Peter James - Dead Man’s Footsteps

‘Did she have her own career?’

‘She worked for a travel agent in Brighton for a few years. But they were trying for a child and nothing was happening. The doctor told her she should do something less stressful. So she left, got a part-time job as a receptionist at a medical centre. She was between jobs when she…’ Her voice tailed off.

‘Disappeared?’ Pewe prompted.

She nodded, tears welling in her eyes.

‘It’s been hard on us,’ Derek said. ‘Particularly hard on Margot. She and Sandy were very close.’

‘Of course.’ Pewe pulled out his notebook and made some jottings. ‘How long were they trying for a child?’

‘Several years,’ Margot replied, her voice choked.

‘I understand that’s hard on a marriage,’ Pewe said.

‘Everything’s hard in a marriage,’ Derek said.

There was a long silence.

Margot sipped her tea, then asked, ‘Are you implying there is more behind this than we’ve been told?’

‘No, I wouldn’t want to speculate at this stage. I simply have to say that the methodology underpinning the investigation of your daughter’s disappearance is, in my view as an officer of some nineteen years’ experience in the top police force in the UK, wanting. That’s all.’

‘We don’t suspect Roy,’ Margot Balkwill said. ‘Just so you don’t jump to the wrong conclusions.’

‘I’m sure you don’t. Perhaps I should make one thing clear from the outset. My investigation is not a witch hunt. It is merely about closure. Enabling you and your husband to move on.’

‘That will depend, won’t it, on whether our daughter is alive or dead?’

‘Absolutely,’ Cassian Pewe said. He drank some more of his tea, then cleaned his teeth with his tongue. He pulled his card from his pocket and laid it on the table. ‘If there is anything, at any time, you think of that might be helpful for me to know, call me.’

‘Thank you,’ Margot Balkwill said. ‘You are a good man. I can feel it.’

Pewe smiled.

Abby blinked, waking up from a confusing dream to a strange whirring sound. Her stomach was hurting. Her face felt numb. She was freezing cold. Shivering. Staring at cream wall tiles. For a moment she thought she was in a plane, or was it a cabin on a ship?

Then the steady, slow realization that something was very wrong. She couldn’t move. She smelled plastic, grout, tile cement, disinfectant.

Now it was coming back. And with an explosion of swirling darkness inside her, she remembered.

Fear shimmied through her. She tried to raise her right arm to touch her face. And that was when she realized she couldn’t move.

Or open her mouth.

Her head was pulled back so much her neck was hurting and something hard was sticking into her back. It was the cistern, she realized. She was seated on the lavatory. It was hard to see anything except straight ahead and she had to strain her eyes to look down. When she did, she became aware she was naked, bound with grey gaffer tape around her midriff, her breasts, her wrists and ankles, her mouth and, she assumed, because that was what it felt like, her forehead.

She was in the guest shower room of her flat. Staring at the walk-in shower cabinet, with a packet of expensive soap, never unwrapped, in the dish, a sink and a few towel rails, and the beautifully tiled walls, in cream with Romanesque tiles and a dado rail. There was a door to her right, through to the tiny utility room, in which were crammed a washing machine and tumble dryer, and at the back of which was a fire escape door out on to the stairwell. The main door out on to the hallway, to her left, was ajar.

She began to shake, then nearly vomited with fear. She didn’t know for how long she had been imprisoned in here, in this small, windowless room. She tried to shift her position, but the bindings were too secure.

Had he gone? Taken everything and just left her here like this?

Her stomach was hurting. The tape had been put on so tightly, she was losing feeling in some parts, and had pins and needles in her right hand. The hard seat was digging into her bum and thighs.

She was trying to remember what was behind the toilet, so that she could work out what the tape was fixed to behind her. But she couldn’t picture it.

The light was on, which kept the extractor fan running, she realized, making that steady, gloomy whirr.

Her fear turned to despair. He had gone. After all that she’d been through, and now this. How had she let this happen? How had she been so stupid? How? How? How?

Her despair turned to anger.

Then back to fear again as she saw a shadow moving.

Seated on the edge of the L-shaped sofa in the living room, Lorraine unscrewed the cap of a miniature vodka bottle and tipped the contents over the ice cubes and lime slice in her glass. Her sister had come round earlier with an entire plastic bag full of miniatures. Mo seemed to have a never-ending supply and Lorraine assumed she snaffled them from the bar of whatever flight she was on.

It was 9 o’clock. Almost dark outside. The news was still on. Lorraine had been watching it, through her tears, all day. The repeat images of the horror, repeat statements of the politicians. Now there was a group of people in a studio in Pakistan: a doctor, an IT consultant, a lawyer, a vociferous woman television documentary maker, a company director. Lorraine could not believe her ears. They were saying what had happened today in America was a good thing.

She leaned forward and crushed out her cigarette into an ashtray that was overflowing with butts. Mo was in the kitchen making a salad and heating up some pasta. Lorraine looked at these people, listening to them, bewildered. They were intelligent people. One of them was laughing. There was joy on his face.

‘It’s about time the United States of America realized they need to stop beating up on the rest of the world. We don’t want their values. Today they’ve learned that lesson. Today it was their turn to have a bloody nose!’

The woman documentary maker nodded and expanded his argument forcefully.

Lorraine looked at the phone handset beside her. Ronnie had not called. Thousands of people were dead. These people were happy? People jumping out of skyscrapers. A bloody nose?

She picked up the phone handset, pressed it to her sodden cheeks. Call, Ronnie darling, call. Please call. Please call.

Mo had always been protective towards Lorraine. Although only three years older, she treated her as if there was a whole generation between them.

They were actually very different people. Not just their hair colouring – Mo’s was almost jet black – and appearance, but their their attitude to life and their luck. Mo had a shapely, rounded, naturally voluptuous figure. She was gentle. Life fell into her lap. Lorraine suffered five years of humiliating, cripplingly expensive – and ultimately unsuccessful – in vitro fertilization treatment. Mo could get pregnant by just thinking about her husband’s dick.

Mo’d had three children, one after the other, who were all growing up into nice people. She was happy with her quiet, unassuming draughtsman husband and her small, pleasant home. Sometimes Lorraine wished she could be like her. Content. Instead of the yearnings – cravings – she had for a better lifestyle.

‘Lori!’ Mo shouted excitedly from the kitchen.

She came running into the room and, for a moment, Lorraine’s hopes soared. Had she glimpsed Ronnie on the news?

But Mo’s face was a mask of shock as she appeared. ‘Quick! Someone’s stealing your car!’

Lorraine leaped off the sofa, jammed her feet into her loafers, ran to the front door and pulled it open. There was a low-loader truck with amber flashing lights on the roof, parked just past her short driveway. Two men, rough-looking types, were winching her convertible BMW up metal ramps on to the truck.