The Final Minute

by Simon Kernick

  Sheryl led her into a spacious living room that smelled of perfume and cigarettes and looked like it could use a decent spring clean, and plonked herself down on the sofa, gesturing for Tina to take a seat in the armchair next to it.

  ‘Excuse the mess, I had a late one last night.’

  And it was a mess too, with cups, crockery and half-full ashtrays dotted around on all available surfaces, and a lot of strewn clothes. The curtains were closed too and all the lights were on, which gave the place a claustrophobic feel.

  Tina removed a top from the chair and placed it on the carpet before sitting down, thinking that at three o’clock in the afternoon the excuse that you hadn’t had time to clear up didn’t really wash.

  As was her habit, she got straight down to business. ‘When was the last time you saw Lauren Donaldson?’

  ‘Not for a long time now.’

  ‘Can you be more specific?’

  She giggled. ‘I’m not very good with dates.’

  ‘Try,’ said Tina. ‘This is a missing person we’re talking about.’

  Sheryl looked taken aback by her tone but didn’t argue. Instead she pulled a face of intense concentration, like a kid. ‘Well, it was quite a few months ago. Probably March, April? She was in a club with Jen. Jen was a good friend of hers. They used to hang out a lot.’

  ‘Has Jen got a last name?’

  She thought about it for a moment. ‘Jones. Yeah, Jen Jones.’

  Tina wrote it down.

  ‘Sheryl, I’ve had real trouble finding the latest address for Lauren. Do you know where she was living when you last saw her?’

  ‘She was living with Jen. I went up there once after a party last summer. Their flat was in Chalk Farm, not that far from here. To be honest, I was pretty wasted so I can’t remember the exact address.’

  ‘Do you have any idea where I can find Jen?’

  Sheryl shook her head. ‘No. I haven’t seen her for a long time either. I think the last time I saw her she was with Lauren.’

  Tina was beginning to wonder if she was wasting her time here. ‘So how did you know Lauren?’

  ‘We met at a party a couple of years ago. We kind of hit it off and arranged to meet afterwards. We used to be part of the same scene.’

  ‘And what kind of scene was that?’

  ‘It’s like a party scene. You go to different clubs and parties … you know.’

  ‘So it was a social circuit?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Sheryl unconvincingly. ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Can you give me the names of any of the other people on this circuit who’d know Lauren?’

  ‘Erm … God, I don’t know.’

  ‘How many of you were there on this party circuit of yours? Because it’s interesting, no one else has contacted me regarding Lauren’s disappearance.’

  ‘I think some people probably want to remain anonymous.’

  Tina felt her antennae prick up. This was what often happened in detective work. You dug slowly, bit by bit, and sometimes it seemed like you weren’t getting anywhere. Then you struck something interesting, and potentially valuable. ‘Why would that be?’

  Sheryl seemed uncomfortable for the first time. She grabbed a packet of cigarettes from the table beside her and lit one, offering the pack to Tina, who waved it away. She’d smoked two cigarettes on the way down here and that was enough for now.

  Sheryl took a short drag on the cigarette, as if she didn’t really enjoy it, before looking at Tina through the smoke. ‘Look, can I ask you a question? What do you think happened to Lauren?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Tina, ‘but I’m worried about her. She hasn’t been seen for months; her Facebook page seems to have been taken down; her phone’s out of service. Her brother, who seems to be the only person she used to talk to regularly, hasn’t been able to get hold of her since early April.’

  ‘Is that Ben? She always talked about him. He was the only one of her family Lauren liked.’ She took another half-hearted drag on the cigarette. ‘You know, I’m worried about her too. I tried calling her a few times but, like you said, her phone’s dead.’

  ‘Have you tried Jen’s?’

  ‘Once. I didn’t know her as well as Lauren. But her phone was dead too. I said to people that I hadn’t seen them, but no one seemed that bothered. It was like they just weren’t there any more, and everything just moved on. It’s like that on the party scene really. People drift in and out.’ She paused. ‘You’re not a cop any more, are you?’

  ‘No, I’m not. Anything you tell me will be treated with the utmost confidentiality. All I’m interested in is finding Lauren.’ And this woman Jen, Tina thought. That she too seemed to have disappeared around the same time was coincidental to say the least.

  ‘There are a lot of drugs at some of the parties I go to,’ continued Sheryl. ‘Rich guys too. Guys who buy you things, take you away to nice places. And, you know, if they’re good to you, you’re good to them.’

  ‘I think I understand.’

  ‘One of the guys who kind of organizes a lot of the parties, he sometimes approaches girls and asks if they want to make some extra money.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘You know, escort work. He asked me a couple of times but I didn’t want to do it. But I think Lauren might have been doing some. She always seemed to have a lot of cash.’

  ‘Can you tell me the name of this guy who organizes these parties?’

  ‘He’s still a friend of mine. What are you going to do to him?’

  ‘I’m just going to talk to him, that’s all. I’m sure he’ll want to help.’

  Sheryl pulled a face. ‘I don’t know if he will. I asked him about Lauren before, and he didn’t want to talk about her then. He just said he hadn’t seen her in a while and that was it, you know?’

  Tina leaned forward in her seat, fixing Sheryl with a serious look. ‘I won’t tell him we spoke, and I’ll make sure your name never gets mentioned, but if your friend knows something about Lauren, I need to find it out.’

  ‘Seriously, you don’t want to mess him about. He knows people.’ Sheryl emphasized the ‘knows’. ‘Once there was a black guy after him for money over something and he ended up getting shot.’

  Tina had no idea if this was true or not, and didn’t much care. ‘Don’t worry about me, I can handle him.’

  Sheryl smiled. ‘Yeah, that’s what I like about you. You look like you don’t take shit off guys.’

  ‘I don’t take it from anyone. And nothing’ll happen to you. You’ve got my word on that.’

  Sheryl sighed. ‘His name’s Dylan Mackay. I’ve got his phone number if you want it.’

  Tina knew that if she phoned him, she’d get nowhere, but she took it anyway. ‘Do you have an address for him?’

  Sheryl shook her head. ‘I’ve never been to his house, but I think it’s in Kensington somewhere.’

  ‘I’ll find him,’ said Tina, making a note of the details. ‘Do you have any up-to-date photos of Lauren and Jen?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve got a few on my Facebook page.’ She looked round on the sofa until she found an iPad in a pink case.

  Tina waited while she logged on to her account, thinking that it was an empty life this girl led, stuck in a messy flat on her own, going to parties with people she didn’t really know and who didn’t really care about her. She needed to get out and do something different – although the irony of this thought, given her own solitary existence, was not lost on Tina.

  ‘Look, here’s one of the three of us,’ said Sheryl, coming over and planting herself on the arm of Tina’s chair. She leaned in with the iPad so they could both see the screen.

  The picture was a good one of the three women. They were clearly at a party, all wearing pretty but very revealing dresses, their faces made up like they were trying just a bit too hard, all grinning at the camera. Sheryl was on the left. She was holding a full glass of champagne and had her arm round Lauren’s shoulders. Lauren’s grin was more of a
playful pout, and she looked the worse for wear. Tina’s gaze settled on the woman on the right. This was Jen, and with her peroxide blonde hair and thick, luscious lips she was the sexiest-looking of the three, and definitely the most worldly-wise. Even her smile looked calculated. Tina had no doubt she was a leader rather than a follower.

  ‘That was taken at China White’s,’ said Sheryl proudly. ‘I remember it was a good night.’

  Tina looked at the date on the post: 28 March. It immediately struck her that this was only eleven days before Sean had his car accident.

  ‘Was this the last time you saw them?’ she asked.

  ‘You know what? I reckon it might have been. In fact, yeah, I’m sure it was.’

  The timing concerned Tina but she kept it to herself. ‘Have you got any photos of Dylan?’

  ‘A couple, I think.’ She took back the iPad and scrolled through until she found a picture of a good-looking guy of about thirty taken at yet another party. He was tanned, with dark curly hair, and carried a look of money and breeding. Tina disliked him immediately.

  She got to her feet and handed a business card to Sheryl, thanking her for her time. ‘Could you download both those photos and email them to me, and any others you’ve got of Lauren and Jen?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Sheryl, walking Tina to the door, ‘but don’t forget to keep me out of everything with Dylan.’

  Tina reiterated that she would, but as she walked back down the staircase, she wondered if she’d be able to keep her word. If she started asking questions it wouldn’t take too long for Dylan to suspect Sheryl of having a hand in it, and Tina doubted if she’d stand up too well under questioning. But there was nothing she could do about that. Her priority was to find Lauren.

  Or perhaps more likely, what had happened to her.

  Fourteen

  St Mary’s A and E was busy and loud, and most of the chairs in the open-plan waiting room were occupied by the walking wounded, and quite a few who didn’t look too ill at all.

  It had taken me a good few minutes to explain to the receptionist what was wrong with me. Acute amnesia, it seemed, wasn’t a regular problem round here, or an emergency. Things also weren’t helped by the fact that there was no National Health number for a Matthew Barron, and I didn’t want to give her my real name, so I just shrugged and acted dumb. In the end, she’d made me fill out a form (which hadn’t taken long), and told me to take a seat along with everyone else.

  I’d found an empty chair at the end of a row, next to an old man who smelled of compost and opposite a harassed-looking mum, who was trying with only limited success to prevent her two-year-old son from making a beeline for the exit. Somehow, I couldn’t blame him.

  While I sat there waiting, I leafed through the pile of information on my background that Tina had given me. It didn’t take long to find revelations that came as a real shock. The first thing I found out was that I had indeed had a brother. The second thing was that he’d died twenty years earlier. His name was John and he’d been a veteran of the first Gulf War. At the age of twenty-one, during the height of the fighting to oust Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait, the armoured personnel carrier he’d been travelling in had been hit by friendly fire from an American A10 fighter plane, and John had ended up with extensive burns to his face and body. He’d survived the attack but had been invalided out of the army and, according to the report I read, was unemployed and suffering from PTSD when he died four years later.

  I tried to remember all this. There was a vague familiarity to the words I was reading, but once again there was nothing definite I could cling to. They had a black and white face-shot of John as a young man, and I stared at it for a long time. In the photo he was wearing a small, almost nervous smile, as if he was trying to find the right pose. He didn’t look that much like me. His hair had been cut short, military-style, and he had a round, boyish face with dimples and rosy cheeks. I thought he looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure whether this was an actual memory or just my mind playing tricks on me.

  There was another photo of him, this time lying in a hospital bed with his face obscured by bandages. The sight made me feel sick. My brother, young and fresh-faced in the first photo, burned beyond recognition. I didn’t want to see any pictures showing the injuries, and thankfully there weren’t any. I didn’t want to read about his death either, but I had to know what had happened to him, and to the rest of my family.

  John’s death had been both dramatic and tragic. According to the newspaper article Tina had supplied me with, he’d just finished his morning shift in the charity bookshop where he did voluntary work and was en route to buy a sandwich for lunch when he walked straight into an armed robbery. Two masked gunmen were holding up a cash delivery van outside a branch of NatWest while their getaway driver sat in a car nearby, revving his engine. Rather than keep a safe distance, John, it seemed, had gone steaming in, chasing the gunmen as they ran for the car. He’d rugby-tackled one of them but the robber John had targeted was a big guy and had managed to throw him off. At this point the second gunman had come over, shotgun raised, and even though John had been down on his knees, with his hands raised in surrender, the gunman had shot him once in the head from point-blank range, killing him instantly.

  My brother.

  It was hard to read the article. It was even harder when I saw the words that, according to eyewitnesses, the gunman had said to John just before he shot him.

  ‘Oi, freak!’

  A simple, harsh statement epitomizing how little the gunman had thought of him. A man who’d suffered terrible injuries in the service of his country, and who’d just been trying to do the right thing, only to be shot down like a dog by a piece of dirt who couldn’t resist mocking him before he pulled the trigger.

  It made me sick. It made me angry.

  More importantly, it made me remember.

  Oi, freak! Those words came vomiting out of the dark, inaccessible recesses of my mind, and suddenly I was transported back to a dark crematorium where a grim-looking bald-headed priest was delivering a eulogy on all the positive things John had achieved in his short life, all the good he’d done. I was standing in the front row, and I could feel the tears stinging my eyes. They weren’t tears of sadness either. They were tears of frustration. As I stood there staring at the priest, not listening to his pointless words, I was full of rage at the injustice of what had happened to my brother. And then I saw with perfect clarity my mother and father, standing next to me, holding hands, my mother in a black dress and coat, my father in a loose-fitting suit and cheap black tie that looked older than he was.

  I knew it was my parents. They were the same as the people in the photo in my bedroom at Jane’s place, which made me wonder where Jane had got it from. I was certain too, without looking at any of the other articles on my lap, that they were both now dead. But, though the thought should have filled me with grief, it didn’t. Instead I felt a weird sense of elation. Slowly, inch by brutal inch, my memory was coming back.

  ‘Jordan, no!’

  Awoken from my reverie, I looked up to see the hyperactive two-year-old boy grabbing at the papers on my lap. His mum got up, wrapped him in a bear hug and dragged him back to her seat. The kid struggled, but in vain.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ she said from behind his flailing body. ‘He’s a bit bored.’

  I smiled. ‘No problem. I think we all are.’

  ‘He can be a bit of a handful, but he’s a good lad really,’ she continued, but I was no longer listening.

  My attention was focused on two men in suits and raincoats who’d just come in through the main doors. One was tall and wiry with a pile of thin, unruly grey hair whose sole purpose seemed to be to try to cover his otherwise bald pate, and just looked like a rather windswept combover. I put him at around fifty but he could have been a few years older. The other was a couple of inches shorter but a lot broader. He had thick black hair and an even thicker full-face black beard, making it difficult to know what was
going on behind there, but he had sharp eyes that quickly scanned the room, stopping on me for just one second too long before continuing on their way. He was about forty, and looked like the kind of guy you didn’t want to get in an argument with.

  Straight away I knew they were police officers. They just had that air of authority about them. I also knew they were here to see me, even though neither was now looking my way. I wondered if Tina had reported my story to her former colleagues, but quickly dismissed the idea. She wasn’t that kind of woman. She wouldn’t go behind my back.

  Then I wondered if I was being paranoid, but when I looked up again I saw the two guys talking to two uniformed security guards.

  Acting as casually as possible, I put all the A4 papers on the chair next to me, covered them with a newspaper, and started to get to my feet.

  The four of them had split up now and were walking purposefully down either side of the row of chairs, coming at me in a pincer movement.

  For a second I thought about making a run for it, but there was only one set of double doors into the room and the four of them had them well covered.

  ‘Mr Barron?’ said Combover as they surrounded me. His voice sounded vaguely familiar – as did so much in my life recently. ‘My name’s DI Carl Jones, and this is DC Brian Smith.’ Combover produced a warrant card which he flipped open just long enough for me to see a photo of him alongside the Metropolitan Police insignia, before he made it disappear like some cheap magician. ‘We need to speak to you down at the station.’ He leaned forward and took my arm – not roughly, but not exactly gently either. ‘Please come quietly because we don’t want to make a scene.’

  ‘Can I ask what this is about?’ I said as they moved in closer.

  ‘We’d rather not discuss it in here. Now, if you just put your hands behind your back for us, we’re going to handcuff you for your own safety.’