A Bad, Bad Thing

by Elena Forbes

  ‘Thanks for the information,’ Paul Dent said, after a moment.

  ‘You’re very welcome, Mr Dent.’ It was a rich bass voice and sounded Eastern European.

  ‘It’s Paul.’

  ‘OK, Paul. It’s what you wanted, yes?’

  ‘It’s exactly what I wanted. How much do I owe you?’

  ‘Nothing this time. It’s on the house.’

  ‘Really? That’s very generous.’ There was a pause. The recording picked up a female voice, asking if she could clear their glasses. A minute or so later, Paul said, ‘You’re absolutely sure the operation’s still ongoing?’

  ‘No doubt of it. My sources tell me it’s costing an arm and a leg and the big boss is complaining as always, but they’re nearly done. Probably only another couple of weeks now, then they’ll have what they want and they’ll pull out. You better get on with whatever it is you want to do.’

  ‘Thanks. I really owe you. How’d you find this out?’

  ‘It was no trouble,’ the other man said, with a gutsy laugh. ‘You think this woman friend of yours – this policewoman …’

  ‘Eve.’

  ‘Yes. You told me her name but I forget. You think she’ll fall for your little prank?’

  This time it was Paul who laughed. ‘Hook, line and fucking sinker. Miss Perfect’s got a blind spot.’

  ‘She trusts you?’

  ‘Not exactly. But I’ll feed it to a friend of mine. She’s screwing him and he’ll do absolutely anything to please her. She’ll swallow it without question, if it comes from him.’

  ‘OK. But tell your friend not to go there after dark.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You just want to get her in a bit of hot water, right?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘OK. Let’s just say it’s not advisable to go there at night.’

  ‘Copy that.’

  Rage filled her as she played the recording again several more times, making sure she hadn’t missed any detail and that it was all written down. Don’t go there after dark. Not advisable. Had Jason delayed in telling her, or had Paul wanted to up the stakes? Whichever, Paul would hang for this, at least in terms of his career. He would be finished in the Met and finished, most likely, with his friends. His petty jealousy had cost Jason his life. She wondered who the mystery man was, with the Eastern European voice. It was also not clear who had made the recording. The mic seemed too far away for it to have been him, unless it was sitting in a bag under the table. If so, it was surprising Paul had showed no sign of suspicion. Clearly he trusted the informant. The other, burning question was how Duran had got hold of it, but for the moment, it didn’t matter. The recording was enough for the disciplinary hearing and she would forward it to her solicitor in the morning.

  She put down her laptop and sat for a moment, looking out at the night sky. She had been cooped up for almost the entire day, either in her car, driving, or at the police station in Grantham. She had about half an hour before Dan was due over. Before that, she needed to get out, fill her lungs with fresh air and clear her mind. She went into her bedroom and changed into her running gear. As she let herself out of the flat and went downstairs to the hall, the front door opened and her neighbour, Alison, came in, carrying a large bag of shopping and a bunch of bright pink tulips.

  ‘Going for a run?’ Alison asked cheerily, as the door banged shut behind her.

  ‘Just a very quick one. Need to clear my head.’

  ‘I wish I could join you, but I’ve friends coming over for supper. Did you find out who broke into your flat?’

  ‘No. But they didn’t take anything and they haven’t come back, so far.’

  ‘Well, Kelly and I will keep an eye out, don’t worry. If we see anything suspicious, we’ll call you.’

  Outside, apart from the odd person on their way home from work, the street was dark and quiet, the drone of traffic on the Uxbridge Road the only distant disturbance. She stopped at a neighbouring gate and was stretching out her legs, holding onto the iron post, when she heard a car come up fast behind her. It screeched to a halt, doors opened and heavy feet thudded on the tarmac.

  ‘There she is,’ a man shouted.

  As she turned, someone grabbed her from behind. She felt a huge hand press something over her mouth, as another hand covered her eyes, pulling her backwards off her feet. She smelt the sweet, chemical odour of chloroform. She tried to scream, fighting against a wet rag that was stuffed in her mouth, kicking and ducking, trying to shake herself free. Her foot landed a blow against something hard and she heard a yelp and a gasp.

  ‘Can’t you fucking hang onto her? She’s like a bloody cat.’ She recognized Damon Wade’s voice.

  ‘Hit her, grab her legs, or something,’ a second voice said. ‘I can’t get near her.’

  ‘Man up and get on with it,’ another, gruffer voice replied, right in her ear. ‘Someone’s coming.’

  ‘Fucking hold her arm, will you?’

  Somebody grabbed her by the wrist and wrenched her arm straight. It was being pulled out of its socket and she felt a sharp sting through her sleeve.

  ‘Got her. That’ll do for the bitch.’

  ‘Quick. Get her in the car.’

  ‘Hey! What are you doing?’ a woman yelled, somewhere further down the street. The voice sounded familiar.

  Eve tried to call out, tried to pull away from whatever held her, but her legs collapsed beneath her and everything went black.

  FORTY-THREE

  ‘How long before this stuff wears off?’ a man’s voice asked.

  It echoed, as though under water. As he spoke, Eve was aware of somebody prodding her shoulders with the toe of their boot. Her eyes were tightly closed and she knew to keep still, not show any sign she was awake.

  ‘Looking at her, I’d say half an hour at least,’ a second voice replied gruffly.

  ‘Well, that’s fucking useless, isn’t it?’ the first voice said. Was it Damon Wade who spoke? It sounded like him. ‘We’re wasting precious time. I tell you, we need to find out what the bitch knows. Can’t you give her something to make her talk?’

  ‘No. It’s not like in the movies.’

  She had been drifting in and out of consciousness for a while when she heard them come into the room. They had stood over her talking, although at first she was too groggy to focus on what they were saying. Someone pulled her up off the floor, her feet dragging on the ground, as other strong hands held her under her armpits. Somebody slapped her hard across the face several times, shouting ‘wake up’. Then they poured freezing cold water over her. Still she didn’t react. They must not know that she was conscious. Through the blindfold, she was aware of a bright light being shone at her face. Somebody grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back and they ripped off the blindfold, peeling back each of her eyelids momentarily. For a second, she was totally dazzled. They let go of her hair and her head flopped forwards on her chest. She groaned incoherently as though she was still drugged. They hit her again and she tasted blood, but she let her body flop heavy in their arms, then they threw her back down again. Her head was spinning and she felt nauseous, the voices reverberating around and around, becoming increasingly distant.

  For a moment, she was twelve again, high up in the arms of the old apple tree at the bottom of the garden. She loved the shape of it, the feel of its rough, knotted bark. The apples made the best purée and crumble and it was where she went whenever she wanted to be alone. She had seen Daz come home with the long-haired man in motorbike leathers, who called himself Dr Death, and his tall, scrawny friend. They had gone into the small sitting room at the front and started to argue almost immediately. She ran down the passageway and hid in her bedroom, but there was no lock on the door. Then she heard shouts, followed by footsteps outside in the hall. They mustn’t find her. She climbed out of her bedroom window and ran into the garden, shinning up the tree and hiding behind the curtain of soft, green foliage. It was almost dark and lights were on ins
ide the house. She could see right through the small, open window into the kitchen. A moment later, the man with long hair came into the room, pushing Daz in front of him. Then another man, much older, dressed in a suit and tie, appeared in the room. She had never seen him before but he seemed to be in charge, pointing and gesticulating and making Daz sit down in a chair in front of him. Daz had his back to the window, so she couldn’t see his face, but the older one looked very angry. He was asking Daz something, but Daz kept shaking his head. Then the long-haired man started shouting at him and hitting him. Then the older man pointed something in his face. She strained to see and realized it was a gun. She felt sick, her heart beating so fast, the blood pumping deafeningly in her head, she could barely breathe. Daz was yelling something, then her mother rushed into the room and screamed, followed by two quick pops. It sounded like a firecracker. Daz fell forwards and Eve closed her eyes. Another scream. Another couple of pops. When she opened her eyes, all she could see were the two men in the kitchen. Where had her mother gone? ‘No witnesses,’ the older man shouted, his voice carrying through the open window. ‘You find the little boys. I want the girl,’ the long-haired man shouted. ‘I’ll deal with her.’ Eve clamped her hands over her mouth, holding them as tight as she could so no noise would escape.

  Somebody kicked her hard in the buttocks and she was back in the room.

  ‘You gave her too much,’ Damon Wade was saying. ‘She’s not going to answer anything now.’

  ‘I tell you, it will wear off. Trust me.’

  ‘Well, I haven’t got all night and she’s no bloody good to us like this.’ It was Stuart Wade this time.

  ‘Whatever you intend to do, she’s got to be out of here by three a.m. at the very latest. Understood?’ It was Harry Michaels, his tone flat and measured as though he was talking about something routine.

  The sound of his voice jolted her, but even in her woolly state, it made sense. Why wouldn’t he be there? He had been part of everything right from the beginning.

  ‘No problem,’ voice number two said. ‘It’s only ten. We’ve got bags of time. Once she’s properly awake, it won’t take long. We’ll try again in half an hour.’

  ‘Come on,’ Stuart Wade said, with a clap of his hands. ‘Let’s go. I want her wide awake. In the meantime, I need a drink. Where’s Damon gone?’

  The footsteps receded, a heavy metal door clanged shut, followed by what sounded like a key being turned in the lock. Gradually, she became aware again of her surroundings and opened her eyes. She was lying on her side, her left cheek pressed against a cold, gritty floor. The darkness that surrounded her was absolute, not even a chink of light. The ache in her shoulder beneath her was excruciating, stabs of pain reaching up through the numbness. As she tried to move, she realized that her hands were tied together tightly behind her back and her ankles were also secured, the ties cutting deep into her flesh. There was no gag over her mouth. She must be somewhere where it didn’t matter if she made any noise. She tried to focus and think back to what had happened. For a moment, she was in the dark street outside her flat. Of the three male voices that she had heard, one definitely belonged to Damon Wade, with his clipped, private school voice. He was the person she had kicked and the thought gave some meagre satisfaction. Neither of the other voices were familiar; the deeper one had a London accent, the other, who sounded quite a bit older, had a similar northern accent to Wade. Lancashire or Yorkshire. She couldn’t tell the difference. She wondered if either of the men had been with Stuart Wade in Tim Michaels’ study ten years before, if one of them was the man who had pointed the gun at him. Did they intend to kill her too, once they had found out what she knew? Given what they had done to Mickey, it seemed likely.

  Somebody had just mentioned that it was ten o’clock. She assumed they meant night, as Harry had said they must be gone by the early morning. So it was less than four hours after she had been abducted. The air in the room was damp and smelt strongly of leather and something waxy and chemical. It occurred to her that she might be in one of the tack rooms at Westerby. The one in Old Yard, which Harry had pointed out when he gave her the grand tour the week before, had a large metal door with rivets. She also remembered that the room had no window. Security was important, he had said. There would be no means of escape, except through the door. Even if she had a lock-pick or a blowtorch, it would do no good. She couldn’t do anything with her hands and feet tied up so tightly. But at least she had left some sort of a trail behind her. A woman in the street had definitely seen her being bundled into the car. Was it someone she knew? The voice had sounded familiar. Hopefully whoever it was had called the police. Even if she hadn’t, Dan was coming over around seven. He would have seen her car in the street, parked almost outside. When she didn’t answer either her phone or the doorbell, he would have rung Alison’s bell and Alison would have told him that Eve had gone out for a run. After everything that had happened to them both, surely it wouldn’t take him long to realize something was wrong and to call Fagan? But how would they know where to look for her? She must play for time. She closed her eyes again and felt herself drift away.

  Dr Death was in the garden somewhere behind her, yelling something unintelligible to his friend. Even in the branches of the tree, she smelled petrol and heard the clatter of bins in the side passageway as he must have stumbled. ‘Get the fuck on with it,’ the other voice said. ‘We need to get out of here.’ Silence. More footsteps running. Then an explosion ripped through the air. For a moment, she was flying through a cloud of coloured lights. Then she hit the grass below very hard. Her ears were ringing and she couldn’t breathe. Distant voices, more shouting. Her heart was about to burst. ‘Her window’s open. Check the garden,’ Dr Death called out somewhere behind her. ‘Look, she’s there. Get her. I want her. She mustn’t get away.’ She shot back up the tree as fast as she could, more bangs rang out from the house. Something pierced her side, and her arm. The searing pain made her cry out, but she kept going, pulling herself higher and higher into the tree, then scrambling along the thick, gnarled branch and dropping down into a pile of long grass in the next-door garden. She picked herself up and ran.

  Somebody was shaking her. ‘Eve? Are you awake?’ a man’s voice whispered right above her.

  She didn’t move.

  He shook her again. ‘Eve. Please wake up. It’s Harry. We haven’t got long.’

  Through her eyelids, she was aware of a weak light shining on her face. Maybe he had a torch, or was using his phone.

  ‘Please, Eve, if you can hear this, you’ve got to trust me. We haven’t got much time.’

  The use of the word ‘we’ and the softness of his tone reached out to her. Even if it were a trick, if he was trying to trap her into showing that she was conscious, she didn’t have much to lose. She couldn’t keep it up forever. They would soon be back. She opened her eyes a crack, trying to make out the dark shape behind the light. As far as she could tell, he was on his own. As her eyes gradually focussed, she saw he had a small knife in his hand. Her heart missed a beat.

  ‘Thank God you’re awake.’ He knelt down beside her and started to cut through the ties holding her feet together, then he did the same for the ones binding her wrists. He picked up the pieces of plastic and put them in his pocket. ‘Come on. You’ve got to get out of here.’ He lifted her up onto her feet, but her legs wouldn’t support her and he caught her.

  ‘I’ll carry you. I’ve got to get you out of here.’

  ‘I can walk,’ she mumbled, pulling away from him and flexing her feet and legs until the blood started to flow. She felt suddenly dizzy again and bent forwards.

  ‘Here, take my arm. Stop being stubborn and let’s go.’

  ‘You need to call the police,’ she said groggily.

  ‘I can’t. The office is locked. So is my flat, and the keys and my phone are in the study, with Stuart.’

  Holding tightly onto him, she stumbled out of the room. The cold night air hit her with force and
she took several deep breaths until gradually her head began to clear. The sky was cloudless and full of stars, with a bright, almost full moon, bathing the quadrangle and stables in an eerie, bluish light. A clock tower loomed above them. They were, as she had thought, in Old Yard.

  ‘This way,’ he said, guiding her towards the arch on the far side.

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Back in my study, enjoying some very expensive brandy. They won’t be coming out for a bit.’

  ‘They’ll know it was you who let me out.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. They won’t hurt me. I’ve spent the last ten years gathering all sorts of information together. It’s my little insurance policy. If anything happens to me, a bomb will go off for them. Stuart and his boys will be finished.’

  She hoped he was right, but Stuart Wade didn’t seem to be the rational, logical type, the sort of man you could blackmail, who would then happily leave you alone to enjoy the rest of your life without retribution.

  ‘Was it you who drugged me at the party, or was it one of them?’

  ‘It was me. I just wanted to stop you asking questions, to keep you out of their way. You just couldn’t leave it alone, could you? Even though it had nothing to do with Jane.’

  Whatever else he had done, at least he hadn’t raped her, she reminded herself. The DNA sample had confirmed it. Her legs still wouldn’t work properly and she needed his help again as they crossed the cobbles. They went through the arch under the tower and, sticking to the deep shadows made by the moon, slowly made their way around the back of one of the new barns. Neither Harry’s shoes nor her trainers made any sound on the concrete, but a horse whinnied in the barn as though aware of their presence, setting off another as they passed. She hoped Stuart and his cohorts couldn’t hear. They were halfway along one of the outer sides of the indoor school when she was suddenly hit by another wave of nausea.