Family Reunion

by Robert F Barker

  ‘It’s one of those where you’re damned if you do, and if you don’t,’ Jess said.

  ‘What?’ he said, waking up and turning to her. She hadn’t said more than a couple of words since leaving Lucy’s. But the way she was looking at him now, she had obviously sensed his frustrations. He acknowledged her unerring assessment with a nod.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I just hope we get the right result in the end.’

  ‘Don’t we all,’ she said. She turned in her seat to face him. It meant she was about to put something to him.

  ‘Go on,’ he said.

  ‘I was just thinking.’ He waited. ‘We could pull Lucy and her family out and put some ringers in. I’m about the same age as her, and with a wig I could-.’

  ‘I know what you’re going to say and I’ve already thought about it. The problem is it would do for twenty four hours or so, but after that we’d have to be thinking about-.’ The jangling music that suddenly erupted cut him off. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘My new mobile’ she said, reaching into her bag. ‘I need to sort out the ring-tone.’

  ‘You can say that again.’

  She glanced at the screen. ‘It’s Mikayel.’ She put it to her ear. ‘Hi Mikayel, good to hear from you. How was your-.’ The sudden end to her greeting made Carver glance across. ‘Whoa. Slow down. And stop shouting, I can hear you.’ She raised her eyes to Carver in a light hearted way, but it vanished almost immediately. ‘What? What do you mean him? Him who…? I’m sorry Mikayel I don’t understand what you’re saying. The photograph? Yes…. No it wasn’t Vahrig. We spoke to him. He’s a- What? …WHAT?’

  Her sudden outburst drew another glance from Carver and he saw the concern that was suddenly flooding into her face. She put a hand over the phone - ‘Stop the car.’ - then went back to her call. ‘Carry on Mikayel.’ Carver pulled over.

  For long seconds, Carver watched as she nodded, uh-huhed, and yessed down the phone. The longer it went on, the paler she became. As she listened she stared, starkly at Carver. He felt something stirring within him, something he had felt many times before, a cold feeling of dread. Eventually she said the words Carver knew meant it was even worse than he was already imagining.

  ‘Oh. My. God.’

  CHAPTER 49

  Waiting on Lucy’s front door step, Carver was acutely conscious it was taking her a lot longer to come to the door than last time. He looked across at Jess. She shook her head. It’s taking too long. He started to raise his palm to his mouth, making ready to give the word. At that moment a noise sounded through the door. At last.

  But this time the hall light didn’t come on as it had done last time. Carver held his breath as the door swung open. Lucy stood there. She seemed okay, thank God. Or was she? As she looked down on them, he sensed, rather than saw there was something different about her. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was, but as soon as she spoke, he knew.

  ‘What do you want now?’

  There was a dreamy quality to the way she said it, as if she wasn’t quite there. It was similar to how she had been that afternoon, a lifetime ago it seemed, when she denied everything.

  ‘I’m sorry, Lucy. There’re a couple of things we need to speak to you about after all. May we come in?’ He put a foot in the door as he had done earlier. But this time she didn’t move aside.

  ‘I am sorry. My parents were very upset after your last visit. Please just leave us alone. I said I would ring you tomorrow.’

  Carver’s eyes narrowed as he took in her words. There was no sense in him that she was lying, he hadn’t asked a direct question yet. Nevertheless….

  ‘It will only take a moment.’ He stepped up, intending to bluster his way in. But when she didn’t move and he came up against her chest, he had to fall back. This time she was determined.

  He thought about taking hold of her and moving her aside, but wasn’t sure how she would react. If she kicked off, it could still all turn to rat-shit. But right now there weren’t many choices. He took a deep breath.

  ‘Lucy,’ Jess said, gently. Lucy turned to her. Jess’s face was sympathetic, but determined. ‘We are coming in,’ she continued, fixing her eyes on Lucy’s. ‘We aren’t going to hurt you.’ Her arm reached out and she pushed Lucy, gently, to one side. A conflicted look came into Lucy’s face but she didn’t resist. Jess stepped past her into the hall. Carver followed.

  The house was silent, no murmurs of conversation emanating from down the hall. Apart from the slivers of light showing round the door into the kitchen, everything was in darkness.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ Carver said, softly.

  ‘Mamma and Dadda have gone to bed. I told you, they were upset.’

  ‘And your friend?’

  For a second she seemed to come back, but then went away again. ‘He went home.’

  Carver and Jess exchanged nods, then turned towards the kitchen.

  ‘Wh-Where are you going?’ Lucy called. ‘You cannot go in there.’

  Carver pushed the door open, held back a second, then walked in, Jess right behind.

  ‘You must not,’ Lucy’s plaintive cry echoed. ‘Please.’

  The room was empty. Lucy followed them in.

  ‘What are you doing? Why won’t you leave us alone? I told you. There is no one here.’

  Carver tried the back door. It was locked. Another door led into a small utility room. He checked it. Nothing.

  ‘We know your friend is still here, Lucy. Where is he?’

  Lucy froze, as though in shock. Then, after a few seconds, a change started to come over her. The puzzled look in her face began to give way, turning through concern, to alarm, before finally settling into a tortured expression in which her mouth opened, her lips moved, but no sounds came out. She began to shiver.

  Jess approached her. ‘Where are your parents, Lucy?’

  Her eyes began to glaze over, the shivering became a shake.

  ‘She’s fitting,’ Jess said, coming forward and grabbing her arms. Lucy’s head went back and for the first time they saw the livid red marks to her throat and the deep scratch from which a thin line of blood seeped.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ Jess said.

  Carver’s first instinct was to call it, but he needed to know where he was first. And the parents. Minimise the variables. Leaving Jess to Lucy, he went back into the hall.

  There were two doors on his left. Long familiar with these types of houses, Carver knew they would lead into the front and rear sitting-rooms. He tried the nearest first, the back one. Turning the handle he pushed it open. The room was in complete darkness but he thought he could hear something. A murmur. Sounds of movement. He reached for the light switch, tried it. The room stayed dark.

  ‘Hurry Jamie,’ Jess called. ‘She’s going.’

  There was a light switch on the hall wall, next to his shoulder. It would give him enough light to see by. He tried it. Nothing again.

  He’s removed the light bulbs.

  The muffled whining from inside the room increased in pitch. A plea for help. He stepped into the darkness, groping his way. At the same time he fished in a pocket for his mobile. It would provide some light. In front of him he could just make out the shape of a sofa. But behind it he could see movement. There was a figure on the floor. The sounds - mewing noises he now realised - were coming from it. He brought up his phone, pressed the side button. The screen lit up, enough for him to see what he was looking at, The figure was Lucy’s mother, lying on her side. Across the room was another sofa, behind it another figure. Carver glanced back over his shoulder. In the spilling light from the kitchen he saw Jess and Lucy’s shadows, dancing on the hall wall.

  ‘They’re here Jess. Heads up.’

  ‘Hurry Jamie.’

  He bent to check on the mother, bringing his mobile closer. He was not surprised to see she was bound with rope, gagged with something he had stuffed in her mouth. The other one had to be the father. No one else. Time to call it. He lifted his hand, depressed
the button and was about to speak when everything happened at once.

  Somewhere in the hallway, a door wrenched open.

  Jess shouted, ‘HE’S HERE, JAMIE.’

  A flash of movement over his shoulder as he spun around and leapt towards the door.

  A scream, followed at once by sounds of scuffling.

  As he burst out of the room and back into the kitchen, Carver knew.

  He had chosen the wrong door.

  CHAPTER 50

  As Carver came through into the kitchen, Jess was picking herself up from the floor. The man, Garo, had one hand round Lucy’s throat. She was barely conscious. In the other hand was a vicious-looking hunting knife, the sort with a serrated edge. As Carver skidded to halt, Garo brought it to Lucy’s throat. Carver remembered at once the marks he had seen on the throat of Radi Maleeva’s young daughter.

  ‘Stop or I will kill her.’ Gone now was any pretence of sanity. His eyes were crazed, the grin manic.

  ‘Take it easy,’ Carver said, stepping forward. ‘You aren’t going anywhere. Put the knife down.’

  The man tightened his grip on Lucy and, as she groaned, pressed the blade to her throat.

  In that moment, a vision of something similar, another time, another place, came to Carver. A deranged killer, a knife, a miscalculation that left someone exposed.

  Please God it’s not going to happen this time.

  The thought came that he should just stop everything and let the man go, just turn and walk out even, anything that would mean he would not have to endure the nightmares all over again. But then sanity returned, and he knew they were not options. Not if what Mikayel had said was true.

  ‘Move aside,’ the man said, waving the knife to motion Carver and Jess round the table, clearing the way to the door. ‘Or I will kill her right here.’

  Carver stood his ground. ‘You aren’t going to kill anyone, and you aren’t leaving this house. You are under arrest.’

  The man’s eyes widened and he scoffed. ‘Do not be ridiculous. The Monster of Yerevan cannot be stopped by the likes of you. He must keep the promise he made.’ He came forward, the knife still up, over Lucy’s jugular. She was beginning to come round, becoming aware of her predicament. Her eyes widened in fear.

  As the man neared, Carver said, ‘Maybe so. But you are not the Monster of Yerevan.’

  The man’s brow furrowed. ‘Of course I am. No man does what I do.’

  Carver shook his head. ‘One man does.’

  The man wavered. ‘What do you mean? Who?’

  ‘The man who was put away for doing what he read about other killers and perverts doing. The man who so envied the Monster of Yerevan’s notoriety he promised him he would complete his work if he ever escaped the Asylum.’

  ‘LIAR,’ the man screamed. ‘I am Vahrig Danelian, the Monster of Yerevan. The Butcher of Armenia. My work is famous. Now, I will finish it.’

  ‘No,’ Carver said. ‘Vahrig Danelian is dead. Doctor Kahramanyan is with his body right now, in a mortuary back in Armenia.’ Lucy’s eyes widened, some of his words registering. Carver continued. ‘He died soon after escaping from the asylum. Caught by the Azerbaijanis and killed.’ The man’s eyes flashed. ‘And you saw it all happen, didn’t you, Antranig Koloyan?’

  The man tipped his head back and let out a cry of anguish that made Carver’s blood run cold. Sensing half a chance, Carver prepared to move, but Koloyan - the only inmate ever to have got close enough to the Monster to talk with him, Kahramanyan had said; the man the media had christened the Copycat-Killer - was too quick. He pressed the knife harder against Lucy’s throat, ready.

  ‘It does not matter that you know my name,’ he snarled. ‘I gave him my promise that if he did not escape, I would avenge him against the family that left him to rot in that place. And I intend to keep that promise.’

  ‘No,’ Carver said, but had to step back further as the man came forward, at the doorway now. ‘There has been enough killing. There will be no more.’

  Whether it was the determination in Carver’s voice or being confronted with his real identity, Carver wasn’t certain, but for the first time a look of uncertainty flitted into Antranig Koloyan’s black eyes. He glanced into the back room, where his intended victims still lay bound. Then his gaze shifted down the hall to the front door - his only escape route - before coming back to Carver. He made his choice. He began backing down the hallway, dragging Lucy with him. Carver followed, Jess at his shoulder.

  ‘Put the knife down, Antranig.’ Carver said, putting a hand out in front of him, palm open. ‘You cannot escape. We know who you are. There is nowhere to go.’

  Koloyan reached the door. Holding Lucy with his knife-hand he reached behind with the other and released the lock. ‘I AM the Monster of Yerevan,’ he spat. ‘You cannot stop me.’ He flicked the door open with his foot and stepped backwards out the door.

  The light from several blinding suns burst upon the house. Carver threw an arm across his face.

  Antranig Koloyan spun round, shocked, to face those waiting for him. Lucy screamed as the Dragon-lamps bathed her and her attacker in the bright, white light that picked them out and made them look, just for a moment, like religious icons.

  ‘ARMED POLICE,’ a tinny voice echoed around the street. ‘Put down the knife. Let the woman go and step away. We are Armed Police Officers. I repeat. We are ARMED POLICE.’

  Despite all that was happening, Carver still managed to register the fact that Superintendent Della Garside, the designated Firearms Incident Commander, clearly wasn’t going to leave herself open to an accusation that she did not give full and proper warning.

  Antranig Koloyan’s response was to scream into the lights.

  ‘BASTARDS.’

  Behind him, Carver saw the hesitation, sensed Koloyan trying to work out his options. He was behind Lucy now, using her as a shield, the knife still up to her throat. Mikayel had said he was capable of anything. All it needed was a slight movement of the wrist.

  Carver took his chance.

  He hurled himself onto Koloyan’s back, grabbing Koloyan’s wrist and forcing the knife away, at the same time wrapping his other arm around the killer’s neck, pulling him back off Lucy. Shouts mixed with screams and yelled commands rent the night air as the two men struggled. Suddenly free, Lucy fell to the floor. Running shadows passed before the bright lights. But even as help came, Carver realised that the wiry Armenian was far stronger than he looked. With a scream of rage, Koloyan wrenched himself from Carver’s grasp, flinging the detective backwards. Carver hit the brick wall behind him with such force the breath was knocked from him. As he fell, gasping, he saw the killer framed against the night sky. And what Antranig Koloyan did next, everyone would later swear made the hairs on the backs of their necks stand up, and their blood turn to ice.

  Spreading his arms in some sort of primeval victory salute, he turned his face to the sky and let out a howl which, had they not known its origin, people would have sworn came from a mountain wolf.

  It was enough to stop everyone in their tracks and for a second they all stood and stared. And it was enough time for Antranig Koloyan. The knife was still in his hand. On the ground, only feet away, was Lucy, dazed and gasping, trying to crawl away. What little reason was in him must have told him there was still time to keep some of his promise to Vahrig Danelian. No one was close enough to stop him. Raising the knife, he flung himself at her.

  She screamed.

  Later, when Carver came to write up his statement, he would know that his memory was playing tricks on him. Logic told him what the sequence of events must have been, nevertheless he wrote it as he remembered it.

  As Antranig closed on Lucy, about to strike, he seemed to stop in mid-flight. He turned towards the lights, staggered back a step, then spun on his heels and went down, in one officer’s words, ‘like a sack of spuds.’ Only then did Carver remember hearing the staccato of the several discharges from the Armed Response Team’s weapons, echoi
ng back and forth between the houses on opposite sides of the street. For a second no one moved, then all hell broke loose.

  Carver had a ringside seat.

  Shouted commands flew in all directions. Figures ran forward. Jess went to Lucy. A posse of flack-jacketed officers with the words ‘POLICE’ stencilled across their backs surrounded Antranig Koloyan, pointing their Heckler-Kochs and Glocks at him as if he might suddenly raise himself and threaten them once more. Carver already knew that, leaving aside any religious allusions, there was not a cat in Hell’s chance that would happen.

  Many weeks later, the Independent Office For Police Conduct-supervised, Post Incident Enquiry Report would show - to the Chief Constable’s and, especially, the Firearm Team’s embarrassment – that of the ten rounds discharged that night from four different weapons, only two hit Koloyan. The first was from a Glock-17 self-loading pistol fired by the newest member of the team, a woman officer called Becky Handsworth. It hit Koloyan in the lower abdomen, inches above the groin, stopping his charge. The second, from a Heckler and Koch G3K short-barreled rifle took Koloyan right between the eyes. He died instantly. The shot was fired by Gerry Scott, the team’s most accomplished marksman. The first thing Gerry would do four months later when he resumed work following his obligatory suspension, would be to surrender his authority and withdraw from firearms duties.