The Dead Tracks

Chapter Sixty-two

We headed east through empty city streets, rain hammering down, street lights and shopfronts just smudges against the night as Healy carved his way along Commercial Road.

Our homes would be off-limits now. Phillips and Hart had both their task forces on our trails, and they'd have men stationed outside the places we slept. Until this was over — whenever that was, and however it ended — we had to keep ahead of them without being caught. We had to find Glass. If we didn't, the next time we saw daylight was going to be when we were doing circuits in a prison yard.

'How much of what Sona told us tonight do the task force already know?'

Healy shrugged. 'Not much. That's the most she's ever talked.'

'She never mentioned anything about the place she was kept?'

'She said that it looked like some sort of sewer tonight. I remember reading that in the statement too. But definitely nothing more. Obviously they know where she ended up, so Phillips and Hart have had teams doing on-foot searches of the rivers.'

'Have they found anything?'

'Do you know how far the water travels north from Bow Creek alone?'

I shook my head.

'Twenty-six miles. All the way up past the M25. She didn't get dragged down from there, obviously, but that's a lot of walking just to be sure.'

'Anything apart from on-foot searches?'

They pulled blueprints from Thames Water. Checked the network close to both creeks and found nothing matching her description. There are no disused sewers close to any of the waterways we're talking about.' He looked at me. 'So she wasn't kept in a sewer, if that's what you're thinking. He may have adapted an existing structure, but it wasn't part of the functioning sewer system.'

I nodded and looked out of the window. Rain slid down the glass. Even with the heaters blowing, I could feel the chill of the evening coming off the windows.

'That's good,' I said finally.

'What's good?'

'That no one's figured out where she was taken yet.'

'How the hell is it good?'

'Because she was taken from Hark's Hill Woods, and it seems pretty obvious that she was kept there too. Look at all the connections to that place: Glass's obsession with Sykes; the relationship Sykes had with the woods; Sona talking about coming up above ground into that house, and all the trees that were growing around it. Plus, right at the end, she talked about hearing whimpering before Markham attacked her.'

'So?'

'So it was a dog she was hearing. His dog.'

'How do you figure that?'

'I went to the Dead Tracks a few days back. While I was there, this mutt emerges from the trees. It's on its last legs. Looks like it's had its fur singed and been badly mistreated.' I paused. It sounded crazy, even though I'd seen it with my own eyes. 'And there was this shaved area on the side of its face where a patch of skin had been grafted on.'

Healy looked at me blankly.

'I think Glass was using it.'

'Using it how?'

'Using it as a lab rat. Seeing if the skin would take.'

'Why?'

'I don't know. But look at what he did to Sona.' I paused, seeing the disbelief in Healy's face. You want my best guess? He was planning something big and he didn't want to risk damaging the women.'

He went quiet, and we could both see why: his daughter was one of those women. Rain filled the silence, pounding even harder against the roof of the car, hissing as it exploded against the bodywork.

'So what — we're looking for a messed-up dog?

I shook my head. We're looking for the house Sona described. Wherever the house is, the dog is — because that's where Glass is.'

Healy sighed. 'That place is a square mile of nothing but trees. You know how many houses border it?'

'Remember what she said. We're not looking for one that's still being lived in. We're looking for one that's barely standing. A very specific house.'

'Whose?'

I dug around in my pocket and found my notepad. 'Milton Sykes's.'

Healy smirked. 'You're about seventy years late, Raker. They knocked the entire road down during the war and built an industrial estate on top.'

'We're not looking for the house he owned on Forham Avenue,' I said, holding up the pad and placing a finger against one of the entries: 42 Ovlan Road. 'We're looking for the house he was born in.'