The Disappeared (49 page)

Jenny
said, 'Please, Mike. I'm going to try to find Anna Rose, OK? I'd like to talk
to her before they do.'

'How?
Where are you going to go?'

'Do
you want to come with me?'

He
thought about it for a moment, then shook his head.

'If
I get anywhere I'll call you.'

He
nodded, seeming a little more confident now he'd settled on a course of action.
Jenny knew she had half an hour at the most. He'd last ten minutes before
picking up the phone and telling the police everything.

Jenny
drove in the direction of the Severn Bridge along minor roads, checking her
mirror for phantom pursuers. Heavy rain flecked with sleet pounded the
windscreen. She dialled McAvoy's number repeatedly without success. He was
switched off. Beyond her reach. She toyed with contacting Alison and asking her
to take another statement from Sarah Levin, but an instinct told her it would
be futile, that whatever story Sarah had yet to tell would remain locked down
until something far bigger gave way.

She
waited fifteen minutes in the empty reception area of Chepstow police station
for Detective Sergeant Owen Williams to make his way from the pub, from where
she had dislodged him with her enigmatic call. He greeted her with a fond,
resigned smile as he peeled off his wet coat.

'Mrs
Cooper. Never a dull moment with you, is there?'

'I'm
sorry. It's just one of those I can't trust with the boys across the water.'

'I
can only help if it's on my patch.'

'Elements
are.'

'Just
so long as I can tick the box.' He checked the time. 'Not going to take long,
is it? I haven't stood my round yet.'

'I'll
talk quickly.'

She
followed him through the security door to his office, a ten-by-ten cubicle
lined with steel shelves laden with dusty box files. His computer sat on a separate
desk protected by a plastic cover. The machine had the feel of an object which
was unveiled on special occasions only. While Williams spread his coat
carefully along the radiator, Jenny gave him a potted history of recent
developments in her investigation. He hadn't heard about Mrs Jamal's death and
was shocked, but not surprised, that he hadn't been informed of the presence of
a radioactive substance at the scene: his office was only a dozen miles from
the centre of Bristol, but as far as the English police were concerned it might
as well have been on the far side of the world. They treated their Welsh
colleagues with indifference bordering on contempt, and the feeling was mutual.

He
listened quietly, stroking his thick, greying moustache as she summarized the
evidence which had led to her search for Anna Rose. He was barely aware of her
disappearance, let alone her connection with a nuclear-power plant that stood
directly across the estuary from his station.

'Two
miles from here that bloody place is,' Williams said. 'And you know where the
tide brings the crap that comes out of it - right up the mouth of the Wye on
the Welsh side, here. They deny it, of course. Lying bastards.'

'Her
boyfriend gave me a mobile number she's been using. He thinks she may have been
picking up messages.'

'Where
from? There's nothing I can do if she's in England.'

'Think
of it this way: the last time Nazim and Rafi were seen they were heading over
the bridge into Wales. There's already evidence that would justify a criminal investigation
into kidnap, and Anna Rose is a potential witness.'

'I
see . . .' He was warming to the idea.

'All
I need is for you to get onto the phone company and find out the last known
location of that number.'

'How
soon do you want it?'

'Now?'

'You're
joking? You can't just magic this stuff up, Mrs Cooper. You have to pay. These
companies make you sell the farm for an expedited search - it'd be five grand
if it's a penny. I can't authorize that sort of money.'

'Well,
who can?'

'I
could try the Super, but I wouldn't hold your breath.'

'Then
we'll put it through my office.'

'Can
I have that in writing?'

'You
can have it in blood, if you like.'

Williams
looked at her with avuncular concern. 'Mrs Cooper, you know I don't mind
sticking my neck out for you from time to time, but only as long as we're on
the right side of the line. This girl's phone number and her whereabouts could
be classed as information connected with an act of terrorism, in which case
it's a serious offence not to disclose it to the appropriate authorities.'

'You
are the appropriate authority.'

'And
I have to obey the protocols - refer it up the chain of command. What I'm
saying - can I call you Jenny? - is that, no matter how much I'd love to steal
a march on those English crooks, this one can't be a secret.'

'Fine.
Just give me a few minutes' head start.'

Tracing
the last known position of a mobile phone was a new procedure to Williams. He
called several colleagues, conversing exclusively in Welsh, and learned that the
phone operators only dealt with such requests when they were made by certain
designated senior officers. Yet another phone call yielded the name of a
friendly detective inspector in Cardiff whom Williams persuaded, by telling
more half-truths than he was comfortable with, to broker the request. Then came
fifteen minutes of haggling with a surly official at the mobile network who
opened with a demand for £10,000. Williams beat him down to £6,000 at which
point the official dug in his heels.

What
the hell, Jenny said. There was no way her minuscule budget could cover it,
whatever he wanted. She produced her office credit card and prayed the payment
would clear. It didn't. Only after another fractious call to Visa and with
promises of a personal guarantee was the transaction approved.

After
more than an hour of cajoling and persuading, Jenny had the information she
wanted. Anna Rose's phone had last been connected to the network forty-eight
hours before. It had been located in an area - accurate to within one hundred
yards - centring on a section of Hanley Road, at the north end of central
Bristol. On that occasion it had been on for less than two minutes. It had also
been activated for a similar brief period, at the same location, three days
before that.

'I
hope it's bloody worth it,' Williams said, as he set down the phone.

'I'll
send the bill to Bristol CID,' Jenny said. 'They'll sure as hell want the
arrest.'

'Well,
give them my love, won't you, Jenny? And, while you're at it, a good hard kick
in the nuts.'

It
was after ten p.m. by the time Jenny crossed the Severn Bridge, heading for
Bristol on the motorway. She fought and failed to suppress the temptation to
switch on her own phone to try McAvoy's number one last time. No joy. She was
groping for the off switch when it rang. Her heart jumped as she glanced at
screen: UNKNOWN CALLER.

'Hello?'
The line was faint. She waited on tenterhooks for McAvoy's reply.

'Mrs
Cooper? DI Pironi. I've just been talking to Mike Stevens.'

Shit.

'About
time,' Jenny said.

'Who
the hell is this American?'

'You
tell me.'

'You've
been speaking to McAvoy. He knows.'

'Well,
ask him.'

'Where
is he?'

'Pass.'

Pironi
lost patience. 'You know the penalty for withholding this kind of
information.'

'I've
withheld nothing. I've already told the police everything I know.'

'Which
police?'

'Chepstow.'

'Dear
God. What the hell are you playing at, Cooper? I've got the anti-terrorist
branch, MI5 and uniform all out looking for Anna Rose Crosby. We could have a
dirty bomb maker out there.'

'I'd
just about worked that out.'

'If
you're holding anything back from me —’

'I'll
make you a deal. Whoever finds Anna Rose first, we both get to talk to her.'

'You
think either of us is going to be allowed anywhere near her? You're more
deluded than I thought.'

Jenny
said, 'I sense you're a man with a troubled conscience, Mr Pironi. If you
hadn't sat on your hands for eight years, Mrs Jamal might still be with us,
Anna Rose Crosby might still be going out to parties. Why don't you do the
decent thing and see if we can't both get what we want?'

There
was a brief pause, then Pironi said, 'I've reasonable suspicion that you have
withheld information concerning terrorist activity. I advise you to go to the
nearest police station and surrender yourself for arrest.'

Jenny
said, 'Have they told you to do this - the same high- ups that had you frame
McAvoy?'

'You
heard what I said.'

'You
should think hard about who you're working for. I'm not sure going to church is
doing the trick.'

Jenny
drove into the zone from which Anna Rose had picked up her messages. Cloaked in
sleet, the Victorian buildings that lined Harlowe Road were grimy and soot-
stained in the dingy orange street light. She crawled past a parade of
shuttered-up low-rent shops, several down-at-heel pubs and a shabby late-night
convenience store. She pulled into a side street and hurried back to it, her
coat pulled up over her hair.

An
elderly Asian man, wearing one cardigan on top of another and fingerless
gloves, was watching a Bollywood movie on a tiny TV perched precariously on the
tobacco shelf. Fishing in her handbag and producing a dog-eared card, Jenny
introduced herself and said she was looking for an attractive young woman he
might have seen in the shop recently.

The
old man squinted at the rain-smeared print. She gave him a charming smile,
aware that many among the Asian community regarded coroners with deep
suspicion. Traditional Hindus were opposed to autopsy, as were many Muslims.

'She's
a potential witness,' Jenny said. 'A young woman in her early twenties, short
blonde hair, intelligent, very pretty - you'd have noticed her.'

The
man drew down the corners of his mouth and shook his head.

Jenny
said, 'I know for a fact she was in this street two days ago. She might have
looked anxious, wary of people.'

It
seemed to stir his memory. 'English girl?'

'Yes.
Have you seen her?'

'I'm
not sure. Maybe. There's bed-and-breakfast places along there.' He gestured
eastwards with his thumb. 'A lot of young people use them, mostly foreigners.'

He
handed back her card.

'Thanks.
I appreciate it.'

He
frowned, gave a rattly cough and turned back to the TV.

The
first one she arrived at, the Metropole, was a converted Victorian villa with
flaking paint and a single bare bulb hanging in the porch. She approached the
tatty reception desk, behind which sat a slender woman with premature crow's
feet at the side of her eyes, and launched into a description of Anna Rose. The
receptionist responded with a blank look, then explained in a heavy East
European accent that the hotel's occupants were mostly foreign workers. Jenny
noticed that the laminated signs taped to the wall behind the desk were written
in Polish. The Metropole was a labourers' flop house. Anna Rose was not their
kind of guest.

Freezing
water seeped though the soles of her shoes as she dodged the angry traffic and
ran up the steps of the Hotel Windsor, which stood opposite. It considered
itself upmarket from its neighbours, but its feeble attempts at grandeur made
it tackier. The chintz sofas in the lobby were stained and sagging; the fraying
carpet was patched with duct tape. Jenny pressed a buzzer on the unmanned
counter. A short, fat man with a stained navy waistcoat and matching tie
emerged bleary-eyed from a back office. He wore a plastic badge that said,
'Gary, Assistant Manager'. His annoyance at being disturbed faded on seeing a
passably attractive woman. He gave her a greasy smile.

'Good
evening, madam. What can I do for you?'

Jenny
presented the card she'd shown the store keeper and ran through her story.
Shifting effortlessly from solicitous to unctuous, Gary said he didn't think
any of his guests matched the description.

Jenny
detected a note of uncertainty. 'You're sure about that? What about the daytime
staff - is there anyone I can call?'

He
scratched his head and thought again. 'There has been a girl staying here for a
few days, but she had black hair, short, like a crew cut. . .'

'What
was her name?'

'Sam,
Sarah . . . something like that. . .' He tapped on his computer. 'That's her -
Samantha Stevens.'

'Is
she still here?'

'She
checked out earlier this evening - about an hour ago.'

It
figured. If she'd collected her messages tonight, there were bound to have been
several from Mike. She would know about the American and that he was coming for
her.