Scaredy cat

TWENTY-EIGHT

McEvoy walked into the playground in slow motion.

Stop. Just move backwards. Out of here the way you've come. Only he will ever know you bottled out. You don't have anything to prove, Sarah… It was that strange time between darkness and light, the half an hour or so that can't quite make its mind up. As McEvoy pushed herself through the air, she felt like she was wading through a sticky, viscous liquid.

Adults and children milling around. Their movements impossibly fast. Their voices ringing through her, setting her teeth on edge. The squeals of the younger children, the honking voices of those a year or two older, the shouting of teachers. A braying cacophony fighting for space in her head with the voice.

The voice was back with a vengeance.

She thought about turning round, getting away to somewhere she could do a line and shut herself up. Getting away was just what the voice was telling her to do, though, so she kept moving forward. Maybe, if she just dived inside the school, found the toilet… She couldn't do it out here, not with children around. It would only take a minute. The teachers had to have their own toilet, surely… What the fuck do you think you're doing? Think why you've come here. Worrying about where you do your next line is neither here nor there, considering.

She just kept walking. She'd decided that when she reached the far side of the huge playground she would turn around, walk slowly back again. They hadn't agreed on anywhere more specific. His text message hadn't narrowed the location down.

Silly bitch. Hard-faced bitch. Hard-faced as you like.., not going to do you any good now. What's he going to do to you?

Her bag was over her shoulder. She pulled it in close to her body. Was there anything in there she could use against him if it came to it? Run. Get out. Call Thorne…

Most of the boys smiled as they walked or ran past her on their way out. In a hurry to get home, but still polite as they had been taught to be. Deferential to adults, well-mannered, especially with ladies.

He was a pupil here, wasn't he? He isn't very well-mannered with ladies.

She raised her head and looked up at the school building on one side of her, the trees in the park high up in the distance on the other. Was he watching her from somewhere? Would there be some sort of signal? The weight of all the things she didn't know felt suddenly unmanageable. She felt stupid. Trapped and stupid. Even fifteen minutes before, she was so in control, so ready for this. Now she walked across a playground, her grip loosening with every step.

He could see that she was scared.

Probably nobody else who saw her would have spotted it. She looked like she was out for a stroll. Adjusting her route to avoid collision with a burly sixth-former, turning side-on to miss a gaggle of first-years. She looked like she was in control. He knew what to look for, though., He recognised fear. He would have seen it even if he'd been a long way away. He could see it coming off McEvoy like a heat-haze.

Her being scared was good, but it was less important than the fact that she was here. And that she'd come alone. That had been the gamble all along, and it was one he couldn't really lose. He'd been able to watch her arrive. From his vantage point he'd been able to verify absolutely that she'd done as he'd asked. If she hadn't, if at the last moment she'd double-crossed him, gone to Thorne, he'd have known it. Even if they'd sent her in as if she'd come alone, using her as bait, he'd have seen it. He'd have spotted them, however well hidden they were.

They would never have recognised him.

Even if she'd stood him up he would have coped, taken her to task over it later.

But she was here, as ready for him as she was ever going to be. He felt a surge of pure excitement that, but for these moments just before he killed, he hadn't felt since he was a child. He grinned. He could still taste the chocolate. Was that what all this was about? Getting in touch with his inner child? cu O 4 @ plygrnd: o)

The text message had been simple. The childish shorthand was proof, if she needed it, of his sense of fun. Now it was time for the real fun to start.

Driving like an idiot through Wembley Park, horn blaring, lights flashing; one eye on the dashboard clock, and a speech forming itself in his mind. The words tumbling into sentences with each busy junction, every queue at traffic lights. The speech he would 5e giving to Sarah McEvoy's parents if he was too late…

Why had the killer targeted McEvoy? How had he targeted her?

Thorne leaned on the horn, swerved inside to accelerate noisily past a Transit van. He knew he wouldn't get the answers to these questions, not yet. Not until the fucker was in a chair opposite him, shitting himself in an interview room in the early hours of the morning. There were other questions, though. Questions a little closer to home that got into his head and stayed there like a jingle he couldn't shake. Why hadn't he noticed? Why hadn't he seen a senior member of his team getting into this? The drugs, the lies, the descent into something warped and deadly…

He drove north across Fryent Country Park, the school now maybe less than five minutes away. The minute hand moving another notch past the vertical. The speech almost fully formed.

DS McEvoy was a fine officer, who gave her life in the line of duty…

Thorne hammered the Mondeo across a roundabout and turned left towards the centre of Harrow. He bellowed at the windscreen as the car that should have had right of way missed him by a matter of inches, the face of its driver murderous. Thorne returned the look with interest and stamped on the brakes, catching his breath through gritted teeth as a line of stationary vehicles appeared in front of him.

All of those who worked with her, of whatever rank, will miss her dedication and good humour…

The school was no more than a quarter of a mile away. Thorne's knuckles were white on the steering wheel, his foot pumping the accelerator as he raced the engine in neutral. The shriek of the complaining engine was almost as loud as the scream inside his head. Nothing was moving. There were no lights ahead, no sign of an accident. Nobody was going anywhere.

The fucking school run.

McEvoy reached the far side of the playground, turned and looked around, thinking come on you fucker,-where are you? Moving back towards the centre now, saying it out loud, like a madwoman on a bus. I'm here, why the hell aren't you? There's a big surprise coming your way, coming everybody's way…

Then a few words from the voice, and she stopped, because she needed to evacuate the playground. Of course she did. After all, she had no idea what was going to happen. There were still plenty of kids around – the slower ones, the stragglers, a group kicking a ball around. Christ he'd used a gun before, hadn't he? Thoughts of Dunblane, of Columbine High…

How messed up are you? Protecting the public should have been your first thought, would have been a few months ago. If this is about showing how good you are at your job, it's not going very well so far… She reached into her jacket pocket for her warrant card, opened her mouth to start shouting…

What if they panicked? If he was nearby, it might provoke him into something. No, she might scare him off. She needed to do what they'd agreed. Besides, if he was nearby, she was going to take the fucker before he could hurt anybody.

That was her last thought before she felt the knife in her back and heard the voice, close to her ear.

'You are alone, aren't you, Sarah?'

'Yes.'

'You're not lying. That's good. Walk with me, and please be sensible…'

She gasped as the point of the knife pressed through her jacket and shirt, and into her skin. A hand was placed in the small of her back and began to guide her forwards towards the exit. His voice. Did she recognise it? Yes, maybe, couldn't remember. Fuck it…

McEvoy almost laughed. She was going to the fucker. She knew exactly what she wanted to do, needed to do, but couldn't for the life of her remember how. She was suddenly all but asleep on her feet. Helpless. If she hadn't felt as weak as a baby already, the words whispered into her ear would have taken away any last vestige of strength in her body.

'If you scream or try to run, I will kill a child.'

Thorne thought that from somewhere a few streets back he could still hear the horns that had blared at him as he'd got out of the Mondeo and begun to run. Now they were being sounded in pure rage and frustration at the abandoned car.

Oh Christ…

He began to slow down, his hands flying to his head, legs suddenly leaden.

Fuck…

Where were they coming from? Which direction would the backup vehicles come from? Brigstocke, Holland, the Armed Response Unit?

The traffic had been impossible before. Now, thanks to him, it would be gridlocked. If the cars were coming the same way he had… Suddenly, Thorne was aware of schoolboys moving past him: in ones and twos at first and then in bigger groups. Jabbering and clowning around. Blue blazers, trimmed with claret. The ties taken off for the journey home.

He was nearly there.

He took a painful breath and picked his legs up again, drove himself forward.

We can only hope that more young women of her calibre will come forward and offer their services to the public…

The tree-lined streets around the school now thick with blue and claret, alive with shouts and taunts, and boasts. Hitting the ground. Dragging his knees up… His stomach began to burn, the judder of each step sending an agonising shockwave through his shattered nose and up into his forehead. His chest rattled and clattered. Beneath his jacket, the sweat had plastered his shirt to his back. It froze as it met the cold air blowing down his collar.

Christ they were big, some of them. A pair of lumbering teenagers, striped ties wrapped around their foreheads, blocked the pavement ahead of him. Thorne put his head down and charged at them, ignoring the shouts and jeers as he crashed through the middle and began sprinting for all he was worth up the school drive.

As he ran, as his feet smacked the ground beneath him, he remembered the car crunching slowly over the gravel. He remembered the last time he'd come up this drive. He and Holland comparing educations in the car.

Then inside the school, the first time he'd got a look at Stuart Nicklin. The face turned away.

In making the ultimate sacrifice, this brave officer has increased the determination of those she leaves behind, to continue the fight… Was he about to see that face in the flesh?

He was only a hundred yards or so away. The drive curved sharply to the left and then narrowed suddenly, a bottleneck forming at the high, narrow gate that was the main entrance to the playground. He began to slow down as he approached it.

Everything seemed normal. Kids coming out smiling. There was no noise, no abnormal noise. He slowed to a jog and then a fast walk. Getting his breath back. Everything seemed normal, but he had no idea what was waiting for him inside that gate. He was suddenly very worried – sweating every bit as much as he had been when he was running.

If the message, whatever it was, however it had been worded, had got through to the school, then surely things would not have been so normal. Wouldn't the kids be inside? Kept away from any danger, held inside the building?

Thorne put out an arm, brushed past a boy hovering at the gate and stepped through.

He stood there, his guts churning, his eyes flicking across the expanse in front of him, trying to take it all in quickly. The main building to his right. The huge windows of the gymnasium, lined with wall bars. Up ahead, the newer buildings – the sixth-form block, the music rooms – and beyond them the playing fields. Still plenty of kids about. Singing coming from somewhere. A few teachers moving around…

McEvoy…

He took a step in her direction and then stopped. Her eyes bulged, terrified, out of a bloodless face. What little breath Thorne had left was gone in a moment.

'Sarah…'

Then Thorne got his first look at the face of the man immediately behind her. The man who was guiding her gently but firmly towards him. The man who stopped and looked straight at him, scowling, as if he were no more than a hindrance.

Then Thorne knew exactly why Ken Bowles had been killed.