Alice was tired. The journey through the city was taking such a long time. Surely they should be on the motorway and heading towards the airport and Greenock by now? She’d been in such a hurry to leave that her spectacles were still on the side table where she had left them, so each road sign was a mere blur of letters and symbols. She hadn’t even thought to lift her handbag. Or tell anyone. Biting her lip anxiously, she thought of Flynn out the back, cutting the grass. This woman officer hadn’t known about him, had she? What would the poor lad think when he found she had gone?
‘There’s a young man… in the gar-den,’ she said breathlessly. ‘He’ll… be worried about me.’
Was it her imagination, or had the policewoman touched the brake, slowing the car down as she gave Alice a sharp look?
‘It’s all right. My colleague will deal with him,’ she told Alice, turning her gaze back to the road.
Alice sighed and tried to relax, remembering the exercises the speech therapist had taught her. Shoulders down, clench and unclench fists, same with the teeth, loosen the jaw. As she forced herself to go through these little motions, Alice tried not to think about Bill. But it had to be pretty bad. After all, why wasn’t the tall young woman telling her any details? She thought of Maggie, imagining her daughter’s reaction to the worst sort of news. Being a policeman was a hazardous profession. And hadn’t Bill been in situations of extreme danger before now?
Alice watched as the streets became less and less familiar, dark tenements looming on either side as the car left the main road and headed uphill, away from the city centre. They passed a couple of rough-looking men with a long-haired Alsatian dog loping beside them and Alice stared at them from the passenger window as the car swept past.
‘We’re not going down to Greenock?’ she asked at last, bewildered by this unknown area.
The woman beside her shook her head, her expression unfathomable as she drove the car in and out of a series of narrow streets, flinging the vehicle around corners.
Alice clutched the edge of the car seat, a sensation of dread sweeping over her. Something bad was happening, all right. But suddenly it felt as though it were happening to her.
‘There’s no sign of her,’ the police officer at the other end of the line told Lorimer. ‘The nearest CCTV cameras haven’t picked up anyone answering to her description, I’m afraid.’
‘Then, if she hasn’t wandered off anywhere in the immediate vicinity of our house she must have gone off in a car,’ Lorimer said. ‘There really isn’t any other explanation.’
‘Does she have any other friends or family who might have taken her out for a jaunt?’ It was a reasonable sort of question for the officer to ask. Yet Lorimer could detect a hint of scepticism in his tone. The choice of the word jaunt seemed to suggest that this whole exercise was risible. Eyebrows were obviously being raised about the haste with which Alice Finlay had been posted as a missing person. By a senior officer who was pulling rank. Was he making a nuisance of himself? Had Alice simply wandered off?
‘No,’ he replied at last. ‘We’re all the family she has. And she would have let us know if anyone had wanted to take her out. Besides,’ he added sternly, ‘she was expecting the health visitor this morning. She wouldn’t go off when someone was due to see her. That’s just not possible.’
‘The stroke you mentioned,’ the officer coughed delicately, ‘it hasn’t left her… you know… impaired in any way?’
‘No,’ Lorimer told him firmly. ‘She’s as sane as you or I. Maybe not quite as articulate as she used to be but there’s nothing wrong with her mind.’
There was a silence at the other end of the line as the Glasgow officer thought about this.
‘So, no admissions to any of the local hospitals and no trace of her on the CCTV cameras.’ He paused again before continuing and this time his tone was brisk. ‘It’s a little bit of a mystery, Superintendent, but I’m sure our officers will find her before much longer. Don’t worry.’
Lorimer replaced the phone, resisting the urge to slam it back on to its cradle. The infuriating thing was that he’d have dealt with someone else exactly as that officer had dealt with him. They were doing everything just as they should. But it was frustrating not to be a part of it.
There was a knock at his door and he whirled around, a deep frown furrowing his brow.
‘Superintendent.’ It was PC Dodgson edging around the doorway, an expression of anxiety on his young face. ‘D’you think I should go round to DI Martin’s place? Just to see if she’s all right?’
Lorimer’s answering scowl did not deter the officer who came further into the room.
‘We’ve been calling her house all morning but there’s still no answer.’
Lorimer gave a sigh that seemed to come from his boots. A missing mother-in-law was much higher up in his scale of concern right now; Dodgson was surely over-reacting.
‘What do you want me to do? Suggest that you take one of the duty constables along with you?’ He shook his head, exasperated by the very idea. ‘Don’t be so daft, lad. She’ll kill you if she’s in bed with the ’flu and doesn’t want to be disturbed.’
Dodgson bit his lip and a wash of red coloured his cheeks. Lorimer immediately wished he’d been a bit more tactful. After all, this officer had been spurned once too often by his superiors and what little confidence he’d shown recently had come from Lorimer’s own support. He gave a weak grin, holding one hand to his mouth. ‘DS Wainwright thinks it might be more than the ’flu she’s in bed with,’ he said in a conspiratorial whisper.
Shaking his head, Lorimer gave a derisory laugh. ‘And she’ll welcome you even less if that’s the case.’
He was rewarded by an embarrassed giggle from Dodgson who backed out of the door and closed it gently behind him.
The woman on the bed struggled against the metal biting into her wrists. It was no use. They were designed to confine and control after all, weren’t they? If it had been under any other circumstances she might even have found that amusing. But the smell of her own vomit and the wetness below her made the woman weep with frustration.
What on earth had happened? Why was she here? And when had she dressed in this ridiculous, skimpy outfit?
She didn’t need her hands to feel down there. That greasy dampness between her legs could only mean one thing: she’d had sex with somebody. But, try as she might, no vision of a man came into her mind, just a blur of loud music and that kaleidoscope of coloured lights before she awoke to this cold room and the awful realisation of her predicament.
She shivered, wondering how she was ever going to escape. And, worse, who would come to free her from these bonds.
It was the stairs that had done it, Alice knew, feeling that constriction in her chest. She just wasn’t able to climb up one flight, never mind however many it had taken to reach the top floor. The woman had half-pushed, half-heaved her upwards, muttering imprecations at her back, cursing her whenever Alice had protested that she couldn’t go on any more.
It should have been a relief to sink into a chair, but Alice Finlay only felt fear. The young woman had bundled her into this room, making her sit down before fastening her hands behind her back. Even now the tightness in her chest was worse than the feeling of that twine biting into her thin wrists. She’d tried to speak, to plead with her, but the woman had refused to meet her eyes and without a single word had left her there, closing the door behind her.
It was useless to scream, Alice knew. The flats on each level up this dingy, sour-smelling place had all looked abandoned so nobody would be nearby to hear her, even if she could utter a cry. She looked around the empty room, wondering how she might find a means of escape. The bay window was boarded up with brown plywood, one sheet covering each of the four long panes. Fragments of glass around the skirting told of vandals having thrown stones up high, wrecking the place just because they could.
Alice thought of the two men with their Alsatian dog and trembled. This was a part of the city she’d never been in before. She’d seen Glasgow Cathedral as they’d driven past and guessed that she was now in a derelict area in the East End that was probably due to be demolished before all that regeneration that was being talked about.
But why she was here and what was going to become of her was something she simply couldn’t fathom.
It had to be something to do with Bill. That policewoman (if she was a policewoman) knew his name, knew whereabouts he lived. She had known the connection between them.
Alice continued to study the room. The floor was only bare boards, and some crumpled newspapers lay in a corner — abandoned by workmen, perhaps? She glanced upwards. The electric cable suspended from the ceiling held no bulb; the ends of the wire were frayed. No light, then, Alice thought, shivering. And no warmth.
Something scurried over her feet and Alice gave a scream, raising her shoes from the floor. If it was a rat, her panicked cry must have frightened it away for she saw nothing and heard no tiny scuffling noises. But perhaps it would return when darkness fell?
Alice gave a shudder, suddenly wishing she had put on a coat before leaving Maggie’s. Her lamb’s wool cardigan was unfastened and the thin polyester blouse that she’d chosen specially for the nurse’s visit had come untucked from the waistband of her slacks.
She wanted so much to go to the toilet, but that was out of the question. She’d just have to hold on until someone came. Alice gave a moan of anguish, putting her feet close together. She wouldn’t wet herself, wouldn’t give in to that final indignity.
Her mouth closed in a firm line of resolve.
Bill would come and find her. She was sure of that. This was all a terrible mistake, surely. And Bill would sort it out.
Alice yawned suddenly, unable to resist the terrible lethargy that was overcoming her limbs.
Closing her eyes, she tried to blot out her surroundings. Sleep, she told herself. Sleep and perhaps when you wake this nightmare might be over.