‘Why the hell didn’t you come straight to the police?’
He took several deep breaths. She imagined him pacing, grimacing as he wiped sweat from his forehead. ‘I shouldn’t have been there. I knew I’d be in trouble—’
‘So you failed to report a kidnapping.’
‘I wanted to say something earlier. I really did—’
‘I haven’t got time for this right now. Just give me a description of who you saw and what you saw. After that, go straight to Cleevesford Police Station and make a formal statement.’
Silence hung between them. ‘I’m so sorry, Gina. I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry I came to your house when you didn’t want me to. I’ve stuffed up.’
She checked her watch. ‘Description, Rex. You still have time to do the right thing. Tell me who you saw. What did he look like? It’s not too late.’
‘He barged through her front door. I was watching her from the back garden through a small hole in the fence.’ He sniffed before continuing. ‘He dragged her around and tried to attack her with something. I couldn’t see what. I failed to go in, I failed to help her. I could have stopped what was happening.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Stocky, crew cut, I think. Almost bald, slightly chubby. I don’t know who he is. I recognised him from the Swap Fun events. I saw him at a meetup once but I didn’t remember his name. I spent all night looking through Swap Fun but nearly all the members use fake names.’
She gripped the door handle, her knuckles white. The description was just what she needed and finding Aimee was her priority. ‘Go straight to the station, Rex. Ask for DCI Briggs and make a statement. Do it now and don’t hold anything back.’ She ended the call and hurried out of the car.
An old rusty sign leaned against the window of the little front garden. C.L Furniture Restoration and Carpentry. Her stomach almost flipped as she thought of the mallet. He’d have a mallet. The L stood for Leason and Diane was a Leason before she changed her name.
‘O’Connor, can you get Jacob? Tell him we need to leave now. Wyre can stay and interview Mrs Leason and we’ll head straight over to Cleevesford Industrial Estate. We’re going to C.L. Furniture.’
‘Yes, guv.’ He handed a shirt to her. ‘Wyre said you wanted this.’
She smiled and grabbed her phone and called for all units to be present, requesting that they stay back until it was safe to approach. Aimee’s captor was dangerous and she knew just what he was prepared to do. A call flashed up from Briggs.
‘I know where she is, sir.’
Jacob darted out. There was no more time to waste.
Sixty-Seven
Jacob pulled into the industrial estate and Gina and O’Connor searched for C.L Furniture and Carpentry. ‘Stop,’ Gina called as she slammed the dashboard, causing Jacob to do an emergency stop. ‘We just passed the road but we’ll get out here and sneak around. I don’t want to alarm him, not if Aimee might be at risk.’ The row of large industrial units were all closed, shutters down, just as she’d expect on a Sunday. Only one shutter was up. That was where they were heading. Gina hurried out of the car and put her stab vest on as she gently jogged alongside the building. They were going in.
Her heart began to race as she thought of Jade Ashmore, Samantha Felton, Sophie Dobbins and Aimee. She now knew from what Rex had said that it was highly likely that Aimee was in that workshop.
The grey oppressive breeze blocks with barred windows looked uninviting, but that’s how he wanted it. Keeping everyone away was his aim. She poked her finger between the bars and rubbed a layer of dust from the glass. Peering in, she spotted a huge workbench at the far end of the large grey room. It’s ceiling reaching the height of a house but having only one level, gave the room an even darker feel with only one window providing light. Machinery chugged away in a factory down the road, clunking over and over again.
Glancing around, her attention was grabbed by the many wooden structures that littered the floor and walls. Large shelves housed different sized pieces of wood. To her right sat a small stage in which some of his more intricate work was displayed. She scanned the surfaces, looking for the mallet but she couldn’t see it. The morning sun bounced off something square and shiny as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Shining like a prism, it caused her to squint as she focused. A camera with a flash attached to the top. ‘He’s got a camera,’ she whispered to Jacob who had crept up close and was awaiting her further instructions.
He walked away, just far enough to hear the caller on his phone. ‘Backup is in place, guv.’
O’Connor passed him and hurried over to Gina, still adjusting his stab vest. ‘Are we going in?’
‘We’re going in.’
Sixty-Eight
Dark, so dark. The shivering, the pain from shivering.Stop it, stop it!She couldn’t stop it, the shivering was out of her control. Squashed, suffocating. Aimee tried to move her arm but it was heavy, like stone. Maybe she was turning to stone. At the bottom of the abyss, there was nothing, no trees, no buildings, no people, no sense of direction. With a swimming head, she tried to turn her neck. Pain forced it back into the one position she could keep it in.
‘Hello,’ she tried to whisper but the sound emerged as gobbledegook. The rag in her mouth tightened and a large hand gripped her nose. She tried to thrash but he had her pinned. Her heart boomed in her chest, each reverberation rattling in her throat, filling it, blocking it.Open your eyes.Her body wasn’t responding. Cold, so cold. The concrete floor was hard, her body was numb. Cramped into positions she normally wouldn’t stay in for this long. At least yoga had made her supple. As she clenched her toes over and over again, a small amount of feeling emerged through the pins and needles. Pain; her broken fingers were in agony.
‘Keep still or I’ll put this through your head.’ The monster in the darkness had spoken. What was he going to put through her head? Using her throbbing hand, she felt the object he was holding against her. Square with a handle. Her mind wandered to a square block on the sea front. She wanted to sit on it and watch the tide coming in. When the sun came up, that’s what she’d do. She’d drive down to the beach and watch the sea. A smile washed over her.
‘When does the sun come up?’ she whispered through the rag.
