Cucumber Coolie (Blake Dent Mysteries Book 2) Read online

  I threw open the stairway door. Jogged up the steps, jogged further and further and further until eventually I reached my flat on the forty-eighth.

  “You okay, mate?” a woman asked. She looked at me all sweaty and panting, with narrowed eyes.

  I ignored her and fumbled my way into my flat.

  Time was of the essence.

  I couldn’t waste a second.

  I slammed the door shut and charged into my bedroom. Slid onto my knees, pulled out a plastic container that I kept a load of camcorders and electronics in.

  I searched through the wires. Searched through the Mini DV camcorders. “Come on… come the fuck on…”

  Where the hell was it? I’d definitely had one at some point. One or five, anyway. Just my luck. Just my shitting luck.

  As I searched the next plastic container, I couldn’t help but imagine Danielle. Imagine where she might be, what the killer might be doing to her. “Hose,” he called himself.

  I thought back to the footage of the hose wedged down Denise Scotts’ throat and I couldn’t help but see Danielle in her place.

  I searched some more. “Come on, come on, come… Argh!”

  I punched the container, which probably was a shitty idea considering how much it stung my bloody knuckles. I collapsed onto the floor beside my bed. Shook my head, squeezed my eyes shut.

  I knew what was on that tape anyway. Why did I have to see it? Why did I have to watch what I already understood?

  I sniffed up. Soppy bastard. It was my own fault for caring about Danielle. This was what happened when I cared about people. First, Grace Wallens all those years ago. Now Danielle.

  This was exactly the reason why I was never going to settle down.

  I tried to steady my breathing as I lay there on the floor. My mind raced. Colours drifted through my vision, and I realised how tired and shaky and generally shitty I was.

  And then I heard my watch ticking and realised I’d better get a shitting move on because every second counted.

  Even if there was nothing I could do to save Danielle.

  No. Don’t think like that. Watch the tape first. This could all just be some ill-judged joke. A Lenny wind-up.

  Telling myself that just made me hate Lenny even more although he’d not technically done anything.

  I lifted my head. Grabbed the next plastic container with my shaky hands. The camcorder wasn’t in here. I was almost certain it wouldn’t—couldn’t—be in the last bloody box I’d search in.

  It was there.

  I wasn’t sure whether to be terrified or relieved when I lifted the camcorder from the box. Probably a mixture of both.

  I plugged it in. Let it get some juice. Ejected the tape inside that I’d done some test footage on once upon a time, and clicked in the Mini DV tape that had come in the jiffy bag.

  And then I opened up the little windowed screen beside the camera and I pressed play.

  This tape started much like the Denise Scotts tape. Grainy. Dark. Impossible to figure out.

  But then the sound of heavy breathing cut through the static. The sound of wind, and of…

  Of footsteps echoing.

  An image appeared on the screen. Garbled and fuzzy, but definitely something. There was a light. A streetlamp. And houses. Semi-detached houses. Danielle’s house. And there was…

  My stomach sank when I saw the man staggering down the street towards Danielle’s house.

  Me.

  Drunken fool me.

  I watched myself look right at the camera, eyes all over the place. The bloke with the bin bag. The bloke with the frigging bin bag. So it wasn’t just drunken paranoia. He really was watching me. He really was crazy.

  I watched myself walk to Danielle’s door, all the while listening to the cameraman’s heavy breathing, his muffled laughs.

  My muscles tightened when I saw Danielle open the door.

  I watched us chat. Watched us stare into one another’s eyes, like I was a fly on the wall seeing our relationship from a distance. Shit, she meant a lot to me. Meant the bloody world. I’d give any number of iPads up to get her back.

  Well. Maybe not any number.

  I watched myself go inside.

  Watched Danielle shut the door.

  And I watched the tape fizz out to static.

  A few seconds later, the tape came to life again. I saw a quick shot of the door opening, and then a jump.

  A jump shot to me, snoring on the sofa.

  A jump shot to… shit.

  The cameraman prodded a syringe into my neck and I stopped snoring.

  And then the next shot was upstairs. Upstairs in Danielle’s bedroom. She was all alone. All alone, fast asleep, blonde hair covering her eyes.

  I watched the cameraman bring the syringe closer to her and I wanted to scream out at her to wake up.

  I tasted salt on my lips when the syringe touched her neck. When her eyes opened up, and the cameraman covered her mouth with his black-gloved hand.

  I tasted more salt on my lips as I watched her eyes fully water up, her eyelids droop, and her fall to sleep.

  There were more shots. More little cuts to me on the sofa, then to Danielle in the back seat of a car, and then back to me, only I was on Danielle’s bed now.

  But I didn’t take them in. I couldn’t process them, or what they meant.

  I was too busy sobbing my frigging face off to care.

  I will kill her in twenty-four hours if you do not save her.

  It was half ten. Which gave me fifteen and a half hours.

  If you go to the police, I will kill her.

  I couldn’t tell the police. Tell the police, and she would die.

  I am making her life a misery. I am torturing her.

  It was that part that got me most. Because no matter what happened from now on, I’d failed Danielle. She’d been taken away and I’d failed to protect her.

  I could’ve stopped this.

  I wiped my eyes. Rewound the tape to the beginning and hit play, still unable to focus properly.

  Look around.

  The route is nearby.

  Use your mind.

  I lifted my phone with my quivering hands and rang the only person in the world that I thought might stand the tiniest chance of helping me.

  THIRTEEN

  I watched Martha’s face go from bemused to quizzical to full-on frigging pale as she watched the tape from start to finish.

  “Well?” I asked. I was sat on my sofa staring at her. There was a complete silence around the flat, as she rewound the tape, started from scratch. She cleared her throat and avoided all eye contact with me, twiddling with the collar of her white shirt.

  “It’s… And you’re sure—”

  “You’ve seen the bloody note,” I said. I held the note I’d received out to Martha again. My mouth absolutely hung with menthol, and my nose was streaming with my opened airways after necking a whole packet of Halls cough sweets.

  “Alright, alright,” Martha said. She scratched at her cheeks, digging into her makeup with her fingernails. Squinted into the darkness of the camcorder screen, the darkness outside Danielle’s house last night. “I just… I dunno, hun. You’re gonna have to call the police.”

  I laughed. Wafted the note in her face again. “You’re seriously suggesting I call the bloody police? Let’s forget about their ineptitude for a minute and address the fact that Danielle’s kidnapper says he’s gonna bloody kill her if I go anywhere near the police.”

  “Hey!” Martha said. She raised her hands. “You called me for help. I’m giving it, sunshine. If you don’t like it, then don’t take it out on me.”

  I kind of wanted to apologise to Martha, but I figured I had a more than adequate excuse for my dickish move.

  “I could’ve stopped this,” I said, shaking my head. “I could’ve… I could’ve helped Lenny or—or James Scotts, and I could’ve stopped this.”

  Martha tutted. “So you’re saying this is my fault because I talked y
ou out of getting involved? Jesus, Blake. Grow up.”

  “I didn’t say that, mard-arse. I just… I was ready. Ready to commit to Danielle last night. Ready to tell her how frigging much I care about her. And then… and then this.”

  Martha raised her eyebrows. “It does sound typical of your shitty luck, I’ve gotta admit.”

  “Doesn’t it just?”

  I knocked back a few more Halls cough sweets and let my mouth ignite.

  “Okay we… So there’s no police involvement, the letter says. But what’s this about ‘looking around’? And the ‘route being nearby’?”

  I shrugged. “I… I dunno Martha. I can barely watch that bloody tape without my eyes going fuzzy.”

  “Teary?”

  “No, not—not teary. Just… angry fuzzy.”

  Martha narrowed her eyes. “Angry fuzzy. Right. Well I… I dunno what to suggest Blake. I mean… watching this tape, all we know is that there has to be CCTV footage of this guy somewhere. But the only way to identify him is—”

  “Through the police. Sure.”

  Martha closed her mouth and sighed.

  “Don’t you… don’t you know someone?”

  Martha frowned. “Know someone? I know a few people, yeah.”

  “No I mean like, people who could get us CCTV footage. Place round Goosnargh where it’s all recorded nowadays, right?”

  “You want to break into a CCTV facility?”

  “Not break in. Just… just borrow.”

  “And then what? Find a guy all wrapped up outside Danielle’s house on camera? See exactly what you know’s there already, only no closer to identification?”

  I started to object but I couldn’t. Martha had a point. She had a frigging good point.

  I leaned back on my sofa. Covered my eyes with my hands. Every time I closed them, I had to open them again fast because I just saw Danielle. Saw what might be happening to her.

  The cuts.

  The screams.

  The hose…

  No. Don’t think like that. Don’t do it.

  Martha squinted at the letter. “It just seems… weirdly worded.”

  I leaned towards her. “Weirdly worded?”

  “Yeah, like… I dunno. Like the tape is a distraction from the letter, or something like that. A diversion tactic.”

  “I don’t follow. And… Please, Martha. Time’s running—”

  “All this about ‘using your mind’ and—and this: ‘I’m expecting big things from you, hero’. It seems personal. Like he knows about what happened with Chipps.”

  I nodded. “Right. So the killer knows who I am. But that isn’t hard. Not to blow my own trumpet or anything.”

  “But it’s the language, hun. He’s goading you. Challenging you, like this is all a game. There’s… he says this about looking around. About the route being nearby. He wants you to chase him.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh, not out of amusement but out of frustration. “Wish he’d bloody give me a headstart. How am I supposed to chase someone when I don’t even know where he’s frigging gone?”

  Martha looked back at the camcorder screen. Rewound it back to when the killer stuck the syringe in my neck as I snored like an idiot on Danielle’s sofa.

  “Right now, all I know is that if I don’t figure out how to play this looney’s little game before 2 a.m., Danielle’s gone.”

  Martha glanced at her watch. I knew she was trying to be subtle about it, but I got her. She was counting down the minutes. Counting down the seconds as they ticked away, as I got nowhere towards figuring out what the hell to do next.

  “This police threat. I think he’s bluffing.”

  “Why so sexist, by the way? ‘He’ this, ‘he’ that.”

  “Darling, have you seen this guy’s gloved hands? No woman has hands like that.”

  I nodded at Martha’s hands. “You do.”

  She raised them. “That’s right. I’m a psychopath who wants your cute girlfriend all to myself. You got me. But anyway. He must be a guy. He lifted you up to Danielle’s bed after all. No offence to your beer belly or anything.”

  She did that serious thing with her face that took me a few seconds to figure out she was joking.

  “So anyway,” she said. “This police threat. I think it’s bullshit.”

  “And your little hunch is based on…?”

  She chewed on one of her nails and squinted at the note. “Why would a killer specifically not want you to go to the police?”

  “Erm… because they don’t want to be caught?”

  “No, no. That goes without saying. But for this guy to dedicate a full line to the police in here… I dunno. It seems desperate to me. Like they’re trying to scare you away, or something. I mean, what happened to the second guy? The guy who did take the tape into the police?”

  “I… I figure the killer offed the wife or girlfriend when he went to the police.”

  “You figure?” Martha asked. “From what I saw of it on the news, there was no mention of the guy receiving the second tape at a different time to this Scotts bloke, or anything like that.”

  I pondered what Martha was saying. Truth be told, even pondering was difficult right now. “I shouldn’t have got drunk last night. I… I should’ve just stayed at home.”

  “Bollocks. And what then? You’d have gone around to Danielle’s and found the letter in the middle of the afternoon. Even less time to save your girlfriend. Chin up, hun. We’re brainy. We can work this out.”

  I wanted to believe Martha so, so bad.

  “So what do you reckon?” Martha asked.

  “Reckon to what?”

  “Ringing the police—”

  “Out of the question. He wouldn’t dedicate a line to it if he wasn’t serious.”

  “So who is this guy?” Martha asked, raising her voice. “Billy Binoculars watching you at all times? Come on, Blake. We’re PIs. Bounty hunters. We should know a scare tactic when we see one. This guy lays down the rules. When have we ever played by the rules?”

  I leaned back. Closed my eyes again. “Since my girlfriend got kidnapped.”

  Martha went quiet. “I… You should get some shuteye.”

  “Shuteye?!”

  “Just five minutes while I… while I watch this tape again. Figure out our next move.”

  I wanted to protest and I wanted to argue, but I figured five minutes of mental rest were probably better than five minutes of umming and ahhing about the next step.

  I tried to count sheep. Listened as Martha tapped around with the camcorder.

  “We’ll find her, hun. I promise.”

  I gulped down a sickly batch of regurgitated menthol. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

  I saw Danielle’s face in my mind, dancing around my thoughts, smiling and laughing and—

  A knock at the door.

  It made me jump off the sofa and right onto my feet. I looked to my left. Martha was still on the floor playing about with the camcorder.

  “How long was I…?”

  “A minute or two,” Martha said. She tilted her head in the direction of the door. “Well aren’t you gonna get that?”

  Feeling very sickly, I stumbled over the cold hard floor of my lounge and towards my flat door. I tried to think who it might be. A small part of me hoped that it was Danielle. That she’d escaped this nutbag, and we could start our new lives. Together.

  I lowered the handle, praying and praying for a miracle.

  I got the exact opposite.

  “Blakey! So what’s this gift then, hmm?”

  Lenny, who was dressed in a navy blue suit jacket and black trousers, pushed past me and looked around my lounge.

  My arms tingled and my throat tightened. The police. Lenny was the police. “Lenny, what the fuck do you think you’re doing? Get out!”

  “Woah!” Lenny said. He raised his hands, sly grin on his face. “Alright there, Bernie Bipolar. You know how quickly I ran down here when I got your text? Very qu
ickly, I’ll have you know. Very quickly on the quickometer. Oh, hey Martin.”

  “Martha.”

  I shook my head, the voices crowding my thoughts. “Wait—a text? What text?”

  Lenny narrowed his eyes. “The… the text about the present you got for me. The… You know. Thanking me for being a top friend and all that. Blake, are you okay? It’s just you… you look pale and… and with all this Ebola going round at the minute, I’ve got to ask. I even have a surgical mask, y’know? Just in case I’m out in public and someone Ebola-ish walks towards me…”

  Lenny’s words drifted away.

  I stared at Martha, and she looked back at me with guilt in her eyes.

  By her side, my iPhone rested.

  “Is somebody gonna tell me what the hell this is about?” Lenny asked. “Because if this is a windup, well I’m not in the mood for windups. We got another victim in that weird Hosey mystery. Hell, why am I telling you anyway? Probably read about it on your BlackBerrymobiles or whatever.”

  I took a deep breath. “About that, Lenny.”

  Lenny looked from me to Martha then back again. “You… wait. Please don’t tell me you’re ‘fessing. Blake, no. Don’t do this to me. You’re a good guy. I—”

  “I think you should probably watch this,” Martha said.

  She handed the camcorder to Lenny. Half-smiled at me.

  I didn’t know whether this was an idiot move or not, but it was a move, and that was something.

  Lenny hit play. “This better not be… well, anything erotic. I have a low threshold towards erotic stimuli these days. Got a hard-on over a Polo mint the other week.”

  Okay, definitely an idiot move.

  FOURTEEN

  “Shit, Blakey, I… I don’t know what to say, really. You are in the shit.”

  I covered my eyes as Lenny finished watching the tape. I couldn’t bear to see his reactions throughout it. Feared if he made any little joke, any little wisecrack, I might just give him a bloody crack. A crack across the nose.

  “You didn’t tell me about your bird. She’s cute.”

  I bit my tongue and moved my hands away from my eyes.

  “So what do you think?” Martha asked. She sat beside Lenny on my sofa. I was a little pissed at her for inviting Lenny around. But I suppose she was only trying to help.