Lost (10 page)

He looks at me quizzical y. “You want some advice?”

“Yes.”

“Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.”

Then he's gone.

7

When Mickey disappeared I didn't sleep for the first forty-eight hours. If a missing child isn't found within the first two days the chances of her being found alive diminishes by forty percent. Within two weeks it is down to less than ten percent.

I hate statistics. I read somewhere that the average person uses 5.9 sheets of toilet tissue when they wipe their arse. It proves nothing and helps no one.

Here are some more figures. There were six hundred volunteers scouring the streets and eighty officers going door to door. The sense of urgency bordered on violence. I wanted to kick open doors, shake trees and chase every child from the parks and pavements.

We checked alibis, stopped motorists, interviewed tradesmen and tracked down visitors to Dolphin Mansions in the previous month. Every resident was interviewed. I knew which of them beat his spouse, slept with prostitutes, lied about sickies, owed money to bookies and cultivated marijuana in a box under her bed.

There had been sixty-five unconfirmed sightings of Mickey and four confessions (including someone claiming to have sacrificed her to the pagan god of the forest). We had also been offered the services of twelve psychics, two palm readers and a guy cal ing himself the Wizard of Little Milton.

The closest we came to a confirmed sighting was by an elderly couple at Leicester Square tube station on Wednesday evening. Mrs. Esmerelda Bird wasn't wearing her glasses and her husband, Brian, didn't get close enough to see the girl clearly. There were twelve CCTV cameras at the station but the angles were wrong and the footage such poor quality it resolved nothing and risked derailing the entire investigation if we made it public.

Already the search had become a media event. TV vans blocked Randolph Avenue, beaming pictures to boxes within boxes, so that people who had never met Mickey could look up from their breakfast cereal and fleetingly adopt her.

Purple ribbons were tied to the railings outside Dolphin Mansions. Some were threaded with flowers and photographs of Mickey. There were pictures of her displayed on building sites, lampposts and shop windows.

The sex offenders' register threw up 359 names for Greater London. Two dozen of them either lived in or had some link to the area. Every name was cross-checked, every detail compared and contrasted, looking for those ley lines of human connection that thread the world together.

Unfortunately, this took time and the tyranny of the clock was absolute. It ticked away with a mechanical heart. A minute doesn't become any longer just because a child is missing. It only feels that way.

After two days I went home for just long enough to shower and change my clothes. I found Daj snoring at the kitchen table with her head between her arms and a Siamese cat curled up on her lap. A glass of vodka was wedged between her fingers. Her first drink every day was always a revelation, she said, the juice of angels copulating in flight. Gin was too English and whiskey too Scottish. Port made her teeth and gums go crimson. And when she vomited it looked like black currants shat out by sparrows.

Daj had become more like a Gypsy as she grew older (and drunker), reverting to type; wrapping herself in layers of the past like the layers of her petticoats. She drank to forget and to deaden the pain. She drank because her demons were thirsty.

I had to prise her fingers from the glass before I carried her to bed. The Siamese slid off her lap and settled like liquid fil ing a puddle. As I pul ed the bedclothes over her, she opened her eyes.

“You'l find her won't you, Yanko?” she slurred. “You'l find that little girl. I know what it's like to lose someone.”

“I'l do the best I can.”

“I can see
all
the lost children.”

“I can't bring them back, Daj.”

“Close your eyes and you'l see her.”

“Shush now. Go to sleep.”

“They never die,” she whispered, accepting my kiss on her cheek. A month later she went into the retirement home. She has never forgiven me for abandoning her, but that's the least of my sins.

The hospital room is dark. The corridors are dark. The world outside is dark except for the streetlights, shining on parked cars that are covered in icy white fur.

Ali is asleep in a chair beside my bed. Her face is ashen with weariness and her body held stiffly. The only light is from the TV flickering in the corner.

Her eyes open.

“You should have gone home.”

She shrugs. “They have cable here.”

I glance at the TV. They're showing an old black-and-white film—
Kind Hearts and Coronets
with Alec Guinness. The overacting is more obvious with the sound turned down.

“I'm not obsessed, you know.”

“What do you mean, Sir?”

“I'm not trying to bring Mickey Carlyle back from the dead.”

Ali brushes hair from her eyes. “Why do you think she's alive?”

“I can't explain.”

She nods.

“You were sure about Howard once.”

“Never completely.” I wish I could explain but I know I'l sound paranoid. Sometimes I think there is only one person in the world who I know didn't kidnap Mickey—and that's me.

We conducted more than 8,000 interviews and took 1,200 statements. It was one of the largest, most expensive abduction investigations in British policing history but stil we couldn't find her.

Even now, periodical y, I come across posters of Mickey stuck on lampposts and building sites. Nobody else seems to note her features or stare at her wistful y but I can't help it. Sometimes, in the dark hours, I even have conversations with her, which is strange because I never real y talked to Claire, my own daughter, when she was Mickey's age. I had more in common with my son because we could talk about sports. What did I know about bal et and Barbie dol s?

I know more about Mickey than I did about Claire. I know she liked glitter nail polish, strawberry-flavored lip gloss and MTV. She had a treasure box with polished pebbles, painted clay beads and a hair clip that she told everyone was decorated with diamonds instead of chips of glass.

She loved to sing and dance and her favorite driving song was “Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream and if you see a crocodile don't forget to scream.” I used to sing the same song to Claire at bedtime and chase her giggling around the room until she dived under the covers.

Maybe this is guilt I'm feeling. It's something I know a lot about. I have lived with it, been married to it and watched it float beneath an ice-covered pond. Guilt I'm an expert at.

There are other missing children in my life.

“Are you OK?” asks Ali, reaching over to rest her hand on the bed next to me.

“Just thinking.”

She puts an extra pil ow behind my back and then turns away, bending over the sink and splashing water on her face. My eyes are now graded to the darkness.

“Are you happy?”

She casts her face back to me, surprised by the question.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you like working for the DPG? Is it what you wanted to do?”

“I wanted to be a detective. Now I chauffeur people around.”

“But you're going to sit your sergeant's exam.”

“They'l never put me in charge of an investigation.”

“Did you always want to be a police officer?”

She shakes her head. “I wanted to be an athlete. I was going to be the first British-born Sikh sprinter to compete at the Olympics.”

“What happened?”

“I couldn't run fast enough.” She laughs and stretches her arms above her head until her joints crack. Then she looks at me sideways along her cheek. “You're going to keep investigating this, aren't you, despite what the Chief Super says?”

“Yes.”

A streak of lightning breaks through the gloom outside the window. The flash is too far away for me to hear the thunder.

Ali clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. She's trying to make a decision. “I'm owed a few weeks long-service leave. Maybe I could help, Sir.”

“No. Don't jeopardize your career.”

“What career?”

“Seriously, you don't owe me any favors.”

She glances at the TV. The gray square of light reflects in her eyes.

“You probably think this sounds pretty wet, Sir, but I've always looked up to you. It's not easy being a woman in the Met but you never treated me any differently. You gave me a chance.”

“They should have promoted you.”

“That's not your fault. When you get out of here, maybe you should come and stay with me . . . in the spare room. I can keep you safe. I know you're going to say no, Sir, because you think you don't need my help or you're worried about getting me in trouble, but don't just dismiss the idea. I think it's a good one.”

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“What did you say?”

“I said thank you.”

“Oh! Right. Jol y good.”

Ali wipes her hands on her jeans and looks relieved. Another streak of lightning paints the room white, taking a snapshot of the moment.

I tel her to go home and rest because in a few hours I'm leaving the hospital. Despite Keebal's efforts, I'm not under arrest. The police are here to protect me, not to hold me. I don't care what the doctors say or what Campbel Smith might do. I want to go home, col ect my diary and find Rachel Carlyle.

From now on, I'm not going to rely on my memory coming back. It might never happen. Facts, not memories, solve cases. Facts, not memories, wil tel me what happened to Mickey Carlyle. They say a bad cop can't sleep because his conscience won't let him and a good cop can't sleep because there's stil a piece of the puzzle missing.

I don't think I'm a bad cop. Maybe I'l find that out, too.

8

Dr. Bennett is walking backward down the corridor in his Cuban-heeled cowboy boots.

“You're not supposed to leave. This is madness. Think about your leg.”

“I feel fine.”

He puts his hand over the button for the lift. “You're under police protection, you can't leave.”

I pretend to stumble and he reaches out to catch me. At the same moment I stab the walking stick against the down arrow. “Sorry, Doc, but I've arranged my own protection.” I motion to Ali, who's carrying my belongings in a plastic bag. That's al I want to take out of here.

For the first time since the shooting I feel like my old self. I'm a detective not a victim. Members of the staff begin appearing in the corridor. Word is spreading. They've come to say goodbye. I shake hands and mumble “Thank you” while I wait for the lift to arrive.

The doors open and Maggie emerges. She looks like a jovial panda with black eyes and a bandaged nose. I don't know what to say to her.

“Were you going to leave without saying goodbye?”

“No.”

Ali produces a bunch of flowers and Maggie beams, throwing her arms around me, crushing the blooms against my chest. I've been a pain in the arse and managed to put her in a hospital bed but she stil wants to hug me. I'l never understand women.

Downstairs, rocking on a walking stick, I cross the foyer. My leg is getting stronger and if I concentrate real y hard I look like someone with a pebble in his shoe rather than a bul et wound. More nurses and doctors wish me good luck. I'm a celebrity—the detective who survived an assassination attempt. I want my fifteen minutes of fame to be over.

The place is crawling with police officers, guarding the entrances and rooftops. They're wearing black body armor and carrying automatic weapons. None of them knows what to do. They're supposed to be guarding me but now I'm leaving.

Ali leads the way, taking me through an exit door and down concrete stairs to the parking garage. As I cross toward her car, I notice John Keebal leaning against a pil ar. He doesn't approach. Instead he cracks a peanut and drops the shel s into a neat pile at his feet.

Briefly leaving Ali, I walk over to him.

“Are you visiting a sick granny or waiting for me?”

“Thought I'd give you a ride home but I guess you're covered,” he replies, giving Ali the once-over. “Bit young for you, isn't she?”