Tim Weaver - Vanished

It was the need for revenge.

His eyes flicked back to his reflection. Get yourself straight. Don’t let them see any weakness . He took a deep breath, the heat from the car fading as winter started to creep back in. Then he reached for the door, opened it and headed inside.

13 February

Healy looked up to see he was the only one in the office. It was 10 p.m. For a second, twenty-three years of instinct kicked in and he reached for his jacket, his first thought of Gemma and what she would say when he got home. But then reality hit: Gemma had left him, their marriage was over and the only home he had to go to was a dark, pokey flat in King’s Cross he was renting from a friend at Scotland Yard.

He leaned back in his chair and fixed his eyes on the clock at the far end of the room. Below it was a map of central London and two photographs of two different men. Their names were Steven Wilky and Marc Evans. The map had pins, Post-it notes, pieces of paper and marker pen all over it. Healy glanced at his in-tray: burglaries, violent domestics, dealers. He’d been given a second chance at the Met, survived the disciplinary procedure and come out the other end, but he hadn’t done it unscathed. He’d taken a demotion, from detective sergeant down to detective constable, and now he was working the sort of cases he’d left behind a decade ago. They were his ticket back in, the way to win Craw’s favour, but he hated them; hated the satisfaction it gave people like Eddie Davidson to see him working shitty cases that were plainly beneath him.

What he wanted was something bigger.

What he wanted was Wilky and Evans.

Voices in the corridor. He looked over the top of his monitor and saw Davidson, Richter and Sallows approaching the office, laughing at something one of them had said. He thought about grabbing his jacket and heading out the other door, but it was too late to make a swift exit without being noticed. He’d have to ride this one out.

Davidson entered first, saw movement out of the corner of his eye and zeroed in on Healy. The other two followed suit, the pack mimicking their leader. A smile spread across Davidson’s face, his small dark eyes flicking from one side of the room to the other, making sure no one else was around. Then they all started to approach.

‘I didn’t think you’d need to clock overtime working domestics, Colm,’ Davidson said by way of a greeting. The other two smiled. Davidson came right up to Healy, into his personal space, and then backed away slightly, perching himself on a desk opposite. ‘Or maybe you’re finding them tough to crack.’

The other two laughed. Healy looked at Davidson, then at Richter and Sallows, and felt the muscles in his jaw tighten. Don’t let them get to you . There was a flash of disappointment in Davidson’s eyes when Healy didn’t rise to the bait.

‘Seriously, Colm, what are you doing here?’

‘What does it look like, Eddie?’

Davidson’s eyes flicked to Healy’s desk and then back again. ‘It looks like you’re still here at ten o’clock and all you’ve got in your tray are piece-of-shit cases.’

‘Even piece-of-shit cases need closing.’

Davidson frowned, like Healy had said something stupid. Then he looked him up and down, his desk, his work space. ‘What is this?’

‘What’s what?’

‘This,’ he said, waving an arm in Healy’s direction. ‘You were away – what? – ten weeks, and suddenly you’re the fucking Zen master?’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘You don’t follow?’ He shuffled off the edge of the desk, running a hand through his beard, and stepped in closer. ‘The old Healy was a prick, but at least you knew where you were with him. You said something he didn’t like, and he flipped out. Screamed in your face, did everything in his power to fuck things up for you and everyone around him. But this new one …’ He stopped, looked Healy up and down like he was pond life. ‘You’re just a shell. You’re fried. You’ve got nothing left in the tank.’

‘I guess we’ll see.’

‘What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?’ Sallows this time. He was in his early fifties, just like Davidson, but unlike Davidson he was tall and skinny. The two of them had been together for years. Before things went wrong, before Leanne went missing, Healy used to joke that they were an old married couple. But not any more. There were no jokes now. Those days were gone.

Healy glanced at Sallows. ‘What do you think it means, Kevin?’

‘I think it means you’re done,’ Sallows said.

Healy looked between the three of them. He’d known Richter for the least amount of time and, judging on his performance tonight, he wasn’t going to be much to worry about. But Davidson and Sallows were different. They’d keep chipping away at him until the first cracks appeared, and then they’d get into the cracks and prise them as far open as they’d go.

Davidson leaned forward, into Healy’s personal space again. ‘Look at you – you’re pathetic. You can’t even get it together for a fight any more.’

For a second, Healy imagined reaching up, grabbing Davidson by the neck and smashing his face through the table; felt the tremor in his hands, the fire in his chest, the need to react and hit out. But then he remembered standing in a darkened courtyard the October before, waving a gun in Davidson’s face, and telling him that he would kill him if he got in the way of finding Leanne. Healy had meant it too; never been so sure about anything in his entire life. But it had cost him – his position, his marriage – and now he needed to maintain control in order to claw his way back out of the hole and get his teeth into something better. He looked beyond Davidson, to the photographs on the far wall.

He wanted a piece of that.

He wanted to help find those two men.

He wanted to hunt the Snatcher.

PART TWO

14

At 1 a.m., I was still awake. Through the open window, I could hear the soft drone of cars from Gunnersbury Avenue and the gentle whine of a plane overhead, but otherwise the streets of Ealing were still. No breeze, no animals rummaging around, no people passing.

The first day of a new case it was always difficult to sleep. Everything was new – the people, their world – and every question you asked at the beginning only led to more questions. Those that remained unanswered were like holes; little punctures in the case that you had to find a way to repair before the whole thing collapsed.

And there were already big holes in Sam Wren’s life.

When the clock hit 1.30, I finally accepted I wasn’t going to sleep, flipped back the covers and sat up. Grabbing my trousers, I padded through to the living room where Liz’s MacBook was still set up. I cleared the screensaver and plugged in the USB stick Task had got for me, saving the contents on to the desktop. Then I opened the videos again and watched them through. A shiver of electricity passed along my spine as I saw Sam for the last time, his legs and briefcase disappearing as the train doors slid shut. And then the train jerked forward and headed into the black of the tunnel.

Gone .

Behind me, I heard footsteps in the hallway and looked back to see Liz emerge from the darkness. She moved through to the kitchen, filled a glass with water and returned to where I was sitting.

‘Can’t you sleep?’

‘No. I’ve got first-night insomnia.’

She nodded. Her eyes fell on the laptop. I’d rewound the footage to the seconds before the train doors closed. ‘Is this your guy?’

‘That’s his train.’

‘Where’s he?’

I pointed to his legs. ‘There.’

‘All you’ve got are his legs?’

‘In Victoria, yes.’