The Locker

By Adrian Magson

Hello, Nancy.

You're at your usual locker at Fitness Plus. The time is 09:15.

Your cell phone is dead, your home phone won't answer and your daughter, Beth, is home with the nanny.

It will take you 18 minutes to get home. If you drive fast.

Shame. You're already 18 minutes late...

The kidnappers' only stipulation is that Nancy must tell her husband, Michael.

The problem is, she doesn't know where he is, or how to contact him. But she recalls him mentioning a number she should call if anything unusual happens. This triggers a Code Red at specialist security company Cruxys Solutions, who send investigators Ruth Gonzales and Andy Vaslik to track him down.

But they can't find a single trace of him. What do you do when a child's life depends on finding a man who doesn't seem to exist?

A white-knuckle suspense thriller that just won’t let go, perfect for fans of Harlan Coben, Daniel Silva and Michael Connelly.

Praise for The Locker

'Readers who enjoy Harlan Coben and Joseph Finder will happily get lost in the nightmare presented here' Booklist

'[An] intriguing and inventive plot' Mystery Scene

'Magson is arguably one of the most entertaining writers of British spy fiction currently operating. His novels are sharp and exciting, with intelligent plots and interesting characters' Deadly Pleasures

'Gonzalez and Vaslik make an appealingly mismatched investigative unit' Kirkus Reviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: Canelo Action
• Release date: Apr 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781800323728

Adrian Magson

Adrian Magson is the author of 20 crime and spy thrillers. His series protagonists include Gavin & Palmer, Harry Tate, Marc Portman, Insp Lucas Rocco and Gonzales & Vaslik. He is also the author of ‘Write On!’ a writer’s help book.

Book preview

1

The first thing Nancy Hardman saw when she opened the gym locker was a rectangle of white card on the bottom, stark against the dark interior.

She picked it up. It carried her name in heavy, black type.

And her heart went cold.

Hello, Nancy.

You’re at your usual locker at Fitness Plus. The time is approx. 09.15. Your cell phone is dead, your home phone won’t answer and your daughter, Beth, is alone with Tiggi, her cute Polish nanny.

It will take you 18 minutes to get home. If you drive fast.

Shame. You’re already 18 minutes late…

1) Do NOT call the police. Beth’s life depends on it.

2) DO tell your husband. Beth’s life…

She stepped back as if stung.

Instinct told her it must be a sick joke, intended for some other Nancy; left by a friend with a dubious sense of humour. The clown face said it all. Didn’t it?

But another Beth?

She glanced along the corridor, skimming over the banks of lockers and taking in irrelevant details; well-trodden carpet tiles, pale, clinical walls; the bank of identical steel boxes with bright orange key fobs hanging from the locks, waiting for the tumble of a token or a coin to release them. Only this one, her usual choice, had a large safety pin holding the key instead of a fob. It had stood out from the rest, quirky and different, and she’d used it for that reason ever since joining.

The building was quiet after the early rush, taking a deep breath in preparation for the next phase. It was still too early for the cross-trainer groupies rushing in after the school run, or the more intense spin freaks who drifted in quietly and made for their favourite bikes as if about to take part in a spiritual rite, or the older members who mounted the equipment with the care of those who knew that a fall might prove disastrous to fragile hips or knees.

Only a murmur of voices from the front desk and a peal of laughter indicated other signs of life.

Further away, music from a Zumba class leaked through the walls, carried on a muffled beat that seemed to echo in her brain and bounce off the ceiling tiles above her head. The instructors at Fitness Plus were young, trendy and seemed determined to make the world go deaf in their pursuit of peak conditioning.

She scrabbled for her phone, cursing as the plastic slipped from her hand, slick with a sudden sheen of perspiration. She touched speed dial.

A joke, surely. Couldn’t be anything else. Or a misunderstand—

Your cell phone is dead.

Nothing. The screen was blank. No light, no bars, no signal indicator. No screensaver of Beth grinning toothily over an ice cream sundae, taken on a rare day by the sea near Brighton.

She shook the phone as if it might stir the circuitry into life. A bad connection, that must be it. Nothing. She turned it over and tore off the back, surprised by the sudden strength in her fingers. Bloody thing was fiddly and usually took forever to get off. This time it fell away with ease, revealing the SIM card.

But no battery.

She fought back the desire to scream. How could this be? She’d used it last night to send a text to Michael, her husband. Just a few familiar words, tapped out with the point of a pen as she sat on the bed, followed by the press of a button. It was hardly a routine exactly, and no substitute for any kind of real contact, but it was all she had and she made sure it was regular enough to remind him, wherever he was in some God-forsaken back of nowhere, that she was here – they were here – her and little Beth.

She batted the locker door shut, turned and sprinted along the corridor towards the front desk, trainers silent on the carpet, her sports bag forgotten. There was a public phone out there in an alcove. Pray God none of the usual pensioners were on it, calling for a taxi or arranging their next round of bridge or coffee meetings.

It was free. She grabbed it, hands fumbling and sending the receiver falling to swing from the cord, the clatter attracting glances from two elderly customers in leisure suits and soft, old-lady shoes with Velcro straps. The duty receptionist, an alien being dressed like a beautician with an unlikely tan from the sun-bed upstairs and a vaguely see-through white top, threw her a painted scowl.

She dialled the number. It took forever to connect; first a series of quiet clicks followed by a louder one followed by the ring tone. The hand-piece felt sticky against her cheek and smelled of lipstick and dried sweat. Why couldn’t people wash—

Still ringing.

Your home phone won’t answer…

She waited through twenty rings, each one more painful than the last. A flicker of mental images told her with cool logic that Tiggi must be upstairs, in the bathroom, playing with Beth, teaching her Polish words, out in the garden, on her cell phone or sorting out the washing. There were a dozen other reasons for not answering, none of them helpful.

She cut the call and dialled the number of the phone she’d given Tiggi, with instructions to carry it always. Just in case.

No answer.

This can’t be!

She felt her stomach heave and a sharp pain blossomed in her chest, threatening to burst out into the open. She had to get out of here before she threw up. She dropped the phone on the hook. It bounced and fell, but she left it and raced towards the exit, ignoring the receptionist’s shrill call.

It will take you 18 minutes to get home.

She arrived at the car and reached for her keys. But they were in her sports bag. Back in the corridor.

She raced back inside, past the startled leisure suits and the receptionist, and jumped the revolving gate. Ran to the corner and turned left down the corridor, saw her bag lying on its side in front of the locker like a dead animal.

And a woman standing over it.

‘What are you doing?’

The words snapped out before she could stop them, before she had time to take in the sports bag hanging awkwardly from one shoulder while the woman juggled with a purse.

The face was familiar. Karen? Or was it Clarisse? Nancy couldn’t remember. Her mind had gone blank, clouded by the various thoughts tangled together like a jumbled mass of seaweed.

‘I’m so sorry.’

The woman was dressed in dark Lycra and pink shoes, vaguely pretty and with the build of someone who benefitted more than most from a fitness regime. They hadn’t talked much, hadn’t even exchanged full names or backgrounds, but she’d been the only one who seemed willing to make an effort to break the ice.

‘Hi.’ The greeting was bright, the smile fading to concern as Nancy ran up to the bag and stopped. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Sorry.’ Nancy bent and scooped up her bag, hooking one strap and turning away, feeling her gut threatening to let go. ‘I don’t feel well.’ Then she was running back along the corridor, praying nobody got in her way and hearing Karen’s or Helen’s voice floating after her, tinged with sympathy and concern and a faint hint of an accent.

If you drive fast.

She got in the car and turned the key, stamped on the gas and tore out of the car park, tyres squealing on the smooth surface. Out onto the main street and down to the end, where she turned left under the nose of a cement truck, earning a blare of air horns and a hiss of brakes. She waved an apology, got an angry repeat of the horn and put her foot down, the car leaping forward and away.

Shame. You’re already 18 minutes late…

She came to a corner, usually taken with care because of a tricky camber, but now cut short. A wheel hit the kerb and she heard the clatter of a plastic wheel trim spinning away behind her. A jolt made the steering jump and she wrestled with the wheel, sweaty hands glossing over the hard fabric until she regained control.

She swore long and loud, terrified at the thought of losing control. Wrapping herself around a lamppost wouldn’t do anything to help Beth if she’d really been…

If what? If she’d been kidnapped? By who? And why? The idea was ridiculous, like something out of a Film 4 shocker with Liam Neeson playing the vengeful parent.

A glance at the dashboard clock. Pointless, as she had no idea how long it had been since leaving the gym. But anything familiar was a welcome distraction. Had it been three minutes? Five? More?

It felt like an eternity.

She slammed her foot down harder as the speed dropped, careering past a woman in a wallowing 4X4 with a phone clamped to her ear and unaware of other life forms around her. Oncoming vehicles flashed lights and sounded their horns, swerving to avoid her. A leathered motorcyclist eager to prove dominance failed the challenge at the last second, keeling over in a sideways skid and narrowly missing her charging bonnet, his face through the visor a brief glimpse of terror.

She arrived home a lifetime later, out of breath and feeling sick, subconsciously mumbling the only words that made any sense.

This was a joke. It had to be.

Had to be…

Had to be…

But who did she know who would joke like this? Nobody.

She jumped from the car and ran across the paved driveway and stopped dead.

The front door was wide open.

On the doormat lay a small bundle, arms and legs out wide, little button eyes staring unseeing into the sky.

Nancy buckled forward at the waist, a stab of pain piercing her stomach.

It was Homesick, Beth’s favourite teddy.

Beth never went anywhere without it.

2

The door flew back under the palm of her hand and slammed against the inside wall, the glass panel rattling in the frame. She forced herself to breath, the sound echoing hoarsely in the empty hallway.

‘Beth? Tiggi!’

The words fell on empty air. There was nothing, save the flat, dull sound of a deserted building, devoid of human warmth, of movement, of the welcome vibration of living beings.

Her throat closed, tinder-dry, and she raced through to the kitchen.

Empty. Breakfast dishes in the sink, unwashed; a glass on the drainer with a residue of milk. Beth’s morning drink, taken with fierce reluctance in what was a daily jousting match between them.

Next the living room, a sob bursting from her mouth at the familiar, the homely, the usually comforting.

But now empty and joyless, with toys scattered indiscriminately, the usual aftermath of Beth’s decision-making on what to play with today.

The study.

Empty and cold, rarely used.

‘Beth!’

No reply.

Up the stairs, feet drumming on hollow treads, her legs unsteady with imagined horror.

‘Beth!’

Bathroom.

Empty. A smell of soap and Beth’s bath-time Nemo lying stranded near the plughole, a bright flash of colour against cold white enamel.

Why the hell did toys, usually so cutely animated in play, suddenly seem so lifeless yet threatening?

Her and Michael’s bedroom. Mostly hers.

Empty. Neat. As she had left it.

Beth’s room next, a riot of untidiness left by the whirlwind squall of an active four-year-old. Blanket askew, clothes hanging half out of drawers, even more untidy than usual.

Empty.

Then the spare room Tiggi used whenever she stayed over, which was about once a week.

Empty.

She looked again. Something was wrong.

The wardrobe door was hanging open, revealing the bare interior. The few changes of clothing Tiggi kept there were gone, as were the trainers she favoured when walking Beth in the park. And the small alarm clock so she didn’t oversleep. She took her duties seriously.

Gone.

But there was a small rectangle of metal lying by the bed. She bent closer, knowing immediately what it was.

The missing phone battery.

She snatched it up, trying not to think the obvious, and ran back to Beth’s room. She went to the open drawers, fear escalating as she noted the empty spaces and the jumble of items tossed aside.

Some of Beth’s clothes were gone.

With a sob she ran downstairs and out through the kitchen to the back door. It was open. She pushed it back and burst out into the small rear garden, with it’s tiny patio and a meagre stretch of lawn with a plastic slide and a Wendy House. The rear windows of houses fifty yards away stared back at her, dark, blank and unhelpful.

Mocking.

She didn’t need to see the back gate standing open to know the awful truth.

She fled back inside, her mind numbed, jumping as the front door slammed shut with the flow of air. The sound acted as a catalyst, bringing a sudden rush of tears down her cheeks, hot with fear and anger and impotence; of the agony of not knowing. She wiped them away but felt her heart was about to break.

Think. Do something.

Do NOT call the police.

DO tell your husband.

Call Michael? No, he was probably out of reach as usual. She couldn’t even recall where he was this time. Somewhere remote and God-forsaken, that was a given. She could send a text message, as she did regularly, but it was debatable whether he ever received them all, since he so rarely replied until he was back near civilisation and reliable signals.

She ripped the back off her phone and replaced the battery. She would phone him; it was better to do something than sit here going mad. She dialled the number and waited. Nothing. As she stared at the small screen, it triggered a memory of something Michael had mentioned a long time ago. Something she should do if anything ever happened.

Something about calling a phone number here in London.

The study. She hurried through and opened the small filing cabinet housing the paperwork that was the governance of their everyday lives. Here lay insurance contracts, bank records, utility bills, her birth and marriage certificates, all the detritus required to prove they were who they were.

She pushed her hand to the back, skimming over the plastic tags. The last drop file held a single piece of paper. She snatched it out.

Cruxys Solutions Plc. The name was followed by a telephone number and an authorisation code: HAR769M231 and the word Red.

Michael had told her that if she ever had reason to call this number, it would be an emergency, and to mention Code Red. It would light a fire under them and they would instigate an immediate response.

She had never asked what he’d meant by it or who ‘they’ were, secure in the knowledge that it was something he had arranged for their own security, but that she would never have to use it.

She went through to the kitchen and picked up the landline phone. Her hands were shaking so much she had to take two stabs at dialling the number.

‘Cruxys PLC. Your name and code reference, please.’ A man’s voice, calm and assured. Like a newsreader, she thought, distant and automatic, unruffled by events in the outside world. Her world.

‘It’s my daughter,’ she muttered. ‘She’s been taken—’

‘Please give me your name and reference number.’ He was insistent, but his tone gentle. ‘We will help you but your number will give us all the information we have on file.’

She gave her name and read out the number on the card, adding ‘Code Red.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Hardman. Are you in any immediate danger?’ The man’s voice was still controlled but now carried a hint of urgency. She heard a keyboard clicking very fast, then a snapping of fingers in the background followed by a door slamming.

‘No… They said I mustn’t call the police.’

‘They?’

‘A note.’

‘I understand. Can you tell me briefly what happened so we can set things in motion? Help is already on its way to you and will be there shortly.’

‘I was at the gym,’ she said, fighting for breath and wanting to scream with frustration at the sheer calm quality of the man’s voice. ‘I found a card in the locker telling me my cell was dead and my daughter Beth has been taken and not to call the police. I came home and found the house open and empty. I don’t know who could have done this – it’s crazy! I don’t have any enemies, I don’t know anybody and Beth is just four years old, she’s just an innocent little girl!’ Her throat closed with emotion and fear, chopping off the words in mid-stream.

‘I understand, Mrs Hardman. Did the note make any specific demands?’

‘What? No, nothing. It said to wait – but that I should tell my husband they would be in touch.’

‘Very well. Try to remain calm. Stay where you are, lock yourself in and watch the front door. Help will be with you in a few minutes.’ The repeated assurance had become an annoying mantra, but she realised it was intended to help, to reassure, to calm.

She didn’t feel calm. ‘How do you know?’

‘Know what?’

‘Know where I am? I don’t understand—’ She broke off. Of course he knew; the code number told him that. All she was doing was wasting time. ‘I’m sorry.’

More tapping of keys. ‘There’s no need to apologise, Mrs Hardman. It’s perfectly natural. Stay by the phone and our people will be there imminently. They’re just a few blocks away. Their names are Gonzales and Vaslik and they will present ID. Let them in once you’re satisfied but don’t talk to anybody else and stay off the phone.’

‘What if the kidnappers call? They might call before Gonzales and…’

‘Vaslik.’

‘Vaslik get here.’

‘If they do, ask them what they want. Do you have a recording device in the house?’

‘No. Yes, I… my cell phone.’ She was still holding it. ‘Why?’

‘That’s good. Turn on the loudspeaker on your landline and try to record the conversation. But don’t hold the cell phone too close to the handset. Gonzales and Vaslik are on their way.’

‘Gonzales and Vaslik.’ She repeated the names automatically, stumbling over the second one. It sounded Russian. Why would a Russian and a Spaniard be working for these people? Don’t they have any English… Christ, what was she saying? Did it matter what their names sounded like? She clung to the phone and stared at the carpet, numbed by the thoughts piling into the forefront of her brain in an insane jumble, most of them too horrible to contemplate.

‘What will your people do? The note said not to tell the police.’

‘We are not the police, Mrs Hardman. Whoever left you the note doesn’t know we exist. Now, check all the doors and windows are locked, make yourself a cup of tea but don’t touch anything else in the house. Do you understand? Wait for them, don’t talk to anyone else, touch nothing. Stay secure.’

‘I understand.’ She put down the phone and walked over to the kettle, flicking the button like an automaton. She didn’t want tea, for God’s sake; she wanted Beth. She checked the back door and all the windows, then walked through to the front room from where she could watch the drive and the street outside.

Outside, where everything looked so normal, so uneventful. People walking, driving, living life.

This wasn’t real. This wasn’t bloody real!

She walked back to the kitchen and picked up her phone, and thumbed a text message, the words spurred by anger and helplessness. Maybe, just maybe this would get through to Michael.

Somebody has taken Beth, our daughter. They’ve kidnapped her! Please tell me what to do! Please call me!!!. N. x

She hit SEND and walked back to the living room, and stood waiting.

She must have zoned out because when she looked next two figures were standing at the bottom of the drive. A slim man with pale skin and fair hair, and a woman with short-cropped dark hair and the build of a gymnast. Both were dressed in business suits, the woman holding a briefcase and the man clutching a clipboard to his chest.

Nancy felt a moment of hysteria building. They looked like insurance salesmen. Or Jehova’s Witnesses.

But she knew they were neither.

3

The house looked smart enough to Ruth Gonzales, but nothing special, which surprised her. Typical of the area, which was north-west London, suburbia at its most normal and unthreatening.

Or, at least, it had been.

At the smaller end of the property design compared with some of the neighbours, it was a typical west London home for a young family; the kind where, given a few years and with regular promotions and increases in salary, they’d be on the move to somewhere bigger and better. Up-scaling their lives to the suburban dream.

‘What’s up?’ The man behind her spoke with an American accent. His name was Andrei Vaslik, although he’d asked to be called Andy. Third generation Russian, he’d explained briefly, his family long settled near New York.

‘I was expecting more, somehow,’ Ruth replied. ‘Like the others.’ She nodded towards the houses further up. Bigger and neater, openly more opulent; smarter cars, too, mostly 4WDs gleaming and polished. Did the gloss indicate a higher standard of living or a greater level of debt? She checked her watch. 10.00am. Some gone to work, others were still at home. Out of work or self-employed. Sometimes one and the same thing.

‘Why more?’

‘Because Cruxys clients have money, usually lots of it. This is not typical, believe me.’

The houses she came to in response to calls were generally bigger, the locations more select. Even the problems were bigger, more acute in scale, even if sometimes imagined. Money always brought its own troubles, it seemed to her.

Still, you could never tell. The briefing notes on the client sent to her smart phone ten minutes ago had contained essential details but she hadn’t bothered memorising them all. They would find out the really important stuff in the next few minutes. And house size or location wasn’t the most crucial.

‘How do you folks handle this?’ Vaslik was new to Cruxys and still finding his feet in a strange city and a new environment. He’d been paired with Ruth as his mentor. Follow her lead, he’d been told; it was a kind of induction period. Then he’d be on his own unless teamed up with others for specific assignments.

For Ruth it was an unwelcome if temporary intrusion; she preferred working alone or with one of the other operatives, and had sensed that Vaslik wasn’t overjoyed, either.

‘We go in, we pull Nancy Hardman down off the ceiling and calm her down. We try to figure out who took her daughter… if that’s what really happened.’

‘You doubt it?’

‘I’ve seen it before: domestic stuff. Just because our clients have money doesn’t stop them falling out and doing something stupid.’ She looked at him. ‘But I suppose you wouldn’t have seen much of that in the DHS.’

He shrugged, not responding to the implied query. She’d been told that he’d been headhunted from the Department of Homeland Security, the huge standalone US federal agency set up in the wake of 911, and before that he’d been a New York City cop. His name had come on recommendation of contacts in the US, and he’d been recruited to add to the company’s footprint with US corporations, which was a fast-growing market for a hungry company.

In the private security industry, she was learning, presentation and identity were every bit as important as they were in banking.

‘We should get in there.’ He gestured at the house with his clipboard.

‘We will, Slik. Let’s allow her a good look at us first. We don’t want her thinking we’re part of whoever snatched her daughter.’

‘Call me Andy.’

‘Whatever.’ Slik suited him better; Andy was too boyish, too… everyday. Slik fitted his look, which was slim, clean and contained, like a ballet dancer she had once known. He even had the face, with cool eyes, high cheekbones and hungry features, undoubtedly part of his Slavic ancestry. Probably couldn’t dance worth a toss, though.

She walked up the paved drive. A Nissan was parked at an angle with the driver’s door hanging open, abandoned in a rush of panic. She nudged it shut with her hip. No point adding to the woman’s problems by having her car nicked.

She knocked on the door and stepped back, saw a ghost of movement behind the front room curtains. She waited for a shadow to appear behind the frosted glass door panel. At her feet lay a small teddy. It looked forlorn, abandoned. She picked it up.

A metallic clunk sounded as the door opened and was stopped dead by the security chain. Good girl. She’d listened to instructions.

‘Mrs Nancy Hardman?’

‘Your names?’ The voice seemed to be squeezed with difficulty through the gap, like old toothpaste from a tube. The tone was hovering on the edge of breaking.

‘I’m Ruth Gonzales,’ she replied calmly, and took out her ID wallet. She held it against the gap and let it go when it was taken. ‘My colleague is Andy Vaslik.’ She signalled to Slik to hand over his ID, which he did.

‘You were quick.’

‘We were in the area.’ After the call had reached the Cruxys control room and the operator had punched in the code red indicator, the system had automatically picked up the nearest team available. She and Vaslik, on the first full day of being paired up for a show-around of his new work territory, had been it.

‘Wait.’ The door closed and the chain rattled. When it swung open again it revealed a woman in her late thirties dressed in gym gear. Trainers, leggings and a top, all clean but worn. A reflection of the woman herself, thought Ruth. Fit but no fashion-conscious gym bunny. And by the haunted expression in her eyes, stressed to hell.

As they stepped inside, Nancy Hardman leaned out and scanned the street.

‘Don’t do that,’ Ruth said. ‘We don’t want to go public. If anybody asks, we’re from the water company.’ She took back their ID in exchange for the teddy and waited while Nancy looked guilty then mortified for not having picked it up, before turning and leading the way into the living room.

The furniture was neat, clean and reasonably modern, but not top of any range. It pointed to a restricted budget – or careful spending, depending on your point of view. She took a seat on the settee while Vaslik wandered away to check the front and rear windows. He was careful not to touch the curtains, before walking back into the hallway.

‘What’s he doing?’ Nancy queried, her voice brittle. ‘Where’s he going?’

‘He’s doing his job,’ Ruth replied softly. ‘He’s going to help find Beth. To do that we need to see if anything has been left behind that might help us.’

‘What sort of thing?’

‘We won’t know… until we find it.’

She waited for Nancy to settle, then said, ‘Right, Mrs Hardman – can I call you Nancy?’ At a nod she continued, ‘As I said, we’re here to help you find Beth. That’s our sole priority. First I need you to tell me what happened. I know you