The Attic Room: A psychological thriller - Huber Linda - Страница 43

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David clicked his radio off and turned to her. ‘They’re onto it. Are you hurt? Do you need a doctor?’

Nina shook her head. ‘Sabine?’ she whispered again. It was easier than talking.

‘Alive but unconscious. She has a serious head injury, but she’s stable,’ said David. ‘Nina, tell me everything.’

In a few short sentences Nina covered the horror of the past several hours. Unfortunately she hadn’t noticed what make either of Paul’s cars were, all she could say was that the first was silver and possibly an Opel, and the second light green metallic. She described the house she’d been held in, then listened while David passed on the information over his radio. And all the time she was trembling so hard it was painful, and her breath was burning in her throat.

Bedford town centre didn’t look as if anything untoward had ever happened there, and Nina gazed out at now-familiar streets, willing the car to drive faster. She felt as if an elastic band at breaking point was holding her gut together. Soon, soon she would know if Naomi was safe; this not knowing was the worst, the most terrible thing. She had tried so hard, but it might all have been too late.

The minute the car stopped at the police station Nina scrambled out to see if there was any news. Sam was waiting outside the door, and he seized her and hugged her hard and God, how awful she looked and she stank too, she knew she did, of that terrible house and all the stress and sweat, but Sam was holding her as if he’d never let her go.

‘Naomi?’ she said into his chest. She felt his body tense up and pulled away to see his face.

‘Nina, we’ll find her,’ he said, but his voice was dull.

Oh God. Darkness swirled. But she’d known really… Naomi… her baby. The elastic band broke and Nina retched painfully then swallowed burning saliva.

David Mallony finished talking to another police officer, then strode across and gave her arm a little shake.

‘Nina, you have to hold it together. Wright’s got Naomi. She went out to the garden with the dog a short time ago, and when she didn’t come back Cassie Harrison went out to look, and found the dog but no Naomi. We have to assume that he has taken her. I need you to tell us every detail you remember about where you went, and what Wright said.’

Nina stepped away from Sam and felt the world sway. Shit, she had to get a grip here. ‘Try her mobile. It’s 078432084.’ David nodded at another officer.

Nina sat in a grey interview room, Sam beside her holding her hand while she dredged up every detail of the past twelve hours. Someone brought her tea and toast, and she picked at it. She had to keep her strength up but Christ, how impossible it was to eat toast when her daughter had been taken by a madman. Naomi must be terrified. She would realise very quickly that Paul wasn’t normal and dear God in heaven why had nobody picked up on this long ago?

A young officer appeared with the news that Naomi’s mobile was beside her bed at the Harrison’s, and the brief hope that she’d be easily traced was gone. Nina closed her eyes. Could nothing go right for them? Here she was, Naomi’s mother, and all she was doing to help was tell a couple of police officers about the state of the bloody lino in the kitchen she’d been held in. Fear for her child was eating its way through Nina’s gut, and she clutched her middle. Oh God. She was going to be sick soon.

A police doctor, a woman, arrived halfway through her statement and insisted on dressing Nina’s wrists. Nina sat still, not heeding the sting of antiseptic and refusing to halt the question and answer session with the police officers. Any one of these questions could be the one that helped find Naomi. Before she was finished news came in that the police had found the house she’d been held in, but there was no sign of life there. Paul’s own flat in Newport Pagnell was deserted too. Nina shuddered. Paul, by his own admission, had spent the past year tracking down paedophiles. Not only that, he now wanted Naomi to ‘help’ him – he was going to put her photo on some ghastly website… Suppose he had taken Naomi to another place he thought wouldn’t be found? This place could easily be connected to one of the ‘kiddy-fuckers’ he’d been meting out his self-justice to.

Saliva rushed back into Nina’s mouth and she swallowed it down to churn around in the tea and toast mess in her stomach. Never in all her life had she been so afraid; even breathing was painful. Suddenly she remembered something.

‘Paul spoke of a girlfriend. Melanie.’

David nodded. ‘We’ll check that too. We’ll be searching his home.’

Nina sat back. There was nothing left to tell them; nothing more that could help find Naomi. This was worse than any nightmare, a hundred times worse than the fear for her own safety was the previous day. Waves of numbness were alternating with waves of panic. This very minute her child could be tied to a kitchen chair somewhere, helpless and terrified. The mass in her stomach shifted and Nina ran for the toilets.

Sam was waiting in the corridor to hug her after she’d been sick and dear God she needed someone to hold on to. Sobbing, Nina clung to his jacket.

‘I should never have left you,’ he said into her hair. ‘Nina, I wish I’d been there for you.’

‘It wouldn’t have stopped him,’ said Nina, hearing the dreariness in her own voice. ‘Paul wants revenge and he wants money, and me coming here and involving the police stopped him getting both and it’s made him mad, Sam. Why the hell didn’t I notice sooner? I was so caught up in this bloody finding-family thing that I wasn’t thinking straight, it was all cousins together, and I wanted a cousin, I wanted a family, and shit, why didn’t I notice?’

Sam led her back to the interview room. ‘He was clever. He said all the right things.’

Nina sat down again. The police officers had gone, and there was another cup of tea waiting for her. She pushed it away. ‘Do you think he’ll let me buy her back?’

She rocked back and forward on the police station chair, and Sam rubbed her back without speaking. Nina was grateful for his silence. There was no reassurance anyone could give her right this minute.

David Mallony came back in and leaned on the table. ‘We’re going to drive around with you, see if we can find where you changed cars,’ he said. ‘Paul may have a base of some kind nearby.’

Nina, David, Sam and a policewoman drove around for over an hour before Nina admitted defeat. They found the district where she and Paul left the first car, but she couldn’t remember enough to pinpoint the correct street. They were all so alike, with their identical council terraces and scrappy front gardens. She’d been absorbed in Paul at that point; she hadn’t been watching where they were going. There was no sign of the car, either; Paul must have moved it.

‘Okay – at least we’ve got the area,’ said David eventually. ‘We’ll get a house-to-house inquiry going. Someone may have seen Paul. You should rest, Nina. You’re exhausted.’

David drove them back to John Moore’s house, where the first thing Nina did was have a boiling hot shower. Not that she cared how she looked or smelled, but all that was keeping her going now was the thought that any minute, Naomi might be found. Which meant she had to be ready to go at a moment’s notice to help her child. She emerged from the bathroom to find Sam packing her things into her case and two plastic bags.

‘You’re not staying here another minute,’ he said.

All she wanted was to leave this house forever, but – ‘What if he comes back here? What if he phones?’ she whispered.

‘He won’t, he knows the landline’s bugged. And it’s up to the police to watch the place. They’re going to seal it, anyway. Come back to my flat, Nina. Or Mum and Dad’s.’

The memory of Naomi happily preparing to paint Glen Harrison’s fence flashed into Nina’s mind and her legs turned to jelly. She fell to her knees, head bent to the floor, sobs shaking her body. Sam knelt by her side, patting her back but not attempting to stop the tears.

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