The Dead Tracks (13 page)

    The
first day of footage on the sixth disc was Saturday 1 April. Forty-eight hours
before Megan disappeared. The girls entered the club just before eleven, headed
to the bar, and up the spiral staircase to the top floor. They talked for a
while and then, as the clock in the corner of the screen hit midnight, Megan turned
slightly to let someone through. Suddenly, a feeling of familiarity washed over
me.

    I
paused the footage. Megan was facing the camera, flanked on either side by the
others. I'd spotted something; something worth picking out. But I couldn't pull
it out of the darkness. I moved closer to the screen and used the remote
control to inch the footage on. In one frame, Lindsey leaned towards Megan. In
the next, Kaitlin took a step away.

    That
was when I saw him.

    I
realized then that I'd glimpsed him earlier, on another disc, but not really
registered him. He'd only been in view briefly, just as he was now. Hidden
behind a tangle of bodies; perched on the edge of the sofa furthest from the
girls. Dark hair. Black jacket. Black shirt. Jeans. Black shoes.

    He
was staring right at Megan.

    He
sat completely still even as one frame jumped to the next. It was like he was
frozen in place. His head was angled slightly, his chin almost pressed against
his throat, looking up from under his brow. He had pale skin but incredibly
dark eyes. Through the scan lines of the footage, they were just holes in his
head.

    Then
Lindsey moved again and he disappeared behind her.

    I
carried on watching, the footage jumping between frames. More people moved up
the stairs. At one point, a group of eight or nine men stood adjacent to Megan,
Lindsey and Kaitlin. Twelve minutes later they finally moved again.

    And
the man was gone.

    I
fast-forwarded it, past the point the girls left the club at half-two to closing
time at four o'clock. He didn't reappear. I rewound it to the beginning of the
evening when they'd first come up the stairs to the second floor. He wasn't
waiting for them then. It was like he'd ghosted in for those few short moments,
shielded by the crowds - and then vanished again.

    I
dropped in March's DVD for a second time. Skipped forward to the evening of the
first Friday in the month. An hour and a half passed. When the onscreen clock
showed 00:37, a crowd spread out behind the three girls - and he emerged. I'd
missed him the first time. But not now. For five and a half minutes, he sat
there watching Megan through the crowds. Same as on the April DVD. Same
clothes. Same expression. Dark eyes never leaving her.

    Not
once.

    I
went back over all the footage I'd already watched. Every month but the first
one, October, he was there. Short periods of time. Never less than five
minutes, never more than eight. It would have been incredibly easy to miss him
- which is why I assumed he'd gone unnoticed by the police. They would have
checked all four thousand hours; been through every single weekday; checked the
footage all day, every day for six months, just to be sure. And apart from
mornings, the whole time the place was jammed: so many people, so much going
on. The man was only in shot for thirty-six minutes of the four thousand hours,
with that fraction of time split up into even smaller chunks a month apart. I'd
picked him up almost by accident. A fluke.

    But
he was there.

    And
he was watching Megan.

    Friday.
After getting up at eight and making some coffee, I sat at the living-room
windows, looking out at the garden, and studied the photograph of the man from
Tiko's. I'd taken a picture of the TV screen, paused on the best view I could
get of his face, and printed it out on the computer. Blown up big, the quality
deteriorated.

    But
it was good enough.

    He
looked like he was in his thirties. Incredibly pale, jet- black hair combed
into an old-fashioned side parting. A very angular face, all bone and sinew,
his cheeks slightly hollow, his nose thin and straight. The ridge of his brow
was prominent, raised, reducing his eyes to two tiny pinpricks of light. It
gave him an odd, otherworldly feel: a man painted only in the darkest blacks
and whitest whites. Physically, he didn't look much. Five-ten, maybe even less.
No muscle, or at least no indication of any.

    But
something was off about him. Something ominous.

    He
looked at Megan the way a hunter looked at its prey. Deep concentration.
Patience. His eyes constantly tracking her movements. His posture was slightly
bent, as if he spent the whole time trying to make himself smaller, like a bear
trap being primed. Because of that, he carried a kind of threat, a suggestion
that his build and size wouldn't matter when it came to it. Because when it
came to it, nothing would stop him.

    He
would get what he wanted.

    I
called Kaitlin and agreed to meet her during a free period she had at eleven
o'clock. After that, I'd try and speak to DCI Jamie Hart. It was going to be a
balancing act. I needed his help, because I needed to find out how far the case
had progressed before it went cold, but I didn't want Hart getting too involved
or interested in Megan's disappearance again. Perhaps I was doing the police a
disservice. Perhaps they'd already pinpointed the man in Tiko's as someone to
watch. But it was possible, and in fact more likely, that they'd totally missed
him. And I didn't want them finding out about the man before I'd had a chance
to try and find out who he was myself.

    When
I got to the school, I pulled in around the side in the Sixth Form car park,
close to the fencing Megan must have scaled in order to avoid being picked up
on CCTV. Kaitlin was waiting for me. Her bag was on top of a battered Ford
Fiesta, a folder next to it, a set of textbooks next to that. I got out of the
BMW. The morning was dry but heavy with the threat of rain. Dark clouds moved
across the sky in thick coils. In the distance, beyond the rooftops of the
houses surrounding the school, a mist hung, grey and oppressive like a blanket
being pulled across the city.

    I
smiled at Kaitlin. 'Morning.'

    She
smiled back, but there was a slight hesitancy to her. Maybe she was expecting
me to launch into a tirade about how she should have told the police what she
knew.

    I
held up a hand. 'I don't care what you've done.'

    She seemed
to relax a little and then suggested we go to a coffee shop about half a mile
from the school. It had two floors. The top one had big floor-to-ceiling
windows and small circular tables lined up in front. I bought Kaitlin a latte,
and then we took one of the tables, furthest away from everybody else. I got
out my pen and pad, and turned to her. She was looking down at the people
passing on the pavements.

    'Are
you okay?'

    She
glanced at me, a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, as if I might be leading
her into a trap. 'I'm fine,' she said eventually.

    'So
when did you first find out Megan was pregnant?'

    'The
week before she disappeared.'

    'What
happened?'

    'I went
round to her house, so we could work on a Biology assignment we'd been given.
About an hour after I got there, she said she needed to puke.'

    'Was
that the first time she'd felt like that?'

    'No.
She said she'd been sick that morning, and had been puking every day for a
week. She said it was something she'd eaten.'

    'But
you didn't believe her.'

    'No.'

    'So
she told you?'

    'Eventually.
She said she'd done a pregnancy test a week after the sickness and the
headaches hadn't gone away.'

    'Did
you ask her who the father was?'

    'Yes.'

    'And
what did she say?'

    Kaitlin
glanced at me. 'I guess this is where it gets confusing'

    'Okay.'

    'This
is the reason I lied.'

    I
nodded for her to continue.

    'Megan
was always very into, like, helping people. You know, charities, that kind of
thing. She used to spend her summers helping out at a youth club down the road
from her house. I think it was for people with, like, cerebral palsy or
something' She paused, glanced out of the window. 'Anyway, she said she'd met
someone.'

    'At
the youth club?'

    'Yeah.'

    'Did
she tell you his name?'

    'No.'

    'Why?'

    She
paused again, this time for longer. 'He was quite a few years older than her.
Like, ten or fifteen or something. She thought he'd get into trouble.'

    'With
who?'

    'Megan
was seventeen. What do you think her parents would have said if they found out
she was seeing some guy in his thirties?'

    I
leaned back in my seat. 'Did she tell you anything about him?'

    'Just
that she thought he was really sexy, and really clever, and that they were in
love.' She shrugged. 'I'd never heard her talk about a guy like that. Megan
was… well, she didn't meet very many men. When we used to go out, she was never
interested in getting together with anyone.'

    'Did
she describe him at all? How he looked?'

    '
No
.'

    
'Nothing?'

    
'No.'

    I
thought of the man in the club again. Had that been him? He wasn't attractive in
any way, but he must have been at least fifteen years older than her. Even if
the age vaguely matched, though, it didn't feel right. If she knew him, why
would he be waiting there in the shadows? Why would he be there at all? I
reached into my jacket pocket and got out the photograph. I pushed it across
the table to Kaitlin.

    'Do
you recognize him?'

    'Is
that Tiko's?'

    'Yes.'

    I'd
cropped it in, so the girls were out of shot, but her eyes still flicked to me,
then back to the photograph, as she tried to put it together in her head.

    'You
recognize him?' I asked again.

    'No.'

    You
sure?'

    'Positive.'

    I
took the photo back and folded it up.

    'Did
she tell you how many times they'd had sex?'

    Kaitlin
flushed a little.

    'You
don't have to be embarrassed.'

    She
shifted in her seat. 'Four times.'

    'How
far along was she?'

    'In
her pregnancy?'

    'Yes.'

    'Not
far. I think about five or six weeks.'

    'Did
the guy she was sleeping with know she was pregnant?'

    'Yes.'

    'She
told him?'

    'Yes.'

    I
wrote that down. When I looked up again, she was staring at me, and for the
first time I glimpsed the girl underneath.

    'What's
wrong?'

    'I
just wish I hadn't lied. Maybe if I hadn't lied, the police would have found
her. Do you think she went off with the man she met? Do you think he…' She
faded out.

    'Listen
to me, Kaitlin,' I said. 'If, for whatever reason, the police come calling,
don't tell them about the pregnancy. I don't know if they'll be back or not.
For all intents and purposes, the case is dead. But they could get interested
again if they find me snooping around, and the first thing we need to do here
is protect you. So if they come calling, tell them about the youth club, and
that you think she might have been seeing someone there, but leave it at that,
okay?'

    She
nodded.

    'Good.
What was the name of the youth club?'