Two Evils: A DI Charlotte Savage Novel (43 page)

‘Heeelllppp meeeeee!’ Sleet screamed off to Riley’s right. ‘Arrrggghhh!’

There was a high-pitched whine and a rush of air. Riley pushed himself up from the floor. Bulkhead lights on the walls provided a low illumination and he could see Sleet lying on the stainless steel table beneath a huge gantry, a trellis of tubing supporting various pieces of machinery. A circular saw on some sort of mount. A drill attached to a vertical bar. A huge piston thing with a knife attached.

Riley ran forward. Sleet lay face up, his torso sliced skin and muscle, blood oozing from dozens of cuts.

‘Urrrgggghhh!’ Sleet gurgled, spitting red mucus. ‘Arrrggghhh!’

Riley stood at the side of the table looking for some sort of stop button. The saw began to descend again, the blade flashing in the light. Riley put his hands out and grabbed the metal arm the saw was attached to. For a moment he thought he’d stopped it, but the power of the hydraulic arm was too much and the saw moved down, the teeth ripping into Sleet’s legs.

‘Arrrggghhh!’

The cacophony of whining and drilling and pumping and whirring seemed to rise in pitch along with Sleet’s screams. Riley hauled himself up onto the table using a corner of the gantry. He stood and reached for a loom of cable which rose from the gantry and then looped across to some sort of junction box high on one wall. He pulled with one hand and then used both, hanging in mid-air for a moment before there was a loud bang accompanied by a shower of sparks as the cable ripped itself from the junction box and Riley fell to the floor. The noise from the machine tools ceased and the only sound was a faint gasping from Sleet.

Then the lights went out.

Savage’s mobile buzzed in her pocket. She pulled the phone out and looked down at the text message. ‘They’re here,’ she said.

‘Let’s go then.’ Parker pointed with the Taser. ‘Downstairs. Everyone. You first, then the boys and then me. Go on.’

‘We’re coming down!’ Savage shouted out. ‘Keep clear!’

The two lads swivelled on the windowsill and Savage saw their faces for the first time. Tear-stained, white with fear, on one of the boy’s cheeks a nasty bruise. They clambered down as best they could, their hands bound together in front of them.

‘Don’t worry,’ Savage said, trying to smile. ‘Everything’s going to be OK.’

She walked out onto the landing and edged down the stairs. The two boys followed, the ropes running limply from their necks back to Parker. Parker had the Taser and the rope in one hand and in the other he held a flick knife.

‘I’m warning you, Savage,’ Parker shouted. ‘I could slit their throats in half a second.’

‘Nobody’s going to try anything, Brenden. Just stay calm.’

‘Oh, I’m calm all right.’

They made it to the top of the main stairs and then began to descend. Bright light illuminated the hallway, and through the front door, Savage could see a woman standing on the porch. Beside her, a cameraman hunkered behind a camera on a tripod. Both the woman and the man wore padded jackets, ‘BBC’ emblazoned on the front pockets.

Savage edged forward, the two children following.

‘Wait!’ Parker shouted from behind. He had the knife held out. ‘We stop here and Hardin comes across.’

‘Release the—’

‘WE DO AS I SAY OR WE GO BACK IN!’ Parker screamed. He waved the Taser at Savage. Then he smiled and whispered, ‘OK, send Hardin over, I’ll make a statement, I’ll release the kids and then I get to go upstairs with you and PC Plod.’

‘I’m coming in.’ In the darkness beyond the lights a bulky figure moved and Hardin lumbered from the shadows. He climbed the short flight of steps to the porch and nodded at Savage. ‘The boys all right, Charlotte?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good, good.’ Hardin half turned and raised a finger.

The reporter edged slightly to the left and held out a microphone. Everything beyond the lights was black. Like looking into a torch beam. The reporter had begun to say something but Savage wasn’t hearing her. Her attention was held by the cameraman. Or more succinctly his boots. Hi-Tech Magnums. Not the sort of footwear she’d expect a BBC employee to be wearing. And there was something very wrong with the camera. No way the guy was going to get any usable footage with the lens cap on.

Parker didn’t appear to have noticed anything amiss. He moved forward and his bad eye squinted against the lights. He gestured to Hardin to stand to one side and then used the Taser to push the boys in front of him, the knife held horizontally as if ready to slash the blade across both their throats. The reporter extended her arm further, the microphone like a carrot to tempt a donkey. Parker took another step and the slightest hint of a smile spread on the woman’s face. Except now Savage realised she wasn’t a reporter at all. She was DC Becky Miles from the Covert Operations Unit.

‘None of this was my fault,’ Parker said. ‘There has been a catalogue of errors. PC Hardin should have—’

From out of the black, Savage thought she saw a tiny flash of light, heard an almost indiscernible
phut
.

Parker stood still for a moment, a growing circle of blood on his forehead. Savage leapt forward and grabbed Parker’s knife arm, pulling the blade away from the children as he slipped to the floor. One of the boys started screaming and then, from behind the lights, emerged Luke Farrell and a female FLO.

‘It’s over,’ Luke said as he and the woman officer gathered up the boys and led them away. ‘Let’s get you back to your mums and dads. They’re waiting over here.’

Once they’d gone, the TV cameraman stepped from behind his tripod. His jacket slipped open, revealing a chest holster beneath. He moved to Parker and checked for signs of life. He glanced up at Savage and shook his head. Then he made a signal out into the blackness.

All at once the TV arcs went down to be replaced by a softer glow from a set of lights atop the mobile incident room van. Inspector Nigel Frey, the head of the Force Support Group, stood next to the van alongside Chief Constable Maria Heldon. Savage took a final look at Parker and then she and Hardin walked over.

‘Well done, DI Savage,’ Maria Heldon said. ‘Excellent work.’

‘Parker,’ Savage said. ‘He never stood a chance, did he?’

‘A chance?’ Heldon said. ‘No, we couldn’t take the risk.’

‘I gave the order to fire as soon as it was safe to do so,’ Frey said. ‘The sniper was off to the left. Twenty metres. The walls to each side of the steps shielded the children. There was no possibility of hitting them. As a backup the cameraman was an armed officer and Becky was there too. The risk to you and the DSupt was minimal.’

‘Minimal, yes.’ Savage glanced at Frey. She knew she should thank him – this was the second time Frey and his officers had come to her rescue – but inside she was strangely devoid of emotion. If this was a victory, it was one where the winning came with a price attached. She half smiled at Frey as he walked off towards the house.

‘I guess you were right, DI Savage,’ Heldon said. ‘Parker didn’t stand a chance. But we couldn’t let him have one, could we?’

‘He wanted to tell his story,’ Savage said. ‘About the minister and what went on here. Will that still come out?’

‘Oh yes, I’m sure it will,’ Heldon said. She smiled. ‘Eventually.’

The Chief Constable turned on her heels and walked away to where an officer held open the door to her car. Savage stood for a moment and then spotted DC Calter standing beside a pool Focus parked at the side of the house. She walked across.

‘Ma’am?’ Calter reached out a hand and touched Savage on the arm. ‘You all right?’

‘Yes,’ Savage said. ‘I could do with a lift though.’

‘Sure.’ Calter clicked open the driver’s door. ‘To the station?’

Savage turned back to Woodland Heights. The building stood stark and grey in the glow from multiple sets of lights. Two CSIs were working at the front door where Brenden Parker’s body lay slumped on the steps. Rain had begun to fall and a low wind moaned against the distant cliffs.

‘No,’ Savage said as she shivered. ‘Home.’

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Crownhill Police Station, Plymouth. Monday 2nd November. 11.40 a.m.

It took the best part of the weekend for the meetings, paperwork and debriefs to subside. Savage lost count of the number of forms she had to fill in and the number of statements she had to make and sign. Monday morning, thinking she was at last getting on top of everything, she went to the crime suite to find three officers from the Professional Standards Department poring over an array of documents DS Gareth Collier had laid out for them.

‘Vultures,’ Collier whispered as he stood next to Savage. ‘Scavenging for easy pickings.’

PSD, it turned out, were interested in discovering if mistakes had been made in the
Curlew
/
Lacuna
investigations. Their arrival coincided with the news that Angie Hobb was taking legal action against Devon and Cornwall Police and her brief was Amanda Bradley. The lawyer had neatly segued from representing Ned Stone into what could be a nice little earner. She’d linked the historical
Curlew
case with the present-day
Lacuna
one and indicated she intended to show gross negligence and/or conspiracy in both. Maria Heldon, in countermove, had self-referred the force to the IPCC. Savage thought it unlikely either the PSD, the IPCC or Amanda Bradley would get anywhere near the truth of what had happened all those years ago.

‘The words “shit” and “fan” come to mind.’ Collier took a cloth and scrubbed something from the whiteboard. He stared at the smudge of black he’d made and then wiped again until all remnants of the marker pen had gone. ‘We did our best though, didn’t we?’

Savage didn’t answer, aware the question was rhetorical, the tone in Collier’s voice enough to show he, at least, didn’t think they had. She wasn’t sure either, but in the end she remembered a maxim her old boss, DCI Walsh, had often used when things had gone wrong:
Don’t beat yourself up; it’s the criminals who commit the crimes
.

Who the criminals in the
Curlew/Lacuna
case were, Savage wasn’t sure. The government minister, obviously. Brenden and Frank Parker, yes – and Parker Senior would be going down for murder. Elijah Samuel? The CPS were talking about charging him for helping Frank Parker to conceal Jason Caldwell’s body, but Savage thought a successful prosecution remote. Ned Stone, a criminal if she’d ever seen one, looked like he was getting off scot-free, for telling Brenden Parker where he could find Perry Sleet was hardly a crime. Bernie Black – Hardin’s old boss – had died years ago so his actions would also go unpunished. Then there was the man from Special Branch. His identity was a mystery and looked likely to remain so. Finally, there was Conrad Hardin. Would the man who’d been at the bottom of the chain of command end up taking the flack? Savage hoped not.

In the canteen for a late lunch, she found Hardin sitting at a table on his own. A cup of milky coffee stood on the table and the DSupt was dunking a ginger nut as she pulled up a chair, put down her food, and sat.

‘Charlotte.’ Hardin looked up and then took a bite of the biscuit. ‘You want a word?’

‘Yes.’ She hadn’t had a chance to speak to Hardin one-to- one since the events at the home. She poked the tuna salad in front of her with her fork. ‘About last Thursday.’

‘Right.’ Hardin finished his biscuit and then took a sip of coffee. He made a face. ‘Go on.’

‘The Chief Constable said she couldn’t take the risk with Brenden Parker. If I was a cynic, I’d say she meant she wasn’t keen to hear what Parker had to say. The end result suited her.’

‘You need to understand that the Home Secretary had called her earlier in the day. Impressed upon her the need to handle the incident carefully. The situation was, in all senses of the word, volatile. Still is, to be honest. Apparently the
Herald
have got wind of something. Dan Phillips is pretty shrewd and I bet it won’t be long before he joins the dots. This isn’t going away, Charlotte, even if some people up in London wish it would.’

‘Has Dan got the whole story?’

‘I don’t know. You’d better ask him.’

‘I mean, does he know about the photograph?’

‘Of course not.’ Hardin went for another ginger nut. ‘But Heldon knows. And she’s aware I told you.’

Savage nodded. She moved a piece of lettuce from one side of her plate to the other, not really interested in her food.

‘You deceived me, sir. On the phone. There was never any chance the BBC were going to turn up at the children’s home, but I believed you and so did Parker.’

‘I didn’t tell you the whole truth, but the deception was necessary.’

‘It was clever, sir, I’ll give you that. You offered to give Parker exactly what he wanted all those years ago and he fell for the trick because he simply wanted to be heard.’

‘I would have gone up there to save the boys, but he’d have killed both of us. The ploy seemed like the best option.’

Savage bent to her food. The tuna tasted dry and the coleslaw on the side was tart with vinegar. She gave up and reached for her own coffee as Hardin took another gulp of his. For a moment the noise and bustle of the canteen intruded and then Hardin spoke again.

‘You should know that
I
approved the use of lethal force, Charlotte. Not the Home Office, not the Chief Constable, not Nigel Frey. Parker’s death may have suited others, but the decision was mine. It was the only way to be sure of the boys’ safety.’

‘But—’

‘I let Jason Caldwell and Liam Hayskith down all those years ago. My actions led directly to the deaths of Jason Hobb and Liam Clough.’ Hardin shook his head. He took a handkerchief from his pocket. Savage could see his eyes were laden with moisture. ‘In my mind the risk wasn’t Parker exposing some elite paedophile ring, the risk was that another two boys might die. I couldn’t have their deaths on my conscience, do you understand?’

Savage thought back to Thursday night. She remembered the boys’ faces as they’d climbed down from the window and again as they’d been returned to their parents. Then she thought, inevitably, of her own children, of how she’d do anything –
anything
– to protect them from harm.