by Kate Simants
She stands in the centre of the room and turns a slow circle. There is a slim bookshelf in the corner but it’s empty except for a small, battered toolbox that looks promising until she opens it. Nothing but a hammer and some broken Rawlplugs. A chest of drawers, incongruously solid, stands beside the door that leads to the tiny bedroom. She searches it methodically. Although they’re at least clean and odour-free, his meagre selection of clothes have been thrown into the drawers at random. Wren sighs through her nose, gets to her feet, takes a step towards the bedroom door. But then she has another thought.
She bends and carefully slides the bottom drawer open again, all the way this time, and then out entirely.
Time slows. Face down, on the carpet beneath, is the phone. Without making a sound, without breathing, she reaches in. It is matte black, an old-model Samsung. She briefly presses one of the buttons to see if it’ll wake, but it is switched off. With infinite care, she turns it over, runs her thumb over the peeling scrap of a sticker on the back. A unicorn.
She hardly breathes again until she is back in the car. As soon as she sits down, her own phone buzzes with a text from James.
Did you find it?
And Wren understands the mechanics of this now. He knows she took the letters. It doesn’t even matter if he knows why. What does matter is that she keeps him at bay.
So she sends back a single word. Yes.
Seconds later: Bring it here. Don’t do ANYTHING with it. I’ll be outside the donut drive-through at St Philips in five minutes, OK?
Wren replies with a cursory OK, puts both phones, hers and Ashworth’s, beside her, and starts the engine. She moves off, making her way to the retail park James is referring to. But as she gets close, she flips on the indicator, turns into a sideroad, and stops.
She stares out of the windscreen. She stares for a long time, and after a while, she gets out. She walks round the block. When she goes back to the car, there are three texts from James, asking where she is with increasing urgency.
She doesn’t answer. She just sits for a while longer.
Thinking, what happened?
What am I doing here?
She’s there for five minutes, ten. She ignores a call and more texts from James. And then she makes up her mind.
Her message to Suzy is simple.
Please let’s try again. I have one thing I have to sort out, and then I’m coming home. I love you so much.
Then she drives back to Ashworth’s. She gets out of the car with the stolen phone in her hand, and she goes back to the flat. Because this is madness. She’s going to return it. Putting the key in the lock, she opens the front door. On entering, she nearly trips over a wet carrier bag that she didn’t notice before, the handles tied together. She nudges it against the wall with her toe, grimaces as it leaves a streak of diluted mud on the lino.
It is at this moment that the door to the bedroom opens. Ashworth, bollock naked apart from a towel slung around his waist, freezes where he is.
‘What – what were you doing in there?’ Wren says, stupidly, every shred of her attention on the phone she is holding in her left hand behind her back. In one deft movement she slips it into her trouser pocket, thanking her lucky stars that she hadn’t gone for a skirt that morning. ‘I mean, I didn’t know you were in.’
‘You broke in,’ he says matter-of-factly.
She lets out a stammer of a laugh, makes an incredulous face. Think, woman. ‘I just had to do an inventory check,’ she says, amazing herself with the speed of the lie. ‘For the landlord.’
‘Bullshit.’
And even though she’s desperate not to do it, her eyes travel to the chest of drawers, just beside him.
The bottom drawer is slightly ajar.
He follows her gaze. He crosses the room in half a second and drops to his knees, wrenching the drawer out.
‘Fuck!’ he screams.
She turns to run, but he’s fast and the room is small. His hands are on her shoulders before she can dodge him, and he’s forcing her back. The towel has fallen but he doesn’t care.
‘Where is it?’ he spits.
‘I don’t – I don’t—’
‘Where’s the fucking phone?’
Pain explodes in her collarbone as she hits the wall. She ducks low and twists hard to get away from him. Just get out, she tells herself. Deal with the fallout later.
‘Give it to me, you bitch.’ He lunges at her but somehow, this time, she is faster, propelled by what he’s giving in his desperation to get it back. This is it. This is the key. She bolts away from him, crashes hard into the front door, shoves the handle, pulls it open.
And stops dead.
On the other side, his hand up as if to knock, stands a uniformed police officer.
‘Robert Ashworth?’ he says, peering in behind Wren.
Wren stands aside, panting. ‘Here.’
Ashworth, scrabbling for the towel, recedes into the bedroom. ‘Let me just get some—’ he says, but the uniform barges past.
‘Police. Stay where you are,’ he bellows, charging in and swinging the bedroom door back open.
‘Do what he says, Rob,’ Wren calls, but the damage has been done. She follows the policeman into the bedroom. There is barely room for three adults to stand in there alongside the unmade bed but there they stand, the cop holding Ashworth against the wall, pressing him in by the back of the neck. He reaches for his radio and gives his number.
Shit, Wren thinks. This is bad. If he gets arrested, he’ll be recalled, and if he is recalled, her access to him disappears.
‘Suspect resisting arrest,’ the cop says into his radio, and Ashworth groans.
‘He’s not,’ Wren shouts. Then calmly, palms up, says, ‘I’m his PO. He’s not resisting, are you, Rob? You’re not.’
‘I just need some bloody boxers,’ Ashworth says through a squashed cheek.
The cop looks her up and down, and releases Ashworth with a shove. ‘Get them on then, now.’
Wren retrieves underwear, jeans and a T-shirt from the drawers and hands them to the cop, then leaves the room.
Moments later, both men emerge, the cop holding Ash-worth by the elbow and issuing a calmer edit into his radio. He pushes Ashworth into the sofa.
‘You want to tell me where you’ve been today, sir?’
It is easy to read malice into Ashworth’s every expression – he is a man with a face made for it – but right now, there is nothing but utter confusion.
‘Today?’ he says, as if he doesn’t understand the question. ‘Here, mostly. Went out for some food just now. Had a walk a bit earlier, about six.’
‘Six in the morning, was it? And where was that you went?’
‘The river. Same as every day.’
‘Whereabouts? Crew’s Hole, by any chance?’
Ashworth’s forehead rucks with bewilderment. ‘What? No, other way, out towards—’
‘Prove that, can you?’
Ashworth shakes his head. ‘No, I went on my own, but—’
The cop gets closer, gets right up in his face. ‘What were you doing there?’
‘Can I ask what this is about?’ Wren says.
He asks for ID, which Wren gives him.
‘We had a call about suspicious behaviour from a gentleman walking his dog this morning. Recognised Mr Ashworth from the coverage of his release in the Post. Apparently Mr Ashworth was seen digging in a clearing near Crew’s Hole—’
‘I never went near Crew’s Hole!’
‘—and removing something from the ground.’
Wren goes cold.
‘Removing what?’ she asks quietly.
‘Well that’s what we came here to ask. Because we had a look at that hole, and recovered some very alarming evidence.’
Right in the bottom of her heart, a door creaks open, just a crack at first. ‘What kind of evidence?’
The cop gives her a look, then squats in front of Ashworth, who is refusing to meet his eye. ‘You got a
nything you’d like to tell me at this stage, Mr Ashworth?’
Slowly, Wren turns. Goes to the door.
From the sofa, Ashworth says, ‘Please. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
With shaking fingertips, she loosens the knotted handles of the carrier bag she stumbled over on her way in. She inhales, deep, deep as she can go.
‘Don’t you?’ says the officer behind her.
And he is only just there, a few feet away, but somehow his voice is stretched and distant, as if she’s hearing him from the other side of the universe.
‘No? I’m sure you’ll be quite happy for me to have a bit of a look around then?’
Wren swallows, and pulls it open. Then she lets her eyes close, because maybe if she looks again she’ll be given another chance. She forces herself to look properly.
‘What have you got there?’ the cop is asking her. He peers into the bag, then turns to Ashworth, his eyes wide. And once Ashworth sees what she is holding, he takes matters into his own hands.
He gets himself free and onto his feet, and then he is coming towards her. But Wren doesn’t even flinch. Not even when he shoves her aside, crashing through the front door, followed by the police officer. She hears but hardly registers the cop screaming at Ashworth to stop, then shouting the address into his radio as he charges after him, out of the flat and along the walkway.
It is as if all the hope in her body, everything that has held her together, is suddenly just blood and bone again, and it turns out to be not enough. And then she is on the floor, her heart clenching and her mouth open. A long, high, empty sound coming from right down inside her.
Because inside the bag is a checked shirt, red and black. Tangled into that, some denim. The glint of silver: a clasp at the end of a fine silver chain. A tiny pendant shaped like a star, covered in little gemstones.
With the grief gathering fast and heavy in her chest like beads of mercury, she sees there is something else too. Not much of it, but enough to be sure.
Long strands of blonde hair.
31
Before
Luke gets to the Kingswood garage where his brother works at twenty to six. He’s early on purpose so he can get him on the way out. As he comes to the turning into the dead end, he finds a low wall and sits down.
He gets out his phone. Two more missed calls from his mum. He’d spoken to her this morning, and she’d gone on and on about how they’d all be together again soon, that Rob had sorted everything out. And he’d pretended to lose reception because he didn’t know what to say.
There’s the slam of a metal door opening hard against brick, and he sees Rob. Coming out of the side door, swinging his bag onto his back. Luke runs over, but the first thing his brother does when he sees him is roll his eyes. He doesn’t break his pace.
‘Fuck are you doing here?’
‘You’re not answering my texts.’ Luke tries to fall into step with him but he has to jog to keep up.
Rob groans. ‘All this crap about Paige. You need to leave her alone.’ He pulls earbuds from his coat and starts to stick them in his ears.
But Luke shoves him, hard. ‘Why didn’t you tell me the guardianship went tits up? They said you withdrew it. You did it.’
‘That’s what I went to Leah’s to tell you the other day,’ Rob says, angry. But he won’t meet Luke’s eyes, because what he’s saying is not true. He didn’t even know Luke was going to be there. ‘It’s your own fucking fault for going to the old house.’
Luke grits his teeth, but he says nothing because he needs him on side.
Neither of them speak until they arrive at the flat. Rob puts the key in the lock and shoves the door open. ‘Why are you here, Luke?’ he says, dumping his coat on the floor and turning to face him. He’s furious with him, and Luke doesn’t understand why. ‘What do you want?’
He’s never asked him that before. He’s always pleased to see him. Luke pushes it away. ‘I need a car.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake. Why?’
‘I want to follow Oliver Polzeath.’
Darkness rises on Rob’s face and Luke takes a step back.
‘She’s pregnant, Rob. That fucker’s got her pregnant, and she’s running away. And we’ve got to prove it, that he’s a nonce. So I need a car.’
Rob’s nodding really slowly. He’s breathing hard through his nose, and his eyes are white all around. Luke doesn’t like it.
‘Rob,’ Luke says quietly. ‘Please.’ He wants him to stop.
Without taking his eyes off him, out of nowhere Rob grips hold of Luke’s arms, hard.
‘Keep. Your fucking. Mouth. Shut,’ he says, shaking him.
‘Rob,’ Luke says, pleading, ‘you’re hurting me. Rob.’
‘Do you know how fucking long I spent trying to sort shit out for you to come and live here? How hard I’ve worked to sort things out for Mum, pay for her to be somewhere else, somewhere they’re going to actually make her better?’
‘But that’s – we’re never going to afford that!’ Luke cries out. They’d looked on the internet about private care for her, this psychiatric unit up in Redland, just to see. But it was stupid money. Thousands a week.
‘And all I’m asking is for you to keep your fucking mouth shut, so I can make something work, just one thing, without you ballsing it up!’ Rob shouts at him, not letting go, rage in his face.
It comes to Luke, then. The call with his mum. It’s not just her being nuts. Rob’s been telling her this stuff. Making promises that he can’t keep.
Rob releases him, slamming him hard against the wall, and he walks away. ‘Get the fuck out of my flat, little man,’ he says. He goes into the bathroom and swings the door shut with a bang.
Luke stands there, his arms burning where Rob had gripped them, just staring ahead.
Rob’s not his brother any more. And if he doesn’t have a brother, he doesn’t have anyone.
The boiler on the wall whooshes into life as the shower goes on. Luke makes his feet move towards the door.
Then something stops him. It’s a croaking sound, three regular blasts of it, then a pause, then another three. It’s coming from Rob’s bag, by the door.
Luke crouches down and undoes the zip. It’s not a croak. It’s the sound of a duck. Like Paige’s message tone. And either that’s a coincidence, or—
He flips it over. There’s a unicorn sticker on the back. Rob has Paige’s phone.
The questions crash into each other in Luke’s head like a motorway pile-up as he turns it over. Luke doesn’t waste a second. He gets up, clutching the phone in his fist, and goes to the front door. He pulls it shut behind him, and runs. All the way out of the estate, along past the shops, the other direction from the garage. There’s a playing field just down there, and he finds the break in the fence where it’s been trampled down and he goes in, drops down onto the bench.
Breathing hard, his chest burning with the run, he touches the screen.
There’s a code. But he saw her enter the code, two days ago, under the stairs. And he might not have much but, like Mrs Shah told him, he’s got a head for numbers.
He types in 7031. The phone lights up. There’s no picture on the homescreen, no selfie or photo of her mates or anything, just a factory-settings picture of a beach that no way Paige has ever been to.
He’s in.
Everything swirls tight and dense inside. She would go absolutely mental if she knew he’d even touched it.
But all he needs is one text message from Polzeath to her, one thing proving that he’s the filthy nonce Luke knows he is, and everything changes. Paige will get the help she needs, Polzeath will go to prison, and Luke will have made that happen. It’ll end up OK. They’ll make the social see sense about the baby too, because she’s a good person and she’s kind. She can be a mum.
He’s going to do what he has to do, and take it back to her. Prove that whatever else goes wrong, she can rely on him.
He goes straight to the texts. T
he one that’s just come in is part of a long thread between her and a number that’s not saved with a name. The message just says: I can’t wait, you filthy bitch.
Luke feels his face harden. He scrolls down, spinning past message after message, frames of unloaded pictures. He stops at random, and starts reading.
And then what are you going to do?
I’m going to let you do it like you did last night
You liked it hard didn’t you?
Yes
Tell me how much you liked it
I can still feel it
Show me how much you liked it, dirty girl
There is an empty frame with a green circle chasing its tail, telling him a picture is loading. He waits.
And once he realises what he is looking at, he holds it away from him, free hand over his mouth.
32
Now
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Callum Roche says, his voice creaking with frustration down the line. ‘It’s fucking Younnis Ibrahim all over again.’
‘I just – I didn’t expect him to ever do that,’ Wren tells him, eyes closed, rubbing her forehead. Ashworth has officially absconded. She is still shaking. ‘He wasn’t a flight risk. He just – he just wasn’t.’
‘Well, let’s fucking hope whoever’s running the manhunt hasn’t got any mates at the Post, Wren, that’s all I can say. Fuck’s sake,’ he repeats, shouting it. ‘How, how did you not see this coming?’
‘How could I?’ She waves her hand pointlessly, swaps the phone to the other ear. On legs that feel as if they can hardly hold her, she starts walking back to the car. ‘The police want me at the station now, the Bridewell. They’re preparing a spit kit for me.’
‘For what?’
‘Because of the… the bag,’ she says, hardly able to say the word without the conjuring of what was inside. Involuntarily she clenches the hand that touched what was inside that bag. ‘Said I might have contaminated it.’