Watching You (31 page)

Z
oe has a window seat and can rest her head against the glass, watching the fields and farms slide past in a tapestry of browns and greens. A man keeps looking at her from the seat opposite. He’s staring at her chest, but glances away each time she moves her head.

There is free Internet on the train for thirty minutes. It’s painfully slow, but she uses the time to update her status and send a message to Ryan. She tells him that she’s found her stepdad and she’s going to meet him.

Zoe hasn’t eaten since breakfast when Ruiz made her have toast and eggs. She feels guilty about leaving the note. He and Joe had been so nice to her. They didn’t treat her like a child. Now they’re going to say she’s done a childish thing.

The conductor is coming through the carriage, punching tickets. Zoe searches the pockets of her denim jacket. Where did she put it? He reaches her row. The man opposite hands over his ticket and takes it back again. Zoe is still rummaging through her satchel.

“I do have one,” she says.

“Where did you get on the train?”

“King’s Cross.”

“Where are you going?”

“Leeds.”

She slides her fingers into the back pocket of her jeans. “Here it is!”

He looks at the ticket and then at Zoe.

“What’s your name?”

She lies. “Georgia.”

“Are you traveling alone?”

“My mum has gone to the dining car.”

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Do you have your student card?”

“Mum has it. I can go and fetch her.”

He hands Zoe her ticket and moves on without saying a word. A woman further up the aisle asks him, “What was that all about?”

“Police are looking for a runaway, a London girl.”

Greater Manchester police headquarters is at Newton Heath on a new industrial estate, four miles from the center of the city. The glass-and-concrete building looks like something a biotech company might lease. Clean. Modern. Functional.

Joe waits in the brightly lit atrium while DI Gennia talks to his Northern colleagues; collecting whatever details he can about Owen Cargill. Any juvenile records will have been destroyed, but he may have an adult criminal history and the Ministry of Defense will have his service records.

Joe calls Ruiz. He answers from a noisy location, shouting to be heard.

“Where are you?”

“A CCTV camera picked up Zoe at King’s Cross station about three hours ago. She was on the concourse looking at the departure board.”

“Any idea which train she caught?”

“Any one of fifty.”

Joe looks at his watch. King’s Cross services North and East England as well as Scotland. “What time was she sighted?”

“Just after two-thirty.”

She could be as far north as Leeds by now or have stepped off anywhere in between. A station announcement is sounding in the background, warning people not to leave bags unattended.

Ruiz is still talking. “They’re contacting the trains and asking ticket inspectors to look for unaccompanied teenage girls.” He shouts to be heard over the announcement. “Zoe has a boyfriend. She called him from my place last night. I’m going to see him now.”

On the far side of the foyer, DI Gennia emerges from a lift, his image reflected in the inner glass walls of the atrium that rises six stories to the ceiling. His driver is alongside him. They march almost in unison to the main doors. Joe starts moving and falls over. He picks himself up and tries again. This time he takes a sideways step and one pace backwards. People are staring. Concentrating, he slides his right foot forward, then his left, then right. He’s walking properly, although his left arm refuses to swing.

Gennia briefs him in the car. “Cargill spent three years in military prison in Colchester for assault and breaching the peace. In 1985 he was convicted of stalking the teenage daughter of his CO, although he denied the charge. Prior to that he had a history of insubordination and disciplinary issues. He went AWOL for five days in 1983 and the following year faced charges of beating up a fellow soldier in a dispute over a girl.”

Gennia hands the page to Joe and continues reading from the next one.

“Cargill did a computer course in prison. He was dishonorably discharged from the army when he finished his sentence at Colchester, but they arranged a job for him at a market research company. After that he set up his own business, registering domain names and selling them back to people and companies. Cybersquatting. Made a fortune.”

Joe can see the attraction of market research to someone like Owen Cargill. It meant he could study people and observe consumer behavior. It gave him a reason to ask questions and infiltrate people’s lives. Cybersquatting also fitted Owen’s profile. He didn’t have to invent or build or sell anything. He stood on someone else’s shoulders, taking advantage of their neglect or tardiness, making them pay for names they had already turned into brands.

“This is interesting,” says Gennia, handing Joe another page. “In 1994 Owen Cargill was picked up by police outside a secondary school in Manchester after teachers complained of a man hanging around the school gates.”

Joe does the calculation. “In 1994 Marnie would have been about fifteen and still at school.”

Gennia is still talking. “The police cautioned him and let him go.”

“What about his earlier conviction?”

“The MOD didn’t pass on the details, which means Cargill was never put on the Sex Offenders Register. That’s why we didn’t have his fingerprints on file.”

The detective’s mobile is ringing. He takes the call. Joe can only hear one side of the conversation. The DI turns to his driver. “How far are we from Walsden?”

The sergeant reads the information from the satnav. “Eighteen miles.”

“How long?”

“Half an hour.”

“Get us there. Now!”

Gennia picks up the two-way and radios West Yorkshire Police Control Center, asking for cars to be sent to Walsden railway station. He checks his watch. “Can they be there in fourteen minutes?”

“No, sir, we don’t have any cars that close.”

He hammers the dashboard. “Call the transport authority and get a message to the station. We need to stop that train.”

Gennia turns to Joe.

“Zoe Logan caught a train from Leeds station thirty minutes ago.”

“How do you know she’s going to Walsden?”

“She sent a message to her boyfriend from the train.”

T
he walls of the waiting room are dotted with posters for holidays abroad, car insurance offers, and job agencies. I check the timetable, trying to read the small print behind the scratched Perspex screen. Elijah is holding my hand. His whole palm can fit around three of my fingers.

I can’t remember my mother ever holding my hand—not until she died. Even up until the last weeks she continued to complain. Her soup was too hot, or too cold or too salty or not salty enough. And then, miraculously, in her last hours she gripped my hand as though I could stop her slipping away.

“I’ll do better next time,” she told me, although I don’t know what she meant. Maybe she believed in reincarnation and was coming back to do it all again, as though this had been a practice run and next time she wouldn’t fuck up so badly.

There was something viscous and cloying about her body in those last weeks, as though her blood had thickened and almost stopped moving. She swallowed one poison to kill another or to dull the pain. A lifetime of abusing her body had compromised her immune system, but she still drank every day—vodka—her fist wobbling to her mouth and dribbling down her nightdress.

I remember thinking that she was mine now. I could do what I liked to her. I could have burned her with cigarettes—which she once did to me. I could have walked out and left her all day, lying in her own filth. I could have thrashed her with my belt or dumped her in a cinema and come back at closing time.

I did the opposite. I fed and bathed her. It was as though there was some sort of force field around her, or some curse that compelled me to care for her no matter how much I detested her.

On the night she died, I was in the ceiling. I didn’t hear her last breath. I came down after Marnie had gone to sleep and found her, head lolling back, eyes open. I thought I’d go dancing down the street singing “Ding, dong, the witch is dead,” but instead I felt nothing.

I had always thought that you had to grow old before you died, but sometimes you grow old when you’re still a child. You can grow old in three hours on a battlefield…or three years in prison, or three years in a cupboard watching your mother fuck for money.

At her funeral I remember rummaging around in my head for a feeling, but I couldn’t even summon up hatred. There was only emptiness and an odd bubbling thought of what the devil might say to her when she arrived in Hell. I cremated her in her least favorite dress and a pair of shoes that pinched her feet. Petty, I know, but it felt like a victory.

The Metro line train pulling into the station has only three carriages.

“Do you like trains?” I ask.

Elijah nods.

“Let’s take a ride.”

“Where are we going?”

“To see Zoe.”

T
he train from Leeds to Walsden travels on the Caldervale Line through Bramley, New Pudsey, Bradford, Halifax, and four more stops before reaching Walsden. The journey takes forty-five minutes. By rail it is a fairly direct route as the track tunnels under mountains and carves through valleys, but by road it is a snaking, dipping journey full of roundabouts and village speed limits.

The seatbelt bites into Joe’s shoulder each time the patrol car corners. Ahead of them, vehicles give way to the siren, pulling aside resentfully. Something has been bothering him since they left Manchester. Why would Owen Cargill risk giving Zoe the name of her destination? Surely he’d suspect that she’ll tell someone or be followed. Why not withhold the name of the train station and get Zoe to call him from Leeds? He could have directed her to a mobile phone, hidden in advance. This man is a planner. He doesn’t make schoolboy mistakes. Unless…?

“He’s not going to be at Walsden station,” Joe mutters.

Gennia’s head jerks around. “But she told her boyfriend…”

“He’ll get her earlier, before she reaches Walsden. He’ll watch her for a while, just in case she’s being followed, and then intercept her early.”

“You think he’s on the train?”

“Yes.”

Gennia looks at his watch. He picks up the two-way and radios the control center.

“Where is the train?”

“The next station is Hebden Bridge.”

“I want it stopped. Nobody gets on or off.”

“We don’t have anyone there.”

“What about station staff?”

“It’s only staffed part-time.”

“Get the driver to stop before he reaches the platform.”

“We’ll be disrupting the entire network.”

“I don’t care. I want it stopped.” Gennia glances at Joe, his look saying everything:
I hope you’re right about this.

Zoe gazes out the window at another small village. Who lives in a place like this, she wonders. What sort of lives do they lead? How boring would it be? Nothing to do except walk in the fields or ride a horse. Zoe has never ridden a horse, not unless you count those pony rides at school fêtes where they lead the horse in circles around a playground and charge five quid for five minutes.

London is barely a big enough universe for Zoe. She wants to see Paris and Rome and New York. The train is slowing, stopping at another empty platform where nobody ever seems to get off or get on. Why bother stopping at all?

The further she travels from home, the more unsure she’s become of who she’s going to meet. A part of her aches with anxiety, wanting to see Daniel. Another part of her keeps asking the obvious questions. Where has he been? Why won’t he ask the police for help?

The train has started moving again, picking up speed. She can hear people moving down the aisle behind her and see a vague reflection in the glass. Before Zoe can turn her head, Elijah crawls onto her lap, wrapping his thin arms around her neck. She can smell his apple shampoo and candy on his breath. The man from the library sits down opposite her; the one who called himself Ruben and gave her a second-hand laptop.

He’s smiling. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Zoe holds Elijah defensively now, shielding his body.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to collect you.”

“Where’s my dad?”

“Your mum is waiting. I’ll explain everything later.”

Zoe finds it hard to breathe. “Daniel sent me a message.”

“That’s why I’m here. We have to get off at the next station.”

“He told me to go to Walsden.”

“Change of plan.”

The train is slowing. It’s too soon to be a station. Owen peers out the window, trying to see further along the track. “Were you followed?”

Zoe shakes her head.

“Did you tell anyone you were coming here?”

She hesitates for a moment too long. The train has come to a complete stop. Owen crosses over and peers out the opposite window, trying to see what lies ahead. They’re near a village.

“Who are you?” asks Zoe.

Elijah answers. “We met him in the park, remember? I thought he was Malcolm and you said he was Ruben. Mummy calls him Owen.”

“Where is she?”

“She wasn’t allowed to come.”

Owen has visited both ends of the carriage, checking the doors. He returns to the seat.

“I want to talk to Daniel,” says Zoe. “What have you done with Mum?”

“I’ll take you to her.”

“No. I’m not moving.”

Owen’s face distorts, twisting in anger. He reaches for Elijah. Zoe turns her back, protecting him. Owen grabs her forearm, digging his thumb and fingers into her muscle until they seem to touch her bones. Forcing her to her feet, he pushes her through the carriage, past an elderly couple.

“Help me,” pleads Zoe.

The man gets to his feet. Owen shoves him down. The woman’s hand flutters to her mouth.

They’re at the doors. Owen smashes the alarm button and forces them open, bracing his back against one door as he pushes Zoe to jump. He lowers Elijah into her arms. She tries to run down the tracks, but he reaches her in a stride, marching her across the rails and over the edge of the embankment.

A man in a uniform is walking down the track. He shouts and begins to jog. Zoe could probably reach him if she left Elijah behind and ran fast enough. Owen couldn’t hold both of them. It’s now or never.

He lifts Elijah over a barbed-wire fence, but the boy’s shin snags on the upper strand. He screams. Blood leaks over his ankle. Zoe’s opportunity vanishes in that moment. Owen grabs her around the waist and lifts her over the fence, dropping her unceremoniously in the nettles on the other side.

They’re pushing through waist-high weeds. Her arms are itching and burrs are sticking to her jeans. Elijah is crying.

“Shut him up!”

“He’s bleeding.”

“Just shut him up!”

They come to a narrow road with broken unkempt hedges on either side. Houses are ahead of them. A village. A car appears around a corner, a Land Rover Discovery with muddy wheel arches. The woman in control is middle-aged, ruddy-faced, wearing a striped rugby jumper. Pulling up, she looks concerned. “Is there a problem?”

“My boy cut his leg on a fence,” says Owen. “We ran out of petrol a ways back.”

“You poor thing,” she says, glancing at Zoe, who shakes her head. Fingers dig into her shoulder.

“Is everything OK?” asks the woman.

“She’s just tired. It’s been a long walk.”

“That cut might need stitches. The village doesn’t have a doctor. You’ll need to get to Halifax.”

“Can you give us a lift?”

The driver looks at Zoe again and then at Elijah’s foot. His right sock is soaked with blood. The railway line is out of sight, but she hears voices. Shouting.

Zoe reacts first. She yells at the woman to get away. “Drive, go, go, he’s not our father.”

The woman is too slow to react. Her door is wrenched open and she’s hauled onto the road. She tries to fight back, but Owen punches her in the face and she topples backwards, hitting her head on the asphalt with a dull thud. Zoe stares at the motionless woman, stunned by the violence.

“Get in the car.”

She doesn’t react.

“I’ll kill this boy. Get in the car!”

Owen bundles Elijah onto the back seat. Zoe is pushed in after him. The Land Rover slips into gear and accelerates away. Zoe looks out the rear window at the woman lying on the road. She hasn’t moved. Maybe she’s dead.

“You didn’t have to hit her,” she says.

Owen’s eyes meet hers in the mirror. “It was your fault. Next time, do as you’re told.”