Safe House (23 page)

The view was dizzying. Far below her was a sprawling city vista of thousands of lights that extended for many miles towards the darkened horizon. She was up very high, in some kind of tower block. There were matching apartment blocks all around her, made of dull brown brick and powdered concrete and dirty glass. The towers looked to be around sixty storeys in height. They were shabby and uncared for. Discoloured net curtains hung in the windows. A weather-beaten English flag was stretched between two apartments. There was no way of telling which English city she was in. She could be anywhere.

Lena calculated that she was perhaps ten storeys below the top of the nearest tower block. The window in front of her was a fixed single pane of glass with no hinged openings. There was a hairline crack in the top left corner. The outside of the glass was covered in some kind of opaque film that was beginning to peel away just above the crack. She guessed the film was there to tint the glass and make it impossible for her to signal for help.

She rolled around until her buttocks were resting on the window ledge. The only things inside the room were the duvet and the light bulb and the egg-box soundproofing and the rubber underlay.

There was a door in the middle of the facing wall. It was covered in the grey foam tiles. The tiles had been cut away to fit around the circular door handle.

Lena pushed off from the windowsill and staggered across the room in her socks. She shook some feeling into her good arm. Then she reached out for the handle.

She hadn’t expected it to turn. She’d assumed it would be locked. But the handle rotated freely and the door opened inwards and she stepped through into a much larger room.

‘Good, you’re up,’ said a voice to her left. ‘You like pizza?’

Chapter Thirty-two

Rebecca wanted to head to the sports centre right away, but I told her we couldn’t. For one thing, the keys were back at my place. And for another, it was after 11 p.m. The sports centre would be closed. We’d have to wait until morning.

So Rebecca decided to drive me home to see the keys for herself. I wasn’t sure what she hoped to find. Maybe she thought I’d overlooked something but I didn’t believe that I had. The garage key was just that – a simple key. I’d told her everything I could about the key branded with the letters
NSC
. And the plastic fob was a translucent red disc. There was no way it contained anything more. Nothing special about it, whatsoever.

We were accelerating away from the seafront promenade and climbing up Summer Hill Road when Rebecca said, ‘It’s interesting, don’t you think, that Lena entrusted the key to you?’

‘I thought your theory was that Laura had given her my name. That Laura recommended me to her.’

‘But remember what Erik told us? He said he’d placed Lena under the care of Lukas and Pieter. That they were looking out for her.’

‘So?’

‘So if that was the case, why would Lena involve you in the first place? Why wouldn’t she just get Lukas or Pieter to take her to the sports centre? Or better still, why didn’t she stay in the cottage while one of them went to the sports centre on her behalf?’

I thought about that. ‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘But when I first went up to the cottage, I got the impression Lukas was wary of me.’

‘Go on.’

‘Lena told me that they’d been without hot water for days. She said she’d been practically begging Lukas and Pieter to call someone. She made a big deal out of it. Like she couldn’t have called me herself.’

‘And?’

‘And your suggestion was that the heating system was sabotaged. By Lena. As if it was her only way of getting help. As if maybe Lukas and Pieter weren’t protecting her so much as holding her against her will.’

I let the idea spin out in my mind. The first thing I recalled was Lena’s attitude when we were riding my motorbike away from the cottage through the rainy tree cover. I remembered how excited she’d been. Giggling. Striking me on the back.
As if it was more than a trip for her. Like it was an escape, maybe.

The second thing I recalled was Lena’s response when I asked if the men in the cottage were her friends.
You can call them this, I suppose
. Did that mean they weren’t friends? And if not, what did it make them? Enemies? It was hard to believe they were a threat to her. Lena hadn’t behaved as if she was scared and I couldn’t believe they’d have left me alone with her if that was the case. They’d have wanted to be sure she didn’t tell me anything, that she didn’t try to alert me to whatever danger she was in. So not enemies. But not friends, either. Something else entirely. Something in between. Guardians, maybe. Unwanted ones, perhaps. What was it Erik had said when we’d first spoken on the phone? I’d asked him if Pieter and Lukas had told him that Lena had gone for a motorbike ride with me, and he’d replied,
No. It was
forbidden
for her to leave the house
.

‘Erik lied to us once already,’ Rebecca said. ‘He could easily have done it again.’

‘You think everything he said was a lie?’

Rebecca twisted her lips in thought. ‘Not all of it. I believe he’s Lena’s father. There’s the photograph of him and Lena when she was younger. The jet with the SuperZ symbol. Faking that would be way too elaborate. And I buy the idea of her rebelling against him. Hence her relationship with Alex Tyler.’

‘You don’t think she loved Tyler?’

Rebecca was silent for a moment. ‘Hey, they were planning to get married. So I’d say it’s a given that they were in love. But Erik and Anderson said that they doubted Alex’s motives were so noble when they first got together. That could have worked both ways. Lena would have known when she began the relationship that Erik wouldn’t approve.’

‘So?’

‘So maybe Erik isn’t so quick to forgive as he was making out. Maybe he’s more interested in protecting himself than Lena.’

‘Protecting himself from what?’

‘I don’t know just yet. That’s the problem.’

I sat there in the drowsy warmth of the car, my head propped against the darkened window glass, thinking more about Erik and the things that he’d told us. I couldn’t see where his truths ended and the lies began. I couldn’t get a feel for his real motives. Did he want to find Lena for her sake, or his? Did it matter either way?

Rebecca slowed for the entrance to Snaefell View and trundled through the gravel to the parking area outside my place. Most of the care home was in darkness. I could see lights on behind the windows of my parents’ quarters and the twilight glow from the safety bulbs in the corridors that connected the residents’ rooms.

I stepped out of the car. Night chill wormed its way beneath the collar of my shirt. The air smelled like rain and when I glanced up, menacing grey clouds pressed down from above.

I heard a
clunk
and saw a flash of orange in the dark. Rebecca had locked her car. I turned and smiled at her, then rooted through my pockets for my house keys and headed towards my door. But I didn’t need my keys. The door was hanging open, revealing a sliver of gloomy hallway beyond.

Chapter Thirty-three

‘What is it?’ Rebecca asked.

‘I locked up when I went out,’ I said, in a low voice.

‘Could your parents have come in for something?’

‘My grandpa, maybe.’

‘Does he have a key?’

I nodded.

‘Well, there you go.’

‘But there are no lights on inside. And I left Rocky with him tonight. I can’t think why he’d have come over.’

‘Maybe he needed something for your dog.’

I shook my head. ‘Rocky had everything he could have wanted.’

I could hear Rebecca’s breathing from behind me. It was all I could hear. There was no noise from inside my apartment. No sound whatsoever. But it felt like someone was lying in wait. Lurking in the dark.

‘What do you want to do?’ she asked.

‘Go in, I guess.’

‘Well, here. Take this.’

She rooted through her backpack, then pressed something into my hand. I glanced down. She’d passed me a small plastic canister, like a travel-size deodorant.

‘Pepper spray,’ she explained. ‘Just point and squirt.’

I swallowed.

‘You want me to go first?’ she whispered.

I didn’t answer her. It was too tempting to say yes and I couldn’t rely on myself not to do it. I lowered my head and clenched my jaw and reached out and swung the door back hard. It knocked against the wall. A sharp tap in the awful silence. I didn’t mind that. If there was someone up there, I wanted them to know I was coming. I wanted to give them a chance to step out and hold up their hands or yell some kind of warning.

Amazing how alien my own home suddenly felt. The cupboard under the stairs and the door through to my workshop posed a threat I hadn’t experienced before. Was someone hiding there? Would they lash out if I checked?

I flicked on the light. Squinted against the sudden glare. Held the chemical spray out in front of my face and moved for the stairs.

I was very conscious of my arm in the sling. The way it would handicap me if someone rushed me or attacked me at the top. I peered up. Nobody there. I half turned and braced my hip against the wall and used it for support as I climbed.

Rebecca was following me. Close on my heels. She flicked her wrist and I heard a sudden clatter. Now she was gripping something in her hand. The object was long and slim and made of shiny black steel. A telescopic baton. She must have been carrying it in her backpack. Her bag was on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. I guessed she didn’t want it getting in her way. Or maybe the idea was to trip my intruder up if he managed to get past us.

I cleared my throat. ‘Is anyone there?’

Nothing. No answer. I was beginning to relax. To think that maybe I hadn’t locked the door, after all. I remembered that I’d been carrying Rocky’s bed when I’d left. I’d been in a hurry. Maybe I’d simply forgotten.

There was another light switch at the top of the stairs. I reached for it fast. My kitchen and living room emerged from the black.

Not my mistake. I hadn’t overlooked the door. Someone had definitely been here.

The place wasn’t a mess. It hadn’t been ransacked. But there were still signs. A kitchen drawer was open close to the sink and the door to my storage cupboard was hanging ajar. No way would I have left things like that. I’m an organised person. I live in an ordered home. It bugs me if a drawer isn’t shut properly. It rankles when the mess in my storage cupboard is on display. And there was no reason for Grandpa or my parents to go rooting though my kitchen.

There were giveaways in the rest of the apartment, too. My clothes had been disturbed. One of the doors on my wardrobe isn’t hung quite right, and if you don’t close it first, the other door overlaps without shutting flush. I never leave it like that. It’d irritate me too much. But it was like that now.

But what really gave it away was my study.

It isn’t a large space. Just a box room, really. I have a filing cabinet there, and the bottom drawer was wide open. My chair had been rolled away from the desk, so that the plastic wheels weren’t sitting on their usual indents in the carpet. And there was a tell-tale space in the very middle of my desk.

‘My laptop’s gone,’ I said.

Rebecca was leaning her shoulder against the door frame, swinging the baton in her hand. It looked capable of breaking an arm or cracking a skull. I wondered if she needed some kind of licence to own it.

‘Anything else?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. Maybe. It’s difficult to tell.’

‘You want to check downstairs?’

‘
Want
is a strong word.’

We checked anyway. There was no evidence of disturbance. My motorbikes were all present and correct. My tools and equipment, too. Nobody was crouching beneath the workbench or hiding in the cupboard under the stairs.

I closed the front door. Engaged the deadlock. Led Rebecca upstairs again.

I went to my fridge for two bottles of lager and fetched a bottle-opener. Then I slid the lagers and the opener across the granite surface of my breakfast bar to Rebecca. Tricky for me to pop the caps one-handed.

‘Here,’ she said, and returned a bottle.

The lager tasted good. Cold, with a bitter aftertaste on the back of my tongue.

‘What was on your laptop?’ she asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘Nothing anyone could want. Just business stuff. Family stuff.’

‘Stuff about Laura?’

I drew on my lager as I thought about that. ‘There were a few things,’ I said, swallowing. ‘I was helping Mum and Dad deal with her estate. Writing letters to her banks, her mortgage provider. I wrote an obit for the paper. We put together the order of service for her funeral. And there were family photographs on there, too.’

Rebecca slid on to one of the cushioned kitchen stools. She unzipped her leather jacket. She had on a baby-blue T-shirt underneath. The neck-line scooped low. She rested her elbows on the kitchen counter. Took a swig of her lager and pointed at me with a finger of the hand holding the bottle.

‘This doesn’t strike me as a random burglary. It’s too neat for that. There’s too much still here.’

‘You think whoever took the laptop is looking for Lena?’

‘Don’t you?’

I pulled a face. Slumped back with my spine pressing against the kitchen sink. Nodded my head towards the open cupboard door. ‘Is this how spies behave? I thought they might have covered their tracks a bit better. At least closed my front door.’

‘They took your laptop, Rob. It’s kind of a giveaway.’

‘So no point concealing the break-in?’

Rebecca nodded. She used her nails to pick at the label on her bottle of lager. ‘Do you want to call the police?’

‘And what? Have Shimmin tell me I’m imagining things again?’

‘Hard for him to do that.’

‘Not so hard when he’s done it before.’

I drank more lager. It felt good. Felt great, actually. I hadn’t been drunk in a long time. I got the feeling it’d be easy to get that way tonight, especially with the painkillers I was on. Drink one bottle fast. Another quickly after. Let the buzz cloud my thinking. Disrupt my judgement. My inhibitions.