Текст книги "The Blood Whisperer"

Автор книги: Zoë Sharp

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30

Balanced on a couple of inches of protruding brickwork outside one of the glassless windows with her fingertips wedged into a crumbling mortar joint Kelly listened to the policeman’s shocked exclamation.

She closed her eyes, tried to relax to regulate her breathing and control her panic. Not easy when she was suspended between her outstretched arms, one leg crossed behind her for balance, foot pointed. It was twenty feet or so to the ground—a dangerous distance. Not far enough to kill her unless she was unlucky, but injury was a certainty.

The only way to go was up.

Still she hesitated, aware of the muffled squawk of the police radios just inside the building. All her life she’d thought those in authority knew best. She had trusted them to do the right thing by her.

Until she’d put that trust to the ultimate test and they had failed her.

Nevertheless her first instinct when she’d heard the car draw up below and seen the policemen emerge to head so obviously in her direction was to give herself up.

That instinct lasted for only a few seconds and was disregarded by her scornful inner voice of reason.

Yeah, because look how well that worked out for you last time.

Kelly opened her eyes, carefully unclamped the whitened finger ends of her lower hand from the edge of the brick and stretched up for the next handhold.

She had already jettisoned the bloodstained Tyvek oversuit, letting it go from the window before she’d climbed out of the aperture. The breeze coming up from the river had caught it almost instantly, semi-inflating it like some weird balloon and sending it billowing skywards.

Inside her shirt, still warm next to her skin, was the second bag of her own blood. She needed to hang on to that at all costs.

She’d bound up the gash on her arm with the heavy duty duct tape they always carried in the cleaning kit. The last thing McCarron’s reputation could afford was to leave a trail of decomposing fluids as they carted disposal bags out to the van and duct tape was sure to seal any leaks.

Right now Kelly was more worried about remaining at liberty until she’d had the opportunity to get the blood independently tested.

She moved with desperate caution knowing any slip would send loose grit and dust scattering down the outside of the building. With no glass to damp out the sound they were bound to hear her.

But she climbed almost every day—not rock but urban faces like this one. She willed herself to stay calm, to pretend there was nothing more at stake than gaining a high place from which to enjoy the view.

Who are you trying to kid?

With a grim twist of her lips that became more grimace than smile she reached the sagging line of the gutter. And from below she could see that the rusted fastenings were mostly loose in the powdery brickwork. There was no way she could use it to lever herself onto the roof.

Kelly bit back a groan of frustration. She was running out of both time and options. The tension was making her muscles quiver with the effort of holding herself flattened against the wall. That and the after-effects of whatever muck they’d pumped into her system. She couldn’t stay here much longer.

She glanced quickly each way and saw a threaded rod sticking a few inches out of the wall about three or four feet to one side—part of a steel tie put in some time earlier to stop the old building bulging out of shape.

With the last of her strength Kelly swung for it.

31

“What was that?” PC Jacobson demanded, jerking round.

“What was what?”

“I dunno. I heard something—from outside I think.”

PC Ferris gave a dry chuckle. “You’re getting jumpy my son,” he said. But when Jacobson still faltered he waved a hand towards the open windows. “Go on, have a gander if you’re so sure you heard something.”

“Probably nothing,” Jacobson muttered but he went across to the line of windows in the back wall of the building. Anything was better than standing around trying not to look at the dead body while they waited for the promised reinforcements.

He stuck his head out with great care, only enough to expose one eye. There was no fire escape or other means of easy egress. He even craned his neck to look up and saw nothing but yet more pigeons squabbling over window ledge territory rights above him. Jacobson drew his head inside quickly. He’d no desire to get dumped on even if it was supposed to be lucky.

“Well?” Ferris said with a distinct taunt in his voice.

“Nothing,” Jacobson admitted. “Must have gone well before we got here, eh?”

And if both men felt a sense of relief at this thought neither was prepared to admit it to the other.

32

Dmitry saw the flashing blue lights in his rearview mirror and pulled the big Mercedes coupé over as far as he could on the crowded street.

The full-dress squad car came bowling past him, the sound of its siren fading rapidly into the distance as it was swallowed up by the buildings and the other vehicles. Still, it didn’t take a genius to work out where the car was heading.

Dmitry checked his mirrors again and sedately pulled back into the traffic flow.

He hit one of the speed-dial buttons on the cellphone sitting in its holder on the dash. In the ear-piece of his Bluetooth headset Dmitry heard the call connect and begin to ring.

It was answered with a short female, “Da?”

“It is done,” Dmitry said by way of equally short reply then hit End without waiting for a response. He smiled into the empty car.

“And now it begins.”

33

Getting down from the roof did not present Kelly with as much difficulty as getting up there. Rooftops were her playground and she knew how to pick her way across fragile slate and tile using the timber skeleton underneath. In this case, staying low and avoiding the skylights she shadowed the ridge line to the end furthest away from the entrance.

The next building was butted up against the one she’d escaped from but was one storey lower. Kelly dangled herself carefully over the gable and edged her way down the brickwork by fingers and toes until she was on the lower level. Her arm throbbed fiercely all the way.

This building was occupied so in a better state of repair. It was also reasonably compliant with the current regulations regarding fire escapes—in this case a sturdy metal staircase. Fortunately this was mounted on the far side, so while the occupants gaped out of the windows at the activity below, Kelly was able to slip past on the opposite side of the building without being noticed.

Good job too, Kelly thought. Even without her tattered oversuit she knew she must present quite a picture of a fleeing fugitive. She half-ran, half-tiptoed her way down the old cast-iron treads, moving as fast as she dared.

The pull-down ladder at the bottom was rusted closed and refused to open out all the way to the ground but jumping the last few feet and rolling through the impact was a small price to pay for freedom.

Kelly dusted herself down and walked quickly east trying not to look guilty as another police car came barrelling into the estate. She crossed the road, trotted past a modern-designed junior school and yet more developments of high-rise flats. Half a glimpse of the river and the prices rose accordingly, even out here.

All the way her mind keened for the dead boy she’d left behind. He’d been gauche as a puppy in some ways but as close to a friend as Kelly allowed herself these days, and fervently loyal. She remembered his attack on DI O’Neill at the hospital in defence of Ray. Had he tried to protect her too or was he always the intended victim?

Aware of Tyrone’s crush on her she’d tried to be gentle of his feelings. And now he’ll never know what it is to fall in love—properly truly in love.

Eyes blurring, Kelly turned down the first available side street and headed along its length, past the doorway to a small swimming baths that let out a damp belch of heavily chlorinated air across the pavement.

The street was long and straight enough for Kelly to keep a wary eye out for anyone following. As far as she could tell, she was alone.

An abandoned shopping trolley next to the fence at the far end sparked an idea. She hurried through a half-empty parade of new shops and crossed over the Inner Dock using the Pepper Street bridge, making for the supermarket on the other side of the railway line.

She grabbed a bottle of cola and ducked into the customer toilets as soon as she was inside the store, locking herself into the disabled cubicle which had its own sink. The blood on her bare arms and hands had dried and without an abrasive cleaner the cola was the most effective thing she could find.

She was thankful that she always kept her wallet in a back pocket rather than a handbag which would most likely have been left in the van. At least she had a bit of cash on her even if it wasn’t enough to get her much beyond south Croydon—never mind South America.

Even the thought of exile made her sink down onto the closed lid of the toilet, her knees suddenly rubbery.

I am not running away, she told herself sternly. This is a tactical retreat.

She made sure she brought the empty cola bottle out with her to pay for. No point in getting nabbed by in-store security. In the clothing section she picked up a cheap baseball hat and a hooded sweatshirt discarding the labels in the first waste bin she came across once she was through the self-service checkout and back outside.

The disguise, such as it was, would not hold for long. As soon as they ran her prints and DNA through the system it would light up like Bond Street at Christmas. All she needed to gain was a little time and distance to find somewhere safe to hide at least until she could get her own blood sample tested—and by someone she could trust over the result.

She bought a Day Travelcard from one of the machines in the Tube station at Coldharbour and boarded the first northbound Docklands Light Rail train that pulled in.

Kelly sat next to the window, swaying to the motion as the train briefly picked up speed again. Her face was turned to the glass so that she watched her own reflection more than the shifting scenery outside. She wasn’t sure she either liked or recognised who she saw there.

She watched the reflections of the other passengers as they got on and took the seats around her, too. Nobody seemed to be paying her undue attention.

Good, so they haven’t put it together yet or they’d be screaming it from the rooftops.

The DLR train was heading for Bank station. There she hopped across onto the Central line for West Ruislip and rode it out to Hanger Lane, close to the McCarron office.

She had hesitated briefly over going back there but by the time she’d changed trains her mind was made up.

It’s not like I have many options.

She walked the short distance from the station down to the office keeping her cap pulled down, her hood up and her hands stuffed into her pockets. Her arm under the makeshift dressing had subsided into dull painfulness and she still had a vile headache. It had receded with the adrenaline of evading capture but now it was back with a vengeance and making up for lost time.

Kelly reached the office doorway and let out a long shaky breath as she slipped the keys from her pocket. She hoped the place was empty, weighed up the risk and thought it likely. The chatty woman who’d given her location to Matthew Lytton worked from home. With Ray in hospital the rest of his crew had been working flat out, taking it in turns to pick up messages from the answering service while they were out on jobs.

Today, she recalled it was the turn of Les and Graham. They were Ray’s most experienced team and specialised in what were referred to round the office as Hoarding Houses which made up a big chunk of the firm’s business. They should be down in Purley clearing a place that had belonged to an elderly eccentric who didn’t seem to have thrown anything away during the thirty years leading up to his death. Les’s estimate had run to five one-ton skips needed to cart away the accumulated rubbish. This had included what seemed to be at least twelve months’ worth of the old guy’s own faeces, carefully bagged and labelled.

They’d be gone some time.

Kelly locked the door behind her. Ray, she remembered, had been jumped at the very spot where she was standing.

Is this a vendetta against all of us rather than just me?

She shook her head—a mistake—and wearily climbed the stairs to the upper floor.

There she stepped into the small galley kitchen and lifted the bag of blood out from under her shirt. The seal had proved up to the job. For want of anything better Kelly slid the bag into the fridge. She’d already written the date, time and her name on it in indelible marker. It wasn’t quite chain-of-custody, but it would have to do.

She raided the office First-Aid kit and properly cleaned her arm. Removing the duct tape hurt like the devil and peeling away the adhesive made the whole thing open up again. It took Kelly a while to slow the bleeding enough to close the edges of the wound with four or five Steri-Strips and wind a sterile dressing in place around it. At least working this job she knew all her jabs were up to date.

She was tempted by the heavy duty painkillers in the kit but in the end settled for nothing stronger than a couple of paracetamol just to take the edge off it. She thought briefly of the bottle of vodka in the bottom of Ray’s desk but rejected that too.

If there was one thing she needed now, above all else, it was a clear head.

Just to sit for a few minutes and catch her thoughts she sank slowly onto one of the chairs around the table where the team gathered to eat their lunches, discuss jobs and write up their reports. Her eyes slid to the places where Tyrone and Ray always sat.

“Two down,” she said out loud. “Who’s next?”

Stupid question. It was supposed to be me.

Reluctantly she got to her feet. If she was going to stay ahead of the police long enough to find answers of her own she was going to need money—of the kind that could not be obtained via a photographed and instantly traceable hole-in-the-wall cash machine.

The petty cash tin was in the bottom drawer of Ray’s desk next to the vodka bottle. It was secured by a spindly padlock that Kelly had never had the heart to tell her boss could be picked in seconds. As she finessed the tumblers with a safety pin and re-bent paperclip she was thankful she’d spared his feelings.

There were some skills Kelly had learned in prison that she would be forever grateful for.

The cash tin held a couple of hundred in mixed notes and maybe twenty quid in loose change. Kelly took the lot, folding it into the leg pocket of her cargoes. She was just looking round on Ray’s cluttered desktop for a scrap of paper she could use to write an apologetic IOU when her eye lighted on a familiar name on the top of a pile of invoices.

Matthew Lytton.

She picked up the invoice slowly. It was marked ‘Paid in Full’. Kelly noted the amount Ray had charged Lytton for the cleanup after his wife’s alleged suicide and calculated he’d taken one look at the scope of the country place and doubled the number he’d first thought of.

But what really caught her attention was the address on the invoice. The country house with the luxury bathroom, it seemed, was not Lytton’s only residence. He’d asked for the paperwork to be sent to another address—in central London.

Suddenly her next move was clear. Not sensible by any means, but definitely clear.

Kelly memorised the address and put the invoice back—not on top but a couple down in the stack. After all there was no point in leaving too many clues for the likes of DI O’Neill to follow.

34

As soon as Matthew Lytton opened the door to his apartment, he knew something was wrong.

For one thing it had been daylight when he left so there would have been no reason to switch on the lamps in the living area. And for another he was pretty sure he would have remembered leaving the VH1 music channel playing on the TV, even at low volume.

His first instinct as he paused in the hallway with one hand still on the open front door was to retreat to a safe distance and call the police. He quickly dismissed that option.

One way or another he’d had his fill of the police lately.

That and the fact he’d never heard of burglars who broke in and then made themselves at home to the point of cooking up a meal. The distinctive smell of frying onions drifted out from the kitchen. It was all he could do to stop his stomach growling.

Lytton cautiously checked his watch. It was close to 2:00 AM. He’d put in another eighteen-hour day at the office and it seemed a hell of a long time since lunch.

Silently he closed the front door behind him. He kept his car keys and cellphone in his hand as he ventured further inside, moving softly on the hardwood floor.

As he reached the kitchen he heard the sound of rapid chopping, the sizzle of something fresh being added to a hot pan.

He edged an eye around the door jamb. Kelly Jacks was cracking eggs into a glass mixing bowl. Her back was towards him but still he recognised her. She was wearing a skinny halter top over baggy cargoes and her feet were bare. He knew he should have been furious at the sheer arrogance of the woman. Instead he found himself admiring her audacity.

Lytton slipped the keys and phone into his jacket pocket and stepped into the room.

“I don’t suppose there’s enough for two is there?” he asked tapping her lightly on the shoulder.

She gave a gasp and spun round. The next thing he knew, the hand he’d laid on her was grabbed, wrenched away and twisted up his back hard and fast. He felt the tearing graunch of overstressed ligaments in his elbow and wrist.

The force of it drove him down to his knees in an attempt to yield. All that did was allow her to put the lock on more firmly. The spike of pain took his breath away.

“Christ! What the—?”

She froze, finally recognising his voice, relaxed her grip then released him altogether and stepped back quickly.

“I’m sorry,” she said sounding shaky. “You startled me.”

Lytton got to his feet slowly, rubbing his wrist. “Yeah well that makes two of us,” he said warily. “Where the hell did you learn that?”

“Prison.”

He’d frightened her, he realised and she’d reacted instinctively—almost without conscious thought.

“I’m sorry,” she said then, unable to meet his gaze. “Not just for that . . . I know I’m being bloody cheeky coming here like this but I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

Lytton pulled a wry face, flexing his fingers experimentally. “Flattery will get you everywhere.” He nodded to the debris-strewn countertop aware that he was still teetering on the far reaches of anger. “I see you’ve made yourself at home.”

“I’m sorry,” she muttered again. “I waited but when you didn’t come back after normal close of play I sort of assumed you weren’t going to and—” she shrugged, “—I haven’t eaten.”

She sounded beaten-down weary. Lytton sighed, moved further into the room. “Well now you’ve started keep going.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw the way she tensed as he came past her. He merely went to the cooler and pulled out a bottle of Beck’s. “Drink? I certainly need one after that.”

She shook her head. He dug out an opener and flipped off the lid then drank from the neck not bothering with a glass. “How did you get in by the way?”

She’d turned back to the hob, answered over her shoulder. “Not difficult with the security you’ve got.”

“I had the front door locks changed only a few months ago when . . . when Veronica lost her keys. The guy told me they were nine-lever, whatever that means. He reckoned they were fairly secure.”

Her lips hitched upwards and almost made it to a smile. “Should have got him to change the ones on the sliding windows at the same time then,” she said. “They’re a joke.”

Lytton didn’t point out that the balcony onto which those sliding doors opened out was on the fourth floor because he’d heard the cracks in her voice despite the light hearted words. He put down his beer and studied the strain in her face.

“What’s happened Kelly?”

She had been holding herself rigid but the gentleness of his voice seemed to crumple her. She looked away sharply, took a deep breath before she raised her head again.

“Remember Tyrone?” she asked.

He frowned, was about to ask but then an image of the big black kid she’d been working with opened up in his mind. He nodded.

She took another breath shaky this time. “He’s dead,” she said flatly. “He was murdered today at a crime scene we were supposed to be cleaning in Millwall.”

“Christ,” Lytton said. “When did you find out?”

She fussed for a moment with the pan on the hob turning down the gas to a low simmer before the onions turned to caramel. “When I woke up,” she said in a voice so low he thought for a moment he’d misheard her.

“When you . . .?” he began then stopped. No wonder she’d overreacted when he came in. “My God . . . you were there.”

And crowding in on that thought came a bunch of others. He’d read the trial reports after her manslaughter conviction—about the blackout and the murder. That there’d been no previous history or medical evidence presented to suggest Kelly might be prone to such traumatic lapses. Nothing to say she wasn’t lying about the whole thing.

Clearly judge and jury had believed she was.

So why should he trust her now?

“It happened again,” he said but she shook her head and raked a distracted hand through her short choppy hair. He noticed the bandage on her arm as she did so. Had her victim fought back this time?

“No,” she said more determined now. “I’m beginning to think it never happened in the first place.”

She waited fiercely for his incredulity. He schooled his face not to present any, leaned his hip against the countertop and folded his arms. “So, what did?”

“I think I was framed,” she said twisting restlessly away and beginning to pace. Lytton’s eyes fell onto the knife she’d been using to cut the vegetables. It lay casually on the chopping board in full view but he made no moves to stop her getting back to it.

“I think they gave me something—Rohypnol maybe,” she went on. “Something to make me compliant and make me forget. Then it was just a case of sticking the knife in my hand and leaving me in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Didn’t they test you for possible drugs last time?” he asked.

“Eventually,” she agreed. “And—surprise, surprise—nothing showed up. That’s why I took this.”

She yanked open the fridge door and pulled out a small ziplock bag. One corner was filled with liquid that was a dark rich red.

“Please tell me that isn’t what I think it is?”

She nodded to the bandage on her arm. “I improvised before I left the scene. I was out for half an hour or so and got away from there just before the cops showed up. Maybe whoever did this miscalculated the dose or whatever. Or maybe they couldn’t afford to have me actually unconscious when the cops arrived. Too many awkward questions.”

“And you want to get that tested—independent of the police this time?” he guessed.

She nodded and he saw her desperation in the way her shoulders had begun to sag. If what she said was true he realised she must be in shock to some degree and close to nervous exhaustion. Not to mention suffering a chemical hangover to rival anything induced by alcohol.

But . . .

Lytton put his head on one side. “Why did you come here Kelly?”

She gave him a tired smile. “Process of elimination,” she said. “All this kicked off because I asked questions about your wife’s death. Either you killed her and tried to set me up because I spotted it or you’re completely innocent and you’ll want answers just as much as I do. More, perhaps.”

He met her eyes. “And how do you know which is the truth?”

“By what happens next.”