The Vanishing

by John Connor

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly. ‘I have no idea. I don’t care.’

  ‘No. Of course not. I’m sorry. That was insensitive.’

  But she wasn’t listening. ‘The gates are open,’ she said. ‘I wonder if that means anything?’ She stepped up to the intercom panel set in one of the big granite pillars, pressed the button to speak and waited. Nothing happened. She pressed again. No one answered.

  ‘She’s not in,’ Tom said. ‘Shall we try your father now?’

  ‘Alison. It’s me – Sara,’ she said, speaking with her mouth close to the microphone. ‘Are you there? I need to speak to you. It’s urgent. Please answer if you’re there.’

  Silence. She had Alison Spencer’s phone numbers, and had tried them all in the taxi over, to no avail. She tried the intercom again. ‘Alison. I need to talk to you about my mother. Please, Alison …’ She stopped suddenly and wiped a sleeve across her eyes. ‘Please, Alison. I need your help. Please.’

  ‘She’s not there,’ Tom said gently. ‘I think we should make contact with your father now.’

  ‘I think we should go in,’ she said, already stepping through the gap between the two gates. ‘I don’t know why she’s left the gates open.’

  They walked in silence past the gatehouse on a light gravel surface. There was no sign of life in the windows ahead. He asked her if she knew the place. She’d been a lot, she said, a few years back, before Alison Spencer had the place. The skies were heavy above them, the air close. As they reached the house a few drops of rain picked at his skin.

  There was another intercom by a door round the side of the place. She said it was the service entrance, but it had been the one they usually used. She spoke again into the microphone, again got no response. She pushed the door tentatively and it opened immediately. That stopped her. ‘This door is open as well,’ she said. She looked around her suspiciously.

  ‘Maybe she’s in the garden,’ Tom said. ‘Or gone to get a packet of cigarettes from the corner shop …’

  ‘She has people to do that for her.’

  ‘Of course. Maybe they left it open?’

  She pushed it fully open, standing warily at the threshold, peering inside. There was a corridor, leading to steps and other doorways, an interior that looked spotless, painted in clean colours, mainly white. She shouted feebly. ‘Alison! Are you in?’

  It was too big a place for that to be effective, he thought. She turned back to him and looked frightened.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s all wide open. No security. It’s the same thing everywhere. All the security has been removed. Will you come in with me? I don’t want to go in alone.’

  He shrugged, then stepped past her and shouted, very loud: ‘Alison Spencer! Are you here?’

  He thought he heard some movement somewhere. But there was no reply. The noise was too far away to be distinct. He turned back to her. ‘I really don’t think she’s in.’

  ‘Let’s check. Please.’ She edged past him.

  ‘I don’t think there’s anything to be afraid of,’ he said. Then started to think about it. It didn’t take him long to come up with a couple of improbable, but frightening, scenarios. ‘Do you know where we go?’ he asked, dropping his voice.

  ‘Straight through,’ she whispered. ‘Up those stairs, then down the next set. That brings us to the reception hall …’ She stopped, listening to some sound. He too had heard a banging noise. ‘Did you hear that?’ she hissed. He nodded, then tried to smile at her. ‘Maybe she is in,’ he said.

  ‘She would have answered the intercom if she was here.’

  ‘Well, I think someone’s in. You want to go and speak to them, or not?’

  ‘You don’t think it’s dangerous?’

  He frowned at her. ‘Why should it be? Someone tried to kidnap you, but that was several thousand miles away. No one could know you were coming here.’

  ‘They could have followed us from my mother’s.’

  ‘That didn’t happen. If they’d followed us they’d be behind us, not in front.’

  ‘You think I’m being silly?’

  ‘It’s understandable, but I don’t think what has happened half a world away should make you feel cautious here.’

  ‘But they’re trying to convince me my mother is dead. What about that?’

  He didn’t know how to reply to that. Not by insisting her mother was dead. He spoke very gently to her. ‘OK. Let’s go in and look,’ he said. ‘I’ll be right with you. OK?’

  She wanted to creep down the corridor, so he held her hand, then started walking at a normal pace. He tried to speak to her in a normal voice, at normal volume, asking about the paintings on the walls, the age of the building, but she wouldn’t reply. She was too focused on listening.

  They came down a flight of steps, turned a corner and were in the reception room. A big set of double doors gave directly on to the courtyard. They were wide open. Outside he could see big drops of rain starting to fall, bouncing off the flagstones. The room was big, with a high ceiling decorated with a massive abstract pattern. There were gilt mirrors down the walls. ‘Nice place,’ he said.

  ‘Ssh,’ she said. ‘I don’t like this. All the doors are open. Anyone could walk in.’

  ‘Like we just have. Where do we go now?’

  She pointed to a door, slightly ajar. ‘That’s the main ground-floor room.’

  He walked over with her hanging on to his arm again, pushed the door open and stopped dead. ‘Christ. Oh, Christ,’ she said, beside him, her voice full of panic. The place had been turned over. There were bookcases pulled down, drawers yanked out, tables on their side, papers and objects all over the floor.

  ‘She’s been burgled,’ he said, feeling his heart picking up, but right then Sara let out a stifled scream, one hand over her mouth, the other pointing frantically to a corner of the room. There was a body on the floor, stretched out towards the wall next to an overturned table. ‘Not again … not again … this can’t be happening …’ she sobbed, shaking her head and struggling to get the words out. ‘It’s Alison … they’ve killed Alison …’

  ‘Wait there,’ he said, loud enough to get through to her. ‘Wait there.’ He walked over to the body on autopilot, without thinking it through, stooped quickly and felt for a pulse at the neck. Behind him Sara was making a faint, terrified wailing noise.

  ‘She’s still alive,’ he said. It was a woman, lying on her stomach, head turned sideways. She had brown hair in a bun, ashen skin. Her eyes were closed and she was covered in sweat. There was a small pool of vomit around her mouth. Her breathing was so shallow you could hardly see her chest moving, but the pulse was there. She looked like she might be about fifty years old. ‘Is this her?’ he asked. Sara was right at his side now, crouching with him.

  ‘It’s Alison,’ she said. ‘Something terrible is going on. They’ve killed her …’

  He started to speak to the woman, quietly, but insistently, seeing if he could get her back to consciousness. ‘Alison! Can you hear me? My name’s Tom Lomax. I’m here with Sara Eaton. We’re here to help you. Can you hear me, Alison? You’re going to be all right. We’ll call an ambulance. You’ll be OK. Nod if you can hear what I’m saying …’ As he spoke he started checking her body for any obvious injuries, all the while his ears focusing on the room around him. He kept glancing back over his shoulder at the door they had come through. There was another opposite. Whoever had been here might still be here. ‘Does she understand English?’ he asked. Sara mumbled that she was English. He couldn’t see any injuries, but couldn’t check beneath her. He didn’t want to move her. She might have a spinal injury. There was no blood anywhere. ‘Maybe she had a heart attack,’ he said. ‘I can’t find any injuries.’ There was no bruising on her head. ‘You’re OK, Alison,’ he said again. He told Sara to use her mobile, call the emergency services. He didn’t know the number. She managed to get her phone out. He didn’t think it through – consider what t
hey would tell the police or doctors – because all the planning was redundant now. They had to react to this immediately.

  Sara was starting to press the buttons, her hands jagging all over, when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He spun quickly and stood, his heart racing. Beside him Sara shrieked at the top of her voice. There was a man in the other doorway, staring at them. He was tall, overweight, with hair that was sticking up on his head, blood streaked across his face. He had on a suit that was crumpled, with something spilled all over the jacket and down the front of the trousers. He moved his hand from his side, revealing what he was holding – a kitchen knife. The blade was about twelve inches long. He stepped forward, his eyes moving from Sara to Tom. She screamed again, so loud it hurt Tom’s ears. Tom was frozen to the spot, trying to work out what to do. The man was heavy, bigger than him, but he looked worried. He didn’t look like a burglar. More like one of Alison Spencer’s staff. Tom let out a breath. That could be it. Maybe he thought they were the burglars. He opened his mouth to speak but then Sara screamed for the third time. The look in the man’s eyes changed suddenly. His eyes went to the body on the floor, then back up to Tom. Instantly, Tom saw the truth: the man wasn’t staff, he wasn’t meant to be here at all. Tom took a step forward, towards him. That was enough. Something shifted between them and the expression on the man’s face switched to fear. Suddenly he turned and started to run, back the way he had come.

  Tom got hold of Sara. She looked terrified. He had time to ask if she was OK, time to tell her again to call the ambulance and police, then he too turned and started running. ‘I’m going after him,’ he shouted. ‘Wait here. Don’t leave this room.’ He could hear her yelling at him to stop, but he was already through the door, already sprinting.

  26

  The man may have looked clumsy and fat, but he was fast enough. Already, through in the next room, he was out of sight. But there was only one door swinging wide open and Tom could hear his footsteps clattering across the wooden floors beyond. He went straight after him, into another room, then down a short corridor on the other side of that. That brought him to the foot of a winding stairwell. He took the steps two at a time, taking deep breaths and listening up ahead to make sure the man hadn’t stopped and turned to face him. At the first landing he came out into a circular room with desks and chairs. There were papers in heaps, drawers pulled out, books from a bookshelf all over the floor. He stumbled over them and took the next flight more slowly. They had to be ascending one of the towers he had seen. So it was going to be a dead end. The man couldn’t go anywhere. He would have to turn and either fight, or give in. From the look Tom had read in his eyes, and from the desperate speed of his flight, Tom guessed the latter. But the man was armed, so best to assess the options carefully, keep an escape route open.

  He shouted up after him, in English, telling him he was police. He repeated the word ‘police’ several times, hoping the lie would have some effect, but he could still hear the guy panting up above. He ran up to the next room, a smaller place with boxes piled in storage. He went straight to the stairs but stopped because he saw now that there were two doors off. He could hear nothing up the stairs, so he backed into the room and approached the other door more cautiously. It led into a long loft space, with the sloping roof down one side, strung with cobwebs and dust, and more crates and stacked furniture at the other. The door right opposite him – forty feet distant – was swinging open. He swore and started to sprint again. He could hear the rain clattering heavily off the roof tiles, inches from his head.

  The farther door opened on to another long loft coming off at right angles, but this time the door at the far end was closed. About halfway along, a set of wooden, four-paned windows were hanging open. Over the din from the rainfall, he could hear a scraping, fumbling noise from out on the roof. Tom guessed the door ahead was locked so he’d gone out the window.

  He put his head out very cautiously. Staring through the now driving rain, he saw that the man was already quite a distance along a narrow ledge that ran the length of the roof, just above the guttering. He was running in a crouch, arms out to steady himself, the knife still there. Tom shouted at him and saw him flinch, like something had been thrown. But he didn’t pause, didn’t look back. It looked like he knew where he was going.

  Tom hauled himself out on to the ledge, balanced with care, then began to trot after him, still shouting at him to stop. He even put it into bad French. The rain was so heavy it would be hard to hear anything, though. The water was already coursing off the tiles, and the ledge was treacherous, worse in those places where the flashing cut into it in strips of slippery zinc. He wasn’t good with heights anyway, so had to stop himself from looking at the drop. It took all his concentration to keep his footwork safe. They were three floors up, and though the floors weren’t high, it was enough to break something even if you landed well.

  Twice he saw the man falter and wobble. Tom was going slowly, but he was gaining. He slipped himself when he was only twenty feet from him, a foot going over the edge before he could recover. He went down and grabbed the edge of a wet tile, but it came away in his hand. He dropped to one knee, brought the other leg up, took a breath and got his stance back, then stood to find that the man had for the first time paused to look at him, perhaps hearing that he had stumbled. He shouted something incomprehensible to Tom then turned to continue. He looked very frightened. Tom stood, changed the tile to his left hand, switching his grip so that he had some purchase on it. His hand moved back to throw it. He was less than twenty feet away and the tile was about as heavy as a half-brick. If it hit his head it would seriously injure him. He took a breath, paused, and right then heard the man shout out. He looked up and saw him flailing at the air, his balance gone. Tom stepped forward, yelling at him, telling him to get his hands down. But already the man was going over. Tom was too far away to stop it. He watched as the man managed to catch hold of the guttering. He was poised like that for a split second, shouting something, dangling in mid-air. Tom started to run towards him. He was only feet from him when the gutter broke.

  Tom went into a crouch, putting a hand out to steady himself. He heard a muffled thump from below, then silence. He looked over, hoping to see the guy sitting there with a broken ankle maybe – he had dropped in the best possible way, feet first with his fall slowed by his hold on the guttering. But the guy was lying in a crumpled pile, face up.

  ‘Fuck,’ Tom whispered. ‘Fucking shit.’

  He found his way down via the fire escape the man had probably been aiming for. He moved quickly, cursing himself. He had no idea who the man was, no idea if he was the actual burglar. Why had he been chasing him? And besides, what did any of this really have to do with him, with Tom Lomax? He was a fucking idiot.

  The man was in exactly the same position when Tom got to him. He was completely still, a pool of blood spreading out beneath his head. He had gone feet first, but clearly he hadn’t landed like that. The head was crushed at the back where it had hit the flagstones, the neck bent at an impossible angle. The eyes were open, staring at him, but there was no sight there. Tom felt a whack in his chest, his heart tripping as he realised what he was seeing. The guy was dead. He bent down and tried to breathe properly. He couldn’t accept it, couldn’t understand that this had happened. He searched with trembling fingers, looking desperately for a pulse, but finding nothing. He listened for a heartbeat, felt for a pulse again, held his ear over the gaping mouth to see if there was breath or warmth. But it was all stupid. The man’s eyes were wide open, rain dropping into them without even a reflex response. Two minutes ago, whoever he was, he had been running, speaking, breathing. But he was gone now. Completely gone.

  The rain was coming straight down now, in massive drops, like something tropical. Tom’s clothing was drenched. He gazed up at the broken guttering. It wasn’t even that high. On a good day you could jump from there, roll like a parachutist and walk off.

  He remembered Sa
ra, and the other person. He pushed himself unsteadily to his feet to walk back to her, then, on impulse, he stooped again and very gently went through the pockets of the man’s jacket. He found a big brown envelope, a wallet and an ID card. The envelope was soaking wet. It had someone’s name on, but it was smudged with the rain and he couldn’t read it. The ID card was plastic-covered and belonged to Stefan Marc Meyer. He frowned, put the ID card in his pocket to show Sara. Stefan Meyer? Was that the name of the nurse who had been looking after her mother? He swore again.

  His eyes scanned the surrounding gardens. There were big trees and dense hedges obscuring the views to other properties, but it was possible someone had seen something. It was possible someone was going to come along and say he had murdered this man, burglar or not. And how could he be a burglar if he was Elizabeth Wellbeck’s nurse?

  He turned in a kind of stupor to get back into the house, but saw that Sara was already standing there, only ten feet away from him, the rain streaming over her. Just standing there watching him. He looked away from her, feeling the shame rushing at him. She shouted something, but he couldn’t hear it. He ran a hand over his face, wiping away the rain. He was breathing heavily, and not just because he’d run all the way down.

  She came up to him while he was still standing like that, unable to move. He felt her take his hand and he looked at her, his face quivering. There was a strange, wild look in her eyes.

  ‘He fell,’ he told her. ‘He’s fucking dead.’

  ‘So what? He killed Alison,’ she said. She was gritting her teeth, forcing the words out. ‘She died while I was talking to her. He killed her.’

  He frowned at her. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s Stefan Meyer,’ she said. ‘I recognised him. Alison said he poisoned her. She told me …’

  ‘She spoke to you?’

  ‘She whispered to me. She was whispering, so I had to bend down to hear. She said it was him …’