What Falls Between the Cracks

by Robert Scragg

  ‘We have every right, Mrs Locke,’ said Porter in a calm voice, trying to keep things level. He’d shared his theory with Styles on the journey from the woods, and they’d agreed to tackle things head-on. If they were wrong, they were already in a world of trouble with Campbell anyway, but Porter refused to let go of the feeling that they were on to something; if they could just apply the right pressure to the right place.

  ‘Now, unless you want me to go back to those woods with the dogs and a forensic team, and make you fully accountable for whatever we find there, you need to start talking to me.’

  Silence followed the ultimatum, broken only by the shuffling of feet, the waitress bringing them their coffees, scraping her soles on the tiles as she walked. She set them on the table and turned away with a smile but no conversation. Porter watched Mary Locke through the fingers of steam stretching upwards from his cup, as he waited her out.

  ‘Mrs Locke, you asked us here to talk,’ said Styles in a soft voice that a psychiatrist would have been proud of. ‘Whatever it is you need to get off your chest, you know it’s the right thing to do.’

  She stared a moment longer, gaze fixed on her cup but not seeing it. When she looked up, her eyes were tired and damp with tears. ‘None of this is right,’ she said in a quiet voice, bottom lip trembling. ‘None of it. I did not kill Natasha, Detective. I would never hurt her.’

  ‘But you do know what happened to her, where she is.’ Styles’s tone told her he wasn’t expecting a response, merely stating a fact.

  She nodded, drawing her cup towards her, cradling it with both hands. Porter glanced at Styles with a look that urged silence. She was at the edge of the precipice. He was willing to bet she was more likely to take the step of her own accord than be pushed over by any verbal battering.

  ‘You know about the tree,’ she said finally. ‘You followed me there. You know about the tree.’

  Porter nodded. ‘I saw the tree. Did you plant the snowdrops?’

  She looked almost relieved at his words. ‘I was there that night,’ she said, ignoring his question about the flowers. ‘I didn’t see it happen. Didn’t even see her face, but I knew it was her. After what happened with Gavin the other day, I … well, I couldn’t live with myself if I stayed quiet and let him get taken from me as well.’

  Porter’s heart was beating so hard he fancied it was visible through his shirt, but he sat perfectly still, not wanting to disrupt her flow. Whatever the reference to Gavin was, it could wait.

  ‘It was an accident, I’m sure it was. I don’t think anyone would have hurt her on purpose.’

  ‘What was an accident, Mrs Locke?’ asked Styles.

  Porter glared at him, but Styles’s gaze was fixed on Mary Locke. They’d agreed on the way here that he would lead, as the senior detective. Just let her tell her story. He willed his partner to shut the hell up. The seconds didn’t so much tick by as crawl. Porter was ready to jump in with a prompt to undo the damage when she spoke again.

  ‘It was stupid. I was so stupid. I knew he wasn’t good for her.’

  Styles cut in again when she paused for breath. ‘Who is “he”, Mrs Locke?’

  Porter tried not to let his frustration show, but extended his leg under the table and gave his partner a tap across the shin, not too hard, but hard enough. Styles tensed, but said nothing, and gave the slightest of nods. Message received.

  ‘James Bolton. I managed to convince myself that she was old enough to make her own mistakes. See who she wanted to see. He had a reputation with the ladies before they got together. He was … is a charming man in his own way.’ She seemed not to have been distracted by Styles’s interruptions, and Porter breathed a sigh of relief. ‘If she hadn’t been mixed up with the likes of him this might never have happened. And to think I thought it was Alexander up to no good.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ said Porter.

  ‘It was nothing, really. Just me being stupid. There had been calls late at night. He always had the odd one, but it got me thinking. Then he got one, late one Saturday night. Said that he had to go out. That he had business to take care of.’

  She reached down into her bag and pulled out a paper hanky. It looked far from fresh, speckled with fluff from its residence wedged deep in the bowels of a bag that probably cost as much as Porter’s suit.

  ‘Of course, I convinced myself he was lying,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘Part of me wishes he had been. I sometimes think, if only there had been another woman these last thirty years could have been so different.’

  She folded the hanky twice, dabbed at the corner of her eyes and contemplated a road not travelled. ‘I’d probably have stayed with him regardless. He has a way of getting what he wants. Anyway, this time I followed him, convinced I’d pull up outside a hotel somewhere. Have to watch as he met up with some tart ten years younger. But instead he ended up at Ruislip Lido, off in the car park along from the pub. That’s where … where I …’

  Her face crinkled at the pain of remembering. Porter was torn between gentle prompts and letting her work through it in her own time. He had dozens of questions fizzing round inside his mind. She seemed to be pointing the finger at Bolton, but Locke was still mixed up in there somehow.

  ‘There were three of them waiting for him. James, Oliver and some other chap I didn’t recognise.’

  ‘That’s James Bolton and Oliver Davies?’ Porter was fairly sure, but it didn’t pay to assume too much. She nodded. ‘And this other man, what can you tell us about him?’

  She shrugged. ‘I’ve never seen him before, or since. Dark hair is all I can remember. They were all standing by the car. Alexander got out and they talked for a few minutes. He was pointing at them, all of them, like he was annoyed at something, and that’s when I saw her. They opened the boot, and lifted her out.’

  ‘Lifted who out?’ Porter asked. It was like prompting a five-year-old to get to the point, but with traumatic memories, the storyteller tended to blur the edges of unpleasant parts without a little steering.

  ‘I never saw her face. She was wrapped in some sort of blanket, and I couldn’t risk getting too close, but I’m sure it was her. I’m sure it was Natasha. I saw her hair hanging through the end of the blanket. She always had beautiful hair.’ Mary gave a wistful smile.

  ‘How can you be sure it was her from that, Mrs Locke?’ Porter asked.

  ‘Poland,’ she said, closing her eyes.

  ‘Poland? Where you told us you’d visited her? How does that tie in?’

  ‘We had an argument not long after she was … after she disappeared. Her name was thrown into it, and I said I’d had a letter from her. That she had left because she couldn’t stand him. And that I was going to see her for a few days. Stupid, I know, but I just had to get out of there. The thought of what had happened to her … I felt suffocated. I wanted to see his reaction. He doesn’t give away much, as you’ve seen. But when I said that he looked surprised. That’s when I was sure that she was never coming back. I’m sure he had me followed. I’m pretty certain I saw one of his men near my hotel in New York. I guess he thought I might be having an affair. He knew I was lying about where I was, so it stood to reason that I might be lying about who I was with. He knew damn well it wasn’t Natasha. I’m sure he only reminded me the other day because he wants me to feel like a fraud telling you the same story.’

  ‘So you’ve known all these years? What about the police, Mrs Locke? Did you call the police? Did you try and tell anyone what had happened?’

  ‘And say what, Detective? I had no way to make sense of what I’d seen, who had done what. I couldn’t prove a thing. All I would have done would be to put myself and Gavin in danger. He might have taken Alexander’s name, but he’s still just a stepson in my husband’s eyes.’

  Porter’s brain scrambled to make sense of what she was saying. Was Alexander Locke a part of what had happened to Natasha, or had they gone to him afterwards asking for help to cover it up, whatever it was? There was
still the matter of all the other shit he was linked to. Bolton too. He was still firmly in the cross hairs for this. Davies was long dead, but who was the third man Locke met with, and where did he fit in? Porter had been so sure that Locke had been the one behind everything. Had he just been blinded by the need to call someone, anyone, to account for Natasha, and now for Gibson and Simmons too? He parked this for now, and steered her back on track to the night at the woods.

  ‘I was afraid to get out,’ she continued, ‘afraid that they’d see me. I could see them talking. They split up then. Alexander and the other man went into a pub by the car park. James and Oliver carried Natasha off into the trees.’

  She looked confused now, reliving the moment, seeing shapes join with the darkness and disappear, but not knowing exactly what she was watching.

  ‘I … I was worried about her. I tried to follow them … I couldn’t see where I was going very well. All I could see was a torch up ahead, and sometimes not even that. I never knew exactly where they stopped. I couldn’t risk them knowing I was there. I gave up and went back to my car, nearly got lost on the way, but I made it, just.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Porter. ‘What about Natasha? What about the tree? How did you find the tree?’

  She shook her head and spoke slowly. ‘I don’t know where they took her, Detective.’

  He leant in closer still, words somewhere between a whisper and a hiss. ‘Why did you go to that tree? Are you honestly trying to tell me I won’t find her there? Cos if you are, I’m not buying it.’

  ‘You think I wanted to leave her out there, with them? God only knows what they did to the poor girl, but if they’d found me there … Do you honestly think the fact I’m Alexander’s wife means that there wouldn’t be any consequences? If you do, then you don’t know men like these.’

  ‘So let’s assume for a minute I decide to believe you, what the hell does the tree have to do with any of this?’

  ‘Part of me thought I’d dreamt it when I woke up the next day. I rang her, tried going round: nothing. I went back to the woods the day after. I tried to remember where they went, I found the last place I could remember, that part where the paths cross.’

  Porter assumed she meant that five-way nexus they had followed her through earlier.

  ‘From there I just couldn’t … it was impossible. I kept losing the path, imagining I was going to trip across her just lying there.’ She closed her eyes, gave a sad shake of the head. ‘All I know is that they took her in there and she never came out. The tree was just … I saw the flowers, and they were the only thing I found. Everything else was just greens and browns and blacks, and there they were. Beautiful. Perfect.’

  Porter felt his previous excitement fading, replaced with a pounding in his head. So close. He had felt so close. She sat straighter in her seat now, expression and body language rediscovering some of its former poise.

  ‘Do you know what it’s like to live for thirty years with a secret like that, of them doing … whatever they did? Now do you see why I said nothing? Did nothing?’ She prodded herself in the chest with a stiff finger. ‘I can’t prove anything.’ One prod per word. ‘I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t find her. If they would do that to her, what do you think they might do to me? To my son? Just because I’m married to their boss doesn’t mean they wouldn’t do whatever they had to, to save themselves.’

  She paused for a moment. ‘My husband can be a hard man, Detective. He wouldn’t have got to where he is by going easy on people, but he would never condone hurting Natasha.’ A little strength crept back into her voice. ‘Never.’

  She stared at Porter, daring him to contradict her. He didn’t believe for a second that Locke was squeaky clean, but he begrudgingly conceded to himself that she could be right about this much. If it had been Natasha, it sounded like whatever happened had already taken place before he drove out that night – not that this would condone any part in covering it up. James Bolton had been involved with Natasha not long before she disappeared. They could prove he had been in her flat. Was he so focused on nailing Locke that he risked overlooking the glaringly obvious? Violence followed James Bolton. Had for years. If even half the stories about him were true … One thing at a time. Focus on what happened to Natasha, for now at least. Whatever Locke was up to, his time would come, and soon. If Porter could take his right-hand man out of action, that would be a big fuck you to Locke and his whole operation.

  Decision made, he took a deep breath. Refocused on Natasha. ‘So the tree is what, then, nothing?’ Hope seeped away like a slowly shrinking balloon as he said it.

  A firm shake of her head. ‘It’s something, to me at least. There’s not a day that has passed I haven’t wondered if I could have done something that night, or any of the days that followed. It was somewhere to go when I hated myself for being weak. Somewhere to go to say sorry. Somewhere I could find again if I needed to.’

  That made sense. The tree stump he had used himself as a marker – it had guided her back time after time, year after year, for apology after apology.

  ‘I looked for a sign, any sign of where she might be. But after a while, it was enough just to be there.’

  Porter sat back, calculating odds of success from what they had. ‘Mrs Locke, we need to find her. We need you to make a statement and we’ll go back there and find her.’

  She looked alarmed. ‘A statement? No, I can’t … He would … You don’t understand. If James knew I was talking to you, even like this … I’ve told you what I know. If I hadn’t and you’d found her anyway, it would have looked like I’d put her there myself, but I can’t do any more than that.’

  Her hand shot forward and covered his where it rested on the table; the other went to her mouth. Eyes already wide, pupils growing in fear like zoom lenses.

  ‘No one can know about this. About me, I mean. Go there. Find her, but you can’t use my name.’

  ‘It’s not that simple, Mrs Locke.’ Porter sandwiched her hand with his free one, firm but reassuring. ‘We need you. Without you we have no one identified at the scene. Without you there was no girl hauled out from the boot of a car, no drive to the woods. Without you they all give a story they agreed thirty years ago about meeting for a pint, and that’s if they even admit to being in Ruislip at all. Nothing changes. Do you understand that?’

  ‘I understand that if he knows I’ve talked, we’re not safe. Me or Gavin. I’ve told you everything I can, it’s up to you what you do with it, but please keep me out of it.’

  She pulled her hand back and stood up, chair legs rattling as they scratched backwards. She took out her purse and dropped a ten-pound note on the table by their coffee cups.

  ‘I have to go. Please don’t tell anyone we talked. Especially not my husband. If he knew I’d been there … that I’d talked to you …’ She paused. ‘It would make things very difficult for me. For my marriage, and my son.’

  She slid her glasses down from her head to hide the pain in her eyes, and left without saying another word. Porter watched her reflection in the mirror above their table, and wondered if his best chance – scratch that, Natasha’s best chance – to end this mess had left with her.

  Porter and Styles kicked around a handful of ideas on the way back to the station. If this were any other case, they would have scooped Bolton up, sealed him in a box-like room and verbally sparred until he cracked. That wasn’t an option here, though. Campbell was the gatekeeper to any of that after the dressing-down he’d given them. He wouldn’t be easily swayed on the say-so of a witness who, on reflection, had seen nothing concrete, nothing provable. It would be different if they found her first. If they could find Natasha, go to Campbell with a body … but that brought with it a logistical nightmare. Styles had googled Ruislip Woods on the way to the cafe; they stretched over seven hundred acres. Even with a vague sense of where Mary Locke had led them, they had as much chance of winning the lottery this weekend as they did of stumbling across Natasha.

&n
bsp; It was a little after two by the time they parked and headed upstairs. The lunchtime exodus meant most of the other officers had migrated to the cafe downstairs, or headed out for something more edible than the usual in-house offering. The debate in the car had reached a stalemate. Porter wanted to convince Anderson and Whittaker to join them for a speculative poke around in the woods. Styles preferred to chip away at Campbell, hoping Mary Locke’s version of events, as difficult to prove as it was, would convince him to send a canine unit out.

  A Post-it note caught Porter’s eye as he dropped into his chair, block capitals scratched deep into the surface, sticky strip barely clinging to his screen. He didn’t recognise the writing but then he noticed it had been signed by its author, Reid, the young officer who had been chasing up footage from the weather station. Porter grabbed the phone and punched in the extension number Reid had scribbled down.

  It only rang twice before he answered. ‘Reid speaking.’

  ‘Reid, it’s Porter. Just seen the note. You got anything for me?’

  ‘Ah, yes, sir. I’ll be right up.’

  Porter went to ask him what it was, but heard the click as the line went dead. He didn’t have long to wait. Reid came bustling in less than a minute later, almost colliding with Styles, who was heading out to the bathroom. Reid held a hand out to Porter, who looked at him blankly at first, waiting for him to speak, until he saw the memory stick.

  ‘Do you want to tell me what’s on here or is it a surprise?’ he asked, plugging it into a spare slot at the base of his PC.

  ‘It’s not the best quality, sir, and the delay between frames makes it a bit jerky, but see what you think.’

  Reid reached across and double-clicked on the icon that appeared. Windows Media Player sprung to life and after a few seconds of solid black, a street scene snapped into view. The image was far from sharp, but the wide-angled fish-eye lens showed both sides of the street peeling away from the road, perspective slightly distorted. The time in the corner read just before 3 p.m. According to the report Anderson had filed, the shots they were watching were two hours before they had charged into the building. It was like watching stop-motion animation. Cars were there on one shot, gone the next. The few people he saw advanced along the street in leaps of twenty feet. Reid dragged the cursor across the scroll bar, and the images flickered, strobe-like, as he travelled through time.