The Escape (Detective Jane Sparrow Book 2) Read online

  “Jack can you ring through to the Superintendent please? Just ask him to come down here.”

  “Yes Boss what shall I say?”

  “Just tell him the Detective has requested his presence at her desk as she has something there to show him. Amy would you mind I could really do with that cold drink now. Ian, Eric you can holster your weapons. Thaddeus is in prison there is no threat here.”

  In unison they both replied yes mam and put there firearms back at the clip on their waist but neither of them went to make a move from the protective stances they had made at either side of her. Amy had returned with a cold glass of water and was keeping a watchful eye on Jane. Jack came over. The superintendent had agreed to come down but he told Jack to make a note of the fact that he didn’t appreciate a phone call of summons. When he arrived at Jane’s desk he instantly spotted the sick and his nose turned up in disgust slightly. He was also eyeing the protective stances her team members had taken around her and was eyeing them with suspicious curiosity.

  “Detective if you are ill you can go home you really didn’t need to call me down here for that.”

  “Jack can you play him the message. I can’t stomach to hear it again for a third time. Excuse me while I go freshen up.”

  “Excuse me but what’s going on here. Play me what? She summons me down here and then walks off without an explanation. You, Jack was it, explain your Detectives meaning?”

  “Just listen Sir.”

  Thankfully Jane found herself out of earshot when Jack pressed play again on the answerphone. She stepped into the ladies room and splashed her face with cold water. Her makeup that she had applied earlier that morning was already ruined from the cold sweat she had broken out in and from the exertion of being sick. She rinsed her mouth with cold water as best as she could and decided it was probably time to make her way back to her desk. As Jane re-entered the room she could feel five pairs of eyes on her. Every one of them studying for any signs that she was cracking up.

  “Detective I am going to have your number and extension code changed. I have no idea how he got his hands on it. But I promise you he won’t have it for much longer. I am going to go call a judge and the chief warden in charge at the prison and see if I can get his phone privileges revoked. I will not have him tormenting members of my staff. If you need to go home for the rest of the day Amy has volunteered to drive you.”

  “Thank you sir but I find it will be best to keep myself busy. But thank you for the offer.”

  “As you wish Detective. I will have all of this sorted by the afternoon.”

  The Superintendent stalked back off to his office looking suitably pissed off by the situation. Jane was actually feeling a little bit sorry for the chief warden at the prison. I wouldn’t want to be him when he gets that phone call. Jane was still feeling rather shaky. The unsettled feeling that she had had since the night before, the nightmare and now this message. Jane couldn’t help but think it was all mounting up to something much bigger in play. But that was just the paranoid part of Jane’s brain talking. The rational part of her knew it was silly. Thaddeus was locked away for the rest of his life with no chance of parole. He was never going to be able to get at her again. Jane again for the second time today had to admonish herself for overreacting to something that was silly. It was just his voice. It wasn’t rational to get so emotional.

  “Jane are you sure you don’t want to go home? It’s completely understandable to be a little freaked out by that but everything will be ok.”

  “No honestly Amy I’m fine I just want to keep busy. Thank you though sorry about throwing up. So in the mind of keeping busy what have we got to do today?”

  “Well we have last weeks report to finish up. There are three men in the holding cells that need booking, charging or releasing depending and I believe you still have your internal reports to finish.”

  “Well I’ll finish the report for last week and then I’ll make a start on my internal reports. If you and Ian deal with the three men from the holding cells but if you need anything…

  Before Jane could finish what she was saying the Superintendent was running, actually running into the main station calling for her.

  “Detective, Jane we are going to need to get you and Layla into protective custody now!!!”

  “Sir what’s going on?”

  “Thaddeus has escaped and we have no idea on his location at present.”

  “Oh my God and he said he was coming for Jane.”

  All eyes in the station were back on Jane again as the entire colour drained from her face. Thaddeus was out and coming for her blood.

  Chapter 3

  Jane couldn’t believe her ears; her head was spinning with confusion. Thaddeus had escaped and had already left her a message saying he was coming for her. Jane didn’t know what to do first, panic was setting in, and she wanted to make sure that Layla was going to be safe. But another part of Jane just wanted to hide in the corner and pretend this wasn’t happening. At that point in time Jane wished she were an ostrich that could bury her head in the sand. Jane’s main problem was she couldn’t comprehend how this had happened. Thaddeus should be locked away in prison for the rest of his life. Her brain couldn’t quite process the situation as real. Jane could hear the rest of the station in a buzz around her. She couldn’t quite work out if they were talking directly to her or just around her. She couldn’t hone in on what anyone was actually saying or doing. Her mind felt like too much of a jumble trying to process, she felt like her head had been filled with jelly. But the one thing she did notice was when Perry burst through the station doors.

  “Amy what is it? What’s wrong with Jane? I knew I shouldn’t of let her come to work this morning. I knew she wasn’t quite herself after last night.”

  “Perry it’s not that. I didn’t want to tell you on the phone. But Thaddeus has escaped from police custody. He left a message on Jane’s voicemail and when we looked into the security breach of it we found out that Thaddeus was missing. Jane has been pretty much catatonic since finding out. We weren’t sure what to do we were hoping your presence might snap her out of it. It’s been fifteen minutes now if this doesn’t work we are going to have to consider calling an ambulance.”

  “Oh my gods Jane. I cant believe this is happening. Sweetie can you hear me? Jane its going to be ok I promise. I will keep you safe I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. Jane please talks to me? Everything is going to be fine. I wont let anything happen to you or Layla.”

  “Perry. I’m fine I’m sorry I didn’t realise that I had been so out of it. How long have I been sitting here like this?”

  “About fifteen minutes Jane.”

  “Oh Amy I’m sorry I didn’t mean to scare anyone. I honed out for a little while trying to get my brain to process. I just seemed to lose the ability to focus and do anything else at the same time. This is mad. Superintendent Andrew Walden you remember Perry. Now tell me what is happening with Layla?”

  “I remember Perry he has just joined us from being upstairs with Frank. As far as we can tell at the moment Layla is completely fine and safe. PC Ian Watson and PC Jack Collins have gone to meet Layla’s family and then pick her up from school. They will be brought here for debriefing and then we will ship them off to a safe location. I’ve got the full story on Thaddeus escape now. So we are going to be running point on the investigation as so far the evidence is leading to him coming here. So everything will be run through this office.”

  “How did he escape?”

  “He was in transit to another facility.”

  “Why were we not notified? And why were they moving him in the first place?”

  “He was in Belmarsh facility. So protocols when moving a prisoner is you notify the county police service, which is London, so the MET police were informed. The other prison they were moving him to happen to also be in the London borough so no other police forces needed to be notified. So protocol was followed. MET police were aware. Stupidly when Thadd
eus and the other fathers were convicted they were all prosecuted by the same courthouse, which meant they all got sent to the same prison. James York is being held in solitary confinement for the rest of his term for his own safety. He has already been stabbed twice since being incarcerated. The other fathers seemed to gang up on Thaddeus. They did from the minute prosecution started. It seems they hatched a plan to attack Thaddeus. The fight broke out in which five of them set an attack on him. But Thaddeus got the drop on them. He killed two; one is seriously injured and doesn’t look like he is going to make it either and the other two made a run for it. The chief warden at the prison made the executive decision that it would be easier to rehouse one inmate than say five. So he decided to have Thaddeus transferred out to a different facility to control any more violent outbreaks.”

  “Well did they not foresee any of this when they were sentenced? It’s madness that they were ever housed in the same facility. You were either going to get something like this or heaven knows what else they could of plotted or planned while being in prison.”

  “Well they seemed to have spent their time plotting and planning against each other. Unfortunately they all played in to Thaddeus hands. What’s the best way to escape from prison? When you’re already being driven out the front door. He killed the three guards and the driver that were escorting him. He then drove off in the van. It does have a tracker fitted, which he must of realised, because he dumped it at a train station. When they realised the van was in the wrong location and hadn’t arrived to the other prison on time they radioed through to the police officers. When they got no response they knew something was awry. They found the van no problem parked up at the station but they had to track back to the last location on the route that it showed them following, which is when and how they found the officers bodies.”

  “Wait a train station so Thaddeus is open to anywhere in the country and we have no idea where he is at?”

  “That is the situation as it stands at the moment yes. We are trying to get hold of CCTV security footage from the train station. I can’t imagine he bought a ticket either.”

  “Ok I think one of the most important subjects we are failing to talk about is how are we going to keep Jane safe?”

  “Well I think it would be wise and the best thing if we placed Jane into protective custody along with Layla and her family. As Superintendent I will take the role of Detective and work to get this resolved as quickly as possible.”

  “I agree I think that would be best for Jane’s safety as well.”

  “There is one thing you are both forgetting to take into consideration. I understand your reasoning but I’m more worried about what that may make Thaddeus do. If you take me out of his reach and focus completely he may start killing randoms. Essex police hasn’t been long out of the spotlight for his last misdemeanours. If we end up back in the spotlight for crimes committed by a man that should already be in police custody we would have a full-scale uprising and panic that we will never live down. If we keep Thaddeus attention on me at least perhaps maybe we can control the situation better, use it to our advantage at least. We would be able to do some damage control at the same time.”

  “Ok Jane we will play it to your terms to a certain extent. You don’t have to go into protective custody but you will have a police escort everywhere you go. And you are to remain safely in this station on desk duty. You will be escorted to and from work and you are to move your living arrangements around regularly. So if he is watching you there is no pattern. And there will be no discussion on those terms ok?”

  “Ok no discussion. No argument. I accept your terms. Another question for you have you changed my number yet?”

  “No not yet why is that? Once I learned he had escaped I thought it would be best first to see if we could try and trace the call. If we can get where he phoned from it may help narrow down a location later on.”

  “Ok that’s good I wondered if we could leave a trap and trace ready on my phone. In case he calls again and perhaps maybe see if we can get hold of the phone number he called from.”

  “I’ll get onto the phone company see if I can access our records to see who called at that time and left a message.”

  “Thanks Amy that’s great once you have the phone number see if you can get hold of the provider for it. We can then sapina the rest of his phone records to see whom else he has called. A friend maybe, an old colleague, anyone that could help gets us a possible location. Plus as well once we have the phone number there is an app on my smart phone that as soon as he calls me again I can click into and it will tell me what the nearest phone towers he is pinging off of to help with a location.”

  “That’s a good idea Jane I’ll get onto it. Layla should be here soon.”

  “Ok thanks did you want me to sit in on the debriefing as well sir or have you got it?”

  “I’ll handle it with Ian thanks Jane. I umm don’t mean to sound callous but if Thaddeus is after you and wants to get to Layla as well it would be safer for her if you don’t know where she is. I’m sorry it’s the best way to keep her safe if less people know her location.”

  “No your right sir I wasn’t thinking. I’m going to need to explain to her about the no contact thing that’s going to be quite different for us for a while and she may not take that well.”

  “Ok once you have explained that I think it would be a good idea for you to go home now. Collect some of your belongings up and stay somewhere else for at least the first few nights. Move around never stay in the same location for too many nights in a row just in case he is watching you. You can go back to your own apartment sporadically throughout but again never stay there too long and definitely no more than a night at a time. And probably be best if you treat Perry’s apartment the same. We have no idea whether he is watching you or not at the moment but safety wise its best if we act like he is.”

  “Perry’s apartment is probably the safest place to be. He has the best home security system. But I’ll keep moving hopefully it won’t be for long.”

  Jane went to pour herself and Perry a cup of coffee. He followed her through into the kitchenette area of the station and as they stood there side-by-side Jane could feel the tension pouring of Perry.

  “Perry are you ok?”

  “Seriously your asking if I’m ok when all this is happening again. Some nut job has escaped from prison and has the cheek to come after my girl. I’m furious. The bloke wants to count his lucky stars that I’m not willing to sacrifice all the hard work I put in so that we could have a relationship. Otherwise I would be out there hunting him down. And I wouldn’t rest until I had his whack job cuckoo brain mounted on a spike.”

  Jane couldn’t control herself the overwhelming love she had for Perry in that instant moment made her forget where she was. She threw her arms up and around his neck and planted a deep and passionate kiss on his lips.

  “Well I don’t know what I did to deserve that very public display of affection but hell I’ll kiss you all day my sweet little skirt.”

  “I just umm you now love you sometimes you know.”

  “You only love me sometimes. Well looks like I’m going to have to work on my game a bit more if it’s only sometimes.”

  “Don’t tease you big brute. you know I meant I love you all the time I’m just not used to saying it.”

  “Well you better get more used to saying it because now you have I’m going to want to hear it all the time. But seriously Jane my number one priority is your safety so you have to promise me that you are going to be a good girl and do everything the Superintendent says ok I don’t want you trying to play the hero.”

  “I will, I promise don’t worry.”

  As Jane dropped her arms and her gaze from Perry she noticed that Layla had entered the station closely followed by her new family. Jane could see Layla scanning the room trying to find the familiar face of Jane and when their eyes met the relief that spread across Layla’s face was immense.

 
“Layla, Gabby and Mike it’s great to see you. I’m so sorry this is happening but right now your safety has become very important. We just need to confirm that we were right in believing that Thaddeus has made no attempts at contacting Layla?”

  “No we have had nothing, no strange phone calls, no messages, no contact at all.”

  “Good that’s great. Now he may have no intention of trying to get anywhere near Layla. He may never have the interest in contacting her at all. But we are not willing to take that risk. Unfortunately that does mean for you that we are going to put you in protective custody while we track him back down.”

  “We completely understand and are more than willing. Layla means the world to us and we just want to do what is best for her and keeping her safe.”

  “Good I’m pleased. Layla I don’t know how much you understand about protective custody and safe houses. But one of the main points is you cant have access to people in the outside world. Other people, in particular me, don’t get to know where you are going. And we won’t be able to speak while you’re in protective service. It will only be while we track him back down and apprehend Thaddeus. And I promise I will do that as quickly as possible. Do you understand what I mean?”