CRIME ON THE FENS a gripping detective thriller full of suspense (24 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Nikki began her short walk home, then stopped abruptly. Mickey Smith! What would he think when his hero failed to turn up to visit him? Even worse, what if he got to hear that Joseph had been badly hurt? He should be told the truth, and it would be better coming from her. She could do nothing for her own child, but maybe she could help a boy who no one cared about. With a sigh, she turned around, went back for her car, and drove to the clinic.

The night staff told her that Jonas had been fretting, unable to settle and seemed unduly frightened, even though the protection officers were with him. As Nikki pushed open his door, she was glad she had made the effort. He had helped them, and no matter how tired she was, it was only fair that they do the right thing by him.

She pulled up a chair, and gently explained about Joseph. Although she softened the story, she decided not to lie to him. After a while, the boy cried, and to her astonishment, she cried with him.

‘He’s special,’ said Jonas, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his pyjamas.

‘I know,’ said Nikki, sniffing into a tissue. ‘And now you two have got a lot in common, haven’t you? When he’s better, you’ll be able to compare war wounds.’

The boy nodded. ‘He will get better, won’t he?’

Nikki didn’t want to frighten the lad with the real prognosis, one that was far from reassuring, so she said, ‘I’ve spoken to the doctors, and they are really happy with his progress.’

‘Good. Maybe he could come here when he’s a bit better. We could share a room.’

‘He’d like that,’ said Nikki with a grin. ‘Except he’d nick all your comics.’

‘Who hurt him?’ The boy suddenly asked.

‘Frankie Doyle,’ said Nikki evenly.

‘Then we’ve got even more in common.’ He looked at her warily. ‘But I really don’t want to talk about that, okay?’

I knew it!
she thought, then said, ‘Absolutely. No questions tonight, I promise.’

‘And you really have caught her?’ Fear clouded his bruised face.

‘Locked up in a cell.’

‘And her bloke, the dealer?’

‘Not yet, but we will. We got all the others, including Fluke, so you really are safe now.’

‘I don’t feel it. And Doyle’s bloke is still free. Maybe he’ll come after me in the night!’

‘He won’t, I won’t let him.’

‘But you’re not going to be here, are you?’ Tears filled the boy’s eyes once again, and Nikki’s heart went out to him. Joseph had finally made the lad feel that he had someone in this world, someone who cared about him, and then, bang, no one again.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Nikki softly. ‘Give me a minute, and I’ll be back, okay?’

She slipped out and found the night sister, and after a short conversation, returned to the boy. ‘Sorted.’ She smiled at him, ‘You, young man, are going to get some proper sleep.’ The door opened and a nurse entered carrying in a smart fold-up bed and some brightly coloured pillows and covers. ‘And so am I! We’re in this together. Okay, Private Jonas, old buddy?’

Mickey/Jonas gave her a relieved smile, pulled the bedcovers closer to him, then saluted. ‘Understood, Inspector Nik!’

* * *

The night nurse woke her as arranged, just before dawn. After several hours spent in a camp-bed, lying next to a boy who had more bruises than a bare-knuckle fighter, Nikki had not expected to wake up feeling good. In fact she hadn’t expected to even sleep. But she had. And she felt very good. She had dreaded going back to her miserable flat, a place that was only inhabited by her own dark thoughts, and Mickey’s night fears had provided her with the perfect compromise.

The boy had slept soundly too, and the weak light of dawn through his window seemed to melt away his earlier terrors. Nikki felt happy to leave him. His distress had been out of proportion, but considering what had happened to him he had every reason to be scared, and there was always the outside chance, a million to one maybe, that one of the gang had sussed out their deception and decided to close his chatty little mouth forever. She didn’t think that was the case for one minute, but she was still happy with the decision that she had made.

She left him with promises that she would keep him updated with news of Joseph, and that she would return at the end of the day to visit him. As she stepped out into the corridor and looked back, she saw the pathetic, bandaged child, and a feeling of intense emotion flooded through her. Some sort of a bond had developed between them when they had spoken about Joseph. Something she couldn’t define, but she knew that Mickey had allowed her in, and she felt almost humbled because of it.

She waved to him, and he gave her a thumbs up.

‘You really helped him, you know.’ The nurse lightly touched her arm. ‘He’d been agitated all evening. We were considering a sedative, but we prefer not to with paediatric head injuries.’ She looked back through the doorway. ‘He looks a different boy now. You and that nice sergeant would make a good team! You both seem to have the knack with a problem child.’

As the nurse walked off, Nikki smiled in amusement. Her previous reputation with young tearaways had been far from creditable, in fact most of her colleagues liked to keep her at least 100 metres from anything in trainers, jeans and a hoody! This was something of a first.

She left the clinic, called in at a small market café, and grabbed a large coffee and a bacon sandwich to go. The sleep, all be it short and sweet, had been great, now she needed sustenance to keep her grey cells ticking over. She was going to need both energy and a brain, if she were to find Kerry Anderson.

As she waited for her sandwich, she rang the hospital to check on Joseph. The nurse on the ward was cagey, but said he was comfortable, whatever that meant, and they were cautiously optimistic that he would not need more surgery. The next twenty-four hours were the testing time apparently. Nikki sent her best wishes, hung up, took her breakfast and left.

Superintendent Bainbridge had everything organised and ready when she arrived, and Nikki was pleased to see that she had Yvonne, Niall and Cat with her.

Doyle’s direction’s had been hazy, but as she said, she had never been there, she had just listened to what Stephen had told her.

The first wave, four small search teams, were waiting for instructions, and a fleet of emergency backup vehicles were being sent to a rendezvous point on the main road above the marsh coastline.

Nikki took a look at the maps and the details of the areas to be searched, then said, ‘I’ll take this one, sir. It’s old home ground.’

Ten minutes later, with every one of their senses switched to high alert, they moved out.

* * *

‘We’ve already been over this part of the marsh.’

‘Then we go over it again! Give me the map.’ Nikki swung around in the speeding police car and grabbed the map from Niall. ‘I used to live near here, and I was only a mile from here on the seabank yesterday morning.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘God! I could have been metres away from her and never realised.’

‘There’s only three possible spots on the search record, ma’am. The old watch tower, a decrepit shack that bird watchers occasionally use, and a derelict cottage.’

‘What have they said about them?’

‘Watch tower and one out-building, totally clear, nowhere on site suitable to hide or conceal.’ Niall turned over the sheet of paper and continued. ‘Bird hide, a single room, derelict, totally clear.’ He ran his finger down the page. ‘And the place called Coggin’s Cottage. Demolished. No longer standing.’

‘Nothing else about it?’ asked Nikki sharply.

Niall shook his head. ‘Just a pile of bricks apparently.’

Nikki felt a rush of hope course through her. ‘Then that’s where we go! Yvonne! In about 500 yards, take a right at the fork in the road. Go careful, it’s single-track and the reeds are high on both sides. Head towards the estuary.’

‘But why?’ asked Cat, looking anxiously out of the window as Yvonne capably swung the vehicle around a blind corner.

‘Because although the report is right, it’s little more than a chimney stack and a couple of collapsed walls, it once had a cellar.’ Nikki exhaled. ‘I haven’t thought about that old place in years! It was strictly out of bounds, and a magnet to us local kids. It was dangerous even back then, so it’s liable to be a death trap today, but that cellar was pretty well built.’ For a moment she saw herself, a little kid doing what she shouldn’t, slipping through the doorway and down the worn stone steps to the creepy old cellar.

‘Where now, ma’am?’ asked Yvonne, braking sharply. ‘It looks like there’s nowhere to go.’

‘There’s a track that leads down to the bridge. See, over there,’ Nikki pointed. ‘It’s really overgrown, but someone has been down there recently, look! The grass is flattened!’

‘If this is it, God help the ambulance crew trying to find us!’ muttered Cat. ‘Maybe we should go the last part on foot?’

‘It’ll probably be quicker. Come on.’ Nikki threw open the car door and hit the ground running. ‘And Niall,’ she yelled back over her shoulder, ‘bring a thermal blanket, just in case!’ Every fibre in her body screamed out that this was the place.

Oblivious of her trouser legs snagging against tall reed grass and nettles, she ran like a hare. And in her head, she saw herself standing on the seabank, and seeing a small brown and white dog running across the marsh paths, towards the estuary! Towards this place!

A broken skeleton of a five-bar gate blocked her way, but she scrambled swiftly over it, all the time thinking about the dog. What was Kris Brown’s dog? A springer spaniel. Swampy, he’d called it. But this stretch of coastline was miles away from Barnby Eaudyke, could it be the same animal? And if it was, what other reason would it have had to travel so far, but to go to find someone it loved.

‘This is it, I know it!’ she called to the others, hardly even knowing if they were managing to keep up with her or not.

She felt so sure because another thing had just hit her. Stevie Cox would certainly have known about Coggin’s Cottage. Years ago, the Cox family had lived close her own, but that was before Stevie found money in football, and they moved on to some posh address closer to the Wolds.

‘Kerry!’ Her voice echoed out over the vast reaches of the watery landscape. ‘Kerry!’

The single stack of the weather-beaten chimney suddenly came into view, and although seabirds screeched and cried, Nikki heard no sound of reply. ‘Kerry! It’s the police! We’re here to help! Can you hear me?’

All she heard was the sound of her colleagues crashing through the undergrowth, swearing and stumbling after her.

Suddenly Niall was overtaking her. ‘Where’s this cellar supposed to be?’

‘Close to the water side, beneath what would have been the back wall. This was an eel-catcher’s cottage, the stream used to run right past it.’

‘Yes! There
is
a door!’ cried out Niall. ‘Kerry!’

‘Hell-fire, not exactly a softly, softly approach, is it?’ gasped Cat, as she reached Nikki’s side. ‘What if we find Stephen Cox sitting in there?’

‘Then I stick his ugly head in the stream, and drown the fucking bastard! That’s what!’

‘Fine. Just checking.’

‘It’s jammed! Give me a hand here!’ Niall was wrestling with an old, but still solid wooden door. ‘Can’t move it.’

‘We need something to prise it back,’ said Yvonne, hunting through the rubble of the derelict building. ‘Maybe this’ll do.’ She dragged a flat metal pole from a pile of debris.

‘Give it here.’ Niall wedged it firmly between the door and the frame, and put all his weight behind it.

There was a screech of splitting timbers, and the door swung free.

‘Good lad. Let’s get in there.’

Nikki followed him down the damp and slippery steps, then almost cannoned into his back when he suddenly stopped.

‘What is it? I can’t damn well see through you!’

‘She’s here, ma’am, but . . .’

Nikki pushed him aside and jumped down the last two steps.

Kerry Anderson lay on some old fleece blankets, the kind that come two for fiver in cheap bargain shops. And beside her, cuddled in tightly, as if trying to keep her warm, was Kris Brown’s Springer spaniel. Even the sound of the door being trashed had not woken her, and for one moment, Nikki feared the worst.

With a little cry, Nikki threw herself down beside the girl and frantically searched for the pulse in her neck. ‘Please! Please! Oh, sweetheart! You’re safe now, we’ve got you. Come on, Kerry!’ She turned and looked up. ‘Radio for the ambulance crew. Tell them she has an irregular heartbeat, she’s cold to the touch and unresponsive, it looks like hypothermia. Yvonne, can you remember the way back to the marsh lane?’

‘No problem, ma’am.’

‘Then go meet them, and escort them as far as their vehicles will go, then bring them in on foot.’

As Yvonne jumped up and ran up the steps, Nikki called out, ‘And tell them to bring oxygen and all the equipment they can carry, the poor kid’s in a bad way.’ She swung back to the still form huddled on the cold floor. ‘Niall, over here with that thermal blanket. The dog’s done its best, but she needs more right now.’ She ripped off her jacket, recalling recently doing the same for Joseph, and laid it over her. ‘Yours too, Niall, and you, Cat. We need to get her core temperature up.’ As she tucked the last jacket around Kerry’s narrow shoulders, she felt the spaniel gently lick her hand.