Big Ben was in the attic, his face looking back down through the hole in the ceiling. A telescopic ladder hung down to the landing below.
‘You’re not going to believe this,’ he claimed.
Amanda went up first, a gasp of surprise coming the moment she stuck her head through the hole. I raced up after her, my eyes swinging around to take it all in.
Unlike most attics across the planet, which house suitcases, old bits of furniture and things the kids have grown out of, but the grandkids might want, the Sandman’s attic was a shrine to all the women he had murdered.
The clutter was there too but pushed into the corners. There were photographs, far more than we expected and yet again, every woman bore similar hair and facial features. He was selecting them because they looked like his wife. That was the conclusion my brain wanted to draw. Each photograph was of a woman arranged the same way River Tam had been. I spotted her too. The shot was taken at a different angle from the one I’d seen before; this one getting taken by the man responsible for her death.
Big Ben tapped a box with his hand. ‘There are mementos too,’ he revealed.
A siren in the distance broke the spell before I could decide I was curious enough to explore further. We had to go and there was no time left for anything.
Charging down the stairs yet again, I shouted, ‘Basic! We are leaving!’
He appeared from the kitchen with a peanut butter sandwich in his hands. ‘I found a sandwich,’ he mumbled around the gob of bread in his mouth.
I grabbed his arm and ran for the front door, towing him along behind me.
Getting caught now was not part of the plan.
Amanda and Big Ben hit the bottom of the stairs, all four of us flying from the house, though only one had a sandwich hanging from their mouth as we ran across the driveway and back to the road.
The siren wasn’t alone. There were several of them, but they were all coming from one direction.
The keys in my pocket jangled, making a terrible racket until I crushed them against my body. The cars were just along the street parked nose to tail one behind the other with the Lotus nearest to us.
We split up again, Amanda diving into my car as Big Ben plipped his truck open for him and Basic. Engines roared and we set off, pulling away fast to get some distance between us and the approaching police.
If we could get out of the street, the police would arrive and find only a suspicious mess where we had been. We were all wearing gloves so there would be only minimal evidence to tie us to the scene and since I had been there earlier today, I could argue any trace fibres from Amanda, Big Ben, or Basic could have transferred from my clothing.
Breaking into a serial killer’s home to prove that’s what he was could be easily justified, especially on the hunt for two missing persons. Yet explaining all this to the police would eat up time that we didn’t have.
We knew for certain that Harry Hengist/Ramsey Mitchell or whatever name showed up on his passport was the Sandman, and we had led the police to his house. Quinn wouldn’t be able to ignore the case now though I felt sure he was already investigating it after our most recent chat.
I glanced in my rear-view mirror as I reached the end of the road. Behind me, the flashing lights of approaching police cars were bouncing off the buildings, but they were yet to turn into the same street we were on.
We were going to make it.
Making a fast left turn, I rounded the corner, watched Big Ben follow me and allowed myself to relax.
Until Amanda swore.
Too busy checking behind, I hadn’t paid attention to what was in front of me. As my eyes twitched across to see what had startled Amanda, I saw it too.
Fifty yards ahead, parked side on so it blocked the road, a squad car with its lights off sat waiting for us.
Unable to go forward, I hit the brakes. I could back up and go a different way but that would be running from the police and was not a policy I could endorse. It would only make matters worse.
Then Chief Inspector Quinn got out of the squad car and I realised that things were already about as bad as they could get.
Tempest. Busted. Friday December 23rd 2122hrs
We all got to watch as Quinn stepped from the car and spoke into his radio. The squad cars we were trying to evade didn’t stop at the house next to Karen Gilbert’s. They kept coming, reaching the end of the road where they formed a blockade behind us.
We weren’t trying to run. Not anymore. Like I said, it would only make matters worse.
They were not squad cars as I expected though, it was a full tactical unit – armed officers approaching us as if we were dangerous terrorists.
‘Don’t move,’ hissed Amanda, gripping my left thigh across the seats. ‘If they get twitchy, they will shoot.’
I knew she was right. Tragic incidents had made the news headlines in the past. The officers, their level of alertness and preparedness to react heightened, would shoot first if they felt their target was going to draw a weapon. Afterward, an enquiry would determine whether the officers were right to fire, but the victim would be just as dead no matter the outcome.
I checked my rear-view, reassuring myself that Big Ben wasn’t going to do anything stupid. His hands were raised, palms open to show the officers they were empty. Amanda and I did the
