Harry had no idea what a zip file was. He was aware that Maddie had stopped talking and was staring silently over at him. Vince and Shaun were doing the same.
‘I can do it, though,’ Maddie said. ‘Then what?’
Harry turned back to the gathering clouds. ‘Then we wait.’
Chapter 27
When she awoke, she gasped for air. Her first instinct was to move, to lash out, to try and make sense of where she was. But she couldn’t move! Not anything it seemed. She let out panicked squeaks and expulsions of air. She scrunched her eyes shut. They were working at least. Her head moved too, she could move it from side to side and her eyes could scour her surroundings, not that there was much to see. She was lying down, she was sure of that. Something lay over her. It rested against her face and sucked against her lips to make breathing difficult. She had to keep her face to one side. It was cold and the plastic had a strong odour. She tried to lift her arms but nothing happened. She rolled her head to try and see them but she couldn’t see much under the cover. She focussed on her breathing, trying not to let her panic get the better of her.
‘So, I can’t see anything much, can I?’ She always talked to herself when she was nervous. It helped. Sometimes she could talk herself into a solution.
‘So, what else is there? What can I hear that tells me where I am?’ Her voice was high-pitched. In another context it might be mistaken for an excited voice, but it was the tension; it was squeezing her throat so that speaking was a strain. She had to force her swallows too.
‘Well, there’s wind in some trees I reckon.’ The swallowing seemed to unleash a metallic taste in her mouth. She tried to cough it away and it boomed loud in her head.
‘Something squeaking, I can definitely hear that.’ The sound seemed to be behind her, and was like a child’s swing moving in a breeze.
‘So what else do I know? I can feel the cold.’ It was through the back of her head especially. ‘And something stiff against my neck.’ It was tight and coarse. Like a thick rope.
‘That’s about it. Hang on, I can see . . . a light . . .’ She took a moment while her eyes became a little more accustomed. The thing lying over her was a little clearer. It was some sort of plastic sheet. It was dark blue mostly, but there was a bright blue spot just above her head. She had to strain her eyes to see it. It was a light source, bright and localised, like the end of a torch held close to her.
‘Is there someone there?’ she called out. Her voice was still high-pitched. She was trying to sound calm, almost jovial, but her voice broke at the end.
Suddenly there was movement. The tarpaulin ripped back and she had to slam her eyes shut. The white light was suddenly overpowering and hot, too; it was a low sun. She twisted her head away from it. What she thought was a squeaking swing changed to a deeper sound. Now it sounded like a big spring. She felt her whole body dip, then a swaying movement as if she was lying on a water bed. She could also hear the movement of feet to both sides of her, and each footfall sounded like it struck something metal. Suddenly the sun’s heat was doused and she dared open her eyes. She still needed to squint, but could focus enough to see that she was laid out on the floor of a lorry, the sides of which were barely knee-height. Above them she could see leafy trees and white clouds. There were noises close by. Someone was moving. The movement seemed to be timed with the re-emergence of the bright sun. She twisted her head to try and look up but it was too strong and she had to scrunch her eyes tightly again. Then there was a sound like the clicking of a camera shutter. There was a tutting and then a grunt — a man’s grunt she thought. The shutter clicked again, then came another grunt, but higher pitched this time: someone trying to contain a squeal of excitement.
The intensity in the light was gone again and she opened her eyes. The dark figure of a man loomed above her, a block of black with a vivid outline of sunlight. He was bent over and he was holding something small in a bandaged hand; all his attention was on it. Then she heard a sound like a single low note blown from some kind of flute.
‘Before!’ the man exclaimed, then gave another excited squeal. He moved aside, the bright sun blinded her again and she rolled her head away. Presently, she felt herself bobbing gently again and the squeaking noise returned. The plastic sheet fell back over her face and she was grabbed and rolled onto one side. Now she could see the loop of rope tight across her chest and under her arms. When she was rolled back, the plastic was tighter, tight enough to be firmer against her nose and lips. Her breaths became panicked again. She couldn’t speak out loud to calm herself, not now. Her throat was all but closed up and the plastic sheet felt like it was pushing into her mouth with every breath.
Chapter 28
Maddie cast a look over her shoulder as she hurried away from the police station, almost breaking into a jog. She’d been assailed by what was almost a full-blown panic attack, though she was pretty certain no one had noticed. Harry had been on his phone when she’d realised that she had to get out. She’d experienced such attacks before. Early on in her undercover career they were almost a common occurrence and they typically accompanied first times: the first time she walked into a room of career criminals and was required to blend in; the first time she spoke to the head of an organised crime group, the sort of person who would kill her in an instant if he knew what she was; the first time she was accused of being a grass.
Each time, Maddie had remembered her training. She’d been taught grounding techniques, ways of occupying the mind with simple tasks to divert the panic from taking it over completely. She had been using those simple disciplines to keep a lid on things, but then Vince had asked her what time they were out running that morning. Maddie had checked the clock as part of her answer that she had last seen her at around 6 a.m. Then it struck her: Rhiannon had been missing around twelve hours. And she’d tried to think of how many cases where a young woman had been abducted and been missing for twelve hours or more and had been found alive. She couldn’t think of any. Not one. The anxiety that had been rising like floodwater finally burst its banks and she had almost collapsed there and then. She just about managed to excuse herself before making for the exit. She needed some air.
Friday evening always seemed to be the busiest rush hour. A thick blur of traffic crawled past the front of the nick, although every daylight hour seemed like rush hour in this town. She turned right out of the building and kept walking until she was concealed behind a high wall. Only then did she feel safe enough to root around her bag for her cigarettes.
It was ridiculous — she knew that. She was a grown woman. She could smoke if she wanted to and it was very rare. The packet she kept in her bag was mainly for other people; a cigarette introduced at the right time when talking to a victim or a witness could make all the difference. Three months before, she had bought a packet of twenty and she still had a few left. She only ever wanted a smoke herself when her stress levels were at their highest and there was no other way to get them down.
She’d had to get away from that room, just for a few minutes. The atmosphere was stifling, the tension tangible. Police investigations were always feast or famine — major ones at any rate. Whenever something big happened there was a rush of activity, a million things to do, information coming in from everywhere and a need to work out a response. Then there was the lull. Often it was welcome, it was a time to reflect on everything you had, to start again, to get a sense of direction and to prioritise. But when it was something like this, something as important as the life or death of a colleague, there was no sitting down and calmly prioritising, no stepping back from the investigation to see where you were; there was only the nagging anxiety that you should be doing something, you should be out there doing something. She just didn’t know what. Maddie was too terrified to even think straight. She was terrified that Rhiannon was already dead. She was terrified that they might not ever find whoever took her. And she was terrified that it was all her fault.
She sucked hard on her cigare
tte. Too hard, the rush of coarse chemicals forced a cough and then her head swam. The cough bent her forward and she thumped her own chest with the back of her fist, cursing between each one.
‘Well, that sort of language don’t suit you!’ Vince stepped around the wall and Maddie looked up at him. Her eyes streamed where she had been choking and she started coughing again.
‘You smoke, Maddie Ives?’
‘Not very well it would seem.’
‘I had no idea.’
‘Only when I’m very stressed. I know its counterproductive before you start the lect—’
Vince held up his hands. ‘We all need a release. This job will get you to that point often enough. You have to find your way.’
Maddie’s gaze lingered on him long enough to prompt a reaction.
‘What?’
‘I was waiting for the punchline, Vince.’
He leant against the wall, hands behind his back, one foot lifted to rest on the rough stone. ‘I ain’t got a punchline today, Mads, I get the impression you ain’t looking for one neither. Your mate . . . she’s gonna be alright.’
‘I hope so.’ Maddie took another drag, making sure she was slower this time. ‘She’s missing, that’s bad enough, but I can’t shake off that it’s my fault.’
‘Your fault? Who told you that?’
‘Harry.’
‘Harry said that?’
‘He did. It was just a reaction, I don’t even think he meant to say it, but he was right. I got sloppy. I’ve got comfortable down here. Just because I’m not under the noses of dangerous people every day, doesn’t mean I’m not under the noses of dangerous people every day.’
Vince frowned, plainly confused.
‘It doesn’t matter, Vince. I underestimated this town . . . this county. It won’t happen again. Not that that helps Rhiannon.’
‘You’ll find her. I know you will.’
‘Right now I’m leant on a wall smoking a cigarette. It’s not like I’m hot on the trail, is it? I keep thinking that that she won’t last the night, too. If she’s still alive now, she won’t see another day.’ She felt the panic rising again; the knot of anxiety was back, increasing with every word.
‘We just have to find her before tomorrow, then,’ Vince’s matter-of-fact tone made her flash angry. She turned away from him, gave herself a moment to calm back down. She knew he was trying to help. She was aware of a vibrating in her pocket and she lifted the phone out to read Ian Jackson on her phone.
‘My super,’ she explained to Vince. ‘Boss . . . tell me you have news.’
‘Good and bad.’ He sounded flat.
Maddie had been holding her breath and she let it out in a sigh, her body slumping forward with it. This was it, their last chance and already she could feel it slipping away. ‘Go on.’
‘Are you with Harry?’
‘No. I just stepped out for a moment.’
‘Okay. Well, sorry for the delay. Not everyone can do this, it seems. The NCA had to make a few calls to get the right person back in. But they’ve cleaned up your image. The registration is GN18 EKO.’
‘Hang on!’ Maddie dumped her bag on the floor to start a desperate search for a pen.
‘Don’t worry, I’ve sent it over as part of a summary on your email. It will be with you already.’ Maddie made eye contact with Vince as she moved towards the building, her pace just below a jog, the cigarette already discarded on the floor.
Ian Jackson was still talking. ‘I took the liberty of getting our intel team to have a look at it. PNC shows previous keeper details only and there’s no insurance.’
Maddie swore under her breath. She hesitated with the door pushed open and Vince bumped into the back of her. ‘So I guess that’s the bad news,’ she said. She could feel her chest tightening. This was a good lead, it might be their only one, and already there was a chance it was going cold. ‘When did it change hands?’
‘Only two months ago. So you’ll have a line of enquiry there.’ They would. There was a spark of hope, enough to get Maddie moving again. Change of vehicle ownership involving private purchase was a common hindrance for the police. When one member of the public purchased a car from another, the emphasis was on the new owner to register that ownership with the DVLA. There was little incentive for someone with criminal intent to register as the owner.
‘Okay, we’ll get right onto it,’ Maddie said.
‘We obviously can’t check your local system. Maybe that’ll have something on there about the ownership. And the previous keeper lives in a place called Sturry? We put it into our mapping system — a ten-minute drive from your police station, right?’
Maddie thumped through the last door that took her into Major Crime and the noise had caused Harry to stand up from his desk. Maddie made eye contact with him but she still spoke into her phone as he walked out onto the floor. ‘I’ll get my email up and see what’s on there. Finger’s crossed and thanks for your help.’
‘Maddie . . .’
She was just about to end the call and she held off. ‘Boss?’
‘Best of luck with finding your colleague. If it were me, if I was lost, I would hope it was you coming for me.’
Maddie bit down hard. She turned away from Harry and took a moment. ‘Thanks,’ she managed. The call ended.
‘Previous keeper details only on that reg. They cleaned it up. I’ve got a summary on my email. It’s Sturry. Only changed hands two months ago. I’ll get it up on my phone on the way — we need to go. Vince can flash us there.’
‘Too right!’ Vince said.
Harry was already pulling on his jacket.
Chapter 29
Sturry was on the other side of the city and the address was further off still as they found themselves in what was more like the Thannington area. It was one of Canterbury’s more deprived suburbs and the hope of knocking on the door of someone keen to assist police with their urgent enquiries dwindled as they pushed into an area of social housing. The target address came up on the right, one in a row of detached bungalows that seemed separate from the more modern-looking council stock on the opposite side. The house was set back off the road. Vince pulled straight onto the drive. The traffic was heavy and there was nowhere to pull it over.
Maddie was out of the car first. The light was fading quickly now, to the point where it took a moment for her eyes to adjust when the car’s interior light turned off. The drive was two strips of clumsy concrete cutting through a block of unruly grass. The front lawn to their right was also overgrown but for patches where the growth had been stunted by what looked like abandoned cars parked untidily over it. There were four vehicles visible in total: three on the lawn and one on the drive in front of them. It looked to be the only one in use.
The front door was on the left side of the building. An engine block sat in its own oil stain just beyond it, one end looked to be resting against a filthy garage door that flaked white paint from the edges. Maddie thumped the door before her two colleagues got to her. With the sun just about gone, it was down to the cloud cover to hold onto the warmth. It felt close, sticky almost. A wall light clicked on, she wasn’t sure if it had been turned on from inside the property or if it was a security light that was just slow to detect her movement. The door pulled open.
‘Yeah?’ A man in his late thirties pulled the door open a crack. His watery eyes flicked to her feet and crawled slowly back up her body. The end of his tongue appeared and wet his lips. He opened the door a little further to reveal ill-fitting tracksuit bottoms and a once-white T-shirt. As a whole, his appearance matched his garage door: greasy, flaky, and worn out. Maddie had her warrant card out and the man’s eyes moved from it to where Harry and Vince stepped in behind her. He pushed the door back to its original position, just a slit, just enough for a conversation.
‘We need your help, that’s all,’ Maddie said hurriedly.
‘I don’t help the police.’ The man’s nostrils flared, he was still looking out over the t
op of her.
‘A lorry you own . . . it’s being used regularly in crime. I think you might have sold it but I need to be sure of that. Otherwise you’re going to get a lot more visits from the police and you might end up getting yourself arrested.’ It was a half-truth.
‘I don’t own no lorry!’ he spluttered.
‘Did you sell one?’
‘I sold a lot of stuff.’
‘A lot of lorries?’
‘No actually, I don’t do many of them. It came up and it was a good earner.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘This takes three of you, does it?’ He looked back over the top of her.
She considered how it might look: a simple vehicle enquiry carried out by a DS, a DI and a uniform cop built like Vince. ‘No, actually. I don’t think it does. Gentlemen, I’ll have a quick chat with our friend here. I’ll meet you back at the car, okay?’ Harry frowned at her and neither of the men moved. ‘I’ll just be a minute.’ They both held their ground for another few seconds then looked at each other and turned slowly away.
‘We’ll be at the car, then,’ Vince said.
‘Yeah, you can move that off my drive too if you like. I don’t want to be getting no reputation round here. People don’t appreciate people what talk to you lot.’
‘I suggest you hurry up then, mate,’ Vince snapped back. ‘The car stays.’ The man sniffed and Maddie smiled at him.
‘It’s cold. Do you mind if I step in for just a moment? I guess the paperwork is in there anyway, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t do paperwork. Not really. You see, I’m a sold-as-seen kind of bloke. Someone buys something from me, it’s down to them to let you lot know or whatever.’
‘It is. So you’re in the motor trade?’
‘I spin a few cars, that’s all. I get doer-uppers generally. You can make a bit if you know a bit.’
‘But not many lorries?’
‘No. Mate of mine runs a crew of groundworkers and he changed his wheels. They offered him scrap value, really — there were a few issues. I took it on and it sold — just like that. But I ain’t giving you his name. He’s known to you lot. He wouldn’t like it.’
HE WILL FIND YOU an absolutely gripping crime thriller with a massive twist Page 28
