Her breathing sped up. She had to find a way out. She thought of her once chubby-cheeked little brother whose big dream was to be a police officer. Kain did eventually realise his dream and join the police. She smiled and almost cried as some of her most precious held memories began to flood her mind. Then she thought of all the things she’d never get to do. She’d never found the one, never had the child she’d always dreamed of. She thought of Justine and her lovely son, how he’d helped her mum around the house, doing all the jobs her mum had struggled with for pocket money. If she’d had a son, she’d have wanted one like Danny. He’d stand in her mum’s garden vaping. She could still smell the toffee scent. She’d never have that. It was too late.
Hold the pose. Keep it steady, she imagined their yoga instructor saying. She thought she heard a bang in the distance before the liquid swished over her ears again, taking away the only sense she had, her hearing. As it stopped lapping around her head, she realised her one ear was blocked. She could barely hear anything.
‘Hello,’ she shouted, in the hope that rescue was coming.
One loud bang came from afar but it sounded distorted through her one good ear, adding to her disorientation.
Heart racing, she waited with bated breath for whoever was out there to reveal themselves. She couldn’t control thetrembling. It would be her kidnapper. No one was coming. She closed her watery eyes and visualised being in yoga class and all she could see was that lake and that building. Then there was another bang. She called again. ‘Help.’ No one ran to her aid which meant one thing, he was back and he was going to kill her, just like he killed Kain.
FORTY-FIVE
Gina’s stomach churned as she waited near the accident and emergency side room that Briggs was being treated in. She peered through the crack in the door. A nurse stood beside him, checking all the beeping machines. She gasped when the nurse moved aside, revealing the extent of Briggs’s injuries. ‘Are you family?’ she asked. Gina couldn’t take her gaze off his bruised, battered face.
Brodie stepped in and held his identification up. ‘Police. Can we speak with him? He’s a colleague.’
The nurse turned to her patient and he half prised an eye open. ‘Mr Briggs, are you up to speaking?’
Briggs mumbled something that Gina thought might be a yes.
‘Not too long, okay.’
‘Okay.’ Gina ran over to his bedside. ‘Chris…’
‘Is that you, Gina?’ He could barely focus through his swollen eyes. He yelled in pain as he tried to move.
‘Yes, I’m with DCI Fraser who has stepped in to work on the case.’ She hoped he’d now know not to say anything too personal about their relationship.
Brodie stepped in and Gina moved aside. She was lucky to be there and one wrong word or move could get her thrown off the case. She had no option but to let Brodie lead. ‘DCI Briggs, sorry to meet you under such horrible circumstances. Can you tell us anything about the incident and what happened to you?’
‘He came up from…’ Briggs paused, his words still a little slurred. ‘I think he drugged my drink. There’s a glass… I spilled most of it thankfully… there’s a towel on the settee that I mopped it up with… it might be Rohypnol, maybe something like that…’
Brodie interrupted. ‘The crime scene team are there at the moment.’
‘I felt really weird so I opened a can of pop to replace the drink I’d spilled. I thought… maybe I was dehydrated… woozy…’
Gina knew the team at his house would probably find traces of her. She was glad she’d been on the case day and night; she couldn’t possibly be considered a suspect. They’d made love in his bedroom. She’d used his shower and they’d lain together on his couch last winter while watching Christmas films. A lump formed in her throat. She swallowed it down. The love they used to have was in the past. She was there to investigate who had hurt him and she had to do her job. After pulling out a notepad, she sat on the plastic chair backed against the wall, poised to take notes.
‘He came from behind and covered my head with a pillowcase. I fought… even though my head was spinning… he bashed me in the face with something. It might have been, err… I can’t think… it felt like a smooth, hard, metal stick or pole. It felt solid, not hollow. I was hit over and over again…’ He half opened an eye and flinched. ‘Bloody hell, I feel like crap.’ He closed his eyes again.
Metal stick – Gina noted that down while thinking of the piece of blue metal that had been found in Fabien Stone’s warehouse. Gina fought the urge to go over to comfort him. HadBrodie not been in the room, she’d have sat closer but Briggs didn’t want that anyway. He’d protect her in her job but that was it. She’d always love him and she should have known something was wrong when they spoke on the phone. He was nothing like Terry. Being drugged had confused him and she’d jumped to the conclusion that he’d been drunk.
‘Did you hear or see anything unusual in the run up to the attack?’
‘I, err, my dog kept barking. I stumbled to the door to let her out, then I sat back down and knew there was something wrong. I came over woozy and nauseous and my phone, I couldn’t find it and I knew I needed to call an ambulance, that’s when I was hit…’
‘Do you remember anything else in the run up?’ Brodie asked.
Briggs flinched and placed a hand across the side of his face. ‘Ouch… the run up. I don’t know. I have had so much on my mind with the investigation and being questioned, I wasn’t thinking. Uniform have been checking up on me and they’d just left…’ He dabbed his sticky eyes and flinched. ‘I must look like a monster.’
Far from it, for the first time in all the years she’d known him, he looked vulnerable.
‘The neighbour must have scared him away. She heard the dog… she’s my dog sitter so she knew something was wrong… She has a key and as she came in, he ran out the back…’
‘Did you see him at all?’
‘No.’
‘How do you know it was a man?’
