The Stone Gallows (33 page)

I was thinking Pizza Hut. Both Mark and my wallet would appreciate it.

Back at the office, the two of us got in the lift and pressed the button for the fourth floor, sagging against the walls as the doors closed. Joe checked he had enough change for a taxi home. I did the same, before realising I no longer had a home to go to.

The concept didn't seem as depressing as it had yesterday.

After a few moments, the lift reached its destination, the doors sliding open to reveal the foyer we shared with the accountants next door to us. A man was leaning against the wall beside the artificial Yucca plant. He watched Joe take out his keys.

‘Excuse me, are you Mr Banks?'

Surprise guests are rarely welcome in this business. Upon hearing his name, Joe reflexively dipped his hand to his pocket, where I knew he kept a set of knuckle-dusters. I slipped my own hand into my jacket, surreptitiously feeling for the metal links of my trusty dog lead.

Joe said, ‘Do I know you?'

The man's tone was not aggressive. ‘I think you know my wife.'

We both relaxed slightly, although Joe kept his hand where it was.

‘How can I help you?'

‘I want to know why she hired you.'

‘I'm afraid we're not in a position to talk about our work.'

‘Please, you have to help me. I'm worried about her.'

Joe looked over his shoulder and caught my eye. I could tell what he was thinking: more than likely the man was worried about getting caught shagging his secretary, or sister, or golf buddy. ‘As I said, we can't discuss our cases.'

‘I'll pay you for your time.'

Joe shook his head. ‘It's a clear conflict of interest. I won't help you.'

The man turned his attention to me. ‘Please. I want to know what's going on. She's spent a fortune, and I don't know what it's for.'

Joe moved past him. ‘Perhaps you better ask her. They say that honesty's the best policy when it comes to marriage.'

As I moved to follow Joe, the man stopped me by putting his hand on my shoulder. ‘Please. I need some help.'

I removed the hand, my grip firm but not designed to hurt. ‘Whatever it is you have to say, say it to your wife.'

His face twisted in distress. ‘I would, except I can't find her.'

Before I could stop myself, I said, ‘What's her name?'

Joe shot me a dirty look, his message clear. It didn't matter what her name was.

Except it did.

The man said ‘Sophie Sloan.'

11.4.

In the months I had worked for Joe, I had never known a subject of one of his investigations show up on the doorstep. From the look on his face, neither had Joe. He quickly went on the defensive. ‘Mr Sloan, I really can't confirm whether or not your wife is a client of ours. If she's missing, I suggest that you contact the police and file a report.'

Sloan held his hands up, palms outwards. ‘I'm not here to pick a fight. I just want to know that she's alright. I know that she paid a large sum of money to your company a few days ago.'

‘How would you know that?' Joe asked.

‘It's a shared account. Both our names. I was able to see who the cheque had been paid to.'

Sighing, Joe shook his head. He stuck his key in the lock and opened the door. ‘How long has she been missing?'

‘Since yesterday. I was in London on business. I came home,' the man shrugged and turned his palms up. ‘She was gone.'

‘I guess you better come in. Cameron, will you make some coffee?

I have a feeling that we're going to need some.'

The three of us made our way into the office. I tossed my jacket over my chair and proceeded to the kitchen, where I filled the kettle and spooned coffee into the pot. While I waited for the water to boil, I leaned on the door frame, taking a good look at the man we were being paid to spy on. For somebody that was supposed to be shagging his sister-in-law, Ian Sloan was a fairly normal-looking guy. Slightly older than his wife, he wore a suit jacket over a pair of battered jeans and a corduroy shirt. No tie. For some reason, I found myself thinking he looked like the resident professional of the kind of golf club that didn't pride itself on petty discrimination. His voice was soft and filled with concern for the welfare of his wife. Together, they would have made a good-looking couple, the kind of people who would bicker cheerily over the distribution of the Sunday papers while discussing the ideal wine to have with dinner.

Joe hung his jacket on the coat stand and perched on the corner of my desk. ‘So she's been missing for twenty-four hours?'

‘I'm not sure how long she's been gone,' Sloan said. He sat down on one of the leather settees that served as our waiting area, leaning forward and propping both elbows on his knees, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. It was a gesture of fundamental exhaustion. ‘I last spoke to her on the telephone on Wednesday evening. It was a pretty strange conversation.'

‘Strange how, Mr Sloan?'

He shook his head, the gesture more confused than negative. ‘I couldn't put my finger on it. At first, I thought she had been drinking, but she didn't sound drunk. She sounded. . . distant. Like she was far, far away.'

‘Do you mean far, far away in a geographical sense, like she was out of the country, or do you mean it in a. . . a. . .' Joe looked to me for help.

I finished for him. ‘Far away in an emotional sense?'

Sloan nodded enthusiastically. ‘It was almost like talking to a different person. You know that we lost our little boy?'

Neither Joe or myself said anything. To admit as much was to admit that Sophie was a client.

Our silence went unnoticed, a meaningless blip on the radar of the man's grief. ‘He died of leukaemia. Horrible thing. That was nine months ago. He was seven.' Sloan's eyes were distant, perhaps remembering a happier time when his son wasn't dead and his wife wasn't missing, presumed crazy.

Joe said, ‘We're sorry for your loss.'

Sloan waved a hand impatiently. ‘She was devastated. We both were, but her more so. She was a full time mum, you see, and then all of a sudden she was made redundant. I still had my work, and she resented the fact that I had something to fill the time with.'

I remembered the first time we had met Sophie, and how she had told the same story from the opposite viewpoint.

Behind me, the kettle reached the boil. I quickly filled the pot. So far, all Ian had done was confirm Sophie's story, albeit from his own side of the fence. I left the coffee to percolate and went back to my position at the doorway. In the ten seconds I was gone, Sloan hadn't moved from his defeated slump. His voice was that of somebody who had just survived a major disaster.

‘I asked her what was wrong. She wouldn't tell me, not at first, but I persisted. Then she said that she wanted a divorce. I couldn't believe it. I know that couples who lose a child frequently have problems, but the thing was that I thought they were the kind of things that the two of us would face together. I never thought that I was part of the problem.'

He raised his head. ‘She's never really got over Luke's death. I would come home from work to find her sitting in his bedroom. He had this toy, this stuffed tiger. . . it was his favourite. . . and she would sit on his bed with it on her knee for hours at a time, just stroking the fur. One day I was downstairs when I heard her voice. I went up, thinking she was talking to me, but she wasn't. She was reading
The
Wind in the Willows
, just like she did when she was telling Luke a bed-time story. I didn't know what to say, so I just closed the door and left her to it.'

Joe said, ‘You said that you last spoke to her on the telephone?

Where were you at the time?'

‘In London. At a business conference. I wasn't meant to return until tomorrow, but I was so worried about her I couldn't sleep. I tried to phone her all yesterday, but couldn't get in touch. I made the decision to rent a car and drive overnight. I got back early this morning and there's no trace of her.'

‘Where have you looked?'

‘Everywhere I can think of. We don't have many friends and I've spoken to them all. Her sister hasn't seen her since Wednesday afternoon.'

‘What about her mobile phone?' Joe said. ‘Assuming she has one.'

‘You know she does,' Sloan said wearily. ‘I keep trying it. Always switched off.'

There was a pad of paper sitting on my desk. Without taking his eyes off the man in front of him, Joe scribbled a brief note, probably reminding himself to try the number Sophie had given us the second her husband left. ‘What made you think to try the bank account?'

Sloan shrugged. ‘I wondered if she had decided to leave me. I thought maybe she had holed up in a hotel somewhere and I might be able to find out where she was.'

‘And there was nothing?'

‘The cheque she gave you the other day. Also, she made a cash withdrawal on Wednesday afternoon. Five hundred pounds.'

Joe caught my eye again. I could tell what he was thinking. Sloan was convincing. If his concern for his wife was a performance purely for our benefit, then he was a damn fine actor. Unfortunately, the fact remained that Sophie Sloan was a client, and as such we were limited in what we could do.

I spoke first. ‘Mr Sloan, I'm sure that you can understand our concerns. We have a professional reputation to maintain, and we certainly can't hand over confidential information. . .'

Sloan burst in. ‘Is she in trouble? Is that it? Is she being blackmailed? I saw a film once where a woman hired professional investigators to find out who it was that was trying to blackmail her.

Maybe the five hundred pounds is a. . . a down payment?'

Joe said, ‘Five hundred pounds isn't a very large sum of money.

And besides, do you think your wife had anything she might prefer to keep secret?'

‘What kind of thing?'

He took a deep breath. ‘I don't know. That would be why it would be a secret.'

From my place at the doorway, I said, ‘Mr Sloan, everybody has things they would rather other people didn't find out about.' I was bitterly aware of my own experience. ‘Maybe she has a drunk driving conviction, or she posed for Fiesta, or. . .' I spread my hands, as if by doing so I could demonstrate the breadth of possibility.

Sloan wiped a hand across his brow. ‘I don't know. She's not a. . . a well woman. She has a history of psychological problems. Some of it stemmed back to her childhood – she had an abusive father, and she took a great deal of drugs when she was a teenager – but the rest. . .'

He shook his head slowly. ‘I don't know. Anti-depressants. Uppers.

Downers. There were days when she was great, but there were others when she could barely function. And ever since Luke died, she's been on some kind of downward spiral. I've been terrified that she might do something stupid. She told me a few months ago that she had thought of abducting a new-born baby from the Maternity Hospital.

Said she had a plan and everything. At the time I thought she was kidding, but now I'm not so sure. . .'

Joe and I looked at each other. Neither of us knew what to say.

11.5.

In the car, it was child versus adult. Adult was losing.

‘I want a Big Mac.You promised me a Big Mac.'

‘I know. But there isn't a McDonalds for miles around.'

‘There is. There's one around the corner. I saw it.'

‘It's closed.'

‘There was cars outside. I saw them, too.'

‘They've run out of Big Macs.'

‘They never run out of Big Macs.'

‘They do sometimes.'

‘No they don't!'

‘Yes they. . .' Deep breath. Dontgetangrydontgetangrydontgetangry.

‘Where are we going?'

‘Home.'

‘This isn't the way home.'

‘It's a short cut.'

‘No, it isn't.'

‘It's a game.'

‘What game?'

‘Hide and seek.'

‘But we're not hiding. We're driving.'

‘It's special rules. We get to use a car.'

‘Is my daddy playing?'

Gritted teeth. ‘I told you. He's at work.'

‘He's good at hide and seek. He always knows where I'm hiding.'

‘Maybe this time we'll beat him.'

‘I don't think so. He's good at finding people.'

‘I bet he won't find us.'

‘I bet he will.'

‘I bet he won't.'

‘Where are we going?'

‘To a special hiding place.'

‘What's so special about it?'

‘Nobody will ever find us.'

‘My daddy will.'

‘I doubt it.'

‘He will.'

. . . And so on.

11.6.

Sloan broke the silence. ‘I'm worried that she might have done something stupid. One time I came home to find a suicide note on the kitchen table. It was little more than a few words along the lines of goodbye, cruel world, but it scared the hell out of me. I ran upstairs expecting to find her floating in the bathtub with her wrists open or something.'

‘But you didn't,' Joe said.

‘No. I didn't, I found her on the bed with a bottle of paracetamol in her hand. I shook her, asked her how many she had taken. She just laughed in my face. I grabbed the bottle and opened it. There were meant to be a hundred and when I counted them, I got ninety-three.

I was livid. I didn't know if she had taken the seven and I had disturbed her, or if she had just used the bloody thing as a prop. That's the thing about stuff like this. You don't know if they're serious or if they're just doing it for the attention.'

Briefly, I recalled my own pathetic little suicide attempt. Since then, I'd asked myself the same question a number of times.

Sloan continued. ‘I've always tried to be a good husband. I've been patient with her, tried to understand. . . tried to make allowances, but it's been hard.'