Long Time Lost (24 page)

Connor Lane leaned back in his leather desk chair, pinching his lips between his finger and thumb. He felt apprehensive and powerless, and didn’t like it one bit.

His feet were on the corner of his desk, his legs crossed at the ankle, and he was contemplating the bulge of the electronic tag beneath his Argyle socks. He wanted very badly to tear the tag away.

Instead, he reached forwards and put his desk phone on speaker, hitting a number on speed-dial. He was cradling his forehead as Renner picked up.

Renner sounded a long way away, his breathing pinched and ragged, and Connor could hear shouting and live music behind him.

‘I just talked with Russell,’ Connor said. ‘He’s not doing so good. They’re talking about pushing his trial back until they can locate Kate Sutherland. It could mean months of uncertainty. I’m not sure he can take it.’

‘You want me to talk to him?’

‘No, Mike. I want you to tell me this is going to be over soon. I want to be able to tell
him
that.’

‘We’re making progress.’

‘Progress.’ Connor lowered his hands and mimed squeezing something with his fingers and thumbs. Renner’s throat, perhaps. ‘You do understand what’s at stake here, don’t you, Mike?’

‘I understand.’

‘Well, let me lay it out for you all the same. Let me eradicate any doubt you might be experiencing.’

‘I don’t have any—’

‘Mike, listen to me. Here’s the problem: if Adams can get Kate Sutherland on that witness stand, that’s bad, no question. But if he can get Anna Brooks there, too – if she’s asked to give evidence about Russell and she stands in a courtroom shouting rape, no matter how much we work to discredit her – it’s going to be worse than bad. It’s going to end with a guilty verdict.’

Silence on the other end of the line.

Connor hated waiting. His approach to anything he wanted in life, and especially in business, was to push forwards relentlessly until he secured the outcome he desired.

‘Do you get it, Mike? This is about more than just money to me.’

‘I already said I understand.’

Connor pulled his feet down from the desk and lowered his mouth to the speaker. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Wade’s in Prague now. I’m waiting to hear from him.’

‘See, Mike? This is what I’m talking about. Stop waiting. I want results.’

‘But—’

‘Results, Mike. Russell needs them. I need them. And believe me, you and Wade need them, too. Because I think you know by now how much I hate to be disappointed.’

Miller walked beneath the towering spikes of the Tyn Church and on into the Old Town Square, his shoulders hunched, his hands buried deep in his pockets. Prague felt hostile tonight, the winding streets and Gothic architecture seeming to crowd in on him, mutating into something unpredictable and predatory.

He’d never felt threatened here before. Or watched. On previous visits to check on Darren, Prague had held a bittersweet charm because it was the last place where he’d taken a holiday with Sarah and Melanie before all their troubles began. It had been a spontaneous trip, which was pretty much unheard of for them. Sarah was a planner – the Control Freak, as Melanie had called her – and Miller was away from home so often with work that he disliked travelling when he took time off. But Melanie had just finished her GCSEs and Sarah had spotted a cheap deal with a low-cost airline, and he’d arrived home late one evening, worn down and wrung out, to find a suitcase on his bed, his clothes neatly packed and his passport resting on top.

They flew from Manchester early the following morning. Back then – though it seemed almost impossible to believe it now – he wasn’t widely travelled in Europe, and it had shown. He’d been bewildered by Prague from the moment of their arrival. He’d been ripped off by taxi drivers, insulted by waiters, left disorientated and confused when he’d misread a tourist map on a family outing to Wenceslas Square.

Sarah had taken control before he lost his temper completely. Melanie was sulking by then, caught up in a deep teenage funk, but Sarah had guided them towards a bar overlooking the river, where she’d ordered cold Czech lager and they’d found themselves sitting on a terrace in the sunshine, finally relaxing and beginning to smile. Melanie, high on beer buzz and the uncharted novelty of drinking in front of her parents, had started to goof off about Miller’s gormless tourist routine. They’d laughed, and had kept laughing the rest of the weekend.

He could almost hear the drifting echo of their laughter now as he paced towards the Astronomical Clock where they’d stood so many times because Melanie had begged to watch the mechanical show over and over, an indulgence for the child she’d once been and the adult she was yet to become.

Tonight, he skirted the group of tourists gathered in front of the tower, reluctant to look up at the patterned dial or the ghoulish, skeletal figure of Death, who lurked and waited to begin his next display by jerkily upending the hourglass gripped in his bony fingers.

Miller didn’t want to think about time. He didn’t want to concern himself with its cruel trickery. So he lowered his head and tried to ignore the sensation of the buildings creeping towards him, stretching above him, hemming him in.

At the Charles Bridge, where a dank breeze skimmed off the surface of the lamp-lit waters, he came close to running through the gauntlet of blackened statues that lined the parapets. He couldn’t stand to look at them – couldn’t stand to be seen by anyone at all – and kept his face averted as he dodged between buskers and portrait painters and young lovers holding hands.

The district of Malá Strana loomed ahead: a raggedy, tumbledown knot of buildings, domes and spires. He swept left, along Hroznová, then over a small bridge where the railings were covered in thousands of locked padlocks, couples leaving them here as a symbol of their everlasting love. Miller had shaken his head at the tradition the first time he’d seen it, waiting impatiently for Sarah and Melanie to catch up to him, bemused at why Sarah felt the need to trace her fingers over the coloured spectrum of rusted and corroded locks.

Then he’d noticed the wistful expression on her face, the faraway gaze that took hold of her as she spun the locks with a dull clatter. And so, very early the following morning, Miller had slipped out of bed and fetched the lock from his own suitcase and walked down to fasten it to the bridge.

He’d experienced a sense of euphoria on his return to their hotel room, but by the time he’d shed his clothes and crept back into bed, with Sarah stirring and murmuring beneath twisted sheets, he felt suddenly embarrassed by the gesture and pretended to be asleep. Only now did he realise what a fool he’d been not to tell her and it stung him anew to think that he could never bring her here to show her what she’d meant to him that day, and every day since.

If he’d felt inclined to linger, perhaps he could have found the very same lock. But the idea of searching for it seemed improper, somehow, after what had happened with Kate in Rome.

He still loved Sarah. He always would. And yet he felt an undeniable pull towards Kate. How much simpler it would be to ignore the attraction, to bury it deep. There was a twisted solace in the hurt that still rankled inside him, in the guilt and fear that walked with him each day. But four years had gone by. Four years to honour the memory of Sarah, to cherish the time they’d had together with Melanie. Four years to find a way to move on with his life.

And today, for the first time, despite everything that had gone against them, he could begin to see a way to believe that four years might be enough. Provided, that was, he could end this latest threat for good. Supposing, also, that with Kate’s help he could find some form of redemption for failing to protect his family by saving those clients he’d unwittingly placed in harm’s way.

He hurried on through alleyways and passageways, pursued by his grief and regrets, making his way back to the wide, charmless boulevard of Karmelitská, where a tram teetered towards him, blue sparks arcing from the web of overhead lines. Across the street, the light spill from the pet-shop window was a lurid, chemical green, similar to the water in the fish tanks at the back of the store. He looked up at Darren’s unlit apartment, at the deserted pavements and the shuttered businesses, then finally turned his head, his gaze sweeping past the closed doughnut shop and settling on the entrance to a three-star hotel.

The hotel was where he’d stayed with Sarah and Melanie. It was the main reason why he hadn’t wanted Darren moving here, to the same street. Whenever he visited Darren, he found himself gaping at the slowly revolving glass doors, remembering passing through them back then, thinking of walking through them once more, as if, somehow, he might be magically whisked back to a time before everything fell apart.

But not tonight – not ever – and so tugging the penlight and keys from his pocket, his fingers bloated with wetness and cold, he crossed to the pet shop and popped the lock and swept inside.

And noticed something.

The alarm didn’t sound.

Was Darren back early? Or was Wade waiting for him here?

He stood very still, listening to the burble of aquarium pumps, the squeak of a hamster on a wheel. There was a strong odour of sawdust and animal hair and meat paste. Spilt nuggets of dried cat food crunched under his boots as he crept past the counter towards a spinning rack loaded with squeaky toys and a low animal pen in which a rabbit thumped its hind leg fitfully.

He drifted by the wall of aquariums at the rear and on into the darkened stockroom, where he shone his penlight over the alarm control panel and could find no obvious signs of tampering.

His anxiety dampening down a little, he climbed the stairs to Darren’s apartment, aiming the beam of his penlight ahead of him, the disc of light skimming over the treads.

As he reached the top, he saw that the door was partway open, tapping against the jamb. His penknife was in his trouser pocket and he fumbled it out, tearing a nail as he tugged a blade free. He gripped the knife in his right fist down by his waist, the penlight held overhand by his left shoulder.

The door bounced off the frame once more, then started to swing back, and Miller moved with it, barging it aside, striding into the unlit room, his senses heightened to such a degree that he felt the slightest breeze against his face.

There was a faint shimmer to his right; the play of moonlight on net curtains. The nets drifted inwards, billowing and lifting, revealing a pair of glass French doors flung wide open.

Miller crept nearer, pushing the curtains aside, stepping through on to a balcony that looked down over the alley running behind the building and the entrance to the veterinary surgery below. The door to the surgery was thrown back, spilling a wedge of light on the ground.

Something cracked beneath his feet. Not cat food this time, but glass. He turned and saw that a door panel had smashed. Dropping to his haunches, he cast his torch around, catching the oily reflection from a slick of blood amid the glitter of shattered beads.

Leaning forwards, gripping the iron railings, he peered down into the alley and spotted a dumpster toppled on to its side, its wheels in the air, spewing yellow plastic bags branded with some kind of medical hazard symbol.

Something grazed the back of his neck and he spun fast, knife raised, into a tangle of curtain.

Nobody there.

Batting the fabric away, he looked down again and spied an abandoned shoe just beyond the dumpster. It was a Converse trainer, dirtied and worn, exactly the type Darren might wear. Miller pictured him limping away, his foot twisted, his ankle broken or sprained, after leaping off the balcony into the dumpster.

He must have been seriously scared to risk a fall like that. Which made all kinds of sense where a man like Aaron Wade was concerned.

Miller rocked back and raised his eyes to the blur of rain clouds overhead, asking himself if Darren could have got away, and if he hadn’t, where Wade might have taken him. And right then he was struck by a terrible thought.

Patrick Leigh. The construction crane in Manchester. Wade had strung Patrick up from the tallest structure he could find, and the highest point anywhere close to him now was the giant green cupola of St Nicholas Church, rising in a great swell just beyond the roofline of the buildings he was looking towards.

The church was undergoing renovation and was surrounded by scaffolding concealed behind a tarpaulin shroud. The tarpaulin was pale brown in colour and featured an outline drawing of the Baroque exterior of the landmark beneath.

At ground level, the perimeter of the building was shielded by temporary metal fencing set several metres back into the street, secured with industrial padlocks. The site was unlit and appeared to be empty and unguarded. Miller paused at the mouth of an alley near the rear of the church, scanning his surroundings. There was nobody behind him, nobody ahead, darkness all around.

He picked up his pace, breaking into a run, and lunged for a fence panel, grabbing hold of the top edge, springing from his toes. Which turned out to be a bad move. The metal was sharp and Miller was heavy. The panel cut his left hand. He hooked an elbow over the top, hoping to spread the load, and felt his skin break as the panel shook and flexed beneath him, threatening to tip until he heaved a leg over and dropped down on to grit and sand.

His palm was bleeding. The wounds weren’t deep, but blood was creeping through his shirtsleeve from where the ragged metal had sliced into his arm. He flexed his fingers, testing his movement, wincing at the stretch and sting.

There was a cement mixer near to him with a shovel resting against it. Beyond the mixer, a wooden ladder had been lashed to the scaffold.

Miller craned his neck and looked up. He couldn’t see any movement or hear any signs of a struggle. But the tarpaulin was thick and the scaffolding very high, and if Wade had forced Darren to climb to the top, they could be concealed from view.

He stepped forwards and grasped a sand-crusted rung, then climbed as far as the first floor of scaffold, where he switched to another ladder.

The cuts on his hand were sucking in grit and sand. On the next level of scaffold, he found a ratty piece of fabric tied loosely around a horizontal pole. It was a vest top. Perhaps it had once been white but now it was grimy with dirt and sweat.

Miller used his penknife to slice the vest in two, wrapping the fabric around his palm and tying it off with his teeth. When he was done, he flexed his fingers again. His movement was restricted but the pain was muffled. Tucking the knife away, he stepped over to the next ladder and climbed on.

The light wind that had buffeted him at ground level built steadily the higher he climbed. Strong gusts blasted the tarpaulin, making the scaffolding shake and rattle.

He passed stained-glass windows and carved masonry and gargoyles. He didn’t see or hear Wade, and he couldn’t spot Darren. Eventually he found himself on the very top deck, the rain spitting in his face, the wind blustering. He could see right across the night-time city, far beyond the roof of the hostel where he’d gazed from earlier. Stepping forwards and seizing hold of a scaffold pole, he leaned out and looked down over the cobbled square at the front of the church, where a few pedestrians scurried to and fro.

Miller had never liked heights, and certainly not on this scale. Maybe it had something to with his size, his bulk. He was big and rangy, prone to tripping.

A gust of wind slammed into him and he backed off from the edge, moving round the turquoise cupola, beneath the twin bell towers, craning his neck, searching out threats.

He was beginning to think he’d been mistaken. He seemed to be alone and forgotten up here. None of the passers-by down below were stopping and pointing. Nobody was standing back or screaming or giving any indication that they could see someone in trouble.

And yet somebody was in trouble, out of sight, at the very rear of the cupola, where Miller found Darren strung up by his ankles, his hands tied behind his back, suspended from a metal chain and dangling way above the spiked roof of the main church building.