BEYOND THE SPRING

by Mike S Martin

  Taking a deep breath he turned away from the pillar and strolled through the store. It was perhaps 200 yards to the police station so he didn’t have far to go as he reached the other end of the store and never stopped as he again withheld the temptation to break into a run because if they were still trying to spot him this would surely attract attention. Trying to glance to his left and right into the reflections of shop windows to see if he was being followed, he eventually reached the street and market stalls that always blocked up the pedestrian area this time of year. It provided perfect cover for him to survey the police station that was now only 50 or 60 yards away. He felt confident that no one was watching it like he was, so whilst pretending to browse the stalls he slowly crept closer and closer to it. A tall smartly dressed gentleman with dark brown and slightly wavy hair could be seen hurrying into the station looking pre-occupied with his thoughts. It had been twenty minutes since he had left Oliver and the overwhelming feeling that his son Oliver was inside the station waiting patiently for his father had Wyre instinctively moving towards it. A wave of guilt came over him as he steadily walked towards the station as spots of rain appeared on the pavement, first sporadically then more consistently. On reaching the steps he felt a sense of relief knowing for sure that whoever had been following him would not attempt anything in here. For security reasons there was an entrance on one side of the old stone building and a separate exit around the corner that led onto another street. This way there was slight control on who entered and who exited the large reception area at busy times during the weekend.

  “Yes sir how can I help” said a voice behind the large chest height reception desk.

  Wyre approached the police officer dressed in a uniform and immediately explained who he was and what he was doing there.

  “He should be here by now I left him at the library nearly half an hour ago, I need to see him” said Wyre calmly.

  “Yes sir but I have to ask you to wait here as I fetch the detective dealing with this”

  Wyre nodded and watched as the officer opened the door behind the reception desk then let it shut behind him. The rain had now become heavy outside as Wyre nervously watched everyone and everything that passed the glass fronted police station, his eyes darting from person to person and car to car.

  “Carol have you seen Alex?”

  “Yes Ted he went past here no more than 2 minutes ago”

  The officer from the reception who had spoken to Wyre made his way through the large office, down the small corridor, knocked on detective Richards’ door and poked his head in.

  “Alex!.....Alex!..…. I’ve got that guy in you told me to keep an eye out for. You know he’s come to collect his little boy”

  “Are you alright Ted?” said another officer also dressed in uniform.

  “Yeah you haven’t seen Alex have you?”

  “No sorry I haven’t”

  Suddenly the sound of a hand drier burst into life then the toilet door flew open as Richards purposefully strode down towards the reception with the relieved officer in hot pursuit.

  “What did he say to you Ted?” asked Richards without breaking his stride.

  “He introduced himself then just said what you expected him to say and that was he had come to collect his son Oliver”

  “Did you bring him through?” said Richards eagerly looking around at the empty chairs that were the office side of the large security door. The same door Ted had come through only minutes ago.

  “No Alex I didn’t, he is still in reception”

  Ted flashed his swipe card allowing the door to click open and stepped aside so Richards could talk to Wyre. Richards took one glance around the room then looked back at Ted confused and with a questioning expression, his arms held up and shrugging his shoulders. Richards immediately pushed open the exit door and walked round the corner to the entrance and re-entered.

  “Where has this guy gone and why would he leave if he thought his son was here?” said Richards with his hands on his hips shaking his head.

  As if reading each other’s minds, Richards pointed to the video cameras on the wall and Ted rang through to security to ask if they could view the last 15 minutes. Literally 3minutes later the small computer screen behind the reception desk was showing what they had asked for. Richards fast forwarded the link up until Wyre had entered the area.

  “Is that him?” asked Richards.

  Ted the uniformed officer nodded as they both then watched the screen and the moment Wyre introduced himself. A few seconds went by before Ted left to find Richards and this is the part of the film they both wanted to study carefully. Both of them leant in closer as Wyre seemed to be positioning himself in the reception so he could see the traffic on the road and the pedestrians adjacent on the street leading to the entrance. Suddenly and with no reason Wyre grabbed the handle on the automatic door and seemed impatient as it took a few seconds to open, enabling him to disappear in a hurry onto the street. Richards thoughtfully stared at the automatic door slightly shaking his head.

  “Come on Mr Davis why? Why would you leave if you thought we had your son? All this is not making any sense”

  Ted knew better than to interrupt Richards whilst he was thinking. Instead he pressed the button on the TV to rewind the footage so they could view it again. Richards stood up and made his way to where Wyre had been stood near the door. It was still raining so he had a reasonable idea what Wyre would have been looking at. Glancing at the wet street, the reflection of the cars headlights shone into Richards’ eyes off the glassy road. His gaze was then drawn to the entrance and the pedestrian area that led to it. Ted re-studied the footage but shook his head at nothing being apparent to give them a clue. Richards turned towards Ted.

  “Ted go back and look at the entrance just before the moment he leaves”

  “What am I looking for because up until now I haven’t seen anything?” replied Ted.

  “I’m not sure”

  Ted rewound the footage once again and studied it even harder than the last time. Again he shook his head but then something caught his attention.

  “Alex I think I’ve seen something……..Alex!!”

  Ted looked up but Richards was nowhere to be seen. He looked confused as he walked towards the glass frontage glancing from side to side. Remembering what Richards had said about the entrance he walked over to it and stared hard through the rain and into the gloomy street. “Shit!!” he said to his self as he noticed Richards stood in a doorway on the other side of the street looking right back at him. Ted leant over and spun the TV screen around and there on the paused screen was a similar image of someone stood in exactly the same position. The entrance door opened and Richards entered, his hair now wet and dripping rain onto his face.

  “They were stood there yes?” asked Richards.

  “Yes I’ll get the footage processed as soon as possible and maybe we will get a positive ID on whoever it was”

  Richards thanked Ted and then made arrangements for all patrols to receive a photo image of Wyre. He remained confident they both could not be too far from here but one thing played on his mind. If this guy called Wyre had come to the police station to collect his son as arranged, why had he decided to leave so quickly if he thought his son was still here? Why leave the safety of the police station if, as Richards suspected he was being followed? In no time at all the images popped up on the screen of his laptop at his desk and he set to work finding out the identities and addresses of Wyre and Oliver and the person that seemed to be following the father of the boy. The more he searched for reasons of it being a misunderstanding the more he felt uneasy and his experience told him it would only be a matter of time before he would unearth clues to the incident being more sinister than first thought. This time he hoped he would be wrong.

  Chapter 5

  At first he wasn’t even sure if he had opened his eyes, as no matter how hard he struggled and strained he could not see his hand in front of his face, the room was
so dark. He knew it was touching his face because he could feel it but his breathing and his heart rate quickened as the panic took over as the feeling of being blind overwhelmed him. The mind struggled to cope with the darkness to such an extent, his hands reached out flat against the floor to give him a clue as to whether he was stood or sat down. It was made worse as the natural instinct to feel and probe his surroundings revealed no clue as to where he was. Uncontrollable sobbing and distress came in waves as the realisation now came that he was sitting on his bottom, then the urge to shuffle along what he assumed was a floor to find a wall so he could get his bearings became his priority. The progress was painfully slow as his hands waved helplessly in front of him as he crawled cautiously, waiting to bump into something. It seemed he had crawled for an age but still there was nothing to touch, forcing the panic back into his throat and almost into more tears. The unknown place where he seemed hopelessly lost seemed slightly cold but it was the fear making him shake and his teeth chatter. It also seemed to be making his senses useless as there was no odour or familiar smells. As his concentration and determination grew he began to realise the floor he was gingerly crawling along was a hard but clean floor, definitely not wooden. Again he stopped to try and listen for any sign of noise but the silence became deafening. The blood surging through his temple and beating in perfect rhythm with his heart like a drum was the only distracting sound. The tears came again and began dripping onto his hands as he patted the floor and stroked the darkness.

  “Daddy where are you?”

  His father was all he wanted but for now Oliver was all alone and had no idea where he was. Feeling for his eyes he wiped the tears away and once again tried to see his hand he was now holding up in front of his face, but as much as his eyes ached and stared he could still see nothing. To Oliver it seemed strangely more comforting to actually close his eyes and grope around for a wall or objects. To him it meant that it was dark because he had his eyes closed and not because there was no light in the room where he was. After what felt like an age he stopped the probing and curled up in the foetus position where he felt the safest. Keeping his eyes closed, his ears strained with all their might in the hope of hearing something but it was useless. When his mind did conjure up some sound or the inside of his head creaked and pulsated, he became scared that the noise might mean something bad was going to happen so tried to block it out. Someone or something was going to appear out of the darkness and he was not going to like what he would see. After a few minutes went by of him holding his breath and trying not to cry Oliver realised he no longer had his rucksack full of books. He still had his jacket on but could feel nothing on his back where it had been. An urge to crawl back to where he had been originally sitting on the floor when he had woken was strong but he knew he had no idea from which way he had come. There was no sense of direction and although only 5 years old he was sensible enough to know his chances of finding the bag were very slim indeed. He wasn’t even sure the bag had accompanied him into the room. This way of thinking came from his father Wyre who would often take Oliver camping and on adventure trips away and pretty much let Oliver fend for himself and let him do things way beyond his years and sometimes capability. Although only 5 years old Oliver very often betrayed his age and had Wyre’s few friends thinking he was perhaps a few years older. This didn’t stop him desperately needing his parents now as the fear now paralysed him and as he closed his eyes again, the strange fear of falling now took over. Although he could feel his small body pressed against the floor his mind and senses were now telling him he was surrounded by nothing. A vision of his transformer robot toy his father had bought him appeared and he wished he could pick it up and talk to it like he would when at home. If only he had brought it with him, he could perhaps talk to it and would tell him what to do. Optimus Prime would look after him for sure and perhaps protect him if anything horrible happened. This slightly warming vision quickly disappeared and Oliver held his breath and tensed every muscle in his body as the very distant sound of a voice could be heard. It was the first thing he had heard since finding himself in this dark senseless world. His heart flipped then missed a beat as a mixture of emotions filled his mind. A sense of relief and slight excitement filled him with hope that he was no longer alone. He was desperate to feel safe and seeing someone would surely help. A feeling of being vulnerable then crept up on him and the realisation that the voice might belong to the person who put him in here and took him from the library had him screwing his eyes up even tighter. The feeling of adrenalin surging through his body had him trying to control his breathing as his heart rate quickened and he struggled to keep his fidgeting body still. The voice seemed to be getting louder but was still too far away for Oliver to hear actual words. A battle began as he tried to hold his breath long enough to hear but the beating and pounding of his nervous heart and throbbing temple was too powerful. The overbearing sound of the silence deafened him once again as the voice seemed to have faded away. No matter how hard he tried he could hear nothing but his throbbing pulses.

  “He’s in this one” said a faint, posh sounding male voice forcing Oliver to gasp.

  Taking a deep breath so his breathing wouldn’t hinder the sound of the voice somewhere outside the room he listened, again with his eyes screwed tightly shut. A second voice could be heard but the words of this person were inaudible.

  “Not yet but we know where he is” replied the first and closer voice.

  The mumblings of the second voice seemed to be drifting further away and as much as Oliver held his breath he could hear very little.

  “Ok I’ll do it at 10 o’clock” said the first voice.

  Oliver let out a large sigh then took another deep breath and listened but there was nothing but silence and the sound of his own body making noises again. Gingerly sitting up he grabbed his left wrist where his watch would normally be, the words 10 o’clock spoken by the guy outside the door prompting him to check the time. He choked back more tears as he realised whoever had put him in here had taken his watch and his Arab style bracelet his father had been given as a gift from one of his Libyan doctors.

  “Mummy………Daddy………”

  Oliver sniffed the names of the people who he wanted to see the most before the crying became too much to hold back and he burst into tears, coughing and wiping his snot and emotion all over his face. He then began to think back to the library and how happy he had been there. Why had his father left him there and why had the police come and locked him up in the dark? He had been always told by his parents and teachers that if anything happened to him when he was out and about he was to find a policeman and tell him who he was and where he lived. The police would look after him until his parents could be contacted. Why had he been told this because the police certainly weren’t helping him now? What had he done wrong? As far as he could remember he had not been naughty. More sobbing and tears overwhelmed him.

  *

  Detective Alex Richards studied the face of Wyre Davis on the computer screen and read the details that accompanied it. The picture had been pulled from his passport and Richards could see that this guy who had left his son at the library was no fool. The details were limited but it did say what his profession was, which had the detective more intrigued. The more he thought about it the more he realised that there must have been a genuine reason for leaving his son and getting out of the library as quick as he could. The problem was he had no idea what it was and the only clue and lead he had to follow was that Oliver had been left in the library and his father had left in a hurry. He grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair and made his way back to the library to get an idea of what Wyre might have been thinking.

  “Alex I’ve done a check on the picture we got from the camera footage of the guy outside and nothing has come up”

  “What nothing at all?”

  “No nothing at all. The picture isn’t that good but I would still expect some details to come up. It’s like he doesn’t exi
st”

  “Right! That doesn’t sound good. Ok Ted cheers, I’m off to the library so let me know if you find anything else. We need to find this child and quickly”

  The rain that came with April showers had eased by the time Richards had reached the steps of the library once again. He avoided the reception area and made his way up the stairs that led to the 1st floor café and the museum entrance. Standing with hands in pockets, Richards watched as the odd person drifted in and out of the museum and a few people, young and old sat sipping coffee and eating tea cakes at the tables of the café. He wondered nearer as the smell of fresh coffee enlightened his senses and caressed his temptation.

  “Can I help you sir?” came a voice to his left.

  “Oh no it’s ok I’m not stopping…..thank you”

  The girl turned and returned to the small kitchen area clutching her notepad.

  “Actually you can help me. Do you remember if there was a middle aged man in here earlier with a boy of about 5 years old?” asked Richards.