Free Vanished by Tim Weaver

just a shell. You’re fried. You’ve got nothing left in the tank.’
    ‘I guess we’ll see.’
    ‘What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?’ Sallows this time. He was in his early fifties, just like Davidson, but unlike Davidson he was tall and skinny. The two of them had been together for years. Before things went wrong, before Leanne went missing, Healy used to joke that they were an old married couple. But not any more. There were no jokes now. Those days were gone.
    Healy glanced at Sallows. ‘What do you think it means, Kevin?’
    ‘I think it means you’re done,’ Sallows said.
    Healy looked between the three of them. He’d known Richter for the least amount of time and, judging on hisperformance tonight, he wasn’t going to be much to worry about. But Davidson and Sallows were different. They’d keep chipping away at him until the first cracks appeared, and then they’d get into the cracks and prise them as far open as they’d go.
    Davidson leaned forward, into Healy’s personal space again. ‘Look at you – you’re pathetic. You can’t even get it together for a fight any more.’
    For a second, Healy imagined reaching up, grabbing Davidson by the neck and smashing his face through the table; felt the tremor in his hands, the fire in his chest, the need to react and hit out. But then he remembered standing in a darkened courtyard the October before, waving a gun in Davidson’s face, and telling him that he would kill him if he got in the way of finding Leanne. Healy had meant it too; never been so sure about anything in his entire life. But it had cost him – his position, his marriage – and now he needed to maintain control in order to claw his way back out of the hole and get his teeth into something better. He looked beyond Davidson, to the photographs on the far wall.
    He wanted a piece of that.
    He wanted to help find those two men.
    He wanted to hunt the Snatcher.

PART TWO

14
    At 1 a.m., I was still awake. Through the open window, I could hear the soft drone of cars from Gunnersbury Avenue and the gentle whine of a plane overhead, but otherwise the streets of Ealing were still. No breeze, no animals rummaging around, no people passing.
    The first day of a new case it was always difficult to sleep. Everything was new – the people, their world – and every question you asked at the beginning only led to more questions. Those that remained unanswered were like holes; little punctures in the case that you had to find a way to repair before the whole thing collapsed.
    And there were already big holes in Sam Wren’s life.
    When the clock hit 1.30, I finally accepted I wasn’t going to sleep, flipped back the covers and sat up. Grabbing my trousers, I padded through to the living room where Liz’s MacBook was still set up. I cleared the screensaver and plugged in the USB stick Task had got for me, saving the contents on to the desktop. Then I opened the videos again and watched them through. A shiver of electricity passed along my spine as I saw Sam for the last time, his legs and briefcase disappearing as the train doors slid shut. And then the train jerked forward and headed into the black of the tunnel.
    Gone
.
    Behind me, I heard footsteps in the hallway and lookedback to see Liz emerge from the darkness. She moved through to the kitchen, filled a glass with water and returned to where I was sitting.
    ‘Can’t you sleep?’
    ‘No. I’ve got first-night insomnia.’
    She nodded. Her eyes fell on the laptop. I’d rewound the footage to the seconds before the train doors closed. ‘Is this your guy?’
    ‘That’s his train.’
    ‘Where’s he?’
    I pointed to his legs. ‘There.’
    ‘All you’ve got are his legs?’
    ‘In Victoria, yes.’
    ‘What about after?’
    ‘This is the last time you get to see him.’
    She leaned in even closer and tabbed the footage on. Doors sliding shut. Train taking off. Disappearing into the tunnel. ‘That’s a bit …
creepy
, isn’t