‘And your son – the future barista,’ said Brook. Roland’s expression darkened and he opened his mouth to complain.
‘And don’t you forget it,’ boomed Councillor Davison, jabbing a finger. ‘So what do you want to talk to him about now?’
Brook gestured feebly towards the corridor. ‘Sir, you can’t be in here. This is an incident room.’
‘I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what this is about. My boy’s answered all your questions and he knows nowt about that girl’s whereabouts.’
As Brook had hoped, Roland’s eyes had alighted on the portraits of the missing girls and his Adam’s apple took a dive.
‘You can’t be in here, sir,’ repeated Noble. ‘We have confidential information on show.’
Davison Senior followed his son’s eyes to the display, and he too paused to stare for a few seconds. ‘Aye, well. Maybe you’re right. Being on the PLC, I don’t want to ride roughshod over procedure.’ He touched his son on the arm and, prompted by a flick of his father’s head, Roland headed for the corridor.
Eleven
Caitlin woke in darkness, her head aching and her neck sore. She blinked her eyes open but in the blackness it felt like she hadn’t opened them at all. Lifting her head, she realised it was held, her neck almost immovable in some kind of restraint. She couldn’t sit up, and when she attempted to lift her feet, she found her legs were also bound. Worst of all, a piece of cloth filled her mouth and, try as she might, she was incapable of spitting it out. Powerless to touch or even see her face in the dark, she was aware of the sticking plaster covering her mouth keeping the gag in place.
Panic began to rise in her and she could feel herself starting to choke. She tried to thrash and kick but her hands and feet wouldn’t budge, and no matter how urgently she struggled, she couldn’t free herself. Trussed like a chicken, she slumped back on to cold, hard concrete.
It took several large pulls of oxygen before her nerves steadied and her heart rate began to slow. She tried to think and get her bearings. Making a supreme effort, she was able to prop herself on to her right elbow and lift her head. With more deliberate movements, she found she had limited play side to side in her hands, though not nearly enough to reach any of her bonds or the large plaster over her mouth.
She could hear at least. There was a definite hum of working machinery, and above that what sounded like animal noises.
A pig squealing? Am I on a farm?
Come to think of it, when she sniffed at the cold air, she realised there was a definite odour of excrement reaching her nostrils. Not the pungent, repulsive ordure of human waste but the manure-rich aroma of a well-grazed field.
I’m on a farm or smallholding
. She listened again. The squealing was high-pitched and didn’t sound like the contented grunting of a feeding animal, so perhaps the poor beast was being slaughtered. To add weight to this, the machinery stopped humming shortly after the pig ceased squealing.
Her elbow began to hurt so she sank back down to the rough concrete to think.
Who is doing this to me, and why?
She closed her eyes to piece together what she could remember. The Flowerpot, the walk home through the snow and the angry mocking voice calling her name she could recall with crystal clarity. She even had a sense of being thrown on to the floor of a van, where she’d lost consciousness. She’d come round once or twice while the van was still moving. It must have been a long journey, because whenever she woke, her arm and leg under her body were completely numb on the metal floor.
She heard a door open and close somewhere behind her. Then footsteps, and a few seconds later daylight illuminated her space. Caitlin struggled to lift her head and darted her eyes hungrily around for information. She immediately saw that she was in a large hangar or barn with a high ceiling. Off to the side there were small pens, some empty, some containing bales of straw, but all devoid of livestock. On one wall was a large stainless-steel door from where the footsteps had emanated before crossing the barn to open the outer door.
In the light she could run an eye over her bonds to register the criss-crossing network of leather straps, not unlike the bondage gear Rollo had had her wear a couple of times, only thicker and less pliable.
A figure approached through the outer door, walking purposefully towards her. It was a man, large and bear-like. The glare of sunlight hitting snow obscured her search for detail on his face.
Many things to say sluiced through her mind, some aggressive, some submissive.
Please let me go. I won’t say anything. Who the hell do you think you are? You’ve no right. People will be looking for me
. Frustration followed immediately, as the gag in her mouth meant she was unable to say any of them even supposing she could settle on a script.
She manoeuvred herself with difficulty, keeping her eyes trained on her captor. The man ambled cockily towards her as though he hadn’t a care in the world.
‘Hello, Kitty.’ The voice was gravelly and deep, the accent local to Derbyshire as far as her untrained ear could tell. His greeting was accompanied by an expulsion of air, condensing in the cold. He was laughing at her, mocking her helplessness. ‘Not so mouthy this time, are you?’
This time? Have we met?
‘Don’t remember me, do you?’ said the man. ‘Something for you to think on.’
His confidence was unsettling and Caitlin forced herself to look for information that might help her. She didn’t know the voice, of that she was certain, but this only made her unease climb a notch, extinguishing the forlorn hope that her abduction might have been some elaborate prank. She stared hard, trying to get a glimpse of his face, but the glare defeated her. She mumbled an acknowledgement to let him know she wasn’t paralysed by fear.
The man stood astride her prostrate frame and reached down with a gloved hand.
‘
Please
. . .’ she tried to say, sounding like Frankenstein’s monster bemoaning its reflection.
The sticking plaster was pulled roughly away, accompanied by a yelp of shock from Caitlin.
‘Please . . .’ she repeated, coughing out the gag. But her appeal was cut short when he jammed a piece of dowelling, like a brush handle only thinner, into her mouth and forced it up against her back teeth. It made her choke on accumulated saliva and she began to splutter, but she was powerless to voice a protest as the figure hooked his hand through one of the straps and dragged her across the floor towards the entrance. She winced as the rough concrete scraped her bare midriff. Fortunately her jeans protected her legs from the worst of the friction.
She trained her eyes on the entrance as it loomed larger. This door too was metal, and slid open sideways on well-oiled runners. About five yards from the warmth of sunlight, her captor let go her bonds and she dropped like a sack of potatoes on to the concrete. She tried to right herself and wriggle towards the life-affirming sun, but was flipped roughly over on to her stomach. She felt the weight of him sit astride her, pinning her down, before he lay on top of her, his chest pushing her face into the concrete. Strong hands grabbed her right arm and held it fast to the ground, and Caitlin could see what looked like a tattoo of a cross on his hand, another on his forearm. She struggled against his grip but was completely immobile, though she managed to spit out the wooden peg.
‘You’ll be sorry you did that,’ said the man.
‘Fuck you,’ she screamed, writhing in vain to get away, her ordeal finally bringing tears.
‘Keep still, whore,’ the man breathed in her ear. ‘Accept the Lord into your heart.’
Another figure, of slighter build, appeared at the barn entrance, framed in dazzling winter sunshine. Caitlin saw small feet moving to stand over her.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ she panted, unfurling her broadest Irish snarl for the occasion. ‘Get this fucking ape off me . . .’
‘The language on her,’ said the man, chuckling softly in her ear. He grabbed her hair to pull her head back and make her watch while his partner moved closer, holding a thin metal rod, solid like a golf club, brandishing it lovingly before Caitlin’s eyes. The tip was bright orange and shaped like a crucifix. With a gulp of horror, Caitlin saw the air shimmer around it as it moved, and she felt the heat warm her face.
‘And the Lord said they shall be cleansed by the purifying fire,’ said the man in her ear.
‘No . . . please.’ Caitlin struggled again.
‘Hold her.’ Caitlin was shocked to hear someone else’s voice.
The man’s hands redoubled their grip on her arm. ‘Do it!’
Caitlin sobbed and closed her eyes to imagine herself elsewhere. A second later she felt searing heat on her right forearm and screamed as she heard the sizzle of the red-hot iron on her skin. A millisecond later, pain a thousand times more intense than anything she’d ever felt before tore through her nervous system and her teeth jammed together on to the tip of her tongue as she lost consciousness.
Caitlin woke several times but drifted back into the netherworld on each occasion, until consciousness took a more permanent hold and the pain of her burn kicked in. She began to sob, quietly at first but then full-on, her shoulders shaking in accompaniment. She’d bitten down hard on her tongue and could taste the coppery bitterness of blood mingling with what little saliva she was able to produce.
Eventually the tears subsided and she lifted her head to look around her, eyes better accustomed to the shadows. Nothing had changed. She was still in the large concrete-floored barn and she sagged back to the ground, helplessness and rage washing through her. A second later, she stirred again, muscle memory sending its message.
‘I can move,’ she croaked, and was shocked at the tremor in her voice. She pushed herself to her bare feet with her bound hands and managed to stand, biting her lip at the pain. All restraints except those binding her wrists in front of her had been removed. She examined her arm. It was raw, the weal on her skin in the shape of a cross.
She tore with her teeth at the heavy straps and stiff metal buckle binding her wrists, but the leather wouldn’t budge. When she eventually withdrew her mouth, there was blood on the leather. She spat out more in despair and gave up, looking instead to her surroundings.
The barn was dark, but her eyes alighted on a plastic bag by the door. She ran to examine it, removing a leather-bound bible. There was an inscription on the inside cover:
Something else for you to think on, Kitty
. She returned the book to the bag and took out three litre bottles of water, greedily spinning the cap from one and downing half of it in one go. She felt better having done so but then realised she might have to ration the water, so she resealed the bottle and laid all three carefully on the ground.
Also in the bag was a Tupperware carton. She flicked off the lid, sniffed at the meaty aroma of cooked chicken and picked at a shard to nibble at. It was tasty, and though she couldn’t describe herself as hungry, she finished the entire carton in one go, not sure when she might eat again.
After her meal, she replaced the sealed carton in the plastic bag, discovering something she’d missed in her eagerness to eat and drink. It was shaped like a tube of toothpaste. She couldn’t make out the label in the gloom so unscrewed the small cap and sniffed at the tiny spout. It was Savlon.
She scoured the floor until she spotted the plaster the man had torn from her mouth. She knelt down and laid the plaster upside down before squeezing out a generous blob of the ointment on to the cotton pad. Very delicately, she manoeuvred her stinging burn over it, and when she felt the cream smearing against the wound, she gritted her teeth and pressed the plaster firmly into place. She used her chin to smooth it on, and could feel the ointment beginning to do its work, at first bringing more pain before the medication began to soothe a little.
With her field dressing in place, she explored her prison, examining the outer door and the large steel door on another wall, both locked. The internal door was modern and sturdy, like a walk-in freezer in a butcher’s shop.
After inspecting each of the animal pens in turn, Caitlin located the small wooden stake that had been shoved into her mouth – to prevent her biting her tongue, she now realised. One end was sharper than the other, and she sank gingerly to her knees to begin the long, slow process of sharpening it further against the smooth floor.
A couple of hours later, she felt the tip of her new weapon and nodded with satisfaction before positioning herself behind the cold metal door to wait.
Caitlin waited, coiled behind the door, for hours before exhaustion overtook her. Resigned, she left her vigil and went to lie on the straw in one of the pens. She was beginning to lose a sense of time passing.
Sleep came easily but it was never restful, and she woke several times. Once she stretched, expecting to find herself in the room next to Laurie, hearing her best friend flushing the toilet in the small hours. But Laurie wasn’t there.
Hours later, she woke again and returned to crouch at the metal door, sharpened stake between her cupped hands. But as the hours passed, her state of vigilance waned, sapping energy and will from her. After what felt like half a day but was probably only two or three hours, she returned to the relative comfort of the pen, with its itchy but comfortable straw, still clutching her wooden weapon in white knuckles, to watch and wait between fitful naps.
This pattern repeated itself for what must have been days. In between periods of readiness, Caitlin slept. Every so often, when she was asleep in the straw, a new bag of provisions would be slipped into the barn. But it never happened when she was waiting by the door.
From time to time she would carefully remove her dressing to prod at her burns, reapplying ointment when necessary. Fortunately the outbuilding was cool and airy, which, with decent luck, made infection less likely.
However, there was no toilet, and Caitlin had been forced into the indignity of relieving herself into a trough at the far end of the barn. After wiping herself on a clump of straw, she covered the offending matter with more straw and resumed her desperate vigil, fighting back the tears. Eventually she stood and flexed her aching leg muscles. Suddenly, as though a white-hot needle had been pushed into her brain, she could stand it no longer and launched herself at the door, pounding against it with bound hands, and when they tired, kicking out with bare feet.
‘Open this door, you bastards,’ she screamed. ‘You hear me? Let me out.’ She continued to beat and kick at the door until she fell in a heap against it. ‘What’s wrong with you, you pervert?’ she sobbed, her voice cracking under the strain. ‘If you want to fuck me, get in here and get it over with.’
Hoarse with screaming, she dragged herself across to the straw-filled pens and threw herself down in despair and exhaustion, tears filling her eyes. She lay still for several minutes, panting, her eyes closing, hoping oblivion would come. Eventually it did, though it was more a symptom of her weakened condition than any regular sleep pattern.