The Doll's House (38 page)

M
arina looked up. Ben's booted foot had been brought down on her phone.

‘You bitch…'

She stared at him. She tried to sit up, bring herself upright. He planted his foot on her chest, pushed her down again. She hit the floor hard, the air huffing out of her. She looked slowly up at him once more. Rage, and viewing him from below, contorted his features.

‘Who were you talking to?'

Marina didn't answer.

‘I said who were you talking to?' He sounded unstable, she thought. Like he was about to snap.

Still she didn't speak.

‘I said who…' he kicked her, hard, in the ribs, ‘were…' another kick, harder this time, ‘you…' and another; she felt something crack, ‘talking to?'

Marina tried to breathe deeply. It hurt. ‘My… my husband…'

With a scream of rage he turned away from her. ‘Husband… husband… fuck, fuck…'

Marina looked over at him. Tried to ignore the pain in her side. ‘Yes,' she said. ‘My husband. The police officer. He knows where I am.'

‘He can't.'

‘He knows who you are too,' she said, struggling to get breath back inside her body. ‘Grant.'

His face contorted even further. ‘Grant? Fucking… Grant? I'm Ben.
Ben
. Not Grant.'

‘No,' she said, voice as calm as she could make it, ‘you're Grant. That's who you are.'

He shook his head violently enough to dislodge something. ‘No… I'm not. I'm Ben. Grant, Grant's a… pussy. He's weak. Nothing. A nobody. Everybody hates Grant.' He gave a twisted approximation of a smile. ‘Everybody loves Ben.
Everybody
.'

His raving had given her a way in. She pursued it. ‘But why?' she said, trying once again to remain calm. ‘Why does everybody hate Grant? What's he done wrong?'

He knelt down beside her, his face right up against hers to emphasise his words. ‘He's weak,' he said slowly, an exasperated teacher explaining a simple point to even simpler children. ‘Weak. He's nothing. What his father always said, always called him. Nothing. Nobody. Not like Ben. Ben was everything, Ben had it all. Grant… nothing.'

‘So you became Ben.'

He nodded. ‘I
am
Ben.'

‘Good. Right. And he's strong.'

‘He is.'

‘And he makes you feel strong.'

‘Yeah. Course he does. And everybody loves him.' He pointed at Maddy, gave her a kick. ‘Even her. She loved him.'

Maddy began to cry. Marina kept going. ‘Ben's upset her,' she said. ‘Made her cry.'

‘So?'

‘That's not what you do to someone who loves you, is it? You do the opposite.'

He staggered away from her, hands to his head. ‘Shut up, shut up…'

‘If you love someone —'

He turned back to her, lifted her off the floor. Screamed into her face. ‘
Shut up
…' Holding her head with one hand, he drew back his other, slapped her as hard as he could.

The force of the blow almost dislocated her jaw. She had never known a slap like it. Her whole face stung as badly as if she had just put her head inside a wasps' nest.

He was calming down now. His breathing was returning to normal. Marina tried again. ‘Look, Ben,' she said, ‘it doesn't have to be like this. You could let us go. That'll be the end of it. The longer you keep us here, the worse it gets for you.' Her voice dropped, became warm, consoling. ‘Come on. Just let us go. You don't have to do this. Be bigger than that. What d'you say?'

Her only answer was a smile.

‘You're letting us go?' She knew he wasn't.

He crossed to the corner of the room, rummaged around, found what he was looking for, came back. Marina saw that he was holding a ball gag. A big one. A well-used one.

‘No… no…'

He ignored her protestations, pulled her head up and pushed the ball into her mouth. She couldn't breathe and tried to scream, her body going into involuntary panic. He pulled the gag tight round the back of her head, tied it.

‘There,' he said, ‘that should shut you up.'

She stared at him, wide-eyed, her heart hammering, thinking she would never get enough air into her body through her nose.

‘Now,' he said, ‘I've decided what I'm going to do with you. Both of you. And you're not going to enjoy it. But then you're not meant to…'

Marina stared at him. Her last weapon, her voice, her reason was gone. She was helpless.

‘
N
o, no, no, no, no…'

Phil stared at his phone, tried to call Marina back. Nothing.

‘Phil?' It was Anni. ‘What happened?'

‘The line went dead. She…' He sighed, ran his fingers through his hair, turned backwards and forwards as if looking for a way out. ‘It went dead. While she was talking.'

‘You think someone got to it?'

‘Ben. Or Grant. Or whoever he's calling himself.' Phil nodded. ‘Yeah. Him. Shit…' He paced once more, feeling that familiar tightening in his chest.
Not now
…
I don't have time for it now
…

He kept hearing Marina's voice, over and over in his head. He replayed the conversation, went back over everything. Tried to pick out something – anything – he could use to find her.

‘The club,' he said aloud. ‘That's where she must be. It's the obvious place for him to take them. That's where we look first.'

‘We?' said Anni. ‘I'm off my patch here and you need to stand down.'

He stopped pacing, turned and stared at her. ‘What?'

‘I said, you need to stand down.' She swallowed. ‘Boss.'

‘Why? This bastard's got my wife.'

‘Conflict of interest, that's why,' she said. ‘You know the rules.'

Phil did know the rules. If an officer had a personal involvement in a case for whatever reason, he had to stand aside and let someone impartial take over. He turned to Anni, nodded. ‘Yeah,' he said. ‘You're right. I should.'

He still had his phone in his hand. He called Cotter.

‘Situation's changed,' he said when she picked up. ‘You know how you hoped whoever ran this club would pack up and leave to become someone else's problem? Well, two things. That person is Grant Parsons, Ron Parsons's son and he's taken two hostages and holed up in there.'

Silence on the line. Phil held his breath. After what seemed like an eternity, Cotter spoke.

‘I'll get the helicopter in the air.'

Phil let out a sigh of relief. ‘Thank you.'

He brought her up to speed. ‘One of the hostages is Maddy Mingella. She's a student who had the misfortune to get involved with both Gwilym and Grant Parsons. I don't know who the other one is.' He turned away from Anni so he couldn't see her silent remonstration with him.

‘Make sure the helicopter's got the thermal imaging equipment going,' he added. ‘We'll need Firearms in their ARVs and we need the operational support unit for numbers.' He hung up, looked at Anni. ‘We're good to go.'

‘I'll deal with this one.' Anni jerked a thumb at Gwilym. ‘What you doing? Go.'

‘I will,' said Phil, keying numbers into his phone. ‘One more call. If I'm going in there to get them, I need someone with me I can trust.'

S
perring was still sitting in the Boardroom of the Lost and Found, staring across the table at Ron Parsons and wondering what to do with him, when his phone rang.

At first he ignored it; then he checked the display. When he saw who it was, he was definitely going to ignore it. Reluctantly, though, he decided to pick up.

‘Yeah,' he said, ‘what d'you want?'

‘It's me,' said Phil.

‘I know. Your name came up. I can read, you know. What d'you want?'

‘Someone I can trust,' said Phil. ‘On my side.'

‘Oh yeah?' said Sperring, gearing up for an argument. ‘And who might that be?'

‘You,' said Phil.

Sperring was taken aback. Phil explained to him what he wanted. As he did so, Sperring's face was split by a wide grin.

Conversation over, he ended the call, looked across the table at Parsons, then at Khan.

‘Your lucky day, Nadish,' he said.

Khan looked up, eyes dazed. ‘What?'

‘You'll see.'

Sperring stood up. Khan, taking his cue from the older officer, did likewise. Parsons looked between the pair of them.

‘What about me?' he said.

Sperring stopped, turned. Gave the old gangster his full attention.

‘Know any good solicitors?'

A
nni's first thought about the building was:
it's so different from the one I'm used to
.

Southway station in Colchester looked like an eighties prison. Or a hospital designed by someone who didn't want the patients to get well. This one, she thought, looked like a Gothic castle.

Nice. Wish I worked here
.

She walked through the main doors, straight up to the desk. The sergeant looked up from the notes he was writing. She held her warrant card up to the glass.

‘Detective Constable Hepburn,' she said. ‘Anni Hepburn.'

He was young and anonymously blond, she thought. Good-looking in a bland way. She saw a squash ball on the counter before him.
Must practise his wrist-strengthening exercises during his shift
, she thought, and didn't know if that was a good thing, keeping healthy, or just too narcissistic.

He smiled at her, looked at the card, then back to her. ‘Bit far off your patch, aren't you?'

‘I've been visiting an old friend,' she said. ‘Something came up while I was doing it.'

She looked at the figure standing next to her. So did the desk sergeant. Hugo Gwilym stood there looking dishevelled in his old clothes and beanie hat.

The desk sergeant frowned, leaned in towards Anni. ‘He looks like that bloke off the telly,' he said, out of earshot of Gwilym.

‘You mean,' she said, ‘he looks like that bloke who
used
to be on the telly.'

‘Eh?'

Instead of elaborating, she turned to Gwilym. ‘Come on, over here.'

He moved forward obediently. He looked broken, like he no longer had the strength to argue any more. Like the fight had left him. He stood next to her at the desk. She looked at him. He stared back at her, eyes red-rimmed.

‘Well?' she said.

He didn't move, didn't speak.

‘Haven't you got something to say?' she prompted.

Still he didn't speak.

She leaned in to him. ‘It's over, Gwilym,' she said. ‘Finished. You're finished. If you don't do this now, you're only putting off the inevitable. You know that.'

He sighed. Opened his mouth. ‘My name's Hugo Gwilym,' he said.

Anni saw the light of recognition in the desk sergeant's eyes.

‘And why are you here, Hugo?' said Anni, as if she was leading a recalcitrant small child.

‘I'm… here to… to turn myself in.'

The desk sergeant waited, looking perplexed. Anni leaned in once more, prompted again. ‘And why are you here to turn yourself in, Hugo?'

He looked at her. One last, long, despairing, pathetic look. She stared back at him. As empathic as a rock. Realising that this really was the end, knowing he had no choice, he turned back to the sergeant.

‘I'm here to… turn myself in because…' he sighed, ‘I'm a rapist…'

The desk sergeant's eyes nearly popped out of his head.

Anni smiled. ‘And get him a doctor for his head. Wouldn't want the bastard suing us.'

‘
H
ere we are…'

Grant Parsons pulled tight on the rope binding Marina to a chair. Her hands were still behind her back, still in the same restraints. Her arms and legs were now tied up too. And she was still gagged.

‘I thought of putting the blindfold back on,' he said. ‘But then I thought, no. Let her see what's happening. Hate you to miss the fun.'

After smashing her phone and gagging her, he had pulled her up the stairs with him, Maddy screaming as she was left behind. He dragged her along what seemed like endless corridors until they had emerged in what at first she took for a living room. She soon realised it wasn't real. With its pink walls and matching furniture, it seemed more like a stage or film set, like a doll's house room made human size.

Parsons dragged her over to an armchair by a dining table set for dinner, tied her to it. Then he left the room, came back with armfuls of files and papers. She noticed that the research material he had taken from Gwilym was amongst them. Gwilym's laptop, now smashed into uselessness, was also there. He piled everything up on the table, then pulled the chair she was tied to into the centre of the room, positioning it so that she faced the door.

She heard sounds going on, liquid, wet sounds. She tried to turn her head to see what was happening, but her restraints wouldn't allow it. She smelled something. The air took on a chemical tang.

‘Hubby's on his way,' he said from behind her. ‘My dad called to let me know. From the police station. Called me instead of a solicitor. Maybe he's not so bad after all. So, with that in mind, I've had to take precautions. You see that door? There. Ahead of you. That's the way your hubby's going to enter. The only way in. And the first thing he'll see will be you.'

She heard something being thrown to the ground. It clanged emptily. Parsons walked round until he stood in front of her, looking at her. He wiped his hands on his jeans. Knelt down so his face was at her eye level.

‘No,' he said, ‘that's not true. The first thing he'll see will be the fire, over there.' He gestured behind her. ‘All the files about this place, about me, about everything I've done, they're all there on that table. And they're all going up in smoke. He'll look at that first. And then he'll see you. And he'll not be able to move. He'll stand there staring, struck immobile by indecision. Because he knows he'll only be able to save one thing. You, or the evidence. And it might be too late for the evidence.' He laughed. ‘Might even be too late for you by then.'

Marina closed her eyes. Unable to move, to speak, all she could do was think. She tried to will herself away, be anywhere but here. Phil was on his way. He had to be. If he wasn't and Parsons was lying…

No. She couldn't think about that. He had to be. He
had
to be.

What if he didn't know where she was? What if he couldn't find her? What if…

She kept her eyes tightly closed. But it didn't work. The tears still ran down her face.

‘Crying?' Parsons laughed. ‘That's nothing. Wait till the smoke starts. You'll be crying plenty by then. But at least you'll have done your job. You'll have stopped them getting further. Stopped them reaching me.'

He walked to the door, turned, looked at her. ‘I don't know what to say,' he said. ‘I'm sure I should have a speech prepared, but really, I just want to get out of here and away. Bye.'

He slammed the door shut.

She heard the fire before she saw it or smelled it. Crackling, like white noise eating up everything in its path. She tried to scream, but the gag wouldn't let her. She pulled at the restraints but they were too tight.

She sat back, trying not to give in to panic. Trying desperately to find a way out.

There wasn't one.

No
, she thought.
It can't end here. It can't
…