Lost

by Michael Robotham

  A tiny red dot is dancing on his forehead as though bouncing over the lyrics of a song. A fraction of a second later he makes a noise like a popped water balloon and half his head disappears in a spray of fine red mist and shattered bone. One eye, one cheek, half a jaw are suddenly erased from his face.

  The sound of the bullet comes a heartbeat later. Zip!

  Kirsten screams. Her eyes are as wide as a child's. Blood has splattered her cheeks.

  Murphy's body is lying across me with his head on my chest. I roll him off me, kicking my legs to get away, sliding on the wet and bloody deck.

  Kirsten still hasn't moved, immobilized by the shock. I turn and crawl back toward her.

  A bullet enters my thigh. It's only a small hole, no bigger than my little finger, but as it exits it vaporizes skin, muscle and flesh, leaving a wound the size of a pie tin. Part of me is impressed. It's like watching a building getting blown up or a car crash.

  Another bullet passes close to my ear and hits the deck near my right knee. Whoever is shooting is above us. I roll sideways, sliding through blood, until I reach Kirsten and pull her below the level of the wooden railings.

  A section of the polished wood above our heads disintegrates and a splinter slices into her neck. She screams again.

  Unbuckling my belt I lever myself upward and pull it around my upper thigh. I hold one end of the belt between my teeth and pull it tightly, trying to stem the flow of blood. I tie it off with sticky fingers.

  Beside me, Ray Murphy flinches as a bullet tears through his thigh and enters the deck beneath him. On the far side, almost touching his leg, is a fisherman's net on a long pole. Lodged within the mesh are four plastic packages. The ransom.

  Someone is in the wheelhouse trying desperately to engage the throttle but the mooring rope is still looped through a large silver cleat on the stern. Reaching under my armpit I feel for the Glock and pull it out of the holster. I look at Kirsten. She's deep in shock but listening.

  “We can't stay here! You have to get to the wheelhouse. Quickly! Now!”

  Kirsten nods.

  I push her across the deck, watching her slip and slide through the blood. At the same time I spin around and aim the Glock blindly into the night sky. Nothing happens when I pull the trigger.

  Kirsten's body spins and she clutches her side. A fraction of a second later I hear the bullet. Blood flows over her fingers but she keeps moving.

  The choice of two targets has distracted the shooter but I have to do something about the floodlight. It's made of brass and chrome and fixed to a pillar in the center of the deck.

  I spin the Glock until I'm holding it like a hammer. Using Ray Murphy's body as a shield, I slide across the deck until I'm beneath the light. Reaching up I smash the glass. The bulb flares and dies.

  A shadow passes in front of me, tripping over my feet and sprawling on the deck. Gerry Brandt scrambles to his feet and tries to reach the diamonds. Launching a kick at his groin, I send him in the opposite direction. A bullet detonates in the space he left behind. He yowls and gives me a murderous look. I save the arsehole's life and this is the thanks I get.

  His face is a pale blankness of shock. A red dot appears in the center of his chest. Even without the spotlight the sniper can still see us. He must have an infrared scope.

  Gerry looks at his chest and then at me. He's about to die.

  He rolls and the deck splinters beneath him. Over and over, he tumbles, past the netting and the packages. He disappears off the stern but the splash is muffled by the sound of the engine revving at full throttle. I have visions of him falling directly onto the spinning propeller.

  Kirsten is in the wheelhouse, opening the throttle. A mooring rope is still looped through a cleat on the stern. The boat dips and sways, going nowhere. The dual engines are pulling us under. Rolling across the deck, I reach up and uncoil the last loop of rope from the cleat, feeling it whip through my fingers. The boat pitches forward but instead of turning away from the bank we steer toward it, colliding heavily against the stonework.

  For fuck's sake, what's she doing!

  The boat collides with a sunken pylon or another boat, before spinning into open water. There's nobody at the wheel. Where's she gone?

  The boat is going around in circles. The shooter is waiting to get another clean shot at me.

  Half crawling and half dragging myself across the deck toward the wheelhouse, I brace my back against the outside wall. Reaching up, I hook my fingers over the edge of the porthole, pulling myself upward until my eyes reach the glass window.

  There's nobody there. In that same instant a dark stain fills my vision, a spray of blood. My finger disappears along with my wedding ring. It's a neat, clean amputation by a high-velocity bullet. I slide backward, landing heavily on the deck.

  The shooter is somewhere high up on a bridge or a building. Now he's aiming at the engines or the fuel tanks. The current is turning the rudder and we're drifting on the tide. Soon we'll be out of range.

  I suck the stump of my missing finger. There's surprisingly little blood. Where's Mickey? Was she in the pipe? Is she down below? I can't leave her behind.

  I hear another sound—a different engine. With my back against the wall, I lever myself upward again, peering through the shattered porthole. I can't see any navigation lights. Instead I make out the silhouette of a boat. There is someone standing on the bow holding a gun.

  I can either stay here or take my chances in the river. It takes less than a fraction of a second to decide.

  Then I see Kirsten lying under a tarpaulin against the bow. I don't see her face, just her outline as she tries to stand and falls. She tries again and rolls over the side. I hear the splash followed by the sound of men yelling and bullets hitting the water.

  The boat is getting closer. I have one good leg and one leaking. Pushing off the wall, I take two stumbling steps and roll over the railing. The cold comes as a shock. I don't know why. I'm still wet from before.

  Kicking with one good leg and whipping my arms across my body, I swim down into the darkness where I'm going to drown or bleed to death. I'll let the river decide.

  28

  Joe is holding on to me. I'm growing accustomed to his face. He lays my arm over his shoulders and braces his body against mine.

  “C'mon, let's get you out of here.”

  “I remembered.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “What about Mickey?”

  “She's not here. We'll find her.”

  I climb out of the drain and we limp across the parking lot. A pair of teenagers, a boy and a girl, have parked their car away from the light. I wonder what they make of two middle-aged men arm in arm. Are we drunks or lovers? I'm way past caring.

  I have remembered. I have waited and hoped for this to happen. I have feared it. What if I shot someone? What if I had Mickey in my arms and lost her to the river? I dreamed the nightmare because I didn't have the truth.

  It's almost ten o'clock when we reach Primrose Hill. Yellow light paints the edges of the curtains and a coal fire warms the sitting room.

  “You'll stay here tonight,” says Joe, opening the door.

  I want to say no, but I'm too tired to argue. I can't go home or to Ali's parents' place. I'm like an infectious disease—poisoning those around me. I won't stay long. Just tonight.

  I keep getting flashbacks of being under water, unable to breathe. I smell the foulness of the sewers and see the white-green water boiling at my feet. Each time it happens I take a ragged urgent breath. Joe looks at me. He thinks I'm having a heart attack.

  “I should take you to the hospital. They could run some tests.”

  “No. I need to talk.” I have to tell him what I remember in case I forget again.

  Joe pours me a drink and then moves to sit down. He suddenly freezes. For a split second he looks like a statue, trapped between sitting and standing. Just as suddenly, he moves again as the signals reach his limbs. He smiles at me apologeti
cally.

  The mantelpiece is decorated with photographs of his family. The new baby has a moon face and a tangle of blond hair. She looks more like Joe than Julianne.

  “Where is your lovely wife?”

  “Tucked up in bed. She's an early riser.”

  Joe rocks forward with his hands between his thighs. I tell him about being washed through the sewers and what happened on the boat. I remember Kirsten Fitzroy wiping vomit from my lips and feeling the dead weight of Ray Murphy slumped across me. His blood leaked down my neck, pooling in the depression beneath my Adam's apple. I remember the sound of high-velocity bullets and seeing Kirsten spinning across the deck, clutching her side.

  Memories carry more memories—fleeting images captured before they fade. Gerry Brandt going over the stern, the silhouette of a gunman, my finger disappearing . . . These things have all become substance now and nothing else is real except what happened that night. Even as I try to explain this to Joe I have the horrors of hindsight and regret to contend with. If only I could change what happened. If only I could go back.

  Ray Murphy worked for Thames Water. He knew his way through the storm-water drains and sewers because he used to be a flusher and a flood planner. He knew what water main to sabotage to create a flood. The explosion would be blamed on methane or a gas leak and nobody would bother investigating further.

  Radio transmitters and satellite tracking devices are useless underground and nobody was likely to make such a journey. Ray Murphy would also have known about the underground river beneath Dolphin Mansions. He and Kirsten provided each other with an alibi on the morning Mickey disappeared. But where did Gerry Brandt come into the operation? Perhaps they needed a third person for the plan.

  “You still can't be sure they kidnapped Mickey,” says Joe. “There's no direct evidence.” A sudden spastic movement of his arm flicks up at my face. “It could still be a hoax. Kirsten had access to Rachel's flat. She could have taken strands of Mickey's hair and counted the money in her money box. If they kidnapped her three years ago, why wait until now to send a ransom demand?”

  “Perhaps it was never about a ransom—not at first. Sir Douglas Carlyle said he would do almost anything to safeguard his granddaughter. We know he hired Kirsten to spy on Rachel. He was gathering evidence for a custody battle, but his lawyers told him he couldn't succeed. He might have taken the law into his own hands.”

  “What about Mickey's towel—how did it get to the cemetery?”

  My brain is caught in a vague, desperate pause. Maybe they framed Howard. They put Mickey's blood on a towel and planted it in the cemetery. The police and the courts did the rest.

  “You still have no proof that Mickey is alive.”

  “I know.”

  Bending toward the fire, Joe asks a question of the flames instead of me. “Why send the ransom demand now?”

  “Greed.”

  At least it's a motive I understand. Joe can have his psychopaths and sadists but give me an old-fashioned everyday motive I can identify with.

  “Who did the shooting? Who wanted them dead?”

  “Someone who wanted to silence them or punish them,” I whisper, rocking forward in the armchair. “It could have been Sir Douglas. If he arranged Mickey's kidnapping he may have been threatened with blackmail.”

  “Or what else? I know you don't think it's him.”

  “Aleksei.”

  “You said he was following you and Rachel that night.”

  “Following the diamonds.”

  Joe waits for my explanation. I know he's already there but he wants to hear me lay out the arguments. “Aleksei was never going to stand back and let anyone walk away with two million pounds. Whether they kidnapped Mickey or not, whether she was dead or alive, somebody was going to pay. Look what he did to his own brother.”

  “Did that include killing you?”

  “No. I wasn't supposed to be on the boat. Nobody expected anyone to follow the ransom through the sewers.”

  “And the attack in the hospital?”

  The memory climbs up my throat and hangs there. “I don't know. I haven't worked that out yet. Maybe he was frightened that I'd put the pieces together or perhaps he thinks I saw something that night . . .”

  I still can't explain how the diamonds ended up in my linen cupboard. I know they were in the pizza box and I saw the packages on the deck of the Charmaine. Most of the facts fit but not all of them.

  I have to convince the Met to reopen the investigation. This isn't about Howard Wavell anymore. Yes, he belongs in prison but not for this crime. Aleksei is the true monster.

  I shudder awake and feel like weeping with tiredness. The day is just beginning but I can't tell where the last one ended. All night I have drowned in sewers and watched red dots dancing across the walls.

  Julianne gives me a cheery smile in the kitchen. “How are you feeling?”

  Five seconds of my life evaporate considering this and I decide not to answer. Instead I gratefully accept a cup of coffee.

  “Where are the girls?”

  “Joe is dropping Charlie at school. He took Emma along for the ride.”

  Her pale blue eyes stare at me with the vague, almost accusatory air of someone who has discovered the one true path to happiness—married life. Wrapped in a crimson skirt and light sweater, she looks beautiful as always. I can imagine her walking barefoot along a beach in some warm country, supporting a child on her slender hip. The Professor is a lucky man.

  The front door opens. Joe is carrying Emma in one arm and the morning papers under the other. Julianne takes the toddler and kisses her cold nose, running her fingers through her curls.

  “Cold nose, warm heart.”

  Joe opens a paper on the table. “There's a very small piece—just a couple of paragraphs—about a body found in the Thames.”

  “It's too early. They won't do a postmortem until today.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I have to convince them to investigate the shootings. Will you come with me? I need someone to back me up.”

  “I don't think they'll listen to me.”

  “We have to try.”

  On the drive to New Scotland Yard my hands begin to shake. Maybe it's obvious to Joe what I'm going through—the headaches, stomach cramps, the constant churning in my guts. If he does recognize the withdrawal symptoms he doesn't say anything.

  At the Yard we are made to wait like any other members of the public. My request to see the Commissioner is sent via the public affairs department through various branches of bureaucracy, only to be rejected. I ask to see the Assistant Commissioner. Again the request goes upstairs and is passed around like a problem that nobody wants. Eventually, I'm directed back to Campbell Smith.

  We cross the city and cool our heels for another hour downstairs at the Harrow Road Police Station. Joe spends his time studying the missing persons posters as if he's at the National Portrait Gallery. Receptionists, secretaries and uniforms ignore us. A month ago I used to run this place. I gave it my life.

  Eventually, Campbell agrees to see us.

  Joe limps alongside me down the corridor, our footsteps echoing on the shiny floor. At the far end of the incident room civilian operators sit at a bank of computer screens. The flurry of their keystrokes sounds like rain falling on plastic. Some wear headsets, talking to officers in the field, running checks on names, addresses and license plates.

  There's a new head of the Serious Crime Group—DI John Meldrum. He spies me. “Hey, we once had a guy who looked just like you working here. I think he might be dead.”

  “But not buried,” I yell back. “Congratulations on the promotion.”

  I try to sound genuine but it doesn't work. Instead I feel a juvenile rush of anger and jealousy. Meldrum is in my office. His jacket is hanging over my chair.

  Campbell makes us wait again outside his office. Joe doesn't understand the politics involved. It's not actually politics—it's spite.

 
; Finally we are summoned. I let the Professor walk ahead of me. Campbell shakes his hand and gives him the no-brand smile. Then he studies me for a moment and motions to a chair. Meldrum slides his chair back a few inches, taking himself outside the circle. He's here to watch and witness.

  I should be addressing a task force. There should be detectives sitting on chairs and corners of desks—men in gray suits with Father's Day ties and women with sensible hairstyles and minimal makeup. Instead I have to argue my case in front of a Chief Superintendent who thinks I betrayed my fellow officers and jeopardized a murder conviction.

  Using a whiteboard, I explain what happened on the river. I write four names across the top: Ray Murphy, Kirsten Fitzroy, Gerry Brandt and Aleksei Kuznet. Ray Murphy is dead. Kirsten and Gerry Brandt are missing.

  Taking out the brown envelope, I show him the ransom letters and the DNA reports, before describing the ransom drop and my trip through the sewers.

  “I know it sounds far-fetched but I've been down there. I've followed the trail. They were waiting at the other end. Ray Murphy was the caretaker at Dolphin Mansions when Mickey Carlyle disappeared. I saw him shot and killed on the Charmaine. They'll match the blood and the bullets to the boat.”

  “Who killed him?”

  “A sniper.”

  Meldrum leans closer. “And this is the same sniper who tried to kill you?”

  “I got in the way.”

  Campbell hasn't said a word but I know he's struggling to remain composed.

  “Kirsten Fitzroy lived at Dolphin Mansions when Mickey disappeared. She was Rachel Carlyle's best friend. I saw her shot on the Charmaine. She suffered a stomach wound and went over the side. I don't know if she survived.”

  “Her flat was burgled,” says Meldrum.

  “Not burgled. It was searched. I think Aleksei Kuznet is looking for Kirsten. He wants to punish the people who sent the ransom demand. I believe they're the same people who kidnapped his daughter.”

  Campbell scoffs angrily. “Howard Wavell killed Mickey Carlyle.”

  “Even if you believe that—you have to accept that someone else sent the ransom demand. They included a lock of Mickey's hair and the bikini.”