The Lost Girl (Brennan and Esposito) (25 page)

‘B
ack from the dead then, are you?’

Phil opened his eyes. A woman’s face floated before him. She looked familiar. In a good way. The best way. He smiled.

‘Eileen?’

‘That’s right, Phil. It’s me. Eileen.’

He blinked. Hope rose within him. Those last few days had all been just a horrible dream. No, not even a dream, a nightmare. But so real he could have touched it, felt it. Experienced it. But it was gone now, that face said. He was home. Safe.

He blinked again. Eileen’s features shifted, rearranging themselves, coalescing from something familiar to something different, yet still holding enough of a seed of familiarity to make him catch his breath, believe what he saw. He kept looking. And with a groan of despair that echoed down at the bottom of his soul, he realised who she was and where he was.

This was no dream. This was real. If it was a nightmare it was a waking one.

‘That was a long sleep you had. I thought it best to just let you. You seemed very tired last night. And agitated, too.’ She sat down next to him. Reached out a hand, stroked his hair. ‘But I calmed you down, didn’t I?’

Phil closed his eyes, remembering. The feel of her body. His mouth on her breasts…

His mind was consumed by guilt, rage, embarrassment, pain. All there, running through him, triggered by the memory. And on top of all that were plenty more emotions too. Ones he couldn’t so readily name. Ones that kept him down, stopped him from taking any action. He should have been up, off the bed, screaming at her. Telling him what he thought, planning all the while how he could get away. But something stopped him. He tried to work out what it was. Realised. He just didn’t have the energy. The will. He couldn’t even be bothered to move.

And with that revelation came another. He no longer knew what to think, what to feel. How to react. He didn’t know what he was doing any more. Right and wrong, good and evil, order and chaos even, had gone, slipped away from him.

Resignation. That was his overwhelming, overriding emotion. Besting all the other emotions, hitting him like a train and laying him flat. He just wanted to close his eyes, let it all slip away. Let everything go. Forever.

This was his world now. This was his right and wrong. Whatever she said.

‘You going back to sleep?’ the irritatingly perky voice continued. ‘No time for that now. But there’ll be plenty of time for that later.’ She laughed. ‘Plenty. But not now. Now you have to be awake, get ready. Big day.’

Phil struggled to sit up. The room seemed lighter, as if it really was morning. It could have been for all he knew. But it could also have been the middle of the night too. Day and night, light and darkness, time itself, had all ceased to have any meaning for him. He was just here. Now.

His hands were still tied to the bedframe. He couldn’t rise far.

‘Whuh… why’s it a big day?’

‘Just is, that’s all. Lot to do. Lot to get ready for.’

She stood up from the bed, walked round the room, examining things as if she should be doing something with them. Dusting or moving objects. But of course there was nothing there to move. Everything was only two-dimensional, so if she wanted to do that she had to mime at best. Which she did, humming to herself, smiling. Like she imagined a mother would do. The brightness of the overhead lighting just showed up how artificial the room was. The walls seemed even flatter than before. The blown up photo walls unconvincing, the life leached out of them. But for Phil the make-believe room didn’t matter any more. None of it did. They had gone beyond all that now.

She sat down on the edge of the bed once more, still smiling at him, beatifically. Her eyes glanced at the two tablets, still on the bedside table. Her smile increased, then she returned her look to Phil.

‘Are you hungry, love? Want some breakfast?’

Phil had to think about that. Was he hungry? When had he last eaten? What was his body telling him?

‘I… I don’t know…’

She laughed at his muddle-headedness. ‘What are you boys like… Course you’re hungry. You’re always hungry. I’ll go and get you something to eat, then. Would you like a bacon sandwich?’

Would he?

‘I’ll make you a bacon sandwich.’ Another giggle. ‘You can have it in bed. Like I said, special day. But watch for crumbs. And don’t get sauce on the sheets. Bet you’ve heard all that before, haven’t you? Sick of me saying that to you, nagging all the time.’

She stroked his hair once again. Kept stroking, staring into his eyes all the time. Her fingers moved from his hair to the skin of his face, caressed his cheek. Smiling all the time. Her breathing increased. He was aware of her breasts, heavy, straining against her blouse, rising and falling with every breath she took.

Phil began to get an erection.

She moved her other hand down the bed, found it. Moved in closer. Mouth on his ear.

‘You’re a naughty boy, Phil Brennan, you really are. It’s a good job I’m an understanding mother. But then…’ Her lips right on his ear now. Whispering the words, he could feel her soft breath against his skin, the feel of her hand on his face, stroking the faint scar that was there, the other on his growing erection. ‘All boys want to fuck their mother, don’t they? Really, deep down?’

She kept her hands, her mouth moving against him.

‘And you’re no exception…’

He closed his eyes. She was still calling him Phil Brennan, but he didn’t feel like that person any more. This person still had the same name but he was now someone new. And he didn’t know who – or what – he was.

Yes he did. He was whoever she told him he was.

She took her hands slowly away from his body. He opened his eyes. She straightened herself up. Smiling at him all the while. It was a different kind of smile this time, though. Gone was the previous indulgence, the mother almost neurotically smothering her child. Now it was like a different person was occupying the space she had previously rented. This smile was hard-edged, matching her eyes. This smile said one thing:

I win.

She stood up. Rearranged herself as if the mirror on the wall was a real one.

‘Right,’ she said, ‘I’ll get your sandwich. Then I have to pop out for a little while.’

Phil tried to clear the fog in his head. ‘Why?’

‘Just a few errands to run. People to meet. That sort of thing. And then I’ll be back.’

She turned to him once more, smiled again. This time the meaning behind that smile was impossible to read.

‘And then everything changes.’

Phil frowned. ‘In what way? How?’

‘You know how I said you have to embrace the darkness of your life, Phil? Go through the darkness, own it, then come into the light?’

He said nothing. Tried to remember whether she had actually said that. It seemed so long ago.

‘Well, that’s what we’re about to do. You’ve got to go through the final phase. Into the final darkness. And then… Oh. So exciting.’

‘What?’

‘You’re going to come into the light. And your life is going to change. In the biggest and best way ever.’

‘How?’

‘You’re going to meet someone, Phil. Someone very, very special. And you’re going to be so happy, that the two of you are going to be together forever…’

M
atthews stared at his screen. But the words, images just moved about, like they were flowing over the surface, falling off the bottom onto his desk. He rubbed his eyes. No good. He just couldn’t concentrate.

Imani. That was all he could think about. DS Imani Oliver. And what he had done to her. Or may have done to her.

He had phoned her several times. Nothing. No reply. Straight to voicemail every time. OK, he had reasoned at first, maybe she was on her way back to Birmingham. Driving, unable to pick up. But even as he thought that he knew he was trying to convince himself. What police officer would be unavailable, even when they were driving? Everyone he knew – including himself – plugged their phone in on entering the car, put it on hands free. Stayed contactable at all times. No. That was wrong. She wouldn’t have done that. And also, he had seen how much she relied on her phone the day before, constantly trying to remain in touch with Anni Hepburn and Marina Esposito and making herself available to them in return.

No. There had to be a different reason.

He went over all their conversations from the previous day, tried to find some clue as to her whereabouts. And it all came back to one thing: she didn’t trust Beresford. And she was going to look into his background. Starting with his car.

She had had a feeling that it wasn’t in the garage as he had claimed. And Matthews had been listening, heard no mention from Beresford that his car was out of commission and he was borrowing a pool car or a hire. Nothing like that. So that just ramped up his suspicions.

He knew which garage Beresford had claimed to use. Imani had told him. So, furtively, checking no one was in earshot, he had called the garage. And received voicemail there too. Several times.

Now he was becoming uneasy. His unease was powered by guilt, he knew that, but he was starting to fear that something was wrong. Seriously wrong, perhaps. He glanced round the office. Beresford was nowhere to be seen, having disappeared after receiving a phone call. And that had been peculiar too. Whoever it was had seriously shaken him up. Matthews had watched as he listened to whoever it had been, his face getting paler all the time. Then, when he had put the phone down, he had looked round the office and left.

So now Matthews stood up and, without saying anything to anyone, left the office.

Prentice’s Garage wasn’t hard to find. Not in terms of direction, only in terms of size. It looked like a two storey lean-to on the end of a row of houses in New Town with a small sign and a large metal pull-down door. Which was currently closed. He parked opposite, crossed over to it. Tried it. Locked.

He looked round, bent down to the lock. A padlock attached to a ring concreted into the ground. Right, he thought. He crossed back to his car, opened the boot, brought out a crowbar. Looking around again, he bent down and, not without some effort, managed to break the ring and release the padlock.

Straightening up he felt dizzy, nauseous. His arms shaking from exertion. He took a moment, back against the wall, arms down at his sides, breathing deeply, trying to get his bearings again. It was the most exercise he’d had in ages. The most physical thing he had done possibly ever. But looking down at the broken padlock, he had to admit it felt good. Like the kind of police work most of the other officers would do and then brag about. He never usually felt part of that world, stayed out of those conversations. He smiled. If they could see him now…

He was sweating through his shirt, into his jacket. He loosened his tie, an unheard of thing for Simon Matthews to do. He was truly breaking new ground today.

Wiping his brow with the back of his hand, he looked round once more. Alert for anyone who may have seen what he was doing. If they had seen him they weren’t letting on. But, he thought, it was that kind of area.

Bending down once more, he swung the door up and open. Stepped inside.

Light from outside hit the interior. He saw a light switch on the wall, reached for it. An overhead strip light came on. He turned back, pulled the door closed. Looked back into the room.

And stopped dead.

A car was resting haphazardly on the lift, one side higher than the other. He crossed over to it, looked down to find the obstruction. Found, in amongst a pool of congealed blood and oil, an overalled body, legs sticking out.

‘Oh God… Oh God…’

He backed away, heart hammering. Nausea building up inside him once more.

He turned, put a steadying arm out to the wooden staircase.

And that was when he saw her.

She had been bundled into the stairwell, roughly, by the looks of it. Bent double and just stuffed into the space. He saw the jeans she had been wearing the previous day, her boots sticking out. He fumbled in his pocket for his phone and, with shaking fingers, turned the flashlight on. Her head was resting at an impossible angle to her neck. Eyes closed. Her shoulder and upper torso looked like they were pointing in opposite directions.

He backed away.

Shaking so much he felt like he just vibrated out of existence, heart pounding hard enough to jump out of his ribcage.

‘Fuck… fuck… fuck… Christ… fuck…’

He put his hand to his face, rubbed his eyes. It didn’t help. He spun round, looking to see what else could leap out and surprise him. Didn’t find anything. His arms flailed uselessly.

‘Jesus… Jesus… fuck…’

He felt his knees go, his nausea build. Knew he could sink to the floor at any second. He backed up to the closed metal door, leaned against it. His body slammed against it, the sound echoing round the walls. He closed his eyes, tried to regain control of his body.

‘Fuck… fuck…’

He felt tears well within him. Tears of shame, of anger, of guilt. Of self-hatred at what he had done, at what he had allowed to have happened.

No. No. Not this. Not now. Later, but not now.

He fought hard, denying their release, regaining control of himself once more.

It took a few seconds – or perhaps minutes, he wasn’t sure how long he had stood there – but eventually he managed it.

Straightening his tie, pulling his jacket back into place and fastening the button, he opened the garage door. Stepped outside. He walked across the street to where he’d parked his car, opened the boot, brought out a roll of crime scene tape. He always carried it with him, just in case. Be prepared. He had never used it. Until now.

He pulled the garage door down, attempting to close it once more with the broken padlock. Having done that, he unrolled the tape, placed it at either side of the door. He stretched another length across until it was resting in a huge X shape.

Then, still keeping his voice together, he made a phone call.

Once that was done, he pocketed his phone, straightened his jacket once more.

And vomited all over the pavement.