They were actually on the outskirts of London by eight a.m. Progress down the motorways had been unusually swift and hassle-free, although the pace slowed considerably when they passed over the M25 and drove towards the city.
Henry and Jake were in the BMW, Flynn in the Audi. They’d decided on two cars so their options would be more fluid once they were in the city, although actually keeping each other in view was difficult enough. With the backup of smartphones and GPS, they hoped they wouldn’t go too far wrong and lose each other in the masses.
They followed the M40 as it morphed into the A40, then cut down south along the A320, towards the Thames.
Henry, who didn’t know London well, perked up when he saw they were travelling down Edith Grove, which he knew, as a bit of a Rolling Stones nerd, was where the fledgling group of Jagger, Richard and Jones had been cooped up in a tiny, grotty flat for a while, living hand to mouth in the days prior to great wealth. He wondered if the property had a blue plaque on it but wasn’t sure what the number was and imagined it would have changed since 1962. He didn’t spot one anyway.
Next, they merged on to Cheyne Walk by the Thames embankment where he kept an eye out for the present-day Mick Jagger who, he seemed to remember, had a house somewhere along here.
He didn’t spot him either.
When they reached Vauxhall Bridge, they turned across the Thames, passing the iconic MI6 building on the South Bank and following the A202 as it circumnavigated the Kennington Oval cricket ground and continued in a south-easterly direction along Camberwell New Road, then Peckham High Street and into New Cross, where they found Amersham Road on which the bail hostel was situated.
They looked at it quickly and then drew in sharply to the left of the road where there was plenty of roadside parking; craning their necks, they were able to see the front door of the hostel. It was in a long terrace of big three-storey houses, and Henry knew it was divided into eight small flats for the occupants. At least that is what his quick internet research had thrown up. Previously, of course, it had been a private residence, but over several decades it had gone through many hands and refurbishments from a bed-and-breakfast to a DSS dosshouse, to student accommodation and, finally, its most recent reincarnation as a bail hostel, or Approved Premises, for sex offenders. It was owned by the local council, run by a private management company and housed people on police bail pending court for serious sex offences. Henry could only imagine the happy reaction of the other residents in the road on hearing the news of its opening.
Behind Henry and Jake, Flynn climbed out of Henry’s Audi, stretching his long legs, rolling his shoulder muscles, and sauntered up to them on the pavement, bending down at Henry’s window.
‘I need food and drink. I spotted a sandwich shop just back there advertising breakfast sarnies and hot drinks. Interested?’
They had driven with only one toilet break, although they’d begun the day with the promised breakfast prepared by Ginny, and the last hour of the journey – from reaching the outskirts of the city to arriving in New Cross – had made all three thirsty and hungry again.
Henry and Jake nodded eagerly and gave Flynn their orders.
‘I’ll bob down.’
‘Keep your phone handy,’ Henry told him.
‘Why, what’s the plan?’ Flynn wanted to know.
‘Wait for a while, see if there’s any activity; if not, we’ll knock on the door and ask to see him. There is a warden on site.’ Henry was reluctant to speak to McCabe in his flat, only because if he did kick off for any reason, he might have backup from other residents and things could get untidy. Henry envisaged pinning him against a wall outside or preferably taking him to a local cop shop to speak to him, not under arrest, but on police turf.
Flynn said OK and sauntered down the road, glancing across at the hostel as he went, but not making his interest too obvious, he hoped.
He walked down on to New Cross Road, turned left and crossed over to a row of shops with a bakery in the middle. The aroma emanating from it hit his nostrils immediately. It sold a range of breakfasts from straightforward bacon and/or sausage sandwiches to vegan rolls.
There was a queue. He took up his position at the back while perusing the menu on the wall behind the counter. Eventually, his eyes dropped and looked without interest at the customers ahead of him; as they entered the shop, they split into two queues in front of two tills and serving points at the counter.
Flynn had taken his place in the left-hand queue. There were four people in front of him.
In the queue to his right were six people in total, one at the counter, five waiting behind. At the head of that queue was a young woman with dyed red and blue hair. Flynn, for his own amusement, tried to guess what her vegan order might be, although as soon as he began that process he knew he would be stereotyping her as a political activist or, as he called them, ‘a tree hugger’. No doubt he would be wrong.
Next his eyes moved to the man standing behind her.
Who – unless he was actually with this woman – seemed to be just a tad too close to her for comfort. He was right up behind her, although she did not seem to be aware of his presence as she chatted to the server and looked in her purse.
Flynn had an oblique view of the man’s profile from his position a few feet to the left and maybe eight feet behind. It didn’t help that the guy was wearing a floppy, fur-lined trapper-style hat with drop-down earmuffs like a deerstalker. The broad muffs hung down over the side of his face, masking most of his profile. He was also wearing a scruffy-looking parka jacket which came down to just above his knees and he had his hands in the pockets.
At least that is what Flynn initially thought and what the whole world would be deceived into believing, because the reality of the situation suddenly dawned on Flynn as the man moved slightly, getting even closer to the woman at the counter. Flynn realized that the sleeves of the parka were stuffed into the jacket’s pockets, but the man’s arms were not actually down them – they were in front of him, free under the coat.
It was an old shoplifting trick: pretend you’re wearing a large outer coat while being able to snaffle goods from the shelves and stash them in the inner pockets.
But in this man’s case it was also a good flasher’s trick.
Because the man, so close to the girl that she should surely smell him, had his penis out. It was erect and he was masturbating rapidly.
Flynn flew across at him with a roar, but the man – probably skilled in and ready for such situations – saw him coming and contorted away from Flynn’s outstretched hands, his cock ejaculating, though this did not stop him from moving quickly and spinning out of the shop.
Flynn was a big guy, broad, fit, but not particularly sprightly, and he lost his balance slightly as he turned, clawing for the man’s arm but missing, although his fingertips did just manage to get hold of one of the flaps of the man’s hat and pull it off his head.
Flynn recognized him immediately.
Gerald Daniel McCabe. The man they had come all this way to talk to.
Flynn went after him, but as he emerged from the shop, McCabe was already twenty yards ahead, heading for Amersham Road.
As he ran, Flynn pulled out his phone and speed-dialled Henry’s number at the same time as running across the road and dodging traffic. There was an instant connection.
‘Yo!’ Henry said.
‘McCabe … running up Amersham Road in your direction,’ Flynn said. ‘Green parka. Just caught him wanking off in the bakery.’
‘Gotcha.’
‘He’s running,’ Henry said to Jake, quickly getting out of the car and looking down the road to see McCabe hurtling towards him, but on the opposite side, with Flynn some way behind.
Henry could see McCabe’s top coat was flapping like Batman’s cape with the sleeves trailing behind like wind socks, while at the same time he was trying to rehouse his cock.
With Jake at his heels, Henry started to leg it across the road, having to weave through the traffic which slowed them both down. McCabe was moving quickly, and before Henry could head him off, he had vaulted over the low wall of the front garden of the bail hostel and crashed through the front door, slamming it shut behind him.
Henry, still with his phone to his ear, shouted for Flynn to veer right and go around the back of the row of houses in case McCabe went straight through, out the back of the premises, and disappeared.
Henry and Jake were at the front door just seconds after it was shut. McCabe must have known it would be open for him, or maybe he’d purposely left it ajar for just such circumstances. Whatever, the door was now firmly closed and locked.
Henry banged on it with his fists and pressed the doorbell which he could hear ringing through the house.
Flynn bore right on to Parkfield Road, sprinted across it to the alley that ran behind Amersham Road. It was an untidy place, overgrown with grass and blocked by a grey van some thirty yards up.
Flynn settled to a jog, but then saw McCabe appear through the door in the wall of the back yard behind the hostel and jump straight into the driving seat of that van.
Flynn now slowed to a walk but, on his way, scooped up a house brick from a stack of them behind another wall. He heard McCabe turn the engine, which didn’t seem to want to fire up, coughing and wheezing.
Then the van started and McCabe crunched it into gear.
Flynn stopped in the middle of the alley, maybe twenty yards in front of the van. In his left hand he held his phone to his ear; in his right he gripped the brick, wondering what the next move was going to be, because if it was in McCabe’s head to set off and mow him down, it was going to require some quick thinking and fancy footwork on Flynn’s part – first to hurl the brick through the windscreen and then to get out of the way. There wasn’t much room on either side of the vehicle – maybe four feet either way.
The engine revved.
Then Henry and Jake bowled out through the back-yard door, and Henry grabbed the driver’s door handle to try to wrench it open.
McCabe had locked it.
He had also applied his foot to the floor.
The van moved and quickly picked up speed, with Henry clinging to the door handle, Jake just behind him with nothing to grab.
Flynn had almost no time to come up with a coherent plan, but whatever it was had to be spot on in terms of timing; otherwise, he would be flattened.
The van accelerated.
Grew bigger, got closer.
Flynn drew back his right arm.
Henry, who had to release his grip on the door handle, twirled down the side of the van and crashed into Jake.
Flynn pitched the brick through the front windscreen, causing it to shatter and crumble, but the van still continued to drive at him and was just feet away from running him down. In order not to let this happen, Flynn had to decide what to do in that split second.
The van was almost on him.
He could clearly see McCabe’s wild face behind the wheel, grim, determined.
And with timing skills honed by years of bringing marlin to the gaff, he managed to get the toe of his right foot on the front bumper as though he was using it for a springboard and jumped over the steeply angled bonnet, through the space where only seconds before the windscreen had been. He crashed into the cab and thudded untidily on to the passenger seat alongside McCabe who, for a moment, was stunned as Flynn tried to rearrange himself so he could go for him.
McCabe kept his foot pressed down. He was very quickly over the shock at finding he had collected a new passenger and with his left hand he started to slash out with a rusty, long-bladed, machete-type knife he kept tucked down the side of his seat for such emergencies.
Flynn saw it flash and drew back against the passenger door. The knife just missed slicing his face off.
Flynn himself retaliated instantly, grabbing McCabe’s left wrist in a vice-like lock, twisting the whole of his forearm as he tried to disarm him. McCabe screamed in agony and tried to yank his arm free, but Flynn did not release it.
At the same time, McCabe still had his foot on the accelerator, his right hand gripping the wheel, and the van was still careening down the alley with Henry and Jake running behind.
When the van reached the point where the alley joined Parkfield Road, it did not stop, but shot straight across, mounted the pavement and ploughed into the gable end of the house opposite. The impact propelled Flynn back out through the windscreen, across the bonnet and smashed him into the wall.
McCabe hit the steering wheel hard with his chest.
But he was a man conditioned to keep running at all costs.
Despite the pain in his chest – he thought he’d cracked too many ribs to count – he shouldered open the driver’s door and tumbled out on to the footpath on to his hands and knees, almost in a starting-block position, which was good because he was ready to sprint away.
Henry and Jake came across the road as McCabe came upright, transferring the knife from his left to right hand and turning to the cops in a threatening gesture.
‘You stay there and put that knife down now,’ Henry yelled, but came to a halt just beyond its range.
‘You’re under arrest.’ Jake followed that up by flashing his warrant card.
‘No fucking way.’ McCabe started to run. Jake stepped into his path and said, ‘You’re going nowhere, pal.’
‘Get out of my way,’ McCabe warned him, ducking sideways and slashing the knife at him, at which moment Henry bowled into him from an angle, coming in on the blind side, encircling McCabe’s upper body and arms with his own arms in a bear hug. McCabe struggled violently, kicking and writhing, but Henry held on as Jake, timing it right, stepped in, grabbed his right wrist and squeezed, making him drop the knife. Jake got out his rigid handcuffs as Henry wrestled McCabe to the ground, pulled the guy’s hands around his back and applied the cuffs.
Henry released McCabe as Jake dropped on to him and pinned him down.
Henry turned to Flynn who stood up, clearly in agony.
‘You OK?’
Flynn nodded and breathed out, but he had been hurt probably more than he wanted to admit from his impact with the brick wall. At least he hadn’t hit it head first.
The two men clustered around Jake and McCabe who was being held, squirming and complaining, by the officer.
‘Wouldn’t have noticed him,’ Flynn said, rubbing his neck and rolling his shoulders, ‘except that he had his dick out and was masturbating over the girl in front of him. Fortunately, she wasn’t aware. But he saw me, I saw him and he legged it; then I recognized him.’
‘You did good,’ Henry said. ‘At least we don’t have a problem about where to speak to him anymore. An interview room will do nicely.’
Jake, still kneeling on McCabe’s back, was already phoning the local police.
The van in which McCabe had tried to escape was now embedded in the side of the house, but because it had mounted the pavement at a slight angle to the road, it was not causing any traffic snarl-up other than that caused by rubberneckers who crawled past, gawping at the incident.
Flynn, still rolling his muscles to ward off the pain, had walked to the rear of the van – a Ford Transit with panelled sides and double doors on the back. The impact, although pretty much head-on, had crumpled the length of the van and put it out of shape. The rear doors had twisted on their hinges and unlocked themselves, but because they were out of shape, Flynn had to jerk hard to open them and look inside.
For him, it was one of those moments that poured dread into his whole being, like molten metal being tipped into his soul.
He knew he was looking at the inside of a torture, rape and murder van.
A large plate of thin steel had been fitted behind the front seating area to completely separate it from the rear section. The interior panels had all been lined with egg cartons to muffle noise. Four chains had been riveted to the upright struts, and at the end of each chain was a pair of shackles. A series of hooks along the sides had a variety of clothing on them, including several ski masks. There were tools in an open box along with rolls of masking and duct tape.
And, on a grimy mattress stained with piss, shit and semen was a young boy, maybe nine years old, half-covered by a dirty blanket. His wrists and ankles were in the shackles. Tape covered his eyes and mouth. He was not moving, and Flynn could not tell if he was alive or dead.
‘Henry! Get back here,’ he shouted and clambered in, suddenly forgetting any of his aches and pains.
‘They reckon four,’ Henry said. He was on the phone to Rik Dean. ‘This could have been number five. He’d been taken from the street last night. He’s been raped and drugged and would probably have been murdered sometime today, like his other victims. It’s a good job Flynn spooked him; otherwise, we could have been happily chatting to him and never known about the kid and the van.’
‘Bloody hell, well done,’ Rik said.
‘Down to Flynn,’ Henry reiterated, ‘although I never did get my breakfast order.’
‘Maybe I misjudged him.’
‘Maybe we all did,’ Henry said, thinking of all those years when he couldn’t think of a single good thing to say about the guy. ‘He has hurt himself, though. Being flung through a windscreen into a wall isn’t good, even at a relatively low speed.’
‘Give him my thanks anyway. What’s your next step?’
‘To talk to this guy about his DNA brother if we can get in for ten minutes. Obviously, the local cops are all over him now, but we have been promised a window.’
Once the police had arrived, McCabe had been transferred from the scene of the crash to Lewisham Police Station and from that point on, as the Metropolitan Police murder investigation team descended en masse to assume control – which they were quite entitled to do – Henry, Flynn and Jake had been pushed to one side, other than to make statements, and McCabe had begun the ride of his life.
It was frustrating but understandable, and Henry got it.
The trio dutifully wrote their own statements, then were told to wait.
It was six hours before Henry, accompanied by a Met detective called Halsall, was allowed to speak to McCabe for a few minutes.
‘You guys did good. We’ve been pulling our hair out for the last four weeks, one kid going missing after another, two boys and two girls, all turning up raped and murdered. Obviously, the same offender, all offences committed in the same locality, but the picture build-up was quite slow. It was only last night we got intel of a grey van possibly being used.’
They were outside the door to the interview room.
‘He’s not saying anything,’ the detective went on.’ He’s got a brief and it’s all “No comment … no comment”, but that’ll be his downfall eventually.’
‘Usually is.’
‘How do you want me to introduce you?’
‘Er …’ Henry hadn’t thought about that. ‘Just Henry Christie from Lancashire, I reckon. Keep it vague and simple, just like me.’
They chuckled as they entered the room.
McCabe was now in a forensic suit and elasticated shoes. He had the hood tugged over his head and was sitting with his chair pulled up close to the table with his face just inches above the surface as though he was inspecting the grain of the wood. His solicitor sat alongside him.
He didn’t look up once, though after the detective had introduced Henry, but not the reason for his visit, he said, ‘No comment.’ Clearly his default position.
‘Mr McCabe, what I want to speak to you about does not concern any of the reasons why you are in custody,’ Henry began. ‘This is just me asking you some questions which will not be recorded or used against you.’
McCabe maintained his position, his head hovering just over the tabletop.
‘I’m investigating some very serious offences committed in Lancashire which involve murder and the use of firearms. You’re not involved, but through your DNA you are connected.’
Henry paused to see if there was a reaction.
Nothing.
‘Several people have been killed or seriously injured and, as I say, there is some connection to you, Mr McCabe.’
Still nothing.
Henry liked to be cagey in interviews. Sometimes it was prudent to lay all your cards on the table, but more often than not it was better to drip-feed information. Although this wasn’t a suspect interview, he had to be cautious as to how much he revealed because he did not know what this man’s relationship was with his brother. If they were close, he would somehow try to warn him that the cops were on his trail; if they were estranged or hated each other, maybe he would be happy to reveal all.
‘Can I ask – how do you and your brother get along?’ Henry probed. It was a problem not knowing the brother’s name, so Henry had to wing it slightly.
This did get a reaction.
McCabe raised his head and looked at Henry with a crooked smile on his face. Henry could not help but notice that sometime between this man’s arrest and now he had acquired a very big, swollen black eye.
Henry took a punt. ‘Not well, I guess?’
‘Cunt,’ McCabe said.
‘Me or your bro?’
‘Him.’
Another punt: ‘I take it he wasn’t … isn’t … sympathetic to your interests in life.’
‘Like I said, cu—’
Henry cut him off. ‘Yeah, I get it … so, big fallout?’
‘Mr Straight Guy,’ McCabe sneered. ‘Army, fuckin’ army – snooty twat – but that didn’t last long because he might be straight but he still likes hurting people.’
‘What d’you mean?’
McCabe raised his right hand, pointed his forefinger at Henry and went, ‘Bang!’
‘So you and him don’t get on?’
‘Bigger, stronger, harder ’n me, but my kid twin brother could not handle what I do.’ McCabe tapped his forehead. ‘That did his head in. I mean, once’ – McCabe leaned forward confidentially – ‘years back, this, I even snatched one for him and brought her home in the back of another van I had.’
A chill shimmered through Henry.
Next to him, he felt the Met detective touch his leg with a finger.
‘You brought one home? Who would that be?’
‘Some poxy kid from Wembley … I gave her to him on a plate … tied her down, pulled her legs open and said, “There you go, brother of mine,” and instead of being grateful, guess what?’
Henry didn’t respond. Just waited for McCabe to fill the gap he had made.
‘Kicked the shit out of me.’
Henry felt the detective tap again. Henry knew he would be much more interested in the kidnapping and maybe the murder of a child a few years ago than any problems McCabe had with his brother, especially now he had started to talk for the first time; once he started to talk, like most prisoners, he would never stop.
But Henry wanted a name and possibly an address because he had his own fish to fry. The least the Met could do – as thanks for catching a dangerous sexual predator and murderer – was allow a few minutes with him.
So he ignored the Met guy’s now incessant tapping.
‘He’s one of those holier-than-thou people, is he?’ Henry asked.
‘Oh, yeah. But he likes hurting people. Difference between me and him is that the people I go with actually love me, even right up to the end, and I love them …’
Henry’s toes curled up.
‘What’s your brother’s full name?’
‘McCabe. Darren McCabe.’
‘Where does he live?’
‘Near here. Up in Greenwich.’
‘Address?’
‘Up on Norman Road, I think. Look I haven’t seen him for ages, y’know? But I think he lives up there with a bird and a kid now.’
Henry stood up and said to the detective, ‘He’s all yours.’ To McCabe, he said, ‘I hope you rot in hell.’