Evil Valley (35 page)

Another lock of fine blonde hair slipped across a pale cheek as Adam thumped at the little girl’s chest, blew another deep lungful of air into her mouth, felt once more at the artery, moaned again, kept pounding at her chest.

Dan watched, knowing now the true meaning of helplessness. He felt the irresistible tiredness upon him, sucking him down, the deep cold of the hours on the savage moor immersing him again, felt he was watching a dream, that any moment the insistent wet nose of his beloved dog would save him from this black underworld of silent death and perfect despair.

Adam thumped again at the unmoving chest, blew another lungful of air into the mouth of the still child, then stopped suddenly. He hung his head over the lifeless body, as if begging it for forgiveness, turned slowly and looked back at Dan.

His eyes were wide and shining, blood-red in the hard white beam of the flashlight. His knees gave and he slumped down to the cold rock next to the body of nine-year-old Nicola Reece.

‘She’s dead,’ he whispered.

Chapter Twenty-Four

T
HERE WAS A LIGHT
in the downstairs window and he could see the shadow of a shape moving quickly back and forth. The rest of the houses in the street were in darkness, the road itself lit only by a line of orange streetlights. They drove on, couldn’t risk alerting him by lingering. They didn’t have time to wait. They had to go in.

One armed-response vehicle, two firearms officers, that’s all he’d been able to assemble in the time. The desk sergeant hadn’t exactly put himself out to be helpful – nearly all the available officers were on the moor he said – but Marcus Whiting was used to being obstructed. Unpopularity went with the job. Two armed officers and himself. It was scarcely ideal, but it would have to do.

He’d used the couple of minutes in the car to compose his strategy. It wasn’t perfect either, was full of danger in fact and mostly to himself, but it would suffice. There was no alternative. Danger went with the job too, though never before on this scale. But that didn’t matter. It was irrelevant. It was his only chance to bring this case to an appropriate conclusion, and it was his duty.

‘Park just up the street from his house,’ hissed Whiting to the driver. ‘We’ll go back on foot.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said the man, but the tone of the words made it sound like abuse. He hoped he could trust these men. He could see they weren’t keen to be working with him, could even be friends of Martin Crouch. He had to have them on side, couldn’t risk them not doing their jobs.

He laid a hand on each of their shoulders, stopped them getting out of the car. ‘I don’t care what you’ve heard about me, and I’m well aware of what you call me. The Smiling Assassin, isn’t it?’

That made them pause, glance round at him, just as he knew it would.

‘I know you think I persecute innocent officers and I know this man is one of your own. But let me tell you this before we confront him. I respect what you do. I think you’re brave and honourable officers to carry firearms in the service of the public. But there is strong evidence that the man in there has betrayed you all and abused his position to kill. That is what we are dealing with here. We are investigating murder. It is not persecution, it is about the law and justice, those things which you seek to uphold every day. What you are doing here is no different to what you would be doing if you had no idea who this man was. You are doing your jobs … your duty. Do you understand?’

They both muttered ‘Yes, sir.’ He kept his hands on their shoulders for a few seconds, then released them. Whiting wasn’t sure the little speech had worked, but he’d done his best. It was all he could do. They quietly got out of the car.

‘There are two entrances to the house,’ he hissed as the officers checked their guns. ‘Back and front doors. You,’ he said, pointing to one with a moustache, ‘take the back. You are authorised to fire if you believe Crouch is armed, attempts to flee and puts up resistance. You,’ he said to the smaller man with the dark spiky hair, ‘cover me from the front. I am going to ring the bell and attempt to talk to him.’

They walked up the road to the house, waited while the marksman with the moustache slipped around the side to the back garden. A wooden gate creaked and they paused, wondering if the man in the house had heard, but no one emerged. The shadow inside kept moving. The other marksman knelt by the edge of the gatepost, hidden in the hedge, trained his gun on the front door. They were ready.

The silhouette was still moving within the house.

‘Your orders are similar, but with one very important difference,’ Whiting hissed to the kneeling man. ‘This is contrary to your training, but it is my order to you nonetheless and you will obey it. I expect to find Crouch armed. I will try to stand slightly to the left hand side when I talk to him. If he appears a threat to me in any way, you do not fire.’ He stared into the man’s eyes, emphasised those words. ‘I repeat, you do not fire. Only when I lift my hand to scratch my right hip does that mean you should shoot. That is of the utmost importance. Is that understood?’

‘Yes sir,’ the man whispered.

He hoped the officer had taken it in, but there was still that lingering doubt. His fingers twitched by his hip as he walked carefully up the path. An urge was growing already to scratch it. Whiting flinched as a cat scuttled through the hedge. He stared at the door for a moment, then reached out and rapped hard with the brass lion’s head knocker.

A sudden stillness seemed to seize the house. Whiting could sense it. Through the opaque, lead-edged glass he could see the outline of a flight of stairs and some jackets on a rack, the hint of a couple of pictures on the wall. One had concealed that password. He wondered if now he would find out what it meant.

The slow seconds slipped by. He knocked again, waited. This time a dark figure carefully approached the door. He felt himself tense as the latch clicked and the door swung open.

‘Whiting,’ said Crouch without surprise, staring at him. He was wearing jeans and a light blue denim shirt, a brown leather jacket too, looked ready to leave. A zipped-up black sports holdall stood by the foot of the stairs.

But it was the pistol, pointing straight at his chest, which held Marcus Whiting’s attention.

‘I should have known,’ he continued. ‘You don’t give up, do you?’

‘I nearly did with you, PC Crouch. You were clever … very clever. You covered the tracks of your corruption well.’

‘It wasn’t corruption Whiting. It was justice.’

‘It was corruption. You abused your privileged position. For whatever motive, it doesn’t matter. It was corruption … murderous corruption.’

Crouch glared at him, a vein pulsing dangerously in his neck. ‘It was justice,’ he said quietly, with a false calm. ‘In a world that can’t seem to manage to find its own true justice. And I’d advise you not to goad me. You’re not in your safe little interview room now. You’ve ventured into the man’s world of real policing. Facing a weapon and wondering how to deal with it. Knowing any mistake could be fatal. I never thought I’d see the day, and I almost wonder how it feels.’

Whiting thought it wiser not to go into that. He had a plan, however uncertain, and he needed to stick with it. He had to keep Crouch talking.

‘It’s certainly … an experience. But I did expect you to be armed.’

The moment he’d said the words he knew it was a mistake. Crouch took one quick look over his shoulder, the gun never wavering from Whiting’s chest.

‘In which case … you’d have brought armed back-up.’

Whiting tried to sound calm. ‘Of course.’

‘But the news says there’s a big armed search going on up on Dartmoor …’

The IPCA Commissioner said nothing, didn’t trust his voice to hold.

‘… and it’s the middle of the night and I’m threatening you, but no one’s taken a shot yet … and there’s no sound from the back garden. So I don’t think there are more than one, maybe two marksmen out there, are there?’

Crouch took another look over his shoulder.

‘You’re surrounded, and …’ Whiting began, but too late. Crouch had turned, began running towards the back of the house.

Marcus Whiting allowed himself one brief second of thought and decision. If Crouch made it outside, he’d be shot dead. And his investigation would die with the man. If he chased Crouch, he put himself in even more danger. But it was the only way to find out what he needed to know.

He felt his legs start running, past a neat rack of coats, a line of family photos. A young woman featured in each, first in a school uniform, then wearing a ripped T-shirt and holding an electric guitar, a robed student proudly bearing a degree, a bride, all smiles, with her groom, and in the same white dress, standing outside a church, alongside a younger, but beaming Martin Crouch. Whiting briefly registered how pretty she was.

Ahead, Crouch kicked open a door, making it judder on its hinges, lunged into a kitchen, knocked a glass from a table. It shattered on the tiled floor, sending splinters of glass skidding across the black and white mosaic. Whiting was through the door too, just a couple of yards behind.

Crouch took a fast glance over his shoulder, didn’t break stride. He was heading for the end of the kitchen and another door. The key was in the lock.

Whiting’s shoes slipped on the shards of glass. He grabbed at a worktop to right himself. Crouch’s hand was on the door handle, jiggling at the key. Outside, all was blackness, but hidden in the camouflage of the night was a police marksman, carbine trained on the house. If Crouch made it outside, he would die.

The key was turning in the door, Crouch pushing at the handle. Whiting didn’t have time to think, just threw himself forwards. But the door was opening and Crouch was halfway through, stepping out into the still night.

Whiting could sense the rifle coming to bear on the man’s chest, an unseen finger cool on the trigger.

‘Armed police! Stop or I shoot!’ came the barked challenge from the dark garden.

Crouch hesitated, blinked hard, his head sweeping back and forth across the night. He took another pace forward.

The shout came again. ‘Armed police! Drop your weapon!’

Crouch took one more step, his feet crunching on some gravel, the gun still poised in his hand. Whiting knew he had only seconds.

‘Armed police! This is your final warning! Drop your weapon! Do it now!’

Lights were flicking on in the house next door, throwing shadows across the garden. There was a small and tidy hedge, a pond, some stone ornaments, a wooden gate. Half-hidden beside it, given away only by the new light glinting from the barrel of his rifle, was the squat form of the police marksman.

Crouch began to raise his gun. Whiting saw the red dot of the laser sight settle on his chest, directly over the man’s heart. It wavered, then steadied. The marksman was about to take his shot.

No time to think. Only to act.

Whiting threw himself forwards, careered into Crouch, knocked him off balance. Together they fell onto the damp grass. Whiting felt a stone object thud into his ribs, gasped, winded, but Crouch was already struggling up. That lethal red dot was hovering again, searching for his chest.

Whiting forced himself to his feet, between the marksman and Martin Crouch. From the hedge, he thought he heard the hidden policeman swear. The two men faced each other, both panting heavily.

Crouch raised his gun again, pointed it directly at Whiting’s chest. With his other hand, he beckoned, and began backing away, step by careful step.

‘Don’t move! Stay where I can see you!’ came the shout from the hedge. But Whiting ignored it, followed, back into the kitchen, making sure he kept his body between Crouch and the marksman.

Glass crunched underfoot, but Crouch kept backing off, until they were again in the hallway.

Ahead, was the front door, still open, the place Marcus Whiting desperately needed to reach. He managed to prevent himself staring at it, couldn’t risk giving himself away. Crouch stopped, halfway up the hall, leaned back against the wall, the pistol never wavering.

The two men stared at each other.

‘Can I …’ Whiting began, but his voice failed. He gestured to the flight of stairs. ‘Can I sit down?’

Crouch backed away slightly, nodded his head. Whiting stepped carefully across to the stairs, sat heavily, tried to catch his breath. He realised his finger was bleeding and gingerly wiped away some of the blood, held his other hand over the wound.

‘I wouldn’t worry too much about that,’ said Crouch in a sinister voice, the gun still pointing directly at Marcus Whiting’s chest.

Whiting was surprised he wasn’t frightened. Perhaps he hadn’t had the time. He tried to concentrate. He knew what he had to say and do and that he had only this one chance to get it right. Maybe that was keeping the fear at bay. Somehow he had to get Crouch talking, get him over to that open door.

‘If that’s the case …’ Again, Whiting’s voice faltered. ‘If things aren’t looking too good for me … can I ask you a couple of questions. Before …’

Crouch snorted his contempt. ‘I think I’ll ask the questions. What was it that put you on to me?’

‘The computers. In the two houses where you …’ Whiting searched for the words, didn’t want to antagonise Crouch. Not just yet. ‘Where it all happened. That, and the discovery of the password here.’

Crouch nodded. ‘Sloppy. I should have hidden that better. I’ve always had a problem remembering passwords and PIN numbers.’

Whiting saw the opportunity. Keep him talking. ‘What did it stand for? I’ve never understood that.’

‘No, you wouldn’t. That was why I chose it. It stood for “I Will Get You”, combined with 66, the only year England have won the World Cup. Football’s about all that’s meant anything to me since …’

His words tailed off. Whiting interrupted quickly, didn’t want Crouch dwelling on wounded memories that could make him even more dangerous. Just keep him talking …

‘In fairness, I should tell you it wasn’t me who saw it. It was one of the officers seconded to help my investigation.’

‘Well done them. I’m sure they’ll go far.’

‘I believe you’re right.’

There was a pause as they stared at each other. Outside, a car rushed by, white headlights sweeping through the darkness. Whiting wondered how to move the conversation on again. And how long did he have to do it?

‘I saw the photos. I take it this is all about Marie, your daughter?’

The pistol rose instantly, moving from his chest to point right between his eyes.

‘Don’t … talk … about … her …’ spat Crouch, his eyes shining with malice. ‘Don’t defile her name. Don’t ever mention her. Ever. You’re not fit to even think about her.’

The gun was pointing straight into his brain. Crouch’s finger was steady on the trigger. Now Whiting felt himself begin to tremble. He imagined what the bullet would do. At that range it would rip through him, right into the centre of his mind, punch a small and neat hole in his brow, rip a far bigger wound from the back of his head as it burst free into the air.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, raising both palms in a gesture of surrender.

The muzzle of the gun dipped slightly. Whiting tried to make himself breathe slowly, get the man talking again.