Never Coming Back (21 page)

He stopped, his eyes just briefly straying to the doorway, as if recalling the life he'd led before this; before this room. But then reality seemed to hit, and he was back in a decaying farmhouse in the middle of winter and there was nowhere else to go.

“When Carrie and Annabel turned up at Schiltz's place, he must have taken them to his study.” He looked at me. “And that was when it all went wrong.”

“What went wrong?”

“That's why I had to leave the States.”

“What are you talking about?”

His head dropped and he stared into his hands—and when he raised his eyes to me again, they shimmered in the subdued light. “Carrie . . .”

“What about her?”

“She saw something she shouldn't have.”

The rain stopped and a pregnant lull settled around the house: dark, swollen clouds yet to tear themselves apart above us; silence inside; Lee small and frightened and half covered by darkness. He shifted against the bed, then just looked down at the floor.

Carrie saw something she shouldn't have.

“What did she see?”

“A photograph.”

“Of what?”

He eyed me. “A man.”

“Who?”

“I don't know.” He shook his head. “But he's someone bad. If I had to guess, I'd say someone bad enough to bring down Cornell and whatever he's involved in.”

“How'd you figure that?”

“We had a get-together at the Bellagio in August, three months after the Lings went home. The next morning, a few of the guys said they were staying in town, so we all went for breakfast. One of the guys was Eric Schiltz. Me and him sat at one end of the table, and he started telling me about how his room had been broken into the night before; some woman had stolen his room key and then taken his laptop.”

“The photograph was on the laptop?”

“Yes. Schiltz had scanned a load of old pictures in.”

“And what happened when Cornell found out?”

“You can assume he got the laptop back.”

“Why can you assume that?”

“Because he's Cornell. That's what he does.”

I watched Lee. He was scared of Cornell. “So,” I said softly, and he stirred, like he was climbing out of a deep, dark hole, “Cornell got the laptop back—but what about the original photograph?”

“That was at Schiltz's house in Palm Springs. Cornell told him to burn it.”

“And did he?”

“Yes,” Lee said. “As soon as he got back. But it was too late. Because what Cornell didn't realize was that, three months before, Carrie had been in Schiltz's study.”

Then it hit home. “She saw the original.”

Lee nodded.

“And, what, Carrie recognized the guy in the photo?”

“Yes.”

“From where?”

“From her MA.”

I paused, momentarily confused—and then I realized Lee was talking about the History course Carrie was taking at Exeter University. “Her
History MA
?”

“Yes.”

“What's the guy in the picture got to do with her MA?”

“I don't know.”

I remembered the folder on Paul Ling's PC, the one with her notes in. It had been all about the Soviet Union in the years after the Second World War. “She didn't tell you?”

“I never spoke to her about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I only spoke to Paul.”

“But Carrie must have told Paul who this guy was. They were married. If she recognized this guy, they would have had that conversation at some point, surely?”

“No. Carrie instantly recognized the guy in the picture, but she never mentioned anything to Paul. Six
months
passed before Paul found out, and that was by chance.”

“Why didn't she tell him before that?”

Lee shrugged. “He always thought her MA was a waste of time. He would have preferred that, if she'd wanted to study again, she'd done something more useful, to her, to him, to the girls. I don't know. This was what he kept saying—that it was a pointless qualification. The type of person Carrie was, that would have just made her all the more determined to see it through. Don't get me wrong, they were happily married, they got on and agreed about most things—but that MA, that created some conflict.”

“Which is why she never bothered bringing it up with him.”

“Right.”

“So how
did
he find out about the photo?”

“He'd got home and she'd left her notebook open with this picture in it. It was a photograph of a photograph; she'd taken a picture of the
original in Schiltz's office with her camera phone. Got really close in, so she made sure the guy came out clearly. Paul saw the notebook, was curious, and they started discussing her MA over dinner. She ended up telling him about how she'd taken it at Schiltz's place.”

“Did he ask
why
she'd taken it?”

“She lied to him and said Schiltz was helping with research into the history of orthopedics.”

“But Schiltz didn't know anything about it?”

“No.”

“And Paul? Didn't he realize she was lying?”

“No.”

“So, if he didn't know it was a lie, why did he mention it to you?”

Lee took a long, deep breath. “Like I said to you earlier, before I flew them out for Annabel's operation, I'd told them to keep the trip on the quiet, keep a low profile. I'd asked for that one favor. Carrie was a good person—I doubt she would have deliberately gone against my wishes—but I think maybe she'd decided I was being overly cautious. Maybe paranoid. Maybe weird. That's why she didn't think for a moment that taking that photo could hurt. Paul, though, he could see I meant it. He didn't know why, he didn't know about Cornell, but he could see I was serious. I think that's why he chose to tell me about what he saw in the notebook.”

“So did he scan it in and send it to you?”

He nodded. “And in the middle of November, when we had our next get-together at the Bellagio, I got talking to Schiltz and tried to persuade him to tell me what was so damaging about the photo—but he refused. He kept telling me that he was done talking about it, that I should keep my voice down in case Cornell heard. But by that time it was already too late. I looked across the room, and Cornell was just standing there, watching us.” Then he stopped. He gave me a sideways glance, fear in his eyes. “He just stood there. Staring. I swear to you, it was like he could hear everything we were saying. I know it sounds crazy, but it was like he was reading my mind. I just knew. I just knew from that moment I was in deep, deep shit.”

“So what happened after that?”

“I spent the whole night trying to keep out of his way, and the next morning, when everyone started to leave, I found a back entrance and headed out to my car. He was waiting for me outside. He didn't say
anything, just stood there, and I basically fell apart on the spot.” A pause. A smile. But there was nothing in it, just remorse. “You don't know what Cornell is like, David. The second he looks at you, you see what he is capable of. He's like . . . I don't know, like a vessel or something, carrying around all this violence and misery. When he looked at me, I just started talking and the next minute I was showing him the scan I had of Carrie's notebook, and trying to cut some sort of deal.”

“Deal?”

“The Lings for Schiltz.” He eyed me like I'd accused him of something. But it wasn't me attacking, it was him. He was hanging himself with his own culpability. “I told Cornell that Schiltz was the reason this had all gone to hell. I tried to play on Eric's carelessness, on the fact that he should never have had that photograph just lying around.”

“But you didn't even know who the guy in the photograph was.”

“No,” he said. “I just tried to sound convincing. I said to Cornell, ‘Do whatever you want to Schiltz, but don't do anything to the family. They're my responsibility. I'll take care of Carrie's copy.' I tried to play on their innocence: they didn't know what they were doing, it wasn't their fault, don't blame them. The reality was, I never even knew what was so important about that picture. Still don't. I just knew it could hurt Cornell.”

“So did Cornell take the deal?”

“No.” A tremble passed through him. “All I ended up doing was committing us both to the ground—Schiltz
and
me. Cornell said the original copy of the photograph was gone, and everything would have been okay if Schiltz and I hadn't brought the Lings into this. If Carrie had never been in that study, she never would have seen the picture.”

“You're still alive. What happened to Schiltz?”

Lee looked at me and said nothing, but it was written all over his face; as tears blurred in his eyes he was remembering how Schiltz had saved the life of someone he had cared deeply about—and in return Lee had sent him to his death.

“I just ran,” he said. “I booked the first flight home, I came straight here and I lay low for a couple of weeks. But it was playing on my mind the whole time. Twenty-four hours a day. What if Cornell gets to the Lings? What if he sends people after them? So I called Paul, trying to persuade him to take Carrie and the girls somewhere; book a flight, do anything, just get them all out of the country. I spoke to him three times.
Eventually I got so frustrated, I even told him to come here—I compromised my safety so I could plead with him face to face.”

“Why didn't he listen to you?”

“Something changed. He drove up here on, I don't know, I think it was January 3, and I swear he left believing everything I was telling him. He could see in my face I wasn't messing around. But by the time he got home, something had changed.”

“Like what?”

“I don't know. But he'd changed his mind.”

And then a thought came to me: the spoof call.

It was made on the night of January 3. I'd always assumed it must have been a phone call threatening the Lings because the next day Paul had called the travel agent, albeit for only nine seconds. But maybe it was the exact opposite: maybe it was a call to set Paul's mind at rest somehow, to tell him everything was going to be fine. That would explain the short call to the travel agency. A call of that duration spoke of a man battling with uncertainty: Lee, his best friend, on the one side, telling him he needed to make a break for it; the anonymous caller, assured, convincing, telling him everything was fine. I wondered briefly how the anonymous call the police received fitted in: it had come two days after the Lings went missing, directing the cops to Miln Cross. Was it the same person? Were they just trying to throw the case team off the scent . . . or was the caller trying to help in some way? Were
both
calls trying to help the Lings in some way? My head was buzzing with static, so I let it go and moved on: “So, you think Cornell took the family?”

“I know it,” Lee said, a hint of steel returning to his voice.

“Why, though? Who's the guy in the photograph?”

“I don't know.”

But there was a flicker in his face.

“You said Carrie had taken a small part of a bigger photograph?”

“Yes,” he said. “She'd focused in on the man.”

“So what was in the rest of the picture?”

He hesitated. It didn't feel like he was lying because he was deliberately trying to keep something back. It felt like he was lying because he wanted it to all go away. But it was too late for that now. He'd told me too much, and now there was no going back.

“Come on, Lee.”

“You can see Ray, Eric and Carter in the photo.”

I studied him. “Muire, Schiltz and Graham are with this guy?”

“No. He's way off, in the background. They don't even know he's there.”

“But do you think they knew him?”

“I think it might have been someone from their early years. Maybe they came into contact with him and didn't even realize. I think Cornell was looking for a reason to take Schiltz out. Silence him. Stop him from ever talking about what that photograph meant.”

“And then there was Ray.”

His head dropped.

“Do you think he
really
fell into the river by himself?” I asked him.

“Maybe I just want to believe he did.”

Suddenly, the conversation I'd had with Martha Muire echoed back to me.
I was burgled a month after Ray died
, she'd told me over the phone.
The only thing they took was a photograph.
“It wasn't an accident,” I said, and Lee looked up at me. “Cornell killed Schiltz. Then, whoever does Cornell's dirty work here killed Ray too.”

He nodded; a lonely, mournful movement.

I told him about the photograph that was stolen from his mum's place, and then made the natural leap in logic. “Schiltz scanned in a load of old photos, right? So what's the betting he e-mailed a version of that photo to Ray—and also to Carter Graham?”

Lee instantly understood. “You think Carter's next?”

“I don't know. Do you?”

His hands were linked together like he was in silent prayer. “Yes,” he said. “I think Cornell will come for Carter just like he came for everyone else.” He looked at me. “Because Carter's the only one left who knows who D.K. is.”

I frowned. “D.K.?”

“That's what was written in Carrie's notebook.”

Wednesday, November
23, 2011
| Twelve Months Ago

At first, Eric Schiltz thought it was a sound in his head, part of a dream he was having about being back in the village he'd grown up in. But then the dream fell away and so did his sleep, and he realized he was on top of the sheets, naked, and the doorbell was buzzing. He sat up and looked at the clock. Six-forty. Who the hell was calling so early?

Shrugging his gown on, he walked to the windows of the bedroom, all of which looked out across the Mesa. Once, Clark Gable had lived in this area of Palm Springs, among its low-rise buildings and coral-colored roofs. Back then, its tight network of homes, nestled in the foothills of the San Jacinto Mountains, was a big gated community. Now, though, as Schiltz noted the blue Pontiac G8 parked at the bottom of the drive, his gate ajar, he was reminded that those days were definitely over.

Heading downstairs, into the center of a sweeping, marble-floored entrance hall with four rooms coming off it—a kitchen, a downstairs bedroom, his study and a sprawling living room—he stopped to check himself in the mirror and ran a hand through his hair.

Then he opened the door.

Standing on the front step was Cornell. He was dressed in a pair of denims, a black suit jacket and black brogues polished to a shine. The early sunlight, arcing in across the porch, cast his hairless skin a golden-brown. He didn't say anything to Schiltz, didn't even look at him, his eyes shifting over Schiltz's shoulder and into the house.

“What are you doing down here?”

Cornell's eyes pinged back to him. “How are you, Eric?”

Schiltz just looked at him. “Do you know what time it is?”

“Six-forty.”

Cornell's eyes started moving again, darting around the entrance hall, up the stairs, into the doorways, listening to the sounds of the house. He was seeing whether anyone else was home. Schiltz briefly considered telling him there was, his brain deciding in that second, like a survival instinct kicking in, that the best way to head this off was to lie.

But then, as he went to speak, Cornell said, “I'm sorry it's so early.”

Except he wasn't sorry. There was no contrition in his voice.

His eyes finally settled on Schiltz. They were small and dark, like an inverted
photograph of the rest of him: his smooth skin; his perfect teeth; his hair, exactly parted at the side, unruffled, immaculate. He was dressed in designer clothes, the tailored jacket tracing the lines of his body. But his eyes weren't the same as the rest of him. The rest of him spoke of normality and reason; his eyes spoke of deception and violence.

“May I come in?”

Schiltz shrugged, as if it made no difference to him. But, in reality, he didn't want Cornell inside his house. Ever since Schiltz's laptop had been stolen from his room at the Bellagio, he'd noticed a change in Cornell. He'd always been a little odd: quiet, guarded, often to the point of being rude—but Schiltz had accepted those flaws. He'd known Cornell a long time, knew his background—it was just who he was. But something had changed after the laptop had gone missing: Cornell had called Schiltz obsessively for a week afterward, telling him to burn the original copy of the photograph he'd had on the laptop; the one of Schiltz, Carter Graham and Ray Muire. When Schiltz had tried to reason with him, to tell him it was just an innocent photograph, Cornell had begun to get more aggressive. Eventually, Schiltz did it, just to get him off his back. But even once the picture was gone, Cornell had called him about it, asking questions about Carrie Ling. This time Schiltz had put up more of a fight, saying Carrie knew nothing about the picture.

“Then why was she asking about it?” Cornell had said in response.

“When?”

“On the phone, that night you had your laptop stolen.”

“She wasn't asking about that,” Schiltz had told him. “Do you think the whole world revolves around that picture, Jeremy? We'd got talking about my big project—scanning in all the photographs—and she'd been interested in that. She's creative. She enjoys stuff like that.” Schiltz had paused, letting the lie settle. He wasn't exactly sure why he was deceiving Cornell on Carrie Ling's behalf, he just knew that he didn't want her, or the Lings, on Cornell's radar. He just wanted Cornell to stop calling him.

“Who is she?” Cornell had asked.

“Just a friend.”

“Where's she from?”

“Here,” Schiltz lied. “In Palm Springs.”

And that had been the end of the calls. From the middle of September, Cornell had stopped phoning. No more questions. No more phone calls. No more mentions of the photo or Carrie. Until, at six-forty this morning, he had emerged from the dawn light.

“Let me ask you something, Eric.”

Schiltz went to push the front door shut—then stopped. Outside, he could see
people walking past with their dogs, others in their running gear. Once he shut the door, he shut them all out and the world disappeared—and then it was just him and Cornell.

“You remember that woman you talked about?”

“Woman?”

“Carrie Ling.”

Schiltz's heart sank. “Uh, vaguely.”

“Vaguely?” A smile perforated Cornell's starched face. “But when we talked on the phone a few months back, you said she was a friend, that she lived in Palm Springs.”

“She does.”

“But you only vaguely know her?”

“What difference does it make?” Schiltz said, trying to add some steel to his voice. But he knew what difference it made: with one comment, he'd exposed himself as a liar.

“When did you come out of retirement?”

“What?”

“Earlier this year. I understand you did an operation.”

Shit, he thought, Cornell knows all about them. Schiltz nodded, unsure where to go next. “Yes, I did. Her daughter had some complicated injuries, and her family asked if I could help.”

“Her family asked?”

Schiltz nodded.

“You mean Carrie asked?”

Schiltz nodded again, not wanting to lead himself anywhere.

“But Lee Wilkins says he asked you on their behalf.”

Schiltz realized Cornell had cornered him, and Wilkins had dropped him in the shit. If he admitted that Wilkins had asked on their behalf, he admitted that the request for help hadn't come directly from Carrie, and Cornell would make the last leap himself: that Schiltz hadn't known Carrie before he'd operated on her daughter. It was all a lie.

Before Schiltz could answer, Cornell started to move away from the front door toward the study. Schiltz just watched him, unsure of what to do. Did he let Cornell wander around freely, and risk being drawn deeper into the house where no one outside could see him anymore? He hated the thought of Cornell going through his things and invading the sanctity of his home. But he didn't want to be alone with him. Not now.

“What's going on?” he called after him.

Cornell didn't even acknowledge him. He just stepped into the study, out of sight.
Then a noise: Cornell was going through the drawers of the desk. Anger rising in his chest, Schiltz stepped away from the door, leaving it open, and headed for the study.

Cornell was sitting at his desk, opening up the drawers.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?”

He looked up. Not at Schiltz—it was like Schiltz wasn't even in the same room as him—but around the study, his eyes checking every surface, every space.

“I said, what the—”

“I heard what you said.”

Cornell shot a look at him, and the normality fell away. A snake shedding its skin. The slick hair, the teeth, the designer clothes, they were all exposed for the trick they were. This was someone else. Another man. The one Schiltz never wanted to see again.

“Look,” Schiltz said, holding up a hand and stepping back. “I don't know what it is you want, but . . .”

And then he couldn't think of anything else to say. Cornell remained still. Eyes not moving. Nostrils flared. Hands flat to the desk and perfectly parallel to one another.

Schiltz swallowed. “Look, what I said about Carr—”

“Did you burn the original?”

“The photograph? Yes, just like you asked me to.”

Cornell got up and came around the desk. He took a big step forward, moving in so close that Schiltz immediately felt trapped. His heart juddered in his chest. When he tried to shift sideways, he realized there was no space for him to go because of the angle Cornell was standing at, so he tried to come back, to stand up to Cornell. But Cornell just stood there. Monolithic. Motionless.

“Look, I—”

“Let me show you something,” Cornell said, and reached into his jacket. He took out a piece of paper. It was folded, quarter-size. Cornell opened it with one hand and then held it up in front of Schiltz's face. It was a scan of a notebook.

At the top of the page was the picture he'd had on his laptop, the picture he'd set fire to as soon as he'd got back from Vegas. Except it was a photograph of a photograph. Ever so slightly blurred, it had been taken quickly with something like a camera phone. Schiltz, Carter Graham and Ray Muire were all still in the picture, arms around each other, smiling, but everything that had been to the right of Ray in the original was gone. Instead, whoever had used their camera phone had zoomed in and deliberately cropped it so that the central focus wasn't the men, but the space over Schiltz's right shoulder.

“What's this?” Schiltz said.

In the notebook, beneath the picture, were two yellow Post-it notes, each with handwriting on them. The first said, “
D.K., far left
”
;
on the other, “
Photograph taken circa 1971. California (?) USA. Other three men: Eric Schiltz, Carter Graham, Ray Muire.
”

“It belongs to Carrie Ling,” Cornell said.

Schiltz frowned, trying to put the loose ends together. “Carrie?”

Cornell didn't reply.

“Where did she get this picture?”

“Where do you think?”

He looked up at Cornell; Cornell just stared at him.

“She took a photograph of it while she was in here? She must have taken it while I'd been off making them a drink or something. Why would she take a picture of this?”

“She's interested in history.”

“History?”

Schiltz looked at the photocopy again. At the edge of the picture, bleeding off, were two men. One was in a hat, flared jeans and a long-collared tan shirt. He was pointing, talking to someone out of shot.

Then there was a second man behind him, lower half obscured by the first guy, head half-turned in the camera's direction, watching the three men being photographed in the foreground. “Wait,” Schiltz said quietly. “Wait, that's—”

“I know who it is,” Cornell replied.

“I never even knew he was in this picture.”

“You should have looked harder.”

Schiltz studied the old man. He was still lean and strong at the time, silver hair swept back from a tanned face, and the picture was just about clear enough—even with the blurred resolution—to make out the thin, worm-like scar that ran from his hairline, down the left-hand side of his forehead to the ridge of his eyebrow.

“I can't remember the last time I looked at this picture . . .” Schiltz stopped. He must have seen the old man at the edges of the shot at one stage; it must have registered with him at some point. But he hadn't looked at it for years. Not until Carrie picked it out.

“You've brought trouble to our door, Eric.”

“I just forgot he was ever—”

“Now I've got to clean up the mess.”

Schiltz ripped his gaze away from the picture and looked up at Cornell. Silently, he'd backed away, put more space between them. Except this wasn't a retreat. Cornell was sizing him up, a cold, clinical expression on his face, like a mortician at a slab.

Schiltz cleared his throat. “Look, we can—”

“It's too late for that.”

“We can make this right.”

Cornell said nothing.

“Whatever Carrie's done, I can speak to her myself.”

Again, nothing. But then movement: Cornell reached down, into the pockets of his jacket, and took something out. Latex gloves.

“Wait a second,” Schiltz said. “This is insane.”

Cornell wriggled his fingers, balled one into a fist and reached inside his jacket again. A second later, he had a bowie knife: six-inch blade, brown leather grip. “We gave you a version of the truth, because we trusted you as a friend. I've known you a long time, Eric. I thought, whatever happened, you'd never let me down.”

“Listen to me: he's hardly in the picture.”

“But he's still in it.”

“I didn't realize! I'd forgotten.”

“You were a friend.” Cornell took a step toward Schiltz, fingers rolling along the knife, reasserting his grip. “But how can we trust a friend who lies to us, a friend who is so reckless he doesn't even see the destruction he's causing?”

“That picture means nothing.”