Captured (12 page)

Hanging up the phone, Neil Lennox squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. His old friend Mike in Bangkok hadn’t been able to dig up any more information on the apartment, except to confirm that the rent had been prepaid in cash for three months by a young expat.

Reluctantly, he opened up Grace’s corporate email account. As head of information security, he had company-mandated access to the email accounts of every employee. Quickly scanning her inbox, he noticed two day’s worth of unopened emails. That wasn’t characteristic of Grace, he thought, noting the arrival time of the last email she had read, and checking the delivery time of her last text. She had checked her emails three hours after sending him the message. He opened his sent messages. He had sent her the address in Thailand a few hours before that.

Shaking his head, he skimmed through the subject lines in her inbox and sent items. There was nothing of a personal nature. He opened a new browser window and hesitated. It had been a long time now since he had accessed anyone’s emails or computer without their permission: it hadn’t ended so well for him the last time. But this was different. Something had happened to Grace, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was his fault.

This has something to do with this Simon guy
, he thought, typing in Grace’s username and password, relieved to find that she hadn’t followed his advice and chosen a stronger password, not that that would have been much of an obstacle to him now. Her inbox was filled with a familiar subject line: “Kirsty Anderson”. His attention was drawn to a later subject: “Flight Reservation Confirmation”.
Where was she flying to?
 

Opening the message, he scanned the message for the destination and departure date. He quickly calculated the time difference. “But she messaged me when she should have been on the flight,” he said to the empty room. He opened several other emails but found nothing of use.

He looked at his phone for a moment, remembering that she had used her work phone to message him. He returned his focus to his computer, opening a program and typing in a series of codes. Almost immediately, a long list of numbers displayed on his screen: Grace’s recent outgoing and incoming calls and messages. His own number dominated the list. Aside from a couple of one-off numbers, he noticed another series of digits recurring on the list. He picked up his phone and searched for the application he needed.

Once it had loaded, he copied in the number on the screen, followed by a six digit code, and pressed send. He sat back and waited, out of options. The reply didn’t take long, and cause him to inhale sharply when did. His message had requested a name and home address, and current GPS coordinates of the phone number.

Simon Lamb, 5 Bayham Street, NW1 0EY. Current location available: 51.5382316 -0.14057346

He typed the coordinates into the map, and was confused when they showed that Simon was at his home address. He could have camouflaged the location of his computer, but these coordinates were solid. He jotted down the address and left the office.

Simon didn’t look surprised when he saw who was leaning against his porch. In fact, he looked relieved.

“Thank god. Come in,” he stood aside and gestured Neil inside. “Did Grace call you? Is Kirsty okay?”

Neil cleared his throat, appraising Simon. “I noticed you called her several times.”

Simon seemed to be weighing something up. “Has something happened to Kirsty?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

Simon sighed. “It’s not that simple...”

“Oh for christ’s sake. Grace called me asking me to trace an IP address in Bangkok. I did, and sent her the address. She... did reply to me after that but I haven’t heard from her since. It’s not like her. Your turn. Why are you so desperate to get in touch with Grace all of a sudden?”

Simon scratched his head. “I was out of the office for two weeks, and when I came back and saw Grace’s email,” he paused, “you got it, too? About Kirsty not showing up?”

Neil nodded.

“I was worried. I wanted to talk to Grace and see what was going on,” he finished.

Neil watched him, waiting. “And?”

“And I never heard back from her.”

Neil saw other man’s hesitation and waited. There was something else, he was sure of it.

“Look if you know something... I’d hate to be the one responsible...” he pushed.

Simon looked wretched. “It’s not as simple as you think. He has me by the balls.”

“Who?” Neil asked through gritted teeth, resisting the urge to shake him.

Simon signed again, more deeply this time. “Okay. Why don’t we sit down? But first you have to promise you won’t mention this to anyone.”

“We went to school together, me and Daniel,” Simon started, clutching the generous glass of whisky he’d poured.

Neil did his best to mask his impatience, sensing that Simon might clam up if he rushed him.

“I went to the Curzon School. I know, it’s pretty pricey. I won a scholarship bursary that covered both tuition and boarding. All the other boys in my class were the sons of peers and businessmen, but I got on alright, I always thought. Maybe I was being naive.”

“Well done you,” Neil said, solemnly.

Simon looked wounded. “Do you want me to tell you or not?”

“Go on, just get to the point. I need to find Grace.”

“I only started at the school when I was thirteen, so I missed the first year. Everyone else had made their friends in the first year, so it was hard in the beginning. But I got friendly with a guy in my dorm, Daniel. Pretty soon, we were doing everything together. He was popular and his parents were unimaginably wealthy, but Daniel himself was perfectly normal. Almost too normal, now that I look back on it; he was so even tempered and reasonable. I realise now that that’s a strange characteristic for a teenage boy,” Simon said, looking up at Neil.

Neil nodded.

“Anyway, school was school; we played rugby in the junior years, before our focus turned to alcohol and girls later on. We got up to the usual, sneaking out at night to the local pub. Daniel was like a brother to me at that stage. One night when we were sixteen, I woke up and noticed that he had gone. I assumed that he had snuck down the pub. Anyway, I threw my coat and trainers on and snuck out quietly. It was only around eleven o’clock. It was about five minutes later when I met him coming back. He was drunk. And covered in blood. I asked him what he’d done, but he wouldn’t give me an answer. He grabbed my arm and dragged me back to the school, and made me swear not to say anything.

“The following morning, he acted normally. I didn’t think much more of it. He kept disappearing throughout the day – I presumed it was to be sick. Like I said, he’d been pretty drunk. That evening, I was called to the headmaster’s office. My parents were there, with two policemen. I knew immediately that something was wrong. The way they were all looking at me...” he trailed off, shaking his head.

“Daniel had been seeing one of the girls in the village. We all did: the school was in the middle of nowhere, so they were bored and so were we. It was the usual teenage stuff. This girl, Rebecca, had broken up with him a few weeks beforehand. It happened all the time – go out with someone for a while, then date their friends. It wasn’t serious; we usually didn’t get much further than a kiss and a quick grope in the car park.

“He seemed fine about it. He’d moved on to another girl, I’ve forgotten her name now. Rebecca had moved in on me. I was a bit hesitant at first, but he said it was alright and one thing led to another,” he looked up at Neil, who watched impassively.

“So I walked into that room, and knew immediately that something terrible had happened. Why else would the police be there. But I still thought it must have been to question me about Daniel, not...”

Neil frowned. “It wasn’t?”

“No,” Simon shook his head. “Rebecca had been beaten to a pulp the night before, and had pointed the finger at me. The police had searched my belongings and found bloody clothes.

“I was expelled on the spot, and taken into custody. It broke my parents, even though I tried and tried to tell them that it wasn’t me. It just seemed like a preposterous lie: Rebecca herself was accusing me, and they had his clothes. There was no CSI back then,” he smiled wryly.

“Couldn’t they test the clothes now, surely there’s–”

Simon snorted. “Do you think he left it at that? There was always the risk that someone might believe my story over his. His father hired me the best lawyer money could buy, just like he’d paid Rebecca’s family to blame me and not his son. At least that’s what I assume he did, and I’ve had a lot of time to think about it since.

“I was tried as a child and my hotshot lawyer got me off. He dragged Rebecca’s mother’s name through the dirt, calling all kinds of witnesses to prove how unreliable and irresponsible she was. Rebecca herself had died in hospital from her injuries. Her mother was an alcoholic who was practically down-and-out, so no one would have believed her if she’d changed her story.

“So I got off, but the accusation stuck. I had been in detention waiting to go to trial for almost a year. Safely locked away as far as Daniel’s family was concerned. I still didn’t fully understand it though: when I got out I was full of rage. I was going to make sure Daniel paid for what he had done to Rebecca. And to me, to a lesser extent. He didn’t kill me, but I was a nerdy kid locked up with little gang members and psychopaths.  It was anything but easy.” He took a large gulp from the glass in his hand, before continuing.

“I moved home with my parents to Surrey. They still believed I was guilty. In their minds, I had gotten on the right side of a naive little rich boy who had convinced his father to get me off. They refused to hire me a lawyer. I went to the local police to try and get them to reopen the case. They promised to look into it. Judging from their expressions, I didn’t hold out much hope. A couple of days later I was walking home from the shops with my mother when a van squealed up behind up. Two men jumped out at us. My mum started screaming and one of them held a gun to her throat. That’s the kind of people I was dealing with. They shoved a sack over my head, tied my hands behind me, and threw me into the back.

“We drove for what felt like hours. I have no idea where we went. I was thrown back and forth constantly so it must have been deep into the countryside.”

Neil looked opened his mouth to interrupt.

Simon continued rapidly. “I was dragged out of the back roughly and carried into a filthy building. It was dark inside, but there were bits of straw on the ground, I could feel them digging into me. It must have been a farm or stables. I don’t know how many people were there, but there was at least two and they took turns kicking the shit out of me,” he lifted his floppy fringe and pointed to a snaking scar along the left side of his hairline.

“I couldn’t even protect my face. Eventually, they must’ve run out of steam or gotten bored. One of them – he was panting when he said it – leaned in closed to my ear and whispered ‘you keep your mouth shut laddie, and don’t be squealing to the police, or next time it’ll be your mum we pick up.’

“They didn’t need to do any more kicking after that, I’d gotten the message. They picked me up and dumped me back in the van and took off again. We drove for ages, although I had lost all sense of perspective at that stage. Eventually, we stopped and I was dragged out. I was waiting for the next kicking but it never came. A few minutes later the van drove off.”

He took another long gulp and finished his drink, standing up for another. He didn’t look at Neil; he seemed lost in the story now.

Sitting back on the couch, he played with his glass for a while before speaking again, ignoring the sound of Neil’s foot tapping impatiently against the floor. “So, yeah. I lay there for I don’t know how long, and only heard the occasional car drive past. I tried to get my hands free but I was exhausted and couldn’t muster the strength to do anything effective. Eventually, I heard a car pull up. I thought they’d come back to finished me off. Instead it was a bloke on his way home from work. He’d seen my trainers and called the police.

“I spent two weeks in hospital. The police came to see me but I kept my mouth shut,” he looked up at Neil with a weak smile. “And that’s it. Until a few months back when Daniel started working with Kirsty. He told her the official version and she was disgusted. Who wouldn’t be? And he warned me to stay away from her, even if she did consider coming near me again. So you can understand why I had to be sure something was up, even though it was the first thing I thought of when I saw Grace’s email.”

“I still don’t understand why you’re sure he’s behind this.”

“When Grace replied and told me she was certain something had happened, I tried to call her. I haven’t really spoken to Kirsty in the last few months, and I needed to find out if he had become part of her life in any way. I would have told her if I’d gotten through to her. I don’t know, maybe he isn’t. But I know he hasn’t been in the office for some time, and I know what he’s capable of.”

Neil frowned. “Why didn’t you go to the police if you were sure he was behind it?”

“I thought about it. I wanted to,” Simon answered, staring at the floorboards, “it wasn’t just the threats though, I think that was just an interim thing. I worked my arse off for the rest of that year and got a scholarship to the States on the back of my A level results. I even forgot about him for a while. But he didn’t forget about me. I can’t tell you any more, but he has enough dirt to destroy me. I wouldn’t dream of upsetting him. Except now it looks like someone’s life is at stake. I’m sorry I can’t give you anything more concrete, but believe me. I know he’s behind it.”