Mark Sennen - Touch

‘Harrison got away, sir.’

‘Bah!’ Hardin dismissed her comment with a wave of his hand. ‘He hasn’t got anywhere to go now and every police force in the country is on the lookout for his car. We’ll have him before long.’

‘And then we’ll have some fun,’ Davies said, rubbing his hands together.

‘Quite,’ Hardin said. ‘Anyway, we have weathered the media storm and in the end the results show crime doesn’t pay. Mitchell, dead. Forester, dead. Richard Trent, banged up. Harrison soon to be apprehended. There have been victims, yes, but thank God there won’t be any more.’

Just then a movement at one of the upstairs windows caught Savage’s eye. It was John Layton. He was waving and fiddling with the latch, trying to open it. Finally he gave up and moved back from the window. The next thing the glass was shattering and he was shouting something about calling for an ambulance.

*

Layton had found them in the attic. A man and a woman in their seventies, half-naked, emaciated, the sort of thing you saw on the news when there was a famine somewhere. Or maybe in a documentary about the second world war where you got those flickering black and white images of the concentration camps after they had been liberated. Except this wasn’t on TV and it played before them in full colour.

Now the couple sat in the back of Hardin’s car wrapped in space blankets, the engine running, the heater going full blast. They had accepted water and sandwiches, only the man had wretched when he had tried to swallow his. The heavy chain that had been secured round their necks with padlocks had been removed. Layton had used a drill from his toolkit, the horrible screeching sound jarring Savage’s teeth as he worked on the locks. God knows what it had sounded like close up.

Savage, Hardin and Layton were standing some distance from the car, Hardin tapping his watch every minute, probably noting the response time for the ambulance.

‘Who the hell are they?’ Hardin said, as if their presence was an affront to the otherwise neat conclusion of the investigation.

‘They told me that they are Harrison’s parents, sir,’ Layton said.

‘What?’ Hardin puffed his cheeks out.

‘It fits, sir,’ Savage said. ‘It was DS Tatershall who called in the location of the cottage, remember? The parents were mispers from down in St Ives, Cornwall. They used to live here years ago before Harrison senior was convicted of abuse.’

‘I know where St bloody Ives is, thank you, Charlotte. What I want to ascertain is what the hell they are doing here?’

‘According to DS Tatershall the father has cancer.’ Savage glanced across to the car and lowered her voice. ‘Maybe he wanted to see his son again before he died?’

‘Fine. I can go with that. But why the fuck did Harrison chain them up in the attic and half-starve them to death? Jesus, have you seen them close up? They look like extras from some zombie movie.’

Hardin wasn’t big on sympathy, especially when it didn’t have tick-boxes alongside it. In this case Savage thought he was being harsh, but she said nothing. Instead she told him about the information Mrs Harbersher had given them and the planned liaison with the officers down in St Ives.

‘DS Riley is heading down there first thing tomorrow and he will find out everything they know. I will take DC Calter with me to the hospital tomorrow and we can get the full story from Alice Nash and the parents.’

‘Tomorrow? Can’t you…’ Hardin peered at the occupants of the car, gave an involuntary shudder and then corrected himself. ‘No, you are right. The state they are in it would be better to wait.’

It was getting gloomy now, dusk enveloping the valley, and when the ambulance arrived its light cast ghostly patterns amongst the trees, the shadows dancing like demons waiting to pounce. Hardin tapped his watch for the final time and muttered something about twenty-three minutes being bloody pathetic. Then he was all smiles for the paramedics, keen to get the old couple out of his car and into the ambulance so he could get away.

‘It’s my daughter’s birthday. She’s nineteen this week. Me and the wife are taking her out to dinner tonight. Late is not on the menu.’

Layton looked over at Savage and she could see he was thinking the same as her: if only. The CSI team would be working through the night and Savage knew that she would have to return to Plymouth to file some sort of preliminary report. When she would get back home she had no idea.

Bovisand, Plymouth. Tuesday 9th November. 9.57 pm

The clock on the dash showed close to ten before she turned in off the lane and her car crunched over the gravel drive and into the garage. She sat in the dark for a few moments, enjoying the warmth of the car and the silence and thinking about the kids. She had noticed both Samantha’s and Jamie’s lights had been on so she’d need to have words with Stefan again. He was great for them, but he didn’t practise quite the same discipline a parent might.

Tomorrow she would interview Harrison’s parents and afterwards take the rest of the day off, God only knows she deserved it. She would pick the children up from school and go for a pizza and enjoy some quality time with them. It would give Stefan a rest too.

Key in lock and she opened the door to blazing lights everywhere. They must all be playing some game that took in the whole house. She sighed at the thought of the mess.

‘Kids! I’m home!’

She dropped her car keys on the table in the hall and went into the lounge where Stefan sat on a kitchen chair in the middle of the room. He must be taking part in the game, she thought, because he didn’t move, he just sat still, like a statue, staring ahead. His eyes widened, but he couldn’t say anything due to the parcel tape wrapped around the lower part of his face.

Then something hit Savage from behind, knocking her to the floor and sending the room tumbling over and over, the light in the centre spiralling round and fading to stars. A haze rose in front of her eyes with strange floaters swimming across a checkerboard of grey and white. She groaned and moved her hand to touch the back of her head. Wet. Sticky. She felt a sudden heaving in her stomach, the nausea blotting out the pain from her head, and then she vomited through her mouth and nose, coughing and spluttering sick.

Now someone had her arms and was pinning them behind her. A zipping sound came as her wrists were yanked together and some sort of binding cut her flesh and secured her hands.

Footsteps moved away, out of the room and a few moments later returned, something being dragged.

The person lifted her now, up and onto another one of the kitchen chairs. Then the sound of tape being stripped from a roll. Not across her mouth, but round and round her body, holding her against the back of the chair.

Then he moved round to her front.

Harrison.

He appeared calm, almost normal. Apart from those eyes. They didn’t look normal. They darted back and forth between Savage and Stefan, to the door, to Stefan’s baseball bat lying on the floor, to the blood on the carpet where she had fallen, back to Savage.

She spat saliva and vomit and tried to breath slowly, to stay calm. She looked at Stefan. He didn’t seem hurt, but he had certainly been immobilised. A cable tie secured his arms behind the back of the chair and his legs had been bound with parcel tape too. He rolled his eyes at Savage, glancing sideways, indicating something. She couldn’t understand what he meant, but it gave her a glimmer of hope.

Harrison dashed out of the room and the sound of him bounding up the stairs made Savage shiver to her very core.

The kids.

She heard them coming down and he marched them into the room, their faces stained with tears. Their hands had been bound in front of them with cable ties.