Swansong (The DI Nick Dixon Crime Series Book 4) Page 23

  Violent places, these boarding schools. Maybe she hadn’t missed out after all?

  She got out of her car, locked it and then walked along the side of the Bishop Sutton Hall.

  Where the bloody hell are you?

  And why aren’t you answering your effing phone?

  She was standing in front of the Underwood Building wondering what to do when a small boy sprinted around the corner and crashed into her, almost knocking her to the ground.

  ‘Sorry, Miss.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said, straightening her coat and pulling the strap of her handbag back over her shoulder.

  ‘D’you know where I can find Mr Dixon?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘He’s a trainee teacher?’

  ‘Don’t know him, Miss. Sorry. You could try the masters’ common room.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Along the main corridor. Just round there.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She watched the boy running off across the grass towards the sports hall. She knew where the masters’ common room was, or at least she thought she did. She’d been there, after all, and if he wasn’t there, someone else might know where he was.

  She walked along the main corridor, the noise of her heels making her feel conspicuous. She tried walking on her toes but soon gave up.

  Apart from the small boy who had nearly knocked her over, she’d seen no one. Odd, that. She checked her phone. Thursday 8th December.

  Definitely the right day.

  Where was everybody?

  She was halfway along the corridor when she heard footsteps coming down a flight of stairs behind her. She turned when she heard a man’s voice.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. I’m looking for Nick Dixon.’

  ‘He’s in the Lady Chapel, sitting in on a confirmation class. It’s the last of the term. I’m on my way there now, if you’d like to follow me.’

  ‘Thank you, I will.’

  What harm can it do? He’s a harmless old duffer.

  She followed him along the main corridor, past the masters’ common room, which she recognised, and then into the cloisters. He paused to unlock the chapel door.

  She frowned. How did Nick and everyone get in for the confirmation class?

  Maybe there’s another way in?

  She heard the sound of keys behind her. The door being locked.

  A sharp intake of breath caught by a hand over her mouth.

  Then a scratch on the side of her neck.

  Her legs went from under her. She looked up. The roof was spinning.

  Hyperventilating now.

  Going to be sick.

  She closed her eyes. When she opened them again she was looking down at a man carrying a woman over his shoulder, her blonde ponytail hanging down.

  Who’s that he’s carrying down the aisle?

  Wake up . . . please wake up . . .

  More keys.

  The war memorial. I remember that.

  Another door.

  An alleyway. Where am I?

  Darkness.

  Then nothing.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Dixon arrived back at Brunel just as it was getting dark and parked in front of the school. He ran upstairs to his rooms and fumbled under the mattress for the floor plans of the school. He unrolled them on the bed and looked at the key in the bottom left corner. Room 23 was the one he was looking for and it took him several seconds to find it on the third floor, directly above the front entrance. He left the floor plans on the bed, slammed the door behind him and ran downstairs.

  Boys and girls were filing along the main corridor towards the chapel with Dixon running against the flow. He kept to the left, hugging the wall, and only once did he have to push someone out of the way. He arrived at the bottom of the first flight of stairs and looked up. Several pupils were coming down them so he took hold of the rail in his left hand, put his head down and started running up the stairs, using his right arm to clear a path.

  Seconds later, he was leaning on the handrail at the top, trying to get his breathing under control. A small boy ran out of a door at the far end of the corridor and turned down the flight of stairs further along.

  Dixon was staring at a large carved oak door on the far side of the landing. A small nameplate was fixed to it at waist height with a name written on it in ornate gold lettering. He walked across the landing and tried to listen at the door, but all he could hear was his own breathing and the sound of his heart pounding in his ears. He tried holding his breath but that gave him the urge to cough.

  He waited until he was sure that no one else was around and then tried the door. Locked. It was a Yale lock, level with the door handle. Dixon smiled. One sharp kick should deal with that but there was a quieter way. He reached into his back pocket for his wallet and took out his Police Federation membership card. He probably wouldn’t be needing it soon anyway. Then he inserted it in the crack between the door and the frame adjacent to the barrel of the lock and pushed, at the same time turning the door handle. The door swung open.

  Dixon peered into the hallway, which was dark apart from the first few feet lit by the lights on the landing. He fumbled for the light switch, found three and turned them all on at once. Against the wall on the left was a large radiator cover with several ornaments arranged along the top. The light had come on in the small kitchen opposite and it was empty.

  Dixon followed the passageway. It was almost identical in layout to Haskill’s rooms, which Dixon had been using. He crept past a small bathroom, also empty, and into the living room. He heard the door close behind him, which was no bad thing. He didn’t want to be disturbed.

  He looked around the room. The bed was against the wall to his left and at the far end of the room was a desk with a leather swivel chair behind it and a leather sofa in front of it. His eyes returned to the bed and the two suitcases lying on top of it.

  Going somewhere, are we?

  Dixon opened the first suitcase and emptied the contents out onto the floor. It was all clothes. Then he unzipped the second suitcase and opened it. Several jackets were folded flat and lying on the top so he threw those on the floor, revealing toiletries and personal items underneath. Dixon looked down at them. Something was out of place. He began taking the items out one by one and throwing them on the floor. Hairbrush, wash bag, alarm clock. Then it hit him. A black plastic box with the Philishave logo on it. He picked it up. It was light, far too light to have a shaver in it and it rattled when he shook it. A soft rattle.

  Suddenly, the realisation of what he had found hit him. And what he was about to see. His hands were shaking as he pressed the black plastic clip and lifted the lid.

  The shaped plastic liner where a shaver would once have sat had been removed and replaced with a flannel that was lying in the bottom of the small box. Its corners had been carefully folded in to cover the contents, so Dixon folded them back, one by one. He grimaced. It had been some years since he had studied biology A Level but he knew human finger bones when he saw them.

  Three of them were white, recently boiled to remove the flesh. Those would be Isobel Swan’s. The rest were older and grey. He closed his eyes.

  I was supposed to put a ring on your finger. Not this. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

  He couldn’t bring himself to count the remaining bones. That could wait. He folded the flannel back over them and closed the box. Then he ran downstairs and locked it in the glove box of his car.

  He took his mobile phone out of his pocket to ring Jane and saw that he had missed two calls and three text messages. He frowned. He must have forgotten to switch the alerts back on after the chapel service the previous evening.

  He looked at the text messages, the first of which came from her.

 
; where are u j x

  The other two both came from his voicemail service alerting him to messages waiting. The missed calls were both from Jane. Dixon listened to the messages.

  ‘Hi, it’s me. Where are you?’

  He deleted it and listened to the next message.

  ‘Chard’s read Fran’s file and is on the warpath. I’m coming over there now. Keep an eye out for me. Bye.’

  Oh, shit.

  Dixon looked around the car park and could see no sign of Jane or her car.

  Where the fuck are you?

  He dialled her number. No reply. He rang Louise Willmott.

  ‘Have you heard from Jane?’

  ‘Not since this morn . . .’

  Dixon had already rung off. He ran along the main corridor towards the chapel. He was breathing through his nose and listening to the click of his heels. He paused at the top of the cloisters. The carol service had begun and the full congregation were on the first verse of ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’.

  ‘Peace on earth and mercy mild.’

  Sorry, Lord, not this time.

  Dixon jumped down the stone steps and ran along the cloisters. He slowed to a walk as he entered the chapel. The teachers sitting at the back turned to look at him, the headmaster included, but he avoided eye contact. He stood at the end of the aisle looking up at the chancel. Father Anthony was standing behind the altar, singing.

  Dixon began running down the aisle, pupils turning to watch him as he ran past them. He had reached the old altar marker before Father Anthony looked up, saw him coming and bolted towards the Lady Chapel. Dixon could see him fumbling in his pockets as he ran.

  ‘Hark! The herald angels sing,

  Glory to the newborn King.’

  When he reached the steps at the foot of the chancel Dixon turned right and ran into the Lady Chapel just in time to see a door at the back slam shut.

  ‘Where does that go?’

  ‘The Memorial Quadrangle,’ replied a boy sitting at the back of the Lady Chapel.

  Dixon tried the door. It was locked. He remembered the alleyway that came out by the kitchens.

  Fuck it.

  He turned and ran back down the aisle. He tried the handle on the door at the back of the chapel. It was open so he ran out into the darkness, down the side of the chapel and round to the alleyway by the kitchens. He spotted two kitchen porters smoking in the dark.

  ‘Have you seen Father Anthony?’

  ‘He went that way,’ said one, pointing to the right.

  Dixon sprinted along the service road at the back of the school. He could see Father Anthony two hundred yards ahead of him, in the lights of the Underwood Building. He disappeared around the front, heading towards the Bishop Sutton Hall.

  Dixon was sprinting around the front of the Underwood Building when his phone rang. He put the phone to his ear as he ran but could hear only screaming and crying. Hyperventilating too. He stopped.

  ‘Jane, is that you?’

  Then he heard her vomit.

  ‘Where are you?’

  She sounded as if she was gasping for air.

  ‘Dark . . .’

  Sobbing now.

  ‘Can you hear anything?’

  ‘An engine . . . moving . . .’

  ‘Stay on the line,’ said Dixon. He ran in the back door at the end of the main corridor and along to the front entrance, getting to his Land Rover just as Jane’s car disappeared down the drive from the Gardenhurst car park. Father Anthony was behind the wheel. Dixon jumped in his car and sped after him. West Road was long and straight and he could see Father Anthony’s tail lights in the distance when he arrived at the bottom of the drive. He turned after them and put his foot flat on the accelerator.

  ‘Jane, are you still there?’

  Dixon got no reply but he could hear her sobbing in the background. Not easy over the noise of his old diesel engine but he had the phone clamped to his ear as tight as he could get it.

  ‘I’m gonna ring off and get help. I’m right behind you. All right?’

  Still no reply.

  He followed her car left into Stoke Road and then left again onto Chestnut Drive. Dixon knew then that Father Anthony was heading for the motorway. He dialled 999.

  ‘This is 3275 Inspector Dixon. I’m in pursuit of a red VW Golf north along Chestnut Drive. The driver, Father Anthony Johns, is wanted for murder and Detective Constable Jane Winter is in the boot of the car. Is that clear?’

  ‘Er, yes, Sir.’

  ‘I think he’s heading for the M5. See if you can get a car to block him off. And get the helicopter.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘I’m in an old Land Rover so he’s going to pull away from me when we get out onto the motorway. We must have the helicopter.’

  ‘Leave it with me, S . . .’

  ‘Right, right, into Blackbrook Way,’ said Dixon. ‘That’s the M5 junction next.’

  ‘Stand by.’

  Dixon went the wrong way around the roundabout at the end of Blackbrook Way, narrowly avoiding a collision, and then jumped the lights at the motorway roundabout. He followed Father Anthony’s tail lights up the northbound slip road onto the M5.

  ‘We’ve got Traffic on their way, ETA twelve minutes. Heading south now.’

  ‘Too late, we’re northbound on the M5. Have you got that?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Where’s the helicopter?’

  ‘Diverting to you now. Will be with you in eight minutes.’

  ‘If we lose the connection ring me back immediately and keep trying till you get me.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  Two sets of blue lights flashed by on the opposite carriageway, heading south. Dixon managed to keep track of Father Anthony’s tail lights in the distance. He was five hundred yards ahead and pulling away slowly, or so it seemed. Dixon was in the outside lane and had his foot down hard on the accelerator. He was getting just over 80 mph out of the old Land Rover but it was not going to be enough.

  ‘This fucking car!’ he screamed, venting his frustration on the steering wheel with his fist.

  ‘What about the slip road at Bridgwater South?’

  ‘Stand by,’ replied the controller.

  Dixon waited.

  ‘A local car is blocking that now, Sir. And the helicopter is overhead. They have the red VW in sight.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ muttered Dixon.

  He glanced up the slip road as he sped past and spotted the patrol car blocking the exit. He looked up and could see the red tail light of the helicopter above and in front of him.

  ‘Bridgwater North is blocked and we’ve got a car coming up behind you. ETA three minutes. There’s another waiting on the slip road at Burnham.’

  Dixon peered in his rear view mirror but saw no sign of blue lights. He spotted the wicker man in a field on the nearside. Bridgwater North was less than a mile away now. He checked his rear view mirror again. Still no sign of the police car behind him.

  ‘Left, left,’ said the controller. ‘He’s got off at junction 23.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ muttered Dixon, through a mouthful of fruit pastilles.

  He swerved across all three lanes and sped up the slip road. Father Anthony up ahead mounted the offside kerb and tried to squeeze through the gap on the grass verge. He rammed the front wing of the patrol car blocking the exit in the process but got through and sped off around the roundabout.

  ‘East, east on the A39,’ said the controller.

  Dixon aimed at the same gap but hit the front of the patrol car, sending it spinning. Then he raced around the roundabout and turned east on the A39. Not good. The long climb up Puriton Hill from the M5 would allow Father Anthony to pull away still further, but the helicopter was overhead keeping track. Dixon changed down and f
loored the accelerator again.

  ‘Where the fuck is he going?’

  Dixon managed to get his old Land Rover up to 90 mph going down the hill on the other side and was able to pick out Father Anthony’s tail lights in the distance, trying to get through the traffic lights at the bottom of the hill. Off to his right, several sets of blue lights and sirens were screaming out of Bridgwater towards the bridge over the King’s Sedgemoor Drain, which shimmered in the moonlight.

  He thought about the photograph of Clive Cooper standing by the Drain. Then the letters in the mud, written by an illiterate and dying Derek Phelps. What had been so significant that Phelps would use his dying moments to give it away? Then it hit him. It wasn’t ‘KF’, it was ‘KS’.

  ‘It’s the King’s Sedgemoor Drain,’ screamed Dixon. ‘He’s going for the King’s Sedgemoor Drain.’

  Dixon crossed onto the wrong side of the road to avoid the queue of traffic at the lights, sending two cars swerving into the nearside kerb.

  ‘Right, right into New Road,’ said the controller.

  ‘Can anyone cut him off?’

  Dixon looked up and saw the helicopter hovering off to the right of the A39. He turned into New Road too fast. It was a narrow country lane and the back of the Land Rover swung round and hit the hedge. He suddenly remembered Monty, and glanced over his shoulder to see him curled up in his bed under the nearside bench seat.

  ‘Right, right, into Bradney Lane.’

  ‘Am I the nearest car?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  Dixon saw houses flashing past on either side of the narrow lane.

  ‘Where am I?’

  ‘Bawdrip, Sir,’ replied the controller.

  Dixon looked up and saw the searchlight come on underneath the helicopter. It was hovering much lower now with the beam of light pointing straight at the ground beneath it.

  ‘What’s happening?’ screamed Dixon.

  ‘Stand by.’

  Dixon oversteered on the bend by the church and the back of the Land Rover swung out and hit a parked car. He kept going.

  ‘The car’s gone into the Drain. Left before the bridge into the field. You can see the light.’