Lost - Michael Robotham [145]
“Everyone?”
“Yep. The cook, the driver, the cleaners, even me—s’pose I’ll have to give mine back now.”
“How long have you had this one?”
“Not long. He made us swap numbers all the time. I never had the same number more than a month before he changed it.”
Aleksei was obviously paranoid about his telephones being tapped or monitored. He must have leased hundreds of cell phones, doling them out to his employees at work and at home, rotating them, swapping his own number among them, making it almost impossible for anybody to keep track of his calls or fix on a particular phone number and trace it back to him. The list of numbers must read like lottery results—all put through the one account.
My mind clings to this idea as if for some reason I know it’s important. They say elephants never forget. They remember watering holes hundreds of miles away that they haven’t visited in twenty years. My memory is a bit like that. It throws away some things like people’s birthdays, anniversaries and song lyrics, but give me eighty witness statements and I can remember every detail.
Here’s what I remember now. Aleksei had a phone stolen. He told me about it when we were outside Wormwood Scrubs. It was a new model. He loves his gadgets.
Turning suddenly, I head for the door, leaving Joe scrambling to keep up. He chases me across the gravel trying to hear what I’m saying on the phone.
“New Boy” Dave answers but I don’t give him a chance to speak. “Aleksei had a phone stolen a few months back. He said he reported it to the police so there should be a record.”
I pause. Dave is still on the line. I can hear him tapping at a keyboard. The only other sound I hear is the soft stirring of every wet thing inside me.
Pacing across the driveway I wander along a path of crushed marble that circles the rose garden. At the far end, beyond an arbor, is a sandstone column supporting a sundial. It has a small plaque at the base. The inscription reads, FAMILIES ARE FOREVER.
Dave comes back to me. “He reported a cell phone stolen on August 28.”
“OK, listen carefully. You need to pull up the phone records for that number. Look for any international calls made on August 14. It’s important!”
“Why?”
Dave doesn’t have children. He doesn’t understand. “Because a parent never forgets a birthday.”
39
Birch and elm trees are etched on the ridges like charcoal drawings and the clouds are white breath against a blue sky. The black Gallant rattles and bumps over the pitted tarmac, sliding through patches of black ice in the shadows.
Our driver wrestles with the wheel, seemingly oblivious to the deep ditches on either side of the road. Two identical black Gallants are following us, being sprayed with mud.
The surrounding marshland has iced over at the edges, forming a fragile layer that creeps toward the center of pools and ponds. A refinery with a flaming orange tower reflects from the oily surface.
On one side of the road, separated by a ditch, is a railway track. A clutch of wooden shacks huddle alongside it, more like woodpiles than dwellings. Icicles hang from wet gutters and mounds of dirty snow are piled next to the walls. The only signs of life are thin wisps of smoke from the chimneys and the emaciated dogs picking through the trash cans.
The blacktop ends suddenly and we plunge into a monochrome forest on a track that snakes between the trees. There are tire marks in the mud. One set. There are no return tracks and no roads other than this one. Aleksei’s car is somewhere up ahead.
Rachel has barely said a word since we arrived in Moscow. Sitting beside me in the backseat, she keeps her hands at her sides as though bracing herself for the potholes.
Our driver looks more like a military cadet than a policeman. There appears to be mildew sprouting from his top lip and his cheekbones are so sharp they could have been carved with a scalpel. Beside him is Major Dmitri Menshikov, a senior investigator with the Moscow police. The Major met us at Sheremetyevo Airport and ever since has provided a running commentary as though we’re here on a guided