Lost (26 page)

“Yes.”

“Just you.”

“Just me.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Why not today?”

“I need to see Weatherman Pete. Pete wil give us the forecast.”

“What difference does it make in a sewer?”

Moley makes a whooshing sound like an express train. “You don't want to be down there when it rains. It's like God Himself pul ed the chain.”

20

“Why are you so interested in the drains?” asks Joe. He motions me to sit with a mannered almost mechanical movement as though he's been practicing.

It's Monday morning and we're in his office, a private practice just off Harley Street. It's a Georgian house with black downspouts and white windowsil s. The plaque on the door has a string of initials after his name, including a smal round smiley face designed to make patients feel less intimidated.

“It's just a theory. The ransom was supposed to float.”

“Is that al ?”

“Ray Murphy used to work in the sewers. Now he's missing.”

Joe's left arm jerks in his lap. There's a book lying open on his desk:
Reversing Memory Loss
.

“How's the leg?”

“Getting stronger.”

He wants to ask me about the morphine but changes his mind. For a few seconds the silence spreads out like thick oil. Joe stands and sways for a moment, fighting for balance. Then he begins a slow, deliberate walk around the room, each step containing a struggle. Occasional y, he drifts to the right and has to straighten.

Glancing around his office, I notice that things are slightly askew—the books on the shelves and files on the filing cabinet. He must be finding it harder to keep things tidy.

“Do you remember Jessica Lynch?” he asks.

“The U.S. soldier captured in Iraq.”

“When they rescued her she had no recol ection of any events from the time of the ambush until she awoke in an Iraqi hospital. Even months afterward, despite al the debriefings and mental evaluations, she stil couldn't remember. The doctors cal ed it a memory trace, which is completely different from amnesia. Amnesia means you have a memory but something traumatic happens and you suddenly forget. In Jessica's case her brain never al owed her to col ect memories. It was like she was sleepwalking.”

“So you're saying I might never remember everything that happened?”

“You might
never
have remembered. It didn't register.”

He lets the news sink in while I try desperately to push it away. I don't want to accept an outcome like that. I
am
going to remember.

“Have you ever been involved in a ransom drop?” he asks.

“About fifteen years ago I helped run an operation to catch an extortionist. He threatened to contaminate baby food.”

“So what do you plan for?”

“There are two types of drop—the long haul or the quick intervention. The long haul involves a complex set of instructions, making the courier jump through hoops, moving him around from A to B to C, stretching the resources of the police.”

“And the alternative?”

“Wel it starts off the same way, sending the courier back and forth between public phone boxes, on or off buses, swapping directions . . . then suddenly, somewhere along the way, something happens. They strike hard and fast, radical y changing the plan.”

“For example?”

“Back in the eighties a fel ow cal ed Michael Sams kidnapped a young estate agent, Stephanie Slater, and demanded a ransom. Stephanie's boss was the courier. It was a dark, foggy night in an isolated part of South Yorkshire. Sams left messages on telegraph poles and in public phone boxes. He moved the courier around like a chess piece through narrow country lanes until suddenly he stopped the car with a roadblock. The courier had to leave the money on a wooden tray on the edge of a bridge. Sams was down below. He pul ed a rope, the tray fel down, and he escaped on a motor scooter along a muddy track.”

“He got away?”

“With £175,000.”

The Professor's eyes betray a glimmer of admiration. Like a lot of people he appreciates ingenuity but this wasn't a game. Michael Sams had already kil ed a girl.

“Would you have chosen Rachel to be the courier?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“You can't expect to make rational decisions when it's your own child involved. They must have nominated Rachel. It's what I would have done in their shoes.”

“OK, what else would you have done?”

“I would have prepared her. I would have gone over the different scenarios and tried to get her ready.”

“How?” Joe points to an empty chair. “Imagine Rachel is sitting here now. How would you prepare her?”

I stare at the empty chair and try to picture Rachel. There were three coffee cups in my kitchen sink. Rachel was with me. Who else? Aleksei perhaps. They were
his
diamonds.

Closing my eyes I can see Rachel in black jeans and a gray pul over. Until now her appearance has melted into vagueness because of her pain but she's an attractive woman, rather bookish and sad. I can see why Aleksei was drawn to her.

She has her legs together and a soft leather satchel on her lap. Scraps of plastic and confetti-like foam are scattered on the kitchen floor.

“Remember, this is not a done deal,” I say. “This is a negotiation.”

She nods at me.

“They want you to fol ow blindly but we cannot let them dictate terms,” I tel her. “You have to keep insisting on assurances that Mickey is alive. Keep asking for proof. Say you want to see her and speak to her.”

“But they'l say we have the hair and bikini to prove it.”

“And you'l say they prove nothing. You just want to be sure.”

“What if they want me to drop the ransom somewhere?”

“Don't do it. Demand a straight exchange—Mickey for the diamonds.”

“And if they don't agree?”

“It's no deal.”

Her voice is as fragile as spun glass. “What if they don't bring Mickey? What if they want the diamonds first?”

“You say no.”

“They'l kil her.”

“No! They'l claim that she's alone or hungry or running out of air or water. They'l try to frighten and bul y you—”

“But what if . . .” her voice catches, “. . . what if they hurt her?”

I can almost see the penny dropping.

She sobs. “They're going to kil her, aren't they? They'l never let her go because she can identify them . . .” I cover her hands with mine and make her look at me. “Stop! Pul yourself together. Right now Mickey is their most valuable asset.”

“And afterward?”

“That's why we have to dictate the terms and you have to be ready.”

On my feet now, I stand behind her. “OK, let's practice what you're going to say.” I pul out my cel phone and dial. The phone in front of her begins to ring. I nod toward it.

Uneasily she flips open the receiver. “Hel o?”

“DITCH THE FUCKING WIRE!”

She looks up at me and stutters, “What . . . what . . . do you mean?”

“NOW, BITCH! DITCH THE WIRE OR I KILL MICKEY. RIGHT NOW.”

“I'm not . . . I'm not wearing a wire.”

“DON'T LIE TO ME. Dump it out the window.”

“No.”

“SHE'S DEAD. YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE.”

“I'l do whatever you say. Anything. Please. I'm doing it . . .”

Rachel is shaking. I take the phone from her hands and terminate the cal .

“OK, he didn't know you had a wire. He bluffed you. You should have cal ed his bluff.”

Rachel nods and takes a deep breath.

We go through the rehearsal again. I want her to be polite and forceful without being confrontational. Disagree but don't chal enge. Delay.

“Tel them you're scared. You're new to this. You're nervous. They want control so let them think you're vulnerable.” For the next two hours we practice, going through the various scenarios. Realistical y, I can only instil a handful of ideas. Over and over I repeat the same question. “What are you going to ask?”

“To
see
Mickey.”

“When are you going to hand over the ransom?”

“When I
have
Mickey.”

“That's right. When you're holding her by the hand.”

I look into her eyes, hoping to see the same resolve that I witnessed at the first press conference after Mickey had gone missing when Rachel refused to break down or cry. I saw the same determination on the courthouse steps after the verdict when she read from a prepared statement.

“You don't have to go through with this,” I remind her. Rachel doesn't blink or even breathe. Her fingers flutter against the buckles of the satchel.

On the edge of consciousness I hear a phone ringing. Joe leans across his desk and diverts the cal . He looks at me expectantly, his left arm jerking like a broken fire hose.

“You remembered something.”

I feel my stomach heave and settle again. “Not enough.”

His arm has stopped shaking. His face assumes a pale blankness except for the brightness in his eyes. Life is one big mystery to him, an ever-shifting puzzle. Most people don't stop to think. Joe can't stop himself from thinking.

21

Ali has had her phone turned off al evening. Final y she cal s me.

“Where have you been?”

“Working. I'm coming home now.”

“Not on my account.”

“I've been
working
.”

Twenty minutes later she comes through the door, looking different. They say you can tel when a woman has had sex. Maybe I never did it wel enough.

Ali has something for me. The Police National Computer confirmed that Gerry Brandt shared a prison cel with Tony Murphy four years ago. Brandt was released on parole two months before Mickey disappeared.

“And how's this for another coincidence,” she says. “Tony Murphy got paroled six months ago—just in time to be involved in al this.”

“How is ‘New Boy' Dave?”

With just a hint of a smile: “He's a very happy bunny.”

Although tired, she sits and goes through her notes. Gerry Brandt disappeared off radar screens the same month that Mickey went missing. Since then there have been no tax returns, social security payments, traffic fines, police cautions or overdue library books . . . He popped up again three months ago when he applied for welfare.

“So tel me, my clever young thing, does Mr. Brandt have a current location?”

“As a matter of fact he does,” she says, holding up her hand. Between her fingers is a smal piece of folded paper—an address in South London.

Bermondsey is one of those areas that has been raped twice—once by the Luftwaffe and then by architects in the seventies who put up Stalinesque tower blocks and concrete council estates. It's like seeing a set of healthy teeth riddled with fil ings.

We pul up outside a big old white place, veiled in foliage. Beneath a pelmet of ivy, I see a smal balcony supported by ornate brackets and above that a steep slate roof as dark and wet as a washed blackboard.

I look at my watch. It's just gone seven in the morning.

“Rise and shine, Princess.”

A girl of about nineteen with tousled hair peers from the partial y opened door. She's wearing a rugby sweater and a pair of cotton briefs. A tattoo peeps from beneath the waistband.

She looks at Ali's badge and unlocks the chain. Then we fol ow her down the hal way to the living room. Ali admonishes me silently for checking out the swaying arse.

Two more girls are asleep on the floor wrapped in each other's arms. Someone else of indeterminate sex is cocooned in a bedspread on the sofa. The air stinks of hash and stale cigarette smoke.

“Heavy night?”

“Not me, I don't drink,” she says.

“We're looking for Gerry Brandt.”

“He's upstairs.”

She sits on a dining chair and rests her bare foot on the table to pick at a scab on her knee.

“Wel maybe you'd like to go and tel him that we'd like a word,” Ali replies.

The girl ponders this and then slides her foot off the table. She makes the stairs seem very steep. The dining room is plastered with cheap flyers for pub bands and there is a padded bench in the corner beneath a bar and weights. Through the door in the kitchen I see last night's takeout curry spil ing out of the trash can.

The girl has returned. “Grub says he'l be a minute.”