‘In my experience, most killers look perfectly normal until they are caught.’
‘When Sarah finally showed up,’ he said hesitantly, ‘she hadn’t been in a normal place …’
‘And you have absolutely no idea where she might have been?’
‘None,’ he said. ‘I’ve spent years thinking about that, trying to work out what she must have gone through’ ‒ his voice cracked then ‒ ‘my own sister, my poor baby sister.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Only when they had finished their pub lunch in a sunny beer garden did Jenna turn to the matter on her mind and even then it was in a roundabout way.
‘It’s been lovely to see you again, Tom. I know we’re both older but it doesn’t seem as if so many years have gone by. I still feel like we are the same people inside, deep down.’
‘Me, too.’
‘I thought you would still be like the old Tom and I’m so glad you are’ ‒ she hesitated ‒ ‘but I have to admit that wasn’t the only reason I got back in touch with you.’
‘I know,’ he said calmly.
‘You know?’ She regarded him thoughtfully. ‘How could you know?’
He shrugged. ‘Little signs,’ he said, and when she did not appear content with that: ‘You were very keen to meet up again so soon after the last time, you came to the talk at the library just when it was scheduled to end, you couldn’t have read about it in your local paper like you said, so I figured you must have heard about it from the leaflets in the bookstore when my book came out, which means you’ve seen the book. So you know I try to find missing persons and I help the police to solve murders. I don’t peg you for a murderer, so who’s gone missing?’
Jenna looked a bit startled. Was she was struck by the tone in his voice? He hadn’t meant it to sound so cold, as if he thought this whole thing had been one big charade staged by Jenna to get him to help her.
‘No one,’ she said, ‘and nobody has been murdered either.’
‘Then how can I help?’
‘I don’t know if you can,’ she said, ‘or if I even want to ask you now. I don’t want to spoil this but the truth is I didn’t know what else to do.’
‘About what?’
She fished into her handbag and brought out the notes. ‘About these.’ She handed the pieces of paper to Tom.
‘What are they?’ he asked, and when she did not answer immediately he looked at each one in turn, starting with the first note she received.
I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.
Tom looked at her for a clue, but none was forthcoming. He slid that note to the bottom of the pile and glanced at the second one.
DID YOU REALLY THINK YOU COULD JUST WALK AWAY, JENNA?
THAT’S NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.
He glanced up at her but she seemed to be willing him to continue.
There was a third note.
I KNOW WHO YOU USED TO BE. I’LL TELL EVERYONE.
‘And I got this one today.’
The final note read:
YOU’RE GOING TO PAY.
‘I’m sorry, Tom, but I need help and there’s no one else I can ask.’
‘You’re being blackmailed?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘and I don’t know what to do.’
‘But how … I mean, what could you have possibly done that’s so bad someone could blackmail you over it?’
She shook her head violently. ‘I don’t want to talk about that.’
He thought for a moment. ‘But how can I help you if you won’t say what it is?’
‘Can’t you just give me some advice on what to do? That’s what I need. I’m going out of my mind here.’
‘This thing you did?’ he probed gently. ‘It would be bad if it came out? You can’t just tell him to do his worst’ ‒ he corrected himself ‒ ‘if it is a he, of course, but then it usually is.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Nobody can ever know about this.’
He let that sink in, wondering what the hell she could have done that was so bad her life in the village would be irreparably damaged if it came to be known. While his mind raced, he tried to give her the advice she craved.
‘Well, my first instinct would be to go to the police, but that’s assuming you can actually tell the police. If you’re a serial killer, for example, I’d advise against it.’
She didn’t laugh at that. ‘I don’t want to involve the police.’
‘Because you did something illegal?’
She didn’t reply.
‘Have you had a demand for money?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Not yet.’
‘You’ll get one,’ he assured her. ‘Unless it’s someone being malicious, messing with your mind. I’m saying, everybody has secrets, Jenna. Are you sure this person really knows yours?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I just know it.’
‘Okay, well, you could wait until they make their demands and pay up ‒’
‘You think I should pay them?’ she interrupted.
‘But there is no guarantee that that will be the end of the matter. Pay them once and they’ll be happy for a time but you’ll have proved you’re desperate to keep whatever it is a secret. When they’ve spent your money, they’re very likely to come back to ask you for more and then you’ll never be free.’
She seemed to slump then, ‘So I can’t pay and I can’t go to the police. What can I do?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, and she looked at him as if he was no help, ‘because I don’t know any of the circumstances. Look, Jenna, I’d love to help you, genuinely, but if you’re not prepared to trust me with whatever it is you’ve done, I don’t see how I can.’ He let that sink in. ‘And there is a chance that, even if you do, I won’t want to.’
‘What?’
He shrugged. ‘If you killed a kid in a hit and run, say, why would I want to let you get away with that?’
She snorted. ‘It’s nothing like that. I haven’t done anything evil.’
‘But it’s still bad?’
‘For me personally, yes, and in the small community I live in it would be … devastating. It can’t come out.’
‘All right.’
‘Then you’ll help me?’
‘Jenna, if I don’t know what you did, I can’t work out who might know about it,’ he said, ‘so how can I possibly help you?’
Jenna thought for a long while. She kept looking at Tom, as if she was wondering whether he would judge her, then she sighed and said, ‘Maybe you can’t.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The screw was six inches long. The part nearest the head had been congealed by the paint then, further in, it had rusted, which impeded her progress. Each full turn of the screw was a tortuous process that took several attempts and caused Eva considerable pain. Her hands burned in protest every time she leaned in to twist it. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the first screw came out.
Eva’s first sensation was elation, but it quickly turned to fear. The man could not find her doing this and it might not be long before he returned. If he caught her unscrewing the vent, it would all be for nothing. Tentatively, she tried to reinsert the screw and she was relieved when it went back in smoothly then came out again without too much effort. The sensible thing would be to bide her time, so she could be sure of not being found out before she tried to escape. Undoing all four screws would take a while, if it was possible at all, and it would be better if she tried to get through the hole left by the vent after he had been in with her food. That would give her precious hours to break out and get away from this place, wherever that was.
She put the screw back in then waited for her captor to visit once more.
It had seemed like such a sensible notion, but now he realized why nobody else had bothered to try it. Ian Bradshaw had spent hours wading through old cases and had got precisely nowhere. He was looking for anyone who might have been put in prison within a few months of the disappearance of the last woman to go missing in 1980 and released n
ot long prior to the latest batch of disappearances.
The first thing he realized was how hard it was to narrow the list down and find a feasible suspect and how easy it was to eliminate vast numbers of men from his inquiries. He could rule out anyone too old or infirm upon their release, and he didn’t bother to pursue criminals who had committed crimes with a financial motive, such as fraud or armed robbery, no matter how violent, because these were acts unrelated to the crimes he was investigating. Instead he concentrated on murderers or those who had been convicted of crimes against women such as rape or serious assault. There were one or two promising possibilities but then, one by one, he ended up ruling them out, because the dates weren’t right and they had been in prison when the abductions had occurred.
In short, after spending the best part of a day reading about a great many former jailbirds, he hadn’t come up with a single plausible suspect who was worth tracking down for questioning. He couldn’t be sure of it of course, but the more Bradshaw thought about the man who was behind these crimes, the more he became convinced that he was unknown to the authorities, and that would make him so very much harder to catch. He had the feeling he was completely off the radar.
There was a padded envelope waiting for Helen on the mat when she opened the front door. She recognized Peter’s handwriting and took it to the kitchen table. Ever the cautious one, he’d used Sellotape to reinforce the opening but far too much of it, and she needed scissors to get it open. A small item wrapped in plastic dropped out on to the table, along with a little note that said, ‘I saw this and thought of you,’ next to a heart, a kiss and his initials. It might have been unoriginal to use the Royal Mail’s long-standing advertising slogan but at least the item he’d sent showed he’d been thinking about her and the gesture was a kind one. Helen unwrapped a chrome keyring with a picture of Bagpuss on it; a shared private joke because the old cloth cat had been the star of her favourite TV programme as a child. She found herself smiling at the memory now.
Helen heard Tom’s key turn in the lock and quickly put the keyring back in the envelope then stuffed it into her bag in case he asked her about it.
‘Hi,’ he said. ‘How did it go?’
‘I’m not sure I really learned all that much,’ Helen admitted, ‘but Phil Barstow was convinced his sister was abducted and never believed the police theory that she had been drinking and doing drugs. He said she was too straight for that. Anyway, I thought starting with Sarah’s brother might be a good idea,’ she said pointedly.
‘And I agreed with you,’ said Tom. ‘I just couldn’t go to Newcastle because I was busy.’
‘That’s suitably vague,’ she said. ‘Worryingly so.’
‘Why should you be worried about what I do?’
‘Because you are normally an open book, Tom. You tell me things,’ she reminded him, ‘so now I’m wondering why you won’t say where you went.’
‘I had to meet someone.’
‘Who?’
‘A friend.’
‘Just a friend? It’s a woman, isn’t it, and you haven’t told Penny. You’re worried I’ll drop you in it by accident.’
‘If I was worried about you dropping me in it, it wouldn’t be accidental.’
‘Ouch.’
‘I know you don’t like Penny.’
‘Rubbish,’ Helen lied, ‘but let’s not get off the subject. Who is this woman you don’t want her to know about? Are you having an affair, Mr Carney?’
‘No, I am not,’ he protested, ‘but I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention it to Penny because she does get a bit jealous and this is a little delicate.’
‘Deal,’ she agreed, ‘as long as you tell me what you’re up to. Who is the lady in question?’
‘She’s kind of … an old flame.’
Helen laughed. ‘Penny will love that. Not that I would tell her, obviously. Was she a serious old flame, then? I never knew you had any.’
‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me. Jenna was my first.’
‘Your first love?’
‘No, just my first –’ He laughed at her reaction. ‘Actually, that’s not quite true. I was …’
Helen waited to hear some declaration of love from him.
‘… very fond of her.’
‘Fond of her?’ she scoffed. ‘You make her sound like a family pet.’
‘What do you want me to say?’
‘Did you love her?’
‘I’ ‒ he hesitated and was obviously weighing the word ‒ ‘probably thought back then that I was more or less in love with her, but it was teenage stuff, you know?’
‘And how long was it before you fell out of love with her?’
‘She dumped me, actually,’ he said. ‘I knew that would amuse you.’
‘I’m not amused,’ she said, stifling a smile. ‘Poor you.’
‘Well, it was a very long time ago, when I was young and foolish.’
‘So, why were you meeting your old flame? Trying to rekindle it?’
‘Not at all. It was just lunch.’
Helen looked as if she was still waiting for an answer.
‘Why do you have to know everything?’
‘You’re supposed to be my partner, helping me with an investigation,’ she said. ‘Instead you’re off having lunch with an ex-girlfriend you’re not trying to get back with, so there must be something going on.’
‘So now you won’t let it go?’
‘I’m an investigative journalist,’ said Helen. ‘It does tend to come with the territory.’
‘It’s no big deal,’ said Tom dismissively, ‘but she might need some help.’
Helen frowned. ‘With what?’
‘I think she could be in a spot of bother, that’s all.’
‘Oh, here we go again.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You,’ she said. ‘You’re doing your Sir Galahad act, aren’t you? I can tell.’
‘It’s not like that,’ he protested. ‘She came to me for …’ For what? He didn’t want to tell Helen the truth: that Jenna was being blackmailed but wouldn’t tell him why, that he wanted to help his former girlfriend but might not be able to, that it was possible he would never hear from her again. He was desperate to play it down but suddenly he was struggling to find the words to appease her. ‘I’m not exactly sure why she came to me.’
Helen gave him a withering look.
Then he snapped, ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘I want you to avoid becoming distracted when we are working a case for which we will actually get paid.’
‘I won’t get distracted.’
‘You did once before.’ She meant Lena, and he immediately flared at the allusion to his ex-girlfriend and the havoc she had caused.
‘This is different.’
‘If you say so,’ she said softly and left the room.
‘Bollocks,’ he said in frustration.
The process of removing the screws was fraught. Each one took an age to turn until it was free from the vent and there was the constant fear her captor might return while she was working on them. Her hands were now a mess of bleeding blisters and she had to clench them when he came into the crate in case he spotted the damage and wondered what she had been doing. Despite the pain and the lengthy process, she had managed to undo three of the painted-over and rusting screws.
Only one more to go, then she could remove the centre of the vent from the wall and attempt to squeeze through the gap. She refused to contemplate what she would do if she couldn’t wriggle through it or how she would feel if the fourth screw proved more stubborn than the previous ones. What if it was stuck fast and she couldn’t budge it? It didn’t bear thinking about. There was no plan B.
She had been waiting on the bed for an hour, too afraid to attempt to remove the final screw in case he came in and caught her. He had to be due to bring her some food, but there was no sign of him.
Eva still didn’t know why he was holding
her captive. If she tried to engage him in conversation, the man would simply demand her silence at the point of his gun. He only ever spoke to give her instructions: his deep voice would issue short commands ‒ eat, drink, strip, wash ‒ and she would comply, because she wanted to contain the rage that bubbled up inside him. He would get angry if she didn’t eat all her food, so she learned to finish it and to drink all of the water. Then he was calmer.
When the door finally opened it was not to bring her food. Instead the man ordered her out of the crate and gestured towards the bunker. It was daylight, but she couldn’t see anything around her that would help her gain her bearings when she escaped, only fields. The shipping crate was on low-lying land so she couldn’t see far beyond it.
He put the bag over her head and marched Eva towards the bunker. He was taking her for another shower and she was glad of that. She needed one; she’d make sure to wash some of the dirt from her damaged hands. They went through the same routine and, when Eva had finished in the shower, he gave her a set of clean clothes then marched her back into the corridor but, instead of taking her back to the hatch, he steered her in the opposite direction, deeper into the bunker. Then he opened a door and made her walk into a room. It was sparsely furnished ‒ a camp bed, a bedside cabinet, a sink in one corner and a single armchair ‒ but there were some books: a Bible and some historical romances, plus a few children’s stories ‒ some of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and Secret Seven series, and a single Nancy Drew mystery. Was this some strange way of trying to make her more comfortable? Was it a reward, a punishment or a treat? Would she be back in her crate in an hour or two? She had to be, or there would be no way of escaping. All the work she had put in to break the metal clasp and loosen the screws would be for nothing. She wanted to weep in frustration but managed to hide her emotions while he was in the room with her. He closed the door and locked her in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
1973
She was smoking outside the NAAFI at RAF Gütersloh when Samuel first saw her. He wondered who had let her into the base and what she was doing there on her own. You’d have thought security might have been tighter here. It was the closest RAF base to the border between East and West Germany and the two squadrons of Lightning fighter-interceptors based here were meant to be first-response aircraft, if the Cold War became hotter and Soviet forces streamed over the border into NATO-controlled territory.
The Chosen Ones Page 11
