The Vanishing

by John Connor

  ‘Daddy,’ she said, interrupting the voice. ‘Listen to what I’m telling you, Daddy. Please.’ She spoke in low, urgent tones. ‘We are about to board a Eurostar train. We will be in London in a couple of hours. I need to see you right then. I need you to get someone to pick us up. OK? This is more important than anything else. I’m in very serious difficulties here …’

  ‘It’s sorted already, Sara. Try to stay calm. Everything will be taken care of. Security will be there. They will bring you and your friend directly to me …’

  ‘You must not forget to arrange it, Daddy …’

  ‘It’s already arranged …’ His tone of voice cut her short. ‘They know what I want. Arisha has arranged it already.’ She heard him say something to someone else – probably his principal PA – Arina Vostrikova, ‘Arisha’, as they had always called her. Sara knew her well, got on with her well enough. There were rumours about Arisha and her father, of course. Probably true. But so what? Arisha had been listening in, Sara assumed. That was what she should have assumed, at any rate, because that was what nearly always happened. Silly to forget that. Her father did nothing in private.

  ‘Security will be there to meet you,’ he said again. ‘It’s arranged. Please don’t worry …’

  ‘I need you to tell me why this has happened, Daddy. Why you didn’t contact me …’

  ‘Not now, darling. There are reasons. Things are going on that I need to tell you about. But not now, not over a public phone system. Trust me. I’ll explain everything when we meet. Everything.’

  ‘I can’t understand it … I can’t get my head around why you would do that to me …’ She paused, breathing hard. She had to get the lump out of her throat. ‘I can’t believe she’s dead, Daddy, because I haven’t seen her. If she’d died you would have told me …’ She could hear herself sobbing as she said it, then Tom’s hand holding her free hand, squeezing it.

  ‘How really, bloody awful for you,’ her father said. ‘I’m so sorry, darling. So sorry. But please don’t think about it now. I will explain everything. I promise. But now is not the time.’

  She remembered again what Alison had told her. The last thing. It kept squirming into her consciousness, she couldn’t stop it. Her heart started to pound, in overdrive. She leaned back against the wall, put her head back, screwed her eyes closed. That was what she should be asking her father about. She let the arm holding the phone fall to her side. Then Tom was speaking to her, trying to get her to look at him. She opened her eyes. People were looking over at her, alarm on their faces.

  ‘Shut up, Sara,’ Tom was hissing. ‘Please shut up.’ He was pulling her out of the room, back on to the station concourse.

  ‘Where are we … what are you doing …?

  ‘Walk normally,’ he said, leaning close to her. ‘Look normal.’

  She remembered the phone and brought it up to cut the connection, but saw her father had already done that. ‘Why are we coming out here?’ she asked him. ‘I don’t want to be out here again …’ Her voice sounded far away.

  ‘There was something on the TV in there,’ he whispered. They were out past the sliding doors now, the people flooding around her again, the smell of them in her nose. ‘Something about you,’ he said. ‘There was a picture of you on the screen. It was about you being kidnapped, about the island.’ He stopped walking and stood very close to her. ‘They’re looking for you,’ he said. ‘I think they think you’ve been kidnapped. So if we want to get to your father before you start speaking to the police then we can’t just get on the Eurostar. We need to find another way across the Channel.’

  29

  They took an ordinary train to the Belgian coast. It seemed to stop at a station every five minutes. They sat in a shabby, rattling carriage that was virtually empty, opposite each other across a stained, pull-down table, in window seats that were almost threadbare, with lewd, pictorial graffiti on the walls. The train smelled of cigarette smoke and wet overcoats, though outside the rain had stopped and the sun was breaking through bruised clouds in dramatic shafts of light. It was almost enough to make the scenery interesting. They stared at the uniform Flanders countryside with its dull modern housing and monotonous, flat fields and they said nothing to each other – not a single word – for the entire two-hour journey.

  Tom kept bringing his eyes back to her, trying to catch her attention, to work out what she was thinking. But she was avoiding his gaze. She wouldn’t look at him. It was suddenly different, and getting worse by the hour – like she’d gone cold and didn’t want him there. He wished dearly that he wasn’t there, but at least until they got back to the UK he couldn’t see a way to get out of this without her. He was hoping her father was going to come up with some kind of answer. Some resources, at least. They were going to have to get the police involved, but he wanted lawyers there when that happened. He wanted them to know what they were doing and to have expert advice and influence available. The kind her father could buy and he couldn’t.

  He’d got himself into this position because of her, so couldn’t understand why she was giving him the cold shoulder. The change had started when she had refused to tell him what Alison Spencer had told her – the secret information. Like suddenly she had started to suspect him of something. There had been a bond of trust between them, but then suddenly it was gone. He couldn’t work it out. Back in Brussels – before the thing with Alison – she had been unable to let go of his hand. She’d been leaning on his shoulder, crying, hugging him. Now she didn’t want him anywhere near her – unless she was inexplicably frightened, as she had been back at the station. That was how it seemed, anyway. The abrupt change was unnerving. He didn’t know how to manage it, didn’t know what she was going to do next. And right now he needed her to be predictable.

  They were going to some place on the coast where there was a posh marina and an ex-boyfriend. Roland Lastenouse. She’d already called him, made him promise secrecy. He had ‘boats’. That was how she had put it. He would get them across the Channel without anyone knowing. That was all Tom had been able to get out of her. He wasn’t happy with it, as a plan. Because all it would take to get them stranded in this country was for the ex to turn his back on her, make a call to the local police. But it had been the best she could come up with, and it was way better than any ideas he had. So they were trying it.

  At the terminus they took a bus along the coast, again in virtual silence. The road ran through mile after mile of soulless development – concrete apartment blocks for cheap coastal holidays. It was like the Costa del Sol, but without the sol. Past the drab flats and tower blocks he could see a strip of beach dotted with the parasols and deckchairs of those who were making the most of it. Beyond them, the depressing, freezing grey of the English Channel ran into a sky of the same colour. He thought it would probably start raining again soon.

  They took a cab after the bus, and ended up in a marina flanked by heavy-duty dock cranes. She walked ahead of him, too quickly, through a series of jetties, past scores of beautiful yachts and powerboats. At one point, he thought she might turn and shout at him to get a move on. But she didn’t. She didn’t say anything. She was making a beeline, he guessed, for the biggest thing in the harbour – a very conspicuous luxury yacht done out in blue and white diagonal stripes. It wasn’t a super-yacht – the kind he’d seen online, the kind the sheikhs and Russian oligarchs collected – it didn’t have space for a helicopter, but it still dwarfed everything else in the harbour.

  When they got to it she walked straight up a railed gangway and shouted for the ex. Tom stopped short, still on the jetty. A man appeared in a uniform and she followed him, not looking back to see if Tom was with her. He waited a bit, then walked up the gangway and sat down on a raised part of the deck, feeling decidedly surplus to requirements. The cold smell of seaweed and brine started to clear his head a little. He could feel the boat’s motors thrumming gently beneath his body. Maybe they were already getting ready to go.

  She had
disappeared inside somewhere. He thought he could just get up and walk away and she probably wouldn’t care now. But he wasn’t going to do that. If the authorities were assuming she’d been kidnapped then they had probably spoken to the staff who had brought him to the Seychelles, so it wouldn’t be long before they were looking for him too. He didn’t want to end up in police custody in Belgium, or anywhere other than the UK. At least in the UK he would know the language.

  He started thinking about Jamie. Jamie would be in Spain, on some beach somewhere with his mum and her new boyfriend. Swimming in the sea, maybe, with the new bloke playing dad. Maybe. In fact he had no idea what was going on in Sally’s private life. If there was a boyfriend she wouldn’t necessarily take him with her. He had a pang of longing for his son. He wanted to feel his hand in his again. He didn’t want to be chucked into a Belgian holding cell for a few months while they worked out who was to blame for all this shit, or charged him with the killing of Stefan Meyer. He took a deep breath, put his head in his hands.

  After a good ten minutes he felt someone sit down next to him and looked up. It was Sara.

  ‘We sail in half an hour,’ she said, very quietly. ‘Roland thinks it will take a couple of hours to complete the crossing – to get to where he wants to on the other side. The weather is good, though.’

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Good.’

  She was looking at him now, so he looked back, waiting to see if there was anything else. She looked predominantly sad, he thought. But she wasn’t trembling like a leaf, incapacitated with shock. There was certainly a tough streak in her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘No need.’

  ‘I’m trying to keep on top of my feelings …’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘So much … so much is happening … more than you know, more than I can tell you … I don’t know where I am. I really don’t … I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s fine. Don’t worry. You do what you have to …’

  ‘I couldn’t have got here without you, Tom.’

  He shrugged at that. ‘I’m sure you could,’ he said. ‘But I’m not sure I could get back to the UK without you.’

  She was looking at him still, her expression very serious. She put a hand out and touched his arm, let her fingers stay there. She looked like she was unsure if she should do more. ‘I need to spend some time with Roland,’ she said, surprising him. ‘I need to keep him sweet.’

  ‘OK.’ He wasn’t sure how that might impact on him. Or what exactly she meant.

  ‘He’s very close to me,’ she said. ‘We used to be … very close. I studied with him, about two years ago. The same university, I mean. He’s French. He’s fifteen years older than me, in fact. He was a guest lecturer on a poetry course. That’s how we met.’

  He nodded. ‘I see. Good.’ Fifteen-year difference. Guest lecherer, he thought.

  She nodded as well, her eyes on her fingers, where they were still on his arm. She stroked it a little, with affection, he thought. She didn’t seem like a twenty-year-old kid any more. Her expression was pensive. He was still waiting for her to go on. But after a while he realised there was nothing else. She wasn’t going to say more. He cleared his throat. ‘Is it his boat?’ he asked. Polite conversation.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They really rate their intellectuals in France.’

  She frowned. Didn’t get the joke.

  ‘I mean, they pay them well …’ he said. ‘It’s a joke.’

  ‘He has family money,’ she said, still frowning. She stood up with a sigh. ‘They’ll come and show you to your cabin.’ She looked down at him. ‘Thank you, Tom.’ She didn’t smile.

  He watched her walk off. He wondered if she’d just said goodbye to him. He felt like calling out to her – so you’ll put the cheque in the post? But he’d already cracked one joke too many.

  30

  In the end, by the time they got going, it was getting dark. He kept below – as instructed – as they manoeuvred out of the harbour. There seemed to be a crew of about five men. One of them had shown him to the cabin. It was very comfortably kitted out, but tiny. There was a window. He watched the dark, low shape of Belgium receding, then lay back on the bunk and felt the engines gaining power. He closed his eyes, but couldn’t sleep.

  After an hour he felt sick enough to have to go up on deck.

  The air was fresh and freezing. The sea looked flat and calm, but the boat was going fast, the bow lifting and smashing down. He couldn’t see anyone else on deck. In the stern – sheltered from the wind – he found what he imagined was a sun deck and sat there alone, in the growing darkness, leaning on the railings and waiting to vomit. It didn’t happen, though. He’d eaten nothing for a long while – nothing since the meal he’d eaten with Sara, in fact. That was Sunday evening and it was Tuesday now. Coming up to forty-eight hours. If it weren’t for the seasickness he guessed he would be famished. Or maybe it was because he needed food that he felt like this. He wondered if he could force something down – if he could find someone to give him something. Above and behind him there were two more decks, one of them the bridge – if that’s what they called it on a boat this size. There would be crew up there that he could ask.

  He turned to go up and saw that there was a man standing right behind him in the darkness, in the doorway he’d used to get out here. He was leaning against it, looking pretty casual in an Aran sailing sweater, staring at Tom. Tom stopped himself from reacting, opened his mouth to speak, but the man beat him to it. ‘Lastenouse,’ he said. ‘Roland Lastenouse. You must be Lomax.’ He held a hand out. Tom gripped the wire running round the stern to steady himself, then shook the hand quickly.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ Tom said. ‘Thanks for the …’ He gestured at the deck. ‘Thanks for the ride home.’

  ‘I can see you’re feeling seasick,’ Lastenouse said. He had a very slight French accent. ‘Come in and I’ll fix you something.’

  Tom followed him just inside the doorway, where there was a carpeted bar area, with easy chairs. Lastenouse switched some lights on, then opened a hatch and slipped behind the bar. ‘A gin and tonic will settle you,’ he said. Tom thought that unlikely, but didn’t object. He sat heavily in one of the deep armchairs, next to an empty champagne bucket, just in case. Lastenouse started mixing drinks like they were lounging around in some country club. He was a short man – much shorter than Sara, anyway – dressed in baggy shorts and a sweater, with bare feet. He had skin that looked weathered – too dark and rough for it to pass for a fashionable tan. The face was craggy, with a big nose. He wasn’t attractive, but he looked strong. He wasn’t what Tom had imagined. This is what she goes for, he thought. Lastenouse looked more than fifteen years older.

  He brought over a drink in a long glass. There was ice and lemon in it. Tom sipped it. Lastenouse leaned against the bar and smiled at him. He had a smaller tumbler of something, whisky, maybe. He hadn’t touched it yet, waited for Tom to finish sipping, then held it aloft. ‘Here’s to you,’ he said. ‘We all owe you a great deal, it seems.’ Then he drank.

  ‘We?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Sara’s friends.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Sara has told me a lot about you. You saved her life.’

  Tom shrugged. ‘I was being paid to. And anyway, she saved mine. Right after.’

  Lastenouse smiled again. ‘You’re what?’ he asked. ‘I wasn’t clear on that detail. What is it you do?’

  Tom took another gulp. ‘This and that. How much did Sara tell you, I wonder?’ He hoped not very much.

  ‘Sara and I are very close. Never forget that.’

  It felt like a warning – delivered with a hard stare. Tom looked at his feet, felt embarrassed.

  ‘You understand what I’m saying?’ Lastenouse asked quietly. There was certainly an edge to his tone. But maybe that was how he spoke to the crew, and Tom probably fell more into that category than any other the man could think of.


  ‘I understand,’ Tom said. ‘Of course.’ He was on his boat, after all.

  ‘I care very deeply about her,’ Lastenouse explained. ‘I won’t let her be hurt, tricked or conned. I will intervene in any way I have to in order to prevent that. Is that clear?’

  ‘Very.’ He raised his glass, took a sip. ‘Here’s to Sara, then. Is she OK?’

  ‘Don’t underestimate her. She is tougher than you think.’

  ‘Very possibly.’ He’d seen her shoot two men, kill them. He wondered what Lastenouse had witnessed. ‘It’s a nice boat,’ he said, trying to get on to something easier. ‘Do you live on it?’

  Lastenouse laughed. ‘Are you trying to be funny?’

  Tom shook his head. ‘Just trying to make polite conversation.’

  ‘Ah. Well, in that case – no. I live elsewhere, naturally. On land.’ He laughed again, as if Tom really had cracked a good joke. ‘This is merely a …’ He searched for the word. ‘… a little hobby, perhaps.’

  ‘You live in Belgium?’

  ‘Sometimes. Sometimes elsewhere.’ He waved his hand vaguely.

  ‘I was just wondering if it was chance you were there when she called. That’s all.’

  ‘It was certainly good luck. Yes. We arrived one week ago and we sail again next week.’