Authors: Sheryl Browne
‘Tox report is being rushed through as we speak,’ Nicky assured him. ‘You must have friends in the right places.’
Davies, Matthew realised. It might have been better if he’d been there before now though, he couldn’t help thinking. ‘Cheers, Nicky.’ Finishing his call, Matthew turned his attention to his incoming texts: one from Davies, calling him back to the station, where he was presumably supposed to wait calmly while Sullivan tortured his wife. Matthew swallowed hard on that thought. There was another text from Melanie and … one from Ashley.
Thank God.
At home
, Matthew read, and furrowed his brow. He’d rung the care home again, prior to calling Nicky. Ashley certainly wasn’t there then.
****
The bitch had bit him! Left actual teeth marks! Examining the delicate flesh between his thumb and forefinger the little slut had almost bitten through, Patrick tightened his other arm around the writhing girl’s torso, and then winced as the sharp heel of her boot found its aim, landing him a vicious kick to his shin.
That was it. Now he was pissed. Using his damaged hand to clutch hold of her hair, he yanked her head back, cutting her screams short.
‘Keep still and shut the fuck up!’ he growled furiously in her ear. ‘Better,’ he said, as she relaxed some in his grasp. ‘Now, unless you want to end up decomposing flesh for the crows to pick over, you do exactly as I say, when I say,
comprendre
?’
She nodded, a slow gulp sliding down her exposed throat. Patrick felt a stirring of excitement, curiously heightened by the fact that the silly bint had practically disabled him.
‘The phone,’ he demanded.
Loosening her ineffectual grip on the arm he had wrapped around her, she fished her mobile from where she’d stuffed it down the front of her leggings, like Patrick wouldn’t have found it. Clearly she wasn’t the brain of Britain, this one.
‘Take the card out,’ he instructed. Allowing her enough movement of her head to see what she was doing, Patrick waited. Patiently, given they were out in the middle of a freaking field in the freezing cold.
Considerably patiently. He sighed and rolled his eyes, as she fiddled with the phone, finally managing to prise the SIM card free with a nail. She didn’t chew on them then, Patrick noticed approvingly. He couldn’t abide birds who gnawed on their fingernails, fidgeting and scratching while they did and usually needing their next fix. Doing it for effect half the time, thinking Patrick was a soft-touch and was going to provide it. Manipulators, the lot of them, he thought contemptuously.
‘Throw it,’ he said, as she held the card up, like he wanted to bloody well inspect it. ‘Then chuck the phone on the ground.’
‘Do it!’ he barked when she hesitated.
Jumping as if he’d poked her with a cattle-prod, she lobbed it. Not far, but far enough.
‘The phone,’ Patrick repeated tersely. Forced to expose his cashmere coat to the lashing rain, his patience was now wearing very thin.
Reluctantly, she dropped the phone.
Obviously, she was intelligent enough to realise it might be her best option then.
‘Obey instructions first time next time,’ he warned her. Then, weaving her hair tighter around his hand, he whirled around to face the phone.
‘Stamp on it,’ he said, giving her a shove forwards.
Again, she hesitated.
‘
That
was an instruction,’ Patrick growled.
‘
Fuck,’
she muttered, not very ladylike, Patrick thought, then lifted her boot and trod on it.
‘Harder.’ Patrick gave her another shove.
She pulled in a breath—Patrick felt the brace through her shoulders, and then smashed her heel down hard on it, and then again. And again, grunting with the effort of it, as if she was taking her own frustration out on it. Feisty little thing, Patrick thought.
Interesting.
‘That’ll do. I think you’ve killed it,’ he said, whirling her around again to go back in the direction he’d come from.
‘Walk,’ he said shortly.
Reaching up behind her, she attempted to loosen his grip on her hair.
‘Where’re you taking me?’
Patrick gave it another twist, for no particular reason, other than he didn’t like being questioned.
‘Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to,’ he told her, ‘and only when I’ve given you permission. Keep moving.’
She was dragging her feet, deliberately trying his patience now. If she wasn’t careful, he’d drag her by her lovely silken hair through the mud and cow shit and be done with.
****
Matthew tried Ashley’s phone for a third time and got number unobtainable again.
Dammit.
He really didn’t need this. What had she been thinking, taking off from Melanie’s, pretending she was going back to the care home, when she would know he’d check up on her? Frustrated, he pulled over to the side of the road and tried a text. Seconds later, receiving a ‘message not delivered’ alert, Matthew closed his eyes, his heart plummeting further, if that were possible. What the bloody hell had happened? Had she had some kind of accident, which might explain why her phone had gone dead? But then, if she had arrived back at the home, surely someone would know something, have seen something? It just didn’t add up. Dragging his hands through his hair, Matthew realised he absolutely had to call it in. There was no way he could risk leaving Ashley out there, wandering about on her own.
Matthew half-dialled the station, then stopped, his thoughts jolting back to what Steve had been trying to say at the hospital. What Steve
had
said: ‘Home.’ He’d been desperate to try to communicate something to him. He’d also said …
Oh, Christ …
Matthew dropped his phone on the dash and pulled out fast.
Becky.
Chapter Twenty
‘Inside.’ The girl’s hair still twisted tightly around one hand Patrick unlocked the door with his other, heaved it open and shoved the girl inside.
Ouch,
he thought, as she lurched forwards and then fell heavily, grunting as she made contact with the ground. Served her right. Patrick had no particular axe to grind with her. He doubted Adams had formed any kind of deep emotional relationship with her in the time she’d been with him. Probably just fancied shagging her. She wasn’t bad looking.
Leaving the girl to spit straw and dust from her mouth, Patrick turned to lock the door. She really ought to learn some manners though, he mused, turning back. Effing and blinding all over the show and seemingly incapable of obeying a simple instruction, she was well out of hand. She should also realise that snooping around, poking her nose in where it wasn’t invited, could land her in serious trouble. No, Patrick had no particular use for her, other than maybe to remind the copper that he really shouldn’t allow minors in his charge to wander around on their own. Pretty, slim minors. He looked her leisurely over, as she rolled onto her back to scowl up at him, taking in her small, firm breasts, her long, sleek hair, the colour of rich ebony, and her eyes, like a frightened little fawn’s.
Very interesting.
He might just find a use for her after all.
‘It’s you!’ The girl’s scowl deepened, as she scraped her hair from her face, the fear in her eyes giving way to fury as she recognised him.
Patrick smiled, mildly amused. She looked as if she wanted to tear his eyes out. He’d like to see her try. He’d snap her wrists like two brittle twigs.
‘You don’t say,’ he drawled, glancing down at himself and then back to her livid little face.
‘What do you want?’ She shuffled backwards, as he took a step towards her. ‘Where’s Becky?’
‘For me to know and you to find out.’ Patrick smiled. Stroppy little thing, wasn’t she? A feisty little fawn, bound to put up a fight. He quite liked a challenge. He also knew one or two other people who might be interested in knocking the fight out of her: Hayes, for one, who would view her as profitable merchandise. She wouldn’t clear Patrick’s debt, but she’d fetch a few quid towards it. Along with the money Adams owed him, that should go some way to squaring things. Maybe he’d revise his plan to get rid of her a.s.a.p., keep her around awhile instead. Warming to the idea of amusing himself with her, Patrick considered his options, and then felt his anger rising afresh when he remembered he didn’t actually have that many options now he’d shot the copper’s little lapdog sidekick. Knowing now how serious he was, he doubted Adams had offered up any information to help with the formal investigation of the shooting, but not all coppers were as spineless as Adams. Patrick had covered his tracks the best he could, but the law would be all over this like rats down a sewer anyway. No, he didn’t have time for negotiations with Hayes. Patrick needed to finish up here and set sail for safe harbour pronto.
‘Stand up,’ he instructed the girl, who was now staring at him like something she’d stepped in, infuriating Patrick further.
‘Fuck off!’ She snatched her arm away, as Patrick reached for it.
Patrick eyeballed her, enraged, for a second, then, ‘You really are trying my patience,’ he seethed, clutching a fistful of her hair again instead.
She wriggled and squirmed, reached up to stop it parting company with her scalp, but she didn’t cry out. Brave, as well as feisty, Patrick deduced, as he heaved her to her feet. Good. She’d need to be.
‘Now,’ he twisted her around to face him, ‘you do as I say, when I say.’ Forcing her head back, he fixed his gaze hard on hers.
‘Do
not
let me have to repeat myself again.’
The flash of fear was back. Better, Patrick thought, mollified … but not for long. ‘I sent the text,’ she said brazenly. ‘Matthew will find us.’
My, my, this one certainly had got some bottle, unlike her imagined hero, Patrick thought bemusedly. ‘Right, and you really think it’s
you
he’s going to come riding to the rescue of, do you?’ He laughed derisorily. ‘
If
he comes, which I seriously doubt he’ll have the balls to do, it will be his wife’s and sprog’s lives he’ll be bargaining for, not yours. Do you really think he gives a toss about you?’
The girl’s brow creased into an uncertain frown. ‘He does care,’ she said belligerently.
‘Yes, course he does. Yet, here you are … with me.’ Patrick let it hang. ‘Tell me, if the oh, so, caring DI Adams really gave a shit, what were you doing wandering around out there on your own, hey, with a gunman on the loose?’
A flicker of doubt clouded the girl’s eyes.
‘Let me guess,’ Patrick studied her, ‘he tried to get shot of you, didn’t he?’
Tried to ship her back off to the care home, he guessed. Probably thinking of her safety, like a good little copper, but Patrick reckoned he might just be able to use the fact to his advantage. Yanking her head back further still, he examined her smooth, unblemished face. Luckily for her, he was disinclined to mark it, unless she forced him to. His gaze strayed to her naked lips. Tempting, he thought
.
Extremely. But no, he debated, not yet. He wanted to take his time, toy with her awhile. He wanted Adams here, straining at the leash, realising it was payback time for all the grief he’d caused him and that he could do fuck all about it.
‘That was a question,’ he growled, as the girl blinked reproachfully up at him. ‘It requires an answer.’
‘Yes,’ her windpipe somewhat restricted by the angle of her neck, she squeezed out a reply.
‘Thought as much.’ Patrick smirked. ‘Which means you’re on your own, darling, so you’d better be a good little girl and do as I say, hadn’t you?’
Relaxing his hold on her hair, he steered her around to face away from him. She was too close, too distracting. He needed to think.
‘Over there. Sit down.’ He nodded her towards the box under the cross-beams, which was placed just so, ready for when Adams did come charging in, which actually Patrick was thinking he would, given the enticement.
She glanced at the box when he released her, then to the door, all that fiery feistiness fading in her pretty fawn’s eyes, he noted, with a mixture of regret and satisfaction. She looked at him then: a look so beseeching Patrick was taken aback, largely by the recognition of that same look he’d seen in his daughter’s eyes. Lately, it was when she wanted something, a horse, a new gadget or phone. He always gave in. How could he not? The first time he’d seen it, though, and it had gutted him, was when Taylor had wondered why her bitch of a mother had abandoned her. She hadn’t in actuality, but in abandoning Patrick for some pretty boy—bodybuilder sort—whom she’d imagined was sensitive, the woman had effectively sealed her own fate. The bloke was probably gay anyway. Patrick doubted he’d have kept her happy for long.
‘Can I ask you something?’ the girl said, as Patrick looked at her—unseeing for a second as his mind drifted.
Patrick nodded, as his vocal chords felt temporarily compromised.
‘Becky, is she …’ she hesitated, glanced down and back, ‘… is she all right?’
‘She’s alive.’ Patrick decided it wouldn’t hurt to tell her that much.
She nodded in turn, apparently placated, and obviously working it. Patrick had clocked the demureness. No female went from wanting to scratch your eyes out to demure, unless they were working their charms. She was bound to be considering her options, he supposed, now he’d given her cause to wonder about the happy little family scenario they’d tried to sell her. ‘And if you want her to stay that way …’ He indicated the box again.
****
Matthew left his car in the lane and walked, surveying the farmland around his own property, bleak and desolate under unforgiving grey skies, as he went. His assumption was that Sullivan wouldn’t be reckless enough to be in the immediate vicinity of the barn conversions, but he was close, Matthew knew it. In an isolated building, he guessed. A farm outbuilding? He had no idea, no choice but to wait for the call. It would come. Of that much he was certain. Negotiating the perimeter of the field, he noted at least three barns. Two some way off, across adjoining fields, one closer, dilapidated and with good views of the surrounding area. Matthew was aware he was visible. He could probably be seen from some distance away. If it was Sullivan’s aim to take him out now, he’d have a clear target.