The Vanishing (16 page)

Right then the doors opened and a man walked through, heading straight for them. Sara stood at once. The man stopped in front of her. He was tall and well fed, in a suit, no white coat, about fifty years old. He looked more like a politician than a doctor.

‘Sara,’ he said calmly. ‘You’re here. I did not expect you.’

‘I’m not here to see you. I want to see my mother. Now. It’s very urgent.’

He nodded, as if he felt sorry for her, then looked over at Tom, eyebrows raised. ‘He’s with me,’ Sara said quickly. They were both speaking French.

‘I see,’ he said. ‘You will have to come to my office. We can talk.’

Tom went with them, through the doors, down a short corridor and into a room that looked like a dining room. There was a big table down the middle, expansive floor-to-ceiling windows the length of one wall. Various lesser tables and expensive-looking chairs. No paperwork anywhere, no computers. No trace of anything vaguely medical, in fact. They were offered chairs at the big table. Hulpe sat down one seat removed from Sara and turned his chair to face her. Tom sat behind her, so that he had to lean out a bit to see Hulpe. Sara started talking immediately, but Hulpe held a hand up to silence her, leaned in close and spoke very quietly. ‘Please listen to what I have to say,’ he said, in English. He took a deep breath. ‘I’m really very, very sorry. I don’t know how this has happened. A misunderstanding.’ He paused, frowning hard. Guessing something bad was coming, Tom shifted his chair and quickly closed his fingers round Sara’s right hand, where it was resting on the table. She didn’t react. ‘How what has happened?’ she asked mechanically, eyes on Hulpe.

‘I don’t know how you are here, now, like this. Has your father not spoken to you?’

‘About what?’

Another awful pause.

‘Your mother has gone, Sara,’ he said finally.

‘Gone where?’

‘I’m so sorry, but she passed away a week ago. She died.’

She didn’t react as Tom expected she would. He had thought, as Hulpe said the words, that it would crack her, right there and then. But everyone reacted differently. He had ample experience of it, from his years in the Met. She blanched immediately, then slumped back in the chair. For what seemed like ages she was just sitting there, her lips pressed tightly together, staring off to one side. Hulpe looked at the floor. Tom held on to her hand, no one said anything. But then she cleared her throat and her eyes narrowed. She pushed herself to the edge of the chair, stood up. She started demanding cold, rational explanations. That seemed to take Hulpe by surprise. Tom was still holding her hand, but he wasn’t sure she even knew he was touching her, and the position was now uncomfortable, so he tried to move his hand. But she wouldn’t let him. She was acting as if in control, but her grip on his fingers suggested she was hanging on for dear life.

It went on for over ten minutes – quickfire questions delivered with a voice full of suspicion. At one point she even told Hulpe she didn’t believe him. Then they had to go and see the room where it had happened. And other rooms. She insisted on having a tour of the place, all the time snapping out the questions, all the time hanging on to Tom’s hand – so that he had to walk right by her side – as if they were together, a couple. More than once he saw Hulpe looking at their joined hands and could see that he was thinking just that.

The huge room where her mother had apparently died was a major source of confusion to her, and she got very angry looking at it. ‘Where’s the bed?’ she demanded. ‘Where’s my mother’s bed?’ She was almost shouting. The room looked like a sort of rest room, with sets of low, easy chairs pulled up to the window to catch the sun, a big, flashy flatscreen on the wall, coffee tables, magazines, a drink dispenser.

‘We moved it,’ Hulpe said. ‘Our plans for this room are different now. Your mother knew all about them. And approved, of course. We planned all this together. This will be a social space for the patients …’

‘Your plans? This isn’t your property. You shouldn’t be changing anything. You’ve altered the area by the lifts …’

‘That will be the reception area …’

‘How long have you had all this planned?’

He held his arms up helplessly. ‘Your mother was a part of all these plans,’ he said again.

‘Has she already given you this place?’

‘No. But it’s in her will. It was part of our contract. As you know, the will is to be read on Friday, in London. It’s a formality, so we thought …’

‘I don’t know anything about her will. Nothing is a formality.’ She was getting very frustrated.

‘Who certified death?’ Tom asked quietly. They both looked at him.

‘I did,’ Hulpe said. ‘And a colleague.’

‘Was there a post-mortem?’

‘Of course not. She died peacefully, of an illness she contracted over ten years ago …’

‘Was there a coroner involved?’ He had no idea why he was asking the questions. It felt like he was on autopilot, from five years ago. There was nothing to make him really suspicious, given how weird these people were. What was normal here was off the rails in the world outside.

‘No,’ Hulpe said. ‘No
coroner
, as you call it. We are in Belgium. The requirements are perhaps different to your own country. But all the legal formalities were, naturally, complied with.’

‘Where is she?’ Sara asked. ‘
Where
is my mother?’

‘I’m sorry, Sara,’ Hulpe said. He looked at the ground. ‘But she really has gone. I’m sorry.’

‘So where is her body? Is it here? What have you done with her, if she’s dead?’

‘The funeral was on Saturday.’ He paused because Sara had gasped. ‘I’m sorry. But your mother had planned well. She was aware of what was coming. Her body was flown to Paris and buried there. Those were her wishes. I don’t know why your father hasn’t told you any of this … I assumed you would know … that there was a reason you weren’t there …’

There was a long silence. Tom watched her struggling with the facts, trying to get on top of them. Finally, she found her voice again. ‘You’re lying. My father isn’t even in the UK right now. He’s in New York.’

Hulpe looked acutely embarrassed. He said nothing.

‘Did
you
go to the funeral?’ she asked.

‘Of course. Your father was there too, I assure you. On Saturday. A small gathering in Paris. Very private. But it was in the newspapers, of course. It was reported …’

A sob slipped from her lips. She put her head down. Now it was beginning to build up, he thought. No fucking wonder. Bizarre wasn’t the word for it. And coming on top of everything else. ‘Let’s get out of here, Sara,’ Tom said to her. Clearly she had many questions, but he was sure the next step – in the light of
all
their present problems – wasn’t to irritate Hulpe, but to contact her father. She nodded.

Hulpe walked them in silence to the lifts. The receptionist had vanished. At the lifts Sara turned back to him. ‘Was anybody with her, when it happened?’ she asked.

Hulpe seemed to hesitate, then shook his head. ‘I was at home. I came within fifteen minutes …’

‘She was here alone? She died alone?’

‘Not alone, no. Monsieur Meyer was here, of course. He has rooms on the ground floor and the monitors were all linked in, twenty-four-hour surveillance …’

‘Meyer?’ she interrupted. ‘Who is he?’

‘One of her nurses. Stefan Meyer. You know him, Sara. He’s my nephew, a trusted family member. He has cared for her for nearly a year now.’

‘So where was Alison Spencer?’

‘Not here,’ he said. ‘Elizabeth was too ill. In the end she was too ill to need Miss Spencer …’

‘Too ill? I was here two months ago. She was fine then. She was walking around, talking …’

‘I’m sorry. It’s often like that. The final progression can be sudden …’

‘Why wasn’t I called? If she became ill why didn’t you contact me?’

‘That’s not for me to decide. We immediately informed your father of everyone she asked to see.’

‘
Did
she ask to see me?’

He was silent, clearly very uncomfortable now.

‘Tell me if she asked to see me.’

‘You should speak to your father about that. I’m sorry. Again. I’m so sorry.’

Sara took a breath, then stared at him, waiting until he looked up. ‘You’re lying,’ she said again. ‘You’re lying to me.’

He nodded. He didn’t look surprised that she should accuse him. ‘I’m sorry, Sara,’ he repeated.

‘You will be,’ she said, just as the lift doors were closing.

Outside, they stood on the pavement like they were lost. She still didn’t cry, but it was going to come. He kept an arm round her, feeling desperately sorry for her. He had been intending to leave her at this point, but that was out of the question now. ‘We should call your father, I think,’ he suggested cautiously. Hulpe was right.

She shook her head. ‘She died alone,’ she muttered, then put a hand up to her mouth. ‘Meyer isn’t family. Not
my
family. I don’t have a clue who he is. And that man was at her funeral … and I was not even told about it … it’s beyond belief …’

‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ he said. ‘But I think your father might be the one to speak to.’

She shook her head again, more vigorously this time. ‘No. My father lives in another world. He’s a fool. How could he do that? How?’

He assumed she meant not telling her. He had no answer.

‘We need to get to Alison,’ she said. ‘Alison has more sense.’

‘Alison?’

‘Yes. Alison Spencer. She was my mother’s principal PA. She will know what has gone on. I don’t trust that fucker as far as I could throw him.’ Hulpe, or her father? ‘Alison was the only friend my mother trusted,’ she continued. ‘She handled everything. We need to speak to her first. Then I’ll deal with Daddy.’

‘Your father might …’

‘My father is a …’ She stopped herself. ‘I don’t know what my father is doing. I don’t know where he is. I already tried calling him, this morning. He didn’t answer.’ A sob caught in her throat again, but she held it back. She looked dazed, punch-drunk. He wasn’t sure she was taking any of it in properly. ‘Why didn’t he tell me?’ she gasped. ‘Why?’

‘You could try him again. Ask
him
that.’

‘We’ll try when we’ve spoken to Alison,’ she said. ‘I need to know more first.’

He could see he wasn’t going to get her out of the idea. He sighed. Now wasn’t the time to remind her that, in actual fact, they had far worse problems to deal with than the death of her mother. He had an image of the pile of dead bodies, lying there in the open on the island, where they had left them. They would be there, rotting, until they told someone about it all. ‘Where does she live?’ he asked. ‘Where does Alison live?’

‘In the suburbs. Woluwe St Pierre. It’s only ten minutes away. Will you come with me?’ He realised she was still holding his hand. She hadn’t let go since they were in the office with Hulpe.

Stefan Meyer was in the ground-floor bathroom of Alison Spencer’s place, in the quiet, affluent suburbs at the eastern edge of Brussels. He was on his knees, crouched over an open toilet, vomiting violently, his arms and legs shaking.

Through in the main room of the same floor Alison Spencer herself was flat on her stomach, her body twitching, a thin trickle of vomit coming from between her lips, her eyes closed. Her heart was still beating, but Stefan didn’t know that, because he had been unable to go anywhere near her from the moment she had clutched at her chest and rolled off her sofa on to the floor, gasping like she was choking. He had watched in horror as she had implored him to help in a feeble, cracking voice, a hand stretched out to him. Then she had grasped the truth as he sat there immobile, refusing to go to her. She had accused him with a look of hatred, spitting out the words with rasping breaths, then keeled over on to her front and lay panting. He had only been able to move when she had stopped trying to speak, when her chest was no longer heaving, and though he knew then that he should have bent down and tested her vital signs, assured himself that she definitely was dead, he couldn’t do it. He had run in here instead. If he hadn’t run in here he would have spewed all over the floor.

It hadn’t been like it was with Liz Wellbeck at all. Liz had already been asleep when the drug had started to work, and he had been downstairs, out of the way. On the monitor showing her bed he had watched as her body jerked around. She had started to shout, crying out her daughter’s name, over and over again, but he had switched the sound off, then switched the TV screen off too. He hadn’t wanted to watch. Instead he kept his eyes on the heart-rate monitor and waited until it was a still, flat line. Only then had he gone up to the room.

This wasn’t what he was meant to be doing. None of it. All his life he had looked after people, never harmed them. He put both his hands in his hair and yanked on it, pulling until the roots started to give. He started to scream with the pain, but it wasn’t enough. He pushed himself off the toilet and banged his head off the mirror above the sink, reeling back then headbutting it again with all his force. The mirror cracked and some pieces clattered into the sink. A few shards stuck in his skin. He stood trembling in front of the distorted image, watching the blood seep down his forehead. He shouldn’t have done that, he realised. He was leaving his traces here, his DNA. How was he going to explain that if they asked him?

But they wouldn’t ask him. His uncle – Monsieur Hulpe – had assured him. They would assume it was a burglary gone wrong, that the woman had suffered a heart attack with the shock. The drug he had given her was almost impossible to detect, unless you were specifically testing for it, and they didn’t do that. They hadn’t tested Liz for it and her body was in the ground now.

Still, leaving blood was reckless. He had to clean it up. He took deep breaths, pulling his mind from the pain and trying desperately to think. He took a towel and pressed it against his forehead. What else had his uncle told him? There were things he had to do, things to remember. The security system. There were cameras at the front gates and doors, recording. The recordings would be somewhere in the house. He had to find them. And the envelope, the letter from Liz Wellbeck. He had to find that too. That was why he was here. Because Liz had told this woman something, maybe told her everything, everything she knew or suspected. She’d got a letter out to Alison Spencer, just three weeks ago. She’d used the woman who brought the food from the basement kitchens. So maybe Liz had known what was going on, known that his uncle had stopped the treatments – the chemo, the radiation therapy. They were letting her die and had been doing it for nearly three months.