Lost Girls

The grass was dense and slippery. The imminent darkness hovered behind a sun that was waiting to set.

  Hang on girls, she silently prayed. Just a little bit longer.

  One Hundred Three

  Charlie heard the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs.

  ‘Ready, Ames?’

  Her friend looked terrified but nodded.

  Charlie heard the metal key slide into the lock. The door opened and Charlie felt her stomach flip. Amy was nestled behind her, waiting.

  His right leg drew level with her body.

  ‘Hello again, my little—’

  Charlie heard no more as she lunged forward, her mouth open wide.

  She grabbed at his ankle with her hands and sunk her teeth into his calf.

  ‘What the fuck—’

  She bit down as hard as she could. Through his jeans she could feel the mound of flesh in her mouth.

  He cried out loud and raised his leg.

  ‘You fucking little bitch …’

  Charlie could see from the corner of her eye that Amy was rooted to the spot. Please, Amy, do it, she willed silently.

  The man shook his leg but Charlie wouldn't let go. He leaned down and grabbed her by the hair, prised her teeth off his leg. He swung her around so she was in front of him.

  ‘Run, Amy. Now,’ she screamed.

  Amy gave a little cry as she edged slowly past.

  ‘Go,’ Charlie cried.

  She bucked violently so that he had to use two hands to restrain her and could not reach for Amy.

  Amy sobbed and edged closer to the door.

  ‘You fucking little—’

  His words turned to a low growl as Charlie sunk her teeth into his left forearm. And this time she had flesh. She could taste the blood on her tongue.

  ‘Get off me you—’

  He was screaming and trying to get a grip of her at the same time but she refused to let go. She closed her eyes to the pain and gave another burst of energy, felt her teeth driving further into his arm.

  The man cried out again and punched her on the side of the face.

  Agony coursed around her whole head but she saw the shadow of her friend edging out the room.

  ‘You're gonna fucking regret that, you rabid little dog.’

  Charlie turned her face to the door and cried, ‘Run, Amy, run.’

  One Hundred Four

  Kim reached the crest of the hill and swore. The muscles in her legs burned from trudging through the knee-length grass.

  ‘Oh, great,’ she said, as Bryant puffed his way level with her.

  She surveyed the landscape and saw what had been hidden by trees on the aerial view.

  Buildings lay to the east, north and west of her view. Only the one straight ahead had shown up on the screen.

  ‘Jesus, which one, Guv?’

  Kim shook her head. She only knew that as soon as they left the safety of the long grass they would be visible to all three properties.

  ‘Damn it, if we go for the wrong one …’

  She didn't finish the sentence. Bryant knew that any stupid move at this point could get the girls killed or bundled into a van and taken to another location. If that were to happen the girls would be lost.

  Bryant chewed his lip.

  Kim felt her own heart rate increase. A simple mistake right now and two families could be destroyed forever.

  She closed her eyes and utilised every sense she had.

  The wind howled around her ears, carrying a light rain that landed on her cheek. She had only one chance to find the girls before time finally ran out. She'd made a call and she hoped to God it was the right one.

  She focussed hard. Come on, girls, send me something. Please help me to find you.

  She opened her eyes, took two steps and stopped.

  ‘Bryant, what's that?’

  Bryant followed her gaze. Three hundred metres away at the bottom of the hill, moving from the right, was a blob on the landscape. It was heading in their direction.

  They both stared as hard as they could.

  Two hundred and fifty metres away, and they looked at each other. Bryant spoke.

  ‘Guv, it looks like a kid.’

  Kim's own thoughts exactly.

  Bryant's legs began to move forward at the same time as Kim’s. She managed to catch him before he left the safety of the long grass.

  ‘Get down,’ she said, grabbing him by the arm.

  ‘Guv, what the hell—’

  ‘Sshh, buzz Dawson.’

  Bryant took out his mobile phone and Kim raised her head to steal a quick look.

  The figure was two hundred metres away and heading right for them.

  ‘What the hell are we doing, Guv? That's one of our girls.’

  He looked at her as though she'd lost her mind.

  Kim popped up her head. One hundred and fifty metres. She snatched her head back down. The long dark hair blowing in the wind told her it was Amy hurtling towards them in nothing more than a blue bathing costume.

  ‘Guv, let's go get her.’

  ‘Just wait a minute.’ She looked up again. Seventy-five metres. And finally she saw what she'd been waiting for.

  ‘Go, when I say so,’ she said to Bryant.

  The sound of panting and sobbing reached their ears. Bryant crawled forward in the grass. She put a hand on his arm. ‘Wait.’

  The sound of the child's exertion grew closer. Amy was tiring. The run had been all uphill.

  ‘Guv, I've gotta—’

  ‘Wait,’ Kim hissed, attuning her ears.

  She could now hear the sound of the grass being trodden underfoot.

  ‘Get the fuck back here, you little—’

  ‘Now,’ Kim screamed and they both erupted from the long grass. Amy was twenty metres west of them. Her pursuer was just three metres behind.

  Both stopped dead in surprise.

  ‘Get her, Bryant,’ Kim shouted.

  The man had already turned, but Kim lunged forward and tackled him to the ground.

  He squirmed beneath her but she punched him in the right temple. He struggled, trying to shake her off, but she pulled on his hair like a horse's mane, arching his whole head backwards. Kim punched him again in the right jaw.

  He bucked and she fell to the left. His desperation to escape added strength to his movements but her motivation was equally strong.

  He turned on his side and she struck out with her foot and got a good firm kick in his groin.

  ‘Now stay down.’

  Bryant appeared beside her. ‘Here, Guv, let me.’

  Kim ignored him and rounded on her victim. She knew she was in the company of Subject One. His diminutive height and weedy torso told her she had just tackled the man who sent the texts. This man was not capable of inflicting such a level of violence on Brad and Inga.

  That one still had a child.

  ‘Where the hell are they?’ Kim screamed into his face.

  ‘Fuck off,’ he spat.

  Kim would have liked to hang around and invent new methods of torture to make him talk but she didn't have the time. Charlie was still down there somewhere.

  She looked up the hill to see Amy standing alone, dwarfed by Bryant's overcoat.

  ‘Bryant. Don't let him get up.’

  Kim sprinted back up the hill. She had known that if they made their move too soon, anyone pursuing the child would have turned back around. And she'd wanted them both.

  She knelt before the girl who trembled uncontrollably.

  ‘Amy, it's okay, you're safe now. No one is going to hurt you again.’

  Kim could see that at least one finger on her right hand had been broken.

  ‘Can you be brave for just a little bit longer?’

  Amy nodded.

  ‘Okay, sweetie. I have to go and get Charlie and I need to know where she is.’

  ‘She bit the man. She waited for him to come and she bit into his leg. She told me that I had to be the one to run ’cos of her foot and I didn't
want to but she made me promise.’

  ‘It's okay, Amy. Charlie was right. Did the man hurt her foot?’

  Amy nodded. ‘Stamped on it.’

  ‘Okay, Amy. You're doing great. Where was she when you ran?’

  ‘Downstairs … there are rooms … the walls are cold.’

  Kim looked down the hill. There were four separate buildings. ‘Amy, can you tell me which building you were in?’

  Amy looked where Kim pointed and nodded towards the building to the far right. From the side view it looked like the farmhouse.

  ‘Okay, sweetie, can you tell me what the man looked like?’

  ‘Big,’ she said, looking up. ‘Bigger than you. No hair, smooth face.’

  Amy closed her eyes and trembled violently.

  Kim placed a hand on her arm.

  ‘You've done great, Amy. You're a very brave girl.’

  Dawson came sprinting over the brow of the hill.

  ‘Don't let Amy out of your sight,’ she instructed as he got closer. ‘Get an ambulance en route and the fire service to move that log but no calls to the Timmins’ house, got it? Not even to Stacey.’

  Dawson nodded and knelt beside Amy.

  ‘Guv, you can't go down there alone,’ Bryant said.

  Dawson was needed to keep Amy safe and Bryant had to guard their kidnapper.

  Charlie was on her own. There was no choice.

  Kim turned away from Dawson. She didn't know how long back-up would be. She was unarmed and completely blind to the location.

  But there was a psycho somewhere in that building with a nine-year-old girl.

  Kim turned on her heel and ran.

  One Hundred Five

  The darkness was beginning to fall around Kim as she stopped at the first building. It was a windowless structure with no features. She guessed it would have been used as a cow shed.

  The doors were metal and rusted, a padlock securing them.

  She skirted the side of the building and came alongside a white van parked beneath a roof structure without walls.

  Kim entered the main farmhouse, the doors having been left open by Subject One after chasing Amy. The smell of damp hit her immediately.

  The door to her left was a two-panel stable door that led into the kitchen. She stepped inside, careful not to make a sound.

  The cupboard doors that remained were all hanging off. Spaces gaped where appliances had once lived. Cobwebs hung from every corner. Rodent droppings sat in piles.

  The walls were a mural of black and green damp patches.

  Kim edged out and headed into the next room. She guessed this would once have been a small lounge but had more recently been used as a control room.

  The window had been covered with a single navy curtain nailed into the wall above.

  The area held a table on the left housing a row of mobile phones. On the window wall was a desk with three computer monitors. A sofa took the rest of the available space.

  Kim took a step closer to the desk. All three screens were showing white noise. Damn, the cameras had been smashed so she couldn’t see exactly where he was. She was going in completely blind.

  She stepped out of the room. Next was another wooden door. Kim opened it carefully but the metal handle clattered as it left the latch.

  She was immediately confronted by stone steps that led down into darkness.

  She placed a hand on each side of the wall and felt the elevation of each step with the back of her heel.

  When she felt no more steps she took her mobile phone from her pocket and hit the screen. It provided a small shaft of light against the total blackness.

  She pointed it to the left and then to the right.

  She was halfway down a corridor that appeared to run the length of the house. To her left was a brick wall but to her right the corridor appeared to turn a corner.

  Kim turned to her right and shone the phone at the floor.

  She gingerly stepped over the glass that had been smashed from the light bulb above and turned as she heard a sound from the left. The light from the phone found nothing. Kim suspected it was a rat.

  She stepped past an open door. She shone the light around. The space was barely bigger than a prison cell.

  One corner held a collection of juice cartons and sandwich packets. The other held a mattress and a bucket. The stench reached her out in the corridor.

  She moved two steps forward and aimed the phone ahead of her. Two feet more and she'd be round the corner.

  ‘One more step and I'll slit her fucking throat.’

  Kim stilled. A small cry escaped from the lips of the child. Kim closed her eyes. Thank God, Charlie was still alive.

  Although she'd never met him, Kim knew what this man was capable of.

  Trying to appeal to an empathetic streak wouldn't work. He no longer possessed one.

  This man was not a psychopath. He was a product; moulded and programmed to kill. The war had taken advantage of a man with a propensity for violence and enhanced it, destroying any last traces of humanity.

  Kim considered her options. At the moment he didn't know he was dealing with a woman.

  ‘I can smell you, bitch,’ he said.

  Great. But his voice was only a couple of feet away and he sounded amused. That was good. Anything that distracted him from hurting Charlie was good.

  His own arrogance prevented her making a decision as he stepped into the light. Kim was instantly struck by his size. She guessed he was carrying eighteen stone of muscle in his six-foot-four height.

  Charlie was clutched in front of him, a knife at her throat.

  Her left eye was swollen shut and her bottom lip was split.

  Her other eye was wide with terror.

  Symes laughed out loud. ‘They send a slag to get me. It's a fucking joke.’

  Although his voice was filled with mirth, Kim could tell he was insulted.

  She lowered her gaze. ‘It's okay, Charlie. We got Amy and I'm gonna get you out of here.’

  He laughed again. ‘No, she fucking ain't, kid,’ he said to Charlie. ‘I'm gonna slit your throat like I was promised and then I'm gonna kill her, so she's talking shit.’

  He took another step towards her. His right leg was stiff. Kim guessed that was where Charlie had bitten him. A trail of blood travelled along his forearm.

  Despite his size, if they had been one on one, Kim knew she could have taken him. If there hadn’t been a child and a knife between them.

  ‘I'm not alone,’ she said.

  He looked past her.

  ‘Brought your imaginary friends?’

  Kim tried to keep her voice low and calm.

  ‘The place is crawling by now. It's only a matter of time before they're down here.’

  Symes looked unconcerned. ‘I don't need long.’

  She was keeping her thumb on the phone screen to prevent the area from going dark. She wanted to try to make eye contact but his gaze was fluttering around.

  Kim assessed the distance between them. Without any kind of distraction she couldn't chance lunging for Charlie. His hand was poised and steady. Ready to cut the child’s throat.

  ‘What do you hope to gain?’ she asked.

  She knew she was not going to talk him into handing over the child but she had to play for time.

  ‘You know it's over. We've got the other one; the planner.’

  ‘How the fuck you know he was the planner?’ Symes asked, pulling Charlie against him.

  He didn't like her assumption that he was not the mastermind behind the operation.

  ‘Give us the information and we'll do a deal,’ she offered. ‘He's going to prison for the rest of his life but you don't need to. We can—’

  ‘Fuck off, slag. You think I give a fuck about doing time? Gimme a fucking break.’

  ‘But what are you—’

  ‘A promise is a promise. Don’cha get it, yer dumb bitch? I wanna kill her. I'm gonna kill her and—’

  ‘Guv, you down t
here?’

  Symes's eyes travelled to the direction of Bryant's voice. It was all that she needed.

  Kim held up the phone, shining it right into his eyes as she lunged forward and grabbed Charlie by the arm.

  She threw the child behind her and reached forward for the knife. As her hand made contact with the handle Symes pulled up the blade.

  The flesh of her right hand tore open. The light on her phone died.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs.

  She felt herself being pushed backwards and stumbled over Charlie.

  In the darkness, Kim had no clue what was happening.

  Until Symes put the key in the door and locked it.

  One Hundred Six

  Symes threw Charlie into the far corner. She whimpered and curled into a ball.

  ‘What your friends gonna do now?’ he asked.

  The phone was still in Kim’s hand. She touched it and the screen lit up again.

  She could hear Bryant hammering on the steel door. He would need specialist equipment to get through it. By then they'd all be dead.

  And the man standing in front of her knew it.

  He looked from her to Charlie and back again.

  ‘Eeny, meeny, miney, mo … who’s first?’

  ‘Was it ever about the money?’ Kim asked, desperately. She had to get his attention away from Charlie. She could feel the blood dripping from her gashed hand onto her jeans.

  He paced the area between them to make sure she and Charlie stayed apart.

  ‘Nah. You gotta get it, slag. I like to kill. I enjoy it. The more violence the better. And now I've made my decision.’

  He came to stand in front of her. She could hear Bryant banging on the door and shouting but her colleague had no way to close the ten-foot gap between them.

  So near and yet so far, she thought, as Symes raised his foot and stamped down on her injured hand.

  The pain shot up through her arm. The darkness swam before her eyes.

  His next blow caught her in the ribs and she fell sideways, the phone sliding from her hand.

  His foot caught her square in the jaw. Pain exploded into her head.

  ‘I'm gonna leave you alive, just so you can listen to the show.’