The Dark Star - Aftermath Pt. 09

Chapter One; Too close to the truth

Rose Callaghan clutched the mobile phone in her trembling hand, breathless she pressed it to her ear as the cold wind whistling around her causing her already dishevelled hair to whip around her face. The snow fell harder and thicker, already sticking to the ground at her feet. She took a deep breath trying to gain her composure as the call she'd made was answered.

"999 which service do you require?"

"This ...This is Detective ... Detective Inspector Rose Callaghan" she uttered "I need ... Oh, dear God I need assistance ... Ambulance I need an Ambulance ... Officer down"

"Can you repeat Ma'am" the panicked call handler requested.

"Officer down ..." her tears broke her voice "Immediate assistance... I think he's ...Oh dear God I think he's dead."

**********

~ Six Hours Earlier ~

Callaghan wrapped the interview, terminating the near forty-five-minute session at 10:14am she had noted.

Jack Hughes sat across the table from her, still protesting his innocence, still feigning indifference to every scrap of evidence they'd put to him.

The latest physical evidence being a dark green hooded sweatshirt which still sat on the desk between them in the protective cover of an evidence bag. The same dark green hoodie that had been discovered amongst Henrietta Harding's possession in her bedroom when Officers had searched her home for clues as to her potential whereabouts, clues to her movements. None of her family had recognised the garment as belonging to her. While there was no indication of how the garment had come to be in her room several factors suggested the top wasn't hers, it was not in keeping with any of Henrietta's fashion or style and by its size alone, as Callaghan had assumed, would have swamped her petite frame.

Jack Hughes has recognised the garment. Jack Hughes in another admission had professed to it bring his; vehemently claiming to have no knowledge however of how his item of clothing came into the possession let alone the bedroom of the missing daughter of the Member of Parliament. Jacks' admission only confirmed what they knew given hair and DNA samples they'd already retrieved from the sportswear, all positively identified as Jacks.

Henrietta's parents were as easy to be expected by this stage in proceedings growing impatient at the lack of progress being made, the lack of updates, their daughter having been missing for 5 days now. Mark Harding's snarling aggression as Callaghan had sat opposite him in the kitchen of the family's Town House had been apparent and equally intimidating. His persona suggested a dark anger which lay beneath the paper-thin public persona the MP was at pains to portray. "I don't care for you...I don't care for your agenda... I will go public ... I will find my daughter," he'd barked across an oak kitchen table at her and Parsons only twenty-four hours earlier. Undeniably she could obviously understand his standpoint, his frustration, his fear, with Jack Hughes in custody refusing to choke up assistance their hopes of finding her safely dwindled with each second let alone minute. Hughes had so far not yielded in their constant requests and near demands to let them know where she was, the latest made only minutes ago. They couldn't afford for Mark Harding to go public, given what she knew off the record about Jack Hughes then Callaghan was certain, if only in her own mind of his association.

It was therefore important that without wishing to show weakness that she had relied on the known personal friendship between Mark Harding and Superintendent Derek Haver. The Super hadn't agreed with her strategy but had agreed they were in too deep now to alter their course of action with immediate effect. He'd given her an ultimatum of 24hrs to gain damning evidence. Sixteen hours of which had already passed.

"You're not acting alone are you Jack?"

Callaghan knew that the statement come question was now off the record with the interview terminated. She knew this, Detective Sayeed Malik who was deputising for Steve Parsons in the interview knew this, the Lawyer Entwistle would know this his hand already on Jack's forearm, not the first time she'd witnessed their now familiar silent communication this morning alone. Even Jack Hughes would know this, but she was looking for a reaction as she stared into his eyes. Something Logan Hughes had suggested, a conclusion they'd never ruled out themselves but like many other things never been able to prove. Every line of thought given Jack's lack of cooperation came back to the suggestion that Jack Hughes wasn't in this alone, he had an accomplice or potentially he was even the accomplice.

"Must be someone you're scared of ... or someone you care about."

She was hoping to be smart.

Jack shook his head, but she saw his eyes glimpse to right briefly drawing on a vision, a memory, a person.

"I hope they're worth it."

She didn't pause she didn't even look back as she exited the interview room, allowing Malik to deal with the formalities.

The strike of her cream heels echoed down the hallway as she strode back to her desk. She needed a coffee; she might be in need of a miracle. This case refusing to unravel for her. She held in her possession a murder weapon, but she knew without compromising the investigation she couldn't simply produce the weapon from nowhere.

"Where's Parsons?" She near barked at the assembled team in the Investigating Office. Drawing blank expressions and shakes of heads.

Slipping her phone from the inside pocket of her tailored navy suit she switched it from silent, the screen illuminated showing four missed calls and two voicemails. Stabbing finger to her phone screen she pressed the phone to her ear. Listening intently to the most recent of the answerphone messages.

Phone still in hand she grabbed her black wool over coat and slipped it over her shoulders, through the windows she could see flakes of snow in the air as she headed through the investigation office.

"I'm heading to North Channel Docks," she announced aloud, nobody seemed to pay her attention.

*************

Parsons watched her as she stepped out of her newly issued black Mercedes C Class.

"Nice wheels," he offered.

"Why have you dragged me down here?" Callaghan stated time was desperately pressing she couldn't afford distractions. His envious look though spoke volumes. Parsons was jealous of the vehicle. Not surprising when she looked over to the beat-up looking Ford Mondeo Estate, he had driven here in.

"I think you'll be very interested in what I've discovered."

"What?" She stated drawing the coat around her and buttoning it too the neck against the bitter temperature. The early snow flurry had amounted to nothing, but the freezing wind whipped through the warehouses around them. Slipping her hands into her pockets she pulled on fitted black leather gloves.

"Just follow me" Parsons stated with a measured tone. He was teasing this out for whatever reason. Callaghan followed, wondering how he was braving the cold in just a thin grey suit over his usual white shirt and blue tie combination. Following him as he pulled open the door to the storage container he approached before disappearing inside of the large slightly rusting blue metal container. Illuminating a torch, he turned towards her as she entered, a smell she couldn't quite place immediately filling her nostrils. Callaghan turned her face away from the dazzling glare of the torch; immediately spotting the light switch to her right. Flicking it the room dimly illuminates with two bulbs hung from the ceiling of the container. She refrained from passing comment on the lack of detective work used to find something as simple as a light switch. Parsons was good at his job but with a propensity to miss the bloody obvious at times she considered.

"Why have these places hooked up to power supply" Parsons stated shaking his head realising his own folly. "They're designed to be portable for transportation."

"These places?" Callaghan cocked her head.

"There are others ... fuck me there are others it's like the Stirchley Grange Mills by the Water Callaghan ... there was Something about the background of the Henrietta Harding video... something I recognised" Parsons stated, "Something not familiar but..."

"I'm all ears Steve" Callaghan's impatience was escalating by the second. A surge of adrenalin at the prospect of where she assumed Parsons was already headed.

"Do you not recognise it" He shone his still illuminated torch at the wall of the container a chair sitting just before it; thick black gaffer tape cling to the legs "This is where the video was filmed... Henrietta Harding was tied to that chair."

"You haven't ...you haven't touched a thing have you Steve?" Callaghan couldn't fault this detective work now, her heart beating in her chest which rose and fell with excitement of the discovery. She was about to ask how he'd even come across this place when he answered her.

"I'm not fucking stupid ...although he spun the grip of the torch towards the far corner of the room... that's blood" his grimace matched by the sinking feeling immediately in her stomach; were they too late?

"Have you called this in?"

"I just discovered the blood before you turned up ...nothing else was urgent enough to warrant calling in until you'd had eyes on."

"We need to call it in ... get Forensics down here."

"I wanted to give you time Ma'am." Parsons's gaze met hers, "I wondered whether you could offer explanation."

"Explanation?" Callaghan offered genuinely bemused shaking her head, "Explanation of what?"

"See it's never sat well with me ...the partial DNA evidence obtained from the sexual assault of Daisy Grayson... Yes, we know she'd been in the acquaintance of Jack Hughes, a fact he doesn't deny," Parsons looked at her. "We're relying on a confession that I don't think I ever see coming... what if Hughes claims of being innocent are ...well just that?"

"C'mon Steve," Callaghan stated confused as to where this was headed "You've seen him ...we both seen that look in his eyes that guilt... we both agreed on the tell-tale signs of guilt... he's scared he's holding up to our questions, but he's scared and he's hiding behind that Solicitor."

"Partial DNA will always be thrown back at us ...It ain't going to stand up to even the most amateur of cross examinations if we try to drag Jack Hughes through a trial." Parsons reached to his back pocket and grabbed a sheet of folded A4 which he held out to her, "What if we've only partial DNA match because we have the wrong man in custody?"

Callaghan took the sheet of paper from him and began unfolding it.

"I got that from the security booth at the front gate... their system is basic but captures number plates and fortunately CCTV of vehicles... the Number plate recognition indicates fake plates... This though ... this image is date and time stamped at 19:37 on the night in which Henrietta Harding went missing," Harding ran his hands through his hair. "They're either working together ...or we've the wrong fucking man."

Callaghan unfolded the sheet of paper; the image was grainy at best but even as a printed screen grab, she could clearly make out the features of Logan Hughes.

"Who...who is this?" She feigned ignorance.

"That's the real fucking mind bender here Ma'am," Parsons shook his head. "Because that's the second time I've seen his ghost."

"Who's ghost?"

"Logan Hughes ghost ... you see three years ago I was one of the first officers on scene at his fucking murder, so I'd recognise that face. Not from the state we found the poor bastard in but from the victim photos I saw plastered all over the crazy wall at the time. The same photo used in the posthumous trial for the murders of Rowan Blackstock and Gemma Gregson.

Callaghan watched Parsons intently as he relayed his account of events, events she'd not even been aware he'd been party to.

"Over seventy times..." Parsons continued. "Seventy times he'd apparently been stabbed... now I'm not a religious man but unless he's Christ the Almighty risen from the dead, I'm guessing Logan Hughes isn't six feet under as we speak."

Callaghan kept staring at the page she couldn't compose herself quickly enough.

"But you know this don't you Rose ... or you at least recognise who that is?" Parsons narrowed his brows as she looked up at him "Because this is the same man, I saw you leaving the 'Byzantine' restaurant within the Docks two weeks ago isn't it?"

"I beg your..." Callaghan panicked; she heard the panic in her own voice. Parsons would to.

"I didn't mention it at the time, and I wasn't sure... it was none of my business and I had no idea what you were doing there and as I said I wasn't convinced... but unless this is news to you Rose, I'm having to start to question how involved you are?"

"Steve... Steve..." Callaghan shook her head dropping the sheet of paper. "Steve honestly I..."

"Save it..." he cut brutally acerbically across her stammering protests. Callaghan had never known him to be so assertive. "... I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, am I?"

"I know him yes... but I didn't know who he is,"' until recently her words couldn't have been closer to the truth. She'd lost control now though, her refusal to reveal her compromised situation the moment she'd become aware would be her undoing.

Callaghan felt her legs week as she stood there facing down her close colleague, her second in command on the investigation that had taken so much of their time and effort. She realised how this must look to him, she realised as she recognised how bad it looked to herself. She'd not wanted to draw the conclusions that Parsons had, she'd not wanted to believe Logan Hughes, the man she'd only known as Andrew Baxter for so long, was involved any more than what he'd told her two nights earlier. She didn't want to believe he was capable but even the scrap of paper at her feet suggested otherwise.

She looked up to her colleague who stared into her eyes.

"This... this is..."

"Steve let me explain," Callaghan sank her hands into her jacket pocket, feeling the object that until now had cast the largest shadow on what she wanted to believe of Logan Hughes. The objects she'd wrestled her conscience on how to literally bring to the evidence table.

"Don't ...I don't want to know ...you need to give a formal interview... I need to..."

Callaghan knew what was coming, she knew in that instant that Parsons was clear in his mind what had to happen next in the gloom of this cold storage container.

"Rose Callaghan I am arresting..."

"Don't ..." her head shaking her eyes wet with tears. Everything she'd worked for about to come crashing down around her. Everything she'd ever wanted lost in less than a blink of an eye. Reaching out a hand she wrapped it around his right forearm "Please don't."

"Rose Callaghan I am arresting you on suspicion of perverting the course of justice and withholding..."

It happened so quickly.

Her hand lunging from her pocket.

His words cut short as he clutched his stomach.

Scarlett blood soaking through his pristine white shirt as it spilled from his lower abdomen.

His eyes wide as he looked up at her, as he stumbled backwards.

Her hand she realised repeatedly stabbed the knife into him as she stepped forward.

Over and over with tears in her eyes she plunged the knife in to her colleague's stomach.

**********

"So, does this constitute you ending the time you needed" I look into Callaghan's scared eyes my dark humour lost on her.

"I don't know what ... I didn't mean to ... I just"

Against the wall of the Storage Container is the slumped body of a middle-aged man in a cheap grey suit. I recognise him. It takes me a moment to place his face, one of the men from the club. One of the detectives who'd arrested Jack. Blood sleeps across the floor of the storage container which I'm conscious not to step in, blood slowly seeping from the lifeless body over which she has draped her jacket. To his left I recognise the hilt and blade of a familiar weapon. In my gloved hand I pick up the switchblade folding the blade into the hilt and I place it into my back pocket for the time being

"Oh my god Andrew." she utters, I don't react to her, "Oh my fucking God what have I done?"

She's fucked up is what's she's done. She's fucked up and caused herself a problem of epic proportions. There'll be a solution. I need time, I need as much time as possible, and I don't need Rose Callaghan's panic.

"Outside..." I near enough bark at her "Outside ...try not to touch a thing."

Clutching the sports hold-all I follow her out into the cold crisp pale midday sun that has briefly broken through the heavy dark clouds that have scarred the sky so far today.

"There's a way out of this ...there's a way out of this Rose... but you'll have to trust me ...and question nothing." She looks up at me, tears in her eyes, her mental state concerns me. I'll deal with that but for now I have to deal with the immediacy of the problem.

"Come with me," I don't give her an option I grab her upper left arm firmly frog matching her across the gravel yard towards another shipping container. Either in shock or understanding she follows in silence. I unlock and raise the lever lock that opens the Container to the left of the one we've just left her dead colleague inside of stepping in I set down the hold-all and retrieve two items.

Callaghan stares ahead in disbelief at the macabre devices sat around the storage container.

"Don't question a thing," I reiterate taking a length of rope and starting to tie her wrists tightly.

Her eyes look down she says nothing as I raise her slender arms to a hook hung on a chain from the ceiling. I loop the restraint over the steel hook high above her head. No arousal nothing sensual, this nothing more than a necessary requirement. She watched me intently on scared wide eyes.

"When you come to, I want you to struggle like fuck."

"When I..." her words lost as stood behind her I press the taser up under her jacket and force it deep against her ribs.

Triggering the taser she gasps as the shock of the maximum voltage of the device passes through her slender body. Her head slumps her legs give way, her jerking body falls limp as I let go of the taser. Rose Callaghan hands suspended by the restraint around her wrists. I let my hands move briefly over her slender body. A dark grin passing my lips as I spree I ate the physical and metaphoric grip in which I now hold the Detective.

My plan is simple in its intricacy, my plan cannot succeed without one person.

Leaving Rose hung there by her wrists I exit the container; this area of the Docks as ever is deserted but I'm mindful of the possibility of being seen so I keep my wits about me. Heading purposefully to the main warehouse building I make mental notes of the need to deal with the limited security cameras that the facility's management company of the Docks maintain.

Pulling a navy-blue boiler suit over my jeans and short leather jacket I zip it to the neck. Not feeling the bitter cold of the day as my adrenalin fuels me now despite the inclement conditions. The sky is now heavily clouded and threatening the heavy snow that days of freezing conditions had forecast. Heading to the main warehouse. My head down concentrating on the plan considering what time I'll need. One matter concerns me one matter that makes this time critical. The body of Detective Parsons marks the first time stamp the inevitable forensics investigation will bring. The easiest solution of attempting to destroy all evidence in the circumstance would be the most amateur. That plan would be rushed at best and more importantly the plan wouldn't be fool proof or meet the required timeline. The plan would also depend on Rose Callaghan's strength of conviction as much as anything else, something I wasn't assured of even in the circumstances.