Free Chasing Innocence by John Potter Page B

the rain. He relaxed his body, coiled all his strength inwards and burst backwards, but it made no difference. It was like pushing against a wall. His arm was ratcheted higher, the pain causing him to shout out.
    ‘What do you want?’ The sound was muffled, his mouth unable to properly shape the words.
    ‘You were in the police station!’ The man’s voice carried a hard edge. Not just of anger but something else, it was almost desperate.
    ‘So?’
    ‘Tell me about the girl.’
    ‘What girl?’
    ‘THE GIRL. The one you told the police about.’ The weight pushed heavier into his back, his face jammed harder against the gate. His initial reaction beside shock had been to assume he was being mugged. He quickly re-appraised.
    ‘God, the girl, look I was in there about my wife.’ He made a wild guess. ‘Are you the girl’s father?’
    Seconds passed, the silence filled by Adam’s laboured breathing and the sound of rain. The weight shifted but there was still no give.
    ‘Look, if you are bloody let go and we can talk! I have nothing to hide from you.’
    ‘What about your wife?’ The same hard edge to the voice.
    ‘My wife, she, she saw a girl kidnapped. She followed the kidnapper and I haven’t heard from her since. I was reporting it to the police.’
    Frustration and anger pumped adrenalin through his body. He bunched his muscles, but was totally at the mercy of someone stronger and much more adept. Instead he vented through words. ‘For fuck’s sake let go of me!’
    ‘Not yet. What did you tell them?’
    ‘I told them everything my wife told me. She was following some guy in a car, he had a box. She was convinced a girl was inside it.’
    More empty seconds of rain, then the weight finally relented and his arm was released. Behind him he heard boots step back. Massaging his shoulder, he turned. For a moment the dark profile and the partial features floated at the boundaries of familiarity, and then he remembered. It was the soldier of fortune. The guy sat in the front row at the police station.
    Adam waved his arm in small circles. ‘So you’re the girl’s father?’
    The man nodded.
    ‘So why not just ask? Instead of this?’ He glanced at the gate to demonstrate his point.
    ‘Because guys like you don’t talk to guys like me.’ The voice was now calm and matter of fact.
    ‘All you had to do was say who you were. Why would I not?’
    The man said nothing, just watched Adam, still totally in charge. He had short dark hair, a softness to his features. There was something almost vulnerable masked by the set of his jaw and the moustache that curled down around the corners of his mouth. It put Adam in mind of Boer’s. The man’s eyes were his most striking feature. They possessed a quality, as if they had seen more than anyone should in a lifetime. His wet combat jacket hung open, underneath he was wearing a plain T-shirt and jeans. And then the man stepped forward and held out his hand.
    ‘Brian Dunstan.’
    Adam was so shocked he stepped forward without thinking and they exchanged a wet handshake.
    ‘Adam Sawacki.’ He remembered his frustration, brushing past Brian and back into the rain. ‘You’ve got some way of introducing yourself.’
    They now faced each other. The man’s smile made the moustache lopsided. ‘Charm has never been my thing. And like I said, guys like you. How about you buy me a drink.’
    ‘Buying you a drink is the last thing on my mind.’
    The man shrugged. ‘I don’t have any cash, otherwise I’d buy you one.’
    Adam’s instinctive answer was to say no but the thought of Sarah stopped him. She was probably following a car with this man’s daughter stuffed in the boot.
    ‘Where?’
    ‘The Locksmith,’ the man answered. ‘It’s a pub across from where I work. It’s near.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I have thirty minutes before I clock on.’

NINETEEN
     
    Sarah pushed her handbag under the passenger seat then stepped onto the wet, uneven pavement.