Needing (16 page)

For Langham’s benefit, Oliver repeated, “
Mrs Ros
é spoke to you through the letterbox?”

The detective blurted, “Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

“Langham, testy as ever.”

Oliver smiled. Then a thought struck him—hard. Ronan Dougherty had said one of the dead had lied to Oliver. Implied it had been Louise. Said the owner of Privo was the one they were after. Why had he lied? He asked Shields if he knew.

“Ronan knew about it from the start. Was friends with Robert.”

“So why was Ronan killed?”

“He got greedy. Wanted more than a sixty-forty cut. He wanted the sixty. Said if he didn’t get it he’d tell Cordelia the lot.

“Bastard lied to me. This just keeps getting worse! Anything else we need to know?”

“Glenn Close.”
Shields chuckled. “
She’s planning on going to Mrs Roosay’s later. Can’t imagine the girl will harm the old woman, but you never know.”

“Shit.”

Oliver quickly relayed the news to Langham, who barked orders into his phone, “Send officers to ninety-seven
Bridgewater Road pretty fucking quick if someone isn’t there already, and make sure you keep the old woman safe and someone sticks around to get a hold of that girl, got it?”

“So why were you kil… Why are
you
outside?”

“Robert. He told Cordelia he’d sort everything. Led me into the garden. She doesn’t know I’m…like this. Thinks we were only talking. When she came in after you knocked on the door, she stood at the patio doors, staring out at us. Was holding something. Her diary, I think. I waved, let her know everything was fine. Didn’t…”
A sob interrupted his speech. “
Didn’t want her to know I had no control at all, that Robert had a gun on me. Pride… Always had a problem with it. Always did think I knew best. Shit. He waited until she’d gone before he pulled the trigger.”

“We didn’t hear a gunshot.”

“Silencer. Sounded like a damn puff of wind.”

“Where is he now?”

“I tried to follow, after…after… Saw him wade through the river. He had a car waiting, some guy in it I hadn’t seen before. He told me when we were speaking… Said he kept the drug formula in his head, knew exactly how to get the strands made elsewhere if the shit hit the fan here. Fake passports, the lot. He’ll be long gone. Private jet, so he said.”

Oliver repeated the information so Langham could alert the airports, then asked Shields, “So what now? Do we have everyone except this Robert?”

“Yes, him and the man who picked him up. The ones who made the drugs had no idea what they were doing. Thought it was just another part of their job.”

“And the kids? Are there more than those we found in Reynolds’ grandmother’s basement?”

“No. Just them. From what I’ve gleaned from nosing about in this…state…you’ll have Glenn soon. Unless she changes her mind about seeing Mrs Roosay.”

“What about the eyes? The weird glowing eyes?”

“I was just going to get to that. Be careful. Robert isn’t right.”

“What do you mean?”

“I hate saying this to you, you know that? Even me being like…this…doesn’t stop old habits dying hard. I’m a self-righteous bastard. Don’t want you being right. Don’t want you seeing me as anything like I am out there, but there’s nothing I can do about that now. The state of me…”

“Forget all that. Just tell me what we need to know. No time for bullshit like that now.”

A gusty sigh blew through Oliver’s mind, making him think Shields had been sucked away, but his voice came loud and clear.

“Robert isn’t human.”

* * * *

“He’s taking the piss, right?” Langham led the way outside, stride long and brisk. “Messing with us even now. How the
fuck
can someone not be human?”

“I don’t know, all right? I’m just telling you what he said. He buggered off after he said that. He might not have meant it literally. We say shit like ‘You’re mental!’ but it doesn’t mean that person is mental. Know what I mean?”

“Yep, I do, but Shields should know better than saying shit like that then fucking off. I’m telling you, he’s having a last little laugh on us. Bloody tosser.”

In the garden, Oliver stood on a stretch of patio. Officers milled about, seemingly unsure as to what they were looking for.

“Body out here,” Langham shouted. “Keep looking.”

The policemen woke up, alert now they had something specific to search for. Oliver, although drained from his conversation with Shields, reached out to see if someone, anyone would give him any indication of where Shields’ body was. Water, the image sharp and clear, filled his mind. He felt the rush of it over his skin, cold and startling, the weave of a fish as it flapped past.

“The river. Reckon he’s in there,” he said.

Langham sped off, his vigorous pace taking him to the end of the garden in seconds. Oliver ran after him, out of breath by the time he reached his side. They stared down an embankment at the river, a rushing, gambolling mass of frothy water, the current mean and unforgiving.

“Can’t see a damn thing in this fading light,” Langham complained. “And the spume isn’t helping much either. Like a rowdy damn ocean down there. What’s up with that?”

“No idea.”

“Well, we need to check it out, whether we like it or not. Fuck’s sake,” he said as he navigated the slash of embankment. “Last thing I expected was going out to find Shields’ sorry, tight arse.”

“Hope that’s figurative speech and not from intimate knowledge,” Oliver said, following him down the hill.

“Damn right it is. I wouldn’t fuck him if he was the last man on Earth.” Langham laughed, reaching the bottom, pausing to catch his breath. “Shouldn’t joke really. Officer killed in the line of duty and all that. Funny, but I’m relieved he wasn’t involved. I’d begun to think he was.”

Oliver stood beside him, lungs heavy from the chilly air. It was going to be a cold one tonight. “Me too. It pointed that way. And he was such an arsehole.”

“Shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.” Langham walked towards the bank edge, moving his head left and right.

“Why not? I’m not going to say he was a good bloke just because he’s dead. He wasn’t. He was a wanker. Being dead doesn’t change that.”

“S’pose you’re right. Shit.”

“What?”

“There he is. I know I said you shouldn’t speak ill, but…” Langham laughed, bent over double, hands planted on his knees. It was the kind of laugh that bordered on hysteria.

“What’s so funny? Where is he?” Oliver stared at the water, seeing nothing but rushing froth.

“There!” Langham pointed, wiping his wet cheeks.

Oliver gazed that way. Couldn’t stop the smile that spread on his face, the chuckle that rumbled out of him. “Oh, fuck.”

Shields’ bare arse stuck out of the water, and nothing else.

“Seems this Robert has a sense of humour,” Oliver said.

“Seems he does. Wouldn’t have wanted to be him, though, pulling down those trousers.”

“Me neither. Bit sick, don’t you think?”

“A little, but hey, people do the strangest things.” Langham used his phone, telling whoever was on the other line that they needed a team down here, forensics too. And how the fuck had the other officers missed a great big arse poking out of the river? He cut the call. “That body needs getting out of there fast. Photos taken. The way that river’s going, it’ll wash any evidence away.”

“We don’t even know Robert’s surname,” Oliver said.

“No, and that’s something we need to find out.” He called the station, using orders for some desk jockey to root out the information. He cut off the call. “Best part of my job, that.”

“What is?” Oliver stared at Shields’ arse. His vision blurred, mind weary of the constant battering it’d had all day, but not before he caught sight of something he’d rather not have.

“Having someone else do the dirty work.”

“Seems like we’ve got enough dirty work of our own judging by that crack.”

“Crack?”

“Shields’ arse crack. He shit himself before he died.”

“Aww, fuck. Why did you have to go and point that out? Christ. I feel sorry for him now.”

Oliver sighed, and even though he hated to admit it, he said, “Me too. Me fucking too.”

* * * *

The call came in that one Robert Sanders and his companion, Peter Newbury, had been apprehended at the local airport. Robert had been a nightmare to contain, his strength that of ten men. It had taken several officers to apprehend him.

It wasn’t a huge airfield, more a strip of land surrounded by grass and a pitiful excuse for a control tower, which lurched to one side as though the wind had pushed it a little too hard for a little too long. He’d been taken to the station, would be left in a cell over night until Langham could interview him in the morning. He didn’t have time now—they were on their way to Mrs Rosé’s, having received word that Glenn Close had been spotted at the park opposite the row of houses in her street. According to an officer hiding in Mrs Rosé’s front garden, Glenn was flying high on a swing and had been for the past five minutes. And according to Sanders, Glenn hadn’t returned to him after she’d killed her parents, as he’d instructed. She was surrounded on all sides, officers ready to catch her in case she bolted.

“Damn shame, that, when you think about it,” Langham said.

Oliver nodded, staring out of the windshield at a now dark sky, thinking of Glenn. He saw her on a swing in his mind’s eye, hair flying behind her as she surged forward, the length of it streaming over her face as she flew back. She was doing what she always should have, being a kid with no cares in the world except when her dinner was ready and whether she could have sweets afterwards. Except she hadn’t ever had that kind of life, had she? Shitty parents had denied her the childhood she had deserved, the pair of fucking bastards.

Yeah, Oliver acknowledged that his anger towards Mr and Mrs Close was probably stronger because he’d had a strained and unhappy childhood himself, knew a little of what Glenn had gone through. Wished he’d been able to swing on the damn swings without constantly worrying he’d be called a weird little bastard or worse. And if he were honest, what they were about to walk into frightened him. He didn’t want to see that kid taken away, treated like a criminal. He hoped the police who dealt with her were compassionate, understood why she’d acted as she had, that drugs had played a major part in what she had done. It was out of his hands, probably out of Langham’s, too, but at least the detective could keep tabs on her, could let Oliver know how she fared after her fate had been decided.

What had happened to the other kids? They’d been taken to the hospital, he knew that, but when would they be reunited with their frantic parents? When all the tests on them had been exhausted? When it was deemed okay that they weren’t a threat to society? He had no idea if any of them had killed. He hoped the only murderers were Alex Reynolds and Glenn. No other bodies had turned up, no new spirits had spoken to him, but that didn’t mean jack shit.

Langham parked at the end of the street farthest from the park. They got out of the car, closing their doors quietly, and Langham locked them without using his electronic key fob, just the key. The
blip-blip-blip
of it would have been too loud in the quiet street, alerting Glenn that someone was about.

They didn’t need her running. This needed to end. Now.

“How are you going to do this?” Oliver whispered, following Langham across the road to the side the park was on.

“I have no fucking clue. Instinct says just to go up to her, see what she does.”

Oliver widened his eyes. “What? And risk her going for you?”

“She didn’t go back to Robert Sanders, so my guess is the drugs will have worn off by now.”

“But what if they haven’t? What if she’s still crazed?”

“I don’t know, man. Maybe I’m not thinking straight. Maybe I should be armed. Who the fuck knows?”

“At least talk to her from the other side of the fence first.”

An iron-railing fence skirted the park, enclosing it as a child’s oasis, supposedly keeping them safe from weirdoes or them running out into the path of a car on Bridgewater Road. Fences didn’t stop anyone if they had a mind to do something, and from what Glenn had done, she might have a mind, all right.

They came to a stop, level with that little girl coasting through the air. Two street lamps burned brightly, illuminating the apparatus. Illuminating her. She had a glazed look about her, stare glassy, just one kid going through the motions of making the swing move. No enjoyment, nothing.

“She’s come down off the high,” Langham said. “Reckon I’m safe to go in?”

Oliver shook his head. “I don’t know, man. Is it wise?”

“I’ll be all right, you know.” Langham looked at him and smiled, but he appeared tense, like he was withholding something.

“What’s going on?” Oliver asked, swallowing to wet his suddenly dry throat.

“The park’s surrounded, right?”

“Right.”

“With trained marksmen.”

“
What?
”

“Sounds mad, doesn’t it? Guns needed for a little kid. But there’s no telling what state she’s in, and kid or not, she’s got to be taken into the city somehow. If she turns feral, well…”

Oliver held his hand up. Didn’t want to hear anymore. “Right. But I’m coming with you.”

“Not a good idea. You’re not trained for this crap.”

Oliver glanced at Glenn. She seemed to have no clue they were there.

Swing-swing-swinging. Hair whoosh-whoosh-whooshing.

“I still want to come.”

“I could get in shit for letting you.”

“Right.”

“So I’ll get in shit if I have to, so long as you get the fuck away if she flies off on one, you got that? I don’t want you hurt.”

Wrong place, wrong time. Again. Oliver wanted to bury his face in Langham’s neck, kiss the stubble on his cheek, have it hurt his lips. “And when she’s been taken to the hospital, we’re out of here. Right? No way can they expect you to work more hours. Not after what we’ve been through since last night.”