‘And you.’ Her warm smile told him she meant it. ‘So how are you, Tom Carney? Married, kids, enormous mortgage?’
‘No, no and yes,’ he replied. ‘I don’t know why I’ve got one without all the others but the house doubles as our office.’
‘Our office? You’ve got people working for you? I’m impressed, Tom.’
‘One person, and she doesn’t work for me. She’s my partner.’
‘Your partner. Oh,’ she said, as if she understood what that meant.
‘Er, no, Helen is my business partner. She’s a journalist, too.’
‘So she’s not ‒’
‘No, she’s not,’ he interrupted her.
‘But you must be seeing someone?’ she probed.
‘Why must I be seeing someone?’
‘Because I remember you, and I know what you’re like.’
‘Do you now?’ He skated over that. ‘I am seeing someone, kind of.’
‘Only kind of? Sounds deep.’
‘I met her on holiday.’ He shrugged. ‘She’s from the area, we see each other, that’s all.’
‘And how long has this been going on, Mr Carney.’
‘A few months,’ he said, though it was closer to nine.
‘And what does she do?’
‘Studies,’ he said dismissively.
‘Post-grad?’ She raised an eyebrow.
‘Undergrad,’ he admitted.
‘You cradle-snatcher! How old? Eighteen?’
‘Twenty.’
‘Corrupting such a young girl?’ then she added the word: again.
‘As I recall, it was the other way round,’ he told her. ‘I’m fairly sure you led me astray.’
‘That’s not the way I remember it.’
‘Anyway, what about you, Jenna? Married … all that?’ He hadn’t spotted a ring. She shook her head. ‘Happily single,’ she said, then leaned forward and picked up her wine glass, but her eyes only left his for a moment. ‘For the time being,’ she added.
‘And what have you been up to,’ he asked, ‘since we last met?’
‘What have I been up to?’ she repeated, as if she didn’t know where to begin. ‘Well, recently, I’ve taken on a shop in Grange Moor.’
‘What do you sell?’
‘The usual: household items, groceries, sweets.’
‘Sweets? Can I get a ten-pence mix-up, then?’ he smiled. ‘In one of those little paper bags?’
‘You can, but it will cost you more than ten pence nowadays and the little bags are plastic.’
‘What price progress?’ he asked. ‘I’m pleased for you, even though I can’t imagine you doing that.’
‘What can you imagine me doing?’
‘Something less quiet, I suppose. You couldn’t wait to get out and see the world.’
‘Well, I did,’ she reminded him. ‘And now I’m back. How about another drink, my shout?’ She put her hand on his knee and squeezed it momentarily as she got to her feet. She wriggled through a gap between two tables and Tom watched her as she walked to the bar.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It was beyond her comprehension. Eva walked dumbly along the corridor, trying but failing to make sense of her surroundings. Where the hell was she? The corridor seemed to go on for ever and every few yards she passed a locked door, all dark green, numbered and made of metal. The only sound that accompanied her and her captor, apart from their footsteps as they progressed along the tunnel, was the low murmur of the generator and the buzzing of the neon strip lights.
Finally, the man in the balaclava ordered her to stop, then he waved the gun so she knew to step away from one of the doors. He unlocked it and pushed her inside. He must have flicked a switch because a light came on and she was confronted with a bare tiled room with a bench bolted to the far wall.
‘Take off your clothes,’ he said, his voice emotionless, and a chill went through her. It was going to happen. It was actually going to happen now, and there was nothing she could do about it. The man was much stronger than she was and, even without the gun, she could see no way to overpower him. He was going to force her to strip, then he would rape her, down here where no one could help. Terror quickly morphed into the survival instinct. If he wanted her to strip, he wanted her body, so perhaps there was a slim chance he wouldn’t kill her.
People would be out looking for her: friends, her family, the police. They might have leads or an idea of what had happened to her. Perhaps they even knew who this man was and their investigation would eventually lead them to him, and then she’d be freed and he’d be the one to rot in prison for years. Until then, though, she had to stay alive.
Eva told herself there was another option. Escape. If she went along with it now, if she avoided angering this man, if she kept as calm as she could, then maybe the madness in him wouldn’t yet show itself and she could survive long enough to find a weak point in her prison. Then she could break free.
‘Strip!’ he commanded. His voice was loud and harsh in the small room, his anger and impatience obvious in the single barked word. He pushed her in the back and she stumbled towards the bench. She walked forward until she could go no further and faced the wall, her mind racing. She told herself that she had to endure.
Eva brought her hands to the material at the bottom of her thick woollen top and began to lift it. She tried not to think of the view the man had of her as she pulled the top up and bared her back, slid it past her breasts then over her head. She stood there topless in the cold room, holding the shirt uselessly in her hand.
Eva knew there was no way to stall things now, so she became resolute and hooked her thumbs into the elasticated waist of her jogging bottoms. They were loose anyway and came free easily. She stepped out of them and placed them on the bench. There was no sound from the man behind her.
She hooked her thumbs into her knickers and pulled them down, too, stepping out of them and dropping them with the rest of her clothes on the bench. She had never felt more vulnerable. Eva braced herself for what must surely come but for a time nothing happened. She stood there for a full minute, hands covering her nakedness as best they could, but the man did not advance on her and she began to wonder what he was doing. Was he savouring the sight of her? She realized she was holding her breath.
That breath left her suddenly as the shock of the noise hit her all at once and she rocked forward on her heels. It took her fevered brain a moment to understand what it was but something cut in and then she understood.
Water.
Fast-running water.
A shower?
When nothing further happened, she dared to turn her head. The man in the balaclava was standing watching her as she slowly turned to face him, determined to cover as much of her nakedness as possible for now. Because of his mask, it was impossible to tell whether he was surveying her with lust or simply regarding her dispassionately. In one hand, he still held the gun but in the other was a bar of soap.
There was an opening to the right of the thick metal door she had walked through and she could hear drops of water hitting the ground inside it. A tiled step led up to the opening, which was the size of a doorway, and the man jerked his head to indicate she should go through.
‘Wash.’
So he wanted her clean first.
Reluctantly, Eva advanced, and the man thrust out his hand to offer her the bar of soap. She had to take her hand momentarily from her breasts to grab it then she quickly moved across towards the opening.
Inside the alcove was a shower and she got under the running water. It was only tepid and the water fell slowly compared to the shower at home but it still felt good after being imprisoned in that shipping crate for days.
Eva tried hard to ignore the man standing behind her, presumably still watching every move she made, and began to wash herself. The cheap unperfumed bar of soap helped to ease away the grime and she soaked her hair and tried to wash the strands as best she could, always conscious of him watching her but not w
anting to rush things because she knew what he had planned for her.
When Eva had finished, she paused for a moment to steel herself, preparing her mind so she could accept and endure her fate. Then, resigned to it, she turned off the shower and turned to face the man, but he was no longer there. Cautiously, she walked out of the tiny shower block and back into the room. He was sitting on the bench, waiting, cradling the gun in one hand and her dirty clothes in the other. On the bench was a large, rough-looking blue towel and next to it lay a pile of plain functional clothes: tracksuit bottoms, another cheap practical top and what she might have described in an earlier life as boring underwear.
‘Get dry,’ he told her, ‘and dress.’
She dried herself hastily and self-consciously then dressed quickly, the clothes sticking to the parts of her body that were still damp in her haste to cover herself once more. All the while she wondered why he hadn’t touched her or bothered to watch her while she showered. Was he somehow repelled by her nakedness or trying to keep himself under control? She got the impression her state of undress didn’t interest him very much. Then why take her in the first place? Why keep her here?
When she was dressed he walked up to her, spun her round to face the wall and pushed her out through the door then back down the corridor to the ladder. He stopped her there and put the rough bag back on her head again. Then he made Eva climb the ladder, prodding her with the gun barrel if she hesitated. At the top, she climbed out and waited silently for him to catch up, wishing she could find the courage to kick out at him or try and lift the heavy hatch and smash it down on his head, but she knew he would be expecting that and the gun would fire before she could make a move against him. She lacked the strength, the speed and, she had to admit, the courage for such a suicidal attempt at escape. She would bide her time instead, relieved for now that she’d not been raped or killed.
Moments later she was back in the shipping crate with the door closed and bolted, a prisoner once more. Eva let herself fall back on the bed and wept, her tears a combination of relief, fear and frustration. She was still no nearer learning her fate than she had been before.
While she lay there it slowly dawned on her that her captor might not return to the crate for a while. This might give her the time she needed. She rose from the bed and picked up the lamp. She walked towards the one vulnerable spot she had discovered when she searched the crate. The panel that was welded to the opposite wall which contained the small metal vent that let in enough air for her to breathe. It was fixed solidly and permanently but she had noticed earlier that the central portion which contained the slats of the vent was only kept in place by the four large screws that had been painted over and were partly hidden in the gloom. The central part of the vent might just be wide enough for a person to wriggle through. Even though Eva had no idea how to even begin to move those screws to create that gap, the thought that it might be possible was enough to give her hope.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
‘Why ever did we break up?’ she mock-sighed after Tom had made her laugh for the umpteenth time that night. Jenna had a point. They still found each other easy company and the chemistry between them made Tom feel as if they had picked up almost where they left off. He had to remind himself he was seeing Penny.
‘You don’t remember?’
‘Not really.’
‘You went off to university, wanted a clean break, so you’ ‒ he almost said dumped me but thought better of it ‒ ‘ended it. You said you wanted to see other people.’
‘Oh, did I? That wasn’t very nice. I’m sorry.’
‘I was devastated,’ he said with a straight face, then he smiled. ‘For a couple of weeks.’
‘Until you sought solace elsewhere.’ She grinned. ‘You see, I do know you.’
‘What made you look me up now?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she said absent-mindedly. ‘I saw the event in the local paper, so I thought I’d pop by. See how you were doing, you know, for old time’s sake, but don’t worry, I wasn’t planning on rekindling an old flame. I’ll leave you to your sixth-former.’
‘She’s at university,’ he chided, but he was enjoying the teasing. ‘So that was the only reason, just a catch-up?’
There was a moment then when he thought Jenna might let her guard down and tell him it was something more. She even opened her mouth to form the words, but after a second or two she simply said, ‘Yep,’ closely followed by, ‘So who do you still see from the old days? I’ve lost track of everyone.’
They spent another pleasant hour talking about old schoolfriends, teenage parties and their struggles to get served in pubs while they were still underage, though it was always much easier for girls. Then, a little too soon, the barman called time and they walked out of the pub together, agreeing they should do this again properly, and soon. Jenna suggested a pub lunch.
She kissed him then, not on the cheek but on the lips. It was a quick kiss and could be dismissed as merely affectionate but it triggered something in him, even if it was only a memory. She was about to leave when he said, ‘It wasn’t in the local paper.’
She turned back to him. ‘What?’
‘My talk. It wasn’t advertised in the paper. The librarian forgot to tell them.’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘then I must have heard about it from somewhere else.’
He reached into his pocket, took out his wallet, removed one of his business cards then handed it to her. ‘If you ever need anything,’ he said, and when she seemed reluctant to take it, ‘or if you just fancy that pub lunch …?’
Jenna took the card, read the details then said, ‘Norton‒Carney? That has a certain ring to it. Is she pretty?’
He was a little taken aback by the question but said, ‘Helen? I suppose so, yes.’
‘Prettier than me?’ She was being deliberately coquettish, enjoying the game.
‘How could anybody possibly be prettier than my first love?’
‘Is the correct answer, Mr Carney! Now why did I ever let you go?’
He drove a long way to buy the newspaper. He didn’t want anyone to see him. It was always better to have no contact. Out of sight was out of mind. He lived four miles from the nearest village.
The service station stayed open late, mostly for the truck drivers who parked their lorries in the car park and dozed in their cabins. They pulled curtains across their windscreens or blocked them with pieces of cardboard. It was the best place to buy a paper. Newspapers were important. They told people things, but not always the truth. Some people liked to lie, even though lying was a sin, unless it was in the service of God or for a greater good, but sometimes they just got the truth wrong because they knew no better.
He picked up the newspaper and paid wordlessly, using the exact amount in change so he didn’t have to interact with the woman behind the till. He read the report slowly but avidly in the front seat of his truck, tracing the words with his fingers and letting his mouth form them because he had never been very good with his letters and this always helped him to get over the big words. That was why he read the newspaper in the truck. No one could see him when he parked it amongst the lorries at the back, facing the hedges. There hadn’t been a word about it the day before, but here it was.
Woman Found Strangled
A post-mortem has confirmed that a woman found dead in County Durham woodland had been strangled. Though the police are yet to publicly name the victim, she has been formally identified and her relatives informed. A murder inquiry has now begun.
And that was it. It wasn’t much for a life. He wasn’t sure how he would feel when he read about the woman in the woods. She had been the last of them – the rest had all died long before her – and he had known her for a very long time. He had helped to take care of her and had wanted to save her but she had made it clear by her actions that she didn’t wish to be saved. She was old now, she was ill and dried up, and as the good book said about Abraham’s wife, ‘The way of women h
ad ceased to be with her.’
In the end, Cora must have preferred death to life, and he had been forced to comply, for he was God’s servant and if you hated God then you loved death. That was in the Scriptures, too. She had gone willingly in the end. He didn’t want to do it there, in the bunker, so he’d driven her to the woods. Cora was so weak he had to carry her from the vehicle, then he leant her against the tree. She didn’t say a word while he did it. He couldn’t look at her face, so he wrapped the rope right round the tree then tightened it with the stick till her strangled gurgling ended.
He knew he was supposed to get rid of her body. That was what you were meant to do but, now that she was dead, he couldn’t bring himself to touch her again, so he left her there and hoped that God would confound and confuse his enemies.
And she had been replaced. The new woman was young and unadorned, she had red hair like the painting, she would be fertile and, according to the plastic cards in her purse, her name was Eva, which was almost like ‘Eve’. This had to be the Lord’s will.
He drove home with his mind at rest, reassured that God was helping him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Kane insisted on regular morning briefings so Bradshaw began with the results of the post-mortem. The DCI listened intently to the part about the victim having rickets, then said, ‘Yeah, well, let’s not jump to any conclusions, shall we? If she was a drug addict or an alkie, then she might not have seen much sunlight, and if she was funding a habit she probably only went out at night, if she was working as a prozzie or something.’
‘There was no evidence of her doing that,’ countered Bradshaw.
‘All I am saying is, be … moderate when considering your findings.’
‘Moderate, sir?’
Kane was getting frustrated with Bradshaw’s inability to read his DCI’s mind. ‘Moderate, man ‒ you know, the opposite of the tabloid journalists we have to put up with who take a crumb of evidence and turn it into a sensationalist theory that has little bearing on the truth. Just … tread carefully, all right.’
The Chosen Ones Page 9
