Get in touch, now.

You need to tell us what you’re doing.

We want to help you! Get back to us!

What have you done?

Where are you????

You’re not in trouble Mark. We need to hear your side of the story. You need to contact us.

He imagined by now that John had started talking. Probably making wild claims and accusations. Put together with Natasha disappearing overnight, they would become suspicious and wonder what he was doing. If someone had noticed Natasha had gone at all.

It was why John’s laptop was currently sitting in his car. He didn’t want to leave it there and give him a chance to erase every bit of evidence linking him to what had happened.

Mark considered ringing in and telling them everything, but there was another part of him louder and more insistent. Everything told him he needed to do this alone. That it was the only way to make sure she was safe.

If they came mob-handed, it would mean whoever was doing all of this would feel cornered. Trapped. Like an ensnared animal, they would panic and be liable to do anything.

He needed to do this alone.

Mark pocketed the phone and shook off his seat belt. Outside, the sky had turned black, clear and cold. He looked at the time, then got out of the car.

Up ahead, there were only bushes lining the narrow road. He stuck to the side, walking carefully and quickly. By now, he’d memorised the address. Only it wasn’t really an address, he understood now. It was a road name, which thankfully the sat nav had recognised, but he imagined most people wouldn’t even know this place existed. He was in an area that didn’t see many visitors at all, he guessed. A narrow dirt track of a road, which led to the countryside beyond, away from civilisation.

A lock-up garage, number 2A.

The bushes came to an abrupt end, low-level garages appearing out of the ether almost. They were run-down, some of the doors rusted and overgrown with plants and other vegetation. Overhanging trees bordered the land, their branches drooping and touching the roofs of the small structures. They didn’t look in use, abandoned and waiting to be levelled, so a new thing could take their place. Mark guessed this hadn’t been a spur of the moment choice.

In the ten minutes since he’d got out of the car – longer since he’d driven down the back road – he hadn’t heard a single engine. A single signifier of other life, that someone else knew this place existed. It was deserted, as if he had stepped into another world.

The thought made his heart beat a little faster.