by David Thorne
Fourteen years ago he would have been just into his twenties. Old enough to cause the disappearance of two young women, particularly if he was helped by either his father or his younger brother, or both. And from what Sophie tells me, it is clear that Luke Gove is as much of a danger to women now as he would have been back then. The question of what makes a handsome, privileged young man bear such hatred towards women is one it would take a psychologist to unravel. Right now, all I want is evidence, something persuasive to take to Hicklin, force him to look into what has been happening; what is still happening.
Claire does not answer her phone, and I sit in my office, wonder what I should do. Officially I need to start distributing William Gove’s money, getting the paperwork in order so that I can deposit over a quarter of a million pounds into each of the beneficiaries’ bank accounts. But knowing what I do now, that the will was drawn up as a smokescreen, a way of atoning for the disappearance and likely murder of at least three young women, I have no idea what the right thing to do is.
My phone rings and I pick up.
‘Hello?’
‘Yeah, I missed a call from this number?’ It is a woman’s voice.
‘Is this Claire?’
‘Yeah. Who’s this?’
‘My name’s Daniel Connell. I’m a lawyer.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I’m working on a case…’ How best to approach this? ‘I’m investigating a man called Luke Gove.’ It is close enough to the truth.
‘No,’ she says. ‘I ain’t talking about him.’
‘Claire,’ I say, ‘I believe that Luke Gove is a bad man and that whatever he did to you, he will continue doing to other young women until somebody stops him.’
‘Not my problem.’
‘No,’ I say, ‘it isn’t. But if you could tell me anything, about what he did, about what happened…’
‘Nothing happened.’
‘He bought you a car.’
‘And?’ Claire’s voice is angry, defensive.
‘I believe he has harmed women,’ I say. ‘Done terrible things. I want to nail him.’
‘Goodbye,’ says Claire, and hangs up.
Whatever Luke Gove did to Claire, it has still got her rattled. But I have learned over the years that inside us we all have hidden reserves and that, as a rule, we want to see the right things done, the right people held to account for their actions. Not five minutes later, Claire calls me back.
‘I ain’t saying anything official. Don’t want none of it.’
‘Okay.’
‘You want to know about Luke Gove? You need to find Unit Five.’
‘Unit Five?’
‘All I’m saying.’
‘What is it? What do you mean?’
‘Unit Five. That’s all. Don’t call me again.’
I am about to speak, but Claire hangs up. I consider calling her back, then think of the courage it has taken her to tell me this much, decide that she has already done enough. Unit 5. I look out of my office window, watch a man in a vest walk two bull terriers down the street. They strain at their leashes and he has to lean backwards as he walks to counter their strength; I think of a waterskier. My phone screen lights up, shows me that I have received a message. I do not recognise who it is from immediately. I open it and the message is just four numbers: 5872. I look back at the number it was sent from. It is the same number I just called, Claire’s.
Unit 5. What Claire has told me, what she has just sent me, makes no sense. Outside the Turkish supermarket opposite a van parks up; a man gets out and opens its rear doors, starts unloading. The name of the company is painted on the van’s white side in orange lettering: specialists in halal dairy products. Their address is local, an industrial estate. Unit 12.
I stand up and find William Gove’s file. Inside is a detailed plan of his property. I take it out and clear my desk and spread the plan across it. Every building on the Gove estate is shown, their outlines drawn in black ink. The house is in the centre, and next to it are the outbuildings I walked past after Duncan Gove shot up the power company’s Land Rover. There are nine in total and each one is labelled. Unit 1, Unit 2… Unit 5 is the largest. It is also the building I watched a known criminal walk out of before locking it behind him.
There is some kind of event happening in town and my street is full of cars; I have to park up from my house, walk back. As I get closer I hear CJ’s voice. She is talking to somebody, sounds agitated. It is not in my nature to eavesdrop but I hear her say my name and I stop, a laurel bush between me and her and whoever it is she is talking to.
‘What’s he going to do?’ I do not recognise the voice; it is a man’s, sounds young.
‘You don’t want to know.’
The man laughs. ‘Kind of man lives in a yard like this? Please.’
CJ does not answer and there is a pause, then the man says, ‘You need to come back.’
‘No.’
‘Ain’t just Maz. Other people, they’re asking. Where’s CJ? Come on.’
‘No.’ CJ’s voice is firm but I can sense fear beneath it, her refusal a little too determined, traces of desperation.
The man laughs again. ‘You want us to come get you? We’ll fucking drag you back, girl.’
‘Daniel won’t let you.’
‘Him again? Look at this place. Think a man lives here’s going to help you? Ain’t your world, CJ.’
‘You don’t know him. He’s—’
‘D’you say he was? A lawyer? Fucking please.’
‘No.’ CJ’s voice this time is confident, loud. ‘You ain’t got a clue. He’ll look after me.’
‘Against me, my crew?’
‘Any of you. All of you.’
The man laughs again, again a silence. I picture him shaking his head, mocking CJ’s trust.
‘He’ll look after me.’ She says it again with such simple assurance that I have to close my eyes, momentarily overwhelmed by the trust she places in me; the responsibility I have taken on almost by accident. I did not ask to be the protector of this young woman, this child. Yet here I am.
I walk past the laurel bush and see that the man CJ is speaking to is short, skinny and could use a good meal. He turns and the way he squares his shoulders to me is a challenge, his body twitching as if struggling to hold some feral energy. He looks the kind of person bound for prison, sooner or later. He’ll have plenty of meals when he’s there. I smile at CJ, turn to the man.
‘Who are you?’
He sniggers, spits, does not answer. Wipes his nose with his index finger. He has a large gold hoop in one ear and I take hold of it, give it a pull. He has no choice but to go with it and I walk him down my path and on to the pavement, his face creased up and made ugly with pain.
‘Fucking do that for, man?’ he says after I have let go.
‘You must be lost,’ I say. ‘There’s nothing for you here. Next time I see you, I’ll rip it out.’
He looks at me and I give him the stare; he hesitates for a moment then comes to the right decision, shrugs and walks away. I doubt he will be back. I walk back to my house and CJ is watching me, her mouth slightly open, as if I am a species she has never encountered before. I smile at her, offer her my arm. At first she does not understand but then she puts her arm through mine and together we walk into the sanctuary of my home.
24
ALTHOUGH THERE IS no cloud it is still dark; there is a crescent moon which weakly silvers the edges of the buildings but my clothes are black and in the shadow I must be invisible. I have come from the opposite side of the estate, walked through rows of raspberry plants almost as tall as I am, at this time of year heavy with fruit which in the moonlight look dark purple. I disturbed a pheasant which beat its way out of the foliage with a burst of frantic noise and movement, but apart from that I have heard barely a sound.
Unit 5 has a large rolling steel door in one wall like an enormous metal shutter, and around the corner from it is the plain wooden door I saw being locked
last time I was here. There is nobody about; it is just past midnight and there is not a person on this planet who knows where I am, what I am doing. But the truth is that I have had enough of waiting, doing nothing; regardless of my promise to Maria, I will not stand by and let another young woman, two, three more, disappear off the face of the earth. If Hicklin isn’t convinced by what I have found out so far, then I need more evidence. This is the only lead I have. All that is in my way is a padlock the size of my fist.
I try the number that Claire sent me in her message. I thumb in 5872, give the padlock a tug, but it does not open. I have brought a pair of bolt cutters with me and I cut through the hoop of the padlock. It makes a sharp crack like a gunshot. I wait for some seconds to see whether the sound has disturbed anyone before pulling open the door. I have a torch and I turn it on and what I see is so unexpected it is almost as if walking through the door has transported me to a different place altogether, a world away from a sleeping Essex fruit farm.
My torch beam reflects off windows and pristine bodywork. The first car is a Porsche, the one next to it an Audi R8. My torch is not powerful enough to reach the edges of the space I am in and as I walk between the cars I have a strange impression that they go on for miles and miles, out of sight, hundreds and thousands of luxury cars stretching into the gloom, although there are probably only thirty or forty in here. I try to keep my bearings, head for the far wall, jar my knee against the rear of a long black Mercedes. The light from my torch refracts and reflects from the cars’ paint and glass, making it seem as if I am wandering through some silent, sombre hall of mirrors. I wonder how much the cars in here are worth. I suspect they have been stolen to order and that they are in transit, waiting to be shipped abroad. They will only fetch a tenth of their market value, although given the number here, there must still be nearly half a million’s worth. An amount worth killing for, plus change.
I get to the far wall. It is as wide as a tennis court is long. There is a door at either end. They are both locked, have keypads next to the handles. I know before I try them that this is why Claire sent me the numbers and I feel a quick, warm flowering of adrenalin. I punch the code into the first door but it does not open. I cross to the other side, try the other door: 5872. I push down the handle and the door opens.
The room is bare, white-painted breeze-block walls and a concrete floor with a rug on it. There are no windows. I see a light switch and I close the door, turn the light on. It is a neon tube and it flickers before it lights up. The rug is black. There is no furniture in the room except for a set of drawers on wheels, the kind you might see in an operating theatre. I look through the drawers. There is a video camera in the top one, a pair of stockings and a tube of lubricant in the second. Apart from that they are empty and there is nothing else in the room, nothing at all.
I turn off the light, close the door and pick my way back through the cars. I do not get halfway before there is a loud noise of machinery, the grate of metal on metal, and the rolling steel door at the opposite end begins to rise. I hear voices. I have nowhere to go. The door I came in from is next to the rolling door, which is nearly halfway open; I can make out a figure, two, black against the indigo night sky beyond. I try the door of a BMW next to me but it is locked. I can hear the voices of the men talking over the sound of the door opening. They are coming closer, walking through the cars. I try the door of a Bentley. Locked. Cross over to a Mercedes. Another man appears in the doorway. He calls to the other two; I cannot make out what he says. The lights of Unit 5 come on. I feel my pupils contract in the brightness. I crouch down. There are three cars between me and the first two men. In the harsh white light the place looks like a vast car showroom. I recognise the man I saw when I was here before, the man who locked the door. I do not recognise the other man. Duncan Gove is framed in the open rolling door. I feel horribly exposed, a beetle in a white bowl. They will see me very soon. I try the door of the Mercedes. It opens. I crawl into the back seat, pull the door closed behind me, the reassuring thunk of a well-built car’s door covered by the noise of the steel shutter still rolling open.
Although the Mercedes is a big car I am big as well and there is not much room for me to conceal myself. I lie on the back seat and wait. The windows of the Mercedes are smoked; I watch the man I have already seen walk past and he cannot see me. After he has gone I look over at the steering column, see that there are keys in the ignition. I could drive out but my way to the exit is blocked by three rows of other cars. I see more men in the entrance. There must be at least six there now. Too many. I am trapped. Nobody knows where I am. The situation is out of control and I regret being here, regret not telling anybody. People go missing. Women have gone missing. Is this what happened to Sabina Antonescu’s daughter? Did she see something she should not have? All these cars. All this money. I could get out. Smile, spread my hands, tell them it’s no big deal, I won’t say anything, won’t talk. Imagine their faces, their dead eyes. I know these men, know their type. If they find me, they will kill me. I am going nowhere.
I hear the sound of a car engine and see the rear lights of the Porsche at the front light up. Next to it the Audi fires up too; they both drive out. In their headlights I can see a truck, a big one, an eighteen-wheeler. It has a ramp leading up to its black interior. The Porsche drives up but the Audi pulls to one side, parks. A man gets out, heads back. Gets into another Porsche. They are sorting the cars. Some are going, some staying. Unit 5 is loud with the sound of performance engines, burbling exhausts echoing off the walls. The cars in front of the Mercedes I am in have all moved. A man walks to the Mercedes. I duck down, as far into the rear footwells as I can go. The front door opens. The man gets in. He starts up the engine, pulls forward. I am looking upwards and can see the roof of Unit 5 and then sky, and then the car tilts up and I know that we are driving up the ramp, into the truck. The sky is replaced with black and the door opens and the man gets out, closes it behind him. Another car is driven in behind me and then the ramp is removed and the doors to the truck close and it is black and silent once again.
We drive for half an hour, the cars in the back of the truck jostling and complaining on their shocks as we round bends, stop at junctions. I get out of the Mercedes, use my torch, look at the cars: the Porsche, my Mercedes, a BMW M5. I wonder where they are heading. I have heard that Russia is a big market, that in South Africa they drive on the left like in Britain and they cannot get enough of stolen cars. The last car to be loaded on was the BMW and I get in, check for keys. They are still there. Still a chance. Soon as the truck stops, the doors open, I back out, take off. Stay and be killed. It is not as if I have a choice.
The truck brakes, rocks forward on its air suspension and I think that we have arrived at wherever we are going but then it starts moving again slowly and I can feel the jolts from the uneven road travel up through the BMW’s suspension. I hear the warning bleep as the truck reverses, then it stops and the engine cuts out with a shudder, the hiss of air brakes. My fingers are on the ignition keys. I reach up, adjust the rear-view mirror. Go through the gears. It is very quiet. I can hear a ticking from somewhere, feel my heart beating.
Then the doors open and I watch in the rear-view mirror as men attach the ramp. I turn the key and dab the accelerator and hear the snarl of the engine. I put it in reverse, dump the handbrake and take off so fast that my stomach lags sickly as I rush the car down the ramp. I see an open-mouthed man pass in a blur and keep reversing, pass shipping containers to my right and left, keeping the wheel locked with one arm as I look behind me. I turn on the headlights and see that I am in a narrow alley lined with huge steel boxes stacked high, the truck quickly receding. Behind me is blackness and as I approach I see that the road I am on ends in nothing, a drop into nowhere, and I hit the brakes, feel the car buck and judder as the tyres seek grip. I sit in the stationary car. There is no direction to go but forward. In the beams of my headlights I can still see the eighteen-wheeler. It fills the space between
the shipping containers. No way around it.
A man steps in front of the truck, another, a third, fourth. They stand there, watch me. I gun the engine but however powerful the BMW’s motor is, it feels like a weak gesture, a pathetic act of defiance. I look behind me. See the shifting glimmer of dark water far below. Look forward again. A stand-off. Nowhere to go. Zero options.
The men speak and then they take the ramp off the truck, the two cars still inside, close it up. They stand to one side and I see the truck’s white reversing lights come on and then it begins to back up towards me. The truck barely clears the steel walls of the stacked shipping containers, has maybe a metre clearance each side. As it gets nearer it feels as if I am in a roofless room, the far wall closing in. The truck is not moving fast but it keeps coming and I begin to feel panic. It is huge and it will crush me. I need to get out of the car. But if I get out I am finished. The truck is getting closer. I have nowhere to go. The BMW will not protect me. I open the door, put out a foot. Climb out. The truck is still moving backwards. The engine noise is huge, amplified against the steel walls. The truck cannot see me. It is nearly on me, metres away. I flatten myself against a shipping container, watch the truck’s dark side slide past me. Hear the sound of metal on metal, a shrieking tear. I can smell diesel, hear the sound of the BMW being pushed off the edge, into the water. I can see nothing but the truck’s side. The steel behind and above me vibrates with the massive forces at play. I feel like I am in the middle of a huge machine, surrounded by noise and grating metal moving parts.
And then the truck’s engine stops with a seismic shudder and it is quiet, all noise vanished. I am in a narrow tunnel formed by shipping containers on one side, the truck’s trailer on the other. I look towards the cab. A man is standing there, silhouetted by the truck’s headlights. In his hand is a gun. I cannot see his face but I can hear him in this new silence and he says, ‘Don’t you even fucking think about moving.’
