The Truth Will Out (28 page)

Helen closed her eyes, concentrated her senses. All she could smell and taste was damp soil. She heard no traffic, just the soft movement of footfalls on the boards above. No possible clues to her location.

Helen adjusted position and winced as the graze on her ankle caught the floor. Nobody knew she was here. Nobody suspected something was wrong. Nobody was coming to save her.

***

Eva was starting to feel deserted. It was after two and the DCI still hadn’t called. She’d spent the past half an hour pacing the room, but working her options only made her feel like a dog chasing its tail.

In desperation she picked up her mobile. She knew she shouldn’t, it went against all the advice the DCI had given her. But nobody was playing by the rules now, and she needed to know where she stood.

The phone fired up, the screen lit. Her heart jumped as she saw a message, number unknown. She clicked on it and gulped.
We’ve got the detective and her son. Contact us now, or they die. Then we’ll come for you.

***

Pemberton reached Helen’s silver Honda by mid afternoon. He’d pulled some strings and had her mobile located, drawing him here. He didn’t know what to believe when it came to Helen’s behaviour, but until he spoke to her, face to face, he wasn’t going to give up just yet.

Helen had been under a lot of pressure. He figured she’d taken herself off somewhere to think. Maybe she’d taken Robert with her? Nobody had raised an alarm for either of them, as yet, so Pemberton decided to search for her himself initially. Jenkins wouldn’t have wanted the instant response team involved. It could cause an embarrassing situation, especially if the press got hold of it. But Pemberton wasn’t concerned about any potential embarrassment. Right now his thoughts were consumed with his colleague and friend. Right now all he could think about was saving Helen.

He scouted around the outside, carefully checking for scratches and dents, a sign of a collision. When he found none, he tried the door. Surprised to find it unlocked, he moved inside. Helen kept a fairly clean car, no crisp wrappers on the floor, barely any dust to speak of. With no evidence of an altercation, Pemberton was confounded. He now knew that she had been gone for a minimum of four hours. Why would she rush off and leave the car unlocked? Where was she now?

Pemberton sat back in the driver’s seat and thought hard. Rather than phone Helen’s home and alarm her mother, he’d driven by her house earlier and checked for her car. It wasn’t there. He knew she’d left work to collect Robert. Had they argued? Pemberton was aware of problems with Helen’s eldest son, Matthew, taking drugs last year… Nothing with Robert. This wasn’t surprising though given that she didn’t share a great deal of her personal life with her colleagues.

He considered Robert. He had met him briefly a few months back in town with his mother. Pemberton guessed he was about eleven or twelve, but then he wasn’t very good at ages, his two girls now all grown up had left home and had families of their own. He recalled the photo of Robert in a football kit on Helen’s desk. Maybe he had got tied up with his mates and lost track of time?

Perhaps she drove to Roxten, thought she saw Robert, parked swiftly in the first available space and rushed after him? But why didn’t she return? And where was she now? Her family hadn’t reported them missing which led him to assume that they believed nothing was untoward. Had she dropped Robert and gone to meet Dean?

A tingling in his back made him sit forward. He turned and glimpsed her mobile phone. A feeling of dread clawed at him. Helen was now missing without means to contact anyone.

A trace of déjà vu wafted over him. As a rookie in the police, his sergeant had disappeared in a police car on night shift. An arduous search ensued. The location of the car was eventually discovered by a farmer on a rural byway on the outskirts of Hampton. The gate to the byway had been left open and the cows that occupied the field beside were roaming the nearby roads. Pemberton was first on the scene. Initially, he thought his colleague was asleep in the car. Then he spotted the hose taped to the exhaust pipe leading into a small gap in his side window, sealed around the edges with duct tape.

Pemberton cast his mind back. Sergeant Backley was his name, or ‘Backers’ at the station. An investigation revealed that earlier the same day he discovered his wife was having an affair. A revelation not mentioned when he came to work that evening and briefed his team as normal, before taking the car to meet his fate. Pemberton drew a breath. Whatever troubles Helen faced, he wasn’t about to let history repeat itself.

He grabbed the phone and stroked the screen. The voice on the other end of the line cracked with panic. “Helen?”

“No. This is… ”

The line cut off. Pemberton hastily accessed the call register for the last call. It wasn’t recognised. The number looked oddly familiar, although he couldn’t think why. He tried to call back. There was a short delay before the phone rang out. One, two, three, four… then dead again.

Pemberton pinched the top of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. He desperately needed to find out who was on this call. He searched Helen’s contacts from bottom to top - a habit adopted by an old colleague who discovered that many criminals stored close associations at the end of their call register, convinced that people wouldn’t be bothered to search that far. School, Robert, Pemberton, Mum, Matthew… There were other names he didn’t recognise. He drew the screen down further. Nothing.

Pemberton reached for his own phone out of his pocket and punched in the numbers carefully. He needed to get this right.

Chapter
Thirty-Two

“Well, well, well if it’s not James Lavery’s daughter. Didn’t we strike gold?” The hiss in Chilli Franks’ voice reminded Helen of a snake.

Chilli Franks stood in front of her. The man who’d held a grudge against the Lavery family since her father worked so voraciously to put him away, over twenty years earlier.

In normal circumstances, a man of Chilli’s experience and intelligence would realise that kidnapping a cop meant instant ruin. Helen’s colleagues would pull out all the stops. But one glance at Chilli Franks – his unnaturally wide eyes, his glassy gaze, his dark expression – told her he wasn’t acting rationally as he stood there clutching a small handgun in one hand, a bottle of Budweiser in the other.

Chilli didn’t blink, “I believe you have something I want.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Like father, like daughter,” he hissed.

Helen said nothing.

“I’m waiting.” He cast a wide glance around the bleak cellar walls.

She wetted her lips. “You’ll have to help me out here, Stephen. I really don’t know.”

The use of his real name pulled his glare back to her. He flicked the safety catch off the side of his gun.

Helen battled to hold her reserve. If it was Eva he was after, he wouldn’t kill her. Not before he reached his prize.

“Where’s my son?” she asked defiantly.

“He’s quite safe. For the moment.”

Her worst fears were confirmed. Dean hadn’t only betrayed her. He’d betrayed her entire family. She recoiled, crushing a whimper. “What have you done with him?”

“He’ll be fine, as long as you help us.”

Her mind reeled. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Suddenly, tears of anger swelled his eyes. “Believe me, you don’t want to play games. Not right now.”

Helen felt her throat constrict.

“Where is she?” He spat the words out, a line of spittle sticking to the side of his cheek.

“I don’t know what… ”

The crash of the bottle hitting the floor cut her words, making her jump back. A small pool of liquid merged with the splinters of glass scattered over the concrete floor, glinting under the naked bulb.

“I’ll ask you again… Where is Eva Carradine?”

Giving up Eva went against every principle, every ounce of integrity that clung to Helen’s fragile soul. Yet he’d been clever. He’d taken her son too. Robert, barely a teenager. With his bony body, he’d always been small for his age. She couldn’t lose him. He hadn’t had a chance to grow, flourish, show the world what he was really made of. She wouldn’t.

“Let me see Robert,” she said.

Chilli paused. For a moment his face adopted a strange softness as if he recalled a distant memory. But just when she thought she’d penetrated his thick skin, his eyes glazed over. And when they turned back to her they were harder and blacker than before.

“Why should I?”

“He’s just a boy.”

“Like Nate. Your lot didn’t think of that when they killed him.”

“He crashed his car,” she said. “It was an accident.”

“Yeah? Like it was an accident when your dad hunted me down all those years ago? When he worked around the clock to pull my life from beneath me?”

“You maimed somebody.”

Chilli sneered. “I’ve seen that look in your eye. So self-righteous. In reality, you’re no different from me. We both teach people lessons. We just go about it differently. But taking my boy…” He shook his head. “You’ve gone too far this time.”

Chilli’s threats against her family all those years earlier crashed into her mind. ‘Shallow thoughts of a condemned man,’ her father had called them. But they hadn’t been shallow. They had grown and festered like a cancer in Chilli’s mind. Until now.

“Let Robert go, please, it has nothing to do with him.”

“He’s a Lavery, isn’t he? It has everything to do with him.”

“I’m sure we can sort this out, you and I.”

“Spare me your police bullshit.”

“I’m serious. Let me make some calls.”

The shrill cackle of his laughter was evil itself. When he finally spoke, his voice was barbed. “We can sort this out.” His face hardened. “Give me the address.”

Helen could feel the battle slipping away. “Let go of Robert and I’ll tell you,” she said, biting back her conscience.

“The boy stays. And if you don’t tell me, I’ll kill him now.”

Thoughts raced through her mind. She needed to find a way to save Robert. “She’s at Cross Keys police station waiting to be interviewed.” The words spilled out of her mouth, rushing into one another.

Chilli said nothing. He turned, the metal Blakeys on his heels clicking the bare wood as he climbed the stairs. She heard the door slam, the sound of locks, the flick of a switch. Once again she was immersed in darkness.

Helen swallowed as realisation set into her bones. Dean had sold his soul to the devil. Chilli Franks had no intention of allowing her to leave this room alive.

***

Eva’s chest burned as she held her breath. First they tried to contact her using Naomi’s mobile phone, then they answered the DCI’s. When the phone rang again, Eva jumped and stared at it, as if it was a ticking bomb. An unknown number flashed on the screen. Should she answer it? A wave of nausea hit her. She picked up the phone and clicked it off.

Her head pounded. She rushed to the bathroom, splashed water over her scarlet face. That’s when she heard the rustling noise.

***

Pemberton studied his phone. Was that Eva? He was just considering having the call traced when his own mobile rang again. It was Spencer. Back at the station, they were all starting to get edgy. Spencer had been monitoring control room calls for any sign of the DCI when a strange call caught his attention. A woman was searching the industrial estate in Roxten for her missing cat when she’d spotted a female being lifted out of the boot of a car and carried into the empty warehouse beyond. Suspicion raised, she called Hampton Police.

Pemberton sighed loudly. “Control room would have allocated despatch.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Spencer said. “The woman had long dark hair and wore a beige overcoat. The informant crouched behind a car, doesn’t think they saw her.”

The hairs on the back of Pemberton’s neck sprung up. “What’s the address?”

“32 Ceaser Place, Roxten.”

“Chilli Franks has just bought that property,” he said. “Plans to turn it into a gym, I believe.” He turned on his heels. “Cancel the despatch. I’m only five minutes away.”

Chapter
Thirty-Three

Helen blinked as the glaring light suddenly illuminated the room once again. Footsteps clicked against the stairs. She watched as Chilli’s faded jeans, black shirt, shoulders then gaunt face appeared at the bottom. The same handgun was in his right hand, a kettle clutched in his left, the loose cord wound around his hand. “That your idea of a joke?” he snarled.

Helen shrank back. She’d had to think fast to come up with a fake location for Eva. It seemed like a logical explanation that she’d be at Cross Keys police station waiting to be interviewed. A location where Chilli would need Helen to negotiate some kind of access. Perhaps in his twisted mental state he might have even thought she could pull some strings and get Eva released. But Helen wasn’t really thinking about herself anymore. Her mind was consumed with her youngest son. If Chilli needed Helen, he wouldn’t harm Robert, not yet. Her one hope, her only hope, was that she could raise the alarm and he could be saved. But it could only have been minutes since he’d left the cellar. How could he have discovered her lie so quickly? “I don’t… ”

“Save it!” He crossed to a table at the far side and lifted the kettle onto it, plugging it into the single socket behind. “Looks like you need some persuasion.”

Helen’s eyes slid across to the kettle. Her heart thumped. More than anybody, she knew what he was capable of.

Another set of footsteps. Heavier this time. The face that finally appeared answered her question by its very presence: Dean Fitzpatrick.

Dean said nothing, made no gesture. He stood uncomfortably, his head bent forward to avoid the low ceiling, gaze averted. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’ Those simple whispered words entered her head, stinging her ears.

Chilli caught her gaze. He looked across at Dean and back to her. “Bet you thought he was one of yours, didn’t you?”

Helen bent forward, said nothing. The kettle started to gurgle as the water began to heat.

Chilli drew a deep breath. His eyes didn’t leave her. “He’s got black blood. Just like us.” His face hardened. “Just like Nate.”