‘In a barn not far from here on land we control.’
‘Dispose of both, quickly.’ The Master rises from the stone seat. ‘We are done. I am expected back. Call the Inner Circle and inform them of our meeting and my wishes. The stars are aligning, the moon is changing. We go ahead as planned.’
55
Megan is assigned to run actions on the Campervan and report directly to Tompkins. In addition to Jimmy Dockery, she’s been given two other detective sergeants — Tina Warren and Jack Jenkins. Warren is a waster. She can tell that already. Fit to make tea, run errands and put petrol in a car. Jenkins is more promising. Newly promoted, a little green but bright.
Megan divides the work. ‘Jack, get a statement from this friend of Caitlyn’s, the one she last spoke to. Ask her again about the vehicle. I know she didn’t get a description but ask. She may remember something.
‘Jim, take a team to the Fleet service station on the M3. We are looking for CCTV footage from the garage forecourt, also from the car park — it’s likely they used the toilets as well. Ask in the shops and restaurants, hand out photographs, jog memories. They probably bought something out there. Find out what — and who sold it to them. If we’re lucky, they asked for a guide map or even directions. Check with all the security. They may have images of the couple on a camera here or there. Tina, get interview teams at the services before and after Fleet. See if they stopped there.’
They all look at her for further instructions.
‘Now, please. Treat this as though the girl’s life depends upon it.’
Even before they’ve gone, Megan rings a friend in traffic and asks for a list of Campervans. While she waits, she goes online and sets up a vehicle search. There are dozens of campers: Fiat Cheyennes, Ducatos and Komets, Ford Transit Auto-Sleepers, Winnebagos, VW Transporters, Toyota Hiaces, Hymers, Bedfords, Mercs. Then she stops. Her profiling instincts kick in and she starts to think. Not about the vehicle. About the people in it. Impulsive people. Rich people. Caitlyn is hardly likely to move in the circle of paupers. Her lover will have money. He will want to impress her. Surprise her.
None of the vans on her screen do that. She types ‘Celebrity Camper vans’ and fifty-three thousand entries appear in a third of a second. Over fifty pages of results. The one topping her lists is the VW. She hits a link: ‘VW Campervans for hire’.
It brings a smile to her face. It’s the Mystery Machine. The van Scooby-Doo and Shaggy drove around in. She types in ‘VW Camper vans to hire in London.’ Her heart sinks. Half a million results. She browses and it turns out not to be as bad as she thought. The keyword search is too loose, it’s inaccurate — she should have written ‘Campervans’ not ‘Camper vans’. She finds a number for a VW Campervan Association and soon assembles a shortlist of dealers in the London area.
After a couple of hours the list is even shorter. Several people hired Campervans within the last twenty-four hours but only one stands out. He paid on an Amex Gold card and his name is Jake Timberland. Her heart jumps — the way it always does when she knows she’s got her man. Before telling the DCI, she has one more call to make. One she’s dreading. Sammy is going to need looking after again.
56
Caitlyn can’t move. She can’t see and can’t breathe properly.
She feels like she’s been buried, standing up. Entombed in stone. There’s barely enough room to raise her hands to her face and feel the sweat of fear pouring off her.
‘Jake! ’ She screams his name but knows he’s not going to answer.
Emblazoned in her memory is an image of him slumped on the ground inside the strange stone circle. There was something about the way he didn’t move that made her feel sick. ‘Jake!’ Somehow shouting his name keeps him alive. At least in her mind.
Her fingers feel the rough stone in front of her. They find a tiny slit and the thin stream of air that’s keeping her alive. She just hopes whoever took her captive are professionals — seasoned kidnappers who know what they’re doing and not weirdo rapists or serial killers. If it’s a pro kidnap gang, they’re after money and her life is not in danger. Well, not immediately. Soon they’ll come and clean her up, feed her, make the film, a message to her parents most likely, and the game will start. She’s been trained for this. Eric Denver has run her through it dozens of times and her father has run her through it. Even her damned mother has gone over the possibility with her that this might happen.
She sees now that she was crazy to go with Jake. To slip out of the safety of her own security net. A bad thought hits her. One that saps what little remains of her esteem. Maybe Jake helped set her up. Perhaps he’d been thinking about it right from the first moment he met her. The alternative is almost as bad. If he wasn’t, then where is he? She knows kidnappers rarely take two hostages at a time. It’s too complicated, too much of a struggle. She feels the sickness rise again.
‘Jake!’ Her scream tails off into a whimper. It’s been hours since they locked her in, since anyone talked to her. Her spine is hurting. Her shoulders, the back of her head and her knees are raw from rubbing against the stone walls. And unless she’s mistaken, and she’s pretty certain she isn’t, she’s soiled herself.
Despite the pain, the cramp and the humiliation Caitlyn keeps falling asleep. Deprived of stimulation, her crazy overactive brain simply shuts down and she drifts off, drifts to some far away place that bears no resemblance to this dank dungeon. She is in one of those fitful dozes when the cell wall slides back and she slumps forward. Men in brown robes and balaclavas beneath their hoods catch her and lower her to the ground.
She comes round on her back. Dizzy and glassy-eyed, staring at a high black ceiling and a huge cast-iron chandelier ringed with thick burning candles.
Four hooded faces appear in Caitlyn’s line of vision and a low rasping voice issues a chilling instruction. ‘Strip and wash her. The ceremony goes ahead.’
57
For once, Megan’s ex seems happy to have Sammy for the night. He even promises home-cooked food and not a Happy Meal. A weight off the working mum’s mind.
She returns to the Campervan case filling her desk and the Facebook photographs of Jake Timberland she tracked down by following the lead the Amex bill gave her. Things happen quick when there’s a break. Over in London a Met team has confirmed that the young Englishman isn’t at home in Marylebone, another is showing his picture to Caitlyn’s minders and a third is visiting Jake’s parents, Lord and Lady Timberland. Meanwhile, itemised mobile and landline phone records are being studied along with Switch and credit card bills. The wheels of investigation are turning fast.
Megan places photos of Timberland and Lock side by side. They make a good couple. The press are going to go crazy on this one. There’ll be enough pressure to squash a battleship. She looks at their faces and figures the romance — if that’s what it is — must be recent. If they’d been an item for any length of time, they would already have been splashed across the gossip mags.
Then comes a moment of doubt. Perhaps she’s got the wrong guy. Maybe there’s no connection between Jake and Caitlyn. Could be that he just happened to take a three-day minimum hire on a cornflower blue Camper on the same day she did her vanishing trick. Perhaps she’s up a hill in a Winnebago with someone else and doesn’t even know Edward Jacob Timberland exists.