by Chris Ewan
The bag would have to look different to the Peppa Pig knapsack on the hook behind the front door. They couldn’t ever be confused. The knapsack was there for emergencies only. It contained everything Emily needed if they ever had to leave in a hurry – her passport (as well as Pete’s), spare clothes, a double of her favourite teddy bear, a photograph of her mother. It was the last thing Pete saw whenever they left the house and the first thing he checked when they got home. It was a constant reminder of their very particular situation. As if he could ever forget.
He’d been lonely to begin with. Life in Arles had been tougher than he could have believed. But in the past year, things had begun to improve. They’d made friends, so there were people he could talk to. His broken French was getting better and he was starting to find that he could even think in French sometimes, without that awkward delay while he translated in his own mind what it was he needed to say.
He still missed home and family. He still missed talking with his friends back in England and he didn’t imagine that would change. There were no phones in the house whatsoever. Not a landline. Not a mobile. It was a safety precaution insisted on by Miller, but one he was more than willing to comply with, since it was a mobile phone that had led them to their life here in Arles in the first place.
You’ll never guess who I’ve just seen on this flight. Seriously weird! Will call soon x.
That was the last text Pete ever received from his wife, Zoe. As far as he knew, it was the last message Emily’s mother sent out into the world.
Zoe had worked as a stewardess for a company that leased executive jets. Over the years, she’d flown with pop stars, with movie stars, with high-profile businessmen and wealthy families.
Normally, there were only three staff on any flight – Zoe, the pilot and the co-pilot. Zoe handled everything inside the passenger cabin. She served the drinks and the meals. She chatted with the clients if it seemed appropriate to do so or kept her distance if not. She was good at her job. She was professional and charming and she was always beautifully dressed and made up.
Perhaps too beautifully. That had bothered Pete a little. They’d married young, when Zoe had worked as cabin crew for a long-haul carrier and Pete had been starting out in air traffic control. He knew she loved her new job, that she was caught up in the glamour of it, and he’d been nervous about how she might react if one of her rich clients made a move.
Which should have been the least of his concerns. Because it turned out it wasn’t only famous or wealthy people who hired executive jets. It was also people who needed to travel from country to country without ever being seen.
Pete never did guess who was on that flight. Zoe never had the chance to tell him. And he was certain it wasn’t anything he ever wanted to know.
Zoe had been found in the toilet compartment of the jet by a ground crew at a remote airport on the eastern fringes of Ukraine. Her throat had been cut. The pilot and co-pilot had been shot through the back of the head, still strapped in their chairs.
Wallets, ID, jewellery and phones had been taken from all three of them. The phones included the mobile Zoe had texted Pete on shortly after they’d landed, in all likelihood just moments before she was killed.
The first he knew of her death was when the police showed up at the airport control tower in Manchester and ushered him into a side room. Later that night, when Emily was finally asleep and the family liaison officer had hugged him and left with a promise to return first thing in the morning, there was a knock on his back door and he met Nick Miller for the first time. Miller knew about Zoe and he knew about the text. He said he even knew who her mystery passenger had been.
The text was a big problem, he told Pete. It was as good as a death sentence for him and anyone he might have spoken to that day. Miller claimed that the British security services had colluded in the flight out of Manchester. He had images on an iPad that proved to Pete that the family liaison officer he’d just hugged wasn’t a police officer at all. Miller said that he and Emily were in great danger and that there wasn’t anyone Pete could turn to. Except for him.
And so Pete had. Because he believed what Miller had told him. Because he was afraid for himself and for Emily. Emily had lost one parent in bizarre circumstances already and he couldn’t handle the idea that she might lose them both.
So now here they were, coming up for a year later, living in Arles; alive, adjusting, about to begin a new day.
Chapter Forty-Five
Kate’s plane landed at Marseilles in the flat blue light of late afternoon, her nerves shaken by the unscheduled delay to her flight and too much bitter airline coffee. Inside the terminal building, she stood in line and waited to be beckoned forwards by a bored-looking passport official behind a scratched glass cubicle, where she handed over her new passport (now in the name Kate Edwards) and waited for what felt like several seconds too long as her face and her credentials were studied before she was finally acknowledged and waved on through.
She had no luggage to collect and no time to waste, so once she’d exited the airport building she veered away from the lines of dawdling tourists and shuffling taxis to hop on a transit bus out to the vast hire car collection point. The white Hyundai saloon that Hanson had reserved for her was parked out front of the Avis building with a child-safety seat already fitted in the back. Kate signed for it with her fake signature, handing over her false passport and driving licence for verification and copying. Then she scooped up the Hyundai’s keys and sped away from the depot, rejoining the slip road to the airport and swooping into the drop-off zone outside of Departures.
Hanson and Becca were waiting for her there, standing together beside a revolving glass door, looking tired and frazzled. Hanson clambered into the rear of the Hyundai, dragging his laptop bag and cloth satchel behind him, while Becca popped the boot and stowed her carry-on suitcase before hurrying round and joining Kate in the front.
‘Any problems?’ she asked.
‘None. You?’
‘Only the embarrassment of watching Hanson try to charm the stewardess. Let’s go.’
Kate pulled out from the kerb and accelerated away, watching her mirrors even though logic told her they couldn’t have been followed because they were the ones playing catch-up.
She noticed that Hanson had opened his laptop and was poring over the screen.
‘Anything?’ she asked.
‘Still nothing. I’ve posted a new message on the forum. Maybe that’ll help.’
He didn’t sound like he believed it, which wasn’t surprising, because Kate didn’t believe it either. The way their day was going, it felt like everything was against them. Kate had been forced to wait at the airport in Rome until Becca and Hanson had arrived with her new ID documents shortly before mid-morning. They’d had an hour to kill before the next available flight to Marseilles, but that hour had soon become three because of a problem with the landing gear on their plane. They’d investigated other flights, talked of splitting up and trying alternative routes, but none of the options were simple or fast. So they’d waited, all the while asking themselves if they were too late already, if one of Lane’s men had beaten them to Pete and Emily.
At one point, in desperation, Kate had suggested contacting the local police in Arles, but Hanson had ruled it out. He said they had no credible way of explaining the threat Pete and Emily were facing without exposing them to even greater danger. Waiting was safer. They had to hold their nerve.
Tell that to Pete and Emily, Kate thought now, speeding north along the A7 autoroute, her window low, the warm wind ruffling her T-shirt and hair. Tell it to Clive.
Becca had called Miller’s mobile with the news at three in the morning. Clive hadn’t pulled through.
Miller had been silent for a long time, breathing heavily down the line, sitting up in bed, clutching his head, staring through the dark blue light towards the open window. Then he’d composed himself and told Becca to leave the hospital as soon as she could.
Clive’s death was a murder investigation now, he’d said, and as his self-declared sister, the police would want to speak with her in detail. It would be better for Becca to come to Rome with Hanson. Better for both of them to support Kate in Arles.
Then Miller had said how sorry he was, that Becca had made a difference to Clive in his last moments, and that because of that she’d also made a difference to him, too. He’d thanked her for it sincerely, and told her to stay strong, and then he’d hung up and walked through into the bathroom without another word.
Kate had stayed in bed, clutching the sheets around her, feeling a bewildering sense of loss and loneliness that had only grown worse when Miller had returned to the room and dressed quickly, pulling on his jeans and a shirt, sitting down on the side of the bed, resting a hand on her leg, telling her to be careful if she went ahead and travelled to Arles. He’d said she could still back out if she wanted. She didn’t have to go. But if she chose to commit to helping Pete and Emily, then she should drive directly to their house and only park up and approach if it seemed safe from the outside. If she spotted Renner or Wade, if she felt threatened or at risk, she should turn and go.
But of course, if she saw one of Lane’s men then in all likelihood they would have seen her, too. And even supposing she was able to get away, how could she run and abandon someone else to the terrible things that had been done to Clive and Christine?
Kate glanced over her shoulder at the child seat in the rear. A kid was caught up in this situation now and that made it so much worse than before. Without Miller she felt cast adrift and untethered, left to speed towards a situation that seemed too big and complex for her to handle.
She missed having him beside her. She missed the connection they shared, something genuine and kinetic that she’d experienced from the very first night he’d broken into her life. She’d trusted him because of what had happened afterwards, but she also knew that, deep down, part of her had wanted to believe in him from that very first encounter.
So was she driving to Arles to impress him, to act on some kind of dumb infatuation? Or was her motivation more noble than that?
Hard to tell. Impossible to know. But it seemed that she was doing it all the same. It seemed that she wouldn’t back out.
‘Something on your mind?’ Becca asked.
‘Just nervous. And feeling sad about Clive.’
‘Uh-huh. Because if it’s something else, Gadget Boy isn’t listening to us right now. He gets this way when he’s working on his laptop. It’s like he’s plugged into the Matrix or something. We can talk girl-to-girl.’
Kate kept her gaze on the asphalt and the traffic.
‘You got a piece of Miller, didn’t you? You guys finally hooked up.’
Kate didn’t respond.
‘Was it good? I bet it was hot. Last night, right? Rome. A strange hotel. Lots of emotions rolling around.’
‘Just so you know,’ Hanson spoke up, from the back, ‘I can hear you.’
‘Exactly how many times did you guys do it? More than once, right?’
‘Don’t answer that,’ Hanson said. ‘I don’t want images of Miller like that in my head. Seriously, if you answer that question I’m opening this door right now and rolling out.’
‘Relax,’ Kate told him. ‘Becca’s just fishing. And I’m not going to bite.’
She slowed and glided towards the toll station that lay ahead of them, Becca squinting at her forensically as she squirmed in her seat and dug in her pocket for some loose euro coins to toss into the machine. The barrier lifted and she pulled away, sliding up her window, her eyes flicking to Hanson in her mirror.
‘Miller’s wife,’ she said. ‘Sarah. He told me you help him because of her.’
‘He said that to you?’
‘He said I should ask you about it if I want to know more. So that’s what this is. I’m asking.’
Hanson blinked, the whites of his eyes red-tinged and magnified by the lenses of his spectacles. He tipped his head from side to side, weighing it up. Then he sucked on his lips and nodded.
‘Anna Brooks. I was like her once. Except I was one of the first kids Sarah helped at the Shelter. She took me in off the street. She talked with me, listened to me.’
‘I had no idea. I’d never have guessed.’
‘Because Sarah saved me, just like she saved hundreds of other kids. She set me straight. Gave me security, stability. She got me access to computers, even set me up with some advanced programming experience at local companies.’
‘And you feel like you owe her because of that.’
‘I do owe her. But honestly? I also owe the thousands of other kids who’ll never get to have what I had because of what Connor Lane took from them. The ones who’ll never meet Sarah.’
‘But Connor funded the Shelter. He still does.’
‘Sure. And he got a neat tax break from doing it, maybe some slaps on the back from politicians, people with influence. But Sarah was the one who made a real difference. To me, and to lots of kids like me. Russell Lane dishonoured that, but his brother? By killing Sarah he ripped the heart right out of that place.’
Becca reached back, touching Hanson’s leg, and he looked away for a moment, leaving Kate to stare ahead at the road, absorbing his words. She was closing fast on a line of trucks, getting ready to indicate and swing out to overtake. When she glanced at her mirror again, Hanson was waiting for her.
‘That’s why I understand what you gave up to be a part of this,’ he told her. ‘The search for your brother? Walking away from that link to your family? I get it, Kate. I do. I walked away from the same thing myself. But only because Sarah gave me a future. Because of her, Miller and Becca are the only family I need right now.’
Kate understood what he meant, but it wasn’t the same thing. Not really. She hadn’t chosen to leave her birth family behind. Her parents had left her. And as for Richard, she still hoped, deep down, to find her way to him some day. She wasn’t prepared to let go of that particular dream just yet. She doubted she ever would.
Chapter Forty-Six
Jennifer Lloyd got out of her car in front of a pebble-dashed bungalow in Lancaster, stepped over a garden hose and approached a balding man in a blue jumpsuit and rubber boots who was washing a small car.
‘Mr Brooks?’
Suds dripped from the sponge in his hand, splatting on the ground.
‘I’m DS Lloyd. I spoke with your wife. It’s about Anna.’
‘You’d best come in. Have some tea.’
The tea was as weak and lifeless as Mr and Mrs Brooks. Lloyd found herself sitting opposite them in a chintzy living room, snared by a silence as complete as any she’d ever known.
‘This is lovely, thank you.’ She raised her cup in the air.
The Brookses were almost completely still; their mouths tightly closed, skin puckered and drawn. A carriage clock ticked quietly on the mantelpiece, flanked by two framed photos of Anna in school uniform. She looked ten or eleven in one of the photographs. Perhaps a year or two older in the next. Her hair was frizzy, her chin speckled with pimples, her smile hesitant and gap-toothed.
‘You’re probably wondering why I’m here.’
Lloyd’s hosts didn’t say a word.
‘I know this might be painful but I hoped you might tell me about Anna. I’d like to try and find her.’
Their heads twitched and they looked at one another, eyes vague.
‘We don’t understand.’ Mrs Brooks’s voice was tight and waspish. ‘Is she in trouble?’
‘That’s not why I’m here. I’d just like to find her and make sure that she’s safe.’
And I’d like to know if Nick Adams is hiding her. I’d like to know if she could tell me where I might find him.
‘We haven’t seen Anna since the day after her fifteenth birthday.’ Mr Brooks’s tone was neutral, his gaze unfocussed. ‘Not since she ran away.’
‘When was the last time you heard from her?’
‘She n
ever got in touch. We only know what happened in Manchester because of the papers. And because of the police officers who came to talk to us afterwards.’
‘We tried speaking to her before then,’ Mrs Brooks added quietly. ‘We visited the shelter where she was staying before the trial, but she wouldn’t see us.’
‘What about the police officers who spoke with you after she left the shelter?’
‘They didn’t stay long. They told us there wasn’t much they could do. Anna was sixteen by then. She could go where she liked.’
Lloyd felt reduced by their words, shamed by their fatalism. Because the truth was that in the wake of the deaths of Sarah and Melanie Adams, none of her colleagues had made a concerted, co-ordinated effort to find Anna. Not even Lloyd.
And why? Because she was a runaway. Nobody had cared enough to wonder where she might have gone.
Except for her parents, probably. She guessed they worried about it every day.
‘I’m sorry.’ Lloyd set her cup aside, shuffling forwards in her chair and pressing her hands together. ‘But that was wrong. We were wrong. And I’d like to fix things, if I can. I’d like to be the one to help you find Anna. I’d like to try and make it so that you can talk to her again. But to do that, I need to ask you questions about her.’
Mr Brooks reached across for his wife’s hand.
‘Ask us then,’ he said. ‘Ask us anything you need to know.’
Chapter Forty-Seven
The plan changed when they reached Arles. It was evening, twilight fading rapidly, and Kate found that she couldn’t drive to Pete and Emily’s house because the walled town was closed to traffic, shut off by an endless sequence of metal barriers, plastic cones and uniformed police. She circled the outskirts, finding no way through, until eventually she pulled over by the banks of the Rhône river, cut the engine and cracked her window.
She could hear music – a fast, percussive beating of drums – mixed with boisterous clapping and shouts. On the far side of the patch of sandy earth where she’d parked, people were queuing in front of food vans serving pizza, paella, burgers and frites. Gaseous generators spewed noxious fumes into the warm dusk.