Chapter 60
Kelly hammered on the door, but nobody answered. She peered through the window which was to the side of the porch, but she saw nothing. Johnny climbed on top of a wood store and reached another window, and he said he could see no one either.
That was when Kate contacted Kelly from Eden House and said she had a warrant for the property and the tactical entrance group was on its way.
That meant she could break the fucker down.
She and Johnny hammered the door with a log each until they exhausted themselves. It wouldn’t budge. It was an oak construction that looked as though it had been standing since King Arthur, who was responsible for supplying the indefatigable Welsh timber.
Nobody was getting through it.
Then somebody shouted from the other side.
The door opened as they stood back and Kelly breathed so deeply that her chest heaved up and down.
An older man stood in the doorway and Kelly squinted as the sun was dipping over the tree canopy and shone straight into her eyes.
‘Melvin? Is that you?’ she asked.
‘It is! I wasn’t expecting you. How can I help? Come in, come in! Both of you, and who is that? Sandy! What a nice surprise.’
Kelly watched as Sandy retreated as much as she could before she backed into a stone wall. Johnny shielded the two women as was his instinctive response and Kelly peered behind Melvin into the home.
‘Is your wife OK, Melvin?’
‘No, she isn’t here. I don’t know where she is.’
‘What about Paul, is he here?’
‘He is!’
Kelly didn’t know if she was dealing with a man who suffered from dementia and his mental acuity was dissolving before their eyes, or if Melvin Stone was an automaton being directed by an invisible force inside his head, via 5G.
None of the people she’d met since Jamie Robbins’ death were who they said they were; none of them were capable of telling the truth.
‘We need to come in, if we may,’ Kelly said, waiting for Melvin to make good on his invitation.
He did, and he stood back to allow them inside.
Kelly was wary and eyed Johnny, who took the lead.
The sirens had zipped straight past the hidden entrance and they no longer heard the whirring in the distance and Kelly realised that they weren’t the ones they were waiting for.
Some other emergency in the Lakes had needed an ambulance this afternoon.
Her stomach felt like stone, but she walked into the house and found herself in a small kitchen.
It was an L-shape but she couldn’t see around the bend.
She felt Johnny near her. Sandy hung about at the door.
‘You want me to cut those off? They look painful,’ Melvin said to her, noticing the cable ties.
‘She’s good, she can keep them on, Melvin,’ Kelly said. ‘Where’s Paul?’
‘I’m here,’ a voice said from around the wall. He emerged and stood in the space, way back from them. The faint whine of sirens started up again in the distance and Kelly prayed that this time it was for them.
‘And Kevin Streeting? Is he here?’
‘Who?’ Paul asked.
Her eyes darted around and she caught Johnny looking for a trap too.
Her nerves were threadbare. She twisted the ring on her middle finger on her right hand.
How many times had she wondered what it would have been like to have it on another finger on her left?
It felt heavy, and she always said she’d stop wearing it to work but she couldn’t bring herself to leave it at home in a box when it symbolised something quite different to that.
It attracted her energy for good reasons, and it never got on her nerves; even when she and Johnny split up and she considered taking it off, it was a source of comfort.
The sturdy nature of the gold and the never-ending lustre of the rubies provided a silent strength that kept her going and she rubbed it now.
The gesture gave her reassurance and Johnny noticed what she was doing.
Paul and Melvin were on opposite sides of the kitchen space, and they were now stuck in the middle. In no man’s land. Like the lone tree at Buttermere, exposed. Vulnerable.
‘It’s OK, Melvin, you can stop with the story now; I know who you are,’ she said to him.
He looked at her with a confused look and she almost fell for the innocent old man trick, but something in the way he held his body, which was not quite without intent, put her own body on high alert.
‘Melvin, it’s me, Johnny Frietze,’ Johnny said. Kelly wanted to stop him from becoming involved, but he was doing it to buy time. In that moment, she wanted to kiss him. He was doing it for her, but she was still angry with him for taking so many risks. That was her prerogative.
‘We served in Iraq together, years ago, pal. I couldn’t place you, but now I do.’
Johnny got nearer but Kelly wanted him to stop. She looked at his feet and watched them inching backwards as Johnny moved forward. Then she saw that Paul was wearing just socks and Melvin boots. CAT boots. Melvin saw her and followed her stare and looked at his own feet, then smiled.
‘I borrowed his boots,’ he laughed.
‘You do that often, Melvin?’ Kelly asked.
‘I do!’
‘Our most successful subject,’ Sandy said from behind them.
‘I knew you were somebody I recognised!’ Melvin said.
‘Sandy, what are you doing?’ Kelly asked.
‘She’s controlling them. It’s straight out of the military playbook.’ Johnny stepped forward and blocked Sandy’s view of the others. But it was too late. Something had triggered Melvin, and he looked down at his trouser pocket and pulled out a large kitchen knife.