by Tom Weaver
I slid in at the bar, about five stools away from the guy with the beer bottles. He looked up, his eyes red and mottled. I nodded. He nodded back. Then he dropped his head back down and stared into the empty bottles.
I took in the club. It was on two floors, with a winding staircase between them and a cramped balcony above the bar area and dancefloor. There were probably worse ways to spend a Saturday night, but I wasn't sure what they were.
A couple of minutes later, the barman reappeared. The first thing he did was reach into one of the fridges and take out another bottle of beer. 'Food's ordered, coffee's on,' he said, flipping the cap off the beer and handing it to the other guy. 'You want anything else to drink while you're waiting'
'Yeah, I'll have an orange juice.'
He nodded. I reached into my pocket and got out a photograph of Megan I'd taken from the box. One of her at home in her school uniform. The photo was probably a couple of years old, but she didn't look massively different from how she did in the most up-to-date pictures. Sometimes you had to work the percentages, though. The younger the victim, the more emotion you generated, and the more help you were likely to get. I held up the photograph as the barman placed my juice down in front of me.
'I'm not only here for breakfast,' I said. 'I'm doing some work for the family of a girl who used to come in here a lot.' I placed the picture down and pushed it across to him. 'Do you recognize her?'
He glanced at the photo. 'Judging by that school uniform, looks like she shouldn't have been getting in at all.'
'I won't tell.'
He nodded, smiled a little! 'She doesn’t seem familiar.'
'I imagine the police came in at one stage, about six months back.'
He raised an eyebrow. 'Police?'
'She used to come in with a couple of other girls her age.'
'Is she missing?'
'Her name's Megan Carver.'
His eyes widened for a moment. The name rang a bell. 'She was that girl on the news. The one that disappeared.'
'That's her.'
He looked at her picture again, as if trying to see something he hadn't managed to pick out the first rime. Then he shook his head and pushed the photo back across the counter to me. 'I remember the news stories, but I was still sitting with my feet up on a beach in Thailand when she went missing. I've only been working here four months.'
I nodded, took the photo. 'I guess I'll just wait for my breakfast then.'
It arrived a couple of minutes later and was surprisingly good. The eggs were runny, the bacon was crunchy and both slices of toast were drenched in butter. When I was done, I pushed the plate back across the bar and set about finishing my coffee and juice. The barman was away cleaning tables on the other side of the room. Five stools down from me, my drinking partner had just finished his third beer.
I glanced at him. He was looking down into the empty bottles, one eye open, one eye closed. Stubble was scattered across his face. His hair looked like it had gone weeks without shampoo. But he was dressed in good clothes: Diesel trousers, a Ted Baker sweater, a Quiksilver bodywarmer and, sneaking out from under his sleeve, a Gucci watch. Basically the best-dressed drunk in London.
'Nice breakfast?' he asked without looking up.
'Pretty good, yeah.'
'You sound surprised,' he said, his voice quiet.
'I am.'
'You shouldn't be. It's a good breakfast in here.'
'I know,' I said. 'I just tasted it.'
I pulled a twenty out of my wallet.
'Your girl,' he said, turning on his seat, pushing the bot- des away from him like he wanted to forget he'd spent his breakfast necking three beers. 'Megan. She sounded like a nice girl.'
Now he had my attention. You knew her?'
'No, I didn't know her.' He took one of the bottles and separated it out from the group. 'But I had the Old Bill in here asking me questions about her a couple of days after she went missing'
I eyed him. He sat up straight, smiled and turned towards me. He could see I was trying to put it together in my head: the drunk owns this place?
'You're the manager?'
'The owner. I employ a manager.'
'What did the police ask you?'
The same sort of questions you just asked. Did she come in here? Did I recognize her? Did she ever get into any trouble?' He paused, pulled the beer bottle back into the group, then looked up at me again. 'I didn't have any answers for them, just as I won't have any for you. She could have come in here for years, and she would have meant as much to me as someone who comes in here for the first time.' He shrugged, a little regret in his eyes. That's the nature of these places.'
'Did the police take anything away?'
'CCTV footage.'
'How much?'
'As much as we had.'
'Which was how much?'
'We keep a year's worth. That's what our legal people and security team advise us to do, in case anything kicks off in here and we have to go to court. We keep an additional year as well, but only one copy of that, and in a deposit box at a bank near St Paul's. Anything outside of those two years, we dispose of.'
'So the police took a year's worth of footage from you?'
'No. They took the six months up to, and including, the date of her disappearance, and the month after.'
'Did they find anything?'
'You'd have to ask them that,' he said. 'But as it's sitting in the drawer of my desk upstairs now, I guess not.'
He looked up at me then, and a smile spread across his face like glass cracking. I realized then that this was a man for whom drinking wasn't enjoyable, or an addiction, or just something to do. It was a way of finding an exit. For a brief moment, as we locked eyes across the bar, it was like seeing my reflection in a mirror.
'Are you okay?'
He nodded and looked away. 'Maybe I can help you.'
And when he looked back, his eyes were filling up. He got down off the stool and gestured for me to follow him up to the second floor.
His name was Paulo Janez, and his office overlooked a tiny London backstreet, full of townhouse doors and slivers of office space. On one wall was a huge black-and- white painting of Tony Montana. On the other were a series of photographs. Paulo was in most of them, as was someone I presumed was his dad. They looked the same: dark skin, black hair, brown eyes, immaculately dressed. He caught me looking at them.
'My father,' he said quietly, and sat at his desk. He opened one of the drawers and started going through them. I sat opposite and watched in silence. Eventually he brought out seven DVDs, bound together with two elastic bands. He closed the drawer and placed them on the desk in front of me.
'Be my guest,' he said, gesturing to them.
'That's the seven months the police took?'
'Correct.'
I got out a card and passed it across the desk to him. My guarantee I would return the DVDs. He took the card, studied it, then nodded that he understood.
'You married?' he asked.
'Not any more.'
'Divorced?'
I paused. Maybe he could sense something in me, like I could sense something in him. A connection between us. A sadness that bubbled below the surface of the skin.
'My wife died of cancer,' I said finally.
He nodded, seemed almost relieved, as if he'd started to doubt his initial feelings. 'My father passed away two months ago. The only person I ever really cared about.'
'I'm sorry.'
A sad smile wormed across his face, and then he was quiet for a moment. Take the DVDs and see if you can find anything. I hope you do — for that family's sake.'
Chapter Nine
Just before 3 p.m., Caroline Carver buzzed open the front gates of her house and watched me pull into the gravel driveway. She smiled. But, as at the restaurant a couple of days before, it was only a smile in name. Before Megan vanished, I imagined she had turned a lot of heads, but as she led me into the house, gaunt and drained, I realized
she was only a partial reflection of that woman now.
We moved through to the kitchen, where Leigh was sitting cross-legged on the floor, pushing cars across the lino.
'Would you like something to drink?' she asked.
'Just water would be great.'
She nodded but made no effort to say anything else, and as she filled a glass from the tap, I realized I was finding it difficult to get a handle on her. Normally I was pretty effective at reading people. I could see through to what made them tick. I wasn't sure whether it was a natural talent, or a skill cultivated through years of watching politicians lie through their teeth. But, either way, Caroline Carver was different. She wore herself the way you'd expect a grieving parent to: distant, fragile, the disappearance pulling at the seams. But sometimes I saw someone else. A woman of strength and steel who could bury her feelings as deep as they needed to go.
'How are things going?' she asked finally, as she led me into the living room. She touched Leigh's head on the way through and got no reaction in return.
I seated myself opposite her. 'At the moment I'm just following the same leads as the police. I need to make sure they haven't missed anything.'
I placed my pad down on the table between us and flipped it open. She looked down at it, back at me and nodded, seeing I was ready to start.
'Maybe you could tell me about those last few weeks.'
She paused, shrugged. 'I'm not sure there's a lot to tell. Jim was on a job up in Enfield, at a new contract there, so I took Meg into school for most of that last fortnight. Certainly the morning she disappeared.'
'She seemed all right to you that day?'
'Yes,' she said. 'perfectly fine. She was always such a positive force. I'm not sure where she got it from, because both Jim and I can be a bit… well, temperamental, I suppose.' She smiled a little — a proper smile for the first time since I'd met her. Then it vanished again. 'That was why she was such a good student, I think. She just maintained an even keel the whole time. Never got over-excited or depressed. She was just an amazing girl.'
'What can you tell me about Charles Bryant?'
Caroline glanced at me. I wasn't sure whether she was telling me she never liked him, or was surprised I had brought him up in the first place.
'Megan dated him for a while.'
'Did you meet him?'
'Only once.'
'How long did they go out for?'
'Not long. Maybe two or three months.'
'What was he like?'
She shrugged. 'He seemed okay. It was a tough time for him.'
'Megan didn't love him?'
'Definitely not,' she said, shaking her head. 'I think that was the problem. She went out with him because she felt sorry for him. Felt sorry that he had lost his mother like that. And also because she was a good person. She looked at him and saw that he needed someone to help him through the grieving process.'
'How did he take the split?'
'What do you mean?'
I looked at her. She wasn't playing ball with me, even though she could see where I was trying to drive the conversation. Perhaps the idea of her daughter dating someone wasn't one she liked to think about, especially if it had somehow initiated her disappearance. 'I mean, I'm trying to work the angles here,' I said to her.
'He was upset.'
'Did he try to talk her round?'
'Not really. I think, in his heart of hearts, he knew the relationship wasn't built to last. He knew why Meg was around for him. He definitely had a thing for her, a very strong affection, but he seemed a level-headed boy. I think…' She paused, looked at me. 'I think if you're heading down that road with Charlie Bryant in mind… well, it's the wrong direction.'
'The police talked to him?'
'Yes. I think they had a similar theory to you.'
'Did she start seeing anyone else after that?'
A slight hesitation. 'No,' she said, but didn't look at me.
'Jim and I talked to her about it and suggested it might be better if she concentrated on her studies. She was three good grades away from getting a place at Cambridge. That was worth a little sacrifice.'
I nodded, but didn't write anything down.
Something was definitely up.
'What about the names Anthony Grant, or A. J. Grant — do they mean anything?'
She shook her head. 'No.'
I reached into my pocket and took out a printout of the photograph I'd found on Megan's camera. I'd blown it up on the computer.
'Do you recognize this photo?'
She took the printout. 'Yes. It's on her camera.'
'Right. Any idea where she is there?'
She brought the picture in closer to her. 'No. I remember this is one of the photos we looked at right back at the start, because Jamie Hart asked us the same thing.'
'Did he find anything out?'
'No. The police went through all her photos, all her friends' photos, everything they could lay their hands on.' She paused, a flash of a tear in one of her eyes. 'But they got nowhere.'
'So they never found out who took this one?'
She glanced at the photo again, then back up. 'No. Why?'
'Don't you think her face looks different there?'
'Her face?'
I pointed to Megan. 'Her smile.'
'In what way?'
'I don't know. You know her best. But this smile, and the smile in some of the other photos… they seem different to me.'
'Different how?'
I shrugged. 'I'm not sure. Maybe it's nothing. I just think it would be helpful to find out who took this, that's all.'
Something passed across her face.
'Are you okay?' I asked.
She frowned at me. 'Of course. Why?'
Because something’s up with you. You just seem a little… distracted, I guess.'
'I'm fine.'
I let it go. 'Just backtracking for a second, she definitely never made mention of being in any relationship after Charles Bryant?'
Another small hesitation.
'Caroline?'
'No.'
'She never made mention of one?'
Movement in her eyes. 'No, she definitely -'
'Caroline.'
She stopped. Looked at me.
'Do you want your daughter found?'
'Of course. What sort of question is that?'
I glanced at a photograph of Megan, in a frame on a small glass table at the end of one of the sofas. 'I'm just asking because I get the feeling I might be missing something here.'
'What do you mean?'
'I mean, I'm not sure you're being totally honest with me. I need you to tell me everything. Even if it's just a suspicion, a hunch.'
She paused, looked down at my pad, then dabbed a finger against her eye. If I was wrong, I'd have to apologize to her - but I had to be sure. I couldn't be working the case if one of the two people in the world who knew Megan the best wasn't prepared to give me everything she had.
Finally, after what seemed like minutes, Caroline looked up, sadness and disappointment in her eyes. She turned and faced the photograph of Megan I had been looking at a few moments before. Then, determination back in her voice, she said quietly, 'I think you should leave now.'
Chapter Ten
By the time I got home it was almost dark. Autumn was moving in quickly now: once the sun faded from the sky, the night washed in and the temperature went with it. I put the football on in the living room, then turned the radio on in the kitchen. One of the things you dread the most when you've been left on your own is the silence.
After showering, I went through to the kitchen and started preparing some dinner, emptying a packet of stir- fry vegetables into a wok along with some sliced chicken. As I watched it brown, I kept coming back to Caroline Carver. I couldn't shake the feeling that she was holding something back. Even if I couldn't read her as clearly as I would have liked, I knew I wasn't mistaken. Something sat there between us, just as it had the firs
t time we'd met at the restaurant. A secret. A half-truth. A lie. Something.
I was sitting down in front of the TV, twenty minutes into the match, when my phone started buzzing. I set the plate aside and hit Answer.
It was James Carver.
'Caroline told me about what you accused her of today,' he said, cutting to the chase. 'You think she would hold back something important? You seriously think she would do that? What planet are you on?'
'Hold on a min-'
'No, you hold on a minute.' He lowered his voice. He must have been in another room, trying to keep the conversation away from her. 'Don't ever accuse my wife of trying to get in the way of finding Meg'
'I didn't accuse her of —'
'Don't tell me you didn't. I know you did. I'm paying you to be an investigator, not some amateur-hour psychologist.'
'Just let me explain.'
'You really believe Caroline doesn’t want her found?'
'Of course not.'
'Then what the hell are you playing at?'
I paused, let him calm down for a moment. 'She seemed hesitant.'
'About what?'
'About everything'
'Our daughter has been missing six months. You know what that's like? You know what that Does to you? No, you don't. You've got no idea.'
I didn't reply. Let him feel like he'd had his victory.
'Are you going to apologize?'
'Listen, James… I don't know either of you well, but I went with a gut reaction and if it turns out to be wrong, then I'll apologize.'
'You insulted her. Do you understand what I'm telling you?'
'It won't happen again.'
'No, it won't.' He cleared his throat. 'I think we should call it a day.'
'What are you talking about?'
'I want you off this. We entrusted you with the most precious thing in our life, gave you money, all you'd need to get the job done. But you've destroyed my confidence in you, David. And you've insulted my wife. I won't have that. I won't have you speak to her like that.'
'This is ridiculous.'
'Put Megan's things in an envelope and mail them to us. Whatever you have found out so far, please put it down on paper and include that too. The last thing Caroline needs now is to see you at the house again. I will pay you for the three days you have done, and an extra day as a goodwill gesture. Not that you deserve any goodwill from us.'
