She steeled herself. Straightened her jacket. Stay professional, she told herself. Do the job the way you were doing it for years before . . . well, just before. Some won’t talk to the police. Some will be downright hostile. Don’t let it get to you. You’ve heard it all before, countless times. Water off a duck’s back.
She pressed the button for the lift. Heard something mechanical within the shaft getting off its arse and begin lumbering towards her, groaning with age and tiredness.
She glanced back at the double doors to the corridor. Marcel would doubtless be inside one of the flats now, charming some lonely widow into offering him tea and biscuits. Which was fine, provided she could also tell him how she witnessed one of her neighbours hefting bin bags into their car in the middle of the night.
Marcel, you can take a whole Victoria sponge cake from the woman if you can also come back with that information.
The lift was taking ages. At this rate, Marcel would have covered the whole ground floor by the time she knocked on her first door.
She checked her phone while she waited. Lots of emails and messages. She typed out a couple of quick responses.
She heard a ping. In front of her, the lift door squealed open. She looked up from her phone.
Tilly.
There, in the lift. In her school uniform. Almost within touching distance.
A sound jumped from Hannah’s lips. A cross between a sob and a yelp of joy.
Tilly. My Tilly. You’re here.
And then there was the crack of something slamming into the back of Hannah’s head, and she fell forwards and butted the wall, and then came another wallop, this time across the shoulders, and she dropped everything she was carrying and brought her arms up behind her and tried to scuttle away, but blow after blow rained down, and she thought she could hear a voice, somebody calling her a fucking bitch.
And then the onslaught became too much, and the waiting blackness stepped in to claim its prize.
19
She awoke with a start. Blinked. Saw soft brown material and wondered where the hell she was.
A noise behind her.
She rolled over, her hands out to ward off further attacks.
In front of her, a large shape jumped away, as though startled by her sudden movement.
He’ll come right back, she thought. If I don’t move now, he’ll have me again.
She tried to get up. Waves of pain and nausea washed through her body. She let out a groan. Tried again to rise.
‘No,’ said the figure. ‘You should stay there. Have a rest.’
A man’s voice. Deep, yet surprisingly gentle.
She blinked some more. The image of the figure came into focus. A big man. Huge. She realised she was lying on a sofa.
I’m his prisoner, she thought. He’s brought me here, and nobody else knows where I am. What does he want?
She tried once more to sit up. Something moved on her forehead. She brought a hand to it and felt cold dampness. Blood, she thought, but then she looked at her fingers and saw no redness. She reached up again and pulled a rough layer away from her head. She hoped it wasn’t her skin.
‘It’s a wet flannel,’ the man said. ‘For the bump. My mum does it for me when I have a bad headache.’
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
‘D-Daniel. Daniel Timpson. I live here. It’s my birthday soon.’
Oh, Jesus, she thought. A crazy guy. I’m his birthday present.
‘Where am I? What are you going to do with me?’
The man seemed confused. ‘I’m . . . I’m not going to do anything with you. Unless you want to. Do you want to play?’
Do you want to play? Something only a serial killer would ask, surely? What kind of perverted games did he have in mind?
‘Where am I?’ she asked again.
‘1204 Erskine Court. I live here.’
‘1204 . . . The flats? I’m still in the flats?’
‘Yes. 1204. That’s on the twelfth floor. If you look out of the window you can see all the way to the comic-book shop. I go there a lot.’
‘Why did you bring me up here?’
‘I . . . You were hurt. The man was hitting you with a stick.’
Daniel appeared suddenly upset at the recollection. He kept interlacing his fingers and undoing them again.
‘So it wasn’t you? You didn’t attack me?’
