by Potter, John
‘So tell me, good citizen, how often do you see stuff like this end with smiling faces?’
The realisation spread across Adam’s face.
‘I didn’t think so. What’re you going to do, get up every morning and wait for news that two bodies were found in some muddy copse, or washed up on some beach? Before you know it you’ll be standing over Sarah’s battered body in a morgue, wondering how that body could have got so messed up. Imagining what must have happened and doing that for the rest of your life. A life wishing you had tried, had actually done something.’
It felt like a punch in the face, flashing vivid images through his mind. It made Adam angry and indignant. ‘Don’t go unloading your guilt on me. You’re the one that started all this. If you hadn’t left your daughter to roam the streets none of this would’ve happened.’
For a moment Brian looked like he might physically react, then he looked away and used the pad of his thumb to smooth his moustache, gazing through the patio doors at the emerging morning. They sat in silence for almost a minute. Adam spoke first.
‘You don’t know Sarah or me and have no basis with which to make judgements. So stop pushing me, as if I am the one at fault here. It’s not fair.’
‘Fair!’ Brian suddenly turned on him, almost snarling. ‘Fucking fair! To think I spent ten years fighting for this country and people like you. You march about with this sense of self-righteousness, wasting your time with decisions on fucking hair wax and shades, what up-your-arse car to ponce about in. As if you’ve a divine right and deserve everything. Fucking fair! I expect you think bad stuff only happens to bad people and they might even deserve it. Well wake up, because the real world just came knocking on your door. Nothing is fair.’
‘I’m not like that.’ Adam struggled to say anything more expansive.
Brian expelled the air from his lungs, his whole body deflating. He slowly pushed himself up off the sofa.
‘This is getting repetitive. You’re obviously smart but you’re deluded. I’d hoped there might be something about you, the same get up and go your wife has. Seems I was wrong.’
He hauled up his kit bag that lay like an oversized draught excluder by the balcony door. Inside metal clanked against metal, a noise like a ratcheting chain.
‘When I find your wife I’ll be sure to send her your love. I’ll use the front door if you don’t mind.’ His heavy boots reverberated across the laminate as he stepped from the living room into the hallway and out of sight towards the front door.
The blood thumped through Adam’s head, ceaseless and roaring. Images of Sarah flew through his mind’s eye, a frenetic slide show of smiling pictures punctuated by washed out greens and a broken body on a morgue table. His mind pin-wheeled, imagining the detail. He was not even sure where the words came from.
‘You were a soldier?’
Seconds ticked by with only Brian’s motionless shadow visible on the hallway wall. Then Brian reappeared in the doorway.
‘Fuck me, Sawacki, I thought you were letting me leave!’
He ignored the comment. ‘You were a soldier?’
‘The best kind. Two Para.’
‘And you really think that qualifies you?’
‘Qualifies me? No, this qualifies me.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘The training comes in handy.’
Adam drummed his fingers against the arm of the chair, working on regaining order in his mind. ‘Soldier or not, you’re totally out of order, spouting off your bullshit psychology.’
‘I’m not putting anything on you that you haven’t already put on yourself.’ Brian took a step into the living room. ‘Andrea’s missing and yes, part of that’s my fault. But someone set her up and someone took her. There was nothing I could do about that. But I do intend finding her and I need your help.’ He swung his bag onto the floor and sat back down.
Adam glared at him. ‘You’re some piece of work.’
‘It has been said.’
‘So we’ve come full circle. Where would we start?’
Brian rubbed his right shoulder and placed his left hand over the shaking right hand. ‘Where do you think the police will start?’
‘I told you, I have no idea?’
‘Think.’
‘I don’t know, I really don’t know!’ Then a thought occurred to him. ‘You said somebody set your daughter up?’
Brian smiled at him. ‘Of course. Who sits in an alley off a busy high street and snatches a child without anyone but your eagle-eyed wife noticing?’
‘Someone who knows what they’re doing?’
‘You got that right, probably not the first time either. So what’s the next big question that really stands out?’
Adam shrugged. ‘I don’t know?’
‘Think about it, a random child might be with friends or with parents. How would he know she was alone? It can only mean one thing.’
It took a few seconds for Adam to figure what Brian was getting at. ‘You mean this guy picked her, specifically? He knew her routine?’
He got a nodded response.
‘So when did all this occur to you?’
‘About half an hour after Andrea failed to show last night. When I had ruled out all the other possible reasons. So ask yourself what else is obvious, Mr Sawacki, now we know this guy knew Andrea’s routine?’
Adam’s mind was now slowly clicking into motion. ‘I guess the question is what made him choose your daughter?’
‘Bingo! So why?’
‘Well, I guess he could have scouted about and your daughter fitted the bill.’
‘Unlikely, someone desperate might but this was too planned and too calculated. Desperation and long-term planning don’t go together. Andrea was selected and not at random.’
‘So who knew you leave your daughter alone Saturday afternoons?’ He loaded meaning into the last, which Brian ignored.
‘Well that’s the thing. Four people that I know of. The first is my boss Ali, we’re not so good now but we go back a long way. The second is my ex. She works in Boots and handed Andrea my prescription just before four thirty. She was the last person I know who saw her. I’d ruled her out by five.’
‘How come?’
‘I asked her some meaningful questions. She didn’t have a clue and she wasn’t lying.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘For a start she has two kids of her own she’s bringing up by herself. She juggles shifts in Boots with working escort to pay the bills. I drive her sometimes. She can’t afford to be telling me lies.’
Adam shifted in his chair. ‘An escort, you mean like a hooker?’
‘Well, she can be a little touchy on your choice of titles but sure. A few of the girls at the club do as well.’
‘Hookers in Hambury!’
‘Like I said, open your eyes.’
Adam let the palms of his hands drop onto the arms of the chair. Not an aggressive act, just one of resignation. ‘So who are the other two who knew Andrea was alone?’
The end of Brian’s moustache did the upwards thing as he smiled. ‘That would be me and Andrea.’
The words hung in the air, the seconds marked by the clock and the sound of birds outside greeting the morning.
‘Which leaves only you then,’ Adam stated. ‘Unless of course Andrea masterminded her own kidnapping.’
‘I’d be the obvious choice.’
Now Adam was confused. ‘So if not you, it had to be random, unless Andrea told someone, a friend or something?
‘That’s the thing. Only a few people know what she gets up to here because I have to work nights, I can’t afford to broadcast it.’
‘What do you mean, broadcast what?’
For a second Brian’s face changed to guilty and then back again. ‘I work odd hours. I leave Andrea home alone Saturday nights. I work the door at MadHatters, it’s the worst shift. Ali has a late licence, the extra cash is what I live on. Even if I could get a sitter for those hours, I couldn’t afford to pay the
m. If her mother knew I left her alone she’d crucify me and set the social services on me for good measure. I’d probably not see Andrea again until she was eighteen.’
This was all going from bad to worse. ‘So you leave your daughter alone Saturday nights and she keeps to herself for fear someone will find out? That’s rubbish.’
Brian did not answer and Adam let the silence play before continuing. ‘Maybe your boss isn’t the buddy you thought.’
‘No chance. Ali’s real pissed at me but this isn’t his style. He doesn’t know any details, just that she’s here every other weekend. Andrea’s a smart kid, she knows the score. She wouldn’t tell anyone.’
Adam could not imagine trusting any friend of Brian’s. Hookers! That had been missing from the Hambury website. There seemed only one reasonable course of action. ‘We should give the details to the police, let them do the rest.’
‘Sounds like the right thing to do, doesn’t it?’
It dawned on Adam that he might be missing the point. ‘But?’
‘The police are going to head straight towards suspect primo, the damp loser sat on the sofa. I’ll be no good to anyone sat in a holding cell. Finding out who set Andrea up is for the police, we track your wife and I guarantee we find…’
Brian’s eyes closed and his mouth pinched tight, his whole body rigid as if dealing with some vicious internal pain. Then he breathed out and continued as if nothing had happened, ‘…find more pieces of the puzzle.’ Both his fists unclenched.
‘You all right?’ Adam asked.
‘Sure, just suffering a bit is all. I’ll take a couple of tablets, it’ll be fine.’
Adam hesitated. ‘What will be fine, what kind of tablets?’
‘Prescription type tablets.’
‘For your hand?’
His question was rewarded with a thin smile. ‘For my back. It’s a long story.’
Adam felt like driftwood pulled along by a fast flowing river. ‘That image of Sarah in a morgue…’
Brian nodded. ‘We need to get moving. Simon probably used Delamere as a base, the location will be important.’
A thought occurred to Adam. ‘You have any transport?’
Brian shook his head.
‘So you were going to hitch a lift?’
‘If I had to. The world’s full of cars and careless owners. I’d have borrowed one, there’s a few nice ones downstairs.’
Adam sighed and fetched a cup of water from the kitchen, waiting for Brian to dig a bottle of tablets from his bag before handing it to him. ‘If we’re going to sit in a car together you need to shower and change. You can borrow some of my clothes. You’re a little shorter but broader, they should kind of fit.’
He walked through to his study and tapped a key on the keyboard. He used a local car hire when he needed to drive. The only time he’d used them this early was when Sarah’s mother died. Ten minutes later he received email confirmation the car would be ready for them in an hour.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Her memories of before were recalled as composites of a time. Short flickering images that gave a sensation of the moment without ever pointing to any particular one. There were images and sensations of playing hopscotch but not of any individual games. She could recall hours whiled away in the back garden but not one occasion. All the individual moments lost to a child’s routine of getting up, school and gym and home and bed.
Sarah could not recall the first moment she had met him. She had memories of a life before and then he had been there. Her first recollection was of Sunday lunches. She had an image in her mind of him sitting opposite, framed by the window and the colours of the garden. In this snapshot he ate with his mouth open, roast potatoes and beef thrown about like clothes on a slow spin. The stubbly beard moving in small motions, his pale skin and permanently pink cheeks. Those ghastly thin red lips. He stretched out his legs beneath the table so she had nowhere to put hers, other than to rest against his. She had thought him selfish. There was plenty of room beneath the table. Later she learned the Sunday lunches were part of her mother’s recruitment of him as a tutor for her talented but distracted child.
Then the lessons started. Even these were lost in time, her first impressions of the empty school at night overrun by the subsequent dread of later visits. It must have started well because the trophies soon appeared. There had not been any trophies before, just glowing school reports of potential.
Sarah did recall he was a very good instructor, his hands shaping her body through every movement, his drills giving her confidence and discipline. The routines before had felt hurried in her mind as if her body was constantly racing to catch up. With his direction everything happened in slow motion. She was in total control, practised and prepared with just her ability defining the quality. And she had no shortage of that.
Then she had won the regional finals. To this day the trophy held pride of place in her parents’ living room, although it was now layered in dust and only watched over by a bewildered father. Her mother’s voice echoed wistfully. To think what you might have gone on to achieve! Could she really have been that blind?
It started with a hug. Sarah could not recall much of that either. Just the long drive and being at the competition, the regional finals, the large gymnasium full of squealing children and throngs of gabbling parents. She was nervous before such a large audience but knew she had done well. Then someone announced third and second place and then first and her name was called. She exploded with utter joy, leaping up and down in her leotard, screaming with arms aloft. The excitement inside was more than any physical action could manifest, it had nowhere to go. She screamed louder and then leapt into his arms. He was simply the nearest person she knew, it was after all because of him. She had screamed so hard she forced all the air from her lungs as she clamped onto him and hugged so tight.
Everything that happened over and over during the following seventy-seven weeks, he justified in that moment. Saying it was the feel of her body as she held on. Her breath as she kissed his cheek. He told her she must be grateful to be learning the lessons of life as a child. To be learning from someone experienced. He was saving her from all that pain when she was older, all that uncertainty. Boys would like her better. One day she would be grateful. It was meant to be. He was preparing her for life as a woman, she must be grateful. Don’t cry, be grateful.
Sarah opened her eyes. She blinked through the memories to the here and now. It was dark. Her heart felt heavy and her brain was busy sounding an alarm. What was wrong, where was she? She blinked again and nothing changed. It was dark and there was no sound, nothing but the furious mechanisms of her mind. Why could she not move? She fought the rising panic. The images shifted in the kaleidoscope of recollection, realigning to an ordered sequence. Faces were matched to places and emotions to people, the reality of now and the memory of the journey, of getting to this moment, slammed home. The panic ran free, a dark stain spreading across the fabric of her mind as the fear clawed for escape.
But Sarah knew the consequences of surrendering herself to that fear; she had walked that road and knew where it led. She reined it in and worked on maintaining control, and gradually with control an awareness of her body. She was lying on her back, arms at odd angles. One above her head pushed against a hard surface, a smooth wall, the other lay beneath her body. Moving resulted in a searing pain, but they did move, they were not broken. Focusing on her right arm she moved it down slowly, a painful groan as cramped muscles protested. She eased her body to one side and freed the other, letting the blood flow with fingers kneading palms.
Her legs were folded, almost foetal but twisted to one side. She stretched them outwards and touched the opposite wall. She was in a very narrow space. The fear clawed frantic, the air thick and heavy. She waved a hand in front of her face. She did it again and again but there was nothing, no shadow over shadow, nothing but endless dark. Was she blind? She needed to breathe, to know where she was. How to get out? Her head spu
n. The dark was all consuming and heavy, pushing in at her from all sides. Her heart thumped uneven. Her mind conjured frenetic gnashing teeth and whispered voices. His voice full of need, his gnarled fingers reaching out for her, scratching at her face and tugging at her hair, pulling at her clothing, probing, his breath like sour milk. She could feel him move closer in the pitch dark, all around and looming over her, hands on her head, forcing his flesh inside her mouth, hard and pulsing, thrusting with a groaned ecstasy. The bitter taste of him pumping warm that she gagged and choked on, spat out. He was everywhere, hands reaching from all directions, an endless queue of thin red lips and jutting flesh waiting their turn at the feast. The fear ripped a jagged hole and clawed free. Sarah screamed and screamed.
The screaming was at first a submission to the fear, a noise that defined the horror. A noise she had to escape from. She dived into the ocean, the ocean that bordered the imaginary world of her childhood. It was aqua blue and shimmering full of sunbeams, swimming as far as she could and ever down to a peace within the great void, the sounds of the real world distant as she fought for a foothold on her mind. Fighting with the determination of a wilful child who did endure each week. The adolescent who did survive, who did step around the sanctuary of suicide, the woman who knocked on his door. Sarah had spent her whole life surviving and she had done a lot of it here, treading water in the vast sanctuary of the ocean as she slowly took back control. And then when she was ready she kicked towards the surface, back to reality and the screaming.
She clamped her mouth closed and pushed back the fear. There was nowhere to go, right now there were no fingers feasting on her body, nothing in her mouth save for her own tongue and this thick air. There was no danger now. She must think, breathe and take control. She lay still. Her hurried breaths became a shallow control, calibrating and working at keeping that control.
She very carefully pushed herself up until she was sitting, running through a systems check of body parts, all accounted for and responding. She had a tender jaw and a throbbing head. She ached and was exhausted but her body was operational.