Long Time Lost (20 page)

Kate’s plane landed at Marseilles in the flat blue light of late afternoon, her nerves shaken by the unscheduled delay to her flight and too much bitter airline coffee. Inside the terminal building, she stood in line and waited to be beckoned forwards by a bored-looking passport official behind a scratched glass cubicle, where she handed over her new passport (now in the name Kate Edwards) and waited for what felt like several seconds too long as her face and her credentials were studied before she was finally acknowledged and waved on through.

She had no luggage to collect and no time to waste, so once she’d exited the airport building she veered away from the lines of dawdling tourists and shuffling taxis to hop on a transit bus out to the vast hire car collection point. The white Hyundai saloon that Hanson had reserved for her was parked out front of the Avis building with a child-safety seat already fitted in the back. Kate signed for it with her fake signature, handing over her false passport and driving licence for verification and copying. Then she scooped up the Hyundai’s keys and sped away from the depot, rejoining the slip road to the airport and swooping into the drop-off zone outside of Departures.

Hanson and Becca were waiting for her there, standing together beside a revolving glass door, looking tired and frazzled. Hanson clambered into the rear of the Hyundai, dragging his laptop bag and cloth satchel behind him, while Becca popped the boot and stowed her carry-on suitcase before hurrying round and joining Kate in the front.

‘Any problems?’ she asked.

‘None. You?’

‘Only the embarrassment of watching Hanson try to charm the stewardess. Let’s go.’

Kate pulled out from the kerb and accelerated away, watching her mirrors even though logic told her they couldn’t have been followed because they were the ones playing catch-up.

She noticed that Hanson had opened his laptop and was poring over the screen.

‘Anything?’ she asked.

‘Still nothing. I’ve posted a new message on the forum. Maybe that’ll help.’

He didn’t sound like he believed it, which wasn’t surprising, because Kate didn’t believe it either. The way their day was going, it felt like everything was against them. Kate had been forced to wait at the airport in Rome until Becca and Hanson had arrived with her new ID documents shortly before mid-morning. They’d had an hour to kill before the next available flight to Marseilles, but that hour had soon become three because of a problem with the landing gear on their plane. They’d investigated other flights, talked of splitting up and trying alternative routes, but none of the options were simple or fast. So they’d waited, all the while asking themselves if they were too late already, if one of Lane’s men had beaten them to Pete and Emily.

At one point, in desperation, Kate had suggested contacting the local police in Arles, but Hanson had ruled it out. He said they had no credible way of explaining the threat Pete and Emily were facing without exposing them to even greater danger. Waiting was safer. They had to hold their nerve.

Tell that to Pete and Emily, Kate thought now, speeding north along the A7
autoroute
, her window low, the warm wind ruffling her T-shirt and hair. Tell it to Clive.

Becca had called Miller’s mobile with the news at three in the morning. Clive hadn’t pulled through.

Miller had been silent for a long time, breathing heavily down the line, sitting up in bed, clutching his head, staring through the dark blue light towards the open window. Then he’d composed himself and told Becca to leave the hospital as soon as she could. Clive’s death was a murder investigation now, he’d said, and as his self-declared sister, the police would want to speak with her in detail. It would be better for Becca to come to Rome with Hanson. Better for both of them to support Kate in Arles.

Then Miller had said how sorry he was, that Becca had made a difference to Clive in his last moments, and that because of that she’d also made a difference to him, too. He’d thanked her for it sincerely, and told her to stay strong, and then he’d hung up and walked through into the bathroom without another word.

Kate had stayed in bed, clutching the sheets around her, feeling a bewildering sense of loss and loneliness that had only grown worse when Miller had returned to the room and dressed quickly, pulling on his jeans and a shirt, sitting down on the side of the bed, resting a hand on her leg, telling her to be careful if she went ahead and travelled to Arles. He’d said she could still back out if she wanted. She didn’t have to go. But if she chose to commit to helping Pete and Emily, then she should drive directly to their house and only park up and approach if it seemed safe from the outside. If she spotted Renner or Wade, if she felt threatened or at risk, she should turn and go.

But of course, if she saw one of Lane’s men then in all likelihood they would have seen her, too. And even supposing she was able to get away, how could she run and abandon someone else to the terrible things that had been done to Clive and Christine?

Kate glanced over her shoulder at the child seat in the rear. A kid was caught up in this situation now and that made it so much worse than before. Without Miller she felt cast adrift and untethered, left to speed towards a situation that seemed too big and complex for her to handle.

She missed having him beside her. She missed the connection they shared, something genuine and kinetic that she’d experienced from the very first night he’d broken into her life. She’d trusted him because of what had happened afterwards, but she also knew that, deep down, part of her had wanted to believe in him from that very first encounter.

So was she driving to Arles to impress him, to act on some kind of dumb infatuation? Or was her motivation more noble than that?

Hard to tell. Impossible to know. But it seemed that she was doing it all the same. It seemed that she wouldn’t back out.

‘Something on your mind?’ Becca asked.

‘Just nervous. And feeling sad about Clive.’

‘Uh-huh. Because if it’s something else, Gadget Boy isn’t listening to us right now. He gets this way when he’s working on his laptop. It’s like he’s plugged into the Matrix or something. We can talk girl-to-girl.’

Kate kept her gaze on the asphalt and the traffic.

‘You got a piece of Miller, didn’t you? You guys finally hooked up.’

Kate didn’t respond.

‘Was it good? I bet it was hot. Last night, right? Rome. A strange hotel. Lots of emotions rolling around.’

‘Just so you know,’ Hanson spoke up, from the back, ‘I
can
hear you.’

‘Exactly how many times did you guys do it? More than once, right?’

‘Don’t answer that,’ Hanson said. ‘I don’t want images of Miller like that in my head. Seriously, if you answer that question I’m opening this door right now and rolling out.’

‘Relax,’ Kate told him. ‘Becca’s just fishing. And I’m not going to bite.’

She slowed and glided towards the toll station that lay ahead of them, Becca squinting at her forensically as she squirmed in her seat and dug in her pocket for some loose euro coins to toss into the machine. The barrier lifted and she pulled away, sliding up her window, her eyes flicking to Hanson in her mirror.

‘Miller’s wife,’ she said. ‘Sarah. He told me you help him because of her.’

‘He said that to you?’

‘He said I should ask you about it if I want to know more. So that’s what this is. I’m asking.’

Hanson blinked, the whites of his eyes red-tinged and magnified by the lenses of his spectacles. He tipped his head from side to side, weighing it up. Then he sucked on his lips and nodded.

‘Anna Brooks. I was like her once. Except I was one of the first kids Sarah helped at the Shelter. She took me in off the street. She talked with me, listened to me.’

‘I had no idea. I’d never have guessed.’

‘Because Sarah saved me, just like she saved hundreds of other kids. She set me straight. Gave me security, stability. She got me access to computers, even set me up with some advanced programming experience at local companies.’

‘And you feel like you owe her because of that.’

‘I do owe her. But honestly? I also owe the thousands of other kids who’ll never get to have what I had because of what Connor Lane took from them. The ones who’ll never meet Sarah.’

‘But Connor funded the Shelter. He still does.’

‘Sure. And he got a neat tax break from doing it, maybe some slaps on the back from politicians, people with influence. But Sarah was the one who made a real difference. To me, and to lots of kids like me. Russell Lane dishonoured that, but his brother? By killing Sarah he ripped the heart right out of that place.’

Becca reached back, touching Hanson’s leg, and he looked away for a moment, leaving Kate to stare ahead at the road, absorbing his words. She was closing fast on a line of trucks, getting ready to indicate and swing out to overtake. When she glanced at her mirror again, Hanson was waiting for her.

‘That’s why I understand what you gave up to be a part of this,’ he told her. ‘The search for your brother? Walking away from that link to your family? I get it, Kate. I do. I walked away from the same thing myself. But only because Sarah gave me a future. Because of her, Miller and Becca are the only family I need right now.’

Kate understood what he meant, but it wasn’t the same thing. Not really. She hadn’t chosen to leave her birth family behind. Her parents had left her. And as for Richard, she still hoped, deep down, to find her way to him some day. She wasn’t prepared to let go of that particular dream just yet. She doubted she ever would.

Jennifer Lloyd got out of her car in front of a pebble-dashed bungalow in Lancaster, stepped over a garden hose and approached a balding man in a blue jumpsuit and rubber boots who was washing a small car.

‘Mr Brooks?’

Suds dripped from the sponge in his hand, splatting on the ground.

‘I’m DS Lloyd. I spoke with your wife. It’s about Anna.’

‘You’d best come in. Have some tea.’

The tea was as weak and lifeless as Mr and Mrs Brooks. Lloyd found herself sitting opposite them in a chintzy living room, snared by a silence as complete as any she’d ever known.

‘This is lovely, thank you.’ She raised her cup in the air.

The Brookses were almost completely still; their mouths tightly closed, skin puckered and drawn. A carriage clock ticked quietly on the mantelpiece, flanked by two framed photos of Anna in school uniform. She looked ten or eleven in one of the photographs. Perhaps a year or two older in the next. Her hair was frizzy, her chin speckled with pimples, her smile hesitant and gap-toothed.

‘You’re probably wondering why I’m here.’

Lloyd’s hosts didn’t say a word.

‘I know this might be painful but I hoped you might tell me about Anna. I’d like to try and find her.’

Their heads twitched and they looked at one another, eyes vague.

‘We don’t understand.’ Mrs Brooks’s voice was tight and waspish. ‘Is she in trouble?’

‘That’s not why I’m here. I’d just like to find her and make sure that she’s safe.’

And I’d like to know if Nick Adams is hiding her. I’d like to know if she could tell me where I might find
him
.

‘We haven’t seen Anna since the day after her fifteenth birthday.’ Mr Brooks’s tone was neutral, his gaze unfocussed. ‘Not since she ran away.’

‘When was the last time you heard from her?’

‘She never got in touch. We only know what happened in Manchester because of the papers. And because of the police officers who came to talk to us afterwards.’

 ‘We tried speaking to her before then,’ Mrs Brooks added quietly. ‘We visited the shelter where she was staying before the trial, but she wouldn’t see us.’

‘What about the police officers who spoke with you after she left the shelter?’

‘They didn’t stay long. They told us there wasn’t much they could do. Anna was sixteen by then. She could go where she liked.’

Lloyd felt reduced by their words, shamed by their fatalism. Because the truth was that in the wake of the deaths of Sarah and Melanie Adams, none of her colleagues had made a concerted, co-ordinated effort to find Anna. Not even Lloyd.

And why? Because she was a runaway. Nobody had cared enough to wonder where she might have gone.

Except for her parents, probably. She guessed they worried about it every day.

‘I’m sorry.’ Lloyd set her cup aside, shuffling forwards in her chair and pressing her hands together. ‘But that was wrong.
We
were wrong. And I’d like to fix things, if I can. I’d like to be the one to help you find Anna. I’d like to try and make it so that you can talk to her again. But to do that, I need to ask you questions about her.’

Mr Brooks reached across for his wife’s hand.

‘Ask us then,’ he said. ‘Ask us anything you need to know.’

The plan changed when they reached Arles. It was evening, twilight fading rapidly, and Kate found that she couldn’t drive to Pete and Emily’s house because the walled town was closed to traffic, shut off by an endless sequence of metal barriers, plastic cones and uniformed police. She circled the outskirts, finding no way through, until eventually she pulled over by the banks of the Rhône river, cut the engine and cracked her window.

She could hear music – a fast, percussive beating of drums – mixed with boisterous clapping and shouts. On the far side of the patch of sandy earth where she’d parked, people were queuing in front of food vans serving pizza, paella, burgers and frites. Gaseous generators spewed noxious fumes into the warm dusk.

‘Uh-oh.’ Hanson looked up from his phone. ‘There’s a bull-fighting festival going on. Pedestrian access only.’

‘So what do we do?’

‘We walk in,’ Becca said.

‘All of us? Isn’t that a bit risky?’

Kate was thinking of Miller’s instructions. He’d been very clear about only getting out of the car if she was sure it was safe.

‘Hanson can stay here. If we need to leave in a hurry, he can pick us up.’

‘I’ll guide you in.’ He pecked at his laptop keyboard. ‘I’ve called up a map. Stay on your mobile and I can track your movements.’

‘Neat idea.’ Becca plucked the satnav from its cradle on the dash and shoved open her door. ‘But I think somebody already invented just the tool we need. Sit tight, kiddo. Leave this one to us.’

Mike Renner’s legs ached and his feet were hot and swollen inside his loafers. He’d spent hours already going from bar to bar, shop to shop, growing sweatier, more frustrated. He was carrying a photograph he’d printed from one of the few news articles he’d been able to find online about the killings of the crew of an executive jet in Ukraine. He’d shown the photograph to hundreds of people, shouting over music, being jostled and pushed, asking if anyone recognised the man and the little girl being hugged by the smiling stewardess.

Nobody did. Nobody cared. And now Renner had an overwhelming need for space, for air. He wanted to be in a place where he wasn’t being bumped into constantly, where people didn’t dance around him or spill beer on his clothes.

Arles wasn’t a big place, yet Renner felt like he’d walked every inch of it twice already. Surely an Englishman and his daughter would stand out. They’d be memorable. Which worried him. Because what if he’d screwed up by running with Wade’s plan? What if the information on the iPad had been a plant and Adams had sent them off on a fool’s errand?

From what Renner had come to know of Adams these past few years, it was the type of stunt he was capable of pulling off. But was it likely? He had no way of telling. The only thing he was sure of was that his patience was running low, his persistence dwindling. He was almost ready to quit. He wanted out of this cramped town, the whole place feeling to him like one big closed fist, squeezing and crushing him.

A street stall lay ahead, selling freshly squeezed lemonade in plastic cups burrowed deep in trays of chipped ice. There was no queue. Everyone else seemed too busy getting drunk.

Renner removed his sun hat as he approached, longing to grab a handful of ice and clamp it to his neck. He nodded at one of the young men running the stall – a muscular guy with curly brown hair and a deep tan who looked like a surfer or a climber – and set his hat to one side, propping the photograph on its brim.

The young man glanced at the image, then glanced again. His face brightened and he asked Renner in broken English how he knew Peter and Emily.

‘Pete’s a friend of mine,’ Renner said, smiling himself now. ‘Emily’s precious, isn’t she?’

The young man nodded eagerly and smiled some more as Renner reached into his back pocket to remove the crumpled map of Arles he’d picked up at the bus station.

‘Maybe you can help me? We’re meant to be meeting, but I’ve lost their address. Can you show me where they live?’