Locked Up

by GB Williams

  19

  Stockholm Syndrome.

  The empathy of a hostage for a captor.

  To grow attached to a person one is forced into close confines with.

  The words cut at Charlie, as he lay in the darkness, staring unseeing at the ceiling. Numbly, in the wake of her hollow diagnosis, they had still lain down together, spooned again. Her weight, her warmth, was beside him, though her back was turned to him. His arm was around her waist, her hand lay on his forearm. She’d placed it there soon after they’d laid down. It had been a conscious act. Though the touch was light, he felt it demonstrated she needed him as much as he needed her. Or, maybe, that was just wishful thinking.

  Maybe, she was right. Maybe, this wasn’t real, but it damn well felt real to him.

  The scent of apples still, just, clung to her hair, and he moved, burying his face in the soft tendrils. This sweet torture was all he was ever going to get; he was going to make the most of it.

  ‘Charlie?’

  In his dreams, she called to him.

  ‘Charlie!’

  That snap wasn’t dreamt. He blinked and opened his eyes. The sun stood solidly to attention, as it cut through the gap between the boards and the glass. At some point, he must have fallen asleep. They were pretty much in the same position as when they’d laid down.

  ‘Morning,’ he murmured and squeezed her to him, morning glory aching his groin at the feel of her body against him.

  ‘Charlie …’ This time, her voice was soft, and he got the impression that she was luxuriating as much as he was until, ‘You’re lying on my hair.’

  He lifted his head, and she shifted, turning to him.

  ‘It’s still not real,’ she told him.

  ‘Is.’

  ‘Not.’ But, she was smiling, and he liked that.

  ‘Don’t care.’ He kissed her, anyway. He deepened the contact; she let him, kissing him back. He shifted, seeking to cover her body with his. She tensed, pulled away, took a sharp intake of breath.

  ‘My shoulder.’

  He must have pressed on it, hurt her. He eased off, but stayed close. ‘I want you.’

  ‘I can tell,’ she said. ‘But, it ain’t happening. It can’t.’

  ‘I assure you, it could.’ He was smiling, and so was she.

  ‘Charlie, it’s not that I don’t want to, but before the day is out, you and I are going to be cross-examined by the police about everything that’s happened, and I would like to be able to answer honestly that you and I have not had sexual congress.’

  ‘Sexual congress?’ He frowned at the cold phrase. ‘I’d have called it making love.’

  Her hand rose and stroked his face, making him feel the roughness of his beard growth. ‘Doesn’t matter what you call it. It’s not happening.’ She leaned up, kissed him once briefly, and smiled at him. ‘Now, get off me.’

  He obliged, but as he did so, he caught up the cuffs again and her left wrist.

  ‘Hey!’

  He handcuffed her to the bed.

  ‘What’s this for?’

  He felt like a heel for the betrayal he saw in her eyes. ‘Propriety’s sake.’ He walked away, he had to. Closing the door, shutting her away from him, he paced the room, dragging his fingers through his hair. Had he become her jailer? He was a fool. She was right. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. Stockholm Syndrome was the best he could hope for.

  He wanted to scream, to rail against the world, but he was where he because of the choices he had made, so railing was no more than a childish tantrum. The thing he wanted was right in front of him and he couldn’t have her. Couldn’t drag her down with him. Wouldn’t ruin her life. Not that he could; Teddington was intelligent, mature, stable. She wouldn’t let him drag her down. She was everything he’d ever wanted in a woman. She deserved better than anything he had to offer.

  ‘Damn it!’ He kicked out at the shabby chair, which skittered away and juddered against the wall.

  ‘What did the chair do to upset you?’

  Charlie turned, surprised to see Danny in the doorway. He wore soft denim and a navy zip-front hoodie. With his average height, mid-brown, medium-length hair, nothing distinctive about his face, he’d never get picked in a line up, and Charlie knew of at least six he’d stood in.

  ‘All sorted?’ Charlie demanded, as he swept up his tie, and slapped it around his neck. He grabbed his jacket, but it was no longer comfortable to put on.

  ‘Course.’ Danny was frowning at him, holding out a length of black cloth.

  Charlie snatched it and stormed into the bedroom. Teddington was sitting on the edge of the bed, but turned at his explosive entrance, her eyes wide. He felt more than he wanted to, so clenched his jaw and strode the two steps to her. He bound her eyes without a word, yanking the knot tighter than he’d intended. A sharp intake of breath told him he’d caught her hair. Again, he unlocked the cuff from the bed. He contemplated the cold metal and debated his three choices: cuff her hands together, cuff her to him, or leave her free.

  ‘Stand up.’ Was that cold command really his?

  She tipped her head to his voice, but he trusted Danny’s binding was thick enough to keep her from seeing anything. Carefully, she stood. She was too close. He moved her wrist behind her back, again, having to ignore the way her sharp breath pulled at him. He didn’t want to hurt her. She wasn’t a hostage, but he clamped the cuff around her other wrist all the same.

  ‘Is this really necessary?’

  He took a steadying breath. ‘Yes. You can’t see the man who’s helping me, and if you aren’t cuffed, you can’t explain why you didn’t just pull the blindfold off.’

  ‘Oh. Okay.’

  ‘You were the one who said you didn’t want to lie to the police.’

  ‘You know what, Charlie?’ she snapped. ‘I remember that. You don’t have to remind me what an arsehole you are.’

  When Charlie decided it was time to move, he took her upper arm to steer her. Thankfully, it was her left arm; the right was still smarting from being cuffed behind her back. He’d guided her through the flat, carefully telling her to watch out for door jambs or any other obstacle. His voice was harsh and distant. She shouldn’t have called him an arsehole, but she was glad she had. They had to be distant now. The concrete staircase was wide, but she took it carefully, afraid she might fall. His hand around her arm was hardly the stabiliser she needed. The hostile vibrations coming from him did nothing to reassure her jellied knees.

  Suddenly, they were in an open area. The air was fresher – no urine odour, sound didn’t echo off the walls. She walked beside the steel silence of the man with her. The ground fell away, she was falling, she cried out at the sudden stop of being yanked back.

  ‘Sorry,’ Charlie said. ‘There was a curb there.’

  ‘You—’ she bit down on the angry response.

  ‘Arsehole,’ he said. ‘Yeah, I know.’

  He talked her through getting into the back of what she presumed was some kind of people carrier, and she’d been all too aware of his constant presence, as he’d told her to lean forward, uncuffed one wrist, and settled her more comfortably, before he’d pulled a seatbelt across her. There was movement. A door closed, and Charlie was beside her. She heard the cuff ratchet closed, and presumed they were cuffed together again.

  Then engine started, and they moved off.

  She couldn’t see the driver; she didn’t want to. She sat in silence and waited, as they were driven to their destination. Getting out of the vehicle was harder than getting in. Only after the vehicle had left did Charlie remove the blindfold. He seemed oddly reluctant to remove the cuff.

  ‘Neither of us are about to make a break for it,’ she said. ‘Are we?’

  Charlie looked towards the open end of the alley, as if he was considering it. ‘No.’ Turning back, he uncuffed them, but wouldn’t look at her.

  Now, she was all too aware of him, as they stood close together, tucked out of sight in a blind alley beside an empty sho
p, just yards from the police station. Charlie had positioned them behind the big waste bins.

  ‘Got to say,’ she said softly, just to break the silence, ‘you’re introducing me to a whole new world of aromas.’

  This time, his smile was more genuine. They had to take their humour where they could find it.

  ‘Always like to broaden a girl’s horizons.’ The cheeky grin slipped from his lips. ‘This isn’t what I wanted.’

  Me neither. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘You.’

  She swallowed. ‘Right now, that’s not an option. Why is the conference being held on the station steps?’

  ‘To make this easier for us.’

  ‘But, what have the press been told?’

  ‘No idea. That part wasn’t my problem.’

  No, but that made her wonder whose problem it was. How had he managed this? He had to have a contact inside the station. Of course he had a contact inside the station – he’d worked there before his arrest. But, as with so much of this, she was better off not knowing.

  They had hours to wait, having had to get here long before any of the press did. She was cold and hungry, but the pain was bearable. At least he stayed close, sharing his warmth, keeping an eye on the entrance to this horrid place, making sure they weren’t caught out. She breathed through her mouth, trying not to use her nose. She rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, enjoying the warmth and smell of him, the nearness.

  ‘What happened to my jacket?’ she asked.

  ‘You cold?’

  ‘A bit, but I also want to know what happened to my jacket.’

  He shook out the jacket he carried and hung it around her shoulders. ‘I think I left it at Doc’s.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to want this?’

  He shook his head. ‘To be honest, it’s not overly comfortable any more. I’ve done too much upper body work.’

  Don’t think about his body! She untipped her head, in case he saw the flush on her face. She kept her eye line level with his chin.

  ‘You need a shave.’ She saw him smile.

  ‘Yep.’

  She moved to look up at him. ‘Did you really kill that man?’

  He stilled, froze. Then, carefully, he took a deep breath and lowered his head to look down at her. ‘Yep.’

  ‘Why?’

  He paused, watching her. ‘Isn’t it in my file?’

  She shrugged. ‘I haven’t actually looked. All I saw when processing you in was a statement of the crime for which you’ve been incarcerated, no details.’

  ‘Makes sense.’ He took a breath. ‘Phillip Mansel-Jones,’ he kept his voice low, he didn’t want to alert anyone to their presence, ‘was a scumbag of the worse degree. He had contacts everywhere, on every side.’

  ‘Law included?’

  ‘Possibly, but I didn’t see any evidence. We believe even the legit businesses were laundering more money than they realised. Off the record, we knew what he was up to – drugs, guns, prostitution, smuggling, laundering. Kidnapping and rape. And the victims were getting younger. But, somehow, there was never sufficient evidence. We did everything by the book, and the bastard just kept slipping through our fingers. One day, we—’

  He paused. Even four years later it made him so angry that talking about it was difficult. ‘I finally managed to get a warrant to search his home. Hell, we tore that place apart and nothing. It was so clean – too clean.’

  He clamped his mouth, and she watched the muscles in his jaw working. Everything about him was tense. ‘He stood there and laughed in my face. Said any further action would be taken as harassment, and he’d have my badge. So, I backed off. Way off. Until—’ He exhaled deeply. ‘Ari, what happened, what I did, I did because I believed it was for the best. Phillip Mansel-Jones is dead. He can’t hurt anyone else. Even with Rhys, his younger brother, taking over the empire, things are better out there.’

  ‘But, if the situation was just going to continue with the brother, was it worth facing a jail sentence for?’

  He nodded. ‘His brother is scum, but not as bad as Phillip. Phillip would—’ He averted his eyes. ‘He had to be stopped. I stopped him.’

  The tension he felt at the memory was obvious. His eyes, brows and lips were pressed tight. She rose on her toes, placed her lips on his. The tension eased. She felt his hand splay across her lower back. It would have been so easy to give into this attraction, but she broke the kiss. It wasn’t real. She couldn’t allow it to be real.

  She flattened her feet, rested her head by his neck, felt him rest his chin on her head.

  ‘Don’t change your shampoo.’

  She smiled. ‘Why?’

  ‘I like apples.’

  ‘Didn’t know that.’ She smiled.

  ‘Now you do.’ He was laughing in spite of himself. ‘See, we’re learning all about each other. That’s real.’

  She laughed but didn’t move away. ‘Yeah well, things might get all too real if you knew who my Uncle Billy is.’

  The moment of his tense stillness told her that he took that as a threat. Which was probably just as well. It didn’t matter much right that moment. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the feel of his arms around her.

  ‘Charlie?’

  ‘Uh-huh?’

  ‘Can I have your tie?’

  He pulled back, frowning down at her. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m getting cramp in my shoulder from holding my arm still.’

  He swore, as he stepped back and switched his tie from around his neck to hers, carefully tying it, and then, slipping his hand under his jacket to ease her right wrist through the loop. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I should have realised, should have thought.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ she told him. ‘What time is it?’

  He checked his watch. ‘Half-ten. The press have already started setting up.’

  ‘Not long now.’

  Not long now.

  He took a deep breath, held her close, and rested his chin on her hair. This wouldn’t last, so he closed his eyes, etched every image, committed each sensation to memory. Presently, he heard the clamouring, and then, the quiet. Taking her hand, he led her down the sunless alley. At the edge, he could see the back of the crowd. They were listening to the conference intro.

  ‘Here,’ Teddington whispered, twisting to let his jacket fall from her shoulder, revealing the makeshift sling, the tears in her blouse and the white of the dressing beneath, ‘you’d best have this back.’

  ‘Why?’ He took the item anyway.

  ‘People don’t believe what they don’t see, and in this case, they need to see that while I’ve been shot, I’ve also been taken care of, and that has to be down to you. Besides, I get the feeling I really won’t need it out there, anyway.’

  Teddington squeezed his hand. It was time to move, her grip eased, and they paced side by side toward the crowd. Then, he heard DCI Piper’s voice.

  ‘ … as kidnap.’

  ‘That is not what happened.’

  Too late now.

  Teddington’s voice was cool and clear. Charlie could already hear the cell door closing in on him. For a second, there was stunned silence, then the press turned to them, and the journalists were clamouring, angling microphones towards them, a dozen questions all arriving at once. The crowd gathered around them, closed in. Charlie wasn’t comfortable like this. This wasn’t crowd control; the journalists moved too close, Teddington yelped when one of them knocked her arm.

  ‘Move back!’ Charlie’s voice rang out, before his brain kicked in. Apparently, the instinct to protect over-rode his instinct to survive.

  The crowd moved back, parting for them as Teddington moved up towards the station steps where Piper stood with an unreadable look on his face. Charlie followed. What choice did he have? The journalists were still asking questions. Teddington moved to face Piper, and Charlie moved further up the steps, overly aware of DS Carlisle glaring, and the u
niformed officers moving in tightly around him.

  Charlie watched, nothing more than a spectator, as Teddington stole the show. She held Piper’s regard, then turned coolly to the crowd.

  ‘A statement will be released later today.’ But, as she turned to go into the station, a question rang out, asking how she felt about Sanchez’s condition.

  ‘Officer Sanchez was a good man, a competent, caring officer, and a dear friend,’ Teddington answered. ‘I already miss him, and I’m sure I will for years to come.’

  ‘He’s not dead.’

  Charlie knew Teddington knew that, but her reaction was so good, no one else would ever have believed this wasn’t the first she’d heard of it.

  ‘What?’ She leaned towards the man who’d spoken, swayed to the point Piper reached out to steady her. His grab brought her attention around to Piper, who looked much taller than her for the simple fact of being on the higher step. ‘Sanchez is alive?’

  Piper nodded.

  ‘Thank God.’

  It was a very good act, Teddington looking both devastated and relieved at the same time, and Piper equally well played the concerned officer, cutting off questions, and leading her into the station. The uniforms were a lot less gentle with him, hustling Charlie inside. Under the scowling gaze of DSI Broughton, he was forced toward the custody suite to stand behind another locked door.

  Charlie stepped into the holding cell, and heard the door shut and lock behind him. He noted it was a different sound to the one in Whitewalk. He noted how it was a different sound to that he remembered from being on the other side of the door. Once upon a time, the only reason he’d set foot in this cell was to bring a suspect in or out. Now, he was the suspect. Convict. To be locked up in the very station where once he had worked had a bitter sting. But, it wasn’t the first time.

  The look Broughton had given him was cold and hard. Just like the last time they’d been face to face – shortly after confessing to murder. He had respected the Superintendent just as he had respected Piper, though with Piper there had also been a sense of camaraderie, friendship. Some of that at least had survived his fall from grace.