Her few minutes of hope were shattered when the door of the basement opened and a very glossy, smug-looking Tanya tottered down the stairs. Kate hadn’t given Tanya a second thought, hadn’t considered that she would be involved, she felt physically sick realising how she had seriously misjudged the situation.
“Well, well: Look what we have here” She grinned at Kate, amused by her own words. Looking at Kate hunched up on the floor, all nervous and panic-stricken, Tanya felt like the cat that had got the cream, and she wasn’t going to waste a single drop.
41
Billy was frantic; in the last three days that Kate had been missing he had been on the brink of losing it. They had searched everywhere for her, he and Paul had been out all night the first night, knocking on nearly every door between the flat and the club, asking if anyone had seen her. They had rung everyone who knew her, but they had not seen nor heard from her. All the local hospitals had been contacted, all the side-roads checked in case something had happened. She had seemed to have vanished into thin air. He hadn’t been able to sleep and sitting across the kitchen table from him, Emma noticed that the dark circles under his eyes and his unshaven face made him look even more scary than normal.
Billy had insisted that he stay with Emma, not only because he felt that if there were any news, it would be the best place to be, but also because he knew Kate would want to make sure Emma was alright. She looked like death warmed up, and he noticed that she was chain-smoking, but apart from waiting to hear something, what else was she supposed to do? Paul had told her to stay at home, sit by the phone and call him if she heard anything. He had then proceeded to call her every hour or so to see if anything had come up. Emma was still was clueless to where her friend might be.
Billy had put the word out that if anyone saw Jay or Tanya, that person was to come straight to him, he was positive they had something to do with it. It was the only possibility. This was Jay’s style: cowardly, picking on someone weaker than himself. Emma had insisted on contacting the police, too, and reluctantly Billy had agreed. However, although the police did put her on the missing persons’ database that was just about the level of helpfulness they could muster. The police knew exactly who Jay was, and assumed that any girl associated with him was just as low down the food chain, so they hadn’t seemed that concerned all in all. They figured that the poor girl had probably done a bunk with him; they could see Billy was really over-protective and maybe she had just wanted to get away. They were also very familiar with Billy, information on him and his dodgy dealings had come to light over the years, suspected money laundering mainly, so they had used this opportunity to take a closer look at him, they had a keen interest in his warehouse, and his “career”, but Billy always covered his tracks and until they had solid proof, they could only sniff around.
Emma put out her fourth cigarette of the morning, and lit up another. Billy could see that she was genuinely worried sick about her friend. “We are going to find her, you know; make no odds on that, she’ll be back here in no time,” but as he spoke the words, even he didn’t believe them.
“I’m just so worried, Billy, Jay is an animal, he knows some real dodgy people, I hate to think what she might be going through,” her eyes watered as she spoke, and she inhaled a long lug of her fag.
Tapping his fingers agitatedly on the table top, Billy didn’t even want to think of any of that right now. He knew, in great detail, what had happened to Emma, and if that bloke had even harmed a hair on his sister’s head, he was a fucking dead man, in fact, fuck that, he was a dead man anyway. Billy should have done what he had wanted to do in the first place and got rid of the scummy piece of shit ages ago.
Jay Shaw was over.
Across town, Paul Goldie was lying awake, staring at the ceiling, trying to muster the energy to get out of bed. He too had had a crap night’s sleep, tossing and turning, imagining all sorts of awful things that Kate could be going through. He felt helpless; until they heard something, they were playing a waiting game. He knew as well as Billy did that this was one hundred percent down to Jay, and there was no way he was going to get away with it. Getting out of bed, Paul padded down to the kitchen to make a pot of strong coffee, to wake him up.
The house was gorgeous, a modern three-storey townhouse. He had every gadget and gizmo possible: it was a typical bachelor pad. His TV was huge, a giant plasma with a state-of-the-art speaker system. There were big leather sofas and oak floors throughout. Large bi-fold doors led out onto the patio, with a large seating area that lit up with the most amazing lighting effects. It was a dream pad for a guy like him, and it was just ten minutes away from the club. Except he wasn’t your typical bachelor, was he: he had responsibilities. Sophia. Her sweet face stared at him from the photos dotted around the house; with her beautiful blonde curls, she was like an angel. He smiled at the thought of her piercing blue eyes. She was so innocent. He felt lonely at times, but thoughts of his baby girl kept him sane and helped him to remember that he wasn’t really alone: he would always have her.
Shaking off his thoughts, he finished his coffee, and then decided to get showered and go over and see Billy. Maybe he would have heard something, although surely they would have called him. But he had to get out, had to do something, staying here was driving him crazy.
42
Kate was freezing; she couldn’t remember a time when she had felt so cold. She tried to keep warm under the blanket, but not being able to move her hands or feet properly because of the tape meant that she could only cover some of her body up, and so she had spent the night shivering violently.
She was slowly losing patience now; she had lost track of time but guessed by the light in gap of the curtains that she had been here for about three days, and she had seen the sun come up about an hour ago, so she figured it was probably around five in the morning. She had expected that either she would have been rescued by now or that Jay and Tanya would have let her go. What were they playing at? She couldn’t believe that they were getting away with it.
There were moments of sheer panic that swept over her, when Kate thought about what might happen if they kept her there, what if no-one came looking? She had no idea where she was, and wondered what if she was never found. She kept telling herself that she would be rescued; she knew she wasn’t being left for dead as Tanya and Jay were still in the house, she had heard them talking just outside of the door at the top of the stairs, saying that Billy would be just about ready to call, that they had made him sweat it out for a few days and now he would be willing to pay, whatever the cost. She had been shocked at Tanya’s voice, talking as if she hated Billy now; she was clearly out for everything she could get. This was all for money, Kate thought disgustedly: the pair of them deserved each other.
“That will teach him and that tarty little bitch he’s shagging,” Tanya had said nastily, obviously still seething at the fact that he had replaced her so quickly and in such a humiliating way, she would be a laughing stock now. Well, she would show him; he would be very sorry he had treated her like a piece of rubbish he could just throw away at a moment’s notice. Kate had been surprised to see that Jay had been behaving like a pathetic little puppy when he was around Tanya, it was clear he didn’t know how to play this situation out, and Tanya seemed to be the one barking out all the orders. Jay was just going along with it all like her little puppet; it was truly pathetic to witness. He hadn’t even had the bottle to look Kate in the eye on the few occasions he had brought her down food; mind you, if it had been left to Tanya she would have probably been left to starve, as she had seemed to take great pleasure in Kate’s predicament and made Kate feel as degraded and helpless as possible. Tanya had taken her to the toilet and watched as Kate struggled for privacy and didn’t give her the chance to clean herself up afterwards. She called her names and told her how much she hated her, how she had always hated her. That she blamed Kate for ruining her and Billy’s relationship and it was all her fault that she had started things up with Jay. She had muttered the same things over and over, appearing to make herself more and more irate each time. Kate wondered if Tanya was mentally unstable, she seemed to be losing the plot and acting irrationally, getting in more and more of a state about Billy as time went on.