Heatwave Page 7

  “Audrey, are you feeling all right?”

  Audrey Shields had been complaining on and off all afternoon that she felt unwell.

  “It’s the heat. It’s so close in here.”

  “Do you have your pills with you?”

  “I told you earlier, Brian, they were in my bag. They took my bag away.”

  “Oh yes. I forgot. I’m sorry.”

  “We should tell them you feel unwell,” Harry said. “They have to let you have your pills at the very least.”

  “I asked that younger man, the black one, earlier. He said that everything had been smashed to smithereens. He thought my pills had gone the same way.”

  “Oh,” Harry said. “It’s worth asking though. Isn’t it.”

  Naomi recalled the description Harry and Patrick had relayed to her. Mobile phones and anything else that could be broken, crushed beneath the hammer blows delivered by the big man with the temper as Naomi had come to think of him.

  “I’ll be all right,” Audrey tried to reassure, but she sounded weak and sick.

  “I’m going to bang on the door again,” Dorothy informed them.”

  “Oh no, please don’t, not on my account.”

  “I really don’t think you should,” this last from the nervous Mrs Parker. She and her husband had contributed little to the conversation up until now and their agitation, obvious each time they did get the courage to speak, set Naomi’s own nerves on edge.

  “It’s important,” Dorothy declared. “Angina isn’t something to be ignored, you know.”

  “I didn’t mean to suggest that it was,“ Mary Parker sounded aggrieved, “but they might think so. They might think we’re just being troublesome.”

  Naomi heard Dorothy start to her feet.

  “Let me try, “ she intervened.

  “Oh, very well, if you think that’s best.”

  Naomi put her hand against the wall and eased herself to her feet. She felt numb and stiff from sitting on the hard floor. Her back and legs were sticky from the heat and her hair felt as though it had melted to her scalp.

  Harry, ever the gentleman, helped her to the door. She could hear the shifting of limbs and shuffling of bums as people eased out of her way, conscious that she couldn’t see where to put her feet. Firmly, but feeling horribly conspicuous and wishing she had left this to Dorothy, Naomi rapped her knuckles three times against the inside of the door.

  For some time, nothing happened. Twice more, Naomi tried to summon those outside and twice more was ignored. It was on the fourth attempt, when Dorothy was about to give into frustration and insist she take over that the door swung wide.

  “What the hell do you want now.”

  Naomi flinched. The man was close enough for her to feel the heat pouring off his body and the spray of spittle on her cheek when he shouted. She forced herself not to raise a hand to wipe it away. “One of the ladies is ill,” she said quietly. “She has a heart condition and the heat and stress are making her feel really sick. If she could have her tablets…”

  “What bloody tablets?”

  “They were in her bag. You took her bag.”

  There was no reply. Naomi sensed him turn away from her to examine Audrey.

  “It…it was a blue bag,” Audrey faltered. “Leather, with a chrome clasp.”

  “And I should care?”

  “You want her to die?” Dorothy demanded.

  “Really, Dorothy, I don’t think…” Harry began, outraged once again, by her lack of empathy.

  “I’m simply stating what worries us all,” Dorothy told him tartly. “And if this man has an ounce of decency, he’ll take that under advisement and find the tablets.”

  “You see,” this time the voice was beside Naomi. “That’s the mistake you’re making, lady. You thinking that I even care.” He gave Naomi a shove that would have sent her flying back into the room had Harry not caught her arm, then slammed the door closed once again.

  “I told you. I told you.” Mary Parker began to cry.

  “Oh pull yourself together,” Dorothy had no time for such performance.

  “She’s scared, that’s all” This from Alice’s mother.

  “We’re all scared,” Dorothy informed her. “That doesn’t mean we have to give in to such funk.”

  “Really, my dear, you do need to show a little more consideration,” the Brigadier told her. “Not everyone has your nerve, you know.”

  “Well,” Dorothy sounded slightly mollified by his complimentary tone. “All right, I’m sorry if I was short with you, but it’s no sense acting like a baby. That’ll get us nowhere.”

  Harry had been helping Naomi back to her seat. He made sure that she was settled and then turned his attention back to Audrey. “Give him a little while to cool down,” he said firmly, “and then we’ll try again. You never know, we might get one of the others next time.”

  Audrey thanked him, wearily, and Naomi could hear Brian Machin, the manager trying the best he could to reassure.

  Naomi reached for Harry’s hand and squeezed it. “Did you see anything while the door was open?”

  “Yes,” Harry told her in an undertone. “A window had been smashed next to the big door and one of the men was standing on a table looking out. He was keeping sort off to the side, as though he was worried about being seen. And the place was a mess. I mean even more than before. Stuff strewn all over the floor. Personal things and also papers from the filing cabinets, by the look of it. “

  “And,” Naomi prompted, sensing there was more.

  “There was blood,” Harry said. “On the wall and the door and trailed right across the floor.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Time passing. Patrick was right, boredom was the worst part, Naomi thought. Boredom and a sort of numbing anxiety that infected her thoughts no matter how she tried to distract herself.

  That and the remaining niggle somewhere at the back of her mind, that she knew this man.

  Naomi closed her eyes, the better to concentrate. Silly, she knew, but old habits, as they say and this was one developed in childhood and therefore unlikely to shift now.

  She’d always found it easier to focus her thoughts without outside stimulus and, growing up in a rather small, rather crowded terraced house, with no central heating until she was about thirteen, meant you found your way to privacy the best way you could. She and her sister crowed into the living room with their parents and often a relative or two, trying to get on with their homework on a winter evening – nowhere else in the house being warm enough and it was either that, or putting the gas stove on in the kitchen and leaving the door ajar had led them both to develop strategies for shutting the world out.

  Naomi’s sister had bought herself a personal stereo out of her paper round money. Naomi had found a dark and empty space behind closed eyes.

  There was something familiar, both in the way the man sounded and in the way he had stood so close to her in the doorway, invading her personal space. The heat of his body so close to hers. It wasn’t a sexual thing; more to do with dominance and it reminded her of…

  She shook her head, giving up for the moment. There were a great many things it could be reminding her of. Being in a position where something or someone felt threatening or tried to dominate was part and parcel of her former profession. She’d been a serving officer since her nineteenth year, never having considered anything else. The impact of the police investigation that followed Helen’s death, changing her perspective forever and steering her in that particular direction almost as a matter of course. Her career, successful and fulfilling, ending with the car accident that had taken her sight. She had a feeling though, that this particular memory was an old one.

  Briefly, she had the sense that it was there, hiding only just out of reach. Something about another bank, a different robbery…no, not a bank. That wasn’t it. Naomi had been involved in the investigation of two other bank jobs during her career, this man had nothing to do with either, of that, she
was certain. No, this was…”Security Van,” she said, then realised belatedly that she had spoken out loud.

  “What’s that dear?” Dorothy asked her.

  “Oh, sorry, nothing,” Naomi said.

  “You were talking in your sleep,” Dorothy informed her. “You must have been having a bad dream. Hardly surprising under the circumstances.”

  Naomi managed a weak laugh. “No, I guess it’s not.” She agreed. She tried hard to stay calm, but inside she was seething with a mix of excitement and, now she had the memory pinned, a very real fear.

  She knew this man. Knew who and what he was and the knowledge did nothing to reassure.

  Dorothy’s comment had sparked the conversation again, the talk turning to dreams and children’s nightmares. Naomi waited until their voices were raised enough for her to hide her own and then she leaned in close to Harry.

  “He meant what he said,” she told him, her voice barely more than breath. “He doesn’t care. He doesn’t give a damn for anyone or anything.”

  Harry tensed. “You’ve remembered who he is?”

  “Oh yes,” Naomi whispered. “I know exactly who Ted Harper is.”

  ***

  “How’s he doing?” Alan Harper peered round the office door and jerked his chin towards the prone figure of Ash Dutta.

  “Shouldn’t you be on watch? Where’s the old man?”

  “Toilet.” Alan glanced nervously over his shoulder. “Will he be all right?”

  Danny shook his head. “Man but I thought the bleeding would never stop. I got it all over me, look.”

  “But you stopped it?”

  “I think so. No telling what’s happening on the inside though. He could bleed out and we’d not know ‘til he stopped breathing.”

  “He asleep?”

  “Yeah. Least, I hope that’s all it is. Al, you’re dad’s really lost it. How do we get out of this one?”

  “We could do like we said before. Just walk out. We could do it now.”

  In the corner of the room the big black dog whined miserably. Danny went over to him and scratched his head, Napoleon nuzzled at his hand. A sound from the outer room had Alan racing, back to his post by the broken window.

  “Don’t know what we’re going to do, big fella. “ Danny told Napoleon. “But don’t you fret, I’ll get you outta here.”

  Ted Harper appeared in the doorway. “Stupid mutt. “ he said, then glancing at Ash. “Well, is he dead yet.”

  “Not yet. No thanks to you. What the fuck were you thinking, man?”

  “You want the same?”

  “Oh, very clever that’d be. You stab me in the guts, like you did Ash that leaves just you and the kid to look out for things? Fat chance you’d have.”

  Ted Harper eyed him with disdain. “You think I need any of you?”

  “You brought us along for the ride, I suppose. You’d have pulled those jobs single handed, I suppose.”

  Ted Harper said nothing. He crossed the room to where Ash was lying on the office floor. The blue carpet was heavily stained with his blood. It had pooled around him and crept outward, soaking the blue, blackening it as it congealed. His breathing was shallow and irregular.

  Ted Harper leaned in closer and sniffed suspiciously. “Booze?” he said.

  Danny sighed. “There was whisky in the filing cabinet. It’ll probably help him on his way, but it’s put him to sleep for now. It’s the best I could do.”

  Ted Harper’s eyes narrowed. “Wasted on him,” he announced. He drew back his booted foot and kicked Ash hard in the ribs.

  ***

  Naomi had little opportunity to tell Harry what she’d discovered. Instinct warned her that she should not talk about her career with the other hostages. She knew Ted Harper’s attitude to the police and had no wish for anyone to let slip that she was former DS Naomi Blake. Harper may or may not recall the name, after all, her part in his arrest had been small for all that it had seemed dramatic at the time.

  She’d been a serving officer for only eighteen months and was pulling an overtime stint in plain clothes, on surveillance. That night had been boring too, she recalled. Hours of sitting in the bedroom of a house opposite Ted Harper’s with an experienced but taciturn sergeant, whose name she could not off hand recall. The nervous householder, dodged her head around the door every few minutes to offer tea. Just after midnight, the sergeant had been relieved by a young woman called Polly Thompson, newly transferred into CID. Not much older than Naomi and a lot more talkative, the two had been deep in conversation when Ted Harper made his move. So involved, in fact that they damn near missed him.

  Polly had been first to the door, Naomi left to call ahead for assistance. Up until that moment, Naomi had been convinced that this was a waste of time. That Harper was long gone. He was a wanted man. Why risk going home?

  She’d been wrong. Harper was not a man for whom logic or expected action held much appeal. Ted Harper believed his wife had sold him out and now he wanted revenge.

  By the time Naomi reached the front door, Polly was nowhere to be seen. Naomi, realising that she’s gone ahead of her into the house, had no option but to follow. She called in this new development as she ran. “Polly’s gone inside. I’m following.”

  You stay put, Stay put, you hear. Back up is on its way.”

  She remembered the running footsteps, dark figures entering the alleyway that ran at the back of the gardens. Satisfied that she would not long be alone and terribly anxious for her colleague, Naomi ran through the open gate and into the Harper house. Polly Thompson was standing astride a woman’s body. Nan Harper lay in a crumpled heap on the kitchen floor, covered in blood. Ted, wielding a knife so large it looked like some prop from a B movie, was circling the pair of them while Polly defended like a lion tamer with a broken chair.

  Naomi remembered that for a brief moment she froze, then she grabbed the nearest thing to hand and threw it at Ted Harper’s head. It missed, but it didn’t matter. Her badly aimed missile or her sudden entrance had been enough to distract him and the next instant, armed officers had entered the kitchen and assumed control. It was only afterward that she realised she’d tried to hit him with a bottle of tomato sauce.

  Polly was reprimanded for not waiting for backup as was Naomi, but it was widely acknowledged it was Polly Thompson’s early intervention that had saved Nan Harper’s life. The commendation followed hot on the heels of the reprimand.

  Naomi had given evidence at his trial and Ted Harper had been sent down. Thinking about it, she could not remember for how long.

  She’d been on the stand for maybe, ten minutes in total, speaking only to conform what other officers, more senior than her had said. Would Ted Harper recall her from way back then?

  The thought gave Naomi real pause. Ok, so she’d been much younger then, had longer hair….hadn’t been blind, but she’d remembered him from just his voice and now she’s spoken directly to him, would that same trigger apply? His voice and that one moment when he’d passed her in a corridor, arms held tight by two officers, he was still struggling and they had a hard time keeping him in check. He’d paused as Naomi went by. Stared at her and then, abruptly, lurched forward to block her way.

  Next second, her colleagues had dragged him on towards the custody suite. The confrontation had lasted for no more than a heartbeat, but Naomi remembered that it had left her shaking uncontrollably.

  Funny, she thought, she’d not given Ted Harper a moment of her time for years. Now she had revived the memory, it flooded back with surreal clarity.

  Naomi leaned back wearily against the wall, wishing she could talk to Harry about it, but knowing such a long explanation would be over heard. Wishing she could tell Alec. He’d understand that odd mix of instinct and long memory and collected experience that meant you stored all sorts of flotsam and jetsam from forever and kept it fresh until it might be needed. The Harper incident, though dramatic had been just one incident in her professional life, overshadowed by many more,
it had receded into the past but for Ted Harper it was likely to have more significance, she thought. Far, far more.

  CHAPTER 13

  Danny had made coffee for himself and his companions in the staff kitchen. He took it through to the main room. “There’s a water cooler,” he said. “I’ve got the spare bottle and a load of cups, I’m going to give it to that lot in there.”

  “Like hell…” Ted Harper began.

  “Ted, it’s one thing to kill Ash, but you let them suffer and we’ll all be gong down till it’s pension time. Think of it as self-preservation, OK?”

  Ted Harper glared at him. Allan was staring too, taking in the implication of what he’d just said.

  “Ash is dead?”

  Danny nodded. “He just stopped breathing about five minutes ago. I tried to revive him, but …Reckon he’d been bleeding into the abdominal cavity. Nothing I could do about that.” He shrugged. “I’ve seen it happen before.”

  Allan came down off the table and took his coffee. “How come you know so much about wounds and that?”

  “Cause he was in the frigging army,” Ted growled. “Dishonourable discharge, wasn’t it, Danny?”

  Danny scowled at him and walked away. Minutes later, he came through with the water container and a plastic bag full of plastic cups.

  “Allan, open the door for me.”

  “Let him do it himself. And put your frigging mask back on.”

  Danny ignored him. He opened the storeroom door and dragged the water bottle inside. Ted Harper glowered, his face reddening with anger at Danny’s disobedience. Allan fully expected an explosion and braced himself for it, but none came. Ted Harper stamped off into the manager’s office and could be heard clattering around as thought looking for something. Snatches of conversation could be heard from inside the store-room and a few minutes later, Danny emerged again, locking the door behind him.