The Vanishing

by John Connor

Genres: Thrillers

Synopsis

Twenty years ago, one-year-old Lauren disappeared.

Now, ex-policeman Tom Lomax gets a mysterious offer from an heiress, Sara. She wants him to fly to her private island, all expenses paid. He cannot help but be intrigued. But Sara has received a troubling message and, despite all the privileges in her life, she now has no one to turn to and doesn't know whom she can trust.

In a matter of hours, both will be thrown headfirst into a race against time that will challenge everything they've believed in and change both their lives for ever.

An action-packed, nail-biting thriller with a heart-wrenching story of loss at its core, THE VANISHING is the brand new novel from acclaimed thriller writer John Connor.

Read by David Thorpe

Release date: June 6, 2013

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 320

Sample

It was over now. From the room beyond the bolted double doors Arisha could hear Liz shrieking and wailing. She turned away in fright, biting her lip and wiping the tears that came to her eyes. She walked shakily through the cool, wood-lined passage with its rattling, antiquated air-conditioning unit, along to the gloomy, intricately carved staircase, then down to the hall and out. Through the open front doors and into the smothering heat. She needed time to think, but on the wide veranda the raw sunlight made her stagger. She leaned on the balustrade and took deep breaths of the insufferable, humid air, heavy with the stench of rotting fruit. There were parrots screeching from the treeline – or was it the monkeys, the filthy black monkeys that gave the place its name? She could still hear the screaming in the room above, so she put her hands over her ears and stared out towards the dock and the shimmering sea – a picture-postcard image of tropical paradise.

She hated it. She had hated it from the first day they had been forced to come here – it was too hot, too muggy, everything rotting and riddled with mould. The sea looked inviting, but it was full of tiny stinging jellyfish, the beach hid bugs that burrowed into your skin and laid eggs, the jungle was alive with frogs so toxic you would choke just from touching their skin. There was nowhere here that you could be comfortable. She spent the day drenched in sweat, with a permanent headache. But now they would have to leave. The child was dead. This place had killed it.

When the howling stopped, Liz was going to shout for her, she knew that. She was going to get the blame. It wasn’t her fault, but Liz Wellbeck would need to blame someone else – that was the way it always was with her. Arisha walked carefully down the six, creaking steps on to the compacted red earth of the clearing in front of the house, then kept going, towards the dock, shading her eyes from the sun. She had left her sunglasses by her bed, but her room was right next to the one Liz was in, so she wasn’t going back for them. She had a wide-brimmed straw hat on, but only a tight pair of white shorts, a T-shirt and sandals. She could feel the sun burning her skin as soon as she stepped into it.

She needed Maxim. She needed him to reassure her. A sob caught in her throat. She had treated the baby as her own, whispered in its ear that it would be safe, that she loved it. A baby girl – a bright, alert, thirteen-month-old. Arisha had fallen for her the moment Maxim had first placed her into her arms. She had held her to her chest and smiled at her and felt her tiny heart beating through their bodies. She had marvelled at the luxurious, thick, jet-black, curly hair – so clean and wonderful that she had pushed her nose into it and smelled it. The little girl’s eyes had been a startling deep blue and she had looked at her with a wide-open, innocent interest that at first, because of what they were doing, had made Arisha want to cry. So trusting, so helpless, so dependent. She hadn’t a clue what was happening to her. Until Arisha had her in her arms and was holding her miniature fingers, looking into her eyes and talking softly, until she had experienced that sudden swelling feeling in her heart as the baby grinned at her and she saw her four, delicate milk teeth – until right then, Arisha had no idea just how much she loved babies, no idea at all.

The girl could walk a little – a few hesitant steps before she fell back on to all fours. She could mutter or shout a few unintelligible words, things her own mother would have immediately understood, perhaps. But mainly she had been reliant on Arisha to get her to where she wanted to go, to place into her hands the objects that interested her. And Arisha had slipped into the role effortlessly. The journey on the plane had worked so well – Arisha completely focused on the baby’s needs and responses. It seemed like a dream now.

Children had short memories. Maxim said they could flourish like weeds, adapting, moving on, taking whatever they needed from wherever they could get it, just as he had. And it was true. Arisha had felt a pang of loss – even though it was what they wanted to happen – because the child had warmed to Liz almost immediately. As if able to sense that really Arisha counted for nothing, could guarantee nothing. She was just the delivery girl. It was Liz the baby needed to bond with, Liz who would provide.

And Liz had been surprisingly affectionate. Elizabeth Wellbeck-Eaton liked to say that she was half Russian, with a Russian mother’s instincts. Her own mother had been an émigrée, something aristocratic and titled, from the Tsarist époque, but that counted for nothing in modern Russia – she spoke Russian, sure, but she understood nothing of what it meant to be from that shithole. The reality was that she was an American, and had lived her entire thirty years in the lap of absolute excess. Despite that, until this moment Arisha had thought there was something emotionally broken in her. In the year she had been working for Liz she had never seen her cry, rarely seen her laugh. Liz was fastidious to an extreme, control obsessed, a difficult person to please or work for. In private she spoke derisively of her friends, had a fraught relationship with her father and brother, viewed her husband – Freddie Eaton – with undisguised contempt. She spent over an hour each morning dressing and decorating herself, with the assistance of two or three staff – in the Paris house, at least, not here, because the staff had been left behind when they came here, along with everything else, in order to keep this whole thing secret. Arisha had assumed Liz would be useless with a child, that she wouldn’t have a clue. But she had behaved immediately like the baby really was hers, holding her close, rocking her, talking quietly, taking over everything Arisha had been doing, even the changing. The baby had brought Liz to life. Against all odds, it had worked.

Arisha had watched with astonishment. And for a while she had really believed that the baby would be safe, that the monstrous thing she and Maxim had done together – stolen a baby – could actually, in the end, have been a good thing. They had given a desperate woman a child, and the child would be happy. After all, her new mother was one of the richest women on the planet. What could go wrong?

They had been here a week when the symptoms started. Some standard flu the parrots caught and survived each year – that’s what the doctor had said – ‘nothing to worry about’. But it had lingered and got worse, overwhelming the child’s immature immune system, filling her lungs with bright green, infected mucus. Today she had gone from a cough and a runny nose to blue lips and breathing difficulties in less than four hours. They had sent someone in the seaplane to get the doctor again, but it was a three-and-a-half-hour flight to the big island, and now it was too late.

The place was only fit for the monkeys, the precious, stinking monkeys Liz was in love with, trying to save them from extinction or whatever – her little pet project, prior to the baby. That would change now, Arisha guessed. Liz could shift loyalties as she could change clothing. Everything Arisha had been taught as a child was true, even the crude communist slogans – rich people were degenerate, self-serving, immoral, they had no allegiance to anything but themselves.

As she reached the slope down to the dock she saw with relief that Maxim was already running towards her, coming from the boat. He too had a pair of shorts on, though longer than her own and baggy with pockets, no doubt stuffed with ammunition and cigarettes. His legs, chest, head and feet were bare – but he had tanned within days of getting here. No matter how careful she was, that didn’t happen to her skin. She was too pale, too freckly, her hair naturally a light red. It had been long, beautiful – almost down to her waist – but she had cut it and dyed it an ugly brown the day they got to Paris with the baby, because Maxim had told her to, because that was part of his plan – so that now it wasn’t even long enough to shade her neck from the sun. His blond hair – growing longer now he was out of the military – had bleached almost white, because he swam and stood in the sun every day, despite the jellyfish and bugs and the danger of heatstroke. He was loving every minute of this place. He thought it was paradise.

She started to run towards him and had a fleeting fantasy that they would both just turn around, get in the boat and sail away from it all. He stopped when he saw her and shouted something, but she couldn’t hear for the birds and monkeys. The parrots were very near her, off to her right. She could hear their wings thrashing the air as they took off in alarm. Maxim glanced at them, distracted. ‘What’s happening?’ he yelled, and she heard this time. He had the gun in his hands. While they were here he was in charge of security for the Wellbeck-Eatons, which meant he was never without some gun or other. There was a constant danger of kidnap, he said. She waved her arms at him, slowed down, then suddenly started to really cry. As she got to him he grabbed her by the shoulder with one hand, his face intense with concentration and worry. ‘What’s happened, Arisha? Tell me what’s going on.’ He spoke Russian with her, as they always did when alone. She leaned her head against his chest, smelling his sweat, feeling it damp against her cheek, catching her breath and telling him at the same time, ‘The baby died … I think the baby died …’

‘Jesus Christ.’ She could feel him tightening up. ‘Are you sure?’

She could hear the fear in his voice. She wanted him to put his arms around her, to hug her, but he was on edge now.

‘I thought it might be someone attacking Liz,’ he muttered. ‘She’s screaming like an animal …’

‘The little girl, Max … the little girl …’

He pulled her into him now, ran a hand across her hair. ‘We have to be calm,’ he said, trying to control his voice, to be gentle with her. ‘It’s a terrible thing. But it wasn’t your fault. If we had a child we would never bring her to a place like this. That was her decision. Not ours. If it had been her own natural child she would never have brought it to this place. She’s not fit to have children. She’s a fucking idiot …’

‘The child hurt nobody … she was only thirteen months old …’

He tilted her head up, so that she was looking at him. ‘The child is safe,’ he said quietly. ‘Wherever she is now, she’s safe. No more pain.’ He frowned at her. ‘We have to think of us now, not the child. We have to be very careful. Remember where we are, remember what we’ve done. Don’t think about the child. You need to get back up there and be there for her. She’s shouting for you.’

‘I can’t stand this, Max. I can’t take any more of it …’

‘Don’t be stupid. You want to go back to Russia? You want that life again?’ He lifted her chin so that she was looking into his eyes. He was twenty-one, a year older than her, but over a foot taller, with a lean body, stripped of fat during his recent spell in Afghanistan. He was about to say something else, maybe something kinder, but then something caught his attention from behind her. ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘She’s coming down here …’

Arisha turned and looked. Liz Wellbeck was on the path, stumbling towards them, weeping uncontrollably, shouting Arisha’s name. She was in a shabby, soiled dressing gown, her hair matted and stuck across her face, her eyes black pools of smudged mascara that had run down her cheeks like clown paint. There was something in her arms, a bundle.

‘She’s got the little girl with her,’ Maxim hissed. ‘Are you sure she’s dead? Are you sure?’

She wasn’t sure of anything, but she couldn’t do anything but go to her now. They both began to run back up the path, pretending they had only just realised what was happening. As they reached Liz she fell forward so that Maxim had to catch her by the arms and brace her against himself. Arisha gasped. Liz was holding the baby in a silk blanket. She could see its tiny white hands, the curly black hair, the little closed eyes, the skin grey and loose, all its features fixed and wax-like – as if it were a bizarre, macabre doll, a replica of a dead baby. It didn’t look like the child she remembered from the plane journey. She started to tremble, holding her hands to her mouth.

‘Get off me!’ Liz spat at Maxim. ‘Get your hands off me.’ She pushed herself away. She was on one knee, shielding the bundle from him. ‘You did this,’ she hissed, in Russian. ‘You killed her …’ Her eyes were fierce, but they quickly dimmed as she collapsed on to the path. She started to rock the dead baby, the tears streaming from her eyes, her mouth twisted in an awful grimace of anguish. ‘My baby’s dead,’ she screamed. ‘My little baby is dead …’

Even from fifty feet back in the queue, Tom Lomax could see that the security presence was unusual. There were at least six guys on the gate and they weren’t doing anything but looking at the people going through. They were all wearing sunglasses and smart, dark suits, standing like people who were carrying guns, hands hanging loose and ready, jackets open. He smiled to himself. It was part of the circus, he assumed – the celebrity spectacular that had brought them all here.

He was holding his son’s hand, waiting to get into the place which presently served as the football ground for Hatton FC, a struggling county league club that probably gated about five hundred supporters on a good day. As far as he could see, the ground consisted of a row of scrappy fields bordering the south-eastern tip of Heathrow Airport. The planes came over low and loud every fifty seconds. But today would be a bumper day for the club. Over a wire fence to his right he could see a couple of thousand people already inside, groups of kids running around while they waited for the event to get under way.

It was too warm for the leather jacket he was wearing. ‘You can take your fleece off,’ he said to Jamie. ‘I’ll hang on to it for you.’ But right then a jumbo came in, drowning everything. Jamie, seven years old, put his hands over his ears. From where Tom was standing there was a row of houses blocking his view of the south runway, but from the height of the jet it couldn’t have been more than a few hundred yards away.

He checked his watch again. Almost one o’clock. He had to have Jamie back with his mother by three. Half-term was just ending, but Sally had got Jamie an extra week and booked a holiday in Spain for them in the only week she could get off from work. She and Jamie were flying out at six that evening. But Alex – Tom’s closest friend – had told Jamie about this ‘unmissable’ event, and so here they were, rushing to fit it in. Both Alex and his son – Garth – were meant to be with them, but Garth had pulled a muscle in his ankle the evening before and couldn’t walk, so now Tom and Jamie were going alone.

They were here not to watch Hatton play, but because a premiership striker was doing an appearance, proceeds to some charity. Someone called Dimitri Barsukov had apparently set up and paid for the striker’s visit, because Barsukov had some connection to the club, either owned it, or wanted to own it – most likely in order to buy the land from under them, according to Alex (and Alex would know about such things). Hence the muscle – to protect the celeb striker. Or so Tom imagined until he heard them speak. As he went past them, through the gates and into the ground – begrudgingly handing over his twenty on the way – he noticed they were speaking some Eastern Bloc language – possibly Russian – which meant they were probably here for Barsukov, not for the striker – the striker was from Merseyside. Tom’s hand went to the stiff envelope in his inside jacket pocket and his mind turned over the little sequence of events that had brought him here. He began to worry.

He was meant to serve the envelope on the Russian, on Barsukov. Alex had persuaded him to do it. There was some kind of legal document inside, a writ, most probably. Tom hadn’t looked. The only info he’d been given was that Barsukov was careful and other methods had failed. He had no idea who was behind it, who needed it served. Over the last six months there had been seven or eight of these jobs, all simple enough. Alex worked for Glynn Powell, a ‘west London businessman’, as he put it, one that Tom had first come across during his seven years in the Met, under a less benign description. Back then he wouldn’t have taken Glynn Powell’s hand to spit on it. But that world had been turned on its head three years ago. These days he took what he could get.

‘Just a straightforward service job,’ Alex had said. ‘Just walk up to Barsukov and give him the envelope. He’ll be there with his kid. Just like you.’ For which Tom would get the usual fee. ‘Jamie won’t even see what you’re doing, mate,’ Alex had added. ‘He’ll be watching his hero – the great striker. Come on. I’d do it myself if Garth weren’t crippled.’

Alex had given him a photo of Barsukov – cut out of a gossip magazine – and told him to expect a guy standing inconspicuously with the other fathers, waiting for an autograph. Now that he was here, Tom thought the reality was that it seemed unlikely he would even be able to get near Barsukov.

The star attraction was late, so Tom led Jamie slowly towards the pitch, where the striker was scheduled to give a lesson of some sort to some hand-picked kids from a school in Bedfont. Perhaps a lesson in speaking unintelligible Scouse. Tom wasn’t much into football, never had been. He suspected Jamie was only interested because of Garth. Most times Jamie tried to play he ended up with a fat lip, in tears. He was better at more thoughtful things – drawing, reading, maths. Tom was thinking that he was going to end up disappointed today, because it was unlikely, given the absence of tiered seating, that they would even get a glimpse of the striker. He picked Jamie up and sat him on his shoulders, and just at that point caught sight of Barsukov.

He was a short, squat man, with a big, flat nose, bald. In his mid-fifties, perhaps. Easy to recognise from the photo. He didn’t have a kid with him, but was walking casually around the back of the crowd gathered at the pitch, talking to a fat guy in a tracksuit. The nearest of his minders was a good ten feet behind, talking into his earpiece mic. All very relaxed. He was about thirty feet from Tom and Jamie, coming towards them.

As Tom watched, a couple of kids ran up to the Russian, holding out pieces of paper and pens. They were after his autograph. The patron saint of Hatton FC. The minder didn’t react. Barsukov stooped to the kids’ level and spoke to them, smiling. Then he signed their brochures as if to the manner born.

It all looked too easy. So why not try? Tom started to walk towards him, Jamie still on his shoulders. As he drew near the guard was still way behind, still occupied. All safe. He told Jamie to hang on and took the envelope and a pen from his pocket. He held the envelope and the pen towards Barsukov. The man smiled up at Jamie, then said, ‘I’m not him, you know.’ Meaning the striker. His accent was obvious. ‘He’s a bit taller than me,’ he added. It was a joke, so Jamie laughed politely.

‘You’re Dimitri Barsukov, right?’ Tom asked, just to check. By now Barsukov had taken the envelope and was reaching for the pen.

‘I am,’ he said, still smiling. The man at his side, in the tracksuit, was smiling too. Everyone was smiling. Tom put the pen back in his pocket. ‘Sorry,’ he said. He pointed at the envelope. ‘That’s court papers, Mr Barsukov. You’re served.’ He turned to leave as Barsukov’s face dropped.

The blow came out of the blue, from behind him, knocking him forwards so that he started to fall with Jamie hanging on to his hair. As he went down, he felt Jamie coming off him and tried to get his hands up to catch him, but by then Barsukov was right in front of him, swinging at his face. He had looked solid, Tom recalled, as the first blow landed. Damn right. He had a punch like a sledgehammer. Tom took two of them and hit the ground, sprawled on his side, little pinpoints of light swirling through his eyes. He heard Jamie shouting something, but as he turned to get up someone else stamped on his head, very hard, knocking him down again and momentarily blacking out his vision. He shielded his head and managed to get into a sitting position, then on to his knees. There was shouting all around him now, men running to intervene. He could see a face peering down at him, mouthing words. One of the security guards. Then Barsukov’s voice telling everyone to get off him, to leave him alone, speaking in English. A huge shadow appeared in the sky, moving rapidly. Another 747, but for an instant Tom couldn’t even hear it.

He got to his feet and saw Jamie being held by one of the guards. He was staring in complete panic at his dad, a hand extended towards him, shouting something. Tom’s hearing returned. He moved towards Jamie as Barsukov shouted some instruction and the guard released him. Tom got to him and put his arms around him. He could hear Barsukov trying to calm things, shouting that everything was a mistake.

‘Are you all right, Jamie?’ Tom asked, his ears ringing. Jamie began to shake and cry. Tom started to check him, but then someone was pulling at his shoulder. He turned to find Barsukov leaning towards him, breath reeking of garlic, pushing the envelope back into his pocket, a big smile on his face. ‘A mistake. A mistake,’ he was saying, for the benefit of the crowd that had gathered. ‘I’m sorry.’ His face came very close to Tom. ‘If I ever see you again,’ he hissed, ‘I’ll break your kid’s neck.’

Forty minutes later Tom was standing on Sally’s doorstep listening to a tirade of criticism. He took it in silence, with his head down. He was average height at five nine; Sally was two years younger than him and short, five inches shorter, in fact. But she had a fearless temper. Since she’d become ‘a single mum’ she’d gone through a bit of a Sarah Connor phase, running, doing weights, putting muscle on and wearing clothes that would show it. Terminator mum. Right now she looked like she might take a swing at him. It wouldn’t be the first time, and he was sore enough already, so he kept well back, hung his head and waited.

Jamie stood behind his mum – where she’d pushed him to shield him from his father. He had cried all the way back in the car. Not because they were peremptorily ejected from the grounds and he didn’t get to see the striker, but because he had thought his dad was going to be hurt. ‘I thought they were going to kill you, Dad,’ he snivelled into Tom’s shoulder, once they got back to the car. ‘I was really scared they were going to kill you.’ He was shaking like a leaf.

Tom hadn’t known what to say. He hugged Jamie and apologised over and over again. It was pure luck he was unhurt. Barsukov hadn’t given a shit that he had a kid on his shoulders. But then, Tom hadn’t shown much concern himself when he’d walked up to him with Jamie sitting there. What had he been thinking of? He hadn’t been thinking at all.

‘You’re a fuckhead,’ Sally yelled up at him, with classic eloquence. ‘Pure and simple. You’re a complete and utter fuck.’ It was true. He didn’t deserve time with Jamie. Etc. Etc. Everything she was saying was correct.

Once she was done and the door slammed in his face Tom walked miserably back to the car. The kick to the head had broken a tooth. He’d felt it in his mouth, but hadn’t spat it out, so thought he might have swallowed it. The gap wasn’t sore yet, just jagged against his tongue. As he was using the rear-view mirror to look at the steadily growing bruise across the left side of his face, his mobile rang.

He ignored it, instead getting out the envelope Barsukov had stuffed back in his pocket. He hadn’t even bothered to open it. Alex had some explaining to do. Tom would return the envelope and demand an explanation. He tore it across and pulled out a single folded sheet of thick paper. His phone beeped to indicate a text had come in. He got it up with one hand and used the other to unfold the sheet of paper. It was blank. He turned it over. There was a single sentence written in the middle of the page: ‘Introducing Tom Lomax, as requested.’

He was totally thrown. Some scheme between Glynn Powell and Barsukov? Some stupid joke? At any rate something had gone wrong. Had Alex screwed up the communications, telling him it was court papers? Instead, for some reason, he was meant to have met Barsukov? But what was that about?

He threw the paper on to the passenger seat and looked at his phone. There was a text from someone signing off as David Simmons. He said he was outside Tom’s house, waiting for him, wanting to talk urgently. Tom had never heard of him, but was irritated he was outside his house. He had hired a six-by-six box in Hounslow precisely so that there would be some separation between his home address, also in Hounslow, and the working world. The working world was full of middle-tier criminals wanting information on rivals, Glynn Powell included. David Simmons was probably another. He didn’t want that shit at home.

Fifteen minutes later, as he pulled the car on to the driveway of his semi, he saw that the man was actually waiting on his doorstep, right on his doorstep, sitting there. That was annoying, but as Tom got out and Simmons came over, Tom saw that he had to be about sixty, if not older. The anger started to dissipate. Simmons was harmless, stooped and thin, wearing a tailored grey suit, with a shirt and tie, his face clean-shaven. He had a smart briefcase and polished black brogues. He didn’t look like the usual client. ‘David Simmons,’ he said, introducing himself. ‘I’m a solicitor. You’re Tom Lomax?’

‘Yes,’ Tom said, heart sinking, thinking now that it had to be some new maintenance demand from Sally. ‘How did you find my home address?’

‘We called someone and asked them for the information.’ He said it as if to say, ‘obviously’. ‘You are Tom Lomax, the detective constable? DC Lomax, of the Metropolitan Police?’ he asked.

‘Not any more,’ Tom said, curious now. ‘I quit that.’

Simmons considered this for a moment. Definitely not sent by Sally, then. Tom watched the grey eyes take in the bruise on his face, the blood on his T-shirt and jacket.

‘It’s been a bit of a hard day,’ Tom said. That would have to be explanation enough. ‘I’m no longer a policeman,’ he repeated. ‘Does that change things, or is there something I can help you with – since you’re here, standing on my driveway?’

‘Is there somewhere we can talk?’

‘Not in my house.’

‘How about your car, then?’ Simmons asked, as if he were cracking a joke.

‘I usually speak to people at the office. That’s what it’s for.’

‘I haven’t time for that.’ Simmons lowered his voice and started to mutter something about his ‘principal’.

‘Your principal?’ Tom asked.

‘Yes. I’m here on her behalf. Her name is Sara Eaton. Have you heard of her?’

Tom shook his head. His face was beginning to throb now. He needed painkillers.

‘Have you heard of Elizabeth Wellbeck? Or Freddie Eaton?’

‘Should I have?’

Simmons started telling him about the Wellbeck-Eaton family. Sara Eaton was part of it, Freddie was her father, Liz her mother. Simmons made it sound like a dynasty. They were big in this and that, had a lot of cash and so on. He phrased it all very delicately, but Tom got the idea. ‘I’m here on behalf of Sara Eaton,’ he said. ‘She wants to meet you.’

‘You mean she wants some work done?’

‘She wants to talk to you, at least. I can take you to her now.’

‘It’s the weekend. She can come to the office on Monday.’

‘That might be difficult. She’s actually in the Seychelles.’

‘The Seychelles? As in … in the Indian Ocean?’

‘That’s right. I have a private jet waiting at an airfield just outside Luton. We can be there in about eighteen hours, if we leave now.’

Tom stared at him with his mouth open. ‘Are you being serious? This is one of Alex’s little jokes, right?’

‘Alex?’

‘You’re being paid by someone, right? You’re filming me?’

Simmons d. . .