TWENTY-NINE

REACHER WAS IN HIS GROUND FLOOR ROOM AT THE COURTYARD Marriott, knee deep in old police reports. He had used the flat-bladed screwdriver from his pocket to slit the tape on all eleven cartons, and he had sampled the first page out of every box to establish the correct date order. He had shuffled the cartons into a line, and then he had started a quick-and-dirty overview of the records, right from the very beginning.

As expected, the notes were comprehensive. It had been a high-profile case with many sensitivities, and there had been three other agencies on the job, the State Police, the National Guard, and the FBI. The county PD had taken pains to be very professional. Multi-agency cases were essentially competitions, and the county PD hadn’t wanted to lose. The department had recorded every move and covered every base and covered every ass. In some ways the files were slices of history. They had been nowhere near a computer. They were old-fashioned, human, and basic. They were typewritten, probably on old IBM electric machines. They had misaligned lines and corrections made with white fluid. The paper itself was foxed and brown, thin and brittle, and musty. There were no reams of cell phone records, because no one had had cell phones back then, not even the cops. No DNA samples had been taken. There were no GPS coordinates.

The files were exactly like the files Reacher himself had created, way back at the start of his army career.

Dorothy had called the cops from a neighbour’s house, at eight in the evening on an early summer Sunday. Not 911, but the local switchboard number. There was a transcript of the call, by the look of it probably not from a recording. Probably reconstructed from the desk sergeant’s memory. Dorothy’s last name was Coe. Her only child Margaret had last been seen more than six hours previously. She was a good girl. No problems. No troubles. No reasons. She had been wearing a green dress and had ridden away on a pink bicycle.

The desk sergeant had called the captain and the captain had called a detective who had just gotten off the day shift. The detective was called Miles Carson. Carson had sent squad cars north and the hunt had begun. The weather had been good and there had been an hour of twilight and then darkness had fallen. Carson himself had arrived on scene within forty minutes. The next twelve hours had unfolded pretty much the way Dorothy had described over breakfast, the house to house canvass, the flashlight searches, the loudhailer appeals to check every barn and outbuilding, the all-night motor patrols, the arrival of the dogs at first light, the State Police contribution, the National Guard’s loan of a helicopter.

Miles Carson was a thorough man, but he had gotten no result.

In principle Reacher might have criticized a couple of things. No reason to wait until dawn to call in the dogs, for instance. Dogs could work in the dark. But it was a moot point anyway, because as soon as Margaret had gotten on her bicycle, her scent had disappeared, suspended in the air, whisked away by the breeze, insulated by rubber tyres. The dogs tracked her to her own driveway, and that was all. The loudhailer appeals for folks to search their own property were curiously circular too, because what was a guilty party going to do? Turn himself in? Although in Carson’s defence, foul play was not yet suspected. The first Carson had heard about local suspicions had come at nine the next morning, when Dorothy Coe had broken down and spilled the beans about the Duncans. That interview had lasted an hour and filled nine pages of notes. Then Carson had gotten right on it.

But from the start, the Duncans had looked innocent.

They even had an alibi. Five years earlier they had sold the family farm, retaining only a T-shaped acre that encompassed their driveway and their three houses, and in the country way of things they had never gotten around to marking off their new boundaries. Their neighbours’ last ploughed furrows were their property line. But eventually they decided to put up a post-and-rail fence. It was a big production, much heavier and sturdier than was standard. They hired four local teenagers to come do the work. The four boys had been there all day on that Sunday, dawn to dusk, measuring, sawing, digging deep holes for the posts. The three Duncans and the eight-year-old Seth had been right there with them, all day, dawn to dusk, supervising, directing, checking up, helping out. The four boys confirmed that the Duncans had never left the property, and no one had stopped by, least of all a little girl in a green dress on a pink bicycle.

Even so, Carson had hauled the Duncans in for questioning. By that point a hint of foul play was definitely in the air, so the State Police had to be involved, because of jurisdiction issues, so the Duncans were taken to a State barracks over near Lincoln. Seth went with them and was questioned by female officers, but had nothing to say. The three adults were grilled for days. Nebraska, in the 1980s. Rules and procedures were pretty loose where child kidnapping was suspected. But the Duncans admitted nothing. They allowed their property to be searched, voluntarily. Carson’s people did the job thoroughly, which wasn’t hard because there wasn’t much property. Just the T-shaped acre of land, bounded by the unfinished post-and-rail fence, and the three houses themselves. Carson’s people found nothing. Carson called the FBI, who sent a team equipped with the latest 1980s technology. The FBI found nothing. The Duncans were released, driven home, and the case went cold.

Reacher crawled across the room, back to the first carton, hands and knees, overview completed, ready to start in on the fine details.

The doctor didn’t answer. He just stood there, bruised, sore, shaking, sweating. Jacob Duncan repeated the question: ‘Where is Reacher now?’

The doctor said, ‘I would like to sit down.’

‘Have you been drinking?’

‘A little.’

‘At the motel?’

‘No,’ the doctor said. ‘I figured Mr Vincent wouldn’t serve me.’

‘So where were you drinking?’

‘At home.’

‘And then you walked to the motel?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I needed something from my car. Some medical equipment.’

‘So you were already drunk when you stole our truck?’

‘Yes. I wouldn’t have done it if I was sober.’

‘Where is Reacher now?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Would you like a drink?’

The doctor said, ‘A drink?’

‘You’re familiar with the concept, I think.’

‘Yes, I would like a drink.’

Jacob Duncan got up and stepped across his kitchen to a cabinet on the wall. He opened it up and took out a bottle of Wild Turkey, almost full. From another cabinet he took a glass. He carried both back to the table and set them down. He took stuff off a chair in the corner, a pair of boots, old mail, a ball of string, and he carried the chair across the room and placed it behind the doctor.

He said, ‘Sit down, please. And help yourself.’

The doctor sat down and shuffled the chair closer to the table and uncorked the bottle. He poured himself a generous measure and drank it all in one go. He poured a second glass.

Jacob Duncan asked, ‘Where is Reacher now?’

The doctor said, ‘I don’t know.’

‘I think you do. And it’s time to make your choice. You can sit here with us and drink my fine bourbon and pass the time of day in pleasant conversation. Or we could do it another way. We could have Seth break your nose, for instance. I’m pretty certain he would like to. Or we could have your wife join us, and we could subject her to petty humiliations. My guess is she wouldn’t put up much of a fight, having known us all these years. No marks, no overt damage. But the shared experience might have an effect on your marriage, in the years to come, you having shown yourself unable to defend her. Because she’ll see it as unwilling, not unable. You should think about it.’

‘Reacher’s gone,’ the doctor said.

‘Gone?’

‘He left this afternoon.’

‘How?’

‘He got a ride.’

‘Impossible,’ Jacob said. ‘We blocked the road, north and south.’

‘Not in time.’

‘Did you see him go?’

‘He was at the motel. I think he changed the plates because he was going to use your truck. But someone else came along and he hitched a ride, which was better.’

‘Who came along?’

‘Not one of us. Just someone driving through.’

‘What kind of car?’

‘I’m not good with cars. I think it was white.’

‘Did he say where he was going?’

The doctor drank most of his second glass. Gulp, swallow, gulp, swallow. He said, ‘He’s going to Virginia.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know,’ the doctor said. He filled his glass again. ‘But that’s all he’s ever talked about, right from the first moment he got here. He’s on his way to Virginia, and always was.’

‘What’s in Virginia?’

‘He didn’t say. A woman, perhaps. That’s the impression I got.’

‘From what?’

‘Just a feeling.’

Jacob Duncan said, ‘You’re nervous.’

The doctor said, ‘Of course I am.’

‘Why? You’re just sharing a drink with your neighbours.’

The doctor said nothing.

Jacob Duncan said, ‘You think he’s coming back.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Is he coming back?’

The doctor said nothing.

‘Tell us.’

The doctor said, ‘He was a military cop. He knows how to do things.’

‘What things?’

‘He said he’s going to visit with the county police. Tomorrow morning, I suppose. He said he’s going to look at the file from twenty-five years ago. If it’s OK, he’s going to Virginia. If it’s not, he’s coming back here.’

‘Why would he?’

‘To get you, that’s why.’

Up in Canada, the white van had made the right turn just shy of the town called Medicine Hat, and was heading south on the lonely road that led down towards Pakowki Lake. It was already full dark up there. No lights at all, and no moon or stars either, because of the cloud. The road was bad. It was pitted with potholes. It twisted and it wandered, and it rose and it fell. It was hard going, and not entirely safe. It was dangerous, even, because at that stage a broken axle or a busted half-shaft would ruin everything. So the driver turned left, on a rough grassy track he had used before, and bumped and bounced two hundred yards to a picnic spot provided for summer visitors. In winter it was always deserted. The driver had seen bears there, and coyotes, and red foxes, and moose, and twice he thought he had seen elk, although they might have been shadows, and once he thought he had seen a wolf, but it might have been just another coyote. But he had never seen people. Not in winter. Not even once.

He parked under a towering pine and shut down for the night.

Roberto Cassano and Angelo Mancini pulled their rented Impala around the back of the Marriott and slotted it next to a black Cadillac that was standing alone in the rear of the lot. They got out and stretched and checked their watches. They figured they had time for a quick dinner before their reinforcements arrived. The diner or the rib shack? They liked neither one. Why would they? They had taste, and the retard local yokels sure as hell didn’t. But they were hungry, and they had to eat somewhere.

They pondered for a second and decided on the diner. They turned away from the hotel lobby and headed for the main drag.

The Duncans let the doctor finish a third glass of Wild Turkey, and then they sent him on his way. They pushed him out the door and told him to walk home. They watched him down the driveway, and then they turned and strolled back and regrouped in Jacob’s kitchen. Jacob put the bottle back in the cupboard, and put the glass in the sink, and returned the chair to the corner of the room. His brother Jasper asked, ‘So what do you think?’

Jacob said, ‘About what?’

‘Should we call the county and stop them showing Reacher the files?’

‘I don’t see how we could do that.’

‘We could try.’

‘It would draw attention.’

Jonas asked, ‘Should we call Eldridge Tyler? Strictly as a backup?’

‘Then we would owe him something.’

‘It would be a wise investment, if Reacher is coming back.’

‘I don’t think he’s coming back,’ Jacob said. ‘That’s my first thought, certainly.’

‘But?’

‘Ultimately I guess it depends on what he finds, and what he doesn’t find.’