Out of Reach Read online

  Schaefer looked at the yellowed page from his journal of four years ago. Suspect gave no useful information even under stringent questioning. Stemmed the most serious blood loss and left him tied up outside the police station on Saville Row. How long had he been doing this? The more terrifying question was how long could he continue? His battle damaged body was already feeling the pain, but Schaefer was increasingly worried about his mind. How could he not remember something that was obviously critical to his investigation? Ellen’s advice that it was the memory of the future was vague nonsense that confused more than it clarified. If these people had a true connection to the divine, why didn’t their messages come through with the clarity of a church bell?

  Temple of Fire recruiting members in West London language schools. Will pay their head recruiter a visit. Schaefer remembered the man had cried like a little girl, a strange high pitch screaming that had almost made Schaefer feel pity. But the Temple of Fire was a violent, subversive cult that believed in the subjugation of women. They focused on recruiting young women in their twenties to service the sexual desires of their leader, Solphan Ozwalt, born Stephen Oswald, and his cabal of priests. When the men grew bored with a girl, they sold her into the sex trade. Jenny Miller, that was the name of the young woman Schaefer had rescued. He still remembered the look of relief on her mother’s face when the two were reunited. Schaefer realised tears were running down his face as he thought of the emotional intensity of that moment and felt successive stabs of jealousy, fear and grief that he may never experience that with Amber.

  Schaefer looked around the small storage unit he rented in the 24 hour warehouse off the Old Kent Road. These boxes and books were his life. If he died in a knife fight tomorrow this would be all he’d leave behind. His only hope was that Sarah would follow the instructions of his simple will and pass the contents of the unit on to Paul Baker. Morally reprehensible, Baker was the best investigator Schaefer had ever worked with. If anyone could complete Schaefer’s work, it would be him. Schaefer’s other hope was that Oliver would forgive him for being absent from his life and leaving him without any inheritance. Any money that was left in his estate would go to Baker to pay for him to look for Amber for as long as possible.

  Schaefer caught sight of his distorted reflection in one of the unit’s metal dividers and felt sick. Look at yourself, you self-pitying excuse of a man, Schaefer told himself. He felt ashamed he had allowed himself to wallow in the stinking filth of self-indulgence and wiped his eyes. No one else was looking for Amber. Everyone had surrendered her to whatever fate had swallowed her up. Not him. He would never leave her. When he felt weak, when he felt tired, when his mind drifted to speculate on what evil had befallen her, when his nerves frayed and fear gripped his soul, Schaefer reminded himself to think of her, to think of the promise he made to always keep her safe. He would find strength in that promise.

  Schaefer took off his coat and rolled it into a makeshift pillow. The security guard assumed that Schaefer was a down on his luck divorcee and let him stay the night, provided he was always gone by the time the day shift started. The way the guy figured it, Schaefer was paying for the space, if he wanted to store himself in it for a few hours that was his business. Schaefer lay down with his journal. He would read until he fell asleep, trying to discover what he was supposed to remember.

  *

  Schaefer had not been aware of falling asleep for years. There was something about the transition from waking to the dreamless that disturbed him. Humanity’s truest fears were laid bare in the moments before sleep, and Schaefer did not want to have to face them as the constructs of his conscious defences shut down. So he worked or drank until he passed out from sheer exhaustion, blissfully ignorant of the transition. A knock on the door roused him.

  “You’ve got fifteen minutes,” the security guard said through the metal panelling.

  Schaefer rubbed his face and looked at his phone for the time. He had been sent a text message in the night from a number he did not recognise. The message read, “I need to see you urgently, Sally Blake.”

  *

  Schaefer rubbed his chin as he waited by the front door. The rough stubble felt reassuring and helped him think. He had nothing to tell Sally Blake – he certainly wasn’t going to mention what Ellen had told him about Katie. The moment the door opened, Schaefer realised he hadn’t been summoned to give a progress report. Suspicion and hostility shone from Sally’s red raw eyes. She stared at him for a moment, sizing him up.

  “You wanted to see me,” Schaefer said.

  “You’d better come in,” Sally replied with the slightest hint of rancour in her voice.

  Schaefer followed Sally into the living room.

  “Have a seat,” Sally said.

  Schaefer sat on the course brown fabric sofa next to the window and Sally took the chair opposite.

  “Marcie had some concerns about you, Mr Schaefer. She did some digging. Why didn’t you tell me your daughter disappeared ten years ago?”

  Schaefer tensed. His clients didn’t get to interview him for a very good reason – they would not like what they found. Schaefer was about to stand when Sally picked up a manila folder that contained a bundle of print outs.

  “The Internet lays all our secrets bare, Mr Schaefer,” Sally said as she examined the contents of the folder. “Thomas Schaefer, ex-Army. Dishonourably discharged ten years ago after being sentenced to six years for the attempted murder of Liam Cross.”

  “If I’d tried to kill him, he’d be dead,” Schaefer interjected.

  “Liam Cross was the leader of a cult called the Black Dawn, and it seems you blamed them for the disappearance of your daughter.”

  Sally stared pointedly at Schaefer.

  “I don’t think I can have you working for me, Mr Schaefer. You seem troubled.”

  Schaefer stood suddenly, causing Sally to flinch. He looked at the doorway. Walking out was the easy option, but Katie Blake had been kidnapped by the same people who had taken Amber – Schaefer needed this case. He pulled the crayon scrawled note from his pocket and handed it to Sally.

  “I found this in Katie’s room the other day,” Schaefer said.

  Sally unfolded the note and was on her feet the moment she had finished reading it. She slapped Schaefer hard, her eyes brimming wet.

  “The police should have this!”

  Schaefer ignored the blow.

  “The police wouldn’t know what to do with it. I’ve been hunting the person who wrote that note for ten years.”

  Schaefer sat down, slumping onto the sofa heavily, as though momentarily defeated. Sally sat next to him, struggling to comprehend what was happening to her.

  “You think whoever took Katie also took your daughter? Cross? The Black Dawn?” Sally asked desperately.

  “Now you’re starting to think like someone with a missing kid,” Schaefer replied, instantly regretting his words when he saw Sally’s wounded expression.

  “I’m sorry,” Schaefer offered quickly. “I put Cross in a wheelchair. He lives with family in Australia and needs constant care. The police put pressure on his group and it disintegrated without him. It’s not them. Not after all this time.”

  “How can you be so sure? Why did you suspect them in the first place?”

  Schaefer hesitated. Nobody, not even Sarah knew the whole story – he had been too ashamed to tell her. Gilmore had asked once, but had the good sense never to ask again. Schaefer looked at Sally’s grief-stricken eyes and could feel the eddies of her desperation wash over him. This was the one person in the world who would be able to understand what he had been through. Understanding – an empathetic connection to another human. Schaefer wondered whether he deserved something so virtuous, but decided that even if he didn’t, this miserable innocent did. Sally Blake didn’t deserve the poison that had entered her blameless life.

  “It started with my sister,” Schaefer said, as he prepared to tell her why he was the only person with the slightest hope
of finding her daughter.

  FIFTEEN

  “We grew up in Stoke. Our dad was a drunk who left when we were little. Mum did what she could, but we both got into trouble. Vicki and I were both looking for answers. I found what I needed in the army. Eventually made it to Hereford. I tried to help Vicki, but she just drifted through life going from one good time to another.

  “I was in the Gulf picking up insurgents who were trying to cross the border, when I got word that my sister had disappeared. I went AWOL, hitched a ride on an oil company’s private jet – a friend of mine was running security for them. I came back to London to find Vicki. Vicki and I, well, we didn’t have what you would class as a traditional brother and sister relationship. She’s two years younger than me, so we were always hanging around together. We’d squabble, but there was none of the hair-pulling, eye-gouging fights that I hear about from everyone else. We were best friends, but when I think about what finding her cost me, I just know I wouldn’t do it again.

  “I tracked her to this run-down shithole in Hackney. One of those four story Victorian terrace houses that have been left to rot. I don’t know if they were there legitimately, but it looked like a squat. There were two dozen Black Dawn acolytes living in this five bedroom house. It was a conditioning centre, where they indoctrinated new recruits before sending them down to the main property in Sussex.

  “I watched the place for three days until I’d figured out their routine and knew when Vicki would be in the house. It was four o’clock on the third night when I broke into the place. I went through the front door. They weren’t particularly security conscious; it was just a Yale lock, which I forced with a plasterer’s blade. Inside there was a guy asleep at the bottom of the stairs. I don’t know whether it was because they didn’t have the space, or because he was supposed to be a guard, but I smacked him hard to make sure he wouldn’t wake up, and crept up the stairs. It was the first time I’d encountered a cult, and I was shocked by the squalor of it all. The one bathroom they had was barely functional and the smell of so many dirty people living in such filth was overpowering. The walls were covered with prophecies and drawings that were supposed to illustrate the coming Apocalypse. I crossed the first landing and checked the two bedrooms on the first floor. Six sleeping women in each. Back then I couldn’t understand what these beautiful young girls were doing there, but now I know that beauty is no guarantee of self-worth. These foul men preyed on damaged girls with low self-esteem and offered them belief in something bigger than themselves; in a man they convinced them was a living god.

  “Vicki was on the second floor. I found her asleep in bed with one of the scumbags that had taken her away from us. This sweaty, fat, balding guy in his fifties was lying next to my sister. I couldn’t get her out without the risk of him waking, so I tapped him gently on the shoulder until he opened his eyes. Before he could react to the sight of me in his bedroom, I throttled him. With my half-naked sister lying next to him, I was tempted to finish him off, but I’m no murderer. When he blacked-out, I let go and he slumped back on the bed breathing heavily. I put my hand over Vicki’s mouth and woke her. She tried to scream, but I held her fast. They had got to work on her mind, indoctrinating her against her family, turning her against me. I saw the hate in her eyes as she bit my hand in an effort to escape and alert the others. She drew blood, but I knew that I couldn’t fight the six men who slept on the third and fourth floors, and kept my hand over her mouth in spite of the pain. I smacked Vicki hard, and knocked her out. I slipped an old t-shirt over her, and carried her quietly through the house and out to the car. I knew it wasn’t the end of it because we had to undo the damage done to Vicki’s mind, but I thought that was the last I’d ever see of the people in that house.

  “The police recommended Doctor Gilmore as being an expert at cult deprogramming, so we took Vicki to his hospital, Milton House. Vicki screamed the whole way there. She punched, kicked, scratched, and bit me whenever she got the chance. I dragged her in, signed the committal papers, and handed her over to Doctor Gilmore. From the first moment I met him, I knew he would be able to fix Vicki, bring my sister back to me. I visited her every day for a week, and you could really see her getting better. At the end of my last visit she hugged me and apologised for what she’d done. I’ll never forget that day; I had my sister back.

  “Amber was abducted eight days after I’d rescued Vicki. It was the day after her tenth birthday. My wife and I were asleep in the next room. The police reckon whoever did it used gas to knock us out. We woke up that morning and she was gone. Her bed was made and her pyjamas were neatly folded under her pillow. There was a card on her pillow with exactly the same symbol that was on the one you found on Katie’s. All Amber’s toys were looking at her toy box. Hidden in an old crack in the lid I found a folded note that was written in exactly the same handwriting as the one I found in Katie’s room. The note said, ‘Schaefer, let’s play.’

  “I was convinced Amber’s abduction was something to do with the Black Dawn, so I went back to the house. I waited two nights, living as a derelict in an alleyway behind the house. I’d suffered worse in the service; living in my own shit and piss for two days didn’t bother me. I watched and I waited until Liam Cross paid the girls a visit. The living god come to get down and dirty in his East End slum. I didn’t bother waiting for them to go to sleep. I kicked the back door in. The first two guys had knives, but I had a police issue baton. It was all I needed. I put both of them down and ran upstairs. The next guy tried to pull an old revolver, but he didn’t know what he was doing and couldn’t fire it in time. I sent him down the stairs. The other three guys didn’t give themselves enough space to take me on simultaneously, so I hammered them one at a time. The girls had been trained to defend their masters, and were all over me, screaming like banshees. They could hurt me, but they weren’t going to take me down, so I ignored them and climbed up to the third floor where I found Liam Cross with two naked girls and a samurai sword. For a living god, the guy didn’t have a clue. I disarmed him, broke his left knee so he couldn’t run and bundled the girls out of the room. Cross was alternating between begging me to let him go, and threatening me with wrathful vengeance if I laid my hands upon his divine person. I knocked the wardrobe in front of the door and got to work.

  “By the time the police smashed down the door, Liam Cross was mentally and physically broken. He would never walk again. I’d carried out enough interrogations in the field to know that a jumped up egomaniac like Cross couldn’t have resisted what I’d put him through. He told me the truth; he didn’t know anything about Amber.

  “The police took me in and I was charged with attempted murder. There were plenty of witnesses, and they’d caught me at the scene of the crime. The judge said there were mitigating factors, and gave me six years. I did three. Three years inside with my little girl slipping further and further away. I wanted to lash out. I wanted to kill the guards and escape. I wanted blood. But I knew that if I stepped out of line they’d add years to my sentence, and I needed to get out and find her. So the days went past and my life fell apart. The Army kicked me out. Sarah couldn’t handle the loss of Amber, she couldn’t deal with me being foolish enough to land myself in prison when she needed me most. We divorced during the second year of my sentence. Vicki killed herself in the third year. Hanged. They didn’t find her body for three weeks. Her suicide note said she couldn’t live with the guilt of what she’d done to me and my family.

  “When I got out I went wild. I spent every waking hour, all the money I had trying to find her. I hired investigators, badgered the police – I even got desperate enough to see a psychic. When everyone else gave up, I kept working the case by myself. If you look hard enough, you’ll always find something. I started to find other missing people. Doctor Gilmore helped. He talked me through the darkest days and began referring me cases to keep me occupied – friends and families of people who needed to be rescued from cults. Before I knew it, this world became my life.
”

  Sally’s face was full of sympathy. Tears streamed down her face. Schaefer struggled to keep his emotions under control, and was aware that his voice was cracking under the strain of his story.

  “I keep finding other people,” Schaefer said, “but all the time Amber is fading away.”

  Schaefer couldn’t control himself anymore, and wept freely.

  “She was my little girl,” he cried.

  Sally reached out and pulled Schaefer towards her. She squeezed him tenderly, unable to speak, but trying to comfort him nonetheless. They were two people damaged by a shared misery that was beyond the understanding of most people. Sally sobbed as she buried her face in Schaefer’s neck. The intensity of their shared grief was too much for her to bear and she moved her head, seeking out Schaefer’s face. Driven by a primitive instinct that she did not fully understand, Sally kissed Schaefer. Schaefer, who had not been close to a woman for years, responded with genuine passion. The two of them found solace in an intimacy that would temporarily relieve their minds of their inexhaustible grief.

  *

  The sex had been primal. Neither of them had spoken as they had stripped each other’s clothes. They shared an unspoken connection to the primitive force that was common to all creatures; the intense and burning lust that joined with the deep spiritual significance of procreation as the act of giving life. The base and the divine unified by a single passionate act. Schaefer relished the sight of Sally’s smooth, unblemished body. If she was perturbed by his scars, she gave no sign. He could not remember the last time he had touched skin so soft, smelt a body so fragrant, or tasted lips so sweet. The expression of uninhibited pleasure that had swept Sally’s face as she climaxed suffused Schaefer with simultaneous feelings of ecstasy and regret. The instant he came inside her, Schaefer mourned the transience of passion. If they had been able to hold on to that sensation of pure lustful pleasure forever, they would never have to return to the misery of their lives. The sheer power of that feeling drowned out all else in a way that drink or drugs never could. But even as Sally had rolled off him and pulled the covers over them, Schaefer could feel the cold chill of reality return. He had seen it come back to Sally too, because her eyes filled with sadness before she turned away from him, rolling onto her side and facing the window. Feathered sunlight framed the edges of the heavy drapes. As they lay in the darkness, the world carried on regardless. Schaefer lay motionless for about half-an-hour as Sally’s breathing had got progressively heavier and she fell asleep.