by Huw Thomas
‘What about her family?’
‘Dunno.’ Tony shrugged. He tugged at one earlobe; a little giveaway that Rebecca knew meant he was more bothered than his manner suggested. ‘I don’t think they’re local. I guess the cops will be looking into that. If they haven’t heard from her either, I don’t reckon it’s looking good.’
Brendan appeared in the lounge door. He looked uneasy. ‘Would that be Louise Brent you’re talking about?’
Tony nodded. ‘Yeah. Why? You got any idea where she’s got to?’
Brendan shook his head quickly. ‘Me? No. I haven’t seen her since Monday. I just couldn’t help hearing some of what you were saying. It’s all a wee bit worrying. Tuesday night she went missing was it?’
‘That’s right.’
Rebecca watched the photographer. He looked bothered, as if attempting to work something out, trying to decide what to say. Beside her, Tony started to open the door.
‘What’s up, Brendan?’ she asked.
His face screwed up into an awkward twist. ‘Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing,’ he said, glancing away to look down the hall. ‘It’s just been a strange week, what with Danny getting run down and… all that.’
Tony stopped and glanced back at Brendan. He gave the photographer a sharp stare. ‘All what?’ he demanded.
Brendan’s eyes widened. ‘Oh nothing,’ he said hastily. ‘Only it crossed my mind that Danny might have run into her. Me an’ him met up with Rebecca here on Tuesday night. We were down the White Lion until quite late. I walked a little way back to Danny’s place with him but we went our own way down near the far end of Station Road.’
Tony snorted, losing interest. ‘What? And you reckon Louise might have bumped into Danny and run off with him? I don’t think so. They weren’t exactly the best of friends.’
He shook his head and gave Rebecca a parting peck on the cheek. ‘Well, it’s been simply super fun, darling, but please don’t invite me next time you want a fucking boyfriend checked out. I’m off.’
With that he was out of the door and down the steps, striding away quickly as he headed towards his car and escape. Brendan made to follow him but Rebecca grabbed his collar and steered him back inside. ‘Not you. Sarah’s leaving but you and me are going to talk.’
32. Watching The Detectives
Thursday, 9.20pm:
Cole scowled at the sheets of paper on his desk and pushed them to one side. The man employed to watch John Harrison seemed to have done a thorough job but the report contained nothing new. The city councillor was pulling the strings for various property deals and oiling the wheels of a few shadier activities but that would appear to be it; business as normal for a politician on the make.
Similar surveillance had been organised on several other figures operating around the fringes of the city’s underworld. Cole had not expected to learn anything new but still found the absence of information frustrating. Some people were outside his reach, the kind of individuals no investigator with sense would want to be caught watching. But there were also those he had no way of knowing even existed: the lone wolves and random operators whose actions were as unpredictable as their motives.
Cole flexed his shoulders, feeling the tension. His body was telling him he needed a good workout but his mind was in no mood to relax. Starved of new information it was recycling the old: putting together new combinations, testing alternative calculations, trying to come up with a solution to the unknowable. The occasional tensing of the ex-dancer’s hands and a small tic at his left temple provided the only clues to his agitation. On the surface he appeared calm but the anger was bubbling away underneath. He needed a way to vent his frustration but that would only come when he had something on which to work: information that would allow him to plot his course of action.
He picked up a pen and put it down again. He picked up the papers on his desk and shuffled them together before putting them back. The screensaver was running on his laptop: muted streaks of colour flowing across the screen in abstract whorls. Cole flicked the mouse button to bring the machine to life. He looked at the screen blankly then hit the keys to shut the laptop down.
He had picked up his diary and was flicking through the pages when the phone on his desk rang. Cole snatched it out of the cradle before it could ring a second time. ‘Yes.’
‘Mr Cole: someone here who would like to see you.’
‘Hold on.’ Cole reached across and jabbed a finger at the power button on a small monitor to the side of his desk. The image that appeared showed the entrance to the fitness studio. A single man stood in front of the studio’s reception counter.
Cole’s eyes widened a fraction. ‘Well, well. Okay, send him up.’
‘Anything else, Mr Cole?’
‘No, that’s fine. I’ll give you a call if I need any assistance.’
Cole turned in his padded chair and waited. The fingers of his left hand drummed slowly on the arm of the chair.
A couple of minutes later the door opened. It closed behind the visitor as he entered the room. The man looked hesitant and glanced around as if to check whether there was anyone else present.
‘So. Mr Harper.’ Cole stood up and padded across the room’s soft carpet. The ex-dancer was barefoot, wearing a loose pair of trousers and tight-fitting t-shirt.
Harper watched Cole as he approached. The redhead moved like a man already limbered up for action. The taut shirt also highlighted the defined musculature of the smaller man’s upper torso.
Cole stopped a few feet away; not too close but easy enough range for a punch or a kick. Harper could see the gentle rise and fall of the other man’s chest, and the way the tendons in his arms stood out. He wondered again at the wisdom of coming back to the scene of last night’s interrogation. Cole’s eyes flicked up and down Harper then back to his face. ‘Well. Didn’t expect to see you again, Mr Harper.’
Harper shrugged awkwardly. ‘I hadn’t planned it myself. But I didn’t tell you everything yesterday.’
Cole raised his eyebrows then nodded. He gestured to the sofa beside his desk. ‘Since you’re here… have a seat. Tell me about it.’
‘Thanks.’ Harper moved cautiously towards the sofa, reluctant to sit but realising it would seem suspicious to refuse the offer. He lowered himself onto the leather, which creaked beneath him. Unaware he was doing it, he placed one hand on the sofa’s curved steel arm: ready to push himself up again at a moment’s notice.
Cole went back to the chair at his desk. He sat down and swivelled round to face Harper, crossing one leg across his lap and putting his hands behind his head: a motion that pulled his shirt even tighter and flexed the muscles of his arms. ‘So?’
‘I… might be able to help you?’
‘Really?’
Harper took a deep breath. ‘Last night. When you were… asking questions.’
‘Yes?’
‘I… I’ve been… under a bit of stress. I’d had a bit to drink last night too. I wasn’t thinking clearly when I went to your sister’s place.’ He looked apologetic. ‘I know it was stupid. I hadn’t thought it through.
Cole waved one hand. ‘Look. I don’ need no bleedin’ apology. Just get to the point. Why are you here?’
Harper nodded. ‘Sure, sorry. The thing is, when you were asking what I was up to, I didn’t know who you were or why you were interested in Stacey Cole. That’s one reason I wasn’t sure what to say.’
Cole nodded curtly. ‘Go on.’
Harper’s gaze dropped to the floor. He was silent for a moment then looked back up at Cole. ‘She was… she’s your sister, right?’
The ex-dancer’s eyes narrowed. He stared hard at Harper for a moment: looking as if he was making some difficult calculations, rocking slightly in his chair. Eventually he nodded. ‘Yeah. She’s my sister.’
‘Is she missing?’
Cole started to rise from his chair but stopped part way. ‘Yes. She is… missing.’ The words were angry and sounded as if they had been dragged
out against his will. A vein began pulsing on his left temple and the redhead gripped the sides of his chair with white knuckles; he looked as if on a hair trigger, ready to explode across the room without further notice.
Harper recognised the tension in Cole’s posture. He nodded quickly and raised his hands in an appeasing gesture. ‘Look, I don’t know anything about that as such. I don’t know what happened to her or where she’s got to.’
Cole went still. ‘How do you know anythin’ has “happened” to her?’
‘I don’t,’ said Harper. He shrugged. ‘In all honesty, I’ve got no idea what’s happened to your sister. If anything has,’ he added quickly. ‘But the fact that she’s disappeared…’
Cole’s face flushed. He jumped to his feet, stopping Harper’s words in mid flow. The other man stared at Harper then turned and paced across to the windows looking down onto the dance studio. He took a couple of deep breaths. ‘So. What are you tryin’ to tell me, Mr Harper?’
Harper breathed out. ‘Like I said, I’ve been working on a story. That’s why I went to see your sister. The thing is: I didn’t tell you what it was about.’
‘And you’re goin’ to tell me.’
‘Yes. That’s right. Well…’
Cole was still staring through the glass, apparently concentrating on whatever was happening in the dance class below. His shoulders tensed as Harper hesitated. ‘Don’t go coy on me, Mr Harper. You’ve got me intrigued. I think you should get on with it and tell me what it’s all about.’
‘Yeah. Sorry.’ Harper looked at the distance between his sofa and the door. ‘Er... Do you know what Stacey did for a living?’
Cole span round. He spat out a gasp of high-pitched laughter as he saw Harper’s face. ‘Is that why you’re so fuckin’ tongue-tied? You’re worried you’re going to tell me somethin’ about my little sister I’d rather not hear?’
‘Well…’ Harper waved his hands. ‘I don’t know.’
Cole grinned wildly. ‘Fuck! Don’t worry about that. I know what Stace and her friends did for a livin’. Call it what you want but, yeah, I know. So, just get to the point for Chrissake!’
Harper nodded quickly. ‘Okay. Well. I’ve been following up some stories I’d heard about women going missing.’
‘Missin’?’
‘Yeah. Mostly women… like your sister.’
‘Where’d you hear this?’
‘A few places. Bits and pieces. That’s why I was trying to find out more. I didn’t have enough for a story for the paper. All I had was a few rumours. Stories about women who’d vanished.’
‘Vanished?’
Harper nodded. ‘Yeah, just disappeared. No one saw them go and I’ve not heard any reports of bodies being found or anything like that. No stories of anyone being attacked. Just women who were around one day and then disappeared. But without taking anything with them.’
‘How many?’
Harper looked awkward. ‘I’m not sure. A lot of stuff was hearsay. Some of the stories might even be about the same person. I’m not sure how many. Maybe four or five, maybe several times that number.’
‘When?’
‘When?’
‘Yeah. When did they go? Last week, last month, last year? What sort of time period are you talkin’ about?’
Harper hesitated. He swallowed. He was not used to telling a story on the hoof when he only knew a few of the facts and was uncertain which ones would fit the version being spun. ‘I’m not certain. I only heard about it recently. A few weeks ago. But I think some might go back a while.’
Cole was silent, staring into space. Harper shuffled on the leather sofa, watching the other man. Eventually the redhead turned to look at Harper again. ‘So where’d you hear these stories then?’
Harper swallowed. This was the hardest one. He shrugged: desperate to appear casual. ‘A few different places,’ he said. ‘I think I first heard it from one of the other journalists on the paper; she’d got it from a source. Then I was on a job around Union Road one night. I was looking for witnesses to a robbery and I got talking to this streetwalker. She hadn’t seen the robbery but when she knew I was a reporter she started going on about nowhere being safe and telling me about a friend who vanished. After that, I picked up a couple more rumours. Like I said, nothing concrete but it seemed like it was starting to add together.’
Cole nodded slowly. ‘You say anythin’ to the police?’
‘No.’ Harper shook his head. ‘Not in the sense of reporting it. I did ask a couple of coppers whether they knew anything. One of them had heard the same sort of rumours but I get the impression the police haven’t got enough to go on to make them take it seriously.’
Cole grunted. ‘That would be about right,’ he said, talking as much to himself as to Harper.
‘There’s something else though.’
‘What’s that?’
Harper scratched his chin nervously. ‘Well, because I’d heard the same rumours in a few places, I started digging around. Which was why I’d gone to try and talk to your sister. I’d asked a few other people already. The police, like I said. I also asked this other journalist if they knew anything else.’
‘And?’
‘Well, they gave me a name. Apparently this person may be connected somehow with the women who’ve gone missing.’
Cole stared hard at Harper. ‘And?’
‘Isaiah Van Hulle.’
‘The developer?’
‘Apparently. I don’t know how they’ve got his name or what the evidence is but they seemed certain about it.’
‘And you don’t know who this source is?’
‘No.’
‘And why should I trust you, Mr Harper?’
Harper shrugged. It was a fair question but not one to which he could risk giving an honest answer. He swallowed dryly. ‘Because I’ve got no reason to lie,’ he said. ‘Because I want this person caught too. I’d like a story for the newspaper but I also want them caught. And if the police aren’t doing anything about it, I thought someone like you might be able to think of something.’
33. Whispers In The Night
Thursday, 10.05pm:
Rebecca sat alone. Outside, rain coursed down the windowpanes. She watched the moving threads of water. On the surface her mind was blank: an empty, unruffled sheet. The whirling emotions had been cleared out of the way and locked down.
She had turned off the light earlier. It was darker in the room now than outside. Streaks of yellow, orange and red light ebbed and flowed as rain ran down the window. The water magnified the colours from the street in little bubbles of distortion. The rain was soft: pattering rather than hammering. Its steady wash suited her mood.
The day had not gone well.
Despite the hangover following the night of laying her soul bare to Cash, Thursday had begun with promise. First came Harper’s sudden arrival and the unexpected embrace that followed. An unspoken intimacy grew on their walk around the grounds of Haworth Manor — broken only by Sarah’s phone call.
When she left the manor, Rebecca was still feeling oddly buoyed: her contentment not built on anything tangible, more a sensation of something being right.
Shortly after midday, though, she had finally summoned the courage to go and see Claire Hamilton; to tell her she was quitting to go and work for Paul Cash. The experience proved highly unpleasant. Rebecca had planned a diplomatic farewell and discrete withdrawal. But the meeting soon descended into bitter acrimony.
The rant that erupted from Claire Hamilton had gone far beyond any of the tirades that previously echoed around the PR firm’s offices. In the end, Rebecca just walked out. She did not dare meet anyone’s eye, thankful she had already cleared her desk of personal items. Only in the relative privacy of the stairwell did she allow herself to cry; the tears as much from anger as hurt.
Failing to get hold of Sarah, Danny or Paul Cash on the phone after escaping Westcote House, Rebecca took herself for a long walk, trying to work the anger out
of her system. The morning’s good mood proved elusive though. In the city centre she picked up a sandwich and stopped for a while in a bookshop. But, despite an hour spent browsing, Rebecca was unable to find anything that caught her imagination. By the time she got home it was drizzling. Feeling as damp and depressed as the weather, she had collapsed onto her sofa with a cup of tea. She was still there when Tony knocked on the door.
The four-way conference that followed did nothing to improve Rebecca’s mood. She had felt ambushed and outmanoeuvred. Part of her knew she should not be angry. Sarah was acting out of true friendship: doing what she thought necessary to protect Rebecca even if that meant upsetting her.
Rebecca realised she took things too far with her own attack on Sarah. But she ignored any feelings of guilt. A more belligerent part of her felt betrayed. It was a sneaky trap and the way it was sprung rankled.
It was not as if Sarah’s actions had left things any clearer. Although Tony’s reaction was more positive than expected, Rebecca’s later conversation with Brendan failed to shed more light on Danny Harper, his personality — or the truth of his story. The photographer had not been particularly forthcoming. Rebecca was unsure why. Maybe because Brendan did not really know her or that he simply did not know what to say. If anything, though, the waters were muddier than ever and Rebecca nowhere nearer to understanding Danny or his story.
She sighed. It was only on Tuesday, two nights earlier, that she was tricked into going to the White Lion. She had spent much of Wednesday digesting his story, trying to work out if it was pure fabrication or something more fantastic. On the face of it, the whole concept was preposterous. There remained, however, the unavoidable aspect of Danny Harper’s intimate and unexplainable knowledge. And, as the hours passed, the growing realisation that something about the man drew her to him.