The Last Witness (33 page)

  ‘Yes… I remember.’ Elena’s throat tightened. How could she forget? Lorena’s recurring nightmare was that she was back in the sewers and the waters were rapidly rising. When she couldn’t raise the manhole cover to get free and was fast drowning, she’d awake screaming, her body bathed in sweat. Elena recalled two such nights at the Cerneit orphanage during Lorena’s ten months there after her sewer days, hugging Lorena tight and re-assuring her that she was no longer in the sewers, she was safe. And there were apparently many more nights with similar nightmares when Elena wasn’t present. One of the Cerneit wardens had voiced concerns about Lorena’s state of mind when after a nightmare Lorena had pressed whether the warden was sure that she hadn’t sneaked off in the night back to the sewers
‘…Maybe to look for Patrika.’
Patrika was her closest friend from the sewers who’d drowned one night when the waters rose: the main event which they suspected had triggered the nightmares. The line between the dreams and reality had often been thin in Lorena’s mind, and perhaps Lorena was flagging that now because she was worried that with all the trouble Elena was going to, it might all end up as nothing: any suspicions of Ryall unfounded, all of it just in her dreams. Elena felt suddenly guilty: that wasn’t why she’d asked.

  She reached out a hand to touch Lorena’s shoulder. ‘It doesn’t matter…that’s what the psychiatrist is meant to sort out. If nothing is happening, at least then you’ll know for sure, one way or the other.’ Elena pushed a smile that hopefully rose above her uncertainty as she looked across. ‘And hopefully be able to sleep easy.’

  ‘Okay. I understand.’ But from the faint shadows that lingered in Lorena’s face as she took her eyes from Elena to look stolidly at the road ahead, Elena wondered if she did.

  A couple of songs later ‘All Saints’
‘Never, ever’
came on the radio, and Elena turned it up a notch, noticing after a moment Lorena hum along at intervals, the shadows receding. But Elena’s guilt and uncertainty remained. She’d brought up the subject because between their lightweight, inconsequential conversation and the awkward lulls, it felt almost as if they were purposefully tip-toeing around the issue: it was starting to rise as an awkward barrier between them.

  But she wondered if part of her had pressed for her own ends. She’d been tongue-tied with nerves practically throughout the Euro-Shuttle crossing and Lorena had done most of the talking. Then with the relief of getting clear on the open road in France, in contrast she’d been more animated, taking over the conversation – until they passed a police car travelling in the opposite direction. A reminder that they were still far from home and dry. An alert could be out with the French police at any moment.

  They’d passed only one more police car since, but again it made her pulse race triple-time and put her stomach in knots – and perhaps she was hoping for a quick admission from Lorena so that the nightmare could end here and now. She wasn’t sure she could face many more hours of this assault on her nervous system, a light trembling constantly with her that rose spasmodically to an intense hot rush, her hands at times shaking so hard on the steering wheel that the muscles in her arms ached. But even if there had been a sudden admission and she’d stopped the car and put it on tape, it probably wouldn’t have helped: she’d no doubt have still needed it taped under the guidance of a psychiatrist for it to hold up with social services.

  And what now if those sessions revealed nothing conclusive either way? Or, worse still, they leaned towards the likelihood that Ryall was molesting Lorena, but without enough to support that claim with social services. Despite her frayed nerves, at least getting Lorena away was an adventure, a hopeful escape to freedom. How on earth would she be able to return her to the Ryalls if she knew with all certainty what fate awaited her?

The first real break in the case came through just after 7.30 p.m.

  Within an hour of returning from interviewing Gordon Waldren, Crowley had a team of five working on and off tracking down Elena Waldren and Lorena. In addition to an all-points police and customs alert, they’d traced all cash-cards and credit-cards in her name, and news finally came in that one of her cash cards had been used fifty minutes beforehand, 19.38 in France. Crowley went through immediately to Inspector Turton’s office.

  ‘Where?’ Turton asked breathlessly.

  ‘At a Credite Lyonnaise branch in Bonneval, about fifty miles south-west of Paris.’

  ‘Where does it look like she’s headed?’

  ‘At present she’s on a direct line for the south-west coast: Bordeaux or Biarritz.’ Crowley shrugged. ‘But she could easily veer off sharp and head to Brittany, or direct south to Provence or even Spain.’

  ‘Okay.’ Turton brooded only for a second. ‘Contact Interpol and ask them to put out an alert for her and her car, with special emphasis on the areas you think she might now be travelling through.’

  ‘Will do.’ Crowley nodded summarily and headed back into the harried activity of the squad room. Hectic at the best of times, the Waldren case had added an edge of urgency: it wasn’t often they got a child abduction, particularly not one that started to blaze a trail across Europe.

  He had to look up the Interpol number; the last time he’d contacted them had been over eight months ago. As it started ringing, Crowley glanced at his watch: forty minutes or so to process everything through Interpol, and then Elena Waldren would be hunted down in earnest. A British-plated car off-season, it probably wouldn’t take that long. The bonus would come if she used her credit card to pay for a meal or a hotel that night. Either way, Crowley was confident that within hours Elena Waldren would be apprehended.

EIGHTEEN

Jean-Paul swam with more vigour than in his regular pre-breakfast sessions; not faster, but with more determined, cutting strokes, as if he might somehow thrash away the lethargy and pent-up frustration tying-up his muscles and joints.

  Roman had interrupted his normal time for a swim, was hot on his doorstep at first light with news on Donatiens, eagerly waving a brown envelope in his right hand. They spent a sober half hour over breakfast while Roman went through the details and laid out the photos in the envelope before him: Last night Donatiens had slid himself away in a private corner with this club girl, Viana, for quite some time. Roman used the opportunity to get his guy into Donatiens’ apartment to place some bugs and, while there, he did a search. ‘And look what he found tucked away in a drawer…’ While Jean-Paul was still frantically making some semblance of the tangle of naked bodies, Roman went on to tell him that Donatiens gave the same girl a lift home: ‘Didn’t leave her place for over two hours.’

  Jean-Paul picked sparsely at his breakfast: the body-blow of the photos and the news on Georges had suddenly taken his appetite. Their meeting ended soon after with him begging a few hours in which to make his final decision; though he could see from the keenness in Roman’s eyes that only one decision was expected now: there was little room to manoeuvre. He would have taken his swim then – immerse and hopefully swill away all his problems, ease some of the sudden aching burden from his shoulders. But his meeting with Simone was only twenty-five minutes away, and he needed every second of that time, if not more, to get clear in his mind how on earth he would present all of this to her.

  He paced agitatedly fuelled by two more fresh coffees for most of that time, spinning possible scenarios around. But when she arrived, most of it went straight out the window: he’d planned to broach the subject immediately, but she’d clearly arrived on some sort of mission with something pressing to get off her chest, so he let her speak first and meanwhile continued gathering his thoughts.

  He hadn’t intended to actually show her the photos, his initial plan was just to say that he had strong, reliable information that Georges was seeing another girl; and combined with their problem with him over questioning by the RCMP that he’d very obviously lied about, she should steer clear of him until they decided what to do.

  But as Simone ran through Georges’ fresh account of events that fateful night with Roman and Leduc, and why supposedly he’d said nothing then or since, his anger began to grow uncontrollably. Very obviously Georges somehow realized they were on to him about the club girl, so he’d primed Simone to throw in this ridiculous story at the last hour to try and save his neck. Georges didn’t even have the courage of conviction to face him personally, he’d chosen to hide behind his daughter’s skirt! He cut in halfway through and voiced his thoughts in a fierce volley, and within minutes they were arguing.

  No, she didn’t accept it. Georges wouldn’t do that. ‘It’s just something made up by Roman because he knew Georges was going to come clean.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I had my doubts too initially when Roman claimed something was going on with this girl – but now he’s brought me proof.’

  ‘Proof,
proof?
What proof?’ And as he hesitated, realizing he didn’t want to cause her the pain of actually seeing the photos, she sensed the advantage, sneering: ‘And what girl is this supposed to be?’

  ‘One of the girls from the Sherbrooke club.’

  ‘Oh, right.
Right!
One of Roman’s pet harem slipped some money to say she’s got a thing going with Georges – and you’re ready to just accept it.’

  ‘No, no… of course not.’

  ‘Georges always feared that when it came to the crunch, you’d take Roman’s side… and he was right. That’s why he was so nervous about telling you this all along.’

  He recalled then just closing his eyes and holding up one hand, willing her to stop as his anger bubbled over. Though it wasn’t directed at her, more at the way Georges had her wrapped so much in his control. But she was on automatic, unable to stop now that Georges had wound her up and sent her in.

  ‘Roman’s playing both you and Georges for mugs, has been for a while… but you’re just to blind to–’

  He flung the photos across the table in that moment. Flipped open the envelope and just emptied them out from a foot up, a half-dozen of the twenty falling face-down, then scrunched his eyes tight shut again and shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. So sorry.’

  Jean-Paul rested one elbow against the pool edge as he came to the end of his third lap, his laboured breath showing in the humid air. Across the courtyard through the glass, the breath and body heat of the stable horses rose in the cold morning air, as if competing with the vapours drifting from the pool’s heat-exchange vents. 

  He remembered his father crossing the courtyard the year before he died, one cold February morning. His father and Lillian had moved into the separate wing at the end of the courtyard – which Jean-Paul’s growing family had previously occupied – when Raphael was born and Simone was just seven, seeing his need for space as greater than his own. Security became more of an issue with the advent of their battle with the Cacchione’s, and so the pool block and gymnasium were added: the house they felt was too vulnerable with the courtyard open to their rear gardens, in turn open to the St Lawrence only two hundred yards away. The pool block squared it off, made it more of a compound. Not that any of that made a difference, Pascal was picked off leaving a Rue St Gabriel restaurant before the pool block was even finished.

  Jean-Paul had been in the main dining room looking out when his father ventured out for the first time after Pascal’s funeral: shoulder’s sagged, breath heavy on the air as he trudged across the courtyard snow, raising only a weak acknowledging hand to the builders finishing off the pool block. Jean-Paul should have known then that his father might not have long to live. He looked to have aged ten years in the past ten days, defeated, all spirit gone.

  But he could have done with his father’s sage, years-worn advice now. He felt so alone with the decision he now faced, undoubtedly the toughest call he’d ever had to make.

  He regretted immediately showing Simone the photos, even though in the heat of the moment there appeared little other solution. Her eyes darted uncomprehendingly for a long moment before she finally looked back up again. He could see clearly the hatred aimed at him beyond the hurt, anger and her fast welling tears. He reached out a hand to her – there was so much else he wanted to say in that moment – but all that came out was another weak ‘Sorry’ as she flinched back from his touch, turned and stormed from the room.

  He knew that he risked losing his daughter over this; not the complete loss his father and the family had suffered with Pascal, but with Simone losing all love for him and its place taken by nothing but recrimination, it would be like a death of sorts. Jean-Paul didn’t think he could face that, but he just couldn’t see any other possible choice.

Crowley leapt across the squad room as one of his team of five, DC Denny Hobbs, raised one hand, frantically waving.

  ‘More news just in! Cash card used again.’ Hobbs cradled phone tight in by his shoulder as he covered the mouthpiece with one hand.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘A small town called Montrichard. Banque National du Paris cash machine this time.’ Hobbs lifted his hand back off the mouthpiece and started scrawling with his pen. ‘Yeah, yeah… okay. Thanks.’ He hung up, tore the top paper from his pad and handed it to Crowley. ‘Fifteen-hundred francs taken out at 21.27, French time. And the street location of the machine.’

  The second breakthrough in only fifteen minutes. The first had been that an Elena Waldren and child had been ticketed through to catch the 4.10 pm Euro-Shuttle.

  Crowley went back to his desk and leafed again through the Routiers guide that he’d pored over on and off for the past hour trying to work out the likely pace and direction of Elena Waldren’s journey. 
Montrichard.
Population: 15,870. 164 km south-west of Paris. 9.27 pm, dark for over three hours, the next town, Loches, not much larger and almost twenty miles away, and getting late to check into a hotel. It was worth a try, at least: no other leads or sightings of her car as yet.

  He went over to Sally, the only one of his team with reasonable French, and asked her to raise the Gendarmerie at Montrichard. ‘Get the number from Interpol or the main National Gendarmerie number in Paris.’

  Sally pushed a prim smile and clutched lightly at her hair as she tapped and brought up a fresh screen on her PC, scrolled down and dialled out. She’d been under more pressure and harried than most of his team, had born the brunt of their liaison with Interpol and putting out a French police alert on Waldren. Introductory burst in French, and then a more generous smile from Sally.
Oui. Oui. Angleterre.
She looked back at Crowley. ‘Okay, I’ve got them. What do you want to know?’

  Crowley got her to ask how many hotels there were in town. Five: four in and around the centre, one just a kilometre outside. Then which hotels were closest to the Banque National du Paris on Rue Petupliers. The Richault was the closest, only thirty yards away on the same road; then the Chateauville, a hundred and fifty metres around the corner. Crowley got Sally to explain their current situation with Elena Waldren: Interpol had already been advised and a French National Police search was out for her. Sally quoted the Interpol reference number she’d been given and the liaising Inspector at Lyon central, if they wished for verification – then Crowley got to what he wanted: two or three gendarmes, or whatever they could spare, to visit both the Richault and the Chateauville to check for Elena Waldren or her car. Crowley had to wait patiently while Sally phonetically spelt out the name and car registration. The other three hotels just a check by phone with their receptions would suffice.

  A last flurry of translation tennis, which at one point appeared to over-strain Sally’s vocabulary grasp, and she conveyed to Crowley that Captain Lacombe, Head of Station, assured that he would take personal charge of the situation and do all he could to assist. ‘He’ll dispatch some men straightaway.’

  Crowley passed on descriptions of Elena and the girl, in case Elena had registered under a false name, and they waited.

The return call came through seventy-eight minutes later.

  Lacombe’s men descended on Montichard’s hotels as if they were searching for one of France’s most wanted criminals. Montrichard rarely got foreign or Interpol enquiries, six years since the last if Lacombe remembered right, and he was eager to prove that the Montrichard Gendarmerie was nothing if not efficient.

  He visited the Richault himself assisted by two gendarmes, sent a team of two simultaneously to the Chateauville, and one man to each of the other three hotels, emptying all but two men from the Gendarmerie. Lacombe personally saw and, via the receptionist, questioned the only two British residents at the Richault – a single man and a family of four. His other men ran through the same exercise at the remaining four hotels: seven British registrations, but only one close to the description passed on of a forty-something mother and a child of ten. But the interviewing gendarme who had sight of them said that the mother was blonde, no more than 1 metre 55, and was quite plump, probably close to 70 kilos.

  Crowley did some quick mental arithmetic: four inches shorter and twenty-pounds heavier than Elena Waldren, even if she had dyed her hair.

  Lacombe had liaised with all his other men while still at the Richault and as a precaution had asked for the passports of all British guests to be photocopied.

  Almost as an afterthought, Crowley asked where the two British registrations at the Richault were from. ‘A clue is the last page of their passports, emergency contact addresses.’

  ‘It’s okay, I know from my interview notes where they’re from,’ Lacombe proudly announced back through Sally. ‘The family of four are from Maidstone in Kent and the man on his own is from Poole, Dorset.’

 
Poole
.
A tingle ran through Crowley. Practically on the Waldren’s doorstep.  ‘What age is the man on his own?’

  ‘Forty-five, maybe fifty.’

  Crowley was pretty sure he knew what had happened: the Waldrens had got a friend to run decoy with her cash card. He thought of sending Lacombe back to question him, but there was little point: he probably wouldn’t admit it or give any clue to where she’d gone, even if they had been stupid enough to tell him, and using someone else’s cash card with consent was no crime. But at least Crowley had a clearer view now on where she’d probably headed: three or four main options, as far as he could see.

  He made use of Lacombe’s eagerness to ensure that Elena Waldren hadn’t continued on to the next town, Loches, by having him check by phone with their hotels also. And when Lacombe phoned back twenty-five minutes later with a blank there also, he asked Sally to re-contact Interpol to urge them to concentrate their focus on border posts with Belgium, Germany and Switzerland, and Paris airports: Orly and Charles de Gaulle.

Elena was frantic within half an hour of waiting at the airport.