by Chris Ewan
‘Uh-oh.’ Hanson looked up from his phone. ‘There’s a bull-fighting festival going on. Pedestrian access only.’
‘So what do we do?’
‘We walk in,’ Becca said.
‘All of us? Isn’t that a bit risky?’
Kate was thinking of Miller’s instructions. He’d been very clear about only getting out of the car if she was sure it was safe.
‘Hanson can stay here. If we need to leave in a hurry, he can pick us up.’
‘I’ll guide you in.’ He pecked at his laptop keyboard. ‘I’ve called up a map. Stay on your mobile and I can track your movements.’
‘Neat idea.’ Becca plucked the satnav from its cradle on the dash and shoved open her door. ‘But I think somebody already invented just the tool we need. Sit tight, kiddo. Leave this one to us.’
*
Mike Renner’s legs ached and his feet were hot and swollen inside his loafers. He’d spent hours already going from bar to bar, shop to shop, growing sweatier, more frustrated. He was carrying a photograph he’d printed from one of the few news articles he’d been able to find online about the killings of the crew of an executive jet in Ukraine. He’d shown the photograph to hundreds of people, shouting over music, being jostled and pushed, asking if anyone recognised the man and the little girl being hugged by the smiling stewardess.
Nobody did. Nobody cared. And now Renner had an overwhelming need for space, for air. He wanted to be in a place where he wasn’t being bumped into constantly, where people didn’t dance around him or spill beer on his clothes.
Arles wasn’t a big place, yet Renner felt like he’d walked every inch of it twice already. Surely an Englishman and his daughter would stand out. They’d be memorable. Which worried him. Because what if he’d screwed up by running with Wade’s plan? What if the information on the iPad had been a plant and Adams had sent them off on a fool’s errand?
From what Renner had come to know of Adams these past few years, it was the type of stunt he was capable of pulling off. But was it likely? He had no way of telling. The only thing he was sure of was that his patience was running low, his persistence dwindling. He was almost ready to quit. He wanted out of this cramped town, the whole place feeling to him like one big closed fist, squeezing and crushing him.
A street stall lay ahead, selling freshly squeezed lemonade in plastic cups burrowed deep in trays of chipped ice. There was no queue. Everyone else seemed too busy getting drunk.
Renner removed his sun hat as he approached, longing to grab a handful of ice and clamp it to his neck. He nodded at one of the young men running the stall – a muscular guy with curly brown hair and a deep tan who looked like a surfer or a climber – and set his hat to one side, propping the photograph on its brim.
The young man glanced at the image, then glanced again. His face brightened and he asked Renner in broken English how he knew Peter and Emily.
‘Pete’s a friend of mine,’ Renner said, smiling himself now. ‘Emily’s precious, isn’t she?’
The young man nodded eagerly and smiled some more as Renner reached into his back pocket to remove the crumpled map of Arles he’d picked up at the bus station.
‘Maybe you can help me? We’re meant to be meeting, but I’ve lost their address. Can you show me where they live?’
Chapter Forty-Eight
Kate ducked beneath an archway running through the old town walls and joined a throng of people hemmed in tight between the jumble of tilted houses. Above her, more people were leaning out of windows, drinking, smoking and laughing. Dusk had fallen.
Becca bumped into her from behind, turning the satnav in her hands, the screen glowing brightly in the dim. She’d muted the voice instructions but the device still drew attention to them in a way Kate didn’t like.
‘OK,’ Becca said, beginning to move. ‘So we basically need to head the same way as everyone else.’
‘It’s massively crowded.’
‘Good for cover.’
Kate skipped after her. ‘I really wish we’d heard from Miller.’
‘Don’t worry. He gets this way sometimes. He’ll be in touch.’
Would he? When? Kate wanted to hear his voice and felt foolish for it. What could he possibly say to reassure her? He was hundreds of miles away, and he had other concerns that were more pressing than her.
The confined street was alive with people and talk and laughter. The crowds thickened and slowed, the street widening into a cramped square where a makeshift bodega had been constructed amid some lime trees and a brightly lit fountain.
‘Head for the hotel,’ Becca shouted.
‘What hotel?’
‘Over there.’
She pointed towards a canvas awning outside a hotel terrace on the far side of the square, gas lamps flickering around it, and Kate wrestled her way forwards.
By the time she got close, Becca was moving again, waving towards a distant street, and Kate floundered after her until they were within sight of the central Roman amphitheatre, its dun stone walls being strafed by the coloured beams of a son et lumière.
Blood-red banners were draped from stone buttresses and street lamps, all of them featuring snarling black bulls. The queue to get inside the arena was closer to a scrum and Kate, who’d lost sight of Becca, twirled madly around before she finally glimpsed her standing on tip-toes and waving from beneath a stone colonnade.
‘This is nuts,’ she said, pushing her way through to her.
‘It’s not far now. See for yourself.’
Kate took the satnav until she could see the circular icon that was tracking their progress and the checked black-and-white flag that marked their destination. Becca was right, they were close, but it took another twenty minutes of shoving and weaving to force their way through to the correct street, by which time it was almost full dark.
The alleyway was thin and forgotten, the sandstone walls of the buildings that pressed in and towered over them scuffed from the bumpers of passing vehicles, reminding Kate sickeningly of Rome and of Christine. The way ahead seemed strangely hushed and they walked forwards in silence, scanning the blown-plaster walls and paint-flaked doors, until Becca spotted the right address.
The house was a terraced building faced in pale, unfinished stone, the front wall bulging in the middle, supported by a metal brace. The number 17 had been drawn over the hardwood door in marker pen.
Kate stepped back and looked up. The windows were in darkness, the wooden shutters pulled closed upstairs. She checked the street both ways but the only movement was the play of coloured lights from the direction of the amphitheatre.
‘Should I knock?’ she asked Becca.
‘It’s why we’re here, isn’t it?’
So Kate rapped her fist on the timber. No response. She looked at Becca, then beyond her at the empty alley again. She knocked a second time, a little quieter.
‘Maybe they’re asleep,’ Becca whispered.
Kate nodded, but a bolus of fear was rising in her throat. She didn’t like the unnatural silence in this lonely street. She didn’t like the darkness. And she especially didn’t like the memory that flashed through her mind, unbidden, of stepping inside Clive’s apartment back in Hamburg, of the dread she’d experienced, knowing that something terrible had occurred within those walls.
Miller had told her that Emily was only four years old, so it was possible she was asleep in bed. But that didn’t account for Pete not answering.
Could one of Lane’s men be on the other side of the door, listening? Or had he been and gone already? Was that why there was no answer?
A crooked sash window was fitted into the wall to the side of the door and Kate swallowed dryly as she took a step towards it. She peered inside, seeing nothing but blackness, and tapped a nail on the glass.
‘Try opening it,’ Becca said.
Which Kate thought was a fine suggestion to make, coming from someone who was safely off to one side. But she braced the heels of both hands under t
he frame, took a breath, and pushed. And . . . nothing.
‘OK. Stand aside.’
Becca barged her out of the way, hopping on one foot, removing her shoe. She held the shoe by the toe, the heel jutting outwards, and then she covered her face with her free arm and whipped the shoe back behind her shoulder.
‘Je peux vous aider?’
Becca shortened her swing just in time, bringing her shoe up shy of the glass. She whirled round and stared up with Kate to where a middle-aged woman was hanging out of a neighbouring window, her hair wet and knotted, a towel draped over her shoulders.
‘We’re looking for our friends,’ Kate said. ‘They told us to meet them here.’
‘Là-bas.’ The woman smiled, perhaps thinking they were tipsy, and pointed down the street. ‘Dans le parc.’ And, when Kate hesitated, she repeated the instruction. ‘Le parc.’
Still Kate didn’t move. She was thinking about asking the woman for more information. It was possible that she’d seen one of Lane’s men come here before them. It was possible she’d talked to them or offered them directions, too. But Becca had already slipped her shoe back on and was tottering off down the lane, so Kate waved her thanks and rushed to catch up.
The alley followed a long, tight curve, and Kate glanced back over her shoulder before the house was completely out of sight. There was no sign of anybody tracking them but she couldn’t escape the sensation of being watched. Paranoia, she told herself. It was an understandable reaction to everything she’d been through.
It struck her then, with sudden force, that this would be her life from now on. A life of constant anxiety and nerves, of being watchful and cautious, of having to always choose doubt instead of trust. Connor Lane had done this to her, just as he’d done the same and worse to Miller, and just as someone unknown to her had scared Peter Kent so badly that he’d been forced to sweep up his daughter and flee.
She quickened her pace, feet skipping over the cobblestones, Becca cursing her heels as she fell behind. And then there Kate was, abruptly and without warning, bursting in upon a scene of such simple beauty that she stopped on the spot.
A park, the woman had called it, but this was something far more magical. Kate could see a roundabout and a swing, a rusted old climbing frame and a wooden bench on a square of dusty soil. Fairy lights and paper lanterns had been strung up around the area, dangling from walls and laundry lines, twirled around the frame of the climbing equipment and laced through the umbrella branches of a lone Aleppo pine. The glow was soft and welcoming, the air laced with the sweet, smoky scent of barbecue.
Twenty or so people were gathered together; a collection of adults and children of various ages.
Miller had shown Kate a photograph of Pete and Emily on his phone the previous night. If she closed her eyes, she could still conjure up the image. In it Pete was sunburnt with chapped lips. He had a broad build, black curly hair and a startled look in his eyes. His daughter, Emily, was sitting on his shoulders. She had a gapped-tooth smile and a head of corkscrew blonde locks and she was wearing a Peppa Pig T-shirt over pink shorts, her knees skinned and grimy. Kate had studied the shot for a long time. She’d absorbed every detail of it.
But she didn’t need it now.
Pete must have sensed something in Kate’s bearing, or perhaps the way she stopped short and stared, because he reacted right away, swooping down to hoist Emily from the picnic blanket she was sitting on, cradling her in his arms, even before Becca had caught up to them, raising her hand, out of breath.
Kate found that she couldn’t move or look away. She was transfixed by Pete’s darkly gleaming eyes, by the worry and the knowing brimming over in them.
She shook her head and whispered, ‘You don’t know who I am.’
‘It’s OK.’ Pete swallowed hard as Emily burrowed her face into his chest. ‘Tonight was too perfect, anyway. I should have known.’
‘We’re so sorry,’ Becca told him.
‘How long do we have?’
‘No time at all. You need to come with us right now.’
Chapter Forty-Nine
Jennifer Lloyd waited in the car park of a motorway services just south of Lancaster. There was still no sign of Young or Foster, and no missed calls or messages on her phone. Squeezing hard on the squash ball in her hand, she flipped open the Manila file on the passenger seat and dialled a number she’d scrawled at the bottom of the inside cover.
Lloyd was prepared to leave a message. It was mid-evening and she didn’t expect anyone to pick up. But to her surprise a woman answered in a tired, end-of-the-day tone.
‘Manchester Coroner’s Office.’
Lloyd gave the woman her name and rank and told her that she’d like to make an appointment to speak with Thomas McGuintyre, Her Majesty’s Senior Coroner, early the following morning. She kept an eye out of the windscreen as she spoke, wondering if Young and Foster had decided to skip their meeting altogether, feeling her resentment fester and build.
‘So would I, Detective Sergeant, believe me. But I’m afraid Tom’s no longer with us. He suffered a stroke last year and died a month later. I certified his death myself. I’m Julia Summerhayes, Tom’s replacement.’
Lloyd muttered condolences, thrown for a moment. ‘Perhaps you can help me? I have a question related to an old file he signed off on. Sarah and Melanie Adams. They were a mother and daughter who were shot inside their home just over four years ago. Their bodies were burned.’
‘I remember. Tom was very affected by it. I was an assistant coroner at the time. What is it you wanted to know?’
Lloyd paused, trying to decide on her best approach.
‘Am I right in thinking that the relatives of a victim have the right to request a copy of the coroner’s findings, if they so wish?’
‘They can, in theory. But in my experience it’s not very often that anybody does.’
‘Did anybody in this case?’
‘Forgive me,’ the coroner said, ‘but am I to assume this is related to the police appeal that’s been in the news? If you’re wondering if Nick Adams requested the file because it might somehow lead you to him, I have to tell you that’s highly unlikely.’
It was precisely what Lloyd had been hoping, though it bothered her to have the idea shot down so fast.
‘It’s one of several avenues we’d like to explore.’
‘I see. And no doubt you’ll tell me this is urgent.’
‘Top priority.’
‘Then let me try to catch my assistant before he leaves for the day. Is this the best number to call you back on?’
Lloyd said that it was, then lowered her phone and scanned the car park once more, looking towards the lighted canopy of the petrol station and a Travelodge where she felt pretty sure she’d be spending the night. Her eyes swept back again and this time she caught sight of John Young holding open a door at the entrance of the services for Nadine Foster to pass through.
Lloyd shut the file, locked her car and caught up to them at a table in the buffet cafeteria. Young was sprinkling salt over a plate of pie and chips, his silk tie dangling towards a smear of ketchup. Foster was clutching a mug of mint tea.
Lloyd searched Foster’s face as she dropped into a seat across from her but Foster kept her expression neutral, waiting until Young was shovelling chips into his mouth before scowling in warning and shaking her head. Lloyd took the gesture to mean that Foster hadn’t yet found anything to suggest that Kate Sutherland’s file had been accessed in a suspicious manner, nor that the information on her whereabouts in the Isle of Man had been sold by a member of the team. She also took it to mean that Foster didn’t want her to mention her suspicions in front of Young.
So maybe, Lloyd thought, their system had been hacked by somebody on the outside – the same somebody, possibly, with the ability to erase border-control flags and doctor the passenger manifests of international airlines.
‘Nice place, Lloyd,’ Foster muttered, tucking her elbows into her body as if she fe
ared contamination.
Young looked up from his plate. ‘The food’s OK. You should eat. We won’t be back in London until late.’
‘Was this even necessary?’
Lloyd shrugged. ‘We were all in the same area and I’m going to be stuck here for another couple of days, at least. How did it go with Lane?’
Foster pushed her mouth to one side without saying anything. Young grunted.
‘That well, huh?’
‘His lawyer was a right pain in the arse.’
‘Did Lane answer any questions?’
‘He told us his only connection to the Isle of Man is some offshore accounts he holds. Rich bastard. You should see his house.’
‘And what about hired help? Have any of them taken a trip to the island recently?’
‘That was one of the questions he couldn’t answer.’
‘Shocking.’
Young and Foster shared a look. It was the kind of look Lloyd was used to people sharing around her. She imagined they were going to devote quite some time to bitching about her on their drive back south.
‘I may have something,’ she said, feeling suddenly nervous. ‘Anna Brooks. I think it’s possible Nick Adams could have helped her to hide from Lane.’
Young stared at her, a forkful of pie halfway to his lips. ‘And this is the same Nick Adams you think is a killer.’
‘If I’m right and we can find Anna—’
‘Then maybe we can find Adams, too,’ Foster said.
Lloyd nodded, waiting in silence as Foster looked at Young again. Finally, Young sighed and set his knife and fork down on the table.
‘All right.’ He wiped his lips with his fingers. ‘I’ll bite. How do we find Anna Brooks? Another media appeal? I can’t see that going over too well with Commissioner Bennett.’
‘Epilepsy,’ Lloyd replied.