The Disappeared

by Ali Harper

  We jumped into the van. True, we could have walked. Burchett Grove is less than half a mile away; but getting Jo to do any kind of exercise is harder than getting a decent pint in the Hyde Park.

  Burchett Grove sits at the top of a triangle of narrow streets that form Woodhouse – a mix of students and locals – mainly long-haired, cloth-capped hippies accompanied by dogs on pieces of string. There’s also the local pub, The Chemic, and, best of all, Nazams – the best curry house in Leeds.

  We pulled up at the far end of the street, just before the scruffy rows of brick-built terraces meet The Ridge. The Ridge always scares the hell out of me – a long strip of woodland and ankle-deep mud that separates Woodhouse from Meanwood. Woodhouse is students and hippies, Meanwood is Leeds born and bred. The Ridge feels lawless, a no man’s land, a sea of used condoms, empty cans of Special Brew, and spent syringes – the Russian roulette of country walks. Most women I know have got at least one tale of being followed by some random pervert down there. I avoid it whenever I can, preferring to do four times the distance but stick to the roads and the streetlights.

  The curtains weren’t drawn at number 16 but the house was in darkness. The last time I’d been here we’d smoked so much I’d got tunnel vision and had had to walk all the way home with one eye closed.

  We marched up the small path, and Jo pounded on the door. A minute later a head appeared at one of the upper windows. I saw a flash of black hair.

  ‘What the fuck do you want?’ a voice called out.

  We both stepped backwards. ‘Just calling,’ said Jo, her leather jacket and Afro more effective than a warrant. I held up a hand. It was obvious we belonged.

  He opened the door a moment later. I had the idea we’d woken him up but I’m not sure why, because he was dressed, although his feet were bare, his toenails clean and square. I vaguely recognized him from around.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘thought you were the cops or something. What you hammering on the door like that for?’

  ‘Looking for Jack,’ I said. I tried to keep my tone steady. ‘Jack Wilkins.’

  He shook his head. ‘Wrong house. Never heard of him.’ He moved to close the door, but Jo put the palm of her hand against it.

  ‘Don’t make this hard,’ she said, in a voice I didn’t recognize. ‘It really doesn’t need to be.’

  ‘Is he in?’ I asked.

  The guy rested his arm on the doorframe, so that his T-shirt rose up and I caught a glimpse of black hair just beneath his belly button.

  ‘He doesn’t live here anymore.’

  ‘When did he leave?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  I hesitated, uncertain whether answering his question would breach client confidentiality, but before I’d decided one way or the other, he sighed heavily and held the door open wider.

  ‘I get it.’

  Got what? It struck me as an odd choice of sentence, but before I had chance to ask what he meant, Jo had stepped on to the doorstep.

  ‘We need to speak to him,’ she said. ‘Urgently.’

  ‘The gear,’ he said. He took a step backwards. ‘Wait there.’ He turned and walked towards the rear of the house.

  ‘Play nice.’ I rested my hand on Jo’s arm. ‘We want him on our side.’

  ‘What gear?’ she said, as she shrugged my hand off and trailed after him inside the house.

  I waited on the doorstep for a minute or so, unsure what to do. A group of students were making their way up the hill. I felt weird just standing there, so I followed Jo, pausing in the hallway to close the front door. By the time I caught up, the two of them were in the kitchen, glaring at each other, Jo with her hands on her hips. I caught the end of her sentence.

  ‘A few details.’

  There was a table in the middle of the room and washing-up stacked to the left of the sink. The room smelled of fresh paint and bleach. The guy said nothing.

  ‘Nice place,’ I said. ‘You lived here long?’

  ‘Could murder a brew,’ Jo said. ‘Stick the kettle on.’

  ‘Murder.’ He nodded his head. His dark fringe got in his eyes and he kept pushing it away with his hands. ‘Nice.’

  ‘It’s a figure of speech,’ I said. I had the feeling I wasn’t keeping up with the conversation.

  ‘’Course it is.’ He turned to fill the kettle with water. ‘A brew.’

  There was something in his tone that made me doubt his hospitality, but Jo didn’t seem to notice. ‘Ace,’ she said, pulling out her tobacco pouch. ‘Mind if I smoke?’

  ‘Knock yourself out,’ he said, retrieving three mugs from the draining rack. He wiped each one thoroughly with a clean white tea towel.

  ‘You said you’ve got his stuff?’ I said. ‘Could we take a look?’

  ‘You used to be in Socialist Students, didn’t you?’ he said to Jo.

  I flinched inwardly. Jo hates being reminded of that time, especially since she’d been asked to stand down as branch secretary when they’d found out she was seeing a copper. Of course, Jo hadn’t exactly been thrilled about what Andy did for a living – but you can’t choose who you fall in love with. Anyway, since that time she’s been more of your freelance revolutionary.

  ‘Saw you at the Corbyn rally,’ he continued. ‘Pants.’

  I wasn’t sure whether he was saying the rally wasn’t good, or Pants was his name. Jo didn’t seem bothered either way, shrugging his comments off, like she was engrossed in rolling her cigarette. Her tongue stuck out between her plump pink lips.

  ‘Class War,’ he said.

  Still no comment from Jo.

  ‘So, Jack,’ I said, feeling a change of subject was called for. ‘When did he leave?’

  He ran a hand through his floppy dark hair. ‘I have no idea where he is.’

  ‘But he lives here?’

  ‘Used to. He skipped. A week or so back.’

  ‘Oh.’ My thoughts of a quick and easy solution to our first case sloped off into the middle distance. ‘Know where he went?’

  He shook his head. ‘I have no idea, I swear. Did a runner, proper moonlight flit. Took Brownie’s PS4 with him.’

  I took a seat next to Jo as the kettle boiled. ‘Any clue where he might have gone?’

  ‘Uh uh.’

  ‘Did he leave a forwarding address?’ I knew as the words came out of my mouth that they were overly naive.

  ‘Ever heard of someone doing a moonlight flit and leaving a forwarding address?’

  ‘Pants, what’s your problem?’ said Jo, folding her arms across her chest and leaning back in the chair. ‘It’s not like we’re not asking nicely.’

  Pants stared at her, like he wanted to say something, but he checked himself.

  ‘You said you had his stuff,’ I said. ‘Does that not mean he’s coming back?’

  ‘No idea. He didn’t tell me his plans.’

  ‘Can we see it? His stuff?’

  ‘You mean the stuff from his room?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess.’ I still had the feeling we were speaking in riddles.

  Pants thought about this for a moment, then he shrugged. ‘What do I care?’ He moved across to a door in the corner of the room and flicked back the bolt. ‘It’s in the cellar.’

  I glanced at Jo. Was it wise to follow a man we’d only just met into a cellar? Possibly not, but six weeks of punching a leather bag had made my biceps swell and there’s a confidence that comes with that. Besides there were two of us, and he was barefoot.

  ‘After you,’ Jo said to him.

  Pants went first, I followed, and Jo brought up the rear as we made our way down the narrow stone steps. When Pants got to the bottom he flicked a light switch. He nodded towards half a dozen bin liners in the corner of a small room that might have been where they once delivered coal. My first reaction was to grin.

  ‘That’s everything.’ Pants said. ‘I mean, apart—’

  ‘Can we look?’ asked Jo, already inspecting the bags.

  Pants looked at me li
ke he was daring me to say something. I shrugged as he squared back his shoulders. OK, we hadn’t got Jack, but we’d got his stuff: surely the next best thing. There had to be something in there that would tell us where he’d gone, who he was with. An old phone would be great. And we had something we could tell his mother. I practised the words in my head. Yes, that’s right, Mrs Wilkins, we’ve a few leads we’re working on.

  ‘Can we?’ I asked.

  ‘Bring them up. It’s freezing down here.’

  I hadn’t noticed the temperature, but Pants’s bare toes were crunched up against the cold concrete.

  Jo and I grabbed the necks of the nearest bin liners.

  ‘Pen’s supposed to be taking them to the charity shop.’

  ‘What’s in them?’ asked Jo, as we followed him back up the stairs, lugging the bags behind us.

  ‘Crap,’ said Pants. He returned to the kettle, poured the just boiled water into the mugs, while Jo and I went back for the last bags.

  When we’d brought them back upstairs, Jo said: ‘They’re not very heavy.’

  ‘Clothes mainly.’

  That wiped the grin from my face. I frowned, trying to make sense of what we knew. ‘He took Brownie’s PlayStation but left his own clothes?’ I tried to undo the knot at the top of the first bin liner, but it was tight.

  ‘Don’t open them in here,’ Pants said to me. ‘I’ve just hoovered.’

  ‘Has he got any mates?’ Jo asked. ‘Anyone who’ll know where he went?’

  ‘Only Brownie, and he doesn’t know.’

  ‘Where is Brownie?’

  ‘Out.’

  ‘Out where?’ said Jo, in a voice that said she was trying to be patient.

  ‘He’s gone to try The Warehouse again.’

  We waited for him to expand.

  ‘Jack works there. Or he used to. Brownie’s gone down, looking for him.’ He opened the fridge and took out a carton of rice milk. ‘You’re not the only ones, you know. He owes his share of the gas bill.’

  That surprised me. People living in squats pay gas bills? Struck me as a bit pedestrian. ‘Not the only ones what?’

  ‘How do you know he left?’ asked Jo, sitting back down at the table and returning to her roll-up.

  ‘What?’

  She lit the end, her eyes screwed up against the smoke. ‘How do you know he’s not dead?’

  Sometimes I hate Jo. She has this way of putting into words the things that lurk in the corner of your mind, the things you don’t want to think about. She just puts it right out there, like there’s nothing to be scared of. Pants kicked the fridge door shut with his foot.

  ‘He’s not dead.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Jo stared at Pants without blinking.

  Pants didn’t say anything.

  ‘He might have fallen in the canal,’ Jo said.

  ‘What you trying to say?’

  Wasn’t it obvious enough? I flinched as Jo continued to bat around the possibilities.

  ‘Been mugged, got run over?’

  Jo listed the various tragedies as I tried not to think how plausible each of them sounded. More plausible than someone doing a runner in the buff with his housemate’s PlayStation.

  ‘Did you try the hospitals?’

  Pants raised his eyebrows.

  ‘How do you know it was him that took the PS4?’ Jo paused and tapped the end of her cigarette into the ashtray on the table.

  ‘It’s obvious.’ He put two mugs on the table in front of us with a bit too much force, so that a splash of hot liquid leaped over the rim. ‘Who else? There was no break-in.’

  I thought I saw him frown, his features darkened for an instant.

  Jo didn’t let up with the questions. ‘Have you rung his family?’

  He mopped at the spilt tea on the table with a dishcloth and then rinsed it in the sink. ‘He didn’t—’

  ‘Sounds like you didn’t give him much of a chance,’ said Jo.

  I took my first sip of scalding tea. I love it so hot it burns the skin off the roof of your mouth. ‘She’s right,’ I said, after I’d thought about it for a moment. ‘If my flatmate went missing—’

  Jo didn’t let me finish either. ‘Ever heard of the benefit of the doubt?’ she asked.

  Pants folded his arms across his chest. The beginnings of a tattoo poked out under his T-shirt sleeve. ‘You didn’t live with him.’

  ‘He could be dead in a gutter for all you know,’ said Jo.

  I got a sudden flash of my Aunt Edie, although she’d have said ‘dead in a ditch’. Guilt clawed my stomach lining. She’s my only living relative, and I hadn’t rung her in weeks.

  ‘Don’t you take the moral high ground with me,’ he said, his voice lower, quieter. He turned away.

  I didn’t understand the sneer in his voice. My gaze followed his. I could see the tops of the trees on The Ridge through the kitchen window, still bare from winter and fading against the darkening sky.

  ‘His family’s not heard from him for three months,’ I said. ‘You can understand why they’re worried.’

  He reached for a packet of Silk Cut that was on the high up mantelpiece above a gas fire. He lit one, inhaled in a way that made me think my initial hunch was right – he’d only just got up. As he exhaled he turned back to face us.

  ‘Oh, we heard from him.’

  My patience snapped. ‘He’s rung?’

  His gaze flicked to me like he’d forgotten I was in the room. ‘Would have been nice,’ he said. ‘But no.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘Wait on,’ he said, disappearing through the kitchen door towards the hall.

  Jo pulled a face, like she didn’t know what he was on about either.

  He returned a moment later carrying a brown envelope. He held it upside down over the table and an Old Holborn tin fell out – the old-fashioned kind, orange and black with a row of what looked like Georgian houses on the lid. It clattered onto the table. Jo and I glanced at each other, a weird feeling blooming in my chest.

  ‘Go ahead,’ he said. ‘Open it.’

  Chapter Three

  A feeling of dread crept over me. Don’t ask me why. I’m starting to believe in sixth senses and I’m learning to trust my gut. It’s taken years, but, after what happened, well, let’s just say I learned the hard way. I knew whatever it was in that tin it wasn’t good. It had its own aura, a bad vibe, or some kind of shit.

  Jo picked up the tin. It didn’t rattle, and I knew by the way she held it in her hand it had weight to it. She glanced up at Pants, then me, and she prised off the lid. I held my breath.

  Inside was a small plastic bag plump with brown powder. I kind of hoped it was demerara sugar but a voice inside me said I was clutching at straws.

  ‘Smack,’ said Jo, her voice rising like she was asking a question, but one to which she already knew the answer.

  ‘Really,’ said Pants, the sarcasm hard to miss.

  ‘So …’ My brain tried to make sense of the messages my eyes were feeding it. ‘What? He posted you heroin? In lieu of the bills?’

  ‘Read the note.’ He tugged it out of the brown envelope, a piece of scruffy A4 paper, folded into quarters, and handed it to me. He dropped the envelope on the table. Jo held the bag, still inside the tin, to her nose. Then she gave it to me, and I did the same, like we were seasoned sniffer dogs. Pants went to stand back by the sink.

  I unfolded the note and read it out loud.

  ‘“Soz, guys. Leeds does my head in. When they come looking for me, give them this and tell them I’ll sort the rest when I can. Sorry bout …”’ There was a word crossed out and I couldn’t make out what it said. Instead he’d continued, ‘“everything, but the less you know the better. Keep the faith. J.”’

  ‘Did you know he was into smack?’ asked Jo.

  Pants looked uncomfortable. ‘Dunno. I don’t want to know.’

  ‘Who’s “they”?’ I asked, as I read the note again.

  ‘Funny.’ He glared at me. ‘
Just take it and don’t come back.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m serious.’

  ‘No,’ I said, as the realization of what he was thinking crept over me.

  ‘This isn’t how it was supposed to be,’ he said. ‘Not when we set it up. I don’t want to get involved.’

  ‘No,’ I said again. I’ve been accused of a few things in my time, but heroin dealer was a new low. ‘We’re private investigators, working for his family.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ From his tone it was clear he didn’t believe me. ‘His family.’

  ‘Did you call the police?’ Jo asked as she replaced the lid on the tin.

  ‘What, to come to our squat to talk about the heroin one of our housemates just sent us?’ Pants stood with his arms folded across his chest. ‘Take it and go.’

  ‘Can we take his stuff too?’ asked Jo. She stuffed the tin into her jacket pocket. I frowned at her. She took a slurp of tea as she got to her feet.

  ‘I guess. We’re not planning a car boot.’

  My cheeks felt warm. I hate misunderstandings. But in my experience, these things are hard to unravel. The more you pull, the more you tangle. Still, I gave it a limp shot.

  ‘We’re not drug dealers, you know.’

  He didn’t show any sign that he’d heard me. Instead he continued to speak to Jo. ‘I just want it out of here. We’re on dodgy enough ground as it is.’

  Jo had already stubbed out her cigarette, readying herself for the task of moving the bin liners. I folded the note, picked up the envelope and shoved both in my pocket. Pants helped us lift the bags out to the pavement in silence.

  There were seven bin liners in all, added to the Old Holborn tin full of smack, and we had quite a haul. We crammed the sacks into the back of the van.

  ‘If anything happens, will you let us know?’ I handed him a business card.

  He frowned, like he’d seen everything now. Smack dealers with business cards. I couldn’t think what to say. The more I protested the lamer it sounded. I stuffed the last bin liner into the van, and when I turned round Pants was already back in the house. The front door banged closed.

  ‘Don’t think he likes us,’ I said to Jo. She was crouched in the road by the driver’s door.

  ‘Whatevs,’ she said.