She heard heavy footfalls behind her. Looking round, she saw the man from the kitchen coming after her, despite the angry burn-marks on his neck and chin. He was breathing stertorously. His face was knotted in rage. ‘Bitch,’ he shouted as their eyes met.
Wada balanced on top of the wall, then slithered down the other side of it, clinging on as she tried to find a toehold. Her bag slipped from her shoulder and fell to the ground. Glancing up, she saw the man above her as he hauled himself up on to the roof of the shed. He was only a few feet away.
Then his greater weight told on the corrugated iron. It split and gave way under him. He crashed straight down into the shed – and out of Wada’s sight.
She let go and dropped down into the rear neighbour’s yard. She scooped up her bag, looked at the goggle-eyed but so far silent boy and raised her forefinger to her lips, then ran past him into the house.
There was a young woman working at the sink in the kitchen. As Wada rushed through the room, she whirled round and exclaimed, ‘Oh my God.’
She had no time to do much more before Wada reached the front door, wrenched it open and ran out into the street.
All was quiet. There was a T-junction about fifty metres ahead. She headed down to it and turned right, away from Dr Morrisette’s house and towards the city centre. She glanced over her shoulder every few metres. There was no sign of anyone coming after her, or of a van taking Morrisette away. But she knew it was stupid to believe they wouldn’t come after her. It was just a matter of time – and chance.
Within minutes, she’d reached the main street into the historic centre. On the other side of the road was a hotel, in front of which a coach was parked, filled with tourists who looked to Wada as if they might well be Japanese. They were mostly gazing vacantly through the windows or chatting to their travelling companions. The last of their luggage was being loaded into the hold.
Instinct told Wada there was safety in a group. And there was no better group to lose herself in than a Japanese one. She dashed across the road between the traffic and peered round the front of the coach. The tour organizer was conferring with the driver about the loading of the luggage. Wada sprang up the steps into the coach, smiled blithely at the nearest passenger, who smiled blithely back, and made for the first empty seat she could see.
The elderly woman she plonked herself breathlessly next to looked at her placidly and asked what had delayed her, for all the world as if she recognized her as a legitimate member of the party. Wada said something unconvincing about losing a button, but the woman seemed entirely taken in and embarked on a monologue about working as a seamstress in Osaka back in the mid-Showa era. Wada didn’t interrupt her and tried to give the impression of being utterly fascinated.
She heard the doors of the luggage hold clunk shut. A few minutes later, the tour organizer, a brisk young woman, came aboard, followed by the driver, who lumbered into his seat and started the engine.
‘Next stop Ely,’ the organizer announced through a microphone. ‘Very beautiful cathedral.’
And the coach pulled away.
TWENTY-FIVE
NICK CAME TO his senses slowly and was conscious for several minutes before he remembered being attacked. The puncture-wound on his neck was sore to the touch. As for the journey, all he could dimly recollect was being jolted around in the back of a van. He had no clear idea how he’d arrived where he now was.
Eventually, he realized he was lying on a mattress on a concrete floor next to a breeze block wall. He sat up woozily and looked around.
He was in a wire cage at one end of a windowless steel-roofed shed illuminated by fluorescent strip lights. There was a closed roller door at the other end. The door to the cage was padlocked shut. Beside the mattress stood a plastic bucket and, on a shelf above it, several litre bottles of water and a pack of loo rolls.
As he turned, he suddenly became aware that his cage was one of three stretching across the rear wall of the shed. And one of the others, separated from him by an empty cage, was occupied.
A woman of about forty, with short dark hair, dressed in black running kit, was lying on the mattress in her cage. Her eyes were closed and Nick wondered if she was unconscious. ‘Hello?’ he called.
She wasn’t unconscious. She raised her head and looked at him. ‘You’re back with us, then,’ she said in a light Australian accent.
‘Where am I?’
‘Can’t help you there.’ She rose to her feet and advanced to the side of her cage. ‘Did you run into some trouble with window-cleaners?’
‘Yes. Did they … bring me here?’
‘They brought both of us here, I have to assume. They injected me with a knockout drug. You too?’
‘Yes.’
‘I haven’t seen anyone – apart from you – since I came to.’
‘What in Christ’s name is going on?’
‘Never mind Christ. What’s your name?’
‘Nick Miller.’
‘Means nothing to me. I’m Michaela Morrisette. You look like that means nothing to you either.’
‘It doesn’t.’
‘But we’re here for the same reason, aren’t we? We must be. We’re being held prisoner.’ She rattled the padlocked hasp on the door of her cage. ‘The question is who by? And why?’
‘Any ideas?’
‘Just one, Nick. And it’s not good news if I’m right. Nishizaki.’ She saw Nick’s grimace of recognition at her mention of the name and nodded, as if her worst fears had been confirmed. ‘I see you know him.’
‘Know of him. You?’
‘We’ve had dealings. What about Peter Driscoll? Ah. I see you know him too.’
‘Why should having Nishizaki and Driscoll as … mutual acquaintances … land us here?’
‘You really have no clue?’
Nick did have a clue, of course, though it wasn’t any more than that. Michaela Morrisette, on the other hand, appeared to understand exactly why this had happened to her, if not to him. ‘Look, if you know why we’ve been brought here, just tell me, will you?’
‘OK. Well, I’m a climatologist at Cambridge University. I did some research work for Driscoll’s company, Quartizon, and therefore, indirectly, for Nishizaki.’
‘You worked on the Emergence project?’
She frowned. ‘What do you know about that?’
‘There was an auction in Reykjavík last week. Options on parcels of land were sold for huge sums of money.’
‘Yeah. So I heard. Backed up by my research. Except many of those options weren’t backed up by my research. A lot of fraud went down at that auction. When I found out about it, I raised hell with Driscoll and Nishizaki. Next thing I know … I’m here. So, why are you here?’
Yes. Why was he? There could only be one explanation. And as Michaela had said, it wasn’t good news. ‘Driscoll and Nishizaki used to be allies. I don’t think they are any more.’
‘And so? Which of them had us kidnapped?’
‘It has to be Nishizaki.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m …’
‘Yeah? What are you?’
Nick hesitated. But, in the end, there was nothing to be gained by holding out on his fellow captive. ‘I’m Driscoll’s son.’
‘You’re his son?’
‘I only found out recently. I’ve never actually met him. But, yes, I’m his son.’
‘And Nishizaki knows that?’
‘I reckon he must.’
‘Jesus.’ Michaela aimed a kick at the bucket in her cage. It crashed against the wall and fell on its side. ‘I guess I won’t be doing that again if we’re here any length of time.’
‘You’re here to shut you up about the fraud,’ said Nick dolefully, ‘and I’m here so pressure can be brought to bear on Driscoll.’
‘That’s about the size of it, I guess.’ Michaela leant against the wire of her cage, stretching her fingers through the holes and bowing her head. Then she pushed herself upright and smiled – a
tight, grim, fleeting smile. ‘I should never have got involved with these fucking people,’ she said, to herself as much as to Nick.
‘What are we going to do?’
‘What can we do?’
‘Not much,’ Nick admitted.
‘There’s only one sliver of sunshine that I can see.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Well, there are just the two of us here. Which means, I reckon, that they didn’t get Wada.’ She paused and noted Nick’s reaction. ‘Ah. I see you know her too.’
Wada had disengaged herself from the Japanese tour party as soon as the coach reached Ely. None of the other disembarking passengers had seemed to notice her slip away, not even the Showa era seamstress she’d sat next to. But then they had the cathedral to concentrate on before the next leg of their tour. Wada was just an unremembered face.
Walking the genteel streets of Ely, while it was safer than remaining in Cambridge, didn’t represent a solution to her problems. She had no doubt that what had happened was a direct response from Nishizaki to Morrisette’s demand for cancellation of some of the sales made at the Emergence auction. It was likely the men who’d attacked Morrisette hadn’t known Wada was there.
That wasn’t much help now, though. Whoever had sent the men would soon work out who she was and assume she’d been acting as Morrisette’s accomplice. They’d also assume she had a copy of the incriminating Emergence files. Which made her someone they’d badly want to find.
Wada had expected a blunt refusal to cancel the sales rather than a raid on the house. Her plan had been to persuade Morrisette to go to the media with her story at that point. Talking to Holgate’s Guardian contact without Morrisette didn’t strike her as a promising strategy. Where was the proof that what she said was true? Where was the first-hand climatological testimony? That kite wouldn’t fly.
Wada’s dismal conclusion was that on her own she couldn’t accomplish much. And trying to accomplish anything risked drawing her pursuers to her. She had few resources and no allies.
Except Holgate. Maybe he could be induced to do some digging on her behalf. She put a call through to his landline number. No reply. Then she tried his mobile.
‘Wada?’ he answered promptly. ‘About time.’
‘About time for what, Mr Holgate?’
‘For you to get in touch. I’m up in London, as per your request, staring down the barrel of spending some of my pitifully small pension on a hotel room. I’m not wasting my money, am I?’
‘I did not ask you to travel to London.’
‘You said we’d meet in London today.’
‘I said I was hoping we could meet in London today.’
‘And are we going to?’
‘No.’
‘So, I am wasting my money.’
‘Listen to me, Mr Holgate. Things have become … difficult.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I need you to make some enquiries … that I cannot make.’
‘Such as?’
‘Dr Michaela Morrisette is a climatologist at Cambridge University. There was an incident today at her house. Forty-four Alford Street, Cambridge. She was attacked by an intruder. I need you to find out what happened to her.’
‘Why?’
‘She is central to this matter. Without her …’
‘Without her I don’t have a story to flog? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘Yes. It is what I am saying.’
‘What do you expect me to do? Go up to Cambridge? Ask the neighbours? I’m just a retired provincial reporter, Wada, not the Pinkerton Detective Agency.’
‘I cannot do this, Mr Holgate. I am too exposed. We need to find out what has happened to her. Only then can we take the next step.’
‘And where are you going to be while I’m gumshoeing around?’
‘I have to stay out of sight.’
‘Great.’
‘Do you still want the truth, Mr Holgate?’
There was a long silence. Wada could hear Holgate’s wheezy breathing at the other end. Then he said, ‘Give me that name and address again.’
Nick and Michaela had no way of knowing what time it was or where they were. There were no windows in the shed. They had no phones. Nick had been abducted in Greenwich, Michaela in Cambridge. Halfway between the two, maybe? It was impossible to say. They were in limbo.
Something would happen eventually. They wouldn’t be left there indefinitely. But what would happen? If Nishizaki had had them kidnapped to put pressure on Driscoll, what would he demand as ransom? And would Driscoll pay it? Neither of them knew him well enough to say. Which left open a possibility that was chilling to contemplate. Nick didn’t put it into words and neither did Michaela. But he had no doubt it was in her mind, gnawing away at her, just as it was gnawing away at him.
He was also anxious about Kate. What would she think had happened? What would she do? The only certainty was that she’d be worried. And all he could do was worry about just how worried she’d be.
The only way to distract themselves was to talk, as they did, slowly becoming ever more open with each other about how they’d got themselves, by such very different routes, into this situation.
‘So what are we looking at here, Nick, with Driscoll and Nishizaki?’ Morrisette asked after both their stories had wound their way to the bleak and threatening present. ‘A falling-out among thieves? Or something more complicated?’
‘More complicated is my guess. I think Driscoll’s been planning this for a long time.’
‘They’ve been confederates in crime for decades, right? Why would Driscoll betray his boss? Why take a monumental risk like that?’
‘Not sure. Something to do with the death of Shitaro Masafumi?’
‘But that’s more than forty years ago.’
‘I did say he’d been planning it for a long time.’
‘Not that long, surely.’
‘It’s what got Wada involved in this.’
‘We can be grateful for that. She’s our best hope right now.’
‘What do you think she’ll do?’
‘I don’t know. She’s hard to read.’
‘I thought she’d died in the fire at Stóri-Asgarbær. I was certain of it. Will she go to the police, I wonder?’
‘From what you tell me, she’d have a lot of explaining to do if she did. So, I suspect she won’t. But maybe one of the neighbours – yours or mine – saw enough to call them.’
‘Maybe.’
Michaela sighed. ‘Or maybe not.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Which leaves us …’
‘Stuck.’
Wada booked into the Lamb Hotel in the centre of Ely and waited as patiently as she could for word from Holgate. Once she’d found out what exactly had happened at Morrisette’s house, she could decide what to do in response. Though what that might be …
The evening set in. Her room became claustrophobic. She left the hotel and walked to the cathedral, where she sat on a bench on the green and gazed up at its soaring spire and the blue sky it soared up into. The ancient stonework spoke of time and splendour – a history she knew little of. Everything in Ely was timelessly picturesque in a very English way, the grass a slightly different shade of green from what she was used to, the leaves on the trees marginally paler. She was far from home in all the ways that mattered.
She was about to leave the bench when her phone rang.
‘Mr Holgate?’
‘I’m at Cambridge railway station waiting for a train back to London. Are you in Cambridge, Wada?’
‘No.’
‘Sure?’
‘Very sure, thank you.’
‘Well, maybe that’s best. I got a garbled tale from Dr Morrisette’s neighbours after knocking on her door and getting no answer. It sounds to me, based on what you’ve said, as if she might have been taken away against her will. But there wasn’t much for her neighbours to notice. A window-cleaning van no one recognized was
outside her house for a while this morning, but that was about it. I talked the woman next door into using her spare key to go in and I tagged along. The house was empty. There was a kettle lying on the kitchen floor and the roof of the backyard shed had given way. There were no other signs of anything amiss. But the rear neighbour who I moved on to said a woman ran through her house this morning. That’s right. Straight through from the backyard and out by the front door, then not seen for dust. And she saw some bloke – or thinks she did – in Dr Morrisette’s backyard. She phoned the police, but they fobbed her off. Running through someone’s house isn’t actually a crime, apparently.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘That you, was it, Wada? It sounded like it might be.’
‘I am very worried about Dr Morrisette,’ she replied evasively.
‘I think you should be, because it seems she may not be the only person these people took against their will.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I called Nick Miller. You spoke to him once, I think. And maybe you’ve come across him since.’
Nick Miller. The son of one of Martin Caldwell’s student friends. She’d spoken to him on the phone at Caldwell’s flat in Exeter. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I have not spoken to him since.’
‘Well, it’s a bit late to start now. I got his wife. She’s worried sick. Nick hasn’t been seen since this morning. He’s not answering his phone. Nobody knows where he is. What do you make of that?’
‘I am not sure … what to make of it.’
‘Is this something we should take to the police, Wada? Are Nick Miller and Dr Morrisette in danger?’
‘It is possible.’
‘OK. So, what are we going to do about it? More specifically, since I don’t know enough to do very much, what are you going to do about it?’
The Fine Art of Invisible Detection Page 28