She knows she might be punished but the urge is too great. She screams at the top of her voice. ‘Help!’ If there is an open window someone will hear. They have to. A fleck of his saliva hits her arm as he seethes, then he releases his pinch on her arm and gags her again.
He grins as he turns the music up and begins to sway in the middle of the room making some odd contemporary dance moves as Roy Orbison’s voice fills her head with more of ‘Beautiful Dreamer’. Everything is surreal. She clenches her eyes shut and reopens them – he’s still there, being weird. When it finishes, he plays it again, and again, reaching out like he can feel the musical notes in the air. He leaves the room and it still plays until she can’t bear to hear it any longer but it keeps on coming, then he turns out the lights, leaving her gagged with that same record playing on repeat. She doesn’t know if it’s night or day, not with the way the windows have been covered in some sort of blackout material.
There have to be neighbours. Someone must be able to hear the music even if they missed her scream. She wriggles again but the ropes are beginning to burn through her tender skin.
Someone will come. They have to or he’ll either kill her or this song will drive her insane. Did he just come back in? A shuffling sound from the other end of the room gets her attention. The hairs on the back of her neck prickle. Then the music stops and a shiver runs down her spine. She’s not alone in the room, she can feel hot breath on her neck and she can’t stop trembling.
37
Gina could see Jacob pulling up his car behind her at the Fish and Anchor. Mist hovered above the rolling fields beyond and the wind chill was far from pleasant. The fine rain turned into small snowflakes. So far, the snow hadn’t settled too badly but extreme weather was something she didn’t want them to have to add to their list of battles.
Jacob grabbed his satchel from the back seat, taking out a pack of cup a soups, which he threw on the back seat, replacing them with his notepad. ‘I delivered the CCTV from the Angel Arms back to the station. Brr, it’s cold… The new licensee seems nice, very helpful, not like the last one.’ He shivered.
‘Any news from Kapoor’s father? I know he was going to check to see if she was okay in her flat.’
‘Nothing as yet. No one said anything. Are you worried about her?’
A melting snowflake dangled from a stray wisp of hair that kept blowing around her face. ‘It’s just this AppyDater thing. I’m finding it unsettling since this case came along.’
Jacob rubbed his hands together, not enjoying getting wet. At least his hair wasn’t getting frizzy, not like hers. ‘She texted in. I don’t think we need to worry about anything. I’m sure she’ll be fine.’
‘Heck, you’re probably right but…’ Gina wouldn’t settle until she’d heard from Mr Kapoor that their colleague was okay.
‘But what?’
‘It’s out of character. I’m worried about her with all that’s going on. You’ve got to admit, she looks a bit like Madison and she’s on AppyDater.’
‘You think…’ Jacob’s brows furrowed.
Gina shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Give the station a quick call, tell them to keep trying her phone, email and everything. Even Facebook and WhatsApp.’
Jacob nodded and stood on the pavement as he made the call.
In the restaurant, Lennie Dack was there to greet them.
‘DI Harte, we have people booked in for midday and I really need Jake Goodman working his socks off by then. I thought you’d be here a little earlier.’ The man smiled and accompanied her to the bar. ‘I’ll just get Jake so that you can speak to him but I don’t think he knows anything. He doesn’t have any contact with the diners at all. He’s always in the kitchen and from our CCTV you can see that the woman you were asking about didn’t even come in last Friday.’
Gina leaned on the shiny bar. ‘It’s just routine and we’ll try not to disrupt your service. Is there anywhere private we can take Mr Goodman to talk?’
‘You can use my private living quarters but, please, I really need him to be in the kitchen as soon as possible.’
It was their fault. She’d added in a visit to the hospital and other things had come up that needed addressing. She was later than she told Lennie Dack she would be. ‘We hopefully shouldn’t be long.’ She smiled warmly, hopefully putting the man at ease.
‘Thank you.’ Lennie headed through the flapping kitchen door and Jake came out a moment later. He rubbed some dark red sauce from his hands onto his white apron. Lennie led the way through the door marked ‘Private’ into a cosy living room. ‘I’ll leave you to it. If you need me, I’ll be by the bar.’ He left them alone.
Gina sat on the leather couch and motioned at the chair for Jake to sit. The sofa dipped as Jacob sat beside Gina.
‘Hopefully we won’t keep you too long but something has come to light that we need to speak to you about.’
‘I don’t know anything. I don’t even know the girl you were asking about.’
Gina took a photo of Amber from her bag and placed it on the coffee table and Jake looked away. ‘When I showed you her photo the other day, it looked like you recognised her.’
‘Well I don’t.’ His spiky brown hair shone in the light and he began to pick a spot in the crease of his nose.
‘Are you sure. Take another look at the photo.’
His stare met hers.
