Eeny Meeny (5 page)

‘What are we going to tell the press, boss?’

A good question and one Helen had been chewing on since she left Jim Grieves. Emilia Garanita wasn’t going to go away and there would be others behind her. A young girl had shot her boyfriend in a deserted location. It was horrific and thus good copy.

‘As little as possible. Until we’re in control of this, we can’t let out there’s a third party involved. So we call it a domestic but go gently on the detail. The press will infer all sorts of things about Sam and why Amy killed him …’

‘But we don’t want to blacken his name unnecessarily.’

‘Exactly. He and his mum deserve better than that.’

‘Ok, let’s play it tight for now.’

He headed back to work. He was unquestionably rough around the edges – rangy, unshaven, rugged – but on form Mark was a good copper to have on your team. Helen hoped it would last.

Satisfied everything was in hand, she allowed herself five minutes for a cup of tea. She was tired – the interview with Amy had been gruelling and the visit to the mortuary even worse. She wanted to tune out for a moment, but her brain wouldn’t let her. Sam’s awful death had got to her and she couldn’t shake the image of his lifeless, twisted face. What a thing for his mother to have to see.

She was so deep in thought that she didn’t notice Charlie until she was virtually on top of her.

‘Boss. You’ll want to see this.’

The day had already been full of nasty surprises, but Helen sensed she was about to get another.

Charlie handed her a pair of photos – two smartly dressed business types, one in his thirties, one a fair bit older.

‘Ben Holland and Peter Brightston. Reported missing three days ago. They were travelling back from a legal pow-wow in Bournemouth. Never made it home.’

A sickening feeling was creeping over Helen.

‘Their car was found in the New Forest. Local plod and the park rangers have scoured every inch of the forest. No sign.’

‘And?’ Helen sensed there was more.

‘Coats, bags and wallets still in the car. Their mobiles were found near by – the SIM cards have been deliberately destroyed.’

Another abduction then. And this one even stranger than the first. Two grown men, smart, strong and able to take care of themselves, had vanished into thin air.

13

How do you wake yourself when you’re dreaming? When you’re in the midst of a nightmare, how do you climb out of the abyss?

Ben Holland rolled these thoughts round and round. He must be dreaming. He
is
dreaming. Perhaps he and Jennie hit the off licence after work and picked up a bottle of Bison Grass? Maybe he’s dreaming a vodka dream right now? Any second now he’ll wake up with his head pounding and a stupid smile on his face …

Ben opened his eyes. He’d known all along of course – the smell down there was overpowering. How could you imagine you were anywhere else? And even if you could, then the constant whimpering from Peter would bring you back to your senses. Ever since their abduction, Ben had been a riot of anger and disbelief. But Peter had opted for despair.

‘Peter, would you shut up for God’s sake …’

‘Fuck you’ was the reply, spat back. Where are your leadership qualities now, Ben thought venomously.

They were trapped. It made no sense but it was true. One minute they had been in the van, relieved and happy, the next they had woken up here. Groggy, bruised and covered in thick, clinging dust. Ben had stumbled to his feet in disbelief, screwing up his eyes to penetrate the gloom and make sense of their surroundings. They were in some sort of giant silo or storage facility, the floor of which was covered with coal. This is what covered them, coal dust creeping into their ears and eyes, making their tongues thick and dirty. Instinctively Ben scrambled towards the sides. The going was tough, the surface constantly shifting beneath his feet, but eventually he made it. Cold, smooth steel. Using the wall as a guide, he stumbled round, hoping against hope for a door, a hatch, some means of escape. But the sides were smooth and having done a couple of laps, he gave up. Casting his eyes upwards, he noticed light spilling through the join of a massive hatch. This was how they had fallen into this strange hell.

It was now that Ben became aware of the cuts and bruises that covered his face and torso. It was a good twenty feet drop down from the hatch and the compacted coal wouldn’t have made for a soft landing. Suddenly everything hurt. The shock was wearing off and his battered body was protesting. A noise made him turn. Peter was stumbling towards him – his face a picture of dull, stupid astonishment. He was looking for explanations, but he would get none from Ben. And it was as they were standing there, exhausted and hopeless, that the phone rang. They both froze for a moment, then simultaneously scrambled for it, Ben just getting there first.

After they’d been given their deadly ultimatum, they both laughed maniacally, as if the whole thing was some preposterous joke. Slowly, however, the laughter evaporated.

‘Let’s call the office.’ Suddenly Ben needed to be out of this pit.

‘Good idea. Call Carol, she’ll know what to do,’ said Peter, feeding off Ben’s energy.

Ben punched in the familiar numbers. But the phone was pin-locked. Four small digits separating them from freedom.

‘What shall we try?’

Already Ben’s eye was drawn to the battery sign at the top right of the screen, flashing low.

‘We’ve only got a few goes at this. What shall we try?’ Ben’s voice was tight, the impossibility of their task starting to register.

‘I don’t know. 1, 2, 3, 4.’

Ben’s look was withering.

‘Well I don’t fucking know,’ Peter responded angrily. ‘What year were you born?’

It was desperate but as good as anything else. Ben tried Peter’s birth year, then his own. He was attempting a third combination when the phone died in their hands.

‘Shit.’

The word echoed around the vault.

‘What now?’

The pair stood quiet, staring forlornly at the locked hatch above them. Light seeped in through the cracks, illuminating the gun nestling quietly on the floor between them.

‘Nothing. There’s nothing …’

Ben’s words petered out as he turned and retreated into the dark. Slumping down in the coal, he was suddenly overwhelmed with despair. Why was this happening to them? What had they
done
?

He shot a glance across at Peter, who was pacing up and down, muttering to himself. Ben had never liked Peter, but he didn’t want to kill the guy, for God’s sake! Perhaps the gun wasn’t real? He got up to check, but the look Peter shot him made him sit straight back down.

Ben sat there in his own private hell. He had never been very good with enclosed spaces. He always liked to know where his escape route was in any given situation. But now he was trapped and worse than that trapped underground. Buried alive. Already his hands were beginning to shake. He felt lightheaded and sweaty, lights danced in front of his eyes. He hadn’t had a panic attack for years, but he could feel one coming on now. The world was closing in on him.

‘I’ve got to get out.’ Ben was stumbling to his feet. Peter turned, surprised and unnerved. ‘Please, Peter, I’ve got to get out. HELP! SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP!’

He shouted and screamed to try and ward off the attack, but felt faint and had to stop. Surely someone would find them and rescue them? They
had to
. The alternative was unthinkable.

14

Mark Fuller left the nick shortly after Charlie had dropped her bombshell. A whole new line of enquiry had opened up, but for now it was the data compilers and uniformed officers who would carry the load. A massive double- and triple-checking of facts was taking place and it would only be once the two men’s disappearance was confirmed as suspicious that CID officers would be deployed. Tomorrow looked like being a long day for Mark, Charlie and the rest of the team, so Helen had sent them home for some kip. But Mark had no intention of sleeping.

Instead he drove across town to suburban Shirley, parking up in a quiet residential street. He never used his own car, so as not to give himself away. The beaten-up Golf with the tinted windows was designed to deflect attention from its true purpose and it worked – passers-by wrote it off as another teenager’s attempt to soup up an old wreck. It was the perfect vantage point from which to watch undetected.

A seven-year-old girl appeared in the window and Mark sat up, his eyes glued to her. She surveyed the street outside, then pulled the curtains to, shutting out the world. Mark cursed his luck – some days Elsie stood at that spot for twenty minutes or more. Her gaze would flit now here, now there and over time Mark had convinced himself that she was looking for him. It was a fantasy, but it fed his soul.

The sound of high heels on the pavement made him slide down in his seat. Stupid really, no one could see in. But shame makes you do strange things. He couldn’t let her discover him like this. He watched as the trim 32-year-old marched up to the house. Before she could get her key in the lock, the door opened and she was gathered into the arms of a tall, muscular man. They kissed each other long and hard.

And there it was in a nutshell. His ex-wife swept off her feet by another man – with Mark left out in the cold. A wave of fierce anger ripped through him. He had given that woman
everything
and she had stamped on his heart. What had she said when she called time on their short marriage? That she didn’t love him enough. It was the most debilitating of character assassinations. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He just wasn’t
enough
.

They had married too young. Had a baby too quickly. But for a while the chaos and emotion of first-time parenthood had glued them together. The shared fear that their baby would stop breathing if left unattended, the sleep-deprived paranoia that you were doing a bad job, but also the immense joy of seeing their little girl grow and thrive. But slowly Christina had grown tired of the rigours of parenthood – the deadening routine, the privations – and had thrown herself back into her career. Which made her arguments during their bitter custody hearings all the more obscene. She played the mother card to the hilt, contrasting her loving nature, ordered existence and well-paid job with Mark’s unpredictable and dangerous life as a Southampton copper – not forgetting to throw in some choice anecdotes about his drinking. And what had she done when she’d got sole custody of Elsie? She’d gone straight back to work full-time and handed over care of their child to her live-in lover. The woman who had once claimed to love Mark with all her heart had turned out to be a deceitful and vindictive little shit.

Christina and Stephen had gone inside now and all was quiet. Elsie would have had her bath and be dressed for bed. Snug now in her Hello Kitty dressing gown and slippers that Mark had bought her, she’d be curled up in front of the CBeebies bedtime story. It was too young for her really, but she had a sentimental attachment to it and never missed it. Suddenly Mark felt the anger subside, subsumed by a terrible sadness. He too had found parenthood tough – the never-ending round of baths, bed, stories, play dates and more – but he would have given anything to be back in the midst of it now.

It was stupid to come here. Mark gunned the engine and sped away from the house, hoping to leave his troubles right there in the street. But as he drove they clambered round his brain like monkeys, goading him with his failure, his insignificance, his loneliness. Heading for home, he suddenly changed direction, shooting down Castle Way. There was a pub near the docks that ran illegal lock-ins. As long as you were in there by midnight you could drink all night. Which is exactly what he intended to do.

15

The Brightston home was an imposing Victorian semi in affluent Eastleigh. Helen paced outside, angry and frustrated. She had arranged to meet Mark here at 9.30 a.m. It was now nearly ten o’clock and there was still no sign of him. She left her third voicemail on his phone, then cut her losses and rang the bell. Why did he have to be such a fuck-up?

The door was opened by Sarah Brightston, a handsome woman in her mid-forties. Expensively dressed, immaculately made up, she betrayed no emotion at finding the police on her doorstep, ushering Helen inside.

‘When did you report your husband missing?’

The pleasantries had been concluded, so Helen cut to the chase.

‘Two days ago.’

‘Even though he hadn’t come home the night
before
that?’

‘Peter is a lover of life. Too much so sometimes. Those trips to Bournemouth were a jolly and it would’ve been just like Peter to get the whole team pissed, then sleep it off in a local B&B. But he’s not a callous man, he would have called the following morning to talk to me, talk to the boys.’

‘And do you have any idea where he might be now?’

‘Silly sod’s probably lost. They must have broken down and tried to walk to a garage. Probably had too much to drink and twisted an ankle or something – that’d be just like him. He’s never been very coordinated.’

She spoke with total conviction – there was no doubt in her mind that her husband was alive and well. Helen admired her fortitude, but was also intrigued.

‘How many people do you have out looking for them?’ Sarah continued.

‘Every available officer.’

This much wasn’t a lie at least. The search
was
in full swing, but they’d found nothing and as each hour passed Helen’s fears for their safety grew. The road the two men had been on would have led them out of the forest at Calmore – a long but unchallenging walk. The weather was cold but fine, so …

Helen knew in her heart that Amy’s ordeal and Peter’s disappearance were connected, but she’d forbidden anyone else from suggesting that – this was still a missing persons enquiry officially. Helen hadn’t told Sarah that she was a murder cop by trade. Time for that later.

‘Did Peter have anything on his mind? Was anything troubling him?’ Helen resumed.