Fever of the Bone

CHAPTER 39

Ewan McAlpine woke up with the fizzle of excitement racing through his veins. Today, it was today. He was finally going to get a chance at something he’d craved for so long. By tea-time, he’d be bouncing over rough terrain on a dirt bike, a cloud of dust enveloping him as he breathed through a kerchief, like a cowboy on the range.

He’d never been allowed to do anything his mum and dad regarded as dangerous. They’d wrapped him in cotton wool all his life, like he was going to break if he so much as fell over. He could still remember the total humiliation of his first overnight school trip. He’d been eight years old and his class were staying at an outdoor pursuits centre up in the Pennines. As well as the teachers, some parents had come along to make sure there was the right ratio of adults to children. And of course, his mum had been one of them. And every time he’d been about to join in one of the activities - abseiling, climbing, kayaking or riding the zip drive, she’d intervened, stopping him from doing anything interesting. He’d spent two days on the obstacle course and the archery range. It had been God’s gift to his enemies.

His mum meant well, he knew. But over the years, she’d made him the butt of endless jokes and sometimes worse. Luckily for him, his primary school had been hot on stamping out bullying and teasing. When he’d moved up to his private grammar school, he’d worked hard at being invisible. The sporty guys didn’t know he existed, so they didn’t notice he wasn’t allowed to do anything remotely dangerous.

But still, Ewan craved the chance to do something exciting. He loved watching the extreme sports channel, and he’d worked hard over the last couple of years to get fit and build some muscle. Even his mum couldn’t object to him working out in the gym his dad had set up in the cellar. All he lacked was the opportunity to use his body for anything that would push it to the limits.

Until he’d met up with BB on Rig. Lucky bugger lived on a farm where he had his own quad bike and dirt bikes. Even better, he’d chosen Ewan to be pals with. And now, tonight, he was going to get his chance to experience what he’d only fantasised about.

His mum thought he was taking part in a debating competition over in Manchester. She wouldn’t expect him home till nine, which would work out perfectly. BB said he would lend him something to wear and he could shower before he left on the half past eight bus. It was all going to be perfect.

Ewan had no idea how he was going to get through the day without bursting with excitement. But he’d manage it somehow. He was good at managing his life.

A mile away, in the nearest police station to the McAlpine home, Carol was giving the surveillance crews their final briefing. There were three cars, one motorbike and an assortment of pedestrians, supported by a van where they could alter their look by changing jackets, hats, wigs and facial hair. ‘It’s going to be a long day,’ Carol said. ‘We’ll mostly be able to stand down when Ewan’s actually in school, but we will need someone front and back to make sure he doesn’t sneak out early. There’s no reason why he should - we know what the arrangements are. But the excitement might be too much for him. So we need to be alert. Any questions?’

Paula raised a hand. ‘We know this killer acts fast. Are we going to move in as soon as he takes Ewan?’

‘I’m not making any decisions about the take-down till we’re in the thick of it,’ Carol said. ‘There are too many variables. Ewan is our priority, obviously. But we need to make sure we actually have evidence of abduction. Now, if we’re all ready, we need to move into position. Following him to school will give us the chance to fix his appearance in our minds, as well as being a useful rehearsal. So, let’s do it. And good luck, everybody.’

The school run presented no problems. Ewan’s mother’s Audi was sandwiched between surveillance cars, with the van bringing up the rear. Mrs McAlpine dropped him on a corner about a quarter of a mile from the school and two of the walkers picked him up from there. They left three officers on watch - two on foot, one in a car - then went back to the station. Waiting around was always the hardest. Some played cards, some read, some put their heads on their arms and slept. By the time Tony turned up at half past three, they were all ready for some action.

‘I wasn’t expecting to see you,’ Carol said.

‘I like to keep you on your toes.’

‘You’re staying in the control van with me,’ she said, steering him away from the rest of the team.

‘Perfect. I’m not trying to make your life more difficult,’ he said. ‘I just thought I might be able to help. You know - if you have to make difficult choices of when to intervene and when to sit tight. I’m quite good at this psychology stuff.’ He gave her the cute little-boy smile that always irritated and amused her in equal measure. ‘You might as well take advantage of my presence. After all, the more use I am to you, the easier your argument with Blake the next time he wants you to work with Tim Parker.’

‘Are they all as crap as him?’ Carol asked.

Tony perched on a desk. ‘No. A couple of them have got real talent. One or two others are reasonably competent. And then there’s a few who learned all the prescriptive stuff, but they’ve got no insight, no empathy. And those are unteachable. You’ve either got it or you haven’t. When you do this for real all the time, if you’ve got the empathy and the insight, you should become a clinician. If you haven’t, you go down the academic route.’ He shrugged. ‘Tim’s got room for improvement, but he’s never going to be brilliant. You just got really unlucky. If Blake pulls this on you again, don’t let anybody else do the choosing. I’ve got a couple of names I’ll give you that’ll do a decent job for you.’

‘Not as good as you, though.’

‘I won’t argue with that. But I might not always be around, Carol.’ He sounded serious and it frightened her. She didn’t really know what had happened to him in Worcester, not on the inside. But he’d been in a strange frame of mind ever since he got back. Carol didn’t like what she couldn’t understand, and she didn’t understand this.

So she made a joke out of it. ‘Aren’t you a bit young to be retiring? Or have you been lying about your age all these years?’

He chuckled. ‘I’m not the sort who retires. I’ll be tottering around on my walking frame going, “You’re looking for a white male, twenty-five to forty, who had difficulty in forming relationships.” And some bright young DCI will still think I’m the bee’s knees.’

‘Well, that’ll be a novel experience for you,’ she said tartly. She stepped away and raised her voice. ‘Right, everybody. Time to get into position.’ She turned back to Tony. ‘Did you hear that we’ve tied Warren Davy in to the victims? The NDNAD came up with a familial hit on Bill Carr, the cousin who fronts up as Davy’s mailing address.’

‘That’s good to know. It’s always a relief when us profilers have sent you barking up the right tree. I definitely owe Fiona Cameron a big drink now.’

They walked towards the door together. ‘You never thought of doing the geographic profiling? As an extra string to your bow?’

He shook his head. ‘Number crunching? I’d be so bad at it, Carol. I’d spend all my time arguing with the computer. It’s bad enough that I talk to myself, without bringing inanimate objects into the equation.’

Ewan’s journey to the bus stop was uneventful. He showed no sign of having noticed any of the watchers. Two of them boarded the bus with him - a middle-aged woman in a raincoat and a young man with a leather jacket and a scarlet baseball cap pulled low over his face. Carol made a phone call as the bus drew away. There were two detectives already in Barrowden. One would catch the bus there, the other would narrowly miss it and hang around studying the timetable in the shelter. They assured her they were both in place and there was no sign of life in the village apart from two old men playing dominoes in the pub.

‘This isn’t going to be easy,’ Carol said to Tony. ‘I took a recce out there last night and it’s like a bloody ghost town. Four streets, a village shop that shuts at six o’clock and a pub that you wouldn’t use if there was another option. We’re going to have to hang well back.’

‘Are you going to put more walkers on the ground?’

‘No. We’ve got the two on the bus, they’ll be getting off at Barrowden. She’s going to the pub, he’s going to stop and chat to the bus-misser. Any more than that and it starts to look suspicious. We’ve also put a camera in the ivy on the Wesleyan chapel.’ She pointed behind him. He turned to see a monochrome monitor. It showed a plexiglass bus shelter from behind and the gable end of the pub. Apart from the man standing in the bus shelter there was no sign of life.

‘Are you expecting Davy on a quad bike, like he said on Rig?’

‘I think he’ll be in a car. He’ll want him enclosed.’

They didn’t speak as the van negotiated the narrow lanes. They were out of sight of the bus but the three technicians in the van were in constant voice contact with the followers. At last, Johnny, the lead techie, turned to Carol and said, ‘The bus is coming into Barrowden.’ Carol and Tony peered at the monitor and saw the bus approach the stop.

They were on the outskirts of the village now and the driver pulled off the road into a private driveway. ‘I arranged this yesterday,’ Carol said. ‘We’re going to sit here and watch and listen.’

The bus came to a halt. Ewan politely let the woman descend, then he followed. The man in the baseball cap bent down to tie his shoelace; the man in the bus shelter boarded the bus. Ewan looked around, curious rather than anxious. He checked his watch and moved away from the bus stop, coming to a halt halfway between the shelter and the pub, where he couldn’t be missed. The woman bustled into the pub and the bus pulled away. As it picked up speed, a man came running down from one of the two side streets. Seeing the bus disappear, he stopped, hands on knees, breathing heavily. The man in the baseball cap went over to him, clearly a friend. They stood chatting, then drifted back to the bus stop where they had an animated discussion focused on the bus timetable.

Less than a minute passed, then a dark-coloured Volvo estate car nosed into the village from the Manchester direction. It was driving slowly, crawling past the village green and the bus stop. It performed a U-turn outside the pub and pulled up alongside Ewan.

‘It’s him,’ Carol said, her voice grim.

Johnny pulled one earpiece away from his head. ‘It’s a woman driving,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘A woman.’ He clamped the earpiece back in place.

Carol looked at Tony. ‘A woman? You never said anything about a woman.’

He spread his hands, as mystified as she was. On the screen, Ewan had moved forward and was leaning into the open passenger window of the car.

Johnny spoke again. ‘She’s saying something about BB’s quad bike being broken . . . She’s BB’s mum, come to pick him up . . .’

‘He’s getting in,’ Carol said. ‘Phase two, Johnny, tell them.’

‘Dark-coloured Volvo estate heading in Manchester direction from village. First letters of the reg are MM07. Can’t get the rest yet. Walkers, to the van.’

And they were back on the road. Being stuck so far back was frustrating, but Johnny gave them regular updates. ‘Heading steady towards Manc . . . Tango lima two behind . . . Motorbike coming up in rear, overtaking tango lima two, making it look dodgy . . . Motorbike in front now. Definitely a woman driving . . . the lad’s drinking something out of a can . . . Junction coming up . . . Bike’s gone straight on, Volvo’s turned left without signalling. Tango lima two going right, tango lima three picking up . . . We’re skirting the city, heading south . . . Bike’s back in behind tango lima three.’

‘It looks like we’re going to Davy’s farm,’ Carol said. ‘Where he’s not supposed to have been since a week past Friday.’

‘Maybe the girlfriend’s a better liar than Ambrose realised,’ Tony said. ‘Presuming that’s who’s driving.’

‘Tell tango lima two to overtake. He can lead us past Davy’s farm and wait on the far side. Tango lima four to be in pole follow,’ Carol ordered.

In twenty minutes, they were sure of the destination. The single-track road they were travelling on led to DPS’s head-quarters and not much else. ‘I need tango lima three and the bike to hang back. Remember, Ambrose said the entire perimeter was camera covered. We want to stay out of range for now. Tango lima four to carry on past, join up with two a mile past the farm.’

They pulled up behind the motorbike as Johnny said, ‘The Volvo’s turned in to the gate . . . Tango lima three’s out of range of their cameras he thinks. He’s out of his vehicle, on the roof . . . He’s got his binocs out. He can see the Volvo pulling up right by the farmhouse . . . The woman’s out . . . Passenger door open, he thinks . . . Farmhouse door open. He can’t see anyone, she must be dragging the kid inside . . . The woman’s back outside, closing the passenger door, back in the car, moving it across the yard, blocking a barn door . . . She’s walking back to the house . . . Inside. Door shut.’ Johnny looked at Carol. ‘Abductions R Us, I’d say.’

Carol opened the back door of the van and dropped to the ground, followed by Tony. ‘All we’ve got is abduction,’ she said. ‘We don’t know whether Warren’s in there or if he’s on his way.’

‘He could have been there when Ambrose visited,’ Tony said. ‘He didn’t search the place, did he?’

‘No. And there was no point in putting the place under surveillance. With their security, we couldn’t get close enough without being spotted. And there’s miles of moor behind them. Someone who knew the terrain could easily come in under cover of darkness.’ The more she spoke, the more unprepared Carol felt. ‘But we do know he was in Bradfield yesterday morning because he sent Ambrose that email from the library.’

‘You’ve got to go in, Carol. We know this killer doesn’t hang about. The boy’s already unconscious. If Warren is in there, he’ll be wrapping his head in polythene right now. You can’t afford to let this boy die. You won’t forgive yourself. And Paula will probably kill you,’ he added, not an atom of levity in his tone.

She nodded. ‘You’re right.’ She leaned back in the van and shouted, ‘Wagons roll, Johnny. Everybody to the gate now.’ She jumped back into the nondescript white van, giving Tony a hand up. They pulled out ahead of the car and bike and made it to the gate first. Carol climbed out and went to the intercom. ‘Police. Open up,’ she shouted. ‘I’m going to count to three . . . One . . . two . . .’ The heavy gates slowly began to swing open. Carol jogged up the margin of the drive. The van, followed by the rest of the vehicles, drove slowly alongside her.

They abandoned their vehicles in the yard and swarmed towards the farmhouse. Carol led the way, throwing the door back. She stopped on the threshold, taking it all in. Ewan McAlpine lay on a plastic sheet in the middle of the tiled floor, unconscious but still breathing. On the table was a heavy-duty transparent polythene sack, a roll of packing tape and a scalpel. Head in her hands, a woman was sitting at the table, sobbing convulsively. ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ she wailed. ‘So, so sorry.’