Don't Hang Up

[ashkent]

Well, this has already been on the site as an interactive story, but other that about four occassions the number of valid points to have some interaction were becoming more an more sparse the further in the story went.
Another reason I wanted to end it as an interactive story was that there were more holes in the opening chapters than in a Tombstone salloon door. Also with stories like that I tend to find that I don't get a grip on the story or characters until about ten-fifteen thousand words in. Dean Koontz rewrites every chapter as he writes them, another author I can't think of rewrites each line until he's happy with it. I write a tenth of a book then go back to the beginning and rewrite it!
So, this is the extended and edited version of Don't Hang Up. The first chapter remains pretty much the same, but from chapter two the details are in sync and some important plot points have been corrected.
Enjoy once again.

[Chinaren]

Keep it coming. We're getting closer to the new stuff.

[ashkent]

“Excuse me?”

The female voice caught me off guard.

“Who is this?” I asked, turned half-circle as though I would find her standing behind me.

“It’s Hannah,” the girl on the line said. “It is Paul, isn’t it?”

“No.”

“Oh. Hey, sorry I think I must have the wrong number. Sorry about that.”

The line went dead before I could respond, and the shadow hanging over me lifted slightly. I took a deep breath, swiping a hand over my face to clear my vision.

It hadn’t been them. That meant the call in the café had most likely not been them either.

After a moment, I closed the phone and pushed it back into my pocket. I shivered involuntarily despite the mild air. The shiver epitomised everything I feared about what could happen to me if I let things get to me.

The need to tell someone about the last hours was almost unbearable. If any concerned passer-by had stopped to ask if I was ok, chances are my guts would have been spilled without a hesitation.

That wouldn’t happen though. Good Samaritans became extinct around the same time as flick-knives turned into a compulsory accessory for any teenager. I could have collapsed against the bare brick wall and expect nothing more than a cursory, suspicious glance from those walking by.

I sucked in another deep breath and tried to push back the dizziness that swarmed in my head. Nausea rose from my stomach and for a moment drinking the café seemed to have been a mistake as I tasted coffee rising in my throat.

Swallowing back, eyes closed, I concentrated on pulling myself together. I couldn’t allow myself to fall apart, not now. The sense of being on the edge of some extreme precipice would not be far from me until this was all over. I needed to get used to it. Control the know problems to leave the mind able to deal with the unknown. It seemed so simple to give that advice to other people, not as easy to take it.

I looked into the station, my image reflected in the sliding doors obscuring the view. The thought of going straight back inside made me want to just turn and run and keep running until I collapsed from exhaustion. The bus still wasn’t quite due. I had time to take a quick walk.

More commuters were coming and going, passing with briefcases and shopping bags in equal measure. By the time I went back inside many of those I’d given a show would have already gone on their way.

I glanced up the street, finding nothing but a few parked cars and shuttered shop-fronts. It wasn’t as if I would find someone in a long black coat waving at me from across the road. None of this could be called an everyday occurrence, but I wasn’t about to push it further into the fantastic by expecting shadowy figures to be watching each move I made.

Wasn’t that exactly what had already happened though? In my house, they had some kind of camera watching me, probably more than one. How much more shadowy could it get than being watched by a stranger in your own home?

I walked a little way up the road, needing to take my mind in a new direction. Focus. Everything came down to focus. Concentrating on what had passed, what had gone wrong only served to lower the hopeful expectation that something could start to go right. PMA the manuals and theories called it: Positive Mental Attitude. Fuck, I needed some of that right now.

I could hear music coming from somewhere nearby, a heavy thumping bass. Bar19, the self-elected number one student bar, had recently opened above a charity store over the road. It was opening time by the sounds of it. I could have really done with being a student at that moment, just to get a shot of something numbing to my frantic senses.

That wouldn’t have done me any favours either. I likely wouldn’t have known when to stop drinking and ended up doing something even more stupid than lying to the cop outside my house.

I had to have a clear head, a straight-thinking head. More than that though. I had to start thinking like two people. I had to think like a victim, which I had no trouble with, but like the tormentor too. I wasn’t a criminologist or a forensically trained clinical psych; just a bog standard psychoanalytical therapist. I helped people face their problems, look into themselves for the solutions to the conundrums wrenching apart their lives.

That was the part I hoped Steve could help me with.

I checked my watch. A few minutes more in out in the open of the street and I would head back inside. I hoped the bus would be on time.

It would have been laughable in any other circumstances; someone involved in the kidnapping of a loved one relying on a bus service to get from a to b. If only I’d grown up in the heart of a big city and I’d have thought nothing about stealing a car to get around in. Maybe a good upbringing didn’t necessarily help in life after all.

Then again, maybe I should be thinking of it the other way. A good upbringing might have stopped some bastard putting me through hell.

Whichever side of the coin spoke true, the past had a lot to answer for one way or the other.

[ashkent]

In the darkness the mind can play tricks.

Jen had discovered that over the last hour. She was blindfolded, gagged and bound, and lying in dampness.

She could be in a cellar, an attic perhaps, even in a ramshackle shed in the middle of nowhere waiting for starvation and dehydration to come.

The blindfold had been taken off once. A picture of her had been taken but she had been in the dark so long that her eyes couldn’t adjust properly.

This is what it felt like to be held against your will, she had thought. This is how it feels to wonder when you will next be fed, what they will do to you, whether you will live long enough to find out.

David would have one of his little psychology speeches for such an occasion, she had little doubt. Something about controlling your thoughts, forcing your mind to focus on surviving and discard everything else.

Whatever happened, he had always told her that the mind could be the greatest adversary and the greatest ally depending on how someone chose to use it. Think positive, that was his motto.

In the dark that wasn’t easy. In what would be his darkest hour, Jen wondered if David would still stand by his belief in positive thinking.

A door opened behind her. She squirmed on the floor, turning in the direction of approaching footsteps.

A hand grabbed her and lifted her into a sitting position.

She let out an involuntary yelp behind the gag, raising a laugh from her captor.

“You’re jumpy,” he said, pulling off her blindfold and exposing her to the glare of a spotlight. “How about a little home video to really get hubby going?”

She made an incoherent sound through the thick wad between her lips.

“I think that would be a great idea,” he chuckled, ripping open her shirt and forcing her to the floor.


For the eagle-eyed, this is another new scene.

[Chinaren]

Indeed!  This is a new twist by jimminy!  Very interesting.

One thing...

and lying in dampness.

Is it dampness?   Damp?  Doesn't sound very right for some reason.

Cool new chapter anyway! 

[ashkent]

I couldn’t get the picture of Jen out of my mind no matter what I used to occupy my thoughts. Her bruises screamed out at me from the darkness every time I closed my eyes.

The dull drone of the bus should have been something of a distraction, possibly even an annoyance, but I don’t think anything could have broken through the fuzz in my mind.

The bus had half filled at the station and picked up another group at the next stop, leaving me little hope of taking the ride alone. A woman with a handful of shopping bags squeezed herself onto the vacant side of my seat, and after a cursory nod, ignored me. It was probably best that way, so I wasn’t about to start cursing her.

Outside the window, the sunset had perished into dusk and with so many commuters it was likely to be dark before I reached my stop. The onset of dark reminded me that time passed so quick and not always when you were having fun. There were so many clichés to call on, but none of them seemed dramatic enough for me. It took a second to black an eye, to break a bone, to kill.

Dwelling on what ifs did fuck all for my piece of mind. No one could resist the pull of instinct though. Primal instinct to protect the ones we love develops before we are fully formed in the womb, it is there no matter what and to fight it is like trying to fight the air. I couldn’t ignore the danger I know surrounded Jen. Machines can switch off, humans can’t. That is what makes us. That is what keeps us going.

Finding her and finding the bastard behind this kept me going.

Steven could help me with that, I knew he could.

The bus stopped and unloaded a fair number of passengers, but the woman next to me stayed put. I found myself wanting to start talking to her, maybe tell her what I was doing on the bus, where I was going and why. It was the need to share that grew in power all of the time.

Secrets were hard to keep. In my late teens I had often ridiculed my friends when they spent time between college lectures exposing details of which tight ass they had laid the night before. Names were passed around like the peace pipe, even when the terms of the telling stated that the details of frantic sex were not to be repeated.

Again, it is what makes us human. Some people can store information longer than others, maybe even for years, but very few can take a secret to their grave intentionally.

Over the years, dozens of people willingly shared their secrets with me, trusting me to be one of those rare types whose tongue would not be loosened during a drunken night out, or in more extreme cases by bribery. I had been both drunk and bribed, but never had I needed to talk to someone as much as right now.

Another two stops passed by and finally the woman next to me left the bus, bustling off with her bags and giving me the space I needed. The number of people around me had significantly decreased, and outside the night was closing in.

Something about the empty seat next to me and the darkness on the other side of the window suddenly filled me with a sense of loneliness. I was on my own, metaphorically, travelling on a bus in the dark without anyone I knew, surrounded by strangers. One of them could even be the reason I was out here, on the run, a murderer.

Again, I tried not to think about it.

I watched the houses passing by, their windows lit, families sitting down to their meals or televisions. That should have been Jen and I, flicking on the fire and settling onto the sofa.

Some would say life just isn’t fair, but maudlin self pity never helped solve a problem. If I wanted to beat myself up over mistakes made since coming home, the list ran on a mile. I should have been more alert when the delivery man attacked me then maybe he would not have been dead. The bloody hand print on the living room doorframe. Lying to the cop outside my house. Making a show of myself in the cafe and attacking the guy in the station.

I should have handled it all better. Every day I advised patients how to keep their lives in order, but now I couldn’t work out how to control my own.

I reached up and rang the bell.

“But you will,” I said under my breath. “You’ll find her and God help anyone who tries to stop you.”

I rose from the seat and made my way down the bus.

[Chinaren]

A good episode, and one that should be held up to people to show how you can have a good read without fight scenes or anything else.   

[ashkent]

It was this kind of scene that killed off one of my other stories...well, when i say killed off it's a key novel in a series so it isn't dead, just resting a little. It basically involved a two-hand sequence between a father and son, when the son came in the house with the intention of taking his belongings and leaving but found his father there. The scene comprised of them discussing a little about life and from the first line i was stumped. I couldn't have written it to save my life because nothing actually happened. That was about five years ago and now I think I can probably do that scene the way I want to. Funny how these things come with time. 

[ashkent]

The sense of loneliness I’d felt on the bus returned as I walked towards Steve’s house. Lights dimly illuminated the bungalows and detached homes on either side of me, curtains drawn, closing out the world, closing out me.

No one knew I was there, and why would they care if they did. That was another human trait; survival of the fittest. Everyone tried to better their own lives, make it another step up the ladder and keep ahead of those around them. Some managed it by stepping softly through the gaps but many happily stomped their way through anyone or anything that stood between them and their goals.

I wondered if that was the reason behind Jen’s kidnap. Had one of us stood in the way of someone?

The question would have to wait a little longer as I came level with Steve’s front door. I stood there a moment, a little unsure about knocking. I pushed my hands into my pockets. With one hand I felt the shape of the mobile telephone, the small item that hid its horrifying image behind its plain cover. I realised there was something else. The other hand closed around something that felt like a demon’s skin, hard and cracked.

The wallet. I’d forgotten about the wallet.

That was when I remembered the scrap of paper.

The one word written there.

Oakshade

I stepped forward without thinking, kicking over a milk bottle that clattered against the pavement and rolled away, the noise of a collision of worlds in the quiet of the street.

A curtain moved in front of me. Steve’s face briefly appeared, squinting through what I assumed to be the glare of the living room lights on the glass, saw me and quickly vanished again.

Suddenly another question hit me. Did I really want to put anyone else in danger? A friend of all people.

Perhaps that question should have been asked before I was standing on his doorstep. It was too late to turn away now. Having Steve’s help would increase my chances of ending this quickly and getting Jen back. There was nothing more important to me than that, and looking at it from that angle, there was no choice to be made.

I didn’t even attempt to knock on the dark wood door. I could see the shadow approaching from the other side and a moment later a key turned in the look.

When the door opened, Steve spoke before my eyes could focus on him through the bright indoor lights.

“David? Shit, what happened to your face?”

I hadn’t given much thought to my injuries since leaving the house. It was funny, I hadn’t felt a thing while in the station, in the café, on the bus. But something struck me that should have been obvious from the minute I stepped out of my front door. People would have noticed the bruise around my eye, people would remember something like that.

I wondered just how bad it looked now. The last time I had seen my face was in the bathroom mirror back at the house, and then it had been a little red and puffy but looked just a little irritated rather than the result of a fight. It hadn’t been obvious enough for the cop at my house to mention.

“I need your help,” I said.

“What have you done?” Steve asked. “Pissed of the neighbours again?”

“Believe me, if it was that simple then I wouldn’t have trekked all the way over here on a bus.”

“A bus? Jesus, it must be bad. Since when did high-paid shrinks use public transport?”

“Since they got attacked in their own home and accidentally killed someone.”

Steve gave me a flat look that seemed to teeter on the edge of breaking into a smile that never came.

“This isn’t a joke is it,” he said without question.

“I can’t even think of a funny comment to say about it.”

“That really is bad. Get in here.”

I stepped inside without saying anything more.

[Chinaren]

Did you only remember about the bruise when you wrote this bit?  I sometimes do stuff like that, go a while and forget something.  I forgot about a character for about two chapters when writing Tired of Death once!

[ashkent]

Well, kind of. in the original version I didn't actually mention it at all until this chapter and I suddenly realised that he looks a mess but no one else seems to have noticed. I know I had him checking out the damage before he left the house, and I'm sure I put some line in the bus station scene (but i might be lying about that).

[Chinaren]

BTW, on your Facebook page you say:

I have also posted a number of my shirt fiction stories

 

[ashkent]

China I'm shocked! You mean you haven't read my shirt fiction? You've missed Indiana Jones and the Pullover of Doom?? I Was a Teenage T-Shirt??? Night of the Living Denim?????? The Sweatshirt Redemption??????????? 

[Chinaren]

Hmf.    I refuse to acknowledge sarcasm.   

[ashkent]

Sarcasm? who's being sarcastic?

[ashkent]

“Fuck, man,” Steve said, watching me from across the room. “You’ve seriously pissed someone off.”

“Is there anything you can do to help find out who?”

I drank Steve’s less than perfect tea while I tried to make myself comfortable on the expensive sofa. It was growing harder and harder to not become agitated at my sheer incapability to offer anything constructively helpful.

“There’s not much to go on, but I can give it a shot,” Steve said. “Let me just make a quick call and I can get someone on the case.”

“I don’t want this made official,” I said quickly. “If this guy knows I’ve involved the police then he could do anything to her.”

“Don’t worry. There’s nothing going official here. I’m just going to call in a couple of favours. Give me two minutes.”

I nodded, and Steve turned then stopped.

“Just a guy?”

“What?” I asked.

He turned back to me. “You said ‘if this guy knows.’ I don’t think one person would pull this kind of kidnap. There’s got to be at least three of them.”

“Does that make it any worse?”

“No,” he said. “It just gives us a better chance of stumbling across something relating to one of them. I’ll be back.”

As Steve closed the door I glanced at the wall opposite, smiling at the photographs hanging there. It didn’t matter how many times I saw the pictures of Steve grinning like a fool at graduations and Black Tie dinners, it always had the same effect.

I’d known Steve since my early twenties, but it was the type of relationship that seemed to have been there forever. We’d both been younger then, on lower rungs of the career ladder but showing potential to climb. Steve ranked as a DCI with Dragonville CID now, working his way there by nothing more than dedication to the job and no social life for the most part.

Unlike me, Steve had never found anyone to settle down with and with only a small number of women having graced his life he could never be accused of being a highflying womaniser. It had not held him back from enjoying his life as much as the next married man. Some people could work better without the complications of relationships.

It could all have been so different though. It could have been Steve instead of me looking for help.

I stood up and walked over to the fireplace, feeling the heat of the flames against my legs. The photograph on the mantelpiece, framed in a plain wooden surround, was identical to the one on the bureau in my dining room.

I’d never been happier than the day that photo was taken; mine and Jen’s wedding day. The photo had been one of those candid shots that you take without expecting it to come out, but when it does it becomes the one picture you treasure.

The three of us were grinning like Cheshire cats, Jen standing in between Steve and I, her wedding dress hiked up to her thighs showing off her slender legs so we could both stand and point at her pale blue garter. Bride, Groom and Best Man caught in a moment that in one fraction of time detailed everything about their relationship.

Happier times. Was it Dickens who used the line about it being the best of times and the worst of times? That summed up the moment for me; stuck in the hurt and uncertainty of the present with an image of how good the past had been staring me in the face, taunting me almost.

I turned away from the memories with a half smile on my face. It wasn’t taunting me. It was showing me of what had been taken, and what I had needed to fight to get back. As long as I had those kind of reminders with me then there was no way in hell I would give up fighting to get Jen back. Whatever it took.

I crossed the room to the window and stared out through the glass. I could see vague shapes out in Steve’s garden, but most of all I could see my own reflection staring back at me.

I’d certainly looked better, but the darkening patch growing around my cheek would fade soon enough. The streak of blood at my shoulder stood out like a motif on my light shirt, though the cut behind it had now crusted over.

Again they were nothing more than reminders. The occasional twinge of pain, the dull ache through my face. Both constantly brought an image of the delivery man lying dead into the front of my mind, had the voice from the phone whispering its words into my ears.

Don’t hang up. Hang up and she will die.

So why had he called back? The phone had been hung up sometime while I was out cold, yet he had called back.

Whoever was behind this didn’t want to kill Jen. They wanted something from me and keeping Jen alive gave them a hold on me.

“Ok,” Steve said as he entered the room. “I want you to tell me everything again, from the beginning. Anything you can remember could be important. And I know you’re not going to like it, but I really think you should consider making this official.”

“I can’t risk it until I know more about this guy…or guys.”

“Alright. Just remember that having a team training to deal with kidnappings behind you can’t ever be a bad thing.”

“And the fact I’ve killed someone?” I asked.

“Reasonable force and an accident,” Steve said.

“Maybe,” I said. “Let’s just keep it this way for a little while longer. At least until he contacts me again.”

“Fair enough, but at some time we’re going to have to get others involved whether you like it or not. They can put a trace on the calls, run voice recognition software on a sample of his voice.”

“They can also get Jen killed if he doesn’t like the police being involved in anything other than thinking I’m a murderer.”

“That’s also possible, so for now, we’ll do it on the quiet side. Now, from the beginning, tell me what happened.”

[Chinaren]

 

[ashkent]

OK, it's been a while for this one, but I'm just recapping some of the storyline I've lost track of and a new batch of chapters will be arriving shortly.

[Chinaren]

Ah yes, I know that feeling! 

We'll be here Ask.

[Niemand]

Have to say, I like what's happening so far. Nice way to keep a person reading without fight scenes or action so to speak. Very well done. Can't wait for a new bit!

[ashkent]

The flashing blue lights illuminated the morbid expression on DCI Jack Metcalfe’s face.

This kind of case didn’t have a right time, but any time other than now would have been better. His CID team had been virtually disbanded in the last month after the death of a suspect whose body had yet to be recovered. The best officer they had had quit the force and hadn’t been heard from since.

Now a high profile murder and possible kidnap had landed on his patch.

Jack looked up into the dark sky. Was there a God up there watching all of the fuck ups he’d created? Jack thought so. Nothing as screwed up as the modern world could just happen by accident.

“Guv?”

Jack turned and looked over his shoulder.

“Give me something to smile about, Mickey.”

“Only if I tell you a joke,” DC Mickey Flint said with a shallow crease of his lips. “Otherwise, I’ve only got dark clouds on the horizon.”

“Tell me on the way back in there,” Jack said, starting towards the open door of the cordoned off property.

Jack Metcalfe had worked in Dragonville for so many years he felt like he was part of its foundations. He was fifty five, balding more than he liked and starting to put on the weight to match his diet. That didn’t mean he intended on changing anything about his lifestyle or way of working. Some all-seeing God would decide his fate in the end, probably had it all mapped out on the back of a beer mat so what was the point in worrying about it. Freeing his mind from the fact that he and everyone else on the planet were slowly dying each day gave him the chance to spend more time making sure that Dragonville’s residents met their planned demise rather than one at the hands of a tragic criminal.

In that he had once again failed.

“The bloke in the hallway hasn’t got any form of ID on him,” Mickey told him. “M.E. reckons that he took a pretty hefty blow to both sides of the head which probably knocked him out, but having a knife in his heart is the likely cause of death. He’ll check out the head wounds when they get the body back to the mortuary, but he seems to think he was hit over the head with the big, old phone in the hallway then hit the open door on the way down. It could have been done early on in the attack, or it could have been used to keep him out cold once he was down.”

“Who’s the M.E.?” Jack asked.

“George.”

“Explains the theories. Why he didn’t just join CID like everyone else who wants to fanny on around murder scenes I’ll never know. Other than the body in the hall, what else have we got?”

“There’s a partial handprint in blood on the living room door frame, bloodied clothes in a linen basket on the landing and a couple of shoe prints.”

“They belong to the one Tweedle Dee and Dum let walk past them?”

As soon as Jack had heard that a man with blood on his shirt had been allowed to leave the scene, he had torn a chunk out of the first officers on the scene. Perhaps he had been harsh on them when they had only been called out to a disturbance, but his suspicion sensor would have at least twitched. It seemed no one had instinct any more, too much relied on a fucking machine to tell people how to do their jobs. It made him feel old, but at least it was an advantage he had over many of those under him.

“It would be likely,” Mickey said in response to the question. “There is one thing that doesn’t seem to match up though.”

“Just one? That’s a bonus.”

“One of the dining room chairs has been smashed in the living room. There’s cut restraints in the hallway near where the body is. It looks like someone was tied to the chair. The thing is, according to the prelims the guy in there doesn’t have any signs of being bound either by the wrists or ankles.”

“So how many people are we looking for?” Jack asked, then suddenly stopped just as he was about the cross the threshold. “We’re still just looking for one.”

“It could have been the wife. According to the neighbours, this Thompson had a wife who hasn’t been seen all day.”

“I’m not expecting it was her tied to the chair. If it was, she still would have been there.”

“No one else left the house after Thompson.”

Jack didn’t reply. He didn’t need to.

“You think Thompson was the one tied to the chair?” Mickey asked.

“You know me better than to think something like that, Mickey,” Jack replied stepping inside the house. “I know he was.”

[Chinaren]

Huzzah!  Ask is back, and with a new chappy! 

A good 'un too. 

[ashkent]

As it has been a while since the wheels were properly moving here the next chapter is going to be one of those recaps similar to what American dramas do before a new season begins.

"Don't Hang Up : The Story So Far" will be up shortly.

[Chinaren]

'bout time too! 

[ashkent]

As promised, here is the recap of what has happened in the story so far. I haven't gone into excessive detail, and there will obviously be some minor points missed from this recap, but the gist is there for a catch up.

Previously on Don't Hang Up

Chapter 1 - 9

David Thompson comes home from work to find his wife, Jennifer,  not at home. His initial instinct is that she is playing a game with him, waiting for him to  find her sprawled seductively on the bed or lathered up in the shower. When he receives a telephone call from someone claiming to have kidnapped her and telling him not to hang up the phone, he quickly discovers that both he and his wife are in danger. During his conversation with the kidnapper, someone knocks at the door, a delivery man who turns out to be anything but. David is knocked unconscious and wakens a short while later bound to a chair in his living room.
The first thing he notices is that the phone has been placed in its cradle and he seems to be alone. Then the phone rings again.
In the following moments David makes it to the phone, but is forced into another confrontation with the delivery man, who is killed in the struggle. David is told by the kidnapper that he has done well but he should get out of the house as the police are already on their way. David is also instructed to find a mobile phone that the dead man brought into the house with him.
David searches the dead man’s pocket, finding a scrap of paper and a wallet but nothing else. He finally finds the phone hidden under his dining table, and discovers a horrifying image of his wife stored on it.
Changing his clothes, David is forced to hurry from the house as the police arrive outside. By pretending to be his neighbour, David manages to escape the house before the delivery man’s body is discovered and he is soon on his way to the only place he knows he can turn; his friend, Steve’s.

Chapter 10

In a dark loft, the kidnapper watches two monitors containing images of David’s house. He sees the police find the dead man’s body, and leaves the viewing room.

Chapter 11-15

David arrives at the bus terminal, using the public transport to remain as anonymous as possible. With time to spare waiting for his next bus, David goes into the café and takes a seat in the corner. He finds the piece of paper in his pocket that he took from the delivery man, and discovers that this is something more than a random kidnap. Before he can think any further, the mobile phone rings. He misses the call and leaves the café feeling he has drawn too much attention to himself. On the platform, the phone rings again, but when he answers it is a wrong number. David realises he is becoming unnecessarily jumpy and tells himself to remain calm as his bus arrives.

Chapter 16

Jennifer is being held somewhere dark. She knows how people react in these conditions and can see how it could drive someone mad. Her captor comes into the room and tells her it is time to give her husband another reminder of her.

Chapter 17 - 19

David contemplates who could have taken Jennifer. He also finds himself considering how he is coping with the situation and how he would professionally counsel others dealing with trauma. He arrives at Steve’s and is immediately ushered inside. Steve is a Detective Inspector with Dragonville Town police, but has been a lifelong friend to David and Jennifer. David tells Steve what has happened, but implores that he does not what anyone else involved until they know more about why Jennifer has been taken and what the kidnapper wants.

Chapter 20

DCI Jack Metcalfe has arrived at David’s house, which is now cordoned off as a murder scene. Jack has had many years in Dragonville, and recently has seen his CID team pulled apart around him. After receiving a run down of what has been found in the house, Jack decides for himself that the case may not be a clear cut as it seems and David Thompson may not be the killer they have been led to believe.

[ashkent]

Oh, and  on the back of that, Chapter 21 should be up tomorrow.

[Chinaren]

Oh, and  on the back of that, Chapter 21 should be up tomorrow.

Finally!   

[ashkent]

“And you’re sure you don’t want me to make this all official?”

“I can’t risk it,” I said.

“But you can risk not involving them and possibly making this a hell of a lot worse than it already is? Not to mention getting me in the shit if anyone finds out I didn’t call this in?”

“Steve, you know me. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t think I had to.”

Steve looked at me and sighed. “Ok. I need to wait for a call. There’s not much to go on, but if they found anything about the guy at your house then Morris will let me know. Even his name from his wallet will give us something to go on. I can run it through the database and–”

“Shit,” I said, shifting in my seat and digging into my pocket. “I have it.”

“Have what?”

“His wallet. I took his wallet before I left the house.” I pulled it out.

“Why the fuck did you take his wallet?” Steve asked, reaching out with his palm up.

“I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking about much of what I was doing. I guess part of my subconscious knew that was the best chance of identifying him.”

“David, keep the psycho rambling for the patients. I know you and I know how you think about things even when you’re not thinking. You didn’t want them to identify him straight away, did you?”

“What do you mean?” I asked. 

“You know,” Steve said. “You know exactly. You didn’t want those plods to waltz in there, pick up that wallet and immediately be one step ahead of you.”

Steve all but leapt from his chair, snatching up the wallet in a swift movement that would have shamed a Victorian pick-pocket.

“How bad do you want to make this look for yourself?”

Steve’s stress levels rarely rose above composed, and seeing him flustered made me wonder if I was doing the right thing. I was a psychologist but he was the one with the training on laws and police procedures. Of the two, it didn’t take long to work out whose opinion counted for nothing. In that brief second, telling Steve to make it official seriously became an option in my mind.

“I just grabbed what I thought might help me find out who’s behind this,” I said. “Surely a jury would be more interested in the dead body than his lack of leather.”

“I think you need to stick to your own profession and stop using Taggart as your education on police protocol.”

Steven opened the wallet. He moved a flap to one side and uncertainty crossed his face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“No money,” he said. “No receipts either.”

“Is that so odd?”

“Most people I know keep coins in their pocket, notes in their wallet. Even if they don’t carry cash everyone shoves a receipt in there. You didn’t take anything out, did you?”

“Yeah, Steve, in the middle of all this I thought I’d lift a few quid to make up for the inconvenience.”

“No, of course not. It just doesn’t seem right. If there were no credit cards or ID cards I could understand if he was trying to keep his identity hidden, but no cash or receipts just doesn’t add up.”

“So there’s a name in there?”

Steve pulled out a black credit card. His eyes gave him away again. I didn’t have to ask the question this time. He tossed the card over to me.

I fumbled the catch and the card landed face down on the beige carpet. Leaning over I picked it up and turned it over to see the name on the front.

TONY F GRANT, the silver lettering stated.

“But that can’t…” the words dried up in my mouth.

“It is,” Steve said. “Whatever this is, it’s not as random as you thought.”

The image of the delivery man coming across the room towards me as I reached the phone played in my mind. His face remained as clear as in the moment and as Steve spoke I realised what I perhaps should have much earlier.

“He was your patient.”

[Chinaren]

MY god, it's a conspiracy of patients!  Wait, how did the copper know he was a patient?  Or did I forget something?

[ashkent]

If I remember rightly, there was a hint somewhere around chapter 16, when David was looking at the old photos of him and Steve in Steve's house, that they had worked together in the past...and the next few chapters explain the link too

[Chinaren]

Ah, just checking.

Signed,
The Continuity Nazi.