Tim Weaver - Vanished

Sleet blew in against the window of the office, sliding down in thin, sludgy trails. Healy watched it, then turned back to the HOLMES data. He tabbed through some more pages, his eyes scanning the locations from which the victims were taken, the approximate times, the lists of worthless trace evidence, fingerprint lifts and fibres. It led nowhere. It all led nowhere.

‘Well, well, well.’

Healy swivelled in his chair. Behind him, Kevin Sallows was perched on the edge of the next desk along eating a cheeseburger. The occupant, a cop called Carmichael, was gone for the day. An amused smile broke out on Sallows’s face, and Healy got a glimpse of partly chewed meat and lettuce.

Sallows looked at his watch. ‘You clocking overtime, Healy?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, turning back to the data. ‘Something like that.’

‘Ten o’clock at night – you should be heading home to your good lady wife about now, shouldn’t you?’ Healy felt himself tense, and Sallows picked up on the movement. ‘Oh, sorry. That was insensitive.’

Healy turned in his seat, all the way around this time.

Sallows was still smiling. ‘Why are you wasting your time here?’

‘Where?’

‘Here,’ he said, gesturing to the computer with the half-eaten cheeseburger. ‘You think the rest of us didn’t do our homework?’

‘I’m playing catch-up.’

‘Fucking right you are. You remember why?’

Keep in control , he thought. Just keep in control.

‘Hello?’

Healy ignored him.

‘What, are you deaf now too?’

‘No, I’m not deaf,’ Healy said. ‘I remember why I’m playing catch-up. I was off looking for the piece of shit who killed my daughter, while you were back here with your thumb up Davidson’s arsehole.’

Sallows’s face dropped. ‘What did you say?’

‘You heard what I said.’

‘Yeah, I heard,’ Sallows replied, and dropped the rest of the cheeseburger into the bin next to Carmichael’s desk. He stood up. ‘You remember why your girl left?’

Keep in control.

‘No? Well, let me remind you: she left because you punched her mum in the side of the head. You remember that, big man?’

‘She didn’t leave because of that.’

Sallows snorted. ‘Is that a joke ?’

‘You’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Yeah?’ Sallows leaned in, meat on his breath, food in his teeth. ‘Face it, Healy, you can’t handle this. You can’t handle the pressure. Those eight-year-old twins got to you so much you ended up putting your missus in a neck brace. You ended up driving your daughter away, into the arms of a fucking psychopath. Doesn’t this’ – he gestured to the incident room – ‘ring any bells for you? This is the same as those girls. Three victims, and we don’t have shit . Nothing. What happens when Craw turns to you and asks you to step up? What’ll happen when you can’t find the answers? You gonna crumble again?’

Healy felt his muscles harden. He pressed his teeth together, trying to force all the anger out.

Don’t react. Don’t slip.

Sallows leaned in to him. ‘Of course you’re gonna crumble, Colm. It’s who you are. It’s what you do. You couldn’t even save your own daughter.’

In the blink of an eye, Healy was up off his seat, nose to nose with Sallows, pushing forward until Sallows hit the desk behind him. Anger erupted so hard and so fast, Healy’s vision blurred, like a windscreen smeared with rain, and the noise around him became sounds from another room: dim and distant and undefined. ‘You mention her name again,’ he said slowly, his voice trembling, ‘and I will fucking end you.’

Sallows stared at him.

And then broke out into a smile.

He manoeuvred himself away from Healy, and made a point of brushing himself down, as if he’d somehow become contaminated. Then he winked and dropped his voice to a whisper, so no one else in the room could hear it. ‘That’s the Colm we know and love,’ Sallows said gently. ‘And that’s the side of you that’s gonna help us finish you off for good.’

2 April

Healy had been waiting five minutes by the time Teresa Reed finally emerged from the High Security Unit. As the pale blue door sucked shut behind her, she headed to a locker about twenty feet away, opened it up and started to fish her things out. She didn’t spot him, didn’t even look round, but even if she had it wouldn’t have made a difference. He’d been watching her for over two months and she barely seemed to notice anything beyond what she had to do. Other people, other lives, they didn’t matter until she ran into them head on.

As soon as she’d grabbed a canvas bag, tie-dyed and scruffy, a mobile phone and her car keys, she pushed the locker shut and headed out past him. He waited until she’d gone through the main doors and then followed. As he moved outside into the fresh spring air, he thought about what he was doing. Of course you’re gonna crumble, Colm. It’s what you do . He felt fire erupt in his belly and pushed it back down. Fuck Davidson and Sallows. They weren’t important. He’d take care of them, just as he’d take care of Teresa Reed. He’d take care of all of them eventually. But everything needed to be done right.

He felt around in his coat pocket.

What he needed was still there.

Healy picked up speed, scanning the car park for any other signs of life. No one close. That suited him fine. Rain had fallen in the night, so he was careful not to place his feet anywhere they were going to make a sound. He didn’t want her to hear him coming. Not yet.

Eight feet short of her, she started fiddling around in her handbag for her car keys. They’re in your pocket, you dozy bitch . A few seconds later, she must have realized and felt around in her jacket for them. Her Mini was five cars down, on the right.

‘Excuse me!’ Healy called from behind her.

She looked back over her shoulder, initially unaware she was being spoken to, and then slowing as she saw Healy coming after her. She stopped. ‘Yes?’

‘Teresa, right?’

Her eyes narrowed. She obviously didn’t recognize him at first from their meeting five weeks before. Then it seemed to click. ‘Ah, yes. Uh … Colin?’

‘Colm.’

‘ Colm . Right. You’re the policeman.’

‘That’s right.’ He engineered a smile. ‘You recognized me today.’

She flushed a little. ‘Yes. Sorry about the last time.’

He held up a hand in a don’t worry gesture. He reached into his pocket. ‘Here. You dropped this as you left.’ He handed her a small folding umbrella.

She reached out and took it, a frown on her face. ‘Oh. Right.’

‘Is something the matter?’

‘Uh, no. I just …’ Teresa Reed looked up. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

But he knew what she was thinking: I didn’t think I’d brought this with me . And she hadn’t. He’d been to her house and found it outside, in the front garden, next to one of the flowerpots. She must have placed it down there and forgotten to pick it back up.

‘Anyway,’ Healy said. ‘Given the weather this week, I thought you might need it. It doesn’t really suit me, to be honest, otherwise I would have kept it for myself.’

She laughed. ‘Well, thank you.’

‘You’re very welcome.’

Healy rode out the silence, letting her make the next move.

‘Well, uh, thanks again,’ she said. ‘Maybe I can buy you a coffee as a thank you or something?’

He looked enthusiastic. ‘Oh, that would be great.’

She broke out into another smile, obviously thinking she saw something in Healy: excitement, or anticipation, or relief that she’d finally taken notice of him.