Missing

by Charlie Gallagher

  ‘Good advice indeed.’

  ‘He took her number and address and he said he would sort it out.’

  ‘And that was all you talked about? There was nothing else that might give us a clue on where he was planning on going next?’

  ‘Nothing else I can think of. Like I said, he wasn’t himself.’

  ‘Well then, thanks for your time. Do you mind if I take a contact number? I’ll let you know then when we’ve spoken to him.’

  ‘Yes, please do. I’m more than a little worried about him.’ Jess found a scrap of paper. She scrawled her number. George took it. He scribbled his own number underneath and tore it off for Jess. He walked towards the door. He suddenly snapped his fingers and turned on his heels.

  ‘Do you think it’s worth me taking those referral details for your friend? I’m a little worried that Shaun might not put that through any time soon. He clearly isn’t thinking straight. If he does then she gets referred twice — no harm done.’

  ‘Er . . . yeah, I suppose that makes sense. You just need her phone number?’

  ‘And Alice’s address. It would make sense for the officer to visit Alice first. They can sort a joint approach on the sister that way.’

  ‘Oh right. I’ll just bring her personnel file back up.’

  Jess took back her piece of paper to write Alice’s details. George scooped it back up. ‘Do you know the boyfriend’s details? In case he’s known to us?

  ‘It’s the sister’s boyfriend, so I don’t, really. I know his first name is Jake — that’s all I know. Alice seems to think he’s into something dodgy.’

  ‘Aren’t they all,’ George said. ‘Thanks for your help, I’ll be in touch,’

  ‘When you find Shaun, can you tell him to give me a call please. I’m worried about him.’

  ‘I will do. I’m sure there’s nothing to be worried about. Please be a little more aware yourself, though, Jess — just until we know what’s going on with Shaun. Try not to be the person who comes out and greets visitors. Common sense stuff, you know?’

  Jess crossed her arms. George could tell that she didn’t appreciate the advice. ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’

  George negotiated the busy traffic once again to get back into his car. He suckered his phone to the windscreen and immediately dialled Ryker. The car ticked over and the ringtone came through the speakers.

  ‘George.’

  ‘How you getting on, Ryker?’

  ‘I’ve found Carol’s address. I was going to take a ride out there, see what I can see. You know, basic detective stuff.’

  ‘Are you still in the office?’

  ‘Well, no. Actually, when I say I’m going to, I’m just about there.’

  ‘Can you run a couple of names and an address through for intel please. Urgent. I’ll need all systems checked.’

  ‘I can phone it through. What have you got?’

  ‘I missed Shaun at the port, but he came down here and spoke to his girlfriend. She said he was acting weird. He put it down to a traumatic weekend but he got some information about the intelligence officer down here.’

  ‘Okay. Who is that?’

  ‘Someone called Alice Young.’

  ‘Not someone I know. We don’t really have a good link with the ports, there are a few layers to go through, so the intel departments don’t really speak to each other direct. What does it all mean?’

  ‘She’s called in sick today. Some emergency at home involving her sister getting beaten up by her fella. Shaun recommended sending out a specially trained domestic officer who can act as the victim’s mate and help her out. He took her address for a referral.’

  ‘Is that what we’re doing now? What a service, eh?’

  ‘No, Ryker. We don’t do that — it’s a load of shit. He used it as a way of getting what he needed. It worked too, he left with an address for where this Alice is staying.’

  ‘Oh shit. I think I see what you’re getting at.’

  ‘Yeah, Shaun’s got another task. I think this intelligence officer is how he gets his family back.’

  ‘That isn’t good for her, is it?’

  ‘I can’t see how it could be, no.’

  ‘Send the address through.’

  ‘Do what you can and text me anything you get. It’s about fifteen minutes from here.’ The blue lights flickered through the grill again. George put his foot down.

  Chapter 24

  Shaun turned off the High Street in St Margaret’s Bay. The road narrowed and meandered through ancient looking cottages built in a higgledy-piggledy formation before roads and cars were a concern. A pleasant-looking tearoom drifted past on the left, the entrance to a primary school on the right. The road straightened out enough to see a small, whitewashed bungalow stood in the middle of a neat lawn. A Renault Clio was parked on the front drive. The front door was dead centre. It hung open.

  Shaun parked slightly past the entrance. He walked up the drive, stopping at the open door. He knocked anyway and stood his ground, peering into the house as best he could. The door swung fully open.

  ‘Hello!’ Shaun called out. ‘Alice, are you here?’ He stepped back. There were windows to the left and the right. He could see through the left window, it was a bedroom with a picture-perfect pillow arrangement covering the top half of the bed. The right window had pulled curtains, he couldn’t see in at all.

  ‘Alice!’ he called out again. ‘Everything okay?’

  Still no answer. He stepped over the threshold and the hallway opened up in front of him. It was simply decorated, a few pictures breaking up an otherwise plain white interior. He heard movement from within the house, a scuffle at the end of the hall. A woman stepped into view.

  ‘Can I help you?’ She didn’t come any closer, just stayed rigidly still at the end of the hall. It struck him as odd.

  ‘Sorry. I saw the door was open and no one answered. Are you Alice?’

  ‘Yes. But it’s a bad time.’ The light at the end of the hall was dim, but good enough for him to see her bite down on a bottom lip that quivered for just a second.

  ‘Oh. Well, I don’t mean to disturb you. Jess asked me to pop up and see you. I’m Shaun. She said you might want to talk to me?’

  ‘Oh okay. I will. It’s not a good time.’ She was still rigid, unmoving.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Shaun stepped forward a pace.

  ‘You can’t come in! I’m fine!’ she snapped.

  ‘Sorry. I don’t need to come in. It’s okay. I’ll stand on the doorstep if you want a quick chat?’

  ‘This isn’t a good time.’ Her eyes flicked left then immediately back to centre. Shaun was a little closer now, close enough to see that her eyes were a little puffy, her makeup not quite right, perhaps disturbed by tears.

  ‘No problem. Sorry to bother you.’ He stepped back to the door. ‘You can get my number from Jess if you need to call. I’m happy to pop up.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  He turned back to Alice for a last look. She remained staring down the hall at him. ‘Can you close that door on the way out, too, please? I must have left it open.’

  ‘Sure.’ Shaun pulled the door shut behind him. He walked down the drive and got to the road without looking back. He guessed he was being watched, someone making sure he left. Jake had been there — he had known from her very first reaction. He’d told her to get rid of him, he must have been stood just behind the wall. That gave him a real problem. The perpetrators of domestic violence were all obsessed with the same thing — control. There was no way he was going to let anyone leave with him. Certainly not with a police officer.

  Shaun’s car was to the right but he turned left at the end of the drive towards where he had seen the entrance to the school. He tried to walk casually, until he got around the corner a little way and then he broke into a jog as far as the school gates. They were closed but were easy to climb. From the top of the gate he could see the school fields behind the main building. They were positioned away to the left an
d he was pretty certain they would provide access to the rear of Alice’s property. Shaun jogged through the grounds to an old, waist-high stone wall that made up the perimeter and followed it along until the rear gardens of the houses came into view. The wall continued along the back of the gardens but a more modern fence had been built on top after the first garden, making it around eight feet tall. He would need to jump the wall into the first garden. He reckoned there were two more gardens before Alice’s.

  He took in the first house. The back lawn looked freshly mowed, a patio door was open at the rear with a net curtain billowing out through it. A tree was central to the garden and from the thickest branch hung an egg-shaped chair that spun in the breeze. An elderly lady occupant engrossed in a novel spun to face him. He ducked quickly behind the thick stone. He waited a few seconds and swore silently. When he peeked back over the wall the egg seat had swung so it was side on, just a pair of ankles were visible. He looked to the right. The dividing fence between the neighbours was low enough to take with a run-up if he got it spot on. He couldn’t see if there was anyone in the next garden. He would just have to hope he got lucky. The seat swung back around and Shaun ducked again. A few more seconds and his head lifted above the wall — the seat faced away. He scaled the wall easily and sprinted across the lawn, his footfalls almost silent on the grass. The chair started to move back around and he ran straight for the fence. Bringing his foot up to meet it at its middle, he grabbed the top with both hands and yanked his body over. He landed hard on the other side, his fall broken by a thick bush with branches that ripped at his shins and forearms. He gritted his teeth. It had been noisy, so he stayed still, listening for any reaction. There was none.

  The back of this house was shut up, the garden not in use. The fence on the other side of the lawn was the same height as the one he had just jumped. He moved to squat against the bungalow. He stayed low, moving as quickly as he could along the house, keeping under the windows. He reached the other end where there was a six-foot gap to the fence. The next house was surely Alice’s. He started another run-up.

  He dropped to the other side and flattened himself against the wall of the house. There was a window to his left, through which he might have been seen if he was unlucky. Nothing he could do about that. He leant round to take in the back. The patio doors were open, they opened outwards, secured by metal clips protruding from the wall. He could hear voices — including a male voice, raised and angry. Shaun moved quietly along the wall until he got to the door. He could make out words now, the voice was slurred.

  ‘You did, didn’t you? You talked to the devil!’

  Shaun couldn’t make out the reply, but it was Alice.

  ‘BullSHIT!’ The male voice again — then Alice, clearly in pain. Her voice dropped to a whimper.

  Suddenly the male was at the door, projecting the voice outwards. ‘We’ll see!’

  Shaun dodged back around the corner, just in time. He heard footfalls on the patio, a metallic sound as the doors were released from the wall and then slammed shut. Jake — if it was him — obviously didn’t want to disturb the neighbours.

  Shaun moved back along the wall until he could just see in at an angle. The reflection from the front of a microwave gave him a restricted view — but a view nonetheless. He saw the back of a man who was gesturing angrily, his right arm lifted. Then came the flash of a blade. Shaun made a decision. He yanked at the door.

  He had the element of surprise. The man had his back to him, a blade in his right hand and he started to turn. Shaun knew that the only way to deal with a knife was to get a hold of it. He grabbed the man by the right wrist with both hands, at the same time he kicked him as hard as he could in the legs. It was frenzied — five, ten kicks, some hitting their mark, some missing. He pulled the man towards him and threw his head forward in a head butt. The man grunted but kept pulling back. He swung Shaun around and his hip collided with a kitchen unit. He steadied himself and kicked out again, his foot meeting with the man’s knee. He felt it give, bending the wrong way.

  The man didn’t react. He still tried to yank his arm free, he growled like an animal and Shaun kicked him again. This time the blow was square to his shin. This gave too, the bone snapping and forcing the man to his knees. Still he didn’t cry out in pain; still he wrenched back. Shaun’s hands were slippery with sweat and he was starting to lose his grip. He kicked out again and again, his forearms bled freely as the blade slashed at his skin until finally he heard the clang of a metal knife hitting the tiled floor. In a sudden blur of movement, Alice kicked the knife away. Shaun let go of the man’s wrist and threw punches downwards until he was on the floor and stopped trying to get up. Breathless and exhausted Shaun quickly scanned the kitchen. A knife block with one missing sat to his right. He reached for the next biggest.

  ‘Move and it’s my turn with the knife,’ he managed between breaths. ‘You Jake?’

  The man smiled and nodded, his mouth leaked blood, his leg was at a sickening angle beneath him. ‘He did this. He did all this and he will do it to me too. We can’t stop him.’ Jake’s eyes then lit up then moved away from Shaun as if he was searching for something. Sean saw a puddle of congealed blood at the foot of a kitchen island. Jake pushed his hand through it and lifted it up towards Shaun. ‘This is what he deals in. This is what he sells.’ His eyes were wild, his face still lit up by a smile of childlike wonder. Shaun had seen it before from someone suffering chemically induced psychosis. He kicked out again, the blow pushed Jake’s head hard into the wall behind and he slumped to the floor.

  Shaun turned to Alice. ‘We need to get you out of here.’

  ‘You’re police, right? Jess’s bloke?’

  ‘Yeah. We need to get you away from here.’

  ‘I can’t leave them here. I can’t—’

  ‘Who?’

  Alice pointed. Two sets of legs stuck out of doorway. The kitchen floor was streaked red where they had been dragged.

  ‘Stay away from him,’ Shaun said, gesturing at Jake, who was murmuring softly on the floor and starting to come around.

  Shaun moved towards the utility room. ‘Fuck! Alice, there’s nothing we can do for them. We need to get out of here. Lock it up and call in the cavalry. Do you have keys?’

  ‘I can’t leave them here. This is all my fault.’ Alice’s eyes were glazed and downwards. Shaun took hold of her firmly by the shoulders.

  ‘This isn’t over, Alice. I’ve seen this before, he’s not responding to pain. If his leg wasn’t damaged he’d still be going. You’re not safe. We lock him in and drive up the road, then we can call the police. They’re dead, Alice, taking them with us doesn’t change that.’

  Alice wept behind her hand. ‘I’ll come back for you,’ she whispered, her eyes locked on the two bodies. Shaun took a quick glance over to where Jake was attempting to support his weight on his elbows before walking around him to lock the back door. He then led the way to the front door and Alice followed him out.

  * * *

  George ignored the flashing of the speed camera in his rear-view mirror. He had to brake hard for the right-hand turn that would take him off the Dover to Deal road and into the village of St Margaret’s. He picked up speed, the route into the village was twisty and the tyres squealed as they held onto the tarmac in the corners. His phone rang and the screen read as Ryker.

  ‘Ryker, what do you know?’ George killed the siren but kept the lights going. The car slowed a little.

  ‘Not much. There’s a package sat on my email from the MET about our Polish friend. I can’t open it out here on my phone, the file’s too big.’

  ‘Sounds ominous.’

  ‘Yeah. The address you gave me is no good neither. The last known occupant was a builder who had some tenuous links to drugs money. He was allegedly washing the money through his firm. That address apparently is one of the places he was doing up at the time. There’s no suggestion he actually lived there so he might have sold it straight off or he’s st
ill the landlord. His name is Frank Nicholl. Never been convicted of anything, there’s just that intel from eighteen months ago.’

  ‘What about Alice and her sister?’

  ‘No hits. I didn’t expect there would be. In relation to Alice, immigration have a similar vetting process to us — it’s all very strict. I can’t find a sister or a Jake linked to her either. From the other databases I can tell you that Alice is registered to vote at a previous address and the DVLA believe her to be driving a Renault Clio.’

  ‘Understood. I’ll have to see what I can find out when I get there.’

  ‘You will. Basic detective work I call it,’ Ryker chuckled.

  ‘You’ve taken that to heart, haven’t you?’

  ‘Not at all, George. I’m just happy you chose to let me in on the secret.’

  ‘Let me know when you get back to the office with regard to this MET intel, if there’s anything of interest there about our Polish friend.’

  ‘Will do. I’m still sat outside Shaun’s ex-wife’s house. This shouldn’t take long.’

  ‘Speak soon.’

  George came to a full stop at a junction then he took a right, followed by a sharp left at The Smugglers pub. He then had to take it slowly to manipulate the winding road through ancient looking cottages. Alice’s address had to be just around the corner. He killed the lights.

  * * *

  Nackington Road was on the outskirts of Canterbury. A good area. Big family homes within walking distance of the city centre. These would cost a pretty penny. The drive on Shaun Carter’s long-time family home was steep and it swung around a palm tree bedded into white stones. All very classy. It was a big place, detached with a double garage jutting out of its side. A brand-new Volkswagen Golf sat on the drive. Emily checked and the registration matched the car that was registered to Carol Carter. She stepped into an open porch and rang the bell.

  No sign of movement.

  She walked around the ground floor at the front as best she could. Every visible window had horizontal blinds, all were turned at the same slight angle. Enough to see into the house but only if you wanted to study the flooring. It was all very frustrating. She continued her walk. the Volkswagen was locked and there was nothing visible on the seats or in the boot. The garage was also locked. A gate connecting the garage to the house didn’t budge and Emily found herself back at the front door, again ringing the bell. She lifted the post box but could see nothing through the thick, black bristles.