Peter James: Not Dead Yet

‘Oh, Jesus,’ he said. ‘Oh, sweet Jesus.’

Grace shouted at the two officers on guard outside the mobile home. ‘In here, quick!’

Then he dashed over to the three bodies on the floor, each bound head-to-foot, and gagged, with a mixture of twine and grey duct tape. The eyes of all three were moving, thank God, he thought. One he recognized as one of Gaia’s assistants. But neither of the other two was Gaia.

‘I’m a police officer, are you all right?’ he asked each of them, in turn, and got frightened but positive nods back. Carefully removing the tape from their mouths, he established these other two were the hairdresser and the make-up artist.

He turned to the two officers behind him. ‘Call for three ambulances, then try to free them, but be careful, that tape’s bloody painful.’ Then he went through to the rear, pushing through a curtained-off section, checking that a shower on one side and a toilet on the other were both empty, and then opened a door into what appeared to be the master bedroom, which smelled of Gaia’s perfume but was empty. A few clothes were strewn on the unused bed. He looked around carefully, pulling open cupboard doors, then went down on his knees and peered under the bed, just in case, but to no avail.

Gaia wasn’t in this motorhome.

He radioed Ops 1, and moments later was through once more to Inspector Andy Kille. He gave him a quick summary.

‘So we can’t be sure of the time she was abducted, can we, Roy?’ Kille asked.

‘Any time between 4 p.m. and two minutes ago.’

‘Over three hours. She could be anywhere. I don’t think there’s much value in road blocks – they could be too far away by now.’

‘I think the perp’s in the Pavilion with her,’ Grace said. ‘I agree, no point in road blocks. Is Hotel 900 or Oscar Sierra 99 available?’ Hotel 900 and Oscar Sierra 99 were the call signs of the two helicopters of the South East Air Support Unit.

‘Yes.’

‘Get one up and over the Pavilion, in case he’s up on the roof somewhere. There are lots of spaces up there. They can also see if he tries to leave.’

‘I’ll have it overhead within ten minutes, tops.’

Please God let her be alive, Grace prayed, silently. His mind was spinning, trying to get traction. He’d worked on child abductions and on kidnap cases, and was a qualified hostage negotiator. From his experience, he knew how badly the odds were stacked against them. In child abductions, forty-four per cent of the victims died within the first hour. Seventy-three per cent were dead within three hours. Just one per cent survived more than one day. And forty per cent were dead before they were even reported missing.

Those figures applied to children, but if the psychologist Dr Lester was right, inside Eric Whiteley’s warped mind, now that Gaia was no longer his lover, he might well be viewing her as a child who needed to be taught a lesson.

Every single second mattered right now.

‘We need a PNC broadcast, as well, Andy, just in case.’

‘Do we know Whiteley’s vehicle?’

‘He’s got a Nissan Micra, but it’s still in the garage. It’s possible he rented something bigger – he wouldn’t be able to conceal a person in a Micra very easily.’

He was staring at a small sign just by the rear window of the bedroom. EMERGENCY EXIT.

He had to walk around the far side of the bed to reach it, and then he saw the handle in a raised, unlocked position, as if the door had recently been opened – and not properly closed from the outside.

He ended the call with Kille, pushed the door open and looked out and around the rear of the vehicle. Two other smaller motor-homes were parked directly behind, blocking the view of this exit from anyone more than a few yards away. No windows overlooked them. This seemed the likely route that Whiteley would have taken her, but they would have had to come into open view within ten yards or so, surely?

Then, looking down, he noticed the jagged, uneven dark rectangle in the grass, as if it had been made with a very thin trail of weed killer.

He knelt down, and the rectangle wobbled beneath him, just a fraction. He clambered back into the vehicle, checked that the two officers were making progress on freeing the victims, then rummaged in the kitchen drawers, and took out a heavy-duty knife and a metal spatula.

Then he got down on his hands and knees behind the motor-home, and using the two implements as a lever, prised open an ancient, heavy metal cover, the top of it turfed, which he lifted aside. He could see steep stone steps leading down into darkness. He’d often heard rumours of secret passages under the Pavilion, and wondered if this was one of them.

He went back into the motorhome and asked if either of the officers had a torch on them. One produced a small, sturdy-looking one and handed it to him. He switched it on, went out again, then began to descend the steps, breathing in dank air. After about twenty feet he found himself in a tunnel just high enough to stand in. It had faded whitewashed walls and a whitewashed brick floor, and stretched away into the distance toward the main building of the Pavilion. Lagged pipes, copper tubes and bare power cables, clipped to the top of the walls on both sides, appeared to run its full length, and every few yards there were unlit lights mounted on the walls.

He began walking along the tunnel, as quickly as he could, being careful not to trip on the uneven floor, shadows jigging ahead of him from the throw of the beam, his nerves jigging inside him. He passed an old wooden door lying on its side, then a large dusty pane of glass, and a short distance further along, a busted wicker chair. Two tiny pinpricks of red momentarily froze in the darkness, then vanished. A rat. He passed an orange and white traffic cone, incongruously placed on the floor, then reached an old, grimy white door, with a shiny new chrome handle on it. He hesitated for a moment and glanced down at his phone. There was no signal. Which meant no chance of calling back-up if he needed it. If Whiteley came at him, he would have to cope on his own.

He gripped the handle, switched the torch off, not wanting to make himself a target just in case. Then he jerked the door open and snapped on the beam again.

It shone on a fire hose attached to a brick wall. He stepped forward and swung the beam down another corridor, much wider and higher, angled off to the right, with some dim lights on further along it. All the cables and piping were bunched together in this section, running along the ceiling. The brick floor was uneven and unpainted, repaired in places with ugly concrete patches. He passed a row of plastic chemical drums, then saw a decrepit green door, sagging on its hinges, with a yellow and black DANGER – HIGH VOLTAGE sign on it, to his left. A broken cobweb across the top left corner of the door showed it had been opened recently. Bracing himself, and stepping aside as he did so, he pulled it open. The hinges shrieked, the bottom scraping noisily on the bricks. Then he stabbed the beam inside. It lit up a wall of fuses and electrical switchgear, and pipework lagged in asbestos, but otherwise it was bare.

He walked on and saw a pool of light ahead of him now. Then he heard voices, and froze.

They sounded directly above him. Then footsteps. Clumping down steps. Now his nerves were really jangling. He took several deep breaths, firmly gripped the torch – the only weapon he had – and eased himself forward, keeping as flat against the wall as he could. He saw a shadow, growing larger. Then suddenly the ex-Sergeant-Major security guard loomed into view. The old soldier jumped with shock when he saw him, shouted something, and dropped his torch, which hit the ground with a loud crack and went out.