Whispers of the Dead - Страница 46

‘Paul.’

He stopped. His eyes met mine, and I could see the fear in them, see the knowledge he was desperately trying to deny. But neither of us had that luxury any more.

I wasn’t York’s target. I never had been.

I was just the decoy.

CHAPTER 20

THE NIGHT THAT FOLLOWED was one of the longest of my life. I called Gardner while Paul phoned the rest of the hospitals in the area. He must have known Sam wouldn’t be at any of them, but the alternative was too terrible to accept. As long as the possibility remained, no matter how faint, he could cling to the hope that this was all just some mistake, that his world could still return to normal.

But that wasn’t going to happen.

It took Gardner less than forty-five minutes to arrive. By then two TBI agents were there already. They’d appeared at the house within minutes, both in grubby work clothes as though they’d come from a building site. From the speed with which they arrived I guessed they must have been very close by, no doubt part of the covert surveillance that had been promised. Not that it had done any good.

Gardner and Jacobsen came into the house without knocking. Her features were carefully controlled; his were clenched and grim. He spoke briefly to one of the agents, a subdued murmur of voices, then turned to Paul.

‘Tell me what happened.’

There was a tremor in Paul’s voice as he went over it once more.

‘Any sign of a disturbance? A struggle?’ Gardner asked.

Paul just shook his head.

Gardner’s eyes went to the coffee cups on the table. ‘Have either of you touched anything?’

‘I made coffee,’ I said.

I saw in his face the accusation that I shouldn’t have touched anything at all, but he didn’t get the chance to voice it.

‘To hell with the damn coffee, what are you going to do?’ Paul burst out. ‘This bastard’s got my wife, and we’re just sitting here talking!’

‘We’re doing everything we can,’ Gardner said, with surprising patience. ‘We’ve notified every police and sheriff’s department in East Tennessee to look out for the ambulance.’

‘Notified them? What about road blocks, for Christ’s sake?’

‘We can’t flag down every ambulance on the off chance it might be York. And road blocks won’t do any good when he’s got several hours’ head start. He could be over the state line into North Carolina by now.’

The anger drained from Paul. He slumped in his chair, his face ashen.

‘This might be nothing. But I’ve been thinking about the ambulance,’ I said, choosing my words carefully. ‘Wasn’t there one in the security camera footage? By the phone booth where York called Tom?’

It had been little more than a white shape in the foreground. I wouldn’t have thought anything about it ordinarily, and I wasn’t sure it was important even now. But I’d rather speak out of turn than stay silent and regret it.

Gardner obviously thought otherwise. ‘It was a hospital, they have ambulances.’

‘Outside emergency, perhaps, but not the morgue. Not at the main entrance, anyway. Bodies aren’t taken in that way.’

He was quiet for a moment, then turned to Jacobsen. ‘Tell Megson to look into it. And have the stills sent over.’ He turned back to Paul as she hurried out. ‘OK, I need to talk to the neighbour.’

‘I’ll come with you.’ Paul got to his feet.

‘There’s no need.’

‘I want to.’

I could see Gardner was reluctant, but he gave a nod. He went up in my estimation for that.

I was left alone in the house. The knowledge of how badly we’d been played for fools burned like acid. My noble gesture to Gardner, agreeing to offer myself as bait, now seemed nothing more than hubris. God, have you got such a high opinion of yourself? I should have realized that York wouldn’t have bothered with me when there were far more tempting targets for the taking.

Like Sam.

The kitchen was in near-darkness, the daylight almost completely gone. I turned on the light. The new appliances and freshly painted walls seemed mocking in their optimism. I’d been in Paul’s position once myself, but with one crucial difference. When Jenny had been abducted we’d known that her captor kept his victims alive for up to three days. But there was nothing to suggest that York kept his victims alive any longer than he had to.

Sam might be already dead.

Restless, I left the kitchen. A forensic unit was on its way to the house, but no one seriously expected them to find anything significant. Even so, I was still careful not to touch anything as I went into the lounge. It was a comfortable, cheery room: soft sofa and chairs, coffee table half covered with magazines. It was imprinted with Sam’s personality far more than Paul’s; thoughtfully designed, but still a room for living in rather than admiring.

I turned to go, and my eye fell on a small photo frame on the smoked glass cabinet. The picture was an almost abstract pattern of black and whites, but the sight of it was like a punch in the stomach.

It was a prenatal scan of Sam’s baby.

I went back out into the hall. I stopped by the front door, visualizing what must have happened. A knock on the door. Sam opening it, seeing a paramedic there. She’d be confused, convinced there was some mix-up. Probably smiled as she tried to explain the mistake. And then… what? There were bushes screening the front door, the big maple tree in the garden further blocking it from view. But York wouldn’t have taken any chances on being seen. So he’d have tricked or forced his way inside somehow, before quickly overpowering her and bundling her into the wheelchair.

Then he’d brazenly pushed her down the path to his waiting ambulance.

I noticed something on the floor by the skirting board, specks of white on the beige carpet. I bent down for a closer look, and jumped as the front door suddenly opened.

Jacobsen paused when she saw me crouching in the hall. I got to my feet and gestured at the white flecks.

‘Looks like York was in a hurry. And no, I haven’t touched anything.’

She examined the carpet, then the skirting board next to it. There were scuff marks on the woodwork.

‘Paint. He must have caught the skirting board with the wheelchair,’ she said. ‘We’d wondered how York got Professor Irving out of the woods. It was a good half-mile to the nearest parking place. That’s a long way to move a grown man, especially if he’s unconscious.’

‘You think he used a wheelchair then as well?’

‘It’d explain a lot.’ She shook her head, annoyed at the oversight. ‘We found what looked like cycle tracks on the trails near where Irving went missing. It’s a popular area with mountain bikers, so it didn’t seem relevant at the time. But wheelchairs have similar tyres.’

And even if York had encountered anyone as he was pushing an unconscious Irving back along the trail, who would have thought anything of it? He’d just have looked like a carer taking an invalid out in the fresh air.

We went back into the kitchen. I saw Jacobsen looking at the half-full coffee percolator. Without asking I poured her a cup and topped up my own.

‘So what do you think?’ I asked, quietly, as I handed it to her.

‘It’s too soon to say…’ she began, then stopped. ‘You want me to be honest?’

No. I gave a nod.

‘I think we’ve been two steps behind York all along. He fooled us into thinking you were his target, and walked in here while we were looking the other way. Now Samantha Avery’s paid for our mistakes.’

‘You think there’s any chance of finding her in time?’

She looked into her coffee as though she could divine the answers there. ‘York won’t want to take long over this. He knows we’re looking for him, and he’ll be excited and eager. If he hasn’t killed her already, she’ll be dead before the night’s out.’

I put my cup down, feeling suddenly nauseous. ‘Why Sam?’ I asked, although I could guess.

‘York needed to reassert his ego after his failure with Dr Lieberman. We were right about that much, at least.’ Jacobsen sounded bitter. ‘Samantha Avery would’ve ticked all the boxes: the wife of Dr Lieberman’s probable successor, and nearly nine months pregnant. That’d make her doubly attractive. It guarantees headlines and, if we’re right about the photographs, it also feeds into York’s psychosis. He’s fixated on capturing the moment of death on film, believing that’ll somehow reveal the answers he’s looking for. So from his point of view, who could be a better victim than a pregnant woman, someone who’s literally full of life?’

Christ. It was insane, and yet the worst of it was there was a twisted logic behind it. Futile and obscene, but there all the same.

‘And what then? He isn’t going to find the answers he’s looking for by killing Sam.’

Jacobsen’s face held a bleakness I’d not seen before. ‘Then he’ll tell himself she wasn’t the right one after all and carry on. He’ll know time’s against him, no matter how much his pride says otherwise, and that’s going to make him desperate. Maybe next time he’ll go after another pregnant woman, or even a child. Either way, he won’t stop.’

I thought of the tortured faces in the photographs and had a sudden image of Sam going through the same ordeal. I rubbed my eyes, trying to banish it.

‘So what happens now?’

Jacobsen stared out of the window at the advancing night. ‘We hope we find them before morning.’