Vampire "Unseen" (Vampire "Untitled" Trilogy Book 2) (20 page)

“Yes. We’ve checked her mobile phone usage. Her telephone travelled from her workplace and got to right outside her front door. It then moved across London by car towards King’s Cross. Then it turned off, then back on, then got on a train for the Midlands. The interesting part about this is where it changed state, it turned off and on within fifty metres of that pub McGovern had used the internet from.”

“When was this?”

“Three nights ago.”

“I’m here,” Cornel blurted. “I’m here at that pub right now. I’m actually standing outside checking how far the internet signal reaches. It gets about forty meters or so from the pub. There is a lady who works there, she says her internet is used by people living in the local apartments. I was going to canvas the area.”

“I’ll send uniform to do that. They’ll be there in an hour or two.”

“That’s amazing. Thank you Peter.”

----- X -----

The wait for the uniformed police was excruciating. All Corneliu could do was buy another coffee and patrol the streets. He walked around the pub looking at the windows of the opposite buildings, wondering if in one of these terraced homes Paul McGovern was sitting unawares.

The place was miserable. The buildings should have been nice but they were too unkempt, too decayed to be comfortable. Almost every building looked derelict but was in use. All except the one that was burned out. It caught his eye. There was an alleyway to the side. He walked in sipping his coffee.

It looked like a garage had gone up in flames and taken the neighbouring building with it.

He entered the narrow back alley and was about to leave just as quickly when he noticed the shiny brass lock. The back gates to these buildings were old and chipped, the locks had been painted over, yet one of them had a brand new shiny pin-tumbler barrel. It was like seeing a piece of gold amongst coals.

Derelict buildings.

If I were on the run, where would I hide?

If I wanted to get off the grid, where would I sleep?

Intuition.

Corneliu came back out of the alley to check the street. It was on the rear of The Talbot pub. He went back into the alley and hoisted himself up onto the back wall just enough to peer over the edge. Nobody would live there. The house was a shell, a burned and hollowed shell held together by scaffolding.

As he dropped he saw something. A staircase leading to a cellar. He climbed back up and looked again. This building was little more than rubble and an outer shell, but under it all, was a staircase that led under the broken bricks and charred woodwork to a cellar.

Cornel dropped down and tried the back gate. Locked but flimsy.

Was it worth checking?

Yes.

He backed up and slammed his foot hard into the gate. There was too much leeway, too much flexibility. The door wobbled at the lock rather than cracking. He was kicking too low. He tried it again, this time hitting it with his shoulder, slamming his weight into the door. It didn’t matter if he broke it, the place was a burned out wreck, what possible damage could he do to make it worse?

Crack!

The door broke but opened only a few inches to press against the rubble on the other side. It took some back and forth pushing to sweep the rubble away until Latis could squeeze his shoulders through the gap and enter the yard.

He examined the staircase. Dark. There was a horrible smell as though the sewers had cracked open and flooded the space. He was worried he would find vagrants huddled in their own filth. He couldn’t imagine McGovern living in this hole but he still turned on the light from his phone and shone it into the hole.

Rats scurried in the beam.

He descended a few steps and noticed the potency of the smell. There was a known element to the stench; the same smell of gutted girls in a car boot. He retreated the instant his mind matched the smell with the memory. God only knew what the smell really was but there wasn’t anybody hiding in this hole.

Latis took a few deep breaths to purge and looked up to the sky. He stared at what was left of the building. Four walls and that was it. No roof. Nothing. The building next door had fire damage to the roof. From the street it looked fine, but back here the damage was obvious.

“This is nothing,” he mumbled to himself.

He squeezed back through the gate and into the alleyway and was about to leave when again he noticed the brand new lock barrel on the gate next door. He examined it. There wasn’t a single key scratch on it. He looked back up at the building. He checked his watch. The uniformed police would still be some time.

Was the building next door worth checking?

He squeezed himself back through the gate of the fire gutted building and levered himself up on the wall adjoining the yards to see into the next home. He could see an empty yard. Nothing of note. No signs of life. There was a kitchen, plain, boring steel draining board. Some clothes or...

Jesus... Jesus H. Christ...

Cornel wobbled on the wall and dropped. His heart was suddenly thumping in his chest. He had to check again. He climbed once more up the wall and looked through the kitchen window. There were some folded clothes. Wide beige buttons. It looked like a coat, a mackintosh folded neatly. There was a flash of purple on top of it.

He dropped back from the wall and reached for his phone, about to call Blackwell when he stopped himself to catch a breath.

“What am I saying...”

Pause...

Wait...

He wasn’t sure. Nisha was said to wear a purple beret. Was that a beret under the window? He dropped the phone back in his pocket and climbed the wall again to check. There was something purple but it was impossible to tell what it could be. It was probably nothing... but still...

Latis was trapped in the moment, worried to raise a false alarm. He stared up at the building looking for a clue, looking for some way to try and piece together what he was thinking. When the uniformed police arrived he could point it out, they could investigate. The building looked derelict but he couldn’t risk breaking in. The burned out shell was a pile of rubble, there were no repercussions against trespassing here, but he couldn’t break into a house, derelict or not.

His eyes dropped. He looked at the cellar leading under the charred remains of this building. He could smell it just by looking at it. There was something stinking up that cellar. A smell that he recognised.

He turned on the light from his phone and shone it into the hole.

He walked a few steps deeper and heard the scratching of rodents in the dark.

He moved in a way that was ready to run back out if McGovern was there.

He swept the torch and saw the decaying corpse, slumped in a plastic orange chair, its face chewed away by rats.

----- X -----

The first police car was cruising the area looking for Corneliu. He didn’t bother with Blackwell as the first contact, the 999 call was enough. He didn’t know the exact address but told them he would meet officers at The Talbot. He was so hyped he waved his arms like a clown when he saw the car.

“Hi, I made the 999 call,” he said to the two uniformed men. “There’s a decaying body in the cellar of this building, but I think a murder suspect has been using the building next door.”

“Is he in there now?” one of the constables asked.

“I don’t know. I...” Corneliu was already walking them to the alley when he stopped to think about what he was saying carefully. He wasn’t sure how to discuss McGovern. Talk in facts, stick to what you know for sure. “Let me show you the body first.”

The officers followed him. One was a thin and tall blonde young man, the other was closer to his age. He led them to the gate and squeezed through before holding it open for the officers. It was harder for them to fit through the gap in their stab vests.

“The body is down there.”

The two officers looked to one another.

“The controller said you’re a police officer from Romania,” the older constable said as a question.

Cornel nodded. He was feeling hyper, probably acting hyper. He took out his wallet and showed his warrant card and Blackwell’s business card. “I’m doing deep research, with information sharing through Europol. I’m looking for a British man wanted for double homicide in Romania.”

The elder constable addressed his young colleague when he said, “Stay here,” and descended into the basement. His little flashlight was far more powerful than Corneliu’s and lit the whole staircase as he descended.”

“Jesus Fucking Shit!” he cried out when he reached the bottom. He came back up the stairs quickly and began talking on the radio attached to his shoulder, his voice faster, more animated. He said they had a body, most likely a murder, they needed to close the scene and bring in forensics.

Corneliu stepped away and hoisted himself on the adjoining wall as a burst of radio traffic put things into action. He wanted to look again at the clothing by the kitchen window. “Please,” he said. “I can see clothes through the window next door that look like they belong to a missing girl.”

The elder policeman hoisted himself up, then dropped down and addressed his colleague. “Steven, see if you can climb over and unfasten the back gate.” The younger, more athletic officer made short work of the wall and had the back gate open before Cornel could even squeeze into the alley.

They entered the yard. Cornel dashed for the kitchen window. It was a mackintosh, neatly folded with a purple beret on top. He nodded to affirm and pointed at the garments through the glass. “Those clothes look like they belong to a girl who went missing a few days ago. She is connected to the man wanted for murder.”

“Six nine to control.”

“Go ahead six nine.”

“Control we need to force entry to the adjacent property, possible suspect on site.” Both officers took small extendable batons from pouches on their belts. They flicked their wrists, the steel beams shot out and locked into place. He asked Cornel, “Is the front of this building boarded up?”

He nodded as the radio reply came acknowledging that the officers were about to force entry. “Yes, it’s boarded up, there’s no way out from the front... at least not from the ground floor. I think the first floor is open.”

“Steven, get round there just in case.” The young officer took off into the alley, rushing to the front of the building. Corneliu could hear an approaching siren. Backup, perhaps.

The constable banged his fist against the back door. “Police, open up.” He tried the door handle, locked. He swung his baton and smashed the glass of the kitchen window and climbed in and onto the draining board. “OK, you need to stay here,” he said to Cornel. He went through the kitchen and opened the next door to a pitch black room, he turned on his flashlight and began to explore, calling out that he was a police officer until finally disappearing from view.

Cornel was alone. The clothes were folded neatly on the draining board. Dutifully he remained in the back yard awaiting the return of the officer. Then a thought... he hadn’t told them just how dangerous McGovern was. What if the constable ran into him?

The back gate opened. Two more officers arrived.

“Your colleague is inside searching,” he said.

“Uh-huh, and who are you?”

Cornel showed his warrant card again and explained as the first policeman came back into view and opened the back door.

“Empty rooms up to the top, but someone has been living here. There’s food, water and bedding in the main room.”

“What about that?” The new constable was pointing to the padlocked door. They examined it, they pulled a pry-tool out, they popped off the hasp and staple with relative ease. They descended the stairs with a flashlight, they pressed the door at the bottom of the stairs. Another lock. They shouldered the door and broke through.

----- X -----

Paul was preparing sticky labels that batched a set of fish to an experiment when his mobile phone beeped. It had signalled a few times and always sent his heart racing. He checked the display expecting to see an advert, another false alarm. He’d had a few random special offers appear on his phone, each one almost giving him a heart attack.

The screen read, ‘Nisha’.

A surging shock ran through him.

The bitch had made it to the lower door and opened it just enough to trigger the message. That didn’t necessarily mean she had opened the door, but she was definitely working on it. She had to get through two padlocked doors and he was only a few minutes away.

He ran. At his locker he buttoned the yoke to his trousers and fixed his knives into place. He would kill her this time for sure. He ran as fast as he could along the corridors of UCL, swiped out through the security gate into Gower Street and flagged a black cab. Fortuitous. It was right there.

He could walk the distance in twenty minutes at a brisk pace. Run there in ten minutes. The cab was probably as fast as running when traffic was taken into account.

The fucking bitch. She had gotten to the door, had tried to get out. He should have killed her. Should have done it despite her crushed head.

The taxi came into the street. There were five police cars, one police van, an ambulance and a fire engine outside the squat.

“Just here is fine,” Paul said to the driver before he got too close. He stepped out of the cab, paid the driver and allowed the taxi to move on. Paul took his telephone and pretended to have a conversation. He leaned against a garden wall nonchalantly all the while watching the drama unfold only fifty yards away.

He saw a fire-fighter carrying the huge cutters, the Jaws of Life they called them. There were police milling about in the street. Paramedics came out of the alley and took a stretcher from the back of the ambulance.

Oh, fuck! They’d found her.

Was she alive? Could she say anything?

He wanted to stay, needed to. He needed to see her emerge from the house either strapped to a stretcher with an IV drip or wrapped in black plastic.

A policeman was watching him. He was distant, but watching. Paul lowered the telephone and with as slow and unsuspicious movements as possible, he pretended to end his call and slowly shuffled away.