Tom Weaver - The Dead Tracks

Kaitlin glanced at me. A movement in her eyes. 'No,' she said finally. Something else was at play.

'So why did you lie?'

'Because I…' She stopped. Glanced at me again. 'The day she disappeared, before the police came to talk to me… I got a phone call.'

'From who?'

Another pause. Longer this time. 'Charlie Bryant.'

This time it was my turn to pause. I studied her for a moment. 'Did he know about Megan's pregnancy?'

'Yes.'

'How?'

'She must have told him, or he must have found out somehow. He just called me and told me we couldn't tell the police anything.'

'Why?'

'Because we'd be in danger.'

'From who?'

'I don't know.'

'You didn't ask him?'

'He wouldn't tell me. He said it was best I didn't know.' She stopped. 'At first, I thought it was him getting all weird again.'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean, he was, like, in love with Megan. Totally in love with her. Sometimes he'd go over the top and creep us all out.'

'With the stuff he said to her?'

'Yeah, and the way he acted around her. He'd follow her around sometimes. Not like a stalker, but just… I don't know, just following her, you know? He'd do these drawings for her, paintings, write poems and shit like that. He was always telling her he'd be there for her. He could be a real weirdo sometimes.'

'So why did you believe him when he called you?'

She stopped, took a long drink of her coffee, then eyed me nervously. 'He just seemed different that day. Sounded different. He never really cared what the rest of us thought of him. Me and some of the others used to take the piss out of him all the time at school, but he was never bothered by it. He just laughed it off. But that day… I don't know. He sounded different. When he told me we'd be in danger if we talked, I totally believed him.' She took a deep breath. 'For the first time ever, he seemed really scared.'

I was pulling the car out of the school gates when my phone went. I picked it up off the passenger seat and slotted it into the hands-free. It was Spike. He had names and addresses for the eighteen different numbers I'd sourced off Megan's mobile phone. I told him to put them in an email. There was an internet cafe about half a mile from Charlie Bryant's house. I'd pick them up there.

I found a parking space off Holloway Road, opposite a bank of new apartments, and headed towards Highgate. The internet cafe — apparently without any sense of irony— was called Let's Get Digital!, but there was a PC right in the corner where it would be hard for anyone to see the screen. I logged into my Yahoo.

There was a PDF attached to Spike's message. I opened it up.

Eighteen numbers, surnames with each, listed alphabetically. It looked like a copy of a phone bill, except this phone bill had names and addresses as well as numbers. The information had probably been ripped directly from phone company databases and then pasted into the document. His ability to get beyond firewalls wasn't the only reason Spike got work. He had a certain attention to detail, such as arranging names in alphabetical order, which made things even more appealing to his customers.

I went through the list.

There weren't many surprises. The mobile and work numbers for both James and Caroline Carver, which I already knew; a mobile and a landline for Kaitlin and the same for Lindsey; four other friends, all girls, whose names I recognized from Megan's Book of Life, each with a landline and a mobile. That left two. The first was a mobile phone number for Charlie Bryant. The second was a landline, outer London, no name attached to it, and no street address. Just a PO box number. Spike had written next to it: Working on this — mil get a street address and call you back.

I got out my phone and dialled the number. It clicked and connected. After four rings, it clicked again and the echoey, distant sound of an answer machine kicked in. 'Please leave your message after the tone,' said a bored- sounding male voice. There wasn't much more I could do until Spike got me the street address.

But there was something I could do about Charlie Bryant. I knew where he lived — and now it was time to find out exactly how much he knew.

Chapter Sixteen

It was two-thirty by the time I got to the Bryant house. I rang the doorbell, pressing my face against a glass panel in the door. Rain hammered against the hard plastic roof of the porch, a sound like nails being poured from a bucket. It would have been impossible to hear movement inside, even if there was anyone home. But there wasn't. The house was dark and silent, and had the cold, lifeless feel that came from being unoccupied. No light. No warmth. No sign of being lived in.

I looked along the house and back up the driveway. It was well protected from the road. Trees at the entrance and lining one side of the property, the neighbours a nice distance away over a mid-sized brick wall. It was unusual for a house in London to have so much space to itself. It made me wonder what Charlie Bryant's dad did for a living.

Finally, the rain started to fade a little, turning into drizzle.

And then I could smell something.

I stepped down off the porch and walked around to the side gate. The smell started to get stronger. On the other side, I could see a series of bin liners, grass cuttings spilling out of the top. The grass had turned to mulch, sliding across the concrete and staining the brickwork on the house. Next to that were more bin liners, torn by animals, food scattered across the path. The gate was heavy oak, good quality, with a thick wooden bar across the middle. A big padlock was on the other side, visible through one of the slats.

I glanced both ways to make sure I wasn't being watched, then pulled myself up and over. I stood for a second, looking along the house, grass squelching beneath my feet.

The smell was stronger now.

There were two windows and a single door on this side of the house. The first window looked in at the kitchen. Semi dark. Wooden cupboards, metal finishes. A picture of Charlie Bryant's mum on top of the microwave in a green frame. Everything was clean. Nothing was out of place. The next window was for a toilet. Air freshener on the windowsill. Frosted glass made it difficult to see anything else. I moved to the door and, through a glass panel, saw it led into a pokey utility room. Washing machine. Tumble dryer. Fridge freezer. A wine rack full of wine bottles. Boots and shoes lined up next to a tray full of dog food. It was squirming with insects.

I moved quickly around to the back.

The garden was small and surrounded on all sides by high wooden fences. Huge fir trees lined the back wall. It was very sheltered and very private. The back of the house had a big window and a set of patio doors. Cupping my hands against the glass of the doors, I could see into a long room that ran all the way to the front of the house. Leather sofas. Bookcases. Modern art on the walls. A TV surrounded by DVDs, with a games console slotted in underneath. As I stepped away from the glass, the patio door shifted slightly. It was open.

I reached for the handle and slid it across.

And the smell hit me.

It spilled out of the living room on to the patio, like a wave crashing. As it did, a feeling of dread began to slither through my chest. I put my hand to my mouth and stepped into the house. It was as quiet as a cemetery. Hardly any noise at all, except for the hum of the fridge in the kitchen.

'Mr Bryant?'

I waited, didn't expect an answer, and didn't get one.

'Charlie?'

No reply. No movement. No sound at all.

I headed for the stairs. The smell got stronger as I moved up. At the top I could hear a tap dripping. Nothing looked out of place in any of the rooms I could see into. Only the fourth door was closed. Bluebottles buzzed around the top of the frame, sluggish and dozy in the airless house. I pulled the sleeve down on my coat, over my fingers, and then wrapped my covered hand around the door handle.