Stop Me Page 7

  The cursor flashed. Bookwalter seemed to be waiting for a prompt. Either that or he just wanted to know that Leo was still there.

  Percy Street is overlooked on the right hand side by several housing blocks. Weren’t you concerned that somebody would have seen you?

  Percy Street had nothing but horded wasteland bordering it at the time of Laura’s disappearance.

  I told you, I knew nobody would disturb us. I used the plastic carpet ties on her wrists but I didnt bother with her feet. The tranquilliser would still be working hours after wed reached our destination. Then something happened just before I shut the trunk.

  I remember you telling me.

  But Leo knew that Bookwalter’s elaborations were always building to this moment. It was the most convincing part of the account and no matter what additional facts he embellished the story with as he gleaned more specific details from Leo, Bookwalter’s narrative always concluded with the same recollection.

  I dont know whether it was a reflex or if it was Laura being guileful as she went under but when I checked the ties on her wrists she curled her fingers around the tops of mine. She didnt grab them, she seemed to caress the three fingers of my right hand and I remember how it had taken me out of the moment.

  Id held her while the tranquilliser had taken effect, had her teeth marks in the back of my hand and had lifted her weight into the trunk but that was the first time shed touched me. It definitely unnerved me and I remember slapping her hand away and slamming the boot.

  Leo waited for Bookwalter to continue. The account always ended here but he wondered if he was going to polish the final memory more than he usually did. Memory? The whole account was a fantasy that Bookwalter got off on but he wasn’t sure if he reverted back to the past tense as a natural way to end his story or because the detail about the fingers was part of a genuine recollection. The moment seemed utterly convincing to Leo but Bookwalter had proved himself to be an adroit storyteller. He employed convincingly odd details, had garnered small pieces of truth from Leo in the past and used them to plug the holes in the places he couldn’t have been.

  In his initial outline of events Bookwalter told Leo he’d watched them sitting at their table through the window of Chevalier’s. The table had been in the back lounge where there was no window. He’d also told Leo that he’d seen Laura in Chevalier’s most lunchtimes. She mostly ate at her desk at Opallios and Leo usually accompanied her whenever she did drink there. He still also maintained that there were toilets at the bottom of the stairs leading down from the back lounge. There were no stairs, only one single step and no toilets. The stairs actually led up from the front bar to the central lounge where there were toilets halfway along the right-hand wall.

  He could certainly pinpoint the origins of all the other information that Bookwalter had about Opallios and Hektor from their many dialogues. The other details, like the description of what Laura had been wearing, would have been available to Bookwalter through news broadcasts and on the internet.

  He continually asked Bookwalter where he’d taken Laura from there but had been told that details of what transpired afterwards would be too ‘taxing’. For Leo or Bookwalter? There was, of course, the small matter of how he’d managed to transplant her to the United States against her will. Bookwalter occasionally insinuated that Laura was now a willing accomplice but how had he got himself present at Chevalier’s when he’d never left the state of Louisiana in his entire life?

  They were questions that all had one definitive answer. But even dispensing with the inconsistencies in Bookwalter’s own ludicrous claims the delivery guy story was still the most convincing theory that Leo had been offered in fifteen months of personal and police investigation. He’d even started to see Bookwalter the delivery guy in his dreams and waking to the knowledge that his delusional correspondent had deliberately planted himself there never completely shook the notion that Bookwalter had become one of the last people in his life who confirmed that Laura existed.

  Have to go to sleep now. Say good night to Laura for me.

  Leo didn’t wait for a response but shut the lid of his laptop and lay back on the pillows. He thought about taking off his uniform but turned off the lamp instead and scrabbled for the water and pills. He was asleep before he found them.

  CHAPTER 13

  As the light in Leo’s room went out Cleaves was just trimming his fingernails. The clippings pinged off the condensation on the windscreen and he turned the warm air on to clear it. Another freezing morning. Night-time vigils were fine but the street was about to get busy and he’d have to move the car every half hour so nobody would alert the police.

  The car had nearly ended up as a write-off but that had been Sharpe’s stupid fault. He ran his hand over his head again and felt the sharp prickles of his recent haircut. At least there was no shortage of nearby shops to keep him feeling human. He flipped the sun visor down so he could study the grey hairs amongst the black. He wondered if he should try a spray dye. Perhaps he’d wait for his bald patch to spread a little more first. It wouldn’t be long and the thought made his stomach shrink. His wife had told him she didn’t mind but he was only in his mid thirties. He kept his abs trim but what the fuck was the point if his follicles were heading towards premature middle age?

  His phone rang and he switched his earpiece on. There was only one person it was allowed to be while he was working.

  ‘Progress?’ Cleaves could hear the motor of a train in the background. His employer was obviously on his way to work.

  ‘Nothing significant.’ He’d been reporting the same thing since he’d taken on the job and had reached the point when he’d run out of different ways to say it.

  ‘I’ll call you in a couple of days’ time.’ He hung up.

  Cleaves turned off his earpiece. That was another three days expenses then. What the fuck, it was Mr Allan-Carlin’s money.

  * * *

  When the phone rang Leo reached for the bedside table but found that he was sitting in the security booth. He extended his other arm and picked up, vaguely registering that it was morning through the windows on the multiscreens in front of him.

  ‘Leo?’

  ‘Ashley?’ Whatever the time, it was definitely too early in the morning to be hearing from her.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said by way of explanation. ‘Sat watching reruns of Frasier. Seems to be on twenty-four hours a day.’

  ‘I was just…’ Leo tried to think about what he was just doing but his sentence tailed off.

  He heard the volume of the TV drop and the sound of Ashley laying the remote onto a hard surface. ‘What was the name of the doctor who left a message on your answering machine?’

  For a moment Leo had forgotten that he’d mentioned it to her in a phone call. He was convinced that he’d never remember the doctor’s name but found it rolling effortlessly off his tongue. ‘Mutatkar.’

  ‘Right. I was flicking round and caught the headlines on News 24. I knew I’d heard the name and I’ve only just realised why. Somebody called Mutatkar’s committed suicide.’

  Leo felt something coil up inside him. ‘When?’

  ‘Couple of days ago. Wasn’t headline material until now though. Hang on, the paper’s already arrived. Let me see if there’s anything about it in there.’

  Leo watched the cleaners arriving on the screens in front of him and listened to rustling paper on the other end of the line.

  ‘Here it is.’ Leo visualised Ashley putting her spectacles on. ‘Police believed eminent physician, Doctor Parag Mutatkar, committed suicide by driving into the pathway of an oncoming goods lorry on the afternoon of March 12th. However subsequent examination suggests that the fifty-five-year-old was dead before the accident occurred. A full autopsy is now being undertaken.’

  The line seemed to go dead. ‘Ash?’

  ‘That’s all.’

  ‘Is there a photo?’ Leo wasn’t sure why he’d asked. He’d never seen the man and no matter
how many times he’d replayed the message he still hadn’t been able to discern the name as Parag.

  ‘Yes. Nothing else though. Bizarre story.’

  ‘Which paper?’

  ‘The Telegraph. Wait a minute. Should I really have told you this?’ She suddenly sounded full of self-reproach. ‘Remember, it’s probably a complete coincidence.’

  * * *

  Dr Parag Mutatkar MB BS FRCP MRCS DCH DRCOG wasn’t hard to find. An eminent rheumatologist who had owned his own clinic in Notting Hill, he had been Council and Executive member of the British Society for Rheumatology, an expert adviser to NICE, scientific adviser to the National Osteoporosis Society, and honorary treasurer to the Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Alliance. He was one day away from his fifty-sixth birthday when the lorry had ploughed into his car. He left behind a wife, Dakini, and a twenty-two-year-old daughter, Sabri.

  Could he really be the same Doctor Mutatkar and, if so, what the hell had he been doing leaving messages on Leo’s answering machine?

  Leo had wondered if he would be ex-directory but a quick scan through the Kensington and Chelsea online phone book had pinpointed the sprawling Queen Anne house that Leo’s Saab was now parked outside. He’d wondered if there’d be a mob of reporters outside the black electric gates when he arrived but the story obviously hadn’t been worth a wait in the cold or was already old news.

  He got out of the car, crossed the road and pushed on the intercom buzzer beside the gate.

  If somebody answers in five seconds then this will be my first real step towards finding Laura.

  Nobody did and as he looked up the gravel driveway to the house again he noticed that some of the windows still had their curtains drawn.

  ‘Hello.’ The female Indian voice sounded faint.

  ‘Hello. Mrs Mutatkar?’

  ‘No, that’s my mum.’

  Leo could hear another voice behind the first.

  ‘Who is this?’ The second female Indian voice had extra layers of weary maturity.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you at a time like this.’

  ‘Are you from the papers?’

  ‘No. I may have known your husband. No, that’s not true. Your husband may have telephoned me a few days ago.’

  Leo could hear her breathing for a few moments. ‘Nice try, but please leave us alone.’

  ‘Mrs Mutatkar, please believe me. I’m as surprised to find myself knocking at your door as you are but there is one way of confirming this without even letting me onto your property.’

  He heard her sigh. ‘We just want to be left alone.’

  ‘And I promise I will leave you be once we’ve had a chance to talk. My name is Leo Sharpe. My wife was kidnapped in 2007 and a couple of nights ago a Doctor Mutatkar left a message on my answering machine saying that he knew where she was.’

  Another pause. ‘Sorry, what is this all about?’

  ‘He asked me to meet him the following morning and left his mobile number. Can you confirm that his number is…’ Leo plucked the piece of paper out of his pocket that he’d scribbled the number on and recited it to her.

  ‘Anybody could have that information.’

  Leo’s circulation surged. So it was him. It was the an interesting development and suddenly he felt a new impetus brushing his awkwardness aside. He leant further in to the intercom as if she would be able to hear the truth in the volume of his words. ‘I tried to meet him…he said at 10 o’clock in Wick Street, Wednesday morning…’ He gave her time to absorb the information and an opportunity to remember the day in question. ‘When he didn’t turn up, I called him on the number he gave me. If you look in his phone there should be a record of a missed call from my number.’

  ‘Wait a moment.’ Her voice became incoherent but he could tell from the tone that she was issuing an instruction away from the intercom. He shivered but he wasn’t sure if it was the cold.

  After a rustling that Leo couldn’t identify. ‘What is your number?’ She sounded more suspicious.

  He told her.

  Another pause. ‘How did you say you know my husband?’

  ‘That’s just it, I don’t.’

  ‘According to this phone, you were the last person to call him.’

  The gate buzzed and then opened.

  CHAPTER 14

  Leo crunched up the driveway and the front door opened against the chain. He could just make out the diminutive figure of Mrs Mutatkar standing beyond the crack.

  ‘Why have you not gone to the police?’ she asked warily.

  ‘Because I’ve had over a year’s experience of their incompetence.’

  ‘Did you say your wife is…missing?’

  ‘Your husband told me he knew where she was.’ He sensed her nervousness. ‘I could go to the police with this.’

  He saw Mrs Mutatkar blink and then the door closed. For a moment he stood on the step wondering if that was it but then the chain rattled. She’d obviously thought about leaving him out there but Leo sensed something else in her behaviour besides antipathy towards an unwanted caller. He’d thought mentioning the police had been a hollow bluff but it had more of an obvious effect that he’d anticipated.

  The door opened wide to reveal a barefoot Mrs Mutatkar clad in a cerise silk, ankle-length dressing gown. She was smaller than she’d looked through the crack and had the sort of complexion that belied her age. How old was she? Probably in her mid-to-late fifties but the only giveaway was how sunken her eyes were. He wondered if that had been the result of the past few days, because apart from her dark bob of hair looking slightly tousled, Mrs Mutatkar was immaculate. He saw her daughter, much taller than her and wearing a long T-shirt, leaning nervously against the breakfast bar in the kitchen at the end of the hallway.

  ‘So sorry to intrude on your grief.’ Having barged into her home it seemed a ridiculous thing to say.

  ‘Come through,’ Mrs Mutatkar whispered, then turned her back on him and padded through the thick-carpeted hallway towards the kitchen.

  Leo followed and took in the interior, especially the portraits of the family trio on the walls. Doctor Mutatkar smiled out of a photo that, judging from the age of his daughter, looked to have been taken recently. Outwardly, everything seemed to indicate a happy and successful family.

  ‘Sabri, make us some tea.’

  Mrs Mutatkar’s daughter was beautiful. She flicked her long ponytail, placed the transparent polythene bag that she was holding on the breakfast bar and went to the kettle at the far end of the long, modern kitchen. Leo took in the contents of the bag. It contained a wallet, some keys, a selection of plastic security swipe cards and some pens.

  ‘We weren’t meant to open it. The police want his personal effects returned but his phone was in it.’ Mrs Mutatkar placed her fingers gently on the bag and seemed lost for words.

  Leo felt himself start to apologise again but stopped himself. ‘No tea for me thanks. I don’t want to encroach on your time. It’s just I can’t begin to understand why your husband would have claimed to know where my wife is.’

  ‘My husband is a brilliant man.’ She paused, aware that the statement should have been past tense. ‘He made me – us – most proud.’

  Sabri finished filling the kettle and clicked the lid on.

  ‘No tea, Sabri. Wait for me in the lounge.’

  Doctor Mutatkar’s daughter walked past them casting them both a wary eye. Leo noticed that her features had more maturity than he’d first thought.

  Mrs Mutatkar waited until she was out of earshot. ‘Tell me about your wife.’

  Leo told Mrs Mutatkar about Laura and while he listened to his own story she pulled her dressing gown tighter to her neck and looked in any direction but his.

  His lips shaped the familiar words and dates and places but this time they didn’t prompt the dry sickness he always felt when he articulated them for the thousandth time over.

  Mrs Mutatkar scraped out a stool and sat down heavily. She sighed and pinched the bridge of her no
se as if relieving pressure until he’d finished. ‘I know nothing of this or why my husband would have phoned you – believe me.’ She looked at Leo and he could see the pain in the dark recesses of her eyes. ‘There are no answers for you here – from us – I promise.’ She arranged the tie of her dressing gown in her lap but she knew he was waiting for her to continue. ‘You won’t go to the police?’ It was more a plea than a condition.

  ‘I’m tired of the police…but I’ll do anything that’s necessary to find Laura and if that means they have to become involved…’

  Mrs Mutatkar held up her hand. She closed her eyes and her lips twisted as if she were flinching from a wound. ‘Parag always provided for us. But sometimes people…people aren’t completely who you think they are. I found that out at the end of last summer.’ She looked at the doorway as if expecting to find her daughter listening there. ‘I know as much as I want to…which is very little. Soon, though, I think I may have to know more.’

  Leo felt something inflating at the base of his throat.

  She inhaled some composure. ‘Post these back to me when you’ve finished. I don’t want you to call here again.’ She leant sideways and pulled open a drawer. She produced a key ring and placed it on the bar with the flat of her hand, her gold rings scraping against its metal as she slid it towards Leo. ‘They’re for a room in Camden Town, 17 Bell Terrace. Do you need me to write it down?’

  Leo shook his head but she didn’t meet his gaze.

  Mrs Mutatkar seemed to deflate now she’d given him the keys. ‘I went to the terrace once. I found the keys and one evening I followed Parag there when I knew he’d taken them with him.’ She seemed suddenly breathless. ‘It was the place he went when he wasn’t a husband or father. I’ve been trying to pretend that it doesn’t exist.’ Mrs Mutatkar closed the drawer with the heel of her hand. ‘If there are any answers they can only be there. If they’re not, I can’t help you further.’ She looked back in the direction her daughter had left.