Trapped - An Alisha Begum Thriller Short Story

Blurb – Trapped

A Muslim thriller short story that’ll rock your socks off.

Alisha Begum, cosy detective extraordinaire, finds herself kidnapped.

Hands and feet tied. Blindfolded. And with a gag over her mouth.

Smells terrible, too.

Oh, and the most dangerous killer in Manchester threatens her with a not-so-pleasant death.

How on earth will she get out of this one?

Written by Muslim fiction author S. H. Miah, a witty female detective stars in a thriller short story that’ll be sure to humour, amaze, and downright terrify.

Chapter 1

The last thing Alisha Begum remembered was sleeping in her comfy bed in her cosy little cottage in the middle of a small north Cheshire village, where quiet didn’t mean lonely and where noise didn’t mean disturbances and where one could truly see the gifts of Allah to the world as clear as they could the blue summer sky above the sides of Britain filled with country.

The next thing she remembered was something around her right wrist. First far away, as though her sense of touch was within a dream. As though she was experiencing an out of body experience, in a way.

Then that sense tightened, and smelt of something foul and metallic and bloody. That feeling, now obviously a rope, suddenly pulled taut, with the ferocity of a flashbang under a magnifying glass, and the pain shot through her like constant pangs of a carpal tunnel from hell.

Her other wrist, too, sizzled with pain, as though hellfire had been brought to a pan within which her hands were dipped and boiled alive.

Disorientation stung her, black spots dancing in the void of her eyelids. Little sparks of red flashing once or twice, before disappearing in acquiescence to those circles of black. It was akin to a game her little brother used to play years and years ago, where one circle ate another to grow larger, and the winner was whoever could grow the largest circle.

By gobbling up all the others.

The black circles, in this case, were winning. Smashing their opponents. And a comeback—that wasn’t on the cards, in the slightest. Stoppage time, in real life, didn’t exist.

And then a noise crackled in her ears. Of metal banging against metal. And a breath sucked itself in through her nose, hurried and fast.

Her mouth was taped. Shut. Air barred from entry.

That was when the panic struck her brain, as though a thought from somewhere beyond her reaches of mental faculties. She banished the panic, quickly as practiced, but more of it bubbled to the surface, threatening to spill over.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t expected this scenario to happen.

It was in the remit of a private sleuth, wasn’t it?

Especially since she knew who the one trapping her was.

Bailey Trapp—fitting of the name, one would suggest.

And that one would be unequivocally correct in their assumption.

And no, Bailey Trapp wouldn’t get bail if Alisha managed to get him arrested and sent to jail.

Bailey was a crime lord. Not a drug peddler on the streets, many of whom Alisha had busted during her old days in the police force. No, those were small fry, with the shallowness of French fries (in terms of thickness and nutrition) as her old boss used to say.

Her old boss had also fired her for deliberately letting one of them go.

Not that Alisha regretted the decision. A young boy, probably younger than thirteen, who’d got caught carrying something thrown into his bag by an older gang member.

Not like the thirteen year old kid, with his puffy innocent cheeks and panicked eyes that spoke of inexperience, had a choice in the matter. That was what the older gangsters did. Frame those younger, and then slip out of the picture when the feds came to survey the image.

Alisha had let the kid go, and her boss caught her in the act. Then promptly fired her. Just following procedure, her boss had said. Not that Alisha cared. She’d taken the firing personally (as you did when fired for doing the right thing) and started her own little sleuthing service within nearby Manchester.

Anyway, her mind was rambling, and the tight ropes digging into her wrists like spikes weren’t getting any easier to manage. Nor was the oncoming headache. Now a dull pulse, like a solar flare out in the heavens. But once that solar flare reached earth’s atmosphere, all hell would break loose.

And as a Muslim, Alisha knew hell wasn’t exactly a pretty place.

After all, hell had no WiFi, did it?

And a world without WiFi—Alisha didn’t even want to think about it.

She kept her breathing steady and tapped into her training. Not the police training she’d forgotten pretty much straight away (never been one for books, that was for certain), but her field training from years of independently busting the world’s evil and having them locked up.

Information was the most important thing—rule number one. The more information you had, the more plays you could make—a sports analogy, sure, but it worked quite well for the real world of, well, taking down crime lords willing to torture you for the fun of it.

Footsteps sounded in front of her. Not echoing off the walls—rather quite dull. And metallic, as was the smell in the air. She sucked in that air, smelt it, let it ruminate in her nostrils, before swallowing it down her throat.

The room wasn’t big. A bigger room, especially one made of metal flooring, would’ve echoed every sound within it. Like the rooms of a warehouse, where pin drop silence meant the pin could be heard from across the storage containers.

So the room is small. Good to know. Doesn’t mean you’re going to survive, does it?

Alisha shut that voice—which she internally called Shaytaanat—and focussed again on the senses she had available to her.

A blindfold pressed her eyes into her skull. Causing a considerable amount of pain, but Alisha was used to it given the hairy situations she’d gotten herself into over the years. The blindfold was formed of a rough fabric, a mix between cotton and barbed wire, and dug into the back of her hair where it was deeply knotted.

At which point she realised—great, another idiot who decided to kidnap me without hijab, at least let me have my dignity, for crying out loud.

Alisha shrugged her shoulders. Nothing she could do about that, was there? Not with her arms tied up and kidnapped to a location she didn’t know. What she did know was that it certainly wasn’t her little cottage in cosy Cheshire.

Then another few footsteps. This time closer. Louder.

Alisha swallowed that familiar taste of anticipating danger.

This was about to get good.

Alisha tried to kick out. Might as well provoke old Bailey whilst she was at it. But her legs were as tightly bound as her wrists, locked to the cold (freezing cold, for God’s sake) metal chair she was seated upon.

In every sense of the word, Alisha Begum was trapped.

And it would take a miracle, one hell of a miracle, for her to escape this one.

No issue, that voice in her mind said.

Yep, she mentally agreed. No issue, indeed.  

Chapter 2

“Nice lil thang I got ‘ere,” a voice spoke out from before Alisha.

That voice identified itself as Bailey Trapp, for sure. From the recordings Alisha had heard of the man, given by one Samuel Finkman who’d come to her with the case after his aunt’s murder, Bailey had a gruff voice. As though gravel was lodged in his throat at all times. And every word he spit out had the force of a volley of gravel, too.

Oh, how Alisha wished she could spit some flames back. She had a tongue as sharp as flickers of lava. And quick wit to boot.

But that time would come later, as it always did. Alisha’s spite knew no bounds, especially with criminals like Bailey. And the art of getting the last laugh—Alisha was practically a professional.

“You wanna know what this thang ‘ere is, then?” Bailey asked.

The sound of something being pulled across fabric. Likely against whatever clothing Bailey wore.

“You wanna know, eh?” Bailey said.

Of course, with the tape sealing her mouth, Alisha couldn’t respond. She was a miracle worker, in many ways, but her powers couldn’t extend that far.

Defying the laws of physics wasn’t in her job description.

Thankfully, her clients didn’t expect her to do so, Samuel Finkman included.

“Issa knife, it is,” Bailey said, and Alisha heard the unsheathing of metal from leather.

That earlier noise must’ve been the sheath of the knife against Bailey’s clothes, as Alisha predicted.

More information she could hold onto. More information to store in the back of her mind, waiting for its time to make a difference.

Another piece of info which let Alisha relax was that Bailey wouldn’t attempt to waterboard her. For a reason Samuel had told her—but she focussed on the situation at hand.

What kind of knife required a sheath? Certainly not a normal knife, and Bailey wasn’t the type to run a high-end Chinese or Indian restaurant like those in Manchester city centre.

That meant it was probably a rambo knife, popular amongst those on the streets. Though rambos didn’t usually come with sheaths, even if they were stored down the gangster’s pants.

How they did that without slicing off their bits?

Alisha didn’t have a monkeys.

Or maybe it was some Japanese katana, a samurai original, knowing how eccentric Bailey could be with his methods.

Once, the crime lord hanged someone with barbed wire. As if the spikes weren’t enough pain on the victim, to be hanged with that around your neck—it was a terror Alisha didn’t wish upon her worst enemies.

Well, maybe apart from Bailey, that was. He deserved it with the way he was breathing heavily, those particles of gravel sending a nasty garlic-y smell Alisha’s way.

She breathed in the familiar scent of danger to block out Bailey’s breath, let danger’s touch sit on her tongue after heading down her nose. Let the breath back out, all whilst lightly fiddling with her feet and hands.

Any weaknesses in the ropes?

Absolutely not.

Bailey Trapp, when he…ahem…trapped his enemies, didn’t make mistakes. Not in his vocabulary. Probably never knew the word existed, in fact. He was as meticulous as they came, with no facial records of himself, the only identifying information being that recording Samuel had provided.

Oh, and his crimes of course. Whenever a Bailey Trapp crime (trademark) occurred, it was obvious from his methods. That was where his sense of pride originated from, and where his streak of creativity decided to lead him.

Flippin’ freaks, Alisha thought. How could humans be so evil? How could they stoop to such lows to fill their base desires?

Alisha reckoned that, whilst most people battled with the sense of good and bad within themselves, some people only had the bad. Only had that evil Shaytaanat-like voice in their head, listening to their every whim and desire with no regard for other people.

No one was born like that, of course—otherwise some babies would be on an all-round bender. But there must’ve been some time in Bailey’s early life, some decision he made, which cemented that evil within himself.

And drowned him in its waters.

A touch of metal, sharp like a razor, pressed itself against Alisha’s right cheek.

She held in the gasp, more from the chill than anything else, whilst the sharpness dragged from her cheek to the base of her neck.

Bailey’s laugh sickened her to the core.

The knife looped itself over the oval necklace Alisha wore at all times—a golden gift from her mother, who had been killed by a serial killer. The whole reason Alisha had entered the police force to take down people like Bailey in the first place.

“Don’t touch it,” Alisha pushed through the tape, though it sounded more like “domfff umfff ihh”.

“Hit a nerve there, ain’t I?” Bailey chuckled. “Nerves’re a funny one, ya know. Cos ya got so many of ‘em, and so many ways of getting ‘em to bend to your will.” The knife pressed into her neck, drawing a droplet of hot blood that trickled down her torso. “Ya know your jugular vein. I slit that and yer dead. But nerves…ya can make the pain longer yeah, make someone scream just by activating the right one.”

A pause.

“Right…here.”

The blade, its flat side as opposed to its tip, pushed into a spot to the right of Alisha’s neck, near her collar bone. The cold touch sent a shiver through her body, and then—

As Bailey had predicted, a scream shot through her throat. Not one of fear, or panic, or anger, or even any emotion Alisha could identify—it was an impulse she couldn’t control.

Just as Bailey had said. Certain nerves, if pressed, could cause impulses beyond the victim’s control.

His new centre of pain research, no doubt.

Alisha gritted her teeth, then shifted her hands slightly. They weren’t tied behind her back, but to the arms of the chair, with her wrists forced down at a crazy angle.

Carpal tunnel was definitely a risk, here. One that Bailey likely hadn’t thought about.

Not that he ever really did think about his victim’s health.

Carpal tunnel involved compressed nerves—Alisha would know since her constant mouse and keyboard gaming days had caused a rather bad bout of it. Compressed nerves in the wrist weren’t a good idea, and she could sense the incoming pain lingering at the edge, waiting to spill over should she remain in this position for longer.

For the sake of her gaming addiction, she had to get out of here.

And take Bailey Trapp to jail, of course. Couldn’t forget that.

Information was one thing. But Alisha had another tool up her sleeve.

The most important tool of all, and one that politicians were particularly adept at.

Manipulation.

Chapter 3

Alisha steadied her heartbeat and relaxed her muscles, letting the ropes send tingles through her skin. The chair’s metal chilled her nerves, allowing her to concentrate on the task at hand.

That oncoming headache, which wasn’t making her life easier, needed to be banished. And that meant she needed to get Bailey out of here fast.

And then get back to some matches of Warzone when she got home.

“Hmffffhf,” she said through the tape over her mouth. “Hmmmfmfffmfmmf,” she tried again.

She flicked her tongue out. Tasted crap, that tape did. Like, real crap. Like someone had thrown rotten vegetables onto tarmac, then melted the tarmac-vegetable mixture, then chucked it into a soup boiled in feet broth and invited Alisha to a taste test.

She rid her mind of that thought and concentrated on saying gibberish through the mouth tape. Enough for that cold knife pressed against her throat to stop its ministrations, and for Bailey to step back for a second.

She heard his footsteps stop, then sent a silent prayer to Allah despite the black void over her eyes. Anything could reach Allah, of course, regardless of how low the message originated from.

“I think I can get ya t’do summat good fer me,” Bailey said, snagging Alisha’s attention, voice leering over her. “Y’know what life’s most important thang is, do ya?”

“Hmmmfmfmfhh.”

“Thass right,” Bailey continued, as though having not heard Alisha’s most articulate answer. “It’s information. Ya wonder where I got tha’ one from, eh?”

Yeah, Alisha did wonder. As if Bailey hadn’t ripped it off Alisha’s detective agency’s online blog.

Plagiarism didn’t sit right in her book, or her blog.

Nor did using AI to write stuff, as one commenter had accused her of doing, but that was a battle for another day.

Still, plagiarism was another reason to take this guy down, in addition to the crimes of course.

“Information runs the world, y’see. Runs everythang. I got the info on ya nerves, scientific info, and I can make ya scream whenever I wanna, y’see.”

Bailey stepped forwards, and to drive his point home pressed that nerve again on Alisha’s neck, and caused her to scream out.

Again, not out of fear or panic. Just an impulse she couldn’t control.

“If someone gets a piece of info no one else got, then they got power. They got control.” Alisha could hear the smirk in Bailey’s voice, sense the bad breath holding words the man thought formed his personal gospel. “And I think ya got th’most info of ‘em all. Don’t ya, Alisha Begum.”

Now, that sentence caused goosebumps to erupt across Alisha’s arm. Not the fact that Bailey knew her name—everyone on her blog did, after all.

But that Alisha had information—that was key.

Because, after all, Samuel Finkman was dead. Which fuelled Alisha to get this case done and dusted—the person who had entrusted it to her had been murdered in the process.

And proof of who had killed Samuel—proof that it was Bailey Trapp with his real identity—lay in Alisha’s hands. Which was the entire reason she was trapped like this roped up in a metal chair and not six feet under.

Did Muslims even bury their dead six feet under? Or was it less or more than that?

Something they hadn’t taught at the evening maktab Alisha had attended as a child.

And anyway, Bailey would probably burn her body and smoke on the ashes rather than give her a proper burial in some cemetery somewhere.

“Hmmmfhff,” Alisha said through the tape.

Again, more gibberish. But that gibberish was meant to sound like intelligible words, which would cause someone not very intelligible like Bailey to become curious.

And curiosity killed the cat, after all.

Which was exactly Alisha’s plan. If it could even be called a plan.

“Ya know thangs,” Bailey said, stepping closer, bad breath growing stronger.

Alisha had no choice but to breathe it in. Her mouth was taped, after all.

“Ya know thangs that I wanna know. N’I know ya ain’t sloppy like that, I do. So…here’s how this is gonna go. Yer gonna tell me what that info is, or you’ll suffer. Jus’ like everyone else did, y’get me drift.”

Alisha did, very much in fact, get his drift. Both his threat and bad breath.

The cold metal blade made its way to Alisha’s neck again. Sunk in a shiver that spread to her toes.

“Don’t get nervous on meh now,” Bailey chuckled.

A dark, demonic chuckle. One that spoke of a sadistic pleasure gained from causing others pain, distress, and anguish.

The blade then poked the corner of Alisha’s mouth, finding the gap in her lips from where her mouth opened. Bailey then, with the precision of a surgeon, sliced across to cut the tape, yet without damaging her skin.

Meticulous as always. And utterly at ease. As though preserving her lips so he could slice them up later.

Bailey was, well and truly, in his element. And Alisha needed to disrupt that. Which was where manipulation came in. In addition to information—she couldn’t forget that.

Blade back on her neck. Cold, metallic, icy. Eyes still masked so she couldn’t see anything but a swirling black void, and random green and blue lights dancing like she was at a rave.

Not that she’d ever, you know, gone to a rave.

“Now, speak,” Bailey ordered.

“Hmfhfhfmmmfhhf,” Alisha said, despite her mouth being free, before letting out a laugh. A long, hard laugh. Using her freedom to its full capacity, even if it did run the risk of her imminent demise at the hands of the most villainous person Manchester had to offer.

Blade pinched that nerve, and Alisha screamed involuntarily.

“Speak. NOW.”

“Changing the order ain’t gonna help, it ain’t,” Alisha muttered. Just loud enough for Bailey to hear. Yet quiet enough it sounded like a little quip to the side.

Manipulation, after all, required many facets. Required many angles of approach. Different people had different personality styles, different needs and wants, different deepest desires sitting within the confines of their hearts.

And once you found that deepest desire, you could exploit it to your heart’s content. Over and over again, bending that person to your very will.

People like Bailey fed off manipulating others, but the same treatment had likely never been levelled at him before. He wasn’t immune to the poison he fed others, after all.

So, though she was tied to a metal chair with a man holding a blade against her neck, pressing down hard, Alisha actually had the upper hand. Which was what she’d tell her future children if she ever made it out of here and finally found a husband.

“Why don’t you just kill me, then?” Alisha said.

“You ain’t no idiot. Ya got info on meh, n’you’ll release it if you die. I know that look in yer eyes when I ‘napped ya. Ya play the detective, but yer just like meh, aren’t ya.”

“Haven’t a clue what you’re talking about, mate.” Alisha made sure to enunciate every syllable, especially the t at the end, just to annoy him further. “But you’re right—I’ve got systems in place. I’m certainly not an idiot like some people. You kill me, people will know, and they’ll get the evidence from where I’ve stashed it.”

Knife against nerves. Scream. Little shock to the system. Just like clockwork.

“WHERE IS IT?” Bailey shouted.

Alisha winced at the noise. “You’re like my neighbour’s toddler, y’know. Crazy loud all the time, especially when I just wanna have a flippin’ lie in. But cute as heck so you’ll let it slide every time, ‘specially when the girl smiles at you. M’I cute enough for you to let it slide?”

Alisha chuckled, a dark chuckle. People like Bailey didn’t take pleasure from relationships like normal men. They took pleasure from control, whether in a relationship or out.

Insinuating that Bailey was as normal as the rest of them, enough to find a woman cute, was as powerful as a roundhouse kick…to the nuts.

Getting Bailey riled up was too easy. Bullies didn’t like it when victims talked back, after all, especially not with the level of wit that Alisha displayed.

“YOU DON’T TELL MEH AND YER DEAD, YA HEAR ME?”

A pause.

“Jeez, read the room, mate. You need to calm down, and I’ll do better than just tell you. Y’know what I’ll do?”

Alisha paused.

Bailey didn’t say a word, waiting for an answer. But Alisha wouldn’t give it to him, not until he asked her directly, not until he lost his control.

“What’ll ya do, then? Tell me. NOW.”

Another pause, just to get Bailey on the edge of madness.

One…

Two…

Thr—

“I won’t just tell you,” Alisha finally said, breathing the words out. “Heck, I’ll take you there meself.”

Chapter 4

Dangerous game you’re playing, y’know, that voice within Alisha said, as she let herself be, whilst blindfolded, led by Bailey’s grabbing of her shoulders through what sounded like a forest, given the chirps of birds and leaves scrabbing her knees and breeze whiffing her hair. Lots of greenery around, no doubt, and the smell of nearby dew lit her nostrils in a wonderful symphony.

Alisha loved the countryside, where she’d grown up, and her cottage in deep Cheshire was no different. But many detective cases required her to head into the centre of Manchester, where her main office was, and the busyness of the city just set her sensors off in completely the wrong ways.

Working from home, unfortunately, wasn’t a thing in detective circles.

Well, to be fair, it wasn’t a thing whilst she worked in the Force either. So this was FOMO working on overdrive, probably with Shaytaanat as assistance, and nothing more.

Not something to be thinking about whilst the most dangerous killer of Manchester was digging his nails into her shoulders and breathing (gosh, that bad breath was still present) down her neck.

Alisha wanted to kick back at him and punch his lights out. But her hands were tied behind her back, same ropes as before, with her ankles held by a small chain, only wide enough to give her a little stride and nothing else.

Kicks weren’t on the cards whatsoever. If she overstepped, she’d fall over.

And that didn’t just refer to her feet.

Manipulation required a degree of finesse that only those adept at it possessed—Alisha of course, being the best in the world.

“’ow much longer we got t’walk, eh?” Bailey asked, stinky words irritating Alisha’s ears and nose.

“Well, if you hadn’t, y’know, blindfolded the crap out of me, I’d be able to tell you with a greater degree of accuracy. Unfortunately, this arrangement you have put me into where a blindfold is blocking my vision doesn’t exactly, in any case and in any way circling back to our goal of finding this stashed information, allow me to correctly identify where we are—”

“Fine, you bloody wench,” Bailey snapped, hand leaving her right shoulder, digging his fingers into her eyes and tearing off that blindfold.

His hands returned to tightly squeezing her shoulders. Not willing to give up control.

The rough fabric left and fell to the floor in a soft thump, and the world filled with colour once more. Green all around, from trees and bushes, brown from trunks and the odd log lying down on the ground, and leaves turning slightly orange from the onset of autumn at the end of summer, and the golden sun shone above as though greeting Alisha once again with a smile.

Thankfully, her mother’s necklace still adorned her neck. Bailey hadn’t taken that, for some reason, though he was centimetres away from snatching it off.

Gosh, the black, endless void of her eyes with swirling flashing circles of blue and red and green wasn’t a place she wanted to return to, no matter what Bailey intended.

And that headache was growing, worse now because of the colour shock. Alisha needed to end this fast, then go home, make up all the prayers she’d missed because of Bailey’s kidnapping, then have a gooooood sleep…probably ‘til fajr the day after.

“Where. Is. It?” Bailey growled from behind her. Like an animal.

How Alisha wished to turn around and sock him in the face with a right hook. But Bailey had other ideas, holding his gloved hands to her cheeks and forcing her to face forwards.

That meant he wasn’t wearing a balaclava, or anything else to hide his identity. More information for Alisha to store. Bailey was panicked, clearly, because he wouldn’t make such sloppy mistakes as not hiding himself. It wasn’t in his repertoire.

Alisha could use that against him. To get out of this, she’d need to use every bit of info she could get her hands on.

“It’s about another half mile of walking, I think,” Alisha said, glancing around the shimmering greenery.

An oddly bright day for the grim events that had happened thus far.

The hands tightened around her face, as though a form of bone crushing therapy. Something her nephew, for some random reason, had started doing after watching a few YouTube videos…he was fifteen, mind you.

“If ya don’t get me this here information, I’ll kill ya. If ya don’t get me what I wan’, I’ll kill ya. If ya don’t—”

“Just this way, mate,” Alisha said, steering herself to the left, around a particularly lumpy tree stump.

Bailey didn’t like being interrupted. And he made that known by smacking Alisha’s cheek to the right, ridges in his gloves making the impact worse.

Pain shot into her face, causing a redness to flood her features, zinging all the while.

But she used that smack to swivel her head quickly and get a brief look at Bailey Trapp.

A typical British bloke who probably swallowed pints by the gallon, about a head taller than her, with stubble the consistency of BBQ sauce and the texture of gravel. His eyes were a stormy blue—yet the storm was dead, wreaking havoc with nothing else except destruction to show for it. His jaw was defined enough to cut through metal, as though mimicking the sharpness with which he sliced his enemies apart.

And the evil smirk (bad breath included) vanished for an anger that caused him to—

Slam Alisha’s head back in place, facing forwards, like an elastic band correcting itself yet still vibrating from the shock.

More pain reverberating to the tips of her right toes, before going back up to the ankle chain and travelling across to her left toes.

God, it hurt, and Alisha was having trouble walking upright or keeping her balance after such a blow. But she couldn’t afford to slip now, not when she was close enough to taste victory.

And to finally get out of this mess.

Of course, coming to this forest had been deliberate. Deep in the heart of Cheshire, away from a lot of civilisation, away from the Manchester Bailey was used to.

The forest where Alisha had grown up. The forest where she’d played as a child, happy and carefree and laughing and giggling, roaming the logs and tree stumps, memorising every little brown branch and luscious tree and the small pattering waterfall on the far side of the clearing they were now approaching.

The waterfall Alisha had been targetting this entire time.

Bailey’s last moments as a free man were, fast, approaching.

Chapter 5

Alisha fiddled with the ropes tying her hands for a second, letting out an annoyed breath at the tightness wrapped around her wrists. God, the risk of carpal tunnel had always scared her, given how much typing she did for the blog (her main advertising platform), and the pressure blocking her veins was really raising her anxiety.

If she couldn’t move her hands…

In any case, with the swift wind her whistling companion, she allowed Bailey to push her in the direction of that waterfall. The one she’d last visited a few years prior, on a nostalgia-filled trip with her sister to remember their deceased mother.

The waterfall had a beautiful patter to it. Like little light rays were bouncing off the surface and causing that soft tip-tap. The water rushing was music to Alisha’s ears, and that music turned way the heck up as they cleared the, well, clearing and passed the bush separating this part of the forest from the rest.

This bush—Alisha had visited it last with her sister, who worked for a camera company and was snapping pics the entire time, on that same trip a few years back. How Alisha wished her hands were free so she could run her fingers over the tops of the green spindles—but that would come later.

Once Bailey was done for.

“This is the place,” Alisha announced.

Bailey paused for a second, hands still clawing at her cheeks. “Ya sure this the place?” He squeezed tighter. “Ain’t pulling me leg, are ya?”

“Not at all. Wouldn’t even dream of it, in fact.”

Another smack. Another shot of pain.

“What kinda info ya got? NOW.”

Alisha winced at the noise, and the bad breath. Gosh, didn’t this guy know to brush his teeth twice a day?

“Everything I need to get you locked up,” she replied. Alisha motioned, slightly, with her head towards the centre of the waterfall, where a few boulders formed stepping stones she’d jumped across hundreds of times. “Right in there.”

Those hands squeezed harder, lightheadedness flooding Alisha’s brain. World swimming before her like she was under that water and not above it.

She had to end this. That flippin’ headache was about to, well, do her head in.

“But I won’ be locked up,” Bailey Trapp said, and one hand left her head. She heard a ruffle behind her. Something being drawn out. “Because yer ‘bout to—”

“But you don’t know where in this waterfall it is, do you?”

Bailey paused. And the object in his hands ceased moving with him.

Alisha knew the movement earlier was him grabbing that sheathed blade from his pocket. About to murder her now that he had the information. Her heart, she had to admit, was racing a little bit. But only just a little. She was not, in any way, alarmed in the least. More excited than anything.

Excited because the end was coming. And then she could grab some takeaway—Chinese, anyone?—on the way home and gorge herself to her heart’s content. Then grab a good night’s sleep, inshAllah.

After praying, of course.

She wondered for a moment whether Bailey liked Chinese. As food, not as victims, of course.

She focussed again on the predicament at hand.

“Let me show you where it is, then,” she said.

The hand on her cheek tensed. A threat from Bailey. An imminent threat that signalled, Don’t ya dare think ‘bout trying tha’ with meh.

Great. Just…absolutely fabulous.

Alisha would have to try another tactic.

“I betch’a can’t find it anywhere here,” she said. “In fact, I’ll give you three guesses. How about it, eh?”

Hand tensed even more, as though wishing to break her skull apart…from the inside.

Bad breath, at the same time, intensified. Bailey growled behind her, a deep guttural one, like a lion about to rip its prey apart.

“Alright, alright fine. I’ll tell you where it is, okay. Just don’t hurt me anymore.”

A moment of vulnerability—sure it was fake vulnerability, but vulnerability nonetheless. It didn’t matter, in the art of manipulation, what it really was. All that mattered was the perception of her actions.

A lesson well heeded by Alisha, a master of manipulating criminals.

And Bailey perceived her as having given up, the same as all his other victims. So to him, the perception was as true as reality.

But Alisha had something inside her—her Islam—that gave her a strength and certainty that nothing in the world, or indeed outside it, could break. Her faith could carry her out of a dark tunnel stretching miles.

A murderous killer holding her hostage, with a hand on her cheek and a knife in the other?

Easy.

“Where is it, then?” Bailey asked. “NOW.”

Heightened emotion. Urgency. Alisha chose to answer truthfully.

“In the middle of the waterfall, under that central stepping stone.”

Then Bailey made his mistake.

“Tha’ one there?” he said.

And he pointed, with the sheathed knife, towards the middle of the waterfall, where the water pattered down and rolled around the stepping stones like gas streaks circling a planet, an orbital presentation for the forest to enjoy.

And that point with the knife—

Alisha seized the moment.

She quickly dropped the ropes around her hands—which to be fair she’d been holding up for the last twenty minutes after secretly unbinding them—and grabbed the sheathed knife with both hands.

Pulled the knife.

The sheath left its position, knife not in her hands, and Alisha leapt forwards and rolled over.

Then turned as she came up.

Sheath held in one hand. Grass comforting her feet. Ankle chain clanking like knells.

The rope left dangling by her left wrist.

Bailey’s face erupted in rage. “Ya little—”

Alisha didn’t hear the rest, for she hopped onto the stepping stones as though a child once again enjoying her time with her sister.

Reached the middle one. Feet steady despite the rock’s ridged nature. As though she was home again.

Turned to find Bailey standing at the edge of the water, bewilderment in his eyes. Confusion. For the first time, he was utterly dumbfounded. And that sent a thrill through Alisha, knowing she had outsmarted him entirely.

Because Bailey was afraid of gushing water.

That was the reason he wouldn’t waterboard her when she’d been trapped—because he was afraid of water itself. An incident Alisha had uncovered of Bailey as a child almost being drowned in a bathtub by his father—that had spawned the fear.

And Alisha could use that fear against the killer.

So she did.

Chapter 6

“Information is more important than anything else,” Alisha said, breeze winding her hair to the left before letting it uncoil again to the right. “Ya know that, don’tcha? Controllin’ all th’information and tha’.” She mimicked his voice at the end, then laughed.

Right in front of the man, with caution thrown to the wind swirling around her.

Laughed the way she’d wanted to the entire time they’d been in the forest.

“You bloody little—”

Bailey, fits of rage consuming him, levelled the knife at her and launched it like a javelin.

Right at her head. Tip glinting in the slits of sunlight poking in through the leaves.

Alisha, who’d often escaped her sister’s incessant swipes whilst battling for control on the stepping stones, easily dodged it.

A splash behind her signalled where the knife had landed. And a quick glance back revealed the knife sinking into the water, like water into a sponge.

Right where Alisha had hoped.

Bailey wouldn’t be getting that back, that was for sure.

And he wouldn’t—couldn’t—get his freedom back either.

The damage, after all, had already been done. As soon as Alisha got on this stepping stone, his fate had been sealed.

“There’s records of everything on anyone, you know,” Alisha said, wind carrying her words over to the irate Bailey. “You think you can control everything—but there are things outside your control. Things you just ain’t gonna see, that you don’t even know exist. How many thousands of people do you think you’ve seen in your entire life?”

Bailey, likely astounded and speechless, didn’t reply.

Allowing Alisha to continue.

“Each of those people holds a little memory of you, a little rumour they heard, something they saw one time. You’re not as invisible as you believe—no one is. You can crack the glass, Bailey Trapp, but you can’t pick up every little shard off the floor. All I had to do was find those little shards, and I can make up the glass picture again, can’t I?”

Bailey’s eyes flared. “I’LL KILL YA, I SWEAR I’LL KILL YA.”

“Oooh, threatening murder are we? That’d be good for the recording, wouldn’t it? Nice way to incriminate yourself.”

Bailey froze. For just the briefest second. And in that moment, Alisha would swear for the rest of her life that she glimpsed a smidgen of fear in those eyes. In that criminal’s eyes.

And that sent a thrill through her. She had him exactly where she wanted him. And would finally banish this headache to the shadow realm.

Through information and manipulation, she’d done what so many other detectives had failed to do.

Take down Bailey Trapp.

“Whaddya mean, recording?” Bailey said, voice as taut as the ropes that had earlier bound Alisha. “Yer recording meh? How?”

“You ever heard of long-life cameras, mate?” Alisha smiled at the rage lining Bailey’s features. “You know, the ones they use for nature documentaries when they want to record things like trees growing and seasons passing over years and years.”

Bailey said not a word. Which Alisha took to mean that he did know about them.

Though, Bailey didn’t seem the type to watch nature documentaries.

More true crime flicks…about himself.

“Those cameras—there’s new prototypes now that got audio on them too. My sister works at one of those camera companies and snagged me an early deal with them for a camera. ‘Course, I just wanted to record this waterfall and see what nature came around here…Safiya didn’t agree with me, so we needed to prove who was right. Safiya being my sister, by the way.”

“I don’t bloody care about—”

“In any case, you’re being recorded right now, caught in 4K as my nephew would say, though I dunno where he got it from. And there ain’t nothing you can do about it, since I’m here in the water, and you’re there in…whatever that is.”

“You won’t get away with this,” Bailey said. “What’s t’stop meh from hunting ya down once ya leave this place? Ya can’t stay in th’middle of a waterfall f’rever, can ya? No food, no shelter, nothin’. Yeah, I ‘napped ya for sure, but this forest here’s ‘napping ya just the same. Ya ain’t winning this o—”

“There’s something you don’t understand,” Alisha said. “Everything that’s happened today was planned, and controlled for, by me. You think I don’t know the risks of my line of work? You think I just solve cases without back up plans, without contingencies, without a way out? You thought I had info on you, which I did, but nothing incriminating yet—funny thing is, you’ve just given it to me, right there on that camera. Evidence perfecto.”

“WHERE IS IT? TELL ME N—”

“I’ll tell you once you’re in jail,” Alisha said. “There’s something else interesting about those cameras, you know. They also got a new live streaming feature, like a doorbell camera. So someone could be watching, and listening in, right now. Oh, and something else before I forget.”

Alisha leaned down to reach a hand into the water and prayed to the Almighty that all those online posts hadn’t been lying about waterproof phones. Water dripped down her hand as she fished out her phone from beside the stepping stone where she’d stashed it, and flicked it on.

The screen blaring sent relief flooding her veins.

Everything had worked, absolutely everything had gone to plan, and Bailey was going to jail, and she was getting that Chinese takeaway and a good night’s sleep, the whole works.

She pressed the numbers for her passcode—but not to unlock the phone. The passcode that fast-tracked to PC Detective Sanders, her old buddy in the force who now occupied a pretty high up position.

Sanders could get her out of any pinch, including financial ones where Alisha didn’t have cases coming through.

The biggest murderer in Manchester of the last decade?

Sanders, and her police officers, would have a field day.

“You’re a goner, Bailey Trapp,” Alisha said. “The head of Manchester police is going to bring an entourage to grab you, and this forest is large enough that there’s no way you’ll make it out. Do you even know which way we came? Did you, in your desperation, think to make your own contingencies, eh?”

Bailey looked like a deer in the headlights. Utterly confused, utterly baffled at how someone like Alisha had outsmarted him. Planted the phone. Set up the camera. And then…allowed herself to be kidnapped all for the sake of taking this one man down, for the sake of all those Bailey had murdered.

“We can work t’gether,” Bailey Trapp said. “I swear, ya tell me whatcha need and I can give it ya. Anythin’. I see it in yer eyes—ya got the same fire as meh. Ya wanna take ya enemies down and ain’t give ‘em a chance, don’tcha?”

Of course she did want to take down her enemies. Anyone would. But on the right side, on the side of justice, not on the side of immorality. Alisha wasn’t like Bailey, didn’t just let Shaytaanat win every battle.

Alisha didn’t respond to Bailey’s rather idiotic proposition (seriously, how had he gotten away with murder time and time again?). She just waved the phone in his face, made nee-naw sounds to mimic the police whilst laughing her head off, and waited patiently whilst they arrived to arrest Bailey Trapp.

Who, in fairness, didn’t try to make a run for it. Probably having calculated the odds and realizing he didn’t have a way out at all.

Sanders arrived shortly after and her officers took Bailey away whilst the police constable herself spoke to Alisha. They both stood on that stepping stone together, wind caressing their faces, little breeze comforting, whilst the colours of brown and green and blue shone in the golden haze of the sun.

Smelt wonderful too, now that Bailey and his bad breath had been cuffed up and taken away. Alisha then explained the case to Sanders, and how she had planned and executed Bailey’s downfall.

“You still got that rope on you, eh?” Sanders said, pointing to Alisha’s hand. “Also, where is this camera you’re talking about? And what have you got on it?”

“Might keep this rope as memorabilia, you know, to remember this whole thing. And on that camera’s just Bailey Trapp throwing a knife at me, and also his face and identity, and also him admitting to kidnapping me and all that. You know, the usual stuff that would get someone locked up.”

“Good work, detective,” Sanders said, as though Alisha was back on the force.

“Good work indeed.”

“There’s just one thing that might sour your mood, though.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll have to take all the evidence with me,” Sanders said. “So this competition with your sister will have to wait. I’ll also take that knife as evidence—so one less memorabilia for you. And I’ll have to take you with me, since you’re the only witness here and we’ll need to question you.”

“So no Chinese takeway?” Alisha said, puppy eyes and all.

Sanders laughed. “We’ll make sure to bring in some of the good stuff for you.”

JazakAllahu Khayran for reading!

Feel free to read any of my other free short stories, or click the all fiction tab above for info on where to find my longer works.