by Potter, John
‘You all right there, nipper?’ He crouched down beside her.
Andrea nodded, coughing some more and now very cold. ‘Thank you.’
‘Where the hell did you come from? One minute I’m loading boxes, the next I hear a kid crying for help.’ The man’s concern was genuine. ‘I only checked to make sure I wasn’t going mad. Where’s your mum? Did you fall in or something?’
Andrea was slowly coming to her senses. The man was tall and a little like Simon, although he was not so big and smelt of cigarettes. Now wary, she pulled in her legs. ‘I was on that boat, a man took me. Why’re you here?’
He puzzled and turned to look at the Passing Dream and then back at her. ‘You were on the yacht?’ He never got an answer.
Andrea decided as he looked away that even if he had saved her he must be working for them. So she jumped to her feet, her body protesting at every movement and started running. She immediately sensed he was not chasing, risking a look over her shoulder. He was watching, caught between a step and a stride with his hands on his head.
Her wet clothes were making running difficult, as if being exhausted and cold was not enough of a problem. She forced herself to keep going because she knew the scary scream and Sarah were part of the same thing. She did not know how it could be Sarah, but she knew help was needed and intended getting it. There were lots of very big buildings ahead. Initially she headed towards the warehouses because they looked safe but diverted back to the road when she heard the loud noise of the generators, determined to get as far from the boat as possible and find someone who could help. She followed the road around and realised too late the brighter light was from headlights as a car emerged and passed her. Three surprised faces stared at her as she ran in the opposite direction.
Then she heard screeching tyres and doors opening, footsteps chasing after her. She tried to run faster, to reach the main road ahead and the distant people. A hand clamped around her waist, another covered her mouth, lifting her off the ground with her legs still running.
She bit a convenient finger as hard as she could. Frustration and anger bunched the small muscles around her jaw as she made a real effort at biting it off. It earned her a shouted Fuck! And she was dropped to the floor. She knew she was caught though. There was nowhere to run to as two more figures rounded on her, one of them the short horrid man. She gathered all the air into her lungs and screamed as loud as she ever had. A brief shrill sound that was cut off as Hakan’s hand cut across her face and she slumped unconscious to the ground.
NINETY-THREE
It was enough.
Brian stopped mid-stride, his attention fixed on the direction of the scream. Any other child and he might have missed it, faint amid the cacophony of industry. Except he would know Andrea’s scream anywhere, it reminded him of her mother’s laugh.
Brian held the small radio in the palm of his hand, pressing the call button twice and then once again as he ran towards the scream. He passed a long line of cranes poised over a large container vessel, protected by concrete bollards and a high chain fence, then the natural deterrent of water and the dock. Against the far quay he could see a darkly sleek pleasure boat, large in context to its surroundings, although from where he was it looked no bigger than a fingernail.
As he ran he watched a small car chase its headlights towards the distant boat and then disappear behind it. He ran harder. The cold air on his skin was no relief from the sharp needling pains across his back, the biting throb of broken teeth and a broken hand almost inconsequential.
He came to a junction in the road that fed the quay. Buildings on the left blocked his view so he moved slowly around until he could see the car, pressing himself into the shadows as he clicked the call button four times, two sets of two separated by a short pause. Two clicks were returned. Direction and status confirmed.
He watched and calculated. Save for Andrea getting loose to rip a scream, he had no reason to believe Hakan’s world was anything but ordered and rosy. A scenario that forced Hakan to abandon the boat was a long way down Brian’s list. At the top was the assumption they were getting ready to leave. Judging by the stacks of boxes on the quay, leaving was at least an hour away. He had time.
He could make out two shapes in the car but nothing else. He thought about moving around to see if Andrea was in the back, but that would involve traversing a wide open expanse or the narrow gap behind a row of shuttered workshops. He stayed where he was, waiting and constantly working through the scenarios.
The first he knew something was wrong was when he heard Hakan’s angry voice invading the night air. And then he saw the squat broad figure emerge on to the quay from the back of the boat. Hakan was animated and agitated, lifting one of the boxes and hurling it down at something or someone either in the water or climbing off the boat. He leaned forward and hoisted hard upwards, sending a small shadow tumbling across the quay.
Brian caught his breath, quickly realising it was a woman as she picked herself from the ground. She stumbled into light and he could see her shirt was open, fastened with a few buttons pushed through the wrong holes. Her body was smeared with something dark across her chest and face, so much that the whites of her eyes stood out. Blood? There was too much for it to be her own. Her movements were awkward and stiff. She was practically thrown into the car, Hakan violently angry, turning back and hurling himself at a tower of boxes that he kicked until it toppled over, onto the boat and into the water. Something had seriously messed with his plans.
Brian re-prioritised as Hakan’s voice faded and he climbed into the car, the door slamming closed as it turned, the engine screaming as it came towards him. He glimpsed Andrea’s hair low in the back seat as it passed, shouting a short loud instruction to the radio. The car turned left at the junction and Brian sprinted after it, watching it fade as it headed down a decline towards lights and streets. He put everything he had into the complementing movement of arms and legs. The car grew smaller and then turned and disappeared. His bare feet slapped against the road, his gasped breaths almost desperate. It took precious seconds before the Mercedes overtook him. The door opened as it stopped. Brian jumped in and the Mercedes accelerated away.
NINETY-FOUR
In the dining room the mother pulled her feet on to the chair and wrapped her arms around her legs, watching Ferreira with feral eyes.
Ferreira spoke directly to her, ‘You don’t like your ex-husband at all, do you?’
She blinked.
‘How did you find out?’ Ferreira asked.
‘About what?’ The mother’s voice was low and dry and quiet.
‘About Andrea, Beth. About how little time she spent with her father, that he left her home alone Saturdays. Did you hear Andrea talking to Kevin?’
She used exaggerated movements of her head to vigorously enforce her denial.
‘How then?’
The mother did not answer, blinking rapidly as if she expected another reality to suddenly appear at any moment.
Ferreira changed tack. ‘You knew, Beth, I know that. You discovered something, it made you angry, but you didn’t act because you knew you had something valuable. Something you could really damn Brian with. I bet even telling social services wasn’t enough for you. You wanted him humiliated. To crush what Andrea held for her father, to snuff out how she felt about him. You just weren’t sure how. Were you? Then the American, your preacher, came up with the idea, didn’t he? What did you tell him Beth? Tell me because we can find Andrea. Tell m…’
‘It was his voice.’ The mother cut in, her eyes were on Ferreira but she was looking at a memory. ‘It was his voice. I wanted to wrap it around me. I would have told him anything. I did tell him everything.’ The mother scratched at her trousers with clawed fingers. ‘His faith was so strong, it flowed from him, he was so sure. He listened to me and all I could do was tell him all about Brian, how Brian made me feel when he walked out. Talking to him unravelled it inside me. He came once or twice a month and I…’
She glanced at the stepfather. ‘I just couldn’t stop myself. I so wanted Brian to suffer, I hate him. This is all because of him. He left me in the middle of the night. Can you imagine, me and my baby? He couldn’t give me the life I wanted! It wasn’t that he couldn’t give me that life, he just wasn’t man enough. I hate him, the loser. I showed him. You can see what I’ve done for myself, what I’ve made of myself. While he walks in the dirt with the low life. Couldn’t give me the life I wanted, well I made my own life. I showed him.’
Ferreira waited for her to expand but she started repeating the Brian mantra. So she interrupted.
‘How did you know Beth? How did you know to tell the preacher? Who told you about Andrea being left alone?’
‘Nobody,’ she answered, her eyes searching through all the empty spaces in the room.
‘They must have, Beth. You knew all about Andrea, she told you didn’t she?’
The mother angrily turned on Ferreira. ‘Andrea told me nothing, the ungrateful little cow. All she told me was lies to protect her good for nothing father! She made EVERYONE tell me lies.’
‘Tell me, Beth, it’s important. It wasn’t in her diary, there was nothing written about her visits to Hambury.’
That earned a single nod and then the mother told her.
‘Not the diary, it was all wrong. That child can’t keep a secret to save her life, she’d have to tell someone, somehow. Then I realised.’
‘Realised what?’ Ferreira leaned in closer.
‘Realised if she didn’t write it in her diary she would simply write it somewhere else. That child thinks she’s so smart, just like her father. Well I’m smarter, I can tell you. I searched and searched and then I found it. Andrea wrote her diaries as pretend stories. She changed herself to be a boy and thought nobody would know, stupid little cow. Of course she added angels but she would, it was all right there, all the detail anyone would ever need. He said they were perfect.’
‘You gave Andrea’s stories to the preacher?’
‘Of course not, he came here. I showed him, he read them. He came a few times a month.’ She smiled fondly at the memory. The stepfather moved in his seat, sinking his head into his hands.
Ferreira kept pushing. ‘What did he say Beth?’
‘He said God would punish Brian, that he would wash him away for me. He would make it very public, for everyone to see.’
For the first time and only for a second she looked uncertain. ‘He said it might look bad, at first, but it had to be to really hurt Brian. He would bring Andrea straight back to me, it would all be a misunderstanding explained. Except Brian would be hanging in the wind, everyone would see him for what he is.’ She looked like she enjoyed that image, nodding and smiling to herself.
‘That was it?’ Ferreira asked, disbelieving.
‘He just said I must be strong, he would bring Andrea straight back to me. Andrea would see Brian for what he was.’ She rocked back and forwards on her chair.
‘You believed this man, Beth? You bartered your child’s safety for a vendetta? You trusted this man with your own daughter?’
The mother straightened her back, the imperious tone back in her voice, an echo of the day before. ‘Why would I not, Detective, he is a preacher.’
Ferreira lost it a little. She was seldom given to violence but barely stopped herself from slapping the woman, for fear she might not stop. She forced herself to fold her arms. ‘He didn’t say it would be like this though, did he Beth? He didn’t bring her back to you did he?’ The liaison officer moved uncomfortably and Ferreira collected her temper, taking a step back and a deep breath.
‘Where is he, Beth, where does he live? Where can we find him?’
The mother stared at her with saucer eyes and slowly shook her head.
‘You don’t know?’ Ferreira’s voice rose in pitch. ‘How did you contact him? How is he connected to your church? Can we contact them?’
There was not a sound in the room, all eyes on the mother. Ferreira tried imagining how she would make sense of all this to the Chief Inspector. Then the mother started speaking, little more than a whisper.
‘Suffer.’ Her voice sounded like tyres slow over gravel.
Ferreira leaned in, trying to make out the word. ‘What was that?’
‘SUFFER YOU BITCH!’ The mother’s hands clenched and opened, the skin on her face tight, her eyes filmy and her lips pulled back to her gums. ‘SUFFER, I wanted him to suffer, you bitch! I wanted to humiliate him. Make him suffer, he should suffer, he should suffer like I did, you nosey little bitch!’ She climbed off the chair and stepped closer. The constable was a half step behind.
‘All that child ever does is worship him and he left me! The humiliation! He left me in the middle of the night, I WANTED HIM TO SUFFAAA!’
The constable eased her back into the chair and the stepfather looked at Ferreira with his head still in his hands.
‘Who runs the church Kevin? I need names and numbers right now. Who would have booked this American preacher?’ She held up three fingers, which his gaze shifted to. ‘I need it in three minutes. You got that?’
He slowly nodded and pushed himself upright. Ferreira carried her bag out to the kitchen counter. She flicked open her phone, finding no missed calls, but as she scrolled down to the Chief Inspector’s number she saw the top of Boer’s phone in the side pocket next to his Bible. It was flashing a dull blue light. She pulled it out and cursed him. He had left it on silent. There were a series of texts from a mobile number she half recognised. The texts contained a sequence of addresses in Grimsby. They were signed by Adam Sawacki, he had given the addresses context.
Adam? She walked through to the reception room, scrolling through the addresses, into the room where she and Boer first interviewed the mother. Boer had seen something even then. She checked her watch. It was twenty-three minutes into Tuesday morning. Ferreira flopped onto the sofa and rang Chief Inspector Anne Darling. Already she was figuring how quickly she could wrap up here and get to Grimsby.
NINETY-FIVE
All she could smell was fish. It was cold here as well, sitting with her legs and arms bound to a chair. Same old same old, she thought and a childish giggle sounded not far away. She was in a warehouse, wide and mostly empty with metal struts beneath a high ceiling. The far end was open to the night and a lorry was reversing in, a large blue container set on the back. Her chair rocked awkwardly, straddling a gutter in the floor that opened to a large drain beside her.
Hakan was not happy. He was screaming and shouting, his arms making dramatic and exaggerated movements. Pointing and raging at her, although for all she knew he was miming. She could hear nothing in this real world, a blissful silence like being underwater.
Andrea was standing away to her left looking hopelessly miserable. That was all Sarah would change if she could. That Andrea would not see this. But a man knelt behind her, one arm around her body, a hand on her head forcing her to watch. Hakan wanted Andrea to see. Two other men stood guard between Andrea and the reversing lorry.
Sometimes and more frequently now Sarah was spared the trauma of reality, closing her eyes to see green fields and blue skies, the wind heavy with the scent of spring. She could hear in this place and was quite happy to stay but for the sound of the horseman, now dragging her back to the real world. It was all wrong, he was supposed to save her.
In this real world there was a box on the floor near the drain, quite large, like musicians carried. She did not know what was inside, but knew it would not be nice, not a musical instrument. Hakan gravitated towards it. She wished he would hurry up. She was tired of it all, tired of struggling in the face of man’s ceaseless need.
The sound of the horseman was deafening as Hakan opened the box with a flourish, a magician revealing the rabbit under the hat. Except this was a chainsaw. How inventive, she thought. It had a red base that he gripped as a handle and a long blade with jagged malevolent teeth. She smiled wickedly which caused him a mo
ment’s indecision, then he pressed a button and the teeth were lost in a blur.
Beyond Hakan she could see Andrea now struggling violently and silently screaming. She forced herself not to look at the girl. Hakan stepped closer and she felt the tiny percussive vibrations against her skin. Just three more steps. She willed him to take them.
The lorry came to a stop and a man jumped from the cabin, walking to the rear, a giant black man with a metal clipboard in his hand. He walked towards Andrea with long sure strides, his long coat trailing behind.
As Hakan’s men realised and converged on him, Sarah saw the black man was not carrying a clip board after all. It looked more like a sword as he moved like a vibrant shadow cutting fast arcs through the air and through the men, who circled and spun and fell away, first one then two, the machete glinting in the light, now smeared dark. Then it was just the black man, rounding on Andrea. Andrea screamed at him and the man holding Andrea turned her, a child shield between him and this wraith. Then the man’s nerve failed and he turned and ran, but not as fast as the glinting metal, spinning end over end, burying itself in the man’s back. His legs buckled and he pitched forward, sliding face first to the floor.
Andrea stood motionless for a second, as if looking for something she could not see, and then she ran and leapt into the black man’s arms. He looked across at Sarah and turned the child to look the other away.
Sarah turned her attention back to Hakan. His mouth contorted, unaware as he approached his grand finale, the chainsaw dancing its jig. She was so happy for Andrea but now Hakan must hurry. All she wanted was green fields. Her gaze fixed on those blurring teeth that would take her there, then drawn upwards to dust falling through a shaft of light from high above, following its trail up to the angled struts in the ceiling, to a shape within.