Chapter Seventy-Four
Senator Stanhope’s Home
November 29, 5.20 p.m.
It took a whole day before the Feds and NYPD had finished with the senator’s house. Special Agent Baines and Tom Harper kept it going for as long as they could, but pressure from above forced them to withdraw. Continuing the search for Sebastian was pointless.
Harper and Baines were the last to leave. The Feds’ four black cars were parked in the gravel yard between the main house and its small annexe. Baines took one more look around the empty grounds and then pulled the front door shut.
The team of twelve agents and Harper walked across to the black sedans. There was no talking between them as they walked. They got into the cars and quietly closed the doors. Last was Baines. He shut the door with a heavy clunk and the Federal cars drove off towards the gates in a trailing cloud of fine dust.
Baines was reflecting on the fact that they had been chasing shadows, being made to look fools. He hadn’t experienced this before. It was a new feeling. It was called failure and it didn’t feel good at all.
Back in the drive by the house, the dust settled on the faint tracks left in the gravel. In the late-afternoon sun, the motes of dust took several minutes to disperse and settle, long enough for the sound of the high-powered diesel engines to have disappeared into the distance.
The house had been left alone again, left to return to normal. All was still, very still. The birds had not yet returned, there was no wind and nothing was moving.
Then, after another hour had passed, a line of small stones moved ever so slightly under one of the tyre tracks. The surface of a dust ridge started to collapse as the top layer of stones fell away. Then a larger movement in the stillness: a large rectangular area of gravel moved and shook. The straight sides of what looked like a trapdoor became visible underneath.
It shook as if it were being banged from below. Then a small crease of darkness appeared at the corner and a large wedge of shade opened up. The trapdoor suddenly creaked wide open and hit the ground.
Sebastian emerged into the evening gloom, his eyes squinting in pain. The stink from the cesspool burst into the fresh air, but Sebastian was free.
The small brick-built cesspool was just over six metres from the annexe and fed by a single six-inch pipe. It was nothing more than a semi-permeable pit where the sewage and waste from the guest house slowly degraded before gradually seeping into the surrounding soil. Senator Stanhope hadn’t wanted to pay for connections to the main sewers for a house his in-laws would use for a couple of weeks a year. So he built a cesspool. All night and day it had been Sebastian’s hideout. He pulled Rose’s ear out of his pocket and ran it between his thumb and forefinger. His sculpture could be completed.
His main issue had been how to breathe, but he fixed a tube to run from the cesspool up the side of the inlet pipe and out through the soil. It was a tube the size of his thumb. If any one of the black sedans had landed on it, Sebastian would have suffocated in shit.
That would’ve been what he deserved, no doubt. The irony pleased Sebastian. He liked irony. That such quality agents didn’t even investigate the sewage system of the scene of a gruesome murder also amused him.
He had out-thought them all. His feet, however, were a concern. A day in putrid water had left them a real mess. He couldn’t walk very well, and that would require some explaining at home. But then again, maybe he wouldn’t have to go home if he went to the one person who never asked awkward questions.
Chapter Seventy-Five
East 126th Street
November 29, 6.20 p.m.
M o had stayed away from his building all night. All through the long night. It had been one of the hardest nights of his life. He imagined that he could hear Lucy James crying and calling for him. He decided that he had to take her away. Take her from the cops and find a new home where they could be together. He didn’t return to East 126th Street until darkness had fallen again, when at last he felt safe enough to approach the corner. He stared down the street. There was no cop. Not a single person who looked like a cop. Mo gulped with unexpected excitement. Maybe the cops had gone home. He couldn’t hide his delight.
He had a chance now. A chance to take Lucy somewhere safe, but first he wanted to surprise her. Lucy had suffered too and she needed a present. Mo had got her one, too. Something nice from the store.
He was carrying two shopping bags, one from the food store and a special one from the department store. He was feeling all excited. The best thing about having your own girl at home was coming home to her. Especially if you’d been kept apart. He knew that if you could get them to feel at home and safe, then it would all be all right and they would cooperate. He entered the living room and called out, ‘Hello, Lucy!’
There was no reply, but he heard a muffled grunt. She was such an optimistic girl. Maurice put his food bag in the kitchen and then went through to the bedroom. There she was, but she didn’t look good. She was still real pretty, though. Her eyes were nice. He went across to her and sat on the bed. His big hand reached out and stroked her hair gently.
‘I got some things for you, Lucy. Nice things. Would you like to see them?’
‘Water,’ she mouthed.
Mo fetched a cup of water and held it to her lips. She drank it down in one and asked for more. He liked that she needed him. It felt like heaven that she needed him and drank from his cup. He was smiling broadly. She was lovely. The best he’d ever had.
‘No screaming, Lucy.’
‘No,’ she croaked.
She had to be obedient. It paid to be obedient. If she was good, he would be kind to her.
Maurice stroked her face. ‘How you feeling?’
‘Hungry. Dirty.’
‘I got you things.’ Maurice opened his bag and took out a sequined red top. Lucy winced as Maurice showed it to her. He then picked out a long red satin skirt. ‘I want you to look nice again. I’m sorry I couldn’t come home. I’ll run you a nice bath and get these dirty sheets all cleaned up. Would you like that?’
Lucy nodded. Maurice took out red pantyhose and red panties. ‘You’ll feel nice in these.’ Maurice stood up and went to run the bath. ‘We’re gonna do something special — just the two of us. So I want you to feel real nice.’
Lucy was waiting for whatever it was this maniac wanted to do to her. Perhaps it would come. Perhaps he would grow in confidence. Perhaps he would kill her tonight.
Chapter Seventy-Six
The Station House
November 29, 6.22 p.m.
The lights in the investigation room in Manhattan North didn’t go out all night following the killing of Senator Stanhope. The FBI needed to see everything they had on the case and that meant no sleep for Blue Team.
Harper was interviewed over and over again throughout the day, but was left out in the cold as far as the investigation was going. His part in the assault on Senator Stanhope’s home had to be covered up. He was off active duty. He shouldn’t have had a gun. Late afternoon, a tired and unwashed Tom Harper appeared around the door of Denise Levene’s downtown office. He watched her a moment with a feeling close to melancholy. Then he pushed the door further. ‘Hi there, Doctor, you got a moment?’
Denise looked up, saw Tom and smiled. ‘Hey, the elusive Mr Harper. Come in. It’s good to see you. I called you six times. What’s been happening?’
