‘Events have made her embrace things that normally she wouldn’t have got mixed up in.’
It was what Joe had once said about Maggie’s involvement with a local spiritualist. There was always a deluded message of reassurance for Leo when he left but, driving back, he realised how much he was going to miss them.
He knew that contact with the Allan-Carlins would be short-lived after Bonsignore had been convicted. He couldn’t blame them for wanting to move on and had noticed that the photographs of Louis about their home had slowly dwindled. Now there was only a single frame of photos in the hallway showing him growing up from a baby to the age of twenty-five. He wasn’t being forgotten but his school portraits and university achievements had obviously become too much of a painful reminder to have hanging on display every day.
Did Leo really have an implicit connection to Bonsignore and the Allan-Carlin’s grief? Bonsignore’s confession to Laura’s disappearance suggested so. But now Joe had decided to sever his visits he’d shut down Leo’s last palpable connection to the Vacation Killer. He suddenly felt twice removed from ever finding out where Laura had been taken and why the police had never been sent her parcel.
The rain had eased and, after looking both ways, Leo pulled the car out of the junction that would take him along the usually quiet stretch that led back to the A3.
The bike impacted before he’d pulled into the left lane, clipping his rear wing and spinning its rider around the axis of its front wheel.
The front of the Saab was spun back into the left lane where it came to rest and Leo saw the rider and his bike sliding on the hissing tarmac until they hit the muddied bank of trees to the left of the junction. It felt as if his seat belt was holding his rib cage together but he quickly unfastened it and got out of the car, jogging halfway over to where the rider lay. Pain bear-hugged his chest but before he reached the rider, another car leaving the same junction as Leo broke hard, hitting the back of the Saab with enough impact to smash the headlights.
He turned from one to the other and then held up his hand to the car driver before continuing to where the bike rider lay. He was already sitting up and snapping up his visor.
If he’s not injured, Laura hasn’t been either.
‘Jesus, I’m so sorry. Anything broken?’
The rider lifted his visor and examined the snagged leather palms of his blue driving gloves. Leo registered that the boy was barely old enough to hold a licence. ‘I don’t think so.’ His pale blue eyes shifted and he looked more embarrassed than anything else. He had to have been going full throttle but Leo wasn’t sure he would have seen him even if the boy had been driving at normal speed. He couldn’t trust his eyeballs and driving up he’d already experienced moments that felt like they were coming unglued from his frazzled brain cells. There was no way he should have been behind the wheel of a car and even though the impact had momentarily galvanised him he could already feel the shadows creeping back around the periphery of the accident scene.
‘I think I’m OK.’ It was looking more certain; the rider’s attention had already turned to the state of his bike.
‘Can you stand?’ Leo helped him to his feet but the boy disengaged himself from his grip to demonstrate that he was perfectly capable of limping over to where his machine lay. He pulled his bike upright and examined the buckled front mudguard. Leo tried to ascertain the damage to the front of the other mud-spattered metallic olive car behind him. It looked OK…from the side anyway.
‘I don’t mind if you don’t want to make this official.’ There was a note of desperation in the rider’s voice and he was already climbing back into the seat.
Leo guessed he was probably uninsured, had a healthy amount of points on his licence or didn’t even possess one. ‘As long as you’re OK. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather I call an ambulance or phone somebody to pick you up?’
The boy unsuccessfully kick-started the bike and a twinge registered on his face. ‘No, it’s cool.’
Leo knew the boy would be gone in a matter of seconds. ‘Look, take it easy. As long as you’re OK we can handle this however you want.’
The boy tried again but it was the car behind them that revved to life.
Leo turned in time to see the car that had come from behind him skid sideways and barrel down the road away from them. He squinted after the car but barely registered the model let alone the registration number.
Leo drove the rest of the way home in the slow lane, his gut shivering and rattling his bruised ribcage. He had all the windows open to keep him awake and had decided to stop at the first motel he came to. But as he got closer and closer to home without spotting one it seemed pointless to stop a few miles from his own bed.
He drove into a curtain of rain and large droplets thudded off the car seats. He hadn’t even glimpsed the face of the driver in the metallic olive car, just a dark shape behind the windscreen’s reflection of grey clouds. Perhaps they’d wanted to leave the scene for similar reasons to the boy on the motorcycle but Leo doubted it. It was a saloon car, Passat or Volvo and even though the side of it had been caked in mud it looked to have been brand new. Although he kept an eye out, he didn’t glimpse it for the rest of the journey home but couldn’t shake the notion that, if it had ever ceased, the surveillance was certainly underway again.
* * *
Howdy Doody. Knew youd be in touch. Soon as I saw Howard Bonsignore on the news. So glad you did. Been worried about you.
Leo always tried to imagine a New Orleans drawl behind the words on his laptop. He’d been contemplating having this dialogue for the few hours he’d been home. He tried sleeping but could almost feel the pressure of the daylight against the curtains. Leo had finally given up and switched on the TV instead. But Bonsignore’s story had already been relegated from the mainstream channels. He’d sat up and lifted the laptop onto the bed but even as he hinged its lid open and then shut it the customary number of times before logging on, he knew his dialogue with Bookwalter was inevitable. He’d promised Ashley he wouldn’t so many times but today had changed all that.
You there Leo?
The words never rattled out at a fast pace; Bookwalter was clearly a one-fingered typist. But even though the construction of the sentences was painstaking to watch, there was never a pause before his responses started filling the screen. Leo always got the impression that Bookwalter’s impatience wasn’t helped by his inability to type his own words fast enough.
Leo’s keyboard expertise at least accelerated the pace of their exchanges. He crossed his legs tighter under the laptop and keyed in the first words he’d exchanged with him for over three weeks.
Sorry to have been out of touch.
Understand. Have been busy with desalination plant protest.
Leo’s mind went blank but soon he could sense his correspondent’s agitation. Sensing his time was up he stabbed quickly at one key:
?????
Long story. Coordinating local opposition to proposed site. Website has just gone live. Log on to www.DesalAvert.com for figures relating to environmental impact of vacuum distillation.
Will take a look when I have some time.
Already have over 17,000 signatories on the petition. If you wouldnt mind taking a few moments Id be grateful.
Just like the emails that had been circulated by the Vacation Killer, Bookwalter didn’t use apostrophes. However, sometimes he slipped, as if his genuine grasp of punctuation got the better of him.
Will be happy to. How are things otherwise?
Much obliged. Gastric flu doing the rounds here but have so far escaped. Laura says hi.
Leo had wondered if Bookwalter’s energies had shifted focus in the few weeks since he’d spoken to him but watching her name appearing on his screen shrink-wrapped everything to the space he occupied on the bed like it had the first time he’d discussed her with him.
Is she well?
As can be expected.
Sensitively, Bookwalter had agreed to remove all photos of Laura from her profile page so the only image that remained was the one on the home page that had been used by the media during her initial disappearance. This was on the condition that Leo would continue to correspond although he wasn’t sure if Bookwalter would ever have offered to withdraw them if Laura hadn’t been the Vacation Killer victim with the biggest question mark. She seemed to muddy the water for him and it seemed convenient to discard her. Or perhaps Bookwalter was worried about getting sued. However, judging by the increasing amount of banners and pop-ups on the site, he assumed that Bookwalter had to be making good on the revenue from the advertisers.
But although he’d been quick to remove the picture of Laura as a teenager, he would never be drawn on where he’d got it in the first place. Leo didn’t want to consider how many hard drives it had already been saved on. The idea of the image being in global circulation and that computer-bound sociopaths were using them as currency was something he gladly would have committed murder for himself.
Leo stabbed at the keys.
Was wondering what Laura’s reaction to news is. Have you told her about Bonsignore?
You know better than that Leo.