by Mark Morris
‘Where would they go at 7.30 in the morning?’ I replied, trying not to sound sarcastic.
After some to-ing and fro-ing he agreed to come over, though not before I had threatened to kick in the door of flat 4 if he didn’t turn up. Breaking the connection I wondered about kicking in the door anyway, but instead I diverted my energy into running upstairs and knocking on the door of flat 5 where old Mrs Hersh lived.
She hadn’t seen the Sherwoods either, or heard them go out. ‘But I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about,’ she reassured me, and invited me in for tea. I refused as politely as I could and pounded all the way downstairs, almost slipping and falling in my haste. I knocked on the doors of the two ground-floor flats, whose occupants I barely knew, to ask whether they had seen or heard anything.
They hadn’t, and so at 7.45 a.m. I found myself upstairs again, perched stiffly on the edge of my settee, teeth clenched and hands clasped tightly between my knees, like a first-time parachutist waiting for the call to jump. I’d exhausted my immediate options, and yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should be doing something. I called Paula’s mobile again, and when the answer phone cut in I left a second message. I heard the waver in my voice as I did so: ‘Hi Paula. Alex again. Can you let me know where you are? I’m getting worried now.’
It was about fifty minutes later when I heard slow, heavy footsteps ascending the stairs. I ran out of my flat (I’d left the door propped open) to greet the new arrival. I guessed it would be Grzybowski, but that still didn’t prevent my heart from giving a little surge of hope that it might be Paula returning after having dropped the kids off at school. Again a little mind-movie ran inside my head. Paula would be flustered, full of apologies and explanations: ‘We went out to get croissants for breakfast, but got snarled up in traffic and had to go straight to school.’ Or: ‘I had to run Adam to the station to get an early train, so I took the kids with me. I did think of knocking on your door, but I didn’t want to disturb you.’
But, as I had expected, it was the rotund, panting figure of my landlord who rounded the bend in the staircase and stumped up the last half-flight towards me. He was dark-skinned and grey-haired and raised jaundiced, bloodhound eyes to regard me balefully.
‘I do not appreciate threats, Mr Locke,’ he growled as he approached. ‘If you damage my property you find somewhere else to live. It is a simple rule.’
Edgy as I felt, I was in no mood to waste time arguing the toss with him. Instead I fixed my face into what I hoped was an expression of apology and said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr Grzybowski, but I really am worried. My daughter stayed over with my neighbours last night, and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be there at this time in the morning. It doesn’t make sense.’
Grzybowski grunted as though unconvinced, but made no further comment. Clumping to the Sherwoods’ door he pulled a set of keys from the pocket of his shapeless, olive-green jacket and picked through them laboriously with his thick fingers. I hovered at his shoulder, fighting an urge to tell him to hurry the fuck up. He smelled of stale cooking oil and aftershave made more pungent by an under-hint of day-old sweat.
Finally he found the right key and fitted it into the lock. I all but tumbled in behind him as he pushed the door open. Like my flat the entrance hall was gloomy until you put the light on. When he clicked the switch I gasped.
The hallway was empty. Not just of people, but of everything. Where were the pictures on the walls, the slim bookcase on the right, the little bamboo side table on which the phone usually rested atop a stack of local directories? I pushed past Grzybowski, who grunted in protest, and ran from room to room, checking out the rest of the flat.
Empty. Stripped bare. Furniture, books, clothes, ornaments, everything… gone. It was as if a removals van had come in the night and taken away every single thing the Sherwoods owned.
My heart dropped into my stomach. I started to shake. I swung round to confront Grzybowski, who stepped back, alarmed, at what must have been a wild-eyed look on my face.
‘Where are they?’ I demanded, though it was clear that the empty flat was as much a surprise to him as it had been to me.
‘Gone,’ was all Grzybowski said, raising a hand as if that made everything clear.
My fear for Kate made me suddenly angry, furious. ‘But where have they gone? Because wherever it is, they’ve taken my daughter with them!’
SEVEN
UNKNOWN NUMBER
The interview with DI Jensen and DS Earnshaw lasted about twenty minutes. It was DS Earnshaw who did most of the talking. He was a bulky, solid Mancunian with dark-framed spectacles and hair that looked like it had been slept on then forgotten about. He had a slow, deliberate way of speaking, and I got the feeling Jensen – a tall, balding man with a knobbly face – let Earnshaw ask the questions in order to lull most of the villains he dealt with into a false sense of security. Yet although Earnshaw might have seemed a plodder, behind his droning voice and sleepy eyes I sensed a thorough, methodical brain motoring away. He had certainly done his homework on me.
I don’t mean that the interview was a grilling, or that Jensen and Earnshaw gave the impression that they thought I had engineered my daughter’s disappearance, but they did know of my past form and of Lyn’s history of mental health problems and her current long-term incarceration in Darby Hall Psychiatric Hospital. When they asked whether any of my fellow inmates in Pentonville might have had reason to harbour a long-standing grudge against me I thought fleetingly of Benny – was it a coincidence that this had happened just as he had come back into my life, especially as I had turned down the job he had set up for me? – but I said nothing. Not because I was scared of how furious he would be if I should happen to drop his name into the pot only to then discover he was innocent, but simply because I couldn’t see what he would gain out of arranging to have Kate abducted. He was ruthless when he needed to be, but he wasn’t the sort of man who did things purely out of spite. So, although it was an instinctive decision, I decided I would prefer to keep Benny as a potential ally by withholding his name rather than earn his wrath by sending the police sniffing round his door.
After the interview was over, Jensen and Earnshaw crossed the landing to look over the Sherwoods’ now-empty flat. All they found was Paula’s voice on the answer phone and half a dozen messages which they told me were unusual only in that the incoming calls all seemed to be of a business or practical nature – nothing personal at all. They ordered Grzybowski, who had been hovering on the landing like a spare part, to lock the door and to open it for no one but the forensics team, who would be arriving within the hour to go over the flat with a fine-tooth comb. Jensen asked me if I would like a family liaison officer appointed to the case, who would remain with me for as long as I required his or her services and ‘provide me with a link to the ongoing investigation’. When I said no, he nodded as though in approval at my fortitude, and told me how sorry he was that this had happened and that they would let me know the minute they had any news. Then they shook my hand, thanked me for my co-operation and assured me they would leave no stone unturned in their hunt for the Sherwoods.
It wasn’t until after they had gone that the anxiety, which I’d been bottling up for the past half-hour or so, hit me like a virus. Suddenly I was shaking and the strength went out of my legs. I just about made it back into the main room, where I dropped on to the settee as if the tendons behind my knees had been cut. Staring blankly in front of me I suddenly registered what I was looking at, and swallowed to clear a lump in my throat. It was Kate’s beloved Toy Story colouring book, surrounded by a scattering of coloured pencils. I’d bought this for her after the two of us had seen Toy Story 3 in 3-D earlier that year. Kate had loved the film, but she had huddled up to me during the scary bits. It was heart-breaking to recall how cute she had looked with the 3-D specs perched on the end of her nose over her pink-framed glasses. After the film we’d had dinner in Pizza Express and she’d bounced up and down in her chair with e
xcitement at what she’d seen, chattering away as she relived her favourite scenes.
It was only as I was leaning forward and stretching out a hand towards the colouring book that I realised what I was doing and checked myself. The way I was feeling I knew that opening the book and looking inside would be unbearably painful. Even so, I might still have opened the book if my mobile hadn’t just then started to ring. I yanked it from my pocket to see who was calling, but my screen informed me it was an ‘Unknown Number’.
‘Hello?’
‘Alex,’ said a female voice. ‘It’s Clover Monroe.’
I guessed Benny must have given her my number and assumed she was calling to ask whether I’d reconsidered her job offer. Irritated I said, ‘Sorry, but this isn’t a good time right now.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘That’s why I’m ringing.’
My thoughts were too scrambled to make sense of her words. ‘Sorry?’ I said. ‘What?’
Her voice was urgent, willing me to understand. ‘I need you to come and see me right away,’ she said. ‘It’s about what’s happened to Kate.’
EIGHT
MUTUAL ACQUAINTANCE
I felt like ripping the world apart. Getting angry, and staying there, was the only way I could handle the gut-wrenching terror and helplessness threatening to overwhelm me. I’d been in some tricky situations before, situations where I thought I might die, but the mortal fear I’d felt then was like a pinprick compared to how I was feeling now. Not knowing where my beautiful little girl was, or why she’d been taken, was like harbouring a bubbling volcano that was about to erupt. Although I knew it was futile, I had an almost irresistible urge to be out there, running through the streets, looking for Kate.
The best I could do right now, though, was head across London to see Clover. She was the only lead I had. The journey was maybe ten stops on the tube, changing from the District line to the Piccadilly at Hammersmith, but it felt like an eternity. All the way there I was gripped by a kind of madness. I hated my fellow commuters for calmly getting on with their lives like there was nothing wrong in the world. When a French tourist on the platform at Hyde Park Corner prolonged my agony by throwing himself at the closing doors and forcing them open again, and then laughing merrily with his girlfriend as the two of them entered the carriage, I could quite happily have rammed something sharp and pointy into his eye.
Clover had been unwilling – or unable – to tell me much over the phone.
‘What do you know about what’s happened to Kate?’ I said, struggling to keep my voice under control. ‘What’s going on, Clover?’
‘Let’s not talk now,’ she replied. ‘It’ll be better face to face.’
‘Why will it? I haven’t got time for this shit. Where the fuck’s my daughter?’
‘I don’t know. Genuinely. Just come and see me, Alex.’
‘If you’re fucking me about…’ My voice choked off. Suddenly it felt as though there was cotton wool jamming my throat.
‘I’m not fucking you about,’ she said.
My brain was buzzing, whirring. I couldn’t think straight. I knew that if I was going to be any help to Kate I needed to stay calm, keep my head clear, but that was easier said than done.
Swallowing the obstruction in my throat, I said, ‘What if I tell the cops about this phone call? Send them round to see you instead?’
‘That would be a mistake,’ Clover said. ‘I’m not your enemy, Alex.’
‘How do I know that?’
‘You’ll just have to trust me.’ Her voice was persuasive, even sympathetic. ‘I’ll explain it all when you get here.’
I didn’t like it, but it seemed I had no choice. ‘It’ll take me a while to reach you.’
‘Just be as quick as you can.’
Thinking she was about to ring off, I said desperately, ‘Please, Clover. Just tell me if Kate’s safe.’
She hesitated. ‘As far as I know.’
‘As far as you know? What does that mean?’
‘See you soon, Alex.’
The phone went dead.
For the latter part of the journey I sat hunched over, staring down at my hands, which were clenched between my knees. I didn’t look up, didn’t move. I felt like I was conserving my energy for some ordeal. I went through everything that had happened, trying to find some new insight, some clue in the conversations I’d had with Paula, with Benny, with Clover. I tried to work out whether I was doing the right thing by going back to Incognito. I’d been there last night, so if Benny or Clover meant to do me harm they had already had ample opportunity – yet even so I couldn’t shake the suspicion that I was the equivalent of some unsuspecting woodland creature wandering blithely into a hunter’s trap. Then again, if I was the real target, kidnapping Kate seemed like an odd move. Wouldn’t it have been easier to have put a bullet through my head and dump my body in the Thames in a weighted sack? After all, a missing kid is big news. National news. It’s emotional, it tugs on people’s heart strings. But a single guy? If he goes missing, or does a bunk, nobody much cares outside his immediate family.
The other factor that disturbed me about Kate’s disappearance was that it seemed to have been no spur-of-the-moment thing. Assuming that the Sherwoods had been her kidnappers, didn’t it follow that they had moved into the building with the sole purpose of abducting her? They had been living across the landing from us now for… how long? The best part of a year? I couldn’t remember exactly, but they had certainly taken the time and effort to gain my trust over many months. It now appeared that they had bided their time, waited for the optimum moment… and then simply vanished with my daughter.
And all this stuff with Candice and her drug-dealing boyfriend, and with Benny and Clover – had that been part of the plan too? Was Mitch’s threatening of Candice merely the first of a chain of pre-planned events leading to this moment? Or had the Sherwoods – whether acting alone or as part of some group or organisation – simply taken advantage of the situation, seizing their moment while my back was turned and my attention diverted elsewhere?
Round and round it went in my head, and each time I came up with different questions, different possibilities, different permutations. But no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t seem to get the pieces to fit.
Maybe it would be better simply to hand everything over to the cops. They were the experts, after all. They had the manpower, the know-how, the authority. Then again, they would just play things by the book. They weren’t emotionally involved like I was. They wouldn’t be prepared to bend the rules, to negotiate.
I was still trying to work it all out when I arrived at Incognito. In the daylight the neighbourhood looked more of a shithole than ever. The alleyway was filthy and stank of overflowing bins. I wondered if any of the other businesses flanking the club or facing it across the street were still operational. This whole place had the feel of a corpse that was long dead and rotting. I raised a fist and banged on the metal door.
As I stood waiting I got the feeling that someone was standing behind me. I felt a chill across my back, a prickling in my shoulders and neck. It was as if someone had stepped up close enough to blot out what little warmth and light was seeping from the grim sky after that morning’s rain. I spun round, ready to defend myself – but there was no one there. I saw a flash of movement in the grimy glass of the building opposite, but it was just the reflection of my own body, raising its fists.
Next thing, the door to Incognito was grinding open and Mary was peering out at me. I glared back at her without saying anything. I wasn’t prepared to take any of her bad-tempered bullshit today.
She let me in and led me through the labyrinth of corridors to Clover’s office with hardly a word. Clover rose from behind her desk, hands clasped in front of her. She looked sympathetic, eyes sad and mouth downturned, as if she understood exactly what I was going through. I wondered how much of that was show, and whether she was deliberately keeping the desk between us as a shield. Mary hovered i
n the background, waiting for instructions.
‘Would you like some tea, Alex?’ Clover asked.
‘No,’ I said.
Clover glanced at the older woman. ‘Thanks, Mary. If anything crops up can you deal with it? I don’t want to be disturbed.’
Whatever Mary’s response was, I didn’t see it. I kept my eyes on Clover. A couple of seconds later I heard the door close behind me.
As soon as Mary had gone, Clover said, ‘I’m so sorry about what’s happened, Alex. You must be worried sick.’
‘Just tell me what you know,’ I said. After my inner turmoil on the tube, I was pleased to hear the calmness in my voice, even if my throat did feel a little tight.
She nodded. ‘Of course.’ Glancing down at the computer screen in front of her, she put her hand over the mouse, moved it an inch or so and left-clicked. ‘A couple of hours ago I got this.’
She stood to one side, indicating that I should join her behind the desk. I walked round and looked down at the email she had opened. I made myself concentrate on it, read it slowly.
From:
A Friend
Date:
2 October 2012 8:55
To:
Clover Monroe
Subject:
Alex Locke
Dear Ms Monroe,
You don’t know us, but we have a mutual acquaintance, Alex Locke. I would like you to contact Mr Locke immediately and inform him that we are currently in possession of his youngest daughter, Kate, and that in order to maintain her well-being and facilitate her release he must follow our instructions to the letter.
We know that you contacted him yesterday with regard to obtaining a particular artefact. What we require Mr Locke to do is to obtain the artefact, as per your offer, and deliver it to our mutual clients, representatives of the Ishikawa Corporation, who will be awaiting his arrival in Suite 5 of the Royal Gloucester Hotel on Frith Street at precisely 2 a.m. tomorrow morning (Wednesday, 3 October).