A Quiet Death

by Cari Hunter

  “Not really. Fuck. No, not at all. Where the fuck is she, Russ?”

  “I have no idea. What does your gut say?”

  “It’s not saying much.” Eleanor slumped onto the closest chair. “But my guilty fucking conscience is reminding me that I put pressure on her to be bolder, so I can’t help thinking she’s gone off investigating something on her own and got herself neck-deep in trouble. She attracts shit like a fucking magnet.”

  Overlooking her dubious grasp of physics, Russ sat beside her. “How likely is that? Score of one to ten?”

  “Seven?” Eleanor was trying hard to be logical, but common sense was difficult at two in the morning, when her youngest team member was God only knew where, and everyone was looking to their DI for answers. “I don’t know, Russ. Nelson says zero, but I just don’t know.”

  “She’s probably been in an accident. Which is bad enough, but better than anything you’re imagining.”

  “I know.” She laid her head on his shoulder for the briefest of moments. She was more frightened than she’d ever admit. “Litton won’t authorise much; she’s not been missing for long enough. He asked that I keep him updated, but I don’t think he was planning to get out of bed.”

  “We’re better off without him. What about Sanne’s family?”

  “Meg’s coming in. Otherwise there’s really only her mum. Her dad’s been in hospital for the last few days.” She stood up, restless. “I can’t stay in here.”

  “So go and sit with your team.”

  “And do what?”

  Russ didn’t seem to have any answers either. He opened his hands in apology. “Make them a brew and hope for the best.”

  *

  Meg clipped her visitor’s pass to her coat, smacking her hand on the button marked “4” the second she stepped into the lift. She spotted Nelson from the door to the EDSOP offices, head down in conference with Eleanor, Parry, and a detective she didn’t recognise. When he came to meet her, embracing her in front of them all, she buried her face in his shirt and clung on.

  “Anything?” she asked as she pulled back.

  “Not yet.” He brought her a chair, placing it on his side of the desk so that she didn’t have to look at the family photos on Sanne’s. “Traffic are still out on the Snake, but the weather’s playing havoc with them.”

  “I’ll bet.” She’d driven in through showers of sleet and snow, visibility dwindling to almost zero over the Snake summit, before the clouds cleared as the wind picked up. “God, Nelson, if she’s stuck out there in this…”

  He didn’t tell her that they’d find her, that everything would be okay. He simply put a hand on her arm.

  “I phoned her mum and her sister,” she said. “Keeley hasn’t seen her in a few days, and there was no answer at her mum’s. I left a message on her mum’s mobile but didn’t go into detail.”

  “Is it worth sending a patrol round?” Parry asked.

  “Yes, it is,” Eleanor said. “Could you organise that? Thanks.”

  Meg shifted her chair into the gap he left. “I’ve brought Sanne’s address book, but most of the people in it are Christmas-card friends and relatives. There’s a couple of neighbours that she swaps veggies and eggs with, so we could try them, and I was wondering about calling Ron as well.”

  “The chap at the farm?” Nelson said. “Where we went up to Greave Stones?”

  “Yes, that’s the one. He supplies San’s chicken feed. I just used the last of hers, and I was thinking on the way over, what if she called in for some at Black Gate tonight? She’s stupid about those chooks and far too organised not to have ordered in good time. The farm’s only a couple of miles from her house. If we can establish that she got there safely, that would rule out a huge part of the search area. I could’ve knocked on when I went past, but I was in fucking Sheffield by the time I put two and two together.”

  “Go ahead,” Eleanor told Nelson, and he almost snapped the address book out of Meg’s hand.

  They watched him dial. The phone rang out and switched to an answering machine, and he left a brief message before redialling immediately.

  “We should go in person,” he said, having hung up and tried a third time. “It’s much harder to ignore a knock on your door, and we’re not getting anywhere with the other stuff we’ve been working on.” He aimed his appeal directly at Eleanor, who nodded her assent far more readily than Meg could have hoped.

  About to suggest accompanying them in a medical capacity, Meg clapped a hand on her breast pocket as her mobile buzzed: Teresa. She moved across to an empty desk, with no idea what to say even as she accepted the call.

  Teresa spoke before Meg could. “Meg? I just got your message. Is everything all right?”

  “No, not really.” Meg began to distinguish sounds in the background: beeping and a distinct give-and-take rasp. For an instant she had a horrific image of Sanne lying in the ITU, before she grasped the more plausible explanation. “Are you with John?”

  “Yes, love. The hospital phoned to say he’d been taken badly again. I’ve been trying to reach Sanne, but I think she must be at work.”

  It never just fucking rains, Meg thought. “I’ll come over,” she said, unwilling to take the coward’s way out and break the news remotely. “Will you be staying there for a while yet?”

  “I think so.” Teresa’s voice wavered. “They said it’s a matter of time.”

  Everything seemed to be splintering, the pieces flying apart too violently for Meg to stop them.

  “Christ. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  *

  Eleanor gave Traffic’s four-by-four a wide berth as she drove past it. It continued at a crawl, a light on the nearside trained on the verge as its driver examined the hedgerows and stone walls for signs of damage. So far, Eleanor had only spotted two makeshift shrines to accident fatalities, both coming out of hairpin bends, but she was well aware of the Snake Pass’s grim statistics.

  “It’s on the right, in about”—Nelson held his fingers apart, using them to judge the scale as he moved his torch over the map—“half a mile.”

  “Thanks.” She didn’t bother to note her current mileage; it would be far easier just to look out for the sign warning of the farm’s concealed entrance. Nelson had always been task-orientated, though, and giving him the role of navigator had kept him occupied since leaving HQ. Sharing his urge to be out of the office, she had assigned herself to driving duties and asked Russ to oversee the rest of her team.

  A mass of waterlogged potholes and patches of snow covered the yard of Black Gate Farm. She parked by a pile of gravel and opened her door to find a lake beneath her feet.

  “Fucking hell.” Her trainers slipped on the far edge of the puddle, splashing muck up the back of her jeans. “Someone had better bloody be in.”

  Nelson thumped hard enough on the farmhouse door to send flakes of old paint flying into his hair. With no letterbox to shout through, they had to rely on knocking, but a light finally came on, and an amorphous pink mass moved beyond the glass.

  “Who is it?” a woman asked.

  “Police, Mrs. Stanton,” Nelson shouted. “Could you open the door, please?”

  A key turned and a bolt grated back, and Mrs. Stanton appeared, bleary-eyed, with rollers in her hair and pillow creases down one cheek.

  “Is something the matter?” she asked. “Is it Ron?”

  “No.” Eleanor paused, confused. “Where is Ron?”

  “He’s just gone up to one of the barns. We’ve had a cow took poorly.”

  Eleanor put her ID away. “Right, well, no. It’s not Ron, it’s Sanne Jensen. She went missing yesterday evening, and her partner thought she might’ve stopped off here to collect a feed order on her way home.”

  “Oh! Sanne and her chickens. Of course. Lovely lass.” Mrs. Stanton’s face fell. “She hasn’t been here, I’m afraid. We still have her pellets in the store. Do you need to see them as proof or anything?”

  “No, thank yo
u,” Eleanor said. She could see lines tautening on Nelson’s throat as he clenched his teeth, and she put a hand on his arm in case he decided to hit out at something. “No, that’s fine. We’re sorry to disturb you so late.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.” Mrs. Stanton watched them to their car, and the kitchen light went off as Eleanor reversed.

  “Damn it! She could’ve just answered her phone and saved us the fucking trip.” Eleanor whacked the car into first, accelerating hard enough to spin the wheels.

  Nelson didn’t seem to notice her outburst or her driving. His eyes were glued to his wing mirror, and he didn’t speak until the farmhouse had disappeared from view.

  “She’s lying,” he said quietly.

  Eleanor braked, wondering whether she’d misheard him. “What?”

  He urged her forward. “Keep going until we’re out of sight.”

  She did as instructed, pulling into a nook before she reached the Snake and turning off the engine.

  “Nelson?”

  “Sanne’s been at the house,” he said. “The keys to her Landie were on the kitchen counter. She has a Maglite on her keyring. It’s chipped all over because she tosses her keys around. They were definitely hers, boss.”

  “But why?” Eleanor folded her arms, trying to make sense of what he was saying. “What reason would that woman have to lie?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe San hurt herself while she was here, and they’re trying to cover it up.” Agitation quickened Nelson’s speech. “We need to request the TAU for a search.”

  “Or Firearms,” Eleanor said. In her experience, farms meant shotguns, and the TAU weren’t an armed division. She reached for her radio. “Are you sure about this, Nelson?”

  He nodded. “Absolutely positive.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Sanne slowly rotated her shoulders, straightening and bending her legs at the same time to keep her circulation moving. If Dorina ever managed to free her, the last thing she wanted to do was fall on her arse. The men were packing up their cards, the grating of their chairs along the concrete jangling her nerves. One of the Pakistani girls buried her face in her blanket and began to sob, the other attempting to comfort her by increasing the fervour of her murmured prayers.

  “They give no help,” Dorina whispered. Her eyes were flickering from the girls to the men and back to Sanne. “They do nothing but Allah, Allah. Maybe they come with us, maybe not.”

  “They have to come,” Sanne said. The girls were barely in their teens, and she wasn’t leaving them for Sadek. “We all go.”

  Dorina shrugged. “You get them. I get Mirela.”

  The men approached the pen, cutting off the discussion, and Sanne hid her legs in the shadows as Dorina jerked her blanket away.

  “Eenie, meenie…” Miklos’s companion pointed to the women in turn, his finger coming to rest on Sanne. He started to laugh, and Miklos walloped him on the shoulder, their rapid-fire exchange incomprehensible.

  Desperate for translation, Sanne threw a wild look at Dorina, who pretended not to even know she was there. Sanne pushed back on the rotted hay, preparing to offer whatever resistance she could if the men tried to touch her, but they walked away instead, their conversation loud enough to cover the yelp that Sanne let out as Dorina wrenched her around.

  “You do not want to know,” Dorina muttered, before Sanne could ask what the men had said. Her fingers skimmed the wire binding Sanne’s wrists. “Fuck. This is very tight.”

  Sanne was painfully aware of that, but she managed to keep quiet as Dorina found the point where the wire was twisted into a knot and began to unravel it. A sudden gush of blood and a strange dragging sensation on Sanne’s arms told her that Dorina had succeeded, but Dorina had already moved away, stalking silently toward the door with the wire outstretched between her hands.

  “Shit. Wait!” Sanne hissed. She got to her knees, lost her balance, and tried again. Her hands wouldn’t grip anything, so she slammed her fists like claw hammers onto the top of the pen wall and used them to lever herself to her feet.

  The barn door banged shut behind Miklos’s companion, shifting the light and giving her a snapshot of Dorina a hair’s breadth from Miklos, her arms raised and parted. Sanne tore across the filthy concrete, aiming straight for Miklos and colliding with his torso as he grappled to get his fingers beneath the wire Dorina had wrapped around his throat. He lashed out, catching Dorina hard in the face and throwing her into the wall. Sanne evaded a second furious punch, kicking him in the groin because her hands were still useless. He wavered but stayed upright, and his backhand battered into her jaw. She didn’t see the ground until she hit it, the impact knocking the breath out of her and peppering her vision with sparks. She heard a crack and then another, and managed to drag herself up again as Miklos crashed onto the floor. A small form followed him down, child-sized hands gripping a dark object and smashing it into his head. Blood spurted as his skin ruptured, the rich metallic smell of it filling the air. He grunted, lying still beneath the impact of another blow, his breathing becoming erratic and laboured. An acid stink mixed with the tang of copper as he pissed himself.

  “Stop!” Sanne yelled. “You’ll kill him!” She grabbed the girl, lifting her easily and tearing her off Miklos. The girl kicked and wailed, the rock she’d used to attack him dropping from her hands. Dorina helped Sanne guide her to the floor, cooing at her and stroking her hair when the girl burst into tears.

  “He raped her yesterday,” Dorina said. She spat on Miklos’s face and then began to strip him.

  “Jesus,” Sanne whispered. She didn’t know whether he would live or die, but getting help for him wasn’t an option. She ran back to the pen, the girl right on her heels, and gently lifted Mirela to her feet. “Blankets,” she said, poking one with her toe in lieu of translation. “Come on, quick.”

  The girls gathered whatever they could carry, one of them stopping to collect bars of chocolate from the card table. Their mouths were stuffed within seconds. Mirela leaned heavily on Sanne, her eyes closing in gratitude when Dorina put Miklos’s coat around her.

  “Here.” Dorina threw a sweater and a long-sleeved T-shirt to the girls, and an apologetic look at Sanne. “No keys. Nothing else, unless you want?” She lifted her foot, the boot she’d stolen rattling loose around her ankle.

  “No, but thanks.” Sanne peeked through the door onto the pitch-black field. A Range Rover sat between the barn and a smaller building she assumed the men slept in. She couldn’t see Miklos’s companion anywhere. “Stay here and get them wrapped up as best you can,” she told Dorina.

  She sprinted to the car and ducked by the driver’s side to try the door handle. It clicked open, flooding the cab with light and forcing her to dive inside to hit the switch. Still sprawled across the leather seats, she searched for the keys, her efforts becoming more frantic as the usual hiding places came up empty.

  “Fuck!” She beat her fist on the dashboard, splattering it with blood, and crawled out of the car to see two sets of headlights creeping along the lane from the farm. “Oh shit.”

  Dorina had seen the lights as well. She met Sanne outside the barn, propping Mirela up with one arm and holding the two girls close with the other. She’d managed to rip holes in the blankets, and they were wearing them like ponchos. “Car no good?” she asked.

  “No.” Sanne widened the tear in the blanket Dorina offered her and shoved her head through it. She reckoned they had about five minutes, which wasn’t much of a start. She closed the barn door. “We go up. Hopefully they’ll think we went down.”

  No one argued with her. She took one of the girls by the hand and led the way across the field, keeping to the edge of the dry stone wall until she found a crumbled section low enough for them to climb over.

  “Go, go. That’s it.” She boosted the smaller of the girls, the other clambering whippet-fast and unaided. Mirela struggled, swaying on the far side and leaning low to vomit. She sagged against Dorina, who shook he
r head at Sanne.

  “No, we can’t stop. Move,” Sanne said. She threw Mirela’s arm over her shoulders, her ruthlessness shocking Dorina into taking the other arm. They staggered but then found a rhythm, supporting most of Mirela’s weight between them.

  The sound of car engines and slamming doors spurred them on toward the top of the field. Sanne climbed the boundary wall first, thankful to see rough moorland and the pronounced dip of Stryder Clough. She knocked out the wall’s loosest coping stone and half-dragged Mirela over the top, catching sight of torch lights bobbing by the barn and then dividing as the men began to search.

  “Head for that bump.” She pointed to the clough, trying to remember how far they were from the tor’s summit. Too far, she thought. They would be lucky to make the clough. She set off again, the rough ground sending spikes of pain through her feet.

  “Where…we…go?” Dorina asked between gasps. “A road?”

  “No, we’d never make it. We have to find somewhere to hide.” Sanne had a plan, she just hadn’t had a chance to share it.

  “Then what?”

  “Then I’m going to run.”

  *

  Standing at a safe distance with Nelson, Eleanor watched the firearms unit and the TAU split into teams and advance on the farmhouse. Their enforcer ram made quick work of the door, battering it into pieces that they threw into the yard. She counted time as the first officers disappeared into the kitchen, no more than three minutes elapsing before Mrs. Stanton was marched out, her hands cuffed behind her, her slippers falling off her feet.

  “Just clearing the rest, ma’am,” one of the men said. “No trace of your detective, and this one isn’t saying anything.”

  “Thank you.” The words stuck in Eleanor’s throat. “How many outbuildings?”

  “Five or six in the immediate area. We’re through the first two.” A yell from the kitchen made him look around. “Ma’am, they’re asking for you in there.”