by Deborah Lucy
He felt as if he was in overdrive, spurred on by adrenalin from the anger of his suspension. He was restless and with it, his mind burrowed away, trying to formulate a plan to deal with the impossibility of Gemma’s request for help.
Chapter 31
Temple quickly changed into jeans and a jumper. He went into the attic space where he had stored some boxes following the move. As he looked in amongst them, he dug out a heavy dark overcoat that had seen better days, some old army combat trousers and old blankets. Back in the kitchen, he spoke to Ana as he laced up an old pair of Doc Martens.
‘I’m going to be out the next twenty-four hours or so, do you think you can look after Ben without me coming back?’
‘Of course.’ She looked at Temple. She could see that he was trying to hide his anger and was at the same time strangely energised.
‘A letter came for you today.’ She passed him a white envelope. He finished lacing his boots and tore it open. It was the decree absolute. It was official and final; he and Leigh were divorced. He tossed the letter across to Ana, indicating for her to read. She read it and looked back at him without saying anything.
‘That’s that then,’ he said by way of a response. It was turning out to be some day.
‘If anyone calls by for you, what shall I tell them?’ she asked softly.
‘If anyone from the police calls by, tell them I’m out and you don’t know when I’ll be back. Only call me in an emergency.’
‘Where will you stay?’
‘In the car. I’ve got some blankets from the loft.’
He left and went to his car, putting the combats and blankets in the boot. He had to think through what he was going to do. Firstly, he had to go back to Gemma.
* * *
Temple found her at her flat. Her face looked harder today; she was edgier. She let him in and going into the living room, he could see a bottle of vodka and a glass on a coffee table.
‘What do you think you’re doing, Gem? You’ll be no help pissed out of your head on that.’ He was annoyed with her; he needed her to be able to function without drugs or alcohol. She picked up the glass and drained it.
‘It’ll take more than this. This is medicine. This is how I cope.’
‘I need you to help me, tell me where Sloper goes, where he lives. I need to find him and quick. Is he due back here?’
‘No, he won’t come here until the weekend. You’ll find him on the streets around Manchester Road, looking after his assets, as he puts it.’ She walked away from him, showing no apparent signs of being the worse for drinking. Ignoring his instruction, she went to refill her glass.
‘Assets? What – other girls?’
‘Yes. His girls, two of them. If you can’t find him, just go and bother them and they’ll ring him. Go and find Claire and Justine.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this the other night? I asked you to tell me everything.’
She rounded on him. ‘I had other things on my mind more important than his tarts.’
‘OK, OK.’ He knew that getting her back up was not going to help. ‘Where does he live?’
She calmed again. ‘I haven’t been inside. But I know where it is. He lives at Old Town, Marlborough Road. Don’t know the number.’
‘Right, you’ll have to come out and help me. I need to find him. If you say he took the money, we’ve got to hope that he still has it. Get your shoes on, you’re going to show me his girls and his house.’
She put her glass down and went into the bedroom as he looked around the flat. It was small, but bright and clean. The half empty vodka bottle and empty glass stood on a coffee table and there was an iPad on one of the two white sofas where Gemma had been sitting. There was a fringed Afghan rug on the floor, which gave the only colour to the room.
He went over to a bookcase and, leaning his head to one side, he read the spines of the books. Amongst some paperbacks, there were some second-hand medicine books. They should have been out of place but seeing them, he was reminded that she had been at university studying medicine when they first met. It felt like so long ago that it was almost like recalling someone else’s life.
He’d never forgotten the first time he saw her. They had met at a pub during a retirement party for a police colleague. Temple hadn’t known him well – he was eleven months into his probation – but the whole station had been invited. Harker attended with his wife, and Gemma, back on a Friday night for a weekend from uni, had tagged along for a late-night drink.
He remembered how he had been immediately attracted to her; her pretty, pale face framed by her soft, flame-coloured hair and her slim legs in her frayed jeans. He remembered that she wore a low-cut tunic that clearly showed she was braless. He remembered his eyes following the point of the V neckline down to a toned abdomen and being instantly mesmerised. She’d made such an impression on him, he’d never forgotten his first sight of her.
He’d also discovered that night that she intended to be a doctor; she was a smart girl, loaded with her own hopes and expectations, as well as those of her parents. Then she’d met him and now she wasn’t even a shadow of the intelligent girl he once knew. And that was it; he didn’t know her anymore. The Gemma he had fallen in love with was long gone. Perhaps the books were there as a reminder to her of what might have been.
He looked up and saw her standing in the doorway of the bedroom.
‘Come in here.’ She beckoned him over to her.
‘We have to get going, Gem.’ Reminiscing about her made his voice softer.
‘Just come in here for a minute.’ She beckoned him to the room with her head.
He did as asked and when they were in the bedroom, she showed him Prayer’s mobile phone. Temple took it.
‘It’s locked, I’ve tried it,’ said Gemma. She then nodded towards a small pink case on wheels. She put it on the bed and unzipped it.
‘Look. These are her things. Prayer’s things.’ They stood beside each other and gently turned over the clothes that were in the case. There were the usual things girls have, leggings and tops. Temple couldn’t help but compare them with those of China Lewis. No Primark here; there were jumpers from Ralph Lauren, Burberry, Tommy Hilfiger. Gemma took a jumper and held it up, burying her face into it, inhaling deeply.
‘She’s ours,’ Gemma whispered as her gaze went beyond, her mind fixed on some place in the past as if she was in a trance.
‘She’s not, Gem,’ Temple said gently, watching her. ‘All we did was make her. She belongs to the two people who brought her up. Her parents. We’ve had nothing to do with that. They made the girl you described to me. They’ve done all the hard work. I only wish she’d stayed where she was. We have to find her for them too. We have to get her home to them.’ His comment broke her gaze and as Gemma stood still clutching the jumper, Temple continued to look through the case.
‘She’d started asking about who her father was. I hadn’t got round to telling her about us.’
‘How much does she know?’
‘Not much. I haven’t told her your name yet.’ She looked at him. ‘You’ve got a daughter, haven’t you?’ she said quietly. He replied without looking up.
‘Yes.’
‘Her name’s Daisy, isn’t it?’
He looked back at her. ‘Yes, how do you know?’
‘I’ve seen her on Facebook; I do a bit of looking around on there. Found your wife. She’s pregnant, isn’t she? I see what she says and posts, the pictures and that. Your little girl’s pretty.’
He’d told Leigh numerous times not to put things on Facebook and to set her page at maximum privacy. He told her that anyone can look at what she put on there if she wasn’t careful, and find out things about them that they could use or trace them with. And here was Gemma proving the point. She’d been looking at their life, or rather Leigh’s life; a life Leigh was doing her best to make sure he wasn’t part of anymore. He wondered if Gemma knew that. She hadn’t said. He couldn’t believe Leigh wouldn’t have sho
uted her divorce across Facebook. He changed the subject.
‘Is there a brush, something with Prayer’s hair on?’
‘Over there, why?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ He walked across the room to get it from a table near the bed. Gemma then realised why he’d asked for it. Her face cracked and she was suddenly in floods of tears. He went over to her and her body crumpled into his as he held her to him. The last time they’d been this close was a lifetime ago and he’d never envisaged their separate lives coming together again. So much had happened to them.
But as he held her and felt the sobs wracking her body, any thoughts he had of Gemma setting him up disappeared. Her face told him everything he needed to know and as he felt her body next to his again for the first time in years, he knew every emotion she displayed now was genuine.
This is how she’d been when he’d told her it was over between them all those years ago. This was the Gemma he recognised, the Gemma of old, before the drugs, the booze and the men. After a minute or so he shook her gently.
‘I need you strong now, Gem, come on. Get yourself together. We’ll get her back. You and me.’ She looked at him through her tears and believed him. Temple had no idea how he was going to get Prayer back, but right then, he knew he had to make Gemma confident in his ability to do so. The least he could do was give her hope that she would see Prayer again.
* * *
He drove them both to Marlborough Road. The tears wiped away, Gemma had put her hard face back on. She was different, some other person he couldn’t emotionally connect with. The old Gemma he knew was gone again. Whatever it was that had unlocked as he’d held her, that softness had now disappeared.
She directed him to Sloper’s property, which was a 1930s white semi with a garage to one side. He quickly sized it up, looking at the neighbouring houses. Temple then drove to the Manchester Road area and before dropping Gemma off, she pointed out one of the girls Sloper ran. Before he went, he checked his phone. He remembered when he last worked with Sloper that he was using at least two phones and he only had a number for one, his work phone.
‘Give me all the mobile numbers you have for him. Get the girls to ring him and say you need to see him, make sure he comes down here. Make up some shit so that you keep him with you for at least half an hour. Text me as soon as he turns up. Do it now.’
She did as instructed and Temple drove off back to Marlborough Road alone and parked down the street a little way from Sloper’s house. He put another mobile number for Sloper that Gemma had given him into his phone. He had no choice but to sit and wait for Gemma to get in touch. Within the hour, she texted to say that Sloper was on his way to them. He waited until she confirmed that Sloper had arrived before he got out of the car and walked up the street to Sloper’s house.
Looking up, he saw an alarm on the outside. To the side of the house was an attached garage. Before going further, he flicked the video recorder on his mobile and used it to film the front of the house and his movements. Going round to the side of the garage, he quickly pushed through a tall gate to the back of the house. Temple tried the handle of a door to the back of the garage, which was locked. He continued down the side of the house to the kitchen door. It was double-glazed. He went back to the garage door, which was half-glazed with small panes of glass. He’d soon find out if the alarm covered the garage. Covering his hand with his coat, Temple broke the window, reached through and turned the key, letting himself inside. All was quiet.
Luck was with him and the connecting door from the garage to the hallway was not locked. He knew the alarm would sound as soon as he opened the door. If it went off, he knew that he would just have to ignore it. It remained to be seen what the neighbours did. Slowly, he opened the door and stepped inside. He looked into the hallway; he could see a motion sensor in the corner of the ceiling furthest from him. As soon as he moved forward he knew the alarm would sound. He walked down the hallway. There was nothing. Sloper hadn’t set the alarm.
He made his way through the house, talking into the camera on his phone as he did so, giving a running commentary as he looked in each of the rooms, into the kitchen, inside the fridge, the oven, through drawers, an understairs cupboard – anywhere he thought Sloper would hide money. He went upstairs into the bathroom and rattled the bath panel. It was solid and fixed with no signs of it being disturbed. He lifted the lid on the toilet cistern. There was nothing there. He was trying to second guess where someone like Sloper might hide his money. If he was dealing in drugs as Gemma said, he knew he would have a stash somewhere.
He moved on to his bedroom. Again, he searched through drawers, under the bed, until at last he found what he was looking for. Hidden behind a chest of drawers, a safe had been built into the outside wall. Temple moved the chest away from the wall to get a full look at it. It had a numbered digital keypad.
‘The bastard.’ Temple couldn’t help but curse him. He’d almost expected the money to be hidden in a drawer somewhere, behind a cistern, under a bath, like a chaotic drug dealer. But he conceded now that Sloper was smarter than that. From what Gemma had told him, Sloper had been at it for some time and therefore was good at what he did. What was to stop anyone doing what he was doing now, breaking in and rifling through his house? Sloper would have thought of that.
He was hoping against hope to find the money he’d stolen from Gemma’s flat still here. Sloper was bound to run a more sophisticated operation after all this time. But he needed to find the money to barter with Gary Lewis for the girls. It was Temple’s only hope of getting his hands on that sort of cash.
He knelt down in front of the safe. It was a four-digit code. Temple hoped that Sloper would be like most cops and used the only four-digit number they were unlikely to forget: their collar number. Temple knew Sloper’s collar number was 326. He tapped 0326 into the keypad. Nothing happened. He then tapped the number in reverse. It opened.
Inside he could see a number of see-through plastic bags, some containing money and some drugs. Temple stood back, and with his phone recorded the room, the safe with the door closed and the safe with the door open and the contents visible. He pulled all the bags out of the small space, along with a silver-coloured watch, a modern-looking Rolex.
He then examined the bags, laying them out on the floor, videoing everything in proximity to the safe. Looking through the bags, the drugs looked like tabs of heroin. He left these sealed and put them back in the safe. The five bags containing money he opened. The notes were arranged in bundles of a hundred £10, £20 and £50 notes and there was a grand or two in each bag.
He opened all the bags and arranged the money on the floor before taking photos. He counted £7,000 and had the video rolling as he put the Rolex back in the safe and closed the door. Speaking to the camera, he took the money and put it in the pockets of his mac. He hoped it would be enough to buy the return of the girls.
Going downstairs and making his way back outside, he took a photo of the front of the house. Once in his car, he found the photo and attaching it to a text message, he sent it to Sloper.
Chapter 32
Temple had changed out of his jeans into his army combats and the grubby woollen overcoat. It would be dark in an hour and he wanted to make sure he blended into the down-and-out world of the dossers and drug-takers of Swindon, although there wouldn’t be many of them with over £7,000 in their pockets. He decided to keep the money on him, ready in case he could trade it for the return of the girls. He desperately wanted a call from Gary Lewis. He had money, now he just wanted to be told where to go.
Parked up in Old Town, Temple rang Paul Wallace. He arranged to meet him outside St Mark’s Church. Wallace had told him that he had gone in there when he arrived and it seemed as good a place as any to ask for his help. As he suspected, Wallace had been in the town centre doing his usual circuit looking for Megon.
Paul Wallace approached him, slightly out of breath but pleased to see him. He’d raced across town following Temp
le’s call. It was late afternoon and the sun was fading, bringing a chill wind into force. Wallace noted Temple’s shabby-looking appearance, quite different to when they’d met before. Wallace sat beside Temple on a bench in the grounds of the church.
‘I didn’t know you were a religious man,’ panted Wallace as he got his breath back from his march across town.
‘I’m not. There’s been some developments and I’m going to need your help.’
‘Anything you want, of course I’ll help,’ Wallace said eagerly. ‘Have you heard anything about Megon?’
‘I have. I don’t know where she is at the moment, but I’m hoping to get word from a contact later today. She was, maybe still is, in Swindon. She was with another girl. The same girl I told you I’ve been looking for—’
‘What? Where are they? Are they in trouble?’ Wallace interrupted, unable to contain himself, his eyes wide.
‘Look, I’ve told you, I don’t know for sure and I don’t want to get your hopes up. Can you be in Swindon later tonight?’
‘I’m due back on the last train, which leaves at ten tonight. But if Megon’s here and you’ve got a lead I’ll stay out all night – as long as it takes.’
‘I’ll be around the town. Listen out for your phone – I’ll need you to act quickly.’
‘I’ll stay with you. This is fantastic news!’ He leapt up and stood in front of Temple. It was the best news he’d heard in weeks and he was excited – Megon was here, she was in Swindon, he was going to find her. He might be able to take her home with him tonight. His mind was racing ahead, thinking of reuniting her with Leonie and her sisters. They would all be together again. And soon.
Temple saw the change in him; he’d come alive. But he needed Paul Wallace to remain calm. What he had in mind was risky but it was all he could think of that might give them a chance to rescue the girls. He had to have Paul Wallace’s help; he knew he couldn’t do it alone.