Michael Robotham - Lost

“He's gone, Vince.”

“I want him back.”

“We've lost him.”

“Let me see.”

“Go back inside.”

“Let me see.”

His chin was pressing into my hair. Daj had fallen to her knees beside Luke. She screamed and rocked back and forth, rubbing her fingers through his hair and kissing his closed lids.

She would hate me now. I knew that. She would hate me forever. It was my fault. I should have been looking after him. I should have helped him count his football cards and played his childish games. Nobody ever blamed me; nobody except me. I knew the truth. It had been my fault. I was responsible.

“We lost him,” my stepfather had said.

Lost? You lose something down the back of the sofa or through a hole in your pocket; you lose your train of thought or you lose track of time. You don't lose a child.

I wipe the wetness from my eyes and look at the Professor. I've been talking all this time. Why did he start me on this? What does he know about guilt? He doesn't have to look at it every day in the mirror or scrape whiskers off its soapy skin or see it reflected in his mother's eyes. I turned Daj into an alcoholic. She drank with the ghosts of her dead family and her dead son. She drank until her hands shook and her world smeared like lipstick on the edge of a glass. Alcoholics don't have relationships—they take hostages.

“Please leave this alone,” I whisper, wanting him to stop.

Joe closes the photograph album. “Your memory loss was the result of psychological trauma.”

“I was shot.”

“The scans showed no injuries or bruising or internal bleeding. You didn't get a bump on the head. You didn't lose particular memories; you blocked them out. I want to know why.”

“Luke died more than forty years ago.”

“But you think about him every day. You still wonder if you could have saved him just like you wonder if you could have saved Mickey.”

I don't answer. I want him to stop talking.

“It's like having a film inside your head, isn't it, eh? Playing on a continuous loop, over and over—”

“That's enough.”

“You want to be riding down the icy hill with Luke sitting between your knees. You want to hold on tightly to him and drive your boots into the snow, making sure the toboggan stops in time—”

“Shut up! Just shut the fuck up!”

On my feet now, I'm standing over him. My finger is pointed between his eyes. The barman reaches behind the counter for a phone or a metal pipe.

Joe hasn't moved. Christ, he's cool. I can see my reflection—desolate and hollow—mirrored in his eyes. The anger leaks away. My cell phone is rattling on the table.

“Are you OK?” asks Ali. “I heard about what happened at the station.”

Bile blocks my throat. I finally get the words out. “Have you found Rachel?”

“No, but I think I've found her car.”

“Where?”

“Someone reported it abandoned. It was towed away from Haverstock Hill about a fortnight ago. Now it's at a car pound on Regis Road. You want me to check it out?”

“No, I'll go.”

I look at my watch. It's nearly six. Car pounds stay open all night. It's not about the revenue, of course, it's about keeping the city moving. If you believe that I could sell you the Tower of London.

Finishing my beer, I grab my things. The Professor looks ready to wave me off.

“You're coming, too,” I tell him. “You can drive, just keep your mouth shut.”

Camden Car Pound looks like a World War II prison camp with razor wire on the fences and spotlights around the perimeter. It even has a wooden hut where a lone security guard has his polished boots propped on a desk with a small TV perched between his knees. I hammer on the window and his head snaps around. Swinging his feet to the floor, he hoists his trousers. He has a baby face and spiked hair. A nightstick in a leather pouch sways on his belt.

“My name is Detective Inspector Ruiz. You have a vehicle here that was towed from a street on Haverstock Hill two weeks ago.”

His eyes flick up and down, sizing me up. “You here to collect it?”

“No. I'm here to inspect it.”

He glances at the Professor, wondering why his left arm is trembling. What a pair we make—Hopalong Cassidy and Pegleg Pete.

“Nobody told me you was coming. I should have been told. You gonna pay the towing fee?”

“We're not taking the vehicle. We're just looking at it.”

Something stirs behind him. An Alsatian uncurls and seems to self-inflate until it stands as high as the desk. The dog growls and the guard hisses a command.

“Don't mind him. He won't hurt you.”

“You'll make sure of it.”

There must be a hundred cars on the lot, each with a number and grid reference. It takes the guard several minutes to find the details of Rachel's Renault Estate.

The reference says the car was found on Lyndhurst Road with the keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked. Someone had stolen the stereo and one of the seats.

He directs us across the pound, which is divided into painted squares.

Rachel's car is beaded with rain and the internal light doesn't work when I open the door. I reach inside and trigger it manually.

There is no front passenger seat. The space is empty except for a dark blanket bundled on the floor. Carefully lifting the blanket I find a bottle of water, chocolate bars and a hand-held periscope.

“Someone was meant to lie on the floor, out of sight,” says Joe.

“Rachel must have delivered the ransom. Someone went with her.”

We're both thinking the same thing—was it me? Campbell called me a vigilante. Aleksei said no police, which means there were no surveillance teams in cars, on motorbikes or in the air.

“If I were delivering a ransom, what would I make sure of?”

“Proof of life!” says Joe.

“Yes, but apart from that—when I was physically carrying the ransom, what would I be sure of?”

Joe shrugs. I answer for him. “Backup. I would have wanted someone following me, at least from a distance. And I would have made sure they didn't lose me.”

“How?”

“A tracking device.” I would have put one in the car and another with the ransom.

The universe suddenly shrinks to one thought. That's how Aleksei found me at the prison. And that's why Keebal wanted to search the house. One of the bundles of diamonds must have a transmitter.

Ali!

One ring, two rings, three rings . . .

“Pick up the phone. Pick it up now!” I wait several seconds. She's not answering.

I try her home number. Pick up the phone, Ali. Please.

“Hello.” (Thank God.)

“What did you do with my coat?”

“It's here.”

“Stay right there! Lock the door. Stay away from the windows.”

“What's wrong?”

“Please, Ali, just do as I say. There's a tracking device with the diamonds. That's how Aleksei found me.”

The traffic suddenly melts away. Joe has his foot down, weaving through backstreets, taking shortcuts across garage forecourts and parking lots. God knows where he learned to drive like this. He's either an expert or a complete amateur who's going to put us through a plate-glass window.

“What diamonds? What are you talking about?” he yells.

“Just shut up and drive.”

Ali is still on the phone.

“I might be wrong about the transmitter,” I tell her. “Just relax.”

She's already ahead of me—ripping open the packages. I can hear her breaking open the blocks of foam. I know what she's going to find. Radio transmitters can weigh less than eighty grams and have a battery life of three, maybe four weeks. My kitchen floor was dusted with polystyrene foam and scraps of plastic. I hollowed out the foam with a knife.