Before It's Too Late (4 page)

A bright street filled my mind. The railway bridge and the college in the distance. I imagined myself heading to class, the strap of my satchel bag rubbing against my shoulder, the traffic on the main road drowned out by the hub of college life; the endless conversations of students roaming the campus. The memory was stark. Lauren checking the timetable, keeping me organised. Steph rummaging through her bag. Tom texting. My friends. Did they miss me?

How long had it been? I considered the time, but no matter how hard I tried to concentrate my thoughts were still foggy. The light that seeped through the tiny gap above me had brightened to daytime. But that didn’t mean a great deal
.

Tom. I remembered shouting at him. The hurt in his face. I pressed hard on the cogs of my brain, forcing them to turn. We were in the Old Thatch Tavern. I left him there. Walked out on my own. That must have been when I was brought here
.

I hauled myself up, placed my hands on the walls and moved slowly around the square box, my fingertips searching every inch of the concrete walls. There were gaps here and there, areas where the concrete had cracked and worn. But no way out
.

I turned my attention to the top. A metal grill sat proud in the centre, covering almost a metre square. It felt cold on my palms, and fiercely rigid. I shook it. Nothing. Not even the slightest movement. Again. This time there was a light shift, and a rattle. I shook harder until tears of anger swelled in my eyes. It juddered slightly and a soft rattle could be heard in the distance, but it remained firmly in place
.

Hot tears stung my cheeks as I focused on the grill. It was covered with a flat piece of wood that almost reached the end, leaving a gap for the narrow slice of light to pass through. I tried to reach for the wood through the gaps between the bars, but there was only enough room to hook a couple of fingers inside and they weren’t long enough to reach it
.

I stuck my forefinger through to explore the edge of the grill and slowly moved it around the cold metal edge, weaving it in and out of the bars. My finger brushed something uneven. A chink of metal rang out. I pushed my middle finger through. Links. Big thick links. Maybe a chain. A spasm of pain shot through my fingers, causing me to retrieve them and rub them into the palm of my left hand. The frustration was unbearable. I needed to do something
.

I coughed to clear my throat, took a deep breath and shouted. My voice isn’t naturally loud, it softens the consonants of English speech. But today I shouted and screeched like I’d never shouted before, for as long as I could. I paused and listened hard, desperately hoping for the tiniest shred of human presence. Nothing
.

Suddenly I remembered something, the words of my father back home: ‘When you are projecting your voice, you need to stand tall, open your diaphragm.’ I straightened my back, took another breath, deeper this time and shouted louder until my voice disappeared and my throat squeaked
.

Crushed, I leant back against the wall and slid to the ground. Where was this black hole? I concentrated hard, desperately listening for something familiar, the sound of life. I heard no traffic, no voices. Just my own breaths and the wind, whistling through branches that felt as though they were planted in the ground above. The thought made me shiver. I am buried alive
.

Chapter
Eight

Jackman checked his phone as he crossed the college car park. A missed call from Reilly. He’d deal with that later. He reached a modern building that curved around the corner, entered and trudged up the stairs to Min Li’s apartment. Yesterday Min would have been climbing these steps, possibly on her way back from class.

Their low key approach meant a distinct absence of police tape. Earlier, he’d despatched a couple of crime scene investigators to comb Min’s room for clues to her whereabouts, although he didn’t expect the search to yield much. They’d now secured Min’s room, but the rest of the building was open access in an attempt to keep everything as normal as possible for the students that lived there.

Jackman entered the main door and scanned the purpose-built apartment that Min Li shared with three other Chinese students. It looked far plusher than any student accommodation he’d even seen. Apart from a pile of used coffee mugs, plates and bowls in the sink of the kitchenette in the corner, the magnolia living area was spacious and surprisingly tidy. A few brightly coloured cushions were squished into the corners of an oversized sofa in the centre of the room, a couple of bean bags strewn on the laminate floor around it; a pile of magazines were scattered beside an armchair in the corner.

The room was empty apart from the plain clothes officer guarding Min’s door. Jackman exchanged pleasantries with him and entered Min’s bedroom. It was a small room, less than five metres square he guessed, with a bed in the centre and a desk on the far wall next to a small dressing table and a built-in wardrobe.

He stepped into the ensuite bathroom, which housed a corner shower, sink and toilet. There was no window and just enough tiled flooring to accommodate one person comfortably with the door closed. A single toothbrush and tube of toothpaste filled a cup on the sink, a pink face cloth was folded over the side. A make-up case sat on the shelf above alongside bottles of shampoo and conditioner. All items one would pack if one was planning a trip away. Jackman chewed the side of his mouth and moved back into the bedroom. The bed was wrapped in a lilac and cream silk cover, tucked in neatly at the sides, undisturbed. He opened the wardrobe and ran his fingers along the hanging clothes. Jeans and jumpers were piled on the shelf above. A pink suitcase tucked away at the bottom.

This was a student girl’s bedroom, much like Celia’s, although he guessed much tidier. He checked his watch. It was 4.35pm. Min’s bedroom left no indication of what, why or where she’d gone. His eyes fell on the empty desk in the far corner. Officers had seized her computer. Station techies would be examining it now, checking her last movements online. He crossed the room and pulled open the single drawer below. A couple of biros rattled along the bottom as it opened. He lifted out an essay and picked up a photo of a man and woman and another of an older Chinese woman – her mother and father, and grandmother perhaps. He cast the photos aside and sifted through what was left: her passport, a menu for The Thai Boathouse, a hairbrush with a couple of hair bands secured around the handle.

Suddenly, a comment Tom had made tripped into Jackman’s mind, ‘She was rarely alone.’ Rarely alone. Until that night. It suggested an element of planning, a stalker maybe. In Jackman’s experience, stranger crime was incredibly uncommon. Most victims were assaulted, abused, or killed by someone they knew. Somebody would have to have been watching her movements for days, weeks even – waiting, planning, ready to snatch her at any moment.

No amount of years in the force made these thoughts any more palatable, although he had to admit that the longer Min remained missing, the more sinister explanations presented themselves. He thought back to the three kidnappings he had dealt with during the course of his career. Two of them had been drugs-related, connected with debts that, once paid, meant the victim was returned. The third was the abduction of a businessman’s daughter, a CEO of a major video games company. Ethan Larkin’s daughter had been gone less than three hours when the ransom call came through. The advice was always the same: pay the ransom and preserve life. A tacit agreement meant that the press honoured a complete hold on media activity once a demand was received. For this reason, most kidnappings never even got reported to the public. Getting the victim back was top priority.

Although kidnappings were one of the most unpleasant and manipulative of crimes to deal with, they were predominantly a business transaction. But, with Min missing for over twelve hours and no ransom call, it seemed an unlikely prospect.

He considered Ellen Readman, missing for a week before her body was found, and wondered how Reilly was getting on in Northampton. Ellen Readman and Katie Sharp were both dark-haired girls, just like Min. He hoped there wasn’t a connection.

The buzz of his phone cut through his thoughts. He glanced down at the text message from Davies. ‘Best full shot of the misper, taken from the footage at the Old Thatch Tavern last night.’ He clicked to open the photo and came face to face with Min Li.

Chapter
Nine

Jackman decided to walk back to the police station. He rounded the corner onto Alcester Road, passed the blue-blocked college frontage and made his way over the railway bridge, pausing at the junction with Grove Road and Arden Street. During the daytime this was a busy intersection. Vehicles spilled through it as they headed out of the town centre. He turned around, almost full circle. Directly ahead of him lay Greenhill Street. Alcester Road stretched out of town behind. A turn to the right or left showed lines of Victorian terraces. He thought for a moment. The last sighting of their misper came from the camera on Greenhill Street, almost directly opposite the pub. They knew she’d turned the corner and was heading in the direction of the college. But the camera at the end of Greenhill Street hadn’t picked up their girl. So she either didn’t get that far, or she turned off somewhere.

He crossed the road, retracing Min’s footsteps. The edge of Stratford town still featured many black and white uneven Tudor buildings. Wood Street and those around the theatre had been sympathetically renovated and built up over the years and even the new shop fronts were in keeping with the original style. But further out, many of the ancient dwellings had been interspersed with modern buildings and shop fronts, and Greenhill Street was an eclectic mixture of the ancient and the very new. He made his way to the old red telephone box and halted. A car park sat beside it. There were no side streets during this stretch for Min to take. He glanced to the right and walked into the car park. A camera pointed protectively across its flock of cars, away from the road. He stopped next to a low stone wall and looked over the top. The ground was lower at the other side by a couple of feet, although it was feasible to jump over it, and head through to Grove Road. Well, feasible for him. But for a woman in a long skirt and heels? It seemed unlikely.

He made his way back to the pavement. The Chicago Rock Cafe opposite had long since closed down. He racked his brains. His officers would be working their way down this road checking for witnesses and sightings of the victim. He made a mental note to ensure they requested all available camera footage from the shops and businesses still open and continued on until he reached the pub.

Hanging baskets weighted down with petunias, begonias and strings of variegated ivy decorated the side walls of the Old Thatch Tavern that straddled the corner of Rother Street and Greenhill Street, their blast of colour making the quaint fifteenth-century, white-painted building look almost picturesque in the sparkling sunlight. He stared at the wooden entrance door as he passed and made his way back to the station.

It was another balmy evening. Rush hour was in full swing and the buzz of traffic hummed in his ears, so much so that he was grateful to escape it when he arrived at the station. He strode around the back and walked through the staff entrance.

The first person Jackman saw as he climbed the stairs was DC Russell. She was standing on the landing, texting on her mobile.

“Evening, sir.” She looked up at him. “Can’t get a damn signal inside.”

Jackman smiled at her. “Any news from the Li family?”

Russell’s face clouded over. “Not much I’m afraid. I’ve spoken to the father, but as far as I can tell she hasn’t been in touch and they have no idea where she is. They’re eight hours ahead of us, so I think we’re unlikely to hear anything more until the morning.”

“Okay, well done. What about the Embassy? Anything on her father’s business interests?”

Russell blew a frustrated sigh out of the corners of her mouth. “It’s all forms and paperwork requests, but no answers. Proper bureaucracy. I don’t hold out much hope for anything very soon.”

“Alright, thanks. Keep plugging away at it.”

She looked out of the window and her forehead wrinkled into a frown.

“Is there something else?”

She kept her gaze on the car park as she spoke. “No, nothing I can put my finger on.”

“What do you mean?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. The parents didn’t sound too upset.” She turned to look at him. “If it was your daughter, you’d be frantic, choke on your words, angry even. I know it was a phone call to the other side of the world and there are cultural differences to bear in mind, but I found it difficult to get any emotion from him at all. He seemed so controlled.”

Jackman stared at Russell a moment before he spoke. “People react to things in different ways.”

“Yes, you’re right.” Her mouth formed a thin smile. “Probably just me. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.”

He nodded and turned towards the incident room. He’d almost reached the entrance when she called after him, “Oh, by the way, a package was dropped off for you.”

He turned back, “Who from?”

She shrugged. “A brown envelope. It’s on your desk.”

Jackman entered the incident room and headed for the box-style office in the corner. As soon as he approached it, he saw the brown envelope that sat in the middle of his desk marked clearly in black biro, DI JACKMAN, ROTHER STREET STATION. There was a short line under his name. A single full stop below.

He lifted it, ripped the end of the envelope and could barely believe his eyes at the contents. It was full of witness statements, phone logs, credit card statements relating to the Readman and Sharp cases. Incensed, he grabbed his phone and immediately dialled.

Reilly picked up on the second ring, as if he was expecting the call. “Ah, Will. Good to hear from you.”

“I’ve just found a pile of material on my desk.”