Faceless, page 24
‘Next,’ she said, and on cue an old white Honda pulled out from the kerb, headlights off. She’d staked out the house since 4.00 am; the phosphorescent face on her watch now glared 5.14 am. The other car had sidled in around half an hour ago; the intrusive glare of its headlights had woken her from a doze. Although she had been mortified she’d fallen asleep on the job, it had done her good and she now felt semi-human. When it had first driven past she’d sunk down low in the seat so she couldn’t be seen, but unfortunately it meant she didn’t get to see them either. It didn’t prevent her from guessing who one of the occupants was, though. It had taken a huge effort of self-control on her part not to walk up there, pull the door open and give him an earful. She stretched out as far as she could in the cramped confines of her car, twisting her ankles around and around to try and get some circulation going, then turned the key in the ignition and with her headlights off, joined the tail of the convoy.
‘What the hell does he think he is doing?’ she muttered to herself, although part of her felt a grudging admiration that he’d managed to narrow the field down to this one man, this one house. It was also a confirmation that she was right, this was the man they were looking for. Max Grimes had always been a hell of a good detective; given the choice she would always want him on her team. She got down to the main highway and the opportunity to blend in with the early-morning traffic. The rain was becoming more insistent, further dampening her mood. The old Honda had turned its headlights on now, and she did the same, settling into the traffic flow one car back from it, just another commuter on the road.
Something bugged her. Actually many things bugged her about this case, but this conundrum bugged her more than most. How the hell had Max tracked down Bradley Fordyce? Sure, he’d provided the three digits, and would have kept a copy, no doubt. But to get registration details he would have had to access and search the database, so he must have had someone on the inside to help him. But who? She couldn’t think of anyone who would risk censure for providing information to a civilian. And considering the state he was in, she couldn’t picture him charming it out of anyone.
A horrid sinking feeling dropped its way into her belly. Yesterday, on the stairs, when she’d stumbled across him coming out of the second floor. He’d certainly looked sick enough to sell her the story. You bastard. He hadn’t spent the time shitting his ring out like he’d hinted; no, somehow he’d snuck in and hacked into the computer system. You deceiving, lying bastard. It was the only way he could have done it, surely. But she didn’t recall him being a computer geek, and his registration was well and truly out of the system. How did you do it? Despite feeling pissed off at the ease of his deception, she felt a grudging admiration and also a touch of reassurance that he was along for this ride because, to be honest, she had no idea what she was going to do when they reached their destination, wherever that was. On the passenger seat beside her sat her baton and pepper spray. She wished she had a side arm, but considering this was not exactly official time on the clock, trying to procure one would have raised too many questions, and she hadn’t felt inclined to explain, because she had been teetering on the edge of wanting to rip people’s throats out. McCarten’s had a few good teeth marks on it. After the removal of Fordyce’s vehicle the rest of the evening had been an exercise in frustration.
Which was why, in the end, she had resorted to sitting alone in her car at some ungodly hour of the morning outside the house of a man only she suspected. It hadn’t taken much digging to find Bradley Fordyce had a few rental properties – but could she get leave to apply for a warrant to search them? No. It was all, ‘You must have probable cause’, or ‘What evidence do you have? You’ll have to wait until morning, or until the forensic examination results come in from the vehicle.’ It was all bullshit. She could have screamed in frustration – she had screamed, once in the soundproof confines of her car. Fordyce was evil, and that girl, if she was even still alive, was running out of time. In her mind she saw the fresh-faced, innocent girl, and she recalled the face of that other young girl they had hunted for, all those years ago, and she felt the steely determination, tempered by the cold wash of uncertainty. There were so many things that could go wrong.
‘Oh Jesus, Max, don’t fuck it up this time.’
Max
Google Street View had lied, or was at least hopelessly out of date. The building was nothing like in its picture – the whole block had changed. It was no longer the bustling hive of industry depicted in the photo. Now, with the moody weather, it resembled a deserted filmset from some gothic horror. The engineering sign had been taken down, leaving a cleaner rectangle in the sea of grey and making the building a vast concrete-panelled bunker. The Rav4 wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
‘Drive past, go up a few hundred metres, then turn around and come back.’
Sure enough, from this different perspective they caught a glimpse of the Rav4 in their headlights. It was parked around the back of the building.
‘Right, drive past, a couple of buildings further up and then pull over.’ Harry followed instruction without comment, and then turned off the engine.
‘Now what?’ He had to yell to be heard over the sound of the rain pounding on the roof of the car. It was a bloody good question. Max had been thinking about this moment all night, about what he’d do. Or at least what he wouldn’t do. Now it was here the moment verged on the unreal.
‘You are going to stay here in the car.’
‘But…’ the boy’s face was a gripe of hurt.
‘No argument. I don’t know what’s going to happen here, and I’ve put you at enough risk already.’
Harry wasn’t going to give up that easily. ‘But two are stronger than one, we could overpower him.’
Max felt a surge of love for this young man, this son who was a virtual stranger but who, after everything, everything he had done, was still prepared to lay it on the line for him. He reached out and grabbed his forearm.
‘Absolutely not. Promise me you will stay in the car. I’m not going to risk you, like I did…’ The words died on his lips, and a look of understanding passed between the two of them. He took a deep breath, thoughts of Jess tore through his head. ‘Harry,’ he said, his voice charged with emotion. ‘I lost Jess, I’m not going to risk losing you. End of story.’
Harry looked back at him, lips pursed, and nodded. ‘Okay,’ he said, though his face said it was anything but okay.
Max reached into his hip pocket and pulled out the slip of paper he’d written during those long hours of wakefulness. He handed it to his son. ‘When I go in, I want you to ring this. This is Detective Meredith Peters’ number. I want you to tell her where we are, who we’ve followed and that we need immediate back-up. If she doesn’t answer the phone, dial 111 and tell them it’s a life-and-death situation. Say anything to get them here. Then you wait. You lock the doors, and you wait here.’
‘But what if he’s armed?’
Jesus, if Fordyce was armed, he was fucked. ‘I’ll face that when I come to it. If you hear gunshots, you get the hell out of here, you understand, you just drive.’ He glanced back towards the building, the view blurred by the rain. Billy was here; it was the perfect hiding place, an abandoned industrial area, isolated, dead. He turned his attention back to his boy, gave him a wry smile. ‘No matter what happens, do not follow me, you understand?’
The boy nodded, his eyes grim. ‘Be careful, Dad.’
Max leaned over and gave him a fierce hug, whispered ‘I love you’ into his ear, and then opened the door and disappeared out into the rain.
Meredith
‘Jesus, where the fuck have they gone?’ The teeming rain had made visibility a nightmare. She’d only noticed at the last possible second that they’d turned off the glistening motorway at Mount Wellington, and she had nearly skidded the car into the side rails when she’d wrenched it onto the off-ramp. Several vehicles had snuck in between them, and now, as she waited, stuck second in line at a set of lights, fingers drumming on the steering wheel, there was no sign of the white Honda. She reached over into her bag and grabbed the printout of properties owned by Fordyce, or at least by the company sporting his wife’s family name. She had to wonder about that relationship, and who wore the pants. She certainly hadn’t warmed to the wife, and she’d straight out detested the man. One of their industrial sites was somewhere around here, she was sure of it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the traffic light turn green. She dropped the piece of paper back onto the seat. As she sat back up she noted the green Hyundai directly in front pull into the intersection. And then just as Meredith was about to ease her foot down on the accelerator she caught the flash and blur of something hurtling through from the right on the red light. Her foot shot to the brake, shoulders automatically hunched, and she cringed in anticipation as the squeal of brakes and rubber sliding across wet road climaxed in the inevitable crunch of metal on metal and the dampened tinkle of falling glass.
‘Holy shit,’ she said. She watched in horror as the two cars slid across the intersection in front of her, joined in some terrible dance-like embrace. She leaned forward to the dash and flicked on her hazard lights, grabbed her cellphone and jabbed 111 while she climbed out of the door and ran over to the wrecks. What a fucking mess. She pulled open the passenger door on the T-boned car; she had to yank hard and lift to get the warped door open.
‘Are you okay?’ she yelled to the driver. It was clear she was far from okay, slumped forward in her seatbelt, blood streaming down her face, the spent airbag drooping down from the steering wheel like some burst bubblegum bubble. ‘Hang in there, I’m getting help.’ She relayed the information through to the emergency services as she dashed around to the other car. She pulled the door open to find a dazed but intact-looking young man.
‘What happened?’ he said, like it wasn’t bloody obvious what had happened.
The urge to scream at him, ‘You ran a red light, you fucker,’ to hit him, beat some sense into him was so strong, so intense that she slammed the door shut again, hit her fist into the side of the car and instead yelled out into the dark. ‘Why now? Why fucking now?’
The pulsing red flash of the ambulance lights reflecting off the slick streets and mangled cars gave an eerily strobe-like effect to the scene, and standing there in the rhythmic drumming rain it was hypnotic. The shrill ring of her cellphone broke the spell. It resisted being pulled out as the damp fabric in her pocket gripped the plastic cover, and when she finally looked at the screen it was an unknown number. Who the hell would be rude enough to ring someone at six o’clock on a Saturday morning? She pushed aside a tendril of sodden hair and raised it to her ear.
‘Hello?’ she shouted over the background noise.
‘Is that Meredith Peters?’ The voice was young, and carried the kind of tremulous tone that sent her already jumpy nervous system into hyperdrive.
‘Yes, who’s this?’ A chill passed through her body.
‘It’s Harry Grimes, you know my dad.’
Bradley
The anticipation had built so much in his chest that by the time he got to the workshop he felt he would explode. His heart pounded, and his breathing was so fast and so shallow that his head spun with nauseous, giddy excitement. Calm down, he told himself, just calm down. The raindrops that had soaked into his hair and shoulders steamed from the immense heat that came off his supercharged body. Once more he stood before the door; he laughed at that symbol of choice and change. How far he had come. As he stood there clutching the bags that would help him carry out his goal, it was absurd to think it had been mere days since he had made those dents in a frenzy of frustration and disbelief at what he had done. He’d achieved such heights in the last few days, he couldn’t stop now, not when he was so close to that ultimate act of power, of taking control of his life. He wasn’t going to be beaten, he was going to save himself.
Billy
The click of the key in the lock pulls her back to the present, the echoes of her Bubu’s voice whispering in her ear. The door swings open, and he is silhouetted there, a black shadow against the glow of the lamp on the ground behind him. With the image comes the sound of a million nails hitting the tin roof. His hands are full, and she watches, the sharp edge of fear cutting in her chest as he comes in, places the goods on the table and then turns around to face her, his back to the door.
‘This is where it ends, I’m afraid,’ he says, his voice raised loud above the sound of rain. ‘You know, I tried, I offered you a chance, you could have taken the money and gone and made a life for yourself. But no, you didn’t take it, you didn’t take the path that could have led to redemption for both of us. So if anyone is to blame for what happens, it is you. You could have put a stop to it, you could have prevented things from escalating any further.’ As he speaks she can hear his voice rising, can feel him building himself up, the air tight with anticipation as he works himself up to that point of explosion. She feels her heart racing, tastes the salty tang of her fear, but she tells herself to stay calm, and wills her breathing to slow. The voice of her Bubu whispers in her mind, the words reassuring her, Be strong, have faith, wait your time. Her fingers slide into her pocket, find the comfort of her rope, the strength of her hair.
‘This is your fault,’ he says as his hands work with something, untying it. ‘It is all your fault that it has to end this way.’ Her heart gives a jolt as she sees it is a plastic bag he has in his hands, a plastic bag he shakes out to open up, and her mind foresees that immediate, terrible future, and he steps towards her then, towards and around, trying to get behind her, and she swings up onto her knees and cringes into the wall, turning to face him as he steps closer and closer; her eyes are mesmerised by the bag, and her innards feel like molten metal as the wave of terror threatens to engulf her. Wait, her Bubu says, her voice firmer, commanding, Wait Billy, the bag is thin, be ready. Her legs tense, her muscles poise to act and all sound is sucked from the room as her entire being microscopes in on anticipating the slightest action of that man, but as he looms above her and is about to try to reach over her with the bag she senses a streak of movement from outside, and her eyes flick to the blur of someone hurtling across the room, slamming into him, the momentum throwing them both to the ground.
‘Billy.’
She hears him scream her name, and her heart soars as she recognises the voice. He has come for her, Max has come. But it isn’t Max, it can’t be – the clipped head, the clean-shaven face – but then their eyes meet, the sunken, razor-sharp eyes, and she knows it is him, he has not forsaken her, he has come. The man roars in fury and shock, and Billy watches in dismay the speed with which he rolls over, throws Max off, and her eyes take in the inequality of the combatants. Max lashes out, his fist connecting with the man’s chin, but there is little force behind it, and the man wriggles and wrestles his way on top of Max, and then too easily he is straddling him, his muscled arms huge in comparison to the sparrow-like proportions of Max. She sees the power in his back as he draws his arm back, and the force unleashed as he punches Max in the side of the head. Her lips mouth his name, as the arm draws back and hits Max again and again and again.
Meredith
She spotted the white Honda the second she careened around the bend, and without hesitation she screamed up alongside, driver’s windows aligned, barely missing clipping the wing mirrors. She wound her window down, the rain driving into her face. The other window came down, and she saw a young and very scared-looking version of Max. The sight of him tore at her heart.
‘Where is he?’ she yelled over the drumming on the roof.
The boy thumbed behind him. ‘Three buildings down, the big concrete one, there’s an entrance around the back on the far side.’
‘You stay here,’ she yelled, and then drove on and turned down the side of the building. A movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. Shit, the boy had jumped out of the car and was following on foot. But she didn’t have time to think about that right now. Right now Max needed her.
Billy
Her breathing synchronises with the punches, and over the sound of the rain on the roof and the rush of blood in her ears, she hears the long, dry whisper of her Bubu’s voice – Now – and her hand reaches into her pocket, and her fingers find the cord of hair, her glorious hair, Sampson’s hair, and she stretches it out between her hands, and she prays they are close enough, that the length of chain he gave her for freedom is enough to reach, and in one swift and decisive movement she lunges forward and slips her rope over his head and under his chin and then she leans back and pulls with all of her might. She prays that it will hold, that she has woven it strong and true, and she wraps it around again as he falls backwards into her, his hands flying up in surprise. She pulls harder, begging for strength, digging, delving for every last bit of energy inside of her, and she can feel him scrambling, scrambling for a foothold, to regain his balance, but to do it he has to move backwards closer towards her, towards the wall, and in that moment of slackness, she grabs the rope ends into her left hand, and she swings, she swings the chain that imprisons her, swings its cold, heartless metal around his neck and then she is on her feet, pulling up, pulling up with all her might, and she sees his arms flail, they tear at the air, furiously, but she can see he is gaining purchase, he is regaining balance, the element of surprise has been lost, and she feels the pulse of horror, because she has nothing left, nothing left to give, she is drained, it is her one and only chance and it is failing. Then she sees Max move, slowly, slowly, Max pulls himself to his feet, and his eyes search her scalp, the lacerations on her face, the swelling of her lips, before they meet hers, and they understand. She watches as he staggers around behind her, past the monster, the writhing and struggling monster, and Max puts his arms around her and she sinks into him as his arms link hers, his hands grasp the chain, and he takes part of that load, he takes part of that burden and they pull, together they pull.
