Long Gone

by Paul Pilkington

  ‘I…’

  ‘You are a postdoc researcher in the psychology department, aren’t you?’

  He said nothing, suddenly put on the back foot.

  ‘Aren’t you, Jack?’

  Panic rose up from within. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You’re Jack Morton. Don’t you want to know who I am?’

  He considered cutting the call there and then, but needed to know if this was as bad as he feared. He thought this might happen one day. His luck would run out, he would be exposed for his actions, most likely by a jealous lover: one of those needy girls who wanted revenge and was lucky enough to stumble on the truth about him.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m a reporter on The Spotlight,’ she said. ‘I write feature articles.’

  He swore under his breath. This was worse than he’d feared.

  ‘I know what you’ve been doing for the past few years, Jack. How you’ve been preying on vulnerable young students for your own sexual gratification. How you stalk them out at the Freshers’ events. How you use multiple identities, like you did with me last night.’

  ‘It’s lies,’ was all he could manage.

  ‘You know that’s not the case,’ came her assured reply.

  ‘This is entrapment.’

  ‘This is protection of our student population. Soon everyone will know what you’ve been doing.’

  ‘Please, I’ll stop.’

  ‘Too late. As soon as we finish this call, I’m contacting the university authorities. I have multiple witnesses who have come forward to back up the claims that we’ve received.’

  He turned on the spot, blood pumping again. He was finished. They would sack him. It was all over. ‘Who told you?’

  ‘I can’t say that.’

  A realisation. ‘It was her, wasn’t it? Amy?’

  ‘I can’t say.’

  ‘She’s a liar.’

  He had a sudden urge to march back up to the campus and find her. Make her pay.

  ‘I’m going to go now, Jack.’

  She cut the call.

  ‘Damn it!’ he shouted at the phone. He screamed skyward, stamping his feet hard on the ground like a toddler with a tantrum. ‘Argh!’

  The panic had turned to rage.

  He knew who was really to blame. Natalie. It had all started with her. The downward spiral. The tailspin from his heady heights of success. And now he was heading for the ground, unprepared for the impact, and it was all her fault.

  He had a desperate thought.

  His hands shaking with adrenalin, he swiped through his phone until he got to the app he was looking for, buried in the settings of the device.

  Find my Friends.

  Locate your friends via their mobile phone, no matter where they are. Natalie hadn’t known that he had set it up on her device, giving him access to her location. It was meant for parents to keep track of their children. But it was perfect for keeping track of her. He would look at it whenever they were apart, just to make sure he knew what she was up to.

  Just in case.

  It was also useful to know where she was when he was with other women.

  He’d been monitoring her particularly closely for the past two weeks, since she had so cruelly ended their relationship. He’d tracked her to London, her signal following the trainline from Temple Meads to Paddington. He knew she had reached a property in Mayfair on that Friday evening.

  But then the signal had gone dead.

  At first he wondered whether her battery had died. But when the signal didn’t return, he began to think that maybe she had discovered what he had done, and had blocked access.

  There had been no signal since that Friday night.

  He opened the app, expecting the usual radio silence.

  But to his surprise, the blue dot appeared.

  It was south of the Thames, in Balham.

  He zoomed in and the road names appeared.

  Garden Terrace.

  The blue dot was over one of the houses. A quick look on Street View confirmed which property.

  Number Thirty-Two.

  A search of the address brought up a record on Companies House.

  A company registered to that address. Director by the name of Guy Clarke.

  His blood boiled.

  She was with a man.

  While his world was falling apart.

  Who the hell was he?

  This had no doubt started before their break-up. Now it all started to make sense. Maybe there hadn’t even been a recruitment event at all. It had just been a ruse to meet up with her lover in the capital.

  How dare she!

  He grabbed his car keys.

  She was going to pay for this.

  51

  As soon as Cullen left Catharine, armed with the new knowledge about the person who had been pretending to be Russell Cave, he called Tabitha.

  A minute later, he set off for the address that Tabitha, after a bit of persuasion and pressure, had provided him with.

  He was closing in on the truth.

  He could feel it.

  But there wasn’t much time.

  52

  Tuesday afternoon, present day

  GUY MADE himself his fifth espresso of the day. He was buzzing. He heard the banging and shouting from upstairs.

  Natalie had realised the door was locked.

  Tabitha had left for work half an hour ago, stipulating that he wasn’t to engage with Natalie while she was out. But the noise from above was beginning to grate, and even though he knew the neighbours were out, and the bedroom window was locked and only looked out onto the back garden, there was a chance that someone might hear her.

  His worrying was interrupted by a ping from a mobile phone. It came from the living room, and he realised it was Natalie’s phone. He’d taken it from her after her collapse and turned it off.

  On several occasions over the past few days they’d turned it back on again, using Natalie’s thumbprint while she lay immobile and unaware in bed, just for a few minutes at a time, anxious to know who might be looking for her, and what they were saying. And early Monday morning he and Tabitha had decided to reply to the numerous text messages that had been sent by a girl called Amy.

  He’d sent just one text, pretending to be Natalie, saying that she was taking time out to be with friends.

  This morning he had again turned the phone on.

  But had forgotten to turn it off.

  It was another message from Amy. He was careful not to click on the message, so she wouldn’t know someone had read it.

  He turned the phone off, placing it back on the fireplace. Then he headed for the stairs, but as he reached the bottom, Natalie shouted out again.

  ‘Let me out of here!’

  He climbed the stairs without replying. But halfway up the staircase, his phone, which had been left in the kitchen, began ringing.

  ‘Damn.’

  He rushed back through into the kitchen. It was Tabitha calling through.

  ‘Guy, the police will be coming around.’

  Guy placed a hand to his head. ‘The police, what do you mean?’

  ‘Paul Cullen, the detective, he called me just now, asking questions. I gave him our address.’

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘I had to. He was going to search for your address on the police system – he would have realised that the name was false.’

  Guy circled in panic. ‘What the hell are we going to do?’

  ‘Get out of the house. With Natalie.’

  ‘I can’t. How can I do that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘She’s shouting. I can’t take her anywhere.’

  ‘What about the drugs. Have you got any more left?’

  ‘Yes, but you know what happened last time. We thought we’d killed…’

  ‘Just do it. Give her less.’

  ‘How, though?’

  ‘The same as last time. In a dr
ink. Take her up a drink. She’ll be thirsty.’

  ‘I don’t know…’

  ‘Guy, just do it!’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ he said, looking around the kitchen for a cup. ‘I’ll do it, I’ll do it. But where should we go?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And how do I get her from the house to the car without people seeing?’

  ‘I don’t know, just do something.’

  He was really panicking now. A cup he’d grabbed slipped out of his hands and smashed on the tiled floor. ‘Damn it!’

  ‘Guy, you’ve got to calm down!’ Tabitha said. ‘We can sort this out. We can make it right.’

  ‘We can’t. We can’t,’ he replied, crunching over the smashed crockery.

  A loud bang came from upstairs.

  ‘Will you shut up!’ he screamed towards the ceiling.

  ‘You’re losing it,’ Tabitha said. ‘Pull yourself together.’

  Guy cut the call in spite. ‘It’s all your fault, you evil witch!’

  No sooner had the words left his lips that the doorbell rang out.

  Guy stiffened.

  It rang again.

  He looked up towards the ceiling. Natalie had gone quiet.

  Then a hard knock on the front door.

  Cullen had already arrived.

  ‘I can do this,’ he said. ‘I can do this.’ He would talk to the officer at the doorstep, then he would leave, and things would be okay. He moved into the hallway, seeing the human shape on the other side of the glass-panelled door. ‘I can do this.’

  He was just a few feet away from the door. ‘Hello, officer,’ he whispered in rehearsal. ‘How can I help you?’

  He was sweating profusely.

  ‘Hello, officer, how can I help you?’ he tried again, his breathed words ragged with nerves.

  The figure was waiting.

  He put on a smile and opened the door.

  ‘Hello, officer, how can I…’

  The blow thundered straight into his face, knocking him off his feet, and sending his head crashing into the edge of the radiator.

  53

  Natalie banged and banged on the door, shouting for Tabitha and Guy. She figured if she kept it up long enough, then they would have to respond. But her throat was hurting.

  ‘Let me out, please!’

  ‘Will you shut up!’ she heard Guy scream from below.

  Natalie sat back down on the bed. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea, antagonising them like this. It certainly wasn’t doing her throat any favours. She moved over to the window and looked out over the back garden. There was no house overlooking theirs. No chance to raise the alarm via that route.

  They had thought carefully about where to put her.

  She continued watching the garden as a blackbird hopped across the lawn. A plane crossed the sky. Life was going on outside, while she was a prisoner.

  She watched for a few more minutes before being startled by the noise behind her. The lock had been slid back, and the door opened.

  It was Jack.

  ‘Your lover is dead,’ he stated with icy coolness. ‘And it’s all your fault.’

  54

  Natalie felt a sickening swell in her stomach as she took in the sight of Jack standing in front of her.

  How had he found her?

  She noticed his hands were stained with blood, and there was a smear of crimson across his left cheek.

  She stepped back against the wall, keeping her eyes on her ex-boyfriend, who was standing stock-still, blocking the doorway.

  ‘Didn’t you hear me?’ he said, smiling in a weird, vacant way. ‘Your lover is dead. It was the radiator. Cracked his head wide open.’

  ‘You’ve killed him?’

  ‘And it’s all your fault.’

  ‘Guy isn’t my lover, Jack.’

  That weird smile again. Deranged. ‘Don’t lie to me, Natalie.’ He took a small step towards her.

  ‘I met him at the recruitment event. He works for the company.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me!’ he exploded, taking another step forward, jabbing an accusing finger at her, his face blood-red. ‘Don’t you dare lie to me!’

  ‘It’s the truth.’ She tried to keep her voice calm and measured, her eyes desperately seeking out some reason within him, to calm the rage.

  He shook his head dismissively, lost in the swirling mass of anger within.

  Natalie had played through many times what she wanted to say the next time she saw Jack Morton. She had fantasied about telling him how escaping from his clutches had been the best thing she had ever done. She wanted to tell him how small men like him really were. But here and now, cornered by this man as he claimed to have killed another, she was just desperate to get out. So all those things she wanted to say could wait for another time, another place. ‘I wanted to thank you.’

  That confused him. ‘Thank me?’

  ‘For rescuing me.’

  ‘Rescuing you? You’re lying.’

  ‘They were holding me hostage here. In this room.’

  ‘What?’ He looked around.

  ‘That’s why the door was locked.’

  If she could just bring him down from his murderous high, even get him on side, she might have a chance of getting out of here…

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I think they drugged me, locked me up.’

  She was getting through to him.

  ‘But… why?’

  ‘I’ll explain when we get out of here. But we need to get out now, before the others come back.’

  Once outside the house, she would run at her first opportunity. Run and not look back. Run for her life.

  ‘The others?’

  ‘The other men who took me. They’ll be back very soon.’

  There was a flash of fear on his face.

  ‘Jack, we need to go now.’

  He nodded. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll protect you. I won’t let you go again.’

  55

  She didn’t plan it, but as they emerged from the room, with Jack leading the way, Natalie saw her chance and reacted on pure instinct.

  She pushed him down the stairs with all her might.

  Caught off-balance, Jack twisted to his left, corkscrewing down the carpeted stairs. Natalie watched from the top as he landed with a thud at the bottom, legs and arms in a tangled mass.

  But he was moving.

  He recovered with shocking speed, eyes burning, the anger again raging.

  Natalie stood frozen at the top of the stairs. She’d made a terrible error of judgement. The escape route was blocked again, and there would be no way now of placating Jack. She forced herself to break away from his stare and headed across the landing to one of the front rooms.

  Maybe she could barricade herself in and then try to climb out of a window.

  But she could hear Jack running back up the stairs.

  She entered the main bedroom, but only got the door three-quarters closed before Jack appeared on the other side.

  ‘You’re a liar, Natalie,’ he spat, straining against her weight as she battled to shut the door.

  She was losing the fight; despite her best efforts, Jack was gaining traction, and he knew it, his anger spurring him on to increase the force.

  The breaking point was reached and Jack almost fell into the room, as Natalie scooted around the double bed, evading his grasp.

  But there was nowhere left to run.

  He chased her down, pushing her against the wardrobe. She had flashbacks of Sir Kenneth. There was the same look on Jack’s face.

  Hatred.

  Natalie tried to resist, but Jack grabbed her collar and slammed her into the back of the wardrobe.

  Then she brought her knee up hard and fast, connecting with his groin.

  He folded in agony.

  She pushed him down and scrambled across the bed and back out onto the landing. But as she reached the stairs he caught up with her, shoving her back into the room in which she h
ad been held captive.

  ‘Jack, no!’ she shouted, as he grabbed her around the neck.

  Teeth bared like a rabid dog, he applied pressure with both thumbs, choking off her airway.

  56

  Paul Cullen approached Number Thirty-Two Garden Terrace. He went to press the doorbell but noticed that the door wasn’t quite shut. He pushed gently and stepped into the hallway. The first thing he noticed were the blood marks on the carpet. There was also a streak on the radiator to the left of the door.

  The marks looked fresh.

  He waited, thinking through his next move. There was no use in calling for backup. He was in here now, and it was only him.

  He listened for any signs of movement.

  Nothing. But then.

  ‘Jack, no!’

  Without a second thought, Cullen ran for the stairs.

  57

  Natalie felt the pressure in her head rising and rising, as if it were a balloon being over-inflated. Jack’s eyes bored into her as she tried to free herself from his deathly grip.

  ‘P-l-e-a-s-e…’

  But there was no mercy there.

  And then, suddenly, his head snapped right, towards the open door, and he released his grip. He took a step behind the door as another man appeared at the top of the stairs, making concerned eye contact with Natalie.

  ‘Natalie?’ he mouthed.

  She tried to warn him, but she was too weak, merely able to raise a single hand.

  As the man stepped into the room, Jack emerged from behind the door, shouting and swinging a wild punch at the man’s head.

  58

  Despite the element of surprise, Jack’s punch did not land. Cullen batted the blow away as if he were swatting a bothersome fly, before putting a hard shoulder into the man’s body just below the ribs. They both crashed back against the wall.

  Jack tried to struggle, but he was no match for the power and weight of Cullen, who sat astride him.

  ‘It’s all your fault!’ Jack spat in Natalie’s direction.

  Cullen pressed down just that little bit harder, on Natalie’s behalf, before turning Jack Morton onto his front. He yanked the man’s hands around his back and applied the handcuffs. There was no struggle left in him. And no more accusations.