Kitabı oxu: «Broken Silence»

Dedication –

To Baroness Lola Young and Kevin Hyland for opening my eyes to Modern-Day Slavery … but mostly for all those victims of this appalling abuse of human rights.

‘Once you know, you can’t claim ignorance’ Baroness Lola Young

Prologue

February 2019

A sharp rat-a-tat-tat somewhere near his head shattered his reassurance. Someone was out there banging on the side of the bin. Stefan held his breath and his body stiffened. Maybe it was one of the workers out for a smoke. He strained his ears. He couldn’t hear anything else – no dogs, no voices. Maybe whoever it was had gone.

Then it came – a coarse singsong whisper penetrating the plastic bin – taunting and at the same time chilling him. ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are.’

This was followed by ferocious yelping and Stefan knew the game was up. The lid was thrown back and a bright torch shone into the inside. In a last-ditch attempt, Stefan remained still and silent, but it was no good. Whoever shone the torch followed that by pushing a long prod through the layers of cardboard. When it connected with his body, Stefan braced himself not to react, then the electric current from the Taser had him yelping in pain as his entire body shook for a moment and then became numb. Seconds later, two of Bullet’s henchmen dragged him from the bin and flung him in a heap on the wet ground. The dogs, salivating and over-excited, pranced and jumped close to him, taking the odd nipping bite before they were yanked back by their owners.

‘Oh dear. This makes me very sad, you know. It also makes my boss very sad.’ Bullet tilted his head to one side and laughed. ‘Actually, it doesn’t make him sad so much as angry.’

He waved his phone in the air. ‘He told me to hit you where it hurts and boy, am I going to enjoy doing that.’

SUNDAY 15TH MARCH 2020

Chapter 1

DS Felicity Springer couldn’t wait to get home. She’d thrown her stuff into her case, and walked, red-faced, past her colleagues who lingered in the hallway making plans to extend the weekend. She exited the hotel on her walk of shame. It didn’t matter that no one was paying the slightest bit of attention to her – she had a vague recollection of what had happened, and she felt dirty. Why had this happened? She had Stevie after all – how could she have allowed herself to get so drunk … so out of control?

Straightening her spine, she dragged her trolley case over to her car, blinked back her tears – she didn’t do tears – shoved her luggage in the boot of her Kia Sportage and got in, just as it began to snow. Hidden from view, she rested her head on the steering wheel, wishing she could clear her brain; that the pounding at her temple would go. She wasn’t even sure she should be driving. Maybe she was still over the limit but there was no way she could remain for the rest of the conference.

She’d had an awful time anyway, feeling totally out of her depth at the multi-agency ‘Making Bradford Safe’ conference. It had been billed as a way of working together to get the drugs, the weapons and the gangs off the streets. The first step in flushing out any of those businesses who were employing trafficked immigrants. It smacked of lip service to Springer, because she knew fine and well there wasn’t enough in the coffers to finance their grandiose ideas. Still, it was worth it to get different agencies together … share ideas, break down barriers. On a personal level though, Springer was pissed off. Nobody, not even the bosses from her own agency, had given her contributions credence. It was all crap, crap and more damn crap. Perhaps that’s why she went off the rails, but that was just making excuses and no excuse could ever be good enough for what she had done. As she’d walked through the hallway, she had felt like she had the word SLUT tattooed across her forehead and she reckoned that by the time she walked through the front door to Stevie, SLUT would have morphed into CHEATER.

Her head pounded – just how much did I have to drink? Last night was a blur. She’d had wine with her evening meal, but she thought she’d only had a glass. Afterwards she’d forced herself to go to the disco and she vaguely remembered dancing – really? Felicity rarely danced. How much did I really drink? Surely not enough to account for that one very big mistake. The sort of mistake she was going to feel guilty about for a long time to come. She had someone at home who cared for her. So, why had she risked that for a sleazy fumble with a lecherous loser? He was always a bit of a dick, so she couldn’t quite make sense of how the hell she had ended up in bed beside him. She remembered vaguely chatting to him, and she’d ended up in his room … in his bed, so …

Thing was, she wasn’t a hundred per cent sure what had gone on. She barely remembered the post-conference party. It was all a blur of blaring music, flashing lights, gyrating bodies and loud laughter. Snapshots of it came back to her; laughter, drinking, chanting, ‘down it, down it, down it’, but none of it was in sequence. As for after the party … in the hotel room … well, that wasn’t clear either. She laughed humourlessly. So much for the session on monitoring binge-drinking in the Bradford district!

Her phone rang, and looking at the screen, she groaned. Feeling like a bitch, she let it go to voicemail. She couldn’t face speaking to Stevie. How was she supposed to act like everything was okay when she’d betrayed the person she loved?

A wave of nausea overtook her. She took slow, deep breaths to control it, then rummaged in the glove compartment for a bottle of water. After only a few sips, her stomach heaved, and she barely got the car door open before vomiting, the warmth of her puke melting the already layered snow. Aware of a speckle of sweat across her upper lip, Felicity took another glug of water, gargled and spat it out before grabbing a tissue and wiping her mouth. Shit, I feel rough.

All fingers and thumbs, she leaned back against the headrest, snuggled deeper into her winter coat, soothed by its softness and, eyes closed, played the voicemail. ‘Hi, you. Hungover, are we? Never mind, I’ve got lunch on the go. Let me know when you’ll be home and I’ll have hot chocolate and a hot bath ready for you. Might join you in the bath if you’re lucky. Love you.’

Dropping the phone into her lap, Felicity looked out the window, only vaguely aware of other cars leaving the hotel car park, and tried to think back to that morning. She’d awakened, disorientated and naked in his bed. A trail of clothes round the room, his leering face beside her, the strange taste in her mouth, the throb down below … all of it told the story, yet … even now, she couldn’t remember a sodding thing about it and she’d been too embarrassed to ask, too ashamed to admit she’d been so pissed she couldn’t remember and too humiliated by his leering grin and the casual smack on the ass as she crawled out of the bed. This was the perfect clichéd situation … Important male figurehead beds needy underling. Needy underling regrets it and we all know who’s the butt of all the jokes!

She didn’t know how long she had sat there, but the snow changed from relentless splatters to thicker, heavier flakes obliterating her windscreen and casting a deathly tomb-like glow inside her car. She shuddered, realizing how cold she’d got and gave herself a shake. Come on Fliss, you’ve got to put this behind you and get yourself home.

Hands trembling, she tried to insert her key in the ignition, dropped it and flinched as a sharp pain went through her body when she bent over to scrabble for it on the floor. Eventually, she grabbed it and, managing to start up the engine, she set the wipers in motion, appalled to see just how heavy the snow was. Peering through the heavy flakes, she saw that the roofs of the few remaining cars were layered with a couple of inches of snow and the treads of the last cars to leave were being rapidly covered by the blizzard. Shit! Shit! Shit! Last thing she needed was to drive home in these conditions with a pounding hangover. The thought of waiting for a taxi and then having to return the next day to retrieve her car was too much for her. Resigned, she engaged the clutch, eased the vehicle from the parking space and headed for home.

Despite her aching head, Felicity found the heavy silence of her own disordered thoughts too disturbing, so she switched on the radio. But it was some cheesy love song by a boyband she had no desire to listen to. She turned it off. She’d rather deal with her own thoughts than this crap. Hands trembling, she wondered if she should be driving, especially as the wet snow was getting heavier and her wipers were going nineteen to the dozen.

Swinging off the roundabout, instead of taking the Bradford dual carriageway exit, she opted for the back road … less traffic, less likely to get stopped. And boy, did she want to avoid getting pulled over. Thoughts of yet another reason not to drag herself to work the next day made her slow right down and lean forward to peer out the window. Overcast clouds made everything grey and she flipped her lights on and continued at her sedate pace until a transit truck overtook her sending up a backwash of mucky slush over her windscreen, momentarily obscuring her vision. Ass!

But within seconds her annoyance turned to relief as she realized that having a bigger vehicle in front of her ploughing through the slush that was gathering on the road, was a godsend. She could follow the van’s tracks and it gave her something to focus on. Increasing her speed a little, she glided along just behind the van.

Wipers on full blast, she peered through the grey until something caught her eye. What the hell is that? The van’s light had popped out and now something was dangling from the hole. Wishing the wipers would speed up, Felicity, headache momentarily forgotten, leaned forward and pressed a little harder on the accelerator.

A hand? Bloody snow. Could it really be a hand? How the hell could a hand be waving it her from the space where the light now dangled?

Then there it was – not just a hand but an entire arm … protruding from the rear light casing, the light dangling on a wire. What the hell was going on? It was like something from a cheesy American car chase movie, or a serial killer movie. Was someone captive in that van or was it some sort of practical joke?

Uncertain what to do, Felicity increased her speed till she was closer to the van in front, mulling through her options as she drove. It couldn’t be a joke. Course not. Why would someone stage a prank like that when the only car around was hers? So, if it wasn’t a joke, then it must be someone’s desperate cry for help. A last resort to attract attention. Whoever the hand belonged to wasn’t doing this for fun, they were desperate.

For the first time, Felicity regretted her decision to take the back roads and follow the van. If whoever was driving it was keeping someone inside against their will, then they must be dangerous. She glanced in her rear-view mirror, praying for the telltale signs of car lights behind her – there were none and she realized that, as she’d driven, the road was getting narrower. Normally she was reasonably familiar with this area, but the darkness and her preoccupied state made her unsure where exactly she was on her route. Then it struck her. Stevie had installed the What3words geocoding app on both their phones telling her it might come in handy someday. Of course, Felicity had scoffed. She had a satnav, who needed a stupid app? Now she was glad of it. She hadn’t put on her satnav and it would take too long to bring it up. She quickly pressed the app and got the three words she needed.

Grabbing her phone from her lap, she dialled 999 and switched to speakerphone.

‘What’s your emergency?’

‘Police. Don’t have time for all the crap. Find my location using these words Buttercup, Red, Triangle. There’s something weird going on in the vehicle in front of me. I suspect an abduction.’

‘Could I take your name …?’

But the van had sped up and was turning off. Felicity threw her phone on the passenger seat and raised her voice so the despatcher could still hear her. ‘I’m following it. A white van. Don’t know what the road’s called but get someone here ASAP. I’ll keep my phone open. I’m a police officer. Get someone here pronto.’

Letting herself lag a little behind the vehicle, whilst still keeping it in her sights, Felicity followed. The hand was still waving about from the rear light. Then it disappeared. A moment later it was back, throwing stuff out the opening, waving. Frantic. The van sped up, and Felicity suspected the driver was aware of what their captive was doing and that they were being followed.

Nausea filled Felicity’s throat, but she swallowed it back. The road was now a track … a bumpy track and it wasn’t helping the sickly feeling. The snow was getting ever heavier, big flakes masking her vision, and Felicity was scared she was going to skid. Who knew if that stupid app worked or if anyone would be able to triangulate her phone data to secure her whereabouts from here? Maybe this had been a bad decision. Pulling herself forward, she peered through the windscreen and, as a darting shadow dived in front of her, she slammed her foot on the brakes. Her phone skittered across the seat and into the footwell as the car careered to the right. The shadow – what looked like a baby deer – disappeared into the foliage to the left. Felicity, heart hammering, wrenched the steering wheel and eased her foot off the brake. With the car in front gaining distance, her car slowly righted itself. She raised her voice, hoping her phone was still connected and would still pick up her voice. ‘We’re on a side road now. Terrain crap, road bumpy. Visibility is poor and the reg number is obscured. The vehicle is speeding up.’

She’d no idea if the responder on the other end of the phone could still hear her, but she kept up her chatter. ‘Just passed a farmhouse … Appletree Farm … series of wind turbines in a field to the right of it.’

The tinny voice from the phone told her the despatcher was speaking and she swallowed, blinking away the tears that sprung to her eyes when she realized that she wasn’t completely alone. Even though the phone was on loudspeaker, the despatcher’s words were distant. The van she was following was about fifty feet ahead of her. She took her eye off it for a second … and reached down, her fingers scrabbling across the carpeted floor. She glanced up, righted the wheel, eased off the accelerator and stretched a little deeper. If she could just find the damn phone, she’d be sure the phone operative could hear her.

Crash!

The judder and bang as she rear-ended the van, propelled her forward and, just as quickly, back when the airbag deployed.

Pinned back against her seat by the weight of the airbag, vision obscured, she blinked. What the hell? She began to push the airbag down, ignoring her breathlessness, just wanting to get out of the vehicle but before she had the chance to move, the door was yanked open and a figure in a balaclava thrust a gun into her car. Felicity looked up at the man, her eyes wide in terror. ‘Please … don’t …’

Bang!

‘Hello … hello? Are you still there …?’ The despatcher’s voice faded.