Chasing Innocence (6 page)

Sarah felt his defeat, watching the ginger-haired man walk towards her. She groaned inwardly. His bag knocked the table as he passed, toppling the spare coffee. He caught it and gave her a wide cheeky smile. She glared back at him.

‘What was that?’

‘Nothing Adam, just some clumsy bloke. Almost knocked over your coffee.’

‘Mine?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘You OK?’

‘He didn’t knock it over, no spillage.’

‘No Sarah, I mean are you OK? You need to be careful!’

‘I know.’

‘Look, I’ll go to the police. If you’re right this girl will already have been reported missing, don’t you think?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Do you have the number plate?’

‘I told you that.’

‘You did but I couldn’t make out the last two digits for the noise.’

She reached for her bag but pictured the notepad in the footwell of her car. ‘I don’t have it, I’ll tell you when I get back to the car.’ The services now felt like the wrong place to be, she felt too exposed.

‘Adam, look, I’m sorry. You know me, know why better than anyone. I’ll call you from the car.’

She disconnected and brushed away tears with trembling hands. She took a last sip from her coffee and dropped the phone into her bag, stepping down from the seating area and towards the entrance. She caught a glimpse of ginger and then someone knocked hard into her. Stumbling she felt hands on her shoulder then her arm and her waist.

Sarah did not like being touched, at all. Especially without invitation. She reacted instinctively, punching out the heel of her hand. It was the ginger-haired man, that same stupid grin, his hands roving. Her palm scuffed up off his chest and hard under his chin, his teeth clomping closed with the force. Simultaneously she felt a tug on her bag, turning as Brodie wrenched it free. Duncan ran and Brodie followed. Except Brodie ran into a human wall. Sarah looked up in disbelief. It was the Rover driver.

He effortlessly lifted Brodie as if he were a mannequin, plucking free Sarah’s bag. Then a casual shift of his wrist sent Brodie sprawling and sliding across the floor, frantically scrambling away. The driver watched him race through the doors, then stepped across, holding out Sarah’s bag. He smiled self-consciously.

‘He ran into me.’

She looked up into the face of her nemesis. He was really quite good-looking. Not in an angular jawed way, more boyish, with a natural blush that added to the impression. Still in shock she reached forward and took her bag. ‘Thanks, I mean thank you. I really appreciate that.’

He looked at her, concerned. ‘Are you OK? You look like you should sit down.’ He moved forward as if to help her and Sarah stepped back.

‘No, I’m fine. It’s been one of those days.’

‘Tell me about it,’ he replied.

She wrenched her eyes from his, looking into her bag. Her mind was racing. ‘I don’t think there’s anything missing.’

‘That’s good then.’ He paused as if unsure what to do next, turning to leave.

‘Sarah,’ she said, stepping towards him, holding out her hand.

He turned back and smiled politely, engulfing her hand in his, but lightly, as if he knew how fragile she was.

‘Simon,’ he said. ‘Safe journey.’ And then he walked away.

Sarah stood still, a stationary figure amid the flow of people, ignoring the questioning looks from those passing her. Her overriding impression was that he smelt like…like walking on the beach. Warm eyes that contained nothing malign. A trace of an accent but nothing she could place. He was softly spoken, maybe northern with the hard edges smoothed out. She propelled her limbs into action, scanning the floor for anything she might have dropped. Then she followed Simon out through the doors, doubting herself all the more.

TWELVE

Adam’s taxi edged through the market square, through the traffic lights and past the train station, over the bridge spanning the tracks and came to a stop by a long low building. Two Volvos were parked outside, clad in luminous blue and yellow squares. A sign above the building’s glass door read
Hambury Police Station
.

The door swept open and he stepped inside, not sure what to expect. He found himself staring at a ticket machine. He pressed the red button and after a pause the machine dispensed a blue ticket.

The main waiting area was large, the floor a worn linoleum. The walls were covered in posters and government issue paint. Bolted to the floor were rows of chairs facing clear perspex booths. A mix of people were dotted among the seats. Sitting front centre was a soldier of fortune type, complete with downward curling moustache and green combat jacket. Adam chose a seat several spaces along. The soldier of fortune did not look like he wanted company.

A buzzer sounded and a display in the ceiling flashed
533
. Adam’s ticket read
536.
He watched a large woman stand and make her way to the booths. He pulled out his phone. There were no missed calls or messages. He pressed speed dial and waited with an addict’s breath in his lungs. It went straight to voicemail. Reluctantly he slid the phone back into his pocket.

The large woman started crying and returned to her seat. The buzzer sounded and another woman, smartly dressed and slim, headed towards the vacant booth. Nobody moved for the following buzz, so the display flashed
536
. Adam stood and walked across the room.

Shatterproof
was etched down one side of the perspex screen, although the ragged scratches and deep chips indicated many had tried disproving the statement. A white-shirted officer, with compassionate eyes and short grey hair, sat the other side. His pen was poised over a yellow form, a tray stacked full of them on the table beside him.

‘I think a child has been kidnapped.’ The only statement Adam could think to make.

The officer’s gaze flicked up over Adam’s shoulder and then back down to the sheet of paper in front of him. Then he put down the pen and sighed.

‘You
think
a child has been kidnapped?’ he asked.

‘Yes, my wife is sure a child has been abducted.’

‘Why is your wife not reporting this?’

‘She…she followed the person she thought abducted the child, in her car.’

‘You said she was sure?’

‘I am. She is sure.’

‘So how can she be sure?’

‘She was sure a box loaded into a car had the girl inside. She is sure of this.’

The officer looked at the yellow page, centred it with a finger. Looked back up at Adam. ‘Where is your wife now?’’

‘Watching the driver of the car. I haven’t heard from her since.’

The officer opened his mouth then closed it. He told Adam to wait and disappeared through a door. He returned minutes later.

‘I will take a few details. Then my colleagues will take a statement.’ He picked up his pen.

‘Sure,’ Adam replied and they rattled through the everyday semantics of Sarah’s life. When they were done the officer directed him back to the seats. The soldier of fortune was now gone, so he sat in his place, which was still warm. Adam checked his phone again and watched the display in the ceiling flash through a succession of numbers. People walked to and from the booth. The acoustics meant little of the detail remained secret. He watched a tracksuited teenager head towards the booth as a heavy door swung open on his right. A female constable appeared, wearing a combat vest and a bulky belt.

‘Mr Sawacki?’ she called.

Adam followed her through the heavy door into an office. The floors were covered in coarse grey carpet tile, the walls painted a cool blue. The only difference from a
real
office was in the wall art. Here modernist prints were swapped for posters with big knives, guns and innocent faces. The constable ushered him to a corner office, leaned in and flicked on the light. It had floor to ceiling glass on one side, closed blinds and beech-coloured wooden chairs around a matching table. An ordinary meeting room in another world. He pulled out a chair and sat down.

‘Detectives Boer and Ferreira will be with you soon.’

The door swept closed, rattling the blinds and playing with the posters.
We want your gun, not you
. And behind him,
Know your neighbour? Terrorists live among us.

He tapped his fingers on the table and resisted the urge to check his phone.

THIRTEEN

Francis Boer dropped his keys and phone onto the coffee table, loosened his tie and stepped into the kitchen. He mentally braced himself for the clink of bottles and looked past his overbearing need. He opened the fridge door and pulled out a plastic bottle of water. He poured himself a glass then went back to the living room, flicking off the lights as he did.

He was too tired to get undressed. He savoured two mouthfuls of the water then set it on the table, easing himself into his chair. He released the footrest and winced through the pain, reclining far enough to take the weight from his stomach but was still able to look through the patio doors. Not that he could see much at this time of night, just outlines and shadows, the bushes and treetops. It did not matter. He filled in the detail from memory. The sun shone and the garden bloomed, the yelps of children splashing in the pool, his wife in cutoff jeans with limbs brown from the sun. He could smell that paddling pool.

Closing his eyes he let the images play. And slowly another memory sidled into the frame, of a popping cap and the glorious hiss, a bottle cold in his hand and then between his lips, the bitter taste into his mouth.

Twenty years ago mortality had been a distant destination for Boer. Twenty years that passed with no thought for time. Now his mortality loomed, an ever-shifting shadow flowing through his blood and reaching out from within, carnivorous and uncaring. Just like that. One day worrying if that strain would ever heal, the next searching for flexibility in the meaning of
terminal
.

He had not thought fifty-three any age to wave goodbye despite knowing better people that had died younger. He was not being singled out, this was just how it was. The six-month countdown had been two years ago. Now at fifty-five he was living on unexpected time. Time explained by the white-coated with talk of secondary and primary causes, the malign forces in his blood suffocating those spreading within. A body almost too ill to be ill.

Francis Boer was not a man who believed in hope by divine fingers, but he did believe in hope itself. His life had been his career and his career had been crime, or at least tracking those who committed crime. Along the way it had cost him his marriage and contact with all but one of his three children. As an eager constable he had believed he could make a difference, a belief diminished through time and the endless cycle of human flaws and desires. Too many were the innocent faces that filled his thoughts. Boer’s hope was built on a need to claim redemption for one more. Not to suffer the frustration of a system that relied on bodies to find the guilty, but to save an innocent. Then he would be done. A life for a life. A sentimental hope, he knew, and selfish, a hope almost used up at that.

He took another drink of the water, imagining that bitter taste, laying his head back on the leather and closing his eyes, revelling in the silence and his good memories. Holding the bad ones away. Somewhere between unconsciousness and the sound of playing children he heard the ringing. He eased himself slowly forward and reached across to the table, flicking open his phone. ‘Boer.’

‘Sorry to disturb you, sir, but everyone else is out, I wouldn’t have rung otherwise.’

He swapped the phone between hands, pressing it against his good ear. ‘What’s the problem, Sergeant?’

‘Missing child, sir, report came in a couple hours ago from the father. Then we had a male walk into the station, believes his wife witnessed a child abduction.’

Boer picked up his keys. ‘You’ve called Helen?’

‘Yes, sir, DS Ferreira is on her way.’

‘You still have the man there?’

‘He’s waiting for you in one of the offices, sir.’

‘Excellent, Sergeant, I’ll be there shortly.’

Detective Inspector Boer closed the phone, pulled on his jacket and checked the time, ten past eight. He’d been home for less than an hour.

FOURTEEN

Sarah realised her phone was missing when she climbed into her car. She spent frantic seconds rummaging through her bag and in desperation emptied its contents on the seat. The two pickpockets had not left empty handed after all. Now her dilemma was what to do next?

She considered running back into the services for a pay as you go phone, but her problem was time. Simon in his Rover could only go west but the next junction was not far. So she stayed in her car and scooped everything into her bag as the Rover rolled past. She followed behind, for just fifty yards.

The Rover pulled into the petrol station and Sarah hastily diverted to the lorry park, parking behind a thin line of trees separating the two spaces. She dismissed the idea of refuelling for fear of coming face to face with Simon again, or the risk of being caught in a queue and losing him. Nor did she want to assume her phone stolen only to find it later under a seat. But despite looking in the unlikeliest places she could not find it. She tried to keep calm. She organised her bag and folded her coat on the back seat. She made herself comfortable and waited. There was nothing she could do about it now. She watched Simon through the trees as he walked back across the forecourt then followed him down onto the motorway.

He pulled off at the next junction and turned north, her Toyota tracing the same path seconds later. Her heart beat fast and full of hope. Leaving the motorway might mean the end of the journey. It was a hope far from reality. They drove on through narrow country lanes, often in procession amid a weaving line of brake lights, passing through empty landscapes and prim village streets of grey-bricked buildings, brightly lit pubs with windows glowing.

She started arguing with herself over the semantics of the box. The sound of her voice a soothing antidote as the two cars ploughed through the dark. Then the Rover’s brake lights suddenly flared and grew large. She realised with sudden panic that he was stopping. Simon immediately climbed out, but instead of waving her down and confronting her, he stepped onto the verge, aiming a thin glimmering arc into the ditch. Then he was lost to her rear view.