The Dead Tracks (47 page)

    A
second later, my phone started ringing. I'd had it off all day, but had
switched it on briefly to check messages as we left Walthamstow. I'd forgotten
to turn it back off again. I reached into my pocket and took it out, ready to
kill the call.

    But it
was Jill.

    I
pressed Answer. 'Hello?'

    Silence.
A buzz, like interference.

    'Jill?'

    Then
the line went dead. I glanced at Healy. He was looking out of his window to
where a group of teenagers had gathered beneath the street light. But he was
listening to every word. I tried calling Jill back, but after ten unanswered
rings it went to voicemail.

    'So
what are you going to do?' Healy said, without looking at me.

    I
flipped my phone shut. 'About what?'

    'About
her.'

    It
was obvious he saw this as some kind of weakness in me, as if by expressing
mild concern about Jill I'd somehow let my guard down. But I just ignored him,
and turned my thoughts back to her. Why call someone if you weren't going to
answer? And even if she'd accidentally dialled my number, why not pick up when
I rang back?

    'We
can't afford to waste time.'

    'I
know that.'

    'Where
Does she live?'

    'Acton.'

    He
rolled his eyes and looked away again, over to where the teenagers had produced
a big bottle of cider and a pack of cigarettes. 'Acton's miles away.'

    'I
know
that, Healy,' I said sharply.

    He
made a big show of looking at his watch as if he didn't believe me. I flipped
my phone open again and dialled Jill's number, just to piss him off.

    The line
connected.

    I let
it ring nine times, then hung up. Next, I dialled directory enquiries and got a
landline. They connected me. Again, the line continuously rang for half a
minute. But just as I was about to hang up, someone answered.

    'Hello?'

    
'J
ill?
'

    'David?'

    'Are
you okay?'

    'Yes,
fine. Why?'

    'It's
just… you called me a minute ago and didn't answer.'

    A
hesitation. 'Did I?'

    'I
just wanted to make sure you were okay.'

    'I'm
fine.'

    'Are
you sure?'

    'Yes,
I'm good. I just…' She faded off.

    'Just
what?'

    'Oh,
nothing. I guess I just got spooked again, that's all.'

    'About
what?'

    A
pause. 'I don't know. This house, being on my own.'

    'What's
the matter?'

    She
didn't reply. 'Jill?'

    'It's…'
She stopped. 'It's just…'

    'What?'

    'I'm
sure I just saw someone.'

    'What
do you mean?'

    'The
same man from before. The man in the red Ford. The one who was watching my
place when you came round that night. I'm sure he keeps passing the house.'

    I
glanced at Healy. He had turned his head slightly in my direction, shifting
closer as he listened to what she was saying. But he made a show of looking at
his watch, so he could remind me that our priority was sitting inside a house
about five hundred feet away.

    'Can
you call Aron?'

    'No.
He's in Paris.'.

    I
remembered him saying he was flying out earlier in the day.

    'Okay,
listen. I'm going to call a friend of mine and send him around. His name's Ewan
Tasker. I'll get him to sit with you until I can get there.'

    'Oh,
thank you,
David.'

    'Okay.
Sit tight.'

    I
hung up, didn't bother even looking at Healy as he glanced at his watch again,
and dialled Tasker's number. He answered on the third ring. I told him what I needed
him to do and he agreed immediately to drive around to Jill's. I thanked him,
gave him her number just in case, then hung up and got out of the car. Healy
looked across at me.

    'Well,'
I said. 'What are you waiting for?'

    The
houses in Sona's complex were built into a square, with the front doors facing
on to a courtyard. They were two-storey homes, a separate flat on each floor, a
stairwell leading to the top-floor flat in each of them. Everything was exactly
the same: whitewashed windowsills, blue doors, grey-slate roof.

    We
moved through the arch and into the courtyard. It was large and overgrown, a
huge oak tree spiralling up into the night from the centre. Dull cream street
lamps ran in a line, tracing the right angles of the buildings all the way
along. Each collection of ten houses had been given a different name: flats
1—20 were Randall; flats 21—40 were Chance. It looked like flats 41—60 were
called Wren, but by the time we'd got to numbers 26 and 27, Healy had stopped.

    'This
is it?'

    'Yeah,
this is it,' Healy replied, and started moving up the stairwell to the top
floor. He looked left and right, and then knocked four times on the door.
Paused. Then knocked again. 'Just follow my lead,' he whispered. 'And don't act
surprised.'

    I
frowned at him.

    'Just
don't act surprised,' he repeated.

    A
knock on the door, from the inside.

    Healy
leaned in further, as if he'd been expecting it.

    'Charlie,
Hotel, Alpha, November, Charlie, Echo. Case number 827-499.'

    There
was no reply. Healy looked at his watch and back at me, nodding as if this was
how things were supposed to go.

    'Winter.'

    A
female voice. So quiet, for a second I wasn't sure if it had come from another
house. Healy leaned in again. 'Wintergreen,' he said.

    'Spring,'
the voice said again.

    'Springboard,'
Healy replied.

    Then
everything went quiet again. As we waited, I realized I could hear a TV beyond
the door, muffled but audible. Two people were arguing. Healy turned to me,
then back to the door. The code confirmed he was part of the task force, even
if he wasn't. The responses to her would have been words only known by those
intimate to the investigation: the trusted members of the task force Healy had
described.

    'What
do you want?'

    Her
voice. A little louder now, but still small.

    'My
name is Detective Sergeant Colm Healy,' he said, adding a softness to his voice
that I hadn't heard before. 'I'm part of Operation Gaslight. We haven't met
before but I was hoping I might be able to speak to you for a few minutes.
We've had some further developments in the case and I'd like to run a couple of
things past you.'

    I
thought I heard something: paper being leafed through.

    'You're
not one of the names on my list.'

    'I
know.' He looked at me. There was an expression in his face that suggested this
wasn't going according to plan. 'If you come to the window, I will hold up my
ID.'

    More
pages being turned. Then the sound of footsteps. Healy backed away and stepped
towards the window, which was adjacent to the door. He held up his warrant card
at the glass. The curtain twitched and opened. In the V-shaped gap, we could
see a woman, mostly just silhouette, arms on the curtains either side of her.
Her eyes moved from the warrant card to Healy, and then to me. The curtain fell
back into place. More footsteps.

    'Who's
he?'

    'His
name's David Raker. He's a missing persons investigator. He's been trying to
trace the whereabouts of Megan Carver.'

    'He's
not on the list either.'

    'Megan
Carver was taken by the same man who took you.'

    More
silence. Even to my ears, even knowing that Healy was basically telling the
truth, it sounded suspicious. Two men, neither of whom was on the list of
contacts she'd been given by the task force, turning up on her doorstep at ten
o'clock at night. Only one with ID. One not even employed by the Met. If she'd
refused to let us in, it wouldn't have been a surprise. Instead there was a
noise, like a lock sliding across, and the door opened a fraction on a chain.

    In
the gap, we could see blonde hair and a sliver of face. An eye. Part of the
nose. Some of the cheek. Her eye darted between us and then out into the
courtyard.

    'Can
I see your ID again, please?' she said.

    Healy
nodded. 'Of course.'

    He
took out a small black wallet and removed his warrant card, handing it to her
through the gap in the door. She took it, disappeared for a moment as she
checked it, then gave it back to him. She looked at me. 'And you?'

    I got
out my wallet, slid out my driver's licence and a business card, and handed it
to her. She studied it, then disappeared out of sight. Somewhere in the
background I could hear a gentle
tap tap.
About a minute later, she
reappeared. Eye flicking between the licence and me. Then, finally, she handed
it back and pushed the door closed. The sound of the chain being removed. Healy
looked at me once again, this time not saying anything, the same message as
earlier etched on his face:
Don't act surprised.

    The
door opened.

    Framed
by the doorway, Sona looked between us. She'd been beautiful. Blonde hair. Blue
eyes. A sculpted face that swept through a thin nose and high cheekbones. She
was dressed in tracksuit trousers and a vest, her arms exposed. Even as forty
approached, she was still slender, the skin on her arms a pale pink, her
fingers long and graceful, as unblemished and smooth as a twenty-year- olds. In
her file, I remembered reading she was once a catalogue model. It was easy to
imagine.

    Except,
now, imagine was all you could do.

    Glass
had been halfway through surgery when she'd woken up. Pale blotches covered
much of her face, like dye spreading beneath her skin. Both cheeks were
entirely bleached. Even whiter lines had formed in the creases in her forehead
and in the gentle cleft of her chin, as if something had run across her face
and collected there. And it had spread to her neck too, along the ridges of her
throat. A scar followed her hairline on the right side of her face, and a
second one in the same position on her left. There was bruising too, where the
blotches hadn't formed: at the bridge of her nose it was almost black, like the
advanced stages of frostbite; and under both eyes purple-blue smears moved down
into her cheeks. Her eyes fell on me, chips of blue stone, narrowing slightly
as if waiting for me to react to the sight of her. I nodded once, smiled, but
didn't break my gaze. She stepped back from the door, glanced at Healy and
invited us both in.

    Immediately
inside was a thin hallway that opened out into a living room, three other rooms
leading from it. The first was the kitchen. Plates were piled in the sink, one
on top of the other. The next was a bedroom with only a bed and a stand-alone
wardrobe. The last was the bathroom. The extractor fan was still on as we came
in, condensation on the mirrors and her towel lying in the middle of the floor.

    The
living room was sparse: two sofas, both of which looked about five years past
their sell-by date, and a television on a cardboard box, leads snaking off to a
Sky decoder on the floor behind it. There was a small coffee table in the
corner. Books were stacked up on it, in two piles: ones that looked as if
they'd been read, and ones that looked new. A magazine lay on the floor between
one of the sofas and the TV, a crossword puzzle half filled in. There was a
laptop as well. It's where the
tap tap
had come from. On the screen I
could see she'd done a Google search for my name. The first hit had taken her
to the BBC website, where a news report recounted what had happened on my case
before Christmas. There was a photo of me leaving a police station, flanked by
Liz.