by C. L. Taylor
As the barman tips a measure of gin into a glass Alice takes
her phone out of her bag. No missed calls from DC Mitchell. And no texts or messages, other than one from Emily, thanking her for looking after her last night. When her daughter got up that morning Alice took one look at her puffy eyes and pallid skin and asked if she was going to ring in sick. Emily looked appalled. ‘Just because Adam’s a fuckwit doesn’t mean I have to miss a day’s pay. I’ll let him stew. Silence is the best weapon, Mum.’
She wondered if that was true. She’d been doing the opposite
with Simon and it hadn’t got her very far. As the barman plonks a gin and tonic in front of her, Alice pays, then carries it across to an empty table. It feels weird coming back to the bar where she first saw him but it’s the nearest pub to work. Quiet too.
She’s not going to be overheard.
She knocks back half her drink, but the inside of her mouth
dries as she taps at her phone then holds it to her ear. He probably won’t reply, she thinks.
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‘Hello?’ a male voice says. There’s a pause, as though he’s
about to say something else but he falls silent instead.
‘Michael, it’s Alice.’
Another pause, and doubt starts to creep in. There’s almost
no chance he’ll be able to help her, but she can’t just dismiss Lynne’s theory that he and Simon set this whole thing up. It’s no more unreasonable than the idea that Flora would stalk her, or Peter’s pregnant girlfriend suddenly decided to try and ruin her life.
‘Hi,’ Michael says and Alice’s heart twists in her chest.
‘Where are you?’ she asks.
‘Sorry?’
‘Are you still in Spain?’
‘Why? What’s this about? If it’s about your car I already told the police I was in Barcelona and I’ve got friends who—’
‘I know. They told me.’
‘So why are you calling?’
‘Do know anyone called Simon?’
‘Who?’
‘Simon. He picked up my purse after . . . after you attacked
me in the pub . . .’
‘I’m sorry.’ The words come up in a rush. ‘I’ve got to stop
you there, Alice, to say how sorry I am. I’m . . . I’m really fucking sorry. Honestly I . . . I’ve never, never hurt a woman in my life. I just . . . I’d been drinking since I woke up and . . .
there’s no excuse. I’m an alcoholic and I’m getting help. I’ve got some friends out here who’ve booked me into a place where . . .
you don’t need to know all the ins and outs and I’m rambling.
I’m just so sorry. Really. I would have apologised earlier but the . . . the police said I should leave you alone.’
Alice says nothing as his words sink in. Instead she stares
past the bar towards the corridor where Michael elbowed her
at the base of her throat and then tried to kiss her. The memory, 217
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the split glistening on his lips and the pink peak of his tongue, makes her feel sick, but she can’t reconcile that lurching, aggressive man with the bumbling, apologetic voice in her ear. It’s as though Michael was wearing someone else’s skin that day and
what happened stripped it away, revealing a stuttering mouse
of man.
‘I forgive you,’ she says and as the words leave her mouth
she feels a weight drop from her shoulders. ‘Do you know him,
or where he is?’ she adds quickly. ‘Simon? The blond-haired
man who picked up my purse?’
‘Simon . . . Simon . . .’ Michael deliberates over the name.
‘No, that’s not ringing any bells. If I’m honest my memory of
what happened is a bit hazy anyway but I’m pretty sure I don’t know a Simon.’
‘Right. Okay.’ She doesn’t know whether to feel disappointed
or relived.
‘I really am sorry.’
‘I know you are.’ She pauses, unsure how to end the call then
simply says, ‘Goodbye,’ and takes the phone from her ear. She
taps the screen to end the call, then reaches for her glass.
The barman coughs lightly as she takes a sip. He coughs
again, louder this time.
‘Sorry to eavesdrop,’ he says as she glances across at him,
‘but, um . . . quiet pub and all that.’ He shrugs. ‘Anyway, I remember you. You were here a few days ago, weren’t you?’
Alice sits up straighter. ‘Yes, I was.’
‘The Simon you’re looking for . . . was he the blonde bloke
who was sitting over there with a laptop?’ He points across the pub to an empty table.
‘Yes, that’s him.’
‘Then you need to try Radio Bristol.’
‘Radio Bristol?’
‘On Whiteladies Road.’ He spreads his hands wide on the bar.
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‘He’s called Simon Hamilton, the bloke who was sitting there.
Radio Bristol DJ. Comes in occasionally to work on his stuff
for his show, pranks and that. I don’t think it’s funny.’ He shrugs again. ‘But some people must do.’
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Chapter 38
Ursula
Ursula walks slowly across the kitchen, her feet soundless on
the tiled floor.
Scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch. The sound, like a nail being repeatedly dragged against wood, is coming from the bottom
of the basement door. Ursula’s knees click as she crouches
down to listen. There’s a pause in the scratching then, scritch, scritch, scritch, the noise starts up again. Pressing one hand against the wall for balance, she peers through the keyhole but it’s so dark on the other side of the door that she can’t see a thing.
It’s just a rat, she tells herself as she backs away from the
door. She looks back at the slab of corned beef lying on the
chopping board and shudders. If there are rats in the basement they might be in the kitchen too. She’s going to have to call
Edward and ask him to get vermin control in. If the rat makes
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do. Stick it out or sleep in her van; that’s about as far as her options go.
Scritch, scritch, scritch.
She looks back at the door, weighing up the noise. That’s no
rat. There’s no way little claws could make a sound that loud.
‘Go away!’ She stamps up and down, then grabs the knife
and bangs the handle on the counter.
The scratching stops, for a second or two, then suddenly starts up again.
She turns on the radio and the chirpy, cheery voice of the
presenter immediately blocks out the sound. She turns the radio off and there it is again, the continuous scratching and scraping.
She stands very still, staring at the bottom of the basement door, her mind whirring. She assumed Edward had insisted on the
radio being on at all times because he’s one of those people who can’t stand returning to a quiet house but now she’s not so sure.
She sniffs the air. The horrible musky smell has definitely grown stronger.
A cold chill lifts all the hairs on her forearms. A locked door.
A bad smell. A missing knife. A newspaper clipping. A landlord obsessed with keeping his nails clean, who doesn’t get home
until late. And a radio kept on 24 hours a day to block out the noise.
No, she tells herself firmly, that would be ridiculous. There’s no way Edward is keeping anyone locked in the basement, no
way at all. She takes her phone out of her pocket and looks on BBC news for coverage of the three Harbourside disappearances.
There they are, the three missing men. She tries to match
their photos with the black-and-white image she saw on the
newspaper clipping but none of them look familiar. What if . . .
her mind whirs . . . what if the photo she saw wasn’t of
someone that Edward had kidnapped but someone who was
next on his list?
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No, she tells herself firmly. There’s no way Edward would
have advertised for a lodger if he was keeping people prisoner in the basement. Unless . . . a shiver runs down her spine . . .
unless they were previous tenants. No, no, not possible. All
the missing men were walking by the harbour when they
disappeared. If Edward abducted them he would have had to
smuggle them into the house while she was fast asleep in her
bed. It doesn’t seem possible, although, looking at the dates
on the website, one of the men disappeared before she moved
in.
Feeling vaguely ridiculous she gets down on her hands and
knees, then flattens herself against the kitchen floor, her mouth inches from the basement door.
‘Hello? Can you hear me?’
The scratching stops, making her catch her breath.
‘Are you . . .’ She pauses. She was going to ask ‘are you
human?’ but that’s stupid. What’s a rat going to do, squeak no?
‘If you’re imprisoned against your will, scratch the door.’
There’s a beat then a scratch, scratch, scratch against the wood.
‘Oh shit.’ She breathes heavily. ‘Do you need food and drink?’
Silence, then a strange ugh, ugh sound like someone smothering a sneeze. Ursula backs away from the door, heart pounding in her throat. That has to be a person. She’s never heard an
animal make a noise like that in her life.
‘Shit. Shit. Shit.’ She moves her thumb over the keypad of her phone.
9 – 9 –
She deliberates. What if she’s wrong? What if the police come
round and there isn’t a man tied up in the basement? What if
she’s got it stupidly, ridiculously wrong and when they barge
down the door they discover a rat? She’d never live it down
and she’s had quite enough people laugh at her in her life. She could ring the RSPCA or pest control instead? No, she can’t
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because she’s got no way of letting them into the basement. But it can’t be a rat behind the locked door. And she’s never heard a dog or a cat go ugh, ugh.
She needs to find out what’s going on in the basement and
she needs to do it alone. If she could just peek through the
keyhole or under the door. Or—
A memory flashes in her mind as she looks towards the kitchen
door. She saw a window yesterday, when she went outside to
rescue the bird. It was half-hidden in the gravel against the wall of the house, the glass obscured with white paint.
Ursula kneels on the pebbles at the back of the house, a large rock that she found at the back of the garden on the ground
beside her.
‘Hello!’ she says. ‘I’m going to break the window and get you
out.’
She feels stupid even as she says it; the window’s sealed shut and she’s pretty certain that whoever, or whatever, is in the
basement won’t be able to hear a thing.
‘Right.’ She sits back on her heels and picks up the rock.
She holds it to her chest like a netball. The glass looks thick and she’s going to have to throw it with some force. ‘Here we
go.’
Before she loses her nerve, she says, ‘Three, two, one,’ and
then throws.
There’s an almighty crash as the rock disappears through the
glass, then a boom as it hits the floor. Ursula listens for a scream or a shriek or a moan. When none comes she snatches up the
wooden spoon she took from the kitchen and stabs at the sharp
shards of glass still embedded in the window. When the most
lethal-looking pieces have fallen away she places oven gloves on both hands, carefully grips the frame and eases her head through the gap.
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‘Hello?’ Her voice echoes around the basement. ‘Hello, is there anyone there?’
It takes a while for her eyes to adjust to the gloom and at
first all she can see are the stone stairs that lead up to the kitchen and a ton of cardboard boxes and then . . . she inhales sharply.
‘Oh holy fuck.’
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Chapter 39
Gareth
‘Mum! Mum!’ Gareth stands in the middle of the near-empty
car park, turning in a slow, tight circle. ‘Where are you?’
He remembers making the same frantic cry when he became
separated from his parents during their yearly holiday to Barry Island, a seaside resort in South Wales. They were on a mission to get fish and chips, striding across the pleasure park with a distant stand in their sights. He’d jogged behind, three years old, struggling to keep up. He’d stopped in his tracks when
he spotted the ‘get the ball in the bottle’ stall adorned with huge cuddly teddy bears, soft toy bananas and brightly
coloured buckets and spades hanging in a row. He stood to
one side, watching open-mouthed as another young boy tried,
and failed, to land a single ping-pong ball in the wide necks
of the clustered green bottles but was rewarded with a keyring anyway. Gareth turned, ready to shout to his mum for a go.
Only there was no sign of his mum in her flowery summer
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dress and best M&S sandals, nor his dad in his knee-length navy shorts and open-necked shirt. There were just legs, so
many legs. When he craned his neck to examine the faces all
he saw were curious or indifferent eyes. Fear hollowed his
belly as he ran, pushing through the crowds, shouting for his
mum. When he saw her, in her lovely summer dress, he pulled
at her skirt. A woman he didn’t know turned and looked
down. She had soft, kind eyes but the disappointment made
Gareth burst into tears. He was eventually reunited with his
parents ten or fifteen minutes later, when they burst into the lost children shack after hearing a tannoy appeal. It felt like a lifetime to three-year-old Gareth. He thought he had lost
them for good.
It’s 3.34 p.m. now, nearly thirty-one hours since he last saw
his mum, and nearly twenty-four hours since she walked out of
the house. He’s looked everywhere. He’s been into every shop
and asked every cashier and shop assist
ant he could find if
they’ve seen her. He’s thrust ‘Missing’ posters that he knocked up on his laptop into the hands of every shopper he saw. But
there’s no sign of her, not in the retail park and not in the
surrounding area. He ran until his lungs burned, stopped to
walk, then ran again, always calling her name, alternating
between ‘Mum!’ and ‘Joan!’ In three hours it will start to get dark. His mum’s already been missing for one night. He can’t
bear the thought of her being gone for two. His only hope is
that she’s found some kind of shelter – an outbuilding, garage or shed. The nights have been so cold recently, dropping down
to minus five. He’d struggle to sleep outside in this weather, even in a warm coat, and his mum’s seventy-nine years old.
He looks at his watch again. It’s 3.35 p.m. Every minute feels like an hour. He wants to keep searching. When he’s driving or running or handing out flyers he feels like he’s helping, that he’s one street corner, one person closer to finding his mum; there’s 226
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hope mixed in with his desperation. But when he’s sitting at
home alone, waiting, the only thing that he feels is fear.
The house is a tip. Gareth has left no drawer unopened, no
wardrobe unemptied and no pocket unchecked. He started in
his mum’s room, searching through her possessions for some-
thing, anything, that might be a clue. But there were no answers to be found in her jewellery box, her dressing table, her wardrobe, her chest of drawers or even under the bed. There was
nothing to explain where she’d gone, and as he stands in the
doorway surveying the mountain of clothes on the bed, his
mother’s possessions scattered around the room and the two
postcards lying side by side on her beside table, it’s all he can do not to cry.
Was another postcard delivered? Did it tell her to go some-
where? Has she got it with her, tucked in her favourite leather handbag? But how could a postcard arrive? He checked the
CCTV and no one unusual approached or entered the house.
Might Sally or Yvonne be lying? Did whoever wrote the post-
cards cajole or blackmail one of them into bringing a third
message into the house? He dismisses the thought as quickly as it pops into his mind. But someone convinced his mum to leave, of that he’s sure.