by Tim Weaver
‘What’s your point?’
‘What’s my point?’ He smirked. ‘My point is, I chatted to Julia Wren and she said your mate Sam was working late at work all the time. So what’s the betting he wasn’t at work? What’s the betting he’s out there getting a hard-on, picking himself a new victim?’
‘Or he could really have been working late.’
He shook his head. ‘You live in fantasy land, Raker. Your guy is the best lead we’ve had in almost a year of trying to track down this arsehole. We’ve got him all over two of the vics, he fits the profile like a glove and, all of a sudden, he’s mysteriously disappeared and no one – not even David Raker – can find him. The only thing batting against all that is this whimsical shit you’re spinning about some kind of gut feeling.’
‘He’s been missing six months.’
‘So?’
‘So he hasn’t disappeared “all of a sudden”. And why take two of them and then disappear yourself in order to take the next two – and then leave a voice message on the latest victim’s phone and be careless enough to lose it on the Underground? The Snatcher’s left no trace of himself until now. There’s no sense in him suddenly deciding to leave his name and number on Drake’s phone.’
‘Sense? What, you think this guy is lucid? You think he’s logical? What’s logical about shaving people’s heads and killing them? He’s a nutjob.’ He paused; regained his composure. ‘You get close to people on a case. I know that. I’ve done the same. Sometimes it’s hard to accept what they’ve done when you get attached to them.’
‘I’m not attached to him.’
‘It sounds to me like you are.’
I went to answer, went to fight my corner again, when I stopped. Had I become too attached to Sam? Had I bought into his life too much, failed to process the truth out there on the periphery of his life? He was a fraud. He’d lied to everyone important to him. And he’d been leading a double life – which was exactly what the Snatcher had been doing. I looked at Healy and saw the way he was studying me. I backtracked through our conversation and then back even further, to the people I’d spoken to, the lies I’d unearthed.
And then something emerged from the dark.
It was weird, Robert Wren had said to me when he’d told me about Sam going to see the prostitute I now knew to be Marc Erion. He said the guy lived in this place where there were no lights. He said he got to his door, on to the floor this guy was on, and all the bulbs were out. It was completely black … And when he got to the flat, Wren went on, he said it felt like someone was there. Sam meant there, in the corridor with him.
Had Sam told another lie? Or was there something more at play here?
‘I’m not attached to him,’ I said again.
‘Whatever.’
‘Do you even value my opinion, Healy?’
‘You looking for an ego massage?’
‘Do you?’
He just stared at me.
‘Or is this simply about getting one over on the cops you hate?’
‘It’s not about that.’
‘Then what’s it about?’
There was a sudden kind of sadness to him and, for the briefest of moments, I saw a flash in one of his eyes; the same one as earlier. He was definitely hiding something. He looked away, and when he turned back he’d composed himself and there was nothing in his face. No emotion. No expression. Just a blank.
‘Healy?’
‘It’s about getting the guy respon–’
‘Responsible for these crimes, blah blah blah. Look, if you value anything I did for you last year, if any of that meant anything, you owe it to me to –’
‘I don’t owe you shit.’
I paused. This was how Healy’s anger played out: indiscriminate and damaging. But even though I knew that, even though I’d dealt with this over and over the October before, it still stuck in my throat. It provoked me and irritated me, and – in my most uncontrolled moments, moments I tried to contain – it made me want to hurt him back.
‘Why are you still here?’
He looked at me. ‘What?’
‘You’ve got the evidence. You’ve obviously got all you need to know about Sam from his wife. She’s told you how he disappeared, what her life was like at the end, how he started to change. You know all that already. Now I’ve just filled in the rest of the blanks for you. So why are you still here?’
His eyes turned to his coffee mug.
I leaned into him. ‘Don’t bullshit me, Healy. I never thought this was a social call so I’m not upset you aren’t asking me how I’ve been keeping, but don’t try to pretend this is something it isn’t. You called me because you want to know what I’ve got, so you can take it back to the station and pretend it’s all your own work. You want to solve this case by yourself so you can prove them all wrong. But mostly you’re using me because you’ve got some doubts about something. So what have you got doubts about?’
He didn’t say anything.
‘I’m not your enemy, Healy, remember that.’
‘So what are you?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what we are.’
We sat there for a while, both of us nursing identical mugs of coffee, both of us at the window, on identical stools, looking out at the same street. I studied our reflections in the glass and remembered a moment from the last time we were together, sitting at the window of a coffee shop just off East India Dock Road, Healy telling me about the case that had broken him, the case that had ended his marriage. Then, as now, I looked at him and thought, in another life, things could have been different. In so many ways we were the same. In so many ways we reflected one another, all the qualities and the faults, the lingering sense of loss. But Healy’s control, over himself and over his emotions, would only ever be tenuous, because that was who he was – and that was what separated us. However far out of the hole he managed to claw himself, he’d always be slipping back in.
‘The disappearance thing bugs me,’ he said finally. It was as close to an apology, an acknowledgement that I was right, as I was going to get, so I accepted it with a nod of the head and we moved on. ‘Like you say, why take Wilky and Erion, then disappear?’ He paused. Looked at me. ‘And the phone is the other thing. Same as you. Why would Wren leave a message? He’s been careful. He hasn’t made any mistakes. Leaving a message is a mistake.’
‘This is what I know about Sam. His whole life was a lie, but it wasn’t something that came easy to him. It weighed heavy. He was in complete denial about who he was. It took him ten years to pluck up the courage to sleep with another man and when he did …’
I stopped.
Should I tell him about Wellis? If I did, the police would corner him faster than I ever could on my own, and it would be one less loose end to worry about. But if they got to Wellis, that would invite questions about the girl at the house, about what happened at the warehouse, about Gaishe and about the anonymous call I’d made. Sallows, the cop who’d come to my home looking into the attack on the girl, would have even more ammunition to come at me with. But the flipside was obvious: if I didn’t tell Healy, Wellis remained out there – and he remained a threat to me.
I studied Healy, saw the way he was trying to play it straight, trying to reboot his career at the Met without straying outside the lines, and, in a weird way, suddenly trusted him a little less for it. The old Healy was accountable only to himself, but that at least made him less invested in what I did, and how I worked the laws of the land. This new one had a responsibility to the people he worked with, a determination to promote his own career and show them how good he was, and that meant he had a rulebook. So I didn’t tell him about Wellis. Not yet.
‘ “When he did” what?’ Healy asked.
I looked at him. ‘Huh?’
‘You said, “It took him ten years to pluck up the courage to sleep with another man and when he did …” When he did what?’
‘When he did sleep with another man, he c
hose Marc Erion.’
‘You knew about Erion?’
‘I knew Sam slept with a prostitute. I didn’t know who it was.’
‘How did the two of them even meet in the first place?’
‘I don’t know,’ I lied.
He studied me. ‘So you really think Wren didn’t do this, despite everything I’ve just told you?’
This was why Healy had called me. This moment. This question. With me, he could do what he couldn’t at the Met: put himself out there, expose his doubts. And off the back of that question, I suddenly felt a little sorry for him. Because basically, Healy was lonely.
‘I don’t think the Sam I’ve got to know is capable of that.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘But?’
‘But maybe this isn’t the Sam I know.’
45
Healy was heading back to Jonathan Drake’s flat, near Hammersmith Bridge, so he offered me a lift down to Hammersmith Tube station so I wouldn’t have change lines on the journey home. We didn’t say much on the walk to his car – the same battered red Vauxhall estate that smelt of wet dog he’d had the previous year – but as he unlocked it, he looked across the roof at me like he knew what I was going to ask.
‘What’s the other file you’ve got?’
He paused for a moment, key in the door, the strap from the slip case slung over his shoulder. His eyes flicked to the slipcase, and there was a moment’s hesitation when he probably saw himself endangering his career again. A part of him didn’t trust me, like I didn’t trust him – perhaps it would always be that way between us – but I sensed this file represented something personal to him. All cops had them: a case that they couldn’t close and that no one else would back them on – or a case that proved them right.
‘Get in the car,’ he said, and flipped the locks.
When both doors were closed, he laid the slip case on his lap, unzipped it and then took out the sixth file: the one in the green folder. Sam’s had been the thinnest but this one wasn’t far off. It must have only run to about twenty pages, which meant it was either simple and wrapped up quickly – or, more likely, it was unsolved. He handed it to me.
‘Meet Leon Spane,’ he said.
I flipped the front cover and, as soon as I saw Spane’s face, he felt familiar. I tried to claw at the memory, tried to drag it back into the light, but couldn’t place him. The man was grey-white, bloodless, eyes open and staring off into space. It was a shot from his autopsy. He was older than the others – mid to late thirties – and, according to his physical description, slightly bigger too.
‘Who is he?’
‘He was found on Hampstead Heath.’
‘When?’
‘Twenty months ago. October 2010.’
‘He’s different from the others.’
‘He wasn’t taken from his home.’ He flipped forward a couple of pages to the coroner’s report. ‘Whoever killed him stabbed him in the throat and cut his dick off.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘Yeah.’
‘So how do you think they’re linked?’
‘I always knew he was a part of this – always – but after Wren made the call to Drake and used Spane’s name, I knew for sure.’ He pointed to Spane’s photograph. ‘Plus, his head was shaved just before his body was dumped.’
I nodded. ‘Was he also gay?’
‘Impossible to tell.’
‘How come?’
‘He had no family. We never had anyone claim him.’
And then it hit me. I flicked back to the picture and, through the corner of my eye, I saw a frown form on Healy’s face.
‘Raker?’
I didn’t reply, just looked down at Leon Spane: no beard, no hair, no holdall or cardboard sign. Shaved and lifeless, he looked so different from the CCTV footage.
But he was still the same man.
He was the homeless guy at Gloucester Road.
There was no way to prevent the police getting to Sam. If they believed he was the Snatcher, they were going to be unstoppable. It might have been different if I could push back with something but, four days after Julia Wren arrived in my life, there was no exit I could see, no physical route out for Sam, not even a hint of where he might have been until Healy turned up and told me about Jonathan Drake’s phone.
As we said goodbye I’d thought, for a brief moment, about telling Healy what I already knew about Leon Spane: his connection to Duncan Pell and, in turn, Pell’s connection to Sam. There were reasons for doing that; good reasons that might lead them to the Snatcher. But then I saw the next hour – the Met doorstepping me, dismantling the work I’d done, threatening to bring charges if I didn’t drop the case – and all I felt was discomfort: about handing something over half finished; about failing to get Julia the answers she sought; but mostly about letting the police hunt Sam Wren when, deep down, I wasn’t even sure he was the killer.
46
By the time I got home, an unmarked Volvo was already bumped up on the pavement outside the gates of my house. When I was about twenty feet away, both doors opened and two plain-clothes officers got out. From the passenger side came a woman in her early forties: skinny in a black trouser suit, short blonde hair tucked behind her ears, a sharp, angular face and eyes like puffs of ash. But it wasn’t her I cared about, it was the man who got out from the driver’s side. I slowed to a halt as Eddie Davidson pushed his door shut, looked at me, then leaned against the side of the car, a smirk on his face.
He’d been one of the cops wrapped up in what happened on my case the October before, and he’d disliked me pretty much from the first moment we met. He saw me as a hindrance, as Healy’s crony and collaborator. Things had only got worse as the case went deeper. When I’d left Healy at Hammersmith, he’d warned me again that the Snatcher team would be coming to my house, and that they’d ask me to close down my search for Sam – and he’d told me Davidson would probably want to be a part of that. I’d never been much of a believer in destiny, but I wasn’t surprised he was back. Life had a way of binding you to certain people, and when it did, it became hard to extricate yourself from them.
The woman approached me first.
I guessed this was Craw, the senior investigating officer. She wore a tired look, worn down by months of trying to chase the same man, but I got the impression straight off the bat that she knew nothing about me beyond what Davidson had told her. He wouldn’t have painted me in my best light, which was why I assumed she’d taken on a fierce, stern expression, as if she expected me to create problems as soon as I opened my mouth.
‘Mr Raker, my name’s DCI Craw.’ She got out her warrant card and held it up. I didn’t bother checking it, just looked at Davidson. He was dressed pretty much the same as the last time I’d seen him: jeans and trainers, T-shirt and black leather jacket, his stomach like a planetary mass, his face oddly proportioned: small eyes, big nose, wide mouth. He winked briefly and then stepped away from the car. ‘I think you know DS Davidson.’
‘Unfortunately I do.’
Craw didn’t respond. ‘We’re here to talk about Samuel Wren.’
‘Well, you’d better come inside then.’
We sat in the living room, Craw stiff on the edge of the sofa, Davidson perched in a chair on the other side of me, so we were in a triangle with me as the apex. It was a classic move; an effort to cramp me in the place I should feel most comfortable.
‘We understand you’re doing some work for Julia Wren,’ Craw said.
I looked at her, then at Davidson. He was on his best behaviour with the boss around, face unmoving, eyes fixed on me. ‘She asked me to look into Mr Wren’s disappearance. I’m in the preliminary stages of doing that. What is it you want to know about him?’
A little snort from Davidson.
Craw glanced at him, then back to me. ‘We don’t need anything from you. We’re here today to ask you to halt the search for her husband. I’m not at liberty to discuss the reasons why, but unfortunately this isn’t a
process that’s up for negotiation.’
‘Has Mrs Wren agreed to this?’
‘Ultimately, it’s not up to her.’
I shrugged. ‘Fine.’
Both of them looked at me.
‘Fine what?’ she said.
‘Fine. Do what you have to do.’
Davidson came forward on his seat. ‘That’s it?’ he asked, the first thing he’d said since they’d arrived. ‘You’re just gonna sit there and let us take this away from you?’
‘You’re the police. What choice do I have?’
‘Is this a joke or something?’
‘DCI Craw just asked me to halt the investigation.’
‘That never stopped you last time.’
I looked at him. ‘You’re right. It never stopped me last time, because last time you’d fucked things up so badly I had no choice but to try and put them right.’
Anger flushed in Davidson’s face. ‘What did you say?’
‘You heard what I said.’
‘You almost destroyed our case.’
‘I found you a killer.’
‘You’re not even a fucking cop.’
‘Well, I guess that makes two of us.’
Before Davidson could come at me again, Craw stepped in, hand up. ‘Okay, okay, that’s enough of that crap.’ She glanced at Davidson, giving him a look that said, Calm down, and then shifted closer to me. ‘Mr Raker, I want to be quite clear with you that if you cross us on this, we will have to take you down. You need to step back completely.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘You will be charged.’
‘I understand.’
Davidson eyed me. ‘What aren’t you telling us?’
‘DCI Craw said she didn’t want to hear what I had on Wren.’
‘No, I don’t mean that,’ he said. ‘Whatever you’ve found out about Wren, we’ll find it too, and we’ll find more and do it better. We’re better at this than you, Raker, just remember that. No, I’m talking about what else is going on in that head of yours.’
