The Murder Loop, page 20
After a few moments, she ditched the amateur psychology and switched her thoughts to Nabila Fathi, and the missing Libyan. Was there, she wondered, the slightest chance that Akeem Issa was still in the country? The previous day, despondency had driven her to assume he was long since gone. But Nabila’s murder very publicly remained unsolved; might he just have moved to another region of the country, reducing the risk to himself while satisfied that he was unlikely to be caught?
Once more, she went over every step they had taken to trace him, and asked herself what more they could do. Nothing sprang to mind, and to counteract her frustration, she started from scratch, asking herself what she would do if suddenly new to this case. She would start with the file, read it from top to bottom, make her own notes, check to see if the original team had missed anything – just as she had done when Finnegan assigned her the case. So now, she tried to recreate the case file from memory – not word-for-word, given she wasn’t, sadly, the possessor of a photographic memory – but simply the core facts and most salient details. Was there anything in those that could possibly hint at an alternative location, a hideout, for Issa?
After twenty minutes or so running the case over in her mind, she admitted defeat. In her recall, there was nothing to suggest Issa’s current location. She gave an involuntary shiver and realised she was extremely cold; the thin throw was more stylish accessory than creature comfort. Even if she did crank on the heating system, it would take a good twenty minutes to warm up the place, and there still wasn’t a murmur from the bedroom. A thick blanket would be a better bet, but she didn’t want to risk the stairs again, and wondered if Brady kept a spare one in the chancel, the one part of the church she’d only seen from the doorway when he was giving her the guided tour.
That glimpse had been enough to know it was not a second bedroom, as she had originally assumed, but a storage place for him, where he kept spare clothes and furniture, tools and utensils, and various bric-a-brac. She found herself wondering idly whether they used the term ‘bric-a-brac’ in the States as she picked up her phone, flicked on the torch function again, and padded to the chancel, depressing the handle and pushing the door open as softly as she could.
She scanned the room with the torchlight for any sign of a blanket. There was none, but she spotted a long parka which would do just as well. It came down to her ankles, was too big at the sleeves, and cool to the touch when she slipped it on. Wonderfully, though, it began to work its magic almost immediately and she felt snug and comfortable.
Out of curiosity, she scanned her torch across the rest of the room and began to study some of the items in more detail. A small number of books, mostly on military tactics and strategy, a couple more on American sports – he hadn’t struck her as a great reader. The boxes of spare clothes she had seen the first day, and on a bench, a toolbox, a hammer, and an array of power tools. On top of a washing machine, some detergent and other cleaning materials, including a bottle of bleach, which made her think of Peter Bannon and briefly shudder again, not at the memory of the attack on her, but of the brutality he had inflicted on his father.
She scanned again and saw a packed rucksack in one corner, presumably a holdover from his military days. Less IKEA catalogue in here, she thought: the random assortment of stuff spoke more truly to his personality, although still no photos or any other kind of obvious personal memento in sight. Still, who was she to talk, with her apartment of unpacked boxes? Perhaps his were all buried in the rucksack or one of the boxes, or sitting in his ex-wife’s basement or shed back in the States. She turned towards the door and saw, on the back of it, a dartboard used for target practice. Not with darts evidently, but a large hunting knife, rammed into the centre of the board, holding a piece of paper in place.
And then she froze, equilibrium shattered, as if powerful hands were shoving her head under the water.
It wasn’t a piece of paper.
It was a piece of pure cotton fibre, measuring one hundred and forty seven millimetres by seventy-seven millimetres, coloured predominantly in green and white hues.
A 100-euro banknote, with the familiar signs of damage, as if an animal had chewed the edges, or someone had burned it with a lighter.
Caused by a flooded vault and ham-fisted attempts to clean it.
With a sickening clarity, Cass suddenly saw it all, the bell ringing like crazy in her mind.
The money for the renovation of the church. The military service in unspecified parts of the world. The many, many mysteries about his background.
Brady had been in Benghazi, and was the source of the notes, Issa his intermediary. Issa in turn had found his own intermediary – Nabila – only for things to go seriously wrong.
And Brady had killed them both to wash away all links to him.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
She stood, paralysed in fear, her legs feeling like they had been encased in concrete. Fight or flight: Peter Bannon hadn’t given her a choice – his attack had been sudden, and her response had been instantaneous. But this was different: she knew she was in the presence of a killer – and a professional one at that.
Her own professional instincts were screaming at her to call for backup and run. Establish a perimeter and get the hell behind it. But there was no phone coverage here, she didn’t have her radio, and she would need a car to get a safe distance, a car she didn’t have, given Brady had driven the night before. If her flight options seemed limited, fight was a non-runner. Confronting him would be lunacy – she would be no match for his basic strength, to say nothing of his close combat skills. He would snap her neck in an instant. Her best option, her only one, was deception: pretend there was nothing wrong, hope her body would stop trembling and that her voice would hold steady.
She jumped at a sudden creak, her heart a ball of explosive threatening to blow a hole in her chest. She strained her ears but heard nothing further except for the rustle of trees outside.
It was all she could do not to dash for the front door and try to cover on foot the mile or two to the nearest property. Instead, she tried to steady her breathing and her nerves, steeling herself to execute the only way out.
One step at a time, and quietly as possible.
She checked to ensure her phone was on silent and switched off the torchlight, given the camera couldn’t run while it was on. Then she stepped closer to the dartboard to take a picture of the banknote pinned to it. She turned on the flash, conscious of the risk she was running, and quickly snapped a shot. She cursed as the room lit up momentarily, as if a bolt of lightning had struck. She cursed again when she saw the poor quality of the photo, so she risked one more, with much the same result. She adjusted the settings on the phone, more in hope than conviction, and tried a final shot. The outcome was slightly better; it would do. For a moment, she considered removing the note for DNA purposes, but just as quickly discounted the idea, knowing it would alert Brady to the fact she was onto him. Safer to leave it where it was, and try to find something else with his DNA – something he would not notice missing or, if he did, attribute it to being lost.
Photo secured, she turned her thoughts to her next objective: a weapon, in case the worst materialised. She picked up the hammer from the bench and made to leave the room. Then, realising it would be inexplicable if he saw her holding it, she returned the hammer to its place. She selected a medium-length screwdriver instead, and slipped it into the deep right-hand pocket of the parka.
The parka was bulky and would be awkward to fight in, she knew. It would make sense to slip it off and be less restricted in her movements. But she would then have nowhere to hide her weapon, and besides, the coat offered some semblance of an excuse. A truthful one: she had been cold, she’d gone looking for a blanket, she’d found the parka.
She slipped back out of the room and towards the kitchen counter, thankful that on the ground floor at least, Brady had installed tiles. Still no noise from the balcony, still no hint of daybreak. She left the torch off. A few moments ago, she had been cursing the unwanted illumination. Now she returned to cursing the darkness, but her eyes were beginning to adjust.
She knew what she needed: Brady kept a roll of freezer bags on a shelf. She still couldn’t make out everything, so she put her hand out and moved it at a snail’s pace across the items on the shelf, taking care not to knock anything, until she felt the roll of plastic. She peeled two of the bags from the roll as quietly as she could, and then went towards the sink, where Brady had left some of the utensils he had used the previous night. Using one bag as a makeshift glove, she picked up a fork Brady had used and placed it in the other.
She knew it was suboptimal: the force used paper bags as standard for the collection of such items, given that plastic could allow moisture to gather which would interfere with the sample. But like the photo of the banknote, the freezer bag would just have to suffice. She knew in any event there was little prospect this would amount to a legitimate taking of a sample, but she didn’t care about that right now. She cared only about having confirmation. She popped the bag containing the fork into the left-hand pocket of the parka, then went to remove the makeshift glove from her right hand.
And that was precisely the point when the lights came on.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Cass jumped with fright as she saw, reflected in the window over the sink, Brady on the balcony, stationary and staring intently at her. As she turned to face him, she stuffed the second plastic bag into the same left-hand pocket as the fork, while raising her right hand to her chest in an attempt at distraction.
‘You startled me.’
He was wearing sweatpants and bare-chested, showing off the same impressively chiselled arms that, just a few hours earlier, had held her so gently in bed. Now, she thought they would be used to kill her unless she somehow managed to persuade him nothing was out of the ordinary. He remained impassive, his facial expression impenetrable except for his eyes: they had switched again, like that first day she’d spotted him, and it chilled her to the bone. Was his face the last thing Nabila had seen, Akeem Issa had seen?
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said. ‘Didn’t want to wake you and thought there might be a blanket in the spare room. Found this instead – hope you don’t mind.’
There’s a quiver in my voice – can he hear it?
Can he sense my fear, smell it? He was trained to detect weakness, after all.
Is he standing there plotting how to kill me?
‘It looks better on you than me,’ Brady said at last, a tight smile forming. ‘Come back to bed and you can take it off again.’
She put her right hand into the sleeve of the parka and felt the screwdriver. Touched the tip and told herself she would drive it into his ribs if necessary.
‘I’d love nothing better, but I have to get to work early. Got a lot on.’
‘I’ll grab a shower and drive you.’
My nerves won’t take this much longer. I have to escape.
‘Maybe you want to try and get more sleep. Now that – you know – you managed a few hours already with no interruption. I could take your car and drop it back to you later?’
He didn’t respond immediately, as if she’d presented him with a puzzle, the pieces of which he was trying to work through.
‘I was totally knocked out,’ he said eventually. ‘First time in a long time.’
‘I’m glad. You needed it. I hope it’s the start of a better pattern for you.’ I hope to get the fuck out of here in the next few minutes.
‘You really won’t come back to bed?’
‘I wore you out last night. You need to get your energy back. And I need to get to work.’
That smile again, and a slight, almost imperceptible nod. An acceptance that she would leave? Or an assurance to himself that he had things figured out?
Despite the warmth of the parka, she was shaking.
‘Okay, you know where the keys are… But you’d better come up for your clothes.’
He turned and walked back into the bedroom, out of Cass’s view.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Wild fucking horses wouldn’t drag me upstairs and into that bedroom.
Beneath the parka, she wore only panties and his T-shirt. But Brady’s car keys were on the kitchen table, her handbag was on one of the kitchen stools, and her boots were near the church door where she’d kicked them off the previous evening.
Get the fuck out of here while you’re still breathing.
It would look bizarre fleeing like this. But then, she’d never have to explain it. She was only ever coming back to this house to arrest him for murder.
From her position, she could see the bedroom lights go out.
He was playing her at her own game – deception – and she wasn’t going to fall for it. But she wondered what would happen when he heard her unlatch the door and run for the car…
No point second-guessing. Just have the screwdriver in hand and be prepared to use it.
Nerves ablaze, she grabbed the keys and her handbag, before locating her boots and pulling them on. Keys in one hand, screwdriver in the other, she opened the church door as gently as she could.
The only way he could have left the bedroom without me seeing him is through the window, and I would have heard the noise.
A sensor triggered as she opened the door, bathing her and the front of the church in light.
Sitting duck. Run, you stupid cow, run.
The distance to the car was less than forty yards but seemed like a mile.
Hard and fast with the screwdriver if he emerges from the shadows.
Aim for every soft spot on his body, and keep going.
Maim enough to subdue him…
Don’t be a fool.
If he emerges from the shadows, I won’t know until it’s too late.
Even if by some miracle I see him coming, he wouldn’t subdue.
My life or his.
Run, for fuck’s sake, just run.
Cass launched into a sprint, simultaneously pressing the fob key to unlock the car. The crunch of gravel beneath her feet felt as loud as cymbals crashing, but to her eternal relief, she saw the familiar flash of hazard lights, confirming the car was open. It took her about six and a half seconds to cover the ground, glancing from side to side as she ran. The sensor light went off and returned the driveway to darkness as she yanked the car door open, slid the key in the ignition, and prayed that the battered wreck would start.
It did, without hesitation.
She hammered down the handbrake, yanked the gearstick into reverse, and jammed on the accelerator. Wheels spraying gravel, the car lurched back, and the sensor light came back on.
Cass glanced in the rear-view mirror, and jumped again at what she saw.
Brady was standing in the doorway, hands in pockets, seemingly unperturbed… as if this was all part of a plan.
She shunted the car into first, put her foot to the floor, and sped out onto the road.
She drove on autopilot, and it took a few minutes before her nerves settled enough to allow her to take in her surroundings, and her speed.
She was on the main road back to Glencale, travelling at more than eighty miles per hour.
And when she clocked her speed, something else dawned on her: the ease with which the battered wreck was responding to her touch.
She pressed further on the accelerator, and the car picked up pace without protest.
Brady had hidden it in plain sight. The dishevelled exterior was just a disguise: the car engine was clearly fine-tuned for high performance. For high-speed getaway… Or high-speed pursuit.
She shivered as she thought of what she had just escaped.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
She knows.
He remembered elite unit training, the sleep deprivation, the food deprivation… and the hallucinations he’d suffered after one particularly hellish twenty hours in the mountains. He’d thought a fellow soldier was reaching into his chest to pluck out his organs but was so overcome by exhaustion that he put up no defence, unmoved and uncaring when, through blurred vision, he saw his colleague hold up something brown and palm-sized: his liver.
It was only some time later, when the sugars had somehow helped bring him back from the edge, that he realised his colleague had simply reached into Brady’s uniform to take a packet of M&M’s with which he then fed to him to try and keep Brady going.
Brady had never forgotten the hallucination or the apathy it provoked in him despite believing he was under attack…
So it was natural to ask himself whether he was hallucinating as he saw Cass remove the freezer bag from her hand and stuff it into her pocket.
But he knew he wasn’t.
I don’t know how she knows, but she knows…
She must have used the bag as a glove to pick something up – something of mine – a hair, maybe, or something I touched, like a knife. A sample.
Did she know all along, and deceive me? Get close to me to get the evidence she needed?
No: she surely would have planned it better than this. She’s standing barefoot at the sink in my fucking coat, for Christ’s sake…
Which told him, oddly enough, that it was better to wait. Draw breath, take what was most needed – time – and think.
So he bluffed, and made his entreaty to her to come back to bed.
And when she said no, citing the need to get to work, he made his offer to drive her.
He didn’t expect Cass to suggest that she would borrow his car. That would complicate his plans. But it seemed best to say yes, to pretend there was no issue, to seem utterly relaxed about it all.
