Lost Lives (Emily Swanson Mystery Thriller Series Book 1)

by Malcolm Richards

  Her heart pounding, Emily moved up to the patio doors and slipped a key into the lock. She turned it and felt the grind of shifting gears. Seconds later, she stepped inside Karl Henry’s home.

  Impenetrable darkness greeted her. Holding up her phone, she tapped the screen and illuminated the room in blue light. She was in the living room. A tattered sofa sat in front of a TV, while a bookshelf containing a handful of DVDs stood against the wall. On the floor by the sofa, a dirty plate contained the remnants of last night’s dinner. The rest of the room was bare.

  An open door led out into the hall. The kitchen was to Emily’s left. She worked quickly, pulling open drawers and cupboard doors, finding canned food and cutlery, nothing of use. Returning to the hall, she followed it along until she came to another room. It was empty. There was no furniture, no décor. Karl Henry had been living here as long as Emily had been living in his old apartment, but it was as if he did not live in this world at all. His home was like the abandoned house neighbourhood children told ghost stories about, daring each other to knock on the door.

  Emily moved towards the stairs. She climbed, each step taking her further into darkness. The first door she came to revealed a damp smelling bathroom, where mould grew like a virus around the window. Indistinguishable dark patches stained the bottom of the bath.

  There were four more doors. The door on her right revealed a large closet with empty shelves. A fist-sized hole had been smashed through the wall. Emily leaned in, her free hand reaching towards the hole, slipping through it. She held her breath as she felt around, then recoiled as tiny legs scuttled over her skin.

  The door on her left led to a large bedroom and, like the room downstairs, it was bare. The next room was small and L-shaped, perhaps once a child’s bedroom. Empty and broken boxes were piled up in the corner.

  Emily wondered if Karl Henry lived here at all. And if he did, why was he living in such squalor? Was it a manifestation of guilt? A subconscious punishment for his wrongdoings?

  Pushing open the last door, she held up her phone to illuminate the room and stepped inside.

  There was a smell in here, musty and animal; a mixture of sweat and mould and cigarettes. An unmade bed was pushed up against one of the walls. Next to it, dirty cups and an overflowing ashtray sat on a bedside table. In a corner, a laundry basket vomited unwashed clothing onto the floor.

  Emily found the light switch. The naked bulb hanging from the ceiling crackled.

  She began with the bedside cabinet, pulling open its drawer to reveal sealed packs of cigarettes and a handful of coins. Next, she dropped to her knees and looked beneath the bed. Finding nothing, she moved over to a sturdy-looking dresser. T-shirts and underwear filled the top two drawers, while the bottom drawer contained an array of items. Emily waded through the junk, finding blister packs of sleeping pills, dead batteries, wads of tissues, and a crumpled pornographic magazine. The cover girl was young and naked. She stared seductively at the camera, hands reaching between her legs. Grimacing, Emily closed the drawer and moved onto the wardrobe.

  A few garments hung from the rail. Work boots and a pair of muddy running shoes sat at the bottom. A shelf above the rail held piles of folded knitwear. Emily reached up and felt around.

  She was about to give up hope, to admit defeat and turn around, when her fingers glanced against something hard.

  At the back of the shelf, hidden behind a pile of sweaters, was a shoe box, the lid sealed with packing tape. Emily pulled the box towards her. If she tore off the tape, broke the seal, Karl Henry would know someone had come looking inside his house. He would see there were no signs of forced entry. It wouldn’t be long before he worked out how that person had gained access.

  Emily stared at the box. She had already broken the law, and as much as the threat of getting caught and imprisoned for her actions terrified her, she could not turn back now.

  She took her time, trying to relax her body as much as she could, slowing her breathing down to a normal pace. The tape began to ease away, millimetre by millimetre. She had time, she told herself. It had been forty minutes since she’d seen Rosa. Karl would still be at work for over an hour. She slowed down further, her nimble fingers working the edges of the tape.

  Somewhere downstairs a door slammed. The tape came away in a long strip, tearing the card underneath. Panic rose in Emily’s throat. She froze, listening to the sounds of the house. Seconds passed. Quiet resumed. A neighbour’s door, she thought. Someone coming home from work. She stared down at the ruined tape, then tore off the rest in one, fluid movement. The lid of the box came away in her hands.

  Emily peered inside. Colour drained from her face.

  There were three items. The first was a gold wedding ring with a small diamond nestled inside the band. Curled beside it and twined with string was a thick lock of blonde hair. Trembling, Emily pulled out the remaining item and turned it over in her hands. It was a passport. Stamped in gold lettering, the words on the front read: BUNDESREPUBLIK DEUTSCHLAND—REISEPASS. Her throat as dry as gravel, Emily flipped to the last page of the passport. Alina Engel’s blank, emotionless face stared out into the gloom.

  Here it was—the evidence that incriminated Karl Henry. Alina hadn’t gone back to Germany. Her passport was right here, valid for another three years. And Karl had taken keepsakes—his wife’s wedding ring, her hair—grim reminders of what he’d done.

  Emily stared, transfixed by the contents of the box. The evidence wasn’t enough to lead her to Alina, or to Reina. It wasn’t enough to reveal what was happening at the hospice. But it was a solid starting point for the police to begin their investigations. Her only issue now was delivering the evidence to them without getting arrested for breaking into Karl Henry’s house. Perhaps she could drop it off anonymously, along with Reina Tammerworth’s notebooks and a letter explaining all that she and Jerome had uncovered. But then how would she know whether or not the police had taken action?

  Replacing the lid on the box, she wondered if Alina was still alive. The more she thought about it, the more she lost hope.

  A strange feeling overcame Emily as she stood up from the bed; an unequivocal emptiness encased in a shell of deep loss. It was like falling through time and space, spinning over and over into an endless expanse. There was nothing to hold on to. No lifeline. And as she left the room, almost forgetting to switch off the bedroom light, she realised this feeling went beyond Alina Engel and the sad legacy of the Tammerworth family.

  Soon, her box of evidence would be in the hands of the police, and so would the responsibility of finding the missing women. Emily would return empty-handed to her empty apartment which didn’t feel like home. She would return to an existence that was very much like the rooms of Karl Henry’s house—dark and empty and void of living. A clean slate some people might call it. A chance to begin again. Wasn’t that what coming to the city had been all about?

  As Emily descended the stairs of Karl Henry’s house and sank beneath layers of shadows, she wondered if she’d come too far to start again. She wondered if she deserved to.

  She left through the living room, locking the patio door behind her, oblivious to the footprints she had left behind in the snow. She hurried back toward the station, the shoe box clamped under her arm. People bustled around her, but Emily was like a ghost.

  She called Rosa. When her car pulled up five minutes later, Emily handed over the keys.

  “You found something?” Rosa looked like a frightened child behind the wheel.

  Emily nodded.

  “What is it? Wait, I don’t want to know. Just tell me one thing—is Alina alive?”

  “I don’t know,” Emily replied. “But this is enough to get the police looking for her.”

  Rosa’s gaze remained on the box. “What about Karl?”

  “He has a lot of explaining to do. Be careful, Rosa. If they find out anything is wrong before I can get this box to the police, then we’ll both be in a lot of trouble.”

  �
��Then get it to them soon. I can’t stay at that place any longer. I don’t feel safe. And my boy ...”

  Emily stared at Rosa, a grim look of determination on her face. “No one’s going to hurt your son. I’ll make sure of it. Just get those keys back to where they belong, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

  A train was waiting on the platform. She stepped aboard, bunkering down in a window seat. As the train pulled away, Phillip and her mother watched her from the platform. The train took her back to the city, where she could lose herself in a population of millions, where she might never be found again. Where tomorrow, she might throw herself from her kitchen window, or she might finally get the damned thing fixed. An ending. A beginning. She would see what the morning might bring.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  By the time she reached The Holmeswood, paranoia had set in. She clung to the box as if it contained her heart. The lift was out of order again, so she took the stairs. Inside her apartment, she slid the bolt lock across the front door, then set the box down onto the dining table. On the way home, she had texted Jerome, telling him to call as soon as he’d finished work. She checked her phone. There was nothing from him. She was about to head down to his apartment, when her phone began to buzz.

  There was no caller ID. Emily put the phone to her ear.

  “Hello?”

  Silence. And then a long, steady exhalation as the caller blew out cigarette smoke.

  “When people disappear,” the man said, his voice deep and rumbling, “the first hours are critical. Do you know why?”

  Emily stopped in her tracks.

  “Because it’s within those first few hours that bad things happen. Women are raped and murdered. Children are carved up like little pigs. Friends and family will waste weeks, months, even years of their lives looking for their loved ones, hoping and praying they’re still alive, when in fact their bodies are already rotting in the ground.”

  “Where is she?” Emily forced the words out, her voice high and trembling. “Where is your wife?”

  “My wife,” Karl Henry said, “thought she was a clever bitch too, acting all high and mighty, thinking she knew everything. But she learned not to put her business where it doesn’t belong. Maybe she’s back with her stinking family, maybe not. People go missing all the time. Most of them don’t want to be found. Did you ever think about that?”

  Emily remained silent.

  “The police concluded that she left me,” Karl Henry continued, his words dripping with conceit. “That I was a lousy husband, a bit of a bastard in actual fact. But I was no murderer. As far as they’re concerned, she’s off somewhere making a new life for herself, filling her sagging meat with someone else’s prick. Either way, I’m beyond caring. Either way, you should stop behaving like a clever bitch. Breaking into people’s houses, taking things that don’t belong to you; that kind of behaviour will get you into trouble.”

  Emily stopped breathing. How had he found out so soon? Had she left something behind? Had someone been watching her? Her thoughts turned to Rosa. She wouldn’t have told them, not when she was so afraid for her son’s safety. But perhaps they had been watching Rosa. Perhaps all along they’d known she’d been colluding with Emily.

  “You took something of mine. I want it back.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Emily said.

  “Don’t play with me, woman. I know what you did, and I know what you have. What’s your big plan? To take it to the police, show them what’s inside? I’ll give you two choices. You can meet me in an hour and hand it over, or you can leave it on your living room table and I’ll collect it myself. Which will it be?”

  “I know about Alina,” Emily blurted. “I know about Reina Tammerworth. I know about Doctor Williams and Doctor Chelmsford, and I know about the Ever After Care Foundation. And I’m taking everything I know to the police, right now.”

  Karl Henry was silent. Then, with a smile in his voice, he said, “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. But what I do know is that breaking and entering comes with a prison sentence, and considering your history with the police I’d be treading very lightly right about now.”

  Emily froze. “What did you say?”

  “What? Did you think you’re the only one sneaking around checking up on people? You’ve been very bad, Emily Swanson. Now choose—are you bringing me what you took from me or am I coming to get it myself?”

  “Go to hell!”

  Emily hung up and threw the phone onto the table. Her entire body trembled. Suddenly she felt like a caged animal on display for the world to gape at. She lunged at the window blinds, pulling at the drawstrings. Then, she moved through her apartment, flooding it with light.

  He knows, she thought. Karl Henry knows everything. The box sat on her table was now a ticking time bomb. Emily’s mind raced. She could take it to the police right away, but would they believe her story? Would they check on her? And when they saw for themselves, would they discount her without a moment’s thought? Karl Henry’s words had spilled a drop of doubt into her thoughts, and now it spread like poison.

  Jerome was eager to go to the police. Perhaps he could take the box. Or at least go with her. But she would have to explain how the evidence came into her possession, and then there would be the risk of Jerome not wanting any more to do with her. Emily could tell that his friendship was already wavering. She had seen him look away each time she deflected his questioning. He was tiring of that game and who could blame him? Honesty was the basis of any lasting friendship, and yet for Emily it was a leper’s bell, warning those who wished to get close that they did so at their own peril. Karl Henry’s poison spread out into her veins.

  She looked at the box, afraid of it. Across the room, Reina Tammerworth’s notebooks sat on the table, just as dangerous. Sweeping them up, she placed them inside the box, and took the stairs down to Jerome’s apartment. She would tell him where she had been tonight, and if he was still prepared to help her one last time, she would ask him to go with her to the nearest police station. If they had some semblance of a friendship remaining afterwards then she would be happy. If not, then so be it.

  When Jerome hadn’t answered by her third knock, she tried phoning. His voicemail message played into her ear.

  Returning upstairs, she texted Jerome, then set to work resealing the box with a roll of packing tape. When she was done, she grabbed her coat and hurried across the hall.

  “We haven’t seen you in a while,” Harriet said, leading Emily into the living room. The usual towers of books and bric-a-brac had doubled in size, turning the space into an alchemist’s library.

  “You’ll have to excuse the mess. My son has decided he needs more space in his bedroom for whatever it is he does in there.”

  Harriet eyed the box sat on her guest’s lap.

  “It doesn’t look very safe for you,” Emily said.

  “He don’t care about my safety! All he cares about is his-bloody-self! Look at what I have to put up with—all this rubbish everywhere. I’m surprised I haven’t been crushed to death. That’s how they’ll find me, you know. Under a pile of his bloody books!”

  Feet hammered across Andrew’s bedroom floor. His door swung open. He stood in his pyjamas, hair springing up like a bed of weeds, his gaze shooting from his mother to Emily. Before any words could be exchanged, he retreated to his bedroom with a slam of the door.

  “Just ignore him. He’s in one of his moods.” Harriet folded her arms across her chest. Her eyes moved from the box on Emily’s lap to the cuckoo clock ticking away behind her on the wall. It was almost eight-thirty. “Tea?”

  Emily shook her head. “I can’t stay for long. I need to find Jerome.”

  “He’s not at home? Perhaps he’s at work, dear. You two have become thick as thieves lately, haven’t you?”

  Emily felt her cheeks flush. “I like to think we’ve become friends.”

  A loud crash from Andrew’s room startled them. Emily
shifted in her seat, her fingers tightening around the lid of the box.

  Harriet pointed a finger. “What have you got there?”

  “Actually, that’s why I’m here. I was wondering if you could take care of this for me. Just for an hour or so while I talk to Jerome.”

  “What is it?”

  Emily paused. Harriet noticed her trembling fingers.

  “I’m sorry Harriet, but I can’t tell you that right now.”

  The old woman sat back in her chair. “I see.”

  “Tomorrow, when this is all over, I’ll tell you everything. I promise. Right now, it’s best that you don’t know.”

  Harriet stared at the box with suspicious eyes. “This is all very strange. This isn’t something to do with Allie is it? What have you found?”

  “Tomorrow, Harriet. I promise. Will you take it for me?”

  “I suppose that’ll be all right. I’ll be going to bed in a couple of hours, mind.”

  “I’ll be back before then.” Emily looked around the room. “Where shall we put it?”

  Her joints creaking, Harriet pulled herself from her chair. “Give it to me. I’ll put it somewhere safe.”

  Hesitating, Emily handed the box over. “Thank you. I’ll be back in an hour. And Harriet?”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “If anyone comes knocking, please don’t tell them you have it.”

  “Who’s going to be coming around this time of the evening, dear?” Harriet stared at the box in her hands. “Here, whatever’s inside isn’t going to get me in trouble is it?”

  Emily looked towards the living room door. “I’ll be back very soon.”

  She left Harriet staring at the box as if it belonged to Pandora, and headed downstairs.

  ***

  The café was empty. A lone waitress collected dirty crockery from the tables.