Absent Light (28 page)

“Drink,” he said. She heard him move towards the girl and tell her the same.

Helen sipped at it gingerly, wondering whether it was drugged, or worse. It tasted good. Hot, sweet tea. The best she'd ever tasted. He was after something, she thought.

After she drank it, he gave her a small chocolate bar. She ate it greedily, savouring the lavish sweetness on her tongue. Carrot and stick, she thought, licking every crumb. He enjoys power. Control. He likes being nice one minute, nasty the next. The guy's a sadist, she concluded.

He removed her blindfold. At first, she couldn't focus properly. It was like looking at a shot from a film with the camera playing on the main actor, the rest of the set all fuzzy. She blinked and saw the bricks, the spades, the garden forks, the rakes and hoes hanging neatly along the wall. The cellar must have been sixteen feet square. The floor was indeed made of earth and, as her eyes travelled the length of it, she saw a covered mound along the far side. It was wrapped in a length of carpet. There were stains on the ground, most likely blood and body fluids, she thought, thinking that even a body can lie within the stratas of the earth for a very long time and still be detectable. But this body was not in the ground. It was very much on the surface. The half-chewed, bloated and grey-skinned hand sticking out proved it.

She looked across to the girl. She was still blindfolded, thank God, Helen thought. A small-boned creature, she couldn't have been much more than fifteen or sixteen, Helen estimated. She had shoulder-length wheat-coloured hair, which was matted in dreadlocks. Her clothes had a layered look: a brightly coloured jacket with mirrored pieces set into it, a short orange skirt that was stained and badly torn. Underneath this, she wore black leggings, also torn. Her feet were strangely clad in flat blue leather shoes with a single bar across, the type of shoe you might expect a young child to wear.

Gradually, as Helen's sight improved, her attention turned to their captor. He wasn't that tall but he was stocky. Same blond hair. Same milk-white skin, as though he needed to get outside more. There were two deep scratches on his face, one on each cheek, she presumed inflicted by the girl. This time there were no shades to cover his eyes. She peered into them. Muddy river blue. He wore a black three-quarter length leather coat over a black polo-neck sweater and blue jeans. His feet, which she guessed were around a size ten, were shod in expensive-looking walking boots, Rockports, maybe. He was, indeed, wearing disposable gloves.

As she was watching him, he was watching her, staring at her, slowly combing his short hair with a metal comb. There was something deeply threatening about the action, as if he might, at any given moment, assault her with it. And the way he was looking, she wasn't sure whether it was with cruelty, fascination or satisfaction. Maybe all three. She stared right back, noted the ear-ring in his left ear-lobe, thought how easy it would be for him to catch it and knock it out with the teeth from the comb. She also thought that one of those hairs, even without the root, could condemn him so he wasn't quite as smart as he thought he was. Likewise, the boots would surely leave a trace in the earth. Above everything else, she recognised that this was definitely the man at the bar, the man at the funeral. Her assailant. Her rescuer. And for what?

He put the comb away and took out a mobile phone from his pocket. “You're going to make a call.”

Was this her passport to freedom? she thought, hopes absurdly raised.

“To your father. I want a million pounds in cash. He's got thirty-six hours to get it.”

Oh God, she thought, crushed. Her dad wouldn't be able to cope with another trauma. The shock, on top of her mother's death, might even kill him. “He doesn't have that kind of money,” she said brazenly.

“Don't play fuckin' games,” he snapped, his mouth curled in contempt. “Family's bloody loaded.”

The words cudgelled her brain, hitting a nerve. “Family? You set me up, pushed me in the canal, ran me down to extort…”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“You killed my mother.” Her yell ricocheted around the cellar.

He gave a dead-eyed stare, pulled a knife from his jeans and unfolded the blade, which was long and thin, and looked viciously sharp. The tip was pointed low at her stomach. Fear, bright and focused, cut through her. He advanced on Helen and jabbed at her with the tip of the blade. “You going to get this money or do I have to cut you first?”

Helen swallowed. Aside from the sheer pain, one inexpert lunge, especially to the abdomen, could prove fatal. The knife edged closer, glinting in the frozen air. “He won't be able to get his hands on that kind of money in less than forty-eight hours,” she stammered.

He laughed with calculated ease. The trajectory of the knife moved from Helen's stomach to her face. For a horrible moment, she thought he was going to slice her cheek. “Yes, he can,” he growled. “I know it. You know it. Or maybe I'll cut her,” he grinned, indicating the girl with a flick of his head.

Siena's body shook in terror. Helen blinked and mumbled compliantly. Her tongue felt like lead in her mouth. She felt as if she were finally losing her mind.

“That's more like it,” he said. “Don't want to get nasty, or nothin'. Tell him it has to be him – no fuckin' couriers – and he has to be alone. I've already got stuff in place to guard against any interference so no police, no heroics. He's to drive to New Street Station, go to the main bank of telephones, Tuesday, two in the morning and wait for a call.”

“The station won't be open at that time,” she bluffed.

“Shut the fuck up, I told you. It's open and staffed twenty-four hours.”

Helen gritted her teeth, nodded. The thought of her dad driving to a phone box, picking up a set of complex instructions, driving on again, crossing motorway networks, covering large tracts of land, exhausting any police back-up, left her reeling.

“What if he can't get the money to you in time?”

“Then you and the kid are dead meat.”

She closed her eyes. They were probably as good as dead in any case. Her dad would almost certainly go to the police, she believed, but with so little to go on, she wasn't sure of their chance of success. Blackmail with abduction was a unique crime. With two tiers of victims, the one directly involved, and the relative coerced for payment, the police usually trod very carefully. And that meant slow. They'd try to work out the abductor's motive, she remembered, how careful he was, how confident, whether he was motivated by greed, sexual kicks or some emotional need. She hadn't a clue what was driving her captor, so how could the police possibly find out? “I still don't understand why us.”

“Pay-back,” he said acidly.

She felt as if he'd slipped a knife in between her ribs. “For what?”

He glared at her, retied her hands, held up the phone, and punched in the digits, deliberate in his movements. She trembled, watched. “No clever tricks,” he hissed, holding the phone to her ear.

Sick with confusion, she listened to it ringing. Half of her prayed that her father was out, the other half willed him to be in so that she could hear his voice, tell him she loved him, say good-bye.

“Hello,” she heard him say sleepily.

“Dad.”

“Darling, it's awfully late.”

“Is it?” she said, feeling awkward.

“Doesn't matter. Lovely to hear from you. I gather from Aunt Lily you're taking a bit of a break.”

She felt as if her throat were full of stones. She told him immediately what was required, heard the wobble in her voice.

“Oh my God,” he cried out, “are you all right? Has he hurt you?”

“No, I'm fine, really,” she said, twisting inside. “Please, Dad, it's important you do exactly as he says.”

“But…”

“No police. No Stratton,” she said pointedly, hoping he'd pick up on it.

“Let me talk to him, plead with him. You're all I have,” her father said, his voice soaring with emotion.

Her abductor shook his head slowly.

“It's no good. He won't.”

“Please.”

“I have to go,” she said desperately.

“Helen,” her father cried.

“I love you,” she managed to cry out before the phone was snatched away and the call cut.

“Oscar-winning,” her captor grinned. “Fucked-up middle classes do it so well.”

“You won't get away with it.”

“Oh, I can. I've had four years to think about it.”

Four years? Why four, she squirmed, why not one, or two or three? She gawped at him in consternation. It couldn't be, she thought, or could it? “You're Lee,” she gasped. “My half-brother.”

He grinned, winked at her, pulled out his comb again, running it through his hair in long, smooth movements.

So simple, she thought. She was right all along. He must have faked his own death to cover his tracks then blackmailed their mother, and his own flesh and blood, for God's sake. The nearly man had suddenly made it. “How could you?” she said, eyes narrowing.

“Why not?” he said, dismissive.

“She was your mother. I'm your half-sister. What is this? Revenge because life didn't play out the way you wanted?”

He looked at her with animal cunning. “Revenge, yeah.”

“And Karen?”

He shrugged. “She was expendable.”

“You mean…”

“I gave her enough high quality smack to kill an elephant.”

Helen felt her face drain of any little colour she feared she had.

“Wasn't my fault,” he whined. “I didn't make her take it. I didn't inject her. Her own choice to be a fuckin' loser. Just like your mother.”

Your
mother,
our
mother, she thought. “You bastard,” she spat at him. “Mum was a lot of things but she wasn't a loser.”

“Mother fuckin' Theresa, was she?” he jeered, taking a step towards her. “She was a lush.”

“Shut up.”

“And a slag.”

“I'm not listening,” she yelled.

“Got in the club.”

“It's not a mortal sin, Lee.”

“But shaggin' the old man is.”

Her jaw slackened. Her mouth dropped open. She felt as if he'd driven a rapier through her.

“Want me to spell it out, do you? Your mother,” he announced with derision, “was fucking her father, your dirty old grandpa, that's how she got up the duff. Filthy little bitch.”

“No,” she said, trembling. “It's not true. You're lying. You're lying,” she let out a dry sob.

“You thought she wanted to protect you?” he mocked. “Should have seen her face when I turned up. She was fuckin' petrified. Shitting herself, she was. Didn't even have to drag it out of her.
Please, I beg of you, don't tell them
,” he said, high-pitched in mimicry. “I knows all about you,” I says, slapping her around a bit. And the
stoopid
bitch comes out with the lot, whinging on how it wasn't her fault, that her old man was a pervert.

“Believe me,” he said, fixing his cold eyes on Helen, “she cared fuck-all about you, darlin'. But she worried about her precious reputation, what people would think, what your precious daddy might say. Come to think of it, we could give him a bell and tell him.”

“No,” she cried, tears spurting down her face. “Please. It would kill him.”

He curled his lip, started to walk away then turned and looked over his shoulder. “Best leave it then. Don't want the old man snuffing it before he gets hold of the cash.”

* * *

“Helen,” the girl said.

“Yeah,” she said dully.

“He's horrible. He's sick. He was making it up.”

Helen shivered and rolled over.

Words are as lethal as knives. They cut with the same clarity. They leave wounds that never entirely heal. They leave scars. Lee was speaking the truth, Helen thought. She recognised it at some deep, unconscious level. It added up. Fitted in with everything else. Explained the animosity between her mother and grandmother. And the result? A psychopathic retard with revenge on his mind.

Lee surely knew that her father would go to the police. He must have factored it in. Most extortionists and blackmailers give heavy instructions not to approach the law but they knew the reality was quite different. He'd probably already thought about roadblocks and bugging devices, funny money and transmitters. Like he said, he'd had four years to consider it.

Her only hope was Stratton. He, alone, knew the risks she'd taken to uncover the truth. He was the only one who could slot the pieces together, who could make the right connections, who knew about Lee. Oh God, she thought, shrivelling inside. Lee was dead. That's what Stratton found out and believed. Lee was the last person he'd be looking for.

She tried to stay sane, go through the moves. Logically. As soon as her father sounded the alert, the police would be faced with a blizzard of decisions. First, they'd consider whether it was serious or a prank. Picking up on the family's previous history, the local police were bound to realise the urgency. They'd contact the Major Investigation Unit and the case would be passed on to senior officers specialising in kidnap and extortion incidents. And they were bloody good, Helen thought, with a small swell of hope. Lee wouldn't stand a chance.

Briefly buoyed up, she made a stab at what would happen, how they'd play it. News blackout or full media coverage would be a consideration. Going the media route was a mixed blessing. Reports would pour in from all over the country with imagined sightings. Smothered by a mountain of information, the police would be unable to prioritise, let alone process it. Didn't bear thinking about it, she thought, hoping they'd choose the blackout route.

All calls to Keepers would be monitored. Detectives would visit Shirley and her mates, and apply pressure. But would they get anywhere, she worried, skimming over the possibility and focusing, instead, on the options. There were only three she could think of: pay-up, play along, or refuse to negotiate. With a life in the balance, the latter was out of the question. Without more contact, there was nothing to play along with. It all depended on the successful monitoring of the drop. They had to pick him up. Take him alive. Make him talk. Her life depended upon it. More importantly, so did the girl's.