Tim Weaver - Vanished

‘Did he take any of your money with him?’

‘No.’

‘You’ve no idea where he went?’

‘No.’

I studied him. There was nothing in his face. No hint of a lie. I looked across the room at Gaishe. He was no liar – or at least not one who could lie with any competence. ‘What about you?’ I asked, and he turned in his chair, eyes wide. ‘Do you know where he went?’

He shook his head.

I looked at my watch: 8 a.m. It was time to close this down. ‘What was the name of the girl?’

He frowned. ‘What girl?’

‘What girl do you think? The girl in your loft.’

‘What do you care?’

‘I want to find out what happened to her.’

‘What are you, her guardian angel?’

‘Just tell me her name.’

Wellis stared at me. ‘Don’t know,’ he said finally, his tone flat and even. ‘Don’t know what her real name is. Don’t know what any of the men and women we get in are called. They’re not here so I can get to know them. They’re here to make me money. They’re here for people like you and people like your boy.’

‘My boy?’

‘Wren.’

‘What about him?’

He studied me for a moment, seeing if I was playing him. Then he broke out into a smile. He glanced towards Gaishe. ‘He doesn’t know!’ he shouted across the room.

‘Don’t know what?’

He shook his head. ‘What kind of a detective are you?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Wren. He used our service once. Must have been a month before he left. Asked me if I could set him up with someone. As long as he paid the going rate, I couldn’t have given less of a shit. A customer’s a customer, after all.’

‘Who did you set him up with?’

‘Can’t remember.’

‘What was her name?’

‘Her?’ Wellis smiled. ‘It wasn’t a her, dickhead. It was a him.’

30

Finally it made sense: Wellis was the reason Sam lost all the weight. He’d come into Sam’s life, ruined it, turned it upside down and Sam was dragged under with him. He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t sleep. I knew as well why Sam never wanted to talk about his work to Julia, and why – even after the affair with Ursula Gray ended – he was working so late. Wellis was turning the screw, demanding more and more. And if Sam refused, he’d put his wife in danger.

I imagined that was also part of the reason for ending the affair. He couldn’t carry on with Ursula while he knew Julia was in the firing line. Sam was many things – a liar, a cheat, an accomplice – but he wasn’t cruel. He was never apathetic. He was conflicted, unable to articulate his feelings or admit to the world what he really was, but he loved his wife deeply. Maybe not as a wife – maybe only as a friend – but he loved her all the same.

Ursula was just an experiment; a bridge for him to go halfway. He’d spent an evening asking her for every detail of her previous relationships: the men she’d seen, who they were, what they did together. It seemed likely Sam was building up to something with Ursula; using her as a vessel, trying to pluck up the courage to invite another man into their bed. It was everything he could never ask Julia to do, and the reason Sam and Julia didn’t have a sex life. He married her because he was still trying to deny what he felt. Maybe he thought he could push it down and bury it somewhere. But as the marriage went on, it became more difficult to control. Ursula was a route that got him some of the way. Wellis, despite the misery he wrought in Sam’s life, could get him to the other side.

‘I set him up with a nice little Albanian kid,’ Wellis said, enjoying the moment. He pushed his tongue in against his cheek in a blowjob gesture. ‘Fresh out of the fridge, this kid was. Nineteen, skinny, cute little tattoo on the back of his neck. Spoke pretty decent English, and was willing to suck cock for pennies. That’s how you want them: young and willing and ready to bend over.’

‘What was the kid’s name?’

‘I told you: I don’t know their fucking names.’

‘Where does he live?’

‘Why, you gonna go round there and try to find him?’

‘Where does he live ?’

A pause. ‘The kid’s dead.’

Somehow another lost life didn’t seem all that surprising. Wellis was like a black hole. He drew people in so deep and so fast, they couldn’t find their way back out.

‘You killed him?’ I asked.

Wellis didn’t reply.

‘ Did you?’

He shrugged. ‘I suppose, in a way, I did.’

‘What does that even mean?’

When I looked down at him, a gentle movement passed across his eyes, like he was on the verge of telling me something. But then he stopped himself.

‘The kid was in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ he said quietly.

I stepped away from them both, trying to clear my head.

And then my phone went off.

Central London number, one I didn’t recognize.

‘Hello?’

‘Mr Raker?’

‘Yeah.’

‘It’s Rob Wren – Sam’s brother.’

Wellis was watching me, looking up from under his brow. Suddenly, there was something I didn’t like in his face. I kept my eyes on him as I talked.

‘Thanks for calling me back.’

‘No problem. Sorry it’s taken me a couple of days. I’ve been out in San Francisco since the weekend and have only just checked my messages.’

‘I’d like to talk to you.’

‘Sure.’

‘Are you at home?’

‘No, in the office.’

‘Where are you based?’

‘Tower Bridge.’

I got the address from him and told him I’d be there in thirty minutes, then I hung up. Wellis was still looking at me. ‘What the hell are you staring at?’ I said to him.

A smirk, but no reply.

And then a flash of a memory: back to when I’d heard a noise outside earlier. I’d been out to investigate. It had turned out to be nothing.

But I’d left him alone .

Suddenly, Wellis was moving: wrists and ankles not bound to the chair any more, sliver of glass in his hand. He jabbed it towards my face, and as I stepped back to avoid it, he charged me. It was like being hit by a bullet. He put everything into it, forcing us both across the office and into the far wall. The whole room shook: glass breaking in the window frames, dust and debris raining from the ceiling. And then he disappeared past me and out through the main door.

I rocked forward, onto the front foot, and went after him – but those precious seconds had cost me. As I hit sunlight, he was already heading out towards Kennington Road. A second after that, he was gone from view. I stopped. Once people saw him, saw what he looked like, they’d be calling the police.

Which meant I had to leave.

‘ Shit! ’

I slammed the flat of my hand down onto the front of the car and glanced in at Gaishe, who was looking over his shoulder at me. In his face, it was obvious he finally saw the reality of his situation: that Wellis didn’t care about him and never had – and no one was coming back for him. I grabbed the duct tape and the crowbar, then used the tape to cover the car’s registration plates, back and front.

At the wheel, I went over the next hour in my head: when the police turned up, Gaishe would be able to give them a pretty decent description of me – but he didn’t have my real name. Witnesses out on Kennington Road would be able to identify the car that left minutes after Wellis – but they wouldn’t have my plates. Wellis wouldn’t be turning up at his local station any time soon, so I didn’t have to worry about him for now. He’d be lying low. Keeping out of sight. But he’d come back for me eventually. He’d want revenge. He’d see me like I saw him: a loose end that, sooner or later, needed tying up.