M.R. Hall - The Disappeared

'Hello?' The line was faint. She waited on tenterhooks for McAvoy's reply.

'Mrs Cooper? DI Pironi. I've just been talking to Mike Stevens.'

Shit.

'About time,' Jenny said.

'Who the hell is this American?'

'You tell me.'

'You've been speaking to McAvoy. He knows.'

'Well, ask him.'

'Where is he?'

'Pass.'

Pironi lost patience. 'You know the penalty for withholding this kind of information.'

'I've withheld nothing. I've already told the police everything I know.'

'Which police?'

'Chepstow.'

'Dear God. What the hell are you playing at, Cooper? I've got the anti-terrorist branch, MI5 and uniform all out looking for Anna Rose Crosby. We could have a dirty bomb maker out there.'

'I'd just about worked that out.'

'If you're holding anything back from me —’

'I'll make you a deal. Whoever finds Anna Rose first, we both get to talk to her.'

'You think either of us is going to be allowed anywhere near her? You're more deluded than I thought.'

Jenny said, 'I sense you're a man with a troubled conscience, Mr Pironi. If you hadn't sat on your hands for eight years, Mrs Jamal might still be with us, Anna Rose Crosby might still be going out to parties. Why don't you do the decent thing and see if we can't both get what we want?'

There was a brief pause, then Pironi said, 'I've reasonable suspicion that you have withheld information concerning terrorist activity. I advise you to go to the nearest police station and surrender yourself for arrest.'

Jenny said, 'Have they told you to do this - the same high- ups that had you frame McAvoy?'

'You heard what I said.'

'You should think hard about who you're working for. I'm not sure going to church is doing the trick.'

Jenny drove into the zone from which Anna Rose had picked up her messages. Cloaked in sleet, the Victorian buildings that lined Harlowe Road were grimy and soot- stained in the dingy orange street light. She crawled past a parade of shuttered-up low-rent shops, several down-at-heel pubs and a shabby late-night convenience store. She pulled into a side street and hurried back to it, her coat pulled up over her hair.

An elderly Asian man, wearing one cardigan on top of another and fingerless gloves, was watching a Bollywood movie on a tiny TV perched precariously on the tobacco shelf. Fishing in her handbag and producing a dog-eared card, Jenny introduced herself and said she was looking for an attractive young woman he might have seen in the shop recently.

The old man squinted at the rain-smeared print. She gave him a charming smile, aware that many among the Asian community regarded coroners with deep suspicion. Traditional Hindus were opposed to autopsy, as were many Muslims.

'She's a potential witness,' Jenny said. 'A young woman in her early twenties, short blonde hair, intelligent, very pretty - you'd have noticed her.'

The man drew down the corners of his mouth and shook his head.

Jenny said, 'I know for a fact she was in this street two days ago. She might have looked anxious, wary of people.'

It seemed to stir his memory. 'English girl?'

'Yes. Have you seen her?'

'I'm not sure. Maybe. There's bed-and-breakfast places along there.' He gestured eastwards with his thumb. 'A lot of young people use them, mostly foreigners.'

He handed back her card.

'Thanks. I appreciate it.'

He frowned, gave a rattly cough and turned back to the TV.

The first one she arrived at, the Metropole, was a converted Victorian villa with flaking paint and a single bare bulb hanging in the porch. She approached the tatty reception desk, behind which sat a slender woman with premature crow's feet at the side of her eyes, and launched into a description of Anna Rose. The receptionist responded with a blank look, then explained in a heavy East European accent that the hotel's occupants were mostly foreign workers. Jenny noticed that the laminated signs taped to the wall behind the desk were written in Polish. The Metropole was a labourers' flop house. Anna Rose was not their kind of guest.

Freezing water seeped though the soles of her shoes as she dodged the angry traffic and ran up the steps of the Hotel Windsor, which stood opposite. It considered itself upmarket from its neighbours, but its feeble attempts at grandeur made it tackier. The chintz sofas in the lobby were stained and sagging; the fraying carpet was patched with duct tape. Jenny pressed a buzzer on the unmanned counter. A short, fat man with a stained navy waistcoat and matching tie emerged bleary-eyed from a back office. He wore a plastic badge that said, 'Gary, Assistant Manager'. His annoyance at being disturbed faded on seeing a passably attractive woman. He gave her a greasy smile.

'Good evening, madam. What can I do for you?'

Jenny presented the card she'd shown the store keeper and ran through her story. Shifting effortlessly from solicitous to unctuous, Gary said he didn't think any of his guests matched the description.

Jenny detected a note of uncertainty. 'You're sure about that? What about the daytime staff - is there anyone I can call?'

He scratched his head and thought again. 'There has been a girl staying here for a few days, but she had black hair, short, like a crew cut. . .'

'What was her name?'

'Sam, Sarah . . . something like that. . .' He tapped on his computer. 'That's her - Samantha Stevens.'

'Is she still here?'

'She checked out earlier this evening - about an hour ago.'

It figured. If she'd collected her messages tonight, there were bound to have been several from Mike. She would know about the American and that he was coming for her.

'Any idea where she went?'

'I know she caught a cab. I heard her call for it.' He nodded to a payphone screwed to the wall beside the counter.

'Did she have much luggage?'

'Just a rucksack, I think . . . she seemed in a hurry. Is she in some kind of trouble?'

Pretending not to have heard the question, Jenny grabbed the receiver and pressed redial. The call was answered by a controller at PDQ Cabs. Short on patience, Jenny demanded to know where the last fare from the Hotel Windsor had been dropped off. The controller, a hostile woman with a smoker's rasp, claimed the rules forbade her from releasing confidential 'passenger information'.

Jenny said, 'Let me spell it out for you - you don't have a choice. I've no doubt your office is pretty shitty, but I'm sure it beats a police cell.'

Gary stepped out from behind the counter and gestured for her to give him the receiver. 'Let me — '

Jenny reluctantly gave it up.

'Hey, Julie, my love,' he purred, 'it's Gary. Look, sweetie, I'm with the lady now, trying my best to help. So why don't you tell her what she wants or maybe we'll be recommending a different cab company in future . . .'

Jenny heard the controller give a bad-tempered grunt and tell Gary the fare had been to Marlborough Street bus station in the middle of town.

He came off the phone all smiles and asked if there was anything else he could do to assist, his eyes dipping downwards towards Jenny's breasts.

'No thanks. You've been more than helpful.' She drew her coat across her chest. 'See you around, Gary.'

As she pushed out through the doors she caught his reflection in the glass: he was flicking his tongue at her like a hungry lizard.

Chapter 26

Jenny didn't notice the midnight blue Lexus sedan tucked in two cars behind her as she gunned towards the city centre. The sleet had given way to big flakes of wet snow that were starting to lie. She was out of screen-washer and the street lights kaleidoscoped through the dirty windscreen. She jostled though the heavy traffic on the Haymarket, narrowly missed a jay-walking drunk, shot the lights and slewed into Marlborough Street.