A Tapping at My Door: A Gripping Serial Killer Thriller (The DS Nathan Cody Series) (28 page)

She knows there is too much pleading in her voice, and she can tell that Mostyn is making a mental note of her lack of objectivity. Well, stuff him, she thinks. This isn’t about me. It’s about my officer. He needs to be safe now.

Mostyn turns to Hewison, in charge of the armed response officers. Nods his head. More commands are issued.

Blunt moves away from the comms station. Away from the chatter. She tries to settle her thoughts.

She closes her eyes for a few seconds, her back to everyone else in the room. Cody is alive. The crisis is over. She can go back to being the gruff intimidating DCI. Be the professional they are used to seeing.

A voice filters through to her. She is not sure to whom it belongs, but someone is demanding her attention. Okay, she thinks. About face. Show them what they’re expecting.

But then she sees their expressions. All of them the same. Grim. Funereal. And all she wants to do is crumble.

‘What is it?’ she asks weakly.

It is Mostyn who responds: ‘A policeman has been killed. PC Tony Stebbins. He was coming out of Hoylake police station, on his way home after finishing a stint of overtime. Somebody fired a crossbow bolt into his head.’

36

They will come, of course. The questions. He is dreading them, but they will come.

Before that, he spends several hours in the A & E Department of the Royal while he gets his noggin checked out. And when he finally gets the news that his skull is still intact and his brain is none the worse for wear, he receives an order that he is to go home and rest for several hours more.

He gets no rest. He hardly ever sleeps anyway, but the knowledge that he will need to explain himself to the bosses keeps him edgy all day.

When the phone rings, he ignores it. His colleagues will be back on duty. They will have heard rumours of what happened to him last night. They will want to know the full story. And a story would be what he would have to deliver if he answered their calls. A tissue of lies to explain his erratic behaviour.

He doesn’t want to do that to his friends, but he certainly can’t hand them the truth. So, better to evade the questions.

But that can’t last forever. When it gets to the middle of the afternoon, he decides he needs to face the music. Head throbbing, he gets into his car and takes himself over to the station.

As he enters the incident room, he is surprised by the expressions on the faces of the other detectives. They seem somehow darker than he expected, and that causes him to worry. What has been said about him?

Webley is first out of her chair. She steps right up to him, blocking his way.

‘Are you okay?’ she asks.

He points to the lump on his head. ‘Other than looking like the Elephant Man, yes, I’m fine.’

‘I . . . I tried to call you. Several of us tried.’

‘I know. I couldn’t get to sleep because of you lot.’ He laughs as he says this, but the humour doesn’t rub off. Something else is bothering Webley.

‘Why?’ he asks. ‘What have I missed?’

She doesn’t get a chance to answer before Blunt calls out Cody’s name. He looks over Webley’s shoulder and sees his boss filling the door frame.

‘Gotta go,’ he says. ‘Fill me in later, okay?’

He moves away from her, but still with the feeling that he’s the only one not privy to a vital piece of news.

When he gets into Blunt’s office, she signals him to close the door. Here come the questions, he thinks.

He jerks a thumb behind him. ‘What’s going on? They’re acting like it’s the day of my funeral.’

She narrows her eyes for a second. Then they widen again, as if in astonished realisation that he really doesn’t know what everybody else knows.

‘I’ll get to that in a minute,’ she says. ‘First of all, we need to talk about last night.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘So? What happened? It was all going fine until you got to the top floor, and then you seemed to freak out. What the hell was going on?’

‘I thought I heard something, ma’am.’

Which is true, he thinks. I heard my name and I heard laughter and I heard screaming and . . .

‘You heard something? What kind of something?’

‘A person. On the stairs. That’s why I went running down. I was convinced I heard somebody else in the building.’

‘I see. And did you catch a glimpse of this person?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘You ran out of the room, and all the way down the stairs, and you didn’t once see this person you were chasing?’

‘No, ma’am. It was dark. All I had was a torch.’

‘Didn’t stop you running hell for leather, though, did it? I mean, one could be forgiven for thinking that you were the one being chased.’

‘I . . . I suppose it could have looked like that. I guess I was moving pretty fast down those stairs.’

‘Yes, you were. And when you got to the bottom?’

‘Ma’am?’

‘When you got to the bottom of the stairs, what happened then?’

‘I . . . I couldn’t see anyone, so I thought he must have gone through the front door. So I went that way too.’

‘How?’

He pauses, shakes his head. ‘I don’t . . .’

‘How did you go through the door? Cautiously?’

‘No. Not really. In fact, I just burst through it. I thought I was hot on his heels.’

‘You did? Even though you couldn’t see this person? You thought you were right behind him?’

‘Yes. That’s what it sounded like to me.’

‘That’s what it sounded like? So you could hear two sets of feet on the stairs – yours and his?’

‘I thought so. I mean, that’s how it seemed at the time.’

This is crap, he thinks. This is so much bullshit, and she knows it.

‘We couldn’t hear anything. On our speakers. We could only hear you.’

‘Well, with respect, ma’am—’

‘We switched your cameras to infrared, too. We couldn’t see any other person in that building, at any time.’

‘I . . . I didn’t have the benefit of those cameras, ma’am. I couldn’t see as well as you could.’

She shakes her head, as if with some sadness. ‘No. I suppose not. You knew we were there, though. Why didn’t you call for backup?’

‘I didn’t think I needed it.’

She sits back in her chair, her face a picture of incredulity. ‘Really? You’re chasing a suspected murderer through a building in which you have almost zero visibility, and you don’t think you need assistance?’

He realises his leg is shaking with nerves, and he has to put a hand on his knee to steady it.

‘I thought I could handle it. I thought it was one-on-one. He was running from me. He was scared. It seemed to me I had the upper hand.’

‘But this guy is a master at setting traps. We know that from past experience. We made it very clear when you were briefed how you should handle this. Mostyn told you in no uncertain terms: you find someone, you holler, that’s all. Do you remember that?’

‘Yes, ma’am, I do. I guess I got a little carried away.’

She nods gravely. ‘Carried away. Yes, that’s a good way of putting it.’

She squares up some papers on her desk while she squares up the thoughts in her head.

‘Armed response searched every inch of that building. They didn’t find anyone, or any sign that anybody else but you had been there. They also report that nobody came out of that building ahead of you.’

‘That doesn’t alter what I believed I heard, ma’am.’

‘No, it doesn’t. Because that’s what’s at the heart of this, isn’t it? What you believed.’

‘Ma’am?’

‘The suggestion has been made, Cody, that you lost it in there. That you panicked, went to pieces.’

Cody wonders who made the suggestion. Most likely Mostyn, but it could have come directly from Blunt herself.

He shakes his head emphatically. ‘That’s not right. I was in control at all times. Well, until I banged my head.’

Blunt’s sigh is a heavy one. ‘Nathan, I want you to be honest with me. We both know what you’ve been through. One of the reasons I objected to your plan to draw out our killer was precisely because of your history. I wasn’t sure you were capable of handling it. Mentally, I mean. What I saw last night – well, that looked to me like someone having an anxiety attack. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not blaming you in any way – but I need the truth. I need to know what kind of state you’re in.’

He wants to tell her. She is asking calmly and with genuine warmth and interest, and he wants to tell her everything. Open up to her about what a basket case he really is, and how he proved that to himself and everybody else last night. He needs rest, he needs help, he needs somebody to talk to.

‘I’m absolutely fine, ma’am,’ he says.

She stares at him for a long, long time. Penetrates his skull with her staring. She can read the truth, he thinks. She can see the messages of desperation and anguish passing across my brain like a ticker tape.

‘Then that’s what I’ll put in the report,’ she says finally. ‘An honest mistake. You put yourself into what was potentially a highly dangerous situation, and when you heard what you believed to be the suspect, you set off in pursuit without even a thought for your own safety. That’s how I’ll write it up, Cody, because of what you’ve just told me. Who knows, you might even get a commendation for this.’

He realises she is deliberately making him feel uncomfortable. Letting him know he could be in line for an accolade he hardly deserves. That’s her punishment for his lies, and she’s right to dish it out.

He stands up, anxious to get the hell out of here.

‘Sit down, Cody. We’re not done yet.’

So, what else? What additional mental persecution does she have planned for me?

Says Blunt, ‘From the way you acted when you came in, I got the impression you haven’t yet been fully briefed about the events of last night.’

‘Er, no, ma’am. I went to get checked out at the hospital, and then I went home. This is the first proper discussion I’ve had about it.’

‘Nobody called you?’

‘They tried. I switched off my phones. I was shattered.’

Another lie, but what the hell difference does another drop in that murky ocean make?

‘And you haven’t seen the television news?’

Oh, crap. What is this? What was Webley trying to tell me out there?

‘No, ma’am.’

‘Well, Cody, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but our killer struck again last night.’

No. This can’t be happening. I had a trap set. He was meant to fall into my trap.

‘Where? When?’

‘Just outside Hoylake police station. PC Tony Stebbins, walking back home after doing some overtime. He was murdered at just about the same time you were searching the building at the docks.’

Shit, shit, shit.

Cody puts his head in his hands. ‘Oh, Christ. The bastard. The devious, sneaky little bastard.’

She could try to make him feel better about things. She could tell him that his idea was a good idea nonetheless, that the murder would have taken place even without the attention and resources diverted on to his admirable operation. But she does none of this. She leaves him in torment, and again he knows he deserves it.

‘What happened?’ he groans. ‘Same MO as the others?’

‘Actually, no. This time the killer played it safe. He did it from a distance. Used a crossbow. Good shot, too. Hit Stebbins right in the forehead. The pathologist says he would have died instantly.’

‘Jesus. The guy was wandering the streets with a crossbow? And nobody noticed?’

‘We assume he drove there. Fired from his parked car.’

‘Do we know that for certain? Any CCTV of the car?’

Blunt looks glum. ‘It was out of sight of the station’s cameras, but we’re going through other footage from cameras in the area. I’m not hopeful, though. Chances are the car was stolen just for this job. And this is Hoylake we’re talking about. It’s not exactly a hotbed of crime. Nobody was expecting something like this to happen there. Our killer has changed his pattern yet again. He’s moved out of the city, almost certainly because it was getting too hot for him here. He’s wise to us. He knows we’re trying to trap him. Hence the diversionary tactics involving you last night.’

Cody says nothing for a while. Tries to let all this horrific information percolate through his exhausted brain. When it does, it brings with it another question.

‘Was there a bird this time? A message?’

Blunt nods. ‘His method of execution might have changed, but he still wants to tease us. He left a dead robin this time. The note on its leg said, “Who’ll dig his grave?”’

Cody thinks about this, but Blunt answers it for him.

‘We’ve beaten you to it this time. It’s a line from “Cock Robin”: “Who killed Cock Robin? I, said the sparrow, with my bow and arrow”. Then, later on, it goes: “Who’ll dig his grave? I, said the owl”. Okay, it wasn’t exactly a bow and arrow that was used, but near as damn it.’

Birds again. Always birds. Why? What is this man trying to tell us?

Cody is anxious to get up to speed on this case. He needs to talk to his colleagues, find out what they know about these latest developments.

‘I want you to go back home,’ says Blunt.

He blinks. ‘What? Why? Because of last night?’

‘Because you look like shit, if you want the honest truth. You haven’t slept today, have you?’

He ignores the question. ‘You need all the personnel you can get on these murders. This guy is really clever. He’s making fools of us.’

Blunt slams her palms on the desk. ‘Yes, I know he’s making us look like amateurs, Cody. And it’s not going to get any better by putting people on the team who aren’t awake enough to think straight.’

‘No,’ he answers. ‘This is because of last night’s cock-up, isn’t it? This is your way of punishing me for an operation that didn’t work out as well as we hoped.’

The blaze in Blunt’s eyes tells him he should have remained silent.

‘For one thing,’ she says, ‘it was an operation that had very slim hope of working in the first place. For another, if you think that I’m so petty as to go handing out red cards to officers just because they have ideas that don’t pan out in the way they’d like, then you don’t know me very well. I’m ordering you home, Sergeant Cody, because you are no use to me in the state you’re in right now. Go home, get some rest, get your act together, and then come and see me again in the morning. Got it?’