Eeny Meeny (24 page)

The manager, a smooth surgeon with surprisingly hairy hands, wanted to be reassured that the clinic was not going to be on the end of any unpleasant publicity in connection with ‘this prostitute’s murder’, as he put it, and Helen had to work hard to get him to play ball, but when she gently reminded him that, in a case as serious as this, he could be compelled to help them, his attitude changed.

‘I think we may be able to help,’ he said, pulling out a file. ‘A young man in his mid-twenties came to us five years ago. He’d obviously been through a bad time, physically and mentally. We advised counselling to deal with his situation before committing to gender reassignment and suggested he might want at the very least to reduce his list of additional treatments. In the end we got him to drop a couple of procedures but that was it. He was determined to have an extensive rebuild. In addition to gender reassignment, he had some buttock augmentation, leg and arm toning and a lot of work done on his face.’

‘What sort of work?’

‘Reshaped cheek bones, fuller lips, a streamlined nose, skin pigmentation, filler …’

‘How much did it cost him?’

‘A lot.’

‘Any idea why he was going to such lengths to change his appearance?’

‘We asked him, obviously. We always discuss every procedure to see if it is … necessary. But he wouldn’t talk. And we couldn’t force him to.’

A defensive note had crept into his voice now, so Helen decided to cut to the chase. She gestured to the file:

‘May I?’

He handed it over. As soon as she saw his name, Helen felt a knot in her stomach. His picture – young, hopeful, alive – confirmed it. Her worst fears realized.

This was about her. It had always been about her.

78

She was dead. She must be dead. There wasn’t enough oxygen in here for a fly to breathe, let alone a human. There was no energy, no life, left in her body and she was barely aware of her surroundings any more. She was consumed by darkness. The heat was unbearable. There was no air.

Hannah tried to convince herself but she knew she wasn’t dead … yet. Death would be a sweet release from this slow torture. And there was no relief, no let-up in her suffering. She had been reduced to the level of an animal, wallowing in her own misery and ordure.

How long had it been since she last heard Sandy? She couldn’t remember. Good God, what would it smell like in here if he died? The rotting excrement was one thing, but a decomposing corpse? If Mickery had had any tears left, she would have cried them now. But they were long gone. She was a husk. So she lay there, willing death to claim her.

Then suddenly it happened. Without any warning, a blinding light that set Mickery’s eyes ablaze. She howled in agony – it was as if lasers had shot into her brain – and clamped her hands to her face. A sudden rush of cool air, freezing yet blissful, poured over her body. But the respite was temporary.

She was being dragged. It took her a while to work out what the sensation was, but she was definitely being dragged. Someone had a vice-like grip on her arm and was dragging her across the floor and out into the light. Was she being rescued? Was this Grace?

She struck something metal and yelped. Now the hands were under her, hauling her up. Instinctively she knew this was no rescue, that there would be no salvation here. She landed with a thump in a small, enclosed space. Her hands felt around and slowly, gingerly, she began to open her eyes.

The light was still punishingly bright, but she was lying in someone’s shadow now, so could just about bear it if she snatched glimpses. She was in the boot of a car. Helpless and splayed in the boot of a car.

‘Hello, Hannah. Surprised to see me?’

It was Katherine’s voice – her tormentor and jailer.

‘Don’t be. I’m not the sadistic type, so I’ve decided to spare you.’

Mickery looked up at her, unable to process what she was hearing.

‘But I need you to do one little thing for me first.’

Hannah waited. Reeling as she was, she knew straight away that she would do anything Katherine asked. She wanted to live more than she’d ever wanted anything before.

As the car drove off, Hannah found herself smiling. Something – she didn’t know what – had happened. And she had been delivered from purgatory. Any price – any – was worth paying for that.

It never even occurred to her to wonder what had happened to Sandy. He didn’t exist any more as far as she was concerned.

79

Would she ever stop laughing at them? Mickery and Morten constituted the fifth forced abduction and still the killer didn’t put a foot wrong. Sanderson, Grounds and McAndrew had supervised diligent house-to-house enquiries, hoping to find a witness to this latest abduction. Whittaker had allocated them extra uniformed officers – but all to no avail. Charlie and Bridges had spent the day at the Morten family home supervising the crime scene but not a single shred of forensic evidence had been found. The trio had obviously been drinking champagne – two sedative-laced flutes lay where they had fallen on the floor and the imprint of another was dusted up on the coffee table – but the third glass and the bottle had vanished. Charlie fielded an angry call from Whittaker and was forced to admit she had no positive developments to give him.

Bold to do it in the victim’s home. Sandy’s wife had been abroad visiting relatives, but even so. Was the killer untouchable? It was beginning to look that way. The Morten house was a noisy, stressful place – the forensics circus was in town and there in the background was the wife – Sheila – who refused to go and stay with friends, feeling no doubt that her belated presence there, or at the very least her refusal to desert the family home, would somehow guarantee Sandy’s safe return. It wouldn’t, Charlie knew that, though she obviously couldn’t say anything to the wife. Sandy would return in a body bag or as a traumatized, gibbering wreck. The whole atmosphere was oppressive and as another wave of nausea struck, Charlie hurried outside.

She’d just about made it out of sight when she hurled. A big, feisty regurgitation of her breakfast. Charlie had felt sick all day and in more ways than one. There was something profoundly odd and disquieting about bringing a new life into this dark world. She and Steve had been so looking forward to starting a family, but now Charlie was full of doubts. What right did she have to bring a baby into
this
? When there was such violence and cruelty and evil all around us. It was a profoundly depressing thought and made Charlie retch again.

As she was wiping herself down, her phone rang. Jaunty and inappropriate. She hurried to answer it.

‘Charlene Brooks.’

‘Help me.’

‘Who is this?’

A long silence, an intake of breath as if the caller were summoning energy to talk, then:

‘It’s … Hannah Mickery.’

Charlie stood bolt upright. It certainly sounded a bit like her. Could it really be?

‘Where are you, Hannah?’

‘I’m outside the Fire Station Diner on Sutton Street. Please come now.’

And with that, she hung up.

Charlie was on the road within minutes. Bridges, Sanderson and Grounds were also on their way there, closely followed by Tactical Support. It was clear to everyone that this might be a trap. But pregnant or not, Charlie was going to walk into it. As they neared Sutton Street, the blues and twos went off and Tactical Support slipped round the block to watch discreetly as per usual.

Mickery looked as if she could barely stand. Her hair was matted, her red coat stood out garishly next to the deathly pallor of her skin and she seemed to be leaning against the wall for support. Charlie was shocked by her transformation. She hurried towards her, her eyes flitting left and right for any sign of danger. Oddly now that she was here facing Mickery she felt more vulnerable than she’d expected. Visions of the baby growing inside her flashed in her head and then were shoved back down. She must concentrate.

Mickery collapsed into her arms. Charlie held her for a moment, running her eyes over her. She was in a pitiful state. What had she been through to be reduced to this?

Charlie called an ambulance and as they waited for it to arrive, she attempted to glean what she could from the terrified therapist. But Mickery wouldn’t talk to her. It seemed as if she had instructions and was intent on following them to the absolute letter. Mickery, who had once seemed so cocky, now looked scared.

‘Grace.’ Mickery’s voice was cracked and quiet.

‘Sorry?’

‘I will only talk to Helen Grace.’

And that was the end of the conversation.

80

Her phone was off, the door was locked, she was utterly alone. It wasn’t standard protocol for the senior investigating officer to sever all contact with her team during such an important investigation, but Helen needed some time alone. She needed to
think
.

She had pulled her own file from HR and was leafing through her professional history, whilst simultaneously surfing the archives of both the
Southampton Evening News
and
Frontline
, Hampshire police’s monthly publication. She was looking for the missing link – the clue that would prove once and for all that the killer was targeting
her
.

There could be no doubt any more that the killer’s choice of victims was governed by Helen’s past successes as a police officer. She had rescued James Hawker (later Ben Holland) from certain death, when she took down his crazed father. The killer, however, had made sure that James/Ben didn’t have a happy ending. Helen had saved Anna and Marie from teenage arsonists, but the killer had taken care of them too. Martina had been born Matty Armstrong and was working as a rent boy in Brighton, when his life went badly sideways. He’d been trapped, tortured and abused by a gang of men in a basement flat, until Helen and a colleague had fortuitously heard his screams and broken down the door to end his ordeal. Again the killer had made sure he hadn’t survived. Mickery was probably just a bonus, a little joke at Helen’s expense – time would tell on that one – which just left Amy and Sam. They were the missing link. How were they connected to Helen? What had they done to draw themselves to the killer’s attention?

Helen had received official commendations for her actions regarding James and Martina. There was a picture of her receiving her certificate in back copies of
Frontline
– easily accessible to anyone with a computer. There was no official commendation for the way she helped Anna and Marie, but the story had made the Southampton
Echo
and Helen was name-checked there. Again, easy for anyone to find online. But where were Amy and Sam? Helen couldn’t think of any major incidents in her career that had involved people their age. It didn’t make any sense.

Helen had received another couple of commendations, the most notable of which came as a result of her quick thinking during a major traffic accident. But that was twenty plus years ago – before Amy and Sam were born. Frustrated, Helen scrolled back to the issues of
Frontline
from that year. The details were still fresh in her mind, but she drank them in again now. On the way back from Thorpe Park, a coach driver had nodded off at the wheel. His coach had swerved through the central barrier on a dual carriageway near Portsmouth and into the path of oncoming traffic. The driver was killed instantly as were several of the drivers and passengers in the other cars. The resulting pile-up had sparked a fire and many more of the injured motorists would have perished had it not been for the heroism of a couple of traffic cops who were first on the scene. One of those cops was a young Helen. She had been doing it for three months when the accident happened. She didn’t like the job and was vocal in her desire to move on, but rules are rules and she had to do her rotation. So she did it to the best of her ability, seeing some horrible things along the way, and nowhere were her skills and bravery better demonstrated than during the accident. Along with her colleague Louise Tanner, she had pulled many shocked and injured people from the wreckage, as the fire spread. Shortly after, the fire brigade roared up and the fire was extinguished. But it was clear to all present that the swift thinking of Helen and her colleague Louise had saved dozens of lives.

Helen and Louise were mentioned in
Frontline
and the names of the local victims were listed in the
Southampton Evening News
and the
Portsmouth Echo
, but there were no details of those who had survived. Everyone was more interested in the tragedy of those who had died. Helen slumped back in her chair. Another dead end. Were Amy and Sam just random victims? Perhaps they were and yet the killer had been so diligent in tracking down the others there had to be some connection.

Helen decided to surf the archives of the national newspapers, given that many of those caught in the pile-up were ferry passengers journeying to Portsmouth to start their holidays. She scrolled through the coverage in the
Guardian
,
The Times
, the
Mail
, the
Express,
the
Sun
,
Mirror
,
Star
 … nothing of any interest.

She was about to give up when she thought she’d have one last stab. The
Today
newspaper was pretty tabloid and loved that kind of thing during its brief run as a national newspaper, so she decided to scroll through its coverage of that terrible day.

And it was then that she found it. Amidst the two-page spread that covered the carnage, there was a picture of a young traffic cop leading a woman to safety. The picture must have been taken by a rubbernecker and sold to the paper as there was no formal credit for it underneath the image. That was why no other paper had carried it and that was why Helen had missed it thus far.

It was a good picture and it illuminated everything for Helen. Her face was clearly visible as was that of the young woman she was helping from the wreckage. Suddenly everything made sense.