Ophelia (Ophelia book 1) Page 20

  "We?"

  I pause for a moment as I realize that I might have just caused an unnecessary problem for myself.

  "You're referring to this homeless girl, aren't you?" he asks.

  "It hasn't been easy," I continue, picking my words carefully, "but she's been very useful. I'm certain I would have reached this point without her, but she's helped to speed things along a little. She has a unique perspective when it comes to understanding the way the streets work". I pause, waiting to see if he's swallowed my unconvincing explanation. "I believe I made the right decision," I add. "I certainly don't regret using her."

  He sighs, and it's clear that he's not entirely happy about the situation. Looking through the pages of the file on Nathaniel Longhouse, he seems to not quite know how to respond.

  "He's got previous," he says eventually. "He was picked up for harassing a couple of girls back in the day, although it never seemed to progress to anything more sinister. Still, you're right, there are patterns here that make it clear he certainly could be involved." He pauses. "I'm not going to pretend that I understand how you ended up getting to this guy, but I think you need to find him. Keep an open mind and remember that he still might not be the killer, but work with Tim Marshall and make sure you find some way to tie Longhouse to the murders using evidence that'll stand up in court."

  "Of course," I reply. "I'm just -"

  "This can't be like the Daniel Gregory mess," he continues, interrupting me again. "I want the case against Longhouse to be water-tight before we go anywhere near a court-room. Better still, you should try to get a confession out of him. Bring his son in as well. If they're responsible for these deaths, I want the whole thing locked down. Get this right, Laura, and it'll scrub away all the damage that was caused earlier. You've done a hell of a job."

  "Thank you, Sir," I reply, although I feel a little uncomfortable with the fact that it was Ophelia who came up with most of the breaks in this case. "It was nothing really," I add. "Just a case of connecting the dots."

  "Some pretty distant dots," he replies, passing the file back to me. "You've cracked this thing, so now all you need to do is go and bring the bastard in. Do everything by the book, make sure you don't cut any corners, and let the case come to you."

  "Yes, Sir," I say, turning and heading to the door.

  "And Laura," he calls after me.

  I glance back at him.

  "That homeless girl," he continues. "Has she served her purpose?"

  I nod.

  "Then what's she still doing here? Get rid of her."

  "Of course," I reply, before heading out into the corridor. Pausing for a moment, I realize that my hands are shaking. I'm on the verge of cracking this entire case, but all I can think about is the fact that Ophelia's going to go back to her life on the streets. There's a part of me that accepts she has her own choices to make, but at the same time, I feel as if I owe her some kind of proper help. Sure, she might resist at first, but I'm convinced I can find some way to help her turn her life around. The one thing I can't do, at least not with a clear conscience, is just wash my hands of her completely.

  Chapter Eight

  Ophelia

  "Why can't you make me a cup of coffee?" I ask, leaning on the desk in the custody suite and watching with delight as Gilmore tries to ignore me. "Come on, please? Laura's busy and I'm just waiting for this guy named Doug to show up and remove my ankle monitor, so -"

  "Fuck off," Gilmore mutters, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the screen.

  Sighing, I can't help but realize that I'm acting up. When I get bored and hyper-active, I end up behaving like an irritating child. It's not exactly my finest quality, and I hate when it happens, but at the same time I can't really help myself. It's as if I have this need to attract attention, so I act like a brat, especially when I'm around people like Gilmore. After all, the guy's clearly a complete arse and he takes himself far too seriously, so it's kind of funny to see how far I can push him.

  "Fucking pigs!" a voice shouts nearby, and I glance over at the door just in time to see two police officers manhandling a shabbily-clothed figure who's very clearly trying to resist arrest.

  "Calm down," one of the officers grunts as the man is led past the desk. "You know exactly where you're going, mate."

  "Lofty!" I call out suddenly as I realize I recognize the guy.

  Stopping for a moment, the figure turns to me and I see that I was right; it is Lofty, although from the look on his face it's clear that he's not exactly in the mood for a big reunion.

  "What the fuck are you doing here?" he asks.

  "Just helping the police with their inquiries," I reply with a smile. "You?"

  "Come on, sunshine," the first officer says, hauling Lofty toward the cells. "Whatever's wrong with you, you can bloody well sleep it off for a few hours."

  "What did he do?" I ask the other officer as he comes over to the desk.

  "Mate of yours, is he?" he replies.

  "Just someone I know," I tell him.

  "You should keep better company. The guy's a drunk." He grabs some forms from the other side of the desk and starts filling them in. "What is it with you lot, eh? You've got no money, but as soon as you get a few coins in your pocket you run off and buy booze. It's like a fucking vicious circle, isn't it? You get money, and then you piss it away. It's fucking pathetic. Haven't any of you ever heard of the concept of trying to better yourselves?"

  "Lofty's an okay guy," I reply. "He's a bit messed up in the head, maybe, but there's nothing wrong with him."

  "You wanna be character witness?" he says with a smile as he adds some more notes to the form. "Your mate was picked up down by the Tate Modern. Totally legless, shouting as passersby. I mean, that's no way to spend your afternoon, is it? He might be an okay guy by your standards, but by the standards of decent society he's a pain in the arse." He pauses as Lofty continues to scream down in the cells. "Don't worry, we'll just let him sober up in there and then we'll let him go. There's not much we can do for his type."

  "Not until he gets so pissed he falls off a bridge," Gilmore mutters. "That usually solves things."

  The officer smiles, and it's clear that they're in agreement: they both think people like Lofty are better off dead, and they're just counting the days until they're called to fish a corpse out of the river. There's a part of me that wants to grab their heads and bang them together, but then I'd just end up in a cell next to Lofty. For as long as these pigs have a little power, they'll get away with being complete assholes and people like Lofty and me will get screwed over.

  "Do you know when this Doug guy's supposed to be around?" I ask finally.

  "Doug who?" Gilmore asks.

  "The guy who removes ankle monitors. I'm waiting for him to show up."

  "It's not Monday or Thursday," he replies, as if that settles the matter.

  "So what?"

  "So ankle monitors are removed on Mondays and Thursday," he continues matter-of-factly. "We don't have the poor bastard hanging around all day every day, just in case someone needs letting off the leash, do we?" He chuckles to himself, and after a moment the officer joins in.

  "Huh," I reply, trying not to let my sense of anger become too obvious. There's no way Laura could have failed to realize that Doug's not coming in today, but she's still been leading me on.

  "What's up with you?" Gilmore asks with a grin. "Got a face like a wet weekend."

  "Just contemplating the way natural selection has been subverted in the modern age," I reply, before turning and wandering away.

  "You what?" he calls after me. "Care to translate that into English, love?"

  As soon as I'm around the corner, I stop and lean back against the wall. All this waiting around is starting to drive me crazy. Laura should be well on her way to tracking down Nat Longhouse and his son by now, and it's not as if I'm particularly bothered about sticking around for the celebratory drinks. Looking down at my ankle, I can't help but feel that the time has come
to take matters into my own hands.

  Chapter Nine

  Laura

  "Keep looking," I say as I head out of my office, with my phone tucked against my chin as I try not to drop the huge pile of files I'm carrying. "This guy has to be out there somewhere. He and his son have to have bank accounts, property, something we can use to tie them to a physical location."

  "You got a minute?" Tricia asks as she catches up to me. She's carrying two cups of coffee, and as usual she seems to be the calm storm at the center of the unfolding crisis. "The media's starting to figure out that something's up."

  "Call me back when you've got something," I tell Jordan, before dropping the files onto a desk and cutting the call. "Tell the press to keep back. The last thing we need is for Nat Longhouse and his son to realize we're onto them. We caught a lucky break, and we still have the element of surprise on our side, so we have to exploit that."

  "Have you run all the usual checks?" she asks.

  "Nothing so far, but we'll keep digging. Two people can't just disappear off the face of the planet, especially when we know they're regularly in the center of London. I'm running a search now to see if they might have changed their names, but there's also the possibility that they're staying with relatives. It's at times like this that I really wish Big Brother had a more accessible user interface."

  "It might help to get their photos out there," she points out. "Someone has to have seen them."

  "We don't have photos," I tell her. "We have one image of Nat Longhouse from the seventies, and a few more from when he was arrested in the eighties, but we don't have anything recent. As for George, we don't have a damn thing. It's as if the guy barely even existed at all beyond his eighteenth birthday." Pausing for a moment, I can't help but feel that this investigation has suddenly exploded all around me, and I'm struggling to keep up. "I can't deal with a media scrum right now," I continue. "Please, Tricia, can you try to keep them off my back?"

  "I can try," she replies as she sets the cups of coffee down on the table, "but I think you need to at least think about calling Joe Lewis. The guy rang earlier, and he wanted me to pass a message on to you."

  "Shoot," I reply, grabbing a tablet computer and using it to log on to the system.

  "He said it was about that Ophelia girl," she continues. "He wouldn't go into detail with me, though. He said he had to talk to you directly. I got the impression that he'd dug something up about her."

  "Ophelia?" Pausing, I can't shake a sickening sensation in my stomach, as if some subconscious part of my mind is aware of a growing problem. "Joe Lewis is a tabloid hack. There's no way he has the journalistic skills to dig up anything on anyone. I'll deal with his bullshit later." I pause for a moment. "Where is Ophelia, anyway? Have you seen her around?"

  "She headed down to the exam room about an hour ago."

  "So she's probably bugging Tim," I reply. "Fine, I'll worry about her later. Right now, I've got multiple units out there looking for Nat and George Longhouse, and so far none of them have come up with anything." With trembling hands, I grab a pile of notes and start sorting through them. "We need to, uh..." Pausing, I feel as if my brain is about to come crashing to a halt. "Um, we need to..."

  "Yes?"

  "I..." Taking a deep breath, I try to reset my brain. "I just need to..."

  "You need to calm down," she replies with a sympathetic smile. "Laura, you'd going to crash if you don't take a moment. This isn't your only chance to redeem yourself after all the bullshit with Daniel Gregory, so don't let the pressure start getting to you. A few more hours won't make much -"

  "I'm fine," I reply, grabbing the pile of files, "I just need to get -"

  Before I can finish, I swing the files straight into the two cups of coffee, sending them flying across the room until they smash against the floor. Shocked, I drop the files and take a step back, almost knocking a desktop computer over in the process. It takes a moment before I can steady myself, and finally I realize that I'm losing control.

  "See?" Tricia says with a half-smile. "You're going at this too fast."

  Sighing, I realize she's right. I take a series of deep breaths as I try to calm down, but it's difficult; I have people out there right now, searching for Nat and George Longhouse, and I'm convinced that we're going to find them at any moment. On top of that, Tricia's right when she hints that the specter of Daniel Gregory is hanging over me. I've spent the past week feeling like a complete failure, and now I have a chance to remind everyone that I'm good at my job. However, if I fuck this case up, it's another nail in my coffin. I feel as if I'm on a knife-edge, and my entire life could go either way at this moment. I've always lived a life of extremes, and this is no different: I'm either going to be a huge success, or a miserable failure.

  "I need to go and find Ophelia," I say after a moment.

  "No," Tricia replies, "you need to go to your office and take a power-nap."

  "There's no such thing as power-naps," I reply, hurrying over to the broken mugs and kneeling down to pick up the pieces. "I'll sleep when the Longhouses are safely behind bars. Until then, I have to stay alert. They're out there somewhere, Tricia, and more people are going to die if we don't find them." With the worst of mug fragments gathered together, I get to my feet and hurry over to the bin. "I need to talk to Ophelia," I add, heading back toward my office. "She knows the streets, so she might have a better idea how I can find these people."

  Tricia calls back to me, but I don't hear what she says. Right now, my heart is racing and all I can think about is the fact that at any moment we're going to find these two men. By the time I get to my office, I'm almost at breaking point, but I figure that at least I'm headed in the right direction.

  "We need a new approach," I say, hurrying through the door before stopping as I realize that there's no sign of Ophelia. "Where the fuck is she now?" I mutter, before I spot her phone on my desk. I make my way over and pick it up, but it seems to have been switched off. A moment later, I spot something on the other side of the desk, and I immediately feel a cold shiver pass through my body as I realize what I'm looking at.

  The ankle monitor.

  I make my way around the desk just to double-check, but there's no doubt. Somehow, that slippery little bugger managed to break the strap and remove the monitor, and the fact that she left it here for me to find, along with her phone, can mean only one thing.

  "Shit," I mutter, hurrying out of my office and running through to the stairwell. By the time I get through to reception, I've already realized that there's no way I'll catch up to her, but I have to at least try. A couple of days ago, I'd never even met Ophelia, but now I feel as if she's almost a part of me.

  Running out to the front of the station, I look around desperately, hoping against hope that I might spot her. Finally, however, I'm forced to accept that she's gone. I guess she figures that a deal is a deal, and she probably suspected that there was no way that ankle monitor was coming off today. Sighing, I turn and head back inside, but my head is spinning and I can't help worrying that I might not be able to get the case finished without her help. Nat and George Longhouse are still out there somewhere, and so far they seem to be like ghosts.

  "You alright?" Tricia asks, having followed me.

  "Yeah," I reply, "I just..." Looking back over at the main door, I realize that I'm probably never going to see Ophelia again. There was so much I wanted to say to her, and I was convinced I'd find a way to help her. Instead, she's managed to slip away. I have no doubt that I won't be able to find her again, not unless she specifically comes looking for me.

  "Laura?" Tricia continues. "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing," I reply, forcing a smile. "Nat Longhouse and his son George. We have to find them before anyone else dies."

  Epilogue

  He stands in the doorway and stares at the empty bed. Lately, he's felt as if he's losing control of his son, and this is no exception: the boy has been out for hours now, probably getting drunk and trying to
score hard drugs. As far as the old man is concerned, his son is way out of shape and needs to be fixed, but recent events have caused significant strains between the pair of them.

  After wandering across the dark, rubble-strewn room, he uses his arthritic hands to shift the broken door out of the way. Afternoon lights streams into the room as he steps out onto the concrete balcony, and he takes a moment to stare at the London skyline, with the Thames winding its way through the heart of the city. It's a view that gladdens his heart, although he knows that his days are numbered. He's begun to consider the practicalities of his own death, and he's decided that he wants to be outside when it happens, and close to the river. The sky and the water are the only two parts of this wretched world that have ever been kind to him, so he wants to be with them when he draws his final breath.

  "Where are you, boy?" he whispers, surveying the city. "Come on, you little fucker. What else have you got to be doing out there?"

  Suddenly overcome by a fit of coughing, he leans against the door-jamb and damn near hocks his guts up. Blood fills his mouth until he lets it dribble from his lips, and he watches for a moment as it splashes against the dusty concrete. He can feel something in the back of his throat, so he spends another couple of minutes trying to cough it loose until finally a thick piece of bloodied flesh breaks loose for him to spit out. It's as if his body is literally breaking apart, and he figures that's probably more or less what's happening.

  Somewhere nearby, a baby starts to cry.

  Realizing that the boy probably won't be back for at least a few more hours, he turns and heads back inside. He has so much to do, and so little time. The boy's help would be useful, but he knows he can get on with most of the tasks alone. His gut is burning and he can barely summon the strength to keep moving, but finally he flops down on his bed and takes a moment to let the pain run its course. Almost subconsciously, he keeps flexing and un-flexing his swollen hands, as if he hopes that it might help to keep them moving. Finally, a single tear runs from his eye, trickling down to his ear, and he stares up at the concrete ceiling, waiting for death.