Seeker (19 page)

As she told him about what Charlie had told the officers, his last vestige of hope evaporated.

Contacting Charlie was supposed to bring Will closer to home, but instead it pushed the likelihood of his return further away.

10.

Jake had thought accessing Will's email account would have been difficult, but he cracked it. It was only through talking over things with Francis, telling him about Charlie's report, that Jake came to realise he had an opportunity to do something proactive. It was he who had galvanised everyone else into action in the first place, but the last couple of days he'd been so caught up with trying to work out what was going on in his own head that he'd lost track of actually
doing
something to help in finding Will.

But now, in Charlie, he had a possible source of help. From what Medeiros had told him, it seemed Charlie was just as concerned as they all were. It was also worrying to Jake that Will would actually hook up with some random bloke; bad enough that he went to meet a man he'd only known via the net in the first place, but
that
? It wasn't Will at all. Something untoward was most definitely going on. And Jake had to find out what.

To that end when he'd returned to Will's earlier in the morning (getting back from Hackney at night would have been a nightmare, so he'd stayed at Francis's) he had got Will's laptop out. He'd discovered from Conrad the other day that you didn't need a password to activate the laptop, and it automatically connected to Will's home network. He went straight to Google, and entered the only word Will would possibly use as a password. Access granted. Jake felt a little proud of himself, knowing Will that well; although if Amy was to be believed it shouldn't have been much of a surprise.

What did surprise him, though, was an email from Charlie dated 30/03/11. For some reason Charlie had emailed Will yesterday. At first warning bells alarmed in his head; could it be that Charlie knew exactly where Will was? And he'd lied barefaced to the police? If so that would have been seriously dumb since Medeiros had told Jake that they were pulling the CCTV to corroborate Charlie's story. Any such lie would soon be discovered.

Jake quickly opened the email, any guilt over searching Will's private correspondences being flushed away by his concern.

The email was a last ditch attempt from Charlie to make direct contact with Will. Charlie said how he didn't care why Will had treated him like shit on Friday; he just wanted to know if Will was okay now. Everyone was worried;
he
was worried.

They could have just been words written to throw people off the scent, but Jake didn't think so. Mostly because they echoed his own feelings so well, and so he quickly sent an email to Charlie.

Charlie got back soon enough, and the two of them spent a few hours talking on msn. At the end of their time Jake was left feeling bad; it was quite clear that Charlie cared a lot for Will, almost as much as Jake did himself, but Jake also knew that if they found Will he would, without compunction, do everything in his power to ensure that Will returned home with him. He had not gone through all that with Amy yesterday to let someone else win Will's heart now.

He went to meet Mikey for some breakfast at the old Greasy Spoon. He sidestepped all the questions about Amy, instead letting Mikey know that he wouldn't be back to work until at least Monday, since he was planning to visit Southend himself. Jake could see that Mikey had something to say, but instead of saying it he just slipped into his usual innuendo and lad-talk. Jake was grateful for the distraction of nonsense and joined in.

Mikey returned to work, and Jake returned to Will's laptop. It was only when talking to Mike that he'd made the decision about Southend, although he'd been thinking about it ever since talking to Francis last night, but now he needed to broach the subject with Charlie.

This time they spoke on the phone, having exchanged mobile numbers.

“Sounds like a good idea to me, mate,” Charlie said. “Do you have anywhere to stay in Southend?”

Jake had hoped that Charlie would ask this. “Nope,” he said, not surprised in the least when Charlie offered him a place to stay. Canvassing Southend would take a lot longer than one day. Plus, by staying at Charlie's Jake would be able to see just what it was about this man that Will liked so much.

Will never had many boyfriends over the years, and other than Jacen, Jake had no barometer by which to gauge the type of man Will went for.

“I've been to Southend before, but can't say I really know it well.”

“Seaside trip when a kid?” Charlie asked.

“Yeah, that's the one. Will and I went with his parents. Good times.”

“I can imagine. Must be great having known Will all that time; there's so much I still don't know about him. Stuff I want to know. Hopefully I'll get a chance soon.”

Jake was silent for a second, then mumbled a “yeah” in agreement. Once again the guilt stung him. It seemed recently he had accrued an awful lot of guilt over things, and was beginning to realise how it must have been for Will, always carrying around with him a feeling of guilt and responsibility for others. He wasn't sure he liked all these serious feelings; life had been so much easier before Will had decided to leave for Southend. Jake just hoped those easier, more carefree, times would return with Willem.

“Hang on a sec, Charlie,” Jake said, as the landline started ringing. He rushed into the lounge and lifted the receiver.

“Hello?” He waited, but there was no answer, just the background hum of life. The call was obviously being made from a public phone box, which was a rarity in this day and age. A notion that struck Jake straight away as odd.

“Hello?” he said again, and the line went dead. “Okay, not liking this,” Jake said, once he replaced the mobile phone to his ear. “Someone called, but no one spoke. One moment, gonna check the number.” He punched 1471 into the number pad and listened to the number repeated back to him. He didn't recognise it. “01702…what's that the area code for?”

He didn't really expect Charlie to know, not like he was directory enquiries or anything, but nonetheless Charlie responded immediately. “That's Southend, mate.”

“Who would call from…?” Jake trailed off, as only one possible name came to him. Charlie reached the same conclusion, and in unison they voiced it.

“Will.”

* * *

Sam lowered his head against the phone, and took a deep breath.

That had been hard, and he didn't understand why he'd not been able to bring himself to speak to Jake. It was his best mate for funk's sake, not some weird stranger. And yet that was exactly how it had felt; Jake's voice was akin to hearing someone from TV speaking to him. A fantasy, not reality.

His blackout yesterday had been most revealing, and thankfully brief, but it had left him with a serious migraine. Lilly thought he was pushing himself too hard, but she didn't know the half of it.

He'd told her only a little; there was too much to take in as it was, without the added difficulty of trying to actualise it to another. Bit by bit his old life, the one before the attack, was returning to him.

Names and places, moments of transition in his life, important decisions made, a lifetime of hard work with little fun, the only moments of relief in the company of Jake and/or his nephew, Curtis. So much that his head felt like it would explode.

He should have been happy with this, after all as he and Lilly had said countless times, it was what he sought, his past returned. Only now it was returning he found he didn't actually want it. The life of Willem was not one he had any desire to return to; a life where he was responsible for so many.

His life with Lilly, although only just starting, held so much more promise. A chance for him to be the person he wanted to be, a new life and a companion with whom he could share it.

Coffee shops, parasitic sisters, it was all a dream to him. A nightmare, really, the life of another crashing into his new world.

Besides which, Sam reasoned, there was still so much to be recalled, not only of this unreal life before the attack, but the events that led him to Lilly's garden. Events of great danger that he could not expose his family to.

He picked up the phone receiver. There was one more call he had to make, before he carried on with seeking out the truth of his current situation.

A woman's voice, full of attitude, answered. Sam smiled wistfully; nice to see some things hadn't changed, and her tone only made him more determined not to be dragged into that world again.

“Hey, Ren, it's me. Let me speak to my nephew.”

At first there was silence on the other end of the line, and then the much-anticipated outburst. “Willem! Where the fuck have you been? Do you have any idea of the shit you've left me in?”

“Yeah, missed you, too,” Sam said, and blinked as a new vision overlaid his view of the Thames Estuary beyond the glass of the phone box.

Tall and brown, the woman was exactly as Willem had always thought his sister could be if she had lived to her full potential. She walked past ---------, whom she had been embracing, and reached out to embrace Willem. The twins watched her, the one in the shades impassive as he seemed to always be, the electric blue one with the Welsh accent casting open hostility Willem's way
.

“Willem
, mon cher, un très grand plaisir de vous rencontrer enfin
,” she said
.

Willem's French had never gone much beyond the standard GCSE fair, but he guessed it was a compliment of some kind, since he at least recognised she called him “my dear.” She gathered him in her arms and Willem was surprised by the strength of her embrace
.

“Will,” --------- said, with a grin Willem didn't understand, “allow me to introduce Celeste.”

Lawrencia was screaming profanities down the phone at him, but Sam was no longer interested in what she had to say. He slammed the receiver down and left the phone box.

He crossed the road, almost getting run over in the process, and stopped by the small wall running the length of the beach. He looked around wildly. Someone was calling him, or least calling out to Willem. Still there was no name to go with the shadow man, but he recognised the same voice. He screwed his eyes shut, trying to focus on the voice, but as soon as he blocked out his view of the water reflecting the perfect blue sky above the voice dissipated like a mist in the breeze.

“Shit,” he said, opening his eyes and looking towards Canvey Island.

He had been so close then. As great as it was to know of his old life once again, it was his life post-death that interested him. For that he had died in that alley with the shadow man's tongue sucking on his like a leech was beyond doubt in Sam's mind.

* * *

She didn't much care for White City Estate; it had a bad rep which was, in her opinion, well deserved. Council estates as a rule bothered her, and despite renovations made in the late '90s it was still very clear on every street of the maze-like estate that White City was home to the social rejects and trouble-families.

She was sitting in her car outside Hastings House, gathering her wits about her in preparation for a visit to see Lawrencia, and was just about to open the door when she spotted Jimmy emerging from the ground floor flat.

He stormed out, his right arm cast in fibreglass, bruises all over his face. He was raging about something, and was so caught up in his anger that he totally failed to notice Amy watching him as he walked past her car. She raised an eyebrow.

Amy had taken the day off to sort through the fallout of splitting with Jake. She didn't really feel up to the monotony of work today, bringing false smiles to bear on clients in an effort to close deals. It was her brother's idea.

She had called him late last night, and was immediately cheered up by the sound of the Cumbrian accent rubbing into his once-cockney tones. Terrance had moved to Maiden's Port back in '96, to work on a local newspaper. It was only supposed to be a temporary assignment but he'd been there ever since. Within moments of talking to him she realised just how much she missed her twin, and they soon got to talking about old times.

Terry knew Amy just as well as she did him, and it didn't take him very long to suss out that she was very much out of sorts. He would have recommended a holiday, maybe in Cumbria, but he knew Amy didn't sort out her troubles by walking away from them.

She told Terrance all about her two-week romance and tears fell. But she didn't mind, it was good to get it all out properly. He suggested that she still needed to do something constructive, get her caring for Jacob out of her system. She couldn't turn off her feelings like a gas pipe, but she could do something about them, and use her concern to help someone else.

Amy knew just the person; although she absolutely did not want to get involved with Jacob's search for Will, she could offer some vicarious help by making good on her promise to befriend Lawrencia.

Terrance made her promise something else, too: next time contact her
big
brother just for the hell of it, instead of at crisis time. This had made her laugh; because he'd been born a few minutes before Amy he insisted on the mantle of big brother, and in cases like this it was well deserved. So she made that promise wilfully.

She got out of the car just as her mobile went off. Billie was calling from the office, no doubt in a weakly veiled attempt to get the scoop on why she wasn't at work. Amy pressed dismiss. Let Billie gossip for all she was worth, right now Amy didn't much care.

She knocked at the door and waited for Lawrencia to open it. Amy was met with a genuine smile and together they walked into the kitchen; on the way Amy noticed the metal splint bolted to the index finger of Lawrencia's left hand, and that, coupled with the lopsided fringe she wore over her right eye, made Amy wonder just what had happened between Lawrencia and Jimmy. Although she could guess.

“Fall over?” she asked, innocently indicating the damaged finger.

Lawrencia looked at it. “Yeah, Curtis had some toys out.”