Michael Robotham - Lost

“You don't know how many times I have wanted to change things,” says Kirsten. “I would have brought Mickey home myself. I would have walked her right to her door. Believe me!”

“You were friends with Rachel. How could you do that to her?”

For a fleeting moment her sadness turns to anger, but takes too much energy to sustain. She whispers, “I never meant to hurt them . . . not Mickey or Rachel.”

“Why then?”

“We were stealing from the ultimate thief—taking money from Aleksei Kuznet, a monster. He murdered his own brother, for God's sake.”

“You wanted to take on the biggest bully in the playground.”

“We live in a new feudal age, Inspector. We fight wars over oil and we hand out reconstruction contracts in return for political donations. We have more parking wardens than we do police officers—”

“Oh for pity's sake, spare me the speeches!”

“We didn't want to hurt anyone.”

“Rachel was always going to be hurt.”

She looks at me with wet eyes. I can almost taste the salt in them.

“I didn't mean . . . we let Mickey go. I would never have . . .” She lowers the gun between her knees and her head follows, rocking back and forth. “I'm sorry . . . I'm so sorry . . .”

Her self-pity irritates me. I keep pressing for the rest of the story. Kirsten doesn't look at me as she describes the cesspit in the basement and the underground river. Ray Murphy inflated a boat below ground and drew a map for Gerry to follow. He only had to travel a few hundred feet before bringing Mickey up through a storm-water drain.

“Ray knew a place to keep her. I never went there. My job was to send the ransom letter.”

“Where did you send it?”

“Directly to Aleksei.”

“What about the bikini?”

“Gerry held on to it.”

“What was she wearing when he let her go?”

“I don't know exactly.”

“Did she have her beach towel?”

“Gerry said it was like her security blanket. She wouldn't let it go.”

I'm struggling now. Of all the scenarios to contemplate I had left Howard out, convinced of his innocence. I had weighed up the evidence and the odds and decided he had been wrongly accused and convicted. Campbell said I was blind to the obvious. I thought he couldn't see anything except his own prejudices.

“Why in God's name did you try for a second ransom? How could you put Rachel through it again? You convinced her Mickey was still alive.”

Her face creases as she sucks back the pain. “I didn't want to. You don't understand.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“When you arrested Howard for Mickey's murder Gerry went off his head. He kept saying we helped kill her. He said he couldn't go back inside—not for killing a child. He knew what they did to child murderers in prison. Right away I knew we had a problem. We either had to silence Gerry or help him disappear.”

“So you got him out of the country.”

“We gave him double what he deserved—four hundred grand. He was supposed to stay away but he poured his money down slot machines or shot it up his arm.”

“He bought a bar in Thailand.”

“Whatever.”

“And then he came back.”

“The first I knew about the second ransom was when Rachel received the postcard. Gerry came up with the idea all by himself. Mickey's body had never been found. He still had her swimsuit and strands of her hair. I went ballistic. His greed and stupidity threatened us all. Ray said he was going to stop Gerry before he gave us away . . .”

“You could have walked away then. Nobody would have known.”

“I wanted to kill him—I really did.”

“What changed your mind?”

“None of us thought Aleksei would say yes—not after paying one ransom—but then straight off he agreed. I almost felt sorry for him then. He must have really wanted to believe Mickey was still alive.”

“He didn't have a choice. Fathers are meant to believe.”

“No, he wanted revenge. He didn't care what it cost. He didn't care about Mickey or Rachel. He wanted us dead—that's the only reason.”

Maybe she's right. Aleksei has always preferred to dispense his own brand of justice.

Outside Wormwood Scrubs Prison and again at the police station, Aleksei had said, “I don't pay for things twice.” This is what he meant. He had already paid a ransom for Mickey and wouldn't easily surrender another one.

“You must have used the same drop procedure. That's how Aleksei found you.”

“We didn't have time to come up with a new one. Aleksei figured it out. It's like I said, we didn't expect him to go through with it. We had to scramble to get everything ready. I didn't want to go ahead but Ray needed the money and he said it would be easier second time around.”

“You knew I was in the car with Rachel.”

“No. Not after we made her change vehicles. And we didn't expect anyone to be foolish enough to follow the ransom through the sewers.”

“During the ransom drop, I heard the sound of a child's voice. It was you, wasn't it?”

“Yes.”

The room has grown darker and she seems to be turning to shadow. The distance between us has grown wide and cold.

“When the shooting started, I thought it must be the police. Then they just kept firing.”

“Did you see the sniper?”

“No.”

“Did you see anyone?”

She shakes her head.

Although exhausted she looks almost relieved to be talking. She can't remember how long she spent in the water. The tide carried her east past Westminster. Eventually she crawled onto the steps at Bankside Jetty near the Globe Theatre. She broke into a pharmacy and stole bandages and painkillers. She slept in a shop that was being refurbished, lying beneath painter's sheets.

She couldn't run and she couldn't go to a hospital. Aleksei would have found her. Once he knew who had kidnapped Mickey he was never going to stop looking.

“And since then you've been hiding?”

“Waiting to die.” Her voice is so soft it might be coming from another room.

The cloying smell of sweat and infection thickens the air. Either everything Kirsten has told me is the truth or an extraordinarily elaborate lie. “Please move away from the window,” she says.

“Why?”

“I keep seeing red dots. They're burned into my eyelids.”

I know what she means.

Taking a chair beside the bed, I pour her a glass of water. Her finger is no longer curled around the trigger of the gun.

“What were you going to do with the ransom?”

“I had plans.” She describes a new life in America, making it sound almost irresistible—the idea of walking away and never looking back, the romance of the clean slate.

I have thoughts like that sometimes—wanting to be someone else or to start afresh—but then I realize I have no desire to see most of the world and I have enough trouble keeping old friends without meeting new ones. What would I be running from? I'd be another dog chasing its tail.

“We were foolish. We should have walked away and counted our blessings that nobody knew the truth about Mickey. Now it's too late.”

“I can protect you,” I say.

“Nobody can.”

“I can talk to the Crown Prosecution Service. If you give evidence against Aleksei they can put you—”

“What evidence?” she says harshly. “I didn't see him shoot anyone. I can't point to a mug shot or pick someone out of a police lineup. So what if he paid two ransoms—it's not against the law.”

She is right. The most Aleksei is guilty of is withholding information from the police about the first ransom demand.

Surely there must be something more. A man organizes to have people executed and nobody can touch him.