Seven Days(86)

A PC was standing by a car, arms folded. He walked over to James and Martin.

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to move on,’ he said. ‘This is a crime scene.’

‘I’m Martin Cooper. Maggie’s my daughter.’

‘Oh. I see. I’m sorry, sir, but the premises are still off-limits.’

James listened. His hands shook. He looked at them, surprised at the physical manifestation of his need. For the last hour he hadn’t thought of the needle or pills; all he had thought of was Maggie.

For the first time in years he felt alive. For the first time in years, he felt there was something worth doing.

He sat on his hands and made himself a promise. If Maggie was returned he would clean up. The drugs would be history.

His dad pointed towards the industrial estate. ‘They think he kept a spare car here. One not linked to him, that he could use to flee if he needed it.’

He looked out of the front window at the four sprawling, derelict buildings. On one side was a scruffy field; on the other was run-down housing estate. Behind was the slick, oily canal.

James stared at it.

Best had talked to him once about canals, when he was tutoring him. What was it he’d said? Something about what he’d do if he won the lottery?

He grabbed his dad’s elbow.

‘Dad,’ he said. ‘I know where she is.’





Wynne


DI Wynne stood by the gates of the industrial estate. She had met James Cooper years ago and it was hard to believe this was the same person. He was thin, his hair patchy, his eyes sunken in a pallid, slack face.

‘So,’ she said. ‘You have an idea where your sister may be?’

James shuffled from foot to foot.

‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Sort of.’

‘Talk us through it,’ Wynne replied.

‘It’s the canal,’ he said. ‘He brought her here because there’s a canal. He didn’t switch to a car, he switched to a boat.’

Wynne folded her arms ‘You think he kept a boat here?’

‘Yes.’ James looked at her. ‘When he was my tutor we were doing probability. He used the lottery as an example. He asked if I thought there was more chance of a set of random numbers coming up than a sequence of numbers – say one to six. I thought it was random but he showed me why it was mathematically the same. Then I asked him what he would do if he won the lottery. He told me he would get a canal boat and live on it. I remember him saying how you could go anywhere you wanted on the canals and no one would know. They go over the whole country …’

‘Did he have a boat?’ Wynne said. ‘Did he ever mention that?’

‘No,’ James said. ‘But I’ve not seen him for years. He could easily have bought one.’

‘And if he had,’ Wynne said, ‘using it to conceal them would make sense. He’d know we’d be looking for a car.’

James Cooper turned to his dad. ‘Them?’ he said. ‘He has more than one prisoner?’

DI Wynne glanced at the PC. ‘Let’s go and look for evidence of a boat,’ she said. She turned to Martin Cooper. ‘I think you might need to talk to your son for a few minutes.’

Wynne stood by the bank of the canal. At the far end of the industrial estate, and hidden from view unless you happened to be standing at this exact spot on the towpath, the canal widened. It was some kind of turning circle. It didn’t look like it got much use – this whole stretch of the canal was not exactly popular with the pleasure boaters – and at the far end a large section of it was overgrown with thick, brambly bushes.

She walked over. If someone wanted to conceal a small houseboat they could do it there. It wouldn’t exactly be hidden, but it would be obscured, and there was no one here to see it anyway.

Her heart rate rising, she approached the bushes. As she did the ground grew softer, the moisture kept in by the foliage.

She stopped and stared at the ground.

‘Shit,’ she said. ‘He was right.’

In the soft ground there were sets of fresh footprints.





Saturday, 23 June 2018


Evening



Maggie


They were on a boat. The man had dragged her from the boot of his car and led her across some kind of wasteland to a white boat, moored on a canal. In those few moments she had stared at the sky. Breathed in the air. It was the first time she had been outside in more than a decade.

There was a cabin in the front and he had thrown her in. Max was still in the car and she had tried to ask about him but the words were muffled by the gag. The man slammed the door and left.

Maggie’s arms were bound at the wrists and her ankles were tied. There was a gag stuffed in her mouth – I’ll do something more permanent later, the man said – and she had a throbbing headache where the shovel had hit her.

The door opened and the man pushed Max into the cabin. He, too, was gagged. She had managed to pick him up by putting her bound wrists over his head and under his bottom. His face was dirty and streaked with tears; she pictured him, eyes wide with panic, as the man tied the gag around his head and shoved him into the cabin.

It was the first time he had ever been outside. Not a great way to start.

Then the engine had fired up and the boat had started to move. It was slow, and, in a small mercy, the gentle rocking had sent Max to sleep.