by Simon Mason
He should have turned and left. For some reason, as if mesmerized, he stayed. And after a moment watching Perkins struggle with her bags down the driveway, he found himself inexplicably going forward, into her line of vision, towards her in fact, and heard himself offering to help.
She looked at him with her green inhuman eyes, and he felt all the awkwardness of the situation he had put himself into.
‘Smith,’ she said at last.
‘Good memory for faces.’
‘Surprising perhaps, seeing as you attended school so infrequently.’
‘Working in the holidays?’
‘I’m always working.’ She looked at him. ‘I understand the value of work.’
She had put down her bags, and he picked them up.
‘That your car?’
She nodded, and they walked together towards it. It remained awkward.
‘So, Smith,’ Miss Perkins said, as they walked. ‘What are you doing with yourself now?’
A variety of lies came easily to mind but he said, ‘Fencing.’ He stopped himself from adding ‘miss’ just in time.
She looked at him in silence. ‘Panels or sabres?’
‘Panels. Smudge’s brother’s business.’
She looked at him.
‘Ryan Howells,’ he said. ‘His brother puts up fences.’
‘And so now do you.’
‘Yeah. Sometimes they don’t stay up.’
That was something else he hadn’t meant to say.
They reached her car and she loaded her bags.
‘Thank you.’ She was looking at him again, with great intensity, and he felt – too late – that it was time to go. But her eyes would not let him.
‘Do you believe in fate, Smith?’
‘What?’
‘Fate, destiny. The belief that things are outside our control, that they happen just because they’re meant to.’
‘No.’
She nodded, didn’t smile. Neither did he.
‘Then you should stop acting as if you do,’ she said.
Without saying goodbye, she turned from him and got into her car, and he watched her drive away.
In the evening his mother was at work. There was no one else in the flat when he got home. It was quiet, except for the endless muted drone of the ring road traffic.
Garvie lay on his bed keeping an eye on the ceiling.
An hour passed.
There was a crack against the windowpane. He turned his head, but didn’t move. Another crack, then his friend Felix’s voice.
‘Hey, Sherlock!’
He stood at the window. Felix’s foxy upturned face below caught the evening sunlight.
‘Coming out?’
‘Where to?’
Felix shrugged. ‘Old Ditch Road.’
Garvie thought about the kiddies’ playground where they usually met, the miniature roundabout, the crippling swings, the shadows lengthening across the fouled grass, the drizzle coming on, the always-almost-empty vodka bottle and the finger-singeing speck of spliff passed round, the late-night visit from the community officer to move them on.
‘Think I’ll give it a miss tonight, Felix.’
‘Busy, eh?’
‘You wouldn’t believe.’
He went and lay on the bed again. He looked at his watch. Seven thirty. Not long now till Amy Roecastle had been missing for seventy-two hours. He knew what that meant.
He thought about sequences. The rain, the dark, the dog, the woods, the box. He thought about the unknown rule that bound them all together, and he reflected that sometimes the unknown remains unknown.
Then his phone rang. It was the girl from O’Malley’s. She’d got word from Damon: be on supertram at eight.
19
The free downtown tram went continuously round a circuit that took in, counter-clockwise, the cafés and restaurants of Market Square, the business district, The Wicker, the shopping mall, the railway station and the historic centre. It had a bar and restaurant carriages and was popular with visitors wanting a brief walking-pace tour of the city centre without the hassle of actually walking. Everyone else used it for convenience.
Twilight in the city, everything lit up in party colours. Garvie sat at the back of the rear car, looking out at it. He took the photograph of Amy out of his pocket and put it on the table in front of him.
The tram heaved itself over the bridge above Town Road and descended swaying towards the cathedral. It stopped at the Guildhall to let off a group of tourists, curved round to Market Square, where it stopped again at the end of pedestrianized Corngate, and moved off once more towards Exchange Street, where the business district began. People got on and off; they stood round the doors or sat with drinks at the tables talking and looking out of the windows at the city trundling by.
The tram went all round its circuit once. It was just reaching The Wicker for the second time when Damon showed up.
He sat down in a rush, wiped his mouth nervously with the back of his hand, and stared at Garvie. He had a smooth, sculpted face and overhanging brows, very black, and short dark hair stiff with neglect. His mouth was wide and oddly friendly, his eyes were large and black and pleading. He was wearing a plain maroon hooded top and grey sweat pants and canvas baseball boots slightly ripped and very dirty.
He glanced down nervously at the photograph, moved his head around.
Garvie said, ‘Got it out of her room.’
‘Why?’
‘’Cause I didn’t like the one of her in Paris. It’s a nice room, though, isn’t it?’
‘Dunno, never been inside.’
‘Nice house.’
‘Course. Big and that. Big old garden.’
‘What do you think of the fence?’
‘What fence?’
Garvie looked at him a while. ‘You’re hard to find.’
‘Got housing issues.’
‘Pirrip Street?’
‘Didn’t work out.’
‘Not surprised. I met your landlady. And her dog.’
‘Thing is, you can’t trust no one.’ He looked hard at Garvie. ‘You’re only a kid, aren’t you? Aren’t you scared?’
‘Why? Are you going to pull a gun on me?’
Damon bit his lip. ‘What makes you think I’ve got a gun?’
Garvie said nothing.
‘Don’t like guns,’ Damon added. ‘Make me anxious.’
‘Anxious you might get hurt? Or anxious you might kill someone?’
Damon looked sick. He said, ‘Rylee in O’Malley’s said you were OK, but’ – he shrugged – ‘I dunno. If it helps Amy …’
For a moment they were both silent, looking out of the window at the brilliantly lit Perspex boxes of the shopping centre going by, and the neatly stacked ribs of the multistorey car park dim in the gathering darkness. The gates of the depot next to it cranked open with a dull chain-metal groan to let in a lorry, and when the sound had faded away Garvie said, ‘Where’re you hanging now?’
‘Here and there. Lying low.’ Damon was staring glassily out of the window again, at the centre, the car park, the depot. He said quietly, ‘Sometimes I just got to get away. You know? Somewhere different. I got a place. Can’t always get there, but sometimes. Place where I can forget things.’ He gave a sly grin. ‘Smoke the pipe of peace. Listen to the air, know what I mean?’
‘Not really. Obviously you’re a free spirit.’
Damon’s face lit up. ‘Free spirit, yeah, I like that.’
‘Like to give a girl flowers.’
‘Romantic, that’s me.’
‘Easy to get them too, out of the neighbour’s flower bed at the front there.’
Damon scowled. ‘She won’t miss them.’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘Don’t want no worries. I follow my instincts, know what I mean? If I’m skint I’ll doss down anywhere, it don’t bother me. If I got a bit of cash I’ll go down one of them clubs, play the slots at the casino, whatever. Live the moment
, yeah? And when it’s time to disappear …’ He glanced at Garvie cunningly. ‘You won’t find me,’ he said. ‘I promise you that.’
‘I just did,’ Garvie said. ‘But it’s not you we’re trying to find, is it?’
Damon scowled, gave a twitch. ‘Whatever’s happened to her, I know I’ll get the blame,’ he said. ‘I get mixed up in stuff I don’t know nothing about, see. Not my fault. But I got issues. Can’t always hold my shit together. I’ve had dark times, man. Made mistakes. Ever been banged up?’
Garvie shook his head.
‘Couldn’t take it again. Serious.’ He grimaced and rubbed his hair. ‘If I get pulled in for this … Don’t know what I’ll do, might as well fucking top myself.’ He was looking at the photograph again, and his face softened. ‘Ever really loved someone?’
Garvie hesitated, and Damon looked at him.
‘Ever really trusted someone? Like, you know, a soul mate. Put your life in their hands sort of thing.’ He was acting nervous again. His hands were trembling as he looked away through the window. He gnawed his lip.
‘Can’t trust no one, though,’ he muttered bitterly. ‘Always get let down.’ He looked at Garvie, breathless. ‘You think you know them, then they turn on you. What’s the time?’
‘Nearly nine.’
‘Got to go soon, so get to it. You want to ask me something about Amy?’
‘No.’
He looked surprised. ‘Oh.’
Garvie said, ‘I want to ask you something about your van.’
He stared at Garvie a moment. ‘What about it? Piece of shit, to be honest with you. I can’t even get the money together.’
‘Drive it up at Froggett?’
‘Yeah, course. I already said that to plod.’
‘Park back of the woods, on Rustlings Lane?’
‘So?’
‘And in the woods?’
‘Don’t much like trees, to be honest with you.’
‘What make is it?’
‘Courier. Old and that, like I said before.’
‘OK.’ Garvie nodded. ‘Cheers.’
‘Is that it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You don’t want to ask me nothing about Amy? I thought that’s what this was all about.’
Garvie shook his head, and Damon got to his feet, uncertain. Garvie passed him the photograph of Amy. ‘You might as well have this.’
Damon’s face lit up. ‘Cheers.’
‘And this.’ He handed him a card.
‘What is it?’
‘My number. If things get bad you can give me a bell.’
‘Funny. On a funny little card and everything. I like that. Old school like me. I don’t like gadgets, they make me anxious.’
‘Yeah, thought they might.’
Before he went, Damon looked at him. ‘Maybe Rylee was right,’ he said. Then he backed away, bumped into someone, swore to himself and scrambled his way off the tram as the doors were closing. The last Garvie saw of him, he was jogging along Watt Street away from Market Square.
20
Earlier that evening Singh had been to see the chief. He was anxious, he said, about the state of the investigation. They were nearing the end of the third day of Amy’s disappearance. Progress had been far too slow. He was unable to make up time on his own. He needed more resources.
Bob Dowell was called in. He stood with Singh in front of the chief’s desk.
The chief said, ‘Have you located the boy with the van yet?’
‘No, sir.’
The chief considered this. ‘Regrettable,’ he murmured, ‘that you didn’t lock down his whereabouts before letting him go.’
Singh began to mention that there had been no grounds for holding Damon longer, but the chief put up his hand and he fell silent.
‘You’re right, Inspector,’ the chief said. ‘Not enough progress.’ He indicated an iPad on his desk loaded with images of the mocked-up front pages of the Sunday morning papers. ‘Our friends in the media agree with you. What would you do with more resources?’
‘Sweep the woods again; the volunteer effort was inadequate. We know she was in the woods; I think there’s evidence there to be found if we act quickly. Find Damon Walsh; I think he has more to tell us. And we have over a dozen sightings of Amy not pursued.’
Dowell said quickly, ‘If we lose focus with Imperium now we’ll never recover it.’
The chief slowly put his finger ends together, and there was silence in the office while he stared at them both.
At last he said to Dowell, ‘Core Operations will move over to the Roecastle investigation.’
Dowell gave a snort. ‘But, sir—’
‘The girl’s been missing for nearly seventy-two hours. The media are on to it. Not enough progress has been made; I don’t want any more excuses. Inspector,’ he said to Singh.
‘Sir?’
‘You have another forty-eight hours in charge. After that you’ll pass the leadership to Bob, and report to him. Understood?’
Singh’s face tightened a notch. ‘Yes, sir.’
And, as Dowell began to talk informally to the chief of other things, he left and went back his makeshift office.
Now it was late.
He had drawn up plans of action for individual members of the Core Operations team. He had reviewed the forensic evidence. He had set up new lines of communication with partnership agencies, the Missing Persons Bureau, Children’s Services, and various charities. He had spoken again to Dr Roecastle, who was in need of his constant support now. And he had reviewed the case files of Damon Walsh, which he felt held important information about Amy.
Neither of Damon’s parents had had any contact with their son for several years, and had shown no interest in him now. Of the many foster parents, guardians, mentors and sponsors assigned to him over the years, only two had been contactable, and their assistance had been limited. Paul Tanner could offer him no further information. Damon’s criminal records from the Young Offenders and Narcotics databases gave a picture of a likeable but unstable young man with severe anger management issues, but no clues as to his current whereabouts. Singh had even managed to talk to Damon’s stepbrother, currently living abroad, but he’d had nothing to add except the fact that everyone was fed up waiting for Damon to sort himself out.
He looked at his watch. Midnight. Nearly seventy-two hours since Amy had gone missing.
Someone as unsure of himself as Damon was liable to be unpredictable. He could easily drift permanently out of view. Or for that matter, Singh thought wryly, turn up again voluntarily.
It was then that Night Reception called up to tell him he had a visitor.
‘Who is it?’
‘He’s nervous about giving his name. A young man. He says it’s about a van.’
Singh was suddenly on his feet. ‘Dark hair, about six foot?’
‘Yes. Scruffy-looking.’
‘I’m coming down now. Please make sure he doesn’t leave.’
He crossed the hall rapidly and went down the stairs two at a time. He went past the café area where the television was playing images of traffic outside the shopping mall, and was almost running by the time he arrived in the police foyer. Through the glass the receptionist silently pointed her face towards the dark-haired young man slouched head in hands in a corner seat, and Singh burst into the room, and came to a sudden stop.
Garvie looked up.
There was only one chair in Singh’s room so Garvie leaned against the wall.
‘I liked your other office better. I liked the interrogation room better. Prison’s probably better than this. I thought you’d been rehabilitated.’
Singh ignored him. ‘When they called me down I assumed you were Damon.’
‘Damon’s lying low.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘He told me this evening.’
‘You’ve seen him? But—’
‘Wait a second before you lose your blob. What do you know about vans?’<
br />
Singh was silent.
‘All right. What do you know about tyre tracks of vans found in woods?’
Singh said, ‘We found no tracks. The overnight rain had destroyed everything.’
Garvie put in front of Singh a piece of paper. On it were drawn two patterns. ‘Smudge’s own unaided work,’ he said. ‘Good, aren’t they? Luckily, he gave up art before he forgot how to draw.’
Singh gave the drawings his attention.
Garvie said, ‘This one here is the sort of tyre you find on a Courier, Damon’s van. See the tread? Thirteen inch.’
‘OK. So?’
‘So it’s the wrong van.’
Garvie pointed to the other pattern. ‘This one now is your Michelin Agilis, Alpin model. Fifteen inch. From a Transit probably.’ He paused. ‘That’s the right van.’
‘What do you mean, “right van”?’
‘There’s a clearing in the woods at the end of a rough track. Cars couldn’t get down it, but a van could. After I found the dog I sat there a while, had a squint round, saw the tracks in the mud. There was a van parked there that night. Right in the middle of the woods. She must have almost run right into it. Only it wasn’t Damon’s van. Some other guy’s. With Michelin Agilis tyres. If you want to find out what happened to Amy, you have to find that guy.’
Singh took this in.
‘How can you be sure these drawings are accurate? You said your friend made them. Did he see these tyre tracks before they were washed away?’
‘No. I did. And I remember stuff.’
Singh considered this. It was true. ‘But,’ he said, ‘we have multiple sightings from Froggett residents of Damon’s van up there. Small white van in a state of disrepair. In other words, a Courier.’
‘How many just said “white van”?’
The inspector nodded reluctantly. ‘As usual, witness sightings were inconsistent, it’s true.’
‘There you go then. Damon was up there. But so was some other guy. You should be looking for the driver of an old white Transit with plenty of red mud on the bumpers and wheel arches.’