by Tim Weaver
‘Do you want to be left alone?’
He had a smile on his face now, but it didn’t go deep. Below the surface, I caught a glimpse of what I’d seen before.
A second of absolute darkness.
‘It’s up to you.’
He continued smiling. The smell of aftershave drifted across to me again. ‘I’ll leave you alone. I’m sure you’d rather be earning commission than listening to me, right?’
I didn’t say anything.
‘Nice meeting you, anyway,’ he said, standing. ‘Maybe we’ll see you again.’
‘Maybe.’
‘I think so,’ he said, cryptically.
Then I watched him leave, walking past the locals and out through a door on the far side of the pub, where the evening swallowed him up.
10
That night, I had difficulty sleeping. It had been a long time since I’d slept in a bed. A longer time since I’d been away from the house overnight.
I left the curtains slightly ajar and the window open. Just after one, I finally fell asleep, curled up in a ball at the bottom of the bed. In the dead of night, maybe an hour later, I stirred long enough to feel a faint breeze against my skin. And then a noise outside. Rotting autumn leaves caught beneath someone’s feet. I lay there, too tired to move, and started to drift away again. Then the noise came a second time.
I flipped the duvet back, got up and walked to the window. The night was pitch black. In the distance, along the coastal road, were tiny blocks of light from the next village. Otherwise, it was difficult to make anything out, particularly close to the house.
The wind came again. I could hear leaves being blown across the ground, and waves crashing against the rocky coast – but not the noise that had woken me. I waited for a moment, then headed back to bed.
I got up early and sat at a table with beautiful views across the Atlantic. Tin mines rose up in front of me like brick arms reaching for the clouds. Over breakfast, I spread the contents of the box out in front of me again, and studied the Polaroid of Alex. He was too close to the camera; some of his features weren’t completely defined. His hair was shorter. There were dark areas around the side of his face where stubble was coming through. Behind him, there was a block of light that looked like a window, but it was difficult to see what was through it. Part of a building maybe, or a roof.
I turned it over.
Written on the back was: You were never a mistake.
I decided to call Kathy.
She answered after a couple of rings.
‘Kathy, it’s David Raker.’
‘Oh, hi.’
‘Sorry it’s so early.’
‘No problem,’ she said. ‘I was getting ready for work.’
‘I’ve got the box here.’ I turned the Polaroid over and looked at Alex again. ‘Do you remember what photos you put inside?’
‘Um… I don’t know – I think there’s a couple of us at a barbecue…’
‘Do you remember the one of Alex on his own?’
‘Uh…’ A pause. ‘I’m trying to think…’
You were never a mistake.
‘Tell you what, I’m going to take a picture of it and send it to you, okay?’
‘Okay.’
‘I’ll send two photos – one of the front and one of the back. Take a look at them when they come through and call me right back.’
I hung up, took a picture of the front of the photograph, then flipped it over and took a shot of the back. I sent them to Kathy’s phone.
While I waited, I looked around. The owner was filling a giant cereal bowl with cornflakes. Outside, in the distance, a fishing trawler chugged into view, waves gliding out from its bow as it followed the coastline.
A couple of minutes later, my phone went.
Silence.
‘Kathy?’
Gradually, fading in, the sound of sobbing.
‘Kathy?’
A long pause. And then I could hear her crying again.
‘Kathy – that’s Alex’s handwriting, isn’t it?’
She sniffed. ‘Yes.’
‘Did you take that photograph?’
‘No.’
‘Any idea who did?’
More crying. Longer, deeper gasps of air.
‘No.’
I looked at the Polaroid again. Turned it over. Traced the handwriting with a finger. Then I picked up the letter Kathy had written Alex.
But, somewhere, there would be a doubt that wasn’t there before, a nagging feeling that, if I got too close to you, if I showed you too much affection, you’d get up one morning and walk away.
I don’t want to feel like a mistake again.
‘Do you know where Alex is in this picture?’
‘No.’ She started to sob again, a long, drawn-out sound that sent static crackling down the line. ‘No,’ she said again – and then hung up.
I placed my phone down.
So, Alex had used the box after all.
11
Alex died on a country road between Bristol’s northern edge and the motorway. I felt I should go there, but first I wanted to see his friend John. Jeff had given me a work address for him the previous day. When I called enquiries to get a telephone number, it turned out to be a police station south-west of Bristol city centre.
John was a police officer.
By the time I got there, it was lunchtime and had been raining: water still ran from guttering, and drains had filled with old crisp packets and beer cans. The street was deserted, except for some kids further down, their cigarettes dying in the cool of the day. I parked on the road and headed into the station.
It was quiet. There was a sergeant behind a sliding glass panel, framed by a huge map of the area. Dots were marked at intervals in a ring around the centre of the city.
The sergeant slid the glass across. ‘Can I help you?’
‘I’m here to see John Cary.’
He nodded. ‘Can I ask what it’s about?’
‘I want to speak to him about Alex Towne.’
It didn’t mean anything to him. He slid the glass panel back and disappeared out of sight. I sat down next to the front entrance. Outside, huge dark clouds rolled across the sky. Somewhere in the distance was the snow they’d been promising, moving down from Russia, ready to cover every can, needle and bloodstain that had ever been left on the streets.
Something clunked. At the far side of the waiting room a huge man emerged from a code-locked door. He was chiselled but not attractive. His Mediterranean skin was spoiled by acne scarring that ran the lengths of both cheeks. I walked across to him.
‘My name’s David Raker.’
He nodded.
‘I’m looking into the disappearance of Alex Towne.’
He nodded again.
‘Alex’s mum came to me.’
‘She told you he’s dead, right?’ he said, eyeing me.
‘Right. I was hoping I might be able to ask you a couple of questions.’
He glanced at his watch, then looked at me, as if intrigued to see what I might come up with. ‘Yeah, okay. Let’s go for a drive.’
We drove north to where Alex had died. It was a picturesque spot: rolling grassland punctuated by narrow roads, all within sight of the city. Cary parked up and then led me away from the car, across to a field sloping away from the road. I looked down. A sliver of police tape still fluttered in a tree nearby. Apart from that, there was no sign that a car had once come off the road here.
‘Were you on duty when he died?’ I asked.
He shook his head.
‘So, you went to see him at the morgue?’
‘Yeah, once he’d been ID’d. It took a week and a half to get confirmation on the dental records.’
‘You actually saw his body?’
‘What was left of it. His hands, his feet, his face – they were all just bone. Some of his organs were still intact, but the rest of him…’ Cary looked out at the fields. ‘They reckon the tank must have ruptured w
hen the car hit the field. It was why the fire consumed everything so quickly.’ He glanced at me, sadness in his eyes. ‘You know how hard you have to hit something in order to rupture a petrol tank?’
I shook my head.
‘That car looked like it had been through a crusher. The whole thing was folded in on itself. Old model like that: no airbag, no side impact bars…’ He paused again. ‘I just hope it was quick.’
We stood silent for a moment. His eyes drifted to the space where the car must have landed, and then – eventually – back to me.
‘He’d been drinking,’ I said. ‘Is that right?’
He nodded. ‘Toxicology put him at four times over the legal limit.’
‘Did you see the autopsy report?’
‘Yeah.’
‘It was definitely him?’
He looked at me like I was from another planet. ‘What do you think?’
I paused for a moment.
‘What are the chances of me getting hold of some of the paperwork?’
A little air escaped from between his lips, as if he couldn’t believe I’d had the balls or stupidity to ask. ‘Low.’
‘What about unofficially?’
‘Still low. I go into the system, it gets logged. I print something out, it gets logged. And why would I anyway? You’re about as qualified to be running around, chasing down leads, as Coco the fucking clown.’
He shook his head, astonished into silence. I didn’t say anything more, just nodded to show that I took his point, but didn’t necessarily agree.
‘Strange he should end up dying so close to home.’
Cary looked at me. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean, he disappears – completely disappears – for all that time… I would have expected him to have turned up somewhere further afield. Instead he dies on your doorstep. Maybe he even stayed nearby the whole, time he was gone.’
‘He didn’t stay around here.’
‘But he died around here.’
‘He was on his way through to somewhere.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘If he’d been staying around here, I would’ve known about it. Sooner or later, someone somewhere would’ve seen him. It would’ve got back to me.’
I nodded – but didn’t agree. Cary was just one man in a local area of thirty or forty square miles. If you wanted to, you could easily disappear in that kind of space and never be found.
‘So, where do you think he went?’
Cary frowned. ‘Didn’t I just answer that?’
‘You said not around here – so where?’
He shook his head and then shrugged.
‘Do you think there was any connection with your other friend’s disappearance?’
‘Simon?’
‘Yeah. Simon –’ I glanced at my notepad ‘– Mitchell.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘How come?’
‘Jeff tell you about him?’
‘He said he had a drug problem.’
He nodded.
‘He said he hit out at Kathy.’
He nodded again. ‘That night, we were all there. Simon didn’t know what the fuck he was doing, but when he tried to hit her, he crossed the line. Especially in Alex’s mind. That night was when we realized he had a serious problem. But by then he was too far gone. He promised to stop, but that was why eventually he left. He couldn’t stop. I don’t think he could face us any more – the way we used to look at him. Even after Alex left, things were never the same. So one day he just packed his bags and was gone. We only ever heard from him once after that.’
‘When?’
‘A long time after Alex disappeared. In fact, probably after he died. Simon had been in London all that time, in and out of whatever place would put a roof over his head.’
‘You tell him Alex was dead?’
‘Yeah. Didn’t register with him. He sounded strung out. Just kept going on about this guy he’d met who was going to help him.’
‘Did he say who the guy was?’
‘No. Just said he’d met him on the streets and they’d got talking. Sounded like this guy was trying to straighten him out.’
‘Do you think Simon followed Alex?’
His expression told me that it was the least likely thing he could imagine happening.
‘You’ve no idea where Simon lives these days?’
‘London.’
‘That narrows it down to about seven million people.’
Cary shrugged. ‘Playing detective ain’t easy.’
‘You ever tried to find him?’
‘I tried once. Didn’t get far. The one thing Simon and Alex did have in common was that neither of them wanted to be found.’
Cary raised his eyes to the skies. The first spots of rain were starting to fall. He pulled his jacket close to his body and zipped it up. Rain spattered off the shoulders, making a sound like pebbles caught in a tide.
We walked back to the car, and got in.
‘I did some asking around at the beginning,’ he said as we drove off, the field sliding away behind us. ‘I think you’ll struggle to find anyone who can give you a reason for Alex’s disappearance. It wasn’t like him to just leave everything behind. Not unless something was seriously wrong. That wasn’t how he was programmed.’
We drove the rest of the way in silence.
Cary had changed his mind by the time we got back to the station. I sat in an office full of paperwork and desks, most of them unmanned, while he used a computer close by to access Alex’s case file. At the other end of the room, there were four detectives with their backs to us. Two of them were on the phone. He glanced around at them, then to the door, then hit ‘Print’.
‘I’m willing to take a risk with this,’ he said. ‘But if anyone finds out I’ve given these to you, I’ll be taking early retirement.’
‘I understand.’
‘I hope you do.’
He got up and went to the printer, then came back with a stack of paper and slid it into a Manila folder he already had open on the desk. I took the file, keeping it low and in front of my body. He sat down at his desk again, looked around, then removed an unmarked DVD from his top drawer.
‘You might want to take a look at that too,’ he said, tossing it across the desk.
‘What is it?’
‘A video one of the fire crew shot of the crash site.’
I took the DVD and slipped it into the file, then held up the printouts. ‘Is there anything in here?’
He shrugged. ‘What do you think?’
‘You reckon it’s open and shut?’
He frowned. ‘Alex was drink-driving. Of course it’s open and shut.’
I nodded, and scanned the first page of the printout. When I looked up, he was staring at me, eyes narrowed.
‘Let me tell you something,’ he said, leaning across the desk. ‘The night of the crash, and for about three months after, I was balls-deep in a double murder. A woman and her daughter, both raped, both strangled, left in a field in the pissing rain for five days before anyone found them. Which case do you think my DCI wanted done first: those two women? Or some fucking drunk who couldn’t even keep to his own side of the road?’
I nodded. ‘I wasn’t passing judge–’
‘And since then? Take a drive down the street. I’ve got guys out there on PCP who think they’re the fucking Terminator. I’ve got seventeen-year-old kids from the council estates with knives the size of your arm.’ He paused, looked at me. ‘So, no, I haven’t spent a lot of time with that file over the last year. I put in my fair share of time when he first went missing, and I got the support of some of the people in here. But as soon as he put his car through the side of a lorry, it became a zero priority case. And you know what? It’s even less than that now.’
I nodded again then decided to move the conversation on.
I removed the Polaroid of Alex I’d taken from the box. Cary eyed me, wondering what I was looking at
. I put the picture down on the desk in front him. He glanced at it, then sat forward.
‘Is that Alex?’
‘I think so.’
Cary picked up the picture, holding it in front of him. ‘Who took this?’
‘I don’t know.’
He went quiet again. ‘Where did you get it?’
‘It was in among Kathy’s stuff.’
‘She took it?’
‘No.’
‘So, how did it get there?’
‘I’m not sure.’
He looked like he didn’t believe me.
‘All I know is what I found. I’ve no idea how it got there – but I can take a guess.’
‘So take a guess.’
‘Alex put it there.’
‘After he disappeared?’
I nodded.
‘Why?’
‘They had an arrangement.’
He frowned. ‘An arrangement?’
‘A spot they liked going to together. A place where they used to hide personal stuff.’
He looked at me for a moment, his eyes narrowing a little. Then his expression changed. He opened up the top drawer of his desk and started shuffling around inside. He brought out a notebook, in tatters, the cover falling off, the pages missing their edges. He laid it down, opened it up and studied it. Words, diagrams and reconstructions of crime scenes were crammed into every space. He flicked through it, got halfway, then looked up.
‘You might want to write this down,’ he said.
I took out my notepad.
‘Like I said, I did some asking around when Alex first went missing. Called a few people. I asked his mum for his card numbers, and his bank details. Basically, anything he could draw on I wanted to know about. It was the best lead we’d have.’
‘But he didn’t take his card with him.’
‘He didn’t take his debit card, no.’
He looked at his notebook. At the top of the page, written in black and circled in red, was a number.
‘He left his debit card behind, but he took his credit card with him,’ Cary said, prodding the number with his finger. ‘It was valid for another five years after he went missing, so I figured it was worth keeping an eye on. I arranged with Mary and the bank to have all his credit card statements redirected to me. And they kept coming, and coming, and coming, and every time the statements arrived on my desk, I’d open them up and they’d be blank.’
