Chasing the Dead

1

Sometimes, towards the end, she would wake me by tugging at the cusp of my shirt, her eyes moving like marbles in a jar, her voice begging me to pull her to the surface. I always liked that feeling, despite her suffering, because it meant she’d lasted another day.

Her skin was like canvas in those last months, stretched tight against her bones. She’d lost all her hair as well, except for some bristles around the tops of her ears. But I never cared about that; about any of it. If I’d been given a choice between having Derryn for a day as she was when I’d first met her, or having her for the rest of my life as she was at the end, I would have taken her as she was at the end, without even pausing for thought. Because, in the moments when I thought about a life without her, I could barely even breathe.

She was thirty-two, seven years younger than me, when she first found the lump. Four months later, she collapsed in the supermarket. I’d been a newspaper journalist for eighteen years but, after it happened a second time on the Underground, I resigned, went freelance and refused to travel. It wasn’t a hard decision. I didn’t want to be on the other side of the world when the third call came through telling me this time she’d fallen and died.

On the day I left the paper, Derryn took me to a plot she’d chosen for herself in a cemetery in north London. She looked at her grave, up at me, and then smiled. I remember that clearly. A smile shot through with so much pain and fear I wanted to break something. I wanted to hit out until all I felt was numb. Instead, I took her hand, brought her into me, and tried to treasure every second of whatever time we had left.

When it became clear the chemotherapy wasn’t working, she decided to stop. I cried that day, really cried, probably for the first time since I was a kid. But — looking back — she made the right decision. She still had some dignity. Without hospital visits and the time it took her to recover from them, our lives became more spontaneous, and that was an exciting way to live for a while. She read a lot and she sewed, and I did some work on the house, painting walls and fixing rooms. And a month after she stopped her chemo, I started to plough some money into creating a study. As Derryn reminded me, I’d need a place to work.

Except the work never came. There was a little — sympathy commissions mostly — but my refusal to travel turned me into a last resort. I’d become the type of freelancer I’d always loathed. I didn’t want to be that person, was even conscious of it happening. But at the end of every day Derryn became a little more important to me, and I found that difficult to let go.

Then one day I got home and found a letter on the living-room table. It was from one of Derryn’s friends. She was desperate. Her daughter had disappeared, and the police didn’t seem to be interested. I was the only person she thought could help. The offer she made was huge — more than I’d deserve from what would amount to a few phone calls — but the whole idea left me with a strange feeling. I needed more money, and had sources inside the Met who would have found her daughter in days. But I wasn’t sure I wanted my new life to join up with my old one. I wasn’t sure I wanted any of it back.

So I said no. But, when I took the letter through to the back garden, Derryn was gently rocking in her chair with the tiniest hint of a smile on her face.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘You’re not sure if you should do it.’

‘I’m sure,’ I said. ‘I’m sure I shouldn’t do it.’

She nodded.

‘Do you think I should do it?’

‘It’s perfect for you.’

‘What, chasing after missing kids?’

‘It’s perfect for you,’ she said. ‘Take this chance, David.’

And that was how it began.

I pushed the doubt down with the sadness and the anger and found the girl three days later in a bedsit in Walthamstow. Then, more work followed, more missing kids, and I could see the ripples of the career I’d left behind coming back again. Asking questions, making calls, trying to pick up the trail. I’d always liked the investigative parts of journalism, the dirty work, the digging, more than I’d liked the writing. And, after a while, I knew it was the reason I never felt out of my depth working runaways, because the process, the course of the chase, was the same. Most of tracking down missing persons is about caring enough. The police didn’t have time to find every kid that left home — and I think sometimes they failed to understand why kids disappeared in the first place. Most of them didn’t leave just to prove a point. They left because their lives had taken an uncontrollable turn, and the only way to contend with that was to run. What followed, the traps they fell into afterwards, were the reasons they could never go back.

But despite the hundreds of kids that went missing every day of every year, I’m not sure I ever expected to make a living out of trying to find them. It never felt like a job; not in the way journalism had. And yet, after a while, the money really started coming in. Derryn persuaded me to rent some office space down the road from our home, in an effort to get me out, but also — more than that, I think — to convince me I could make a career out of what I was doing. She called it a long-term plan.

Two months later, she died.

2

When I opened the door to my office, it was cold and there were four envelopes on the floor inside. I tossed the mail on to the desk and opened the blinds. Morning light erupted in, revealing photos of Derryn everywhere. In one, my favourite, we were in a deserted coastal town in Florida, sand sloping away to the sea, jellyfish scattered like cellophane across the beach. In the fading light, she looked beautiful. Her eyes flashed blue and green. Freckles were scattered along her nose and under the curve of her cheekbones. Her blonde hair was bleached by the sun, and her skin had browned all the way up her arms.

I sat down at my desk and pulled the picture towards me.

Next to her, my eyes were dark, my hair darker, stubble lining the ridge of my chin and the areas around my mouth. I towered over her at six-two. In the picture, I was pulling her into me, her head resting against the muscles in my arms and chest, her body fitting in against mine.

Physically, I’m the same now. I work out when I can. I take pride in my appearance. I still want to be attractive. But maybe, temporarily, some of the lustre has rubbed away. And, like the parents of the people I trace, some of the spark in my eyes too.

I turned around in my chair and looked up at them. At the people I traced.

Their faces filled an entire corkboard on the wall behind me. Every space. Every corner. There were no pictures of Derryn behind my desk.

Only pictures of the missing.

After I found the first girl, her mother put up a notice; to start with, on the board in the hospital ward where she worked with Derryn, and then in some shop windows, with my name and number and what I did. I think she felt sorry at the thought of me — somewhere along the line — being on my own. Sometimes, even now, people would call me, asking for my help, telling me they’d seen an advert in the hospital. And I guess I liked the idea of it still being there. Somewhere in that labyrinth of corridors, or burnt yellow by the sun in a shop window. There was a symmetry to it. As if Derryn still somehow lived on in what I did.

I spent most of the day sitting at my desk with the lights off. The telephone rang a couple of times, but I left it, listening to it echo around the office. A year ago, to the day, Derryn had been carried out of our house on a stretcher. She’d died seven hours later. Because of that, I knew I wasn’t in the right state of mind to consider taking on any work, so when the clock hit four, I started to pack up.

That was when Mary Towne arrived.

I could hear someone coming up the stairs, slowly taking one step at a time. Eventually the top door clicked and creaked open. She was sitting in the waiting area when I looked through. I’d known Mary for a few years. She used to work in A with Derryn. Her life had been fairly tragic as well: her husband suffered from Alzheimer’s, and her son had left home six years earlier without telling anyone. He eventually turned up dead.

‘Hi, Mary.’

I startled her. She looked up. Her skin was darkened by creases, every one of her fifty years etched into her face. She must have been beautiful once, but her life had been pushed and pulled around and now she wore the heartache like an overcoat. Her small figure had become slightly stooped. The colour had started to drain from her cheeks and her lips. Thick ribbons of grey had begun to emerge from her hairline.

‘Hello, David,’ she said quietly. ‘How are you?’

‘Good.’ I shook her hand. ‘It’s been a while.’

‘Yes.’ She looked down into her lap. ‘A year.’

She meant Derryn’s funeral.

‘How’s Malcolm?’

Malcolm was her husband. She glanced at me and shrugged.

‘You’re a long way from home,’ I said.

‘I know. I needed to see you.’

‘Why?’

‘I wanted to discuss something with you.’

I tried to imagine what.

‘I couldn’t get you on the telephone.’

‘No.’

‘I called a couple of times.’

‘It’s kind of a…’ I looked back to my office. To the pictures of Derryn. ‘It’s kind of a difficult time for me at the moment. Today, in particular.’

She nodded. ‘I know it is. I’m sorry about the timing, David. It’s just… I know you care about what you’re doing. This job. I need someone like that. Someone who cares.’ She glanced at me again. ‘That’s why people like you. You understand loss.’

‘I’m not sure you ever understand loss.’ I looked up, could see the sadness in her face, and wondered where this was going. ‘Look, Mary, at the moment I’m not tracing anything — just the lines on my desk.’

She nodded once more. ‘You remember what happened to Alex?’

Alex was her son.

‘Of course.’

‘You remember all the details?’

‘Most of them.’

‘Would you mind if I went back over them?’ she asked.

I paused, looked at her.

‘Please.’

I nodded. ‘Why don’t we go through?’

I led her out of the waiting area and back to my desk. She looked around at the photos on the walls, her eyes moving between them.

‘Take a seat,’ I said, pulling a chair out for her.

She nodded her thanks.

‘So, tell me about Alex.’

‘You remember that he died in a car crash just over a year ago,’ she said quietly, as I sat down opposite her. ‘And, uh… that he was drunk. He drove a Toyota, like his father used to have, right into the side of a lorry. It was only a small car. It ended up fifty feet from the road, in the middle of a field; burnt to a shell, like him. They had to identify him from dental records.’

I didn’t know about the dental records.

She composed herself. ‘But you know what the worst bit was? That before he died, he’d just disappeared. We hadn’t seen him for five years. After everything we’d done as a family, he just… disappeared.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

‘The only thing he left me with was the memory of his body lying on a mortuary slab. I’ll never get that image out of my head. I used to open my eyes in the middle of the night and see him standing like that next to my bed.’

Her eyes glistened.

‘I’m sorry, Mary,’ I said again.

‘You met Alex, didn’t you?’

She took out a photograph. I hadn’t ever met him, only heard about him through Derryn. She handed me the picture. She was in it, her arms around a man in his early twenties. Handsome. Black hair. Green eyes. Probably five-eleven, but built like he might once have been a swimmer. There was a huge smile on his face.

‘This is Alex. Was Alex. This is the last picture we ever took of him, down in Brighton.’ She nodded towards the photograph and smiled. ‘That was a couple of days before he left.’

‘It’s a nice picture.’

‘He was gone five years before he died.’

‘Yes, you said.’

‘In all that time, we never once heard from him.’

‘I’m really sorry, Mary,’ I said for a third time, feeling like I should say something more.

‘I know,’ she said quietly. ‘That’s why you’re my only hope.’

I looked at her, intrigued.

‘I don’t want to sound like a mother who can’t get over the fact that her son is dead. Believe me, I know he’s dead. I saw what was left of him.’ She paused. I thought she might cry, but then she pulled her hair back from her face, and her eyes were darker, more focused. ‘Three months ago, I left work late, and when I got to the station I’d missed my train. It was pulling out as I arrived. If I miss my train, the next one doesn’t leave for fifty minutes. I’ve missed it before. When that happens I always walk to a nice coffee place I know close to the station and sit in one of the booths and watch the world go by.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Anyway, I was thinking about some work I had on, some patients I had seen that day, when I…’ She studied me for a moment. She was deciding whether she could trust me. ‘I saw Alex.’

It took a few moments for it to hit me. She’s saying she saw her dead son.

‘I, uh… I don’t understand.’

‘I saw Alex.’

‘You saw Alex?’

‘Yes.’

‘What do you mean, you saw him?’

‘I mean, I saw him.’

I was shaking my head. ‘Wh— How?’

‘He was walking on the other side of the street.’

‘It was someone who looked like Alex.’

‘No,’ she replied softly, controlled, ‘it was Alex.’

‘But… he’s dead.’

‘I know he’s dead.’

‘Then how could it possibly be him?’

‘It was him, David.’

‘How is that possible?’

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said, ‘but I’m not crazy. I don’t see my mother or my sister. I swear to you, David, I saw Alex that day. I saw him.’ She moved forward in her seat. ‘I’ll pay you up front,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s the only way I can think to persuade you that what I am saying is true. I will pay you money up front. My money.’

‘Have you reported this?’

‘To the police?’

‘Yes.’

She sat back again. ‘Of course not.’

‘You should.’

‘What’s the point?’

‘Because that’s what you do, Mary.’

‘My son is dead, David. You think they’d believe me?’

‘Why did you think I would believe you?’

She glanced around the room. ‘I know some of your pain, David, believe me. My cousin died of cancer. In many ways, the disease takes the whole family with it. You care for someone for so long, you see them like that, you get used to having them like that, and then, when they’re suddenly not there, you lose not only them, but what their illness brought to your life. You lose the routine.’

She smiled.

‘I don’t know you as well as I knew Derryn, but I do know this: I took a chance on you believing me, because if, just for a moment, we reversed this situation and you’d seen the person you loved, I know you’d take a chance on me believing you.’

‘Mary…’

She looked at me as if she’d half expected that reaction.

‘You have to go to the police.’

‘Please, David…’

‘Think about what you’re—’

‘Don’t insult me like that,’ she said, her voice raised for the first time. ‘You can do anything, but don’t insult me by telling me to think about what I’m saying. Do you think I’ve spent the last three months thinking about anything else?’

‘This is more than just a few phone calls.’

‘I can’t go to the police.’ She sat forward in her seat again and the fingers of one of her hands clawed at the ends of her raincoat, as if she was trying to prevent something from ending. ‘Deep down, you know I can’t.’

‘But how can he be alive?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘He can’t be alive, Mary.’

‘You can’t begin to understand what this is like,’ she said quietly.

I nodded. Paused. She was pointing out the difference between having someone you love die, like I had, and having someone you love die then somehow come back. We both understood the moment — and because of that she seemed to gain in confidence.

‘It was him.’

‘He was a distance away. How could you be sure?’

‘I followed him.’

‘You followed him? Did you speak to him?’

‘No.’

‘Did you get close to him?’

‘I could see the scar on his cheek where he fell playing football at school.’

‘Did he seem… injured?’

‘No. He seemed healthy.’

‘What was he doing?’

‘He was carrying a backpack over his shoulder. He’d shaved his hair. He always had long hair, like in the photograph I gave you. When I saw him, he’d shaved it off. He looked different, thinner, but it was him.’

‘How long did you follow him for?’

‘About half a mile. He ended up going into a library off Tottenham Court Road for about fifteen minutes.’

‘What was he doing in there?’

‘I didn’t go in.’

‘Why not?’

She stopped. ‘I don’t know. When I lost sight of him, I started to disbelieve what I had seen.’

‘Did he come back out?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he see you?’

‘No. I followed him to the Underground, and that’s where I lost him. You know what it’s like. I lost him in the crowds. I just wanted to speak to him, but I lost him.’

‘Have you seen him since?’

‘No.’

I sat back in my chair. ‘You said three months ago?’

She nodded. ‘Fifth of September.’

‘What about Malcolm?’

‘What about him?’

‘Have you said anything to him?’

She shook her head. ‘What would be the point? He has Alzheimer’s. He can’t even remember my name.’

I paused, glanced down at the photo of Derryn on my desk. ‘Switch positions with me, Mary. Think about how this sounds.’

‘I know how it sounds,’ she replied. ‘It sounds impossible. I’ve been carrying this around with me for three months, David. Why do you think I haven’t done anything about it until now? People would think I had lost my mind. Look at you: you’re the only person I thought might believe me, and you think I’m lying too.’

‘I don’t think you’re ly—’

‘Please, David.’

‘I don’t think you’re lying, Mary,’ I said. But I think you’re confused.

Anger passed across her eyes, as if she could tell what I was thinking. Then it was gone again, replaced by an acceptance that it had to be this way. She looked down into her lap, and into the handbag perched on the floor next to her. ‘The only way I can think to persuade you is by paying you.’

‘Mary, this is beyond what I can do.’

‘You know people.’

‘I know some people. I have a few sources from my newspaper days. This is more than that. This is a full-blown investigation.’

Her hand moved to her face.

‘Come on, Mary. Can you see what I’m saying?’

She didn’t move.

‘I’d be wasting your money. Why don’t you try a proper investigator?’

She shook her head gently.

‘This is what they get paid to do.’

She looked up, tears in her eyes.

‘I’ve got some names here.’ I opened the top drawer of my desk and took out a diary I used when I was still at the paper. ‘Let me see.’ I could hear her sniffing, could see her wiping the tears from her face, but I didn’t look up. ‘There’s a guy I know.’

She held a hand up. ‘I’m not interested.’

‘But this guy will help y—’

‘I’m not explaining this to anyone else.’

‘Why not?’

‘Can you imagine how many times I’ve played this conversation over in my head? I don’t think I can muster the strength to do it again. And, anyway, what would be the point? If you don’t believe me, what makes you think this investigator would?’

‘It’s his job.’

‘He would laugh in my face.’

‘He wouldn’t laugh in your face, Mary. Not this guy.’

She shook her head. ‘The way you looked at me, I can’t deal with that again.’

‘Mary…’

She finally lowered her hand. ‘Imagine if it was Derryn.’

‘Mary…’

‘Imagine,’ she repeated, then, very calmly, got up and left.

3

I was brought up on a farm. My dad used to hunt pheasant and rabbits with an old bolt rifle. On a Sunday morning, when the rest of the village — including my mum — were on their way to church, he used to drag me out to the woods and we’d fire guns.

When I was old enough, we progressed to a replica Beretta he’d got mail order. It only fired pellets, but he used to set up targets in the forest for me: human-sized targets that I had to hit. Ten targets. Ten points for a head shot, five for the body. I got the full one hundred points for the first time on my sixteenth birthday. He celebrated by letting me wear his favourite hunting jacket and taking me to the pub with his friends. The whole village soon got to hear about how his only child was going to be the British army’s top marksman one day.

That never happened. I never joined the army. But ten years later I found a jammed Beretta, just like the one he’d let me use, on the streets of Alexandra, a township in Johannesburg. Except this one was real. There was one bullet left in the clip. I found out later the same day that a bullet, maybe even from the gun I’d found, had ended the life of a photographer I’d shared an office with for two years. He’d dragged himself a third of a mile along a street, gunfire crackling around him, people leaping over his body — and died in the middle of the road.

At the house I rented later that night, I removed the bullet from the gun, and have kept it with me ever since. As a reminder of my dad, and our Sunday mornings in the forest. As a reminder of the photographer who left this world, alone, in the middle of a dust-blown street. But mostly, as a reminder of the way life can be taken away, and of the distance you might be prepared to crawl in order to cling on to it.

It had just gone nine in the evening when I called Mary and told her I’d take the case. She started crying. I listened to her for a few minutes, her tears broken up by the sound of her thanking me, and then I told her I’d drive out to her house the next morning.

When I put the phone down, I looked along the hallway, into the bowels of my house, and beyond into the darkness of our bedroom, untouched since Derryn died. Her books still sat below the windowsill, the covers creased, the pages folded at the edges where she couldn’t find a bookmark. Her spider plant was perched above it, its long, thin arms fingering the tops of the novels on the highest shelf.

Since she’s been gone I haven’t spent a single night in there. I go in to shower, I go in to water her plant, but I sleep in the living room on the sofa, and always with the TV on. Its sounds comfort me. The people, the programmes, the familiarity of it — they help fill some of the space Derryn used to occupy.

4

I got to Mary’s house, a cavernous mock-Tudor cottage an hour west of London, just before ten the next morning. It was picture-perfect suburbia, right at the end of a tree-lined cul-de-sac: shuttered windows, a wide teak-coloured front porch and flower baskets swinging gently in the breeze. I walked up to the door and rang the bell.

A few moments later, it opened a sliver and Mary’s face appeared. Recollection in her eyes. She pulled the door back and behind her I could see her husband, facing me, on the stairs.

‘Hello, David.’

‘Hi, Mary.’

She moved back, and I stepped past her. Her husband didn’t move. He was looking down at a playing card, turning it over in his hands. Face up. Face down.

‘Would you like some coffee or tea?’

‘Coffee. Thanks.’

She nodded. ‘Malcolm, this is David.’

Malcolm didn’t move.

‘Malcolm.’

Nothing.

‘Malcolm.’

He flinched, as if a jolt of electricity had passed through him, and he looked up. Not to see who had called him but to see what the noise was. He didn’t recognize his name.

‘Malcolm, come here,’ Mary said, waving him towards her.

Malcolm got up, and shuffled across to us. He was drawn and tired, stripped of life. His black hair was starting to grey. The skin around his face sagged. He was probably only a few years older than Mary, but it looked like more. He had the build of a rugby player; maybe once he’d been a powerful man. But now his life was ebbing away, and his weight was going with it.

‘This man’s name is David.’

I reached out and had to pull his hand out from his side to shake it. He looked like he wasn’t sure what I was doing to him.

When I let go, his hand dropped away, and he made his way towards the television, moving as if he was dosed up. I followed him and sat down, expecting Mary to follow. Instead, she headed for the kitchen and disappeared inside. I glanced at Malcolm Towne. He was staring at the television, the colours blinking in his face.

‘You like television?’ I asked him.

He looked at me with a strange expression, like the question had registered but he didn’t know how to answer it. Then he turned back to the screen. A couple of seconds later, he chuckled to himself, almost guiltily. I could see his lips moving as he watched.

Mary returned, holding a tray.

‘Sorry it took so long. There’s some sugar there, and some milk.’ She picked up a muffin, placed it on to a side plate and handed it to her husband. ‘Eat this, Malc,’ she said, making an eating gesture. He took the plate from her, laid it in his lap and looked at it. ‘I wasn’t sure how you took it,’ she said to me.

‘That’s fine.’

‘There’s blueberry muffins, and a couple of raspberry ones too. Have whichever you like. Malcolm prefers the raspberry ones, don’t you, Malc?’

I looked at him. He was staring blankly at his plate. You can’t remember what muffin you prefer when you can’t remember your own name. Mary glanced at me, as if she knew what I was thinking. But she didn’t seem to care.

‘When did Malcolm first show signs of Alzheimer’s?’

She shrugged. ‘It started becoming bad about two or three years ago, but I guess we probably noticed something was wrong about the time Alex disappeared. Back then it was just forgetting little bits and pieces, like you or I would forget things, except they wouldn’t come back to him. They just went. Then it became bigger things, like names and events, and eventually he started forgetting me and he started forgetting Alex.’

‘Were Alex and Malcolm close?’

‘Oh, yes. Always.’

I nodded, broke off a piece of blueberry muffin.

‘Well, I’m going to need a couple of things from you,’ I said. ‘First up, any photos you can lay your hands on. A good selection. Then I’ll need addresses for his friends, his work, his girlfriend if he had one.’ I nodded my head towards the stairs. ‘I’d also like to have a look around his room if you don’t mind. I think that would be helpful.’

I felt Malcolm Towne staring at me. When I turned, his head was bowed slightly, his eyes dark and half hidden beneath the ridge of his brow. A blob of saliva was escaping from the corner of his mouth.

‘Stop staring, Malc,’ Mary said.

He turned back towards the TV.

‘Was Alex living away from home when he disappeared?’

She nodded. ‘Yes. But he’d come back here for a holiday for a few weeks before he left.’

‘Where was he living?’

‘Bristol. He’d gone to university there.’

‘And after university?’

‘He got a job down there, as a data clerk.’

I nodded. ‘What, like computer programming?’

‘Not exactly,’ she replied quietly. The disappointment showed in her eyes.

‘What’s up?’

She shrugged. ‘I asked him to come back home after he graduated. The job he had there was terrible. They used to dump files on his desk all day, and he’d input all the data, the same thing every single day. Plus the pay was awful. He deserved a better job than that.’

‘But he didn’t want to come back?’

‘He was qualified to degree level. He had a first in English. He could have walked into a top job in London, on five times the salary. If he had moved back here, he’d have paid less rent and it would have been a better springboard for finding work. He could have devoted his days to filling out application forms and going for interviews at companies that deserved him.’

‘But he didn’t want to come back?’ I asked again.

‘No. He wanted to stay there.’

‘Why?’

‘He’d built a life for himself in Bristol, I suppose.’

‘What about after he disappeared — you never spoke to him?’

‘No.’

‘Not even by telephone?’

‘Never,’ Mary reaffirmed, quieter this time.

I made her run over her story again. Where she saw Alex. When. How long she followed him for. What he looked like. What he was wearing and, finally, where she lost him. It didn’t leave me a lot to go on.

‘So, Alex disappeared for five years, and then died in a car crash —’ I glanced at my pad ‘— just over a year ago, right?’

‘Right.’

‘Where did he crash the car?’

‘Just outside Bristol, up towards the motorway.’

‘What happened with the car?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘No personal items were retrieved from it?’

‘It was just a shell.’

I moved on. ‘Did Alex have a bank account?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he withdraw any money before he left?’

‘Half of his trust fund.’

‘Which was how much?’

‘Five thousand pounds.’

‘That’s it?’

‘That’s it.’

‘Did you check his statements?’

‘Regularly — but it was pointless. He left his card behind when he went, and he never applied for a replacement as far as I know.’

‘Did he have a girlfriend?’

‘Yes.’

‘Down in Bristol?’

Mary nodded.

‘Is she still there?’

‘No,’ Mary said. ‘Her parents live in north London. After Alex disappeared, Kathy moved back there.’

‘Have you spoken to her at all?’

‘Not since the funeral.’

‘You never spoke to her after that?’

‘He was dead. We had nothing to talk about.’

I paused. Let her gather herself again.

‘So, did he meet Kathy at university?’

‘No. They met at a party Alex went to in London. When he went to uni, she followed him down there.’

‘What did she do?’

‘She worked as a waitress in one of the restaurants close to the campus.’

I took down her address. I’d have to invent a plausible story if I was about to start cold-calling. Alex had been dead for over a year.

As if reading my mind, Mary said, ‘What are you going to tell her?’

‘The same as I’ll tell everyone. That you’ve asked me to try and put a timetable together of your son’s last movements. There’s some truth in that, anyway. You would like to know.’

She nodded. ‘I would, yes.’

Mary got up and went to a drawer in the living room. She pulled it open and took out a letter-sized envelope with an elastic band around it. She looked at it for a moment, then pushed the drawer shut and returned, laying the envelope down in front of me on the table.

‘I hope you can see now that this isn’t a joke,’ she said, and opened a corner of it so I could see the money inside.

I laid my hand over the envelope and pulled it towards me, watching Mary as she followed the cash across the table.

‘Why do you think Alex only took half of the money with him?’

She looked up from the envelope and for a moment seemed unsure of the commitment she’d just made. Perhaps now the baton had been passed on, she’d had a moment of clarity about everything she’d asked me to do — and everything she believed she’d seen.

I repeated the question. ‘Why only half?’

‘I’ve no idea. Maybe that was all he could get out at once. Or maybe he just needed enough to give him a start somewhere.’ She looked around the room and quietly sighed. ‘I don’t really understand a lot of what Alex did. He had a good life.’

‘Do you think he became bored of it?’

She shrugged and bowed her head.

I watched her for a moment, and realized there were two mysteries: why Mary believed she had seen Alex walking around more than a year after he’d died; and why Alex had left everything behind in the first place.

His room was small. There were music posters on the walls. His A Level textbooks on the shelves. A TV in the corner, dust on the screen, and a VCR next to it with old tapes perched on top. I went through them. Alex had had a soft spot for action movies.

‘He was a big film buff.’

I turned. Mary was standing in the doorway.

‘Yeah, I can see. He had good taste.’

‘You think?’

‘Are you kidding?’ I picked up a copy of Die Hard and held it up. ‘I was a teenager in the eighties. This is my Citizen Kane.’

She smiled. ‘Maybe you two would have got on.’

‘We would have definitely got on. I must have watched this about fifty times in the last year. It’s the best antidepressant on the market.’

She smiled again, then looked around the room, stopping on a photograph of Alex close by. Her eyes dulled a little, the smile slipping from her face.

‘It’s hard seeing everything left like this.’

I nodded. ‘I know it is.’

‘Do you feel the same way?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Exactly the same.’

She nodded at me, almost a thank you, as if it was a relief to know she wasn’t alone. I looked towards the corner of the room, where two wardrobes were positioned against the far wall.

‘What’s in those?’

‘Just some of the clothes he left behind.’

‘Can I look?’

‘Of course.’

I walked across and opened them up. There wasn’t much hanging up, but there were some old shirts and a musty suit. I pushed them along the runner, and on the floor I could see a photograph album and more books.

‘These are Alex’s?’

‘Yes.’

I opened up the album and some photographs spilled out. I scooped them up off the floor. The top one was of Alex and a girl who must have been his girlfriend.

‘Is this Kathy?’

Mary nodded. I set the picture aside and looked through the rest. Alex and Mary. Mary and Malcolm. I held up a photograph of Malcolm and Alex at a caravan park somewhere. It was hot. Both of them were stripped down to just their shorts, sitting next to a smoking barbecue with bottles of beer.

‘You said they were close.’

‘Yes.’

‘You don’t think Malcolm would remember anything?’

‘You can try, but I think you’d be wasting your time. You’ve seen how he is.’ She glanced back over her shoulder, and then stepped further into the room. ‘There were times when I felt a bit left out, I suppose. Sometimes I would get home and the two of them would be talking, and when I entered the room they’d stop.’

‘When was that?’

‘For a while before Alex disappeared, I guess.’

‘Right before he disappeared?’

She screwed up her face. ‘Maybe. It was a long time ago. All I know is, the two of them, most of the time, were attached at the hip.’

I looked around the room again, my eyes falling upon a photo of Malcolm and Alex. The one person who knew Alex the best was the one person I had no hope of getting anything from.

5

I left Mary’s just after midday. Once I hit the motorway, the traffic started to build; three lanes of slowly moving cars feeding back into the centre of the city. What should have been an eighty-minute drive to Kathy’s family home in Finsbury Park turned into a mammoth two-hour expedition through London gridlock. I stopped once, to get something to eat, and then chewed on a sandwich as I inched through Hammersmith, following the curve of the Thames. By the time I had finally parked up, it was just after two.

I locked the car and moved up the drive. It was a yellow-bricked semi-detached, with a courtyard full of fir trees and a small patch of grass at the front. A Mercedes and a Micra were parked outside, and the garage was open. It was rammed with junk — some of it in boxes, some just on the floor — and shelves full of machinery parts and tools. There was no one inside. As I turned back to the house, a curtain twitched at the front window.

‘Can I help you?’

I spun around. A middle-aged man with a garden sprayer attached to his back was standing at the side of the house, where an entrance ran parallel to the garage.

‘Mr Simmons?’

‘Who’s asking?’

‘My name’s David Raker. Is Kathy in today, sir?’

He eyed me suspiciously. ‘Why?’

‘I’d like to speak with her.’

‘Why?’

‘Is she in today, sir?’

‘First you tell me why you’re here.’

‘I was hoping to speak to her about Alex Towne.’

A flash of recognition in his eyes. ‘What’s he got to do with anything?’

‘That’s what I was hoping to ask Kathy.’

Behind me I heard the door opening. A girl in her late twenties stepped out on to the porch. Kathy. Her hair was short now, dyed blonde, but a little maturity had made her prettier. She held out her hand and smiled.

‘I’m Kathy,’ she said.

‘Nice to meet you Kathy. I’m David.’ I glanced around at her father, whose gaze was fixed on me. Water tumbled out of the hose on to the toes of his boots.

‘What are you, an investigator or something?’ she asked.

‘Kind of. Well, not really.’

She frowned, but seemed intrigued.

‘Where’s Kathy fit into all this?’ her father said.

I glanced at him. Then back to Kathy. ‘I’m doing some work for Mary Towne. It’s to do with Alex. Can I speak with you?’ She looked unsure. ‘Here,’ I said, removing my driving licence and handing it to her. ‘Unofficial investigators have to make do with one of these.’

She smiled, took a look, then handed it back. ‘Do you want to go inside?’

‘That would be great.’

I followed her into the house, leaving her father standing outside with his garden sprayer. Inside, we moved through a hallway decorated with floral wallpaper and black-and-white photographs, and into an adjoining kitchen.

‘Do you want a drink?’

‘Water would be fine.’

It was a huge open area with polished mahogany floors and granite worktops. The central unit doubled up as a table, chairs sitting underneath. Kathy filled a glass with bottled mineral water then moved across and set it down.

‘Sorry to turn up unannounced like this.’

She was facing away from me slightly. Her skin shone in the light coming from outside, her hair tucked behind her ears. ‘It’s just a surprise to hear his name again after all this time.’

I nodded. ‘I think Mary feels like she needs some closure on his disappearance. She wants to know where he went for those five years.’

Kathy nodded. ‘I can understand that.’

We pulled a couple of chairs out and sat down. I placed my notepad between us, so she could see I was ready to start.

‘So, you and Alex met at a party?’

She smiled. ‘A friend of a friend was having a house-warming.’

‘You liked him from the beginning?’

She nodded. ‘Yeah, we really clicked.’

‘Which was why you ended up following him to Bristol?’

‘I applied for a job there. It was supposed to be a marketing position. Alex had already got his place at university, and I wanted to be close to him. It made sense.’

‘What happened?’

‘It wasn’t marketing. It was cold-calling; selling central heating. I gave it a week. In the interview, the MD told me I could earn in commission what my friends earned in a year. I never stuck around long enough to find out.’

‘So, you started waitressing?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did the two of you use to do together?’

‘We used to go away a lot. Alex loved the sea.’

‘You used to go to the coast?’

She nodded.

‘How often?’

‘Most weekends. Some weeks too. After uni, Alex got a job in an insurance company. He had a kind of love-hate thing with it. Some Monday mornings he wouldn’t want to go in. So we bought an old VW Camper van and took off when we wanted.’

‘Did his parents know about him skipping work?’

‘No.’

‘I didn’t think so,’ I said, smiling. ‘What about your job?’

‘They were pretty good to me there. They let me come and go as I pleased — they sometimes even let me choose my own hours. So, if we disappeared for a couple of days, when I got back I worked for a couple of days to make up for it. The pay was terrible, but it was useful.’

She drifted off for a moment. I waited for her to come back.

‘What did you think of Alex’s dad?’

She shrugged. ‘He was always very pleasant to me.’

‘Did Alex ever tell you what they talked about?’

‘Not really. Not what they talked about. More where they went and what they did. I’m sure if there was anything worth knowing, he’d have told me.’

I nodded.

‘Alex didn’t contact you in the five years before he died?’

‘No.’ A pause. ‘At first, I just used to wait by the phone, from the moment I got home until three or four o’clock in the morning, begging, praying for him to call. But he never did.’

I looked at my notes. ‘When was the last time you spoke to him?’

‘The night before he left. We’d arranged to take the Camper down to Cornwall. He had some time owed to him at work, so he’d been back to his parents’ for a couple of weeks to use up some holiday. When I called him, his mum said he had gone out and hadn’t come home. She said she wasn’t worried, but that he hadn’t phoned and he always tended to.’

‘Was he depressed about work at the time?’

‘No,’ she said, seeming to consider it. ‘I don’t think so.’

I changed direction. ‘Did you have any favourite places you used to visit?’

She looked down into her hands, hesitating. I could tell they’d had a favourite spot, and that it had meant everything to her.

‘There was one place,’ she said eventually. ‘A place down towards the tip of Cornwall, a village right on the sea called Carcondrock.’

‘You used to stay there?’

‘We used to take the Camper there a lot.’

‘Did you go back after he disappeared?’

Another pause, longer this time. Eventually she looked up at me. It was obvious she had — and it had hurt a lot.

‘There was a place right on the beach,’ she said softly. ‘A cove. I went back about three months after he disappeared. I didn’t really know what to expect. I guess in my heart of hearts I knew he wouldn’t be there, but we loved that spot and never told a soul about it. Not a single person. So it seemed like the most obvious place to look.’

‘You two were the only ones who knew about it?’

‘Only myself and Alex. And now you, I guess.’ She looked at me, her eyes half-closed, as if she had something else to add. When it didn’t come, I got up to go.

‘Wait a second,’ she said, placing a hand on my arm, then blushing slightly as she took it away again.

I looked at her. ‘Was there something else?’

Kathy nodded. ‘The cove… If you go right to the back of it, there’s a rock shaped like an arrowhead, pointing up to the sky. It’s got a black cross painted on it. If you find it, dig a little way beneath and you’ll find a box I left there for Alex. Inside are some old letters and photographs — and a birthday card. That was the last time I ever heard from him.’

‘The birthday card?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did he give you the card before he went back to his parents for those two weeks?’

‘No. He sent it from their place. By the time it got to me, he’d already disappeared.’

‘I’ll take a look,’ I said.

‘I don’t know what you’ll find,’ she replied, looking down into her lap. ‘But the last time we saw each other he said something strange to me: that we should use the hole by the rock to store messages, if we ever got separated.’

‘Separated? What did he mean by that?’

‘I don’t know. I mean, I asked him, but he never really explained. He just said that, if it ever came to it, that was our spot. The place I should look first.’

‘So, did he ever store anything in there for you? Any messages?’

She shook her head.

‘You checked regularly?’

‘I haven’t been down for a couple of years. But for a time I used to go back there and dig up that box, praying there would be something in there from him.’

‘But there wasn’t?’

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to.

6

The sky was starting to lose some of its colour by the time I left Kathy’s. I opened the car door, tossed my notepad on to the back seat and then looked at my watch. Three-thirty. I still had something to do before heading home. Something I hadn’t had the strength to do the day before.

I got in the car, fired up the engine and headed off.

On the drive over, I stopped at a florist and bought a bunch of roses and some white carnations, and then spent the next twenty minutes in traffic. When I finally got to the gates of Hayden Cemetery, the sun had almost fallen from the sky. In the car park, lights were flickering into life. The place was deserted. No other cars. No people. No sound. It wasn’t too far from Holloway Road, sandwiched between Highbury and Canonbury, but it was supernaturally quiet, as if the dead had taken the sound down with them. I turned the engine off and sat for a moment, feeling the heat escape from the car. Then I put on my coat and got out.

The entrance was big and beautiful — a huge black iron arch, intricately woven with the name Hayden — and, as I passed through, I could see leaves had been pushed to either side of the path, pressed into mounds and stained by the rust from a shovel. I had a flicker of déjà vu. There and gone again. I’d been in this same position, treading the same ground, a year and a half before. Except, that time, Derryn had been with me.

The Rest, where she was buried, was a separate area. Tall trees surrounded it on all sides and dividing walls had been built within it, with four or five headstones in each section. As I got to the grave, I saw the flowers I’d put down a month before. They were dead. Dried petals clung to the gravestone, and the stems had turned to mush. I knelt down and brushed the old flowers away. Then I placed the new ones at the foot of the grave, the thorns from the stems catching in the folds of my palm.

‘Sorry I didn’t come yesterday,’ I said quietly. The wind picked up for a moment, and carried my words away. ‘I thought about you a lot, though.’

Some leaves fell from the sky, on to the grave. When I looked up, a bird was hopping along a branch on one of the trees. The branch swayed gently, bobbing under its weight, and then — seconds later — the bird was gone, swooping downwards and ranging up left; up into the freedom beyond.

I was coming down the path and through the entrance to the car park when I saw someone walking away from my car. His clothes were dark and stained, and his shoes were untied, the laces snaking off behind him. He looked homeless. As I got closer, he flicked a look at me. His face was obscured beneath a hood, but I could see a pair of eyes glint, and realized there was surprise in them — as if he hadn’t expected to see me back so soon.

Suddenly, he broke into a run.

I speeded up, and saw that the back window on the left-hand side of my car had been smashed, the door swinging open. Glass lay next to my tyre, and my notepad, coat and a road map were on the gravel next to it.

‘Hey!’ I shouted, running now, trying to cut him off before he got to the entrance. He glanced at me again, panicking. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

The edges of his hood billowed out as he picked up speed, and I caught a glimpse of his face. Dirty and thin. A beard growing from his neck up to the top of his cheekbones. He looked like a drug addict: all bone and no fat.

‘Hey!’ I shouted again, but he was ahead of me now, fading into the darkness at the entrance to the cemetery.

I sprinted after him, out on to the main road, but by the time I got there he was about sixty yards away, pounding down the pavement on the other side of the street. He looked back once to make sure I wasn’t following, but didn’t drop his pace. And then he disappeared around the corner.

I jogged back to the cemetery and gave the car a quick once-over. It was an old BMW 3 series I’d had for years. No CD player. No satellite navigation. Nothing worth stealing.

The glove compartment was open, most of its contents thrown all over the front seats. The car’s handbook had been opened and left; a bag of sweets had been ripped apart. He must have been looking for money. And now he’d just cost me a new window.

7

I woke at three in the morning to the sound of Brian Eno’s ‘An Ending (Ascent)’ playing quietly on the stereo, the TV on mute. I sat forward and listened for a while. Derryn used to tell me my music taste was terrible, and that my entire film collection was one big guilty pleasure. She was probably right about the music. I considered ‘An Ending’ as close to socially acceptable as I was ever likely to get; a song I loved that even she thought was wonderful.

In the area I’d been brought up in, you either spent your days in the record shop, or in the cinema. I’d chosen the cinema, mostly because my parents were always late with new technology; we were pretty much the last family in town to get a CD player. We didn’t have a VCR for years either, which was why I spent most nights, growing up, watching films at an old art deco cinema called the Palladium in the next town.

Her music collection still stood in the corner of the room, packed in a cardboard box. I’d been through it about three weeks after she died, when it had struck me that the one thing music had over movies was its amazing way of pinpointing memories. ‘An Ending’ had been our late-night song, the one we’d play just before bed when Derryn was weeks away from dying. When all she wanted was for the pain to end. And then, when it finally did, it was the song that was played inside the church at her funeral.

When the song finished, I got up and walked through to the kitchen.

Out of the side window, I could see into next-door’s house. A light was on in the study, the blinds partially open. Liz, my neighbour, was leaning over a laptop, typing. She clocked my movement through the corner of her eye, looked up, squinted, and then broke into a smile. What are you doing up? she mouthed.

I rubbed my eyes. Can’t sleep.

She scrunched up her face in an aw expression.

Liz was a 42-year-old lawyer, who’d moved in a few weeks after Derryn had died. She’d married young, had a child, then got divorced a year later. Her daughter was in the second year of university at Warwick. I liked Liz. She was fun and flirty, and, while cautious of my situation, had always made her feelings clear. Some days I needed that. I didn’t want to be a widower who wore it. I didn’t want all the sorrow and the anger and the loss to stick to my skin. And the truth was, especially physically, Liz was easy to like: slender curves, shoulder-length chocolate hair, dark, mischievous eyes; and a smattering of natural colour in her cheeks.

She got up from the desk and looked at her watch, pretending to double-take when she saw the time. A couple of seconds later, she picked up a coffee cup and held it up to the window. You want one? She rubbed her stomach. It’s good.

I smiled again, rocked my head from side to side to show I was tempted and then pointed to my own watch. Got to be up early.

She rolled her eyes. Poor excuse.

I looked at her and something moved inside me. A tiny flutter of excitement. The feeling that, if I wanted something from her, the experience of being close to someone again, she would do it. In her eyes, I could see she was waiting for me to break free from what was keeping me back.

But, just as there were days when I still needed to feel wanted, there were others when I didn’t feel ready to step outside the bubble. I wanted to remain inside. Protected by the warmth and familiarity of how I felt about Derryn. Most of the time, even now, I was caught between the two. Wanting to move on, curious about letting myself go, but wary of the aftermath. Of what would happen the next morning when I woke up next to someone, and it wasn’t the person I’d loved, every day, for fourteen years.

8

After getting the car window repaired early the next morning, I followed up Mary’s library lead and immediately hit a dead end. Even if Alex had gone there on the day Mary had followed him, it wasn’t for books. She’d told me it was about six o’clock when he’d got to the library, but their computers had no record of anyone borrowing anything during the fifteen minutes he was inside. Once I was back at the office, I called the company he’d worked for in Bristol. It was just as fruitless: like talking to a room full of people who didn’t speak the same language as you. His boss remembered him, but not well. A couple of colleagues could only give me a vague description of what sort of person he was.

Next, I called the friends he’d lived with. Mary had told me she’d kept in contact with one of the them, John, for a while after Alex’s disappearance and that, as far as she knew, they still lived in the same place. She was right. There were three of them. John was working when I called. The second, Simon, was long gone. The third, Jeff, was home, but seemed as perplexed by what had happened to Alex as everyone else.

‘So, how can I reach the other two guys?’ I asked him.

‘Well, I can give you John’s work address,’ he said. ‘But, I doubt you’ll be finding Simon anywhere.’

‘How come?’

‘He kind of… disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’

‘He had some problems.’

‘What kind of problems?’

A pause. ‘Drugs mostly.’

‘Did he leave around the same time as Alex?’

‘No. A while after.’

‘Do you think he might have followed him?’

‘I doubt it,’ he said. ‘Alex didn’t get on with Simon at the end. None of us did. Simon was a different guy in those last few months. He… well, he kind of hit out at Kath when he was high one night. And Alex never forgave him for that.’

I put the phone down, and turned in my chair. On the corkboard behind me, in among the pictures of the missing, was a hand-drawn map of a beach.

My options were narrowing already.

Winter suddenly came to life as I crossed into Cornwall five hours later, the colours of late autumn replaced by a pale patchwork quilt of fields and towns. About forty miles from Carcondrock, I stopped at a café and had a late lunch. Through the windows, turning gently in the early afternoon breeze, I could see the wind turbines at Delabole.

Carcondrock itself was a quaint stretch of road with shops on both sides, and houses in the hills beyond. It was framed by the Atlantic and the smudged outline of the Scilly Isles. The beach ran parallel to the high street, while the main road wormed out of the village and upwards along the edges of a rising cliff. The higher the road, the bigger the houses — and the better the views. Below, against the cliff walls, the beach eventually faded out, replaced by sandy coves, dotted like pearls on a necklace along the line of the sea.

I found a car park between the beach and the village, and then headed to the biggest shop — a grocery store — armed with a picture of Alex. No one knew him. At the end of the high street, where the road followed the rising cliff face, there was an old wooden shack. Beyond that, a pub and a pretty church, its walls teeming with vines. Everything had an old-world feel to it: walls greying and aged; windows uneven beneath slate roofs. It was obvious why Kathy and Alex had loved it. Miles of lonely beach. The roar of the sea. The houses like flecks of chalk among the scrub of the hillside.

I got out the map Kathy had drawn for me of the hidden cove, and walked a little way on the road as it gently rose upwards along the cliff. Halfway up, leaning over the edge, I found it. Two hundred feet below me was a perfect semi-circle of sandy beach, surrounded on three sides by high walls of rock and on the fourth by the ocean. Waves foamed at the shore.

The only way I was going to get to it was by boat.

The wooden shack turned out to be the place to hire boats. It was starting to get dark by the time I reached it, and the old man who ran it was closing up. Behind him, attached to a jetty, four boats bobbed on the water.

‘Am I too late?’

He turned and looked at me. ‘Eh?’

‘I need to hire a boat for an hour.’

‘It’s dark,’ he said.

‘Almost dark.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s dark.’

I looked him up and down. Red and green checked shirt; mauve suspenders holding a pair of giant blue trousers up; yellow mud-caked boots; unruly white beard. He looked like the bastard love child of Captain Birdseye and Ronald McDonald.

‘How much?’ I asked him.

‘How much what?’

‘How much for an hour?’

‘Are you deaf?’

‘Sorry, I didn’t catch that.’

He paused, his eyes narrowing. ‘Are you takin’ the piss out of me, sonny?’

‘Look,’ I said. ‘I’ll double whatever the going rate is. I just need one of those boats for an hour. And a torch if you’ve got one. I’ll have everything back here by seven.’

He pursed his lips, thinking about it, then turned around and opened up the shack.

It took about twenty minutes to row around to the cove. I moored on the sand and dragged the boat up, away from the tide. The cove was small, probably twenty feet across, and the cliff walls towered above me. I flicked on the torch and swept it from left to right. At the back of the cove, in the torchlight beam, I could see a pile of loosened rocks and boulders. Some had fallen. Others had been washed up. As I stepped closer, I could see the arrow-shaped stone Kathy had talked about. It had tilted, but still faced upwards. At the bottom was a tiny mark — a cross — in black paint. I knelt down, clamped the torch between my teeth and started digging.

The box was buried about a foot under the surface. Its bottom sitting in water, its sides speckled with rust. Kathy had wrapped its contents in thick opaque plastic. I picked at it with my fingers but couldn’t break the seal, so removed my pocket knife and sliced it open. The contents were dry. I reached in and pulled out a stack of photographs and, around them, a letter. The birthday card was inside. A rubber band kept everything together.

I placed the torch in my lap and flicked through the photographs using the cone of light. Some of the photos were of the two of them, some just of Kathy, others only Alex. In one of the photographs, I noticed Kathy had her hair short. I guessed it had been taken by someone other than Alex, some time after he’d disappeared. I flipped it over and on the back she’d written: After you left, I cut my hair… On closer inspection, I could see all the photographs had comments on the back.

I picked up the torch and turned my attention back to the letter. It was dated 8 January, no year, and still smelt faintly of perfume.

I’ve no idea why you left, Kathy had written. Nothing you ever said to me led me to believe that one day you’d drop everything and walk away. So, if you came back now, I’d cherish you as I always did. I’d love you like I always did. But, somewhere, there would be a doubt that wasn’t there before, a nagging feeling that, if I got too close to you, if I showed you too much affection, you’d get up one morning and walk away.

I don’t want to feel like a mistake again.

I looked at my watch. It was almost six-thirty. In the distance, thunder rumbled across the sky. I folded the letter up, placed everything inside the box and took it with me as I rowed back around to the village.

9

I drove out of Carcondrock and found a place to stay about three miles further down a snaking coastal road. It was a beautiful greystone building overlooking the ocean and the scattered remnants of old tin mines. After a shower, I headed out for some dinner and eventually found a pub that served hot food and cold beer. I took the box with me and sat at a table in the corner, away from everyone else. There was a choice of three meals: steak and kidney pie, steak and ale pie or steak pie. Luckily, I wasn’t vegetarian. While I waited for the food, I opened the box, removed the contents and spread them out.

I picked up the birthday card first. The last contact Kathy ever had with Alex. She’d kept it in pristine condition. It was still in its original envelope, opened along the top with a knife or a letter opener to avoid damaging it. I took it out.

The card itself looked home-made, without being amateurish: a detailed drawing of a bear was in the centre, a bunch of roses in its hands. Above that was a raised rectangle with happy birthday! embossed on it, and a foil sticker of a balloon. I flipped it over. In the centre, in gold pen, it said: Made by Angela Routledge. I opened it up. Inside were just seven words: Happy Birthday, Kath. I love you… Alex.

I closed the card and studied the envelope. Something caught my attention. On the inside, under the lip, was an address label: Sold @ St John the Baptist, 215 Grover Place, London. I wrote down the address and turned to the photographs.

There was a definite timeline. It began with pictures of Kathy and Alex when they’d first started going out, and ended with two individual portraits of each of them, both older and more mature, at a different stage of their lives. I sat the two portraits side by side. The one of Kathy was a regular 6x4, but Alex’s was a Polaroid. When I turned them over, I noticed something else: they had different handwriting on them.

‘Mind if I sit here?’

I looked up.

One of the locals was staring down at me, a hand pressed against the back of the chair at the table next to me. The subdued light darkened his face. Shadows filled his eye sockets, thick black lines forming across his forehead. He was well built, probably in his late forties.

I looked around the pub. There were tables and chairs free everywhere. He followed my eyes, out into the room, but didn’t make a move to leave. When he turned back to me, he stole a glance at a couple of the photographs. I collected them up, along with the letter and the card, and placed them back into the box.

‘Sure,’ I said, gesturing to the table. ‘Take a seat.’

He nodded his thanks and sat down, placing his beer down in front of him. A couple of minutes later, the landlady brought my meal over. As I started picking at it, I realized all I could smell was his aftershave. It was so strong it buried the smell of my food completely.

‘You here on business?’ he asked.

‘Kind of.’

‘Sounds mysterious.’

I shrugged. ‘Not really.’

‘So, where does she live?’

I looked at him, confused.

‘Your bit on the side.’ He laughed, finding it funnier than he had any right to.

I smiled politely, but didn’t bother answering, hoping that the less I talked, the quicker he’d leave.

‘Just messing with you,’ he said, running a finger down the side of his glass. As his sleeve rode up his arm, I could see a tattoo — an inscription — the letters smudged by age. ‘Boring place to have to come for work.’

‘I can think of worse.’

‘Maybe in summer,’ he said. ‘But in winter, this place is like a mausoleum. You take the tourists out of here and all you’re left with are a few empty fudge shops. Want to hear my theory?’ He paused, but only briefly. ‘If you put a bullet in the head of every Cornishman in the county, no one would even notice until the fucking caravan parks failed to open.’ He laughed again, putting a hand to his mouth as if trying to suppress his amusement.

I pretended to check my phone for messages. ‘Nice theory,’ I said, staring at my empty inbox. When I was finished, he was still looking at me.

‘So, what do you do?’ he asked.

‘I’m a salesman.’

He rocked his head from side to side, as if to say he didn’t think I was the type. ‘My friend’s a salesman too.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’ He nodded. ‘A different kind. He sells ideas to people.’

I smiled. ‘You mean he works for Ikea?’

He didn’t respond. An uncomfortable silence settled between us. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t taken the hint yet. He cupped his pint glass between his hands, rolling it backwards and forwards, watching the liquid slosh around inside.

‘I bet you’re thinking, “How do you sell ideas to people?” — right?’

Not really.

He looked up at me. ‘Right?’

‘I guess.’

‘It’s pretty simple, the way he tells it. You take something — then you try to apply it to people. You know, give them something they really need.’

‘Still sounds like he might work for Ikea.’

He didn’t reply, but his eyes lingered on me, as if I’d just made a terrible error. There’s something about you, I thought. Something I don’t like. He took a few mouthfuls of beer, and this time I could make out some of the tattoo — ‘And see him that was possessed’ — and a red mark, running close to his hairline, all the way down around his ears and along the curve of his chin.

‘Got hit with a rifle butt in Afghanistan.’

‘Sorry?’

He looked up. ‘The mark on my face. Fucking towelhead jammed his rifle butt into my jaw.’

‘You were a soldier?’

‘Do I look the salesman type?’

I shrugged. ‘What does a salesman look like?’

‘What do any of us really look like?’ His eyes flashed for a moment, catching some of the light from a fire behind us. He broke into a smile, as if everything was a big mystery. ‘Being a soldier, that teaches you a lot about life.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Teaches you a lot about death too.’

I tried to look pissed off, and started cutting away at some of the pie’s pastry — but the whole time I could feel him watching me. When I looked up again, his eyes moved quickly from me to the food then back up.

‘You not hungry?’

‘Looks better than it tastes,’ I said.

‘You should eat,’ he replied, sinking what was left in the glass. ‘You never know when you might need the strength.’

He placed the beer glass down and turned to me, his eyes disappearing into shadow again. They were impenetrable now; like staring into one of the abandoned mine shafts along the coast.

‘Where you from?’

‘London.’

‘Ah, that explains it.’ He flicked his head back. ‘The home of the salesman.’

‘Is it?’

‘You telling me it isn’t? Millions of people whose only reason for being anywhere near that hole is so they can live on the top floor of a skyscraper and try to convince people poorer than them to live beyond their means? That’s a city of salesmen, believe me. Take a step back from the rat race, my friend — see what’s going on. No one’s there to help you.’

‘Thanks for the advice.’

‘You jest,’ he said. His eyes locked on to mine. ‘But I’m being serious. Who’s going to be there for you in that city when you wake up with a knife in your back?’

I could hardly make him out now, he’d sunk so far back into the darkness. But I wasn’t liking what I was hearing. I looked away and focused on my food.

‘Do you want to be left alone?’

He had a smile on his face now, but it didn’t go deep. Below the surface, I caught a glimpse of what I’d seen before.

A second of absolute darkness.

‘It’s up to you.’

He continued smiling. The smell of aftershave drifted across to me again. ‘I’ll leave you alone. I’m sure you’d rather be earning commission than listening to me, right?’

I didn’t say anything.

‘Nice meeting you, anyway,’ he said, standing. ‘Maybe we’ll see you again.’

‘Maybe.’

‘I think so,’ he said, cryptically.

Then I watched him leave, walking past the locals and out through a door on the far side of the pub, where the evening swallowed him up.

10

That night, I had difficulty sleeping. It had been a long time since I’d slept in a bed. A longer time since I’d been away from the house overnight.

I left the curtains slightly ajar and the window open. Just after one, I finally fell asleep, curled up in a ball at the bottom of the bed. In the dead of night, maybe an hour later, I stirred long enough to feel a faint breeze against my skin. And then a noise outside. Rotting autumn leaves caught beneath someone’s feet. I lay there, too tired to move, and started to drift away again. Then the noise came a second time.

I flipped the duvet back, got up and walked to the window. The night was pitch black. In the distance, along the coastal road, were tiny blocks of light from the next village. Otherwise, it was difficult to make anything out, particularly close to the house.

The wind came again. I could hear leaves being blown across the ground, and waves crashing against the rocky coast — but not the noise that had woken me. I waited for a moment, then headed back to bed.

I got up early and sat at a table with beautiful views across the Atlantic. Tin mines rose up in front of me like brick arms reaching for the clouds. Over breakfast, I spread the contents of the box out in front of me again, and studied the Polaroid of Alex. He was too close to the camera; some of his features weren’t completely defined. His hair was shorter. There were dark areas around the side of his face where stubble was coming through. Behind him, there was a block of light that looked like a window, but it was difficult to see what was through it. Part of a building maybe, or a roof.

I turned it over.

Written on the back was: You were never a mistake.

I decided to call Kathy.

She answered after a couple of rings.

‘Kathy, it’s David Raker.’

‘Oh, hi.’

‘Sorry it’s so early.’

‘No problem,’ she said. ‘I was getting ready for work.’

‘I’ve got the box here.’ I turned the Polaroid over and looked at Alex again. ‘Do you remember what photos you put inside?’

‘Um… I don’t know — I think there’s a couple of us at a barbecue…’

‘Do you remember the one of Alex on his own?’

‘Uh…’ A pause. ‘I’m trying to think…’

You were never a mistake.

‘Tell you what, I’m going to take a picture of it and send it to you, okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘I’ll send two photos — one of the front and one of the back. Take a look at them when they come through and call me right back.’

I hung up, took a picture of the front of the photograph, then flipped it over and took a shot of the back. I sent them to Kathy’s phone.

While I waited, I looked around. The owner was filling a giant cereal bowl with cornflakes. Outside, in the distance, a fishing trawler chugged into view, waves gliding out from its bow as it followed the coastline.

A couple of minutes later, my phone went.

Silence.

‘Kathy?’

Gradually, fading in, the sound of sobbing.

‘Kathy?’

A long pause. And then I could hear her crying again.

‘Kathy — that’s Alex’s handwriting, isn’t it?’

She sniffed. ‘Yes.’

‘Did you take that photograph?’

‘No.’

‘Any idea who did?’

More crying. Longer, deeper gasps of air.

‘No.’

I looked at the Polaroid again. Turned it over. Traced the handwriting with a finger. Then I picked up the letter Kathy had written Alex.

But, somewhere, there would be a doubt that wasn’t there before, a nagging feeling that, if I got too close to you, if I showed you too much affection, you’d get up one morning and walk away.

I don’t want to feel like a mistake again.

‘Do you know where Alex is in this picture?’

‘No.’ She started to sob again, a long, drawn-out sound that sent static crackling down the line. ‘No,’ she said again — and then hung up.

I placed my phone down.

So, Alex had used the box after all.

11

Alex died on a country road between Bristol’s northern edge and the motorway. I felt I should go there, but first I wanted to see his friend John. Jeff had given me a work address for him the previous day. When I called enquiries to get a telephone number, it turned out to be a police station south-west of Bristol city centre.

John was a police officer.

By the time I got there, it was lunchtime and had been raining: water still ran from guttering, and drains had filled with old crisp packets and beer cans. The street was deserted, except for some kids further down, their cigarettes dying in the cool of the day. I parked on the road and headed into the station.

It was quiet. There was a sergeant behind a sliding glass panel, framed by a huge map of the area. Dots were marked at intervals in a ring around the centre of the city.

The sergeant slid the glass across. ‘Can I help you?’

‘I’m here to see John Cary.’

He nodded. ‘Can I ask what it’s about?’

‘I want to speak to him about Alex Towne.’

It didn’t mean anything to him. He slid the glass panel back and disappeared out of sight. I sat down next to the front entrance. Outside, huge dark clouds rolled across the sky. Somewhere in the distance was the snow they’d been promising, moving down from Russia, ready to cover every can, needle and bloodstain that had ever been left on the streets.

Something clunked. At the far side of the waiting room a huge man emerged from a code-locked door. He was chiselled but not attractive. His Mediterranean skin was spoiled by acne scarring that ran the lengths of both cheeks. I walked across to him.

‘My name’s David Raker.’

He nodded.

‘I’m looking into the disappearance of Alex Towne.’

He nodded again.

‘Alex’s mum came to me.’

‘She told you he’s dead, right?’ he said, eyeing me.

‘Right. I was hoping I might be able to ask you a couple of questions.’

He glanced at his watch, then looked at me, as if intrigued to see what I might come up with. ‘Yeah, okay. Let’s go for a drive.’

We drove north to where Alex had died. It was a picturesque spot: rolling grassland punctuated by narrow roads, all within sight of the city. Cary parked up and then led me away from the car, across to a field sloping away from the road. I looked down. A sliver of police tape still fluttered in a tree nearby. Apart from that, there was no sign that a car had once come off the road here.

‘Were you on duty when he died?’ I asked.

He shook his head.

‘So, you went to see him at the morgue?’

‘Yeah, once he’d been ID’d. It took a week and a half to get confirmation on the dental records.’

‘You actually saw his body?’

‘What was left of it. His hands, his feet, his face — they were all just bone. Some of his organs were still intact, but the rest of him…’ Cary looked out at the fields. ‘They reckon the tank must have ruptured when the car hit the field. It was why the fire consumed everything so quickly.’ He glanced at me, sadness in his eyes. ‘You know how hard you have to hit something in order to rupture a petrol tank?’

I shook my head.

‘That car looked like it had been through a crusher. The whole thing was folded in on itself. Old model like that: no airbag, no side impact bars…’ He paused again. ‘I just hope it was quick.’

We stood silent for a moment. His eyes drifted to the space where the car must have landed, and then — eventually — back to me.

‘He’d been drinking,’ I said. ‘Is that right?’

He nodded. ‘Toxicology put him at four times over the legal limit.’

‘Did you see the autopsy report?’

‘Yeah.’

‘It was definitely him?’

He looked at me like I was from another planet. ‘What do you think?’

I paused for a moment.

‘What are the chances of me getting hold of some of the paperwork?’

A little air escaped from between his lips, as if he couldn’t believe I’d had the balls or stupidity to ask. ‘Low.’

‘What about unofficially?’

‘Still low. I go into the system, it gets logged. I print something out, it gets logged. And why would I anyway? You’re about as qualified to be running around, chasing down leads, as Coco the fucking clown.’

He shook his head, astonished into silence. I didn’t say anything more, just nodded to show that I took his point, but didn’t necessarily agree.

‘Strange he should end up dying so close to home.’

Cary looked at me. ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘I mean, he disappears — completely disappears — for all that time… I would have expected him to have turned up somewhere further afield. Instead he dies on your doorstep. Maybe he even stayed nearby the whole, time he was gone.’

‘He didn’t stay around here.’

‘But he died around here.’

‘He was on his way through to somewhere.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘If he’d been staying around here, I would’ve known about it. Sooner or later, someone somewhere would’ve seen him. It would’ve got back to me.’

I nodded — but didn’t agree. Cary was just one man in a local area of thirty or forty square miles. If you wanted to, you could easily disappear in that kind of space and never be found.

‘So, where do you think he went?’

Cary frowned. ‘Didn’t I just answer that?’

‘You said not around here — so where?’

He shook his head and then shrugged.

‘Do you think there was any connection with your other friend’s disappearance?’

‘Simon?’

‘Yeah. Simon —’ I glanced at my notepad ‘— Mitchell.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘How come?’

‘Jeff tell you about him?’

‘He said he had a drug problem.’

He nodded.

‘He said he hit out at Kathy.’

He nodded again. ‘That night, we were all there. Simon didn’t know what the fuck he was doing, but when he tried to hit her, he crossed the line. Especially in Alex’s mind. That night was when we realized he had a serious problem. But by then he was too far gone. He promised to stop, but that was why eventually he left. He couldn’t stop. I don’t think he could face us any more — the way we used to look at him. Even after Alex left, things were never the same. So one day he just packed his bags and was gone. We only ever heard from him once after that.’

‘When?’

‘A long time after Alex disappeared. In fact, probably after he died. Simon had been in London all that time, in and out of whatever place would put a roof over his head.’

‘You tell him Alex was dead?’

‘Yeah. Didn’t register with him. He sounded strung out. Just kept going on about this guy he’d met who was going to help him.’

‘Did he say who the guy was?’

‘No. Just said he’d met him on the streets and they’d got talking. Sounded like this guy was trying to straighten him out.’

‘Do you think Simon followed Alex?’

His expression told me that it was the least likely thing he could imagine happening.

‘You’ve no idea where Simon lives these days?’

‘London.’

‘That narrows it down to about seven million people.’

Cary shrugged. ‘Playing detective ain’t easy.’

‘You ever tried to find him?’

‘I tried once. Didn’t get far. The one thing Simon and Alex did have in common was that neither of them wanted to be found.’

Cary raised his eyes to the skies. The first spots of rain were starting to fall. He pulled his jacket close to his body and zipped it up. Rain spattered off the shoulders, making a sound like pebbles caught in a tide.

We walked back to the car, and got in.

‘I did some asking around at the beginning,’ he said as we drove off, the field sliding away behind us. ‘I think you’ll struggle to find anyone who can give you a reason for Alex’s disappearance. It wasn’t like him to just leave everything behind. Not unless something was seriously wrong. That wasn’t how he was programmed.’

We drove the rest of the way in silence.

Cary had changed his mind by the time we got back to the station. I sat in an office full of paperwork and desks, most of them unmanned, while he used a computer close by to access Alex’s case file. At the other end of the room, there were four detectives with their backs to us. Two of them were on the phone. He glanced around at them, then to the door, then hit ‘Print’.

‘I’m willing to take a risk with this,’ he said. ‘But if anyone finds out I’ve given these to you, I’ll be taking early retirement.’

‘I understand.’

‘I hope you do.’

He got up and went to the printer, then came back with a stack of paper and slid it into a Manila folder he already had open on the desk. I took the file, keeping it low and in front of my body. He sat down at his desk again, looked around, then removed an unmarked DVD from his top drawer.

‘You might want to take a look at that too,’ he said, tossing it across the desk.

‘What is it?’

‘A video one of the fire crew shot of the crash site.’

I took the DVD and slipped it into the file, then held up the printouts. ‘Is there anything in here?’

He shrugged. ‘What do you think?’

‘You reckon it’s open and shut?’

He frowned. ‘Alex was drink-driving. Of course it’s open and shut.’

I nodded, and scanned the first page of the printout. When I looked up, he was staring at me, eyes narrowed.

‘Let me tell you something,’ he said, leaning across the desk. ‘The night of the crash, and for about three months after, I was balls-deep in a double murder. A woman and her daughter, both raped, both strangled, left in a field in the pissing rain for five days before anyone found them. Which case do you think my DCI wanted done first: those two women? Or some fucking drunk who couldn’t even keep to his own side of the road?’

I nodded. ‘I wasn’t passing judge—’

‘And since then? Take a drive down the street. I’ve got guys out there on PCP who think they’re the fucking Terminator. I’ve got seventeen-year-old kids from the council estates with knives the size of your arm.’ He paused, looked at me. ‘So, no, I haven’t spent a lot of time with that file over the last year. I put in my fair share of time when he first went missing, and I got the support of some of the people in here. But as soon as he put his car through the side of a lorry, it became a zero priority case. And you know what? It’s even less than that now.’

I nodded again then decided to move the conversation on.

I removed the Polaroid of Alex I’d taken from the box. Cary eyed me, wondering what I was looking at. I put the picture down on the desk in front him. He glanced at it, then sat forward.

‘Is that Alex?’

‘I think so.’

Cary picked up the picture, holding it in front of him. ‘Who took this?’

‘I don’t know.’

He went quiet again. ‘Where did you get it?’

‘It was in among Kathy’s stuff.’

‘She took it?’

‘No.’

‘So, how did it get there?’

‘I’m not sure.’

He looked like he didn’t believe me.

‘All I know is what I found. I’ve no idea how it got there — but I can take a guess.’

‘So take a guess.’

‘Alex put it there.’

‘After he disappeared?’

I nodded.

‘Why?’

‘They had an arrangement.’

He frowned. ‘An arrangement?’

‘A spot they liked going to together. A place where they used to hide personal stuff.’

He looked at me for a moment, his eyes narrowing a little. Then his expression changed. He opened up the top drawer of his desk and started shuffling around inside. He brought out a notebook, in tatters, the cover falling off, the pages missing their edges. He laid it down, opened it up and studied it. Words, diagrams and reconstructions of crime scenes were crammed into every space. He flicked through it, got halfway, then looked up.

‘You might want to write this down,’ he said.

I took out my notepad.

‘Like I said, I did some asking around when Alex first went missing. Called a few people. I asked his mum for his card numbers, and his bank details. Basically, anything he could draw on I wanted to know about. It was the best lead we’d have.’

‘But he didn’t take his card with him.’

‘He didn’t take his debit card, no.’

He looked at his notebook. At the top of the page, written in black and circled in red, was a number.

‘He left his debit card behind, but he took his credit card with him,’ Cary said, prodding the number with his finger. ‘It was valid for another five years after he went missing, so I figured it was worth keeping an eye on. I arranged with Mary and the bank to have all his credit card statements redirected to me. And they kept coming, and coming, and coming, and every time the statements arrived on my desk, I’d open them up and they’d be blank.’

‘He never used the card — not even once?’

Cary shook his head. ‘Every month there’d be nothing in them. I spent four and a half years looking through his statements, and four years and a half years putting them straight in the bin.’

He ran a finger along the number in the notebook.

‘Then, about six months before he died…’ He paused, glanced at me. ‘The statements stopped coming.’

‘Because the card had expired?’

‘No. The card had about six months left to run.’

‘So, why’d they stop?’

‘I called the bank to find out. They wouldn’t release any information initially, so I kind of…pretended it was part of an investigation. They accessed the account for me and said the statements were still being sent out, and would only stop once the card had expired.’

‘But it hadn’t expired.’

‘No. The obvious assumption was that the last statement got lost in the post, so I asked them to send out a duplicate. The guy said he’d put it in the post overnight.’ He paused, sat back. ‘But that never arrived either.’

‘How come?’

‘I called the bank again, told them the duplicate hadn’t turned up, and they asked me to confirm my address. So, I gave it to them—’

‘But it wasn’t the address they had.’

He looked at me, nodded. ‘Right. Four and a half years after he disappears, and suddenly he changes his address.’

‘Alex changed it?’

He shrugged. ‘I spoke to the bank a third time, pushed the whole investigation angle, and they made the new statements available to me. Same as always — the card remained unused. But it wasn’t registered to Alex any more. It was registered as a business account.’

‘A business account?’

‘The Calvary Project.’

‘That was the name of the business?’

‘Who the fuck knows? I had their name and address from the bank and I still couldn’t find any trace of them. There’s no Inland Revenue records, no website,no public listing anywhere — nothing. You want my opinion, it’s vapour.’

‘You mean some sort of front?’

He shrugged again. I looked at him, trying to figure out why he wasn’t more determined to dig deeper. He pushed the notebook towards me and leaned over his desk, jabbing a finger at the number.

‘Treat yourself,’ he said.

‘That’s part of the credit card number?’

‘No. That’s the telephone number for the Calvary Project.’

It was a landline, but there was no area code in front, which was why I hadn’t worked out what it was.

‘You tried calling it?’

‘About a hundred thousand times.’

‘No answer?’

He shook his head.

‘Where’s the street address?’

‘London.’

‘You went up there?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Have you been listening to anything I’ve been saying? The whole case is a lockdown. The card’s expired, and a year ago I spent three hours picking up bits of Alex’s skull from a fucking field.’

‘Did you tell Mary?’

‘About what?’

‘About what you’d found.’

‘No. What’s the point?’

‘Don’t you think she has a right to know?’

‘A right to know what exactly?’ he said. ‘That she should take a long, hard look at another dead end? Forget it. I didn’t tell her anything because nothing leads anywhere. The case — if it even was a case — is over. It’s done.’

Suddenly it came to me. I saw why the case had never been taken further: Cary didn’t want to expose himself to new, corrupting information about Alex. He loved his friend. He was disappointed by the way he’d died. He didn’t want to taint any more of his memories of him.

Yet I could see something else too. Just a flicker. A part Cary had always tried to bury. A part desperate for answers.

‘So, where in London is it based?’

‘Some place in Brixton. I gave the details to a guy I know who works for the Met and he pissed himself laughing. Apparently the only businesses being run out of there are from suitcases full of crack.’

Cary laid a thick hand across the notebook and pulled it back towards him, dropping it into his top drawer. When he looked up, his eyes narrowed again as if he’d seen something in my face.

‘What?’ he said.

‘I’ve got one more question.’

He didn’t move.

‘Well, more of a favour, to be honest.’

‘That file not enough for you?’

‘Basically, I was hoping you might be able to give me some…technical help.’

‘What the hell does that mean?’

I held up the picture. ‘With the photograph.’

‘What about it?’

‘It must have been taken by someone Alex met after he disappeared, and the picture’s a Polaroid, which means that person probably handled it as it was develop—’

‘No.’

He’d second-guessed me.

‘I just need it checked for prints.’

‘Just need it? Just need it? You realize what you’re asking me to do? Get forensics involved, log it into the system, start a paper trail. What do you think would happen if people find out I’ve been pushing personal work through?’

‘I know it’s diff—’

‘I’m fucked, that’s what.’

‘Okay.’

‘No way. Forget it.’

‘I felt I should ask.’

‘No way,’ he said again.

But I could see the conflict in his face. The embers of Alex’s memory hadn’t died out yet. Something still burnt in him. And I still had a shot at getting the picture looked at.

12

As I travelled east, I could see sunlight up ahead, breaking through the clouds. But by the time I got to Mary’s, it was gone. Evening was moving in.

After she answered the door, I followed her through to the kitchen and then down a steep flight of stairs into the basement. It was huge, much bigger than I’d expected, but it was a mess as well: boxes stacked ceiling-high like pillars in a foyer; pieces of wood and metal perched against the walls; an electrical box, covered in thick, opaque cobwebs.

‘I come down here sometimes,’ she said. ‘It’s quiet.’

I nodded that I understood.

‘Sorry about the mess.’

I smiled at her. ‘You want to see a mess, you should come to my place.’

Then, from upstairs: ‘Where am I?’

We looked at each other. It was Malcolm. Mary turned towards the stairs, then back to me. ‘I’m really sorry. I’ll be back in a few minutes.’

After she was gone, I looked around the basement. On the other side, half-hidden behind boxes, was an old writing desk, an open photo album on it. Dusty. Worn. I walked over and turned some of the pages. A young Alex playing in the snow, paddling in the sea, eating ice cream on a pier. Later on, some of the pictures had fallen out, leaving only white blocks on faded yellow pages.

Right at the back was a photograph of Alex, Malcolm and Mary, and someone else. The guy was in his thirties, good-looking, smiling from ear to ear. He had one arm on Alex’s shoulder and one around Malcolm. Mary was out to the side of the shot, detached from the group. Most of the time you couldn’t read much into pictures: people put on smiles, put arms around those next to them, posed even if they didn’t want to. Pictures could paper over even the most significant of cracks. But this one said everything: Mary was the odd one out.

Quietly, she came down the stairs.

I turned to her and held up the photo. ‘Who’s this guy?’

‘Wow,’ she said, coming across the basement towards me. ‘I haven’t seen him in a while. I thought we’d managed to burn all the photographs of him.’ But she was smiling. She studied it for a while. ‘Al. Uncle Al. He was a friend of Malc’s.’

‘But not a friend of yours?’

She shrugged. ‘I think the feeling was mutual, to be honest. Al was a wealthy guy. We weren’t. He bought his way into their affection, and the only way I could counter that was by staying close to them. He wasn’t so keen to spend money on me.’

‘He wasn’t Alex’s real uncle?’

‘No. Malcolm used to work for him.’

‘So, is he still around?

‘No. He died in a car accident.’ She paused. ‘Just like Alex.’

I put the photo back into the album. ‘Did Alex ever go to church?’

‘Church?’ She frowned, as if the question had taken her by surprise. ‘Not at the end, no. But when he was younger he used to come to our church in town. He was part of the youth group there. He made some good friends.’

‘Anyone he kept in regular contact with?’

‘He was friendly with one guy there…’ She stopped. ‘I’m trying to remember his name. He used to lead worship, take the occasional service, that kind of thing. He went travelling for a while, and never came back to us. I think Alex still kept in touch with him though.’ She stopped a second time. ‘Gosh, I must be getting old.’

‘It’s probably worth following up, so if you remember him, drop me a line.’ I thought of the birthday card. ‘What about the name Angela Routledge — does that ring any bells?’

She thought about it, but it obviously didn’t. I hadn’t expected it to get me far. Angela Routledge was probably just an old woman raising funds for the church.

‘Well, I better be go—’

‘Mat,’ she said. ‘With one tee.’

I turned to look at her. ‘Sorry?’

‘I knew I’d remember it eventually.’ She smiled. ‘Alex’s friend from the church. His name was Mat.’

13

Before I went to sleep, I opened the case file containing the printouts Cary had given me and took out the DVD. I sat down, dropped it into the disc tray and pressed ‘Play’.

Taken with a hand-held video camera, the recording was shaky and disorientating to start with, but became steadier. The film began with some shots of the fields surrounding the crash site and the area the car had landed in. There was a dark, scarred trail left on the field. The grass was scorched. Something from the car — perhaps the exhaust box — was embedded in the mud. I was hoping whoever had taken the film might zoom in, but they didn’t.

Instead it cut to where the car had come off the road. There was petrol left on the tarmac. Smashed glass. The light wasn’t particularly good, and when I glanced at the timecode in the corner, I could see why. 17.42. Evening.

The film cut to the car itself.

The roof had collapsed. One door had come off, and the boot had disappeared, pushed into the back of the car. The engine was up inside the dashboard on the right-hand side. As the camera panned from left to right, I could see bits of windscreen glinting in the grass. The grille at the front of the Toyota had been tossed free and lay in front of the car, alongside shards of coloured plastic from the headlights. The film cut in closer and — with the aid of a light attachment — revealed the inside of the car. Everything was black, melted, burnt.

The film cut to a spot about twenty feet away. Scattered in the grass was debris that had been thrown free of the car: a burnt mobile phone; a shoe; a wallet, the tan leather charred. The wallet was open. Some of the contents had spilled out. Part of a blackened and melted driver’s licence, Alex’s face on it, sat in the grass.

Then the film finished.

I ejected the DVD and spread some of the paperwork out in front of me. The investigators were fairly certain the crash had been caused by Alex’s being drunk. There were some fuzzy photographs on one of the printouts, including a shot of the tyre marks on the road, and one of the lorry Alex’s car had hit. The lorry driver had escaped with only minor cuts and bruises. In his statement he said another car had overtaken Alex’s and then, about ten seconds later, the Toyota had drifted across to the wrong side of the road. A third photograph showed the Toyota from head on. The right side had sustained more damage than the left. It explained why, in the film, the engine seemed further back inside the car on the right. I skimmed through the crime scene analysis, and found a technician’s diagram of the crash trajectory.

I moved on to the post-mortem. Like Cary had said, the age of the Toyota meant there was no airbag, and no real impact protection. The damage was severe: teeth had been found in Alex’s stomach and what was left of his throat, torn from the gum when his face hit the steering wheel. I read on a little further and then, towards the back, found two pages missing. Cary must have forgotten to pick them up when he’d printed them out. I made a note to ask him about it the next time we spoke.

A couple more pictures were loose in the Manila folder, showing Alex’s body. It was a horrific sight. His hands had been burnt down to the skeleton; his feet and lower legs too. His face, from the brow down to his jaw, was also just bone, and there was a huge crack in his skull, all the way down one side of his cheek, where his face had hit the wheel on impact. I turned back to the file. It got worse the more I read. His body had been pulverized: bones smashed, skin burnt away. Everything broken beyond repair. It was obvious from the damage sustained that he had died before the car caught fire.

Except, according to Mary, he hadn’t died at all.

The Corner of the Room

The first thing he could hear was the wind, distantly at first, and then louder as he became more aware of it. He opened his eyes. The room was spinning gently, the walls bending as he moved his head across the pillow.

Am I dead?

He groaned and rolled on to his side. Slowly, everything started to shift back into focus: the right angles of the walls; the dusty shaft of moonlight; the lightbulb moving gently in the breeze coming through the top window.

It was cold. He sat up and pulled a blanket around him. It brushed against the floor, sending dirt and dust scattering into the darkness. When he moved again, the mattress pinged beneath him. A sharp pain coursed through his chest. He placed a hand against his ribs and pressed with his fingers. Beneath his T-shirt, he could feel bandages, running from his breastplate down to his waist.

He breathed in.

Click.

A noise from the far corner of the room. A pillar poked out from the wall, a cupboard beside that. Everywhere else was dark.

‘Hello?’

His voice sounded quiet and childlike. Scared. He cleared his throat. It felt like fingers were tearing at his windpipe.

And now he could smell something too.

He felt a pulse in his chest, like a bubble bursting. The first scent of nausea rose in his throat. He covered his mouth, and moved back across the bed, trying to get away from the smell. Opposite him, lit by a square of moonlight, he spotted a metal bucket. The rim was speckled with puke. Next to that was a bottle of disinfectant. But it wasn’t that he could smell.

It was something else.

Click.

The noise again. He peered into the darkness in the corner of the room. Nothing. No sound, no sign of movement. Shifting position again, he moved right up against the wall, where the two corners joined, and brought his knees up to his chest. His heart squeezed beneath his ribs. His chest tightened.

‘Who’s there?’

He pulled the blanket tighter around him, and sat there in silence. Staring into the darkness until, finally, sleep took him.

He’s standing outside a church, peering in through a window. Mat is sitting at a desk, a Bible open in his lap. Across the other side of the room, a door is ajar. He looks from Mat to the door, and feels like he wants to be there. Standing in that doorway.

And then, suddenly, he is.

He places a hand on the door and pushes at it. Slowly, it creaks open. Mat turns in his chair, an arm resting on the back, intrigued to see who has entered.

Then his face drops.

‘Dear God,’ he says gently. He gets to his feet, stumbling, his eyes wide, his mouth open. He looks like he’s seen a ghost. ‘I thought… Where have you been?’

‘Hiding.’

Mat stops. Frowns. ‘Why?’

‘I’ve done something… really bad.’

He opened his eyes. A blinding circular light was above him. He tried to cover his face, but when he went to move his hands, they caught on something. Suddenly he felt the binds on his arms, digging into the skin, securing him to the chair beneath.

He turned his head.

Beyond the light, the room was dark, but immediately beside him he could make out a medical gurney, metal instruments on top. Next to that was a heart monitor. Behind, obscured by the darkness, was a silhouette, watching him from the shadows.

‘What’s going on?’ he said.

The silhouette didn’t reply. Didn’t even move.

He could see further down his body now. His wrists were locked in place on the arms of a dentist’s chair. He wriggled his fingers, then tried to move his hands again. The binds stretched and tightened.

‘What’s going on?’

He tried moving his legs. Nothing. Tried again. Still nothing. In his head, it felt like they were thrashing around. But, further up his body — where he still had feeling — he knew they weren’t moving. They were paralysed.

He looked to the silhouette again.

‘Why can’t I feel my legs?’

Still no reply.

He felt tears well in his eyes.

‘What are you doing to me?’

A hand touched his stomach. He started, and turned his head the other way. Standing next to him was a huge man — tall and powerful, dressed in black. He had a white apron on, and a surgical face mask. He lowered it.

‘Hello,’ he said.

‘What’s going on?’

‘You’re standing on a precipice. Did you know that?’

‘What?’

‘You’re standing on the edge of opportunity, and you don’t even know it. You will know it, though. You will come to know opportunity in the coming days, to understand the sacrifice we’ve made for you. But first we need to take care of some things.’

‘Please, I don’t know wha—’

‘I’ll see you on the other side.’

The tall man pulled his mask back over his chin and stepped back from the dentist’s chair, into the darkness.

A woman came forward in his place, dressed in a white coat and wearing a surgical mask, a blue medical cap tied around her dark hair. A bloodstained apron squeezed her short, plump frame. She leaned into him. There were blood spatters on the mask too.

‘Please…’

The woman placed a hand over his eyes, over his face. Then she slid something into his mouth. A huge, metal object — like a clamp. It clicked. He tried to speak, tried to scream, but the clamp had locked his mouth open. All he could do was gurgle.

He watched her.

Please.

From somewhere, a quiet metallic buzz. His eyes flicked left and right, trying to see where the noise was coming from. It got louder.

What are you doing? he tried to say, but it was just another gurgle. He swallowed. Watched her. Saw her fiddling with something, and listened as the buzz got louder. Then, from her side, she brought up a dental drill, its point spinning.

He looked from her to the drill.

Oh God, no.

And then he blacked out.

He woke. Everything was quiet. It was the middle of the night, when the shadows in the room were at their deepest and thickest. And it was cold. Freezing cold. He pulled the blanket right up to his neck and turned on his pillow, facing the ceiling.

His mouth throbbed.

He ran a tongue along his gums, where his teeth had once been. All that was there now were tiny threads of flesh, spilling out of the cavities. They’d taken them without asking, like they were taking everything else.

Click.

The noise again. The same noise, every night, all night, coming from the corner of the room. He slowly sat up, and looked into the darkness.

He’d got up and examined the corner of the room in the daylight, when the sun poured in from the top window. There was nothing there. Just the cupboard and the space behind it, a narrow two- or three-foot gap. In the dead of the night, when the silence was oppressive, it was easy to see things and hear things that weren’t there. Darkness messed with you like that. But he’d seen it for himself: there was nothing there.

Click.

He continued looking into the shadows — facing them down. Then, pulling the blanket around him, he got to his feet and took a step towards the corner of the room.

He stopped.

Out of the darkness and into the moonlight came a cockroach, its legs pattering against the floor, its body clicking as it moved. He watched it come to the bed then turn slightly, heading deeper into the room towards the door they always kept closed. It stopped for a moment, half-under the door, its antennae twitching, its legs shaking beneath it. And then it disappeared into the light on the other side.

A cockroach.

He smiled, slumped back on to the bed. Breathed a sigh of relief. Deep down, he knew no one could be watching him from the corner of the room. Not for all this time. Not all night. No one would do that, would even want to do that. The mind could play tricks on you. It could make you doubt yourself; it bent reality and reason and, at your weakest, you started to question what you knew to be true.

It had only ever been a cockroach.

He brought his arms out from under the blanket and wiped the sweat from his face. Wind came in through the top window. He lay there, letting the cool air fall against his skin. And, as he closed his eyes, he could — very distantly — hear the sea.

‘Cockroach.’

His eyes flicked open.

What the fuck was that?

‘I see you, cockroach.’

He scrambled back across the bed, towards the wall. Brought his knees up to his chest. From the darkness came a second cockroach, forming out of the shadows, following the path of the first one. It started to arc left, towards the light on the other side of the door.

‘Don’t run, cockroach.’

A hand came out of the night and smashed down on top of the insect. Its shell exploded under the force of the blow, clear blood spraying out either side. Then the fingers twitched and moved, turning over to show the remains of the cockroach, flattened and in pieces, coated on the skin of the hand.

Slowly, the hand started to become an arm, and the arm a body, until a man emerged from the gloom, a plastic mask on his face.

It was the mask of a devil.

A smell came with the man as he looked up from the depths of the night, blinking inside the eyeholes. The mouth slit was wide and long, moulded into a permanent leer, and inside it the man smiled, his tongue emerging from between his lips.

‘Oh God.’ A trembling voice from the bed.

The man in the mask moved his tongue along the hard edges of the mouth slit. It was big and bloated, red and glistening, like a corpse floating in a black ocean.

And, at the very tip, it was cut unevenly down the middle.

The devil had a forked tongue.

From the bed, he felt his heart stop, his chest shrink, his body give way beneath him.

The man in the mask blinked again, inhaled through two tiny pinpricks in the mask’s nose, and slowly rose to his feet.

‘I wonder what you taste like…cockroach.’