Lost

4

The autumn leaves swirl across Randolph Avenue, collecting against the steps of Dolphin Mansions. The place still looks the same, with a white-trimmed arch over the entrance and bronze letters sandblasted into the glass above the door.

Ali taps impatiently on the steering wheel with short manicured fingernails. The place unnerves her. We both remember a different time of year, the haste and noise and sullen heat, the shock and sadness. Joe doesn't understand but must sense something. Shuffling through leaves, we cross the road and climb the front steps. The bottom buzzer automatically opens the door between nine and four every day. Standing in the foyer, I glance up the central stairwell as though listening for a distant echo. Everything passes up and down these stairs—letters, furniture, food, newborn babies and missing children.

I can remember the names and faces of every resident. I can draw lines between them on a whiteboard showing relationships, contacts, employment history, movements and alibis for when Mickey disappeared. I remember it not like yesterday but like I remember the meal I just ordered and failed to eat, the fried eggs and lean bacon.

Take Rachel Carlyle, for instance. The last time I saw her was at the memorial service for Mickey a few months after the trial.

I arrived late and sat at the back, feeling like I was intruding. Rachel's soft, drugged sobs filled the chapel and she looked devoid of hope and tired of living.

Some of the neighbors from Dolphin Mansions were there, including Mrs. Swingler, the cat lady, whose hairdo resembled one of her tabbies curled on top of her head. Kirsten Fitzroy had her arm over Rachel's shoulders. Next to her was S. K. Dravid, the piano teacher. Ray Murphy, the caretaker, and his wife were a few seats back. Their son Stevie sat between them, twitching and mumbling. Tourette's had hard-wired his movements to be quicker than a light switch.

I didn't stay for the whole service. I slipped outside, pausing to look at the plaque waiting to be blessed.

MICHAELA LOUISE CARLYLE

1995–2002

We didn't have time to say goodbye, my Angel, but you're

only a thought away.

There were no lessons to be learned, no logic or plot to be raked over, no moral comfort to be gained. According to the trial judge, her death had been pointless, violent and put into context.

I interviewed Howard Wavell a dozen times after that, hoping he might give up Mickey's burial place, but he said nothing. Periodically, we investigated new leads, excavating a garden in Pimlico and dredging the pond in Ravenscourt Park.

I haven't talked to Rachel since then but sometimes, secretly, I have found myself parked outside Dolphin Mansions, staring out the windshield, wondering how a child disappears in five stories and eleven flats.

The old-fashioned metal lift rattles and twangs between the landings as it rises to the top floor. I knock on the door of number 11 but there's no answer.

Ali peers through the leadlight panels and then lowers herself onto one knee and pushes open the hinged mail flap.

“She hasn't been home for a while. There are letters piled up on the floor.”

“What else can you see?”

“The bedroom door is open. There is a dressing gown hanging on a hook.”

“Is it light blue?”

“Yes.”

I remember Rachel wearing the robe, sitting on the sofa, cradling the telephone.

Her forehead was pasty with perspiration and her eyes fogged. I had seen the signs before. She wanted a drink—she needed a drink—a steadier to get her through.

“Seven years old. That's a great age.”

She didn't respond.

“Did you and Mickey get on well?”

She blinked at me in bafflement.

“I mean did you ever fight?”

“Sometimes. No more than normal.”

“How often do you think normal families fight?”

“I don't know, Inspector. I only see normal families in TV sitcoms.”

She looked at me steadily, not with defiance but with a sure knowledge that I was following the wrong line of questioning.

“Does Mickey hang out with anyone in particular in the building?”

“She knows everyone. Mr. Wavell downstairs, Kirsten across the hall, Mrs. Swingler, Mr. Murphy, Dravid on the ground floor. He teaches piano . . .”

“Is there any reason why Mickey might have wandered off?”

“No.” One bra strap slid down her shoulder and she tugged it back. It slid down again.

“Could someone have wanted to take her?”

She shook her head.

“What about her father?”

“No.”

“You're divorced?”

“Three years.”

“Does he see Mickey?”

She squeezed a ball of soggy tissues in her fist and again shook her head.

My marbled notebook rested open on my knee. “I need a name.”

She didn't reply.

I waited for the silence to wear her down but it didn't seem to affect her. She had no nervous habits like touching her hair or biting her bottom lip. She was totally enclosed.

“He would never hurt her,” she pronounced suddenly. “And he's not silly enough to take her.”

My pen was poised over the page.

“Aleksei Kuznet,” she whispered.

I thought she was joking. I almost laughed.

Here was a name to conjure with; a name to tighten the throat and loosen the bowels; a name to speak softly in quiet corners with fingers crossed and knuckles rapping on wood.

“When did you last see your ex-husband?”

“On the day we divorced.”

“And what makes you so sure he didn't take Mickey?”

She didn't miss a beat. “My husband has a reputation as a violent and dangerous man, Inspector, but he is not stupid. He will never touch Mickey or me. He knows I can destroy him.”

“And how exactly can you do that?”

She didn't have to answer. I could see my reflection in her unblinking stare. She believed this. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind.

“There's something else you should know,” she said. “Mickey has a panic disorder. She won't go outside by herself. Her psychologist says she is agoraphobic.”

“But she's only a—”

“Child? Yes. People don't expect it, but it happens. Even the thought of going to school used to make her sick. Chest pains, palpitations, nausea, shortness of breath . . . Most days I had to walk her right to the classroom and pick her up from the same place.”

The tears almost came again, but she found a place to put them. Women and tears—I'm no good with them. Some men can just wrap their arms around a woman and soak up the hurt, but that's not me. I wish it were different.

Rachel seemed too damaged to hold herself together but she wasn't going to break in front of me. She was going to show me how strong she could be. I didn't doubt it. Any woman who walked away from Aleksei Kuznet needed courage beyond words.

“Have you remembered something?” asks Joe, close to me now.

“No. I'm just daydreaming.”

Ali looks over the banister. “Maybe one of the neighbors knows where Rachel is. What about the one with the cats?”

“Mrs. Swingler.”

A lot of the neighbors have moved on since the tragedy. The Murphys were managing a pub in Dartford and Kirsten Fitzroy, Rachel's best friend, had moved to Notting Hill. Perhaps tragedy permeates a place like a smell you can't get rid of.

Taking the lift to the first floor, I knock on Mrs. Swingler's door. Resting on my crutches, I hear her coming down her hallway. Long strings of colored beads threaded into her hair gently clack as she moves. The door opens a crack.

“Hello, Mrs. Swingler, do you remember me?”

She peers at me aggressively. She thinks I'm a health inspector from the local council, come to take away her cats.

“I was here a few years ago—when Mickey Carlyle disappeared. I'm looking for Rachel Carlyle. Have you seen her?”

The smell coming from inside is a fetid stench, part feline and part human. She finds her voice. “No.”

“When did you last see her?”

She shrugs. “Weeks back. She must have gone on holidays.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“No.”

“Have you seen her car parked outside?”

“What sort of car does she drive?”

I think hard. I don't know why I remember. “A Renault Estate.”

Mrs. Swingler shakes her head, making the beads clack.

The hallway behind her is crammed with boxes and chests. I notice a small movement, then another, as though the shadows are shifting. Cats. Everywhere. Crawling out of boxes and drawers, from under the bed and on top of wardrobes. Dark shapes leak across the floor, gathering around her, rubbing against her pale legs and nipping her ankles.

“When did you last see me?”

She looks at me oddly. “Last month . . . you was in and out of here all the time.”

“Was I with anyone?”

She glances at the Professor suspiciously. “Is your friend trying to be funny?”

“No. He has just forgotten a few things.”

“You were seeing her upstairs, I suppose.”

“Do you know why?”

Her laugh rasps like a violin. “Do I look like your social secretary?”

She's about to shut the door but thinks of something else. “I remember you now. You was always looking for that little girl got murdered. It's her fault, you know.”

“Whose fault?”

“People like her shouldn't have kids if they can't control them. I don't mind my taxes going to sick kiddies in hospitals and to fix the roads but why should I pay for single mothers, sponging on welfare and spending their money on cigarettes and booze?”

“She didn't need handouts.”

Mrs. Swingler hitches up her caftan. “Once an alkie, always an alkie.”

I step toward her. “You think so?”

Suddenly she's less sure of her ground.

“I'll be sure to tell my mother. One day at a time, eh?”

The Professor pulls the cage door closed and the lift jerks into motion. When we reach the foyer, I turn back toward the stairs. I have searched this building dozens of times—in reality and in dreams—but I still want to search it again. I want to take it apart, brick by brick.

Rachel is missing. So are the people who left bloodstains on the boat. I don't know what any of it means but a twitch of the brain, a nervous shudder and something like instinct tells me to worry.

It's getting late. Streetlights are beginning to blink and taillights glow. We skirt along the side path and reach the rear garden—a narrow rectangle of grass surrounded by brick walls. A child's wading pool lies upturned in the shadows and outdoor furniture has been stacked outside a shed.

Beyond the rear fence is Paddington Recreation Ground where muddy puddles dot the turf. To the left is a lane with garages, while to the right, across half a dozen walls, is the Macmillan Estate, a drab, postwar council housing estate. There are ninety-six flats, with laundry hanging from the balconies and satellite dishes bolted to the walls.

This is the spot where Mickey and Sarah used to sunbathe. Above is the window Howard watched them from. On the day Mickey disappeared I came to the garden to find some shade and quiet. I knew then that she hadn't just wandered off. And a child doesn't accidentally go missing in a five-story mansion block. It felt like a kidnapping or something worse.

Missing children, you see, no good news can come of them. Dozens disappear every day, mostly runaways or throwaways. A seven-year-old is different because the only possibilities are the stuff of nightmares.

I crouch gingerly and stare into the pond where ornamental carp are lazily circling. I have never understood why people keep fish. They're indifferent, expensive, covered in scales and have such a fragile hold on their lives. My second wife, Jessie, was like that. We were married for six months and then I went out of fashion faster than male thongs.

As a kid I bred frogs. I used to collect the spawn from a pond on our farm and keep them in a forty-four-gallon drum cut down the middle. Baby frogs are cute but put a hundred of them in a bucket and you have a squirming, slippery mass. They finished up invading the house. My stepfather told me I was “fantastic” at raising tadpoles. I'm assuming he didn't mean “fantastic” in a good way.

Ali is standing next to me. She pushes hair behind her ears. “You thought she might already be dead on that first day.”

“I know.”

“We hadn't done background checks and SOCO hadn't arrived. There were no bloodstains or suspects, but you still had a bad feeling.”

“Yes.”

“And right from the outset you noticed Howard. What was it about him?”

“He was taking photographs. Everyone else in the building was searching for Mickey but he went back to get his camera. He said he wanted to have a record.”

“A record?”

“Of all the excitement.”

“Why?”

“So he could remember it.”