The Dead Tracks

    'Anyway, a week ago, David was approached by the family of Megan Carver to look into her disappearance. When that happened - when I found out some of the things he'd discovered — I realized it was time to do something. It was time to find this guy. Because no one else cared about finding my girl. They think she ran away from home because…' He paused again, took a sideways glance at me. 'Because we weren't getting on so well as a family.'

    I turned to Healy as he was talking, surprised he was being so honest. Maybe he figured Sona had been lied to enough. Everything Markham had fed her. Everything Phillips and Hart were making her believe. Or maybe he saw it as the best way to get her to talk. Problem was, Sona wasn't an ordinary victim, and Healy wasn't an ordinary detective. He was personally invested in her answers, and he needed her much more than she needed him. She was quiet and introspective, driven into her shell by the man who had taken her, and bringing her back out again could take weeks. We had hours.

    'So,' he said, picking up the conversation again, 'in order to find him, in order to stop this, I was wondering whether we could go over some of what happened to you.'

    He got the reaction I expected: nothing. She looked away, over to the laptop, where the picture of Liz and me still showed.

    Healy leaned forward, trying to soften his face. 'Sona?'

    'I can't remember,' she said.

    He glanced at me. 'Okay.' He readjusted himself, preparing to come at it again. 'Maybe we could start with the man who took you. Daniel Markham. I think you used to call him Mark?'

    She flinched a little. But didn't reply.

    'Could you tell me about him, do you think?'

    Nothing.

    'Sona?'

    'I can't remember,' she said.

    Healy leaned further forward, but this was going nowhere. The secret was to find the chip in her shield that you could slowly open up in order for everything to pour out. Firing a succession of questions at her, or rephrasing the same one, wasn't going to work.

    'So, do you remember anything about the day you were taken?' he asked.

    She was looking off into space.

    'Any detail, however small?'

    She shook her head.

    'Even if you think it's unimportant?'

    Another prolonged silence. Healy paused. Moved in his seat. I could sense he was getting frustrated, but only because we were really short on time. He'd done thousands of interviews. He could pace himself, or he could go in hard and fast, but normally he didn't have to keep an eye on the minute hand. The danger here was that the harder he tried to dig in, the less he'd get out of her, and the more the frustration would build. He shuffled right to the edge of the sofa.

    'Sona, we just need to stop this guy.'

    She looked down into her lap. We both watched her for a moment, but when she didn't make a move to engage us, Healy glanced at me. I shook my head. Don't say anything else. He gave me the look, the one that told me I was overstepping whatever mark he'd made for me in his head. But he was too close to what was happening — he was relying too heavily on her answers — to see why she'd gone back into her shell. In another place, on another case, he may have seen it clearly. But not now.

    'You don't have to feel alone,' I said.

    She looked up at me. I didn't take my eyes off her, and she didn't take hers off mine. This was the chip in her shield.

    'It won't always be like this,' I continued. You feel betrayed, I understand that. You feel abandoned, and not just by Daniel Markham — by the police as well. You've been left here, and you've been forgotten about, and all anyone ever seems to want from you are answers.'

    Her eyes flicked to Healy, and then back to me. She leaned forward, crossing her arms, almost hugging herself.

    'Meanwhile, you can't go to sleep at night without fearing that he's going to come back for you. Because that's what the police have told you.'

    Finally I moved closer to her, right to the edge of my seat so that our knees were only inches apart. She glanced down and then back up to me.

    'But, Sona, let me tell you something: he doesn’t know where you are. He isn't coming back for you. And you're completely and absolutely not alone.'

    I moved away from her. She looked at Healy, and then back to me, but didn't speak. I eyed Healy, telling him not to jump in.

    'How do you know he's not coming for me?'

    Her voice seemed small after the quiet of what had preceded it. Healy leaned forward again. 'Sorry, I didn't catch that,' he said.

    But she was looking at me.

    'How do you know he's not coming for me?'

    'He doesn’t know where you are,' I replied. 'And he's not about to find out.'

    She hesitated for a moment, as if the thought of going back would be too painful. Her fingers moved together, sliding around her knee and pulling it into her. An action of protection; subconsciously forming a barrier between us. She glanced off for a second, into the space of the living room. Then her eyes came back to us.

    'Okay,' she said quietly. 'I guess we should start with Mark.'

Chapter Sixty

    Gradually — very gradually — Sona began to tell us about how she met Markham. She was a receptionist at St John's Hospital, where Markham had worked, and he'd gone up and started talking to her. He told her he hated the name Daniel, and that most people at the hospital just called him Mark. He wouldn't have been trying to conceal his identity - everybody at the youth club already knew his real name - so it was likely that when he told Sona about his name he was, for once, telling her the truth.

    He'd probably never looked at her twice before then, even though they'd worked in the same place — but then Glass had discovered her somehow, perhaps after following Markham's movements in and around the hospital, and he'd told Markham to move in on her. Blonde hair, blue eyes. She fitted his twisted fantasy perfectly.

    Sona revealed how Markham had been nervous and shy to start with, almost as if he was inexperienced with women. But, in truth, he wasn't shy - he was just being eaten up by the idea of leading another woman into the hands of a psychopath.

    'Do you remember the day he attacked you?' Healy asked.

    She frowned, looking off, running her hand through her hair.

    'Not much of it,' she said quietly. 'He took me for a picnic because it was my birthday. I think maybe he drugged me or something. I started feeling a bit off when we got there. Like a headache; a pressure between my eyes.'

    You don't remember where you went?'

    Sona shrugged. 'He blindfolded me. But I didn't feel scared. I know it sounds odd him blindfolding me, but it wasn't like that. Or, at least, it never felt like that. He said he wanted to take me somewhere as a surprise for my birthday. I trusted him completely. We'd been seeing each other for almost six months.'

    Almost six months. That meant Glass had moved Markham on to Sona only days after Megan had been taken.

    'What about after the blindfold came off?' Healy asked.

    She shook her head. 'No. I mean, I remember snatches of stuff: he laid a blanket out for us, and had brought a picnic basket. And I remember…' She paused. A flicker. 'After he attacked me… I remember looking up at him, and I remember what he said.'