Run rabbit run, p.2
Run Rabbit Run, page 2
“A man like me knows everything about it,” said Stillwater, bristling.
“Bullshit.”
Stillwater studied the base of the bed above, imagining himself sliding the tip of a knife through the mesh, through the insubstantial mattress into the bony prick that was lying on it.
“I was part of the biggest group of killers on the internet,” he said, the lie sliding out just as easily. “I spoke with all of them, more than Figg did. I was the one who shared our plan with them. And they shared stuff with me too, all kinds of secrets. You wouldn’t believe half the stuff I know. They looked up to me.”
“You’re full of shit, Christian.”
Stillwater used both his hands to straighten his leg, the movement doing nothing to ease the branding iron pain in his knee.
“Prove it,” said Mayhew.
Stillwater frowned, trying to remember the conversations he’d eavesdropped on when Figg was working. He could remember snippets, but nothing that hadn’t made the news.
“The Pig Man,” he said.
Above him, Mayhew turned over again.
“The Pig Man,” he echoed. “He’s been on the news every night since they caught him. My left fucking bollock knows everything there is to know about him. Tell me something new.”
He was right, the Pig Man had been nightly news fodder. The press had been cagey about what they’d shared because so many families were involved and the investigation would be ongoing for years—forever, maybe. But Stillwater had seen some of the conversations on Figg’s laptop, messages between Figg and Angus Schofield and others that had made even him feel nauseous.
“I was talking to him non-stop. I knew everything. He killed the little kid that went missing years ago, Efe Khan. You remember that?”
“So?” said Mayhew. “What else?”
Stillwater puffed his lips, considered lying down and just ignoring the man. But he had to prove himself somehow, didn’t he?
“The reason he wasn’t caught for so long, Angus Schofield, it’s because he knew so many people in government. In the police. He had spies everywhere working for him. That cop whose wife and kids were taken, you know the one in the papers? Kett. He’s the wanker who put me in here. Well, what they haven’t told you is that his old boss in London was in on it too. I knew he was going to steal his kids and give them to the Pig Man. What do you think of that, eh? I knew it before it happened.”
There was no reply.
“Eh?” Stillwater said again. “Who’s the fucking know-nothing now?”
Still nothing. Had the bastard gone to sleep? Stillwater felt that anger again, the fury at being disrespected. Who the fuck did Mayhew think he was?
“You better—”
“Take a look at this,” Mayhew said, cutting him off. “Wanna show you something.”
Stillwater eased his head out of the bunk to see Mayhew’s heavily tattooed arm sticking out like a tree branch. He was holding something in his yellow fingers, something that glinted in the light. More tinsel, maybe?
“Fuck’s that?” he said.
“Come here and have a look,” Mayhew replied. “You’ll like it.”
For fuck’s sake, Stillwater thought. He edged out a little more, angling his head to try to see what Mayhew was holding. The movement made the pain in his skull sing, the migraine billowing like a sail in the wind. The vertigo followed almost immediately and he had to bunch the sheets in his hand to stop himself from falling off the bed.
“What is it?” he said. “I’m too—”
Mayhew moved fast, his other arm appearing. Both his hands were holding the same thing, and too late Stillwater recognised it—not tinsel at all but a coil of wire that fell beneath his neck. It jerked up again almost immediately, slicing into his throat. He growled, grabbing at it, the pain in his head and knee forgotten as he understood what was happening.
“Robert Kett sends his regards,” he thought he heard the man say.
Mayhew tugged at the wire, wrapping it tight and making Stillwater’s head feel like it was going to pop. He tried to inhale and found that he couldn’t, the panic howling inside him. He gouged at his own skin but the wire had already burrowed too deep, his fingertips slick with blood. He reached up instead only to feel Mayhew’s foot on the back of his skull, driving his head down. He tried to scream but his voice was gone. He tried to move but his body was gone too, its strings severed. He couldn’t even see anymore, the world a shade of black that he had never, in his whole life, witnessed before.
There was only the anger, only the fury—one last burst of fire raging against the night.
Then that too was gone.
CHAPTER ONE
“They’re ready for you, Mr Kett.”
Robbie Kett heard the voice, but he didn’t turn around. He wasn’t sure he was brave enough. Ahead of him, through the floor-to-ceiling window of the twenty-third floor of the Met’s Hammersmith office, sat London—as bloated and beautiful as it always was, even though the overcast sky did its best to shroud it in premature darkness. Cars busied themselves down narrow streets, the people too small, really, to make out at all. Through it all churned the great, grey mass of the river, ancient and utterly oblivious to all those little lives.
It wasn’t his city anymore, but it had been for a long time. From here he could see the streets he’d beat as a young PC—him and Pete Porter both—when everything had been either good or bad and nothing in between. He saw the roads he’d raced along, the corners he’d staked out, the buildings he’d raided. He saw the bad guys he’d caught, the people he’d saved, the kids he’d found.
He saw the ones he’d lost, too.
All of them.
He’d bled in those streets, baptised them. London had taken so much from him. But no, it wasn’t his city anymore.
“Mr Kett?”
Kett’s sigh steamed up the glass. He grabbed the cuff of his jacket and smudged it away, catching a glimpse of his own face against the dour afternoon. He’d let his beard grow out in the two months since his last case, although he’d trimmed it for today. It was the same dark colour as his hair, shot through with an alarming amount of silver considering he hadn’t hit his mid-forties yet. He’d been surprised at how many copper streaks there were in it too, as bright as wire, hiding there like imposters. Standing here, he could have been staring at the ghost of his dad, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
“Mr—”
“I’m coming,” he said, finally allowing himself to turn around. The young secretary smiled at him, although there was a nervousness in her features. He understood it. It had taken a while for the full, insane truth of the Schofield case to come out, and every day since the papers had led with the Pig Man and the Schofield legacy of kidnapping and torture and death. Kett had done his best to stay as far away from it as possible, but he’d seen his face far too many times on the TV.
Robert Kett, the man who’d sunk a hammer into the back of Schofield’s head, who’d left him in a coma.
A hero to some. But not to everyone.
And not here.
“They’re ready for you,” the woman said, adjusting her glasses. She was wearing a pair of Christmas baubles as earrings, one red and one green, and they made her look almost like a TV elf from one of the shows that Evie and Moira loved to watch. “I’ll show you through, Mr Kett.”
He nodded as he followed her across the small reception area into a featureless corridor. Mr Kett, he thought. Not DCI. It didn’t exactly bode well. She stopped beside a boardroom door, opening it inwards then standing back—further back than she needed to, he thought. She swallowed, trying again to smile. He returned the gesture but his face wasn’t happy about it.
“Good luck,” she said as he walked in. It was sweet of her. He needed all the luck he could get.
Inside the room, seated at the far end of a table that could have belonged to a fairy tale giant, were three people who looked like they’d taken a wrong turn for a funeral. In the middle sat the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Larry Ling, his face mashed up from a lifetime of amateur boxing. On his left sat a woman who was the spitting image of Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins, although a good decade older. Felicity Wilson, head of the Independent Office for Police Conduct. On Ling’s other side was a man whose bland face was almost instantly forgettable and whose name had already flown Kett’s head. Whoever he was, he was busying himself with a microphone, tapping the top to see if it was on. Kett had met them all before, of course. He’d delivered his testimony to them just a week ago.
And now it was judgement time.
“Take a seat, Robbie,” said Ling, not looking up from the sheaf of papers in his meaty fists. “You want a tea? Coffee?”
Kett almost said no, then realised how dry his mouth was.
“A tea would be great, thank you, sir.”
“Sugar?” asked the young woman at the door.
“Just milk,” Kett said. “Dash and a half.”
The door closed, the pressure change in the room making his ears hurt like they were in a submarine. There were windows in here but the blinds had been drawn, everything drowning in cheap yellow light from the overheads. Despite the size of the room, it felt horribly claustrophobic.
“How are you doing?” asked Ling, finally looking up. His voice was strangely muffled, almost dreamlike.
“Good,” Kett said, hoping the lie wouldn’t show. “You know, as good as can be expected. I just want an end to it, one way or another. It’s been a long few weeks.”
“It’s a difficult case,” said Ling.
The door opened again and the secretary appeared. She placed a cup in front of Kett, the curtain of scented steam perking him up just long enough for him to notice the insipid colour of the tea.
“You don’t know Pete Porter by any chance, do you?” he asked the girl.
“Um, no,” she said. “Should I?”
“Never mind. Thanks for the cuppa.”
She retreated, her earrings jingling, and the room once again fell silent. Ling sighed, and that gesture in itself was worth more than a thousand words. Kett sat back, running a hand through his hair and waiting for the axe to fall.
“I mean it,” Ling said. “This is one of the most difficult cases I’ve had in front of me. I can’t imagine what you went through. Believe me, I’ve tried. I’ve got kids, older now, but I’ve thought about it a thousand times, about what I’d have done.”
“Larry,” said Wilson. “Let’s stay on track here. We agreed not to make this an emotional argument.”
Ling shrugged.
“I fail to see how that’s possible. But you’re right. Robbie, you caught one of the worst offenders we’ve ever seen, you cracked open a horror story that will lead to dozens of cold cases being solved, and you’ve saved god knows how many people from becoming victims. You did good, son, I don’t want you to ever forget that.”
“But…” said Kett.
“But you didn’t play by the rules. You ate the goddamned rulebook. In another case, another time, we could have addressed these violations differently.”
Here, Wilson threw Ling a dark look, but it went unnoticed.
“But this case is everywhere, and the IOPC is coming down on me with an iron fist. We can’t be seen to allow vigilante justice. We just can’t. We have to set the gold standard for procedure, over everything. I understand why you did what you did, and on a personal level I condone it.”
Another filthy look, and a tut.
“But it’s not my decision. You’re out, Robbie. I’m very sorry, but you’re out.”
Kett closed his eyes and took a breath—took what might have been his first breath in months. He’d had a grenade behind his ribs for so long, and only now did he feel like somebody had slid the pin back in. The sudden wash of relief launched fireworks against the dark, made it sound like the ocean was riding through his ears, and he had to clamp down against a rush of maniacal laughter.
I’m free.
“Robbie?”
He opened his eyes, seeing all three of them staring at him like he’d suddenly broken into song and dance. His jaw was aching and he realised he was trying to hold back a smile.
“You heard Assistant Commissioner Ling?” Wilson asked. “Your employment in the Metropolitan Police is immediately terminated. As is any relationship you have with any other constabulary.”
“I hear you,” he said. “It’s fine. It’s good.”
“Believe me, I’m sorry it came to this,” said Ling. “Rest assured there will be no criminal charges drawn against you, not from us anyway, although of course the CPS is free to do as it chooses. We’re confident that you acted in the defence of your own life, and the lives of your wife and children. Is there anything you’d like to add, on the record?”
Kett shook his head.
“Then, thank you for your time,” Ling said, rapping his knuckles on the table as he stood. “We’ll sort the paperwork.”
“You’ll need to hand in your warrant card before you go,” said Wilson, remaining in her seat. “And you’ll need to return for a full debriefing.”
“Sure,” said Kett, standing. Ling walked the length of the table and shook Kett’s hand in a boxer’s grip.
“Look after yourself,” the Assistant Commissioner said. “You know what you’re going to do now?”
“Yeah,” Kett said, seeing Billie, seeing the girls, hearing them laugh. “Yeah, I do.”
He was going to get a proper cup of tea.
Then he was going home.
CHAPTER TWO
The sound of the bridge woke him.
Kett sat up, opening eyes he didn’t even remember closing. The train was hammering over the River Wensum, the drumming soundtrack he always associated with coming home. Ahead, through the rain-streaked window, sat the Norwich City football ground, its floodlights fighting off the night. He checked his watch, seeing that it was coming up for nine. He hadn’t intended to sleep, he’d just folded himself into a seat in the crowded carriage seconds before it chunted out of Liverpool Street Station and that was the last thing he remembered. His tea still sat on the fold-down table, untouched.
It was the relief, he knew. It had knocked him out cold.
“Thought you might be dead,” said a voice from the chair in front, a strong Norfolk accent. A face appeared in the gap, a young man grinning. “I nearly called the cops to make sure you were still alive. That tea’s been tormenting me. Such a waste.”
“It’s criminal,” Kett said. The young man laughed as he disappeared. Kett pulled his phone from his pocket and saw two missed calls and a text—all from Billie.
Hope you’re okay. We miss you.
He’d let her know how it went, of course. She’d been the first and only person he’d called. Rubbing the ache from his neck, he stood up—his joints playing a percussive soundtrack of their own. Hardly anyone on the train had made the journey to Norwich, most of them climbing out in Colchester or Ipswich. All that remained were students going home for Christmas, their bags stuffed into the overhead rails. A few gave him a funny look as he stretched.
It’s okay, I’m police, he thought about saying, before remembering that he wasn’t. He felt it, for a second, the weight of that loss. It’s what he had been for so long, after all. A copper first and everything else second.
Not now, though. Now, he was a husband and a father.
Not to mention unemployed.
“Was I snoring?” he asked the young man in front, wondering why people were still watching him warily. The guy laughed as he reached up for a bag that looked bigger than him.
“I mean, snoring is one word for it,” he said. “For a while you sounded like you were trying to swallow a yak. Whole.”
The train beat its way around the final curve of track, slowing as it entered the station. Kett grabbed his bag and walked to the door, sliding the window down in anticipation. The cold air rushed in like a slap, chasing away the last of the exhaustion as they squealed and shuddered to a halt. He grabbed the handle and pushed open the antiquated door, stepping onto the platform.
“Daddy!”
He would have recognised the shearing-metal shriek anywhere and he squinted down the concourse to see Alice jumping up behind the barriers like a Springer Spaniel. Billie was next to her, holding Moira, and even from here Kett could hear Evie demanding to be lifted so that she could see her dad. He opened his mouth to smile but felt laughter instead—genuine, surprising, and so welcome.
He waved at them as he started walking, feeling each ache slowly slot itself back into place, carried there by the chill. He’d recovered from most of his injuries, superficially at least, but they’d left scars inside him, and now that the weather had changed he felt the pain of them every day.
He felt cold, too. He was always cold, ever since he’d almost drowned that night with Savage. It was like the sea had filled him up and never left.
“Hey,” he said, jogging the last few feet and fishing his ticket from his pocket. He slid it into the slot, the gate clattering open. Alice was through in a flash, wrapping her arms around him hard enough to take his breath away. He patted her head with his free hand, noticing that her hair was tied into a ponytail with a strand of tinsel. “It’s good to see you too. Careful, though, or the gate will shut.”
Alice let go, darting back through, and sure enough the gate snapped closed behind her, locking him out. Billie laughed gently. She seemed like a different woman now, as if she’d somehow grown to fill the parts of her that the Pig Man had stolen. She stood tall and strong, and when she met his eye she held it firm. Moira struggled in her arms, reaching for him, and Billie passed her over the barrier. His youngest daughter grabbed a handful of his beard, still fascinated by it, and Kett yelped.
“Easy,” he said. “It’s attached.”
“Daddy a abbit,” she said, tugging. “Abbit abbit abbit.”
“He’s a rabbit’s bum,” said Alice.
“I want to see!” yelled Evie from somewhere around Billie’s legs. Kett craned over the gate and smiled at her.
