The Vanishing

by John Connor

  ‘Pull that ladder up and put it here, Barsukov,’ Eaton said. ‘Or I’ll let them both have a barrel now.’

  Barsukov sighed. Tom couldn’t believe how calm he was. His own heart was beating so heavily he could barely hear anything else. Barsukov walked to the ladder and pulled it up, then rested it against the container near Eaton’s feet. ‘Yes. Come down here, Freddie,’ he said, tiredly. ‘Let’s talk about debts, shall we? Debts and betrayals.’

  Tom was frozen to the spot, didn’t have a clue what to do or say. Eaton held the gun in one hand and started to come down the ladder, his body twisted so that he could still shoot. He barked instructions to Barsukov, telling him to move farther off. He was almost at the bottom of the ladder when there was movement off to the right, where Sara was. She must have hit Sidurov, because when Tom looked he was doubled up, still clutching at her, still holding on. Tom started to step towards her, horrified, saw her wrenching an arm from Sidurov’s grasp then stepping in front of him to the edge of the container. He realised suddenly what was going to happen. She was going to jump. He turned his head and saw Eaton shouting, bringing the gun up with one hand. Sara went into a crouch.

  She leapt a split second before he fired. Tom was ducking, his hands in the air over his head, his eyes on her. He could see her pushing off, straightening, reaching out ahead of her to grab the ledge if she fell short. The blast was deafening. He thought it would blow her head off. But she was already past it. Instead Sidurov took the shot full on, reeling backwards into the side of the container. As Sara landed Sidurov dropped his weapon and keeled over, clutching at his head. A moment later he was toppling into the gap.

  She was quickly on her feet, rushing away from them all, across the platform towards where the ladder had been. Eaton was spinning where he stood at the base of the ladder, tracking her, trying to get a clear second shot. Barsukov ducked and dived flat out, under the line of the gun. The distance between Tom and Eaton was only a few feet. He saw Eaton raising the gun to aim better, both hands on it now. Tom hurled himself forward – two, three steps – barging into Eaton with all the force he could gather, knocking him against the side of the container. The gun went off again, firing high and wide. Out of the corner of his eye Tom saw Sara leap straight off the edge of the container, down on to the one below. He struggled to get a hand up to Eaton’s face, across his mouth, forcing his head back, his other hand going for the gun. Eaton was shouting and grunting, opening his mouth to bite Tom’s hand. He looked old, but he was stronger than Tom had guessed, and fighting with a desperate energy. He twisted free, easily, then swung the gun round, stock first, smacking the thing into the side of Tom’s head.

  Tom felt his legs crumple. He fell against the container and slipped slowly to the ground, his coordination gone, the world spinning all over again. He had a premonition of Eaton stepping back, reloading, shooting him where he lay, but Eaton didn’t even look at him. The gun dropped with a clatter and he was running after Sara. Tom rolled over and started to retch. He needed to get up, chase after them, but it was too much. He managed to stand with his arms against the side of the container, his legs quivering. He couldn’t see where Eaton had gone. He sank to his knees and sucked at the air. He had to get up. But his vision went and he couldn’t see a thing. He thought he was spinning through the air, thought he too might have fallen into the gap with Sidurov.

  But when it stopped he was still on the metal surface where Eaton had hit him, flat out. He couldn’t see anyone now. Above him, the container door where Sidurov had stood was swinging on its hinges, the metal beside it splattered with blood. There was no other noise, just the squeaking of the door’s hinges. No sign of Sidurov, Barsukov or Freddie Eaton. He waited a moment, until he could breathe better, then forced himself to his feet.

  He had to pull the ladder over to the edge. He was halfway down it when his balance gave out and he slipped off. He fell painfully, twisting his right knee. But he managed to stand, and started to limp back in the direction he had come, going as fast as he could, his feet resounding off the container roofs. All the time he was listening, trying to hear anything that might give him a clue which direction they had gone.

  He got off the long ladder and back into the main corridor at ground level – the one with the forklift – just in time to see Barsukov getting into his car in the distance. He didn’t wait for it to move. They couldn’t have gone that way. He started to run in the other direction, a lopsided movement that wasn’t very fast. Before he got to the end of the row he had tripped twice and landed flat on his face.

  Clear of the last container he ran into a high mesh fence. Beyond it he could see a low wall, then the Thames. The tide was out, the river itself only visible at the edge of a long, sloping mudflat. But they couldn’t have got over the fence. It was too high. He stuck his hands through the mesh and hung on it, catching his breath, trying to get his head to clear.

  There was a sharp noise from off to the right. He looked over. There were a few makeshift buildings there, breeze-block walls, plank roofs. One of them stuck out towards the river on a concrete pier of some sort. He started to shuffle towards it, then heard a scream. He began to run, gasping and panting, his heart jerking inside his chest. He shouted Sara’s name at the top of his voice. He thought he would keel over and pass out at any moment, but instead he kept going, started to get faster as he got used to the pain in his knee, the way his head was trying to trick his balance. He still collided with the side of the building, though, misjudging the distance. He flopped on to the ground again, terribly dizzy and out of breath.

  There was a wooden door, swinging on its hinges with a broken lock. He could see it from where he was lying. He heard her scream again, heard her shouting something. It all sounded muffled, far away. He thought she must be inside the building and started to crawl towards the door. After a few seconds he could get to his knees again, then stand by leaning against the wall. He stumbled through the door and almost fell straight over an edge.

  It was some kind of deserted, dilapidated dock. The high roof was falling in, planks hanging precariously, shafts of light slanting into the cold gloom. He picked out two dank concrete walls going straight down into the low-tide mud, about twelve feet below, with ladders leading down. He could see where the mud stretched towards the front of the place and joined the riverbank. There was a tall iron fence across the entrance, strung with flotsam left there by the high tide, plastic bags, bits of planking, a broken bicycle, all caught up in the mesh and just hanging there. The fence would block access to the river, but still let the water in at high tide. At high tide the whole area between the two walls would be under water. In the past, they had moored boats here, unloaded them. There was a jagged hole in the fence blocking the river end. As long as the tide was out someone could get through it, squeeze through, get on to the riverbank, escape. Was that what Sara had done?

  He was starting to move towards the end of the dock to check when he heard her right below him. Maybe she had been trying to get out to the river, but she hadn’t made it. He had to step forward and look over the edge to see her. They were in the mud, both of them, right below him, Sara and her father, struggling wildly with each other. It was like something happening in slow motion, with muted sound – a slow, desperate floundering in the stinking, sucking mud. Sara was up to her waist, her face covered in it, gasping for air. Eaton was right beside her, striking at her, hissing through his teeth. It took Tom a moment to interpret it correctly. Eaton was trying to push her under, trying to drown her in the stuff.

  They were both sinking, slowly. Even as he watched, Sara twisted backwards and sank a little deeper. She was flailing around urgently, begging with Eaton, crying, pleading, still calling him ‘Daddy’. The mud was up to her waist. Eaton wasn’t saying anything. He was up to his knees in it, right in front of her, his back to Tom, his head about five feet lower than Tom’s feet. He was catching her arms, hitting her, pushing her back. He managed to get his hands over her
face and she fell sideways with a dull slapping noise. Tom could hear Eaton panting with the effort.

  There was a half-brick on the edge, just in front of Tom. He picked it up and stepped unsteadily towards the edge. He could throw it from there, but didn’t trust his aim. He staggered sideways and found the ladder down, then swung himself round and over, holding on with one hand, taking the rungs too quickly, expecting to fall. Sara started to scream at the top of her voice. He looked over, heart in his mouth. She was flat on her back now, lying in the mud. It was already closing over her. There were fallen planks on the surface, but too far for her to reach. He had to get them to her.

  He stepped off the ladder and felt his feet go under. He started to drag himself towards the planks, wrenching his feet out of the mire. By the time he was behind them he was in it up to his knees, but could still get his legs clear. He was only a couple of feet away from them when he yelled at the top of his voice. Eaton turned, his mud-streaked face wide with surprise. Tom’s arm was pulled back, ready to throw the half-brick. In a split second he took in the miserable, sad brutality of it all. A woman fighting for her life in stagnant mud, someone stronger trying to hold her under, trying to kill her. He let his arm snap forwards. It happened very quickly – the stone curling through the air, Eaton ducking and turning, but not fast enough. The brick hit the side of his head with a soft crack. He fell immediately.

  Tom waited momentarily, to see if he would get up, try again. But the man was flat out, his face in the mud, motionless. Tom lurched towards the planking. Sara was thrashing around on the surface, completely trapped. ‘I’m coming,’ he gasped, breathless. ‘I’m coming.’ He got to the planks, grabbed one, stepped back to her, but suddenly sank lower, up to his waist, in one gulping movement. The stuff was pressing around him, freezing cold. How deep was it? He couldn’t feel the bottom. Sara had her arms out of it now, her head clear. She saw him as if for the first time and started begging him to help.

  But he couldn’t get any closer. He was stuck. He pushed the plank over to her, squeezing it under her arm, then reached back for another one. It was farther away. He had to lean out across the mud to get it, and felt himself sinking deeper. He twisted on the mud and threw it towards her. It actually hit her shoulder. ‘Put it under your arm,’ he shouted. It was absurd. Already he could hardly move. What was he going to do now?

  She got it under her other arm. That would hold her, but for how long? Her eyes looked wild, insane. She was coughing and spluttering.

  He only remembered Eaton as he turned back to get another plank. The man was still face down in the mud, arms splayed, sinking very slowly. For the first time it occurred to Tom what that meant. But he couldn’t do anything about it. He was out of energy, out of range. He couldn’t even do anything for himself. His eyes kept rolling up, his vision clouding. Sara started to shout something at him. He collapsed backwards into the mud, sitting in it, his legs already underneath. He didn’t think he could do anything else. It was over. Whatever happened, it was over.

  54

  Wednesday, 25 April 2012, one week later

  He had a hard head, one of the doctors said. It was a joke, maybe – maybe not. He could remember the doctor leaning over him and saying that, after another round of CAT scans and X-rays. He could remember the doctor’s face, how cheerful she had looked, how young. At the time he had been crushed beneath the worst headache he had ever experienced, flat out on a hospital trolley, moaning to himself, suffering extreme nausea – but he could recall her talking very calmly to him, as if everything were normal.

  Other details were vague. When he had first come round, still in the mud, with his father tugging at him, he had been completely bewildered, with no recollection at all of where he was or how he had got there. Other men were pulling Sara out – and he saw her, and remembered who she was – but he had no idea how they had ended up drowning in mud.

  Over the last week most of it had come back in fits and starts, but there were still gaps. He could remember standing on top of the containers, for instance, but not how he got down from there, or what had happened in between. A different doctor had assured him it was all ‘routine’, that he shouldn’t fret about it – he might never remember some things. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t lucky.

  They said he had suffered multiple impact lesions, but nothing they would classify as worse than concussion. No skull fractures. No subdural haematoma extensive enough to require immediate surgical intervention – observation had been necessary, though, and repeat scans, hence the long stay. So maybe that did mean he had a hard head.

  Now, seven days after the events, the headaches had finally eased and he could see properly. But it had taken a whole week to get there. For the first few days he really had been sick – unable to eat without throwing up, unable to stand straight. A nurse had taken him on toilet trips. It was Saturday before all that had stopped. He had to count the days off on his fingers to be sure. There was a lingering confusion about time. Now, finally – Wednesday, was it? – he was sitting on the edge of the bed, fully clothed, waiting for his father to sort out the admin, then take him home.

  Jamie was sitting next to him. He had come with his grandfather, though on Sunday it had been Tom’s mother who had brought him. She had travelled up from Devon and stayed two days, during which period there had been a couple of awkward visits with both his dad and mother present at the same time. It was the third time he had seen Jamie since coming here. ‘Here’, he had learned, was Guy’s – he had been admitted here via its A&E department, brought there by ambulance. He couldn’t recall any of that. Even Jamie’s first visit was unclear. When had it been? Maybe Friday, when he was still quite confused. Sally had been with them, sitting at the edge of the bed with a permanent scowl on her face, tutting her disapproval between sarcastic comments. No love lost there, then.

  There had been unpleasant visits from police officers too. One snide DI had sat at his bedside and spoken for what seemed like hours about how dangerous he was. There was a massive international murder inquiry under way and his position in it was far from determined. He had killed Frederick Eaton, maybe other people. That’s what they said. Eaton had been dead before his face hit the mud, according to the autopsy. There was none of it in his lungs or throat. So Tom had killed him, with a simple brick to the head. He had taken multiple blows to his own head, and survived practically unscathed. But one lucky shot with a half-brick had switched Eaton off, just like that. Tom felt peculiarly untouched by that fact – at the moment.

  Maxim Sidurov was dead too. It had taken him longer to die, from blood loss and shock, down in the rathole, half his face taken off by Eaton’s first shot. Except there had been a suggestion that Tom might have fired that shot. A female DS said they would have charged him already, if it hadn’t been for pressure from his father. Tom couldn’t believe that was true. In his experience, nothing stopped the cogs of a homicide inquiry. But it had been on Thursday they had said all these things, when nothing had been clear, his brain scrambled. They’d tried to get what they could out of him before the doctors kicked them out. Fair enough. Since then, he knew, they had taken long statements from Sara and his father, and no one had returned to accuse him.

  Now, Wednesday morning, he had spent the last half-hour talking to Jamie, hearing an account of his holiday in Ibiza, or wherever it had been. There were a lot of snorkelling stories, not many references to Sally. Jamie knew the diplomacy already. If she had been with another guy Jamie didn’t mention him, and Tom didn’t ask. He sat with his arm round his son and listened in a kind of dopey, dreamy state. He wasn’t taking anything but painkillers now, but he still tired quickly if he had to concentrate. It was a huge relief to see Jamie again, to hear his voice, to mark the irritating turns of phrase picked up from American movies and computer games. Normal life. Someone he loved, who loved him.

  His phone buzzed and he looked at the number. Sara. She had called him at least twice a day for the last four days. He
hadn’t really been up to speaking to her at first, so had just listened for as long as he could, the phone pressed to his ear. But the conversations were lengthening now he was getting back to normal. Last night they had spoken for three hours.

  It wasn’t what Tom had expected. When her number had first come up while he was lying here alone, head pounding, the first night in this place, his heart had skipped like he was a teenager all over again.

  55

  She spoke to him for a few seconds only, from where she was sitting, halfway across London, in a waiting room in New Charing Cross Hospital, in Hammersmith. She told him where she was, what she was doing, then listened to his response. Calling him was like holding his hand. It calmed her. And she needed calming. She ended the call, took a breath.

  She was in a part of the paediatric department, her eyes on the corridor full of little doors that led to consulting rooms. The room was full, full of parents with worried faces, kids who were sick of waiting. There was a little play area off to one side, with three or four kids making quite a bit of noise there. So far, no one had said anything to her – such as ‘Why are you here? Where’s your child?’ Nor had anyone asked who the guy at the door was – tall, smart, discreet, with an earpiece; one of a retinue of security personnel and assistants that she was becoming increasingly irritated with.

  They were all over her now, all the people her mother – Liz Wellbeck (she could not stop thinking of her as her mother) – had also loathed. The PAs and advisers and security managers. Necessary, she knew that. She was more like a business now, a living, walking conglomerate of global assets, at the peak of an entity that kept over a hundred thousand people in direct employment. She didn’t want anything to do with it. She still had to think it all through, work out if she had any options. Her birthday had brought it all to her, all Liz’s property, more than she had even guessed existed. Liz Wellbeck – a woman who had wanted her, and not Freddie Eaton, to control it all – a woman who had tricked her into thinking she was her mother. But that had been nothing compared to her father. Except he wasn’t her father. Freddie Eaton. She had to start thinking of him like that, as something detached from her. A name. Not her father at all. Freddie Eaton had tried to kill her, to drown her in mud. For money. She closed her eyes and had an image of Tom, diving into him as he tried to shoot at her, then later throwing the brick that had stopped it all. He had saved her life.