He pulled up the hood of his jacket, hoisted his bag on to his shoulder and strode out, taking the long route home, pausing and doubling back a couple of times. When he was sure he was in the clear, he jinked through to Rosebank. The Toyota was where he’d left it, and he saw nothing out of the ordinary in the street.
He dug his house keys out of his pocket and crossed the road, just as a black BMW turned the corner. He didn’t break stride, but pocketed the latch key and took out his car keys, heading straight to the Toyota instead. He slid behind the wheel, turning his face away as the Beamer passed, then reached to adjust his rear-view mirror. His hand shook, jerking the angle too far, but he got a glimpse of the car’s number plate. The first two letters were EA – an Essex registration. Two men in the front – maybe a third in the back. They’d come mob-handed. The road was closed at the far end; they would have to come back this way, but it would take them a minute or so to complete the manoeuvre.
His heart thudding, he fired up the ignition and pulled the car away from the kerb, heading towards Crown Street and the A93. He heard a squeal of brakes and in his rear-view he saw the BMW’s brake lights flash, then the car was reversing back the way it had come, fishtailing madly. He jammed his foot on the pedal.
The Beamer kept coming. The driver did a handbrake turn at the corner, taking the front bumper off a Mini coming the other way. Josh swung left into Crown Street, screamed past a white van, into the path of an oncoming lorry.
Too close – too close. He braced for impact and veered left, just squeezing in front of the van. Horns blared on both sides. He skidded left again, on to the main road, heading west, away from the city centre, swerving in and out of slower-moving traffic. The BMW kept pace.
‘Should’ve bought a better car, Josh,’ he muttered. He ran a red light and dragged the wheel right, across the stream of traffic. Completing a couple more quick turns, he slowed to check his mirror. He’d lost them.
He took a few deep breaths, wiped his hands on his trouser legs, got a fresh grip of the wheel and pootled gently to the next junction.
A sharp crack behind him, then the rear seat-back tipped forward.
Something came out of the void, was on him before he could react. A flash of white looped over his head and he felt hard plastic dig into his throat. He hit the brakes and slammed his hand on the horn.
‘Lay off.’ A man’s voice, no more than a harsh whisper. He was masked, all in black.
Jesus. I left it too late, took too long.
Josh brought one hand up, tried to work his fingers between the plastic and his throat, but the loop was too tight. His fingertips tingled and darkness crept in from the edges of his vision.
‘Lay off or I’ll squeeze the life out of you. I’ll cut your fucking head off.’
The loop tightened still further; Josh felt it break the skin. He did as he was told, and the pressure eased.
A second later he saw the BMW in his rear-view mirror and felt a confused mixture of relief and blank terror.
37
Abduction, Day 9
Lauren Myers woke with a shout. She was tucked in the deep recess of a window ledge. twelve feet off the ground. There was a big steel thing on the other side, so she couldn’t get out. Her breath came in short gasps as she peeped over the edge to see if the bad man had come back. She couldn’t see him, but the shuffles and squeaks below told her the rats were stealing what was left of her food.
The man had stamped all over everything the last time he came. He screamed and shouted and pushed over the water bottle and she heard the water glug out on the floor. But he didn’t climb up after her. He shouted and shouted till his voice went funny, and she screamed back because she ate the yellow sweeties like Mummy said.
‘Come here, you little bitch!’ he’d yelled.
‘I won’t. Go a-way, you horrible monster!’ she’d screamed.
He couldn’t make her come, because Mummy said she had to be naughty, and you’ve got to do what Mummy says more than anyone in the whole wide world because Mummy grew you in her own tummy, and Mummy Always Knows What’s Best. Lauren watched the man trying to jump up and grab her as she climbed high up the metal frame, but she was too fast. Then he tripped over something and she laughed – what Mummy called her nasty laugh – ‘HahahahahaHA-HA!’ like that, with her mouth wide open and her hands up by her head in bear’s claws. Like when she was hyper on the E-numbers that one time and hit Jody Scott so she fell down in the playground and she didn’t even feel sorry, just laughed and called Jody bad names. Jody looked scared. Lauren felt sorry about that now. The man looked scared, too – but she didn’t feel bad about the man. He didn’t bring her mummy back. And he told a big lie. He said Mummy had gone home without her because she was such a naughty girl. She called him a big fat liar and said he would go to HELL and the devil would stick a big fork in his horrible fat tummy and break off his horrible skinny legs and stick him in a big fire and he would sizzle like a fat horrible SAUSAGE.
She felt her face grow hot, thinking of all the things she had said, but she wasn’t ashamed – just angry. The metal thing on the window wouldn’t let her out, but it couldn’t stop a tiny bit of light getting in, and Lauren stared at it for a while because it made her feel a bit stronger and less scared. Then, slowly, she peeped over the edge again. The light outside had blinded her, but in the dim light that trickled in from the roof she saw something move.
A rat. It was by the big metal thing where the man had tied her and Mummy up. She had a packet of biscuits and some sweeties on the ledge, but no drinks. Mummy was always going on about drinking plenty of fresh water and how you could get sick if you didn’t drink enough. Lauren’s head felt hot, like it did before when Mummy couldn’t get the bottle open. She could hear Mummy in her head as if she was really there: ‘You have to drink something, sweetie.’
But she would have to get down from the window and she was frightened the man would come back. Or maybe he creeped in while she was asleep and he was hiding, waiting for her to come out.
She listened very hard, but all she could hear was the rats. She looked up one way and down the other way, but she couldn’t see anything hiding in the shadows. She peeped over the edge again, and the room started to spin like when she played whirligigs, going round and round in the garden till she fell down on the grass. Maybe she should wait a bit longer.
‘Lauren – please.’
She flinched. ‘Mummy?’ She searched the space below her again, tears springing to her eyes. ‘Mummy, did you come back?’
But there was nothing.
She bent her head to her knees and sobbed.
Something tugged at her leg and she shrieked, squishing herself into the corner of the window ledge. It happened again a minute later and the tugging turned into a pain that felt like someone squeezing her leg very hard, but she couldn’t see anything.
She slapped at her leg and screamed, kicking out at the invisible hand and gradually the pain went away.
‘Silly Lauren,’ she murmured, trying to make her voice sound like Mummy’s. ‘It’s just a cramp.’
A minute after that, she heard a humming sound and began to sing the words in her head: ‘Hush, little baby, don’t say a word, Poppa’s gonna buy you a mock-in bird …’ It sounded just like Mummy. Then the words changed:
‘Hush, little Lauren, gotta climb down, Momma’s gonna buy you a princess gown. Climb down here and get a little drink, and I will dress you all in pink …’
She stretched her legs out, testing them, before swinging them over the ledge. Then she grasped the edge of the steel thing that covered the window and eased herself around so she was facing the window, lowering herself as far as she could before dropping to the floor. But she lost her grip and fell too fast; she jarred her ankle and fell sideways, banging her hip. For a few moments she lay scrunched up and crying, her twisted ankle grasped tight in both hands.
A picture of Mummy, her ankle bleeding, flashed into her head and she opene
d her eyes wide to make it go away. Across the dusty floor, she saw the big water bottle as a humped shadow; shiny and blue, like a whale. She tried to stand up, but a pain shot from her foot to her hip and her ankle gave way. She fell with a shout and gazed for a few tearful moments at the shape.
Then she swung her injured leg out straight and sat, using her good leg to inch along the floor on her bottom.
‘That’s my girl!’ Mummy said.
Lauren looked around to see where she was. But Mummy was only inside her head. She wiped snot and tears off her face with her forearms and set off again, boosting herself with both hands as well as her good foot until she could almost reach out and touch the bottle.
A big rat left off nibbling at the crunched-up biscuits and darted over to the bottle, as if it wanted to stop her, but it only wanted a drink. It put its whole head inside the wide mouth of the bottle and began to lap greedily. She could see its tongue flicking at the water like a small pink flame.
‘Go a-way!’ she shouted, her voice high with fear.
The rat ignored her. She scooted closer and shouted again, lashing out with her good foot. The bottle rocked and gave a sudden Bloop!
The rat squeaked, squirming as it backed out of the mouth of the bottle. Then it ran, dashing right, left, jumping over broken bits of stone and metal as if it thought she might chase it. She watched it, scared it might come back and bite her, but at last it disappeared into the gloom.
The water was nearly gone. The bottle was too big to pick up, so she lay flat on her belly and stuck her tongue in. But she couldn’t get her head inside like the rat. She sat up again; her head hurt and it felt as if her whole body was rocking. Mummy’s handbag was close by, and she got hold of it and pushed that under the back of the bottle so it tipped up. Water began to spill out and she gave a little squeal of dismay, swinging on to her tummy again, sucking at the water dripping out of the opening in jerky glugs.
It was spilling too much!
She reached for the handbag and tugged it away, but more water came out, making a small pool on the dusty grey floor. It stopped at the edge of one of the blankets, and this gave Lauren an idea.
She jammed a corner of the blanket into the mouth of the bottle and, when it had soaked up some of the water inside, she began to suck. It smelled funny and tasted like the stuff off the floor, but she sucked on it anyway, and after a while she began to feel a bit better.
Something clanked against the outside of the building and she sat up with a gasp. The man?
She listened hard and the sound came again: a soft clank-clank – the wind swinging something against the metal door. She breathed easier. She needed to climb back up to her window ledge, so the bad man couldn’t get her. But her ankle throbbed worse than her head now, and it felt hot when she touched it. If she could take the blanket with her, she would have food and water until Daddy came to rescue her.
She swung herself into a sitting position and eased one foot under her, then used both hands to boost herself up. But her sore ankle hurt too much. She took hold of the blanket, gently easing the corner out of the bottle, and tried hopping. But she fell down. She stared at the window, at the thin grey thread of light at its edges, and wondered how she ever got up there, knowing she would never be able to get back. Without her magic Yellow Peril sweeties her superpower was gone. She curled up on the floor and wept.
38
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
SIR MARTIN REES, ASTROPHYSICIST (ATTR.)
An Essex Hotel, Thursday, Early Evening
Fennimore’s hotel room looked like a stationers after a hurricane: papers spread out on the bed, the sofa, the desk-dresser and even on the floor – copies of Lazko’s hate mail the solicitor, Haverford, had kept in safekeeping. The journalist had received fifty-one of them, warning him off the Mitchell case. Ten of these were stacked on one corner of the bed – discounted as threats from ‘concerned citizens’ convinced of Mitchell’s guilt and determined to force Lazko into making the ‘right’ decision. Seven more lay side by side on the bed. Fennimore had labelled these with orange Post-it notes, selecting them for similar phrasing, or use of threats that suggested a knowledge of the torture Lazko had been subjected to. He would send copies of these to a language pattern analyst. Fennimore had copies of the letters he himself had received from the killer, and he crossed the room to the desk-dresser to root them out on his laptop.
He couldn’t resist switching screens to look again at the surveillance recordings from Paris. For ten minutes he stood watching the movement-sensitive cameras deliver bursts of footage, willing the girl in the orange sundress to appear.
A Skype alert finally dragged him out of his almost trance-like state.
Kate Simms. Of all possible interruptions, hers was the most welcome.
He leaned forward and clicked ‘Answer’ and her face popped on to the screen.
He dragged out the chair from under the dresser, dumped his laptop bag on the floor and took a seat. ‘What’s up?’ he said.
‘We got a name.’
For a second, it felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. When it came rushing back, he took a grateful breath and steadied himself.
‘That was fast.’
‘The survivor’s description helped,’ Simms said. ‘His name is Vic Tremain. Divorced. A loner – and you’re right – he has Klinefelter’s. Seems he sought treatment for infertility early in his marriage. It was one of the reasons for the break-up, according to the ex-wife. Tremain has worked as a porter at hospitals all over London and the south-east; moved to Manchester six months ago.’
He leaned forward. ‘You have an address?’
She nodded. ‘The Tactical Firearms Unit was deployed.’
He felt the intensity of her gaze on him and realized she had used the past tense. ‘Was deployed?’ he said.
‘He wasn’t at home and hasn’t been at work for over a week. CSIs are working the scene now, but there’s no sign of Lauren, no indication she was ever in his house.’
‘Oh, hell …’ He passed a hand over his eyes, suppressing a tremor.
‘The palynologist has finished her evaluation of the fungal spores and pollen they found on the letters Tremain sent to you.’ Simms shrugged. ‘Maybe she’ll have something that will give us a better idea of where he’s been keeping them.’
‘The investigators are talking to neighbours, work colleagues?’
‘I imagine they are. I’m still out of the loop, Nick.’
‘After all you’ve done?’
‘It’s not my investigation,’ she said firmly, shutting him down before he could rev up his outrage to full throttle. ‘But I can’t seem to leave it alone …’ Her tone was dry and she half-smiled, but he sensed a nervousness – perhaps even an excitement.
‘So …?’
‘I’ve been looking at the victimology again.’
‘You found something else?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Probably not – but your MOJ—’
‘Mitchell?’
‘No, the one before.’ She looked away and he heard a rustle of paper; she was referring to notes. ‘Gail Hammond – the nurse who disappeared from Ingatestone railway station. I’ve been looking at the lecture you gave – the one that ended up on YouTube.’
‘What about it?’
‘You said that you believed Gail was abducted from her car?’
‘Yes, but what’s that got to do with—?’ Every hair stood up on Fennimore’s head. ‘You think Vic Tremain was involved in Gail Hammond’s murder?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But Gail was from Chelmsford, wasn’t she?’
He leaned forward; adrenaline surging through him seemed to light the room like a spot lamp. ‘And a nurse, yes. She worked at Broomfield Hospital, just outside the city.’
She paused, and his heart pulsed thickly in his throat. ‘Kate, what have you got?’
‘Where was her car found?’ she asked.
‘Outside her flat.’
Simms stared out of the screen at him; she seemed to be holding every muscle rigid. ‘Where – exactly – was that?’
He gave the street name and house number from memory, and the rims of her irises sparked amber.
‘Nick,’ she said. ‘Vic Tremain lived in that street. I have a map in front of me.’ She glanced down. ‘The house Tremain lived in was—’ she broke off, checking the details. ‘Yes – it was directly opposite Gail’s house. He was probably interviewed by police during the house-to-house canvassing. And get this: he’d done some agency work at Broomfield Hospital.’
‘When?’ he said.
She checked her notes again. ‘Early spring, the year Gail was murdered.’
Fennimore sat back in his seat, stunned.
‘That’s why he sent those threats to you,’ Simms said. ‘You’d already cleared Killbride of Gail Hammond’s murder and you put forward the theory that she was abducted from her car. Tremain knew it was only a question of time before you made the connection between Gail and Kelli Rees’s murder.’
‘I showed photos of the road where Gail lived,’ Fennimore said. ‘Tremain recognized it.’ The truth hit him like a punch in the head: if he hadn’t given that lecture, Julia Myers would still be alive.
‘Nick, this isn’t your fault,’ Simms said, reading his mind as she so often did.
‘He murdered Julia Myers to distract me, Kate. Her little girl is out there somewhere, alone, because of me.’
Simms’s expression didn’t change exactly, it was more that it solidified into something unnaturally neutral, and Fennimore realized something he had been avoiding for the past day: Kate Simms believed that Lauren Myers was already dead.
39
Manchester Police HQ, Thursday, Early Evening
Truth Will Out Page 21