Mummy's Favourite

by Sarah Flint

  ‘So, do you want to tell me what’s happened?’ He couldn’t help his slight smile as he asked the question.

  Hubbard went to shake his head but he couldn’t move it. Bill knew he’d caught his expression.

  ‘Any idea why someone would want to do this to you?’

  Hubbard remained quiet.

  ‘Have you got any enemies? Anyone who holds a grudge against you? You know? Is there anyone that you’ve recently had issues with, whose friends or relatives might wish to have a word with you?’

  Hubbard squinted towards him, his eyes tiny slits. Bill checked that the paramedics were still busy preparing the ambulance for leaving. He winked at the man and tilted his head slightly. ‘I’m sure there must be someone? After all you’ve got a bit of recent history, haven’t you? Now, let me think. There was that police-woman who you kicked down the stairs, wasn’t there? You know, the one that you stood in court and lied about? Got away with that one, so I heard?’

  Hubbard turned his eyes away. Bill Morley exhaled through his nose noisily.

  ‘Oh yes, and then your wife and son have gone missing, haven’t they? And people think you’ve got something to do with that too, don’t they? You know? No smoke without fire and all that. Too guilty to even appear on Crimewatch last night. Or was that because you’ve heard that shrinks might be watching you for tell-tale signs of guilt? Maybe you thought you might give the game away?’

  He raised his eyebrows towards Hubbard knowingly. Hubbard’s eyes held a glimmer of fear now. He clenched his fists tightly but couldn’t move any further.

  ‘Then there’s your solicitor who’s been reporting a stalker? Attacked in the street by a masked man just a few minutes after you’d been released from the police station? Coincidence? Maybe, but the picture’s coming together, don’t you think? A bit of a woman-hater eh?’

  Bill Morley bent down so that his mouth was close to Hubbard’s ear.

  ‘Or now, could it be the fact that you’ve been spying on Dana Latchmere and turning up at her home address, so her husband thinks? He was telling us about it a few hours ago, at the same time as he reported her and his daughter missing. You’re stalking his wife and then she goes missing. He has represented some very nasty people and got them off all sorts of stuff. I’m sure he could call in a few favours, don’t you think?’

  He pulled back and winked at Hubbard again, and he knew that Hubbard knew that he had the measure of him.

  ‘And that’s just to name a few cases that I know about. I’m sure you will have pissed off a lot more people, especially women, in the past than I’ve just mentioned.’

  The rear door to the ambulance opened and a couple of plain-clothes officers stepped up into the warm, stuffy interior. Bill Morley looked at them with amusement. He knew what was coming. Hubbard’s eyes flicked from him to the new officers and back again.

  ‘Well you seem to have lots of people who want to speak to you, Keith. I’m sure there’ll be even more who would love to hear the truth instead of the lies you tell.’

  He beckoned towards the officers and one moved across towards them. ‘Keith Hubbard, I’m arresting you on suspicion of involvement in the abduction of Dana and Gemma Latchmere last night. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned, something that you later rely on in court. Anything you do say will be written down and given in evidence.’

  ‘Piss off the lot of you.’ Hubbard spat out, wincing in pain as he moved his mouth. ‘And leave me alone.’

  Bill bent down low and put his mouth close to the injured man.

  ‘Now, I don’t think we’ll be doing that for a long time, do you? Actually, I personally will make it my mission not to leave you alone until you pay for what you did to my mate. And…’ he paused as if to accentuate the meaning. ‘I think I may well be at the front of a very long queue.’

  *

  Two hours later, Keith Hubbard was lying within the disinfected walls of the local accident and emergency department debating who had done this to him. He had two names, Bear and Ratman, but didn’t know who they were, or more importantly who had sent them. It was clear they were just paid thugs. His body ached all over and his face in particular hurt like hell, but he knew the damage wasn’t lasting. The X-rays hadn’t revealed any major damage to his neck or spine, though he did have a fractured finger and nose and a displaced eye socket. A splint had been applied to his finger, and his nose was to be looked at later to see whether it would need to be reset, but at the moment all the signs were that he would make a full recovery. The facial fractures would be left to mend on their own and the swelling and bruising would disappear.

  Whoever the bastards were who did this would pay though! He, Keith Hubbard, did not take kindly to being set upon in his own house, without returning the compliment.

  He thought back to what had happened. He was an idiot. He should never have opened the door, but then no one usually took him on without expecting a taste of their own medicine. But the contest had been uneven; he was no match on his own for two hooded thugs armed with iron bars, and with Ryan in the house, he dare not try to escape. It was too late when he’d tried to shut the door. He had known then that he was fucked. Barely had he opened his mouth to remonstrate when a fist had hit him squarely in the face, sending him reeling back against the small chest of drawers in the hallway. From then on the rest was history; blows and kicks had rained in on him relentlessly and he’d barely managed to reply with any punches of his own. He had been knocked to the floor and kicked senseless.

  The two thugs had said little until the end, letting their actions do the talking. At each blow, however, he heard the abuse. ‘Bastard, bastard, bastard.’ And when they’d planted their last few blows, the larger of the two bent down towards him and sneered at his crumpled body.

  ‘So! Where are they?’

  He’d said nothing.

  ‘Do you still think you’re a big man now, attacking women and kids? Well this is for them. You’d better release them immediately or we’ll be back, you understand? My name is Bear and this here is Ratman, remember those names. We’re not to be messed with, so don’t even think about it, or the next time you won’t be getting back up. Do you understand?’

  He’d sneered back, but the thug had hit him again across his swollen face and then he’d heard the footsteps and was aware Ryan was running down the stairs towards them. He didn’t want him involved or, worse still, in danger.

  ‘I said, do you understand? I’m talking to you?’

  He nodded. He understood. Violence was a language he knew only too well.

  When he found out who they were and who was behind this though, he would get his revenge; and it wouldn’t be verbal. It would be in a language they all understood. No one disrespected him in his own house, in front of his own kid, and got away with it.

  Chapter 31

  It was 4.05 a.m. precisely when the coach pulled up at the scene of Dana and Gemma’s abduction, having been diverted from the direct route back to Lambeth from Cardiff. Hunter had been seated next to Charlie for the journey, but both had been deep in thought for most of the way. She had tried to sleep a little, knowing that once they arrived, most of their day would be taken up with the new investigation. Sleep had come fitfully, but she had managed to drift off a few times and was grateful for even the couple of hours she’d managed.

  Hunter tried and failed to stifle a yawn.

  ‘Think that’s all the shut eye we’ll be getting for a good long time,’ he said sleepily. ‘Come on then.’

  The coach was finishing its manoeuvre now. Most of the occupants were staying on board, but she and Hunter wanted to take a look around the latest crime scene.

  They shuffled down the gangway and out of the door, the freshness of the early morning hitting them immediately. She pulled her jacket collar up around her neck and folded her arms into her body, trying to keep the warmth of the coach trapped within the fabric next to her skin. A stre
et lamp at each corner of a large parking area lit up row upon row of coaches, standing mutely shoulder to shoulder, their headlights, like eyes; huge, silent witnesses to everything around them.

  The rear exit of the coach park led them through width restrictions into a narrow back street cordoned off with blue and white incident tape. They stopped briefly to give their details to the uniformed officer on guard before heading towards the inner cordon lit up with arc lights.

  Hunter nodded and continued walking toward the lights. It was quite a distance. To the side of them, huge, stinking mounds of rubbish lay piled high, with JCB’s abandoned, their cabs tilting over precariously, their buckets empty and lifeless.

  There was no sound of traffic, in fact there was barely any sound at all, just the slight movement of rubbish shifting in the breeze and the odd rustle of animals and birds in the shrubs to the side.

  The road was made from tarmac, cracked and broken at the edges but wide enough for two bin lorries to pass. A small stony verge on either side was dotted with rubbish blown from the nearby landfill. The dump was situated to the right-hand side of the road and a small area of thin trees and scrub was on the left. Plastic bags clung defiantly to some of the branches.

  A telegraph wire ran along the length of the roadway, with the poles set at uniform distances. There were no other pathways or kerbs on which to walk.

  As they approached the inner cordon, the floodlights appeared even brighter against the darkness of their surroundings. More cordon tape marked out the immediate area of the car.

  ‘It looks kind of spooky, doesn’t it?’ she whispered. ‘Freaks me out a bit, to be honest.’

  Hunter nodded.

  It looked to be quite a straightforward crime scene. Dana’s car was silhouetted against the roadway, the backlighting making the outline of the vehicle cast long shadows that reached out towards where Charlie walked. She stepped back involuntarily away from the shadow, as if somehow the shape might suck her into its darkness. Looking down at it, she wondered whether it might hide the identity of the killer; if she would be privy to the truth should she step back into it.

  The vehicle would remain in situ until daylight when the specialist search teams would arrive. Only when the area inside the cordon had been examined would the car be taken away to be forensically scrutinised; every panel and every surface dusted for fingerprints, DNA, hair or fibres; any tiny scrap of evidence that might help connect a suspect with a scene, or a scene with a suspect. It would remain to be seen whether, this time, the abductor had left any clues.

  Hunter spoke first.

  ‘What on earth would make Dana stop on a road like this? It’s so quiet and remote. You’d have thought she would have kept going to somewhere a bit livelier, with people around?’

  She nodded. ‘Who knows, but she must have stopped voluntarily by the look of it. The car’s well parked and there are no skid marks. It doesn’t look as if she’s been forced off the road.’

  The Mercedes had been found by Justin Latchmere himself. When Dana and Gemma had failed to arrive home or answer his calls, he’d retraced the special route he’d shown Dana and found the car abandoned, unlit, unlocked, with the key still in the ignition. When the engine had purred straight into life, he’d known something was badly wrong. The police were contacted, but not before his solicitor, a fact that had not been lost on Hunter and the team. All the facts had then been duly reported, under the strict control of his adviser who had not allowed him to elaborate on any details other than the bare minimum.

  Details of the shopping trip were not forthcoming, nor too was any information on the current state of the Latchmere’s marriage since Justin’s release on bail. He was remaining tight-lipped, despite the best efforts of the first uniform police and detectives alike to obtain the fullest account of what might have happened and why. Justin and his solicitor knew that he would again be a suspect, as would Keith Hubbard, who would no doubt rue his decision not to take part in Crimewatch and therefore have the perfect alibi.

  They wandered round the edge of the inner cordon looking at the car. There was no damage to the vehicle; it didn’t appear to have been involved in any sort of accident or to have been attacked in any way. The bonnet was down, the tyres were intact and it appeared to be in full working order.

  ‘What the hell has happened?’ Hunter was shaking his head again.

  ‘Who knows? Who knows anything, actually? There’s no CCTV. There’s nothing here. It’s sterile. I don’t know how the fuck we’re going to get any further forward, unless someone just happens to have driven past this god-forsaken place at the precise moment that Dana pulled over and has seen the suspect.’

  ‘And recognizes him.’

  ‘It’s not going to happen is it? We’ve lost them too. That’s three pairs now and we haven’t a clue where any of them are.’

  *

  Dana Latchmere lay under the wooden trapdoor. She was alive. Gemma was alive. But she knew it was only a matter of time.

  Beside her, her daughter slept. She could hear her breathing slow and shallow through her nose, her mouth being covered with wadding. She’d only just fallen asleep and Dana was glad she had.

  She couldn’t bear the knowledge that she had allowed this to happen.

  The man had seemed so frantic when he’d waved and hooted initially but, looking back, her response was hasty and ill-considered. Just a kneejerk reaction to what appeared to be an emergency. Why hadn’t she thought it through? Why pull over in such a quiet place? Why listen to the man’s lies and then, worst of all, wait while he walked towards them, even though she’d had reservations. Why hadn’t she locked the doors and escaped? Momentary indecision had stopped her bolting and it was, crucially, this hesitancy that meant her beautiful daughter was lying next to her, so frozen with fear that she had barely been able to speak.

  She tried to move again, but the cord was bound tight around her feet and hands. There was no way, at least for the time being, she would be able to escape. She was impotent and it was not a feeling she had ever been accustomed to. Even when Justin had become too involved with his affairs, she’d always maintained a degree of control and been able to find out who they were and warn them off. Now though there was nothing she could do but lie and wait for whatever it was the man wanted from them. And that was the worst thing! She had no idea what he wanted. He had barely uttered a word, other than warnings to follow his instructions and get into the car, keep quiet and pass over their phones. She had watched as he had switched them off and thrown them on to the seat next to him, their only real means of escape lying out of arm’s reach.

  He had driven along side roads, around estates, always seeking to avoid the main roads where the cameras might be. He wasn’t stupid; he was smart, very smart, and she had recognized that in him straight away. It was a well-practised drill and one that she had imagined in her head night after night as she had worried about Justin’s involvement in Julie’s disappearance. At least she now knew that it wasn’t him. What had happened to her and Gemma was likely to be a carbon copy of what had happened to Julie and her son, and the other mother and daughter, whose names she couldn’t remember. She was now under the control of this same man, with no idea what he had prepared for them or what their fate would be. If only she could remember why he seemed familiar, where she had seen him before. Perhaps then she could determine what was driving him and what might persuade him to change his plan. It was driving her mad that she couldn’t recall.

  She knew it was still night outside. The blackness was near total. Darkness had always scared her; it was the loneliness of it, the knowledge she could be surrounded by all or nothing and she would never know. She could at least hear Gemma and sense her body close. She wasn’t alone, although she wished that she was, and that Gemma was safe and secure back at their house. How she wished that was the case.

  He had brought them to this hidden place. They had walked through woods and undergrowth. Twice he had made them stop and loo
k at small areas of woodland; one piled high with twigs and leaves and the other trodden down around a small area, with a couple of larger logs. In between the logs she had seen the slightest glint of metal, but she couldn’t tell what it had been until later, when she’d realized it was a padlock, just like the one she’d heard being fixed to the doors above where they lay. The man had laughed and muttered to himself as they stopped, but it had only been later when the awful realization hit her that this was where the other victims lay. The knowledge caused an icy chill to run down her spine. The area piled with leaves looked undisturbed, unattended, forgotten; the other looked to still be in use. Maybe the others were still alive? How long would it be though before that area too was forgotten?

  She shivered at the thought.

  How long too, before her own area was forgotten?

  *

  Helena McPherson lay under the wooden trap-door and wished she was dead. Her body was weak with hunger and her mind had long since gone. She was insane with the smell of decomposition and the movement of the insects. Still he came, night after night, to check she had water and lie next to her and abuse her. What made him tick? What the hell did he get out of this? What did she care now anyway? She knew she was going to die; she’d long since given up any hope, and now she just wanted to get it over with.

  Tonight she’d heard him, but he hadn’t come straight away. Tonight there had been more footsteps, and for a few minutes she’d allowed herself to dream of seeing John and holding Abigail one last time and tasting freedom instead of the rancid coffin she was in. Just for a few seconds she’d thought she might be able to bury Daisy in a clean comfortable place where she could rest in peace, be remembered as she’d been and not how she was now.

  She’d heard him laugh though and then the footsteps had moved away and she’d recognized immediately what was happening. His next victims had been shown where she was buried, just as she’d been shown the graves of her predecessors.