Their Lost Daughters (DI Jackman & DS Evans #2)(92)

The two officers crashed through the small aperture and disappeared. The girl began to scream, ‘Asher! Don’t hurt him! Please don’t hurt him!’

Marie dropped to her knees a few paces from the hysterical girl. ‘It’s alright. Honestly, it’s alright. We just need to talk to him. We won’t hurt him.’ She took out her warrant card and held it up for the girl to see. ‘You understand that we are the police, don’t you? We are here to help you, that’s all. My name’s Marie, and this is Jackman — and you are Kenya Black, aren’t you?’ She smiled warmly at the child. ‘I cannot tell you how pleased we are to meet you.’

The girl rocked backwards and forward, avoiding eye contact, but Jackman saw her nod, very slightly.

Jackman couldn’t believe it. She was alive! Kenya Black was alive! After how many years? Eight? Almost a decade, and she was alive and safe.

Jackman stared at her, dumbfounded. She was slim and pretty, dressed in skinny jeans and a T-shirt, and apparently unharmed.

Then his elation faded. He thought of the Mulberry children.

He stared at Kenya, cowering on the floor and rocking backwards and forward. He knew he was out of his depth. It was time to get help.

*

Jackman ran back up to the stairs and into the hallway, shouting for a WPC to go down and assist Marie.

His superintendent stood open-mouthed. Jackman knew she was as stupefied as he by what they had found in that strange little boudoir below ground.

‘And you say she looks to be in good physical health?’ asked the super for the second time.

‘As I said, skinny and pale, but I’ve seen far worse going through Saltern’s school gates. God knows what state her mind is in, but physically I’d say she’s been looked after very well.’

The superintendent let out a long breathy whistle. ‘This takes some getting your head round. I’ll have to make an emergency call, Rowan. I’ll get some professionals out here immediately. And well done to you and your team. This is not the kind of result anyone ever dared to even dream about.’

Grace Black did. She never gave up hope, thought Jackman. Then before he could speak, he heard noises coming from the stairs, a muffled crashing, and shouting.

Marie had told Kenya that they wouldn’t hurt Asher, but Jackman had a bad feeling that they might have done just that.

He waited, dumbly, gnawing on the side of his forefinger. He really didn’t want to go back down to the cellar. If Asher had been hurt, then he didn’t want Kenya to know about it, not yet. The poor kid had had enough shocks.

‘Sir?’ Gary hurried in through the front door of the lodge. His ashen face told Jackman everything.

‘They’ve shot him, haven’t they?’

‘He’s in a bad way, boss.’ He shook his head. ‘I was there. It was horrible. He just ran. They gave him all the warnings, but he still ran.’

‘But he wasn’t armed, was he?’

‘No. He did have something in his hand, although it didn’t turn out to be a gun. For a moment I thought he would just give up, he seemed so . . . so lost, and so desperate. Then he just ran headlong at our armed officers.’ Gary swallowed hard. ‘Even then they tried to apprehend him, but a warning shot ricocheted off the wall and hit him in the head. I thought it was game over, but the medics say he’s hanging on by a thread.’

Jackman groaned, thinking of the impact this would have on Kenya Black. They didn’t know the exact situation yet, but everything indicated that Asher Leyton had been the only living person Kenya had had contact with for almost a decade.

Then they show up — and shoot him!

Jackman closed his eyes and fervently wished things had turned out differently. He knew a little about the strange bond that could form between hostage and captor.

Gary was looking at him. ‘They say you’ve found a girl alive, sir. Is that true?’

Despite the way things had turned out, Jackman couldn’t hold back his smile. ‘Yes, it’s true, Gary, and believe it or not, the girl is Kenya Black.’

Tears welled up in Gary’s blue-grey eyes and he wiped them with his sleeve. ‘Well I’m damned! After all this time. I just can’t believe it.’ He looked at Jackman. ‘And is she . . . ?’

‘Amazingly, she seems fit and well. When they’ve brought her out, go down and see her room, and where she’s been living for the past ten years. You’ll be as utterly gobsmacked as I was.’

‘It’s going to be a while before we piece it all together, isn’t it? I mean, everything that happened to her.’

‘Let’s hope Asher pulls through. The biggest question is, why is she not dead? I cannot understand why she was not lying in a bed in the Children’s Ward, along with the others. What made her different?’ Jackman shrugged. ‘I’d better get back down there and see how Marie is coping. Gary? Would you go to the hospital and keep a close watch on Asher Leyton? If he wakes, and let’s pray that he does, ring me immediately, and then write down every word he utters, got it?’

‘On my way, boss.’

As he left, Jackman called after Gary. ‘You said that Asher had something in his hand? What was it?’

‘A child’s toy, sir. A little teddy bear.’

Jackman breathed in slowly. When Kenya went missing, she’d had a teddy bear with her. A jointed one, with arms and legs that moved. So it had stayed with her throughout her captivity. A comfort. Something she loved.