The Wreckage: A Thriller

by Michael Robotham

  “Artie.”

  “How’s Blighty?”

  “Small and soggy.”

  Arthur Chalcott chuckles with all the sincerity of a salesman. “Andy tells me we’re close.”

  “There have been a few small complications.”

  “Complications?”

  “We tried to pick up the girl, but we missed her.”

  “That sounds like a fuck-up, not a complication.”

  “We’re searching for her.”

  “You’ve lost contact.”

  “For the moment.”

  Chalcott grinds his teeth. “Who did you send to get her?”

  “A freelance team.”

  “Limeys.”

  “They’ve done the job before.”

  Sobel takes a sip of bourbon and pictures Chalcott in the bunker, sitting on his inflatable ball. The two of them were interns together. Old buddies. One was promoted faster than the other. Understood the politics.

  Chalcott was a desk jockey who talked like a veteran despite serving only six months in the field—South America; a summer in La Paz, sipping sangrias and sleeping with cheap whores. Agents like him prefer to refashion their own history, making it sound like they served in Iraq or Afghanistan.

  “OK, so let’s be clear on this—you’ve lost Richard North and now you’ve lost the girl. Does she know anything?”

  “Ibrahim believes so.”

  “How are you playing it?”

  “I need clearance to pay twenty-five thousand.”

  “Dollars or pounds?”

  “Pounds.”

  “Recoverable?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  Chalcott is silent for a time. Sobel thinks the line has gone dead.

  “You there, Artie?”

  “I’m here.”

  “We might have to involve MI6 on this one. You want me to liaise?”

  “Say nothing about the main game.”

  “What do I tell them?”

  “Tell them the girl has compromised one of our people—a married man. Stolen something of value. We’re trying to be discreet.”

  Sobel thinks about the three men who stormed the house in Hammersmith. It was hardly discreet.

  The call ends and he pours himself another drink, thinking about Kansas. Home has never seemed further away or felt less like home. He has been away too long, moving from one conflict to the next. The true America has become harder to identify.

  He remembers a rendition prison in Afghanistan. A Taliban leader he interrogated for three days—sensory deprivation, waterboarding, stress positions—until he broke. Cried. Scratched at his face in shame.

  “I weep for my land,” he said, “but mostly I weep for yours.”

  5

  LONDON

  Rowan has stopped crying. His injured finger, wrapped in a sticking plaster, is held aloft so that everyone at the bus stop can see how brave he is. Then he imagines that his bandage is a new top secret Spiderman weapon. He aims it at an elderly gentleman who is crossing the road.

  “Pchoong!”

  Then he mows down a group of pre-school children who are walking in single file along the pavement.

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t shoot any more people,” says Elizabeth. “It’s not very polite.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Say hello.”

  Rowan looks at his bandaged finger and back to his mother. Then he turns to different people at the bus stop and says hello. They smile at him, wondering about the odd little boy dressed as Spiderman.

  Elizabeth has a dozen messages on her mobile, none of them from her husband. Family and friends have rallied around her since North disappeared, which is why the fridge is full of casseroles and cakes. Why do people assume she wants to eat?

  The bus pulls up. Elizabeth makes no attempt to get on. Rowan tugs at her hand. “Come on, Mummy.”

  “We’re going somewhere else.”

  “Where?”

  “On an adventure.”

  “I like ’ventures.”

  Elizabeth hails a black cab and checks her purse to make sure she has enough money. It drops her in Old Brompton Road. Rowan wants to look at the holiday posters in the Thomas Cook window. Beautiful young people cavorting in impossibly blue water.

  Phoenix Investigations is on the third floor. They take the old-fashioned lift, which rattles and bangs as it rises through the floors. Along the corridor, there is light behind the frosted glass door. The receptionist has red-rimmed eyes and a rash under her nose. The tissues in the wastepaper bin look like melting snowballs.

  “I don’t have an appointment,” explains Elizabeth. “I was hoping Mr. Hackett might see me.”

  The receptionist blows her nose.

  “He just stepped out. Won’t be long.”

  Elizabeth sits on the lone plastic chair. Rowan climbs on to her lap. There is a license in a wooden frame hanging on the wall, some sort of diploma. Elizabeth wonders what a private detective has to study. How to rifle through rubbish bins? How to peer through windows? The whole idea of seeing a private detective embarrasses her. She’s not that sort of person. She trusts her husband.

  There is a photograph next to the diploma—a young soldier in battle fatigues, war paint on his cheeks; a half-forgotten conflict.

  There are footsteps outside. Colin Hackett nudges the door with his hip. He’s carrying a tray of coffees and something sweet and sticky in a bag. Heavy-set with broad shoulders, he reminds her of Bob Hoskins with a full head of hair.

  He hesitates for a moment, unsure if he’s missed an appointment.

  “Is everything all right, Mrs. North?”

  Elizabeth shakes her head, unable to speak. Hackett motions her into his office, telling his secretary to look after Rowan.

  “Just don’t touch him. You’re like a bloody plague ship.” And then as the door closes, “She’s my wife’s niece, completely unemployable. I don’t think it’s contagious.”

  “I should have called.”

  “That’s OK.”

  “Did you get my message on Saturday?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you do as I asked?”

  “Of course.”

  “It just didn’t seem right. He’s a good man.”

  Elizabeth lowers her gaze, pressing her hands in her lap.

  “Now I’ve changed my mind. I want you to keep working.”

  “Following your husband?”

  “Finding him.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He’s missing. I came home on Sunday and he wasn’t there. Nobody has seen him.”

  Hackett presses his fingertips together to form a pyramid, the apex of which touches his lower lip.

  “Perhaps you should see my final report before you spend any more money.”

  Opening the drawer of a filing cabinet, he pulls out a blue manila folder. The name “Richard North” is on the label. Resuming his seat, he takes a pair of half-moon spectacles from his top pocket and perches them on the tip of his nose. Running a finger down the page, he begins detailing North’s movements. What time he left home. When he returned. Meetings. Lunches. Commutes. Jogging routes. Elizabeth is mentioned once or twice, along with Mersey Fidelity.

  “I followed your husband for seven days. He’s a creature of habit. Leaves the house at just after seven, walks to Barnes Station, takes the same train to work, buys his coffee and a pastry, wears the same overcoat, carries the same briefcase.

  “The only change to his routine was on the Thursday.” He points to the date on the page. “He left home at his usual time, but instead of going to the office, he drove out of London, north along the M1 to Luton. I thought maybe he had a meeting, but he didn’t visit an office. He found a parking space in Bury Park Road, about a mile to the west of Luton town center. He bought himself a coffee, a bottle of water and he just waited.”

  “Waited for what?”

  “I don’t know. He was parked outside a company that provides privat
e mailboxes and offers a private mail forwarding service. People either collect post personally or have it forwarded in a plain brown envelope to an address they nominate. They might have a hobby they don’t want their wives or girlfriends finding out about—know what I’m saying?”

  Elizabeth doesn’t. The private detective tries again. “Some people have got a thing for latex, or ladies’ underwear, or bondage gear, or sex toys, and they don’t want this stuff delivered to their homes. So they take out a private mailbox, which guarantees them a degree of privacy. Then again, it could be a company that doesn’t have a registered office address so uses a private one.”

  Hackett looks back at his notes.

  “At 1518 hours a Pakistani kid arrived and picked up a package from a postbox. Your husband followed him on foot for about a quarter of a mile until the kid went into a charity shop near the big Central Mosque.

  “Mr. North waited outside the shop for about twenty minutes and then went back to his car. He drove back to London. I got details of the mileage if you want them.”

  Elizabeth shakes her head. Hackett turns the page.

  “On Friday your husband went to work at the normal time, but came home again at 1046 hours.”

  This is news to Elizabeth. She and Rowan had already left for the Lake District. Why would North have come home mid-morning? Perhaps he forgot something.

  “He stayed at the house until 1430 hours,” says Hackett, “and then caught a cab to an address in Mount Street, just off Park Lane. The house is leased to a private company called May First Limited. A woman answered the door. In her fifties. Well preserved. Hardly the mistress type. Your husband seemed agitated. She wouldn’t let him inside.

  “He kept ringing the doorbell until she gave him a piece of paper. Maybe it was an address. He left and caught a cab to a restaurant in Maida Vale: The Warrington. Gordon Ramsay’s pub.”

  The detective slides several photographs across his desk. Time coded. Shot from a distance. Grainy. Three men are sitting at an outside table beneath the plane trees. North is the clearest figure. A second man is sitting beside him, his face partially obscured by North’s body. A third man is seated opposite. Overweight with a heavy beard, he looks Mediterranean or perhaps Middle-Eastern.

  Elizabeth studies the photographs. She wants them to be clearer. She wants to see North’s eyes.

  “They talked for about twenty minutes,” says Hackett. “I recorded some of their conversation with a directional microphone, which is illegal, of course, and cannot be used in any court of law. It doesn’t make a great deal of sense because of the gaps and background noise, but I have provided you with a copy.

  “Your husband left the restaurant and I followed him to a phone box in Clifton Gardens. He made a two-minute phone call.”

  Hackett shows her another photograph. The old-fashioned red phone box has clear glass panels decorated with escort agency flyers and the business cards of sex workers. North is just visible through the door, resting his head against the metal casing of the phone as though exhausted or upset.

  Elizabeth wants to reach into the photograph and comfort him at the same time as she’s asking herself questions. What is he doing? Why use a public phone box and not a mobile? Who were those men at the restaurant?

  The private detective has paused. He has reached a point where the message is harder to deliver. He places another photograph in front of Elizabeth.

  “Your husband then caught a cab to Kensington High Street. He went to a basement bar called The Chess Club.”

  Although poorly lit, the photograph shows North sitting with a woman. Young, attractive, well groomed, she looks barely old enough to be drinking legally.

  The next image is clearer. They’re outside on the street, getting into a cab. A third photograph shows the cab arriving at the house in Barnes. The woman is wearing North’s leather jacket around her shoulders.

  Something soft breaks inside Elizabeth, a single thread no thicker than a spider’s web that has been holding her self-respect and her dignity in place.

  “How long did she stay?”

  “It’s in the report.”

  “How long?”

  Hackett takes a deep breath. “I left at two a.m. She was still there.”

  Elizabeth is willing herself not to cry. Forbidding it.

  “I’m sorry to be giving you this news, Mrs. North. In my experience a wife’s intuition is her most valuable instinct. You considered something untoward was happening, which is why you hired me. Your instincts proved correct.”

  Elizabeth is barely listening.

  “Mrs. North?”

  She whispers. “I need to know who she is.”

  The private detective scratches his jaw and grimaces. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Please?”

  Hackett pushes the manila envelope across his desk. “It’s all in the report, Mrs. North.”

  “But I want you to find him.”

  “Did you bin-bag him?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Kick him out. You suspected he had a girlfriend and you told him to leave.”

  “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t know about the girl until now.”

  “But you suspected.”

  “Maybe if you find her, you’ll find my husband.”

  Colin Hackett sighs. “Listen, Mrs. North, take the file home. Read it or burn it. Have a good night’s sleep. If you still think this guy is worth finding, give me a call.”

  “I don’t need to sleep on it. I’m having a baby any day now. I want you to find him.”

  Hackett nods. He wants to tell her not to waste her money and warn her that some rocks should never be turned over, but he can see a steely resolve in her gaze.

  Elizabeth’s feet manage to take her outside, where she sits at a café next to Rowan. An ice-cream seller is pushing a barrow along the pavement. Elizabeth searches for spare change. A tear springs from her right eye and runs down her cheek. The ice-cream seller gives her an extra napkin so she can blow her nose.

  A small explosion has detonated within her. She is no longer solid, no longer pristine. Everything that she knows about her life now carries a question mark. This sort of thing doesn’t happen to people like her. Her husband doesn’t have affairs or sleep with prostitutes or keep secrets from her. Her entire life has been one of money, privilege and being envied rather than pitied. All that has changed in the click of a camera shutter.

  “Why is you crying, Mummy?”

  “I’m just having a sad day.”

  “Because of Daddy.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he coming home?”

  “I hope so.”

  Colin Hackett waits until Elizabeth North has gone before he emerges from his office. He tells Janice to print off an invoice and post it immediately. Sometimes they change their mind about paying when you give them bad news.

  Hackett set up his agency ten years ago when his own marriage had disappeared in front of his eyes. He was angry at his wife’s infidelity, but later came to blame himself because he saw how many husbands had emotionally left their wives years before they bothered to clear their sock drawers.

  For the most part, detective work had proven to be depressing and dull rather than glamorous or dangerous. Missing children, lost cats, dodgy tradesmen, background checks, insurance claims, paternity tests, proving or disproving fidelity… he had seen almost the full range of human failings and tribulations.

  He first met Elizabeth North in a café just off Sloane Square. She had crossed the café as though on a catwalk and Hackett was sure he recognized her from somewhere. It was only afterwards when he typed her name into a search engine that he discovered her former career as a daytime TV presenter on one of those lifestyle programs watched by retired people, housewives and the unemployed.

  She was nervous about hiring him. A newbie. Some get cold feet. Others have feet of clay. They want someone to peek behind the curtains, but they’re frightened of what they
might find. Ignorance is often a happier state.

  She had used the phrase “seeing someone else,” which sounded politely courteous coming from her lips. Most spouses tended to voice their mistrust in cruder terms.

  It hadn’t taken him long to get the goods on Richard North. It was a straight tail and surveillance job. The guy went running every morning in a worn tracksuit and polar fleece, through the maze of streets around where he lived. Then he left for the office at the same time, on the same train, wearing the same suit. He probably had sex to schedule.

  The only difference came on the last few days of surveillance when North started acting erratically, coming home at strange hours and taking unexpected trips like the one to Luton. Hackett hadn’t minded the drive. Mileage was a billable expense.

  Now he has to find him, which shouldn’t be a problem. The tracking device he placed on North’s car will do that for him. Hackett hadn’t mentioned this to Elizabeth—why make his job seem too easy? In a few days he’ll give her a call and tell her that he’s found her wandering husband. She seems desperate enough and pregnant enough to take him back.

  That’s the problem with marriage—the raised expectations. A man starts off being faithful because he wants a wife who appeals to his nobler instincts and higher nature, then after a while he wants another woman to help him forget them.

  6

  LONDON

  Seagulls wheel and scream above Holly’s head, bickering like siblings. The Thames is at full tide. Dusk gathering. The wooden boat is pulled on to a narrow beach. Fuel lines uncoupled. The outboard engine lifted from its mounts. The younger fisherman has been dropped off at a jetty. The remaining one is covering the boat with a tarpaulin, pegging down the faded fabric.

  Thin and wiry with acne-divots in his cheeks, his name is Pete and he’s dressed in overalls and heavy work boots. Holly follows him along a narrow, winding path between blackberry bushes until they reach a weathered caravan.

  A skinny dog with a large square head emerges from beneath the axle, wagging its entire body. The dog sniffs at her crotch and she pushes it away.