Only the Brave (29 page)

4.55 P.M.

The relief Mark felt once he’d spoken to Allie quickly turned to anger. Let the bastard come here for him – he’d pay for attacking Allie. He made his way quickly back to the nurses’ station to warn them and put the hospital on alert, before going to Karen’s room to see how she was. He pushed the door open. There was a man standing next to Karen’s bed. Mark gulped when he saw he was holding a knife.

‘Well if it isn’t the main man himself – at last,’ he said.

Mark glanced back along the corridor. The two nurses at the station weren’t looking his way. He had two choices. He could alert them to the danger, therefore putting Karen at risk too. Or he could go into the room and wait for the police to arrive.

What would Allie do? He wondered.

‘Hi, Graham,’ he said.

Graham seemed taken aback that he knew his name.

‘You! You spoiled it all. All she ever wanted is you. I’ve watched her. I’ve seen you together, the perfect couple, while I had to watch her,’ he pointed to Karen in the bed, ‘
deteriorate ye
ar after year.’

Mark tried to stay calm, in control of the situation. He stepped forward. ‘I have a few questions for you, if you don’t mind.’

‘Fire ahead. I have all the time in the world,’ Graham
sniggered
.

‘Why did you leave Karen like that? After you caused her all that damage, didn’t you have the guts to punch her one more time, finish her off?’

When he didn’t speak, Mark took a step forward.

‘I thought I had killed her.’ Graham’s face fell forlorn. ‘I thought she was dead.’

‘And did it hurt when she wasn’t?’

‘Come any closer and I’ll damage her!’ Graham shouted.

Mark held up his hand to pacify him, wondering if there was a way for him to alert the staff from inside the room. He glanced at the emergency button but he was too far away. He stepped closer.

‘Please, this has nothing to do with her. It’s me you’re after.’

‘I want her, too. I’ve always wanted her. Can’t you see?’

‘Graham, have some mercy. She’s at the end of her life – let her die in peace. You owe her that at least.’ He looked at Karen.

‘Not her, you stupid fuck!’ Graham roared. ‘It’s Allie I want. Karen means nothing to me. I could finish her off right now if I wanted to – I could! I do have the guts to do it. You were wrong.’ He raised the knife in the air.

‘Wait!’

Their eyes met, and suddenly Mark feared for his life. How the hell had Allie got away from this monster?

He needed to get him out of this room. If Allie wasn’t there when Karen died, it would destroy her.

He said the one thing he knew would make Graham react.

‘You can’t have Allie,’ he said. ‘She’s mine.’

‘No!’

As Graham came running at him with the knife, Mark prayed he could be as strong as his wife.

5.00 P.M.

‘What if we’re too late?’ said Allie, as Sam went full pelt along the A34 towards the hospital, sirens wailing. ‘What if he’s . . . if he’s . . .’

‘We won’t be,’ she said, slamming on her brakes as someone took longer than necessary to move out of her way. ‘No wonder he didn’t turn up with the oatcakes on his rounds this morning. He –’

Sam stopped but Allie had guessed what she was about to say. Graham Stott had probably been following her around all day,
waiting
for the most opportune moment to grab her. All those times she’d thought someone was watching her – could it have been him?

They were at the main entrance to the hospital. ‘There’s his van!’ she cried.

Sam switched off the sirens and killed the engine. She left the car there, much to the amusement of the man still sitting by the doors in his wheelchair.

They ran down the corridor, people moving out of their way as they heard their feet clapping on the floor. Allie caught a glimpse of herself in a window as she went past, hair flying behind her, one eye swelling, almost closed, oil on her skirt from the floor of the van and an oversized T-shirt flapping around.

They turned left into ward 106, continuing to run down the corridor. Ahead at the nurse’s station, Allie could see so many people that she couldn’t make out what was happening. But she couldn’t see the one face she needed to see.

‘Mark!’ she cried. ‘Mark, where are you?’

Several ward staff in various coloured uniforms turned to look at her. She could see hospital security men and two uniformed
officers
from the station.

She could see Nick; she could see Perry.

Her heart skipped a beat as she spotted blood on the floor.

‘No,’ she whispered.

Graham Stott was standing with an officer, hands cuffed behind his back. Her eyes scanned him quickly. It wasn’t his blood, he was clean.

Oh, God, please let him be okay
. She pushed past. Where was he? She couldn’t see him. Oh, please, no . . .

And then, there he was. He was sitting on the floor, his back to the wall, the palest she had ever seen him since they’d met.

‘Mark!’

Tears poured down her face as he looked up at her and gave her that smile. The smile she’d fallen for all those years ago. She knelt down next to him.

‘Are you okay?’ he hugged her tightly. ‘Sam told me what happened but I know she wouldn’t tell me everything. God, look at your face. Did he – did he . . . ?’

‘No,’ Allie told him, her hand coming up to his face. She needed to touch him. She’d thought so many times in the back of that van that she would never see him again. ‘What happened?’ she asked, spotting his hand.

‘Your fella cracked him one good and proper,’ said Perry as he came over to them. ‘Stott came at him with a knife and he wrestled him to the ground, punched him a couple of times before I got here to help him out.’

Allie sat wide-eyed.

‘Good thing I’m a lover, not a fighter,’ Mark grinned. ‘It bloody hurt like hell.’

‘The blood.’ She pointed to the floor, where the pools she’d imagined seconds earlier turned out to be droplets.

‘He slashed at my arm too. It’s nothing.’

She hugged him again, felt his body relax and his shoulders start to shake as tears of relief came from them both.

They were safe.

Graham Stott had been caught.

There would be no more nightmares. No more thinking about him, obsessing about him. No more wondering who he was, where he was, if he was going to strike again.

Allie pulled away from Mark slightly to look up at him. He ran a finger over her swollen eyelid before kissing her gently on the forehead. She felt tears escape her eyes again.

‘Nice T-shirt you have on there,’ he smiled.

She looked down at the white monstrosity with a potato-head man on its front, the bright logo colours of a brand of crisps. It was at least two sizes too big.

‘I bet people think your wife is so classy,’ she grinned.

‘I bet people think your husband is a pushover.’ He hesitated slightly. ‘Sometimes I hate what you do so much. The long days, the times you bring it home with you. The worry you put me through. But most of the time I realise that you are who you are because of it and that’s . . . well, that’s what I love about you too.’

‘Mark Shenton,’ she slapped him playfully on his arm, ‘you big soppy Stokie.’

Allie stood up as Sam came over to them. They hugged in silence for a moment.

‘Your face looks so sore,’ Sam told her afterwards.

‘It will heal.’ Allie tried to smile but winced in pain. ‘It looks worse than it is, no doubt.’

‘It looks a mess,’ Nick said as he joined them too. ‘I’m glad you’re okay though. Still, you and I need to talk after all this is over.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Especially before the DCI gets here. Trevor isn’t going to be too pleased. Sam told me there was another rose delivered?’

Allie dipped her head. ‘I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t want to be a burden on anyone.’

‘A burden, Allie?’ Nick baulked. ‘You’re one of my best officers. I don’t want to lose you. You should have told me.’

‘I just wanted to do my job, sir. I couldn’t do it with any more restrictions.’

‘They were put there for your own safety.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Nick relented. ‘At least it’s all over for you now.’

‘Almost.’ Allie was dreading the thought of what was to come but it still needed sorting soon.

‘We’ll take you over to A&E to get you looked over.’

‘I’m fine, sir.’ She shook her head.

‘Karen?’ he asked.

Allie gulped. ‘I – I need to decide whether to turn off the machines that are keeping her alive.’

February 7, 2015
8.30 A.M.

Allie stared at the rows of greeting cards on the bedside cabinet in Karen’s hospital room. Cards from Sam, Perry, Nick and a few
officers
she knew well. Cards from Mark’s family and work colleagues. Cards from her friends Ruth and Kate, friends that she needed to reconnect with again, if they would have her. One from the staff at Riverdale Residential Home. Allie had been touched by how many of them had come to visit Karen once she had taken ill. She would miss them all as much as she would miss the routine of going to Riverdale two or three times a week. They had become a huge part of her life over the years. But she would miss nothing as much as her sister.

Karen had been transferred to ITU. Allie had come in alone to say a final goodbye before they switched off her life support machine. The rain was coming down heavily, bouncing off the window ledge. For once she’d rather be outside getting a good soaking if it meant that she didn’t have to be here.

So much had happened during the past forty-eight hours that Allie had hardly had time to catch a breath. In the space of two days, they had solved a murder, an assault from over seventeen years ago, and she’d been kidnapped and set free without being raped. Kirstie Ryder was on her way to a long prison sentence. They still hadn’t got Terry Ryder for anything, but they would.

She placed a hand on Karen’s cheek. Her eyes had been closed for some time now, so Allie was spared the pain of looking into them. It didn’t make it any easier though.

‘I’m so sorry, Kaz.’ A tear dribbled down her cheek and she flicked it away. ‘I should have spent the final hours with you, not gone running around Stoke-on-Trent on a case. I know I’ve been a lousy sister when it came to sparing time for you, but it was hard, you know? I don’t want to remember you like this. I want to remember you as you were – vibrant, carefree, always laughing.

‘I don’t want to say goodbye but . . . but I have to.’

For the last time, she wiped Karen’s fringe away from her forehead and leaned over to kiss her. Another tear dropped on to Karen’s cheek and she wiped that away too.

‘Take care, sis,’ she whispered.

‘Allie.’

She looked up through her tears to see Mark, good old Mark who had stood by her through everything she had thrown at him. She hadn’t for a moment forgotten how awful this would be for hi
m b
ut she had taken it for granted that he would be with her through everything. That needed to change.

‘It’s time, isn’t it?’ she said, suddenly realising the enormity of what was about to happen. It wasn’t something that could continue and she didn’t want to say goodbye, but she was going to be there when Karen died.

‘Yes,’ said Mark, ‘it’s time.’

‘At least I’ll be with her when she – when she . . .’

Mark took hold of her hand. ‘You’ve always been there for her, Allie, and she has always known that.’

Epilogue
March 3, 2015
10.30 A.M.

Ryan parked his car on the drive of The Gables, killed the engine and sat there for a moment. After the drama of the last month, plus Jordan’s funeral yesterday, he relished the silence. Once Kirstie and that Granger twin had been charged with murder, he’d made bail while the police looked into things. He’d stayed at his mum’s until the funeral but he wasn’t sticking around for now. He needed to grab a few belongings from the house and get out of Stoke-on-Trent until the heat had died down.

Somehow, Ryder must have worked out that he’d fooled Kirstie in to signing over the club to him and Jordan. Christ, he’d been such a fool believing Steve Burgess when he’d told him that the thirty-five grand was a down payment to get rid of Kirstie as Terry wasn’t happy with her. If it was true what had happened to his wife – why wouldn’t he do the same to his daughter?

No, he wasn’t going to wait for Ryder to get his revenge.

He wondered how Kirstie would cope, locked up in prison too – then found that he didn’t actually give a stuff. Somehow he’d known that she would be involved but even he didn’t think she would be capable of trying to pull off what had happened. He had to admit that it had been a genius plot to plant the knife and the money, try to blame him for it, but luckily it had backfired and left her more in the frame. Why the knife was there was beyond him. There were bound to have been no prints on it – no one would be stupid enough to leave any behind. But he had heard something similar about a knife being found at Ryder’s house with no prints around the time his wife was murdered. He wondered if it was some sort of in-joke to get at the police.

In the house, he went upstairs to his room, grabbed the large suitcase he had come with and quickly began to throw his things into it.

A noise in the doorway made him look up.

‘What the fuck do you want?’ he said.

A gun was raised, aimed straight at him.

All that went through his mind in the split second before the shot rang out was the realisation that it had all been for nothing.

Acknowledgements

A huge heartfelt thank you to Steve Burgess who bid a handsome sum of money in aid of a local charity, The Donna Louise Trust, to be named as a character in this book. As I was writing
Only the Brave
, I contacted him to ask how ‘mean’ he wanted to be and his response was ‘the meaner the better.’ I hope I did you proud, Steve. Thanks for your kind donation.

I can’t believe that
Only the Brave
is my seventh novel. It’s special because of that alone, but also because DS Allie Shenton, who has been the main character of three of my books now, has burrowed under my skin so much that I’m going to continue to write about her. So special thanks must go to Maddy Milburn and Emilie Marneur for their encouragement, passion and friendship, which helped to get me to this stage.

Thanks to Alison Niebieszczanski and Talli Roland for all your support, always. A writer’s life is a lonely one and I don’t know where I would be without good friends. Thanks to Sharon Sant, Maria Duffy and Rebecca Bradley. Thanks to everyone at Amazon Publishing – Eoin, Sana and Neil, Victoria and Jennifer. Thanks to everyone at Kindle Direct Publishing too – Darren, Amy, Kelly and Victoria. Thank you to all my police colleagues who help with research – mistakes are almost certainly mine if there are any. Thanks to all my family and friends who have helped and supported me along the way, and the Harrogate gang that just keeps growing every year. And, last but in no ways least, thanks to the readers who make me smile each and every day.

Finally, to my fella, Chris. My top bloke and my soulmate. A special thank you goes out to you for sharing it all with me. You really are ‘too good to be true.’