(1998) Denial (34 page)

‘Hallo?’ it called. ‘Hallo, who’s there?’

Pitiful, croaky little voice.

‘Hallo, please, hallo? Who’s there? Please help me.’

He retreated silently back through the darkness, into the outer chamber, past the bodies of Tina Mackay and the reporter, Justin Flowering. Then he stopped again and looked back.

The dirty thing on the floor stiffened, turned its head in short, jerky, startled movements.

It called out again, ‘Hallo?’

A door clanged shut. The echo rumbled around the chamber until it was blotted up by the darkness.

Then, suddenly, an explosion of light.

Amanda threw her hands against her eyes in pain and let out a gasp of shock, her eye muscles straining inside their sockets. A clear red glow now through her hands.

Slowly, fearfully, she removed them, blinking, still dazzled, her headache making it hard to think clearly, but as she began to adjust to the light, she looked around. She was in a square, windowless room, about twenty feet by twenty feet, and about ten feet high. Four downlighters flush with the ceiling lit the room. Otherwise it was solid concrete, with no hatch. She looked at the duct vent, directly above where the mattress lay against the wall. Other than the door that was the only possibility. It was big enough to get into – if she could find a way to unscrew the grille cover.

She pressed her hands to her head to try to squeeze away the pain, but as she touched her forehead, it was so bad she nearly cried out. Over to her right was the open door through into the room where she had found the bodies, which was in darkness. Then her eyes swung down to the two plastic buckets and the tray on the floor just short of the doorway.

One bucket looked empty. The other contained a soapy froth and had a flannel draped over the edge. A beige towel was folded neatly beside it, and a brand new roll of lavatory paper. On the tray was a large plastic jug of water, a plastic beaker, a paper plate on which were several chunks of wholemeal bread, and another on which were thick slices of cheese. A handful of cherry tomatoes and an apple lay loose on the tray. No knife. Nothing that she could try to use as a screwdriver.

She fell on the water jug, grasped it in both hands and began to gulp it down gratefully, greedily, so fast it spilled out of her mouth, running over the sides of her lips and down her chin.

When she did stop, she’d already drunk three-quarters of the contents and was desperate for more, she could drain it right now and it still wouldn’t be enough. But she did not know how long would be before she was given any more. She needed to ration herself, needed to –

The time.

I can read my watch now
.

Time and date.

7.55. Tue. Jul 28.

One more swig of water, just a small one. She kept it in her mouth, swilling the delicious moist substance around, savouring it, treasuring every drop. Two days.

Oh, sweet Jesus.
Two days
.

A swirl of panic tore through her. Two days.
Two days
. Seven fifty-five in the morning or the evening?

Why isn’t anyone looking for me? Why hasn’t anyone found me? She stared at the food, grabbed a piece of cheese and some bread and crammed them in her mouth, chewing savagely, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Michael, do you even know I’m not at home or at work? Lulu, are you wondering where I am?

Oh, Christ, who the hell is going to miss me?

She drank another precious mouthful of water, then ate more bread and cheese and a tomato, a ripe, delicious, incredibly sweet, beautiful tomato. Even this little bit of food going down was making her feel stronger.
Think
.

It’s Tuesday. Maybe Tuesday morning or Tuesday bloody night. Two days. Forty-eight hours. Lulu, you must be wondering where the hell I am. What are you doing about it? What have you told Michael? Do you think I’m just lying at home with a bloody migraine or something?

What the hell are you all doing?

Anything? Are you doing anything at all?

The light went out.

For a moment she stared into the darkness in anger, not fear.

Michael watched Brian Trussler shake hands with the other three men on the pavement outside the offices of Mezzanine Productions. Positive body language: they’d had a good meeting.

The one with the pony-tail clamped his mobile phone to his ear, and stepped away. Brian Trussler pulled his phone out also, dialled and strutted a few yards down the street, looking pleased as hell with himself. In his cream linen suit, purple collarless shirt and white loafers, he had an even flashier air than the mental image Michael had already formed of him, and he was filled with a sudden intense loathing for and mistrust of this man.

Michael opened his door and was half-way out of his car, when Trussler broke into a sprint, one arm raised in a frantic signal, flagging down a cab at the intersection a short distance down the road.

He debated whether to run after him, then decided instead it might be more useful to see where he was going. He slammed the door and started the engine. To his relief he could see that the cab, in a distinctive bottle-green, was stopped at traffic lights at the T-junction with the Strand. He swung the Volvo out, deliberately cutting up a van, forcing it to brake hard, accelerated down to the end of the road and pulled up hard on the tail of Trussler’s cab, which had its right-turn signal on.

Grabbing his phone off the driver’s seat, he dialled Lulu’s home number. The lights changed as it was ringing, and he steered one-handed, trailing the cab into the heavy evening traffic of the Strand.

Lulu’s answering-machine kicked in after four rings. The
cab crossed a traffic light on orange and Michael, a split second later, on red. They stopped again at the next lights, in front of Charing Cross station. He dialled Lulu’s mobile. Three rings, and then to his relief he heard her, against a hubbub of voices, a clattering of cutlery or glasses, and background music that was numbingly loud.

The lights were changing. The cab was entering Trafalgar Square and a chauffeured Mercedes was trying to cut into the gap between them. Driving recklessly close to the cab’s bumper, ready to change direction whenever it did, Michael froze out the Mercedes. ‘Hi, Lulu, it’s Michael.’

She couldn’t hear him.

Under Admiralty Arch and into the Mall. The cab was accelerating and Michael eased back a short distance in case the driver was observant. Raising his voice he said, ‘It’s Michael! I need Brian Trussler’s home address.’

‘Umm, it’s – oh, God, number four, West Crescent, NW1,’ she shouted back. ‘Regent’s Park – do you know Albany Street?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘It’s somewhere off that, I think.’

‘Thanks. No news?’

‘Nothing – you?’

She was too breezy tonight. No one had a right to be happy, not until Amanda had been safely found.

‘No,’ he said.

They were stopping at the lights by St James’s Palace. Buckingham Palace dead ahead. No flag, the Queen was out – having a nice time somewhere? Everyone else in the whole bloody city was having a nice time tonight.

A convertible BMW pulled up on his right, a blonde driving, hair all tangled from the wind, and he looked at her with a sharp pang, reminded of Amanda. There was another attractive girl in the passenger seat and one in the back, all laughing, sharing a joke, having a good time. Now a guy and a girl in a grey Jaguar pulled up on his left, impossibly beautiful, as if they had stepped out of a chocolate commercial. The girl was nuzzled up against the guy’s face, kissing him. Michael wanted to scream at them
all to stop having fun, fun was on hold, everyone had to concentrate.

Help me find Amanda
.

Brian Trussler was not heading home.

At the top of Constitution Hill, entering Hyde Park Corner, the green cab should have looped round to Park Lane, but instead it turned off left down Grosvenor Crescent behind the Lanesborough towards Belgrave Square, and Michael, before he could follow, had his exit route cut off by a bus.

‘Bastard, damn you, get out of the sodding way,’ he mouthed angrily, swerving over into the extreme right-hand lane without looking, without caring what the hell might be there, his only option now to do a complete circuit of Hyde Park Corner, and pray.

He ran the red light, slewing round the first corner, tyres yowling, then wove through a gap, forcing a despatch motorcyclist to swerve, through another, blasted his own horn hard now as both he and a black cab made for the same gap. At the last moment the cab gave way and he was heading round the outside lane, playing chicken with a bus thundering up from Victoria. He braked sharply, swept across right behind it and made a left turn.

Now he was out of the murderous traffic and accelerating hard down past the Lanesborough, into Belgrave Square, hunting with his eyes for a bottle-green movement, checking the first exit, the second, and then he glimpsed it, fleetingly, on the far side of a junction, before it disappeared down Chesham Place heading towards Sloane Street.

He threw the Volvo up to the white halt line of the junction. Traffic was streaming down Belgrave Place, and he couldn’t wait.
Give way, you bastards, let me out!
He started nosing the Volvo out, bullying his way into the centre of the road until a car braked with an angry blast of its horn.

Michael floored the accelerator, the front tyres scrabbled for grip for a second, the nose of the Volvo lifted and yawed, the steering wheel kicked hard in his hands, then he
was thundering down Chesham Place, rev counter flying, scanning the road for stray pedestrians or cyclists, and he caught another sight of Trussler’s cab, crossing the lights at Sloane Street into Pont Street.

The lights stayed green long enough for him. He overtook a line of cars, and now, pulse hammering, he was right up close behind the cab again, and braked hard, killing his crazed speed. He could see Trussler’s head through the rear window, moving animatedly as he talked on the phone.

The cab threaded a route along Chelsea back-streets towards Fulham, and following it was easier now. They emerged into the Fulham Road, crossed the Beaufort Street lights by the ABC cinema, then suddenly the cab braked and made a sharp left. Almost immediately it went left again into a smart, expensive-looking residential mews. Michael stayed back, watching it go down the cobbles, then stop outside a house.

He drove into the mews and pulled up far enough behind a parked Saab to keep a clear view. Trussler climbed out, paid the driver, then rummaged in his pocket. To Michael’s surprise, he pulled out what looked like a set of keys, walked up to the front door and put one in the lock.

Did the bastard have a secret lair? Was this where he was keeping Aman –

His speculations were interrupted by the door opening. A striking-looking woman with long brown hair erupted out of it, threw her arms around Trussler’s neck and embraced him passionately.

Michael watched in amazement as Trussler kissed her with almost savage abandon, right there on the doorstep. They were mauling each other and she, wearing what looked like a dressing gown, was almost ripping off his clothes right there. After some moments their lips broke free, and their faces pressed together, they mouthed something to one another. They both grinned, then they kissed again unashamedly, like a couple of courting kids, before going inside and closing the door.

Michael stared dumbly, trying to take all this in. Was this a new girlfriend since Amanda? Or had Trussler been two-timing
Amanda as well as his wife? He had a key to this place, so did he own it? Was this his secret knock shop? Or had this woman given him a key? If she had, the relationship must have been going on for some while. How long? Since Amanda had dumped him, or before that?

Whatever, his theory that Trussler might have kidnapped Amanda out of jealousy was fast heading south. He didn’t look like a man capable of caring enough for anyone to want to bother hurting them.

Michael gave them twenty minutes, hoping to catch them off-guard. Opening his Mac, he tried to get his head around a lecture on obsessive compulsive disorder he was due to give at a conference in a fortnight but he was too distracted to concentrate.

A sleek Burmese cat gave him a cursory inspection, then disdainfully entered a flap in a garage door. A woman with punk hair and designer jeans strutted past with a clutch of Yorkshire terriers yapping on leads. A dusty Porsche 911 arrived home, its driver, a tired-looking man in his early thirties, in pinstriped trousers and red braces, hauled himself out, then ducked back into the car to retrieve his briefcase.

Michael waited until he had entered his house, then walked along the mews, up to Trussler’s door and rang the bell.

There was no response. He gave it a reasonable length of time, then rang it again, this time for longer, then repeated the ring again twice more in rapid succession.

After a few moments he heard footsteps. The door opened and the woman he had seen earlier stared out at him, displeased. ‘Yes?’

A slight accent – Italian, he thought. She was good-looking, not as beautiful close up as she’d looked from a distance, but there was an overt sexuality about her, even more so with her makeup smudged, her hair awry and her breasts loose inside the towelling dressing gown she was holding closed with one hand.

‘I need to have a word with Brian Trussler,’ he said, and caught the flash of panic in her eyes.

Tightening her gown around her, then folding her arms, she replied, ‘Who?’

‘Brian Trussler.’

She shook her head and said, ‘I’m sorry, you have the wrong house.’ She reached back to close the door.

She was so convincing that Michael found himself considering the possibility that he had followed the wrong person, except that that flash of panic he had seen had given the game away. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said firmly. ‘Look, it’s very important. I just need a couple of minutes of his time.’

‘I’m sorry, you have the wrong house.’ She tried to close the door in his face, but Michael lurched forward, placed his foot over the sill and against the jamb.