I told her as much, said, “No, no, I won’t take that.” Two hundred pounds a day plus expenses, that’s all. It would help. If nothing else, it would help feed my tobacco habit and buy another few bottles of whiskey. I’d been at it three days and I felt like I hadn’t truly earned the £600. I’d done nothing, really, just walked around, observing, watching, and I felt like I should be making some progress towards my article so I could get out of here sooner, but there also had to be something to this. Maybe this would be the article. Or maybe this would be another article that I could write.
Finally, we circled back to the cafeteria. They sat down, the father, Adrian, and his daughter. I sat down at a table, too, further away. A waiter came over and hovered at my shoulder.
“Anything I can get you, sir?”
“Yes, I’ll have an iced mocha. Thank you.”
He brought it over. I took a few sips and poured in some of the contents of my flask, not even bothering to hide what I was doing. It’s nice to have that warmth running down my throat in a cold, cold drink. Kind of offset the heat. I was halfway through my drink, and in the middle of fantasizing about Gemma Jones and what I’d do with her once she was divorced. I figured she’d look at me with those big round eyes if I helped her out. Adrian stood up. He leaned down and whispered something to his daughter, and then he walked out around to the side of the building and into the bathrooms. Nothing unusual there.
I went back to my drink and to my fantasizing. It was starting to look crazy and I hadn’t thought of Andy for a whole two minutes. I felt my hands shake as he came back to my mind. No, no, push him out. No. More. I poured the rest of my flask in. It would help take the edge off, you know, make it a bit easier to do my job and all that.
Suddenly, there was a scream, and three masked men ran into the room, ran into the cafeteria. People stood up, a gun was fired into the air, and we all hit the deck, myself included.
“Stay on the fucking ground! Stay down! Stay fucking down! I told you to stay down!”
Another shot rang out and a volley of screams followed, and then suddenly it was quiet. Footsteps ran off, disappearing into the distance. A van screeched by. A door opened, closed. I stood up, looked out at the last second as a young girl was bundled into the backseat. I glanced over at where Sarah Jones had been sitting, and I knew that the girl being shoved inside the revving vehicle was the same girl I was supposed to be protecting. They had abducted Sarah Jones.
The masked men jumped into the car behind her and screeched off. I found my feet shakily, as did others in the crowd, and I skirted them, jumping around tables, around people as they lay on the floor. I stepped over them and then into the bathroom. There was a deep silence in there. Nobody at the urinals. I walked past and kicked open the first door to the stall. No one. The second door, the third. There were only four stalls. Adrian had to be in the last one. I kicked it open. It was empty.
The shaking became more pronounced as I crashed my way into each of the cubicles again. No, he wasn’t here, not anywhere. I ran outside and circled the cafeteria several times, grabbing each person I came across, checking, looking into their eyes, shaking them, making sure they weren’t him. Shaking myself. I’d fucked up. I’d screwed this up completely. I had to get out of here. I had to find him. I had to find the girl. What if something happened to her?
I circled around the zoo again, then out into the Botanic Gardens, where happy families milled. Every path they’d gone down, every enclosure they’d looked into, I searched. I looked for people there. Nothing. No one. Nowhere. Adrian had disappeared, as had his daughter, Sarah Jones.
Eventually, I got to the kiosk. I was in a veritable panic by now. My heart was racing. Blood thumped in my ears and I felt bile rising in my throat. I’d left my flask back at the table and I needed a drink. Right now, I needed a fucking drink. I grabbed the attendant at the kiosk.
“Tell me, tell me, have you seen a little girl about this big, or a man? He’s got black hair and quite a big mustache. He’s quite famous around here, um, Adrian Jones? Do you know who he is? Have you seen him?”
They told me that they knew who he was but they hadn’t seen him, and the second I let go of them they picked up the phone and, before I knew it, there were police around, looking cagey. I slunk out the front gate and made my way down the street, past a liquor store. I ducked in and bought myself another bottle of whiskey and had a few drams, and then another few and another few as I walked down the block.
What could I do? I couldn’t go to the police. Somebody else would’ve already told them what had happened and they were looking for someone a little crazy, someone who’d accosted the kiosk staff member, who’d been asking about the people who disappeared. No, I couldn’t go to the police, and I couldn’t go home either, because they’d be looking for me. Whoever was looking, whoever kidnapped them, would have known that I was watching them. I was no spy. I was no secret tail. I couldn’t have done that without somebody noticing and, if they were doing it, too, or if they knew that they were going to kidnap them, then they would have done their research and would know that I was involved in this somehow. And then I might be next. What could I do?
I drank more of the whiskey. That’s all. That’s all I could do at the moment. I took in another suck and another, like a baby refusing to wean. I started to feel better. The shakes loosened and I found myself heading in the direction of Gemma Jones’ home address.
Chapter 5
Night Terrors
When I knocked at Gemma’s door, I was completely plastered. She opened it in a nightgown.
“Oh, Ray, I . . . I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Can I come in?”
“Um, no, I’d . . . I’d rather you didn’t.”
“I’ve got some terrible news.”
After a moment of hesitation, Gemma closed the door and walked back inside. I stood there flabbergasted. She’d asked me to look out for her daughter, I’d turned up at her house looking like shit and announcing that I’d had news, and she’d shut the door? In my face? So much for fantasising.
A few seconds later, she opened the door again, this time in a brilliant-green dress that hugged her figure so closely that if I’d known how to read Braille I’d know all her secrets. “Okay then, come in.”
She took me into her home, a gargantuan thing with columns and marble and high ceilings, and sat me down in the drawing room.
“I won’t offer you a drink,” she said, half-apologetically.
Judgey, judgey, I thought. I sat down, and then I was back on my feet, pacing. “They took her. Someone . . . someone . . . a whole bunch of masked men. They came and . . . and they took your daughter. They took Sarah and . . . and Adrian disappeared as well. I . . . I don’t know what happened but I . . . I . . ..”
Gemma burst into tears and collapsed at my feet.
Chapter 6
Little Notes
Three days and ten bottles of whiskey later, they found the little girl’s left pinky toe stuffed into the front pocket of her bright pink backpack.
I was down at the local paper, working out of one of their offices when I heard it come in. They hadn’t printed anything yet, hadn’t released anything. I went down to the journalist who was working on the story and asked him what he was doing. They’d lent me a desk somewhere to write my story . . . not that I had a story. I just liked being out of the motel, out of the dark, dank cell of my room, out of my head. It was nice to have people around, but this wasn’t nice news, and I knew that I’d have to break it to Gemma.
She’d moved out of the big place, she told me. She couldn’t live there, not with her husband missing and her daughter gone. She gave me the address of her hotel room, somewhere upscale, not the Admiral but somewhere close by—tall, shiny, beautiful. She had the penthouse, which gave her a great view of the Mediterranean.
I wanted to break it to her gently, so I went down there as soon as I could, before it was in the news and the headlines everywhere, before h
er missing daughter’s little toe became the talk of the town.
I walked in and asked the receptionist for Room 3009. He was new, and probably not well schooled in security protocols because he buzzed me in with barely a question. With a gracious flourish, he ushered me into the elevator and sent me up to the top floor.
“I’m not sure she’s in, sir, but she did say if anyone came to send them up.”
I rode the elevator in silence, thinking about how I’d break it, what I’d say, what words I’d use. How do you say it in a way that’s gentle and calm and understanding and suggests that you’re a more loving person than you are, more empathetic?
By the time I got to Gemma’s floor, I had fewer ideas than I’d started with. I knocked tentatively, but there was no answer. I knocked again, louder this time. Still no answer. I waited a few minutes and then knocked really loudly, tried the door handle, but it was locked.
As a journalist, sometimes it comes in handy when you can pick locks. I just happened to have my lock picks on me and my hands weren’t shaking too much because I’d had a good few shots of whiskey before I’d come up here. I pulled out the lock pick set, along with the torque wrench, placed a pick in the lock, fiddled around for a while. Eventually, the door opened. I stepped inside, called out, “Gemma!”
No response.
I poked around. The bed was made up perfectly, as if it had never been slept in; not unusual for a place like this. Give them a chance, the bustling chambermaids would make it up with you still in it. I opened the closet. There was nothing there. The safe hung open. The place smelled of fresh flowers and cleaning products. No one had stayed here.
I stepped out, closed the door behind me—locking it—took the lift back down to the lobby and went up to the receptionist again. “Hey, you know anything about if a Mrs. Gemma Jones is staying in 3009?”
He said, “No. Haven’t seen her. She left instructions, but I know she wasn’t there. Nobody’s stayed there.”
“What about you?” I said, grabbing a passing bellboy, who turned to me, a look of shock on his face. “Gemma Jones, 3009. What do you know? Did you take up any luggage?”
“Uh, no sir. There’s been no luggage to 3009.”
“Since when?”
“Uh, for a week? We . . . we rarely rent that one out. It’s . . . it’s too expensive.”
“But someone’s renting it at the moment?”
“I . . . I don’t know. You’ll have to ask the receptionist.”
I turned back to the receptionist, who evidently wasn’t quick on the uptake. “Well?” I demanded impatiently, “Look it up!”
He typed the room number into the computer. “Uh, yes, there’s a Mrs. Gemma Jones registered for that room, sir.”
“But she’s not there?”
“She’s never been there. Nobody’s taken luggage up to that room.”
“Has she even been in this hotel?”
“I . . . don’t know, sir.”
“Well, how was the booking made?”
“Uh . . .” He spent a while looking around, unsure, while I toyed with the fantasy of choking him with the chain on which his ID card hung around his neck. “I . . . I can’t find anything, sir.”
I tried not to sound impatient, but failed. “Does it say that it was made over the phone, via the internet? How do you get your bookings? Do people walk in?”
“Uh, it wasn’t a walk-in, sir.”
“So, it was by phone or the internet?”
“Yes, I presume so, sir.”
I growled like an irritated bear. “Fat lot of good that does.” I stomped around and accosted every staff member I saw and asked them what they knew, whether they’d seen a woman that looked like Gemma. None of them had. Finally, I plonked myself down into one of the chairs in the lobby. I let my head fall into my hands, had a sip of whiskey, put my flask back away—a new flask, bright pink, the same color as Sarah Jones’ backpack—and then I dropped my head back into my hands.
A shadow fell over me, a big shadow, and then I was pulled up by my lapels. The owner of the shadow had the shoulders of a linebacker and a head shaped like a mason jar. He was as ugly as whatever your imagination is dredging up right now. “You’ve been asking questions, mister.”
No point in lying. “Yes.”
“About a Ms. Gemma Jones?”
“Mrs.,” I corrected him, much like she had me.
“Yes, Mrs.” His tone was sarcastic. I didn’t like it.
“What about her?”
“You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“She’s never stayed here, mister. She was never here, was never anywhere. There is no Mrs. Gemma Jones.”
I shook my head. Sure, I’d been boozing all week, but I knew I wasn’t imagining things.
“I need you to come with me, mister. We can’t have you walking around, asking questions like this, in all these places. You’re starting to cause a bit of a problem around here, creating a bit of a name for yourself.”
“Well, what if I don’t want to talk?”
His shadow grew larger as he got closer. Another twenty pounds and he’d have eclipsed the sun. “Oh, you want to talk. You want to find out what’s going on, don’t you?”
He had me there.
And he knew it. He gave me a satisfied smirk. “I’ve got a car waiting outside.” He put his humongous hand behind my neck and walked me out the door, his fingers pressing into my pressure points. I was going to be Vulcan death-gripped onto the ground if I didn’t keep up.
“Get in, won’t you, Mr. Hammer?” His super-politeness bore an undercurrent of mockery.
Oh, there was nothing I wanted less, but I didn’t have much choice. I let him push my head down as he slid across into the backseat next to me.
“Please, put your hands out.”
I put my hands out and he wrapped a zip tie around my wrists, yanking until it bit into my flesh. And then, before I knew it, there was a blindfold over my eyes, tied tight, stinging at the back of my head, and pushing into my eyes until I could see galaxies spinning within the blackness, coming closer and then receding.
“My employer would like a word with you.”
“Who’s your employer?” I said.
“Oh, you’ll find out in good time.”
I didn’t need to see him to know he was grinning at me.
Chapter 7
Lost
I must have dozed off somewhere along the way, courtesy of enough whisky to drown a family of rats. When I came to, there was a rattling under me. The whole car started to sway back and forth.
Then I realized we were no longer in the car, but on a ship. There’s no other explanation for that steady, rhythmic rocking this close to the Strait.
Not long after that, the blindfold was yanked from my face. The big man dragged me into a seated position and then took up a position behind me, to cut off any attempt to escape. As if I would escape from a boat. “He’s here, boss,” he announced unnecessarily.
A small weasel of a man stood in front of me. He wore a captain’s hat even though it was clear that he had never captained a ship. His eyes sparkled with a life that seemed to say more than what the banality of his face did. “Thank you.”
The big man nodded and left.
“So, Ray—may I call you Ray?” asked Weasel Man.
“Sure thing.” Why the fuck not, I thought. He’d already taken more than enough liberties with me.
“I hear you’ve been snooping around, trying to find some information about Michael Connelly.”
“I’ve been doing my job,” I said.
The man stepped forward and motioned me to follow him. “And what is your job exactly, Ray?”
“I’m a journalist.”
“You haven’t seemed to be doing much of that lately. I have an office at the paper where your borrowed desk is. They say you just come in, drink and drink and drink, and then you go home and drink some more.”
I followed him along the gan
gway. I figured I was already in enough trouble, so why not go for broke? “You wouldn’t happen to have something to drink, would you?”
He nodded as if he’d been expecting that. “My cabin. This way.”
Soon, we were ensconced in a small room that rocked with the boat. Its walls were lined with posters and printouts—maps, charts, various press releases, clippings from magazines, cutouts from newspapers. All of them featured a photo of the young guy who stood in front of me.
“Sit down, sit down. What’ll you have? I hear whiskey’s your drink.”
“I’ll have a whiskey,” I answered gratefully.
“We don’t have any here. We’re a dry ship. Safer that way, you know?”
Sonofabitch. “Black coffee, then.”
“I can do that.”
The fact that the ship was dry wasn’t the only reason I wanted to get off, but it was a start. I needed to get back to solid land, feel my feet on the ground somewhere safe, somewhere where I couldn’t disappear so quickly, so easily, without a trace.
“I’m sorry; I should have introduced myself. I’m Dan Branson. The activist. You might’ve heard of me.” He said that with the cocky confidence of a C-list celebrity.
I cast my eyes over all the different clippings. I peevishly decided to burst his little bubble. “No, never seen you before. Never heard anything about you. What kind of activism do you do, Mr. Branson?”
“Bit of this, bit of that.” He shrugged. “But, I’m not here to answer your questions. You’re here to answer mine, and I’m interested in what you’ve found out about Michael Connelly, what you’ve been doing spending time with him.” He sat on the end of a long plush bed, thin legs dangling, looking like an elf on a shelf.
Whatever, I figured. The faster I gave him what he wanted, the faster I could get the hell out of here. “I had a job, an article to write. I was supposed to meet Michael Connelly. He was my contact. We’re doing an exposé on the climate catastrophe that’s waiting to happen here in the Strait. There are so many oil tankers here. Any of them could leak at any point. Some of them have—seven of them in fact, and they’ve all been Michael Connelly’s.”
The Spill: The Beach Never Looked So Deadly (A Ray Hammer Novel Book 1) Page 3