My Heart Belongs To You: A Psycho Thriller (29 page)

‘
I know
,
Adam, destiny awaits us.
’

Black closed the line and went back to the mountain of food in front of h
im
;
destiny would have to wait.

At 10.45
a.m.,
Black left the café and walked back to his XJ6.
He would now go back to his
N
orth London house and clean up, take a short nap,
and
then leave for the airfield at around 12.50 p
.
m
.
,
so he would be there for 2.30 p
.
m.
The nap might be cut short
as
John Hanson was
also
heading for the same address
.
At
12.45
p
.
m
.,
he would be banging on his front door.

…………
……………………………………………………………………………

‘
Tom, Tom
!’

Tom stirred from sleep
.
He
could he
a
r the voice but he didn’t recogni
s
e it.
Sleep depr
i
vation, lack of fluid and
fea
r’s
clammy grasp distorted Karen
’
s words to a pitiful whimper.

‘
Karen, thank God
.
Hang
in there
,
baby
.
It’s
going to be alright.
’

‘
Tom I
… I
don’t want to die
.’

Tom squeezed his eye
s
shut to hold back the tears of frustration
.
The
pain from the sores along his back and legs was nothing compared to the agony he was going through as he listened to his fiancé
e
beginning to unravel.
You should be able to protect her
,
screamed the voice inside his head
,
y
ou’re a failure Tom, a failure.

Karen let out a wail like a wounded animal,
and
it was
more than Tom could
bear
.

‘
You
’
r
e
not going to die
,
Karen
.
You
have to hold on
.
John will come, I promise you
,
he’ll come
.’ 
Even Tom could he
a
r the doubt in his own voice
,
but that’s not all he could hear
.
The
sound that was torturing his soul was the gentle sobbing to his
left
, the sound of Karen slipping back into the pit, bringing down the shutters on reality
once again
,
and closing
out the spectre of Cupid.

‘
John will come, he’ll come
,
’
repeated Tom
,
his voice monotone, barely above a whisper.
  ‘
He’ll come
.’

………………………
……………………………………………………………………………

Hanson parked two houses away from the house where he knew Adam Black lived.
On the narrow driveway
,
sat a bright red Jaguar XJ6 with a registration number that matched
t
he one traced by Blue Eagle as being owned by
´
Jewel
le
ry of Distinction
´
.
This was
it;
this was where Hanson would fina
l
ly close in on Cupid
,
because
Black would tell him where he was and where he was holding Tom and Karen
. A
s
sur
ely
as
n
ight followed
day
,
he would give him the information he needed
,
for John had knowledge of certain technique
s
, tec
h
ni
q
ues he had seen performed in some of the most hostile
cessp
ools
of the world
,
where the gathering of information through the infliction of pain was an art form.
Hanson himself had
never
been involved in
that form,
but he had seen it first hand and he would not hesitate for a heartbeat at u
sing them to get what
he needed.

The front of the property was highly vis
i
ble to a number of other properties a
nd to any passer
by or traffic of which there was a const
ant flow
. He walked qu
ickly past the terrace house, jogging down
a small side road
,
which he hoped would take him to the back
of the
houses.
It was a good guess
.
Fif
ty
metres along
,
he came to a narrow lane
.
It
was
clea
rly
a service lane
, which
ran between the rows of terraced houses
, which
backed onto each other.
Hanson
p
aced quickly along it, counting the back gates unti
l he came to the one that would
give access to Adam Black
’s
rear garden.
He tried the catch on the heav
y
timber gate,
but it was
locked.
A quick glance over the top
,
showed a garden around thirty metres long
,
heav
i
ly
overgrown with shrubs and trees
,
blocking any view to the rear of the house, clearly a rarely used access.
Hanson gave a quick look along the lane in both directions, bent his kne
e
s, sprang up and vaulted over the gate
,
landing softly onto the
weed-covered
path on the
other side.
For a few seconds
,
he stayed crouched
,
listening for any sounds,
or
any shouts that would alert him that he had been seen
.
Silence
, no shouts,
and
no sounds apart from a dog yapping somewhere several gardens away
occurred
.
Standing slowly to
his full height
,
he moved
forward
.
Time
to speak to Adam Black
.
At
least that was th
e
plan
,
but that plan was about to backfire
,
because of something happening at the front of the house.

Adam Black stepped out through his front door, eased it
closed and dead locked it
.
For just a second
,
Mrs. Blake’s dog yapping away in her back garden three houses away captured his attention
.
He only ever did that when someone was moving around in the lane at the back of the terrace houses.
Inserting his key back into the front door
,
he decided to check
, and
the
n
changed
his mind as he studied
his watch, 12.48
p.m.
;
he needed to get going
.
He
also decided
that
he was just being paranoid
.
This
day was doing that to him.
Striding quickly to his beloved Jag
,
he climbed in, started the V6 motor in a quiet purr and fed
gently out into the traffic
, and
then eased
along the road.

Hanson checked his watch as he reached the kitchen door of Black
’
s house
,
1
2
.52 p
.
m
.
,
6
hours and
8
minutes of life remaining.
Peering in
,
h
e could see an empty kitchen, a
sink full of pots and pans,
and
a small breakfast bar wi
th high stools tucked under. One work surface was
loaded with a mix of boxes and large tins that he could see were supplements used by body builders.
The door leading from the kitchen was closed
,
which is what he wanted to see
.
It
would help to mask any sounds as he dealt with the lock.
Removing his pick kit from one of
his pockets
,
he unzipped and selected a long angled pick
,
which he inserted into the lock
.
Fifteen
seconds
later,
he was standing with his ear against the door
that led
from the kitchen to the main house.

After ten seconds
,
without a single sound from beyond
,
H
anson eased open the door and stepped into an inner hall.
Praying to the
G
od of loose
floorboards,
he glided
for
ward
,
checking each door of the four that fed off the passageway
leading
to the front door beyond and a small lobby.
First door was to a gar
a
ge that had been converted into a gym
.
It
smel
led
heav
i
ly of sweat and gave the indication of cou
n
tless hours spent pushing weights
.
The
amount of weight attached to some of the dumb
bells and part
i
cular
l
y a weight bar set up on a bench press area
,
told of someone with immen
s
e strength.

Second door was to a lounge area,
and it was
empty.
Third door was a storage
room;
last door was a small separate dining room, clearly never used.

Moving forward
,
Hanson’s sixth sen
s
e started to give a warning
.
T
here
was not a sound to indicate that there was another living person in the property, no creaking boards from upstairs, no music playing, no one coughing, no sounds of anyone sleeping, no
one using the bathroom
,
not a single indicator that Adam Black was at home.
Three minutes later
,
he had completed the search of the upper floor
,
culminating in a quick glance out of the upstairs front bedroom window causing him to curse loudly
.
The
red XJ6 was gone.
Adam Black must have left as he entered the back garden.
He quickly called Blue Eagle.

‘
Go ahead
,
John
.’

‘
Happened again
,
S
ir, missed Black by seconds.
He’s left his address in the last five minutes
,
driving the
r
ed Jag
.’

‘
Any chance of following him?
’

‘
None, streets around here are a warren, could have gone in one of a dozen directions.
 
Do we have any CCTV in this area?
’