The Dead Tracks (28 page)

    'David,
I don't know…' She paused. 'I don't know what you're asking me.'

    'Frank's
name came up in relation to Megan, and I'm trying to work out why. Because
Megan is the case I'm working at the moment. The one I told you about. I'm not
accusing you of anything, I'm just trying to find the connection.'

    'I
swear to you, I didn't know they were connected.'

    All I
had to go on was her voice. The tiny movements in it; the rise and fall of the
words. She was either telling the truth or she was a flawless liar.

    'I
was struggling to cope,' she said. 'That's why I came to the support group.
It's been nearly a year, and it's just not getting any easier. I thought the
group might help.'

    'Did
you know I attended the group?'

    'No.'

    'Had
you heard of me before?'

    'Absolutely
not.'

    I
paused for a moment. 'Okay.'

    'That's
the truth, I swear.'

    'I
believe you,' I said, but wasn't sure if I was committed to what I was saying.
Even if she was telling the truth, something was out of kilter somewhere. 'I
just needed to be sure.'

    'I understand.'

    Now
she sounded like she was lying. I'd offended her by suggesting she'd arrived at
the group with an ulterior motive. Some hidden agenda.

    We
said goodbye, her voice quiet and distant, and then I turned to the file again,
flipping back to the start. I worked it hard: every line, every entry, every
detail. But, after twelve pages, the second read-through was the same as the
first. No connections. Not to people, not to events and, most importantly, not
to the girl I was trying to find.

    Then,
on page thirteen, I found something.

    Midway
down, one of the techs had recovered a series of grey hairs. DNA tests revealed
that they didn't belong to anyone present at the scene - because they weren't
even human. They were from a dog.

    A greyhound.

    No
one recalled seeing a dog at the scene, and the warehouse was kept locked up so
wouldn't have been home to any strays - which meant someone brought the hairs
with them. Police would have assumed they'd come from a living room somewhere,
or a kitchen. But I knew instantly they didn't come from a house.

    They
came from the Dead Tracks.

    As I
moved into my road, I could immediately tell something was up. People were
standing at the top of the street in the pouring rain looking down towards my house.
Blue light painted the buildings and flashed in the windows. Crime-scene tape
fluttered in the breeze. An officer was stationed just behind the tape. He
watched me approach, eyes narrowed, trying to get a fix on who I was, and what
I might want. As I continued my approach in the car, he looked like he was
about to tell me to turn around. Then he got a glimpse of my face and
recognition sparked in his eyes. He looked behind him. There was a crime-scene
van and three cars parked outside. Two were marked. One, a Volvo, wasn't, but
had a lightbar flaring on the front dash. As I stopped the car short of the
tape, the officer shouted something and two men emerged from my driveway.

    Phillips
and Davidson.

    I got
out of the car. 'What the hell is this?'

    Neither
of them said anything. Phillips led the way, a long black coat trailing behind
him like a cape. Davidson followed, a cup of takeaway coffee in his hands, the
merest hint of a smile on his face.

    'David,'
Phillips said.

    We
were either side of the crime-scene tape. Phillips looked back at the house. A
crime-scene tech was coming down the driveway now, carrying a shoebox. It was
one of the ones I'd had stacked in the spare-room wardrobes; full of stuff
belonging to Derryn that I hadn't yet sorted through. It was inside an evidence
bag.

    'Where's
she going with that?'

    Phillips
didn't reply. Davidson shrugged.

    I
glared at Phillips. 'Everything in there belongs to my
wife'

    'Calm
down, David,' he replied.

    'Calm
down?'

    'Calm
down.'

    'I
want that box back
now.'

    
'Listen
to me,' Phillips said, and his eyes flicked to the crowd at the end of the
road. Automatically, I turned and looked towards Liz's house. It was dark. No
one home. I didn't want her to see this. 'Just calm down,' he said again,
'before you make this worse.'

    'What
are you doing in my house?' I said, ignoring him. 'Have you even got a
warrant?'

    Phillips
felt around in the pocket of his coat and brought out a piece of paper, sealed
inside a waterproof sleeve. He held it up.

    'Did
you lie on oath to get this?'

    He
didn't reply, just handed it to me.

    I
looked at it. In the lack of light it was difficult to see the specifics, but I
spotted my name at the top and a signature at the bottom.

    'Who
the fuck signed off on that?'

    'I
need you to come with me,' Phillips replied.

    'Why
would I do that?' There was definitely a smile on Davidson's face now. I looked
at him. "You got something to say to me, fat man?'

    He
shrugged, still smiling.

    Phillips
audibly sighed. 'Okay, David, we're going to have to make this official.'

    Davidson
now had a pad in his hands and — despite the rain - was busy writing down what
I'd just said. Even as the rage boiled in me, I knew I had to cool off to avoid
saying something I'd regret. But when I looked again at the tech loading the
shoebox into the back of the van, anger fired in me for a second time. I ducked
under the tape. The uniformed officer made a move towards me. Phillips noticed
and held up a hand.

    'David,'
he said.

    'You
better have a damn good reason for being here.'

    Phillips
nodded. 'David Raker, I'm arresting you on suspicion of the abduction of Megan
Carver. You do not have to say anything —'

    '
What
?'

    '—
but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, anything
which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be used in evidence.
Do you understand what I've just said to you?'

    You've
got to be kidding me.'

    'Do
you understand, David?'

    I
glanced at the two of them. Davidson was still writing. Phillips looked between
me and the PC standing to my side.

    'David?'

    I
stared at him.

    'David,
do you understand — yes or no?'

    Behind
him, Davidson continued writing.

    'Yes
or no?'

    I
looked at him. 'Yes.'

    He
nodded at the PC again. I heard the metallic rasp of a pair of handcuffs and
then felt the officer come up behind me. He guided my arms around to my back
and sat them at the base of my spine. Cold, wet metal fed around my wrists and
locked into place. In front of me, Davidson made a point of forcibly adding a
full stop on to the end of whatever he was writing.

    'This
is crazy,' I said.

    Phillips
placed a hand on my arm. Time to go.'

    She
had a mattress and two blankets for when she slept. An hour after his second
visit of the day, when he would throw down the liquid for her face and the
cotton wool to apply it with, the lights would go out, plunging the room into
total darkness. The lights would come on again the next day, for the first
visit, when he came with her food. With the lights out, all she had was
silence.

    Some
nights, early on, she would yell at the top of her voice, trying to get someone
to hear her. When a week passed, she started trying to reason with him when he
came in. At ten days, she told him the mattress was uncomfortable. Finally, at
two weeks, she changed tactics when he came in with her food.

    'I'm
going to kill you, you bastard!'

    She
only tried once.

    After
she screamed at him, he paused. Straightened. Looked down at her. A smile broke
out on his face; a thin line, like a slash from a knife. As it formed, his
mouth peeling open, she realized it wasn't a smile at all. It was a warning. He
was telling her that, even if she never slept again, she wouldn't see him
approach. He'd do what he wanted to her, come for her when he needed her.

    And
all she would see was a flicker in the darkness.

    Sona
woke. It was pitch black; the middle of the night. She rolled over on the
mattress, springs popping beneath her, and pulled the blanket up to her neck.
As she did, she heard something beyond the silence for the first time since
she'd been taken: the gentle patter of rain. It was coming down somewhere
distantly, softly, consistently. When she shut her eyes and tried to
concentrate on the noise, it sounded like it was hitting a metal grate.

    
pffffffff

    Her
eyes snapped open.

    The
hole was bricked in dark colours all the way up, so there was no definition to
her surroundings. No chinks of light. She couldn't even see her own hand in front
of her face. Everything vanished in the darkness, and all that remained was
sound: a very gentle rumble now, reverberating through the floor of the room
above and down the walls of the hole; and the rhythmic beat of the rain.

    She
lay there with her eyes open. As she counted the time in her head - thirty
seconds, a minute, two minutes, five minutes — the rain started to get harder.
At ten minutes, she could feel herself getting tired again. Her eyes drifted
closer together. She opened them and stared into the darkness for another sixty
seconds. Then she closed them, too tired now to fight the onset of sleep.

    
pffffffff

    She
moved quickly, sitting up on the mattress.
What was that? The
sound had
been closer this time. She expected to be able to see something, maybe just the
smallest mark against the darkness. But there was nothing. No light. No shapes.
Everything was black. She reached out in front of her, to where the sound had
come from. Leaned a little way forward. Pressed her other hand against the
floor for support.

    And
then it came to her.

    She
realized what the sound had been.

    Static.

    Torchlight
erupted from the corner of the hole, blinding her briefly. She brought a hand
to her eyes, automatically reacting, but a leg kicked her supporting arm out
from under her and she fell forward, hitting her face against the floor. It
dazed her for a moment, white dots flashing in front of her. When she rolled on
to her back, he was standing above her, a foot either side of her body, a smile
cutting across his face.

    Behind
him, propped against the wall, was a ladder.

    He'd
come down, into the hole, and she hadn't even heard him.

    She
tried to wriggle away from him, getting as far as she could, but he placed a
boot on her throat and pinned her to the floor. Static from the speakers in the
room above.

    'This
is the beginning,' he said.

    Even
up close, it was hard to make out his features clearly. He'd turned the torch
away from himself, shining it to the left. Shadows cut across him, little
pieces of the night clinging to every fold and crease in his face.

    This
is where you give me my life back.'

    In
the blink of an eye, the man took his foot off her throat and lifted her up off
the floor of the hole. She went to fight him, went to kick or punch or bite,
but he was too quick. He punched her in the side of the head — a fast,
efficient jab, right at the corner of the eye - almost hissing at her as he
moved.