The Cross

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The Wheatsheaf pub, central Oxford

‘Where the hell’ve you been?’ were the first words out of Sam Carter’s mouth as his broad, boxy frame filled the doorway and his bulk creaked the old floorboards of the pub bar.

Sitting at a corner table with an untouched beer in front of him, Joel shrugged. ‘Just out and about,’ he said. ‘What else is there for a guy to do when he’s on suspension?’

‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,’ Carter said. ‘Hang on.’ Carter never just walked anywhere. He charged over to the bar like a buffalo and came tramping back a moment later, foam from a pint of bitter spilling generously down his fingers. He banged the glass down on the table, then parked his wide bulk into a chair opposite Joel. ‘You not drinking?’ he asked, glancing at Joel’s beer.

‘Not thirsty,’ Joel said. He’d taken a swig of Tommy’s blood bottle in the pub toilets on arrival.

Carter squinted at him closely. ‘What’s different about you? Can’t put my finger on it. You been working out or something?’

Joel shrugged and didn’t reply.

‘You must have seen the news?’

‘Not really.’

‘You should. A lot of things have been happening. Stone’s place out near Henley, Crowmoor Hall? You were right, Joel. More fucking corpses tucked away than Rose Hill cemetery. I’ve never seen anything like it, and neither had Jack Brier. Thirty years as a forensic pathologist and the poor sod was being sick all over his shoes when we started pulling them out of there. Fucking body parts heaped up in piles. Little baby skeletons with their arms and legs pulled off. Jesus Christ. It was terrible. Brier’s department has had to draft in extra staff from all over the place to start the work of sifting through all the body parts and skeletal remains to try to identify some of the victims. Brier reckons a few of them might have been homeless people, runaways and the like.’

Carter slurped his beer. ‘Fucking babies,’ he muttered, shaking his head in disgust. ‘Can you believe it?’ Collecting himself, he went on, ‘And now we’re launching a major manhunt for Gabriel Stone and the other sickos he hangs out with. One of them’s already turned up dead. Some kids found him floating down the Isis with a.45 slug in him. Can’t trace him on any records, but an officer recognised him as Seymour Finch. Stone’s butler, or whatever the hell he was. The one you beat up. I mean, allegedly beat up.’

That had been the primary reason for Joel’s suspension from duty. ‘I did beat him up,’ Joel admitted. ‘And shot him, and drowned him too,’ he could have added, but didn’t.

‘Anyway, the official theory is that Finch might have been about to dob Stone in, and so he put a bullet in him.’

Joel shrugged. ‘Maybe. Nasty character.’

‘With friends in high places,’ Carter said in a lower voice. ‘Friends like our illustrious cabinet minister Jeremy Lonsdale. Someone else we’re very keen to have a little chat with. Keep this under your hat, Joel. All the press have been told is that an MP is helping with the inquiry. Truth is, Lonsdale’s vanished. Nobody knows where the bastard is.’

‘Try Romania,’ Joel wanted to say. He remembered now. The familiar face of the man with the gun on Gabriel Stone’s castle battlements. Stone had called him Lonsdale. But Joel wasn’t about to mention any of that to Carter.

‘Anyway,’ Carter said. ‘Let me cut to the chase. The reason I wanted to talk to you is that the old man wants you back.’

The old man Carter was talking about was their mutual boss, Chief Superintendent Lester Page, who had personally signed Joel’s suspension from duty just days before.

Joel smiled bitterly. ‘He does, does he?’

Carter nodded. ‘You’re to be fully reinstated. I watched him tear up the suspension papers myself. He wants you to head up a new team that’ll be committed to this, twenty-four-seven, until we get Stone and …’ Carter shot a glance back over his bulky shoulder at the other lunchtime drinkers in the pub ‘… and you-know-who. Lonsdale,’ he added in a hoarse whisper, in case Joel hadn’t twigged. ‘Bastard’s got to pop up somewhere. Can’t just vanish into thin air.’ Carter took another slurp of beer, peering at Joel over the top of his glass. ‘One thing, though, Joel …’

‘What?’ Though Joel had a pretty good idea what was coming.

‘This is a fresh start for you, yeah? You don’t want to fuck this up. So no mention of the v-word. Get what I’m saying?’

‘I’m over it now,’ Joel said. ‘I don’t believe in v— I mean, I don’t believe in that stuff any more. Don’t know what got into me. Maybe I just let that kid Dec Maddon freak me out with his crap.’

‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ Carter said, beaming. ‘Looks like Dec Maddon’s come to his senses, too. Some officers went round to his folks’ place in Wallingford, to go back over his original statement. Now he’s saying he’s not so sure he saw anything like that at all. Just a good old straightforward brutal, bloody murder.’ He paused. ‘So you want the job, then?’

‘I want the job,’ Joel said. ‘I want to catch Gabriel Stone and every one of his …’ He’d been about to say the v-word. He caught himself just in time. ‘Everyone that’s linked to him.’

Carter nodded briskly and drained the last of his beer. ‘Excellent. Welcome back, then.’

‘So when do I start?’ Joel asked.

Carter glanced at his watch. ‘I’m heading right back to St Aldates station this minute. You want to string along?’