The Overlooker (22 page)

‘Why?' Nick glanced at Millie and wished he hadn't spoken. It was in his mind that if he turned up as the text message challenged him to, he might not find Suzie. He might be walking into a trap. He was thankful that the police were dealing with it. He knew himself well enough to be sure that, if things had been different, he would have gone alone.

‘Let's go,' he said abruptly.

Tom matched his stride to Nick's. ‘You know something that's bugging me? I bet they don't usually put a detective superintendent in charge of a hunt for a missing woman. The police think they're on to something big.'

‘Inspector Heap pretty well ruled out a vice ring. And whatever it is, why is that text message inviting me to walk in on it? None of it makes sense.'

Another horrid thought occurred to him. Was the text message luring him to a place that would be empty, except for Suzie . . . dead?

They were stopped at the exit from the shopping precinct, like everyone else. Two uniformed constables started to go through the routine questions. Had they seen a woman: white jeans, blue jumper, a pink-and-purple jacket . . .?

‘She's my wife,' Nick said curtly. ‘And no, I haven't seen her.'

The three of them walked past the speechless constables towards the car park and the battered Mazda.

The car lurched forward and stalled, as Nick attempted to put it into reverse and missed.

‘I'm driving.' Tom got out of the passenger seat. He walked round and opened the driver's door, and stood back with an authoritative air.

Nick stared gloomily at the steering wheel, then reluctantly stepped out to change places.

‘Sorry. I'm not myself.'

‘Shock,' Tom said. ‘It's natural.'

He swung the car expertly out of its parking space and headed for the exit.

What it is to be young, Nick thought. To have that self-confidence, even when things are going disastrously wrong. It was unfair to say that Tom was enjoying it, but he was excited by the crisis. He wasn't paralyzed with nerves and shocking fears as Nick was.

‘Which way?'

Nick was recalled to reality sufficiently to give Tom directions to Hugh Street. It seemed like tracing a route he had walked with Suzie and Millie in a dream, not two days ago in real life. The bridge over the canal, where they had emerged from the towpath. The hill up to the nursery school, where they had met the tearful woman with her little boy. The derelict space where row upon row of millworkers' terraced houses had been demolished.

But something had changed dramatically. The entrance to Hugh Street was barred by police tape. Vehicles, most with police markings, were parked there.

‘Where do you want me to go?' Tom asked. ‘Something tells me we're not going to get past that lot.'

‘Pull over here. I'll walk across. They'll have to let me through.'

‘You wish,' said Millie, unfolding herself from the rear seat.

‘You two stay here.'

‘Not a chance,' protested Tom. ‘She's our mum too.'

Nick was intensely aware of being watched as the three of them picked their way across the scattered bricks from the demolition. The one remaining mill chimney pointed upwards like a warning finger.

There were a pair of uniformed constables guarding the police tape, one male, one female.

‘Sorry, sir,' said the taller, male one. ‘I'm afraid we're not letting anyone through for the moment.'

Belatedly Nick became conscious of two young women with toddlers, waiting uneasily to one side of the barrier. They must have come from collecting their children from the nursery school, along a route which normally took them through the boarded-up Hugh Street.

How many people passed along that way? Did they not notice the comings and goings to a house that was supposed to be empty? Had none of them reported it, as Nick had done after a single encounter? Or was there a conspiracy of those down on their luck against authority, including the police? What difficult encounters might there be between the relatives of these tired-looking women and the forces of law and order?

If any of them had seen Suzie dragged here against her will, would they have said anything?

The woman police constable was urging him to move. ‘Come along, sir. We've got a police operation going on here. It's no place for spectators.'

‘My wife,' he said, though his tongue felt thick and hard to move. ‘They've got my wife.'

‘You just leave it to us, sir. If she's in that house, I'm sure they'll bring her out soon. There's nothing to worry about.'

Her soothing words were belied by the sight of the pavements of Hugh Street crowded with police officers in riot gear. Helmets with visors, stab vests, truncheons. His blood ran cold as he thought that some of them might have guns.

Would they knock on the door first or ring the bell, as he had? Would the suspicious Mr Harrison open it a fraction to peer round? But surely someone inside must already have seen the police presence blocking the street.

Was Suzie inside?

What would happen to her in the few seconds before the police broke the door down. If they had to?

Millie's cry came a split second after the crash that sent the raiding party hurtling into the house.

She clutched his arm. ‘Is she going to be all right?'

He put his arm round her, hardly conscious of what he did.

‘Yes, love. They've got it under control now.'

He desperately hoped he was right.

It seemed an age that the three of them waited.

Nick sprang forward as the first figures began to emerge from the door. He was suddenly conscious that the tall constable had his arm out across his face, barring his path.

‘Keep back, sir, if you don't mind. You'll only be in the way.'

Between the black-clad, anonymous figures of the police squad, there were colourful dresses now. Women, some in shalwar kameez, like the two he had seen before. Others looked European. A portly man in a brown suit, who might be Mr Harrison, was handcuffed to an officer. His head was turned so Nick could not see his face. They were bundled away towards two police vans waiting at the other end of the street.

The movement in the road was thinning. Nick could make out plain-clothes officers now. DSI Mason and DI Collinge, he thought. One of the helmeted officers came out of the house some time after the others. He shook his head.

Nick ducked suddenly under the constable's arm. He broke through the plastic tape and ran down the street, heedless of the shouted order behind him. He raced up to the detective superintendent.

‘Suzie! What's happened? Is she in there?'

The detective turned his grave face. ‘I told you to go home and wait, sir. I said we'd keep you informed. I'm afraid, sir, we haven't found your wife. You were certainly right about this place. There's been illegal activity here but no evidence yet that it involves kidnapping. We've got some questioning to do. Like I said, we'll keep you informed. Unless you have some other reason to suggest why your wife might have disappeared?'

It was almost an accusation. Nick felt himself go hot and then cold. Did the superintendent really think that Suzie had walked out on him? That his story about the threatening phone calls meant nothing? It didn't make sense. Mason had seen the last text message for himself.

Tom was at his elbow. ‘Come on, Dad. There's nothing here. Leave it. Let's go back to Thelma's and figure out what to do next.'

‘It doesn't mean they haven't got her, because she's not here,' Millie said. ‘They might have other places. They'd expect the police to bust this one, wouldn't they? After you told them about the calls.'

‘I'm well aware of the evidence you've given us, sir. Leave it to us. Now do as your son says, and go home.'

There was nothing for it but to turn back, along the eyeless street, to where they had left the car, isolated in a desert of demolition.

‘I'
ll do it.' Nick held out his hand for the car keys.

‘You sure?'

‘Yes.'

Tom handed over the keys reluctantly. Millie had already installed herself in the front passenger seat. She was asserting her right not always to be relegated to the back row, just because she was younger.

As he slid the car into gear, Nick felt surprisingly calm. No. Not calm. Numb. He had been so sure that those taunting messages were luring him back to the boarded-up house in Hugh Street. That Suzie must be there. That the police would find her. Alive or dead.

Now the bottom had dropped out of his certainties. He was left in a dark void. If Suzie was not in Hugh Street, where was she? Why had the mystery caller seemed so keen for Nick to come and find her? Why did he assume he knew where she was? Nothing made sense any more.

He drove mechanically. There seemed to be a distant, detached part of his mind which watched out for traffic lights, signposts, other vehicles and pedestrians. He did not think he was driving dangerously. If anything, he was more careful than usual. He did not consciously remember the route to Thelma's house, but the car was taking them there.

‘Do you think those police guys have got another theory?' Tom's voice came from the back seat. ‘I mean, that sweatshop, or whatever it is, was top of their hit list. But they may have ideas about who was running it. They could have other addresses.'

‘There's someone following us,' Millie said.

The car swerved momentarily. Both children gasped. Nick brought it back under control.

‘Sorry, folks. Which one, Millie?'

‘The white one.'

Nick looked in his rear-view mirror. Two cars back, he saw a white Polo. As the road swung round a bend he glanced back. He had a glimpse of a young woman driving. He made out the head and shoulders of a taller man beside her.

He corrected his steering. ‘Are you sure?'

‘Yup. They've been there almost since we started. They must have been watching us at Hugh Street. They know exactly where we are, what we're doing. It's creepy.'

The numbness that had fallen over Nick was shattered. His breath was coming fast now. Fear. Anger. He was conscious of the two people he loved most after Suzie in the car with him. His son and daughter. Was there anything he could do to shield them from whoever had got the Fewings firmly in their sights?

It had been such a small, innocent thing. A quest for family history. Taking Suzie and Millie to the house where his grandmother had grown up. To relive the days of clogs on cobbles, of whirring looms, of streets begrimed with the smoke of a hundred mill chimneys. Surely nothing they had stumbled upon, or suspected, could warrant the abduction of Suzie and the all-too-present threat to the rest of them?

‘Have you got your mobile, Tom?'

‘Of course.'

‘Ring the police. Describe the car. See if you can get the number plate.'

‘Difficult. The car behind us is in the way.'

Again he sensed that Tom was relishing the excitement and importance of making the 999 call; detailing the car and its occupants, the route they were taking.

Nick swung off the main road on to the bridge and up the hill that led to High Bank. The car immediately behind them drove on. The white Polo followed them across the bridge.

Tom read out the number plate.

‘They're not taking much trouble to disguise themselves, are they?' Millie twisted round to watch.

‘It's like that phone call,' Nick said, through gritted teeth. ‘Practically goading us to come and get Suzie. But what was the
point
if she wasn't there?' He slammed his hand on the steering wheel and was shocked by the blast of the horn.

He was struggling to maintain control now. He swung the car on to the gravel path in front of the terraced houses on High Bank. Thelma's red Nissan was already there.

Suddenly a wider reality flooded in. Thelma. He had involved her in this danger too. Great-uncle Martin, lying in hospital, looking forward to the family's next visit. To meeting Suzie and Millie. Hoping to come home on Sunday. How could he possibly explain to them?

He saw in the mirror the Polo make the same turn on to the gravel behind them. He leapt out and strode towards it as it slowed to a halt. The fair-haired young woman and the taller man got out. Brazenly open. Nothing furtive or disguised. His anger exploded.

‘What the hell do you think you're playing at?
Where's Suzie
?'

He was aware of the physical presence of Tom close behind him.

The woman in the suede skirt and brown jacket flipped a warrant card open.

‘Detective Sergeant Candy Bray. And this is DC William Riley. The Super has detailed us to keep an eye on you, under the circumstances. I'll be inside the house, if that's all right. My constable will be keeping watch outside. I gather you think that whoever took your wife has been keeping you under surveillance since you stumbled across them.'

Nick was left speechless. His anger evaporated. He was conscious of a strange regret as he looked at the detective constable. For a heady moment, he had thought he was facing the man who had made those phone calls. But he was wrong. He had not, after all, discovered the only people who knew where Suzie was. He felt more lost than ever.

It was left to Millie again to ask the obvious, unnecessary question.

‘You're the
police
?'

Thelma met them in the hall. It was the moment Nick had dreaded.

Her face was bright with welcome. ‘Have you had a good day? I dropped in on Dad after work. He was right chuffed that he'd had a chance to talk to you. Tom! Look how you've grown! I've put you in Dad's room instead of on the sofa, seeing as he's not here. It won't take me long to change the sheets if they let him come home on Sunday.'

The warmth of her voice was dying. Her eyes were going over the little group. Puzzlement, then an anxious questioning.