Safe Read online

  She shrugged. “Charlie seemed happy enough. Look, no one told me any of this. I’m just very good at listening at doors and going through my dad’s desk when he’s not there. I’ve pieced stuff together and, talking to Petra, I’ve figured out more of it.”

  “So, what now?” Petra asked.

  “Today, we see what these new developments throw up and then tomorrow I come and collect you, take you over to my old stomping ground and we get you statemented.”

  “Might take some time.” Lauren rolled her eyes.

  Clarke got up, ready to go. Lauren laid a hand on his arm. “Wait a minute, there’s something else.” She exchanged a glance with Petra, who nodded. From a pocket, Petra took the stick drive and handed it over to Clarke.

  “What’s this?”

  “Frankland managed to get it to me, the day before he was killed. I’ve not had a proper look at it yet, but from what I’ve seen, he collated the intelligence I’d given him and . . .” She shrugged. “Like I say, I haven’t had a proper look at it yet. But it might help you put together a real case against the Perrins.”

  “And you didn’t think to mention this before?”

  The look in Petra’s eyes hardened. “I hardly know you,” she said. “But I’ve decided to take a chance. This information, maybe it got Frankland killed, maybe it was just that Henderson gave something away, I don’t know. But please be careful.”

  Clarke stared at the innocuous black stick sitting in the palm of his hand and then tucked it in his pocket. “It’s going to be all right,” he said.

  Lauren laughed. “I’m sorry,” she told him, “but I don’t think you’re in charge of deciding that. I’m not sure any of us are.”

  Chapter 49

  By the time Clarke returned to the station, Sam Barker was leaving with one of Crenshaw’s people and Clarke, unable to be everywhere at once, had to hope that would be all right. He made a beeline for his computer and examined the contents of the stick drive that Petra had entrusted to him. He was shocked by how much intelligence she’d managed to pass on over the three years. How many connections Frankland had made both to open cases and to business arrangements that looked legitimate but that clearly Frankland had had suspicions about.

  There were pages of what looked like photocopies of accounts, which were just so many numbers, but what numbers? Telephone numbers, Clarke thought, then realized that the figures represented investments, cash and bonds and shares. And there was intelligence concerning Kyle Sykes. It looked like the Perrins had been planning a takeover for quite some time. Sykes’s manoeuvrings to unite his family with theirs had probably been too little, too late. Clarke took the time and the precaution of transferring this information onto his own computer and then, as a further precaution, created a file and uploaded the whole lot onto the cloud. While it mapped over, he brought himself up to speed on Sam Barker’s statement and the activity of the major enquiry team. Warrants were being applied for. Clarke had the impression that much of what he’d been involved in was now slipping out of his hands.

  Finally, when he was sure everything had been copied, he went to see Superintendent Craig and laid the stick drive on the desk in front of him.

  “What’s this?” Craig asked, much as Clarke had done himself a few hours earlier.

  “Frankland’s records. The intelligence he gathered from the undercover, collated with his own enquiries. Truthfully, I don’t understand half of it. There are what looks like accounts, lots of figures, lots of speculation, I think, but . . .”

  Craig stuck his head out the door and barked out four names. Before Clarke had time to catch up with what was going on, Craig had assembled a team to analyse the data.

  He called Lauren and Petra at about eight o’clock. There’d been another shift change, yet another “Pete” was now eating sandwiches at their table. Petra sounded flat and depressed. Lauren just seemed anxious. Clarke gathered that she did not like the new Pete.

  “I’ll come over first thing in the morning,” he promised her. “Things are moving at this end. This will soon be over, Lauren. I promise.”

  “Promises you can’t keep are not worth the breath,” she told him. Then she sighed and apologized, “Look, I know you’re doing your best, I’m just finding it hard and so is Petra.”

  Hopkins was calling his name and so he rang off. She pointed to the television in the corner of the incident room. A familiar face. Petra’s face, and the information scrolling across the bottom of the screen that told him that she had been identified. DS Petra Merrow, the undercover known as Pat, the one now implicated in the disappearance of Lauren Sykes.

  “Great,” Clarke muttered. “That’s just great.”

  Chapter 50

  Smoke. The smell of smoke. It broke through her doze. Lauren jumped up. The room was full of it. It was snaking its way under the small gap beneath the door into the room where Lauren and Petra had been watching the television.

  She shook Petra. “Wake up, wake up!”

  Petra opened her eyes, blinking at Lauren. “What the hell?” Then she realized what was wrong. “Oh my God.”

  Lauren went to the living-room door and placed her hands on it. The surface of the door was hot. She glanced at Petra and then took a chance. She opened the door just a crack before slamming it closed again. The hall carpet was fully ablaze, as was the front door. There was no way they could get out that way. “Someone’s poured accelerant through the letterbox.”

  Where are the police that are supposed to be guarding us?

  Swiftly, she told Petra what she had seen.

  Petra was peering out through the gap in the side of the curtains. The police car was still parked in the cul-de-sac. One man lay on the ground beside it, blood pooling around a head wound. She thought she saw shadows moving towards the side of the house, but she could not be sure.

  Lauren grabbed her coat and threw Petra her jacket. “We can’t go out the front,” she said. “We need to get to the car, or over the back fence, so we’re going to have to go out through the hall and into the kitchen.”

  Petra knew she was right — there was no other way. True, Lauren had the window key. They could unlock the front window and they could climb out and hope not to be seen. Was that likely?

  No, Petra thought.

  “OK, that’s what we have to do,” she agreed, but she didn’t think she had ever felt so scared. Then a gunshot rang out. Was that from inside or outside of the house? Petra found she was unable to guess.

  Chapter 51

  It was after ten when Clarke finally headed back to his flat. He opened the front door, dumped his coat in the hall and suddenly realized that there was a light on in his living room. Then the door to his kitchen opened and he was confronted by a large, suit-clad body who seized him by the arm and propelled him through into the living room at the front of the flat.

  Kyle Sykes was seated in a chair facing the door and he had a gun in his right hand.

  “So, where’s my bitch of a daughter?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  Kyle Sykes laughed. “You’ve met Freddie,” he said. “I’ve borrowed him, you might say, from Gus Perrin, because of his talents at persuasion. Your ex-DCI Frankland was equally certain that he knew nothing. Freddie persuaded him otherwise.” Kyle Sykes began to laugh. “Not that it matters. I know where she is. Her and that fucking bitch, Pat or Petra, or whatever her real name is. But I might let Freddie play anyway, just for the sheer hell of it. How about that?”

  Freddie tightened his hold on Clarke’s arms. Steel fingers bit into muscle and threatened bone. Clarke remembered what they had done to Frankland. And did they really know the location of the safe house or was this a bluff?

  “Can’t tell you what I don’t know,” Clarke said. “Out of my hands now, Kyle. Your daughter’s being protected, but no one’s going to tell me where she is. That’s way above my pay grade.”

  Had he been followed again? Clarke thought not. He’d been almost fanati
cal in the care he’d taken when he’d come and gone from the safe house.

  “You’re not a good liar, DI Clarke,” Kyle Sykes told him. “You’ve known where she is since you picked her up from that hotel.” He tutted. “Now, you really were careless over that. My men followed you all the way up there and all the way back down again. Imagine how surprised they were when you took your little detour.”

  “I lost them though, didn’t I, Kyle? But as for your daughter, I handed her over, she’s safe. Nothing more I can tell you.”

  Kyle Sykes laughed and Clarke knew suddenly beyond doubt that not only did Kyle not believe him, but that he already knew where Lauren and Petra currently were. He didn’t need Clarke to tell him.

  So who had leaked that information?

  “You’ll know it’s all over by the shouting, Kyle. We’re coming for you. Frankland may be dead, but what he knew hasn’t died, and it’s now being acted upon.”

  Kyle Sykes shrugged. “Pity you won’t be around to see the outcome, then.” He nodded to Freddie and Clarke felt one hand move down onto his wrists and clamp tightly and painfully around both. The grip was so fierce that he could feel the bones moving. Sykes shifted suddenly, getting up out of the chair and leaning in towards Clarke. “I can’t tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to this,” he said.

  * * *

  Clarke knew he was going to die. He knew his colleagues would find him, bound and dead and mutilated, and that if Sykes and Freddie had their way, he’d take an impossibly long time to die. The image of Frankland swam into his head. As Sykes leaned in towards him, Clarke lurched forward, and brought the full force of his skull up under Sykes’s chin. The man went down like he’d been shot and Clarke, dazed from the blow, twisted his body, hoping against hope that the shock of what he had done would loosen Freddie’s grip.

  Freddie lost hold and then grabbed at Clarke’s arm. The violence of Clarke’s struggle threw the pair of them off balance. Clarke kicked out, made contact — but with something hard that felt like bone. Numbness spread upward through his leg, calf to knee. Freddie grunted, it seemed more in surprise than pain. Clarke threw himself backwards as hard as he could, taking advantage of the fact that neither of them were on solid footing. Freddie’s grip loosened again, just for a split second, and Clarke kicked out again, screaming at the pain that shot through his leg. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kyle Sykes twitch and knew he had to fix things now, while the odds were shifted even slightly in his favour. He’d not fool Sykes again.

  With a massive effort, Clarke threw himself backwards, dropping his full weight to the floor. Then, as Freddie put out a hand to break his own fall, he rolled free. He scrambled to his feet, heading for the door. Freddie lurched, grabbed at him. Missed, but not by much. Now Sykes was on his knees and had retrieved his gun.

  He fired, hitting the wall close to Freddie’s head. Clarke heard Freddie shout, saw him turn angrily on Sykes. Sykes seemed beyond worrying about hitting his own man, intent on getting Clarke.

  The moment of discord bought Clarke precious seconds and he dived for the front door, hit the stairs and ran.

  Chapter 52

  “Ready?” Petra asked. Lauren nodded. Time seemed to have stretched since Lauren had last opened the door, but Petra knew it had been only seconds. The door handle was hot now. Lauren had grabbed the quilts from their makeshift beds. “Synthetic,” she said. “They’ll probably melt, but it’s better than nothing.”

  She wrapped the duvet round the handle, flung the door open, then, flinging the quilt around her, charged out through the hall and into the kitchen. Petra realized that she was screaming. Despite the smoke that cut visibility to little more than a hand’s breadth in front of her, that choked the air from her lungs, she couldn’t help herself. She felt Lauren give her a shove and heard the kitchen door slam, shutting out the blaze in the hall. Then fresh air as the back door was flung open . . . and a gunshot ripping through the smoke.

  * * *

  A door opened on the next landing. “Call the police,” Clarke yelled. Freddie was closing on him, the big man thundering down the stairs. Sykes fired again and Freddie bellowed at him. Clarke heard the woman who’d just open her door begin to scream. “Just call the bloody police!”

  His lungs were burning with fear, with the effort of running. He gripped the banister rail and swung himself round the next bend in the stairs and felt the impact as something hit him in the upper arm. Realizing he’d been shot, he fell the rest of the way down the flight of stairs.

  Another door opened, another face appeared and then disappeared inside. Neither Sykes nor Freddie seemed to care what amount of noise they were creating now. Clarke took small solace from that as he struggled to his feet and almost threw himself down the next flight of stairs, his feet flailing on the steps, his hands scrabbling for purchase on the rail. His left hand, slick with blood, slid as he tried to hold on. He was on the final flight now, could see the doors ahead of him. Freddie reached for him again, grabbing his arm where the bullet had already ripped through. Clarke screamed in pain. He felt the pressure of Freddie’s gun against his skull, wondered, through the confusion of anger and pain, why Freddie didn’t just pull the trigger. He was dimly aware that he could hear Sykes yelling and another voice, that of a woman shouting from upstairs, but he could not make out the words. The pain in his arm was almost overwhelming and Clarke’s legs collapsed beneath him. A gunshot echoed in his head.

  * * *

  Lauren returned fire. She could not see where the shot had come from. They had no option but to keep going forward. There was shouting and more gunshots. In the confusion, it was impossible to tell what was going on. She wondered if one of the armed police was still out there, still alive, and shooting back at the intruders. Certainly from the sound of it, there seemed to be something of a battle going on. But they did not have time to stop and work it out.

  “Can we get to the car?” It was only a few feet from the door, but they’d still have to start the engine, drive off and hope they didn’t get killed in a hail of gunfire on their way out.

  “It’s either that or go over the fence,” Petra muttered. She had the car keys in hand and a flash of light told Lauren that the car doors were now open. They dived inside. At that moment, they caught a glimpse of the armed officer. He was crouching beside the fence and returning fire. Lauren opened the window. “Get in the back,” she yelled.

  Petra blessed the little car as the engine fired the first time and they surged forward. The officer grabbed the door and hurled himself onto the back seat. “Stay down,” Petra shouted. Foot to the floor, they swung out onto the unmade road. Someone bounced off the wing of the car and crashed to the ground. The officer was firing out of the window now. Petra just pointed the car and tried to keep it in a straight line on the filthy, slick road.

  She didn’t slow down until they were on the main road and something like a mile away. She pulled into a bus stop and looked around wide-eyed at the other two. “Anyone hurt?” The windscreen was a mosaic of cracks spreading from two round holes. There was blood on her face, from flying glass.

  “I’m OK,” Lauren said.

  “I will be, but I think I need an ambulance.” The police officer was deathly pale. His vest had saved his life, but his face was bloodied and one arm hung limp at his side. His other hand was pressed tight against a hole in his leg, just above his knee.

  “First aid kit in the glove compartment,” Petra told Lauren. “Then you’d better phone an ambulance. I’m not sure where we are, though.”

  She opened the rear door and began to examine the officer, deciding that the wound in the leg was probably the worst, but that he was right, he would be OK as long as he got medical help. But he was in a lot of pain and was still losing blood.

  “I’ve got GPS on my phone,” Lauren told her. “I’ll sort out what to tell the ambulance. I’ll be as quick as I can.”

  Petra nodded and set about trying to patch up the police offi
cer. She was scared he would go into shock. She could hear Lauren talking into the phone now. But she was having a hard time convincing the ambulance controller that yes, she really did mean a gunshot wound.

  Petra sighed. She took the phone from Lauren.

  “My name is DS Petra Merrow,” she said. “And I need immediate assistance. We have an officer down and our current location is?” She looked at Lauren, who provided the GPS coordinates.

  “Right,” Petra said as she hung up, reflecting that this was the first time in three years that she had used her rank and proper name to an outsider. “Looks like I’m getting my own normal back, doesn’t it?”

  Chapter 53

  Toby Clarke woke surrounded by bright lights, and wondered where the hell he was. His head hurt abominably, as did his arm and leg, and it slowly dawned on him that he wasn’t dead and he was probably in a hospital bed somewhere.

  He moved and Hopkins’s face suddenly swam into view.

  “What happened?”

  “As far as we can make out,” she told him, “Kyle Sykes was waiting for you in your flat along with one of Perrin’s thugs. Somehow or other, you managed to get away and fortunately you made enough noise that one of your neighbours called us.”

  “Ah,” Clarke said. He dimly remembered a woman shouting, and he remembered falling, and he remembered the pain in his head. He lifted a hand and found that his head was in fact bandaged. And so was his arm. So he had been shot. That memory at least was real. He winced. Everything hurt.

  “You got a nice groove in your skull. The doctor says you’ll always have a little bald patch there that might be quite cute, but fortunately for you, you have a thick skull. The bullet only grazed it.”

  Clarke remembered how he’d dropped to the ground and, rolling beneath Freddie’s momentum, had felt the big man fall. Sykes, Clarke thought. Sykes must have fired after that. Had it been Freddie, Clarke knew he would not have survived, not at such close range.