Michael Robotham - The Wreckage

“We’re going somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“On an adventure.”

“I like ’ventures.”

Elizabeth hails a black cab and checks her purse to make sure she has enough money. It drops her in Old Brompton Road. Rowan wants to look at the holiday posters in the Thomas Cook window. Beautiful young people cavorting in impossibly blue water.

Phoenix Investigations is on the third floor. They take the old-fashioned lift, which rattles and bangs as it rises through the floors. Along the corridor, there is light behind the frosted glass door. The receptionist has red-rimmed eyes and a rash under her nose. The tissues in the wastepaper bin look like melting snowballs.

“I don’t have an appointment,” explains Elizabeth. “I was hoping Mr. Hackett might see me.”

The receptionist blows her nose.

“He just stepped out. Won’t be long.”

Elizabeth sits on the lone plastic chair. Rowan climbs on to her lap. There is a license in a wooden frame hanging on the wall, some sort of diploma. Elizabeth wonders what a private detective has to study. How to rifle through rubbish bins? How to peer through windows? The whole idea of seeing a private detective embarrasses her. She’s not that sort of person. She trusts her husband.

There is a photograph next to the diploma-a young soldier in battle fatigues, war paint on his cheeks; a half-forgotten conflict.

There are footsteps outside. Colin Hackett nudges the door with his hip. He’s carrying a tray of coffees and something sweet and sticky in a bag. Heavy-set with broad shoulders, he reminds her of Bob Hoskins with a full head of hair.

He hesitates for a moment, unsure if he’s missed an appointment.

“Is everything all right, Mrs. North?”

Elizabeth shakes her head, unable to speak. Hackett motions her into his office, telling his secretary to look after Rowan.

“Just don’t touch him. You’re like a bloody plague ship.” And then as the door closes, “She’s my wife’s niece, completely unemployable. I don’t think it’s contagious.”

“I should have called.”

“That’s OK.”

“Did you get my message on Saturday?”

“Yes.”

“Did you do as I asked?”

“Of course.”

“It just didn’t seem right. He’s a good man.”

Elizabeth lowers her gaze, pressing her hands in her lap.

“Now I’ve changed my mind. I want you to keep working.”

“Following your husband?”

“Finding him.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He’s missing. I came home on Sunday and he wasn’t there. Nobody has seen him.”

Hackett presses his fingertips together to form a pyramid, the apex of which touches his lower lip.

“Perhaps you should see my final report before you spend any more money.”

Opening the drawer of a filing cabinet, he pulls out a blue manila folder. The name “Richard North” is on the label. Resuming his seat, he takes a pair of half-moon spectacles from his top pocket and perches them on the tip of his nose. Running a finger down the page, he begins detailing North’s movements. What time he left home. When he returned. Meetings. Lunches. Commutes. Jogging routes. Elizabeth is mentioned once or twice, along with Mersey Fidelity.

“I followed your husband for seven days. He’s a creature of habit. Leaves the house at just after seven, walks to Barnes Station, takes the same train to work, buys his coffee and a pastry, wears the same overcoat, carries the same briefcase.

“The only change to his routine was on the Thursday.” He points to the date on the page. “He left home at his usual time, but instead of going to the office, he drove out of London, north along the M1 to Luton. I thought maybe he had a meeting, but he didn’t visit an office. He found a parking space in Bury Park Road, about a mile to the west of Luton town center. He bought himself a coffee, a bottle of water and he just waited.”

“Waited for what?”

“I don’t know. He was parked outside a company that provides private mailboxes and offers a private mail forwarding service. People either collect post personally or have it forwarded in a plain brown envelope to an address they nominate. They might have a hobby they don’t want their wives or girlfriends finding out about-know what I’m saying?”

Elizabeth doesn’t. The private detective tries again. “Some people have got a thing for latex, or ladies’ underwear, or bondage gear, or sex toys, and they don’t want this stuff delivered to their homes. So they take out a private mailbox, which guarantees them a degree of privacy. Then again, it could be a company that doesn’t have a registered office address so uses a private one.”

Hackett looks back at his notes.

“At 1518 hours a Pakistani kid arrived and picked up a package from a postbox. Your husband followed him on foot for about a quarter of a mile until the kid went into a charity shop near the big Central Mosque.

“Mr. North waited outside the shop for about twenty minutes and then went back to his car. He drove back to London. I got details of the mileage if you want them.”

Elizabeth shakes her head. Hackett turns the page.

“On Friday your husband went to work at the normal time, but came home again at 1046 hours.”

This is news to Elizabeth. She and Rowan had already left for the Lake District. Why would North have come home mid-morning? Perhaps he forgot something.

“He stayed at the house until 1430 hours,” says Hackett, “and then caught a cab to an address in Mount Street, just off Park Lane. The house is leased to a private company called May First Limited. A woman answered the door. In her fifties. Well preserved. Hardly the mistress type. Your husband seemed agitated. She wouldn’t let him inside.

“He kept ringing the doorbell until she gave him a piece of paper. Maybe it was an address. He left and caught a cab to a restaurant in Maida Vale: The Warrington. Gordon Ramsay’s pub.”

The detective slides several photographs across his desk. Time coded. Shot from a distance. Grainy. Three men are sitting at an outside table beneath the plane trees. North is the clearest figure. A second man is sitting beside him, his face partially obscured by North’s body. A third man is seated opposite. Overweight with a heavy beard, he looks Mediterranean or perhaps Middle-Eastern.

Elizabeth studies the photographs. She wants them to be clearer. She wants to see North’s eyes.

“They talked for about twenty minutes,” says Hackett. “I recorded some of their conversation with a directional microphone, which is illegal, of course, and cannot be used in any court of law. It doesn’t make a great deal of sense because of the gaps and background noise, but I have provided you with a copy.

“Your husband left the restaurant and I followed him to a phone box in Clifton Gardens. He made a two-minute phone call.”

Hackett shows her another photograph. The old-fashioned red phone box has clear glass panels decorated with escort agency flyers and the business cards of sex workers. North is just visible through the door, resting his head against the metal casing of the phone as though exhausted or upset.

Elizabeth wants to reach into the photograph and comfort him at the same time as she’s asking herself questions. What is he doing? Why use a public phone box and not a mobile? Who were those men at the restaurant?

The private detective has paused. He has reached a point where the message is harder to deliver. He places another photograph in front of Elizabeth.

“Your husband then caught a cab to Kensington High Street. He went to a basement bar called The Chess Club.”

Although poorly lit, the photograph shows North sitting with a woman. Young, attractive, well groomed, she looks barely old enough to be drinking legally.