Tom Weaver - The Dead Tracks

But he was there.

And he was watching Megan.

Chapter Fifteen

Friday. After getting up at eight and making some coffee, I sat at the living-room windows, looking out at the garden, and studied the photograph of the man from Tiko's. I'd taken a picture of the TV screen, paused on the best view I could get of his face, and printed it out on the computer. Blown up big, the quality deteriorated.

But it was good enough.

He looked like he was in his thirties. Incredibly pale, jet- black hair combed into an old-fashioned side parting. A very angular face, all bone and sinew, his cheeks slightly hollow, his nose thin and straight. The ridge of his brow was prominent, raised, reducing his eyes to two tiny pinpricks of light. It gave him an odd, otherworldly feel: a man painted only in the darkest blacks and whitest whites. Physically, he didn't look much. Five-ten, maybe even less. No muscle, or at least no indication of any.

But something was off about him. Something ominous.

He looked at Megan the way a hunter looked at its prey. Deep concentration. Patience. His eyes constantly tracking her movements. His posture was slightly bent, as if he spent the whole time trying to make himself smaller, like a bear trap being primed. Because of that, he carried a kind of threat, a suggestion that his build and size wouldn't matter when it came to it. Because when it came to it, nothing would stop him.

He would get what he wanted.

I called Kaitlin and agreed to meet her during a free period she had at eleven o'clock. After that, I'd try and speak to DCI Jamie Hart. It was going to be a balancing act. I needed his help, because I needed to find out how far the case had progressed before it went cold, but I didn't want Hart getting too involved or interested in Megan's disappearance again. Perhaps I was doing the police a disservice. Perhaps they'd already pinpointed the man in Tiko's as someone to watch. But it was possible, and in fact more likely, that they'd totally missed him. And I didn't want them finding out about the man before I'd had a chance to try and find out who he was myself.

When I got to the school, I pulled in around the side in the Sixth Form car park, close to the fencing Megan must have scaled in order to avoid being picked up on CCTV. Kaitlin was waiting for me. Her bag was on top of a battered Ford Fiesta, a folder next to it, a set of textbooks next to that. I got out of the BMW. The morning was dry but heavy with the threat of rain. Dark clouds moved across the sky in thick coils. In the distance, beyond the rooftops of the houses surrounding the school, a mist hung, grey and oppressive like a blanket being pulled across the city.

I smiled at Kaitlin. 'Morning.'

She smiled back, but there was a slight hesitancy to her. Maybe she was expecting me to launch into a tirade about how she should have told the police what she knew.

I held up a hand. 'I don't care what you've done.'

She seemed to relax a little and then suggested we go to a coffee shop about half a mile from the school. It had two floors. The top one had big floor-to-ceiling windows and small circular tables lined up in front. I bought Kaitlin a latte, and then we took one of the tables, furthest away from everybody else. I got out my pen and pad, and turned to her. She was looking down at the people passing on the pavements.

'Are you okay?'

She glanced at me, a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, as if I might be leading her into a trap. 'I'm fine,' she said eventually.

'So when did you first find out Megan was pregnant?'

'The week before she disappeared.'

'What happened?'

'I went round to her house, so we could work on a Biology assignment we'd been given. About an hour after I got there, she said she needed to puke.'

'Was that the first time she'd felt like that?'

'No. She said she'd been sick that morning, and had been puking every day for a week. She said it was something she'd eaten.'

'But you didn't believe her.'

'No.'

'So she told you?'

'Eventually. She said she'd done a pregnancy test a week after the sickness and the headaches hadn't gone away.'

'Did you ask her who the father was?'

'Yes.'

'And what did she say?'

Kaitlin glanced at me. 'I guess this is where it gets confusing'

'Okay.'

'This is the reason I lied.'

I nodded for her to continue.

'Megan was always very into, like, helping people. You know, charities, that kind of thing. She used to spend her summers helping out at a youth club down the road from her house. I think it was for people with, like, cerebral palsy or something' She paused, glanced out of the window. 'Anyway, she said she'd met someone.'

'At the youth club?'

'Yeah.'

'Did she tell you his name?'

'No.'

'Why?'

She paused again, this time for longer. 'He was quite a few years older than her. Like, ten or fifteen or something. She thought he'd get into trouble.'

'With who?'

'Megan was seventeen. What do you think her parents would have said if they found out she was seeing some guy in his thirties?'

I leaned back in my seat. 'Did she tell you anything about him?'

'Just that she thought he was really sexy, and really clever, and that they were in love.' She shrugged. 'I'd never heard her talk about a guy like that. Megan was… well, she didn't meet very many men. When we used to go out, she was never interested in getting together with anyone.'

'Did she describe him at all? How he looked?'

'No.'

'Nothing?'

'No.'

I thought of the man in the club again. Had that been him? He wasn't attractive in any way, but he must have been at least fifteen years older than her. Even if the age vaguely matched, though, it didn't feel right. If she knew him, why would he be waiting there in the shadows? Why would he be there at all? I reached into my jacket pocket and got out the photograph. I pushed it across the table to Kaitlin.

'Do you recognize him?'

'Is that Tiko's?'

'Yes.'

I'd cropped it in, so the girls were out of shot, but her eyes still flicked to me, then back to the photograph, as she tried to put it together in her head.

'You recognize him?' I asked again.

'No.'

You sure?'

'Positive.'

I took the photo back and folded it up.

'Did she tell you how many times they'd had sex?'

Kaitlin flushed a little.

'You don't have to be embarrassed.'

She shifted in her seat. 'Four times.'

'How far along was she?'

'In her pregnancy?'

'Yes.'

'Not far. I think about five or six weeks.'

'Did the guy she was sleeping with know she was pregnant?'

'Yes.'

'She told him?'

'Yes.'

I wrote that down. When I looked up again, she was staring at me, and for the first time I glimpsed the girl underneath.

'What's wrong?'

'I just wish I hadn't lied. Maybe if I hadn't lied, the police would have found her. Do you think she went off with the man she met? Do you think he…' She faded out.

'Listen to me, Kaitlin,' I said. 'If, for whatever reason, the police come calling, don't tell them about the pregnancy. I don't know if they'll be back or not. For all intents and purposes, the case is dead. But they could get interested again if they find me snooping around, and the first thing we need to do here is protect you. So if they come calling, tell them about the youth club, and that you think she might have been seeing someone there, but leave it at that, okay?'

She nodded.

'Good. What was the name of the youth club?'

'Barton Hill.'

'It's close to Megan's house?'

'Yes.'

'Did you ever go?'

'No. She asked me along a couple of times, but… it's not really my thing'

I drummed my fingers on the table, thinking. 'So did you decide not to tell the police about Megan being pregnant because — what? — she wanted to protect the identity of this guy?'