Tim Weaver - Vanished

Her eyes blinked, surrounded by the bandaging. Somehow I could see the answer without her saying a word: After a while I stopped paying attention .

‘Do you remember a guy called Duncan?’

A blank.

‘He used to film you?’

Now she remembered. From behind her, Healy couldn’t see her reaction but when I glanced at him he could see exactly what I was telling him: She remembers Pell .

‘He never told me name,’ she said, and her voice was so quiet it was barely even audible beyond the ECG and the murmur of conversations in the corridor outside. I didn’t interrupt, though, just shifted in, across the floor, a little closer. ‘He was … strange man.’

‘Why?’

‘He never say nothing. No words.’

‘Ever?’

‘No words,’ she repeated.

‘He hurt you?’

‘Yes. Hurt me.’

I remembered finding her in the loft, and remembered the words she’d managed to get out, through all the bruising and the blood and the damage: Don’t let him hurt me .

‘He was the one you were talking about?’

She frowned.

‘When I found you in the loft, you said to me, “Don’t let him hurt me.” Was that man – Duncan, the one who filmed you – was he was the one you were talking about?’

‘Yes,’ she said.

There was something in her face.

‘Marika?’

‘Yes. Him.’

But as she looked at me, a lie passed between us, and fear bloomed in her face. It wasn’t Pell she was talking about, just as it had never been Wellis. None of the DVDs Pell had of them were timecoded or dated, but if she’d landed in December, it meant the majority of them were filmed after Sam Wren’s disappearance.

‘Was it the man who watched you and Duncan that scared you?’

She glanced at me, trying to figure out how I knew.

‘Was it him, Marika?’

It seemed to take her a long time to process the question, and when she finally did her legs came back up to her chest, and she resumed the foetal position. ‘Yes,’ she said.

‘It was the man who watched you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he only watch?’

Tears in her eyes now. ‘Yes.’

‘So why were you scared of him?’

‘I don’t know how to …’ She paused. ‘Don’t know words.’

‘Can you try?’

The tear escaped and she automatically went to wipe it away, but all she felt at her fingertips were bandages. She sniffed. ‘He never show face. I just hear him behind me.’

‘You never saw him enter or leave?’

‘Never see him. Ever.’

‘Then how did you know he was there?’

‘I hear door.’

‘You heard him come in?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s it? You only heard him?’

‘I see his …’ She waved a hand. ‘In mirror.’

‘His reflection?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did he look like?’

She shook her head. ‘Face was in dark.’

‘Shadow?’

‘Shadow, yes. Mostly.’

‘You never saw any of his face?’

‘Only once. A small …’

‘A small bit of his face?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he ever say anything?’

She was staring off now, beyond me, into the middle distance. She might have been able to darken the memories she had of the other men, but she couldn’t darken this one. Even faceless, she knew there was something up with him. Something bad.

‘Did he ever say anything?’ I asked again.

‘He say words to …’

‘Duncan?’

‘To Duncan. He say words to him.’

‘Like what?’

She blinked. ‘He call me “it”.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘He say, “Fuck it. Hit it. Hurt it.” ’

‘He was telling Duncan what to do?’

‘Yes,’ she said, her voice breaking a little now.

I took out a photograph of Sam. ‘Could it have been this man watching you?’

She studied the picture for a long time, saying nothing, her eyes wide beneath the bandaging, shimmering a little in the light of the room.

Then, finally, she ripped them away and looked at me.

‘Yes,’ she said, a tear breaking free. ‘That could be him.’

The minute we were outside the hospital, Healy lit himself a cigarette and we stood there in the car park watching the rain come down. Neither of us said anything, Healy trying to figure out where to go next, me trying to process what I’d just found out. Marika thought the watcher might have been Sam, which meant there was also a chance it might not have been. But it was certainly getting harder to back Sam, to deny he was involved, and that was eating away at me. I didn’t call things wrong. I didn’t read people wrong.

Except maybe, this time, I’d done both.

As if on cue, Healy started shaking his head, and when I glanced at him, a caustic, self-satisfied expression formed in his face. My hackles rose instantly. ‘So you still somehow think he’s not involved then?’ he said, blowing a flute of smoke out.

I looked at him. We were standing beneath an overhang, rain running off the roof and exploding against the ground next to us.

He glanced at me and saw my reaction. ‘What?’

‘That’s all you can say?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘That’s the first thing that comes into your head?’

He frowned. ‘What the hell do you mean?’

‘I get her to talk in there because there was no way she was going to talk to you when you’re bouncing around like you’re waiting for your fucking dealer. Last night, I meet you at the Tube because you can’t trust anyone and literally all you care about is bringing this home and stuffing it down everyone’s throat. I do that for you, I look past your flaws, your anger, your capacity to create an argument out of nothing – and, having seen what just happened in there, that’s the first thing that comes into your head?’

He just stared at me.

‘Do you even realize how alone you are, Healy?’

‘I don’t know what –’

‘That’s just your problem, Healy. You don’t know.’

And I walked away.

64

Five minutes later, Healy finished his cigarette and flicked it out into the bushes running along the back of the hospital. He immediately felt like another. He was angry. Pissed off. He’d allowed himself to be manipulated, persuaded that Wren wasn’t a part of this, and had then spent two days chasing his tail. Not any more. Fuck Raker . Fuck them all . He was going to take what the girl had told them – and he was going to put this to bed.

He moved off into the rain, pulling his jacket up over his head and making a break for it. But then, in his peripheral vision, he saw someone approaching and getting closer.

He slowed down. Looked around.

And his heart sank.

Sallows.

‘Well, well, well,’ Sallows said, thirty feet to Healy’s right, under a Metropolitan Police umbrella. In his left hand was a set of car keys. In his right was a digital camera.

Healy didn’t say anything, his eyes flicking to the camera.

‘Didn’t think this was your part of the world, Colm.’

Healy was about to form a lie, about to pretend he was visiting a relative, when he stopped himself. See how much he knows first . ‘It’s not,’ he replied.

‘So what are you doing here?’

‘Following up a lead.’

Sallows smirked. ‘Did someone steal a chocolate bar from the gift shop?’ he said and then stepped closer, eyes fixed on Healy, watching for any shift of expression.

‘That’s more your area, Kevin.’

‘Is it?’

‘You don’t play with the big boys any more, remember.’

But Sallows didn’t react at all. No change in his face. No change in his stance. A fizz of panic stirred in Healy’s guts: the only reason Sallows wouldn’t take the bait was if he had something better. Healy glanced at the camera. Something like photos .