Tina Morrison was found, dazed and bleeding, but still alive, wandering dangerously along the hard shoulder of the M18 motorway south of Doncaster, just short of seven on Saturday morning. Paul Swindells, on his way to the IKEA distribution centre at Armthorpe, pulled his lorry over and climbed down from the cab, hazard lights flashing. Tina screamed when he approached her and struck out with flailing arms. When he tried to take hold of her to prevent her stumbling into the road she turned and tried to run but tripped and fell headlong. Picking her up, he carried her, still struggling, back to his vehicle, lifted her up into the front seat as carefully as he could, and called emergency services.
Two hours later, Simone Clarke was sitting outside one of the cubicles in the A & E department of Doncaster Royal Infirmary, waiting to speak to her. Tina’s mum had been allowed in earlier, but asked to leave when she had threatened to become hysterical. Now she sat a short way along the crowded corridor, biting her fingernails and murmuring small, silent prayers.
Police patrols had been stepped up in the area in which Tina had been discovered: Warning Tongue Lane and the Yorkshire Wildlife Park to the east; the A6182, White Rose Way, to the west; Potteric Carr Nature Reserve to the north. After a report of two men behaving in a belligerant manner late the previous day, staff and volunteers from the visitor centre at the nature reserve were questioned, but it turned out to have been nothing more than a couple of ardent birders quarrelling over the sighting of a little ringed plover circling over Decoy Lake.
Finally given the okay by one of the doctors, Simone pulled a chair close to the bed where Tina was stretched out and summoned up an encouraging smile. One quite deep cut running down the side of her neck and along the top of her shoulder aside, the majority of Tina Morrison’s physical injuries seemed to be superficial. The others, Simone thought, would take longer to heal.
The version that Simone retold to Colin Sherbourne, back in Nottingham, was basically this: after the van, the decorator’s van into which she’d been bundled, there’d been a car – Tina didn’t know which make – and then another, larger van. After driving round for what felt like ages, going in circles she’d thought, at least that was what it had seemed like, they’d parked near the edge of a field. One of the men had produced a bottle of vodka while the other rolled a joint.
At first she’d gone along with what they wanted, thinking if she did, they’d let her go, but when it became obvious that wasn’t going to happen, she’d tried to get away. Which was when it had all changed. Turned nasty. Really nasty. They’d tied her up and done things to her. Not the one called Shane so much – in fact, he’d tried to talk the other one out of it, some of it – but then, in the end, he’d joined in much the same.
Here Tina had broken down, crying, broken by the all too recent memory, and sobbed her heart out; Simone needing to be at her most patient, most consoling, before steering Tina back to her story.
She must have passed out, Tina said – fainted maybe, she didn’t really know – but when she came to, Shane was shaking her by the shoulder and whispering in her ear, telling her he was going to untie her and let her go, and that she had to get as far away as she could and promise never to tell anyone what had happened.
‘And that was what she did,’ Sherbourne said, ‘made a run for it?’
‘Apparently. But it was dark and she had no real idea where she was. Must’ve spent ages just stumbling around, frightened of her own shadow. Till, somehow, she arrived at the motorway.’
‘All in all,’ Sherbourne said, ‘not a bad outcome. When you consider the other possibilities. She’s still alive, at least.’
Simone nodded.
‘And she identified both Keach and Donald?’
‘From photographs, yes.’
‘Good. Now we just need to catch the bastards before they can do any more harm.’
But by early evening, when Sherbourne phoned Elder to keep him in the loop, as promised, there had been no further sign. The two men seemed to have disappeared into the earth.
‘The young woman,’ Elder said. ‘How’s she doing?’
‘Physically, not as bad as might have been expected. But beyond that …’
There was no need to say any more. Elder, he knew, was more than capable of filling in the dots for himself. He had seen Katherine that afternoon, the story of Tina Morrison’s capture and subsequent release the second item on the news, squeezed between a one per cent rise in the rate of inflation and a fatal stabbing in south London, the second in the past three days.
Katherine had reached out and squeezed her father’s hand. ‘It never stops, does it?’
‘It can seem that way.’
For the news broadcast, Colin Sherborne had been filmed making a short statement in front of the Central Police Station in Nottingham; Tina Morrison’s mother had been interviewed earlier, incoherent and weeping, outside Doncaster Royal Infirmary. There were photographs of Tina herself, happy, smiling; a snatch of video taken the year before, on holiday with friends on Ibiza. This was followed by photographs of Adam Keach and Shane Donald, head and shoulders both … police are anxious to speak to … the public are advised not to approach … two numbers to call.
Katherine shivered and looked away.
Elder reached for the remote and the picture disappeared.
‘At least …’ he began.
‘At least what?’
‘At least he’s nearly two hundred miles away.’
‘You don’t know that. Not for certain. And it’s obvious the police haven’t got much of a clue.’
‘They’ll find him, don’t worry. And meantime, the last place he’s going to come is here. London. Somewhere he doesn’t know.’
‘How can you be so certain?’
‘He’ll stick with where he’s comfortable. Confident. Notts, South Yorks, Lincs. Somewhere out towards the east coast. That’s where he’ll be. Not down here in the south. Too chancy. Too much of a risk.’
They went for a walk in London Fields, wandering around the Saturday market and snacking on falafels packed into pitta bread; Katherine hesitated over a velour top at one of the vintage clothing stalls; Elder asked her advice over a sea-glass necklace on a silver chain he thought he might buy for Vicki and, after much umming and aahing, chose a poppy brooch in red enamel instead.
‘Missing her, are you?’ Katherine asked, teasing.
Elder just grinned.
‘You can’t stay here for ever, you know. And anyway, there’s no need. Not now. Not any more.’ She pulled at his sleeve. ‘I’m fine, really.’
‘Are you?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘You don’t think it might be worth getting back into contact with the therapist?’
‘No, Dad. No, I don’t. I really don’t.’
‘And if the police want to speak to you again …’
‘Do you think they will? After last time? I think they believed me, don’t you? Even without more of an alibi or anything.’
‘Probably. I hope so, but it’s difficult to say.’
‘Well, either way, I’ll be fine. Honest. I was just wobbly for a few days, that’s all. You don’t need to babysit me any more. And I don’t need a bodyguard, either. You said yourself, Adam Keach is over two hundred miles away.’ She reached up and kissed him on the cheek. ‘But I’m glad you came. Truly. I am.’
As they walked away, she slipped her hand into his.
When Vicki called Elder was half-asleep, the book he’d been reading face down on the bed. Not long back from a gig, she sounded loud, elated.
‘It went well, I assume?’ Elder said, laughing at her exuberance.
‘Great. Fantastic. You should have been there.’
‘I wish I had been.’
‘When are you coming back?’
‘Soon. Soon, I think.’
‘Kate, she’s …’
‘She’s doing okay. Better than I expected. Either that or she’s putting on a pretty good show.’
‘Having you there will have helped steady her.’
‘I hope so.’
Silence, just the sound of Vicki’s breathing.
‘I am missing you, you know,’ she said.
‘That’s nice.’
‘How about you?’
‘Am I missing you, d’you mean?’
‘Uh-hum.’
‘Not one whit. Not for a minute.’
‘Bastard.’
Elder laughed.
‘Come home.’
‘Home?’
‘You know what I mean.’
He hesitated, uncertain. ‘Tomorrow. Maybe the day after.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise.’
Without being able to see, she knew he had his fingers tightly crossed. Knew that was always the way it was going to be.
‘Want me to sing you to sleep?’
Elder smiled. ‘The way you sing, I doubt if sleeping’d be what I had in mind.’
After the first verse of ‘I’ll See You in My Dreams’ he blew a kiss into the phone and said goodnight.