You Are Dead Read Free Page A

man’s voice above the roar of the traffic. “I just phoned her you see—look—the thing is—I’m really worried about my fiancée,” he stuttered, finally.
    â€œMay I have your name and number, caller?” she asked, although she could see his number already.
    He blurted them out. “I think my fiancée is in trouble. I was just on the phone to her as she was driving into the underground car park beneath our flat. She said there was a man lurking in there, he scared her, then I heard her scream and the phone went dead.”
    â€œHave you tried calling her again, sir?”
    â€œYes, yes, I have. Please send someone over there, I’m really worried.”
    All Amy’s experience and instincts told her this was real and potentially serious. “What is your name, please?”
    â€œJamie—Jamie Ball.”
    Despite the background roar he now spoke more clearly. Once again she was typing as she spoke. “Can you give me the address, her name, and a brief description of your fiancée.”
    He gave them to her, then added, “Please, please can you get someone there quickly, something’s not right.”
    She looked at her screen then at the map, searching for the pink car symbol, then spotted it. “Officers are being dispatched now, sir.”
    â€œThank you. Thank you so much.”
    She could hear his voice cracking. “Please stay on the line for a moment, sir. Sir. Mr. Ball? Jamie. My name is Amy.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” he said, sounding more composed.
    â€œCan you please give me your fiancée’s mobile and home phone numbers and car registration number?”
    Ball gave the details, but suddenly could not remember the entire registration number. “It begins GU10,” he said. “Please ask them to hurry.”
    â€œDo you have any idea who the person in the car park might be? Have you or your fiancée seen anyone suspicious in the car park before?”
    â€œNo. No. But it’s dark down there and there’s no security. Some vehicles were vandalized there a few months ago. I’m on my way home now, but I’m a good half an hour away.”
    â€œOfficers will be there in minutes, sir.”
    â€œPlease make sure she’s OK. Please. I love her. Please make sure she’s all right. Please.”
    â€œI’m giving the officers attending your mobile number, sir. They’ll contact you.”
    â€œI heard her scream,” he said. “Oh God, I heard her scream. It was terrible. They’ve got to help her.”
    She typed the details out and sent them by FLUM—a flash unsolicited message—to Andy Kille.
    He immediately alerted the Duty Force Gold commander, Chief Superintendent Nev Kemp, and the duty Critical Incident Manager, formerly known as the Silver Commander, Chief Inspector Jason Tingley, that they had a potential abduction.

 
    7
    Thursday 11 December
    â€œPC Rain,” officers called this kind of weather, only partially in jest. Scrotes didn’t like getting wet, and accordingly the crime levels almost always went down in the city of Brighton and Hove whenever there was heavy rain.
    Six o’clock on a dark, chilly Thursday evening in December. PC Susi Holliday, with her crew mate, the older and more experienced PC Richard Kyrke, known as RVK and famed within the police for his photographic memory, were heading west along Hove seafront in their Ford Mondeo estate patrol car. They were passing a succession of handsome Regency terraces to their right, and the deserted lawns, with rows of beach huts, to their left. Further away, beyond the throw of the promenade street lighting, the stormy water of the English Channel tossed and foamed.
    They were approaching the end of their shift, with just an hour till the 7 p.m. changeover, and it had been a quiet day. So far they’d attended a minor RTC—a rider knocked off his motor scooter by a van, but