Tom Weaver - The Dead Tracks

'Rooms?'

'There was a girl in one of them.'

'Did you get a look at her?' Healy asked, shuffling across the sofa towards her.

'No.'

'Was she alive?'

'Yes.'

'Did you see anyone else?'

She shook her head. 'No. No one else.'

Healy leaned back in his seat, his mind ticking over. I picked up the conversation, trying to keep the momentum going. 'So, you were underground?'

'Yes. I escaped through a manhole cover — almost like some kind of service tunnel - into the kitchen of this old house. The walls were all decayed and cracked. Everything was a mess. There was an upstairs, but there was no floor. It was just one big room. The roof had broken too, and there was graffiti on the walls and glass all over the place.'

'Any sign it was lived in at all?'

'No,' she said. 'No way. It had been abandoned a long time ago.'

'Anything else you remember?'

There were trees overhead - in the space where the roof should have been. They were kind of crawling through the roof and into the house. But apart from that, I don't remember much. I'm sorry, I just got out of there and ran.'

'Ran where?'

'Towards the river.'

'So the house was on the edge of a river?'

'Yes.'

'What did the house look like from the outside?' I asked.

'Concrete. There were trees and vines and stuff all over the roof and the outside walls.'

'What was around it?'

'Not much.' She shook her head, and I could see the emotion was starting to take over. She brushed a finger to her eye. 'I was just running.'

'To the river?'

'Yes. As fast as I could.'

'Anything else close to the river you remember?'

'The river was narrow. Like, seriously narrow. More like a canal, I guess. Maybe only six feet across. On the other side there was just a concrete wall: high, with no path in front of it.' She wiped an eye again, but the memories were starting to flow now. 'On my side, there was a path, but it was uneven; full of holes and mud. But I didn't take in much after that.'

'Why?'

'He came after me.'

'He chased you?'

Yes.'

'But he obviously didn't catch you?'

'No.'

'Because you fell into the river?'

She nodded. 'I was barefoot. But that path… it was so uneven. So dangerous. I was either going to break my ankle or fall into the water - and I fell into the water.' Sona leaned forward. With her fingers, she parted her hair at the crown of her head. A blood-red line wormed its way across her skull, stitching still visible in it. 'I cracked my head open and must have blacked out for a second before I came to again.'

'What happened then?'

There was a current in the water. I remember him watching me as the river took me away. He ran after me at first, then when he saw I was going too fast, he stopped. Everything was fuzzy, like I was looking through gauze. I could make out trees and I remember the path finishing after a while, and there just being more concrete and more trees. Oh, and there must have been a slight bend because -' Sona paused and rubbed at the scar on her scalp '— after a while, he disappeared from sight.'

'Anything else?' Healy asked.

Her eyes narrowed, trying to fish for memories.

'It's okay, Sona,' I said, keeping the expectation out of my voice. 'If that's it, if that's all you can remember, that's really good.'

'There was maybe a warehouse,' she continued softly, 'but I just remember the current being really fast, and — as it took me away — the pain starting to seriously kick in. After that, I must have blacked out again.'

'You were found near the Royal Docks, right?'

She nodded. They reckon the gown he'd dressed me in blew up and acted as a makeshift buoyancy aid. The current carried me out into the Thames.'

Out from a tributary — which narrowed it down to two possible creeks: Barking or Bow. Both opened out on to the Thames, either side of where she was found. Barking would have made for a simpler investigation: it cut through the city, bisecting Creekmouth and Beckton before roughly following the North Circular through to Ilford. Once it got to Barking itself, it moved in one, relatively straight line north. Bow Creek was different: a two-mile tidal estuary that then fed into the River Lea and became miles and miles and miles of waterways. Her vague description wasn't likely to help: the closer to the Thames you got, the more industry started tracing the path of the water. Eventually all it became was the corrugated iron of warehouse walls and brand-new property developments built on the bones of old ones. If the house was abandoned that might help — but the city's river system was a maze. It would take months to walk it all, even if you narrowed down the distance Sona would have travelled given tidal currents.

I turned to Healy. 'Police haven't found the location of the building yet?'

He looked between Sona and me. Shook his head. 'No. They're not close to finding it.' In his face, I could see what he was saying to me: And that's because this is the most she's talked since she was found .

When I turned back to Sona, she looked tired. She covered one side of her face with a hand - then her mobile phone started buzzing. It was on the sofa next to her. She looked down at it. 'It's Jamie Hart.'

'You should probably answer it,' I said.

'I don't think that's a good idea,' Healy replied.

I turned to him. 'Why do you think they're calling her? Because they guessed we'd come and find her. They're probably already on their way. It's too late.' I turned back to her. 'It's fine to answer it, Sona.'

She picked up the phone. 'Hello?'

'Sona, it's Jamie Hart.'

We could hear him. She looked back at me. I smiled and nodded for her to continue. 'Hello,' she said quietly.

'I just wanted to let you know that we're on our way over.'

I looked at Healy, then back to Sona.

Healy got to his feet and went straight to the window that looked out into the courtyard. Inched the curtains across. Leaned in closer to the glass so he could see along the pathway that led from the main road into the courtyard.

'We're about two minutes out,' Hart said to her.

'Fine.'

'We'll see you in a moment.'

The call ended.

'We need to leave,' Healy said. I glanced at Sona: she was starting to wonder what she'd got herself into now, whether she should have trusted us.

'I just need to ask one more question.'

' Raker, ' Healy said. We need to go.'

I held up a hand. 'I know. One question.'

She looked between us.

'You said you couldn't make sense of the things you heard after Markham attacked you, after you blacked out. What did you mean by that?'

Healy was looking at his watch.

She frowned. 'I mean, I heard things. Out-of-place things.'

'Like what?'

Silence.

Then: 'After Mark said "I can't do this any more," everything was black. But…' She paused. 'But I swear I could hear something. I swear I could hear whimpering.'

Chapter Sixty-one

As we were jogging down the steps of the house, we saw Hart and Davidson pass the entrance to the complex in an unmarked Ford Focus. They were headed for the car park. 'He'll see my car,' Healy said, panting already.

'He knows we're here,' I said. 'He'll have tracked your phone.'

We darted through the darkened arch linking the courtyard and the road, and then watched as Hart and Davidson emerged from the Focus. They didn't speak, but they were moving with a purpose. They'd picked up our trail faster than I thought.

Hart led the way, Davidson following gingerly. They were an odd pairing, in a different time, they may almost have been comical. It was hard to imagine Davidson ever being slim. Stocky would have been the best he'd been called, but middle age had robbed him of even that. Hart was the polar opposite: gaunt, almost painfully so, like his skeleton was the only part of him. No muscle. No sinew. Just bone.