by Tim Weaver
‘No,’ she said. ‘No one will be missing me.’
A short pause.
Then Hank punched her in the side of the head.
She rocked off the seat and fell away from the chair. Her legs hit the floor, her hand jarred as the handcuffs locked at her wrists, and her head smashed against the table. Her skull exploded in a firework of white static, then her vision gradually began to fade to black. She heard the two men start talking again as darkness washed in.
‘You need to find it,’ the old man said.
‘I know what I need to do.’
‘No loose ends.’
‘I know what I need to do, okay?’
Silence. ‘I hope you do, Jeremy. I really hope you do.’
Behind an unmarked door in the basement of the Bellagio, Carlos Soto sat alone in the security room. The men and women under his supervision, the ones still working the night shift, were out in the casino; he could see them on a bank of monitors on the other side of the office, on the casino floor, at the entrance, on the edges of the bars and communal areas. He swivelled slowly in his seat, eyes drifting from the screens to the certificates on the wall behind him, every framed piece of paper a map of his progress through Las Vegas Metro. He’d been heading up Robbery-Homicide when he’d left the force and taken the job at the Bellagio – but he’d done it for a reason.
Not because he couldn’t do his job any more. His star had still been on the rise after fifteen years – the sheriff himself had said as much when he’d begged Carlos to stay. Not even because of the bodies he’d had to look at, the blood he’d had to walk through, the faces of the families he’d had to break life-changing news to. Not the tragedy, or the darkness, or the hopelessness of some of the crime. Not even for his family – because he didn’t have one. His mom and dad were long gone, and there was no wife or kids to come home to, although he’d always desperately wanted both.
No, the reason he’d left wasn’t any of those things.
He leaned forward in his seat to where a black-and-white printout of two people – a man and a woman – was sitting on the desk in front of him. The picture was frozen as the couple emerged from a hotel room on the thirty-second floor. The woman was in her late thirties, the guy probably around ten years older. The man was holding a duffel bag. In the corner of the shot was a digital readout. 32-CAM4A / 11:12 /08/13/11.
This was the reason he’d left. Things like this. Things that didn’t feel right, didn’t make sense, didn’t fit together. Things that chipped away at him constantly because he knew some secret was being buried in the ground while he stood on the periphery looking for answers. He’d left the police because he had an obsessive, almost damaging need for the truth.
And because, basically, he could never let things go.
33
Lee Wilkins looked at me: thinner than I remembered, out of condition. Sweat beaded against his hairline and his skin was a mess. If he ever got outside, it could only have been for snatched moments. He had the look of a man on the run; one frightened enough not to venture too far from the only place he felt safe.
‘What the hell are you doing here, Lee?’
He didn’t reply.
‘Lee?’
He looked from me to the door, and I saw what he was contemplating: making a break for it. But he quickly realized the plan would fail, and as he did so he seemed to shrink in his skin. ‘You shouldn’t be here, David.’
‘Why not?’
‘You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.’
‘Why aren’t you in the States?’ I waited for a response that didn’t come. ‘Are you on the run from something? From someone?’
He just eyed me.
‘Does it have to do with the Lings?’
He became very still, his face a mix of resistance – born out of his time alone; of a fear of whatever he was running from – and relief that he could finally talk about it. ‘A month after they all went missing, the cops turned up here. I thought maybe Paul had written down the address of this place and left it lying around at home somewhere.’
‘He didn’t need to write it down.’
‘Because they traced my calls.’
I nodded. ‘Why were you calling him?’
‘I was lucky with the cops,’ he replied, as if he hadn’t even heard me. ‘I was on the way back from the shops and saw them snooping around the house, so I just walked on past. The house was locked, and I knew they’d have to get a warrant to get inside. When they came back, a day later, I’d cleared everything out. All this shit.’ He paused, looked at me, then at what surrounded him. ‘I wasn’t as lucky with you. You caught me with my pants down. I guess I’ve got sloppier the longer I’ve been here.’
I looked around the room. He’d been living in a decaying shack and eating out of tin cans for months, so he’d already hit rock bottom. The effect was obvious: he had a fearful, almost frenzied expression, as if the loneliness was getting to him. Really, there were only two places to go from here: to get to this point, he’d probably already seen his fair share of violence, so I could threaten him with more until I got what I wanted; or I could try to talk him around and guide him to where I needed him.
‘Lee, listen to me.’ I dropped to a whisper, the change in tone immediately pulling him from his thoughts. He looked across at me. ‘I need you to explain to me what happened to the family. Don’t assume I know anything. Don’t leave anything out.’
Before, he’d seemed dazed, punch-drunk, but for the first time his expression cleared, like a fog being carried off. ‘I don’t know all the details,’ he said quietly.
‘Just tell me what you do know.’
He sniffed; rubbed an eye. ‘I know that, this time last year, things went wrong in the States for me.’ He shifted position, dropping fully on to his backside, arm resting on the corner of the box full of supplies. ‘You remember you and me bumped into each other in the Mandalay Bay that time? When was that – November, December 2007?’
‘December.’
‘Right. What are the chances of that, huh? Two guys from a tiny village in south Devon running into each other in a city on the other side of the world?’
‘It was weird.’
He frowned. ‘Weird?’
‘Luck. Chance. A quirk of fate.’ I shrugged. ‘What do you think it was?’
He smiled, but there was no humour in it. ‘I think it was some kind of sign, one I should have taken more notice of.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘After I saw you, that’s when it hit home.’ A breeze stirred inside the house, and the loft hatch began to swing. Lee eyed it, probably wondering what would have happened if he’d stayed up there, hidden properly, never called the payphone. He’d got desperate trying to ward me off – and instead all he’d done was draw me to him. ‘When I first moved to Vegas, it was for a job as a compère at a comedy club just off the Strip. You know that. I told you when we met five years ago. Things got bigger and better fast. People found me funny, I was being asked to perform for longer, the pay was improving.’
I gave him a look that said I didn’t get the relevance.
‘Anyway, sometime in 2007 – this was probably, I don’t know, May or June – this guy knocked on the door of my dressing room and asked me if I ever did private gigs. I said I hadn’t done them before, but if the money was right I’d think about it. I mean, I didn’t have a routine, really. I just filled the gaps between acts; riffed on what was in the news, on being an Englishman abroad, on the people in the audience. I improvised.’
‘Who was the guy?’
‘His name was Cornell. He never offered me his first name, and … I don’t know, he just wasn’t the sort of guy you asked. He said he headed up this group; looked after this bunch of high rollers that flew into the Strip four times a year to gamble, drink and screw a few whores.’ He stopped briefly, his voice becoming softer. ‘So I said yes. To have said no would have been insane. I was earning good money, but C
ornell offered me more for one night than I made in a year. He made it impossible for me to turn down.’
‘What does this have to do with the Lings?’
He held up a hand, telling me to wait. ‘I did the gig. It was in the most expensive villa at the Bellagio. This place was, like, four thousand square feet. I’d never seen anything like it. I got introduced to these guys by Cornell, these CEOs, oil tycoons, industrial magnates, surgeons, Silicon Valley billionaires, and I thought to myself, “What the hell is going on here? How did I even get to this point?” By the time the introductions were done, I was absolutely shitting myself. Most of them were so pumped up on booze and pussy they didn’t even notice … except for this one guy. He came over to me, put his arm around my shoulder and asked me what the matter was. I said to him, “I stand up in front of eight hundred people a night – I never get nervous about crowds, but I’m nervous in front of this one.” I told him, “If I screw up, I leave and you instantly forget me. If I get it right, these are men that could make things happen for me. Big things. That’s what I’m nervous about.” But this guy just patted me on the back and said, “Everyone will love you, Lee.” ’ Very briefly, Lee’s eyes lit up. ‘And he was right. They did. By the end of the evening, I had them eating out of the palm of my hand. I felt untouchable.’
I pushed again. ‘What’s this got to do with the Lings?’
‘Afterwards, it was like I was one of these men,’ he said, another hint of a smile. ‘One of the high rollers. We gambled and drank, and they paid for everything – casino chips, booze, call girls, everything. When the sun came up and they began to drift away, they gave me their numbers and told me to call them if I was ever in their city. I mean, these were men so far out of my league their cars were worth more than my apartment.’ The smile became fully formed. ‘And then there was just this one guy left, the one who had come up to me. Cornell had introduced me to everyone, told me what they did, and I just lost track of the names and job titles. I couldn’t remember the guy’s name, and yet he was treating me like his long-lost son. He said he was going to try and get me a better gig – across all the MGM hotels. He said he knew the group CEO. This guy was amazing.’ He shook his head. ‘Inside a couple of months, he’d organized it: I was working across the entire group, earning a ton of money, and living out at The Lakes.’
I studied him. ‘Why you?’
‘You mean why’d he take such a shine to me?’ Lee shrugged. ‘We went for breakfast. I didn’t ask him “Why me?” to start with because I didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth. But eventually it all seemed too good to be true – so I just came out with it.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He started telling me this story about my stepdad.’
I looked at him, confused. ‘What?’
‘He said they were friends, that they’d grown up together.’
‘Where – in Devon?’
‘Yeah. My stepdad ended up working for him.’
That stopped me. ‘Wait, what was the name of your stepdad?’
‘His name? Ray Muire.’
They’d grown up together.
Suddenly I understood. ‘Which meant the other guy was …’
‘Carter,’ Lee said. ‘Carter Graham.’
34
Just for a moment there seemed to be no sound in the farmhouse. Lee looked across at me and must have seen something in my face. ‘You sound like you know them both already.’
My mind turned back to the conversation I’d had with Martha Muire earlier. Have we talked before? She recognized my name, from when Lee and I had been at school, but twenty-five years and ill health had dimmed her memory. I hadn’t made the connection between her and Lee because of her surname. But now, finally, it started to make sense.
‘David?’
I looked up at him.
‘Do you know them?’ he said.
‘I know of Graham. I spoke to your mum about Ray this morning.’
He shifted against the bed, shivered almost, as if he were reawakening from some terrible dream. ‘Really? How is she?’
There was a flash of expectation in his face, and I realized that I was his only remaining connection to her. He wouldn’t want to hear the truth. ‘She was fine.’
‘That’s good.’ He nodded. ‘That’s really good. I email her occasionally. I rarely use my phone – it’s too risky – but I sometimes catch the bus into Yelverton; there’s this place with the internet.’ A small, sad smile. ‘I have to lie to her, though. I wish I could see her but … I just tell her I’m touring the MGM hotels in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.’
‘Why lie to her?’
‘I don’t have a choice.’
‘Why?’
He looked at me but didn’t say anything.
‘If you’re in some sort of trouble, why the hell come back here? You’re only an hour from where you used to live. Why not disappear to the other side of the world?’
‘I know this village. We used to come to Dartmoor all the time with Mum when we were growing up. This house has been derelict for years. I can protect myself here.’
‘Protect yourself from who?’
Again he didn’t answer; cautious, frightened.
I backtracked. ‘So Graham and your stepdad were old friends?’
‘Oh yeah. They went way back. I’d never met Carter before. Not face to face. I’d seen photos of him, old photos that Ray had, but I didn’t recognize him when I met him in Vegas.’ He gazed off into the emptiness of the room. ‘That morning I had breakfast with him, he just kept on and on about Ray, spinning these endless stories about them growing up, about the things they did together. Don’t get me wrong, Ray had his faults, but he was special. He wasn’t my dad, but I loved him like one. I never had to worry about Mum because he treated her so well. But by the end of that conversation I was sick of hearing his name. That’s how ridiculous it got. To Carter … well, he was a brother.’
In the silence that followed, the wind picked up, whistling through the gaps in the house. ‘So Graham promised Ray that he’d look out for you?’
The idea seemed to distress him. ‘Yes.’
‘What was the problem with that?’
‘It meant I became tethered to Carter Graham, to the high-rollers group – and, worse than all that, I became tethered to Cornell.’
I sensed a change in him now. ‘You didn’t like Cornell?’
‘He called me a week after Carter got me that new job, and said to me, “Don’t ever talk about the high-rollers group, any of the men who attend it or anything you hear.” I got the impression early on that Cornell didn’t like me being there. He’d invited me as entertainment, a one-time-only thing, and then, thanks to Carter, I ended up with this amazing new job and became part of the group – permanently.’
‘You said the group was just a bunch of rich men letting off steam. That’s what that entire city is built on. Why did Cornell even care whether you talked about it or not?’
‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘But it didn’t really matter to me either way. Not talking about that group while I was house-hunting for million-dollar properties seemed a pretty good trade-off.’
Somehow that sentiment didn’t sit right, and we both knew it. Lee shuffled again, straightening his back against the bed frame, and turned to face me. Money could only hide so much curiosity. Being told you couldn’t talk about something, without a proper reason, just made you more inclined to find out why. It was basic human psychology.
‘So you just went along with it?’
‘Yes.’ But he looked down at the floor to avoid my gaze. ‘Every three months, when the high rollers returned to Vegas, Carter would phone me up and invite me along, and in the days afterwards I’d always get the same call from Cornell, and he’d always tell me the same thing: don’t talk about anything you heard at the high-rollers group. Weird thing was, I generally didn’t hear anything. Most of those men spent the night whacked out on booze, disappearing into side r
ooms to screw anything that moved.’
‘So who does this Cornell guy work for?’
‘As far as I can tell, himself. He brings all these powerful men together every February, May, August and November, and probably gets a kickback from the casino for it. A cut of whatever gets spent. But I never figured out if that was the only job he had, what his profession was or how he knew those men. You don’t ask him things like that.’ A sudden despondency seemed to wash over him, quickly and overtly: in his eyes, in his physicality, like something – some memory – had left the room and taken a part of him with it. ‘One time, I’d been seeing this woman for a couple of weeks and we’d been getting on great. I’d booked us a table at this amazing French restaurant and gone to her house to pick her up. When I got out of my car, this black SUV pulled slowly into the road and started coming towards me. It was him.’
‘Cornell?’
He nodded. ‘He stopped next to my car, slowly looked from me to this woman’s house – and then he just sat there and stared at me. Literally, just stared at me. I’ll never forget that. When I try and put that moment into words, it sounds like nothing, but I swear to you, the way he looked at me …’ He stopped. Swallowed. ‘My knees nearly went. I had to lean against the car for support. I thought I was going to puke.’