Sophie gave a low chuckle. “Everything had gone quiet. I’d been calling them for ages, but there was no reply. I was beginning to get worried. The house was so silent I thought maybe they’d wandered off somewhere. I pushed open our bedroom door, and there they were. They were sitting on the floor. They had smeared mascara and lipstick all over their faces.”
“And on everything else, as I recall,” Dan added.
“That’s right. It was all over the duvet and the carpet. There were handprints on all the walls too. They looked like a pair of demented circus clowns. They used up half my makeup supplies in just a few minutes. It was absolutely everywhere. There was more on their surroundings than made it onto their faces. And that’s saying a lot because it was plastered on inches deep.”
“I remember you being really cross,” Dan said. “You started yelling at them.”
“Yeah. They must have wasted a fortune’s worth. Then you came in. You couldn’t stop laughing. The more you laughed, the funnier they thought it was. Pretty soon we were all creased up. Then you had the bright idea of letting them put makeup on you too.”
“I was just getting in touch with my feminine side.”
“You ended up totally unrecognisable. I kept the photos somewhere: the three of you looking like you’d stuck your heads into a bucket of cosmetics. After that episode, I made sure my makeup case was well out of reach. I don’t think we ever got it completely out of the carpet.”
Dan smiled. “They grow up so quickly, though, don’t they?”
“Mm ... keep on doing that.”
The sound of running footsteps dragged them from their reminiscences. Three policemen rushed across the tiled floor and entered the main office to the side of the reception desk. Seconds later, two of them hurried back in the opposite direction.
Sophie sat up, staring at the sudden burst of activity. “Do you think something’s happened?” Her voice cracked with anxiety.
“I don’t know.” Dan rose and paced backwards and forwards. The click of the outside door preceded the entry of a policewoman, her hair sticking out at all angles as she tried in vain to rearrange it into some sort of order.
“Excuse me. Is there any news?” Dan asked.
The woman halted and glanced briefly in his direction. “Who are you? Oh, right, you must be the parents. Ah ... I’ll just get somebody.” She swiped her access card and disappeared from view.
Dan and Sophie exchanged worried looks. “What do you think is going on?” she asked.
Dan shrugged and resumed his anxious pacing. “If that bastard’s done anything to her, I’ll rip his head from his body.”
Several minutes of silence passed before the office door opened and an ashen-faced Alan Billings emerged, accompanied by the same policewoman. Sophie jumped up and stood beside her husband. The policewoman’s gaze refused to meet their eyes.
Billings cleared his throat. “I’ve got some bad news.”
Sophie collapsed to the floor as if her strings had been cut. “Is she ...?”
“No, no it’s not that,” he continued hurriedly. “There’s nothing about Beatrice, but we’ve just received a call. The man we sent to the hypnotherapist with your other daughter—well, I’m not sure how to put this—he’s been discovered dead in his car. Somebody stabbed him.”
“What about Annalise?” Dan asked, helping his wife to her feet.
“We’re sending an armed response team. They’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
“So you can’t say whether she’s okay or not?”
“We’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything. This is PC Diane Smythe. I’ve assigned her to act as your liaison officer. She’ll keep you up to speed with what’s going on.”
“If something has happened to either of them, I don’t think I could ...” Sophie buried her face in her husband’s chest. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight as her shoulders heaved up and down.
Billings cleared his throat. “I have to go and deal with this. I’ll leave you with Diane.” He turned and hurried towards the office.
The woman rested a hand on Sophie’s shoulder. “Can I get you anything?”
Dan shook his head. “When will they find out?”
The policewoman sighed. “I’m not sure. We should hear from the team fairly soon. Why don’t we go into the back? It’s a bit less comfortable, but we’ll learn what’s going on sooner.”
She crossed to the reader and swept a card across the surface. The door clicked, and she pushed through, holding it open for the distraught parents. She guided them to the same room DCI Davies had used to interview Annalise earlier that day. “Are you sure I can’t get you some water or something?”
Dan nodded. “Okay. Yes please.” They sat side by side, their fingers intertwined. Sophie sniffed loudly. He offered her his handkerchief. They remained in silence, anxiously awaiting the woman’s return.
Dan’s gaze rose to the clock on the wall. The minute hand moved to the number ten with an audible click. Sophie continued to sniffle into the white square of material.
The dial read two o’clock by the time the woman returned. Dan glanced up sharply as the door swung open and she entered carrying two plastic cups of water. She set them down on the metallic surface then took the seat opposite Dan and Sophie. “We’ve just heard from the armed response team. Three people are dead ...”
Sophie gasped.
“... but your daughter’s not among them. They’re searching the vicinity, but as of yet, there’s no sign of her.”
“So that bastard’s kidnapped both my daughters,” Dan said, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edge of the table. “Who died?”
“Both the hypnotherapist and her husband suffered fatal knife wounds. The third victim was the police officer who was waiting outside in the car.”
Dan lowered his head. “I can’t believe it. I spoke to both of them on the phone a few minutes ago. Now they’re dead at the hands of this murdering psychopath. If I hadn’t called them ...”
“Don’t blame yourself,” the policewoman said. “We’ll catch the man behind this. He’s bound to make a mistake.”
“Surely there’s no doubt who it is. Have they managed to get hold of a judge to access the sealed files yet?”
“I think so. I overheard somebody talking about it on the phone just now.”
“What have they discovered?”
The woman gave an apologetic shrug. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything, but even if I did, it would have to remain confidential.”
“So this lunatic kidnaps both our girls, and we’re not allowed to find out what he’s done in the past?”
“I’m sorry, but that’s down to the DCI. I’m sure he’ll discuss it with you if he’s of the opinion it might help apprehend the perpetrator.”
“What about getting his details on the news?”
The policewoman pressed her lips together in a grimace. “That’s out of our control now. I’m fairly certain his face will be plastered all over the breakfast TV shows whatever the police decide.”
Chapter 50
Annalise groaned as she began the slow and painful return to consciousness. She was lying on her side on a cold, hard surface. Lifting her head, she raised a bleary eyelid and immediately squeezed it shut as the bright light blinded her. A muffled grunt originated from a spot a few feet away. Slowly, she reopened her eyes, scrunching her face up to reduce the glare. As her vision accustomised to the brightness, she picked out another figure. The person made several guttural noises.
She took stock of her body. Sharp needles of agony pricked at the inside of her skull. She attempted to raise a hand but found she couldn’t move; her arms were tightly bound behind her back. Her legs were similarly restrained and a foul-tasting cloth was stuffed in her mouth. She tried to spit out the gag only to discover it was tied in place. Using her elbows, she levered herself to a sitting position.
The sudden movement caused a sharp pain in her throat. He
r airways seemed to close up as the memories came crashing into her mind: the attack, the dead hypnotherapist and the powerful grip around her neck. Her heart thrashed in her chest. In a rising panic, she fought the urge to cough. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply through the nose until her racing pulse slowed.
She studied her surroundings. The source of the intense illumination was an array of spotlights in the ceiling. With a gasp of shock, she recognised the outline of her sister, propped up against a brown cabinet. Beatrice shuffled sideways, edging closer. Each movement produced a sob of terror. Annalise’s gaze darted around the small room. As her tired brain crunched into gear, she identified the shapes of a cooker and a fridge; they were in a kitchen. The stains running down the doors of the cupboards and the cobwebs in the corners indicated that the owner took little pride in cleanliness, a supposition supported by the lingering odour of decomposing food.
A scraping sound on the cream tiles drew Annalise’s attention back to her sister. Beatrice’s hair was dishevelled, hanging partially across her face. A livid purple bruise stood out on her right cheek. Her pupils were dilated and jittered back and forth in panic. She closed the last few feet between them and rested her head against her elder sister’s shoulder. A series of mewling sounds made their way through the gag.
The damp patches on Annalise’s T-shirt confirmed that her sister was crying. Annalise twisted away from her sibling. She extended her hands, reaching backwards. Beatrice watched in confusion for a few seconds then gave a nod of comprehension. She shuffled around until they sat back to back. Annalise probed the knots binding her sister’s arms together. The rope was made from a thin nylon material. The tightness of her own bonds had cut off the circulation to her fingers, reducing her sense of feeling. She fumbled with the cord, attempting to unpick the tangle. The restricted movement meant it was almost impossible to get a grip. She grunted in frustration. There’s got to be a better way.
Annalise resumed her original position and leaned against the cupboard door. When her heart rate had returned to something approaching normal, she drew her legs up to her chest and forced her body backwards. The hard surface dug into her back as she slowly inched upwards. Seconds later, she stood upright, breathing heavily through her nose. The window looked out onto an array of tiny back gardens separated from those of the adjoining street by a narrow alleyway. Orange streetlights shone through a gap between the houses. No traffic moved on the road beyond.
She turned her attention to the drawers. She reached her arms backwards and dragged the handle towards her, careful not to make any noise. The first one she tried contained a pair of stained, white tea towels, the edges tasselled and frayed. The next was empty. She hopped to the cabinet beside the cooker. As the drawer extended outwards, the clink of metal on metal emerged from within. She breathed a sigh of relief and twisted to inspect the contents.
A frantic whimpering sound came from behind her.
Chapter 51
“Can you go and see if there’s any update?” Dan asked Diane Smythe.
The policewoman smiled apologetically. “If there was anything new to report, they’d come and let us know.” She hesitated. “Why don’t you tell me about them? I mean if that’s alright with you.”
Dan ignored the suggestion and remained silent. Sophie turned to him in confusion. After several seconds, he spoke. “Hang on a sec. How did that bastard find out where Annalise was going?”
PC Smythe frowned. “Maybe he followed them when they left the police station.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. How did he know we were here? That would imply he trailed us from the hotel—unless he put a tracker of some sort on our car. But that’s not the answer because DCI Billings drove us here. So, back to my original question, how did he find Annalise?”
“If he’s got Beatrice, maybe she told him,” Sophie proposed.
Dan shook his head. “No, that can’t be it either. How could Beatrice have known Annalise would schedule a session with the hypnotherapist? Let’s face it, a consultation at midnight is hardly the most likely time. He must have placed a locator on her somehow.”
It was the policewoman’s turn to disagree. “That’s pretty unlikely. They’re not the sort of thing you can just pick up in a corner shop.”
“What about on the Internet? It’s possible to source almost anything if you’ve got the patience and the money to pay for it.”
“Even then, it would be difficult to get hold of something that could provide an accurate location but would be small enough not to be noticed.”
“Perhaps he gave her a gift with a tracker hidden inside. I don’t know, like a ...”
“But she wasn’t carrying a bag,” Sophie said. “All she had on her was the phone.”
Dan slammed his palm down on the metal table. “Of course, that’s it. He must have been tracking her mobile. It’s the only logical explanation. Couldn’t we do the same?”
Diane Smythe shook her head. “My colleagues have already tried to track down her whereabouts that way. They weren’t picking up a signal.”
“Yeah, but I’ve got this app on the iPad, Find My Friends or something like that. Both the girls’ phones are on there. It remembers the last location whether the phone’s still on or not. He may not have turned it off immediately. The iPad’s at home somewhere. I read in some article that the software only runs on Apple hardware so I can’t run it on my mobile.” A puzzled frown crossed Dan’s face. “Actually, now I think about it, I don’t remember seeing the iPad after the burglary.”
“Don’t worry. We’ve probably got one here. I’m sure they’ve already thought of that, but if you give me your login details, I’ll go and check.”
Dan gave her the username and password for his account. The policewoman scribbled them down in a notebook then hurried out of the room.
Sophie grabbed her husband’s hand. “I find it hard to believe Mark would do this. We welcomed him into our house. How could we get it so wrong?”
“You’re right. Why didn’t we see it? I mean, he seemed such a pleasant man. Even knowing what we know now, I can’t recall any warning signs that would have indicated what he’s capable of.”
“I read somewhere that a lot of serial killers are like that. Jeffrey Dahmer—the guy who killed all those people in the States—apparently he was a real charmer.” She paused and looked her husband in the eye. “Do you think our girls will be alright?”
“God, I hope so.”
“Why the hell has he done this? What’s he trying to achieve?”
Dan rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s anybody’s guess. He’s probably just sick in the head.”
The minute hand of the wall clock ticked around with a loud click. Both husband and wife glanced up at the dial: two seventeen.
“Where’s that bloody policewoman?” Dan muttered.
Right on cue, Diane Smythe pushed the door open carrying two steaming cups of tea. “I wasn’t sure whether you wanted anything, but I brought these anyway. Just leave them if you don’t want them. The reason I took so long was that they discovered Webber’s car.”
Dan and Sophie stared at the woman hopefully.
“Unfortunately, there was no sign of either Mr Webber or your daughters. It had been set alight—but there was nobody inside.”
“Are you sure?” Dan asked.
“They had to force the boot, but it was empty.”
“Where did they find it?”
“There’s a playing field behind the secondary school. A resident in one of the adjacent houses called it in.”
“I don’t understand. Why would he burn his own car? Have any other cars been reported stolen around there?”
The policewoman shrugged. “He probably reasoned we’d be on the lookout for it. He may well have stolen another car, but in all likelihood, we won’t find out until the morning when somebody reports it missing.”
“What about Annalise’s phone?”
“Unfortunately, the app is s
howing the hypnotherapist’s house as the last reported location. I’m sorry there’s no better news, but we’ve been dragging in more officers to work on tracking down your daughters.”
“Has the locked file proved useful?”
“As I said before, I can’t really talk about it, but at the moment it doesn’t seem particularly relevant. The events that led to it being sealed happened over ten years ago. There’s a history of criminal behaviour but no apparent link to what’s happening now.”
Dan’s shoulders sagged. “So you’re telling us they have nothing?”
“I wouldn’t say that. There are several leads we’re working on.”
“But you still have no idea where he’s holding my daughters?”
The woman shook her head. “I’m sorry, but no.”
Chapter 52
“Ah, I see you’re up and about.” The voice spoke from behind Annalise.
She hopped on the spot, twisting her body so that her arms extended backward towards the open drawer. Mark stood in the doorway, the edges of his mouth tilted upwards in a mirthless smile. His eyes sparkled through the maelstrom of darkness swirling around his head. He took a step forwards.
Annalise jammed her hands amongst the kitchenware. Her fingers grasped a plastic handle although she had no idea to what it attached.
Mark’s grin widened, and he advanced another pace. “How’s that going to work, then? You’re planning to turn your back on me and stab me with a bit of cutlery? I’m half tempted to let you try.”
From the edge of her vision, Annalise noticed Beatrice shuffling sideways away from her. Annalise remained stationary, her gaze locked on the man she had been considering marrying only a few days earlier.
Mark approached until the gap between them was less than a yard. “Are you going to drop that, or will I be forced to take it off you?”
Annalise glared at him defiantly. This close, there was something different about him. Her attention focused on an area of puckered skin by his temple. Seeing the direction of her stare, he raised a hand and rubbed the spot self-consciously. In a flash of movement, he swung his arm in a wide arc, cuffing her across the ear. She toppled sideways, unable to balance due to the rope binding her legs together. Mark bent over her and snatched the item from between her hands. He thrust it into her face. “So, you’re planning to attack me with a potato peeler?” he sneered. He tossed the kitchen implement on the floor.
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