‘Where did you learn to do that?’ I ask. And can I have lessons?
I look at his hands properly for the first time. Rough skin. Toughened over years.
‘I never went to prison,’ he says, turning back on to the main road. ‘But I should have done. How do you think I know how to find people? The best people to know how to find people are those who’ve learned to distance themselves from their pasts. Who’ve learned to hide the source of their income. We know the tricks.’
‘We’ve got to find Katie,’ I say. ‘The police won’t.’ I look out at the gathering clouds overhead. ‘And we have to be quick.’
69
LISA
I almost laugh when I open my eyes and see her. Of course. I should have known. Stupid Charlotte, always one step behind. A wave of nausea hits me and my head thumps as I try to stand.
‘You fell badly and hit your head,’ she says, smiling. ‘Trapdoor. One of Grandfather’s little tricks. How to make a person disappear. Slightly cruder than my methods, but effective. You only half-landed in the net and then dropped. I forgot how clumsy you are.’
How did I not see it before? Her smile. That delicate movement as she tucks hair behind her ears. All my wariness of the world but I thought the threat would be from strangers. The newspapers. My guard was up the wrong way and the serpent slipped right into my nest.
My throat feels raw and my body is like lead. She’s given me something, a pill forced down my gullet while I was out. I can feel it lodged somewhere in my chest. It’s dark and I’m squinting in the gloom when she turns a small desk lamp on. ‘That’s better.’
A whimper comes from the far corner and now, although my vision is blurring, I can see her. My baby. My Ava. She’s lying on a dirty mattress on the floor, hands and feet tied, her mouth gagged. Her eyes are wide and full of tears and I want to run and hug her. I gaze at her and I want to tell her everything will be all right, but I won’t give Katie the satisfaction. I have to stay strong. The only slim chance I have of beating her is being Charlotte again. And Charlotte was tough. She didn’t let people touch her heart.
‘You said you’d let her go.’ My words are slurred, a jumble, whatever clarity they have in my head losing form by the time they reach my mouth. What the fuck has she given me? I try to move my sluggish body and only then notice the fluffy cuffs she tied me to the chair with. Like something from a sex shop. I wonder if I’m tripping out but she laughs. The curious Alice in Wonderland tinkle of sound I used to be fascinated by. Now I want to punch her in the throat and kill it dead.
‘Ridiculous, aren’t they? But I don’t want anything to leave a mark. Can’t have all this to end up with you looking like you might have been in trouble.’
My mind is too spacey to acknowledge the panic somewhere deep in my system, and instead I wonder where my knife is. Eventually I see it, over on a long bench with something that looks like a coffin on it. A coffin? Is that what she’s planning for me? To bury me alive? Katie, Katie, what is your game? I look around. There are no windows. Underground, we’re underground. A strange clock stands in the corner, the numbers in the wrong order. Some contraption with a camera in another. A glass box, man height.
‘This is where my grandfather worked on his illusions,’ Katie says, leaning back on the table, her narrow hip by my knife. ‘A hidden place. He was nothing if not paranoid about someone stealing his ideas. He made a fortune designing illusions for the showmen to take on stage. Totally soundproofed, obviously. I had to gag Ava, though. She wouldn’t stop yelling and screaming for help. It was giving me a headache and I doubt it was doing her any good.’
I’m mesmerised by her. Katie. After all this time. I’d never have recognised her, but I guess that was the point. She’s had work done. A lot of work. Her nose is much smaller, button-like. I’d never have told her, but when we were kids her nose was too big for her face. It took her from beauty to simple prettiness. Maybe that helped her when we went to court. No one wants to believe in beautiful girls, but pretty ones are harmless.
‘Let her go,’ I mumble again. ‘You said you’d let her go.’
‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’ She smiles, her eyes bright and sparkling. Katie in full game mode. She pushes the table she’s sitting on and it slides in half, the coffin cut through the middle. Not a coffin at all. An illusionist’s trick.
‘I never liked him, if you remember. God, he was dull. An old desiccated dying man. But I can respect his meticulous mind now. I’ve learned to have an eye for detail myself. It was hard work persuading my mother not to sell this house. But then I had years to stay on top of her, didn’t I?’ She looks at me, something like fondness in her eyes. Regret? ‘We were going to come here,’ she says softly. ‘Weren’t we?’ Her voice hardens: ‘If you hadn’t ruined everything.’ She takes a deep breath. A controlling breath. ‘But we’re here now. I can hardly believe it. I’ve waited such a long time for this.’
The world is spinning again. Is it the concussion, or the pill she gave me? As the darkness closes in again, I realise it’s irrelevant. Whichever it is, I’m going to pass out. My head, too heavy to hold, drops forward. Katie starts to fade.
‘Charlotte?’ Her words come at me from under water. ‘Charlotte? Oh goddammit, you used to be better than this.’
And then I’m gone again.
70
MARILYN
‘Thank you. That’s great.’ He hangs up the phone. ‘We’ve got it.’
I sit up straight, all tiredness and frustration falling away. ‘You’re shitting me.’
‘Grandfather on her mother’s side. Harold Arthur Mickleson.’ He slides the piece of paper he’s scribbled the address down on across the desk as proof. ‘Skegness.’
‘Bloody hell.’ I pick it up and stare at it. ‘Your people are good.’
‘My people are the best, but it’s time to call the police in.’ It’s hot in his office where the two of us have been holed up waiting for calls since getting back from the station, and I can see sweat at the edge of his hairline. It’s been two long hours. It feels like forever. My whole body aches with tension.
‘Lisa’s in trouble and we both know it,’ he says. ‘If this Katie woman has gone to these lengths to track her down, she’s no match for her.’
‘I agree. I’ll call Bray.’ I reach for the mobile phone he’s given me while the police have mine, but he shakes his head.
‘It can’t be you. They won’t listen to you.’
‘Fine. You do it.’ I don’t care who makes the call as long as they pay attention. He dials and my foot taps under the table as I listen in.
‘… No, this has nothing to do with Marilyn. She’s taken a pill and gone to bed. I’ve been digging into Katie Batten to satisfy my own curiosity. Yes, it is an advantage of being rich, but I’m now sharing what I’ve found so I’ve saved your resources. You should at least check the house out. It’s empty. It was going to be turned into a museum, apparently – he was some kind of famous illusionist – but it never happened. Just like the new owner never materialised. Someone’s hiding behind a lot of paperwork, Detective Bray, and whether that’s Katie or not, I think there’s a good chance Lisa will have gone there, to Skegness. It’s somewhere she and Katie would have talked about, surely? Katie’s grandfather died earlier that year and if they’d been planning to run off together, an empty house might be a good place to hide out for a day or so? What’s it going to hurt to send a couple of officers to check it out? On a case like this you could have people there in ten minutes, surely?’