No Middle Ground Read online

  ‘Yes, but only because we told them about it. How long had it been there before that?’

  ‘It’s the result that counts. I’ll give them a ring. Don’t want you getting their backs up.’

  ‘Just because Dave’s not here…’

  ‘Doesn’t mean you can take over from him,’ Pete finished.

  ‘Do you want me to look up anyone else on here?’ asked Ben.

  Pete shook his head. ‘Haven’t got any more specific details. But you could pass what you’ve found onto the NCA. Give them something to do.’

  It was the job of the London-based National Crime Agency to deal with multi-jurisdictional and large-scale crimes.

  ‘What, again?’ Dick asked. ‘Give them much more and they won’t be able to get their heads through the Scotland Yard doors, they’ll be so big, all on the back of our actual work.’

  They had referred a huge child-sex case to them the previous year which had come to light during the investigation that led them to Malcolm Burton. There was no doubt in Pete’s mind this would be related if not actually part of that.

  ‘As I said a minute ago, its results that count,’ Pete reminded him. ‘Plus, we haven’t got time to be buggering about with a job like that.’ He picked up the phone and checked his notebook before dialling.

  ‘Avon and Somerset police. How can I help?’

  ‘This is DS Pete Gayle of Devon and Cornwall, Heavitree Road station in Exeter. We’ve got a favour to ask and to offer.’

  ‘Sounds complicated.’

  ‘We’ve come across a member of an on-line paedophile ring living on your patch. A little place near Taunton.’ He gave the details. ‘We need him picked up ASAP, but there’s a potential problem. In fact, you might say two problems. A man called Steven Southam might be there and should, at all times, be considered armed and dangerous. A black-belt in Karate and a vicious bugger with it. He won’t come quietly, and we believe he has a hostage – a young boy from here in Exeter who may already be injured. The National Crime Agency is going to have an interest in the main subject and we’ve got one in Southam and his hostage. Apart from anything else, we want him on a murder charge. And obviously the boy’s parents want him back as unharmed as possible.’

  He wasn’t going to mention that he was one of those parents. It would only lead to complications that he didn’t need.

  ‘OK, we’ll co-ordinate through the Taunton station. Thanks for the tip. We’ll let you know the outcome.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He put the phone down and picked it straight back up again. This time he didn’t need to look up the number.

  ‘Silverstone.’

  ‘Sir, we’ve got something we need to refer to the NCA. Information received and confirmed on a national, if not international case.’

  *

  Pete was searching through rape cases on the Police National Database with a similar MO to Hanson’s when his phone rang. An external call. He picked it up. ‘DS Gayle. How can I help?’

  ‘It’s Colin. No sign of him at Kenton.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Thanks, guv.’ He put the phone down and saw Jane frowning at him. ‘The guvnor. Southam’s not there.’

  ‘Damn,’ said Dick. Then he paused. ‘Hang on. We’ve got his brother. Can he be persuaded to give up any likely locations, do you think?’

  Jane laughed. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? He’d sit there as smug as a cat with cream all over its chops if he thought his brother had got one up on us.’

  ‘I know, but it depends how we put the question, doesn’t it?’

  ‘How would you do it, then, Obi-wan?’ Jill asked.

  ‘By not telling him what his brother’s up to, for a start. Tell him we’ve already got him. We’re after places they might have stayed or visited down here, other than the barn.’

  ‘He still wouldn’t bite,’ Jane said. ‘He won’t answer questions of any kind unless it’s to gloat.’

  ‘So, we need to make him look clever?’ Jill checked.

  Pete nodded. ‘And interviewing suspects, lesson one: don’t ask questions you don’t already know the answers to.’

  ‘Or maybe some of the answers,’ Dick suggested. ‘Enough to let him know you’re onto him but you don’t quite know everything yet.’

  ‘He’d still gloat. Why not? He doesn’t give a shit about prison time. He’s broken out before, he’ll figure he can again. And he’ll rule the roost in there until he does.’

  ‘Not worth a crack, then,’ Dick said.

  Pete gave a quick grimace as he shook his head. ‘We’ve got nothing over him.’

  ‘What about his brother? Has he got a weak point?’

  ‘His only weakness is for little girls,’ Ben put in, glancing up from his screen.

  Pete held up a hand to quieten the team. ‘There is one weakness we might be able to exploit.’ He got up from his chair. ‘Jane, with me.’

  ‘What, he likes red-heads?’ she asked as she switched off her computer screen and stood up.

  ‘No, but you’re a sight more subtle than Dick.’

  ‘I resent that remark,’ Dick protested.

  ‘You’re welcome to. As long as you’re useful while you’re at it.’

  *

  Adrian Southam had been transferred from the station to Exeter prison. Pete drove there, making a call on the way so they knew he was coming and who he wanted to speak to.

  When the gate guard opened the entrance door, he blinked. ‘You again? Twice in one morning. Must be a record.’ He nodded to Jane. ‘DC Bennett.’

  As always, they were escorted across the cobbled yard to the main building, where they signed in and were led through to the interview rooms.

  ‘He’s in number two,’ the guard told them and opened the door when they reached it.

  Adrian Southam was seated at the central table, hands manacled to the ring built into it. He grinned as the door clanged shut behind them. ‘Morning,’ he said. ‘This is a pleasant surprise. I do like a pretty lady.’

  Pete sensed Jane stiffening beside him but she held her tongue as they sat down across from the big man. ‘What the hell possessed you two, to kill a judge?’ he asked.

  Southam shrugged as if it was nothing out of the ordinary. ‘If we couldn’t get to Malcolm Burton, the judge would be the next best option, wouldn’t he? Theoretically. Anyway, what are you here for, apart from to tease me with what I can’t have? Yet.’

  Pete’s eyebrows rose. ‘You wouldn’t be threatening a police officer there, would you, Adrian? There’s a law against that, you know. Not that you’d care. We’re here about the one thing you do care about other than sex,’ Pete told him. ‘Your brother.’

  ‘Yeah? What’s he been up to, then? Still got your boy, has he?’

  ‘What he’s been up to is getting the armed response team on his arse,’ Pete said, ignoring the second question. ‘So, unless my team and I get hold of him first, he’s liable to get shot.’

  ‘And you want me to tell you where he is.’ He raised his hands as far as the cuffs would allow. ‘How am I supposed to do that from here?’

  ‘You know where he’s likely to be. Where you’ve been before around here. Where he might hole up while he waits for what isn’t going to happen – your release.’

  Southam winked. ‘Not officially, it won’t. But I’ve got to go to court tomorrow and all sorts of shit happens on the roads these days.’

  Pete laughed. ‘Don’t hold your breath, matey. You’ll have a full royal escort there and back. No way he’ll even get close.’

  The blond stubble of Southam’s crew cut glittered under the fluorescent light as he tipped his head in a shrug. ‘C’est la vie.’

  Pete waited.

  Southam waited.

  ‘So, do you want to save your brother’s life or not?’ Jane asked.

  ‘She speaks, too,’ he said to Pete. ‘You’ve got a live one there, haven’t you?’

  ‘You can’t even imagine,’ Pete
said.

  ‘Oh, I can. Trust me,’ he leered.

  Pete stayed focussed, fully aware of the revulsion that Jane would be feeling, if not displaying. ‘Maybe, but that doesn’t save your brother’s life. Which is more important, eh?’

  ‘One thing I’ll say about that: if he dies, he’ll make damn sure to take your boy out first. And you’d better be looking over your shoulder every minute of every day until I do, too. Whether I’m inside or not.’

  Pete knew he wasn’t bluffing: he would put a contract out on anyone he thought deserved it. But he couldn’t allow the man to see his fear. ‘That’s two things. And there’s no use threatening me or Tommy. I’m not in command of that firearms squad and they won’t listen to a DS trying to call them off. They get out there, they’re like a dog with a bone. There’s no letting go until the target’s down. Us, on the other hand – we’d at least try to bring him in alive and healthy.’ He shrugged. ‘Up to you, mate.’

  Southam’s eyes narrowed as he tried to weigh Pete up and determine if he was telling the truth.

  Eventually he seemed to reach a decision.

  ‘You’d best make your peace with the idea of losing a son, then. But there’s two places we’ve stayed down here. One’s Kingskerswell, near Newton Abbot. The other’s Ottery St Mary. Out of the way, small hotels, just big enough to stay off the radar, not be noticed.’

  ‘I’ll need details,’ Pete told him. ‘What do the likes of you two get up to in places like that? I’d have thought you’d get bored out of your brains.’

  ‘You don’t know anything about us.’

  ‘You don’t seem like the rural rambling types.’

  ‘Well, that just goes to show, dunnit? We don’t spend all our time in pubs and clubs, you know.’

  Move on, Pete thought. Maybe the trip up to Taunton was just a decoy, then. He held his hands up. ‘Far be it from me to judge a book by its cover. There’s nowhere else you know of he might run to, but stay close to Exeter?’

  A sharp frown crossed Southam’s brow then he shrugged. ‘The place ain’t big enough to get lost in the crowds, is it? Torquay might be, I suppose, but he’s not the bucket and spade type.’ He grinned. ‘Mind you… He is partial to some of those who are. So, no. There’s nowhere else I know of that he’d stay. Unless he’s got a car big enough to kip in, off the road, somewhere quiet.’

  Which was a possibility Pete hadn’t wanted to think about. Especially as they still didn’t know what vehicle he was in.

  ‘Nothing up around Taunton area?’ he pressed. ‘Ashbrittle, for example?’

  Southam’s eyes narrowed again. ‘What about it?’

  ‘We heard about a friend of yours lives up there. Our Avon and Somerset colleagues are on the way to pick him up as we speak. Probably there by now, I should think.’

  The stocky man grunted. A tiny trace of a snarl pulled at his lip before he masked it. ‘What friend?’

  ‘TiviTim who isn’t a Tim at all.’

  Beside Pete, Jane reached into her pocket, took out her phone and checked the screen. ‘Excuse me, boss.’ She held up the phone and turned away to knock on the door to be let out.

  ‘Steve wouldn’t go there.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The bloke’s a bullshit artist. Likes to confuse folk. Like, you’d assume Tivi would mean Tiverton, but it doesn’t. He comes from up near Minehead. And Tim - well, you already know that’s not his real name.’

  Pete tipped his head. ‘We do.’

  The door opened behind him.

  ‘Boss?’

  He turned. She looked hesitant. ‘Jane?’

  She held the phone up. Beckoned him out with a tilt of her head.

  Pete turned back to Adrian Southam. ‘Don’t go away. I’ll be back in a tick.’

  Southam gave him a sarcastic smile as he stood up and stepped out to the corridor, waiting for the guard to close the door behind him before asking Jane, ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s Tommy. Ben’s got an email alert thing set up to search for anything new coming up on him. Had it since last year. He opened it and found a video clip. We need to find him. Fast.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  ‘Ben,’ Pete said into the car’s Bluetooth system as soon as it connected to his mobile. ‘What have you got?’

  ‘A video clip, boss. Streamed live, but not long enough to trace its source. I got an alert on it a few seconds after it went up. It had already finished by the time I knew about it.’

  ‘What was it, Ben?’ Pete demanded impatiently.

  ‘Tommy. Trussed up and suspended by his ankles from a branch over a river. Couldn’t tell where; there wasn’t enough background and what there was, was full of trees. His hair was just touching the water and whoever was behind the camera was saying, “The tide’s coming in.”’

  ‘Sounds like he’s been watching too many American movies,’ Dick said in the background as Pete almost slammed the brakes on as his stomach writhed, fear clutching at his soul. ‘You remember the old B-movies they used to play after the main feature in the flicks when you were a kid, boss?’

  Pete didn’t have time for reminiscences, especially irrelevant ones. ‘Where do we know, relatively local, that’s wooded on the side of the water?’

  ‘Powderham?’ Ben suggested.

  ‘There’s some woods further down from there, too, near Kenton,’ Jane said.

  ‘Some on the Otter near Kersbrook,’ Dick added in the background.

  ‘That’s about it that’s tidal, I think,’ Jane said.

  ‘There’s some on the Teign as well,’ Ben said. ‘Down from Newton Abbot, near Netherton.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Jane asked.

  ‘I didn’t. I’m on Google Maps. I’ve saved the video clip in case we need it.’

  ‘Shit, that’s four locations and we haven’t got time to be wrong,’ Pete said.

  ‘I’ll get the Newton Abbot boys out to Netherton,’ Dick said. ‘That leaves three.’

  ‘Where’s Colin?’ Pete asked, unaware of his unusual use of the DI’s first name in a professional situation.

  ‘Just got back here five minutes ago, boss,’ Ben said.

  ‘In that case, Jane and I are closest to Powderham and Kenton. We’ll go to Kenton. Dick, get yourself out to Kersbrook if you know the area and Ben, go to Powderham.’

  ‘What if the big boss asks what’s going on?’

  ‘I’ll talk to Colin in a minute.’

  ‘Right, we’re moving.’ Ben cut the call as Pete hit the roundabout at the top end of the New North Road and swung around it to head the other way, back past the university towards the edge of the city. As he passed a modern brick building that looked like a block of flats, he tapped Colin’s number into the car’s comms system.

  ‘DI Underhill.’

  ‘Colin, its Pete. There wasn’t time for protocol. The team are off out to try to find Tommy. Ben got a lead and it’s an urgent one. If we don’t’ get to him in time, he’ll drown.’

  ‘OK, I’ll square it with the chief and let Mark know. Do you need any help?’

  ‘Air ops might be useful, but we’ve got four possible locations.’

  ‘I’ll get them up if they aren’t already.’

  Although it was based at Exeter airport, the police helicopter covered the whole of Devon and Cornwall. It couldn’t be in two places at once.

  ‘Thanks. You could get the Ottery station to check out the woods overlooking the river near Kersbrook. Dick’s on the way but they’re closer. The Newton Abbot boys should already be heading out to the second site and we’ve got the other two at Powderham and Kenton covered unless the helo can get there quicker. They’ll want the infra-red to spot him.’

  ‘Right. You’re talking riverside woods – what about Dukes Meadow?’

  ‘Shit.’ Pete slumped in his seat. ‘Hadn’t thought of that.’

  Like his team, Pete had been thinking further out, more secure from Southam’s point of view. But the irony of setti
ng Tommy up in the city, right under their noses, sure they wouldn’t suspect it, would definitely appeal to his warped mind.

  ‘I’ll send someone.’ The ring tone signified that Colin had put his phone down.

  Pete hit the Topsham Road with the blues and twos flashing and screaming. Traffic parted, opening the way despite the narrow road. He climbed the hill, slamming up through the gears as the road levelled and straightened ahead of him, roaring out towards the golf club roundabout where he turned right towards the old stone bridge across the broad expanse of the Exe and its accompanying canals and marshes.

  He turned south, heading towards Exminter, and was passing the filling station when his phone rang. He glanced at the screen as he slowed the car, braking for the turn into the small industrial estate on the left. Colin. He hit the green button on the screen and swung the wheel across.

  ‘Guv?’

  ‘You should see the chopper coming over your head any minute.’

  Pete breathed out for the first time in several seconds. ‘Thank you.’

  Again, Colin rang off without further comment.

  Pete kept the blue lights flashing as he accelerated down the little lane that passed the industrial estate and cut out across the marshes towards the riverside road that would take him down past the Powderham castle grounds towards Kenton and Starcross. There was no traffic here, the road rarely used except by the occasional farmer or someone cutting across towards the yacht club. Grass grew up the middle in places, sparse hedges protecting it from cross-winds and rare passing places allowing two-way traffic. At least you would see any on-coming traffic in plenty of time, despite the bends in the road, across the flat, open land.

  They hadn’t made the riverside road yet when Jane pointed up and ahead. ‘There.’

  The still distant blue and yellow chopper was cutting across the river, angling to the south of them towards Kenton.

  ‘Get on the radio,’ Pete said. ‘We don’t need to intervene but at least we can hear what’s going on.’

  Jane reached for the car’s communications system and switched it to the police radio, setting the volume so they could hear comfortably.

  ‘Target area in sight. Switching to infra-red.’