by Peter Boland
Tannaz glanced up from her screen. “Are we there yet?”
“Almost,” Savage replied.
“You really do take me to all the best places, doncha?”
They passed a small children’s park where every inch of spare surface had been graffitied to hell and back. Beyond the park stood what looked like an abandoned property. Slightly bigger than the rest, it appeared to be two semi-detached houses that had become one property. Number twenty-seven, Sutton Road.
“I think this must be where Wellington started it all,” Savage remarked.
“The B&B, you mean?”
“Looks big enough to be a B&B.”
Tannaz screwed up her face. “Who the hell would want to come here for a holiday?”
“Exactly. Must have got a bargain back in the day. Why is it standing empty? Surely Wellington would want to put it to work. Get some people on welfare in there, turn a profit.”
Tannaz shrugged. They pulled up outside and looked the building over from inside the van. Every window and door was sheathed in heavy-duty metal screens, presumably to prevent squatters gaining entry or vandals breaking in, although they’d had a pretty good go at the outside, using the screens as a canvas for vast artworks. Savage thought some of it was pretty good. Idiots with no talent whatsoever had then come along and sprayed squiggles and gang tags, defacing good graffiti with bad.
There was no front garden, just a low-maintenance area of dull concrete patio slabs, a checkerboard of dirty salmon pink and filthy yellow squares, like a stale Battenberg cake.
“How do we get in there without the neighbours getting nosey?” asked Tannaz.
“By hiding in plain sight and a bit of skill,” said Savage. “Look in the glove compartment and hand me that black leather case. There’re also a couple of hi-viz vests squashed in there.”
Tannaz retrieved the small black leather case and handed it to Savage. Then she held up one of the thin nylon hi-viz vests, ringed with a couple of reflective stripes. She snorted. “I really don’t do hi-viz.”
“Well, you’ll have to get used to it because they are extremely handy at making someone without authority, i.e. us, look like they have authority.”
“Fine, I’ll suffer, but it’s not a good look.” Tannaz shrugged on the vest. “What’s in the case?”
Savage unzipped and opened it. Inside were a variety of slender metal picks, each one with a slightly different-shaped tool at the end, some no more than a hook, others, with sophisticated jagged edges.
“Oh, that is way more cool,” Tannaz said, leaning in to get a closer look as if they were rare gems. “Can I have a go?”
“I’ll teach you, but today we need to get in there quick so anyone looking doesn’t think we’re up to no good. Ready?”
“Certainly am.”
“Grab the Maglite from the glove box. Oh, and a pair of nitrile gloves for both of us. Can’t be too careful.”
“Savage, I think you’re the only person I know who actually keeps gloves in his glove box.”
They exited the van and walked promptly up to the house then along the side alley to the metal screen that covered the front door. Savage went straight to work, selecting two picks and then wedging them into the lock at the top right-hand corner. A few seconds later the lock made a delicious pop. He extracted the picks, knelt down and attacked the lock in the bottom right-hand corner. That yielded a few seconds later. The screen swung open. He turned to Tannaz. “The old man’s still got it.”
“You are definitely teaching me that next.”
“Add it to the list.”
A battered, but still solid, wooden door stood before them, a single deadlock barring them from entry. Savage put the two picks back into the case. Then, like a surgeon selecting instruments for an operation, chose two different ones. Moments later, the locked clicked and they were in.
Inside the air tasted stale and old like an abandoned church. Savage tried the lights. There was no power. Tannaz flicked on the Maglite, sending a powerful flare of light around the hallway. A staircase presented itself in front of them, its treads and risers completely bare, and splattered with water stains. The floor they stood on was also bare, save for lines of paint flakes, like a gigantic case of dandruff, near the skirting board where it had parted company with the damp walls.
Savage and Tannaz moved into the front room. Same story. Naked floorboards and disintegrating paint. Something in the corner of the room caught Savage’s eye.
“Shine the light over there,” he asked Tannaz.
A cone of light lit up the corner. Savage bent down and picked up an ancient copy of the Sunday Mirror newspaper. Dated July 2011, a picture of Amy Winehouse filled the front cover. The headline simply read: ‘Amy Dead’.
Savage shook his head. “Such a waste of talent.”
Tannaz joined him. “Definitely.” She swung the light all around the room. “So do you think this place has been empty since 2011?”
“It’s starting to look like that.”
They moved slowly through every room in the house. Each one empty apart from the odd piece of rubbish left behind and the fetid stench of unoccupied space. After leaving the last bedroom, Savage persuaded Tannaz to get on his shoulders. He lifted her up so she could poke her head through the loft hatch and shine the torch around in the roof space. She came back down coughing. “Nothing, just dust,” she said.
Savage sighed.
“Dead end?” asked Tannaz.
“Would seem so.”
“Okay, let’s get out of here before anyone wonders what we’re doing.”
They descended the stairs and left the way they came, Savage locking the door and security screens behind him with his set of picks. They left promptly, hurrying past the grotty patio at the front of the house, towards the van parked on the road.
Savage suddenly stopped.
“Wait,” he said. “We’ve missed something.”
Chapter 15
Savage knelt down beside the edge of the patio where the old mortar bed that held the patio slabs in place was beginning to crack and crumble.
“What is it?” asked Tannaz, studying the ground.
Savage clawed away at the brittle mortar revealing the edge of a thick, dirty black sheet, poking out from beneath one of the slabs. As he cleared more of the mortar away, it became clear the sheeting ran the length of the patio.
“What is it?” Tannaz asked again.
“It’s a waterproof membrane. Stops water penetration.”
Tannaz looked confused. “And why’s that important?”
Savage scratched his head. “Why waterproof something that doesn’t need waterproofing? It’s just earth underneath.”
Tannaz shrugged.
“The only reason to put in a waterproof membrane is if there’s something you need to keep dry.”
“Like what?” asked Tannaz.
“Like an underground room,” Savage replied.
Tannaz couldn’t contain her excitement. “At last,” she said. “Some full-on Famous Five shit.”
Fiddling with locks, Savage had them back inside within a minute. Looking around the gloomy hallway, Tannaz asked. “Where’s the secret entrance?”
Savage looked blank. “I have no idea, I’ve never done this before. Bang on the walls I suppose, see if anything sounds hollow.”
The pair of them went to it, knocking their fists along the walls of each room, dislodging more flaky paintwork. “This feels a bit like amateur hour,” Tannaz remarked.
“I know,” said Savage. “We look a bit ridiculous.”
One by one, each room on the ground floor was checked until they met up back in the hallway. “Nothing,” said Tannaz.
“Me too,” said Savage.
“Are you sure there’s an underground room? Maybe that membrane thing is j
ust to stop weeds growing through.”
“True,” said Savage. “That stuff’s thinner, more like a fabric, lets water through but not weeds. The membrane out there is heavy-duty rubber. Made to stop water. Thing is, it usually goes under floors to stop damp rising up, so why put it under a patio? It doesn’t make sense. I don’t get it.”
Tannaz tried her best to look sympathetic.
Savage sighed. “Well, let me just check the cupboard under the stairs then we can be on our way.”
“Let me know if you find Harry Potter under there.”
“I thought you didn’t like mainstream films,” Savage replied.
“Everyone likes Harry Potter, don’t they?”
Savage disappeared through the small, triangular-shaped wooden door beneath the stairs. He emerged almost instantly. “One of the walls. It sounds hollow.”
Quick as a rabbit down a hole, Tannaz joined him. The space beneath the stairs was big, easily big enough to accommodate a teenage wizard or two. Tannaz and Savage could both stand upright without banging their heads on the dusty stairs above.
“It’s this wall here,” said Savage. He pointed to the back wall, the one that formed the adjacent side of the right angle of the triangular space. Savage knocked on it, making a hollow thud. Tannaz shone the light on it to reveal a wooden panel that had been varnished rather than painted.
“How do we find out what’s behind it?” asked Tannaz.
“Shine the light up here a second.” In the top corner was a screw. They checked the other three corners, which also contained screws. “I’d say these screws are the only thing holding this panel in place.” Savage pulled out his case of lock picks and used one shaped like a flat-head screwdriver to remove the screws one by one. When he’d extracted all four screws he placed them in his pocket. Using his fingernails he managed to get a grip on the edge of the panelling until it came away in his hands. It was light enough for Savage to lift out. As he placed it outside in the hallway, he noticed soundproofing material had been attached to the inside of it.
Savage turned to Tannaz. “Like you said, some Famous Five shit.”
“I prefer the Harry Potter analogy, seeing as we’re in a cupboard under the stairs. And this must be the Chamber of Secrets.”
“Does that make you Hermione Granger?”
“I’m more Bellatrix Lestrange.”
“Isn’t she the nasty one?”
“Yeah, but she’s way cooler.” Tannaz shone the light into the blackness. It illuminated a set of dingy concrete steps that went down then turned at a right angle.
“That doesn’t look creepy at all,” said Tannaz.
Savage spotted a switch and tried it. A series of lights came on, set into the wall at regular intervals.
Cautiously, they descended the stairs, Savage going first and Tannaz following behind. At the bottom of the stairs they were confronted by another door, also with soundproofing material stuck to the outside. It was unlocked. Savage nudged it open with his fingertips. Beyond the door was a small, brightly lit hallway and a substantial metal door, held together with thick rivets. Three large hasp-and-staple brackets were bolted to the outside for securing the door with three large padlocks. The padlocks were absent and the door stood ajar.
“Shall we?” said Savage.
Tannaz nodded, noticing she was now holding the Maglite like a club.
Savage gently pulled the hefty metal door open.
In front of them was a windowless, cube-shaped room, about fifteen feet by fifteen feet, completely lined with smooth, immaculate grey concrete. Above them, set into the ceiling and protected by strong wire mesh hung a bright low-energy bulb.
Tannaz stepped in first. “What the hell is this all about, some kind of torture dungeon?”
Savage followed her in. “Certainly looks like it, minus any torture implements.”
Looking around, he noticed faint circular markings on the floor about the size of a ten-pence coin. They were arranged in a square pattern in the centre of the room, little more than discolourations in the concrete.
“What do you make of this?” he asked.
“Looks like dot-to-dot marks, making up a square.”
“How big would you say the square is?”
“Over a metre. Maybe a metre and a half.” Tannaz’s eyes went wide. “You don’t think a cage has been set into that concrete? The small one from Nortoft & Sons?”
“Yes, it looks like it was here. Someone’s removed it and concreted over the whole of this room. The holes where the bars were set into the floor are slightly discoloured where the concrete’s taken longer to dry.”
“Why would anyone put an animal cage down here?”
“I don’t think it was for an animal,” Savage replied. “I think someone’s been held here. Kept prisoner. And look at that.” Savage pointed to a small hole in the wall, high in the corner—a loose, snaking electrical wire hung out of it. Below the hole were four small screw holes.
“Maybe a light fitting was there,” said Tannaz.
“Why have a light fitting and then remove it when there’s already enough light from that bulb up there?”
“A camera,” said Tannaz.
“That’s my guess too. They wanted to keep an eye on whoever’s been caged in this room.”
“But they removed the cage and all the other evidence.”
“Yep, they’ve gone to great lengths to cover it up. You can tell by the concrete everywhere.”
“Why would they do that?”
“DNA. That stuff is difficult to get rid of. People think you can make it disappear with bleach or cover it up with paint, but it’s still possible to get a sample. However, cement is very good at damaging DNA, makes it difficult to get a complete sample and therefore, identify anyone whose been held here.”
“Or killed,” Tannaz added.
Savage nodded in agreement. “Someone’s covering their tracks.”
“Someone like Simon Wellington?”
Chapter 16
After locking up the security screens at twenty-seven Sutton Road, Tannaz and Savage made their way back across Southampton towards the hotel. The rush hour was over and traffic was light, making the driving almost enjoyable, apart from the fact that the atmosphere in the van was turning confrontational. Savage could feel Tannaz’s mood swinging in the wrong direction. Her laptop was propped on her thighs and she was punching the buttons with such ferocity that Savage thought her fingers might go through the keyboard.
“Surely we could go to the police now,” she argued, looking at him and typing at the same time. Savage had no idea how she could concentrate on the two things at once. “That place is obviously some seedy torture dungeon, anyone could see that.”
“That’s an opinion, not a fact.”
“Oh, come on, Savage, we know it’s true.”
“It’s like they say in these TV courtroom dramas. It’s not what you know, it’s what you can prove.”
“Never heard of that. Don’t watch TV.”
“You know what, your generation needs to watch more TV.” Savage added a laugh at the end. Tannaz wasn’t in a joking mood. “Look, if we go to the police, first we’d have to admit to breaking and entering—”
“We send an anonymous tip-off,” Tannaz quickly countered.
“Okay, what have the police got then? A concrete basement, that’s all.”
“A very secure concrete basement.”
Savage changed gear. “Wellington could argue it’s just for storing things.”
“Why all the soundproof doors?”
“Maybe he was building a recording studio down there and abandoned it half way.”
Tannaz gave a false laugh. “You don’t believe that.”
“Course not, but it’s what he could say.”
“The marks where
the cage was. The fresh cement to destroy DNA. It all points to something.”
They stopped at a set of traffic lights. Savage pulled on the handbrake and turned to Tannaz. “Firstly, we didn’t see any cage; we’re just assuming that it was there. The only reason we know about it is because we hacked his account, also inadmissible. And secondly, the cement doesn’t destroy DNA, it only damages it. Either way they wouldn’t be able to get a proper sample of who’s been down there. So they couldn’t link it to anyone who’s disappeared or been murdered. It’s circumstantial evidence.”
“Circumstantial evidence?” said Tannaz, still tapping away on her laptop. “Most convictions are based on circumstantial evidence, otherwise the only convictions that would stick would be ones where they caught the culprit red-handed.”
Savage put the car in gear, released the handbrake and pulled away. “Okay, correct. What I’m saying is we need more evidence. It needs to be beyond reasonable doubt, and at the moment we’re not even close. All we have are two suicides that, to the casual observer, look genuine, and a concrete basement and some cages. It’s not enough to get the police interested. Plus, Wellington has a big organisation, four and a half thousand properties and goodness knows how many staff working for him. It could be someone inside the company doing this.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Tannaz said, the tone of her voice suddenly becoming more optimistic.
“Why’s that?”
“We know Wellington is squeaky clean. No previous convictions. I’ve been doing some digging, and back in 1975 a woman accused him of assault. I found a tiny article in a local newspaper archive. She told a reporter about him, said he’d, and I quote, ‘treated her sadistically’.”
