The Disappeared

by Ali Harper

  ‘And?’

  ‘And, well …’ What to say. I didn’t have the words. ‘All hell broke loose. He hadn’t told Fiona about me. He wasn’t … he wasn’t pleased to have me turn up.’

  ‘Not your fault. Can’t deny your existence in order to keep his skeletons in the closet.’

  I gave Martin the glimmer of a weak smile. I knew he was trying to make me feel better and that alone was something to be treasured. He nodded at me to continue. I pressed my lips together.

  ‘You can do it,’ he said.

  ‘Everything changed. Fiona – she was such a daddy’s girl – had such a hard time finding out he’d lied.’

  ‘Might be good for her. They say it’s empowering to discover your idols are human.’

  ‘It was like she was waiting for me to show up, so she could stage some kind of overdue teenage rebellion.’ The sentence rushed out of me before I could check it for accuracy. Was it true? I don’t remember thinking that before. It struck me like a new idea, but I filed it. Even if it was true, it didn’t change the facts. If I hadn’t shown up, she wouldn’t have had a clear-cut excuse to go off the rails. ‘Anyway, to cut a long story short, she jacked in her A levels, got a job in Paris, as an au pair.’

  ‘Not the end of the world.’

  I cut him off before he could paint an imaginary reality. ‘She had an affair with the father of the family she was working for, got pregnant. He killed himself afterwards, after it had all, you know … Anyway, David, her dad, our dad, went apeshit. He went to France to bring her back. I think he thought he could force her into an abortion and, well, according to the police investigation, they had a row.’

  Martin was staring at me in a different way now. ‘I read about it.’

  ‘You did?’ I was relieved. He already knew the story, saved me the hell of repeating it.

  ‘He killed her.’

  Three little words.

  Easy to say when they don’t apply to you, to your family, when the ‘he’ doesn’t mean your dad and the ‘her’ isn’t your younger, quirky, gorgeous, ten-week pregnant half-sister. When you’re not the reason that the sentence exists, when you have no moral responsibility, no culpability. Three simple words.

  He killed her.

  ‘They argued,’ Martin continued. He wrinkled his nose. ‘He said he pushed her, she hit her head on something?’

  ‘The coffee table.’

  ‘Accidental death. But he hid her body. Was his sentence reduced because of the crime of passion thing in France?’

  ‘Seven years.’

  ‘And this was what, two years ago?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘And now he’s out.’

  The waitress brought over another cup of tea. I don’t remember anyone asking her to. I waited for her to leave before I said: ‘He turned up outside my house, after we’d seen you. No warning. He knocked on the window. I was in the van. I opened my eyes and he was just there. Didn’t even know he was out.’

  ‘No wonder then.’

  ‘No wonder what?’

  ‘That you were off your game. Anyone would be. Stop blaming yourself.’

  ‘He had a set of car keys.’

  ‘You won’t help anyone by beating yourself up.’

  ‘He said he didn’t drive.’

  ‘Your dad?’

  ‘No, Col. Col said he didn’t drive. But last night I saw he had a car key on his keyring. I should have realized.’

  ‘But you didn’t. Doesn’t matter. Move on.’

  ‘Easy for you to say.’

  ‘Easy for you to do. Move on.’ He poured a stream of sugar into his own cup of tea. ‘Where’s your dad now?’

  ‘I told him to get lost.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I got stoned.’

  ‘Heroin?’

  ‘No.’ I met his eyes for the first time since we’d arrived in the café. ‘I’d never touch that stuff.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Spliff.’

  ‘Whisky in my day.’

  ‘We got completely caned and then Col showed up. Told us Wilkins had killed Karen whatever-her-name-was. A total fucking made-up fantasy. I fell for the whole thing. Hook, line and fucking sinker.’

  Martin Blink popped another Fisherman’s Friend. He crunched it, chewed it up and when he swallowed he shook his head. Like he was a judge – he’d considered the whole thing and decided there was no case to answer.

  ‘Don’t sweat it, kid. I was convinced Wilkins had killed his missus. We’re all guilty of letting our issues cloud our judgements. Happens to the best of us and, believe me, I was the best. Tell me what happened at Wilkins’s house.’

  I said the first thing that came into my head. ‘Jo saved my life.’

  I told Martin the sequence of events, from the moment we got there to when Col had shot Jo. I knew that picture would never leave me, no matter how long I lived. Then I told Martin that Col had been about to kill me, that Jo had shot Col.

  ‘They don’t like to believe their undercover coppers are capable of going bad. Reflects badly on the whole practice. We’re going to need to prove it to them.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Let’s go through it one more time. We must be missing something. Start from the very beginning. The minute you got hired.’

  So I retold the story from beginning to end. Martin didn’t say a word until the bit where I got to Martha’s flat, and the keys I found under her bed.

  ‘Where are the keys now?’

  ‘I put them in the safe, at the office.’

  ‘Come on, let’s take a look.’

  We didn’t finish our tea. Martin paid the bill and drove me back to the offices. I liked having something to do, some sense of a purpose, something that helped me stop thinking about Jo. I unlocked the safe and took out the small bunch of keys.

  ‘One for her flat, one for her car, and this one.’

  I held it up, and he frowned. ‘Looks like a key for a padlock. A lock-up maybe? Or a locker?’ he said. ‘Maybe she had a locker at the station.’

  Lockers.

  And that got me thinking. The lockers at the university. I remembered on the Saturday, that last meeting with Megan, or Martha as she was then. And how I’d been coming back from the shop, and I’d seen her hanging out by the lockers. Had I seen her touch one of them?

  Martin drove us down and parked his car behind Blenheim Square. It was the middle of the morning, and I held onto Martin’s arm as we dodged the traffic on Woodhouse Lane. He was slow, limped along as we threaded our way through the university buildings until we reached the Union. We made our way down the stairs to the basement, and I know it sounds mad, but it was like I could feel her presence, watching us, propelling us forward. The last time I’d seen her. Where had she been standing? I forced myself to visualize the scene from outside the shop. She’d been bent over when I’d first noticed her, had straightened up almost straightaway. Only four days before but it felt like a lifetime ago.

  I tried five different padlocks, holding my breath as I fiddled with each one, half expecting someone to shout at me for trying to break into their locker. Martin stood next to me, shielding me from view, until the sixth one I tried sprang open.

  We both stepped back, like it might be booby-trapped. I tugged open the door. Inside was a bag that looked like every student’s bag, a green canvas bag. It had a badge pinned to the outside of it, with a picture I’d seen a dozen times before, of a woman raising a clenched fist. I pulled the bag out by the strap. It wasn’t heavy. The only thing in it was a notebook. My hands shook so much I couldn’t turn the pages, so I handed it to Martin.

  He scanned the contents. Then he looked at me and his blue eyes sparkled like raindrops.

  ‘Bingo,’ he said.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  And that was that. We gave the notebook to Simon, and Jo was released the same afternoon. On bail, but it’s only a matter of time. Martin was something else – threatening the Detective Insp
ector that if he didn’t ensure charges were dropped he’d be reading about the whole fiasco over his morning cup of tea, along with the rest of the nation.

  Jo was shaky. She’d had an operation on her shoulder, and her arm was bandaged. She was still woozy from the anaesthetic. I had to tell her over and over, if she hadn’t shot Col, I would be dead. She took a life but she saved a life. My life. Col killed Megan because she was on to him. Her death means there’s another child out there, condemned to grow up in trauma, the odds stacked against them. The ripples spread, patterns repeat and so, to my mind, Col deserved everything he got.

  Megan had suspected Col, and the final thing she’d written in the notebook we found was dated the last Saturday of her life. The day we’d met her on the Parkinson Steps. She’d known her life was in danger. She’d left a note to be passed to her son in the event that anything happened to her.

  Two days after Jo’s release, on the Friday, we went to the office. My replacement phone had arrived, and Jo was setting it up for me – can’t say I was jumping up and down for joy, but at least it gave Jo something to focus on. The bell went, and Carly stepped into the offices.

  ‘Wow,’ I said as I caught sight of the young man behind her, holding her hand. I recognized him immediately, even though we’d been given so many different pictures of him – heroin addict, public schoolboy, bereaved child, boyfriend, best friend, turncoat. It was odd to see them there, all squashed into one human body. ‘Where did you come from?’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Carly, although her grin made me think she wasn’t really.

  ‘You knew where he was all along.’ It wasn’t a question. And in that moment, looking at Jack, the colour in his cheeks, the truth hit me, and I cursed myself for not seeing it from the start, from the moment we laid eyes on the smack in the Old Holborn tin. If there’s one thing I should know, it’s an addict doesn’t give away his stash. ‘Rehab,’ I said.

  ‘Where?’ said Jo.

  ‘Devon,’ Carly said. ‘He’s done it.’

  ‘Early days,’ Jack said, but I could see the pride in the way he held himself. ‘Three weeks.’

  ‘You’ve done the worst bit,’ Carly said. ‘Anyway,’ she turned to me, ‘I wanted you to know he’s OK.’

  ‘Do you know where Brownie is?’ Jack asked. ‘There’s no one at the squat.’

  ‘Right,’ I said.

  ‘I spoke to Pants. He said Brownie’s disappeared, that it all kicked off. I feel like a right shit, but I had to get clean. I was no use to anyone.’

  ‘Right,’ I said again. Christ, where to start? I glanced at Jo but the look on her face made it clear. This was my job. ‘Do you want to come through to the back?’

  Telling Jack his father was dead was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I recognized the look in his eyes, and it’s not one I’d wish on anyone. I tried to think of anything that might help. ‘He was really pleased to know you had a girlfriend.’

  Carly had her arm around Jack’s shoulders.

  ‘I bet. Always convinced I was gay.’

  ‘He told us some things, about your mother. She didn’t die in a car crash, Jack.’

  He didn’t look up at me. He sat with his head between his hands. I carried on talking, found that once I’d started, the words took on a life of their own.

  ‘From what he told us, I think your mum was bipolar. She was always up and down, he said. He showed me a note she’d written.’ I faltered, unsure whether to press on. I’d started now though, and I couldn’t stop. ‘Jack, your mum committed suicide.’

  Carly stared at me.

  Jack didn’t speak for ages. When he finally looked up, Carly had tears running down her face.

  ‘I know,’ he said.

  ‘You told me she died in a car crash,’ Carly said.

  ‘You told Brownie your dad killed her,’ I said.

  ‘I blamed him,’ Jack said to me. ‘I didn’t want to know. It’s all a mess. I had this recurring dream as a kid, of a car crash.’

  ‘There was a crash,’ I said. ‘A year or two before she died. You were in the car.’

  I watched Jack drink in the facts of his childhood. Try to fit them with his own ideas. I’ve been in that situation. Kept in the dark, piecing together your history, the titbits people throw at you.

  ‘So who’s the woman who paid you to look for Jack?’ asked Carly.

  ‘Martha.’

  ‘“Martha”?’ Carly’s curls shook. ‘Why?’

  ‘Probably cos she wants to kill me,’ said Jack. ‘She’ll blame me for abandoning Brownie.’

  ‘She thought you had the cash to pay off Bernie and Duck.’

  ‘What?’ asked Carly. ‘That’s bonkers.’

  Jack shook his head. ‘I bet Brownie’s told her my dad’s loaded. But, I couldn’t go to him. He hates, hated me.’

  ‘He didn’t hate you. He knew he’d fucked up. He didn’t blame you.’

  ‘So Martha wanted you to find Jack, so Jack could go to his dad and try and get the money?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Martha was actually an undercover policewoman called Megan Parsons.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘It can’t be. She’s screwing Brownie!’

  ‘She genuinely fell in love with him. She also blackmailed your father, asked him for the twenty-four thousand pounds you needed to pay off your dealers.’

  ‘She didn’t.’

  ‘She did. She got the money, broke into the squat and put it all in what she thought was Brownie’s sock drawers. But you two had swapped rooms.’

  ‘My dad paid?’

  ‘He knew he was dying. He thought you were behind the blackmail, and he thought what the hell, you’re going to inherit it all anyway.’

  ‘I’m going to inherit it all?’

  I nodded. ‘That’s what your dad said.’

  ‘So where’s the money now?’ asked Carly. ‘The money Martha put in Jack’s drawers, I mean?’

  ‘Pants cleared the room once it was apparent you’d done a runner. He bundled up all your possessions and put them in the cellar. When Martha realized you’d swapped rooms with Brownie, she went back into the squat, discovered all your possessions had gone and thought you’d skipped with the money.’

  ‘So Bernie and Duck still haven’t been paid?’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry too much about them. They’ve been arrested. Don’t think they’ll be any trouble in the foreseeable.’

  ‘Yeah, but—’

  ‘What do you mean “was”?’ asked Carly. ‘You said Martha was an undercover policewoman.’

  I hesitated. ‘She was killed.’

  ‘“Killed”?’

  ‘Last Saturday. In the line of duty.’

  ‘Who killed her?’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing.’ I knew this was a lot for them to take in, and I tried to break it down into bite-sized chunks. ‘Did you ever hear Bernie and Duck mention a guy called T?’

  ‘T killed Martha?’

  ‘T was a bent cop.’ I tried not to think of that kiss, the heat of his body next to mine. ‘Martha was on to him. He killed her.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘“T was a bent cop”?’ Jack repeated my words.

  They both stared at me. I took a deep breath. ‘We left our business card at the squat. Bernie and Duck went there, looking for you or Brownie. I think T was putting them under pressure to get you to pay up. Pants told them he’d given us your stuff. Bernie and T broke into our offices, trashed the place. I don’t know whether T recognized Martha’s signature on our client form, or maybe he staked out our offices. Whatever, somehow, T realized Martha was paying us to look for you. He needed to find out what she knew and how much she’d told us.’

  ‘Where’s T now?’

  I swallowed. ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Brownie,’ said Jack, and I saw real fear in his eyes. ‘Where’s Brownie?’

  I breathed out and felt my shoulders relax. At l
ast, some good news. ‘Don’t worry, Brownie’s safe. He’s in rehab too. Kind of.’

  Me and Jo went to Megan’s funeral the following week. She got the full works – the West Yorkshire police saw to that. I was strangely moved by the sight of them all in uniform, carrying her coffin. I got the sense that at least she’d belonged somewhere, that she had a tribe.

  I saw her son – at least I assumed it was her son – I didn’t speak to him, but he fit the bill. A teenager, pale-faced and spotty. His dad kept his arm around him all day – never let go of him once – and so I allowed myself to believe that maybe he’d be OK. I comfort myself with the fact that Megan’s cards were marked long before we showed up on the scene. Thank God she’d plucked up the courage to walk through our doors, otherwise maybe Col would have managed to find a way to get rid of her without anyone ever finding out the truth.

  The last person to turn up was Aunt Edie. She arrived the day Jo and I were painting the offices. Brownie was with her, half a stone heavier and wearing clothes that fitted him. She’d brought him back to Leeds on the train, wanted to make sure he got home safely.

  ‘Wow,’ I said, when Brownie had left. ‘What’ve you been feeding him?’

  ‘Sausages, mainly.’

  ‘Vegan sausages?’

  She gave me a sly look. ‘Now, you’re going to have to keep your eye on him,’ she said. ‘I’ve done my best, but these things take time.’

  ‘We’ll do what we can, but we’re not a babysitting service,’ I said.

  ‘Speaking of which, I’ve been trying to ring you for the last week,’ Aunt Edie said, stooping to pull the edges of the old pair of curtains we were using to cover the floor so that the paint didn’t splatter the carpet. ‘I’ve left a dozen messages.’

  ‘Sorry, Aunt Edie.’ I was standing on the desk, using a roller brush. Jo’s shoulder was strapped, so she was doing the edges with a brush. The room already looked bigger, lighter. ‘We’ve been up to our ears in it all.’ I had sent her the cuttings from the newspapers – we’d been blazoned across most of them, which had been fantastic for business – the phone hadn’t stopped ringing. ‘We haven’t had chance to listen to them all yet.’

  ‘That’s where I come in.’