Dead if You Don’t

46

Saturday 12 August

21.30–22.30

Kipp Brown liked quoting to his friends something the head of design at Porsche, back in the 1960s, had once said: ‘The essence of a great car is that each time you get in and sit behind the wheel, it must make you feel it is your birthday.’ And, normally, that was just how Kipp Brown felt. Normally. Normally, he loved this car. The driver’s seat that hugged him. The smell of leather. The cockpit, with the red needles on the speedometer and rev counter. The blatter of the expensive, finely tuned engine and the feeling of the precision of its engineering. The adrenaline rush when he pressed the accelerator and felt the surge of the car in the small of his back and the pit of his stomach.

But not now. Not tonight as he drove fast along the narrow, twisting road, the lights of oncoming cars momentarily blinding him, then flashing past. He was feeling numb, enveloped in an aura of evil darkness. His soul was heavy.

Please be OK, Mungo.

Oh God, please.

Tall grass and hedgerows sped past either side of him in the beam of the headlights, the needle of his speedometer jigging between 60 and 90 mph, the engine whining behind him. He braked and slowed as he took the final right turn and accelerated up the hill, cresting it and entering the almost-deserted car park. Several cars were parked outside the red-brick structure of the Devil’s Dyke Hotel.

He pulled into a bay, switched off the ignition and sat, looking around in the darkness, feeling nervous as hell. The door of the hotel opened and a tarty-looking blonde came out, unsteady on her high heels, holding the hand of a thuggish man with a shaven head, wearing cut-off jeans and a wife-beater sleeveless vest. They made their way over to a pickup truck and got in. After a few seconds the engine started and the vehicle drove off.

He opened his door and got out, then stood, listening to the fading roar of the engine. The night air was chilly and dewy. He looked carefully around but could see no sign of anyone else. Slowly, and nervously, he made his way across the wet grass towards the crumbling brick structure he knew so well from his school days. As did almost every kid who grew up in Brighton.

During the Second World War the British military built a series of strategic machine-gun posts along elevated positions across the whole of the south of England. If they failed to down the German fighter planes and bombers on their way in, they would try again with their ack-ack guns to get them on the way back.

Decades later, with the guns long removed, these brick pillboxes were great places for kids to explore — and for playing Cowboys and Indians or any other kind of game. This one up here on the Dyke, with its dark, dank interior, often littered with cowpats, had always held a sense of excitement and mystery for him — and history.

As he reached it, he looked around again. There was a tinkle of laughter behind him. Four more people had emerged from the hotel, holding glasses and sparking up cigarettes. He heard a shrill cackle of laughter.

Laughing at him?

He watched them. There was another shrill laugh. Then, as he entered through the hole in the wall which passed for a door, he smelled the familiar rank stench of dung, urine and lichen. He pulled out his phone, about to switch on the torch app, when a sharp ping-ping right behind him made him jump.

He spun round in shock, expecting to see someone. Instead, he saw a ghostly green light, at eye-level. The light was emitted by a small mobile phone taped to the wall. On the display was a poorly lit close-up photograph of Mungo. Grey duct tape was wound round his face, below his nostrils. His eyes were wide open in fear. Darkness surrounded him, but Kipp could just make out a shape of what looked like his topknot. He could have been in a cave, a cellar, a closet.

A sudden ping from the phone startled him.

A text.

With shaking hands, Kipp removed the phone and the tape and, ignoring what he was told, tapped out a text back.

He tried to send it, but nothing happened. It was blocked.

He tried again. Then again.

It would not send.

He waited for several minutes, then pocketed the tape and the phone, and stepped back out of the structure, looking around fearfully into the darkness. Was someone out there, watching him?

Where?

He studied the few vehicles in the car park. No sign of a figure or movement in any of them. Was someone out in the darkness with night-vision binoculars?

He walked slowly back to the car park, his shoes sodden from the long, wet grass, then stood beside his Porsche, looking around before unlocking it. When he finally climbed in, he sat and waited. Five minutes. Ten. He tried sending the text again, without success.

He drove home slowly, thinking. Thinking. Again, a spelling error. The next instruxxion.

Who had sent it? Who had taken his son?

Had he made a big mistake contacting the police? Were they watching his house, not fooled by the fridge delivery? He put the phone down on the passenger seat, glancing at it repeatedly as he drove home, waiting for it to light up and ping with another text. But it stayed dark and silent.

Stacey opened the front door before he had even reached it. Her eyes were red and hollow, her face gaunt, as if she had lost several stone in weight in the past hour. Her breath reeked of booze. ‘What? What news?’

He showed her the phone, with the text and the photograph of Mungo. When she saw that she collapsed, sobbing, into his arms.

‘We’ll get him back safely, babes, I promise you.’

She continued sobbing uncontrollably.

He steered her through into the living room. The television was on, showing a recording of The Crown from earlier that evening. On the coffee table in front of the sofa was a wine glass, and a nearly empty bottle of white wine. He sat her down and put the glass in her hand, then went off in search of the two detectives, down in the basement.

Branson studied the photograph of Mungo. His younger colleague, Jack, produced an elaborate scanner, which he placed right against the phone. Then he tapped some keys on the device. ‘Sending the image for enhancement to Digital Forensics,’ he said. ‘Let’s see if we get any clues from it.’

Within half an hour, another text came in.