0007464355 (33 page)

‘Helen, think about it … Why would he hide? And who was in Art’s flat if not Art?’

‘I don’t know. But you don’t know Art. You don’t know what he’s capable of.’

‘Helen, you told me.’

‘I told you a fraction of it,’ she said fiercely. ‘There were other things.’

‘Worse things?’ asked Gil, remembering how hard it had been to listen to her describe what happened in Syria.

‘
Similar
things,’ she said. ‘Lots of similar things. It’s possible to forget, you know. In between. You can fool yourself it’s not that bad. That it was your fault. That it won’t happen again.’

She stared at him bleakly.

‘It’s like war. It always happens again. Only, if you’re going to accept that, why would you want to stay alive?’

30

Gil’s phone bleeped, breaking the silence that hung over them, and he glanced down. A Google alert in French filled his screen. The words
Arthur Huntingdon
leapt out at him.

‘Everything all right?’

Gil glanced up, startled. ‘Uh yes, yes,’ he said. ‘All fine. Just a, uh, text. From my daughter. But I need to speak to her. I should go.’

Helen’s face lost a little of its weariness. ‘You called her? Great, Gil, that’s really great. Call her now if you want.’

But Gil was already on his feet, shrugging his way back into his soggy jacket. ‘I should go,’ he repeated. ‘Really.’

‘But everything’s …?’

‘Yes, yes. All fine. I just need to—’

‘Of course,’ Helen sounded confused, but he could hear her feet on the treads behind him as he took the stairs two at a time. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, overtaking him at the bottom to unlock the door. ‘You know how I am with locks.’

‘I’ll be back,’ Gil promised. The only truthful thing he’d said in the last two minutes. ‘Lock up safely in the meantime.’

Helen forced a smile, and Gil felt a pang of guilt as the door swung shut, locks clicking into place one after another behind it.

He knew it looked odd, leaving like that. But he had to get away.

As he approached the outskirts of the village, Gil passed the old bus shelter. Pulling over, he covered the phone’s screen with his jacket, slid the link open and pasted the first line into Google Translate:

Place des Vosges fire body no longer believed to be that of journalist Arthur Huntingdon. Paris police now urgently seek a man and woman to assist with their enquiries …

He read it again and then a third time. Had she been playing him all along? Setting herself up as Huntingdon’s victim when really she was his accomplice?

A twig snapped somewhere to his left and Gil spun round. For the first time it occurred to him that he might be the one in danger. Behind and ahead stretched the empty road, the shadow of hedgerow looming on either side. Dusk had fallen fast. Anything could be out there. Any
one.

There was an alternative view, of course.

That Helen was telling the truth. That her fear of Art was genuine, the look on her face in the glow of her laptop screen when she’d asked ‘What if the body wasn’t Art’s?’ looked real enough. If everything she’d told him about Huntingdon was true and her husband was alive, she was in real danger.

‘Fuck,’ Gil shouted into the night. He wasn’t a big curser, but swearing seemed the only sane response. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’ His words were swallowed by sodden hills and vanished into the night. If the body wasn’t Art, whose was it?

The high street was dark except for an occasional streetlight. Not that that meant anything when it came to curtain twitchers. Still, he shut the door quietly, stepping out of his sopping suit on the landing and threw himself into a shower in the hope of steaming his brain to life. Drying himself roughly, Gil shrugged on the ancient towelling robe that hung on the bathroom door and went to make coffee.

The milk was off. Again. Black, then.

This was becoming a pattern, he thought, as he started skimming news sites. It was early days for the new story. So far only a couple of French sites carried the news. But it would be only a matter of time, hours even, before the man and the woman sought by French police were named. Then there would be nothing Gil could do to protect her. Gil caught himself. Why the hell did he still think she needed protecting? The things she’d seen, the things she’d done … She was tougher than she looked, tougher than him by a long chalk.

The only thing protecting her was living here, in the middle of nowhere, using another name – but at least one person had managed to find her.

The aspirin packet in the bathroom cupboard was eighteen months out of date but Gil washed a couple down with coffee anyway, then grabbed his notepad and added two names to the list he’d begun earlier in the week. There were four now, not including the scratched out Hélène Graham.

Caroline – PTSD

Tom – ex-boyfriend

Mark Ridley – journalist

Carl – German photographer, Syria

‘Caroline PTSD’ typed into the search engine brought him a host of names, when he narrowed it down by searching UK pages only. There were several leads, most based in London. The medical qualifications meant so little to Gil, he hardly knew where to start. He noted down a few likely names, numbers and websites to revisit later and moved on. Opening another tab he typed in
‘Mark Ridley’ and journalist
and found himself back on more familiar turf. Like Huntingdon, Ridley had Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn …

In his late forties, Ridley was still a journalist and running a news agency in the south-west. No call to be chasing down a story in the north then, Gil thought. Unless there was a south-western connection to make it viable, and to his knowledge neither Helen nor Huntingdon had history down there. More likely the interest was personal. He was Art’s friend, after all. Hadn’t Helen said something about Ridley getting involved when she left Art the first time? Reaching for his recorder to play it back, Gil realised that was pointless. The recording stopped long before she reached that point in the conversation.

The pictures of Ridley didn’t tell Gil much. The description of the man asking after Helen could fit him, but then it could fit half the men Gil knew between thirty-five and fifty. Gil circled his name twice in black Biro to indicate further research was needed. He could contact the man on Facebook, but that would take time. Twitter was too public. And he hadn’t got the hang of LinkedIn for anything other than snooping.

Unless, of course, unlike Karen’s, the man’s Facebook account wasn’t locked? Quickly, Gil set up a different Facebook account using a variation of his Gmail address, drumming his fingers impatiently on the coffee table as he waited for a confirmation email so he could prove he wasn’t a bot. Once his new account was live he sent Ridley a friend request. On a whim, he added a private message. It was risky, but what the hell?

I hear you’ve been looking for Helen Lawrence? I may have information.

Although he wasn’t sure the message would go, it uploaded the second Gil clicked send. Clearly Ridley hadn’t reset his privacy settings in quite some time.

Gil loved this bit of the job and hated it too. The frustration of getting nowhere fast made his brain bleed; but the adrenalin rush of knowing he was on to a lead was what had kept him going for the last forty years. He still preferred the old methods, door-knocking and legwork. But he couldn’t deny the Internet was handy. Even if it had made journalists into desk jockeys. Turning his attention to the last two names on his list, Gil groaned. Two first names to choose between; he didn’t hold out much hope. Why hadn’t he thought to ask Helen for Tom’s surname?

Carl or Tom? Tom or Carl? Might as well just toss a coin.

Next to Carl he’d written ‘German photographer, Syria’. Next to Tom it said simply ‘ex-boyfriend’. So Carl it was.

It turned out to be the work of ten minutes to find Carl Ackerman, German photographer. His website was at the bottom of the second page, at the top of the third was a link for his agency. Like Helen, he specialised in reportage. So, Gil assumed, it followed that they’d know each other. The link below this was for a German news story. One word leapt out:
Syrian
.

Opening the link, Gil put it through Google Translate.

According to a German newswire, Ackerman was missing. He hadn’t been seen since he boarded a flight from Damascus to Paris. Gil skimmed the appalling translation, adjusting words for sense as he went, his blood racing, his head pounding. Neither had anything to do with his headache.

This was Helen’s Carl. It had to be. Gil knew Carl was a common name, but no way were there two German photojournalists in Syria this summer called Carl.
Except
… Gil re-read the article. The dates didn’t add up. Carl had been reported missing less than two weeks ago. Gil’s heart sank. It was a duff lead. A coincidence. A huge one, but a coincidence all the same.

Gil groaned and threw himself back in his chair.

There had to be more to go on. Leaning forward, he cleared the search box and typed in ‘Carl Ackerman’ photographer Paris instead. Several more snippets scrolled up; two in French, about a war photography exhibition; two more in German. The first German one was in purple, to show he’d read it. Gil clicked on the second.

Again those incongruous dates.

‘Got you!’ Gil slammed his palm on the coffee table, his half-full mug slopping cold coffee on to his notes. Ackerman hadn’t been reported missing by his agency until 18 September because before that he was on annual leave. But records showed he’d been booked on to a flight from Paris to Berlin on Saturday 1st. The day after the fire.

What if he’d never boarded it?

31

‘This is becoming a habit.’ Her voice was wry, but Helen was pleased to see him. It had been a rough night, most of it spent lying on the sofa in the upstairs drawing room, jumping at the smallest noise. Ghost’s absence had only added to her disquiet.

‘How’s your daughter?’

Gil coloured. Helen scrutinised him. Had she caught him in a lie?

‘She’s OK, thanks,’ he said. ‘Thought I might find you here.’

‘Where else would I be?’ she shrugged.

Helen was out on the Dales most days. Usually twice; once in her running kit, once with her camera, sometimes both. The fact she’d taken to using a different route hadn’t thrown Gil. The back gate through the copse at the bottom of the land surrounding Wildfell brought her out on the Dales more quickly and cut out the road and the tourists. Gil seemed to think she hadn’t realised that the easiest way for him to reach the Dales by the lychgate was trespassing through her garden.

‘You’re not usually up this early,’ she said. ‘Couldn’t sleep either?’

Gil glanced at his watch. He looked shifty, and his discomfort was making her nervous. ‘Didn’t go to bed.’

That much was obvious, he was a wreck.

‘Me neither.’

‘Migraine?’ he asked.

Helen shook her head. ‘Nightmares. The waking kind.’

She could tell he wanted to ask what her nightmares were about, whether she’d remembered something, but he stopped himself.

If not that, then what was he doing here?

She started to walk backwards, taking the path that led towards the Scar at a gentle pace, her eyes fixed on Gil. When Gil followed she turned and began to jog. He jogged incongruously beside her for what felt like minutes.

‘Spit it out,’ she said eventually.

‘What?’

‘Come on, Gil, there’s something, there’s always something. We could start with why you left in such a hurry last night.’

She turned, expecting to see him looking uncomfortable. Instead, his face was serious.

‘You’d better sit down first.’

There was nowhere to sit but water-logged grass. Helen laughed. Her laugh was cut short when he didn’t join her. ‘What, Gil?’ she asked, half irritated, half scared. ‘Just tell me, what?’

‘OK,’ Gil said. He put out a hand to touch her arm and Helen felt herself flinch involuntarily.

‘But I really think you should sit down. Art’s not dead.’

The first Helen knew of blacking out was the ground coming up to meet her. The soft squelch of rain-sodden mud as her face hit grass. Someone tried to shake her awake and she shrugged them away. So they kept shaking.

‘Helen, Helen. Are you OK?’

Gil was crouched beside her, his body folded like a paper clip, his face crumpled in concern. She struggled up, her bare elbow slipping in the mud.

‘Let me help you …’

Helen shook her head. She didn’t trust herself to stand, let alone walk. Instead, she patted the boggy grass and Gil made a face he’d probably been using since his gran force-fed him porridge of a morning. Trying not to glance at his clean suit, he folded his lanky frame on to the wet ground beside her.

Her head was swimming. She thought she was going to vomit, right there on the Dales.

‘How can you be sure?’ said Helen. ‘Last night you were adamant he was.’

‘Our good friend Google.’

Helen scrutinised him. ‘Would that be our good friend Google alert masquerading as a text message from your daughter …? It doesn’t matter,’ she added. ‘I don’t blame you. Most journalists would do the same. What did it say?’

‘I don’t know that much,’ Gil said. ‘Only what I came up with online. But the body at the flat is definitely not Art. The French police are looking for both of you.’

Helen gazed at the haze of clouds above the top of the Scar, a promise of sun to come. An optimistic day, she’d thought, when she left the house minutes earlier. The nightmares slipping away with every step. She waited for the clouds to roll in along with the news that Art was alive. That he was out there somewhere. She wasn’t surprised they didn’t. She preferred the version where she’d killed him. Whoever came up with pathetic fallacy hadn’t a clue.

‘What else?’ she asked.

‘Nothing else.’

‘Why do I think you’re lying?’

‘I’m not sure you’re in a position to talk about people lying.’