by M A Comley
“I keep telling myself that, but it’s so hard, especially when she’s packed a bag and left the marital home. Jesus, I’ve been sorely tempted to do the same over the years, just never had the guts to follow through and do it. Now she’s done exactly the same bloody thing, leaving me to deal with a teenager from hell, who has out of control hormones to boot.”
Sam sighed and sipped her coffee. “I feel for you. This is all you need. Can your own mother help out with caring for Milly?”
“I can’t put that onus on her. She and Dad have great plans for travelling, now their retirement has arrived.”
“I’m sure they wouldn’t mind putting that on hold for a while, that’s what families are for, love.”
“You don’t know my mum, she’ll cluck and cluck and drive Milly to distraction, making the whole situation a thousand trillion times worse, and no, that’s not an exaggeration. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to deal with the outcome.”
Sam thought back to a barbecue Bob had held a few months before, where she’d had the privilege of meeting his mother. She could only be described as having an indomitable spirit at best. The woman was a whirlwind of emotions. No wonder Bob was at a loss to know how to deal with her. “Shite! You are in a bloody pickle, mate. Is there anything I can do? Bearing in mind I don’t have kids of my own, so I’d be useless offering you any form of advice in that department.”
“I’ll work it out, sooner or later. Not sure if I’ve got it in me now to begin the process, though. Saying that, my hands are tied and I might be forced into doing it, without Abigail around.”
She smiled, trying to reassure him. “I have faith in you to overcome the hurdles that lie ahead of you.”
He heaved out a sigh. “I’m glad you have. Not sure in which direction I should turn next.”
The phone on Sam’s desk rang. “Hold that thought, we’ll return to this conversation after I’ve answered the call.” She picked up the phone. “DI Cobbs, how can I help?”
“Hello, ma’am, it’s Nick at reception. I have a lady on the phone, specifically asking for you. She seems a tad upset.”
“Did she tell you what her name was, Nick?” Sam rolled her eyes at her partner.
“It’s Mrs Chatley, Brenda Chatley.”
“Gosh, okay, put her through. Thanks.”
“Doing it now. You’re through to DI Cobbs, madam.”
“Hello, hello, where is she? Please, come on, this is a grave emergency.”
Sam put the phone on speaker so Bob could hear. “Brenda, is that you? What’s wrong?”
“He’s gone. You’ve got to come and help me find him. He’s gone.” Brenda’s voice was a high-pitched trill.
“Wait, can you calm down and tell me who you’re talking about?”
“Who do you ruddy well think? David, he’s gone.”
Sam pushed back her chair and stood. “Where? Do you know? What happened?”
“I don’t know. One minute he was there, then this car arrived and he was gone. How many more times do I have to tell you that?”
“All right. We’re on our way out to you, are you at home?”
“Yes, yes, where else would I be? He’s not here. Someone drove off with him, I’m telling you. Goodness me, what in God’s name is going on? Who took him, and why? I don’t really care, all I want is my husband back.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll be there soon. Can you tell me anything about the car?”
Brenda growled. “No. Apart from the fact it had four wheels, a back and a front end and went like the bloody clappers, with my husband on board.”
“All right. Try to remain calm. Would you feel safer going to a neighbour’s house?”
“I don’t know, I don’t drive, so how would I get there? It doesn’t matter, we’re wasting time, talking nonsense. Just get over here and find him.”
“I’m going to put out an alert now. See you soon. Can you lock yourself in the house?”
“I have. I won’t open the door until I see you pull into the yard.”
“Good. Bye for now.” Sam slammed the phone down and urged Bob to get a move on. “Jesus, it’s going to take us a good fifteen, possibly twenty minutes to get out there; by that time, whoever has abducted her husband will be long gone.” Sam raced out of the office and quickly addressed the rest of the team. “Looks like one of the victim’s neighbours has been abducted. We’re going out there now. Oliver, Alex, I want you to come with us. We’ll ask around, see if anyone in the village saw a likely suspect hanging around.”
Alex and Oliver jumped to their feet and slipped their jackets off the back of their chairs. The four of them left the incident room and bolted down the stairs and out to their relevant cars.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this one,” Sam muttered, engaging the siren as she began the journey back out to Mosser.
“Funny that, I was about to say the same.”
Sam concentrated on her driving and weaved expertly through the traffic, with Alex close behind her.
It wasn’t long before she reached the country roads and was able to put her foot down. Sam pulled up outside the farmhouse. She deliberately kept the siren going for a few seconds to alert Brenda that she was safe to open the door to them.
Sam climbed out of the car and issued further instructions to her two colleagues in the trailing car. “Just do a circuit of the village first, that shouldn’t take you too long. See if anything shows up, if not, start knocking on a few doors. Come back here once you’ve exhausted every other avenue out there. We’ll stay here with Brenda for a while.”
“We’ll ring you if anything comes to light,” Alex replied in his Scottish twang.
Sam turned towards her car, and Bob followed her to the farmhouse. Brenda was standing on the doorstep, visibly shaking from head to toe.
“Please, please, help me. I don’t know what to do. I’m a blubbering idiot without him around to keep me steady. He truly is my life. I know a lot of women say that about their husbands, but in my case, it happens to be true.”
Sam gently ushered the woman back into the house and through to the lounge. “Bob, can you make Brenda a cup of tea, please?”
“I don’t want a drink. All I want is my husband back,” the distraught woman shouted.
Bob left the room anyway.
Sam sat down beside Brenda and rested a hand on her forearm. “It’s okay. I have a team out there looking for him now with more on the way. I need you to tell me exactly what happened, Brenda, are you up to that?”
Brenda fiddled with a torn tissue in her lap and sighed. “I can’t tell you anything other than what I told you over the phone. He’s out there with a killer for all I know. How the heck do you think that makes me feel, knowing that?”
“I appreciate how difficult this must be for you; in truth, we don’t know who has taken your husband, do we? It might be a pure coincidence and not related to what happened to Tom.”
Brenda shook her head and groaned. “You seriously expect me to believe that dross? I’m not that naïve, Inspector. You need to be out there… before it’s too late. My husband will be scared shitless, knowing him. He doesn’t do well in stressful situations, you’re going to have to take my word for that. Please, we’re wasting time discussing this. I’ll be fine. I’ll secure the house, I have a gun I can use if I need to. You should go, organise the search for him.”
“We will. What I need you to do is try and tell me as much about the car as you can. Did it have any distinguishing features, perhaps?”
“No, I didn’t get a good enough look. I told you. I saw the tail end of the car tearing out of the drive. One minute David was here, the next… he was gone.” She sobbed, overwhelmed.
Sam flung an arm around her shoulders. Bob entered the room with a mug of tea a few seconds later. He set it down on the small table closest to Brenda.
“I made it nice and sweet.” He smiled at Sam and shifted his position, looking uncomfortable.
“Thank you,” Br
enda murmured her appreciation.
“Bob, get on to the station. I want a uniformed officer out here to sit with Brenda.”
He left the room again to make the call and returned a few seconds later. “All organised, be about twenty minutes.”
“Good. Thank you. Brenda, is there anyone else we can call for you? Family or friends maybe?”
“No. I don’t want to worry them at this stage. All I want is David back home, in one piece. Why do you think he’s been taken? That’s what I can’t get my head around. Why kill Tom and then abduct David? None of this makes any sense to me.”
“It does seem strange. There has to be more to this than what we first thought, if we’re dealing with the same perpetrator here. There’s a possibility we could be talking about someone completely different, of course.”
The older woman shook her head. “I don’t think so. I just want him back, unharmed. Can you guarantee that will happen?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t. I have no knowledge of who they are or what their motive is. Until we discover that, our hands are tied.”
“In the meantime, David is in a situation where his life is possibly hanging by a thread, is that what you’re thinking?”
Sam sighed. “In truth, I’d rather not think negatively about this. It’s not going to help us if we go down that route. It’s always better to remain positive where we can.”
“But what good will positive thinking do me? Someone has kidnapped my husband. Logic makes me wonder what good can come from a situation such as this. Believe me, I’m trying not to think about it, but it’s impossible not to have such wayward thoughts, given the circumstances. What are the chances of getting David back unharmed?”
Sam stared blankly at Brenda. “To be open and honest with you, I can’t even begin to know what this person’s agenda is. The clues were virtually non-existent at Tom’s place. In all, we have very little to go on.”
Brenda’s head dipped and her shoulders shook. Tears dripped onto her cheeks and she did nothing to wipe them away. “I just want him back, is that too much to ask?”
Bob and Sam looked at each other, desperate to help, neither of them able to summon up the words of sympathy needed to put the woman’s mind at ease. Instead, Sam let Brenda’s crying increase until she was spent.
By that time, a female officer, PC Waters, had appeared. Bob let her in and Sam issued instructions.
“Stay with her, Waters. If she needs to go upstairs to rest, then fair enough, wait at the bottom of the stairs. Don’t be tempted to leave the house, no matter what noise you hear outside, got that?”
“Yes, ma’am. She’ll be safe with me. If anyone comes near us, I’m a black belt in karate.”
Sam smiled. “That’s reassuring.” She returned to the lounge to explain the situation to Brenda, who by now was a total mess. Sam had never seen such a strong woman crumble the way she had in the past few minutes. It was gut-wrenching to feel so hopeless. “Brenda, PC Waters is here now. She’ll stay with you until we get back.”
“Back from where?” Brenda asked, seemingly dazed all of a sudden.
“We need to get out there, to search for your husband,” Sam said, slowly, in case the woman had trouble comprehending.
“Ah, yes. Yes, you must. I’ll come with you.” Brenda attempted to rise to her feet, but Bob placed a hand on her shoulder, anchoring her to her seat.
“There’s no need. You stay here. We’ll be in touch soon.”
Brenda broke down again. Sam nipped into the hallway and brought the constable up to date on what had happened. “Don’t let her out of the house, you hear me? I don’t think she’s thinking straight at the moment.”
The constable gave her a knowing smile. “I’ll take care of her, ma’am. Maybe I can have a contact number for you, just in case?”
“Of course. Here’s my card, don’t hesitate to call me if you’re at all concerned. Hopefully, we won’t be too long.”
“I understand. The lady will be fine with me.”
“Her name is Brenda Chatley.”
“I was about to ask. Thank you.”
Sam nodded and went back into the lounge. Bob glanced her way. She nodded, letting him know it was time to go. “We’ll be back shortly, Brenda.”
“Very well, do your best for him. He’s all I have.”
“You have my word.”
Bob joined her in the hallway while PC Waters passed them and went into the lounge. Sam heard the PC introduce herself and then she and Bob left the house.
“What about getting the chopper airborne?” Bob suggested.
Sam snapped her seatbelt into place and thought over his suggestion for a few seconds. “Possibly, although we haven’t got much to go on, have we? A car pulled up, no make, no colour, where does that leave us?”
“Yeah, I never thought about that. Forget I said anything.”
“It’s forgotten.” Sam laughed, setting the pressure of the situation aside for a moment or two. “This is going to be another tough case if we discover his body lying in a ditch on our travels. That poor woman is beside herself as it is, I hope to Christ we don’t find him dead somewhere. Shit! What in the hell is going on here? Why abduct him, in broad daylight, under his wife’s nose like that?”
Bob looked thoughtful for a second. “To make a point? I don’t know, I’m just throwing it out there.”
“About what?”
“I can’t answer that until we have an inkling what all this is about. Why pick on two defenceless old men for a start?”
Sam started the car and pulled away from the farm. She took a right at the gate and slowly drove past the other sparsely spread-out houses and farms in the area as her mind worked up a storm. After several minutes of deliberation, she answered her partner, “Why indeed. Is it personal? Does, or did, the perp know the two men? If so, what’s his objective, his motive for killing one of them and abducting the other?”
“I sense we’re going to be asking that a lot in the days ahead, if nothing else comes our way soon.”
She lashed out at the steering wheel. “I didn’t get around to chasing up the forensic team or the pathologist earlier.”
Bob gulped. “Sorry, that was my fault.”
“Hush now, it was not. Can you do it while I drive?”
“Why don’t I take over and you handle the calls? You’ll only be shouting out instructions if I ring them.”
She sniggered and pulled over to the side of the road. “Okay, you win.”
They swapped seats, and Sam removed her phone from her pocket to make the call. “Hi, Des, I was hoping to catch you. It’s Sam Cobbs.”
“Ah, Inspector. I was just about to ring you.”
“You were? With good news I hope.”
“Sadly not. I’ve completed the PM on the victim. I can categorically say the damage caused to the chest was from the weapon found at the scene. I did a little digging on that, and the gun is registered to the victim. That’s where the clues begin and end, I’m afraid.”
“Great! That’s all we’ve got to go on? Jesus, as if our job wasn’t hard enough already. I was relying on you to come up with a trail for us to follow at least.”
“Sorry to disappoint. I could always make something up, if it’ll make you feel any better?”
“It wouldn’t, but thanks all the same. What about forensics? Any joy there? How did the perp gain access to the building?”
“We know the back door was used. I can certainly chase that line of enquiry up for you and get back to you, if that will help?”
“Would you? It’ll sound so much better coming from you.”
“Let me call you back in a jiffy.”
He hung up before she could answer. Sam expelled a long sigh. “What are we missing here?”
“Something major, that’s what my gut is telling me.”
“Yeah, for a change, I think my gut is in line with yours. I want to do our best for David, he’s a sweet old man who doesn’t deserve what I envisage
is going to happen to him. Hard to think positively about this, right?”
“Yeah, that’s what is running through my head. Why kidnap him? Do you reckon the perp is biding his time before he starts calling Brenda for some kind of ransom?” Bob suggested, taking a corner faster than Sam would have.
She clung on to her seat. “What are you saying, the perp might think all of them are well off and sitting on a nest egg of sorts?”
“Perhaps. I can’t contemplate anything else being a possibility, can you?”
“Okay, even if we take your suggestion and run with it, why abduct him?” She squeezed the top of her nose as she thought. “Why not hold him hostage until he hands over his life’s savings?”
“Hmm… hadn’t thought about that. Maybe the abductor tried that before he took him and got a mouthful from David in response, forcing the perp to change tack.”
“Possibly, so by that you reckon the perp will try to make contact with Brenda in the near future?”
“I haven’t got a scooby doo, I was just throwing another scenario into the mix that I think we should consider. It’s not like we have a lot of options to play with, is it?”
Sam’s mobile rang. She quickly jabbed the Answer key. “DI Cobbs.”
“It’s me again,” Des jumped in quickly.
“Oh, hi. What have you got for us, anything?”
“No, not really. Actually, that’s not quite true. We might have a possible print at the back door; however, adding a cautionary edge to the news, don’t forget the postman entered that way. I’m about to ring him, ask him to come in to the lab so we can take a mould of his shoe, if only to exonerate him. How’s the investigation going at your end?”
“It’s not, not really. Everything has come to a standstill, until today.”
“Are you going to leave me dangling or tell me what you mean by that?” Des pushed.
Sam sighed. “We received a call about an hour ago from the wife of one of Tom’s neighbours.”
“I’m listening, intrigued to know where this is leading,” Des interrupted again.
“If you’ll let me finish, I’ll tell you.”
“Sorry, my bad. Go on, I’m dying to know what’s going on.”
