The Vanishing

by John Connor

  ‘There’s a bit of info on the demand,’ Ian said. ‘They suspect he’s kidnapped someone. At least that’s what they say in the summary.’

  ‘Kidnapped? Who? A child?’ He was thinking maybe Tom’s ex-wife had moved to Belgium with Jamie, and Tom had gone over there to get him back.

  ‘A kid?’ Mercer sounded surprised. ‘No. A twenty-year-old girl. She’s the other they’ve got the alert for, so I don’t really get it, to be honest. They’re both down in the particulars as homicide suspects – an incident this afternoon in Brussels, but no more detail than that. But then the summary says Tom is suspected of kidnapping this girl. So it’s a mess. A classic Belgian request. They don’t have a clue …’

  ‘So who is the girl?’ John interrupted him. ‘The other one. You got her name?’

  ‘Yes. And a photo too. There’s an attached photo of both of them, clear as day, staring up at some CCTV camera in a station somewhere. She looks pretty …’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘You’re going to love this. That’s why I took an interest. The name jumped out at me. The girl is Sara Eaton.’

  John was so shocked he had to sit down. ‘Sara Eaton? The daughter of Freddie Eaton and Liz Wellbeck?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He took a deep breath, the thoughts spinning through his head too fast. ‘Does it mention that?’ he asked. ‘Does it mention whose daughter she is?’

  ‘No. But the kidnap allegation relates to her. And that was all over the news earlier …’

  ‘The island thing?’

  ‘Ile des Singes Noirs. Exactly. I saw that this evening – about Wellbeck being dead and her daughter being kidnapped from there – so I had Grenser in my head already. Then this APA comes through with her name on it and a picture of your boy. So I called you. Hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘Christ above.’ He was completely stumped. He had no idea what any of it could mean. ‘What the fuck is going on?’ he wondered, aloud.

  ‘I have no idea. He kidnaps her and then they both do a murder? Doesn’t really work. Obviously the Belgians are covering all the bases. That’s the way they do it over there. I assume they haven’t a clue what has gone on …’

  ‘But it still went through? Two years ago we would have sent it back for clarification.’

  ‘Not any more. Speed is the name of the game now.’

  ‘And there’s no more info on the homicide?’

  ‘None at all.’

  John paused, thinking furiously. ‘He’s definitely down as having kidnapped Eaton?’

  ‘Suspected of involvement.’

  ‘I don’t get it. I don’t understand any of it.’

  ‘Me neither. But I thought you should know. What will you do?’

  John sat in silence, letting the question stew. ‘I don’t know,’ he said eventually. ‘But I really appreciate the heads-up, Ian.’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘You covered, if they audit it?’

  That was exactly what had happened to Tom, of course. He had made a phone call, just like this, to a friend, giving a warning. Then someone had done an internal audit, found the number, made the enquiries. And that was the end of his police career. For no greater offence than Ian had just committed.

  ‘I called you to check if you had recent contact,’ Ian said. ‘That’s what I’ll say.’ But he hadn’t asked that question at all. John waited for it, but it didn’t come. Ian was the real thing, a straight-up, loyal friend. He knew his priorities. John thanked him again. They exchanged some vague ideas about meeting up, but John couldn’t really get his head around that right now.

  After the connection was cut he sat in the darkness, listening to his heart. What Tom had done wasn’t that similar, he realised, because Ian Mercer was one of the best DIs he’d ever worked with, a solid, honest man. Tom, on the other hand, had made a call to warn a piece of criminal shit who he’d been inexplicably attached to since age eight, a species of bad company who John hadn’t tried hard enough to discourage. There weren’t many similarities there. Except that Ian Mercer had broken the rules too, technically – and had done it for the same reasons, out of friendship and loyalty. Assuming he was being truthful. Maybe the call had been official, maybe they had a connect on John’s mobile, right now, set up, ready and waiting for him to make the warning call to Tom, so they could trace him. It seemed unlikely. Ian had done only what John would have done in the same circumstances. Only what his son had done too. John needed to acknowledge that. That Tom had been misguided, to say the least, in his choice of friends – or unlucky enough to be caught – didn’t change the principle. Poor judgement was one thing, loyalty quite another. If Tom had a problem with excessive loyalty it was probably because his father had planted it in him.

  John stood up and peered out of the window, into the darkness, across the river. Was he going to call Tom, warn him? Or ask him what was going on, at least? It was stunning – the connections lining up. Tom involved in kidnapping someone with a link to Grenser. It couldn’t be a coincidence. But kidnapping? Had Tom slipped that far? It seemed absurd, but it was possible, he supposed. Tom’s ‘friend’ – the one who had cost him his job, Alex Renton – could easily have a part in something like that. John knew all about Renton’s connections. He had made it his business to know.

  He walked quietly back to the bedroom and sat on the bed beside Rachel. He pulled open the drawer on the bedside table and took out his alternative mobile. It had been a standard part of his precautions, three years ago, to have an alternative mobile. This one was brand new. No one knew about it. He hadn’t even set up the chip. Rachel was still asleep, turned away from him. He didn’t know what to do, felt he didn’t have enough information to think it through properly. But he wasn’t going to get any more information. He wanted to wake Rachel up, ask her what he should do. But he resisted.

  Instead, he tried to work out what his gut feeling was. It was what he had done throughout his career when things got stuck – he had gone with his instincts. Simple enough, and they had rarely been wrong.

  He remembered suddenly the moment Tom had been born. John had been there, right there, with the best view in the house. For Tom’s brother it had been different – there had been some work thing on, a double murder. He wished now he had ignored the double murder, been there for both births. But he’d been younger then, more stupid. So Eric had been born without him. But not Tom. He had even done the training for Tom, gone to the prenatal classes Jane had been so keen on, reminded her about her breathing when it was happening, massaged the base of her spine, and all the rest of it – watched dumbstruck as his second son had come out into the world. A tiny, grey, curled-up thing, completely still – he had looked dead, and John had actually suffered a moment thinking that … that the baby was stillborn. But a few seconds later Tom had thrown his arms out and changed colour, coming to life as blood flooded through him. His face screwed up and he started screaming. John had felt his heart somersault with relief and joy. It had been the most incredible thing.

  That was his son, the one he had loved most dearly, no doubt about that. Eric had only wanted his mother. But Tom had been his special lad. Could he have kidnapped someone, killed someone? Did having a dodgy friend mean that he could do that? It was stupid, impossible. That was his gut feeling. Choose between Belgian incompetence or Tom having turned into something unrecognisable. That was what the Americans called a ‘no-brainer’, surely?

  34

  The boat was quiet, moving gently beneath them. They sat on the bed in her stateroom, facing each other, but not touching. They were moored in some private harbour near Hayling Island. The cabin lights were off, but there was light coming through the row of windows, from the arc lights on the jetty they were nearest to. Until a moment ago they had been waiting for a car, which Lastenouse was organising, to take them to a private airfield near Portsmouth. From there a plane, also set up by Lastenouse, to another airstrip close to her father’s place in Surrey. It was al
l very convenient. But then her father had called her mobile and she had stood whispering to him in the semi-darkness.

  As she had just reported it to Tom, her father was panicking. She’d never heard him like that before. He had been expecting her off the Eurostar, and had sent people there to get her. Now he told her that there were security problems, that she shouldn’t come to the Surrey place until he could get to her. He had asked her where she was, so that he could arrange something alternative, but she wouldn’t tell him. ‘Just somewhere,’ she had said. ‘Call me when you can, when we can come to you.’ Tom had heard that very clearly. The call had ended abruptly after that.

  ‘Why not tell him where we are?’ Tom asked at once. ‘We could use his help.’

  She stared at him, frowning hard. ‘I don’t know,’ she said, slowly. She seemed confused by her reactions, as if she’d done it without thinking.

  ‘Call him now. Tell him.’

  She shook her head. He frowned at her.

  ‘Phones aren’t secure,’ she muttered. ‘It’s happened more than once that we’ve had problems – a newspaper did it one time – bugged all our phones. Daddy had to give evidence to an inquiry about it all …’

  ‘That’s why you wouldn’t say?’

  She shook her head again. ‘I don’t know …’

  Something else was bothering her. ‘Did he say anything about why we couldn’t go to him?’ he asked. ‘Any clue about what he meant?’

  ‘No. He sounded frightened. As if he wanted to say more, but couldn’t. As if someone might be listening.’

  ‘The newspapers, you mean?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I had a feeling about it …’

  ‘So what now? We go somewhere else until he contacts you again?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She was frightened. And confused. He could see that. She had her phone out already and was trying to think of somewhere they could disappear to, someone she could call to arrange it. Wherever it was, they should get there under their own steam, Tom thought. He didn’t like relying on Lastenouse. They needed to be less predictable. The present plan meant that Lastenouse and his staff knew every step of their itinerary.

  He felt the phone in his pocket start to buzz. He took it out quickly, standing up from the bed. ‘It’s working,’ he said, amazed. He’d tried to fire up the SIM card several times, without success. He pressed the button and put it to his ear. To his complete surprise the voice he heard was his father’s: ‘Tom? Is that you?’

  ‘Dad?’ He felt a sudden mix of emotions.

  ‘This will have to be quick, Tom. I’ve been trying this number for an hour …’

  ‘How did you get it? Did I give you it?’

  ‘No. I spoke to Sally …’

  ‘But she’s in Spain …’

  ‘They have phones in Spain … listen …’

  ‘You called Sally in Spain …?’

  ‘Shut up, son. Listen. There’s an All Ports Alert out for you. You get that?’

  Tom closed his mouth.

  ‘That’s why I’m calling …’

  ‘Did you say anything to Sally about it?’

  ‘Obviously not. I’m saying it to you and I don’t want to be on this mobile any longer than I have to be. Just in case. Don’t tell me where you are. Ring on some public landline if you want the detail. Got it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’ The line went dead.

  He stood in the room, listening to his heart, then turned back to Sara. ‘That was my father,’ he said, feeling stunned.

  ‘I thought you didn’t speak?’

  ‘He was warning me. There’s an alert out for me.’ He felt a little surge of pride, unexpectedly, that his father had actually done that, had actually broken the rules, warned him.

  ‘An alert?’

  ‘At UK entry points – ports, airports, et cetera.’

  ‘To do what? Arrest you?’

  ‘Yes. He didn’t give me any detail other than that. He wanted me to call back on a public phone.’

  ‘There won’t be any checks here,’ she said. ‘Roland knows the people here. That’s why he brought us this far.’

  ‘Good. But it’s a bigger problem than that, I think.’

  ‘Is it? Why do they want you? I mean, why you, and not me?’

  ‘I don’t know without ringing him back.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  He moved round the bed and sat down beside her. She immediately reached over and touched his hand. He remembered what they had just done. Suddenly it seemed very far away.

  ‘I’ve got you into trouble,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. You’ll regret you ever set eyes on me.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. He leaned into her and kissed her quickly, on the lips. ‘What we did was just the start of something,’ he whispered. ‘OK? It’s on hold, but we’ll get back there.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, putting a hand on his leg. ‘It was a start.’ She smiled half-heartedly.

  He took a breath. ‘I’ve been thinking about what’s going on. Your mother died and no one told you. That meant you were on the island when the kidnap attempt went down. If they’d told you about her dying then you wouldn’t have been there at all and it couldn’t have happened.’ She frowned. ‘I’m just joining the dots,’ he continued. ‘I’m thinking that maybe your father tried to tell you, but something intervened. We’ve been acting like the two things are a coincidence. But maybe they’re not. They were saying something about your birthday – the kidnappers. Remember?’ She nodded. ‘So maybe something more complex is going on,’ he said. ‘More complex than a bunch of armed men trying to kidnap you, then – as it happens – your mum being dead …’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but I think we need to be more cautious than we have been. Until we really can join the dots. I’m hoping your father will fill in the gaps. There must be a good reason for not telling you about the death – perhaps a security reason. Or maybe he knew something was going to happen, but got the detail wrong. Or – like I said – maybe he tried to tell you and someone interfered. He’s your father, though – so there will be an explanation.’ He paused, thinking through the options. ‘At the end of the day I’m probably going to end up sitting in a police station talking to the police, hoping they’ll believe me. It won’t be the first time. But once you’re with your father you have a world of resources at your disposal. You don’t have to sit around and talk to anyone. Not if it doesn’t look safe, or favourable.’

  ‘You mean I can just leave you? That’s out of the question. Certainly now, after what just happened. I hope you realise that.’

  He nodded. Depends on the stakes, he thought. What they had just done had felt like the real thing, like a connection being made. It hadn’t been like that often in his life. Once or twice only. So easy to think there was something special there, the beginning of something that could grow and deepen, if given the chance. Right now, all the time, sitting next to her, he could feel the thrill in his blood still, feel the overpowering need between them, the desire to be closer, to touch each other. But he shouldn’t kid himself. The circumstances were unnatural, their sense of reality stretched to breaking point. They were bound to feel something from that, from what they had survived together. It might be nothing more than fear throwing them together, tricking them. And even if there were more, at the end of the day she lived in a completely different world. What could he really expect from her?

  ‘I have a friend called Alex Renton,’ he said. ‘I’ve known him since I was eight years old. I can trust him. I can call him and he will come and get us, or send someone. He can put us somewhere off radar until your father gets back to you.’

  35

  Two hours later they were in the back of someone’s car driving through deserted country roads. Back in England. In a car Tom’s friend had sent for them. Sara sat with her face against the window, her eyes on the dark hedges and silhouettes, her attention completely absorbed by her confusion. She felt Tom
touching her arm and looked up. He was at the other side of the long back seat. She had wanted him to be closer as they had got in, had wanted to sit with her head on his shoulder, his arms around her, hugging her, but he had made some sign to her, mouthing something silently, so that the driver didn’t get it, then sat far away from her, as if they weren’t connected at all. Clearly, he didn’t want the driver to know about them, about the link between them. She didn’t know why.

  ‘You’ll be OK, Sara,’ he said quietly now. ‘It will all be OK.’

  She frowned. ‘Where are we?’ The car was slowing, pulling over.

  ‘I think this is where Alex will come for us.’

  ‘But where is it?’ She could see only darkness, some bushes and trees.

  ‘I don’t know. Somewhere on some minor road, on the way up to London. He should be here soon. It’s all OK. This is what Alex arranged. Don’t worry. We can trust him.’

  The car stopped. Three years ago, she recalled, she had been at a party in Paris when there was some stupid, massive police raid and everyone ended up in cells on drugs charges, herself included. It was all so silly, but had seemed serious at the time. It was the worst trouble she had ever been in, prior to this. And what had happened? Liz had made some calls and pulled some strings. Within a few hours she was out of there and on her way to the UK. They even cleared the family helicopter to land on the roof of the gendarmerie. That’s what she was used to. If things went wrong she made some calls and people were sent to pull her out. At once. Yet what was happening now was way beyond any previous difficulties and nothing was happening. Nothing.

  ‘Why is my father not sending people to pull me out of this?’ she said, aloud. ‘Why didn’t that happen back in Brussels, when I spoke to him?’ She hadn’t asked him to do that, of course. She’d told him she was about to get the train. But he could have stopped her. He hadn’t even tried. And why hadn’t she asked him – why the reluctance to trust him, if that’s what it had been? The same caution had operated to stop her telling him where they were two hours ago. Didn’t she trust her own father?