DCI James Hardy Series Boxset

by Jay Gill

  Sixty minutes later I was driving up the A31 dual carriageway towards the New Forest at over one hundred miles an hour. Emma had struck gold and found a resident whose surname was Allerton at a care home near there. While she ran a background check and tried to confirm it was Lyle’s mother, I decided to take a chance and head towards the home. If it was her, I didn’t want to waste a second.

  Ignoring the speed limit, I pressed down on the accelerator and leaned heavily on the car’s horn to get me through traffic as quickly as possible. I checked my phone repeatedly until Emma’s text message arrived with the address. I punched it into the satnav and pressed my foot down harder still on the accelerator.

  “I’m coming for you, Alice. I’m coming for you, sweetheart.”

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Alice felt Lyle’s cold hand on her neck. Lyle reached around her with a long, thin key and unlocked the door. She pushed it open to reveal a small bedroom. Alice stepped inside and looked around. The room felt cold and smelled damp.

  A large rectangle of chipboard covered the window. The only light came from a small lamp beside the bed. On the floor next to the lamp was a large bottle of water and next to that a bucket.

  She turned and looked at Lyle.

  “The bucket’s in case you need to pee or do a number two. Make yourself comfortable. I’ll bring you magazines and some books. And remember, don’t do anything stupid. This door will be locked. Knock on it if you need anything. Why don’t you try to get some sleep? You must be tired.”

  “It’s cold,” said Alice.

  Lyle ignored that. “I know you’re a clever girl, so I’m going to trust you. If you try to escape or become a nuisance, then I will make things very uncomfortable for you. For your own sake, I’d suggest you settle down, and this will be over soon.”

  Alice nodded. “Please, just take me home.”

  Lyle shut the door, and Alice listened as it was locked.

  She wiped away her tears and rubbed her runny nose on her sleeve. She lay back on the bed and pulled the blanket over her. Somehow, she managed to sleep.

  A noise woke her. At first, she was too scared to move. She heard the noise again. She walked across the room and listened at the door. It was the sound of Lyle talking on the phone. She was laughing and sounded happy.

  Alice stepped closer and pressed her ear to the door. The floor creaked. Lyle stopped talking.

  She heard Lyle’s footsteps approaching the door. She tiptoed back to the bed and pulled the blanket over her head. She closed her eyes and pretended to sleep.

  The key clunked and clicked in the lock and the door opened.

  Alice held her breath. Lyle’s footsteps crossed the room and came close, then stopped by the bed. She kept her eyes tight shut. She could hear Lyle breathing. She felt a finger prodding her. Alice made a small, sleepy sound.

  The footsteps crossed the room back to the door. She heard the door clicking as it was locked and Lyle’s footsteps moving away.

  Alice sat up. For a short time, she heard the mumbled sound of Lyle continuing her conversation. Then there were footsteps outside and the unmistakable sound of a car door opening and gently clunking shut. The car’s engine started. She listened to the ground crunching as the vehicle moved. Alice didn’t dare make a sound. A pipe rumbled somewhere in the house, then there was quiet. Not a sound. She was alone.

  She walked to the door and knocked. She called out and knocked again. She listened. There was nothing but the sound of her uneven breathing.

  It took Alice no more than thirty seconds to decide she would escape. It was what her dad would do, and she knew she was brave like him. He’d always said so.

  She started checking, doing the obvious things. She tried the door to double-check that it was locked. She kicked and punched it and tugged at the handle. The door wouldn’t budge.

  She scanned the room for other ways out. She decided the next logical place to test was the window. She ran her fingers along the edge of the board that covered it. Four screws on each side held the board in place. If she could find something to undo the screws, maybe she could get out through the window. She looked about the room for something she could use as a screwdriver. It was useless; the room was empty aside from the bed, lamp, bucket and the water. She swallowed back tears; her dream of a glorious escape and triumphant return home was already over.

  She sat on the floor and leaned against the wall with her knees pulled up under her chin. She felt stupid for thinking she could escape. Lyle would have thought of everything, of course. She also had no idea how long Lyle would be gone; it might only be five minutes. That wouldn’t be enough time to break out and get across the field to the woods. Even if she did get to the woods, did she really want to be alone in there? What if she got lost or hurt? Would she be any safer out there?

  “Don’t be negative,” Alice told herself firmly. She had to escape, and she had to remain positive. She pulled her feet a little closer. The room was cold. Like the walls and the bedding, her clothes felt damp.

  A mouse squeezed under the corner of the door and, staying close to the wall, ran across the room. Reaching the far corner, it stopped and looked at her. Then, with a twitch of its nose, it turned right and continued until it disappeared behind the bed.

  Alice wished she were a mouse; then she could squeeze through gaps and disappear down holes. If she were Harry Potter, she could turn herself into a mouse and find a hole to escape through. Alice got onto her stomach and peered under the bed; she was curious to know where the mouse had gone. She took the lamp and shone it under the bed. Where was the mouse?

  Alice moved the bed out and could see where the mouse had made a hole in the wall. Crawling closer, she put a finger inside. With her fingernail, she picked at the wall and the floorboard. The floorboard was damp, and splinters of wood came away as she picked at it. She wondered what was under the floor. If she could get the floorboard up, maybe there was a chance to escape. Like the mouse, could she get out?

  She pulled the lightweight metal bed frame away from the wall to get a closer look at the floorboards. As she did, one of the bed legs wobbled. The legs were thin metal tubes that slid into holes in the bed frame. Alice pulled the bed’s mattress off onto the floor. With a lot of effort, she got the bed frame onto its side and leaned it against a wall away from the mouse hole. She then pulled at the wobbly leg; it wiggled but wouldn’t budge. She tried another leg; this one didn’t move at all.

  She moved to the other end of the bed and tried a third leg. Holding onto the bed frame, she kicked at the leg, causing it to go off at a right angle; she kicked it repeatedly back and forth until eventually the leg came out and slid across the floor.

  Grasping her makeshift tool, she began to chip away at the floor and wall. The wall was particularly damp in the corner where the mouse had vanished, and the wood of the floorboard was soft and rotten.

  At first, the wood she pounded broke away easily, but it was less rotten in the centre of the floorboard. She worked along the edge, breaking away all she could. It was awkward work, and her hands and fingers soon became sore. After several minutes, unable to chip away at the floorboard any further, she used the bed leg as a lever to prize up the remaining floorboard. As it broke away, she dropped the wood down into the hole.

  Alice moved on to the next floorboard. It soon became apparent she wouldn’t be able to chip away much of the second floorboard. She would have to lever most of it up. This one was less damp and harder to break up, but the wood was soft around the rusted screws and reluctantly started to move. She put all her strength behind levering it up. She was becoming tired and tearful, and suddenly she fell backwards as the metal bed leg slipped from her hands.

  Alice kicked out at it in frustration and then lay back, one arm across her eyes, trying not to cry.

  Having taken a few minutes to gather her thoughts, she rolled onto her belly. Sticking her head down through the gap she had made, she looked under the floor.

&nbs
p; The gap beneath the floor was big enough for her to crawl around. She pulled the lamp over to get a better look and shone the light around.

  Her excitement quickly turned to disappointment; wherever she shone the light, she saw only the stone walls of the building. Exhausted, she got to her feet and walked to the far side of the room. She sat on the mattress and hugged her knees, her head resting on her arms as she looked at all her work. What a waste of time. Not even Houdini could get out of this place.

  Alice thought of home. She missed Faith. She thought about Faith’s birthday party and remembered her own magic trick, the disappearing coin trick. She sat up straight as she recalled how, with magic, it was not always about making the object disappear; rather, the trick was making the audience believe the object has disappeared.

  She set to work making the hole as big as she could.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Sienna Lasota took back her passport. She watched as Lyle pulled suitcases out of the bedroom and left them at the top of the stairs.

  “We’re going to need to leave,” said Lyle. “It’s a little sooner than I’d anticipated, but it’s time to move on. If I’m not back by seven a.m., I need you to call a taxi and take your hand luggage. I want you to go ahead, just the way we discussed. I’ll join you later. You remember what I told you about these suitcases? We might need to move fast.”

  “I remember,” said Sienna. She tried to recall all Lyle had told her.

  “It’s not too late to change your mind. If you want to stay here, I understand. It’s not too late for you, yet.”

  “I want to be with you. I’ll do it. Whatever you need, I can do.”

  “Everything is going to be fine. We’ll start again like royalty.”

  Sienna thought about the life she was leaving behind. She thought about her parents and their bickering. She thought about her mum, who had worked at the same job for over thirty years. Her father, who scraped by doing odd jobs, never seeming to get ahead, always getting knocked back whenever he made a bit of progress. An honest, hardworking, decent man with the cards of life stacked against him.

  She thought about her career as a high-end property agent. She knew from the way her boss looked at her that she’d only got the job because of how good her arse looked in a tight black skirt. It had had nothing to do with her enthusiasm, qualifications or ambition.

  Her parents had been delighted about the job; they’d told her what high hopes they had for her. She had to admit, she’d been happy, too – for a while.

  The trouble was, seeing people with so much money could quickly make you feel in want of more. Did she want to spend the next few years showing rich people around luxury homes? Or did she want to be one of those rich people?

  Then Kelly Lyle had come along and changed her life. Kelly made her feel desired, alive, excited, important and able to be whatever she wanted to be. There were no limits with Kelly, none, and she liked it. There was no way on earth she was giving that up.

  Kelly was complicated; there was a lot Sienna didn’t understand about her. It didn’t matter. She hoped they’d have years together. Plenty of time to find out all she wanted to know.

  For now, she knew all she needed to: Kelly wanted her and nobody else. Kelly’s work was important to her, and she was financially successful.

  She loved being with Kelly, and Kelly reciprocated that love. She was sensitive, generous, caring and fiercely protective. They were good together.

  “Good luck,” said Sienna. “Be careful. I love you.”

  Kelly looked at her oddly and said, “When you have a plan, you don’t need luck. Thank you, anyway. Remember everything I told you and we’ll both be fine.” She kissed Sienna and hugged her and said, “Don’t forget. No later than seven a.m. In fact, book a taxi just in case I don’t get back in time.”

  Sienna stood at the front door and watched Kelly drive off into the night.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Alice lay perfectly still in the darkness. She had to be brave. She’d wriggled as far as she could under the floor. In complete darkness, she held up a couple of large pieces of floorboard in front of her. She prayed it would be enough to stop Lyle seeing her.

  The floorboards were a few inches above her head. Her head was bruised and throbbing. She’d hit it twice on the joists as she moved about looking for a way out. Satisfied there was no way she could escape from under the floor, she now lay motionless and waited.

  The air was smelly and the ground uncomfortable. Her back was freezing cold on the damp soil beneath her.

  In the darkness, her ears found a new acuity, and she felt alert to every sound. Outside, she heard the car return, and her heart immediately began racing. This was it: she must stick to the plan.

  Alice studied the sounds. It had become a game, and the prize was to escape. She heard the mechanical clunk of the car locking. The key at the front door, the door opening and closing, a cupboard door slamming, keys dropped on a table, the tap running, footsteps towards her room.

  She held her breath. She pictured the long, thin key. Click-click, click. The door unlocked. She squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath. Footsteps and movement. She heard Lyle’s angry voice. She was moving quickly now. Thuds and banging. Mattress tossed aside. Alice jumped as the bed scraped across the floor to reveal the hole in the floorboards.

  She’ll find me. She’ll hurt me. This plan was stupid.

  She didn’t dare look. She lay perfectly still, hidden behind pieces of floorboard. She could hear Lyle’s heavy breathing. She was close. She was looking under the floor. It’s over, she thought. She must see me. She’ll realise I’m hiding. She froze, waiting for Lyle’s hand to grab her.

  She heard Lyle get to her feet. The sound of fast-moving footsteps as Lyle ran from the room. Hearing her outside the house once more, Alice dared to turn her head.

  She didn’t see me. It worked.

  She moved as quickly as she could. She inched her body through the tight space then rolled onto her back. First putting her arms up through the hole, she pulled herself back into the room. Brushing herself off, she stood and listened.

  She walked to the door, which was now open, and looked out. There was no sign of Lyle. She moved quickly and quietly towards the farmhouse’s front door. It was within touching distance. She could feel her freedom.

  It was night time; her eyes needed to adjust to the darkness. She peered around the doorframe. Now she could see a car. Next to it, looking in all directions, was Kelly Lyle. Alice yanked her head back inside the house and stood still, holding her breath.

  She had planned to run towards the woods, which were straight ahead, then reach the road Lyle had driven along, where someone, she hoped, would help her. But Lyle was blocking her way. She decided instead to go to the side of the farmhouse and move around behind it. Side-stepping carefully out of the front door, she began to inch along the wall, keeping her eyes on Lyle.

  Her movement somehow attracted Lyle’s attention. Alice froze in horror as Lyle turned and looked directly at her.

  “Alice, don’t do this. Don’t run. I am not going to hurt you,” Lyle called to her.

  Alice turned on her heels and sprinted towards the back of the building. She knew she would be faster than Lyle. At school, she was always one of the fastest runners.

  Knowing Lyle was behind her, following, she decided to circle the building and keep to her original idea of heading into the woods. She could easily outrun a grown-up. She pounded across the hard gravel to reach the grass; she was still wearing her sandals, and they hurt her feet. It didn’t matter; she had to keep moving. She had to run as fast as hard as she could. She didn’t look back; she focused on the tree line, which she could dimly make out from the light of the moon.

  At the edge of the field, she almost ran headlong into a barbed-wire fence she hadn’t seen before. It was made up of five single strands of barbed wire between wooden posts several feet apart. Under, over, or through? Panting, she quickly ass
essed the possibilities. Going over was out of the question: too high. The bottom wire was too low; she’d be snagged. Her only choice was to squeeze through. She looked behind her. Lyle was closing in on her fast.

  Alice lifted a leg to poke between the barbed wires and immediately drew it back: the wires were too close together. She’d never get through. Her heart began to pound in her chest. She looked left and right along the fence. To her left, two posts along, the space between the bottom wire and the grass widened slightly. The ground had fallen away close to the fence post, leaving a gap she might be able to squeeze through. Beyond the fence, she could see that the ground sloped down towards the wood. Decision made.

  She moved quickly to remove her jacket. She rolled it into a ball, got down on the ground and lay flat next to the post. Using her rolled-up jacket to push the wire up, she turned her face to the side and squeezed head first through the gap. She let go of the jacket, wriggled and rolled – and yelped in pain. In her rush to get under the fence, she’d snagged her foot on the barbed wire.

  Lyle was only a few metres away now, her face a mask of rage and frustration. Alice got to her knees and tugged frantically at her jacket; she pulled again and heard it tear. Not wanting to lose her advantage, she abandoned the jacket, leapt to her feet and headed down the bank and into the woods. She’d made it.

  Chapter Seventy

  Alice wanted to keep moving, but with so little light in the woods, it was almost impossible to see where she was going. The tree canopy blocked most of the available moonlight and the deeper into the wood she got, the less she could see. Soon she wouldn’t be able to see her hand in front of her face, and each step had become treacherous. Her foot was throbbing from catching it on the barbed wire, and she realised she was limping. She needed to be careful; a fall or twisted ankle would be bad news. She decided to find somewhere to hide for the night.