“Hello.”
I open my eyes. Darcy is standing in the kitchen, wearing a beanie, a denim jacket and patched jeans.
“How did you get here?”
“A friend brought me.”
I turn to the door and see Ruiz, rumpled, careworn, still wearing his rugby tie at half-mast.
“How are you doing, Joe?”
“Not so good.”
He shuffles closer. If he hugs me I’ll start to cry. Darcy does it for him, putting her arms around my neck and squeezing me from behind.
“I heard it on the radio,” she says. “Is it the same man—the one I met on the train?”
“Yes.”
She takes off her rainbow-colored gloves. Her cheeks are flushed with the change in temperature.
“How did you two find each other?” I ask.
Darcy glances at Ruiz. “I’ve sort of been staying with him.”
I look at the two of them in amazement.
“Since when?”
“Since I ran away.”
Then I remember the clothes in the dryer in Ruiz’s laundry; a tartan skirt in the wicker basket. I should have recognized it. Darcy was wearing it when she first turned up at the cottage.
I look at Ruiz. “You said your daughter was home.”
“She is,” he replies, shrugging away my anger as easily as he does his overcoat.
“Claire’s a dancer,” adds Darcy. “Did you know she trained with the Royal Ballet? She says there’s a special hardship scholarship for people like me. She’s going to help me apply.”
I’m not really listening to the substance of what she’s saying. I’m still waiting for Ruiz to explain.
“The kid needed a few days. I didn’t think there was any harm.”
“I was worried about her.”
“She’s not your concern.”
There’s an edge to the statement. I wonder how much he knows.
Darcy is still talking. “Vincent found my father. I met him. It was pretty weird, but OK. I thought he’d be better-looking, you know, taller or maybe famous, but he’s just an ordinary old guy. Normal. He’s a food importer. He brings in caviar. That’s fish eggs. He let me try some. Talk about gross. He said it tasted like ocean spray, I thought it tasted like shit.”
“Language,” says Ruiz. Darcy looks at him sheepishly.
Ruiz has taken a seat opposite me, placing his hands flat on the table. “I checked the guy out. Lives in Cambridge. Married. Two kids. He’s all right.”
Then he changes the subject and asks about Julianne.
“She’s gone with the police.”
“You should be with her.”
“She doesn’t want me there and the police think I’m a liability.”
“A liability—that’s an interesting analysis. Then again, I’ve often thought your ideas were dangerously subversive.”
“I’m hardly a radical.”
“More like a candidate for Rotary.”
He’s teasing me. I can’t find the energy to smile.
Darcy asks after Emma. She’s gone. My parents have taken her to Wales, along with Imogen. My mother burst into tears when she saw Charlie’s room and didn’t stop sobbing until my father gave her an oversized box of tissues and told her to wait in the car. Then God’s-personal-physician-in-waiting gave me his stiff-upper-lip speech, which sounded like something Michael Caine delivered in Zulu.
Everyone means well. I’ve had calls from three of my sisters, who each told me I was being stoic and they were saying prayers. Unfortunately, I’m not interested in hearing clichés or comforting words. I want to be kicking open doors and shaking trees until I get my Charlie back.
Ruiz tells Darcy to go upstairs and run a bath. She obeys immediately. Then he leans close.
“Remember what I told you about staying sane, Professor? Don’t you go dying of the disease.” He’s sucking a boiled sweet which rattles against his teeth. “I know about tragedy. One of the things it teaches you is that you have to keep moving. And that’s exactly what you’re going to do. You’re going to wash, get changed and we’re going to find your daughter.”
“How?”
“We’ll think about that when you come back downstairs. But I’m going to make you a promise. I’m going to find this bastard. I don’t care how long it takes. And when that happens I’m going to paint the walls with his blood. Every last drop of it.”
Ruiz walks behind me as I climb the stairs. Darcy has found a fresh towel. She watches us from the door of Charlie’s room.
“Thank you,” I tell Ruiz.
“Wait till I’ve done something to deserve it. When you’re finished, come downstairs. I’ve got something to show you.”
59
Ruiz unfolds a page and smooths it on the coffee table.
“This was faxed through this afternoon,” he says. “It came from the Maritime Rescue and Coordination Center in Piraeus.”
The facsimile is of a photograph—a woman with short dark hair and a round face, who looks to be in her mid-to late thirties. Her details are typed in small print in the bottom corner.
Helen Tyler (née Chambers)
DOB: June 6, 1971
British National
Passport No: E754769
Description: white Caucasian, 175 cms tall, slim build, brown hair, brown eyes.
“I called to make sure there hadn’t been a mistake,” he says. “This is the photograph they were working off when they were looking for Tyler’s wife.”
I stare at the image as if expecting it to suddenly become more familiar. Although roughly the right age, the woman depicted looks nothing like the one in the passport photograph Bryan Chambers gave me. She has shorter hair, a higher forehead and different shaped eyes. It can’t be the same person.
“What about Chloe?”
Ruiz opens his notebook and pulls out a Polaroid snapshot. “They used this one. It was taken by a guest at the hotel they were staying in.”
This time I recognize the girl. Her blond hair is like a beacon. She is sitting on a swing. The building in the background has whitewashed walls and wild roses on a trellis.
I go back to the faxed photograph, which is still displayed on the coffee table.
Ruiz has poured himself a scotch. He sits opposite me.
“Who provided the Greeks with this photograph?” I ask.
“It came through the Foreign Office and the British Embassy.”
“And where did the Foreign Office get it?”
“Her family.”
The authorities were searching for Helen and Chloe; they needed to identify bodies in the morgue and survivors in the hospitals. The wrong photograph could have been sent by mistake but surely someone would have picked it up before now. The only other explanation reeks of cover-up.
Three people gave evidence that placed Helen and Chloe on board the ferry: the navy diver, the Canadian student and the hotel manager. Why would they lie? Money is the obvious answer. Bryan Chambers has enough to make it happen.
It had to be organized quickly. The ferry accident was an opportunity for Helen and Chloe to disappear. Luggage had to be tossed into the sea. Mother and daughter were reported missing. Bryan Chambers flew to Greece four days after the sinking, which means that Helen must have done most of the groundwork using her father’s money to cement the deception.
Surely someone on the island must have seen them. Where would they hide?
I take Helen’s photograph from my wallet—the one Bryan Chambers gave me at his lawyer’s office. The picture was taken for a new passport—one in her maiden name—according to Chambers.
From the moment she fled from Germany in May, Helen avoided using credit cards or making phone calls home or sending e-mails or letters. She did everything she could to hide her whereabouts from her husband, yet surely one of the first things she should have done was to ditch her married name. Instead she waited until mid-July to apply for a new passport.
I stare at the faxed photogra
ph sent from Greece.
“What if nobody on Patmos knew what Helen and Chloe Tyler really looked like?” I ask.
“What do you mean?” asks Ruiz.
“What if mother and daughter were already traveling under different names?”
Ruiz shakes his head. “I’m still not with you.”
“Helen and Chloe arrived on the island in early June. They booked into a hotel, kept a low profile, paid for everything in cash. They didn’t use their real names. They called themselves something different because they knew Gideon was looking for them. Then, through a terrible twist of fate, a ferry sinks on a stormy afternoon. Helen sees a way of disappearing. She throws their luggage into the sea and reports the disappearance of Helen and Chloe Tyler. She bribes a backpacker and a navy diver to lie to the police.”
Ruiz picks up the thread. “And this backpacker suddenly has the money to keep traveling when his parents expect him home.”
“And a disgraced navy diver facing a misconduct tribunal might be in need of money.”
“What about the German woman,” he asks, “what does she have to gain?”
I flick through the statements and pull hers to the top of the pile. Yelena Schafer, born 1971. I look at the date of birth and feel the flush of recognition.
“How long did Helen spend in Germany?”
“Six years.”
“Long enough to speak the language fluently.”
“You think…?”
“Yelena is a variation of Helen.”
Ruiz leans over his knees, his hands hanging between them, looking like an ancient, bewildered statue. His eyes close for a second, trying to see the details as I do.
“So you’re saying the hotel manager—the German woman—is Helen Chambers?”
“The hotel manager was the most credible witness the police had. What reason did she have to lie about an English mother and daughter who were staying at the hotel? It was a perfect cover. Helen could speak German. She could pretend to be Yelena Schafer and announce the death of her former self.”
Ruiz opens his eyes. “The caretaker sounded nervous when I talked to him. He said Yelena Schafer had gone on holiday. He didn’t mention a daughter.”
“What’s the number of the hotel?”
Ruiz finds the page on his notebook. I dial the hotel and wait. A sleepy voice answers.
“Hello, this is Athens International Airport. We have recovered a bag that failed to make a flight several days ago. The luggage tag indicates it was checked in by Miss Yelena Schafer, but there is some confusion. Was she traveling with anyone?”
“Yes, her daughter.”
“A six-year-old.”
“Seven.”
“Where were they flying to?”
The caretaker is more awake now. “Why have you called so late at night?” he asks angrily.
“The bag was put on the wrong flight. We need a forwarding address.”
“Miss Schafer must have reported the bag missing,” he says. “She should have given a forwarding address.”
“We don’t seem to have one.”
He smells a rat. “Who are you? Where are you from?”
“I’m looking for Yelena Schafer and her daughter. It’s crucial that I find them.” He shouts something unintelligible and hangs up. I hit redial. The phone is engaged. He’s taken it off the hook or he’s calling someone. Perhaps warning them.
I phone Trinity Road. Safari Roy is in charge of the incident room. DI Cray has gone for dinner. I give him Yelena Schafer’s name and the most likely date she flew from Athens with her daughter.
Passenger lists won’t be available until the morning, he tells me. How many flights are there from Athens every day? Hundreds. I have no idea where mother and daughter have gone.
I hang up and stare at the photographs, wishing they could talk to me. Would Helen risk coming home while Gideon Tyler is still looking for her?
Ruiz drapes his hand over the top of the steering wheel as if letting the Merc do the navigating. He looks relaxed and pensive, but I know his mind is working overtime. Sometimes I think he pretends that he’s not a deep thinker or he’s slow on the uptake as a way of fooling people into underestimating him.
Darcy is in the backseat, plugged into music. Perhaps I was wrong to worry so much about her.
“You hungry?” Ruiz asks.
“No.”
“When did you last eat?”
“Breakfast.”
“You should eat something.”
“I’m OK.”
“You keep saying that, and maybe one day you will be OK, but that’s not today. You shouldn’t expect to be OK. You’re not going to be OK until you get Charlie home… and Julianne home and you can play happy families again.”
“It might be too late for that.”
He gives me a sidelong glance and looks back at the road.
After a long silence, he says, “We’ll get her back.”
I haven’t heard from Julianne since she left the cottage. Monk has been in touch with the incident room. Gideon called again, using my mobile. He was somewhere in central Bristol, near the cathedral. Oliver Rabb couldn’t locate him before the handset was left on a bus. The phone was recovered from the Muller Road Bus Depot an hour ago.
There’s no word on Charlie. According to Monk everything that can be done is being done, but that’s not true. Forty detectives are working on the case. Why not four hundred or four thousand? A TV and radio appeal has been launched. Why not sound sirens from the rooftops and search every residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse and outhouse? Why not get Tommy Lee Jones out there, organizing the search?
Ruiz pulls into the driveway of Stonebridge Manor. The metal gates are bleached white by the high-beam headlights. Nobody answers the buzzer. Ruiz holds it down for thirty seconds. Silence.
Getting out of the car, he peers through the bars. There are lights on in the house.
“Hey, Darcy, how much d’you weigh?” asks Ruiz.
“You’re not supposed to ask a girl questions like that,” she replies.
“Think you can climb over that wall?”
She follows his gaze. “Sure.”
“Be careful of the broken glass.”
Ruiz throws his coat over the wall to protect her hands.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Attracting attention.”
Darcy puts her right foot in his cupped hands and is hoisted upwards onto the wall. She holds on to a branch and scrambles to her feet, balancing between the broken half-bottles embedded in the concrete. Her arms are outstretched to keep her steady, but there’s no chance of her falling. Her poise and balance come from hours of practice.
“She’ll get herself shot,” I tell Ruiz.
“Skipper couldn’t aim that straight,” he replies.
A voice answers him from the darkness. “I can shoot the eyes out of a squirrel at fifty paces.”
“And I had you down as a nature lover,” replies Ruiz. “Guess you’re a redneck through and through.”
Skipper emerges into the glow of the headlights, cradling a rifle across his chest. Darcy is still standing on the wall.
“Get down, miss.”
“Are you sure?”
He nods.
Darcy obeys, but not the way he expects. She jumps towards him and Skipper has to drop his rifle to catch her before she lands. Now she’s on his side of the gate. It’s a problem he hasn’t bargained on.
“We need to speak to Mr. and Mrs. Chambers,” I say.
“They’re not available.”
“You said that last time,” says Ruiz.
Skipper is holding Darcy by the arm. He doesn’t know what to do.
“My daughter is missing. Gideon Tyler has taken her.”
The way his eyes flash to mine I know that I have his full attention. That’s why he’s here—to stop Gideon getting inside.
“Where’s Tyler now?”
“We don’t know.”
He
looks at the car, as if worried that Gideon might be hiding inside. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a two-way radio, signaling the house. I don’t hear the message, but the gates begin to open. Skipper circles the car. He checks the boot and looks in both directions along the lane before waving us through.
Security lights trigger on either side of the drive as the Merc floats by. Skipper is sitting in the passenger seat, with his rifle resting on his lap, pointed towards Ruiz.
I look at my watch. Charlie has been missing for eight hours. What am I going to say to Bryan and Claudia Chambers? I’m going to beg. I’m going to clutch at straws. I’m going to ask for exactly what Gideon Tyler wants—his wife and daughter. He has made me believe what he believes. They’re alive. I have no choice but to accept this.
Skipper escorts us up the steps, through the main door and across the foyer. Wall lamps reflect off the polished wooden floor and brighter lights spill from the sitting room.
Bryan Chambers rises from a sofa, squaring his shoulders.
“I thought our business was finished.”
Claudia is opposite him. She rises, adjusting the waistband of her skirt. Her pretty almond-shaped eyes don’t make contact with mine. She married a powerful man, thick-skinned and heavy-footed, but her own strength is more self-contained.
“This is Darcy Wheeler,” I say. “Christine’s daughter.”
Claudia’s face bears all her sadness. She takes Darcy’s hand and pulls her gently into her arms. They’re almost the same height.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. “Your mother was a wonderful friend to my daughter.”
Bryan Chambers looks at Darcy with a kind of wonderment. He sits down and leans forward, resting his hands between his knees. His jaw is stubbled and flecks of white spit are gathered in the corners of his mouth.
“Gideon Tyler has kidnapped my daughter,” I announce.
The shudder of silence that follows reveals more about the Chambers than an hour in a consulting room could possibly tell me.
“I know that Helen and Chloe are alive.”
“You’re crazy,” says Bryan Chambers. “You’re as mad as Tyler is.”
His wife stiffens slightly and her eyes meet her husband’s for just a moment. It’s a micro-expression. The barest trace of a signal passes between them.
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