Angel of Death (22 page)

Next to the bio was a head-and-shoulders photo of a late-middle-aged man with short silver-grey hair and a matching beard, chiselled features and the confident eyes of a man used to being listened to. Angel unconsciously curled her fingers into a fist. She knew those eyes. For years she’d seen them in her dreams, leering down at her, swollen with lust and arrogance. Even now, if she closed her eyes, she could recall with chilling vividness the feel of his hand on the back of her neck, forcing her head towards Mark Baxley. She ground her teeth at the thought of him working with young people, wondering how many others had been subjected to similar treatment.
Expertise in treating low self-esteem.
A nauseous rage swept over her at the perverse irony of it. Doctor Reeve’s particular brand of therapy had obliterated what little remained of her self-esteem and driven her to the brink of suicide.

At the top of the screen was a ‘Contact’ link. It took Angel to a webpage with an email address and the instructions, ‘To contact Dr Henry Reeve, use the link below. Please include your name, contact number and the nature of your query.’ A sardonic smile lifted Angel’s mouth at the thought of emailing the doctor something along the lines of, ‘Please can we arrange an appointment for me to come over and blow your brains out.’

According to Herbert’s book, the good doctor lived on Whirlowdale Road. Angel looked up the address on Google Maps and zoomed in on the house. It was a large detached property, backing onto woods. Reflecting that it should be easy enough to approach the house unobserved, she scrolled the map to her present location.

Very pleased with her bit of investigative work, Angel imagined the satisfaction she would feel at wiping the arrogance off Doctor Reeve’s face forever. The need for vengeance throbbed in her veins more powerfully even than the desire to shoot up. As dog-tired as she was, if it hadn’t been for the police forcing her to lie low, she would have headed over to his house that very moment.

Angel flinched at the sound of her phone ringing. Warily, as if it might burn her, she took it out of her handbag. A number she didn’t know showed on its screen. She frowned at the phone for a moment, before putting it to her ear. A familiar voice came down the line.

****

Torch beams flickered in the building’s windows as the team of AFOs moved rapidly from room to room, shouting for anyone hiding to come out. Jim leant against the van, smoking a cigarette and listening to Amy help coordinate the search for Grace over the two-way radio. GPS tracking indicated she was now stationary somewhere in the region of Charter Row, Wellington Street and Furnival Gate – an area of the city centre where there were dozens of pubs, bars, nightclubs, restaurants, a hotel or two and a homeless hostel. It would take a while to check out all the possible hiding places, but even so it was only a matter of time before Grace was found.

A mass of conflicting emotions seethed inside Jim. He knew he should feel pleased at a job well done. But he didn’t. He kept thinking about the DVD. Assuming Stephen Baxley was operating the video camera and there was no one else present off-screen, that meant two of the perpetrators were still alive. Two men. Gut police instinct told him that one of those men was Bryan Reynolds. He didn’t have a clue as to the other man’s identity. But even if he had, it would have made little difference. As things stood, there simply wasn’t the evidence to charge anyone. It twisted him up inside to think of Grace going down for life while her abusers remained free to continue their depravity. Especially Reynolds. That scum-sucking piece of filth deserved to be thrown into the deepest darkest hole imaginable.
Other evidence will surface
, he told himself over and again. But each time he did, another voice rose from some remote corner of his mind.
What if it doesn’t? What then?

A firearms officer appeared at the front door and shouted that the building was clear. ‘I’ll check out Winstanley’s office,’ Jim said to Amy.

Flicking away his cigarette, he wearily made his way to the office. He knelt at the side of the desk to peer into the empty secret drawer, noting that it was big enough to hold a small book. He glanced around the room. His gaze came to rest on a phone. He stared at it for a moment, a fierce frown on his forehead, a shadow of conflict clouding his eyes. ‘Do your job and do it properly,’ he muttered under his breath, but there was a hollow ring to his voice.

Jim left the office. He was alone in the building, except for a constable stationed at the front door. He headed upstairs. The door to the office of the solicitor’s firm that shared the premises with Winstanley Accountants and Business Advisors had been broken into. He closed it firmly behind himself and approached a desk with a telephone on it. He took out his notepad and found Grace’s number. Hesitantly, he reached for the phone. He started to punch in the number, but returned the handset to its base with a shake of his head, murmuring, ‘What the fuck are you doing, Jim?’

Again, the sickening images from the DVD flashed through his mind, followed by Reynolds’s smug, scarred face. He snatched up the phone and dialled. His knuckles showed white as he gripped the handset. One ring. Two. Three. Part of him prayed that Grace didn’t answer. Four rings. Five.
She’s not going to pick up
, he thought, releasing a breath that was part relief and part disappointment. He was moving the phone away from his ear when the ringing stopped. For a few seconds there was dead silence, punctuated only by the thud of his heart. Then he heard a voice that was his own, but that sounded strange and distant, as if he was listening to someone else speaking. ‘We know you’re in the city centre near Furnival Gate. We’re tracking the iPhone’s GPS. You haven’t got long before we find you. You need to move now.’

Another moment of silence passed. Then Grace’s voice came down the line, tentative, suspicious. ‘Why are you doing this?’

Jim opened his mouth, but no answer came out. He hung up and looked at his hand. For the first time in as long as he could remember, it was shaking. He put it to his eyes, concealing a sadness that went deeper than any bullet could have done.

****

Angel sprang to her feet, swearing at herself for her stupidity. Deano had always been careful to use phones that weren’t GPS enabled. She yanked on her old sweatshirt and jeans, dislodging the towel tied around her knee. She didn’t understand why Detective Monahan had warned her, but neither did she doubt that he was telling the truth. There’d been no lie in his voice, just a kind of haunted need. She’d heard that need before in the voices of men betraying their wives. Parting the curtains a finger’s breadth, she saw that half a dozen police cars were cruising silently towards the hotel. She grabbed her handbag and the bag of Mexican brown and started towards the door. Almost as an afterthought, she snatched up the iPhone.

She sprinted down a flight of stairs at the rear of the hotel. A fire-exit led to a car park that was accessed from a backstreet with a couple of busy bars and restaurants on it. A group of men emerged from one of the bars. She pulled up her hood. Feigning drunkenness, she staggered into one of the men and flung her arms around him to keep from falling. ‘Whoa, easy there, love, I’m a married man,’ he laughed.

‘Sorry,’ slurred Angel, hurrying on her way in the opposite direction to the group. Her heart lurched as the sound of sirens suddenly flared. She ducked into a shop porch, hiding in its shadows until the sirens began to fade. She peered both ways along the high street, then darted across it into an alleyway. Avoiding busy, well-lit streets, she worked her way towards the side of the city she knew best – the north side. Twice she was forced to fling herself out of the sight of passing police cars.

By the time Angel reached the Tinsley Canal, her clothes clung to her with sweat, and not only because of anxiety and exertion. Withdrawal symptoms were starting to kick in. The towpath was deserted, as she’d expected it to be at that time of night. As a teenager she’d spent many aimless evenings wandering along the canal’s overgrown banks, smoking, drinking and breaking into derelict factory buildings. She kept on at a steady jog, passing industrial barges moored outside the graffiti-tagged walls of silent factories. When the lights of the city centre were well behind her, she slowed to a walk.

Up to that point she’d been focusing on not getting caught, but now she turned her thoughts to where she was going. She needed a place to hole up until at least the following night. But where? She didn’t know anyone in the city who might take her in, except her mum and dad. And she couldn’t exactly go to them. In desperation, she considered phoning her policeman ally. But she quickly rejected the idea. His tone had suggested that he’d already gone way beyond what he was comfortable with. Besides, there was no knowing for sure if Detective Monahan was really on her side. There were some influential – and dangerous – people out there for whom things could suddenly get very uncomfortable if she spilled her guts to the police. It was in their interests to keep her out of the law’s clutches – at least until after they’d got their slimy mitts on her.

As if seeking inspiration, Angel’s gaze skimmed over the canal’s algae-flecked surface. It came to her that there was one place where she could hide out, and what’s more, the canal and the nearby River Don would lead her almost to its door – the flat where Stephen Baxley had kept her hidden.

****

Jim stared into the darkness behind his hand, until Amy shouted into the building, ‘She’s on the move again!’

Like someone emerging from a trance, Jim jerked his head up.
On the move? Why the hell is Grace still holding on to the iPhone? Didn’t she believe me?
Quickly smoothing the perplexity from his face, he hurried downstairs.

Amy’s eyebrows drew together. ‘What were you doing up there?’

She doesn’t trust me any more
, realised Jim.
And she’s right not to.
‘Checking to see if anything had been disturbed. Where’s she heading?’

‘West towards Devonshire Green. Where, if you remember, she was seen talking to someone in a grey mac a week before she went missing. Maybe she’s hoping to bump into that same someone.’

I don’t think so.
‘Maybe,’ agreed Jim, the word contradicting the thought.

Amy gestured with her chin at Herbert Winstanley’s office. ‘Find anything interesting?’ Jim told her about the empty secret drawer. She thumbed over her shoulder towards a marked police car. ‘Come on, let’s get back into the hunt.’

As Jim followed Amy, he glanced back at the office building and was hit by the sudden, almost overwhelming feeling that he’d left something of himself behind in there – something irrecoverable.

Jim sat silent in the back seat as a succession of buildings and streets blurred past, half listening to the updates being relayed over the radio – the suspect was now believed to be hiding somewhere in the area of Devonshire Street. He felt strangely detached from the situation, as if he were watching it happen from a long way off. He found himself thinking about Margaret, wondering what she was doing, and who she was doing it with. He had a sudden longing to be with her, to confide in her about what he’d done. A thought, sharp as a razor, stung him back into the moment.
What you’ve done is helped a murderer, which makes you an accessory.

Devonshire Street had been blocked off by three police cars, and firearms officers had taken up positions behind them. A couple of ambulances were waiting silently further back. To the right was Devonshire Green, a triangle of grass bisected by several paths. Its wide-open, well-lit expanse offered nowhere for Grace to hide. To the left a row of bustling bars and restaurants stretched towards the even busier Division Street, where more police vehicles had formed a second road-block. Officers were stopping everyone who came along and showing them printouts of the CCTV still of Grace. Garrett, his chest encased in a bullet-proof vest, was talking to the senior firearms officer. As Amy and Jim approached, he nodded a greeting. Jim could barely bring himself to meet his superior’s eyes.

‘What’s the plan, sir?’ asked Amy.

‘It’s a tricky situation. If we go in hard, more innocent people could get killed.’

Innocent!
Jim gave a mental snort at the word.
A drug dealer and a pair of child molesters, by what reckoning are they innocent?
He bit back an urge to spit the question at Garrett.

‘So we’re going to hold back?’

‘For now. This street will be all but deserted in a few hours. Then we can reassess the situation. A negotiator is trying to contact Grace using the number from her mother, but she’s not picking up.’

Anyone who emerged from the bars and restaurants was discreetly directed towards officers waiting to question them at whichever end of the street they were closest to. After fifteen or twenty minutes, word came over the radio that the suspect was moving west. A large group comprising both men and women was approaching the road-block. Jim scanned their faces. Grace wasn’t among them.

‘Where the hell is she?’ Amy wondered aloud. ‘Surely we should be able to see her.’

‘Chief Inspector!’ The shout came from one of the officers stopping and questioning people. Garrett, Amy and Jim hurried over to the officer, who continued, ‘This man thinks he may have seen the suspect.’

‘There’s no may have about it,’ said the man. He tapped the CCTV still. ‘I saw her half an hour ago over near the high street, behind John Lewis. I reckon she must’ve been pissed, ‘cos she almost fell over me.’

The detectives exchanged glances. ‘Would you empty your pockets please, sir,’ said Amy.

The man pulled a wallet, keys and phone from one of his jacket pockets. His eyebrows drew together as he produced another phone from the opposite pocket. ‘This isn’t mine.’

Amy took the phone from him and pressed the standby button. A picture of a smiling young boy and girl, flanked by Amy and a thirty-something man appeared on the screen. She showed it to her colleagues, with a wry glimmer of a smile.

‘In which direction was the woman heading?’ Garrett asked.