Lost Girl (37 page)

Through the rain-blurred air, the father caught faraway glimpses of hardwood floors, suggestions of elegant furnishings, luxury and comfort. How deep the building reached he couldn’t tell
from his position. A vast disc of a covered swimming pool, ringed by a white stone patio, was the most visible feature on the other side of the fence. The pool area led to a long, pavilion-style
building, shaped in a crescent; a new design, one storey high, with floor-to-roof windows and sliding doors at the centre, to catch the sunlight. Lights now blazed inside the large communal area at
the heart of the building. Around the glass more white stone glimmered, and a cedar-panelled façade on either wing blended into the wooded backdrop.

This was a well-insulated property, and probably built to order, with rain-water recycling, a solar-energy receptive roof, all energy self-sufficient and off the grid; no doubt storing its own
power and fitted with a ground source heat pump.

The perimeter wire was electrified, as signs indicated. Wire panels, taut between concrete pillars, reached twelve feet high, with an outward overhang of black razor wire on the last three feet.
Placed twenty feet apart, and topping each fence post, was a small camera, directed towards the house. Outdoor floodlights to startle and light up intruders were positioned close to the cameras and
would be motion-activated.

Several acres of immaculate lawn stretched from the house to the fence. Growing up to the property’s border, a dense wood of pine, oak and beech acted as a further layer of concealment and
protection. With the exception of the drive leading to the closed gate, there were no roads near the house.

Serpentine in manner, the father had spent three hours pushing through a sodden, unmanaged and occasionally wind-lashed forest floor, until he’d come upon a thin track. He’d
eventually followed it across another mile, the path slippery with gelatinous mud, and through near-impenetrable woodland until he reached the fence. Even wearing his poncho and hat, by the time
he’d reached the perimeter he was bemired to his elbows and hips, and his underwear clung to his skin.

With the exception of out-of-date satellite maps, there was no public information available about the address, and little about the gated community in which the building sheltered. Two years had
passed since the abduction, so Karen may have moved, or be abroad in another lavish residence. He vaguely recalled her bragging about her overseas property portfolio years before. The only course
of action to verify current occupancy was the direct approach, a trespass and break-in while armed.

But if Karen Perucchi no longer lived here and he went in armed, there was a chance that he might engage in a lethal conflict and die fighting his way into the wrong house. The mere thought of
crossing the floodlit bowling green beyond the wire made him feel sick.

And the tools he had available were no use in the face of the insurmountable fence. Automatic locking might ultimately seal off the entire house, once the security lights on the boundary fence
startled anything living that had strayed onto the lawns. Shatter- and bullet-proof glass might have been fitted into the doors and windows of the house. Prolific home invasions over the last
twenty years, as well as the unflagging abduction threats, had meant the wealthy left little to chance. This New Forest community employed its own security patrols; this entire area was listed as
private property.

At the border of the easterly section of the forest, the father had been forced to turn the car around when the navigation system issued a warning preceding immobilization of the vehicle.
He’d spotted distant camera masts on the secondary road, and they allowed him to drive no closer than five miles from the first house in the community. With no way of getting any closer by
road, he’d parked and continued on foot, and he’d needed the navigation function of the military binoculars he’d found amongst Oleg Chorny’s weapons to get this far.

Looking at the glowing windows from his distant position within the dank weeds, and while the ceiling of trees crashed above him as the winds built for the night, his teeth came close to
snapping as he ground his jaws together.
She got away with it
. Karen Perucchi had stolen his daughter. She’d pocketed a little girl in the way she’d pocketed charitable
donations intended for the starving, and she got to live here. He could only think of one punishment worthy of such crimes.

Closing his eyes tight and taking deep breaths, he reminded himself that choking indignation was the bedfellow of murderous rage, and could derail his ability to think clearly and rationally.
Back in the car, Oleg had warned him of this. The journey to the fence had also consumed three hours. A journey he would now have to repeat to return to the car. And he would have to come back
here, along the same route, the following morning, but with
something
to get him through this fence, and then he would have to make his move while exhausted.

The hurricane had blasted north, but the tail of the storm still raged, so at least the weather offered some natural cover. The flooding in Dorset and Wiltshire, power outages, numerous closed
roads and treacherous driving conditions in a forested area might hamper the arrival of any assistance once he’d tripped the alarms and lights. How quickly private security details could
respond to calls, and how substantial the patrols were, was pure conjecture.

The weather was his only ally, but that would not help him cut through the wire, then traverse the grounds quickly and get inside the house. There might also be onsite security: a permanent
bodyguard, particularly if the residents had children, was standard for the wealthy in the cities and towns.

There were the Kings to consider too. How long might it be before they ran him down out here? The Kings knew who he was, and who he was searching for, but how many of them knew his little girl
had been taken for Karen Perucchi? Yonah Abergil was dead, as was Semyon Sabinovic. Besides Oleg, he didn’t know who else had been in the loop about his daughter’s abduction. But if
even a minor figure like Rory had known something, then others would too. Abergil had admitted he’d confided in associates. The Kings might appear soon, or already be in place, waiting for
him. He was pretty sure now they weren’t tracking his car, or he’d already be dead.
God bless you, Gene Hackman
.

The father opened his eyes as if to release his skittish thoughts before they panicked into a rout, and brought the binoculars to his eyes. Old DEV-13s that would still provide good magnified
recordings of anything he could see, footage equipped with directional sound, and he could study this more closely in the car.

Through keyholes in the ground scrub and treeline, he sighted the fence, cameras, the position of the visible security lights, then the other parts of the building and grounds that he could make
out.

Bright orange wall lights, a long white leather sofa, an expanse of wooden floor, a dark rug before a broad fireplace made from steel; all appeared in his magnified vision as the
building’s windows revealed a portion of the interior. The rear wall of the central area was constructed from long sheets of glass and sliding doors, facing another patio on the other
side.

As the building curved, one side of the room was lost to sight, but beyond the fireplace he could see a large open bar. A person could just walk out to the pool from the bar, or right through
the middle of the house to the rear patio and gardens. There would be access to other rooms too, in either wing, from the large communal space that had been designed for entertaining.

While the father assessed the very real possibility of being killed before he made it across the broad, open grounds, there was movement in the living space. Sudden, quick movement behind the
glass. A figure moving from left to right, then disappearing through a door, on the right of the building.

He didn’t twitch, and let the wet earth, the cold and rain, engulf his stationary form as he waited for the little figure to reappear. As he lay barely breathing and unwilling to blink,
the few minutes stretched into fifteen, then twenty. The child did not re-emerge.

Heartbeat thumping from the sudden infusion of adrenaline, the father replayed the footage. Dressed in a blue tracksuit, her raven hair tied in bunches, her small, eager face in profile, a young
girl appeared and ran across the living area on the tiny screen of the binoculars. She’d run from left to the right, from one wing of the spacious building to the other.

‘Baby,’ he whispered into the wet air. He felt concussed, even paralysed, before disbelief seeped through him like damp.

He watched the recording again. And again, and again, all the time refusing to acknowledge this was his daughter, while unable to recognize that it was not.

Pausing the footage on the child’s face, at the moment he could see a fraction more in profile, he enlarged the frame until he was staring hard at a snub nose, the slim angles of the
cheeks and forehead, and a partially open mouth. He played it again. The child was tall, but the vaguest suggestion of a residual infantile plumpness about her cheeks and posture, the short gait
and speedy flit, rather than a mature running technique, made it possible for the girl to be around six years old. The hair was the right colour too. If he could see her face fully, he would know
her; he was sure that he would know
his own child
.

His thoughts were routed. Brief notions of his daughter erupted. Memories flooded in, even those he had not known to still exist. Her image was suddenly brighter; his sense of her more distinct,
less imaginary. His heart seized, but the pain of recall was less acute. Briefly, he wrestled with a mad desire to throw himself up the fence and into the razor wire.

The father did not know for how long he lay in the mud thereafter, sobbing into his wet, dirty hands. And as he cried, he said his wife’s name.

Eventually and slowly, his limbs stiff with cold and damp, he packed away his sodden equipment and slid carefully backwards, through the mud and into the trees. And so shaken was he, with what
might have been hope, even euphoria, the discomforts of his passage out never registered.

There had never been a real choice about him breaking into the house. When and how were the only questions he entertained now.

‘Who knew? Besides you and Sabinovic, who else would know that Karen Perucchi took my daughter?’

On the back seat, the thin head studied him in the dim light. The big eyes were hooded but still shining. ‘How did you find me, mmm?’

‘I’m asking the questions.’

‘And I have given you the answer. That fat rat fuck, Yonah, gave you me and Simmy. But who gave you Yonah the pig?’

The detective, but only after a tipoff from Rory that King Death were involved.
Rory
. From a conversation in a pub, Rory knew it was the Kings. If that degenerate knew his organization
had carried out the snatch then others in his world knew even more. ‘Your old friends, the Kings, would have asked the lawyer where my daughter was taken. This go-between. This Oscar Hollow.
The Kings, they will be here?’

‘I would think so. Soon, they may even do our work with the bitch for us. They are thorough when they cover their tracks. Kings are always in the service of death. But that would not be so
good for what I have in mind.’ Oleg smiled pleasantly when he noted the father’s renewed attention, and his growing dependence upon him as a source of information, even guidance.

‘What do you mean?’ the father asked.

‘This woman. You have to ask yourself, is it more trouble to make her and what she covets disappear? Or is it easier to kill you?’

‘I’m the path of least resistance.’

‘Mmm, I would think so. But she will have to pay two prices then, maybe three.’

‘Prices? What prices?’

‘You. Your wife. The two pigs. All will carry a price as Kings do the bitch a big favour by removing problems and erasing history. After sales. We always made big money this way. And what
has been uncovered can just as quickly be buried. You see? But no one will look for you when you are gone.’

The father ground his teeth until his jaw lit up with pain. ‘Pigs? Don’t you call them that! And don’t ever mention my wife again, or I will shoot you dead where you
sit!’

The man fell silent, but still grinned.

The father’s thoughts returned to the film of Scarlet Johansson, her face, the terror in the eyes. A recording of his wife was surely waiting for him too. The father sank his face into his
hands. There was no question of him travelling back to the Midlands. He’d made his decision.

Gradually, his thoughts returned to the twelve-foot fences, the razor wire, the lights and cameras, the probability of private security with exceptional military expertise, and the comrades of
the addict who had stolen his little girl two years before, all biding their time within the cedar-panelled walls of a fortress. All of these things he would have to confront in a few hours.

To be so close, and yet . .
.

The impossibility of the venture impaled him. He was a chunk of lava that had cooled to a small, black, porous rock. Discarded, burned to carbon by the cruelty and tragedy of having been given
this life. And even that was a life much better than most would ever know.

He thought of the little girl running through the house in the forest, this palace of the undeserving, the malicious and cruel, protected by an electrified stockade. Had there been a hint of a
smile in the girl’s eye? When he thought of her mother again, the father cried. And he could not stop. The noises he made were the deep cries of an animal reaching the last of itself.

He’d never been religious but the father prayed for this to end, and perhaps he now spoke only to a memory of warmth and light that had managed to remain inside his degraded heart.

Night pinched out the last of dusk.

In the mornings, when you were a baby, we would go downstairs together while your mother got ready for the day that she would spend with you. The morning was our time together before I went
to work. You used to lie on me and hold my finger. Sometimes I can still feel your weight and your softness. I can smell your hair . . . You would wrap your hand around my finger. You always held
what made you feel safe . . . Your father’s finger. And I am your father
.