The Dead Tracks

Chapter Forty-one

The pub was small, with low lighting and ambient music. A series of booths, decked out in black leather and walnut, ran along one side, next to windows that looked out over Camden High Street. I found a seat right at the back with virtually no lighting and only a partial view in and out. The barman said, as it was so quiet, he'd come to my table. I ordered two beers and waited.

Ten minutes later, Healy arrived.

He squinted and scanned the room. Then his eyes fell on me. He cast a glance around him - making certain there were no faces he recognized — and made his way across. He slid in at the booth without saying a word.

I pushed one of the beers towards him. He scooped it up and emptied it in about half a minute. When he was done, he swivelled in his seat, trying to catch the barman's eye. 'Just do me a favour,' he said when he'd finally put his order in for a second. 'Keep your eyes on the door. Because if anyone even vaguely familiar comes in, we're both in the shite.'

'I don't think anyone you know will be coming in here.'

He studied me, a frown forming on his face. Then he looked back over his shoulder and took in the room for a second time. Four men at the bar. Two in the booth a couple down from us. Two more beyond that, hands touching on the table. He turned back to me. 'Is this a gay bar?'

'Looks like it.'

'Then you're probably right.'

A silence settled between us.

He got out his phone, placed it on the table and watched the barman bring over his drink. He scooped it up immediately. By the time he was finished, it was half empty. He pushed it aside and leaned forward. 'So, what did you call me for?'

'I think you know.'

He eyed me. 'Look, I couldn't say anything to you earlier. It was too risky. If they found out I was telling you about…' He stopped.

'Telling me about what?'

He didn't reply.

'The five other women?'

A flitter of surprise on his face. 'I don't know what -'

'Save the circus act, Healy.' I reached into my jacket pocket and placed a folded piece of paper down on the table between us. He picked it up and unfolded it. In front of him were photographs of the five missing women I'd discovered on the site, as well as Megan and Leanne. 'I've found them. I know they exist. I've seen them on the wall of the incident room, so I know they're linked. Question is, why doesn’t the public know about them?'

His eyes flicked to me but he didn't say anything.

I leaned forward, pushing my beer aside. 'Do their families even know they've been linked? Do their families know anything.?' I paused and waited for him to answer. He didn't. 'You want to know what I really don't understand? Why you're happy to play along with this bullshit cover story when your daughter's one of them.'

He looked up at me, his fingers resting on the beer bottle now.

'Healy?'

'You don't understand,' he replied quietly.

'What don't I understand?'

'What it's like.'

This time I didn't respond. His eyes drifted outside, and for a moment it was like looking right into his head: the anger, the sadness, the need to hit out, bubbling away below the surface.

'You think I don't care about my daughter?' he said finally, still studying the people passing on the street. You think I don't care about finding her? I care. I care so much it's like I'm being eaten up from the inside.' He looked at me, fire in his eyes now. 'I needed to find out what you had on Megan Carver, because I've hit a dead end. I don't know where to go next with Leanne. So that's why I needed you. But what I don't need, what I won't put up with, is you getting in the way. Because I'm going to find the person who took her - and I'm going to fucking kill him. And you aren't going to stop me, and neither are those other pricks.'

He meant Phillips and Hart. He meant Davidson. He meant everyone.

'So are you working her disappearance by yourself?' I asked.

'Yeah.'

'Why?'

'Because no one else cares about her.'

He turned in the booth, back towards the door, as if he didn't trust me to look out for him. Then he faced me again, his eyes focused beneath the ridge of his brow.

'The police don't give a shit.'

'About Leanne?'

'About any of them.'

'Why?'

He went to speak and then hesitated. I'd seen it in him earlier. No mistakes. No errors. No slip-ups. He'd worked his daughter's disappearance for so long, off the books and without the knowledge of his bosses, that he'd completely insulated himself. Everything he knew, anything he'd managed to find out about her, no one else got to hear about. He finished his beer and gestured for the barman to bring him another.

'Okay, here's how I see it,' I said, trying to jump-start the conversation. 'You've got seven women. They all look the same. They've been registered as missing persons, but they've not been linked — at least publicly. Thirty thousand people go missing in London alone each year, so I understand how they've managed to stay off the radar. But what I don't understand is why the police haven't gone public.'

The barman brought Healy's third beer. After he had gone, Healy looked up at me and a look of disgust moved across his face. They're just one part of the jigsaw.'

'And what's the other part?'

He turned his beer bottle around, that same look on his face. No mistakes. No errors. No slip-ups. But then he glanced at me again, and I could see what he was thinking: it was different now. The stakes were as high for both of us. He was illegally pursuing a case under the noses of his bosses. I was out on bail for the abduction and probable murder of a teenager.

'The other part is Frank White,' he said.

I looked at him. 'So I was right?'

'Yeah. You were right.'

'How are Megan and Frank connected?'

Your number-one fan DS Davidson works for Jamie Hart, not Phillips. Hart's in charge of a murder investigation team looking into the disappearances of the women.'

'So it's definitely a murder investigation?'

'We're assuming they're all dead.'

He stopped. Realized what he'd said. He'd just committed his daughter to the ground alongside the others. A flicker of emotion in his face, and then it was gone again.

'Where Does Phillips fit in?'

'Phillips works in the same office as Hart, but not on the same investigation. He's SDC7 - just like White was. He's heading up a task force trying to put the cuffs on Akim Gobulev.'

I frowned. 'Wait a second, Phillips works organized crime?'

'Yeah.'

'So why's he coming after me?'

Healy glanced over his shoulder again, checking the door. And as he did, everything suddenly shifted into focus. The link between Megan and Frank White.

'The surgeon,' I said quietly.

He looked back at me as the connections started to snap together in my head. The links between events — and everything in between.

'They think the surgeon's involved in the women's disappearances?'

'They don't think he's involved,' Healy said. 'They think he's the one taking them.'