The Seventh Man, page 1
Previous novels
by Lisa Buie-Collard
Evangeline’s Miracle
THE SEVENTH MAN
Lisa Buie-Collard
D’Oc Publishing
D’Oc Publishing, LLC
PO Box 564
Lake Park, GA 31636
This book is a work of fiction.
Copyright ©2014 by Lisa Buie-Collard
ISBN 10: 0983647844
ISBN 13: 9780983647843
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews with acknowledgement.
Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.
First Edition 2014
Cover Design: Natalie Spasic at OfficeManager4u.com and N.R. Designs
Back Cover photo of author: Steve Heddon
ISBN for soft cover: 978-0-9836478-4-3
ISBN for E book: 978-0-9836478-5-0 Kindle/Mobi version
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014952988
D’Oc Publishing, LLC, Lake Park, GA
Dedicated to actors
Sean Bean
and
John Hannah
for their inspiration
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This novel was originally inspired by an article I read on CCTV cameras and the millions in use throughout the United Kingdom, and two actors, Sean Bean and John Hannah. When I started it they were young enough to have played their respective parts in “my” novel/movie. This has been a very long road, one of the hardest yet for me to travel in my writing. Each novel/story takes whatever time it needs to come into being but this one, out of all my novels, took ages to grow up. I hope you, my reader, find it worthy, entertaining, and informative. Thank you for choosing to read it.
I thank profusely, with bowed head and on bended knee, Detective Sergeant Robin Carr of the London Metropolitan Police Service (recently retired) for his wealth of information and advice, including his work with the HOLMES system. Any discrepancy that might be found in my version of the investigation sits squarely upon my shoulders and not his, writer’s license and all that. I seriously wouldn’t have this particular novel if not for his invaluable advice and insight into his former world.
I thank the London Metropolitan Police Service for answering my questions, and doing what they do day in and day out to make London a safer city to live in and visit.
I would like to thank Linda Ellis of The Editing Place for her ability to shape my words into a better read.
Natalie Spasic of N.R. Designs and OfficeManager4u.com, produced a cover I could truly live with as well as giving me a logo of my own. I thank her for her persistence and patience in trying to give me what I envisioned.
I thank my beta readers who helped improve this story with their ideas and willingness to tell me what didn’t work.
A huge appreciative hug each to Philip King, my step-brother in law, Sarah Clarke, my niece, and to Suzanne Wight Ion, my cousin for letting me use their names.
A special acknowledgment must go to John Paterson, my favorite Scotsman, who gave useful tips on language, and interesting and sometimes funny, information on being from Elgin.
As always I thank my parents, my children, my sister and my far-reaching family and friends for cheering me on and telling me not to give up. I thank my writing group who is always there for me, my blogging community, and my special “goal partners” who listen to me groan, kick me when I need it, and with insight and levity keep me laughing and mostly sane.
Without the support of my husband Geoffrey, I could never have written this novel. He is my rock, the solid earth upon which I stand. I’m not exaggerating when I say I will love him till the day I die.
Definition of ‘Wraith’:
1. An apparition of a person seen shortly before or shortly after his or her death.
2. Any specter: ghost.
3. Used in similes and metaphors to describe a pale, thin, or insubstantial person or thing
4. A wisp or faint trace of something
Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
CHAPTER 72
CHAPTER 73
CHAPTER 74
CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER 76
CHAPTER 77
CHAPTER 78
CHAPTER 79
CHAPTER 80: EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COMING SOON
1
The tall man stood so still most passersby wouldn’t notice him. He watched the entrance to the Royal Bank of Scotland from a slight alcove in a block of flats down the street, waiting for the exact moment. His hands were gloved. His knife lay buried deep within a trash bin where it awaited retrieval because he couldn’t take it with him into the bank. He had a small plastic bag, a roll of tape, and a key stashed in various pockets of his Burberry coat. He had his hat set to shield his face from surveillance cameras; he wore the glasses to aggravate the police even more. He needed nothing else. Not now, not so close to the end.
He checked his watch. Seven minutes to go. He stepped out onto a sidewalk covered in slush. Concentrating, he eased through the London winter-morning crowd, crossed the street, and entered the bank. The heist was set for ten thirty a.m. His informant on the Internet had said six men would do the job. In the lobby, the tall man passed through the weapons detector as if he worked there. He’d done this very exercise every day for the last week so no one would remember him as a suspicious character when the police asked. Blending into the crowd by the lifts, he didn’t have long to wait. Spot on ten thirty, he looked up to see all six bank robbers enter the building. Firing off a few shots, two robbers took immediate control of the security checkpoint. Screams ricocheted off the stark walls as the rest of the robbers shouldered through the thick glass doors leading into the bank proper and spread out. Taking advantage of the chaos, the tall man slid through the closing lift doors as the leader yelled instructions and the patrons scurried from the lobby into the bank to lay flat on the black marble floor.
He exited the lift at the third floor. Taking two stairs at a time, he climbed from the third floor to the fifth. First came the secretary. She looked up as he strode right to her desk. As she started to ask how she could help him, he lunged forward, grabbed her, and gave her no time to fight. Taping her mouth before she could scream, he then bound her arms behind her and taped her feet together. He bundled her into a closet behind her desk. Only after closing the closet door did he turn toward the door of the office where he knew he would find his prey. Now came the part he hadn’t practiced. But he didn’t pause, didn’t acknowledge the rush of hot adrenaline as it pumped into his body, strengthening his intent. The door opened with a whisper. As silent as a shadow, he slipped in and shut it behind him. The copied key he pulled from his pocket slid smooth and straight into the well-oiled lock and turned without a sound, sealing him in with his victim.
A dignified, well-built man in his midthirties glanced up from behind the desk on the intruder’s left. The man looked perturbed at the unexpected interruption but not unduly alarmed.
“What are you doing in here? How the devil did
“Mr. Richard McLean? You are McLean, are you not?”
“Well, yes, but my secretary—”
“Is indisposed. Do you know how much time has passed since we last saw each other?” Not waiting for an answer, the tall intruder glanced at the folders and loose papers smeared over the desk, found what he searched for, and picked up a letter opener.
“Look here, I’m calling security.” With his left hand McLean reached for the phone, but before he could touch it the intruder stepped forward, grabbed the outstretched hand, and slammed it on the desk.
“Don’t you recognize me, McLean?” One deft thrust and he stabbed the dull-pointed letter opener downward, pinning McLean’s hand to the desk. As McLean howled in surprised agony, a smile teased the intruder’s mouth.
Looming, almost ghostlike, he circled the desk. Snatching the tape from his pocket he quickly wrapped it round McLean’s head before McLean could stop him. With his mouth covered, McLean was silent, and then a snuffling charged the air as he drew a raw, panicked breath through his nose. McLean’s good hand clawed at the tape covering his mouth, but the intruder yanked the letter opener from the hand pinned to the desk and leaned in close, halting any movement.
The scent of McLean’s agony—tangy and thick, like the blood rivulets flowing over his wounded hand—lay heavy in the air.
“I would recognize you no matter how many years had passed,” the tall intruder said. “I would recognize you in hell. Please believe me when I say I won’t ask you twice to undress.”
Under McLean’s chin, the blunt and bloody point of the letter opener reinforced the sinister command. McLean complied as fast as his damaged hand allowed. Blood stained everything he touched, and the intruder moved back enough to keep his distance yet still present a threat. When McLean sat completely naked in his chair, the tall man taped McLean’s bared arms to it. He wasn’t concerned about McLean’s legs.
“You should feel lucky, McLean. Not only did I castrate the others, I buried four of you—alive.” His lip lifted with a hint of a sneer as he sat on the edge of the desk and leaned in again, to get personal, to get right in McLean’s face. “As you have never cared about anything, I’m sure you didn’t know they were dead. I’ve heard it’s a nasty way to go, bleeding to death while buried alive. I can’t bury you here, though, in your glorious workplace, and I can’t castrate you or the police will have revenge as a solid clue, and I’m not done yet. How does it feel, to know what I’m going to do? That you have no way to stop me?” He waited only to see stark terror burning in McLean’s eyes. “I know exactly what it feels like, thanks to you and Ryan,” he said. “I saved the two of you for the last.”
The tall intruder with death in his eyes had to wait less than one precious second to see comprehension dawn in McLean’s. “Now you recognize me,” he said. “I’m sure you aren’t any happier to see me than I am to see you, but this will, after all, be a short visit.” The intruder grabbed McLean’s shirt from the desk and stepped behind his naked prey. He wrapped the shirt over the handle of the letter opener, and closed his fist around it. He bent slightly over his victim and said, “Go burn in hell, you son of a bitch.” In a single swift thrust, he drove the letter opener precisely between McLean’s ribs and into his heart. Slowly but proficiently, the intruder wrenched it back and forth, causing McLean’s body to lurch and jump with each jerk of the knife.
The shirt soaked up the pumping blood like a thirsty sponge, keeping the blood spatter to a minimum. The tall man finally released the weapon and turned the chair so his victim faced him. He watched McLean’s dying eyes register surprise. Then, at the last, there burned in them a shining anger. The tall intruder stared at McLean’s chest as it rose and fell, until it fell for the last time and stayed still. He left the murder weapon lodged in the gory wound as if it were a dare. Which, in a way, it was. Now that only one of his victims, the most important one, remained, he wanted Richard McLean’s death to make the news. Maybe Ryan would hear of it and start to sweat. In fact, he had an idea . . .
He left McLean’s shirt hanging from the handle of the letter opener, checked his own coat for spatter or anything which might give the police a lead on him. Unlocking the door, he pulled it shut and locked it behind him as he exited. Glancing over to the closet where the secretary remained imprisoned, he heard a loud thumping. She was bravely trying to attract attention to her predicament. He turned toward the stairwell and checked his watch. Three minutes, thirty seconds. It had taken too little time to kill McLean. Hours too short for the likes of the bastard, he thought. Though he had done the deed himself, his victim’s demise had not diminished the tall man’s drive for revenge. Still, he must be satisfied with the surety that only one more remained to be removed from the earth he himself trod upon so lightly.
The tall man reached the stairway door and bolted down to the first floor, ignoring the lift this time. Though he could have avoided the trouble the secretary and her description of him might cause, her life was not his to take this day. He’d thought it through and reasoned he should have ample time to get out and away from the building before the police arrived, if his informant had given him dependable information. Using an informant was always risky, but so far nothing had happened out of the ordinary. He didn’t worry about surprises. They were inevitable. After the police descended upon the bank like locusts, it could possibly take another twenty minutes or so for them to find her and listen to her description of him, which would be clear only in that he wore a hat, coat, and glasses. The police wouldn’t have much to go on and he wasn’t concerned.
He made the ground floor lobby and was out the front door, was actually on the sidewalk, when a stir erupted behind him. Two men carrying fat sports bags dashed past him. How original, he thought, as the robbers took off in opposite directions.
With his gloved hands tucked in the pockets of his Burberry coat, the tall man who had just committed murder turned to his right and walked away from the bank, blending into the bustle of the London sidewalks. He passed the first, the second, and then the third set of surveillance cameras before he stopped beside a particular trash bin. Casting a casual glance about the area, he pulled his knife from deep within the bin and slid it back into its sheath, holstered under his arm. He moved on. In the next block he took off his Burberry, turned it inside out, and tried to put it back on when a sudden whipping wind attempted to steal it, and his hat, from him. The wind didn’t succeed. The killer kept both and never missed a step. He turned a corner, and then another.
Never slowing the tempo of his stride, he peeled off his gloves, stuffed them in the plastic bag he’d brought, and shoved it back into his pocket. He continued straight on until, halfway down the fourth block, a second gust of wind won the match and stole the hat right off his head. Cursing, he turned carefully to see if he could find it while keeping his face from the cameras. But the number of people on the icy sidewalks made it impossible to look for the hat without calling attention to himself. He’d have to leave it. No one in his right mind would abandon a good hat in this weather, and he knew that move alone would tell whoever monitored the cameras more than he wanted them to know, but it was better than showing his face or giving more people the chance to describe him. If they found his hat they might find some DNA, but since his DNA belonged to what the military service proclaimed was a dead man, he didn’t worry over much about it. As long as they didn’t see his face, he was safe. He turned his collar up, lowered his head, and kept walking.
2
The phone rang. Halting the click of his fingers across the keyboard, Detective Sergeant Alban Thain reached for the receiver before it could ring twice. “Thain.”
Detective Chief Inspector North almost took out Thain’s eardrum when he bellowed, “Thain, who else is with you at West End Central?”
“Patterson, sir. We’re catching up on paper—”
“The two of you get over to the Royal Bank of Scotland right now.”
“Sir, the Flying Squad for the robbery is already on—”
