Chapter 30
Kate watched Steve over the top of her desk monitor as he tracked down the suspects in Christopher's case. She had been keeping a close eye on him knowing his determined focus was what was stopping him from breaking down or lashing out.
"We need to check her devices, are they in her backpack?" Ted called across the room to Maneet catching Kate's attention. She turned her chair round to Ted who was walking towards her.
"We don't need to. Lottie always uploads things to the cloud for her college work and such. We saw that when we last had her laptop. We still have her username and password on file" Kate explained. Having done the laptop searches herself she knew exactly where the log was of the laptop and quickly uncovered the username and password to Lottie's one drive account. She logged into the system via her desk computer and reached for her cup of tea as the log in loaded.
CHRISTOPHER
A folder appeared at the very top of the folders available. It wasn't there when Kate had done searches months prior. She opened the folder and was flooded with documents. Pictures, videos, Word documents and to her shock e-mails and accounts from a company she knew the name of all too well. Kate opened some of the pictures and her mouth fell open. She moved her hand to capture Ted's attention and in doing so knocked her mug of tea off the table but she didn't react to it. Her eyes were fixed on the screen. Ted saw as her face turned from confusion to surprise and she looked over to him wide eyed.
"Sir, we have a situation."
Ted looked at the screen and he was just as surprised as Kate.
"Ok, Liz and Holly are at their homes we have sent out cars to get them. Charles we are having issue with finding and … what?" Steve asked realizing Kate and Ted were transfixed by Kate's screen.
"Steve … I think Lottie been hiding something from you," Ted said. Steve walked round the desk to look at the screen. It was covered in candid pictures of Nicholas taken in Marks and Spencer where Lottie worked, on the street and at the pub with timestamps showing she had been taking pictures of him for weeks.
"Oh my God," Steve muttered under his breath.
"What was that?" Ted asked pointing to a notification of a new document being uploaded to the cloud. Kate clicked on it and realized it was an audio feed.
"She's got a microphone. She's storing evidence in real time" Steve realized. He looked to his phone. "I have to call her."
"I don't think that's a good idea, son" Ted began to explain.
"I don't care! I need to talk to her. She needs to know that we have got her message. Please?" Steve begged.
"Alright, but first let's get set up in the observation room so we can run our own recording feed of this. Steve, you have to make it seem like you have no idea she has been taken. It is going to be difficult I know, but like Kate said, we have the upper hand," Ted commanded. Steve nodded and felt his hands slightly shaking.
"Sir" Maneet interrupted them. "Just heard back on information about Lottie's phone. Lost tracking some time ago but it just got picked so she has moved to an area with signal. You were right. She's in Dudley."
"Thank you Maneet" Steve said and now he knew Nicholas' threat was stronger than he originally thought. Once they were set up, Ted nodded to Steve who remained outside the room to avoid feedback happening and dialed Lottie's number.
He had to ring a few times before he got through. Finally the call was answered but Lottie didn't say a word.
"Hey, you still at college?" Steve asked. "I thought I was picking you up today?" He knew she would hear the shakiness in his voice but pretended it didn't exist.
"No, sorry. Something came up. I should have told you but it was all very last minute." He could hear she wasn't talking normally. Not a threat of emotion, it was because she was in pain. The thought made him feel sick.
"With Alex?" Steve asked, his way of establishing if Nicholas was in the room with her.
"Yeah I should have told you. I'm sorry." He closed his eyes for a few seconds silently promising to himself he would beat that bastard for touching his sister.
"Where are you?" he asked.
"We're on the train heading for Manchester." Referencing the location of the bank robbery caught Steve's attention and no doubt Nicholas too.
"Manchester, why?"
"He's managed to get us two tickets to see Taylor Swift's Red tour. Isn't that amazing?" he knew she was trying to sound enthused. Time to go into parent mode which he slipped into easily.
"No it isn't. I'm your guardian while you are here Lottie. You have to run these things by me" he said, his voice slightly raised.
"But Steve, she's a superstar! These tickets are like gold dust! If I see this concert I am going to be on top of the world!" For some reason that sentence threw him off guard but he carried on.
"I don't care. Get back here now!"
"Sorry, I can't do that. We are on a train and the next stop is central Manchester which is half an hour away. I don't know what train I can get back giving they will be packed with rush hour commuters. It's gonna take some time."
"Put Alex on the phone" Steve demanded. He knew that would make her panic if being in Manchester for a concert on a college day was true or false.
"No" she said quickly.
"No?"
"That's right, you heard me, no! You aren't going to get Alex for my choices Steve. Stay out of my stuff! I'm sixteen, I'm not a child. We'll talk about this later."
"Don't you dare hang up," he quickly warned her.
"You can't tell me what to do. I love you Steve but I have to do this. I'm sorry, I'm not hiding anything from you anymore … I love you."
The line went dead and it took several seconds for Steve to compose himself before he turned and headed for the observation room door.
When Steve entered he saw Ted and Kate stood around a speaker listening to the feed from Lottie's hidden microphone.
Lottie hissed when Nicholas put her into a new chair and began tying her down using rope. Her shoulder and face were still sore and now he was using rope which caused a burn to her skin. Now with her vision clear she could see the yellow painted farmhouse living room covered in canvas paintings of a willow tree was also littered with weapons pointed at her. She didn't know if not being able to see earlier was more terrifying than now. Nicolas pulled a chair to be opposite her and sat on it leaning back relaxed.
"He won't bother us now" Lottie said assuring him.
"Will he call Alex?" They heard him drop Lottie's phone on a hard surface like it was worthless rubbish.
"Maybe, I don't know. With my phone off he can't track me now even if he wanted to and Alex won't be free anyway he's staying with his parents for a while. He thinks I'm in college as always. So basically I'm fucked, tied to a chair with knives and a shot gun in my face and no one knows I'm here. So you're in control now. Are you going to continue to beat me?"
"Thinking about it … Do you like it? Being hit? I bet you are really into BDSM."
"You know nothing about me. I'm only sixteen"
"Never stopped me."
"Fucking asshole" Kate muttered.
"How long will the microphone hold out?" Ted asked.
"Depends on the device, the battery power and if it is connected to a source. More importantly, how has she got it hidden in plain view?"
"Her scrunchie. Remember? She keeps money and such in it and a rape alarm" Steve reminded the two and they all remembered back to the day the hand was posted to the flat.
"Wait a minute … I know you. I served you before at my work I …. I helped you pick out a present for your wife last week" Lottie said and the AC-12 officers knew she was acting.
"I was wondering when the penny was going to drop."
"Who are you?" she asked.
"I'd rather get to know you."
"Why don't we play a game?" she suggested after thinking for a moment.
"Easy Lottie" Ted warned out loud in a mutter.
"What kind of game?" Nicholas asked sitting forward in his chair.
"Let's call it 20 questions of honesty. You ask me a question and I have to answer it honestly. Once I answer, it is my turn to ask you. Until the last of the 20 questions is answered on both sides you aren't allowed to do anything to me and I can't do anything to you." He let out a brash chortle.
"What the fuck do you think you can do to me when you are tied up to a chair?"
"Then I'm not that much of a threat am I? To quote Abraham Lincoln, 'nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power'. So are you in, or out?"
Nicholas fell silent before a very slow grin spread across his face. "Deal. Ladies first" he commanded.
"Shit. That means he has the upper hand when the questions are done," Kate said to the room.
"Let's hope she spaces out her questions to give us time to get to her," Ted replied.
"What do you know about me?" Lottie asked.
"Your name is Charlotte Elizabeth Arnott aged 16 from south London. You are living with your brother at the moment whilst studying at college after you ran away from home over last summer. You have a boyfriend called Alex. You write songs and work in Marks and Spencer. You get the number 19 bus to get to college when it is too wet or too cold to walk. You love paprika flavoured crisps and chocolate as well as an obsession with music and bath bombs. You have a tendency to play with your sleeve when you are nervous and you scrunch your nose when you laugh. If you want more details you are going to have to ask another question."
"You've been watching me for a while then. That's a statement not a question," she responded quickly making it clear that she hadn't given up her second question.
"Quite some time. Really enjoyed sitting behind you at lunch last week in your college cafeteria. You aren't as smart as you think you are."
Ted crossed the room and opened the door. "Maneet, I want CCTV footage from Lottie's college to be collected as a matter of urgency."
Nicholas licked his lips before opening his mouth. "First questions for you then. Are you a virgin?" Lottie raised her eyebrows.
"Wow, talk about getting to the point. Yes I am and I intend to stay that way whilst I am here."
"We'll see" Nicholas smiled. She wanted to spit in his face but managed to compose herself. "So, what's your second question for me?" he asked. He was acting cocky now.
"Have you seen Jurassic Park?" Lottie asked calmly confusing Nicholas, Ted, Steve and Kate.
"What the fuck is it with you and Jurassic Park? That's a statement not a question" he said quickly realising he slipped up.
"I like the film. It lets me know if we have some things in common like that."
"Holy shit. Films. She's trying to get information about the film stubs from the Everyman. Breakfast at Tiffany's" Steve explained.
"Oh my God. You clever girl" Kate smiled.
"Yes, I've seen it. Seen all of them but the first film is the best" Nicholas replied.
"Agree, it's the most superior out of the trilogy. Bet the T-Rex stuff was your favourite part."
"Actually no. I like Laura Dern in the bit when she turns on the electric fence and gets attacked. She looked good in those shorts." Lottie felt ill at how Nicholas objectified women the way he did but she didn't let her annoyance show.
"My favourite was the rapters. The bit where Bob Peck's character hunts down the rapters but forgets the key rule. That rapters don't hunt straight ahead but from the side. So the hunter becomes the hunted. Reminds me a little of you Nicholas."
That threw him off. He did a double take and his eyes widened. "What did you just call me?"
Lottie smiled.
"And there is question two for me. I called you Nicholas. Nicholas Gregory Forrester born on 1st November 1945. You own a farm in Dudley with a lot of land on which you run your family business which is dairy related products of all types. You do a lot of online shopping mainly from Amazon. You have four ex wives and three daughters who quite frankly are sick of the sight of you and haven't communicated with you in many years. You tend to spend your free time haunting night clubs and paying for prostitutes. You have a decent amount in your bank account but your offshore account you could very easily live off for the rest of your life yet you never go near it. Oh and you sent me the severed hand of DS Christopher Wright who you murdered in the summer of 1974. Plus, you paid two of your illegal immigrant workers to kidnap me by the names of Canmert and Baris and bringing me here before shooting them and leaving them to die chocking on their own blood whilst I was chained to a chair unable to help them. For two FUCKING hours I sat there listening to them die and smelt their blood seeping across a freezing cold barn floor. Don't even get me started on your medical history. If you want more information you are going to have to ask me another question."
Nicholas stared at her in shock making Lottie smiled. He couldn't speak. He never anticipated this was going to happen.
"Like I said, my favourite scene in Jurassic Park is when the hunted becomes the hunter. Now you sit there and think about what you did because I'm going to take my sweet time coming up with my next question. You made a deal Nicholas that you can't touch me until the twenty questions are up. The devil is in the detail."
"Mother of God, we need to get to Dudley, now!" Ted said and the three left the room to travel to Dudley.