Each Day I Wake: A gripping psychological thriller: US Edition (21 page)

The journey along City Road to Brookheath Hospital was conducted in near silence. DI Lesley sat up front next to the police car driver while I sat in the back with Ives.

We were met at the hospital by a tall man who introduced himself as Alan Dunkley, the Building Services Manager who, in an earlier and less security conscious age, might have been called the janitor.

He blinked as Ives told him what we wanted. “There
is
a basement area, Inspector, but I’m not aware of anything that would fit the bill of a secret underground chamber.”

I interrupted. “I can show you.”

I led them through A&E to the long passageway where I’d emerged from the ventilation shaft when I’d made my escape. I pointed to the grille. “This is where I came out. The shaft leads down into the underground chamber.”

Dunkley shook his head. “You have no other way of knowing where it is?”

I tried to remain calm. “No. The door was locked. This was the only way out.”

Dunkley showed no enthusiasm to help. “So, what do you expect us to do?”

DI Lesley cut in. “There must be plans of the building, Mr. Dunkley. Used to facilitate services, gas, electricity, central heating and cooling?”

He nodded. “Of course. But I’m not sure they’ll be of much help. This is a large, old building, dating all the way back to the 1890s and what plans we have are incomplete to say the least. I doubt if Mr. Markland’s chamber would be found from those.”

Ives was insistent. “If you’ll bear with us, Mr. Dunkley, this could be vital evidence.”

We took the elevator from A&E to a suite of offices on the Top Floor. Dunkley opened his computer and pulled up the digitized versions of the building plans. “More convenient to have the plans in this form but it doesn’t make them any more accurate, I’m afraid.”

I studied the screen and located the passageway that led from A&E. “Let’s see an enlargement of this section.”

It was a jumbled picture of coded lines showing electricity cabling and gas piping no doubt long regarded as redundant. But behind it all was a grid-like pattern of wider channels that must have been the heating and ventilation system. I pointed again. “There, this looks like it.”

Dunkley smiled. “The
new
system. Built in the 1930s. Not much of that’s in use today.”

I was beginning to feel more confident. “Yes, but if I trace the pathway of those channels through, from the passageway where I emerged, back underground, they lead to here.”

I pointed to the position on the chart where the ventilation shaft I’d identified ended in a small underground space. “I’m sure that’s it. That’s the chamber.”

Dunkley scratched his head. “It’s unknown to me. I can’t imagine the last time anyone’s been down there.”

Ives interrupted. “You have a key? If it’s locked, as Mr. Markland says it is.”

Dunkley smiled again. “I have these.” He held up a large bunch of keys. “The master keys to the building. If one of these doesn’t do the trick, nothing will.”

We followed Dunkley to the elevator that took us to the ground floor once more. He led us to a staircase that descended from an unlocked door in the far corner of A&E. We were soon in an area used by the hospital for its work on new treatments with white-coated researchers busy in their experimentation.

Dunkley found another door with a staircase leading to a further lower level. “No one goes down there. We closed this section back in the 1990s.”

Lesley was keen to gather all the facts. “And this is the only way in?”

Dunkley wrinkled his brow. “There was a way in through a loading bay off a rear courtyard but that was closed years ago.”

I was sure this must have been the way the killer had brought me in here on the way to the underground chamber but I chose to say nothing. It was important to keep Ives’ attention fixed on the chamber itself.

At the base of the staircase, Dunkley used the flash lamp he’d brought with him to guide us along a dark, dust-strewn passageway until he stopped at a small wooden doorway halfway along. “This should be it. Room B213 on the plan.”

I was impatient to get inside. This was how I would convince Ives that I’d been telling him the truth.

Dunkley pulled out the bunch of keys and began searching for the key most likely to fit the lock.

The key was not needed. DI Lesley, wearing a latex glove, pushed down the handle and the door opened.

A look passed between Ives and Lesley that said:
so much for his claim that the door was locked
.

Inside, my world began to fall apart. The chamber was empty.

The cage that had held me captive while my eyes were bombarded with the images of the missing girls was gone. There was no video projector. There was nothing to show what had happened here.

I searched the chamber.

This must be the wrong place.

There must have been a mistake in reading the plans.

The chamber where he’d imprisoned me must be somewhere near.

Then I noticed the table beneath the ceiling grille through which I’d escaped. It was unmistakable. It was the same table. I recognized its distressed appearance, the scratch marks left on its ill cared for top.

The killer must have come back here and removed every trace.

I stared at Ives. “It was all here, Inspector. He’s moved it.”

Ives shook his head. “And
he
knew all along you’d bring us here, eh, Mr. Markland?”

I turned and headed for the door before they could stop me. I ran for my life along the subterranean passageway, pursued by Ives and Lesley. I had the element of surprise and was younger and fitter than they were and reached the stairway to the research area above well before them.

I burst through the research labs without any thought for who might be in my way. Though several of the researchers recoiled in surprise, no one stopped me. When I reached the staircase that led up to ground level, I had a clear lead.

Would Ives be able to call reinforcements to stop me as I emerged into A&E? Maybe not. Phone reception in the basement would be patchy at best. This might give me a chance.

I ran through A&E, picking my way through the ranks of patients awaiting treatment and made it through to the exit.

I ran along City Road until I came to a stop at which a London bus was collecting the last of its waiting passengers and jumped aboard.

As the bus pulled away into the traffic, I looked back.

There was no sign of Ives or Lesley.

I had nowhere to go but the hotel. I wanted to reach Janet and tell her that we had to run. Ives would have sent out an emergency call to every policeman in the area to look out for me.

I made it back to the hotel but I didn’t make my way back to Janet.

Two men were waiting in the lobby. While the receptionist made a point of walking away into the back office, the larger of the two men pressed a knife against my heart. “Mr. Quinn would like a word.”

I knew not to struggle.

They walked me outside with the blade still held at my heart and pushed me into the back of a waiting black BMW.

I knew enough about Mike Quinn. Emerging from somewhere in the past I was still coming to terms with. I knew he was the muscle protecting Tyrone Montague and OAM; that much was clear from
The Herald
investigation. What I needed to know was not just how they’d found me but why I was now of such interest to them.

There was no attempt made to prevent me from seeing where I was being taken, nor of seeing the faces of those kidnapping me. I took this as a bad sign. That could mean they had no intention of ever letting me go.

They drove me to a disused factory in Limehouse, right on the Commercial Road. In its heyday it must have been a thriving concern, in light engineering, perhaps a ships’ chandler’s or such. There was ancient lifting gear and long-abandoned machinery on an expansive ground floor and an upper deck with smaller workshops and offices.

Outside on the Commercial Road, drivers and pedestrians passed by the factory every day and thought nothing of it. It had been standing here as a wrecked building for so long that no one cared to notice.

I was marched up the staircase to the upper deck and held in one of the offices.

I recognized Mike Quinn as soon as he came in.

“Mr. Markland.”

“How did you find me?”

“You mean before the police could? When you know as many people as I do in London, when as many owe me in one way or another, there’s no one I can’t find.”

“So, what do you want?”

Quinn stepped back and pointed towards the disused office door. “There’s someone who wants a talk with you.”

It was Tyrone Montague. He came in and sat on the edge of the battered desk that was the only furniture in the room other than the chair they’d made me sit on. “Markland, I believe you have something that I need. Will you please give it to me.”

I had just a single train of thoughts in my mind. This was him. The one doing the killing. The one who had been out to destroy me from the start. “I saw you in the Dragon Bar.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I know you go there for the girls.”

His face reddened, not from any sense of shame but out of anger. “What I do with my time is no concern of yours, Markland.”

“It is. Those women are being killed.”

He gave a loud laugh. “You’re not saying it’s me, are you? That’s preposterous.”

I told him about the serial killer. How four women had been killed and another was in real danger.

His expression didn’t change. “That may all be the case, but what does that have to do with me?”

“Stella DaSilva knew him. Knew the serial killer. She feared him. She wrote about those fears in her diary. She gave the killer’s initials as
TM
and said that he picked up girls in the Dragon Bar. Both those facts fit you.”

He laughed once more. “You’re not without front, Markland, I’ll give you that. You’re here under the kind attentions of Mr. Quinn and you have the gall to accuse me of something I wouldn’t come close to in a million years.”

I rolled back the sleeves of my shirt to the elbow. “Show me your forearms.”

“Now why would I want to do that?” He paused. “Is that what your concern about seeing me in the Dragon Bar is all about?” He laughed again. “You really think that I’m the killer of those girls? So why the sleeves?”

“Because I know what kind of tattoo the killer has on his left forearm.”

Quinn, who had been listening, came forward and interrupted. “Ty, you don’t need to ask me what needs to be done about the animal that’s been killing girls like Cathy Newsome. If I got hold of him they wouldn’t need a trial. And I’d make his death a slow one.”

Montague rolled back his sleeves.

There was no tattoo. “Satisfied?”

I searched for any sign of discoloration of his skin that would show that a tattoo had been removed in the past few hours and could find none.

I nodded. “I needed to know.”

He smiled again. “Tom Markland.
TM
. You knew Stella, didn’t you? As part of
The Herald
investigation.”

The picture was completing itself. Matters I’d been unable to remember or had willingly prevented myself from recalling were coming back into focus at a furious pace. “I knew her as Della long before I met her as Stella, as part of the investigation. We grew up together as kids. She recognized me straight away.”

“And that’s why you rolled up your sleeves. Another
TM
who knew Stella. But I don’t think it’s you. You’re not the type.”

It was a strange feeling. The first person, apart from Janet and Healey, I’d met since the near drowning who didn’t need to question my truthfulness was this man who our investigation had shown was nothing but liberal with the truth as far as his investors and the rest of the world were concerned.

He continued. “Which brings us back to why you’re here, Markland. I need the diary. You must know that, apart from these claims about the killer, it contains all manner of confidential information about
my
business.”

I was still reeling from the realization that Montague could not have been the killer. I’d seen the tattoo on the forearm of the killer when he reached in to drug me when I was being held in the underground chamber. Montague had no tattoo. It couldn’t be him, even though I’d seen him in the Dragon Bar. Someone else, the real killer, had been there that night and had seen me and arranged the kidnap.

Yet I knew I must focus on what Montague was saying. “Look, whatever else is in the diary about your business doesn’t matter to me any more. I don’t care if the details of your shoddy dealing never see the light of day. I only care about saving the next girl, about stopping this madman before he kills again. I know who the next girl is. I know where she works.”

Montague leaned forward. “So, it’s simple. You can avoid a world of pain at the hands of Mr. Quinn here if you tell us where the diary is.”

“What if I told you I’d turned it in to the police.”

He smiled. “I don’t think you’d have done that. Not when half the police in London are looking for you. You’ve had other things on your mind. So, tell me, where is it?”

“OK. I still have it. Somewhere you won’t find it.”

Montague turned towards Quinn. “So, what’s stopping me handing you over Mr. Quinn who’ll take about ten minutes to beat it out of you.”

I had just one moment to respond. “I have a failsafe.”

“What kind of failsafe?”

“I have it with someone well away from all this. If anything happens to me, they’re under instruction to send the diary to the police. Is that what you want?”

He walked over to Quinn and the two men became locked in whispered conversation. Even so, it was clear enough that they were arguing. Montague was assessing whether they could believe what I’d told them was true and, if it was, could they beat out of me enough details to be able to stop the diary reaching the police. Quinn was as concerned about the fate of the girls. I heard him saying that something had to be done to stop the killer.

Montague returned, shaking his head. “That’s making both our lives more complicated. You see, there’s no way I can let you go unless you tell me where it is. And you’re saying you don’t want to do that.”

I tried to play on the disagreement between the two men. “There is a way. But we’ll need to trust each other.”

He looked back, shocked; as if this was the most alarming thing he’d ever heard. “Trust, Tom. That’s a little old fashioned isn’t it?”

I pressed on. “I’ll give you the diary in exchange for help in stopping the killing. Help me find the killer and I’ll give it to you. You can put it beyond use. Nothing Stella said about you will ever be known.”

He looked back at Quinn, seeking approval. When Quinn nodded, he turned back. “OK.” He paused and tried to make light of a decision he’d been forced into. “You know if there was even the slightest hint that I might be involved in killing girls like Cathy Newsome I wouldn’t last long with the likes of Mr. Quinn, don’t you? So, for that as much as anything else, let’s get this straightened out.”

It was unexpected and yet somehow meaningful when Montague offered to shake hands. I accepted.

He turned to Quinn. “Now, shake Mr. Quinn’s hand, too. We’re going to need his help.”             

I complied. “One more thing. I need to see my wife, Janet. She needs to know that I’m all right.”

Montague smiled. “No need for that. She’s no longer at the hotel. She’s somewhere safe. With us.”

My heart sank. “But we just agreed to trust each other?”

He wagged a finger. “This is better. Call it our failsafe. My way of keeping you honest.”