by Tim Weaver
They’d come in.
But they hadn’t come back out again.
At the rear of the house, there were a set of patio doors on the right which led out to a small decked area, built on three-foot stilts, leading down – via a set of four steps – to the garden. The doors were ajar. I slid the files Ewan Tasker had given me, still inside the newspaper, under the TV cabinet. It was the only thing that hadn’t been moved.
Stepping over fallen furniture and scattered DVD boxes, I pushed the rear doors all the way open. Cold air escaped inside, whistling softly as it was drawn in through the house. Immediately beyond the doors, footsteps moved out across the decking, down the steps and over the garden. At the bottom were a set of fir trees, standing sentry behind a six-foot-high fence that marked the boundaries of my property. A gate was built into the fencing at the right-hand edge, which I always kept locked. Except it was open now, its padlock cast off into the snow, one of its wooden panels broken.
That was the noise I’d heard.
I moved quickly across the garden and through the gate. A path ran north to south, fir trees on one side, fence panels on the other. If I headed south, I’d end up at a railway bridge, crossing the tracks close to South Ealing Tube station. If I headed north, the path eventually curved east into a swathe of allotments. I could only see three other people: a father pulling his son along on a sledge, heading down towards the allotments; and a man – hood up, almost out of sight now – heading the other way, towards the railway bridge.
He was carrying a backpack.
A couple of seconds later, as I started to move after him, it was like he sensed me behind him. He looked back, over his shoulder – and I saw he was wearing a balaclava.
I started to up my pace.
He looked again, seeing that I was closer.
Then he broke into a run.
27
Snow kicked up in front of me as I headed after him. He looked back again, once, twice, before rounding a bend in the path and disappearing from sight. When he came back into view, I saw that I’d closed the gap: the ground between us was marked with evidence of where he’d stumbled, where his feet had hit an icy patch, where he’d planted a hand in the snow. He was maybe forty feet in front, about to enter a short, dark section of the path, where trees on either side met in the middle, creating a ceiling of branches and leaves.
He was dressed in black denims and a black polar fleece, the balaclava a dark blue, the backpack a muted red. Suddenly, like a mouth, the path swallowed him up, the colour of the backpack registering briefly in the shadows before he disappeared entirely. I slowed down briefly, wary of what might be waiting for me – but underneath the twisted arms of the trees there was nothing but mulched leaves. There was no snow, which aided my speed, but the path was slick with icewater. I slipped once, and again as I tried to regain my balance, and as I emerged from the other side – the path splitting in two: left towards the railway bridge, and right towards a housing estate – the snow seemed to get thicker. For a second, I lost him completely. On the left-hand fork, the path just continued, enclosed on both sides by property boundaries and trees. On the right, there was a series of bricked-up railway arches, vines crawling their way up the front of it.
A flash of movement to my right.
The railway arches cast equidistant shadows across the snow, as if black paint had been spilled. He tore himself from the gloom, thirty feet from me. Trees disguised most of what lay ahead, but above the canopy I could see top-floor flats, a series of red-bricked buildings reaching for the sky. Inside twenty seconds, the path ceased to exist and we were heading into a concrete maze: four five-storey blocks, sitting adjacent to one another. Except for their placement, they were identical. Snow lay thick on the ground here, ungritted and dangerous, and as the man darted along the centre of the road, his feet hit a patch of ice and he staggered forward, hitting a parked car. I slowed slightly, wary of doing the same thing, and noticed people watching us from the walkways higher up.
He scuttled around the car and made a beeline for an alley, running between two of the buildings. I followed, snow to concrete and back to snow, as it opened up again into a kind of courtyard. There was a raised hexagonal bed in the centre, the skeleton of a sycamore in it, and kids having a snowball fight. They stopped as we approached, paused like waxworks at the sight of us, and – as we whipped past – I saw where he was headed: a stairwell decorated with graffiti, boring up through the centre of one of the buildings, connecting to floors either side. He was going to try to lose me in the maze of homes.
He disappeared from sight as he took the stairs, and when I saw him again he was a floor above me, his footsteps echoing against the walls. I upped my pace. The stairwell was completely enclosed, protected from the snow, but water still ran down the steps from somewhere and there was an overpowering stench of decay. I looked up again and saw the backpack slapping against him. He’s got the notebooks with him. He’s got my laptop.
He’s got my entire case.
But, as he rounded the next corner, disappearing from sight, the footsteps stopped. I slowed, heart thumping. Above me, I could see the twist of the stairwell, circling back on itself all the way up to the fifth floor. But no sign of the man. Not any more.
Either he’d stepped back from the railings, out of sight.
Or he’d exited on to the third floor.
I moved quietly, step by step, keeping my back to the wall. The building played an incessant beat the whole time: dripping water, the industrial whir of a generator, music and voices from the flats. I stopped at the last bend before the third-floor exit, readying myself for impact. But he wasn’t there. As I inched forward, I could see the stairs looped up and around to the fourth floor, or continued on to a balcony, where a relentless procession of flats rolled out, coloured doors running all the way down until the walkway eventually kicked left and vanished. Exiting the stairs, I moved quickly past the flats, glancing behind me and then looking out at the view: a snow-covered graveyard of 1960s architecture, the apartment blocks facing in at each other, as if trying to hide themselves.
Where the hell did he go?
Then, around the bend in the walkway, I got my answer.
He was standing with his back to a concrete wall – a dead end – looking at me. In front of him, pinned to him, was a boy. No more than six. The boy was still holding a snowball, clutching it in his gloved hands. His beanie had fallen away to the floor, and his scarf had begun to unravel, hanging lopsidedly at his shoulders. The look on his face was awful: eyes wide, mouth covered by the man’s hand, tear trails carving down both cheeks. Against the boy’s throat, the man held a knife, its blade glinting in the sunlight.
I inched forward.
‘Stay where you are,’ the man said.
His accent wasn’t local. Mancunian, maybe. Definitely north-west. I heard a sniff, looked at the boy and realized it hadn’t been him. For the first time, I noticed one of the doors was open and a woman was standing there watching. His mother. I saw her lean forward slightly and peer around the frame at me, tears on her face, hand on her mouth.
Her eyes said everything: Help us.
‘Let the boy go,’ I said.
‘Or what?’
I took a step forward. ‘He’s got nothing to do with this.’
‘Come any closer and I’ll cut his throat.’
The boy’s mother started sobbing again, but my eyes didn’t leave the man. There was about twenty feet between us now, and – beneath the balaclava – I could see him more clearly than ever: his skin was pale, unbroken, like a smooth alabaster mask, but his eyes were the opposite – perfectly dark, like blobs of oil. As he re-established his grip on the boy, a smile cracked on his face. One of his incisors was chipped.
‘Let him go.’
He shook his head. ‘Let me tell you how this is going to work, David.’ He flicked a look at the boy’s mother, then his eyes returned to me. ‘I’m going to take this kid with me until I’m
absolutely one hundred per cent sure you’re not following me. If you try anything, anything, I promise you: I’ll cut his fucking throat. That clear enough for you?’
His mother whimpered again.
‘Is it?’
I nodded. He studied me for a moment.
And then he started to move.
He inched forward, the boy starting to cry again. The man ignored him and, as he passed the mother, she stepped out of the flat, and I saw she was in her mid-twenties, still in her dressing gown, hair tied up, face puffy and lined with tears. I saw a moment, a kind of stutter in her movement, where it looked like she was about to go after them both – but then her eyes met mine and I shook my head at her. A fresh wave of tears came and she paused there, out on the freezing cold walkway, watching her boy being taken away.
The man was a couple of feet short of me when he stopped again, eyes flicking to my feet, my hands and then back to my face. ‘You make any move and the kid dies.’
I backed up against the balcony.
They started edging past.
A smell filled the space between us, a sour mix of tobacco and mildew, and then he was beyond me, spinning the boy around in front of him and reversing towards the stairwell. I shuddered in my skin, fighting against the instinct to intervene, and as they got to the stairs, I heard his mother behind me, muttering, ‘Joshy, don’t hurt my Joshy.’
Then they were gone from view.
The mother broke down completely, shouting out her son’s name. I turned round, grabbed her and brought her into me, then looked over the walkway balcony as she cried into my chest. ‘It’ll be all right,’ I said to her, empty words, worthless the moment they came out.
But then the man emerged below. He looked up once, his eyes trying to find me above him, and then cast the kid aside. The boy stumbled forward, into a car – hitting it hard – and its alarm burst into life, shattering the silence.
The man’s gaze lingered on me for a moment – fierce, animalistic – and then he took off across the courtyard, back towards the alley.
Seconds later, he was gone.
28
After returning the boy to his mother, I called the police – reporting my own burglary at the same time – and waited down in the courtyard for them to arrive. As I did, I accessed a device location app on my phone. I’d registered my mobile and laptop on it six months ago for just this reason: I’d been burgled before, had things stolen, watched men come to my home to take more from me than just my belongings. This was how I began to fight back.
A couple of seconds later, I had him: he was moving along the Mall, south of Ealing Broadway. The MacBook had tapped into WiFi coverage, and with WiFi came a location. I watched a green blob slowly inch its way towards the Tube station.
Once he was inside, the signal died.
When he’d taken the Mac, it was in Sleep mode, and as long as it remained that way and he kept hitting WiFi spots, I could follow him across the city. But sooner or later, he’d realize his mistake. I just had to hope it wasn’t before he got to his destination.
An hour after that, I was home again. I’d given a statement and the mother had backed up what I’d told police. It wouldn’t have taken much to convince them, even if I hadn’t been telling the truth: the house was strewn with wreckage like the aftermath of an earthquake.
I listed what items had been stolen, including the MacBook, and an officer said they’d do their best to trace it – but, he pointed out, there were obviously no guarantees.
I decided not to tell him I was already on it.
‘Why would someone want those white notebooks?’ he said.
He hadn’t asked me what I did for a living yet and, when I told him, it was likely the tone of the conversation would take a nosedive pretty quickly. Cops didn’t like investigators, and they liked them even less when they had the kind of history that I did.
‘I find missing people.’
He looked up, over the edge of the pad he was making notes on. ‘What, you’re some kind of private investigator?’
I nodded, leaving it like that.
He nodded back, writing something else down. When he was done, he said, ‘Have you got any idea who this guy you pursued was?’
I shook my head. ‘No.’
His eyes narrowed.
He was in his fifties, greying and weathered, but I could tell he was sharp. The irony was, for once I wasn’t lying to the Met: I genuinely had no idea who the man was.
But I was going to find out.
After they were gone, I grabbed my phone and attempted to zero in on the location of the laptop. It had been almost two hours since I’d last checked in. As I waited for the app to update, I returned to the moments before he’d escaped, the way he looked as he shuffled past me on the walkway. Well built but pale. Dark eyes, a cracked smile, a chipped tooth. I remembered the way he’d smelled too, of tobacco and mildew. Unwashed. Unclean.
Everything I had at home on the Franks case was gone: the document I’d created on the Mac; the printout I’d made of it; the Moleskines; every item that Franks had tucked into the back of the notebooks, including the scrap of paper and the flyer. The police had asked me if any cash, any jewellery or anything expensive was missing. But he hadn’t taken anything like that. He’d come for one thing, intent on a single outcome.
To stop me finding out what had happened to Franks.
The phone updated with a gentle buzz. There was no signal now. Either he’d shut the laptop down or headed somewhere that didn’t have an Internet connection. I kept the programme running, grabbed the landline phone and dialled Craw’s mobile.
‘It’s me,’ I said, when she answered.
‘What’s up?’
‘I’m going to give you a physical description, and I need to know whether it rings any bells.’
‘You’ll have to make it quick.’
‘Are you in the middle of something?’
‘I’ve got to run to a meeting.’
I gave her the man’s description, concentrating on the chipped incisor. That was what would get him found. ‘Do his details tally up with anyone you’ve met or known?’
‘No. Why, who is he?’
‘He broke into my house.’
‘What?’
‘Your dad’s things are gone.’
‘What?’
‘His iPad. My laptop. All I’ve got left is a notepad, which I had on me.’
The whole point of Craw coming to me was because she couldn’t go the official route. But now we needed her access. Specifically, her access to the police database.
‘So what are you asking me?’ she said, but she knew where this was heading.
‘I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.’
Nothing.
‘Craw?’
‘No way.’
‘The guy’s in the wind,’ I said to her, and then glanced at my mobile phone, the location app still ticking over. It wasn’t strictly true – not yet, anyway – but if he didn’t resurface in an area where the MacBook could access public WiFi, it soon would be.
‘And if he happens to be some long-lost pal of my dad’s?’
I didn’t reply, but that was where the risk lay: her being caught searching police records after she’d been told to back off – and finding someone linked to her father.
‘This is my career, Raker.’
‘I know. Look, if it can’t be done –’
And then my phone buzzed once.
Next to the MacBook listing, a green light had appeared. I tapped on it and the app transferred to a map screen, tagged with street numbers I didn’t recognize and side streets that meant nothing.
I zoomed out.
Waiting for it to fill in, I heard Craw saying, ‘Raker?’
‘Hold on a second.’
The green blob reappeared at the end of a small, unidentified road just off the A2. Where the hell is the A2? I zoomed out a third time, and the map began to fill in, this time loading in street na
mes. But the blob didn’t move.
Because he’s reached his destination.
I switched to a satellite view and saw he was inside an industrial unit, one of four crammed together in a cluster. The signal lasted about a minute before it went dead.
But by then he’d put himself on the map.
He was in a warehouse on Bayleaf Avenue, just off the A2 in south London. The A2, I discovered, was the Old Kent Road – and two streets down from that was Scale Lane. That was the address of the phone box I’d seen on the records that Spike had got me.
The phone box Franks had been called from.
29
At eight o’clock, night long since having taken hold, I made my way south along Bayleaf Avenue, a single-lane street that hit a dead end four hundred feet down. There were two units on either side, their corrugated-iron exteriors an exact match. The only difference was that the one furthest along had no signage on it and its windows were whitewashed.
It was empty.
His signal had come from inside.
I walked about fifty yards and looked back over my shoulder, to the glow of the Old Kent Road. It was like dropping into the shadows of a cave. There were no lights on inside any of the units any more, no security lamps to herald my approach, no cars or vans or delivery trucks. Halfway down, I had no choice: I checked no one was following me, removed the flashlight I’d brought, and switched it on.
Closer to the empty unit, I saw that a set of arches – sixty feet high – had been closed off with huge metal grates, and could hear the metallic whisper of a railway line above me. As the beam cut across the night, shadows danced in the ridged exterior of the unit. Close up, all the buildings seemed in various states of decay, but the vacant one was worse: hairline cracks had formed on its front, some of its roof tiles were missing, and the ground in front of the cargo doors was swarming with weeds.
The doors were padlocked to a metal plate, screwed into the ground. But on the side was a regular door, six feet off the ground and sitting at the top of a rickety wooden staircase. I made my way around, stepping over fallen pieces of masonry and a twisted, writhing mass of weeds. As I took the first step, I felt it bend gently under my weight, the wood warped and old. On the second, something snapped, so I moved as quickly as I could, taking the rest of them two at a time. At the top, I could see the door was equally neglected: its paint was blistered, it had bent slightly against the frame, and its single glass panel had cracked through the middle. But not everything had been allowed to rot.