Settled Blood (29 page)

Of course she fucking did.

Brown was her oppo and she’d let him down.

Badly.

She’d reached her desk. ‘Look, Andy, ’bout last night—’

‘Forget it, man.’ Brown’s gentle Geordie accent seemed more pronounced than usual, not a hint of one-upmanship or triumph in his eyes. ‘We’re mates,
right?’

‘So?’

‘So, it didn’t happen.’

‘What didn’t happen?’

Carmichael managed a half-smile, a lump forming in her throat. Brown was a top bloke and a good colleague. She should’ve known better than to doubt his integrity. Patting his upper arm,
she thanked him for his support, wanting to tell him she was still feeling rough, confide in him about the flashbacks she was experiencing. Weird images had come and gone all day in her waking
hours as well as when she slept: Freek standing too close for comfort; threatening shadows she didn’t understand moving towards her, then fading away; spinning faces turned in her direction
disappearing into a black hole. Before she managed to utter one word, Gormley’s voice cut through her thoughts:

‘You two ready to rock ’n’ roll?’

Brown and Carmichael nodded in unison.

‘C’mon, the boss is waiting to brief you.’

Carmichael didn’t move. Another flashback. They were coming thick and fast now. She should tell someone. No. She had to do this. Had to show them she
could
be trusted. She
couldn’t let them down again.

‘You coming or what?’ Gormley asked.

‘Sorry, I was miles away.’

‘Yeah, well, get your shit together, Lisa. You need to focus.’

Sheepishly, she followed him to the DCI’s office. He was pissed at her. It wasn’t like him to be sharp. She’d let him down. She’d let them all down. And if the freak
didn’t turn up tonight they might have lost their one and only chance to nick him.

B
rown had gone ahead. He was already in Daniels’ office when Carmichael arrived, standing by the window. Behind him, driving rain splattered against the windowpane. It
was almost horizontal and very bad news for Weldon, his search team and Jessica. Brown looked more confident than Carmichael felt. A smile of encouragement crossed his face as she followed Gormley
in.

She was about to close the door when Naylor appeared, walking towards her with an urgency in his step. Suddenly feeling anxious, she stood back and held the door open. Thanking her as he walked
by, he perched himself on the edge of Daniels’ desk and nodded at her.

As Senior Investigating Officer, it was her job to brief them.

‘Right, you two . . .’ Focusing first on Brown, then on Carmichael, Daniels picked up on the tension they were feeling. With an almost imperceptible shake of her head she put their
minds at rest. She’d kept her word: Naylor hadn’t been told. ‘I’ve put a stop-and-search marker on the PNC so Freek’s vehicle is already on the radar of every force in
the country. Assuming we don’t pick him up in the next hour or so, Fuse nightclub is our next best bet. The object of the exercise is to locate and engage with him in order to arrest him. Is
that clear?’

Carmichael and Brown were like a couple of nodding dogs.

‘We’ll be listening the whole time to both of you.’ Daniels’ eyes found Carmichael. ‘Andy has a receiver as well as transmitter. It’s safer that way, Lisa.
That means we’ll be able to communicate with him if necessary. Just in case you start talking to someone else called Steve, i.e. not Freek – and it does happen, believe me – we
need to know from you that you have the target in sight. The words
target in sight
would be good. Or,
I’ve got the arsehole
, if you prefer. Or any other form of words, so long
as it lets us know we can move. Keep talking to us so we know exactly where you are at all times. Let’s be
absolutely
clear about this: we’re not interested in implicating him.
We haven’t got time for that. Our sole objective is to lock him up. Understood?’

Carmichael backed up Brown’s nod with a: ‘Yes, boss.’

‘Good. Any questions? If so, spit ’em out.’ None were voiced. ‘You both sure? We don’t want the nine o’clock shudders in the morning.’

Carmichael frowned, unsure what she meant by that.

‘Shudda done this . . . shudda done that.’ A broad grin spread over Gormley’s face. He’d never been able to stay pissed for long. ‘Keep up, Lisa. You must’ve
heard that one or I’m losing my touch!’

Carmichael laughed, her anxiety easing a little.

Naylor looked at his watch. ‘It’s time for the freak show.’

Daniels stood up, pulling her jacket from the back of her chair.

‘By the way, I rang my opposite number in Durham,’ Naylor added. ‘She’s fully aware of our intention to mount an undercover operation on her patch. She’s instructed
officers working the late shift to steer clear of Fuse unless it’s
absolutely
unavoidable, so you shouldn’t have any problems in that respect.’ Fixing on Brown and
Carmichael, he said, ‘You two take care. Good luck. And Hank, I want Freek back in one piece!’

‘Right!’ Daniels said. ‘Let’s go get him.’

T
hey left the station and piled into the Toyota: Daniels and Gormley in the front, Carmichael and Brown in the rear. Newcastle city centre was extremely busy with late-night
shoppers heading home on buses, trains, in taxis. Daniels engaged her blue flashing light in order to cut through the traffic and soon they were crossing the Tyne Bridge heading south to
Gateshead.

Carmichael stared out of the window as lamp posts flashed by on her left, the strobe-lighting effect hurting her eyes. Beyond the railings, further downriver, the illuminated Millennium Bridge
changed colour. Ruby red clashed with the amber haze of street lamps and blue lights flashing from the roof of the Toyota. And, suddenly, Carmichael was back at Fuse, the psychedelic vortex of
lights spinning round her. Faster. Faster. Ever faster.

Daniels glanced in her rear-view mirror. ‘You OK in the back there, Lisa?’

‘Can’t wait,’ Carmichael lied, trying to calm herself.

Focus.

No one seemed to have much to say as the miles flashed by and they crossed the force border into neighbouring Durham. The hiatus allowed Carmichael time to get her head together. She wondered
whether Freek would show. Her guts were telling her he would and she was desperate to be there when,
if
, they made an arrest.

The radio suddenly interrupted the silence: ‘Control Room to 7824.’

Everyone in the car recognized Brooks’ voice.

‘7824 to Control,’ Daniels answered. ‘What you got for me, Pete?’

‘A sighting of Foxtrot, Romeo, Echo, Three, Kilo parked up in Durham. You’ve got a stop and search on it.’

There was a burst of
Yes!
from the back seat.

‘Don’t get too excited, boys and girls. Officer on scene says there’s no driver present.’

‘You got a location for me?’ Daniels asked.

‘Certainly do.’ Brooks tapped a few keys and read from his control-room monitor. ‘It’s parked on North Bailey. The vehicle is locked and secure.’

‘The bastard’s at the club,’ Gormley told the others.

‘Tell the reporting officer to maintain contact with the vehicle from a covert location until I arrive at the scene. ETA five minutes, no more.’

Daniels turned off the A1M on to the dual-carriageway and picked up speed in the bus lane. Soon after, the yellow glow of Durham City was visible in the distance. She glimpsed the top of the
Cathedral through the trees. Flooring the accelerator, heading downhill, she sped through a couple of roundabouts, forced to slow down as she neared the city centre. There were more pedestrians
here.

Thursday night was a popular night out in Durham.

Back on the radio: ‘7824 to Control. Tell the officer if the driver shows, it’s still a stop and search. He’s to detain him ’til I get there.’

‘That’s a roger. Anything else I can do for you this end?’

‘Maybe later, Pete.’ Daniels drove up the hill through the market square. ‘Just thank the officer for his assistance. I’ll speak to him on arrival.’

The radio went dead.

Turning left into Saddler Street and on to North Bailey, the Castle grounds and Durham’s magnificent cathedral were on Daniels’ right, Hatfield, St Chad’s and St John’s
Colleges on her left. She stopped the car, exchanged a brief glance with Carmichael in her rear-view mirror.

‘Looks like we’re on, Lisa. Get your student face ready.’

I
n dim light and shivering uncontrollably, Jessica peered towards the black hole, her only escape from the chamber. The water level had dropped quite a bit in the past few
hours and she felt calm.

So calm.

Way beyond terrified.

She called out. But nothing came back except the echo of a rasping voice that no longer sounded like her own. ‘Hello, are you there? Are you there? You there? There?’

Who was he? And what the fuck had he meant?
Blame your father.
Blame your father for what? She’d been blaming her father since she was a little girl. Now she’d do anything
– anything, to see him one more time. A chance to tell him she forgave him.
For everything.
He wouldn’t survive another loss, not after Mum. Losing Mum had turned him into a
heartless monster she hardly recognized from before – if ‘before’ even existed outside of her imagination.

She felt drowsy again, began talking to Robert about their hopes and dreams for the future, the only way she’d been able to stay awake. Sleep now would signal the end. But she was tired,
so very, ve-ry tired.

Drifting . . .

Floating away . . .

Sucked into a warm tunnel that took the pain away . . .

Jessica woke with a start as a draught of air, barely noticeable, kissed her face. Was she dreaming? Hallucinating?

No.

There it was again.

She wept hysterically as hope bubbled up inside her, choking her to the point of exhaustion. Either the wind outside had changed direction and she wasn’t far from the entrance to the mine,
or there was a ventilation shaft nearby.

Either way she might be heard.

Please God, let it be true.

T
hankfully the rain had stopped. Daniels didn’t need her wipers on. Freek’s red BMW three series was parked twenty metres away in a line of cars, directly beneath a
street lamp. From her position, she could observe both the car and the front door of the club they called Fuse. Her first and only priority was to preserve life. She was desperate to examine the
BMW, make sure that Jessica wasn’t tied up in the boot.

‘Hank, get the jemmy out,’ she said.

Gormley got out. He went to the rear of the Toyota, opened the tailgate and took something from the back. Then he walked nonchalantly across the road and popped the boot of the BMW. He shook his
head, jammed the boot shut as best he could and then returned to the others.

‘There’s all sorts in there,’ he said as he got back in the car. ‘Laptop, few boxes, other stuff I couldn’t make out. But no rolled-up carpets with girls
inside.’

‘Good. Now keep your bloody eye on it.’ Daniels didn’t mind his black humour. It was his way of coping. Self defence against the things that concerned him most. His emotional
connection to the case was as strong as hers. She never doubted that. Pushing a button on her radio, she began to transmit. ‘Pete, we’re now in position, keeping obs on target. The
vehicle has been examined in situ. Jessica Finch is not inside. I repeat, Jessica Finch is
not
inside. Relay that to the MIR for me, will you? No sign of the driver yet. As soon as
he’s been located I’m going to need a low-loader here to uplift the vehicle forensically. Might be advisable to give the CSIs the heads up on that.’

Gormley began grumbling about the name change. When they had joined the police, Crime Scene Investigators were known as scenes of crime officers, or SOCO. A poncy new name didn’t change
what they did and wasn’t required in his opinion. CSI Northumbria was hardly CSI Miami, was it? Sexing up departments was the wrong way to go, incurring an expense the force could utilize to
better effect elsewhere.

‘Stop bleating, will you?’ Although she agreed with him totally, Daniels had more pressing matters on her mind. She depressed the button on her radio. ‘Any chance you could ask
the reporting officer to identify himself and stand by until we’re done, Pete? The BMW is no longer secure.’

‘That’s a roger,’ Brooks came back.

Seconds later, a car further down the street flashed its lights once.

Daniels did likewise, then cut her ignition.

She swivelled round to face her DCs. ‘You ready to make a name for yourselves?’

Brown and Carmichael both nodded, eager to get going.

‘Off you go then. You first, Andy.’

Brown got out and made his way along the road past Freek’s BMW. From the Toyota, three pairs of eyes watched him until he disappeared inside the nightclub. A few seconds later, Carmichael
followed him in.

T
he place was heaving when she entered, even more so than the night before. Carmichael made a beeline for the bar, bought a bottle of water, and turned to face the throng of
bodies already on the dance floor. Stephen Freek was not among them, as far as she could tell, but directly opposite the bar she spotted Brown’s distinctive pink Superdry T-shirt that, it had
to be said, clashed spectacularly with his red hair.

Carmichael’s eyes followed Brown to the nearest table, where a skinny kid was sitting on his own without a drink. He was wearing ripped baggy jeans, a short-sleeved shirt that was far too
small for him and tats on his arms he couldn’t quite pull off. As Brown was talking to the lad, an equally skinny girl joined them, carrying a beer in both hands. She exchanged a few words
with Brown, who pulled up a chair and sat down.

‘Can I buy you a proper drink?’ a voice behind Carmichael said.

Feeling Brown’s eyes upon her, Lisa Carmichael swung round on her bar stool and came face to face with a pair of steely blue eyes.