A Dark and Twisted Tide (38 page)

As Dana twisted round, getting ready to fight and scream, her captor flung himself on to the back seat beside her and the driver stepped on the accelerator. They turned left along Lewisham High Road. Dana fell back against the seat.

From what she could see in the rear-view mirror, the driver looked vaguely familiar. No doubt at all, though, about the identity of her kidnapper. There were few people in the world she knew better.

‘What the fuck have you done with Lacey?’ said Joesbury.

83

Pari, Lacey and Dana

TOUCH WAS THE
first of Pari’s senses to come back to her and it came wearing a thick, red mantle of pain. Her brain seemed to be swelling, pressing hard against the bones of a skull that had become as brittle and fragile as china. She was breathing, but every breath felt like ground glass scraping against raw flesh. And she was so hot. Her body was covered in a slick sheen of sweat and there was no air left in the world. Her throat was burning. No one could feel this bad and live. And yet she did. A second later she was still alive, and a second after that. After many, many seconds she could start to think beyond the pain.

She was lying face down. The hard iron surface she could feel against her right temple was causing most of the pain. If she could move a fraction, free her head, it would help. But her brain was sending messages that her limbs couldn’t hear. And there was so much mud in her head. Her thoughts were weighed down, struggling to form themselves and make sense. Was this real mud? How could it be when she was so hot?

Everything lurched. The world surged high into the air and fell again. The ground beneath her was moving. She focused for a few seconds on the rocking, pitching, rolling motion. She was on water.

‘Nadia!’

No reply. Even the water had stopped moving. Knowing she couldn’t risk taking the boat any further into the sewer, Lacey tied it to the mooring ring. Straddling the hull for balance, she stretched up, not quite able to stand upright.

Nadia had been wearing a life-jacket. She wouldn’t just sink. Someone had to be holding her under.

‘Nadia!’

She reached for the bag that kept her radio and phone dry, knowing she’d screwed up badly, that Nadia could lose her life now.

The bag wasn’t there. The only explanation could be that Nadia had reached out for it, clutching at anything to avoid being pulled overboard. Trying not to give way to panic, Lacey scrambled out of the boat on to the ledge. No sign of disturbance, just gently moving water. Then a splash, a cry, about twenty yards further in.

‘Nadia!’

She should get into the boat and go for help.

If she did that, Nadia would die.

Trying to push away the memory of the creature that had tried to drown her the night before, of the human shape she and Ray had seen in the creek, and without even the benefit of a torch, Lacey set off into the tunnel.

‘I can’t believe you’re doing this. Screw up your own life if you must, but stay the hell out of mine.’ Dana turned from Mark to the man at the wheel. ‘And who the hell are you?’

A man in his late sixties. Thinning hair, thin build, sun-tanned skin. The only eyebrow she could see in the rear-view mirror raised fractionally. ‘Let’s just say I’m your driver for the afternoon,’ he told her.

‘Like hell you are. Take me back right now. In fact, stop the car, I’m getting out. And you’d better be good at quick get-aways, because I am phoning this in the minute I’m out of—’

‘Will you fucking well shut up?’ Mark told her.

Back to the man at her side. ‘You pranged my car, you asshole. I can’t believe you did that. And in case it’s escaped you, I’m in the middle of something bloody important. Where the hell are we going?’

Mark sighed. ‘Dana, we’re driving round the frigging block. If you’d calm down and stop screaming for a second, you’d spot that for yourself.’

She stopped shouting; gave herself – and him – a second. ‘What do you mean, what have I done with Lacey?’

Mark was close, invading her personal space. He never normally did that. ‘Ray phoned me an hour ago. This is Ray Bradbury, by the way.’ He nodded towards the driver. ‘He lives on the next boat to Lacey. She came home after her early shift, borrowed Ray’s boat and went out on the water, telling his wife to sound the alarm if she didn’t come back in an hour. She’s not answering her phone and Wapping can’t get hold of her either. Given everything that’s been going on lately, that didn’t seem good. And while we’re on the subject, I’m in the middle of something bloody important too, so if anyone’s career is being screwed up right now, it’s mine.’

It took a moment for Dana to take in what he was saying. ‘But, I thought . . . we all thought . . .’

There was no humour in her best friend’s face. He was angry with her; disappointed. ‘Yeah, thanks for that.’

‘You’re not? You haven’t? You’re still—’

He nodded, gave her that peculiar half-smile that she’d often thought she could fall in love with, were she remotely that way inclined. ‘Yeah, just about. I think.’

84

Pari, Lacey and Dana

WHEN SHE SWAM
back into consciousness, Pari could hear again. The slow, steady slap of water. Gulls screaming. The distant hum and chug of river traffic. A jet engine overhead.

The stench around her seemed alive. She could almost feel it wrapping its damp, slime-ridden folds around her body. Her nostrils were smarting with the acid sting of it creeping its way inside her head. It jabbed at her stomach like the dull blade of a knife, lay in her mouth like vomit she couldn’t spit away. She’d never imagined a smell this bad and wondered, for a moment, whether it might be the stink of her own rotting body that was surrounding her.

And why couldn’t she see? Did she still have eyes? Those were gulls she could hear. What had the gulls done to her, while she’d been lying here?

Wait. Wait. She could feel her lashes striking the upper part of her cheeks when she blinked. She still couldn’t see anything but blackness, only now she understood why. She was wrapped in something. Shrouded.

Panic gave her the power to move again. She tried to push herself up, but her hands were tied behind her back. She tried kicking, but she was bound hand and foot.

That cold slipperiness against her face was black plastic, kidding her that she was blind, keeping the air from her face. She tried to open her mouth and found that it was taped shut.

And then, as though the effort had exhausted her, Pari slipped away again into oblivion.

Lacey carried on, past a lantern-shelf that offered no promise of light, past a ladder that would take her up to the surface, if being on the surface would help at all, and further still.

Ahead of her, the tunnel came to an abrupt T-junction. To take the right-hand fork, she would have to jump into the water and there was no way she was doing that. She went left, now moving parallel with the river, and after a few minutes heard a squeal, which could have been made by a rodent but somehow sounded bigger, more human. She opened her mouth to call for Nadia and found she didn’t dare. The light was all but gone and ahead was blackness so dense it looked solid.

It was solid. A wall. The tunnel curved to the right and then opened out into a much bigger chamber. There was light in here. Not much, but enough to tell Lacey that she was, apparently, alone. She followed the ledge and was surprised to find the light growing. Still very dark, still far too many shadows, but even completely out of reach of the light from the sewer entrance she could see where she was going.

A little further in, she could see the source of the light. Three small tunnels at roughly waist height. Sewage outflow pipes. There would be a pumping station behind them. She might have found the building that Nadia had talked about.

She reached the first of the pipes and peered through. Hardly more than a metre long, and daylight beyond it. Jumping at the chance to get out of the sewer, Lacey climbed into the pipe. A few seconds later, she was in the pumping station.

Two storeys high, the lower floor was underground. She knew that because the boarded-up windows and the large double door were all much higher in the walls. The light was coming from several skylights.

No sign of Nadia – or anyone else, for that matter.

Running along the opposite wall were three recessed arches. She didn’t think anyone was hiding in them, but it was difficult to be sure. Between her and the arches were three iron plinths. Lacey had no great knowledge of engineering, but guessed that they would have held the pumps, back when this station had been operational. There were hiding places behind each. And not far from where she was standing, she could count four weights, with handles, that looked exactly the same as the ones holding down the corpses at South Dock Marina.

Something caught her eye and, carefully, she crossed the tiled floor. On a shelf, high above the damp-stained tiles, were folded sheets. Linen sheets.

There’s someone here.

Who? Who had pulled Nadia overboard?

Movement behind her. Lacey started to turn. She sensed, rather than saw, someone loom over her. Then nothing.

‘OK, so now we’ve lost two young women, one of whom should bloody well know better.’ Dana faced the occupants of the small room at Lewisham. She’d gathered the smallest team she’d dared, the only ones she could trust with the knowledge that Mark was back in the fold. Anderson, Stenning and Mizon. Together with Mark himself and his new best mate Ray Bradbury, they were a group of six.

‘Lacey took a phone call at two thirty this afternoon,’ Anderson said. ‘In fairness, she called for assistance, but there was a lot kicking off in the area and they couldn’t get anyone out to her. From Mrs Bradbury on the next boat, we know she then went out on to the river, in Mr Bradbury’s boat, to meet Nadia Safi, who we are similarly unable to trace. So strictly, Ma’am, three young women.’

‘It just gets better,’ said Dana. ‘Oh, and does everybody know, we also have a mermaid at large on the Thames.’

‘Come again?’

Dana gestured impatiently for Ray to fill everyone else in on what he’d told her and Mark in the car. That whoever had been stalking Lacey for the past couple of weeks was moving around by water, possibly in a small boat, but swimming at least some of the time. He told them about the heart shape in glass and pebbles that Lacey had
said nothing about, assuming it to have been left behind by Mark. And he told them about the voice calling Lacey’s name, about the tapping on the side of her yacht, about the night they’d both gone out in his boat and seen someone in the water.

‘I’m not saying one way or another.’ Bradbury was repeating himself now. ‘It was dark. We were both a bit spooked. All I’m saying is that from the neck up, at least, it looked human.’

‘Why didn’t she say something?’ asked Mizon.

‘Would you?’ Mark turned to Ray. ‘And she saw it again, this morning?’

The other man nodded. ‘She got up just before dawn. I heard her climb out of our boat, although that dozy bugger in the main cabin didn’t. She was on the deck and saw it in the water.’

‘Male? Female? What did she see exactly?’ asked Anderson.

‘Human head,’ said Ray. ‘Too far away and too dark for her to recognize features, but she did see what she thought was long hair floating around, suggesting a female. It just sank below the surface before she had chance to raise the alarm.’

The door opened and David Cook came into the room. His eyes narrowed when he saw Mark but he said nothing, focusing instead on Ray. ‘We found your boat, Ray.’

The room fell quiet.

‘It was spotted a few minutes ago down by the barrier. It had obviously overturned. Sorry, mate.’ He turned to the rest of the room. ‘Sorry, everyone. It’s not looking hopeful.’

Dana closed her eyes.

‘Nope,’ said Ray.

Dana turned to him. Probably because she couldn’t bring herself to look at Mark.

‘Lacey’s a bloody good swimmer,’ he said. ‘I’ve not known a woman as strong or with as much stamina since my wife was young. She knows how to handle boats and she knows the river. Also, according to Eileen, she went off wearing a life-jacket. Wherever she is, she didn’t have an accident on the water.’

‘I hope you’re right, Ray, but the most experienced skippers can get taken by surprise,’ said Cook. ‘I’ve got as many officers as I can spare looking for her.’

‘Is it possible Lacey got a lead on what happened to this other girl? Pari, did you say she was called?’ said Mark.

‘If she did, she should have called it in,’ snapped Dana.

‘She bloody well tried.’ Mark sighed. ‘Let’s look for this Pari girl. Maybe she’ll lead us to Lacey.’

‘And Nadia,’ said Mizon.

Dana dropped her head into her hands. Just how many bloody women were they going to be pulling out of the Thames before the day was done?

85

Pari, Lacey and Dana

WHEN PARI CAME
round again, she knew she was on the big river, the Thames. She also knew she was amongst rubbish. The foul stench hadn’t gone. It was the smell of rotting garbage. Coming from a city where there’d been no official refuse collection, Pari found it familiar enough. She could only assume that, here, people stored their rubbish on the river.

Why was she here? She’d been in her room at the clinic, been talking to a woman on the other side of the wall. There’d been commotion in the next room and then everything had fallen silent. Not for long. Two of the clinic staff had come back. They’d seemed unusually hurried, anxious. She remembered them coming towards her, then . . .

Nothing. Maybe a faint memory of being carried down the stairs. And had she felt sun on her face for the first time in weeks? After that, nothing.

Pari tried to relax, to concentrate on the rocking, pitching, rolling motion beneath her. The wind seemed to have picked up. The water was rough. The tide was rolling in or out fast. Impossible to tell which. But she couldn’t be moving, because she would hear an engine. She was on a moored buoy. It was a hiding place and a temporary one at that. It was probably still daytime. At
nightfall, they’d come back. She’d got until nightfall to get away.