by CJ Carver
He snorted. ‘You can’t believe she’s here or you’d have the entire force with you. What did they tell you they heard anyway?’
Howard checked his notebook. ‘A kind of whimpering. An animal, maybe.’
‘Could an animal have got trapped inside the container?’ asked Lucy.
‘Unlikely,’ said Duggan.
‘You didn’t open it to check inside? You do have the authority to do that, don’t you?’
‘Er . . . Well, yes. But what if it was something dangerous? Like a rabid dog or something?’
It took all of her self-control not to roll her eyes at him. For God’s sake. Security guards are such wimps.
‘And we didn’t want to damage anything,’ Duggan added with a self-righteous air. ‘We’re very conscious of our insurance obligations to our clients.’
Which meant she and Howard would be breaking open the container and covering the guards’ backs. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Show us.’
‘You must be kidding,’ said Duggan, blinking. ‘There’s no point. It’s a hoax, get it? A total waste of time.’
Cherry red splashed at the corners of her mind. ‘Just show us, would you?’
‘But there’s no –’
‘Show. Us.’
He stared. ‘Persistent little girlie, aren’t you?’
Lucy straightened her shoulders so that she was standing at her full five foot four. ‘If you don’t show us the container now, I will charge you with wilful obstruction of justice.’
‘Ooooooh,’ he flung up his hands in mock surrender. ‘I am scared.’
‘Right.’ She brought out her notebook. ‘Ralph Duggan, ZF Services, you have the right to remain silent –’
‘OK, OK!’ he exclaimed. ‘Jesus Christ, keep your hair on. I’ll show you, OK?!’
‘Thank you.’ She put her book away and gave him her most brilliant smile.
The security guard stared at her. She could see the word psycho forming in his mind. Her smile broadened. Duggan glanced at Howard, checking to see if he could garner some sympathy there, but Howard was gazing into the middle distance, seemingly oblivious.
Watching her warily, the security guards led them to the container in question. Sludge-green with dents and scars all over it. Rust streaked its sides. RFC was stamped in faded white letters on both doors. Lucy put her head against the metal and listened. Nothing.
‘Hello?’ Lucy knocked her fist against the metal. ‘Hello?’
Nothing responded. No clatter of paws on metal, no whimpering. She banged her fist harder. Still nothing. Perhaps the dog, or whatever it was, had died.
‘If anything’s in there, it’ll be rats,’ Howard said. ‘Got trapped by accident.’
She had to hope not. She hated rats. She tried to hide her shudder; she didn’t want Howard to think she was a wuss.
Lucy banged on the metal some more. She yelled, ‘Police!’ then, ‘here, doggy, doggy!’ but nothing responded.
‘Come on,’ she said, ‘let’s get it open.’
‘No way,’ Duggan protested.
‘Who’s got a crowbar?’ she said in reply.
Groaning and muttering about slave drivers, Duggan and Grant wandered off and eventually returned with a breaker bar, a steel chisel and a hammer, all of which were useless. The container had a system that secured both the left and right door while also incorporating a high security seal within its locking mechanism. To remove the steel locking bar they needed a power-cutting tool. Which, it transpired, Duggan and Grant didn’t have.
Howard took Lucy aside. He spoke in an undertone. ‘You really want to keep going with this?’
‘Yup.’
‘Look, I know you probably did things differently in the Met, but don’t you think you could cut us some slack from time to time? It’s different up here. We’re not quite as . . .’ He glanced up at the sky as he searched for the right word.
‘Professional?’ she said, and immediately cringed. When would she learn to bloody think before she spoke?
Howard raised his eyebrows. ‘You’re not likely to make many friends with that sort of attitude.’
‘I’m not here to make friends.’ She was brittle. ‘I’m here to do my job.’
‘Which didn’t stop you getting chucked out of the Met, if I heard right,’ he said.
Lucy wanted to tell him he hadn’t heard right, but she couldn’t because officially she’d resigned, but unofficially the Met had indeed chucked her out. Sent her up here to this godforsaken dump whose greatest claim to fame was inventing the matchstick. That said it all really. She held Howard’s eyes, hoping her humiliation wasn’t draped around her shoulders like some sort of shawl.
‘OK,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Let’s do it.’ He turned to the guards. ‘We’ll wait in the car until you’ve got the right equipment.’
Both Duggan and Grant groaned audibly.
‘No need to rush,’ Lucy said brightly. ‘We’ve got all day.’
The guards didn’t say any more, but trudged off to their van, climbed in and drove away.
As they walked to their car, Howard said, ‘Are you normally like this?’
Instantly she was on her guard. ‘Like what?’
‘Kind of . . .’ He appeared to be searching for the right word. ‘Lively.’
She’d been called overexcited, weird, manic, mad, bonkers and everything in between but never lively. Lively she could live with. She decided not to take the conversation further in case it made him ponder her behaviour any more.
In the patrol car, Lucy was glad Howard agreed to run the engine to power up the heating. It had started to sleet and it was now officially freezing because when it hit the ground, it didn’t melt. While they waited, Howard ate a jumbo Snickers bar. Lucy picked up her phone. Usually she’d text Nathan to give her a boost but she couldn’t. Not any more. Not since he’d betrayed her.
But I love you, he’d begged as she’d packed her car. I don’t understand. We’re getting on so well at the moment. Everything’s perfect. I was going to ask you to marry me!
Suddenly she felt as though she had a sock stuck in her throat and, to her horror, she felt tears begin to surface. Blinking rapidly, holding her breath, she forced them down. She didn’t want to cry. Nate had broken her trust and she was angry at him, furious. She didn’t want to waste her tears, but the fact was she missed him dreadfully.
She’d met Nate not long after she’d left school (at the pub, through friends). They’d gone on their first date two days later (to the movies, they were both addicted to action thrillers) and slept with each other the week before her eighteenth birthday (in her bedroom when her mother had gone out for the evening). They’d moved in together three years later (top floor flat of a Victorian terrace) and had started saving to buy a house. Nathan had been her only lover. Well, aside from one slip that she never, ever thought about . . .
Had Nate ever been unfaithful? He’d said not, but she wasn’t sure whether to believe him. Didn’t most men lie? Look at her father. When he’d left her mum he’d sworn there was no one else involved, and the next minute he was on a plane to Australia with a neighbour of theirs, a yoga teacher called Tina, who he’d been carrying on with for over a year. He never returned. It was as though he’d died. It had been awful but after a while the pain lessened and she learned to live without him. Her mum had done a fantastic job bringing her up, proving that you could do pretty well with only a mother.
She gazed glumly through the windscreen at the gravel slimed with pollution and moss, the weeds climbing the fence. A faint aroma of sewage seeped into the car from the works near Portrack Marsh. Perhaps it was a good thing she’d been sent to live somewhere she’d never been before, where there was nothing to remind her of Nate. No memories to distress her, or comfort her.
She put her phone away.
*
Duggan and Grant finally returned with an angle grinder, apparently borrowed from a pal. Maglite in hand, Lucy stood in the sleet while G
rant wrestled with the machine, grinding through the locking bar and leaving a fine pile of metal filings on the ground. Finally the bar was released, and Duggan pulled open the door, stepping back quickly in case a wild animal burst out. Lucy looked at Howard, who looked back placidly. ‘Ladies first,’ he said.
Lucy swung the door open. A mattress toppled out. She peered past it to see a motorbike, a freezer and several fridges. Second-hand white goods, she guessed, possibly destined for third world countries. The rainbow in her mind shimmered. This may not be a waste of time after all. If the items weren’t fully workable, were they being disposed of illegally?
Lucy had worked on a similar case – Operation Orchid – with the National Environmental Crime Unit last July. She’d stuck her neck out and persuaded her boss, Superintendent Magellan, to order the return from Mumbai of eighty-two shipping containers, supposedly filled with recyclable plastics. The Indian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Resources had told Lucy at least half of them carried a mix of household and clinical waste, including syringes and condoms. On their enforced return to the UK, three men were arrested in Crawley, starting the investigation of a huge crossover crime industry masquerading as a legitimate business. It had been a bit of a bugger when – during the celebrations at their local pub – she’d blown her potential promotion by telling Magellan that it was his fault they’d missed catching the Mr Big because he hadn’t acted on her request soon enough, giving Mr Big ample time to vanish.
Lucy cautiously opened the left door and stepped inside the container.
‘Here, ratty ratty ratty,’ she called.
‘Very funny,’ Howard remarked.
She squeezed past the mattress to see more fridges and maybe a dozen or so washing machines. Switching on her Maglite, Lucy continued to force her way through the container. TVs, a Coca-Cola vending machine. A crate of computers and another of keyboards. She was checking out a stack of microwaves when she thought she heard a noise, but it was so faint, she wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it. She cocked her head to try to catch it again but she couldn’t hear anything above Duggan and Grant’s conversation about Aston Villa’s chances against Arsenal at the weekend.
‘Quiet!’ she called.
Immediately the men fell silent.
She heard Howard make his way into the container behind her. ‘What is it?’ he whispered. She held up a hand and he paused, silent.
Then it came again. A faint thud, followed by a kind of whimpering bleat. Lucy crept forward, past a fridge and a chest freezer. The noise turned into mewling, like a wounded cat. Lucy knelt down, trying to pinpoint the noise. At the same time, she smelled something bad. Something really bad. Maybe the cat was nearly dead.
‘Hello?’ she said.
The noise turned into words.
Help help help.
They were coming from the chest freezer just behind her. All the hairs on Lucy’s body bolted upright.
‘Christ,’ she said. ‘Someone’s in here.’
Lucy glanced back at Howard to make sure he was ready, then she gripped the lid of the freezer and tried to raise it, but it was locked. There was no key.
‘Duggan, Grant!’ she yelled. ‘Chisel, hammer, now!’
Howard grabbed the tools from the guards. He set the chisel against the lock and cracked it open with a single strike. Lucy flung open the freezer lid.
The smell hit them like a physical blow. Trying not to retch, Lucy swung her torch beam inside.
A girl was lying on her side. She was naked. She wore a handcuff on her left wrist which didn’t appear to be secured to anything. A hood was tied over her head. Her legs had been broken. Each finger had also been broken, and all of her toes, which lay at odd angles and were bruised blue and purple and horribly swollen. Blood, shit, urine and vomit were everywhere.
Breathing shallowly, Lucy bent down. ‘I’m Lucy Davies. I’m a police officer. My partner, Howard Miller is calling for an ambulance now.’ She swung to Howard, gesticulating urgently. His eyes were wide with shock, his mouth open, but he rallied quickly, grabbing his radio and thumbing the transmit button. When he spoke, his voice was thick with horror but it soon firmed as he gave the dispatcher the details.
‘Help . . . help . . .’ the girl murmured.
‘You’re safe now,’ Lucy said. ‘Nobody can harm you. I will stay with you until the ambulance arrives. You’re safe,’ she repeated again, wanting to reassure the girl. ‘I’m Lucy, I’m a police officer . . .’
The girl’s arms were covered in bruises, as though she’d been beaten with a cricket bat. She’d been hit so hard on her right elbow that the bone had broken through the skin.
‘Help . . . help . . .’
Lucy bent into the freezer and said to the girl, ‘I’m going to take the hood off, OK? So that you can see me, see my uniform, and know you’re safe.’ Lucy picked at the knot but she was trembling so hard her fingers slipped. She had to force herself to step aside and take a couple of deep breaths to steady herself.
‘You OK?’ Howard asked.
‘Yup.’
She turned back, working as fast as she could, grateful she had strong fingernails and fingers small enough to slip through the loops and force the knot free. As gently as she could, she brought her hands beneath the girl’s head, talking all the time, telling the girl what she was doing, that the ambulance was on the way, that she was safe now, she was easing off the hood . . .
The girl’s eyes were open. They were a bright, vivid blue.
Her mouth was also open, her lips cut and swollen, clotted with blood.
She had no teeth. They’d been pulled out.
Lucy felt panic rising, forced it down. ‘Hi,’ she choked. ‘I’m Lucy. You’re safe now . . .’ She gulped back a sob.
The girl’s eyes were on hers, pleading. Lucy worked her mouth.
I must not show my horror. I must remain professional.
She said, ‘The ambulance is on its way.’ She glanced over her shoulder at Howard, who was staring at the girl, white-faced. ‘It’ll be here in . . . Howard,’ she snapped. ‘When?’
He jerked visibly. ‘Three minutes.’
‘Any time now,’ she told the girl, trying to keep the atmosphere from erupting into hysteria. ‘Before it gets here, I need to know your name. As I said, mine’s Lucy. What’s yours?’
‘Ell . . . ella . . .’
Although she’d already guessed, she still felt a rush of horror. The missing girl, Bella Frances.
‘You’re Bella Frances, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘Blink once if I’m right.’
The girl blinked once.
‘Bella,’ she said. ‘Oh Bella, Bella. Thank God we’ve found you.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
Lucy sat on a plastic chair in the hospital corridor. She didn’t think she’d ever felt so emotionally wrecked. She wasn’t sure whether it was the stress or if she was dehydrated, but her head was aching badly. She should have been at the station, being debriefed, writing up her report, but she’d ended up accompanying Bella to the hospital. The girl had panicked, almost hysterical when the paramedics had made to leave Lucy behind, so she’d joined them in the ambulance. She had kept her hand on Bella’s forehead, stroking back her hair and murmuring to her softly.
She’d stayed with the girl while she underwent X-ray and was prepped for the operating theatre. In short, she did everything Bella’s family would have, if they’d been there, but they’d been away on holiday and only arrived half an hour ago.
Now Lucy saw Dr Chris Cobern, Bella’s surgeon, approach. He looked as exhausted as she felt. He said, ‘She’s in the recovery ward. I had to pin both her legs, and her right elbow. She’s in plaster up to her hips. I couldn’t do anything about her broken ribs but I strapped her fingers and toes and they should heal OK. The dentist did some good work, readying her mouth for implants. She’ll be OK, Lucy. It’ll take time, but she’ll be OK.’
‘Thank God.’ A tr
emor of tension released itself in her shoulders.
‘I also found some tiny wounds on her neck and upper chest. It’s my guess they’re burns from a taser.’
Lucy’s fingers clenched. Some days she wished stun guns had never been invented, but at least they now knew how Bella had been overcome. Tasered and handcuffed, she wouldn’t have stood a chance.
‘Another thing,’ he went on. ‘A toxicology report came back saying she had traces of ketamine in her system.’
Ketamine was a powerful general anaesthetic that Lucy knew was used not just recreationally, but for operations on humans and animals.
‘There’s some bruising on her hip,’ he added. ‘I’d say it was injected several times, to keep her under.’
She gazed at a mark on the wall. ‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘No problem.’
‘Can I see her?’
‘I’d come in the morning. She won’t surface from the anaesthetic for a while yet. Besides, her family are with her now.’
Lucy headed for the station where she was debriefed, asked if she wanted a counsellor – no, thank you – and after she’d typed up her report she was ordered home even though it was barely three in the afternoon. The second she walked through her door she downed two painkillers with a glass of water. She’d never suffered headaches before but over the past couple of weeks she’d been dogged by them. She put it down to stress. Stress of being busted to this rat-hole. Stress of moving home, stress of splitting up with Nate. She wished he was here to give her a hug. She needed one after today. She couldn’t get rid of the vision of Bella’s broken body, the stench of blood and shit.
A fist of anguish gripped her heart and she had an overwhelming urge to cry. She felt so alone. She had to get out of here. Get back to London where her mum was, where her friends were. She stared out of the window, but she didn’t see anything. She was picturing Superintendent Magellan’s face when she walked back into his sector office. What had he said when he’d told her it would be in her best interests to resign?
It has been brought to my attention that you’re not the easiest person to work with.
