The Disappeared

by Ali Harper

  Chapter Thirteen

  I pulled the car onto the forecourt, relief flooding me as I clocked Jo, sat on the bonnet of our van, her face tilted towards the sun. She opened her eyes as I pulled up alongside her and beckoned me over.

  ‘Look at this beauty,’ she shouted across.

  My legs felt weak as I hauled myself out of the car. I noticed a clump of turf clinging to the bumper. I scraped it off and kicked it under the bonnet. ‘Do you know anyone called Susan?’ I asked Mr Wilkins through the open roof.

  He climbed out of the car. ‘You’re lucky I’m not going to have to put a claim in on this,’ he said as he stroked down the paintwork, looking for dents. ‘I can probably get that out with T-Cut. You’re lucky the ground was soft.’

  ‘Susan Wilkins?’

  He straightened up. ‘Never heard of her. Who is she?’

  I pulled a face at Jo before turning back to Mr Wilkins. ‘She claims she’s your wife. Jack’s stepmother.’

  A dark shadow crossed his face, and his eyebrows knotted. ‘Jack? What do you know about Jack?’

  The vestiges of attractiveness vanished. His eyes hardened, made him look mean. I felt nervous, glad that I’d waited until we were back in a public place before I’d let him know I wasn’t a regular punter.

  Jo must have picked up on the atmosphere too, because out of the corner of my eye I saw her throw a cardboard box back into the van and slip behind the wheel.

  ‘I don’t know Jack,’ I said to Mr Wilkins. The Mazda lay between us, for which I was grateful. Having his gaze on me was frightening enough. ‘I just met someone who told me she was his stepmother, that’s all.’

  ‘You’re going to have to tell me a bit more than that,’ he said taking a step towards the front of the vehicle. I instinctively took a step towards the rear. Behind me I heard the van’s engine growl into life.

  ‘I don’t know anymore,’ I said, which wasn’t that far from the truth.

  ‘Who is she, this woman?’

  ‘Beats me.’

  ‘Why would someone tell you they’re Jack’s stepmother?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I’m trying to find Jack.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m …’ The words failed me. For the first time since we’d opened the business, I didn’t want to admit to being a private investigator. ‘I’m his girlfriend.’

  ‘You just said you didn’t know Jack.’

  We paced round the car, for every step I took away from him, he took one closer. ‘Do you know where he is?’

  He increased his stride. ‘You don’t lie to me, you …’

  I didn’t hear the rest of his sentence, his words drowned out by the sound of Jo reversing the van at high speed towards me. The passenger door hung open. As she got within a couple of feet of me, I threw myself headlong into it, hitting my forehead on the handbrake. The gears scrunched, and we lurched forward.

  ‘Quick,’ I yelled, trying to haul myself into an upright position.

  ‘Making friends and influencing people again?’ asked Jo.

  I yanked the passenger door shut as Jo raced out of the forecourt and onto the main road. I turned in my seat, saw Mr Wilkins clambering into the yellow Mazda. ‘Shit, he’s coming after us.’

  ‘Best buckle up,’ said Jo. She never hangs around in situations like those. A duck to water, loves the thrill of the chase. She hung a hard right at the first road we came to. I smelled tyre rubber as we screeched across the junction. I thanked God it was Saturday and there were enough cars on the road to make it feel like we weren’t alone.

  ‘What’s his problem?’ Jo muttered as she jumped a set of red traffic lights and ducked the first left.

  ‘Didn’t like my driving.’

  ‘No one likes your driving.’

  ‘He’s never heard of Susan Wilkins. And he’s never remarried.’

  ‘Can’t say that surprises me.’

  ‘Stepmother, my arse,’ I said. ‘Why hire someone and tell them a bunch of complete lies?’

  A road sign loomed ahead of us. I scrunched my eyes to make out the words. ‘Manchester,’ I said. ‘Take the right.’

  Horns blared as Jo pulled across a lane of traffic. I turned in my seat. The Mazda was three cars behind us, heading in the same direction. I pulled the road atlas from the glovebox and opened it up on my knee.

  ‘Use the satnav,’ said Jo.

  ‘We haven’t got time.’ I’m not as big a fan of modern technology as Jo is. I like the weight of a road map, the solidity of it.

  ‘What’s he going to do?’ asked Jo. ‘He can hardly bump us off the road.’

  ‘We don’t want him to know where we live,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to lose him.’

  ‘How much petrol did the Mazda have in the tank?’ asked Jo.

  I shrugged my shoulders. Like I’d notice that kind of detail when I’m behind the wheel of a sports coupe.

  ‘Cos we’ve not got much,’ said Jo.

  ‘Moss Side,’ I said, staring at the map.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’s not going to want to take a car like that into Moss Side.’

  Jo slapped the steering wheel. ‘Fucking ace. We can go to Tan’s.’

  Tan is Jo’s mate from back home, in Merseyside. Tan went to Manchester Metropolitan University, and has a flat in Hulme, on the outskirts of Moss Side. I turned and saw the biggest grin break out on Jo’s face. ‘Call her.’

  ‘What’s the number?’

  She threw me her phone, and I scrolled through her contacts and rang Tan. I looked in the wing mirror, the Mazda now only one car behind us. As the road bent to the left, I could see Wilkins hunched up over the steering wheel, his frame far too big for the little sports car. I turned and flicked him the V sign.

  Tan was always going to be in at this time on a Saturday morning, but it was obvious I’d woken her up. I had to repeat my name, then describe who I was, even though I’d met her about half a dozen times, usually at Vanilla, the lesbian mecca of the north, where she’s one of the resident DJs.

  ‘A guy’s chasing you?’

  ‘Yeah. Long story.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘On the A34, coming into Manchester.’ The scenery around me was changing. The houses got thinner, closer together. A sign to Rushholme, and the curry mile. The road bent to the left and, as we rounded the curve, the atlas slid off my lap and onto the floor by my feet.

  I heard Tan shout through her small flat. ‘Jo and Lee have got a guy chasing them.’

  I couldn’t make out the muffled response because Jo was bitching about me not using the satnav.

  ‘Car,’ I heard Tan shout. Another shout out in the background. ‘What’s he driving?’ she said to me.

  I glanced in the wing mirror again. ‘A bright yellow, two-seater sports car. A Mazda.’

  ‘Dickhead. Why’s he chasing you?’

  ‘Don’t know. But I don’t think he likes us.’

  ‘Dan’s getting his pants on. Get to Moss Side. He’ll be there.’

  ‘Thanks, Tan.’

  I hung up the call and handed the phone back to Jo, feeling like I was part of a clan, a family. ‘Dan’ll meet us there,’ I said.

  ‘Great.’ Jo fiddled with the satnav that was stuck to the windscreen and fired up the screen. ‘I asked the guy,’ she said. ‘It’s so simple even you could use it.’

  I punched her arm and pushed a few buttons on the monitor thing. A message appeared on the screen:

  Enter destination.

  Jo changed lanes, which made typing ‘Moss Side’ difficult. It took me three attempts, but I finally got there. I hit the enter key and a map appeared on the screen. Traffic was building, most people probably making their way into Manchester for a day’s shopping. Jo weaved between the lanes of traffic, managing to put a few more cars between us and the Mazda.

  I noticed Wilkins indicate left. I turned to kneel on my seat and leaned out of the window. ‘He�
��s going,’ I said, catching a glimpse of yellow sports car on the exit road. ‘Why’s he going?’

  Jo checked the driving mirror. ‘Maybe he realizes he can’t do anything to us in this kind of traffic.’

  A disembodied voice told us we were on the fastest route and would arrive at our destination in a few short minutes. A feeling of anti-climax hit my stomach. ‘Dan’s going to think we were making it up. Should I ring them back?’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Jo. ‘He might have guessed where we’re going and know a short cut.’

  We drove in silence for a few minutes. I lit a fag and put my legs up on the dashboard. I kept my eyes focused on the wing mirror, waiting to see if Wilkins reappeared. As we weaved in and out of the lanes of traffic, something caught my eye.

  ‘In one thousand feet take the left turn on the—’

  ‘There’s someone else following us,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  Jo studied the rear-view mirror. ‘Which?’

  ‘The dark blue one.’

  ‘The Volvo? You sure?’

  ‘Switches lanes every time you do.’

  ‘Let’s see.’ Jo stamped her foot down on the accelerator, and the van lurched forward. She waited till the last possible moment then swerved left without indicating. She took the next left, then first right, taking us down the back street of a red-brick terrace. The satnav lady urged us to make a U turn. I kept my gaze on the wing mirror, saw the blue Volvo nudge round the corner, as Jo hung another right, then a left, back onto the main road. The satnav lady went mental. A few seconds later the Volvo reappeared.

  ‘Think it’s a mate of his?’

  I wrenched the satnav off the windscreen and muted it before the woman started screaming. The screen kept rescaling as we careered round corners. In-car GPS and satellite navigations systems weren’t yet cutting the mustard. I chucked it onto the floor and retrieved my trusted road atlas. I don’t know why they say women can’t read maps. It’s one of my top three skills, along with building spliffs and lighting fires. The secret to life, I’ve discovered, is learning to play to your strengths.

  ‘Whereabouts in Moss Side, d’you reckon?’

  ‘Just get us there. Dan’ll find us.’

  ‘OK.’ I knelt on my seat, trying to catch a road name. A quick glance behind showed the Volvo still on our tail. ‘Second left. Not this one.’

  Jo left it as late as she could. Driving fast, then hitting the brakes and hanging a left, no indication or anything. I kept my eye on the wing mirror. The Volvo made the same manoeuvre. We left the three-lane A34 and hung a left onto a much smaller road, past a park. Semi-detached houses. The adrenaline in my gut was pumping all around my body now and my mind cleared. There are no worries, no gnawing anxieties when you’re travelling at sixty down a residential road with a guy on your tail. Moments like these, life is simple, clear-cut.

  ‘We need to burn time,’ I said, trying to work out how many minutes it would take Dan to throw on some clothes and get into a car. ‘Take this next right.’

  The roads were getting smaller, tight terraces, the number of trees and bushes thinning to nothing. The streets felt meaner, harder. I was back where I grew up. Frightening to some, reassuring to me. Familiar. No front gardens, red-brick houses straight onto the street. Identical except for the odd random paint scheme.

  ‘Where now?’

  ‘Keep going round. Next right.’ I scanned the map. As long as I didn’t take us down a dead end, we’d be OK. I wondered who was driving the Volvo and what they were planning. I opened my window and half-turned in my seat. There were no cars between us now, and whoever it was, they were getting closer. The sun was in front of me, making it difficult to see.

  ‘Right again,’ I shouted to Jo, my words getting whipped by the wind. As she flung us round the corner I saw what I hadn’t realized I was seeing.

  ‘Shit the fucking bed,’ I yelled, pulling my head back inside the van. I turned to Jo. ‘He’s got a gun.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ said Jo. She turned left, even though I hadn’t told her to. I fell against the van door.

  ‘He has.’ I concentrated my gaze on the wing mirror. ‘He’s holding it out of the window. Why’s he got a gun?’

  Jo floored the van. It made a horrible sound like it was trying too hard, metal on metal. She flung us round another corner, and I wished I was wearing my seatbelt. I couldn’t stay upright let alone focus on the map.

  ‘I don’t know where we are.’

  ‘Shit creek,’ said Jo. ‘I’ve got to lose him.’

  I threw the map on the back seat and concentrated on looking out of the window. The reassuring-ness of everything being the same was now outweighed by no distinguishing marks to give us a sense of where we’d been, where we were headed.

  ‘Just so long as we don’t hit a dead end,’ Jo muttered.

  ‘He’s never going to fire at us. Not in broad daylight,’ I tried to reassure Jo, whose knuckles were bloodless on the steering wheel. She’d hitched herself up in the seat, her nose practically touching the windscreen.

  I turned and watched as an arm appeared out of the driver’s window again.

  ‘Duck,’ I yelled.

  A car window smashed, but not ours. A window in a car parked at the side of the road.

  ‘You fucker!’ I yelled.

  ‘Shit,’ said Jo.

  I faced front. ‘What?’

  A car headed down the street towards us, but the parked cars on either side of the road meant there wasn’t enough room to pass.

  ‘He has to pull in,’ said Jo. She pressed the accelerator harder, to show whoever was driving the car in front that she had no intention of stopping. It steamrollered towards us, heading for a full-on collision, giving no sign that it was going to back down either. At the last minute it ducked into a space on the side of the road and we fled past, the Volvo inches behind us.

  ‘Left.’

  Jo swerved.

  ‘Left again.’

  ‘What the fuck?’

  A red car was parked perpendicular across the road. Filling the street. There was no way past. No time to stop.

  ‘Brace yourself,’ Jo screamed.

  At the moment of impact, I screwed up my eyes, waited for the pain, the smash, hurt.

  Nothing.

  I opened my eyes. We were heading down the road – no sign of the red car. I glanced at Jo.

  ‘Open your eyes!’ I screamed, grabbing the steering wheel.

  I turned in my seat. The red car was behind us, in the same position, un-smashed. Like we’d just teleported straight through it. A man crouched behind it, holding a baseball bat.

  ‘Dan,’ we both said together, as two more cars headed down the street towards us. They both passed us and pulled up behind the red car. I watched the Volvo stop on the other side of the roadblock. Suddenly the streets seemed busy. Another two blokes were jogging down the road, scarves round the lower half of their faces. No jackets despite the cold.

  Jo pulled into the kerb and threw herself into the back of the van. A group of lads approached the Volvo, but we couldn’t see the driver.

  ‘We need to tell them he’s got a gun.’

  I opened the passenger door and steeled myself for the sound of gunfire.

  ‘Keep down,’ said Jo.

  Glass smashed. I stared at Jo. ‘What if he shoots them?’

  ‘He’s not going to start a war in Moss Side,’ said Jo. I prayed she was right as I climbed out of the van, ducked low and headed towards Dan.

  She was. I hadn’t even got to the red car when I heard a squeal of car tyres and saw the Volvo reversing back the way it had come, its windscreen smashed.

  I ran towards it, wanted to catch a glimpse of the driver, to see who it was, but it was going so fast, even in reverse, that I didn’t stand a chance. A tall figure, dressed in black jeans and an oversized black hoodie jogged towards me. I kept my eyes on the Volvo, watched it screech around a corner, then come out, forward this time and sp
eed off in the other direction. The next thing I knew Dan had put his arm around me.

  ‘All right?’

  ‘Did you see him? The driver?’

  ‘White guy. Ugly. He won’t be back.’

  I let Dan steer me back to the van. Jo had opened the back doors and was climbing out, Dr Martens first. Dan grinned.

  ‘Morning.’

  ‘Wow,’ shouted Jo. She punched him in the ribs. ‘Awesome.’

  They hugged, a proper bear hug and I knew Jo was more shaken than she was letting on. My own knees were finding it hard to stay locked.

  ‘You always know how to start a party. Thought you said it was a yellow Mazda.’

  ‘It was when we set off,’ I said, unease settling around me.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jo drove us back to Leeds at eighty-five miles an hour. The van makes so much noise at that speed we couldn’t hear the other speak, and the engine got so hot I had to take my jacket off. As we hit the inner ring road, and our speed fell off to a quieter forty-five, I put my feet up on the dashboard. I’d had time to think a few things over.

  ‘Jack disappeared without taking the money, which means he didn’t know it was there. If you’re going to take off, you’d take the cash.’

  ‘Come in useful for things like aeroplane tickets,’ agreed Jo. ‘Who the fuck was the guy with the gun?’

  ‘So, assuming he hasn’t been kidnapped or killed, someone else put the money in his socks. Agreed?’

  ‘Agreed.’ Jo exhaled a cloud of smoke. ‘Who the fuck is Susan Wilkins?’

  ‘And the socks were new. So, someone put the money in the socks and put the socks in Jack’s room.’

  ‘We know less than we did yesterday.’

  ‘We need to go back to Pants. Find out who had access to Jack’s sock drawer.’ I already had a list of potentials in my head – Pants, Carly and Brownie for starters. But as Pants had handed Jack’s stuff over to us, it was unlikely he knew what was inside, and I couldn’t see Carly being involved either. She was too green. And if Brownie knew the money was there, surely he’d help himself to enough to cover the PlayStation. And for a man with that much fear in his eyes, I’d expect him to help himself to a whole lot more.