Safe House (12 page)

There was no lager today. I hadn’t seen him touch a drop since Laura’s death. The cup holder was as empty as his gaze, focused blindly on the sloping grass in front of him. This year, he’d chosen a circular design, the lawn patterned in concentric rings of dark and light green. Last year, it had been stripes.

‘Dad?’

He didn’t hear me because of the ear defenders he was wearing. I waited for him to turn and trundle back in my direction. He stopped alongside me, the clamorous engine forcing him to shout.

‘Just getting a cut in before it rains again.’ He removed the ear defenders and wrapped them around the steering wheel. ‘And you know how the residents like to watch.’

He tipped his head in the direction of the conservatory. A motley audience of shrivelled old folk was arranged behind the glass in wing-back seats and wheelchairs. I waved an apology for the interruption.

‘I wanted to talk to you about Rebecca,’ I yelled.

‘Can it wait? Be dark soon.’

‘Not really.’ I reached across and turned the key in the ignition. The engine spluttered, then died. The sudden silence felt weirdly charged. ‘Why did you hire her, Dad?’

‘You know that by now. She would have told you.’ He scowled across the lawn at a rogue patch of grass the mower blades had somehow missed.

‘But you never mentioned any suspicions about Laura’s death to me. And why Rebecca? There must be private investigators here on the island. You probably know some of them. But you hired a complete stranger. From London.’

He sighed. It sounded more like a growl. ‘It just happened like that.’

‘Like what? You went on the internet and searched for private investigators and her firm came up? Or somebody recommended her? Or, what exactly?’

He put his hand on the ignition key. I seized his wrist, holding firm.

‘What aren’t you telling me? There’s something, isn’t there? Dad?’

He shook his head. Snatched his arm free and reached for his ear defenders. Then he turned the engine over and pulled away sharply.

‘Ask your mother,’ he called from over his shoulder. ‘She’s the one you need to speak to.’

*

I found Mum in the television room. She was kneeling beside one of the newer residents, a lady in a matted wig and bunched stockings who had a vicelike grip on the remote control. The television volume was too loud, rousing those who’d been sleeping and forcing others to adjust their hearing aids. But the lady wanted it louder.

Mum was doing her best to prise the remote free without causing offence. It was a delicate procedure but she approached it with the calm assurance I’ve seen from her so often in the past. As I watched, the remote was liberated, the sound decreased and the elderly woman appeased with a loving squeeze of the hand and the offer of a fresh cup of tea.

‘Got a minute, Mum?’ I asked.

‘Of course, love. Walk with me?’

She slipped the remote into the pocket of her apron and I followed her through the lounge into the small side kitchen, our movements tracked by every conscious resident in the vicinity. There was a hot-water urn on the counter and Mum popped a teabag into a metal teapot and filled it with steaming water.

‘How’s the head?’ she asked.

‘Fine.’

‘You look a little peaky.’ She placed a cool palm on my forehead. ‘Hmm.’ She reached down for the pulse point on my wrist. Consulted her watch. ‘Hmm,’ she said again.

‘What’s the verdict?’

‘You should be resting. I told your father as much.’

The stern look she gave me faded into weary fatigue. I didn’t know how long it had been since she’d slept properly but it might as well have been several years. Her skin was dry and powdery at her temples, a sign of her eczema flaring up, and the only way she could have been any paler was if she was haunting the place. The contrast with her curly red hair only served to make her pallid appearance even worse. She’d lost weight. Lost energy. Lost most things, I guess.

‘I’m fine,’ I said again. ‘Shoulder’s a bit sore, that’s all.’

‘No need for you to be on your feet, though, is there?’

She turned her back on me and fiddled with the hospital-green crockery on a shelf above the urn.

‘I was talking to Dad about Rebecca,’ I said.

No reaction.

‘The investigator you hired, Mum. To look into Laura’s death.’

Her shoulders dropped and she set a cup and saucer down with a clatter. Then she gathered herself and ducked below the counter to scoop a carton of milk out of the fridge.

‘How’s Rocky?’ she asked. ‘Glad to have you back, I shouldn’t wonder. You should have seen him moping around this place while you were gone. Happy to help himself to biscuits, mind.’

‘Mum.’
Still nothing
. ‘Mum. We need to talk about this.’

She slapped the milk carton down. A splotch of milk shot out of the top and splashed the counter.

‘Ah, hell.’

‘Here.’ I ran a cloth under the tap and passed it to her. ‘Why did you hire her, Mum?’

‘Oh, Rob.’ She squeezed the cloth in her hand. So tight that it dribbled water on to the floor by her feet. ‘Why don’t you talk to your father about this?’

‘He told me to speak to you. What’s going on, Mum? I know it’s awful about Laura. We don’t talk about it and I get that. I understand why. But it hurts me every bit as much as it hurts you and Dad. And if there’s something going on, I think it’s only fair for you to tell me.’

She looked around for a moment, as if disoriented. ‘You’re right. You are.’ She mopped up the spill. Glanced across at the stewing tea.

‘That can wait,’ I said.

‘I should really just –’

‘Tell me about Rebecca, Mum. Tell me why you hired her.’

She drew a halting breath, one that seemed to teeter on the edge of tears. But when she finally spoke, her words punched a hole clean through my heart.

‘Because your sister asked me to,’ she said.

*

Mum handed me a small piece of card, pale yellow in colour. Printed on the front of it in a modest black script were the words
Rebecca Lewis, Wilton Associates
. I turned it over. Rebecca’s contact details were listed on the back.

‘Your sister gave this to me,’ Mum said. ‘It was just a day before the accident.’

The accident
. I had a problem with the way Mum and Dad kept calling it that. As if somehow Laura’s foot had slipped off the brake and on to the accelerator. As if her hands had turned the steering wheel towards the cliff edge against her will.

‘She was standing right here,’ Mum said. ‘Right where you are now.’

I really wished she hadn’t said that. I could almost picture some ghostly outline of Laura’s body occupying the same space as my own. My feet covering the same square of carpet. Lungs breathing the same air.

Mum had taken me through to her office. It was a small, brightly lit room just to the side of the home’s main entrance. It was furnished with an ash-blonde desk and matching cabinets. There was no clutter. No mess. It was the first room that prospective clients – usually the middle-aged children of future residents – were shown into when they came to view the facilities.

I pressed a fingertip against the corner of the business card. The same card Laura had touched. Close to a month ago.

‘What did she say exactly?’

Mum raised a hand to her chest. ‘It was your sister’s second day visiting. She’d spent most of the first day in bed, remember? She’d looked exhausted, poor love, and I’d told her to rest. I think she surprised herself by how much she slept.’

‘She’d been working too hard.’

‘That’s what I told her. And the next day, she was a little dizzy. She barely ate any breakfast. Looked a little lost. I thought it was the tiredness catching up with her. She came and found me in here and I told her to go back to sleep. But she said she had to go out. There were things she had to do.’

‘What things?’

‘I don’t know. She was being quite guarded. But then, she always was. That was just Laura.’

It used not to be. Not when we were growing up. Not when her laughter had filled our home. It was her job that had changed her. Her high-powered career. There’d been distance between us because of it. And not just because she was so committed to getting ahead – at the expense, it had seemed to me, of leaving us all behind – but also because I’d felt that she’d looked down on me for the choices I’d made. Not going to university. Learning a trade. I’d done it because I’d wanted to focus on my road racing – perhaps go professional one day – but Laura never understood that. She’d treated me as if my whole life was one huge missed opportunity.

I didn’t say any of this to Mum. I never had.

‘And then,’ Mum said, pointing a finger at Rebecca’s business card, ‘she pulled that out of her pocket. I could tell she was nervous about giving it to me. She fiddled with it for a long time. But when she told me what it was . . .’

Mum gazed down at the telephone on her desk. Shook her head.

‘She told you it was for a detective agency?’ I asked.

‘She said she knew Rebecca and that she’d trust her with her life. Those were her words, Rob.
Her life
. And I knew right then that I wouldn’t want to hear any more. But she made me listen. Asked me to promise.’

‘Promise what exactly?’

Mum looked up. There was a vacancy in her eyes. A loss. As if she was letting slip another small piece of her daughter that she’d been fighting hard to hold on to. ‘She made me promise that if anything happened to her, I’d call Rebecca. And when I asked what she meant by that, she wouldn’t say. She wouldn’t explain.’

Her words rocked me. I fell silent. I was afraid that if I pushed too hard, Mum would fall apart right in front of me. That the subject would be closed off for ever.

‘Did she say how they knew each other?’ I asked, in a quiet voice.

‘She said they trained together. At Laura’s work.’

‘Her work?’

‘Yes, at the bank.’

I thought about that. I supposed it was possible that Rebecca had been some kind of financial investigator. Maybe later she’d branched out.

‘When did you contact Rebecca?’ I asked.

‘Not until after the funeral.’

‘And how did she react?’

‘She was surprised. Confused. I had to explain who Laura was. She made me describe her.’

‘Didn’t that strike you as odd?’

‘I almost hung up the phone. I really hadn’t wanted to call that number. Your father was completely against it. I’d been putting it off for days. After what Laura had done . . .’ Mum gulped air, like a diver about to swim to the very bottom of the ocean. ‘I hadn’t wanted to believe anything else could have happened to her. Understand? I could cope with the grief. The shame. But Rob, love, I knew I couldn’t handle the hope.’

She searched out my eyes and I did my best to lock on to hers, as if somehow I could raise her up out of the darkness I’d led her to.

‘But then,’ she said, ‘the funniest thing happened. Rebecca told me she’d take the case. She said she’d start work on it right away. And she said she wouldn’t charge us, Rob. Not a single penny.’

Chapter Eighteen

Lukas had stayed hidden inside the van. He’d been lucky. It had only occurred to him halfway through the journey that he could find himself trapped if the man decided to lock the van when he arrived at his destination. Lukas had listened closely to the noise of a door opening and closing. The sound of the man talking to his dog. But there’d been no electronic
blip
from a car key. No mechanical
thunk
. Instead, he’d heard footsteps on gravel, moving away from him. Then nothing at all.

His leg was stiff, pulsing with a deep, relentless ache. He stretched. Winced. Stretched some more.

He slid on his buttocks towards the sliding door and his fingers groped for the latch. It was awkward to reach from his sitting position. He compressed it – a muffled
click
– and a blade of daylight sliced through the gloom.

Lukas pushed his face into the gap. He was in a sunny yard. A minibus was parked close by. He reached for his gun and used the barrel to ease the door aside so he could hang his head out. A large house was off to his right, three storeys in height, with a glass conservatory on the front. There were a lot of windows, but nobody appeared to be watching him. He could hear coarse engine noise – a generator, perhaps.

Lukas lowered himself to the ground, favouring his good leg. He nudged the door closed behind him and edged around the rear of the van. Another building, this one much closer. It was some kind of converted barn, timber-clad, with a set of double wooden doors right in front of him and a conventional doorway further along. The double doors were unsecured and Lukas was about to investigate when he heard footsteps on gravel, hurrying towards him.

The big man in the sling came into view. Lukas flattened himself against the van, body rigid, the gun down by his thigh, his finger tightening on the trigger.

But the man entered the building without looking in his direction.

Lukas was unsure what to do. The man was dangerous, he was certain of that. But it wasn’t safe out in the open and he couldn’t stay in the van. If Lena was here, he should try to find her. That was what Pieter would do.

Right now, he wished he could switch positions with Pieter. Lukas was no bodyguard. No hero. He was good with computers and gadgets. Capable of following Mr Zeeger’s instructions without asking questions. Prepared to leave his home at a moment’s notice and live in close proximity with Mr Zeeger’s daughter for as long as necessary. Clever enough to know that the assignment he’d been given by Anderson wasn’t strictly legal and that he wasn’t in a position to contact the police. But that didn’t mean he was equipped to handle this.

Whatever
this
was.

He limped towards the double doors. Set his ear to the wood. The timber was solid and he couldn’t hear a thing. He prised an opening and inched forwards into the unknown.

A garage workshop. The concrete floor was painted a pale blue colour, the walls a glossy cream. Something touched his face and he raised his arm in defence, but it was only a set of biking leathers hanging from a rail.