was waiting with the luggage. He threw the bags into the back of the SUV, evicted Vivian from the driving seat and roared off towards the highway. ‘We should have missed most of the traffic,’ he said, gunning the engine and flashing the car in front to pull over.
‘Just so long as you keep missing it,’ Vivian said, phone in her hand again. Her first call was to her boss. Succinctly she outlined what they had and where they were going. ‘I’m going to need local law enforcement to check out the scenario ahead of our arrival,’ she said. ‘And local tech support. We need to know if Matthews is there and, if so, whether he’s alone. We might need listening devices . . . Yes, sir. Five hours, maximum. I have the mother with me.’ She ended the call and let out a huge breath. Turning to look at Stephanie through the gap between the seats, she said, ‘My boss is talking to the local FBI office and the local cops. They’re going to check out whether the house is occupied. If there’s anybody home, they’ll use listening devices and thermal imaging to see how many there are and where they are in the house. And if we think Matthews is there with Jimmy, we’ll have a SWAT team mount a rescue.’ Vivian spoke quickly, brimming with confidence. She could see her assurance leak into Stephanie, buoying her up and bringing her hope.
‘Did you say we were headed for Corktown?’ Abbott said, not taking his eyes off the road.
‘Yeah. Why?’
‘If we need a rendezvous, there’s a great barbecue restaurant there.’
Vivian rolled her eyes. ‘It’s not always about your stomach, Abbott.’
‘I’m just saying.’
Stephanie cleared her throat. ‘I’m sure the barbecue in Detroit is lovely and I don’t want to be difficult, but if we’re going to be driving for five hours, I could use something to eat. It’s been a long time since I ate anything other than a cold cheeseburger.’
‘It’s not an unreasonable request,’ Abbott said. ‘Soon as we hit an exit with some fast-food joints, we’ll swing through and get supplies.’
‘I’m sorry, Stephanie,’ Vivian said. ‘I should have been more considerate.’
‘She gets carried away,’ Abbott said. ‘In a good way, I mean. We’ll get you fed and watered, and with luck, we’ll have your boy back in your arms tonight.’
50
The kid had finally gone to sleep. After Pete had slapped him for his whiny crying, he’d screamed a couple of times till it had eventually sunk in that the more he wailed, the more he got hit. He’d stopped crying then and crawled into the furthest corner of his bed, whimpering softly. Pete had stood above him, menacing and dark, not needing to say a word to inculcate wordless terror in the boy.
Then he’d remembered that the little shit would probably piss himself, so he grabbed his arm and dragged him to the half-bath under the eaves. He pulled down the kid’s pants and sat him on the toilet. At first, the boy couldn’t even manage a dribble of piss. But when Pete turned away in disgust, the urine streamed out, smelling strong and hot. The kid wiped himself clumsily and ran back to the bed before Pete could grab him. There, he cowered in the corner, big brown eyes wide and terrified.
Pete locked him in again and went downstairs, where he set his iPad to play a random selection of Peter Gabriel tracks. He lay on the sofa and let the music run over him like a river. When it came to ‘My Body Is a Cage’, he roused himself and sat up, concentrating on how the music was knitted together, figuring out the choices that had gone into the mix and wondering what he might have done differently. At the end of the track, he walked over to the player and searched till he found the Arcade Fire version of the same song. He listened with equal attention, working out why he found the original so much less powerful than the cover.
It would have been good if Stephanie had been there with him. He could have explained to her why small choices made big differences to a recording. But she wasn’t here. It wasn’t acceptable.
He took another beer from the fridge and went to check on the boy again. This time, he was asleep, sprawled across the bed, his thumb in his mouth and his hair matted with sweat. Pete didn’t like the invasion of his space, but it wouldn’t be for long. Then he could concentrate on working things out with Stephanie, restoring his world to its proper state.
That was the important thing, not this little bastard with his soft snoring and his twitching feet. Things had been out of kilter for long enough. Now it was time to restore equilibrium. Pete yawned as he made his way down to the master bedroom on the next floor. An early night wouldn’t be such a bad idea. He’d been short on sleep lately and the band were expecting a full shift out of him tomorrow. He took another swig of beer and sat on the side of the bed, pulling off his boots and letting himself fall back on the bed.
Soon he’d be back in England with Stephanie at his side. Soon.
51
By the time they joined the local FBI agents in the Corktown motel they were using as a centre of operations, Stephanie had lost count of how many hours she’d been awake. There had been a couple of times during the drive when she’d felt herself drifting away into surreal dreams, but every time she’d jerked awake before proper sleep took hold. It was as if her brain couldn’t allow her to switch off, not while the possibility of finding Jimmy was so alive. But her body knew how tired she was. Her left leg ached with a low intensity that made her grit her teeth.
Vivian McKuras had been on and off the phone all journey. Stephanie had strained to hear her end of the conversations, but Vivian had been huddled round her phone and there was too much road noise from the SUV for her to be able to make out more than the occasional word.
The road signs showed names she recognised without really knowing why. Kalamazoo, Lansing, Ann Arbor. Soon after they’d passed Ann Arbor, Vivian leaned over to talk to her. Even in the dimness of the dashboard light, Stephanie could see she was looking pleased. ‘I’ve got some very promising information from the team on the ground,’ she said.
‘Have they found Jimmy?’ Stephanie felt shaky and gripped the seat in front of her.
‘They’ve located the address Pete Matthews is renting. It’s a row house—’
‘What’s a row house?’
‘It’s where the house is joined to the ones on either side. I thought you had them all over the UK?’
‘We do, but we call them terraced houses. Not row houses.’
Vivian nodded. ‘It’s that old chestnut about being separated by a common language. Sorry. OK. So Matthews is living in this row house. He wasn’t in work today. The band he’s recording is taking a day off. We spoke to neighbours and engaged their cooperation. Thanks to thermal imaging and highly sensitive microphones, we’ve established that there are two people in the house. One on the first floor and the other in the attic room. Now, I don’t want to get your hopes up too high but one of the neighbours reported that she thought she heard a child crying earlier this evening. Around eight o’clock.’
Stephanie cried out. ‘Jimmy.’
‘We’ve no way of knowing for sure if it’s Jimmy. But the neighbour says this is the first time they’ve heard a child in the house. It’s . . . I’d have to say it’s a helluva coincidence.’
‘Why would there be a child there if it’s not Jimmy? He had plenty of time to get back here by eight, right?’ Stephanie was almost shouting in her excitement.
‘He would have had time, yes. But I have to caution you, Stephanie. We have no way of knowing whether this child is Jimmy till we enter the house and retrieve him. And now I have to ask you a very important question. Do you know whether Pete Matthews is likely to have access to weapons?’
Stephanie felt the shock of the question as a physical tightening of her chest. ‘Why would you think that? He’s never shown any interest in guns or knives or anything like that. He doesn’t even like action movies.’
