My, you’re a reckless one! You need to be taught a lesson in road safety. You’re not even wearing a helmet!
He was feeling impatient, shaking with excitement! He’d like to have taken her out now, but he was aware that there were cameras along the road here. Then suddenly, without indicating, she swung into the center of the road and turned right past a block of flats on the corner, into Carlisle Road.
Oh yes, baby, perfect, thank you!
Turning off his lights, he turned right, also, and accelerated. Then as he drew close to her, he changed gear into neutral, feathered the accelerator pedal and coasted silently for some seconds, perspiring with excitement. Coming up close to her, so close he could see her long brown hair, flailing around behind her, in the glow of the street lighting.
They were halfway up the road, heading toward her flat, just short of the junction with New Church Road. He engaged a gear, silently, pressed the accelerator lightly, drew alongside her, saw her face through his side window, tight with exertion.
He swung the steering wheel over to the left. At the same time as hearing the metallic clang, he felt the impact. He braked hard, without squealing the tires, not wanting to wake the sleeping street. He pulled the hypodermic syringe out of his pocket, then leaped out of the car and ran toward her. “God,” he said, “I’m sorry, I’m so…”
But there was no need for any apology. She was lying spread-eagled on the pavement, groaning, in shock. He looked over his shoulder, looked around, up at the windows of the houses on both sides of the street that might have had a view. No sign of any movement.
He knelt beside her, as if pretending to check her pulse, then opened her mouth, as if checking her airways, but instead he pressed the needle into her tongue and emptied the entire vial of ketamine. He sheathed and pocketed the syringe, looking carefully around again.
Then he half lifted, half dragged her to the rear of his car, opened the tailgate and hefted her in. He already had the rear seat folded flat. Then he opened her rucksack with his gloved hands, rummaged in it and pulled out her iPhone. Still looking carefully around, he ran back, tossed the phone into a thick laurel hedge beside a garden path and picked up her bike. He threw that in the rear also, on top of her, shut the tailgate, climbed in and drove off.
He was shaking in anticipation.
This felt so good. It really did!
His new project!
He felt such a burst of happiness deep inside him that he wanted to sing out loud and share how he felt with the whole world.
“I got you, babe! Oh yeah!”
Over his shoulder he said, calmly, “You’re going to be another great project! You really are! Trust me! I’m on a roll!”
38
Saturday 13 December
Logan lay in a cold sweat, in a vortex of fear, trying to focus her mind, which lurched uncontrollably from terror to anger, then back to terror.
Hoping, praying that she would wake from this terrible nightmare.
At this moment, terror swirled inside her like cold, heavy darkness. It filled her mind, her heart, her lungs, her stomach. Her mouth was dry, she was shaking and whimpering, blinded by her stinging tears, and desperately trying to think clearly. To figure her way out of this.
Ever since realizing the muffled voice was clearly not Jamie’s, her mind had been in a mist. Who the hell was her captor? What was going on? Where was she? How long had she been here?
The pain where she had been burned on her thigh was agonizing, as if acid were eating through her flesh. The pain in her toe was bad too, a steady, insistent throbbing. But she was trying to ignore all the pain, to blot it out. To think. Think.
She had to think clearly.
She had an itch on her nose that was driving her crazy. It had been driving her crazy for what felt like an age.
Surely Jamie would have reported her missing? Wouldn’t people be out looking for her? Wouldn’t there be police combing the streets, fields, woods, dragging lakes, like she had seen in movies?
How long had she been here? How long? No matter how hard she writhed and twisted her head, she couldn’t see the face of her watch.
She thought back to when she had phoned Jamie. Hours ago? Days ago? Weeks ago? She’d heard the instant concern in his voice. He’d registered that she was frightened in those moments before her car door had been ripped open and she’d seen the masked face above her.
A tsunami of fear crashed through her at the memory.
Jamie must have tried to phone her back. What happened when he didn’t get an answer? He’d have gone to the police, surely? He’d have known she wasn’t joking. So what had he done, who had he alerted? What was happening out there beyond the walls of her prison?
Prison.
Captor.
Her anger flared again. Whoever the hell you are, what gives you the right to imprison me? How dare you do this to me? She writhed and pulled and pushed out against her increasingly painful bonds. Shit, this was ridiculous. She had so much to do. Patients who needed her. A big party on Saturday night that she had really been looking forward to, a reunion of all the girls from their year in school, and their partners, at the Exeter Street church hall they had all helped save from developers. There was going to be a load of people there she hadn’t seen in over five years.
With a sudden flash of panic she realized she didn’t know how far away Saturday night was. Or had it already passed?
Her mind kept veering to horror movies she’d seen. Crazies who kidnapped people and tortured and then killed them. Hostel. The Bone Collector. The Silence of the Lambs. Was this what had happened to her? Not here, not in Brighton, not in this city she loved and where she always felt so safe, surely not?
Then she thought of the screams of the woman she had heard. Followed by the terrible gurgling; the rasping sound, like a death rattle, then the silence. How long ago was that? Who else was in here? Was she going to be next?
She was bloody well not going to let that happen. Somehow she had to keep clear-headed. How did people get out of situations like this?
She tried again to move her arms, but they were strapped down too tightly. There was some kind of restraint across her midriff, across her neck, her thighs and her ankles. With all her strength she tried to raise her head again, until the strap cut into her throat too much.
What the hell was she in?
The burning sensation on the inside of her right leg suddenly became even more acute, as if it had caught fire. But she couldn’t even move her arms to touch the area.
She lay back in the pitch darkness, her mouth parched again. Her sugar levels were going down again, too, she realized, the all too familiar jittery feeling starting to return. Then she heard a noise that chilled her. Despite the sound being muffled, the words were clear.
A woman’s voice. Screaming. “Let me go, you bastard!”
Then the man’s voice, shouting out in anger and pain. “Owww!” Then again, “Owww!”
Hope rose inside her.
“Owww, you bitch.”
There was a crashing sound. She heard a woman’s voice yelling, “Get your hands off me, you bastard perv!”
Go! Logan urged. Go!
Then she heard a dull thud, followed by the woman screaming out in pain. Then another thud, like a hammer against a sack. Then another. Then the man’s voice, in a chilling rage.
“Look what you’ve made me do, you bitch! You’ve spoiled my fun. You realize that? You’ve spoiled my fun.”
Then Logan heard the scream again. It was a terrible sound, deep, powerful, fueled by absolute terror. “Help me, oh my God, help me!”
Then another thud.
Then silence.
Logan lay there, shaking. Waiting. Then the man’s voice again.
It was followed by another thud. Then another. Then another.
Then silence.
Logan lay, listening, trembling. But all she could hear was the silence.
She was sinking low, she realized. Headi
ng into a hypo.
Suddenly she heard the sliding sound above her and, an instant later, was blinded by a brilliant beam of light. A lump of chocolate was rammed into her mouth. Then the muffled voice again.
“Eat that. I don’t want to lose you, too. We’re not ready for that yet.”
“Please—please tell me who you are?” she spluttered through her mouthful of sweetness. “Tell me what you want? Please tell me?”
“I have what I want,” he replied.
The lid slid shut above her.
39
Saturday 13 December
Roy Grace woke at 5 a.m., twenty minutes before the alarm set on the clock and the backup alarm on his iPhone. Cleo was sound asleep, breathing heavily, facing away from him, spooned against him, his right arm beneath her pillow. He could hear rain pelting down outside, and listened, as he did every time he woke during the night, for the sounds of Noah breathing through the baby monitor. His son sounded fine.
He felt leadenly tired, and could easily have lapsed back into sleep, but he needed to energize himself for what he anticipated to be a long and hard day ahead. Trying not to wake Cleo—Noah had already done that twice during the night—he gently, slowly, wormed his arm free. As he did so, she stirred.
“You off, darling?” she murmured, half asleep still.
“I’ll take Humphrey for a quick run.”
“Love you.”
He kissed her shoulder. “Love you so much,” he said.
Then he slipped naked out of bed and stood, shivering in the chilly darkness. “Mind if I put on the light for a moment?”
“I’m awake,” she said.
He switched on his bedside light, shuffled through into the bathroom, closed the door then put on the bright light in there and, yawning, switched on his electric toothbrush.
Five minutes later, dressed in his tracksuit and a baseball cap, and trying to shush an excited Humphrey who was jumping up at him and barking, he let himself and the dog out of the front door, holding the lead in one hand and a plastic bag in the other in case, as was likely, Humphrey decided to have a dump en route.
He ran across the cobbled courtyard to the front gates, attached Humphrey’s lead, then ran out into the street and threaded his way past the silent houses and closed shops and cafés down toward the seafront. He loved the city at this hour, when it was still mostly sleeping. Loved the feeling of being up ahead of the rest of the world. He had always been able to cope on relatively little sleep, which stood him in good stead in this job, where snatching just a few hours was often the norm—and he had even more sleep deprivation now that he had a restless baby.
The rain pattering against his face and the salty tang of the air felt and smelled good. He crossed a deserted King’s Road in the misty glare of the street lighting, then freed Humphrey, who bounded off ahead, and ran down the ramp by the arches, with the long, dark silhouette of Brighton Pier—or Palace Pier as he still preferred to call it—over to his left, and headed west, toward the sad, rusted skeletal remains of the West Pier, which had been gutted by a fire over a decade ago, and day by day was steadily crumbling into the sea.
As he ran, wide awake and increasingly clear-headed, his thoughts on the day ahead were crystallizing. Just before going to bed at midnight, he’d checked his e-mails and seen that the Sussex Police rugby team, of which he was the president, was a man short, due to illness, for an important fixture this afternoon. Could he play or find a last-minute substitute? It was a mundane task in the middle of such a critical operation, but he needed to deal with it. So far there had been no replies from the two possible players he had e-mailed—hardly surprising given the early hour.
His thoughts focused back on Logan Somerville, who had now been missing since around 5:30 p.m. Thursday. Thirty-six hours. Both the new ACC and the Police and Crime Commissioner had phoned him late last night for updates, telling him how important it was to find her. Neither of them needed to do that. He was motivated enough as it was. Ever since Sandy had vanished over a decade ago, he knew the anguish the disappearance of a loved one caused. He had lived it every single day, and despite his deep love for Cleo, the pain of Sandy’s disappearance was still there in his heart and in his soul.
He had not yet told either Pewe or Roigard of his bigger concerns.
Humphrey looked a tad miffed when he stopped opposite the remains of the West Pier and turned around. The dog barked, as if saying to him that normally they would run much longer—toward Hove Lagoon at least.
“Sorry, boy, I have to get to work. Have to find someone very urgently. OK?”
Humphrey suddenly bounded ahead and ran onto the beach, crunching across the pebbles, on a mission.
“What is it, boy?” he called.
Then, in the faint glow from the promenade lighting, he saw Humphrey stop, lie on his back and begin rolling vigorously backward and forward.
Grace realized to his dismay what was happening. “Humphrey!” he shouted. “No! No, boy! No!”
He unzipped his pocket, tugged out his phone, found the torch app and switched it on, then ran, stumbling and unsteadily, over the pebbles, shouting for the dog to stop. “HUMPHREYYYYYY!”
He stood over the rolling hound and bellowed again.
Contritely, Humphrey scrambled to his feet and stared up at him. Moments later the sickening, putrid smell hit him. In the bright beam of light he saw the splayed legs and claws and white belly of the long-dead, busted-open crab.
He toyed for a moment with dragging the dog into the sea to try to clean him, but the waves were pounding hard and he thought it too risky. So, instead, the stench accompanied him all the way home, as Humphrey ran alongside him, pleased as punch with himself and mightily proud of the new cologne he was wearing.
“This is all I sodding need!” Roy Grace whispered to the dog, holding him tightly by the collar and gagging, as he let himself back into the house. He dragged him, resisting every inch of the way, paws scraping across the floor and up the stairs, into the bathroom, shut the door behind them, then lifted him into the bathtub, turned on the taps, picked up the hand-shower and washed away, as best he could, the worst of the fetid, putrid mess on the dog’s back.
Thirty minutes later, having showered, shaved and gulped down a microwaved bowl of instant porridge and a few sips of tea, he kissed Cleo, fast asleep again, good-bye, then slipped out of the house. Humphrey, lying in his basket down in the living room, did not even raise his head. He opened one eye, dismissively, as if some alien dog turd had just departed from his home.
40
Saturday 13 December
Jacob Van Dam had a sleepless night in the spare bedroom across the corridor from his wife’s room, where he had spent most nights for the past decade, with a mask over his face delivering compressed air. He’d suffered sleep apnoea for years, snoring heavily and turning restlessly, constantly waking his wife, until she couldn’t take it any longer.
He’d actually been sleeping pretty well recently, he thought. But the emotional turmoil in his mind since the strange Dr. Harrison Hunter—if indeed he was any kind of medical doctor—had entered his life—and his head—was now keeping him awake.
The man was worrying him like hell.
Who are you, Dr. Hunter?
What sick game are you trying to play with me?
He was trying to think clearly through his tiredness.
U R DEAD
What was that about? He’d had plenty of experience, in his career, of people with sick fantasies. They would read of a crime in the media and immediately phone the police and confess to it. Fortunately most clever Senior Investigating Officers kept back certain bits of information that would be known only to the offender and to no one else—which helped them to eliminate time-wasters.
Yet there was something about Dr. Hunter that prevented him from dismissing him completely. His confidence, his body language, his whole behavior, erratic though it was, made him feel deeply uncomfortable.
Would he
be helping to find his niece by calling the police and telling them what he knew? Or would he be condemning Logan to death? He felt, and he had been dwelling on this all through the day and night, that Hunter did know something of value. The man had paid his secretary the five-hundred-pound consultancy fee in cash, before the appointment. Would someone who was just a fantasist really have done that?
He looked at the luminous digital figures of his clock radio. 6:05 a.m. Logan was beautiful, smart and kind. She had always had a childlike innocence about her. She was not the kind of person to suddenly disappear.
What did Harrison Hunter know?
Where did his idea that she had a tattoo come from?
He drifted into an uneasy sleep. When he awoke a short while later, to Rachel standing over him with a cup of tea in her hand, wishing him a good morning and reminding him they had to go to the christening of their granddaughter, Hannah, today down in Chichester, his mind was no clearer as to what he ought to do.
41
Saturday 13 December
Logan stood on a white sandy beach, with the flat blue ocean stretching out beyond. She was in a silky, slinky white dress, and Jamie in a white suit stood by her side, in front of the chaplain. Everyone she loved and cared about stood all around her in the glorious, warm Phuket sunshine.
Jamie kissed her on her cheek. “We’ve had our differences but we got through them, didn’t we, my angel?”
She kissed him back and whispered, “We have, my darling. You’re the one I want, the only one I’ve ever wanted. I love you so much. You just make me feel so happy, all of the time, forever.”
Then the sky clouded over. Her father looked up and said, “It’s about to rain.”
The light was fading. “No!” she said. “Please don’t let it! Please stop it!”
Then darkness enveloped her. She woke. Total darkness. She was drenched in perspiration, remembering. Remembering. And began shivering.