He liked the look of the eldest in her school uniform. He was surprised to see her dressed like that because he knew the kid’s were on school holiday. Then he recognised which school she was at — private school. He guessed they must have different holiday’s and he took a short cut, anticipating where Grace would be driving. He was right. He was comfortably parked, a good hundred yards from the entranceway to the private school when Grace arrived. He used the zoom lens on his camera to watch the girl’s get out, and then snapped off a shot.
He was certain Grace would be working late again because of the ongoing hunt for him and he therefore guessed that her daughter’s would be making their own way home.
The remainder of the day he put things in place and rehearsed his lines, and ten minutes before the school day was due to end he slipped his car into a marked parking bay opposite the school gates and sat back to wait.
It wasn’t long before he spotted the eldest girl, coming towards him, chatting with a bunch of mates.
He slipped out of the driver’s seat and strode purposely towards her.
“Miss Marshall?” he asked and he showed the fake warrant card he had made earlier on his laptop. He could see she was taken aback. “Miss Marshall I’m detective Wild. I work with your Mum. She’s had an accident and I’ve been sent to take you to the hospital.” He could see the girl visibly pale.
“I need to speak with someone.” She reached for her mobile in her blazer pocket.
“We need to hurry Miss, your mum needs to go to theatre. You can phone who you need to tell on the way there.”
She dropped it back into her pocket and followed him, picking up the pace to keep with him as he jogged to his car.
* * * * *
Back in the MIT office, Grace and Barry Newstead had been given the task of logging all the evidence, which had been gathered and brought from the house. They were in the process of separating the vast array of forensic bags when Grace’s persistently ringing mobile phone disturbed them. The ring tone was a little baby continuously laughing. She loved the tone. It reminded her of her own two giggling girls when they had been babies, and how she had ended up in fits of laughter along with them. Every time she heard it, it had that same effect upon her. But this time she tried to ignore it. She had important work to do. It rang again and she snatched it out of her handbag and flicked up the screen. The screen told her it was Robyn. It had to be important; she knew not to ring her at work.
“Hello Robyn, mum’s busy, tell me what you want quickly,” she said disgruntled.
“I gather I am speaking with Detective Grace Marshall,” said the man’s voice.
She didn’t recognise it.
“Who is this? Is that school? Is there something wrong with Robyn?” she asked anxiously.
“Not yet but there soon will be.” The man’s voice was cold and menacing.
Grace froze, her mind racing.
“You know who this is Grace, don’t you?” He continued, “It’s Gabriel Wild. You’ve been bad mouthing me Grace and you need to be punished.”
“I haven’t. Is Robyn there? I haven’t been saying anything about you.” she stammered.
“You’re lying Grace. I heard you. I was hiding in the bushes. You said I was a coward and a wimp and a pervert. Those were your words Grace and for that I’m going to hurt you where it hurts the most.”
There was a long pause on the other end. Grace’s face turned ashen. In her line of vision she saw that Barry was trying to get her attention. She knew that he had spotted that something was wrong.
“Do want to speak to Robyn?” Grace could hear her daughter sobbing in the background. The sobbing got nearer.
“Robyn. Robyn.” She virtually screamed down the phone.
The sobbing drifted away and Gabriel Wild was back on the line “Do you know what I did to all the other girls?”
“If you hurt her. If you harm one hair on her head I’ll fucking kill you.” She screamed back with an edge of hysteria in her voice. The tears of anger and desperation welled up in the corner of her eyes.
Without warning the line went dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE
DAY THIRTY-SEVEN: 12th August.
Detective Superintendent Robshaw was running the operation from the Command Suite at the police station. He had called in a Hostage Negotiator, had briefed Task Force Firearms Unit as to their duties and turned out as many police vehicles as he could muster and ordered them to park up at strategic points throughout the district. Finally, he had called in the phone technicians from headquarters to fix the tracking and recording equipment to Grace Marshall’s phone. As soon as her mobile rung again they would be able to get a fix on the user.
In less than four hours he had managed to get everything into full swing, and he was praying that nothing had yet happened to Grace’s daughter, and that Gabriel Wild had a big enough ego to make contact.
He didn’t have to wait long. Grace’s mobile started to ring.
Suddenly the ring tone was not so funny.
She watched the technicians operate their equipment and when they gave her the ‘okay’ signal she flipped up the screen.
It was Robyn’s phone. “Hello Robyn?” she said nervously.
“Hello Grace it’s me.”
She recognised Gabriel’s voice.
“Let me speak with Robyn,” she replied.
“You’re in no position to make demands Grace. And I’m guessing there’s someone else listening to this so I’ll be hanging up before you can get a trace. I just want you to say goodbye to your daughter.”
Grace could hear Robyn’s cries coming nearer to the receiver. Within seconds she was sobbing in her ear.
“Help me mum,” she snivelled. Then her weeping drifted away.
“The next time you see your daughter, Grace, will be in the mortuary with all the other bitches,” Gabriel hung up.
Grace dropped her mobile.
For several seconds there was complete silence in the room. It was broken by one of the technicians.
“Traced it.” he shouted and stabbed an index finger on a blown up copy of a map of the District. “They’re here, behind one of the units on the Manvers Industrial site.”
* * * * *
The early evening sky was rapidly filling with grey clouds. With it came a fine rain. It sprayed across the windscreen of the parked MIT car, diminishing the view of the main Dearne parkway. Hunter and Tony Bullars were in the unmarked car. They had tucked the Vauxhall Astra into a lay-by and were monitoring the airwaves on their radio sets. Watching and waiting.
When the shout went up, indicating the location of Gabriel Wild, the two detectives bolted upright: Stirred into action.
Seconds after the radio broadcast Hunter locked onto a car that was screaming towards them.
Wild’s Toyota rocked the MIT car as it shot past.
Hunter revved up the engine and slammed into first gear.
Tony Bullars snatched up the radio handset to call it in.
The wheels spun, churning up loose gravel, and Hunter pressed harder on the accelerator, spurring the car in the direction of Wild’s speeding Toyota. Whipping through the gears Hunter soon had the unmarked police vehicle registering seventy mph and was making ground in their pursuit of the fleeing fugitive. He could hear from the radio chatter that other police cars were coming to their aid. The airwaves were awash with police officers’ voices strategically aiming their vehicles to cut off every conceivable escape avenue to Wild. ‘Whiskey nine-nine’ — the police helicopter had lifted from its base at Sheffield to join in the hunt.
As an advanced driver, trained in the craft of pursuit from his drug squad days, Hunter handled the car faultlessly, jerking around the many roundabouts, before pointing the bonnet towards the middle of the road as he straightened out to continue the chase. He beeped wildly on the car horn then re-adjusted his fingers to flick on the beam of his headlights.