by Rebecca Tope
But Ben needed her, somewhere in a room above her. She was going to have to put her back against the hatch and heave away until it opened. Little Bonnie Lawson, barely six stone in weight, would have to become a lever, raising the heavy wooden flap and pushing it back far enough to climb through.
So she did it, for love of Ben as well as from a knowledge that there was no alternative. She had come this far, solving the mystery when nobody else could, and to go back now would be shameful. Even though nobody would expect a fragile woman-child with a sprained wrist to perform such a feat, she expected it of herself.
She crawled onto the top step, and on her knees she bent over and set her back against the wooden slats above her. Then she pushed, expecting to have to push repeatedly until she dropped.
But it gave instantly. It moved willingly, rising an inch or so as she pushed, the whole thing balancing on her spine. It took a moment to understand that there was no hinge. It was also much smaller than she’d expected. It was almost flimsy, she realised with a thrill. It was impeded slightly by a floor covering, but when she pushed it gave readily. She raised both hands, and again ignoring the double pain, heaved the thing sideways, and pushed her head through the opening. The carpet on the floor of the shop did not come to the very edge of the room. Only a narrow band had been covering the hatch. Wonderingly, she hauled herself up and into the empty room.
It had been easy! Euphoria flooded through her. She was a hero! All she had to do now was find Ben and rescue him.
She crossed the room, which must have been the main part of the shop, once filled with books. It had a large window looking onto the town square. People would see her when she crossed it to the door at the back. So she moved in a great rush, thinking she’d make the merest flash to anybody outside. Glancing out, she saw a tall woman on the opposite pavement. Could it be Simmy? She didn’t wait to stare any harder, but the thought that there was a friend just outside gave her strength. Indeed, the whole cheerful scene, just a sheet of glass away, made everything feel much less terrifying.
There was a door, and a staircase and an upstairs and then another flight to a higher level, where she found a nasty little room containing a bucket and a blanket and a huddled figure with hands and feet all tied up.
‘Ben! Hey, Ben!’ She shook his shoulder. ‘It’s me.’
He groaned, but did not open his eyes. His lips were cracked and his skin damp to the touch. There was a bruise on his forehead. His breath came loud and fast. Bonnie had never encountered anything like this before.
‘Ben!’ she shouted at him. ‘Wake up!’
One eye opened fractionally. Then it focused and widened and its mate joined in. ‘Ak!’ said Ben.
Bonnie leant back, bracing herself for the filthy and disgusting reaction. He couldn’t possibly love her any more, the way she looked. Then the dry mouth kinked and the tied hands behind his back twitched in an automatic attempt to reach her. ‘Bonnie,’ he breathed. ‘Oh.’
Where to start, she wondered. Untie his hands. Find him some water. Reassure him. Cuddle him. Love him. The first looked impossible. The second was insuperably difficult, unless there was still a water supply to the building, which she doubted. So she began with the others. ‘It’s okay now,’ she crooned. ‘I’ll get you out.’
‘How?’ The voice was painful in its aridity. ‘Knife?’ He wriggled to indicate the urgency of cutting the bonds that kept his arms painfully behind his back.
She shook her head, causing a small shower of black detritus to fall on his face. ‘Sorry,’ she said, and brushed it away. Then she rolled him over and inspected the tie around his wrists. It was black, plastic and tight. One of those things with ratchets that only went one way. ‘I could bite it, maybe,’ she suggested, and bent over to give it a go.
Her front teeth were sharp, but she couldn’t get a proper purchase without nipping his skin. Then she found a quarter-inch between his two wrists and set to work. Her jaws were aching within seconds from the pressure she was exerting, but it worked. The plastic separated and Ben’s arms did the same. ‘Ak!’ he groaned again. Bonnie badly wanted to massage his damaged skin, but her own hands were so sore and dirty that she refrained. Instead she looked at his legs, taking great satisfaction from the fact that they were bare.
‘I knew it,’ she muttered. Aloud, she said, ‘Shall I try to do your feet as well?’
He gave her a look, full of gratitude and concern and unspoken questions. ‘Water?’ he asked hopelessly.
‘Sorry.’ She grimaced at this unforgivable oversight. ‘What a fool I am. I never thought.’
He frowned, as if this presented a considerable difficulty – which it probably did. She had a small cotton bag with her containing phone, tissues and a tube of Supermints. ‘Isn’t there a tap in here somewhere?’ she demanded.
He shook his head.
She was ready to open a vein to let him drink, if only she had a knife. Perhaps she could bite herself deeply enough to get some blood flowing. But that wouldn’t help. Blood was too salty to be of much use. Urine might be better, but she was fairly sure she couldn’t manage that, either.
Just outside, there were shops full of bottled water, juice, Coke. It was crazy to let Ben die of dehydration in the middle of a busy summer town. ‘I’ll have to go and get you something,’ she said, dreading a return through the cellar, and entirely unsure of the consequences of shouting for help from random passers-by. They wouldn’t react well to a blackened girl emerging from a broken window at ankle level. They would bundle her into an ambulance without listening, or turn and head the other way, trying to pretend she was a hallucination.
‘No.’ He was emphatic. ‘Don’t go. Phone.’
‘Who?’
‘Simmy. People might come back.’ Fear was plain in his bloodshot eyes. ‘They want me to die.’
‘How do they get in?’
‘Padlock. Key.’
She nodded. ‘They don’t want you to die, Ben. They’d have done it by now and thrown you into one of the lakes. They might bring you some water any time now. Do they come in and out every day?’
He shook his head, less in a negative than confusion. ‘Don’t know. In and out.’
‘Is there a loo here?’ Where there was a lavatory, there’d be water. ‘What do you do, if not?’
His lips twitched again. ‘No water, no pee,’ he croaked.
‘Okay.’ There would be time enough later for all the questions. She focused on her phone and called Simmy.
More questions, more answers. ‘Call Moxon,’ she urged. And, ‘He’s got to have some water.’ The news that Ben’s captors were right outside came as a very nasty shock. ‘I’ll hide,’ she decided. But they would see that Ben’s wrist tie was severed, unless he lay on his back, hiding the evidence. Although he had said nothing directly, she knew how much it mattered that the criminals be caught. She knew that Ben would always feel his suffering had been for nothing, if he was merely rescued, without a proper end to the whole business. They must be arrested, charged and convicted for what they’d done. She felt it as strongly as he did. She finished the call, not daring to feel reassured, but hopeful all the same.
‘I saw your sign at Colthouse,’ she told him. ‘The ferns tied with rushes.’
He frowned in puzzlement. ‘The game,’ she reminded him. Then, ‘When did you put the date on the window? How did you? That was what showed me you were here. Brilliant.’
He tried to speak, but only managed a syllable before his throat dried up too much for speech. She had been silently counting minutes, at the back of her mind. Simmy had almost had time to fetch water and drop it into the cellar. ‘I’m going down,’ said Bonnie. ‘It’s all going to be fine, you see.’
She stroked his clammy brow and forced herself back down the stairs, through the hole in the floor and down into the cobwebs and dust of the cellar.
The bottle was there, catching the light and gleaming like treasure. It had not suffered from its fall, and it was wond
erfully big. She would pour it all into Ben and save his life. And she would never go anywhere ever again without a bottle of water.
Back upstairs, she pulled off the cap and pulled Ben more upright. In her absence, his eyes had closed again, and his breathing was even louder. He was lying on his side, curled up, his face turned towards the floor, his hands between his thighs.
‘Come on,’ she urged. ‘Drink this.’ She tried to apply the mouth of the bottle to his lips, but the angle was wrong and it spilt onto the floor. ‘Ben! Wake up. I’ve got water for you.’
But he did not respond. Desperately she poured a small trickle onto his face, hoping to shock him awake. But nothing happened. She pulled at him, rolling him onto his back and then trying to prop him against the wall, but only managed to crumple him awkwardly, so his chin rested on his chest. The bottle got knocked, and she caught it just in time. Could he swallow, she wondered. Lifting his head, she made another try at introducing some water.
She gave him too much, so he coughed it out again. At least the coughing was a sign of life, she thought, as she started again more gently. This time, he did swallow – she was sure he did. His lips closed around the plastic, like a sucking baby.
They continued in that way for a while, with Bonnie refusing to think of anything but trickling water into Ben’s body, reviving him from the terrifying slump he was in. So when she heard footsteps and voices coming up the bare wooden stairs, she was paralysed. There was nowhere to hide, no choice but to stay where she was and face the people who might well want her boyfriend dead, in spite of her assurances a few minutes earlier.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Simmy was acutely aware of people’s stares, as she ran around the empty shop, peering through its windows, curving her hands around her face to shut out the dazzling sunlight. It was so weird to think that a room somewhere above that big space – so easily visible to the shoppers and sightseers outside – was hosting a scene of violence and horror. She briefly entertained a notion of standing there and screaming for help. She would gather a crowd of fifty people who would storm the building and save Ben and Bonnie from the Lillywhites. People power would prevail. Why not?
Then a very obvious thought belatedly came to her. If the kidnappers had opened the padlock and gone in, the door must surely have been left open behind them. There was no way they could padlock it from the inside. At best they would have to ram it shut with some sort of object. Which door had they used? She had been a fool to go off and let them disappear. But she’d had no choice – Ben needed the water more urgently than anything else. Her thoughts tangled and leapt from one detail to the next as she ran round again, checking the padlocks.
She found it within seconds. The chain that had connected the door to its frame was dangling loose, the padlock nowhere to be seen. But it wouldn’t open when she pushed it. Like the door of her own neglected shop, there was an ordinary lock, operated with an ordinary key, and that was keeping her out. So why the padlock, she wondered crossly.
Her phone broke into her helpless frustration and she snatched it eagerly from her bag, hoping it was Bonnie with good news. How could it be? asked a sceptical inner voice. Bonnie was trapped as much as Ben was. Her best hope was probably to huddle in a corner of the cellar and wait for someone to pull her out through the disconcertingly small window.
It was Melanie. ‘You didn’t call me back,’ she accused. ‘What are you doing? Where are you?’
‘Almost exactly where I was last time, as it happens. It’s all going wrong. The police haven’t come.’ She couldn’t remember what she’d told Melanie the first time she called. Any complex doubts as to who knew what had long been discarded. She couldn’t even remember the last time she and Bonnie and Melanie had all been in the same place at the same time.
‘But Ben’s okay, right? That’s what you said. What about the kidnappers? Have you seen them?’
‘Yes, I think so. I’m sorry, Mel. It’s all happening, right here. But I can’t get in and I’m petrified they’ll be hurting Bonnie and Ben. They don’t know I’ve called the police. They’ll think they can do what they like.’
‘That woman – with the tight skirt and heels. She’s called Sheila. She’s some sort of estate agent. She sells and rents out commercial properties. I found some of her emails to Dan. She wanted to sell something to the Lillywhite couple, apparently, but that wasn’t her reason for coming to the hotel. She’s trying to arrange a fair, with a whole lot of shops and things all being advertised at once. It’d be in our big room here. She’s desperate to get everything organised in time for September.’
‘How does that link to what’s going on here?’ Simmy’s impatience had reached screaming pitch. ‘What does it matter?’
‘At the very least it means she’s innocent. She’s got no reason to kill or kidnap anybody.’
‘But—’ Then Simmy saw a figure who had so often before been at hand when events became unbearable. Except, not always, she remembered. He was improving, then. Or she was mellowing, because she didn’t think she had ever in her life been so glad to see anyone. She abruptly ended the call with Melanie.
Although he appeared to be alone, she was confident that there was a whole team of sturdy officers tucked around the corner somewhere. She almost ran towards him, resisting the urge to hug him with the greatest difficulty. ‘Oh, thank you for coming,’ she gasped. ‘They’re all in there now. You can catch them easily.’
He wiped a hand across his brow, rubbing at a spot between his eyes, as if working out the best way to convey terrible news. ‘I think you’ve got the whole thing wrong,’ he said. ‘It’s not your fault. Those kids have been messing you about. We’ve just heard from Mrs Harkness. She says Ben’s perfectly safe, with his brother. It’s all over and done with now. Apart from making an arrest for the murder of Mr Yates, of course.’
‘No!’ She stared at him, her mouth open. ‘Has Helen seen him? Has Wilf? Somebody’s playing a trick on them. Ben’s in there. I know he is.’ She waved an unrestrained arm at the empty shop. ‘So’s Bonnie, and three – two – I don’t know … criminals.’
‘She’s quite certain about it. I’m not sure of the details, but the brother – Wilf – was called to a place in Ambleside, where Ben was waiting for him. They phoned their mother from the car. They’ll be home by now.’
‘It isn’t possible,’ she said flatly. ‘It can’t have been Wilf. Did Helen speak to Ben himself?’
Moxon shook his shoulders irritably. ‘I don’t know.’ He looked up at the shop. ‘How do you know anybody’s in there? It looks deserted to me.’
‘I saw Bonnie right there in that big room. Then she phoned me. Then I gave them some water. Then the Lillywhites and Sheila Something went in. At least, I didn’t see them going in, but the padlock’s undone, and they disappeared, so that must be where they went. Haven’t you got any backup, then?’ She almost wailed. ‘How can I make you believe me?’
‘It was Wilf’s phone. It was his voice. I have to take what his mother told me as right.’
‘No, you don’t, because I saw Bonnie. I saw the window she broke to get in. I know she and Ben are in there.’
‘Window? Show me.’
But before she could lead him around to the back of the shop, they were both frozen in place by a piercing scream, which came from the upper floor of the building beside them. It was followed by a crash of breaking glass, and a shower of shards falling onto the pavement close to where they stood.
‘See,’ said Simmy, both relieved and appalled. The scream had sounded terrible. ‘Now will you do something?’
Moxon’s face was a mixture of alarm and confusion. ‘There’s only me,’ he said. ‘I can’t force an entry on my own.’
‘Coward!’ she spat at him. Hadn’t there been a time when he’d have had a police whistle, which summoned miraculous hordes of burly officers moments after being blown? Now he seemed incapable of any decisive action. ‘So call somebody,’ she urged.
; Another scream put some fire in his belly and he began to set the process into motion. From Simmy’s point of view it was laborious and inefficient. She went to stand directly below the source of the broken glass and shouted, ‘Bonnie? Are you okay?’
There was no response. Or if there was, she couldn’t hear it, because a fair-sized crowd had already gathered and several people were talking loudly. Shopkeepers were leaving their posts behind their counters and coming out to see what was happening. They all stared up at the broken window. ‘Can’t have been double glazed,’ said a man. ‘They’re almost impossible to break.’
‘Somebody screamed,’ said a woman. ‘Who’s in there, then?’
It was the realisation of Simmy’s mad scheme, at least in part. She could very probably mobilise them into a rescue team, catching the wicked Lillywhites in the process. ‘There’s a boy in there, who’s been kidnapped,’ she shouted. ‘His girlfriend’s gone to rescue him, but his captors must be attacking her. It was her who screamed. Will somebody help me break in?’
Nobody moved. British people did not readily violate the rules to the extent of breaking down doors. They looked at her suspiciously, plainly doubting her credibility, if not her very sanity. It was, after all, a highly unlikely tale she was telling them. She remembered that the fact of Ben’s abduction had been kept out of the news. Nobody knew there was a missing boy.
‘Come on,’ she yelled at them. ‘You heard that scream.’
That was true. At least a few of them had heard it. And they could all see the shattered window. ‘All right, then,’ said a large man. ‘If you’re sure.’
‘Yes! That door – see the chain’s been unlocked. It’s just a Yale now. And the frame’s not very thick. I bet it’ll give quite easily.’
He gave her a considering look. ‘I’m not doing it with my shoulder,’ he said. ‘I need some sort of lever, like a crowbar.’
‘No, no,’ came Moxon’s voice. ‘I’m a police officer. I’ve called for backup. Leave it to us.’
