by Simone Leigh
“Don’t I get a say?” I ask.
“No, you don’t.” says Michael. “You’re not doing it.” His arms are folded as he stares me down.
“But….”
My Master interrupts. “No, Charlotte. You’re not doing it.”
Now I begin to be angry. “I’m not a little girl to have decisions made for me. We’ve already had this discussion, haven’t we? You can’t tell me what to do.”
Michael looks thoughtful. “No? Watch me. In this case, Charlotte, just watch me.”
I tick off on my fingers. “One; The Police think they know who the culprits are, but not where to find them. Two; They could have taken Beth by mistake, but they could just as easily have been intended to pick up both of us and they happened to get her first. Three; The Police have no leads of any kind on hideouts, car registrations, routes out of the City, or anything else. Four; I can’t even go home right now, or back to university and Five……” My voice falters, tears threatening…. “Beth is my friend, and she’s in trouble because of me…”
Taking a deep breath, I fight back the pricking at the back of my eyes. Tears don’t help anyone. “And this isn’t small trouble. They probably don’t want to kill her.… me…. otherwise it would just have been a bullet in the head in a parking lot…. It’s more likely they want to learn what she.… I…. know and then sell her on.… me on….”
All three men are watching me, jaws dropped. “Jeez, Charlotte. You sound cold-blooded when you talk like that.” says Michael.
“It’s about survival isn’t it.” I say, keeping my voice heartless. “Richard was right when he said that you’re no good to anyone if you panic. Some things have to be done in cold blood.”
My Master, watching me carefully, says “Like selling yourself to the highest bidder? Done in cold blood?”
I lift my chin, meeting his eye. “And how else do you think I could have done it?”
Richard interrupts. “Alright, Charlotte, you’re a survivor. We all know that. But you won’t help Elizabeth by getting yourself caught and trafficked as well. All that would mean is that we’d lost both of you. And while she may be your friend, you don’t owe her that…”
I owe it to you though….
But I stay silent; keep my thoughts to myself.
I look at Will. “So, I’m happy to be corrected, but in fact the Police have no idea where Beth is? And no leads of any kind to follow? Please tell me if I’m wrong in this.”
Miserably, he nods his head.
Richard looks sick at heart. His face is drawn, and he’s lost weight over the last few days.
He loves her…
It dawns on me that I am flanked by Michael and my Master. “What’s this then?” I ask. “You’re my jailers again?”
Both men look askance at me. Michael says “Charlotte, take this as it’s meant, but while James thinks you’re his obedient little sub….” My Master looks startled. “….and will do as you’re told, I don’t. And frankly, I’m not willing to let you out of my sight just now.”
“You think I’ll try to do something stupid?”
“No. I think you’ll try to do something clever. But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be dangerous in the extreme and…. I’m not letting you.”
“We’ve discussed this. I’m not property.”
“No, you’re not. But you will be my wife, and that entitles me to a say.”
Time to shut up. Let them think they’ve won.
I hang my head. “Perhaps you’re right.” I try to appear to have submitted. My Master appears to have swallowed it, nodding in apparent satisfaction. Michael watches me from the corner of his eye.
He’s not fooled.
___________________________________________
Later:
“Promise me.”
“Promise you what?”
Michael gazes at me. “You know what.”
“I promise you I won’t do anything stupid.”
He tilts his head. “And will you promise me not to do anything clever?”
I remain silent. He looks distressed. “Charlotte.…”
“I’m not going to make you a promise I’m not sure I can keep. Anyway, you don’t need to worry do you? You’ve all got me locked up in here. What could I do?”
__________________________________
Michael
“So, what is it you’re working on, Charlotte?”
She leans over a large table surface, comparing various plans. “It was an idea Richard had, about how they might have gotten Beth away from the City. It’s not as though I’ve anything better to do, so I said I’d help.”
“So, what are all these?”
“They’re all plans of the City, but in different ways and from different perspectives.’ She holds up one of the plans. “This one’s an underground map of the sewers and drains.” She points again. “Access tunnels and electricity schematics for the subways” Then she waves over at another, covered in a mess of sticky dots and annotations. “That one’s the road map, and I’ve been superimposing details of where all the cameras are, not just the official ones, but the private ones too where I can find them on webcam sites. And that one….”
“Okay. I get the picture. You’re looking for the non-obvious ways that someone might have been spirited out of the City? And the ways that they might be spotted anyway?”
“Yeah, basically that’s it. It’s complicated because some of the networks tie up together and some don’t. For example, the old nineteenth century sewer system was built covering most of the City, as it was then, but when they started construction on the subway system…”
“Everything had to go around or over or under…”
“Yup. And then they needed the….”
“I get it. I get it.” I hold up my hands, laughing, but scanning the pile of ragged maps and plans, the modern documents, the tabs open on webcam sites, the biro’d comments and yellow notes over everything.… “You did all this manually?”
“Not all of it. I’ve scanned and digitised most of this lot so that I could superimpose the systems over each other. Uploaded them to the cloud.”
“You’ve done a hell of a lot of work, Charlotte.”
“Have I got anything better to do with my time?”
I shrug. “Oh, I nearly forgot. I picked up a couple of pieces of mail for you.” I pass her the small padded envelopes. “What are they?”
She hesitates, but only briefly, feeling through the padding at the contents. “Oh, I got bored. Did a bit of on-line shopping.”
“Shopping? You?”
“As I said, I was bored. Oh yes, this one, it’s a necklace I saw, that I quite liked the look of.”
She opens the packet, producing a small locket, the kind that opens to take a photo.
She must have been bored. When does she ever buy stuff like that? If you can’t read it, she’s not usually interested….
“Mmmm. Very pretty.” I say. “We’ll turn you into a society lady yet.”
She smiles, but I can’t avoid a nagging feeling of missing something.
___________________________________________
Charlotte
They think they have trapped me.
The concierge has been told not to let me out of the building. Ross sits outside by the lift. Cameras scan the corridor outside the apartment. And they think I don’t know that my parking pass has been invalidated, so I cannot exit from the car park.
To Hell with this!
___________________________________________
My plans in place; my car keys are in my pocket, my Master’s parking pass with it, exchanged with my own while he was showering….
“How’s the work going, Charlotte?” asks my Master.
Standing up from a large map of the City, I explain my various markings. “I’ve been plotting out where all the public cameras are along through-routes. There are a lot of them on-line available for anyone to view. I thought I might be able to use them spo
t some kind of pattern for the route they could have taken with Beth.”
I’m talking hogwash. My real reason for interest in those cameras is quite different.
My Master raises his eyebrows. “Good idea. Any luck with it?”
“No, not really. I’ve just not driven around the City enough to be able to read the map very well. Really, it needs someone with a lot more ground knowledge of the roads.”
Will he take the bait?
“Perhaps Ross could help with it? He’s Richard’s driver after all.”
Bingo!
“Of course he could. Should have thought of that myself.”
My Master calls in Ross, from where he was standing in the corridor, guarding against my use of the elevator.
“Ross, Charlotte had an idea about checking the routes….”
The three men gather around the map, engrossed. I make a show of pulling up web-cam sites on my laptop as they trace out possible routes through the City. When their attention is thoroughly diverted, I slip out.
I send the service lift down first: it’s a long slow trip, and hopefully it will be several minutes before it can return. Taking the turbo-lift to the parking levels, using a fast acting epoxy adhesive, I quickly attach a tracer under the wheel rim of my car where it shouldn’t be noticed, toss my phone on the passenger seat where I have a good view of the screen, and go.
I reckon I have less than five minutes to get out before they notice, and I’ve used three of them coming down to the car. I need to get out of the parking lot before the alarm is raised, and the building locks down.
Trying to drive normally, not to raise suspicion, I drive up to the barrier, swipe my Master’s parking pass and as the barrier raises, I join the stream of traffic.
A minute later, I tap the phone screen again to send my pre-prepared message.
___________________________________________
Michael
James looks up from the map, glancing around the room, then stands up straight, turning, looking wild. “Where’s Charlotte?”
“Bathroom?” I ask, and rap smartly on the door. “Charlotte? You in there?”
No reply. I push the door open, checking inside. Nothing.
“The lift!” mutters Ross, dashing through to the hall, followed by me and James.
The turbo-lift is already way below us, twenty stories down.
“The service elevator?”
“She’s sent that down too.”
James all but bangs on the intercom, yelling at the answering concierge. “Lock the doors down there. Stop anyone coming in or out of the building, until I or Richard Haswell instruct otherwise.”
But I am watching the indicator. “She’s not stopping at the ground floor.”
“The car park?” mutters James. “In that case, she’s about to discover that her car pass has been blocked.” He picks up his phone, tapping briefly. “Francis. Is Richard there? Will you tell him please, that Charlotte’s trying to leave the building. Can you make sure everything’s locked down while we get her back. Yes, that’s right. Thanks.” As he hangs up he says, “Richard’s on his way up.”
“Or he will be, when there’s an elevator to bring him.” I say, nodding at the indicator. It stops at the parking level, then a moment later, starts rising again. The service lift, much slower, is still descending.
James’ phone rings. “Yes? Oh, hello Francis…. What! How?” His eyes roll upwards. “I see… Thanks.”
He darts a look at me. “She’s out. Security say her car just exited the parking lot using my pass….”
He stabs at his phone, pacing the room, mobile pressed to his ear. “Pick up the phone Charlotte…. Pick up your fucking phone.”
Then he pauses, glancing up at me. “Answer-phone…. Charlotte…” he says, visibly hanging on to his self-control. “Listen, please come back at once. We’re coming after you, but please, call me back….” He glances sideways at me. “Or.… call Michael if you’re not comfortable calling me. Please. I don’t know what you think you have in mind, but you’re not safe out there and you must come back. Now, please call us back.”
The lift pings and Richard steps out, his face like thunder.
“What happened? Are you seriously telling me that three grown men can’t keep one little girl locked up?” He swings on Ross. “And where the hell were you? You were supposed to be standing guard over the elevator.”
Ross, pasty faced, starts to stutter. “It wasn’t Ross’ fault.” interrupts James. “Charlotte diverted us all rather neatly.”
I cast my eyes back over the map, considering…. “You know, she did divert us, but there’s an awful lot of work gone into that map for a diversion….” I am interrupted.
My phone pings. Simultaneously, so do James’ and Richard’s.
We have all received an identical message, from Charlotte.
“Check your e-mails”.
“What the hell?” mutters James. “Fucking wilful, infuriating, stupid woman….”
I interrupt him. “Wilful she may be. Infuriating she certainly is, but stupid she’s not. She’s obviously planned this, so perhaps we should start working around whatever it is she’s up to. Let’s do what she said, and check our e-mails.”
Ruefully, ” You’re right.…”
“Richard. Can I get on-line somewhere?” I ask.
“Let’s all go down to my office. We can see things more easily there.”
As we enter Reception, Francis flags us. “I’ve just had a message from Charlotte…”
“You and we all.” shouts Richard back at her as he sweeps by to his office. Get hold of a laptop for Michael to use.”
James darts through to his office, returning with his computer. And Francis is already heading out of the office, returning moments later with her own machine.
James taps furiously away, then pauses. He glances up. “Just downloading now…. Ahh.…” He taps again. Then he frowns…. “It’s a password; ‘Charlotte-01’, and several links to…. to what?”
Simultaneously, I log onto my own e-mail. “Yup. There’s something here from her, sent to me and James, and Richard and Francis. Looks like she was definitely going for belts and braces to get her message out.…”
James taps and waits, then leans forward, peering at the screen. ““The links she’s sent are all to tracking sites of one kind or another. Fuck! She’s set up tracers and she’s using herself up as bait… The first one is a find-your-phone site for her mobile.”
“There’s no guarantee that she’ll get to keep her phone.” says Richard. “The first thing they did was get Elizabeth’s off her.”
“We’ll still be able to see where it gets dumped.” I reply. “And it’s not the only link.”
“The next link is to a different tracker site.” says James. “Another provider. A different device.”
“The third one too.” I say.
“How many links has she sent?” asks Richard.
“Seven altogether, every one different.”
Richard scratches his head. “Where’s she got hold of so many trackers, or any trackers for that matter?”
“Mail order I’ll bet.” says James. “She had several packages delivered over the last day or two.… I’ll check her browser history when we have her laptop here…”
And a penny drops in my head. “She opened one of those packages while I was watching. It was a locket, the kind you put a photo in. I thought it odd at the time but didn’t think it through. I wonder if she’s wearing that locket, and there’s a tracer inside?”
“Are all seven links working?” asks Richard.
I click between screens… “Hang on, I’m trying to watch too many things at once for a single screen….”
“Francis. Have a scout around would you.” says Richard. “Pull in half a dozen laptops from wherever you can find them. And then try to get hold of Will Stanton for me.”
James shouts after her. “And can you fetch Charlotte’s laptop too, Francis.
I want to check her browser history.”
A few minutes later, the office is awash with computers, all displaying different screens; a couple with incoming e-mail screens, but most displaying some form of map or plan with a travelling point.
I follow the trail of the first screen I’ve opened, then realise what I’m looking at. Comparing it in my head with her web-cam plan, “She’s taking a route out of the City that is well populated with web-cams. She diverted us by talking about Beth, but it’s herself she’s done it for….” I yell through to Francis. “Sorry, but can you go back up there and bring down all those plans Charlotte was working on…. and then can you keep trying to call her, see if we get her attention…”
James looks at his screen, compares it to the map with Charlotte’s pins, markings and annotations. His tone is acerbic. “She’s set herself up as bait, and she’s making herself highly visible, to them and to us. The Police will be able to see any car that follows her while she’s in the area. But that’s only going to last while she’s somewhere with road cameras. There’s a few on the highways, but mainly they fade off as you leave the City.”
“She’s doing a helluva speed.” I comment.
“Is she normally a fast driver?” asks Richard.
“No, very much the slow and careful type usually. Her car was chosen for economy and reliability, not for racing.”
Is she being pursued?
My stomach tightens…
“Where is she now?” asks Francis.
“Well away from the City now, and off the main highways.… no more cameras.”
Two of the points have stopped moving. Of the others, three are following matching trails, two are on different trajectories.
“One of the static signals is the one for her phone.
“So, they’ve got her and dumped her mobile?” The thought leaves me feeling queasy, panicky. “The other static one?”
His tone is grim. “No idea.” He mutters something to himself.
“What was that?”