by Tim Weaver
60
Garrick paused on the line, his breath ragged and nervous. I glanced at Craw. She’d taken a seat on one of the benches, but was looking in my direction. The softness I’d glimpsed in her – that hint of a different person – was gone now, replaced by the woman I’d come to know much better. After eyeing me with suspicion, she removed her phone and started checking it. I turned my back on her and looked along the road. No vehicles. No people.
‘Dr Garrick, I want to speak to you about Casey Bullock.’
‘Please. I haven’t told anyone.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I swear to God, that’s the honest truth.’
‘Wait a minute, wait a minute. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I need you to calm down, okay?’
He sounded like he might be about to break down. But then I heard the line drift and the sound of a door closing. When Garrick came back on, he was more in control of himself, although his voice remained small and quiet. ‘Who are you?’ he said.
‘My name’s David Raker. I’m an investigator. I want to speak to you about Casey Bullock.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m trying to locate her.’
A pause. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Absolutely.’
Another pause, this one longer, as if he was trying to work out whether I was joking or not. ‘Casey’s dead.’
‘Do you know that for a fact?’
‘She hasn’t been seen for nearly two years,’ he said, ‘and the man who came to see me about her, he was …’ A long silence. ‘He was the type who would …’
‘The type who would what?’
‘Who would hurt her. Who would hurt me.’
I knew instantly he was talking about Neil Reynolds, so the question wasn’t who Garrick was referring to – it was why, after murdering Simon Preston, Reynolds had then gone after his ex-girlfriend.
‘This guy came asking questions about Casey?’
More hesitation on the line. ‘I don’t even know who you are.’
‘I realize that, but I –’
‘You could be anyone.’
‘I told you, I find missing people.’
‘And I told you. Casey isn’t missing.’
‘It’s not Casey I’m trying to find.’
That seemed to throw him.
I glanced at Craw. She’d finished checking her phone and was looking across at me. We were on opposite sides of the shelter, rain coming down heavier now, cascading off the roof and through holes in the guttering. A car passed, headlights freeze-framing the boats out on the water. I covered the mouthpiece and moved closer to her, so she could hear me properly: ‘I need to make a couple of calls.’
She didn’t reply.
‘I can meet you back at your car.’
Again, she eyed me with suspicion – but then she got to her feet and pocketed her phone. ‘I don’t want to be playing catch-up, Raker,’ she said to me.
‘I’ll fill you in when I’m done.’
Her eyes lingered on me again, then she pulled up the hood on her coat and headed out into the rain, following the promenade back towards the centre of town.
I heard Garrick say something.
‘Sorry, can you repeat that?’
‘So if you’re not trying to find Casey, then who?’ he said.
‘I’m trying to find a man called Leonard Franks.’
A hesitation.
‘Dr Garrick?’
‘I don’t … He isn’t …’ He stopped. Now he sounded genuinely scared. ‘I don’t want anything to do with this.’
‘Do you know Franks?’
‘Please don’t contact me again.’
‘Dr Garrick?’
‘I don’t want to die.’
‘You’re not going to die.’
‘You weren’t there when this man came to see me.’
‘I can protect you from him.’
‘You can’t.’
‘I can.’
‘You can’t.’
Seconds from having him hang up on me, I realized there was no other way of coaxing him out. ‘Look, I’m going to find out what happened to Leonard Franks whether you help me or not. That’s what I’ve been asked to do. But, if you don’t help me, I can’t promise you won’t be caught in the crossfire.’
I could almost hear him suck in his breath.
It was hard for me even to form the words: ‘You’re putting yourself at risk if you hang up on me. But if you don’t, I can make sure you’re kept safe.’
A stir of disquiet formed in the pit of my stomach: I didn’t want to have to use his safety as a negotiating tactic. But this was the only way I could play it.
On the other side of the estuary, I saw Craw was already in her car, motor running, lights on. My Vauxhall was just down from hers. Even if she’d spotted it, she wouldn’t recognize it, instead expecting to see my battered BMW.
Garrick had still said nothing, so I waited him out.
‘Please,’ he said eventually.
He sounded on the verge of tears. Rain drifted in, peppering my face, my coat. ‘What I need to do is establish what’s going on here – then I can try to help you.’
Silence on the line.
‘Dr Garrick?’
‘I’m scared.’
‘I know. I understand.’
‘He said he’d kill me if I talked.’
‘Did this guy tell you his name?’
A long silence. ‘How do I know you’re not working with him?’
‘At this point you don’t.’
A snort. ‘So I just have to take your word for it? I have to entrust my safety, the safety of my wife, my three sons, to you?’
‘Let me paint the alternative for you: you don’t help me, I don’t find the man who took Casey Bullock, and you spend the rest of your life worrying about your boys getting snatched the second you turn your back.’
I heard him form words and let them go, one after the other, endless moments where he couldn’t decide what was worse: placing his trust in a man he’d never spoken to before, who claimed to be an ally – or continuing to worry, every day of his life, that his family were about to be targeted by Neil Reynolds.
Finally, almost a whisper, he said, ‘I didn’t even know Casey had gone missing. I hadn’t seen it reported. I hadn’t read about it in the papers. No one even cared she’d disappeared.’ A long, loaded pause, painful, palpable. ‘So the week after she vanished – I don’t know, this must have been early October 2011, I guess – I was waiting for her to turn up to her appointment. I always saw her on a Tuesday and a Wednesday. By that stage, she didn’t need to be seen that often, but she requested it. She wanted it like that. That day was going to be the day I told her the hospital was closing. I was dreading it.’
‘So what happened?’
‘She didn’t turn up. This man did. He didn’t tell me his name.’
‘What did he look like?’
I heard him swallow, another moment of panic, as if he’d entered a newer, even darker corner of the memory. ‘I don’t know … In his late thirties, I suppose. Five-ten or eleven. But broad. Big. Pale, shaved head. He had this … this odd way about him.’
Definitely Reynolds.
‘What did he ask?’
‘He asked me about Casey.’
‘What about her?’
‘He wanted to know what we talked about during our sessions.’
‘And what did you tell him?’
‘He had a knife,’ he said, a tremor in his voice.
‘So you told him everything you and Casey talked about?’
No response. Then I heard a sniff. ‘I betrayed her,’ he said, words smudged now. ‘She confided in me … and I betrayed six years of her life.’
Unexpectedly, he started to sob softly. I felt sorry for him, but didn’t interrupt, letting him have his time of mourning. It was clear, even from the short period I’d been talking to him, that Casey Bullock had meant a gr
eat deal to him.
When he began to recover his composure, I said, ‘What, specifically, did this guy ask you?’
‘He wanted to know about her past.’
‘Her past with her ex-boyfriend Simon?’
He seemed unsure of how I’d made the leap. ‘Yes. Yes, that, and everything else. Her marriage to Robert, the death of their son, her breakdown, her suicide attempts.’
‘Did you discuss Leonard Franks with her?’
‘Yes.’
‘What did she tell you about Franks?’
‘She said she was worried about him.’
‘Worried about him how?’
For the first time, in the background, I could hear a noise – laughter – and then realized what it was: Garrick’s children.
‘I think she was scared of him,’ he said.
That stopped me. ‘Wait, she was scared of Franks?’
‘Yes.’
I looked over to where Craw was sitting in her car. Inside, I could just about make her out, face half painted in the orange glow of the street lights.
‘Why was she scared of him?’
‘She never said.’
‘She never told you?’
‘No. I tried to get at what it was, over and over. I could see this great event in her past casting a shadow across our sessions. She lived in London for four years, and it was something to do with her time there. Something related to a case she saw in the papers.’
‘The murder of Pamela Welland?’
A pause. ‘How do you know all this?’
The silence was heavy with suspicion. I imagined, at this point, he was wondering whether he’d done the right thing.
‘She was affected by the murder of Pamela Welland?’
He didn’t reply.
‘Dr Garrick?’
‘Very affected by it,’ he said after a while.
Poulter had said exactly the same thing. But neither of them had managed to get at the reasons behind it. All I had was the death of Pamela Welland, Franks as the man leading the hunt for her killer, and Casey Bullock – a woman for whom it had become more than just a passing interest. And, seventeen years on, the only two people who might know why were gone. Reynolds had buried Bullock where she would never be found. But I couldn’t be sure what had happened to Leonard Franks. Not yet.
‘Did she say Franks ever threatened her?’
‘No.’
‘But she was scared of him?’
‘She said he made her “worried”. That was her choice of words.’
‘And she never said why?’
‘No. I treated Casey for six years, and the person before me – Dr Poulter – treated her for almost six, and neither of us got a clear idea as to why she became so fascinated – if that’s even the right word – about the death of that girl. As for this Leonard Franks …’ He paused. I could hear laughter in the background again. ‘Kids, give your dad some space, okay?’ Another short pause. ‘Let me put it this way: do you know how long it took for Casey to bring that man’s name up?’
‘Franks? No. How long?’
‘Five years. That’s five hundred and twenty sessions. Five hundred and twenty hour-long sessions before she found the courage to even as much as speak his name.’
‘Did you tell that to the guy who came to see you?’
A silence heavy with remorse. ‘Yes. He said he’d kill my family. I betrayed her, I betrayed Casey, but …’ He paused. ‘My family. I just … I couldn’t bear to …’
… live without them.
There was no sobbing from him this time, but I heard him sniff, cover the phone and – for a second time – tell his kids to give him some space.
Then he came back on the line.
‘I need to go, Mr Raker.’
‘Did you ever think about calling the police?’
‘About the man who came to see me? No way.’
‘Why not?’
‘Why do you think? I’m not putting my boys at risk.’
‘What about Casey? What about before then, when she said Leonard Franks had scared her? Did you think about calling the police back then, on her behalf?’
‘That was just the problem,’ he said, and I heard some of the uncertainty return to his voice; a tremor of fear misshaping his final couple of words. ‘I couldn’t call the police – because she said the police were all in on it.’
61
Craw got out as I approached, leaving her door open, the lights on, the heaters blowing. She stood there watching me, shadows at her face. I kept my expression neutral, but inside I was burning up. I couldn’t call the police – because she said the police were all in on it. I didn’t know whether that just meant Reynolds, or it meant him and Craw. Maybe Paige. Maybe Murray. Maybe even Franks. At this point, I didn’t know who I could trust.
‘Everything all right?’
I looked at her. ‘Yeah, all good.’
Her eyes lingered on me, as if she could sense that hadn’t been entirely the truth, but then she looked off into the parking lot. ‘I don’t see your car anywhere.’
‘No. I left it about half a mile away.’
‘Do you want me to drive you there?’
‘No, it’s fine. I’m already soaking wet.’ I attempted a smile and hoped it looked convincing, then removed the ring with the keys to the cottage on them. ‘Here.’
‘What are they?’
‘The keys to my parents’ old place.’
She glanced at them. ‘Aren’t you coming?’
‘I need to make a couple more calls.’
‘To who?’
Just take the damn keys. ‘There’s a couple of leads I need to chase up. Once that’s done, I’ll meet you back at the house and we’ll get everything straightened out.’
‘ “Straightened out”?’
It was the wrong choice of words. She eyed me again, mistrust written in every muscle on her face. ‘I mean, I’ll tell you everything I’ve found out, and we’ll lay down a plan. One that doesn’t involve me taking a detour to A&E.’
She nodded.
‘Okay?’
She glanced at the keys, still being held out to her, then back to me. After a moment more, she reached over and took them. ‘Okay.’
I gave her directions to the cottage. If she, or anyone else, turned the place over, they’d find nothing. I’d cleared it out earlier in the year when I’d moved back to London. Everything I needed I had in the car twenty feet beyond where she was standing.
‘I’ll see you later, then.’
She nodded again, her eyes still lingering on me – and then we both set off, moving in opposite directions.
She got back into her car.
I headed anywhere that wasn’t with her.
62
A mile and a half out of Kingsbridge, I found a public phone box, overrun by grass and half hidden in the shadows. I pulled up alongside it, turned off the engine and got out.
Inside it smelled of piss and damp.
The road was lonely, lined on both sides by high hedges, but the rain had stopped and now there was a break in the clouds, like a hole punctured in a ceiling. As I fed some coins into the slot, I could see moonlight escaping through the gap, illuminating fields further down, and then hinting at what lay beyond.
The ragged outline of the coast.
And then, across the causeway, Bethlehem.
I dialled Ewan Tasker’s mobile and waited for it to connect. He picked up after a couple of rings, sounding suspicious. He didn’t recognize the number.
‘Task? It’s me.’
‘Raker?’
‘Yeah. How’s it going?’
‘Everyone’s fine. How’s things your end?’
‘Good.’
‘You want to speak to them?’
‘Please.’
I heard a muffled conversation, and then Annabel came on.
‘Hello?’
‘How you doing, sweetheart?’
‘Okay, I guess.’
&nbs
p; ‘I’m sorry about this.’
She didn’t say anything initially, but then: ‘Okay.’
‘What have you been doing?’
‘Getting Olivia to sleep.’
‘Is she all right?’
‘She’s fine. She thinks it’s a big adventure.’
But I didn’t need to dig too far to find out what Annabel thought about it. The wind whined gently as it passed through the spaces in the telephone box, the cracks in its glass, its rusted-out frame. In the background at her end I could hear laughter on a television, a snapshot of domestic normality. Except even that was a lie. I’d dragged the two of them out of their beds in the middle of the night and sent them into hiding.
This was their normality now.
I’d made certain of that.
‘Have you found the man you’re looking for yet?’ she asked.
‘No. Not yet.’
‘What happens when you do?’
‘That depends.’
‘On what?’
‘On whether he’s alive or not.’
She paused. ‘And us?’
‘You and Liv?’
‘Yes. When you find him, can we go home?’
‘That’s the plan.’
‘And this won’t happen again?’
There was a mix of sadness and frustration in her voice that would have got to me even if she hadn’t been my daughter.
‘No,’ I said. ‘It won’t happen again.’
Briefly, I could see my own reflection in the glass.
Another lie.
‘So where are you at the moment?’ she asked.
My eyes moved to the coastline again, a grey smudge in the distance. The clouds had begun to knot together, gradually returning everything to darkness. ‘I’m a couple of miles from Keel Point.’
‘Keel Point? Oh. That’s where the hospital is.’
‘That’s right,’ I said, a little thrown. The fact that she knew about it surprised me, even though it shouldn’t have: she’d been brought up only a few miles down the coast.
‘You’re not going across, are you?’
She’d asked it as a joke.
‘I was thinking about it.’
