DEAD GONE (24 page)

He began by reviewing his notes from Experiment Four. A total mess. He had to learn.

Make sure he didn’t make the same mistake. Lose his self control again. Experiment Five had gone successfully, but he was now obsessed with making up for number four.

Experiment Six would be tricky. He needed him though. The police were closing in on the wrong person, and he needed to fix that. Make sure they didn’t lose sight of the bigger cause here.

It was time for the Unit 731 experiment.

The radio came on, the same Scottish ex-footballer talking, the same time in the morning as it always had been.

Rob was already awake though. He lay in bed, on one side as usual, staring at the bedroom ceiling. Light traffic sounds came in from outside, the single-glazed windows shut but still allowing outside sound to enter. Rob continued to stare, lost to his surroundings.

Dreaming whilst awake.

It wasn’t the same bedroom as before. It wasn’t the same house as before. Things had changed since she had gone.

Five minutes passed, then ten. Rob lifted himself out of bed, out of necessity rather than desire. He glanced at the clock, the digital display flashing 7.12 a.m. back at him. He was going to miss the bus if he didn’t get a move on. He went through the motions, showered and walked through the flat to the kitchen. He opened the window and lit a cigarette. He wasn’t supposed to smoke, according to the tenancy agreement, so this was his compromise. Cold air drifted in through the window, winter still keeping a firm hold on the weather.

Eleven months. She’d been gone for that long he had to check her picture to remember what she looked like. Every time he did, a sharp pang of guilt hit him.

You forget things so easily. Faces, events, places.

And he hadn’t heard from her mum, Carla, or any of her other mates in all that time. He knew they suspected him after the first few weeks. When she hadn’t turned up.

He didn’t blame them really.

When he had a car, he’d drive past her mother’s house park up and wait. Make sure Jemma hadn’t come home and no one had told him. Just to see if anything had changed.

When he had to get rid of the car, he took to walking past. Standing off to the side, the pain in his calves and thighs a burden he was willing to put up with.

He marked the day on the calendar. Another one passed. He checked the time again.

‘Plenty of time,’ he said out loud, his voice gravelled and croaked. He’d found himself talking out loud more often now. Talking to an empty flat wasn’t something he would have imagined doing not so long ago, but he couldn’t keep every thought locked inside his head any longer. Too crowded in there.

He booted up the laptop. It was the only expensive item he owned now. He must be the only person without a flatscreen TV around there. There was a Brighthouse store down the road, where most people picked up the latest gadgets and paid four or five times the list price, just by virtue of paying on a weekly basis. He owned an old, heavy Sony television, which had needed both him and Dan to lift up the stairs to the flat.

Dan. The only one who stuck by him. Helped him out sometimes, talked things over.

He needed the laptop though. Not only for work, but because it was his only connection … to her.

It was on the list.

He clicked to connect to the internet. His homepage was set to what he needed. The page loaded, and he logged in. The screen changed, a list of topics appeared.

Billy Nolan – 16/01/2011.

Donna Bowen – 08/09/2010.

Michelle Short – 29/12/2011.

Karen Smith – 16/03/2007.

Kieron Hurst – 18/06/2011.

And on and on. Hundreds of names, the dates they had gone missing next to them. They barely registered to Rob now, but when he’d first signed up to the forum, he’d spent hours going through all the different threads. Over 250,000 people go missing each year, he’d discovered. Most are found within seventy-two hours, but many are never seen again.

Eleven months.

He found the thread he was looking for, a few posts down.

Jemma Barnes – 18/02/2012.

A new reply was waiting, which set Rob’s heart thudding in his chest. It was always this way, the hope of some kind of response, someone who knew.

He clicked, and waited as the new page loaded. He couldn’t help but feel anticipation, excitement even. Something, anything, to take him away from reality. Give him purpose.

I really hope you receive good news soon. My son went missing fifteen years ago. Not a day goes by when I don’t think of him. He will be thirty-two this year. You and your partner will be in my prayers tonight.

Rob had been holding his breath, and now let it out in a heavy exhale. He appreciated the thought, yet always felt the same way when he received these kind of replies.

Disappointment, annoyance, empathy.

He typed out a quick reply, his stock answer of thanks for the support etc. He was about to log off when he noticed a new message in his inbox. It wasn’t rare for people to send him private messages, but he hadn’t received one in a while. They were usually well-wishers, pleas for help also dropped in. He never knew what to reply to those. He could barely help himself, never mind others.

He opened it.

Robert Barker,

How long has it been now? Eleven months? Yes, eleven months. How has that time treated you? I ask, when I know the answer.

Not well.

You’re smoking again, spending hours in that cheap flat you had to rent when you could no longer pay the mortgage on the house. Such a large mortgage it was, yet with two incomes coming in, I suppose it was manageable. And it was all in your name … silly boy.

A family live there now, they seem respectable. Two well turned-out children, polite, and well spoken. The mother works part time in an office, whilst Dad has an important job as a sales director of a large shipping company. He works long hours, but every weekend he makes sure he’s free to spend time with his family.

It’s amazing what people will tell you when they suspect nothing. Maybe I could go back. Cut out his still-beating heart and show it to his lovely wife and kids. I can do that, you know.

Such a shame you had to sell it. And to not make more than a couple of thousand on it, a damn shame. That’s the economy for you I suppose. I guess you and Jemma didn’t buy into the whole buy low, sell high ethos did you?

You’ve lost weight as well, and you look tired, Robert. Sleep not coming easily to you? I guess the bed feels emptier now. It’s nice to see you haven’t replaced her yet.

They told you she’d done this before, didn’t they? Of course they did. She has, just to clear that up. Many times. Only this time she didn’t leave willingly.

She’s alive.

You bought her a charm bracelet once. The dolphin charm is her favourite.

She has a small birthmark on her lower back.

She wasn’t afraid of the dark.

She is now.

Believe me?

Jemma is an integral part of what I am doing, my most valued work. It wouldn’t do for her to be found. Not yet. She will be returned to you, soon in fact. First, you must do something for me. I want you to go to the Albert Dock at precisely three a.m. tonight. Wait at the corner of the car park entrance, opposite the bars and clubs that are now there.

Suffice it to say, I’d suggest you keep this to yourself. If the police are involved, I will not hesitate to start again, with someone new. Jemma will be an unfortunate setback, but she is dispensable.

If you’ve been reading the papers recently, you will know what I am capable of.

Rob sat back in his chair. They knew too much. That was his immediate thought when he finished reading. The person who wrote this knew too much. He’d had a couple of cranks in the past, but not one this detailed.

He should call the police. He knew he should. He still had the detective’s card somewhere. He grabbed his wallet from the mantelpiece, going through the various credit cards that no longer worked, the driving licence he didn’t need any more, before finding the card the big detective had given him almost a year ago. Murphy.

But what if the man holding her found out? He’d been given a chance. He could have Jemma back. Nothing could get in the way of that. His life wasn’t complete without her. He was going through the motions, he knew that. Not living, just existing. If he could have her back, it would be okay again. Everything could be as it was.

Rob stood, the message still on the screen. He was being played with, he could feel it.

He curled his open palms into fists, anger rippling through. He closed his eyes, forcing himself to count to ten. A sense of reality began to come back to him. He checked the time and saw he was late for work. He couldn’t afford to miss another day’s work – too much time had been lost going on time-wasting trips around the country. Disappointment had been a constant companion on so many of those journeys. Now he had something tangible. Maybe.

He read the message again, the sense of hope being replaced by the stark reality of what the truth might be. Whoever had her was gloating over that fact. Rob didn’t often have ideas as basic as black or white, good or evil. But reading the message again, he began to realise what he was dealing with. Someone who had no regard for life. For Jemma’s life. Only someone evil could act that way.

Someone who would hold a person against her will for almost a year.

Rob shut down the laptop, placing it behind the desk. He’d be late for work, but that seemed inconsequential at the moment. He just had to get through the day, then see what the night would bring. He could be walking into anything, but he’d be there.

It was a crank, it had to be. Why wait until now to show his hand? He couldn’t let himself get excited about this, he decided.

Where had she been, that was one of his overriding thoughts. Where was she now, was another. Was she okay, is she still my Jemma?

All those questions could wait.

Jemma could be alive. In danger.

Waiting for him.

And that’s all that mattered.

Rob managed to be only twenty minutes late for work, out of breath after power walking up the hill.

With all that had happened in the last few months, his job was the only constant left in his life. He’d worked in the same building for almost six years, just an admin job, but the pay was enough to support him. Plus he was still hoping to learn by osmosis, being around educated people daily. Even if most of them didn’t really pay much attention to the ‘little people’.

He passed the café on the left as he pressed the button to call the lift. A minute or so later, he was entering the room where he spent most of his days. ‘Morning, Liz, sorry I’m late,’ Rob said, hanging up his coat. The office was small, just two desks and a counter to one end where students would invariably show up, asking questions. Boxes of files everywhere; it was a health and safety nightmare. Drab beige walls, a couple of colour prints of green flowery fields on the walls. The only window in the room overlooked the Tesco over the road behind the building. They mainly dealt with student enquiries, unless it was deadline day for essay hand-ins. Then it got busy, especially five minutes before the shutter came down. Queues out the door then, as students tried desperately to get their work in on time. Rob never understood why they left it so late, but then he’d never been to university. He’d mentioned it to Dan once, but he’d just laughed at him.

Rob worked through the morning, answering phone calls, dealing with a student from down south who wanted to get involved with more groups. By lunchtime he was starting to flag, the morning’s adrenaline rush wearing off. Doubts had started to creep in, as the words of the message he’d received played on his mind. Was he being played? Was it someone after money maybe?

‘Rob, you ready?’ Dan had stuck his head around the door, interrupting Rob’s thoughts.

‘Yeah, coming,’ Rob replied, grabbing his coat off the rack and waving a quick ‘see you in a bit’ sign to Liz. As soon as he hit fresh air, he lit up a cigarette. Dan was talking about a lecture he’d given that morning, his voice still betraying his private school roots. ‘So there I am, Rob, instilling these young minds with the basics of statistics, something integral to the study of psychology, only to have three students having their own private conversation during the most important part of the lecture.’ Dan was walking quickly, Rob struggling to smoke and walk as fast as him. ‘So of course, I had to pause and remonstrate with them. It might only be a couple of days into the second semester, but it is important to make it clear to these children that talking during lectures is intolerable.’

Rob laughed, enjoying another of Dan’s rants against the ‘children’ as he called them. Ridiculous really, considering Dan was only a few years older than them himself.

‘So, the usual, Rob?’

‘Yeah. Is there anything else?’

The ‘usual’ was a pint and a sandwich in the oldest pub in the immediate area. A small, old-fashioned public house, which seemed to be the only pub in the area not offering two-for-one deals in order to lure in the students.

A pint of lager each in front of them and sandwiches ordered, Rob and Dan sat at a table. ‘So, what did you say then Dan?’

Dan smiled shiftily. ‘I just made them aware of the fact it wasn’t just their time they were wasting, but everyone around them. Plus, it costs an awful lot of money to come to this university and I’m sure their parents wouldn’t appreciate them wasting their time.’

‘And?’

Dan laughed. ‘You know me too well Rob.’

‘I do. So what did you say?’

‘Finally, I simply stated that if they wished to carry out a conversation during my lectures, kindly fuck off out of the room first. That raised a few chuckles in the room, I can tell you.’