‘On refs.’
‘Turn them out immediately, get back to me when you have and I’ll give you more instructions and details.’ Henry squirmed to look over his shoulder at Donaldson. ‘I was half-hoping that if the bad guys are monitoring us, the massive response we deployed would be enough to make them think twice. As it happens, it’s pathetic. Two patrols miles away and the ARV stuffing butties down their necks.’
‘Not sure anything would make much difference,’ Donaldson said. ‘They’re ahead of us anyway, they move fast and there’s every likelihood they’ve already dealt with him and gone.’ He clicked his fingers as though this was all a waste of time.
‘Come on, Bill, get this tug moving.’ Henry smacked the dashboard.
‘I am, but this is a police owned Ford Galaxy, not a Maserati — and where did you get an ETA of one minute from?’
‘Bit of an exaggeration?’
‘By about four minutes, not counting traffic,’ Bill said as he careened on to the roundabout at Gynn Square and gunned the vehicle sluggishly around it, blue lights on and a weary two-tone horn sounding as they hit the promenade northwards in the direction of Bispham.
‘Blackpool — Superintendent Christie.’
‘Receiving.’
‘ARV en-route.’
‘Thanks for that… now call Cleveley House and see if you can contact a social worker called Barry Philips. He should be there. Also contact the custody office. This man’s mobile phone number should be in Mark Carter’s custody record. If you can’t get a response from Cleveley House, call the mobile. It’s imperative we contact this guy, as he’s the one with Carter.’
Mark heard Barry Philips scream out the warning and for an instant he could not move. He could not even begin to imagine what had happened in the kitchen, around the corner, probably less than a dozen feet away from where he was standing. He’d heard the shout, then what? Maybe the sounds of a struggle, the thump of something heavy — a body? — hitting the floor and a horrible gurgling, gagging sound.
Then he moved. He spun away from the wall, taking two long paces, pivoted into the TV lounge, his eyes searching for a hiding place. There wasn’t much choice. The furniture consisted of one L-shaped sofa pushed up into one corner of the room, then a couple of mismatched armchairs and, of course, the 42-inch TV that Barry Philips had boasted about, which was screwed to the wall.
Basically nowhere.
Panic overwhelmed him momentarily before he scrambled over to the settee, pulled it away from the wall and crawled in backwards behind it, like some crustacean reversing into its shell. He stretched himself out as long and as thin as he could and tugged the settee back up to him. He had to grind his teeth together to stop them chattering. He tensed every muscle tight and hoped he didn’t emit some wimpy squeak of terror or fart of fear that would give away his position.
‘No reply from either number,’ the comms operator informed Henry.
‘Keep trying, please.’
‘Will do.’
Henry and Donaldson exchanged a worried look. ‘Doesn’t necessarily mean anything,’ Henry said.
‘No, you’re right,’ Donaldson said.
Neither man meant it.
Robbins performed a dangerous swerving overtake through a set of traffic lights, finding the narrow channel between the vehicle to his nearside and the oncoming one. He saw the driver of that one, who seemed to have big, wide eyes and an expression of horror on his face. He powered on, the Galaxy having picked up momentum, a bit like a container ship.
‘We’re probably about thirty seconds away,’ Bill said, flicking off the lights and siren.
‘Pull in here,’ Henry instructed him, pointing to a spot at the roadside. Robbins braked sharply and veered into a halt.
A few beats passed.
‘What the hell’re you doing?’ Donaldson demanded.
‘Waiting for back up. This is the RV point — Wilvere Drive.’
Donaldson screwed up his face at Henry. ‘You kidding me? We need to get in there now, otherwise that kid’s dead and they’ve gone for sure. There’s no time to sit here with thumbs up our asses waiting for cops who might not get here. How far away from the house are we?’
‘Just beyond that slight bend,’ Bill said, pointing. ‘Just out of sight.’
Donaldson and Henry looked at each other again. ‘You know I’m right. Two patrols coming from the south, the ARV only just jumping into their vehicle in the garage. If we hesitate, he’s dead. These guys don’t mess around. And if we’re wrong, then let’s have red faces. I don’t mind lookin’ stoopid. We need to get in there now — and this talkin’ is just a waste of time.’ He reached for his door handle.
Henry nodded. ‘You’re right.’
‘Give me a minute,’ Donaldson said and opened his door. ‘I’ll go around the back of the place, then you hurtle in through the front door.’
‘You have no weapon,’ Henry reminded him.
‘I’ll improvise if I have to,’ He touched Henry’s shoulder, trotted diagonally across the road, leapt over a garden wall and disappeared.
‘Let’s hope he bowls into the right place. There’s lots of old biddies in these houses along here,’ Henry said. ‘Time to go.’
The first of the men stepped into the TV lounge, checked it quickly. Across the hallway, the second man opened the door of another lounge opposite.
‘Clear,’ the first man said, backing out of the TV lounge, his gun held combat style, an isosceles triangle formed by his arms and chest, the gun held in his right hand, supported by the left.
‘Clear,’ the second man echoed, coming out of the other lounge. He was the knife man, but now he was armed with a pistol, the knife wiped clean and sheathed at the small of his back.
The third man, clearly the leader, had waited in the hallway for his colleagues to do his job. He said quickly, ‘Upstairs and check the bedrooms. I’ll wait here. If you find him, bring him to me alive. I want him to look me in the face and ID me again before I kill him. Go.’
The two men sprinted down the wide hall, moving silently as they went, and took the stairs just as quietly and began a well structured, swift search of the bedrooms on the first floor.
Donaldson clambered over the brick wall and slithered down into a patch of damp soil. He moved quickly behind a rhododendron bush and inspected the rear aspect of Cleveley House. There was one door, which he guessed was a kitchen door, three ground floor windows and a patio door. On the first floor there were four windows, one with the lights on.
Keeping low, he stepped out from cover and, crouching, ran across the width of lawn, then over a paved area, to the back of the house, flattening himself up to the wall. He edged to the door that he now noticed was slightly ajar.
The man in the hallway, the leader, remained stock still, listening for any movement. He also had an earpiece screwed into his left ear, wirelessly attached to the radio on a harness at his waist. The police transmissions had stopped for some reason, but he wasn’t too worried. He estimated his team had about four minutes before the cops came in their size tens, by which time he and his men would be gone and the boy would be dead. He was certain of his skills and abilities.
He remained in a crouching position, weapon drawn and ready, constantly looking, evaluating, listening, reassessing. Upstairs he heard a door being kicked open. He backed up slightly, his eyes rechecking the two downstairs lounges that had been declared empty.
The one on the left, then the TV lounge on his right.
And then he saw it, and computed it, and instantly realized that the room wasn’t empty because he saw the L-shaped settee move ever so slightly — and knew exactly where the boy was hiding.
Bending low, Donaldson ran his left hand across the kitchen door and very gently put some pressure on it, pushing it further open by one inch. He waited for the creak that did not come. But it was a brand new UPVC door,
