Peter James - Perfect People

‘This is an enlargement of a snapshot we found in Bruce Preston’s wallet. Have either of you ever seen her before?’

John and Naomi stared at a pretty girl, with Latin looks and long black hair, in a simple summer dress, standing on what looked like the deck of a house.

‘No,’ John said.

‘Never,’ Naomi said. ‘Definitely not.’

‘Does the name Lara mean anything?’

They both shook their heads.

‘Only that Lara is what he seemed to be murmuring when we found him,’ Naomi said.

‘Nothing else?’

‘No.’

‘That was all he said in the ambulance too, before he lost consciousness.’ He stared at both of them for some moments, then said, ‘This cult you mentioned – the Disciples of the Third Millennium? We won’t be able to follow that up until the US opens for business.’

‘Is this man going to survive?’ Naomi asked.

‘He has the two top neurosurgeons in the county working on him but he’s not in good shape.’ He shrugged again. ‘I don’t know.’

There was a brief pause. Pelham studied each of their faces in turn for a few seconds before speaking again. ‘OK, there’s more news for you – I’m telling you this in confidence. If anyone from the press gets to you, I’d appreciate it if you don’t mention this. Clear?’

‘Yes,’ John said.

‘The press are going to be crawling everywhere. You say nothing to them, not one word, nada, unless DS Harrison here sanctions it. Got that?’

John glanced at Naomi for confirmation. ‘Yes.’

‘Are you willing to go on television to appeal for the return of your children?’

‘We’ll do anything,’ Naomi said.

‘Good. We’re lining up a live appeal with the BBC and Sky and some other programmes. Now, last night a villager in Caibourne out walking her dog saw a Mitsubishi sports car drive twice through the village, very slowly, as if the driver was lost or looking for something. She noticed it but unfortunately didn’t make a note of the registration. However, and here’s what’s interesting, at three o’clock this morning, a customs officer at the Channel Tunnel remembers a red Mitsubishi sports car going through, with a man and a woman in the front seats and two small children, a boy and a girl, in the back.’

‘Jesus,’ John said. He took Naomi’s hand and squeezed it hard.

Detective Inspector Pelham removed his jacket and slung it on the back of his chair. His shirt, damp with patches of perspiration, clung to his muscular torso. ‘Security cameras record every vehicle at the tunnel entry point and we’re having the tapes checked. It may be nothing, but it’s about a two-hour drive from your home to the Tunnel at that time of night, which fits. We’ve contacted Interpol and requested all European police check out every railway station and airport, including private ones, for any children matching Luke and Phoebe’s descriptions.’

‘You think they could be abroad?’ Naomi said. ‘They could be abroad already? Where are they going – being taken – I mean-’

Her voice dried up. Shaking her head from side to side, tears welling up in her eyes, she said, ‘No, oh no, no, no, no.’

John squeezed her hand even harder but there was absolutely no response. He wanted desperately to comfort her, as if in easing her mind in some way he might be able to ease his own. But he could find nothing to say. Just a maelstrom of thoughts. ‘Does this mean that you won’t be searching for them locally now?’ Naomi asked.

‘We have someone on the way to the Tunnel now with a photograph of Luke and Phoebe. If the customs officer is able to positively identify them, we will scale down our search for them locally and concentrate on trying to find clues, but until then we continue with the full search.’

‘When can we go back home?’

‘Technically, as soon as the crime scene lads have finished inside your house and in the immediate vicinity. I would think tomorrow, or the day after at worst. DC Harrison will help you find somewhere – and she or a colleague’ll be with you around the clock for the next few days, to shield you from the press and protect you.’

John nodded bleakly.

‘I don’t want to go to a hotel,’ Naomi said. ‘I want to go and look for my children.’

Pelham gave her an understanding look. ‘I’m sure you do, but I have drafted every spare officer I have to get out there, doing that now. The most helpful thing you can do for me at the moment is to carry on with your interviews with us. We need family trees from both of you, complete lists of all your friends, business associates, neighbours.’

John squeezed Naomi’s hand and she signalled, with a squeeze, back.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Anything.’

Pelham stood up. ‘Would you like us to arrange some counselling for you?’

‘Counselling?’ John said.

‘No,’ Naomi said vehemently. ‘I don’t want counselling. I don’t need some bloody – some – some bloody inadequate social worker telling me how to cope with this. Getting my children back is what I need to cope with this. Please get them back for us. I’ll do anything, anything in the whole world.’

Pelham nodded.

Channel Tunnel.

Red Mitsubishi sports car.

Children in the back seat, a boy and a girl.

Three o’clock in the morning.

She didn’t need any further proof. She knew, in her heart, it was them.

With fishing boats coming and going continually during this early part of the night, no one paid any attention to one more set of navigation lights sliding past the ancient Moorish watchtower, at the end of the stone quay, that marked the entrance to the port of Ouranoupoli.

Pilgrims and monks came and went continually, also. This little town on the northern Greek coast was the embarkation point for the twenty monasteries of the peninsula called the Holy Mount Athos, a short ferry ride across a strip of Aegean Sea.

It was also the closest harbour to another monastery on a small island twenty kilometres south of here.

The launch backed up to the bustling quay, just long enough for its one passenger to jump ashore, before heading back out to sea.

Lara Gherardi, her long black hair bunched up inside a baseball cap, and dressed in a baggy anorak, jeans and trainers, her travelling essentials in a small rucksack on her back, walked swiftly past a row of moored fishing smacks, then up the steep, metalled road, past several busy restaurants and cafes, into the main street of the town.

The sea was calmer over towards the mainland than the skipper had expected and they had arrived here a quarter of an hour early. She went into a crowded bar and ordered a water, then drank it out on the pavement, staring distastefully at a shop display of Holy Mount Athos souvenirs. The taxi pulled up.

Lara dumped her rucksack on the back seat, then climbed in beside it. Moments later the taxi was heading out of town, towards Thessaloniki airport, two and a half hours’ drive away. It was seven o’clock.

She caught an eleven o’clock flight to Athens, then slept, fitfully, on a bench in the airport departure lounge.

At eight o’clock in the morning, seven o’clock UK time, she boarded a flight to London Heathrow.

Naomi’s Diary

I’m just lying wide awake here on the fourth floor of the Thistle Hotel. Listening to the rumble of traffic down in the street below, and the sound of the sea just beyond the promenade wall. I can’t sleep a wink. Just waiting, waiting, waiting for the phone to ring. Got up twice already to check my mobile is switched on and that the hotel phone isn’t off the hook.

I keep hearing a phone that keeps ringing in another room. I’ve phoned down to the front desk, just to make sure the night staff know which room we’re in.