Dead Man's Grip

air, can you get a message to me via the pilot?’
    ‘Yes, we can. We can get you an ACARS text message via the cockpit, and most long-haul planes have satellite phones in the cockpit. The moment there’s any news I’ll get it relayed straight to you. OK?’
    She thanked him and hung up. As she did so, she heard the boarding announcement. She towed her overnight bag over towards the rear of the rapidly lengthening queue, her insides a solid knot that was getting tighter by the second.
    Seven hours.
    Seven hours of waiting.
    Carly handed over her passport and boarding card for inspection, then walked on in a silent haze, more alone and scared than she’d ever felt in her life.
    Suddenly, as she stood in the crush in the aisle of the plane, her phone pinged with an incoming text. Her heart flipped with sudden hope and she looked down eagerly. But to her disappointment it was from the phone company, O2, warning her she was close to her 50 MB overseas data limit.
    She deleted it, then found her seat. Or at least the part of it which wasn’t already occupied by the damp, overflowing girth of a perspiring bald man who looked like he weighed uncomfortably north of 500 pounds.
    If her day wasn’t already bad enough, the journey from hell had now got even worse. She sat, squashed, her elbows tucked uncomfortably in against her chest, her whole body trembling with fear.
    Fear that she might never see her son alive again.

92
    In the total darkness, Tyler’s head hurt. He couldn’t see anything, couldn’t move his arms or legs. He was frightened and confused and knew this was not a game, that something bad was happening.
    They were travelling, he could sense that. Motion. There were strong smells of carpet and plastic, new-car smells. He’d been in a friend’s mother’s brand-new Hyundai recently and it had smelled like this. He thought he could detect rubber, too. Could hear a hum. He must be in the boot of a car, he reckoned. The taxi? Braking and accelerating. All he could move were his knees – he could bend and flex them just a little. He tried to wedge them against something solid, to get a grip, but moments later he was thrown away backwards and felt himself rolling over, until he hit something hard.
    He tried to shout to the driver, to ask him who he was, where they were going, but he could not move his mouth and his voice sounded all muffled.
    After the two police officers had come to their house and his friends had left, his mum had sat down in his bedroom and told him there were bad things happening. Bad people. They had to be careful. They needed to keep a watch for strangers near the house. He must call the police if he saw anyone.
    Was this one of the bad people driving him now?
    At least he had his iPhone in his jacket and it was switched on. Friend Mapper would be logging him and his mum would know that. She’d know exactly where he was and she would tell the police. He didn’t really need to be afraid. They would find him.
    He just hoped they would find him soon, because he had an IT class this afternoon that he really did not want to miss. And because he did not like this darkness, and not being able to move, and his arms were hurting, too.
    But it was going to be all right.

93
    Grace dashed around to the rear of the taxi, just as Glenn Branson leaned into the boot.
    The man inside looked terrified and there was a sour reek of urine. His fleshy face was pale and clammy. Duct tape was wound around his arms, legs and mouth, the same kind of tape that Evie Preece had been bound with, Grace clocked, as he fished out his warrant card and held it up to give the man reassurance.
    ‘Police,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, you’re safe. We’ll get you out of there.’
    He turned to Branson and to Inspector Sue Carpenter, who had joined them.
    ‘Let’s get the tape off his mouth first. Sue, call for a paramedic and POLSA and a search team, and get someone to bring some water, or tea if you can. And I want this level of the car park closed, as well as all the stairwells, in case they left by foot.’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    Then he leaned in and, as gently as he could, got his fingertips in the join in the tape. It would have been easier without his gloves, he knew, but he kept them on and finally managed to start peeling it off, mindful that although it would be extremely painful for the man, at the same time he needed to preserve it as best he could for forensic analysis.
    As he peeled it away from his