by D. S. Butler
Benny’s lip began to wobble, and although he didn’t speak, he became more agitated. His fingers twisted and clutched at the sheets, and he let out a low moan.
“Are you okay? Are you in pain?”
Benny gave a small nod, and Charlotte called the nurse, who had remained in the room. She was standing by a cupboard, sorting through some items inside. Charlotte suspected she was really staying in the room because she wanted to keep an eye on the questioning.
The nurse walked up to Benny and smiled at him. “We’ve given you something for the pain, Benny, but it will be uncomfortable for the next few days as you recover. We’ll give you another dose of medication in an hour. Do you think you can manage until then?”
Benny nodded his head, and the nurse patted him on the back of the hand, walked back to the cupboard and continued rearranging the stock.
Charlotte frowned. Benny was responding to their questions, so he clearly understood them. He was just refusing to answer. They didn’t have time for this.
“Benny, this is very important. I need you to talk to me, do you understand?”
He nodded but still said nothing. Charlotte decided to ask a question that didn’t relate to the current case, one that Benny might feel more comfortable answering.
“Benny, what is the name of the community centre you go to?”
Benny licked his lips as he contemplated her question. It seemed to take ages, but finally, he decided that it was safe to answer.
“Rose Hill community centre,” he said.
Charlotte nodded. “Good.”
At least she had managed to get him talking. That was progress, albeit slower progress than she wanted.
“Benny, do you know Ruby Watson and Lila George? They work at that community centre, don’t they?”
Benny nodded, and Charlotte gritted her teeth. Great. Now they were back to nodding, but after a brief hesitation, Benny surprised her by asking, “Are they all right?”
“I don’t know Benny. I am trying to find them and I thought you would be able to help.”
Benny looked panicked. “Where’s Rob?”
“Your brother?”
Benny nodded.
“I don’t know. When did you last see him?”
“Last night.”
“Can you tell me what happened last night?” Charlotte asked.
Benny shook his head frantically. “No.”
“Did you see the girls last night?”
Benny looked away. His breathing was getting faster as he got more and more agitated.
Charlotte reached out and put a hand on his arm. “Benny, I’m a police officer and I want to help. You want to help too, don’t you? You want the girls to be safe and you want to find your brother?”
Benny turned his big eyes on Charlotte as though he were weighing up whether to trust her or not, and then finally he nodded and began to talk.
Chapter 56
Marlo could barely control his breathing. His hand was gripping the phone so tightly he thought he might crush it. The humiliation of listening to somebody, who was not even worthy to lick his boots, rant and rave and accuse him of doing a bad job made Marlo furious.
The fool thought he was so clever, but he had no idea about the real world. He wouldn’t know how to pull off a job if it smacked him on the arse, and now he had the cheek to tell Marlo off for embellishing the game.
He had no style, no ambition.
But Marlo couldn’t say any of that to the person on the other end of the phone, not if he wanted to get paid, so instead, he gritted his teeth and tried to explain the situation.
“I don’t think you understand. I had to think on my feet. People are unpredictable, and things don’t always go to plan. But I handled it.”
He held the phone away from his ear to save himself from the dressing down.
He’d had enough of this.
Why was he following orders from a jumped up little prick? He shouldn’t be taking orders from anybody. The person on the phone clearly had no idea who he was dealing with.
“Now, listen to me,” Marlo said. “It’s all very well for you to read me the riot act now, but I didn’t see you here making decisions and…”
The phone went silent, and Marlo pulled the phone away from his ear and looked at the screen in disbelief. He was shaking with rage and could feel the vein at his temple pounding.
The bastard had hung up on him. Of all the disrespectful, rude things to do…
He would regret that. Marlo would make sure of it. From the start of this game, Marlo had had to abide by somebody else’s rules. He’d had to promise there would be no permanent damage to the girls.
Marlo was shaking as he dropped the phone onto the kitchen counter. He’d made that promise under different circumstances. Now, all deals were off.
Marlo smiled coldly. The game was about to get deadly.
* * *
Zelda Smith paced her small corner of the incident room. DI Tyler had promised to take her to speak to Curtis Watson ages ago, but he was still keeping her waiting. He thought she was stupid.
She knew he didn’t think much of her profession. He didn’t respect the time she’d spent studying and analysing criminal behaviour. To be honest, she had almost respected him for that when she first met him. At least he’d been honest about his opinion, and Zelda had relished the challenge to prove herself.
She’d worked on a number of cases with both the Metropolitan police and the City of London police and she often met resistance. It made the result all the more gratifying when her contribution helped solve the case and sceptical officers realised there was value in studying criminal behaviour.
After all, if you understood the criminal mind, you could predict behaviour and that was very helpful.
The trouble was, case notes, interview summaries and reports really didn’t cut the mustard. It was so much easier when she got to talk to the people involved. A typed up conversation on the printed page was useless compared to looking into somebody’s eyes to see whether they were lying to you.
Curtis Watson sounded like a very interesting character indeed. He was young, and struggling to find his place in the world, but it was his intellect that interested Zelda. He clearly didn’t fit in with his current family, and from everything she had gleaned so far, it appeared that he didn’t feel connected to them. That’s why Zelda wanted to see him in person. If he really had no connection to the parents who had cared for him since he was a child that would be extremely unusual, and her professional curiosity had been piqued.
Although Zelda, believed pigeonholing people according to their personality characteristics wasn’t helpful, there were some personality traits you couldn’t ignore, and she knew she would be able to give more insight into the case if she could talk to Curtis and his parents. Once she’d spoken with them, Zelda intended to persuade Tyler to let her see the Georges as well.
She had claimed a mental victory when Tyler had agreed she could talk to Curtis, but now she worried she’d celebrated too soon. She had a sneaking suspicion he just said that to shut her up and was now going to stall for time.
Zelda looked up as Evie Charlesworth made her way towards her. Evie had an open face and a warm smile. She had an administrative role and supported the team, but unlike most of the staff, who regarded Zelda with suspicion and seemed to believe she was psychoanalysing them if they so much as made eye contact, Evie was friendly and easy to talk to.
“Any sign of Detective Inspector Tyler?” Zelda asked.
“I’m afraid not, Zelda. I’ve been asked to pass on a message. DI Tyler is going to be at least another hour or two. You could take a break and maybe go and get something to eat?”
Zelda hid her anger well. She smiled at Evie. “Right. Thank you.”
There was no point taking it out on her. After all, she was only delivering the bad news. Tyler’s message convinced Zelda she had been right. Tyler was fobbing her off.
After Evie walked back to he
r own desk, Zelda reached for her laptop bag and umbrella. She hadn’t been asking for the world, only a little cooperation, but if Tyler wasn’t prepared to compromise, Zelda would do things her own way.
She gave Evie a small wave as she strode out of the incident room. Evie would assume she was going to get something to eat as she had suggested, but Zelda was going to Drake House to talk to Curtis Watson whether DI Tyler liked it or not.
Chapter 57
It was taking forever.
Benny wanted to be helpful, and he did have information, but it wasn’t easy to extract the details. Charlotte had been asking him question after question, trying to determine where the girls were being held.
From what Benny had told her so far, she understood that the girls were in a basement flat with long narrow windows, probably somewhere in London. She knew a man called Marlo had taken Benny to the allotments and stabbed him. It had taken fifteen minutes to get Benny to stutter Marlo’s name.
According to Benny, Marlo was the violent ringleader, and Rob was a moral, honest citizen, but of course he was biased.
“What about street names, Benny? Can you think of any?”
Benny shook his head.
“Close your eyes and try to picture the outside of the basement flat. What can you see?”
Benny’s eyelids fluttered closed. “It is sunny,” he said.
Charlotte barely held back a groan. This was hard work.
“Are there traffic lights outside the flat?”
Benny, who still had his eyes closed, shook his head.
“What about a pedestrian crossing nearby?”
Again, he shook his head.
Charlotte sighed. The only solid information she had so far was that wherever they were holding the girls must have been within walking distance to the allotments as Benny had told her Marlo had led him there from the flat. She supposed that gave them something to go on, although she really needed something to narrow the location down further.
“When you walked to the allotments with Marlo, did you pass any bus stops? Or any tube stations?”
Benny opened his eyes and grinned at Charlotte. “Yes, we went on the D7 bus.”
“Bus? I thought you said you walked to the allotments?”
Benny nodded. “We did, after we got the D7 bus.”
Charlotte rubbed her forehead. Her caffeine and sugar buzz was wearing off, and she was getting a headache. Benny mentioning the D7 bus had given her an idea. She pulled out a mobile phone and did a quick Google search to check the bus route. She quickly found that it did indeed stop just outside Stepney City farm and the allotments.
Now all she had to do was follow the route back and try to get Benny to identify where he had boarded the bus. That would be easier said than done. She pulled up Google Street view, and beginning at the point where the bus started its journey, she began to show Benny the images of the streets.
She scrolled around so Benny could see. “Did you get on the bus here, Benny?”
Benny looked at the image for a long time, and Charlotte felt hope build in her chest. But then her excitement was quenched when Benny shook his head and said, “Nope.”
They repeated the same routine. She showed Benny the street view from each bus stop a further eight times before Benny finally said, “Yes, we got the D7 bus from there.”
“Really, Benny, are you sure? It is very important.”
Benny nodded.
She felt a spark of excitement. If they could pinpoint a smaller area, they could start questioning the local residents and shop owners to see if anyone had seen the girls and examine local CCTV footage.
Charlotte smiled. “Well done, Benny. That’s a great help.”
* * *
Marlo cracked his knuckles. Now that he had made his decision, he was feeling much happier. He never worked well with people bossing him around.
He excelled when he was free to do what he wanted, and what he wanted was to make those girls scream.
Especially Lila George. He wanted to see that defiant light in her eyes snuffed out once and for all. He was going to enjoy this. He would take his time and squeeze every last drop of pleasure out of the moment.
He remembered Benny’s pathetic face when he had first realised Marlo was taking the girls. He had been distraught when Marlo had slammed his fist into the side of Lila George’s head in the alleyway.
“If only you were still around to see what I am going to do next, Benny,” Marlo said with a chuckle as he walked towards the bedroom.
* * *
Charlotte spent the next ten minutes showing Benny images on her phone of the surrounding roads and streets in the vicinity of the bus stop he’d picked out.
He jabbed his finger at the phone when she reached Marston Street and said excitedly. “Yes! That one.”
“The girls are being held in this street?”
Benny nodded.
“Can you remember a door number?”
Benny was quiet for a moment then shook his head.
“It doesn’t matter. You’ve already been a great help,” Charlotte said, eagerly making a note and looking down at the street view.
“But there’s no banana.”
Charlotte looked up and shook her head. “Banana, Benny? What does that mean?”
Benny looked put out. “There was a banana.”
Benny hesitated as he looked at her phone, and his forehead creased with a frown. “I am sure. But there’s no banana.”
Charlotte would have laughed if the situation hadn’t been so serious. She certainly hadn’t been expecting him to say that.
“I’m…not sure what you mean, Benny? What banana?”
Benny shrugged. “There was a banana.”
“Right.” Charlotte said, feeling her hope drifting away.
How could she rely on the information Benny had provided?
Benny grinned at her, pleased with himself, and she smiled back. She couldn’t be angry with him. He was trying to help. He may not have provided the most reliable information, but it was the best they had to go on right now.
Chapter 58
Lila and Ruby had been sitting back to back for the past hour, their fingers desperately working back and forth, trying to remove the duct tape from each other’s wrists.
It wasn’t easy, and Ruby groaned in frustration. She’d peeled the tape back a quarter of an inch only to drop it, and then when she fumbled again, trying to find the edge of the tape, it was stuck fast.
Ruby’s fingers were sweaty and slippery as she struggled to grip the tape. “It’s no good. It’s not coming off.”
“We just have to keep trying,” Lila said. “No one else is coming to save us, Ruby, if we’re going to get out of here, we have to do this together.”
Ruby took a deep breath and tried again.
At least they’d managed to remove the duct tape from each other’s mouths. That had taken ages as well. Ruby had crouched on the ground, putting her face as close to Lila’s hands as she could. Lila’s fingernails had scratched at the skin on her cheeks until she’d finally managed to rip off the tape, and then Ruby had returned the favour.
It was comforting to hear Lila’s voice again. When they’d both been gagged, the eery silence and seeing her own fear reflected in Lila’s eyes had been awful.
“Okay, stop for a minute, and I’ll see if I can free myself.”
Ruby paused and looked over her shoulder to watch Lila’s progress.
Lila grunted in frustration and then swore when she couldn’t wriggle her hands through the loosened tape.
“Let’s try again,” Ruby said and shuffled closer to Lila. “Even if we do get free, what are we going to do? As soon as he comes back in here and sees we have taken the tape off, he’ll just put more on.”
Lila shook her head as Ruby’s fingers plucked at the tape. “I am going to run at him.”
Ruby made a scoffing noise. “That will never work.”
“Think about it, Ruby. Sure, he�
��s stronger than us individually, but if one of us can hold him up long enough for the other to get free, we’ll be able to get some help.”
Ruby shook her head. “Even if we could hold him up for a short while, how would we get out of the flat? The front door will be locked.”
“Benny said the spare front door key was kept in the kitchen, and every time Marlo has been in here, he has always left the key to the bedroom door in the lock.”
“So?”
“So, we lock him in. That will give us time to grab the front door key from the kitchen, get out and raise the alarm.”
“So one of us has to stay locked in here with Marlo?” Ruby asked as her eyes widened in horror.
Lila shrugged. “It should only be for a little while. Once we raise the alarm, the police will be on their way, and we’ll be rescued.”
Ruby shook her head. “And I suppose it’s me who has to stay in the room with Marlo?”
Lila shook her head. “Not necessarily. I say we both rush him. Ideally, we’ll both get out and can lock him in, but that’s unlikely. He’ll probably grab one of us, so it’s up to the other person to get out, lock the bedroom door and raise the alarm. Okay?”
Ruby’s heart was beating faster just thinking about it. “Okay.” She managed to peel away a large section of tape from Lila’s wrists. “Try again now.”
“Oh, thank God,” Lila said and circled her wrists and shoulders in relief as she finally slipped her wrists free of the bindings.
Then she turned to Ruby and made short work of the tape looping around her wrists.
When they were both free, Lila looked into Ruby’s eyes. “Are you ready?”
Ruby nodded and tried to look confident even if she didn’t feel it. She had spent the first few hours after they’d been abducted unable to believe this could have happened to her. She thought she was going to wake up from some crazy dream. Then she thought it was only a matter of time before the police burst in and rescued them, but now, finally, she was starting to think Lila might be right.