Little Face

by Sophie Hannah

  ‘You’re assuming they were in it together, then?’ He was assuming an awful lot, and Charlie knew she was indulging him. Shit. Would she have gone along with Sellers or Gibbs so readily if they’d wanted to explore a similarly unprovable hunch? Was this the good behaviour she was aiming for with regard to Simon, or special treatment? ‘Even if you’re right, it’s just a guess,’ she said. ‘There’s no evidence.’

  Simon’s eyes blazed with purpose. He wasn’t listening. ‘I’m going to find Alice today,’ he said.

  Charlie thought about the clothes, shoes, car and cash cards Alice had not taken with her. And all Florence’s things, left behind at The Elms. She feared the worst. ‘You’re in love with her, aren’t you?’ she said. It was all right to say this, she thought. As a friend. ‘You might not have been before, but you are now. You fell in love with her after she disappeared. That was what made her your perfect woman.’ She felt a few missing pieces slot into the jigsaw puzzle in her mind as she spoke.

  ‘We’ve got work to do,’ said Simon curtly. ‘It’s down in the lift to get to the swimming pool.’

  Charlie followed him into a carpeted internal corridor that contained a buzzing sound and the smell of lilies. A brass sign opposite them said ‘Main Reception’ above a black arrow. They walked side by side in the direction indicated, saying nothing. Charlie’s mind was racing, filling in the details of her new theory. Simon, bright red in the face, carefully avoided her eye. She had to be right. He didn’t want a woman in his life, not really. He wanted a fantasy, someone imagined and inaccessible. What could be better than a missing woman?

  She followed him into the lift, which was mirrored from waist to head height on three of its four sides, and pressed the button marked ‘LG’. It was even harder, in here, for Charlie and Simon not to look at one another. The journey from the ground floor to the lower ground floor seemed to take impossibly long. Charlie became aware, at one point, that she was holding her breath. Now she knew what it felt like to be trapped in a lift, and the damn thing wasn’t even stuck.

  It was a relief to emerge, finally. Another carpeted corridor. This time the sign opposite them said ‘Swimming pool’, above another helpful black arrow. Charlie heard echoey splashes, a low bubbling, a hum that vibrated under her feet. ‘Here we are,’ she said.

  To their left, there were two doors. One said ‘Ladies Changing’ and the other ‘Gentlemen Changing’. ‘Presumably those lead straight through to the pool area,’ said Simon. ‘Bloody hell, any idiot could get in. You’d think they’d tighten up their security.’

  Charlie shrugged. ‘I doubt it’d occur to many people to try and sneak in to a health club without paying the membership fees. I mean, you’d just assume you wouldn’t be able to. My sister’s health club’s like Fort Knox. You need a little card thingy or the barrier won’t open.’

  ‘Look.’ Simon pointed to a large wooden sideboard directly in front of them. On top of it, white towels were piled high on one side. On the other there was a big, square hole. ‘Is that what I think it is?’

  ‘A towel bin.’ As Charlie spoke, the door that was labelled ‘Ladies Changing’ opened, and a woman emerged with wet hair, carrying a crumpled towel in one hand and a pink Nike sports bag in the other. Her head was crooked, trapping a pink mobile phone between her shoulder and her ear. ‘. . . bloody pool and showers were freezing!’ she said, irate. ‘One of the boilers is broken. I’m going to ask for a discount on next month’s membership if they haven’t got it sorted by tomorrow.’ She dropped her towel into the square hole. It didn’t fall very far; the used towels were piled too high already. The woman tutted and walked towards the stairs, now holding her phone in her hand, still complaining loudly.

  ‘All I’d need to do is reach in and pick up the towel she’s just dropped,’ said Simon, ‘and I could frame her for murder.’

  Charlie knew he was right. Right that it was possible; not necessarily that it was what had happened.

  ‘Simon, are you a virgin?’ she asked.

  35

  Thursday October 2, 2003

  I am in the kitchen, clutching the tape in my right hand. I cannot believe that my idea, born out of desperation, worked. It did not for a minute occur to David that I was bluffing. My handbag is on the kitchen work surface beneath the back window, next to my keys, mobile phone and watch – all my confiscated possessions. I pick up my watch and put it on, half expecting an alarm to start wailing. I am wondering whether I should put the tape in my bag, hide it somewhere else or destroy it, when I hear breathing behind me.

  I curl my hand around the tape and turn. Vivienne is standing about a foot in front of me. I wonder if she was about to touch me. She is wearing her long, navy dressing gown over white silk pyjamas. Her skin is shiny from the night cream she uses, the best that Waterfront’s beauty salon has to offer. Her face is greasy, white and spectral. ‘What are you doing?’ she asks. I don’t normally come downstairs after Vivienne has gone to bed. Nobody does. She can’t sleep if she thinks anybody else is still up. It is one of the many unwritten rules of life at The Elms. This change in my normal pattern has alerted her to a possible danger.

  I decide to use a Vivienne tactic, to answer a question with a question. ‘Are you nervous about tomorrow?’ She is disconcerted by my prying into her psyche. She is the one who asks, always. ‘I mean, it’s easier for me,’ I continue, my heart leaping up into my mouth with every beat. ‘I know what the test result will be. You don’t. It must be hard for you. Waiting. Not knowing.’ Were it not for my triumph over David, I would not dare to say any of this. It is as if the pilot light of my confidence has suddenly been lit again, though the flame is still a faint, low one.

  Her eyes glint. Vivienne is a proud woman. She hates to have it pointed out to her that she is at a disadvantage. ‘I’ll know soon enough,’ she says. Then, as if suddenly aware she has admitted to uncertainty, she adds, ‘David is my son. I believe him. You’ve not been yourself, Alice. You know that.’

  ‘Why do you call her “the baby” if you believe David? You haven’t called her Florence once, have you, since you got back from Florida? You don’t cuddle her. You supervise her, but you don’t touch her.’

  Vivienne’s tongue flicks out to moisten her lips. She tries to smile again but it is even harder for her this time. ‘I was trying to be tactful,’ she says. ‘I didn’t want to upset you.’

  ‘That’s not true. Deep down, you can’t quite bring yourself to dismiss what I’m saying, can you? I’m Florence’s mother. You know what it means to be a mother. And you’ve always liked and trusted me. You call Little Face “the baby” because, like me, you don’t know who she is. And you’re terrified of tomorrow morning. Because pretty soon, you’ll have to face the truth that I faced last Friday – Florence is missing. The denial you’re in at the moment, that’s going to end.’

  ‘That’s nothing but psychobabble,’ she spits, the tendons in her clenched fists sticking out like ropes.

  ‘I’m going to miss Little Face,’ I whisper. ‘When we have to give her back.’

  ‘Give her back?’ Vivienne looks flustered.

  ‘To the police. Well, we won’t be allowed to keep her, will we? Not once the police know she’s not ours. They’ll take her away. We’ll have no baby at all.’ My voice wobbles.

  Vivienne lunges at me and pushes me hard in the chest with both her hands. I cry out in surprise before losing my balance. My shoulder bangs against the top of the oven as I fall to the floor. For a few minutes I cannot move for the pain. I curl up on my side.

  Vivienne hovers above me, bending down. I can smell her face cream, its sharp lily of the valley scent. ‘This is all your fault!’ she screams. The sound of her unrestrained rage is more of a shock than her physical attack on me. I have never heard her shriek like this before. ‘What sort of mother goes out on her own and leaves her newborn baby at home to be kidnapped? What sort of mother does that?’ Her face looms over mine, her mouth a dark cave, wide open. I sm
ell mint-flavoured toothpaste and my own sweat, my fear of her.

  And then I am alone in the room, the Dictaphone tape still wrapped in my shaking hand.

  36

  10/10/03, 10 am

  ‘It isn’t April the first, is it?’ Inspector Giles Proust banged his mug down and picked up his desk diary, examining it in an exaggerated manner for Charlie and Simon’s benefit.

  Charlie noticed that the diary was another one from the foot-and-mouth charity Proust’s wife worked for. Not cattle, Proust had explained years ago, but people who painted with their feet and mouths. ‘No, sir,’ she said now.

  ‘Right. Didn’t think it was. So this isn’t a bad joke. You really want me to squander precious funds on a search of The Elms, for the sake of one handbag.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Did the two of you devise this plan in a sauna? You’ve spent a lot of time in such places recently. Waterhouse?’

  Simon shifted in his chair. Say something, dickhead. Tell them what you know.

  ‘What exactly goes on in these health club places, anyway?’ asked Proust.

  ‘Swimming, sir. And there are gyms and exercise classes. Jacuzzis, saunas, steam rooms. Some have plunge pools.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Pools full of freezing cold water. You go in them after you’ve come out of the steam room or the sauna,’ Charlie explained.

  Proust shook his head. ‘So you heat yourself up in order to cool yourself down?’

  ‘It’s good for the circulation, apparently.’

  ‘And Jacuzzis – that’s sitting around in warm, bubbly water, is it?’

  Charlie nodded. ‘It’s very relaxing.’

  Proust looked at Simon. ‘Do you go in for this sort of thing, Waterhouse?’

  Charlie was tempted, as usual, to butt in and answer on Simon’s behalf. She stopped herself. He wasn’t hers to defend. She must let Simon speak for himself, just as she would Sellers or Gibbs.

  ‘No, sir,’ he replied clearly.

  ‘Good.’

  He still hadn’t answered Charlie’s question, the one she’d asked him at the health club. She hadn’t repeated it. Was she trying to massage the facts in order to save her ego? She didn’t think so. The more she examined her suspicion, the stronger it grew. It made perfect sense. Simon had never had a girlfriend, never mentioned past flings or serious relationships. Gibbs and Sellers were always saying he was probably one of those asexual people, like that comedian Stephen Fry, or was it Morrissey?

  He had to be a virgin. He was scared of sex, scared to reveal his inexperience to anyone. That was why he’d run away, at Sellers’ party, why he couldn’t allow himself to become romantically involved with anybody. The absent Alice Fancourt was ideal for him. Whatever Simon felt for her, it would have to remain theoretical. If I disappeared suddenly, maybe he’d fall in love with me, Charlie thought. Then she remembered another resolution she’d made: don’t think about him when you’re supposed to be thinking about work.

  ‘Sir, if we had a search warrant . . .’ she began.

  ‘Sorry, sergeant. I’m not convinced. It could be a coincidence, Beer sitting in the same warm water as Vivienne Fancourt. Sellers and Gibbs have been back to speak to him again and he’s still saying he killed Laura Cryer. Why would he say it if he didn’t do it?’

  ‘He’s scared of more jail time?’ said Charlie. ‘It’s not going to go down well if he admits he perjured himself to get a reduced sentence. Or he could be scared of what’s waiting for him on the Winstanley estate. Same people who used to protect him’ll be out for his blood now, won’t they?’

  ‘Beer seems to have become attached to the idea of Laura Cryer,’ said Simon, playing for time. ‘He’s got a thing about her. When I talked to him, I got the impression that he imagines there’s a sort of . . . bond between them. Maybe to admit he didn’t kill her would sever the bond, in his mind.’

  Proust snorted. ‘Very deep, Waterhouse. Very psychological. Look, a knife forensics say could well be the one that killed Cryer has just turned up in a hiding place we know Beer used.’ Charlie opened her mouth to speak. Proust raised a hand to silence her. ‘Even if you’re right, if David and Vivienne Fancourt killed Cryer and framed Beer, the chances of a search of The Elms turning up the handbag after all this time is negligible.’

  ‘Some killers keep souvenirs,’ said Charlie. ‘Especially if the murder was personal, if their victim meant something to them.’

  Proust looked rattled, all of a sudden. ‘Why do I have to be bothered with this?’ he snapped. ‘Interview Vivienne and David Fancourt, get them to talk. Why is the option that first occurs to you the one that involves time and money I can’t afford?’

  Here we go, thought Simon. Another Proust oratory.

  ‘Do you know how impossible my working life is? Does either of you have a clue? No. I thought not. Well, let me tell you. I come in at the beginning of every shift with a list of things to do, carried over from the previous day. The trouble is, before I have a chance to start doing any of them, more things appear out of nowhere – paperwork, idiots causing problems for no reason, people needing to see me and talk to me.’ He winced, evidently of the view that both these needs were staggering in their depravity. ‘That’s what it means to be a detective inspector. It’s like standing in front of a burst dam and being pushed backwards. Every day I go home with a longer list than the one I came in with. At least I can now put a line through one item: Mandy Buckley.’

  Charlie looked up expectantly.

  ‘We’ll wait a while and hope she reappears. Sorry, sergeant. I consulted a few people, and the consensus was that we couldn’t justify any expense in that direction. It’s not as if we’ve got any reason to suspect her of anything.’

  Charlie couldn’t bring herself to agree. I’m becoming as hunch-driven as Simon, she thought ruefully.

  Simon cleared his throat and leaned forward. ‘Sir, Charlie, there’s something I haven’t told you.’

  The Snowman groaned. ‘My heart’s sinking fast, Waterhouse. What is it? As for your not having told us, let’s save our discussion of that for the disciplinary proceedings. Well?’

  Simon could feel Charlie’s anxious stare burning into him. ‘Felix Fancourt’s school, Stanley Sidgwick. Alice told me Vivienne put Florence’s name down before she was even born. You have to, apparently, it’s so over-subscribed. There’s a years-long waiting list, for the boys’ grammar and the ladies’ college.’

  ‘And?’ Proust demanded. ‘This is CID, not Offsted. What’s your point?’

  ‘When I spoke to Laura’s parents, her dad told me that straight after her death, Vivienne took Felix out of the nursery he was at and started him at Stanley Sidgwick. But how could she have, if his name wasn’t down already? They wouldn’t have had a free place. And if his name was down already . . . well, how did Vivienne Fancourt know it would be up to her to decide which school to send Felix to?’

  ‘Fuck!’ Charlie muttered. Simon’s brain never ceased to amaze her. He missed nothing.

  ‘I figured she must have put his name down, and I wondered how long ago. Maybe she’d been planning Laura’s murder for years. On the other hand, I thought, maybe she reserved his place before he was born, like she did for Florence, in the hope that Laura would see sense and send him there. But then, if Felix hadn’t taken up his place when he reached the appropriate age, the school would have allocated it to someone else.’

  ‘They’d have had to,’ said Charlie.

  Proust ran his index finger around the rim of his mug, saying nothing.

  ‘I phoned Stanley Sidgwick Grammar this morning,’ said Simon. ‘Vivienne did register Felix before he was born. He was due to start in the lower kindergarten year at the beginning of September 1999, when he was two. They start in the year they turn three.’

  ‘That’s far too young,’ Proust snapped. ‘My children were at home until they were almost five.’

  I bet you weren’t, though, thought Charli
e. Lizzie, Proust’s wife, will have been the one stuck at home scraping the squashed Weetabix off the carpet.

  Simon ignored the interruption. ‘Felix didn’t start at Stanley Sidgwick in September 1999. Laura was still alive and had no intention of sending him there. But his place wasn’t given to anyone else, despite the long waiting list.’

  ‘What?’ Proust frowned.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Because Vivienne Fancourt paid the fees from September 1999, just as if Felix were attending the school. Her argument, apparently, was that if she was willing to pay, they had to keep Felix’s place open. And in November 1999, she told the school admissions secretary, Sally Hunt, that Felix would start, definitely, in January 2001, at the beginning of the spring term. Laura was murdered in December 2000.’ Simon exhaled slowly. That was enough for them to be getting on with. They would think he’d told them everything.

  ‘Fuck!’ Charlie shook her head. ‘She knew, over a year before, that she was going to kill Laura, and she knew when. Why did she wait so long?’

  Simon shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s no so long, when you’re planning a murder. She’d never killed before, she’d have had to get mentally prepared. Also . . . maybe there was some pleasurable anticipation involved. Whenever she saw Laura, during those tense access visits when Laura appeared to have all the power, Vivienne could gloat secretly.’

  Proust slapped his palms down on the desk. ‘As I said before: interview Vivienne Fancourt. Get her to talk. With everything we’ve got, we can make her hand over Cryer’s handbag, if she’s got it. She’ll probably confess within minutes.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Charlie. ‘You’ve not met her.’ He never met anyone. She sometimes thought that all The Snowman knew of the world was what she and Lizzie, his agents in the field, told him. ‘Vivienne Fancourt isn’t scared of me and Simon.’ She turned to Simon for support. ‘Is she?’ He shrugged. They hadn’t yet accused her of murder, he was thinking, or of framing an innocent man. ‘Oh, come on, you know what she’s like. She thinks we’re a pair of stupid kids,’ said Charlie.