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Finally, the phone wakes. Unlike his own, it doesn’t immediately freak out with updates. The wallpaper is a half-length portrait of Drew pouting for the camera. It looks like the image was snapped early evening, on the Carvers’ back lawn.
Enoch sways on his feet when he sees it. His daughter is wearing pink lipstick, a ruched pink dress and pink opera gloves. Surrounded by globe lights, she’s as pretty as a pearl.
‘Where are you?’ he whispers, and is dismayed at the catch in his voice. It’s the kind of tragic drama-queen shit he’d expect from Paula. Not from a capable, hairy-arsed brute like himself.
When he touches the screen, a padlock icon appears. When he swipes right, he’s offered the option of a fingerprint unlock or PIN. He tries 1-2-3-4. When that doesn’t work, he tries 0-0-0-0 and fails again. Last night, Tilly Carver had told him the code for Drew’s iPhone, but however hard he tries he can’t remember it. Nor does he know Tilly’s number to call and ask.
Enoch presses his index finger to the scanner, baring his teeth in frustration. Then he slams his fist into the cupboard opposite, splintering the panel. Rage is a more useful emotion than despair, even if it leaves his knuckles skinless and bloody. Finishing his second beer, he pulls a third from the fridge. ‘What you need right now, boy,’ he growls, ‘is a moment of fucking clarity.’
Enoch cracks his knuckles, belches. He pops the tab on his beer, takes another long swallow. Then, returning to thehall, he retrieves theMISSINGposter from where he dropped it. Beneath the printed text he sees Tilly Carver’s contact details.
‘Sherlock fucking Holmes,’ he mutters. Draining the rest of the beer, he tosses the can into the sink. From the living room he fetches the landline handset. Back in the kitchen, sitting at his kitchen table, Enoch dials his daughter’s best friend.
FORTY-TWO
The house is as quiet as Joseph’s mother’s. When Erin calls out, no one answers. Joseph knows that Tilly stayed home this morning to make another round of calls to Drew’s colleagues and friends, and to flood social media with appeals. By now she’ll be putting up herMISSINGposters around town. Where Max is, he has no idea.
‘I’m going to make coffee,’ Erin says. ‘I suggest you call him, ask him to come home.’
Joseph nods, his left hand violently jumping. Standing in the hallway, he understands what his wife had meant outside. This doesn’t feel like his home at all, more like a stage set carefully constructed to resemble it. That feeling he’d had at his mother’s – of something not right – steals over him once again, but he can’t attribute it to anything tangible.
Were all the doors down here closed before they left? They’re all closed now. When Erin enters the kitchen, Joseph almost shouts a warning – and he then waits, breath held, right hand reaching behind him to the hammer hooked over his belt.
But his fear, or his paranoia, is unwarranted. No one seizes Erin as she walks inside. No one swings a bat into her face or forces a blade between her ribs. Ironically – and thisis tough to admit – perhaps the greatest threat to her wellbeing is standing directly behind her.
Joseph doesn’t want to leave his wife alone – he remains fearful of what she might do – but nor can he let her hear his conversation with Max. From the doorway, he watches her empty the portafilter into the knock box and position it under the grinder. ‘You want one?’ she asks.
‘Thanks,’ Joseph says, because the longer Erin is occupied with the machine the better.
She offers him a small smile – and just for a moment he feels himself weakening, his immediate instinct to comfort her, to assuage her fears.
But Erin isn’tthe one, which makes her one of the eight billion, so he resists the temptation and turns away. In the living room, he calls Max’s number. The boy answers on the seventh ring.
‘Where are you?’ Joseph hisses. ‘Where’d you go? Where’s the car?’
‘Slow down. What’s wrong? I’m in town, helping Tilly put up posters.’
Joseph grimaces, clutches the phone harder. Because there are so many things wrong with what he just heard. ‘Did you move the car?’
‘What?’
Joseph goes to the living-room window and looks across the street at Ralph Erikson’s house. Through gritted teeth, he mutters, ‘Did you move the car?’
‘That’s what I thought you said. Why would I take it? What’re you talking about?’
Joseph closes his eyes, asks himself if the boy’s tone sounds off, if something in Max’s words doesn’t ring true. His exhaustion, and the steady dump of adrenalin into his system, is starting to affect his thinking. He counts to ten, prepares to drop a nuke. Because if his son isn’t lying, theirsituation is now critical. ‘It’s gone, Max. The car. It’s not there.’
Silence, from the other end of the phone.
Joseph can almost hear the boy’s mind racing, its gears sparking. And then the unexpected happens. The line goes dead.
He rips the phone from his ear, stares at it in dumb confusion. Running his tongue around his teeth, he redials, waits for the call to connect, listens as it rings and rings and, finally, switches to voicemail.
Joseph kills the connection. Moving from the window, he returns to the hall. In the kitchen, Erin is still working the espresso machine. She hasn’t asked for her phone, which he confiscated for the journey here. The landline handset is on the console table. Joseph puts it in a separate pocket. Then he slides his hand down the wall and disconnects the router. Now she’s completely cut off – no mobile, no landline, no internet through her laptop, nor any of their tablets.
Where does he go from here? He can’t risk leaving Erin. He can’t get hold of Max. He doesn’t have the first clue about the Honda’s location and the police are actively searching for Drew. Doubtless they’ll soon be searching for Angus Roth.
Abruptly, he recalls something that had occurred to him at the bungalow. It won’t help his immediate situation, but it’ll give his mind a moment’s respite. Opening the cupboard under the stairs, he pulls the light cord.