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The man with me nods. “Thanks, Mickey. That’ll be fine.”
So, that’s what he meant by getting a room ready.One prison in exchange for another.
Still, it’s got to be better than that hellhole I was in. I step through the open door and take in my new surroundings.
It’s actually rather nice. A guest bedroom, prettily furnished and definitely comfortable. The soft carpet is a pleasant shade of duck-egg blue and matches the duvet cover and curtains. As well as a queen-size bed there’s a wardrobe, a dressing table, and a chest of drawers. It’s a pity I’ve nothing to put in them.
I rush over to the window in the vague hope there might be an escape route there. No such luck. We’re two storeys up because the ground drops away to the rear of the house. I’m looking out over treetops. It’s a pleasant enough view, but there’ll be no exit that way. At least it’s light outside, though.
“Will it do?”
I spin around to glare at the man who waits by the door, one blond eyebrow raised.
“You’ve no right—”
He silences me with a glare. “We’ve been through all that. Bottom line, you’re staying here until I decide otherwise. Make the best of it.” He tips his chin in the direction of a low table beside the bed. “I had some food brought up. And coffee. Make yourself comfortable.”
“You can’t—” I’m talking to a closed door. I stand there, grinding my teeth in impotent frustration as the newly installed bolt grates into place.
On the plus side, the food is decent and the coffee strong. There’s even cream and sugar. I usually prefer tea, but this will do. The bowl of hot tomato soup is particularly welcome after the chill of that awful cell, to be followed by a round of chicken salad sandwiches. I perch on the bed to do the meal proper justice, and I take stock of my circumstances.
Who the fuck are these people? The blond man seems to think he’s above the law, and he actually took his belt to me. Assault, plain and simple. We call it grievous bodily harm where I come from, though somehow that seems too…simplistic. I don’t feel he attacked me out of malice, anger, or even cruelty, not exactly, but I’m struggling to find the right description for what happened between us. It seems so long ago now, but my bottom still smarts.
And, the shooting. I shudder, remembering. Men were killed in cold blood, right in front of me, and no one appears to think it’s in any way out of order. And that’s only the bits I can recall. There are chunks of time missing, time when I’ve no idea what happened, but I suspect I was drugged. He mentioned sodium thiopental, I think…
I have a vague recollection of him stabbing me in the arm, but there’s no wound to be seen. It fits. The next thing I’m sure of was the din outside the cell. The door had been left open, so I went out, thinking I might make a run for it. I was dazed, disorientated, but I saw…them. The bodies. At first I was rooted to the spot but I heard voices in the next cell. I grabbed a gun from the floor, dropped by one of the dead men, then I crept along the corridor to the next open door.
They were torturing a man in there. It was brutal, vicious, merciless. I tried to stop it, had to do something. It’s my job…
What an idiot. I screwed it up and I thought they would kill me, too. They still might. What did he say, down there in the cells? Something about surviving the night?
And then, in the entrance hall downstairs, those men? Who were they, and who did they think I had a look of?
My head aches. I’m exhausted, mentally and otherwise. On top of it all, I’m conscious that my mum is hundreds of miles away, waiting for news. She’s relying on me, and I’ve managed to let her down. I’ve made a right royal mess of everything. She might die and never know what happened to me, let alone Naomi.
What a fucking mess.
Jack
Ethan, Aaron, and Megan have left, gone back to Caraksay. I shared with them what Ruth told me while under the influence of the drugs I gave her. They agreed it was worth checking out the DNA, though it was obvious that Ethan was less than happy at the entire thing. The last thing he wants is any connection, however tenuous, to the police. Megan took the plastic bottle with her and promised to get the sample analysed and compared with her records from the tissue-matching. She thought it would take a couple of days.
Meanwhile, I’ve heard back from Casey. My mobile rang just after I installed Ruth in her new accommodation. The news was encouraging, at least as far as one aspect of the problem is concerned.
“I hacked into the police personnel records. She’s a probationary constable,” Casey announced. “Been in the job almost a year and currently assigned to the Neighbourhood Policing Team in Cambridge shadowing another officer. No specific specialisms or skills, though she put her name down for detective training. Currently on compassionate leave due to family illness.”
“What family? What illness?”
“Her mother has cancer. Terminal.”
So far, that all checks out with the story she told me, and reinforces my hunch that she’s too inexperienced to be deployed, solo, on a dangerous undercover policing operation. And the sick mother, too. Seems she was telling the truth about that as well, so why not the rest?
I’ll wait for the science, but in my heart I know what the DNA will tell us. Then what?
Ethan is not keen on any potential family reunion. That’s fair enough. It’s his job to be wary, to protect the firm, and we can all see that the presence of a police officer compromises us.
As for Aaron, I’m not so sure. He adores Beth and he’ll want to protect her. He won’t take kindly to having to lie to her or keep this from her. It’s actually pretty massive. A half-sister showing up out of nowhere, a dying birth mother who wants to see her long-lost daughter before she goes. Does Beth even know Ruth exists? If Beth were to ever find out he knew and didn’t tell her, she’d not forgive him in a hurry. Maybe not at all.
Especially if Ruth were to come to harm. Surely Ethan will see how impossible that is and not insist.
