‘Camberwell, just grabbing some takeaway breakfast.’
‘We’ve had a call come through from a young girl called Heather Cochrane, a student. She says her friend, Beth Rose, was due to meet a bloke for a blind date last night near Southwark. She’s just woken up to find a message on her phone which indicates the friend was abducted and stashed in the boot of a car—’
‘Hang on, the friend phoned the girl?’
‘Yeah, Heather has a voicemail from Beth, actually saying that she was abducted by a funny little short guy, with dark hair… Crane is just on the phone with her; we’re asking more questions.’
‘Okay, we’ll be there asap,’ said Erika. She put the phone down and saw they were sandwiched in-between cars in front and the van behind.
‘You need to get us out of here, there’s been another girl abducted,’ she said.
Peterson put the blue lights on, but no one moved. There were two cars behind the van and they were boxed in. He drove up on the small verge, managed to squeeze past the line of cars and they left the car park with a squeal of rubber and pulled out into the road with their siren blaring.
* * *
When they reached the incident room at West End Central, the officers from her team were starting to arrive, and Moss, Crane and John were huddled around a laptop.
‘Is Melanie in yet?’ asked Erika, as she and Peterson came into the incident room.
‘She’s got meetings this morning,’ said John.
‘Call her, get her in,’ said Erika.
‘Boss, we’ve just had the voicemail come in,’ said Moss.
They moved over to join them at the laptop.
‘We need to get a location on that phone,’ asked Erika.
‘I’ve just put in an urgent request with telecoms,’ said Crane. Moss pressed ‘play’ as they listened to the message. There was a lot of background noise, and the girl’s voice sounded drunk and slurring.
‘Heather, it’s Beth… This man. He took me. When I was waiting for Robert… He took me from the street. Dark hair, short and fat, weird piggy eyes… I’m in his—’ There was interference. ‘I’m in his—’ More interference, and then just the noise of the car engine.
Erika paced up and down as the audio continued playing. They heard cars approach and then pass, and a scratching as if something were pressed against the phone’s mouthpiece. The message finally cut out and the recorded voice kicked in.
Erika’s team were silent for a moment.
‘Boss—’ started John.
‘I know. This could be our breakthrough,’ said Erika. ‘But we need to do this by the book. I want the phone location. I want you to pull CCTV from where she was due to meet this guy. We’ll need to contact her next of kin.’
‘Yes, boss.’
‘Now I want to hear that message again. There could be something in there which tells us where he was taking her.’
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Darryl hung his head over the toilet and threw up for the third time. His guts burned, and he brought up nothing more than bile. He wiped his mouth and stood flushing the toilet, and looked at his reflection. His face was grey and he had huge bags under his eyes. He hadn’t slept; he kept having the same dream of discovering his brother, Joe, hanging in his wardrobe. He looked down at his boxer shorts, where the wet patch spread across the front. He pulled them down, balled them up and dropped them in the old clothes hamper by the bath. There was a knock at the door.
‘What?’
‘You alright?’ came his mother’s voice.
‘I’m fine…’ he said. ‘Just something I ate.’
‘What?’ came his mother’s voice.
‘Something I ate!’ he shouted. He went to the sink and splashed his face with cold water and looked out the window. A low mist was rolling over the fields towards the house, and the sky was an ominous grey. He turned off the water and realised he hadn’t heard the creak of the floorboards as his mother retreated.
‘What is it?’
‘I need to go shopping, but Morris’s car is blocking my way,’ she said.
Darryl dried his face, put a towel round his waist and yanked the door open. His mother was standing in her ‘going to town’ outfit: a smart purple trouser suit and black patent leather court shoes. She had her white handbag over her arm.
‘They keys are in the ignition. Can’t you move it?’
She peered at his face.
‘You know I can only drive my automatic. His car has gears.’
‘All cars have gears, Mother.’
‘You know what I mean. Now can you move it for me, please?’
He went to his room and pulled on an old tracksuit, then came out to the carport. His mother was peering into Morris’s car, her handbag over her arm. When he came close, she was looking at a large smear of blood on the passenger doorhandle. She turned and regarded him.
‘You look ill.’
‘I’m not going into work today. Tummy upset.’
‘It’s Saturday,’ she said.
‘Oh yeah…’
She looked at the smear of blood again.
‘One of the farm lads must have cut themselves,’ said Darryl, moving round to get into the driver’s side.
‘Which one? They have to come to me if they do, and fill in the accident book.’
He ignored her and got in. Mary moved to her car and unlocked it. He reversed Morris’s car and noticed his mother staring at him as she backed out in the large Jag, then pulled off with a spray of gravel. He put Morris’s car back, and looked at the blood. It was Bryony’s. He’d had her blood on his hand when he’d left last night. He took some tissues and scrubbed the smear of blood until it was gone.
* * *
When Darryl came back into the house, he stood in the boot room, shaking all over. Grendel padded over and licked his hand, and the house creaked around him. Familiar noises. He suddenly thought of the future: what if he didn’t live at the farm? If he got caught? What would happen? He tried to work out the best thing to do. If he went into work on Monday, it could be crawling with police, that’s if they’d found Bryony’s body. But as far as he knew, she lived alone. She wouldn’t officially have to be back at work until Monday, and then people might think she was sick. Her body might not be found for days. He just needed time, time to think. They didn’t have an ID on the car, and as far as he could tell no one had seen him; he wished he’d looked around when Bryony had got into the car. Was there an ATM? It would have a camera. Did all traffic lights have cameras on them? He’d used Morris’s car. He wished he’d worn gloves; his DNA would be in her house. He’d panicked…
Then a flooding calm came over him. He and Bryony had been on a date together. This linked him to her, but that was over a week ago now. He could say that he went back to hers for a cup of coffee so, technically, his DNA would be there.
He suddenly felt euphoric and light. He patted Grendel on the head and went upstairs to run himself a bath. Then he would have some breakfast and walk down to the Oast House to visit his new captive.
Chapter Sixty-Eight