Lethal Game, page 32
They were as prepared as they could be.
Now they just needed to be in the right place.
Joel turned a bright orange flare pistol over in his hands, one of four that had had been found in a hurry by a local officer who had warned that it came loaded. He had then gone on to claim to know Samphire Hoe better than anyone. His description did nothing to settle Joel’s anxiety: It’s bigger, hillier and much darker than you think. We’ll lose each other easy. The same serious-looking copper had then given a rushed briefing on how and why you should use the flare and Joel had chimed in with the when. He wanted chaos and confusion, he wanted anyone in a building down there to panic and to be flushed out. But he couldn’t have confusion among the police. The flare pistol was only to signal if Easton or the women had been located. There hadn’t been the time to check for understanding. He’d ordered the officers back to their cars. The next cycle on the traffic lights would be for them. He had made sure the dog handler was the next car behind them. She was carrying a Belgian Malinois General Purpose Dog, or ‘land shark’ as he had heard it jokingly translated. Whatever Malinois meant, he was their best chance of finding someone quickly.
The traffic light clicked to green, the light flooding DS Rose’s determined expression. Joel was forced back in his passenger seat as she roared forward, slamming her palm into the horn to start the siren while Joel pushed the buttons to activate the grille lights. The cars that followed suit were brighter behind. Most of those he had been able to scramble at such short notice were local units, marked with proper roof lights and louder sirens. Their headlights dipped and flashed in patterns too, and the tunnel that had been so dark and foreboding now had icy blue strobes penetrating every inch, while the sirens, trapped under the concave roof, whined and screamed from twelve sources, all out of sync. It was a tangible din, a wall of snarling, flickering sound and light that would burst out the end and onto the Hoe like a ferocious animal. It was everything Joel had demanded.
Joel’s car was first to emerge. The slope down through the cliffs was steep, the speed of their car too fast, and the underside scraped where the ground levelled out. To their right were two further tunnels, both with train tracks lolling out of their darkened throats like steel tongues. To their immediate left was a compound, the quarter of the Hoe that was gated off and still in use as part of the Channel Tunnel. It contained the cooling towers that piped fresh air from the surface as well as warehouses for storage, and train tracks that could be used to shuttle supplies between here and the main port at Folkestone. Joel had managed to find aerial shots of Samphire Hoe as part of his hurried research, some from directly above this compound, enough to give a good idea of its layout. He was also sure that this held the boat repair and breaking business that Joy Harper had talked about. The concrete wall that rebuffed the sea had a built-in dip on the east side of the compound, and the water would breach it at high tide to slither across the smooth surface by design, so as to allow smaller vessels to be re-floated, or access to the ocean. It was also where larger boats could dock.
Joel wanted control of this area first.
‘There’s a gate!’ DS Rose said, then swore.
‘I want chaos, Lucy, I want the world coming in around him. Take it out.’
‘“Take it out”, what does that mean?’
‘It means you’re going too slow, you need a good run-up.’
She understood his meaning. Joel felt the car surge. The siren was still throwing out waves of sound. She spun hard left for the front to swing past eight-foot walls then straighten up for the chain-link gate directly ahead, which was pulled shut and hinged on the left. The sound waves were suddenly shorter and more intense, bouncing back like sonar as the gate rushed at them. Lucy’s head turned away the moment before impact, her roar mingling with the sound of the engine.
‘FUUUUUUUUUUUCKK!’
The car juddered. Joel slammed his eyes shut too. The momentum was still forwards. Something solid smacked off the windscreen surround and Joel forced his eyes open to a windscreen opaque on his side with cracks and splits. The gate scraped and bucked as it gave, then sparked as it swung away, right to left. Straight ahead the cooling towers suddenly loomed – as did the four-foot solid concrete wall that penned them in. DS Rose had seen it too. She spun the steering hard left and the tyres squealed on the smooth tarmac as the car tried to change direction – but they were going too fast. They had turned enough for the blow to be glancing on the driver’s side. Joel was thrown right to take a hard impact on his knee. He was aware of pops around him as airbags deployed. The bag in the steering wheel flapped and twisted as the wheel flailed out of control. A scraping sound brought them to a stop. The only sound left was the siren. The engine had stalled.
Other cars swept in, their lights and sirens still flashing and blaring. Some of his colleagues already had boots on the ground and the unleashed police dog flashed across their front, his handler lagging behind with hands over her ears. Joel had insisted the noise be left on and it was too late to wonder if that was a mistake as he pushed his door as wide as it would go. The shrill noise was everywhere, reverberating from the flat-sided buildings, vehemently filling the space so that it threw him off-balance as he stumbled to a limping run.
An officer’s shouting mingled with a powerful dog bark by the eastern perimeter wall and he headed straight for it, past a building already being swamped by his colleagues. The shouts were beyond it, outside, closer to the water. When he emerged from the building line a massive beam of light erupted from his right to sweep across the bucking surface of the sea. The Severn Class lifeboat he had ordered was right on cue, its deck-mounted lantern like a thick white laser beam that swept across all that was in front of him. Then it stopped, its light now swamping a male figure stood on the very edge of the Hoe, filling a break in the fence, his hands up and facing a dog that looked barely able to contain itself, snarling and barking while edging forward. The cliff face loomed above them here, a huge black wall stretching up to slice the night in half.
The dog handler wrapped a leash around her animal but held their position. The first coppers reached the figure, grabbed his hands, pulled them behind him and cuffed him. The light stayed fixed. Joel sprinted up onto the wall, stopping close enough to see wispy hair being tossed around by the wind, and heavily wrinkled features revealed by the bright light: Billy Easton.
‘DI Norris!’ Billy smiled, he fucking smiled. DS Rose had kept pace. Joel didn’t realise just how close she was until she burst past him. He didn’t have time to react; she was already on Easton, her right arm swung out, her bunched fist connecting to knock him clean off his feet. The two officers either side were caught out and had to scrabble to get hold of him again. When they sat him up, his eyes were shut and a trail of blood ran from his nose. His lips curled into an even wider smile.
‘Where are they?’ DS Rose bawled against the wind, which was at its strongest yet as it whipped in unabashed from the sea. More officers bundled onto the thin walkway. The sea was alive below them, flailing and thumping, swirling and hissing. The police sirens were distant but still pulsed out of sync to add to the confusion. Joel heard a distant shout from a uniformed colleague. He turned towards it to see that another male had been detained and was being walked towards him, an officer on each arm making his gait look unnatural.
‘You need to learn some manners, little lady.’ Billy Easton spat on the ground. ‘You think I respond to treatment like that?’ Joel stepped across his colleague, lightly taking hold of her arm to stop her moving forward on Easton again.
‘He’s not going to help us,’ he said.
‘We found him in the first building.’ Joel turned. The two officers were still pushing the stranger towards him. They had made it up onto the wall now and every step closer was revealing the man. He looked a similar age to Billy Easton. His lower half was covered by waders, his top by a thick jacket styled like a shirt, his head by a woolly hat with visible holes.
‘I just picked him up! That’s all I did! What is this about?’ The man was shocked but there was fear mixed up with it. Before Joel could reply, the sea gave its biggest whump! yet as the wall took the brunt of a huge wave, leaving just its icy fingers to reach up and over the side and blow across them all. Joel shivered. The air was suddenly thick with salt.
‘Do you know this man?’ Joel said, pointing at the bleeding Billy Easton.
‘Bill, sure I do. I got a call, he said to pick him up. What is this all about?’
‘You tell me, John.’ Joel gave time for a reaction. Billy Easton’s ex-wife had mentioned Billy’s only friend, and this had to be him.
‘How do you know my name?’ With the heels of his palms, he wiped his wide eyes clear of another sheet of salty water that blasted over the sides.
‘I need to know it for when I arrest you for kidnap and murder, along with Billy here. Where are they?’
‘Murder …! What are you talking about?’
‘Your mate Bill has kidnapped two women. They’re supposed to die tonight. If you know where they are, now’s the time to tell us.’
The man took a moment. The confusion looked genuine enough. His eyes searched the ground then fixed on Billy.
‘What the hell is this all about?’ he said. Billy Easton was still smiling but he wouldn’t make eye contact with his friend. He didn’t respond either. When the man spoke again, he still addressed Billy. ‘Does this have something to do with the tribute?’
‘Tribute?’ Joel jumped in.
‘There was a wreck here, a boat that ran aground. It was badly damaged. We were part of breaking it and we kept the anchors. Recently Billy wanted the remaining anchor dropped back near the site as some sort of tribute. I thought it odd, it wasn’t like anyone died on the thing. It was a standard job!’
‘Where?’ Joel pounced and John pointed out over the sea, at an angle back towards the cliff face. Joel tried to follow his direction but all he could see was darkness. He stepped forward to face the lifeboat and raised his hands to signal to them to sweep the water.
The lifeboat crew seemed to understand. The light whipped across the scenery, looking white hot against the chalk cliff face. Joel watched it sweep. It stopped momentarily on a cave that was largely submerged. There were two stacks of rocks either side of the cave’s entrance that were peeking out of the water in places. Something bright glimmered among the closest stack. The lifeboat crew might have seen it too. The light swept back to rest on it. Joel took a few steps closer, his mind taking a moment to make sense of it.
‘Is that it?’ Joel’s voice boomed above the wind.
‘Yes,’ John called back.
‘Can you get to it from here?’ Joel said. The bright light had showed glimpses of rocks and the tiniest portion of beach at the foot of the cliff where it met the wall.
‘At low tide there’s a walkway to the beach. But not like this,’ John said. ‘You don’t think there are people out there?’
Joel did. He was certain of it. He didn’t know how exactly, but the game that Billy Easton had seen rejected, the anchor that matched with the one buried into his garden, the final zone from Escape! and, most of all, the flash of uncertainty behind Billy Easton’s eyes – everything he knew was pointing to this place.
Joel had been holding the flare gun. He shoved it into his waistband so he had use of both his hands as he moved to the gap in the fence that Easton had been dragged out of. It marked steps down to the water, where a depth marker was painted on the side to tell him it was 4 metres. It was the only marker he could see, but he could assume there would be others below, meaning the tide was nearing its highest. Above the marker, the wall lifted at least another three metres. There was a wide shelf that jutted out of it, sloped towards the beach and quickly disappeared under the water – the walkway John had described. It was angled down over a stack of rocks that were surely piled up on purpose to add extra protection from the sea. The beach was sloping too, left to right and steep so it was higher where it met the wall of the Hoe, as if some of the leftover rubble had been used to build it up. The waves swamped it, but at the highest point the water was rolling back to show a thin walkway against the cliff face.
He had to get closer.
DS Rose shouted to Joel as he walked out onto the steps but the words were lost in the wind and the churning sea. The sirens had stopped, at least. The slope was steeper than he’d expected, the water instantly cold as it rolled along the wall and crashed into his calves to swamp his feet and shins. The ledge was wide but slick underfoot with clumps of seaweed that looked jet-black in the poor light. The ledge ran out almost instantly and he would need to move to the rocks. He identified one large enough to land on, flat-topped and angled slightly towards him. He looked to his right, to where the ocean whumped the Hoe further up, the wave it created bundling towards him to consume the entire ledge. It would consume him too.
Joel jumped.
The landing was slippery, with a sharp edge that collided with his shin. The wave swept in and he had to squat and turn side-on to it to stop himself being swept off. He also plunged his hands down to grip the edge of the rock as best he could. His fingers burned. His nails scraped and threatened to give. All around him was shuffling, hissing blackness, the ocean playing hide and seek with sharp stone edges. For a moment he thought he was stuck, hunkered down to take the punches of the waves and unable to move, as the instant change of direction would involve forces that were almost as strong and threatened to sweep him out to sea. There was the briefest moment of slack and Joel found his feet to leap for another rock, his landing the springboard for another jump. He made three jumps in a row before finally he was able to land on something less threatening.
The beach was a welcome relief. Sodden sand and flat rocks. The walkway sank under his feet and the cliff face felt slick as he used it for support. Keeping it on his left, he moved down the slope and onto the next rock pile. This one took him back, away from the surface.
He was as close as he could get.
The cave was ahead. He could only see the top but the slope of the beach was steep enough to suggest that it could be as large as a single storey. There was less than a metre exposed above the water line and the bigger waves were concealing it completely.
The white light from the lifeboat fixed on him as he reached the top. A huge wave smashed into the front of the rock pile, its spray soaking him and stinging his eyes, the water cold enough to take his breath away. He gestured again, pointing back to where he had seen that earlier glimmer in the light. When the light swung back to it he was forced to exhale hard again.
Now he was closer, the anchor was starting to give up its secrets.
Chapter 60
It was partly covered by rocks but two prongs were sticking up, each the shape of a bricklayer’s trowel but far larger. What he hadn’t seen from a distance was the thick chain wrapped around it, with two ends pulled taut to trail into opposite sides of the cave. The chains were both bucking and swinging like something afloat was attached, but the ends disappeared into the cave to be veiled by shadow.
But Joel didn’t need to be able to see. He already knew.
There hadn’t been time to sort out comms. A pre-planned operation would have ensured the lifeboat was given a police radio so they could talk to each other easily, but they had all had to make do with a hurried phone call on the way to Dover. Now that wasn’t enough; Joel needed to get a message to them. He called 999 from his mobile. The Coastguard was the fourth option offered by the bored-sounding operator. Joel battled the wind to hurriedly explain himself, then gave an equally hurried message to pass over to the Dover RNLI Crew. The operator stopped him to say she had direct contact and she could patch him through if that helped.
It helped massively.
Now it was Joel’s turn to struggle to hear. The RNLI Coxswain introduced himself but Joel missed the name. It didn’t matter anyway.
‘Are you the lunatic out on the rocks?’ The voice was male, strong and self-assured, calmer than it should be from a boat dangerously close to rocks on a pitch-black night in a windstorm.
‘Yes, I—’
‘You’re a damned idiot and now you want saving.’
Joel would have to take that on the chin. ‘I am an idiot, but it isn’t me that needs saving. There are two chains anchored in the rocks. They’re attached to two floats with two women attached,’ he shouted above the wind. There was a moment’s silence that was not entirely unexpected.
‘Alive?’ The Coxswain’s voice had lost none of its calmness.
‘I thought I could get there but I can’t get any closer,’ Joel said, avoiding the question.
‘We can’t see anyone from here,’ the Coxswain replied. ‘Are you sure there are people in there? There’s a hell of a risk sending someone out to that. We wouldn’t even attempt this – unless you’re telling me it’s a live rescue?’
Joel didn’t know for sure but he couldn’t quite bring himself to say it. This wasn’t the time to doubt his conviction; it had got them this far, he couldn’t just call it off.
‘I’m sure they’re in there.’ Joel knew what he was asking.
There was silence on the other end and Joel thought he hadn’t been heard. He was still trying to cup the phone in his hands to protect it from the wind. But he had been heard, and the Coxswain was considering.
‘Can you see in that cave, from where you are?’ The questions were getting maddening now, there wasn’t the time.
‘No,’ Joel replied.
