‘No… oh wait… no, I heard the word “appetiser” but they were just talking about food,’ she said and then began to cry. ‘I just wish I knew what I’d done,’ she sobbed. ‘What do they want us for?’
He ached to move forward, but his own nakedness prevented him from trying to offer her comfort. There was something obscene about moving his bare body closer to this poor, terrified girl.
From her voice he guessed they were just about fifteen feet apart.
He began to move closer towards her.
‘Hold out your hand,’ he said.
She moved to her left, and he stretched his bound wrists towards her. His hand found hers in the darkness.
A pang of emotion shot through him at the sensation of the small, soft hand encased in his own.
Adaje, his beautiful Adaje.
A tear forced its way from his eye and travelled down his cheek as he wondered if he would ever see his daughter again.
‘It’s okay, Devorah. Everything will be okay,’ he said, soothingly.
He stroked the flesh of her hand with his thumb as he had done many times with his own daughter. Her cries began to subside.
How quickly a bond had been formed between himself and a young girl who he would probably never have met, if not for the bastards that had plucked them both from their lives.
They sat in companionable silence until the key sounded in the lock.
‘Jacob?…’ she whispered. The panic dripped from that one word.
He squeezed her hand as two torches shone into the small space.
‘Grab her,’ said a voice.
‘No,’ Jacob cried, launching himself to his feet, clumsily. His body still fighting the effects of the drug he’d been given. His bound hands restricting his movement.
He lunged forward into the torchlight, not sure what he was hoping to achieve but he had to try and stop them taking her away. He couldn’t even imagine what they were going to do to her.
‘Fuck’s sake, this one’s a liability,’ said one of the voices.
Jacob felt himself being pushed back to the ground.
‘Don’t be too eager to get out there, fella. Your time is coming soon enough.’
The door closed behind the voice but not before Jacob heard Devorah’s sickening screams and pleas receding into the distance. His shackled fists met with the wall in frustration at being unable to protect her.
‘Damn you, you fucking bastards,’ he screamed into the darkness.
FORTY-SEVEN
Stacey had the sudden urge to close the office door. Justin’s computer was open and positioned to her right. Someone would have to come close to see what she was doing, and yet she still felt as though she was doing something wrong.
She wondered, for the hundredth time, why she hadn’t just mentioned to her boss that she wanted to dig around a little on Justin Reynolds. But she knew why ? if the boss said no, she would have no choice but to let it go. This way, she was not going behind the boss’s back. Not really, she told herself.
She could see from the front screen that Justin had an icon for every app available including Snapchat and Pinterest. But the one she really wanted was Facebook. Still the most widely used sharing platform, people treated Facebook like it was their lounge or bedroom. Users felt comfortable posting their entire lives on what they thought was their personal space.
The globe icon told her Justin had almost two hundred notifications. She clicked in and began to scroll through them. The majority were dated since Monday. The day he had died.
The earliest ones were expressions of disbelief. Pleas for Justin to make contact. The newer ones were expressions of grief and RIP posts. None of these posts had made it to his timeline, because of his privacy settings. Stacey had implemented the same on her own page. She had never liked that people could tag her in a post which automatically appeared on her timeline, especially after a less than flattering photo of her throwing some drunken moves at her cousin’s twenty-first birthday bash.
Clearly Justin had felt the same way.
She clicked on the message icon. She saw that the top message was from someone called Floda. No last name, just Floda. She frowned. What kind of name was that?
She briefly considered continuing the message stream but guessed Floda would be freaked out if he suddenly got a message from a dead friend. But the last person Justin was in contact with was definitely someone she’d like to speak to.
She opened her phone and sent a friend request from her own Facebook account. Once they responded, she’d explain exactly who she was and see if they could tell her anything about Justin, and especially about his state of mind in those last few days.
She was about to click on the message when the one below caught her attention. And then the one below that.
She began to scroll down and the frown on her face deepened.
A whole batch of angry messages screamed ‘unfriended’ followed by angry emojis. Some just said ‘wanker’. As she scrolled through them she counted some seventy messages that were all abusing Justin with one-word insults. The abuse went on for weeks prior to his death. None of the messages had been replied to or even opened ? except for one. From a girl named Kirsty Littlejohn.
Stacey opened it. Unlike the others, this one asked for an explanation and pleaded for a reply. Possibly an ex-girlfriend, she wondered.
She scrolled back up to the first message and the only one he’d responded to. She opened it, and read, from the beginning.
‘Are you coming on the 19th?’ asked Floda.
‘Yeah, can’t wait,’ replied Justin.
‘You know you need the photo to get in?’ Floda asked.
‘Oh yeah won’t be a problem,’ replied Justin.
‘Will we meet?’ Justin had added as a separate message.
The question had remained unanswered.
Stacey knew that this Floda person was the one she needed to speak to. From what she could see it was the last person Justin had had any type of conversation with.
She had no choice but to wait. She could send Floda a message from her own account but it would automatically be sent to his other folder to gather dust.
She clicked onto Justin’s timeline. Maybe she could learn more from what he’d been posting. Perhaps she could discover what had caused so many people to send him abusive messages.
She began to scroll down, and her blood turned cold at what she saw.
For a moment, she couldn’t turn her head from the screen. Only when her phone beeped did she lower her eyes.
She’d received a notification.
Floda had rejected her friend request.
FORTY-EIGHT
Kim spotted the property she was looking for. The small boutique was located on the Soho Road, nestled between a fruit and veg store and a small coffee shop.