Chapter Twenty-Two

That’s better, Jasmine thought, smiling up at the copper, as Connor assisted him down the steps into the basement of the club. Watching him fall and spill his brains on the concrete floor wouldn’t be half as satisfying as what Jasmine had planned for him. As meek as a lamb the man was now. A bit confused and clumsy, but that was to be expected.

In case he wasn’t aware, Jasmine had patiently explained the side effects of Ketamine, then seeing he really was having problems breathing, she’d considerately allowed the pathetic specimen the use of his inhaler. No one could call her heartless. He needed to chill, she’d told him. The dream-like feelings would pass, but he might as well relax and go with the flow.

The copper clearly hadn’t been in a relaxing mood though, hallucinating and shaking, clueless as to where he was. He seemed to think he was in a hearse at one point, which actually spooked Jasmine. She’d thought he was having a more ‘out of mind’ experience than ‘out of body’ when he’d started banging on about his baby being all broken, that he’d needed to fix her but he didn’t know how. ‘She’s cold!’ he’d kept shouting, like she wouldn’t be, since it was obviously the dead one he was obsessing about. Jasmine hadn’t realised he was so reactive, he seeming so in control of his emotions. That would soon change. She’d been a bit worried when he’d convulsed, but he seemed all right now, apart from the odd bout of trembling, which was a relief. She wanted him compos when she put her proposition to him. She wanted him to know what he was doing and why.

‘Here we are. Careful where you step. Don’t want you doing yourself any damage yet, do we?’ she said brightly, indicating the half-renovated main bar area, which was littered with plastic sheeting and building paraphernalia, as the copper finally managed the descent. He was still looking a bit dodgy, swaying on his feet as he landed, but again, to be expected. ‘You remember this place, don’t you, Detective?’

The copper shook his head and glanced around, clearly disorientated. His eyes were still unfocussed, Jasmine noted. Not to worry. She’d allow him half an hour to sleep it off before movie night commenced. And wouldn’t that be a nice surprise for him when he woke?

‘Come on. Let’s show you your room, shall we?’ she said companionably, resting her gun in the crook of one arm and taking hold of one of his. The copper didn’t move, annoyingly, just glanced up at the ceiling. What was he doing? She watched, as he seemed to study it. Waiting for God to make an appearance? He’d have a long bloody wait. He’s not home, Detective. Or haven’t you worked that one out yet?

Irritated, but allowing him the benefit of the doubt, assuming it was the drugs that had him stargazing, rather than downright insolence, she gave his arm another tug. Still, the stubborn bugger refused to budge. ‘Don’t try my patience,’ she warned him, her hackles now definitely rising.

‘Leave him,’ Connor said, behind him. ‘He’s all over the place.’

‘You what?’ Jasmine stared at Connor, confounded. He was getting a bit lippy considering he was as good as up on a murder charge, wasn’t he? A threatened phone call to his mummy would soon put him back in his place, she decided. Either that or she’d shoot him and be done with it.

‘The drugs,’ Connor elucidated as if she were stupid. ‘He’s still uncoordinated, ain’t he?’

‘Oh, well done, Einstein,’ Jasmine snapped irritably as Connor glanced moodily at her, his brow furrowed like a five-bar gate. ‘In which case, perhaps you should give him a little assistance.’ She nodded at the copper, making meaningful eyes at Connor. Meaning: bloody well make him move, or I will.

The copper was still staring up at the ceiling, as if waiting for divine inspiration. ‘Seventh Heaven,’ he finally said bewilderedly, obviously having found it.

‘Correct.’ Jasmine smiled, delighted. ‘The discerning gentlemen’s lap-dancing club. Up market clientele only, of course. Personally, I would have preferred the décor the way it is upstairs, or was, until the bloody builders moved in: plum coloured walls, rich mahogany woodwork and gilt-edged mirrors. Much classier,’ she continued chattily, and then waited expectantly.

Adams, though, appeared to be having trouble coordinating his brain as well as his limbs. The penny obviously hadn’t dropped. The wheels would be going around though. The light would eventually dawn. It would take him a minute, she assumed, allowing for the drugs in his system.

‘You do remember the proprietor, don’t you, Detective?’ she went on, deciding a little shove in the right direction might be in order. ‘He’s the man you murdered. Shot. At point blank range, as I recall.’

Adams didn’t respond, but Jasmine saw the slow gulp slide down his throat. Yes, she thought, gratified. Be afraid copper. Be very afraid. ‘You know, I think you do remember him. But then, I suppose killing a defenceless man in cold blood isn’t something you’d easily forget, is it? Or is it, Adams, hmm?’ She stopped, watching him carefully. ‘Case closed and move on when you kill someone, is it? No nightmares or regrets? No thoughts for the people whose worlds you blow apart, families you destroy? Is that it?’

Jasmine’s voice went up an octave as she spoke. ‘Well, is it?’

At which, the copper closed his eyes. Still, he didn’t say anything though. Stubborn bastard.

‘Oh, dear, where are my manners?’ Jasmine continued, as if despairing of herself. ‘I haven’t introduced myself properly, have I? Taylor Sullivan, Patrick Sullivan’s daughter. Ring any bells?’ She let it hang, pent up fury now broiling steadily inside her.

Finally, the copper lowered his gaze and looked at her. Now he was focussing, now he was scared. So scared, Jasmine could taste it. Satisfied, but not yet appeased, not appeased by far, she took a step towards him, removing the immensely irritating blonde wig she’d continued to wear to keep up the charade and tossing it at him. The copper watched it flop to the floor and then looked back at her. Jasmine could almost see his mind working as he considered his fate, hope fading in his pretty brown eyes. He flinched, visibly, as she extended a hand towards him, deliberately and provocatively stroking his face, before reaching to slowly peel a contact lens away from her eye.

‘Had you fooled, didn’t I, Matthew, hey? Just like you have everyone else fooled into thinking you’re a hero,’ she said, a slow, malicious smile curving her mouth. ‘Actually, I thought you might remember me, that I might have made some small impression on your life. Clearly, you didn’t. But then, why would you? You don’t care about anyone, do you?’

Jasmine waited, her irritation growing as Adams remained incitingly mute.

‘He was my father!’ she spat. ‘You killed him.’ Stepping closer, her face right up close to his, she peeled the other contact lens away, savouring the tangible terror she saw in his eyes as she did. ‘You ruined my life, too, didn’t you, Mr charming good-looking detective? And then you just walked away. Well, now you’re going to pay. Understand?’

‘Bloody hell,’ Connor gasped, plainly shocked by her revelations. Jasmine ignored him. She’d talk him round later. Her attention right now was all on the copper, whose full on attention she’d now definitely got.

‘That was a question, Adams,’ she snarled, itching to hit him again out of sheer frustration.

‘Look, Jasmine,’ Connor intervened shakily. ‘I don’t know what’s going on, but I ain’t getting—’

‘Taylor!’ she shouted.

‘Right, Taylor. Whatever.’ Connor stepped cautiously towards her. ‘You really need to pack this in now, Taylor,’ he tried. ‘This is getting way out of—’

‘Shut it, Connor, or you are in deep shit. One call is all it will take. One, do you hear me? Do you think sticking up for him is going to get you off the hook? You think he’s going to walk out of here and say, Oh, Connor’s all right. You can let him go. Stupid bastard!’ Stilling him with a furious gaze, Taylor turned back to Adams. ‘The thing is, I can’t forget, Detective. I don’t get to move on. I have nightmares every single night of my life. Did you consider this? Do you ever consider the consequences of your actions?’

Obviously, he didn’t. The copper declined from answering that too. ‘Do you ever feel guilty?’ she asked him, walking back and forth in front of him, looking him over, wanting to get a good view of him, this man given hero status for destroying other people. ‘When you’re out there, murdering people, lining your own pockets with drugs money, using those girls on the streets?’

Still nothing from Adams. He was trying her patience now. Severely. They’d drugged him, not cut his tongue out. Although the way Taylor was feeling … ‘Answer me, you ignorant pig!’ Stopping, Taylor drew a hand back and slapped his face hard, her fury and frustration lending force to the blow.

Reeling briefly, the copper looked down, dragged the back of his hand across his bloodied mouth, and then brought his gaze slowly back to her. ‘I don’t do any of those things,’ he answered her quietly, finally, a flash of defiance now in his eyes.

‘Hah!’ Taylor scoffed. ‘You pay them money, Adams! For services rendered. Do you think your badge makes it any different?’

Yes, think on, copper, Taylor thought, as Adams appeared to ponder that. ‘You turn a blind eye when they’re blatantly pulling punters. You pay for their drug habits. You’re a facilitator, Adams. A user and an abuser just like any drug pusher or pimp. The only difference is, you do it under protection of the law!’

That got him. Taylor saw the shake of his head, the confusion cloud his eyes. She was on to him, and he knew it. ‘At least my father was honest about what he did, Adams. You,’ she said, pointing a finger accusingly at him, ‘you’re a liar! A liar and a murderer!’

‘It … was self-defence,’ Adams mumbled, dropping his deceitful gaze.

‘Bullshit!’ Taylor fumed. ‘Do you think I don’t know that disgusting flabby bastard, Hayes, was gunning for my dad, because of you? Only it wasn’t my dad on the take when that drugs consignment went missing, was it, Adams? It was you!’

‘Not true,’ the copper denied it outright.

Lying shit! Taylor watched as he raised a trembling hand to wipe the sweat from his face. ‘Did you think my father wouldn’t do whatever he had to to try and get that money back, knowing what that butcher would do to him?’ she asked him. ‘That was a question!’ she screamed, when he didn’t answer.

The copper jumped, physically. ‘I … don’t know,’ he muttered hoarsely, looking very uncomfortable now. And well he might.

‘And then he ends up dead anyway. And you walk away a hero. A hero! Hah! You’re as bent as a nine bob note, Adams,’ Taylor went on, quoting her dad and getting some satisfaction as she watched the copper grow paler by the second.

‘I saw it all, Adams. I listened and I saw: the bruises on my dad’s face after you’d kicked him to the floor like a dog. The threats you made. Do you remember? It was the day after my eighteenth birthday? No, of course you wouldn’t remember,’ she sneered, when the copper looked clueless. ‘Wasn’t important enough, was it? I wasn’t! I was just another young girl whose innocence you stole simply because you could.’

‘Innocence?’ Adams had the effrontery to look mystified at that.

‘Innocence!’ Taylor bawled.

Warily, sweat beading his forehead for obvious reasons, he studied her for a second. He didn’t deny it. Couldn’t really, could he? No, Adams wasn’t the tragic hero everyone thought he was, his perfect little family targeted by a psychopath with a grudge. Adams was the psychopath, a disturbed individual who’d got where he was by using people, abusing people. It was time he was outed, given the opportunity to prove how heroic he really was.

‘What do you want?’ he asked her gruffly, glancing away.

Guilty, Taylor thought. And he knew it. ‘You,’ she replied simply. ‘An eye for an eye, as they say, eventually. Meanwhile,’ she paused, watching him closely, wanting to see his reaction, ‘you’d better do everything you’re told, when you’re told, or there might be another little baby lying cold somewhere. Get my drift?’

Adams winced discernibly at that. ‘Where is she?’ he asked, obviously emotional now, which Taylor supposed he would be.

‘For me to know and you to find out,’ she informed him as Adams looked guardedly back at her. ‘If you want to see her again, I suggest you start doing what I tell you to do. Comprendre?’

Taylor was a bit taken aback when he laughed. Right there, in front of her, he actually laughed. Was he mad? ‘Not funny, copper!’ she fumed, turning the gun and delivering a mighty blow to his ribs.

‘Shit!’ Steve slammed his hands against the steering wheel, as the grey Fiat cut across the red light ahead of him. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’

‘Uh, oh, sounds like a problem.’ The pathologist he was speaking to observed over his hands-free.

‘Definitely.’ Steve sighed despondently. ‘Give me a minute, Nicky, will you?’ Waving his apologies to the driver of a car, which had skewed to a halt diagonally across him, Steve skirted around it, and then made his way across the lights to a cacophony of horns.

Waiting as long as he dared before following the car Matthew had climbed into, he’d managed to pick them up reversing sharply from an empty premises, and now he’d gone and lost them. Idiot. Cursing himself, he pulled up at the nearest available place and turned his attention back to his call. ‘It’s Matthew. DI Adams.’

‘Oh, no, what’s happened now?’ Nicky asked warily, obviously aware of his situation, up to a point.

‘Long story,’ Steve said, aware he needed to get off the phone and alert Davies, and fast. He’d been yards from the hospital when Ashley had rung him. Thanks to her, he was able to follow Matthew as he’d walked along the main road. He’d assumed that Davies was up to speed and that Matthew might have been about to pick up instructions, no more than that. He hadn’t bloody well imagined he was about to get snatched too. Christ, what a balls up. ‘Anything on that report?’ he asked hopefully.

‘Hold on,’ Nicky said. ‘Taylor Sullivan, you say?’

‘That’s the one,’ Steve confirmed, not sure whether he wanted this to be a result or not.

‘Yup, got it. Eighteen-year-old suicide. Messy from the looks of it.’

‘Was it definitely her?’ Steve asked, getting straight to the point however crackers it sounded.

‘Sorry?’ Nicky was obviously confused.

‘Was she officially identified?’ Steve asked.

‘I should think so, Steve. We don’t generally just hazard a guess, you know?’ Nicky sounded bemused now.

‘Yes, but was it established?’ Steve pushed it, a desperate edge to his voice. ‘Forensically, I mean?’

Matthew’s unshakable belief that this was connected to Sullivan, the similarities between that bastard’s victims and Natalie, not forgetting the previous case Matthew had mentioned, the heel of the shoe against his boss’s temple? Steve was beginning to think it might not all be quite as off the wall as it sounded.

‘Well, there wasn’t a lot left to identify after scraping her off the tracks, but I imagine all the usual fingerprinting was done. Give me a second and I’ll check.’ Nicky paused. Listening to her fingers clacking over her keyboard, Steve willed her to hurry it up.

‘Looks like she was carrying identification,’ she said, eventually. ‘Driver’s licence retrieved from the scene.’ Again she paused. Steve could almost hear the clock ticking. He was running out of time.

‘The aunt identified the body,’ Nicky went on as Steve waited and prayed. ‘There was a ring recovered, apparently. One the girl’s father had given her and … Um, can’t see anything else, Steve. I’ll have to do some more digging. I’ll ring you back.’

‘Do that,’ Steve said tightly.

Shit, he thought, cold panic gripping his stomach. Barking mad it might sound, but if he was right, this woman had already killed twice, maybe three times, assuming the body on the tracks wasn’t hers. And, if it wasn’t, Steve’s guess was Taylor Sullivan had planned her apparent suicide meticulously, aiming to steal her victim’s identity. She’d got away with it, somehow. She obviously had no qualms about killing whoever she needed to and was intent on her aim, which, all in all, meant Matthew had a snowball in hell’s chance of getting his daughter and himself out of this intact.

‘Can you do me another favour, Nicky?’ he added quickly.

Nicky sighed demonstratively. ‘It’ll cost you,’ she said. ‘We’re well backed up. A decent bottle and chocolates at the very—’

‘His kid’s been kidnapped,’ Steve cut in. ‘Matthew’s. His little girl, Mia,’ he went on over Nicky’s audible intake of breath. ‘And it looks like Matthew’s delivered himself into the hands of her kidnappers, stupid prat. Tell DCI Davies what you’ve just told me, will you, Nicky. It’ll move things along faster coming straight from you.’

Nicky took a second to answer, and then, ‘Bloody hell,’ she whispered, clearly shocked. ‘I’m on it,’ she assured him. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘I haven’t a clue yet,’ Steve admitted. ‘Follow in the general direction. I lost them a couple of miles outside London.’ He reeled off his location. ‘I’ll head on in, sniff around. Get on it before anyone else does, that’s for sure.’

‘Good luck. Oh, and you can forget the bottle.’

‘Cheers, Nicky.’ Cutting the call, Steve started his engine, stalled it, and cursed volubly. What the hell was Matthew doing, again? Going off half-cocked, without back up? Was the bloke determined to get himself killed, or what? Frustrated, Steve restarted the car and pulled off.

‘Talk about a needle in a freakin’ haystack,’ muttering to himself, he drummed his fingers against the steering wheel as he drove. Obviously, Matthew had considered the risks of allowing himself to be taken. Would Steve have done the same? Yes, was the clear-cut answer. Lindsey was pregnant now, and as much as Steve knew that Davies and the bods at serious crime would do all they could, he also knew the chances of retrieving that little girl alive were miniscule, as would Matthew. The man was doing what he had to. Nothing could have dissuaded him from that.

So where did he start? Clubland, he decided. With any kind of luck, which Matthew had had precious little of, he’d come up with something, prise information out of someone. Find out just how involved she was with the likes of Hayes for a start, a cold vicious bastard, if ever there was one. Steve needed to know why she’d be involved with him, the bloke who’d derailed what was left of her father’s dubious sanity, get into the mindset of this creature who’d clearly inherited the worst of Patrick Sullivan’s genes. The best place to start, therefore, had to be with the Tony Hayes association.