Dead Scared (48 page)

THE HIGH-PITCHED BEEPING
of a text message woke Evi from an uncomfortable slumber at around four o’clock. She turned over on the bed and picked up her phone. It was from Laura.

Called back to London and transferred to another case. Powers that be don’t consider this one worth pursuing further. Suggest you refer any ongoing concerns to local CID. Good meeting you. Take care. Laura.

Not fully awake, Evi read the text again. Laura had gone. Evi sat upright on the bed. Most of the light had gone from the day outside and her bedroom was filled with shadows. She realized she’d slept through the entire afternoon, missing two supervisions and a two-hour stint at the clinic. And yet no one had phoned her. It was as though no one had even noticed she was missing.

She got up and made her way to the kitchen, knowing something else was wrong, just unable to put her finger on what it was. Only when she saw the empty space in front of the cooker where she’d put Sniffy’s rug did she realize. The rug was no longer there. Neither were the food and water bowls that she’d put by the sink. And neither was Sniffy herself. All traces of the dog were gone from the house. She might never have existed.

*

The fresh cold air of the early evening stung Joesbury’s face but helped to clear his head. A little way ahead he could see a wooden bench where a solitary smoker sat huddled in his dressing gown. Sitting down felt like a very good idea, except he wasn’t sure he’d ever get up again.

Getting out of hospital before the doctor in charge was willing to release him hadn’t been easy but Joesbury had insisted. He’d waited till just after his prescribed dose of painkillers and had managed to dress himself. Now, he needed a phone.

Conscious of bloodstained clothes and a bruised, battered face, he turned and made his way to the corner of the street. Two hundred yards away was a row of public telephones. There was no response on the first number he tried. He tried again, gave up after the third attempt and dialled Scotland Yard.

‘Jesus, Mark, what’s going on?’ DCI Phillips said, after the phone call to SO10 had been accepted. ‘We expected you twenty-four hours ago.’

He listened while Joesbury explained about the accident, how both his and Lacey’s laptops and mobile phones were missing, even his cover ID.

‘Were you ambushed?’ Phillips asked, when he’d done.

‘Traffic officer who came to see me said all four tyres were in ribbons. Draw your own conclusion.’

‘Looks like we’re into damage limitation. I’m pulling everyone out.’

‘Hang on, guv. DC Flint had information for me. Names and a possible location. Shit, it’s gone.’

Heavy sigh down the line. ‘You didn’t write it down?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with my memory when I’m not concussed,’ Joesbury said. ‘We had a trace on her vehicle. Is it still operational?’

‘Give me a sec. And I’ll organize someone to pick you up while I’m at it.’

Joesbury waited, whilst the world around him became less focused. He closed his eyes, opening them only when he knew he was about to fall over.

‘I’ve got it,’ Phillips told him. ‘What do you need?’

‘Can you give me her movements since yesterday first thing?’

Another second passed. Then, ‘She spent the night at Endicott Farm, between Burwell and Waterbeach. Did you know about that?’

Joesbury felt his headache press down. ‘Yeah. She was back at St John’s just before nine, then she went to the hospital. What next?’

‘Went to St Clement’s Road just off the town centre. Stayed about forty minutes.’

‘That’s it,’ said Joesbury. ‘Scott Thornton, number 108. I was going to have it watched. Shit, we’ve lost twenty-four hours.’

‘Want me to organize a search warrant?’

‘I think so. She’s also worried about Nick Bell and Megan Prince, two local medics. And somebody called Thomas. Ianto? Iestyn. That’s it, Iestyn Thomas. Where did she go after that?’

‘A five-mile trip out of town to a village called Boxworth. Stayed in the high street for ten minutes, then went back into town and parked outside Evi Oliver’s house for a few minutes. Back to the hospital and then on to Queen’s Road. Didn’t move from there for the rest of the night.’

‘Guv, can you have someone find out who lives in Boxworth near where she parked? See if any names ring a bell?’

‘Anything else?’

‘What’s she been up to today?’

‘This morning, no movement until 10.17 a.m., when the car was driven out of town,’ continued Phillips. ‘She went towards the Bell …’

‘Bell Foundries Industrial Estate. Unit 33,’ said Joesbury. ‘She saw Scott Thornton going inside earlier in the week. Please tell me she didn’t.’

‘She parked on the B1102, about half a mile away. Stayed there for eighty minutes, so it’s anybody’s guess what she got up to. After that, she drove out to Endicott Farm again.’

Bell’s place again. Could she not stay away from the twat for five minutes?

‘Then what?’

‘It was there for nearly thirty minutes, then went back to St John’s. Which is where it remains.’

‘She’s at St John’s?’

‘Car is.’

‘Can you get George looking for her?’

‘He’s already on his way to pick you up. I’ll get someone else to do it.’

‘Guv, I need something else. That phone we gave her yesterday. Can you give me its recent use?’

‘You’re stretching my technical skills, buddy. Hang on.’

Joesbury waited, hearing Phillips call to one of the clerical staff. Then, ‘One incoming text late last night,’ said Phillips. ‘Can’t give you the details, just the number it came from.’

‘Nobody should have been texting her. Nobody had that number but me.’

‘It was from you.’

Joesbury leaned back against the Perspex wall of the kiosk, telling himself that throwing up right now would do nothing to improve the situation. ‘Late last night I was bleeding on to a hospital pillow,’ he managed. ‘Somebody was using my phone to text Lacey. Anything else?’

‘An outgoing text late this morning, that one also to you. I assume you didn’t get it. And one more, a couple of hours later. An incoming call this time from a listed number.’

‘Nobody had her number. No one could call her but me.’

‘Hang on, I’ve got it. Here we go. She was called by a local GP. A Dr Nicholas Bell.’

Silence.

‘You still there, Mark?’

WHAT I REMEMBER
next is being in my room at St John’s. I was in bed, my arms wrapped tight around Joesbury’s teddy, wearing my usual night-time jogging pants and vest. For a second, everything felt so normal it seemed the only crazy thing in the whole world was me. I felt tired, seriously hungover, and as though my limbs would shake if I tried to move, but otherwise OK.

Without thinking, my eyes went up to where I knew the camera that had been filming me had to be and that’s when I knew everything had changed. The camera wasn’t there. It couldn’t be. The pipework that must have hidden it wasn’t there. The cosmetics around the washbasin were mine but the mirror was different. The one screwed to the wall of my room had a tiny chip in it at the top right-hand corner. This one was whole and perfect.

I pushed back the duvet and sat up. The floor wasn’t right, either. It looked cleaner and newer and the wall behind the bedhead wasn’t plaster but a much softer, warmer substance. Plywood.

I was not going to panic. I was going to think. Difficult, with such a thick, fuzzy head, but not impossible. Just take it slow.

Nick! What the hell had they done to Nick?

I couldn’t help Nick if I panicked. Take stock. I was in Unit 33 and they’d recreated my room out of plywood, just as they’d done for Jessica. What had she said? My room but not my room?

I was going to hold it together.

This was about scaring me, about getting more gruesome footage for their sick films. They didn’t want me dead yet. I had a massive advantage over the other girls who’d been here. I knew where I was and how to get out. And these bastards did not know me. They could not know what scared me. They’d have something in store that would be unpleasant, but I could deal with it. I’d squeal a bit, pretend to be more freaked than I was. Let them get their footage. And all the while I’d be looking for my chance.

First things first. What had they given me? I remembered being held from behind by Castell and Thornton pushing the needle hard into my neck, then a vague recollection of being carried down the stairs. Nothing after that. A powerful sedative would be my best guess, and it had to be starting to wear off now that I’d woken up. I’d be slow and sluggish, far from my best, but still basically OK.

I got to my feet and felt the room tilt. When I felt I could handle it, I reached over the bed towards the window. The curtains were drawn and I just knew there was something behind them I wouldn’t want to see. Telling myself I could deal with it, I took hold of one curtain and pulled it gently back.

Oh, Jesus!

I’d fallen back against the wardrobe door. There was a dark space in my head that was swelling like a balloon. I was not going to lose it. I was not. It was going to take more than a horrific photograph to make me do that. When I could face it, I made myself look again at the dreadful image they’d fastened on the wall of this fake room, exactly where the window should have been.

It was easier the second time, when I knew what was coming. In fact it was nothing I hadn’t seen many times before. They’d found and blown up a post-mortem photograph, taken over a hundred years ago, of a murdered woman. The poor creature lay on the bed of her rented room in London, hacked beyond recognition.

Three months earlier, I’d worked a big case in London in which women were killed as coldly and as brutally as the one in this photograph had been, and now these bozos thought this was what would scare me the most.

They weren’t even close.

I walked back to the bed and sat down for a while to get my breath back and clear my head. I was going to have to leave the room. See what they had waiting for me outside. I would do it in a second. Just another second.

There was blood, trickling down the wall.

I’d closed my eyes. It’s not real blood, it’s not real blood, they did this to Evi, freaked her out with fake blood. It will be paint, theatrical blood, whatever. I was going to walk over there, run my finger through it, write
F
UCK
Y
OU
in very large letters on the wall and when I got my hands on that bitch Talaith Robinson I was going to show her exactly what a great quantity of blood looked like and it would be her own.

I opened my eyes again to find the blood had gone. I got up anyway and walked over to check. The wall was white and clean.

OK, this was more serious than I’d thought. They’d given me some sort of hallucinogen. I pulled the curtain back again. The photograph of the murdered woman was still there. I reached out, touched it. It was real. The real image had sparked a connected hallucination. Well, at least I knew how it was going to work.

Jesus, to have been through this without the knowledge I had.

No time now to worry about what the others had gone through. I was prepared. I was going to cope. On legs that felt weak and shaky, but did what I told them, I crossed the room, pulled open the door and looked outside.

I saw a dimly lit space, narrow and disappearing into blackness. The walls were of old brickwork, the ceiling low. The painted plywood boards I’d seen in a storage room earlier had been for me.

Bring it on, I muttered as I stepped out, knowing the bravado was to make myself feel better and that it wasn’t really working. It’s one thing to tell yourself all they can do is scare you, but being scared can feel pretty bad when you’re alone in a dark space, at the mercy of people you know to be psychopathic, and without the first clue about what’s going to leap out at you next.

Somehow, I held it together. I walked forward, reached a corner and turned into a narrow, fake-brick-lined alley. It was like something an art student had knocked up in a couple of hours and it was not – not – going to get to me. Neither was the little surprise a few
yards
ahead, where a spotlight in the ceiling picked out a form on the floor. As I drew closer I could see it was a human figure. Closer still and I knew it wasn’t real. This was a clothes-shop dummy, stripped naked and smeared with fake blood. Joesbury and I had found a very similar one when we’d been investigating the case last year. This was all public knowledge for anyone who looked hard enough and, OK, I was scared, really scared, useless to pretend otherwise any more, but I could deal with being scared. I was getting out of here.