when she saw ACC Fry striding towards them, his long legs wading through the snow.
Karen felt a wave of helplessness wash over her. Her chances had been small before, but now . . . She might have managed to catch Leo off guard and grab the gun. But against two of them, she didn’t stand a chance.
Leo looked irritated at the interruption. His face was pinched and angry as Fry approached.
She didn’t have long to think it through or plan a route of escape, but she knew this distraction was her best chance. Her only chance. She set off at a sprint, darting into the trees, hoping they’d provide protection. If he shot her now, then at least she’d die trying to escape.
The snow slowed her progress. Branches scratched at her clothing. She tripped over a fallen tree and went sprawling, hitting the ground with a thud. The fall made her head spin, but she got up and kept moving, sucking icy air into her lungs.
‘Shoot her, you fool!’ Fry yelled, but she didn’t stop. She didn’t slow down.
There were footsteps behind her and heavy breathing, and then suddenly she felt hands on her shoulders, forcing her to the floor. She tried to stay upright, but her legs buckled and she fell – landing on something hard, buried beneath the snow, the air forced from her lungs.
‘Got you,’ she heard Leo snarl. ‘Don’t try that again.’
His voice was strong, but he was shaking from the effort of chasing her down.
Karen’s hands touched the painful spot on her ribs. A broken branch lay under her.
As he tried to haul her up, she grabbed the branch, raised it and brought it down on his head. Leo released a string of swear words but didn’t loosen his grip.
He pushed her hard against the rough bark of a bare oak tree. It scratched against her cheek. She was too out of breath to speak.
He wiped away the blood from his forehead as Fry reached them, short of breath and panting.
Fry bent at the waist, hands on his knees as he recovered from the exertion.
Leo had Karen’s arm secured behind her back, making it painful to move. She begged, ‘Please, Leo, don’t do this. You’re not a killer. Not really.’
He leaned closer to whisper in her ear. ‘I am, though, Karen. I killed DCI Shaw, Lloyd Nelson and Laurel Monroe.’
‘Why?’ Karen tried to push away from the tree, but Leo pinned her firmly.
‘Because he did as he was told,’ ACC Fry said as he reached them. ‘Now, follow orders, Sparrow. Shoot her. It’s the only way. She won’t keep quiet.’
‘You ordered him to kill Anthony?’ Karen asked, turning her head to look him in the eye, the man who had ordered the death of her friend.
‘Yes,’ Fry said. ‘Although I had nothing to do with the ridiculous cleansing serial-killer idea. That was all him.’ He gestured in Leo’s direction. ‘Absurd. It was almost as if he wanted to get caught.’
Karen felt Leo tense. She twisted until she could see his face. ‘You did, didn’t you? You wanted to get caught?’
Leo’s face slackened. ‘I—’
‘Enough! Stop wasting time. Shoot her!’ Fry roared.
‘I don’t know if it’s escaped your attention, but I’m the one holding the gun,’ Leo said through gritted teeth. ‘I’ll decide what we do next.’
‘You don’t have to listen to him anymore, Leo,’ Karen said. ‘He’s treating you like a puppet, pulling your strings, manipulating you.’
‘I said shoot her!’ ACC Fry shouted. ‘If you don’t do it, I will.’ He made a move to grab the gun from Leo, but Leo stepped back, raising it, pointing it menacingly at the assistant chief constable.
‘Get back,’ he snarled.
Fry took a step back. ‘Calm down. What’s got into you?’
‘Don’t listen to him, Leo. He’s wrecked your life. He’s ruined so many people’s lives.’
‘Shut up!’ Fry snarled. ‘If you don’t shoot her, then we’ll all get caught. You’ll go down for this, Sparrow, and I’ll make sure I find your wife – even if she is in Spain, she’s not out of my reach.’
Leo hesitated.
‘The only way out of this,’ Fry continued, ‘is to shoot them both.’
‘Both?’ Karen asked, trying to slow her breathing.
‘You and the unfortunate DC Jones. She’s been looking for you. She wanted to tell the superintendent you were missing. Fortunately, I intercepted her.’ He scowled at Leo. ‘I had to clean up your mess.’
‘Where is she now?’ Leo asked.
‘What?’ Fry asked.
‘DC Jones, Sophie. Where is she?’
‘Back there.’ He waved a hand. ‘At the edge of the woods.’
‘You left her there alone,’ Leo said incredulously. ‘And you say I’m the fool?’
‘It’s fine. She’s unconscious. Out cold.’
Karen fought the urge to be sick. This couldn’t be happening. Not Sophie.
‘Please.’ Karen struggled to turn around. ‘Sophie doesn’t know anything. She’s no threat to you. Please just let her go. I’ll do anything you want, just let her go.’
‘Unfortunately, she is a threat, thanks to your phone call.’
Leo looked at Karen and then back at Fry. ‘What phone call? She hasn’t got a phone. I took it. Got rid of both of our phones.’
‘DI Morgan gave Karen a spare phone today. You obviously didn’t search her, and threw away only one of her phones. She called Sophie just a few minutes ago. I saw Sophie’s reaction. You must have mentioned my name because, after the phone call, she looked at me as though I’d grown two heads.’
Leo gave a frustrated grunt and kicked the tree. ‘Come on,’ he said, yanking Karen away from the trunk and pushing her forward. ‘Don’t try to run away again. I will shoot you in the back if you so much as look in the wrong direction.’ Then he turned. ‘Show us where Sophie is,’ he instructed Fry, who nodded and set off.
Sophie was dreaming. She was at home in bed, but for some reason, she was freezing. So, so cold. She reached for the duvet, but her hand touched something else. Snow. Her eyes blinked open, and she looked around. She remembered where she was and what had happened with a sickening jolt.
Her lip was swollen and sore. She sat up quickly, which made her head spin. He’d left her. Would he be coming back?
She frantically patted down her coat pockets. Had he taken her mobile? She felt the reassuring solid rectangle of the phone and yanked it out of her pocket. Then, looking around wildly, expecting Fry to return at any moment, she dialled Morgan’s number.
Karen’s chest tightened when she saw Sophie. She looked dazed and disorientated, but she was conscious and sitting up.
How could Karen get them both out of this mess? All she could do was try to pry Fry and Leo apart, divide their loyalties and make them realise they weren’t on the same side. She needed them to turn on each other if they were to have any chance of getting out of this situation.
‘You have to kill them,’ Fry said, and turned around to face Leo. ‘There’s no other way. We’ll make up a story. Maybe you stopped to help a man whose car had broken down, but it was a trick. It was The Cleanser. The serial killer overpowered you at the side of the road. We’ll come up with a description, keep our stories straight. Say he had a gun. Maybe I could shoot you in the leg, just a graze. It would lend weight to the story. I’ll say when I arrived with Sophie, we all tackled the killer, but sadly two officers lost their lives in the process.’ Fry looked at Karen.
He’d really thought it through. But surely the story wouldn’t be believed. The timings wouldn’t match up, for a start.
Leo prodded Karen in the back, warning her to keep walking.
When Sophie spotted them, she tried to get up and run, but she took two steps and then fell, her hand clutching her head.
‘Stay there, or he’ll shoot!’ Fry yelled, and Sophie froze.
When they reached Sophie, Karen fell to her knees.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘Are you injured?’ Karen took in Sophie’s cut lip, the blossoming bruise on her cheekbone, and put her arm around the young officer’s shoulders.
‘I’m sorry, Sarge. I knew you were in trouble. I thought I could help. I didn’t realise I was bringing that monster out here, leading him to you.’ She looked at Leo. ‘How could you?’
Leo rolled his eyes. ‘All right. Enough talking. Get up and give me your phone.’
‘You don’t have time to get away,’ Sophie said, holding out her mobile. ‘He’s already phoned for backup. They’ll be here within minutes.’ She looked at Fry, who chuckled.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I was only pretending to call. Honestly, if you’re representative of the state of detectives in the force these days, it’s surprising cases get solved at all.’
‘You’re the assistant chief constable! And you couldn’t even prevent your own car from getting stolen, let alone find out who did it!’ Sophie said bitterly.
Sophie’s words hit Karen like a bolt of energy. Why hadn’t she made the connection earlier? It was Fry. He was the missing piece of the puzzle.
Karen pushed up from the floor. ‘It was you. You’re the person who links all of the victims – Laurel Monroe, Lloyd Nelson. It was your car.’
Fry scoffed. ‘I don’t know what you’re ranting about. Are you deranged?’
‘You know exactly what I’m talking about,’ Karen said. ‘What were you doing on Friday night? What time did your car get stolen?’
He glared down at Karen, and for a moment she thought he was going to deny everything, but then he just laughed. ‘I suppose it doesn’t matter since you won’t be alive to tell anyone. It’s been an entertaining few months, Karen, watching you running around trying to integrate yourself in the corruption case. So brave,’ he said mockingly. ‘And there I was, supervising the whole thing, and you had no idea.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Sophie shakily got to her feet, and Karen reached out to steady her. ‘You’re The Cleanser. You killed Laurel, and Lloyd, and DCI Shaw?’
‘No,’ Fry said with a sigh. ‘Leo did that.’
Sophie’s eyes widened, and she clutched Karen’s arm. ‘What?’
‘Walk,’ Leo said, waving the gun. ‘Back to the car.’
‘Why?’ Fry scowled. ‘Shoot them here. We don’t want to be seen. Do it now.’
‘I’ve got the gun. I’m in charge now.’
Fry muttered under his breath, ‘You’re a fool.’
‘Can somebody just . . . tell me what is going on?’ Sophie said.
‘ACC Fry knocked Sam Pickett off his bike,’ Karen said, rubbing her sore ribs. ‘He left him to die at the side of the road. But it wasn’t a hit-and-run with no witnesses as we thought. I’d bet there were at least two. Lloyd Nelson and Laurel Monroe. They didn’t tell anyone. Perhaps because they were worried they’d be in trouble. Lloyd was driving without a licence. Maybe Laurel was under the influence of cocaine. Whatever their reasons, they didn’t come forward. But what they didn’t know was that ACC Fry didn’t want any witnesses who might suffer a pang of conscience. Isn’t that right, Assistant Chief Constable?’ Karen gave him a scathing look.
Leo laughed. ‘You’ve got to be impressed, Eagle. She worked it out. I didn’t tell her about the accident.’
Fry narrowed his eyes.
Karen turned to Leo. ‘And then you cleaned up his mess. You killed the witnesses, made it look like a deranged serial killer was responsible. You probably took Fry’s car and set it alight to destroy the evidence for him, but the one part of all this I don’t understand is Anthony. He didn’t witness the accident, did he?’
Leo shook his head. ‘He was on to me. Well, at least, it was looking that way. I overheard him on the phone to Alice Price. He wanted to ask Alice about the other officers on Churchill’s team. Seems he wasn’t as convinced as you that Churchill was behind it all.’
‘So Anthony suspected you were involved, and you killed him so he couldn’t tell me?’
‘That’s about the size of it. Though I was happy to wait to find out how much he really knew, Eagle wanted him eliminated,’ Leo said, meeting Karen’s gaze. His face was devoid of expression. No regret. No pity. Nothing. His eyes never left hers. ‘So, now you can see I’m well and truly evil.’
Karen was shaking with rage. After butchering Laurel Monroe, Leo had interviewed Laurel’s sister, offering false sympathy for her loss. He’d produced a letter, supposedly from The Cleanser, and pretended to be concern
ed for his own safety. He’d sent a letter to Morgan. She wanted to snatch the gun from him, press it to his head and hear him beg for his life. Would she show him mercy? He hadn’t shown any to Anthony.
Karen screwed her eyes shut, trying to push away images of Anthony lying dead on the floor of his home, his forehead cut and bloody. ‘Why did you send a letter to Morgan asking about his sins? We thought he was in danger.’
‘Fry didn’t want the same team working on the hit-and-run and the murders,’ Leo said. ‘He thought if Morgan’s team worked both cases, you’d be more likely to pick up on a connection. I had nothing on Morgan. The man’s as clean as a whistle, but the letter was enough to make the superintendent take him off the case.’
‘None of that matters now,’ Fry said, dismissing Leo with a wave of his hand and focusing on Karen. ‘Tonight, you and Sophie are going to be victims of The Cleanser – his final victims.’ He turned to Leo. ‘You’ve been pushing your luck. This nonsense ends now.’
‘Wait! Tell me about Charlie Cook. Did you authorise it?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Fry said.
‘Charlie Cook forced my husband off the road. Did you give him the go-ahead? Did you try to have me killed?’
‘That was all down to the Cooks. Nothing to do with me.’
‘But you helped cover it up? You ordered Freeman to pay off the traffic officers and cover up the fact Charlie Cook murdered my husband and daughter?’
He said nothing.
‘I hope you rot in hell.’
Fry raised a fist, breathing heavily. ‘If you don’t shoot them, Sparrow, I will.’
‘But it won’t be the same,’ Sophie said. ‘The Cleanser’s victims weren’t shot.’
‘No,’ Leo said, pulling out a rope from his pocket. ‘They were strangled.’
Karen’s stomach lurched. Her mouth was dry as she stepped in front of Sophie. ‘Don’t do this, Leo. This is your last chance. You could blame it all on Fry. Let’s do that. We’ll all say it was ACC Fry. We’ll be your witnesses, your defence.’
‘That won’t work,’ Leo said calmly. ‘I was careful, but there’s always something left behind. Forensics might not be good enough at the moment to put me away, but techniques will improve. Eventually, they’ll come for me. And you . . .’ His mouth lifted in a smile. ‘You don’t have it in you to lie.’
