Times of Trouble (41 page)

I watched the
squiggly little line on the map showing us how much further we had
to go. The suburb and street names meant nothing to me, but we
weren’t getting there fast enough. Andy had a determined expression
on his face, and seemed to know where he was going without the Sat
Nav directions. I could hear his breathing; it was heavy, as if he
was under a lot of strain. I watched as the little dot that
represented Andy’s car flicked through a suburb called ‘Roselands’.
‘Wollongong’ had meant nothing to me until the last few days but it
was now the centre of my universe.

A vibration suddenly
caught my attention, and then the sound of Andy’s phone receiving a
text message made me jump. I quickly opened the message. Andy took
his eyes off the road long enough to glance at the phone, anxious
to know what the message said. The only text that appeared on the
screen was ‘Bradley marina’. I stared at it for a few seconds,
waiting for some meaning to materialise.

As I stared, Andy
asked, ‘Who is it from?’

I looked at the
message details, but the number wasn’t saved in Andy’s phone.
Nevertheless it looked familiar...I glanced at the number on my
hand...that was it...it was Liam’s phone!

‘
Liam!’ I yelled, far
too loud for the confined space in the car. ‘What does Bradley
marina mean?’

Andy was slowing to
stop at some traffic lights, and with one hand he typed on the tiny
keyboard on his Sat Nav to check whether it could find ‘Bradley
marina’. The screen flashed a couple of times, and then a map
appeared. With his finger, Andy traced the line, which linked with
the place our car was right then.

‘
It’s not that far
from here. We’re going in the right direction. It’s about 40k’s
away.’

‘
Closer than
Wollongong?’

‘
Yeah, it’s about
half way to Wollongong from where we are now.’

But what did it
mean?

‘
Is Liam going
somewhere else? Why has he texted me to tell me this if he doesn’t
want me to come after Sophie?’

Andy was joining dots
of his own. He looked nervous as he said: ‘What if he’s trying to
trap us? Because he thinks we will come after him...’

That was possible.
But what did that mean for Sophie? Had something...already
happened...My mind rejected the thought. But I couldn’t work out
what Liam was doing.

‘
We have to go there!
Wherever Liam is, Sophie will be there too.’

Andy still looked
worried, but he wasn’t slowing down. The bright line on the Sat Nav
was showing the new route, to Bradley marina.

‘
We’ll go there, but
we have to be careful, Ellen. After what has already happened to
you today...’ Andy’s voice drifted off.

‘
I’ll call Detective
Williamson. If the police are there, we’ll be Ok,’ I
said.

Andy looked pleased
at my suggestion, pressing his foot down on the accelerator to show
that he was willing to get to the marina as quickly as
possible.

The detective must
have recognised my number. He answered, and said: ‘Ellen. I was
about to call you. The local uniforms in Wollongong checked out the
address. A woman answered the door. She said she was the only one
there, with her child.’

‘
What did she look
like?’ I asked, suddenly thinking it might have been
Sophie.

He pre-empted the
thought. ‘It wasn’t Sophie. Apparently she looked nothing like your
description. The uniforms saw Kingsley’s car was there, and they
weren’t convinced that she was legit, so they hung back. Hang on,
I’ve got another call...’ Before I had time to tell him anything,
he put me on hold, the phone beeping in my ear, making me even more
frantic to speak to him. After what seemed like forever, he was
back.

‘
That was the local
boys again. The house is on fire. The fire engines are on their
way... they were able to pull someone out...I think it might be
Liam Kingsley.’

‘
Is he alive?’ I
asked, aware that the only reason I cared was to check whether it
was possible that someone else sent the text message.

‘
He was unconscious.
He has some serious burns, but he’s alive. The patrol saw a car
leaving the house, but they weren’t able to chase, and so we’re
sending back up to track them down...’ It was time I
interrupted.

‘
I know where they’re
going. I think someone else has got hold of Liam’s phone. It could
be Sophie. I just got a text from it saying ‘Bradley
marina’.’

‘
I’ll call you back
in a sec.’ Detective Williamson didn’t need to be told twice. He
had caught on that the information I gave was turning out to be
very useful. I prayed he was calling for reinforcements to be sent
to the marina.

After about a minute,
the phone rang again, and the detective said: ‘You sound like you
are in a car. Where are you?’

There was no point
lying. ‘Andy and I are going to the marina. The text was sent to
me. I’m not sitting back and waiting for someone else to find
Sophie.’

I heard him sigh
loudly into the phone.

‘
I don’t have time to
convince you not to get involved. I’m heading to the marina
too.’

Good. Just what I
wanted to hear.

I relayed the
information about the fire and Liam to Andy, who looked as
untroubled as I felt about him getting hurt. Served him
right.

‘
At least it means
he’s not waiting for us at the marina,’ he said. ‘But it probably
means the person who hurt him is going to be there...’

I had already thought
of that. Whoever it was must have left Liam in the house, and taken
Sophie and Charlie with him. Did he have a boat he planned to
disappear on? What did that mean for Sophie and Charlie? What was
he going to do with them?

‘
From what the
detective said, they must have left the house in Wollongong. He was
getting updates about what was going, on and they’ve only just got
Liam out. So how far does that make them from the marina?’ I asked
Andy.

‘
It’s hard to say.
Depends how long ago they left, and how fast they drive. But if
they left when they sent the text message, I'd say they’re about
the same distance as us, so we should get there at about the same
time.’

Maybe there was a
chance that they would be stopped before they got there. That the
police would find them first. Knowing where they were headed was
the key. Without that text message, we would have been
stuffed.

When the dot on the
Sat Nav hovered over our end point, I was ready to leap from the
moving car, impatient to see whether Sophie was there. But the
street we were on was pitch black and there was no sign of a
marina. Andy slowed the car to a crawl, and we peered left and
right, looking for some sign of an entrance. The street was dead
quiet, and I was just starting to wonder if the Sat Nav had
misdirected us when there was a screeching of tyres behind us. I
turned my head, expecting to see the flashing lights of a police
car, or at least the familiar white and blue markings. But the car
barrelling towards us was big and black, a menacing four wheel
drive with dark tinted windows. They screamed past us to the end of
the street and fishtailed into a nearly invisible opening in a wire
mesh fence. It had to be them. Sophie had to be in that
car.

‘
Quick! Follow them!’
I screamed at Andy.

He slammed his foot
on the accelerator, making his car pitch forward. Even though we
couldn’t see in their windows, they would have been able to see in
ours. But there was no sign that they had even noticed us; they
were in too much of a rush. Just as Andy took the left turn into
the marina, I heard another car behind us, making as much noise as
the four wheel drive had as it ploughed up the street. It was the
police, their lights flashing but their siren not on.

As we pulled into the
marina, I could see a long row of boats in front of us, tied to a
narrow wooden jetty. Beyond the boats, the dark water of the
harbour stretched out in a semi circle, the light from the moon
making the open mouth glint where the sea met the calmer water at
the entrance. The four wheel drive had pulled up about halfway down
the row, and the doors were already opening. We were getting close
enough to see the scene in more detail.

A large, dark haired
man got out of the driver’s seat. He looked angry and menacing, as
he waved his arms and yelled at other people in the car. He glanced
at our car, and the police car behind us, and quickly dragged
someone out of one of the back doors. As soon as I saw her head, I
recognised Sophie; her peroxide blonde hair shone like a second
moon in the dim lights of the marina. She stumbled forwards as he
dragged at her arm, and I could see she was moving awkwardly
because she was carrying Charlie. Another man had jumped out of the
other back door, and grabbed two large bags from the boot, quickly
throwing them onto a large cabin cruiser that was moored at a jetty
angling out into the water in front of the car.

There was something
else glinting in the lights other than Sophie’s hair... both of the
men were holding guns. And the larger man held his to Sophie’s
head. Andy stopped the car, looking scared stiff, his eyes fixed on
the gun. Sophie’s face was just as petrified, her cheeks were
blotchy from tears, and she looked fraught and exhausted. I opened
my door, trying to forget about the guns and yelled, ‘Sophie!’ She
heard her name and turned her head just enough to see me. The look
of recognition lasted only a split second before it turned to
horror at the danger I had just put myself in. As the man holding
her spun towards me as well, I ducked back behind the door of the
car, crouching low enough that he couldn’t take aim.

Two police officers
were now out of their car, and yelling at the two men.

‘
Police! Put your
guns down’...‘Don’t make us shoot’....‘Don’t move’. The sounds of
their voices mixed together into one long, continuous outburst
which seemed to make the men move even faster.

Another woman was
getting out of the front seat. She didn’t have a gun pointed at
her, and she walked with a confidence that belied the panic in the
air. The large man who held Sophie’s arm was yelling at her to do
something; he was pointing at Charlie. She followed his orders,
striding towards Sophie, and wrenching Charlie out of her arms.
Sophie didn’t let go easily; she tried to hold him even closer as
the woman pulled him away. But the man swung the gun even more
sharply towards Sophie’s head, knocking her on the side of the
temple. She let go of Charlie with a wail.

The second man was
now on the boat, positioning himself low enough that the police
would hardly have been able to see him, let alone shoot him. He
held his arms out, ready to take Charlie from of the other woman’s
hands. She was moving quickly, but not towards the boat the man was
on. He yelled: ‘Give him to me! Where are you going?’ But she
ignored him and jumped down off the jetty; I could see she had
landed in a small dingy that was moored to it. The man holding
Sophie was now yelling at the woman as well...more noise mixing
with the shouts from the police. But the woman didn’t look back.
She steadied herself in the rocking boat, with Charlie bawling in
the bottom of it. She pulled on the mooring rope, and a she pulled,
the boat disappeared under the jetty. Andy looked at me; even under
these circumstances he managed an impressed smile.

‘
She’s just saved the
kid...smart girl...’

I didn’t know who she
was, but that was exactly what she had just done.

As the men realised
that Charlie and the woman had disappeared, they became even more
flustered, and turned their attention back to Sophie. The larger
man kept the gun held against her head, and pulled her roughly
towards the jetty. He backed along the narrow walkway, keeping her
between himself and the police, a shield against their
threats.

I could bear it no
longer, and stepped back out from behind the car door. One of the
policemen behind me screamed at me to get back, or be risk being
shot. But I couldn’t believe we were all standing there watching
them put Sophie on the boat. It was the biggest cabin cruiser I had
ever seen, with huge spotlights set on the cabin roof for night
navigation. Once they had her on there, they would be able to speed
off, going wherever they chose, and we would never see Sophie
again.

The police were
edging forward, their guns drawn, as the smaller man skirted around
the deck, untying ropes. Part of me wanted them to shoot him, but
that would give the other one more reason to shoot Sophie. I heard
another car screech to a halt behind the police car, and Detective
Williamson ran toward us, his gun drawn.

‘
They’re going to get
away!’ I called to him. ‘Don’t let them!’

He was still
assessing the situation, his eyes darting between the two men and
Sophie. Another sound caught everyone’s attention just as the
smaller man threw the last rope down, detaching the cruiser from
the jetty. Another launch, smaller than the cruiser, was speeding
towards the entrance to the marina from out at sea. It had a
luminous police strip down the side, and I knew it had to be the
water police. The smaller man darted across the boat, meeting the
larger man on the deck. They were both close enough to the cock pit
to start the motor, but the larger man held Sophie with one hand,
his gun with the other, making him incapable of doing anything
else. He stepped sideways, so the smaller man could shove past and
start pressing buttons on the control panel. I heard the engine
kick into life, idling in neutral. I couldn’t let them
leave.