48 Hours

The leader of the kidnapping team was sitting on the seat with his feet on her back. He felt her move.

“So Miss Whiplash has woken up. You need to lie still until we get where we’re going. It won’t be long now. Then I suggest you don’t give either of my friends here any excuse to punish you, because they’ve both requested that privilege. However, under the Geneva Convention we will treat you humanely,” Rik laughed.

A few minutes later the car stopped and waited as a roller shutter door rattled open nearby. Dee knew that it was important to gather as many clues to her whereabouts as possible, and she concentrated on doing just that. The car moved forward and stopped. She heard the roller shutter door close behind them.

Dee was taken from the car by Rik, who handed her to Joh

Joh

Dee concentrated and identified a strong smell. She recognised it, but where from? She was being taken somewhere but the hood was hampering her efforts to climb up the narrow steel mesh staircase.

“I’m going to loosen the hood so you can see your feet, OK? Don’t do anything silly,” Joh

Taking advantage of the narrow strip of vision available to her, Dee looked to her left and saw that she was in some kind of factory or warehouse with a grey painted concrete floor. She pushed her luck and moved her head a little more, but this earned her a sharp poke in her ribs. By the time she reached the top of the stairs she had been able to work out that they were in an industrial unit, with dust proof floor coatings and some boxy looking machinery. It was at that point she remembered where she had come across that smell before.

***

Dee had her hands untied before being guided to a chair. A hand pressed down on her shoulder, so she sat. She could hear sniffling from close by. Her captor took each hand separately and applied handcuffs. Once she was secure he lifted the hood from her head. Squinting in the harsh fluorescent light, she glanced around quickly and saw that she was in a small windowless room with a distraught young woman.

“I’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” Joh

“Lavender Fisher, I presume,” Dee said as she took in her surroundings. She was sitting on the long side of a rectangular metal framed table with a wood effect laminated chipboard top, and Lavender was directly opposite. The table was screwed to the floor and the chains attached to their handcuffs passed through a hole in the middle of the desk, probably intended for computer cables, to be padlocked onto the legs. The chain allowed only a few inches of movement in any direction. Dee was already trying to come up with a way out of this.

Lavender’s face was smeared with mascara, and she looked miserable and scared, which was hardly surprising. Dee wanted to take advantage of their time alone. Firstly she introduced herself to Lavender, trying to keep her voice calm and steady.

“Lavender, as you can see we’re both in the same boat here. My name’s Dee. I know your Dad and I intend to get you back to him safe and sound, but I’ll need your help. Do you understand?”

“Yes. Yes, I understand. I’ll help you if I can. Just tell me what to do.”

Lavender had almost broken down at the mention of her father, but she had managed to hold herself together. She didn’t feel quite so terrified now, knowing that she was not in this alone. Whoever Dee was, she seemed to know what to do. At least, Lavender hoped so.

“All right, Lavender, I believe that this building is a commercial printing press. I think we’re in an industrial unit, possibly on an estate of similar units. There’s a motorised roller shutter door at the front of the building, but there are bound to be emergency exits as well.”

“How do you know all that?” Lavender asked. “They had you blindfolded.”

“I’m a trained investigator. I was taught by the best, over in the USA. Also I recognised the smell of printing ink from when I picked up our company brochures a couple of weeks ago. What I don’t know is where we are geographically, and you can help with that.”

“I don’t think I can. I was blindfolded like you all the time,” Lavender wailed, afraid that she was being negative.

“Lavender, please just stay calm. Listen carefully to my questions and answer them as best you can, OK?”

The young woman nodded, and actually managed a brief smile.

“Where exactly were you kidnapped?”

“About a mile and a half from Elephant and Castle, on Lambeth Road.”

Dee absorbed the information and asked another question. “From being kidnapped, how long did it take to get here?”

“About thirty five minutes,” Lavender said with some certainty.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. They didn’t take my watch. I was taken just after half past seven, and I was in this room being chained up at ten past eight.”

Dee smiled back at her encouragingly. “Excellent. Now, concentrate. Was the car moving quickly most of the time, or did it stop and start in traffic?”

“I guess we spent about five minutes at traffic lights and such, but most of the time the car was in fourth gear. It’s amazing what you hear when your eyes are covered up and all you have is your ears.”

“It certainly is,” Dee agreed. “Lavender, I suspect that if we were in West London they would have grabbed you closer to home. So, assuming we are North, South or East of London, thirty minutes at an average speed of about thirty miles an hour means you could have travelled around fifteen miles at the most. That would put us in Croydon to the South, Blackheath in the East or in North London or Essex. Did you cross a bridge?”

Lavender concentrated. “I don’t know. I couldn’t see.”

“Think back. If you crossed the Thames from Lambeth Road you would have crossed Blackfriars Bridge. Most of the bridges across the Thames have expansion joints. They allow the bridge structure to move a few millimetres without cracking the road surface. When cars cross these joints, there’s always a small shudder and a sound like this.” Dee banged her fists on the table a fraction of a second apart. “There would probably be four or more of these across the bridge. Do you remember anything like that?”

Lavender thought hard. “Maybe. I think I can remember that, but I don’t know whether I’m making myself believe it because you just told me about it.”

“That’s all right. Don’t worry. You’re doing very well,” Dee smiled. “Your dad will be proud of you. Take your time and try to remember. At the moment we can’t rule out any options. Did they say anything during the journey? Anything at all?”

Lavender’s brow creased in concentration. “Yes, they did, they were talking to each other, but nothing that’s any use, really. It was just a few minutes before we arrived.”

“Lavender, try to remember exactly what they said. It might be vital.”

“I think they said something about it being odd for the floodlights to be on when they weren’t even at home today. They also said Harry wouldn’t be pleased with the draw today and they would have to do better on Wednesday night. Does that even make sense to you?”

Dee took a deep breath. “Yes, Lavender, it does. You’ve done very well to remember all of that. I think I do know where we are, more or less. But we mustn’t let anyone know about this conversation, OK?” Lavender nodded, smiling properly for the first time.

***

Floodlights suggested a sports ground, presumably a large one. Not being at home today suggested football or rugby. A draw suggested football or cricket, but only football would be played again on Wednesday night.