Dead Man's Footsteps

Well, here’s the thing. In all that time, the only officer in Sussex Police who has taken responsibility for reviewing the investigation into her disappearance is Royhimself. To me, that doesn’t sit right. I mean, that wouldn’t have happened in the Met.’
    ‘So what are you saying?’
    ‘Well,’ Pewe continued unctuously, ‘her parents are deeply uncomfortable about this. Reading between the lines, I think they suspect Roy is hiding something.’
    She looked at him for some moments. ‘And what do you think?’
    ‘I’d like your permission for me to prioritize this. Dig further. Use my discretion to take whatever investigatory steps I consider necessary.’
    ‘Granted,’ she said. Then she looked back down at her papers and dismissed him with a single wave of her hand. The one with the diamond solitaire and wedding band.
    When he stood up, his hard-on had gone but he felt a whole new kind of excitement.

57
OCTOBER 2007
    The light and the extractor fan had been on for what seemed like hours and hours. In the tiny, windowless room, Abby had lost all track of time. She didn’t know if it was still the middle of the night or morning. Her mouth and throat were parched, she was ravenously hungry and almost every part of her body was numb or hurting from the bindings.
    She was shivering with cold in the constant icy draught. She desperately needed to blow her nose, which was blocked and getting increasingly hard to breathe through. No air at all came in through her mouth and, breathing faster and faster, she was sensing another panic attack coming on.
    She tried to calm herself down, to slow her breathing. She was beginning to feel she wasn’t totally inside her body, that she was dead and floating above it. As if the naked person bound with tape was someone else, not her any more.
    She was dead.
    Her heart was pounding. Hammering. She tried to say something to herself and heard the muffled humming sound inside her mouth. I am still alive. I can feel my heart .
    Inside her skull, she could feel a band tightening around her brain. She felt clammy and unable to focus hereyes clearly. Then she began shaking uncontrollably. A cold sweat of fear erupted on her skin as the thought hit her like a sledgehammer.
    What if he has gone and left me here?
    To die…
    When she had first met Ricky she thought that, like Dave, his violence was just big talk, swagger, keeping up with their gangster friends. Then one night when she was with him, he’d caught a spider in the bathtub and burned each of its legs off with a cigarette lighter, then left it, alive in a glass jar, to die of thirst or hunger.
    The realization that he was quite capable of doing the same to her made her struggle against the bonds with a sudden, new urgency. Her panic was deepening.
    Concentrate .
    Focus .
    Remember it is just a panic attack. You are not dying. You are not out of your body. Say the words .
    She breathed in, out, in, out. Hi , she thought the words. I am Abby Dawson. I am fine. This is just a wonky chemical reaction. I’m fine, I am in my body, I am not dead, this will pass .
    She tried to focus on each of the bindings in turn, starting with the one around her forehead. Her neck was increasingly painful from her head being pulled back so far. But try as hard as she could, she could not move it an inch in any direction.
    Next she tried her hands, which were taped to her thighs. Her fingers were splayed out and taped too, making it impossible to get a purchase on anything. She tried to move her legs, but they were taped together so hard they felt like they were in a cast. Nothing gave. There was no slack anywhere.
    Where had he learned about bindings? Or had he just winged it as he went along? Smiling as he worked?
    Oh yes, smiling for sure.
    And she could hardly blame him.
    She was wishing desperately, suddenly, that she had never agreed to this. She wasn’t strong enough, she realized. Nor smart enough. How the hell had she ever thought she could succeed? How could she have been so stupid?
    A clank interrupted her thoughts, then the squeak of a rubber shoe and a shadow fell across the door. Ricky was looking down at her, holding a large, plastic ASDA carrier bag in one hand and a tall, white mug of coffee in the other. She could smell the aroma. God, that was so good.
    ‘Hope you had a good night’s rest, Abby. I want you fresh for today. Did you?’
    She made a lowing moan.
    ‘Yes, sorry about the tape. But the walls in this