As she’d hoped, the handle moved freely in her grip but the door wouldn’t budge. She knew from her old physics lessons that once the vehicle filled with water the doors could be opened.
Bryant appeared beside her. She pointed at the handle and nodded to indicate it was not locked.
He placed his hand over hers and they pulled together, but still nothing.
They were both floating and couldn’t use their core strength. Kim used her feet to lock onto the van and crouched against it; her knees bent with her feet resting flat against the metal like a rock climber. Bryant followed her lead.
They tried again, and the door opened.
Kim could see that many of the tools had become dislodged from the metal racking on the side of the vehicle and had fallen to the van floor. She used the rear bumper to add momentum as she launched herself through the back of the van.
The headrests of the two front seats meant that she could not get through to where Jason Cross lay motionless.
She reached around the side of the chair and felt for the lock he had pressed down right in front of her.
Her fingers met with the rubber sleeve and she pulled upwards.
Her fingers slid from the rubber and the button stayed down. She tried again, this time digging in her nails. The button popped up.
Her lungs were throbbing in her chest. It felt as though she’d been holding her breath for hours, but it was probably no more than two minutes.
The shadow of Bryant was already at the door waiting but he would not be able to prise it open alone.
She used the soles of her feet to push against the headrests to propel her towards the rear door of the van.
She swam around to where Bryant was already in place with his hand poised on the handle. She turned herself into position and added her weight to his.
The door exploded open on first attempt.
She pulled the door as Bryant reached in and grabbed the inert form of Jason Cross.
Her colleague laid the form above his own and used his free hand to drive himself and his cargo towards the surface.
She knew his body would be feeling the same level of fatigue as her own but his mind would not allow him to dwell on it.
She swam alongside as they both headed towards the surface.
Their heads broke out of the water together.
They both gasped for air.
Bryant held his hand under the chin of Jason Cross and lowered the back of his own head back into the water as he began to backstroke his way towards the ramp.
Bryant could not see what she could.
She looked at the face of Jason Cross and knew immediately she was looking at a dead man.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Kim helped Bryant ease Jason Cross out of the water onto the grassy bank before her colleague collapsed on his back. The force of moving his own body weight and the body weight of another grown adult was exhausting. His breathing was deep and laboured and his eyes closed as the pain contorted his face.
‘Bryant,’ she shouted.
His eyes snapped open and saw the urgent question in her eyes.
He nodded that he was okay.
‘Paramedics are coming, mate,’ said a male voice behind Bryant. She could hear the sirens in the distance. She nodded at the thin man holding the lead of a bull terrier.
Kim was grateful because neither of them had the spare breath to make the call. She didn’t have the time to wait for them to get here either.
The man before her was dead.
She gently eased Cross’s head back with one hand beneath his chin and the other hand on his forehead to open his airway. She quickly confirmed that he was not breathing before lacing her fingers together.
She located the area close to his breastbone and lowered the heel of her right hand. She began to pump down around five to six cm at two pumps per second.
She counted to thirty and stopped.
She pinched his nose closed while taking a deep breath. She lowered her face, sealed her lips over his and blew into his cheeks until his chest rose.
By her calculations he had been submerged for three to four minutes. She knew she was fighting a losing battle.
She repeated the breath before lacing her hands again.
‘Guv, you’re wasting… ’
Kim ignored him as she compressed all the way back to thirty. Her muscles began to deaden somewhere around the twenty-third.
‘Guv, he’s not gonna—’
‘Bryant, shut up,’ she growled, as she took in a deep breath.
The sirens had stopped beside the clubhouse but she could not stop until someone else was ready to take over.
Everything around her disappeared as she focussed every ounce of energy she could muster on the next round of compressions.
She blocked out the pain that was burning through her thigh and upper arm muscles and concentrated on willing them to carry on.
Each compression felt like muscle was being ripped from her bone. Her shoulders felt like they were going to collapse.
Bryant moved towards her.
‘Guv… you need to stop—’
‘Yes,’ she cried, as a torrent of water escaped from the mouth of Jason Cross.
‘Jesus Christ,’ Bryant whispered, as Jason Cross continued to cough.
‘Fucking hell,’ the terrier man said, as an ambulance pulled up twenty feet away.
Kim felt elation surge through her body. She had felt death creeping along his flesh beneath her hands and her mouth.
With every second it had been claiming him, and she had brought him back. There was now breath in his body. Blood pumping through his veins. She had felt his departure and now he was back.
The paramedics moved her gently to the side as they took control of the patient whose eyes were wide within a deathly pallor. That was okay; his colour would come back.
Only now that she sat back would she allow her body to accept the fatigue that was trying to pin her down.
Bryant scooted over. ‘You know, guv, sometimes your bloody determination—’
Kim didn’t hear the rest of his words as the world suddenly turned black and she fell to the ground.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Alex admitted to a mild feeling of irritation. It wasn’t yet growing to annoyance but the potential was there.
Her plan was twofold. One part of her plan was moving along perfectly. The other, not so much.
She had expected a second visit from the detective inspector by now. Alex knew that Kim’s need to know everything would have driven her to try and find out what her mother had. Surely by now she knew her mother actually had nothing at all. This should have catapulted Kim straight back to her, demanding an explanation. And she had not yet appeared.
And this was part of the problem with having a worthy adversary. Now and again you were forced to adjust. Because of their history, Kim had a heightened awareness of her tactics unlike the pathetic people in here with her.
The fools had no clue just how many techniques she’d used on them already.
Alex knew that the key in successful manipulation lay in matching the technique to the victim.
The play of state transference had worked like a charm on Katie, the prison officer. She had easily been able to transfer her emotional state onto the woman and reach the emotional part of her psyche. During their last conversation, when Alex had used the woman’s phone, she had managed to destroy the prisoner and guard relationship between them in seconds. They had become two women sitting around a table discussing the health of innocent babies.
The mind was such a vulnerable part of the body. People often had no clue just how much they were being manipulated in everyday life.
A normal person might shudder at the regimes in place in North Korea, where people were forced to listen to patriotic messages regularly. In truth, Alex respected the honesty of the situation. The ruling party made it clear they were going to tell you how to think. No need for veiled, cleve
r, hidden messages designed to bypass the conscious mind and embed itself in the part of the iceberg below the water level.
In the western world the wish to control, persuade and manipulate was no less prevalent; it was just more underhand.
Marketing experts spent millions analysing the effect of paralinguistics, the voice tone, inflection, loudness, pitch. They studied the value of body language, voluntary, involuntary movements.
Luckily for Alex the mind was incredibly susceptible to influence and being controlled.
Alex had learned very early in her psychiatric training that everyone has a semi-fixed set of values and beliefs they have garnered since childhood. Persuading people to question themselves was a technique known as unfreezing; best used when people had suffered a loss or had been fired or were away from familiar surroundings. It was a technique that had worked well for her in prison.
Everyone could be controlled: you just had to find the right method for the right person and the right situation.
Although it was easier to do if the person would actually turn up, she reflected.
The techniques she wanted to use on Kim were burning a hole in her pocket.
‘Hey, Alex, you okay?’ Katie asked from the doorway.
Her smile was warm and her eyes were bright. Her hair was clean and tidy. She’d had a good night. Never mind.
Alex held out her hand. ‘Give me your phone.’
The pretty face creased in confusion.
‘I said, give me your phone. I need to use it.’
Katie stepped into the room as two prisoners walked past. ‘I don’t have—’
‘Stop fucking me around, Katie, and pass me your mobile phone.’
Her face began to harden. ‘I think you’d better watch how you’re speaking to me.’
‘And I think you’d better give me your phone whenever I ask for it,’ Alex replied.
‘I will do no such—’
‘Yes, you will,’ Alex said, pushing herself up from the bed. ‘Or I will tell the warden that you have let me use it already. And then you’ll lose your job.’
Katie hesitated, and Alex enjoyed the hatred that formed in her eyes as she realised just how badly she’d been played.
‘And then how are you going to feed that little bastard of yours? His father isn’t interested and you have no family. Unemployment benefit is not going to cover—’
‘Be quick,’ Katie said, taking it from her pocket and handing it over.
‘Thank you,’ Alex said, politely.
This time Katie didn’t give her the space to make a private call like the last time.
She stood in the doorway with her arms folded and glared at her.
It made no difference to Alex as she wasn’t going to speak.
She keyed in the number she had memorised a long time ago and then keyed in a message. She smiled as she hit the send key. There, that should do the trick.
Alex smiled and handed the phone back. ‘There, that wasn’t so difficult, was it?’
‘Your niece was never ill, was she?’
Alex shrugged. ‘Not that I know of. But thank you for your sympathetic words.’
Alex sat on the bed. It was a slow day and entertainment was scarce.
She looked Katie up and down. ‘I’m surprised that you worked it out so quickly – what with trying to take care of a child unwanted by its father and trying to stay clean at the same time. It must be quite a challenge.’
Katie opened her mouth to speak but Alex was having too much fun. The floor belonged to her.
‘I have the power here now, Katie, and the irony lies in the fact that you offered it to me on a plate the second you handed over that phone. I can say whatever I want to you and you can do nothing about it. You gave me your job, you pathetic cow.’
Alex chuckled as the mouth closed and the cheeks flushed. ‘I mean, here you are, stuck in this job now. You probably wanted to be a police officer and you failed. This is the closest you can get, and if you lose your job for gross misconduct you’ll probably lose your licence and won’t even be able to guard your local off-licence on a Friday night.
‘But it’s okay because you have this baby at home that makes the destruction of all your dreams bearable. Because it’s just the two of you, your love will be squandered all over that child. Over time you will suffocate him with your neediness and efforts for that affection to be reciprocated. Eventually he will grow away from you and leave home, and you’ll be left with this shitty little job and a face that grew old while you weren’t looking.’
Alex could see a slight trembling of the lower lip. It was gratifying to know she still had the gift.
The doubt and rage fought each other in her face.
She stuck out her chin defiantly. ‘It’s the last time, Alex. It’s over.’
Alex’s smile widened. When she spoke her words were quiet but deadly.
‘Katie, you should know something about me. I always decide when it’s over.’
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
Kim was pleased to feel the fresh clothes warming her skin as she headed back towards the office.
A warm shower soothing her tired muscles had been just the thing to put some distance between her and the blackout at the water’s edge.
She had only been out for a few seconds but long enough to see the panic on the face of her colleague when she’d opened her eyes – right before she’d shoved the paramedic away from her.
Bryant often told her she pushed herself too hard, but when there was a dead man lying before you, how hard was too hard?
She couldn’t help the sliver of pride that surged through her at the knowledge that Jason Cross was still alive. The gnawing ache in her muscles would remind her of that fact for the rest of the day.
She was aware of Bryant’s watchful gaze falling upon her as she stepped back into the office.
She didn’t normally conduct evening briefings but today had been that kind of day.
‘Okay, I’m sure Bryant has updated you on the fact that Mr Cross today tried to take his own life.’
‘Admission of guilt?’ Dawson asked.
Kim shrugged. She’d wondered the same thing herself as a hundred needles of water had rained down on her.
‘Or was it ’cos he knew we’d uncover his charge of statutory rape?’ Stacey asked.
‘Could be,’ Kim said. ‘I’m betting his wife doesn’t know, and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want her to.’
‘Never even got to ask him about that second kitchen,’ Bryant said.
‘The what?’ Dawson asked, sharply. He hated not knowing everything. It sometimes irritated Kim but she was the exact same way. It would serve him well later in his career.
‘Geraldine recently had a new kitchen fitted but couldn’t remember the name of the guy. The physical description she gave us matched.’
‘You’re thinking Jason Cross?’ Dawson asked.
‘A bit coincidental,’ Kim said. She didn’t like coincidences.
‘DNA should be back tomorrow,’ Stacey said. ‘I think if I chase them any more they’ll block me and teck out an injunction.’
Kim turned to Dawson. ‘Anything on the friends and acquaintances of Maxine?’
‘Nothing yet, guv. It is starting to look a bit like she sometimes turned to prostitution to fund her habit, so I don’t know if people I’m talking to are friends, customers, pimp or what. And this Flem guy is a homeless wanderer that splits his time between here and Leeds.’
‘Any whisperings about her relationship with her m— with Geraldine?’
He shook his head. ‘No one seems to know anything about that. It seems our Maxine kept her business private.’
‘Anything else?’ Kim asked.
‘Still cor trace this phone number,’ Stacey said, nodding towards her computer screen. ‘The caller had a two-minute conversation with Deanna a matter of hours before she died but the call just goes to voicemail.’
‘Contact the family and her collea
gues and see if it’s a number they recognise,’ Kim advised. ‘But do it tomorrow. We’ll start fresh in the morning.’ She looked pointedly at Bryant. ‘And that means all of you.’
He nodded his understanding, and stood. He’d managed to blag a pair of plain black trousers and a black T-shirt from the uniform stores.
He picked up the carrier bag containing his wet clothes and headed out behind the other two.
She stepped into The Bowl and saw that the red light on her mobile phone was flashing receipt of a message.
One swipe and she saw the number attached to the speech bubble.
The number was not one she recognised but when she tapped into the text she was left in no doubt as to who had sent her the message.
The words made her blood run cold. She grabbed for her jacket and ran.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
17 DECEMBER 2007
Dear Diary,
Oh, where to begin?
I lay awake all night picturing what I would do to her next, imagining all kinds of ways I could torture her and pleasure myself.
The ideas and fantasies were like flashes of delicious colour in my mind as I thought through the detail of every single one. All day I was barely able to contain myself.
Today I helped with the search.
Over a hundred people were there. I was impressed with the turnout in such cold, nasty weather. A lady brought flasks of tea. Another brought sandwiches. There was an air of camaraderie. Individuals together for a purpose, a goal. People who hadn’t seen each other for months met and shook hands, hugged, shared a joke and then quietened as they remembered where they were. And why.
Her mother, father and brother were surrounded by black uniforms. Their eyes were red as they looked around, as though she may just magically appear before them. As though the effort that was being expended by everyone turning up would be enough for her to materialise. I ached to tell them that she wouldn’t.
They were hoping she’d be found and yet praying she wouldn’t.
And then there was me. I knew exactly where she was. Every single person, police, family members, volunteers, voyeurs were all searching for one thing only. And I knew exactly where it was. I could hardly contain my smile at my own cleverness. Seriously.