The Wreckage: A Thriller (24 page)

Hackett had spent the morning searching for Richard North—tracking the transmitter he planted behind the bumper of the banker’s car. He was lucky the battery had lasted this long.

He had traced North’s car to an industrial estate in Bury Park, Luton, ful of factories, marshal ing yards, warehouses, workshops, and surrounded by run-down housing estates, second-hand clothes shops and Asian clothing emporiums.

The BMW was parked in the forecourt of a derelict motel. Most of the rooms were padlocked but one or two were being used for storage. Charity col ections. Donated clothes and blankets.

Hackett waited five hours for North to show up. Figured he was with a girl. Maybe hookers were using the rooms. Just when he was contemplating a wasted morning, a Pakistani youth dressed in baggy jeans and a hooded sweatshirt emerged from one of the rooms. He walked to the BMW. Unlocked the doors. Checked the glove box, opened the boot, lay down a plastic sheet and then went back inside.

That’s when Janice had phoned to say he had a visitor in the office—someone who gave her the creeps.

The mystery man has gone now. Hackett’s bladder has been clenched for too long. He needs a leak. The toilet is along the corridor. Unzipping his trousers, he rocks on his heels and relaxes, closing his eyes.

The door opens behind him. Hackett looks over his shoulder. The bathroom is smal and the man is standing by the sink, arms by his sides. He’s wearing a leather jacket. Dark jeans.

“Are you Colin Hackett?”

“Who’s asking?”

“People cal me the Courier.”

“Is that because you deliver messages?”

“I also col ect things from people.”

The detective estimates the threat posed. Height. Weight. Speed.

“You finished?” asks the Courier.

“Unless you’re here to help me shake this thing, you can wait outside.”

“I’m good here.”

Hackett is trying to think. What’s he not seeing or remembering? The banker can’t have sent this guy.

“What can I do for you?”

“I want to talk to you about some photographs you took.”

Hackett glances at his shoes. A drop of urine has settled on the polished leather. He pumps soap on to his hands, turns on the tap, washes them careful y and then triggers the dryer, rubbing his hands beneath the warm stream of air.

“They don’t provide paper towels anymore,” he says. “Got to save the trees. Instead we burn fossil fuels to run these things.” The Courier doesn’t add anything to the observation. He’s not a talker. Hackett considers his options. His mobile is in his coat pocket. His Smith & Wesson Airweight .38 is locked in the office safe.

The dryer fal s silent.

Hackett tugs at his cuffs. Straightens his tie. Smoothes down his hair. He’s waiting for someone else to come into the gents.

“You fol owed a banker,” says the Courier.

“Did he send you?”

“You took photographs. Who has copies of them?”

“You took the memory card from my camera. There are no more copies.”

“The banker had a notebook.”

“I never met the man. I just fol owed him.”

“What about the girl he was with?”

“I don’t know who she is. How about we go back to my office? We can talk about it.”

Hackett moves towards the door. If he can reach the hal way, he can turn right and run towards the stairs. The Courier is behind him. Stepping closer, something in his hand, a gun maybe, pressed hard between his shoulder blades.

Hackett pivots, aiming an elbow at his face. The Courier ducks it easily and delivers a short sharp jab to the kidneys. Hackett’s knees buckle. Pain breaks over his face. The next punch sends him to the floor, half in the room and half out. The Courier grabs the door and slams it closed across the detective’s head. He slams it again.

A forearm closes around Hackett’s throat, hinged with the opposite elbow, adding to the pressure, sealing off his windpipe. Hackett’s fingers claw at the arm. Kicking. Jerking. He can see a pinpoint of brightness in front of him and feels his mind drifting to a distant battlefield, a rocky island in the Atlantic, where pissing rain has turned to sleet and artil ery shel s are shaking the ground with a deafening roar.

Squashed flat against the frozen earth, he crawls forward and swings himself into an Argentine trench. Then he sees a soldier wearing a grey poncho, a teenager, sitting in the mud, mouth open in a scream.

The soldier has taken a direct hit from a phosphorous grenade. His head rocks back and forth. Blood pumps from his stomach. Stil he screams, the same word, over and over.

“
Madre! Madre! Madre!
”

The Company Commander yel s, “Wil you shut that fucker up!” He’s talking to Hackett, who tries to make the boy be quiet, holding a finger to his lips. Covering his mouth. Making shushing sounds. Stil the kid screams for his mother until Hackett puts a hand over his mouth and nose, squeezing them shut, tel ing him to be quiet, holding him until he fal s silent.

The kid’s eyes are open. Watching. Welcoming the darkness.

11

LONDON

Elizabeth is late picking up Rowan from nursery. The center manager has heard al the excuses before. Polina is never late. Polina doesn’t leave Rowan’s raincoat behind, or forget to pack his painting smock, or leave his fruit salad in the fridge. Polina has wet wipes to clean his face after an ice cream. Elizabeth has to spit on a tissue.

Strapping Rowan into his car seat, she heads north to Hampstead to see her father. The gates are open and she parks opposite a garage that holds matching silver Mercedes side by side.

She fol ows the crushed marble path around the side of the house. The lawns are mown into green strips and the garden beds turned and composted. Rowan runs ahead to the rear terrace. Shielding her eyes from the sun, Elizabeth spies her father kneeling on the turf, turning the soil with a hand fork.

Alistair Bach looks up. As brown as a medicine bottle, with a tangle of grey hair poking out from an old hat, he dresses like a younger version of David Attenborough in chinos and a heavy cotton shirt rol ed up to below his elbows. Soft spoken. Gentle. Conservative. Someone from another age. This is his life now—gardening. Planting. Watering. Trimming the topiary into geometric patterns that seem to float above the flowerbeds.

Bach takes a moment to rise from his knees. Rowan runs to him and is hoisted aloft, spun around until his legs are horizontal with the ground.

“Careful, he’s just had an ice cream.”

“The lucky sod!” He kisses Rowan’s cheek. “Let me guess. Chocolate?”

“Is you a magician, Granddad?”

“How do you think I made this garden grow?”

Elizabeth wants to smile but can’t make her face move. Hugging her father, she clutches him a little too tightly. Bach untangles himself.

“You haven’t heard from him?”

“No.”

She averts her eyes, determined not to cry. “The garden is looking good.”

Bach knows that she’s changing the subject. “My trailing violas are being eaten. Your stepmother won’t let me use insecticide. Everything has to be organic. You should see what she makes me eat.”

“You’l live longer.”

“It feels like it.”

He’s doing this for Elizabeth’s benefit; pretending to be henpecked and harried. It’s a little boy’s plea for reassurance. She won’t give him the satisfaction.

Alistair Bach acts like an everyman but belongs to the truly wealthy. He has a beach house in Florida, a chalet in St. Moritz and a hunting lodge near Aberdeen as wel as the house in Hampstead. It’s a far cry from his childhood when he grew up in a two-up-two-down in Liverpool, the son of a boilermaker and a seamstress, one of eight children, Catholics. He joined Mersey Fidelity straight out of school and in spite of having no banking qualifications rose to become chairman. One of his first decisions was to move the bank’s headquarters from Merseyside to the City of London. Since then he’s only been back to Liverpool a handful of times. Some working-class people are proud of their humble roots. Bach is proud of the climb.

“I’l defend Scousers,” he once told Elizabeth. “I’l support their footbal teams and I’l give money to their charities, but don’t ask me to live with them.” Elizabeth turns to gaze at the house. She can see her old bedroom on the second floor, the window surrounded by ivy. This is where she grew up, surrounded by bankers, financiers and money people.

Bach pul s off his gloves, flexing his hands as though fighting arthritis.

“Come inside. Let’s have a cup of tea.”

They leave Rowan running around the garden, chasing an overweight Labrador cal ed Sal y, who is the latest in a long line of “Sal ys”—each one related to the one before. The Bachs keep everything in the family.

Elizabeth’s stepmother is in the kitchen talking to a tradesman on the phone. Wearing gym leggings and a tracksuit top, Jacinta is thirty years younger than Elizabeth’s father, with wel -cut white blonde hair and breasts that cost as much as a smal car. She gives Elizabeth a little wave but nothing shows in her eyes. It’s different when she smiles at Bach, who she treats like a sex god. Al praise to the properties of Viagra.

Bach begins opening cupboards and drawers looking for the teabags. “You real y don’t have to bother, Daddy.”

“Nonsense. I could use a cup.”

He cal s out to Jacinta. “Have you seen the teabags?”

She goes straight to the correct cupboard without interrupting her conversation. Then she smiles at him with such total and unprompted love that it’s like a fourth person has walked into the room.

Bach continues talking to Elizabeth. “What do the police say?”

“They think he’s run off.”

“Who’s handling the case?”

“A Detective Constable Carter.”

“A constable! Sounds as if they’re not taking this seriously. I’l make a few cal s. Get them to re-prioritize.” That’s how her father talks. It can be like listening to a management seminar.

“Have you talked to Mitchel ?”

“He says North was leaking information to a journalist.”

Bach blows out his cheeks. “I don’t believe it for a minute.”

Elizabeth runs her finger along the curve of the sink.

“He’s more worried about the bank than about North.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“I was escorted from the building.”

“I’l talk to him.”

Elizabeth turns away. On the opposite side of the lawn, past the pond, over the sandstone wal that surrounds the gardens, she can see the treetops of Hampstead Heath, an ocean of greenery in a broken landscape of rooftops, chimney pots, TV aerials and satel ite dishes.

“You should come and stay with us—just until North shows up,” says Bach.

Elizabeth turns and sneaks a glance through to the sunroom where Jacinta is stil on the phone.

Bach fol ows her gaze. “She’s not the wicked witch of the East.”

“Just Hampstead.”

Her father smiles wryly. “She cares about me.”

“I know.”

Elizabeth’s mother died of a brain aneurism ten years ago. Bach waited seven years before he remarried. Said he needed someone to grow old beside. Fine, thought Elizabeth, but did she have to be so young?

He’s pouring the tea, clutching the teapot in both hands to stop the lid from fal ing off. Elizabeth looks at her cup. He’s given her too much milk. She doubts if her father has made tea more than a handful of times in his life. Other people do it for him. Maids. Secretaries. Wives.

Elizabeth picks at her chipped nail polish.

“I think North was having an affair.”

The statement feels like it might scald her esophagus.

“You’re sure?”

She nods.

“How?”

Opening her bag, she takes out the photographs and places them on the kitchen table, not looking at them. Unable to.

“Who took these?”

“A private detective.”

“You were having him fol owed!”

“I know, I know, I felt guilty for not trusting him. I thought I was being paranoid, but now I’m glad.”

Bach has taken the photographs to the window where the light is better. He arranges them in some sort of sequence.

“Do you know who she is?”

“No.”

“Are there any more?”

Elizabeth retrieves the rest of the photographs. Bach pauses when he sees the images of the outdoor meeting in Maida Vale.

“Do you recognize anyone?” asks Elizabeth.

Bach doesn’t answer.

“I thought it might have something to do with the bank.”

“I don’t think so. I could be wrong. Ex-chairmen are like former prime ministers—we retire graceful y, never comment on company business and enjoy the benefits of a generous pension scheme.”

“I don’t know how you can be so flippant.”

Bach looks hurt. “I’m sorry if I gave that impression.”

He goes back to the photograph of the girl. “Are you sure you don’t know her?”

“I’m sure.” Elizabeth sighs. “I should be angry. I should want to kick his sorry arse out the door, but I just want to find him.”

“Men do foolish things sometimes.”

“Were you ever unfaithful?”

“That’s not a fair question.”

“Does that mean yes?”

“It means I’m not going to answer you.”

Elizabeth apologizes. She has no right to ask. And she has no right to blame her father for the sins of her husband.

Her mobile is ringing. She looks at the screen but doesn’t recognize the number.

“Hel o?… Is anyone there?… Hel o?”

There is no sound at al except for a faint pulse that might be the blood in her ears. She exhales and squeezes her eyes shut, ending the cal .

12

WASHINGTON

Artie Chalcott sits in his home office, feeling his skin prickle and sweat on his forehead. His ulcer is also acting up and his bowel movements are al over the place. Stress-related. Shit-related. Things are also going south in London. First the banker gets robbed, then he goes missing and now they can’t find the girl who robbed him.

During the afternoon he’d tried to take out his frustration on the driving range, hitting bal s. Smacking them with a club head the size of a Christmas ham. Made no difference to his mood.