Jack recognised the sharp-suited man from the Jag standing over her. His collar was now down, but he had his back to the camera. The two men named by the Drug Squad as Alpha and Beta entered the room; both men were wearing navy forensic paper suits, with the hoods down — and they looked as if they were enjoying the show.
The man from the Jag bent at the waist and pushed his face towards Avril’s. She brought her hands up in a vain attempt to protect herself and begged him not to hurt her. Jag turned slightly, put his finger to his lips and with sinister calm shushed her.
This was the moment that Jack saw his face for the first time. Jack’s mind leapt back to watching the grainy bodycam footage of Michael Mahoney’s arrest in Lithuania. Was it him? Jack couldn’t be certain, but facial ID would be.
Avril immediately did as she was told. As she sat there with no way out of the nightmare, Jag kicked her ankles apart and stepped in between her splayed legs. He then hauled her to her feet by her hair.
He gestured for Alpha and Beta to take her. They stepped forwards, grabbed an arm each and lifted her off her feet. Avril was hysterical as she hopelessly struggled against them. Jag took a small plastic bag containing MDMA tablets from his pocket, tipping one out, and as his men held Avril tight, he forced her mouth open and pushed a tablet into her mouth, holding her nose and choking her to make her swallow.
Jack looked across at Adam — he had one earphone in and was playing a game on his mobile. It was clear to Jack that he’d seen this footage and had no desire to see it again. Jack turned back to the screen.
Jag was now by the fireplace, leaning on the mantel as though this house was his domain...
During the following minutes of silent footage, Jack noticed the floor of Avril’s lounge looked somehow different from when he’d been there. It looked out-of-focus somehow. When he finally worked out why, he felt the bile build in his stomach and his skin turn cold.
The lounge floor was covered in plastic.
When he was ready, Jag gave the nod to Alpha, who pulled Avril into the centre of the plastic sheet.
Jag took a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and pulled them on. He lifted an ornate poker from its mount on the wall and began doing practice swings, swiping it through the air again and again. Avril, now knowing without a shadow of a doubt that she was about to die, fought like hell.
Alpha and Beta held each of her arms high and wide by the wrists as Jag closed in. Then, with one fierce blow, he brought the fire poker down and split her skull. He then swung it wide one more time, this time virtually cracking her face open. Avril dropped like a stone. Alpha and Beta worked quickly, putting a plastic bag over Avril’s head and securing it with a draw cord, tight around her neck. They wrapped her body in the plastic sheet and then carried her out of the lounge. Jag got a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the poker clean of Avril’s blood and his own fingerprints, then hung it back on its mount. He stepped back to check that it was straight, then removed the gloves, wrapping them in his bloodstained handkerchief and placed them into his pocket. He turned just as the poker slid to one side, so — with his index finger, he pushed the bottom of the poker a millimetre or two to the left. Perfect.
Jack was shaking as the screen turned to snow for a few seconds. Then it came back to life, showing Avril’s en suite.
Avril lay on the floor. The bag on her head was filling with blood. Alpha and Beta were securing their hoods, to make certain that their black clothing was completely covered. Alpha then cut Avril’s clothes from her body with a sharp, thin-bladed knife, tossing them to one side until she lay naked. He stuffed her clothes into a plastic bag, as Beta removed the plastic bag from her head, blood quickly poured out, expanding across the white-tiled floor. Beta leant out of shot, then back in, now holding a small, single-handed electric chainsaw.
The video became snowy again for a moment before it jumped to a short insert of the exterior of the property. The night vision was poorer quality, but it clearly showed Jag hurrying from the house and then driving his car away down the drive.
After another moment of static, the video jumped back to the en suite camera. Now the horror was in full flow as the men hacked at Avril’s lifeless torso.
Jack turned to Adam. ‘Jesus Christ!’
Adam lifted his hand to indicate that Jack should continue watching. ‘One minute more.’
Jack looked back at the screen and immediately realised why the men had left her part-dismembered body without completing the job. They were leaning over her head, saw in hand, when a flash of a red light suddenly illuminated the dark room. This was the moment the greenhouse had exploded. The video ended.
As Jack drew his hand back from the keyboard, it trembled beyond his control. The fury inside him manifested in a physical ball of intense pressure pushing against the inside of his sternum. He felt like he was about to explode. He leapt to his feet and moved quickly to the window, throwing it open and gasping the clean air while his mind replayed the very worst moment he’d just watched... not the moment that the poker split Avril’s skull, but the moment she realised she was definitely going to die. She’d fought so hard. Jack was filled with such raw anger that, at that moment, he just wanted to kill. He wanted to stop those men from breathing with the same degree of callous disregard and torturous glee they’d shown Avril.
Adam put his mobile away and gave Jack his full attention. ‘I think you must be an exceptional policeman, Jack, to muster so much anger on behalf of a woman you don’t really know. God, it must be petrifying to be on the wrong side of you.’
Jack became distracted by a fizzing noise, combined with a single high-pitched tone. He glanced back at the video he’d just watched to see the image disintegrating. Jack raced to the laptop shouting, ‘No!’ as though that could stop his evidence from disappearing. Once the video was wiped from the laptop, Jack glared up at Adam.
‘It must be obvious to you by now that I had access to — and am in complete control of — all the video footage from Avril’s home,’ Adam said. ‘It’s time now, Jack, I want a 24-hour head start. After which, I’ll forward that video to your email account. And this time it won’t corrupt and be wiped from existence after it’s been watched.’
Jack couldn’t contain himself. He charged towards Adam, fierce and uncontrolled. Adam responded by dropping to the floor, sitting on his heels, covering his head with his arms and freezing. ‘Get it back!’ Jack screamed. ‘Get it back!’ Jack stood over him, fist in the air, and slowly came back down to reality.
Jack walked backwards across the room until he was far enough away for Adam to dare look up. Adam smiled. ‘I think you’ve got more of your father in you than you’d care to admit. Twenty-four hours, Jack. Once we make this deal, it’s all down to trust. I trust you to give me a one-day head start, and you trust me to give you Avril’s killers.’
Adam drove Jack on his quad bike, back to the single-track road where he’d been forced to abandon his hired BMW. He then opened the storage hatch at the back of the bike and handed Jack a cardboard tube. ‘A gift,’ Adam said. ‘A thank you.’ Adam held out his hand for Jack to shake. ‘In the next life, Jack Warr, I have no doubt we’ll be friends.’
Chapter 42
Adam had then sent a one-word text message from the quad bike as he hurtled back towards his studio:
Now.
This was an escape that had been planned from the moment he arrived, but he’d put it into action when he’d left his studio to take the phone call.