by A L Fraine
Fear had been his constant companion over the hours he’d spent here, apparently forgotten.
The only light was a glow that seeped in under the door to his right, and a couple of shafts of light from small holes in the ceiling. It was barely anything, but he could just make out a few details.
He glanced down at the paper plate beside him, its edge highlighted by the glow from beneath the door. It was covered in crumbs. He’d eaten the food that had been given to him, ages ago it seemed, but his stomach felt empty. It grumbled, so he picked a few crumbs from the plate and popped them into his mouth. A futile gesture, but it was better than nothing.
He wasn’t sure what was going on and couldn’t make much out in the darkness. He wasn’t cold, but he felt terrified and wondered what he’d done to deserve this. Had he caused this somehow? Was this his fault?
He knew only one thing. He wanted to go home, he wanted a cuddle and he wanted to sleep in his bed.
Time had no meaning in this darkness. He had no idea how long he’d been down here. It could have been hours, or days maybe? He wasn’t sure.
It was so quiet.
In the distance, somewhere just at the edge of his hearing, he could make out a low-level noise. A hum that waxed and waned, fading away and then surging intermittently.
He couldn’t be sure, but he thought it might be a nearby road.
A scratching sound caught his attention, followed by a small scuffle in the room.
“Who’s there?”
There was no reply, but the sounds of movement stopped. A short while later, he heard the noise again. It moved. In the faint light, he caught sight of something small dart across the room.
Milo yelped and scampered to his feet, sending his plate and makeshift matt sliding over the floor. He scanned the room, searching for any hint of what it could be. He spotted it again, closer this time. Whatever it was, it was small and furry.
Milo jumped back and felt a tabletop behind him against the wall. Hopping onto it, he pulled his legs up, sending a couple of unknown objects clattering to the floor.
Cobwebs caught against his face and hair. Milo yelped in fright again and brushed his hands madly to get the sticky webs off. In that instant, he felt sure he was covered in spiders. Hundreds of them, crawling all over him, over his hair and down his neck, beneath his clothes.
Moving to jump off the table, he saw the furry shape dart out of the shadows and start to pick crumbs off his plate.
Milo recoiled from the rat with a shudder, the webs forgotten for the moment. Gross.
He felt sick, and afraid and wanted his mummy. Watching the rat pick at the remaining crumbs, the fear ebbed, but his heart ached.
Pulling his legs in, he wrapped his arms around them and buried his head. He began to cry.
12
Jon yawned as he drove east towards Horsley Station, wishing he’d managed to get a little more sleep. He’d been working late at the station. That in itself wasn’t unusual and had actually been pleasant and entertaining.
He’d shared a meat-feast pizza with Nathan in his office, and all was going as well as it could with work, until Kate’s text hit his phone.
She’d met Ariadne.
The fact that Kate was calling the woman—who she’d only known as Sydney up until last night—Ariadne told him the encounter had been all too real. Jon had never told Kate about his own encounters with Ariadne, where she’d told him her name and then manipulated events to place him in her debt.
But from that moment on, he’d been restless. He wondered how best to deal with the situation and whether to admit that she’d been harassing him too. The woman was toxic, and now she was targeting Kate as well.
From what he could tell, Ariadne wanted power, and she seemed to revel in the discomfort of others. She had also taken something of an interest in him. It was almost as if she was attracted to him. He’d resisted, and fended her off at every stage and remained faithful to Kate. He wasn’t interested in Ariadne, but she seemed to stay interested in him.
Was that why?
Was she so used to men just falling at her feet, that when Jon resisted, it was novel, possibly. Was that why she was intrigued by him? Or was there something more? Perhaps it was his position in the police that she wanted access to? He couldn’t help but think that maybe she was targeting Kate because it was a way for her to get to him.
The thought sent a shiver up his spine. Ariadne might never have been violent to him personally, but she didn’t mind working through proxies. That much had been made perfectly clear to him when a man had attacked him and tried to kill him, only for Ariadne to show up and save his life.
Jon was convinced that Ariadne had set that whole thing up. She had sent a man to kill him. That alone was insane, and now he was in debt to her, even if it was manufactured debt, and she was going after Kate.
What the hell was he supposed to do? And what on earth was she up to?
Whatever it was, it wasn’t good.
Jon gave his head a shake as he tried to banish the thoughts of Ariadne and forget about her. He turned the radio up as the morning news spoke about a stabbing in Croydon and a local missing taxi driver. Grunting at the mindless violence that surrounded him, he turned the radio off. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have enough crap to deal with.
Turning into the station, Jon thought the mob of press and media had only grown since yesterday, with more reporters and cameramen hanging around in front of the building, doing pieces to camera or looking for the latest juicy morsel for them to plaster across TV screens, up and down the country.
As he pulled in, several reporters spotted him and called out as he drove towards the gate.
Jon turned away, preferring not to have his face plastered across the evening news, and ignored their shouted questions as he drove into the back, leaving them behind.
He parked up and made his way upstairs. Walking into his office, he found Kate sitting on his sofa, her arms and legs crossed and a troubled expression on her face.
Jon paused in the doorway. “I thought this was my office.”
“Har-di-har.”
“Is this going to be a strong coffee discussion?”
“I’ve already had one,” she answered, chewing on her lip. “But, feel free.”
“Mmm,” Jon grunted. “Maybe later. Been here a while, then?”
“Urgh. Yeah. I tried looking, you know. I can’t find anything on her. Nothing. It’s as if she doesn’t exist.”
“I take it you’re referring to Ariadne?”
“Feckin’ cow.”
“Yeah, that’s her.”
“Have you seen her since the Russell case?”
He chewed on his tongue for a moment. Jon had expected this to happen at some point and had dreaded the moment. But the moment had arrived, and he had a clear choice. Tell her he’d seen Ariadne or not. He’d kept it secret from her partly because he didn’t want to worry her, but he wasn’t sure that had been the right choice, and since then, he’d regretted the choice. But, the chance to tell her had never really presented itself, and as time passed, it got harder to dig it back up. But, she’d done it for him, shifting the burden. Now all he needed to do, was be honest.
“Yes,” he answered, feeling his chest tighten. How would she react?
“Oh, you have?”
“I didn’t want to worry you, but, I think you need to know. Don’t tell anyone else, though,” he said, and shut the office door. Kate frowned as he closed the door, hopefully sensing how serious this was. “You remember I told you about that man who attacked me on my doorstep and tried to kill me a few weeks ago?”
“Yeah?” She listened intently, sitting forward.
“Well, he didn’t break the window with a rock. That’s not what happened. As he was attacking me, coming at me with a knife, someone shot him from outside, through the window. Then Ariadne walked in with another woman who had a gun. Ariadne said I owed her my life.”
“Shite,” Kate said,
looking away. A moment later, her head snapped back up. “Do you mean… Do you think she set that up?”
Jon nodded. “I think that’s exactly what she did.”
“Holy crap.”
“I can’t prove it, obviously, but if she’s prepared to send a man to kill me and then shoot him to get me in her debt, she could be capable of anything.”
Kate buried her head in her hands and then ran them through her hair. “Feck. You should have told me, Jon,” she said, releasing her ponytail now she’d messed up her hair.
“I know,” he agreed, feeling terrible for keeping that from her. “I suspected what she was up to, and didn’t want you involved. I didn’t want you worrying. But if she’s going to target you as well, then that’s pointless.”
“I understand. But don’t do this again, okay? If she show’s up, you tell me, alright?”
Jon nodded. “I will. Also, there was one other thing.”
“Go on…” she said, tension in her voice.
“She bought the appliances in my kitchen. I just came home one day, and they were there, installed, with a note from her.”
“Jaysus,” Kate muttered, her Irish accent sounding strong. She laughed incredulously. “Well, she’s got a great taste in kitchen appliances. I’ll give her that.”
Jon smirked. “I suppose that’s true. I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay.”
“So, you saw her at the bar?”
“She said it was a coincidence, but I don’t believe that for a moment.”
“Neither do I.”
“She suggested I shouldn’t be out drinking, that it wasn’t a good look for a detective like me. So I told her where to stick it.”
“You confronted her?” Jon was impressed.
“Yeah. I’m not having her do that.”
“Awesome.” He wished he could have seen that.
“Yeah, well, then she hit on me. Made out it turned her on or something, and said she knew about me, my history and my relationships.”
“Oh. What did she mean by that? Is that about Aban again?”
“Maybe,” she shrugged. “I… I don’t know…”
“What?” Jon asked, sensing there was more here.
Kate ran her hand over her face again. She looked away as contemplating whether she should say something.
“Alright, well, you were honest with me, so it’s only fair I’m honest in return.”
“Okay.”
“I think her coming onto me and her mention of relationships is a reference to a fairly short but intense relationship I had with a girl as a nineteen-year-old. I think that’s what it was about. Although, Christ only knows how she found out about it.”
“Oh…” Jon said, surprised. “I had no idea.”
“I know. I… It’s not something I’ve thought about much since. I don’t know. I think maybe Ariadne was using that against me?”
“Yeah, maybe.”
“I don’t mind talking about it, if you want,” Kate said, looking up at him. “I understand that it might be a bit of a surprise.”
Jon smiled at her concern. “Not right now. I’m not bothered or concerned if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s who you are, and that’s fine with me.”
Everyone experimented when they were younger, to one degree or another. It was only normal.
Kate smiled. “Thank you.”
“No, thank you. I should have told you about Ariadne when it happened.”
“Hmm. That wasn’t all that happened last night, though. I also had a reporter come up and try to talk to me about the case.”
“Really? Who?”
“Um, Scott, I think his name was. I’ve not seen him before.”
“Don’t know him. Okay, that’s good to know, though. So, are we okay?”
“Yeah,” she said and got up. Jon did the same, and they hugged for a moment.
“Curry at mine?” Jon whispered.
She pulled back and smiled. “Sounds perfect.” They kissed.
“Right then, let’s see if we can find Milo today.”
Kate backed up and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. “Right you are, guv. Oh, and by the way, my friends want to meet you one day.”
“Do they? That sounds ominous.”
“They’re friendly.”
“I hope so.”
“They think I’m sleeping my way to the top.”
“Oh, well, you are, aren’t you?”
She gave him a look. “Piss off.”
He winked back. “I’ll be out in a moment for a team update.”
“I’ll bring them together.”
Ten minutes later, Jon joined his team in the incident room and brought the meeting to order. “Morning all. You’ve slept well, I hope?”
A chorus of mumbles and muttered “no’s” came back to him.
“Yeah, me neither,” Jon agreed. “So, where are we?”
“Nothing new on the phone calls,” Nathan said. “Only that one from the man we think is the kidnapper. Everything else has been a dead end.”
“And, there’s nothing new about that call from the killer? No leads on it, no traces?”
“No, guv,” Nathan answered.
“Perfect. What else.”
“Nothing significant on CCTV either,” Dion said. “Phone tracking data backed up the movements of the parents.”
“Okay, good work. Sheridan, thanks for joining us,” Jon said to the blonde forensic officer. “Do you have anything?”
“We’ve been over the bike and helmet with a fine-toothed comb. There’s plenty of DNA and prints from the boy, as expected. There’s also prints from his stepdad Darryl and one or two from his mother, Emily. But that is it. No one else.”
“So, the kidnapper was wearing gloves then?”
Sheridan shrugged. “That’s possible. Or, he didn’t touch the bike and helmet at all.”
Jon nodded. “Thank you, Sheridan.”
“My pleasure.”
“Rachel?”
“Okay, well, I’ve got good and bad news,” the raven-haired officer began. “Firstly the bad. Door to door enquiries around the boy’s home and around the kidnap sight have failed to bring up anything of use so far.”
“So, no sounds, no noise, nothing?”
“No. No one saw or heard anything useful.”
“And the good?”
“We found Jake,” Rachel said. “He’s moved in with a woman called Sheryl Simpson. It seems that Sheryl knew Jake before he went to prison. Jake was having an affair with Sheryl while he was with Emily, and got her pregnant too. She’s been in constant contact with Jake during his imprisonment, and now he’s moved in with her. He just failed to tell anyone he was doing this. He’s been warned about keeping the police informed.”
“And where are they living?” Jon asked.
“Sutton. I have an address for you.”
“Great work,” Jon said. “Kate, you’re with me. Let’s go and see what Jake has to say for himself, shall we?”
Half an hour later, they’d hit the road and drove through the verdant Surrey countryside, through villages and towns as they made their way northeast towards Sutton and the address that Rachel had given them.
“We seem to have precious few leads on this one,” Kate remarked.
“I know. It’s like the kidnapper is some kind of ghost. I can’t believe that no one saw or heard anything from the actual kidnapping itself.”
“He’s good, whoever he is. He knows what he’s doing.”
“And that scares me,” Jon replied. “I have a horrible feeling that we might not be able to find Milo.”
“Don’t say that. We’ll find him. Something will crop up.”
“I hope so,” Jon replied, thinking once again about that terrified boy, and how scared he must be feeling. “I bloody hope so.”
The drive into Sutton wasn’t too slow, and they were soon making their way around the one-way system towards the north side of the town. From here, y
ou could drive into central London through one endless urban sprawl, with little to delineate between each town or area. It would take at least an hour to get there, though, navigating through traffic.
It was usually quicker by half to take the train.
You could tell the difference between the outskirts of London and the quaint villages of Surrey by the diversity of the people, as well as many other factors. Sutton was racially and culturally much more diverse than some of the urban centres in Surrey. To Jon, it highlighted the gap between the wealthy suburbs of the commuter belt that were his usual hunting grounds, and the tough, poverty-stricken city streets at the edge of the county, closest to London.
It laid bare the inequality and the class system that was very much alive and well in this country and hadn’t been as visible up in Nottingham before his move south.
The street Jake lived on was a council estate packed with small semi-detached and terrace housing. He could see a huge disparity between some of the houses and gardens. Some were well maintained, clean, and beautifully looked after, and right next door, there could be what amounted to little more than a scrap of wasteland with an old sofa and a car up on bricks out front.
As they neared the address, Jon noticed a car parked up at an angle in the road close to Jake’s. Craning his neck, Jon saw frantic movement out front of one of the houses.
“Oh, crap,” Kate said, seeing the same thing.
Jon hit the brakes and jumped out. Kate did the same and followed him as he ran for Jake’s front yard. Two men were fighting, grappling each other and throwing punches while a woman hopped around the edges and threw in the occasional kick or slap.
“Police! Stop that right now,” Jon said and rushed in. It was Darryl and Jake. He recognised both from having met Darryl and having seen pictures of Jake. “Oi, Darryl, get off him.”
Kate grabbed Darryl by the arms and pulled him away. Jake swung for him and clocked him right on the cheek.
Blood flew.
“Fucker,” Darryl cursed.
“Hah, serves you right, idiot,” the woman behind Jake shouted.
Struggling against Kate as Jon closed in, Darryl’s elbow caught Kate in the face. She yelped and staggered back as Jon jumped between Darryl and Jake and pushed Jake back.