No Going Back (25 page)

‘Well, they weren't exactly over the moon to find you gone,' Fred said. ‘But I explained about your son and they seemed quite understanding. You have to present yourself at the station with your licence within the next week, though, and they're going to have VOSA take a look at the lorry.'

‘That doesn't surprise me,' Daniel said. VOSA was the body that oversaw MOT testing and it was fairly standard procedure to call on them if there were any unusual or suspicious circumstances surrounding an RTA. ‘But, look, I'm afraid I've done something a bit stupid – I've just told Amanda I'd bring Drew to Exeter at lunchtime, but I forgot I've still got your car.'

‘It doesn't matter. I've got to wait here till the salvage people come. I expect I'll get a lift with them. Keep the car for now.'

‘OK, thanks.' Daniel said. ‘I've not been much help, have I? I thought I was doing you a favour and all I've done is bugger up your day completely.'

‘Well, if I thought you'd done it on purpose, I might be a tad pissed off, but as it is . . . Go on. Take Drew to his mum. I'll see you later. But, Daniel . . . try not to roll my car!'

Daniel felt deeply unsettled as he left Exeter presently, having reunited Drew with Amanda outside the train station – a process that earned him little thanks from either party.

Amanda, pencil slim in skin-tight jeans, high-heeled boots and a tailored jacket, had given him a look – over Drew's head – that left him in no doubt that she held him entirely to blame for the incident.

How could such perfect features look so ugly? Daniel found himself wondering as he drove home. Her ice-blue eyes had fairly glittered with malevolence under her platinum-blonde fringe. She wore her hair even shorter now than when they'd been together, cut in a sharp, boyish style that only served to emphasize the hard lines of her face.

Drew, for his part, had left him without so much as a backward glance, which had hurt even more than tears and entreaties would have done. It was as though Daniel had been tested and found wanting, and the boy had now given up all hope of help from that quarter.

There were one or two things Daniel needed to pick up – not the least of which were some clean clothes – so on the way back he made the short detour necessary to call in at the flat.

His approach was cautious, but the yard was empty and the scrap of tissue paper he'd trapped between the door and its post was still reassuringly present.

In the flat, he stood and looked about him for a long moment, trying to decide what, if anything, was missing, but instead finding his mind constantly sliding back to the unhappy situation with Drew.

Wandering from the main room to his partitioned-off sleeping area and back again, Daniel forced his brain to concentrate. Since his split with Amanda, he had very little of material value and those things he did have – wallet, bank cards, watch and mobile phone – he habitually carried on his person, as he had on the night of the attack. The only thing that might have been tempting was his laptop, but that was hardly state of the art, and was still where he'd left it.

Stuffing a change of clothes into a holdall, he collected his mobile-phone charger and picked up the Volvo's keys from the worktop. With one last look around, his eye was caught for the first time by a small red flashing light half hidden by an untidy pile of papers and magazines.

It took a moment for him to realize what it was – namely the antiquated telephone answering machine that he'd discovered when he moved into the flat. The light had never flashed before. Presumably it denoted a message left. No one had left him a message in the three months he'd lived there. For that matter no one, except for a couple of marketing callers, had
ever
rung him on the landline – for the simple reason that he hadn't given anyone the number, retaining the line solely for the Internet connection.

No, wait, someone did have the number, he remembered suddenly. Soon after he met Tamzin, he'd rung her on the landline after accidentally leaving his mobile in the lorry overnight.

Putting his bag down, he went over to the phone and pressed playback. Moments later, Tamzin's clear county tones sounded through the hiss of the aged tape.

‘Hi, Dan. It's, er . . . Tuesday. Thought I'd try this number as your mobile seems to be switched off or something. Just wondering how things are going. Is everything OK? How's Kat? Did you sort her out? Er . . . I'm really glad you enjoyed riding out the other morning. We should do it again soon. If you'd like to, of course. Anyway, give me a call or, better still, come round. Bye, then.'

Daniel switched off the machine, feeling guilty. So much for his promise to stay in touch. He'd seen a couple of missed-call messages on his mobile and, for reasons he didn't care to examine just at the moment, hadn't got round to calling back. Later, he would ring her.

Collecting his bag, Daniel left the flat, locked the door at the top of the stairs and descended to the empty showroom below. Outside, the sky was still grey with lowering cloud and a cold wind blew the rain against the back of his neck as he locked the door. The weather reflected his mood and he set off for the TFS depot battling a creeping fog of depression.

In the office, Fred looked up from his desk.

‘Ah, Daniel. Everything OK with Drew?'

‘Yeah. Well, no, actually, but there's not much I can do about it.'

‘It'll sort itself out eventually. Do you fancy a coffee?'

‘Thanks. As strong as you like.' Daniel knew Fred kept a percolator permanently ‘perking', just topping it up as and when needed. ‘What's happened about the lorry?'

‘Well, it's been recovered, but it wasn't easy,' Bowden said as he got up to find mugs. ‘They had to get a crane. We transferred your load to Figgy's lorry before they took it away, and now I'm waiting on VOSA and the insurance assessor. Call me nosy but I could bear to know exactly what happened.'

Daniel sat in the office's only other chair and told his boss all about the morning's short but eventful trip.

‘And you still think someone shot the tyre out?'

‘I'm not ruling it out. We both know how rare blow-outs are, and as you pointed out, those were new tyres. I've been thinking. When I stopped to take Amanda's call, there was a minibus parked in the lay-by in front of me. While I was there, some guy got into it with binoculars. I assumed he was a twitcher, but what if he wasn't? What if he was positioned there to let whoever was waiting at the bottom of the hill know when I was on my way?'

‘Well, I suppose it's possible – if it
was
deliberate.' Fred put a mug down in front of Daniel.

‘Thanks.' Picking up the coffee, Daniel leaned back in the chair, sighing deeply. ‘Oh, I don't know – maybe you're right. Maybe I'm being paranoid.'

Fred sat down, regarding his driver appraisingly. ‘Have you eaten?'

‘Yes, I took Drew out for a late breakfast.'

‘You look absolutely knackered.'

‘Yeah, it's been quite a day.' A glance at his watch showed Daniel that it was only just gone two, but it already felt like a week since he'd got up that morning.

‘Look, when you've finished your coffee, why don't you go back to the house and put your feet up.'

‘But can't I do anything here?'

‘Don't you think you've done enough for one day?' Fred joked. ‘No, really. There's nothing for you to drive, and I can get on with what needs doing here.'

‘OK. If you're sure,' Daniel gave in with some relief. His left hand was throbbing under the bandages. It hadn't been the gentle return to work he'd envisaged.

Barely 5 miles down the road, his phone rang. A glance showed a mobile number unknown to him and he let it ring. If it were important, they'd ring back.

They did. Within moments of the ringtone dying away it was repeated. When it started for a third time, Daniel pulled in to the verge and answered it.

‘Dan? Thank God! Where've you been?' It was Tamzin.

Daniel had to concentrate hard as her voice was almost incoherent, the words tumbling over one another in her rush to get her message across.

‘Tamzin, what's the matter?'

‘I . . . I'm sorry, Dan. I told them. I couldn't help it.'

‘Whoa, calm down! You told who what?'

‘The men that came. I couldn't help it. I told them where Kat is. You have to warn Hilary!'

TWELVE

T
he Quarry Farm stable yard appeared deserted when Daniel brought the Mercedes to a skidding halt in front of the tack room and he remembered it was the yard's quiet time.

He was out of the car almost before it stopped moving, shouting for Tamzin. Several horses' heads appeared over half-doors to see what the commotion was about, but there was no answer and he set off down the narrow path that led to her cottage, taking the steps three or four at a time. Smoke rose in a thin spiral from the tall chimney, but even though the sun had dipped behind the trees, there were no lights showing.

The door was shut and locked and he rapped sharply on it.

‘Tamzin! It's Daniel.'

She must have been close behind it for immediately he heard the sound of bolts being drawn back and within moments she had pulled it open. She reached through to grab his wrist and pulled him inside before slamming and locking the door once again.

As Daniel turned, Tamzin fell into his arms, burying her face in the front of his jumper, sobbing hard. He held her tight, rubbing her back and feeling her whole body trembling.

‘It's all right, sweetheart. You're safe. I'm here now.'

The tiny hallway was cramped and dark, so Daniel went through into the kitchen, still holding Tamzin close.

Freeing one hand, he switched on the light. Over her head he could see two of her dogs curled up in their baskets, watching with solemn concern and, behind them, pressed against the wall, the little Yorkie, shivering piteously. Shattered glass and porcelain littered the floor and grated underfoot.

‘It's all right,' he said again. ‘It's over.'

‘It's
not
all right,' came a muffled voice, hiccupping on a sob. ‘I told them where Kat is. I let everyone down.'

‘Sshh. Of course you didn't.'

Tamzin sniffed. ‘I didn't want to tell them, but . . .'

Leaning away from her a little, Daniel put a finger under her chin and tilted her head up. Anger surged in him as he saw what they had done to her.

A cut and a purple bruise the size of an egg disfigured her left cheekbone, and the eye on that side was swollen shut. Her nose had bled a little, the blood from it forming a black trail on her upper lip, and her lower lip was also split and swollen.

Daniel's blood boiled. He had no doubt that this was Macek's work, and if he hadn't already yearned for payback after what the Romanian had done to Taz and probably Marika too, this cowardly act would have done the trick on its own. He felt horribly responsible. He'd blithely told Tom Bowden that no one knew where Katya was except Hilary and himself, but it wasn't true. He'd forgotten Tamzin. Indirectly, this was all his fault.

‘Who did it, Tam? What did he look like?'

Tamzin shook her head helplessly. ‘There were two of them, but I couldn't see their faces. They had stocking masks, like bank robbers, and they were wearing gloves – thin plastic ones, like surgical gloves. It was horrible! One – the one who hit me – was really big. I mean tall
and
broad. They both had dark hair, I could see that much, and they were foreign. They must be the two you saw the night Katya ran away.'

‘Almost certainly,' Daniel said. He was reminded of how little she knew of what had gone on since and that added to his feelings of guilt – not that any amount of knowledge would have saved her the beating. ‘I'm really sorry you got mixed up in this.'

‘But what about Kat? Is she safe? I tried to ring Hilary when they'd gone, but she didn't answer. That's when I rang you and I thought you weren't going to answer either. I was really panicking.'

‘It's OK. I managed to get her on her mobile. I told her to take Katya and get out. If you called me straight after the men left here, they should have had plenty of time to get away. I'm sorry I took so long to answer the phone. I was driving and I didn't recognize the number.'

‘I know. They smashed my mobile and cut the landline to stop me calling the police. I had to use my spare one.'

‘Oh, sweetheart . . .'

‘I was so scared, Dan. I didn't see them coming, and when I answered the door, they barged in before I could get it shut again.' Tamzin's eyes were wide with remembered fear as she relived the moment, and tears ran, unchecked, down her cheeks. She buried her face against his shoulder once more and he had to bend his head to hear her muffled voice as she continued with her story. ‘First of all, they just asked me about Katya, but when I said I didn't know where she was, they started smashing things. After that, the big one just started slapping me and the other one stood there and watched – like it was normal. Anyway, then the big one got this knife out and he said if I didn't tell them where Kat was . . .' Her voice wobbled and she stifled another sob. ‘He said he'd slash my face. I told them, Dan. I had to. I'm sorry – I was
so
scared!'

‘Of course you had to. I would have done too. Anyone would,' Daniel told her.

‘But I told them how to get there,' Tamzin confessed miserably. ‘They asked me. I'm sorry. I just wanted to get rid of them.'

‘That's OK. It's still easy to go wrong on those little lanes. Look, have you called the police and an ambulance?'

Tamzin shook her head. ‘I didn't know what to do. I knew you didn't want the police involved. I felt bad enough already. I didn't want to make things even worse.'