Rex chugged on his beer. “Well, best get on,” he said to Alistair, settling their bill and adding a generous tip. “Good evening to you,” he addressed Ray, Ken, and the old man on the barstool.
Leaving their half-finished drinks on the counter, they promptly exited the pub. Rex could feel the weight of the men’s stares on his back. He turned up his coat collar, ostensibly against the sharp wind. “Let’s get a move on before they decide to follow us to the campsite to see how Danny Boy receives the happy news.”
“Sounds like he might not still be there from what they were saying. What’s the plan?”
“We’ll take the car as close as we can without being seen, in case we have to make a quick getaway.”
“What if we actually find him? I’m sure he’s never parted from his trusty knife.”
“Once we find some evidence he’s there, we’ll call in the police and wait close by to make sure he does not escape.”
“Escape again, you mean,” said Alistair in a rare grim mood.
Thirty-Four
The Colneside Touring and Caravan Site was empty, save for a few isolated motorhomes and caravans.
A handful of hardened tourists had pitched tents by a boating lake inhabited by ducks and swans gliding among the reeds. The only buildings on site consisted of a concrete block of showers and washrooms and a modest house, which Rex surmised must belong to the owner or manager. The blinds were drawn over dark windows and there was no sign of life.
“Look over there,” Alistair called out softly in the failing light, pointing to a white commercial van parked by a motorhome gleaming black on the outer perimeter of the campground. “A second generation Iveco Daily,” he said in a strained voice. Alistair was an expert on vehicles of all descriptions.
“If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, it’s the wrong colour.”
“We’ll see. Come on.”
They crossed the grassy terrain that ran to mud in places and approached the motorhome cautiously, in case someone was home. No light appeared within and no sound came from the generator outside.
Rex expelled his breath, which he realized he had been holding. They turned their attention back to the van.
“Looks like a recent spray job,” Alistair observed by the faint glow of a lamppost. “Let’s see what’s underneath.” He produced a penknife from his Burberry trench coat and, bending down, scraped at the white paint by the front wheel-well furthest away from the motorhome. “Look here … ”
Rex crouched beside his colleague. “Brown paint?” he asked peering at the exposed spot. He took a slim electric torch from his coat pocket and shone its beam at the darker colour.
“And did you notice the dodgy number plate? The third and fourth digits indicate a much newer vehicle than this.”
Rex glanced at Alistair, who stared back at him with as serious a face as he had ever seen on his friend.
“It’s not all that far from Dover,” Alistair said. “This might well be the van used in that schoolgirl’s abduction. Could Dan Sutter have something to do with it?”
“Who knows?” Rex murmured grimly.
Lindsay Poulson had gone missing walking home from school, just as April Showers had. However, the two abductions were a decade apart and separated by the length of England and half of Scotland, and there was as yet insufficient proof that Sutter had been responsible for April’s murder. However, it had become probable that he had been to Canterbury, and likely he was in Brightlingsea.
“Perhaps we’ll know soon enough.”
“Slash the tyre?” Alistair suggested.
“Good idea. If it’s the van the police are looking for, we don’t want it disappearing again.”
Alistair punctured the worn tyre, and the air escaped with a loud hiss. They looked around, but all remained quiet. Rex searched by the motorhome for a key under the bristly doormat and among the plastic pots containing wilted petunias. He lifted a loose paver and found one. He hesitated.
“This is unlawful entry. We’re not even on home turf.”
“If we don’t act right away, we risk losing any hope of finding the girl. Her life could be at stake.”
“Hand over John’s baton, Alistair.”
Rex fitted the key in the lock, with no idea of what they might find. The heavy door swung outwards, revealing a dark and chill interior, yet with a lived-in smell about it.
He switched on his torch and swept its light around the compactly furnished space strewn with items of men’s clothing, RV magazines, and snack food wrappers. But no girl.
Alistair found another torch in the galley kitchen dividing the sleeping quarters from the seating area behind the cab. They located a coil of rope and a roll of duct tape under the sink, and a switchblade in a bedside drawer. A potential abductor’s kit, Rex reflected, disappointed not to find more personal evidence that might connect the motorhome to Dan Sutter.
He was about to look through the clothes in the inbuilt, wood-
veneer wardrobe at the back of the vehicle when he suddenly heard the scrunch of steps on the concrete slab outside the door. They simultaneously switched off their torches. Rex’s heart slowed to a dull thud.
The door opened and a central light suddenly illuminated the interior. A skinny youth appeared at the entrance, startled to see Rex standing in the middle of the motorhome. Alistair, who had placed himself flat against the wall by the door grabbed him before he could run.
“Who are you?” his colleague asked, while Rex stepped forwards, closed the door, and barred it with his bulk.
“Who wants to know?”
“We do. That’s why I asked.”
Confronted by two big men in expensive coats, the newcomer visibly shrank. He was not tall to begin with, and was dressed in the manner of a teenage hip-hop wannabe commonly referred to as a chav, a newer breed of charmless and shiftless troublemakers. He wore a dark, sheeny Adidas zip-up jacket and matching sportswear tucked into his socks, along with trendy trainers and an earring, giving him a bad-boy look that Rex thought might appeal to teenage girls.
Despite his symmetrically appointed features, there was something shifty about him. He was carrying a plastic shopping bag, which he dangled beside his right leg and tried to hide from view.
“Justin Tims,” he replied sullenly, twisting his head around at Rex. “I’m a warden here.”
“Where are the owners?”
“In Minorca.”
“What’s there to do here?” Alistair enquired.
“Why? You blokes don’t look like campers.”
“Just answer the question.”
“Crabbing, fishing. There’s a shingly beach, an unheated outdoor pool, and a paddling pool for the kiddies. Oh yeah, and a skate park. You can walk to the town centre in ten minutes, where there’s a social, pubs, shops, and a yacht club, if you’re into booms and jigs,” Tims added gamely. “I can let you rent a caravan for cheap. It’s from the eighties, but in really good nick. It’ll be vacant come Tuesday.”
“What’s in your bag?” Rex asked.
“Show us a badge.”
“We’re crown prosecutors, not the police.” Rex repeated his question.
“Nuffink. Just beer and crisps, an’ some DVDs, innit? Fancied a night in, like.”
“What sort of DVDs?” Alistair grabbed the bag. “Disgusting,” he expostulated as he pulled out the contents.
“You can talk, you old poofter.”
Rex did not know what offended his friend most, being called old or a poofter, but Alistair’s ire was instantaneous. He struck the lad in the mouth and gave him a split lip.
“I’m going to report you for that!” he wailed.
“When you’re in possession of teen porn? I hardly think so.”
Blood spurted from the young man’s lip and streamed down his chin onto the white front of his tee-s
hirt. Alistair took out a handkerchief and fastidiously wiped off his fist even though he had been too quick to get blood on it.
“How old are you?” Rex demanded.
“You going to smack me in the gob if I don’t answer?”
“I will,” Alistair told him. “I’ll split your top lip this time and you’ll look like a duck.”
“Twenty-nine.”
Older than Rex had thought. “You might want to get some ice on that when we’ve finished with our questions.”
Tims was using the bottom of his tee-shirt to blot the blood, exposing a pale, flaccid stomach, in spite of his skinny frame. Light brown fuzz around the belly button trailed down to his waistband. Feeling a vague revulsion, Rex pushed him further into the motorhome.
“What you going to do?” he squealed.
Rex pulled out a chair from the dinette. “Sit down. Is that your van parked outside?”
Tims sat. “Belongs to a camper. I let him use it ‘cause my spot’s bigger, innit?”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s the truth. I wouldn’t be seen dead driving a heap like that.”
Rex stood over him. “Which camper?”
“He’s renting the caravan I was telling you about. A white four-berth by the lake.”
“What does he look like?”
“Nothing much. About fifty.”
Rex and Alistair exchanged glances.
“He’s staying there with his sister, though she looks a bit young to be his sister, if you know what I mean.” The lad leered with his fat lip, on which the blood was beginning to clot.
His sister Amber? Rex thought at first, his mind turning to the woman in Wales; but she would hardly be young now. “A teenage girl went missing from Kent. She was abducted in a van similar to the one parked outside.”
Tims’ face, staring up at him, went completely white. “I told you, it’s not mine!”
“What’s the camper’s name?”
“Dan.”
“Dan what?”
“Can’t remember! Mac somefink.”
“McBride?”
Tims nodded. “Yeh, maybe.”
“Is he there now?”
The young man shrugged.
“Whose caravan is it?”
“Nige and Sue’s. They’re the people wot run the place. Can you give us that ice? And some water?”
“Do you have a key to it?”
“I don’t have a spare.”
“Let’s tie him up,” Rex said, anxious to reconnoitre the caravan and see if the man and girl they were seeking were there. From his coat pocket he took the rope and bound Tim’s wrists behind the chair-back.
“You can’t leave me like this,” their captive whined.
“Just while we see aboot your friend.”
“He’s not my friend.”
“Accomplice then.”
“He’s not my—” Rex cut him off by placing a terry-cloth tea towel over his mouth and knotting it securely behind his ears; not that there was anyone around to hear him if he were able to cry out for help.
Alistair bound his ankles to the front legs of the chair. If he struggled, the rickety chair would topple over and he along with it.
The two men stepped down from the motorhome and shut the door.
“Do you think it was Lindsay Poulson he was talking about?” Alistair asked.
“I don’t know.”
They jogged across the open space towards the darkening lake, the ground uneven; damp and yielding in places, in others rutted and covered in loose stones. “We should have left Friday night and driven straight down,” Rex gasped as he ran.
“You needed some sort of proof Sutter was here.” Alistair’s voice came out in laboured spurts.
Developing a stitch in his side, Rex caught his friend’s arm and they slowed to a fast walk. He scoped out the handful of tents and unhitched caravans. One stood out, broadside to the lake, white with a grey stripe below its wide windows, and trapezium-shaped.
“That must be it,” he rasped. “It’s an older model caravan.” He placed his hands over his knees while he regained his breath, praying the girl was still alive. He felt slightly nauseous.
“I don’t know whether to hope it’s her or not,” Alistair said, voicing Rex’s fears, his breath escaping in short foggy puffs. “What if we’re too late?”
Rex summoned his calm and collected his thoughts. “Let’s hope we’re not. And if someone’s there with her, at least we have the element of surprise.”
Thirty-Five
The flicker of a television behind the thin blue curtains betrayed occupancy. Rex had noticed an external TV aerial as he and Alistair half-circled the caravan from a safe distance before closing in slowly. Attached to the front above the hitch sat a large white plastic storage container with a metal lock. It looked sturdy enough to get up on, but the curtain in the window above was closely fitted and afforded no view inside.
They inspected the caravan from the lake side, where a sun-bleached awning stretched from the door over a picnic table on collapsible metal legs. Alistair picked it up and positioned it by the rectangular window at the back of the caravan. He tested the surface with his hands, bearing down on it.
Satisfied it could hold his weight, he clambered on top and knelt at the window, peering in through a gap above the top edge of the curtain. Rex watched him wobble and slide off the table in a hurry.
“There’s a girl bound and gagged on a sofa-bed,” he said in a hoarse whisper to Rex, who was watching the door.
“Lindsay?”
“Could be. It’s dark except for the light from the TV. I could only see her silhouette. But it’s definitely a young girl. I couldn’t see anyone with her.”
Alistair crept back to the window. Rex helped stabilize the table while his friend got up again. Alistair tapped gently on the window and mouthed a few words through the gap in the curtain.
“She’s nodding her head. I think she’s alone.”
“How can you be sure?” Rex whispered back. “What if she’s warning you?”
“I don’t think so.” Alistair asked, this time loud enough for Rex to hear, “Are you alone?” He glued his eye to the window. “She’s nodding frantically now. We need to get in.” He scrambled down from the table.
“What if she was being threatened by someone you couldn’t see?”
“She seems quite composed, for someone who’s tied up.”
“Well, it’s now or never, I suppose.”
Rex pulled down on the door latch, not surprised to find it locked. A search for a key in all the obvious places revealed nothing. “What now?”
“I brought a crow bar under my coat.”
“What crow bar?”
“From the motorhome. I’ll pop out a window if need be.”
Rex commended his friend’s foresight, without fully comprehending how he had been able to run with a crowbar secreted in his coat, but now wasn’t the time to ask. They tried all the windows Alistair could fit through, being the slimmer and more agile of the two, and found them locked too.
“It’ll have to be the crowbar.” Alistair selected the rear window and went to work while Rex kept a lookout.
He spotted a couple of shadows moving about on the far side of the lake, but they would not be able to see or hear what Alistair was up to at the back of the caravan. No one approached from the open ground whence they had come.
By dint of strength and perseverance, Alistair managed to get the window sufficiently open to flip it out all the way. He yanked it from its frame and set it down on the ground. Rex glanced nervously about him, worried about the noise, but focused on the girl.
Alistair drew the pleated curtain aside and called out softly, saying he was coming in and not to be afraid. He removed his bulky coat a
nd threw it inside, and then hoisted himself through the opening and stepped into the caravan. His face reappeared briefly as he told Rex he would unlock the door for him.
The sound of the television was less muted inside. With the two men standing in the centre, the space was cramped, the padded vinyl ceiling barely clearing their heads. Rain began to patter on the dark skylight. An odour of damp rose from the carpet.
Rex found a light switch. The girl sat to his left on one of two sofa-beds attached to the front side walls. Her hair was shiny and brushed, her blue eyes stretched wide above the gag. He could not remember what colour Lindsay’s eyes were supposed to be. She wore a grey jersey tracksuit with purple stripes down the sleeves and legs, and socks and slippers on her bound feet.
He undid both the gag and the cotton scarf around her wrists, which was tied loosely enough to not be uncomfortable and yet tightly enough to be secure. Her hands trembled in her lap. He now clearly recognized her as the girl he had seen on the news in recent weeks, down to the dark mole on her cheekbone.
“Where is he, Lindsay?” he asked as Alistair took up the TV remote on the wood table separating the beds and switched off the set.
“The pub, I think. He comes back smelling of beer.” She was nicely spoken and quiet in her demeanour.
“What’s his name?”
“Danny. That’s all I know.”
They would have to leave it to the police to search the caravan for further identification. “You’re a very brave girl,” Rex said. “We’re here to help you.”
Only then did she begin to cry, huge tears welling in her eyes.
“How long is he usually gone for?” He attempted to keep the urgency out of his voice, but his first concern was to get her to safety before her abductor returned.
“Usually not much more than an hour. He left three-quarters of an hour ago,” she said glancing at a clock embedded between two in-built lockers above the front window.
All the cupboards and drawers were in the same medium-toned wood, the place tidier than the motorhome, Rex noted in passing. “Did he harm you?”
She shook her head. “Not really. He brings me clothes and magazines, cakes, sweets … I pretend to like everything. He said I was a good girl, not like the one he took in Edinburgh, who screamed and struggled and made him so angry he had to … ” She gulped. “Silence her.”
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