Every Last Devil: A Chilling British Crime Thriller, page 32
“I don’t know. She came and went. Sometimes she was wearing the mask, other times she wasn’t. Don’t know which was worse.”
“And you’ve never seen her before?”
“Never. Never want to see her again.” She twisted in her seat to look out of the back window. “Where is she?”
“She’s gone,” said Savage.
“Nothing can happen to you now, Aggie,” said Kett. “I promise.”
His back was throbbing, and his legs had gone numb. He stood up, every single joint cracking.
“Thank you,” he said. “You have no idea how helpful that is. Kate can take you to meet your grandmother now, if you like?”
“I can go?” she asked, nodding as if to answer herself. “What time is it?”
“Just after ten thirty,” said Kett, checking his watch.
He tapped the roof of the car a couple of times, then turned away.
“There’s something else,” said Aggie before he could leave. “But I can’t remember if it’s real, or just a dream.”
He leaned over so he could see her through the open door.
“I was sleeping. Don’t even know how, but I must have drifted off. No idea what the time was, but I woke up because of the screaming.”
“Screaming?” said Kett.
“I thought it was somebody else like me, you know? In one of the cages. Then I saw it was that woman. She was on the other side of the room, she was running from one side to the other and she was screaming like she was… like she’d lost her mind. I’ve never heard anything like it, made me want to just curl up and die.”
“Do you have any idea why she was screaming?” asked Kett.
“No. But it went on forever. Running back and forth, back and forth. She didn’t have the mask on but she looked just like her, you know? Like the witch. Her mouth was too big, her eyes were these awful, gaping holes. She didn’t look real.”
Aggie’s head dropped, the tears raining onto her lap.
“A dream,” she said. “Had to be a dream.”
“I’m sorry,” said Kett. He looked at Savage. “Get her out of here, she’s been through enough.”
“Yes, sir.”
Savage got out of the car, opening the driver’s door.
“And Kate, take some backup, yeah?”
She nodded.
Kett crossed the car park, heading for the ambulance. He spotted Duke on the way, the big PC sitting on the bonnet of an IRV looking as forlorn as a lost child. The TV crew were skulking by the open front doors of the warehouse, and for once all of the cameras were down.
“You okay, Aaron?” asked Kett as he passed. “Thought you’d be happy. Tasering a suspect was on the list, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, sir,” said Duke. “But it was too dark to see anything. I look like some big old gorilla shambling around, you can’t tell it’s me.”
“To be fair, if I saw a big, shambling gorilla, I’d think it was you,” said Kett.
Duke’s face fell.
“Sorry, mate,” said Kett, clapping him on the shoulder. “Savage is taking Aggie Clegg to the hospital if you want to escort her? Might get some good footage.”
“Of me babysitting, sir?” said Duke. “No thanks.”
“You could always order a coffee and a pastry at the café too. Good TV, that.”
Duke glowered at him.
“Then go back to HQ, help Porter out.”
Duke groaned like a bored donkey.
“Or stay here,” said Kett, his patience waning. “Whatever floats your boat, Constable.”
He reached the ambulance, four officers parting to let him through. There were two more PCs in the back, making it difficult for the paramedic to move around. She didn’t look like she was complaining, though, her cheek swollen and a bruise forming around her eye.
“Shit,” said Kett as he grabbed the handle and hauled himself up. “You okay?”
“All part of the job,” said the woman. “She’s an ox, came round. Had to give her another shot to put her back to sleep, and even that’s not really working.”
She stood to one side to reveal Bianca Caddel on the stretcher. She’d been masked during the fight, and in the struggle to get her down the stairs, Kett hadn’t had a chance to really look at her. Only now did he see how striking she was—a wide, flat Germanic face with prominent cheekbones and a nose that looked like it had been broken more than once.
Her hair was more grey than blonde, as knotted and dreaded as the mask that she’d been wearing. Her neck was thick with muscle, and Kett could see a number of tattoos peeking over the top of her jumper—the unmistakeable point of a pentagram. She was wearing an identical tracksuit to the one she’d given Aggie, and it stank like she hadn’t washed it in years.
“Yeah,” said the paramedic as she watched Kett’s nose wrinkle. “It’s bad.”
Bianca’s eyes were closed, but her body writhed like she was caught in a fever dream, sweat pouring from her face, collecting in the hollow of her throat. She was secured to both sides of the stretcher, the cuffs rattling as she struggled. The tube in her mouth had been removed, and thankfully her tongue was still attached.
“She say anything?” he asked.
“Plenty,” said one of the constables from where he stood in the corner of the ambulance, his head ducked beneath the low ceiling. “But I couldn’t make out much of it. She was screaming.”
“Yeah, I remember,” said Kett. His ears were still ringing from trying to get her down the stairs.
“Said something about us messing up, sir,” said the second constable by the door. “She didn’t say messing, though.”
“Fucking up,” said the first. “Said we’d fucked up, that somebody was going to pay.”
“Yeah, that was it.”
“Did she say who?” asked Kett.
“No, sir,” said the second PC, nodding into the car park. “But she was looking at the girl.”
“Aggie?”
They both nodded.
Bianca groaned, her body thrashing as if she was trying to wake herself from a dream. Her arms tensed, straining against the handcuffs, the skin of her wrists bleeding.
“Can you give her another shot?” asked Kett.
“Not without killing her,” said the paramedic. “I don’t know how she’s still going.”
One of Bianca’s eyes peeled open, red and raw. It roved madly in its socket, a blister of hatred that found the paramedic, then the PCs, then Kett. He’d taken a step back before he knew it, almost tumbling out of the ambulance. Aggie was right, he didn’t know which sight scared him more: Bianca in her mask, or out of it.
The woman’s mouth opened, slick with saliva. Her teeth were big and yellow, they reminded Kett of a horse’s teeth. Her tongue was a slab of meat that pushed itself out, her throat gargling. Her body tensed, her back arching, her feet kicking out like she was being electrified. But that one, mad eye still held Kett.
“You should get out,” said the paramedic, her hand on Bianca’s chest to try to calm her. “No good getting her riled up again.”
It was advice he was happy to take, but he couldn’t seem to pull his gaze away from her. His body had locked, as if she’d taken control of every string. Bianca’s tongue flexed, her jaw twisted, the guttural noises in her throat finally forming words.
“You… killed…”
“Go,” said the paramedic, moving towards Kett. “She’s going to hurt herself.”
He couldn’t move, as if an invisible wire had been threaded between Bianca’s eye and his own.
“You… killed… them,” she said, spitting the words from wet lips. “You killed them. You killed them.”
“Who?” said Kett. “Robert Flack? David Blethyn? David’s still alive, Bianca.”
“Now,” said the paramedic. She stepped between Kett and Bianca, breaking their eye contact. Kett’s body came back online with such force that his back started to cramp. He dropped onto the step, one of the constables helping him onto the ground.
“You killed them!”
Bianca was screaming now, her body flailing, the stretcher threatening to overturn. The paramedic gave Kett a frightened look as she closed the doors. The other paramedic must have been ready to go because the ambulance trundled away, weaving a path between the IRVs before gunning up the road.
Even from back here, Kett could still hear the woman inside, her words turning the hot air to ice.
“You killed them! You killed them! You killed them!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
“You okay back there?” asked Savage. “You can sit in the front if you like?”
She glanced into the rear-view mirror in time to see Aggie shake her head. The young woman looked exhausted, which wasn’t exactly surprising. Savage couldn’t imagine what she’d been through—attacked, injured, kidnapped and kept in a cage by a madwoman.
“Well, it’s not a long drive,” she said, starting the engine of the IRV. “Just sit back, relax. I’m going to take you right to your granny.”
She put the car in gear, reversing out of the space. The car park was mobbed, but she took her time, weaving through the forest of IRVs towards the exit. Another car followed, two uniformed officers in the front. Neither of them was Duke, which annoyed her a little. Yes, he’d come to the rescue when Kett was being attacked. But the whole TV thing had changed him, he was distracted—even more distracted than usual, that was. She couldn’t wait until it was over.
Part of her was even hoping they’d give up and go home.
She stuck her hand out of the window to acknowledge the car behind, earning a bleep from their siren in return. Then she picked up speed, the BMW accelerating effortlessly. It wasn’t an emergency, but she flicked on the blues anyway. The sooner Aggie got to the hospital and was reunited with her grandmother, the better.
Of course the bad news wasn’t over. Nobody had told her about her father yet.
“You want some music?” Savage asked as she reached the end of the estate. “I can put the radio on.”
“No,” said Aggie.
She was looking through the window, her expression full of fear.
“I promise you,” Savage said. “that woman can’t hurt you anymore. She’s handcuffed, and they sedated her. She’s out cold.”
It didn’t seem to help. Aggie strained in her seat, staring through the back window.
“They’re going to put her in prison, Aggie, for a long time.”
Traffic had stopped to let her out, so she pulled onto the main road, heading towards the city. The second car followed, staying close. Aggie was still looking behind them, as if she expected to see Bianca soaring overhead on her broomstick.
“Are you worried that she wasn’t doing this alone?” Savage asked. “Because we know there were others working with her. Two men. We found them, Aggie. One’s dead, the other one is in hospital, under police supervision. They can’t hurt you.”
Aggie sniffed, wiping her eyes. She was crying again, but Savage wasn’t sure if it was because she was afraid or relieved.
“Bianca didn’t talk to you about any other children?” she asked.
“No,” said Aggie. “Why?”
“No reason,” said Savage. She didn’t want to worry her.
“There were other people like me?” Aggie asked. “Who? Where are they?”
“We found them too,” said Savage. “Everything’s fine, I promise.”
“But what if it’s not?” said Aggie.
“What do you mean?”
There was a set of red lights ahead where Drayton Road met the ring road, the traffic at a standstill. It was busy here, and Savage switched off the lights so people wouldn’t start driving out of her way like headless chickens. She joined the queue, the engine idling.
Aggie was silent in the back seat, other than the soft sniff of her sobs.
“What do you mean, Aggie?” Savage asked again.
“I mean what if it isn’t okay?” she said. “What if there are more people doing this?”
“You’re safe,” said Savage. “If there are others, we’ll get them too. That woman was… she was insane, Aggie. She did something terrible, I’m not even sure we’ll ever know why. Not really. But she can’t hurt you anymore. None of them can.”
Savage could hear the growl of an engine, something big approaching behind them. She checked her side mirror but she couldn’t see past the second IRV. Aggie could hear it too, because she turned in her seat again, looking back.
“What if you can’t keep me safe?” she said.
The engine was growing louder, as if it was picking up speed. Savage’s heart began to rev, her pulse clattering as she kept her eyes on the mirror. She touched the accelerator—not that there was anywhere to go. The lights were still red, the cars lined up like bricks in a wall.
“What if nobody can keep me safe?” said Aggie, looking forward, her eyes like saucers.
Savage didn’t reply. Somebody was honking their horn, furiously. The sound of the engine was like thunder.
“Kate?” said Aggie.
Something rose over the top of the second IRV—a bus, thought Savage, and that was all she had time to think before it collided with the car behind.
“Shit,” she said, spinning the wheel and flooring it.
Too slow.
The bus shunted the second IRV into the back of their car, the rear window exploding. Savage’s head hit the steering wheel, the world detonating into noise and light as their car lifted off the ground and slammed into the one in front. Aggie was screaming, and Savage would have been too if she could breathe.
The bus was reversing for another hit. Its windscreen had shattered, Savage couldn’t see who was driving.
“Hang on,” she said, as much to herself as to Aggie.
The car had slipped out of gear and she fought to get it back in, driving her foot down as soon as it caught. The car in front was still too close, the driver scrabbling out with a look of terror on his face. Savage drove into the back of it, shunting it out of the way, her tyres smoking as they fought to get purchase.
The bus hurtled forward again, a battering ram that knocked the second IRV into the other side of the road. It kept going, piling into the back of Savage’s car.
Knocking it free of the vehicle in front.
She floored it, almost losing control as she gunned up the wrong side of the street. The bumper must have been hanging off, a shower of sparks chasing them. There was no room to move, the IRV scraping between the two lines of cars with the sound of shearing metal.
In the mirror, she saw the bus pull out after them. It was a small one, a white minibus, but it ploughed through the cars like an icebreaker, ripping off doors like they were chicken wings.
Aggie was still screaming, doubled up in her seat with her hands over her head.
“It’s okay,” said Savage, just a grunt. “Stay down.”
She had to slow as she reached the junction because the traffic was still moving, cars and lorries barrelling past at forty miles an hour. She flicked on the lights again, and the siren, pulling out so sharply that a speeding Porsche had to stamp on the brakes, spinning out.
The bus was gaining, filling her rear-view mirror.
She floored it again, crossing both lanes onto the road that led into the city. She grabbed the radio set as she went.
“Control, this is DC Savage, I need emergency backup.”
A hiss of static, then a woman’s voice.
“We know, the unit behind you called it in.”
“They okay?” she asked.
She was gaining ground, the BMW’s big engine pulling them away effortlessly.
“They’re bruised, but they’ll live,” said the operator. “I’ve got units on the way from the south, and from the east. Tactical’s been alerted. Are you clear?”
Savage checked the mirror again, the bus still there but getting smaller. It slipped out of view as they turned a corner.
“I’m—”
There was a skip lorry ahead, taking up both sides of the road as it backed into somebody’s drive. Savage slammed her foot on the brake, the back of the car starting to slide. She lifted her foot, fighting the wheel.
A road to the right. She didn’t have a choice, momentum making the turn for her. She saw the wide-open park ahead of her, realised her mistake too late.
A dead end.
“Shit,” she said again.
“DC Savage, what’s going on?” said the voice on the radio.
No time to reply. She braked hard, spun the wheel, the IRV punching between two stone pillars and down a footpath. Pedestrians scattered, lifting their kids and their dogs as they leapt off the path. There was a car park to the left, no exit that way. A barrier blocked the road ahead.
No choice. The bus had made the turn and was catching up, fast.
“Hang on to something,” she told Aggie.
She pushed her foot down, gritting her teeth so hard they could have shattered.
The BMW hit the metal barrier, tearing it free. It slipped under the car, catapulting them upwards, and for a second they were airborne. They landed hard, something exploding beneath the car. Savage fought to keep control, the BMW resisting her in a way that could only mean one thing.
One of the tyres had popped.
“Who is it?” Aggie’s screams had choked themselves into words. “What do they want? What do they want?”
It wasn’t hard to guess. The IRV was limping, the bus closing in, still no clue who was driving it past the cobweb of cracks that spread across the windscreen.
Savage kept her foot down, her hands locked on the wheel. They passed a stone pavilion, the operator’s voice still blasting from the radio, barely audible over the rattle of something underneath them—the exhaust, Savage guessed. The car was hanging on by a thread, it couldn’t last much longer.
The bus roared up, ripping the injured bumper clean away. Savage locked the scream in her throat, trying not to let the car spin out. The road continued, but not for much longer, dead-ended by a hedge a hundred yards away. To the right was a BMX track, half a dozen bikers watching them pass. To the left was a playpark full of kids, their parents basking in the sun.
