Sycamore Gap: A DCI Ryan Mystery(105)
CHAPTER 26
Paddy moved around the coffee table and hunkered down until he was eye-to-eye with MacKenzie.
“Let’s go, Denise,” he said brightly, before reaching out to grasp underneath her arms. In doing so, he brushed the material of her shirt, tugging it out of place to reveal a slim, flesh-coloured wire taped to the skin between her breasts. His face twisted as he struggled to compute the meaning.
He looked up from the wire into eyes that were wildly green and very lucid.
“I’ve got a little surprise for you, Paddy,” Denise ground out. Wasting no time, she slammed the heel of her hand up into the bridge of his nose, with a satisfying crunch.
He fell backwards, crashing back over the coffee table with a deafening thud. Glasses shattered onto the polished wooden floor beneath and blood streamed from his face, splattering down the front of his shirt.
MacKenzie rose to her feet on slightly shaky legs, glad to be in charge of her body and mind. She circled around the back of the chair, reaching for the heavy, glass ashtray, which had fallen to the floor. She held it like a club, ready to use as a weapon if necessary.
When Donovan reared upwards, he was all animal. Howling, he leapt towards her, the bulk of his body scattering the chairs aside.
“Bitch!”
She prepared to fight.
Outside, the moment Donovan signalled his intention to move, Ryan had given the order: “ATTACK, ATTACK.” Three teams stationed in a triangle around the house prepared to intercept Donovan if he managed to escape. Stationed directly outside the front door, two constables battered the oak door, which gave in after three good rams.
Phillips was first through the door, calling out “ARMED POLICE!” and Ryan followed closely behind with the firearms specialists. In a few short strides, they followed the sound of a loud crash towards the rear of the house.
“Denise!”
Phillips didn’t wait for the battering ram but kicked open the door to Donovan’s study with the strength of an angry carthorse.
He skidded to a halt, his face drooping into disbelieving lines when he saw the bloodied body lying still on the floor at the foot of the coffee table.
“You took your time, Frank Phillips!”
Dazed, they looked up from the unconscious body of Paddy Donovan and across to where MacKenzie stood, dabbing at a graze to her cheekbone with the edge of her shirtsleeve. Her other hand kneaded the aches which seemed to have leaked into her body, spreading in waves of pain from her neck. Now that the adrenaline was starting to drain from her system, the competing effects of Lorazepam and its antidote, Flumazenil, made her feel fuzzy. A headache throbbed, along with her right bicep, which sang with pain and victory but felt like a dead weight.
“Denise.” Phillips crossed the room to take her face in his hands.
“Frank –” She protested, a bit embarrassed, a bit moved. “I’m fine. Really.”
Phillips cleared his throat and rubbed his hands up and down her arms before hugging her to him.
“’Course you’re fine,” he said gruffly, stepping away deliberately. “Take more than some lunatic to knock you off your stride.”
“Good job, Mac,” Ryan added, with some admiration, then turned to issue instructions for Donovan to be properly tended by medics and transferred to a holding cell. “You pack a mighty decent punch.”
MacKenzie grinned.
“You think I do Pilates just to keep my ass pert?” She joked. “Knew that defence training would come in useful some day.”
“You might want to take a look inside that cabinet,” she added, with a nod towards the corner unit. “He keeps the key somewhere on him.”
Ryan checked Donovan’s pockets and found nothing. He ran light fingers over his shirt and the waistband of his trousers until he found what he was looking for.
“Bingo.”
Grey eyes turned stormy as they surveyed the trove of evidence inside that cabinet; there were ten coloured folders, clearly labelled with the names of ten women, organised into what he presumed was date order. In the first folder, a single picture of Amy Llewellyn smiling brightly for the camera was pinned to a stack of medical notes on her psychological health and, above them, a sheaf of handwritten notes in the form of a personal journal. That would make for interesting reading, he was sure.
Eight other files listed the names of women he knew were missing, some of whom he recognised from Phillips’ list of like crimes.
In the tenth folder, there were several grainy, long-range images of Anna, pinned to a stack of newspaper cuttings and handwritten notes.
Yet there were no notes on Claire Burns or on Geraldine Hart.
Ryan looked back down towards the man who was starting to come around. He groaned and shifted on the floor while a police medic checked his vitals. Once satisfied that he wasn’t about to keel over, his wrists were quickly restrained.