Tim Weaver - Vanished

Inside eight seconds, they were both gone.

I rewound the footage.

Something squirmed through my stomach as I watched it all unfold again. This was the drug he must have used on Wilky, on Erion, on Symons and on Drake. This was how he was able to walk them out of their front doors. I couldn’t see him drug Sam – maybe because he’d done it between stations – and, in fact, couldn’t see Sam inside the carriage at any point once it arrived at Westminster. But when the man was bending down, presumably dealing with the briefcase, Sam’s clothes and Sam himself – that had to have been moments after Sam had been jabbed with a syringe. From there, the man had been incredibly adept: he kept Sam on the floor, out of sight of any cameras – and the moment he turned his back and jolted to the right was the moment he yanked Sam to his feet again. Unseen by CCTV. Unseen by me.

I imagined what came next: if anyone had paid any sort of attention – and most people hadn’t because most people were disembarking protesters, half watching a fight at the other end of the platform – he’d claim Sam had fainted. He’d have taken his jacket off, pretending that he was trying to get him some air. Then, as the drug kicked in, he would have made Sam put the T-shirt on, helped it on to him, knowing he was pliant. Putting a protest T-shirt on him, even as he lay there semi-conscious, would have looked odd, but it wouldn’t have looked odd enough . People might have wondered what the man was doing – why he was putting the T-shirt on now, of all times – but once he was off and out of sight of the carriage, most of them would barely even recall it as a footnote. This was London, after all. A city where a body had once lain dead for five days in plain sight before anyone paid it any attention. A city where a jewellery shop’s windows were smashed in by an armed gang and people just wandered past. He didn’t have to worry about people remembering. He just had to get Sam off the train without being seen by the cameras. And but for a second – maybe even less – as they stepped out on to the platform, he’d managed it. I knew the footage better than anyone, had watched it more times than anyone, but it had taken me countless viewings – endless repetition, rewinding and inching through, frame by frame – before I’d seen him walk Sam out.

The Snatcher.

It had to be him.

But why take Sam? Why deviate from the plan? I let the questions go for the time being, moving the slider back to the moment they stepped off the train. And in the second they were both visible – Sam, drugged, looking down at the floor, the man next to him turning away and trying to protect his identity – I finally saw the face of a killer. I saw the man who had taken Sam Wren. I saw the man who had taken Steven Wilky from a flat half a mile from Paddington; Marc Erion from an apartment in King’s Cross; Joseph Symons from his home north of Farringdon station; and Jonathan Drake from his flat in Hammersmith.

All homes close to the Tube stations.

All stops on the Circle line.

He was using it as his hunting ground, watching the men, following them, getting to know their routines and then moving in for them. He knew the Underground stations.

Because he worked them.

I’d looked right at him so many times in the footage as he’d moved around inside the carriage, his face a blur behind the glass. I’d watched so many times as he’d stepped out onto the platform, the sign shielding him and his victim from the cameras – and not once had I put it together.

But I knew why I had today.

His clothes were different from the uniform he should have been wearing on a Friday morning, and maybe he’d thought that was what would make him blend in. But, ultimately, it was the change of clothes that had given him away. Because now I saw why this time, of all times, I’d been drawn to him: a red T-shirt with checked sleeves. The same top I’d seen in his gym bag earlier in the day.

The Snatcher knew the Circle line because he worked it.

The Snatcher was Edwin Smart.

69

As I drove, I jammed my phone into the hands-free and dialled Healy’s number. It rang and rang, with no answer. Finally, after half a minute, it clicked and went to voicemail.

‘This is Healy, leave a message.’

‘Shit.’ I waited for the beep. ‘Healy, it’s me. Everything’s changed. It’s not Sam or Pell you should be looking for, it’s a guy called Edwin Smart. He’s a ticket inspector on the Circle line. He took Sam. He took all of them. You need to tell Craw right now.’

I killed the call, my mind turning over.

Craw .

I dialled the station that the Snatcher task force were working out of, then asked to be connected to Craw. ‘She’s out in the field at the moment, sir, and I’m afraid I can’t –’

‘Wherever she is, she’s at the wrong place.’

‘Well, sir, I can’t –’

‘No, listen to me: you need to connect me unless you want her to get back and find out you are the reason she couldn’t stop a killer disappearing for good.’

A pause. Then the line connected.

It rang ten times with no answer and then went silent. A click. And then it started to ring again. She was redirecting my call. On the third ring, someone picked up.

‘Davidson.’

Shit. Anyone but Davidson.

‘Davidson, it’s David Raker.’

A snort. ‘What the fuck do you want?’

‘Sam Wren isn’t the Snatcher.’

‘ What? I thought we made it clear to you –’

‘Just listen to me –’

‘No, you listen to me, you weaselly piece of shit. You and that fucking sideshow Healy are done . You get it? He’s cooked, and when he’s done I’m gonna find the hole in your story and I’m gonna hang you out to dry. You think you’re some sort of vigilante, is that it? You’re nothing. Zero. And you’re gonna be even less than that when I’m done.’

‘Do what you have to do, but you need to hear this.’

‘I need to hear this?’

‘Sam Wren isn’t the guy you need to be looking for, it’s a –’

‘No,’ he said. ‘We’re done.’

And then he hung up.

I smashed my fists against the steering wheel and looked out into the rain. Healy’s cooked . Had they found out about him working the case off the books? A fleeting thought passed through my head – a moment where I wondered how he would react to that, and how he might endanger himself and the people around him – and then my mind switched back to Smart. I dialled Directory Enquiries and got them to put me through to Gloucester Road station. After three rings, a woman picked up.

‘How can I help you?’ she asked.

‘I’m looking for a revenue control inspector.’

‘You’d be better off calling the depot at Hammersmith.’

‘His name’s Edwin Smart.’

He could have been at any station on the line, not just Gloucester Road. But I’d found him twice there and he seemed to know the people who worked in and around it. They liked him, he liked them – or, at least, he pretended to. But he could put on a show, and he could manipulate those around him, starting with Sam Wren and Duncan Pell.

‘Do you know him at all?’ I pressed.

‘Edwin Smart?’

‘Yes.’

She paused. ‘What did you say your name was, sir?’

‘Detective Sergeant Davidson.’

I could sense a change, without any words even being spoken. Most people, even people who knew they had a duty to protect people’s privacy, started to get nervous when the police came calling. ‘Uh …’ She stopped again. ‘Uh, I’m not really, uh …’

I recognized the voice then: Sandra Purnell. The woman I’d spoken to in the staffroom, and the woman who had hugged Smart as I’d been about to approach him.