Chasing Innocence (35 page)

He needed a computer. He rubbed his eyes and swung his legs off the bed. He ran his hands through his hair and left the room, the door clicking closed behind him as he jogged down the long hallway.

SIXTY-SIX

Francis Boer knew plenty of stories about people who had known. Who had taken meticulous care of their affairs, written farewell notes, gone to bed, and never seen another day. Boer had never really known what to make of those stories and had never really given them any thought.

Until that Monday morning. A night of ravaging sickness was the forewarning. A night that made his body feel emptied. A few fitful hours of sleep and he suddenly jerked awake at four. He knew then, as if some systems check had uncovered a fatal change in the trip of his heart, the blood thicker in his veins, and then woke him to warn him. This would be his last dawn, the last day in a lifetime. It was as good a day to die as any.

When he was up and able he rested in his study with a glass of water, letting his thoughts vie for his attention. He was proud of his children. They did not talk to him or did so rarely. That was his failing, not theirs. Some men are family men and some are not. He had found every opportunity to be anywhere but home, mostly at work and never short of justification. That was probably his biggest regret. For all the effort his wife invested in changing him, he only understood the need to change when she was no longer there.

That sparked a thought in him. He lifted writing paper from the drawer and laid it on his desk. He wrote four letters, one to each of his children and one to his former wife, now living in Canada. He signed his name with love and carefully folded them into envelopes, addressing each and then slid them into the drawer.

Then he did something that went against every professional principle he possessed, despite it being the third time he had done it. He called a suspect and warned them away with detail of the investigation. The conversation was short. When he placed the handset back in its cradle he had no better feeling for whether it was right or wrong. If he was right then Sarah and Andrea might be saved. If he was wrong he could not see it would change much. It was not a spur of the moment decision. It had been growing as a thought since the night before.

Boer wrapped himself in a coat and stood outside watching east. He was rewarded with a brief flicker of pink and orange but it was overcast and the dawn was not much to speak of. Back inside, Boer’s morning continued where the night had left off, racked convulsing with nausea. As if presented with this countdown to life his body was desperately trying to expel the cause of its premature conclusion, although there was little left to expel now save for the strength of his body.

Warning off the suspect did make him feel guilty during Ferreira’s visit, despite it being the highlight of his last morning. If he were honest he would admit she was the highlight of his last years, wondering how she would remember him in years to come. He worried for her but only as a coach would a promising student.

After Ferreira left and the marmite toast had been cautiously devoured, he sat in the comfortable silence of the study, the steady progression of a second hand his only company. He pulled the writing paper across one more time and produced one more short letter, sealing it in an envelope marked
Helen
and placing it in the drawer with the others.

He missed the majority of the press conference, spending it in the bathroom revisiting the toast, although his only imperative was to watch the mother and Ferreira’s star turn. He needed a drink, his demons straining at the leash in their last hours. He intended embracing them but not yet. First he would let his mind do what it did best. He worked the detail.

The answers to the most puzzling problems are usually the simplest. People often miss them because human minds often seek complicated solutions for the most puzzling problems. Simple solutions and a nod to all human vagaries had been his mantra for twenty years.

Once Boer started a case and began processing the detail his mind would invariably draw him towards a particular aspect. The first with Andrea’s abduction had been realising she had not been picked by chance. The second had been gleaned as he flicked through Andrea’s stories in her bookcase, a page at random, a partial sentence in a whole page of words. The last had been the number hidden in her bedside picture frame.

Ordinarily he would then begin moulding and squeezing those thoughts until he had a hint of the truth. Then he would sit down with the people most likely to give that truth shape. Very often that took him through a maze of twists and turns to something entirely different. Sometimes it took him nowhere and more sleepless nights wondering what he had missed, always feeling he could have done more when the truth remained elusive.

For Andrea it would now fall to Ferreira to find the truth. Although he knew where he would start in giving the case substance, he had already ringed the name in the case file many times lest she miss his point.

Exhausted, he dozed, waking for the last time just before five in the afternoon. He checked the clock and cursed the irony of sleeping away his last day. The irony of a lifetime with a restless mind toiling through sleepless nights, silenced only with alcohol. The irony would have him shake a fist at the sky if he thought there was anything in the sky worth shaking a fist at.

The clock ticked past six and he decided now was the time. He pushed the chair from the desk and eased himself to his feet, weaker than he had expected, his legs attempting to buckle at any opportunity. He used the walls and door frames to support himself through the short journey to his bedroom, the journey back to his desk made more difficult by the almost empty bottle and the glass in his hand.

He cleaned the glass with his shirt and unscrewed the cap – a sound that stirred endless memories of late nights. The sound of drink splashing into the glass shifted loose a good many more.

Discovering the full meaning of the word terminal at the age of fifty-three had brought to him the realisation he wanted to live. That meant saying goodbye to his liquid friend. He had driven straight to the supermarket, bought one last bottle of his favourite and drank all but this glass of its golden contents.

He sipped it at first, like he did all drinks, but the hunger having been tempered for so long leapt free and he gulped it down. Immediately he craved another and even considered convincing Helen to stop at the supermarket. He sectioned that need and placed the glass on the table, the empty bottle on the floor beside the table leg.

The glow of the drink spread warm inside his stomach. He felt lightheaded, although it was too soon for the drink to have any effect. He picked up his pen and tapped the nib against the page, circling the name absently. Mentally he tried skimming through the detail but his mind would only remind him of his wife, smiling and exhausted, their first child pink in her arms, a picture he kept in his bedside drawer. His heart skipped to an uneven tempo and a tightness crept up on him, a tightness that embraced him and ratcheted ever tighter, a sudden fear at the realisation even though he had been waiting for its arrival, then unimaginable pain that clamped tight across his chest as if he was being crushed by giant hands. It pitched him forward onto the desk, the pen dropping onto the desk and then rolling to the floor. He fought through his failing body to cling on to dignity, for how he wanted her to find him, using the last of his strength and slowly pushing himself back into the chair, then the creak of wood and a blink of unseeing eyes, the second hand marking time. A short exhalation and then Francis Boer only existed in the minds of those that had known him.

SIXTY-SEVEN

Duncan and Brodie were waiting in a car in a layby on the A12, north of the M25. They were both unified in their purpose although not talking to each other, mostly because Brodie thought the photos were worth ten thousand and Duncan thought it more prudent they settle for five.

They had been oblivious to possessing anything worth that kind of money until that Monday afternoon, sitting in a café eating eggs, black pudding and baked beans. They were casually watching the news on a TV mounted high on the wall, another missing child. Then Sarah’s picture appeared on the TV and they watched footage of her walk through Delamere.

They had of course taken a good look through Sarah’s phone on the Saturday night, both impressed by pictures of her topless on some beach. They transferred the pictures to a laptop to get a better look and in the hope there might be some of her busy with her bloke. They were disappointed, so they watched a couple of movies, did some porn and then fell asleep and never gave Sarah another thought.

Until that afternoon, both avidly watching the TV while finishing their meals, then frantically searching through their bags in the car having offloaded most of their contraband the day before.

The phone was gone but the phone’s memory card was still pushed into the laptop, complete with the pictures. Jubilant and relieved they set about comparing circulation figures for the tabloid press and then finding numbers to call. By five that afternoon Duncan had agreed on a price and a place to swap the money for the pictures, which is how they came to be waiting in a layby on the A12.

The journalist they spoke to had warned he might be delayed and by seven thirty he was an hour late. There had been several false alarms. On one occasion flaring brake lights heralded a driver who immediately hurried to the verge. Another car pulled up and waited with a lone driver. Brodie was on the verge of knocking on the window when a second car came to a stop and a woman exchanged a sleeping child with the first.

Then a Land Rover pulled up in front, the number plates completely obscured by muck and mud. A large man with broad powerful shoulders climbed out and walked to the back, tossing a bag onto the ground that landed several yards from the tow bar. Duncan and Brodie looked at each other and climbed out.

The traffic flashed by at implausible speeds, both of them buffeted by the backdraft, headlights and tail lights passing in a blur. They stopped several steps shy of the bag. At the same time the Land Rover’s passenger door opened and another man climbed out. This man was tall and smart in a long brown overcoat, carrying something that looked like a small laptop in one hand.

‘He’s a Paki!’ said Brodie. ‘We’re not dealing with no Paki!’

‘I’m English actually,’ the man said as he came to a stop and held out his hand. ‘Now show me the pictures.’

Brodie stepped back, the memory card clasped in his fist.

‘No way, Paki and English, that’s twice as bad pal. Not for five grand, we want ten.’

The man in the overcoat sighed. ‘Don’t call me a Paki.’ He stepped forward and picked up the bag, throwing it at Duncan’s feet. ‘There’s three thousand in there. You can hand over the pictures and fuck off or my friend here will take the pictures and keep the money. Which is it?’

They both looked at the broad man. He looked to Duncan to be the result of cross-breeding humans and Rottweilers, including a collar-like tattoo around his neck. ‘Three is good for some photies Brode, what would we have said to that this morning?’

Brodie looked for a moment like he might protest but they were out of their league and they both knew it. He handed Duncan the card and picked up the bag, opening it and flicking through the stacked notes as he walked back to the car. Duncan took three steps towards the man and handed him the card. He was about to turn when the crossbreed made a sound not unlike a growl.

‘Wait there a second my bonnie friend.’ The man opened the laptop and slid the card inside. Duncan waited, watching the man intently browse the images. Finally the man nodded and turned and both men climbed into the Land Rover and back into the flow of traffic.

Duncan and Brodie divvied up the money there and then and immediately began planning what they would spend it on, quickly deciding it would probably involve a top class hotel and hookers.

SIXTY-EIGHT

Sarah followed Simon through to the dining room, expecting him to climb the stairs, but he veered into the kitchen. She followed him to the doorway.

‘What?’

He glanced at her as he pulled the jug off the blender, dropping three tomatoes into the jug along with the contents of two cracked eggs. She waited.

‘I have a problem, Sarah.’

‘You only just realised?’ She stepped in and leaned against the worktop, watching him slice half a cucumber into sticks, collecting a handful of mushrooms, carrots, a peeled banana and a small spring onion, tipping them all into the jug.

‘You are my problem, Sarah.’

She knew that, of course, had been deliberating the converging paths of her future as best she rationally could. Although she knew Andrea was being sold into a
magical
new life, all paths for her came to premature conclusions. The green glow of the microwave clock said it was seven thirty.

‘Well, that’s easily resolved,’ she replied.

‘It is?’ He ladled in a spoonful of powder from a large tub of whey.

‘Of course, you let us go. I promise to tell the police you have been a kind and considerate host.’

One corner of his mouth upturned and he shook his head, adding milk to the concoction. ‘Hakan wants me to leave you here for the brothers. You don’t want that.’

She had no idea who the brothers were but the tone in Simon’s voice sent a chill down her spine. She tried to keep the tremor from her voice. ‘I thought you were good for a few more days?’

‘I am,’ he lied. ‘But there’s no point delaying important decisions.’ He sprinkled chilli powder into the jug and set it on the blender, fastening the lid and turning it on. They both stared at each other, waiting out the percussive noise. It stopped and he peeked in, starting it again and retrieving two tall glasses, placing them on the work surface. He turned off the machine and poured two equal measures from the jug, taking both and holding out one glass for Sarah.