Playing the Game (34 page)

            I discreetly flashed the card to Balfer, who nodded and I heard him communicating with Orton. My head was spinning. I knew I couldn’t wait for SWAT to reposition before making my move. I knew I had to go immediately with Balfer as my back up and just pray that SWAT repositioned in time to take her out.

            It was beginning to get dark now too, which didn’t stack the odds any more in my favour; the element of surprise almost certainly belonged to Sarah Caldwell and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel sick to my stomach. Although at least, as it got darker, it would be easier for Balfer to remain undetected.

            We got back into the car and drove another three quarters of a mile or so, before we both got out and continued on foot.

            Slowly, I began the walk, trying to give SWAT all the time I could to relocate. Balfer used the trees on the opposite side as cover, to mask his presence. My gun was drawn. Should the opportunity present itself, I would have no hesitation in shooting; and shooting to kill.

            Apprehensively, I turned the corner and standing a hundred yards or so in front of me, near the safety barrier, only a couple of feet away from a sheer drop of at least two hundred feet, was my daughter, Katie. Behind her, with what can only be described as a maniacal glint in her eyes that I could see even from where I was standing, was Sarah Caldwell. I couldn’t help but notice that she had picked a spot that provided her with substantial cover and that directly opposite where she was standing with my daughter the cliff rose up again, meaning it would take SWAT even longer than I had first thought to address their new tactics and reposition.

            I could also see that Katie’s mouth had been gagged which prevented her from crying out to me, but the look in her eyes as she saw me relayed her relief beyond any words she could have uttered. I could also see that there was a syringe that had been implanted into her neck, the plunger of which had mercifully not been pressed down. Not yet, anyway. If I’d had to guess, I’d guess that in keeping with her moniker, Sarah Caldwell had filled the syringe with Clozapone.

            As much as I was relieved to see my daughter, even in this precarious, dangerous position, I knew that all my attention had to be focussed on Sarah Caldwell. It was the only way I was going to save Katie.

            As I got a little closer, I saw that Caldwell also had a gun, cradled in her left hand. Her right hand was hovering over the plunger; her thumb and forefinger resting on the syringe itself. That meant that although she couldn’t use her hands and arms to physically restrain Katie, she very much held all the cards.

            ‘Detective Patton’, it was the first time I’d heard her voice without the digitiser and she sounded almost normal, almost human. Maniacal glint in he eyes aside, she looked normal too. If you walked past her in the street you would assume she was an ordinary, every day type of woman and not a stone cold killer masking a dark existence. Her previous crimes also indicated that she was a lot stronger than her build suggested. ‘I must say that you have made excellent time with my game’. She paused. ‘And you don’t look entirely surprised to see me’, she noted. ‘So you knew who I was before I left you the clipping in Mr. Britland-Jones’ hands?’ I ignored the question.

            ‘Sarah, you have to let Katie go’, I pleaded, edging closer, trying to buy some time. ‘I ran your brother off the road, not her. It’s me you want. I killed Andrew’.

            ‘Don’t you dare fucking speak his fucking name!’ she snarled. Well she certainly sounded more like a killer now and I realised I’d just made a mistake. Who knows what she would do instinctively if I riled her even further? She saw me glance at the syringe, and regained her composure, smiling at me.

            ‘I’m sure you can guess what’s in the syringe Detective’, she laughed. ‘But I must warn you, the concentration of this particular little cocktail is enough to kill instantly’.

            ‘Just take it easy, please’, I tried to sound calm and relaxed which under the circumstances was proving nearly impossible. Where was SWAT? Had they had time to reposition themselves?

‘You have until the count of three to drop your gun, otherwise little Katie here will find out just how concentrated that Clozapone is’. If there’s one thing I knew about Sarah Caldwell, it was that it wasn’t in her nature to make threats she wouldn’t carry out. I didn’t even give her the chance to start counting. I wasn’t going to take the chance and tossed my gun a few feet in front of me, raising my hands in the air.

Suddenly, she raised her gun in my direction and fired off two shots which whizzed past my left shoulder. Her other hand never left the syringe, and I heard Balfer cry out in pain behind me.

            ‘You disappoint me, Detective, you disappoint me. Did I not tell you to come alone?’ My natural instinct was to check on Balfer, but I remained focussed on Sarah Caldwell who was only a few feet away. At least it seemed that she thought Balfer was my only back up. She didn’t know about the SWAT team that I prayed now had her in their sights.

            ‘Would you have come alone if you were me?’ It was all I could think of and I saw her smile once again.

            ‘How is Detective Holland by the way?’ she laughed. ‘I can’t help but notice he’s not here tonight!’ I suspected she thought she’d done more damage to him than she actually had.

            ‘Like I said,’ repeating myself, ‘it’s me you want. Nobody else was responsible, only me’. I held off using her brother’s name.

            ‘Oh I do want you, Detective Patton. I want you to suffer like I’ve been suffering for eight years’. I didn’t like where this was going. Balfer was down, the fact that SWAT hadn’t taken a shot indicated they weren’t ready, I wasn’t armed and my daughter’s life was now solely in the hands of Sarah Caldwell.

            ‘After today, for the rest of you’re life, you will see me every time you look in the mirror and every time you visit your daughter’s grave you will know that I was the one that was responsible for her lying in the ground, rotting, decaying’.

            I knew I was going to have to make my move soon regardless, and that the chances of me making it to my weapon before Caldwell could inject my daughter full of lethal Clozapone was slim; but the way she was talking, it seemed like she would be doing that in a few seconds anyway. I looked into Katie’s eyes for a moment, almost seeking her approval to make a move.

            Without warning, Sarah Caldwell staggered back a little, seemingly in a great deal of pain. Her hand came away from the syringe and up to her temple; her face screwed up in agony. For a split second I thought SWAT had made the shot, but I hadn’t heard any weapon being fired. That was immaterial. I knew this was my chance.

            ‘Katie move!’ I yelled, diving for my weapon. This would be the only opportunity I would have to end this.

            I don’t know if I’d startled my daughter or if the events of the last twenty-four hours had simply been too much for her, but she only moved a little; not enough for me to get a clean shot off; and Sarah Caldwell quickly regained her upper hand.

            The migraine that had come at the most inopportune moment had thankfully only lasted a couple of seconds, but it had been right up there with the worst of them in terms of pain. As soon as she realised what was happening she knew Patton would use that opportunity to move, so even though the migraine had come with no warning at all, she knew instinctively what she had to do and as she staggered back, she let go of the syringe and grabbed Katie by the scruff of the neck.

            Both of them fell backwards, towards the safety barrier at the edge of the road and Caldwell acted quickly. She violently jerked Katie back and hauled her over the barrier, having to drop her gun in the process, which sailed over the barrier and over the cliff side; she needed two hands to prevent Katie from falling to her death. Katie would be dead soon anyway, she just needed to make sure that she had a way out of this alive before plunging the girl to her death, in the same way Patton had her brother all those years ago.

            Katie was over the barrier and Sarah Caldwell had positioned her grip just right before Patton even made it to his gun. Migraine now subsided, she realised she still had the upper hand. She glanced at Katie, who’s muffled screams through the gag penetrated the silence. Her arms and legs flailed in the air as she tried desperately to get a foothold or a grip on something, sure that this crazy woman would drop her to her death on the rocks that lay all that way down.

            ‘What you going to do Detective?’ she laughed, looking down the barrel of Patton’s gun. ‘Shoot me and Katie dies. But you want to shoot me so badly now don’t you?’

            Despite her bravado, she realised that her current situation didn’t favour her as much as she had first thought. Patton was edging ever closer. If he got too close, he might be able to get a hand to his daughter and still get a shot off. One thing was for certain, Sarah Caldwell couldn’t die today. She had so much more left to do. She knew she had to make a decision and make it quickly. She turned to the girl, who was becoming heavy, the lactic acid in her arms beginning to burn. The girl was still struggling, eyes wide with terror as she tried in vain to hold onto something. ‘Bye bye Katie!’ Sarah Caldwell even blew her a kiss as she let go, turning and running as fast as she could, knowing that Patton’s first priority would be his daughter. She had an escape route planned anyway, in case something unforeseen had cropped up, and it had. She knew she could be far away, fairly quickly.

            I was six or seven feet from the barrier when I knew what Sarah Caldwell was going to do. She was right of course; if I shot her, she would drop Katie. I saw she was going to drop her anyway and had no option but to dive from where I was in the direction of my daughter and pray to God that I got there in time.

            The next second played out in slow motion, certainly in my eyes, and it’s a second I never want to relive again. As I leapt, arms outstretched I saw Caldwell turn. She would have to wait. I could hear Katie’s muffled screams go up in pitch as she realised she’d been let go.

            I’m not sure whether she managed to grasp something momentarily, which delayed her fall, but somehow, I managed to grab her wrist as she was falling back. I crashed hard into the barrier, and thought for one horrific second that the reverberations of my collision with the barrier might loosen my grip on my daughter’s wrist. I struggled to tighten my grip, and it took me a few seconds, which were definitely the scariest seconds of my life, to grab her arms securely with both hands.         As I pulled her up, back over the barrier, I was shaking almost as much as she was. I briefly, for one moment, looked over my shoulder and saw no sign of Sarah Caldwell at all.

            Quickly, I pulled out the syringe from Katie’s neck, thankful that Sarah Caldwell had not been in the position to inject her from where she had been dangling her over the barrier, and I removed the gag from her mouth. The tears that were streaming down her face were now accompanied with sobs as I took her in my arms, both of us collapsing on the side of the barrier.

            I looked up and saw Agent Balfer beginning to rise, and he gave me the thumbs up, letting me know that he was alright and that I could just concentrate on my daughter.

            As she lay in my arms trembling and sobbing, all I could do was to whisper that I was sorry in her ears. Over and over again.

94

            The ambulance picked us up, including Balfer, who had fortunately only sustained minor injuries at the hands of Sarah Caldwell. To my eternal relief, Katie seemed alright too. I didn’t press her too much on details of what she’d been through, she would tell me when she felt able to. She did tell me though that she had no idea where she had been held and that she didn’t remember arriving there and had been blindfolded this afternoon when Caldwell had moved her from a cellar into a car.

            I was hoping that Katie would have been able to give me more than that, but I was just glad to have her back. She would go to the hospital for the usual checks but I was hopeful that she would only stay overnight. I called her mother, again not telling her about The Chemist. How could I do that over the phone? That was something I would have to do face to face, and I knew Vikki would blame me unreservedly for what had happened.

            I blamed myself too, and hated what I had put my daughter through in the last twenty-four hours. Katie whispered that it wasn’t my fault and it was all I could do to stop myself from crying with her. I could live with Vikki blaming me for this but if my daughter didn’t then that was more than I had any right to ask for.

            The area surrounding our showdown with The Chemist was being combed by a team of officers, who had so far uncovered nothing. I spoke briefly with Orton who told me that SWAT hadn’t had time to reposition to the new location. The terrain had been too mountainous to scale in such a short time. Aside from the bunch of flowers lying at the side of the road, there was no sign that Sarah Caldwell had ever been here. Was that it for now, or did she have more for me? Did she have an alternative plan, just in case this one didn’t work out? To me now, catching her came secondary to ensuring the well-being of my family, and after Katie has whispered that she didn’t blame me, the rest of the journey was silent as I held her in my arms, looking up to the heavens and silently thanking God on more than one occasion.

            When we arrived at the hospital, Vikki was already there, frantically pacing up and down, looking mortifyingly worried, even though I’d assured her Katie was alright. The look that she gave me as Katie was helped from the ambulance spoke volumes, and it was a look that did not subside as I sat her down and told her, from start to finish, the events that had unfolded in the past two days.

            She chastised me for not telling her in the first place this morning, and was horrified to learn that Sarah Caldwell had evaded capture.