The Ring - An Alex Dorring Thriller

by Vince Vogel

  “You’ve got company,” Dorring said, throwing the unconscious Crosby in there with him.

  Otis began pushing the two men so that they fit together. Then he closed the lid and he and Dorring got into the front. Bess was on the back seat. She was wagging her tail in anticipation of their return. She came through the middle and onto Otis’ lap. It was then that they heard one of the rear doors open and close. Glancing into the back, they found the girl sitting there.

  “What are you doing?” Dorring asked her.

  “What does it look like? I’m comin’ with you.”

  “Oh no, you’re not,” Dorring retorted. Turning to Otis, he added, “Get her out of there.”

  “Oh, wow!” the girl exclaimed when she saw Bess. “You got a dog.”

  Bess turned on Otis’ lap and placed a head through the gap, where the girl began stroking her head.

  “She might be able to help us,” the old man said to Dorring.

  “No, she won’t. She’ll be nothing but trouble. She has to wait with the others. The fire will bring the police. She’ll be taken away from here. Helped.”

  “What if she ain’t?”

  “She will be.”

  “I can help you,” the girl said, looking up from the dog.

  “No,” Dorring insisted. “The man lying in the boot of this car can help us. You know nothing.”

  “I know there’s other places. Other places they could have taken Jess.”

  Otis’ eyes widened. Dorring became angry. The girl was manipulating the old man. They didn’t have time for it.

  Dorring groaned, put the car in gear and pulled away.

  When they were several hundred yards up the road, he checked the rearview mirror and saw the smoke rise into the dark blue sky. That’s when the girl leaned between the seats and offered her hand to them.

  “Tina,” she said.

  Otis took the hand and shook it.

  “I’m Otis,” he said. “And that’s Dorrin’.”

  The hand was offered to Dorring. He didn’t take it.

  26

  The flames illuminated the black rain like a beacon and could be seen for miles. A cloud of thick smoke enveloped the scene from above. Fire engines stood shoulder to shoulder at the end of the cul-de-sac and their flashing blue lights cut through the wet air. Shoots of water rose out of hoses and onto the flaming building, the black timbers of the burned roof resembling the ribcage of some long dead giant picked clean by vultures.

  Rows of ambulances lined the edges of the long road leading to the scene. Inside, young girls were seen to by paramedics. Uniformed police officers stood at the open doors at the back, watching, ready to take statements, find names.

  Halfway up the road was a line of police tape barring the way. A group of press had already arrived and stood asking questions. Barker stopped his car before the barrier and flashed his badge from the open window.

  “Thank you, sir,” said the constable at the line, before turning his attention to John Hudson, who sat in the passenger seat. “And him, sir?” the constable added.

  “He’s with me,” Barker said in a tone of voice that told rather than stated.

  “But I’m afraid—”

  That was as far as the constable got. He had to step back rapidly to avoid having his toes run over. Barker drove into the cul-de-sac at the end of the road and parked at the rear of the fire engines. The flames rose up into the black night and illuminated the faces of the fire crew in shimmering light.

  Barker left the car. The heat was intense, even with the rain. He approached a fire captain who was supervising.

  “You been in there yet?” the detective asked.

  The fire captain turned to him.

  “You police?” he asked instinctively.

  “Yeah.” Barker showed his badge.

  “Not yet,” the chief said. “Might be able to once this is under control.”

  “Any bodies?”

  “Don’t know. Like I say, we’ve not been in there yet.”

  “How’d it start?”

  “Someone drove a car to the front and set it on fire. That then caught fire to the building.”

  Barker didn’t say anything to this. He just walked away from him. There was a group of uniformed police officers talking in a huddle. He strolled up to them, holding his badge out.

  “Detective?” said a police sergeant in a flat cap.

  “What’re the girls saying?” Barker asked him.

  “Not much at the moment. We’ve had little chance to talk to them. Not until the paramedics have made their assessments. Then my people will begin taking statements.”

  “So they were all here when you came?”

  “Yeah. Wandering around this road when the fire service turned up. The ambulances arrived around the same time as we did. They’ve been assessing them ever since.”

  “But you must have some idea what they were doing here?”

  “Yeah.” His eyebrows rose when he said this. “Looks like they were trafficked here. Being kept here.”

  “Who started the fire? One of them?”

  “We don’t know. Several of the girls claim some men showed up. Let them go and then set fire to the place.”

  “How many men?”

  “Two. We haven’t taken any statements about it yet, but some of my colleagues told me that’s what they’re saying.”

  “Any description of these two men?”

  “None yet.”

  “Okay, cheers,” Barker said before walking back to the car.

  John’s window was already unwound. Barker crouched beside it with his hands on the edge. The rain was no more than a patter now and it splashed off his head.

  “What’s up?” John asked.

  “I think Otis Rawly and the guy named Dorring have been here.”

  “It was them?”

  “I don’t know. They’ve not had a chance to take statements yet. But the sergeant I just spoke to says they’re saying two men turned up.”

  “Then go speak with one of them.”

  “All right, John,” Barker said. “I was gettin’ to that. I just thought you’d like to know, is all.”

  Barker stood up from the window. He walked through the hot, wet air, the stench of smoke heavy in his nostrils, the light shimmering off every reflective surface. It made the ambulances shine. He reached the closest one and spoke with a female constable standing at the back.

  “You know the girl’s name yet?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” the WPC said, glancing into the back of the ambulance at the frightened little girl inside. “Heidi Atwood. Thirteen. Missing since last year. Ran away from the care home she was living in. That was the last time she was seen.”

  Barker gazed into the back of the ambulance. Two blank eyes stared back at him, the fire reflecting in them. The colorless face was gaunt and the girl looked malnourished. A paramedic was seeing to her while she sat up in bed with a red blanket wrapped tightly over her legs and midriff.

  “How’s she holding up?” the detective asked the paramedic.

  The latter turned around. “Vitamin D deficiency,” she said. “Slightly malnourished. Some scars on her. Self harm, I think. Nevertheless, I’d say most of the damage these girls has suffered is inside. It’ll be a long time before we know the full extent.”

  “You think I can talk to her?”

  The paramedic turned to the girl. “Heidi?” she said softly. “Heidi?”

  The girl appeared to hear nothing. The only life in her blank eyes was the shimmering reflections of the flames. The paramedic shook the girl’s shoulder. She snapped out of it, cringing away from the hand that gripped her ever so slightly. Her eyes were as alive as they could be as she stared at the paramedic.

  “They’ve been drugged,” the constable whispered into Barker’s ear.

  He could tell. The pupils almost covered the whole of the eyes and she looked trapped half in a dream and half in real life. It would take some time before she was full
y standing in the realm of reality.

  “Do you mind if this man here speaks to you?” the paramedic asked the girl.

  She turned to Barker.

  “It won’t be long,” he assured her.

  “Okay,” the girl breathed.

  Barker climbed into the back of the ambulance.

  “You want me to leave?” the paramedic asked.

  “No. You can stay. This won’t take any more than a minute.” Barker turned to the girl. “Heidi, can you tell me anything about the men that came here?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “How many were there?”

  “Two.”

  “Can you describe them?”

  She thought about it for a second or two and then answered. “One was old. He had a gray beard and his hair was white. He was looking for someone.”

  “Who?”

  “Jess, I think.”

  “Jess Rawly?”

  “I don’t know her second name. Only know her as Jess.”

  Barker had gotten out his phone. He was scrolling through some pictures. Earlier that day, they’d had a picture made up of Jess using software that can digitally age a person. Using the photos they had from when she went missing, they’d managed to age her ten years.

  “Is this her?” he asked, holding out the phone.

  Heidi nodded. “I think so,” she said before adding more confidently, “Yeah. That’s Jess.”

  “And she was here?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did the two men take her?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she weren’t here today.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She didn’t come back last night.”

  “Then she’s somewhere else?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who took her?”

  “Daz.”

  “Do you know his full name?”

  She shook her head.

  “Do you know the full names of any of the men keeping you and the other girls in that place?”

  She thought about it. She didn’t.

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a half whimper.

  “That’s okay. You don’t have to be sorry at all. You’re doing brilliantly. Describe the other man that came today. Not the old one.”

  “He were younger. Tall.”

  “Taller than me?”

  “Yeah. Really tall and muscular.”

  “Was he a white man?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What color hair did he have?”

  “Blond.”

  “Is there anything else about him? Scars? Tattoos? Any features that made him stand out?”

  She thought about it for a few seconds and then shook her head.

  “Okay,” Barker said. “That’s everything I need. Thank you, Heidi.”

  Barker left the ambulance and went back to the car. Getting into the driver’s side, he told John, “This was them. They were here.”

  “What about Jess?” John asked. “She could be one of the girls here.”

  “The girl I spoke to, Heidi, says she never came back last night.”

  “You should check.”

  Barker rolled his eyes and got out of the car. He went from one ambulance to the next. Three of the girls looked like the photofit. Blonde hair. Same age or around. But none of them answered to the name Jess Rawly. When Barker asked what they knew about Jess, all they could tell him was the same as what Heidi told him, that she was there, but didn’t come back last night.

  “I think something happened,” one of the girls said. “I heard them arguing.”

  “Who? The men?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What about?”

  “I don’t know. I couldn’t tell what they were saying. Just that they were shouting. I think someone got killed.”

  Barker went back to the car after he’d finished.

  “She’s not here,” he said when he dumped his soaking wet body down in the driver’s seat. “They didn’t bring her back after Carter.”

  “Then the search goes on,” John said.

  Barker started the engine and drove them out of there. Several hundred yards up the road, they passed a black Mercedes parked in the shadows. They were too engrossed in their own thoughts to notice the two men sitting inside. But the two men noticed them.

  They watched Barker and John drive away before returning their eyes to the flames at the bottom of the road.

  “What a shit show,” the man in the driver’s seat said.

  “Better call him,” the other said.

  “Why me?”

  “It’s your turn. I called him last time. Remember?”

  The other groaned. Then he took a deep breath, removed his phone from his pocket and dialed the required number.

  “Sir?” he said when it was answered.

  “Are you at the scene, Mr. Brown?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are the girls present?”

  “All the girls are with the police, sir. There’s ambulances everywhere. Police cars. Fire engines. Even the press is here.”

  There was a pause. In which time the man on the other end of the phone appeared to be sighing. The man sitting in the passenger side looked at Mr. Brown and made a face as if to say, ‘What’s he saying?’

  Brown made a face back as if to say, ‘Piss off!’

  “Okay,” the reply finally came. “They don’t know who we are. They know nothing. They’ll get no further than people running the building. The girls only see the inside of a van or the inside of a hotel room. Except for a few details of what the places look like and the appearances of the men they sleep with, they don’t know anything. Nothing to lead the police to us.”

  “But what if some silly fucker told one of the girls his name? You know how some of these johns get with a young girl. They fall in love.”

  “If they did, then we’ll deal with it if and when.”

  “But they’ll make deals,” Brown continued. “These blokes are rich. They’ll get some good lawyer who’ll set it all up for them. They’ll turn on us. Tell everything.”

  “Don’t be dumb. If that happens, the Ring will destroy them. You have no idea who some of our members are, do you? Even I don’t know how far our tentacles reach. But I’ll tell you this; there’s people in the Ring that can get to anyone, whether he’s in a police cell, a prison or a secret location. There is nowhere our eyes and our ears do not reach. So if you’re getting cold feet, Mr. Brown, I suggest you tell me now.”

  “No, sir,” Brown said. “No cold feet. All in. Just worried is all.”

  “Well, leave the worrying to men such as me. You merely worry about doing as I tell you. Now, first things first: have you any idea as to the identities of the two men who broke into our building, kidnapped Daz and then preceded to burn the bloody place down?”

  “We’ve been over the footage from the cameras. No idea who they are. Could be some new guys trying to muscle us.”

  “Could be. Take their pictures around and see if they belong to anyone. They’re obviously the same guys that took Anderson today. What about the trackers?”

  “What about them?” Mr. Brown asked naively.

  “Have you checked them?”

  “Well, they’re all here.”

  “How do you know that?” the man on the phone snapped. “Have you been there to count them?”

  “No.”

  “Then you don’t know. Maybe one of them got away. Didn’t wait around for the police.”

  “I didn’t think of that.”

  “Well, check it now.”

  “Okay, sir.”

  The line went dead.

  “How’d he seem?” the other man asked Mr. Brown.

  “The usual, Mr. Purple,” Brown replied. “Calm on the surface, but like you could sense it was only because you were in the eye of the storm. You know, like everywhere around was swirling debris ready to fuck you up.”

  �
�I always think he’s like a volcano,” Mr. Purple remarked. “I remember when he cut Harry Beamish’s throat. He was smokin’ a cigar and swirling cognac in a glass about a second before he jumped on him.”

  “He’s a psycho, all right,” Brown agreed, turning the keys in the ignition and bringing the car into life.

  “Aye to that,” Purple said as the car performed a U-turn in the road and left the place, the flames lighting the night sky behind them.

  27

  The waters of the Thames estuary slipped past the bullrushes and long grass of the bank. The Vectra was parked in front of it. Darren Crosby woke up gradually. His head ached and when he tried to move his body, he couldn’t. Looking down, he saw that someone had wrapped duct tape all the way around both him and the car seat, trapping him to it. Glancing forward, he immediately found it odd to see his hands stretched out in front of him. They’d been duct-taped at the wrists to the top of the steering wheel. He tried to pull them away, but they were clamped into place.

  “Why’re my hands like this?” he mumbled in confusion.

  “You’re awake.”

  He turned sharply to his left and recoiled.

  The man from before was sitting there in the passenger seat. Not the old one. The blond one. The one who had pulled him off the girl. The one who had kicked him. Crosby turned sharply to his right and gazed out the driver’s side window. The rain had stopped. It was dawn and the land was drenched in soft light, the wet grass sparkling like emeralds. They were parked at the edge of the river. Either way was nothing but marshland, the tall grass waving in the breeze. Across the river was a small dock and the silhouettes of cranes stood tall in the dawn light. He gathered that they were on the far eastern side of the city, close to the Dartford crossing. They were as alone as you can get in a city of ten million souls.

  Someway up the dirt track that straddled the banks of the river, the girl and the old man sat on a bench. The girl was holding onto a black and white sheepdog, with the old man’s coat wrapped around her thin shoulders. Crosby turned back to Dorring.

  “What’s goin’ on?” he asked.

  “We’re going to have a little question and answer session.”

  “You’re makin’ a huge mistake,” Crosby warned him. “They’ll find you. They always do. You should’ve left them alone. What do you even want?”