A Clattering of Jackdaws (The Birdwatcher Series Book 2) Page 15

  His ribs ached as he got to his knees to get up and Carson knew at once that a few of them were broken. It was causing him difficulty breathing and fresh tears came to his eyes at the pain. None of this served as a discouragement, however. If anything it gave rise to further anger within him and he didn’t just want to hurt those girls any more but kill them!

  He got to his feet and practically fell forward onto the wall as he put his head into the shaft and looked up. He just caught the glimpse of one of their legs as they pulled themselves outside into the open air. If Spalding was gone, as he assumed the girls knew he was, they could be clear of here before he knew it. Time was against him and he had to forget all about how his body was feeling and just focus on getting those girls back for what they'd done to him.

  Ignoring the pain was much harder than he imagined and his body cried out with every movement up that narrow shaft. He was very glad of the ease of the technical part of the climb but every movement of his body hurt him somewhere; there was simply no avoiding the pain. The girls, the girls, the girls, he said over and over in his head, they had to pay for this. This is what he used to drive him on. As he got closer to the top though he too began to feel the fresh air and he could see the sunlight and a new idea came to mind. Now he too was tasting freedom and it tasted good.

  The notion of getting away from here, finding somewhere safe started to push away the anger he felt at the girls and now all he wanted was to be back on the road to Canada. If he could get back to civilization he was sure Buddy would be able to set something up for him again and this time he wasn’t going to let anything get in his way or distract him.

  It took a few minutes more but then Carson squeezed himself out through the hole and got to his feet, breathing hard and holding his ribs where the pain was worst. Movement caught his eye and he looked to the tall grass and saw Megan and Ellie halfway to a copse of trees. He would probably never catch them with the state he was in right now but that didn’t matter anymore, now he had to take care of himself.

  He turned to look around and then with horror realised he was not alone. The hulking frame of Dwight Spalding stood next to him, leaning with his back against the wall and watching the girls escape.

  “I tried to stop them,” Carson said, the urge to urinate coming sharp and fast.

  “I know,” Dwight said without looking at him.

  “Aren’t you going to go after them?” Carson asked when a few more moments had passed and Spalding still hadn’t moved.

  “There’s no need for that,” he replied smiling. "Those girls put in a lot of work to escape and I don’t think it would be fair to snatch that away from them.”

  “You’re letting them go?” Carson asked, he was incredulous and didn’t understand this at all. “What about me?” Carson asked, a glimmer of hope that he too would be let leave.

  “You’ll be free tonight when we go and meet Tyler,” Spalding said. He was still looking after the girls and he had a strange expression on his face, it reminded Carson of a proud father but that didn’t make any sense. As he looked at the giant man, Spalding took out a small device and pressed a button on it.

  “We better get going,” he said to Carson, “It won’t be long before the police are here now.”

  “What are you going to do about the others down there?” Carson asked. Spalding held up the little gadget in his hand and shook it saying,

  “That’s already been taken care of.” He walked back towards the front of the house and Carson looked once more out to the girls but they were gone; out of sight in the trees. It was then that he heard the first muffled screams of those down below the house and the hissing noise from the pipes that told him how the poisonous gas was being delivered down there. He felt sick and threw up but there was nothing he could do about it but follow along with Spalding’s instructions. He just had to hope he would be free when they met Tyler like he’d said. There was no way to predict any of this and he would just have to use his wits and wait for an opportunity to either escape or to kill this lunatic who held him captive.

  Chapter 39

  SARAH BRIGHTWATER WAS at her desk and her mood was foul. She poured over the forensic report of the latest ‘Agrarian’ crime scene and muttered curses under her breath at the lack of anything usable. Malick was across from her at his own desk and he too was looking over the case files. He looked up every now and then to Sarah as she dropped obscenities on her desk.

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Malick said finally and Sarah looked at him. “It’s not like we just missed him by a few minutes. That guy was dead for hours and hours before we arrived.”

  “It may as well have been only minutes.” Sarah shot back, “The fact is we could have got him on this one and we didn’t.”

  “I think you’re looking through rose tinted glasses Sarah and that’s what’s riling you so much.”

  “What ‘riles’ me up is that he is still out there and he’s free to kill again. We were so close and now I think we might have lost him for good,” Sarah said. The feeling of helplessness just like she felt about her mother’s death rose up in her and she saw the sympathetic look in Malick’s eyes which made it even worse.

  “It’s not over until it’s over,” he said in a vain effort to cheer her up.

  At that moment the mail boy came in and as was customary, they stopped talking while he was in the room. He dropped a few letters at both of their desks and each thanked him before the boy left. Sarah glanced disinterestedly at her pile, there was nothing of importance there at first glance. As she looked up to Malick, though, she saw his eyes widen as he read one of the letters; she knew at once what his face was telling her- whatever was in that letter it was a break in one of their cases. How she wished she could have gotten a letter like it just now.

  “What is it?” she asked eagerly, Malick looked at her, a wide smile broadening on his face.

  “You’re going to love this,” he said.

  “Just tell me!” Sarah cried out, the same smile started to twinkle on her own face.

  “It’s anonymous, but it says Carson Lemond and ‘The Agrarian’ will both be at the old Saffron Clothing Warehouse on the docks in Baltimore tonight!” Sarah glanced at her watch and leaped up,

  “It will be night by the time we get there!!” she said and Malick jumped to his feet too as they set off.

  “I’ll call ahead and have the local PD in place,” Malick said as they ran along the corridors of the Academy towards the carpool. Sarah was glad to be rushing to the scene but she was worried about the Carson Lemond element to the story. Was there a possibility she could get in trouble with this? Could her secrets come out? If so, wouldn’t it be best if only she and Malick were there?

  “No,” she said and he looked to her. “It’s an anonymous letter, we don’t know if there’s anything to it at all, and to be honest,” now she looked in this eyes searching for that old trust between them, "with all that’s happened lately, I need a win, just for us.” A look of understanding came over his face and Sarah was delighted and relieved to see it.

  “Sure,” he said, “I could do with one myself.”

  They raced on to the car and Sarah took the driver’s side,

  “I’m driving,” she asserted, “You start looking up maps of the area and anything else you can find out about that warehouse.” Malick nodded and jumped in, firing up his laptop as soon as he was in his seat. This was a formula that had served them well in the past and it felt good to be doing it again.

  They hit the highway soon after leaving and the dark was rolling across the sky in the east. Sarah glanced at Malick and was glad to see some of his old vigour back. Still, she was worried about him. This could be a dangerous situation they were heading into. If Spalding was here it could be especially dangerous. For a moment the idea of calling in backup flashed through her mind but she shook her head. If anyone with authority over her got wind of this she would be taken off the case at once. They were going to have to go
it alone.

  “Are you sure you're going to be okay doing this with just the two of us?” she asked. Malick looked back to her.

  “I understand your concerns,” he said, “But to be honest I haven’t been this fired up in a long, long time, not since I've been back. You can count on me.”

  “That’s all I need to hear,” Sarah answered him smiling at the road ahead.

  Baltimore loomed in the far distance and night grew ever encroaching on the world around the car.

  “Anything interesting about the warehouse?” Sarah asked.

  “Not really. It went out of business about ten years ago. The whole waterfront is abandoned warehouses and storage units. It was all bought by a company called ‘Silverstone’ five years ago and they have been lobbying for rezoning rights since to turn it all into a waterfront mall and dining area.”

  “Any notable names associated with the company?” Sarah asked, thinking of mob connections.

  “Not to me,” Malick answered reading through another page on his screen.

  “What about the physical premises?”

  “Nothing spectacular. A rectangle box of a building backing out onto the water for delivery and shipping. Small alleys running between it and the buildings on either side, nothing you'd fit a car down by the looks of it.” Sarah glanced quickly at the satellite map open on Malick’s screen.

  “That’ll be hard to manage with just the two of us,” Sarah said. "Four sides of a building where it’s possible to escape.” Malick nodded,

  “I was thinking that,” he replied. “But look, the building is narrow, I think if you stay outside the front and patrol back and forth you could do a good job of covering three of those escape points and I can see the back once I’m in there.”

  “That sounds like a fine plan except you got everything backwards,” she grinned at him, “I'm going to be going in and you’re going to be keeping an eye on the front and sides. You have the longest legs and can do that more efficiently.” Malick smiled back to her,

  “You ever heard the expression ‘like a dog with a bone’?” he asked.

  “You calling me a bitch?” she said, raising an eyebrow and they both laughed. It was good to be like this, she thought. It was like having the old team back together again. This could be the night that changed everything in her life. It was good to have a friend to back her up and not some assigned partner who was only out to collect a pay check.

  “You went there, not me,” Malick laughed. They would be in Baltimore in less than thirty minutes.

  Chapter 40

  WHILE SARAH ZIPPED her way to Baltimore, Tyler Ford was already there and entering the fenced off land around the warehouse. It was quiet and dark and Tyler had the feeling of both being a burglar and also of someone watching him as he approached the building’s front door. This last part came as no surprise to him, though. There was no way Dwight Spalding, having chosen the ground for the meeting was going to let anyone get the drop on him. He was going to know and see Tyler’s every move and would show himself when it suited him to do so. Tyler had run over many scenarios in his head that day and this was the end expectation he'd come up with.

  What he hadn't been able to figure out, however, was what Spalding wanted of him. What information was he looking for and more importantly perhaps, why did he want it? What was it that only Tyler would be able to tell him?

  The building lay in silence, a long deep set silence, and yet it was somehow humming with electricity, or pent up action waiting to happen. The building had life to give and had been denied it for so long. Tyler did not feel alone in this place. Nor did he feel safe. He didn’t like having no trump card to play in this thing. But then, he’d always relied on his wits and instincts in the pat and there was no need for that to stop now.

  There was a metal sliding door closed at the front of the building where forklifts would have come and gone in better days, and a pedestrian doorway that was slightly ajar. Tyler walked quietly to this door and looked inside. No light came from within. He pushed against the door with his foot, keeping his body out of the frame just in case and it gave easily, those hinges had been oiled recently, he thought.

  “I’m here!” he called out into the cavernous warehouse as he walked in. Ambient light from the streetlights came in through some of the high up windows and as his eyes adjusted he began to be able to make out the shapes in the room better. Lots of old crates and abandoned machinery about the place.

  “You came,” a joyous sounding voice boomed around the place. Tyler knew at once however that it was a piped in voice. Was Spalding here at all?

  “You doubted it?” Tyler asked, still looking around the room.

  “Not at all,” Spalding said, “But I’m still glad you did.”

  “Where’s Carson?” Tyler asked, hoping against hope that he was not about to be presented with a dead body. A light draft came from somewhere up above, one of the broken windows perhaps?

  “Up sitting on his perch like a good little birdy,” Spalding’s voice came, though this time it sounded a little different. Was he here in the flesh after all? Tyler looked up and high above, in the very corner farthest from him he made out the still prone form of Carson Lemond draped over a pipe.

  “He doesn’t look in great shape,” Tyler said, thinking the wannabe mobster was already dead.

  “He’ll come round in a few minutes,” Spalding said, “That will be entertainment in itself!” he laughed coarsely and Tyler saw what he meant. Carson was going to wake up from some drugged stupor on a thin pipe about fifty feet in the air. Was there any chance he wouldn't fall off as he woke up?

  “If he falls from there our deal is off,” Tyler called out.

  “That’s not very interesting is it,” Spalding said and now Tyler was definitely sure the famous killer was somewhere in the building. “I think you should tell me what I want to know and then you’ll have plenty of time to get up there and save him before he falls.”

  “I’m not climbing all the way up there,” Tyler said, hoping to play Spalding’s bluff.

  “Well, I guess it’s all the same to both of us if he falls and dies. I get some gratification and you get a news story, but what about Sarah, it won’t look good for her will it?”

  “How is it bad for her?” Tyler asked. He wasn’t going to betray anything that easily.

  “You hold up quite well under pressure,” Spalding said and now he appeared, a huge looming shadow right up in the rafters, still draped in shadows but unmistakably there. “But that doesn’t surprise me.” What did he mean by that?

  “What is it you want to know?” Tyler asked while trying to find Spalding’s eyes up there in the dark.

  “Just a number.”

  “A number?”

  “That’s it, one little number.” Spalding purred.

  “What number?”

  “Let me phrase it like this,” Spalding said playfully, “How many?”

  “How many what?” Tyler asked, what game was this?

  “How many,” Spalding repeated, “You tell me that and Carson is free to go.” Tyler’s mind raced, what was he looking for? There was one number that came to mind, but not even Spalding could know about that, so what was he asking for?

  “I don’t know what you want,” he said. Spalding leaned forward so his face came out of the shadows high above. Their eyes met for the first time and there was no mistaking the mirthful madness in those of Spalding.

  “The FBI are on their way as we speak,” Spalding said, “We don’t have time for playing around. How many?”

  “The FBI don’t know we’re here,” Tyler said, a knot of worry that he had lured Sarah here too coming to mind.

  “How many?” Spalding asked again and Tyler looked to Carson, seeing the first signs he was waking up.

  “You have to give me more,” Tyler said, “I don’t know what you want!” Spalding looked ahead out through a gap in the wall high above Tyler and then looked back down to the journalist.
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  “They’re here,” Spalding said, “Last chance, How many?” They met eyes once more and Spalding was no longer playful. It was serious now and Tyler felt the failure to save Carson Lemond twist in his gut. He shook his head to Spading, he didn’t have an answer for him. Spalding shrugged and suddenly there was a knife in his hand, the light gleaming on the spotless blade. Before Tyler could say a thing Spalding turned and threw the knife with an expert arm. It entered Carson’s neck and it must have hit the jackpot of the jugular dead on. Blood flowed in torrents from Carson and his waking body shuddered and started to keel until it became overbalanced and he fell from the high pipe to the dusty concrete floor below. The thud was sickening and all the time he was flying a night blue of blood sprayed all over the air.

  Tyler looked back to Spalding.

  “I kept my end of the bargain,” Spalding said and then he ran with a speed unexpected in such a large man and dived out through a loading platform and disappeared into the night sky. Tyler heard a loud splash in the water outside moments later and then heard the car doors closing outside. Spalding hadn’t been lying, the FBI were here and he was in a closed off warehouse with the body of a murdered wanted fugitive. He had to get out of here. And fast.

  Chapter 41

  “I DON’T LIKE THIS,” Malick said when Sarah and he pulled up outside the warehouse. “I’m calling this in.”

  “No!” Sarah said but when she looked into his eyes she saw his resolve.

  “It’s too dangerous, Sarah. If we don’t call for backup, I’m not letting you go in there at all,” he said.

  “Fine,” Sarah snapped, she couldn’t believe he was doing this right now, “But I’m going in now so you better call it in quick and then get out to support me.” True to her word Sarah jumped from the car leaving Malick grabbing for the radio.