Before It's Too Late Page 5

  Celia looked up from the sofa and flashed a wide smile that exposed a row of perfect white teeth. “Hi, Dad.”

  “Hey!” Jackman bent down, encased his daughter in a hug and planted a kiss on her forehead. “Wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.”

  “Thought I’d surprise you,” she said. Her face was clear of make-up and decorated around the edge with messy strands of white-blonde hair that had escaped from the loose tie at the nape of her neck. “And I rescued this runt from Angela next door.” Erik was curled up beside her, tongue hanging out to the side, tail still beating the cushions.

  Jackman rolled his eyes. “She’s meant to walk him, not babysit him.”

  “Think she likes the company.” Celia’s yellow vest puckered as she stretched her elbows back to reveal a blue stud in her navel, just above the waistline of her denims.

  “How was the drive up from Southampton?”

  “Fine, apart from the dreaded roadworks on the M40. Took me almost three hours.”

  Jackman suddenly remembered Davies who was hovering in the hallway. “Come on in, Annie,” he called.

  Davies’ ashen face appeared around the doorway. “Sorry, didn’t want to intrude.”

  Jackman waved her in. “Don’t be silly. Celia, you remember Annie Davies?”

  Celia looked up and smiled. “Course. Nice to see you again.”

  Jackman turned back to his daughter, “You eaten?”

  “I ordered Chinese. There’s some crispy beef and noodles left in the kitchen for you.”

  Jackman smiled inwardly at how his daughter had grown accustomed to his unsociable hours. She didn’t bat an eye that he wasn’t home when she arrived. But still the warm smile greeted him on his return. “Great, I’m starving. Have to go out again, I’m afraid. Got a case on.”

  “Ahhh.” Celia turned her attention back to the television where a girl was playing a keyboard on the rooftop of a high rise.

  “What are you watching?” Annie asked, as she squeezed herself into the gap at the end of the sofa.

  “Coyote Ugly. Love this film.” Celia huddled up with Erik, who licked her forehead in pleasure. “Mum used to watch it.”

  “Oooh, me too,” Annie said.

  Jackman watched as both women became engrossed in the film. He was dying to ask Celia about her studies, how things were going in Southampton, but he could see that she was winding down from her journey. Plenty of time for that later.

  A rumble in his belly sent him through to the kitchen. He opened a drawer, retrieved his mobile phone charger, the reason he’d called home, and placed it next to his car keys on the side. Although there was a drawer full of them at the station, he hated sorting through to find one that would fit his old phone that Celia affectionately called ‘the brick’.

  Jackman emptied the remaining cold noodles over the crispy beef and called back into the lounge, “Want any food, Annie?”

  “No thanks,” she said. “Got to get rid of these love handles.”

  Both women chuckled together as he leant against the side and ate the noodles out of the carton. He glanced across at his daughter through the open door. She looked more like her mother every day – the same slender frame, long arms and giraffe neckline, that white-blonde Nordic hair. In fact, the only thing she had inherited from her father were the pale green eyes. ‘Striking eyes.’ Alice had called them. The eyes that had initially attracted her to him.

  Striking eyes. His mind switched to Min Li. He reached for his phone and pulled up the photo Davies had sent him earlier.

  He was still awaiting details of her father’s business from the Chinese authorities. The bureaucracy associated with international liaison irritated him. It would be quicker to take the eleven-hour flight and dig it up himself.

  Jackman rolled his shoulders. During his early years in the police he had struggled to settle. He missed the excitement of his old career in the Royal Marines: the travel, the unpredictability, the camaraderie of his colleagues. Dealing with shoplifters, domestic disputes and petty theft just left him numb. But his first murder case had changed everything. Still in uniform, he was tasked with guarding the scene of a stabbing of a young man at a small corner pub in East London. He’d watched the detectives arrive, flash their badges, climb over the tape in their sharp suits. Their very presence demanded respect. And the relief on the uniform sergeant’s face at handing over the crime scene to them was palpable. That’s the moment when everything changed for him, when he discovered what he really wanted to do.

  Officers like Reilly frowned upon Jackman’s ‘hands-on’ approach to investigation. In his view, senior officers were expected to sit behind a desk, bark orders at their team, set strategy for the case. But Jackman wasn’t interested in spreadsheets, targets and ticking boxes. Frankly, the bureaucracy and the politics of the senior echelons of the police force, the budgetary constraints and management meetings grated away at him. All he wanted, all he had ever wanted was to piece together the evidence to solve the crime and catch the really bad guys. Jackman took one last look at Min, slipped his phone into his pocket and forked another mouthful of crispy beef into his mouth. There had to be something there – hidden away in the background, something that he was missing.

  Chapter Twelve

  A wet sponge touched my nose. I threw my eyes open. It was not a sponge. I shuddered, darted back. A rat. I opened my mouth to scream but only a hoarsely coated grunt gushed out. It was enough to scare the animal. It scrabbled up the walls in the half-light and disappeared from sight.

  I recoiled. Thoughts of it, sniffing at me, crawling on me as I slept made me wince. I hugged my arms into myself, my eyes scanning the surrounding walls for more creatures lurking in the shadows.

  Yet a part of me yearned for it. Yearned for some company in this black cavern.

  I scrunched my body together tighter. Why was I here? Apart from a cut to my head and a few bruises and grazes, I hadn’t been attacked. The silver bracelet my parents bought me for my eighteenth birthday still hung around my wrist.

  Surely I hadn’t been taken? My father was considered wealthy in China, but not by Western standards. Our apartment in Beijing was reasonably sized but not huge, and certainly not opulent – we still had my grandmother’s old sofa, the woven mat beside the fire that I played on as a kid.

  Kidnapped. The word made me shudder. Had my father upset somebody back home for his family to be punished in this way? It seemed unlikely, he was the most amiable person I knew. Or was it someone from the UK, who had spotted what they considered a rich Chinese girl, attempting to extort money from her family?

  I churned it over and over in my mind, but the more I thought about it, the more abduction seemed the only viable explanation. Why else keep me here, alive?

  Had they approached my parents yet? If I closed my eyes I could almost see my mother’s porcelain face crumble, my father’s shoulders sink as the bottom fell out of their world. I was their only child.

  And how much money had they demanded? My poor father. All those years he’d spent working long hours, making contacts, networking every waking hour. If the demands were substantial, he would take a loan. Borrowing that kind of money quickly wasn’t easy in China. Not legally. If he borrowed it discreetly they would expect a hefty return, and swiftly. Everything he had built up, everything he had worked for could be lost.

  It was my decision to study in the UK. I had persuaded, cajoled, plagued my parents for years. Could my decision now mean pain and suffering, not to mention potential financial ruin?

  I glanced down at my stomach. But it was worse than that. Even if they paid the ransom, even if I was released and returned to their protective arms, I’d let them down. Because it wasn’t just me they’d be saving. They knew nothing about the child growing in my stomach. A lump caught in my throat. When did it all go so terribly wrong?

  I looked up at the grill. If it was kidnap, why hadn’t they come back?

  My stomach cramped with hunger.

&
nbsp; My tongue felt like a sheet of sandpaper. Did that mean that the baby was thirsty too? How long had I been here? How long could a human survive with no food or water, especially in my condition?

  Tears stung my eyes as I saw my mother’s face again in my mind. Her mouth quivering, her eyes heavy with anxiety. Even after my father gave in to my wishes she had never wanted me to come to England to study, said I was too young to travel the 5,000 miles alone. She had great expectations of me, encouraged me in my studies. But those expectations didn’t include me moving to the other side of the world. My stomach clenched. Her face on the day I left spoke a thousand words. It was as if somebody had inserted metal pincers into her chest and pulled out her heart. Her only child. But after much persuasion on my part, my father had insisted and supported my hedonistic obsession to gain a better education in the West. If only I’d listened to her, I would be back home now. Curled up on the sofa whilst she cooked dinner instead of sat here, starving to death.

  I rubbed my belly. If only I’d listened to her, I wouldn’t be in so much of a mess.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jackman took a sip of his mineral water and glanced along the bar. There. Right at the end he recognised it – the stone bust of Shakespeare, the same bust that sat in the background behind Min Li in her photo from the Old Thatch Tavern, now on their wall in the incident room. The front of her long hair was pulled back from her face, her mouth curled into a half-smile.

  He thanked the girl behind the bar as she passed over his change. The last thing he felt like was a drink on a night like this, with Celia back home. But although his team had already interviewed the staff working last night, the CCTV footage had been meticulously watched for glimpses of Min, witness statements taken and recorded, he still wanted to visit the pub himself. This was the last place Min was seen alive, by her friends at least, and he wanted to see it around the same time she disappeared.

  He turned around and leant his back against the bar. Although an old pub, the Old Thatch Tavern wasn’t furnished with the usual jazzy, loud carpet that carried the pungent smell of old spilt beer into the air. An assorted selection of rustic tables, surrounded by wooden chairs, and a couple of cosy leather sofas sat on a polished tiled floor.

  Jackman checked his watch, 10.20pm. He glanced around. A couple sat at the table beside the entrance, hands entwined. A group of men in suits sat on the only long table in the middle, glasses of lager on the table in front of them. They were laughing loudly, as if they’d just shared a private joke. Another couple filled the sofa at the end, neither speaking, eyes averted. It was a quiet Tuesday evening. He took another sip of his drink. They knew from the statements already taken that there were initially twelve of them in Min’s party. They’d come into the pub around eight o’clock and were later joined by others. By the time Min had left, the pub had been heaving with friends and acquaintances. How many bodies had squashed themselves into this small bar area?

  The table beside the suits was empty. He approached and sat down. From this position he could see every angle of the pub – the bar, the door, the entrance into the restaurant area and the couple canoodling in the corner. Although last night was a lot busier, it was an excellent vantage point. Perfect for somebody sitting, watching. So far, he was led to believe that Min had no known associates in Stratford, apart from her friends and teachers at the college. Her room on campus left no indication that she planned to go away.

  Something puzzled him as he took another sip of his drink. The bar area was very small here, and with the horse brasses that adorned the beams, the old fashioned bookcase in the corner, the red lamp beside the window, it looked more like a country pub than a town party venue.

  The slam of a door in the background interrupted his thoughts. He looked up as a familiar face appeared around the doorframe that led through the restaurant and out to the toilets at the far end of the building.

  Davies beamed as she moved towards him and sat down opposite, blocking his view to the bar. “What’s on your mind?” she said.

  “I’m thinking this seems an odd venue for a student party.”

  Davies scanned the area. “Suppose so. But, from what I understand, one of Tom’s friends works here. Maybe he arranged a discount on the drinks?”

  “Maybe. We need to check the statements of everyone who was in here last night and re-check the CCTV. Who came in? Who left and when? Somebody must have noticed something.”

  Davies nodded. “Sure.”

  “And we need to check on the council camera footage of the street outside first thing. Tracing the drivers of that BMW and white van is a definite priority.”

  “Okay.”

  They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes.

  Davies lifted her hands and tightened the ponytail at the back of her head. As the day progressed it had got messier and soft curls now hung loose around her face. “How is Alice?”

  Jackman stared at his glass, “No change.”

  He fidgeted in his seat. Her words conjured up images of those awkward moments when he’d returned to work after the car accident that had reduced his wife to a permanent comatose state a year ago. Some colleagues shuffled in their shoes, dug their hands in their pockets when they enquired after Alice’s health. Others made a beeline for him with their head tilts and soppy eyes. A few avoided him altogether, unsure of what to say. The answer was always the same, “No change.” Because there never was any change.

  The memories made his stomach dip. It wasn’t that he was cold-hearted. He knew everyone meant well, but the last thing he wanted to talk about at work, his one area of respite, was his wife’s tragic situation.

  Some colleagues adapted to this much quicker than others. Accustomed to turning tragedy into humour, a coping mechanism for some of the tragic events they faced during their career, Alice’s illness nudged them into unchartered territory – they couldn’t make a joke out of it and therefore didn’t know how to deal with it, or him for that matter – so they were much happier when Jackman crushed the sympathy and anxiety talk. Others struggled but eventually followed suit. Eventually, Alice wasn’t mentioned, apart from by the odd old friend or colleague who popped in, and even then it was only perfunctory. But Annie Davies was a real friend. A friend that had spent many an evening enjoying their joint company over BBQs, dinner parties and birthday celebrations. And Annie never believed in protocol. Not when it meant keeping her mouth shut.

  Davies pressed her lips together. “John and I were only saying the other day we must pop over. It’s been ages. It’s amazing how much a little person takes over your life.”

  “It’s okay, really. It’s her birthday this week.”

  “Of course.” Silence hung like a threatening raincloud between them. “That’s why Celia’s here?”

  Jackman nodded.

  Davies eyed him a moment. “And what about you?”

  “Oh, you know… ” Jackman tailed off. He scratched the back of his ear.

  “Still seeing the shrink?”

  He gave a single nod. “Force orders.”

  Uncomfortable silence prevailed for the shortest of seconds before she turned her head to the bar and whisked back. She winked. “Well, you must be doing something right. Lady at the bar’s giving you the real once over.”

  Jackman leant sideways to look past her and glanced across at the curved end of the bar where an elderly man stood supping from a pint. He turned back to Annie and rolled his eyes. The tension in the air immediately dissolved.

  “Got ya!” she chuckled.

  “Like I said, you don’t change.” He slung the rest of the mineral water down his throat and stood. “Right, I’m off to see if Celia fancies a nightcap. See you tomorrow.”

  He pulled into the byway and parked up as soon as the mixture of bramble hedging and established oaks concealed him from the road. He got out of the car, grabbed the bag from the back seat and stopped for a moment to look around.

  Satisfied he was alone, he trudged up
the path away from the road. The mud beneath him, baked hard from the sun, felt uneven under his feet. His rucksack bounced against his back and by the time he reached the end of the track, it felt heavy. He switched on his head torch to navigate the copse. An arc of light exposed the lush broad-leaf branches above. Thick bracken covered the floor. He had to be careful here. Tree roots protruded and lurked about, ready to trip him. Branches reached out to catch at his jacket. But it didn’t bother him. He’d navigated this route several times, always under the cover of darkness. It had become second nature.

  Within minutes he was through the copse and out the other side. A rustling in the distance caught his attention. He stopped, moved back towards the trees and switched off his head torch. Several moments passed. His eyes grew accustomed to the darkness and darted about for any sign of movement. Then he saw it: black and white stripes ran down its face, its dark speckled back waddled from side to side as it moved across the path in front of him. The badger stopped and gave him a fleeting glance before continuing on its path.

  He exhaled, long and hard, and waited until it disappeared from sight before he felt it was safe to switch the torch back on. Even then he hesitated and cast a slow glance around him, the torch illuminating the area in strips of light. The air was quiet and still. He’d almost reached the old airfield when his feet found the concrete. He pulled the torch off his head, walked across to the shelter and entered. Dropping his bag down, he rummaged for the black hood and slung it over his head, before replacing the torch, then lent forward to unlock the chain.

  The grill grated as he pulled it back and looked inside.

  She was lying amongst the shadows that danced around the walls. Her legs were tucked to the side, hands lifted to shade her face from the splintering light of his head torch. Her dark hair hung in a tangled mess around her shoulders. He could just about make out the contour of her breast, the curve of her hip. Even in this state her beauty was almost mesmerising.