Gone in the Night

‘I’m so sorry,’ Alex said.

Cora gave a brief smile. ‘It doesn’t end there. One of his friends was killed and Rick received shrapnel wounds. He came home but he was a different man. Helen – Rick’s wife – got her husband back in one piece, but he wasn’t the man who’d left for Afghanistan, and no one seemed to care. He tried so hard for so long. He even held down a job in security for a year or two. The photography helped for a while – it had been a hobby of his for years – but it didn’t keep the demons away in the end. He would lose his temper at the slightest thing, just fly off the handle.’

‘Did he hurt his wife?’

‘Once. And that was it for Helen. She worried he would hurt the girls.’ Cora saw Alex’s questioning look. ‘His daughters.’ She gripped the sides of her mug to stop her hands trembling. ‘They were only four and five and they didn’t understand why Daddy had changed towards them. I think he was pushing them away deliberately.’

‘So Helen threw him out?’

‘Not exactly,’ said Cora, sadly. ‘He left before, as he put it, he did any more damage. He also said that every time he looked at his girls he thought of the girl in the village and how she’d been young and carefree not so many years before. But when he left he had nowhere to go. Or nowhere he wanted to go. So he got on a bus and ended up in Norwich.’

‘On the streets.’

Cora sighed. ‘Not straightaway. He had some money and he stayed in a hotel, then a hostel. But then the money ran out.’ She shrugged. ‘He went on the streets. Said he’d met someone who could help him get a good pitch, that sort of thing. I tried to get him help, but Rick didn’t want the bit that was offered. Said he didn’t deserve it. Said no one could understand what he was going through. And I suppose they couldn’t. I came this way because I wanted, no, needed, to keep an eye on him. I couldn’t bear the thought of him being all on his own. But he didn’t seem to care whether I was around or not.’ The best lies contained a grain of truth.

‘And Helen?’

‘Moving on. She took the girls to her parents in York. My nieces. I won’t see them grow up now.’ She sniffed, rubbed away some tears from the corner of her eyes. ‘We – Helen and I – know now that he was suffering from a head injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. Still is. He didn’t tell us it was so bad. We didn’t understand.’

Alex took hold of one of her hands. ‘I’ve been there, Cora. Regret, lost opportunities. I know how guilt can eat away at you until it takes over your whole life. You have to let it go or it will destroy you.’

How Cora wished that bloody phone would ring.

‘And what about you?’ asked Alex.

‘Me?’ Cora sniffed. She lit another cigarette.

‘Yes, you. You’re entitled to a life too, you know. Rick made his choice. It doesn’t mean you have to give up your life.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Okay.’

‘Really, I’m not, so can you leave it, please.’ She made her voice deliberately sharp. There was no way she wanted this woman, this journalist she hardly knew, to start poking her nose into that business. Finding Rick, well, that was another matter. She would just have to make sure she kept Alex Devlin pointed in the right direction, didn’t allow her to veer off course. She jumped up and wrapped her arms around herself. ‘This isn’t getting us any nearer to finding Rick.’

‘No. But I wanted to get a sense of who he is.’

‘Perhaps if you hadn’t left him to be taken in a strange car to God knows where you might have done just that.’ Cora knew she sounded mean and unforgiving but she couldn’t help it. Alex had got under her skin.

Alex picked up her bag. ‘That’s unfair, Cora. He was probably taken to a hospital and left before they could treat him. I’m sure he’s fine. That could be the answer. I’m really sorry I didn’t do better. I hope you find him soon.’

‘Please don’t go.’ Cora grabbed Alex’s arm. ‘Look. He would have been in touch with me by now.’

‘Really? How?’

Cora could see the doubt written on Alex’s face. ‘He always finds a way to get a message to me.’ She sat down again, her shoulders slumped. Up and down. Mercurial, Rick had told her that once. ‘Sit down. Please.’

Alex sat, though Cora could see it was with reluctance.

Cora’s phone rang. She snatched it up. ‘Hello?’

It took Margot on the other end only a few seconds to tell her that she’d been wrong. Someone had been brought in to A&E, but he was an elderly man of seventy-five.

She threw the phone down. ‘No luck there.’

‘We will find him, Cora.’

‘When I went looking for him, one of his mates, Martin, said that a couple of blokes had spoken to him, to Rick I mean, a few days before he disappeared. And that he wasn’t the only one.’

‘The only one what?’

‘Who these men spoke to.’

Alex frowned.

‘Martin said they’d been talking to Nobby and Lindy, two more of the homeless, and he hasn’t seen them since either.’ Cora leaned forward. ‘Don’t you see? These men could be the ones who picked Rick up. Maybe he didn’t want to go with them. I don’t know, maybe—’ she waved her hands around, ‘maybe they forced him in some way. Maybe,’ she said, warming to her theme, ‘maybe they were the ones who picked him up off the road? Come on, you’re a journalist, you must know how to find missing people. You can get into all sorts of databases and stuff.’ And the more she thought about it, the more she thought it would be a good idea to have Alex on board. She really was worried about Rick, what he was trying to do was dangerous. Then there were those goons last night. She rolled her shoulders. Bloody hell, she ached. And her head ached.

‘Cora, have you told the police that Rick is missing?’

Cora began to laugh, but knew she had to control herself before the laughter became hysterical. ‘Do you think they care if someone who lives on the street is missing? Of course not. They’ll only say he’s moved on or fallen in with some criminal gang or gone somewhere else to score.’ Her finger made patterns in crystals of sugar left on the table. Besides, she did have an idea where he might have gone. Before. But now, after this supposed accident?

‘Maybe. But he would probably be classed as a vulnerable person and more would be done to—’

‘Really?’ Cora was all sharp sarcasm.

‘Look,’ said Alex, ‘I’ll have a word with a friendly copper to make sure he hasn’t been picked up by them for some reason or other. I’ll phone him on our way to see this Martin who you know. We can try the hospitals again later. But let’s not sit here doing nothing. And maybe we should report him missing. Cover all bases, yes?’

Cora drummed her fingers on the table. Last night had been a warning. Don’t poke your nose in, don’t stir things up. Well, fuck that. She was bloody well going to poke her nose in where they didn’t want it and Alex Devlin could help her do just that. Reporting Rick’s disappearance to the cops wouldn’t help find Rick – the dozy buggers wouldn’t lift a finger – but it would piss the Riders off.

She stood. ‘I’ll get my coat.’

CHAPTER TEN

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

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