by AD Davies
The man told me he’d get help. And he did.
Caroline asked, “What happened to Sheila?”
“Shallow grave,” I said. “She’d been dead about a week before I even started looking for her. Her husband stuck with his story. Said she went out and never came back.”
“Someone should do something about him.”
“The man in the suit already took care of the husband,” I said. “Couldn’t resist going back for more, and this time he didn’t have a wife to use as collateral.” I slapped the table and painted a grin on my face. “So come on, Caroline. What’s it to be? Do I go find Sarah or what?”
This time, the single tear rolling down her cheek seemed to be in spite of her willpower rather than because of it. Harry and Jayne were the only ones present who knew the story as I told it. Jess knew the abridged version. No one knew the full details. It still hurt too much to give it voice.
I was forever grateful that it was over.
Chapter Ten
Jess’s research into Marley Holdings dug up the same dead ends as mine, but the Beamer itself had been easier to trace. The car’s alarm company was one in which PAI had contacts and was able to extrapolate the GPS movements for the past twenty-four hours. It took Lily to an area of Leeds called Seacroft. Jess pinpointed the final stop, then checked council records for the first name “Lily” and identified only one address on that street: a studio apartment occupied by one Lily Blake.
I collected the thick packet Harry brought for me and we drove the Astra out to Lily’s address. By midnight, the street was silent but for the buzz of streetlights and the occasional distant engine. Harry and I negotiated the washing machine and sofa strewn on the grass, and climbed the stairs to the first floor. The flats’ windows opened onto the passageway, and all but one was in darkness. Our feet crunched over a slew of broken glass and number eight’s net curtain twitched.
A muffled, “What the bloody hell do you want?” came from within.
“Are you alone?” I asked.
“Course I am. I try to go anywhere, he’ll find me.”
“I have something that can help with that.”
“Unless it’s Curtis Benson’s head, I don’t want it.”
I knocked on the door and felt stupid for doing so. “Please hear me out. It’s a good thing.”
A pause, then, “How good?”
Harry said, “Love, I’d take this offer even if I didn’t have some knob-head threatening me.”
“Oh,” she said. “You again.”
Movement within. The door opened a crack. Lily’s face appeared. Boyish hair. Wide brown eyes, a bruise to one cheek, her lip swollen. I hadn’t noticed her eye-color before.
She said, “If I let you in, you leave when I say you leave. Okay?”
“Deal,” I said.
She unchained the door and we entered a warm room that smelled of Chinese food, a couple of cartons stacked in the kitchenette’s sink. The lounge contained a sofa-bed pulled out into bed-mode and a TV tuned to a 24-hour news channel.
While Harry kept watch by the window, I placed his packet on the side of the kitchenette.
“That for me?” Lily said.
“What do you think?”
She emptied the contents onto the worktop. The first thing she picked up was one of two passports.
“It’s me,” she said. “Paula Grainger. I don’t look like a Paula.”
“You will,” I said. “Harry is going to drive you somewhere. Nowhere I know about, but some sea port. Hull, Portsmouth, somewhere like that. When you get to wherever you want to go, buy yourself a rail ticket and keep on going until you choose to stop.”
“He found Sarah at the airport easy—”
“That’s why there’s two IDs.”
She opened the second passport to meet Lilith Hughes.
“Lilith?” she said with disgust.
“It’s close to Lily. Easier to remember. The cards are in Lilith’s name too.”
She examined the two credit cards. A standard silver one and a gold one.
I said, “Use Paula Grainger to leave the UK. Then burn the passport. Literally burn it, so no one can see who it was. Harry bought that one from the club forger, so when Benson finds out, he’ll think he knows your identity. Then you use Lilith Hughes to get around. She’s been created by my own contact, a rush-job couriered up from Birmingham. No association with Blazing Sleaze.”
I paused in case she had questions. She didn’t.
“The silver credit card is for small purchases—food, clothes, drinks. You need cash, keep it to a hundred euros a day. It’s connected to my own account, so it’s all my money. Do not go wild on it. It’s not for buying fifty people champagne. If you do that, the card will cease working.”
That was a lie, but I wanted some limits in place.
“The gold one is for more expensive purchases. Travel, accommodation, that sort of thing. Plus instructions on how to get them replaced if you lose them.”
She stared at the documents. “Your plan is to send me on a holiday?”
“You said you’d hear me out. Listen for two more minutes and—”
“You can stop talking.” She bit her lip, her bruising a nasty blue. “I’m actually okay with that.”
“You are?”
“Hell, yeah. I’ve never been abroad before. You wanna pay, I’ll take that.”
“Great,” I said. “I’ll get in touch with you once this is all over. Until then, you cannot contact your family—”
“No problem. They’re all dicks anyhow.”
“Or your friends. No Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. Leave your phone, buy a pay-as-you-go outside of Britain. Move cities a lot, stick around somewhere if you like it, but do not get sloppy. Do not reveal your real name. Okay?” I waited for her to respond, but she poked around at the health insurance certificate and the driving license. Her photo came from the DVLA servers, where—yep, you guessed it—PAI had a contact who let us in the backdoor. I said, “Lily, focus.”
She snapped out of it. “So I can go anywhere, right?”
“Anywhere except Paris.”
So Lily was out of the equation, making that one complication taken care of. I left her packing minimal items into a gym-bag, advising her to pick up a rucksack at the earliest opportunity. I left her with Harry, gave him the car key, and called a cab.
Back home, I packed my usual equipment: binoculars, digital SLR camera, gaffer tape, a folding tool kit smaller than my phone, and an iPad with a company SIM card. Then I dug out a razor, but figured I would shave in the morning rather than pack it. Hopefully I would be back in a couple of days. Finally, I weighed the wooden cosh in my hand. Easier to use than a knife, infinitely less messy, and far more legal to transport between countries. I tucked it into the middle of my bag, surrounded by items of clothing. With everything ready to grab and go first thing, I hit the sack for what I hoped would be a decent night’s sleep.
However, four hours later, at six a.m., I awoke to my phone ringing. I hadn’t dreamed, so it took me a while to realize where I was. I answered it, still groggy.
Curtis Benson said, “Are you shittin’ me? You think I don’t know it was you and that Gruffalo motherfucker who took her?”
“You’ll get what you asked for,” I said. “But I can’t work with that hanging over me. You’ll get your other items, you might even get Gareth, but you leave Sarah to me. That’s the deal now. I don't care about your business. Just give me some space, and leave me to it.”
“Space? I’ll give you space—”
“If you were really going to do something you’d have kicked down the door already. You want what they took, and if it means I get your cooperation in finding Sarah, I’ll bring it to you. Whatever it is.”
A shuffling sounded on the other end. “You got a pen?”
I picked up one of the other phones and told him I was ready. He gave me a number with a French prefix, which I typed into the phone’s memory.
/> Benson said, “You gonna be on a short leash, prick. You get to Paris, you call that number. You don’t call, we’ll come lookin’ for you and whoever you care about.”
“Who is it?”
“Name is Vila Fanuco.” He spelled the name for me. “My contact over there. He runs everythin’ worth runnin’. Remember? Lord of the Froggin’ underworld. Heh heh. Frogs. Geddit?”
“I get it. France. Frogs. I’m laughing on the inside.”
“Play any games, show any reason I can’t trust you, and I’ll know. Got it?”
“Sure,” I said, and hung up.
It was pointless going back to sleep, so I caught a cab to Leeds-Bradford airport and booked myself on the ten-thirty flight to Paris. I was wearing beige combats and a loose cotton t-shirt, carrying a rucksack. I looked like anyone else embarking on a trip abroad, and I felt that tingle I always get when I’m about to cross another border.
I was finally on my way.
EUROPE
FRANCE
Chapter Eleven
When I was eighteen years old, I fulfilled my father’s exotic promise for him, and entered France for the first time in my life; my first time outside of Britain. Armed only with an Inter-Rail ticket and a desperate need to flee as far as possible, I yearned to simply turn up in random places and find a room, perhaps some remote village smack-bang in the middle of their Festival of Welcoming Foreigners or something. But that evening, as I rocked up in Paris with wide eyes and a fast pace, a major car convention had hit town, and there was not a single vacant hotel, hostel or guest room. My pace slowed and I wandered the streets all night, sampling one late night cafe’s wares after the next, alternating my intake between the sweet aniseed liqueur called pastis and strong black coffee. Unlike the UK, there was no hurried last-orders, no groups of lads downing several pints to beat the bell. There were just people, enjoying the coffee, the alcohol, the food; a young family dined at eleven p.m., lovers ignored their drinks in favor of one another’s mouths, and elderly men sat on pavement tables, their legs spread wide as they sorted out the world’s problems in a fog of aniseed. I did not sleep, and I hardly noticed the fatigue. In the morning, when Gare du Sud opened for business, I used my Inter-Rail ticket on the first train south, and by mid-afternoon I was in Marseille, paddling in the Mediterranean.
Today, the rail link from Charles de Gaulle Airport into the heart of Paris was as clean and efficient as I remembered. It deposited me not far from a Metro station, but the first thing I did was pop into a narrow café where a full-bosomed madame greeted with me an enthusiastic, “Bonjour!” I returned her greeting in my schoolboy French and purchased un café-noir. I fought off sleep most of the short flight, instead reading through the DDS info on Benson again, so I needed this boost.
Adam’s Smug Travel Tips #15: To get oneself into the mental space necessary to acclimatize to a foreign country, fine coffee in a tiny café (or whatever the local specialty beverage happens to be) is a great place to start.
I left the cafe with a clear head and went straight to a tourist information booth.
Due to the ease with which Benson had monitored my other activities, I did not book accommodation in advance, and I was concerned that staying at Sarah’s last known location could have tipped off the pair, or—more pertinently—whoever caused harm to befall them. I chose a three-star option called Le Grecian, paid her in advance, and descended into the bowels of the Metro, Paris’s underground rail network. I took the pink line to the Opera station, where I emerged into the afternoon sun.
Four hours after leaving Leeds, this was my first proper glimpse of Paris in years: a wide, busy road, lined with three and four-story buildings. The windows all bore wooden shutters, with iron railings for residents to lean upon, as many were now doing. Scooters whined by, some honking, although not bad-temperedly; more of a “Hi, pleased to see you” honk. Every street corner boasted a zebra-crossing, with red and green traffic lights, along with a red and green-man guide.
I made it inside the Hotel Grecian and tried my French on the receptionist. I didn’t get far, but she seemed happy I at least tried. My room had a soft bed and a fifty-year-old dresser, and the bathroom came furnished with a four-foot bath with a shower over it, and a sit-on toilet. The whole space smelled a bit like the Miss Piggywiggy.
I pushed the net curtain aside, opened my window, and leaned on the railings. Sounds of the city floated by: engines, car horns, the occasional argumentative shout. Tobacco swam through the air, blending with Mediterranean dishes sizzling a couple of buildings away. It was three-thirty now and the sun was lower than back home, filtered orange through the mild smog, hanging between the old white buildings. It’s a scene, an atmosphere, no other place can provide: Paris in the afternoon, preparing for evening.
I had to venture out into that evening pretty soon.
Back inside, I left the window ajar, and dug out the number Benson had given me. Figured I was better off calling than not. No need to antagonize these people further.
A gruff, “Allo?” greeted me.
“Vila Fanuco?” I said.
“Adam Park,” the man said.
“I’m supposed to check in with you.”
“Yes.”
I couldn’t place his accent. Certainly not French. Eastern European? Russian? The name Fanuco was Spanish in origin but his lilt was a million miles away from Spanish. I wouldn’t expect Vila or Fanuco to be genuine anyway.
“I can assume you will start your assignment straight away?” His English was near-flawless.
“I’m planning on a visit to the police first.”
“Oh? To what end?”
“I’m looking for a missing girl travelling with a violent thug. It’s a courtesy to check in with local police to let them know I’m snooping around their city. Things might get tricky if I annoy a gendarme.”
Fanuco laughed. “Okay, Mr. Park. Very well put. Logical. You sound like the sort of man I would like.”
“Cool. Let’s have a beer sometime.”
Why on earth did I say that?
Mr. Glib returns.
“Mr. Park, you should take this situation more seriously. Your stay in my city will be far more comfortable if you behave.”
“I’ll be good as gold.”
The man breathed for a couple of seconds. He said, “Enjoy the Grecian,” and hung up.
I sat on the bed, listening to the sounds of Paris through my window. It took me a moment to realize I had not mentioned the name of my hotel, and that I had used my mobile to call him, so any caller-ID would have been irrelevant. I’d taken the usual precautions, but still they’d learned where I was staying as simply as flipping on a light.
Unlike I had with Benson, I could not chance underestimating this man.
Chapter Twelve
The Préfecture de Police was located in the Île de la Cité, one of two natural islands in the River Seine. It was more of a castle than a police station, and when I found the public entrance I felt I was about to be picked off by an archer. The reception area alone was the size of most British cop shops, and shone with pristine marble and artistic coving. I communicated with the woman on the desk in broken French. She thanked me for having called ahead and oui, there was still someone here who might see me. She warned they were still working a high-profile case, though, so there might be some delay. I said that was fine, and she directed me through a huge art-lined corridor, up to the third floor to wait beside Pierre Bertrand’s office. She told me he was a gardien de la paix—keeper of the peace—which sounded grand, but as I waited, I looked it up and learned it was only a rank or two above a gendarme on the beat.
Gardien Bertrand himself was a liaison for the Criminal Investigation Division, employed predominantly to deal with the foreign and domestic press, so I expected he would speak English pretty damn well. Before I could look any deeper into the man himself, he appeared beside me, a fifty-something chap with older eyes and a trim brown beard going grey at the edges
.
“Excuse me, Mr. Park,” he said, juggling his coat and briefcase to shake my hand, “but it is after seven and I am on my way home. Perhaps we could walk as well as talk?”
“Of course.”
He limped on his left leg, but at a regular walking pace, so he’d obviously had the ailment for many years. No cane, either. His accent was only mildly inflected by French, so he probably spent time in England or the States. “We have a girl who is missing—Henrietta Dupree, just twelve years old—and we are not close to finding her. Our investigators think she may no longer be in France. Interpol is taking things over now and I have to field a million questions to the press. How come the Ministère failed? How come we cannot find her? Why are the police such idiots? You know these sorts of things.”
“Actually, I’m not a police officer.”
He stopped. “But I thought…”
“I’m sorry, I told the secretary I was an ‘officer of the law’ because my French is rusty. I couldn’t remember how to say ‘private investigator’.”
“C’est un enquêteur privé,” he said.
“Enquêteur privé.”
We started walking again.
“Gardien Bertrand,” I said. “I’m looking for a missing girl too. She’s eighteen. Older than yours, I know, but still young.”
“Ah, yes, still a girl in England. In France, she is an adult.”
“I understand.”
“Then you will understand, too, our budgets are very thin. All our money, these days, is in counter-terrorism, community relations, and … well, there is never enough to go around, is there?”
“I really don’t need anything specific from you. Certainly nothing that will take you away from your business. I just—”
He limped a little faster, swinging the left out in a wider arc. “Why are you here, then?”