Long Time Lost (18 page)

‘Something occurred to me,’ Jennifer Lloyd said, when Foster eventually answered her mobile. It had already rung out twice before. ‘There’s something we haven’t focussed on nearly enough.’

‘Sorry? Who is this?’ A pause. ‘Lloyd? Is that you?’

‘Something is bothering me.’

‘Something is bothering
me
. I’m off duty, Lloyd. I’m on a
date
.’

A date, yes. Women like Foster did things like that. They socialised. They had a life outside of work.

Lloyd backed into the pillows she’d propped behind her on her hotel bed, the notes from her file scattered around her. She was staying in a Travelodge and her room was almost entirely bland. The only exception was the cheap, abstract piece of art on the wall across from her. She didn’t care for it.

‘Can’t this wait until tomorrow?’ Foster continued.

‘Think about this for a second – Sarah and Melanie Adams were killed the night before they were due to go into a protection programme. That suggests their killer had foreknowledge of their situation. Nick Adams had that knowledge.’

‘We’re really doing this, are we?’

‘Same thing applies on the Isle of Man with Kate Sutherland. Nick Adams shows up again. He finds her when she’s already in the programme.’

‘So you’ve basically just called to tell me you still think your theory holds water. That’s great.’

‘It does. I’m not worried about that.’

‘So then what
are
you worried about?’

Lloyd’s stomach rumbled. The radio alarm clock beside her bed told her it was just after 8 p.m. She supposed she should eat soon. She’d bought a cold pasty and a bottle of Lucozade from the petrol station linked to the Travelodge. She even had a bruised banana for dessert. Fine dining, for her.

‘How did Adams know? That’s what bothers me. How did he find out where Kate Sutherland was in hiding?’

‘We don’t know that.’

‘Or suppose you’re right. Suppose Connor Lane sent the dead guy to that house on the same night. How did he know where Sutherland was living?’

Foster sighed. ‘What’s your point?’

‘We could have a leak. If Nick Adams didn’t kill his family, we had a leak four years ago, too. But either way, we sure as hell have a security problem now. Somebody could be selling information.’

‘Come on.’

‘You come on. Unless you have another explanation?’

Foster fell silent for several long seconds and Lloyd glanced down to consider the yellow legal pad she’d been doodling on. There was one other alternative explanation. Possibly. But she wasn’t about to lay it out just yet.

‘
One minute
,’ she heard Foster whisper, presumably to whoever she was on her date with. There was the clink of a glass and the sound of liquid being poured.

‘You need to look into this,’ Lloyd told her.

‘Me?’

‘I’m outside of London. And now is the perfect time. It’s out of hours. It’s quiet. You need to get back to the incident room and check records. Check logins. See if anyone has been accessing Kate Sutherland’s file who shouldn’t have been.’

‘You expect me to do this now?’

Lloyd didn’t say anything. There was no need to push too hard. Foster already knew she had the ear of Commissioner Bennett.

‘OK,
fine
,’ Foster said. ‘But only because this date was never going to work out anyway.’

Lloyd heard the wounded plea of a male voice from somewhere close by.

‘Oh, please,’ Foster said, sotto voce. ‘You’re wearing a pork-pie hat. To a restaurant. Where do you think we are? The 1940s?’

Miller had the middle-aged guy behind the luggage counter at Roma Termini go back and check for their bags a second time. The guy was a jaded type who’d seen it all before, so he puffed out his cheeks and rolled his eyes, and then he did as he was asked, or maybe he just went around behind the partition wall that screened off the storage area from paying customers and pretended to do what he was asked, before returning empty-handed once more.

Miller was tired and irritable and emotionally wrung out – he’d drifted around the city in a daze with Kate in the hours since they’d left the hospital – and he barely listened to what the guy was trying to say before he told him that he wanted to take a look for himself. The guy refused. He said it wasn’t possible. And anyway, he’d already checked twice and their things were definitely gone.

Miller slapped a palm on the counter and asked to speak to the guy’s younger colleague, the one they’d dealt with earlier that day. Miller was told that wasn’t possible either, and when he swore and planted both hands on the counter as if he might vault over it, the guy backed off and told him in a hurry that his colleague had gone home sick.

‘What time did he leave?’

The guy exhaled and told him it had been around ten or eleven o’clock in the morning.

‘Which one? Ten, or eleven?’

‘Ten. I think.’

Miller looked down at the ticket stub in his hand. They’d deposited their luggage at 9.38 a.m
.

‘I want to speak to your manager. Now.’

But they couldn’t talk to the manager right away because she was on her break and she didn’t return for another twenty minutes, even though Miller made the guy behind the counter radio her. Twice.

Miller was in a fury by then. He was pacing the floor, cursing loudly. So when the young woman finally appeared, strolling across the station concourse with a two-way radio clipped to her belt and a can of Diet Coke in her hand, Kate stepped in front of him and apologised for calling her back from her break a little early.

The manager looked to be only five or six years out of school, but she was smartly dressed in a grey trouser suit with a crisp white blouse and an identity lanyard around her neck, and it was clear from both her appearance and her attitude that she took her job very seriously. She seemed genuinely concerned when Kate told her that their luggage appeared to be missing, and when Kate added that a good friend of theirs had been killed in a car accident just a few hours earlier and that they were drained and upset and really just wanted to collect their things and go to a hotel, the manager framed an expression of deep compassion and invited them to follow her through the hatch in the counter.

The luggage storage area was vast and well organised. There was row upon row of metal bins and wooden cubbyholes and clothes hooks, all of them numbered sequentially, many of them empty now that the day was nearly through. But there was no sign of Kate’s suitcase or Miller’s rucksack in any of the cubbyholes or bins close to where their numbered tags said they should be. There was no sign of them anywhere.

‘You have surveillance cameras.’ Miller pointed at the ceiling. It was a statement, not a question.

The manager winced. ‘But you leave your bags this morning. I’m sorry, this is a long time ago. I cannot go through it all now.’

‘Then let me look.’ Miller showed her the receipts for their bags. ‘We know the time we left our things. We know that one of your staff went home sick shortly afterwards. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.’

‘Please just let him,’ Kate added. ‘Believe me, he won’t let this go otherwise.’

The manager eyed Miller, gauging his resolve.

‘Thirty minutes of footage,’ he told her. ‘That’s all we need to see. And if I’m right about your luggage guy, you need to know about it. Think what else he might take.’

But Miller wasn’t right. At least not completely. Eight minutes into the footage, they saw something worse than he’d feared. The young guy behind the counter hadn’t taken the bags for himself. He’d exchanged them in return for a cash payment from a stocky blonde man in a blue tracksuit.

The manager propped her hands on her hips, holding back the tails of her suit jacket. ‘I will call the police. Tomorrow, I can speak with him. I will find out—’

‘Forget it,’ Miller told her. He was already removing his smartphone from his pocket, opening the camera app, snapping an image of the blonde man on screen. He grasped for Kate’s hand and pulled her out through the fold-up hatch in the middle of the counter.

‘We have insurance,’ the manager called after them. ‘You can fill in the forms. We will pay for your things.’

But Miller just shook his head without looking back, his thumbs tapping away at his phone, attaching the image to an email to Hanson.

‘That man,’ Kate was saying. ‘Miller, he was sitting behind me on the plane.’

‘He followed us from Hamburg.’

‘For Lane?’

‘Of course for Lane.’

‘But why? What does it mean?’

‘It means Christine wasn’t a target. And neither were we. At least not directly. Christine was a distraction. It could have been any of one of us.’

Which was not entirely true. Renner had been aiming for Kate, Miller was sure. But the repercussions would have been much the same.

He put his phone to his ear, scanning the area all around. The food outlets were almost empty and most of the shops in the underground section of the train station were shuttered and in darkness. The only person close to them was a maintenance guy in a blue jumpsuit, up on a ladder, pulling on a tangle of cables hanging from the ceiling.

The call connected and Hanson picked up.

He said, ‘We’re still so upset about Christine. Becca wanted to call you but she’s been kind of a mess. We both have, to tell the truth.’

‘No time for that now. We have a problem. One of Lane’s men got hold of our bags. He has our aliases.’

Hanson whistled.

‘He also has my iPad.’

‘It’s security protected.’

‘This was more than ten hours ago.’

Silence.

‘Can you wipe the iPad remotely?’

‘No problem. I’ve got this. Oh, and by the way, I just opened your email, and yikes – that guy’s eyes are so far apart he must have to walk sideways to see where he’s going. And check out his arms. He’s like a human crab. Relax, Miller, there’s no way this steroid-abuser could bypass my security patch.’

‘Just wipe it, OK? I want to be sure.’

Miller heard the rapid clatter of computer keys followed, seconds later, by a muted, ‘Huh.’

‘What?’

‘Minor issue. Somebody did get through my security. They’re blocking me.’

‘Can you get round it?’

‘Eventually.’ Miller heard more keystrokes. ‘But whoever they are, they’re good. I think we have to assume that the first thing they’ll have done is to copy all the data from the iPad on to another device.’

‘You’re telling me they have everything?’

‘That would be my guess.’

Miller hung up and covered his eyes with his hand.

‘What is it? Miller? What’s wrong?’

He told Kate.

‘So? It’s just an iPad.’

‘The details of my clients are on there.’

‘
All
of them?’

Miller lowered his hand from his eyes. ‘Nearly all. We’re talking real names, assumed names, locations, medical records, bank accounts. Pretty much everything except an exact address and recent headshots.’

‘Including Anna?’

‘Not her. But there are two others.’

‘And you think Lane’s men will go after them?’

‘Why not? Anna might be their goal now, but they must think my other clients are potentially valuable to them, too. They probably think they can get to Anna through them. Just like with Clive and Christine.’

‘Why not come for one of us? For you?’

‘Because they gambled. They took a chance on my iPad. They thought Anna’s details might be on there.’

‘And now they don’t know where we are.’

Miller spun round, checking to see if they were being watched. There was nobody near them except the maintenance guy. He looked legit.

‘They know we had to come back here. But more importantly, they know where I’m
going
to be. They know I have to go and protect my clients.’

‘Where are your clients?’

‘Prague. And Arles, in the South of France.’

‘So have Hanson contact them. Tell them to run.’

Miller phoned Hanson again, on speaker this time. But Hanson had more bad news.

‘I just tried sending them both private messages on the forum. I couldn’t do it. Our mystery computer expert has their usernames. Their accounts have been deleted. I’ll post a public message but I have no idea if they’ll see it.’

Miller shared a look with Kate. Maybe he should have kept some of this from her, but after Christine, he felt she deserved to know what was going on.

‘Keep at it. And speak to Becca. Maybe she can think of something else we can try.’

‘Speak to her yourself. She wants to talk to you.’

There was a moment of silence, then a series of muffled, shuffling noises as Hanson passed his phone across.

‘Hey,’ Becca said, and Miller could hear the torn quality in her voice. ‘About Christine—’ she began.

‘I know,’ he cut in. ‘Us too.’

Becca fell quiet. Miller hated to rush her but there were steps he should be taking.

‘Was there something, Becca? Things have gone a little crazy.’

‘Don’t be mad, OK?’

‘What do I have to be mad about?’

‘I couldn’t stand Clive being alone. I couldn’t stand just waiting. So I had Hanson make me an ID. Not his fault, OK? It was all my idea. I’ve been Clive’s sister, Rebecca Benson, for the last couple of hours. I’ve spoken with Clive’s doctors. I’ve been by his bed.’

Miller was silent for a moment.

‘I’m not mad,’ he told her. ‘I should have suggested it myself.’

‘He’s deteriorating pretty fast. I thought you should know.’

‘How long does he have?’

‘His doctor didn’t exactly say.’

‘You can tell me. Kate’s listening, too. She needs to hear it.’

‘The next twenty-four hours are crucial. That’s all I know. But I’m talking to him. I’m holding his hand. And . . . oh, wait, Hanson wants you back.’

Miller heard the clunk and the shuffling noises again, then Hanson was on the line once more.

‘Our friend in the picture – Crab Man – I ran a check on my database of Connor’s known associates. Nothing came up. Then I tried Mike Renner and got a hit. His name is Aaron Wade.’

‘What do we know about him?’

‘Not much. He has a record, naturally. Served eighteen months for GBH. But get this: it seems he had a disagreement with the manager of his boxing club. Guess how he resolved it?’

‘Violence?’

‘Specific violence. He took down a punchbag and strung the manager up in its place. He hung him
upside down
before he beat him.’

Miller caught Kate’s eye and she nodded. She’d made the same connection. It was just like Clive. Just like Patrick Leigh.

‘It hit the tabloids in a minor way,’ Hanson continued. ‘Seems to have earned him a nickname, too. The Hypnotist. How lame is that?’

‘Lame,’ Miller agreed. ‘Until you’re the punchbag. Keep working.’

He cut the call and cradled the mobile to his chest, staring at Kate, shaking his head, feeling foolish and vulnerable, more powerless than he had in years.

‘It’s OK,’ Kate told him. ‘You’ll come up with something.’

‘These people have a head start on me, Kate. They could be closing on my clients already. And I need to find them. I have to stop them. Stop this.’

‘So think: which witness will they go for first? Is one of them more vulnerable, or more likely to be in contact with Anna?’

‘Doesn’t matter. They don’t
have
to choose. There are two of them. There’s Renner and then there’s this Aaron Wade guy. They can split up.’

‘Maybe. But you’re forgetting something – there are also two of us. So tell me, where do you want me to go? The Czech Republic, or France?’

‘I can’t ask you to do that.’

‘Then ask Hanson or Becca instead.’

‘I need them in Hamburg. Clive needs them. And besides, they work the backroom. They’re not equipped to be front and centre.’

‘Which is why I’m volunteering.’

‘It’s a bad idea.’

‘Yeah, well, maybe all you have left to you now is bad ideas.’

‘You don’t have a passport any more.’ And also, he was thinking, the Kate Ryan alias was blown anyway. They couldn’t risk Kate travelling under the same name again. Eventually, Hanson would miss something. There’d be a gap he’d fail to plug. ‘You can’t fly.’

‘Neither can you.’

Which wasn’t strictly true.

Miller didn’t say anything. But then, he didn’t need to. He could see from the look in Kate’s eyes that she understood there was something he was keeping from her. Not that it mattered. He checked the station clock above her head. It was gone 9 p.m., and even if he could leave for the airport immediately, he doubted he’d make a flight to the Czech Republic or France in time.

Kate took his mobile from him and hit redial.

‘We’re calling Hanson back. We’re going to ask him to make me a new passport. And you’re going to tell him to find a way to get it to me as soon as possible.’

So Miller did. Because she’d asked him to. And because all he had left to him now were bad ideas.

Miller had been right about being stuck in Rome. There was no way he could have made a flight.

It was different for Renner and Wade. They were already at Fiumicino, staring up at the electronic departure boards. There were no flights to the South of France until early the following morning, but Czech Airlines had a direct flight to Prague, departing at 21.45. Check-in closed in ten minutes.

Wade said, ‘One of us should get on that plane. We should keep up the momentum. We should start looking right away.’

He was thinking the person to go should be Renner. This was his gig. He answered to Mr Lane directly. Wade was sub-contracted. And besides, he was wiped out. He wanted a night in an airport hotel. He wanted a hot shower and a room-service meal. After his breakthrough with the iPad, he
deserved
to lie flat on a sprung mattress and sleep for six or seven hours straight.