JAMES NALLY
Games with the Dead

Copyright

Published by Avon an imprint of

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street,

London, SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by

HarperCollins Publishers 2017

Copyright © James Nally 2017

Cover photograph © Shutterstock

Cover design © Alison Groom

James Nally asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008149574

Ebook Edition © December 2017 ISBN: 9780008270971

Version 2017-11-09

Dedication

For Bridget, James and Emma.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

By the Same Author:

Keep Reading …

About the Author

About the Publisher

Prologue

We all know Julie Draper now. Her twenty-four-year-old, shyly smiling face is everywhere. Can it really be just nine days since she rushed out of her estate agent’s office in south London to show a client around a house, only to vanish into thin air? The hunt for Julie Draper goes on. Only two people know she’s already dead. The man who killed her.

And me.

It’s this cursed ‘gift’ of mine, you see. These Games with the Dead that I’m forced to play. Julie comes to me at night now, just like the others did before, haunting and tormenting me. And I know she won’t quit. Not until I find her killer.

Don’t judge me. Please. I’m not a dangler of wind chimes or a martyr to the Tarot. I’m a cop, for Christ’s sake, a veritable tank of scepticism. That’s why I’m so desperate to find a clinical explanation for these close encounters with the recently whacked.

Several shrinks on, I’m told its sleep paralysis, but with an inexplicable twist. Whereas sufferers typically hallucinate traditional ‘bogeymen’ figures, like demons, witches or aliens, I see people whose murders I’m investigating. More baffling still, these murder victims give me clues as to how they died.

There’s nothing in their esteemed medical journals covering that …

Which is why I’ve never bought into this Sleep Paralysis quackery. Neither has my jaded girlfriend Zoe: ‘More like Ambition Paralysis.’ Or my hard-bitten hack brother: ‘It’s the DTs.’ I didn’t expect Mam to clear it all up for me like she did, on her deathbed. Presenting me the answer, wrapped in a family curse.

A curse I’m too scared to open.

Turns out mine is a ‘gift’ that just keeps taking. And taking. I’m twenty-five years old; trying to come to terms with an unthinkable new reality.

It’s 50/50 I won’t make it to thirty.

Chapter 1

New Scotland Yard, London

A few days earlier. Wednesday, June 15, 1994; 19.00

‘It’s not too late to pull out you know, Donal.’ Commander Neil Crossley, Head of the Kidnap Unit, stares through my eyes into a future he barely dares to contemplate: ‘If he’s going to kill Julie Draper, there’s no reason why he won’t kill you. And we know he’s killed before.’

But I know there can be no turning back now. I’ve got something to prove. To ‘Croissant’ Crossley. To my brother Fintan. To Zoe, my perennially disappointed partner. The kidnapper might be getting his ransom money, but the payback will be all mine.

Julie Draper’s abductor has named his price. Crown Estates – her employer – must cough up £175,000 cash for her ‘safe return’. He nominated Julie’s estate agent colleague, Tom Reynolds, to deliver the cash. Any sign of police or media involvement during ‘the drop’, he’ll kill both.

Crown Estates gambled on drafting in the police. Commander Crossley is gambling on a Tom Reynolds-lookalike to deliver the cash.

Me.

I’d never won a lookalike competition before.

Crossley remembered me from a previous attachment to the Kidnap Unit, thought me a ringer for Reynolds, rang me personally to ask if I ‘felt up to becoming part of a top-secret operation’. Having spent the past eighteen months in a career Limbo – languishing in the Cold Case Unit as an ‘Acting’ Detective Constable – I agreed immediately.

My new status as hero-in-waiting has already propelled me into exalted company. Yesterday, I accompanied Crossley to New Scotland Yard’s treasury, where we collected a Crown Estates cheque for 175k. Siren wailing, we floored it to a bullion centre in Chancery Lane, where we exchanged the cheque for equal numbers of £50, £20 and £10 used notes, just as the kidnapper had specified.

What a scene those 7,750 notes made! We then whisked the windfall back to technical support at the Yard, who spent the night painstakingly videotaping each note’s serial number.

As if reading our every move, a second ransom note lands this morning with an additional demand: £5,000 in two bank accounts with cash cards and PIN numbers. Our nemesis knows that the serial numbers from cash machines can’t be traced. He can use this ‘clean’ cash to travel anywhere in Europe to launder the dirty money. Our target is so smart, so well-informed, he reads our every move. Many of my colleagues are convinced he’s done this before. Or that he’s one of us, a serving or ex-cop, with a snout inside the investigation.

Today is our last chance to find out. To collect the ransom, he has to break cover. As in any extortion case, this represents our best and, possibly, only chance of catching the culprit.

We return to New Scotland Yard, take the lift to tech support on the third floor and sign for receipt of a black Head sports bag with a transmitter sewn into the base. As per the ransom note instructions, we divide the cash into thirty-one equal units of 250 notes, wrapping each bundle in polythene no more than twelve microns thick. Crossley inserts the cash cards into one of the bricks, but trousers the piece of paper revealing their PIN codes.

‘A little insurance,’ he says. ‘No matter what happens today, he’ll have to get back to us for these.’

We stack the bundles together and gift-wrap them in brown paper. As per a diagram enclosed with the ransom note, Crossley uses nylon cord to secure the parcel, with a substantial loop on top. Why the kidnapper is insisting on certain specifics, we’ve yet to figure out. We place the loot carefully inside the sports bag so as not to disturb the transmitter, then head to the operational hub in East Croydon, just south of London.

As I get trussed up in a bulletproof vest, Crossley re-reads the kidnapper’s delivery brief.

‘At 9pm, the courier must await a call at the Mercury public phone in the foyer of East Croydon train station. He’ll be given instructions and a trail to follow, which will take him from phone box to phone box over quiet roads so that the presence of police surveillance vehicles or aircraft will be detected. Any publicity or apparent police action will result in no further communication.’ Crossley glances up: ‘Which means he’ll kill Julie Draper, and he’ll probably kill you.’

As I refuse to let that sink in, he gets back to the kidnapper’s instructions: ‘Once the courier gets to the drop-off point, the money will not be collected by me, but by a young male who parks up in a nearby lovers’ lane for a few hours every Wednesday night. His female companion will be held hostage while I direct the male to bring the cash to me via a two-way radio. Once I receive the cash, I will reveal Julie’s location via an anonymous call to a media outlet, using the code phrase “Is Kipper a red herring?”’

Crossley folds the paper precisely, as if securing it for posterity, then searches my eyes deeply. For weakness? For reassurance? I can’t tell, but it’s a real ransacking of the irises.

‘Okay Donal, in your car is a two-way radio linked to the controller here in the operations room. He, in turn, is in touch with surveillance teams in front and behind you. You know about the transmitter in the money bag, so keep it with you at all times.’

My mind lags behind, conducting a dry run, seeking out pitfalls. ‘He mentioned quiet roads. How close will these surveillance teams be? I don’t want them blowing my cover.’

‘They’re the best in the business, Donal, shadowed IRA terrorists, underworld hitmen, the lot. They’ll be in constant contact with a stealth chopper who’ll follow the suspect once he picks up the money. Look, if you remember just one instruction tonight, Donal, it’s that these surveillance teams need to know the kidnapper’s every move. Each time you get a fresh set of instructions, pass them on. You must get back into your car and repeat them over the radio, loud and clear, twice. You then wait five minutes before you drive on. Understood?’

I nod.

‘I just can’t wait to get it over with now, Guv,’ I say brightly, diving into my car before his unflagging angst sucks the last bead of self-belief out of me. The door slams shut with a fatalistic thud.

‘Actually, there is one last thing,’ he says, passing me a note through the open window.

It’s Met-police-headed paper; the word ‘Disclaimer’ screams out from the bold, underlined first sentence.

‘They just handed this to me,’ he says, leaning down to my level, eyes sizing mine for a reaction. ‘It’s to show we haven’t put you under any undue duress if, well, anything goes awry.’

‘Undue duress?’

‘You know what it’s like these days, Donal,’ he smiles lamely. ‘All about protecting the brand.’

By the second line of legal gymnastics, I’m sufficiently bamboozled to quit reading, get signing and hand it back.

‘I expect this is going to be tortuous, Donal, but you must try to concentrate at all times. Be prepared for a last-second change. A sudden contact. You must be ready for anything and everything. But follow his instructions to the letter.

‘Absolutely no heroics. Remember, he may have an accomplice ready to kill Julie if anything goes wrong. It doesn’t matter if the money or the man slip away tonight. It’s all about getting Julie back, alive.’

He passes the sports bag slowly, almost reverentially, through the car window, as if handing over her very fate.

‘We’re counting on you, Donal. Because one mistake, and we’ve all got Julie Draper’s blood on our hands.’

Chapter 2

East Croydon, South London

Wednesday, June 15, 1994; 20.50

At 9.40am the previous Tuesday, Julie Draper left her office on Church Road, Croydon to show a client around a four-bedroom house. She didn’t come back. Her colleague, Tom Reynolds, checked out the house, found her car on the driveway, her house keys on the landing. No Julie.

He checked out her client. John West’s phone number doesn’t exist. The address he’d provided doesn’t exist. The kidnap squad baulks at the name.

Seven years ago, estate agent Suzy Fairclough vanished in West London. Neither her body nor her abductor have ever been found. Also aged twenty-four and a brunette, Suzy had arranged to meet a client called ‘Mr Kipper’.

‘John West Kippers’ are a British supermarket staple.

Has he struck again? Or is it some sort of twisted copycat attack? The kidnapper’s methodology has convinced senior officers that their fishiest nemesis is back.

The meticulous, almost obsessive attention to detail is the crowning Kipper hallmark. His demand, for example, that the ransom cash be wrapped in polythene twelve microns thick is a direct steal from the Fairclough abduction. Tech wizards have figured out why; through plastic that thin any bugs we might hide in the cash can be detected by a bog-standard, shop-bought metal detector.

Yesterday morning’s proof-of-life phone call had also been classic Kipper. He rang Julie’s office from a public phone box and played a tape recording of her reading headlines from that day’s Daily Mirror newspaper. He made the call from a non-digital exchange, which takes longer to trace. But trace it we did, to Worthing on the south coast.

In another parallel with the Suzy Fairclough abductor, the ransom letter had been typed on generic WH Smith stationery using an old Olivetti, the typewriter equivalent of a Model T Ford – so, impossible to trace. Once again, he’d been careful not to lick the envelope or stamp, or to leave prints, fibres or hairs.

Without a solid lead, detectives agreed to pay the ransom. To my surprise, there is no secret police slush fund to meet this kind of shakedown. Crown Estates had to raise the cash. Now it’s my job to hand it over.

East Croydon train station finally looms into view, just as Crossley’s forlorn prophecies perform another club-footed cancan across my aching crown. Change his plan at any second … ready for anything and everything … one mistake and we’ve got Julie Draper’s blood on our hands.

I park up and brace myself for the kidnapper’s first instruction; stand by the open car boot for 30 seconds. Presumably, he or his associates want to ensure I’m not harbouring a crack team of SAS midgets between the golf clubs and the jerry can.

Getting out unleashes a Grand National of competing terrors. They’re led at the first by the very real fear he’ll realise I’m not Tom Reynolds. What then? I yank down my baseball cap’s stiff peak until it fringes my vision. I take the holdall of cash and my identifying ‘Crown Estates’ clipboard from the back seat, walk to the car boot, open it and start to count. I feel exposed, helpless, JFK in Dealey Plaza. I make it all the way to seven before cracking. Boot still open, I set off pacing and weaving through people outside the station, taking sudden, wild turns like a coursed hare. If he’s planning a head shot, he’ll need to be Robin fucking Hood.

I rush to thirty, shut the boot and hotfoot into the station foyer. To my left, I spot the metallic-blue Mercury public phone he’s selected for our cosy chat. It’s framed by a glass hood, open at the front, New York-style. I wonder why he’s selected such an exposed phone, and hover there twitchily, head scoping in case of ambush. Through the frosted glass of a nearby waiting room, a frowning man peers out. Kidnapper or cop? Who can tell? Opposite me, two scruffy men in their twenties loiter outside the ticket office. One of them clocks my clipboard and approaches. I stiffen.

‘Are you doing a survey?’ he asks brightly.

‘No, I’m waiting for a phone call.’

He raises his arm. I flinch. Calmly, he reaches past me, lifts the receiver, checks for a dialling tone and replaces it. ‘Well it’s working,’ he says chirpily and returns to his pal. Kidnapper? Undercover cop? Mercury Communications telephone angel? Who knows.

A thunderous rumble grows inside the station. I step out from my glass arch to see an army of knackered, dead-eyed commuters march up a walkway towards me, looking set to sack the city. As they storm the ticket barriers, I scan their addled, timetable-enslaved faces.

Ready for anything and everything …

He could be one of them, ready to pluck the bag from my grasp and sprint to a getaway car.

No one stops. No one even looks. All hopes of a swift exchange evaporate.

I sag and step back, my back raging hot against the phone’s cold metal. The money bag’s strap burns a timely reminder into my left shoulder blade; I’m standing here alone with everything he wants. What if he’s watching me, planning to pounce? Who would save me?

I scan again. Those surveillance officers are either very good or very not here. The phone’s shrill ring lifts me six inches off the floor. I pick up, killing the ring and every other sound in the world, as if it has ceased spinning. I picture birds tumbling out of the sky, landing with a thud on Croydon concrete.

Cold hard plastic cools my scorching right ear. ‘Yes,’ I croak.

‘Tom Reynolds?’

‘That’s me.’

‘What’s your car reg?’ demands the Geoff Boycott sounda- like.

My addled mind empties like a toppled glass. I can’t even remember my own licence plate!

I whimper. He barks: ‘Make, model, colour?’

‘Nissan Bluebird. Maroon.’

I hear a muffled rustle. ‘Parked outside the station,’ I hear him say, faintly, as if to someone else. He’s got watchers!

‘Get back into your car,’ he demands, tetchily. ‘Follow signs for the M23 and A23 to Brighton. When you see a sign saying Brighton 8 miles, look out for the next left, the A273. Take the exit. On the left after 200 yards you’ll see a lay-by with two phone boxes. The first is a phone card kiosk. Taped beneath the shelf will be an envelope containing a new set of instructions.’

‘My God,’ I sigh into the dead phone. ‘The world’s grimmest treasure hunt.’

I almost run back to the car to parrot the details, then wait five agonising minutes before setting off south. Signs for Penge, Riddlesdown and Titsey flash past, making me wonder if every Croydon suburb is named after some squalid seventeenth-century disease. It would seem fitting. All I see are rows and rows of houses punctuated by identikit shopping parades, invariably featuring an estate agent, bookmaker, greasy spoon café, off-licence, post office, pharmacy and funeral parlour.

There’s the futility and emptiness of modern life, right there, I think, in my fug of fatalistic gloom. Each cluster of shops tells our real-life story: you buy a house, spend your life paying for it, cheer yourself up gambling, drinking and eating shit, get ill, old and die.

Zap! The suburbs vanish to a vast, velvet night-sky being munched on by tiny, shiny, Pac-Men; on closer inspection, aircraft queueing to land at Gatwick airport.

‘Sunset Boulevard,’ Fintan calls the A23, leading as it invariably does to sun-kissed excess-by-sea. Not tonight. The prospect of messing up in the South Downs yanks my knotted guts to twanging.

Be prepared for a last-second change. A sudden contact.

Crossley’s ceaseless advice drowns out all self-soothing inner monologues.

If he’s going to kill Julie Draper, there’s no reason why he won’t kill you …

Christ, poor Matt. My sweet, adorable stepson. The single best thing ever to happen in my life. Why am I taking this risk?

None of this is Matt’s fault. Stupid selfish grown-ups. I’m sure Zoe and I will be okay. We’re just in bit of a rut right now. Living together but not really living at all. It’s all work, childcare and sleep deprivation. I know I’m doing this for her. I’m just not sure why. To impress her? To prove myself? To make her worry about me? In place of an answer, I’ve coined a mantra: If I get through this, everything will be better. I’ll have proven myself, to her, to me. We’ll get back to how it was. She’ll look at me in that way again, eyes soft and warm. Smile at my corny gags. Sleep facing me.

But doubt, like night, has swallowed the last of the half-light.

A ghostly white sign shimmers in the gusty, malcontent air. I squint it into focus: ‘Brighton 8 miles’.

I slow to 40 and strain my eyes. The A273 slip road loops around so that I’m now heading north again; Brighton-bound A23 traffic pounds past to my left, headlights mercilessly fanning the lay-by like ravenous searchlights. The phone boxes command centre stage, spotlit by an amber streetlight. Good visibility brings mixed tidings; easier to see, harder to flee.

My car creeps into the lay-by, past the phone boxes. I perform a laboured three-point turn, helping myself to a 180-degree, headlight-illuminated view of the lay-by and the A273 beyond. I’m expecting the glint of hidden back-up cars, the outlines of poised police Ninjas. I see neither. Dread claws at my insides like a trapped rat. Surveillance are in front and behind. But they’re not here. It’s just me and him.

‘Right, I’ve pulled up at the phone box,’ I inform the dashboard’s covert radio, squeezing into my baseball cap and forensic gloves. I leave the car engine idling, my headlights beaming so that at least my non-existent back-up can see me.

I lean back, grab the money bag and step out. The trees shiver like widows at the workhouse door. Gravel crunches beneath my feet, but I can’t feel it. Halfway across, I spin 360. Nothing.

I jog to the phonebox, open it, the door squealing like teeth down a violin. I palm the underside of the cold metal shelf, feel paper, yank it free. The small brown envelope has double-sided tape on each corner. I turn over to see a giant letter ‘A’ scrawled in black marker. Christ, I think, how far through the alphabet is he planning to take me tonight?

Sprinting back to the car, I throw the cash in the back, get in, lock the doors and rummage inside the envelope. I flick on my pencil torch and read the instructions, typed on a cut-down piece of A4 paper.

This route will show if you’re being followed.

Continue on B273 for 75 yards.

Take Underhill Lane to right.

After 100 yards bear left (signposted public bridleway).

150 yards down is a small outbuilding on left.

Pick up black bag by red / white cone.

Further message in bag.

On reading the message, transfer money parcel from your holdall into this bag.

Take money and bag with you.

I repeat the instructions twice, then endure the longest five minutes of my life, at least since Matt’s last car-based meltdown. God how he’d hate this; twenty minutes is the most he can take, almost to the second, before he kicks off against his car seat’s straitjacket straps and sweat-sucking foam. I’ve found only one remedy to pacify us both; belting out nursery rhymes at full pelt.

Fuck it, I think, and launch into an impassioned version of Wheels on the Bus. Somehow, it works, banishing all terror so that by the time I take the right turn into Underhill Lane, I’m wondering what a bobbin is and lamenting the existential plight of Incy Wincy spider.

Hedges join hands above me, so it’s a virtual tunnel. Potholes swallow individual wheels whole, rattling my teeth with such ferocity that I have to sing Postman Pat in scat.

I fork left onto the bridle path. My headlights pick out the unmistakeable metallic shape of a car buried deep in bushes. My heart throbs in my ears and behind my right eye.

‘Donal?’ crackles the two-way radio.

‘Jesus,’ I yelp; Crossley’s urgent whisper just snapped my last functioning nerve.

Sounding like a snooker commentator, he husks: ‘The bridle track is through open fields. He’ll be able to see and hear surveillance vehicles.’

‘Which means?’

‘They can’t risk following you.’

‘Shit.’

‘That’s not all,’ oozes Crossley. ‘He’s taking us so far out of range that our radio signals are getting weaker.’

‘Spit it out for fuck’s sake.’

‘Listen carefully, Donal. Just because you can’t hear us doesn’t mean we can’t hear you. Carry on as before. Repeat his instructions twice aloud and wait five minutes before proceeding. Just make sure we know his plans. Understood?’

‘Great, so any second now, I’ll be completely alone with this madman?’

Silence. Then a faint thwack dices the air; the reverberation of distant rotor blades.

‘If I can hear a chopper then so can he. Call it off, for the love of God.’

‘That may be our sole means of trailing you,’ snaps Crossley, sounding posher now, under pressure.

‘Then don’t.’

The chopper’s blades melt away to deathly silence, save for my juddering trundle.

‘Have you at least got visuals on me sir?’ I beg the silence.

The radio’s dead. I’m on my own. My palpitating heart thrums against the seat belt, creating an unnerving sash of terror.

Four little ducks went swimming one day … I scat, sounding like Tom Waits strapped to a bucking bronco.

Sneering gargoyle vegetation melts away to something scarier; vast and empty night-sky nothingness.

I’m out in the wide open now, alone and exposed, completely at the mercy of this maniac. Of course, he knows that police radio signals don’t work out here. He’s been one step ahead of us all along.

The rutted track slows me to a bumpy walking pace. For all I know, he could be strolling alongside, gun trained at my temple. Maybe he’s just waiting for me to pull up and get out, so he can soundlessly throttle me in the warm night breeze before spiriting away with the cash.

And no little duck came back quack, quack …

‘I’m so sorry Matt, and Zoe,’ I blurt, like some deathbed confessor. How I wish I was home with them right now, where I should be.

‘We’re picking you up again, Donal,’ crackles Crossley’s strangled whisper, jolting me back into cop mode.

‘Thank Christ,’ I mouth.

My feeble headlights suddenly pick out neat vertical lines. I squint, pulling into focus a wet corrugated tin roof weighing down a squat and long-forgotten outhouse. In this ocean of wet black, my eyes seize suddenly upon a luminous mini-lighthouse; a red and white traffic cone.

‘Holy shit,’ I whisper. ‘It’s the endgame. I’m approaching the traffic cone and, I presume, the bag. Sir?’

‘Awaiting instructions.’

I pull up and look around. All black. I figure if he’s here, my best hope of survival is to offer up the cash, the car and no resistance. I get out, headlights on, driver’s door open, key in the ignition, cash on the back seat.

‘Go ahead, Kipper, stitch me right up,’ I cry.

I take a swift 360. Nothing. All I feel is night’s balmy breath. All I hear is water slapping tin. I take another 360, my heart thrashing like a trapped bird.

‘The money’s in the car,’ I shout.

Wind gasps, water splats.

I make out the black canvas ransom bag at the foot of the cone, empty, deflated, expectant. I palm it open, rummage until I feel a single sheet of paper in the base. I take both to the car. Sliding into the back seat next to the cash, I lock the doors, switch on my torch and, as instructed, transfer the daintily-wrapped parcel of cash into his bag. Somehow, he must have guessed that we’d plant some sort of a tracking device in ours. ‘Ah well,’ I soothe my pogoing heart. ‘I should be dumping it soon and getting the hell out of here.’ The note, stencilled in black capital letters, has other ideas. I read it aloud:

Go back to Underhill Lane.

Turn left towards Ditchling village.

Phone box 1.5 miles on left.

Message B taped under shelf.

My tired brain grapples with these latest commandments. To collect his money, the kidnapper needs to be at the end of this ransom trail. That means he can’t be here. Adrenaline zaps off like a light. All life leaves me, clenched muscles melting to jelly.

‘This is good news,’ declares Crossley, sounding like a local radio DJ relinquishing his star prize. ‘We should have no problems with radio signals at that end of Underhill Lane, so we can resume full surveillance. I’ve got an officer on standby briefed and ready to take over from you before then, Donal. You’ve had more than enough excitement for one night.’

‘I’d like to see it through to the end, sir,’ I say, solely because I expect that’s what any decent cop should say.

‘I admire your pluck. Give me ten minutes to get the lead surveillance team into position at the next phone box. Then I’ll be en route with your replacement. Your night is nearly over, Lynch. Good work.’

‘Thanks be to God,’ I mouth, and set about turning the car on the narrow track.

I crawl back towards the overgrowth of Underhill Lane. As I slip into the hedgerow tunnel and radio silence, I help myself to a ‘Thank fuck that’s over.’

Out of nowhere, a red Stop sign appears, blocking the route.

‘What the fuck?’ I protest to no one.

I ease the car closer, spot a square of white card beneath the circular sign. I squint and recognise more stencilled instructions

‘Sir. Sir can you hear me?’

I know he can’t.

My heart revs hard, a pang of sickening realisation sending bile north. I swallow the burn and fight to breathe against that re-clamped chest. The kidnapper sent the cavalry east almost ten minutes ago, and stayed right here. For me. This is his sting-in-the-tail twist. He’s got me precisely where he wants me now, all alone, no back-up, no comms, no hope of rescue, flush with 175 grand.

Shit.

My only way out of this is to do what he wants. I get out, read the instructions.

On wall by painted cross find wood tray.

Do not move tray, sensor attached.

Place money bag on tray.

If buzzer does not sound leave money there.

Remove Stop sign in front of car and go.

He’s watching me. I know it. And he’s killed before. Seven years ago, he kidnapped and murdered Suzy Fairclough. What’s another life sentence to him? I’m totally dispensable.

I remember Crossley’s request that I pick up anything on the trail that may prove evidential. Good little soldier to the end, I remove the cardboard bearing the instructions, take it to the car and read the contents aloud twice, hoping against all common sense that they can hear me.

They can’t fucking hear me! He’s selected this spot for that very reason. And I’m not hanging around for five minutes to confirm it; not with 175 thousand in hard cash! He might lose patience and whack me.

I grab the money bag, walk over to a four-foot wall. Above a white painted cross, a wooden tray sits on a bed of sand. About 30 feet below, I can make out some sort of lane, maybe a disused rail line. A few feet to my right, an oblong metal box must be somehow connected to the tray’s sensor.

Good God, I am so out of my depth …

Somehow, I’ve got to lower this hefty bag of cash onto the tray without tripping the alarm. Face screwed into a tense ball of dread, I lift the bag and lower it slowly, painstakingly, ion-by-quivering-ion onto the tray. It sits, rests, no alarm.

I wonder why I’m standing here and turn to leave. As I remove the Stop sign from the middle of the lane, the tray scrapes the side of the bridge on its way down, courtesy of his improvised pulley system. He’s below, collecting his winnings.

I’m just yards away from the most wanted man in Britain.

Fuck it, I think. I ‘ve got to do something.

Chapter 3

Underhill Lane, East Sussex

Wednesday, June 15, 1994; 21.50

We know nothing about this bastard. I need to spirit over to that bridge, at least get a visual. I pad and wince in turn, Bambi on ice, gripping that metal Stop sign like a lollipop lady in a tornado. If I can bounce this hunk of rust off his bonce, he won’t be going anywhere.

Oh my God!

There he is below, shovelling spilled bricks of cash into the bag. I raise the metal pole to my chest. If I press Go on this Stop sign, he ain’t going anywhere …

He may have an accomplice ready to kill Julie if anything goes wrong …

If he’s operating alone … we’ll never get a better chance.

The money will not be collected by me, but by a young male who parks up in a nearby lovers’ lane …

Damn it! I can’t be sure that’s our man. I need to find a way down there, grab whoever it is and hold him here until back-up arrives.

No heroics … It’s all about getting Julie back, alive.

What do I do? How I crave a working radio, a direct order.

Below, I hear the splutter and tinny whine of a 50cc engine spurting into life. Good God, he’s wheezing off into the night aboard a ‘nifty 50’ scooter with 175 grand. And I’m the only one who knows. I’ve got to find Crossley.

I dump the Stop sign, dive into the car, gun the engine and floor it east as fast as the lane’s laddered surface will allow.

After a couple of bends, fast-approaching headlights ignite the hedgerows. I screech to a halt. Crossley and DI Mann spring out before their oncoming car even stops.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ demands Crossley.

As I jabber my story, they inspect me in wide-eyed disbelief.

‘Why didn’t you call back-up?’ barks Crossley.

‘The radios aren’t working down here, Guv. You know that.’

‘Dear God,’ spits Crossley. ‘You’ve let him get away.’

‘You said no heroics …’

He turns to his number two. ‘Peter, get back-up there, radio all units that he’s travelling south from Underhill Lane on a scooter or in a vehicle large enough to carry a scooter. Lynch, take me to the bridge.’

Right on, right on, I manage to stop myself singing as I jump into my car and grab the seat belt.

‘Just drive,’ he snaps.

‘Sir, I can’t turn here …’

‘Reverse for Christ’s sake.’

Every male cop on the planet thinks he’s Damon Hill. Some, like Crossley, even own special leather gloves for the task which, when they’re not driving, they dangle on their belts like spare penises. Alas, I’m less Damon Hill, more Benny, especially going backwards.

‘Swap!’ cries Crossley and I’m out of that driver’s seat before he’s spat the ‘p’.

Crossley throws himself in, flings one elbow over my passenger seat. Palm-steering, he roars off backwards, beaching my poor car into every coccyx-crunching pothole along the way. My anger rises in tandem with my rev counter.

Over mashing metal and screaming suspensions, I shout: ‘Why are you pissed off with me? You specifically said no heroics.’

‘And I specifically instructed you, over and over, that you have a surveillance team in front and behind you that needs to know his every instruction.’

I don’t get it but why distract him now, when we’re careering backwards towards a brick wall in my beloved old banger? After a totally unnecessary handbrake turn, I’m tempted to request his insurance details. Instead, under orders, I perform a walk-through of the drop. I show him the stencilled message and the sensor on the bridge, which he goes over to inspect.

‘Sensor?’ he scoffs. ‘It’s a concrete block painted silver.’

‘Yeah, well I can see that now sir, with the headlights shining directly on it. They weren’t when I was last here.’

We find a way down to the disused railway line where, mercifully, at least the pulley-driven wooden tray and scooter tyre marks are real. Overhead, cars pull up, resigned. Scapegoat grumblings. Yes, he’s vanished into that great black rural night, but I did everything I’d been told to do.

I follow Crossley back up to the bridge, where they turn to face us as one.

‘He’s long gone,’ spits DI Peter Mann, his eyes not leaving Crossley’s. ‘We should’ve put one of us up front as soon as we got out here,’ he rants. ‘It’s pitch bloody black. Kipper was never going to identify the delivery man.’

‘We didn’t know that,’ says Crossley, firmly. ‘We didn’t know a lot of things, Pete. Like the fact he’d take us somewhere our radio signals don’t work.’

DI Mann switches his glare to me, full-beam. ‘Why the fuck didn’t you run back to your rear surveillance team? You could’ve shouted at them, they were that close.’

‘We were 100 yards behind you,’ chimes in a moustachioed man I’ve never clapped eyes on before. ‘You’re supposed to brief us after every instruction. You could’ve walked to our car. What were you thinking?’

My brain’s flailing. The radios were down. I didn’t know how close the rear surveillance officers were. I couldn’t see them. Anyway, what could they have done? Any attempt to pursue the suspect would’ve put Julie’s life in danger. That was the deal, right?

DI Mann’s head wobbles in contempt. ‘Your fuck-up has cost us vital minutes. You’d best hope it hasn’t cost Julie Draper her life.’

Involuntarily, my eyes clench shut. Please, please no. What have I done?

Crossley dry-coughs back control. ‘Let’s save the post-mortem for tomorrow,’ he snaps, checking his watch. ‘If you’re quick, the Lamb in Pyecombe should still be open. Go get a drink and calm down. I’ll wait here for forensics.’

Off they shuffle, muttering bitterly. I’ve never needed a pint so badly in my life, even if I have to toothlessly slurp it off the lino once they’re done kicking the shit out of me, so I follow at a distance.

DI Mann spins around: ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

I slouch back to Crossley.

‘Don’t bother coming in for a couple of days Lynch, give me a chance to sort out this mess …’

‘Hands up, Guv, I forgot about the vehicle behind me. But what would my alerting them have achieved? Their radios weren’t working either. And it’s not like they could risk chasing him.’

He rubs his face vigorously with his open palms, as if clearing it of live scorpions.

He sighs hard: ‘I thought I’d spelled it out to you.’

His hands drop and his eyes look up to the heavens.

‘All that space-age tech up there, and I’ve got the village idiot down here.’

‘Now hang on just a minute there, Guv …’

‘I told you about your number one priority, Lynch, keeping your surveillance teams informed of each fresh instruction. Above us is a chopper with state-of-the-art thermal imaging, infra-red, you name it. Seventy-five grand to scramble. Ten grand an hour to fly.’ He turns to me. ‘I redirected the lead surveillance team but the rear one was still behind you and in direct contact with that chopper via satellite phone. I told you they were constantly in touch. I told you, if nothing else, make sure your surveillance teams are privy to his latest instructions.’

‘But my radio went down.’

‘Had you gone to the rear surveillance team, on foot, that chopper would now be covertly following whoever picked up the money, and only we would know. Instead, we’ve lost the money and we’ve lost him.’

An icy snake of terror unfurls inside me. ‘Shit. What have I done.’

‘I tell you what you’ve done,’ snaps Crossley, voice cracking, eyebrows arched to breaking. ‘Whoever kidnapped Julie has got his money, so he has no further use for her now. He can’t risk freeing her because of what she might be able to tell us about him.’

His upper lip stiffens, reining in his swelling emotions.

‘He has to kill Julie now,’ he states flatly, as if passing sentence himself.

Chapter 4

Green Lanes, North London

Thursday, June 16, 1994; 02.30

Had the shonky Shiraz bottles I’d unearthed from some dodgy all-night spieler in Haringey not required two fully engaged man-arms to uncork against a solid surface, I’d never have spotted Zoe’s note on our kitchen table.

Written at some point yesterday, it reads: Me and Matt gone to mum’s. Thought you could use a night off, Zoe x

What a selfless, thoughtful act, you may think. But you don’t know a sleep-deprived mum. And you aren’t competing in the Martyred Parent Olympics (so-called because it lasts four years and, unless you imbibe massive quantities of illicit pharmaceuticals, you’ve no chance of winning).

What the note really means is: ‘It doesn’t matter how late you’ve been working, this is going down officially as a night off for you.’ I’ll be made to pay, of course; she’ll yawn pointedly all day tomorrow, slam anything slam-able and consistently ring friends and family to update them about the latest phase of her toootal exhaaaaustion.

Aged twenty-two months, Matt still wakes five or six times a night – every night. Having an insomniac stepdad helps. I’m always on hand to slurp drinks, binge Babybels and loop Pingu. Thrillingly, at least for me, Matt’s taken to calling my name when he wakes, or at least his version of Donal. ‘Dong, Dong, Dong,’ he chants. Who he doesn’t call for is mum, because mum minus sleep equals Crazed Harridan.

I’m ‘Dong’ because Matt isn’t my biological son. His ‘real’ dad, Chris, is a fugitive from fatherhood somewhere south of the Equator. A posh, feckless surfer-raver type, he fled as soon as Zoe fell pregnant – leaving the way free for my uncharacteristic crime scene seduction.

Yes, we met over a dead body! Zoe is a rising star in forensics who, somehow, failed to spot the clues to my myriad flaws. She agreed to go out with me, and it soon became clear why; her morale had hit rock bottom. She’d convinced herself that ‘no man would want me, not now I come with a baby.’

I wanted her with all that I had. When I got to know Matt, I wanted him too. For the first time in my life, ever, I let instinct override indecision, seized the moment, got the girl! A few months later, we bought this place and I’m still in utter shock, clinging onto the cliff-face of overnight fatherhood. But I wouldn’t change a thing.

Being a dad is quite a responsibility, and not one I’m taking lightly. Not only have I reduced my nightly quaffing to two bottles of Shiraz, I only buy the stuff that’s less than 14% proof. Well you do anything for your kids, don’t you? And Matt’s my son now.

A few weeks back, Zoe caught us partying at 3am and announced her ‘gravest fear’ – that Matt has inherited my insomnia. I had to remind her that this is impossible – we’re not flesh and blood – then hated her for appearing so patently relieved. I let it go because we never row in front of Matt, which means we never row. She seems to spend every second of her child-free leisure time avoiding me. Seriously, she’s either out with her girlfriends, at her mum’s or collapsed like a capsized Alp in bed, clad in those massive off-white ‘comfort’ knickers, previously used to hoist the Mary Rose.

I know we’ll get back to how it was. Of course we will. Once we get over the exhaustion. And the constant illness. And the lack of money.

No wonder Crossley’s call last week had come as such a shot in the arm. How I’d craved the chance to get drafted onto a ‘live’ investigation squad, make a good impression, become a fully-fledged detective constable and prove all my doubters wrong.

All I had to do was not fuck up …

What a selfish prick, I scold myself. The only thing that matters right now, after my potentially fatal blunder, is that Julie’s okay. My insides wince, cowering from those stabs of raw, primeval terror. My stressed temples buzz, as if planted against the window of a speeding train. A low electric hum grows louder in my ears, until it whines like the world’s largest mosquito. My vision flickers, causing objects in the room to float in different directions, as if something telepathic is breaking through.

My God, Julie?

Somewhere close by, a church bell clangs, over and over, louder and louder. I can see it’s driving those ravens wild. They smash into the sitting room window – thump, thump, thump – flinging themselves against the glass with all of their might.

They’re inside now, flapping close to my face. I can’t scream or turn away or raise my hands. I can’t move a muscle! All I can do is scan their beady green eyes. I remember suddenly their collective term: An Unkindness of Ravens. And this lot look especially unkind. One launches, pecking at my face savagely. The others join in; a greedy, feeding frenzy. I scream as they pick and pull and gouge at my eyes until all goes black.

I’m suspended in the air now, looking down. The ravens are yanking off bits of Julie’s face and body, then flying off, tiny fish flapping in their mouths. I’m holding a metal crook. I should be beating the birds away. But I don’t.

I’m lying down again. Julie appears above me, eyes wild with hate, face tattered and torn like bloodied tissue paper. She holds the silver block directly over my face, but I see another man’s bearded face in the reflection. Who is he? Please don’t drop it, I beg her. Please.

The reflection in the block is me. I smile just as the head of an axe plants itself into the left side of my face, slicing into my cheekbone, above my ear. Indescribable, ringing pain springs me to my feet. I’m screaming, clawing at the axe. But it’s not there.

‘Oh my God,’ I hear myself scream. ‘Julie Draper’s dead.’

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.