by James Raven
Temple pressed his thumb against the bell again. No answer.
‘I’ll check around the back,’ he said. ‘You stay here.’
The rear lawn rolled away from the house towards a low hedge. There was a small wooden gate set to one side. Blackness beyond it.
Temple stepped on to the patio, looked through the French doors into a smartly furnished living room: three-piece suite, flat screen TV on a stand, a glass dining-table. A comfortable, well-maintained home. He tried to open the doors but they were locked. He moved on to the door that gave access to the kitchen. No light here. He stuck his face to the window and saw that the room was empty. Then he grasped the knob, turned it slowly and pushed to see if it was locked. It wasn’t.
Strictly speaking he should not have ventured in without a warrant, but he decided to throw caution to the wind. He stepped inside and called out Cain’s name again, then waited for a response that didn’t come. He switched on the kitchen light, looked around at the bright, modern interior and then went into the hall. The house was dead quiet, eerily so.
He walked up to the front door and opened it. Angel was still right outside. She furrowed her brow at him.
‘The kitchen door was open,’ he said. ‘C’mon, let’s have a quick look. I’ve got a seriously bad feeling about this.’
They went upstairs together, announcing their presence just in case Cain and his family were in their beds. But the upstairs rooms were empty, although in the child’s room the bed looked as though it had been recently slept in. There was a little girl’s nightdress on the floor.
Temple picked up a framed photo from on top of a chest of drawers in the main bedroom. He showed it to Angel, saying, ‘Here’s another picture of Cain and his wife.’
This photo had been taken in front of a castle. They were a good-looking couple, especially Mrs Cain, who had a nice smile and glowing teeth. Her dusty blond hair cascaded over her shoulders. Her husband was tall and lean with high cheekbones and a wide mouth. Late thirties or early forties.
There were other photographs in the room of their daughter. Curly hair, round face, full lips. Five or six years old. A sweet-looking child who would surely grow up to be the image of her mother.
They quickly searched all the other rooms in the house. The place was empty.
‘What do you think?’ Angel said.
Temple shrugged. ‘I think we shouldn’t jump to a conclusion. Could be the family popped out for a perfectly good reason.’
‘Except it’s the middle of the night, guv. And at least one of them was here when we arrived.’
Temple chewed the inside of his cheek. ‘Let’s get Cain’s mobile phone number and call him. We might be able to solve this mystery quickly.’
As Angel reached for her phone Temple went back into the garden and walked over to the fence. The gate was unlocked. He stepped through it into a small wood. He could see streetlights through the trees and set off towards them.
He trudged over a rough bed of soggy leaves and fallen branches. On the other side of the wood was a quiet residential street. Cars were parked outside a row of detached houses. No sign of life. He walked about twenty yards along the street to the left. Then he backtracked and went the same distance to the right. He saw no one.
Back at the house Temple told Angel about the road.
‘Someone could easily have done a runner through the wood,’ he said.
‘I know I’m not mistaken, guv. This house was occupied when we arrived.’
Temple’s phone rang. He snatched it from his pocket.
‘DCI Temple.’
‘Jeff, it’s Priest. I got your message. What’s up?’
Temple hesitated before speaking. He wasn’t sure what reaction to expect.
‘Have you heard about the murder in the New Forest, sir?’
‘Not the details,’ Priest said. ‘I heard only that a body was found and they were going to call you out. Why? Is there a problem?’
Temple swallowed. ‘The dead man is Vincent Mayo, sir.’
There was a screaming silence on the line. Then Priest said, ‘Are you absolutely sure?’
‘No question, sir. That’s why I’m calling. I thought you should know.’
Another pause, longer this time. Temple heard Priest breathing into the phone.
‘How was he killed?’ he asked at length.
‘Two blows to the head,’ Temple said. ‘Pretty messy. We’ve not yet found a murder weapon, but it could have been a granite pestle that’s missing from its mortar bowl in the kitchen. That’s where the body was found and almost certainly where the murder took place.’
‘Any leads?’
‘Not really. The last phone call he made this evening was to his partner, Danny Cain. We’re at his house now but he’s not in.’
‘When did it happen?’
‘We think between eight and ten. The body was discovered by a neighbour.’
‘This is unbelievable.’
‘The same neighbour told us that your daughter stayed in the cottage last night,’ Temple said.
‘That’s right,’ Priest said. ‘She left this afternoon to come here. Arrived about four. We had dinner and watched some television.’
‘Is she still with you, sir?’
‘No, she went home about eleven. I wanted her to stay but she said she had things to do at home. She was planning to call Vince before she went to bed. I don’t know if she did.’
‘I need to talk to her, sir.’
‘Of course, but I’d like to be the one to break the news.’
‘I think that’s a good idea.’ Temple looked at his watch. ‘I have her address. I can be there is twenty minutes.’
‘Make it forty-five minutes,’ Priest said. ‘It’ll take me that long to get dressed and over to Jen’s flat.’
Temple said that was OK and hung up. He’d filled Angel in back at the cottage. He’d explained that Jennifer Priest had been going out with Vince Mayo for about a year and a half, a situation that her father was not happy about, but had become resigned to. She’d met Mayo before the scandal involving George Banks, and her father had found himself in a difficult position. But to his credit Priest had made an effort to get to know Mayo. More than once he’d told Temple that the journalist was a decent bloke, despite what had happened to Banks.
‘I reckon we’re going to have our work cut out for us,’ Angel said. ‘Priest will pile on the pressure. He’ll want a quick result on this one.’
‘And so would I in his position,’ Temple said.
His own daughter, Tanya, was twenty and at university. Her boyfriend was a laconic nerd named Ben Creelman. Temple knew that if Ben turned up dead like Vince Mayo then Tanya would simply fall apart.
‘You stay here and check the place out,’ he said. ‘Try to find out where the Cains are. I’ll go see Jennifer Priest. We’ll meet back at the nick later and get the team sorted.’
11
The streets around my home were near deserted. I was therefore totally conspicuous. I tried as much as possible to stay in the shadows, ducking into doorways and behind hedges when a car approached.
I part walked and part jogged towards the city centre. It was crazy. My best friend had been murdered and my family kidnapped. And yet I was the one running from the police.
As I moved through the streets I told myself that I had to hold on to the belief that Maggie and Laura would not be killed or otherwise harmed. I couldn’t allow myself to think the worst or to imagine them suffering any form of abuse. That would only drag me down and paralyse me with fear and dread.
Laura was a sensitive child, and shy. An ordeal as terrifying as this would almost certainly scar her mentally for life, even if it turned out not to be protracted. Maggie, on the other hand, had never been shy and sensitive. She could be headstrong and opinionated. And that bothered me. She might conceivably try to make things difficult for the kidnapper and in so doing make him even more dangerous.
A picture of Maggie ent
ered my head. It was of the day I first set eyes on her. She walked into the office with the advertising manager who was taking her on a tour of the building to introduce her to the staff. It wasn’t actually love at first sight, but it was close to it, I’m sure. She looked magnificent in a white summer blouse and black, hip-hugging trousers. When I shook her hand I made up my mind to find out everything I could about her. And later, when Vince told me that she’d had the same effect on him, I resolved to be the first to ask her out.
But I couldn’t hold on to that picture of Maggie because my resistance cracked and I was suddenly confronted by an image that showed her lying on a cold, concrete floor in the semi dark, her face wet with tears, her eyes filled with terror. The image caused a hard knot to twist inside my chest.
What was actually happening to her now? I wondered. Was she in pain? Bleeding? Crying? Unconscious? I had no way of knowing and it was tearing a hole inside me.
And what of Laura? What kind of state must she be in? Six years old, for Christ’s sake. Innocent. Vulnerable. Naive. And trapped inside a real nightmare. In my mind’s eye I saw her curled up on the floor paralysed by fear. It was awful.
But thankfully the shriek of a police siren wrenched my thoughts back to my own plight and the image faded. I ducked down behind a parked van as the patrol car screamed by, going in the direction of my house. Then I was on the move again, a stitch in my side slowing me down. I knew these streets, but they seemed strangely unfamiliar. Darker and more foreboding than I remembered. I felt like I was intruding. As a young reporter I had gained an extensive knowledge of the city and its people. I’d written about the social problems on the council estates, I’d profiled the recession-hit home-owners, I’d covered the planning issues, the business failures, the influx of immigrants. And yet now I felt like an outsider who wasn’t welcome. It was just a feeling, but it had seized every fibre of my being.
The nearer I got to the city centre the more people and cars there were. Saturday-night revellers heading home or waiting on pavements for taxis. I began to feel less conspicuous, but at the same time I felt more alone than at any time in my entire life. There was no one to go to for help, no one to share my desperate concern for my family, no one to tell me what to do. I had little choice but to follow the kidnapper’s instructions.
I came to the Bargate, a large archway that used to be the main entrance to the medieval walled city of Southampton. The high street opened up at this point and there were a few people hanging around, clearly drunk and in no hurry to go home.
I looked around for a temporary sanctuary, somewhere I could go to collect my fractured thoughts and catch my breath.
But at that moment my phone rang, shooting me with adrenaline.
I whipped it out and hurried towards the shadows of the Bargate.
In the gloom of the archway I peered at the screen and experienced a surge of disappointment when the words ‘anonymous caller’ flashed at me.
It wasn’t Maggie’s phone. So who the hell was calling me at this hour? The kidnapper had warned me not to answer unless the call was from my wife’s phone.
I stood with my back against the cold, ancient stones of the Bargate walls, staring at the pulsating letters.
It dawned on me then that it must be the police. Having found the house empty DCI Temple and his colleague were now trying to contact me. Obviously they wanted to talk to me about Vince. Did I know he was dead? When had I last seen him? Why was I not at home at this ungodly hour?
‘Shut that fucking thing off.’
The voice barked at me from the shadows on the other side of the archway. For the first time I noticed that there were two figures standing in a narrow alcove about ten feet from me. Their faces were just visible in the soft glow from lighted cigarettes, or maybe they were joints. They both had cropped hair and were wearing short jackets over jeans.
‘Did you hear what I said, you fucking moron?’ one of them shouted.
A cold sweat leapt all over my body. My phone was still ringing and I didn’t want to switch it off because I didn’t want the police to know that I had it.
I thrust it into my jeans pocket and mumbled an apology. This prompted one of the youths to say, ‘Why don’t you answer the bloody thing?’
I didn’t respond and that proved to be a mistake.
‘You trying to be funny?’ one of the youths said as they both stepped out of the shadows and started towards me.
The phone stopped ringing but now my heart was hammering so fast that I swear I could hear it slamming against my ribcage. I felt threatened suddenly. The youths were obviously drunk or off their heads on drugs. I was about to say something but thought better of it. Instead, I started to turn, intending to run away, but I wasn’t quick enough. Both youths came at me suddenly like tigers leaping on their prey.
The first blow caught me on the left side of my face. The fist hammered into my cheekbone, hurling me against the wall. Then I felt a hard boot make contact with my left shin bone and my leg buckled. I stumbled sideways as both my attackers started yelling abuse at me. The next blow was a heavy punch to the back of the head. I lost my balance and fell to the ground. This was followed by a sharp kick to my stomach.
I tried to get to my feet but the blows came thick and fast. I didn’t stand a chance. I resorted to curling up on the ground in the hope that the attackers would quickly tire or be scared off by a passer-by.
But they were in a frenzy and I didn’t have the strength or the cunning to escape. So I just lay there as the blows rained down. It seemed to last for ever, although it was probably less than a minute.
‘He’s had enough,’ one of them said at last. ‘Let’s fuck off.’
‘Grab his phone,’ the other responded. ‘And see if he’s got any cash.’
I felt them searching me, rough hands thrusting into my pockets, and I tried to resist. But my arms were heavy and painful and I couldn’t keep their claws at bay.
After a few seconds I sensed them step back from me. One of them stamped on my chest for good measure, forcing a searing gasp of air from my lungs.
I opened my mouth to plead with them not to take my phone, but the words that came out were barely intelligible. I rolled on to my front and watched helplessly as they bolted away from the Bargate down the high street.
I was suddenly oblivious to the pain that was exploding all over my body and the blood that was pounding in my head. All I could think about was my phone. It was my only link to the kidnapper and my family.
And it was gone.
12
Jennifer Priest lived in a small block of modern flats close to the city’s football stadium. Each flat had a balcony and a bay window overlooking the road out front. Some of the balconies had pot plants. Others had small bistro tables and chairs.
Before going inside Temple phoned Angel for an update. She told him they’d got Danny Cain’s mobile number and had called it, but there was no answer.
‘Keep trying,’ he said. ‘Has DC Patel got anything new to report from the cottage?’
‘I just spoke to him,’ Angel said. ‘There’s nothing yet, but he has it under control. I’ll call you as soon as I have something.’
‘So what have you turned up at the Cain house?’
‘I checked the garage,’ she said. ‘There’s a second car inside. A Mini. Probably the wife’s.’
‘That’s curious,’ Temple said. ‘The family vanish but without their own transport. What about neighbours?’
‘The uniforms are doing the rounds now, but so far there’s been no joy.’
‘All right, keep at it. We’ll talk later.’
Jennifer Priest’s flat was on the second floor. Her father, Superintendent Priest, answered the door to Temple and showed him into a compact living room that had off-white walls and was packed with trendy Ikea furniture, including a huge crimson rug and a round glass coffee table.
Priest looked pale and worried. His features were taut and his brow was deeply furro
wed. He was a heavy set man in his mid fifties with broad shoulders and a thick neck. He had receding grey hair and a prominent brow.
Priest was an old-school copper. Gruff, cynical, dedicated to the job. Temple was able to relate to him for that very reason. He considered that they were from the same mould, shared the same values and fought the same battles with bureaucracy.
Priest was essentially a private man and Temple was one of only a few officers who socialized with him outside work. Neither of them was into big, raucous CID get-togethers down the pub, preferring instead a quiet chat over a glass of Chablis in the nearest wine bar.
They both liked football and occasionally went along to the St Mary’s stadium to see the Saints play. And they were both interested in firearms. Priest had an impressive collection of replica guns, including a valuable Western revolver that he’d bought at auction for £3,000. Temple just liked firing the things down at the range. They gave him a buzz and had earned him the nickname Billy, as in Billy the Kid.
Over the past year, as Priest went through a bitter divorce, their get-togethers had become more frequent: two fifty-something men putting the world to rights and dreading the prospect of retirement. Priest was still recovering mentally and financially from a long-drawn-out and bitter divorce. Temple was still trying to come to terms with being a widower and having no kind of life outside work. They found a curious comfort in each other’s company.
Temple knew that Priest would be badly shaken by what had happened. He often talked about his daughter and clearly worshipped her. He would take Vince Mayo’s murder personally, that was for sure.
‘You want tea or coffee?’ Priest said.
Temple shook his head. ‘I’m fine, sir. Mind if I sit down?’
‘Go ahead. Jennifer will be out shortly. She’s in the bathroom. I’m afraid there have been a lot of tears.’
Temple sat on a black leather sofa while Priest, dressed in loose-fitting jumper and Wrangler jeans, stood in front of the fire, his face gaunt with concern, his cheeks flat. The air of authority that always commanded so much respect had disappeared.