Target (3 page)

Every muscle in my body tensed, and I held on to the soap dish like grim death. I was cornered, and there was absolutely no way out. My jacket's a faded brown leather, distinctly male, and a good three sizes too big for Jenny who was no more than five five and at least eight inches shorter than me. So these guys would know a man was here somewhere, and there weren't exactly a lot of places he'd have to hide in.

Or would they? There was a chance they'd assume that someone had left it here. Maybe I was going to be OK.

But if so, why did the guy pick it up?

The terror I was feeling was worse than anything I'd ever experienced. My legs felt weak and I thought I might collapse at any moment.

What should I do? Run? Stay put? Run? Stay put? I was completely and utterly torn.

The two men were silent for what felt like a long, long time. Then I heard quiet footfalls, first on the bedroom carpet, then on the tiled bathroom floor, and I saw a silhouette appear.

The shower curtain shot back and I was face to face with a man in his forties whose malicious smile was like a bloodless slash across a pale, wraith-like face stretched so tight by plastic surgery that his big saucer-shaped eyes looked like they'd long ago lost the ability to close. Thinning, wiry hair sprang from his scalp like jet-black brush wires.

This was the Irishman, and he was still holding my jacket in one gloved hand, while in the other was a six-inch gleaming stiletto.

I wanted to piss myself; to curl up and die; to let my legs simply collapse under me.

But I did none of these things. Instead, as his eyes widened with an unpleasant glee and the slash-like smile twisted up at the edges, I smashed the soap dish right into it with every ounce of strength I had, knocking him backwards into the sink.

He grunted in pain and dropped the knife as a deep gash opened up on his cheek.

There was very little room for me to get past him but I didn't think about that. I was out of that bathtub like a greyhound out of a trap, and charging into the bedroom.

The big guy with the shaven head was standing on the other side of the trolley, in the same position he was in earlier, except now he was pulling a large knife from the pocket of his boiler suit and glaring at me with cold, confident eyes.

Yelling as loudly as I could in a desperate effort to panic him, I lobbed the soap dish at his face without even breaking stride. He threw up a hand to ward off the impact but it hit him on the elbow and he yelped in pain as it bounced off. Half a second later I charged into the trolley and slammed it into his lower abdomen, sending him off balance, though not quite knocking him down.

It was enough to buy me a second and a half, though, and that was all I needed as I ran at the half-open bedroom door, keeping my head down and dodging the knife as he lashed out wildly, charging through it and into the lounge, feeling a wild surge of hope. I was going to make it. I was going to get out of there.

'Leave him, he's mine!' came a barked command behind me. It was the Irishman with the saucer eyes, and there was an icy calm in his voice that made my heart lurch.

I jumped the coffee table, clipped it, and almost fell into the front door, grabbing at the handle and yanking it as hard as I could, only noticing at the last second that the chain was on. Incredibly, I didn't panic, just flicked the chain across in one movement, threw the door open and ran out into the corridor.

I felt something swish through the air behind me. The knife. It touched the material of my shirt but didn't break it. He was right behind me, just feet away. I could hear him breathing.

I started running, realizing as soon as I did so that I was going the wrong way from the lifts, and that the corridor ahead seemed to be a dead end. I yelled again, hoping someone would hear me, thinking that if I made enough noise my pursuer would panic and turn back; but there was nothing, just an intensely loud silence. It was like I was suddenly in the middle of a nightmare.

Behind me he kept coming, his breath almost on my neck, and it was his patient, predatory silence that terrified me the most.

There was a door at the end with a staircase sign above it, and I felt another surge of hope and accelerated, shouting as loudly as I could into the silence. I hit the door head on in a way that would have made Maxwell proud. Because it was a swing door, it flew open and I stumbled, almost losing my footing before swinging hard right and charging down the staircase, taking the steps three at a time, knowing that if I fell I was dead, no question.

Every part of me seemed to ache from the exertion of running, and in my semi-inebriated state I wasn't sure how long I could keep it up for. I could still hear him, ever so close, and I had a desperate urge to look round, but knew it might cost me a precious quarter second which might end up being the difference between life and death. Instead, I started taking the steps four at a time, praying that the doorman was at his desk so at least he might be able to help. Praying that I made it that far.

The knife suddenly appeared right in front of my face as he jumped on my back and I was flung forward, tumbling down the steps, doing a somersault, smacking my head painfully on the hard linoleum steps. I knew that any moment I was going to be stabbed. But then I heard the knife clatter against the wall as he was thrown clear.

He landed hard against the wall at the bottom of the steps but somehow he still had the weapon in his hands, and now he was in front of me and blocking my way while I was lying on my stomach on the steps, only five feet from the tip of his blade. His face was bleeding where I'd cut him with the soap dish and his wiry hair was slightly askew. But he still wore the cruel, predatory smile as if it had been etched permanently on the stretched skin, and the expression in his eyes was one of chilling confidence, as if he knew that whatever I did it would make no difference because, in the end, the outcome was inevitable.

But I wasn't finished yet. I used my hands to push me upright as if I was doing some kind of springing press-up. Somehow I managed the process slightly quicker than him, before vaulting over the banister on to the next set of steps, stumbling down them, ignoring the savage pounding in my head.

Once again he was right there with me, and I knew he wasn't going to give up, so, summoning up every last ounce of whatever feeble reserves of energy I had left, I jumped the whole of the next staircase in one, landed hard on my feet, swung round using the banister as support, and did the same thing on the next one, and the next, feeling a kind of delirious adrenalin-fuelled excitement at the prospect of escape.

And at that exact same moment the stairs stopped and I realized I'd missed the ground floor, and possible safety. Instead, I was in the basement.

Panting, I looked back up just as my pursuer arrived at the top of the last flight of steps. 'Oops,' he said playfully, waving the knife in front of him like a wagging finger. 'Bad move.'

A small part of me felt like giving up there and then. Admitting the fact that I wasn't going to make it out of there and throwing myself at his mercy. Except that I knew there wouldn't be any.

And it was only a small part of me. Self-preservation won through, and as he jumped down the last of the steps I turned and ran for the fire door in the corner – the only way out. I had no idea whether or not it was open, or where it led to, just relied on my instinct to live to keep me going. Running right into it, I pulled down the metal handle, felt it give, and half fell, half scrambled through into a cold and cavernous underground car park.

He was still with me, almost as if he was glued to my slipstream, but this time I took the offensive and turned and slammed all my weight against the fire door, catching him by surprise and trapping his knife arm in it.

But before I could do any real damage, he pushed from the other side and, being one hell of a lot stronger than me and with momentum on his side, he sent it flying open, and me stumbling backwards.

I turned and ran through the dimly lit, silent car park, not knowing where I could turn. Ahead of me was one of those big roller doors that I knew was either the entrance or the exit, but it was shut. My legs felt weak and I just couldn't seem to get the pace up to put any distance between us – the bastard was like some kind of automaton – and I'd barely gone twenty yards before he leapt on my back for a second time, sending me crashing into the concrete.

Sitting astride my back, he yanked my head up by the hair and I knew in an instant that he was going to cut my throat like some kind of animal. I bucked and thrashed as the knife suddenly appeared right in front of my face, and managed to pull free a hand. I immediately grabbed him by the wrist, forcing the blade away from me. I also jerked my head forward, trying to bite him, but his grip on my hair was too strong. This guy had the better of me, and both of us knew it. My arm was shaking with the effort of holding the blade away, and right then my life expectancy could be measured in seconds.

The sound of hydraulics interrupted our deadly duel, and a second later the roller door began to open. I think it surprised both of us because I felt his grip on my hair momentarily ease, which gave me the chance I needed. I sank my teeth into his knife wrist, biting down hard, knowing that while his arm remained in my mouth he couldn't use the blade on me.

He yelled and grabbed my hair again, tugging me backwards, but this time I wasn't letting go and I kept biting down, remembering something I'd once read about the strength of a human bite being something like two hundred pounds of pressure per square inch. I tasted blood and his yells became more urgent.

And all the time the roller door kept opening. It was now five feet above the tarmac and I could see the headlights of a big 44 just outside, waiting to come in. There was no way it wouldn't see us. I was going to make it. I felt a rush of hope, kept my teeth clamped on his wrist.

But then, in one swift, savage motion, he yanked his wrist free from my jaws. I clenched my teeth, waiting for the knife to slice across my flesh, but instead the weight lifted from my back, and a second later I heard his footfalls on the concrete floor as he ran back the way he'd come.

Exhausted and battered, I lay where I was, looking up at the 44 as it nudged its way inside before turning left and disappearing from view.

The driver hadn't seen me. Did this mean that my attacker was going to come back and finish the job? Was he just waiting?

I didn't hang around to find out. I ran wildly through the open roller door and up the ramp, hitting the fresh night air of the street and breathing it in as if my very life depended on it.

But my life depended on nothing any more. I'd saved it. Now I had to think about Jenny's.

I kept running up the dark, silent street until I came to an alleyway on my right. I turned down it and, exhausted, took refuge behind a pair of wheelie bins, leaning against a wall and slowly sliding down it until I was sitting down. I had to phone the police straight away and tell them what I'd just witnessed, so, after taking a few seconds to get at least some of my breath back, I reached into my pocket for my mobile.

And cursed. It was in my jacket, back at the apartment.

Something else too...my wallet. With all my ID in it.

Which meant they were going to know exactly who I was.

A part of me wanted to keep running. To put as much distance between me and Jenny's place as possible, knowing how close I'd just come to death. Another part wanted to go back and keep watch on it, hoping that I might be in time to see the two men leave and pick up any vital clues I could then give to the police.

As it happened, I could do neither. I was too exhausted, and for a full minute I concentrated simply on getting my breath back.

As my panting began to ease, I was suddenly jolted back to reality by the sound of a car moving ever so slowly along the street.

Jesus, they're still here. Looking for me.

I turned round, looking for a way out, saw only a high wall I was never going to be able to climb. I was stuck up a dead end. Knowing I was hopelessly exposed, I lifted up the lid of one of the wheelie bins and wriggled inside, landing loudly on a pile of stinking binbags.

The sound outside was muffled but I could hear the car stopping and knew that it was at the end of the alley.

A car door opened. Shut again.

I began to pray. I'd never really believed in God, but now that I'd arrived at this single most terrifying point in my life, I desperately begged forgiveness for any sin I may have committed and promised faithfully that if he got me out of this I would be a much better person. That I would give money to charity, help people . . . anything.

Stop. Don't breathe.

I could hear stealthy footfalls on the concrete. Approaching me. Something plastic in one of the binbags made a cracking sound beneath me and I clenched my teeth. The silence was killing me. Was one of them right outside now, knife in hand, getting ready to strike?

I strained, listening.

Silence.

The wait seemed to last for ever. Seconds ticking like dull, bored hours.

And then I heard the car door slam again and the car pull away.

I exhaled sharply, but didn't move. It could have been a trap.

Gradually I began to breathe more easily but I continued to lie exactly where I was, listening to the quiet of the night. At some point I think I even drifted off to sleep: I remember opening my eyes and getting a shock because I was still in darkness, and the smell was terrible, and my mouth felt like someone had been sandpapering it. At first I didn't know where I was. Then it all came back to me in a huge rush like some kind of horrible hallucination. Someone had tried to kill me, and they'd come very close to succeeding.

I took a couple of deep breaths to calm myself, then clambered to my feet and climbed out of the wheelie bin into far fresher air. The alley was quiet, even the night-time sounds of the city seemed strangely muted. I stretched, and looked at my watch. It had just turned twenty past one – over an hour since it had all happened. An image suddenly came to me of an unconscious Jenny being casually flung into the cleaning trolley, and I felt a renewed burst of anger and guilt. I could have done something to help her. And I hadn't.

Rubbing my eyes, trying hard to focus as I felt the first stirrings of an early hangover coming on, I walked back to Jenny's street and, recalling the route I'd taken earlier, turned left. I stopped in front of her apartment block. Nothing looked any different from when we'd arrived together, which now felt like a lifetime ago. Except that this time the doorman, a middle-aged man in a jacket and tie, was sitting at the front desk, reading a paper and eating a packet of crisps. It looked a perfectly natural scene, and, standing there, I had this bizarre feeling that maybe nothing had actually happened. Perhaps I'd dreamt it all.

But no. It had happened all right. I was sure of that.

I started towards the door, then stopped. There was no point trying to talk to the doorman. I looked and smelled pretty awful, having fallen asleep in a dustbin, and he hadn't even seen me earlier. He'd probably think I was mad. I had to speak to the police. But with no phone, no ATM card and only a handful of loose change in my jeans pocket, that was going to be a lot easier said than done.

I memorized the apartment address and walked out on to the main road, heading in a general southerly direction. There was still traffic around but most of the taxis ignored me, and those few that did stop pulled away again as soon as I told them I needed to get to a police station and almost certainly didn't have enough money for the fare. At last I found a driver charitable enough to give me directions to the nearest one, before advising me to take a bath as soon as possible and disappearing pretty sharpish.

It wasn't far, but I still managed to get lost several times, and it was past two o'clock when I finally walked through the door of Islington police station and straight into a scene of bedlam of the sort I suspected was played out in stations like this most nights and which reminded me graphically why I'd left England in the first place.

An overweight guy in a cut-off T-shirt and shorts that were falling down round his ample behind was being held face down in the middle of the linoleum floor by a total of four uniformed officers while he kicked and struggled and yelled that he wasn't drunk, even though the evidence strongly suggested otherwise. His girlfriend, meanwhile, was being pinned up against the wall with her arm behind her back by two female officers, both of whom were trying to dodge her spiked heels as she kicked out donkey-style and let out long, piercing, horror-film screams in a voice so high I actually had to put my hands over my ears. The place smelled of stale sweat and disinfectant. I felt a sudden, intense desire to be lying next to Yvonne in the still of the Burgundy farmhouse we'd once shared, with only the sound of the owls for company.

I walked round the guy on the floor and stopped at the front desk where a world-weary custody sergeant with a long face and heavy black eye bags gave me a stare so intense in its disinterest that I could only assume he'd spent hours in front of the mirror perfecting it. 'Put him in cell three,' he called out over my shoulder during a temporary pause in the screaming. He sighed, turning his attention back to me. 'Yes, sir?'

'I want to report a kidnapping,' I told him, putting on my most serious and earnest expression.

'Whose?'

'A friend of mine.'

'And when did this happen, sir?'

I looked at my watch. 'A couple of hours ago now.'

'And you've just seen fit to report it.'

'I had to walk here. I've lost all my money and my phone.'

'Have you been drinking, sir?' he asked, his tone annoyingly patronizing.

I knew there was no point in denying it. 'A little, yes. But not like him.' I pointed to the drunk whose shorts had fallen to his ankles now that he'd been lifted to his feet, revealing a sight none of us wanted to see.

'You know the kind of stories I hear from drunk people?' he continued wearily.

The girl screamed again. I waited for her to stop before continuing. 'Listen, officer, I'm being deadly serious. A girl I know was kidnapped tonight by two men and I need to talk to someone in CID urgently. I'm not making this up, I promise you.'

'Put her in cell five,' he called over my shoulder. 'So I don't have to listen to her.'

'Wanker!' she howled before being dragged across the floor behind her boyfriend and through a door to the cells.

'Please.' I looked at him imploringly. 'I'm not drunk, and I'm not mad. I know what I saw.'

He stared at me for a long second, then stood up, clearly deciding it was easier just to pass the buck. 'Take a seat and I'll see who's available.'

I sat down on a hard plastic chair in the corner and waited in the now empty foyer, staring at the posters warning against committing various heinous and not-so-heinous crimes that lined every spare inch of wall. I was absolutely shattered, but it struck me then that it might not even be safe for me to go home. If the kidnappers had searched my jacket, they'd have found my wallet. Then I realized with a sense of relief that there wasn't anything in there with my address on. I never took my driving licence out with me, so it would just be my credit and debit cards, plus my Blockbuster membership. So all they'd have was my name as it appeared on the cards: R. Fallon. Not exactly common, but in a city the size of London there were bound to be a few of us. So I was probably safe. But right then I could have done with something a little more concrete than 'probably'.

'Mr Fallon?'

I looked up and saw an attractive dark-haired woman in her early thirties emerging from the door opposite. She was dressed casually in jeans, a sweatshirt and trainers, but straight away I could tell she was a policewoman. There was a toughness and confidence about her that was immediately reassuring.

'I'm DS Tina Boyd,' she said as we shook hands, 'Islington CID. I understand you want to report a possible kidnapping?'

'Well, it's not a possible kidnapping, it's a real one. A friend of mine's been abducted.'

She nodded understandingly. 'Let's talk inside.'

She led me back through the door, up some stairs and into a small corner room, empty except for a desk with a chair on either side. There was an oldish-looking tape recorder on the desk and she switched it on, motioning for me to take a seat. 'I hope you don't mind. I want to record our interview.' She pulled a notebook out of her back pocket and sat back in the chair, regarding me with eyes that didn't look like they missed a lot. 'So, tell me what happened. From the beginning.'

I told her everything from the moment I'd met Jenny in the bar to when I'd turned up at the police station, keeping the details as brief and concise as possible. She listened patiently and didn't interrupt at any point, except to take descriptions of the two kidnappers. The thing about her was that she had the kind of face you automatically want to trust, and I felt myself warming to my theme as I continued, ignoring the little voice in my head that told me that what I was saying sounded outlandish.

'So she was alive when they took her?'

'I believe so, yes.'

'And did they make any attempt to molest her?'

'Not that I saw. They tied her up and they chucked her in the cleaning trolley.'

'And there's no reason you can think of why they would have taken her? Anything they might have said when you were listening in, for instance?'

I shook my head. 'From what I can gather they were trying to get her out of the apartment as fast as possible.'

'OK,' she said, writing something down in the notebook. 'And what's Jenny's last name?'

My mind suddenly went blank. I'd only ever known her as Jenny, although I had definitely been told her last name before. I racked my brains. 'It's ...Brakestone, Brakeslip, something like that. No, Brakspear. It's definitely Brakspear.'

'You're sure about that?'

I nodded, way too vigorously, conscious of how unconvincing this must sound to a police officer. 'Yeah, I'm sure.'

'And you met her in a bar tonight? I'm assuming you'd had a few drinks?'

'I'd had a few, yes, but I knew what I was doing.'

'And you say Jenny's a friend of yours? But one whose last name you don't remember?'

'I don't know her that well, OK?'

DS Boyd shot me a hard look, the kind that told me in no uncertain terms to remember who I was dealing with. 'Listen, Mr Fallon, I'm just trying to establish the facts. So how exactly do you know her?'

'She went out with a friend of mine for a while.'

'And your friend's name is?'

'Dominic Moynihan.'

She wrote down Dom's contact details, then asked me when the two of them had split up.

'A while back. Maybe a year.' I thought about adding that he'd been in touch with her recently about getting back together but stopped myself, knowing that it wouldn't make me look good.

'What do you do for a living, Mr Fallon?'

'I'm a writer.' Usually I loved to say that to people, but now it sounded fatuous, and tinged with an air of unreliability.

'And what do you write about?'

'Does it matter? I'm trying to report a kidnap here. A young woman's been abducted and we need to find her.'

DS Boyd gave me another of those looks. 'I'm just trying to find out some background. It'll help us in our search.'

'I write crime,' I answered wearily. 'True crime.'

'And does it involve a kidnap?'

'No it doesn't. Jesus Christ! What the hell do I have to do to convince you I'm telling the truth? Do you think I want to be sitting here in the middle of the night talking to people who'd far rather I just went away?'

I fell silent, staring at her. Feeling at the end of my tether.

DS Boyd rested her hands carefully on the desk and looked at me closely. She had very dark eyes but it was difficult to tell whether they were brown or blue. 'OK, Mr Fallon,' she said, 'let me level with you. It may surprise you to learn that we get a lot of people coming in here reporting crimes that haven't actually happened, particularly when they've been drinking. We're also very busy dealing with the many crimes that do happen, so I have to ask a lot of questions before I'm in a position to judge what to do. Now I've heard what you've got to say and I'm satisfied that you genuinely believe an incident's happened—'

'It has. I promise you.'

'Then I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt.' She stood up abruptly.

'Where are you going?'

'To the scene of the crime.' She gestured for me to follow her. 'I'm assuming you remember where that is?'