Michael Robotham - Lost

“I got dozens of them,” he explains, rather sheepishly. “Come on, I'll show you what you want to see.”

Shedding the overalls and waders, we seal them into plastic sacks and load up the van. Moley has changed into his camouflage uniform and blinks into the sunlight as though frightened it might do him permanent damage. The others are drinking tea from a flask and recounting the night's journey.

Piling into the van, I lean over the seat as Weatherman Pete drives along the narrow tarmac paths and waves at a trio of Chelsea pensioners on their morning walk. Pulling through the front gate, we circle the outer walls of the gardens until we reach the Thames.

Parking in the Embankment Gardens, I cross the road to Riverside Walk, overlooking the river. The Thames, caught between tides, smells like perfume after where I've been.

Pete joins me and glances across the brown slick of water. Clambering onto the wall, he hooks his arm around an iron lamppost and leans out over the muddy bank.

“There it is.”

I follow his outstretched arm and notice a depression in the stone bank. A round metal door seals the entrance of a pipe that disappears underground. Water dribbles from the edge, forming a puddle in the mud.

“That's the Ranelagh Storm Relief Sewer. The door opens when it floods and closes again to stop the tide washing back into the sewer.”

He turns and points past the hospital. “You were directly north of here. You followed the fall of the Westbourne River.”

“Where does it come from?”

“It rises in West Hampstead and gets fed by five streams that join near Kilburn. Then it crosses Maida Vale and Paddington before flowing into Hyde Park where it fills the Serpentine. After that it disappears underground again, down William Street, under Cadogan Lane and Kings Road, past Sloane Square and finally beneath Chelsea Barracks.”

“I can't see any water flowing.”

“Most of it gets used by the sewer. You won't see this gate open unless they get surplus water in the system.”

I don't hear the rest of his explanation. Instead I think of a story my stepfather told me about an old blind horse that fell into a dried-up well. The horse wasn't worth saving, so the farmer started shoveling earth into the well. But the old horse just shook off the dirt and stamped it down. More earth fell, and the old horse went right on stamping it down, slowly rising out of the darkness.

People have been trying to bury me but I keep stamping it down. Now I'm close to climbing out and, I promise you this, anyone holding a shovel will get a kick in the head.

I think I know what happened that night. I built a valuable boat and it floated away, sealed in plastic and buoyed by foam. The diamonds washed through Ranelagh sewer, pushed along by water from a busted main. Someone was waiting for the ransom; someone who knew his or her way around the sewers; someone like Ray Murphy.

Only now am I beginning to realize how angry I've been ever since I woke in the hospital with a gunshot wound, dreaming of Mickey Carlyle. This is far bigger than the sum of its parts. Clever, driven, cunning people have manipulated the emotions of a desperate mother and taken advantage of my own blinkered desire. Where has Mickey been all this time? I know she's alive. I can't explain why or point to the proof; I just know she belongs in the world on a morning like this.

Moley is taking batteries from the gas monitors and checking the harnesses. Angus and Barry have already gone—walking to the Underground station. It is almost seven in the morning.

“Can I drop you somewhere, DI?”

I think for a moment. I'm due in court at midday. I also want to visit Ali in the hospital. At the same time, having come this far, I don't want to stop searching. Facts not memories solve cases. I have to keep going.

“Maida Vale.”

“Sure. Jump in.”

The traffic seems to grow lighter as I get closer to Dolphin Mansions. My shoulders still ache from my journey in the sewers and I can smell the foulness in my nostrils.

Weatherman Pete drops me on the corner opposite the delicatessen and I walk the final seventy yards. Nestled in the lint of my trouser pocket are my last two morphine capsules. Every so often I reach inside and feel their smoothness with my fingertips.

The façade of Dolphin Mansions is in full sunshine. Stopping periodically, I study the gutters, looking for the openings and metal grates. I notice the camber of the road and where downspouts enter the ground.

Some of the mansion blocks have basement flats that are below street level. They have drains to take rainwater away and stop them from flooding.

I wait on the front steps until one of the residents leaves, nodding as they hold the door open for me. Then I glance up the central stairwell, checking I'm not being watched. Skirting the lift well, I discover the door leading to the basement. A low-wattage naked bulb suspended from the ceiling transforms the darkness. The stairs are narrow and steep and the walls are a mottled green where patches of damp have broken through the plaster.

Reaching the bottom of the stairs I try to put myself back in this place, three years ago. I remember searching the basement. Like every other room it was turned upside down. Along one wall, cut into an alcove, is a large disused boiler. It must be fifteen feet around, with meters, valves and pipes of every caliber. The square copper nameplate bears the inscription FERGUS & TATE. The floor is covered with half bags of plaster, cans of paint, offcuts of carpet and a Victorian gas lamp encased in bubble wrap.

Moving materials aside, I begin searching the floor.

A noise makes me turn. A young boy sits on the top step holding a plastic robot on his lap. His khaki trousers are stained with paint and his dark eyes peer at me suspiciously.

“Are you a stranger?” he asks.

“Yes, I suppose I am.”

“My mum says I shouldn't talk to strangers.”

“That's very good advice.”

“She says I could get kidnapped. A girl got kidnapped from here—from right off the stairs. I used to know her name but I forgot. She's dead, you know. Do you think it hurts when you die? My friend Sam broke his arm when he fell out of a tree and he said it really hurt—”

“I don't know.”

“What are you looking for?”

“I don't know that either.”

“You'll never find my hiding place. She used to hide there, too.”

“Who?”

“The girl who got kidnapped.”

“Michaela Carlyle.”

“You know her name! Do you still want to see it? You have to promise not to tell anyone.”

“I promise.”

“Cross your heart and hope to die, stick a needle in your eye.”

I cross my heart.

Tucking his robot into his belt, the boy slides on his backside down the remaining stairs and steps past me toward the boiler. He disappears through a gap no wider than his shoulders where the curved side of the boiler doesn't quite touch the brickwork.

“Are you all right in there?”

“Yes,” he replies, emerging again. He's holding a book in his hand. “That's my cubbyhole. Do you want to come in?”

“I don't think I'll fit. What have you got there?”

“A book. It used to be hers but it's mine now.”

“Can I have a look?”

He hands it to me reluctantly. The front cover is tattered and chewed at the edges but I can still make out the illustration of a mother duck and ducklings. On the inside cover there is a large label with a scrolled border. Written on it is “Michaela Carlyle, 41⁄2.”

The story is about the five little ducks that go out one day, over the hills and far away. The mother duck says, “Quack, quack, quack, quack,” but only four little ducks come back. The ducklings disappear one by one but on the final page they all return.