‘That’s not all,’ Lusk continued nervously. ‘Dispatch received a call from a man over in Blyth, who believes his wife was abducted this afternoon. He reported seeing, I quote, “a large, silver bus” in the vicinity at the time, and he believes it may be involved.’
‘Shit!’ Gretsch took his head in his hands.
‘Then, a couple of minutes ago, we got this call from Leighton Jones.’
‘What did he say?’
‘That he’s staked out a bus-stop, where he believes the suspect vehicle will show up. He’s requesting back-up.’
‘Did he mention having anyone else with him?’
‘Yes.’ Lusk checked his notepaper. ‘Vicki Reiner. He said she had made a booking on the bus.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘I haven’t answered. He’s still on the line out there.’ Lusk glanced back towards the reception area.
‘He’s on the line right now?’
‘Yeah, I didn’t want to respond without speaking to you.’
‘Okay, tell him that we are keen to help, and we’ll send assistance to support him. Then, dispatch a cruiser with the instructions to arrest Jones, and bring the old bastard in!’
‘What do we charge him with?’
‘Everything we can!’
After Lusk left the office, Gretsch groaned, picked up his coffee mug, and threw it at the wall, where it exploded into white porcelain shards.
37
Leighton sat sweating behind the wind-shield on the opposite side of the road, while Vicki stood nervously at the bus stop. His car was pulled back from the road, partly concealed between two empty shells of buildings, but still having a clear view of the bus stop.
The former detective was nervous as hell. Firstly, he was concerned for the safety of the girl standing at the bus stop, and occasionally waving a discreet hand at him. In many ways, he felt the plan was flimsy as hell, and yet, he cared enough for Vicki to go along with it. She was right, too - this was the closest they had come to seeing if the damned bus even existed. Secondly, he knew he had already broken a number of laws to even get this far, and his phone call to the station had done little to reassure him.
An unfamiliar officer had taken the call. They had sounded initially dismissive, and then alarmed, as Leighton explained what he and Vicki were planning to do.
Eventually, after some dead time on the line, when the officer went to check with a more senior officer, they had agreed to send some type of assistance. Now, alone in his car, without the comfort of a valid police badge, Leighton hoped to hell they hadn’t been lying.
After a smattering of cars and trucks passed them, the silver bus finally appeared on the horizon, shimmering in the heat-haze of the road. Leighton watched intently as Vicki held up one hand to shield her eyes from the scorching sun, and used the other to wave to the bus. While this happened, a reflected glint of sunlight from the bus bounced off something on the floor of Leighton’s car. The flash of light caught his eye, and he glanced down to see the revolver he had given to Vicki was half concealed. As he reached down to recover the weapon, the bus pulled up to the stop, blocking Leighton’s view.
‘Shit!’ He reached down fumbling to reach the weapon. ‘Hey, Vicki!’ he called, and clambered out of the car.
At that moment, there was a loud whoop as a police cruiser appeared from nowhere and screeched to a stop in front of Leighton’s car, blocking it in. For a moment, Leighton felt relief, as he stupidly assumed that the officers had arrived to deal with the bus, but this notion was quickly dispelled when two officers tumbled from the car and pointed their guns towards him rather away from him.
‘Drop the weapon, Jones!’ the taller of the two officers shouted at him.
‘Wait, that’s the bus I called about…’
‘Drop the fucking weapon, or I will shoot.’
Caught between confusion and panic, Leighton let the revolver fall to the ground, and held his hands up. One of the officers, a tall lean man called John Ross, hurried to him, grabbed Leighton by the wrist, and twisted it, turning him around, and slamming him against his car.
‘Listen,’ Leighton tried. ‘You’ve got to list-’
Leighton felt his feet kicked apart. Someone grabbed his head, and his hands were roughly pushed together and cuffed. He twisted his face to look towards the bus, which was pulling away. When the silver bulk had passed, Leighton found, as he expected, the bus stop was empty.
‘Leighton Jones, I am arresting you on suspicion of trespass, theft, and the abduction of a vulnerable person. You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an attorney …’
He didn’t hear the rest. All of his mental processes were consumed by the horror of Vicki’s situation, and the fact she was onboard the fleeing bus, unarmed.
38
Janey opened her eyes; the left one was painful and swollen. She tried to reach for it, and instantly felt a flash of pain rip across her shoulder. It was then, in those first moments awake, that she realised the absolute horror of her situation. She was naked and fastened, with steel handcuffs, to a rusting metal bedstead. Beneath her body, the stained mattress was wrapped in clear plastic. The room was old with a scarred wooden floor and peeling floral wall paper. To her left, was the only source of watery light - a grimy window. But, perhaps worse than all of these discoveries, was the fact a piece of duct tape had been wrapped around her head, covering her mouth. She barely had time to recall the horror of her abduction, before she heard footsteps outside the door.
Janey genuinely flinched as the door opened, and the tall man, who had dragged her to the bus, walked in. His right hand was clamped around what she initially thought was a rifle, but as he approached, she saw it was some type of plastic tripod.
‘Well, hi there, miss.’ He grinned at her. ‘I hope you had a nice rest. Soon, you’re going to need your energy.’
For a painfully long time, the man simply stood staring at Janey, drinking in her naked vulnerability. He loved this part of his ritual, almost more than the later, messier stuff. At this point, he was fully in control - he was the one with the power over the bitch that had attracted him.
He then began to whistle to himself, as he assembled the black metal tripod, and placed it on the ground at the foot of the bed.
‘You might be saying nothing just now, but you’ll be so noisy later on. That’s why I have these.’ He began to rummage around in his trouser pockets, producing two grubby foam earplugs, which he held out triumphantly. Janey could not think beyond the horrifying fact that the sadistic man, who was arranging to rape and murder her, looked so ordinary. There was no scarred deformity, no villainous laugh - just a bland man, like millions of others.
‘Now,’ he said, no longer looking at her, ‘I’m just going to fetch the old video camera from the barn, so don’t you go rushing off anywhere.’
He left the door open intentionally, as if to mock his chained-up victim with the illusion of escape.
In response to this, Janey fought an insistent urge to whimper herself into despair. Part of her mind was almost defeated by the absolute horror of her predicament, and yet, something inside her refused to let this pathetic man have any dominion over her. Instead, she focussed on the one moment of good fortune in the entire nightmare.
As a child, Janey had saved scavenged pennies in an old jam jar, which she secretly kept in the musty shadows beneath her bed. One rainy February afternoon, she had tipped them out on to her Snow White bedspread to count them. They had all clattered into a metallic puddle on the bed, except for one of the stubborn coins that remained stuck to the bottom of the glass jar, adhered by the remnants of the original jam.