Trick Turn

by Tom Barber

  ‘What do you see?’ he asked.

  ‘Not much.’

  As Archer bent to look into the dark space, something in the beam of Bellefonte’s flashlight caught his eye.

  A silver thread had been carefully taped across the bottom of the ladder.

  Archer quickly shone his own light down. ‘The hell you doing?’ Bellefonte asked, shielding his face.

  ‘Stop. Give me your hand-’ Archer said urgently, but as he spoke, Bellefonte’s right foot moved down to that last wooden rung.

  And the thread snapped.

  Archer was already lunging forward and dropping his flashlight, grabbed the detective’s arm with both hands and hauled him upwards by throwing himself back. Bellefonte made it out just before a door swung down towards the ladder, having been fixed unseen to the ceiling below by rope. ‘Jesus!’ he yelled, as the weighted door smashed into the rungs, missing his feet by less than an inch.

  Archer picked up his flashlight and shone it down into the hole.

  Scores of blades were sticking out of the door, similar to the kind of trap GIs encountered in Vietnam, knives now buried in the wooden ladder.

  ‘Batman wasn’t lying,’ Archer said, catching his breath. ‘McGuinness was here.’

  The area under the trapdoor was accessible from passageways running either side of the stage, and five careful minutes later, cautiously checking every step they took for more traps or tripwires, the two detectives were standing in a musty space, looking at the aftermath of what they guessed must be McGuinness’ handiwork.

  About twenty long heavy-duty knives were jutting through the flimsy door, with two bags of stones and small rocks attached to its base to provide the impetus it had needed to swing forward. A crude contraption but enough to have killed Bellefonte, or cause him serious injury if Archer hadn’t moved so fast. Or anyone else caught unawares by the trap.

  ‘Looks like he made some trips to catering or a hardware store,’ Archer said quietly, looking at the blades.

  ‘You said he did something like this in New York?’ Bellefonte asked.

  ‘Sort of. Turned a bed into a giant Venus flytrap. Seems to be his calling card.’

  ‘Owe you one, pal,’ Bellefonte said, patting him on the shoulder.

  ‘Let’s just tread carefully from now on.’ Using his flashlight to guide him, Archer took a slow step to the right, then checking ahead, took another; Bellefonte was right behind him, placing his feet where Archer’s had been, the pair taking as much care as if they were walking across a minefield, looking for threads or more potential traps. They reached some changing rooms, and shining his light around, Archer saw the space was clean and squared away, unlike anywhere else in the park.

  ‘You think this is where he mighta brought people?’ Bellefonte muttered.

  ‘Could be. He definitely didn’t want anyone to stumble across it. Explains those knives under the trapdoor.’

  ‘Must’ve taken time and effort to set that up.’

  ‘It’s how this guy likes to do things.’

  ‘If he baited that trapdoor, could be he’s planning on coming back,’ Bellefonte replied.

  Archer didn’t answer. As he trained his flashlight into every corner of the room, an idea occurred to him. ‘Gimme two minutes,’ he said. ‘Wait here.’ Without giving Bellefonte a chance to reply, Archer disappeared, leaving the NOPD detective looking nervously around him.

  A minute later, Archer was back upstairs looking at the old lights still directed onto the stage. The bulbs were long dead, but that didn’t trouble him; the gel sheets that covered them were what he was after. He tried to think of a way to get up there, but then after looking around, found some flattened, tattered boxes sitting haphazardly on shelves in the wings.

  Searching through them, he found what he wanted deep in the third box, and took out two sheets of gel sheeting. One blue, one purple. He went back down to join Bellefonte, who frowned when he saw the sheeting. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Making a blacklight,’ Archer said. He ripped off two pieces of the blue and purple sheets, then pulled them over the end of his flashlight. He clicked the beam back on, and shone it around the room.

  The light revealed pools of white stains all over the floor.

  ‘Holy shit,’ Bellefonte said.

  ‘Blood won’t show up unless this place gets sprayed with luminol,’ Archer said. He looked at the stains on the floor. ‘But gives us an idea. I think those are bodily fluids though. If it was floodwater, the entire room would be one big stain.’

  ‘Puddles of it like that, and it’s not blood? What is it?’

  ‘I think it’s urine.’ He shone the beam around the floor of the changing rooms. ‘If it’s from a human, whoever was brought down here either used it repeatedly as a bathroom.’ He paused. ‘Or pissed themselves from fear.’

  ‘I wanna call in back-up,’ Bellefonte said. ‘Get a forensics team out here, and close off the site for analysis. You and the bike rider got me convince-’

  Before he could finish the sentence, his phone started ringing and he took it out. ‘Ruiz,’ he told Archer, answering on speaker.

  ‘Yo, think I found your boy! He was using a fake name: Gerald Dwindel.’

  ‘Working in the kid’s section?’ Archer asked.

  ‘Yeah, in Looney Tunes! He helped run the theater. His photo’s the same guy as in the file from Kemah Boardwalk.’

  Thousands of miles to the east, it was already morning in Oxford, July 9th, and Chalky was sitting in a café in Summertown with Isabel, a copy of The Crucible in his hands, their breakfast in front of them.

  ‘Oh Elizabeth, your justice would freeze beer,’ he read, the lines of the male lead, John Proctor. ‘How do you go to Salem when I forbid it? Do you mock me? I’ll whip you if you dare to leave this house again.’

  ‘I am sick, I am sick, Mister Proctor,’ Isabel replied, Chalky tracking her lines with his finger. ‘My insides are all shuddery. I am all over the proceedings all day, sir.’

  ‘In the proceedings,’ he corrected. ‘Close. I remember Pete didn’t like you guys changing up words though.’

  She muttered a rude word under her breath and took a quick bite of food. ‘I always get that one wrong.’

  ‘Let’s try it again.’

  She nodded, but then he saw her expression change and she put her fork down, reaching into her pocket. ‘You OK?’

  ‘Forgot my pill. Must be jet lag,’ she added with a smile. She pushed a tablet from the foil and washed it down with a sip of orange juice. Chalky took the tablets and looked at the box. Archer and Vargas had told him about the epilepsy, but it was still something that concerned him, particularly as it had almost led to her death at the theater. She’d been diligent about taking the medication though, since they’d been together; the incident in Chelsea seemed to have taught her a lesson.

  ‘Gimme your hand,’ he said. She did and he took a pen out of his pocket, scribbling Take Tablet on first the back of her hand, then his. ‘Now we won’t forget. No excuses.’

  ‘Unless I shower.’

  ‘You can lick yourself clean.’

  She giggled and pulled a face. As she ate more of her breakfast, Chalky stood up to get himself a coffee at the counter. When the woman took his cup and went to the machine, Chalky glanced back at Isabel, who was almost finished, eating and drinking quite happily.

  Then he looked beyond her through the window.

  A passing double-decker bus had stopped at a red light, but its low windows allowed Chalky to see through the vehicle to the other side of the street, where there was another café with shops either side.

  ‘Sir,’ the woman at the counter behind him said. Chalky had bent down slightly lower to improve his line of sight. ‘Sir?’

  Someone was sitting at a table against the window of the coffee shop opposite looking in their direction.

  Chalky immediately recognised him.

  But unlike last time, the man wasn’t grinning.

&nb
sp; THIRTY NINE

  Without saying a word, Chalky left the counter and took Isabel’s hand, swiping up the copy of The Crucible and folding the book over before stuffing it in his pocket.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Issy asked, having been about to take a bite from a Danish but dropping it onto her plate instead.

  ‘We’re leaving.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Right now.’

  She saw the look on his face and didn’t say another word, getting off her chair and going with him.

  The bus was still stopped in front of the coffee shop as it took on more passengers, and across the street, McGuinness took a shallow sip of coffee. He had a canvas bag bought from a local supermarket beside him, concealing certain items he’d been busy all night working on.

  The Jewish doctor had given up everything he knew, before McGuinness killed him; the girl had run to England, with someone called Daniel White, the doctor having seen the man’s passport over the female detective Vargas’ shoulder when they were at the medical facility in Queens. While at Logan airport in Boston, McGuinness had checked out the man’s name on social media, with no success, but guessed that if the guy was a cop, he probably wouldn’t have those accounts for security reasons.

  However, he’d eventually found the man’s mother, the stupid bitch having used a photo from the previous Christmas as a profile picture. In it, he’d immediately recognised the man as the one from the theater who’d protected the child.

  He’d then found her address in the UK’s 192 directory, which provided all he needed to know.

  After leaving the policeman’s mother’s home in London, he’d arrived in Oxford the previous evening, and had immediately started preparing for what he had planned in the morning. Once he’d completed the task, he’d used the cop’s mom’s car to drive into the countryside; with the UK’s strict gun laws, he’d known acquiring a firearm in such a short space of time wouldn’t be easy, but he guessed there were places outside the city he could target. It had taken a couple of hours, but he’d finally found what he wanted in a remote farm.

  Once they’d accessed Daniel White’s bank details, his mother had also been persuaded to come up with the right password for her son’s Airbnb rental account. As a consequence, McGuinness now knew exactly where the cop was staying, and had already checked the place out. It hadn’t taken him long to locate the ARU cop and kid in the coffee shop close by, and had intended to keep them in sight until they were back in the apartment, where he could kill them without any witnesses. What he had planned was going to waste the cop, kill the girl and keep people occupied while he made a quick escape back to the States.

  He already knew from the Chelsea theater that the police officer was a problem, so a quick death was the best option, despite his usual desire to cause as much suffering as possible. He’d learned the error of playing games with this girl.

  But when the bus pulled away, he saw the man and kid were now longer at their table.

  ‘Is he here?’ Isabel asked anxiously as she crossed the street with Chalky, unsettled by his sudden urgency. They’d spent so much time together lately, she’d learned to read him pretty well. ‘Did you see him?’

  ‘I think so.’ As he took out his phone with his free hand, he checked behind them, before cutting down a side road towards their rental. He called Cobb’s direct line at the ARU, and his boss answered almost immediately.

  ‘Chalk?’

  ‘I’m on the street of our rental, boss.’ Chalky looked over his shoulder again. ‘The man from New York. He’s here.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah, he found us somehow.’

  ‘How? No-one outside our immediate circle knows where you are.’

  ‘I don’t know, but we need back-up, immediately.’

  ‘I’ll inform Oxford police and send Fox and Porter your way right now.’ Chalky heard a brief whistle and the sound of knocking on glass in the background, his boss no doubt signalling to the men from inside his office. ‘They can be there in under ninety minutes. Oxford police will be with you in less than ten. Is the girl safe?’

  ‘She’s with me.’

  ‘Go to ground, then let us know where you are.’

  At the coffee spot opposite from where Chalky and Isabel had been enjoying breakfast, a waitress who’d been chatting to a colleague walked through the gaps between some customers and headed to a table with an order.

  She looked around, sure this was where the customer had been sitting.

  But the man had left.

  ‘We’re out of here in sixty seconds, kiddo,’ Chalky said, as Isabel started packing her things quickly inside their rental apartment. ‘Get the absolute essentials.’ As she did, he swept up their passports and cash, and shoved them in the small leather document bag Vargas had given him, where she’d kept the girl’s set of alternative ID. He stuffed the play script in there too, along with his I-Pad.

  Listening closely, Chalky heard the heavy main door below close, as someone entered.

  He stopped what he was doing, listening. Then, zipping up the document bag, he looped it over his shoulder and pulled his Glock, keeping Isabel back as they both edged away from the door.

  Outside, they heard the sound of children playing in the street, an early morning game of kicking a ball around. Like the kids in the US, they were also on summer holiday.

  A stair inside the building creaked.

  Isabel was breathing heavily, while Chalky centred the sights of his pistol on where the door would open.

  She glanced up at him anxiously.

  They both heard the sound of a floorboard creak right outside their room.

  Chalky tightened his grip on the handgun. He wanted to empty the magazine and end McGuinness right now, but couldn’t fire blind. Other people lived here too, and he wasn’t prepared to risk shooting an innocent person. He couldn’t be one hundred percent sure it was McGuinness outside the door.

  But he didn’t have long to wait to find out.

  The hinges on the top section of the door suddenly disintegrated in a bloom of splinters, gun oil and noise, the hinges at the bottom following a second later in another blast. As the door was kicked back and Isabel’s scream was lost in the echo of the blasts, Chalky fired his Glock several times at the doorway, but his angle wasn’t as good as he would have liked.

  However, instead of receiving a shotgun blast in return as he expected, an empty ice-cream container was slid into the room, a short fuse attached to a cell phone taped to the side.

  With training and experience combined, Chalky immediately recognised it for what it was.

  He dragged Isabel back into the bathroom and threw her into the bathtub, kicking the door shut behind him.

  The container exploded just as the door swung to, spraying fire in all directions, and as the door was thrown back, Chalky saw a white, jelly-like substance stuck all over the apartment, burning, the fire-alarm sounding loudly, its light flashing. While Isabel covered her head in the tub, Chalky kept his Glock on the door before looking at the bathroom window to their left. He stepped back, pulled her out of the bath and pushed her over towards the window.

  ‘Go!’ he said, covering the door, but rather than move, she screamed as a figure rolled into the room. Chalky fired but just missed as the man took cover behind the kitchen counter. Chalky un-looped the passport bag and passed it to the girl along with his cell phone before pushing her towards the window. ‘Go! Now!’ He then crept forward, trying to get a better angle.

  Standing on the toilet, Isabel got the lock undone with shaking fingers and pushed up the bathroom window. Just as Chalky glanced at the window to make sure Issy had escaped, a knife was launched right at him, the throw blisteringly fast. The blade buried itself in his shoulder, and he shouted in pain, falling back towards the tub, his hand not obeying him as he dropped his pistol.

  McGuinness glanced around the counter and saw Chalky going for the Glock with his other hand. The ARU officer pulled it b
ack at the last second, as another knife was thrown and thudded into the floorboards, grazing the grip of the gun. It would have nailed his palm to the floor if he hadn’t moved it in time.

  Knife in his shoulder, Chalky looked over at the man. His hair was cut shorter and was a different colour, his chin and jaw dark from stubble, but what gave him away was his height. On his feet, nothing could disguise that.

  The former carny started to reload a double barrelled shotgun in his hands, walking Chalky down. ‘Run, kid!’ the ARU cop shouted at the now empty window. McGuinness instinctively turned towards it, and in that second, Chalky rose and drove himself into him, knocking him backwards. The tall man rolled, just avoiding some of the burning white goo stuck to the floor, but quickly rose and lifted the shotgun. Chalky was already moving to his Glock before diving to his right just as McGuinness blasted off another shell then cut into the room Issy had been using as a bedroom.

  Chalky took cover in the bathroom. Desperate to get to Issy outside, he knew he’d be losing strength quickly with the knife in his shoulder and that engaging in a shootout wasn’t the best option, particularly as he had no idea what other weapons this guy had up his sleeve. He fired a couple of times again regardless, trying to keep the man pinned down or hit him through the wall, then turned and after a brief struggle, doing his best not to drive the knife even further into his shoulder, worked his way out of the bathroom window.

  Outside was a sloping roof leading down to the drop into the front garden. He slid down the tiles and jumped, landing so hard it knocked all the wind out of him, shouting in pain as the knife jarred and shook, pain starting to radiate out of his chest and cloud his thinking.

  He looked around but there was no sign of Issy. With the explosion and sound of weapons being fired, Oxford police would be showing up any minute, so his aim was to pin McGuinness down until help arrived. He was just taking cover behind a parked car when another shotgun blast erupted from the bathroom window he’d just left, pellets ricocheting around him, some burying themselves in his leg.