Frozen Grave (Willis/Carter #3)(73)

She turned back out into the cold. She thought about where to get warm and thought of Mason; he would keep her warm and she could cuddle Sandy like a hot-water bottle.

Sandy listened to the sound of boots on gravel and began to pant. She looked at Mason and knew that she couldn’t go anywhere. The enemy was coming to them and they were already backed into a corner. Sandy licked Mason’s face in her anxiety. He stirred but he didn’t wake; she kept one eye on the edge of the fencing and waited, knowing that every instinct she had was to run but knowing too that she couldn’t.

Balik moved through the car park with the swagger of one who knows his prey is cornered and there’s just enough competition to make a fight interesting. He scraped a stick along the walls of the railway arches as he walked with his five deputies towards the far corner, like he usually did, where the fence met the road and where Mason and Sandy were hiding.

Martine came as far as the car park and hid behind a parked car when she heard the swagger chant of the Hannover Boys. The last time she had heard that, she’d watched a woman being killed. Now Martine hugged her knees as she hid by the wheel arch of the car and listened to the chanting as they moved across the car park, flushing out their prey. Everything inside her told her she must run. Survival was a solitary ambition. Now she must only care about herself. Martine picked up her bag and ran.

Zoe was still angry – her anger was legendary. No one – but no one – talked to her like that and got away with it. It was one of the reasons she’d been so grateful for passing the detective exams and keeping her head. She knew it was in her – the same anger that, made someone a criminal and made her a cop. But anger was frowned upon now in the modern force. Handling others with kid gloves didn’t come naturally to her and had been bad news when it came to role-playing in the cadet training school. But, luckily for her, her common sense had won the day and she had passed. Detective Inspector Dan Carter was her mentor. She had to learn from him and he watched over her. She phoned him now.

‘Sir, sorry to disturb you.’

‘That’s okay – shoot.’ Carter had just come off the phone to Harding and he was sitting in his kitchen, going through Olivia Grantham’s last text messages.

‘Something happened tonight at the hostel – Mahmet Balik turned up when I was waiting to give my mum a lift home.’

‘Did you call for back-up? You didn’t approach him on your own?’

‘It was a difficult decision, sir. He didn’t see me; I was in my car. He approached Smith. I saw Smith give him something. Then the volunteers, along with my mum, came out and I had to act, so I tried to arrest him but it turned out he wasn’t alone.’

‘Sure you okay?’

‘Yes, just too angry to go to bed right now, so I’m seeing if I can find any of Toffee’s friends. Sheila, who helps at the hostel, says that Balik has been looking for them. He threatened them all as he left.’

‘He might think one of them has the money that Toffee was carrying. What did Smith give him?’

‘Something compact, from his closed hand. Could have been money. I’m pretty sure he knows I saw it but he didn’t volunteer any information about it.’

‘We need to look into Smith a little deeper. We need to get hold of Toffee’s friends fast before Balik does, bring them in for questioning and offer them some safety to testify. Could be our chance to get a gang member off the street. Where are you now?’

‘Down by the railway arches in Shadwell. There used to be a car park here that homeless people slept in at one time.’

‘Keep me posted.’

Zoe slowed down and reached the road that ran beneath the railway arches in Shadwell. As her car turned the corner, she saw the dog’s eyes caught in her headlights and youths running away across the car park. She drove round to the other side, to see if she could get a better look – she was pretty sure that it was Balik and his gang. They had gone.

Martine ran back to the parade of shops where she knew Spike slept. She found him by the shop door. He didn’t move as she approached. She knelt beside him and shook him but he didn’t wake.

Mason turned onto his side to vomit as the burning flashes of grinding pain in his gut caused him to heave. He reached for Sandy. The blood was pouring into his eyes and he couldn’t see. He couldn’t hear her. He panicked as his hand reached into darkness and touched just the gravel of the car park and the wet of blood. He found the softness of her ear and traced his fingers to her muzzle. Her face was torn. Her eye smashed. No movement, no breath. He called her name again. He felt down her head to her neck and the injuries there, the bites that had ripped her flesh. Her shoulder had a large open wound there. His hand reached around her ribs to her heart. For a few seconds he felt nothing beneath his hand but then the faintest beat touched his palm.





Chapter 40


In the morning, Willis caught the bus up to Archway. It was dark, an hour before rush hour started. The streets had a post-sales scruffiness to them now that the Christmas decorations were down and the sales were finished. January depression had set in on the high street as hatches were battened down against the economic climate.

Willis closed her phone and stood to get off the bus as it pulled in at Archway Station. The cold smacked her in the face as she stepped down from the bus.

She entered the code at the door and took the lift up to the third floor in Fletcher House and went straight to see Carter, who was on the phone to Harding.