Heat gathers under her thick coat and drizzle pastes her hair to her head. Without lifting the manhole, the material won’t come loose in one piece, and she tries to fit her fingers round the edge of the metal disc to lever it up.
Giles is next to her now. He crouches at her level. ‘What’s going on?’ His voice has reverted to toddler speak, but he’s angry daddy, which fires Ruth up. She digs her fingers into the rim, bending one of her nails back, and she goes to put it in her mouth to take away the pain, but her hands are blackened with car-wash sludge. The two men who were standing on the forecourt march over to the shop owner, lips moving with messages Ruth can’t read.
‘This top belongs to someone,’ Ruth says to Giles. ‘A woman or perhaps a girl. She’s been kidnapped. We need to help her.’
Giles’s face is so close to Ruth’s that she can smell the coffee on his breath. ‘Ruth, we need to go home now.’
‘Look.’ She points to the manhole. ‘The edge of this is clean, you can see it’s been lifted recently.’ She’s on her hands and knees, hooking her fingers through the metal depressions in the middle of the cover, but it’s way too heavy and she’s instantly grimed. ‘Help me, Giles. There are people down here. We’ve got to get them out.’
‘For God’s sake, not this again.’
From behind them comes shouting. The man from the shop charges across the forecourt, his rumpled suit flapping in the wind. He’s followed by the other two in their grubby work tracksuits. ‘What are you doing?’ the man says. ‘You cannot touch that. It is my property.’
Ruth looks up at him, still tugging. ‘I know what’s down here. I saw. You can’t hide them from me any more. I heard screaming too, remember? You knew about it, but you lied.’
Giles puts his hand on Ruth’s back. ‘Get up, Ruth, please. Leave it.’ He tries to ease her up.
‘No,’ she shouts, pushing him away and feeling round the edge of the manhole. ‘I saw them coming out of here last night. We need to help them.’ She points to the shop owner. ‘What have you done with them? Where have you taken those girls?’
The man steps in front of Giles and grabs Ruth’s arm. His lips are pinched white as if they’ve been pickled, and with an angry tug, he yanks Ruth to her feet. Her arm jolts in its socket. She yelps in pain. Giles jumps between them and pushes the owner, who staggers back across the forecourt.
‘Get your hands off her.’ Spit flies from Giles’s mouth.
‘You tell her to stop,’ the man replies, pointing to Ruth and dusting imaginary dirt from his front. ‘She is damaging my property.’
‘I don’t care what she’s doing, you don’t touch her.’
They shove each other, shouting and gesticulating. Bess’s eyes are wide with fear and she starts to wail.
‘Get off my land,’ the man roars into Giles’s face, ‘or I will call the police.’
‘You do that, mate,’ Giles says, finally shrugging him off, his face glossed with sweat. ‘I’m going to call them too. See what dodgy dealings you’ve been up to, shall we?’
‘Leave.’ The man points in the direction of their house. ‘Never come here again. You are not welcome.’
‘No fear.’ Giles holds Ruth’s arm, his grip firm but not hurting, and he guides her purposefully away. With his other hand he grabs the bag of nutrient-free food he’s just bought and chucks it on the forecourt. ‘There’s nothing we need from you or your shitty shop.’ Biscuits and chocolate bars roll out of the split carrier, Ruth’s favourites that Giles bought for her, treats for them to share at home on this rainy afternoon. She loves him more in this moment than she can remember loving him in a long time.
The couple race along the road towards home. Behind them the men line the edge of the forecourt with arms crossed. A few people have come out of their houses and they stand in the way on the pavement, neighbours Ruth might recognize if she looked up, perhaps even Sandra or Liam, so she keeps her face tipped to the ground, only peeping occasionally at Giles. He’s staring straight ahead, a muscle clenching and unclenching in his jaw, and the pushchair swerves as he steers with one hand. His other arm is firm round Ruth’s shoulders. He squeezes and asks repeatedly if she’s OK, saying he’s going to report the man for assault.
‘I’m fine, really.’ Ruth worries about being the focus of Giles’s call, in case any mention of her name might flash an alert on the call-handler’s screen, meaning they’d dismiss what Giles was reporting immediately. ‘Don’t say it’s got anything to do with me. We can tell them about my arm later. It’s those girls who need our help. They’re the priority.’ She’d take over the buggy from Giles, but she’s holding on tight with both hands to the pink platform shoe.
6
Giles dials 999 as soon as they walk through their front door. With his anger lit, Ruth convinced him on the walk home that there’s more going on at the petrol station than meets the eye, and he recounts her story of the underground tank to the police, leaving out the part about the man pulling her arm, just as she pleaded with him to do. ‘I’m fine,’ she lied. ‘Really, it hardly hurts at all.’
She hovers out of sight in the kitchen while Giles finishes on the phone, turning the shoe over in her hands, inspecting the indentations made by tiny toes and a grubby heel, unable to tame the panic that’s running through her; is it that she’s finally going to be believed or about to be found out?
‘I know you’re worried about those women,’ Giles says after he’s put down the phone. ‘But you can’t stop me telling the police the rest when they get here, about how that man grabbed you.’ He places both hands on Ruth’s shoulders and looks into her face. ‘And you’re sure about what you saw? You haven’t missed any tablets?’
‘I promise, Giles. Please, trust me.’
He circles her in his arms. Ruth relaxes into his chest, breathing his musky smell, her relief swelling after the weeks of waiting for genuine tenderness between them. She’s missed this man, forgotten how good it feels to be his equal. The first steps back to the couple they used to be are so much less complicated than she’d imagined.
From outside comes the distant wail of a siren. The couple hold hands, sweaty palm to sweaty palm, and tiptoe as far as the front gate. The siren grows louder until a police car turns the corner and parks next to the forecourt at the end of the road. A few neighbours have come out onto the pavement to watch, heads bobbing in the way, blocking Ruth and Giles’s view. Ruth guides her husband through their gate and they whisper to each other about what they can and can’t see. The vehicle remains at the kerb. No one gets out.
Then another response car glides round the junction and points its nose up the road. A hush falls over the street as the residents’ heads collectively follow the direction of the car. It closes in on Ruth and Giles’s house, pulling up next to them on the pavement. Two officers are inside, a man and a woman. They climb out.
‘Mr and Mrs Woodman?’ the female officer asks.
‘Yes,’ Giles says. ‘Please, come in.’
Giles holds the gate open as Ruth surveys the scatter of people up and down the road. A small group has assembled on the forecourt too, and they charge over to the parked police car, gesturing towards Ruth and Giles’s house. Shouts carry through the air; impossible, though, to make out what’s being said.
Giles leads the officers through the front door, gesturing to the sofa for them to sit. The seat is low and they strain in their bulky uniforms, tugging at padded, accessorized waistcoats. A laundry airer is next to the sofa, strung with baby clothes. Some of Ruth’s baggy underwear is also looped over the rungs and she adjusts a towel to cover the items. It falls to the floor. Both officers stare into the middle distance as Ruth tries to re-hang the towel. If she’d left it in the first place, they might not have noticed her greying knickers and frayed bra. Instead she’s pointed out these shamefully shabby garments that touch the most private parts of her body. Ruth offers tea; the officers decline. The policewoman’s face is neutral, chiselled to a blank, and the man
glances around the room, his gaze ending up on Bess asleep in the pushchair. Ruth wants to stand in front of her baby, block any judgement of her sweet little girl who in this stranger’s eyes might not be thriving, but she holds steady, desperate to present as normal, not paranoid or unhinged. She eases herself into the armchair and Giles grabs a seat from the dining table.
‘So,’ the female officer asks. ‘Was it yourself who reported the crime, Mr Woodman?’
‘Yes,’ says Giles. ‘It was. I made the call.’
‘And can you tell me what you saw last night? Can you give me the details of how many people were coming out of the manhole?’
The officer moves her foot and accidentally splays the pile of magazines at the side of the sofa. Copies of Grazia and Elle filled with gossip and horoscopes. Ruth bought them right before she had Bess, imagining the endless free time she’d have while her baby slept. She still hangs on to the possibility that she’ll get round to reading them, along with the hope that one day she’ll be a competent mother.
‘It was my wife who saw,’ Giles says. ‘But by the reaction of the owner today, I’d say he has something to hide.’
The male officer interjects. ‘And what was his reaction today? What happened to make you report this incident only now and not last night?’
Giles goes to speak, but Ruth jumps in. ‘I was trying to get the manhole up.’ Everyone in the room turns towards her in unison. ‘To prove what I’d seen. You could tell it had been lifted recently, so I knew it was the one people had come out of.’
A crackle of voices spurts from the officer’s walkie-talkie. He turns the volume down a fraction and asks, ‘So perhaps you could tell me exactly what it was you think you saw.’
Ruth attempts to decipher the messages on the officer’s radio. Among the jumbled voices, she thinks she picks up laughter. ‘Well.’ She blushes. The more she concentrates on trying to stop the heat from spreading up her neck, the redder her cheeks become. ‘There were about four people. They looked like women, but could have been younger. Two men were driving. The women climbed out of the manhole and into the back of a Transit, then they drove off.’
‘And what time was this?’
‘About four in the morning.’
‘So it was dark.’
‘Yes.’
‘And where were you when this happened?’
‘I was in my car.’
The female officer huffs a little. ‘Where was your car then?’
‘On the road outside, parked up.’
‘So you had a clear view?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what were you doing in the car at about four in the morning?’
‘I was sleeping. I mean, my daughter was asleep and I didn’t want to wake her. She’s been teething, you see. Driving soothes her. When I parked up, I dozed a bit too, that’s all.’
‘Was it before or after you slept that you saw the incident?’
‘After. It got cold and I was about to go back into the house.’
‘So, you were fully awake?’
‘Yes.’ Ruth leans forward and makes fists of her hands. ‘I know what I saw. There were people coming out of the ground. I didn’t imagine it.’
The officers lean back on the sofa in a twin movement.
‘Ask my neighbour,’ Ruth continues. ‘She saw too.’
‘Which neighbour?’ Giles says, his eyebrows shooting towards his hairline.
‘Liam’s mum, across the alley.’
The female officer turns to a new page in her pocket notebook. She scribbles without looking up at Ruth. ‘Across the alley? Do you mean number forty?’
‘Yes,’ Ruth says. ‘Number forty.’
Giles says, ‘Why didn’t you mention this to me before, Ruth?’ His eyes are wide, his trust a hair from snapping.
‘I did – I mean, I thought I had, at the petrol station. I . . . I don’t remember.’
The officers exchange a look. The man gets up, unclips a smartphone from a pocket in his jacket and walks into the kitchen. He closes the door behind him, talking so softly it’s not possible to hear what he’s saying. Ruth tries to slow her breath, but her pulse only grows louder in her ears. Giles stares at her, the veins on his neck palpitating. Then the door to the kitchen opens. The officer crosses back to the sofa, shoes squeaking, and he sits. ‘A Miss Cailleach lives at number forty,’ he says, leaning forward. ‘Is this the woman who witnessed the same events as yourself last night?’
‘Yes, that’s her name. Miss Cailleach. Ask her, she’ll back me up.’
Giles knows as well as Ruth that they’ve not heard this name before, the packages delivered to their house always having been addressed to a Mr Smith, Liam and Sandra’s surname. Ruth just assumed his mum would be called the same, probably Giles did too, but there’s no one else who lives at number forty. She doesn’t want to create any unnecessary confusion or doubt, and it must be the same woman. Perhaps Liam is named after his absent father and his mum never married, or she reverted to her maiden name in recent years. Ruth doesn’t have the mental latitude now to unpick this anomaly, and she throws Giles a pleading look not to make a thing out of it. He returns a tight mouth.
Ruth continues. ‘I wasn’t sure if she was telling the truth before . . . I mean, it was so noisy with the chainsaw and all, I thought I might have misheard her. But once I saw how agitated the man at the shop became, I knew she was right.’
The female officer says, ‘So was it your own sighting of the events we’re investigating or Miss Cailleach’s?’
‘Mine of course! But she saw as well.’
The female officer swivels to Giles. ‘We have details here,’ she says as her two-way radio fizzes with static, ‘of previous calls made by your wife to the emergency services, about suspected criminals on the road.’
‘What other calls?’ Giles says, the beam of his attention firmly on Ruth, any faith he had in her burning out.
‘We just need to get to the bottom of what your wife saw, Mr Woodman, and if it was a real or suspected event.’
The other officer clears his throat. ‘A detective sergeant is currently attending the scene. I need to inform you that the owner of the premises is considering harassment charges against you and your wife.’
Giles opens his mouth to speak, and again Ruth cuts over him. ‘Harassment! He’s the one who was harassing me.’
The officer bows his head and looks at Ruth from beneath a frown. ‘We need to warn you that going back to the car wash may result in an arrest. There must be no contact with the owner, from yourself on anyone acting on your behalf.’
‘This is crazy.’ Ruth jumps up, her voice high and loud. ‘I mean, are you even listening to me? Has anyone looked inside the tank?’
A moped whines down the street, the local kids taking their chances while the police are occupied.
The woman closes the notebook. ‘The petrol tanks have been decommissioned, Mrs Woodman. They’re full of water, a health and safety requirement to contain any remaining fumes. It would be impossible for anyone to climb in or out without drowning.’
Ruth holds on to the back of the chair, last night’s vision trembling in front of her like a heat haze. ‘What about this then?’ She holds up the tiny pink shoe. Both officers say nothing, then turn to Giles.
‘Mr Woodman,’ the policewoman says, ‘at a recent strategy meeting, we were given information by the mental health team that your wife is under their supervision at present.’
Giles rests his elbows on splayed knees and places his bowed head in his hands. He stares at the floor, speaking softly. ‘Yes, that’s right.’
The officer tips up her nose, as if Ruth’s illness were airborne and she’s detecting spores. ‘Two days ago, an officer visited this address to inform your wife that we can only respond to real incidents, and that suspicion is not grounds for an emergency call.’
Giles looks directly at the officer, blocking his wife from his sightline with his hand, but Ruth can still see thro
ugh the cracks in his fingers that the colour is seeping from his complexion, and she knows she’s lost him.
‘Mr Woodman, if we receive any more spurious calls from this number, we will have to consider further action. Your wife has already been notified that a fixed penalty notice will be given in the event of more calls. The next stage after this is a prosecution. It is a very serious offence to waste police time.’
‘But I saw them.’ Tears stream down Ruth’s cheeks. ‘I did, I know I did.’
Giles sits upright in his chair, chin jutting out and neck stiff as he turns to Ruth. His mouth is open a crack. No breath comes out.
The male officer perches on the edge of the sofa as if ready to sprint. ‘Are there any actual charges you wish to pursue? If so, I’ll need to log the incident and take a full statement from both yourself and your wife and take witness statements from others who were present or who saw events this morning.’
Ruth remembers Barry going into the shop and she visualizes the houses closest to that end of the road, from where it would have been possible to see the station. Liam and Sandra have the best view from their bedroom. Their car was on the forecourt, so at least one of them was home and could have seen. If it was Liam, this would be the perfect opportunity for him to warn his wife away from her troubled friend. But Ruth and Sandra are best friends now. Ruth hopes that will be enough to secure Sandra’s allegiance.
‘Would you like to take any further action?’ the officer continues as if reciting from a sheet, the inference being that Ruth is the twentieth time-waster he’s seen today. ‘If so, we will need to involve the mental health team in our inquiries.’
Ruth rubs her arm where the man had yanked her to standing. Her shoulder joint needles with pain. Giles’s body is tight and upright as she begins to lift her sleeve to show where she was grabbed, where she’s sure there’ll be red marks left by the man’s fingers, but before she can protest, Giles says, ‘No.’ His words are clipped. ‘There’s nothing else. I’m sorry, Officer. This won’t happen again. I’ll make sure of it.’
The Hidden Girls Page 9