[Alicia Friend 01.0] His First His Second Read online

  Wellington frowned too. He clearly hadn’t heard of Ms. Fortune. “Am I under arrest?”

  “Interview terminated at oh-eight fifty-two.” Murphy clicked off the tape and immediately presented the bank and money transfer records. “Whether you’re under arrest depends on how you answer this.”

  Wellington read it. “My private share dividends. So what?”

  “In companies that don’t exist … except on paper,” Alicia said. “And if you go right the way back, you know, untangle all the tape and unblock the drains and ignore all the smokescreen ‘winding up’ orders, guess where they lead?”

  Wellington’s expression was stone.

  “They lead to our good friend Henry Windsor.”

  Go on, Murphy thought. Deny it, you smug arsehole.

  Wellington smiled now, sat down. Faking relaxed. “This is totally inadmissible. You have less than nothing. That’s why you turned off the tape—”

  Murphy slammed his fist on the table. “I’m not talking about what’s admissible. I’m talking about what’s right!”

  “A girl’s life,” Alicia said. “Two girls’ lives.”

  Murphy grabbed Wellington by the throat and pushed his chair back, using his own knee to steady the chair as it wavered mid-tip. “Tell me now! Tell me where he’s hiding them.”

  Wellington gagged, croaked the words out. “I don’t know. I swear I don’t know anything.”

  “You were being paid off to cover up Tanya’s kidnapping. But now it’s murder. It’s more than one murder. You’re responsible, John. And you can end it right now. You could have ended it days ago.”

  “We’ll recommend to PSD that you aren’t charged in connection with any of the current murders,” Alicia said. “We’ll try and play down Tanya’s kidnapping, but can’t promise how Professional Standards will see it. Just say it. Say where they’re being held.”

  “Okay, put me down,” Wellington said, face now red, fit to burst.

  Murphy lowered the ex-policeman to the ground and let go. “Talk.”

  Wellington composed himself, hands flat. He opened his mouth, defeated eyes focused on his hands, lip quivering. Tears welled and one spilled.

  He said, “She’s…”

  Then the door opened and in strode Gretan Fortune, briefcase swinging, eyes revved up and firing. She stood, hands on hips, glaring at Murphy and Alicia like bad dogs. “How dare you interview my client without me being present? Get out, both of you. I need to consult with Mr. Wellington in private.”

  Seventeen minutes later, from the comfort of DCI Streeter’s office, Murphy and Alicia watched through the window as John Wellington walked out of the station alongside Gretan Fortune, and drove away alone, off to play a much-anticipated game of tennis.

  Alicia refused to let the defeat dampen her spirit. When Streeter finished bawling them out, steam practically venting from the top of his head, he explained that the task force that arrived half an hour ago were relocating the operation to Sheerton where they were better equipped. Where, if Murphy and Alicia hadn’t tried to bluff a former senior police officer with illegally-obtained evidence, they may have been able to gather real evidence. The “time is a factor” excuse fell on deaf political ears. Murphy and Alicia were still running things … for the time being.

  “When a celebrity is hurt by some random maniac,” Streeter said as Alicia opened the door to leave, “it makes the public even more scared than regular folk going missing. It’s a good opportunity to restore some faith in the police. Go get her.”

  “Them,” Alicia corrected.

  “Of course. Get them.”

  Alicia told Murphy of her misgivings, how something wasn’t right about the theory they were working to.

  She couldn’t say what.

  Murphy said he understood.

  “Hey, Alicia,” a uniformed sergeant said as they passed him in the corridor.

  “Hey, Nick, how’s it hanging?”

  “Free and easy. You?”

  “Been better, been worse.”

  “You okay, though? I heard about Brid.”

  “Yeah, he’s a pussycat really.”

  “Pussycats can hurt you.”

  Alicia smiled. “An old friend came to help out.”

  “Heard that too. What’s happening to him?”

  “Disciplinary.”

  “Bastards. They’ll say it’s nothing personal, but, you know.”

  “I know.”

  They stayed for a moment before nodding goodbye, saying good-to-see-ya, and went their separate ways.

  “He knows Barry?” Murphy said.

  “Me and Barry used to double date with Nick and his wife. But you know how it is when you break up with someone—your friends get shared out like a CD collection.”

  “Unless she ups and leaves.”

  Alicia wondered if this was a good time to ask, but he seemed to speak to himself as much as her. She also hoped her ex would not be in too much trouble.

  They say it’s not personal, but…

  Why did that strike true?

  “You okay?” Murphy asked.

  “Quiet. There’s something happening in my head.”

  A tinkling, like a percussion instrument nearby, rose in volume. An orchestra. Information in, out, loudly clanging about her skull. Bells tolled, waves crashed, a body surfaced in a lake, rolled down a muddy embankment, slapped hard on the rust of a disused railway line.

  …not personal…

  “It is bloody personal!” she said aloud, and she was off.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  So that’s John Wellington, Richard thought.

  The ex-DCI emerged from the station shortly after nine, arguing with a severe-looking woman, probably a lawyer. The pressmen still hanging around, those not invited inside or recalled for whatever reason, ignored the event. Richard tried to imagine what sort of pain he would have to inflict upon this man to extract all the information he needed.

  Wellington climbed into a new Volvo estate and drove away. In his own anonymous Volvo, Richard followed.

  His night with Alicia still fuzzed his mind. The woman was an absolute wonder. She’d made him feel in two days what it took over a month to feel with Gillian. At first he was grooming Gillian to be his latest beautiful kill, but she was so giddy, so alive, that it struck him a waste of time and energy. And, indeed, a waste of something truly beautiful.

  A month of wining and dining and rutting like animals, and Richard decided to give up his hobby. He needed to be with her, to start a family without baggage, without the dissatisfaction that always came with missing a goal. She was his new perfection.

  So he stopped by a male college, watched a frat-house party from the bushes, waited for it to wind down and for the paralytic lads to turn out the lights. Then he stabbed seven drunk, virtually comatose young men in the heart with a WWII bayonet he purchased the previous week at a military fair and, after scattering enough gang paraphernalia to indicate a robbery, his quota was filled.

  He dedicated his new life to raising a family, a perfect family in a perfect house. But he could not do so in a country that allowed people to go around stabbing folk in the heart willy-nilly. He asked Gillian to marry him, and they moved back to England where Richard became a consultant and Gillian soon fell pregnant.

  Katie was born healthy and loud, and Richard’s target was now an ongoing one, a rolling ambition that would move with the conditions. But this was the last good thing that happened for many years.

  When Gillian finally died, his need to replace one perfection with another resurfaced. The drug-addict / prostitute, whose name he never learned, was the right person at the right time. But he risked exposing Katie to his dark side, his deepest desires that he swore to keep in check. So he stopped again to raise his daughter, mould her into a woman, protect her, prepare her for whatever may come her way. He manipulated her into becoming a fitness freak (no, jogging’s not for little girls; only daddies can jog) and into learning to defend h
erself, teaching her the dirtiest self-defence techniques.

  And now she was gone.

  During those four days—or was it five now?—Richard added two more deaths to his growing list. In a way, he hoped he wouldn’t need to kill John Wellington. He didn’t want Katie close to more violence. They’d probably move out of Leeds anyway when he got her back. Take her abroad, with fake IDs—he had plenty in his lockup for them both—maybe Australia, Mexico, Brazil. Somewhere hot and sunny, somewhere they liked sport. South Africa! That’s where they’d live. Rugby freaks, adventure sports. Plus Katie had always wanted to learn to surf.

  Yes.

  When this was all over, he would move with his perfect daughter, and start a new, perfect life in South Africa. He wondered how Alicia would feel about that.

  He wondered, in fact, what last night meant to her. Was it as special as it had been for him? Or was she so wound up by the case that she needed the release?

  John Wellington pulled into a driveway in front of a huge house, detached, at least five bedrooms, with a front garden that would justify a sit-on lawnmower and a fair amount of land around the back too. This was not the house of a retired police officer.

  As Richard swung by, Wellington used a key in the lock, then peered inside, perhaps expecting burglars, perhaps the police.

  Or, maybe, to see if Katie had escaped her prison.

  No. It wouldn’t be that easy.

  He parked around the corner and walked down the street, casually swinging his innocent-looking knife case. Each house was huge and clean, with thick walls and wide driveways. The sun shone, but clouds bloomed in the distance. The cold was more severe than he expected, but that was okay since he would not look out of place wearing gloves. He examined the CD player instructions he carried from the car, pretending to follow directions, counting off numbers, even straining to see across the street to numbers mostly written as words rather than digits. Standing before the one Wellington entered, Richard made an “ah-ha!” gesture, and walked up to the door. He was about to press the bell when he heard voices inside. A woman’s first.

  “I told you never to come here again!”

  “But you went and blabbed,” the man said. “We agreed—”

  “Tanya is dead, John. She’s dead. How can you let that guy get away with it?”

  “What guy?”

  “The one she was seeing. It’s him, isn’t it? It’s him who killed her cos she wouldn’t leave with him. Wasn’t it?”

  Richard rang the doorbell. The voices cut off immediately.

  John Wellington opened the door. “Yes?”

  “Hi,” Richard said. “I’d like to talk to you about God.”

  “Not interested.”

  He swung the door to close it. Richard’s foot jammed it open. He smiled toothily. “I’d really like to talk to you about God.”

  Wellington narrowed his eyes. “Get out.”

  Richard stepped inside. He wasn’t as tall as Wellington, but had him on age and muscle. He easily shoved the ex-policeman inside and unzipped the case. Wellington held himself so he looked fitter, bigger. Richard kicked him in the balls. He doubled over and Richard rough-housed him into the living room, their feet sinking into a thick shag carpet.

  The bath-robed woman was far younger than Wellington, around twenty-five, pretty, with a large bosom and fleshy hips. Her hair was freshly washed.

  “Who the hell are you?” she demanded.

  “Quiet,” Richard said, flipping open his knife collection. He selected the bayonet, since he was just thinking about that one.

  “What do you want?” Wellington demanded.

  Richard showed him the bayonet and punched him in the nose. He fell to the floor, bleeding, hands cupping his face.

  “That’s a new carpet!” the woman shouted.

  “Stay where you are,” Richard said. “Or I’ll cut your throat in under a second.”

  The fear in her eyes tried to hide within a frosty, indignant face, but she remained silent.

  Wellington’s beard was streaked red and Richard threw a foot into his soft belly. He knelt over the ex-cop with the blade.

  “Please don’t hurt him,” the woman said.

  “Hillary, shut up,” Wellington said. “This doesn’t concern you.”

  “Hillary?” Richard said. “Where have I heard that name before? Recently, I mean. What possible connection could you have to my missing daughter?”

  She shook her head stiffly. “I don’t know. I don’t know. Just … please don’t hurt him. He can’t help you.”

  “That’s not necessarily true, is it, Mr. Wellington?”

  “You can do whatever you want,” Wellington said. “But I won’t talk to you.”

  Richard pricked the point of the bayonet into Wellington’s neck, enough to hurt without drawing blood. Wellington set his eyes on Richard, nose bubbling. Richard’s knee on his chest held him in place.

  “You kill me and everything I know dies with me.”

  Richard pressed harder and a tiny ball of blood leaked down his neck. Wellington swallowed hard, closed his eyes.

  “Fine.” Richard stood up. “Let’s try a different tactic.”

  He ripped the flex from an expensive-looking lamp and roughly shoved Wellington onto his front. First he tied the man’s hands, then brought the cord down to his feet, binding them too, and pulled the cord tight so Wellington’s arms reached back toward his legs. Hogtied.

  Exactly how he pictured Katie right now.

  Richard said, “Okay, now let’s discuss this.”

  “It won’t work, I tell you. I can’t talk. Do what you want to me, but I won’t tell you a thing.”

  “I know a lot about people, doing what I do. I can see when someone really means something. With you, it isn’t that bravado crap I’ve seen in so many folk.” He thought a moment. “You’ve experienced torture before, I take it.”

  “Iraq,” Wellington said. “First Gulf War.”

  “Republican Guard. They’re good at that.” Richard weighed the bayonet in his hand. “But the Iraqis were lacking one thing. A trump card I wasn’t expecting. I could inflict a massive amount of pain on you, or cut something off you really value. You’d break eventually. Everyone does. But it’s messy, it takes time, and I really don’t want to do that. It’s ten o’clock already and I really hope to have my daughter home for tea.”

  Wellington stared hard at Richard.

  “Watch this.” Richard grasped Hillary by the arm and dragged her to the floor, kneeling so Wellington could see everything. “First, I’ll cut off her nose.”

  Hillary screamed, “No!”

  Richard pulled her head back by the hair. “I won’t slit her pretty throat, oh no.” He ran the blade along the woman’s shoulders, over the curve of her chest.

  Wellington closed his eyes calmly.

  “I’ll take an ear, maybe cut off a breast and wear it like a hat, one of those Jewish things but with a cute little nipple pointing at God.”

  Wellington glared, his attention fully on the intruder.

  Richard grabbed Wellington by the jaw. “If you don’t watch, I’ll slice off your eyelids. I have a straight razor with me too. Want to see?”

  In between panicked sobs Hillary managed a “Please, John…”

  Wellington said, “Okay, don’t hurt her.”

  Richard let her go. She fell to the floor, flat out, curled herself into a ball, and lay there.

  “But you take her in another room,” Wellington said. “There’s no need for her to hear this.”

  A compromise. A man at the mercy of Richard Hague was asking for a compromise.

  Cutting an ear off the woman may have changed Wellington’s mind, but he was pushed for time, so Richard acquiesced and moved Hillary to the spacious, glaring white kitchen, where—with gaffer tape he located under the kitchen sink—he bound her to a chair beside the breakfast counter. When he returned to the living room, he sat in a deep, deep chair, and told Wellington he may proc
eed.

  The ex-detective chief inspector took a deep breath and told Richard everything he needed to know to find Katie.

  Freddie Wilcox was no longer under arrest. And about time, too. He was still, however, at Sheerton police station, which was insane. The woman, DCI Chambers, was a pretty girl, someone Freddie might have been interested in once upon a time, before women ruined his life. Living in a hovel without women suited him fine. DCI Chambers persuaded him to meet with the police artist here in the cosy family room. The artist was a young man with a wispy bum fluff beard and spiky hair.

  “Dark hair,” Freddie said. “Quite bulky.”

  “A little more specific, Freddie,” Chambers said.

  “Please be patient, Miss Chambers,” said Joyce, the social worker who declared Freddie was not mentally ill, at least not enough to justify a section order.

  “He was a big guy,” Freddie said. He didn’t like this. How do you describe someone? “Like me, but bigger. Without a beard, and he was wearing a cagoule. Can’t you question everyone who bought a cagoule recently?”

  Chambers rolled her eyes, ran her hand through her hair. “Jeez. Why do I have to be the one to do this?”

  “You could wait outside,” Joyce suggested. “We’ll be done soon, I’m sure. Won’t we, Freddie.”

  Freddie nodded, happy with Joyce, not happy with Chambers. “The sooner I’m back in my home the better.”

  Chambers collected her newspaper, tossed an unlit cigarette in her mouth, and left the little room.

  Freddie tried to describe the man he saw, but the words he needed didn’t exist. When he got home, he was going to invent some new words. “Hubadub” would describe the exact build of the man who deposited a body in Freddie’s well.

  The finished article looked nothing like him, but Freddie said it was exactly like him. They got the hair right, but not the hubadub build and certainly not the eyes. Of course, Freddie had been too far away to see eyes, but the jaw was clear and the nose too, and they were inaccurately drawn. He’d know the man if he saw him again. He’d pick him out of a line-up easily.