Disobey (34 page)

‘Sir, we’ve traced it to Limehouse in the Docklands.’ The man paused, tapping a few more keys. ‘I’ve got the address.’

Alf pushed past Fran, grabbing the officer’s shoulder. ‘You know where she is? You know where Chloe-Jane is?’

Spencer stepped in, pulling Alfie’s hand off the officer. ‘It seems so, Mr Jennings.’

Pulling his arm free from Spencer’s grip, Alf snarled, ‘So if you’ve found her, what the fuck are we waiting for?’

Spencer leaned in to Alfie. ‘
You’re
not waiting for anything. This is police business now, and as you see, we’re dealing with it.’

As Spencer spoke, Frankie watched some of the other officers picking up their phones, urgently requesting the search warrant as well as the armed response team. Others were quickly collecting various bits of technical kit, along with their protective jackets.

‘Just tell me where in Limehouse she is! I want to go and get my niece. I ain’t leaving it up to you lot.’ Alfie squared up to Detective Spencer, who nonchalantly waved him away as he turned to follow the other officers out of the room. He stopped at the door to speak to Del before he left the room.

‘You lot can’t be involved in this; there are procedures to follow which don’t involve you. Now I am warning you, stay out of this.’

Alfie and Del drove their respective Range Rovers hard as they followed in the wake of a convoy of police cars with lights and sirens blaring. Spencer may not have wanted them to have or given them the address but there was no way he was going to stop them tailing their obvious presence.

Alfie carved through the heavy traffic towards London’s Docklands. His voice boomed out as he spoke to Franny. ‘What the hell did he think we were going to do? Sit there like friggin’ muppets whilst they messed it up?’

‘The one good thing is there are a lot of them. Hopefully it’ll make all the difference.’

Alfie gave a quick sideward glance to Fran. The speed they were going, he needed to keep his eyes firmly on the traffic.

‘Me too, but I’m telling you, Fran, I ain’t taking my eyes off them for a moment.’

Three minutes later, the police cars, along with the two Range Rovers, emerged from the Limehouse link tunnel. The sirens stopped, and the flashing lights ceased as they all sped with ease down the quieter industrial roads of the Isle of Dogs.

‘We must be getting closer, Alf.’

Alfie didn’t answer Franny, his stomach was in knots and his heart raced faster. He gripped the steering wheel hard, glancing at Del and Frankie in the rear view mirror, who both stared intensely ahead.

‘You okay?’ Franny looked at Alf, and this time he answered.

‘I will be. When we’ve got her back.’

The convoy swept quietly into Hertsmere Road. Some of the police cars began to peel off into different side streets. The other cars, including the Range Rovers, surrounded an old warehouse; a stark and imposing structure, complete with original winches and pulleys. Franny felt a chill, knowing that Chloe-Jane was in there; tied up, scared and alone. But worse, much worse, was knowing Mr Lee wouldn’t care about killing her in an attempt to escape the police raid. She began to question the wisdom of involving the police, but what choice had there been?

Alfie also looked on helplessly, watching the team of officers in riot gear smash open the wooden doors. He listened to them calling out, shouting orders to each other.

‘Right, right, right. Head towards the back. Collins, Davies, Daniels, head to the east entrance.’

That was it. It was too much for them all to contemplate. To sit back and do nothing. It went against the grain of who they were. All of them had seen enough. Stood back for long enough. And there was no way they were doing it for a moment longer.

Alfie called out to the others. ‘Ready?’

‘You bet we are.’

All of them except for Lola ran forward, unable to stop themselves going in. They darted past a couple of uniform police officers and joined the police-coordinated ascent of the warehouse stairs.

Detective Spencer glanced over his shoulder, and stared back in disbelief to see Alfie, Del, Frankie and Franny creeping up the stairs with guns drawn in their hands.

‘What the fuck are you doing? This isn’t an episode of
Magnum P.I
. This isn’t a game. Put them away … Now!’

Before any of them had the chance to speak, an urgent voice sounded out from further up the stairwell. ‘Gov, I think you’d better come and see this.’

Something in the officer’s tone didn’t fill Alfie with any confidence. He took a deep breath to steady himself, then pushing past a couple of armed police, he clambered up two more flights of stairs, desperate to see what was there. Who was there.

Arriving in the main upstairs area of the warehouse, Alfie’s heart sank to the pit of his stomach as he saw what was in front of him. There was Chloe-Jane. Sitting on the chair. Hands tied. Gag in mouth … But he could only see her on another computer screen. A lone laptop computer sat on the floor, displaying the now-familiar image of Chloe tied to a chair with the counter still running down.

As the technical guys surrounded the laptop, opening their tool cases, a breathless and desperate Alf managed to gasp, ‘What the fuck is this?… What the hell is going on? Where is she?’

For a minute no one answered, it was obvious to all of them apart from Alfie what had happened. It was Spencer who explained. ‘It appears we’ve been deliberately led on a wild goose chase. Chloe-Jane was never here.’

Alfie sank to his knees and stared in horror at the vision of Chloe on the laptop.

‘I don’t understand … I …’ Alfie said it as much to himself as to the police officer starting to work on the laptop.

The officer answered sympathetically. ‘What they’ve done is make a short film of her. What you see is the same two minutes rolling round and round with the timing counter embedded on top. It’s not even a hi-tech job, anyone could do this.’

Coming up behind Alf, Franny sat down on the floor next to him. She didn’t speak, nor did Alf as he reached to the side of him, taking her hand in his.

Del’s voice came from the back of the room. He spoke to the officer. ‘Please, just turn it off, turn that fucking film off.’

Detective Spencer nodded to the officer, who then clicked off the image of Chloe. The officer spoke to Spencer. ‘Sir, the link was definitely from here. From this laptop. There’s nothing else to go with this now.’

Spencer nodded to the armed team and support groups to stand down and move out.

‘I think it’s time we took this back to the station.’

Alfie jumped up. ‘What do you mean, back to the station? Spencer, you promised you’d find her.’

‘I promised to try, and I have. And of course the team will keep on looking, but if there’s nothing else to go on, I can’t just make her appear.’

One of the uniform constables approached Spencer, ‘Sir, if this link is a dead end, what about the other link? The signup page. That might be a separate upload.’

The constable pointed to the signup page which had remained on the screen after the video of Chloe was shut down.

Spencer cut him off. ‘I told you to ship out of here, and constable, do yourself a favour and leave the clever stuff to the tech officers, will you?’

‘But sir, the tech guys have been tracing the link to the main …’

Spencer cut him off again, angered at the constable’s insolence. ‘I’m not asking, I’m ordering you to keep out of this or I’ll …’

It was Alfie who cut in this time. ‘Let him speak, Spencer. For fuck’s sake we need every lead we can get.’ Turning to face the constable, Alfie nodded to him to carry on.

‘Well, I’m just saying the tech guys have been tracing the main page, but it’s clear that the signup page is a different upload. Maybe – and I know it’s a long shot – but maybe it’s worth putting a trace on the IP address of that as well.’

Everyone apart from the tech officers and the constable looked blank, not understanding the technology of it all. Spencer spoke to the officer who’d been working on the laptop.

‘What do you think?’

‘I think it’s worth a try. It’ll take a bit of time though.’

Alfie growled. ‘How long? Don’t you get it, mate, we ain’t got long.’

Spencer turned to Alfie. ‘Mr Jennings, we don’t know if she’s even alive.’

Alfie grabbed hold of Spencer shaking him hard, as Del, Frankie and Franny tried to pull him off. He yelled at Spencer, distraught. ‘Don’t you say it! Don’t you dare write her off before we’ve even tried. Everyone, everyone, including me, has written Chloe-Jane off all her life and we ain’t doing it now; not when she needs us the most. You hear me?… You hear me, Spencer?’

Spencer’s face was red with rage, matching Alfie’s. ‘Get him off me … Now! Before he gets himself arrested!’

Del managed to pull Alfie off, gripped him hard. ‘Calm the fuck down, Alf. I get it, mate. I get it, but we ain’t giving up on her. None of us are.’ He pulled Alfie into a huge embrace, holding him tightly, not caring who saw his tears or Alfie’s.

An hour and a half later, they were still in the warehouse. Franny and Del watched as the tech officers battled away with links and hyperlinks, IP addresses and hidden embedded codes.

‘We’ve got it!’ Everyone stared in amazement. There was still a glimmer of hope, and they were amazed and cautiously delighted all at the same time. The tech officer continued to speak.

‘Astonishingly he was right, sir. The signup page was uploaded from a different address. The only problem is it’s a Wi-Fi connection.’

Alfie wondered what the problem was. ‘And?’

‘Being an open, unlocked Wi-Fi connection means it’s accessible to anyone within a twenty-five-metre radius of it. The registered person of it means nothing, because other people can use it.’

Spencer asked, ‘But you know where the Wi-Fi connection is coming from?’

‘Yes sir, we’ve got the name of the street, Royster Road, but like I say it’s accessible to anyone within twenty-five metres of it.’

Another tech officer interjected. ‘More like a fifty-metre radius.’

Alf got to his feet. ‘So you’re saying if we go to the street where the Wi-Fi address is registered, within fifty metres or less of that we’ll find Chloe.’

Spencer answered. ‘If she’s there, Mr Jennings. It could be another wild goose chase.’

Alfie snapped, ‘I ain’t talking to you, I was talking to this geezer.’ He turned back to the tech officer. ‘So is that right? Within fifty metres of the hub point, she’ll be there?’

‘Well, assuming she’s there. Give or take a few metres or so, technically, yes!’

Alfie nodded to himself. He looked at the tech guy and then to the constable. ‘I owe you, mate. Look me up in Whispers, I’ll sort you out. Got some nice designer gear and bags you can have for your missus.’

The constable was about to thank Alfie, but the warning
‘don’t you dare look’
from Spencer shut him up.

‘Let’s go then.’

Spencer rolled his eyes. ‘We can’t get a warrant for that, and we can hardly kick down every door in a fifty-metre radius, can we?’

Alfie began to run out of the room. ‘
You
may not be able to, Spencer, but
we
certainly can.’

63

The noisy convoy of police cars had to drive hard, struggling to keep up with the two high-powered Range Rovers as Alfie and Del sped round the tiny streets of the Isle of Dogs, heading towards Royster Road. Tyres screeching and cars overtaking cars made it difficult at times to tell if the police were chasing Alfie and Del or they were chasing the police.

‘We’ve lost them!’ Franny turned round to see the three police cars being held up behind a large crane on the back of a lorry reversing awkwardly into the road. ‘There aren’t any other ways round, unless of course they head round by Canary Wharf, which will take them at least forty minutes because of the road works. I reckon we’ve got fifteen minutes’ head start on them. They should be stuck there for a while. Do you think fifteen minutes is okay?’

‘I think it’ll have to be. Is Del still behind?’

‘Yeah, he’s still … Look, there’s the road!’ Franny shouted to Alfie as she saw Royster Road coming into view.

The sight of the road ahead had Alfie pushing the car to the max to get there.

‘Shit …! Shit!… Hold on!’ Alfie shouted out as he saw, too late to slow down, the no-entry bollards stopping him entering Royster Road. He pulled on the emergency handbrake, taking the car from four wheel drive to two, making the Range Rover turn into a spin to stop crashing into the bollards. Alfie’s wheels screeched, sending up smoke and gravel.

The scream of Alfie’s tyres was echoed by Del’s, who also had to make the sharp handbrake turn to stop his car crashing into Alfie’s Range Rover.

The men jumped out, discarding the cars in the middle of the road.

Frankie turned to Alfie. ‘What’s the plan?’

‘Simple. We crash out every house in the street. It’s less than fifty metres, so it should be relatively easy. Four houses on each side. So if we bang up every house, then we’re bound to find her.’

Del looked and sounded worried. ‘You sure, mate?’

‘No, I ain’t but that’s all I’ve got. Spencer will be here biting on our bums soon, so we need to get a move on if we’re going to do this.’

Franny agreed. ‘I can’t see any other way. The one thing we’ve got going for us is that on either side of the street there’s either wasteland or the river, which means the fifty-metre range they talked about can only be within this street, because basically …’ She stopped to look round the bleak environment of Royster Road then added, ‘… This is it.’

Frankie could see the logic in it, although when they’d first suggested it he’d thought it was the kind of plan Del’s daughter, Star, would have come up with. ‘It’s not as crazy as I thought then. Eight houses altogether … Piece of piss.’ He winked at Franny.

Franny looked at them all. ‘So what are we waiting for, boys?’

Alfie, Del, Frankie, Lola and Franny ran into the street. Alfie knew the pressure was on and it was probably only a matter of minutes before Spencer and his band arrived. But they could do it if they were quick; real quick. Eight houses in total. Two each. As Frankie had said, a piece of piss. He called out to the others.