Follow You Home (16 page)

Chapter Thirty-Two

E
dward Rooney’s office was on the second floor of a dirty white building in a Kentish Town side street. The street was half-scuzzy, half-gentrified; there was a betting shop next to a trendy coffee place. The snow here had been cleared from the roads and pavements and it was warmer today, rain in the forecast. By the end of the day the snow would all be gone.

Erin and Rob lived a ten-minute walk from here. I knew from looking at Rob’s Facebook page that they were home from the
hospital
and Rob had already shared a dozen photos of little Oscar and an exhausted but happy-looking Erin. Laura was in one of the photos too, holding the baby in her arms. I tried to read the expression in her eyes, saw sadness behind her smile. If everything had gone to plan, she’d be heavily pregnant now. We’d be spending our weekends shopping for pushchairs and decorating the nursery.

I tried to push this from my mind as I rang the buzzer. Maybe after this I would call round to see them. The baby gave me the perfect excuse. Of course, I was keen to meet Oscar, wanted to
congratulate
the proud parents, but really I wanted to see Laura, whom I hadn’t contacted since losing her at the gallery. I had vowed to give her time, deal with everything else first, get answers, before trying again to win her back. But when it came to Laura, I was an addict. I couldn’t help myself.

I was buzzed in and went up a narrow staircase that smelled of mildew and years of cigarette smoke. A young, punkish woman waited for me, holding the office door open. She reminded me a little of Alina, the way she dressed, the spiky attitude. The big difference was that this woman was still alive.

‘I’m Sophie Carpenter, Edward’s assistant,’ she said, looking me up and down. ‘He’s with another client at the moment but you can wait here.’

I sat on an uncomfortable chair and Sophie offered me coffee. When I said no, it was OK, she sat back down behind her computer, chin cupped in her hand, tapping at the keyboard with one long black fingernail. The desk was open underneath, giving me a clear view of her rather wicked-looking black leather boots, the toe of one of them tapping along with her typing as though keeping time.

I fidgeted on the chair. Ten minutes passed. I needed the loo and asked Sophie where it was. When I came back, a man I assumed to be Edward Rooney was seeing another man out of the office. Another client, I guessed, one with white hair, though I could only see his back.

The older man went down the stairs and Edward Rooney turned around. ‘Daniel Sullivan?’ He introduced himself. He was tall, in his early forties, I guessed, with black hair that contained a number of grey streaks and bags under his eyes. He was tall, over six foot, and was dressed in a suit that had probably once been smart but that was now shiny at the elbows and knees.

‘Sophie, have you offered this gentleman coffee?’

‘Yeah,’ she said, not looking up from her screen. ‘He didn’t want any.’

‘How about tea? Did you offer him tea?’

She rolled her eyes.

‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘I don’t want anything. Just your help.’

He nodded, his expression serious, and gestured for me to
follow
him into his tiny office. Once we were both sitting down, either side of his desk, I saw that the room was full. There was a tiny window with pigeon-deterrent spikes visible on the sill. His desk was piled high with paperwork. He pulled a laptop out from beneath this pile and flipped it open.

‘I looked you up,’ he said, ‘after you called yesterday. You’re an app developer.’

I was keen to skip the preamble. ‘I need you to find somebody for me.’

He looked at me over the lid of the laptop, shoved it aside and grabbed a notepad. ‘I was about to go through my introductory spiel but you seem like a man on a mission. Why don’t you start from the beginning.’

I sighed. ‘I don’t know if I can do that. Do I 
need
to do that? Can’t I just tell you what I know about this person I’m looking for, and then have you find her?’

‘Mr Sullivan—’

‘Please call me Daniel.’

‘Daniel, the more information you give me, the more chance I have of being able to help you.’

Even if Camelia was connected to what had happened to Laura and me in Romania, I didn’t see the need to tell Edward Rooney about it, couldn’t see how it could help. In fact, it would probably confuse matters.

‘The woman I need you to find is called Camelia. She’s
Romanian
, in her mid-twenties, possibly a bit older. Blonde, very attractive. Speaks excellent English and told me she’s been in
London
for a couple of years. She uses a Blackberry phone, has a tattoo and wears false fingernails and chunky silver rings. Um, on her left hand.’

He looked up at me from his notes.

‘Is that all?’

‘Yeah. I met her in a pub, at a gig, and . . .’

‘Hang on. I need to know why you need to find her.’

‘Why?’

‘Yes. Daniel, I only take on missing persons cases where I know my client doesn’t intend to cause the person he’s looking for any harm. I also need to know whether there are any legal ramifications. I’ve had men here asking me to look for their ex-wives who left them because they were being battered. I’ve had gangsters looking for women they’ve trafficked who escaped. I don’t take cases like that.’

‘I don’t mean her any harm,’ I said. ‘I want to stop her from doing
me
harm.’

‘OK. So . . . tell me what you know. You met her in a pub . . .’

There was nothing for it but to give him at least some information. I spent the next fifteen minutes telling him the story of what had happened over the last week, starting with the break-in. I felt myself turning pink as I told him about my encounter with Camelia the evening before last.

‘She kept asking me if I’d done anything illegal. When I couldn’t come up with anything, she got angry and left.’

‘Any idea what she wanted you to tell her?’

‘None at all.’

He laid his pen down. ‘Daniel, if we can figure out the connection between you, it will make it easier to find her. Are you sure you have no idea?’

I hesitated. I genuinely didn’t know what Camelia had wanted me to say, and still thought it might simply be her equivalent of talking dirty. The only possible connection I could think of was Romania, but I really didn’t want to tell this person I’d just met about that. I hadn’t even been able to tell my therapist. The only person I’d felt able to tell, after a huge internal struggle, was Jake, and he’d died before I could finish the story. Thinking about Jake made my eyes sting and I looked up to see Edward looking at me curiously.

‘I honestly have no idea.’

He leaned across the desk, elbows resting on scattered
paperwork
. ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you.’

‘What?’

He sat back. ‘I can’t take your case, Daniel. Not unless you’re completely open with me. There’s no point. You might as well go.’

I opened my mouth, shut it again, aware that I must look like a stranded goldfish. There was a voice in my head screaming ‘Tell him, just tell him!’ but when I opened my mouth again no words came out. I simply couldn’t do it. My frustration with myself transformed into anger with Edward Rooney. There were plenty more private detectives out there. Hundreds of them in London. I’d find someone who didn’t need to know everything, who would just take my money and do what I asked.

I stood up. ‘Fine. I’ll find someone else.’

‘Good luck.’

I pulled open the door and stomped out into the reception area until I stood behind Sophie’s desk. She swivelled her chair, the wheels squeaking, and, seeing my thunderous expression, asked, ‘Everything all right?’

‘No. Your boss is a—’

At that moment, the front door of the office opened. A man stood there, framed by the doorway. It took me a moment to realise he was wearing a balaclava. The other details only came back to me afterwards: in his hand he held a bottle, three-quarters filled with a clear liquid, a rag attached to the neck of the bottle. There was a cigarette lighter in his other hand.

Chapter Thirty-Three

G
et down!’ I yelled, leaping at Sophie and pulling
her of
f her chair onto the floor just as the man threw the now-flaming bottle into the room and slammed the door shut. The bottle shattered on the floor in the centre of the office and exploded with an immense, deafening blast of heat and light.

I’d piled in next to Sophie behind a tall filing cabinet beside her desk. When I peered around it, I found the centre of the small room engulfed in a ball of flame. I have played enough video games in my life to recognise a Molotov cocktail. Within seconds the room was filled with fire and thick black smoke. I could barely open my
eyes, could
n’t breathe, was choking on a lungful of smoke. Almost blind, I figured the door was only ten feet away, her desk between it and us. Remembering seeing Sophie’s spiky, knee-high black boots from the other side, I knew the desk was open underneath. The quickest and safest route out had to be under it. Squinting from behind the cabinet, I could see the flames spreading, engulfing the two-seater sofa and the bookcase, licking at the edge of the desk. The heat in the room was indescribable. I felt like my insides were cooking. We had to get out. Now.

‘Go!’ I managed to gasp, pulling Sophie out from behind the cabinet and shoving her forward. ‘The desk,’ I said. ‘Go
under
.’ Coughing, guarding her face with a forearm, she crawled like a three-legged dog to the desk and disappeared beneath it. I followed her, though I could hardly see her. It was hot as a blast furnace under there and I thought
This is it. I’m going to die
. But then I was out the other side and the door was open and someone was shouting, pulling Sophie through first, then me.

I fell onto the carpet in the corridor, which was full of people, yelling and gesticulating. Looking back into the office, I watched as through the wall of smoke a shape appeared: Edward standing in the doorway of his inner office, grappling with a fire extinguisher which didn’t appear to work. The flames, which had reached the desk now, consuming the papers that lay beside the computer, were blocking Edward’s exit. More people, from other offices in the building, had appeared in the corridor. Sophie lay on the floor beside me, gasping for breath.

‘Is there another way out?’ I asked, my throat burning, eyes stinging. The only window I’d seen in Edward’s office was tiny.

‘I’ve called the fire brigade,’ said a black woman with an air of competence. She shouted at Edward: ‘Get back in your office, shut the door, find something to block the bottom of the door. Not paper!’

Edward stared at us over the flames then retreated into his office, slamming the door.

‘Who the fuck was it?’ Sophie said, pushing herself into a sitting position. Her voice was hoarse, her eyes pink and watery.

Everybody in the corridor was staring at us. I pushed myself to my feet, surprised to find I felt OK, apart from my desperate anxiety about Edward, trapped in his office, the flames
beating
against the door, hoping he’d managed to find something to block the space beneath it to stop smoke pouring through. And a question pulsated in my head: was this my fault? In his line of work, I assumed Edward must upset numerous people. Husbands who’d been exposed as cheats. Employees caught with their hands in the till. But so much disaster had followed me lately—

The evil from that house . . . It followed us home.

—that I couldn’t help but think this was down to me. That someone was trying to stop me from telling Edward my story.

But who? Camelia? No, the person who threw the Molotov was definitely male. Camelia’s companion, assuming it was her, from the CCTV video? As Sophie sat and sobbed beside me, black mascara streaking her face, I hugged myself, shivering despite the heat that emanated from the burning room.

A minute later, I heard the blessed sound of sirens and the fire brigade arrived, several of them running up the stairs, clearing us out of the building. I stood on the street and watched as they did their work, putting out the fire. The police were there too, and an ambulance which Sophie was sitting in the back of now, an oxygen mask clamped to her face. I felt fine, had somehow breathed in less smoke than her.
Please God
, I prayed silently,
let Edward be OK. I can’t be responsible for another death. Please.

My prayer was answered quickly. Within moments, he was escorted through the front door of the building by a firefighter. He sat down on a low wall and I hurried over to him.

‘I’m all right,’ he said, waving away my concern. ‘The fire didn’t get through the door and I had a towel in my gym bag that I used to block out the smoke.’ His face darkened. ‘But what I want to know is who the fuck just tried to burn down my office.’

He looked at me as if I could tell him the answer.

The three of us were taken to the nearest hospital where we were checked over. None of us had been burned, and although I still felt a little wheezy, the doctor told me I could go home. They wanted to keep Sophie in for the night for observation. As I came out
of the
room where I was checked by the doctor, I saw Edward talking to a police officer, shaking his head. The policeman walked off and Edward spotted me and came over.

‘Have they got any idea who did it?’ I asked.

‘No. They wanted to know if I did. They want to interview me tomorrow.’ He rubbed his face. ‘I’ve been doing this for fifteen years and nothing like this has ever happened before. The worst I’ve had is an abusive phone call and some dog shit shoved through the door by a woman who I caught shagging her yoga teacher.’

‘Maybe they were after me,’ I said quietly.

He studied me. ‘I think we should talk, Daniel. If they were after you, or were trying to stop you talking to me, this is my problem now too. Sophie could have been killed.
I
 could have been killed. And let’s not even mention the state of my office and the fact that everyone else in the building is now in fear of their life.’

I nodded.

‘I’m going to go and say goodbye to Sophie, see if she needs anything. Then we should go.’ He licked his lips. ‘I don’t know about you but I could bloody well do with a drink.’

We took a taxi to the Lord Palmerston pub near Dartmouth Park. It was quiet at this time on a weekday afternoon. Full-time drinkers perched at the bar and condensation clung to the windows. Edward led me over to a corner seat and fetched two pints of lager. He produced his notepad from his pocket.

‘I need you to tell me everything,’ he said. ‘I need to know what kind of people you’re mixed up with. And if you don’t tell me, then I’m going to have to talk to the police.’

‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I want to tell you.’ I took a big gulp of lager, soothing my throat.

‘Come on then. I’m waiting.’

I started with the first strange incident back home: the time when somebody might or might not have tried to push Laura under a Tube train. ‘That’s my girlfriend. I mean my ex-girlfriend. She insists she tripped,’ I said. ‘So that might not be relevant.’

‘It might be,’ he said, making a note.

‘OK, so the first concrete thing that happened was when I had a break-in.’

I went on to tell him everything that had happened since then: meeting Camelia at Jake’s gig; my bank card being used fraudulently; the return of my laptop; Dr Sauvage’s death, though that now seemed to be unrelated; seeing somebody watching Laura in Camden, not far from where we sat now. I brought him up to date by telling him about the dog and Jake’s supposed suicide.

For now, I left out the part about Laura seeing ghosts, and the disappearing photos. I didn’t want him to think that Laura or I w
ere crazy.

‘I’ve got a surveillance camera in my flat,’ I said. ‘It’s motion-triggered.’

He nodded.

‘The video of the intruders and the dog are here, on my phone.’

I opened the app and leaned across the table, angling the screen towards Edward. He took a pair of glasses out of his pocket and put them on, instantly making himself look ten years older. He took the phone from me and watched the video.

‘I think that’s her,’ I said. ‘Camelia. It looks like her body shape.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Any idea who the man might be?’

‘No. But . . . he could be the person who firebombed your office. I wonder if he’s Romanian too . . .’

Edward tapped his notepad. ‘There’s a huge chunk that you’re still not telling me, isn’t there? Like, what has Camelia’s nationality got to do with it? What’s your connection to Romania?’ When I didn’t reply straight away he glanced down at his pad. ‘You haven’t told me anything at all about why you think Camelia is interested in you. What she’s after?’

I gave myself another second by sipping my pint. ‘OK. So . . . last summer Laura and I went travelling around Europe. We ended up in Romania on a night train to a place called Sighisoara. Something . . . happened. That’s why I think Camelia’s nationality is important.’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Now we’re getting somewhere.’

I told him about meeting Alina and Ion, getting robbed in the sleeper carriage, how we were thrown off the train. He jotted down more notes, occasionally butting in with questions. Once or twice he gave me an incredulous look. I reached the point where we tried to find Alina in the forest. There was a man at the slot machine near our table and I was paranoid that he might overhear. I waited until he wandered back to the bar.

‘After that,’ I said, ‘we ran to the nearest town and went to the police—’

‘Hang on.’ He held up a hand. ‘What happened in the house?’

Suddenly, it seemed very quiet in the pub.

‘It’s obvious that you’re frightened,’ he said. ‘But you have to tell me, Daniel. You can take your time—I’ve got all afternoon.’

I rotated my empty pint glass on the table, staring at the wet ring it created on the surface. I felt exactly as I would before getting up on stage in front of a thousand people. Sick and shaky. Could I do this, finally? Finally face the memories?

I pictured the Molotov cocktail as it was thrown into the office. Imagined a pair of hands trying to push Laura onto the Tube tra
cks. Saw
the black dog leaping towards me.

I had to do this.

‘OK. But let me get another drink first. And one for you.’ I grabbed the glasses and stood. ‘I think you’re going to need it.’