Captives (39 page)

    She showed them into the Commissioner's office, then left.

    Sullivan was a powerful, bull-necked specimen of a man who looked more like a refugee from a bare-knuckle ring than Commissioner of Police. He was in his midforties, his complexion ruddy, his nose flat against his face. His normally piercing eyes were almost hidden by thick eyebrows.

    On his desk Gregson saw a number of framed photos. His wife, his children and one that looked strangely incongruous, considering Sullivan's demeanour; it showed the Commissioner cradling his baby son in his arms, feeding him with a bottle. Gregson thought he might have looked more at home using one hand to choke a goat.

    The big man was reading a report of some kind when the other two policemen entered and did not look up.

    'Sit down,' he said sharply.

    They obeyed.

    Sullivan glared at them immediately.

    'You're lucky I'm not suspending both of you,' he snarled. 'What the bloody hell were you playing at last night? Digging up a man's grave? I should have you locked up.'

    'There wasn't time to obtain an exhumation order, sir,' Gregson said.

    'Why?' Sullivan roared. 'Was the man you dug up leaving? What was so important it couldn't have waited one more day?'

    'If you'll just listen, sir, I'll tell you,' Gregson said, aware of the acid glance Sullivan shot him. The DI waited a moment, wondering if his superior was going to interrupt again. When he didn't, Gregson began, keeping it as brief as he could. He mentioned the three killers, their victims, the suicides. Sullivan didn't move a muscle as he listened, his eyes never leaving Gregson as he talked about his visit to Whitely. How he'd seen the graves of men who, he knew for a fact, were actually dead and in the pathology room at New Scotland Yard itself. About four men who had died in Whitely in three years and now…

    Sullivan held up a hand to silence him.

    'Enough,' he said, rubbing his forehead with one thumb and forefinger. There was a long silence finally broken by the Commissioner himself. 'You are aware of what you're saying, Gregson?' he asked. 'You're asking me to believe that three men returned from the dead to re-enact their crimes? You're talking to me about zombies?' He smiled menacingly. 'If you're not out of this office in five seconds I'm going to have you both suspended. You'll be pounding a bloody beat by the end of the month.' The anger had returned to his voice.

    'They didn't return from the dead,' Gregson said defiantly. 'Lawton, Bryce and Magee never died in the first place. They each committed suicide after re-enacting their crimes.'

    'They were all in prison, you said yourself you saw their graves,' Sullivan reminded him.

    'The men who committed those murders recently were Lawton, Bryce and Magee. There is no mistake,' the DI insisted. 'As I said, they never died in prison. Their deaths were faked. Just like the death of Gary Lucas. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make out that Lucas died of a heart attack inside Whitely. A weighted coffin was buried in that cemetery at Norwood to make it look convincing.'

    'So where's Lucas?' Sullivan asked.

    'We don't know yet.'

    'And, more importantly, why would anyone want to fake his death? Are you trying to tell me there's some kind of conspiracy going on?' Sullivan got to his feet. 'Four murderers are pronounced dead, headstones are erected for them, and they're still alive? Why would anyone want to do that?' he continued. 'But you're not just implying that their deaths were faked, you're trying to tell me they escaped from Whitely. Four killers over the last three years escape from one of Britain's biggest maximum security prisons and nobody hears about it.' He turned on Gregson angrily. 'For God's sake, man, do you really know how ridiculous that sounds?'

    'Then you explain the weighted coffin, sir,' Gregson said defiantly.

    'I don't have to explain it,' Sullivan told him. 'I'm not the one who dug it up. As I said, you're both lucky I'm not suspending you.' He looked at Finn, too, and the DS blenched and lowered his gaze.

    'There was no corpse in that coffin,' Gregson said.

    'Then it must be buried somewhere else,' Sullivan said dismissively. 'I suggest you find out where. I also suggest you keep these revelations to yourself until you have more evidence to back them up.'

    'How much more fucking evidence do we need?' snapped the DI.

    'More than a fucking weighted coffin,' Sullivan bellowed, the two men holding each other's gaze. 'Now get out of here.' He motioned towards the door.

    Gregson and Finn rose. The DS was only too happy to leave. His companion hesitated a moment.

    'Lucas will kill again, sir, I'm sure of it,' the DI announced.

    'Gary Lucas is dead,' Sullivan pronounced with an air of finality.

    'No, he isn't,' Gregson said. 'Lucas is alive and I'm going to find him.'

    

    

    He could feel his hand throbbing.

    Scott sat on the floor of the cell looking at the raw flesh, wincing as he touched it. It was beginning to blister in places, large pustules rising on the pink skin. At the time he'd felt nothing. Even when he'd forced Draper's head into the boiling soup he'd felt no pain. All he'd felt was the furious pleasure of being able to inflict agony on his tormentor. For all he knew Draper could be dead. A slight smile touched Scott's lips. So what if he was? What could they do to him? What more could they threaten him with? He was destined to spend the rest of his life inside; how else could they punish him? Fuck them.

    Fuck the law.

    Fuck Draper.

    Fuck Plummer.

    Plummer.

    He clenched his fists as he thought of his boss. The act of closing his hand causing him pain, but he seemed not to mind it. One of the blisters on his palm burst, spilling its clear fluid over his skin.

    Fuck Carol.

    That treacherous, lying, spineless little whore.

    He closed his eyes and sucked in an angry breath through clenched teeth.

    Carol.

    He hated her.

    The vision of her came into his mind.

    He wanted her.

    Just to see her would be enough. For a few fleeting seconds.

    To touch her.

    To kill her.

    He whispered her name.

    
Fucking slag.

    The sound of the key in the lock startled him. He looked up to see the door opening, a shape silhouetted in the doorway. The solitary cell was tiny, less than six feet square, containing just a mattress and a slop bucket. Scott banged against the bucket as he hauled himself onto the mattress, trying to see who his visitor was. It was dark inside the cell and the light from the corridor outside dazzled him momentarily, obscuring the features of his visitor. As the door closed the light inside the cell went on. Scott looked up at the man but was none the wiser.

    'They'll stick another five years on your sentence for what you did to Draper,' Nicholson told him.

    Scott sneered.

    'What's five more years on top of life?' he grunted.

    'You would have been out in fifteen with good behaviour. Now you'll be an old man when they let you out.'

    'What difference does it make to you? Who are you, anyway?'

    Nicholson introduced himself.

    'And, by the way,' he added, it makes no difference to me at all when and if you get out. You can rot in here for all I care.'

    'So why the visit?' Scott wanted to know.

    'Do you want to spend the rest of your life in here?'

    'That's a fucking stupid question. What do you think?'

    'I think that you'd settle for another six months in here instead of another twenty years,' Nicholson said cryptically. 'But there are risks.'

    Scott looked vague.

    'If I told you there was a possibility you could be out of here in six months, would you be interested?'

    Six months is too long.

    Scott looked wary.

    'How?' he demanded.

    'Would you be interested?' Nicholson persisted.

    'Tell me how.'

    Nicholson banged on the door and a warder opened it. He turned to leave.

    'Tell me,' snarled Scott, getting to his feet, moving towards the Governor.

    'Remember, there are risks,' Nicholson said as he stepped out of the cell. The door was slammed and locked. Scott was left with his face pressed against the metal.

    'I don't care about the risks,' he shouted, banging his fist against the steel door. He struck it again, ignoring the pain as more of the blisters burst. Blood began to dribble down his arm. He pounded for long moments.

    'I don't care,' he whispered breathlessly, but there was no one to hear his words.

    He sank slowly to the floor of the cell and lay there gazing at the ceiling.

    

    

    There was always one.

    David Lane muttered to himself as he rang the bell and the bus pulled away, passing Kensington Market on the right.

    Always one who wanted to sit upstairs. Always one who ensured that he, as conductor, would be forced to climb the bloody stairs. At the beginning of a shift he didn't mind; he'd happily bound up and down the stairs to collect fares. But today he could hardly manage to walk from one end of the bus to the other, let alone up to the top deck. He'd pulled a muscle in his thigh playing football the previous Sunday and it was giving him a lot of pain. He'd thought about calling in sick, but he had actually received a phone call asking if he'd work a double shift as someone else had called in to report an illness. Consequently Lane had been working for almost ten hours, with just a break for lunch, and his leg was killing him. He moved among the passengers on the lower deck, cursing the single passenger who had chosen to sit above.

    The bus was moving slowly, picking up at nearly every stop as it moved down Kensington Road towards Hyde Park Corner. Just the odd one or two extra passengers but they all, luckily, chose to sit downstairs.

    Except the one bloke who'd got on at the earlier stop.

    Lane massaged the top of his thigh gently as he waited for an elderly woman to find her bus pass. Perhaps he was getting too old to be dashing about every Sunday morning. He was approaching thirty-three and his wife had told him he should be taking it easier now. But what the hell, he enjoyed playing, despite the fact that he'd picked up half a dozen niggling little knocks since Christmas. And his pub team were doing well in the league; he didn't want to forsake them now. Anyway, thirty-three was hardly an age to think about 'taking things easy'. Plenty of time for that when he got old. He smiled as he thought of his wife's concern. Michelle was always worrying about him. The long hours he worked, how little sleep he sometimes got. His musings were interrupted as the old girl found her bus pass and presented it to him. He smiled and handed it back to her, steadying himself as the bus came to a halt and two passengers got off. He rang the bell and continued collecting fares, making his way to the back of the bus, pausing at the bottom of the stairs. As they passed Hyde Park Corner he began to climb.

    The pulled muscle in his thigh stiffened as he moved higher and it was with something akin to relief that he finally reached the top deck.

    The man was sitting at the front, gazing out at the lights of London, oblivious to Lane's presence. The conductor moved towards him, using the backs of seats as support as the bus lurched on into Piccadilly.

    'Fares, please,' called Lane. But still the man didn't turn, didn't even move to reach for money.

    He continued staring out of the front window as if mesmerised by the lights, glancing to his left as they passed The Hard Rock Cafe.

    'Fares, please,' Lane repeated more loudly as he drew level with the man.

    'Where to, mate?' he asked, shifting his weight onto his other leg.

    The man didn't answer.

    Perhaps he was deaf, Lane wondered. He was in his mid-thirties, his hair short, his face covered by a dark carpet of stubble. The collar of his jacket was pulled up around his neck and there were holes in the knees of his jeans. Don't tell me you've got no fucking money.

    'Where do you want to go?' Lane said, more loudly.

    The man looked at him, his eyes large, almost bulging in their sockets. Lane could smell the drink on him.

    Piss-artist. Great, that was all he needed. He turned the wheel of his ticket machine and cranked out an eighty pence ticket. If this bloke was smashed then he wanted him off at the next stop.

    'Eighty pence, please, mate,' Lane said.

    The man nodded and reached into his pocket, fumbling beneath his jacket.

    'Eighty pence,' he repeated.

    He smiled and looked up at the conductor.

    'If you've got no money…' Lane began.

    'I've got no money,' the man said, grinning. 'I got this.'

    He pulled the.357 Magnum free and pointed it at Lane.

    'Have you got change?' asked Gary Lucas.

    Then he fired.

    

    

    The roar of the pistol was deafening in such a confined space. The muzzle-flash briefly lit the interior of the bus upper deck as the Magnum spat out its deadly load. Lucas fired from less than ten inches. The impact of the heavy grain shell bent Lane double at the waist as the bullet tore easily through his abdominal muscles, destroying part of his lower intestine before erupting from his back, tearing away most of one kidney. A sticky flux of viscera spattered the shattered window behind him and he fell backwards. Lucas got to his feet and fired again at the fallen man, the second bullet powering into his face just below the left eye, punching in the cheekbone and staving in the entire left side of his head. The skull seemed to burst as the bullet exited, greyish-pink slops of brain carried in its wake.