by Eva Hudson
“You just drank the last of it.”
“Time to break this open then.” McKittrick waved the bottle of tequila she’d brought to Ingrid’s for their now regular monthly Tex-Mex night. “I can’t believe it’s this late and you still haven’t given me what I came here for.”
Ingrid hurried into the kitchen with the dirty dishes to avoid what she knew was coming next. She probably should have canceled dinner with her friend, but after the frustrating afternoon she’d had—they still hadn’t come up with a fresh lead by the time she’d left the embassy after nine p.m.—she felt a real need to vent. Now McKittrick was trying to change the subject, Ingrid wished she’d canceled after all.
“You can’t escape that easily,” McKittrick shouted from the living room. “I mean, fascinating as your new case is—and you must admit, I have been listening patiently—I would like to move on to the main feature.”
Ingrid opened the ice box of the refrigerator and luxuriated in the cool air for a moment.
“You can run but you can’t hide.” McKittrick appeared at the kitchen door, waving the still unopened bottle of tequila in her fist. “I need shot glasses.”
“Maybe you should take it home with you.”
“Not until you tell me how your date with Mills went.”
“Coffee? Tea?”
“Come on. Spill.”
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Well he seemed pretty pleased with himself at work this morning, so there must be something.”
Ingrid opened a cabinet and retrieved two mugs. “I can’t imagine why. We had a bite to eat then said goodbye at Holborn Tube.”
“He didn’t come back here afterwards?”
“No he didn’t. Not that it’s any of your business.” Ingrid filled the kettle and flipped on the switch.
“I didn’t actually think you were serious about the tea.” McKittrick slid the unopened tequila bottle onto the kitchen counter. “What’s the point of being a matchmaker if I can’t even get to enjoy a bit of gossip now and then?”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
Ingrid’s cell phone started to vibrate against the kitchen counter. She glanced at the screen, saw it was an out of area number and dismissed the call.
“That’s not Mills, is it?”
“Why do you care so much?”
“I’ve got to work with the grumpy old bugger. Do you know how miserable he’s been the last couple of months? When you agreed to go out with him he was like a changed man. Suddenly he was the most attentive detective on the team. Nothing was too much trouble.”
“So glad to have helped with morale.” Ingrid shoved the phone in a pocket.
“Was it Mills?”
“It was my mom.”
“I thought the two of you didn’t speak.”
The kettle boiled and Ingrid made them both a peppermint tea. “We don’t. Only in… special circumstances.” She dunked the teabag slowly in and out of the tall mug, staring at the ripples she was creating on the surface of the water. A sudden, overwhelming need to talk about what was going on back home overcame her. “Have you seen the news reports about the three women who were being held captive in Minnesota?” she blurted.
“That’s one way of changing the subject.”
“I’m serious.”
“I’m vaguely aware of it. I try to avoid the news whenever I can. I see enough stuff to depress me at work, without exposing myself to it when I’m off the job.”
“The house where they were being held is just thirty miles from my home town. That’s why my mom keeps calling me.”
“Oh my God—you think one of those women is your school friend?”
Ingrid had told McKittrick about what happened to Megan on one of their drunken nights out, but only given her the sketchiest of details. Now she was regretting bringing the subject up. If she continued, she may never get to sleep tonight. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“How are you coping?”
“Mostly by trying not to think about it. But the memories keep worming their way into my head, no matter how hard I try to shut them out. Certain sounds and smells take me right back to the moment she was taken and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.”
“Like your runaway pilot.” McKittrick peered into her mug at the darkening liquid. She shoved it across the kitchen counter.
“Pilot?”
“Sounds like you’re telling me you’re suffering from PTSD yourself.”
“It really doesn’t compare to Foster’s. According to his wife, any loud noise can trigger a reaction in him.”
“You mean like the crying of his own child?”
“I know—it’s tragic.” Ingrid took a sip of her tea, decided it wasn’t at all what she wanted, and threw the reminder into the sink. She opened another kitchen cabinet and retrieved a couple of shot glasses.
McKittrick grabbed the bottle from the counter and opened it. She poured out two measures. They both downed them in one and she refilled the glasses.
“That’s the thing that’s been troubling me about his meltdown,” Ingrid said.
McKittrick gulped down her second shot.
“Kyle Foster developed his PTSD long after his return from Afghanistan. He was flying search and rescue missions there. His symptoms didn’t show until after he started operating drones.”
“So?”
“So you’d think his triggers wouldn’t be loud noises. It’s got to be pretty quiet in some isolated room in the middle of the Air Force base.”
“I don’t think you can say that. The mind’s weird—maybe the drone missions reminded him of his earlier ones in the field and everything’s got mixed up in his head. Who knows?”
“Still doesn’t seem to fit.” Ingrid removed her phone from her pocket and started turning it over and over in her hand, waiting for Svetlana to call again. She couldn’t put off speaking to her forever.
“Maybe you should call her back.” McKittrick refilled her own glass.
Ingrid put the phone on the counter.
“It was just a suggestion.”
“There’s something else. On my cell phone. I’ve been avoiding it since this afternoon. But I need to check it out before I talk to Svetlana.”
“Do you have any idea how little sense your making?”
Ingrid took a deep breath and started again. “When I found out about the house in Minnesota, I put in a call to a contact I still have in D.C. This afternoon he sent me a photograph of one of the women. The only one who hasn’t been identified.”
“Are you telling me you haven’t looked at it yet?” McKittrick shoved Ingrid’s glass at her.
“What if it’s Megan?” Much to her surprise, Ingrid’s voice came out in a whisper. “What if it isn’t?”
“You have to find out. God, Ingrid, you just have to.” McKittrick snatched up the cell phone before Ingrid had a chance to. “Where is it? In your picture roll? Email?”
Ingrid plucked the phone out of her friend’s hand. “You don’t need to bully me into it.” Holding her breath, she scrolled through to Mike Stiller’s email and clicked on the attachment. She closed her eyes. She could hear McKittrick’s breath quickening beside her. She opened her eyes and stared down at the image. All she saw was a jumble of random features—somehow the picture wouldn’t resolve into a face. It seemed her brain was refusing to analyze the information it was receiving.
“Well?”
Ingrid blinked hard, as if she had grit in her eyes. She continued to look without being able to see. She stared at the image a little longer. Finally the random parts settled into a whole. The woman looking back up at her had drawn features, her face framed by lank, dark hair, her eyes lifeless with dark circles underneath. Ingrid shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s been so long.”
McKittrick shuffled closer to her and peered at the image.
“Eighteen years since she was abducted. At least a decade since I last saw a photograph of her.” S
he shoved the phone back into her pocket. “I can’t tell. Jesus Christ, I can’t even tell.” Hot, unwanted tears sprang into her eyes. She turned away. She didn’t want to cry in front of McKittrick.
“Bloody hell, it’s hardly surprising. God only knows what that woman’s been through over the past however many years. She probably looks completely different to the way she looked five years ago, even.” She put an awkward arm around Ingrid’s shoulders and squeezed. “You’ve got nothing to beat yourself up about.”
If only you knew.
Ingrid emptied her glass and screwed the lid back on the bottle. “You want to take this with you?”
“Let’s save it till next time. I might drink it on the way home otherwise.”
McKittrick left a quarter hour later and Ingrid felt so restless she considered following her out the door—walking the dark summer streets for a while until she felt able to calm down. Instead she stepped out onto her roof terrace and drew the night air deep into her lungs. After three or four big breaths she pulled her cell from her pocket and called Svetlana.
“So, at least you listened to my message,” her mother said in place of a greeting.
Ingrid hadn’t. She didn’t even realize her mother had left one.
“What have you found out that we don’t already know from the TV?”
Ingrid relayed most of what Mike Stiller had told her. She didn’t mention the photograph.
“This girl must come see Kathleen.”
“That’s not possible.”
“Then I should go see her.”
Ingrid was regretting telling Svetlana as much as she had. “Please, Mom. You have to trust that I know what I’m doing with this. I’m working on something that’s going to help. I’ll let you know just as soon as I make some progress.”
“What? What are you working on? What aren’t you telling me?”
“I’ve told you as much as I can. More than I should have. You have to promise me you’ll tell Kathleen and no one else. What I’m doing is strictly unofficial. I could lose my job.”
At the other end of the line Svetlana made a grunting sound. As if Ingrid losing her job wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. She’d never thought much of Ingrid’s work at the Bureau.
“Is that it?” her mother asked after a long pause.
“There’s one more thing.” Ingrid hesitated. She wasn’t sure whether it was the fact she was asking her mother for a favor—something she’d managed to avoid since elementary school—or the thing she was asking for that was making her feel so damn uncomfortable. “I need you to send me some photographs of Megan. The most recent ones you have. Go to the copy shop and have someone scan them in for you. Then get Bob or Harry to email them to me, can you?”
“You think I don’t know how to scan and email? You think I need the neighbors’ help for something like this?”
Ingrid dug the fingernails of her right hand into the fleshy part of her palm. It was amazing how the most innocuous of statements could insult Svetlana, then how easily Svetlana’s indignation could upset Ingrid. Why wasn’t she immune to it by now? “Great, even better, you can do it yourself.”
“So, you’re finally admitting you’ve forgotten what your best friend looks like? You wouldn’t be having this trouble if you came back every year for the vigil at Kathleen’s.”
How could she deny what was true? “It’s for the investigation, not me personally.” As the words came out of her mouth she could plainly hear just how unconvincing they sounded.
“Oh sure.”
“Listen, I have to go—there’s someone at the door,” she lied. “I’ll call you again when I have news.” She ended the call and went back inside. Without thinking about it, a minute later she was pulling on her running shoes. Two minutes after than she was sprinting down Sutherland Road.
No matter what the time of day, the neighborhood she lived in always felt pretty safe, but even if it hadn’t, Ingrid knew she had the speed and skills to get herself out of trouble if she had to. It was something she’d forced herself to get good at after she lost Megan. She pushed her legs a little harder and pumped her arms a little faster, hoping to outrun the memories swarming in her head. Sometimes the technique actually worked.
Tonight it was futile.
She eventually returned to the apartment, her muscles exhausted, but her mind still racing. She went to bed, not hopeful she’d get any sleep, all too aware the alarm would wake her in less than four hours.
Amazingly, she did manage to finally drift off.
Only to be woken by angry banging on the apartment door just two hours later.
17
When Ingrid had asked Gurley exactly how he’d managed to get into her building he’d been evasive, mumbling something about the super letting him in. Except the building didn’t actually have staff on site twenty-four hours a day. Ingrid had decided to let it go, concentrating instead on selecting some suitable clothes to throw on when she couldn’t quite fully open her eyes.
“Are you drunk?” Gurley had asked when he saw the tequila and glasses on the kitchen counter. He dumped a large backpack by his feet. Its contents clanked and jangled when it hit the tiled floor.
Although Ingrid didn’t dignify Gurley’s accusation with an answer, she doubted she would have been safe to drive. Mercifully, he told her there was a cab waiting for them. “Where are we headed? An airstrip?” she called through the bedroom door. “Did Foster try to steal a plane?”
Gurley cleared his throat. “I still think that theory was a good one. But no—the sighting was in some place called Willesden. I checked on the map—it’s not that far from here. If you could just hurry it up.”
They’d made the trip in a little over ten minutes through the empty streets of northwest London. During the cab ride Ingrid had fired questions at Gurley he couldn’t answer.
“I just got a call telling me the location. You would have too, if your goddamn phone hadn’t been switched off.”
Now, at just after four-thirty a.m., they were both leaning against an unmarked police car in a side street just off Willesden High Road that had been sealed off at either end. They’d both refused DCI Radcliffe’s offer of a seat inside a car parked further away from the property the team was staking out, not wanting to be so far away from the action. They still felt the police were trying to sideline them.
After fifteen minutes of being ignored by pretty much every law enforcement officer in the vicinity—and there had to be at least two dozen uniformed officers and another dozen detectives—Ingrid was beginning to regret her decision not to wear a sweater beneath her jacket. Eventually Radcliffe approached them, a grim expression on his face.
“We’re waiting for the hostage negotiator to arrive.” Radcliffe looked as if he hadn’t made it into his bed at all the night before. The shirt beneath his crumpled jacket was badly creased and there was a long greasy mark snaking down his tie.
“Why?” Gurley snapped.
“Because none of us has had the appropriate training,” he answered in a dismissive tone.
To his credit, Ingrid thought, Gurley didn’t react. “I meant, why aren’t you just going in? You’ve evacuated the neighboring houses, right? Foster isn’t armed, so why not storm the place with all the manpower you’ve got?”
“We don’t know he isn’t armed. Just because he’s not likely to have a gun, doesn’t mean he hasn’t got a weapon. You are a little gun-focused.”
Ingrid had to admit Radcliffe had a point. Foster could have easily purchased knives and other tools to use as weapons. They didn’t know what they might be dealing with. “Have you made any contact with him at all?” she asked.
“We’ve got a couple of tech guys inside the property right now, rigging up a speaker system so that we can communicate without the whole street hearing.” Radcliffe glanced up at the nearest cordon, just fifty feet or so from where they were standing. A few people had started to gather, eager to know what was going on. So far no journal
ists appeared to have heard about the incident. “The vultures are circling,” Radcliffe said. “I expect pictures have already been sent from onlookers’ mobile phones to all the major news outlets. The camera crews will be setting up before you know it.”
“All the more reason to settle this swiftly. You have a SWAT team ready to go?” Gurley had started pacing. It seemed to Ingrid that he might go in himself if Radcliffe continued to refuse to.
“We have two vans of Specialist Firearms Command officers at the ready.”
“So do it now.”
“Save your breath. We’re not going in now. And we won’t until we’ve exhausted all other options.”
Ingrid shuffled sideways so that she was standing between Radcliffe and Gurley. “Who called it in?”
Radcliffe looked at her, non-plussed for a moment by her question. “One of the other residents in the property. It’s an HMO—house of multiple occupancy,” he explained. “Houses crammed with lots of rooms that have basic cooking facilities—usually a two-ring hob and a kettle—but with shared bathrooms. They used to be called boarding houses in the old days. Or bedsits. Anyway, some bloke saw the boy coming out of the bathroom on his landing wearing a pair of Spiderman pajamas.”
“I assumed Foster had dumped the boy’s pajamas when he stole the clothes from the laundromat,” Ingrid said.
“Well then you assumed wrong. They haven’t been found anywhere.”
“Is that resident still around? Can we speak to him?”
“He’s been taken to the local leisure center—it’s where we’re keeping all the people that have been evacuated. I could arrange for a car to take you down there, if you like.” He nodded a little too enthusiastically about the idea of sending them some place else.
“You can go, agent,” Gurley told Ingrid. “I’m staying right here.”
“These… HMOs,” Ingrid said, “would the landlords rent the rooms out for cash? No questions asked?”
“Most of the tenants are on benefits… you know, welfare. So generally the rent would be paid by the local council. If any of the landlords can get their hands on actual cash up front, I expect they jump at the chance.”
