The Stolen Child Read online

  She saw Whiteside clearly in her mind’s eye. It was an image, a memory from the past, a couple of years ago. It was before he’d grown his beard. They’d arrested a pompous financier for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and Hanlon had rough-housed him a little, slammed him against a wall, if she remembered correctly. He’d said, who do you think you are? He had been more outraged than hurt. Whiteside had answered for her, she’s the face of postmodern feminist policing, sir, get used to it. She smiled at the memory. Now Mark was lying in a hospital bed, his head shattered, his body damaged beyond repair, all to protect Conquest and his wealthy customers. Whiteside would never make her smile again. The judge saw her face soften and for a second hope blazed in his heart. Then he looked at her expression as she turned her head back to him. It was the face of a beautiful Medusa. It was then that all hope died for Lord Justice Reece.

  Hanlon sat on the bed next to him. Tears were streaming

  from his eyes now; he could see no mercy in her face. No humanity at all. Hanlon moved the blanket aside. She looked with dispassionate distaste at his body, his thin limbs, his pot belly, deciding where to put the syringe. He felt the prick of the needle as Hanlon injected him in his groin, near the base of his penis. It seemed to her appropriate. She was sick of

  the powerful and the connected evading justice. She could even envisage a scenario where the judge would be allowed to walk because it was deemed politically expedient, his arrest considered detrimental to the public good. His trial might undermine faith in the incorruptibility of justice. She covered him up with the blanket, ignoring the mute appeal in his eyes, and wiped the syringe clean where her fingers had touched it, removing her prints with a medicated tissue from a box on the table. Then she crouched over the corpse of Robbo, putting the syringe in his right hand and closing his fingers around it tightly, before holding it with another tissue as she placed it back on the table where she had found it. She glanced at it dispassionately. When SOCO arrived to investigate what had happened, let Robbo take the blame for the judge’s death.

  She went back to where Peter lay on the floor and manoeuvred

  him underneath the bed. Hiding him was the only thing she could think of doing with him. She looked around the room one last time and took her phone out of her bag to check it. No signal. There was no landline in the room either. She guessed that Conquest had never bothered to have one installed. Somewhere in the house would be a satellite phone like those used on boats and ships, but she had more pressing problems. Two down, two to go.

  Time for Conquest.

  37

  It was as Hanlon had guessed. There was a satellite phone in Conquest’s study. It was a new Inmarsat and it rested on a docking station behind his desk. He had toyed with the idea of getting a landline installed, the expense was no deterrent, but what he didn’t want was outside intrusion on his privacy. Conquest believed you could not be too careful. The satphone was fine. It rang now. He picked it up and listened carefully. Clarissa watched as, still holding the phone, he went to the gun cupboard in his study, opened it, and took out a .22 rifle and a box of shells. The Makarov pistol was at the bottom of the North Sea about two miles from the island. He had two shotguns in the cabinet as well as the rifle, but he had no intention of blowing holes in his house or painting walls and ceiling with Hanlon’s blood and tissue. If he did have to shoot her, he’d keep it neat. Conquest doubted it would come to that. He had every faith in his abilities.

  ‘Sure, Jim. Understood. No, we don’t need help. I’ll handle

  this myself,’ he said with finality and put the phone down. He slid the bolt of the rifle back and put a bullet in the chamber of the gun. He gently pushed the bolt back into position.

  ‘Hanlon’s on the island,’ he said to Clarissa. He threw over the remote to her and she nodded, using it to switch on the TV and access the channels that were connected to the CCTV cameras

  in the house and garden. There was a full bank of monitors down in the basement where Robbo had an office adjacent to his bedroom, next to the cell that Peter had occupied. On Conquest’s TV, in his study, you had to view the camera shots individually. Clarissa quickly ran through the options in the house with rapid clicks on the remote. A series of images filled the high-resolution TV screen, one after the other.

  The cell. Empty apart from the dog. Robbo’s office, empty.

  The hall downstairs, then the landing upstairs, empty. The Bridal Suite. Here was Robbo, face down on the floor,

  his head haloed in a rusty red stain. The judge, spread-eagled naked on the bed, gagged and bound, his eyes closed. His chest moved, he was obviously still alive, and sitting on the bed, tying her training shoes, Hanlon.

  Conquest studied the picture and frowned, deciding on his options. ‘Wait here,’ he said.

  Clarissa nodded. She watched him through the half-open door of his study as he gracefully, silently, ran up the stairs, rifle in hand. She moved closer to the door and now she could see two images, one on TV of a two-dimensional Hanlon tying a final double knot in her shoe and standing up from the bed, and one in real life of a three-dimensional Conquest taking a position by the door. He clicked the safety on the rifle and held it above his shoulder by the barrel, like a club, or like a baseball player waiting for the ball.

  Clarissa watched as Hanlon clicked the blade of her gravity-knife out and gently took hold of the door handle. She signalled to Conquest above her. He glanced down and she mouthed the word ‘knife’ exaggeratedly, miming a stabbing action. He grinned and gave her the thumbs-up sign. A gun would have complicated matters, but not a knife. He would bet good money

  that the policewoman had never used a knife in a fight in her life. He had.

  Crouched outside the door, waiting for Hanlon, Harry Conquest was now enjoying himself hugely. This was like old times. This was what he’d been so good at as a teenager, the reason he’d been accepted into the Motorcycle Club. A stunning ability for violence. It had been twenty-five years, he guessed, since he’d been in a serious fight. One that meant life or death. Once, they’d been commonplace. To join the Angels, to be accepted even as a Probationer, he’d had to go Angel bashing, driving out to pubs frequented by rival motorcycle gangs and picking fights. Vicious, bloody brawls in bars and car parks. Your life hung in the balance as the fists and the steel-toed boots swung or glasses were smashed and used as weapons. He still bore the scars. And Harry had been exceptionally talented at violence. He was proud of his reputation. Then, once he was in the Angels, a more professional level of hurt, debt-collecting, often drug debts from dealers. Conquest had a bloody past and he’d been very good. As he stood there, feeling the adrenaline course through his body, he felt the years drop away. Life had been so much more fun then.

  Today, he was richer and more successful than he could have

  believed possible, a multimillionaire he guessed, but part of him suddenly hankered for the old days, the excitement. The drugs, the booze, the partying, the women, maybe even the camaraderie. He’d got to the top, but a pinnacle is a lonely place to be. Life had become too corporate, too planned, too controlled. He’d never be young again, but tonight he’d stop time for once, he’d be the man he once was. Tonight he’d really live again.

  He was looking forward to taking down Hanlon. She was a worthy opponent. She’d managed to deal with Robbo, that in itself was an achievement. Very few men could have done

  that. And she’d swum all the way here as well. He had to admit she was good.

  Clarissa gestured frantically and he smiled. She was coming. He saw the doorknob turn, then the door opened and Hanlon strode out. Conquest admired that. She didn’t creep out, she boldly stepped out. As she did so, he moved his right foot out and swung the rifle in a powerful arc. The wooden stock hit Hanlon on the left upper arm. The bone broke on the impact. The power of the blow knocked her off balance and as she started to right herself, to launch the hand containing the knife at Conquest, he slammed the rifle butt into the
side of her head. She collapsed on the floor, not quite unconscious but dazed, and Conquest kicked her in the stomach. He heard her gasp as the wind was driven out of her, and she doubled up and let go of the knife. He booted it away with his foot. It fell through a gap in the bannisters on to the polished, parquet floor below, where Clarissa picked it up. He kicked Hanlon again, viciously in the guts, and she retched.

  Conquest moved forward, the rifle tucked under his right

  arm, and grabbed a handful of Hanlon’s thick hair, still damp with seawater, and half pulled, half dragged her downstairs. He guessed that she was barely conscious but she made no sound of pain, although she had to be in agony from the left arm that hung down uselessly by her side. Her chest twitched spasmodically as she tried to breathe through a crimson haze of pain. He moved quickly down the stairs, his fingers laced tightly through her wiry hair, the base of her spine and her heels thumping rhythmically on the carpeted stairs as they descended together.

  He pulled her into the study, her backside sliding across the polished hall floor, hauled her to her feet, and pushed her down into an armchair that faced his desk about three metres away. She collapsed into it and sat awkwardly. Her head was bent

  forward and her right hand held her left arm, trying somehow to deal with the break she could feel in the bone. Her breathing was rasping and irregular. Her body was a mass of pain from her broken arm, to her agonized stomach, to the pain in her lower back.

  Conquest pushed his chair out from behind the desk and dragged it round so he was sitting directly in front of her. He slid the safety catch off the rifle while he waited for Hanlon to recover. He called Clarissa over to him and told her to go upstairs and check on the judge, also to try to find the boy. As she left the room, Hanlon raised her head and looked directly at him.

  ‘What have you done to the judge?’ demanded Conquest.

  Hanlon had no intention of replying. She doubted Conquest would be able to do much about it even if she told him; was there anything you could do to remove insulin? But she didn’t want to take the chance. She couldn’t see how he would get the judge into a hospital without seriously awkward questions being asked: how and where did this happen? You could hardly pass it off as an accident. The judge was doomed. And so too, she felt, was she, but right now she couldn’t think about that. Her entire body was on fire with pain. Her head, her stomach, but everything was dwarfed by the agony of her broken left arm.

  Conquest looked relaxed and content in his office chair. He had won. Another day, another challenge, another fight, another victory. The barrel of the rifle pointed unerringly at Hanlon. She looked at him through her pain with a new respect. Conquest certainly knew how to fight, she thought. Once again she thought of Whiteside. He would have made some remark about Conquest knowing the way to a woman’s heart. ‘He sure knows how to impress a lady,’ or something similar. She smiled grimly to herself.

  Conquest’s eyebrows raised slightly as he saw Hanlon’s lips

  move in amusement. He suddenly wondered if maybe she really wasn’t all there mentally. She must surely know she was going to die. He could hardly let her live.

  Clarissa came back into the room. Hanlon looked at her, no trace of a smile now. So this was the girl who had shot Mark. She was medium height, Mediterranean colour, olive skin and dark eyes, a distinctive crescent scar between her eyebrows. She leant forward and whispered into Conquest’s ear. He nodded.

  ‘Where’s the boy?’ he asked.

  Clarissa had told him he was nowhere to be seen and that the window was wide open. He must be somewhere in the grounds, he couldn’t get off the island, thought Conquest. Hanlon must have lowered him out of the window. Well, he’s no threat. We can always find him later and dispose of him. It didn’t look as if the judge would be needing him any more. According to Clarissa he was in some kind of coma. Whatever it was, she couldn’t wake him up. It was going to be an annoying and time-consuming clean-up operation. Hanlon, her sergeant, the boy and the judge. Not to mention Robbo. All would have to be disposed of. Hanlon was staring at Clarissa. Idiot, she was thinking. You didn’t even look under the bed.

  Hanlon met Clarissa’s eye. ‘Did you shoot him?’ she said.

  Hanlon didn’t say his name. She didn’t want her to hear it, to know it. She wasn’t fit for that. Clarissa smiled sweetly and put her hand on Conquest’s shoulder. It was a possessive gesture, almost as if she thought Hanlon was some kind of threat.

  ‘Yes,’ she said proudly, ‘I shot your Sergeant Whiteside. Did it upset you, was he your lover?’ She studied Hanlon’s face.

  It was impassive but it was obvious what she was thinking. Hate is always transparently obvious. Conquest felt Clarissa’s hand tighten on his shoulder. ‘When I shot him in the face, I laughed,’ she said. Her voice was ugly now, harsh. She had the

  actor’s way with delivering words; they carried clearly across the room like whip cracks. ‘I hear he’s still alive. Maybe not the same man he was, though. When he kissed you, did he drool? I hear he will now.’ She laughed out loud. She had a pretty, tinkling laugh.

  Hanlon felt the rage flare up inside her like phosphorous burning, a white-hot flame. She welcomed it. It burnt away her pain and transmuted it into fuel for her anger. She looked at the clock on the wall above Conquest. It was nearly ten o’clock. Soon Enver would phone for backup and the police would arrive. All she had to do was stay alive for another maybe quarter of an hour. The police helicopter would be first on the scene from the Air Support Unit; they’d be happy. It cost about seven hundred pounds an hour to use the thing; the rescue of Peter Reynolds would go a long way to justifying its budget. There was a Marine Unit with a fast RIB vessel that could be here within half an hour based somewhere along the Essex coast, which would bring more police. She closed her eyes and felt relief wash over her. No matter what irregularities she had committed, Conquest wasn’t going to wriggle out of this.

  There was a peal on an old-fashioned doorbell, which rang

  through the house. It was literally a bell on a chain, it wasn’t electric. It jangled almost cheerily. Hanlon thought for a moment that Enver must have pre-empted the agreed time and called in earlier than he should have done. Well, she wouldn’t complain. Conquest jerked his head and Clarissa disappeared. She heard a bolt being drawn on the front door. It echoed loudly in the hall, followed by voices, and Clarissa re-entered the room. It was then that all hope ended for Hanlon.

  Clarissa was followed by Enver with Ludgate bringing up the rear, a shotgun pressed into the sergeant’s back. There would be no rescue. The cavalry would not be coming.

  38

  Enver was now sitting on a chair as well as Hanlon. It was a very sturdy, wooden chair with a high back. It was like a simplistic version of a throne. Its broad arms had leather straps and these secured Enver’s wrists, so he was tied to it. He was naked apart from his baggy blue boxer shorts and, free of restrictive clothing, you could make out the body of the athlete he once was. There was a lot of flesh there but you could see the solid frame beneath. Hanlon had watched him testing his restraints, his biceps swollen with muscle, writhing like snakes with the effort. His chest was carpeted with black hair and his jowly face dark with stubble. He was bear-like. Ursine, thought Hanlon, that was the word. If I get out of this alive, by some miracle, I’ll teach it to Corrigan. He can add it to his list.

  Conquest sat near him, the rifle still unrelentingly trained on

  Hanlon. Ludgate and Clarissa sat on a sofa. Ludgate’s shotgun was broken open and lying on Conquest’s desk.

  Ludgate said sourly, ‘Well, isn’t this cosy.’ He was beginning to feel highly vulnerable, more than slightly edgy. Although he knew that Hanlon had not so far confided in anyone other than Sergeant Demirel, he felt there could well be fallbacks that she’d set up. He would have done that. He could imagine her arranging with one of her small but devoted fan base something

  along the lines of ‘In the event of my not contacting you before, w
henever, please inform Assistant Commissioner Corrigan, etc., etc.’ Like Hanlon earlier, he had an ear cocked for the telltale sound of a helicopter or the roaring of powerful outboards.

  He would have liked to see a lot more action on Conquest’s part, certainly more of a sense of urgency. At least to get rid of Hanlon and Demirel, for a start. Then there was Robbo’s body upstairs and the judge lying up there unconscious. God knows what Hanlon had done to him. And somewhere, out on the island, was the boy. It was a mess. He glared at Conquest and Clarissa. They’d make a lovely couple splashed all over the papers. He could see the headline now, ‘Monsters’, something along those lines. He’d be a footnote, but he’d end up doing a full-life tariff all the same.

  His thoughts were broken by a harsh laugh from Enver. Such was Hanlon’s magnetism, that the three of them hadn’t been able to take their eyes off her, and they’d almost forgotten the sergeant was there.

  Enver had been looking around Conquest’s study, at the five of them together. Ludgate looked at him angrily.

  ‘Something funny, Sergeant?’ he said.

  Enver replied, ‘I was looking for the sign.’ Frowns appeared on puzzled faces. ‘The one that says, “You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps”. That one,’ he explained. ‘You’ve got two bodies upstairs, a kid on this island that just about everyone in Britain is looking for, two police missing, one a senior officer, do you really think you’re going to get away with this?’

  Hanlon nodded her head in agreeement. She could visualize Forrest and his SOCO team carefully going over Conquest’s house searching for traces of her presence. Then she thought, the only person who knows of its existence is Anderson. Would

  he tell anyone? Probably not. Conquest could well get away with it. Ludgate might even end up heading the investigation for her and Enver’s disappearance. Conquest smiled bleakly as if reading her thoughts and he allowed the barrel of the .22 rifle to point towards the floor. There was a sharp crack as he pulled the trigger. The bullet drilled a neat half-centimetre hole through Enver’s naked right foot. Enver gasped, then grimaced in pain and clamped his jaw shut. Blood trickled from the hole in his foot. Conquest slid the bolt back and ejected the spent cartridge case. The polished copper casing tumbled to the floor. ‘When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it. But in answer