Simmy was acutely aware of people’s stares, as she ran around the empty shop, peering through its windows, curving her hands around her face to shut out the dazzling sunlight. It was so weird to think that a room somewhere above that big space – so easily visible to the shoppers and sightseers outside – was hosting a scene of violence and horror. She briefly entertained a notion of standing there and screaming for help. She would gather a crowd of fifty people who would storm the building and save Ben and Bonnie from the Lillywhites. People power would prevail. Why not?
Then a very obvious thought belatedly came to her. If the kidnappers had opened the padlock and gone in, the door must surely have been left open behind them. There was no way they could padlock it from the inside. At best they would have to ram it shut with some sort of object. Which door had they used? She had been a fool to go off and let them disappear. But she’d had no choice – Ben needed the water more urgently than anything else. Her thoughts tangled and leapt from one detail to the next as she ran round again, checking the padlocks.
She found it within seconds. The chain that had connected the door to its frame was dangling loose, the padlock nowhere to be seen. But it wouldn’t open when she pushed it. Like the door of her own neglected shop, there was an ordinary lock, operated with an ordinary key, and that was keeping her out. So why the padlock, she wondered crossly.
Her phone broke into her helpless frustration and she snatched it eagerly from her bag, hoping it was Bonnie with good news. How could it be? asked a sceptical inner voice. Bonnie was trapped as much as Ben was. Her best hope was probably to huddle in a corner of the cellar and wait for someone to pull her out through the disconcertingly small window.
It was Melanie. ‘You didn’t call me back,’ she accused. ‘What are you doing? Where are you?’
‘Almost exactly where I was last time, as it happens. It’s all going wrong. The police haven’t come.’ She couldn’t remember what she’d told Melanie the first time she called. Any complex doubts as to who knew what had long been discarded. She couldn’t even remember the last time she and Bonnie and Melanie had all been in the same place at the same time.
‘But Ben’s okay, right? That’s what you said. What about the kidnappers? Have you seen them?’
‘Yes, I think so. I’m sorry, Mel. It’s all happening, right here. But I can’t get in and I’m petrified they’ll be hurting Bonnie and Ben. They don’t know I’ve called the police. They’ll think they can do what they like.’
‘That woman – with the tight skirt and heels. She’s called Sheila. She’s some sort of estate agent. She sells and rents out commercial properties. I found some of her emails to Dan. She wanted to sell something to the Lillywhite couple, apparently, but that wasn’t her reason for coming to the hotel. She’s trying to arrange a fair, with a whole lot of shops and things all being advertised at once. It’d be in our big room here. She’s desperate to get everything organised in time for September.’
‘How does that link to what’s going on here?’ Simmy’s impatience had reached screaming pitch. ‘What does it matter?’
‘At the very least it means she’s innocent. She’s got no reason to kill or kidnap anybody.’
‘But—’ Then Simmy saw a figure who had so often before been at hand when events became unbearable. Except, not always, she remembered. He was improving, then. Or she was mellowing, because she didn’t think she had ever in her life been so glad to see anyone. She abruptly ended the call with Melanie.
Although he appeared to be alone, she was confident that there was a whole team of sturdy officers tucked around the corner somewhere. She almost ran towards him, resisting the urge to hug him with the greatest difficulty. ‘Oh, thank you for coming,’ she gasped. ‘They’re all in there now. You can catch them easily.’
He wiped a hand across his brow, rubbing at a spot between his eyes, as if working out the best way to convey terrible news. ‘I think you’ve got the whole thing wrong,’ he said. ‘It’s not your fault. Those kids have been messing you about. We’ve just heard from Mrs Harkness. She says Ben’s perfectly safe, with his brother. It’s all over and done with now. Apart from making an arrest for the murder of Mr Yates, of course.’
‘No!’ She stared at him, her mouth open. ‘Has Helen seen him? Has Wilf? Somebody’s playing a trick on them. Ben’s in there. I know he is.’ She waved an unrestrained arm at the empty shop. ‘So’s Bonnie, and three – two – I don’t know … criminals.’
‘She’s quite certain about it. I’m not sure of the details, but the brother – Wilf – was called to a place in Ambleside, where Ben was waiting for him. They phoned their mother from the car. They’ll be home by now.’
‘It isn’t possible,’ she said flatly. ‘It can’t have been Wilf. Did Helen speak to Ben himself?’
Moxon shook his shoulders irritably. ‘I don’t know.’ He looked up at the shop. ‘How do you know anybody’s in there? It looks deserted to me.’
‘I saw Bonnie right there in that big room. Then she phoned me. Then I gave them some water. Then the Lillywhites and Sheila Something went in. At least, I didn’t see them going in, but the padlock’s undone, and they disappeared, so that must be where they went. Haven’t you got any backup, then?’ She almost wailed. ‘How can I make you believe me?’
‘It was Wilf’s phone. It was his voice. I have to take what his mother told me as right.’
‘No, you don’t, because I saw Bonnie. I saw the window she broke to get in. I know she and Ben are in there.’
‘Window? Show me.’
But before she could lead him around to the back of the shop, they were both frozen in place by a piercing scream, which came from the upper floor of the building beside them. It was followed by a crash of breaking glass, and a shower of shards falling onto the pavement close to where they stood.
‘See,’ said Simmy, both relieved and appalled. The scream had sounded terrible. ‘Now will you do something?’
Moxon’s face was a mixture of alarm and confusion. ‘There’s only me,’ he said. ‘I can’t force an entry on my own.’
‘Coward!’ she spat at him. Hadn’t there been a time when he’d have had a police whistle, which summoned miraculous hordes of burly officers moments after being blown? Now he seemed incapable of any decisive action. ‘So call somebody,’ she urged.
Another scream put some fire in his belly and he began to set the process into motion. From Simmy’s point of view it was laborious and inefficient. She went to stand directly below the source of the broken glass and shouted, ‘Bonnie? Are you okay?’
There was no response. Or if there was, she couldn’t hear it, because a fair-sized crowd had already gathered and several people were talking loudly. Shopkeepers were leaving their posts behind their counters and coming out to see what was happening. They all stared up at the broken window. ‘Can’t have been double glazed,’ said a man. ‘They’re almost impossible to break.’
‘Somebody screamed,’ said a woman. ‘Who’s in there, then?’
It was the realisation of Simmy’s mad scheme, at least in part. She could very probably mobilise them into a rescue team, catching the wicked Lillywhites in the process. ‘There’s a boy in there, who’s been kidnapped,’ she shouted. ‘His girlfriend’s gone to rescue him, but his captors must be attacking her. It was her who screamed. Will somebody help me break in?’
Nobody moved. British people did not readily violate the rules to the extent of breaking down doors. They looked at her suspiciously, plainly doubting her credibility, if not her very sanity. It was, after all, a highly unlikely tale she was telling them. She remembered that the fact of Ben’s abduction had been kept out of the news. Nobody knew there was a missing boy.
‘Come on,’ she yelled at them. ‘You heard that scream.’
That was true. At least a few of them had heard it. And they could all see the shattered window. ‘All right, then,’ said a large man. ‘If you’re sure.’
‘Yes! That door – see the chain’s been unlocked. It’s just a Yale now. And the frame’s not very thick. I bet it’ll give quite easily.’
He gave her a considering look. ‘I’m not doing it with my shoulder,’ he said. ‘I need some sort of lever, like a crowbar.’
‘No, no,’ came Moxon’s voice. ‘I’m a police officer. I’ve called for backup. Leave it to us.’
More confusion as the people stared from him to Simmy and back, unable to draw any rational conclusions from the few facts they could see for themselves. One or two plainly thought Moxon as unreliable as Simmy, if not more so. ‘You’re never a policeman,’ said a young woman. ‘Where’s your badge, then?’
With only a shred of dignity, he produced it. Simmy had not been sure that detectives carried such things, but supposed there must be times like this when credentials were required.
She tried to think. Inside the building there were three criminals and two young innocent victims. The noise outside must surely have got through to them by now, which meant they knew they couldn’t hope to escape. So what would they do? Who had broken the window, and why? Were they planning to burn the whole place down, with Ben and Bonnie inside? Or to leap from the upper window, in a desperate effort to get away? Why had they gone in there, anyway? Had they left possessions there that had to be retrieved?
Questions flocked through her mind, each one wilder than the one before. And then it struck her that she need no longer hesitate in phoning Bonnie. There was no possibility that the girl was hiding quietly in a cupboard. Her phone was still in her hand, and she activated it quickly.
By a miracle, Bonnie answered. More than a miracle – a sort of madness, in the midst of such chaos. It almost made Simmy laugh. ‘What’s happening?’ she asked. ‘Was that you who screamed?’
The girl’s voice was impossibly calm. ‘It’s nearly all over now,’ she said. ‘I can come down to let you all in. We need an ambulance for Ben. And me, I suppose.’
Simmy couldn’t speak. Her head had filled with cotton wool, born of relief and amazement and a renewed desire to laugh for several minutes. She turned to Moxon, who was fending off demands for information from the ever-growing crowd of Hawkshead worthies. ‘Call an ambulance,’ she told him, after twice trying to get the words out and failing. ‘Bonnie says it’s all over now.’ She could feel hysteria bubbling somewhere in her chest. ‘She’s done it all without us.’