Beth shook her head.
‘Family?’ Stacey asked.
‘His mother is in a care home in Hagley,’ she said, tapping the side of her head. ‘Dementia. He has one brother he hasn’t spoken to in years.’
‘May I ask why?’ Stacey asked, making notes.
Beth shrugged. ‘They argued not long after we got married but both are too stubborn to make the first move.’
‘Were they close before?’
‘Not really.’
‘Can I get his contact details anyway?’
Beth nodded. ‘I have an old address book somewhere. I’ll dig it out.’
Stacey paused for a second, readying herself for the hardest question of all.
‘Does Gabriel have any mental-health problems – depression, anxiety?’
Beth shook her head. ‘No, nothing at all. He’s always been level-headed and sensible.’
Stacey took a moment to glance over the details taken by the desk sergeant. She had an address, vehicle details and a good description. This information would be placed on the system, and she was guessing that would be as much as Burns would allow her to do with it.
‘Can you send me through a photo?’
Beth opened her Mulberry bag and took one out.
The man in the photo was around six feet tall with fair hair and blue eyes. He smiled at the camera in front of a backdrop of stunning scenery.
‘Taken two months ago on our last holiday in Croatia.’
Stacey slipped it inside her notebook. She really did have everything she needed.
‘Mrs Denton…sorry, Beth, what do you think has happened to your husband?’
The tears filled her eyes and spilled over onto her cheeks. Her hands fussed with the handbag strap as she talked. ‘I can only think he’s been in some kind of accident. I just keep picturing him wandering around somewhere dazed and confused and alone. I just want him home.’
Stacey reached across and touched the woman’s arm reassuringly. She couldn’t imagine not knowing where Devon was so she felt the woman’s worry.
‘We’ll find him, Beth,’ she said, wondering if she’d just made a promise she wouldn’t be able to keep.
FIVE
My eyes open, I think. I feel them opening but the view is the same. The darkness is as dense. I blink again. It takes effort: effort to blink.
The panic in my stomach is instant. I don’t know where I am. The unfamiliarity that meets my senses hits me before anything else. My stomach is already coiled, and my heart is beating rapidly.
Everything about my body feels unfamiliar. The ground beneath me is hard. My wrists and ankles are handcuffed. There is some kind of cloth in my mouth. My brain is full of cobwebs, a maze of unreachable corners. I can’t seem to think clearly. Where am I? How did I get here? What did I do? Why am I tied up?
I try to control my breathing as the fear rises up into my throat. I try to redirect the breath that’s coming quickly out through my nose. It can’t escape through my mouth. Calm down. Calm down. Get control. Think, I tell myself. Assess.
My entire body aches from head to toe. I’m filled with an exhaustion that I’ve never known. Every cell wants me to close my eyes, to succumb to the fatigue that seems to reach every part of my being. My bones feel like they have liquefied. My whole body is nothing but a bag of mush.
I have to focus. I have to try and understand where I am. I need to get my senses to work for me. I have to find a way out of here.
I try to lift my head to focus my hearing. A pain shoots from the back of my neck to the top of my head. My neck weakens and my head falls forward again. Why is there a pain there? Was I hit on the back of the head?