The Last Witness

He was shaking uncontrollably, his voice quavering. ‘Jesus, guys… Jesusss. I told you, I don’t know.’

‘No more chances, Tony. This is it…’

Savard felt himself being lifted again. ‘No! No!.. No!’

Michel could hardly bear to listen any more, knowing with certainty that there was nothing they could do to help. But the voices gripped him in almost morbid fascination — though now he was honing in more on background sounds: stillness, virtual silence. No traffic or background city drone. They should have picked up on that earlier when Savard was lifted from the van! If they had, they might have known they were wasting their time at Place Philips, might have been able to…

‘We haven’t got time to move him somewhere else to do this. I reckon we should finish it here.’

‘I don’t know…’ Brief hesitation from the other man, then resignedly on a faint sigh: ‘D’accord. I suppose you’re right. No point in dragging it out. He’s not going to talk.’

Savard felt himself being put back down on the ground. He was confused. Weren’t they at a high building somewhere? But then there wouldn’t be snow on the ground at Place Philips car park — which also explained why Michel and his men hadn’t caught up with him. For the first time Savard also tuned in to the virtual silence around. Where was he?

Michel could almost feel Savard’s surprise coming across in waves with his screaming having subsided into rapid, fractured breathing. From background sounds, Michel judged they were outside the city by at least a few miles; a deserted field or some waste-ground perhaps. Lacaille had duped them at every turn, had probably known about the wire and had set up a cassette in the van with the drone of city traffic to throw them. But then how had they replicated the ramps for Savard not to realize he wasn’t winding up through the levels of a car park?

Michel could picture the guns being taken out, the silencers attached, and he closed his eyes. Of all the moments Savard had protested and screamed in fear, now it would be justified; yet Savard merely continued to breathe heavily, like some confused, trapped animal. It seemed both ironic and unfair that his last moment should end like this.

And as the gun shots finally came, two in quick succession and another seconds later, Michel did Savard’s screaming for him. ‘No… Nooo!’ His eyes scrunched tight, his bellowing plea reverberated through the cavernous car park. And as its echo died, all that was left was the sound over the wire of footsteps crunching on snow, receding quickly away from Savard’s body.

TWO

Elena flicked through the report in her lap as Nadine Moore wended through the Dorset lanes. A weak sun threw dappled light through the trees, and at points Nadine glanced across and pointed at the file, prompting.

‘That’s the last interview with the Ryall’s, there. Eleven months ago. Two months later the official adoption order was made, and we were out of the picture.’

‘And no alerts since?’ Elena asked. ‘Nothing to raise concern?’

‘That would normally only come up through Lorena’s school or GP. But no, nothing.’ Nadine forced a tight smile after a second. ‘But, anyway, it seems you’re the one she first turns to for help.’

‘Seems so.’ Elena nodded and mirrored Nadine’s smile. She looked again at the file, flicking back a page.

The call had come through at almost 1 a.m. Lorena’s voice had been hushed, and Elena got a picture of her sneaking in the call while the rest of the house was asleep. ‘…Sorry to disturb you, Elena. But something troubles me here. And I didn’t know who else to phone.’

Lorena’s English had improved tenfold in the fifteen months since she’d last seen her. ‘It’s no trouble at all. Now tell me — what’s the problem?’

‘It’s Mr Ryall. He comes to my bedroom late at night, and I… I don’t feel comfortable.’

‘In what way?’

‘I’m not sure. ’ A heavy swallow from Lorena, her breath coming short. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have called. I’m sorry.’

Elena reassured her that she’d done the right thing, then pressed if Ryall was actually touching or interfering with her. A long silence, too long, before Lorena’s uncertain ‘No.’ Then: ‘I don’t know,’ and something incoherent in Romanian, Lorena’s voice quavering heavily before she finally lapsed into muted sobbing. Seconds later she hung up.

Elena didn’t sleep well afterwards, contemplated phoning back or actually jumping in the car and heading to the Ryalls. But Lorena’s obvious fear of disturbing the house and her own concern that breaking procedure could upset progress, if anything was happening, held her in check.

She phoned Social Services first thing in the morning. She received the call back from Nadine Moore forty minutes later that Lorena had requested she also be at the interview. ‘She says she’ll feel more comfortable talking about it with you there.’

Elena had only met Nadine Moore once before, when Nadine first took over Lorena’s case halfway through the final adoption assessment year. Nadine was a bright-eyed twenty-eight year old with crinkly brown hair framing round wire-frame glasses. Strong contrast to her older, more matronly predecessor who often spoke in tired, condescending tones, as if long ago she’d adopted the style to deal with errant parents and found it difficult to switch off. Maybe in another ten years all the verve and optimism would be knocked out of Nadine as well.

Elena herself might at one time have been described as matronly, but her hectic schedule the last five years with the aid agency — jumping aboard last minute flights or supply trucks headed for Bucharest or Bosnia — had rapidly burned off the pounds. Now she looked more like a trim, mid-forties Jackie-O, the first touches of pepper showing in her dark hair. In looks — though decidedly not in temperament or in her outlook on life — she’d taken more after her Cypriot father than her English mother.

Elena buried herself back in the report. The final assessment findings told her little beyond what she already knew about the Ryalls from when they’d started the whole process in Bucharest. Cameron Thomas Ryall, 52, founder and head of CTR Micro-Tech. Married to Nicola Anne Ryall, 44, housewife by occupation, for the past fourteen years, his second marriage. No children of their own, though Mr Ryall has a son, Michael, now 28, from his first marriage. One previously adopted daughter, Mikaya, originally from Cambodia. Mikaya is now 19 and at University.

Well-established businessman. Comfortable and secure home environment. One-career household (prospective mother always at home). Previous successful history with adoption. Ryall had collected star points at every turn, and perhaps, Elena reflected, he’d known that all along. Lorena’s adoption planned with the same skilled precision as his last take-over bid. The only thing which might have gone against Ryall was the high-flying nature of his business. But his main plant and HQ was only eight miles away, by far the area’s largest ‘green-field’ industrial enterprise and nearby Chelborne’s largest employer. Not only had Ryall avoided the absentee father label of so many high-powered executives, he’d also gained the final cream topping of local champion of the people.

‘You still feel quite close to her, don’t you?’ Nadine was looking across with a slightly pained, quizzical expression. She’d purposely side-stepped ‘feel responsible for’; it might make it sound like a forced obligation. ‘How long did you know her in Bucharest?’

‘There was a gap in the middle — but twenty months altogether.’ Elena nodded. ‘And yes, I suppose I do.’ They were all special to her in some way. All 18 children between the three orphanages in Romania, now all settled in new homes, hopefully safe and secure, around Britain. But how to explain that Lorena had stood out, touched an even more poignant chord above the rest? A natural closeness and affinity you feel with a particular child, yet can’t pinpoint exactly why? Or perhaps part of it was due to what Lorena had suffered after the first orphanage closed and her eleven months rough on the streets, one of Bucharest’s ‘sewer children’, before re- emerging. Elena still partly blamed herself for that.

Elena looked up as Nadine swung into the Ryalls’ driveway. An impenetrable rhododendron hedge ten foot high spread out each side of double wrought-iron black gates almost as high.