If Fear Wins

by Tony J. Forder

  There was also a single hydraulic ramp inside the building, plus a wood-and-glass partition which formed an office, and beyond that a separate store room. The search was methodical. They found no young women anywhere inside.

  The body shop gave up a similar result, only there were fewer places in which to hide a group of people away and so it took far less time to search. There was no one there.

  Bliss ran back outside, turned towards the rear of the property once more, where two old vans were parked up by the fence that separated the site from the electronics warehouse next door. Bliss looked over his shoulder at Chandler, whose drawn features betrayed her deep anxiety. Breathless now, his mind too clogged to think clearly, Bliss sped across to the larger of the two vans and yanked open the back door. He did not need to look inside to know the girls were not in there.

  Neither were they in the second van, which Chandler reached before him. Nor anywhere else on the site for that matter. If they had ever been on the premises they were long gone. His earlier excitement now completely flushed away, Bliss helped scour every inch of the place once more. Chandler joined him, as did every other suit and uniform. The entire property was inspected thoroughly for a second time, but still they came up empty. One hand to the back of his head, Bliss stood in the centre of the vacant empty lot staring in mute shock at his partner as she also found it impossible to find any suitable words.

  Through the fog of bitter disappointment, something clicked in Bliss’s head. He turned and made his way back to the larger of the two vans, Chandler matching him stride for stride. This time, rather than focus on what might lie inside the vehicle, Bliss concentrated on its exterior. He closed the doors and ran a hand over the rear panel by the lights and brake on the passenger side. There was a clear dent, with a ridge of buckled steel and chipped paint.

  ‘What is it?’ Chandler asked.

  ‘Take a look at this damage. Screw up your eyes and tell me what it looks like to you.’

  His partner complied. ‘If I had to say it looked like something, I’d say it resembled a Zed.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I thought.’

  ‘So what does that mean?’

  ‘It means you had better get CSI down here,’ Bliss said.

  Chandler frowned at him.

  ‘I’ve seen this particular bit of damage before. We both have.’

  This time Chandler caught it. Bliss saw realisation spread across her face as she pulled out her phone. They had both seen it before, on the CCTV footage taken the night of Duncan Livingston’s necklacing. This was the van the three killers had used.

  45

  The Woodman sat towards the front of the Thorpe Wood golf course, whose sprawling fairways and greens ran down to the very edge of the Nene river. The pub was the closest to the station, and it was in a corner opposite the bar that Chandler eventually found Bliss nursing a Guinness. His DS did not want a drink, so he remained seated with his head down and both hands wrapped around the pint glass. Bliss did not want to talk – there was little or nothing to say. But Chandler drew him out anyway.

  ‘It’s been a bad day,’ she said. The motion of her shaking head caused her hair to bob unevenly. ‘No denying it. But I’m not sure what else we could have done, boss. We ran it to ground as best we could. We were just unlucky.’

  ‘Unlucky?’ Bliss repeated the word as if it repulsed him. ‘You think that’s what this is, Pen? Rank bad luck.’

  ‘I do. And so will you when you’re able to consider it with an open mind. Boss, you made all the right calls. You dismantled Stu, broke your neck to land the deal with Lundy in such a short space of time. It’s hardly our fault that we were too late. At least for those five young women. But you landed the van in which Flying Officer Livingston was held, and we can now tie that in with Drake as well as the poor girl who ended up in that drum of acid. You got us that as well, remember. Lundy’s gone from laughing at us to weeping now that his deal has turned to shit because what he gave up failed to lead us to the women. We broke the back of a smuggling ring who were also responsible for human trafficking. Someone is bound to strike a deal to tie in Darren Bird, so that’s another huge win. We can also now offer Mr and Mrs Livingston some peace of mind when we tell them how their son put himself in harm’s way to try and help save those young women. I know you wanted to save them all, Jimmy. But we rarely get everything we want.’

  Bliss glanced up at her. ‘You’re right. You’re absolutely right.’

  ‘Well, then?’ Chandler reached across the table and gently tugged at his arm.

  ‘Don’t you understand that’s what makes this so much worse, Pen? We did our jobs. More than that, we did them bloody well. We succeeded in so many areas of the investigation. But when it came down to rescuing five innocent, terrified women, we fell short. Our best wasn’t good enough. If I could blame it on a balls-up, poor detective work, bloody bureaucrats, or lack of funding, then maybe I could accept a defeat like this. But the operation went about as well as it could go and still we came up short. I was too slow in realising certain things, and that can happen if you’re only human. But there must still be something we missed. Or rather, I must have missed something. I’ve had a nagging doubt about that ever since I spoke with Lundy earlier, but I can’t put my finger on it. If I try to focus on it, I get nothing. If I try focussing on something else, still nothing.’

  Chandler’s fingers tightened their grip on his arm. ‘We can go back to him, boss. We’ll also have another crack at Drake. Later on. I know all you can think about right now is that those girls could be locked up without food or water because we don’t know where Livingston took them. But there’s a very real chance that they are not sitting out there somewhere waiting for Duncan Livingston to return. Maybe he left them exactly where Lundy told us he did. Maybe Drake’s men already found them and now have them squared away in one of their knocking shops. I understand that’s still a bloody depressing thought, but if it is the case then we’ll find them soon enough.’

  ‘And if it’s not the case? If they are still stuffed inside a vehicle or container having run out of food and water?’ For the third time Bliss lifted the glass to drink from it, only to set it down again untouched. Each time heavier than the last, swamping the table with spilled ale.

  Chandler shook her head and shrugged. ‘I don’t know what to say to that. To be honest with you, I don’t even want to think about it. I prefer to look on the positive side until we know for certain one way or the other.’

  ‘There is no positive side when five lives are unaccounted for.’

  Bliss ducked his head and turned it to one side. He had experienced desperate times before, but could not recall feeling as broken and deflated as he had when he first realised that the five young women were not at that abandoned yard. During the crazed rush over there he had felt the weight of expectation and worry pressing down on him, but at no point did he believe they would not arrive in time to save the women. At that moment he had felt every bit as positive as Chandler seemed to think he ought to be now. But during that frantic drive it never once occurred to him that they might not even be there.

  Lundy had ceased to co-operate the moment his deal was rescinded. As the time ticked by, Bliss began to think that the best he could wish for was that the airman had taken them exactly where Lundy believed he had, and that Drake and his men had figured out the hiding place. But Bliss was not as hopeful as Chandler. She was under the impression that the fate awaiting those five women amounted to being thrust into a whorehouse and forced to sleep with men. A fate from which they would be rescued if she had anything to do about it. Though he did not say so to anyone else, Bliss believed Drake would have other things in mind. Those young women had seen and heard too much, especially concerning Livingston. Drake was not the type to leave loose ends flapping in the breeze.

  Bliss ignored his drink, thinking hard as he stared vacantly at nothing in particular.

  So, I’m Duncan Livingston. I’m scared, bu
t I know I have to help these five young women. I have nowhere to take them other to the police, but if I do that then my career is over, I’m going to do some time in prison, and worst of all I’m going to break my parents’ hearts. I can take the women to the disused yard but do I trust Lundy? Even if I do, he’s the type to fold easily under questioning. So what if it’s Drake who gets around to asking those questions first, as his men will surely do when they turn up and find the women gone? Where can I take these women? Where do I know that’s safe and secure?

  But that’s the thing, isn’t it? It can’t be anywhere I know, because between them Drake and Lundy will figure it out. It’s not as if I have a safe house all prepared for this sort of thing, waiting in isolation. No, I have to find a place that none of my friends or family know about, have never heard of or are even aware of. How can I do that?

  Bliss looked up. He felt his eyes swivel from side to side as he ran it all through his head one more time. Perhaps his thinking was wrong. Livingston might not have needed a place no one else knew about. It only had to be a place none of them would think of. The best way to achieve that was to distract, the way Drake had attempted to confuse the entire investigation by casting suspicion on a Jihadist attack. The way Lundy told his story, Livingston had made his decision to move the girls, but had also been back at the base when the courier van turned up to collect the goods. In that time he had either managed to get the women inside a vehicle, driven to a safe place, made sure the women were secure and then driven back, or…

  Or Livingston had been seeking to distract Lundy. Draw his attention towards the disused yard. And away from…?

  Bliss held his breath. He asked himself one simple question: What if Duncan Livingston had never left the base at all? And if he had not left the base, then neither had the women.

  That was the moment when the one thing he felt he had missed earlier came to the forefront of his mind. He thought back over the conversation. Lundy had insisted that the girl who managed to escape and was later disposed of in acid had run away, had made it look as if she had killed herself in the river, but was then later caught by one of Drake’s men. But as he himself had considered, and Chandler had earlier mentioned, the girl had been on the base when Livingston first opened that container. And the base was fenced off, alarmed and secure. How likely was it that she had got out of there without alerting base security? And if she had not managed to do so, the only way her clothes could have turned up on the riverbank was if someone from the base had driven her out and made it look as if she had escaped. And that came right back to Lundy.

  Lundy had used his van to bring Livingston onto the base without anyone knowing. Bliss knew right then, as much as he knew anything at all, that Lundy had also used it going back the other way, only this time with the girl stuffed away somewhere in the back where Livingston had been earlier.

  It had to have gone down that way. Lundy must have gone looking for the girl who would have been agitated and distressed, and having tracked her down he removed her from the base, forced her to carry out the fake drowning charade down by the river, then either murdered her himself or handed her over to Drake’s crew. And all the while, the other girls had never left the base at all.

  Bliss cursed himself.

  He had slipped up by missing this during Lundy’s confession, but Lundy himself had also overlooked precisely the same issue with his own theory. Because Duncan Livingston could not have driven the girls off base without it being recorded at the security gate. And he would not have been allowed out because he had never signed back in beforehand. Livingston had lied, had misdirected Lundy. Lundy had bought into the story every bit as much as Bliss had. They had both focussed on the disused yard.

  Just as Duncan Livingston had intended.

  Leaving his pint untouched, Bliss leapt to his feet and grabbed hold of Chandler’s hand. ‘We’re going,’ he told her.

  Startled by his reaction, Chandler nevertheless went with it and hurtled through the bar without once attempting to stand her ground. ‘What’s up?’ she asked him. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To find our five missing women,’ Bliss told her.

  ‘You know where they are? You worked it out?’

  Bliss pulled her along, his rapid strides eating up the ground. ‘No,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘But I know where they aren’t.’

  46

  Bliss called ahead and had the custody sergeant move Lundy from his holding cell to an interview room. By the time he and Chandler arrived back at the station, the RAFP officer was waiting for them at the table in the centre of the room.

  ‘You two can go fuck yourselves,’ Lundy said, an edge to his voice that was sharp enough to slice through steel. ‘You screwed me out of my deal, so go talk to someone who gives a damn.’

  ‘I understand how you must feel,’ Bliss said, removing his jacket and folding it over the back of a chair. He remained standing, as did Chandler who took his lead. ‘But your part of the deal was to provide us with the location of the trafficked women. It’s hardly our fault that didn’t happen.’

  ‘Legal bollocks, and you know it. You had–’

  ‘Forget that, Lundy. Do yourself a favour and just listen to me now. You can turn this around. You can get the deal back on the table.’

  Lundy shook his head and glared at Bliss. ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I don’t trust a word you–’

  ‘I said listen!’ Bliss leaned forward and slammed the side of his two fists down on the table, which made the whole thing vibrate. Lundy jerked backwards as if fearful of being struck.

  ‘I don’t have time for your self-pity! What’s more, those innocent young women don’t have time for it, either. Now, listen to me you little prick. You say that Livingston had the key to that yard and intended on using it to secrete the five remaining women, but you didn’t see him load them up and drive off base with them, right?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I didn’t want any part of it.’

  ‘Actually, you wouldn’t have seen that, anyway. Because it never happened. I don’t think Duncan trusted you, Lundy. I think he was panic-stricken at first, and asked you for help without considering the consequences. But then I figure he pulled himself together and realised you would drop him in it the moment you were questioned by Drake’s men. He also realised one significant factor that you missed: that there was no way he could leave the base without it being recorded at the security gates. And he was not even supposed to be there at the time.’

  ‘Well, I can’t–’

  ‘Save it, Lundy. Just listen to what I have to say. So like I mentioned, I was asking myself where on earth Duncan would take those women instead, and then I asked myself something I’d not considered before. What if he didn’t take them anywhere? What if they’re still on the base? That’s when I came to the conclusion that I had to be right this time. It’s taken me long enough, but I think I finally got there. So I need you to tell me if there is anywhere within the storage buildings, warehouses, hangars… anywhere at all where Duncan might have taken those women and secured them.’

  ‘And I get my deal back?’ Judging by the look on his face, Lundy was startled by what Bliss was suggesting, but his mind was quick enough to focus on self-preservation.

  ‘Yes, you get your deal back.’

  ‘I need my rep here.’

  Bliss walked around the table and stood over Lundy, staring down at him. ‘We don’t have time for all that. Those women could be dying out there right now as we speak. You do this now, you get your deal. You delay and those women die, I’ll make sure you get banged up in the shittiest prison with the hardest bastards on the planet and I’ll pay them well to make your life a living Hell!’

  Lundy raised his hands. ‘All right, all right. Let me think.’

  Lundy was quiet for several long beats. Too long for Bliss, who prowled around the interview room like a man possessed.

  ‘Okay,’ Lundy said. ‘You’re right. When Dunc
prattled on about taking them to the disused yard I didn’t even think about him getting off base and back on again. There was too much else going on, too many other balls in the air to cope with. Technically, if you have a good relationship with the blokes on the gate, you can sometimes come and go without anything official being noted. So it’s still possible that Dunc went off base, and that’s why it never occurred to me to think otherwise. All the same, I think you’re right. I think he would have been too scared to risk it. But there’s no way those women were left anywhere in the stores or buildings in common use, because I tell you now they would have been found long ago.’

  ‘There must be somewhere!’ Bliss cried. ‘There has to be. Think, man. Think!’

  ‘I am! Just let me…’ Lundy raised both hands and dipped his head towards them, resting his fingers on his forehead. Then he looked back up at Bliss, a triumphant gleam in his eyes. ‘Hold on a moment. There is one place that comes to mind. See, when we’re shifting cargo, there are times when we tend to have more coming back from the frontline than is being flown out again. When that happens we get an overflow of empty containers. There are too many to leave just lying around near where we work. So on the far side of the base, just past the control tower close to the runway, there’s a whole stack of them. Dunc could have taken the women there and we’d never have known.’

  Bliss recalled seeing the units during one his visits to the base. He glanced across at Chandler. ‘Livingston would have thought it was for one night only. Maybe even for just a few hours. Hid them away until Drake’s men had come and gone.’

  ‘Doing what with them afterwards?’ Chandler asked him.

  ‘I don’t know. Once he’d returned to base on the record he might have simply set them free there and then, regardless of the fallout and the hit on his career. Does it even matter?’

  Bliss used his mobile to call Detective Superintendent Fletcher. He reached her right away, and quickly explained his line of thinking.