Dead Man’s Footsteps

69

Abby peered numbly through the windscreen of the grey rental Ford Focus. She hadn’t thought it possible for the nightmare to worsen, but now it had.

There was a broad stretch of clear blue sky over them as they headed up the A27 Brighton bypass, with Patcham to their right and rolling open downland countryside to their left. Freedom, she thought, still a prisoner, although her bonds had been removed and she was now in jeans, a pullover and fleece jacket and trainers. The grass looked lush and green from all the recent heavy rain, and if it hadn’t been for the whirr of the car’s heater fan blowing in welcome warm air, it could have been summer outside with that sky. But inside her heart, it was darkest winter.

To have got that recording, she realized, he must have bugged her mother’s phone.

Seated beside her, Ricky drove in angry silence, careful to keep within the speed limit, not taking any risks of getting stopped. It was an anger that had been simmering for two long months. The slip road was coming up ahead. He moved the indicator stalk. He’d already been here once this morning, he knew the way. She listened to the steady tick-tick-tick and watched the light winking on the dash.

Now she’d drunk some water and eaten a hunk of bread and a banana she was feeling more human and could think more clearly, despite being sick with fear for her mother – and for herself. How had Ricky found her mother? Presumably the same way he had found her, whatever that was. She was racking her brains, trying to think if she had left some clue back in Melbourne. How the hell could he have got her address? Not that difficult, she supposed. He knew her last name and she had probably mentioned at some point that her widowed mother now lived in Eastbourne. How many Dawsons were there in the Eastbourne phone directory? Probably not that many. Certainly not to a determined man.

He wasn’t answering any questions.

Her mother was a defenceless woman. Almost crippled by multiple sclerosis, she was still just about mobile, but not for much longer. And although she was fiercely independent, she had no physical strength. An infant could have overpowered her, which made her extremely vulnerable to any intruder, yet she flatly refused to wear a panic button. Abby knew that a neighbour looked in on her occasionally and she had a friend she went to bingo with on Saturday evenings. Other than that, she was alone.

Now Ricky had her address and, knowing what a sadist he was, that frightened her more than anything. She had the feeling he wouldn’t be content with just getting everything back; he would want to hurt her and her mother too. He would know, from the conversations they’d had in Australia when she had opened up to him, trying to gain his confidence, the love she felt for her mother, and her guilt at abandoning her, moving to the other side of the world, just when she needed Abby the most. He would enjoy hurting her mother to get at her.

They were now approaching a small roundabout. He took the second right turn off it and started going down a hill. To their right was a view for several miles across fields and housing estates. To their left was the Hollingbury industrial estate, a sprawling cluster of superstores, 1950s factories and warehouses converted into offices, and modern industrial units. One of the buildings, partially obscured from their view by an ASDA supermarket, was the headquarters of Sussex CID, but Abby did not know that. Even if she had, she could not take the risk of going in there. Regardless of what Ricky had done to get his money, she was a thief. She had stolen a great deal from him, and just because the person you stole from was a criminal, that did not exonerate your behaviour.

Besides, if they blew the whistle on each other, they would lose everything. They were in a kind of Mexican standoff at the moment. But equally she knew that if she did give him back what he wanted, there was no good reason for him to keep her alive. And plenty not to.

She saw a massive edifice carrying the sign, BRITISH BOOKSHOPS, then the Argus building, a Matalan sign, then they passed a Renault dealership. Almost missing the turn, Ricky cursed, braked sharply and swung the wheel, making the tyres squeal. He drove too quickly down a sharp incline, then had to bring the car to an abrupt halt inches from a truck-sized Volvo, with a tiny woman behind the wheel, which had pulled straight out of the car park in front of a row of stores.

‘Stupid fucking cow,’ he mouthed at her, and the woman responded by tapping the side of her head. For a moment Abby thought – hoped – that he was going to get out of the car and start a barney.

Instead the Volvo roared off and they drove on down the incline, past the car park and the rear of a warehouse. Then they went through a gateway with massive steel doors and large CCTV warning signs on either pillar, into a yard where there were several armoured cash-transporter vans and trucks parked. Each was in a distinctive livery of black paint with gold lettering showing a shield interwoven with a chain and the name SOUTHERN DEPOSIT SECURITY.

Then they headed towards a single-storey, modern building with tiny slit-like windows that gave it the air of a fortress. Which is what it was.

Ricky parked in a bay marked VISITORS and switched off the engine. Then he turned to Abby.

‘Try anything clever and your mother’s dead. You understand that?’

She choked out a terrified, ‘Yes.’

And all the time she was thinking. Trying to plan in her mind how she was going to play this. Trying to visualize the next few minutes. Doing her best to think it through, to remind herself of her strengths.

So long as she had what he wanted, he was going to have to negotiate. It didn’t matter how much he blustered, that was the truth of the matter. That had kept her alive and intact until now, no question about it. With luck, it was what would keep her mother alive. She hoped.

She did have a plan, but she hadn’t thought it through, and it all started coming unstitched inside her head as she climbed out of the car. She suddenly became a jelly, a bag of quivering nerves, and had to grip the roof of the car for a moment, almost certain she was going to throw up.

After a couple of minutes, when she felt a bit better, Ricky took her arm and they walked to the entrance, like any couple coming to make a deposit, or a withdrawal, or just to check out the family silver. But as she shot him a sideways stony glance, she felt revulsion, wondering how she had ever stooped to do all she done with him.

She pressed the entryphone buzzer beneath the imperious gaze of two CCTV cameras and gave her name. Moments later the door clicked open and they passed through two sets of security doors into an austere foyer that gave the impression it had been hewn from granite.

Two burly, unsmiling uniformed security guards stood just inside the door, and two more manned the counter behind a glass shield. She walked up to one of them and spoke through the perforations, wondering, suddenly, whether to try to signal distress to him, then thinking better of it.

‘Katherine Jennings,’ she said in a shaky voice. ‘I want to access my safe-deposit box.’

He pushed a register under the bottom of the shield. ‘Please fill this in. Are both of you going in?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll need both of you to fill it in, please.’

Abby filled in her name, the date and the time, then handed the register to Ricky, who did the same. When he had finished, he pushed it back under the shield and the guard typed into a terminal. Some moments later, he pushed printed name tags, encased in plastic and with lapel clips, across the counter.

‘You know what to do?’ he asked Abby.

She nodded and walked to the security door to the right of the counter. Then she put her right eye up close to the biometric retinal scanner and pressed the green button.

After some moments the lock clicked. She pushed the heavy door open, held it for Ricky and they both went through. There was a cement staircase in front of them. She went down, hearing Rick’s steps close behind her. At the bottom there was a massive steel door with a second biometric scanner. She placed her right eye up close and again pressed the green button. There was a sharp click and she pushed this door open.

They entered a long, narrow, icily cold vault. It was a good hundred feet long and twenty feet wide, lined floor-to-ceiling on both sides and at the far end with steel safe-deposit boxes, each bearing a number.

The ones on the right were six inches deep, the ones on the left were two feet deep and the ones at the far end were six feet high. She wondered again, as she had the last time she came here, just what exactly might be in those, and indeed what treasures, legally obtained or otherwise, might be behind any of these locked doors.

Holding the key, Ricky greedily scanned the numbers on the boxes. ‘Four-two-six?’ he said.

She pointed, down towards the far end, on the left, and watched as he almost ran the last few yards.

Then he slipped the thin, flat key into the vertical slot and gave it a tentative twist. He could feel the cam of the well-oiled lock revolving smoothly. He turned the key through one complete revolution, listening for each of the pins moving in turn. He liked locks, always had, and understood how most of them worked. He gave the key a pull, but the door did not move. It had a more complex mechanism inside than he’d imagined, he realized, turning the key another complete revolution and sensing more pins moving. He pulled again.

Now the heavy metal door swung open and he peered inside. To his utter astonishment, it was empty.

He spun around, swearing loudly at Abby. And found himself swearing at an empty room.