Tim Weaver - Vanished

71

Healy killed the call to Raker, flipped shut his phone and dumped it on to the passenger seat of the car. It was raining. A couple walked by, umbrella up, arms locked together, and then his eyes moved across the street to Teresa Reed’s house. It was time. There was nothing to stop him any more. No future. Nothing to get up for, nothing to come home to. He had no job, a wife who hated him and sons who never answered his calls. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and took out the photo of Leanne, tracing the lines of her face, his finger moving across the creases and bumps of the picture. ‘He won’t get away with it, baby,’ he said quietly, a deep, guttural sadness welling in the pit of his stomach.

I’ve got nothing else now.

Just you, Leanne .

When Teresa Reed answered the door, she broke out into a smile, came forward and kissed him. ‘How are you today, hun?’ she said, touching her hand to his. ‘I didn’t expect to see you so early.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I thought you were going to call.’

‘Something came up at work.’

She eyed him. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘Fine.’

‘Well, I’ve just put some coffee on.’

He followed her into the house, through a hallway full of ornaments and ornate junk. He hated her taste. In the kitchen, she stood at the counter and finished putting some of the dishes away, talking about what she’d done on her day off. He barely even listened. All he could think about was what he was going to do next. About Leanne. About how he was going to avenge her death.

And about the gun tucked into the back of his trousers.

‘You remember what I asked you?’ he said to her, still standing in the doorway of the kitchen, rain running off his jacket. ‘About coming with you to the prison one day?’

She looked at him. ‘You mean watching me talk to the prisoners?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I spoke to my boss about it after you asked,’ she said, taking two cups out of the cupboard, ‘but he wasn’t massively keen on the idea. Sorry, hun.’

‘Why?’

‘I think he’s just worried it might aggravate the men.’ She smiled. ‘I’ve only been seeing them seven months. That’s no time at all. I don’t want to upset the equilibrium because, slowly, I’m starting to gain their trust. But there’s also the problem that some of them see prison guards and cops – people like you – as the reason they’re inside in the first place.’

‘That is the reason they’re inside.’

‘I know. But it might promote negative feelings in them.’

‘They’re rapists and murderers.’

Teresa Reed paused, as if she’d glimpsed something in Healy that she hadn’t seen before. ‘I know what they are.’

‘Are you sure?’

She frowned. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘What about Broadmoor?’

‘What about it?’

‘You talk to the prisoners there as well.’

‘So?’

‘So, I’d like to go with you there.’

She shook her head, her defences up. ‘No way. It’s a high-security hospital, Colm. We’re talking about deeply disturbed patients. I can maybe talk to my boss again about letting you come along to Belmarsh with me, if that’s what you really want. I know you say you just want to watch me at work, but if we concoct some story about you using it as a research trip for the Met, Belmarsh might sign off the –’

‘I don’t want to go to Belmarsh any more.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I can get inside Belmarsh any time I want. I’ve been doing it five months already. I’ve been watching you talk to those men since January. I don’t need to see their faces up close. They’re not what I want.’

‘What do you mean, “watching me since January”?’

‘Belmarsh isn’t what I want. Broadmoor is.’

‘What are you talking about?’

He studied her, the silence in the kitchen deafening. ‘Belmarsh was just a stepping stone. The thing to make you trust me. If you’d watched me go in there, take notes, look interested as you laughed and smiled and batted your eyelids at the rapists and the killers and the worthless fucking scumbags you call patients, I knew I could get you to take me to Broadmoor too. I didn’t care how long it took, but at some point I thought you’d trust me enough to arrange it.’ He stopped. ‘But then I got fired today.’

Her face dropped. Confusion. Fear. ‘I don’t, uh …’

‘So now nothing matters any more.’

‘Colm, I –’

He sighed, taking a step into the kitchen. He could feel the gun at the back of his trousers, shifting against the belt. ‘Do you know who you talk to up at Broadmoor?’

She backed up against the counter. ‘Talk to?’

‘Your “patients”.’

‘I, uh … I talk to a lot of –’

‘I’m only interested in one of them. The one who killed my daughter.’ A shiver of emotion passed through him. ‘And I don’t care how you get it done, but you’re the one that’s going to take me to him.’

PART FIVE

72

Rain swept in as I parked about fifty yards down from Smart’s house, puddles forming in the gutters, leaves and crisp packets washing along the street. I grabbed my phone and got put through to Craw again, and while it just rang and rang the same as before, this time it went to voicemail. ‘DCI Craw, it’s David Raker.’ I looked at Smart’s house. It was a narrow two-storey terrace, half-painted, half-brick, with a terracotta-tile roof and white window frames. ‘Forget Sam Wren and Duncan Pell. The guy you’re looking for is called Edwin Smart.’ I gave her the address. ‘I’m up here now, on my own, because you fired Healy and Davidson didn’t want to hear what I had to say. I hope it hasn’t cost you.’

As soon as I hung up, I went through the same names again. Davidson. Healy. Craw for a second time. None answered. So I opted for the last resort: I dialled 999, gave them the details and told them to get Craw’s team to come urgently. After I was done, I sat in the silence of the car, eyes glued to the house.

Minutes passed.

You’re wasting time .

I glanced at myself in the rear-view mirror. If I went in alone, I went in blind. I didn’t know what it was like in there. I didn’t know anything about Smart, beyond what I’d been able to pick up at the station. But that information was worthless now.

It was a lie, and he was a mystery.

So are you going in alone?

I flicked a look at the clock in the car. Another two minutes had passed. Soon it would be three minutes, then four, then five. Then it would be ten, and fifteen, and twenty – and every one of those minutes was a head start he shouldn’t have had.

It’s suicide going in blind .

But then I suddenly thought of Liz, of everything she’d said to me the day before. This is who you are. This is what you do. I get it. But remember something: this is my life now too . She was right. She’d always been right. If I was a different man, if I was a little better, perhaps I would have listened. Perhaps I would have been able to stop myself.

But I wasn’t that man.

And Sam Wren was the only thing that mattered.

Water poured down my face, through my hair and ran off my jacket as I stepped up to the door. I didn’t ring the bell. I didn’t knock either. As much as possible, I wanted to avoid letting him know I was here. But when I grabbed the door handle, it bumped away from the frame, opening on to a small, tidy hallway. I immediately felt a prickle of unease. Why would he leave his front door open? I stopped, halfway in, halfway out, wondering if this was the right thing, after all. But I had no choice. I’d rung the police and they’d failed to act.