“Tom Vastrick.” The voice was strong, bold and comforting. Mine was shaking.
“Tom, I think Dee has been kidnapped from my flat. What should I do?”
For a split second there was silence at the other end as he, too, digested the information, but then his voice reached me, sounding calm and decisive.“Do nothing Josh, I’ll be there in twenty minutes with help.”
***
Tom Vastrick hadn’t been exaggerating. Twenty minutes later two Metropolitan Police squad cars were parked outside, blue lights flashing, and a Scene of Crime van was parked beside them. Curtains twitched as the neighbours looked out at them, obviously wondering what was going on.
A policewoman was sitting in the kitchen with me, having made me some tea. I sat sipping the tea, the aroma from the cooling take away making me hungry, although I no longer had the appetite to eat it.
A policeman came into the kitchen carrying my BlackBerry. “You might want to take this call; it’s the City of London Police.”
I took the phone and held it to my ear. “Hello,” I said weakly.
“Josh, this is Inspector Boniface. I’ve just heard about what happened. Don’t you worry, we’ve got two police forces and Vastrick on this. We’ll get her back, even if I have to pull Hickstead’s toenails out myself.”
“Thanks,” I heard myself saying. “It’s been one hell of a shock, but I want to do whatever I can to help find her.”
The real shock was how deeply I felt the loss. I couldn’t live with the thought that Dee might be hurt, or perhaps worse. The shock did bring with it a sudden realisation; I loved Dee Conrad and would give my life to get her back.
“Josh, you may get a call from Don Fisher,” Boniface added.
“Why?” I was puzzled.
“Lavender has been taken too!”
***
Tom Vastrick arrived fifteen minutes later than he had promised in a car that cost almost as much as my flat. Since receiving my call, he had been busy talking on the phone with two police forces and his own investigative staff. One of their own was missing.
When he came into the room I offered my hand but he ignored it, choosing instead to crush me in a bear hug.
“Josh, Dee is family as far as we’re concerned, and that makes you family, too. Every resource we have will be made available. I should tell you that Dee is also trained for this kind of eventuality, and she will most probably come up with plans of her own to remedy her situation, so try not to worry too much. She’s a very capable girl, as I’m sure you’re aware. Now, we need to get ready for the inevitable contact from the kidnappers. I have people with Don Fisher, too. As soon as these people make contact, we’re going to use every means available to us to track them down, legal or illegal.”
Chapter 6 5
Commercial Road, Tottenham, North London. Friday, 9pm.
The journey from Josh’s flat had been uncomfortable, or at least the part of it she could remember. Dee had woken with a shocking headache to find herself tied up, hooded and lying in the footwell in the rear of the car. Not the best of circumstances to find herself in, she thought, but not irretrievable, either.
The leader of the kidnapping team was sitting on the seat with his feet on her back. He felt her move.
“So Miss Whiplash has woken up. You need to lie still until we get where we’re going. It won’t be long now. Then I suggest you don’t give either of my friends here any excuse to punish you, because they’ve both requested that privilege. However, under the Geneva Convention we will treat you humanely,” Rik laughed.
A few minutes later the car stopped and waited as a roller shutter door rattled open nearby. Dee knew that it was important to gather as many clues to her whereabouts as possible, and she concentrated on doing just that. The car moved forward and stopped. She heard the roller shutter door close behind them.
Dee was taken from the car by Rik, who handed her to Johnny and said, “Take her upstairs and put her with the other one. We need to get cleaned up before we move to stage two.”
Johnny smiled because he knew that getting cleaned up was code for attending to the injuries inflicted on them by a mere girl.
Dee concentrated and identified a strong smell. She recognised it, but where from? She was being taken somewhere but the hood was hampering her efforts to climb up the narrow steel mesh staircase.
“I’m going to loosen the hood so you can see your feet, OK? Don’t do anything silly,” Johnny warned her as he created a gap at the bottom of the hood that enabled Dee to see her feet and the area immediately around them. At least she wouldn’t fall over.
Taking advantage of the narrow strip of vision available to her, Dee looked to her left and saw that she was in some kind of factory or warehouse with a grey painted concrete floor. She pushed her luck and moved her head a little more, but this earned her a sharp poke in her ribs. By the time she reached the top of the stairs she had been able to work out that they were in an industrial unit, with dust proof floor coatings and some boxy looking machinery. It was at that point she remembered where she had come across that smell before.
***
Dee had her hands untied before being guided to a chair. A hand pressed down on her shoulder, so she sat. She could hear sniffling from close by. Her captor took each hand separately and applied handcuffs. Once she was secure he lifted the hood from her head. Squinting in the harsh fluorescent light, she glanced around quickly and saw that she was in a small windowless room with a distraught young woman.
“I’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” Johnny laughed as he left the room, closing the door behind him. They both heard the key turning in the lock.
“Lavender Fisher, I presume,” Dee said as she took in her surroundings. She was sitting on the long side of a rectangular metal framed table with a wood effect laminated chipboard top, and Lavender was directly opposite. The table was screwed to the floor and the chains attached to their handcuffs passed through a hole in the middle of the desk, probably intended for computer cables, to be padlocked onto the legs. The chain allowed only a few inches of movement in any direction. Dee was already trying to come up with a way out of this.
Lavender’s face was smeared with mascara, and she looked miserable and scared, which was hardly surprising. Dee wanted to take advantage of their time alone. Firstly she introduced herself to Lavender, trying to keep her voice calm and steady.
“Lavender, as you can see we’re both in the same boat here. My name’s Dee. I know your Dad and I intend to get you back to him safe and sound, but I’ll need your help. Do you understand?”
“Yes. Yes, I understand. I’ll help you if I can. Just tell me what to do.”
Lavender had almost broken down at the mention of her father, but she had managed to hold herself together. She didn’t feel quite so terrified now, knowing that she was not in this alone. Whoever Dee was, she seemed to know what to do. At least, Lavender hoped so.
“All right, Lavender, I believe that this building is a commercial printing press. I think we’re in an industrial unit, possibly on an estate of similar units. There’s a motorised roller shutter door at the front of the building, but there are bound to be emergency exits as well.”
“How do you know all that?” Lavender asked. “They had you blindfolded.”
“I’m a trained investigator. I was taught by the best, over in the USA. Also I recognised the smell of printing ink from when I picked up our company brochures a couple of weeks ago. What I don’t know is where we are geographically, and you can help with that.”
“I don’t think I can. I was blindfolded like you all the time,” Lavender wailed, afraid that she was being negative.
“Lavender, please just stay calm. Listen carefully to my questions and answer them as best you can, OK?”