by Iain Cameron
‘Did you find any ID?’
Rawlings handed him another plastic evidence bag, this time the personal effects of water man. Using glove-covered hands while trying to move something inside a plastic bag was the stuff of party games or Saturday evening television, but he soon found what he was looking for among a soggy collection of wallet, keys, glasses, and phone: a credit card.
‘It wasn’t robbery, then,’ Rawlings said as he watched him turning the card over inside the bag and holding it up to the light.
‘No, it doesn’t look like it.’
The signature strip was non-existent and the gold or silver tint, which credit card companies used to coat the embossed name, had been rubbed off, either through use or lying in the water, but the indentations were still there. Catching the light in a certain way, he could just about distinguish the name.
‘I think I know this guy,’ Henderson said.
TWENTY-FOUR
She starred in her own Cadbury’s Flake advert, running barefoot through a field of high corn with the sun shining in her face, long blond hair flowing in waves behind her. The air felt warm and the flowers smelled fragrant as her white dress brushed past them, billowing in the breeze as she ran and ran, never short of breath.
In the distance, standing behind a wooden gate, she could see her husband and children. They were waving, beckoning her to come to them. She waved back but no matter how hard she ran she could not get any closer. Frustration built up inside as she tried to reach them. She had to get there. They needed her.
Amy Sandford woke with a start. She started to move, then, against all instincts, lay still. By her estimation, it was mid-afternoon on the fourth day, around the time she picked up the kids from school. No sooner would they get into the car than Jennifer would be regaling her with descriptions of the lovely food she ate at lunch while Phillip would be desperate to tell her how he got on with his maths or history test but wouldn’t be able to get a word in.
It didn’t take her long to realise what was going on. Her memory of standing in the barn was clear, but anything afterwards was a complete blank, and then she woke up in this place. She hadn’t drunk anything before meeting Martin Swift, so it had to be drugs, but what had happened next rocked her. While she was knocked out, she felt sure the bastard who had put her in here, had come in and raped her.
Her clothes were arranged in the same way as she dressed in the morning to go to work, but all three buttons around the waist of her skirt were done up and she knew with utter certainty, the top one had been left undone. The skirt had always been a little too tight and she left the top button undone whenever she wore it. Hoping against hope he’d simply been re-adjusting her clothes after carrying her through to this prison cell, or perhaps having a sly grope, a detailed examination between her legs, particularly along the inside of her thighs where she was prone to bruising, confirmed her worst fears.
She was on the point of losing it and letting out a scream to wake the dead when she saw the notice lying on the bed beside her, telling her she was a kidnap victim. Crap. Utter Crap. No kidnapper she ever read about in any of the crime novels she read at the rate of one or two a week ever raped their victims. It was a sure-fire way of getting caught. The kidnapper would leave traces of dental imprints, semen or skin cells on the victim, allowing the police to identify them and giving them cast-iron proof with which to convict.
The pressure built up inside and demanded a scream. She did so, but only into the bed covers as she did not want Martin Swift, or whatever he called himself, to know he’d been rumbled.
She now believed she had a good handle on his routine. At the start, she thought her falling asleep after meals might be because of boredom as there wasn’t much to do in this poxy room, save for a few old magazines even her mother would have trouble finding interesting. She knew he was spiking her food or drink and came in afterwards when she was asleep to have sex with her. The pleasure he got from screwing a comatose woman she would never know, so he had to be a sick bastard, and yet he was a good looking guy who acted and sounded normal. AH! She couldn’t get her head around how when she first met him, she’d actually found him attractive.
The day before, she’d ditched the blackcurrant juice and drunk tap water instead, but to her disappointment, it didn’t seem to make a difference as she’d still fallen asleep. She didn’t want to get rid of the food as the rations were on the light side. In a way, he was being clever as it didn’t serve his purposes to starve her to death, but it kept her on the edge of hunger so she would eat all the food, et voila, she would keep taking the drug.
The room, like the food, wasn’t bad and about the standard of some of the two-star hotels she stayed in when she was single and had back-packed around Europe, with basic everything. A window high up in the vaulted ceiling provided light, and also gave her some indication of the time of day. The door appeared to be heavy and sealed with a couple of locks, and a CCTV camera was perched high up on the wall.
This afternoon she wore a dress, a bright floral number selected from the wardrobe, and it drove her crazy, trying to work out how a fruit cake like him owned such a reasonable collection of clothes, all washed and ironed. As she lay there motionless on the bed, she checked the side zipper of her dress: it had only been fastened three-quarters of the way, and sure enough, it was now fully zipped. She felt disgusted at what this low-life bastard was doing to her. He was soiling her, degrading her. She turned her face into the pillow and sobbed and sobbed.
Ten minutes later, her pillow soaking wet, she sat up and scanned the room; at the bed, the wardrobe, the curtained-off toilet area, the hatch where her food came from, the bolted door, and then back to the bed. Nothing looked different or had been moved, everything was just as she remembered it. She walked to the toilet, splashed her face in the basin and returned to the bed and picked up a magazine.
An hour after it got dark, around nine or nine thirty, the hatch in the wall rattled and she wandered over and picked up the food tray. No way would she let him know she felt hungry. For the first day or two she’d run to the hatch as soon as it sounded, shouting, pleading, crying into a hole in the wall and demanding to know when she would be freed, but all in vain, as she still didn’t know if he was there, standing on the other side of the wall or sitting in a Horsham bar having a drink with his mates.
This time, a calm Amy Sandford went back to the bed and fussed around with the duvet for several minutes before starting to eat. If he was there, still watching her on camera, he had a lower boredom threshold than anyone she knew, as this would look no more interesting than a bee trying to find the opening in a window, or a Party Political Broadcast during an election.
Today, chef’s special at the Kidnap Cafe was fish and chips with a small carton of trifle for pudding and she relished the prospect of tucking in, although with the pangs of hunger emanating from her stomach, she was capable of eating anything.
To drink, the same diluted blackcurrant and apple juice she served to her kids, too sweet for her tastes and in any case, she wanted to test once again if she could avoid taking the drug by ditching the drink. She stood, hid the beaker in her hand and walked to the sink. With her back to the camera she poured the juice into the sink, refilled the cup with tap water and walked back to the bed and resumed eating.
Ten minutes later, she placed the tray on the floor and flicked through the magazine. To him she was looking at a boring magazine full of knitting patterns and pastry recipes, but all the time her mind was plotting what she would do if the drug didn’t put her to sleep.
She shifted to the middle of the bed as she usually did, otherwise she could roll off when the drug kicked and what would Swift do with her if she broke her arm? Take her to hospital? She didn’t think so. She crawled over the covers and put her head down on the pillow and shut her eyes.
To her amazement, sleep didn’t come. She felt wide awake with her mind buzzing with the next stage of her escape plan. When she tried to move her
arms, legs, head, or open her eyes, nothing happened. A silent scream went off in her head. Stop it girl. Think positive and stop panicking.
She realised he’d split the drug between the food and the drink, so if she ditched one she would get the other, very clever, but surely it meant she’d only received a partial dose? She couldn’t move but perhaps the drug’s debilitating grip would diminish faster, with luck while the cell door lay open and he was still doing up his trousers. There were so many questions racing around her head, none of which she could answer, but they stopped when she heard the door open.
The noise sounded indistinct even though the room was deathly quiet, as if her ears were stuffed with cotton wool or wax. The tray rattled and footsteps tapped across the wooden floor, as he picked up the tray and took it outside. It was the strangest sensation, like an out-of-body experience or living in someone else’s body. She could hear and understand everything around her but couldn’t move or speak.
Stories appeared in newspapers and magazines about hospital patients being given inadequate doses of anaesthetic and despite looking knocked out to the operating surgeons, the patients heard and sometimes saw and felt what was being done to them.
The door closed. Silence. Did he go out? In the distance she heard his voice, fading in and out, like someone fiddling with the tuner button of a radio.
‘You’re such a fucking beauty –ford. I can’t believe it –all mine to do what the hell I like. You won’t be– I’m sure.’
She felt a hand pulling at her shoulder and rolling her on to her back.
‘What lovely legs you’ve got, and those– I think I’ll– and see– wearing today.’
It sounded like a radio play when an actor filled a vase with water or drove to the park, the sound effects giving the listener the job of trying to visualise the action.
A hand ran up her leg. It was not a normal touch with all the nerves sensitive to the movement, and with an immediate awakening of hormones and an increase in blood flow, it was a faraway feeling, like a numb cheek after an injection of novocaine, or she imagined, the ‘dead leg’ Chris sometimes complained about after playing football.
He touched her thighs, squeezing and rubbing. She did not want this evil man touching her. She wanted to scream into his stupid face before sinking her teeth into his cheek and punching his nose into a pulp. You bastard, bastard, bastard. In her head she was sobbing, but her body failed to respond.
Five, ten minutes later, a loud scream filled her head, his face close to her ear, and then the rhythmic bouncing ceased. A dead weight slumped over her body, his rapid breath slowing as his hair tickled her skin. He rolled off, and listening as hard as she could, she heard him moving around the room, the clanking of his belt as he put on his clothes and the movement of the bed as he leaned over to sort her underwear and dress. He moved off the bed and moments later the door snapped shut.
She tried to move or open her eyes, but like a five-year-old child, she knew what she wanted to do but couldn’t encourage her limbs to do it. Frustration and anger built up to boiling point not only for her incapacitated state and another rape, but because her chance had gone.
In time, she calmed and the boom-boom sensation in her chest slowed to a whimper and little by little, she relaxed. She felt tired, it was ten or eleven at night and sleep was often the best way to allow the drug to wear off, but before she did, she went over her plan of escape one more time. It had to be soon as she didn’t want to be in here one minute longer than necessary, and as time moved on, the weaker the sparse rations would make her feel.
If she lost too much weight, would he still be interested in a nightly screw? If not, what would happen to her then?
TWENTY-FIVE
Henderson shifted awkwardly while sitting in one of the modern seats in CI Edwards’ office. They looked trendy and brightened up the drab, utilitarian decor but he would be more comfortable sitting on a slab of rock.
‘You’re sure it’s him?’
‘When I first saw Garrett’s name on the credit card, I thought so, given the build of the man but I harboured a hope, vain as it turns out, that maybe this guy stole his wallet or something; but I’ve confirmed with a DNA sample and a call to the place where he worked, as he obviously hasn’t been there for a couple of weeks.’
DI Edwards leaned over the desk.
‘Do you think his killers are trying to send a message?’ she asked.
‘In a roundabout way.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, perhaps not directly to us. I think Garrett got topped because somebody found out he’s a grass and they used it to send a message to anyone else still in his pocket, to toe the line or the same will happen to them.’
‘Any idea who’s behind it?’
‘If I knew his name I’d be shaking his tree right now but your guess is as good as mine.’
‘This is where your priorities lie. Find him and lock him up, then you can sleep easy. Can you do this and Langton?’
‘I’ll need to, as he was my nark and I don’t want anyone going down there and mucking up whatever’s left.’
‘I understand,’ she said. ‘Do you think your name got a mention?’
‘That’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question but we know he was tortured, so we’ve got to ask, why else would they do it?’
‘Might be because they’re a bunch of sadistic bastards. I met my share of them when I worked in Birmingham.’
‘Maybe, but I can’t take the chance, I’ve got to assume they know.’
‘I agree. Do you want protection?’
‘From what or who, I wouldn’t know, but no, and thanks for the offer. I wanted to flag it up just in case I went missing or I become the next floater to be lifted out of the water by Ed and the rest of the crew in the police launch. On the other hand, we might be lucky and Garrett’s killing might be the end of it.’
‘Why, because they think we’ve no longer got any intel on their drug shipments?’
‘Aye.’
She regarded him with a soft stare. ‘That may be so, but I won’t let a bunch of hoods take out one of my officers, Angus, not while I’m in this chair.’
Henderson walked downstairs in solemn mood but picked up when he saw DS Walters standing outside his office, clutching the misper folders.
‘Are you waiting to see me?’ he said.
‘My, you’re good. You should be a detective. Of course I’m waiting to see you, hence the reason I’m standing outside your office.’
‘Any more cheek and I’ll stick you on checking overtime payments and time sheets for the next three weeks.’
‘Do that,’ she said, slapping the files down on the table, ‘and I won’t tell you what’s in here.’
He slumped in the seat opposite and held up his hand.
‘Truce. Let’s hear it. Does your refined analysis tell us anything new?’
‘It does, but there’s been a slight change.’
‘How come?’
‘We are no longer looking at twenty-eight. It’s now twenty-nine. But before you say anything, take a look at this.’
She handed him a computer printout with the nine key factors they agreed to be important in the Langton case listed down one side, starting with ‘No Passport’ and ending with ‘Good Looking/Well-Dressed.’
Across the top were names he didn’t recognise, but Walters confirmed these were the twenty-nine names of missing women she and the team culled from the missing persons’ database.
‘You’ll see they’re colour-coded. Where there’s no colour at all, there’s little or no commonality with the Langton case and that’s true in fifteen cases. Of the rest, most tick one or two features but if you look at the ones highlighted in red, each one there has five or more.’
‘Let me think about this for a sec. If there is no commonality, it means they took their passport and credit cards but maybe didn’t own a car or took a taxi. Yep, I see how it changes things. So, why did you say the nu
mber is now twenty-nine, did you miss one before?’
‘Another misper came in this morning,’ she said, ‘and would you believe, it’s similar to the Langton case in just about every respect.’
‘When did this happen?’
‘She went missing Thursday, last week.’
‘Let me see the details,’ Henderson said, holding out his hand, his fingers snapping with impatience.
He looked at the report. ‘Bloody hell. It’s so like Langton it’s uncanny.’
He sat back in the seat for a few moments staring at the page. ‘So, we know of five cases where there is a strong resemblance to the Langton case as they tick most of the boxes, including this new one.’
‘Yes.’
He felt a wave of mixed emotions. Positive, as it proved his theory and the time spent by Walters and two DCs on what they regarded as a wild goose chase, had not been in vain; but negative as in all likelihood the wrong man sat in a jail cell and whoever took Kelly Langton had done this before.
‘Let’s apply a little savvy here,’ Henderson said. ‘In two of the five cases, both women took their passports and took their cars but in all other respects, they were similar to Langton as they never contacted anyone, they are well-off and members of a gym, kept themselves in shape, etcetera.’
‘True.’
‘Taking a passport and the car makes them fundamentally different from Langton. With Langton, if we assume for a moment Kelly has been kidnapped, it looks like the kidnapper did it before she could pick up anything from home, which is why we found all these things in her bedroom that we did and why her car was abandoned in Pound Hill, because she didn’t drive away in it.’
‘With these two women here,’ Henderson continued, ‘they took passports and cars, which indicates to me their disappearances were planned and they buggered off for a reason, to get away from an unsavoury relationship or a situation they didn’t like. They didn’t call and left their old credit cards behind because they didn’t want to be traced and probably took out new ones months ago.’