Long Time Lost (5 page)

Detective Sergeant Jennifer Lloyd leaned against a wall on the far side of the incident room, squeezing a squash ball in her palm. The blue rubber was dulled and cracked from months of handling. Lloyd gripped it beneath her fourth and fifth fingers, working through a series of rapid compressions. Her routine with the ball had started out as a strengthening exercise to speed her recovery from a broken wrist she’d sustained while apprehending a suspect. But the exercise had proved habit-forming, and now she found that it was a useful way of relieving stress.

Not that it was working so well tonight.

Lloyd looked around the room and saw at least three colleagues she would happily throw the ball at. Hard.

The headquarters of the UK Protected Persons Service was located in the Central Bureau of the National Crime Agency near St James’s Park, London. Lloyd had been seconded to the unit four months ago. This was her third time inside the Major Incident Room in the basement of the building. Already, it was by far the most frustrating experience she’d faced.

There were twelve of them in the room. Lloyd’s eleven colleagues had significant experience of working with protected persons. They believed in the principles of the service and were committed to shielding the individuals placed under their care.

Lloyd was different. She had no problem with a programme that offered sanctuary to innocent people at extreme risk. But she’d been parachuted in by a senior officer who shared her concerns about how the scheme was being used to provide known offenders with amnesty in return for their testimony at important trials.

Officially, Lloyd had a watching brief. Unofficially, she was a mole. Everyone on the team understood her function. Everyone distrusted and disliked her. Which was generally fine by Lloyd, because at least they were open about it.

Across from her, beyond the central table and the computer terminals where her colleagues were gathered, three whiteboards were fitted to the wall. The board on the far right was empty. The board in the middle contained a handwritten timeline of known events on the Isle of Man. The board on the left was crammed with key data about Kate Sutherland.

A headshot of Sutherland was tacked up on the board. She had dark red hair, lightly freckled skin and striking green eyes. Several of Lloyd’s male colleagues had lingered in front of the image. One of them, DS Quinn, had made a crack about volunteering to ‘debrief’ her once she was she found.

Lloyd had never had that kind of effect on men. She knew she never would. It wasn’t that she was ugly exactly. It was simply that she was plain. She was average height, average weight, an average dresser – average in every physical attribute.

All of which made her an excellent observer because people tended to forget about her. Which was a mistake, because while Lloyd appeared to be entirely average, in reality she was anything but. She was highly intelligent, extremely driven, and ruthless in her ambition to get ahead.

Above the trio of whiteboards a flatscreen television cycled through a sequence of images that had been emailed to the team by a crime-scene officer on the Isle of Man. The photographs showed different angles of the body of the dead intruder. The corpse had been discovered late that morning by a DI Shimmin, who’d responded when Kate had failed to check in with him by phone at the beginning of the day.

The dead man was currently unidentified but it was clear to everyone in the team that he’d accessed the property armed with a suppressed pistol with the objective of killing Kate Sutherland.

So far, Lloyd had remained silent as her colleagues had reacted to the situation and put the established protocols into action. She’d watched them work the phones and the computers as they liaised with the Isle of Man Constabulary and pulled together all the available information. That was part one of the investigation and it had been slick and impressive.

Then part two had begun and Lloyd had bit her tongue as the team analysed the data they’d amassed. They’d speculated about who the dead man might be and debated whether he was a random intruder or, as seemed more likely, a hired killer. They’d settled on Connor Lane as the most likely candidate to have hired him. They’d spoken in concerned tones about Kate Sutherland’s welfare, her possible whereabouts and her likely responses to being targeted. They’d talked about how they might contact her without blowing her cover, how best to reassure her and let her know that it was safe to come in.

And then Lloyd had finally had her fill of it. Because there was something fundamental they were overlooking.

She pushed off from the wall and crossed the room, slipped the squash ball into her pocket and snatched up a marker pen. She scrawled eight words on the empty whiteboard, then thumped her fist so hard against it that everyone in the room turned to stare.

The camera flash was startlingly bright. Kate blinked but the flash fired again, and again, and instantly she was transported back to that darkened bedroom, the muzzle flare lighting up the terror-struck eyes of the masked man looming over her.

‘That’s perfect.’ Hanson checked the digital screen on the back of his camera. ‘You can relax now.’

Kate drifted away from the white photographic backdrop, a faint whistling in her ears and a taste like aniseed in her mouth. She steadied herself against Hanson’s chair as he downloaded the photographs to one of his laptops.

And then there she was. A collection of head-and-shoulder shots. Washed out. Stark. Somehow reduced. Her, but different. The cropped red hair styled into a no-nonsense bob. The peach lipstick, in the same pale tone as the underwear she had on. Like a stranger. Or maybe a long-lost twin sister, one who’d grown up in a completely different environment to Kate, with a look and a bearing all her own.

And a style that positively repelled men, judging by the way Hanson had grimaced, clutching his hands to his head, the first time she’d followed Becca out of the bedroom.

She had on dark blue jeans with a high waist, a baggy pale blue sweatshirt and white trainers over white sports socks.

Next to her, Becca looked glam and effortlessly fabulous, armed with the make-up brushes and foundation she’d used to tailor Kate’s appearance, and it occurred to Kate that this was the exact opposite of all the dumb rom-com movies she’d ever seen. This time, the cool girl had worked her magic only to transform Kate into the ultimate dork.

‘That works,’ was all Miller had to say, from where he was slouched on a high wooden stool over by the kitchen counter, surrounded by wonky cabinets, a stained fridge-freezer and a grotty, fat-smeared cooker.

He hadn’t moved or spoken since. He was monitoring events silently and Kate had to fight an urge to go over and shake him. Didn’t he get how freaked out she was? Didn’t he understand that this was more than just routine for her?

It was different from before, with the police. Back then, she’d been told that she’d come out of protection shortly after Russell’s trial. Everything had been officially sanctioned. Everything had been reversible.

Here, there was no safety net.

She wasn’t only afraid of what she was getting into. She was scared by everything she was giving up. Not just her life as she knew it, but also the life she’d hoped to have. She was smart enough to know she couldn’t walk away from this unscathed.

‘Gotcha.’

Hanson had selected the least flattering headshot, opened it in a new window and tweaked a series of parameters. Then he hit a key and a compact black machine started to whir and hum until it spat out a British passport, opened to the laminated page at the back. Hanson removed the document and wafted it in the air. He bent it and crushed it, then handed it to Kate.

‘Kate Elizabeth Ryan,’ she read.

‘It’s best you keep your first name,’ Miller explained. ‘Easier to remember in pressure situations.’

It was the opposite of the advice the police protection officers had given her.

‘Why Ryan? Why Elizabeth?’

‘Why not?’ Becca asked.

‘Kate Elizabeth Ryan,’ she said again. But the name meant nothing to her.

Hanson eyed her from over the tops of his spectacle frames. ‘In case you were wondering, you should be totally impressed by me right now.’

‘Will it work?’

‘I’m not going to pretend that doesn’t hurt.’ He took the passport back, wheeling his chair over to another laptop where he tapped a key and typed a password into the dialogue box that appeared onscreen. He flattened the passport and slipped it beneath a scanner.

There was a brief pause before multiple lines of green text appeared over a black background.

‘What is this?’

‘The main database for the National Passport Office. If you pass through UK border control and an officer scans your passport, this is what they’ll see.’

‘You mean it’ll look like this?’

‘No, I mean it
is
this. I have a back door into their system.
That’s
how good I am.’

Kate felt a smile tug at her lips. A sudden flush of confidence.

‘Hanson, I am
seriously
impressed by you right now.’

‘More like it.’

‘But I have one question: what else can you do?’

Hanson could do plenty, as it turned out. First he produced a driving licence with Kate’s new headshot on it. Then he manufactured credit and debit cards. Everything was in the name Kate Elizabeth Ryan.

‘That’s the easy part. Now I have to start work on transferring your funds to your new accounts.’

‘How long will it take?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Is it dangerous?’

‘Only if I get distracted and screw it up. And I probably will, if you keep standing here, watching over me.’

‘It’s late, honey.’ Becca was sitting on the floor with her back against the wall, holding her heeled shoes by their ankle straps. ‘Why don’t you go across the hall and get some rest? Let the Boy Wonder do his thing.’

Kate peered at the time at the bottom of Hanson’s screen. It was nudging past midnight. She’d been awake for almost twenty-four hours. She was wiped, but she was afraid to be alone, and it was unnerving to think of her identity being stripped apart and remodelled while she slept.

Over at the kitchen counter, Miller was still slouched forwards on his crossed forearms, watching in silence. Was he pleased with how things were going? Was she passing his unspoken test?

She kneaded the muscles at the back of her neck and crossed to the nearest window, pulling the net curtain aside. The street below was in darkness, a third-rate amusement arcade closed and shuttered up.

There was no sign of any faceless men lurking in the shadows. No car parked ominously along the street.

But she felt anxious all the same.

‘Will you come with me?’ she asked Becca.

‘I have to stay and keep Hanson awake. Take Miller. You can ignore his strong, silent routine. He could use some rest, too.’

Kate let go of the curtain and faced him directly. He held her gaze without moving, then finally pushed himself up on the heels of his hands, summoning a crumpled smile.

‘I’ll take the couch. Beats listening to Hanson bang on about how terrific he is.’

The office of the deputy governor of Strangeways prison in Manchester was little bigger than an inmate’s cell. It contained a cheap L-shaped desk with a dusty computer and a telephone to one side, a bank of metal filing cabinets and a wilting money plant. But the cramped space had one thing going for it – in a building designed to keep Category A prisoners under constant supervision, it was one of the few places where privacy could be guaranteed.

Mike Renner perched on the edge of the desk with an old paperback novel curled into a tube in his hands. By Renner’s watch, he’d been waiting a little over eight minutes, which was eight minutes too long.

He could feel a damp chill spreading across his shoulder blades, a constriction in his throat. He’d loosened his tie and collar but somehow it still felt as if an invisible noose had been slipped over his neck.

Three more minutes crawled by before the door was pushed open and Russell was led inside by a guard in uniform. Russell stood slump-shouldered in his dark blue sweater and matching jogging trousers, contemplating his black training shoes as the guard headed for the door.

‘Hey,’ Renner called after him. ‘Take off the cuffs.’

‘Cuffs stay on. I’m not authorised to undo them.’

‘Not authorised. Really?’ Renner reached out a hand and lifted the desk phone from its cradle. ‘What do you think? Will your boss have a problem with me waking him at home to tell him you’re being a prick?’

The guard wavered a moment, then let out a heavy sigh as he freed his keys from his belt and walked over to loosen Russell’s restraints.

‘I’m going to be waiting right outside this door.’

‘Sure.’ Renner waved him off. ‘Whatever makes you feel like you’re in control here.’

Russell waited until he was gone before looking up with a slight smile. He rubbed at his wrists, stepping closer to reach for Renner’s hand and pull him off the desk into an embrace.

‘How are you holding up?’ Renner asked, slapping his back, pushing him away so he could search his face.

But Russell didn’t answer. He just swiped at his nose with a knuckle, then sniffed and pointed at the book. ‘What did you bring me?’

Renner unfurled the paperback. The colours were faded, the pages yellowed, the spine splintered and cracked.

‘Think maybe I’ve read this one before.’

‘I think maybe you have, too. But it’s a good one.’

The book was a Western, taken from the collection Renner stored in a pile of boxes in the shed at the bottom of his garden. Renner had been loaning the books to Russell since the boy was a teenager. In the years after Larry and Diane had disappeared, he’d often walked the grounds of the Lane estate with Russell, or watched over him as he built dens in the nearby woods, talking through the stories together, sharing which parts they liked most, the characters they admired, the women they lusted after.

Renner missed those days. He’d been blessed with two daughters but the bond he shared with Russell was something beyond that. It felt purer and more profound than his sense of loyalty and responsibility towards Connor. Something more, truth be told, than he’d ever experienced with either of his girls.

Larry’s vanishing act had given him the precious gift of his relationship with Russell, and there were times when he was shamed by how happy it made him. But to see him here, now – to look at his pallid skin, his sunken cheeks and the dark whorls around his eyes; to hear the broken quality of his voice – was almost too much for Renner to take.

‘Anyone giving you trouble?’

Russell fanned the pages of the book, shaking his head. Connor’s money had paid for his brother’s safety inside. Renner had made sure that word got around Strangeways fast that Russell Lane was off-limits. But there was always the danger that some young punk looking to build a reputation for himself might decide to have a go.

‘Your brother says your legal team are really shaping up.’

Russell gave him a familiar one-eyed squint and tapped the book with his nail. ‘There’s something about the sheriff, isn’t there? A secret in his past?’

So Renner quit trying to have a real conversation, motioned for Russell to hop up next to him on the desk and started talking about the book instead. But as he gave his take on the plot and the characters, saying how he still thought the sheriff was a fool for setting off to hunt down the crew of bank robbers instead of bunking down with the raven-haired rancher’s girl, all he could really do was think about Russell.

He thought of Anna Brooks, the teenage runaway who’d accused him of violent rape four years ago; of how he hadn’t believed it then and couldn’t believe it still. And he thought of Helen Knight, the young lawyer who’d been found dead not two months ago now, her bloated body washed up on the shores of Lake Windermere, less than a mile from the Lane estate. Russell was the last person known to have seen her alive. Patrick Leigh had watched Helen get into Russell’s car on the day she went missing. Kate Sutherland had witnessed them arguing.

Renner sneaked a look at the man sitting beside him, the lost boy he still reminded him of in so many ways, and something in his heart told him that Russell had been unlucky two times over, accused of sickening crimes he didn’t have the capacity to commit.

But also, deep down, he couldn’t ignore a stirring of unease; the thought that somehow, biologically speaking, the meek lad he knew, the sweet kid who liked to build dens and talk Western stories, might also have inherited Larry’s lust for violence and destruction, just as Connor had inherited his ruthless ambition and drive for success.

Right now, sitting so close to Russell that he could have reached out and cupped his neck, kissed his head, whispered to him that he was going to do everything necessary to protect him, the thing that scared Renner most in all the world was the idea that twelve complete strangers, the members of a jury called to pass judgement on Russell, might be able to discern that quality in him, too.

So as Renner talked of the heroes and villains of the Old West, of noble intentions and sacrifice and doomed romantic love, he renewed a vow he’d made to himself and to Connor four years before.

No trial of Russell Lane would ever take place. Renner refused to allow it. During the past four years, Nick Adams had proved highly adept at disappearing. He was entirely capable of teaching Kate Sutherland to live off the grid. So finding them both was never going to be simple. And if that meant taking an unconventional approach – even an unprecedented gamble, for Renner – then it was something he was more than willing to do.