Fallen Angel (12 page)

Although the next day was the start of the school holidays, Sophie had already gone to bed by the time her mother arrived home. Stacey was once again racked with guilt at having let her daughter down, and it made her even more angry that Jack Stanley had been responsible.

Her parents were still up, watching television in the front room. She popped her head round the door to greet them.

‘Hello, love,' said her father. Her mother continued to watch the TV in silence. Stacey rolled her eyes and made her way into the kitchen.

She had just opened the fridge and was trying to decide what to have for dinner when her phone started to ring.

‘Good evening, Inspector. It's Dr Matthews. Sorry to call late.'

‘That's not a problem, Doc. What is it?' Stacey asked quietly.

‘I got some of the test results back, and I thought you'd want to hear them right away.'

Stacey pulled a small notebook and pen from her bag and leaned against the kitchen worktop. ‘Okay, go ahead.'

‘First off, the toxicology. There are traces of chloroform on the subject's clothes.'

‘Knockout gas?'

‘Exactly. We're talking very low traces so I suspect it was used to incapacitate the subject when he was taken.
That's supported by the residual amounts of cotton wool that were found around his mouth and nose.'

Stacey closed her eyes as a series of disturbing images of Daniel's kidnap ran through her head. ‘What about time of death?' she asked.

‘Well,' replied Matthews, her voice sounding professional and firm. ‘That's the curious thing. I would place it at about four o'clock on Friday afternoon. Certainly no later than four thirty.'

Stacey fell silent as the news consolidated itself in her mind. ‘Jesus,' she said after a moment. ‘That means Daniel was dead at least an hour before the ransom deadline.'

A riot of emotions ran through her as the reality of what the doctor was saying quickly sank in. Had the kidnap been about the money, or just about killing Daniel? Had the police in any way provoked him into killing? If so, why the torture, why such brutality against a defenceless child?

The last contact between the kidnapper and Blackwell's team had been ten minutes before the deadline, when he had instructed them to leave the bag of money in the lift of a tower block the Blenheim Estate – perhaps over an hour after he had killed Daniel.

All at once everything began to fall into place. No wonder Jack's people hadn't found any trace of the guy on the estate. He had never been there. Despite having gone to the trouble of arranging an elaborate money-drop, the kidnapper never had any intention of releasing Daniel alive.

Her mind was racing faster and faster. It couldn't have been about the money. It could only have been about the
power, the control and the fear. Her gut feelings told her that this could mean only one thing. He was going to strike again.

Seven a.m. It was the quietest room in the house. Upstairs and at the back, furthest away from the road, with a large south-facing window that allowed plenty of natural light to enter.

He sat perched on a padded stool, the sound of Radio
2
playing gently in the background. He had been working steadily since breakfast, and there was now only one figure left to complete. Gazing through the tabletop magnifying glass, his hand steady, and using a tiny brush loaded with silver paint, he depicted the buckles on the man's shoes and the blade of his sword. Finally the last of the Jacobite soldiers for his re-creation of the Battle of Culloden was complete.

Around the room hundreds of miniature figures from other great battles, including Waterloo, Trafalgar and the First and Second World Wars, looked down from wooden shelves, each one hand-painted in intricate detail.

With great pride he placed the finished Jacobite on the miniature landscape of hills, trees and streams that accurately simulated the battleground down to the very last detail. It had taken him more than a year to complete this latest project, a process that had involved hours of study at his local library and several trips to the Highlands.

He sat there admiring his work for some time. Everything had gone exactly to plan, and he was proud of his attention to detail. He allowed the feelings to soak in for a few more moments before getting up and moving into the bedroom next door.

All the things he needed for that day's work had been laid out
on the bed, and he slowly began to pack the items into a leather bag, ticking each one off from a mental list as he did so. Latex gloves, gaffer tape, binoculars, a single padded leather glove, cotton-wool, two short lengths of rope and a bottle of chloroform.

Once all the items were packed and double-checked, he found he had a little time to kill. He read a few random passages from the Bible and then said his prayers. Outside the sun was shining, just as it had been a few days earlier. It was, he decided, a very good omen.

He picked up the bag and left the house. It was time to go to work.

Michael Dawney was several days into his break and was thoroughly enjoying the warm summer weather.

He was particularly looking forward to the family holiday in two weeks' time. They would spend their first week at Disneyworld and the second in the Florida Keys. It was going to be great – Dad was always so much more relaxed on holiday, and ready to play with him whenever he wanted. At home he was always much too busy for anything like that. Leaving the house early each morning and returning late at night, Peter Dawney rarely saw his son except at weekends. Michael's mum, Alice, was around, of course, but she was pretty hopeless at sports. Today she had her friends coming around for a coffee morning.

So the morning seemed to spread out before him, the total opposite to a school day, when everything was such a frantic rush to get out of the house in time. It was nine thirty before he was sitting at the kitchen table, slowly spooning Frosties into his mouth as he watched
Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy
on the Cartoon Network.

‘Can I go outside to play now, Mum?' he asked, as he finished the last mouthful of his breakfast.

‘Course you can, love – I'm going up to have a shower. Just remember to clean your teeth before you go out.' She kissed him on the forehead and went upstairs.

Their large back garden bordered on an area of woodland that could be reached through a gate in the open-slatted fence. Michael had been told never to set foot in the woodland without his parents. He didn't mind – the truth was he found the woodland creepy. In the wintertime, especially when the light started to fail in the late afternoon, it started to look like the murky pictures of haunted forests that appeared in fairy-tale books, with tree trunks so gnarled that they looked like the arms and legs of old people.

He knew exactly how he planned to spend his morning. He would build himself a ramp out of a plank of wood and a few old bricks, then jump it with his bike. He'd need to work quietly, and around the corner from the kitchen – if Mum saw him doing it, she would no doubt suggest that he did something a bit safer. But, in Mikey's experience, safer meant less fun, and what was the point of having a stunt bike if you weren't allowed to do a few stunts on it?

It took at least ten minutes to gather together all the bricks he wanted from the side of the patio – nine of them in all – and place them in a neat block well out of the way of Mum's gaze. The plank of wood he'd had his eye on was upended against the back of the garage; he dragged it round to his makeshift obstacle course and lifted one end on to the bricks. He was ready to go.

Walking through the woods and up the steep hill had left him sweaty and short of breath.

He had been there many times before and knew exactly where to stop for the best view of the house. He placed his bag on the ground
beside the large oak tree and removed the binoculars, quickly focusing on the image of the small boy riding his bike over the low ramp. The boy was cautious at first, probably because he was afraid of falling off. But as his confidence grew, he rode more quickly and jumped further.

He laid out the contents of the bag, making sure one last time that he had not forgotten anything. He then made his way back down the hill to where he had parked his van. He opened the back doors and smiled as a mongrel puppy began excitedly jumping up towards him. He picked the dog up gently and cradled it in his arms, allowing it to lick his face as he carried it back up into the woods.

When he reached his vantage point, he placed the dog down on the ground, stroking it firmly enough to hold it in place. His eyes lit up as he slipped the leather gauntlet on to his right hand. And then he struck. His hand moved as quick as a flash, grabbing one of the dog's rear legs hard, bracing it between his thumb and forefinger and squeezing harder and harder until … crack … the bone gave way, breaking clean in two.

Michael was riding faster than ever towards the ramp when he heard an almightily scream. At first it sounded like the screeching sound foxes made at night but, as the wailing continued, Michael knew it was the desperate cry of an animal in pain.

He dropped his bike and ran towards the fence, peering into the thicket. A flash of movement caught his eye – a small dog flailing around on the ground just a few feet away. He looked back towards the house and called for his mother, but there was no answer. Although he knew he shouldn't go in the woods, it would take only a few seconds to rescue the dog and bring it back to
the house, where his mother could help him look after it. He gave a final look back to the house before running towards the gate.

He had already removed the top of the bottle of chloroform and soaked the cotton-wool pads when the boy emerged from the gate. He crouched down out of sight behind the trunk of the tree and peered around as the boy reached the spot where the dog lay.

He watched as the boy knelt down and began to stroke the injured animal, looking around cautiously to see if the dog's owner was anywhere to be found. The boy gently lifted the dog up into his arms, being careful not to damage the broken leg further, then turned and headed back to the gate.

The dog's screams covered up the sound of the man's approach. It took only a few steps for him to reach the boy. In one swift movement his left hand pulled the boy's head back into his lower chest while his right hand held the cotton-wool over the boy's nose and mouth.

The boy dropped the dog in fright and clawed uselessly at his hands before slowly going limp. The man released his grip, and the boy fell to the ground. He knelt beside him, running his fingers gently through the boy's hair. ‘By the disobedience of one man,' he said softly, ‘many were made sinners.'

Alice Dawney had showered, dressed and fixed her hair just the way she liked it. The first of her friends were due around for their coffee morning in little less than an hour, which left her just enough time to do something with Michael.

The pair had long ago decided that games of football or catch were hopeless when it was just the two of them,
but perhaps they could build something out of Magnetix together – he always liked that.

She opened the back door and stepped outside. ‘Mikey!' she called. ‘Where are you, love? What are you doing?'

There was no reply, so she walked around the corner. That was odd. Mikey's bike was on its side, next to a not very safe-looking contraption that he had constructed out of bricks and that old plank she had been trying to get Peter to take to the tip for weeks now. But Mikey wouldn't just leave his bike like that: it was his pride and joy. He must be round the other side of the house, where they had erected the goalpost, having decided to play football instead.

Alice walked round. ‘Mikey!' she called again. ‘I thought we could do something together.'

Still no reply. And still no sign of him. She felt her heart start to pulse a little faster, and she quickened her step to complete the circuit of the house and bring her back to the kitchen door. ‘Mikey!' Her voice was shrill now. Panicked. This wasn't like him at all. ‘Joke's over now. Stop hiding.' She found herself back at the bike. It lay there, immobile. All around was still, oppressively silent.

And then she saw something that made her catch her breath. The garden gate was open. A sickness rose in her as she stepped slowly towards it and passed through it. In the woods outside, just a few feet away, she saw one of Michael's shoes. His new trainer. They had only bought them on Friday afternoon. He was so proud of them. Why would he leave it there? Why would he go into the woods at all?

She held the shoe in her hand and gazed at it; a tingling hotness enveloped her whole body, and she noticed that her hand was shaking. Instantly she turned, as though a spell had been broken, and at the same time a low moan escaped her lips. She ran back towards the kitchen door, her legs trembling beneath her. They nearly gave way as she ran through the kitchen and into the hallway, where the cordless phone was resting on its base. ‘Mikey!' she yelled up the stairs, even as she found herself automatically dialling a number on the keypad. ‘Mikey, are you up there?'

No answer.

The phone rang at the other end. ‘Peter Dawney,' her husband answered in his ‘work voice', which always sounded so different to the one he used with her.

‘It's me,' she whispered breathlessly.

‘Alice,' he said in surprise and concern. ‘Darling, what's the matter?'

Alice found herself hyperventilating, unable to speak.

‘Darling, calm down. Take a deep breath.' She did as she was told. ‘What on earth's wrong?'

‘It's Mikey,' she finally managed to say. ‘I don't know where he is. I can't find him. He's gone.'