‘It was just a question.’
‘And I’m just giving you an answer. Until Lola Evans’s murderer is found, everyone’s attention remains on him. Or her,’ he added. ‘What case is this, anyway?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It matters enough for you to have come to me about it.’
‘And I shouldn’t have,’ Alex told him. Never a truer word spoken, she thought. She realised now why Chloe had been so adamant that the super’s attention not be drawn to it in any way. She regretted the decision she’d made, and she hoped it wouldn’t find its way back to Chloe.
His stern expression relaxed. ‘I’m sorry,’ he offered. ‘Coming back to all this… it wasn’t quite what I’d anticipated. How are you?’
As though he should be asking me that, thought Alex. She shrugged. ‘Things can always be worse, can’t they?’
He gave her a smile that was tinged with sadness. ‘True enough.’
‘Things are as they are.’ She knew exactly what he was referring to. Harry knew plenty of the details of her marriage breakdown, as well as the events that had led up to it. It now seemed little in comparison to what he’d been through during the past eighteen months.
‘Look,’ he said, shifting the focus of conversation from Alex’s personal life, ‘if you want to go back to something, make sure you find me a convincing reason for doing so. But not now, OK? We’ve all got plenty to be getting on with.’
Alex gave him a nod and left the office. She hoped she hadn’t just made a mistake, for both her own and Chloe’s sakes.
She went back down the corridor and into the main office, having barely a moment to breathe before one of the DCs called her over.
‘Boss. We’ve had a young woman reported missing.’
Alex felt a knot tighten in her stomach. Instinct told her that their caseload was about to get even more complicated.
Chapter Twenty-Two
She didn’t know what time it was, but beyond the boarded windows, through a narrow gap that was uncovered by the drapes that had been hung there, Sarah was sure she could see daylight. Her head felt heavy, like the onset of a migraine. She didn’t bother trying to move, knowing her efforts would be futile. She was too tired to do anything other than sit and wait. Whatever he had given her, she felt as though it was still flooding her system.
Her mouth was dry and her tongue was stuck to whatever had been crammed into her mouth. She thought about crying again, but realised her tears had all been wasted. Crying had worsened the headache and they hadn’t got her anywhere. She was still in this room, still bound to this chair, still not knowing who had brought her here and done this to her.
Of course, she did know, but she still couldn’t quite bring herself to believe it was him.
Sarah narrowed her eyes, waiting for them to adjust to the darkness of the room. She had thought there were only floorboards beneath her – she had heard his footsteps pacing across them hours earlier – but now she was able to see a patch of carpet further away in the room, frayed and dirty. It might have been a deep red colour, but in the darkness she couldn’t be sure.
The smell of blood was everywhere, filling her nose. She could taste it in the dryness of her mouth; she could feel it on the coldness of her skin. She didn’t know who it belonged to. She felt pain everywhere: it was impossible to pinpoint where she might have been injured. Closing her eyes, she tried to focus on the source of her pain. Concentrating made the screaming in her head louder, more profound, so she quickly stopped and tried to empty her thoughts.
It was impossible.
She looked down at her legs. They were bare, though she had been wearing tights the previous evening when she had left the flat to go to the supermarket. It was so cold that her skin was almost glowing white in the darkness. Not for the first time, she tried to push back thoughts of what had happened to her when she’d been unconscious, between the times she had accepted a lift home from him and woken up hours later. The thoughts brought with them fresh tears, hot and fast against her icy skin.
If he didn’t kill her, the cold was going to finish the job for him.
Sarah shifted, pushing the dress she was wearing further up her thighs. Then she felt them, smoother than the dress against her skin. Her underwear was still on. Crying with relief, Sarah allowed her head to loll backwards. She looked up at the ceiling, at the strange artexed patterns that in the darkness took the forms of all kinds of strange and alien images.
It was then she heard him. His footsteps sounded distant at first; she could hear him on a flight of stairs. She wasn’t on a ground floor, she thought. Where had he taken her?
Moments later, the door to the room creaked noisily as he pushed it open. She saw his face lit by the light that poured through the windows in the next room, and at the sight of him Sarah began to sob again.
She had thought she had known him. Why was he doing this to her?
He was carrying a large bottle of water and a plastic cup in his hands. With his hip, he shoved the door closed behind him, leaving only a narrow stream of light to enter the room.
She tried to scream at him, but the noise was muted, pathetic. Her eyes sought out his, forcing him to look at her. When he neared her, Sarah’s body froze. He put a hand towards her, his fingertips resting on the cloth that filled her mouth.
‘You must be thirsty,’ he said. ‘You can scream if you want to, but there’s no one to hear you. You won’t get a drink if you do.’
He yanked the cloth from her mouth and Sarah gasped for air, though it tasted thick and dirty. She swallowed it in, desperate to fill her lungs.
‘Why are you doing this?’
She barely recognised her own voice. It sounded feeble, weak; all the things she had feared she’d always been, but had never wanted to show.
Ignoring her, he poured a cup of water and held it to her lips. She kept her mouth shut, refusing the offer.
‘It’s just water.’ To prove the point, he took two long gulps of the drink.
When he held the cup to her lips for a second time, Sarah took a mouthful of water. She held it in her mouth before spitting it back at him, soaking the bottom half of his face. As soon as she’d done it, she had no idea why she had. In that briefest of moments it had felt empowering, but she instantly realised she wasn’t empowered, she was trapped, and now she had made things worse for herself.
With a single shove, he sent her and the chair crashing to the floor. Sarah felt a surge of pain through her spine as the chair fell back on to the wooden floorboards, and she screamed as he straddled her and placed a hand over her face.