No Place to Die (36 page)

At last he saw the handle. He forced his fingers around the small ring of metal and pulled. There was still a lot of soil blocking the hatch, but with another wrench the door popped open. ‘Sasha, get in here,’ he shouted. The entrance was too small for him. There was too much earth blocking the way. He turned as Sasha ran up behind him. ‘Get down there,’ he said, grabbing her arm and lifting her legs from under her until he was cradling her like a baby. He shoved her feet into the hole and pushed down on her shoulders. ‘Get in there and get those girls out.’

Sasha crouched, her head and arms disappearing out of sight. ‘I can’t see,’ she yelled up at him.

‘Just feel around – feel around,’ Lockyer shouted. ‘They’re in there.’ He waited, holding his breath, feeling sick, his head aching, his heart pounding in his chest. ‘Hurry.’

‘I’ve got a foot,’ Sasha called up to him. ‘I think I’ve got a foot.’

‘Pull, for God’s sake, pull.’

He watched, helpless, as Sasha’s head and shoulders appeared. She flattened her body to the edge of the opening. She was pulling at a pair of little pink trainers. Lockyer dropped to his belly and grabbed hold. He pulled, using one hand to protect the small girl’s face as it popped out of the hole like a cork. ‘Get the other one,’ he said, laying the girl down next to him. He felt for a pulse and let out a cry of relief when a strong beat pushed against his dirt-covered fingers. ‘She’s alive,’ he said. He bent down and put his ear over her mouth. Her breathing was shallow, but it was there; he could feel it, warm against his skin. He looked around for something to wrap her up in, to keep her warm. He grabbed a piece of sackcloth and threw it over her.

‘I’ve got the other one,’ Sasha screamed. ‘Help me. I can’t lift her.’

Lockyer turned and sprawled onto the floor again, leaning his head and shoulders over the hole. ‘Pass me her foot,’ he said, straining to reach another pink trainer. His fingers grazed the cold plastic, before he finally managed to get a good grip. He pulled as Sasha fed the girl’s body up through the opening. ‘Check on the younger one,’ Lockyer said, pointing to Poppy who was wrapped up behind him. He turned back to the girl in his arms. There wasn’t enough room to lie her down flat. He crossed his legs and placed her across his knees. He felt for a pulse. He felt again. Nothing. ‘We need an ambulance, now.’ He held his fingers on the girl’s throat. ‘She isn’t breathing,’ he said. Still holding her in his arms, he pushed himself up, using his elbows to lever himself up. He stepped over Sasha and the girl’s sister and pushed out into the night.

He dropped to his knees and started to pump hard and fast on the little girl’s chest. ‘Come on, Petra,’ he said. ‘Come on.’ He said her name with each pump, wincing when he heard a crack. He had broken one of her ribs, but he couldn’t stop. He had to keep her heart going until help arrived. Without thinking, he looked up and saw Aaron a few feet away. He was pumping on Jane’s chest.

9th May – Friday

Lockyer drained the last of the vending-machine coffee and threw his cup in the bin. He looked through the doors into the Toni & Guy Ward. Poppy and Petra Lebowski had been brought to King’s College Hospital by ambulance on Monday night. The doctors said they were both doing well, considering they had been buried for almost six hours. Much longer and the outcome would have been very different. Apart from Petra’s concussion and her broken rib, the girls were unharmed.

Lockyer had been in to see them every day since he had pulled their small bodies out of the tomb that Mark had created for them. Petra had been kept in intensive care for the first twenty-four hours on oxygen but, like all children, she had bounced back with amazing speed. He smiled as he watched them squabbling over whose go on the iPad it was. He wasn’t sure what had come over him: when he had walked into Lewisham on Wednesday to pick up a little gift for the recovering sisters, a lolly or a colouring book just hadn’t seemed enough. He turned and walked away, safe in the knowledge that the girls were okay.

He had been to see Sue first thing on Tuesday morning, before the press got hold of the story. The repercussions of Mark’s actions would be far-reaching, not only for his family, but for the murder squad as well. A never-ending line of colleagues had been into Lockyer’s office searching for an explanation – something to help them understand how one of their own was capable of such atrocities: rape, murder, kidnap. What could he say? Mark was in intensive care on life support, by Lockyer’s own hand. He didn’t know and, if he was honest, he didn’t care about Mark’s motives. The man had strangled Jane with such force that he had broken her hyoid bone. He hadn’t told Sue that part. How could he? She had just been hit with the news that her missing husband was in fact not missing, but had kidnapped and tried to kill two little girls, in an act of revenge – an act of lunacy. The reasons and motives were trapped inside Mark’s head. Even if he did regain consciousness, the doctors said he could have brain damage. He would never again be the man he was. In a way Mark was the lucky one. He would never have to face up to his actions.

Jane had not been so fortunate. Lockyer’s dreams had been filled with images of her body lying on the black earth in the Deptford allotments. Her pale face would interchange with Aaron’s stricken expression as he pumped again and again on her chest. The team had been in a state of shock, but with all the new evidence to process there hadn’t yet been time for a full debrief.

He arrived at Cheere Ward and smiled at the nurses. They were used to him by now. Several times they had explained that visiting hours prevented him staying the night. They had given up; he had no intention of going home. He had spent the last three nights sleeping on a chair. On the second morning he had woken to discover that someone had covered him with a blanket.

His shoulders dropped as soon as he saw her. Jane was lying on her side, her back to him. She was bruised and battered, but alive. Her broken hyoid would heal, or so the doctors told him. They had needed to operate to repair some tissue damage that had been obstructing her airway, but apart from that, she would heal on her own. The consultant had said she would make a full recovery. He pulled up a chair and sat down, not wanting to wake her. A full recovery . . . The bone, the bruises, the swelling: that would all heal; but what about the psychological damage? Maybe she would end up with the same therapist he was seeing. Two damaged detectives together. He smiled.

‘Hey,’ Jane said, turning over in the bed, her voice raspy and hoarse. ‘How’s Mark?’

‘Still alive,’ Lockyer said.

‘That’s good,’ she said. ‘You don’t want his death on your conscience, Mike. If he wakes up, he’ll have to answer for what he’s done.’

‘The docs reckon he might have brain damage from the lack of oxygen.’ Lockyer knew he should feel more, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Mark had crossed over – become one of the people Lockyer had spent his life trying to catch.

‘How’s Sue . . . and the boys?’

‘She’s gone away. France. Her parents have a timeshare out there. She doesn’t want the boys in the country when the story breaks.’

‘It’s not been in the papers yet?’ Jane asked, wincing.

‘No. Roger’s managed to pull some strings to keep things quiet, for the time being, until we have the complete report.’ He wanted to ask some more about what had happened, but it seemed an insult to make Jane relive what had happened in Deptford while she was still lying in a hospital bed. She hadn’t been able to speak until late yesterday, because of the bruising. Since then she had been focused on her family, as she should be. She had spoken to her son on the phone, but he hadn’t been in yet. Jane’s mother, whom Lockyer had met in the corridor on Wednesday, didn’t think it was appropriate for Peter to see his mother in this state. Lockyer shuddered. Celia Bennett was a formidable woman, and then some.

‘I can do my statement now, if you want?’

Lockyer shook his head. ‘There’s no hurry. Mark’s not going anywhere.’

‘I know but I’d prefer to get it out. If only to stop it going round and round in my head,’ she said, tapping the side of her temple.

‘Okay, tell me then. But we’ll leave the official report until you’re back on your feet . . . Deal?’

‘Deal,’ Jane said. She rolled onto her back and pushed herself up the bed a few inches. Lockyer wanted to help, and even reached out, but she waved his hand away. ‘I can manage.’

He sat back and looked out of the window at the end of the ward.

‘Lebowski didn’t kill Amelia Reynolds,’ Jane said.

He turned and looked at her. ‘Say that again?’

‘I know,’ she said, taking a deep breath. ‘Now, some things I know, and some things I
think
I know, so you’re going to have to bear with me. Okay?’

‘Sure, go for it,’ Lockyer said, sitting forward. He was a detective: curiosity was part of his DNA.

‘Mark killed her. I think Amelia rejected him and he reacted – raped her and then strangled her.’

‘How do you know?’ he asked, unable to process what she was saying. ‘Did he admit it?’

‘No,’ she said, her expression pained as she swallowed. ‘But Mark kept telling me that Lebowski had tried it on with Amelia, that she had rejected him. He said Lebowski wouldn’t take no for an answer, that he raped and killed her because she had rejected him. Mark seemed obsessed with Amelia. Said she should have been his daughter – all sorts of weird stuff, like telling her what a cheating nobody her father was.’

‘That doesn’t mean—’ he began, but Jane held up her hand and stopped him.

‘I confronted him, I asked him. I saw it in his eyes, Mike. When I said it again – accused him of killing Amelia – that’s when he lost it, when he tried to . . . kill me.’

Lockyer was shaking his head. ‘If Mark killed Amelia, then what’s all this been about? What’s all the shit with Lebowski been about?’

‘That’s where I get a bit hazy,’ Jane said. ‘You’ll need to talk to Phil, but it sounds like transference or psychological projection. I’ve read about it. Basically, rather than accepting his own guilt and facing what he had done, Mark transferred all of his guilt, confusion and rage onto Lebowski, when he interviewed him. It’s a common process – like kids blaming their siblings for something they did themselves – except that in Mark’s case he took it to a whole new level. I think once he had transferred the blame to Lebowski, Mark was convinced, genuinely convinced, that Lebowski
was
the man who had killed Amelia. He told me as much himself,’ she said, adjusting her position.

‘You should rest,’ he said.

‘No, I’ve got to get this out,’ she replied, dropping her head back on the pillow. ‘Mark also killed Maggie.’ Lockyer felt his mouth drop open. ‘He waited for her to come home. He took her from outside her own house. He drugged her – I don’t even want to think how. He buried her. She was just collateral damage. Mark only killed her and buried her in Elmstead to set up Lebowski.’

‘None of this makes any sense to me,’ he said.

‘You’re telling me.’ She started to cough, her face scrunched up in pain. ‘I’m not sure any of us will ever fully understand,’ she said, taking a sip of water from the cup he had just handed to her. ‘Madness, revenge, spite – they’re just meaningless motives. But Mark killed Amelia and Maggie; he admitted the latter. I’m not sure knowing all the whys and wherefores will help Sue, or anyone else, deal with what’s happened.’

Lockyer could only nod. To see her so weak was one thing, but to hear the defeated tone in her voice was too much. ‘Sue will cope somehow, Jane. She’s tough. Now,’ he said, standing, ‘I’m gonna go for a wander. Let you get some more sleep.’

‘Okay,’ she agreed, taking a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Mike, I never said thank you.’

‘Thank Aaron,’ he said.

‘No, thank you for saving those little girls. I couldn’t have lived with myself if anything had happened to them. Without you, they would have died.’ Her eyes filled with tears.

He took a tissue from the box next to her bed and wiped the tears off her cheeks. ‘Now listen. That’s enough of that, Detective Sergeant Bennett. I order you to get some sleep.’

She smiled, but only for a second. ‘Will you be here when I wake up?’

‘You bet,’ he said, backing away from her bed. ‘Now get some sleep.’ She smiled and closed her eyes. He did the same.

9th May – Friday

‘You mustn’t wake her,’ a voice whispered. ‘Let’s go for a little walk and come back in a minute.’

‘No,’ a determined voice replied. ‘It’s raining.’

Jane opened her eyes. ‘Hey, munchkin. Are you giving Grandma a hard time?’

‘No,’ Peter said, screwing his face up, his fingers playing with the blanket that was hanging over the edge of Jane’s bed. ‘I don’t like walking. I don’t like the rain.’

‘I’m sorry, darling,’ Celia Bennett said, trying and failing to take Peter’s hand. ‘He’s not in the best of moods today.’ Peter shook off his grandmother’s hand and stomped over to the nurses’ station, where he started organizing pens, lining them up on the end of the desk. ‘You need to rest,’ her mother said. ‘We’ll come back – go to the canteen or something. We shouldn’t have woken you.’

Jane covered her mother’s hand with her own. ‘It’s okay, Mum. He’s okay. I’m all right.’

‘Huh . . . all right,’ her mother huffed, pacing back and forth next to Jane’s bed. ‘You’re hardly all right. I knew this job was too dangerous. It was only a matter of time. First you break your leg chasing some ruffian, and then some madman almost kills you. Well, if that’s all right, I don’t know – I just don’t know.’

‘Mum,’ Jane said, trying to ignore the pain as she swallowed. ‘I broke my leg when I was training in Hendon. That’s almost fifteen years ago.’

‘Well, that may be . . . But that’s two serious injuries. You’re not as strong as you think you are.’

‘That’s why she has us, love, so stop badgering the patient.’

Jane turned. Her father was standing on the other side of her bed. He looked thinner. Her eyes filled with tears as he smiled, bent and kissed her cheek. His lips were warm and dry, his moustache soft against her skin. She could smell his cigars. ‘Dad,’ she said, her voice cracking.