The Last Straw (48 page)

“Is that…?” started Hastings in a harsh whisper.

“Looks like blood,” confirmed Sutton grimly, looking at the small reddish-brown patch on the top step. The front door was ajar.

Procedure at this point would have been to wait for back-up, rather than going in alone, but the voices through the hallway put paid to that.

“Stick her, she knows too much.”

The two men exchanged glances; they recognised the voice. Hemmingway. And there was no more time to waste.

* * *

Warren pulled up behind Sutton’s Audi, leaving a second set of tyre marks on the smooth tarmac of the leafy suburban street. A few seconds later a marked police Peugeot, lights flashing, made it three sets.

As the police piled out of the cars Warren spied Sutton and Hastings either side of the front door. He turned to the sergeant who’d joined him, ready to co-ordinate their assault on the building. Before he got a chance, though, all hell broke loose as Sutton reared back and planted his boot in the middle of the front door, yelling, “Police, everybody down on the floor!” The force of Sutton’s kick against the unlocked door almost took it off its hinges.

“Now you know why they call him Subtle Sutton!” shouted the sergeant as they raced up the drive. Sutton and Hastings disappeared into the house. Barely a second later, Hastings re-emerged backwards and horizontally, crashing end over end down the steps. Leaping over his prone body emerged a wild-eyed Tom Spencer. Skidding slightly on the loose gravel of the drive, he raced around the side of the house. Hastings shook his head slightly, before scrambling to his feet and taking off after the fleeing student.

Warren made it to the front door, his heart sinking as he saw the prone figure of Karen Hardwick sprawled on the floor. Blood was smeared across her pale forehead. Sutton was kneeling next to her.

“She’s breathing,” he confirmed. Lying on the floor next to them was the still figure of Annabel Hardwick, still holding a knife. Blood was trickling from her nose and her lips were split. Sutton shrugged, a grim smile on his lips. “Self-defence.”

He motioned over his shoulder. “Clara Hemmingway legged it through there. I think there’s a back door through the kitchen.”

“On it,” confirmed the uniformed sergeant, pushing his way through the crowd and running towards the kitchen. A wail of sirens heralded the arrival of another police car in the distance.

* * *

Hastings was sprinting flat out. Dressed as he was in trousers and smart shoes, he was nevertheless keeping up with the fleet-footed PhD student. Crossing the Tunbridges’ back garden, Spencer headed for the fence, a six-foot, wooden-panelled affair. Grabbing it with both hands, he swung over it assault-course style, dropping down onto the other side. Without pausing, Hastings followed suit. Ignoring the ripping sound of his trousers, he landed clumsily in the next-door neighbour’s flower bed. Scrambling back to his feet, he saw that Spencer was already halfway across the neighbour’s garden and was racing for the next fence.

Forcing his legs to pound even harder, Hastings managed to gain a couple of metres before Spencer reached the next fence. This time the student misstepped slightly, stumbling on the soft soil of a vegetable patch. With less momentum behind him than he needed, he barely made it over the fence, having to scrabble with his feet and pull with his arms to complete the manoeuvre. Hastings took full advantage of the other man’s error, pushing himself to reach the fence only a couple of seconds after Spencer. Learning from his predecessor’s mistake, Hastings timed his strides perfectly and sailed smoothly up and over. Landing gracefully on both feet this time, he took off again, before realising that his quarry was nowhere to be seen. Barely had this registered when he felt a huge weight crash into his left-hand side.

Rolling as he’d been taught in jiu-jitsu class, Hastings struggled back to his feet, just in time to ward off a lethal snap-kick that threatened to remove his head from his shoulders. This was followed swiftly by a punch towards his face and another kick, aimed at his groin. Hastings parried all of the attacks, aware even as he did so that he was operating at the edge of his ability. He was pretty good at hand-to-hand, particularly the dirty, street-fighting style that his jitsu instructor was an expert at, but he realised that this guy was better. By quite a margin. And he had a dirty little advantage, Hastings saw, even as he realised his error, leaving his chest exposed as he sought to protect his face and his groin. The perfect target for the six-inch kitchen knife clasped in Spencer’s fist.

* * *

Warren simply followed the trail of destruction. Trampled flower beds and sagging garden fences told the tale of the chase. He added even more to the story as he clumsily followed the two men. Already his chest was heaving, his legs burning as he raced to catch up. Whether he liked it or not, he was a thirty-something desk-bound pen-pusher chasing two twenty-somethings at the peak of their physical fitness. Pursuing the two men without waiting for back-up probably made him as rash as Gary Hastings, but he knew that he couldn’t leave the young officer to chase the killer down on his own. Images of Tunbridge’s bloodied corpse filled his mind, spurring him on as he hurled himself over the neighbour’s fence. He felt something snag, couldn’t be sure if it was clothing or flesh, then he was tumbling over the fence, landing face-down in the dirt.

Pulling himself to his feet, he looked on in horror as Gary Hastings desperately fought for his life against a crazed Tom Spencer. Too winded to shout, Warren just threw himself as fast as he could towards the fighters. Suddenly he saw what Hastings plainly hadn’t — the glint of metal in Spencer’s right hand. Even as he opened his mouth to shout a warning he knew it was too late. Time seemed to slow, the distance between Warren and the two men becoming a yawning chasm. Warren desperately forced himself to cover the last few metres, but it was impossible. Even as his legs stretched and his arms pumped, he saw Spencer’s left fist snap out in a head punch. Time was moving slowly, yet Spencer’s punch was like a rocket and Warren was amazed when Hastings somehow got an arm up to block the lightning-fast blow; he was even more amazed when Hastings somehow parried an equally fast snap-kick to the groin, but of course both of those attacks, devastating as each would have been on its own, were nothing more than a distraction, a prelude to Spencer’s real strategy.

The knife went into Hastings’ exposed chest almost to the hilt. The effect was instantaneous; Hastings just stopped moving. His mouth opened in surprise as he fell to his knees.

Spencer stood in front of him, lost in the spectacle of yet another human being dying at his hand. He was so engrossed that he was taken unawares as Warren blind-sided him with a clumsy rugby tackle. The two men crashed into an ungainly heap. Having seen what Spencer was capable of close up, Warren had no intention of letting the man get to his feet. Before a stunned Spencer could react, Warren flipped him onto his back and straddled him, before planting a punch square on his jaw.

Or at least that was the plan. Spencer reached up, grabbing Warren’s arms. Suddenly, with a squirming motion that caught the policeman by surprise, Warren felt himself being flipped. Spencer had his right arm in some sort of arm-lock, applying what seemed to be almost no pressure at all. Then, for a sickening moment, Warren thought his arm was about to be torn from its socket. The pain was intolerable and he had no choice but to allow Spencer to turn him over onto his face.

It was over, Warren realised as Spencer let go of his arm, instead wrapping both arms around Warren’s head and neck in the classic chokehold. His oxygen reserves were already dangerously low from the physical exertion. He doubted he would last more than a few more seconds, even assuming that Spencer didn’t just snap his spine and kill him instantly. From a distance, he could hear the crashing of more back-up on their way, but he knew that he would be dead before they arrived.

Tiny sparkling dots were starting to appear in his vision. It occurred to him that in all of this time, he had yet to hear Spencer speak.

“Why?” Somehow he managed to get his lips around that single word.

He heard a sniff, then a sobbing cry.

“It was all his fault. I’ll be done for killing him, yet nobody will count the lives he destroyed. People’s dreams, people’s livelihoods.”

Spencer’s breathing was hard in Warren’s ear. The greyness around the edge of his vision was starting now, but he struggled to listen. Before he died, he had to know what had gone through the man’s mind. Why he thought his actions were justified.

“All I ever wanted was to be a scientist. But that bastard just couldn’t stand to let anyone share the credit. He fucked me, just like he fucked Clara and made her give up that baby. He might not have killed anyone physically but if killing people’s dreams can be counted as murder, he’s Hannibal Fucking Lecter.”

By now the greyness was complete; a rushing in his ears almost drowned out the world around him. As his vision faded to black Warren’s last thought turned to Susan. Did I tell her I loved her when I left the house this morning? Suddenly that seemed the most important thing in the world.

As he faded out of consciousness Warren’s last memory was of a sudden lightening sensation. Is my soul leaving my body? he thought. At the same time he became aware of a voice, slurred and muffled as if from a long way away. It sounded like Hastings.

“Take that, you prick.”

Epilogue

“Come in, Warren, and sit yourself down.”

It was a few days after the climax at Tunbridge’s house and twenty-four hours after Warren and the other key officers involved had submitted their full written reports. The case had finally been solved, with the right people now in jail awaiting trial and enough evidence and signed confessions to all but guarantee convictions.

But it had been a messy case to say the least. Mistakes had been made, some serious, and Warren was uncomfortably aware that the very future of Middlesbury CID hung in the balance. And that worried Warren far more than he would have thought possible just a couple of weeks ago. Over the past few days he had started to see what made the little CID unit so special to people like Tony Sutton. The camaraderie within the close-knit team was remarkable — and he
was
a part of the team, he realised now. He’d taken his knocks alongside the team and earned his stripes.

He’d come to realise that the CID unit at Middlesbury was filled with good, dedicated officers. Some lacked experience, but nobody could be faulted for that; it was his job and that of other experienced colleagues to get them that experience. Most importantly, they worked as a team. Breaking up their little unit and absorbing them into the main Serious Crime Unit at Welwyn might save some money, but it would be at the cost of a valuable resource.

One of the people responsible for making that decision was the occupant of the office that Warren now sat in, Assistant Chief Constable Mohammed Naseem. He’d read all of the reports and had the facts. They had voluntarily called in the Independent Police Complaints Commission to see what could be learnt from the episode. In the meantime, though, Naseem wanted to hear the human side of the story, as he put it, straight from the horse’s mouth. He wanted an honest appraisal of anything that went wrong and could be improved upon.

This case had certainly had its fair share of ‘learning opportunities’. How many of them he could deflect onto his own broad back, Warren was unsure. Hopefully he would be allowed to issue a few slapped wrists and bollockings in the privacy of his own office, rather than having to ‘do it by the book’ and blot the copybook of some otherwise good police officers. Those decisions would be for the future, though. For now, Naseem just wanted the story.

“First of all, how are you and your team?”

“On the mend, sir.” Unconsciously, Warren touched his neck, where the bruises from Spencer’s stranglehold were cycling through every colour of the rainbow. A few small cuts and nicks dotted his face from his less than graceful header into the flower bed after the second garden fence. A four-inch gash on his right calf had required stitches and a tetanus jab from where he’d snagged a rusty nail on the first fence. Aside from a slightly raspy voice caused by bruised vocal cords, Warren was in pretty good shape, all things considered, and keen to get back to work. Not least to avoid the well-meaning, but overwhelming, concern of his mother-in-law. I think I liked her better when she despised me, Warren thought ruefully.

“Karen Hardwick had a moderate concussion and needed a few stitches to a scalp wound, but there will be no long-term effects. She started back today, in fact, on light duties.”

Naseem nodded, pleased. “And what about DC Hastings?”

Warren’s expression turned sombre. “He’s no longer in a critical condition, but he’s still in Intensive Care. He didn’t have time to put his stab vest on before he went into the house. The knife struck a rib and was deflected away from the heart, but it nicked a lung. He’s due to undergo another operation tomorrow, then we’ll know more. If all goes well he could be back on light duties by Christmas.” Warren’s voice grew quiet. “He saved my life, sir. Pulling the knife back out of a stab wound is a cardinal sin in first aid and he must have known that, but he did it anyway. I don’t think I would have survived until the back-up arrived if he hadn’t crawled over and stuck Spencer like he did. I can only imagine the pain he was in.”

Naseem shook his head in silent respect at Hastings’ bravery. “Let’s hope for a full recovery, then, shall we? The service needs young officers like that — even if they make mistakes from time to time.”

Warren nodded, feeling relief at the hint that Hastings’ mistake with the CCTV evidence would probably be glossed over. He agreed with Naseem: the police service needed young officers like Gary Hastings. Warren just prayed that the young man agreed and was fit enough both psychologically and physically to return to duty.

“So tell me why you think this whole sordid affair took place. There are contradictory reports at the moment. Spencer, Mrs Tunbridge and Hemmingway are all busy trying to cover their own arses and, of course, Crawley isn’t here to tell his side of the tale.”