Cold Revenge (Willis/Carter #6)(94)

As soon as he saw her, Archie ran at Willis and the two began a wrestling match until Willis managed to bear-hug him into submission. She held him in a tight grip whilst she talked to Cabrina.

‘I won’t be able to control your son much longer.’ Willis laughed. ‘Imagine when he’s thirteen, he’ll be throwing me through windows!’ She growled in his ear. ‘That day may come . . . but it is not this day!’

She let him go and mussed his hair. He had soft black curls from his mum’s Cypriot side of the family and big brown eyes. He was short for six.

‘Sorry, Cab,’ said Willis, ‘Dan got called out on an operation, it could be a long one.’

‘Typical . . . What are you up to?’ she asked Willis.

‘I wish I could hang around with you two,’ replied Willis, ‘but I’m in the middle of something big. Got to go. I’ll tell Dan you were looking for him. See you soon, wild boy,’ she teased Archie, and he went to attack her again as she skipped away.

Willis took the stairs two at a time as she went back upstairs. Tucker shook his head and smiled at her expression.

‘Don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything.’

‘Good.’ She sat down next to him.

‘Why do you think Chris Maxwell wanted to go to Somerset?’ Tucker asked her. ‘He doesn’t look like an action man to me.’

‘He was gutted when we had to stop the search for Heather; he seems to be a one-man crusade in his search for her. This may be the last chance we’ll get to search for her for a long while. Thanks for being so nice to him, by the way. I know he’s a bit of an odd bod.’

‘He’s really weird.’

‘Yeah, I know, but he can’t help it and I understand how he feels about some things, he’s so pent-up.’

‘Excuse me?’ Tucker turned to her and shook his head in disbelief. ‘Did I hear you right? You’re opening up to me a little bit there, be careful.’

She rolled her eyes and went back to looking at the maps.

‘Eb?’ Tucker stayed focused on her.

‘Yes?’

‘Will you take some time after this inquiry is over and come out to France to visit me?’

She stared at him. She had never really looked at the colour of his eyes before; they were the colour of the sky in the early morning, the kind of morning that makes you feel good about life. Before she realised what she was doing she was nodding her head and saying yes.

Archie was fast asleep as Cabrina drove them home from having had tea without Dan. Tina had made a massive fuss of them, and her mind was on other things, when the blinking of the petrol gauge brought her back to earth. She spotted the garage up ahead and pulled in. When she’d finished filling the tank she queued up to pay. There was just one man on the till so Cabrina had to wait, and whilst she did her mind wandered back to Tucker and Willis. She had hoped it would work between them. Tucker was one of those men that just needed someone to push him and Ebony hadn’t wanted to do it but Cabrina still held out hope.

‘Any fuel?’

She’d finally got to the front of the queue.

‘Number Four.’

The stern-faced assistant whose name badge read Raj looked over Cabrina’s shoulder and said, ‘Red Nissan?’

‘Yes, that’s correct.’

‘You left your back passenger door wide open.’

Cabrina couldn’t breathe as she looked out to her car to see the passenger door she knew had been shut now gaping wide open. She raced out of the shop and past the petrol pumps till she got back to the car but Archie was gone.

Willis, Tucker and Zoe were there within fifteen minutes. They pulled up on the forecourt. The garage was now cordoned off and other officers had arrived before them.

‘Where’s Dan? He should be here.’ Cabrina rushed forward when she saw them.

‘He’s not in London, Cabrina,’ said Tucker. ‘We’ll let him know as soon as we can.’

Willis hugged her. ‘It’s all right, Cab, stay calm. What happened?’

‘I went in to pay for the fuel and he must have got out of the car.’

‘Did anyone see him get out?’ Tucker asked.

‘No. But I should have locked him in; I just hate doing that, in case there’s a fire. My God, Eb, please find him. Why would he just wander off like that?’

‘Just stay here, Cabrina. I need to go and talk to the man in the office,’ said Willis. ‘Zoe, stay with her.’

Tucker was already walking towards the kiosk. Inside it were two other detectives from MIT 19. One of them was Kev Baldwin. They all shared the same canteen and went to the pub together. Willis knew him well.

‘Kev?’ she said, joining the others at the counter, watching the CCTV footage.

‘Here you can see, this is her car, this red one,’ said Kev, pointing at the screen. ‘That’s hers, and you see the van behind?’

‘How long had this white Transit van been there?’ Willis asked Raj behind the counter.

‘That van had come in straight after the red car, but not for fuel. I thought the driver was waiting to use the vacuum or putting air in his tyres, but he didn’t use it, he just left.’

‘And the registration number of that van?’ Tucker asked.

‘We’ve already rung that in,’ said Baldwin. ‘We have patrol cars all over this area looking for it now, we’re on this. We were here within minutes of him going missing. Allowing for the fact that there was a queue at the tills, it was probably seven minutes before. We’ll get him back, I’m positive.’