Those We Know (DI Olivia Austin Book 4) Page 12

  “What’s the situation?” she demanded of the officers already on site. None other than PC Andrew Shaw turned around. Something twinged inside of Olivia; whether it was guilt, apprehension, or something else, she didn’t have the time to decipher it.

  “We’ve only just got here ourselves,” he explained. “Apparently, we have an older male caught in a hostage situation. We believe the captor is armed and still inside, but we haven’t seen any activity, yet...”

  No sooner had Shaw given his status report, two figures appeared silhouetted in the downstairs window, one clutching the other.

  “Over there!” Olivia shouted.

  A flurry of commotion broke out, and the firearms officers pushed toward the front door.

  “Come out with your hands up! The house is surrounded!” Someone shouted.

  The shadows inched toward the door. It was hard to tell exactly what was happening, but by the looks of it, the man whom they assumed was Marty held Mr. Turner close to him.

  “Come out of the house with your hands up!” the same voice shouted.

  Olivia tried to get up as close as she could to the door, but a young constable held her back.

  “Can’t let you go any further, miss,” he said with a frown. “He’s dangerous.”

  She turned to Dean who joined her side.

  “How do know it’s even him?” he asked. “Grant could have half a dozen enemies. If Joel was mixed up in that drug shit, this could be blowback from that!”

  Olivia was about to give her theory, but the sound of the front door creaking open slowly pulled her attention.

  She whipped her head around to see two men reveal themselves in the doorway, and just as expected, Marty Wiggins had hold of a terrified-looking Grant Turner, using him as a body shield with a knife pressed up against his throat. He looked in a sorry state with slashes and bruises already covering what they could see of his body.

  Would he have been dead like the others had they not all arrived?

  The air about them stilled, and he seemed to take a breath as he edged out one slow step at a time.

  “That’s enough!” an officer shouted. “Stay right there!”

  Marty snarled in the direction the voice came from, his grip ever tight on his hostage. He looked awful, and Olivia felt bad that his face would have been the last his victims would have seen before he killed them. Those small beady eyes and large mouth. He was the stuff of nightmares, and finally seeing his face in person made her feel angrier than ever.

  “It’s over, Marty!” she shouted, trying her best to maintain a confident tone. The constable beside her turned in surprise. “We both know it! There’s nowhere to go from here.”

  His eyes scanned the array of police personnel until they rested on Olivia’s, and his ugly mouth opened into a wide grin.

  “Well, hello there, Inspector Austin,” he grinned. “That’s exactly the idea, well done.” As the words left his mouth, Olivia’s veins froze. It was undoubtedly him. She wouldn’t forget the way he said her name, like he knew the answer to a joke she hadn’t even heard.

  “If you let Mr. Turner go, we can take you in quietly,” she reasoned. “You’ll be able to tell your story, Marty. Isn’t that what you want? For people to know your name? Recognise your mugshot? No longer think of you as a nobody?”

  Lawrence nodded as Olivia asked the questions, wordlessly encouraging his partner.

  “I get all that anyway, Austin,” he scoffed. “And I’ve got so many people waiting for me once I pass on to the afterlife. You know, many believe that consuming someone’s flesh means that they’ll worship you once you die. I’ll live like a god.” Marty’s voice quivered with passion as he explained his logic.

  “No one knows what happens when you die!” Olivia called back. A bronze commander appeared at her side and told her to keep him talking. She swallowed before continuing. “What if you get nothing, Marty? Wouldn’t you rather stay and be worshipped for decades here on earth?” Olivia couldn’t believe herself even as she did her best to talk this man down; why was she trying to save him? Perhaps she knew the worst punishment would be him rotting in a jail cell. Or maybe she just couldn’t stand to see another person die in front of her. Regardless, she was trying.

  Beside her, she could hear DI Lawrence in discussion with the bronze commander, and she gave him a quick glance to see if there was another plan. He shook his head. No yet.

  “You don’t understand, Austin,” Mr Wiggin’s continued, he spoke loudly, almost screaming. “And you never will! I bet you’ve always been likeable, always been understood. Joel told me all about you, the way that you charm your way into everyone’s life. My only regret is that I can’t take you with me.” With each new word, Marty’s voice became more and more crazed, and Olivia’s stomach plummeted as she realised there was no talking him down from what he wanted to accomplish. There was a lot more than avenging victims going. His mental health was in shreds.

  “You don’t have to do this...” she breathed, locking eyes with Joel’s terrified father. “Put the knife down and let him go.”

  “Can’t do that!” he growled. “They told me not to.”

  They? Schizophrenia too?

  She steeled herself, ignoring the pounding in her head.

  “They don’t want what’s best for you...” she argued. “There’s help you can access and...”

  “I WILL LIVE LIKE A GOD!” he screamed as loud as he could, and the large knife flashed so quickly that Olivia barely noticed it had moved before she heard the muffled fire of a gun.

  The sound ricocheted through her body, taking her back to the Oxford Street Terror Attacks—the sound of screaming, the death cries, and the pop, pop, pop of a gun in the air.

  She froze, processing the memories she was trying to supress as she watched the scene in front of herunfold in slow motion.

  Both men crumpled to the ground. What the fuck happened?

  Before she could reason with herself, she ran forward, ignoring Dean’s calls to stay back. She needed to know.

  Grant was scrambling on the ground, trying his hardest to escape from Marty, whose body was becoming increasingly surrounded by a pool of blood, dark and thick. Not nearly close to what he’s spilled himself, Olivia thought grimly.

  She landed unceremoniously on her knees next to him, pressing her fingers into his neck roughly to feel for a pulse as she looked him over. A weak thrum pressed against her two fingers, reinforced by the sputtering of breath that came from Marty’s lips.

  And then Olivia did something she never expected herself to do. Just as the paramedics descended on them, she leaned forward over the man as he lay dying and pressed her lips to next to his ear.

  “I guess I ended up coming back for you in the end, Mr Wiggins.”

  For a moment, it seemed as if he might try to respond. A sound gathered in his throat, ready to form itself into words.

  But the words never came.

  “Miss, we need you to get back please!” One of the paramedics pulled her to her feet and surrounded their killer.

  Police were at her side in an instant, and she watched from her position as they tended to Marty. He let out a shuddering breath, a death rattle, and Olivia realised with a sinking heart that it wasn't the first time she had heard the life leave someone’s body. His eyes, at first focused on her amongst the crowd of people, slowly shifted out of focus until they glassed over.

  She knew he was gone.

  Olivia couldn’t tell what emotion she felt as she stood there numb, hearing the talk and chaos around her, but it wasn’t until Dean pulled her away from the scene and back to where PC Shaw was waiting that she realised he was truly dead.

  28

  Olivia and Dean finally got around to clearing up their office two days later. It had been a gruelling 48 hours of interviews, paperwork, and mental health assessments, but they were finally getting to find some closure on the case.

  “What a mess,” Lawrence sighed with a shake of his hea
d as he sorted through another pile of notes.

  Olivia knew he was referring to more than just the state of their office.

  “I’m just glad that my mum is dropping off Earnest tonight,” Olivia admitted. She hadn’t seen her cat in over a week, and the thought of getting to snuggle up next to him and listen to a good playlist gave her some solace. She’d been ordered to stay away from books, screens, booze, and loud noises until she heard back from a neurologist about her concussion, which left her with very few options to wind down with.

  “How are you feeling?” Lawrence asked, eyeing his partner. They had both been through debrief, though Olivia could see plainly that her friend was conflicted. Collins had ordered they have a mandatory week off.

  “I mean, I feel as all right as someone can be, given the circumstances, I suppose,” she answered. After seeing Marty die, her whole emotional system had switched off. Now, she mostly felt numb, but she was afraid to admit that to her partner. “Marty didn’t manage to kill Mr Turner, so I suppose the outcome was as good as it could be. That’s what I’m trying to focus on.”

  “I guess,” Dean agreed, putting some more things into a box.

  “What’s bothering you? I can tell something’s on your mind.” Olivia stopped unpinning various paperwork to look at her partner. Turmoil writhed beneath his dark brown eyes.

  “I just still don’t understand why he did it,” he frowned. “I don’t understand why he killed those people, and why he then decided to pull a suicide by police.” Lawrence shook his head. “How does any one person have that much capacity for evil?”

  Olivia understood his line of thought.

  “Honestly?” she offered. “After looking Marty in the face as he died, I think he was downright evil. I don’t think any good could have ever come out of him,” she admitted. “And so why try to make sense of the actions of someone who was so antithetical to the ability of humans to be good? It just doesn’t seem worth it to me. He wanted to be glorified and remembered, and I believe, in some way, he’ll get what he wanted.”

  DI Lawrence was silent after that response and continued to tidy things up until he stopped and turned back to her.

  “If we can’t understand why he did it, how the fuck do we stop the next Marty Wiggins from happening?”

  Olivia wasn’t sure that she had ever seen her partner so distraught after a case.

  “Maybe our job isn’t to stop it from happening,” she reasoned, “but to make sure that once it starts, it ends quickly.” She thought of the blood seeping from his body as she suggested it, the way his life drained out of him before her eyes. It was horrific to watch another person die, regardless of the circumstances.

  Also, she hadn’t had a nightmare since. Not a dream of Marty’s shadowy figure, not of Alex’s unknown whereabouts, or even of Rhys in their final moments. Perhaps the whole ordeal had somehow given her closure for all the open wounds she carried around with her.

  She caught her partner watching and felt a sudden pang that soon they wouldn’t be working together.

  He gave her a weak smile.

  “The question is, are you okay, Liv?” he asked.

  She thought about it for a moment. How could she answer that? After everything she’d been through in the previous week… The crime scenes. The attack in the woods. Her rendezvous with Shaw and subsequent fear of betrayal. Watching her friends get hurt. Seeing the life leave Marty’s body.

  How could she ever be okay?

  “Yes.” She sighed, failing at sounding upbeat. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  DI Lawrence looked as though he was about to press further but stopped himself.

  “Just let me know if you need to talk more, yeah?” he offered.

  Olivia couldn’t bear to meet her partner’s gaze any longer; it was too sincere.

  “Of course,” she replied with a forced smile. “Same with you.”

  He simply nodded before continuing his task of clearing things away. It pained her to see him so unsure, so hesitant. If anything, she wished she could watch Marty Wiggins die again to pay for Dean's suffering. Diana’s, too, and the fear and terror that Katie, Charles, and Rosie had to endure in their final moments.

  Olivia felt her shoulders sag with the weight of her thoughts.

  “If you don’t mind, I think I might just head home.” She sighed, putting the papers away that she’d been sorting. “Will you call me if I need to come back?”

  Lawrence gave her an easy smile.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he replied. “Now go and give that needy cat of yours some attention.”

  Olivia laughed lightly at the thought of how clingy Earnest was.

  “On a serious note,” her partner continued, “I hope you manage to get some rest and finally put the past couple of days behind you for good.”

  Liv picked up her bag and stood, the lure of her bed much too powerful to hold off any longer.

  “Me too, Dean” she agreed. “Me too.”

  29

  It was barely past dawn when Olivia met the silhouetted figure on the beach. The waves lapped at the sand, drowning the world in sound.

  “Thanks for meeting me so early,” PC Diana Hershel called out once Olivia was in earshot. The inspector simply nodded.

  “Thanks for agreeing to meet with me,” she replied with a smile. The two looked at each other for a moment, studying one another.

  “How do you cope with it?” Diana’s question was straight to the point and not nearly as emotional as Olivia would have expected. It was almost as though she was asking about a favourite recipe, not a traumatic event.

  “Which part?” Olivia asked, gesturing with her head for the two to start walking. They fell into a comfortable pace side by side, tracing a path parallel to the tide. “Watching someone die or surviving?”

  The constable paused to gather her thoughts.

  “Both, I suppose,” she admitted. “I spend every moment seeing her. And then I think, what if it had been me? It could very easily have been me.”

  Olivia hummed in observation.

  “They’re both really difficult,” she replied, choosing her words tactfully. “And there will probably be days where the feeling of guilt threatens to consume you.”

  Diana nodded vigorously in Olivia’s periphery.

  “What matters when you get to that point, that desperate feeling of confusion,” she continued, “is that you have to remind yourself that you didn’t get to choose what happened. You didn’t choose who survived. All you get to choose is how you go forward from that moment.” Olivia let herself take long pauses between each statement, hoping that they’d truly sink in for the officer. She seemed to be on board.

  “I guess that all makes sense,” Diana sighed. “I just wish I didn’t have to feel it in the first place.”

  “The only way out is through,” Olivia replied with a tight smile, letting her eyes glance over PC Hershel before finding the ocean. The morning sun glistened off the waves, dazzling Olivia’s eyes with thousands of refractions.

  “Some days will feel like you’re drowning,” she described. “Like you’re desperately trying to get someone—anyone—to help you out, but all you can do is flail your arms.” Diana flinched a bit as Olivia spoke. “But it’ll get easier. Soon, you’ll learn how to predict the waves. And then you’ll learn how to float, to keep your head above water.”

  The constable titled her head up to the sky and took a deep breath.

  “What if I don’t learn?”

  Olivia gave her a sympathetic look.

  “You will. And you’ll make sure you’ve got good people on your team,” she encouraged. “You’ve got Clara and me, for starters. And I’m sure friends from your training and who you work with. Surround yourself with those who can listen.” It struck Olivia as she gave her friend advice that it almost felt as though she was talking to herself from right after the terror attacks. As though she were at her own bedside, promising herself that not every day would feel like
an endless pit of rage and despair “Sometimes the hardest part is healing, but it’s what you have to do.” Diana met Olivia’s eyes and nodded with a maturity Olivia should have known to expect coming from the impressive girlfriend of Clara. “You’ll figure out what works for you. I know it,” Olivia assured her. That comment actually earned her a smile.

  “How do you feel?” Diana asked, and Olivia was surprised to have the tables turned on her so quickly. “About the whole thing, that is.”

  “Honestly, I’m just grateful it’s over,” Olivia admitted, letting her gaze scan the waves once more. “It’s people like Marty Wiggins that keep me going at this job. But sometimes I also wonder if it tears me apart, too.”

  “We have to face demons without letting them destroy us,” Diana mused, and Olivia was struck by the poignancy of the statement.

  “Exactly,” she agreed.

  The two continued to chat well into the morning, padding softly over the sandy beach, pondering life and the future and everything in between. Once they finally agreed it was time to part ways, Olivia let herself stop and pause for a moment near the constable.

  “Thank you again for deciding you were willing to talk with me, Diana,” Olivia spoke. PC Hershel nodded, her head quirked just the slightest to the side.

  “Thank you, too,” she simply replied, her voice almost a murmur. Olivia gave her a quick hug, doing her best not to dwell for too long. They said their goodbyes, and Diana departed in her car.

  Olivia stayed, though. She found herself wandering back to the beach, settling onto the sand, and watching the waves, over and over again.

  All of it felt so constant, so unending. Each time she started to recover from one tragedy, another one struck. Like lightning finding its way to the same spot on the earth, over and over again. First, it was Alexander. Then Rhys. Even in her relatively quaint job in Cornwall, she had already seen her colleagues kidnapped and been assaulted by a murderer herself. When would it end?

  When would she find peace?

  She wasn’t quite sure if it would ever settle, if she’d ever be free of tragedy.