The Advent Killer (29 page)

‘You
bitch
!’ Barclay’s voice was distorted by anger and pain.

She glanced up, but everything looked like a badly tuned television picture. The Taser was in his right hand again, as far as she could tell, and she could hear him breathing heavily.

If she’d punctured an artery, he wouldn’t be standing for much longer.

But her optimism waned with every second Barclay remained upright and, as her vision cleared, Hawkins saw the penknife. Only the handle was visible, but the blade wasn’t lodged in Barclay’s neck as she had intended; it was in his left shoulder.

She had missed.

Panicked, she fought her way up onto one knee. Barclay’s feet didn’t move, but she sensed him watching her as she paused, gasping for breath, willing her head to clear. She tried to stand, but her strength had gone again and she collapsed into a sitting position against the cupboard door.

She looked up at him, shaking her head, her voice a ragged whisper. ‘John … don’t do this.’

Barclay stood over her, rocking slightly. His eyes were unfocused, but he no longer seemed to be aware of any pain.

He glanced down at the penknife handle protruding
from his shoulder before a thin smile passed his lips as he raised the Taser.

And pulled the trigger.

There was a faint hiss as Hawkins felt the twin darts land on her shirt. She had time to snatch a breath before the electricity crashed in.

For an instant only her chest tightened, but then the shockwave lit up her entire nervous system. Her muscles screamed and her body hunched, instinctively trying to rid itself of the assault. She heard the crack as her head jerked against the door behind her, but the feeling was lost in the frenzied maelstrom of shrieking nerve ends. A high-pitched whimper was all that escaped as she tried to scream, and then she was lying face down, cramped, twitching. Powerless.

And still the fire burned through her. It felt like being trampled by a herd of elephants. Every muscle was taut, and her teeth began biting through her lower lip, but she couldn’t stop them any more than she could stop the sensation. Tears welled in her eyes, obstructing her vision, and when she tried to blink, her eyelids were no longer hers to control.

She became aware of the clicking sound made by the Taser and tried to focus on it, on anything but the torture ripping through her.

And then it stopped.

Hawkins slumped, her ears ringing violently. She blinked several times, relieved to find her eyes and eyelids working again. She could feel her tongue, but not her jaw. She tried to move.

Nothing.

She strained to turn her head, but her face pressed against the floor like a tonne weight, and her limbs were unresponsive. She wanted to cry, or to scream, or to get up and fight. But the Taser blast had reduced her to mere observer.

She strained her eyes sideways, looking for Barclay, seeing only his shadow. He was standing right above her.

‘I really didn’t want it to be this way.’

His words were clipped and emotional, but there was conviction behind them. He was simply repeating a process he had proved several times he was more than capable of.

The shadow moved, and footsteps, three of them, placed Barclay near the kitchen table to her right. A zip opened, followed seconds later by a familiar rustle that told Hawkins he was putting on an anti-contamination overalls. Then she heard the snap of nitrile gloves.

He obviously wasn’t thinking straight; traces from his clothes and bleeding shoulder would already be all over the room, too many for him to remove. If he was losing it she might still have a chance.

She closed her eyes and tried to tune the noises out, to concentrate on her body. Her automatic functions were operating normally. She was still breathing, albeit in brief, rapid bursts, and the blood raced through her veins, its sounds mixing in her ears with the thumping of her heart. But still her muscles ignored her.

If she remained immobile, she had no chance of making it out of this situation alive. Even moving a finger would be a start. Hawkins strained against the invisible force disabling her, sending every ounce of willpower to her right hand.

Her eyes sprang open again as she heard Barclay approaching. His shoes appeared near her face, covered by black, slip-on overshoes. Her breathing quickened further, approaching hyperventilation, but she fought to bring it down. She couldn’t afford to give in to the panic threatening to overwhelm her.

Barclay crouched down and leaned in towards her, touching her, flipping her over. She tried to resist, but her body hung limp and heavy. As she was raised, Hawkins saw the blood pooling on the floor from her torn lip. Then she was on her back, staring up at the man she now knew as Nemesis.

His jaw twitched as if he was grinding his teeth, and he glared down at her with angry, vindictive eyes.

She tried to speak, but no words followed.

Barclay put gloved hands either side of her face, and turned her head towards him. ‘There’s no point attempting to move.’ His eyes bored into her. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

He watched as a tear crept out of the corner of her eye.

Apparently in response, Barclay stopped breathing for an instant, and an expression that could have been pity ghosted across his face. It was replaced a split second later, however, with the original, hate-filled stare.

Hawkins was having trouble keeping her eyes open against the resounding pain in her head.

Barclay leaned in close and put his arms around her neck. At first she thought he was going to kiss her, but after a moment he moved away, and she saw her necklace swinging between his fingers.

He paused for a second to look at it before closing his fist around it.

He reached out to stroke her hair. She screwed her eyes shut and tried to block everything out, to think clearly, but her head pounded worse than ever.

Barclay was talking again. ‘You rejected me at training school, but I learned to live with it. I thought we could make a difference working together, enforcing the law. But that wasn’t enough. Society needs reminding of what really matters. And I was doing that, despite your best efforts to stop me.’ His voice began to tremble. ‘I was going to tell you about my plans, when I found you and Maguire … together. And that hurt. I needed time to get over it, but I decided to offer you one last chance. And you rejected me again.’

Barclay’s expression hardened once more, and he stood and picked up her mobile. He tapped the keys for a minute before holding it down for her to see. She read the text on the screen
:
Hi Mike, hope case is going ok. Off to sleep now. Speak in the morning X

He sent the message and turned off the phone.

‘I’d love it to be Mike that finds you.’ His voice had become morose, suddenly matter of fact, as if his behaviour was the only reasonable course of action. ‘But I don’t want him turning up before time.’

He reached for the cloth on the draining board and began wiping down the kitchen surfaces.

Erasing the evidence.

As he turned away, Hawkins realized this would be her final opportunity; the last time John’s attention would be on something other than her.

She stared up at the ceiling, concentrating hard. The worst of the pain from the Taser had subsided now, although its embers still danced through every nerve ending in her body. And she could still taste the metallic tang of blood in her mouth.

Don’t give up.

She shut her eyes, trying to ignore the shattering pain in her head and the rapid, relentless, thumping sound that filled her ears. She concentrated on her right arm, urging it to obey, feeling her eyelids flicker as she strained against invisible bonds. But when she opened her eyes, there was the ceiling again.

Her hand wasn’t in front of her face.

Tears reduced her vision to a kaleidoscope of colour and shadow, spilling over and running down her face into her ears. It was no use.

What the fuck was she going to do now?

Saliva caught in the back of her throat, making her gag. She tried to swallow, but failed. Instead she coughed, her head rocking back and forth against the smooth tiled floor.

Movement
.

She strained again, suddenly expecting a different result. But this new hope faded when her neck muscles refused to turn her head. The coughing had been nothing more than a reflex action, her body keeping itself alive.

She fought fresh despair; had to find a way to communicate. The inability to move her jaw made speech impossible, but if she could produce even a ventriloquist-style whisper, perhaps it would be enough.

She had no control over her rate of breathing, but her
mouth hung open slightly. She attempted to hijack one of the outward breaths by humming. Her muscles ignored her. She tried to blow, and then inhale faster. Anything that could make the beginnings of a word.

Just a whisper.

Nothing came out.

And then her chance dissolved.

‘It’s time,’ she heard him say.

His tone sent an ice-cold sensation of pure dread through her.

His face reappeared above her as he crouched next to her again. ‘I know what you’re trying to do, but it’s too late to repent now. You made your choices.’

He watched her for a few seconds before reaching down for something, lifting it into view. A roll of duct tape.

‘I understand you’re finding it difficult to make noise at the moment, but this may take a while, and I can’t have you screaming halfway through.’

He picked at the corner of the roll before ripping a length free. He laid the tape across her mouth, leaving her nose free so that she could breathe. Then he gathered her hair in one hand, using it to pull her head off the floor, and started winding the tape around her face and neck, pulling it tighter and tighter.

He finished with the tape and tore off the end. Then he reached down again, raising his hand so that she could see what he held.

Her pulse reacted, racing faster than ever, and she felt herself starting to hyperventilate.

She didn’t recognize the knife, but she could see from
the way it reflected the light that it was heavily sharpened.

The same knife he must have used on the others.

She wanted to close her eyes, but even that was beyond her control now, and she merely stared at the blade, her heart pounding and her breath coming in tattered bursts. Tears streamed down her face as she still fought desperately to regain some sort of movement, but her limbs were still unwilling to respond.

He moved closer, rubbing the knife-edge between thumb and forefinger. Suddenly, his face trembled and he began to cry. For a moment she thought he was going to back away, but then he wiped his eyes and raised the knife.

With his movement, she realized how unimportant everything was: her bank balance, her career, the hair cut she kept meaning to book. Things that had seemed so relevant yesterday.

‘I know you’re scared,’ he said, as he leaned towards her, ‘but one day my actions will make sense to everyone. Things are clear now; change demands sacrifice. You have to die, for the greater good.’

She saw the lines of his face tighten, watching with terror as all the humanity drained from his eyes. Time was up.

He ripped open her shirt.

And, as buttons scattered across the kitchen floor, regret like she’d never felt flooded through her.

Panic won.

Her heart was racing so fast now that it hurt. Blackness crowded her vision, blocking out everything except his face and the anticipation of death.

She tried to scream again as the knife made contact
with her flesh and she felt the blade break her skin. Her vision blurred. A gurgling sound crept out from somewhere in the back of her throat.

Then the pain came, and so did the rasping seizure of air in her thorax.

Mike Maguire leaned back in his chair, stretched, and sipped his coffee.

‘Mmmh!’ he protested, pulling a face and peering across the desk at Frank Todd and Amala Yasir.

They both looked up, and Yasir asked, ‘What is it?’

Maguire forced himself to swallow the tepid mouthful, raising the mug. ‘About an hour cold.’

‘Oh.’ She laughed. ‘I thought you had something then. Whose turn is it to make?’

Todd was straight in. ‘Well, you’re the only lass here. I think that makes it your turn again. Right, Mike?’

‘Tell us again why you’re single, Frank—?’ Maguire stood. ‘What can I get you, Amala?’

He took orders, returning minutes later with two coffees and a tea, threading his way between empty desks. Apart from the three of them, the incident suite inside Becke House was deserted, angle poise lamps in their work area creating an isolated pool of light in the vast darkness.

‘Hey, guys.’ He distributed the drinks. ‘Any inspiration yet?’

Both heads shook.

‘No difference, one report to the next,’ Todd complained. ‘Whose stupid idea was this, anyway?’

‘It was the chief’s, Frank.’ Amala got in first. ‘And it’s
brought us closer to catching Nemesis than anything else so far.’

‘She’s not my bloody chief anymore,’ Todd shot back. ‘Or yours.’

Maguire bit his tongue, aware that direct reaction to Frank’s antagonistic humour would only encourage him. But he was pleased when Amala continued to demonstrate uncharacteristic fight.

‘We could all do a lot worse,’ she said. ‘What do you know about Tristan Vaughn, anyway?’

‘What I know is that the whole operation was mishandled before he arrived. At least we might get some action now, instead of her standing about, spouting some textbook flannel, expecting us to do all the bloody work.’

‘Oh, shut up, Frank. Rather her flannel than yours.’

Amala’s response stunned them both.

Mike suppressed a smile. He rolled his shoulders and adjusted the laptop in front of him, preparing to settle in for another round of transcripts. To his left, a second screen showed a map of London, overlaid with real-time markers indicating the location of every response team.

He was two lines into another statement when the text came in.

He checked his cell, seeing that the message was from Antonia.
Shit
, he should have called. Of course she’d been in his thoughts all afternoon – pretty much the same as any afternoon, really – but today he’d been so caught up in the case that he hadn’t even thought to check on her. Sometimes he was such a self-absorbed asshole.

He’d left Antonia’s place earlier that day, pissed that he’d dealt with things so badly considering the pressure
she’d been under, and her suspension from work. He could have spared ten minutes, gone into the house with her at least.

She was probably texting to call time on their on-off relationship altogether.

He opened the message.

He read the text and smiled, relieved that her tone appeared conciliatory. Perhaps there was still a chance for them. He considered calling her back, opting instead to send a happy but rhetorical text, carefully minimising any mention of the investigation. No need to disturb or stir things up.

Maguire put the phone back in his pocket, already feeling more positive. She was safe now. Eric Johnston wasn’t the most amazing host, but he was tough, and he wouldn’t let her come to any harm.

At least now he could focus properly on the case. OK, so it was only a half after midnight, but their chances of repeating last Sunday’s major stroke of luck in locating Nemesis were tiny.

Their approach, at least, had evolved. Calls from the public were now being sent electronically to their laptops, where they were read and assigned a priority level. From there, complex software plotted each location on a map, and sent over the nearest response team. Meanwhile the program was also choreographing the network of units, ensuring that any location in London could be reached within ten minutes. The idea was to eliminate dead zones like the one left around Scotland Yard last week, which had allowed the killer to escape.

This meant that as soon as any marker, even the
smallest clue to the killer’s location surfaced, they mustn’t let it …

Suddenly, Mike was frantically searching his pocket for the phone. He pulled it free and accessed the SMS menu, staring at the message from Toni.

Hi Mike, hope case is going ok. Off to sleep now. Speak in the morning X

He thought for a moment before opening her previous text, from a few days earlier. He scanned the words, confirming his recall that she rarely wrote a message without abbreviating at least a few words:
speak
was normally
spk
;
hope
normally
hp
.

Was something wrong?

He began checking back, message after message, going beyond the last couple of weeks to the messages he’d kept from when they were seeing each other six months before.
Why hadn’t he realized?

Whenever she ended the message with a kiss, it was always ‘Ax’. Never just ‘X’.

Instantly, he was off his chair, sprinting out of the control room, ignoring confused shouts from Walker and Todd. He didn’t have time to explain.

He stumbled as he reached the corridor, trying simultaneously to run and dial Antonia’s cell. Straight to answer phone.
Fuck
. He selected Eric Johnston’s number, barging aside two uniforms exiting one of the offices just as Eric answered.

‘Y’ello?’

‘Eric, is Antonia with you?’

‘No sign yet, dude. Why?’

Maguire cut him off, immediately selecting her landline
instead.
Please be at home, please be
OK. But after a few rings the machine cut in.

Maguire reached the parking lot, landing in his car and firing the engine before roaring out onto the street. He slotted his seatbelt in place as he reached the first corner; not for safety, but because it would hold him in the seat.

It was eleven miles from Hendon to Antonia’s – twenty minutes under normal driving conditions. But Maguire still cursed every second of the eight minutes it took him to clear the North Circular and A307 to Richmond.

He used the time to order an ambulance and two of the response teams to her address, hoping to hell that he was wasting everyone’s time. But as he hit the kerb outside her house and ran for the door, Maguire was more afraid than ever that his suspicions were right.

He launched himself at the front door, hearing the plastic flex and crunch. But the framework held. He tried the handle, banging his fists against it and ringing the bell.

No answer.
What if she wasn’t even there?

He stood for a second, desperately watching the windows for signs of a response before he remembered the emergency key she used to keep hidden in the back yard.

He turned and sprinted for the alley, hearing sirens in the distance, reaching the garden and clambering over the fence, looking up at the house.

Kitchen light was on, blind down.

Maguire almost ran straight for the back door, but forced himself to divert, clambering on his knees by the shed, using the light on his mobile to search among the stacks of old plant pots.

Come on.
It had to be there.

Twice he almost gave up, desperation dragging him towards the house, but after what seemed like hours, he found it. The key was rough with rust, and he rubbed it with his fingers as he stood and ran for the house, clattering to a halt against the door.

Terrified, he suddenly noticed the empty wine bottle on the floor under the table in the kitchen, and the kettle lying on its side on the worktop.

Fuck
. Something
had
happened.

His hands fought one another as he tried to force the rusted key into the lock. It took three attempts, but finally the metal scraped home. He twisted and pushed, falling forwards to his knees on the kitchen floor.

The sound of sirens and screeching tyres came from the road outside, but the knocks and rings at the front door went unanswered as Maguire knelt in the kitchen, unaware of anything except the horrific scene that had now become visible in the corner of the room.