Nails In A Coffin (Demi Reynolds Book 1) (15 page)

DCI Francis and DI Craig pulled into a car park. Francis was driving and biting her lip at the same time. She was obviously distracted, and Lionel decided to try to calm her down a little by attempting a joke.

“What did one shark say to the other while eating a clownfish?” he asked, smiling a little already.

As Amy parked the car she gave him a look.

“Ah, come on! Lighten up!”

She shook her head and reluctantly said, “What did the clownfish-eating shark say?”

“This tastes funny!” he said, cackling a little.

She turned the engine off and sat there for a few seconds, looking blankly at Lionel, who was still smirking. His smile soon evaporated once he saw Amy wasn’t in the mood for jokes.

“I was only trying to make you smile a little. I know how bad you’re taking all of this,” he said, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a gum strip.

“I’m not taking this bad at all!” she exclaimed, rather defensively.

“I’m just saying, Amy. Lighten up. We’re police officers. Not guardians. We don’t owe anybody anything. As far as I see it, if some gangster kidnaps a scumbag and evidently said scumbag goes missing, why is it our job to find that scumbag? Surely there are real victims to console. Real people to protect. Actual victims to attend to.”

Amy shook her head emphatically and said, “So Demi Reynolds isn’t a ‘real’ victim?”

“Exactly! She’s the bane of society. No wonder the Met don’t want to waste valuable time and money on searching for this she-devil.”

Amy rolled her eyes and abruptly turned to face Lionel. The sound of her body twisting in the car seat made him pull a face. She was obviously pissed off, and he didn’t want to piss her off more. That was the least of his intentions. Amy Francis was a hard person to get along with when she wasn’t on a personal rescue mission, let alone when she was itching for “misplaced justice.”

“You don’t know the last thing about being a woman in this city,” Amy said bluntly, still staring a hole into her doting partner as he chewed on his gum and blinked a few times. “You don’t know what it’s like growing up on an estate and expected to be a certain way. Act a certain way. Like certain boys. Kiss the popular ones. Fuck the ones your friends consider cool. God forbid you find somebody who’s smart and fall in love with them. Oh, no! That won’t do. They won’t like that! They’ll tease you because you’re with some ‘wasteman.’ They’ll heckle him for learning and acting right, whilst all the hood rats fuck and suck all the ‘badmans’ out there. Before you know it, the people you once called friends go missing. They don’t come out to play anymore. They don’t hang out at the supermarket. They don’t drink in the park. They don’t attend the prom. They miss their GCSEs, and then I get worried. I ask for them. I call for them at their house. Their mother tells me they don’t live at home anymore. That they flew the nest. Met a nice lad with a car. Dresses smart. Acts tough yet is a softy. But I know different. I see it for what it is. A few years pass, and we’re all grown up. I bump into her at a supermarket. She’s got two kids by her side. One of those double pushchairs. They’re little brats. Don’t stop screaming. She looks like she hasn’t slept in years. She has circles around her eyes. I go in to kiss her on the cheek. She flinches. I see marks on her neck. Purple ones. Bruises on her arms. A fading shiner on her right eye.”

Lionel sat there and frowned.

“So girls like Demi Reynolds may be criminals. They may be ‘hood rats,’ but they’re survivors. Sometimes a girl has to do what a girl has to do,” Amy said, finally turning and facing the windshield again.

“I guess I never saw it that way. But I do have one question,” Lionel said.

Amy didn’t answer, she just sat there, staring.

“If every woman who ever lived in these places decided to take the law into her own hands, I’m sure the courts wouldn’t be saying, ‘Well, they did what they had to.’ Crime is crime. Murder is murder. Theft is theft. No matter the circumstances, people should pay for what they do wrong. If we looked at it the way you looked at it, then maybe we’d let everybody off. Everybody who grew up poor. Who lived in a broken home. The ones that were beaten and abused. Sexually and mentally. Why not let everybody go scot-free?”

Amy shook her head and opened the door. She got out and slammed the door shut. She walked off toward the building in front of them. Lionel read the sign above the entrance. It read: “Greater City of London CCTV Centre.”

If they were going to get a fresh lead on the missing Demi Reynolds, they’d find it here.

Lionel got out of the car and caught up to Amy. She was visibly upset, but he didn’t say anything. They remained silent as they entered the building. The two of them were scheduled to meet a contact at the building known in their profession as BIG BROTHER. It had eyes and ears everywhere in London. If somebody went missing, BIG BROTHER was the first port of call.

Amy was just hoping that it wouldn’t be the last.

Hamish was just about to reach for the door handle when Demi stopped him.

“Wait!” she barked, pointing at the blood dripping off the handle. The door to the barn looked as if it had been smudged with a hand print, as if whoever had gone in there was badly injured.

Hamish turned his head slightly and looked at their surroundings. He could hear his car’s engine ticking as it cooled down. The darkness of the field engulfed them, the only light visible coming from the cracks in the barn. The door looked like it had some sort of light source behind it. A small one, but enough to give off some light. Hamish felt his nerves biting away at his hands. They were shaking violently. He was anxious about whatever was behind the door.

“We should go in. We’re wasting time standing out here. He could hear us and catch us off guard,” Demi stated, lightly brushing her hand against his for comfort.

Hamish nodded. He was trying to regain his composure. He didn’t want to come off as a bag of nerves. The last thing he wanted to do was show Demi how he truly felt. He knew she was grateful for what he’d done for her, rescuing her from being buried alive, but what she didn’t know was it cost him a lot to do so. He was now terrified of what was going to happen to him. He didn’t know if he could contain his fear. But he knew that he had to. After all, he was the one with the shotgun. He was the one who’d rescued a trained killer. Even if he failed at pulling the trigger on his boss, he was sure that Demi herself would step in.

“Just take a few breaths, Hamish. Breathe in and out. Then exhale,” she said, gripping his hand. They were both standing still on the spot, staring at the barn door. Up close, they could see the grainy wooden surface as it receded with age. Hamish closed his eyes and breathed as Demi instructed him to. After a few seconds of breathing, he felt better. The crushing weight of anxiety had lifted a little, and the grip he had around his shotgun tightened with confidence. His left hand relaxed a little as he held onto her hand. She had smooth skin. She felt delicate. He could smell her scent. Even though it had been a while since she’d bathed — that much was obvious — he still thought she smelt wonderful.

“Okay, I’m ready,” he said, letting her hand go and holding the shotgun with both hands.

He pushed all feelings of guilt, fear, and love out of his mind. Now wasn’t the time for such feelings. Now was the time for vengeance and swift violence. Hamish had never been a man to harbor any of those feelings. But something had switched in him, and now he was a bag of them. A six-foot, five-inch, twenty-stone bag of emotions. And he was ready to put those emotions to good use.

He cocked the gun once again, for effect, and smashed through the wooden barn door. There was no warning, just explosive power. Demi looked on in surprise as she watched Hamish collide with the wood. The door splintered into planks and hit the floor with a timber-like echo. Hamish held the shotgun a few inches away from his chest. It was held low. Not quite standard procedure when holding a firearm. Most people who are trained to hold rifles and heavy weapons like a shotgun are told to keep it around the midriff, away from the shoulders. When a gun goes off, it kicks back. And if somebody is holding a rifle, and the butt is pressed against their chest, they’d suffer broken ribs and maybe even a fatal arrhythmia when they fired the weapon.

But Hamish was smart. Demi could tell that he’d used guns before. The way he entered the dimly lit barn, holding the weapon and sweeping the interior like a professional, meant that he had some sort of expert training. She reminded herself that when this was all over and done with, she’d ask him if he was ever in the army. But her thoughts were interrupted when she heard Hamish’s voice in the shadows.

“Demi, in here. Quickly!” he said.

She snapped out of her haze and quickly ran inside. Usually she wouldn’t be standing around like a lemon in a dangerous situation. Usually she’d help. But for some reason she had been stricken by fear. Everything that had happened to her had made her a little weary. She put it down to the fact that she was tired from her week-long torture-like captivity. But she had to pull herself together.

“Quickly, Demi!” she heard him say once again. She followed the sound of his voice. The dimness of the barn made her eyes squint. She couldn’t see much without doing so. The ground below her felt soggy and marsh-like. It smelt sour and bitter, a little like hair dye. She nearly bumped into a pillar. It was wooden. She steadied herself against it. The wood felt wet. She heard Hamish ask for her again. She was close. She stumbled around the pillar and found a shadowy figure crouched down, examining something.

“What? What’s wrong?” she asked.

It took a second or two for her eyes to adjust, but when they did, what she saw sent shockwaves down her spine.

“Fuck’s sake! He’s dead!” she said, staring at her dead boss, sounding a little disappointed. She had wanted to be the one who killed him.

“That’s not the least of our worries,” Hamish said, standing up and handing her a mobile phone. The screen glowed in the dark. She read what appeared to be a text message. It was brief.

Be there in ten minutes. Bringing some friends of ours to the party.

“Who sent that? And what does it mean?” Demi asked.

Hamish was about to answer when a beam of light hit his face and the distant sound of an approaching car rang in his eardrums. They both hit the deck immediately. Hamish was on his belly, and Demi was on her side. She was looking at her dead boss, Donny the Hat. The approaching vehicle was illuminating his corpse. She could see that he must have gotten injured when he crashed the hearse into the bush. He had a massive hole in his stomach. A branch was sticking out of his leg.

“Looks like Donny called for an extraction before he died. Shame he didn’t make it,” Hamish said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small cache of ammo. He laid the shells on the floor one by one. He counted them. Eight shells. Four reloads. Maybe six seconds each shot. Demi watched him calculate the kill, much like she would. He was an efficient killer. She admired him for that. In fact, she saw potential in him. Potential she wanted to tap into. Maybe they could work as a team. Maybe they could take some of London for themselves. But her train of thought quickly disappeared when the sound of the approaching vehicle stopped.

“Shit, they pulled up next to my car!” Hamish said under his breath.

Demi saw three men coming out of a Land Rover. They were holding shotguns and torches. She heard one of them talk about the car and how they recognized it as Hamish’s. Her heart sank. They were outnumbered. They had eight shots. They were up against three men who also had shotguns. If all three of them had eight shells on them, then they’d be able to kill her and Hamish twelve times over. Those were horrible odds, but Demi decided that she’d even it out a little.

“You open fire on them as soon as they step foot in here. Once you let off both shots, I’ll pounce on whoever is remaining, giving you time to reload,” she said.

Hamish nodded and said, “If we don’t make it out of here, I just wanted you to know that I — ”

Demi interrupted him before he could finish. “We can talk later. Now we kill.”

She got onto her knees and crawled toward the pillar. She waited for the first shot. Her breathing was heavy. Her hands were trembling. And then it all went Pete Tong.

They opened fire first. Demi went flying backward. Wood splinters fell from the roof. Pellets peppered the beams. Demi saw Hamish ducking for cover. He couldn’t get off his shot.

They had both of them pinned down.

“It’s been two hours, and we still haven’t pinpointed the guy’s whereabouts!” DCI Francis sighed as both she and her partner stared at the big screen in front of them. They were sitting in a CCTV control room. There were more than eighty-five different live shots beaming from a massive wall-mounted monitor. Lionel had wondered how big the screen was when he walked in a few hours prior. It was the biggest he had ever seen. But for a city like London, it was only scratching the surface of the security cameras available to them.

“You’d think with as many CCTV cameras we have in this city, that finding one damn man would be easy enough,” Amy said, still sounding annoyed.

Her partner looked on as the operator began to cycle through more images. They were scanning roads in the East End. Known roads that the police knew Donny the Hat frequently used. The thing with London street gangs and firms was that everything was split into territories. Most gangsters stick to those territories. If they didn’t, they usually ended up sparking off some sort of war. Amy and Lionel knew that Donny the Hat was a clever man. He wouldn’t risk using his usual routes if he was up to no good. He was the type of guy who would put territories to one side, mostly because he wasn’t someone you messed with. He could get away with walking down the streets of South London without receiving so much as a stare. His legend was well known. He was a violent man. A man nobody would cross. Even as far as the north of England, in places like Manchester and Liverpool, he was known as a don.

“I think this is a waste of time,” Lionel finally said, agreeing with his partner. They had been there long enough, and it was obvious to Lionel that they weren’t getting any closer to nailing their man. He was like an elusive shadow that only showed up when the sun was in a certain position.

“We will find him,” the operator said. He was the one controlling the cameras. He was a professional. Even though Amy and Lionel were audibly bored out of their minds, he didn’t lose his temper. He was used to the police acting like brats when it came to the CCTV control room. Many a time they would use the facilities at hand to do most of the work for them. It was people like the operator who put in the hours, scrolling cameras, looking at feeds, trying to pinpoint suspects, and when he finally found something of use, the police would take the credit and the operator would remain anonymous.

But it was people like him who kept a watchful eye on the great city of London. Nobody was going to tell him how to do his job or when to speed up. Even though he was used to holding his tongue, the obvious lack of interest from the two accompanying officers was grating on him.

“Come on, man. Let’s hurry this up a little. Amy and I are tired, and you seem to be dragging ass!” Lionel said.

The operator took his hands off the joystick and swiveled his chair around. He looked at the two detectives and shook his head.

“Be my guest and do it yourself. As far as I understood, this was a favor. Your boss called me up and told me that I didn’t owe you two anything, and if you were to give me shit, then I could tell you to sling your hook!” the operator said.

Amy looked at her partner and then back at the operator. “Sure, you don’t owe us anything, but this is an important case. Someone has gone missing, and we fear for their safety,” Amy said.

“
You
fear for her safety, more like,” Lionel interjected.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Amy asked.

The operator rolled his eyes and swiveled his chair back around toward the console. He put both hands back on the controls and started panning and zooming.

“As far as I’m concerned,” the operator said, “this person who’s gone missing shouldn’t be costing the taxpayers two and a half thousand pounds an hour.”

Amy sat in her chair behind the operator and watched him do his work. She was tempted to say something in their defense, but her partner butted in before she could do so.

“I’m with you on that one,” he said, smiling at Amy.

“She’s a person, too! Money shouldn’t be an option. I’m tired of everybody saying that we shouldn’t be wasting time on her. Like she isn’t worth anything. But last time I checked, it’s our job as law enforcement to make sure that we keep her safe. No matter what she is suspected of doing,” Amy said. She was tensing her jaw a little. The stress was getting to her.

The operator continued to work. He was flipping through various images at an impressive speed. He kept his eyes on the screen, ignoring both officers behind him.

“That may be true,” the operator said, typing something into his terminal. “But two and a half grand an hour, down here, could be spent catching a knife crime in action, or a rapist down the park. As far as the public are concerned, I think they’d prefer us working on those sort of cases. Not a suspected serial killer woman who may or may not have been kidnapped by her kingpin boss.”

Amy shook her head adamantly. She was starting to get annoyed. Her partner signaled her to calm down with his hand, raising it a little and then lowering it. She was just about to flip out when the operator made a weird noise.

“What?” Amy asked.

“Um, looks like she may have been kidnapped after all. I just caught a time-stamped feed from a couple of weeks ago. It’s her being escorted into a car by two very large men.”

Amy’s face gleamed. “Yes! That’s great. Finally, some bloody progress,” she said, getting up from her chair. She bent down slightly and kissed her partner’s forehead. He grimaced and wiped the smooch off with the back of his hand. “Where about was this captured?” she asked.

The operator turned in his chair once again. He had a different look on his face. She could see it wasn’t good news.

“Her flat. Just outside. On a lamppost across the street,” he said.

Her face grew red with anger. “I thought the CCTV was out in that area? That’s what the Met said!” she said, her voice a little raised and hoarse.

“Looks like they didn’t look hard enough, or they didn’t really care. I’m going with option two!” the operator said.

“So the murder could have been caught on that CCTV camera?” she asked.

“Nope. It’s not facing in the right direction. I checked.”

She started to pace up and down. “So what does this mean?” she asked.

“It looks like you were right. She’s been kidnapped.”

She raised her head slightly and looked at the big screen in front of her. She saw the still image on the screen. It showed two men forcefully shoving Demi Reynolds into the back of a car. They were holding what looked like axes. She couldn’t quite tell, but it was enough to confirm her theory.

“So, what next?” she asked.

The operator swiveled in his chair and got to typing on his terminal. She watched as the screen in front of her flickered with all sorts of information. He was scrolling through timestamps and files. He then turned back around and smiled.

“We get to work and find out what happened.”