The Overlooker (21 page)

The taller man thrust a warrant card at them. Nick saw the multi-pointed police star surmounted by a crown.

‘Detective Superintendent Mason. And this is Inspector Collinge.'

The younger man flashed a brief smile as he offered his own card.

For moments, the shattered pieces of Nick's interpretation of the scene whirled through his mind. Tom's mouth was open. His phone had dropped away from his face.

‘Are you the
police
?' Millie asked unnecessarily.

Mason's eyes narrowed as his glance went quickly round their fearful faces.

‘You called us. You reported your wife was missing. And you said you'd had threatening messages.'

‘I was expecting Inspector Heap.'

‘Sorry to disappoint you, sir. You'll have to make do with us.'

Nick's mind was making rapid calculations. A detective superintendent must be two ranks above an inspector. And he had his own inspector in tow. Did that mean the police were suddenly taking this more seriously than the theories of an illegal workshop or even forcible prostitution had warranted? For the first time, he felt the warmth of hope.

Superintendent Mason cast a rapid glance around the small café. The tables were close together. Everyone in the room was listening avidly.

‘I think, sir, we'd be better doing this somewhere more private.'

He turned and led the way briskly downstairs.

The Fewings followed dumbly in his wake, with Inspector Collinge bringing up the rear like a vigilant sheepdog.

The precinct had an air of unreality. The shoppers moved past Nick like fish seen from the other side of a glass tank. He was no longer one of them. He inhabited a different sphere of existence.

In spite of his anxiety, he felt something of the burden of responsibility lifted away from him. Detective Superintendent Mason exuded an air of authority. Nick even began to hope that he might have an answer to the strange events that had engulfed the Fewings. That he might actually know where Suzie was.

Mason turned into a walled garden. The flowerbeds were mostly bare, but a few purple and pink petunias blazed a late farewell to summer. There was a roofed shelter in the centre, with benches. The detective led the way to it and motioned them to sit down.

‘Now, sir. Let's hear it from you. Start at the top.'

Inspector Collinge had his notebook out. A flicker of Nick's mind wondered why he didn't simply record the interview.

He took a deep breath, and tried to steady his thoughts.

‘It began two days ago.' Even as he said it, he was struck with incredulity that so much could have happened in forty-eight hours. ‘My family came from here, a couple of generations ago. So I wanted to see if the house where my grandparents lived was still standing.'

Hugh Street. Such an ordinary row of millworkers cottages. It seemed an unlikely setting for the drama that was now being played out.

The Superintendent heard the rest of Nick's story in watchful silence.

‘And then I got Millie's phone call, asking where Suzie was. She hadn't shown up. She was supposed to be here over an hour ago.'

Mason turned swiftly to his inspector. ‘Get some uniforms down here, fast. There may still be people around who saw her. What was she wearing?' he asked Nick.

For a stupid moment, Nick stared back at him. He had a vivid impression of Suzie's heart-shaped face. The intelligent hazel eyes. The way the soft brown curls framed her face. The rosy lips that hardly needed make-up.

But what was she wearing today? He had no idea.

‘White jeans,' Millie said firmly. ‘And a sort of soft woolly jumper. Angora, or something. Sky blue.'

Nick smiled at her thankfully.

‘Any coat?' the DSI asked.

‘I wasn't there, was I?' Millie retorted. ‘She's had a sort of pinky-purply quilted jacket she's been wearing here.'

‘Mr Fewings?'

‘Um. I can't remember if she put it on. Yes. Probably.'

DI Collinge nodded. ‘Do you want me to cordon off the shopping mall? Question everyone inside it, before they leave?'

‘You've got two multi-storey department stores. I'm not sure we've got the manpower to cover every exit and question half the town. Just do what you can.'

Nick realized the horror that the whole world would not come to a stop because Suzie was missing. There were finite resources to search for her. The police were taking him seriously now, but there were limits to what they could do.

It was not as if they were investigating a murder.

He prayed desperately that this was true.

‘But I don't understand,' he protested. ‘I left her on the edge of the precinct. The mall was full of people, like now. How could someone kidnap her in front of them?'

‘You'd be surprised, sir. People don't like to get involved. And perhaps it didn't need to be strong-arm stuff. Your man might have said something to her to persuade her to go quietly.'

‘Threatened her, you mean?'

‘Put a gun in her back?' Tom chimed in, almost eagerly.

‘Or threatened someone she cared about.'

Nick's eyes, like Mason's and Tom's, swung round on Millie.

Colour flamed in her cheeks. ‘Don't blame it on me! I didn't know, did I? Nobody told me.'

‘There's no need to go blaming yourself, lass,' Mason told her. ‘I don't know what's going on at the back of this. But I'm getting the feeling of some nasty customers. You just happened to stumble along at the wrong time. Try not to worry. Inspector Collinge will have got half the force on the look-out by now.'

‘Do you think she's at Hugh Street? Are you going to search it now?'

The Superintendent thought for a moment. ‘There's something not quite right about this. He was warning you off reporting the goings-on there. But if he knows you've already been to us, why carry on? Like they say, if you're in a hole, stop digging. I gather we've got officers staking out the premises. Hoping to catch more than the small fry. They should have seen if he took your good wife there. But yes, I think we'll have to go in now, make sure. If you'll excuse me, I'll get on to it right away.'

‘What can we do?'

‘You, sir? Stay out of trouble. I'll send a police officer to keep an eye on you. If you have any change of plan, tell her.'

‘Can't we help?' Millie said. ‘Ask people if they've seen her?'

‘Kind of you to offer, but best leave it to the professionals, lass.'

Nick looked at his watch. ‘We ought to be getting back. Thelma will be home from work soon. Or was she going to drop in on Uncle Martin first?' He rubbed his forehead. ‘I can't remember. But what are we going to tell her when she gets home?'

‘How about the truth?' Tom suggested. ‘She's got to know.'

It was at that moment that the reality struck home to Nick. This was not just a bad dream, like the sense of disconnection he had felt among the shoppers unaware of his catastrophe. Once they told Thelma, it would become fact. Someone from the sane, ordinary world would become involved. The Fewings' frightening secret would become public property. He would be acknowledging that it had actually happened. Someone really had kidnapped Suzie.

He thought of the cold harsh voice of that telephone call.

As though his thought had triggered an electronic response, his mobile buzzed.

For a moment, he went cold, rigid. He was suddenly aware of the others staring at him. Tom, Millie, the Detective Superintendent who had been on the point of leaving.

He tried to control his hand as he drew the phone out and pressed the key to retrieve the message. He glanced down at the screen.

‘AREN'T YOU GOING TO CUM AND GET HER?'

T
he Superintendent snatched it out of his hand.

‘What does it say?' Millie demanded. ‘Tell us!'

Tom read it out over the Superintendent's shoulder.

‘He's taunting us,' Mason fumed. ‘He's not even trying to keep it secret. He's assuming you know where she is.'

‘But we don't know,' Nick protested. ‘At least, I'd taken it for granted that it wouldn't be Hugh Street, because he'd know that was the first place we'd think of. But maybe it is. It doesn't make sense. He warned us not to tell you about it. So why would he lead us there, if it's supposed to be some undercover operation?'

‘Perhaps he doesn't care now,' Millie said. ‘If you've blown his cover, he'll empty out his factory stuff, won't he? Leave Mum tied up in some horrible, boarded-up room.' She spun round aggressively to the Superintendent. ‘What are you waiting for? Aren't you going to get her?'

‘Hold your horses, young lady. There's something about this that doesn't smell right. We've got officers watching those premises. If they'd tried to move their stuff out, we'd have seen it, and gone in fast. I've told them to alert me if anything happens there, and nothing has. Still, the waiting game's over. We're going in.'

‘I want to be there,' Nick claimed. ‘She's my wife.'

Detective Superintendent Mason was making for the exit from the park. ‘I understand your feelings, sir. But the best thing you can do is stay out of the way and go home. We'll tell you as soon as we've found her. I gather you're staying in the area.'

‘With my cousin. Up at High Bank. Yes.' He scribbled Thelma's address on a business card and passed it over. But an unspoken rebellion was telling him he would not go straight there. How could he not be around when the police broke into Hugh Street and brought Suzie out?

If they did. If she was there. If it all went according to plan.

The mocking tone of that message haunted him. Why would her kidnapper want them to come? Why had he kidnapped her in the first place? What good would it do him? A colder thought was quelling his first excitement. What trick had that unknown abductor got up his sleeve?

Was he even sane?

He wanted desperately to be in Hugh Street when the police went in. But he was increasingly, chillingly afraid of what they might find waiting for them.

DSI Mason was already striding ahead across the precinct in the direction of his car. Inspector Collinge had disappeared, but he had not been idle.

‘They're out in force,' Tom remarked. ‘If you'll excuse the pun.'

The shopping mall bristled with police officers. Black-and-white uniforms, chequered hat bands, some fluorescent jackets. They were stopping everyone at the exits from the pedestrian precinct. In spite of DSI Mason's pessimism it looked like a fairly comprehensive coverage.

Nick suddenly felt the futility of it. What if someone remembered seeing Suzie with an unknown man? How would it help the police find where he had taken her? What he intended to do with her, and why?

The taunting text message echoed in his brain.
Aren't you going to come and get her?

The caller knew that the Fewings had been to the police, but the message had been sent to Nick, not the constabulary. He felt that he, and he alone, was being dangled on a string for the macabre amusement of a man whose motives he had no way of understanding.

This couldn't be all about a sordid sweatshop in a back street, could it?

‘You're not really going back to Thelma's, are you?' There was a belligerent tone in Millie's voice.

‘Too right, I'm not. Tom, will you take Millie back? It's over the bridge and straight up the hill.'

‘No way!' Tom cried. ‘If you're going up to Hugh Street, I'm coming too.'

‘And don't think I'm going back on my own,' Millie protested. ‘It would be a whole lot more scary than coming with you. From the sound of it, there's going to be half the Lancashire police force there. It'll be much safer than Thelma's.'

Nick felt an odd sense of relief. He should never have let Suzie go off alone. He would feel much safer keeping Millie and Tom within sight. And Millie was right. The police wouldn't let them do any more than watch the raid on Hugh Street from a safe distance. But he would be there to comfort Suzie when they rescued her.

If they did. If she was there.

An unease sneaked across his thoughts. Could the threat to the Fewings family extend to Thelma? Was she safe on her own? He ought to have put this to Superintendent Mason.

‘What I don't understand,' he said at last, ‘is that whoever did this must have been watching us. I can see how they might have found my home address. But how could they know we were staying at Thelma's?'

‘Easy. Same surname,' Tom said. ‘They'd only have to look in the phone book.'

‘But there must be dozens of Fewings. They couldn't stake them all out.'

‘Actually no. I checked it out a couple of weeks ago when I wanted to ring Thelma. There are several Ewings here, but only one Fewings. In fact, I remember now. Isn't that what Uncle Martin said? About me being the only one to carry on the name?'

Nick digested this. A piece of the jigsaw fell into place. Anyone who wanted to track them down and follow them could have found Thelma's address. Of course, the Fewings could have been staying in a hotel, but the man who made those phone calls might have found the single name match too much of a coincidence to ignore.

A flicker of memory snatched his attention. Turning out of High Bank this morning, he had had to avoid a pedestrian standing just round the corner. He tried frantically to remember more details. Male? Young? Could it have been that teenager in the grey hoodie? He didn't think so, but infuriatingly he could not be sure.

‘It scares me,' he said. ‘He's gone to a lot of trouble to track us down. He's been spying on us, following us. Looking for a chance to get one of us alone.'

Millie shivered. ‘Why wasn't it me?'

‘How do we know it's a he?' Tom said. ‘There might be a whole gang of them. I haven't a clue what's going on, but it's hard to think that it's just one guy on his own. But you seem to have got under his skin. When you sussed their operation in Hugh Street, the sensible thing would have been to keep quiet and get out fast. Leave as few clues as possible. But here's this guy flaunting it. Snatching Mum off the street and taunting you to come and get her.'