Never Coming Back

by Tim Weaver

  The soles of someone’s shoes.

  Six feet away. Maybe less.

  We’re right next to one another.

  I opened my eyes and pushed against the resistance of the trigger, squeezing it to its halfway point, ready to fire into the dark if I had to – but then there was another noise.

  From the Ley this time.

  A gurgle.

  Suddenly, I heard the scratch of boots against the track – much less than six feet away – and someone took off, back in the direction of Prouse. The Ley was so silent now, the movement seemed to rip across it, one side to the other. Birds scattered somewhere in the darkness, the whup, whup, whup of flapping wings, and as the footsteps died out, the wind picked up again, passing through the reeds either side of me. In the quiet of the aftermath, they made a disconcerting noise, almost human, as if warning me to stay where I was. But I didn’t. I followed, moving fast and quiet, and headed back to the lake.

  Gripping the Glock, I got there as quickly as I could, jogging along the track towards the car. I stumbled a couple of times, hitting uneven patches beneath my feet, but when I emerged from the tunnel of reeds there seemed to be a subtle switch in the light: the total blackness of the night had given way to a soft charcoal hue; still dark, but not totally.

  I lifted the gun to my eyeline.

  No sign of movement.

  Prouse was on his back, arms out either side of him, half in, half out of the water. I didn’t approach him from directly across the track. Instead I edged around the BMW, making sure no one was using it for cover. Once I could see him again, I stood with my back to the lake and scanned the area. The field of yellow grass was still swaying, its gentle ballet of movement massaged by the wind, but now I could see it had been bent, a path trampled through it. An escape route. I crossed the track, keeping my head low, and paused on the edge of the grass. I could only see for about forty feet, even in the changing light. But I saw the path carved into it – snaking across the belly of the field – until the darkness finally claimed it back.

  I returned to Prouse.

  His blood was washing out into the lake by the time I got there, both eyes looking up to the heavens like chunks of polished black marble. He was making a gentle gurgling sound, a single, controlled puncture wound visible at the bottom of his throat. It was the work of a pro. Someone who knew exactly what they were doing. In a matter of minutes, Prouse would be dead – but not before he’d suffered. I looked back across my shoulder, to the grassland. Whoever it is, they’re here.

  I realized how lucky I’d been: in the darkness, between the reeds, I’d been blind – but whoever had come for me had been blind as well. My car would have told them I was here, but not where – and their one noise, right at the start as they approached, had been what saved my life. If I hadn’t heard it, I’d have been here with Prouse – and the killer would have come up behind me and put a knife in me too.

  I wiped down the Glock and left it on the shore of the Ley, next to Prouse. As I did, his fingers brushed my jacket.

  I looked down.

  He started coughing, and as blood spilled out on to his beard, I wondered if he’d ever imagined, even in his darkest moments, whether the end might come like this, out here on the edges of the Ley, alone and cold, with no one to claim him.

  Maybe violent men never thought about the end.

  Maybe they never feared it.

  But, as I looked across the track to the route his assailant had used, back through the grass, I knew the end came for men like Prouse, just the same as anybody else.

  Just the same as the end had come for the Lings.

  46

  As I got to the main road, I looked down at the clock. Just after six-thirty. Dawn would be breaking in about fifteen minutes, sunrise about thirty minutes after that. I quickly went to my phone and put in a search for ‘D. Kalb’. Eleven million hits, but nothing immediately useful: the website and Wikipedia entry for a musician; a university lecturer in Canada; LinkedIn profiles for professionals with the same surname; Facebook profiles, Twitter accounts, Tumblrs. I looked again at the clock and knew I’d have to come back to it later. I needed to call Carter Graham, to warn him he might be in danger. Jamming the phone into the hands-free cradle, I scrolled through until I found his number and hit Dial.

  Finally, a groggy, barely awake voice said hello.

  ‘Carter, it’s David Raker.’

  It took him a couple of seconds to place the name. ‘David?’

  ‘You need to listen to me.’

  He cleared his throat and I heard a squeak, like mattress springs, and the sound of him shifting around in bed. I remembered then that he’d had the gala the night before.

  ‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘I need to find my glasses.’

  ‘Did you organize extra security yesterday, like I told you to?’

  ‘Wow.’ He coughed a couple of times. ‘It is early.’

  ‘Did you organize extra security?’ I repeated.

  ‘Yes. Just as you suggested.’

  ‘Are they at the house with you?’

  ‘Yes. They’re here now.’

  I breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Okay. Good.’

  ‘Why, is there a problem?’

  ‘There might be.’

  ‘What kind of a problem?’

  There was no way to break the news gently. ‘You’re in danger.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You remember I talked to you about Cornell yesterday?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That you have something he wants?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I think one of his people is coming for it.’

  ‘What? When?’

  ‘Now.’ I gave him a couple of seconds to process that. ‘You need to prep your security team. Put them on high alert and lock down the house. Don’t let anyone inside. Is that clear?’

  Now he was awake. ‘Yes,’ he said, his voice already shredded with fear.

  ‘How many people do you have there?’

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘Good. Prep them all, put them at the entrances. After you’ve done that, I want you to call the police. Just dial 999 and tell them to come to the house. Then, after that, phone direct into Totnes and ask for DCI Colin Rocastle. Tell him I sent you and that it’s to do with Prouse. He’ll understand that. Are you getting this?’

  ‘What’s Prouse?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Just do as I say, all right?’

  He sounded panicked. ‘What the hell does Cornell want?’

  He wants to kill you.

  ‘Look, I know you’re in shock here, but there are some questions I need to ask you – so try to clear your head. Do you remember I asked about a photograph yesterday?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ever remember having your picture taken with a guy called Kalb?’

  ‘Kalb?’

  ‘I think it might begin with a K. K-A-L-B.’

  ‘No. Should I?’

  I changed tack. ‘Did you find a picture of the three of you?’

  ‘I found a few.’

  I paused. Carrie had put a date on the photograph of about 1971. That would have placed the men in their mid twenties. ‘Okay, listen. Do you have a picture there of the three of you – Ray, Eric and you – perhaps taken when you were all out in the States at the same time. Maybe Ray was on holiday, or maybe he’d come out to see your LA office.’

  ‘Uh, I can go and grab them, I suppose.’

  He sounded reluctant to go anywhere now.

  I told him to go ahead and do it. As he put the phone down, I looked both ways along the empty road, looking for any sign of life – of cars watching me, of people hiding out of sight – and a sudden realization hit: Cornell was trying to close the circle. He was killing off anyone even remotely connected to the photograph. They’d failed to get me at the Ley, but they’d come for me again – after they’d done for Carter Graham. I felt sure of that. Like Muire and Schiltz, he was tethered to Kalb somehow, even i
f he didn’t know how, and once he was out of the way, I was a minor bump in the road. Just a loose end. I glanced right, out along the road, to the village. In the hills above it was my home.

  I couldn’t go back now.

  It was too risky.

  ‘Okay.’

  Graham was back on the line.

  ‘What have you got there?’ I asked him, still scanning the road, left to right.

  ‘I’ve got four photos of the three of us.’

  ‘Describe them to me.’

  ‘This first one was taken at our thirty-year school reunion back in 1991–’

  ‘What about the next one?’

  ‘Uh. This was a golfing holiday we took to Palm Springs. We stayed with Eric for a week, and then had a week up to Napa, wine tasting. It was a surprise for Ray’s fortieth.’

  ‘So that would have been 1985?’

  ‘Correct, yeah.’

  ‘That’s not it. Next one?’

  ‘This one was when we all met up in London in 1996.’

  ‘That won’t be it either. What about the last one?’

  A pause. Then: ‘Oh, I remember this. This was taken when the office was being built in LA – so it would have been February 1971. Ish. Eric and I clubbed together and flew Ray out for a holiday. I think he’d just split up from his girlfriend.’

  This could be the photograph of Kalb.

  ‘Describe the picture.’

  ‘Uh, well, there’s Ray and me in the centre of the picture. I can see one of the city’s mountain ranges in the background. I’m not sure which one. Eric took the picture–’

  ‘Wait. The picture doesn’t have all three of you in it?’

  ‘No. Just Ray and me.’

  ‘Are there any other people in the background?’

  ‘In the background of the shot?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No. It’s just Ray and me.’

  Damn it.

  ‘Is there another picture from the same trip, with all three of you in it?’

  A pause on the line.

  ‘Carter?’

  ‘It’s weird,’ he said, distantly, as if caught in a memory. ‘Eric emailed a picture, I don’t know, maybe a year ago, maybe eighteen months. Something like that. He was scanning in all his old photographs. I remember it because it was taken around the same time as this one – except his one had all three of us in.’

  ‘Did you print off a copy of it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So where is it?’

  ‘I don’t know. I keep all my pictures in the same place.’

  ‘Which is where?’

  ‘In a shoebox in the library.’

  I realized what that meant. ‘Does anyone else know about the shoebox?’

  ‘The shoebox? Katie might know.’

  She’d taken the photo for Cornell. Just like the copy Ray Muire had.

  ‘What about your email? Would a copy still be in there?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I get such a vast amount of emails, as you can probably imagine. I only keep the last six months’ worth. That’s why I printed off a copy of it.’

  I tried not to let my frustration show: ‘Okay, put all the photos back.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ll explain when I get there.’

  ‘You’re coming over?’

  ‘Yes. Now. There are some things you need to know.’

  He sensed something ominous in my voice. ‘Things?’

  ‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Just make sure your security are doing their job, and call Rocastle as soon as you put the phone down. It’s fine. He knows you already.’

  ‘He looked into that family’s disappearance.’

  ‘Right. Do me another favour: don’t speak to anyone about what we just talked about, okay? That includes Katie.’

  He seemed confused by the request. ‘Wha– why?’

  ‘Just trust me.’

  ‘You’re …’ He stopped, a tremor in his voice. ‘You’re worrying me here, David.’ He meant he was scared. This was probably as close as he’d come to the unknown, of not being in control of a situation, for a long time. ‘David?’ It sounded like a plea now.

  ‘Prep your security, call the police, call Rocastle – got it?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Everything will be fine.’

  But I wasn’t sure if I really believed that or not.

  47

  I accelerated away, heading east and joining the coastal road, and left the Ley and the village behind. Farnmoor was three miles away. The best time I could hope for, if there were no traffic, no jams anywhere along the narrow lanes, was fifteen minutes. Driving any faster, I risked hitting another car – or falling into the sea.

  After a mile, my phone started ringing.

  I glanced at the display. Number withheld. Thinking it might be Graham, or even Robert Reardon, Carrie’s university lecturer, I reached over and answered.

  But it wasn’t either of them.

  It was Healy.

  A ripple of anger hit me immediately. His timing was terrible, as always – and if there was ever a moment when I didn’t need to play passenger as he slid slowly into self-pity, it was now. ‘Healy, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’ll have to call me back.’

  ‘You’ll want to hear this,’ he said.

  I glanced at the clock. I’d already become caught in a conga-line of slow-moving cars, and I’d promised Graham I’d only be twenty minutes.

  Calm down.

  He’s got his security team.

  He’s called the police.

  And then, as Graham lingered in my thoughts, I remembered something he’d said to me about Cornell: He told us he used to work for the Bellagio, in their security team.

  I filed that away and turned my attention back to Healy. ‘What is it?’

  ‘You remember what you said to me?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘You wrote me off.’

  Another spear of anger. This time I couldn’t keep a lid on it. ‘I haven’t got time for this shit. I never wrote you off – I said you were a good cop. Don’t twist my words.’

  Silence.

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’m done.’

  I reached over, ready to end the call, when he spoke again. ‘You want to know what they’ve got?’

  ‘Who have got?’

  ‘The police.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The body on the beach.’

  I paused. ‘Healy–’

  ‘Those arseholes I used to work with,’ he said quietly, ‘they thought I had nothing left to give. Well, fuck them. Fuck everyone. I’m a better cop than they’ll ever be.’

  ‘What have you done, Healy?’

  ‘What have I done?’ A snort. ‘I’ve done what I did for twenty-six years: I got the answers I needed from wherever was necessary. I proved a point.’

  ‘Who did you speak to?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Have you put yourself at risk?’

  Another snort. I started to wonder whether, for him, this was the morning after the night before. There was a soft lilt to his words, as if he was still drunk. ‘Do you mean have I put you at risk? Is that what you mean, Raker?’

  ‘Believe it or not, I’ve spent the last year trying to stop you from landing yourself in shit. You might want to cast your mind back – once you’ve sobered up.’

  No reply.

  ‘If you want to share what you’ve got, then great.’ I glanced at the clock. Seven-twenty. ‘If not, we’ll have to save this fight for another day.’

  ‘Officially, police are saying the body belongs to a white male between seventy and ninety,’ Healy said, a sudden determination in his voice. ‘Unofficially, it’s the higher end of the scale. We’re talking eighty-five to ninety. No dental records. No matching prints. No medical records. The guy’s a ghost. I was right: the body was kept on ice before it ended up on the beach. Maybe a wee
k, maybe more – the coroner’s trying to narrow down TOD. One thing that might interest you: the guy has scarring under his left arm.’

  ‘Scarring?’

  ‘The skin was flayed.’

  ‘Does it match up with anything on file?’

  ‘No. They’ve been through the databases. If there was any match, they wouldn’t be hunting around for a name. The only thing they’ve got is the size of the scar. It’s a small surface area. Like, really small. Only about a centimetre squared. But whether he did it himself, or someone else did it to him, the knife went in deep. Like he was cutting something out. Forensic tests are ongoing. Results expected in the next couple of days.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Oh, and something else: they found sand in his lungs.’

  ‘Sand?’

  ‘Tiny traces of it.’

  ‘From being washed up on the beach?’

  ‘No. It’s not local.’

  ‘So where’s it from?’

  ‘Same story as the skin. Results not yet in.’

  In front of me, the line of cars ground to a complete halt. Shit. I turned back to the phone. ‘Where’d you get all this information from?’

  ‘What do you care?’

  ‘Stop fighting me all the time, Healy.’

  ‘I’ll see you around.’

  He hung up.

  Ahead of me, a motorhome was manoeuvring through a narrow lane, everything static behind it. As I watched it, a residual anger remained, burning a hole in the centre of my chest – but I cleared my head, took what he had told me, and moved on. I couldn’t afford to get hung up on Healy, on the point he was trying to make, on all the misguided, aimless punches he was trying to throw. In the moments when he was introspective, almost delicate, it was easy to get drawn in by the promise of a different man; but this side of him you just had to cast off into the wind.

  I shifted my mind back to before he’d called, to what Carter Graham had said about Cornell working for the Bellagio security team, and then to what Prouse had said at the Ley: he’d killed Paul and Carrie, and Cornell had taken care of the girls. If Cornell had worked for the Bellagio, they must have had his personal details there, which meant he’d left something of his life, of his background, of his whereabouts, on file. The people who’d hired him would have done all sorts of background checks, because you didn’t just walk into a security job without being checked out. And, in turn, without having to give something of yourself away.