An icy rain began to fall and I broke cover, heading for home, but keeping to the shadows, not knowing who was going to be waiting for me when I got there.
28
When I got near my flat, I surveyed the street carefully, looking for anyone or anything that might be out of place, but it seemed the cold had driven everyone indoors. Only when I was satisfied that the silence was genuine did I walk hurriedly up to my front door and ram the key in the lock, still half expecting some hidden assassin to emerge from the darkness, or a shouting posse of armed police to charge me, screaming staccato orders.
Nothing happened, and there was relief when the door closed behind me for the last time that night.
The first thing I did when I got upstairs was phone in sick. I didn’t know how much they knew at the station about the investigation into me but I found it hard to imagine that Knox wouldn’t have been informed of it by now. Next I rang Raymond’s mobile, but he wasn’t answering, and neither was Luke, his bodyguard, so I left a message asking for him to call me and telling him I wasn’t going to be at home for the next couple of days. Just in case he was thinking about sending anyone round. Then I made a cup of coffee and told myself not to panic. Foresight, if not right, remained on my side.
I went to bed about ten o’clock and fell asleep surprisingly easily. I remained out like a light the whole night, and for once I actually felt partially refreshed when I awoke the following morning at just after eight.
It was now time to plan my next move. Each day I remained here the chances of my being arrested grew higher, which meant that I was going to have to take the plunge fast. I needed to shake off my surveillance, grab the money from the Bayswater deposit box, and go to ground for a bit. As soon as I started running and they realized that I was on to them, that was it; there’d be no turning back. I was going to have to keep running for the rest of my life.
I went round the corner to get a paper, acting as casually as possible and not spotting anything or anyone untoward, then returned to read it over a light breakfast of toast and coffee. There was no obvious mention of the Traveller’s Rest investigation within its pages and nothing on the Miriam Fox case. Now that an arrest had been made and charges laid, there’d be no further mention of her murder until the trial, and probably not much coverage then. Instead, there were the usual tales of woe from Britain and abroad: a farming crisis; renewed famine in Africa; a couple of food scares; and a liberal sprinkling of murder, mayhem and fashion tips.
When I was on my sixth cigarette of the day, I decided I had nothing to lose by calling Carla Graham. I phoned her office from Raymond’s mobile, concerned about the possibility that my own phones had been bugged. She picked up on the fourth ring and I was relieved to hear no meeting-type noises in the background.
‘Hello, Carla.’
‘Dennis?’
‘Yeah, it’s me. How are you?’
She sighed. ‘Busy. Very busy.’
‘Well, I won’t keep you long.’
‘I was going to call you today anyway,’ she said.
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Look, I don’t want you to take this too seriously, but you said to let you know if anyone else went missing.’ An ominous sensation crept up my back as partially buried thoughts suddenly unearthed themselves like zombies in a graveyard. ‘And someone has.’
‘Who?’
‘Anne Taylor.’
Anne. The girl I’d shared coffee with less than a week ago. The girl I’d saved from abduction.
‘Jesus, Carla. When did this happen?’
‘She was last seen on Sunday afternoon.’ She seemed to sense my unease. ‘She’s done this before on several occasions so I don’t think there’s any real cause for alarm. And obviously, there is a man in custody for the murder.’
‘I know, but it isn’t as cut and dried as that. There are a lot of unanswered questions, and everyone’s innocent until proven guilty. You of all people should know that.’
‘I still don’t think you should read too much into it. Anne is that type of girl.’
‘And so was Molly Hagger, but you can’t help getting concerned. When did Anne last go missing like this?’
‘About a month ago.’
‘How long was she gone for then?’
‘A couple of nights. A similar length of time to this. That’s why we haven’t been too worried. The last time she went AWOL it was because she was off on a binge with an older woman. She got stoned, fell asleep, and when she woke up twenty-four hours later she came back here.’
‘And before that? When did she last go missing before that?’
‘I can’t remember. A few months ago. Look, Dennis, no-one here thinks anything untoward’s happened.’
‘So why were you going to phone and tell me?’
‘Because you asked me too. Personally, I think Anne’s doing her usual thing, which is going out, taking drugs, and doing exactly what she fancies, regardless of what anyone tells her, because that’s what she’s like. But I felt I ought to tell you because you were worried and I suppose I’d never forgive myself if Anne did end up like Miriam Fox, dead in some back alley with her throat cut, and I hadn’t bothered reporting it. Although I still think the chances of that happening are fairly remote.’
‘OK, OK, I get your point. I don’t like it, though.’ And I didn’t. Anne’s disappearance had sown more doubts in my mind. Maybe somehow, defying all the odds, Mark Wells wasn’t our man. Not that it should have mattered; I had far bigger fish to fry now. I sighed. ‘Look, do me a favour and inform the police. Tell them what’s happened.’
‘Dennis, you are the police.’
‘Not any
