I See You (41 page)

‘Nick, Zoe Walker isn’t at work today,’ Lucinda said, putting the phone down. ‘Her boss sent her home yesterday; he said she wasn’t able to concentrate on anything but – and I quote – this bloody case. I’ve asked him to tell Zoe to call us if he hears from her first.’

‘Call her at home.’

‘There’s no reply.’

‘There are no other numbers for her on the system?’ Nick had started pacing, in the way he did when he wanted to think faster.

‘Not for Zoe, and nothing for Katie. We’ve got an old mobile
number for her son, Justin – he was ASBO’d in 2006 after a shoplifting, and received a caution for possession of class C in 2008. Nothing since then, although we’ve got a dozen stop checks for him.’

‘What did the Telephone Intelligence Unit say?’

‘There’s no phone registered to Katie Walker at their home address. Either she’s on Pay As You Go or she’s got an additional handset on Mum’s account; I’ve asked them to look into it.’

‘Where was the email with Katie Walker’s profile sent from?’ Nick fired the question at Andrew, who seemed unperturbed by the DI’s ferocity.

‘Not Espress Oh!, if that’s what you’re thinking. The IP is different. I’ll need to put in a request.’

‘How long will that take?’ Nick glanced at his watch and didn’t wait for a response. ‘Whatever it takes, it’ll be too long. British Transport Police are on their way to Leicester Square, but there’s no guarantee they’ll get to Katie in time, and in the meantime there’s every chance Zoe’s in real danger.’

‘She’s still not home,’ Lucinda said, putting down the phone, ‘and her mobile’s been switched off.’

‘I want a cell-site trace on her mobile. Find out when her phone was last used and where. Kelly, the second Lucinda gets a location I want officers making on immediate.’

‘On it.’ Kelly moved to sit next to Lucinda, who was already starting the trace. Nick was pacing again, reeling off instructions without pausing for breath. A thought was forming; something someone had said, just a moment ago. Kelly tried to get hold of it but it slipped away in the midst of the growing chaos in the briefing room.

‘Can we get the daughter’s mobile number from Zoe Walker’s billing?’ Nick was saying.

‘Potentially,’ Lucinda said. ‘It’s a long process though and not an exact science; I’ll need to look at the most frequently
dialled numbers and make assumptions about which ones are likely to be family numbers.’

‘Do it. Please,’ he added as an afterthought. It was the first time Kelly had seen the DI rattled. His tie was already loosened, but now he took it off and chucked it on the table, flicking open the top button of his shirt and stretching his neck first one way, then the other.

‘Andrew, keep an eye on the website and tell me the second anything changes. Do what you can to find out where that most recent email was from. If it isn’t Espress Oh! maybe it’s another café. Kelly, if it is, get officers there pronto to view CCTV for customers in there around the time it was sent.’

Espress Oh!

That was it. The thought that had been circling Kelly’s head finally solidified. Meeting Zoe at the café in Covent Garden. The friend with the chain of coffee shops; the new business in Clerkenwell. The Australian girl at Espress Oh! and the absent owner with the chain of shops. ‘Not customers,’ she said, suddenly certain she knew who they were looking for. The person behind the website; the person who, right now, was sending nineteen-year-old Katie into danger, and who was potentially holding Zoe Walker hostage.

Nick looked at her expectantly. Kelly felt a rush of adrenaline. ‘We need to do a Companies House check,’ she said. ‘It isn’t a customer who’s been using the WiFi at Espress Oh! to administer the website. It’s the owner.’

‘Katie!’
I scream so loudly my voice cracks, my mouth suddenly devoid of moisture. I pull at the tape, feeling the adhesive tug at the hairs on my wrists. I find a strength I didn’t know I had, and I feel the tape give a fraction. Melissa smiles.

‘I win.’ She spins her chair round to face me, folding her arms and looking thoughtfully at me. ‘But then, I was always going to.’

‘You bitch. How could you do that?’

‘I didn’t do anything. You did. You let her walk into danger; danger you knew was out there. How could you do that to your own flesh and blood?’

‘You—’ I stop. Melissa didn’t make me. She’s right; I let Katie go. It’s my fault.

I can’t look at her. There’s a pain in my chest that’s making it hard to breathe. Katie. My Katie. Who was that man? What is he doing to her?

I try to keep my voice calm. Rational. ‘You could have had children. You could have adopted; had IVF.’ I look at the screen again but the door to what I assume is some kind of cupboard or maintenance room remains stubbornly closed. Why did no one notice? There are people everywhere. I see a fluorescent jacketed Underground worker and I want so much for her to open the door; to hear Katie crying out; to do something – anything – to stop whatever is happening right now to my baby girl.

‘Neil refused.’ Melissa is staring at the screen, and I can’t see
her eyes. I can’t see if there’s any emotion in them, or whether they’re as dead as her voice. ‘Said he wanted his own child, not someone else’s.’ She gives a hollow laugh. ‘Ironic, given the amount of time we spent looking after yours.’

On the screen life is continuing as usual; people are getting in each other’s way, searching for Oyster cards, rushing to catch trains. But for me, the world has stopped.

‘You lose,’ she says, as easily as if we’ve been playing cards. ‘Time to pay up.’ She picks up the knife and runs a speculative finger across the blade.

I should never have let Katie go, no matter what she said. I thought I was giving her a chance, but I was sending her into danger. Melissa would have tried to kill us, but would she have succeeded, with two of us to fight her off?

And now she’s going to kill me anyway. I feel dead inside already, and part of me wants her to finish it; to hasten the darkness that began to descend after Katie left, and which now threatens to overcome me.

Do it, Melissa. Kill me.

I catch sight of the penholder on Melissa’s desk – the one Katie made for her in woodwork – and feel a surge of rage. Katie and Justin worshipped Melissa. They saw her as a surrogate mother; someone to trust. How dare she betray us like this?

I mentally shake myself. If Katie dies, who will be there for Justin? I work my wrists again, twisting my hands in opposite directions and finding perverse pleasure in the pain which ensues. It is a distraction. My eyes are still trained on the screen as though I can make the door to that maintenance cupboard fly open through the power of thought alone.

Perhaps Katie isn’t dead. Perhaps she’s been raped, or beaten up. What will happen to her if I’m not there, at a time when she needs me most? I can’t let Melissa kill me.

Suddenly I feel cool air on a tiny patch of newly exposed skin.

I’m
loosening the tape. I can get free.

I think quickly, allowing my head to sink down to my chest, in an attempt to make Melissa think I’ve given up. My thoughts are whirring. The doors are locked, and the only windows in the kitchen extension are the huge skylights, too high above my head to reach. There is only one way to stop Melissa from killing me, and that is to kill her first. The thought is so ridiculous I feel light-headed: how did I get here? How did I become the sort of woman who could kill someone?

But kill Melissa I can. And I will. My legs are too tightly strapped to even think about getting loose, which means I’m not going to be able to move fast. I’ve managed to loosen the duct tape around my wrists enough to gently pull out one hand, careful not to move my upper arms. I’m convinced my plan – such as it is – is written all over my face, so I glance at the screen, without hope of seeing Katie, but nevertheless desperate for some sign of movement from that shut door.

‘That’s odd,’ I say, too fast to consider whether I should have kept my thoughts to myself.

Melissa looks at the screen. ‘What?’

Both my hands are free now. I keep them clasped behind my back.

‘That sign’ – I nod towards the upper left-hand corner of the screen – ‘at the top of the escalator. It wasn’t there a minute ago.’ The sign is a plastic yellow folding one, warning of wet surfaces. There’s been a spillage. But when? Not while I was watching.

Melissa shrugs. ‘So someone’s put out a sign.’

‘They didn’t. It just appeared.’ I know the sign wasn’t there when Katie came up the escalator, because it would have been in front of her for a second. As for when it appeared … well, I can’t be certain, but I haven’t taken my eyes off the CCTV image for more than a few seconds since Katie disappeared, and every time I’ve seen a high-vis jacket I’ve kept my eyes
trained on the wearer, desperately hoping I’ll see them walk into the room where Katie is.

There is a shadow of concern in Melissa’s eyes. She leans close to the screen. The knife is still in her right hand. Both my hands are now free, and slowly I move one of them; first to the side of the chair, then by tiny degrees down towards my legs. I keep my eyes trained on Melissa. The second she moves, I sit up straight, putting my hands behind my back, but it’s too late; she sees the movement in the corner of her eye.

Beads of sweat form on my brow and sting my eyes.

I don’t know what makes Melissa glance towards the kitchen counter, but I know instantly she’s realised what I’ve done. Her eyes flick to the knife block. Counting the knives; seeing one missing.

‘You’re not playing by the rules,’ she says.

‘Neither are you.’

I lean down and wrap my fist around the handle of the knife, feeling a sharp pain as the blade cuts my ankle on its way out of my boot.

This is it, I think. This is the only chance I’m going to get.

The
marked car raced along Marylebone Street on blues and twos, narrowly missing an open-top bus that pulled out in front of them as they passed Madame Tussauds. Kelly listened to the response officers in the front discussing that day’s game at Old Trafford over the wail of the siren.

‘How Rooney could have missed that, I don’t know. If I was paying someone three hundred grand a week I’d bloody make sure they could kick straight.’

‘Can’t perform under pressure, that’s the problem.’

The lights changed to red at Euston Square. The driver pressed his horn, switching the sirens to a high-pitched warble, and the cars in front began to peel apart, allowing them through. They turned right into Bloomsbury and Kelly turned up her radio, waiting for the update they were all desperate for. It came as they neared the West End. Kelly closed her eyes and let her head fall briefly against her seat.

It was over. For Katie Walker, at least.

Kelly leaned forward between the two front seats. ‘You may as well slow down now.’

The driver had already heard the update and was switching off the sirens, dropping down to a more appropriate speed, now that there was nothing to gain from making on immediate. No one to save.

When they reached Leicester Square he dropped her off outside the Hippodrome and she ran towards the Underground station, flashing her warrant card to a bored-looking woman standing
at the ticket barriers. She had come in via a different entrance than she had intended, and she looked around, trying to get her bearings.

There.

The door to the maintenance cupboard was scuffed at the bottom, where people had pushed it open with their feet, and a poster urging passengers to report any suspicious packages curled up at the corners. A sign told members of the public access was forbidden.

Kelly knocked twice on the door, then went inside. Even though she knew what she’d find inside, her heart was still racing.

The maintenance room was dark and windowless, with a desk and a metal chair on one side, and a pile of signs stacked against the opposite wall. A yellow bucket on wheels stood in one corner, filled with greasy grey water. Beside it, a young girl sat on a plastic crate, cradling a cup of tea. Even without the confident pout evident in the photo on the website, Katie was instantly recognisable. Her mass of highlighted hair fell around the shoulders of her coat; its padded white segments making her look bigger than Kelly knew she was.

Leaning against a wall behind Katie was a broad-shouldered man with dark hair. He stepped forward and held out his hand to Kelly.

‘John
Chandler, covert officer with British Transport Police.’

‘Kelly Swift.’ She crouched down. ‘Hi, Katie, I’m Kelly, one of the detectives involved in this case. Are you okay?’

‘I think so. I’m worried about Mum.’

‘Officers are on their way there now.’ She put out a hand and squeezed Katie’s arm. ‘You did really well.’ DC Chandler’s radio message confirming that Katie was safe had been swiftly followed by confirmation of what Kelly had suspected: Zoe was being held by Melissa West, owner of several cafés in London, including Espress Oh!

‘It was horrible.’ Katie looked up at John. ‘I didn’t know whether to believe you or not. When you whispered in my ear, I wanted to run. I thought, “What if he isn’t an undercover cop at all? What if that’s just his cover story?” But I knew I had to trust you. I was scared Melissa would realise what was going on, and hurt Mum.’

‘You did brilliantly,’ John said. ‘An Oscar-winning performance.’

Katie attempted a smile, but Kelly could see she was still shaking.

‘I didn’t have to do much acting. Even though you’d told me what was going to happen, the minute you pulled me in here, I decided everything you’d said to me was a lie. I thought that was it. Game over.’

‘I’m sorry we had to put you through that,’ Kelly said. ‘We knew the CCTV had been hacked, but we didn’t know to what extent – we didn’t know exactly how much could be seen. When we saw your profile on the website we knew we had to get you safely off the Underground and away from anyone who might want to hurt you, without letting Melissa know we were on to her.’