11. Jimmy
“Someone went after Mel last night.”
The look on Douglas Conner’s face was enough for Jimmy. The shock and fear, the concern – on a face that never normally showed any kind of reaction at all. Then the rapid leap from those reactions to the screens snapping back into place as he realized that if anything truly bad had happened he wouldn’t be finding out like this.
“I intervened,” said Jimmy. “I dealt with it. That’s why I’m there, isn’t it? To look out for her. That’s why you didn’t tell me she was involved. You didn’t think I’d take it on if you’d told me she was there.”
A nod, eyes averted again – another rare chink in his armor.
It was evening, the South Bank. The scaffolding-clad towers of the Houses of Parliament loomed across the river, the anonymous gray offices lined up along the bank on this side. The lamp posts with twined iron serpents at their bases, along the riverside wall. The usual mix of tourists and commuters, and late-working civil servants grabbing a few minutes out of the office on another beautiful evening.
Jimmy had come here just for this. To see the reaction on Conner’s face. To ground himself again. Right now he hated his brother more than ever, for getting under his skin so easily.
“She okay?”
Jimmy nodded. Conner trusted him to give as much detail as necessary, but also no more. Did everyone in the service learn to shut themselves down like this, or was it simply that this was how Conner handled things and Jimmy had used the older man as a role model?
“You could have told me Mel was involved. I don’t like surprises.”
“Would you have gone?”
Now it was Jimmy’s turn to avert his gaze, avoid answering.
“You were the best man for the job,” said Conner.
“I’m not a babysitter.”
Now Conner fixed him with those gray eyes. “That wasn’t the job,” he said. “There’s a seventeen-year-old girl missing. At risk. That was the job. It still is, if you think you’re up to it.”
Jimmy was surprised. He didn’t think Conner was lying to him now. Yes, looking out for Mel had been part of it, but Conner seemed genuinely concerned for Harriet Rayner. This was clearly more than just a missing persons case to him.
Glenn’s mind games had really got to Jimmy, made him question everything, when he should have kept it simple. He’d been sent to find a missing girl. That was the job. Nothing more than that.
For a short time the two stood leaning on the balustrade, looking out across the river at the passing boats.
“You okay?” Conner asked.
Jimmy was surprised at the question, immediately wondering what Conner had seen in him this evening. Had he picked up on the turmoil in his mind?
Then Conner added: “The funeral’s tomorrow, isn’t it?”
He nodded. It was a normal question, the kind of thing you would ask someone who gave a shit, who hadn’t walked out on their family and all it entailed ten years before.
“I’m good,” he said. “You were right. It was the perfect in for me – nobody’s surprised to see me back there.”
Conner nodded. “Find her, Jimmy. Get that kid home safe, okay? Pursue every lead, no matter how flimsy. Break the rules if you have to.”
Again, Jimmy was reminded of what was at stake.
“Rules?” he said now. “We have rules?”
§
He spent the night at his apartment by Battersea Park. He’d stayed here perhaps three nights in the last forty, and the place had an unloved and unoccupied feel to it.
Tonight he was newly aware of how anonymous these four rooms were. Furnished from Ikea and Homebase, right down to the blandly generic prints on the walls. No books, DVDs or CDs; no photographs in frames. Nothing that might betray either the identity or personality of whoever lived here. The clothes in the wardrobes and drawers were a simple selection of jeans, dark suits, white shirts, all in multiples so he could dress fresh and still look the same. He could walk away from this place with what mattered to him in his pockets and a pen drive, and never look back.
He’d done that more than once before. Different apartments, different cities around the world.
Attachments and complications were for real people.
He felt guilty, returning to apparent domesticity when the girl was still missing, but he needed to get some sleep at some point, and he knew he’d achieve nothing by rushing back into the thick of things tonight.
He ate with chopsticks straight from foil trays that night, rereading the case files on a tablet then using various specialist search tools to hunt down Harriet Rayner again, but with no success. He logged in to the Section’s system to see if Mamta Patil had flagged anything new for him, but nothing, again.
It had been almost a week now. He wondered how long it would be before the police accepted that this was more than just the case of a troubled girl with a neurotic, paranoid mother.
Because Jimmy was in no doubt now. Harriet’s disappearance was not simply a domestic thing.
Even though it was late, he called Mel, his thumb pausing briefly over the Dial icon as he recalled persuading her to exchange numbers, and thereby to accept that she would step back and let him investigate. He owed it to her to at least check in, even with nothing to report.
No reply.
When it went to voicemail, he said, “Hi. No real developments, I’m afraid. Chances are still good that she’s just lying low somewhere.”
He was beginning to sound like Glenn. What was it he’d said? Sleeping it off or shagging a dealer…
“The police have dug around, too.” Neither deeply nor thoroughly, but hey, he wasn’t going to tell her that right now. It was important she knew Harriet hadn’t been forgotten, but he knew he was treading a delicate line between keeping spirits up and offering false hope. “Call me, okay? It’s good to talk in times like this.”
Times when you should be preparing for bad news, and when even talking to the guy who’d failed you all that time ago might be better than nothing because at least he understands the situation and you can talk openly.
He didn’t know how to sign off, so just cut the connection.
Where was she right now? He didn’t know where she lived, although she’d said something about London. For all he knew she could be sitting in a room within a street or two of his apartment.
He resisted the urge to run her through the system.
Last night... this morning. That had been a mistake.
He was making too many mistakes right now. Letting Glenn get under his skin. Allowing himself to be distracted by all the family stuff, the funeral. Allowing his mind to fill with speculations and doubts.
This wasn’t who he was.
It was late. He gathered the remains of his meal, the trays picked clean. Dumped them in the recycling and rinsed off the chopsticks, before drying them and putting them away.
Tonight he would sleep well, because he had the opportunity of a straight eight hours and that was what he was trained to do. And in the morning he had one call to make before heading back for his father’s funeral.
§
The place was nothing more than a double garage that had been converted into a tiny two-level home with skylights set into the shallow A-frame roof. It occupied one corner of the garden of an old red-brick Victorian house.
Jimmy knocked, then took a step back, aware of how intimidating an early morning call from a stranger could be for anyone living alone, let alone someone as emotionally fragile as Penny Rayner.
She opened the door, peering out at him from round eyes, her make-up full and exaggerated even for this early, the mascara forming little clumps on her lashes. Rather than appearing intimidated by his sudden appearance, she puckered her lips into a rosebud smile, and widened her eyes farther.
It was a look he recognized. One that measured him up, assessing what he might have to offer and what she might be able to take. The look of a woman who had navigated her way through life by making exactly that kind of assessment.
He’d met many junkies over the years, and every single time he hated to see what it did to a person.
“Ms Rayner,” he said, with a dip of the head. “I’m sorry to disturb you so early in the day.”
“Oh please,” she said. She’d already clearly worked out he wasn’t just a random caller.
“Your daughter,” he said. “Have you heard from Harriet recently?”
“You’re with the police?” she said. “They said they would send someone.”
He didn’t deny it. She hadn’t answered his question, but it was clear from her manner that she had heard nothing.
“I just wondered if I might take a look at her room?” he said now. “Sometimes a trained eye sees something that others might miss.”
He didn’t give a shit about her room. He just wanted to see inside the house.
It was one of the likeliest scenarios, after all. Girl goes missing, she’s either done a runner for any one of a number of predictable reasons, or she’s got herself into some kind of trouble, or there’s a domestic explanation. And in this case, the only domestic part of her life she had was Penny Rayner.
As Penny still hesitated he smiled, and that was enough for her to smile in return, step back, and let him into her home.
The place was tidy to the extent of obsessive. Nothing out of place, no dust or cobwebs. He tried to imagine this woman’s life, but couldn’t, the excessive control and order periodically shattered by lapses into chaos.
Right now he couldn’t tell whether she was on top of things, or obsessively clinging on, about to plummet.
“Her room?” he prompted.
Penny looked away, and said, “She doesn’t have one. She’s never stayed.”
He’d read of their domestic arrangements in the files, of course, but somehow he’d assumed the girl would at least have something here. He smiled, wondering why Penny Rayner had even let him in if that were the case, and as he did so, his gaze flitted about the interior of her home.
They stood in a small lobby area, a dark wood sideboard below a horizontal rectangular mirror that took up most of one wall. Open doorways led into kitchen and living room, and slatted wooden stairs led up to the bedroom and bathroom – he’d already checked the building’s floorplan before coming here.
He didn’t need to look any farther. If Harriet was lying low here, there would have been something to betray that fact. Shoes by the door, a plate or a cup left out, at least something that interrupted this place’s immaculate orderliness.
“Her apartment?” he said. “Are you sure she hasn’t been back?”
Penny shook her head. He knew the police had checked the place, and there had been no sign of occupation since last week.
He left a pause. Enough to unsettle Penny, expose any vulnerabilities. Could she act this well if she was trying to mislead him, or cover something up?
Perhaps. She was an addict, after all, so she was accustomed to the ways of clever deceit.
But the girl clearly wasn’t hiding out here, and if something more sinister had happened between the two of them he found it hard to believe this frail and brittle woman would have come out on top.
Minutes later, Jimmy was walking away, heading to where he’d left his car out of sight around the corner.
He’d been clutching at straws, he knew.
Perhaps that was why he’d come back to the city in the first place yesterday – not to confront Conner, but in the vain hope he’d find some trace of Harriet here and so not have to head back today for his father’s funeral.
He climbed into the driving seat of his black Audi. A pool car, provided by the Section; another disposable part of his life like the apartment.
He checked his phone. No messages. No updates from Patil.
No answer to the voicemail he’d left for Mel last night. She didn’t have to respond, of course. He’d merely reported on progress – or lack of it – and hadn’t asked any questions that might require an answer. It would have been perfectly legitimate for her to listen to the message and do nothing.
Now, he thought back to the previous morning, standing awkwardly with her in the street after breakfast.
He’d told her he’d call, knowing it sounded like such a damned platitude.
You’d fucking better.
She’d given a little smile, but there had been a spark in her look, a flash of something.
At the time he’d taken it for frustration at her own powerlessness, an acknowledgment that the time had come to step back, leave this to the professionals.
But had it been something else? A frustration directed at him, rather than her own helpless position?
Anger at him for being right, perhaps? She’d hate that. Maybe she’d gone silent now to punish him.
Or maybe she was simply leaving him to get on with what he claimed to be good at. Now, that thought only reinforced his own frustration that all he’d managed in the last twelve hours was to pursue a few dead ends and get some sleep for the first time in several days.
He stared at his phone for far longer than necessary. Telling himself, all the time, that it was only that he wanted to know she was okay, and not at all that he wanted to hear her voice, even just to read something she had written... anything. He’d gone ten years with nothing from her, and now he struggled even to go twenty-four hours.