Authors: Huw Thomas
Thursday, 6.12pm:
The silence in the room was starting to get uncomfortable. Brendan was concentrating firmly on his beer bottle. Rebecca’s gaze swept around the lounge but did not linger anywhere; she wanted a fight but still had not worked out how to argue her case. Sarah was plucking at a loose thread on a throw that was over her chair. Face flushed, the smaller woman was staring pointedly out of the window: anger still boiling just beneath the surface.
They had not got very far with their deliberations before the discussion degenerated into acrimony. Sarah’s question about Harper’s character had failed to provoke the response from Tony she was expecting. While blithely describing Harper as a loser with drink and attitude problems, his immediate boss then surprised Sarah and Brendan by qualifying his remarks. Most of Harper’s troubles, said Tony, were due to the fact he was fundamentally unhappy.
He shrugged as he gave his diagnosis: ‘I dunno what his problem is: bullied at school, fucked up by his parents or what. Maybe he’s secretly a queer. I dunno. Anyway, I don’t reckon he’s such a bastard as you might think. He’s not as shallow as me. He’s drinking himself to death and screwing his life up because he’s as miserable as fuck. Maybe he needs a decent woman. Or an indecent one. Anyway, I reckon if you can find out what his problem is, stop him drinking and cheer the fucker up, he’d be a decent bloke underneath. Piece of piss.’
He grinned at Rebecca. ‘And if you can sort him out I’ll buy you a case of beer. Some people work better with a beer inside them but, way he’s going at the moment, he’s turning into a fucking liability. Help him get his head together and he’ll be much more use to me.’
Sarah tried briefly to pursue the point but Tony refused to be drawn into condemning Harper or his lifestyle. ‘Oh sure,’ he had added, ‘the guy drinks more than is healthy and he’s had his share of fuck ups. But we’ve all gone through periods of going out getting trolleyed and living for today. I’ve drunk my share and I’ve seen you two girls get right royally pissed more than once.’
Sarah looked indignant at this point but Tony talked on, riding over her attempt to interrupt. ‘I mean sure, Harper takes it too far and most people reckon he should ease off on the sauce a bit but on the other hand, why should he? He hasn’t got commitments. It’s not like he’s got a wife or kids, is it? Maybe that’s what he wants but it hasn’t worked out that way? Perhaps he just prefers going out and having a good time while the rest of us pretend to be grown-ups?’
Tony shrugged. ‘Okay, I wouldn’t employ him as a baby-sitter and there’s always a bit of a risk factor when you send him out on a job. But, when he’s on form, he’s a fucking ace. I wouldn’t say it to his face but he’s a better fucking reporter than most of them put together. He understands how newspapers work. He’s good with people too when he makes the effort. I reckon if he spent a bit more time sober and was a bit more reliable he could do pretty well for himself.’
By this stage, Sarah was starting to get more agitated. Her plan for an attack from all sides had so far not won any supporters and was proving a one-woman crusade. But she was determined to protect Rebecca from what she saw as an unsavoury and dangerous alliance.
Rebecca, however, knew what would be coming next. Sarah got no further than connecting Harper with the word delusions before she counter-attacked. Desperate to shut her up, Rebecca threw caution to the wind and went in all guns blazing, accusing Sarah of having failed at so many of her own relationships that even the possibility of Rebecca meeting someone special made her jealous. From that point on, the conversation degenerated still further.
A burst of electronica from Tony’s mobile phone stopped them both mid-sentence and he sprang up to answer it with obvious relief. Silenced by the sudden interruption, the two women sat and simmered in mutual resentment. But they were unable to avoid overhearing Tony’s side of the conversation and his obvious alarm helped pour further cold water on the pair’s anger.
Now they could hear Tony just outside the lounge, pacing up and down the hall. Snatches of words followed intermittent pauses as he spoke into his mobile. Eventually, they heard a final ‘okay’ and a long sigh as he closed the phone.
Tony strode back into Rebecca’s lounge. ‘Sorry about that. Had to take that call.’ He glanced around the room. ‘Look, sorry to break up your dating crisis conference or whatever the fuck this is supposed to be but I should be going.’
Rebecca gave a faint smile as she got up and walked over to him. Tony did not look any sorrier to be leaving than she would have been in his position. ‘That’s okay,’ she said, ‘if it wasn’t my house I’d probably have left myself.’
She gestured to the phone still in his hand. ‘What’s up? It sounded serious.’
Tony scowled. ‘You all been sitting here listening to my private conversation?’
‘Sure.’ Rebecca nodded. ‘It sounded a bit more important than the conversation we’ve been having. I don’t think me and Sarah have got much more to say to each other at the moment… and I get the impression Brendan doesn’t want to be here any more than you do.’
The photographer looked up briefly and gave a slow nod. ‘Well, no insult to you ladies but it’s certainly not the most fun I’ve ever had.’
Sarah was silent, still staring out of the window and clutching the piece of material in her hand.
Tony laughed. ‘What a sad bunch of fucks you all are.’ He shrugged. ‘Well, you know what I think of Harper. I’m not going to try and tell you how to run your life or who you should shag.’ He gave Rebecca a friendly pat on the cheek. ‘You do what you want. You can always come and get drunk with me if it goes horribly wrong. Buy me a few drinks and I’ll even get the bastard sacked for you.’
Rebecca laughed as she followed him to the front door. ‘Thanks. It’s good to know I can always rely on your sophisticated approach to counselling, i.e. making sure I get well trolleyed when everything goes tits-up.’
‘Hey, everyone’s got to have some redeeming features.’ He grinned. ‘Remember the state I got you in after you broke up with that guy Rufus.’
‘Fergus.’
‘Whatever. You started off being so depressed and not wanting to go out. By the end of the night, though, you tried to snog all those firefighters. Then we all got chucked out of the club because you wouldn’t stop trying to dance on the bar.’
Rebecca smiled ruefully. ‘Yeah. And that embarrassing little episode goes down in history as the first time I’ve ever had a two-day hangover.’ She squeezed his shoulder. ‘But for now, bugger off and go and see that lovely wife of yours.’
He shrugged. ‘I will but I’ve got to nip in at the police station first.’
Rebecca looked surprised. ‘Why, what’s up?’
Tony waved his hands. ‘I’m not sure. Could be nothing, could be serious. I just said I’d pop in on the way home and see what I can tell them.’
‘Is this what that phone call was about?’
‘Yeah. It’s one of the reporters at
The Post.
Girl called Louise. She seems to have disappeared. The police don’t generally make much of a thing of missing persons but her boyfriend’s making a fuss. Without a body, it’s hard for the coppers to know whether someone’s actually come to harm or just got pissed off and done a bunk but her bloke seems to have managed to persuade them to take it seriously.’
‘Was that who you were talking to?’
‘Nah. Some DS down the nick. They’re talking to Oscar, that’s the boyfriend, at the moment. They want me to go along, help see if his story checks out, I guess.’
‘So what’s happened to her?’
Tony snorted. ‘I’ve no fucking idea. I wouldn’t have pegged her as the victim type but on the other hand she’s never pissed me about either.’ He shrugged. ‘Last time I saw her was Tuesday. She left work normal time but never turned up the next day. I was really pissed off because I was already one reporter down what with your mate Harper getting knocked over and ending up in hospital. Louise never even rang in sick but I was so fucking busy that day I didn’t have time to worry about it. When she still didn’t turn up yesterday and today I was starting to wonder but I thought either she’d got some really bad bug, in which case she wasn’t going to be any use to me anyway, or she’d jacked the job in and run off somewhere else.’
Rebecca frowned. ‘You’re a cynical old bastard.’
Tony smiled. ‘Nah. Just realistic. There’s a job to be done; I just keep ’em on their toes. I haven’t got time to mollycoddle losers or lightweights and if I don’t get the paper together on time it’ll be my arse on the line, not theirs.’ He frowned. ‘But it seems like Louise wasn’t slacking and if her boyfriend’s telling the truth, it sounds like she hasn’t done a bunk either. He says she went out Tuesday night with some girlfriends but never came home.’
Rebecca shrugged uneasily. ‘Perhaps things weren’t as good at home as the boyfriend thought. Or she’s gone off with someone else and hasn’t plucked up the courage to tell him yet.’
Tony sighed. ‘Yeah, that would have been my guess. She’s a good looker and she plays hard too but Oscar reckons he’s spoken to the friends she was with and they say they were all together until nearly midnight. Plus, she rang Oscar about eleven to say she was having a good time but would be back soon.’ He scowled. ‘And if she was going to run out on him wouldn’t she have taken something with her? All her clothes and stuff are still at home. It’s not like she’s slipped a load of things into a suitcase and pretended to go on a night out with the girls. That would make more fucking sense. But she went out with her mates, told them she was going home and rang her bloke to tell him she was on the way.’
‘What about her family?’
‘Dunno.’ Tony shrugged. He tugged at one earlobe; a little giveaway that Rebecca knew meant he was more bothered than his manner suggested. ‘I don’t think they’re local. I guess the cops will be looking into that. If they haven’t heard from her either, I don’t reckon it’s looking good.’
Brendan appeared in the lounge door. He looked uneasy. ‘Would that be Louise Brent you’re talking about?’
Tony nodded. ‘Yeah. Why? You got any idea where she’s got to?’
Brendan shook his head quickly. ‘Me? No. I haven’t seen her since Monday. I just couldn’t help hearing some of what you were saying. It’s all a wee bit worrying. Tuesday night she went missing was it?’
‘That’s right.’
Rebecca watched the photographer. He looked bothered, as if attempting to work something out, trying to decide what to say. Beside her, Tony started to open the door.
‘What’s up, Brendan?’ she asked.
His face screwed up into an awkward twist. ‘Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing,’ he said, glancing away to look down the hall. ‘It’s just been a strange week, what with Danny getting run down and… all that.’
Tony stopped and glanced back at Brendan. He gave the photographer a sharp stare. ‘All what?’ he demanded.
Brendan’s eyes widened. ‘Oh nothing,’ he said hastily. ‘Only it crossed my mind that Danny might have run into her. Me an’ him met up with Rebecca here on Tuesday night. We were down the White Lion until quite late. I walked a little way back to Danny’s place with him but we went our own way down near the far end of Station Road.’
Tony snorted, losing interest. ‘What? And you reckon Louise might have bumped into Danny and run off with him? I don’t think so. They weren’t exactly the best of friends.’
He shook his head and gave Rebecca a parting peck on the cheek. ‘Well, it’s been simply super fun, darling, but please don’t invite me next time you want a fucking boyfriend checked out. I’m off.’
With that he was out of the door and down the steps, striding away quickly as he headed towards his car and escape. Brendan made to follow him but Rebecca grabbed his collar and steered him back inside. ‘Not you. Sarah’s leaving but you and me are going to talk.’
Thursday, 9.20pm:
Cole scowled at the sheets of paper on his desk and pushed them to one side. The man employed to watch John Harrison seemed to have done a thorough job but the report contained nothing new. The city councillor was pulling the strings for various property deals and oiling the wheels of a few shadier activities but that would appear to be it; business as normal for a politician on the make.
Similar surveillance had been organised on several other figures operating around the fringes of the city’s underworld. Cole had not expected to learn anything new but still found the absence of information frustrating. Some people were outside his reach, the kind of individuals no investigator with sense would want to be caught watching. But there were also those he had no way of knowing even existed: the lone wolves and random operators whose actions were as unpredictable as their motives.
Cole flexed his shoulders, feeling the tension. His body was telling him he needed a good workout but his mind was in no mood to relax. Starved of new information it was recycling the old: putting together new combinations, testing alternative calculations, trying to come up with a solution to the unknowable. The occasional tensing of the ex-dancer’s hands and a small tic at his left temple provided the only clues to his agitation. On the surface he appeared calm but the anger was bubbling away underneath. He needed a way to vent his frustration but that would only come when he had something on which to work: information that would allow him to plot his course of action.
He picked up a pen and put it down again. He picked up the papers on his desk and shuffled them together before putting them back. The screensaver was running on his laptop: muted streaks of colour flowing across the screen in abstract whorls. Cole flicked the mouse button to bring the machine to life. He looked at the screen blankly then hit the keys to shut the laptop down.
He had picked up his diary and was flicking through the pages when the phone on his desk rang. Cole snatched it out of the cradle before it could ring a second time. ‘Yes.’
‘Mr Cole: someone here who would like to see you.’
‘Hold on.’ Cole reached across and jabbed a finger at the power button on a small monitor to the side of his desk. The image that appeared showed the entrance to the fitness studio. A single man stood in front of the studio’s reception counter.
Cole’s eyes widened a fraction. ‘Well, well. Okay, send him up.’
‘Anything else, Mr Cole?’
‘No, that’s fine. I’ll give you a call if I need any assistance.’
Cole turned in his padded chair and waited. The fingers of his left hand drummed slowly on the arm of the chair.
A couple of minutes later the door opened. It closed behind the visitor as he entered the room. The man looked hesitant and glanced around as if to check whether there was anyone else present.
‘So. Mr Harper.’ Cole stood up and padded across the room’s soft carpet. The ex-dancer was barefoot, wearing a loose pair of trousers and tight-fitting t-shirt.
Harper watched Cole as he approached. The redhead moved like a man already limbered up for action. The taut shirt also highlighted the defined musculature of the smaller man’s upper torso.
Cole stopped a few feet away; not too close but easy enough range for a punch or a kick. Harper could see the gentle rise and fall of the other man’s chest, and the way the tendons in his arms stood out. He wondered again at the wisdom of coming back to the scene of last night’s interrogation. Cole’s eyes flicked up and down Harper then back to his face. ‘Well. Didn’t expect to see you again, Mr Harper.’
Harper shrugged awkwardly. ‘I hadn’t planned it myself. But I didn’t tell you everything yesterday.’
Cole raised his eyebrows then nodded. He gestured to the sofa beside his desk. ‘Since you’re here… have a seat. Tell me about it.’
‘Thanks.’ Harper moved cautiously towards the sofa, reluctant to sit but realising it would seem suspicious to refuse the offer. He lowered himself onto the leather, which creaked beneath him. Unaware he was doing it, he placed one hand on the sofa’s curved steel arm: ready to push himself up again at a moment’s notice.
Cole went back to the chair at his desk. He sat down and swivelled round to face Harper, crossing one leg across his lap and putting his hands behind his head: a motion that pulled his shirt even tighter and flexed the muscles of his arms. ‘So?’
‘I… might be able to help you?’
‘Really?’
Harper took a deep breath. ‘Last night. When you were… asking questions.’
‘Yes?’
‘I… I’ve been… under a bit of stress. I’d had a bit to drink last night too. I wasn’t thinking clearly when I went to your sister’s place.’ He looked apologetic. ‘I know it was stupid. I hadn’t thought it through.
Cole waved one hand. ‘Look. I don’ need no bleedin’ apology. Just get to the point. Why are you here?’
Harper nodded. ‘Sure, sorry. The thing is, when you were asking what I was up to, I didn’t know who you were or why you were interested in Stacey Cole. That’s one reason I wasn’t sure what to say.’
Cole nodded curtly. ‘Go on.’
Harper’s gaze dropped to the floor. He was silent for a moment then looked back up at Cole. ‘She was… she’s your sister, right?’
The ex-dancer’s eyes narrowed. He stared hard at Harper for a moment: looking as if he was making some difficult calculations, rocking slightly in his chair. Eventually he nodded. ‘Yeah. She’s my sister.’
‘Is she missing?’
Cole started to rise from his chair but stopped part way. ‘Yes. She is… missing.’ The words were angry and sounded as if they had been dragged out against his will. A vein began pulsing on his left temple and the redhead gripped the sides of his chair with white knuckles; he looked as if on a hair trigger, ready to explode across the room without further notice.
Harper recognised the tension in Cole’s posture. He nodded quickly and raised his hands in an appeasing gesture. ‘Look, I don’t know anything about that as such. I don’t know what happened to her or where she’s got to.’
Cole went still. ‘How do you know anythin’ has “happened” to her?’
‘I don’t,’ said Harper. He shrugged. ‘In all honesty, I’ve got no idea what’s happened to your sister. If anything has,’ he added quickly. ‘But the fact that she’s disappeared…’
Cole’s face flushed. He jumped to his feet, stopping Harper’s words in mid flow. The other man stared at Harper then turned and paced across to the windows looking down onto the dance studio. He took a couple of deep breaths. ‘So. What are you tryin’ to tell me, Mr Harper?’
Harper breathed out. ‘Like I said, I’ve been working on a story. That’s why I went to see your sister. The thing is: I didn’t tell you what it was about.’
‘And you’re goin’ to tell me.’
‘Yes. That’s right. Well…’
Cole was still staring through the glass, apparently concentrating on whatever was happening in the dance class below. His shoulders tensed as Harper hesitated. ‘Don’t go coy on me, Mr Harper. You’ve got me intrigued. I think you should get on with it and tell me what it’s all about.’
‘Yeah. Sorry.’ Harper looked at the distance between his sofa and the door. ‘Er... Do you know what Stacey did for a living?’
Cole span round. He spat out a gasp of high-pitched laughter as he saw Harper’s face. ‘Is that why you’re so fuckin’ tongue-tied? You’re worried you’re going to tell me somethin’ about my little sister I’d rather not hear?’
‘Well…’ Harper waved his hands. ‘I don’t know.’
Cole grinned wildly. ‘Fuck! Don’t worry about that. I know what Stace and her friends did for a livin’. Call it what you want but, yeah, I know. So, just get to the point for Chrissake!’
Harper nodded quickly. ‘Okay. Well. I’ve been following up some stories I’d heard about women going missing.’
‘Missin’?’
‘Yeah. Mostly women… like your sister.’
‘Where’d you hear this?’
‘A few places. Bits and pieces. That’s why I was trying to find out more. I didn’t have enough for a story for the paper. All I had was a few rumours. Stories about women who’d vanished.’
‘Vanished?’
Harper nodded. ‘Yeah, just disappeared. No one saw them go and I’ve not heard any reports of bodies being found or anything like that. No stories of anyone being attacked. Just women who were around one day and then disappeared. But without taking anything with them.’
‘How many?’
Harper looked awkward. ‘I’m not sure. A lot of stuff was hearsay. Some of the stories might even be about the same person. I’m not sure how many. Maybe four or five, maybe several times that number.’
‘When?’
‘When?’
‘Yeah. When did they go? Last week, last month, last year? What sort of time period are you talkin’ about?’
Harper hesitated. He swallowed. He was not used to telling a story on the hoof when he only knew a few of the facts and was uncertain which ones would fit the version being spun. ‘I’m not certain. I only heard about it recently. A few weeks ago. But I think some might go back a while.’
Cole was silent, staring into space. Harper shuffled on the leather sofa, watching the other man. Eventually the redhead turned to look at Harper again. ‘So where’d you hear these stories then?’
Harper swallowed. This was the hardest one. He shrugged: desperate to appear casual. ‘A few different places,’ he said. ‘I think I first heard it from one of the other journalists on the paper; she’d got it from a source. Then I was on a job around Union Road one night. I was looking for witnesses to a robbery and I got talking to this streetwalker. She hadn’t seen the robbery but when she knew I was a reporter she started going on about nowhere being safe and telling me about a friend who vanished. After that, I picked up a couple more rumours. Like I said, nothing concrete but it seemed like it was starting to add together.’
Cole nodded slowly. ‘You say anythin’ to the police?’
‘No.’ Harper shook his head. ‘Not in the sense of reporting it. I did ask a couple of coppers whether they knew anything. One of them had heard the same sort of rumours but I get the impression the police haven’t got enough to go on to make them take it seriously.’
Cole grunted. ‘That would be about right,’ he said, talking as much to himself as to Harper.
‘There’s something else though.’
‘What’s that?’
Harper scratched his chin nervously. ‘Well, because I’d heard the same rumours in a few places, I started digging around. Which was why I’d gone to try and talk to your sister. I’d asked a few other people already. The police, like I said. I also asked this other journalist if they knew anything else.’
‘And?’
‘Well, they gave me a name. Apparently this person may be connected somehow with the women who’ve gone missing.’
Cole stared hard at Harper. ‘And?’
‘Isaiah Van Hulle.’
‘The developer?’
‘Apparently. I don’t know how they’ve got his name or what the evidence is but they seemed certain about it.’
‘And you don’t know who this source is?’
‘No.’
‘And why should I trust you, Mr Harper?’
Harper shrugged. It was a fair question but not one to which he could risk giving an honest answer. He swallowed dryly. ‘Because I’ve got no reason to lie,’ he said. ‘Because I want this person caught too. I’d like a story for the newspaper but I also want them caught. And if the police aren’t doing anything about it, I thought someone like you might be able to think of something.’