Seeker (14 page)

Medeiros had suggested that perhaps Jake would like to be present at the search, to give him peace of mind that steps were being taken to locate his friend. Jake absolutely agreed with that, and it had seemed like a great idea at the time. But now, as he stood leaning against the stair wall, looking from kitchen to lounge, he wasn't so sure he liked the idea after all. The more he saw them search, the more he became anxious.

“Looks like you need a coffee, son.”

Jake turned his head towards the kitchen and saw Francis emerge, carrying one mug and a glass of milk. Francis had promised he'd come over, but Jake hadn't seen him arrive.

“When did you get here?” Jake asked, accepting the coffee gratefully.

“About ten minutes ago. Back door was open.” Jake nodded at this, never having realised how easily he had slipped into Will's habits of opening the doors and windows to let the air flow through the house. It had been an automatic thing.

Francis continued, glancing in at the lounge. “They're really going for it, aren't they? I noticed you were distracted and in serious need of a coffee, so I busied myself in the kitchen.”

Jake looked up from the cup. “It's much appreciated,” he said, forcing himself to take a sip of the hot liquid. The caffeine felt good on his taste buds.

“I bet you haven't had a spot of food since leaving the station last night, have you?”

Jake had to admit Francis was right. Despite Amy's best efforts he simply hadn't been hungry. No food or drink had passed his lips since leaving the police station. Not even a bottle of beer.

“I'll grab something at lunch time. Be meeting Amy, then.”

“That's good.” Francis placed a gentle hand on Jake's arm. “You need to look after yourself, you can't let all this get to you. You'll work it out.”

Jake nodded, not really listening, and thus he failed to note the look of concern written all over Francis's face.

“I suppose they know what they're doing, right?” Jake asked.

“Yes, I should think so. Don't worry, they'll bring my boy back.”

“Will they, though? Look at all this effort they're going to. They've even got officers going door-to-door, asking questions of the neighbours to see if anyone saw anything untoward, and someone is popping over to have words with Steve and that Kurt guy. Anyone who might have something to gain by Will being out of the picture.”

“Including that fella…oh, what's his name? Lawrencia's fella?”

Jake scowled. “Jimmy. Yeah, I'm sure the police will have a field day with him. Asshole.”

“Well, that's good, then. The police know what they're doing, and we'll have Willem home in no time we will.”

“But that's just it, Francis,” Jake said, hating the tone of desperation in his voice. “Up until this morning, well, last night really, I'd convinced myself that sooner or later I'd pop over here and find Will home, acting as if nothing had happened. But now? With all this?” He indicated the police officers, two more of whom were heading upstairs. “It's all too real.”

Francis didn't answer that, and Jake looked closely at the old man. He expected to see his own doubts mirrored in the grey eyes, but all he saw was a sense of assurance. Francis smiled and patted Jake's arm again.

“Don't worry, son, have faith.
There is an appointed time for everything
. Remember that, everything works out as it's meant to.” He glanced upstairs. “I'm going to have a nose up there, see what the lads are up to.”

Jake watched Francis mount the stairs, and shook his head. He was glad Francis had his faith, and could turn to quoting the Bible for comfort, but all Jake had was the cold hard facts. The evidence of his eyes was enough, and it weighed heavy on his heart. Even if Will did return what would be left of the man he…

Jake stopped himself and swallowed hard, unable to even complete that thought. Instead he walked into the lounge to see how PC Haim was doing.

Haim still had his own cup of tea sitting beside Will's laptop, which Haim was looking through trying to access Will's email account. Haim was the only officer that Jake had made a cuppa for, mostly because the young man had been so friendly when he arrived; so chatty that Jake felt he couldn't really refuse the request for a decent cup of tea. Apparently the tea at the station wasn't much “cop.” Haim thought the joke was hysterical, but Jake wasn't sure he agreed, but he'd still laughed along with the officer.

He seemed very good at his job, since from the moment he had stepped into the house his eyes had wandered everywhere, taking in the smallest details, including running his eyes over Jake a few times.

A cable ran from the laptop's USB port to a small mobile hard drive, no doubt to back up all the relevant information Haim was able to pull up, which he would later analyse at the station.

Haim looked up, and offered Jake a large smile, his blue eyes sparkling with his perfect white teeth. Jake wondered if he had some American blood in him.

“Hi, Jake, hope this intrusion isn't too overwhelming for you.”

Jake shook his head, quite glad that someone was calling him by his first name. Mr. Caulfield was a little tiresome after a while. “No it's…” He stopped and offered a weak smile. “Well, yeah, just a bit I guess.”

“We'll be out of your hair soon.” Haim budged over so Jake could also sit on the sofa. Jake gratefully took the seat, and looked at the laptop.

The screen was full of code that meant absolutely nothing to him. Although, from his small understanding of computer systems he knew that Haim was now running the laptop in MS-DOS mode. Full of command prompts that were gibberish to Jake.

“How's it going?” he asked, hoping Haim would dumb it down for him.

“Well,” Haim began, “I've pulled up Willem's email account, and found a few emails from and to a Charlie Connolly, which is presumably the same Charlie that your mate went to see. At least one of those emails was sent a few days ago.”

“A few days ago?” Jake blinked, moving in closer to the laptop as if he could somehow mysteriously see the email through the MS-DOS coding. “What did it say?”

Haim looked down at Jake's lap, although Jake barely noticed, and the officer grinned. At this point their legs were touching, not that it really registered with Jake. “I never really read it, better software at the station, but I caught a little bit of it. Something about why did Willem do something or other to Charlie. It'll be read properly later. I've pulled quite a lot of useful information from this baby, and I'm sure it'll be a big help.”

“Why would Will do what?” Jake shook his head. “So, Will isn't with Charlie now?”

“I honestly have no idea,” Haim said, patting Jake's knee. Jake looked down at the hand, but didn't move away. “Could be Charlie knew we'd look at the emails and sent this to put us off the scent.”

“Thanks, that does wonders for my mind,” Jake said, with a wry smile.

Haim smiled back, and patted Jake's knee again. “I wouldn't worry too much about it right now. We'll know more later, and you'll be informed.”

Haim shut the laptop down and stood up, leaning over the table to unhook his mobile hard drive and place it in his bag. Jake watched him, his eyes drawn to the way Haim's trouser tightly clung to his ass. With a flush of embarrassment Jake looked away quickly, and stood up.

“Um,” he began, not sure what to say. If Haim noticed Jake's awkwardness he didn't mention it. Instead he removed his pad from his pocket and jotted something down.

“Right, that's me done here. I'll get onto this,” Haim said patting his bag, “as soon as I get to the station. This is my number,” he added, tearing a piece of paper off the pad and handed it to Jake. “Call me.”

Jake took the paper, and offered his thanks. He watched Haim leave the lounge, his eyes once again lingering on the young officer's ass as he walked out.

Jake took a deep breath and looked at the paper, expecting an extension number at Fulham Police Station.

Instead what he found himself looking at was a mobile number, and a scribbled message; “Call me if you want to meet up, Conrad. xx.”

* * *

Normally a feeling of déjà vu would have been no big deal, just an odd quirk of perception, but for Sam it was so strong that he felt a wave of nausea with it. Southend Central was only two stops from Chalkwell so he elected to stand, hoping for a bit more air than he'd get if he remained sitting down.

As he stood, steadying himself with the handrail, a few people looked up. One old dear even reached out a hand to help steady him, not that her frail arm would have been much use if he had keeled over. But the thought was appreciated.

“You okay, love?” she asked.

Sam offered her a smile, and said, “yeah, I'm good,” lying through his teeth. He felt anything but good. “Had a bit too much last night, I reckon.”

The woman nodded knowingly. “Enjoy it while you're young, darling.”

“I am,” he said, and looked out of the window. He actually had no idea how old he was, but judging by his looks he assumed he was either in his late twenties or early thirties. He and Lilly had discussed such a topic last night, and she erred on nearer her age, but Sam said he didn't feel that old. Which lead to him getting a playful slap!

The train stopped briefly at Westcliff, and although no one got on he was thankful for the gust of air that wafted in as soon as the doors opened. Once the train was underway again, he remained as he was, leaning against the closed door, looking out through the window watching the backs of houses as they passed by. He inhaled deeply, glad that the wave of nausea had passed. Although the intense déjà vu looked set to stay.

A sense that he'd taken this trip before, and for all he knew he probably had. If they had been correct about London, then it seemed likely that he could have taken this journey into Southend. The map above the door said this train serviced Fenchurch Street, and that was in London. He wasn't sure how he knew it, he just did. Another example of the random knowledge his head held; the non-specifics on life.

He looked to the right and saw the station coming up. He didn't notice what side of the train the platform was on; he just knew it would be on his right and so crossed the width of the train from the left-hand door. It only served to confirm his having previously travelled this route.

He stepped off the train and headed for the ticket barrier, brandishing the return ticket he had bought with the money Lilly had loaned him, as if some force was nudging him on. With every step he took the sense of familiarity increased; there was little doubt in his mind that he'd been here before. He could never describe in detail his original visit, like everything else that was too specific an event for his mind to grab hold of; the memory was there, but it was just slightly out of reach.

He emerged from the station to find that the sky was still cloudy, although behind those patches of grey clouds was much blue sky, as if the heavens themselves were trying to shake off the storm of the previous night, but the clouds held on. The storm wasn't finished yet.

There was a road verging off to the left and a path to the right. Before him was the rear of the South Essex College complex, where Lilly worked, but he ignored the building and turned right, knowing exactly where he needed to be.

He walked down a slight incline and came out into the heart of the pedestrianised Southend High Street; the main shopping thoroughfare of Southend-on-Sea. He stopped abruptly, almost forcing a group of youngsters to collide into him.

Around him were the usual group of shops, including Greggs the Bakery, Shoe Zone, a building society, and the place he knew would be there—Starbuck's. He made a move towards the coffee shop. There was some presence in there; calling him.

He barely got within three foot of the shop when his legs gave way beneath him, and he crumbled to the ground. He looked up, but everything was a blur, strange shapes moving around him. He closed his eyes tight, trying to block everything out and took a deep breath.

He was sitting in Starbuck's, watching a man buy them a coffee. His backpack and bag were on the floor beside him. He noticed that Starbuck's had Wi-Fi and he wished he'd brought his laptop with him, not that Jake was any kind of net junkie; he barely used it. But Willem wanted to tell Jake about the curious turn of events the train journey to Southend had brought him. He'd certainly be interested to learn that Willem was finally stepping out of the box. Willem felt for his phone in his jeans pocket
.

He couldn't go into much detail with text, but he could tell Jake…
.

He looked up as the man approached him, feeling a guilty sense of pleasure in the way the man took him into his deep eyes. Things were going in an unexpected direction, but he wasn't complaining. He removed his hand from his pocket, leaving the phone there. Telling Jake could keep
.

“Hey, you okay, mate?”

Sam opened his eyes and the man, who had been reaching down, pulled back in surprise. Sam didn't understand why, but the stranger soon recovered and offered him a hand. Sam ignored the help, his hands automatically going to his throat, clawing for the fresh air rushing into his lungs.

Finally his breathing slowed to a normal rate, and he allowed the man to help him back up. He looked around, trying to focus on one thing, but his eyes continued to roam, not able to fix on anything.

“You sure you're okay, man?”

Sam looked at the stranger, and nodded. “Yes,” he said.

The man was looking at Sam oddly.

“Panic attacks,” Sam explained, wondering where he kept on getting these wild excuses from, “they come on every now and then.”

“Right,” the man said slowly, but before he could say anything else a woman interrupted him.

“Sam?”

Sam blinked, and his vision came back into focus. Lilly was there, manoeuvring herself around the helpful stranger. She smiled up at the man, and reached out to take Sam's hand like an errant child.