Play Dead (D.I. Kim Stone, #4)(2)

She knocked on the door and pasted a smile on her lips. Bryant hissed into the earpiece, which was still audible in her hair.

‘Guv, what the hell…?’

She raised her finger to her lips to signal silence as she heard steps from inside heading down the hall.

The door was opened by Ashraf Nadir.

Kim kept her face neutral as though they had not been watching his every move for the last six weeks.

His face instantly creased into a frown.

‘Hello there, I wonder if you could help me? We’ve broken down over there,’ she said, nodding towards Bryant. ‘My husband thinks it’s really complicated, but I think it might just be the battery.’

He glanced over her shoulder and Kim glanced over his. The other two occupants were talking in the kitchen. A wad of notes was passed between them.

Ashraf began to shake his head.

‘No… I’m sorry…’ The voice was thick with accent. Ashraf Nadir had arrived from Iraq only six months earlier.

‘Do you have any jump leads we could try?’

Again he shook his head. He stepped back, and Kim saw the front door moving towards her.

‘Sir, are you sure…?’

The door continued to close.

‘Got it, boss,’ Stacey screamed into her ear.

Kim thrust her right foot into the opening and launched her weight against the door. She felt a rush of air as Bryant materialised.

‘Ashraf Nadir, this is the police, and we have a warrant to search…’

The front door slackened to her touch. She pushed it open and saw Ashraf charging through the house, knocking over the other two occupants like bowling pins.

She tore after him, following out the back door.

The rear garden was dense with overgrown shrubs. An old sofa protruded from the vegetation against a broken-down fence to her right. Ashraf tore forwards, heading through the garden. Kim hurtled after him pushing aside the tall grass trying to entangle her ankles.

Ashraf paused for a split second and frantically looked around.

His eyes rested on a garden shed partly obscured by a wild ivy plant.

He leapt onto a bucket and scrabbled with his feet for traction against the brick. Kim lunged forwards from the ground and missed his foot by a couple of inches.

‘Damn it,’ she growled, tracing his route, step for step.

As she hauled herself onto the top of the shed Ashraf was easing himself down the other side.

Kim sensed she had lost ground and he sensed it too. A smile began to form on his thin lips as his face disappeared from view.

His look of triumph lit a fuse that led all the way to her determination.

She took a second to assess the garden into which he’d jumped and saw what he had not.

The property was open and tidy with a manicured lawn and a paved patio area. The right-hand side was adjoined to the next property.

The left was secured with a fence that rose seven feet high topped off by cat spikes. But in front of the fence stood two things that were far more interesting.

Kim sat on the shed and dangled her feet over the edge. And waited.

Two German shepherds rounded the building and Ashraf stopped dead.

Kim heard Bryant’s voice in her earpiece.

‘Guv… where are you?’

‘Take a look out back,’ she responded into the microphone.

‘Umm… guv, you’re sitting on the shed.’

Bryant’s powers of observation never ceased to amaze her.

Knowing that her number-one suspect was not going anywhere, her thoughts turned immediately to the reason for the Sunday-morning raid.

‘Have you got him?’ she asked.

‘Affirmative,’ he answered.

Kim rested her hands either side of her thighs and watched as the tan and black dogs advanced towards Ashraf, reclaiming their territory.

He began to back away from the animals, his body desperate to flee, his mind searching for other possible escape routes.

‘Need any help there, guv?’ Bryant crackled in her ear.

‘Nah, I’ll be back in a minute.’

Ashraf took another two steps backwards and turned her way.

She gave him a little wave.

The German shepherds matched his two strides.

Although moving slowly their intention showed in the focus of their eyes and the tension in their necks.

Ashraf took one more look at the dogs and decided he’d be better taking his chances with Kim.

He turned and bolted towards her. His sudden movement unleashed the pent-up aggression in the dogs, who charged after him, barking. Kim lowered her right hand and pulled him to safety.

The dogs leapt and barked, missing his heels by an inch.

The man she had grabbed bore no resemblance to the man who had opened the front door.

She could feel the trembling of his whole body through the conduit of his thin wrist.

His forehead was mottled with beads of sweat. His breathing was hard and laboured.

Kim reached into her back pocket with her left hand, securing his right wrist before he had the opportunity to gather his nerve. She wasn’t chasing him again.

‘Ashraf Nadir, I am arresting you on suspicion of the kidnap and false imprisonment of Negib Hussain. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’