Lost (36 page)

On the pavement a voice hits me like a cold wind. “Did you shoot him?”

Tony Murphy is asking the question with his entire body. “I had to go to the morgue to identify him. You ever seen a body like that . . . in pieces. And white like a candle melted into a puddle. The police say someone shot him. They got a witness. Is it you?”

“Yes.”

He chews the inside of his cheek. “Did you shoot him?”

“No.”

“Do you know who did?”

“I don't know who pul ed the trigger but I saw him go down. I couldn't help him.”

He swal ows a lump in his throat. “So I'm looking after Mum and Stevie now. The pub is al we got left.”

“I'm sorry.”

He wants to do something more but can only stand there, imprisoned by his own misery.

“Go home, Tony. I'l sort this out.”

29

Joe is waiting for me to say something. His dark brown eyes are staring at me with a vague sadness and the certainty that he can't help me. Meanwhile, I keep considering what should have happened. Campbel should have set up a task force. There should be two dozen detectives looking for Kirsten and Gerry Brandt. We should have Aleksei under surveil ance and be searching his boat.

For one cool precise hour I want to know what to do. I want every decision to be the right one.

We're driving along Euston Road, past Regent's Park.

“So what are you going to do?” he asks.

“Find them.”

“You can't do it alone.”

“I have no choice.”

Joe looks like a man with a plan. “What if we got some volunteers? We could cal friends and family. How many people do you need?”

“I don't know. We need to contact the hospitals and doctors' surgeries and clinics. One of them must have treated Kirsten.”

“We can use my office,” says Joe. “It's not very big but there's the waiting room and the storeroom and a kitchen. There are six phone lines and a fax. We could get some more handsets. I'l get my secretary, Philippa, to start cal ing people.”

We pul up outside his office. “What are you going to do?”

There's a smal invisible shock in the air. A decision is made.

“One way or another I'm going to see Rachel Carlyle.”

There wil be no tennis today. Puddles cover the court and fat drops hang on the net like glass beads. It must be autumn—the rain is colder.

Parked in front of the Carlyle house, I watch the driveway and listen to the radio. Ray Murphy's name has been released but there's no mention of Kirsten during the news bul etin. Campbel won't al ow it.

Glancing up at the house, I watch a dark Mercedes glide through the front gates and pause before turning left. Sir Douglas and Tottie are going out.

I give them a few minutes and then approach the house. Soggy mounds of leaves have gathered along the drive, trapped by the hedges. Some have clogged the fountain and the water spil s over the side, flooding the footings.

Avoiding the front door, I skirt the building and use a set of stone steps at the right-hand side of the house. I knock four times before it opens. Thomas stands there.

“I need to speak to Rachel.”

“Miss Rachel isn't here, Sir.”

He's lying.

“You don't have to protect her. I don't want to cause any trouble. If she doesn't want to speak to me I'l leave.” He looks past me into the garden. “I don't think Sir Douglas would approve.”

“Just ask her.”

He contemplates this and agrees, leaving me waiting on the steps. A fire is smoldering somewhere, turning the air the color of dirty water.

Thomas appears again. “Miss Carlyle wil see you in the kitchen.”

He leads the way. We pass along hal ways lined with paintings of foxhounds, horses and pheasants. The frames are so dark they blend into the wal s and the animals appear to be suspended, set in aspic. Above the stairs there are English landscapes of lakes and rivers.

At first I don't realize that Rachel is already in the kitchen. She stands with the stil ness of a photograph, tal and dark, with her hair drawn back.

“Your father said I couldn't see you,” I say.

“He didn't ask me.”

She is wearing jeans and a raw-silk shirt. Her wedge-shaped face is softened by the cut of her hair, which is shorter than I remember, loosely brushing her shoulders.

“I hear you couldn't remember what happened that night.”

“Yes, for a while.”

She bites her bottom lip and weighs whether to believe me. “You didn't forget about me.”

“No. I didn't know what happened to you. I only discovered a few days ago.”

Urgency fil s her eyes. “Did you see Mickey? Was she there?”

“No, I'm sorry.”

She purses her lips and turns her face away. “Losing your memory, forgetting everything, must be nice. Al the terrible things in your life, the guilt, the regret, gone, washed away.

Sometimes I wish . . .” She doesn't finish. Leaning over the sink, she fil s a glass of water from the tap and empties it into a row of African violets on the windowsil . “You never asked me why I married Aleksei.”

“It's none of my business.”

“I met my ex-husband at a fund-raising dinner for Bosnian orphans. He wrote a very large check. He wrote a lot of very large checks in those days. Whenever I took him to lectures and documentaries about deforestation or animal cruelty or the plight of the homeless—he pul ed out his checkbook.”

“He was buying your affection.”

“I thought he believed in the same things.”

“Your parents didn't like him?”

“They were horrified. Aleksei had no equal—anybody would have been better than a Russian émigré with a murdering father.”

“Did you love him?”

She ponders this. “Yes. I think so.”

“What happened?”

She shrugs. “We got married. For the first three years we lived in Hol and. Mickey was born in Amsterdam: Aleksei was building up the business.” Rachel's voice is low and introspective. “In spite of what my father says, I'm not a foolish person. I knew something was going on. Mostly it was just rumors and nervous glances in restaurants. I used to ask Aleksei but he told me people were jealous of him. I knew he was involved in something il egal. I kept asking questions and he grew irritated. He told me that a wife should not question her husband. She must obey.

“Then one day the wife of a Dutch flower grower visited me at home. I don't know how she found my address. She showed me a photograph of her husband. His face was so scarred by acid that his skin looked like melted wax.

“‘Tel me why a woman would stay with a man who looks like this?' she asked me. I shook my head. Then she said, ‘Because it cannot be as bad as staying with the man who would do such a thing.'

“From then on I began to discover things. I eavesdropped on conversations, read e-mails and kept copies of letters. I learned things—”

“Enough to get you kil ed.”

“Enough to keep me safe,” she corrects. “I learned how Aleksei does business. It is simple and brutal. First he offers to buy a business. If a price cannot be agreed he burns it down. If they set up again he burns their houses down. And if the message stil fails to be heard, he burns down the houses of their relatives and the schools of their children.”

“What did Aleksei do when you left him?”

“First he begged me to come back. Then he tried to bribe me with grand gestures. Final y he tried to bul y me.”

“You didn't go back to your family.”

Pushing hair behind her ears with both hands, she shakes her head. “I've been running away from them my whole life.” We sit in silence. The warm air rising from the stove lifts loose strands of her hair, suspending them in midair.

“When did you last see Kirsten Fitzroy?”

“About two months ago; she said she was going abroad.”

“Did she say where?”

“America or South America; she had some brochures. It might have been Argentina. She was going to send me postcards but I didn't receive a thing. What's happened? Is she in trouble?”

“You met at Dolphin Mansions.”

“Yes.”

“Did Kirsten ever meet your father?”

“No, I don't think so.”

“Are you sure?”

“Please tel me what she's supposed to have done.”

“Your father paid her rent at Dolphin Mansions. Later he helped her buy her flat in Notting Hil .”

Rachel doesn't react. I can't tel if she's shocked or if she suspected it al along.

“She was keeping watch on you. Sir Douglas wanted custody of Mickey. He had his lawyers preparing an application. They were going to argue you were unfit to care for a child because of your drinking. The application was withdrawn after you joined AA.”

“I can't believe any of this,” she whispers.

There's more. I don't know how much to tel her.

“On the night of the ransom drop, I fol owed the diamonds through the sewers. I washed up in the Thames. Kirsten saved my life.”

“What was she doing there?”

“She and Ray Murphy were waiting for the diamonds. They organized the whole thing—the ransom demand, the locks of hair, the bikini. Kirsten knew everything about you and Mickey. She counted the money in Mickey's money box. She knew exactly what buttons to press.”

Rachel shakes her head. “But the bikini . . . it belonged to Mickey.”

“And they took it from her.”

Suddenly, she realizes what I'm saying. The sense of alarm spreads through her before the instant of comprehension.

At that moment a door swings open somewhere in the house and the air pressure changes. Sir Douglas comes storming through the main hal , yel ing at Thomas to cal the police. The butler must have phoned him the moment I arrived.

I lose sight of him for a few seconds and then he appears in the doorway of the kitchen carrying a shotgun. His face is like a warning light.

“You stay here! Don't go anywhere. You're under arrest.”

“Calm down.”

“You're trespassing on my property.”

“Put the gun down, Daddy.”

He waves the gun at me. “Stay away from him.”

“Please put that down.”

Rachel is watching him with a you-must-be-crazy look. She takes a step toward him, distracting him for a moment. He doesn't see me close the final two paces. I seize the gun, twisting it out of his hands and drop him with a punch just below his ribs. I look at Rachel apologetical y. I didn't want to hit him.

Sir Douglas takes a long staggering breath. He tries to talk, tel ing me to get out. I'm already leaving after emptying the cartridges and tossing the gun toward Thomas. Rachel fol ows, pleading with me to explain. “Why would they do that? Why would they take Mickey?”

Turning back, I blink at her sadly. “I don't know. Ask your father.”

I don't want to give her false hopes. I'm not even sure if I'm talking sense. I've been wrong so often lately.

Out of the front door and down the steps, I crunch along the gravel drive. Rachel watches from the steps.

“What about Mickey?” she yel s.

“I don't think Howard kil ed her.”

At first she doesn't react. Maybe she's given up hope or she's shackled to the past. This is only for a moment and then she's running toward me. I have given her a choice between hating, forgiving and believing. She wants to believe.

30

“Where are we going?” asks Rachel.

“You'l see. It's right up here.”

We pul up outside a cottage in Hampstead; there is an arbor over the front gate and neatly pruned rosebushes along the path. Making a dash through the light rain, we squeeze beneath the overhang until the doorbel is answered.

Esmerelda Bird, a matronly woman in a skirt and cardigan, leaves us waiting in the sitting room while she gets her husband. We perch on the edge of sofas looking at a room ful of crocheted cushion covers, lace doilies and photographs of overweight grandchildren. This is how sitting rooms used to look before people started buying up warehouses ful of lacquered pine from Scandinavia.

I met the Birds three years ago, during the original investigation. Retired pensioners, they're the sort of couple who clip their vowels when addressing a police officer and have special voices for the telephone.

Mrs. Bird returns. She's done something to her hair, tied it back or perhaps just brushed it a different way. And she's changed into a different cardigan and put on her pearl earrings.