‘Course we do, girl. Every little crook and nanny, as they say,’ Stockwood said, with a heavy attempt at humour.
Alex smiled dutifully. ‘Could you photocopy the section where this Mr Denny usually does his fishing and bird-watching? He might be the man I’m looking for, and his family really do need to contact him urgently.’
She could have come clean and said who she was, but she preferred to use caution. As it was, the couple were looking at her with increased interest.
‘Come into money or something, has he?’ Mrs Stockwood said at last.
‘I’m afraid I can’t divulge personal information,’ Alex said, but with enough intonation to make the woman nod sagely.
‘Oh well, I dare say it’s all right. I’ll see to the photocopying for you, miss.’
***
‘Any luck?’ Gary asked her a little later when she tracked him down further along the riverbank.
‘It’s a long shot, but I think so,’ she said jubilantly.
Then she stopped speaking, and her heart jumped. Not ten feet away from her was Nick Frobisher. He wasn’t looking her way at that moment, and she grabbed Gary’s arm and yanked him into the nearest souvenir shop.
‘He’s followed us,’ she hissed furiously.
‘Who?’ Gary said in bewilderment.
‘My copper,’ she said, belittling Nick in language that Gary would understand. ‘My bloody nosy copper!’
She heard several women tut-tut, and she lifted her hand apologetically. But how the hell did Nick know... and what was he doing here? For a raging moment she wondered if he’d put a tap on her phone or her answering machine, but she dismissed it at once. He wouldn’t have. He wasn’t that much of a rat. It decided her about one thing though.
‘Gary, I’m going to call Norman Price and tell him where we are. For one thing he has a right to know, since he’s paying me for this investigation.’ The righteous tone slipped a little as she went on. ‘And for another I’m not about to let DI effing Frobisher have all the glory of finding Caroline after I’ve done all the effing leg-work.’
The outraged gasps behind her became more pronounced, and she stalked out of the souvenir shop with her head held high, with Gary grinning along behind her.
‘You really turn me on when you talk dirty, babe,’ he taunted. ‘Where now then? Back to the B&B?’
‘Yes, and just to make that phone call and study this Ordnance Survey copy, so don’t get any ideas. Then we’re going walkabout — or rather rideabout.’
When she tried to contact Price she was told that he had left the factory and had gone home. She tried his mobile number, and was immediately met with a torrent of abuse. She held her phone away from her ear until he’d had his say.
‘Just a minute. Mr Price. I assure you I have never given DI Frobisher any information at all. That’s not the way I work; I respect client confidentiality at all times.’
‘Then how the hell did he know so much?’ Price said.
‘You tell me,’ she snapped.
‘I know my bloody nephew’s involved in all this somewhere, and he’s told Frobisher a cock-and-bull story about Caroline and some man. But you must have blabbed even more—’
So now she knew why Nick was following her, Alex thought furiously. How he knew so much. Damn Laver’s big mouth.
‘I certainly did not. But if you want some relevant information about where I think Caroline is, then you had better listen to what I have to say.’
It was the accent that did it every time, Gary told her admiringly when she had finished the call. It stopped them in their tracks, and the more flustered she was inside, the more unintentionally clipped and cut-glass the accent became.
‘I shouldn’t have told him where we are, though,’ she moaned. ‘I certainly don’t want him to come rushing down here until we’ve got results.’
‘Wouldn’t you, if there was a small fortune involved?’
She glared at him. ‘Maybe. Or maybe he’s got a smidgin of family feeling after all. Once he’d finished calling me a, well, never mind all that — he sounded genuine enough.’
‘And I don’t believe that any more than you do,’ Gary snorted. ‘So what’s the plan?’
She took a deep breath. There were more urgent things to think about than Norman Price’s tantrums. This Daneman sounded like a real nutter, which made things increasingly alarming.
‘We use the bike. Frobisher knows my car but he won’t know your bike. There are lots of inlets near this nature reserve. I reckon that’ll be the place all right. The boat we’re looking for is a bit of a wreck called the Sandpiper. That’s if it’s the right one, of course, and if Marcus Daneman is calling himself Peter Denny.’
‘That’s a lot of ifs, isn’t it?’
‘It’s all I’ve got.’
And she hadn’t yet worked out the plan of action once they reached the boat. She could hardly knock on the door and ask if a Miss Caroline Price was on board, either as a companion or a hostage. Especially if the guy was a nutter.
Maybe they could plead that the bike had broken down, and ask for help, or ask if the occupant had a mobile so they could call a garage — if such a slur on his mean machine didn’t affront Gary’s pride. It had definite possibilities. But what if the guy — Daneman/Denny — knew about bikes and came to look at it himself and found nothing wrong?
‘If we needed to, is there any way to put your bike out of action temporarily?’ she asked Gary carefully.
‘Why?’
‘Just a thought. You could ask Daneman or Denny if he knew anything about bikes—’
‘Hey, I wouldn’t need to ask anybody. I know this baby inside out.’
Alex sighed. ‘Try to forget the macho image for one minute, will you, Gary? If the bike was out of action for a while, and you got Daneman off the boat to tinker with it, it might give me a chance to get on board and see if Caroline’s there. But maybe there’s no way you could fix it... ’
She gave him her best green-eyed stare, and he shrugged.
‘Sure I could. I could always swap the plug-leads over to immobilize it. If the guy knew anything about bikes he might suss it out, or he might not. Like you’re always telling me, you don’t always notice the obvious.’
‘But then you could reverse the plug-leads to get it going again?’
‘Of course! Piece of cake.’
***
Nick smiled with satisfaction as he saw the Harley Davidson roar away down the main street and head for the minor roads. Alex was cute, but it took more than a female brain to fool him, even a mercurial one like hers. Anyway, he had been expecting something of this sort.
There were two figures on the bike now, both clad from head to toe in black leather, and with the concealing crash helmets hiding their identities.
A call to Mary back at headquarters to do a check on the bike’s licence plate with Swansea DVLC had established the owner’s name as Gary Hollis, and Nick didn’t need a crystal ball to tell him who the pillion passenger was.
‘Follow at a sensible distance, Warner. I don’t want to alert them to our presence,’ he said.
He preferred to be in the passenger seat now, with the map spread out in front of him. He didn’t know the Broads, but he had checked out the major holiday areas, and discounted them as an unlikely place to keep anyone prisoner.
Laver had told him his cousin was deaf but she certainly wasn’t dumb. If she could be as stroppy and contrary as the various descriptions of her suggested, then, once she discovered her lover-boy wasn’t so loving any more, she’d have raised the roof at every opportunity.
He had also checked out the most likely places where a boat could be holed up without attracting too much interest. A nature reserve would seem to be the most likely.
Nick hoped to God Alex had done her homework and that this truly was the place. As far as the Broads went, it was the nearest point to what he called civilization, meaning Norwich. If not, he realized there were miles of navigable
waterways spreading eastwards and then fanning out in all directions.
He had already toyed with the thought that a police launch might be needed if they all had to be searched. But he had just as quickly dismissed the idea. Common sense told him that for safety reasons holiday craft would be prohibited from exceeding a low speed limit — around 7 mph according to one of the DCs. With all the family boats cruising at this time of year, Nick doubted that a speeding police launch would be exactly welcomed.
‘We were right about them heading for the nature reserve then, sir,’ Warner said a little later, having already done his share of checking and not prepared to let DI Frobisher have all the kudos.
‘I can see that,’ Nick said shortly.
And he could also see that the road they were travelling on was petering out into little more than a dirt track, and he could tell from the map that it looked like ending altogether pretty soon.
‘We’re heading towards the kind of country that a bike can cross and a car can’t, sir,’ one of the DCs said. ‘It’s likely to be marshy, and we wouldn’t want to get stuck—’
‘Thanks for your advice, Vernon,’ snapped Nick. ‘When that happens, we’ll have to leave the car, spread out and do the last part on foot. That means we could easily lose the pair of them as well as losing sight of each other once we start combing the reeds and inlets of the nature reserve, so keep your wits about you.’
‘We don’t how many boats are likely to be moored around here either, do we, sir?’ Warner said, his tone implying that all this was a good waste of time. ‘It could be one or it could be dozens.’
‘Right again. And without having Alex Best to lead us, we don’t have a clue which one we’re looking for, or even if it’s here at all. But unless anyone’s got any better ideas, we continue as we are, right?’
It didn’t help his equilibrium to know that the rest of his team thought this was all a wild goose chase, and to suspect that part of it was a personal mission to score over Alexandra Best. It was far from being simply that, he thought, although there was always a certain amount of competitiveness in their dealings. But there was something far more serious at stake. A woman was missing, and it had become as much his business as Alex’s to find her.
But then he added reason to his downbeat thoughts. If Alex knew exactly where she was heading, he doubted that she would want to alert Daneman to any chance of discovery by the sound of a powerful Harley-Davidson engine. In that case, they would need to dump the bike somewhere and continue on foot as well. At least it made them equal in that respect.
Chapter 13
The traumatized woman lay hunched up on her bunk in the tiny cabin. She was as terrified of the confined space as she had once been by the thought of going outside from her hermit-like cottage existence. Now she could easily believe that even hell could be no worse than this.
Caroline vowed that once she got out of this hateful little cell, she was never going to be afraid of open spaces again. She was never again going to give in to the self-induced agoraphobia and paranoia that had almost destroyed her self-confidence since her deafness had isolated her, making her lash out at everyone she had come into contact with.
Even her father. Especially her father.
She swallowed painfully. The two biggest mistakes in her life had been shutting her father out, and letting Marcus Daneman in. She was awash with fear every time Marcus came near her now, especially when he taunted her about what he was going to do when he came into money. Her money.
It was far more than mere hate that she felt for him now. She despised him totally, and she despised herself even more for ever having believed his lies. Being convinced that he was mentally deranged did nothing to appease her loathing for him.
Her self-esteem was at its lowest. She cringed at the memory of him touching her and of the things they had done together — sexually explicit, disgusting things — that had seemed natural and erotic at the time, because they had been done with love. On her part, at least.
Now that she knew it had all been nothing more than a cruel, sadistic game to Marcus, she loathed herself as well as him. She was totally degraded because of him. And discovering that her cousin Jeremy was involved in her kidnapping, and the reason for it, had compounded the nightmare.
Unless Marcus appeared with food, or drink, or to let her visit the toilet on the boat, she hardly knew if it was day or night. She had been shocked when she had first seen the poor state of the boat, thinking she was going on a luxury holiday.
She should have been suspicious right then, but she had been too seduced by love, and by the way he called it their little love-nest, all warm and cosy inside... and then he had boarded up the cracked window in her cabin, just allowing small slivers of light to come through.
She had tried prising the board away, tearing her nails and ripping her fingers to shreds, until he had effectively stopped all that by tying her to her bunk.
But the worst times, when she simply couldn’t stop herself from screaming abuse at him for what he was doing to her, were when he not only gagged her to shut her up, but tied the vicious blindfold around her eyes as well. That was when she really knew the meaning of isolation and terror, when she could neither hear nor see.
The cabin door opened, and her nerves jumped with fear as she adjusted her eyes against the brightness outside. She could see Marcus’s dark unkempt shape moving towards her, and she opened her mouth to scream, in the hope, as always, that someone was near enough to hear.
‘You bastard! Bastard! Why won’t you let me go?’ she screamed at him. ‘I swear you’ll never touch a penny of my money — and nor will Jeremy—’
‘Shut up, you snivelling bitch,’ he snarled. ‘You make me sick, and who said you were ever going to get out of here?’
She went on screeching at him, not aware that he had spoken. ‘You have to let me go, you maniac. People will be looking for me. They’ll have called at the cottage, and wondered where I am. My father will send for the police.’
‘Nobody’s going to miss you, you stupid bitch. Nobody cares that much about you, especially your father. Haven’t you got that bloody message yet?’
He was against the light, and despite his ranting, she still couldn’t see his lips moving. She didn’t even know if he was talking to her, although she knew that he would be. Yelling at her would be more like it. He’d be taunting her, shaming and degrading her, as usual. Abusing her with words now, since he’d got tired of abusing her body.
Because she knew it was so futile, Caroline stopped shouting at him and simply screamed. She kept on screaming at the top of her voice. She knew she was doing it...
It was unnatural and heartbreaking that she couldn’t even hear herself scream, except inside. Inside her, she was sure she was filling the cabin with the noise of her own voice.
The hurting in her chest and throat told her so, and she knew she must be making herself heard because Marcus suddenly struck her a savage blow across the side of her head with the back of his hand.
She whimpered with shock and pain as her head rocked, feeling the hot trickle of blood run down her cheek.
The next second she saw the glint of the knife he frequently threatened her with. The point of it was pressed against her throat, sharp enough to remind her that if she made a single move it would enter her flesh.
She daren’t even swallow, she thought wildly. She couldn’t do anything at all against this lunatic. For one agonizing moment, she was tempted to lunge forward against the knife and be done with it. Except that then he would have won. He and Jeremy.
But just as suddenly he drew the knife away from her.
‘That’s better, you whore,’ he snapped, still uncaring that she couldn’t hear him. ‘Come on. Out for your usual, and then I’m getting out for some fresh air. I can’t stand the sight and smell of you any longer.’
He untied her, yanked her to her feet and pushed her out of the cabin towards the tiny toilet compartment.
‘I don’t need—’
‘Get in there, bitch,’ he mouthed at her. ‘Unless you want me to help you do it.’
He grabbed at her skirt, and she fled inside the box-like toilet compartment. She couldn’t have borne it if he’d tried to remove her knickers and fondled her in the process. She started to wet herself at the thought, degraded even more.
She fumbled through her basic needs with shaking hands, knowing he would be listening. Aware of her own rank smell that so offended her. She had always been fastidious, and he had reduced her to this, she thought, weeping uncontrollably. He didn’t need to stand guard outside the door, anyway. Her limbs were so cramped and unsteady she was sure she couldn’t have run anywhere if she’d tried. She was dazed from the blow to her head, and her senses were still reeling.
When she had finished, she banged on the door and he let her out and pushed her back in the cabin and on to the bunk. He tied her up again and produced the gag and blindfold. Her eyes hurt so much from the unaccustomed light outside the cabin she was hardly aware of what he was about to do until it was too late to scream or beg him not to do this. Not to leave her with nothing...
‘Bitch,’ he shouted close to her ear, aware that she couldn’t hear him and couldn’t see him. But from the way she flinched, he knew she could feel his hot breath close to her skin, and he took a sadistic delight in torturing her so.
***
Alex lowered her field-glasses from her vantage point, almost choked with unexpected emotion to realize they were in sight of the boat at last.
‘That’s it, Gary. Bit of a wreck, isn’t it? I wonder why they allow it to stay on the Broads at all.’
‘It probably only needs a cosmetic job. It wouldn’t be so bad with a lick of paint and some TLC.’
‘I doubt that it can move, anyway. What on earth must Caroline have thought when he brought her here?’
‘She’d have been too blinded by love to notice,’ Gary said sarcastically, demeaning her.
‘Not for long, I’ll bet,’ Alex said, refusing to be riled by his insensitivity.
Thicker Than Water (Alexandra Best Investigations Book 1) Page 23