This time she did have the room.
She took aim carefully… and the baton rose high.
She smashed him hard and deliberately on the back of his skull in a very controlled fashion. She did not want to lose her temper, but by the same token she secretly hoped she would kill him with the blows and fuck the consequences. It was a very satisfying feeling — once… twice… smack, crack.
Trent’s whole body quivered and collapsed. His fingertips were touching the knife-handle. Danny saw he was still breathing. She quickly pulled his arms round his back and applied a pair of cuffs, purposely ratcheting them too tight.
Then she turned to her boss. ‘Henry, Henry, you all right?’
She heard him moan. ‘Ohh, hell,’ he spoke to the carpet, ‘where did he come from?’
‘ Right behind you.’ Danny helped him sit up.
‘ Jeez,’ he gasped. He crossed his left hand over his right shoulder and reached for the shoulder-blade. ‘Feels like he hit me with a hammer.’
‘ No, just a knife. You were lucky.’
Henry nodded. It wasn’t the first time that protective body armour — on this occasion a stab-vest — had saved his life.
‘ I need a fucking ambulance, you bastards.’
Danny and Henry looked at Trent. It was only then Danny saw her blows with the baton had split his scalp in two places, rather like knife-slashes across upholstery. She leaned over him with a delicious smile. ‘You’re fucking lucky you don’t need a hearse,’ she hissed into his ear.
She checked her watch. Eleven-thirty.
Not a bad day’s work.
Most police officers believe, in principle, that prisoners should have rights. That principle usually goes crashing out the window when the officer gets personally involved in a case. Particularly child murders or abuse. Then they don’t want to give prisoners anything — except a hard time.
Danny did not want to allow Trent to go to hospital. But the law is the law and off he went, handcuffed and escorted by three no-nonsense coppers and a driver. He wouldn’t be going anywhere, other than straight back to the cells to be interviewed after he’d received treatment.
And in the meantime, Danny became very upset when Henry told her he had decided not to allow her to interview or have any further connection with Trent because of her personal involvement. He would allocate a team of four experienced jacks, working in pairs, to process, interview and charge Trent. Henry did not want any slip-ups. He wanted the prisoner to be dealt with fairly, correctly and above board. He knew Trent would be making counter-allegations of assault and the case would be difficult enough as it was.
Personal baggage would just make things more difficult.
He explained all this to Danny as she drove him back to the police station. She wasn’t a happy bunny.
‘ You’re rambling, Henry. That blow on the head’s done you,’ she said rudely.
‘ Don’t argue, Danny. I’m right, you know I am.’ He did have a hot zinger of a headache, additional to the one he had started the day with, but he was thinking clearly, planning the next twenty-four hours with Trent, or longer if need be. There would be a lot of people queuing up to see him and politics would no doubt rear its ugly head. The police investigating Trent’s prison escape and the bloodbath which accompanied it would want first call on him; they had seven murders to clear up. But Henry wanted Trent to stay in Lancashire. He had killed a police officer up here and a child. Henry would fight them all the way.
At the back door of the police station Henry and Danny bumped into a couple of detectives rushing out. ‘Is there a fire or something?’
‘ No, boss. Another body.’
‘ Any details?’ asked Danny.
‘ No, not really, but according to the uniform at the scene, it looks like the girl who’s been missing a few days.’ Danny’s heart nearly stopped. ‘Claire Lilton?’
‘ Yeah, that’s the one.’
PART TWO
Chapter Fifteen
Since the death of Steve Kruger and the Armstrong brothers, life in the offices of Kruger Investigations in Miami had been very subdued indeed. There was no chatter, laughter or any of the lightness Kruger had brought to the workplace when he was alive. A shroud had descended, seemingly impossible to lift.
Myrna Rosza spent most of her time walking around, speaking to the employees. Sitting down over a cup of coffee, listening, encouraging and attempting to get everyone back on track, to get the place humming again, people motivated.
All to no avail.
And, God, Myrna missed him dreadfully. She could empathise with the way in which every employee was feeling, except for her it was a million times worse.
Kruger’s funeral had been one of the most testing occasions of her life. Of course she was allowed a little tear and her husband accepted that. Only natural. All she wanted to do, though, was let herself go; prostrate herself over the coffin, wailing and hysterical, and make a complete fool of herself.
She didn’t. She stood with dignity and poise and denied herself the outburst she really needed.
She had not realised how much she loved him. Standing beside her husband whilst watching the coffin disappear slowly beyond the purple velvet drapes at the chapel only magnified those latent feelings. By the same token, it revealed to her how much she did not love her husband, Ben. Not that she disliked him, nor had any axe to grind with him — because he was a good husband, even if his work often took him away for long periods. She simply did not love him any more. They were more like friends, these days, and it was many weeks, maybe months, since they had last made love.
During the service Ben had reached for Myrna’s hand in a gesture of support and comfort. She pretended not to see it coming and wiped a tear away instead, avoiding contact. On the same night, Ben had tried to cuddle her. She rolled away, pulled herself into a tight ball and rocked gently to sleep.
Myrna had also attended the double funeral of the Armstrongs at their home town in Virginia. At least she had not been in love with either of them, though the crimson-vivid memory of the walk down that hallway could not be shaken from her mind as their coffins were carried past her.
How had they reconstructed the bodies?
Were they in little pieces, fitted into their coffins like a jigsaw? An arm up here, the head down there?
And now, two days after Steve Kruger’s funeral, Myrna was sitting at her desk, alone in her office, the staff having gone home. Silence was everywhere. It was Wednesday, 7 p.m.
Myrna stared with growing disbelief at the telephone on which she had, only seconds before, finished a conversation with her husband.
‘ Wha..?’ she blurted to the wall. ‘I can’t believe… Christ!’ She could not stop her head from shaking as the words tumbled over and over through her mind. ‘The asshole, the bastard,’ she uttered and slammed the desk hard with her fist. Everything rose a millimetre and fell back into place, blotter, phone, pen-stand, laptop, everything.
She rose to her feet and stalked around the room, fuming.
‘ Hello, darling, it’s Ben…’ the conversation had started. There was a crackle of static on the line and it was difficult to hear, yet immediately Myrna could tell something was not quite right. ‘How are you, honey?’
‘ Under the Circumstances, doing okay,’ she answered guardedly.
‘ Look, dear, I have some sad news for you… something to tell you…’ And with those words, Myrna knew. ‘As you know, I’m out here in LA. I…’ he hesitated.
‘ Spit it out, Ben.’
