Nowhere to Run

by Jack Slater

  Leaning back in his chair, his day almost over, Pete heard a phone ring among the hubbub and looked up to see whose it was. DS Mark Bridgman picked up his phone and held a hand up to the two men who were chatting next to his desk. Pete watched as he spoke briefly into the phone, then put it down and stood up, heading for the door to the DI’s office at the far end of the squad room.

  He knocked and went in. Emerged a minute later and returned to his desk.

  ‘So, what do you reckon, boss?’ Dave Miles asked.

  Pete spun his chair back around.

  Dave was looking at him with a half-smile. ‘Looks like gardening season’s over, so are you back for good, or what? Do you reckon you’ll be able to stand the pace?’

  ‘Well, if today’s anything to go by, I reckon I’ll cope.’ We’ll see how Louise dealt with it when I get home, he thought.

  The door at the far end of the room opened and both DI Colin Underhill and DCI Adam Silverstone entered the room.

  Hello. Something’s up.

  He hoped they were not going to make a meal out of welcoming him back. He’d had plenty of that through the afternoon. He didn’t need the official version, especially from Silverstone. He sat up straighter in his chair as Underhill raised his hands for quiet.

  Silverstone stepped up beside the older man. In his immaculate uniform, he looked exactly what he was – a career desk-jockey who’d barely know one end of a baton from the other and had certainly never felt the greasy collar of a drug-pusher or a burglar. The contrast between the two men was almost laughable. Colin was the bigger man in every sense apart from rank. An inch taller, a good four stones heavier, fifteen years older and hugely more experienced, he was a man-manager, not a pen-pusher. He’d walked the beat, come up through the ranks and he looked every inch of it in his slightly rumpled tweed jacket and cord trousers.

  ‘Right,’ said Silverstone. ‘What’s everyone doing at the moment? I need to know what cases each DS has on their desk, as of now, excluding this morning’s haul. Mark?’

  Bridgman looked up and set his pen down. ‘We’ve got the city centre muggings and the break-ins down on the Marsh Barton industrial estate, sir. We’re at a crucial stage with the muggings.’

  The DCI nodded. ‘Simon?’

  Phillips glanced at Pete. ‘Tommy and the Jane Doe, sir. And the airport job.’

  ‘Jim?’

  ‘We’re leading on the drugs, sir. All this morning’s stuff, plus trying to track down where it’s coming from.’

  ‘Right. OK. I think, Simon, you ought to have this new one. A missing girl. Thirteen years old. Rosie Whitlock. Dropped off at school this morning and never went in. Parents are Alistair and Jessica. Live in the St Leonard’s area of the city. Mark’s got the details.’

  Pete spun around to face his team. ‘What are we? Invisible?’ He pushed himself up out of his chair as Dave shrugged.

  ‘Maybe he thinks it’s too soon for you, boss,’ Jane suggested.

  ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’

  *

  Lauren peered with a sinking heart through the gap she’d created at the blackened forest of stinging nettle stems beyond. But, she only had two choices – stay or go. And if she stayed . . . She didn’t even want to think about what would happen to her. She grabbed a couple of big handfuls of loose straw, pushed it out through the gap in front of her, then started to wriggle through, arms in front of her face, hoping that the sleeves of her cardigan might offer some protection from the burning stings.

  Metal scraped the back of her head and she ducked lower. She felt the dull edge dig into her shoulders. There was no going backward now, even if she wanted to. It was forward or nothing. As long as she didn’t get stuck . . .

  ‘Oh, God.’ A vision filled her mind of her stuck half in and half out of the barn, wedged under this bloody door when the man came back and found her. Caught hold of her legs and . . . Throat clogged with terror, she scrambled forward. The old stems crackled like fire as they snapped and broke, adding to the noise of the hail. Then, between her panting breaths, she thought she heard something else.

  She stopped moving. Held her breath, straining to hear.

  ‘No, no, no.’

  An engine.

  He was coming.

  She pulled herself forward. The corrugated iron pressed down on her backside. Her thighs. Then she was rolling out and free, curling into a ball to protect herself from the nettles, barely registering the miracle that she had yet to be stung. Her bare legs felt suddenly chilled. Goosebumps rose on her skin. She got up, pressing herself against the stone wall and looking around for the first time.

  The hail was still coming down hard, thick enough that she could not see clearly through it. The nettles were bending and swaying beneath it – nettles that stretched away, dense black and brown, in front and to the right, all the way to a dense thorn hedge, beyond which lay open fields. To her left, there was a gap at the side of the barn, a barbed-wire fence and woodland, dark and inviting.

  The van sounded terrifyingly close. She began to edge along the side of the old stone wall, reaching out with her left foot to press down the nettles, breaking the stems before moving over them. The engine stopped.

  Oh, God. Her breathing got shallow and fast as terror gripped her.

  He was here. She moved faster. At least the noise of the storm would mean he couldn’t hear her.

  The side door of the van slid open and she stepped forward, pushing through the wet stems rather than pressing them down. She would just have to suffer the consequences for the next couple of days.

  But she was amazed to find that she wasn’t stung.

  She heard the door roll shut.

  Nearly there. Just another metre to the end of the barn and about three more across the gap beyond. She ran and leapt for the fence and the sweet freedom of the dark and sheltering woods.

  CHAPTER 3

  Pete stalked up the length of the room as the two senior officers turned back into Colin’s office.

  The door had not quite closed behind them when his open hand hit it hard. Silverstone was halfway through the interconnecting door to his own office when the loud slap behind him made him stop and turn.

  ‘A word. Sir,’ Pete said stiffly.

  The DCI’s eyebrow rose. ‘DS Gayle?’

  Pete ignored Colin for now. He was standing behind his desk, out of the direct line between him and Silverstone. ‘That case should have come to me and my team. You know it and I know it.’

  ‘This is your first day back, Peter. And it’s a missing girl.’

  ‘So? I haven’t got anything else on the board and if it’s a missing girl, it’s not likely to be related to Tom, is it? Paedos’ 101. Basic training. Ninety-eight per cent of the time, they go for boys or girls. Not both.’

  Silverstone stepped forward and let the door close behind him. ‘That may be, but I still feel it’s too close and too soon, Peter. I want the parents to know that the person handling this is on it one hundred per cent. No distractions.’

  ‘Right. So you give it to a guy who’s already got a full caseload. That makes sense. Sir. And what progress has DS Phillips made on the Jane Doe or my son?’

  Silverstone sighed heavily. ‘This is not about DS Phillips, Peter. Can you honestly tell me that you’re ready to cope with something like this? Whether it’s a boy or a girl. Because I don’t know that you are, and I’m not going to risk the safety of a thirteen-year-old girl to prove a point.’

  Not going to risk the safety of your promotion, more like, Pete thought. ‘If I wasn’t ready, I wouldn’t be standing here. And I’ve got a damn good team behind me so, even if you doubt me, there’s no reason to doubt them.’

  ‘It’s not that I doubt you, Peter. Your abilities as a detective are well established. I simply don’t want to put you in a position where you might become overwhelmed, for personal reasons – the similarities between this case and your own, albeit this one’s a girl.’

  DI Underhill sat do
wn at last and Silverstone turned to him. ‘Help me out here, Colin. What do you think? Honestly?’

  ‘Honestly?’

  Pete looked at him. Honesty was the last thing the DCI wanted from his deputy right now. What he wanted was support.

  ‘I can see both sides here, sir,’ the older man said. ‘I mean, I can understand why you’d show Pete some consideration, in the circumstances, but I can also understand how it might leave him feeling frustrated. Not trusted. And how it will look to the rest of the guys out there.’ He nodded towards the squad room.

  Silverstone’s eyebrows pinched closer together. ‘And how is that, Detective Inspector?’

  ‘Well, like you’re hedging your bets, sir, possibly to the detriment of the case. And the girl.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘What it comes down to, sir, is who’s able to give the case most commitment at this moment in time. And I have to admit, Pete’s right. If he’s back with us fully and completely, it’s him.’

  Silverstone turned to face Pete. ‘And are you, Detective Sergeant? Back with us fully and completely?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The DCI sighed noisily. ‘Very well. But I want you to share the case with DS Phillips. That way, if it does get too much, you can hand it over without any break in continuity. And it may tie in with what he’s already working on, which was why I chose him to begin with.’

  Pete drew a long, slow breath. What was he – some bloody rookie on his first job? He’d been a detective since before this jumped-up twat got to bloody secondary school. He didn’t need his hand holding. He let the air out through his nose. ‘Sir.’ He turned away, grabbed the door handle and went back through to the squad room before he had a chance to let himself down.

  ‘Simon.’

  The younger detective looked up. Tall but a couple of stones overweight, with curly brown hair and a baby face, he had been a DS just over two years and Pete still struggled to take him seriously in the role.

  ‘Hi, Pete.’

  ‘I’m taking that new case off your hands. The missing girl. DCI’s had a change of heart.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Don’t you bloody start.’

  ‘I mean that he’s got a heart to change.’

  Pete smiled. ‘No, but he’s changed something. What have you got?’

  Simon handed him a sheet of paper. ‘Just what you heard a few minutes ago. And the parents’ address and phone number.’

  ‘Apparently, I’ve got to keep you in the loop. Might be a connection to your Jane Doe. What’s that about?’

  ‘She was found ten days ago in the river, down by Powderham Deer Park. About ten, eleven years old. Sexually assaulted, strangled and naked. We’re still trying to find out who she was.’

  ‘Shit.’ Pete let his eyes close for a second as he absorbed that information. Still trying to ID her and still trying to find Tommy. Some detective you are, he thought. ‘All right. We’ll have to keep an open mind on a possible link then.’

  ‘Yup.’

  Pete went back to his desk and sat down. He put the report sheet on his desk, picked up the phone and, taking a deep breath, started dialling.

  The phone was picked up almost before it had rung. ‘Alistair Whitlock.’

  ‘Mr Whitlock, this is DS Peter Gayle. I’ve just been handed your daughter’s case and I’d like to come and talk to you about it – and your wife, if she’s there?’

  ‘She is.’

  ‘Perfect.’ He glanced at the address. ‘We’ll be there in a few minutes, OK?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  He put the phone down and stood up. ‘Jane, you’re with me.’

  ‘Boss?’

  ‘Interview time. The Whitlocks.’ He headed for the door.

  ‘Wh—We’ve got that now?’

  ‘Yes. Come on, chop-chop.’ He paused long enough to hold the door for her, then hurried on down the stairs, feet clattering on the polished concrete.

  They were moving along the back corridor, towards the car park behind the police station, before she caught up with him. ‘How did you swing this then?’

  ‘By being open and honest. You didn’t mention the Jane Doe earlier, when I asked you what had been going on. None of you did.’

  ‘Yeah, well . . . We thought it might be a bit close to home, boss.’

  He hit the release button by the back door and pushed through. The late afternoon air struck him with a chill that had not been there this morning. An after-effect of the storm they’d seen earlier, he guessed. ‘You’re driving.’ He followed her across the car park towards her car. ‘My son is missing, Jane. What we’re talking about now is a murdered girl. How would that be close to home?’

  ‘One paedo case, another potential one. We were trying to do you a favour, that’s all.’ She stopped at the side of her bright green Vauxhall Nova and pressed the button on the remote. The car beeped and the locks snapped open. They climbed in.

  ‘If there’s something to know, I want to know it, Jane. I’ll hear things eventually. If they’re sensitive, then maybe I’d be better hearing them from one of you, rather than some plod I barely know. Did you think of that?’

  She sighed. ‘No, boss. Sorry.’ She slipped the car into gear and back out of her space. ‘Where are we going?’

  *

  Lauren charged headlong through the green twilight of the woods, the hail a distant clatter on the leaves far above. Down here, it was almost dry, the ground firm beneath her flying feet. She did not look back or sideways, just concentrated on what was in front of her. Running, chest heaving, jumping over brambles and ferns, darting around trees, kicking through low-growing weeds, she went as fast as her exhausted legs would carry her. She had no idea how far these woods stretched, what they held or what lay beyond. She just knew she had to run, to get as far away from that barn as she could, to have any hope of escaping the man she was sure was behind her.

  Chasing her.

  She had heard the twang of the barbed wire as he jumped over it, the crashing of heavy footsteps through the undergrowth. He had shouted once.

  ‘Hey! Come back here!’

  But since then, nothing.

  The noise she was making combined with the rattle of the hail on the leaves above her to cover any more distant sounds. But she knew he was still coming. He had to be. There was no way he’d have given up.

  She hit a narrow trail, barely visible on the ground, and turned onto it. It was too narrow to be man-made – must have been an animal of some sort – but it had to be going somewhere and it was away from the barn, which was all she cared about for now.

  She ran on.

  The trail wove around trees and bramble thickets and weird little prickly bushes that she’d never seen before. She began to see light through the trees ahead. The edge of the wood? A pool? A road?

  Her legs were getting wobbly and weak. Her chest and throat felt raw. It was hard to suck enough air into her burning lungs, but she had to keep going.

  The brightness spread across her field of view. It had to be the edge of the woods. She had no idea what that meant but, whatever it was, she would deal with it when she got there. She just had to get there. Get away from the man behind her.

  The trail was helping – it made the running easier – but she didn’t know how much longer she could go on. She tripped on a root, staggered, exhausted, put out a hand to a narrow tree trunk for balance and pressed on. She couldn’t stop. Not now. She glimpsed a grey sky between the leaves up ahead. Noticed that the rattle of hail had stopped. The storm was over. Then, lower down, she could see the bright green of leaves in sunshine. A hedge, maybe? A road?

  She caught the glint of wire. A fence. The trail led right up to it and through into the long grass beyond. A huge, rough-textured oak tree stood just to the right, its bark green with algae.

  She ran up to the fence, panting hoarsely and bent to climb through.

  Then screamed as an arm darted around her waist and snatched her off her
feet.

  ‘Come here!’

  CHAPTER 4

  Traffic was queueing into the city on Heavitree Road so Jane turned left out of the station.

  ‘You look a damn sight better than you did last time I saw you,’ she said as she changed up through the gears.

  July, Pete recalled. Annie’s tenth birthday. Jane and Dave had called round to give her a little something from the team and to let him and Louise know the latest on Tommy’s case. Not that there had been much news to pass on. ‘Yeah, well. I hadn’t been sleeping too well for a few weeks by then.’ He’d lain awake for hour after hour every night, getting up two or three times a night. Sometimes he would stand in Annie’s doorway and just watch her sleep. Other times, he would wander the house, check the doors and windows or go to his office and sit at the computer, trying whatever he could think of in a search for clues – anything that would tell him where Tommy might have gone.

  ‘It showed. You looked like you’d done five rounds with Frank Bruno.’

  Pete grunted. ‘Thanks. Back to my normal, handsome self now, am I?’

  She slowed, indicating right. Gave him a brief laugh. ‘Don’t know about that, but you certainly look a bit more normal than you did then.’

  ‘That’s all right then. Wouldn’t want to frighten the punters.’

  She made the turn into a side street lined on both sides with parked cars and accelerated again.

  ‘So, come on. What’s the latest on Tommy?’

  She glanced at him, meeting his gaze for an instant before returning her eyes to the road ahead. Sighed. ‘There’s nothing to tell. It’s like he vanished into thin air.’

  ‘Except people don’t. He went somewhere, somehow.’

  She took a left turn, working her way through the back streets towards the home of the Whitlocks. ‘Well, yeah. But, how are we supposed to find out where and how if he wasn’t seen?’

  Pete sighed. This was not a discussion to be had with Jane. It wasn’t her problem. It was Simon Phillips’. But, one thing he was certain of – there was no way the Whitlocks were going to suffer months of the same agony that he and Louise had. Not if he could help it. Whatever it took, he would find their daughter.