He put a restraining hand on her arm. ‘Wait. Do you have to?’
‘Yes. I have to be up in the morning for a radio interview.’ She looked at his hand. He let it drop.
‘How intriguing.’
‘Not really.’ She gave him a brief smile as she turned to go.
‘Stay.’
She looked at him. ‘I really do have to get home.’
‘I’m Jamie Rider,’ he said as if she hadn’t spoken. He put out his hand.
Alex took it. She had known it was Jamie Rider, although he was far more impressive in real life than the photos she had found of him had led her to believe.
‘Alex Devlin,’ she said, shaking his hand.
His grip was warm and firm. ‘The journalist.’
‘Oh dear. You said it like it was a cross I had to bear.’ She laughed, lightly.
He laughed. ‘Not at all. Your book is like a bible for my mother.’
She gave a wry smile. The book. All the profiles she had put together about interesting people, the stories she had written about the danger of suicide forums on the Internet, the investigations she had done into dodgy business practices, all this counted for nothing against a book she had been commissioned to write after an article of hers had appeared in the paper about extreme couponing. The art of collecting coupons and vouchers and spending them well was a very popular subject. Popular enough to write a book about and for the book to get onto the bestseller lists. Popular enough to give her the cash to put a deposit down on a waterfront apartment in Woodbridge.
‘That’s good to hear,’ she said, thinking he was either having her on or was trying to ingratiate himself with her. After all, what possible pleasure would the imposing and somewhat terrifying Marianne Rider take in cutting out coupons from newspapers? It didn’t go with the red dress and frosty look.
‘Perhaps you could sign it for her some time?’
‘Of course.’ Really? she thought. ‘And you. What’s your niche on the farm? The backwoodsman lodges, the yurts or the haunted island?’
Jamie Rider threw back his head and laughed. ‘You make us sound like a family of weirdos.’
Alex raised an eyebrow.
‘Ah. You think we are a family of weirdos.’ He nodded. ‘Fair enough. But I don’t have anything to do with any of those projects. Never have. I’m far too boring. I work in the city.’
‘Banking,’ said Alex.
‘You’ve been doing your research. I’m impressed.’ He didn’t look impressed. ‘Yes, banking. Very dull.’
‘Not at all,’ she replied, trying to sound politely convincing. ‘I’m sure it has its own delights.’
Again he laughed, and Alex found she enjoyed hearing it. It made her smile. ‘But now,’ she looked at her watch, ‘I really must be going.’
‘No. The night is still young.’ He frowned. ‘You can’t disappear like some sort of Cinderella, not when I’ve just found you.’
‘I have been here all the time, and I’m afraid I must disappear. So, please excuse me.’
‘Can I give you a lift? I mean, since you and David …’
She shook her head. ‘I’ll be fine, thank you.’
‘But the roads.’
‘I know the roads. And maybe I brought my car.’
‘Maybe you did, but you have been downing the champagne. And, if – as I imagine you did – you came as David Gordon’s guest, then you will have lost that lift home.’
‘Not necessarily. I’m sure he would take me home if I asked.’ Actually, she was bloody sure he wouldn’t. ‘In any case, the fresh air will do me good.’ She was enjoying the banter but she really did want to get home to her bed so she was fresh for the radio interview in the morning. Besides, she didn’t want or need any complications in her life, and Jamie Rider looked as though he could be a very big complication, if she let him in. No, she would go outside and order a taxi.
‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘Maybe I could see you another time? Show you around the farm? Book you in to realign your chakra?’
‘Maybe.’ She smiled, graciously, she hoped.
Chakra indeed. It really was time to leave.
CHAPTER FOUR
DAY ONE: LATE EVENING
Cora didn’t see the two men until it was too late.
Normally, she would catch the last bus home after an evening shift at the hospital, but tonight she had worked late thanks to an emergency admission and so she’d missed it, but a colleague gave her a lift part of the way, dropping her on Unthank Road – not too far for her to walk. However, this was Norwich, and there weren’t many people out late at night in that part of the city, which was well away from the nightclubs and the pubs the students frequented, so she hurried along, trying to make herself as inconspicuous as possible. Once or twice the hairs stood up on the back of her neck and she looked over her shoulder, convinced she was being followed, but she saw nobody.
She decided to take a shortcut through Chapelfield Gardens that was lit in part by sickly yellow sodium lights. A couple meandered along in front of her, hand-in-hand. She passed a group of four men, swaying with booze. They called out to her; she ignored them.
Two men stepped out of the dark in front of her. She stopped, smiled.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, pleasantly, hoping they would stand aside.
They didn’t.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, more loudly now, her heart fluttering in her chest. This was not a good situation. Still they didn’t move. She glanced around, wondering if she could shout for help, but the gardens were now empty. The two men moved smoothly to flank her either side, pressing her between their bodies. Both were much taller than she was.
‘Cora,’ one of them said without looking at her, ‘you shouldn’t be walking around on your own.’
‘Especially not here,’ said the other. ‘In a deserted park an’ all.’
‘Have you been following me?’ Her mouth was dry. Fuck it, she’d been right.
Man Number One, who was thickset with rubbery lips, smiled at her. ‘Since you left the hospital,’ he said, cheerfully. ‘We’d been waiting for you to leave. Though you didn’t make it easy, missing your bus and everything. Good job we had our car parked nearby. Especially as parking can be hell at NHS places, don’t you find?’
‘I don’t know who you are,’ Cora said, keeping her voice low and even as if she were talking to a frightened child, ‘but I would advise you to get out of my way.’
‘Or what, Cora?’
His lips were wet with saliva; it was all Cora could do not to shiver.
Then the two men began to hustle her along the path so fast that her feet were barely touching the ground. Her heart began to beat even faster.
‘What are you doing?’ She tried to wriggle free, but the two men merely gripped one of her arms each and carried on walking. All she could hope for was that they would pass someone and she could shout for help.
The group of drunks. There they were, ahead of her.
‘Help,’ she shouted, though it came out more like a whisper.
She gathered her breath, opened her mouth. One of the men punched her in the stomach. She bent over, winded.
‘All right, mate?’ she heard one of the drunks say as they hurried by.
‘All right,’ said Man Number One. ‘A few too many. Y’know.’ He laughed.
‘Fuckin’ do,’ said the drunk. They all laughed. Cora was still trying to catch her breath.
‘Look, Cora love,’ said the skinny man on her left, as they turned out of the gardens and began to walk down the road. ‘We don’t mean you no harm. Not intentionally, anyway. This is just a little warning.’
‘A warning, that’s right,’ said Man Number One, squeezing her shoulder hard. ‘Stop poking around, asking questions.’
‘Yeah, poking your nose in where it’s not wanted.’
‘Looking for Rick, you mean?’ she said through gritted teeth. Her stomach hurt. ‘Is that what it’s about?’ It was all she could think of.
‘Yeah.’
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why shouldn’t I look for Rick?’
‘It’s not just that. Boss reckons you interfere too much and people’ll start talking.’
‘Listening, you mean.’ Anger made her bold. ‘They might just start listening.’ She tried to shake them off, but they held on even tighter. Rain had begun to fall.
‘Whatever.’
‘Who’s your boss? One of the Riders? Which one?’
Her question was met with laughter. She knew she was right.
They were now in an alleyway at the back of a row of shops – Topshop, she thought. MacDonald’s. No one to hear her.
‘Boss knows you like chatting to the homeless,’ said Skinny Man, dragging her towards one of the large grey industrial wheelie bins, ‘so we thought you could spend a bit of time being in their gaff.’
Okay, she thought, so they were going to dump her in a bin to make a point. To frighten her. And they’d done that all right. She was frightened. And getting cold from the rain. But at least she could climb out of the bin when the men had gone.
All at once Man Number One grabbed her arms and jerked them behind her back, wrapping gaffer tape around her wrists. Before she could scream, Skinny Man had slapped tape over her mouth, wrapping more tape around her head. Fear coiled in her stomach. Man Number One pushed her and she fell heavily on to the ground, banging her head on the hard concrete. Her vision went black for a moment and she felt sick. Then more tape was wrapped around her legs from her knees to her ankles, before she heard one of them push open the lid of the wheelie bin, and then she was tossed inside like a piece of rubbish.
‘Take this as a warning,’ Skinny Man said, smiling down at her.
The lid slammed shut.
The smell hit her first. The sweet tang of rotting food. Fried onions. Mouldy old rags. Body odour – from old clothes? Chips. The sourness of beer. There would be maggots, she knew there would be maggots. Fat. Crawling. Wriggling. She was lying on cans. Bottles. Cardboard containers. Lying on all sorts of rubbish. Slime. In the dark. Terror rose in her throat. Bile too. No, she must not be sick. Not be sick.
Another thought: would the bin be emptied tonight? Her terror grew so it was almost uncontainable. She could scarcely breathe. She had heard about this. Knew it had happened to homeless people, or drunks who thought they’d found somewhere safe for the night. And then the bin lorry came along, scooped up the bin and emptied it into the lorry where the contents were crushed before being taken to the landfill site. Her body would never be found. She would never be able to help Rick. To bring those who deserved it to justice.
Oh, Rick, where are you?
She tried to throw herself against the side of the bin – for what? To topple it? To make a noise? No matter, however many times she tried, nothing happened. It didn’t move. No one heard her. She tried to stand up, but kept sinking down into the rubbish. She screamed, but the tape muffled her cries. It was dark. It stank. She was wet. Cold. Her throat hurt. There was no air. No air. She closed her eyes.
She had no idea how long she had been lying in the bin, but now she heard it, the noise of a lorry on the street nearby. Could it be the bin lorry coming to collect the rubbish? To collect her?
Fear made her freeze.
Light. Not light, but not dark either. Fresh air. Rain on her face.
‘Here let me help you.’
Someone – a man – leaning right over the edge of the bin, holding out his hands. She tried to shuffle towards him, carefully, so she wouldn’t sink any further into the filth. He grabbed her under her arms and hauled her up and over the lip of the bin. Her shoulders burned. For the second time that night, she landed on the hard concrete.
The man jumped down off the pile of crates he’d been balancing on, and bent to tear the tape off her head and mouth.
It hurt like hell.
He produced a knife and cut her wrists and calves free.
‘Come on. Leg it.’
A bin lorry came around the corner.
Cora held on to the man’s hand and legged it.
Chapelfield Gardens again. Cora sat down on a bench.
Her rescuer wrinkled his noise. ‘You stink.’
Cora looked at him, at his trousers held up by a tie, his stained knitted jumper underneath a buttonless coat out of which protruded much stuffing. ‘You can talk.’
Her rescuer grinned. ‘Maybe. Glad I got you before the crusher did.’
Cora nodded, then began to shiver. ‘How did you know I was there?’
Her rescuer shrugged. ‘A man gave me some dosh, told me where you were and told me to get you out. Preferably before the lorry.’
Now Cora laughed. ‘Thank you. Do you know who the man was?’
He shook his head, putting his finger to his lips. ‘Hush money, that’s what he said.’ And he ran off down the path.
Cora couldn’t stop shivering.
CHAPTER FIVE
DAY ONE: LATE EVENING
Alex hunched into her coat and pushed one hand as far down into a pocket as she could. The other held her phone with the torch light on so she could see her way. The weather had turned from clearsky cold to stormy in the time she had been at the charity event. If she looked at the ground, the wind wouldn’t whip across her skin. The stars were hiding behind furiously dark clouds.
It hadn’t been her greatest idea. To attempt to order a taxi to come to the middle of nowhere on a weekday night. Or any night, thinking about it. It wasn’t as if she could call an Uber, or that there was a plethora of taxi firms in the area. The two firms that did answer her call said they were too busy. Alex imagined them shaking their heads ruefully as they put the phone down.
Why hadn’t she ordered one earlier?
Because she hadn’t realized she would need one.
So she began to walk, reasoning that it wasn’t too far to Woodbridge. And when she got a decent signal again, she would give one of the taxi firms who hadn’t picked up another try. Or, when she reached the Dog and Partridge, where she’d had supper with David, she might be able to persuade the owner’s student son to take her home for a bit of cash.
On reflection, perhaps she should have let Jamie Rider drive her home. Still, she’d had a lucky escape from David. Where had that mauling come from? She hadn’t encouraged him; there was no way she was even interested in him. Or anyone, for that matter, especially now her life was coming together at last. She didn’t feel as though she was being buffeted by the winds of chance any more and was finally feeling at peace with herself. The guilt that had weighed so heavily on her for years had lifted. She had a new start. Finally, she knew she deserved it.
All she needed now was a juicy story to get her teeth into. It was all very well having a bestselling book – and she wasn’t complaining, it had bought her independence as well as the new flat – but she did want to be taken seriously. She’d been writing features for The Post for a long time now. She wanted something else, something worth doing. She’d had a taste of it eighteen months ago when she was delving into the proliferation of suicide forums on the Internet and the financial shenanigans of the previous editor and owner of the newspaper. She’d enjoyed writing that copy.
The rain began to fall, gently at first, then it came on harder, running icily down the back of her neck. Damn. She was going to get properly wet now. And cold. She tried to protect her phone. It would be the last straw if that was ruined. And her feet were hurting. Those damn heels. Why hadn’t she brought flat pumps to change into? Because she hadn’t thought she was going to have to walk home, had she?
She had talked to Heath about more work, about her desire to be taken more seriously. Heath, whose looks, charm and inherited wealth belied a sharp operator, was the owner of The Post as well as its news editor. He wanted to be hands-on, he’d told Alex during one of her rare visits to London. She had told him she wanted more excitement in her working life. He’d stretched out hi
s long legs, pushed his floppy fringe out of his eyes and said, ‘Well, you don’t want a staff job on The Post, I know that. Don’t sit around moaning, Alex. You’re a freelance, a self-starter, even if you do have enough money at the moment. It might not always be like that. You call yourself an investigative journalist, so get out there and find something to investigate.’
Tough love.
For a few days she’d been hurt, resentful, but she knew he was right – damn him. It was up to her to find stories, to get stuck into something.
Her phone buzzed. She peered at the screen. Her sister. Her heart used to sink when she got a call from her, but now it was like being phoned by someone – ordinary, was that the word? Probably not. Normal? What was normal these days? What she meant was that she didn’t go into worry mode as soon as her sister’s name cropped up on her phone. Or in conversation.
‘Hey, how’re you doing, Sasha? It’s a bit late.’
Though she knew her sister didn’t sleep much, not these days. She might be stable, her mental health issues on an even keel, but sleep was the one thing that eluded her. Too many thoughts in her head, she’d told Alex. Too many regrets.
‘Alex, guess what?’ Her sister was bubbling with excitement. No preamble. ‘There are critics coming up from London for my exhibition. Real-life critics want to view my paintings. Mine! What if they don’t like them? They might hate them. You will be at the preview, won’t you? You will be there?’ Her words came rushing out, tumbling over each other.
‘Whoa, slow down, Sasha,’ said Alex, smiling at the sheer joy in her sister’s voice. ‘Of course I’ll be there. It’s at that swish gallery in Gisford, isn’t it? I’m not far from it now, actually.’
‘Really? Is that where the charity do was then?’
‘Nearby. A big farm. Big landowners. Pots of money.’
Gone in the Night Page 3