by TM Logan
I was headed north. In search of answers.
67
North London slid past outside the train window. Tunnels of Victorian brick and graffitied concrete, a dual carriageway winding overhead. Old terraced houses pushed up too close to the tracks, grimy and tired, sagging with age. Ben was out there somewhere, hiding, laughing, congratulating himself on how clever he was for outsmarting everyone. Waiting for his moment. But how long would he wait before he came back? His endgame was all about Mel, about driving a wedge between us and exploiting that weakness to prise our marriage apart. Wrecking my reputation was a part of that, throwing enough mud so that some would stick, so that I would always be tainted with guilt. Because eventually he would – at a time of his own choosing. I was sure of it. He would be back, sooner or later, to show who had won. Who was the best. And to the victor, the spoils.
I felt totally alone, cut adrift from everything normal, carried along on a powerful current.
My phone was plugged in and charging. It buzzed with a notification, making a rattling sound on the table in front of me.
Where are you? Worried sick. Ring me. xxx
5.25 p.m. Mel mob
I stared at the text for a minute, typed a reply, thought about it for a moment, then deleted it. Typed another reply. Deleted it again. As I contemplated a third, the phone started ringing in my hand, the tone loud and intrusive in the half-empty carriage.
Larssen’s mobile number showed on the display.
‘Joe?’
‘Yeah, it’s me.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine.’
The train sounded its two-tone horn as it built up some speed, and Larssen was silent for a moment.
‘Where are you?’ he said slowly.
‘On a train.’
He gave a little sigh of disappointment.
‘A train to where, exactly?’
I told him, feeling his disapproval coming through the phone line like white noise.
‘And when are you planning to return from this jaunt?’ His tone was acidic.
‘As soon as I find Ben.’
‘And that means what? Days? Weeks?’
‘Not long, a day or two.’
‘The longer you leave it, the longer you are not available for interview, the harder my job becomes. And that means it becomes harder for me to represent you effectively.’
‘I know all that, and I’m sorry. But did you ring me up to tell me off again, or was there something else that you need to tell me about?’
‘You asked me to call.’
‘Did I?’
‘Yesterday you asked me about a car registration number. A Range Rover you saw at the park.’
A surge of adrenalin made me sit up straight.
‘Did you trace the owner?’
‘Remember what I said to you earlier, about information I’m not supposed to have access to?’
Please let it be good news, just for once. Just for a change.
‘Yes?’
‘This falls into the same category, so don’t ask where it comes from.’
‘OK, I understand. But did you find the driver of the Range Rover?’
‘Yes and no.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘The vehicle is owned by a company, not a person.’
‘Like a shell company?’
‘No. Enterprise Rent-A-Car.’
‘You’re saying it’s a rental?’
‘So it would seem. Although it’s conceivable the plates had been switched.’
‘Can you find out who it’s rented by?’
‘A PNC check – that’s the Police National Computer – only provides ownership information. We’re not going to get client detail like that without a proper police investigation of the rental records.’
‘Do you think Naylor could be persuaded?’
‘On the basis of a random sighting in a car park? Not a hope in hell.’
‘It wasn’t random. They were clearly following Beth, looking for her husband.’
‘Still, there’s not a hope of persuading Naylor without something more concrete.’
‘There’s something going on with this Alex Kolnik guy. He’s been to Ben’s house. He’s harassing Ben’s wife. That’s his car and he’s up to something, I’m just not sure what yet. Have you asked Naylor about him?’
‘Sure. Can do.’ He didn’t sound enthusiastic.
‘And can your source get the info about who’s rented this car?’
‘No. And I’m not going to tell you the reasons why, so don’t go there.’
I sat back again, deflated.
‘The Range Rover is basically a bust, then.’
‘It seems so.’
‘You know Naylor turned up at my house earlier?’ I said. ‘And his partner and two in uniform.’
‘I did warn you the time was coming, today or tomorrow. There’s no running away from this, Joe, you’ve got to stand and face it, head-on. Deal with it.’
‘I’m not running away.’
‘You’re doing the exact opposite of what I advised earlier today when we met at the wine bar. Go in voluntarily, show willing, take the initiative away from the police.’
‘Spend the next six months on remand for a crime that hasn’t even happened?’
‘That’s a very pessimistic view.’
‘Or realistic, maybe. I’m sorry, Peter, but this is something I have to do.’
For a moment he said nothing, and I thought the connection had been lost. I pressed the phone to my ear.
‘You keep saying that, Joe, but you’re forgetting what I’m trying to do for you.’
‘They haven’t found it yet, have they?’
‘Found what?’
‘A body. All that police manpower at the country park, all that expertise and technology, all the sniffer dogs, all the digging, ground-penetrating radar and whatever else they’ve got, all that time and effort in such a small area. And still they’ve come up empty-handed. You know why that is?’
More silence.
‘You still there?’ I said.
‘I’m starting to suspect that we no longer have an understanding, Joe.’
I didn’t like the sound of that.
‘My understanding is that I’m paying you for legal advice.’
‘Yes. But unless you get off that train at the next stop and come right back to London I’m going to have to reconsider our arrangement.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means I will have to consider whether the best interests of both parties are served by our continuing involvement.’ His words were intermittent now, the line breaking up as the train moved through tunnels and cuttings bordered with concrete. ‘Or if it would . . . for all concerned . . . our contractual relationship was terminated at this . . . you find an alternative –’
The line went silent. Larssen’s voice was gone, cut off by another tunnel. It didn’t matter: his message had been clear enough. I put the phone on the table in front of me. The train was gathering speed as it threw off the shackles of the capital, climbing out of a cutting and onto an embankment overlooking a dual carriageway. The red brake lights of hundreds of cars matched our pace, snaking into the distance, heading north. The mobile vibrated with a new call. Larssen again. I rejected the call, put the phone on silent and put it in my pocket.
Night was creeping in, casting my reflection in the window. There were dark shadows under my eyes, two days’ worth of stubble on my cheeks. I looked tired, frightened, hunted. Like a man who had already been tried and found guilty.
My wife had cheated on me. Her ex-lover was trying to set me up for murder. My best friend had turned his back on me and my solicitor was about to drop me like a condemned man.
From here on in, I was on my own.
68
I had nothing with me but the clothes I was wearing: blue jeans, hooded sweatshirt, black windbreaker. Phone, wallet, keys. That was it. It felt like I’d
forgotten something: a bag, a backpack, a child, a pushchair, something to hold on to. When I travelled, when I went anywhere, there was always something in one hand or the other. Or both. Travelling totally unencumbered had always been an appealing thought but today it felt weird, like it wasn’t me. Like something vital was missing.
It was 5.40 p.m. William’s teatime would be finished and Mel would be getting ready to run his bath, wash his hair, then he’d have his story and ask for a second. A surge of homesickness hit me, raw and powerful, and I thought for a moment that this journey was a terrible mistake. This was wrong. My place wasn’t here on a train leaving them behind, my place was at home with my family.
You won’t have a family life if you get sent to prison. You won’t have a family life if you don’t find Ben before the police find you.
The die was cast, the decision taken. It was too late to change it now.
I thought about ringing Naylor, sharing my suspicions that Ben was either on his way to Sunderland or was already there now. But was there enough evidence for Naylor to take it seriously? I wasn’t sure: it was instinct and intuition and educated guesswork based on a handful of clues that Ben had left behind. It was for me to do this. Alone.
And besides, I had to get answers to my own questions before the police charged me with a murder I hadn’t committed. A murder that hadn’t even happened.
It was four hours to Sunderland. Time to kill. I got an over-brewed coffee from the buffet trolley, put two milks and three sugars in it, and went onto Facebook. Trawled through all of Ben’s posts from the last few weeks again, looking at the profiles of the people he commented on most frequently, checking dates, times, content. Somewhere there would be a clue that could put me in a room with him. Help to end this madness. I just knew it.
After an hour my eyes ached and my head hurt from looking at the phone’s small screen. Enough for now. I stared out of the train window at the yellow lights of a town in the distance. I was disoriented from staring at the phone for so long and had no idea where we were. Somewhere in the Midlands presumably, it was hard to tell in the dark. My limbs were heavy and my head felt like it was full of cotton wool. I paced up and down the carriage a few times to get the blood circulating again, my eyes falling to the mobile on the table every time I passed my seat, the phone calling to me, tempting me, beckoning. I sat down again, tried to look out of the window some more, deliberately not looking at the phone, trying to clear my head so I could think about what to do next. But it was no use. My attention span had shrunk so much I could barely focus on anything unless it was on a screen in front of me.
I turned the phone face down and shut my eyes.
The Mirage Casino was dark and busy. A pair of bouncers turned their unsmiling faces on me as I walked in, but neither of them looked like Steven Beecham and they almost immediately shifted their attention to a loud group of lads coming in behind me. I hadn’t been in a casino since Adam’s stag trip to Las Vegas five years previously but they all had certain things in common: plenty of booze, no clocks, no windows, good-looking dealers and happy drunks who thought they were on a winning streak. The blackjack area was towards the back, past the roulette tables and slots and small-stakes poker. It looked like a poker tournament was on, a couple of dozen players hunched around four tables, colourful chips stacked up in front of them.
Aside from poker, blackjack was Ben’s other favourite casino game because it was the nearest you could get to being even odds with the house. A player with a sharp brain and a good memory could do well at it. Ben had both. Tonight my instincts told me that if he was here, he would be playing whichever game allowed him to stake the most. I couldn’t see him from the bar – it was too dark, too crowded – so I bought a beer and took a slow walk around the blackjack tables. Five players, £10 minimum bet. Much too small-time for Ben. The tables further back were £20 and £40 per deal, still too much like small change for a guy who thought nothing of spending three grand on a Savile Row suit.
I did a slow, careful check of the poker tables. Not there either.
My eyes were drawn to another bouncer at the back of the room, standing in front of heavy black curtains, black double doors beyond. A small bronze plaque on the wall said Executive Lounge.
That would be where the high rollers would be. Free drinks, attentive service, the prettiest dealers, somewhere a little bit separate from the hoi polloi. I strolled over as if I was a regular. The bouncer here was a few inches shorter than me, but broader and heavier, solid with muscle, the shoulders of his dinner jacket strained taut. He had very short blond hair and eyes like chips of blue ice.
I moved to step past him and he put a big hand on my chest like a policeman stopping traffic.
‘The executive lounge is members only, sir.’
‘I am a member.’
He gave me a little smile.
‘No. You’re not.’ His broad Sunderland accent was calm and quiet, and all the more menacing for it.
‘Listen, I just need to go in there for a minute. I’m looking for my friend Ben. A group of us were out earlier and we got separated. We were going to meet up here.’
The bouncer appeared utterly unmoved.
‘It’s his birthday,’ I added.
‘Members only,’ he said again.
‘I just need half a minute. That’s all. Just to check he got here OK.’
The bouncer’s head swivelled an inch towards me.
‘You tried ringing him?’
‘He’s got it switched off.’
‘Bad luck, that.’
The bouncer moved aside to let a mini-skirted waitress through carrying a tray with a bottle of Moët champagne and four glasses. I watched her disappear behind the curtain, perfect poise on four-inch heels.
As the double doors closed behind her I heard a laugh like Ben’s from the other side, a barking half-shout, loud with alcohol and alpha-male self-confidence.
A week ago I would have been angry that Ben was sitting in there on the other side of the curtain, drinking champagne and gambling and laughing while my family hung by a thread thanks to him. But in the last day or two I had started to become used to it. I expected it. Expected things to happen that would underline the fact that life wasn’t fair. The point was to stop whining and acknowledge it, embrace it, take advantage of it.
Law of the jungle, baby.
I was starting to think like Ben.
‘How do I become a member?’ I said to the bouncer. His nose had been broken at least once, and I wondered what had happened to the man who’d done it.
He pointed a thick index finger towards the exit.
‘Front desk.’
‘Then I can play at a table in there?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Great.’ I turned to go.
‘But registration takes twenty-four hours.’
I turned back.
‘Sorry?’
‘It takes twenty-four hours for your registration to be processed. Then you can play.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Company policy.’
‘But I have money to spend and the tables out here are no good, stakes too low.’
‘Twenty-four hours,’ he repeated.
‘Well, that is a real shame.’
The bouncer regarded me for a moment, ice-chip eyes unblinking.
‘Who’s your friend?
‘What?’
‘Your friend inside. What’s his name?’
‘Ben Delaney.’
His expression gave nothing away, but I could see the name meant something to him.
‘Is he in there?’ I said.
‘Are you a copper?’ An edge of suspicion in his voice.
‘No, just a friend from London. But I’m worried about him.’
‘I’m sure your friend’ll be out sooner or later, sir.’
‘What time do you close?’
‘Four a.m.’
Crap. That was almost four hours’ time.
I
went to the front desk but had the same answer from the duty supervisor, a lad in his early twenties with floppy blond hair and an adolescent beard. He put a form on the counter in front of me, with a biro.
‘There you go, sir, takes twenty-four hours to process.’
Through a glass panel in the door behind him, an older man in a suit was talking on the phone in a small office, one hand on his hip.
‘Can you give me a temporary pass for the executive lounge for tonight?’
‘Sorry, we don’t do that.’
‘Could I speak to the manager, then?’ I pointed at the man in the back office. ‘Would you be able to fetch him for me?’
The lad looked past me, over my shoulder, as if hoping there would be a less annoying customer for him to speak to instead of me. Finally he accepted that I wasn’t going to go away.
‘Hold on just a minute, sir.’
He turned and disappeared through the door into the back office.
My options were running out. They weren’t going to make an exception to the rule. And if I couldn’t go in, Ben would have to come out.
There was a small red box on the wall behind the front desk. White text on a black background: ‘Break glass – press here’.
Law of the jungle.
The supervisor had his back to me in the back office. He was still talking to the manager, jerking a thumb over his shoulder in my direction. A few people were milling about in the foyer, a couple walking in, a group of young women leaving to go on somewhere else, loud with booze and laughter.
I leaned forward over the front counter and smashed the glass of the fire alarm.
69
The alarm erupted instantly, a piercing two-tone sound that was so loud it set my teeth on edge. I ducked away from the desk and out of sight just as the supervisor came rushing through from the back office.
I didn’t think he’d seen me. But it didn’t matter. This wouldn’t take long.
The house lights came on.
Pushing my way through the tide of people coming out, I selected the camera on my phone and got ready to snatch a picture. Looking out for Ben to come towards me in the surge of punters heading for the front exit. Imagining the moment, surely only a few seconds away now, when we would be face-to-face again. I would grab him with one hand, snap a picture with the other. The look on his face would be priceless. And then it would be my turn to post a picture on Facebook – right after I’d sent it to the police, my solicitor and his wife.
