Tim Weaver - Vanished

‘Enough,’ he said.

I turned back to the woman. ‘So he isn’t a well man?’

She studied me, teetering on the brink of committing. ‘Some people reckon he’s got that – what’s it called? – PT …’

‘PTSD,’ said Gideon.

I flicked a look at him and then back to her. ‘Post-traumatic stress?’

She nodded. ‘Right.’

‘Ever remember him acting strangely at work?’

‘Personally, no.’

‘What about second-hand accounts?’

She paused again, as if gossip wasn’t something she was comfortable with. ‘I’ve just heard stories about him, that’s all.’

‘What are the stories?’

‘That he’s generally a bit rude to people. I just thought he was quiet, but one of the girls in the office told us all a story.’

‘About what?’

She coloured a little, embarrassed at what she perceived to be telling tales. ‘About how he flipped out one lunchtime when the coffee machine stopped working.’ She looked across to the counter. There was no coffee percolator there now. ‘He just went crazy.’

‘And did what?’

‘Punched a hole in the wall.’

I looked around the staffroom and spotted an uneven piece of panelling on a wall to the right of the counter. ‘He had a temper on him?’ I asked.

‘That’s just what I was told.’

Gideon moved in his seat. ‘Do you mind if I ask why –’

‘Thanks a lot to both of you,’ I said, cutting him off and heading for the door of the staffroom. And for the first time, on the back wall, I saw a corkboard, full of photos of the men and women that staffed the station. In the bottom row was Gideon, and his surname: Momodou. On one side of him was the ticket inspector I’d chatted to when I’d first been in and talked to Pell – early forties, half-moon glasses, built like a middleweight boxer; his name tag said he was Edwin Smart – on the other side was the overweight CSA I’d walked up to when I’d arrived today, looking as flustered in his official photo as he did out on the floor. Appropriately, given how little he’d wanted to help, his name was Darren Cant. But, right at the end, staring into the camera lens, no emotion in his face at all, was the only one I really cared about.

Duncan Pell.

So where are you, Duncan?

Behind me, a chair scraped against the tiled floor and I heard Momodou get up from his table. But before he got a chance to repeat his question, I opened the door of the staffroom and headed out, taking the stairs back down to the platform. As I waited for the next train to pull in, I watched him come up to the bridge and look down. I stepped behind a pillar, out of sight. About ten seconds later, I came out from behind my cover again and saw him returning to his lunch.

Then my phone started ringing.

I took it out and looked at the display. Withheld number.

‘David Raker.’

‘Raker, it’s me.’

It took me a couple of seconds to place the voice. ‘ Healy? ’

‘We need to talk.’

41

We met in a coffee house opposite Shepherd’s Bush Market. Healy was already inside, sitting at the window so he could watch me approach from the station. Two mugs were on the counter in front of him.

He looked different from when I’d last seen him. He’d lost a little weight, had had his red hair cut and styled, and wore a tailored suit. He appeared fresher, more professional, with none of the ferocity I’d spent so much time reining in the October before. And yet there was just the hint of something ; a trace of the old Healy. As I moved inside the shop, shook hands with him and sat down, I wondered how long it would be before it came out.

‘You still drink coffee, right?’ he asked, pushing one towards me. ‘Black, no sugar.’

‘Well remembered.’

‘I’m clever like that.’

He nodded and a moment of silence settled between us. It wasn’t uncomfortable exactly, but it wasn’t relaxed either. The old Healy was a hard guy to like. He did his best to piss you off and fight you on everything. The new one seemed more controlled, but no less intense. I could see his brain ticking over, trying to figure out what he needed to say to me and why. He hadn’t told me a lot over the phone, which was fairly typical of him. In his search for Leanne, he’d spent so long bottling things up, working her case off the books and keeping it concealed, he’d eventually forgotten how to articulate himself.

‘How have you been?’ I asked.

‘Fine. You?’

‘I’m okay.’

He nodded, but didn’t probe any further.

‘How are Gemma and the boys?’

A flicker of sadness in his face. ‘They’re good.’

I hadn’t seen him for over seven months, but as I watched how he sat – his bulky frame perched on the edge of the stool; his hand wrapped around the mug, wedding band still on – it didn’t feel like it.

‘So I hear you’re back in the big time.’

He looked at me. ‘Who’d you hear that from?’

‘Someone I know at the Met.’

His eyes lingered on me – that trace of the old Healy – and then he broke out into a small, tight smile. It was a token effort; hardly even there. ‘That’s right.’

‘How’s it going?’

The smile dropped away. ‘That’s what I need to talk to you about.’

This time it was my turn to look suspicious. His face was turned away from me, half lit by the sun coming in from outside, half darkened by the shadows of the shop.

‘What’s going on?’

He took a long, drawn-out breath. ‘They don’t know I’m here telling you this, and if they found out, I’d get my arse handed to me. So you need to keep this on the QT.’

‘I can’t tell anyone anything if I don’t know what it is we’re talking about,’ I said to him and, almost immediately, he reached down to his side where a slip case was leaning against the legs of the chair. He brought it up and unzipped it. Inside there were six files. Four were thick, rammed with paper, all contained within identical Manila folders. A fifth was about half the size, in a green folder. The last was the thinnest – maybe only ten pages, in a charcoal-grey surround – and was the one he took out.

‘I’ve just come from Julia Wren.’

That stopped me dead. ‘ What? ’

‘You’re working for her, right?’

But I didn’t hear him. My mind was already shifting forward: why would he have been to see Julia? Was this to do with Sam? Did I miss something? Overlook something? I reached into my coat pocket and took out my phone. On the display was one missed call, received while I was on the Tube. Julia. She’d been calling me about the police.

‘Raker?’

I glanced at him. ‘Yeah.’

‘You’re working for her?’

‘Yeah, I’m working for her. So?’

‘Have you found her husband?’

I shook my head. ‘No.’

‘Well, the Met are going to ask you to shut this down.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘They’re going to turn up on your doorstep’ – he looked at his watch – ‘in about an hour, and they’re going to want you to stop looking for him.’

‘Why would I do that?’

He handed me the file. On the first page was a colour picture of Sam. ‘Because they think Samuel Wren is the Snatcher.’

42

15 June | One day earlier

It had been 108 days since the third victim, Joseph Symons, was taken. Some people in the Met, some cops who Healy didn’t believe deserved to be cops, started talking about the end; whispers in the corridors at first, and then – like a wave of chatter – it filtered down through the hallways and into the meeting rooms. They believed a man who had taken three people and never been found could just stop; turn it off like a light. Or if they didn’t believe that, they held on to the remote possibility he’d got caught up in something else: that he’d been forced off the radar; that he’d been charged with another crime or gone to prison on something unrelated. But Healy knew it hadn’t happened like that, and so did Craw and the rest of the Snatcher team. And at 11.14 p.m. they got the call to prove it.