by Tim Weaver
There was another flicker in his face.
‘But, you know, the second the boat left, it all changed. Everything just pulled into focus. It wasn’t just that I’d recognized Lima and knew, in my gut, that he and Hain were up to something. It wasn’t even that I knew you, your brother and Louise, were connected somehow – even if I still can’t prove it – and that if the cases are connected, it stands to reason that the same men are involved in both. It wasn’t those things. It was more that I just kept thinking you and Johnny were going to be buried deep in some hole somewhere, and the men I was following would get away with it again, just like they did with Louise. The expectation of failure gave me focus, because I felt certain I was going to fail you, like I failed Louise.’
He glanced at Rebekah, and something moved in his eyes. To start with, she thought it was a kind of mourning for Louise, and maybe it still was that. Maybe it was some residual emotion, the echoes of him steeling himself for what he’d thought he’d find here. History repeating.
But it wasn’t that: ‘I drove out to Montauk this morning, thinking I’d never – not for a second – find you alive. But you are, because you fought so damn hard to be. The way you survived here, the fight you’ve got, it might just be the bravest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.’ He turned to her, his eyes flashing. ‘So I guess what I’m saying is, I know I’m asking a lot here – I know I’m asking a hell of a lot, more than I should be, I know all you want is for your life to be normal again, to be home with your girls right now – but I need you to be brave for a bit longer, Rebekah.’
Bowners was on her way back.
‘You’re the key, kiddo.’
‘The key?’
He looked at her. ‘I don’t know why they wanted you dead. I’ve still got zero idea what happened to Louise. But there’s one thing I do know.’
He leaned in a little closer to her.
‘Somewhere in your head is the answer.’
Identities
She was in a cab, on the way home, when Tillman called her on her cell. The day before, he’d given her the number of a new burner he was using, and in the time since, she’d committed the number to memory, so she knew right away it was him. She knew as well that he wouldn’t call without a reason.
She hit Answer. ‘It’s two a.m.’
‘Yeah, well, we need to talk about something.’
‘At two a.m.?’
‘We might have a problem.’
‘And this can’t wait until morning?’
‘It’s about Travis.’
Her breath caught. ‘What about him?’
‘And it’s about Axel too.’
She tried to retain her composure. ‘Okay.’
‘Maybe it’s better if we do this in person.’
That meant it was big and potentially messy. She felt herself tense, then tried to think of the best place to meet. She didn’t want Tillman at her house. As much as possible, she tried to avoid being seen with him, especially now. She’d worked her ass off to land the new job. The last thing she needed was questions being asked about her judgement when she’d barely got her feet under the desk. She said, ‘I thought all of this shit was sorted.’
‘It was a sticking plaster, that’s all. I always told you that.’ Tillman was on edge. She could hear it in his voice. ‘And now I find out that Travis is back working cold cases. Have you got any idea how fucking dumb that is?’
‘The Louise Mason case is dead.’
‘And I guarantee you that, by bringing Travis back in from the cold, it’s not going to stay that way for long.’
‘I vetted the cold cases we gave him.’
‘You just don’t get it, do you? Travis isn’t some asshole. He’s smart. He knows what he’s doing. And you’ve just given him access to the system.’
She felt a shiver of panic.
‘I told you from the start. What we did that night with Axel, it was just to stem the flow. Sooner or later, this was going to come back and bite us on the ass. Axel is a big problem. He’s always been a problem.’
She closed her eyes. She’d known this day was coming – Tillman himself had warned her the last time they’d met in person, on the bench at the end of Pier 15. But even though she’d asked for a delay that time, and Tillman had honoured it, she knew there could be no delay this time. It was inevitable.
When she opened her eyes again, in the window of the cab she briefly glimpsed a reflection of herself, phone to her ear. Except for her hair, she looked colourless, like a wraith, a pale, tortured soul, tethered to nothing.
No person. No home.
No family.
‘You think Travis knows about me?’ she asked.
‘No.’
‘You think he knows who you are? Your details?’
‘No, definitely not.’
‘How can you be so confident?’
‘Because I switched identities after the fundraiser.’
She glanced at the cab driver, suddenly aware that he would be able to hear her side of the conversation. She lowered her voice and said, ‘You never told me that. You switched the night of the fundraiser? Why?’
‘Why do you think?’
It was a stupid question.
They both knew what had happened that night.
‘The name “Nick Tillman” was confined to the trash the minute your precious Axel entered the picture.’ A damning silence, loaded with the weight of the last six months. ‘Axel is responsible. Axel is the reason we’re still running around, months down the line, trying to plug holes in the hull of this sinking ship. Axel is the issue here.’
She looked ahead of her, through the windshield of the cab, into the darkness of the Holland Tunnel.
It was like a mouth about to swallow her up.
‘Tillman, I know this has to be done but –’
‘Hain,’ came the response. ‘From now on, you can just call me Hain.’
68
For the next hour, Rebekah told Bowners everything. By the time she was done, the street outside was black and silent, the ferry gone. The police activity had subsided too. From where she was, she could still see some marked cars, but their lightbars were off.
‘I’m sorry you had to go through all that,’ Bowners said, the nib of her pen making a soft scratch across the pages of a pad. Despite the camera, she’d made notes on pretty much everything Rebekah had told her. ‘I mean it,’ she added, and looked up. ‘I’ve got kids myself. It must have been hell for you.’
Rebekah just nodded. It had. What else was there left to say? ‘Is Hain still on the island?’ she asked.
‘No,’ Bowners responded. ‘We don’t believe he is.’
Something twisted in Rebekah’s gut.
‘We believe he may have commandeered a boat.’ Bowners held up a hand, seemingly recognizing the reaction. ‘It’s okay, we’ll find him. And until we do, we’ll make sure you and your family are protected. I’ve spoken to detectives at the NYPD and they’ve posted officers at your home already.’
Cops being posted outside the home in which her girls were sleeping: it would have been barely believable before all of this, something that happened to other people. Now it wasn’t even the worst of what she’d been through.
‘The names “Lima” and “Hain”,’ Bowners went on, ‘are aliases. “Hain” we haven’t managed to trace, although there appear to be some links to the stolen identity of a man called Nick Tillman. The real Tillman’s been dead for ten years, so Hain – whatever his real name – was just using it. “Lima”, we have a confirmed ID on: he was called Lorenzo Selestino. He was born in Lima, Peru, which is obviously why he chose that particular name. We’re still running down some leads, but he had a record – he did five years for assault at Rikers – so our assumption is that “Hain” will have a similar background. He’ll have a record. We just need to find it. Of course this whole thing begs the question of why they chose to use aliases, even when they were alone – or thought they were. The obvious ans
wer was to minimize the risk of them being IDed, at any point.’
Bowners looked down at her notes. ‘One thing I can’t figure out,’ she said, ‘and I know it’s been bothering Frank as well. Why did Lima come to the island by himself to kill you and your brother? We haven’t found any evidence of Hain on the cameras in Montauk.’
Rebekah shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea.’
‘You said when they both returned to the island that night, you got the sense that Hain was in charge?’
‘That’s what it seemed like, yes.’
‘So if he was in charge, why leave everything to Lima?’ Bowners wasn’t really asking Rebekah. ‘It would have been a hell of a lot less risky if Hain had come along as well. You’d definitely never met either man before?’
‘No, never.’
‘And you never met Louise Mason either. Is that correct?’
‘Not in the flesh, no.’
‘So your only knowledge of Louise was through Johnny?’
‘And Kirsty Cohen.’
Bowners wagged her pen at Rebekah. ‘Right. Your college friend Kirsty. She played matchmaker for Louise and Johnny?’
‘Yes.’
‘But Johnny thought Louise wasn’t interested?’
‘I know he texted her a couple of times after leaving her at the fundraiser, maybe called as well, but never got a response. He didn’t talk much about it.’
‘About Louise? Was that unusual?’
‘Not at all. Johnny kept things pretty close to his chest when it came to relationships. He didn’t like to talk about them until he knew for sure it was real, and that the woman was genuinely interested.’ Rebekah thought of the confession her brother had made to her the night after the incident in London. ‘Johnny was always scared of being hurt. I do think he liked her, though.’
There was a brief, funereal quiet. He liked her, she seemed to like him, and in any other life they might have ended up together. But not in this one.
Travis shuffled forward in the booth.
‘Okay, here’s what I know about the night Louise vanished,’ he said, a notebook out in front of him now. Every inch of it was crammed with scribbles in the margins, diagrams, phone numbers. ‘On September twenty-third last year, she went with your brother to a fundraiser at the Royal Union Hotel in the East Village. It was for the children’s charity One Life, Second Chance. Louise was one of its patrons and had offered to paint someone’s portrait as part of an auction they were doing. Anyway, Johnny gets a call from the hospital about your friend Noella having appendicitis just as the two of them are arriving at the hotel, so he drops Louise at the fundraiser – makes sure she gets into the event okay – then heads back to Brooklyn. She goes inside …’ Travis stopped: a flicker, a long breath. ‘By the end of the night, she’s vanished.’
‘No one remembered seeing her?’ Rebekah asked.
‘Plenty of people remembered seeing her at the actual event, but no one remembered seeing her leave. Best I ever got was a possible sighting of her in the hotel bar.’ He went to the back of his notebook, where there was a pouch, bulging with more paper. Snapping off a band, he pulled everything out. Most of the paper was folded, including a glossy printout, fuzzy and dark: a still from a surveillance camera. ‘That’s the hotel bar,’ he said, pushing it towards Rebekah. ‘The camera is out in the corridor, which doesn’t help. But I think this might be her head.’ He jabbed a finger at the indistinct top half of a face, obscured by people and the open doors of the bar. ‘She’s talking to someone.’
Travis’s finger moved from Louise to a second face, even more obscured at the edges of the frame. It was a man, white or Hispanic, caught in the middle of a wide smile. She could see the vague profile of his face but, beyond that, it was impossible to be sure about anything else: the shot was zoomed in, blurry.
‘Do you know who that is?’ Rebekah asked.
‘It could be Hain.’
Rebekah leaned in closer to the picture.
‘Or it could be Lima.’ Travis selected another piece of folded paper, opened it out, and set it in front of her. ‘These are the best two shots we’ve got of the bar in the time before Louise disappeared,’ he said, and pushed over the second.
It was another still from the same camera in the same part of the hotel. This one was showing more of the foyer, the bar only visible at the left edge of the frame. The camera must have been on a rotation. Elsewhere, guests milled around, or waited in line at the front desk, or spilled through the lobby doors.
The shot was bleached, the resolution mediocre, grainy.
Rebekah’s gaze went to the left of the frame.
It took her a second to work out what had caught her attention but then it pulled into focus: a group of men were just inside the door of the bar – five of them, possibly more – a tangle of arms and legs. One had his hand on the door, holding it open, as if he were getting ready to leave. It was impossible to see who he was because, apart from the sleeve of a jacket, he was behind the partly open door; it was also impossible to make out the rest of the men, certainly as individuals, because their tuxedos and dark suits merged into one homogenous blob, or parts of them were cut off by the framing. All Rebekah could clearly see were two faces: a waiter in the foreground …
… and someone else.
She glanced up at Travis. ‘Who’s that?’
She pointed to a man in the group. The distance between him and the camera had resulted in a faint blurring of his features. Rebekah could tell he was white, his hair was black or a very dark brown, and he was one of the tallest of the men. He’d worn a grey suit, white shirt and black tie to the fundraiser. His eyes were just blotches, dark spots obscured by the lighting in the bar.
Travis leaned in. ‘I’m not sure. There was no way to get a definitive idea of who was in the hotel that night because, although I had all the names from the fundraiser’s RSVP list, the hotel bar is open to the public. Anyone here could have wandered in off the street.’ He swivelled his head slightly, trying to get a better view of the man. ‘Why? Do you think you might know him?’
Bowners used a finger to drag in the original surveillance shot from the bar – of what Travis believed was Louise, talking to little more than a nose, a mouth and a wide smile – and turned it so Rebekah could compare the two pictures, side by side. ‘Take your time,’ she said calmly.
But she wasn’t calm, Rebekah could tell.
‘I don’t know if I …’ Rebekah stopped. ‘I don’t think I know him.’
But then she looked at the man’s face again.
Or do I?
She dragged the picture even closer.
She stared at his face some more.
And that was when it hit her like a train.
Before
After she got dressed, Rebekah came out of the bathroom to find him making the bed. He had his back to her, leaning over the mattress, dressed in a white vest and grey tracksuit pants. He didn’t notice her to start with. For a moment, she stood in the doorway, uncertain what to do. She looked around at his place: it was nice, homely, photographs on the walls of old New York, the smell of coffee and bacon coming from the kitchen on their left, the living room, through a doorway ahead of them, flooded by early-morning sun. Behind the bed was a wall of red brick with an autographed soccer shirt, the name HENRY printed above a number 14, mounted on the wall in a frame.
‘You like football?’
He turned, surprised to find Rebekah there, and then his gaze followed hers to the frame. ‘Oh.’ He smiled. ‘Yeah, big fan. Thierry was my hero.’
She nodded, didn’t know what else to say.
She thought again how good-looking he was. She was thirty-nine, and he was at least fifteen years older, his hair and stubble flecked grey, but he looked good on it. He was fit, his body strong. He took care of himself.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I’m really sorry again about …’ He faded out. About all of this: last night, getting so drunk we don’t remember anything, even each o
ther’s names. ‘Maybe we should have a do-over,’ he added, smiling yet again, reaching out a hand to her, clearly hoping she would take it. ‘Hello, I’m Daniel.’
She hesitated for a moment.
But then she put her hand into his.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m Rebekah.’
They stared at each other, unable to come up with anything else to fill the gap. And then he laughed sheepishly, and she did too, and it seemed to clear the air.
‘I feel I need to be honest with you,’ he said, and dread welled in her. ‘I do have someone else in my life, as I guess you do too?’
She grimaced. ‘It’s a bit more complicated than that.’
‘Okay,’ he said, and she appreciated that he didn’t ask a follow-up. She didn’t want to have to explain. ‘I meant what I said earlier, though. I don’t do stuff like this normally. It’s not who I am. She and I … I don’t know … I guess we’re in a weird place at the moment, but that’s not any kind of excuse. I didn’t go out looking for this last night, I promise you. I wouldn’t ever do that.’
For some reason, even though she knew barely anything about him but his name, she believed him. He seemed so sincere, so serious. She had the sudden compulsion to tell him about Gareth, about their split, because in a weird place at the moment was exactly the definition of their relationship too: they were split up, she was still hurting from his infidelity, but they’d reached an equilibrium where they didn’t talk about getting back together, but didn’t fight any more and weren’t looking to move things on.
What was that, other than weird?
‘I don’t think I’m going to tell her about this,’ Daniel admitted, his eyes creasing, as if the admission hurt him somehow.
She didn’t know what to say to that because she didn’t know which was better: admitting it or concealing it. She felt more comfortable with the second one, concealing it, burying it, but it would be a decision wreathed with aftershocks. She knew what type of person she was, so she knew already that every time she’d start to make some kind of peace with what had happened here – or as close to peace as she could get – a tremor would hit her. It was just how she was built. So she shook her head and said, ‘No, I won’t either. It’s just too …’ She couldn’t think of anything to define her situation other than the same word: complicated. It was so prosaic – but it summed it up perfectly.
