by Tudor, C. J.
“I like cheese…but not brown sauce.”
“Okay, just cheese then.”
Katie saw the spikes gradually retracting, Alice’s shoulders relaxing. She held out her hand. After a momentary hesitation, Alice took it.
“Let’s go home.”
* * *
—
ALICE REMAINED SILENT on the journey back, the bag resting on her lap. It had made a strange rattling sound when she sat down, like she had stones or something inside. Katie was curious, but she didn’t push it. Questions could wait. The police could wait. For now, the girl needed food, rest and a warm bed.
Katie glanced at Alice again as they pulled onto her street. She had taken her hood down, revealing more of her face, which was pale and fine-boned. Long dark hair hung lankly on either side, except Katie couldn’t help noticing that the roots were lighter. Almost blonde. Dyed? Why would you dye a child’s hair?
As if feeling her eyes on her, Alice looked over.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Katie said brightly. “We’re here.”
“This is your house?”
“Yes,” Katie said, suddenly conscious of how small and twee her tiny terraced house looked, with its hanging basket and cheap potted plants.
“It’s nice,” Alice said. “Like a proper home.”
The longing in her voice squeezed Katie’s heart again. What the hell was her sister thinking? What had she got herself into? Katie couldn’t claim to have been close to Fran, even before she left. They were very different. Fran had always been highly strung, impulsive, argumentative. More like Mum, in fact. But Katie couldn’t believe that she would just desert her daughter, not unless she had a very good reason, or unless…something terrible had happened.
“Okay.” She pulled on the handbrake. “Let’s go and get you fed.”
They walked up the short path to the front door. Katie inserted her key and pushed it open.
“We’re back!” she called out, leading Alice into the kitchen.
Sam and Gracie bounded out from the living room, curiosity winning out over the television and the iPad.
“This is Sam and Gracie,” Katie introduced. “And this is Alice, your cousin.”
“We didn’t know we had another cousin,” Sam said.
“Alice’s mum lives a long way away,” Katie said.
“In Australia?” Gracie asked. “Jonas and his family moved to Australia, and that’s a long way away.”
Katie smiled at Alice. “Jonas was in Gracie’s class last year,” she explained.
“In Australia they have spiders the size of dinner plates,” Sam said. “But they don’t hurt you. It’s the little ones that can kill you.”
“Sa–am,” Katie warned, but Alice smiled.
“Redbacks,” she said. “They live under the rims of toilets.”
“Yuck,” Gracie said.
Sam grinned, regarding Alice with newfound respect: “Do you like Spider-Man?”
Alice shrugged. “I prefer Wonder Woman.”
“I like Peppa Pig,” Gracie informed them.
“Peppa Pig is for girls,” Sam announced loftily. “Spider-Man is for boys.”
“Boys and girls can like both,” Alice said.
Sam thought about this. “S’pose. D’you want to see my Spider-Man game?”
“Okay.”
“That’s a good idea,” Katie said. “Why don’t you all go in the other room while I make Alice something to eat? It’s past bedtime and she hasn’t had any tea. Alice, you can put your hoodie and bag in the hall—”
“No…thank you.”
“Sorry?”
“I— I’d like to keep the bag with me.”
Alice clutched it protectively to her chest.
“What’s in it?” Gracie asked.
“Just…pebbles. I collect them.”
“I collect Lego cards,” Sam said.
“O-kay,” Katie said slowly. The flowered rucksack was obviously some kind of security blanket. “That’s fine. Just the hoodie, then. Sam, can you show Alice?”
Sam led Alice into the hall, Gracie skipping behind. Katie took out some sliced bread and cheese and tried to ignore the uneasy feeling in her stomach. The feeling that was telling her that something about this was all wrong. Alice was scared and nervous. But not scared or nervous enough. She didn’t seem surprised by her mother’s sudden disappearance. Hadn’t even asked when she would be back.
She told me if anything happened to call you.
Why? What had Fran been expecting to happen? Why dye the girl’s hair? And there was another thing: Alice had said “Fran” instead of “Mum” on the phone, and in the park, before she caught herself.
Katie glanced toward the living room, where she could hear Gracie babbling excitedly. Children were much more accepting, Katie thought. Of change, of new people. Which was what made them so vulnerable. Of course, Alice was only a child herself, but there was something about her that unnerved Katie. A sense that her presence here was a risk, to all of them.
She hoped she had made the right decision tonight.
She hoped she hadn’t just invited a cuckoo into their nest.
Maddock walked into the bar, a bag slung over one shoulder, intent on her phone. She didn’t glance up as she sat down at Gabe’s table. Gabe waited. He remembered these power plays from the police interviews. The intention: to make him sweat, wondering what they might have on him, wondering if, even though he knew he was innocent, they might somehow find something to implicate him.
After a few seconds, Maddock hooked the bag over the back of the chair, put down the phone and met his gaze across the table. She didn’t smile. But then, she never did.
“Thanks for meeting me.”
Like he had a choice.
“That’s okay.”
“You look like shit.”
“Getting stabbed will do that to you.”
“Right.”
“Why are you here, apart from the sympathy, obviously?”
“This isn’t strictly an official visit.”
“Oh.”
“So first, I’m going to ask you again—unofficially—where did you get those photographs?”
Gabe stared at her. “Why? Have you found something out?”
“Where did you get the photos, Gabriel?”
He sat back and folded his arms. His side throbbed.
She squared him with a look. “Okay. You know what my average day consists of? Kids stabbing other kids because they wore the wrong trainers on the wrong street. Domestics, some of which we have visited several times, who don’t press charges until it’s too late because we’re dealing with a homicide. Druggies, alcoholics, people with mental health issues who should be in a facility where they can be treated appropriately instead of left to wander the streets until they forget to take their medication, scalp someone with a machete and get put in a police cell.”
“Sounds fun.”
“It’s a ball. But then, sometimes, a case comes along that makes you remember why you wanted to join the force. One that really gets to you. One that worries away at the back of your mind, keeps you awake at night.”
“Like mine.”
“I really wanted to find the person responsible. All along, something about it felt off. I never thought it was a robbery.”
“Which was why you thought I had something to do with it.”
“Nine times out of ten it’s someone the victim knows. But I never liked that anonymous call. Always wondered if there was an accomplice. Maybe one that got cold feet.”
He tried to stop the familiar feeling of anger, grinding his teeth to stop him saying something he might regret.
“Is this going somewhere?”
“Yes. I have a friend who works at the coron
er’s office. I was passing, on my way home, so I asked if I could see the files they held on your wife and daughter, including post-mortem photographs.”
She reached into her bag and took out a thick plastic evidence folder. She placed it on the table and then laid her hand over it. “Before we go on, in this unofficial capacity, I want to ask you a few more questions.”
“Okay.”
“How many photographs of your daughter would you say you had at home?”
“Maybe half a dozen, but the ones on the walls were older. We meant to put up some new ones—they change so quickly, but…” He trailed off. But they hadn’t got around to it because it hadn’t seemed urgent, important.
“Do you have any more recent photographs of Izzy?”
“Yes. On my phone.”
“Can I see the most recent?”
Gabe took out his phone and flagged up the photo. His heart tore a little every time he did. It was Izzy at the local park. She was eating an ice lolly and smiling into the camera, squinting slightly.
They didn’t go out very often, just him and Izzy. But Jenny had had a bad cold so he’d offered to take Izzy out for a while so she could rest. It had been unseasonably warm, blue skies, golden sun. Izzy had been excited and chatty.
“Daddy, push me on the swings. Daddy, watch me on the slide. Daddy, look how high I can jump on the trampoline.”
Afterward, they had fed the ducks and then sat outside the small café, Izzy eating the sticky orange lolly that had left splotchy stains on her pink dress. It had been one of those small pockets of perfect. A few precious hours where everything in his world had aligned. He’d realized that he was happy.
And then it was over. He had promised Izzy they would do it again. And of course, they never did. Because stuff—unimportant, inconsequential things—got in the way.
“When was this taken?” Maddock asked.
“Err, there’s a date.” He showed her on the phone.
She squinted at it. “So, still several months before the murders.”
“Yes. Jenny had been busy. We both were.” He frowned. When had they stopped documenting every moment of Izzy’s life? When had they become so fragmented as a family?
“The photo used in the newspapers was a school photo?”
“Yes, from the previous year.”
Maddock drummed her fingers on the table. “Your father-in-law did the formal identification. Whose decision was that?”
“No one’s, really. I was supposed to do it but then I was ill, passed out…”
“So, you never saw your daughter after she died?”
“No.”
She chewed her lip. Obviously came to a decision.
“Okay. These are the photographs you gave me.”
She opened the plastic folder and laid the photos of Jenny and Izzy on the table a short distance apart.
She gave him a moment to look at them.
“This”—Maddock took another photo out of the folder and laid it next to the photo of Jenny—“is the photo of your wife I obtained from the coroner.”
Gabe stared at the photograph. It was identical to the one Harry had given him. His heart didn’t fall. He had expected it. Sometimes, you just knew. Jenny was dead. He could feel the vacuum she had left.
He nodded. “Okay. They’re the same.”
Roberts reached into the folder again. “This is the second photo I obtained from the coroner.”
He felt himself tense. It all came down to this.
“This is the little girl who was found dead at your home. The little girl your father-in-law identified as your daughter.”
She placed the photograph on the table next to the photo of Izzy.
His world seem to expand, contract and shatter all at once. The girl’s face was pale and fine-boned, blonde hair swept back from a high forehead. She looked so similar, familiar even, but…
“It’s not Izzy.”
“No. I also did a little more checking on the coroner’s report.” She sighed and showed him a scan of a document on her phone. One sentence had been ringed in red:
“Front milk tooth missing. Suggests trauma.”
He stared at her. “Trauma?”
“The tooth was knocked out. It was recovered at the scene.”
The significance dawned. “Izzy had already lost her front milk tooth. I told you, in my statement.”
She nodded. “I can see how the confusion arose but, still, someone should have picked up on it.” She paused. “I should have fucking well picked up on it.”
A smile spread across his face. He couldn’t help it. He wanted to laugh. To cry. To jump up and down. All this time, he had known, but he hadn’t known. It hadn’t been proven. Now, here it was. Evidence.
“I’m sorry,” he started to say. “I know it’s wrong. Another little girl is dead, but—”
“I understand. It isn’t your little girl. Don’t be sorry. I should be the one saying sorry to you. You were right. Your daughter did not die that night. She may even still be alive.” She leaned forward. “That’s why, if you have any information that could help us find her, I need you to share it with me.”
He debated. He didn’t owe Harry anything, but fuck it, Harry still owed him an explanation. He wanted to look him in the eye and call him a liar.
“No. Not really.”
“Okay.” Said in a tone that implied she didn’t believe him. “There’s something else you should know. We found the car.”
He waited, trying to look less guilty than he felt.
“Right.”
“There was a body—in the trunk. Been there a while.”
He tried his best to look shocked.
“Oh God.”
“Yeah. That’s not all.”
“It’s not?”
“We found another victim nearby. A woman.”
This time, his look of shock was genuine.
“A woman?”
“We don’t know who she is yet. We’re not even sure if she’ll regain consciousness.”
“She’s alive?”
She gave him an odd look. “If you can call it that.”
His mind tried to process this new information. A woman. But who was she?
“Gabriel, did anyone else know about the car?”
The Samaritan. Night work.
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“But you can’t be sure.”
“No.”
“And you never looked inside the trunk when you found the car.”
“No.”
“Good. Stick to that story.”
“Story? You think I had something to do with it?”
“No, I don’t. But be prepared to answer a lot of questions. You are going to be in the spotlight all over again, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And get a good solicitor.”
Remarkably, the children went up to bed with minimal fuss, even Sam, who liked to stretch out his bedtime routine well past breaking point. Staying up for a whole extra hour, and the evening’s unexpected excitement, must have tired them out. To be fair, Alice had looked as if she could have dropped off face down in her cheese on toast. She yawned with every mouthful and dark half-moons circled her blue eyes. Katie wondered when she had last slept or eaten properly.
Katie had found her some of Sam’s old pajamas to wear and eventually located the blow-up bed in the cupboard under the stairs, buried beneath several boxes of random junk. She had put it up in Gracie’s room—her daughter delighted to have her first sleepover.
Forty minutes later, when Katie checked in on them, they were all asleep: Gracie half curled on her side, one arm cuddling Peppa Pig, one flung out over the covers; Sam in his usual starfish shape, limbs strewn haphazardly around his bed, envel
oped safely in oblivion.
Only Alice didn’t look relaxed, even in sleep. Her knees were drawn tightly to her chest and, instead of a soft toy, she still clutched the odd, rattling rucksack, like a shield against invisible monsters.
Katie watched her for a moment then pulled the bedroom door closed and padded downstairs, into the kitchen. She thought about making a cup of tea then changed her mind and headed to the fridge. She pulled out a three-quarters-full bottle of white wine.
Katie wasn’t a big drinker. Her hours made it fairly impossible, for a start, unless she got into the habit of drinking in the morning. But also, when you have an alcoholic in the family, the appeal of a cool glass of wine diminishes, mixed up as it is with memories of raised voices, broken crockery, tears and screaming.
Still, right now, she felt like she needed something to numb that nervous, churning feeling in her stomach. She poured a large glass and took a sip, wincing slightly at the sharp taste. Then she sat down at the breakfast bar and picked up her phone.
She hadn’t wanted to press Alice too much tonight on what had happened or where Fran was. The poor child was obviously exhausted and traumatized. But she had asked if she could have her mum’s number. Alice had reluctantly acquiesced. It was a different number to the one Katie had in her phone, but the result was the same. Her calls had gone straight to an automated message: “The number you are calling is unavailable.”
What’s going on, Fran? Why did you come back and where are you now?
Whatever the reason, it must have been desperate for her to leave Alice with their mother. Why hadn’t she come to Katie? But then, Katie knew the answer to that one. It was because Katie would have tried to talk her out of whatever it was she was doing. Told her to go to the police.
That was her role. The good one, the reliable one. The one who everyone took for granted. Fran wouldn’t come to her for help. But she would use her in an emergency. A last resort. Good old dependable Katie. The one who would always pick up the pieces, never mind that they might cut her own fingers to ribbons.
She sank her head into her hands. She was tired. The weight of the responsibility, of the day’s events, was bearing down on her. Tomorrow she would persuade Alice that they needed to go to the police. But then, what would that mean for Alice? Social workers. Care. Did she really want to abandon her to the state system? She was just a child. A confused, lost child. Katie was her aunt. She was family, and she had a duty to look after her. It was what mothers did. Christ, what a mess.