Crunch Time

by Nick Oldham

  ‘Just have a look at this.’

  Ingram indicated for Mitch to move. He bent down with difficulty, his fat legs not built for squatting. He produced a key with which he unfastened the padlock, then heaved up the metal cover, which creaked on its rusting hinges, then let it drop away, revealing the inspection pit. It was about five feet deep, three feet across, eight feet long and lined with concrete.

  As the light from the barn illuminated it, Henry immediately saw the girl. Maybe ten, maybe twelve years old, sitting huddled in one corner of the pit, knees drawn up to her chin. Her hands were bound with parcel tape that also gagged her mouth. Frightened eyes peered up at the three men towering over her and she sank further back into the corner of the pit. A muffled sound of fear was trapped in her throat.

  Henry stepped back, shocked. ‘What the hell is this?’ he spluttered, but his voice was cut short as Mitch’s left arms wrapped around his neck and tightened with a powerful jerk, choking him. Mitch yanked Henry backwards, taking him off balance, and thrust a gun into his face.

  Ingram stepped in front of Henry.

  ‘You’ve become a problem,’ Ingram said. With that he punched Henry in the stomach. Hard. Driving the air out of him. He could not double over, as Mitch was holding him tight with his arm, arching him backwards. The gun remained skewered into his cheek, the muzzle cold. ‘Down,’ Ingram said to Mitch, who lowered Henry on to his knees right at the edge of the inspection pit. When Henry was in position, Mitch growled, ‘Do not move,’ then released his grip, stepped away. His hand went into Henry’s jacket pocket and found his mobile phone. He took it out and threw it on the floor, crushing it with his heel.

  Henry groaned and held his guts.

  Then the muzzle of the gun was rammed into the back of his neck at the point where his head balanced on the backbone. Ingram grabbed his arms and tied them behind his back using the same parcel tape the girl had been trussed up with.

  It happened quickly, expertly, frighteningly, and within moments Henry was kneeling on the edge of the pit, hands bound, a gun pressed into his neck, looking down into the blackness at a kidnapped girl.

  ‘What the fuck …?’ he tried to say. Mitch silenced him by slamming the butt of the gun across his head, knocking him on to his left side.

  The gun was forced into his face again.

  Mitch’s face was close to his ear.

  ‘First thing I noticed was a change of mobiles,’ Mitch hissed. ‘One day I checked one; the next day it was a different one; then it was back to the original.’

  ‘But people often have several mobiles,’ Ingram said. He was standing somewhere behind Henry, out of his peripheral vision. ‘But today I found out for sure.’

  ‘Found out what?’ Henry demanded. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘You really had us fooled, I’ll give you that,’ Ingram said with respect. ‘I should’ve realized when I got locked up for a warrant that didn’t exist and I got banged up with a drunk. Good set-up, really was, Frank.’

  ‘I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.’ There was no way under any circumstances Henry would admit to being a cop. Bitterly, he thought, Troy Costain, you are a dead man.

  ‘Frank Jagger, my arse,’ Ingram snorted. ‘Henry Christie, I think.’

  Mitch dragged Henry back up to his knees, stood behind him and screwed the muzzle of the gun into his neck again. It was the gun he’d used to kill the two drug dealers, the .22. He held it at such an angle that when he fired, the slug would travel up into Henry’s brain diagonally and exit at the point to where his thin hair had receded.

  Then there was a ripping sound – parcel tape being stripped from a roll – and Henry’s head was jerked back as Ingram wound the tape around Henry’s face, covering his mouth and nose.

  Mitch then kicked Henry in the back, sending him pitching headlong into the inspection pit with no way of cushioning his fall with his hands tied behind his back. His head hit the opposite wall of the pit with a hollow, sick thud, then crashed on to the pit floor with his shoulder, and then there was blackness.

  Fifteen

  He needed to vomit. There was something revoltingly horrible in his throat, lumpy, tasting of blood and alcohol and it had to be ejected otherwise he would choke to death. Only problem was that parcel tape was wrapped tightly around his face, covering his mouth, and there was nowhere for the sick to go, except into his mouth and back down his gullet until it choked him.

  His head hurt badly. He had landed hard. He recalled the crash, the sound of it, then the darkness and then waking up and knowing immediately he had to throw up and realizing he couldn’t.

  He lay there fighting it back, his insides making their own noises behind the tape as he gagged for breath and tried to swallow something that did not want to be swallowed, that shouldn’t be swallowed.

  And still he hadn’t opened his eyes.

  Then he did.

  And he was still in darkness.

  The memory flooded back. The situation he was in.

  He closed his eyes, fought back the nausea, the fear.

  Then another memory: the girl, bound and gagged in the pit.

  His eyes flicked open again and he took stock of where he was lying – on the inspection pit floor on his front, his arms taped behind his back, his legs twisted at some strange angle. The metal lid of the pit had been closed and no doubt locked, so the world, initially, was pitch black, no apparent chinks of light. But his eyes had not yet become accustomed to the darkness.

  He moved gingerly, still swallowing.

  His knee hurt. He’d banged it on the way down. Also his elbow and his chest. He had basically bellyflopped into the pit when Mitch had kicked him, but he didn’t think anything was broken.

  ‘Are you awake?’

  A voice. Tiny, unsure, hesitant, female – the girl. Hadn’t she been gagged?

  She was behind him, still tucked up in her corner.

  ‘Hello?’

  Henry swallowed his vomit. He groaned and moved, making a noise in his throat meant to be as close a proximation as possible to ‘hello’.

  ‘Oh, you’re alive!’

  He groaned a response, then shifted agonizingly on to his side. A sheet of excruciating pain whammed through his chest. Maybe he had broken something – ribs. When he moved it felt like they’d snapped and the ends were poking into his heart and lungs.

  He managed to twist his legs up so he was in a fetal position, then he was aware that the girl had moved and she was leaning over him. She breathed into his ear and he could smell her, a mix of light, girlish perfume and sweat.

  ‘I’m Gina,’ she whispered.

  Henry groaned again, swallowed urgently.

  ‘My hands are still tied behind my back,’ she said.

  ‘Un-huh,’ Henry strained to say.

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘Un-huh.’

  He could now feel his breathing start to quicken. He was suddenly hot and clammy and it was only a matter of time before he was unable to swallow back his vomit and then drown in it. Panic surged through him.

  The girl’s face was even nearer. Her hair fell on his face and he tensed. Next, her mouth was at his chin and he thought she was going to kiss him. He went totally rigid, not understanding what she was doing to him. Her mouth moved across to his ear, crawling across his face like an insect, then it opened and she bared her teeth.

  ‘It’s OK. I’m going to try and pull the tape off with my teeth.’

  ‘Un-huh.’ He relaxed.

  Her face came down again, lips searching for the edge of the tape. She found it, opened her mouth again and scraped her teeth down his face until she bit the top edge of the tape. She clamped her teeth along it, then lost it, found it again and tugged gently, easing it away from his skin as he lay there inert, feeling her do this thing for him. She, whoever she was, this Gina, already amazed him. She certainly had some resilience left in her.

  She nibbled away at the tape until she could get a pr
oper bite on it with her upper and lower teeth, then she pulled away and said, ‘This will hurt.’ She bent forward again, found the bit she had loosened, eased her teeth into position, gritted them. Henry heard them grate together, felt her steel herself, then pull hard, ripping the tape off with agonizing slowness, ripping up his skin and hair as she did.

  The tape came away, bit by bit until she had pulled it away from the front of his face, but because of her position and his, she could go no further, though Henry’s mouth was still covered.

  ‘I’ll need to climb over you,’ she said. She rolled over him, crushing his ribs, drawing a muted howl of pain from him, and she fell in front of him, now face to face. ‘Sorry about hurting you.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ he would have liked to say.

  She adjusted her position, using her elbows to steady herself, then got her teeth on the tape again and did not stand on ceremony. She ripped it off.

  Air rushed in.

  Henry gagged, managed to say, ‘Sorry,’ and was then sick, trying his best not to do it in her face, but he knew he had spewed on to her front and down himself. He heard her chirp with disgust.

  ‘Sorry, love, I was choking on it. You saved my life.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said, adding, ‘Yuck!’

  Henry spat out the remnants of the sick and tried to clear the taste of it away using saliva, but the petrol tang remained.

  He breathed out.

  ‘Christ,’ he said, and tried to roll himself up into a sitting position, something he achieved with much huffing and puffing and effort and much sweat. It was uncomfortable with his hands behind his back. His eyes had properly adjusted to the darkness now, his pupils expanding to take in all available light. He saw there were a few slivers of light grey where the metal door covering the pit did not fit flush with the floor of the garage. It was obvious that the lights in the garage had been switched off and what light there was out there must be coming through the windows.

  Henry was aware of the girl, could just make out her slim shape in one corner of the pit, cowering away from him, he guessed. Now and again, when her eyes moved, he caught a glint of white.

  ‘Thanks, Gina,’ Henry said.

  ‘That’s OK.’

  ‘When I saw you at first I thought you had tape around your face.’

  ‘I did, but I scraped it off against the wall of the pit. It’s quite rough concrete. I’ve scratched my face and I’m bleeding.’ She stifled a sob.

  ‘Wow, you’re very clever,’ Henry said.

  ‘Not clever enough,’ she said bleakly

  ‘I’m Frank Jagger, by the way.’

  ‘I thought that man called you Henry something?’

  ‘He was wrong.’

  ‘I’m Gina Weyers.’

  ‘I think we’re in a bit of a pickle, Gina.’

  The greyness filtering through the cracks became slightly brighter: dawn, although still a long way off, was approaching.

  Henry pushed himself to his feet, having to bow to stand upright, the back of his neck against the metal door of the pit. He pushed upwards, testing any give in the door. It moved slightly on its hinges, but would not open.

  ‘It’s well secure,’ he said, and slid back down on to his backside.

  ‘Are we going to die?’ Gina’s voice was thin, scared.

  ‘Good lord, no,’ he guffawed reassuringly, trying to keep hysteria out of his voice.

  ‘What do they want from me?’

  He had a good idea, but said, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What are they going to do with you?’

  ‘Don’t know that, either.’

  ‘Kill you?’

  ‘Let’s hope not.’

  ‘You seem to have upset them.’

  ‘So it would appear.’

  ‘I thought the fat man was going to blow your brains out.’

  ‘Thanks for that.’

  Gina began to sob softly.

  ‘Hey, come on. We’ll be OK.’

  ‘I’m scared.’

  ‘So am I, but that doesn’t mean we won’t get out of here … in fact, being scared is good. It makes you think and act quickly when necessary.’ Gina stayed silent, unconvinced. ‘How did you get here?’ Henry asked her.

  ‘The man, the thinner one … I was going to the shop for my mum and he stopped and asked for directions … he got out with a map and then grabbed me really quickly, punched me on the side of the head. I went all woozy and next thing I was in the back of a van, all tied up. It happened so quickly.’

  ‘You poor mite. Where was this?’

  ‘Poulton-le-Fylde.’

  ‘Really?’ Henry said, then thought, Could fit in with Ingram seeing that bastard Costain, the one who dropped me right in the shit. Henry stiffened. Now he had a very good reason to get out of this – to beat the living crap out of Troy Costain, then punch him some more. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘do you think there’s any chance of us getting back to back and getting our hands free? I’ll try and pull the tape from your wrists, OK?’

  ‘We can try.’

  They shuffled around until they were back to back and Henry fumbled for the girl’s wrists. ‘By the way, Gina,’ he said, ‘I think you’re very brave and handling this really well.’

  ‘Thanks, but I don’t feel brave. I want my mum.’ Once more she began to sob. ‘And anyway,’ she blubbered, ‘what’s the point of getting our hands free if they’ve got guns?’

  He pulled and tugged, tried to get his fingertips behind the tape as Gina used all the strength in her thin arms to stretch and weaken it. It came apart thread by thread until she could waggle her hands, then slowly eased one hand out.

  All the while they listened for the return of their captors.

  Once her hands were free, Gina spun around and got to work releasing Henry’s.

  ‘Good girl,’ he said as his right, then left wrist came free. ‘Well done.’

  ‘Now what?’ she said, kneeling up and tearing the last of the tape off her arms.

  Henry turned to face her, rubbing his wrists, ‘oohing’ with the pain from his chest. He could quite clearly see her face now. She was a bonny girl.

  ‘I’ve got something up my sleeve, so to speak.’ He didn’t say he had it down his pants for fear of scaring the life out of her.

  ‘Shit,’ he said under his breath, ‘no signal.’

  He was holding the phone he’d bought underhandedly in Stratford, the one he’d secreted down his pants, taped to the inside of his leg. He had switched it on, had jumped and cringed when the phone had sung its welcome jingle which sounded incredibly loud within the confines of the pit, then watched the screen as the battery indicator showed two bars of charge and zero signal. He tried phoning anyway. Nothing. He tried many times, moving into different positions, even holding the phone up to one of the gaps between the door and the floor. Nothing.

  ‘Send a text,’ Gina suggested. ‘On New Year’s Eve I remember trying to text my mate, but all the networks were busy and my phone said “text failed”, but she still got it.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ Henry said. He thumbed a message, giving his approximate location and added the words, ‘Urgent help reqd. Am with Gina Weyers’, hoping that meant something to Andrea Makin, if she got it. The message, according to the phone, went nowhere.

  ‘Send it a few times,’ Gina said.

  Henry sent it a few times more, conscious that the battery might run out of charge if he did too much.

  Then there was the sound of the garage door opening.

  Ingram and Mitch were back.

  The alcohol he had consumed was making him groggy. He was only glad he hadn’t drunk more. That would have completely wrecked his chances of being useful, even though as he sat on his backside in the incident room he felt about as useful as a fart in a spacesuit.

  He took a long drink from a glass of cold water, feeling its icy tentacles seep through his system.

  Andrea was on her mobile phone talking to some detective down in Stratford.<
br />
  Ending the call, she turned to Donaldson, a look of despair on her face. ‘Two men shot dead in a hotel room, not yet identified, as you know.’ She closed her fists in frustration. ‘All the hallmarks of a drugs deal gone wrong or a straightforward gangland execution.’

  ‘And the question is, where does Henry fit into all this?’

  ‘Who the fuck knows?’ She shook her head, pursed her lips tightly. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared or felt so utterly incapable in my life …’ A thought struck her. ‘Well, maybe that’s not entirely true, but I hate this inaction, this not knowing … hell! Where is he? Fuck him!’

  Dave Anger walked in, businesslike.

  ‘Update,’ he said briskly. ‘We’ve had a house-to-house going on out there despite the late hour and all we’ve managed to uncover so far is the sighting of a white van in the vicinity the girl was abducted. No registered number.’ He paused. ‘It’s a start.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Costain is out of surgery, but not out of danger. Critical and still unconscious. I’ve informed Mr Fanshaw-Bayley, the chief constable, of the situation, too.’

  Donaldson and Andrea eyed each other wordlessly.

  ‘We’re doing all we can,’ Anger said. ‘Henry might not be on my Christmas card list, but …’ Donaldson’s mobile phone rang, interrupting him. He answered without checking the caller, just pressed a random button.

  ‘Karl, it’s Kate.’

  ‘Hiya darlin’, we haven’t—’

  ‘Karl, there’s someone outside the house,’ came her whispering, petrified voice. ‘I think they’re trying to get in, or something.’

  Henry blinked as the pit door was lifted and light flooded in. The two menacing, backlit figures of Ingram and Mitch leered over the edge. Henry and Gina were huddled together in a corner, his right arm around her shoulders. She was tucked into him and he could feel her quaking.

  ‘Don’t be scared,’ he whispered.

  ‘Can’t help it.’