by Linda Coles
“And I suspect, given those skid marks, there wasn’t time,” Jack said. “I also suspect someone took their chance while she was distracted changing her flat, so Leanne could be anywhere by now if that’s the case. In fact, they both could be. Although, of course, we could still be dealing with two quite separate incidents. Has PR organized a press conference yet?” Jack wanted the word out, the sooner the better.
“I believe so. We need these girls’ pictures on the evening front pages and on the news. I’ll double-check what time. Posters are in hand, too. The rest is legwork. And CCTV won’t be much use until we know what we’re looking for. Both girls were well out of the town centre. Nothing out there filming.”
“Let’s see what the press cough up for us. Somebody must have seen something of either girl. And the fact that we now know Kate was dropped off by her regular lift at the end of her road as usual narrows things down. Two girls from roughly the same spot? I’m wondering if one was premeditated and one an opportunity for whoever – if Leanne was not meant to be a victim. And the more I think about it, I’m wondering if, from her spot in the ditch, she saw something and that’s what made her a part of all this.”
Jack pulled at his upper lip, something he did when deep in thought. Janine had chided him that he should grow a moustache, something else to play with other than his lip. “So, Kate could be the main target, and Leanne was the fly in the ointment they weren’t counting on. That could put her in even more danger then: they won’t want a witness to whatever they have planned. Hell, this gets worse by the minute.”
Eddie didn’t like it either. “Then we first need to figure out why Kate. If we can do that, we should find Leanne.”
“Agreed.”
Eddie addressed the rest of the room as a whole, his voice elevated for all to hear. “Right, everybody, that’s the plan. Let’s figure out why Kate. Talk to your snitches, get the word on the street, find out about locals with a fondness for children like Kate, the fruit loops in the area. I want anyone and everyone with a possible connection to Kate interviewed and drivers on that main Wickham Road spoken to.” Clapping his hands together loudly, he shouted, “Let’s get busy, then!”
Turning to Jack he said, “Right, we’ve got a meeting to attend. No word of this in front of the parents, right?”
“Right-o.”
Chapter Eleven
Leanne was frozen to the marrow. Her cycle clothing wasn’t meant to be warm; it was meant for riding in, not sitting all day in. She rubbed her legs to try and get some warmth into them. Thank goodness she’d been wearing her long-legged pants and not her shorts. She’d have dressed in warmer gear had she known she was going to be abducted, she thought wryly.
Abducted.
Her parents would be going out of their minds with worry and she’d no way of letting them know she was alright. All right but imprisoned. As the man had unceremoniously bundled her into the back of the van, she’d kicked and fought her way to no avail – and gotten a punch to her stomach for her troubles. That punch had bent her over double, disabling her long enough for the men to get her inside the van without any further commotion. When she’d finally raised her head after the winding, she’d noticed she wasn’t alone in the back. A young girl sat crouched in the near darkness, making tiny whimpering sounds. By Leanne’s reckoning, she looked to be about eleven or twelve. But before she could speak to her, one of the men had tied Leanne’s hands together, stuck tape across her mouth and fastened her to the back of one of their seats by some sort of leather restraint. The young girl had already been restrained in the same way. Then the van had driven off. Not a word had been said by anyone.
Leanne was a smart girl for her age, and a strong one from racing regularly with both male and female riders. But it wasn’t her physical strength she pulled on inside that van – the leather restraints were more than her match. Rather, she instead turned her attention to the situation at hand, drawing on the focus she’d learned over her years of competition. There was no way to turn her head and see through the windscreen – she’d tried her hardest, straining her peripheral vision – so she began to listen carefully to figure out where they might be going. By her estimation, they’d travelled on a motorway; the traffic noises and continual speed of the van told her that much. But whether they had travelled north or south, she’d no way of knowing. She had heard aeroplanes flying low overhead, meaning an airport was nearby, but it could be Heathrow, Gatwick, or Stanstead, all of which were in different directions.
After a time, the traffic had eased, the van slowed, and the outside sounds had died away. She’d wondered if they were in the countryside. They’d driven for about an hour, and neither of the men had uttered a word. When they’d eventually stopped, a bag had been placed over her head as she was led outside, the cold biting through the thin fabric of her clothes, her cycling shoes making walking difficult as they made their way up some stairs to the room where she was now.
The first thing that had hit her was the smell. It was stale, as if the windows hadn’t been opened in years and whoever lived there hadn’t washed during that time either. The room was dimly lit and there was a faint smell of urine. She knew the other girl she’d arrived with had been a few steps behind her – she had heard her tiny whimpers – and had been taken past her doorway, presumably to another room. When the man had taken the bag off her head, she saw that he and his partner both wore black balaclavas. Leanne figured that was a good sign: if they weren’t showing her their faces, they weren’t intent on killing her.
She hoped.
They left her as quickly as they’d deposited her. As she lay on the sagging single bed with no more than a thin blanket for warmth, she concentrated on locking the details and events so far into her head, ready for when she was safe again and asked to give a description. When she was safe, she told herself. Not if. She was skilled at staying positive, even during the worst parts of a race when the pain reached critical and she still had a way to go. Her racing mantra played in her head now: “I give myself permission to win. I give myself permission to win . . .”
She pulled on that inner strength now, because she knew if she didn’t she wouldn’t survive it. How she wished with all her heart she was with her parents now and she could take back the row they’d had that morning about Christmas Day. It all seemed so trivial now.
I’ll be back for Christmas Day.
Nothing had happened since her arrival; that now seemed like an age ago. and since she was not wearing a watch, she’d already begun to lose track of time. Without a window to the outside world, she had no way of seeing whether it was day or night. The place was silent; there were no sounds of trains passing nearby or aeroplanes above. There’d been nothing whatsoever since she entered the small, dim space. Either she was in the middle of nowhere, deep in the countryside, maybe, or she was deep inside something else, a room in a much larger building possibly. The only way out of the room was through the door she’d entered by – and that was kept locked.
I’ll be back for Christmas Day, she told herself.
Christmas Day was her goal. If she was going to get out of the room alive and well, that alone would keep her going – she had to have something.
The sound of the door being unlocked brought her back to the present, all senses on high alert. Leanne sat up quickly against the wall, holding her breath, and waited for whoever it was to enter.
It was a young woman.
Her long, lank hair spilled over her face, which was equally grubby; her eyes barely lifted from the floor. She was carrying a tray of food – Leanne’s first meal. She watched as the woman locked the door behind her again, taking no chances Leanne might bolt. Taking the woman in, Leanne relaxed a little and let the wind back out of her lungs as the woman placed the tray on the end of the bed. She was not much more than skin and bone, Leanne noted, no match for a strong fifteen-year-old girl, Leanne thought.
“Your food. Eat.” It wasn’t much more than a whisper, but with a
n accent, though Leanne wasn’t sure from where. Eastern European perhaps?
“Where am I?” she tried, but the woman did not reply. “Please, I need to know.”
“Eat. No more food.”
“Please! Tell me where I am!” But the woman was already hurrying back to the door. Leanne leapt off the bed and started after her but someone must have been listening in and was ready with a key to unlock the door on the other side. It opened rapidly and the woman disappeared back through it, the key turning before Leanne reached it. She threw herself against it and began banging with her fists, screaming to be let out, her racing mantra forgotten as she sobbed for her mum and dad.
Her sobs died in her throat as a woman’s scream sounded on the other side of the door.
Chapter Twelve
Leanne froze. Was it the woman who had just been in her room, or someone else? Maybe there were other girls and women being held here. Maybe it had been the little girl from the van.
She turned to the tray of food. The bowl of once-hot orange soup tasted like it had come from a packet. A stale bread roll accompanied it. Leanne hadn’t eaten since late lunch at the garden centre, so ripped the stale bread into pieces, soaked them in the soup, and grimly began to eat. If she was going to keep her strength up, she had to eat something. She hoped and prayed the food was safe and not full of sedative – or worse. Shame they’d given her only a plastic spoon and not a metal one, a possible weapon.
There was nothing else on the tray save for a glass of water, which she drank down; she was not really thirsty, but it would fill her stomach. At least they might let her out to use the toilet and she could gain some valuable insight into what was on the other side of her door.
Several hours after she’d eaten her soup and bread, she heard a key in the door again. She sat bolt upright, back to the wall, both eyes focused on the door as it opened into the room.
This time the visitor was a man.
And he wasn’t wearing a balaclava. That wasn’t a good sign.
Her stomach rolled. Did that now mean she wasn’t going to get out alive, or that they had no plans to ever release her? Was he one of the ones from earlier, or another? Her bottom lip began to quiver in panic as the man approached the bed, his eyes never leaving hers. Leanne held his stare, fighting to keep herself calm. He sat down on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping under his ample weight, and smiled slowly, a smile that rolled her stomach again, threatening to bring the orange soup back up into the room like a hosepipe. He wore a dated comb-over that tried its best to cover a balding scalp; his stomach hung over his shell suit bottoms where his stained T-shirt couldn’t reach, like raw sausage meat spilling over a mixing bowl. It was the same pinkish colour. Leanne swallowed hard as the man reached a fat, fleshy hand out towards her thigh, watching her all the time. then pulled back at the last minute as Leanne screwed her eyes tight shut in anticipation of contact. Then the man did something she hadn’t expected – he laughed at her. She opened her eyes but didn’t say a word.
“Relax, you’re not my type. Too big, too old,” he said mockingly.
Leanne understood exactly what he meant but forced herself to speak, willing her voice to sound strong and even.
“What am I doing here? Where am I?”
“You are a fly in the ointment. But I dare say you could be a useful one, though I’m not sure how or where yet. You don’t need to know anything more.”
“What about the other girl that was in the van, where is she?”
“Ah, now she was part of the plan, a young chrysalis waiting to become a glorious butterfly one day.” His smile played with the orange soup inside of her and she swallowed hard to control it.
“Is she here too?”
“Oh, yes. But you won’t be seeing her again.” He rose up as if he was done, had said what he came to say, though really there had been nothing.
“I need to use the toilet.” She was grasping at straws.
“I’m sure you do, but you’ll have to wait – or do it in the corner.”
“In what, my soup bowl?” she said sarcastically, unable to help herself.
The man’s hand whipped out and landed a stinging slap across her face. “Yes, I guess you will,” he said calmly. He smiled as she rubbed her face. “You’ll soon learn how to behave so we all get along.”
Leanne watched in silence as he walked back to the door and left the room. She heard sound of the lock reengaging on the other side.
All alone again, she let the floodgates open into the stale pillow so they wouldn’t hear her. Leanne at fifteen wasn’t as strong as she thought she was.
Chapter Thirteen
Chloe had always been sporty, had always enjoyed the limelight when she romped home across the finishing line first or second. School sports day had always been her favourite part of the term. She must have been in the front of the queue when long lean legs and power had been handed out. Chloe loved her athletics and even though the sports centre was nowhere near her home, she made do with the running track she’d created for herself on the quieter back streets of Manchester. It gave her the outlet she needed as a teenager. Like many girls her age, she carried the world’s troubles on her shoulders – albeit her own small world.
Then one day her world had erupted like a volcano. At first, she’d put the heavy morning sickness down to anything but the suspicion she was pregnant. But soon reality had set in, and as her pregnancy progressed, her clothing style changed to a much looser look. But still, neither of her parents had noticed that their daughter was knocked up. And that suited Chloe, because if nobody noticed and spoke of it, she wasn’t pregnant – was she?
Except she was.
And not through any misdeed of her own. While her friends from the estate often sported bruises on their faces and arms, the abuse Chloe was dealt at her mother’s hands was far worse: night after night, for as long as she could remember, her mother would give her a glass of sedative-laced milk at bedtime and let grubby strangers into her young daughter’s room to have their way with her.
And that was how the pregnancy had come about – and how Chloe’s mother had found out about it: a punter had expressed his displeasure at her growing belly and had told Chloe’s parents he wouldn’t be back. No longer a money-making machine, Chloe arrived home one day after school to find her bag packed and a note on the kitchen table telling her they had moved to Scotland to take up a new job and she wasn’t going with them.
There was £200 in an envelope to help her get settled somewhere. “Stay with one of your mates in the meantime,” the note said. It had been in her mother’s handwriting, and not even a kiss or good luck at the end of it.
She’d stayed the first couple of nights at a friend’s place until the girl’s parents had asked her to leave; they didn’t want someone cluttering up their sofa, they said. So, she’d decided to thumb it and catch a ride south to the bright lights of London. Her lift had taken her almost to the City centre, where she’d got the tube the rest of the way in, figuring the centre would be where it was at.Whatever ‘it’ was.
Kings Cross had been her home on that first night, and she swore it wouldn’t be on the second. She’d moved on to Croydon the following day, where she had wandered the streets aimlessly until she’d all but collapsed outside a small café. The owner had made her some tea and toast. If it hadn’t been for Roy taking pity on her, who knows where she would have ended up, and with whom.
She’s been allowed to sleep on Roy’s sofa for a whole week, no strings, and he had helped her find a place at a women’s refuge where she could stay until the baby was born. After that, the worker told her, the council would find her and her baby a more permanent place to live. Naturally, they had thought she was older than she was, and when they talked about foster homes, Chloe had scarpered quick smart. With less than £200 to her name now and no way of earning anything, she knew it was going to be tough and had braced herself to be ready. Roy had told her she could pop in occasionally for tea an
d toast, but that was all he could offer. Now, she had to make it her own way – on her own, broke and her baby due to make its entrance at any moment. Until it arrived, she’d manage.
And so, on a freezing cold night a few days before Christmas, she gave birth outside Selhurst train station in a dingy, draughty doorway. No one had bothered to stop and see what all the noise was about; everyone was in too much of a hurry to get home and out of the cold.
Folks were only ever concerned about themselves.
Chapter Fourteen
Chloe was at Roy’s, a habit she couldn’t shake, though she didn’t really want to. There were only a couple of people in her world now, and Roy was one of them. The other was an older lad called Billy whom she’d met at a soup kitchen one evening a couple of weeks or so; they’d kept each other company for a couple of hours. His ‘place,’ which was where he stored his few belongings, was in an unused garage on Pitt Street that belonged to an old lady who allowed him to squat there as long as he was quiet. It wasn’t far from the train station and was one of the few houses that had a garage, though most people parked on the street these days. Chloe had stayed with him a few nights, as mates, and they were careful not to let the old lady notice, nor the neighbours, for fear she’d throw them both out. The old side door entrance was useful in that respect, and they were careful to come and go when the street was quiet. But it was relatively safe and dry, and Billy had turned out to be a good friend as Chloe adjusted to life living rough. He also knew about the baby, though Chloe had threatened him with death should he tell anyone about her leaving it in the church porch.
Nobody else knew.
“So, when do I get to meet Billy, then?” Roy asked as he placed another mug of tea in front of Chloe.
She wrapped her hands around it for comfort. “You want to meet him? Why?”
