Mark Sennen - Touch

A big, muscled guy with the kind of body Calter would have liked to explore in more detail moved across in front of her.

‘Can I buy you a drink, luv?’

‘Thanks, but no thanks.’

‘He with you?’ The guy turned and with an expression of puzzlement he pointed at Enders.

‘Yes, he’s my brother,’ she nodded. ‘Got learning difficulties.’

‘Maybe later then.’

Calter nodded again and the guy backed off. She led Enders along to the steps that went up to the galleries.

‘Learning difficulties?’ Enders said. ‘Thanks a bunch!’

‘I needed a rational explanation as to why your appearance resembles a Ryder Cup entrant. That was the first one I thought of.’

Up top they stood against the railings and Calter made Enders remove his jumper. The shirt underneath didn’t shout style, but at least he might cool down a bit.

The galleries gave a good view of the dance floor and she would also be able to sneak a glance into the cubby holes without appearing too inquisitive.

‘Here,’ Calter pulled Enders towards her and placed his hands on her bottom. ‘Hold me like this and I can take a peek into the booths and you can look down onto the bar and dance floor.’

Enders didn’t seem to be complaining much although he was holding himself away from her body in an odd way. She suspected he had a hard-on. Calter hugged Enders, pulling him close and half-burying her face in his neck, and now she felt his erection pressing against her.

‘Jesus!’

‘Sorry, only natural, like my mother used to say.’

‘Not that, although I have known bigger. No, there’s a guy in the booth who has just dropped something into a vodka and orange.’

‘You are joking!’

‘No. He’s on his own, but there is a phone on the table next to the drink.’

‘So?’

‘It’s a pink phone with glittery bits stuck all over.’

‘Oh, I see.’

Calter risked a glance, but she couldn’t spot any obvious partner for the man. Perhaps the woman had gone to the loo. Last time Calter had been the queue snaked out into the corridor so she might be some time returning. The man appeared to be quite old for the venue, mid-thirties and dressed not unlike Enders. He gazed around, for a moment meeting Calter’s eyes.

‘Hold me tighter, grope me.’

Enders didn’t need much encouragement and one hand went down between her thighs, the other to her left breast. The performance may have convinced the man, but in real life Enders would be going home alone. His hands moved over her body more like a potter fashioning a vase from clay than a lover trying to turn her on, but then having three young kids Enders probably didn’t get much practise at home. After five minutes of the sculpting treatment Calter got bored of the petting and was about to suggest they stopped when she noticed a girl coming toward them.

Girl? The thick makeup couldn’t disguise the lines on a face a bit too old for their usual victim profile. Calter guessed early thirties at the very youngest, but she was dressed to impress with a skirt as short as Calter’s and a top that left nothing whatsoever to the imagination.

The woman staggered to her seat and fumbled with the pink phone, knocking it to the floor. The man retrieved it from under the table and moved over next to her and helped her with her glass, encouraging her to drink up, which she did. Then the man said something and the woman squinted at her phone, maybe reading the time. The two of them got up and walked past Calter and Enders, heading for the exit.

Calter untangled herself.

‘Put your stiffy away, lover boy, and call for the cavalry. It’s him.’

*

Savage and Garrett did the Barbican circuit once and went straight out again on a run that took in the railway station. Afterwards they had a short break and grabbed a coffee in the canteen before doing the first route all over.

A dust rain began to fall, the tiny drops swirling in the glare around the street lamps and by the time they reached the Barbican the long cobbled street gleamed in the light. A throng of people walked and stumbled along the road and the air reeked of fish and chips and fast-food. An underlying tension threaded amongst the crowd and hinted at sex and violence.

A pink stretch limo cruised by, filled with a gaggle of girls on a hen night, bare arms waving out of the windows, one sticking her bottom out and flashing her knickers at a group of appreciative lads.

‘Gerrum orf you fat slag!’

‘Show us your tits!’

‘Fancy a good knobbing, do you?’

The car pulled away and Savage wondered at the height of Plymouth’s Saturday night sophistication.

‘Is that the best the youth of this town can manage?’ she asked Garrett.

‘You will find the same everywhere, take away the street names and this might be any town in the country. Broken Britain they call it, don’t they? Although I suspect the country has always been broken. Rose-tinted spectacles and all that.’

‘I certainly don’t remember shoving my bum out of a car window, but maybe I got too drunk to notice.’

‘That’s the point. Those girls get too drunk to notice. They lose their friends, someone gives them a spiked drink and the next minute they are tied to a bed being gang raped.’

They wandered through the Barbican area and up Madeira Road, across the Hoe and down towards the theatre. They were turning off Amada Way on to Notte Street when Savage got the call on her mobile.

‘Are you near the theatre yet?’

‘Five minutes.’

‘We’ve got an IC1 male and female walking along Princess Street, possibly heading for the Theatre Royal car park. Male dark hair, brown jacket, brown trousers. Female blonde, white coat, bare legs. Observe, do not apprehend as of yet.’

Savage told Garrett and they ran along Notte Street and down Lockyer to join Princess Street, slowing to a walk when they saw the couple coming towards them. The woman wandered all over the pavement and the man struggled to keep her upright. Savage took Garrett’s hand and faced him.

‘Call you next week sometime?’

‘Er, yes, that would be great.’

‘I’ve really enjoyed this evening, honestly. I can’t remember a time when I have had as much fun.’ Savage couldn’t help smiling which she thought must have added some realism to the act.

The dialogue was wasted on the couple who seemed oblivious to anything as they weaved back and forth. They reached the car park and went down the side to the stairwell. Savage spotted Calter and Enders coming along Princess Street and she made a sign to suggest that they should go to the front of the car park while she and Garrett followed the couple. The car park was one of the pay on foot types where you had to put a ticket into the machine and pay the amount due before you went to your car. It seemed as if the man had lost his ticket because the couple were hanging around the machine for ages. Eventually he produced a piece of scrumpled cardboard and with some difficulty got the machine to accept it.

Savage and Garrett trailed the couple as they went up two flights of stairs, stumbled out onto the third level and made their way over to a green Audi, where the man opened the rear door for the woman. She clambered in and sat back in the seat, leaving the door open. The man didn’t go to the driver’s side, rather he opened the front passenger door, took something from the glove compartment, and returned to the woman. He blocked Savage’s view for a moment and the door slammed shut. The woman leant forward now, hands on the front headrest. The man got in and the car started, reversed out of the space and moved forward.

‘Bloody hell!’ Garrett had spotted something. ‘Handcuffs!’

The car moved out of the shadows and a glint of silver shone out from within. Savage saw Garrett was right. The woman had been handcuffed to the front headrest.