Ursula was just an experiment; a bridge for him to go halfway. He’d spent an evening asking her for every detail of her previous relationships: the men she’d seen, who they were, what they did together. It seemed likely Sam was building up to something with Ursula; using her as a vessel, trying to pluck up the courage to invite another man into their bed. It was everything he could never ask Julia to do, and the reason Sam and Julia didn’t have a sex life. He married her because he was still trying to deny what he felt. Maybe he thought he could push it down and bury it somewhere. But as the marriage went on, it became more difficult to control. Ursula was a route that got him some of the way. Wellis, despite the misery he wrought in Sam’s life, could get him to the other side.
‘I set him up with a nice little Albanian kid,’ Wellis said, enjoying the moment. He pushed his tongue in against his cheek in a blowjob gesture. ‘Fresh out of the fridge, this kid was. Nineteen, skinny, cute little tattoo on the back of his neck. Spoke pretty decent English, and was willing to suck cock for pennies. That’s how you want them: young and willing and ready to bend over.’
‘What was the kid’s name?’
‘I told you: I don’t know their fucking names.’
‘Where does he live?’
‘Why, you gonna go round there and try to find him?’
‘Where does he live?’
A pause. ‘The kid’s dead.’
Somehow another lost life didn’t seem all that surprising. Wellis was like a black hole. He drew people in so deep and so fast, they couldn’t find their way back out.
‘You killed him?’ I asked.
Wellis didn’t reply.
‘Did you?’
He shrugged. ‘I suppose, in a way, I did.’
‘What does that even mean?’
When I looked down at him, a gentle movement passed across his eyes, like he was on the verge of telling me something. But then he stopped himself.
‘The kid was in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ he said quietly.
I stepped away from them both, trying to clear my head.
And then my phone went off.
Central London number, one I didn’t recognize.
‘Hello?’
‘Mr Raker?’
‘Yeah.’
‘It’s Rob Wren – Sam’s brother.’
Wellis was watching me, looking up from under his brow. Suddenly, there was something I didn’t like in his face. I kept my eyes on him as I talked.
‘Thanks for calling me back.’
‘No problem. Sorry it’s taken me a couple of days. I’ve been out in San Francisco since the weekend and have only just checked my messages.’
‘I’d like to talk to you.’
‘Sure.’
‘Are you at home?’
‘No, in the office.’
‘Where are you based?’
‘Tower Bridge.’
I got the address from him and told him I’d be there in thirty minutes, then I hung up. Wellis was still looking at me. ‘What the hell are you staring at?’ I said to him.
A smirk, but no reply.
And then a flash of a memory: back to when I’d heard a noise outside earlier. I’d been out to investigate. It had turned out to be nothing.
But I’d left him alone.
Suddenly, Wellis was moving: wrists and ankles not bound to the chair any more, sliver of glass in his hand. He jabbed it towards my face, and as I stepped back to avoid it, he charged me. It was like being hit by a bullet. He put everything into it, forcing us both across the office and into the far wall. The whole room shook: glass breaking in the window frames, dust and debris raining from the ceiling. And then he disappeared past me and out through the main door.
I rocked forward, onto the front foot, and went after him – but those precious seconds had cost me. As I hit sunlight, he was already heading out towards Kennington Road. A second after that, he was gone from view. I stopped. Once people saw him, saw what he looked like, they’d be calling the police.
Which meant I had to leave.
‘Shit!’
I slammed the flat of my hand down onto the front of the car and glanced in at Gaishe, who was looking over his shoulder at me. In his face, it was obvious he finally saw the reality of his situation: that Wellis didn’t care about him and never had – and no one was coming back for him. I grabbed the duct tape and the crowbar, then used the tape to cover the car’s registration plates, back and front.
At the wheel, I went over the next hour in my head: when the police turned up, Gaishe would be able to give them a pretty decent description of me – but he didn’t have my real name. Witnesses out on Kennington Road would be able to identify the car that left minutes after Wellis – but they wouldn’t have my plates. Wellis wouldn’t be turning up at his local station any time soon, so I didn’t have to worry about him for now. He’d be lying low. Keeping out of sight. But he’d come back for me eventually. He’d want revenge. He’d see me like I saw him: a loose end that, sooner or later, needed tying up.
But, for now, that didn’t matter.
What mattered was Sam Wren.
And the lie that was his life.
31
Robert Wren worked for a PR agency on the banks of the Thames, with views out to Tower Bridge and HMS Belfast. The offices weren’t hard to find: they were in a cube-shaped glass and steel building, with a massive digital clock set about halfway up and a replica of the Wright Brothers’ Flyer hanging in the foyer. Inside, the foyer was huge and airy, and – about fifty feet above me – a mezzanine café looked out over the Thames. I walked up to reception and asked for Wren.
I’d promised him I’d be thirty minutes, but that was before Wellis screwed up my plans. I’d screwed up too, and that was what rubbed at me. Cases ate away at me the whole time I was on them – but rarely like this. The way Sam had vanished, his journey on the Tube that day, the way his life was just a hollow shell built on lies and half-truths, it all added up – and as it added up, the pressure built.
Robert Wren emerged from one of the elevators on the far side of the foyer. He was older than Sam – at a guess, thirty-five – and, with blue eyes and fair hair, he looked like an overweight version of his brother. He was dressed in an open-neck white shirt, a pair of dark blue denims and tan shoes so shiny they reflected back half the sunlight in the building. He was every inch the PR man.
We shook hands. ‘How long have you been doing this?’ he asked as we headed to an elevator and rode it up to the café. I was struck by how softly spoken he was. Julia said he was a partner at the firm and I could tell he’d got to the top through self-control and reliability, rather than by being some kind of maverick, coming up with unworkable plans and screaming at his staff until he backed them into a corner.
‘Finding missing people or finding Sam?’
‘Missing people.’
‘Almost four years.’
‘What did you do before?’
‘I was a journalist – but don’t hold that against me.’
He laughed, but it all felt a little fake. I’d dealt with thousands of PRs during my years on the paper and very few were genuinely interested in you. Most were able to put on a pretty convincing show, though, and Robert Wren was definitely doing that. He got a couple of coffees and then brought them over to a table in the café, along with a selection of pastries.
‘I didn’t know if you were hungry, so I just grabbed everything,’ he said, and he broke out into that same laugh again. This time it sounded different; less like one from the PR manual, and more cautious somehow. After that, he started talking about his brother, initially in quiet, sombre tones, and then – as he tracked back through their childhood and the period after their parents passed on – in a much warmer, more expansive way.