Target by Simon Kernick Read Free Book Online

into the bedroom.
    The bed was made. There was even a cuddly teddy bear with a sky-blue bow sitting perfectly symmetrically between the two sets of puffed-out pillows. The bathroom door was shut. There was no sign of the clothes Jenny had been wearing nor, more worryingly, my jacket. In fact, nothing was out of place. The room was so damn tidy it could have been part of a show home.
    I flung open the bathroom door. It was perfect in there, too. No sign of any bloodstains from where I'd clouted the Irish guy with the soap dish. What I did notice, however, was that it smelled of disinfectant in a way it hadn't done earlier.
    'Someone's cleaned this place up,' I said firmly, turning round.
    'I can see that,' said Tina, coming into the room behind me. 'It looks great. But let me tell you something, Mr Fallon. In my experience, criminals never like to hang around after they've committed their crime. If these two men kidnapped Miss Brakspear, as you say, then it's extremely unlikely that they would have taken the time to make the bed and give the place a spring clean afterwards.'
    'I know that,' I said, feeling like I was going mad. 'But that's exactly what happened. I promise you that. I'm not making it up.'
    For several seconds, Tina didn't say anything. Gentleman appeared in the doorway of the bathroom. He was wearing an expression that was part way between irritation at being dragged all the way up here and the kind of patronizing pity usually reserved for the mentally ill.
    What was worse was that in his shoes I'd have felt exactly the same.
    Tina asked him if all the apartments on this floor were occupied.
    'I'd have to check,' he answered, 'but I think Jenny might have been the only one living on this floor. What with the credit crunch, they've only sold about half the units in the building. Maybe not even that.'
    Christ, that was all I needed.
    We went back outside, and even though it was past three in the morning Tina knocked on the doors of the floor's other three apartments. No one answered.
    I felt embarrassed and confused. Those events just hours earlier had happened – the fact that my jacket was missing was enough to prove that – but there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.
    Tina got Gentleman to copy the footage from the CCTV camera on to a USB stick she was carrying and thanked him for his time. When we were outside, she told me she'd file a report and make some enquiries, but there was little enthusiasm in her tone.
    'Someone's covering for these guys,' I persisted, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice. 'I swear it. That's why the camera for the underground car park wasn't working. Why there was no sign of forced entry. And why the place was cleaned up. I was there tonight and I know exactly what I saw. I bet if you check that footage through carefully enough, you'll see that it's been tampered with.'
    Tina put up a hand to stop me. 'I'm sorry, Mr Fallon, but criminal conspiracies are a lot rarer than most of us like to think. Criminals just don't tend to be that clever. If two men did kidnap Miss Brakspear, it's highly unlikely that they were in cahoots with the door staff because the more people there are who know about something like this, the harder it is to keep it secret. Even you've admitted that Jenny's an ordinary girl with an ordinary job, and was acting perfectly normally when you met her earlier, so it's highly unlikely she's a victim of some kind of conspiracy. What I want you to do is to keep calm, try not to read too much into everything, and leave the investigating to me.'
    'I bet if you check passenger lists for all flights to Barbados out of London Jenny Brakspear's name won't appear on them.'
    'Mr Fallon, please.'
    I wanted to keep trying to convince her that I was telling the truth, but I could see it wouldn't work. Instead, I asked her what she planned to do.
    'I'll contact Jenny's place of work, and I'll contact her family to find out if they can shed any light on things.