Michael Robotham - Lost

I hear another sound—a different engine. With my back against the wall, I lever myself upward again, peering through the shattered porthole. I can't see any navigation lights. Instead I make out the silhouette of a boat. There is someone standing on the bow holding a gun.

I can either stay here or take my chances in the river. It takes less than a fraction of a second to decide.

Then I see Kirsten lying under a tarpaulin against the bow. I don't see her face, just her outline as she tries to stand and falls. She tries again and rolls over the side. I hear the splash followed by the sound of men yelling and bullets hitting the water.

The boat is getting closer. I have one good leg and one leaking. Pushing off the wall, I take two stumbling steps and roll over the railing. The cold comes as a shock. I don't know why. I'm still wet from before.

Kicking with one good leg and whipping my arms across my body, I swim down into the darkness where I'm going to drown or bleed to death. I'll let the river decide.

Joe is holding on to me. I'm growing accustomed to his face. He lays my arm over his shoulders and braces his body against mine.

“C'mon, let's get you out of here.”

“I remembered.”

“Yes, you did.”

“What about Mickey?”

“She's not here. We'll find her.”

I climb out of the drain and we limp across the parking lot. A pair of teenagers, a boy and a girl, have parked their car away from the light. I wonder what they make of two middle-aged men arm in arm. Are we drunks or lovers? I'm way past caring.

I have remembered. I have waited and hoped for this to happen. I have feared it. What if I shot someone? What if I had Mickey in my arms and lost her to the river? I dreamed the nightmare because I didn't have the truth.

It's almost ten o'clock when we reach Primrose Hill. Yellow light paints the edges of the curtains and a coal fire warms the sitting room.

“You'll stay here tonight,” says Joe, opening the door.

I want to say no, but I'm too tired to argue. I can't go home or to Ali's parents' place. I'm like an infectious disease—poisoning those around me. I won't stay long. Just tonight.

I keep getting flashbacks of being under water, unable to breathe. I smell the foulness of the sewers and see the white-green water boiling at my feet. Each time it happens I take a ragged urgent breath. Joe looks at me. He thinks I'm having a heart attack.

“I should take you to the hospital. They could run some tests.”

“No. I need to talk.” I have to tell him what I remember in case I forget again.

Joe pours me a drink and then moves to sit down. He suddenly freezes. For a split second he looks like a statue, trapped between sitting and standing. Just as suddenly, he moves again as the signals reach his limbs. He smiles at me apologetically.

The mantelpiece is decorated with photographs of his family. The new baby has a moon face and a tangle of blond hair. She looks more like Joe than Julianne.

“Where is your lovely wife?”

“Tucked up in bed. She's an early riser.”

Joe rocks forward with his hands between his thighs. I tell him about being washed through the sewers and what happened on the boat. I remember Kirsten Fitzroy wiping vomit from my lips and feeling the dead weight of Ray Murphy slumped across me. His blood leaked down my neck, pooling in the depression beneath my Adam's apple. I remember the sound of high-velocity bullets and seeing Kirsten spinning across the deck, clutching her side.

Memories carry more memories—fleeting images captured before they fade. Gerry Brandt going over the stern, the silhouette of a gunman, my finger disappearing . . . These things have all become substance now and nothing else is real except what happened that night. Even as I try to explain this to Joe I have the horrors of hindsight and regret to contend with. If only I could change what happened. If only I could go back.

Ray Murphy worked for Thames Water. He knew his way through the storm-water drains and sewers because he used to be a flusher and a flood planner. He knew what water main to sabotage to create a flood. The explosion would be blamed on methane or a gas leak and nobody would bother investigating further.

Radio transmitters and satellite tracking devices are useless underground and nobody was likely to make such a journey. Ray Murphy would also have known about the underground river beneath Dolphin Mansions. He and Kirsten provided each other with an alibi on the morning Mickey disappeared. But where did Gerry Brandt come into the operation? Perhaps they needed a third person for the plan.

“You still can't be sure they kidnapped Mickey,” says Joe. “There's no direct evidence.” A sudden spastic movement of his arm flicks up at my face. “It could still be a hoax. Kirsten had access to Rachel's flat. She could have taken strands of Mickey's hair and counted the money in her money box. If they kidnapped her three years ago, why wait until now to send a ransom demand?”

“Perhaps it was never about a ransom—not at first. Sir Douglas Carlyle said he would do almost anything to safeguard his granddaughter. We know he hired Kirsten to spy on Rachel. He was gathering evidence for a custody battle, but his lawyers told him he couldn't succeed. He might have taken the law into his own hands.”

“What about Mickey's towel—how did it get to the cemetery?”

My brain is caught in a vague, desperate pause. Maybe they framed Howard. They put Mickey's blood on a towel and planted it in the cemetery. The police and the courts did the rest.

“You still have no proof that Mickey is alive.”

“I know.”

Bending toward the fire, Joe asks a question of the flames instead of me. “Why send the ransom demand now?”

“Greed.”

At least it's a motive I understand. Joe can have his psychopaths and sadists but give me an old-fashioned everyday motive I can identify with.

“Who did the shooting? Who wanted them dead?”

“Someone who wanted to silence them or punish them,” I whisper, rocking forward in the armchair. “It could have been Sir Douglas. If he arranged Mickey's kidnapping he may have been threatened with blackmail.”

“Or what else? I know you don't think it's him.”

“Aleksei.”

“You said he was following you and Rachel that night.”

“Following the diamonds.”

Joe waits for my explanation. I know he's already there but he wants to hear me lay out the arguments. “Aleksei was never going to stand back and let anyone walk away with two million pounds. Whether they kidnapped Mickey or not, whether she was dead or alive, somebody was going to pay. Look what he did to his own brother.”

“Did that include killing you?”

“No. I wasn't supposed to be on the boat. Nobody expected anyone to follow the ransom through the sewers.”

“And the attack in the hospital?”

The memory climbs up my throat and hangs there. “I don't know. I haven't worked that out yet. Maybe he was frightened that I'd put the pieces together or perhaps he thinks I saw something that night . . .”

I still can't explain how the diamonds ended up in my linen cupboard. I know they were in the pizza box and I saw the packages on the deck of the Charmaine . Most of the facts fit but not all of them.

I have to convince the Met to reopen the investigation. This isn't about Howard Wavell anymore. Yes, he belongs in prison but not for this crime. Aleksei is the true monster.

I shudder awake and feel like weeping with tiredness. The day is just beginning but I can't tell where the last one ended. All night I have drowned in sewers and watched red dots dancing across the walls.

Julianne gives me a cheery smile in the kitchen. “How are you feeling?”