To Snatch a Thief

CHAPTER SEVEN



So were two bodies fished out of the Thames in a one month period a normal average? Skye mused, settling into full detective mode. She pondered that thought while rolling her head to ease the kink in her neck which seemed permanently lodged there. Two full weeks of wading through statements and witness reports on minor drug infractions, shoplifting and car thefts had her corneas screaming and her brain ready to wave a white flag.

At least here was something juicier. ‘Computer,’ she ordered. ‘Run comparison data on past three, no five years for the month of June, factoring in similar weather conditions and tides.’ She grinned. Being a fan of cop movies and their jargon had its advantages.

‘Searching.’

Two bodies turned up in June. It hadn’t been particularly warm as she recalled. A fact she’d used to her advantage as marks jetted off to resorts on and off the globe. Empty houses were always less of a risk. ‘Hmm,’ she murmured, watching the screen. ‘Were you swimming, did you fall in, or where you pushed? Where you dead before you hit the water?’ While the computer worked, she looked at the report of the two recoveries. Officer on scene for them both was Blake, Corporal, Elizabeth. Both bodies had been in the water some time and were severely decomposed. Micro-chips damaged beyond ID recovery or missing. ID’d by dental records only.

‘Eeww!’ She shuddered feeling slightly sick. She didn’t need those images in her head, but morbidly fascinated, read on. The first body: Jonathon Powter, male, aged twenty five, had an address in Piccadilly. Prior to death employed as a laboratory assistant in a food processing plant at Royalty Trading. Skye read a brief transcript from the chief technician there who called him one of their most promising workers. Well, you certainly had a comfortable amount in your bank account, Jon, she commented, looking at his balance. And your friends described you as idealistic but a good laugh, with loads of friends and a steady girlfriend. Came from a decent family background too, but they’d had spotty contact with you for several years. Guess you were too busy enjoying yourself to ring home.

She blew out a breath, cupping her chin in her hands. No witnesses came forward who saw you go into the water. Girlfriend was alibied. Foul play could not be established, but case remained open.

Information on the second corpse was scanty. She was listed as Willow Frobisher, aged nineteen of no fixed abode who’d disappeared from the bosom of her family in Kent two years previously with no further contact. Spasmodically worked as a cleaner. Had one mark against her for drug possession. Again no witnesses saw her go in, but the forensic report showed no water in Willow’s lungs concluding drowning was not the cause of death. Case remained unsolved.

‘Requested data recovered.’

Frowning, she read the results. ‘I’d no idea so many corpses were dragged out of the river every year,’ she muttered. ‘Gross.’ There was no significant pattern. I’ve wasted my time, she mused, and probably given myself nightmares to boot. The only similarity in the two cases, she thought bleakly, was Corporal Blake, and she was dead too.

Crap. Now there was a thought.

Skye went through the notes again, this time more closely. Blake had flagged a couple of the interviews she’d done as questionable. A couple with Jonathon Powter’s workmates she’d repeated twice. Why?

‘Computer, what was the date of Blake, Corporal, Elizabeth’s termination?’

‘Access denied. Senior authorisation required to access staff files.’

Hmm, okay.

‘Computer, display Corporal Blake’s last case prior to her termination, and run a probability on this case being connected to the two previous cases.’

She was so engrossed she didn’t notice Dawson at her shoulder. ‘What have you got?’ She stood hip shot, her pretty mouth turned up in a sneer. ‘You’ve been huddled over for a while now.’

Skye hesitated, but here was a chance to prove her worth. ‘Um, just that Corporal Blake worked two similar cases in June.’

Dawson’s body language softened, she nodded. ‘Two deceased pulled out of the river. I remember them. The cause of their deaths was never established, and the investigation stalled.’ She looked down at the floor, all cockiness gone. ‘She was taken down while the cases were still active. September the first; it was her little girl’s birthday.’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’

For a moment Dawson looked vulnerable. She blinked, turning her head away before jerking it back. ‘What are you sorry for?’ she snapped. ‘You didn’t know her. And those cases have been well dug over. Forget it; you’re wasting your time. Hey, Sarg, I hear you closed the Ritchie case.’

She swung away as Sergeant Newman, a stocky man in his forties, with his head ruthlessly shaved, strode into the incident room, slapping Corporal Smith on the back. The good-looking, normally serious younger man was beaming from ear to ear. ‘You are looking at the A team,’ Newman boasted. ‘The boy here broke Ritchie’s alibi in interview; smashed it wide open. Got his partner to roll over sweet as anything. When I told the murdering bastard, he cried like a baby. How good is that?’

‘Maybe the A team could get something out of the, I hear nothing, see nothing, speak of nothing lot out in the western suburbs.’ A well-built female snatcher with caramel skin, scratched a pen through her beaded ringlets. ‘It’s like pulling teeth interviewing those people. They see the uniform, they clam up. Makes you think they’ve all got something to hide.’

Dawson shot Skye a look. ‘That’s because most of them have.’

Smiling, Skye slipped the memory square on which she’d saved Corporal Blake’s last cases into her pocket.

Midnight. Frustrated, she thumped her fist into her pillow and tried to free her legs from the tangled sheet. Since she’d spent the entire evening thinking about death, it was no surprise she couldn’t sleep.

Her clunky home computer had grumbled. ‘High memory use. Estimated time to complete task ninety minutes.’ It might just as well have said, ‘You must be joking,’ but finally downloaded the information from the stored files and she read Hunter’s official report on the last minutes of a woman’s life.

Did he have nightmares? Skye figured he must. Nobody could hear a woman scream in that upstairs bedroom, in the house where a tip-off had led them, where a drug stash was reportedly hidden, without re-living it night after night. His heart had to have stalled, as hers did, reading the transcript? As he heard her give the warning, ‘Police! Drop the knife,’ before she screamed.

It wasn’t mentioned in his report, of course, but his heart must have pounded in his chest as he took the stairs two at a time; as he fired on the druggie with the bloody knife? Had he cried like me, Skye wondered, when Corporal Blake bled to death in his arms? ‘Alexei, will you hurry up and get dressed; it’s six thirty already and I’m going to miss my shuttle if you don’t get a move on.’

Still in his dinosaur pyjamas with the enclosed claw feet, her brother dived from his bed to hers and used the sagging mattress as a trampoline. ‘Don’t wanna go to Mrs Abbott’s. Don’t wanna go to Mrs Abbott’s. Don’t wanna…’ Every bounce fuelled her already short fuse.

She rubbed at the area just under her collar bone which constantly itched. No bigger than a grain of rice, Hunter had said. Fine! Let him wear the damn thing. ‘Alexei! Get off there. You’ll go through the floor.’

‘No I won’t. Look, how high I can go.’

Biting down on temper, she tried reasoning. ‘Please, Lex, my shift starts at eight and I’ve a million things to do. I can’t be late again, not in my first month.’ And I don’t want to give them anything else to snipe at me about, she thought, grinding her teeth. She seemed to be the butt of everyone’s jokes. Yesterday she’d come back from the loo and found her coat, which always hung around the back of her chair, zipped up the front with the arms handcuffed together behind. Hilarious. ‘Lexie, I’m getting breakfast right now. If you’re not dressed by the time it’s ready, you’ll go to Mrs Abbott’s in your pj’s, and she’ll take you to school in them too.’

Glaring over his shoulder all the way to the bathroom, he disappeared and Skye later heard him running the tap. At least it was progress, but his toys were all over the floor.

‘You have nil powdered egg, nil non-dairy spread and nil soy milk creamer,’ the food dispenser announced when she opened its dilapidated door. It continued, at some length, to catalogue its empty state, finishing with a snooty, ‘Do you wish to permanently delete these items from your inventory?’

‘No,’ she growled, poking at her hair which was already escaping from the braid she’d imprisoned it in five minutes before. ‘I can’t replace them because I don’t get paid ‘till the end of the month, and after paying the rent and babysitter, there’s precious little left.’ The dispenser clunked and wheezed then spewed out a long piece of paper from a slot in its side suggesting she order a variety of food stuffs, currently only available in her dreams. Each item had an appropriate picture. You think I don’t know what sausages look like, you stupid machine? Wrenching the list out, she screwed it in a ball, then flung it across the room. ‘In order to maintain adequate nutrition it is advisable to have these items in stock. Do you wish these items to be transported from the warehouse? Yes, no, or reminded me later?’

‘Oh, shut up!’

The dispenser door closed.

Probably, a slice of last night’s pizza and a lime fizz were not the best breakfast for a growing lad, but Lexie was a very happy little boy as he skipped along the dreary landing to Shiralee Abbott’s flat two floors down. The stains on the threadbare hall carpet were barely noticeable under the dim lighting; cheap pictures covered the cracks in the walls.

Skye knocked softly, not wanting to disturb the other inhabitants of this crumbling tenement who would still be asleep, then knocked again louder when there was no answer. ‘Come on, open up, Shirl,’ she muttered. ‘I’ve got to get going.’

Lexie looked up. ‘Maybe she’s asleep.’

‘Hmm, maybe. We’ll give her a minute.’ Mitch and Tommy would be awake by now though, she thought, catching cartoons on the screen. Something quivered in her gut. When thumping on the door had the same response, she began to get really worried. Her neighbour had always been reliable in the past; it was unlike her to let her down, and she would have called if something had come up in the night that caused her to leave.

‘Shiralee! It’s Skye. I’m coming in.’ Her breath blew out like smoke, stayed suspended in the chill air.

A door further down opened and a man’s head peered out. ‘Keep the noise down, will ya. People are trying to sleep round here.’ The door slammed shut again.

It gave Skye cheap satisfaction to stick out her tongue. ‘Yeah, yeah, whatever.’

They had exchanged access codes for emergencies, and Skye activated hers. ‘I’m going to see if they’re okay, she said, easing the door open a fraction. ‘You stay here for a second while I check.’

They were all there, grouped around the kitchen table: Shiralee, Tommy and Mitch. A bowl of cereal was in front of each one; the wall screen playing on mute. Shiralee had slumped slightly in her chair, her chin resting on her chest, her arms hanging loose at her sides; the boys were face down in their food.

The room was beyond freezing.

They were all very obviously dead.

Oh, my God. Oh, God. Jesus, what do I do? What do I do? Skye felt the warmth drain from her body. A faint buzzing in her head warned she was going to be sick.

She had to do something, but her legs were like lead. How could three people she knew, who were alive yesterday evening, be dead? Even as her vision blurred Lexie’s giggle spun her round. Standing just behind, he pointed a finger at the boys and hooted with laughter. ‘Lexie! Scooping him up, Skye rushed him outside. ‘Come on, they’re playing a game.’

Her voice shook and her heart banged painfully against her ribs, but she had to be strong. ‘A really stupid, silly game, but we’ve got to wait outside. You understand you have to stay out here!’ Still hugging him to her, as much for her own sanity as anything, she rested her back against the wall and waited for a second wave of nausea to pass. As far as she’d been able to see, there was no blood. No sign of forced entry. No fear on any of their faces. They’d apparently just keeled over simultaneously and died.

Panic bubbled. It was too close - much too close for comfort. Whatever killed them might still be lurking somewhere in this dilapidated house. A picture formed in her head before she could stop it: four chairs at the table, a fourth tiny victim as cold as the grave. No! she gave herself a mental shake and hugged Lexie tighter. If she went down that road she’d lose it completely. I can’t… I won’t, she swore. I won’t let myself think what would have happened if I’d still been away.

She closed her eyes, burying her head in her brother’s warm hair and willed herself to think like a snatcher. Hunter, she whimpered, if you’ve got this damn thing turned on, I need you.

‘Put me down.’ Lexie wriggled in her arms, too grown-up to tolerate sisterly hugs for long. Before she let him go, she reached out a hand and pulled the Abbott’s door shut.

‘Lex, we’re going to go back to our flat. You can watch some screen while I call someone.’