Cruel Justice (DI Lorne Simpkins (Book one)) (33 page)

Lorne's knees buckled and she fell against the two-way mirror. "Pete, get out here.
Now
!"

"What's going on?" Pete asked, barging through the door. He looked at Lorne and then at Tracy.

Tracy continued, "Charlie saw her being bundled into the back of a taxi. A black Peugeot."

Pete shook his head. "Who was?"

"My sister, Pete. Scott has my sister."

"Oh, Jesus, fucking wept. Tracy, get the chief. Now."

Tracy ran from the room and Pete stepped forward to comfort Lorne. The words echoed round her head.
My God, John Scott's got my sister. Don't lose it now, girl.

The chief joined them as Lorne was issuing Pete with instructions. "Ring the school, tell them to keep Charlie, then ring Tom and
order
him to get to the school and pick his daughter up. Interview or not, got it?"

Pete nodded and left the room.

Roberts' features showed how worried he was. He handed Lorne a glass of water, and said, "Tracy filled me in. Lorne, I'm so sorry. Come on. Let's get back to your office."

Lorne glanced down at his hand tucked under her elbow then, when she saw such sadness and concern in his eyes, she remembered he'd once thought the world of Jade, too. "What about
her
?" she asked, nodding towards the woman on the other side of the mirror.

"I'll get the desk sergeant to lock her up."

They had not long arrived at the incident room when the phone rang. Everyone stared at it before Mitch finally picked it up. "Just a minute. I'll put you through."

He held out the phone to her and mouthed.
It's him!

"Let me take it, Lorne," Roberts insisted.

But Lorne hit his outstretched arm away. "No," she snapped. Her pulse quickened as she prepared herself for a confrontation.

"Lorne, listen to me. It's imperative that you remain calm, don't let him goad you."

"Christ, I know how to handle this, sir," Lorne said, through gritted teeth. "Hello, this is DI Simpkins," she said, fighting to keep her voice normal.

"Lorne … It's me."

"Jade, sweetheart, are you all right? Where are you?" Lorne asked, tears burning her eyes.

"Ah, Inspector. Questions, questions, always questions. Did you forget to pick your daughter up? It's a good job your sister thinks more of her than you do." His hollow laugh filtered down the line.

"You bastard."

"Now, now, Inspector. If you want to see your sister again you really should be nice to me." His voice was low and threatening.

"Just tell me what you want, Scott?"

"Keep him talking, we'll try and trace the call," Roberts mouthed to her.

"I'll consider doing a swap with you, my sister for yours. How about that?"

"I'm sure that could be arranged. I'll have to talk to my superior, see if he'll agree to it."

"Why don't you ask DCI Roberts now, that
is
him standing beside you, isn't it?" J.S. laughed in her ear.

Lorne twisted and peered out the window at the offices opposite.
Is he there, watching me?

"He'll agree to it. Just tell me when and where?"

"I'll call back. My time's almost up, I'm sure you've got people beavering away tracing this call."

Please, let me talk to Jade?" But he'd hung up, leaving her listening to the dial tone. Her knuckles tensed and whitened as she gripped the phone, Roberts had to prise it from her hand.

Pete walked into the silence of the incident room. "What's going on?"

Lorne's explanation dried in her throat.

Confused, Pete said, "Boss? No worries, Tom's gonna pick up Charlie."

"Scott just made contact," Roberts said.

"Shit. That's it, the bitch better start singing now or …" Pete spat out in anger.

"That's enough, Pete. I don't want her knowing about Jade. We'll keep her banged up overnight, see how she likes that." She glanced at Roberts and he nodded his approval. If she was going to meet with Scott, there was no way his sister would be handed over.

"I'm going over to Scott's place to see how SOCO are getting on."

"Are you sure you're up to it?" asked Roberts.

Lorne stared at him and shook her head. "I'll just make a quick call and get over there." She walked into her office and closed the door behind her. "Jacques, it's me."

"Bonjour
,
Lorne. What
can I do for you?"

"I needed to hear a friendly voice," she told him, her own wavering slightly.

"Is everything okay, Lorne?"

"No. John Scott has found another victim …"

"What! Oh no. I read in the paper that you have his sister in custody. Do you think that forced his hand?"

"Oh there's no doubt about that. I just hope he doesn't harm Jade. She sounded okay when I spoke to her earlier …"

"Lorne, I don't understand you're babbling … Oh my God, did you say Jade? Lorne—has he abducted your sister?"

"Oh, Jacques, it's all my fault. Tom asked me to do one simple thing and I couldn't even manage that. Work got in the way as usual. Now she's gone. Gone forever for all I know." Tears slipped down her cheek and, filled with anger and dread, she wiped them away.

 "Lorne, you mustn't blame yourself. I'm sure she'll be fine. Think positive. What can I do to help?"

"There's nothing anyone can do. He's hinted that he'd be willing to swap his sister for mine, but I can't see the boss going along with that scenario. I'm just on my way to Scott's flat now. See what SOCO's turned up, that's if they haven't taken it all away already for examination."

"I've got a couple of
posts
still to do. When I've finished, I'll track you down. Till then, chin up and stay strong."

Chapter Forty-Nine

Around dusk that evening, Lorne, Pete and the chief turned up at J.S's flat. The rain had stopped but now, cold air swirled leaves close to the ground, forming mini tornadoes, as the team gathered outside the property.

Before entering the flat, Lorne said, "Has everyone got a pair of latex gloves."

The SOCO team were just winding things up.

"Bloody hell, Pete, what a tip this place is," Lorne said, eyes scanning the clutter, then she approached the head of the team. "Hi, Jack, what've you got?"

The tall middle-aged man, still in his white suit, side-stepped the boxes of paraphernalia as he made his way through to the lounge, he pointed at the evidence they'd gathered. "Items of interest are a scrapbook. A shoebox we found in a wardrobe, containing some old pictures and a set of keys."

Lorne checked inside the shoebox. She viewed the photos one by one and passed them to the chief and Pete to examine. The pictures were pretty dark memorabilia from a troubled and traumatised past. In one photo, a raging fire engulfed a house.
What kind of warped mind filmed something like that? Is this his family home? Had he watched it burn to the ground?
Also in the box she found a couple of Polaroid pictures of two gravestones. The inscriptions read Grace Scott and Geoffrey Scott, the words 'good riddance' in capitals letters written across them in felt-tip pen.

The final item in the box, a black cloth, wrapped around two playing cards, the king and queen of spades and a Tarot death card.

"He's one dark, mixed-up cookie," Pete said. He gulped noisily when it dawned on him what he'd just said. "Sorry, boss, I shouldn't have said that."

"That's okay, Pete. It's nothing we didn't know already."

Lorne sat on the sofa and flicked through the scrapbook. Pete sat alongside her and whistled.

"Jesus, the guy's been watching you for ages." Pete glanced up at her and then back at the scrapbook.

As she stared at hundreds of photos of herself, she remained speechless. Pictures of her with Tom and Charlie. Even a recent snap of her holding hands with Jacques in the park was included in the collection, along with lots of dull every day photos of Lorne with Pete coming and going to work. But the most upsetting photo, in her eyes, had to be the ones he'd taken of Charlie in the school playground. John Scott had been stalking, not just watching her for days.

"Why? Why me?" she uttered the same words Jane Sedark asked when they'd found her earlier.

"Because you're the leading investigator on the case, one would presume." Roberts suggested, looking over her shoulder.

"Hey, take a gander at this," Pete said, turning to the penultimate page of the book. Neatly arranged were pictures of a smiling, young J.S. standing next to an elderly couple. On the final page were grainy pictures of a little girl aged seven to eight, they presumed to be his sister, with the same couple. "What do ya think? Could be the grandparents."

"Surely, if their grandparents had been alive the kids wouldn't have been put into care. Maybe they died before the abuse scandal broke. Pete, ring Molly, see what she can dig up?"

Pete stepped out into the hallway and Roberts took his seat beside Lorne. They browsed through the scrapbook again. "Maybe this place was some kind of holiday home. It looks in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees." Roberts picked up the scrapbook to examine the picture more closely. "It's some kind of cabin, nestled in a wooded area."

"A wood. I can see hills or mountains in the distance. In this picture, it looks like the same place, you can see the edge of the cabin here, there're acres of gorse and thistles. I'm thinking Scotland, the Highlands, maybe?" Lorne turned to her boss, he seemed distracted by something. "What's up?"

"Just a suspicion." He picked up the set of keys, one chunky and four normal Chubb keys.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Lorne glanced down at the keys.

"Find the log cabin and see if these fit. But if he's already on his way there with Jade wouldn't he have taken these with him?"

Lorne shook her head. "Not necessarily. What if they're a spare set, in case the siblings got separated?"

 "It might be a red herring of sorts, too. He's a canny character."

 "That's true. So you think it might be some kind of decoy, left here on purpose for us to find?" Lorne nibbled the inside of her cheek deep in thought.

"We have no way of knowing what goes on in his warped mind. We're talking about someone who waited almost thirty years to get revenge. And watched as his parents burned to death in a fire he, no doubt, set."

"Come on, Pete, where are you with that info?" Lorne called as Roberts words sunk in. The insecure, unstable man he'd just described had her sister's life in his hands.

Pete marched back into the room. "Here we are. Apparently, while the decision was being made whether to place the kids with the grandparents or not, they were involved in a fatal car crash. Despite the grandparents begging the authorities to let the kids live with them, the couple's age was a contributing factor. Social services thought the couple would find it a struggle bringing up two kids so young. Yet another reason for J.S. to blame the women who tried to help them."

"Those kids certainly went through the mill. I don't suppose Molly had an address for the grandparents?" Lorne asked her partner.

"She gave me two addresses, one near Leeds and the other a holiday home in Scotland."

"That's it. It
has
to be. I bet he's taken Jade there." Lorne handed Pete the photo they'd found of the Scottish hideaway.

"Did Molly have an address on file for the holiday home?" Roberts asked.

"Yeah, it was a bit of a mouthful. I didn't bother writing it down though."

Roberts patted Pete on the shoulder. "Not to worry. I think we better get back to the station anyway, just in case J.S. tries to contact you again, Lorne. We can study maps of the area there."

* * *

"Anything, Tracy?" Lorne asked, when they arrived back at the incident room.

"He called a couple of minutes ago, ma'am."

"What did he say?"

"He was angry, asked where you were. When I told him I didn't know, he became irate — started calling you a lousy mother, ma'am. I couldn't understand why, and didn't know how to respond. I told him to call back in half an hour."

"And what was his response?"

"He said he might do or he might not. It depended how he was feeling. I'm so sorry, ma'am."

Lorne touched the young sergeant's arm to reassure her.

"That's all right, Tracy, he's obviously referring to the fact I neglected to pick up my daughter. I'm the only person to blame for this cock-up."

When JS called back they were all standing around the desk studying the map of Scotland.

He was angry and sounded agitated. "Where were you, Inspector?"

"Out doing police work. Can I speak to Jade?"

"Only if you ask nicely."

"Please, Mr Scott, can I speak to my sister?" She glanced at her watch realising he'd been holding Jade prisoner for four hours already.

"Only if I can speak to my sister." He laughed malevolently.

"I've had a word with my boss and he's agreed to the swap," Lorne lied under the watchful glare of the chief.

"Has he, Inspector, or are you playing mind games with me?"

"No, it's true. Just tell me where and when and we'll be there?" Lorne hoped her voice sounded calm and in control, despite her inner turmoil.

"I'll call back in half an hour, you'd better be there this time or Jade might end up with a few bruises." He laughed again and she heard Jade squeal in the background as if he had hit her.

"Please … Please, don't hurt her anymore," Lorne pleaded, but JS had already hung up.

Roberts shook his head. "You're playing a dangerous game, Lorne. I haven't cleared it with my boss yet, until I do, I can't agree to the exchange. Has he hurt Jade?"

"She cried out in pain just before he ended the call. I'm not saying we'll carry out an exchange, sir, but we have to dangle some carrot. How would you feel if it was your sister he was holding?"

"I can't begin to understand what you must be going through, Lorne. But I must reiterate, you shouldn't be making him promises you cannot fulfil."

Lorne had no intention of listening to her boss she was too busy hatching a plan of her own.