Long Time Lost

by Chris Ewan

  ‘I’m confused, sir. What is it you expect me to do with this?’

  ‘What you do best, Lloyd. Identify the mistakes and oversights of one of your fellow officers in order to build a flawless case against Nick Adams for the unsolved murder of his wife and daughter. And while you’re at it, see if you can uncover anything that might help us to locate him. The only difference this time is that the officer you need to outperform is you.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Hamburg’s University Medical Center was a state-of-the-art teaching hospital with an enviable research record, more beds and patients than any of the other hospitals in the city, and a glossy, modern finish inside and out.

  Unfortunately for Miller, it also had excellent security.

  He hustled Kate across the gleaming white entrance foyer and on through a network of pristine corridors to the intensive care unit, but that was as far as they could get. A pair of doors with wired glass inserts barred their way. The doors could only be opened by swiping a magnetic card through an electronic reader on the wall, or by buzzing the internal nurses’ station and waving up at a surveillance camera for admittance.

  None of which would have been a problem, necessarily, if it weren’t for the female police officer Miller could spy, who was sitting on a chair outside a private room at the beginning of the ward.

  Kate pressed her face to the glass. ‘Do you think she’s guarding the room your client is in?’

  ‘Makes sense to me.’

  ‘Can’t you just go in and tell the nurses you know him?’

  ‘Hardly. The police will want to talk to me. Imagine if you were in that bed. Would you want me to tell them what you were hiding from?’

  ‘Then maybe I should go. I can pretend I’m a friend.’

  ‘You don’t even know his name.’

  ‘So tell me.’

  Miller shook his head. He was trying to think what his next move should be. He was asking himself if he was just wasting valuable time that could be better spent elsewhere. But he needed to know Clive’s condition. If he was able to talk, he could tell Miller what had happened.

  ‘You don’t get it, do you? This started yesterday, Kate. The only Red Flag we’ve ever received and it comes three days after my first contact with you.’

  ‘You think what happened to this man is connected to me?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything for certain right now. That’s the problem.’

  The female police officer was showing excellent discipline. She wasn’t checking her phone or reading a magazine or engaging passers-by in conversation. She was sitting upright on her chair, her eyes fixed dead ahead, giving no sign that she’d vacate her post anytime soon.

  She didn’t even glance up as a young orderly in a white button-down shirt, blue trousers and white rubber shoes pushed a metal trolley towards her. The orderly wheeled the trolley past the nurses’ station and on towards the security doors. Miller dragged Kate aside as the orderly thumbed a switch, then butted his trolley through and pushed it off along the corridor.

  He was wearing a set of in-ear headphones. Maybe that was why he didn’t react as Miller fell into step behind him.

  *

  Miller returned shortly after the orderly had re-entered the ward with a roll of yellow dustbin bags tucked under his arm.

  ‘Did you speak to him?’ Kate asked.

  ‘He didn’t know anything. He only came on shift half an hour ago.’

  ‘Maybe we should leave. He might tell someone about you.’

  ‘He won’t.’

  ‘He might.’

  Miller inclined his head towards the wired glass panels as the orderly showed his ID to the female police officer stationed outside the private room. The officer scanned his credentials, then waved him through.

  ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Patience.’

  Three minutes later, the orderly was back, banging through the double doors with a weighted yellow rubbish bag, his forehead speckled with perspiration. He gave Miller a quick, wild-eyed look, then walked briskly off along the corridor.

  Miller ushered Kate after him, following the orderly around a corner and through a door that opened into a cleaning-supply room. The orderly stood with his back pressed to the scarred porcelain sink where he’d dumped the refuse bag. The air was thick with the smell of chemicals. A bank of metal shelves were jammed with cleaning cloths and packs of paper towels and bottles of bleach.

  ‘Who are you?’ The orderly’s voice trembled. A plastic ID was clipped to his shirt that said his name was Ralf. ‘What do you want with this man?’

  Miller pulled the door closed behind Kate and took a step towards him.

  ‘Did you do what I asked?’

  Ralf was sweating so badly that one of his headphones slipped out of his ear and dangled in front of his chest. He wet his lip.

  ‘You already took half my money, so let’s not pretend you want to know more about this than you already do. Now, hand it over.’

  Miller made a ‘gimme’ gesture and Ralf exhaled hard, shaking his head, before lifting his shirt to dig a hand into the waistband of his trousers. He removed Miller’s smartphone and passed it across.

  Miller angled the screen so that Kate could watch as he hit play on some video footage.

  The camera work was shaky. The angle was bad. A few seconds in, Ralf had been spooked by a thud somewhere off-screen and had turned abruptly, as if he’d been afraid somebody was coming into the room. But his fear had proved baseless and he’d jerked the camera back around again, taking in the tiled ceiling and part of the privacy curtain before settling in on what Miller needed to see.

  Clive lay inert and unconscious in a raised hospital bed, his head swathed in bandages, his belly swelling the sheets that had been pulled up to the mass of dark hair around his chest. His left eye was covered by a gauze patch. The right was grossly swollen and discoloured, closed almost to a slit. His lips were flattened and bloodied, parted around the ventilator tube that had been inserted into his throat.

  The audio feed was dominated by the pant and rasp of Ralf’s breathing, but Miller could also hear the background beep of a heartbeat monitor.

  ‘Oh my God.’

  Miller ignored Kate’s reaction, waiting until the video was finished before asking Ralf, ‘Did you look at the chart?’

  ‘I took photos. Like you said.’

  Miller checked his phone. The focus on the stills wasn’t great, but he had enough to send on to Hanson.

  ‘What do the notes say?’

  ‘I told you already, I don’t understand most of that stuff.’

  Miller took a half-step back and reached into his pocket. He removed the rest of the cash he’d rolled into a tight tube.

  ‘Tell me about the parts you did understand.’

  Ralf swiped at his nose, eyeing the cash. He glanced nervously at the door behind Miller.

  ‘There was one thing.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘It was a note on the first page of the chart. It said that when they found him, he was hanging upside down from his ankles. He’d been beaten that way.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  They left the hospital in another Mercedes taxi. There was plenty of space in the back and Miller and Kate made the most of it, sitting far apart, looking out through the dirt-streaked glass.

  Miller waited until their driver became uncomfortable with the silence and cranked his radio before he pulled out his phone and dialled Hanson. He listened to the long international dial tone, then got right into it when Hanson picked up, asking him if he’d received his email. When Hanson confirmed that he had and that he was about to start work on translating Clive’s medical charts, Miller moved on and told him they were going be staying in Hamburg for at least one night, possibly longer, and he needed him to book two hotel rooms in two separate hotels that fronted on to the small plaza in Altstadt where Miller had based himself on previous visits.

  Miller s
ensed Kate glancing across at him, as if she expected an explanation, but he didn’t feel any need to provide one. He wanted to avoid the impression that he and Kate were travelling as a pair because he was concerned by the possibility that a British tourist staying in the same hotel might have seen the televised police appeal before coming to Hamburg. Likewise, even though they’d taken separate flights into Germany – Kate from Bristol and Miller from Gatwick – there was the danger that one, or both, of them might have been spotted on airport-surveillance footage by now. If so, the Hamburg police could have been asked to put them on some kind of watch list, which might have involved hotels across the city being issued with recent images. Not likely, perhaps, but it was a risk Miller wanted to manage as best he could.

  And besides, there were other reasons why he wanted Kate based in a separate hotel. Like their plans for later that night, for example.

  Which was all very prudent, and all very neat, and all a little naive. Especially since he’d made the mistake of telling Hanson what he needed him to do without noticing that Hanson had placed him on speakerphone.

  ‘Oh, puh-lease,’ Becca cut in. ‘Why go to all this trouble when the two of you will only end up sharing the same room anyway?’

  ‘That’s not going to happen.’

  Kate peered harder at Miller, intrigued by the change in his tone. He switched his phone to his other ear.

  Becca said, ‘Trust me, Nick. There are some things I just know. It’s time, OK? You’re allowed to enjoy life a little.’

  ‘Text me when you have our bookings. And Hanson, let me know the moment you decipher those charts. I want that information.’

  He cut the connection and rested the phone against his lip, staring through his window at the rows of plane trees blipping past. He saw strikingly modern architecture and grand old buildings with turquoise copper roofs; saw the dingy entrance of a U-Bahn station; saw pedestrians and cyclists and a chic young woman riding by on a pastel-coloured scooter.

  You’re allowed to enjoy life a little.

  But he wasn’t. Not any more. Not until all of this was over and he’d made amends.

  Their driver was taking them east towards the Hauptbahnhof to collect their luggage from a train-station locker. After that, they’d check into their respective hotels and get some food and rest in preparation for the night ahead.

  The taxi blew across a box junction, then over a bridge that offered up a view of the ruptured waters of the Binnenalster, the spray from the fountain in the middle of the lake blown astray by the wind.

  Miller had visited the city eight times in the past twelve months. Clive had been made aware of his presence on six of those occasions. Twice, Miller had watched him from afar.

  Until Kate, Clive had been the client who’d bothered Miller the most. Nobody found the life easy. Nobody ever could. But Clive had rarely stopped complaining. From the very beginning, he’d harked after his old life, and when it was denied to him time and again, he’d turned in on himself, shunning the outside world. As far as Miller knew, Clive didn’t have a single friend in the city, which on the face of it was good for his safety, but had always worried Miller, because how long could the guy be expected to last with only his thoughts and regrets for company?

  So it stood to reason that if any of his clients were unstable, if any of them would screw up, it would be Clive.

  And yet, he’d been attacked just days after Miller had saved Kate. Which could be coincidence, or plain bad luck, but Miller had a hunch it was something worse than that. He’d tempted fate by crossing Connor Lane’s path again.

  All of which made him think of Sarah and Melanie, and of how much he wished he could be with them right now. If he kept his back turned on Kate, if he concentrated hard, he could almost make himself believe they were sitting next to him, close enough to touch.

  He would like to have known what Melanie would have made of Hamburg. For her sixteenth birthday, in that final year they’d spent together, she’d asked for a writing journal and an annual subscription to a travel magazine. She’d said that she wanted to become a travel journalist. She hoped to see the world and be paid to write about it, too.

  Where had that instinct come from? It had struck him as so peculiar at the time. To think, the kid of a police officer and a charity worker aspiring to a life like that.

  But perhaps, somehow, he’d taken on his own warped version of Mel’s dream. Perhaps that was how he was able to live the life he lived now; always moving on, his every possession fitted inside a holdall and a small backpack, rarely connecting with anyone he met, not even his clients, in anything more than a fleeting way. Perhaps, unwittingly, it was an impulse he and Melanie had shared.

  He wished he could ask her about it. He wondered what she’d say.

  But Kate interrupted his thoughts, asking him, ‘Does your client have family? Is there someone we should contact?’

  ‘Just his mother. She has dementia. She wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘How about you? You know all about my family situation. Are your parents still alive?’

  ‘Mum was taken by cancer years ago. We lost Dad to a heart attack not long after.’

  ‘Any brothers or sisters?’

  He shook his head. ‘Sarah had a sister. They were pretty much inseparable. I envied them that.’

  ‘Are you still in touch with her?’

  ‘You know the rules, Kate. Sever all ties.’

  She was quiet for a beat. He hoped she wouldn’t push it. He hoped his tone had been enough.

  ‘What time will we go? Later, I mean?’

  She made it sound as if they had plans for a dinner date. But the reality was very different. Clive was in no position to talk with him, so Miller was going to have to find answers another way.

  ‘Two a.m.’

  ‘And you’ll come by my hotel?’

  ‘I’ll meet you outside. There’s a kiosk in the middle of the square. If I’m late for any reason, go back to your room. Wait to be contacted.’

  ‘I can’t stop thinking about him lying there all alone.’ Kate bit down on her thumbnail. ‘I can’t help wondering if the sound of a familiar voice would be comforting to him.’

  But if she was seeking insight from Miller, she’d come to the wrong guy. Miller didn’t respond, looking down at his phone instead, making out as though he was waiting impatiently for Hanson’s summary of Clive’s medical chart to come through.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Lloyd pulled her car over in a residential cul-de-sac in Manchester. The weather was warm for late April, the evening sun shimmering through the splayed branches of a nearby oak. At the end of the street, a haze of midges swarmed above the lawn of a 1930s semi with tile-hung walls. A child’s bike had been abandoned in the driveway, its back wheel spinning lazily.

  Lloyd contemplated the suburban scene for several long moments, then turned her head and looked towards a square of weed-strewn land that was hemmed in tight behind temporary metal fencing. It was all that remained of the family home of Nick Adams and his wife and daughter.

  Lloyd slumped with the same weight of emotions she always experienced when she came here: saddened because of the lives that had been lost; frustrated because the barren plot seemed so much a symbol of how badly the investigation into the murders of Sarah and Melanie had withered and died; ashamed because she’d failed to prove that Nick Adams was to blame.

  The fire that had been set following the shootings of Sarah and Melanie had taken hold rapidly. It had raged through the property, collapsing the roof, tearing down walls. By the time the fire brigade had gained control of the inferno, the structure was so unstable that the house had to be levelled, but not before Sarah’s remains were recovered from the charred kitchen, where fire investigators believed the blaze had been started, and Melanie’s body had been carried out under a blanket from the hallway outside her first-floor bedroom.

  The clearance work had taken place without the owner’s consent. Nick Adams had
vanished on the night of the fire, his car abandoned outside the front of the house with the keys in the ignition. Based on a neighbour’s sighting of a blurred figure darting away from behind the property, Lloyd had always believed that he’d fled the scene by bolting through the tangled area of woodland that backed on to the rear garden.

  The woodland was creeping closer now. Lloyd knew the neighbours were unhappy with the situation, but without owner consent, the land couldn’t be built on or sold to a developer, and until a few days ago, nobody had seen the current owner for nearly four years.

  All anyone knew was that six months after the council had stepped in to tear down the blackened husk of Nick Adams’s home, a single lump-sum payment had been made against his mortgage. The amount had been sufficient to clear all debts. Some of Lloyd’s colleagues had attempted to trace the source of the money but had drawn a blank at a shell company based out of the Caymans. No insurance claim was ever lodged.

  Popping her door, Lloyd stepped out on to the street, leaving her folder of notes behind in the car, then circled around the ruptured concrete plinth and tramped into the woods beyond.

  The trees were straggly and sparse, the vegetation dry as tinder. After no more than thirty metres, the land fell away into a shallow compression that might once have been a stream but was now little more than a bramble-choked trough. Then the bank rose up again, the trees began to clear and Lloyd pushed aside branches and briars until she found herself on a neat lawn that led towards the rear of another 1930s semi.

  A half-glazed door swung open and a slim, dark-haired woman leaned her hip against the frame. Fiona Grainger was early forties, barefooted, dressed in leggings and a denim smock that was flecked with dried paint, as were her hands and cheeks. Lloyd had been invited into her studio once. It was a white, light-filled space in a converted room in the attic, filled with easels and canvases and the reek of oils and turps.

  Fiona waited until Lloyd had stepped on to her patio before saying, ‘I was wondering when you’d come. I saw the television.’