The Handshaker (29 page)

Or had he really got away with it? He had no way of knowing whether someone had seen him from inside the house. For all he knew, they might already be calling the law. There was no way he could know and if he went home and they called … yes there was. Begum’s radio.

He picked it up from the passenger seat and checked that it was switched on, before putting it back down, one ear tuned to it as he drove down the hill to Pearman’s.

“Golf, zulu, echo, from control, RTA, at the junction of Warton Avenue and Hollins Road. Paramedics on their way, over.”

“Control from golf, zulu, echo, we’re on our way, sarge, over.”

“Roger golf, zulu, echo. ETA please? Over.”

“Three, four minutes, over.”

“Roger. Control out.”

The Handshaker weighed up the odds. He didn’t know Warton Avenue, but Warton district was on the south side of town, and Hollins Road ran from Ashton Road through to Manchester Road, so for golf, zulu, echo to be three or four minutes away placed them well out of his vicinity.

Several hundred yards from Pearman’s, before the tail of the traffic jam, he turned right off Huddersfield Road, and threaded his way through narrow streets of terraced and semi-detached housing, before emerging onto Pennine Road, half a mile up the hill from Pearman’s. Making a right, he headed away from town towards Winridge Estate. While he drove, he listened to the various messages coming over the airwaves. There was not a single call for Begum, nor any call to any officer to report her abduction.

Then, without warning, the radio burst into life again, the signal strong, the voice clear.

“Alpha Four to control. Ronnie, it’s Millie. Can you look up and address for Evelyn Kearns for me. She’s a counsellor.”

“Wilco, ma’am.”

The Handshaker’s heart leapt. Evelyn Kearns? How the hell had they found out about her? There was only one answer. Croft! Bastard! This would need instant attention. The minute he dropped the cop off at the shed, he would have to deal with that old bag.

Dropping onto Winridge Estate, the exhilaration he had felt at the abduction of a policewoman was gone, replaced by the brooding sense of a plan going awry. Croft had been sharper off the mark than The Handshaker anticipated, and it begged the question: how much did he know? It couldn’t be much. Evelyn Kearns’ hypnotically induced amnesia was deep and tightly controlled, and even if Croft were allowed access to her – which after this morning would be unlikely for at least another few hours – it would take many sessions to undo.

“One thing at a time, old boy,” he muttered to himself as he turned up Kent Road.

He brought his attention to bear on dealing with the cop. Evelyn Kearns would have to wait.

In many ways, this was the riskiest part of the business. If even one person saw him, he was snookered and he would have no choice but to drop all his plans and run for it.

Further along the road, he stopped alongside a row of ramshackle garages, climbed out, and checked for signs of onlookers. No one. He opened up the middle one of five, and reversed his car in, backing up to within inches of the tarpaulin-covered vehicle at the rear.

This was a chancy operation. Once more he told himself there was no way of knowing how many people had seen him from the estate, whether any of them were taking particular notice and whether they’d gone to the trouble of noting down his registration number. If they had, things would get difficult. Not impossible, merely complex.

He drew the doors shut, opened the boot of his car and took out a powerful flashlight. Switching it on, hooking it onto the open boot lid, he whipped the tarpaulin from the silver grey Ford Fiesta at the rear, fished into the glove box and came out with a ball of twine.

Returning to his car, he dragged the barely conscious Begum from the back, stripped off her hi-vis jacket, and threw it to the rear of the Fiesta.

Rehana lolled heavily in his arms as he turned her and leaned her onto the car. Yanking her arms behind her back, he bound her wrists, ran his cord down, bound her ankles, then yanked a slip knot tight so that she bent sharply at the knee, striking her forehead on the doorframe as she buckled.

He slipped his hands through the narrow gap of her armpits and fondled her breasts. Not much, but firm and well rounded. He’d find out for sure later.

He dragged her back to the Fiesta and threw her onto the rear seat. As she landed, her skirt rode up.

“Might as well have a quick dekko,” he said to himself and pushed the skirt further up to reveal her white panties under the dark tights. “White on black. Nice.”

Next, opening the boot of the Fiesta, he took out a carpet knife and a roll of adhesive tape. Returning to her, he pulled down Rehana’s tights, cut off her knickers, twirled them in his hands while he feasted on the sight of her bared sex, and when the panties were formed into a slender band, he jammed them across her mouth and taped them in place. It was unlikely that anyone would hear her if she came round and cried out, but now she couldn’t cry out anyway.

Locking up the Fiesta, he removed the lamp, closed and locked the Peugeot boot, then drew the tarpaulin back over the Fiesta. With the job done, he peered cautiously out of the garage doors, looking up and down Kent Road. The rain kept most people indoors. There were a number of cars parked outside the shops, a hundred yards away, but no people to be seen. Outside the houses opposite, most cars were conspicuous by their absence. To the left, he could see a woman walking away from him with a bagful of shopping on her arm.

All clear. He opened the doors, drove the Peugeot out, quickly closed and locked the garage doors again and climbing into the Peugeot, drove off, chuckling quietly to himself. Time to deal with Evelyn.

38

In the back seat of the police saloon car leaving Oaklands, Croft had quickly learned that the rear doors could only be opened from the outside, and any hope of escape meant getting past DC Thurrock in the front.

As they approached the holdup at Pearman’s Junction, while Thurrock concentrated on juggling for a position in the single, available lane, Croft leaned into the gap between the front seats. The young detective was immediately on his guard, prepared to nudge the car into the kerb, already reaching for the hand-held radio from its dashboard holder.

“Just keep driving, Thurrock,” Croft advised. “If I wanted to be away, I’d have gone by now.”

Eyes haunted with suspicion, Thurrock left the radio and eased the car forward with the slow moving traffic.

“Is this logical?”

Croft’s question took the policeman by surprise. “What?”

“Is it logical?” the hypnotist repeated. “Arresting me. Taking me in for questioning, and why? Because I knew Joyce Dunn ten years ago. You’ve heard of Ricky LeFleur, the pop singer?”

Thurrock nodded. “What about him?”

“I know him too.”

The young CID man snorted. “Not impressed.”

“I didn’t tell you to impress you,” said Croft. “My point is, Ricky was prosecuted for possession last year. Are you going to question me on it?”

Thurrock edged his way into the offside lane. “Any reason why we should?”

Croft admired Thurrock’s control mechanisms. While he gave the impression of a devil-may-care attitude, he, too, had learned the secret of controlling verbal exchanges by asking questions, not answering them.

Croft nevertheless pressed home his attack. “Because I know him.”

“That’s crap.”

The traffic moved forward through the lights and edged nearer to the line of cones blocking the nearside lane. Thurrock’s eyes darted from the road just ahead, where a small van was nosing out, to his offside wing mirror, and Croft guessed he would be judging the distance between them and Shannon’s car.

“Of course it’s crap,” said Croft, “but that’s precisely why you’re running me in now. A woman has turned up dead, I know her, so I’m being questioned.”

“No,” Thurrock disagreed. “We’re taking you in because your pen was found there.”

“You don’t know that it was my pen,” Croft argued. “You’re assuming it is because it looks like one of mine, but you don’t know. Not yet.”

Thurrock opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, thought better of it and concentrated on inching his way forward, nose to tail with the small van, preventing another vehicle from moving out.

“And here’s another thing,” Croft went on. “Yesterday morning in Spinners, I tried to
stop
Sandra Lumb throwing herself over the edge. Rehana Begum knew. Would I have done that if I’d conditioned her into doing it in the first place? And my girlfriend is gone missing. Why would I abduct my own partner? ”

The driver of the vehicle immediately behind them flashed his lights. Presumably letting someone out. It distracted Thurrock momentarily. He cast his eyes into the mirror and instead of the view behind, caught Croft’s intense stare, urging him to believe. Thurrock ignored it and as the traffic ahead suddenly picked up speed through the roadworks, so he accelerated with it. He braked quickly at the lights outside the Boat & Horses pub where he stopped again and once more checked the wing mirror, seeking his boss.

“Run all this past Shannon,” he said, “and you’ll be out by lunchtime. Anyway, that’s not all the boss has. I know. I saw the forensic reports.”

Croft laughed. A short, sharp bark, dripping with scorn. “There you go, you see. Shannon is determined to put something on me and he’ll hold me for the full forty eight hours, and if he hasn’t enough circumstantial evidence, he’ll soon find more, so he can hold me for longer, and that’s bad news for you, for Millie, for everyone, because when I sue, he’ll shift the blame onto his subordinates.”

Thurrock grunted. “You’re mistaking me for someone who gives a fuck. I’m just a detective constable, the cops’ equivalent of a non-com. I don’t have any power.”

“Yes you do,” Croft assured him. “You have the power to let me go now.”

Now Thurrock laughed, but there was no humour in it. “Dream on.” The lights changed. He slipped the car into gear and moved off.

Croft kept up the pressure. “Thurrock, I don’t know what The Handshaker’s game is, but I do know it’s me he wants. You run me in, you hold me, and you’re messing with his plan. He’ll retaliate. He’ll take more women and keep murdering them until you release me to let me play it his way. Trish will hang and then Millie could be next, or your girlfriend. The only way you’ll hold him off is if I’m there looking for my partner and he can goad me further. I’m not asking you to let me go. I’m asking you to let me escape. You’re in the clear and I’m on the run.”

They were past the roadworks now, cruising the middle lane of three. Up ahead, the crossroads at Vigo Street loomed. In reply to Croft, Thurrock shook his head. “Can’t do it.”

Croft turned the screws even further. “If I was really guilty of anything, do you think I’d be negotiating with you right now? The Handshaker has my girlfriend and I want her back, but I won’t get her back unless I’m free to play his game, and if I’m not free, he’ll keep on killing until I am. If I was guilty of anything, you’d be unconscious or dead now, and I’d be driving this car, getting the hell out of here. Cut me some slack. Let me run for it.”

The lights turned red. Thurrock brought the car to a halt. “And what can you do if you’re on the lam?”

Croft shrugged. “I don’t know. More than I can do while I’m locked up. Thurrock, you have to help me to help you.”

“I don’t have to do nothing. All I have to do is my job.”

“And let an innocent man be held in custody? Let more women die?” Croft turned to check through the rear window. “Shannon can’t see you from here. Let me make the break.”

Thurrock finally snapped. “Just bleeding shut it, will you? I’ll tell the guvnor about all this, you know.”

The lights changed. Thurrock slipped the car into gear and moved off. Croft reached down and yanked the handbrake on. The car skidded to a halt and stalled, the driver behind them jammed his anchors on and hit the horn. Croft clubbed Thurrock across the back of the neck, then leapt through the gap between the seats, snatching Thurrock’s hand radio from its holder. He threw open the door and with the dazed DC, restricted by his seatbelt, making a half-hearted attempt to stop him, jumped out, and dashed across the nearside lane, causing a woman in a red, Fiat Panda to brake hard.

“Shit.” Thurrock shook his head to clear it and twisted the key in the ignition. Nothing happened. “Bollocks.” He turned it all the way off and then on again and the car roared into life. Knocking off the handbrake, he bunched the gears and gunned it, swerving sharp left from the centre lane, across the path of the Fiat Panda.

Once around the corner, he was in a maze of small streets populated with industrial units. He floored the pedal, hurtled along the short and narrow streets looking this way and that for sign or sight of Croft. How could he have got so far in so short a time?

He turned into a small cul-de-sac, a court of recently built, empty workshops and lockups. Braking, he reversed to turn around and slotted the car back into first. Croft appeared from behind a dumpster, snatched open the door and landed a hard fist on Thurrock’s jaw. The young detective slumped sideways, the car jumped and stalled again. Croft reached in, dragged on the handbrake and then moved the unconscious police officer quickly to the passenger seat. He fished into the glove box, came out with a pair of handcuffs, anchored one to Thurrock’s right wrist, and the other to the passenger door. Having secured the officer in such an awkward position, he then drew the seatbelt across him, and hooked it into its lock. Thurrock would need his right hand, secured to the passenger door, to unfasten the seatbelt, and the belt itself would prevent him twisting in his seat to get at Croft.