Good Bait

38

Karen woke to the low thrum of music from the flat above; rolled over slowly, groaned, raised herself gingerly up on to one elbow, reached out and illuminated the small bedside clock. 6.03. What the hell was going on? For weeks on end it was as if no one was there, not even the faintest of footsteps criss-crossing above her head, and now, suddenly, it was whatever sad DJ had pulled the early breakfast show on Kiss or Choice, kicking things off with a chunk of dubstep reggae her neighbours seemed to be playing at full volume.

When she sat up something akin to a squash ball caromed, side to side and front to back, inside her head. Wincing, she closed her eyes and levered her legs slowly round, and as her feet touched the floor, the music stopped.

Thank you very much.

Gingerly, she made her way to the bathroom, peed, splashed water in her face, pressed two paracetamol out of their foil and swallowed them down. The last time she’d had a hangover to equal this had been Carla’s birthday the previous September, the night Carla had insisted on treating them to her impression of Christina Aguilera at full shriek and she herself had come close to copping off with a startlingly beautiful black man who claimed to have played for Leyton Orient.

Now, as then, she should never have had that last glass of wine. Although, at Alex’s, she hadn’t realised she was drinking much at all.

Pulling back the curtains, she gazed out into the empty street, the convoy of parked cars. A cyclist in reflective gear, front light pulsing, swished past and out of sight.

Karen leaned slowly forward and rested her forehead against the welcoming glass.

She was in the kitchen, making coffee, trying to decide whether or not she wanted toast, when her mobile trilled to life.

That bloody phone!

Tim Costello’s voice. A shooting outside the twenty-four-hour Tesco at Woodford. Close on four in the morning. Sixteen-year-old using the ATM. Bullet wounds to the side, shoulder, backs of the legs. Taken to Whipps Cross. Still touch and go.

‘The ATM, a robbery?’

‘Either that or drug related. Local Drug Squad’ve had half an eye on him. Lot of manoeuvring going on, apparently. Usual squabble over territory.’

‘Could be a hit, then.’

‘Possibility.’

‘Witnesses that early?’

‘Not so far. But CCTV. Still checking.’

‘Let me know, Tim, anything shows.’

‘Will do.’

She was barely out of the door when the phone rang again. The switchboard with a call from a Detective Sergeant Barry Morgan, a hostage negotiator in the Notts Police.

‘Got a situation here. Mansfield. Armed male holding a pregnant woman hostage. Both known to you, I believe.’

Karen drew breath. ‘Jayne Andrew?’

‘You got it.’

‘Wayne Simon.’

‘Wanted in connection with the murder of his partner and their child, back end of last year, is that right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Any history? Anything useful you can tell us?’

‘Useful? He’s been stalking her for a while. Work and home. I made the point when I was up there not so long ago. Strongly, I thought. The likelihood of something like this happening. Obviously not strongly enough.’

Morgan said nothing.

‘What’s the likely outcome here?’ Karen said. ‘Which way you leaning?’

‘Hard to say. Blokes like Simon, not exactly rational. Spoke to him a couple of times on the phone. Her mobile. Lot of anger, not a lot of sense. Since then no one’s picking up. Case of waiting it out, I’d reckon.’

Karen heard her own voice, low and persuasive: He’s not going to hurt you, I promise.

‘I’m on my way,’ she said.

‘Likely no need.’

‘Anything happens, get me on this number.’

Karen broke the call and, taking care not to move her head too sharply, bent low and reached for her shoes.

It was a grey kind of day. Clouds the colour of pale slate that presaged snow. Karen drove too fast, using both her siren and magnetic beacon to clear a way through the traffic that clustered along the motorway between Leicester and Nottingham.

A command post had been set up some seventy-five metres from the front of the block in which Jayne Andrew lived, rutted tarmac and muddied grass in between. Residents of the neighbouring flats had been evacuated as a precaution, the immediate area cordoned off.

Barry Morgan met Karen with a quick handshake and ushered her inside. Made the introductions, senior firearms officer, incident commander. More handshakes and down to business. A plan of the flat’s interior had been stuck up alongside the windscreen. Living room and kitchen with windows to the front, door leading out on to a narrow balcony, bedroom and bathroom with windows to the rear. Armed officers were already in position.

‘Last sighting,’ Morgan said, ‘best part of half an hour since. Living-room window. Lass standing there with Simon close behind her, knife to the side of her neck here.’ He rested two fingers just behind the jawline, immediately below the ear. ‘Cowardly bastard.’

‘Maybe should have taken him out then,’ the firearms officer said. ‘Clear head shot for a full five seconds.’

‘No need,’ Morgan said. ‘Not while there’s a risk of hitting the woman. Not while there’s time.’

‘Is there?’ Karen asked. ‘Time?’

‘Happen.’

‘When did you speak to him last?’

‘An hour back. Same barely coherent ranting as before. What a crock of shit the world is. Everyone conspiring against him. Doing him down. Women especially. Whores, the lot of them.’

‘He’s not made any demands?’

‘Just threats. If we come near the flat, attempt any kind of rescue, he’ll cut her throat.’

‘And if we don’t?’

‘Cut her throat anyway. Later rather than sooner.’

The firearms officer lifted clear the binoculars through which he’d been watching. Spoke to Karen. ‘Killed this young woman, didn’t he? Hammered the life out of her. Cut her about for good measure. And the kiddie, killed her too. Next time my lads get an unobstructed view of the target, let me give the order. One in the brain pan. All the consideration he deserves.’ He hawked up phlegm from the back of his throat and, nowhere to spit it, swallowed it back down. ‘Eugenics, where people like Simon are concerned, not such a bad idea after all.’

For some moments, no one looked at anyone else.

Then the sound of a police helicopter circling overhead.

‘You’ve spoken with her,’ Morgan said to Karen, ‘must have got some impression. How d’you think she’d stand up to this?’

Karen was remembering the pale-faced young woman who’d made her tea, talked about her boyfriend out in Afghanistan, talked about the coming baby. About Wayne Simon.

I’m frightened. Frightened he’ll do something. Hurt me. Hurt my baby.

‘Not too well. She’s not strong, physically strong. Low self-esteem. And she’d be scared, scared for the baby.’

‘Any idea why he’s latched on to her the way he has?’

‘Men like Simon, they’re drawn to women they see as weak. Easier to bully, knock into shape. Then, when those women start thinking for themselves, trying to break away, the Simons of this world react the only way they know how. Lash out.’

‘End of lecture,’ the firearms officer said, as much to himself as anyone, loud enough to be sure Karen had heard.

No one had seen hide nor hair of Jayne Andrew for a full thirty minutes, just glimpses, shadowy, of Simon moving around the flat without apparent direction, this way and that.

Karen remembering again her vain promise she would come to no harm.

Morgan dialled the number for Jayne Andrew’s mobile, the one on which he’d spoken to Wayne Simon before. While it was still ringing there was a sudden movement behind the living-room curtain, the window opened and two mobile phones were hurled down on to the grass. His and hers.

‘Fuck,’ Morgan said softly and lowered his head.

‘Stage two,’ the incident commander said, not without a certain satisfaction.

Morgan was already fastening his bulletproof vest. Moments later, he was stepping out of the van, loudhailer in his hand. ‘Wayne, listen to me. There’s a way out of this. For everyone. For you. Nobody has to get hurt, no one has to come to any harm. You hear me? You understand?’

No movement. No response. No reply.

‘Just let me see Jayne, let her come to the window on her own. I just want to see that she’s okay. Then you can let her go. Let her leave.’

Snow was starting to flutter slowly down, catching in Morgan’s hair as he moved steadily forward, one careful pace at a time.

‘No one’s hurt here. Nothing’s happened. Nothing that we can’t talk about reasonably, between ourselves. You and me. But you have to let Jayne go first. Then we can talk. All right, Wayne? We can sort this all out.’

While he was still talking the door opened and Jayne Andrew stumbled out, one hand thrust out in front of her, the other clutching her belly; her face, her front, dark with blood.

Morgan dropped the loudhailer and started to run.

‘Go, go!’ the firearms officer shouted, and immediately armed officers began to advance from either end of the balcony, weapons raised.

Karen was running herself, stumbling a little on the uneven ground.

Jayne Andrew tumbled into the arms of the first officer to arrive and, taking her weight on his free arm, he turned her away from the balcony edge and towards the wall and lowered her slowly down. Which is where she was when Karen reached her, still crouching, holding herself and sobbing inarticulate sounds through trails of snot and tears. That close, the blood startlingly bright on her face and hands.

Not hers.

Karen carefully raised Jayne Andrew’s head and wiped her face, took hold of her then by the arms and lifted her to her feet; put one arm round her and held her tightly as she walked her towards the stairs, the waiting paramedics, the ambulance, a warm bath and caring hands, the first of many nightmares, flashbacks, some kind of a future.

At least she was alive.

Wayne Simon had slashed his throat across while holding her close, the blade puncturing the carotid artery behind the jawline, below the ear.

He lay on his back, legs akimbo, arms outstretched, head to one side, a beached fish on dry land, the severed flesh open like a second mouth.

Flowers of blood stippled across the floor, along the wall.

‘Look!’ Wayne Simon had said, the moment before he cut his throat. ‘Look what you made me do.’

Karen drove back more slowly; urgency, expectation drained. The promised snow flaked across the windscreen, sticking here and there beyond the wipers’ range. She thought of Carla, wondered how she was, living in provincial digs and stepping night after night into the spotlight to enact The Revenger’s Tragedy, more familiar now with the quickness, the arc of blood. She thought of Alex, the enviable assuredness with which she worked and lived, the quick touch of her hand upon her arm.

At the service station, she drank coffee, black, and checked the messages on her mobile phone. CCTV at Woodford had shown two men running from the scene of the shooting, one of them Liam Jarvis, previously arrested and then released in connection with a similar shooting in Walthamstow. A fresh warrant had been issued and a search carried out at his last known address, as yet no sign.