Chapter 3

Mitch whimpers, keeping the stroller pulled well back from the corner and tucked out of sight. Jenny is restless. She wants to get out, to run and play. “Mommy…”

“Shhhh, Sweetheart.” Mitch pulls a sticky paper bag from a pocket, takes out the largest, chewiest candy she can find and gives it to the toddler. Then she peers around the corner again.

Where did they take Frank?

The car pulled away, driving perfectly normally, but with her husband packed between two strangers…

Police?

Really police?

… and Larry at the wheel…

She sees the man in cop uniform speaking to Gemma.

He looks familiar…

She knows him… knows his face…

Where from?

“Wanna go home. Wanna play. Ellie.” Jenny bangs little fists on the front bar of the stroller. Green sugar encrusts her mouth and chin, clashing against carrot-orange hair.

The familiar/unfamiliar cop finishes talking with Gemma, touching his cap as she bangs her door closed. He smiles as she does so. It’s not a pleasant smile.

Where does she know him from?

She hangs on his face, taking in his features, but before she can fix the memory, he turns and walks away.

As he vanishes from sight, Mitch dashes for Gemma’s door, Jenny squealing with delight as the stroller races over grass, bumping over tarmac and flagstones.

Knocking hard at the door. “Gemma!”

There’s no reply.

She bangs again, with the flat of her palm on the timber. To one side, a curtain moves then stills, but still, there is no reply. After a few seconds, bolts scrape closed on the other side of the door.

“Gemma, please. I need you to look after Jenny!”

The door remains closed. Mitch runs to the window, rapping knuckles on the glass. Gemma is there, but she turns her back, a phone pressed to her ear as she talks.

Eyes brimming, breath snatching, Mitch dashes to the next house along. Betty’s car is there. Again at the window, she knocks hard. But Betty too is on the phone. As she sees Mitch through the window, her lips purse and she turns away.

She’ll lose him…

Mitch sprints back to the stroller, pulls a purse from the carry sack on the back, scrabbling inside for keys. Opening Frank’s car, she lifts Jenny up and out, fastening her into the child-seat in the back. Snatching up a furry pink bear she pushes it into the little girl’s hands. “You talk to Teddy now. Tell him a story…”

No time to lose…

… then abandoning the stroller, gets into the front seat, tosses her purse down on the passenger seat and sets off, following the walking cop.

Then, she remembers the face. From more than two years ago…

Larry’s bookkeeper.

“I have the accounts for you, sir. Expenditures and purchases for the last month, including the last shipment…”

What was he called?

Is he really a cop?

She drives, cruising, scanning the streets for a blue uniform.

Where did he go?

And there… a dark blue shirt and pants, back turned to her, he saunters along as though the world were a perfect place.

Boys in wizard robes toss bangers down the street, laughing and pointing when a cat panics and dashes across the road. Mitch slams on brakes then curses, hoping the sound didn’t carry, but the strolling figure doesn’t turn.

Mitch slows, pulls in a little so she can watch. A car behind paps a horn, the driver giving her a finger as he overtakes.

Bech…

That’s what he called him… Bech.

He stops by a black and white vehicle…

Really a policeman then?

… unlocks, gets in and after a few moments, drives off at a sedate pace…

… and Mitch follows.

In the back, Jenny gurgles and burbles and burps to the pink bear. Sometimes her sounds are words. Most of the time she talks secret-teddy language. Sometimes she stops to listen as Teddy talks back.

*****

Bech parks well away from his intended destination. There would be explaining to be done; a police car parked in such a spot.

The area’s not great. One line after another of shitty houses full of shitty people. Leaving the car so far away, it might be vandalised of course, by the low-lives in the area, but if that were to happen… better away from the scene of interest.

From a couple of hundred yards back, Mitch watches, lingering, as the police vehicle parks up and the occupant gets out and starts walking.

To follow on foot or by car?

Easier by car…

Less easily spotted on foot…

But it’s a residential area. Plenty of cars around.

He’s walking quickly, setting a smart pace….

By car for now…

The uniform vanishes around a corner and Mitch hits the gas, hurtling forward. At the corner, she slows again, nosing ahead, leaning to see.

He’s there, still walking. She waits until he’s lost from view again, then once more speeds on.

How far is he walking?

Surely he wouldn’t leave his vehicle too far away?

Her question is answered as he turns off the street and into an abandoned industrial zone.

*****

Bech makes his way, strolling down walkways and across dilapidated yards. Trees sprout in unlikely fashion from gutters fifty feet up. Cobbles and flags sprout green between cracks as Nature reclaims her own. But she has a lot of work ahead of her before the area is beautiful again.

Not far from the river and once a hive of industrial activity, the site is a rotted shambles of disused warehouses and factories, most with windows and doors bricked up against squatters and pigeons.

Occasionally Bech passes a door swinging open, or hanging from its hinges. He knows what will be inside: stinking mattresses, foil and needles, broken bottles. And the refuse of humanity, lying dreaming in drug-induced ecstasy, or perhaps nightmare.

A one-eyed tom watches him from the edge of a small colony of cats. A mangy tabby bathes in the thin October sunshine. A couple more rack-ribbed felines share a small feathered corpse.

Bech walks briskly on. Almost there.

*****

Mitch pulls up again.

A car is bound to be noticed in there…

She looks to the back. Jenny, Teddy clutched to her chest, is sleeping.

Mitch chews at a knuckle, looks back at Jenny again.

Frank…

Mitch looks up and out at the bright sunshine, then eases the car into reverse, parking up under the shade of a high wall. “Mommy’s just going to be a few minutes, Sweetie.” The little girl sleeps on.

Blinking hard, Mitch winds a window down a couple of inches before getting out. She locks the door then, with a last look back at Jenny and Teddy, heads into the industrial park.

There he is…

*****