Chasing Innocence (21 page)

His eyes moved to the white shelves of plastic storage boxes on the far wall, but he did not move towards them. Instead he sat on the edge of the bed, looking at the walls, the bookcases and back to the bedside cabinet. He picked up the photograph of Andrea and Brian and flipped it over. He pushed back the metal clips and eased out the wooden backing, a thin sheet of paper advertising the frame’s manufacturer, the photograph, the glass, and a small creased piece of notepaper hidden behind the picture.

On the paper was a phone number with a Hambury area code, written in the same style he had seen through the rest of the room. He placed the paper on the bed and re-assembled the picture, placing it back on the bedside cabinet. He studied the paper for a long time, contemplating the possible reasons that brought the paper and picture together. Finally he pulled his phone from his pocket, dialled 141 and then the number. The call connected and was answered almost immediately by a deep voice that said two words. A first name he knew after a heartbeat of recollection, the second a surname he did not even comprehend. He disconnected and slid both the paper and mobile into his jacket pocket.

He let his eyes wander from poster to picture around the room. He stopped at a drawing above the headboard, the drawing surrounded by framed images of fairies and nymphs. It was a child’s drawing of a man in army uniform, a big smile beneath a big moustache. Initially Boer puzzled over the odd shapes coloured yellow in the background, until he realised they were yet more wings, splayed outwards from her father’s back. Leaning forward he pulled the bottom edge away from the wall and peered up at the back.
Get well soon Daddy
was written in large letters with a lot of love and kisses. The paper was creased as if it had been folded and used as a card.

Boer stood and smoothed down his trousers and then the bed, casting one last look around the room and then made his way downstairs. He suffered several minutes of glares from the mother while fending off questions from the older of the two girls. Ferreira finally brought their visit to a close, both of them silent for most of the return journey, busy ordering the detail and thoughts of the last hour in their minds.

THIRTY-EIGHT

The next time Sarah opened her eyes it was to the glow of artificial light and the sound of the concrete door coming to rest. She was immediately aware of not being alone. Her eyes finally focused and she felt a pulse of exhilaration. The girl was sitting in the corner of the room on the mattress, knees drawn up to her chin, wide eyes fierce.

‘Hello,’ Sarah said.

The girl’s bottom lip trembled but her mouth remained firmly closed. Tears forced themselves onto cheeks already streaked white amid a torturous day’s grime. Sarah’s instincts pulled her towards the girl, but her attempt to crawl failed. Her head spun and she fell sideways onto the floor. With little ability to coordinate her limbs she managed to slowly shuffle around so she could lean against the wall. Exhausted from the effort she let her arm flop onto the foot of the mattress. She tried to think of words to say but nothing seemed to fit. ‘You OK?’

‘Stay away, I’m not talking to you.’ The girl’s small pink lips clamped closed. She drew her legs tighter into her body.

The context of the words did not register at first as Sarah tried to centre her thoughts, the girl’s anger reminding her of a small animal cornered.

‘I saw you in the alley,’ Sarah said. ‘I came here to help you.’

The girl chewed her lip and her mouth remained obstinately shut. When she eventually spoke the words came out in a rushed torrent. ‘I know who you are, you’re with them. I saw you in the street, they told me all about what you did to help them, I know you’re here to make sure I behave.’ She breathed deeply and looked defiantly back at Sarah.

‘I am here for you, they have been…pretty horrid to me.’

Silence again as the girl’s need to speak fought her desire not to. ‘My dad wouldn’t do this, not to me.’

‘Do, this?’

‘They said he won’t pay the money he owes. So they took me instead. He wouldn’t, not my dad.’ The tears easily bubbled through the thin shield of anger, quickly giving way to sobs.

Sarah watched, unable to act on the girl’s anguish, desperate to comfort her but physically incapable of moving an inch closer. In part it felt like looking back through time at a previous incarnation of herself. Seeing the cruel world of men emptied onto a child’s unaware sense of reality. She felt every heave of the girl’s chest and of those fragile shoulders and arms racked with a misplaced guilt. A young life ripped from all it holds precious. Unaware the worst was yet to come. The girl’s crying continued in Sarah’s mind long after her own eyes closed, through the hours of fitful sleep.

THIRTY-NINE

Adam pulled out his phone as he wandered down the sloping track and past the hire car Brian had bumped onto the verge. He dialled home as he stepped onto the quiet country road, full of trepidation and hope. There were no messages.

He looked up and down the road and saw no sign of Brian. He had been gone for over an hour. This location had taken them hours to find, the frustration increasing with each hour of criss-crossing the countryside. Brian was sure Sarah had made her last call from here and that made the location important in Brian’s eyes.

Adam’s phone started ringing and Boer’s name flashed on the screen. He had programmed both the Detective’s numbers from cards they handed him the night before. He had no desire to talk, certainly not to Boer. He needed more time to think how he would explain what he was doing, mostly because he was not really sure what that was. He waited for the call to end and switched the phone to silent.

He walked back up the slope to the disused farmyard and a large plateau of uneven mud, flanked on the right by imposing oaks and sycamores, the trees overlooking the yard and open fields at his left. At the far end of the yard the shell of a farmhouse sagged grey and exhausted from inattention. He walked to the broken fence, his shadow long and descending in front of him, scanning the outlying fields now golden in the afternoon sunlight. His eyes skipped from ploughed mud and bordering hedges to brown and yellow trees, a distant church spire and dotted houses. Eventually he spotted a small figure jogging in a rough parallel, growing in size as Brian came around and towards the old farm, finally labouring up the shallow embankment and climbing up over the fence. He blew hard as he made the yard, bending over with both hands on his knees.

‘Fuck me Sawacki! I used to be able to do that all day.’

‘Do what?’ Adam asked.

Brian looked at him, taking several more gulps of air. ‘Reconnaissance.’

‘Reconnaissance for what precisely?’

Brian gradually caught his breath, standing with his hands on hips, his chest rising and falling.

‘This has to be the right place, although nobody knows an old woman who matches what Sarah described, certainly not one that brings her dogs for walks through here.’ He gestured in the vague direction he had come from. ‘There’s a few young couples in converted cottages, a farm with barns full of vintage cars, a deserted pub and a rundown vicarage. I’ve done a complete circuit.’

Adam was confused. ‘What use would talking to the woman do anyway, she’s hardly likely to know where the Rover was going?’

Brian scowled back at him. ‘You’re a negative little shit. Anything we can take to narrow our choices from the west coast or east, I’m going to take.’

‘But…’ Adam opened his mouth and closed it. ‘So what next?’

‘Is that your phone?’ They both looked down at Adam’s phone flashing through his pocket.

‘It’s Detective Boer, he’s been ringing for the last ten minutes.’

Brian looked thoughtfully at the phone and then at Adam. ‘Why don’t you answer, he could be calling about something interesting. What’s he like?’

‘Boer? He’s old, got a dodgy moustache like yours, thin as a rake and grouchy. You’d probably get on.’

‘I meant does he sound like he knows what he’s doing?’

‘Totally, he’s one of those old timers who knows what’s what. Hooked into everything. He knew there was something about Sar…’

Brian waited on the rest of the sentence but Adam just looked startled and pursed his lips together. ‘Something what about Sarah?’ he asked.

‘Nothing, he was just really good.’

‘Spit it out.’

‘It’s long and complicated and I don’t want to discuss it.’

‘So give me the quick version.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Jeeses Sawacki, I won’t tell anyone. Cross my heart and hope to die.’

Adam ran a hand through his hair. ‘Well, Sarah has a bit of history. She assaulted some guy a few years back who turned out to have done all kinds of stuff to her as a child. Boer remembered her.’

‘Boer remembered her? That must have been some kind of assault.’

‘There was a carving knife involved.’

Brian quickly re-calculated his appraisal of Sarah. She went up several notches in his estimation. ‘Anything else about the Detective?’

‘He didn’t look like he would suffer fools.’ A realisation dawned on Adam. ‘Why, what’s on your mind?’

‘I guess it’s make or break time. Give me your phone.’

‘Why, what are you going to do?’

‘Talk to Boer of course, one of us has to.’

‘But why?’

‘Well he’s ringing you for a start, which means he wants to talk. So if you’re not going to, I might as well. He certainly isn’t going away. You never know, he might help us.’

‘But he won’t, he’ll think we’re on the run or something.’

‘He will if he doesn’t talk to us, which is why one of us has to answer that phone. You can do it if you want.’

‘But we have nothing to say to him, do we?’

Brian sighed, long and frustrated. ‘Can you tell me what new and revealing information your ongoing review of the surveillance has produced?’

‘You know the answer to that. The logo just looks like three lions. It might be part of a larger logo.’

‘And we’re both in agreement that three lions isn’t necessarily going to narrow our investigation by much.’

‘Of course. I need internet access to start cross-referencing logos, maybe find one that looks similar.’

‘And apart from the road to nowhere down there, which may narrow our search to the east coast, what else do we have?’

‘Nothing.’

‘So trust me, Adam, we need to talk to him. You never know.’

‘But he’s a policeman, he’ll know I’m with you.’

Brian wiped his palms on his jeans and held out his hand. ‘Give me the damn phone.’

Adam reluctantly handed it over.

Boer had hung up. Brian dialled the number.

FORTY

‘If that’s not Adam who is it?’ Boer asked.

‘It’s Brian Dunstan.’

There was a short pause before Boer spoke again. ‘So you now have coercion and kidnapping to add to the long list of things we need to talk about.’

‘I do hope you’re not implying I kidnapped my daughter, detective, because that could piss me off. If you’re referring to Mr Sawacki, he’s here of his own volition.’ Brian glanced across at Adam.

‘Where might here be?’ Boer asked.

‘Somewhere between Stratford and Warwick. Probably at the site where Sarah Sawacki made her final call last night.’

At the other end of the phone the background noise faded and he heard a muffled command. Then the detective’s voice returned.

‘And what do you have, Mr Dunstan?’

‘Right now, CCTV footage from Delamere showing the Rover driver making sure he wasn’t being followed. We have a full mugshot of the guy. He missed Sarah because she was busy checking out his car. Sarah talked to him and followed the Rover out of Delamere, which you already know. There’s nothing in the footage to indicate where they were going.’

‘What else?’

‘What else? How far are you into reviewing the CCTV, all that Sunday overtime been sanctioned yet?’

Boer ignored the comment despite its accuracy. ‘Tell me what else you have.’

‘Not much. We’re here trying to get a handle on where he might have been going. Why the Rover came down this road. It’s mostly used by locals travelling between villages, it doesn’t even feed onto the M40.’

‘Part of a misdirection or part of the route home?’ Boer asked.

Brian liked Boer’s directness. He thought the question over, scanning the countryside and the cathedral trees that marked the road’s passage. ‘Both, I would say. It’s part of the misdirection in that he doesn’t want anyone knowing he came this way. Which means he was probably heading home.’

‘Excellent. Mr Dunstan, wait a second please.’

Brian heard muffled sounds then Boer’s voice returned. ‘What about the number plate?’

‘What about the number plate?’

‘Don’t mess me about Brian.’

‘I’m not, the camera was broken.’

‘No, it wasn’t,’ Boer answered. ‘So let’s try that again. What is the number plate?’

‘What would I get in return?’ Brian countered.

‘It’s about time you realised the gravity of your situation, Mr Dunstan. There is no bargaining point here.’

‘I am fully aware of the situation, Detective, which is why I’m not still twiddling my thumbs in Hambury. But I can’t afford to give you all I have with no return.’

‘Give me a minute,’ Boer said, and then silence.

Brian wandered to the edge of the farmyard, looking out across the vista of fields beneath the autumn sun. Boer came back.

‘I’ll give you the address of the Rover’s registered owner if you give me the number plate.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Take it or leave it,’ answered Boer. ‘I want to find your daughter and Sarah Sawacki, just like you do. Alive is my preference, trust me on that front.’

Brian turned and faced the sun, feeling the warmth on his face. He told Boer the number plate and Boer’s voice faded again, as if he was talking with someone while turned away from the mouthpiece. Brian felt a wave of pain pulse out across his ribs and his back. He embraced it.

Boer’s voice returned again. ‘Thank you, Brian. As for the address, Adam can give you that.’