Siren Song (Harrison Jones and Amy Bell Mystery Book 1)

by Rebecca McKinney

  In the end, it was Lucy who turned herself out into the street.

  Elizabeth pressed her face into the pillow and let out a wail. Her whole body strained, trying to force the anguish and self-loathing out like sickness, but she couldn’t rid herself of it. Images flickered inside her eyelids, blue negatives of Lucy, permanently burnt into her vision. Lucy sticking her finger down her throat, forcing herself to vomit. Lucy with red lipstick smeared across her cheek, a twisted echo of the joyful little girl with spaghetti sauce on her face. Lucy in a blind rage, spitting curses and accusations.

  Elizabeth pressed the pillow as hard as she could over her mouth and nose. She wanted to suffocate herself, but she couldn’t make herself do it. Maybe Lucy was right. She was selfish then, and she was selfish now. She had been frightened, but as much for her status rather than for her life. That was the most shameful thing. The pillow fell onto the floor and she dropped down onto it, curled onto her side and cried.

  When the tears finally stopped, she felt dried out as old leather. She gathered herself off the floor and scrubbed the smeared mascara from her cheeks with the heels of her palms. She had to pull herself together and make a decision. She could not allow herself to be the victim any longer.

  She went downstairs and opened her laptop. Elizabeth had been writing for years, silly romantic stories and novels that she never finished or allowed anyone else to read. It was time now to write a different kind of story.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  They gave Lucy as much wine as she wanted, and as many pills. They eased the seasickness and calmed her when the walls of her cabin started to close in and the fear crept toward her. The pills whispered in her ears like tiny angels, hushing her, singing lullabies, easing the panic in her belly so that she could lie back down on her bed and sleep.

  There were fleeting moments of clarity, but these were terrifying and so hopeless that the only thing she knew how to do was take another pill. As long as she took the pills, she was alright. She could pass the time and she could do what she was asked to do.

  Sometimes memories came, but they were all broken and disconnected. She couldn’t quite piece together how she’d come to be living in this tiny, windowless, wood-panelled room where she always felt sick. She was on a boat; that was why she felt sick. That’s right, she reminded herself, Victor’s three-decked luxury yacht. It was luxurious and tacky, kitted out with marble and mahogany and chrome, but everyone who came on board exclaimed over its beauty. Just like they did over hers.

  They had still never given her any money to top up her phone, and lately, they had started to confine her to her cabin when she wasn’t required. At night, Agata would come for her. She would be taken to sing as Victor and his associates discussed business in the stateroom. She had no way of knowing what their business was, because it was always conducted in Greek, Turkish or sometimes Russian. After she had finished singing, they would take her to a cabin much larger than her own and make her wait. Then a man would come and she would allow him to kiss and suck and poke her where he wanted. Victor had said it would only be a rare occasion, but now it was every night.

  The men were mostly in their fifties and sixties, with dyed hair and breath that smelled of wine and cigars. They spoke to her in different languages but sometimes she couldn’t tell what it was. They were always kind to her. They didn’t hit her. One old bugger liked to give it up the arse, and that hurt even though he was gentle and used about half a tub of Vaseline. Some of them were so fat and drunk they couldn’t manage at all.

  When they were done with her, Agata would take her to a small bathroom, wait with her while she showered, then take her back to her cabin. Her rucksack, passport and all of her clothes were still in the wardrobe, but she couldn’t imagine picking them up and walking out of here.

  They sailed sometimes, but because they rarely let her see above deck during the daytime, she had no way of telling where they were. Time stretched, collapsed in on itself, lost all meaning. She no longer knew for sure what day it was, or even what month. The yacht pitched around in storms and the gusts of wind coming in from the deck were cold.

  Lucy tried to remember how long it had been since she boarded the yacht. Sometimes it felt like days, other times it felt like she’d been here for years. It was only meant to be for a few weeks, a special private tour for Victor and his friends. She was going to be wined, dined and royally paid.

  It had been longer than a few weeks and she was still being royally paid. So they assured her, even though she never actually saw any money and had no idea where it would be going. Maybe they’d set up a bank account for her somewhere. They gave her plenty to eat and the food was good, although she was rarely hungry. Nobody had asked her to pay a penny for her accommodation.

  Nobody was forcing her to take the pills.

  She was here by choice.

  Wasn’t she?

  This wasn’t what she thought it was going to be. She couldn’t remember exactly when or how it had changed.

  When the drugs wore off, she realised that nothing had changed at all. This had been the trajectory of her life since that first time her parents made her sing at a party. There wasn’t much difference between singing for men and screwing them; in one case they wanted to buy her soul and in the other her body. She’d been eighteen the first time she slept with a man for money – or at least for money of her own – and it hadn’t felt as dirty as she’d thought it would. It was worth it to buy her freedom.

  Freedom she had now surrendered to keep the favour of a man who could never be hers. Worse than that: a man who had promised love but traded her away like a commodity. Kostas was no better than her father, and she had been conned. This prison was punishment for her stupidity, and the only thing she could do was curl up and cry. She cried for everything she’d had and lost, and she cried for Tim, and she cried for the future she now knew she would never see. On the worst nights, when the sea was rough and she spent hours huddled beside the toilet, she cried for her mother.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Amy woke after a dream and lay in bed for a while, until she knew that trying to get back to sleep was an exercise in futility. The flat was cold, so she wrapped a blanket around herself, went to the kitchen and filled a cup of milk. Caroline had suggested she should keep a journal beside her bed, to write down the dreams and worries that came for her in the night. What could she possibly write about the things that had happened these past couple of weeks? It would seem like the raving of a mad woman.

  The microwave beeped and she took out the cup of milk, stirred a little honey into it and held it between her hands. She sat down with it, blew a ripple of breath across the foamy top, and took a sip. She closed her eyes and tried to remember her dream. She was almost certain it had been the same yacht she’d dreamed about before, moored in the pretty harbour alongside smaller cruisers and fishing boats. The town huddled over the water, white and grey buildings climbing the hillside, red-tiled rooftops, an old clock tower, the lights dancing on the water. It all looked very Greek.

  She switched on the laptop and thought for a moment. If Lucy was with Kostas, it seemed likely that they would be near Athens. On Google Maps, she scanned pictures of the Athens ports, but they looked wrong: too urban, too modern, too seedy. The place she had seen was quaint and quiet. Unusually quiet.

  There were no cars.

  Amy typed in ‘Greek port near Athens no cars.’

  Google gave her a name: Hydra. It was a small island, a favourite weekend retreat of affluent Athenians, just over an hour by sea from the port of Piraeus.

  She scanned the images, and there it was: the crescent-shaped harbour, the hilly village, the clock tower. There were a couple of large yachts on the seaward side of the long stone quay, well away from the fleet of much smaller craft. She looked through photographs and felt like she’d been there, though of course she hadn’t. At least, not yet.

  Adrenaline flooded around her body, followed by fear. A night commando raid on a b
oat was not exactly her speciality. Maybe that part was optional. If Lucy was on the boat, there had to be another way to get her off.

  If she was even there. If the boat was even there. If any of this was more than a fantasy. So many ifs, so many assumptions, and none of them rational.

  She picked up her phone and sent Harrison a text message: Hydra Island, nr. Athens. Call me when you get up. Half-hoping the phone would wake him, she went to the window and peered out at the dark, damp street. It wasn’t raining, and a strong northerly breeze had blown the clouds away, revealing a faint pinprick of stars. A canny city fox paused to sniff at an old takeaway box, then trotted on. A man followed in the same direction, stumbling over his own feet. Amy wondered about Ricky. He had gone quiet in her head, which she hoped meant that he was no longer in the same state of crisis, or had at least temporarily backed down from it. She wished she could put him out of her mind completely. He should be nothing to her, but she didn’t know how to make him nothing. She had literally held his life in her hands, and once you had done that for someone the connection between you was permanent.

  As night turned the corner into early morning, she packed a towel and a swimsuit into a light backpack, dressed and went out into the cold winter pre-dawn. She ran to the top of Easter Road and down Abbeymount into Holyrood Park, made a circuit of Arthur’s Seat and arrived at the Commonwealth Pool just as it was opening. Instead of going to the gym, she swam forty lengths of front crawl and came out to a message from Harrison: Ya beauty! It was so unlike anything he would actually say that she laughed out loud.

  She rang him back and he picked up after only one ring.

  ‘Where you at?’ He sounded very Canadian, as if the excitement had brought him back to boyhood.

  ‘The Commy Pool.’

  ‘Come over. The coffee’s on. Did I tell you you’re brilliant?’

  ‘You didn’t have to. I’ll be there in ten.’

  She jogged slowly along the still-dark streets, dodging the early morning dog walkers. If anything, it was colder now with the approach of dawn than it had been earlier, and a light frost glittered under the streetlights. The winter solstice was only a couple of weeks away and the wind carried the smell of snow. She crossed Minto Street and headed for the Grange, hoping she wouldn’t be too sweaty again by the time she reached Harrison’s house.

  He answered the door in a pair of cotton joggers and a heavy orange and red wool jumper with alpacas on it. Amy snorted. ‘Nice. Is this what passes for fashion in ... where is it again?’

  ‘Potosí. Rosa makes these, so I had to buy them for everybody I know. I might have a spare somewhere, if you want one.’

  ‘No thank you.’ She followed him into the kitchen. ‘Did you not fancy going somewhere warm? My image of an anthropologist is a sweaty Englishman in a pith helmet, squatting by a campfire in the jungle somewhere.’

  ‘I’m not a big fan of heat or jungle spiders.’

  ‘You’d want to have seen the size of the spiders in Afghanistan, by the way. I still can’t put on a pair of boots without shaking them upside down first.’ She quite enjoyed seeing him cringe. ‘Anyway, it’s too early in the morning to talk about that place. Where’s that coffee you promised?’

  He poured her a cup, then took four pastries out of a paper bag and put them on a plate.

  Amy helped herself. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘So, Hydra. I was looking at it online. You’re pretty sure it’s the place?’

  ‘I can sort of feel it. Have you been there?’

  ‘No. I haven’t been to Greece since I was a kid, trailing around archaeological sites with my parents.’

  She imagined him as a gawky, bespectacled child, kicking stones behind parents who wore matching khaki shorts and socks with sandals. ‘I can just picture that.’

  ‘I would rather have gone to the beach.’

  ‘My parents took us to the beach. It was a caravan on the Antrim coast, or if they were feeling particularly flush, we made it as far as Blackpool. Once we went to Benidorm, but Dad got the shits really badly and they never went abroad again.’ She chose the least cluttered place at his big table, sat down and selected a croissant. ‘Are we going to Greece?’

  He sat down across from her, slouched back in the chair and stretched his long legs out. ‘I may have to. I can’t pick up any real sense of Lucy from here.’

  ‘So…no idea if she’s alive or dead.’

  ‘No. But at least you’ve given me a place to start looking.’ He sighed and stared up at the ceiling. ‘I can’t really afford to take the time off right now, but ...’

  ‘But?’

  ‘Something tells me I don’t have a lot of time. I think I have to go.’

  ‘You have to go? You mean we, right?’

  ‘No, I mean I.’

  She laughed, then stood up. ‘Oh no, don’t you dare.’

  ‘I’m not going to put you in danger.’

  She turned and jabbed a finger toward him. Anger flooded out of her. ‘You couldn’t fight your way out of a paper bag, Professor. You need me. I’ll pay my flight if that’s what you’re worried about.’

  ‘It’s not about money, Amy.’

  ‘Then what is it about?’

  He didn't respond. Her fury had shocked him into silence. She glared at him and waited. His unspoken answer rippled through the still morning air. He turned away from her while she breathed it in. Understanding came like a clearing of the fog. She knew why he still did this. All the lost souls he brought home were just proxies for his father. The only missing person he truly cared about was the one he couldn’t find, and for all his outer confidence, there was a great black hole of doubt right in the middle of him. He didn’t want her to see him fail.

  But he didn’t want to do this alone either.

  ‘Harrison …’

  ‘What?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘Look at me.’

  He stood up and faced out the window. ‘Amy, just leave it. I’m sorry I got you into this.’

  She rounded the table and stood beside him. ‘I’m not. Are you listening to me? I’m not sorry, and I’m not walking away now. We’re going to find her, alright? If she’s out there to be found, we’re going to find her.’

  He said nothing, so on a whim, she took his hand and squeezed it. A little ripple of surprise went through him and he looked down at their entwined fingers. His brown eyes were wide and full of questions, and Amy realised that everything about their relationship had turned inside out.

  For a couple of seconds, they faced each other, poised like raindrops on a blade of grass. Then he took a deep breath and nodded.

  ‘You’d better go home and pack some things. I’ll see if I can get us on a flight tonight or tomorrow.’

  ‘Thank you. Oh, and Harri?’

  ‘What?”

  ‘Please tell me you’re not going to take that jumper to Greece.’ She sat down again to finish her croissant and coffee. ‘It’s truly awful.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Harrison printed the boarding passes for a flight to Athens, leaving from Edinburgh airport in less than twenty-four hours, sent a text to Amy and then began packing a small selection of clothes into a rucksack. They would have to travel light and fast. His best hope was to get near enough to Lucy to pick up a clear image of her, and then hand the rescue – if indeed that was what it was – over to local police. But it didn’t always work out that way, and the possibilities troubled him. Amy’s insult still stung, even if it was wrong. He could fight his way out of plenty more than a paper bag, but he didn’t relish it. There was at least one very mean bastard behind this situation, and likely more than one.

  His neck began to prickle as he rolled a couple of spare shirts, and then his mobile started to ring. ‘Colin,’ he said, without even looking at the name. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Still shite, Jones. I’ll give you two guesses who we got a call from this morning.’

  ‘Elizabeth Merriweather.’

  Colin made a w
heezy sound into the phone. ‘This game’s rigged. Got it in one. Seems that somebody has broken into her house and poisoned her dog.’

  ‘I am aware of that. She phoned me just after it happened. An enormous brute of a thing that she doted on. She’s properly heartbroken.’

  ‘Why didn’t she contact us first? Why you?’

  ‘I asked her that and she thought you wouldn’t be interested.’

  ‘What’s she hiding?’

  Harrison wondered how much to share. ‘Quentin had somebody do it. He’s trying to intimidate her out of the house.’

  ‘How do you know it was him?’

  ‘I just know. Obviously, I can’t prove it. She’s frightened of him.’

  ‘Or she’s been protecting him.’

  ‘I don’t think so. The man abused her and their daughter for years. I suspect the dog has been the final straw. Have you taken a statement from her?’

  ‘Some of the local boys are there now. They knew I was checking into the Merriweathers, which is why they let me know about the call. I can’t piece much together yet but I have a feeling there’s a lot more to this bugger than we know.’

  ‘Your feelings are usually right, Colin. Keep going with it.’

  ‘Alright, well listen. The phone number on the back of that wee picture has been deactivated, but I did find something that might interest you. Kostas Gianopoulos and Quentin Merriweather are the joint owners of a property down in Newhaven. It’s a block of serviced apartments, Western Harbour Terrace is the address. Number eleven. You know where I mean?’

  ‘Roughly, aye. Those ugly new places down past the Ocean Terminal?’

  ‘Those are the ones.’

  ‘Right, thanks for that. I think I might just take a run down there this afternoon.’

  ‘Watch yourself down there, I mean it, Jones. Don’t give yourself away. If you see anything amiss, call me. Anything at all.’

  The Western Harbour was a development of modern apartment buildings on a spit of reclaimed land that jutted into the steel-grey Forth, between Leith and Newhaven. He parked around the corner from the address Colin had given him and walked along, scanning this strange, cold environment. An icy wind howled off the water, biting his cheeks and flattening the long brown grass and weeds in the area of waste ground across the street. A beer can clanked down the otherwise deserted street and gulls keened over this hard, new habitat. Across a narrow stretch of water, coloured pennants fluttered on the Royal Yacht Britannia, and Christmas shoppers spilt out onto the balconies of the Ocean Terminal. The raw energy of Edinburgh’s old port didn’t reach the Western Harbour. This place felt like an outpost on the moon.