‘But do you think she’ll bring the boy?’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake, when did you get so needy, Brett? You’re being pathetic.’
Brett, his name was Brett, not Ross.
‘I just want to see him. I just want to see my son, hold him.’ Brett’s voice softened to the point it sounded like he had genuine feelings for the boy. ‘I still can’t believe it. I’ve got a son. She had my baby. I told you she cared for me. She cared for me so much, she had my baby.’
He was delusional. That must have helped him to do the things he did. I’d been a bit surprised that they thought I was going to bring Pieta and her son to them, but I was completely taken aback that they thought it would happen today.
It didn’t matter who they kidnapped and threatened, there was no way Pieta Rawlings would put her son in harm’s way. That pointed very clearly to sociopathic tendencies on Callie’s and Brett’s parts, even if you ignored the obvious with the murders and torture. Neither of them could put themselves in someone else’s shoes enough to realise that Pieta may come herself, but she wouldn’t be bringing her son.
‘Do you think she’ll let me see him?’ Brett asked. ‘Regularly. Like a proper father? Because I am his father. He’s my son. When I make it right with her, do you think that will work?’
‘Yes, Brett,’ Callie replied. Callie clearly didn’t think that was the case, but was humouring him. I could hear the irritation in her voice, the incredulity that he thought it would happen. ‘I think she will. But not looking like that. You don’t look like dad material right now.’
‘You’re right, you’re right. I need to show her that I can be a father to our son, that I can parent with her, maybe even get together with her properly, so I’d better get cleaned up.’
‘And I’ll go and get a few more chairs,’ Callie replied. ‘Be good, ladies.’
Two sets of footsteps left the room and then I heard them going upstairs.
‘Hello?’ I whispered, ‘Is there anyone there?’
‘Yes. I’m here,’ a young female voice replied. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Detective Inspector Foster,’ I said, still whispering. ‘What’s your name? Are you blindfolded?’
‘My name’s Sazz, and yes, I’m blindfolded. I don’t understand what’s going on. This man knocked, said he had a delivery. He had a white van double-parked outside with the side open like a delivery van. I opened the door and he just shoved me in . . . What’s going on?’ They’d obviously brought me to her house to try to get to Pieta again.
‘I was investigating something these people did a while ago. Do you know Pieta Rawlings?’
‘Yes, I take care of her son.’
‘Right. The woman is the one that Pieta interviewed recently.’
‘I read that. Were they talking about Kobi, Pieta’s son, just then?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is that man Kobi’s father, then? Did he hurt Pieta? I always thought Kobi’s dad was a waste man, that’s why she didn’t talk about him. I didn’t realise he—’
We both stopped talking as we heard footsteps on the stairs.
‘Oh, don’t mind me, keep chatting,’ Callie said, returning to the room. ‘I suppose I should have introduced you. Jody meet Sarah, Sarah meet Jody. You both know Pieta Rawlings and she’s going to be the reason why you both die.’
Neither of us reacted to her dramatic statement, but I knew she was going to do it. I wasn’t sure if Sazz had any real idea.
After Callie returned, we sat in silence, waiting, until now. Until I jump at the loud, unexpected knock on the door.
‘They’re here!’ Callie trills. ‘Isn’t that great, girls, the gang’s all here.’
Pieta
Saturday, 13 July
I’ve been to Sazz’s house three times in all the time she has looked after Kobi. Once to bring her home when she wasn’t well, and twice to drop off birthday and Easter presents Kobi insisted that she had to have on the day.
I’ve only just realised that she has been a huge part of our life, but we’ve never really been a part of hers. She’s had boyfriends over the years, but no one that she wanted to be serious about. She goes on holidays with her sisters, and the pictures of them together are always oozing with happiness. She has many tales to tell, always something funny or silly or just part of who being Sazz is. Kobi once told me that Sazz is his best friend who’s an adult.
‘And what about me?’ I’d replied, completely affronted. I thought I was the most important person in his life, but no, Sazz had apparently beaten me to that particular post.
He’d replied, ‘You’re my mother, you can’t be my best friend.’
Sazz is a huge part of Kobi’s world, of my life, I have to do everything I can to save her. Everything. Except sacrifice my son.
I pull my stripy armwarmers into place, use them to steel my courage, then knock on the door.
I’ve had a lot to process in the last few hours and I’ve had a lot to do, as well, to be able to get here for as close to midday as possible. I’m guessing she gave me all this time because she has had stuff to do, too.
I’m sure, like me, none of her stuff involved the police, either. Obviously I don’t know what the situation is with DI Foster, and I never really met any of the other police officers, but I know Callie is serious. I know she will kill Sazz without a second’s thought – because anyone who would have herself branded so she can go and lie to the police has proven herself to be someone who does not make idle threats.
I am sure Callie has killed before. I’m sure she was there while I was being held. I’m sure she has done a lot of things to draw me out.
I don’t know why, though. In all the processing, I haven’t worked out why she would do this. Why she would subject so many women to the abuse and torture? Why she would devise something so difficult for them to do? Why kill them?
Callie opens the door dramatically. ‘Hello, Pieta,’ she says with a warm, genuine smile. ‘So good of you to come.’
My original plan had been to rush her, punch her out and go to find Sazz. We were about the same height, I’m slightly larger than her, I reckon I could take her in a fight. Or, at least, overpower her. But I have to ditch that plan, and instead try to make up a new one as I go along because Callie Beckman has a gun pointed directly at me.
Pieta
Saturday, 13 July
Callie’s smile, which is all the more menacing for how warm it appears to be, dims a little when she sees Ned standing behind me.
‘I said to bring the child, not him,’ she snarls at Ned.
‘He got the text before me, so he came with.’
‘Where is the boy? I told you to bring him.’
‘You knew that I was never going to bring my child here, didn’t you,’ I state. Although, from the look on her face, it’s clear she did think I would. She actually thought I would do as she ordered because she had ordered it. Callie is used to people doing as she wants. It’s not surprising since she has managed to manipulate us all over the last few weeks. Rather expertly, too. She played on every single prejudice we have about who would be a worthy victim, and she told me so. She constantly told me: ‘I’m not a proper victim’.
‘Not even for dear old Sarah?’ she sneers.
Like her brother, I have had to work out how to handle her, especially now that overpowering her isn’t an option. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t respect weakness. She will expect me to be weak now, suppliant. She will expect the begging to start and that will only lead to her killing me, killing Sazz and killing Ned because we would not be worth her time. But at the same time, I can’t be defiant. Defiance suggests I am in fear of her, that I need to stand up to her because she thinks she is somehow above me.
In the processing I have done, I have put together in my head as much stuff about her as I can and I have worked out that to deal with Callie, I have to be me. I have to be the me that Lillian sometimes sees and backs away from because she knows she’s crossed a
line that will make me bite back.
‘Are we doing this on the doorstep?’ I reply.
‘Oh, goodness me! Where are my manners? Come in, come in.’ She steps back, keeping her gun trained on me the whole time.
I’ve only seen guns on television and in the movies. I’ve always been against Kobi playing with them. I’ve ‘disappeared’ them if he gets them as presents and I’ve talked to him long and hard about making the right choices when he goes to friends’ houses. I’ve turned a disapproving eye to nerf gun parties, to laser gun parties, to water guns he gets on the front of magazines and I’ve tried to speak to him about how, in the real world, guns hurt people, damage people, result in the most awful acts of fatal violence.
All the while, I’ve never actually seen one up close. This one isn’t an old-fashioned grey metal pistol with a spherical barrel, this one is matt black, the barrel is square and the handle has a hatching pattern. It could be fake, but Callie isn’t the type to have a fake gun.
‘How have you got a gun?’ I ask when we are inside the front door.
She scoffs at me. ‘I arranged the abduction and murder or release of twenty-eight women without leaving any forensic trace, do you really think getting a gun would be difficult for me?’
Twenty-eight?
Twenty-eight women. She arranged that. She did that.
‘Oh, look at your face. That bothers you, doesn’t it? Because there were so many before you? If it makes you feel any better, we only started branding them with number three, when I realised we had to keep track of them.’
Stop, stop, I tell myself. I mustn’t get distracted. I can’t think about this. I can’t think about her doing that to all those other women and keep going.
‘There were no others after you, if that makes you feel any better, Pieta.’
‘What?’ I say.
‘Oh, my manners again . . . Please hand me your mobile phones.’
Reluctantly, I take out my mobile and hand it to her. Ned does the same.
‘Really, Pieta, this is your phone?’ I got the cheapest pay-as-you-go I could get and it is hard to believe that it is all I have in this day and age.
‘I don’t like to be tracked,’ I reply. ‘And since someone started tracking me, I had to ditch the other one and this is all I’m left with.’ I raise my arms. ‘You can search me if you want.’
She grudgingly accepts this and indicates to put them on the floor. She immediately smashes them with her heel, making sure if we were being tracked or were going to call for help at some point, it won’t now happen.
‘This way, come on.’ She moves back through the small, terraced house that Sazz lives in. I’ve been trying to work out how she found out about Sazz, where she lived. I can only guess that she had her followed.
My heart turns over when we enter the living room. Sazz is in the middle of the room, tied to a kitchen chair. Her arms are cable-tied behind her, her ankles are cable-tied to the front legs of the chair. She has a blindfold around her eyes and she looks exhausted. Her checked shirt is hanging off her left shoulder, exposing the strap of the white vest she has on underneath. Her whole body is slumped. I don’t know what Callie has done to her, but she looks like she has been through a lot.
My instinct is to run to her, untie her, hug her, try to save her, but that will not help. It’s much more likely to encourage Callie to harm her.
Please forgive me, I say in my head as I turn away from her. My heart flips over again when I see DI Foster. She is on the other side of the room, cable-tied to the radiator. Her usually neat black hair is messy, a part of it is a mass of congealed blood. Her dark suit is dishevelled, her white shirt is flecked with blood and her body is slumped against the wall underneath the window. She looks dreadful, as though she can’t move, as though she has been through an ordeal as well and is teetering on the edge of not surviving it. She is also blindfolded, so I can’t tell if she’s awake or not.
I say nothing to either of them, although everything in me is crying out to. I can feel Ned close to me, but he is silent, too. Probably taking his cues from me, probably trying to work out what he can do without getting himself or one of us shot. Because that’s what I’m doing; I am running through scenarios that do not end up with one of us seriously injured or dead.
I have to take on Callie. That’s the immediate task. I have to engage her, to keep her focused on me and on not harming anyone else.
I turn my attention to her, my gaze sweeping over her – I note the colour sitting high on her cheekbones, the wildness of her dark-green eyes and the deliberately combed and styled nature of her hair. In the midst of all of this she has paused, more than once I’d guess, to fix her hair.
‘What do you mean I was the last?’ I ask Callie.
‘I have a seat over there for you, please take it.’ She uses her weapon to point to it. ‘And you, take the other one,’ she says to Ned. ‘It was meant for the boy, but never mind. You’ll do, I suppose. God knows how many times I’ve seen you making puppy-dog eyes at her.’
Instead of arguing, Ned and I do as we’re told. But I sit in the seat intended for Kobi and now Ned, instead of my designated one. It’s on the left of Sazz, and nearest the door.
I glare at Callie. The atmosphere in the room is heavy, overburdened with the responsibility that I have right now. Everyone’s lives are rested on my shoulders, on my ability to deal with Callie like I deal with other difficult people. ‘How could you do that?’ I say to her. I’m not playing her, I’m genuinely stumped about this. ‘How could you do that to all those women? To have them abused, tortured and murdered? How could you do that to another woman? Let alone twenty-eight of them?’ I shake my head. ‘Just how could you?’
‘Why does it surprise you?’
‘Because you’re a woman! How could you do that?’
‘Because I’m a woman.’ She twists her lips into a bitter little smile. ‘Ah, the refrain I’ve been hearing all my life. Because of the sisterhood? Female solidarity? We’re fed all that from such a young age and it’s all such bollocks, isn’t it? Where is the female solidarity when a woman starts fucking her best friend’s husband? Where is the female solidarity when a woman screws over a work colleague by wanting to “see both sides” with a man accused of assaulting someone because she likes him? Where is the female solidarity when it comes to voting for someone who will damage the lives of women in general but will help you personally? Where is the female solidarity when supporting a “sister” doesn’t fit in neatly and completely with something that’s going on in your life?’
She moves to stand in a part of the room where she can see everyone, can protect herself from any sudden moves.
‘Besides, aren’t I the ultimate feminist? Anything a man can do, I can do too?’ She shrugs happily. ‘I proved that. Women are equal to men.’
You’re sick, I want to say. ‘Why? You’ve explained how you can do it, tell me why you did it?’
‘My brother turned off the video after the first couple of hours with you,’ she says, ignoring my question. Ignoring my question and trying to distract me by distressing me. ‘Too special, apparently. I wonder, though, if it’s because he did things to you that even he knew would be too sick to be seen by anyone else?’
I can feel myself slipping. I’m about to slide back into remembering.
‘Why don’t you tell your friends here what he did to you? How he kept doing it for the whole weekend and then, at the end of it, you asked for more. How you begged him to let you stay for another twenty-four hours because you couldn’t get enough of it.’
She’s not going to win, I decide. When I was with him, I wanted to live and I wasn’t going to let him take my life away. With her, I want everyone to live and I’m not going to let her take them away by doing and saying things like this. I have to ignore it. I can feel and collapse and hurt later. Right now, I have to stay focused. ‘Why did you do it? What was the reason for you killing and abusing all those women?’
; Callie grinds her teeth; the action ripples her displeasure across her cheeks. She doesn’t like this. She wanted to get to me and it hasn’t worked. ‘I forgot, you love a good story, don’t you?’ she says, trying to recover her position. ‘You love to listen and investigate and empathise.’ She rolls her eyes. ‘You’re so fucking worthy, I could puke.’
‘I was only able to listen because you were so willing to talk. I think there was some truth to what you told me. That’s why I want to know why you did it.’
‘You really want to know?’ she asks with a smirk on her face.
‘I think you really want to tell me, actually.’
Callie
Saturday, 13 July
You want to know why? Here is why: because I am not a victim.
I keep telling you people that, and you keep not listening. I am not a victim and whenever someone tries to make me one, I come back fighting.
I had the best life. I was so loved. So loved. My father, he gave us everything. We moved to the countryside and we got a big house. Our lives were perfect. If you talked to my brother, Brett, he wouldn’t say the same. But he was always so much fucking bother. He was constantly in trouble, always making our father put him in his place. It was what it was. None of us is perfect.
What I’m trying to tell you is that life was good. For me, life was perfect.
Then it started to change. Slowly at first, in such tiny increments that it took me a while to notice. Daddy was out later and later, he came home less and less. He started travelling more and more ‘for business’. He started shouting at my mother, he started disciplining my brother more often. He was cold to me. He didn’t seem to love me as much.
Have you ever had that? Someone withdrawing from you? They pull away, little by little. They stop listening, their eyes stop lighting up when you share your news, their eyes glaze over when you want them to look at what you’ve done. And in the end, they pull away so far they disappear.
I was twelve when I realised my father had a new life that didn’t involve me. He had a separate space and time and a place that made him smile, put a spring in his step and made his already perfect world complete. That’s what he said about the whore he hooked up with: ‘She makes my life complete.’
Tell Me Your Secret Page 31