Vanishing Point

by J G Alva

  VANISHING POINT

  SUTTON MILLS BOOK 4

  JG ALVA

  NOTE TO THE READER:

  In all the Sutton Mills’ novels, I have done my best to provide an accurate and as truthful representation of Bristol as possible. Obviously, some stories may require an Inception style reshuffling of the skyline, but all in all, I have done my best to represent – at least historically and geographically – a true Bristol to my readers.

  So it pains me to admit that this adventure required a fabricated artefact for Bristol’s interesting architectural landscape. I needed a certain type of university, and as the current ones did not have what was required, I did what all novelists do best: I made one up. I designed it from the ground up, and did what I could to make it fit seamlessly into the reality of this crime novel.

  So forgive my “monstrous impertinence”, as a far better writer once coined it. But it was done without malice, and done merely to enhance your adventure.

  Good luck on your quest, dear Reader. Say hi to Sutton for me.

  JG Alva

  PROLOGUE

  The Rumbler had never done anything like this before.

  And as a consequence, he felt rudderless, adrift, and afraid. Like a small boat quietly slipping away from a dock. He still didn’t know if he could do it. He had taken the necessary precautions, but there was a sense of unreality about it…as if some part of him knew he couldn’t follow through. He hadn’t smoked for the better part of ten years, but that didn’t stop him from buying a packet now and then. There was a sense of danger, that he might once more take up that abandoned, destructive, but much beloved habit…but in the end he always threw the packet away. This was so much like that. On a grander scale, no doubt. He had felt the same quickening of his heart beat when he had replaced the license plates on his car with ones he had stolen earlier in the day. The beanie and the dark jacket were things he just had in his wardrobe. It didn’t mean anything.

  Yet here he was: parked on a darkened city street late at night, waiting for the boy to arrive. If he hadn’t planned to do it, why was he here?

  The answer was simple of course: he knew he had to do it. Because as much as he might want to deny that he was capable, he didn’t have any choice.

  He sat up slightly in his seat, peeking over the dashboard. Twenty feet away, inside an orange pool of radiance cast by two opposing globes, a deserted zebra crossing was revealed in excruciating detail. Pretty much the whole area appeared to be deserted; it was mid-week and late, so it wasn’t wholly surprising. Still, there was a sense of theatre about his surroundings – the stage was set. Two minutes ago a car had whistled past, blasting through the zebra crossing as if it didn’t exist, but that was the only car he had seen…and he had been waiting here for twenty minutes already.

  Where was the boy?

  He almost hoped that he wouldn’t appear. Then there would be no way to salvage the situation, no way to forestall the inevitable, and then all he could do would be to hold up his hands and accept his fate, without ever having known what it felt like to kill another human being.

  But then that would be the end of his life…

  His soul skittered away from such speculation, like a small frightened animal. That it had come to this. He wondered – if transported by some weird miracle of time travel – what his idealistic younger self would make of the man he had become. He had no doubt the younger man would be disgusted and angry. Indeed, he couldn’t fault him for such a reaction. He could hardly bear to look at himself in the mirror either. It was only an ugly stranger that peered back.

  He peeked over the dashboard once again, and it was as if some needle pierced his heart. It was him. Coming up from a side street, mostly in shadow, but so obviously him. The walk was so distinctive: like a nervous, cowering, sightless march toward some sacred duty. As if what he did was so important.

  Even the boy’s walk annoyed him now.

  He was moving toward the zebra crossing.

  He started the car. He thought it might alert the boy, but his gaze was stuck to the ground a foot in front of him as if with glue. As always. He was a child with no conception of the world around him, no sense that it could reach him, other than as an abstract concept.

  But he would tonight.

  The boy stepped on to the zebra crossing.

  He gunned the engine, put it in gear, and then sped toward the boy. He didn’t even look in his mirror to see if any other traffic was coming. If another car had been passing him at that moment, he would have smashed into it at forty miles an hour. His attention was fixed wholly on the boy.

  But there were no other cars on the road at that moment. Just him.

  The boy turned at the last second, but it was too late for him to do anything. The sound of the collision was unbelievable; like there was a bomb under the bonnet. The car rocked, and the boy went flying. He knew he was already dead by the lifeless way the boy’s limbs flapped in mid-air. His awareness heightened by the adrenaline pumping through his system, he watched the boy bounce off the bonnet as if he was watching a series of slides, each moment captured in perfect clarity, the expression on the younger face clearly visible, the shock in his eyes like a bright photograph held six inches from his face.

  He was looking at him.

  Their eyes locked. In that moment, did he know?

  Then the boy hit the ground, sliding awkwardly toward the curb, and he didn’t have chance to avoid him a second time, he was going too fast: the car bumped over his lifeless form, the car lifting on the passenger side momentarily. A final abuse, almost too much.

  As he sped away, he saw the shape of the boy in his rear view mirror. An amorphous lump, like a bundle of rags thrown into the gutter.

  Oh God.

  What had he done?

  ◆◆◆

  A man and a woman met in an office.

  The man was exceptionally tall, and the woman was short. He stooped slightly – as exceptionally tall people often do – and she stood back from him, so as not to get a crick in her neck. This wasn’t new; they were old friends. The man wore a grey suit that needed ironing; the woman wore a suit that was black and had been ironed meticulously.

  “I don’t understand,” the man said. “What does he do?”

  The woman ran a hand along the edge of the desk. It was her desk – it was her office – and she liked it clean.

  She said, “he helps people. That’s what I was told anyway. When people despair of the police getting to the bottom of things, they go to him. And he tries to come up with something. An answer. A solution.” She looked up at the man and tried to smile. “For a price, of course.”

  The man stared at her, perhaps not sure if she was being completely serious.

  “No fucking way is that legal,” he said finally.

  The man coughed suddenly. He had a bad cough: a deep bubbling rumble in his chest he had endured for some time.

  “It’s not,” the woman said, after the cough had come to its natural conclusion.

  “That’s why you want him?”

  She compressed her lips.

  “No. I can’t get him for what he did to me. But I think I can get him on something else. If I find it.”

  “Oh,” the man said, with sudden understanding. “This is the guy. How long has he been doing this…sort of thing?”

  “Too long.”

  “So why call me? If you know what he does, why not just stop him? If he was involved with that fiasco with the Church of the New Artisans –“

  “He’s got friends on the force,” she said grimly.

  “You’re fucking kidding me. Who?”

  The face she turned on the man was rigid, pale and unpleasant; like a skull wrapped in latex rubber.

  “Off
icers colluded to have his involvement purposely omitted from the case file. That’s perverting the course of justice.”

  “Then go after them –“

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  The woman was silent for a moment.

  Then she smiled. There was no humour in it.

  “The detective in charge of the investigation is now retired,” she explained.

  The man leant back against the row of filing cabinets.

  “Ah.”

  “Yes.”

  “So…?”

  “So…can you help?”

  Now the man understood why he had been called to her office. No one else was in a position – or likewise inclined – to offer assistance. Not on something like this.

  “I don’t know…”

  “You owe me. After that fiasco in Manchester, you owe me.”

  “And you never fail to bring it up. You know how that makes me feel? It makes me wonder if we’re friends at all.”

  The woman stretched her neck, rubbing a hand against it, and then nodded.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “Apology accepted.”

  “But if anyone’s a match for him, it’s you. There’s no one else. He’s too smart.”

  “I hope that’s a compliment.”

  “Oh, it is. Don’t underestimate him. He’s about as sneaky as you…but he doesn’t have to abide by any rules. So watch yourself. Imagine you’re sharing a cage with a tiger. Those are the sorts of precautions you need to be taking.”

  The man smiled. He liked a challenge.

  “Alright,” he said. “I’ll take a look.”

  ◆◆◆

  CHAPTER 1

  Saturday, 28th May

  “I don’t know what you think I can do,” Robin said desperately.

  Of all the people she might have expected to show up at her house on a Saturday lunch time, Finley Henk would have been the last one. Thin, white, geeky, with a thick tangle of dark hair like the top of a mop, he was hardly a prepossessing figure. She could have circled one of his forearms with her thumb and index finger. Dressed in a navy blue T-shirt too large for him, he sat awkwardly at the kitchen table. She had readily allowed him to enter her house, but it struck her that she didn’t really know him…And yet…there was something totally disarming about him. He was a puppy in human form.

  But if he was harmless, then the associations he conjured in her mind – which on the surface appeared to be good – were decidedly unpleasant when placed under deeper scrutiny.

  The terror of the Headhunter still reached out to her in the middle of the night.

  Even now, years later.

  She looked at him again. His elbows stuck out of his sleeves like two impossibly large cotton buds. It was obvious he didn’t want to be here, that he hadn’t wanted to come, and that he didn’t want to ask her for help.

  So there must be something in what he was saying.

  His concern was real…

  She just didn’t know if he was seeing something that wasn’t really there.

  Fin squirmed and then said, “if you could just talk to him, then you’d see –“

  “He doesn’t want to talk to me,” she responded smartly, cutting him off. She didn’t want to get involved. Not because she didn’t want to help Sutton, but because his world was a dark and unpleasant place, a vortex: it sucked you in. If he needed help, then fine, she could give Fin the numbers of some very good therapists and he could be on his way. But if he wanted her to help, then she was not available. “Not about this. I doubt – if what you’re saying is true – that he’ll want to talk to anyone about it. He’s something of a…” – she thought how to word it – “self-contained vessel. As well you know.”

  “I’d talk to you,” Fin said, avoiding her eyes.

  She smiled then.

  “Does he know you’re here?”

  “No.” The idea shocked him.

  “That you were thinking of coming here?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  She shook her head.

  “See. Even you don’t think it’s a good idea. Which reminds me. How do you know where I live?”

  Fin’s expression turned guilty.

  “Of course,” she said, with sudden insight. “Why did I even bother asking? You researched me.”

  “I’m sorry,” Fin said…although he obviously wasn’t. “I just don’t know what else to do. Who else to go to.”

  “I want to help,” Robin said, rising from her seat and moving to the kitchen sink. She selected two cups from the draining board. “You know I do. I owe him so much. But…I don’t know if I’m the right person. Not for what you want. Do you want something to drink?”

  He shook his head at the offer of refreshment, and she put both cups back. Instead, she picked up a glass, and filled it with water from the tap.

  “You know what he’s like,” Fin said, staring morosely at the table top. “I mean, he’s the greatest guy in the world, I’d give my life for him, you know, if I had to, if there was a bullet I had to jump in front of, then I’d do it, hands down, no question…and he’s the first guy to want to help someone. You know what he’s like, what he did for you and your sister. You paid him, but did he ever ask for the money?”

  Robin shook her head. No, he had not.

  “He’s the best person in the world at helping people,” Fin said desperately, “but he’s the worst person in the world for accepting help.”

  “Pride,” Robin pronounced gravely.

  “I suppose.”

  “It cometh before a fall,” she said, returning to her seat.

  Fin’s eyes beseeched her.

  She took a sip of water and said, “so tell me – exactly – what the problem is.”

  Fin moved his head in a see-sawing motion.

  She asked, “is he self-harming?”

  Fin’s eyes got wide.

  “What? You mean, like, cutting himself?”

  “Well.” Robin made a face. “That’s the extreme end…there are other ways to self-harm. Drugs, for example. Alcohol.”

  “He’s been drinking a lot,” Fin said, latching on to this with some hope.

  “More than usual?”

  “Yeah. Definitely. He’s out three or four times a week.”

  “That’s not completely indicative of anything in itself,” she said, hoping to quell some of the hope in his eyes. This was like quicksand; she was getting stuck already. “Socialising is a good thing. Is he socialising?”

  “This isn’t a good thing,” Fin said, shaking his head.

  “But he is socialising,” she pressed.

  “Yes…” A reluctance.

  “Well then.”

  “But he’s not doing anything. He’s just…drinking.”

  “What do you mean, not doing anything? Do you mean, he’s not working?”

  Fin nodded.

  “Okay. And you think it’s because of this friend that he lost? This…Freddie?”

  Fin nodded again.

  He said, “they’d known each other since they were fourteen or something. And it was because of Sutton that he got killed. Not directly, I mean, just that something he was involved in rubbed off on Freddie. And Freddie had a wife, and now she blames Sutton for causing Freddie’s death…” Fin rubbed at his eyes as if he had a headache, or as if this was all too much.

  “So he’s grieving?”

  Fin shrugged.

  “I suppose.”

  “You know, grief can affect people in a lot of different ways.”

  As soon as she’d said it, she wished she hadn’t. If what she had heard about him was correct, then Fin knew better than most how grief had a way of colouring your thoughts, changing your outlook, and rearranging your priorities. His involvement with Sutton was a direct result of his own loss, after all. His whole life had become a reaction to that one event…and, if you looked at it in a certain way, you could argue that Fin himself was still grieving. />
  But Fin continued as if there was no connection to his own sullen grief, and Robin wondered if Fin consciously understood how deeply it had affected him. Denial was the worst kind of grief trauma.

  Fin squirmed again, but said, “he is grieving, but it’s not just that. Please. Just go and see him. As soon as you see him, you’ll know something’s not right. Please. Just…talk to him. And if I’m wrong, then that’s fine, I’ll stop worrying about it. Okay? Please? Super-pretty-mega-please?”

  Robin thought about it. Nothing had changed; she didn’t want to become involved.

  But if there was something wrong with him, then she owed it to him to help.

  She needn’t be his counsellor. She could merely advise him to see one of her colleagues. So she might not have to get involved at all.

  “Alright,” she said. “I’ll talk to him.”

  ◆◆◆

  CHAPTER 2

  Sunday, 29th May

  “Well. Dr Robin Sails.”

  “Sutton. How are you?”

  He didn’t answer straight away, just looked at her.

  And she in turn looked at him.

  Robin had completely forgotten the impact of the man, his physical presence. It was a little heady. He stood in the doorway, one arm hooked lazily over the top of the open door. He didn’t have a shirt on. Why didn’t he have a shirt on? He had hairs on his chest, she noticed with some surprise; thick swirls of dark hair clustered around the centre of his breastbone. It was clear that he still worked out. She had forgotten how tall he was. And the hair…thick and dark, and almost down to his shoulders. The angular jaw, the thin nose, the dark eyes…He was an incredibly impressive – and daunting – man. Almost like a foreign species of animal that resembled homo sapiens, but was much improved, and as such, partially alien.

  Shame then that he was as damaged, in his own mortal way, as the rest of them. Which, to some, might make him more appealing.

  It had been a couple of years since they had talked face to face, maybe a year and a half since they had spoken on the phone. She could detect no appreciable evidence that he had aged in any way. She wondered if he thought the same about her. Did he still find her attractive? She didn’t want to think about that. She shouldn’t want to think about that. It would do neither of them any good to go there.