Chapter 111
Chapter 111
She raced forwards, her eyes scanning the shadowy rooms in front of her. It was almost certain that the crumbling building was deserted, but Helen slid her baton from her pocket, extending it to its full length. She had no idea what she was getting herself into, whether any of Reynolds’ co-conspirators were still at large, so it wouldn’t do to take chances.
She kept up a swift pace, hurrying through the dusty reception area and into a large side room. This had presumably once been a recreation room, ripped posters of football players and WWF wrestlers hanging apologetically on the wall, but was devoid of life today. The musty smell of decay was overpowering, but clamping a hand over her mouth, Helen pressed on, returning to the corridor. She ran on, darting her head into another empty room, a dormitory of some kind, before hurrying on. On the cusp of entering a third room, however, she paused. Opposite her was a door that in days gone by had had additional security, two padlock fixtures in addition to the standard lock. The former were now unused, but the door appeared to be locked, the metal tongue visible in its mooring. More intriguingly still, the handle to this aged door seemed entirely free of dust, unlike everything else in this decaying shell. Hurrying over to it, Helen beat on the door, pounding it with her hand.
‘Naomi? Mia? Can you hear me?’
Pausing, she listened intently, but no response came.
‘I’m a police officer. I’m here to help you. Can you hear me?’
Helen’s plea was greeted with silence. She didn’t like to think what that meant, so stepping back, she threw herself at the door, her shoulder smashing into the decaying wood. It gave way instantly, the door virtually coming off its hinges, revealing a staircase that headed down into the darkness. Gathering herself, Helen illuminated the torch on her phone and hurried down, baton raised in anticipation of attack.
Her progress was swift and Helen soon found herself in a dusty basement. Emerging into the room, she scanned it feverishly, determined not to be ambushed in this grim hole, but to her disappointment as much as her relief, she was alone. Breathing heavily, Helen ran a critical eye over the room. Was this the awful basement in which Naomi had been attacked? Her pulse was pumping, her brain whirring, it was hard to focus, but as Helen took in her surroundings, she slowly recognized details that convinced her that this was the place. A rusting water pipe running along one of the walls, a missing brick in the wall just beneath it, and a discarded builder’s spade, which had seemed a jarring and bizarre component in Reynolds’ horrific video footage.
But if this was the place, where was Naomi? Where was Mia? Had they been brought here, abused, then spirited away? If so, where? It was possible that they were lying, bound and helpless, in an upstairs dormitory. But why would their captors take them up there, when they would be much better concealed down here? Was it too cold? Too airless? Helen hoped that she had hit upon the reason, that a desire to keep them alive might have caused their captors to move the girls elsewhere. But there was another possible explanation for the girls’ absence here, one Helen didn’t really want to contemplate.
‘Naomi? Mia? If you can hear me, please shout out. You’re quite safe …’
But Helen’s desperate plea echoed off the walls, before slowly dying away. She was quite alone in this hellish place. She had got here too late.