‘So he, Lauren, and James could be working together? And they’ve kidnapped Isadora and Teddy?’
‘It’s starting to look that way. And someone ransacked Teddy’s house looking for the memory stick that he’d copied some incriminating files on to, but luckily his wife Maggie had already dropped that off with me.’
They both realised that instead of cheerful humming, there was silence, and the car was slowing down. The 2CV came to a complete halt and Gladys heaved the handbrake on with some difficulty. With the help of the steering wheel, she pulled herself round in her seat to see them better.
‘I’m sorry, my dears, but I couldn’t help overhearing a little of what you said. It sounds dangerous. I’m not sure I should be taking you somewhere where these types of people might find you.’
Bella leaned forward and put a hand on Gladys’s shoulder.
‘Please don’t worry, there’s no reason to think anyone would be coming to my house. As far as they’re concerned Oscar and I are tucked up in our makeshift beds at the office and the USB is… well, they don’t know where that is. But they won’t suspect me of having it.’
‘We’ll be in and out of there in a couple of minutes,’ Oscar reassured her. ‘We can grab the USB, get Bella’s car and go straight to the police. Please, Mum.’
She sighed and shook her head. ‘I never could say no to you, Oscar. On we go then and I shan’t spare the horses!’
Oscar and Bella exchanged a look that said ‘no more talk of OAK’, Oscar switching on the radio as a further distraction.
The song faded out and a jazzy jingle indicated it was time for the news.
‘Good morning. This is Gina Rayford with your local news and weather at four o’clock. Local woman Maggie Thatcher has been declared missing after police were called to a break-in at her house in Little Ayling. Mrs Thatcher was interviewed yesterday by West Country Tonight about the disappearance of her husband, Acorn Consulting employee Edward Thatcher, in late 2019, and the more recent abduction of CEO Isadora Faye. Police are keen to speak to a man who was seen in the area and who is believed to possess an Acorn Consulting ID badge. The man is described as white with short, dark hair, in his mid to late thirties, of medium build and around six feet tall. Anyone with information should call…’
Bella couldn’t concentrate on the rest of the bulletin. If Ben had Maggie, he might have forced her to say where the USB was. He and James and God knows who else could be waiting for them at the house.
She rubbed her eyes. God, she was exhausted. She wanted to be curled up in bed, drifting off to sleep, with OAK, Isadora, Teddy, Ben and all of it smudging and jumbling and floating away to join the other figments of her imagination. Why hadn’t she stayed in London where secret institutes remained secret, like they were meant to, instead of interfering in innocent people’s lives?
She opened her eyes and found Oscar watching her, anxiety written across his face.
‘Too risky?’ he mouthed.
Bella thought of Teddy, bleeding on Le Chêne. Of Maggie, lonely and desperate. Of Isadora – of that look on her face when she’d told Bella that OAK was her life.
She shrugged and mouthed back at him, ‘We have to try.’
Chapter Nineteen
Catherine woke with a start. Drool covered the back of her hand where she’d rested her cheek on it. A couple of strands of hair were stuck to her face – she peeled them off. Next to her on the desk, the books were stacked high. She couldn’t remember closing her eyes, but for the last hour or so of reading she’d struggled. There was a noise behind her and she realised she’d been awoken by someone entering the library. Finn appeared around the end of the bookshelves.
‘News?’ she asked, sitting up and straightening her shirt. ‘Isadora? Ben?’
‘Not about them.’ There were purple shadows under Finn’s eyes. He needed a shave. ‘Two people have escaped the lockdown.’
‘Who?’
‘Bella Black and Oscar Rose.’
Catherine was astonished. ‘Bella and Oscar? They can’t be involved.’
She and Finn looked at each other.
‘How long have they been gone?’ she asked.
‘Could be anytime between midnight and five minutes ago. Lauren Murray’s in their room, says she was asleep, didn’t hear a thing. We found out they were missing when we did a patrol.’
‘They could still be on-site then.’
‘Correct. We’ve got search parties out.’
‘Bella and Oscar…’ Catherine’s eyebrows were drawn together. ‘Seems odd. But on the other hand, they are close to Ben. If you can’t find them in the grounds send a couple of teams to check their home addresses.’
Finn stood up even straighter and gave a quick duck of his head in confirmation.
Lauren pressed the contact saved as ‘Ivy’ in her phone and waited while it rang. She was in a small janitor’s room. Cleaning products lined the walls and worktops. Mops and brushes leaned up in the corner by a stainless-steel sink and what looked like sacks of sand. Lauren was sure that even if OAK had managed to keep some of their monitoring systems alive, this was a room they wouldn’t bother to bug.
The call connected.
‘Hi. Everything okay?’
‘No.’ Lauren replied. ‘Bella and Oscar have disappeared.’
There was silence for a moment on the other end of the phone. ‘Bella and Oscar? Shit.’
‘I was asleep. Must have been the early hours.’
‘You need to get after them, Lauren. I’ve been having an interesting conversation with Maggie Thatcher. She says Bella’s got the USB.’
‘What the…?’ Lauren pulled herself together. ‘Okay, no worries. I know how to get out. I’m on my way.’
‘Thanks, Mum,’ said Oscar, leaning across to give her a peck on the cheek. I’ll call you later, please don’t worry.’
It had been a hard battle persuading Gladys not to wait for them but in the end, by suggesting that such a glamorous equipage as her 2CV would be too conspicuous outside Bella’s house, they’d convinced her to drop them a little way down the lane and then make her way home to Hungerford.
‘I’ll be waiting by the phone to hear from you when I get back, Oscar. And Bella! If anything happens to my boy…’ she broke off and started riffling around in the glove compartment, dislodging leopard-print gloves, a glasses case and a packet of jelly. Extracting a small notebook with a slim gold pen attached, she noted down her phone number, ripped out the page and passed it to Bella. ‘You will call me, dear, won’t you?’
Bella assured her that she would and they got out of the car, watched her reverse it with great care into a tree, turn and drive back towards the main road.
‘Come on then,’ said Bella, grabbing Oscar’s arm and leading him down the lane at a brisk pace, as much to fire up her own courage as his.
Trees and hedges formed a tunnel, broken periodically by the gates leading to houses set back from the road. After they’d passed two gates, she squeezed his arm to indicate this was their turning. They crept into the courtyard, crossing it as quietly as they could, the sound of their footsteps masked by the rushing of the mill stream. The houses were in darkness, the single light source a hazy globe around the lamp post at the courtyard entrance. At her front door, Bella scrabbled at the keyhole, her trembling hands fumbling a couple of times before she managed to turn the key in the lock. Pushing Oscar in first, she pulled the door shut behind them and they both held their breath, straining to hear if there was any noise in the house. The fridge in the kitchen whirred and the hall clock ticked but otherwise, silence. Their eyes grew accustomed to the light and she nodded to him, leading the way down the corridor.
In the kitchen, she went straight to the cupboard below the kettle where she kept her baking ingredients. Delving her hand into the box of icing sugar she found the USB and pulled it out.
She could hear Oscar’s breathing beside her, short and panicked.
‘I’ve got it,’ she w
hispered. ‘It’s okay, we can go. I’ll get my car keys.’
They came back out into the hall and she grabbed her keys from hook. At the same moment there came the sound of glass smashing in the kitchen.
‘Fuck! The back door!’ Bella’s mind blanked, panic spreading across it like fire consuming a sheet of paper.
Oscar leapt to the kitchen door, slammed it shut and held on to the handle. ‘Run! I’ll try and slow them down!’
Run! Where? She grasped wildly for a sensible idea in the blank vacuum of her mind. She couldn’t go out the front door, they’d catch her. Think, Bella, she urged herself. And then, almost as if her muscles – despairing of her feeble brain – took over, she darted up the stairs.
Up to the first floor, heart banging against her ribs, breath rasping in her ears, and then all the way up to the loft.
In the loft room, she opened one of the eaves cupboards, shoved the empty cardboard boxes and rolls of parcel tape to one side and clambered inside, feet first. Once in, she realised she wouldn’t be able to pull the door shut behind her: there was no handle on the inside. She closed it as much as she could with her fingernails, then began crawling along inside the eaves, pulling a few boxes behind her to cover her escape route. Squeezing through the narrow gap at the side of the water tank she flicked on the torch on her phone and found what she was looking for. A piece of MDF faced her, blocking her way. A little bit of jiggling and she was able to move it, as she had the first time she’d explored the house. She crawled through the gap, then turned and wedged the MDF back in place. A cursory glance in torchlit darkness wouldn’t reveal anything odd, she had to hope that the fact of the eaves door being ajar didn’t point them in her direction. She paused, trying to stifle the sounds of her jerky breathing. Should have opened some of the other cupboard doors to make it less obvious, she thought. Too late now.
She began to edge her way along the narrow gap, shifting cat baskets and overflowing boxes of Christmas decorations, until her hand touched plywood on her right instead of breezeblocks. She shoved, and the door opened into a loft room which in shape and proportion was very like that she had just left, except this one was set up as an artist’s studio.
Large canvases leant in neat stacks, purples, oranges and pinks with a recurring theme of poppy-like flowers. An easel was set up beside one of the large dormer windows.
She pushed the cupboard door shut and let herself out of the room, tiptoeing down the stairs to the first-floor landing.
Someone was rattling the handle on the other side of the kitchen door. Oscar clung on, the curved metal jabbing into his palm.
‘Open up!’
The voice was strained but sounded familiar. It was followed by a kick against the door. Oscar braced himself with his shoulder pressed to the wood.
‘Bella? Oscar?’ The voice came again, ‘Open the door! It’s me, Lauren.’
Lauren? What the hell is she doing here? Oscar loosened his grip in a moment of indecision and the door flew open, knocking him backwards.
Lauren stood in the doorway with a gun. Oscar’s eyes widened.
‘What the hell, Lauren?’
She lowered the gun. ‘Sorry. I wasn’t sure what I’d find. Where’s Bella?’
Oscar thought fast. Lauren wasn’t someone he’d ever suspected would attack OAK, not someone he could see caught up in a kidnapping. But she was an ally of Ben’s, and by all accounts, Ben was in this up to his neck. And would an innocent person have a gun?
‘She’s not here,’ he said, leaning one shoulder against the bannisters in what he hoped was a casual attitude.
‘What do you mean? Where is she?’ Lauren advanced into the hallway, flicking on a torch and directing the beam into the adjacent living room. Finding it empty, she searched the other rooms on the ground floor.
‘We thought it was too dangerous,’ Oscar called after her. ‘We decided to split up.’
Lauren came back into the hall and switched off the torch.
‘Oscar, this isn’t a game. I need to find the USB stick. People’s lives depend on it. If Bella’s got it, she’s in danger.’
How the hell does she know Bella’s got the USB? he thought. Pressing his lips together and shrugging his shoulders, he said out loud, ‘I wish I could help you. But like I say, she’s not here.’
There was a crunching of boots on broken glass and they turned to see two cupuli, guns raised, in the kitchen doorway.
‘We’ll make sure of that ourselves, if you don’t mind,’ one of them said as he motioned to Lauren to lower her gun.
She dropped it and kicked it across the tiles toward him. He gestured for her and Oscar to go into the living room. ‘You two wait in here with me while my colleague looks around.’
Oscar’s heart was thumping as the other cupule, having searched the ground floor, made her way upstairs. Lauren’s eyes darted around the room as if she was looking for a weapon or an escape route. The cupule guarding them gave her a light tap on the side of the head with his gun.
‘Take it easy,’ he said. ‘We don’t want anyone to get hurt.’
They heard the second cupule opening doors and pulling furniture about. Oscar had never had a panic attack before but he found himself wondering if that was what was happening to him now as his heart took great, angry thumps and he held on to the edge of the table to stop himself swaying. Please don’t find her, please don’t find her, he willed. Every time there was a muffled bang, he expected to hear Bella scream.
The footsteps came back downstairs and the cupule joined them in the living room, shaking her head at her colleague.
Oscar’s heart, which had started to ease off on the aerobics, launched itself into an even more energetic workout as the male cupule left Lauren and poked the muzzle of his pistol into Oscar’s shoulder. It wasn’t often that people could look Oscar in the eye but this guy had a couple of inches on him height-wise, and if you’d stripped him of his uniform you could have fitted Oscar inside it several times over.
They were standing toe to toe as the cupule said, not raising his voice, ‘You know where she is.’
‘I don’t,’ said Oscar, truthfully.
‘You left OAK together. Where did she go? We won’t hurt her but we need to find her before anyone else does.’
Out of the corner of his eye, Oscar was aware of Lauren paying close attention to this exchange. Sharp metal ground against the bone in his shoulder.
‘I think,’ Oscar said, so quietly that the cupule had to tilt his head to hear, ‘I think you’ll find her if you look’ – his voice dropped further, barely audible now, the cupule’s face millimetres from his own – ‘up your own arse.’
And then there was nothing.
Bella had crept down the first set of stairs, testing each step before she put her full weight on it, knowing the creak of certain steps could be heard through the wall in her own house.
She paused on the landing of the first floor. Snoring suggested Angela was in the room to her right. She padded across the carpet and took a deep breath, one hand on the bannister ready to descend the final set of stairs. Through the wall, she heard a step creak. Someone was coming up. She froze. The slightest movement forward or back and the floorboards beneath Bella’s feet would give her away. She kept her breathing shallow, in and out through her mouth as she strained to hear more. Was that voices she could hear downstairs? Now furniture was being flung around, doors slammed. In Angela’s room, the snoring stopped. Oh God, please don’t wake up, Angela. Don’t get out of bed.
By the time the banging stopped, Bella was shaking. She’d released the bannister in case her trembling hand jerked a telltale noise out of the wood. Instead, she had eased herself down into a crouch on the carpet, hands braced on either side of her feet like a sprinter on the blocks, ready to launch herself down the stairs if she heard the door on the landing above open.
The door above remained closed and the creaking of the stairs through the wall told her the intruder was retreating. T
here were muffled voices downstairs. Angela gave one great snore and relapsed into silence. Then Bella heard the front door in her own house slam.
She shot downstairs and into Angela’s living room, which looked out on to the courtyard. Giving a prayer of thanks that the curtains weren’t closed, Bella pressed herself to the wall on one side of the window and peered around the edge of the thick green velvet.
In the weak dawn light, she saw Lauren walking away from the house, hands clasped in front of her. Behind her, being supported between two stocky black-clad figures, feet trailing along the ground, was Oscar.
When Oscar came to, it took a moment to orient himself. He was slumped against the window of a car, head lolling, seat belt cutting into his neck. The car was going at a cracking pace, hurtling around bends, trees and telegraph poles whipping by outside. He changed position and the pain in his head intensified. He closed his eyes against the throbbing, trying to remember what had happened. He’d told a large cupule to go and look up his own arse, and then there was a fragment of memory of his face, purple and furious, and a bright flash of pain. It seemed sensible to conclude the cupule had knocked him out.
Oscar opened his eyes at the touch of cool fingers on his wrist.
Lauren was sitting next to him on the passenger seat, looking pale but otherwise unharmed. His groggy brain noted something odd about the way she’d reached over to tap him and then saw that her wrists were bound together with a zip tie.
‘Are you okay?’ she murmured.
He pulled a non-committal face, the corners of his mouth dragged down. ‘You?’ he mouthed.
She nodded.
In the front, the two cupuli sat in silence. The woman was driving while the man tapped something into his phone.
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