Death Sentence (21 page)

‘Did you argue?’ Taylor interrupted Patrick’s contemplation of whether, and how, he should punish the woman. He really would prefer to save the good stuff until Adams turned up for the show.

‘Some,’ he admitted. They’d argued on average at least once a day lately. Taylor wasn’t likely to believe that they hadn’t.

Taylor’s gaze flitted to the bruises adorning his chin. ‘Did she do that?’

‘What?’ Patrick gawked. ‘Do us a favour, Taylor. If she had, I’d have floored her.’ He had floored her, in actuality, but Taylor didn’t need to hear details. ‘I told you, I went into the back of someone, cracked my chin on the steering wheel. Painful, it was, too.’

Patrick’s hand strayed to his face, his thoughts back to Adams and the many ways he’d been considering giving the jumped up little detective his due payback.

‘So, why does Saffron have to be stabled?’ Taylor’s tone was back to defiant.

‘I have to go away. Business,’ Patrick said, with an apologetic shrug. ‘I’ve had a word with your aunt Suzie in Brum. She said you could stay—’

‘Uh-uh, no way.’ Taylor shot off the bed, ready to throw a major moody. ‘She’s totally common. And her house is the absolute pits. Can’t I just stay—’

‘No, Taylor.’ Patrick eyeballed her adamantly. ‘There’s no way I’m going to leave an eighteen year old girl in this rambling great house on her own.’ In fact, there was no way he was leaving his daughter anywhere in the vicinity until he’d cleared his debt with Tony Hayes. Some people would sink to any level to make their point, and Hayes was one of them, ruthless bastard.

‘I could get Hannah to stay,’ Taylor tried, as he headed for the door. ‘We could—’

‘No, Taylor! Not this time.’ Patrick’s word was final.

‘That is
sooo
unfair!’ Taylor shouted after him, as he headed back along the galleried landing. Patrick pressed his forefingers against his temples, a misty aura drifting into his vision warning him of another impending migraine. He hated upsetting his daughter. This was Adams’ fault. All of it.

Patrick stormed onwards and then stopped, and paled. If that was one of Taylor’s false eyelashes, he thought, squinting down at the cream Axminster carpet, it was a bloody big one. Petrified, Patrick stood frozen to the spot, perspiration breaking out on his forehead. His fight or flight instinct told him to run, but there was nowhere to run except back the way he’d come. And then the little bastard would scurry off, its hunched legs gambolling over each other as it scarpered under one of the beds to reappear God knew when and where; probably when he was sleeping.

His heart palpitating, Patrick ran his tongue over his dry lips and then jumped back a step, as it moved. ‘Fuck! Taylor! Here, now!’

It was watching him, Patrick would swear it was, ready to come at him like greased lightning. ‘Taylor!’

‘What!?’ Taylor said moodily behind him. ‘I’m busy.’

‘Spider.’ Swallowing, Patrick nodded towards his worst nightmare.

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Dad?’ Taylor stomped up behind him.

‘Shit, it’s moving.’ Patrick almost dove over the stair rail as she squeezed past him.

‘It’s not going to hurt you.’ Taylor sighed and rolled her eyes, and then bent to pick the thing up. Patrick almost had a heart attack there and then, as she did.

‘It’s more frightened than you are.’

‘I’m not frightened.’ Patrick pulled himself indignantly up. ‘I just didn’t want to flatten it and make a mess on the carpet.’

Cupping her other hand over it, knowing better than to show it to him, Taylor laughed, possibly the only woman in the world who could get away with it. ‘Yeah, right. You should see your face, Dad. You’ve gone a pale shade of white.’

‘That’s because I have a migraine,’ Patrick pointed out and tried to look marginally less terrified. ‘Put it well away from the house,’ he reminded her, as she went downstairs with it. The ugly little fucker would only come back in if she didn’t.

His heart rate returning to somewhere near normal, Patrick glanced worriedly around, lest there were any other spiders lurking. He couldn’t stand them. Even the word gave him the heebie-jeebies. That was his old man’s fault. What kind of father locks his kid in his bedroom with a house-spider as big as the house and then taunts him through the door? Patrick could still hear his drunken drawling.

‘Cissy’, he’d called him, humiliating him. Always humiliating him. No one calls
him
a cissy. Deserved all he got, evil old sod.

Course, he might have seen the thing lurking on the landing just now sooner if not for the migraine, which was undoubtedly down to the stress Adams had caused him. The man had a lot to answer for, Patrick seethed inwardly. And answer he would.

****

‘Yep, wassup?’ Steve answered his phone, over a wide yawn.

‘Sorry, did I wake you?’ Matthew turned to give Ashley a reassuring nod, as he let himself out of Melanie’s front door. Ashley wasn’t too thrilled at being dumped there, but she’d accepted it was better than the alternative.

‘Nah,’ Steve assured him. ‘I’m still up, dedication to duty and all that. I’m just going through that case I mentioned. It’s almost identical: little in the way of evidence to go on, one shoe missing. The crime scene was somewhere near Oxford. Hold on, I’ll pull up the details.’

‘No, no need,’ Matthew said quickly.

‘Oh, right.’ Steve sounded surprised. ‘So why the call? I assume it’s urgent at this time of night?’

Climbing into his car, Matthew took a breath. ‘I need you to drop it, Steve,’ he said, no other way to say it than how it was.

Steve made a glugging sound, as if choking on a beer. ‘Scuse me?’

‘Your investigations, I need you to put them on ice.’ Matthew waited, guessing Steve wouldn’t be very impressed.

Steve hesitated, and then, ‘Would you like to run that by me again, boss, cos I’m not sure I’m following.’

Matthew massaged his forehead. ‘Steve … Look, I need you to trust me on this. I want you to drop it, no questions.’

‘No questions?’ Matthew could hear the incredulity in Steve’s voice. ‘You are joking?’

‘I’ve never been more serious in my life,’ Matthew assured him.

‘But there’s a clear link, for Pete’s sake. We place Sullivan in the area, start checking out his alibis, and—’

‘Not happening, Steve,’ Matthew stated forcefully. ‘Just leave it. OK?’

‘Right.’ He could almost feel the man’s frustration in the ensuing short silence. ‘You’ll bring me up to speed, I assume, at some point?’

‘As soon as I can,’ Matthew promised, wishing he actually could. He’d never felt so alone in his life.

‘Right,’ Steve said again, his brusque tone indicating he thought it was far from right. ‘I’ll catch up with you then?’

‘Will do. Steve …’ he said quickly, before Steve had the chance to end the call, which he probably was about to do pronto. ‘There’s something else I need you to do.’

‘Oh, yes?’ Steve’s tone was now wary.

‘The nail file, can you pull it?’

The silence was thunderous this time.

‘I can’t explain right now, Steve,’ Matthew offered weakly, ‘I just need you to—’

‘Trust you?’ Steve cut in tersely.

Matthew nodded, hoping to God he could trust Steve. ‘Yes,’ he said, in the absence of anything more reassuring to say.

‘I’ll do my best,’ Steve said, clearly guessing no other information would be forthcoming. ‘Anything else? Wouldn’t like me to go and offer to clean Sullivan’s pool out, would you, since we’re treating him so kindly?’

‘Drown the bastard in it, more like,’ Matthew grated. ‘Steve, I have to go. Call me, will you, as soon as you have it?’

‘Yeah, whatever.’ Steve sighed heavily, as Matthew hung up. ‘Shall I go and buy a few wraps of H and hand them over to Sullivan with our compliments, while I’m at it?’ he muttered angrily to himself.

Shaking his head, he leaned back in his chair, staring thoughtfully at his PC screen for a while, and then clicking over the images of the Oxford crime scene again. It might as well be the same case. The MO’s identical and Matthew says it’s a no-go? Right out of the blue? Uh-uh. It didn’t add up. And now he wants him to pull something that, while not admissible as evidence, might definitely pin the bastard to the crime? DI Adams was definitely in some kind of trouble. Deep shit by the sounds of it. Steve wasn’t sure what was going down but, while he would do what was asked of him, he wasn’t about to sit around contemplating his navel while Matthew drowned in it.

It didn’t take Steve long to find Rebecca’s parents number. Reminding himself to be careful not to put the wind up anyone, he rang it, pretending he was an old friend and, bingo: no Rebecca currently visiting. After a nice little chat, her mum offered Steve Matthew’s home number and said to remind Becky to ring her. She hadn’t spoken to her in a while.

Chapter Sixteen

His heart skipping a beat, Matthew immediately picked up the call on his hands-free.

‘You know you can be dead irritating sometimes, don’t you, Adams?’ Sullivan muttered.

‘Where is she?’ Matthew worked to keep his tone even.

‘Not very polite, either, are you? I believe I asked first.’

Disbelieving, Matthew shook his head. ‘What?’

‘I asked you whether you knew how irritating you were?’ Sullivan repeated, taking his time. Knowing he could, because he knew he’d got Matthew exactly where he wanted him, dancing to his tune. And Matthew would, because there were simply no other options. If he got Sullivan hauled in somehow, there was no guarantee he’d reveal where Becky was. If he enlisted a few heavies of his own and beat the piece of scum to a pulp … Oh, how Matthew wanted to do that … the chances were Sullivan would do all he could to make sure she was never found.

‘Well?’ Sullivan waited.

Impotent anger broiling inside him, Matthew clutched the phone hard to his ear.

‘Yes,’ he supplied what the bastard wanted to hear.

‘Yes what?’

Matthew drew in a tight breath. ‘Yes, I know how irritating I am.’ He almost choked on the words.

‘Always were,’ Sullivan rambled perversely on, ‘thinking you were something special cos your old man was a copper. Turned out he was a bit of a failure, though, didn’t it, Adams? Bent as a nine bob note, as my dear old dad would say.’

Matthew gripped the phone tighter. ‘Where is she, Sullivan?’

‘Somewhere.’ Sullivan paused, and then asked matter-of-factly, ‘Did you know she doesn’t like confined spaces? I told her screaming would only reduce her oxygen supply, but—’

‘You
fucking
animal!’ Matthew’s fury exploded. ‘Where the
hell
is she?!’

Silence was Sullivan’s answer. Then, ‘I told you you’d find out when you’d called your pet dog off and delivered certain items, didn’t I?’ he reminded him evenly. ‘I also told you to stop with the name-calling.’

This was utter insanity. The psycho had lost it, completely. Matthew swiped at the sweat on his forehead and tried to think straight, to somehow keep up with the gibberish Sullivan was spouting.

‘
Didn’t I?
’ Sullivan barked.

Christ!
‘Yes!’

‘Well?’ Sullivan asked. Again. And again. And
again
. It was like a rerun of Matthew’s youth. But this time if he didn’t supply the right answers, his punishment wouldn’t be a sharp jab to the ribs, a vicious kick to the stomach …
Dear God …
What might he do to Becky?

Slamming his head back against the headrest, Matthew steeled himself and forced the words out. ‘I apologise,’ he said hoarsely.

Sullivan went quiet again, obviously considering: had his victim learned his lesson or did he need to reinforce it?

‘Better,’ he said, at length. ‘But if you want your wife’s pretty face to stay that way, watch the mouth, hey, Adams?

Don’t.
Clenching his jaw so hard his teeth hurt, Matthew cautioned himself not to retaliate.

‘So did you do as I asked?’ Sullivan paused and waited, then, ‘That was a question, Adams,’ he said, a warning edge to his voice.

Matthew worked to keep the contempt from his own. ‘I spoke to my DS, yes. He’s putting a lid on it.’

‘The file?’

‘He’s pulling it.’

‘Good. And what about our little cash transaction, Adams. How’s that going?’

Matthew closed his eyes, wishing it was possible to withdraw it in actual cash. Wishing to God he could hold Sullivan down and stuff every last pound coin down his throat.

‘The money will be in my account by close of business tomorrow. I can do the transfer online. I’ll need details, obviously.’

‘Very organised, aren’t we?’ Sullivan drawled facetiously. ‘I’ll provide details when I’m ready to. For your wife’s sake, when I do you’d better make sure it goes smoothly, Adams. No money, no goods. Got it? Share any of this with your friends at the station meanwhile, and you’ll never see her again. She’ll die, Adams, a slow painful death, wondering why her heroic husband didn’t save her.
Comprendre
?’

Matthew pulled in a tight breath. ‘If you touch her, Sullivan. If you harm her in any way, I’ll—’

‘What?’ Sullivan cut in. ‘What will you do, Detective Inspector? Kill me?’

‘It’s a promise,’ Matthew assured him.

‘Hah! That, Adams, would require you to grow a pair and fight back. You don’t have the bottle, mate. Never did have. The inclination, yes, I’ll give you that. You never could hide it very well, Detective, all that repressed anger. The bottle to do anything with it, though, no way.’

Matthew didn’t answer, the terrifying thought occurring that the twisted freak might see anything he did say as a challenge.

‘She has nice breasts, your wife,’ Sullivan commented casually. ‘Full and ripe. I like them like that, don’t you?’

Matthew felt as if the air had been sucked from his lungs. ‘You
bastard.’

‘Tut, tut, you’ve gone and done it again, haven’t you?’ Sullivan sighed despairingly. ‘I’m not sure how impressed the lovely Rebecca’s going to be that you’re choosing to ignore my warnings, Matthew.’

‘Bastard!’ Clenching his fist, Matthew punched the steering wheel hard.

****

Showered and dressed in the tee Melanie had given her, Ashley wandered towards the kitchen and then hesitated at the door. Melanie was feeding the baby and Ashley wasn’t sure her presence would be welcome. Trying not to be too obvious, she watched a while, the baby’s little arms flailing as he suckled, Melanie gazing lovingly down at him.
Like mums should
, Ashley thought, a pang of jealousy, mixed with something else … longing … tugging at her chest.