Half the World Away

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

We tag on behind a young couple, get back into the complex and walk through the gardens to the building. A man waits for the lift, middle-aged, Chinese. I pray he won’t try to engage us in conversation: he would surely sense something suspicious. Thankfully, he nods once, then studiously ignores us as we do him, and each other. The lift climbs through the storeys. The drill is thundering away when we reach the apartment.

‘We’ll have to break in,’ I say.

Tom looks at the door. ‘That could take some doing.’

‘Now – while it’s noisy.’

Tom steps back, raises his leg and smashes his heel into the edge of the door near the lock. It bounces but doesn’t yield. He does it again and again, as I pray that the drill will keep going. The door shudders from the impact. Then finally, with a squealing sound, the lock gives, shearing through the door frame. The drill stops. Did they hear us?

We push the door open, step inside. I can feel my heart thudding in my throat. Tom is flushed with the exertion, his breath ragged.

The master bedroom has a bed, wardrobe full of clothes, bedside table, desk and chair. There is a laptop on Bradley’s bed. The guestroom has a smaller bed, with just a cover over the mattress, a wardrobe and a work area with a desk and chair, a printer, Anglepoise lamp and speakers.

I start to feel foolish: we could be charged with criminal damage, trespass – who knows what laws they have here? But the text messages, I tell myself. Bradley is lying to us. There can’t be any good reason for that.

‘Maybe there’ll be emails on the laptop,’ I say, ‘messages from Lori.’

Tom is tugging at the wardrobe in the spare room. It’s large, old-fashioned, with deep carvings along the top and bottom, two deep drawers beneath the doors, the sort to keep blankets and bedding in.

‘Is it stiff?’ I say.

‘I think it’s locked,’ Tom says, ‘and there’s no key.’

We used to have a wardrobe at home when I was little and the door swung open if it wasn’t locked so we always kept the key in it. ‘There was a little key on Bradley’s key ring.’ I remember staring at it when it was on the table while we waited for him. ‘Gilt, fancy.’

Tom goes to the kitchen and comes back with a knife, broad and sharp. He tries to force it between the doors but can only get the tip in.

‘Shit.’ He drops it on the bed. Raises his foot and kicks at the wardrobe. A loud crack and a boom reverberate in the room. The drill hasn’t started up again and I listen for sounds from the neighbours, footsteps, doors banging, anyone coming. There’s nothing.

Tom rears back and kicks again, higher, grunting with the effort. There’s a splintering noise as one of the doors cracks, a ragged tear running the length of it, then swings open.

Inside is hanging space to the left, a few jackets above a jumbo-sized, hard-shell suitcase. To the right are shelves, just like the wardrobe in Lori’s room at home. A row of five shelves. An assortment of bags and boxes on them and, on the middle shelf, a camera.

A camera exactly like Lori’s.

My bowels turn to water. ‘Oh, God.’

Tom picks it up, his hand shaking. He tries to turn it on. ‘It’s dead,’ he says. ‘Get the laptop.’

I bring it with the cable from the other bedroom. ‘We need a USB connector too,’ Tom says, as he plugs it in.

I go back to Bradley’s room, but can’t find any leads. In the desk drawer in the spare bedroom there’s a bundle of cables and adapters. And one that fits the camera. Tom powers up the laptop and connects the camera. A few seconds later he is able to turn it on. We can see it’s hers. It’s all there, Lori’s albums. The last pictures are dated 7 April. Tom runs through them. Nothing of Bradley or a motorbike. Some of a traditional pagoda, one of the river, some close-ups, almost abstract, trees along a street, a couple more. No people in any of them.

Tom starts copying the files onto the laptop. When that’s done he disconnects the camera, plugs his phone into the computer and uploads the folder.

‘That fucker.’ Tom curses under his breath.

‘Why are you doing that?’ I say.

‘It’s all proof,’ he says, ‘the camera, the pictures, the text messages. It shows they were in touch. It shows where she was that day.’

‘We should get this to the police, now,’ I say, ‘and get them to pick him up.’

‘Yes. Nearly done.’ We watch the progress bar as the pictures upload.

Is there anything else of hers? I look through the other shelves, open boxes and bags, searching for Lori’s purse or phone. In the big drawers I find pillows, an empty hold-all, an acrylic blanket and beach towels. One of those neck pillows for long flights. ‘There’s nothing else.’ My voice cracks.

I haul out the suitcase. Something shifts and rattles inside.

Tom disconnects his phone and deletes the folder from the laptop.

I lift the case onto the bed and unzip it.

I open the case. The right-hand side is empty, the left is covered with the inner divider. Lumps stick up against the black nylon with its mesh pockets. I unzip the fabric.

A bolt, like lightning, fierce and white-hot explodes inside me. I’m struck dumb. The floor undulates.

I hear Tom’s voice. Far away. Indistinct.

I am paralysed.

Petrified.

Stone where there should be muscle. Stone crushing my heart.

Tom is touching me, pulling me, shouting, but all I can do is gaze.

Gaze at the tangle of clean white bones, the bridge of ribs, the snaking spine, the grinning teeth and gaping dark eye sockets of her lovely skull.