Death Trap (22 page)

Nikki.

That’s who he’d been going to meet, up at the train station. So what was he doing here? He tried to call out, but his voice was muffled as a piece of material sucked down to his tongue and out again as he exhaled. Then he realised that the material covered his face, from his hairline to just below his chin. Now he started struggling, but he couldn’t move; his arms stretched downwards, secured to something, and his legs lay straight and were held down. He was flat on his back in a tunnel of terrible black.

Then he heard the footsteps: heavy and dragging, as if the person wanted him to know they were there. The footsteps stopped by his right side. The person’s body heat sent new chills through Ade. A sharp, whirling sound came from somewhere above, like a plane passing in the distance. Ade flinched, screwed up his face as he waited for something to fall on him, crush him to death. But it never came; instead he heard a snap. The person leaned over him and stuck something sticky across the material under his chin, binding it to his skin. That’s when Ade knew that the sound he’d heard was tape being released from a roll and then torn off. The person did the same to the material on his head.

Water hit his face. It came out of nowhere. Weighed down the material on his forehead, his cheeks, beneath his mouth. But it felt like the water touched every pore of his skin, a huge wave that was headed straight for his mouth.

Nooo.

He couldn’t stop it from going deep into his throat.

Please, please, don’t let me drown
.

His tummy muscles convulsed as they fought to keep the water from his lungs. He was no longer wet with just water; sweat leaked all over his body. A tsunami-style wave was coming straight at him . . .

Abruptly the tape was peeled away from the material under his chin. The cloth hitched back from his mouth so that it lay just below his nose. Ade gulped in oxygen, a lifeline to staying alive.

‘That didn’t feel good did it?’ The voice was male, light, its calm more threatening than a shout.

‘What . . . do . . . you . . . want?’ Ade asked between ragged breaths.

‘Where’s Nicola Bell?’

‘Did you drug me? Were you the man who bumped into me outside the theatre?’

The man laughed. ‘You’re smart. You love her very much, don’t you? So just tell me where she is.’

Ade was reeling with all the information coming at him. ‘I. Don’t. Know.’

There was a slight shuffle of footsteps. ‘Did you feel like you were drowning? Like the water was deep inside your body?’

Ade was too terrified to respond.

‘I didn’t put any water near your nose or mouth. See that’s what happens when the water touches your face, twists your mind so much that you think you’re battling for your life in the biggest ocean you’ve ever seen.’ Ade felt hot breath against his chin and lips. ‘What’s it going to feel like when I do pour water over your nose and mouth? When it’s filling up your guts and lungs—’

‘I don’t know where Nikki is.’

The hot breath disappeared. The cloth was stuck back down. Water directly hit his nose, his mouth. Funny how he’d only been joking with Nikki yesterday about using waterboarding on her parents as they chatted on Yakkety-Yak. And now some madman was using it on him.

Don’t breathe in.

Don’t breathe in.

But Ade couldn’t hold his breathing for long. As he let out a shattering breath a finger prodded hard into his solar plexus. Ade went under. He fought it with his mind, but he couldn’t stop the images that blasted over him. Not an unknown ocean this time, but the memory of not been able to get out of the cupboard under the stairs when he was playing a game of hide and seek with his brother when he was eight. It was dark. Suffocating. The lock wouldn’t move, jammed into place. Tears rolled down his face as his tiny fists banged against the door. He screamed:

Mum.

Chiwetel.

Mum.

Chiwetel.

But no one came. He was going to die.

The cloth pushed back. Ade sucked in air again, this time with a weak up- and downwards movement of his chest.

‘Tell me.’

He couldn’t even answer.

‘Tell me.’

Then something strange happened to Ade. He was back inside his memory, not inside the cupboard this time, but just outside it, being held in the comforting hug of his big brother.

Never cry. Always stay calm, find peace. Then be logical and think through what you have to do to survive,
Chiwetel had told him.

And that’s what Ade did now. Calm. Peace.

‘If I knew where she was I wouldn’t tell you. You better let me go or my brother and his friends will hunt you down.’

‘Not cool, Ade, not cool at all.’

Ade tensed, waiting for the water, but it never came; instead he heard his tormentor start speaking.

‘He doesn’t know a thing. Don’t worry I’ve got a few more leads.’

No more words, just heavy footsteps coming back towards him.

twenty-eight

Strong was nearly as worried about what Rio had done as he was about Gary Larkin, who’d been wheeled out of The Fort on a stretcher and taken to A&E with an oxygen mask on his face.

‘You’re taking a risk. Setting Larkin up for an asthma attack – he could have died. Even that idiot Catley might get you for this.’

Rio sounded innocent. ‘He hasn’t got asthma, according to him, but it matches one of the gang having some type of chest-breathing complaint. I had to test this theory . . .’

‘He was confident about answering questions about the first five raids but when it came to the one at the Bells’ he wasn’t prepared. Don’t you think that was strange?’

Rio ran her fingers through her ’fro as her brain ticked away. ‘That did seem to be the point where he toppled over the edge. Maybe he was the one who killed Rubina Ali on the fifth raid and so the gang decided he’s a liability and didn’t take him on their next murderous job. Or maybe it was seeing the handy work of the gang in the photo of Linda Bell that was his tipping point. Being confronted in full colour with your crime is never easy.’

‘What about the alibis?’

Rio was contemptuous. ‘Alibis? He’s written down where he was in a book? If that isn’t a criminal preparing to bust his way out of trouble I don’t know what is. We’re taking this to the next level. We’ll get warrants to search his flat and then his brother’s place. And we need to do it fast; the paramedics told me he could be back out of hospital as early as tomorrow.’

Strong was doubtful. ‘We haven’t got any real evidence. He might not even have asthma; it could have been flu or something. He’s got alibis. His brother is on film with the drugs guy in Brussels but Gary isn’t.’

Rio’s mobile pinged. She took it out.

Calum:
Safe

‘DI?’

Rio turned to find Detective Richmond holding a folder in his hands.

‘Autopsy report has come back on Frank and Patsy Bell.’

As soon as he handed the report over, Rio started reading. It confirmed what she’d already suspected – Mr Bell was strangled and Mrs Bell was drowned. But it gave another piece of information she hadn’t known – Frank Bell was probably immobilised by some type of stun gun, like a taser.

Rio closed the file and looked up at Strong. ‘Gary Larkin is involved. I know he is and he was prepared to risk his life to avoid us finding out. We’re going to his flat and if they won’t give us a warrant, I’ll go burgle the place myself. I’ve got a sixteen-year-old girl whose life is on the line.’

1:35 a.m.

It took Rio half an hour to persuade Judge Wilkinson that she needed two warrants. She suspected he was pissed that she’d managed to track him down at lunch at his club. But as soon as he heard the words ‘Greenbelt Gang’, he issued search warrants for both Larkin brothers’ homes.

2 p.m.

As Rio got a ‘safe’ text from Calum, Gary Larkin was having a desperate talk with his brother.

‘It’s over. I’m going to have to skip the fucking country and it’s all you – and your fucking kid’s – fault . . .’

After he’d vented his anger on his brother Terry, Gary Larkin was so unsteady on his feet that he nearly collapsed. Instead, he slowly sank down in the public phone box that stood a few yards from where he lived, until he came to rest, crouching and leaning on the box’s structure. He’d skipped out of the hospital as soon as he’d got his hands on an inhaler, but the stench of urine and stale alcohol in the booth made him realise that his lungs were still on dodgy ground.

His brother tried to calm him down. ‘Alright, Gazza boy, just cool it will you and tell me what’s happened.’

Gary resented the way his brother always remained cool, never descending to cursing and swearing. He still had that cultured voice from going to that smart Church of England boys’ school – the one that Gary hadn’t got into.

Gary squeezed the words out of his wounded lungs. ‘I was picked up by the cops for some
friendly
questioning over the raids. That bitch inspector tried to trip me up by filling the fucking interrogation room with fag smoke that had my breathing going into overdrive. She knows something. I had an attack and ended up in bloody ’ossie.’

‘So you’ve got asthma – so what? Millions of people have got it.’

Gary’s voice was a mix of asthma and panic. ‘Yeah – but millions haven’t got a record like mine. And as soon as they’ve got a warrant, they’ll be straight round to rip my place apart—’

‘But you haven’t got nothing incriminating at yours have you?’

Incriminating. There his brother went again with his flash talk.

Gary hesitated. Then, ‘Nah, of course I ain’t.’

Terry went into that big brother mode that Gary hated. ‘If you’re lying to me—’

‘Wouldn’t do that, Tel, now would I? If only you’d kept your partner sweet—’

‘Don’t mention that dirt bag to me,’ his brother yelled back. Terry got real touchy when anyone mentioned the man he’d once been in business with. ‘So they pulled you in for some questions. So what? Everyone’s going to be pulled in at some stage over this; it’s not a problem. They’ve got nothing or you’d have been arrested. My kid’s gone. They probably won’t even be able to get a warrant. They’re just trying to push your buttons. Stop panicking . . .’

For a few moments, Gary’s head began to clear. He rested his head on the phone box, his tight grip on the receiver relaxing slightly. Terry was right; there was no need to lose it. The cops had zilch on him. Dickhead Samson was gone and he had the wife to back up his alibis. He began to feel slightly ashamed. He was a professional. ‘I’m not panicking – but I am angry, I shouldn’t have been put in this situation.’

‘It happens. Go home and sort yourself out. Rest up and stay calm.’

Despite the condition he was in Gary remembered, ‘And the bitch cop started going on about yesterday . . .’

But he never finished; he saw blue lights reflected around him and then a police car followed by a BMW, followed by another police car. There were no sirens but the convoy was in a big hurry. The cars mounted the pavement outside his block and officers began getting out. Gary looked on in disbelief, before whispering, ‘Fuck, they’re here already . . .’

He let the phone drop and straightened up. Thrust out of the phone booth. As he approached, he realised that Bitch Cop was standing amid a group of uniformed officers throwing out instructions. He saw the look of surprise on her face when she saw him.

‘I’m no doctor, but I rather think you should be in hospital . . .’ she greeted him.

He drew a breath accompanied by some wheezing and told her, ‘What me? I’m as fit as a fiddle. Never felt better.’

Bitch Cop pulled a paper out of her pocket and handed it over to him. Gary read the search warrant, hoping her haste meant there was a mistake in it; there wasn’t. He crushed it in his hand and threw it on the ground.

‘It would save us a lot of time if you could point us to anything hidden in your flat that might help with our inquiry. Save us all a heck of a lot of time, plus we don’t want any unnecessary damage to be caused in our search.’

Sarky cow.

‘You won’t find anything in my place, with or without any unnecessary damage.’

2:09 p.m.

‘Are you going to open up or not, Gary?’

Rio stood next to Gary at the door to his flat. Behind them was her search team. Larkin seemed to be fumbling and looking for his keys before announcing, ‘I haven’t got them. Must’ve left them at the hospital.’

‘Can someone get Big Momma?’ Rio told Detective Richmond, using The Fort’s nickname for one of their battering rams.

But Big Momma wasn’t necessary; Gary magically found his keys and opened up. The flat was much more spacious than it looked from outside.

‘Mr Larkin, I’d like you to accompany Officer Blake into the main room.’

Rio didn’t hear what he muttered under his breath, but knew it wouldn’t be complimentary.

‘Let’s get started,’ she told her team.