Liam’s car was no longer in the drive. Instead, there was a four wheel drive parked at the front of the house. The man shoved Sophie into the back, pushing her across the seats, ignoring her pleas to watch out for Charlie. Then he slammed the door. The girl who’d come into the upstairs room was sitting in the front seat, her eyes forward, still as a statue. The driver was the other man from the house; he had a large gun in one hand, with what must have been a silencer attached to the barrel. Charlie started crying again, and the man in the front spat at Sophie: ‘Can you shut that fucking baby up!’ She tried to comfort him, but he was scared by the shouting.
The smaller man dumped the duffle bag in the boot, slamming it hard, and went back into the house. After a few minutes, he ran out, and jumped into the back seat, yelling ‘Drive’ to his boss in the front. Red and orange flames, growing brighter by the second, were suddenly visible through the tall glass windows, and smoke was starting to billow up to the high raked ceiling. He had torched the place. He looked exhilarated as his boss sped away.
Charlie kept fussing. Sophie bounced him up and down on her lap, in an attempt to show she was trying to stop him crying. As she bounced, she felt something hard hitting her thigh. It felt like a lump of plastic in Charlie’s pants. She slid her hand down his back, finding something tucked in there, sitting on his soiled nappy. She suddenly realised it was the familiar shape of a mobile phone. Liam must have put it in Charlie’s pants in the brief moment he held him upstairs. She felt an unexpected rush of relief. It was now her chance to be brave.
Still careful to bounce Charlie softly on her lap, she moved the phone sideways so she could reach it with her right hand, concealed between Charlie and the car door. She had used enough phones in her time to know how to unlock the keypad without looking at it. She pressed the star on the bottom left and the menu bar in the middle. She was relieved to find the phone was on silent; the keys didn’t make a sound. The screen lit up, but the light from it was barely discernible, hidden by Charlie’s small frame. She knew if you pressed left on the toggle button, a blank message appeared. She had also sent enough text messages to be able to turn off the predictive function, and find the right letters by feeling her way across the key pad. She hardly moved her arm, but let her fingers carefully crawl across the pad, typing ‘Bradley marina’. She glanced at the man on the seat next to her, and could see he was looking out his window, no doubt watching the glow from the burning house disappear in the distance. His boss had his eyes on the road, and the girl in the front seat hadn’t moved or said a word since they left.
She hugged Charlie close enough that she could pull open the side of his pants and glance down at the screen. Then she pressed ‘send’ and scrolled silently through the short list of A’s, pressing hard on ‘Andy’ so that the text disappeared off the screen, replaced by a small floating envelope. She said a silent prayer that Liam had saved her uncle’s number in his phone, and it wasn’t some random Andy who would have no idea what the message meant. When she had called Ellen from Liam’s phone, he had explained that she would answer her uncle’s phone. Was this still the case? She had to hope so. She moved Charlie slowly one more time, pressing the phone back down into his pants. Then she held him on her lap, and prayed that Ellen would get the message.
Chapter 35
As Andy sped down the highway, I glanced nervously between the road ahead, and the lit up screen of the Sat Nav attached to his dashboard. We’d been driving for about half an hour, but the time had ticked by so slowly, I felt like we’d been driving for days. Every second that passed, my mind tortured me with thoughts about what could be happening to Sophie. And my rage at what Liam had done was making it difficult for me to think clearly about anything.
I watched the squiggly little line on the map showing us how much further we had to go. The suburb and street names meant nothing to me, but we weren’t getting there fast enough. Andy had a determined expression on his face, and seemed to know where he was going without the Sat Nav directions. I could hear his breathing; it was heavy, as if he was under a lot of strain. I watched as the little dot that represented Andy’s car flicked through a suburb called ‘Roselands’. ‘Wollongong’ had meant nothing to me until the last few days but it was now the centre of my universe.
A vibration suddenly caught my attention, and then the sound of Andy’s phone receiving a text message made me jump. I quickly opened the message. Andy took his eyes off the road long enough to glance at the phone, anxious to know what the message said. The only text that appeared on the screen was ‘Bradley marina’. I stared at it for a few seconds, waiting for some meaning to materialise.
As I stared, Andy asked, ‘Who is it from?’
I looked at the message details, but the number wasn’t saved in Andy’s phone. Nevertheless it looked familiar...I glanced at the number on my hand...that was it...it was Liam’s phone!
‘Liam!’ I yelled, far too loud for the confined space in the car. ‘What does Bradley marina mean?’
Andy was slowing to stop at some traffic lights, and with one hand he typed on the tiny keyboard on his Sat Nav to check whether it could find ‘Bradley marina’. The screen flashed a couple of times, and then a map appeared. With his finger, Andy traced the line, which linked with the place our car was right then.
‘It’s not that far from here. We’re going in the right direction. It’s about 40k’s away.’
‘Closer than Wollongong?’
‘Yeah, it’s about half way to Wollongong from where we are now.’
But what did it mean?
‘Is Liam going somewhere else? Why has he texted me to tell me this if he doesn’t want me to come after Sophie?’
Andy was joining dots of his own. He looked nervous as he said: ‘What if he’s trying to trap us? Because he thinks we will come after him...’
That was possible. But what did that mean for Sophie? Had something...already happened...My mind rejected the thought. But I couldn’t work out what Liam was doing.
‘We have to go there! Wherever Liam is, Sophie will be there too.’
Andy still looked worried, but he wasn’t slowing down. The bright line on the Sat Nav was showing the new route, to Bradley marina.
‘We’ll go there, but we have to be careful, Ellen. After what has already happened to you today...’ Andy’s voice drifted off.
‘I’ll call Detective Williamson. If the police are there, we’ll be Ok,’ I said.
Andy looked pleased at my suggestion, pressing his foot down on the accelerator to show that he was willing to get to the marina as quickly as possible.
The detective must have recognised my number. He answered, and said: ‘Ellen. I was about to call you. The local uniforms in Wollongong checked out the address. A woman answered the door. She said she was the only one there, with her child.’
‘What did she look like?’ I asked, suddenly thinking it might have been Sophie.
He pre-empted the thought. ‘It wasn’t Sophie. Apparently she looked nothing like your description. The uniforms saw Kingsley’s car was there, and they weren’t convinced that she was legit, so they hung back. Hang on, I’ve got another call...’ Before I had time to tell him anything, he put me on hold, the phone beeping in my ear, making me even more frantic to speak to him. After what seemed like forever, he was back.
‘That was the local boys again. The house is on fire. The fire engines are on their way... they were able to pull someone out...I think it might be Liam Kingsley.’
‘Is he alive?’ I asked, aware that the only reason I cared was to check whether it was possible that someone else sent the text message.
‘He was unconscious. He has some serious burns, but he’s alive. The patrol saw a car leaving the house, but they weren’t able to chase, and so we’re sending back up to track them down...’ It was time I interrupted.
‘I know where they’re going. I think someone else has got hold of Liam’s phone. It could be Sophie. I just got a text from it saying
‘Bradley marina’.’
‘I’ll call you back in a sec.’ Detective Williamson didn’t need to be told twice. He had caught on that the information I gave was turning out to be very useful. I prayed he was calling for reinforcements to be sent to the marina.
After about a minute, the phone rang again, and the detective said: ‘You sound like you are in a car. Where are you?’
There was no point lying. ‘Andy and I are going to the marina. The text was sent to me. I’m not sitting back and waiting for someone else to find Sophie.’
I heard him sigh loudly into the phone.
‘I don’t have time to convince you not to get involved. I’m heading to the marina too.’
Good. Just what I wanted to hear.
I relayed the information about the fire and Liam to Andy, who looked as untroubled as I felt about him getting hurt. Served him right.
‘At least it means he’s not waiting for us at the marina,’ he said. ‘But it probably means the person who hurt him is going to be there...’
I had already thought of that. Whoever it was must have left Liam in the house, and taken Sophie and Charlie with him. Did he have a boat he planned to disappear on? What did that mean for Sophie and Charlie? What was he going to do with them?
‘From what the detective said, they must have left the house in Wollongong. He was getting updates about what was going, on and they’ve only just got Liam out. So how far does that make them from the marina?’ I asked Andy.
‘It’s hard to say. Depends how long ago they left, and how fast they drive. But if they left when they sent the text message, I'd say they’re about the same distance as us, so we should get there at about the same time.’
Maybe there was a chance that they would be stopped before they got there. That the police would find them first. Knowing where they were headed was the key. Without that text message, we would have been stuffed.
When the dot on the Sat Nav hovered over our end point, I was ready to leap from the moving car, impatient to see whether Sophie was there. But the street we were on was pitch black and there was no sign of a marina. Andy slowed the car to a crawl, and we peered left and right, looking for some sign of an entrance. The street was dead quiet, and I was just starting to wonder if the Sat Nav had misdirected us when there was a screeching of tyres behind us. I turned my head, expecting to see the flashing lights of a police car, or at least the familiar white and blue markings. But the car barrelling towards us was big and black, a menacing four wheel drive with dark tinted windows. They screamed past us to the end of the street and fishtailed into a nearly invisible opening in a wire mesh fence. It had to be them. Sophie had to be in that car.
‘Quick! Follow them!’ I screamed at Andy.
He slammed his foot on the accelerator, making his car pitch forward. Even though we couldn’t see in their windows, they would have been able to see in ours. But there was no sign that they had even noticed us; they were in too much of a rush. Just as Andy took the left turn into the marina, I heard another car behind us, making as much noise as the four wheel drive had as it ploughed up the street. It was the police, their lights flashing but their siren not on.
As we pulled into the marina, I could see a long row of boats in front of us, tied to a narrow wooden jetty. Beyond the boats, the dark water of the harbour stretched out in a semi circle, the light from the moon making the open mouth glint where the sea met the calmer water at the entrance. The four wheel drive had pulled up about halfway down the row, and the doors were already opening. We were getting close enough to see the scene in more detail.
A large, dark haired man got out of the driver’s seat. He looked angry and menacing, as he waved his arms and yelled at other people in the car. He glanced at our car, and the police car behind us, and quickly dragged someone out of one of the back doors. As soon as I saw her head, I recognised Sophie; her peroxide blonde hair shone like a second moon in the dim lights of the marina. She stumbled forwards as he dragged at her arm, and I could see she was moving awkwardly because she was carrying Charlie. Another man had jumped out of the other back door, and grabbed two large bags from the boot, quickly throwing them onto a large cabin cruiser that was moored at a jetty angling out into the water in front of the car.
There was something else glinting in the lights other than Sophie’s hair... both of the men were holding guns. And the larger man held his to Sophie’s head. Andy stopped the car, looking scared stiff, his eyes fixed on the gun. Sophie’s face was just as petrified, her cheeks were blotchy from tears, and she looked fraught and exhausted. I opened my door, trying to forget about the guns and yelled, ‘Sophie!’ She heard her name and turned her head just enough to see me. The look of recognition lasted only a split second before it turned to horror at the danger I had just put myself in. As the man holding her spun towards me as well, I ducked back behind the door of the car, crouching low enough that he couldn’t take aim.
Two police officers were now out of their car, and yelling at the two men.
‘Police! Put your guns down’...‘Don’t make us shoot’....‘Don’t move’. The sounds of their voices mixed together into one long, continuous outburst which seemed to make the men move even faster.
Another woman was getting out of the front seat. She didn’t have a gun pointed at her, and she walked with a confidence that belied the panic in the air. The large man who held Sophie’s arm was yelling at her to do something; he was pointing at Charlie. She followed his orders, striding towards Sophie, and wrenching Charlie out of her arms. Sophie didn’t let go easily; she tried to hold him even closer as the woman pulled him away. But the man swung the gun even more sharply towards Sophie’s head, knocking her on the side of the temple. She let go of Charlie with a wail.
The second man was now on the boat, positioning himself low enough that the police would hardly have been able to see him, let alone shoot him. He held his arms out, ready to take Charlie from of the other woman’s hands. She was moving quickly, but not towards the boat the man was on. He yelled: ‘Give him to me! Where are you going?’ But she ignored him and jumped down off the jetty; I could see she had landed in a small dingy that was moored to it. The man holding Sophie was now yelling at the woman as well...more noise mixing with the shouts from the police. But the woman didn’t look back. She steadied herself in the rocking boat, with Charlie bawling in the bottom of it. She pulled on the mooring rope, and a she pulled, the boat disappeared under the jetty. Andy looked at me; even under these circumstances he managed an impressed smile.
‘She’s just saved the kid...smart girl...’
I didn’t know who she was, but that was exactly what she had just done.
As the men realised that Charlie and the woman had disappeared, they became even more flustered, and turned their attention back to Sophie. The larger man kept the gun held against her head, and pulled her roughly towards the jetty. He backed along the narrow walkway, keeping her between himself and the police, a shield against their threats.
I could bear it no longer, and stepped back out from behind the car door. One of the policemen behind me screamed at me to get back, or be risk being shot. But I couldn’t believe we were all standing there watching them put Sophie on the boat. It was the biggest cabin cruiser I had ever seen, with huge spotlights set on the cabin roof for night navigation. Once they had her on there, they would be able to speed off, going wherever they chose, and we would never see Sophie again.
The police were edging forward, their guns drawn, as the smaller man skirted around the deck, untying ropes. Part of me wanted them to shoot him, but that would give the other one more reason to shoot Sophie. I heard another car screech to a halt behind the police car, and Detective Williamson ran toward us, his gun drawn.
‘They’re going to get away!’ I called to him. ‘Don’t let them!’
He was still assessing the situation, his eyes darting between the two men and Sophie. Another sound caught everyone’s attention just as the smaller
man threw the last rope down, detaching the cruiser from the jetty. Another launch, smaller than the cruiser, was speeding towards the entrance to the marina from out at sea. It had a luminous police strip down the side, and I knew it had to be the water police. The smaller man darted across the boat, meeting the larger man on the deck. They were both close enough to the cock pit to start the motor, but the larger man held Sophie with one hand, his gun with the other, making him incapable of doing anything else. He stepped sideways, so the smaller man could shove past and start pressing buttons on the control panel. I heard the engine kick into life, idling in neutral. I couldn’t let them leave.
‘Sophie!’ I yelled, running forward towards the boat. The policemen, detective and my uncle all lunged at me, trying to stop me. But too late! I was determined to get to Sophie now. I yelled again. My voice was loud, resonating in a high pitched shriek over all the other commotion.
‘There will be an answer, let it be...And when the night is cloudy....there is still a light that shines on me...Shine until tomorrow...let it be’.
Everyone peeled off me as I surged forward. They seemed temporarily paralysed; in a state of shock that I had completely lost my mind. But Sophie’s face was all I saw, her look of anguish suddenly turning into one of understanding. And in that instant, as the two men on the boat stood stock still, staring at me with confused anger, Sophie soundlessly moved her hand towards the control panel, and flicked down a whole bank of switches. I saw it, because that was what I had hoped she would do. The song lyrics worked. My message had been received. The lights on the boat’s cabin roof blazed on, straight into the men’s eyes, and each threw up an arm to shield them. And in the moment, where they were blinded by the light, Sophie got away. All we saw was a huge glow of light, and then we heard a splash, but as our eyes adjusted, the two men were standing there and Sophie wasn’t. They didn’t have time to look for her. The police cruiser was bearing down on them, and they were about to be cornered.
Times of Trouble Page 29