by Rhys Bowen
“Another unfortunate accident. Nobody ever suspected otherwise. Really, people are very dense. I hunted for you after that, but I couldn’t find you.”
“No, I was married and living in London.”
“Married? But I thought—”
“My wedding next week will be my second marriage.”
“Would have been. Unfortunately, you won’t have the chance to compare.”
Bronwen looked him squarely in the eye. “They’ll find me, you know. It’s only a matter of time.”
He smiled then. “As you say, a matter of time. I gave them three days, but I don’t think I’m prepared to wait that long. We’ll see. I must say it rather amuses me to watch their pathetic attempts. But I rather think I’ll enjoy watching you die.”
“How do you plan to kill me?” she asked.
“I haven’t quite made up my mind. Too many changes of plan.” He looked at the half-full glass of water in his hand. “I must read up on how many days a human can live without water.” Deliberately he turned the glass over and watched the rest of the liquid splash onto the stone floor.
“And you really think you’ll be able to get on with your life and live with your conscience afterward?” Bronwen asked him.
“Oh yes,” he said. “You forget, I’ve done it before. Third time’s a charm, as they say.”
“It’s Neville Shorecross,” Evan yelled into his mobile phone as soon as D.I. Watkins was put on the line. “He was injured in an accident when Bronwen and another girl stole a car when they were at school.”
“Neville Shorecross? Who the hell is he?”
“The bank manager at Lloyds.”
“The bank manager? Surely not. I bank there too. He’s an inoffensive, well-bred kind of bloke.”
“It has to be him. The other girl who stole the car was connected with royalty—a deb. And she’s dead now. Bronwen might have stopped at the bank yesterday if she was intending to buy that brass bed.”
“How the hell did you find this out?”
“I went to the school.”
“Where are you?”
“North of Oswestry, just about to join up with the A55.”
“Does the word ‘permission’ feature at all in your vocabulary or are you going to be the rogue officer all your career?”
“Sorry, sir, but I had to act in a hurry. I couldn’t risk you saying no on account of my shoulder.”
“Too bloody right. I would have done.”
“Come on, guv, you’d have done the same thing if someone had taken Tiffany or your wife.”
“Maybe I would.”
“And I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. I was going crazy.”
“Well, get back here as quick as you can. I’ll assemble a team and bring back that psychologist chappy. If you’re right in what you say, we’ll only have one chance and no margin for error, so we’re not rushing things.”
“I’ll be there, sir.”
Evan put down the phone and pressed the pedal to the floor. He arrived forty-five minutes later, having exceeded the speed limit all the way. His shoulder now ached alarmingly and he swallowed a couple of painkillers and retied the harness before going into the police station. The team was assembled and paying attention to the profiler.
“—carries a grudge,” Evan heard him saying before they all looked up at his entry.
“This is the plan, Evans,” D.C.I. Hughes said as Evan returned Glynis’s smile. “You will go with Watkins to confront Shorecross at his home. You will do or say nothing to alarm him. We will ask him to come with us and open up the bank, which we will search. We will then thank him for his cooperation and take him home. If what our profiler suggests is true, he will think he has outsmarted us yet again. We will then have the house under surveillance and wait for him to lead us to the girl.”
Evan noted he didn’t use her name. It was so much easier to be removed from the victim.
“I’d like to have you along, Evans,” Watkins said, “but I’m not taking you if you don’t think you can keep your cool. He mustn’t suspect for an instant that we’re onto him. So let me know now. We can bring him in. We can maybe get him to confess, but if we can’t get him to reveal where he’s hidden her, then there’s no point.”
Evan did see the sense in this. He nodded. “Don’t worry,” he said.
“Let’s do it.” Hughes clapped his hands. “Surveillance team in place?”
Watkins nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Let’s go.”
Ten minutes later they parked outside a Victorian terraced house in Bangor. An unprepossessing address, not unlike the house in which bank clerk Hillary Jones lived. And not too far from it, either. More thoughts rushed through Evan’s already whirling brain.
Neville Shorecross opened the door with a surprised smile on his face.
“Mr. Evans—what a surprise. You must have a very urgent banking need to seek me out on a Saturday.”
He was wearing well-pressed slacks and a cardigan over a checked shirt. The typical British gentleman on his day off.
“Nothing to do with banking, Mr. Shorecross,” Evan said. “Something more important than that. My fiancée, Bronwen Price, is missing. The second missing woman in a week.”
Shorecross’s face grew grave. “How alarming. And you suspect foul play? You don’t just think she’s gone off somewhere and forgotten to tell you?”
“It’s our wedding in one week,” Evan said. “Her parents have just arrived. Where do you think she’d possibly go?”
“I see. So you’re taking me up on my offer.”
“Your offer?” Evan asked.
“My Scout search and rescue team. We’ve been ready and available all week, you know. My boys have a rucksack packed and can be out on the mountain at a moment’s notice. They’re well trained.”
Watkins stepped forward. “It’s not your Scouts we’re interested in at the moment, sir. We’d like to ask you some questions about yesterday afternoon, if we could possibly come in.”
“Come in? Yes, by all means.” Shorecross opened his front door wide and ushered them into a narrow hallway. “This way, please, gentlemen. I don’t actually have a front parlor anymore, because my piano takes up so much damned space.” He pushed open a door to reveal a gleaming polished grand piano, occupying most of the small front room. “Still, I wasn’t about to give it up when I moved here. I’ll get around to looking for more spacious quarters when I have time. In here, then, gentlemen. I’m afraid it’s rather cramped, but it’s just me, so I manage.”
The back room contained a dining set, armchairs, a large stereo on one wall, and neat racks of CDs. Shorecross motioned Evan and Watkins to the two armchairs situated on either side of a fake log fire. Evan perched uneasily at the edge of his chair. The man seemed so at ease. Was it possible he’d got it wrong and Shorecross wasn’t the one?
“Mr. Shorecross,” Watkins said, “when did you last see Bronwen Price?”
Shorecross frowned. “You know, I’m really not sure.”
“Did she come into your bank yesterday?”
“She may have done. Fridays are always busy for us.”
“So you don’t remember seeing her? She didn’t have a specific interview with you in your office?”
Shorecross frowned. “What exactly are you asking me, Inspector? Are you somehow insinuating that I might be responsible for her disappearance?”
“Oh Good Lord, no, sir.” Watkins sounded if anything a trifle too hearty, Evan thought. “We’re trying to piece together her movements yesterday afternoon, so that we can work out who was the last person to see her before she disappeared. We know she took the bus down from Llanfair. We know she didn’t show up at an antiques store to look at a brass bedstead she intended to purchase. It’s possible she stopped in at the bank first, if she was intending a large purchase.”
The frown left Shorecross’s face. “Come to think of it, I think I did hear her name mentioned. I think I recall Hillary saying someth
ing about ‘Only one week to go, Miss Price.’ But I didn’t actually see her, so I couldn’t tell you what she was wearing.”
“I wonder if you’d be good enough to accompany us down to the bank now, sir,” Watkins said.
“Now? What for?” For the first time there was a sharpness to Shorecross’s voice.
“We’re leaving no stone unturned right now. We’d like to search the bank and have you unlock the vault.”
“Unlock the vault? This is preposterous.”
Watkins held up a conciliatory hand. “I assure you that we’re putting every other business she could have visited through the same degree of security. A bank vault would be a good place to hide someone, wouldn’t it?”
“If you wanted to kill them quickly,” Shorecross said. “I doubt there would be enough air to keep someone alive overnight.” Evan thought that the bank manager shot him a look, to check out how he had fared when deprived of air in a bunker.
“If you object to coming with us, you can always just give us the keys,” Watkins said.
“Give you the keys? Good Lord, man, I’m responsible for the money at that bank. My head would be on the chopping block if I let you wander around with the keys to my vault.”
“I assure you, Mr. Shorecross, that money is the last thing on our minds right now,” Evan said.
Shorecross sighed and rose to his feet. “Very well. One must do one’s civic duty, although how you think that anyone could stuff a young woman into a vault under our noses is beyond me.”
The policemen didn’t reply.
“Oh dear, I can’t say it looks too good, letting my neighbors witness my being bundled into a police car,” Shorecross said jovially as they came out into the street.
“You have nosy neighbors then, do you, sir?” Watkins asked.
“Not particularly. I hardly ever see them as my garage is behind the house.” He glanced back at the deserted street. “So, do you have any theories, any suspects yet in the case of these missing women?” he asked, as Watkins steered the car out into traffic. “I could tell you were interested in our Mr. Llewellyn and I must say that his hasty departure has made me a little curious also. I should try to contact him, if I were you. I always felt he was a little—on the strange side, shall we say.”
“Good suggestion, sir. Our men are out looking for him as we speak,” Watkins said.
“Excellent. Although whether he would have returned to kidnap Miss Price is questionable. And in broad daylight, from what you are insinuating.”
“I expect whoever did it will give himself away before too long,” Watkins said calmly. “They always do, you know. One little slip. That’s all it takes.”
“Really?”
Evan felt as if his head would explode, sitting in a cramped car with the man who was holding Bronwen sitting a few feet away from him. Why couldn’t they just pull into a secluded byway and knock him silly until he talked? Apart from ethical reasons, he knew why. Because men in similar situations had refused to reveal where they were holding their victims, even under the worst of threats.
He tried to breathe deeply until they pulled up at the bank. After Shorecross had disarmed the alarm system, the tour didn’t take long. There wasn’t much to see, although Evan noted with interest that there was a security camera over the front entrance. Shorecross opened the door to his office. The two detectives made the motions of looking under the desk and in the coat cupboard, much to Shorecross’s amusement.
“All just what we would have expected,” Watkins said cheerily. “Now the vault, if you don’t mind.”
Shorecross led the way. Watkins followed. Evan started to follow then returned to the bank manager’s office, giving it another quick inspection. There seemed to be no camera in here. There was a velvet curtain on the back wall. Behind it was not another window, but a back entrance. When he opened the door he found it led into walled parking area, containing rubbish bins. A way out without being seen, he thought, and closed the door silently behind him. On the floor he noticed the hint of a stain on the carpet. When he touched it, it still seemed slightly damp. Cleaning fluid had evidently been used on it, judging by the smell, but he suspected that the lab boys would manage to find out what the original stain was made of. He scraped up as much as he could with his penknife into one of the paper cups from the water cooler and sprinted out to join the other two, who were just emerging from the vault.
“Satisfied, gentlemen?” There was something close to a smirk on Shorecross’s face.
“Perfectly, thank you, and sorry to have troubled you,” Watkins said.
“Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get home as quickly as possible. BBC Concert Hall on Radio Four. I listen to it every Saturday.”
“You must be quite a musician, sir,” Watkins said.
“Yes, music has always been an important part of my life,” Shorecross said. “I had hoped to reach the concert stage myself one day, but alas, it was not to be. So I content myself with listening to what others have achieved.”
Evan sat in silence as they drove Shorecross back to his house.
“Thanks for your help, sir. Enjoy your concert,” Watkins called as the bank manager made for his front door.
“Oh, I will, gentlemen. And good luck in your search. As I have reiterated, my Scouts are at your disposal any time.”
Evan detected a momentary flash of triumph in his eyes as they drove away.
Chapter 26
The moment he left her, Bronwen started working hard. Now that it was clear she was to be killed, she was determined not to give in without a fight. And that needed the removal of the tape around her wrists and ankles. Her brief chance to look at the space in which she was kept while he had the trap door open revealed a room with walls and ceiling covered in polystyrene tiles. A perfect soundproofed room. Apart from that, nothing. Smooth walls, smooth ceiling. Nothing in the room but the inflated camping mattress and the bucket in the corner. How he expected her to use it when her hands were taped in front of her and her ankles taped together, she didn’t know. Men always were pretty clueless about women’s bodily functions. She had positioned it in her mind while there was light in the room. She hopped over to it and found, to her disgust, that it was made of light plastic. No use as a potential weapon, but she brought it back with her to the air mattress.
The first thing to do was free either her wrists or ankles. She explored the tape around her ankles and tried to locate an end piece she might be able to pull, but it was impossible at the angle her hands were bound together. She tried digging her nails into it, but that was useless, too. He had done too thorough a job.
Her hands went up to her neck and she located the cross she always wore under her turtleneck. At least he hadn’t explored her body while she’d been unconscious. That gave her a small feeling of relief. Her fingers touched the cool gold of the cross. It had been given to her by her grandmother on her confirmation. It was probably too delicate to be much good, but it was better than nothing. She pressed her fingers together around it and yanked hard. The chain cut into her throat but finally snapped, leaving the cross between her fingers.
Then she started digging patiently at the ankle tape. At last she was rewarded with a satisfying pop as the gold cross penetrated the tape. Then she worked like a terrier at enlarging the tear. She dug and scratched with her nails until finally she could stick a finger through the hole and pull and tug. She had no idea how long it took her but at last she had pulled the tape off and her legs were free. Elated with this accomplishment, she got up and moved about the room, getting the circulation back into her feet, ready for possible flight.
The tape around her wrists wasn’t going to be so easy, but she’d need her hands free to defend herself, or to escape up that ladder. Now she was sitting back on the mattress, she examined the bucket again. It was cheaply made and the end surface of the metal handle, where it was bent up through the plastic side, was unfinished metal. Slightly rough to the touch. She sat down and
clamped the handle between her knees, rubbing her wrists back and forth over this rough piece of metal. She felt tired and weak, conscious that she had had nothing to eat for at least twenty-four hours and only a couple of sips of water in that time before he had tipped the rest away.
They will find me, she told herself, knowing that time might be running out.
And if they don’t? The thought hovered at the fringe of her conscious mind.
Then I’ll have to help myself.
“We can’t just let him go,” Evan said, looking back at the closed front door as they drove away.
“We have no choice,” Watkins said flatly. “If we bring him in now, we might never find out where he’s hidden her.” He glanced across at Evan, who was staring out into the night with an expression of utter bleakness on his face.
“Don’t worry, boyo,” Watkins said softly. “We’ve got the place staked out. When he goes to her, we’ll follow him. That’s the safest way.”
“I hope to God you’re right,” Evan said. “He was so damned composed, wasn’t he? So cocky.”
“If he’s really the one who wrote the notes, he thinks his intelligence is superior to ours.”
“If he’s really the one?” Evan demanded. “If? If? Are you trying to tell me you’re not quite sure he’s got Bronwen?”
“I agree he’s the best lead we’ve got so far,” Watkins said. “We’ve no proof, though, have we? Just a moment, boyo.” He put out a hand as Evan squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. “We had a couple of our men search Shorecross’s house while we took him to the bank, so we’ll know more in a minute.”
“Did you?” Evan looked impressed. “That was pretty slick.”
“Not just a pretty face, am I?” Watkins actually grinned.
“I might have some evidence of my own,” Evan said. “While you went into the vault, I stayed behind in his office. Some kind of liquid had been spilled on his floor. The cleaners have obviously tried to clear it up, but I scooped some into a paper cup, just in case.”