Lavender was wearing a relatively modest mini dress with matching bondage shoes, and not a lot else. She noticed blue lights flashing behind her and turned to see a black SUV with flashing blue lights behind the radiator grille.
Declan saw the blue lights and instinctively looked at his speedometer. He had crept over the speed limit by ten miles per hour. He waited until there was a place to pull in off the busy road and then parked up in a recessed parking area. The SUV pulled in behind.
A man in jeans a tee shirt and a leather jacket approached the driver’s door. He held a warrant card against the glass; the name read ‘Detective Constable Gary Presswell’.
Declan wound down the window. “So when did detectives start pulling people over for traffic offences?” he asked.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to write you a ticket. We’ve been following you since you left the house because the young lady in the back is the target of a kidnapping threat we received this afternoon. Could you just show me your driving licence, please?”
Declan went into his pocket to retrieve his wallet. As he looked up, something was sprayed into his face. A second later the rear passenger side door flew open, and another man reached in and took Lavender by the arm.
“Come with me or you die where you sit,” he snarled.
As the SUV drove away at speed, Declan rubbed his eyes. He was still blinded and in real pain. He tried to get out of the car by touch only, and when he was standing upright he leaned on the car horn until someone came to his aid.
Chapter 63
High Road, Tottenham, North London. 8pm.
Lavender had stopped crying. Dave the safecracker was sitting next to her. He felt rather sorry for the girl and rather wished he hadn’t been so aggressive when he’d taken her. “Come with me or die where you sit” had sounded dramatic when he practiced it in head, but he knew that he would never harm anyone. She, however, didn’t.
Johnny was driving the SUV.
“Those flashing blue lights worked a treat, bro; you’re a bit of a genius on the side, aren’t you?”
Dave enjoyed the praise, especially coming from Johnny who was a full timer in the organisation, whereas Dave had a real job and was only called on from time to time. If Dave’s employers at the engine assembly plant knew he was so adept with explosives, they might be nervous. Dave had promised himself he would never use explosives to hurt anyone. That would make him no better than a terrorist, and he’d seen enough of those in Afghanistan.
Lavender was wearing a blindfold, the kind commonly handed out by airlines to those who want to sleep during a flight. It wasn’t entirely lightproof, but her kidnappers just wanted her disoriented.
“Look at that. The floodlights are all blazing away and they didn’t even play at home today,” Johnny commented as they passed White Hart Lane.
“They only managed a draw. They’ll have to do better than that on Wednesday night or Harry’ll have their guts for garters.”
They decided to change the subject before Lavender could work out where they were. Johnny’s mobile phone rang. He answered at once.
“Yes, we have the package, and no, there were no problems. Why? What happened?” Johnny listened to the reply and a smile crossed his face. “OK, we’ll be there in two minutes.” He hung up.
“Dave, this’ll make you laugh. Three of them went off to Greenwich and only managed to find the girlfriend.”
“Are they bringing her, then?”
“Yes, but the funny part is that she beat two of them up. One had a broken nose and the other thinks he has concussion. England one, Netherlands nil, I think.”
They both laughed as Johnny turned in to Commercial Road and manoeuvred to turn right again into the Tottenham Press car park.
Chapter 64
Ashburnham Mews, Greenwich, London. 8.00pm.
I struggled with my key as the hot take away food burned my arm. As soon as I had the front door open I ran up the stairs. I had some unzipping to do.
At first I thought that Dee had left the door open for me, but then I noticed the big black boot print on the door, and the broken lock. It didn’t cross my mind in that moment that I might be in danger if I went inside, and to be honest, even if it had I would still have gone to Dee’s aid. But Dee wasn’t there, and the furniture in front of the TV was out of place.
I remembered that I was holding the take away food and so I went into the kitchen and set it down. I was in a daze. What I was seeing could not be real. I wasn’t thinking clearly and so I shook my head. It made no difference. I splashed cold water on my face and walked around the flat.
Only the lounge was not as I had left it. On TV the detectives could always tell that there had been a struggle; there would be broken lamps, pictures askew, furniture on its side. But here there was nothing of note. The footstool was out of place and the rug had a corner turned over, but nothing seemed wrong otherwise. Yet there was clearly something wrong. Dee wasn’t here, and there seemed to be an atmosphere of danger hanging in the air. The door had obviously been forced open, I had seen that much. My heart started to race as the likelihood of what had taken place began to distil on my senses like dew. I let the thought hang there a moment, still not entirely ready to believe it, and then I pulled myself together and called a number from my speed dial.
“Tom Vastrick.” The voice was strong, bold and comforting. Mine was shaking.
“Tom, I think Dee has been kidnapped from my flat. What should I do?”
For a split second there was silence at the other end as he, too, digested the information, but then his voice reached me, sounding calm and decisive.“Do nothing Josh, I’ll be there in twenty minutes with help.”
***
Tom Vastrick hadn’t been exaggerating. Twenty minutes later two Metropolitan Police squad cars were parked outside, blue lights flashing, and a Scene of Crime van was parked beside them. Curtains twitched as the neighbours looked out at them, obviously wondering what was going on.
A policewoman was sitting in the kitchen with me, having made me some tea. I sat sipping the tea, the aroma from the cooling take away making me hungry, although I no longer had the appetite to eat it.
A policeman came into the kitchen carrying my BlackBerry. “You might want to take this call; it’s the City of London Police.”
I took the phone and held it to my ear. “Hello,” I said weakly.
“Josh, this is Inspector Boniface. I’ve just heard about what happened. Don’t you worry, we’ve got two police forces and Vastrick on this. We’ll get her back, even if I have to pull Hickstead’s toenails out myself.”
“Thanks,” I heard myself saying. “It’s been one hell of a shock, but I want to do whatever I can to help find her.”
The real shock was how deeply I felt the loss. I couldn’t live with the thought that Dee might be hurt, or perhaps worse. The shock did bring with it a sudden realisation; I loved Dee Conrad and would give my life to get her back.
“Josh, you may get a call from Don Fisher,” Boniface added.
“Why?” I was puzzled.
“Lavender has been taken too!”
***
Tom Vastrick arrived fifteen minutes later than he had promised in a car that cost almost as much as my flat. Since receiving my call, he had been busy talking on the phone with two police forces and his own investigative staff. One of their own was missing.
When he came into the room I offered my hand but he ignored it, choosing instead to crush me in a bear hug.
“Josh, Dee is family as far as we’re concerned, and that makes you family, too. Every resource we have will be made available. I should tell you that Dee is also trained for this kind of eventuality, and she will most probably come up with plans of her own to remedy her situation, so try not to worry too much. She’s a very capable girl, as I’m sure you’re aware. Now, we need to get ready for the inevitable contact from the kidnappers. I have people with Don Fisher, too.
As soon as these people make contact, we’re going to use every means available to us to track them down, legal or illegal.”
Chapter 65
Commercial Road, Tottenham, North London. Friday, 9pm.
The journey from Josh’s flat had been uncomfortable, or at least the part of it she could remember. Dee had woken with a shocking headache to find herself tied up, hooded and lying in the footwell in the rear of the car. Not the best of circumstances to find herself in, she thought, but not irretrievable, either.
The leader of the kidnapping team was sitting on the seat with his feet on her back. He felt her move.
“So Miss Whiplash has woken up. You need to lie still until we get where we’re going. It won’t be long now. Then I suggest you don’t give either of my friends here any excuse to punish you, because they’ve both requested that privilege. However, under the Geneva Convention we will treat you humanely,” Rik laughed.
A few minutes later the car stopped and waited as a roller shutter door rattled open nearby. Dee knew that it was important to gather as many clues to her whereabouts as possible, and she concentrated on doing just that. The car moved forward and stopped. She heard the roller shutter door close behind them.
Dee was taken from the car by Rik, who handed her to Johnny and said, “Take her upstairs and put her with the other one. We need to get cleaned up before we move to stage two.”
Johnny smiled because he knew that getting cleaned up was code for attending to the injuries inflicted on them by a mere girl.
Dee concentrated and identified a strong smell. She recognised it, but where from? She was being taken somewhere but the hood was hampering her efforts to climb up the narrow steel mesh staircase.
“I’m going to loosen the hood so you can see your feet, OK? Don’t do anything silly,” Johnny warned her as he created a gap at the bottom of the hood that enabled Dee to see her feet and the area immediately around them. At least she wouldn’t fall over.
Taking advantage of the narrow strip of vision available to her, Dee looked to her left and saw that she was in some kind of factory or warehouse with a grey painted concrete floor. She pushed her luck and moved her head a little more, but this earned her a sharp poke in her ribs. By the time she reached the top of the stairs she had been able to work out that they were in an industrial unit, with dust proof floor coatings and some boxy looking machinery. It was at that point she remembered where she had come across that smell before.
***
Dee had her hands untied before being guided to a chair. A hand pressed down on her shoulder, so she sat. She could hear sniffling from close by. Her captor took each hand separately and applied handcuffs. Once she was secure he lifted the hood from her head. Squinting in the harsh fluorescent light, she glanced around quickly and saw that she was in a small windowless room with a distraught young woman.
“I’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” Johnny laughed as he left the room, closing the door behind him. They both heard the key turning in the lock.
“Lavender Fisher, I presume,” Dee said as she took in her surroundings. She was sitting on the long side of a rectangular metal framed table with a wood effect laminated chipboard top, and Lavender was directly opposite. The table was screwed to the floor and the chains attached to their handcuffs passed through a hole in the middle of the desk, probably intended for computer cables, to be padlocked onto the legs. The chain allowed only a few inches of movement in any direction. Dee was already trying to come up with a way out of this.
Lavender’s face was smeared with mascara, and she looked miserable and scared, which was hardly surprising. Dee wanted to take advantage of their time alone. Firstly she introduced herself to Lavender, trying to keep her voice calm and steady.
“Lavender, as you can see we’re both in the same boat here. My name’s Dee. I know your Dad and I intend to get you back to him safe and sound, but I’ll need your help. Do you understand?”
“Yes. Yes, I understand. I’ll help you if I can. Just tell me what to do.”
Lavender had almost broken down at the mention of her father, but she had managed to hold herself together. She didn’t feel quite so terrified now, knowing that she was not in this alone. Whoever Dee was, she seemed to know what to do. At least, Lavender hoped so.
“All right, Lavender, I believe that this building is a commercial printing press. I think we’re in an industrial unit, possibly on an estate of similar units. There’s a motorised roller shutter door at the front of the building, but there are bound to be emergency exits as well.”
“How do you know all that?” Lavender asked. “They had you blindfolded.”
“I’m a trained investigator. I was taught by the best, over in the USA. Also I recognised the smell of printing ink from when I picked up our company brochures a couple of weeks ago. What I don’t know is where we are geographically, and you can help with that.”
“I don’t think I can. I was blindfolded like you all the time,” Lavender wailed, afraid that she was being negative.
“Lavender, please just stay calm. Listen carefully to my questions and answer them as best you can, OK?”
The young woman nodded, and actually managed a brief smile.
“Where exactly were you kidnapped?”
“About a mile and a half from Elephant and Castle, on Lambeth Road.”
Dee absorbed the information and asked another question. “From being kidnapped, how long did it take to get here?”
“About thirty five minutes,” Lavender said with some certainty.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. They didn’t take my watch. I was taken just after half past seven, and I was in this room being chained up at ten past eight.”
Dee smiled back at her encouragingly. “Excellent. Now, concentrate. Was the car moving quickly most of the time, or did it stop and start in traffic?”
“I guess we spent about five minutes at traffic lights and such, but most of the time the car was in fourth gear. It’s amazing what you hear when your eyes are covered up and all you have is your ears.”
“It certainly is,” Dee agreed. “Lavender, I suspect that if we were in West London they would have grabbed you closer to home. So, assuming we are North, South or East of London, thirty minutes at an average speed of about thirty miles an hour means you could have travelled around fifteen miles at the most. That would put us in Croydon to the South, Blackheath in the East or in North London or Essex. Did you cross a bridge?”
Lavender concentrated. “I don’t know. I couldn’t see.”
“Think back. If you crossed the Thames from Lambeth Road you would have crossed Blackfriars Bridge. Most of the bridges across the Thames have expansion joints. They allow the bridge structure to move a few millimetres without cracking the road surface. When cars cross these joints, there’s always a small shudder and a sound like this.” Dee banged her fists on the table a fraction of a second apart. “There would probably be four or more of these across the bridge. Do you remember anything like that?”
Lavender thought hard. “Maybe. I think I can remember that, but I don’t know whether I’m making myself believe it because you just told me about it.”
“That’s all right. Don’t worry. You’re doing very well,” Dee smiled. “Your dad will be proud of you. Take your time and try to remember. At the moment we can’t rule out any options. Did they say anything during the journey? Anything at all?”
Lavender’s brow creased in concentration. “Yes, they did, they were talking to each other, but nothing that’s any use, really. It was just a few minutes before we arrived.”
“Lavender, try to remember exactly what they said. It might be vital.”
“I think they said something about it being odd for the floodlights to be on when they weren’t even at home today. They also said Harry wouldn’t be pleased with the draw today and they would have to do better on Wednesday night. Does that even make sense to you?”
Dee took a deep breath. “Yes, Lavender, it does. You’ve done very well to remember all of that. I think I do know where we are, more or less. But we mustn’t let anyone know about this conversation, OK?” Lavender nodded, smiling properly for the first time.
***
Floodlights suggested a sports ground, presumably a large one. Not being at home today suggested football or rugby. A draw suggested football or cricket, but only football would be played again on Wednesday night.
Of course, Dee realised, it was probably Champions League. She remembered Josh talking about it to one of his friends at the match this afternoon. If only she could remember which team had drawn today and was also playing again on Wednesday.
Dee quite liked football, but didn’t know a great deal about it. She would certainly not have considered herself a fan, but some football news was hard to miss. She knew that Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea were the London teams in the Champions League, so it had to be one of those three. She had seen Chelsea beat West Ham today, and Chelsea had been away, not at home, so it couldn’t be them. The ground Lavender had passed was not Chelsea’s.
So that left the two North London clubs, Arsenal and Tottenham. She couldn’t recall what their scores had been today, or whether either one had been at home, but she did know that Spurs’ next home match was against West Ham. Tickets had been advertised for sale on the hoardings dozens of times during the match.
She had narrowed their position down to North London, which was something. The trouble was that the Emirates Stadium, the home of Arsenal, was close to the A1, and White Hart Lane, where Spurs played, was close to the A10, both quite fast roads and both easily accessible from the river.
Something else popped into her mind. She looked at her new friend.
“Lavender, did you mention someone called Harry?”
Lavender nodded. “Yes, they said Harry would have their guts for garters if they didn’t play better.”
“Harry could be their manager. I think Arsene Venger is the manager at Arsenal, but I don’t know if Tottenham’s manager is called Harry,” Dee mused out loud.
“Of course he is,” Lavender almost shouted. “Harry Redknapp. He’s Louise Redknapp’s father in law. I’ve done modelling with Louise a few times. She’s married to Jamie Redknapp. He’s really quite nice.”