by James Raven
‘You’ve just had a car accident victim in named Jennifer Priest,’ he said. ‘Where is she?’
The nurse pointed. ‘You’ll need to check in at the desk, sir. The receptionist will be able to help you.’
‘There’s a queue. I haven’t got the time. Just tell me where to go.’
The nurse started to speak but at that moment Temple noticed two uniformed police officers walking along the corridor towards them. He took Priest by the elbow and steered him away from the nurse.
‘The uniforms are here, sir. They’ll know.’
As Temple suspected, the uniforms were the ones who had attended the accident and called it in when they realized that the super’s daughter was among the injured. They’d been expecting Priest to show and were ready to tell him all they knew.
‘Your daughter is in a treatment room,’ the taller of the pair said. Temple recognized him as Constable Todd Fleming. ‘She has a number of injuries and remains unconscious. But her condition is not critical.’
‘I want to see her,’ Priest said.
‘Then come this way, sir.’
Temple followed the group back along the corridor. A nurse greeted them, asked them to wait outside the treatment room whilst she talked to a doctor. Soon after the nurse appeared again and invited Priest into the treatment room. The rest of them waited outside. Temple dug out some loose change and got three coffees from a vending machine, handing them to the uniforms.
‘OK,’ he said, when they were seated in the waiting area. ‘What happened?’
The details were still sketchy, but it seemed that Jennifer Priest was lucky not to have been killed. The accident had happened at a road junction only yards from her block of flats. She had apparently driven into the junction at some speed without stopping. A car coming from the left had slammed into the passenger side of her VW, crushing the door and sending both vehicles into a spin. They ended up careering across the road and into the wall of a house.
A middle-aged couple in the other vehicle had both escaped with minor injuries. Jennifer was still strapped to her seat when the officers arrived on the scene and they helped paramedics to extract her and put her in the ambulance.
‘Any witnesses?’ Temple asked.
‘Only one, sir,’ Constable Fleming said. ‘It happened to be one of Miss Priest’s neighbours in the flats. He said Miss Priest ran past him as he was going into the block. He said hello to her but she ignored him and dashed to her car. He watched her get behind the wheel and screech away from the kerb. He kept watching because, in his words, she drove like a maniac. So he actually saw her cross the junction and get hit by the other vehicle. He was the one who called the emergency service.’
Temple jotted down the neighbour’s name and address.
He wondered where Jessica had been going and why she was in so much of a hurry to get there. He was still thinking about it when Priest came out of the treatment room.
‘How is she?’ Temple asked.
‘She’s still not awake,’ he said. ‘She has two broken ribs and her left leg is fractured. She’s also concussed and they’re concerned about some internal bleeding.’
‘Shit.’
Priest choked back tears. ‘But at least she’s breathing normally. They say she’s serious but not in danger.’
Constable Fleming handed Priest a fresh coffee from the machine. As he sipped it he started shaking his head.
‘I can’t believe it’s happened,’ he said. ‘She could have died.’ Priest’s eyes were sagging, his voice raw and ragged.
Temple suggested to him that he should sit down.
‘I’m going to stay with her,’ he said. ‘Will you get someone to bring my car over?’
‘No problem,’ Temple said. ‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’
‘No. I’ll be fine. I’ll just be glad when she’s awake.’
‘I’m sure it won’t be long, sir.’
Temple then told Priest what the officer said about the accident.
Priest frowned, his face radiating a dozen questions. ‘I don’t get it? What made her leave the flat? I spoke to her earlier and she didn’t mention that she might be going out.’
Temple shrugged. ‘Maybe she just got upset and needed to go for a drive.’
‘The poor girl has had a nightmare time of it,’ Priest said. ‘First, Vince. Then the affair with Cain’s wife. And now this. Jesus, it’s not fair.’
Priest was on the verge of tears. Temple didn’t know what to say. It was one thing dealing with members of the public in this situation, but quite something else when dealing with your boss.
‘I’d better go,’ he said. ‘Are you sure you’re going to be all right here, sir?’
Priest nodded. ‘Of course I will. Call me if you need to.’
38
Jennifer’s car was being lifted on to a recovery truck when Temple got to the junction where the accident happened. The other car involved had already been taken away.
Temple had a few words with the officers at the scene but learned nothing that he didn’t already know. Then he walked to Jennifer’s block and looked up the neighbour who saw the accident, a Mr Raymond Noye.
Temple rang his security buzzer. A voice responded almost immediately and he explained who he was. A minute later he stepped into a top floor flat where Noye lived with his girlfriend. They were still up drinking coffee and talking about the accident. Noye looked pretty shaken. They were both student types in their twenties and Noye was happy to describe what he saw after pouring Temple a coffee.
‘She was sobbing as she came bounding out the block,’ he said. ‘I tried to speak to her but she ignored me completely. She was in a real hurry and she looked scared.’
‘Scared?’
‘That’s right. As in terrified. It was like she was desperate to get somewhere and her life depended on it.’
‘Did you see anyone else?’
‘No, there was nobody else around, although I have to say I can’t be absolutely sure because I didn’t come straight into the block. When I saw the crash I ran over there.’
Temple thanked him, finished his coffee and left. Out of curiosity he went downstairs to Jennifer’s flat, not really expecting to find anything untoward, but checking it out nonetheless. What he found surprised him. Her front door was ajar. He paused outside, wondering if she had left in such a hurry that she had simply neglected to close it. Or was there someone inside?
He should have played safe and called for back-up from the officers waiting in the car. But instead he ventured into the flat.
The lights were on.
‘It’s the police,’ he called out. ‘We’re coming in.’
He stood in the hall, tense and alert. No sounds reached him so he started to explore the flat and soon discovered it was empty. Everything appeared to be in place. There was no mess. Nothing broken. No sign of a struggle.
The landline phone was on a side table in the living room. He picked it up and dialled 1471. He wondered whether maybe she had received a call that spooked her and sent her running, scared, from the flat. But the last call had been from a mobile that Temple recognized as belonging to her father. And that had come in much earlier in the day.
Temple replaced the phone and left the flat, making sure to close the door behind him. He got the patrol car to take him back to the station. On the way he called Priest on his mobile. ‘How’s Jennifer?’ he asked.
Priest sounded solemn. ‘She’s still unconscious, but the doctors tell me they’re quietly confident that she’ll make a full recovery.’
‘That’s good.’
Temple told him that he had dropped in on Jennifer’s flat.
‘She must have left the door open,’ he said. ‘I looked around but everything seems to be in order. I also checked her landline – she hasn’t received any calls this evening. Might be worth taking a look at her mobile if she has it with her.’
‘So what the hell happened to make her rush out of the fl
at and get behind the wheel of her car when clearly she was in a state?’
‘I spoke to the neighbour who saw her,’ Temple said. ‘He described her as being in a hurry and looking scared when she bolted past him.’
‘What was she scared of?’
‘He didn’t know. He didn’t see anyone chasing her, either.’
‘Then I don’t get it.’
‘Like I said before, maybe it all got too much for her, sir. She needed to get away from the flat to unwind.’
Priest issued a heavy sigh. ‘Shit, Jeff. All my life I’ve dealt with victims and their families. But now I know what it feels like to be one of those people. And I can tell you it’s pretty scary. I feel as if I’ve lost control of everything. That being a policeman counts for nothing. I can’t protect my daughter even though I thought I could.’
Temple said nothing. He didn’t feel the need to. After a moment he told Priest that he’d call back in the morning. The patrol car took him back to the station.
He didn’t go up to the office. Instead, he picked up his own car and drove straight home.
39
I could tell it was morning because of the light that slipped in through the vents in the eaves. But it wasn’t enough to bring fresh life to the grim loft space. It had been a dreadful night. I’d slept for brief periods but for the most part had lain awake, cuddled up to Maggie or Laura, listening for the sound of our nemesis downstairs in the house.
My body ached and there was a constant throbbing behind my brow. I was now sitting up, back against the wall, knees up to my face. Maggie and Laura were curled up together next to me under the blankets. I wasn’t sure whether they were sleeping or just lying there, dreading what the new day would bring.
I’d woken, sweating, from a dream about half an hour ago. In the dream I was back at the Mail before they’d sacked me. The high-flying reporter. On top of the journalistic tree. The big stories. The big salary. Front page bylines. It was what I had always wanted and for a spell I had it. And it was great.
But now, given our circumstances, I realized how unimportant it all was. And how fragile. Like every aspect of our lives. Who can ever know what will happen from one day to the next?
My breath caught in my throat as I looked around our prison: at the slanting roof with its layers of black insulation material; the thick timber joists; the cobwebs and dust and bare brick walls.
Were we going to die here? Would he leave us to rot? There was no food left and only a few drops of water in the plastic bottle. If the kidnapper did not come back how long would we survive? A week? Maybe two?
Pictures skipped in my head, a series of vivid stills of our three bodies decaying. Turning into skeletons as this house eased from one season to the next without anyone ever coming into the loft. I found myself hoping that he wouldn’t leave us to die in that way; that he would make it quick, perhaps with shots to the head. Execution style.
Laura rolled on her back, peered at me above the blanket. I forced a weak smile, felt tears leak from the corners of my eyes.
‘Have you thought of a way to save us, Daddy?’
I felt my skin tighten, my mouth go dry.
‘Not yet, sweetheart, but I soon will. So don’t you worry about it.’
And I was determined to stick to my word, despite the fact that being a journalist hardly qualified me as someone with the brains and brawn to get out of a life-threatening situation. The closest I’d ever come to such a thing was to write about people who’ve done it.
A couple of stories I’d covered in the past came to mind. The young soldier who survived weeks of torture at the hands of Islamic terrorists and then somehow escaped and made it back to his family. And the guy who trod water in shark-infested seas off Florida after his boat sank. I interviewed him by phone after he was rescued and he said he told himself that if he just kept moving his legs he might get lucky and live through his ordeal.
Well, now I had to force myself to be inspired by what they had done. I had to use their stories and others like them to pull myself out of the quagmire of defeatism. After all, you don’t have to be a cop or a secret agent or a fictional hero to pull yourself back from the brink. You just have to look into your daughter’s eyes and know that you’ll do whatever it takes to keep her alive.
40
Temple was back in the briefing room just before ten on Monday morning, having managed just four hours’ sleep. He’d been churning over scenarios and possibilities, trying desperately to pull all the strands together and make sense of them.
The night crew gave him an update which amounted to very little. There was still no sign of Cain, although the papers were full of the hunt for him and his family. Detectives were still busy contacting friends, relatives and associates of both Cain and Mayo. But there were no new leads.
Then there was Joe Dessler. Nobody knew where he was, or if they did they weren’t saying. And to top it off Bill Nadelson still hadn’t turned up. Where the hell had that lying bastard snuck off to?
Temple stood in the briefing room staring up at the evidence boards. The anger and frustration tried to shake itself out of him. But it wasn’t enough. He wanted to yell at someone, anyone, just to release the pent-up emotions.
Instead he decided to have another chat with the three prostitutes. He asked for Colleen Wild to be brought up first and taken to an interview room. He also asked for Jordan to be taken to another room when his lawyer showed. It was time to charge him formally and see if the rat was holding anything back. Then Temple called Priest.
‘Good morning, sir,’ he said. ‘What’s the news on Jennifer?’
‘She’s conscious at last,’ Priest said, ‘but I haven’t spoken to her yet.’
‘Is she stable?’
‘Yes, thank God. The doctors have stopped the internal bleeding. Thankfully it was not as serious as they first thought.’
‘Well I’m glad to hear that her condition is improving. Hopefully you’ll be able to talk to her soon and find out what happened last night.’
‘What about your end, Jeff? Any progress?’
‘Not so far, sir. I’m just about to have another go at Colleen Wild. This house in the country she mentioned is our only lead to Dessler and it’s not much.’
‘Well, keep me posted.’
Temple then went to the interview room. A WPC greeted him, then stood with her back to the door.
Colleen was already at the table with a duty solicitor. She was angry and restless. The morning light streaming through the window was not kind to her, revealing as it did the lines in her face and the hollow expression in her eyes.
‘I hope you slept well,’ Temple said as he sat down facing her.
Colleen scowled. ‘Very funny. I’ve had enough of this. You are well out of order, so charge me or let me go.’
Temple put his coffee on the table. ‘We need to have another conversation first, Colleen. I’m sure a night in the cell has refreshed your memory about this house you mentioned. The one where the parties were held.’
‘I still don’t remember where it is,’ she said. ‘Like I told you it was dark every time I went there and I wasn’t paying attention.’
‘But you were driving so you must have some idea.’
‘Who said I was driving? Most times I was driven there by one of Joe’s guys.’
‘The problem is I don’t believe you,’ Temple said. ‘I find it hard to imagine that you didn’t know where you were going.’
‘Well, it’s a problem for you, then. Not for me. Besides, I don’t know why you’re so obsessed with that place. He’s probably not there anyway. He could be anywhere, even abroad by now.’
‘Then how about telling me where else he might be. We know he left his apartment block carrying a suitcase.’
She threw her head back and sighed. ‘Bollocks to this. Look, I know my rights and I don’t have to stand for any more of your shit. Charge me with possession if you want. It’s no big deal. Otherwise let me go.’
/>
He continued to press her. How long had she been working for Dessler? How many brothels did he operate? Was he a violent man? Could she remember any of the punters who attended the parties?
But her answers were vague and unsatisfactory. She’d worked for Dessler for about a year, she said. Yes, he could be violent, and she had seen him attack and bully the girls on several occasions. She wasn’t sure how many brothels he ran but she was pretty sure the premises would not be in his name. And no, she couldn’t remember the names of any of the punters who went to the house parties.
‘Look, I honestly don’t know much about anything,’ she said. ‘That’s the way Joe operates. He doesn’t tell us much. When I went to the parties I was usually off my head. Everything was a blur. I was either filled up with booze or dosed up with coke. All I can remember is that the house was in the country and pretty remote.’
After half an hour Temple sat back, disappointed. He’d already decided he wasn’t going to charge any of the three women. They were small fry and the drugs in their possession didn’t really amount to much. Why create more work for themselves when there was so much else going on?
He downed the rest of his coffee, said, ‘OK Colleen, you’re free to go. But I’ll be talking to your friends next.’
‘Well, don’t build your hopes up,’ she said. ‘They’re not the brightest matches in the box.’
Temple got up and opened the door. As Colleen breezed through it he said, ‘It goes without saying that if you do find out where Dessler is I want you to call me straight away. That’s if you don’t want to land yourself in serious trouble.’
She snorted as she walked out of the room. At that moment a uniformed officer was leading a handcuffed DS Jordan along the corridor.
Colleen stopped and looked at him. He returned her stare, a slight frown creasing his features.