[Alicia Friend 01.0] His First His Second Page 28

  Alfie didn’t seem to know what to do next, bless him. This man could kill, but took no pleasure in it. Even with the person responsible for his wife’s death at his mercy, he still wasn’t ready. Not in cold blood anyway.

  “And you think that’s acceptable?” Alfie said.

  Asking him that a few days ago, Richard would have simply shrugged and stabbed Alfie in the heart.

  Is that acceptable?

  “Not in general, no,” Richard answered. “But then in general, people are stupid. They believe in whatever their parents or priests tell them. They’re wrong.”

  “So you come from nothing and return to nothing. That’s your take on life? That it don’t matter someone might cure cancer or AIDS if you let them live?”

  Richard almost laughed. “You think your wife would have cured AIDS?”

  “No. But she’d have brought my child into the world. That ain’t gonna happen now.”

  “Oh come on, what are you? Forty-five? Fifty at the most? And still in great shape. You could land yourself a thirty-year-old. My girlfriend’s thirty-two and that’s more than young enough to have a kid.” Referring to Alicia as his girlfriend felt both good and sad. When she discovered the truth about him, it was likely she’d end it.

  Alfie swung the knife. He swung it back, harder and faster, producing a swish noise through the air. “I swore I’d not look at another woman until Stacy’s killer had been brought to justice.”

  “Justice? You think this…” He rattled the cuffs again. “Is justice?”

  “Not yet. Not yet.”

  Richard wished he’d get on with it. If he was going to die, which he doubted, he was going to die. But that was probably part of Alfie’s plan—to make him suffer before turning him in.

  “You were going to tell me your take on the meaning of life.”

  “Oh yes.” Richard thought back to his conclusions. “I think you have to mean something to someone. If you can influence another’s life in a positive fashion, your life is worth living. If you cannot, you should die.”

  “And you offer what, exactly? Whose life do you influence?”

  “My daughter’s.”

  Alfie turned from him. His forehead leaned on the side of the van, the knife tapping on metal. He knelt down and rested the blade on Richard’s cheek, played with the flesh a little, moving it with the point. Then he poked the skin next to Richard’s left eye. The fine tip blurred his vision.

  “Fine, you got me. You’re right. I can’t let your daughter die. So yeah, I’ll get you the phone. But you try anything, I will finish you.”

  When Alfie opened the door, the cold air blew in and didn’t leave. Richard heaved at the cuffs, sure now that he’d drawn blood. His muscles ripped to maximum effort, bulging his clothing. He held in a cry of pain as one of the hooks through which the cuffs were linked shifted ever so slightly.

  Alfie came back, an old Nokia in hand. “What’s the number?”

  Richard told Alfie to fish in his wallet—lying next to his knife case—for Alicia’s card. Alfie read the number, dialled, and listened.

  “It’s busy,” he said. “Any others?”

  “You don’t want to dial nine-nine-nine do you?”

  Alfie gave a wadda you think look.

  “Okay, try this one.”

  He gave Alfie a telephone number, the first one that came into his head, one he only remembered because it was the first he dialled the day Katie didn’t come home, the one he dialled constantly for six hours until he called the police. The person on the other end picked up.

  Alfie pressed the phone to Richard’s ear.

  “Brian? Hi, it’s Richard here, Katie’s dad.”

  Brian took a breath. “Oh, God. Any news? Please don’t say she’s—”

  “No, nothing like that. Brian, listen. I know how much you care for my daughter, and I know how much grief I’ve given her over it. But if you can do this one thing for me, I promise I’ll never doubt you as a human being again.”

  Alfie’s line of sight was Richard’s face, watching for tricks, for codes. But the phone call contained no codes. Richard’s hand curled around the loop screwed into the board, the hook that had shifted that tiny bit while Alfie was out.

  “Okay, Mr. Hague,” Brian said. “What do I have to do?”

  “I need you to call Glenpark police station, and get connected to either Detective Sergeant Alicia Friend or a Detective Inspector Murphy. Not sure of his first name.”

  His grip tightened and twisted, side to side, side to side, pulling upwards slowly and quietly. There was give here. It moved.

  “Yes, Mr. Hague. What do I tell them?”

  The hook ground out of its housing, an unnoticeable noise thanks to the talking inside and the wind out. Now Richard had a decision to make.

  “Tell them that I know where Katie is. Tell them it doesn’t matter how I know, but tell them.”

  Brian got excited. “Where? Where is she?”

  Alfie wasn’t a bad person. But nor was he useful to anyone. According to Richard’s new vetting system for victims, that made Alfie a viable target. The screw end of the hook would go nicely in the man’s neck.

  “She’s at an estate…”

  “Wait, let me get a pen.”

  While Brian rummaged for a pen, Richard concluded that some compromise was required. Alfie didn’t deserve to die, at least he didn’t until he captured Richard, but Richard did not trust the voice on the end of the phone. Maybe he simply hated Brian for what he did to Katie—what all fathers do not think of around their daughters—or maybe it was because Brian lost her once and may do so again. Only one thing was certain: Richard had to do it himself.

  He swung the three-inch hook. It sunk into Alfie’s chest, but missed the heart. Some resistance; not as sharp as he’d hoped. But it went in. He slammed Alfie against the side, pushing harder, making sure it gouged as deep as possible.

  Alfie screamed.

  Then Richard yanked out the barb, leaving a ragged, bloody hole—no point in having a wound closed up, after all.

  Alfie shrieked. His hand flew to the hole between his shoulder and pectoral muscle. He slid down the side and sat on the floor, while Richard took advantage of his lack of bearings and tipped him over. He fished in Alfie’s back pockets and found the handcuff key.

  “Think yourself lucky, Alfie,” Richard said. “A week ago—hell, a day ago—I’d have stuck that in your neck just to see the look in your eyes.”

  Richard freed himself, and decided not to kill Alfie. He reached to open the door, but Alfie lunged at him, blood gushing from his torso. “You are not getting away.”

  They both went down and Richard threw an elbow. Alfie blocked and countered with a painful jab to the kidney. Richard tried a punch, from a good position this time, aimed right at the wound. The block came faster than he expected and Alfie’s other hand pushed his elbow up, his wrist going down, and he lost all balance.

  Richard had size and strength, but this guy had the moves. He kicked free and grabbed for something, anything, to use as a weapon, locating his knife case. He pulled out the first blade he came to—the bayonet—and slashed at Alfie as he attacked. Alfie stepped back, but in the small space Richard was too fast. He’d seen in movies where these martial artists disarm skilled knifemen barehanded, but it was all rubbish, not with a really skilful knifeman.

  He thrust an intentionally clumsy blow, and Alfie—predictably—shifted his weight for the jab to the wrist. But Richard was ready. He simply switched the direction of the blade, spinning it as if on an axis, and Alfie embedded his own hand around it.

  Alfie’s eyes widened and another pain-filled cry would have escaped, but Richard punched him in the mouth. He went down. More than conscious, but beaten.

  Richard knelt before him, hand gripping the man’s throat, bayonet held away to prevent it being stolen. He pushed his face right up to Alfie’s.

  “You tried to kill my daughter. You did it because I was misguided enou
gh to kill your wife, but that’s no excuse. Katie may already be dead.”

  Alfie’s hand flailed weakly on Richard’s shoulder, and he was losing blood through the chest wound.

  “I can finish it quickly for you.” Richard raised the bayonet, both men now covered in Alfie Rhee’s blood. “Say the word, Alfie. It’ll be quick.” He readied himself to stab down hard into Alfie’s chest, should he give permission.

  Then the back doors flew open and Alicia stood there, shivering like a rosy-cheeked angel in the snow, aiming a gun right at Richard’s head.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “Stop being such a baby,” Alicia said.

  Alfie Rhee, seated on the van’s back step, winced again as Alicia held the small painful hole in his chest closed and applied a dirty rag she found on the floor of the van. He checked Richard Hague was still cuffed to one of the three loops that remained intact, aware that the man’s knives were still close by. The gun, Alfie’s gun, was in easy reach. He could end it all right now. Do Hague and persuade the blonde weirdo to call it self-defence. She’d go for it, right?

  “It’ll get infected,” he said in between short sharp breaths.

  “Infection they can treat. You bleed out or collapse in the snow, you die. Got it?”

  “Sure, whatever. Ow!”

  “Right. Hold that.” She pressed the rag on the wound. “It’s not as deep as it looks. But the hand needs treating ASAP.”

  “So you taking me to a hospital now?”

  “Not exactly.”

  She tossed the handcuff key to the killer, who caught it, sorta confused, sorta frightened. The Alicia chick pointed the gun and said, “Okay, unlock the crank around the hook but keep the other round your wrist.”

  “What the hell you doing?” Alfie demanded.

  “Move.” She pushed Alfie in the direction of the road.

  Up the narrow track, the trees’ white beauty felt somehow vulgar in this setting. The main road cut across the top. His teeth began to chatter. Drops of blood stained the snow by his feet.

  “The police know our approximate location,” Alicia said. “They’re zeroing in on my phone, but reception is sketchy. Go to the end, turn right. Walk for about half an hour, you find your friend Red since that’s where he’s heading. Ambulance and police assistance will find you soon.”

  Alicia didn’t think she’d fallen unconscious after the crash. The passenger airbag worked a treat, deflated so she could climb out if she chose. Her bones ached. She’d felt for her head. Still on. But thumping. The driver had smashed into the steering column, nose crumpled and bloody, arms limp by his sides. But he had a pulse.

  A grunt from the back seat told her Murphy was alive but hurt. She found her phone and unlocked it. One bar of service. She dialled.

  “You can hear me okay?” she said after identifying herself.

  “Yes,” the operator replied.

  She gave details of the accident, the victims, their location, and climbed in back to check on Murphy. He rested his head on the side of the car, staring blankly at Alicia, trying to speak.

  “Help’s coming,” Alicia told him.

  Murphy closed his eyes.

  “I need to go somewhere first, though. I’ll leave the phone in the car. They can track the signal.”

  Murphy’s eyes opened. His head shuddered as if to say, “No.”

  She pulled the back seat down to access the boot, found a blanket and wrapped it around Murphy. There was nothing more she could do for him.

  She said, “I have to go.”

  Outside, her breath clouded. Snow crunched under her. The car’s front end was a mess. The bonnet buckled right up, glass on the ground, twisted metal jutting from all angles. Steam pouring. The windscreen was shattered but somehow the windows were intact.

  Alicia climbed onto the hot bonnet and swept the tiny diamonds of glass from where she needed to lie. She checked McCall was still unconscious and, with her legs in the air, hung upside down in the driver’s foot well, feeling about, head ringing, every last bone aching, wanting to let go, head to the hospital and rest. But then she found it.

  Back out in the open, she looked the gun over with a mixture of excitement and fear. She’d never held a real one outside her obligatory gun courses, and they were lightweight professional pieces in a closed, sterile environment. Easy to handle. Easy to shoot at targets. This was so much heavier than she’d expected, so metallic-smelling and cold. Wielded so easily in movies, it took both thumbs to pull back the hammer.

  She checked on Murphy one last time, then set off, wearing only her trouser suit, determined to find answers. Was Richard really a killer? McCall surely exaggerated when he said a hundred victims; no one would believe that. But she also needed to know how much was a lie. Was last night only to pump her for information, or had he felt something more? And if everything was true, if everyone knew this impossible thing about Richard Hague, how had she not seen it too? She was never wrong

  (wink)

  but now she was. Maybe. And if she was wrong about this, how the hell could she go on doing this job? A real person would see it. A real person would know.

  So who was Alicia Friend? A person? A detective?

  Or just … nobody?

  “Where the hell are you going?” Alfie demanded.

  The Alicia chick turned to Richard, now free of the board. “Come on. I’m no expert with guns, but you can take a chance on this thing working if you like. I’ll pull the trigger and either you get to add me to your tally, or your brain goes bye-bye.”

  “I won’t hurt you,” Richard said. “I mean that. I swear on everything I hold—”

  “Save it. Get in the front. You.” To Alfie she said, “Keys.”

  Alfie tossed her the keys. She unlocked the front passenger door and Richard climbed in. Jesus, the bitch was gonna do him herself!

  “Phone too, please.”

  Alfie was going to argue, but the way things had gone he passed it to her without a word.

  “You know,” he said. “I’m the good guy here. You shouldn’t be treating me like this.”

  She strode closer, lifting her feet high out of the snow with each step, gun at her side. “You kidnapped a man, tied him to the floor, no doubt planning on murdering him.”

  That was unfair. He was about to protest but she beat him to it.

  “He may be what you all think he is, but you can’t do that to a person. Besides, I need him more than you do. Now get going. The faster you walk, the warmer you’ll stay.”

  “I gotta walk through the goddamn snow to get treatment?”

  She opened the driver’s door, trained the gun inside, said to Alfie, “I’m five-foot three, weigh seven stone six. Sorry, a hundred and four pounds. I walked out of a car accident and managed it wearing less than you. Stop being such a baby.”

  As she climbed inside, Alfie hoped she might change her mind. Then the engine fired and the wheels span in the snow. She stopped revving. Tried again. The engine idled. The window wound down. The limey detective’s head popped out.

  “Give us a push, love.”

  Once free from the small drift, Alicia gave Alfie the thumbs up and drove to the end of the track, turned left. She was just glad for the warmth now provided by the heaters. The walk had been excruciating. Her feet were totally numb and her fingers were actually worse; they burned. If Richard had attacked when she opened the door, she’d probably be dead. Now, having secured the situation, she’d made a choice, probably a bad one, but it was made. They were headed for the Windsor estate.

  “I assume that’s where we need to be,” she said to Richard.

  He was cuffed to the door handle, right hand across his waist, secured on his left side so he couldn’t grab her. His seatbelt was also fastened. Alicia held the gun, cocked, wedged under her thigh. The safety was on, but it still made her nervous.

  “Yes,” Richard said. “But we can’t do it alone. I was coming to tell you when that Alfie guy jumped me. I wanted to fr
ee her myself but it’s too much. Too hard.”

  “You mind telling me what you’re talking about? It’s a late-middle aged man and his psycho son who he keeps upstairs like Mrs. Rochester.”

  Richard didn’t ask who that was, which pleased her for a split second. He said, “And the dogs.”

  “There are no dogs.”

  “Wellington said there were. Dobermans, patrolling. Said I’d never get in there without being torn to pieces.”

  “There are no Dobermans. He was either lying or the dogs were there when Welly last visited, but definitely not any more. Henry and his butler have it all on to keep a bunch of caged birds. And I didn’t see any dogs when I was up there.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m surprised you don’t shag me and get the information through pillow talk.”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “Shut up.”

  She dialled a number on the phone she took from Alfie. She cursed that she remembered virtually no numbers any more. At school, she knew all her friends and about a dozen boys’ numbers off by heart. Now she had to call in to the station, identify herself, and ask to be connected to Sergeant Ball. It took over a minute.

  “Cold?” she said.

  “I was. I turned the engine on. Don’t care if they see me now.”

  “Fine. I need you to go inside and chat to Henry Windsor.” She explained that the girls were somewhere in the grounds and that in all likelihood it was James that was holding them. “If anything happens, if James shows up, gets violent, you run. Understand? You run.”

  “Hey, I can handle myself.”

  “This kid can crush your head like a ripe plum. You run. Promise?”

  “Okay, I promise.”

  She hung up. “Okay, Richard, I don’t want any talk about last night, or bodies in drains or anything that does not relate to what I’m doing here. Understood?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think I know what’s going on. I need you to fill in the blanks. What did Welly tell you?”

  “Welly?”

  “Wellington. John Wellington.”