Blood Tribute (The Lucas Gedge Thrillers Book 1) (7 page)

G
edge’s head
throbbed to the sound of a weird rhythmic wailing, contrasted by guttural shouts in a foreign tongue. He was lying, pinned down. A brazier to his right generated tremendous heat and sent blood-red flames snaking up to a ceiling somewhere above. Flickering shadows played on the opposite wall, like some kind of fiendish puppet show.

A huge male figure appeared: bald head, naked to the waist and dripping with sweat in the heat. He moved to the brazier, a blank expression on his face. Sparks flew as he placed something in the flames. Both the heat and the wailing seemed to increase. Gedge’s head lolled from side to side. Unable to move, his own body was now so bathed in sweat that he could have been lying in a hot pool.

To his left, another figure came into view. Tall, moustachioed, short-cropped hair, a thin smile. This one didn’t seem to be perspiring at all. He bent down and whispered something in Gedge’s ear. He seemed to be speaking English, but too quietly, or in some subtle dialect that Gedge couldn’t understand. Gedge wrenched his head around and stared at the man, willing him to speak again. He did so, this time apparently uttering several sentences, smiling all the while. But still Gedge could not make out what he was saying.

Now, a drumbeat was added to the hypnotic rhythm of the ululating voice, and Gedge, unable to speak but wanting to shout out—‘What are you saying? What are you talking about?’—was losing his breath and starting to feel palpitations. The tall figure stopped speaking, shook his head, as if to say ‘You’ve had your chance’, and nodded to the man-mountain opposite.

Gedge forced his head over to the right, to see the giant remove two iron bars from the brazier, their tips glowing white-hot. He advanced slowly on Gedge. Unbelievably, the heat increased even more, the awful sounds grew louder still.

The white-hot metal, like the twin eyes of some insatiable demon, came closer and closer to Gedge’s face, until he could feel the skin on his cheeks begin to blister. He finally managed to let out a hideous scream, a primordial shriek that ripped a hole through the fabric of the nightmare, and sent him plummeting back to the reality of his small room above an inn in Spitalfields.

G
edge repeatedly plunged
his face into a bowl of cold water, then sat on the end of the bed. His head felt as though a steam-hammer was working full pelt inside it. He washed, shaved, put on clean clothes, and hurled the soaked sheets into the corner to be washed later.

The nightmares started two years ago, after his ordeal at the hands of a Russian-backed Afghan gang near Herat in Afghanistan. The experience had nearly put an end to his clandestine activities in that part of the world, even before London’s Intelligence Department caught up with him.

The scene was always a slightly abstract, heightened version of the torture room. The nightmares always happened at times of stress, and he had been dreading another recurrence last night, as he lay in bed trying to come to terms with the abduction of his daughter.

Not that his dreams were unusual, or especially bad, compared to many of his fellow soldiers. Quite apart from any physical injuries, many men had been rendered useless as human beings by their wartime experiences. Their mental problems led to depression and a sense of obsolescence, as well as producing physical effects such as constant involuntary tics and tremors. Surplus to the army, hundreds washed up back in the homeland, unable to get work or even live normally. In a desperate attempt to banish the horrors, they took to drink, laudanum or any other form of drug they could get their hands on. In the end they simply added to the tide of homeless human detritus, clogging up the capital’s meaner streets, waiting to die.

As the throbbing in his cranium eased a little, Gedge resolved to put his nocturnal torments to the back of his mind and pull himself together. There was a lot that had to be done.

He needed to go back to the abduction site as soon as it was light. However good the lantern was, it would still be preferable to look over the scene in the daylight. After that the police must be told, and he wanted to ask the advice of Claude Rondeau. He was sure the old man’s wisdom would be invaluable.

B
ack at Loftus Walk
, he saw a street cleaner slowly moving towards him from the opposite end, and he hurried along to the spot next to the alley before the cleaner got there. He was glad to be alone, without Sean. Last night, Gedge had found his presence unnerving. Was his hanging back and vagueness of recollection due to injury, delayed shock, or some other reason? He was sure that the boy must have got a better look at the abductors than he had admitted. It could be fear of retribution. He would have to speak to him again, and he would need to extract anything he’d been holding back, by whatever means necessary.

For now, Gedge continued to look around the area. He methodically went over the ground again, occasionally bending down to pick something up. Nothing.

The street cleaner reached him. He was a boy of about the same age as Sean, but obviously of far more limited means. Gedge enquired whether he had seen anything unusual there in the last few days, but the boy appeared mute, vigorously shaking his head, saying nothing.

Gedge lifted his eyes from the street and pavements and looked up at the houses and businesses along the road. He caught the reflection of a window being opened, on the second floor of a building across the street, and saw the wrinkled face of an old woman looking down at him. He held her gaze. She continued to stare for a few seconds, and then reached her hand out in a beckoning gesture.

He found the street door of the building. It was unlocked, but he would have to go up to the second floor to determine which was the old woman’s flat.

He went inside and looked around. There were several doors on the ground floor, each bearing a nameplate by the knocker. He climbed the stairs to the second floor. More doors, more nameplates. It had probably started off as a grand house for the rich, but at some point had been converted into flats. The old woman had appeared in the third window along from one edge of the building, and so he examined the nameplate on what he took to be the corresponding door. It read “Miss G. Fowler”.

He knocked, and a voice from inside, surprisingly loud and firm, said, ‘Who is it?’

‘My name is Lucas Gedge. I am looking into the disappearance of my daughter, Hannah, from the street outside, last night. I wonder if I could talk to you, please?’

There was a long moment of silence. Gedge imagined the woman considering whether or not to open the door to someone who might well be a ruffian for all she knew. Finally, the door opened a few inches and a narrow face peered out.

The woman had a long, pointed nose and large eyes that were wide open as she inspected Gedge. Together with her unruly thatch of grey hair, he couldn’t help thinking she looked like an inquisitive but timid mouse.

‘I’ve been expecting the police,’ she said.

‘I’m sure they will want to talk to you as well, but I didn’t want to waste any time. I believe I may have a chance of getting her back myself. I noticed from below that you must have a good view of where it happened. Even though it was at night, I just wondered if you might have seen or heard anything. Miss Fowler, is it?’

‘That’s right. I never married.’ She looked up at him with what he thought was a hint of sadness in her big eyes. ‘Are you involved with these gangs, then? Because that’s what it made me think of.’

‘No, I’m not involved with any gangs. In fact I’ve only been in London a couple of weeks. But you did see something, then?’

‘I heard a commotion, but what might be more important, as I saw you searching for something, was that I picked up an object down there earlier this morning.’

She ushered him into the flat. It was modest but well appointed. There was little space to move, as though she had moved from a larger property without getting rid of any furniture. She took him into the sitting room and pointed at the window. Gedge looked down into Loftus Walk. He could clearly see the alley where the kidnap had happened.

Miss Fowler had left the room to make tea. She placed Gedge’s cup on a coffee table next to the window.

‘I’m a light sleeper. I like to look down from this window on the comings and goings during the daytime, so it was natural when I was woken by some sort of commotion, for me to look out. Whatever happened must have taken only a few seconds, and by the time I got to the window, all I saw was the vague forms of several people retreating into that alley.’

‘And then you found something this morning? You must have been up early.’

‘Yes, I’m usually up by six. Can’t stand lying in. And then there’s him to be walked.’ She pointed to the corner of the room, where a small dog was curled up in a basket, asleep. ‘I don’t know why I thought there might be something down there, but as we were going past anyway, I cast my eyes around, and there it was. My training, you see. And I’m fortunate that my eyesight hasn’t atrophied too much with age.’ She reached into the pocket of her cardigan and brought out a crumpled piece of paper. She unfolded it and handed something to Gedge.

 It was a button. He looked it over.

‘Well, I’m damned!’

‘Significant?’ asked Miss Fowler.

‘I very much think so. It’s a button from the tunic of an army regiment. A famous one: the Grenadier Guards.’ Gedge showed it to her. ‘A crown, with VR, for Victoria Regina, repeated and reversed below. It was Ackerman’s regiment.’

‘And who is he?’

‘Somebody who seems to have risen out of a grim past to blight the present. I can only think that Hannah was able to pull this loose in the struggle. It’s fortunate that it was still there. Any rain or a bit more breeze and this would have been down the drain.’

‘It seems strange that this man would be wearing regimental uniform, does it not?’

‘Yes, and I don’t believe he was. But I can’t believe it’s a coincidence. Maybe he’s just replaced a button with one of his old ones. Miss Fowler, you’ve been very helpful, and very observant. I’m grateful. I need to leave, so I can follow this up. But before I go, I just wondered… What was the training you referred to?’

‘Oh, I used to be a sort of scientist, in a field where women were few, as you can imagine. After Cambridge, I worked for the government. I can’t say too much, but it involved breaking codes that our enemies use to keep their messages secret. I’d always been a keen observer. My father, who was a parson and amateur naturalist, passed that on. And I was always good with both numbers and letters. So it all fitted. I never wanted to retire, to tell you the truth. Anyway, now I have, and I’ve wound up here. If I have helped you at all, I am glad.’

‘You have, Miss Fowler. Now I must go.’

Her eyes had a faraway look, and Gedge had the impression that his visit had brought back just a little of the exciting world she had left behind.

‘Do you have a pen and paper, Miss Fowler?’

‘Of course. Here you are.’

‘I’m just jotting down my address. I’m currently staying at the Admiral Jervis inn. Send me a message if you think of something else, or otherwise want to talk to me.’

He turned back as he got to the top of the stairs, and saw Miss Fowler beaming back at him, tightly grasping the paper he’d just given her.

I
t was still before 9am
. Gedge hurried back to Barnet Grove and told Maggie what he’d discovered, without mentioning the potential significance of the button. He told her that he needed to fetch Sean and take him to the police; they would be risking the wrath of the boys in blue if they left it much longer. Maggie explained that Sean started work early, so if he had felt able to go in, he would already be at the bookbinders.

H
ardisty’s Bookbinding
was located in cramped premises between a betting shop and a picture-framers in Bell Lane, Spitalfields.

For form’s sake, Gedge asked to see the owner first. To Gedge, Mr Hardisty looked like a caricature of an elderly craftsman, with his grubby apron, unkempt white whiskers and glasses with lenses like bottle-tops.

‘It is dreadful about your daughter, sir. She made herself very popular here in a short time. We will help in any way we can.’

‘That is kind, Mr Hardisty. I need to speak to Sean most urgently. Sorry, I don’t know his surname.’

‘His surname is Flaherty. He came in saying he’d work as normal, but of course it all got too much for him. I’ve put him in the back room with a mug of tea and a tot of brandy to calm him down. I should mention to you that he is normally a very responsible boy. I trust him to act for me in many things. But he is very worried about this. Keeps asking when the police will come for him. Of course they’ll need to question him, but surely it’s obvious that some gang of ruffians took poor Hannah?’

‘Yes, that’s right. It should be just a formality. Can you take me to him, please?’

Gedge found the boy pacing up and down in a room at the back of the shop. It looked as if it was used as a combination of storeroom and a place for the staff to take a quick break.

He started at Gedge’s entrance, then looked imploringly at him. ‘Mr Gedge! Has there been any news?’

‘No, but we need to go to the police. To report the crime. And of course you were the witness.’

Sean seemed to visibly shrink away from him.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘My family was always in trouble with the guards when we were still in Ireland. And I got involved with the wrong crowd here in London when I was younger. Before I got myself on the straight and narrow. I just get nervous any time I have to be around them.’

‘Well, that’s honest of you, but you’re going to have to put those fears behind you. You do see how important it is for you to talk to them?’

‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry. I’ll get my coat.’

‘We should have reported it last night as soon as it happened, but I wanted to find out what I could for myself. Alright, let’s go.’

T
hey walked
to Leman Street at a brisk stride. A chill wind blew from the east and banks of grey clouds covered the sky. Gedge had forced the pace, and both of them were breathing heavily when they arrived. He wanted to get this over with quickly.

The Leman Street police station was a large blocky building of little architectural merit. Home to over five hundred officers, it still represented only a small fraction of London’s policing manpower. But the force had to deal with some of the capital’s meanest streets, in the heart of the East End. And it struggled to do so.

Gedge led Sean up the front steps and into the booking hall, a narrow room dominated by a twenty-foot-long desk facing the door, behind which sat three sergeants, with several constables busy with paperwork to the rear. To each side of the door, on benches facing the desk, sat some dozen of that day’s criminal flotsam, awaiting further processing; mostly dejected-looking men and women in various states of decrepitude.

Gedge approached one of the sergeants—a red-faced fellow sporting luxuriant grey sideburns—and announced the reason for their attendance. The sergeant immediately called upstairs and asked them to wait on one of the benches.

Within a few minutes, a tall man wearing an immaculate brown three-pieced suit came down the stairs and approached them. He had close-cropped hair that was once black but had mostly turned grey, a thin moustache and a hooked nose. Gedge thought he had the look of a bird of prey; poised and rather aloof, but ready to strike.

‘Mr Gedge? I am Inspector Cross. I believe you have a missing person to report?’

Gedge gave a sharp look to the desk sergeant.

‘More than that. My daughter was abducted. This young man is a witness.’

‘In that case, please come upstairs and we will take your statements.’

They passed through a door to the right of the desk and up two flights of stairs to a cramped office at the end of a chair-lined corridor. Cross asked a constable to wait outside with Sean while he took Gedge into the office and instructed another constable to join them with his notebook. The office was just big enough for a compact desk, three chairs and a filing cabinet. Cross settled himself behind the desk. Gedge and the uniformed man sat facing him.

‘When did the abduction take place, Mr Gedge?’

‘Late last night, inspector.’

Cross looked at him, perplexed. ‘The police are on duty twenty-four hours a day, Mr Gedge. Why did you not report this immediately after it happened?’

‘I apologise, inspector. I know I should have come here sooner. All I can say is that having been a military man for so long, and living on the fringes of the empire, where the forces of law and order are unreliable to non-existent, I didn’t even think of the police. Panic, I suppose. My first thought was to find out all I could myself.’

‘I suppose that makes some kind of sense. But it still harms any chance we might have of finding your daughter, can’t you see that? Time is of the absolute essence in cases like this.’

‘Inspector, all I can do is try to make it right now, by helping you as much as I can.’

Gedge was starting to get impatient. Had he made a mistake? Should he have gone to them earlier? He doubted it. He knew that his own skills and experience would be more likely to save his daughter. But although he knew better than to expect the most courteous of treatment from a police force, he did think there was something about Cross, something a bit more perceptive than your run-of-the-mill copper. He didn’t feel as if this man would become his enemy.

‘Alright,’ said Cross. ‘Before we get to the events of last night, I need to know about your background. Let’s start with that military career you mentioned.’

Gedge outlined his army days as briefly as he could, glossing over the controversial nature of his time in Afghanistan. They talked about his marriage and Hannah, and then finally got down to the details of the previous night. He also told Cross about the connections with Ackerman, and the fact that Rondeau had asked for help, knowing that Gedge had encountered Ackerman years earlier. He saw Cross raise his eyebrows at the mention of Rondeau’s name.

Finally he brought out the Grenadier Guards button and gave it to the inspector. For some reason he decided to keep Miss Fowler out of it, and claimed that he had found it himself.

Cross then made Gedge wait outside while he interviewed Sean about what he’d seen. Some forty minutes later, Sean came out and Gedge was called back into the office. Cross looked at him across the desk, chin resting on steepled fingers. ‘So, I have both your statements. It’s disappointing that the young man saw little that would be of use to us, and wouldn’t be able to identify anyone even if we were to apprehend a suspect.’

‘Yes, it is. It was dark I suppose.’

‘I’m not totally convinced by Mr Flaherty’s story. We will look into his background. And I will straight away send constables to the scene of the abduction, to question all the residents they can raise, in the hope that someone saw or heard something.’

‘Very good.’

There was a knock at the door. A constable slipped in and handed Cross a note. He waited for the bobby to leave and then unfolded the piece of paper. He scrutinised it for a minute, then peered over at Gedge.

‘That infernal man. Claude Rondeau is a… I suppose I’d call him an acquaintance of mine. This note is from him, vouching for you. You must have made a big impression on him in the limited time since you met him.’

‘Maggie must have got him a message.’

‘And then he must have sent this round here immediately. He has a gang of urchins he uses to run errands for him on occasion. He is an unusual man. Unique, probably. He is at once a very useful character to know, and a very dangerous one for an official like me. Not personally, but because of some of the people and organisations he is linked to. I don’t need to bore you with this. The point is, from anyone else, this note wouldn’t be worth the paper it’s written on. He hardly knows you and he doesn’t even know the details of the case. But from Rondeau… Well, I was about to release you anyway. But do not on any account leave the area.’

‘Why would I, when I’m relying on you to find my daughter?’

‘Indeed. I gather you’re not staying with Mrs Gedge?’

‘No. I have a room at the Admiral Jervis inn.’

‘I know it. You should go and reassure your wife that the matter is in our hands now. I’m going to hold on to Mr Flaherty a while longer. I want a colleague of mine to talk to him. Belt and braces, you know. Unless we have cause to bring him into custody, I’ll ensure he is escorted home later.’