Thirty-Five

The flicker of a television behind the thin blue curtains betrayed occupancy. Rex had noticed an external TV aerial as he and Alistair half-circled the caravan from a safe distance before closing in slowly. Attached to the front above the hitch sat a large white plastic storage container with a metal lock. It looked sturdy enough to get up on, but the curtain in the window above was closely fitted and afforded no view inside.

They inspected the caravan from the lake side, where a sun-bleached awning stretched from the door over a picnic table on collapsible metal legs. Alistair picked it up and positioned it by the rectangular window at the back of the caravan. He tested the surface with his hands, bearing down on it.

Satisfied it could hold his weight, he clambered on top and knelt at the window, peering in through a gap above the top edge of the curtain. Rex watched him wobble and slide off the table in a hurry.

“There’s a girl bound and gagged on a sofa-bed,” he said in a hoarse whisper to Rex, who was watching the door.

“Lindsay?”

“Could be. It’s dark except for the light from the TV. I could only see her silhouette. But it’s definitely a young girl. I couldn’t see anyone with her.”

Alistair crept back to the window. Rex helped stabilize the table while his friend got up again. Alistair tapped gently on the window and mouthed a few words through the gap in the curtain.

“She’s nodding her head. I think she’s alone.”

“How can you be sure?” Rex whispered back. “What if she’s warning you?”

“I don’t think so.” Alistair asked, this time loud enough for Rex to hear, “Are you alone?” He glued his eye to the window. “She’s nodding frantically now. We need to get in.” He scrambled down from the table.

“What if she was being threatened by someone you couldn’t see?”

“She seems quite composed, for someone who’s tied up.”

“Well, it’s now or never, I suppose.”

Rex pulled down on the door latch, not surprised to find it locked. A search for a key in all the obvious places revealed nothing. “What now?”

“I brought a crow bar under my coat.”

“What crow bar?”

“From the motorhome. I’ll pop out a window if need be.”

Rex commended his friend’s foresight, without fully comprehending how he had been able to run with a crowbar secreted in his coat, but now wasn’t the time to ask. They tried all the windows Alistair could fit through, being the slimmer and more agile of the two, and found them locked too.

“It’ll have to be the crowbar.” Alistair selected the rear window and went to work while Rex kept a lookout.

He spotted a couple of shadows moving about on the far side of the lake, but they would not be able to see or hear what Alistair was up to at the back of the caravan. No one approached from the open ground whence they had come.

By dint of strength and perseverance, Alistair managed to get the window sufficiently open to flip it out all the way. He yanked it from its frame and set it down on the ground. Rex glanced nervously about him, worried about the noise, but focused on the girl.

Alistair drew the pleated curtain aside and called out softly, saying he was coming in and not to be afraid. He removed his bulky coat and threw it inside, and then hoisted himself through the opening and stepped into the caravan. His face reappeared briefly as he told Rex he would unlock the door for him.

The sound of the television was less muted inside. With the two men standing in the centre, the space was cramped, the padded vinyl ceiling barely clearing their heads. Rain began to patter on the dark skylight. An odour of damp rose from the carpet.

Rex found a light switch. The girl sat to his left on one of two sofa-beds attached to the front side walls. Her hair was shiny and brushed, her blue eyes stretched wide above the gag. He could not remember what colour Lindsay’s eyes were supposed to be. She wore a grey jersey tracksuit with purple stripes down the sleeves and legs, and socks and slippers on her bound feet.

He undid both the gag and the cotton scarf around her wrists, which was tied loosely enough to not be uncomfortable and yet tightly enough to be secure. Her hands trembled in her lap. He now clearly recognized her as the girl he had seen on the news in recent weeks, down to the dark mole on her cheekbone.

“Where is he, Lindsay?” he asked as Alistair took up the TV remote on the wood table separating the beds and switched off the set.

“The pub, I think. He comes back smelling of beer.” She was nicely spoken and quiet in her demeanour.

“What’s his name?”

“Danny. That’s all I know.”

They would have to leave it to the police to search the caravan for further identification. “You’re a very brave girl,” Rex said. “We’re here to help you.”

Only then did she begin to cry, huge tears welling in her eyes.

“How long is he usually gone for?” He attempted to keep the urgency out of his voice, but his first concern was to get her to safety before her abductor returned.

“Usually not much more than an hour. He left three-quarters of an hour ago,” she said glancing at a clock embedded between two in-built lockers above the front window.

All the cupboards and drawers were in the same medium-toned wood, the place tidier than the motorhome, Rex noted in passing. “Did he harm you?”

She shook her head. “Not really. He brings me clothes and magazines, cakes, sweets … I pretend to like everything. He said I was a good girl, not like the one he took in Edinburgh, who screamed and struggled and made him so angry he had to … ” She gulped. “Silence her.”

Everything seemed to slow down for a brief moment in time. The terrified girl, the wood-clad surroundings, the white clock face, the raindrops plinking on the roof. Rex snapped to and instructed Alistair to call DCI Lauper’s contact in Colchester.

His friend paced the few steps to the back of the caravan as he spoke on the phone. A white curtain, used to partition off the two pairs of beds, was draped to one side. The girl bent over her knees to unbind her ankles, her silky brown hair sweeping forward as she did so.

“Have you been here the entire time?”

She nodded fearfully. “He only ever let me out to use the showers. He took me out at night with my hands tied and, once inside, there was no way to escape.” Her voice came out muffled as she attended to the task of freeing her feet. She sat up, her face flushed, and pushed her hair back behind her shoulders, pausing as she did so. “He brushes my hair and calls me Amber. It’s dead creepy.”

“His father mistreated his sister,” Rex said. “He may in his own mind be trying to make amends, but he’s dangerous and unpredictable. We need to get you away. You can call your parents from the car.”

The girl flinched at the mention of a car.

“It’s okay. We’re advocates,” Alistair told her, returning his phone to his coat pocket.

“What’s that?”

“Scottish barristers,” Rex explained. “We prosecute criminals. Anything you need from here?”

“My schoolbag.”

“Any luck with the local police?” he asked Alistair.

“On their way, but we should get out of here. Do you have a jacket?” he asked Lindsay.

She opened a wardrobe and extracted a crimson blazer, which she hastened to put on over her tracksuit. She pulled out a black leather book bag and strapped it to her shoulders. She was still wearing slippers.

“Where are your shoes?” Rex asked.

“I don’t know. They’re not in here.”

“Never mind.”

They filed out of the caravan into the rain, Alistair leading the way and Rex closing the rear. Night had all but fallen and pinpricks of light dotted the campsite, but nobody stirred. He picked Lindsay up in his arms and ran after Alistair across the soggy grass. The girl weighed little enough, but jogging with her in his heavy coat provided him with an unaccustomed work-out on top of his earlier sprint to the lake.

When they reached the Jaguar, he put her down thankfully, and she clambered into the back seat. He shrugged out of the coat and got in beside Alistair, his throat tight and parched and his heart thumping fast.