Someone To Save you (43 page)

Sam cradled the drink. He looked across at Shirley, who was now sitting next to her husband. She readied herself, flattening down her skirt, before looking at Sam and forcing a smile. ‘What can we do for you?’

Sam decided to come straight out with it. ‘My wife has been kidnapped.’

As a statement, Sam realised that he had in some way detached himself from its horrific meaning, in the same way that sometimes he coped with breaking bad news in the hospital. The truth was almost too painful to bear; that someone, some people, had Anna and could be doing anything to her.

But the reality of what his statement meant was not lost on Shirley Ainsley, who reacted with dismay. ‘Oh my God, kidnapped?’

Sam nodded, glancing across at Eric, who was sitting there, contemplating, not revealing any emotion. ‘It’s all connected, Shirley. Everything that has happened to your family, and everything that’s happened to mine, it’s all connected.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I think the same people are behind all of this,’ Sam explained. ‘The people who killed your daughter, they killed my sister and now they have my wife and your granddaughter.’

‘But why?’

‘I don’t know,’ Sam admitted. ‘But I am sure that it is all connected. That’s why we’ve got to help each other.’

That’s when Sam caught Eric’s glance to Shirley. He looked between the two. ‘What is it?’

When they hesitated, Sam pressed. ‘If you know anything, tell me, please.’

Shirley nodded, placing a hand on Eric’s knee. ‘It’s going to be all right,’ she said, ‘we can trust him.’

‘You tell him,’ Eric replied, looking to his feet.

She continued. ‘Eric lost his job some time ago. He didn’t tell me, he was ashamed, and he couldn’t find other work. So he borrowed money, from a man who approached him in the pub. He thought it would just tide him over until he found a job, but the interest rate was so high he just got deeper and deeper into debt. Then they started threatening him, wanting the money back.

Eric continued staring down.

‘The man was Vincent McGuire,’ she said. ‘Dating our daughter, it was just another way of threatening Eric, threatening our family. He came to the house yesterday and told me he had set up Jane’s death, and that he has Alison. That’s when Eric told me everything.’

Sam closed his eyes for a moment. So it was truth. The train crash was a set up.

‘What you said,’ Shirley added. ‘About everything being connected. Vincent said that this wasn’t about us - it was part of a bigger plan. Is it about all about you?’

Sam swallowed. As much as he didn’t want to believe it, this now seemed obvious. ‘I think so, yes.’

‘So he is using us to get at you? Jane murdered, Alison taken. Why? Why would he do that?’

‘I don’t know,’ Sam admitted. ‘I really don’t.’

Shirley digested that for a moment. ‘Yesterday we got a call,’ she said. ‘From someone who said they knew where Alison was.’

Sam sat forward. ‘And?’

‘And they said we should wait to hear from them.’

‘They didn’t say who they were?’

‘It was a girl, but she didn’t give a name.’

Sam thought about what Paul Cullen had said about the anonymous tip off having come from a female. Maybe he had one more ally than he realised.

‘So you’re just waiting?’

Shirley shrugged, upset. ‘What else can we do? They warned us not to tell the police, otherwise Alison might come to harm. They said Vincent has got friends in the force. So this person is our only hope.’

Another tantalising step forward, but it was not the leap that Sam needed. ‘What do you know about Vincent McGuire?’

‘Nothing,’ she replied. ‘Only his name.’

‘But you know he has money,’ Sam said, directing his statement at Eric.

‘Oh, he has money,’ Eric said. ‘He got the fifteen thousand pounds to me the same day he offered it.’

‘From where?’ Sam thought about what Louisa had said about the gang intimidating Marcus and their offer of a job. ‘He’s got people working for him, violent people. Is he a loan shark?’

‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But I hadn’t seen him before that time in the pub. I don’t know what he does really.’

It was a long shot, but worth asking. ‘Do you have a contact number?’

‘No,’ Eric said. ‘He always contacted me either in person or via an unknown number. And the number he gave Alison is now not working.’

No luck there, but Sam pressed on in the hope that Eric might unlock another part of all this. ‘Does the phrase “Black Wolves” mean anything to you?’

Eric shook his head, but Shirley was thinking.

‘What is it?’ Sam asked.

‘One of his men, when they came to the house, they had a tattoo of something on their neck, an animal. I thought it was a dog, but it could have been a wolf, couldn’t it?’

Sam nodded, tempering his hope that they were making real progress here: if it didn’t result in the safe return of his wife, it meant nothing. ‘Is there anything else you can think of?’

When both came back with a negative, he tried again. ‘What’s he like, Vincent McGuire?’

‘Ruthless,’ Eric shot back, resentment flowing. ‘Inhuman. He enjoys making people suffer. He’s enjoyed every second of making me and my family go through Hell.’

Sam considered Eric’s description of Vincent. Was he Cathy’s murderer? Could it really be him?

‘He can be charming though,’ Shirley interrupted. ‘Jane was smitten with him, really smitten. I remember her coming home one night and telling me about this new man she had met. Sounded like a real smooth character, said her eyes looked like the two brightest stars in the midnight sky.’ She snorted bitterly at the memory. ‘I guess we were all fooled by his words. I blame myself, Sam, because I was her mother, I should have seen through that man. Jane was lonely, naive, a young mother with three children whose husband had upped and left. She needed someone to look out for her, to see things for how they really were.’

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Sam said, although he had stopped listening properly half-way through her speech. He was thinking hard about something she had just said. ‘None of this is our fault.’

Stars in the midnight sky.

‘Are you okay, Sam?’

Sam hauled himself out of his thoughts. Maybe he had imagined it. ‘What did he say to Jane? About stars in the midnight sky?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘her eyes looked like the two brightest stars in the midnight sky. Why?’

Sam thought some more, the words playing on a loop. His heart pounded, his body in overdrive at the thoughts going through his head. ‘What does he look like?’

‘Tall, thin really, dark hair, pointed nose, very blue eyes,’ Shirley replied.

Sam thought back fifteen years to the night at the camp site bar. The guy who had been pestering Cathy and Louisa, the one who Marcus had warned off in the toilets. My God, could it be?

‘I think I know who it is,’ he thought out loud.

He pressed his fingers into each side of his temple and trawled his memory for an impression of that person. It was a long time ago, but he did remember the guy being tall and thin, with those piercing blue eyes. But it was those words that were so powerful; the two brightest stars in the midnight sky. Almost exactly what Louisa had said just the other day, the chat up line he had used on Cathy. It had to be.

‘Who?’ Shirley said. ‘Who is he?’

But before Sam could answer, there was a loud knock at the door.

He poured himself another glass of whiskey and walked towards the chair, flopping down into it. At the point of impact some of the golden liquid leapt out from the glass and dribbled down his hand. He licked it from his skin, on one level repulsed by the taste but on another eager for more. He took a generous gulp from the glass and looked around the penthouse apartment, surveying everything that he could be about to lose; the television, the stereo system, the carpets, curtains, everything. He looked out towards the balcony and thought, not for the first time, about ending it out there. But this time felt different. The thought was no longer consigned to some future scenario. It was a here-and-now consideration.

What the hell.

Who would miss him? Certainly not Sam Becker, surgeon extraordinaire.

He got up and wandered over to the glass doors. For the first time in a long while, he felt like he was in control. Sliding the glass doors back, he stepped onto the balcony, and was blasted by a cooling gust from the Thames below. Up ahead he could see Canary Wharf. That was where the big money was made. How he could do with some of that now. Placing both hands on the brushed metal railing he peered down towards the ground, some eleven stories below. The floor seemed to rise towards him – the alcohol he figured.

He balanced the drink precariously on the railing, and brought one leg over the metal bar, steadying himself so that he didn’t fall, in the ultimate irony. One leg each side of the rail, he tensed and screwed his eyes shut, wishing away the situation yet also feeling more invigorated than he’d ever done in his whole life.

Then from within the apartment his phone began to ring. He dared to hope. Maybe they had kept their promise after all.

49

Someone knocked for a second time. Shirley and Eric stayed rooted on the sofa, their faces frozen with fear. Sam looked at them for direction.

‘It could be them,’ Shirley said, her voice fearful. ‘Vincent.’

Sam looked towards the direction of the door. A thought came to him – they could have been following him all along. He could have been the one who had brought them here. Despite his own fear, he decided to take control. ‘I’ll get it.’

‘Thank you,’ Eric said, eventually. ‘Thank you.’

Sam nodded and rose from the chair, his body tense.

‘Please be careful,’ Shirley said. ‘And if it is them, and they want to come in, please, let them.’

‘I don’t think I’ll have a choice,’ Sam said, more aware again of the bruising across his ribs as the tablets wore off. ‘Don’t worry,’ he added, ‘it will be alright,’ trying to convince himself more than anyone else. He stepped out of the room and into the corridor. As he approached the door, nerves playing havoc with his system, the person knocked again. ‘Who is it?’

No reply.

He reached for the door, with no idea how he was going to handle this should those men be on the other side. Taking a deep breath he opened the door.

The man on the other side frowned suspiciously, looking Sam up and down. There was only this guy, a lank man of around his mid-twenties, with dirty blonde hair that fell to his shoulders. He looked like a particularly scruffy surfer. ‘This is where Shirley and Eric Ainsley live, right?’

‘Who are you?’ Sam said, evading the question.

‘Antony McLaughlin,’ he replied, his accent somewhere close to Dublin. There was a nurse on the cardio-thoracic ward who sounded just like him. Sam reached out warily and shook his outstretched hand. ‘Now, mate, are you going to tell me whether I’ve got the right house, or not?’

‘Depends what you’re here for,’ Sam said.

The guy laughed, opening his arms. ‘I’m here to...’ The smile vanished, as if something had just come to him to wipe it off. He took a faltering, panicked step back. ‘Fuck, you’re not one of them?’

‘One of who?’

‘Who are you, mate? Tell me who the fuck you are or I’m outta here.’ He glanced down the street, as if he was thinking of running.

Sam took a chance. ‘My name’s Sam Becker.’

The guy laughed, reacting as if he should have known that fact all along. ‘Fuck me, Sam Becker, the doctor.’

Sam held his ground, but his suspicions had lifted. ‘Who the hell are you?’

‘I’ve told you already, Antony McLaughlin - Locky for short. Now can I come in, or what?’

Shirley and Eric flinched as Sam walked back in with Locky following close behind.

‘It’s okay,’ Sam said, ‘he’s not one of them. At least I don’t think he is.’

‘Too right I’m not,’ he said, staying standing, shifting from one foot to the other as if he was on hot coals. ‘I’m one of the good guys, here to get you back your granddaughter.’

Shirley stood, her face breaking into life in hope and anticipation. ‘You know where she is?’

He nodded. ‘She’s safe. Now are you coming with me to get her, or what?’

Shirley looked at Sam for guidance.

‘How do we know you’re telling the truth?’ Sam asked him.

He shrugged. ‘You don’t, but you must be a smart man, doctor. Go with your instincts.’

Sam looked back at Shirley. There was of course a risk that this was a trap of some sort, but Sam didn’t think so. And he wasn’t about to waste the big break that might lead him to Anna. ‘I’ll go with him.’

‘If you’re going, I’m going too,’ she replied. ‘She’s my granddaughter.’

‘Me too,’ Eric added, standing, his face determined. ‘I’m coming as well.’