Desolate Sands Crime Book 5 (Detective Alec Ramsay Crime Mystery Suspense Series)

by Conrad Jones

  “Please hurry up,” she screamed more urgently this time. “Please!”

  “I’m coming,” Francis mumbled. He looked at his mobile again, as if by some magic, it might have picked up a signal. No signal. He was reluctant to step further into the room. It was as if an invisible rope was clipped to his belt, stopping him from going any further. He swallowed hard, his throat dry and his senses ultra-aware. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled like tiny spines, each one sending its own message to his brain, run, run, run; their message as urgent as the girl’s yet far more malevolent. His feet felt encased in concrete; his brain numbed by fear. He was acutely aware that the woman was in danger yet he couldn’t do anything to help her. The same malignant evil that she felt threatened him too. It blocked the receptors in his limbs, forbidding him to move forward. Although he couldn’t understand the terror that gripped him, he couldn’t deny its existence. He took one last glance at his mobile. No signal.

  “Can you see the hatch?” She shouted. “Oh God, please hurry up. Please hurry!”

  Her voice was so desperate, so scared that he felt sickened by her fear. Despite his empathy, he couldn’t move. “I can’t see the hatch,” he lied. From the position of her voice, he guessed the hatch was beneath the armchair. It would explain its odd position in the room. “I’m going to phone the police but I’ll have to go outside. I won’t be a minute.”

  “No, no, no!” the voice screamed. It was bloodcurdling to hear. “Don’t leave me!” Her voice reached a new crescendo. Her words were thick with phlegm. “Please don’t leave me down here!”

  “Oh, Jesus,” he whispered to himself. Her screaming became an incoherent babble. “Pull yourself together, Francis.” He took a hesitant step into the room. Then another. Behind the door was an open fireplace with a slate mantelpiece. The grate was empty; the tiles covered in soot. It hadn’t warmed this place for many years. Francis doubted that even if the fire did roar again, the heat would be sucked out of the building, along with the light and the oxygen and the hope. That’s what was missing from this place, light and hope; replaced by fear and malevolence.

  “Please help me!”

  He stepped in further. Six inches, no more and looked around again. A second armchair sat adjacent to the fireplace and a threadbare rug covered the hearth.

  “Oh, God help me, please help me,” her desperation increased. He could feel it in her voice; sense it in the air. The very atmosphere was tainted with desolation. His chest felt tight and he struggled to get oxygen into his lungs. The room was empty except for the three-piece suite.

  “Don’t leave me down here, please!”

  He took a deep breath and walked across the room, each step almost painful. It felt as if the floor would open up and swallow him, or a giant mantrap would snap shut and sever his foot at the ankle. Fear gripped him like a giant icy hand. The anticipation of something dreadful about to happen was suffocating. “I’m coming,” he rasped, his voice restricted. “I’m coming,” he tried harder. “Hang on!”

  “Please hurry!”

  He reached the armchair and dragged it away from the wall. The castors beneath squeaked against the bare floorboards, scoring the wood as he pulled.

  “I can hear you,” she shouted. “I’m down here right underneath you!”

  Sure enough, there was a hatch cut into the floorboards. Francis ran his fingers around the edge. Cool air from the cellar touched his skin. He pulled his hand back as if shocked by electricity or white hot metal. The evil beneath was tangible. He could almost taste the decay, smell the decomposition and hear the voices of the dead. He felt their anguish and hopelessness, yet his limbs failed him. He couldn’t run from the despondency no matter how powerful the desire to leave.

  “Let me out,” her voice rocked him back to reality. “For God’s sake get me out of here, please!”

  “I’m trying,” Francis lied again. “Stay calm!” He studied the hatch and his heart quickened. A heavy bolt fastened it and a thick padlock held the bolt locked. There was no way to move it without the key to the padlock. “Shit, shit, shit,” he shouted. He wiped perspiration from his brow.

  “What are you waiting for? Hurry up, please!”

  “I can’t.”

  “What do you mean? Help me!”

  “I can’t,” he shouted louder.

  “Please get me out,” her voice was laced with panic. “He has scalpels down here. He’s going to hurt me, please!”

  “Jesus!” Who has scalpels in the cellar? His mind raced. Who has scalpels anywhere, for God’s sake?

  “Get me out. Why can’t you just get me out?”

  “It’s locked,” he shouted. “I’ll have to go and call the police!”

  “No, please don’t leave me!”

  “I’ll be two minutes,” he felt sickened leaving her there. He could feel her fear through the floor. “I promise that I won’t be long.”

  “No!”

  “I’ll find a signal outside and call the police,” he shouted. “Hang on there.”

  “Oh, God please don’t leave me here,” she wailed. The sound was heartbreaking. “Please don’t let him hurt me, please!”

  “I’ll be quick,” he shouted. “I’ll call them and come back until they arrive.”

  “Promise me!”

  “I promise.”

  Francis turned away from the hatch. As he did, fifty thousand volts entered his body via the skin on his neck. His teeth felt as if they were on fire, as electricity arced between them like tiny bolts of lightning. He saw evil bulging eyes staring at him. Despite the malice in them, they seemed to be smiling. The smell of his flesh cooking was the last thing his senses registered before they shut down completely.

  Chapter 17

  Richard Tibbs knew that he was being followed. He had served long enough in the military to spot surveillance from a mile away. It was decades since his service days but some things never fade. His body was weakened by age and rotted by alcohol, but he could function when he needed to. Adrenalin flooded into his veins. It made him feel alert and alive. He switched lanes and the tail followed suit. They cut up the vehicle behind them and Tibbs heard the horn blaring loudly three times. Headlights flashed and the driver shook a fist. As the tail closed the gap, Tibbs switched lanes again and took a left turn into a cul-de-sac. He pulled up onto the kerb and waited for the vehicle to follow. The rear view mirror remained empty. He thought that he might be being paranoid.

  He waited another minute and then put the Volvo in first gear, ambling to the end of the close before turning around and heading back towards the main carriageway. The Jeep was stationary in a bus stop, waiting for him to emerge; so much for paranoia. Tibbs wasn’t sure if they were being purposely obvious or if they were just stupid. He turned left onto the main road and pulled into the traffic. At the next set of lights, he made a u-turn on the dual carriageway, cut across two lanes of rush hour traffic and pulled into the drive-thru lane of McDonald’s. The Cherokee Jeep made the same manoeuvre and pulled into a parking bay near the exit. The driver left the engine running and pretended to read a newspaper. His passenger was making a call on his mobile. This convinced Tibbs that his hunch was a fact. They were tailing him and there was no doubt about it.

  He moved forward one car length and waited for his turn at the speaker box. There were several scenarios to consider. Number one was the police may be following him because a sex offence had been committed locally and he was a suspect because he was on the register. It was plausible but unlikely. If he was a suspect, then they would have stopped him and questioned him without wasting time to see where he was going.

  “Welcome to McDonald’s Hunts Cross,” a metallic voice greeted him. “May I take your order please?”

  “I’ll have a coffee please.” Tibbs glanced at the Jeep. The driver stared over the top of the newspaper watching him intently. Both men in the vehicle were suited but they weren’t the police. The worst detectives on the force would do a better job of follo
wing him without being spotted. They were amateurs.

  “What type?”

  “What,” Tibbs asked confused.

  “What type of coffee?”

  “What do you have?”

  “Americano, expresso, latte, mocha and cappuccino.”

  “Oh,” Tibbs realised his mistake. “Latte please.”

  “Large?”

  “What?”

  “Is that a large Latte?”

  “Yes, yes, whatever.”

  “Would you like any food with that, apple pie or chocolate do-nut?”

  “Oh for God’s sake!” Tibbs snapped. “Just the coffee!”

  “Thank you for using the drive-thru, please pay at the first window.”

  Tibbs pushed the Volvo into first gear and trundled to the first window where a pretty teenager greeted him with a sour expression. She had headphones on and was obviously taking the next order from a customer with better manners than he had displayed. She slapped his change into his palm without offering any further directions to the next window. He hardly noticed her offence, he focused on the men in the Cherokee and tried to fathom who they were. Another possibility was that they were reporters from the local press. They could have been tipped off by someone at the police station that he was a witness in the Crosby Beach murders. After all, it was his evidence that had prompted the police to search the area. The discovery of dead women was all over the news. Unfortunately, the lack of details, victims’ names and grieving relatives had left a news black-hole. There was a total void of information, which forced reporters to speculate and interview anyone remotely connected to the area. When situations like this arose, reporters often paid well for the names of anyone linked to the investigation. It wasn’t a huge leap of belief that a junior officer had tipped off the press with his name. It was possible but again unlikely. Reporters rarely travelled in twos and the men looked more like enforcers than paparazzi.

  “One large Latte,” another voice chirped as a purple cup was shoved towards his face. “Any sugar?”

  “Do you get paid more for every question you ask?” Tibbs snapped. His pulse quickened as he thought about the final scenario. He pulled away slowly and slipped the coffee into a holder on the dashboard.

  “Arsehole,” he heard the presenter mumble. On another occasion he would have been offended. This time around, he didn’t have time to be offended. His initial concern when he went to the police with his information had been identifying one of the men as being a relation to John Ryder. He had mulled it over a thousand times. His apprehension had been derived from his experience throughout life. If you expect the worse possible outcome to happen, then double its impact and you won’t be disappointed when you’re up to your neck in shit.

  The men in the Jeep were gangsters connected to John Ryder. They had to be. Tibbs had no choice. Now he was convinced that they were enforcers and that they were following him, he had no options. During his tour of Iraq, he had been followed many times. He had been trained to identify a tail and then to respond aggressively. A tail would wait until the target reached an unpopulated area and then strike. He couldn’t allow that to happen. He was unarmed and he couldn’t fight the men. If he went home, they would follow him. If he tried to outrun them, they would catch him. His experience and training kicked in and he did the only thing that he could do. One thing was certain, they wouldn’t expect it.

  Tibbs revved the engine and steered the Volvo at the Jeep. The tyres squealed as the vehicle hurtled towards his target. He noted the expression of surprised panic on the faces of the men in the Cherokee and it made him smile. A moment before impact, he took his hands from the wheel so that his arms wouldn’t break; he closed his eyes and waited for the brutal collision to come.

  Chapter 18

  Francis Grant woke up with a start. Cold water filled his mouth and nostrils. He choked and tried to wipe his face but his arms were fixed behind his back. The shock of the cold water took his breath away. He tried to kick out and stand up but his ankles were bound too. At first he was confused. What had happened? His mind blocked the memories as long as it could to protect him but as his senses returned, the images came back like an icicle slicing through his brain. Cold stabbing fear penetrated his consciousness.

  “Wake up!” A hard slap accompanied the demand. “Wake up!” Louder this time. Francis opened his eyes and recoiled when he saw the face before him. The man had prominent staring eyes, which were odd. Francis remembered his Auntie Jo, who had Graves disease. Her eyes bulged like his. It was a problem created by a diseased thyroid gland, or at least that’s what he thought his mother had told him. He loved Auntie Jo but her eyes forced him to stare at her, which provoked several sly digs to the back of his head from his mother. It seemed so long ago. He was sitting awkwardly in the armchair near the fireplace. The smell of cinders lingered.

  “What’s your name?” Another hard slap. The stinging pain mingled with a burning sensation beneath his chin where the Taser hit him.

  “Francis.” Francis tasted blood in his mouth. The inside of his cheek had split against a tooth. He wanted to spit but he daren’t. “Francis Grant.”

  “What are you doing here, Francis Grant?” The unblinking eyes seemed to look inside his head for the answer. Lying seemed pointless as he had done nothing wrong; nothing, except discovering that a woman was being held captive in the cellar.

  “Burnells sent me,” Francis stuttered. “They sent you four letters to arrange access but they didn’t receive any reply. They sent me here to gain access.”

  “Burnells?”

  “The letting agency,” Francis nodded. “The owners want to sell the property but we couldn’t get hold of you. They sent me to measure up.”

  “What did the girl say to you?” The man’s voice was calm but laced with suspicion.

  “Nothing,” Francis mumbled. It had gone quiet in the cellar. He wondered what had happened to her. Had he slit her throat or gagged her, or knocked her out with the stun gun? The poor woman had been terrified and he had done nothing but dither and pee his pants. He hadn’t peed his pants but he may as well have. It would have been more useful if he had run out of the house. At least he could have phoned the police and he wouldn’t be trussed up like a prized pig.

  “Nothing?” A thin smile crossed his lips. “You expect me to believe that she said nothing to you?” He forced his thumb into Francis’s right nostril and drilled it upwards deep and hard. The nail scratched the fragile tissue of the sinuses as the digit threatened to penetrate inside his skull. “Nothing?” He forced it harder.

  “Stop, stop!” Francis babbled. The man withdrew the offending thumb and smiled. “Please don’t hurt me.” His eyes watered with the pain.

  “Do you know how far I’ve got my thumb before?” He pointed to the second knuckle of his thumb. “All the way. You can feel the back of the eye if you twist your hand around.”

  “She was screaming for help,” Francis gasped. “She asked for help and said that she was in the cellar, that’s it.”

  “Shame.”

  “What do you mean?

  “It’s a shame.”

  “What is?”

  “That you let yourself in.”

  “I knocked. Honestly.” It seemed important to make that point no matter how irrelevant it was.

  “Flat tyre.” The man shook his head. He appeared to be talking to himself. “A flat tyre delayed me by half an hour. The drugs wear off, the girl wakes up and you walk in. Shame.”

  “I haven’t seen anything,” his voice trembled. Francis didn’t like where this was going. “I’ll walk away and say that I couldn’t get in. I promise that I won’t say a word.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “You could walk away and never tell a soul that you heard a young woman screaming for her life in the cellar of house that you service?” His voice was rich with sarcasm and disbelief. “I wish I could believe you.”

  “You can,” Francis trie
d to sound convincing. He knew how futile it was. Who could walk away and never say anything? He had to offer a believable option. His mind worked faster than it ever had before. “Look, you get the woman out of here and leave me tied up.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because it would take me hours to break free or attract attention,” Francis tried his best to sell the idea. “The office won’t look for me until after seven at best. To be honest, they’re so clueless it could be tomorrow before they realise that I’m missing. You would have plenty of time to get away and hide her.”

  “You’re clever, Francis but you’re missing a very important point,” the man smiled. It was serpent like. “Only you know that you have been here.”

  “No, no, you’re forgetting my office,” Francis stuttered. “They’ll report me missing.”

  “Will they?” he stopped to think. “You said that they were clueless.”

  “They sent me here.”

  “Maybe they did but did you actually arrive?” he smiled again. “No one knows except me, you and the girl. She won’t say anything and I won’t so that just leaves you.”