Waking Broken (31 page)

They hit with a bone-shaking thud. Harper landed with one shoulder and arm on the edge of the stones and managed to grab the stump of an old section of railing. Most of Van Hulle’s body hung over the water but as he fell he had also managed to lock an arm around Harper’s neck.

Harper found himself looking through a halo of fog straight into the Dutchman’s cold eyes. ‘If I go, Mr Harper, you go with me.’

Harper smiled. ‘Is that right?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

Harper drew his head back and snapped his forehead straight against the bridge of Van Hulle’s nose. The impact sent a painful jolt through Harper’s skull but he also heard a satisfying crunch and a scream from his opponent. The arm around his neck slackened and Van Hulle began to fall. The burst of pain in Harper’s own head also served to drive back the fog and clear his vision.

Scenting safety, Harper started trying to roll away from the millrace.

But, as he did so, Van Hulle’s hands scrabbled at his jacket and wrapped themselves around the cloth. Inches from escape, Harper found himself wrenched back the other way. Then he was falling, tumbling through the air with Van Hulle.

Water exploded as the two bodies hit. Together they sank, still twisting, disappearing beneath the surface and into salty darkness. Billows of muddy water engulfed them and then the tide’s growing current took them, already strong enough to drag their bodies away from the wheel, up the millrace and towards the river’s entrance.

Choking, Harper tried to claw his way to the surface, totally blind and hoping he was heading in the right direction. Beside him, Van Hulle struck out, feet and hands flailing as he too fought for air.

They surfaced inches apart, grabbing at each other as they were pulled between the stone walls. They were still grappling when the flow pushed them against the thick metal bars that guarded the entrance to the millrace: a barrier installed to stop flotsam and jetsam being washed into the channel by the river and jamming the mill wheel. There was a dim light here and Harper had a glimpse of night sky where the waterway emerged into the open.

But he also realised he was trapped. The water in the channel was already too deep to stand up in. The only escape was back down the millrace with the tide growing more powerful with every moment. And even then, if he made it out from beneath the metal grille, the one way up would be via the remains of the mill wheel, climbing the metal frame where Stacey Cole’s body hung from its chains.

Harper gave a grim smile to himself as he floundered in the water, the cold seeping through his clothes. There was no possibility of him being able to swim back up the millrace. He was too weak and, even in the near darkness, he sensed the fog gathering again in his vision.

But Van Hulle was another matter. The killer was not only bigger but clearly a lot stronger. The Dutchman might struggle against the tide but there was no guarantee of him being trapped.

Harper could barely see and knew he had no time left. He heard the splashing beside him and gritted his teeth; there was still one way for him to make a difference in this world.

Using the last of his strength, he launched himself at Van Hulle.

Saturday, 10.06am:

The yard at the Pine Mill Warehouses was already full when Glasgow’s silver Vauxhall Vectra pulled up. He glanced at the vehicles inside. Apart from a couple of marked police cars, he recognised Jim Stanley’s blue Mondeo and a van used by the scenes-of-crime team.

Glasgow parked next to one of the wooden gates. He pulled out his warrant card as he approached but the uniformed officer on guard had already recognised him.

‘Through the door over there, sir.’ The young PC pointed across the yard. ‘Follow it to the left, keep heading on and you’ll find them all. Inspector Stanley’s expecting you.’

‘Thanks.’

Glasgow let out a sigh as he approached the entrance to the mill. His breath formed a cloud in the frigid morning air. He pulled his overcoat tighter and did up the buttons. He was cold, tired and hungry. All he wanted were some answers. He just prayed the team inside had found something to give him a lead.

For him, it had all begun close to midnight with a call from a constable at the city’s hospital. Louise Brent had walked into A&E, cradling a young boy with serious injuries. Although the missing woman was suffering from exhaustion and a number of minor injuries, the child had been the focus of attention. In the rush to deal with him, none of the hospital staff had paid much immediate attention to how the two of them had got into such a state. It was only after Louise borrowed a phone to call her boyfriend and he contacted the police that someone went to interview her.

Luckily, the officer sent to the hospital had been smart enough to raise the alarm as soon as she heard the bones of the story. After that, it had not taken too long for the messages to work their way along the chain and for Glasgow’s phone to go off.

He had reached the hospital within ten minutes of getting the call. A few minutes after speaking to Louise, Glasgow had officers on their way to the Caledonia Barracks. They soon spotted the ladder in the grass outside the main gates. Finding the entrance to the workshops and the cell where she had been held took a bit longer.

But as soon as that part of her story was confirmed, Glasgow and two burly uniforms left the hospital — on their way to break down Isaiah Van Hulle’s door and, hopefully, give him a rude awakening.

Sadly, the developer’s home had been empty. To Glasgow’s eye it also lacked all traces of any kind of normal personality. There was very little furniture and nothing to provide comfort. The bed was just a sheet on the floor next to a wardrobe. What the house did contain in quantity was religious paraphernalia: icons, printed tracts and gory paintings of martyrs and massacres. Nothing obvious, however, to indicate the Dutchman had been up to anything illegal.

Glasgow had prowled around the house for a while, trying to decide if he could justify seizing the computer in what appeared to be Van Hulle’s private office. Eventually, deciding to keep the place intact for the moment, he left his colleagues stationed across the road: discretely watching the building’s front door. In the meantime, the inspector had jumped back into his car and headed to the barracks.

Glasgow was still there, staring at the words painted on the walls above Louise’s prison — wondering when he would be able to get a SOCO team out to investigate the building and the red van parked outside — when his phone went off again.

This time it was a message relayed from the Kavanaugh Centre. A pair of PCs on city centre patrol had raised the alarm. They went to the building site after being accosted in the street by Brendan Teague, a photographer from
The Daily Post
. At first, the two officers had thought the Irishman was winding them up and threatened to arrest him for being drunk and disorderly. It took some time for Teague to persuade them to check out his story. Soon after he did though, blue lights were converging on the former shopping centre from all directions.

With two major incidents by then underway — on top of the usual Friday night nonsense — the night shift at the force’s control centre had been having trouble keeping on top of the information flow.

As a result, it was nearly three in the morning before Glasgow got called to the scene. He arrived as Paul Cash and his young assistant were still battling to persuade someone to try to find Danny Harper. Despite the fact that the journalist was already flagged as someone being sought in connection with a live inquiry, the uniformed officers did not view his well-being an immediate priority. They were more bothered about trying to rescue the woman inside the wall.

But when Glasgow arrived, three words got his attention straight away.

‘Isaiah van Hulle?

‘That’s what I’ve been saying,’ said Paul Cash.

‘He’s the one!’ The dark-haired woman, Rebecca Shah, was clearly agitated. ‘Danny says he’s been snatching women off the street.’

‘Yeah?’ The detective nodded. ‘How did he know?’

‘I’m not sure.’

Rebecca’s eyes flicked to the left as she spoke. Glasgow noticed but decided not to challenge her. Finding Van Hulle was far more important.

‘So, you’ve no idea where he’s gone?’

‘Not for definite.’ She shook her head. ‘He said there were several places Van Hulle might have the women. There was a garage somewhere and the old barracks.’

Glasgow stiffened. He wondered whether she might have heard something over one of the police radios at the scene.

‘But we think he went to the warehouses at Pine Mill. That was the first place he mentioned.’ Rebecca looked anguished. ‘Will you send someone to look for him. I… I don’t think he’s well. And if he runs into this Van Hulle person he could be in danger.’

Glasgow nodded. ‘But you don’t know where Van Hulle himself is?’

‘No. But Danny thinks he was here. He saw someone in the shadows just before we arrived.’

Cash stepped forwards. He indicated the board next to the gates to the building site. ‘If it’s any help, I think that sign is connected. Mr Harper seemed under the impression the security firm was the link between the sites Van Hulle is using.’

The DI stared at the words: Vigil Security. He had seen the company’s name beside the entrance to the Caledonia Barracks.

The Vigil sign was there again when he arrived — not many minutes later — at the Pine Mill Warehouses.

Glasgow had not been entirely sure what he hoped to find inside the semi-derelict riverside complex. It appeared he was following a trail left by Danny Harper but, while the journalist was no longer top of his list of suspects, tracking him down appeared to be his best hope of finding Van Hulle.

Spotting Paul Cash’s pink Rolls Royce had been easy enough. After that, though, the trail soon went cold. Glasgow found the gates to the warehouses open but a hurried, torchlight inspection of the sprawling warren of old buildings revealed no obvious clues.

It was sometime after four in the morning when Glasgow abandoned his search. He had not finished examining the mill site but there were too many other things going on. He needed to organise the hunt for Isaiah Van Hulle and talk further with his witnesses. The only one he completely trusted was Louise Brent; he just hoped she was still awake and that the doctors would let him talk to her.

The next breakthrough came from a tip-off shortly after seven o’clock. An early morning dog walker had spotted a body, trapped on the inside of the metal grille where the mill race flowed back out into the river.

Glasgow was not present when the corpse was recovered. By that stage, he had managed a second, brief conversation with Louise Brent and was co-ordinating the start of a major manhunt for Isaiah Van Hulle. Teams of officers were mounting surveillance on the developer’s offices as well as his home, plus any sites they could trace where his main company — and Vigil Security — were supposed to be working.

Now, Glasgow was back at the Pine Mill Warehouses trying to play catch up and work out what the hell he had missed last night.

Inside, it was a very different scene from six hours earlier. Figures wearing white oversuits swarmed around the remains of the old water wheel and the channel running through the mill’s floor. For a moment they struck Glasgow as uncannily like a bunch of religious devotees at a shrine.

The detective inspector glanced around uncertainly, unable to spot Jim Stanley’s bald head. Then a glimpse of blonde hair caught his eye and he set off. Even if Sharon Redman was not beside her boss, Stanley’s sergeant would know his location.

The scenes-of-crime officers and civilian techs ignored Glasgow as he approached the melee. On entering the mill he had reluctantly shed his overcoat and donned one of the white suits. Now he just looked like another of the drones. Camera flashes were going off at various locations and one group of white-clad SOCOs were measuring marks on the floor next to the wheel. Looking down into the race, Glasgow saw two officers in waders. The tide was ebbing but the current sucking at the men’s legs still retained plenty of power.

‘Fancy a dip?’

The voice came from behind him and Glasgow shook his head. ‘I don’t like getting in water when I can’t see what’s in there.’

Jim Stanley clapped a hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s the temperature that gets me. Must be bloody freezing down there.’ He shook his head. ‘Guess that’s one advantage of rank: get some other poor buggers to do your dirty work.’

One of the scenes-of-crime men glanced up and gave Stanley a grimace. The inspector grinned back. ‘Brandy’s on me when you get out, lads. A double for every half hour you’re down there.’

The man gave a brief smile. ‘I’d rather still be tucked up with the missus.’

Glasgow turned away to face his fellow DI. ‘What have you found, Jim?’

Stanley shook his head. ‘Bits and pieces. I’m not sure we’ve come up with anything concrete. Apart from the body, which you already know about, we’ve got one bullet casing, some blood, a few bits of hair and skin.’

He frowned. ‘Oh… and the manacles, of course.’

Glasgow pulled a face. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands: desperate for a strong coffee and a hot shower. It felt like he had been juggling confusion since late last night and his brain was struggling to keep up.

‘So… have we got a confirmed ID on the body?’

Stanley tipped his head to one side. ‘Looks like it. There was a wallet in the pocket with an NUJ card. Picture seems to match.’

‘Cause of death?’

‘Well, whether he drowned or not, he was quite a mess. Bit strange really, looked like he’s taken a few beatings recently. He was covered with bruises but they weren’t all fresh.’

Glasgow frowned. ‘Some were though?’

Stanley nodded. ‘Oh yeah. Mr Harper had been in a bit of a scrap not long before he died. Someone tried to strangle him: finger marks all around his neck.’

He gestured to the SOCOs analysing the floor near the end of the mill race. ‘Something happened over there last night too. Luckily for us, this place isn’t exactly clean and — even apart from having had some dumb copper running around earlier in the night — we’ve got quite a few footprints and other interesting marks on that bit of floor.’

Stanley shrugged. ‘Something definitely went down in front of the wheel. We’ve got a bit of fabric caught on a metal stump that matches the jacket our man in the water was wearing. There are also a few traces of blood on the edge there. We’re still working on it but we’ve got a reasonable idea that our Mr Harper was involved in some kind of fight, went in the water and either couldn’t get out and drowned. Or, more likely, someone held him under and drowned him.’

‘Hmm.’ Glasgow frowned. ‘So what about the bullet casing?’

‘Not so sure about that.’ Stanley pointed towards another group of investigators. ‘There’s more blood over there. A fair bit of it too. Probably from a gunshot wound. We’ve also got more footprints. It’s hard to be certain but it looks like there were at least four people here last night, possibly five, maybe even six.’

‘Christ!’ Glasgow shook his head. ‘What the fuck was going down here?’

‘There’s one other thing that’s odd.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Remember I told you we’d found some more manacles? These ones were on the mill wheel itself. Exactly like the ones we found in the sewer at Smith Street. Thing is, these ones had been used.’

‘What?’ Glasgow jerked around.

‘Yeah.’ Stanley’s face was grim. ‘We got some bits of skin and blood off one of the manacles. But the really odd thing…’

‘What?’

‘Well… it’ll have to be tested in the lab but the pathologist reckons it’s from a corpse. And not a fresh one either. Looks like whoever was hanging there had been dead for quite a few days.’ Stanley hesitated. ‘But from the scuff marks and blood, it appears they were alive when they were chained up.’

Glasgow’s eyes widened. ‘What the fuck,’ he muttered. ‘There’s not another body down in the water?’

Stanley shook his head. ‘Not that we can find. The guys down there have been through the race but there’s no trace of one. We’re trying to get hold of someone from the Environment Agency, see if we can block off the race and drain the water out. But I don’t reckon we’ll come up with anything much. There’s not even a lot of mud. The current keeps the channel clean. If there was another body here, I reckon someone’s taken it away.’