Dark Tides (26 page)

And what I saw, for just the briefest instant, made me cry out in pain and revulsion and cover my face with my hands.

‘We have six suspects in isolation. None of them are talking and I don’t expect that to change any time soon. We have surveillance footage but it’s not conclusive.’

I shook my head, pressing the heels of my palms into my eyes. I would have clamped my hands over my ears but Shimmin’s tone told me he’d just snatch them away.

‘There’s only one camera in here and there was a lot of steam. All six suspects had towels over their heads when they came in. One of them climbed up on the shoulders of another to hold a towel in front of the camera lens. After that, we don’t know for sure. There’s the odd glimpse where it looks like all the work was done by one man. The rest were bystanders. A distraction.’

I groaned, feeling sick to my stomach.

‘The officers on duty didn’t see it in real time. The breakfast trolleys had just been delivered and they were busy co-ordinating the prisoners on kitchen duty. They didn’t find him until ten minutes after the attack. Early days, but the coroner thinks it wouldn’t have made any difference. His throat was cut. The killer used a modified glue spatula, of all things.’

I thought of the craft room Kent had pointed out to me. I guessed the prisoners would be expected to spread Uhu with their fingertips from now on.

‘Throat slash would have happened early on. It’s likely he passed out before the worst of the beating took place.’

I didn’t know if it was true, or if it was what Shimmin thought I wanted to hear. It didn’t make much difference to me, either way. I was pretty sure Mark would have said the same thing. He was dead and nothing could change that now.

I lowered my hands, tugging at the skin beneath my eyes. Shimmin was studying my reaction very closely.

‘He took quite a kicking. Had to, really. I guess that part of the contract must have been specified.’

‘Contract?’

Shimmin smiled wearily, as if I wasn’t fooling either one of us. ‘Obviously one of the six prisoners was paid to do this. He must have split some of his fee with the other five.’

‘Not necessarily.’ My throat had closed up. I was finding it difficult to speak. ‘It could have been a grudge that got out of hand. When I visited Mark last year, he’d been in a fight. He had a black eye. A bloody lip.’

‘You don’t see it, do you?’

I stared at him through tear-stained eyes, Mark’s body no more than a pinkish blur between us.

‘Look again.’

I shook my head but Shimmin stood up from the bench and grabbed my cheeks in his big hands, squashing my face and wrenching my neck around.

‘
Look.
’

Finally, I did. My eyes focused and lingered. And I saw it then. Saw what he’d wanted me to see all along.

Mark was rolled over on to his side, the bloody mush of his face pointed away from me, one hand raised and cupping the back of his shaved head, his right knee lifted from the hip, as if he’d tried to curl into a ball. The blood was thick and pooled beneath his body. It shone under the stark lighting with a satiny gleam. The black hairs on his arms and legs and back stood out in dark relief against his pallid complexion. The livid bruising to his torso and legs was extensive.

‘This is the best example.’ Shimmin pointed with the toe of his shoe towards an area on Mark’s flank, just above his kidney. The pale, fatty skin had the texture of uncooked sausage, except for a reddish-purple welt. The pattern was wavy, as if he’d been branded with something.

‘Footprint, Cooper.’ Shimmin’s hands were hot and sticky against my face. ‘He was stamped on so hard the tread pattern got left behind. There are other examples, too. A scattering of them on his chest. Intentional, don’t you think?’

I didn’t know what to think. Not any more.

I snatched my head away but the sensation of Shimmin’s clammy touch lingered.

‘Are you sure he was killed by just one man?’

Shimmin was breathing hard, his lips rimed with dried spittle.

‘Looked that way from the surveillance footage. One active attacker, five facilitators.’

Was that deliberate too, I wondered? An echo of what had been done to Edward Caine? Mark was the one who’d beaten Edward, but the rest of us – all five of us – had participated in the break-in that night.

‘So check their footwear.’ I swallowed thickly, trying to shut my mind to the images my words were conjuring. ‘Compare the shoes your six suspects were wearing against the marks on the body.’

‘Not so simple.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because the killer wore the victim’s shoes.’ Shimmin cast his hand in the direction of the slatted bench. There was a bank of metal lockers just beyond it. ‘Way it works is the prisoners stash their footwear and clothes when they take a shower. The killer removed the victim’s shoes from the locker he was using and put them on. He stomped him to death with his own trainers.’

Shimmin paused, as if expecting me to speak up. But there was nothing I could possibly say in response.

‘Seems to me the message is crystal clear, Cooper. And it was intended for you.’

‘Or David.’

Shimmin nodded slowly, a cautious expression forming on his worn face.

‘You wouldn’t happen to know where we might find him, would you?’

‘Is he a suspect?’

‘Right now you both are. But you’re the only one I’ve been able to locate. I’ve sent officers to David’s home and his workplace. We’ve tried phoning him but we get no answer. Duty manager at the airport says he’s booked a few days off but doesn’t know where he could be.’

I thought of David’s text again. His sudden desire to meet much earlier than we’d planned.

‘So maybe he’s out somewhere on the island.’

‘Or maybe he’s in hiding. You think you could help us with that?’

I could. Possibly. But I wasn’t about to just yet.

‘What about Morgan Caine?’

‘What about him?’

‘He should be a suspect, too. You’re looking for somebody with enough funds to pay a convicted criminal to kick a fellow prisoner to death. That’s a hell of a risk. It’s going to be expensive. Morgan inherited his father’s fortune. He should be at the head of your list.’

‘And we plan to speak with him.’

‘Plan to?’

‘He’s currently off-island.’

I raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s convenient.’

‘Not for Morgan. His nurse tells us he’s undergoing treatment in a private hospital near Manchester. Kidney problems, apparently.’

Shimmin weighed my response. I tried to keep my face blank, which wasn’t easy, so I opted for distraction instead.

‘If you have Mark’s shoes, you can extract forensic evidence from the insoles. The killer must have left something behind. Skin cells. Sock fibres.’

‘And we’ll look for it. But you know as well as I do that it’ll take time.’

‘What about the records of the six prisoners? If one of them was sent down inside the last twelve months, it’s possible they were responsible for lighting the fire that killed Callum, too.’

‘We’re on that as well. Two of my team are working with some of Kent’s admin staff to pull the files we’ll need. I think it’s unlikely, but I’m not ruling anything out.’

‘Or anyone. Including me.’

‘Especially you, Cooper.’

I fell silent and gazed down at Mark again. I was thankful he was facing away from me. He’d sacrificed himself for all of us – for me in particular – and how had we repaid him? By shunning him. By moving on with our lives. By accusing him of trying to kill us. I wished I could take it all back. Wished there was something I could do to make amends.

And maybe, just maybe, there was.

‘Are we done here? I could use some air.’

‘Feeling uncomfortable, Cooper?’

‘He was my friend.’

‘Some friend. I saw what he did to Edward Caine, remember?’

I didn’t say anything to that. Shimmin would never believe me if I told him the truth. How could I explain to somebody like him that Mark might just have been the most loyal and devoted friend I’d ever have?

‘I’d like someone to drive me home now.’

‘And I’d like a two-week vacation in Malta. But it’s not going to happen.’

‘Am I under arrest?’

‘Do you want to be?’

I took a step back. I needed space to think. I needed time to get my head around my next move.

‘What’s it to be, Cooper? Your call. Are you prepared to co-operate?’

I thought about it a moment.

‘Not here. Take me somewhere else and I’ll work with you to find a way of ending this thing for good.’

Shimmin stared at me hard, then nodded abruptly, as if the two of us had reached a mutual understanding. We hadn’t, though. There was no way I could help him. At least, not in the way he had in mind.

Your preparations have taken a great deal of effort. They’ve been mentally taxing and physically exhausting. Your arms ache. You’ve tweaked a muscle in your lower back. You’re cold and spent and shivering relentlessly.

But as you survey your handiwork, you feel confident you have everything covered. You have your planning to thank for that. It’s been more detailed than ever this year, which is not something you begrudge, because a successful outcome depends on it.

There’s only one factor you couldn’t entirely control, and believing that the prison task has been completed to your satisfaction requires a certain act of faith. But you’re willing to assume the assignment has been adequately fulfilled because you haven’t seen anything to suggest that the fates have abandoned you this year.

You rub your hands together and blow on them for warmth, and then you slip your plastic gloves back on and check the time on your watch. You take the phone from your back pocket and begin to type.

Deputy Governor Kent escorted us out through the prison. He was deeply curious about the purpose of my visit and he tried a bunch of times, in various ways, to get one of us to explain why I’d been summoned to see Mark’s body. Shimmin rebuffed his prying with a series of non-committal grunts. I offered even less. I was too busy thinking. Too distracted by the connections and conclusions ricocheting inside my skull.

Shimmin waited until the final sliding glass door had opened ahead of us, then thanked and dismissed Kent with a cursory handshake. He ushered me through into the foyer, leaving Kent and his questions behind the glass.

Swift was sitting on a metal search table beside the X-ray scanner, her face lowered towards her mobile phone, her thumbs tapping away frantically.

‘Where’s Hollis?’

Swift leapt down from the table, stuffing her phone into a pocket on her jacket.

‘They offered us tea, sir.’ She nodded towards the glassed-in cubicle behind us. ‘Hollis fancied a brew.’

That wasn’t all he fancied. He was standing at the far end of the control room, among the computers and the fake cobwebs, whispering into the ear of the redhead with the weaponised tits. I doubted very much that Hollis had told her he was married with two kids. I’d lost count of the number of women he’d failed to mention that piece of information to over the years.

‘Take Cooper outside.’ Shimmin’s voice was a low rumble. ‘I want you and Hollis to drive her to Lord Street. Find a vacant interview room to hold her in until I arrive.’

‘Sir.’

Shimmin was still glaring into the depths of the control room with a face full of intent. ‘I’ll send Hollis out to join you. Once I’ve had a word.’

‘Should I cuff her, sir?’

‘What?’ Shimmin spun round. ‘Did I say Cooper was under arrest?’

Swift glanced down, hiding her face beneath the brim of her hat.

‘No, sir.’

‘Then why would I want you to cuff her?’

‘No reason, sir. My mistake.’

Shimmin exhaled through his teeth and shook his head, then crossed to the reinforced screen at the front of the control room. He banged his palm on the glass.

The redhead jumped and blushed like she’d been caught passing love notes in the back of class. Hollis paled.

‘Outside, Romeo. Now.’

Shimmin moved across to prowl the area in front of the doors, waiting to bawl Hollis out, and I took his place next to the partition screen, ready to collect my keys and phone.

Hollis placed a conciliatory hand on the redhead’s shoulder, then left the room as she scampered towards me, her face flushing a deeper shade of crimson under the barrage of comments and catcalls from her colleagues. I scooped up my belongings and made my way through the revolving exit ahead of Swift.

I lingered in the wind and drizzle. The storm was only minutes away but it had been raging inside me for much longer. Everything I’d missed. Everything I’d failed to see. It had all whipped up into a frenzy of fear and sadness and anguish.

I powered up my phone, glanced at the screen and nearly stumbled and fell. There was a new text message waiting for me. It had been sent ten minutes ago. The letters seemed to swell with an awful significance. I looked back up and scanned the terrain all around but the person who’d sent me the message was nowhere in sight.

‘Let’s go.’

Swift’s fingers circled my bicep. I snatched my arm free and raised my mobile in my fist.

Swift reached for her belt on instinct. One hand went for her baton. The other settled on her CS spray.

‘Do we have a problem?’

It took all of my self-control not to beat her about the head with my phone.

‘Because Shimmin’s not here to protect you. If I decide to put you in cuffs, I can. Hollis’ll back me up.’

‘You’d really do that to me?’

‘Try me.’

Her jaw was set. Her body was tensed. She meant it all right.

It was everything I needed to hear.

‘Then we don’t have a problem.’

‘Better.’ She shoved me forwards. ‘Keep walking.’

Oh, I walked. My legs were trembling but I moved as fast as I possibly could. I wanted this over with. Wanted it done.

‘Hey, slow down. It’s not a race.’

But it was. Swift just didn’t know it yet. I skipped over a kerb and pounded tarmac, my knees and hips and chin juddering with the percussive impact. I pumped my thighs. I swung my arms. I slipped my phone into my jeans pocket and I balled my hands into fists at my sides.

I was coming up fast on the visitors’ car park. Swift was half running to keep up.

‘What’s your hurry?’ She was getting out of breath, which was something I’d been relying on. She had a lot of equipment weighing her down. Plus the stab vest would be restricting her breathing. I remembered how uncomfortable that could be. ‘We have to wait for Hollis.’

We were meant to. There could be no dispute about that. But we didn’t
have
to wait for him. Or at least, I didn’t have to. I wasn’t a police officer any more, so I wasn’t bound by Shimmin’s orders. And I wasn’t under arrest. Shimmin had been very clear about that.

I surveyed the scene ahead of me. There was nobody else around. I guessed shift-change for the prison officers wouldn’t be for another few hours, which explained why there was no movement among the ranks of vehicles lined up behind the high steel fences and secure gates of the staff car park. And since visiting didn’t begin until after lunch, Hollis’s patrol car was the only vehicle in the public parking area.

I hurried towards the rear of the silver Ford Focus and turned and waited for Swift to catch up to me. The rain clouds were breaking now. Big fat drops fell from the sky, slapping against the tarmac, beating down hard.

Perfect timing.

Swift ducked her head and hunched her shoulders, the rain drumming off her hat. She released the popper on a chest pocket on her jacket. Dipped two fingers inside.

I waited a little longer, not wanting to make my move too soon, not wanting to miss my chance. Her fingers came up and out and that’s when I finally saw what I’d been hoping for.

Car keys. A spare set. It was best practice when two officers went out in a squad car. Say Hollis lost his keys in a tussle with a suspect, it was helpful if Swift was carrying a backup.

And she was, which didn’t surprise me. She was a new recruit. She was keen to impress and a stickler for procedure. Hollis had probably rolled his eyes when she’d asked for the spare keys to be signed out to her. He used to do the same thing to me, as if nothing could ever happen to him. As if there was no conceivable scenario where the spare set might be needed.

Well, I needed them now.

Swift was just turning them in her hand, just pointing them at the Focus and unlocking the doors, when I twisted sideways on, raised my right leg from my hip, leaned back on my left leg and kicked out with everything I had.

She hadn’t been ready for it at all and her body was soft and pliant. My foot caught her just below her stab vest and she buckled forwards from the waist, air and saliva spurting from her mouth, her hands coming forwards and down like she was taking a sudden bow. Her feet left the ground and she flew backwards, twisting in the air and landing hard on her side, her baton snapping off the tarmac.

She looked shocked and disoriented and winded but I didn’t hesitate. I launched myself at her, breaking my fall by snatching for her shoulders and thrusting up with my knees to crush her chest. The back of her head struck the tarmac harder than I’d intended. Her hat came loose and skittered away, exposing the bobby pins holding her fine hair in place. She blinked hard and shook her head, as if rousing herself from a concussion, and she reached for her equipment belt with her left hand.

It was something I’d seen her do too many times already and I anticipated the move.

I crushed her fingers, bending back her thumb. She yelped and snatched her hand away and I unclipped her can of CS spray and pressed hard on the nozzle, dousing her nose and eyes with the spurting, misty haze.

The wind almost blew the chemicals back at me. I rolled clear and buried my face in the crook of my arm.

Swift was screaming. She was panicking. She flailed her arms and pawed at her eyes. It was going to make the effects of the spray a lot worse but I understood the reflex. I’d been sprayed back in training and I could remember how badly I’d wanted to claw at my skin. It had taken two instructors to pin down my arms and legs before I stopped writhing.

Swift was all alone.

I shielded my face for a few moments more and then I squinted towards the prison entrance through the rain. There was nobody coming just yet but it wouldn’t take long. Hollis would be outside at any moment and there were cameras fixed to the high steel poles that ringed the car park. All it would take was for one of the officers in the control room to notice the commotion.

Swift was scrambling backwards away from me, digging her heels into the tarmac, thrashing her head from side to side. I advanced on her through the downpour, holding the CS spray out in front of me, but she wasn’t interested in fighting. She was locked in a world of her own discomfort, absorbed by the fierce sting in her eyes, the fire in her nostrils, the hot acid burn in her lungs.

I pocketed the CS spray and stooped down and freed her handcuffs from the loop in her belt. I rolled her on to her front and snatched her hands from her face and locked her wrists behind her. Hard for her to believe, maybe, but I was trying to help. If she couldn’t scratch, she couldn’t aggravate her skin. The best thing she could do right now was to lie flat on her back, turn her face to the rain and let it wash the chemicals away. But it didn’t look as if she was going to relax any time soon. It seemed more likely she’d dislocate her shoulder trying to free her wrists from the cuffs.

I backed off and scanned the ground. My hair had fallen in wet tendrils over my eyes and my clothes were soaked through and stuck to my skin. I blinked hard against the pelting rain, my breathing fast and ragged, until I finally located the keys.

They’d fallen next to the rear wheel of the Focus. I dropped to one knee in a pool of rainwater and scooped them up, then snatched open the driver’s door and clambered in behind the wheel.

And paused.

The rain beat on the metal exterior. Water sluiced down the glass, smearing the world outside.

Was I really going to do this? Was I going to steal a police car? Was I going to run?

Absolutely. No question about it.

I was just messed up enough to do that and more. Too much had happened. Too many of my friends and loved ones had been taken from me.

I thought back to the text that had been waiting on my phone. It was hard to think of anything else right now. The message had come from David. It was short and it was devastating.

I stabbed the key into the ignition and started the engine and the wiper blades, reversing in a fast, whining arc. Ahead of me, Swift was flailing against her restraints in the squally rain, grinding her face into the puddled tarmac. It burned me to see what I’d done to her, but I’d had no choice.

I let out the clutch and powered away into the storm.