Alice Teale is Missing

by H. A. Linskey

  The party broke up around midnight, but Black suggested that their taxi dropped them at a bar he knew that had a licence till 2 a.m. Somehow, Beth had enjoyed herself and was happy to continue with the drinking.

  They were drunk by now, or at least Beth was, which she realized only when she stumbled slightly as she got out of the taxi, and she hoped to God Lucas was, too. Otherwise, it would be embarrassing in the morning.

  Black commandeered a couple of stools so they could prop up the bar. They ordered more drinks and agreed it had been a good night. They talked for a while about the diner and other, more trivial things before Beth’s curiosity finally got the better of her. If she hadn’t been feeling more confident because of the effects of the booze, she would never have asked him. ‘You know Collemby, don’t you? From before, I mean?’ She was sure he did. It was the way he knew the layout of the school, the story behind the name of the old pub, about the existence of the lovers’ lane at the disused railway station – a barman had even said hello to him – so why wouldn’t he just admit he was familiar with the place?

  His whole body seemed to stiffen then, and he straightened on the bar stool. Oh God, he was about to go nuts and start shouting at her, ruining their evening and their barely functioning working relationship in one instant.

  Instead, he said, ‘It’s nothing sinister.’ At first it didn’t appear that he was going to tell her anything more, but then he seemed to sag a little and made a sound that was almost a sigh. ‘It’s my ex-wife,’ he conceded. ‘She’s from Collemby originally, so I do know the place. I used to go there years ago when we were both teenagers and dinosaurs roamed the Earth.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you just say?’

  He drained the remnants of his drink before answering her. ‘Because it was a very long time ago and I don’t really like to think about it,’ he told her quietly.

  Beth hadn’t been expecting that for an answer. Was Lucas Black really affected when he looked back on earlier, happier times, now that they were gone? It wasn’t such a strange notion, she supposed. Wasn’t everyone?

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘So, what’s your story, Beth?’ Black said that like he didn’t want to continue with his.

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t have one.’

  ‘Everybody does,’ he said. ‘Some stories are more dramatic than others, I’ll grant you, but we all have one.’ She didn’t respond, so he asked, ‘Okay, do you have a boyfriend? Girlfriend? Partner? Significant other?’

  ‘No one,’ she said, then quickly added: ‘At the moment.’

  He didn’t say anything further and, for some reason she couldn’t quite explain, she said, ‘There used to be. I lived with him.’

  She didn’t normally talk about her ex with anyone but her oldest, closest friends and, even then, it was never in the slightest bit cathartic. When they loyally attacked him on her behalf, she found herself defending him. The break-up had been her fault, she’d say, at least partially, at any rate, and they would often become infuriated with her for letting him off the hook so easily. He’d been the cheat, the rat, the one who left, not her, but it always seemed to come back to one thing for Beth. Why would he have done that if she hadn’t been lacking in … something? She wasn’t good enough.

  ‘He bailed,’ she said, and for some reason it was easier to tell Black this than she would have imagined. He’d told her about his own problematic love life after all, and at least his usual silence lacked judgement.

  ‘He didn’t just bail,’ she admitted finally. ‘He left me for my best friend.’

  ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘That’s awful.’

  ‘It was,’ she admitted, and she was about to give him the usual crap about picking herself up, dusting herself down and getting on with it, time healing wounds and maybe even I’m glad I found out early on, a line she had used with more than one friend, as if the pain were minimized because they weren’t actually married, even though she’d always envisaged that, one day, they would be.

  Instead she just said, ‘It is.’ Then she found herself confessing, ‘It was a while ago, but a couple of weeks back I found out that she’s pregnant and they’re getting married.’

  He looked straight ahead then, and it seemed he was about to say something profound. Instead, he raised a hand then a finger to gently draw the attention of the barman. Without asking her what she wanted he said, ‘Two pints and two tequila slammers.’

  ‘Like that’s going to solve our problems.’ But she said it wryly.

  ‘It won’t solve them,’ he admitted, ‘just make them seem less important.’

  ‘I don’t even remember how I’m supposed to do this,’ she admitted when the barman handed them the slammers.

  ‘Lick your hand,’ he said. ‘Like this.’ And he did it to his own hand. Beth licked hers and he poured salt on to both. ‘Lick the salt, skull the tequila then suck the lemon. One, two, go!’ and they did. Beth licked the salt, winced, drank the tequila down in one go, coughed, then sucked the lemon and winced again. They both slammed their glasses down on the bar.

  ‘God, that’s revolting,’ she said, though Black looked entirely unaffected.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said as he raised his pint.

  Beth clinked glasses again and gratefully sipped her own beer because it took away the taste of the previous drink. A moment later they were somehow back on the topic of her ex.

  ‘I suppose it was a bit like Chris and Tony, with Alice,’ she offered. ‘Only that makes me Tony. God, I’m the sad, desperate one,’ she realized.

  ‘It was nothing like it.’ She was about to argue with him over that dismissive comment, but he went on: ‘They were just teenagers; you were living with the guy. You thought he was the permanent one.’ He took a sip of his pint. ‘That’s far worse.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she agreed. ‘It is.’

  ‘As for your ex-best friend.’ He grew thoughtful. ‘What a bitch. There aren’t many rules left these days, but that’s one of them. You don’t touch your mate’s other half. It’s pretty simple.’

  For some reason, it comforted Beth to hear this coming from someone who had not been directly involved in the messiest break-up imaginable. Nearly all Beth’s friends had sided with her, though she was pretty sure some of them were torn and still in touch with the bitch, as they all now called her former best friend, and she couldn’t help feeling that a lot of their supportive comments might be born out of pity for her. She often found herself wondering what they really thought. Had they seen it coming? Had they always imagined that Jamie would eventually leave her? Did they think he was out of her league? There was something nice about this virtual stranger’s uncomplicated, male, simplistic view of things.

  ‘Here’s to your ex-best friend,’ he said, raising a glass, and when she was confused by the gesture, he added: ‘May her tits sag all the way down to her knees.’

  Beth laughed and raised her glass to clink it against his. ‘To saggy tits,’ she agreed.

  Of all the people to lighten the load of her troubles, she would have given very long odds a few days ago that this person might be Lucas. It didn’t change much. She wasn’t fine, things weren’t going to be okay, but he had somehow made them temporarily bearable and that was enough for now.

  ‘So, in the spirit of full disclosure, and since I know your story, what do you want to know about me?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, nothing.’

  ‘That’s bull.’

  ‘I mean, I probably know everything I need to know.’

  He considered this for a moment. ‘What do you know?’

  Why did she feel like she was back on very dangerous ground, even though he seemed to be making light of this? She wanted to avoid the topic if she could, but something told her he would assume she was gossiping about him behind his back if she didn’t just come out with it, so she ploughed on, carefully.

  ‘Okay, you said you’re ex-army?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘But you left to join the police
force.’ Then she added: ‘Obviously.’

  ‘I left because my wife didn’t want to be an army wife any more. I basically had a choice: leave or stay in the army and lose my marriage.’

  ‘Then I’m sure you made the right choice.’

  ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘She left me anyway, in the end.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Not your fault,’ he said placidly. ‘Not mine either – well, not entirely. It just didn’t work out and it was a long while ago.’

  ‘Do you miss it?’

  ‘The wife or the army?’ There was a twinkle in his eye when he said that and it made her laugh again, even though he had just indirectly described another woman as ‘it’. Christ – Lucas Black made her laugh. Maybe he wasn’t a compete android after all. ‘I do miss her sometimes, but less often these days. I don’t even know where she is.’

  Beth tried to imagine what that must be like and realized that, one day, when she was older, she would be telling a very similar story about Jamie. It’s not as if they kept in touch. How could they? It struck her then how you could stay friends with people for years, but if you broke up with someone you thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with, you might never see or hear from them again.

  ‘I do miss the army,’ he admitted. ‘I felt like I was good at it, you know? I knew what I was doing.’

  ‘You’re good at this,’ she offered.

  ‘You don’t actually mean that.’

  ‘I do. I know we clashed a bit to begin with and, yes, I thought you were a miserable fucker’ – he laughed at that description – ‘but now I realize there’s more to you than that.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You’re not just a miserable fucker.’

  To her surprise, he laughed quite hard at that, and it set off a bout of coughing. Was he shocked because the young female detective had used the F-word? He couldn’t have been. He just liked the banter. Guys spoke to each other like that all the time, particularly in the army. Perhaps she had finally worked out how to speak fluent Lucas.

  ‘So what else do you want to know?’ he asked when his coughing had ceased.

  ‘I don’t need to know anything else about you, Lucas. Your life is none of my business.’

  ‘I don’t mind – really I don’t. Gemma explained it to me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She said I ought to get to know you better. That you couldn’t trust me if you didn’t know me. She said it’s a girl thing.’

  She bridled at that. ‘It’s not a girl thing.’

  He looked confused. ‘Oh, she said it was. Sorry.’

  ‘Maybe she thinks like that, but I don’t. I don’t want you to think of me as a girl.’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

  ‘I know, and I appreciate you making the effort.’ She softened then. It wasn’t his fault he had been given advice from Gemma that didn’t chime with her own feelings. ‘Okay, then, where do you live?’ she asked. He looked confused again, as if she were inviting herself back for coffee, and her face flushed. ‘I mean, do you have a flat or a house?’

  ‘Oh, I see. I kept the house. I mean, I bought her share when she …’ He made a gesture with his hand that he must have thought symbolized his wife flying away. ‘And before you ask, I live on my own.’

  She thought it best not to go further down that route.

  ‘Well, I know what car you drive, what beer you drink and the fact that you have two mad friends who’ve invested in a train-carriage diner, so that puts me way ahead of everyone else at HQ in the “what do you know about Lucas Black?” contest.’

  ‘That’s not saying a lot,’ he said. ‘What do they say about me? At HQ, I mean. I can guess, but I’d like to know.’

  Oh God, what could she say? That he was a killer, possibly even a psycho, an ex-army man with hidden demons, perhaps caused by combat, and a temper that could flare at any moment? That he had shot down a man in cold blood in suspicious circumstances?

  ‘They say you’re an enigma.’

  ‘Nice try, but they don’t say that.’

  She tried to look hurt, but could tell he was seeing right through her.

  ‘They didn’t say much, to be honest.’

  ‘It’s that bad, is it? I’ve often wondered. What did they tell you about me, really?’

  ‘Honestly?’ He nodded his assent, so she just blurted it out: ‘That you had killed someone.’

  37

  There was a long pause before he responded, and Beth wondered if she had blown it.

  ‘That does seem to define me round here. What did they tell you about it?’

  ‘Nothing.’ When he seemed sceptical, she said, ‘Really. That was pretty much all I was told.’ There was no way she was going to admit that she’d had a comprehensive briefing on it from Peter Kennedy. That would surely get his back up and, more than that, she wanted to hear Black’s version of events. What would he tell her? Would it be anywhere close to the truth?

  For a while he appeared to be contemplating whether to say anything at all. Finally, he told her, ‘It was a few years back – a domestic hostage situation.’ And all of a sudden Beth felt stone-cold sober, because she knew the importance of every word he was about to utter. ‘I remember it was a cold, wet Friday night, the kind where you just want to stay in, lock your door, have a takeaway and a beer. The call came in that a man was holding his wife and daughter at gunpoint, threatening to kill them and himself. Someone even said a gunshot had already been reported from inside the house. The man had clearly lost it and there wasn’t a lot of time for a coordinated response, so the word went out for any firearms-trained officers who could be deployed quickly to back up the uniforms in the area. I was one of them. You have to understand, it was a different world back then. These days, with all the terrorist alerts, we’d have a SWAT team on him in minutes. Anyway, I got down there quick-as. There’s a guy on a loudhailer trying to talk this shouty man out of his house, asking him to at least free the kid, then his wife, but he’s not listening. He sounds deranged and we can’t even make out much of what he’s saying. The wind didn’t help. It was distorting his voice, but it sounded as if he was telling us to back off or he would kill everyone, then himself. It’s a bad, confused situation, and it doesn’t get any better when he goes back into his house and locks the door. I get ordered to go around the back, and I’m quietly hoping I won’t be needed. There’s three of us there, but I end up closest. I’ve got the rear wall of the property for cover and I’m aiming at the back door with a Glock.’

  Beth couldn’t take her eyes from him, but Black kept his gaze fixed ahead, staring at the optics behind the bar.

  ‘With classic timing, he chose that moment to burst out of the back door with his wife and daughter. He’s dragging the wife, who is screaming for help. The daughter, who is only about ten, is shouting, “Don’t do it, Daddy!” and I think he’s waving a gun. It’s really dark at the back of the house, there’s no lights and it’s still pouring with rain, and I’m not sure, but it looks like a sawn-off shotgun. At this point I’m worried he’s going to execute them both in the back garden right in front of me, and he obviously represents a clear and immediate danger to the family and us. I shout, “Armed police, don’t move!” His reaction? To keep moving, and he’s bellowing something about us police all being bastards. I shout, “Put down the weapon!”, but he won’t comply. It all happens very quickly then. He pushes his daughter down on to her knees in front of him and shoves his wife to one side. I see him removing those two obstacles to my line of fire, and then he swings the gun round and brings it up like he’s about to shoot.’ Black took a breath then. ‘So I fired mine.’

  He didn’t say anything else for another minute, and all Beth could do was try to visualize the scenario. She realized she was holding her breath.

  ‘The bullet hit him,’ he said, and he still sounded surprised by that, even now. ‘It struck him in the chest and he fell backwards on to the ground an
d sort of flailed there for a bit. I took a chance and went over the wall towards them. I was in the back garden and I got a closer look, all the while thinking, Please don’t get up again, or I’ll have to finish you. By this point, there’s pandemonium. The guys behind me are shouting into their radios, I can hear the front door being kicked in, and the rest of the team burst through it and the guy on the ground is crying out in pain, the wife is sobbing and calling his name, but the worst of it is his daughter. She’s hollering, “Daddy!” at the top of her voice. It’s this high-pitched shriek, and one of the guys I’m with has to grab her to drag her away. The wife is bordering on hysterical because she can see it’s a bad wound. The blood is’ – he struggles to find the word and, when he does, his voice cracks a little – ‘spreading all over the wet floor of the patio in amongst the rain. It’s pretty clear he’s probably not going to make it.’ Then he said, ‘And it turns out he doesn’t. He died on the way to the hospital, but at this point he’s still lying there in the rain, in a lot of pain and distress.’

  He took a breath and kept his voice level. ‘Then I saw the gun, only it wasn’t a gun. The sawn-off shotgun, which I would have sworn on a stack of bibles I had seen, turned out to be a table leg.’ He shook his head as if the explanation he was about to give was crazy, and maybe he thought it was, too. ‘He pulled it off the kitchen table to threaten his family with when he started to properly lose it. So he’s come out of his house armed with a table leg, but because I think he’s waving a shotgun I shoot him and I kill him.’