Free Cucumber Coolie by Ryan Casey Page B

chill pill, and all that. I’ll be in touch.”
    He lowered the handle of the door.
    I couldn’t help but storm over there and slam the door shut.
    “Hey!” he said. His eyes widened as I stared at him. “This is kidnap, technically. I could arrest you for—”
    “I’ve got fourteen hours,” I said, my heart pounding. “Fourteen hours to save somebody I bloody care about. Don’t screw this up, Lenny. Please.”
    Lenny raised his hands. His stomach rumbled like mad. “When do I ever screw anything up, Blakey?”
    I didn’t even want to start.
    I let Lenny leave my flat and I walked back to the sofa and plonked myself down.
    Martha was silent at first. She let me just sit there with my hands over my face. I was tired. Exhausted. Figured I’d never feel healthy again. Worst part of this case is that I was helpless. There was nothing. No evidence. Nothing to go on.
    And yet, the killer said to “look around.” He suggested the answers were out there to be found.
    There had to be something.
    “You can have five minutes if you—”
    “Load that tape up again,” I said. I leaned forward towards the camera. My eyes stung with tiredness.
    Martha looked at me with concern. “Hun, I’m not sure another viewing will—”
    “I need to watch it again. Just do it.”
    Martha rewound the camcorder and started again from the beginning.
    I stared intently into the static. Freeze-framed every little shot.
    The approach to Danielle’s house.
    The killer stabbing me in the neck with a syringe.
    Then doing the same to Danielle.
    I watched it all. Beginning to end, then beginning to end again.
    It was only on the fourth viewing that I noticed something I hadn’t before.
    It was on the back seat of the killer’s car. In the final shot, when he pointed the camcorder at Danielle, lying flat and partly covered by a bin bag.
    “Ecstacia.”
    “Hmm?” Martha said. “I have some in my handbag if you want some. It’ll knock you out for a few hours though. Strong stuff.”
    “No, look.” My heart picked up. “The box on his back seat. Ecstacia. Right there, see?”
    I froze the frame. Fast-forwarded through it as slow as I could, as the bold black lettering on the side of the box came into view.
    Martha squinted at the shots. Colour invaded her cheeks. “Weird,” she said.
    “Where did you say you bought this stuff? Online?”
    Martha gulped. Looked me in the eyes. “Don’t judge, hun, but… well, it’s not exactly a legal substance.”
    I shrugged. “Same with many herbal remedies. So did you get it online? Maybe we can—we can contact the website. Ask them about recent orders. That box, it looks like a load of the stuff. Maybe that’s what he’s using to put the victims to sleep. It has to be. It—”
    “You can’t get Ecstacia online, Blake. It’s… it’s a local brew, let’s say.”
    Martha lowered her head. Cleared her throat.
    “Local brew? What does that mean?”
    She looked me in my eyes. A half-smile crept up her face. “There’s only one guy in the world who produces and deals Ecstacia. And I know where to find him.”

FIFTEEN
    “I thought this drug dealer of yours was supposed to have a stall here?”
    Martha sighed. “I told you. He’s not a drug dealer. He’s just a pill supplier.”
    “Pill supplier. Right. Got that.”
    We stood in the middle of Preston Market. It was filled with stalls selling knock-off DVDs, knock-off clothes, knock-off everything. Every day, the sounds of shouting radiated through this grim, closed-top area, the smell of pigeon-shit strong in the air.
    “He’s usually just here,” Martha said. She pointed at a stall that was filled with old football programmes. Liverpool, Wigan, Bolton—loads of old programmes all from the seventies and the eighties onwards. A suspicious brown stain clung to the front of one of the Wigan ones. Very fitting.
    “Well it doesn’t look like he’s here to me,” I said.
    “Alright, alright, don’t get your knickers in a