Deadly Secrets (Detective Erika Foster #6)(7)

‘What’s over there…?’ she started, but he jumped off, and landed on the other side with a thud and a yell. The branches above the wall swayed, dislodging the snow, and then they were still. Erika heard more yelling, and instinctively reached for her radio in her pocket, but it wasn’t there. She looked back down the alleyway, but the road with the crime scene appeared a long way off.

‘Shit, if he’s broken something…’ she muttered, thinking how much paperwork there would be to fill in. Shaking the guilty thought away, she took off her heels and shoved them into the pockets of her long coat, before hitching the coat up to climb up onto the wheelie bin. The plastic lid creased and bent downwards with her weight. She hooked her leg up onto the brick wall, and grabbed a branch of one of the evergreens to steady herself, dislodging more snow on top of her head in the process. The ground was higher on the opposite side, and Erika dropped down softly onto a bed of soil and leaves between the wall and the thick row of trees. She slipped her shoes back on and walked out of the trees into a large, snow-covered garden. A gap in the middle was churned up with two sets of footprints, and there were two large sheds, a greenhouse, and a long polythene tunnel beyond. The garden’s high walls muffled the sounds of traffic from surrounding streets.

McGorry was moving slowly towards the sheds. He turned to Erika and put a finger to his lips, pointing to the second shed in the row of two, closest to the house. She nodded. The house was large and crumbling. The sash windows were grimy, with peeling paint. A tall gate in one corner was blocked by overflowing rubbish bins. The back door to the house had a small roofed porch with steps down to the garden, which were covered in plant pots.

As Erika reached McGorry, from inside the house came a cacophony of clocks chiming the hour. The blond-haired lad appeared from behind the shed, and ran back to the wall. McGorry moved faster, tackling him to the ground. Erika hurried over to them, but lost one of her shoes in the process, and fell back into the snow.

‘Calm down!’ said McGorry as the lad fought, throwing punches and landing one in McGorry’s face.

‘Get off me!’ cried the young man. He was wiry with a thin, feral face and bright blue eyes a little too far apart. Erika got up, losing her other shoe in the snow. McGorry was churning up the snow, struggling to keep hold of the young man, who kicked and flailed, and then got the upper hand, pushed McGorry’s face into the snow. McGorry flailed and reached around, managing to get hold of the camera, and tightened the strap around the boy’s neck. The boy released his grip on the back of McGorry’s head, and grabbed at the strap tightening around his neck.

‘Get back!’ shouted a voice. ‘Let him go!’ A large, elderly woman in an orange onesie was at the top of the porch steps, holding a shotgun. Her grey hair hung past her shoulders, and she wore huge glasses that magnified her eyes. She aimed a shotgun at them, and advanced towards them through the snow.

Erika put up her hands. The elderly woman’s eyes looked crazed, and she felt this situation has suddenly escalated to red alert. McGorry coughed and spat out snow, still holding the strap tight. The young man was scrabbling frantically at his throat.

‘John. Let him go!’ shouted Erika. McGorry let go of the camera strap, and the lad fell onto the snow, coughing. ‘I’m Detective Chief Inspector Erika Foster of the London Metropolitan Police, and this is Detective Inspector John McGorry. We can show you our warrant cards, but you need to put the weapon down… Now.’

The woman looked anxiously between Erika and McGorry, but she didn’t lower the gun.

‘That is my son you are attacking, and you are trespassing on my property!’

‘We are police, and your son was trespassing and photographing a crime scene,’ said Erika. She wondered what the woman was capable of.

‘Joseph! Come away from them!’ the woman shrilled, still training the gun at them. Joseph coughed, and staggered over, his coat covered in snow.

‘Elspeth!’ shouted another voice. An elderly man emerged behind her from the back door. He looked like an eccentric university professor, and was wearing a long blue cape and a tatty skull cap dotted with sequins. He had a magnifying lens fixed to his head with a band, giving him one huge, staring eye. ‘Elspeth, put that down at once!’

‘Sir, we are police and we can show you identification,’ said Erika, her heart beginning to race. She felt stupid for blundering into this situation, and she was aware she wasn’t wearing any shoes. Her feet were numb from the cold. The man gently took the shotgun from Elspeth, and opened the barrel.

‘It’s not loaded,’ he said, hooking it over his arm in the manner of a gamekeeper. ‘And we have a firearms certificate.’

‘My boy, my boy!’ said Elspeth, who had gathered Joseph into her arms and was checking him over, running her hands over his neck and peering into his eyes. ‘Did they hurt you? Are you okay?’

Joseph looked a little bewildered and shell-shocked.

‘Why was that gun so easily to hand?’ asked Erika. McGorry leaned breathlessly on his knees and spat out snow.

‘If you join us inside officers, you can all get dry, and we can sort this out,’ said the man.





Five





Erika and McGorry stamped their feet in the porch and brushed the snow off their coats. Then they were shown through to a warm, cosy kitchen. Elspeth fussed over Joseph like he was a small child, guiding him to one of the chairs at a long wooden table. McGorry moved to stand close to a blazing fire in the corner. The room was decorated like a country farmhouse kitchen, with a Welsh dresser, and a large green Aga from which a delicious smell of turkey was filling the room.