The Last Witness

by John Matthews

  But with two entrances and five sections to the car park, what were the chances of Michel and his men getting to him in time? They could already be two minutes behind as it was, and could easily lose another couple of minutes finding the right section of car park. It did him little good if Michel caught up with his captors after he was thrown.

  The night-time streets flashed by Michel’s window, with most cars pulling hurriedly over with the sound of their approaching siren. But half the time Michel kept his eyes closed, immersing himself deeper into the sounds on the wire: Savard’s fractured, muffled breathing falling almost in time with his own rapid pulse, feeling himself almost there alongside Savard to will home the message: we’ll be there, don’t worry. We’ll be there to stop them.

  It took only just over three minutes before they hit the Place Philips entrance and started up. Mark had radioed in twenty seconds before as he entered on Saint Catherine Street, and was now winding furiously up towards the third floor. At Michel’s instruction, they’d both killed their sirens for the last few hundred yards of approach. Michel didn’t want Savard’s captors suddenly taking fright and shifting him somewhere else.

  As Phil swung into the fifth floor, Michel heard over the wire the van stopping, a door opening, closing. Then the van’s back doors opening.

  ‘Okay. Should be good here.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Savard’s breathing again started to become more rapid, frantic. Brief writhing and thudding, and then some rustling and short muffled grunts from Savard. Michel pictured him being lifted out.

  Michel clutched tight at the radio mike. Mark should be near the top now. ‘We’ve just heard the van stop – they’re taking Savard out. See anything from where you are?’

  ‘We’re just coming onto the eight now.’ Brief background squeal of tyres, then: ‘No… nothing on this first stretch.’

  Michel drummed the flat of his left hand against the dashboard as they sped along the sixth and swung into the ramp for the seventh. ‘Come on!...’

  Savard felt himself being carried away from the van, heard his carrier’s short shuffling footsteps, but they were crunching slightly, as if they had crepe soles? Then after a few yards they paused and his back was partly rested on the thighs of the man behind.

  ‘Okay, one last chance, Tony…’

  Savard felt the binding around his mouth being untied and pulled free. His frantic breathing eased a bit without the constriction.

  ‘…Where’s our money?’

  ‘I told you, I don’t you… I don’t know,’ he gasped. ‘Please, you’ve got to believe me.’

  Phil squealed up the last part of the ramp to the eighth. Michel’s eyes darted rapidly around as the car straightened and sped along. He couldn’t see anything immediately, no sign of the van or Savard being carried. He pointed. ‘Maybe in the next section.’ Then, into the mike: ‘Anything where you are?’

  ‘No, nothing. We’ve already checked two sections. One more to go.’

  Michel’s hand drummed the dashboard more frantically as Phil swung into the next section. From the voices over the wire, he knew there were probably only seconds left.

  ‘We haven’t got to believe anything, Tony. Last chance…’

  ‘Fuck’s sake, guys… I really don’t know,’ Savard spluttered.’ If I did, don’t you think I’d tell you.’

  A second’s silence, then the other man’s voice. ‘Let’s get him closer to the edge. He’s not going to talk.’

  Faint rustling and movement, repeated mumbled protests from Savard, then: ‘We’ll not clear this rail unless we swing him.’

  ‘Yeah…’

  Savard lost it then, his protests and shouts of ‘No!’ hit screaming pitch as Michel imagined him being swung.

  Mark’s voice came over the radio-phone. ‘Nothing here. We’ve searched every corner.’

  ‘Okay.’ Phil had just turned into the last section and Michel’s eyes swung wildly around. Savard’s screaming filled his head. He had to be somewhere here, somewhere… Suddenly his rapid dashboard drumming changed to a sharp slap. ‘Stop! Stop the car now! Stop!’

  Phil screeched to a halt and Michel immediately swung his door open, listening.

  ‘…Two. On the count of three.’ The words were all but drowned out by Savard’s raucous screaming.

  Michel could hear everything clearly over the wire, but from the surrounding car park sounds there was nothing. Yet Savard was screaming loud enough to be heard two blocks away. He didn’t even trouble to check with Mark; he’d have heard it from Mark’s section from where he was. Michel’s stomach fell, a chill running through him. Savard was nowhere nearby, he’d been taken somewhere else. There was nothing they could do to save him.

  ‘…Three!’

  Savard had already pictured clearly in his mind the eight-floor drop, and his final scream as he was swung high for the last time rattled his throat raw. And then he was sailing free… his mind spinning fast-reel frames within the hood’s darkness to match his sensation of falling, his scream echoing down through the floors – praying that mercifully he’d black out halfway down – gaining momentum ever faster, faster, until… but the ground hit earlier than he expected. Maybe no more than a few yards. And it felt soft, his fall dampened by a cushioning of snow. His screaming faltered into nervous, staccato exhalations; he hardly dared believe that he was still alive.

  ‘That’s just a practice run, Tony. If you don’t tell us where the money is, we’re going to do it for real.’

  Savard swallowed hard. The terror was quickly back. He wished now they had killed him. He couldn’t face going through the knife-edge fear and anticipation a second time.

  He was shaking uncontrollably, his voice quavering. ‘Jesus, guys… Jesusss. I told you, I don’t know.’

  ‘No more chances, Tony. This is it…’

  Savard felt himself being lifted again. ‘No! No!… No!’

  Michel could hardly bear to listen any more, knowing with certainty that there was nothing they could do to help. But the voices gripped him in almost morbid fascination – though now he was honing in more on background sounds: stillness, virtual silence. No traffic or background city drone. They should have picked up on that earlier when Savard was lifted from the van! If they had, they might have known they were wasting their time at Place Philips, might have been able to…

  ‘We haven’t got time to move him somewhere else to do this. I reckon we should finish it here.’

  ‘I don’t know…’ Brief hesitation from the other man, then resignedly on a faint sigh: ‘D’accord. I suppose you’re right. No point in dragging it out. He’s not going to talk.’

  Savard felt himself being put back down on the ground. He was confused. Weren’t they at a high building somewhere? But then there wouldn’t be snow on the ground at Place Philips car park – which also explained why Michel and his men hadn’t caught up with him. For the first time Savard also tuned in to the virtual silence around. Where was he?

  Michel could almost feel Savard’s surprise coming across in waves with his screaming having subsided into rapid, fractured breathing. From background sounds, Michel judged they were outside the city by at least a few miles; a deserted field or some waste-ground perhaps. Lacaille had duped them at every turn, had probably known about the wire and had set up a cassette in the van with the drone of city traffic to throw them. But then how had they replicated the ramps for Savard not to realize he wasn’t winding up through the levels of a car park?

  Michel could picture the guns being taken out, the silencers attached, and he closed his eyes. Of all the moments Savard had protested and screamed in fear, now it would be justified; yet Savard merely continued to breathe heavily, like some confused, trapped animal. It seemed both ironic and unfair that his last moment should end like this.

  And as the gun shots finally came, two in quick succession and another seconds later, Michel did Savard’s screaming for him. ‘No… Nooo!’ His eyes scrunched tight, his bello
wing plea reverberated through the cavernous car park. And as its echo died, all that was left was the sound over the wire of footsteps crunching on snow, receding quickly away from Savard’s body.

  TWO

  Elena flicked through the report in her lap as Nadine Moore wended through the Dorset lanes. A weak sun threw dappled light through the trees, and at points Nadine glanced across and pointed at the file, prompting.

  ‘That’s the last interview with the Ryall’s, there. Eleven months ago. Two months later the official adoption order was made, and we were out of the picture.’

  ‘And no alerts since?’ Elena asked. ‘Nothing to raise concern?’

  ‘That would normally only come up through Lorena’s school or GP. But no, nothing.’ Nadine forced a tight smile after a second. ‘But, anyway, it seems you’re the one she first turns to for help.’

  ‘Seems so.’ Elena nodded and mirrored Nadine’s smile. She looked again at the file, flicking back a page.

  The call had come through at almost 1 a.m. Lorena’s voice had been hushed, and Elena got a picture of her sneaking in the call while the rest of the house was asleep. ‘…Sorry to disturb you, Elena. But something troubles me here. And I didn’t know who else to phone.’

  Lorena’s English had improved tenfold in the fifteen months since she’d last seen her. ‘It’s no trouble at all. Now tell me – what’s the problem?’

  ‘It’s Mr Ryall. He comes to my bedroom late at night, and I… I don’t feel comfortable.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I’m not sure. ’ A heavy swallow from Lorena, her breath coming short. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have called. I’m sorry.’

  Elena reassured her that she’d done the right thing, then pressed if Ryall was actually touching or interfering with her. A long silence, too long, before Lorena’s uncertain ‘No.’ Then: ‘I don’t know,’ and something incoherent in Romanian, Lorena’s voice quavering heavily before she finally lapsed into muted sobbing. Seconds later she hung up.

  Elena didn’t sleep well afterwards, contemplated phoning back or actually jumping in the car and heading to the Ryalls. But Lorena’s obvious fear of disturbing the house and her own concern that breaking procedure could upset progress, if anything was happening, held her in check.

  She phoned Social Services first thing in the morning. She received the call back from Nadine Moore forty minutes later that Lorena had requested she also be at the interview. ‘She says she’ll feel more comfortable talking about it with you there.’

  Elena had only met Nadine Moore once before, when Nadine first took over Lorena’s case halfway through the final adoption assessment year. Nadine was a bright-eyed twenty-eight year old with crinkly brown hair framing round wire-frame glasses. Strong contrast to her older, more matronly predecessor who often spoke in tired, condescending tones, as if long ago she’d adopted the style to deal with errant parents and found it difficult to switch off. Maybe in another ten years all the verve and optimism would be knocked out of Nadine as well.

  Elena herself might at one time have been described as matronly, but her hectic schedule the last five years with the aid agency – jumping aboard last minute flights or supply trucks headed for Bucharest or Bosnia – had rapidly burned off the pounds. Now she looked more like a trim, mid-forties Jackie-O, the first touches of pepper showing in her dark hair. In looks – though decidedly not in temperament or in her outlook on life – she’d taken more after her Cypriot father than her English mother.

  Elena buried herself back in the report. The final assessment findings told her little beyond what she already knew about the Ryalls from when they’d started the whole process in Bucharest. Cameron Thomas Ryall, 52, founder and head of CTR Micro-Tech. Married to Nicola Anne Ryall, 44, housewife by occupation, for the past fourteen years, his second marriage. No children of their own, though Mr Ryall has a son, Michael, now 28, from his first marriage. One previously adopted daughter, Mikaya, originally from Cambodia. Mikaya is now 19 and at University.

  Well-established businessman. Comfortable and secure home environment. One-career household (prospective mother always at home). Previous successful history with adoption. Ryall had collected star points at every turn, and perhaps, Elena reflected, he’d known that all along. Lorena’s adoption planned with the same skilled precision as his last take-over bid. The only thing which might have gone against Ryall was the high-flying nature of his business. But his main plant and HQ was only eight miles away, by far the area’s largest ‘green-field’ industrial enterprise and nearby Chelborne’s largest employer. Not only had Ryall avoided the absentee father label of so many high-powered executives, he’d also gained the final cream topping of local champion of the people.

  ‘You still feel quite close to her, don’t you?’ Nadine was looking across with a slightly pained, quizzical expression. She’d purposely side-stepped ‘feel responsible for’; it might make it sound like a forced obligation. ‘How long did you know her in Bucharest?’

  ‘There was a gap in the middle – but twenty months altogether.’ Elena nodded. ‘And yes, I suppose I do.’ They were all special to her in some way. All 18 children between the three orphanages in Romania, now all settled in new homes, hopefully safe and secure, around Britain. But how to explain that Lorena had stood out, touched an even more poignant chord above the rest? A natural closeness and affinity you feel with a particular child, yet can’t pinpoint exactly why? Or perhaps part of it was due to what Lorena had suffered after the first orphanage closed and her eleven months rough on the streets, one of Bucharest’s ‘sewer children’, before re-emerging. Elena still partly blamed herself for that.

  Elena looked up as Nadine swung into the Ryalls’ driveway. An impenetrable rhododendron hedge ten foot high spread out each side of double wrought-iron black gates almost as high.

  Local champion of the people. Any move against Ryall wouldn’t be popular, if anything was happening. But Elena prayed that it was all a false alarm first and foremost for Lorena’s benefit. She pushed away the contemplation that it was also partly for herself as abruptly as it had struck. Possible failure with one of the eighteen just wasn’t an option.

  Nadine got out of the car and buzzed the security intercom by the gate.

  Elena felt the walls and barriers go up as they went deeper into the Ryall house.

  They were ushered into a large open entrance hallway, then on through a narrow, walnut-panelled passage by the Ryalls’ maid, who – according to Nadine’s report – also doubled as a cook and was at the house daytimes four days a week. Cameron Ryall maintained it was important not only that they should have time together privately, as a family, but also that they shouldn’t become reliant on a housekeeper to the extent that she might become viewed as a surrogate mother by Lorena. ‘She’ll have enough trouble adapting to one new mother, without any such confusion.’

  Ryall certainly knew how to score the points. Elena bit at her lip. She should avoid slipping into prior judgement; it wouldn’t help her have a clear view now. Ryall might have been being sincere.

  Through half-open doors as they went along, Elena got a glimpse of a large oak kitchen and another room with a piano and some books, games and toys stacked to one side. The centrepiece, though, was the room they were led into: a high-ceilinged drawing room some thirty-five foot square. Overlooking was a book-lined gallery, and the walnut-panelled theme had been continued, with a painting centrepiece on each panel. Elena recognized two originals by Thornhill, the Dorset landscape artist, but on the far wall to their left were more modern works, slightly out of keeping with the Edwardian house: two abstracts Elena didn’t recognize, then a Chagall and a Seurat. They weren’t close enough for her to tell if they were original or not.

  The maid asked if they wanted tea or coffee. They both took coffee: Nadine white, Elena black.

  The few minutes with her out of the room preparing – the only sound the remote clink and clatter of china – were tense. They didn’t speak. The
re was only one thing now on their minds, and it wasn’t a conversation they could risk being overheard.

  Their eyes were naturally drawn to the over-sized picture window at the end of the room. At least twelve-foot high and asp-shaped, it provided a dramatic view over the pool and the gardens beyond. Flower beds and linking paths flanked one side, and the lawn tabled steadily down so that they could see clearly over the bordering rhododendron hedge towards the sweep of Swanage Bay. The wind was steady, and a succession of distant white-caps were just discernible dancing through the sea haze. Approaching the house from the car, they’d clearly heard the ebb and surge of the sea, but now it was deathly silent: muted through eighteen-inch thick stone walls and double-glazing.

  As if on cue, the Ryalls walked in just before the coffees were brought through. Eager smiles and handshakes all round. Cameron Ryall looked keenly at Elena as he held her hand a second longer.

  ‘Nice to see you again. Last time we met was –’

  ‘Cerneit orphanage, Bucharest,’ Elena filled the gap.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. Must be almost two years now.’

  They sat down. The awkward silence settled again for a second, and as Nadine opened by explaining the reason for her visit now – that Lorena had confided in a school-friend about some worries and concerns at home – the Ryalls’ expressions quickly became solemn.

  This had been the final game-plan agreed with Lorena: Lorena hadn’t wanted it known that she’d phoned directly about any worries. Elena was watching Cameron Ryall’s expression closely: no visible flinching, just his eyes darkening a shade. Heavier concern.

  ‘As explained, we do have to follow these things up.’ Nadine took a quick sip of coffee. ‘So, after speaking to you, I would like ten or fifteen minutes alone with Lorena. If that’s okay?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Cameron Ryall said. He sat forward, forearms rested on his thighs; a picture of eager compliance.

  Nicola Ryall nodded her concurrence, eyes quickly downcast. Who would be taking the lead became painfully clear. Standard role positioning between them, or had she been coached? ‘This could be delicate: leave it to me.’