The Choice

by Lake, Alex

  That was not something cops often said. Wynne felt a rising curiosity.

  ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Sounds intriguing. Tell me more.’

  ‘It’s a kidnap,’ Dudek said. ‘A really weird kidnap.’

  ‘Weird? How?’

  ‘It’s a mother of three kids, Annabelle Westbrook. I don’t have all the details, but she was the ransom—’

  ‘What do you mean, she was the ransom?’

  ‘Like I said, I don’t have all the details, but it seems she was the price of her own kids being returned. She went with her husband to the swap.’

  ‘She did what?’ Wynne said.

  ‘She went to the place the kidnapper told her to. She and her husband and took an ex-cop and tried to track the kidnapper’s vehicle with a drone. But they lost them.’

  ‘Are they insane?’ Wynne said. ‘Why didn’t they call us?’

  ‘I don’t know. But they didn’t. Anyway, the kidnapper took the wife and the husband tracked them as far as the M56, heading towards Manchester.’

  ‘How long ago was this?’

  ‘About thirty minutes since it was called in. We put cars on the exits to try and pick them up.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They’d already left the M56. Junction nine.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘They’re on camera. Clear as day.’

  ‘Where did they go?’

  ‘Into the truck stop. There’s a big car park there.’

  ‘Let me get this right,’ Wynne said. ‘Someone kidnapped three kids and held them ransom. The price was their mother, who accepted this and made a plan for her husband to follow her with a drone?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘But he lost her, because they went onto the motorway. And now they’re in a truck stop.’

  ‘You got it.’

  ‘Presumably they went there to switch cars?’ Wynne said.

  ‘That was what I thought,’ Dudek replied.

  ‘So we just stop every car that comes out. And look on camera for any that already left. Focus on vans, that kind of thing.’

  ‘That was the plan,’ Dudek said.

  ‘Was?’

  ‘Was,’ he confirmed. ‘Because a few minutes after Annabelle Westbrook’s blue Golf went into the truck stop, it came out again.’

  ‘And? Where did it go?’

  ‘Towards High Legh. We lost them along the way, though. It’s a country road and there are no cameras.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘But there’s good news.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘There’s nowhere to turn off that road before you do get to a camera, at an all-night garage. And they haven’t passed there yet.’

  ‘So they’re somewhere on that stretch of road?’

  ‘It looks like it. They’ve been there for about half an hour.’

  ‘Are there houses? Places to hide?’

  ‘A few. And there’s a pub. We’re heading there first.’

  Wynne looked at the bottle of wine. She put the cork back in. She could call Sheila and postpone.

  ‘What’s the name of the pub?’ she said. ‘I’ll meet you there.’

  Matt

  Rob pulled up outside the house and parked next to Mike’s Volvo. The Land Rover was still where the kidnapper had left it. Matt supposed the police would want it for forensic stuff; he didn’t want to ever see it again.

  ‘Sorry,’ Rob said. ‘But it’ll work out.’

  Matt opened the door. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Be in touch if you need anything.’

  ‘I will.’

  He got out of the car and walked towards the front door. It opened before he reached it.

  Norman stood there, his hand on the Yale lock, silhouetted in the door frame.

  ‘Daddy,’ he said. ‘Where were you? Did you find her?’

  Matt held his arms out and grabbed him in a tight hug. ‘I was out,’ he muttered into his eldest son’s hair. ‘Not yet. But I will. I promise.’ He blinked away his tears. He didn’t want to alarm his son. ‘How about you? Are you OK?’

  ‘Yes,’ Norman said. ‘I’m fine.’

  Matt took a deep breath. ‘Were you hurt?’

  Norman shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We were in a van. There was a tablet. We just stayed in there. We got food and stuff.’

  ‘OK. You might have to tell someone about it.’

  ‘The police?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘To help them find Mum?’

  Matt was surprised Norman had figured out what was going on so easily, but then he was often struck by how much his eldest son understood about the world. He assumed it was always that way with the firstborn; they grew up so much faster than you anticipated, so you were always surprised by what they were capable of.

  Which was good, because what was coming was going to test all of them.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘To help them find Mum.’

  ‘OK. I’ll talk to them.’

  ‘Where are Keith and Molly?’

  ‘Watching TV.’

  ‘How are they?’

  Norman shrugged. ‘They’re good. When we were – when we were gone, I told them everything was OK. Molly really missed you and Mum, so I made up stories. About animals and things. They were pretty good!’

  ‘How was Keith?’ His middle son was quiet, and very sensitive. With Norman you knew what he was feeling, because he told you. Keith, though, bottled it all up.

  ‘OK,’ Norman said. ‘I know you and Mum worry about him, so I made sure he was all right.’

  Matt’s throat tightened. ‘You’re fantastic,’ he said. ‘Thank you for taking care of them. They must have been scared.’

  Norman looked at him. He hesitated, and his lips started to quiver. ‘I was scared, too.’

  He pulled his son closer. ‘I’m here now. And everything’s going to be fine.’

  ‘But what about Mum?’ Norman said. ‘We need her.’

  ‘We do,’ Matt said. ‘And we’ll find her. The police are looking.’

  ‘How do you know we’ll find her?’ Norman said.

  He blinked. ‘Because we have to,’ he said.

  His phone rang. It was not a number he knew; it could be the kidnapper. His shoulders tensed.

  ‘Go and watch TV,’ he said. He didn’t want Norman to hear him talking to the kidnapper. ‘I’ll be there in a minute.’

  Norman gave him a searching look, then walked towards the living room. Matt answered the call and lifted the phone to his ear.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Matt Westbrook.’

  He was expecting a man’s voice, perhaps with a new ransom demand, but it was a woman who spoke.

  ‘Mr Westbrook? This is Detective Inspector Jane Wynne. I’m in charge of your wife’s case. I wanted to give you an update.’

  ‘There’s an update?’ he said. ‘Did you find her?’

  ‘Yes, after a fashion. Your wife’s car left the M56 and went into the truck stop at Lymm. We have it entering on CCTV.’

  ‘Is that where she is? Did you find her?’

  ‘Not exactly. Her car left a few minutes later. We tracked it to a relatively small area.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘On the road leading to High Legh. We’re pretty sure they set off in that direction and stopped en route. There’s a camera at a garage along that road and they haven’t gone past it. So the car is somewhere on a short stretch of that road.’

  Matt tried to quell the swelling hope. ‘Are you going to look?’

  ‘I’m on my way there now.’ DI Wynne paused. ‘I want to be clear. We don’t know what we’ll find. It’s just a lead, at this point. But I want you to know we’re doing all we can.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Matt said. ‘Do you want me to come there?’

  ‘Not yet. I’ll call you as soon as we know anything. And I’m going to need to get your version of events, Mr Westbrook, and to talk to your children. I’
ll be in touch soon.’

  ‘OK,’ Matt said. ‘Good luck.’

  Sunday, 8 March 2020, 6.40 p.m.

  Wynne

  1

  Wynne’s phone said the pub was a mile further up the road. She was behind a white van; they passed a forty-mile per hour sign and it sped up to exactly forty. A white van driver with a strict respect for speed limits. Rare, in her experience. She chided herself for the prejudice.

  Not because she cared about prejudice in itself, but because prejudice led to bad assumptions, and they led to bad detective work.

  Half a minute later she turned into the pub car park. It was quite full; there were a lot of people visible through the pub windows.

  At the rear of the car park she saw a squad car. DS Dudek’s red Vauxhall Astra was parked next to it. She slowed to a stop and got out.

  Dudek was standing by a blue Golf with two uniformed officers. He turned to her and gave her a thumbs down.

  ‘This is the car,’ he said. ‘But she’s not here. It’s empty.’

  ‘They could be in the pub?’ one of the officers, a man in his late twenties, said.

  ‘Possible,’ Dudek said. ‘But my guess is they aren’t having a leisurely drink while the kidnapper works out the next stage in his dastardly plan.’

  ‘Worth checking, though,’ Wynne said. ‘Do you have a photo of Mrs Westbrook?’

  The officer nodded.

  ‘Show it around. See if anyone saw her. Also ask if anyone saw the car arrive.’ She looked around. The Golf was parked in the corner, maybe fifty yards from the pub. ‘No doubt they parked here for a reason,’ she said. ‘But someone may have seen them. You can both go. It looks busy in there.’

  The two officers set off for the pub. Wynne looked at Dudek.

  ‘So why do you think the kidnapper would have driven it here, having first pulled into the car park of the truck stop?’ she said.

  ‘Because he realized there was CCTV at the truck stop.’

  ‘You’re assuming it’s a he,’ Wynne said. ‘But let’s go with that for now. If he knew there was CCTV at the truck stop, then he must have realized the CCTV would show him leaving,’ Wynne said. ‘So he’s back where he started.’

  ‘So he comes to the pub,’ Dudek said. ‘To switch vehicles.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not here. He’d have to drag a woman – either unconscious, or, if she was awake, struggling and screaming – from one vehicle to another. It’s too public.’

  ‘So why come here?’ Dudek said.

  Beyond the car park was a field. Wynne gestured across it. ‘Maybe he took her that way. On foot.’ She paused. ‘But that raises the same objection. If she’s unconscious, he’d have to carry her. And if she’s conscious and on foot, why wouldn’t she resist? Try to draw attention? Or just run into the pub. There’s something we’re missing.’

  She looked around the car park. She pictured the blue Golf pulling in and driving to the far corner of the car park. The driver’s side door opening and a figure in a hoodie getting out, then opening the rear door and reaching in to pull out a slumped, unconscious body.

  That was impossible. Far too risky.

  She pictured the kidnapper opening the car door and ushering Annabelle Westbrook out, then leading her over the wall and into the field.

  Impossible, too. Even if she was drugged it would draw attention.

  So if both were impossible, what did that leave?

  It hit her, and she closed her eyes.

  ‘Shit,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe we missed this.’

  ‘What did we miss?’

  ‘Think about it. There’s no way he could have brought her here. What would he do with her? It’s too public. Which leaves only one option: he didn’t bring her here.’

  ‘But the car’s here.’

  ‘Yes. But she wasn’t. The whole thing was a diversion. Annabelle was never here.’

  ‘But the kidnapper was,’ Dudek said. ‘Unless someone else drove the car.’

  ‘No one else drove the car,’ Wynne said. ‘He was here. Just not with her.’

  ‘Then where was she?’

  ‘The truck stop,’ Wynne said. ‘There’ll be a corner that isn’t covered by the cameras. He had a car – or a van, something like that – waiting there, and transferred her. Then drove her Golf here, and walked back. It’s what? Two miles? So at a brisk walk that’s twenty-five, thirty minutes?’

  She looked at her watch.

  ‘What time did the Golf leave the truck stop?’

  ‘About fifty minutes ago.’

  ‘So he arrived here forty-five minutes ago, then walked back. We need footage of every vehicle leaving the truck stop in the last twenty minutes. And any people entering the truck stop on foot, although I’m guessing he found a way in that the cameras can’t see.’

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ Dudek said, ‘is why? Why do all this?’

  ‘Because the kidnapper knows we know the first car he took her in, and we’d have every traffic cop in the country looking for it as soon as Annabelle Westbrook’s husband called us. He needed to switch.’

  ‘But now we’ll track every car – or van – that left the truck stop. It’ll be harder, but we can do it.’

  ‘I know,’ Wynne said. ‘So maybe this bastard’s not as clever as he thinks he is. But that’s good news for us, and bad news for him. Let’s go. We need to review that footage.’

  2

  ‘Pause it there,’ Wynne said. ‘Now go back a few seconds. Play.’

  They watched a white van, old-ish, nondescript and unmarked, pull out of the truck stop. It headed in the direction of the pub – the Bear’s Paw – they had just left. It moved steadily, observing all posted speed limits.

  ‘That’s it,’ Wynne said. She clenched her fist. The time stamp was 6.40 p.m. Right as she was arriving at the pub. ‘That’s them. I saw that van. I was behind it.’

  ‘We can’t be sure,’ Dudek said. ‘There are other vans.’

  ‘True,’ Wynne said. ‘But I’ll bet you’ll see all the others leaving the truck stop ten or twenty minutes after they arrive. Thirty at most. We need to check them all, obviously. But this one you’ll spot arriving a day or two ago.’

  ‘We’ll check,’ Dudek said. He rewound the footage until the van was back on screen. ‘And in the meantime we’ll issue an alert for that van.’ He wrote down the licence plate. ‘And we’ll pull up the names of everyone who’s ever owned it.’

  Annabelle

  The road grew bumpy. The jolting sent bolts of pain through her shoulder, but the yellow straps made it impossible to move to a more comfortable position.

  She had hope, though. The police would have found her car and figured out what had happened, and then they would see the van leaving on CCTV. They’d find her. She believed they would. She had to believe they would.

  And in the meantime, there was the agony.

  From the bumps, she assumed they were on a quiet country track. It made sense; why not hide away? Eventually, though, they’d have to go out on the open roads, and then – surely – someone would spot them.

  The van slowed to a stop. She heard the front door open and close, and then the panel door slid along its rails and the night air flooded in.

  The kidnapper stood, face hidden under the hood, and lifted a hand, thumb up, then down.

  It was an enquiry as to whether she was OK.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Doctor,’ she said. ‘I need a doctor.’

  The kidnapper bent down and undid the yellow strap that was around her chest then undid the handcuffs and gently moved her right shoulder.

  She opened her eyes wide in agony.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Please. Leave it.’

  She saw a syringe in the kidnapper’s hand; it was unsheathed and she felt it prick her skin.

  Whatever was in the syringe did not take long to work; within minutes she started to feel woozy. The kidnapper unstrapped her and guided her to the panel doo
r of the van.

  She looked out. They were on a scruffy piece of wasteland. There was a pond to their right, the surface oily in the moonlight, and an agricultural structure to the left.

  Next to the van was an Audi estate.

  Had she seen that car before? She thought she had, but her mind was going foggy and she couldn’t place it. It was hard to think. Hard to know.

  But what she did know, through the fog of the drug, was that all hope was gone. The police would be looking for the van, which was why they were switching to the Audi.

  The boot clicked open and a hand gently pushed her into a sitting position, then tipped her in. She did as she was told, her mind crying out for sleep.

  The kidnapper reached behind her and brought out a pillow then tucked it under her head. It was an oddly tender gesture.

  Which was her last thought, before she slipped into unconsciousness.

  This is not what I wanted, and I am annoyed.

  Yes, it has gone well, in the sense that it worked, but everything I do works. I need more than that.

  I want it to be perfect.

  A work of art. A testament to my genius.

  So yes, it went as planned. I took the Golf to the pub, then walked back to the van. They’ll see that leaving on CCTV, but they’ll never find it, and if they do, so what? We’re in the Audi.

  And now we are on the way to our final destination.

  But there was one imperfection spoiling it all.

  I hurt her.

  Yes, she attacked me, so it’s really her fault, but still: I did not want to hurt her.

  I wanted her to be comfortable until we reached the final destination, when I could reveal myself to her. It would have been the perfect ending.

  And beginning.

  Yes, I could have avoided all this by telling her everything as soon as she was in the car, but I wanted more than that.

  I wanted it to be extra-special. That – if anything – is my failing. I wanted it to be too good.

  I am too good.

  But that is not what happened. I will make it up to her, though. And this time it will be perfect.