by Kate Simants
‘Nope. I’ve got someone here going through your notes – but you said there’s nowhere you can think of that he might have gone? No family?’
‘Have a look at his visitor records. There’s no one.’
A heavy sigh comes down the line. ‘Fine.’ She signs off, telling her she’ll be in touch about the formal statement within a few hours. ‘But if you think of anything, or anyone who he might have gone to…’
‘Sure, yeah, I’ll call,’ Wren finishes. But as she hangs up, she realises two things. Firstly, that the phone she had been planning to hand in on her visit to the Bridewell is still in her glovebox.
And secondly, that maybe there is someone, after all.
Carefully, the thought still taking shape in her head, she flicks the indicator and moves into the traffic. Then she circles the first roundabout she comes to, and turns back the way she came. Heading west, towards where Leah Amberley works.
For just a moment she considers calling back, letting the police deal with it. But she’s seen how these things work. It’ll be out of her hands and there’ll be nothing she can do to soften the blow, the ramifications.
On the way she tunes in to the local radio, waiting to hear if Ashworth’s made the news, but it’s all nineties hits and traffic updates so after a while she turns it off.
She pulls up outside the nursery and checks her face before she gets out. Everyone keeps telling her she should sleep as much as she can before the baby arrives, like sleep is something you can stockpile. But when she thinks about it now, pulling the puffy skin around her eyes taut and then releasing it, she’s been averaging about five hours a night, and it shows. Wren sighs, flaps the visor closed, and gets out.
A tiny woman with a brisk manner buzzes her in and when Wren asks for Leah, she rolls her eyes and instructs her to wait in the corridor. From there, Wren can see into the main room through the strip of glass in the internal door. Two dozen toddlers are sitting in a haphazard circle, raptly watching an expressive, chubby twenty-something read from an oversized board book. Leah is at the back of the room, washing paint from little white dishes. The tiny woman who answered the door goes over to her, looking annoyed and gesturing back towards Wren, who steps away from the window.
Leah comes out wiping her hands on her apron. ‘What now?’ she asks when the door closes behind her. ‘Because I’ve already told him I’m done with it.’
‘Listen, I—’ Wren starts, but then she catches up. ‘Told who?’
‘Rob, obviously. Couldn’t get rid of him, was only about half an hour ago. I’m going to get docked if I miss any more of the shift.’
‘Rob came here?’
‘He was in a right state. Wanted somewhere to stay. He had to leave his flat or something, right?’ Leah tips her head. ‘Didn’t you know?’
She resists laughing at this. ‘No, I knew. So what, he wanted to crash at yours?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And you said…?’
Leah gives her a hard stare, but after a few seconds the wind goes out of her sails and she looks away. ‘I just want to get on with my life, all right? I don’t want any more drama.’
There’s a vulnerability to her that she hasn’t seen before, and Wren knows her instinct to come alone, giving Leah a chance before it defaults to the hard option, was right.
‘He’s absconded,’ Wren says gently.
‘What?’ Leah says, eyes going wide. ‘Why?’
It takes about a second to weigh up telling her about the clothes. ‘We’re not sure,’ she lies, ‘but I need to find him. The longer he’s gone, the worse it gets for him.’
‘Yeah, well, we’d already kind of parted ways, to be honest.’
‘How do you mean?’
A rap on the glass makes them both turn. The small woman is scowling at Leah, tapping her watch. Leah makes a pleading gesture and holds up a finger. She turns to Wren, but Wren speaks first.
‘Please, this is the last time you’ll see me, Leah, then I’m out of your hair. Tell me what happened.’ Then, sincerely: ‘I don’t want to cause you any trouble, and I know you don’t trust me. But Rob’s disappeared, and that means sooner or later the police are going to be here asking you questions. And they’re going to be a lot less understanding about you holding back.’
The younger woman wraps her arms around herself. ‘Fine. He came round, wanted me to help him with something. Few days ago. I said no, I didn’t want to. I thought I could trust him, you know? But then he was so wound up about this thing and I was… I started being scared of him. I asked him to leave and he wouldn’t. He kept saying how I must know where Luke is but I don’t.’ Tears in her eyes. ‘I’d do anything to know what happened to Paige, or to see Luke again. He was my mate too, you know? But Rob kept hassling me, and then he wanted me to do this – thing – for him.’
They’re running out of time. ‘What kind of thing?’ Wren braces herself, knowing what’s coming, almost deciding then and there to tell her she already knows about the clothes so it’s easier for her to come out with it.
‘He wanted me to make a phone call.’
This isn’t what Wren was expecting. ‘What?’
She speaks urgently now. ‘He’d tracked his mum down; there was this mental hospital she was in. He’d gone there but they wouldn’t let him see her, said it was against patient confidentiality. So he wanted me to call and pretend to be a doctor or something, to find out how she is.’
‘And you said no.’
She pauses, looks away. ‘It took a long time to get away from trouble. I’m just putting myself first.’
Wren wants to hug her. ‘I think that’s a very admirable thing to do.’
Leah just shrugs. ‘Yeah, well. Tell him that. We fell out big time, him saying I never cared about him or his family and what a selfish fucking… Anyway. I thought that would be the end of it, right? But then today, he turns up at work and he’s saying how sorry he is, how I’m the only one he’s got, and can he come and stay with me.’ She shakes her head and laughs bitterly. ‘Didn’t think to mention he was on the run, mind.’
‘You did the right thing,’ Wren says, no doubt in her mind that she’s being told the truth.
Straightening up, Leah says, ‘You said this would be the last time, right? Then I’ve got nothing more to do with it.’ It’s more of a demand than a question.
Wren nods. ‘None of this is on you. You deserve your fresh start.’
Leah gives a nod, and her decision is made. ‘It’s called Meadowside. The hospital he wanted me to call. Up towards Yate.’ The betrayal flushes red across her face. ‘If he’s got nothing to lose, that’s where he’ll have gone.’
35
Before
He comes round in the school nurse’s office. The striplight’s burning into his eyes so bright he almost shouts out in pain.
He says about a hundred times that he’s fine, but Mr Yardley, who heard about what happened, isn’t having it. They go to Southmead A&E, driving in silence, Luke with his eyes shut the whole way. It takes ages to get seen, and then the doctor pokes him about for what seems like forever, uses some long word for what’s happened in his neck and jaw but says he got off lightly. She gives him painkillers, and a note for Yardley to give to Beech View saying Luke has to go for a check-up in two days.
They emerge into bright sunshine blazing white on rain-wet tarmac. Yardley’s ride, an Audi A6, is parked right over the other side. Every step jars, twisting the ache in Luke’s head until he feels like it’s going to snap.
Yardley spots him wincing. ‘Take it slowly,’ he says.
‘I’m all right.’
Yardley rolls his eyes at him, kindly though. When they get to the car, he starts to help him into the passenger side. But before Luke’s strapped in, there’s the sound of brakes slamming on, another car right behind them, and Yardley looks up. The look on his face goes from surprise to confusion before it settles into just pure pissed off. Luke shifts round, the movement discharging a
vicious bolt of pain in his skull. As his vision clears, he sees Yardley marching over to the other car, and leaning in through the window.
‘He’s fine,’ Yardley’s saying. Shouting it, good as.
It hurts to even put his feet down but Luke makes himself get out again. He goes down the space between the Audi and the next car, trying to work out what’s going on. Yardley’s got his hands on the driver’s side window frame, holding it so whoever’s inside can’t get out.
‘No,’ Yardley’s saying. ‘I’ll take him. He’s seen the doctor, she says he’s all right, you don’t need to be here.’
‘I don’t? You shouldn’t even have brought him here,’ comes the voice from the car. Fury cracking at the edge of it. ‘We’re the ones in loco parentis. I don’t care what… what you think you’ve got over us. You can’t just do whatever you like.’
‘Can’t I?’
There’s a pause. Luke stays still. Yardley takes his hands off the door and straightens up. It’s Oliver Polzeath he’s talking to. Red in the face, staring at Yardley with murder in his eyes.
Yardley folds his arms. ‘I think I can, Oliver. I think I can take care of the kids. Better than you, when everything’s considered.’ He turns his head, and Luke knows he’s seen him. Polzeath sees him too, and his shoulders give.
‘Luke, buddy, are you OK?’ Polzeath says, and Luke knows that he’s never, ever going to hate anyone as much as he hates this man.
‘Buddy?’ Yardley mimics. He slaps the top of Polzeath’s car and turns away. ‘You head off now, Oliver. I’ll drop him home.’ Then to Luke, he says, ‘In you go, then. Buddy.’
They get back in the car. When Yardley closes the driver’s door, the engine behind them revs hard and Polzeath screeches off. Yardley watches in his rear-view.
‘Not my favourite guy,’ he says simply, putting the car into reverse.
Luke stares ahead. The same sentence running on a loop. I don’t care what you think you’ve got over us.
They drive back towards the school. They hit some traffic and Yardley takes a hand off the wheel to flip open the glove-box. He gets out another one of the instant icepacks the school nurse gave Luke, wraps it in a soft leather cloth, and hands it to him.
‘So,’ Yardley says, eyes front, and Luke sighs, thinking he knows what’s coming. Want to tell me what all that was about, Lukey. But Yardley says, ‘There’s a boxing club I know of.’
Luke glances at him.
‘Just seems to me that a little shit like Cameron shouldn’t really be able to land a punch like that on you without you getting something in first,’ Yardley says.
Luke laughs painfully. ‘Yeah, all right.’
They drive in silence for a while, until Yardley gestures to the radio. ‘Find us some tunes.’
So Luke does. One of the stations is playing some old Kano, radio edit but it’ll do. Yardley turns it up and lowers the windows. The wind blows through Luke’s hair.
And even with the pain in his face that’s radiating right back to his spine and all down his shoulder, even knowing he looks a proper fucking mess, he lets his arm drop out the window, and he feels cool.
His head is throbbing angrily and he realises he hasn’t had anything to drink, so he leans forward to get the water bottle out of the schoolbag that Yardley had brought along to the hospital. When he puts the bottle back, he clips the catch on the glovebox, which drops open and releases a phone onto the floor. ‘Oops, that’s my spare,’ Yardley says, lunging over and making a grab for it before it slides under Luke’s seat. ‘Need to get it fixed. Battery’s been playing up.’ He tosses it back into the glovebox and snaps it shut.
But Luke’s plunged back into thinking about Paige’s one.
What the hell he’s supposed to do with it. Who he should tell.
They’re taking a route he doesn’t know. Luke can’t piece it together until suddenly they emerge next to a big park he used to go to with his mum. Yardley pulls up outside a café hut and gets out.
He comes back with a couple of paper cups and a Kit Kat each. ‘Not every day you get a free pass out of school,’ he says, handing a cup and one of the bars to Luke. ‘Might as well make the most of it.’ He puts his own in a cup holder and Luke opens his lid. Coffee, black. Not hot chocolate like you’d get for a kid. It’s bitter, he wants sugar and milk in it, but he doesn’t ask. He just drinks it.
Yardley turns the radio right down. But he doesn’t say anything.
Luke finishes the chocolate. ‘He started it,’ he says.
‘OK.’ Yardley dips a Kit Kat finger into his coffee and bites it. ‘Like I said. Boy’s a little shit.’
Something in Luke flexes. ‘Probably does his best.’
‘You’re sticking up for him? After he knocked you out?’
Luke shrugs, winces again. ‘It’s not easy, being…’
‘Being what? In care?’
‘Yeah.’
‘It’s brutal. I remember. You end up feeling like the people looking after you are just there because they’re paid. And some of them are. But it doesn’t mean it’s always going to be—’
‘If I tell you something,’ Luke says, interrupting, ‘will you have to dob me in?’ He sniffs hard.
‘You can tell me whatever you want.’
‘But will you tell anyone? I need to know.’
Yardley looks him right in the eyes. ‘No,’ he says. ‘I know how hard it can be to trust people, Luke, but you can trust me.’
Luke lets his shoulders drop. He believes him. He takes a deep breath, and he tells him everything. All of it. Polzeath; the bite mark; the late nights out unchecked, unmonitored; the money she’s obviously got. And the pregnancy, and the pregnancy before. And then the photos, pictures that are just – they’re just not her, and that wanker Polzeath is getting her to take them and send them. And how does she know what he’s doing with them? Is he sharing them with his filthy fucking mates? Is he selling them? Is he selling her?
Yardley doesn’t rush him or interrupt. He just listens and nods, and as Luke’s speaking, the thing happens that he had hoped would happen when he told Mel. The load gets lighter, even when he gets to part that’s almost worse than any of it: Rob knowing. Rob knowing about all of it, but doing nothing. Telling him to do nothing.
‘Rob, your brother?’
‘Yeah. And what I want to know is—’
‘Where’s this phone now, Luke? Have you got it?’
‘No. It’s at home.’
‘And your brother had it.’
‘Yeah.’
‘And Paige was OK that he had it.’ Yardley’s eyes are shut. He’s piecing it together, or trying to. Luke knows exactly how it feels.
‘How do you know it wasn’t him, then?’
‘What?’
‘How do you know it wasn’t your brother sending those texts?’
Luke shakes his head. ‘Wasn’t his number.’
‘He could have used a different one.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Not because Rob wouldn’t – he doesn’t even know what Rob would and wouldn’t do any more – but because Leah would have known, and he can trust Leah.
Can he trust Leah?
Yardley is nodding slowly, staring straight out of the window, fingers lightly on the wheel.
Abruptly, Yardley reaches for his seatbelt and tells Luke to do the same. And then they drive.
‘Where are we going?’ Luke asks, holding on to the handle above the window. He glances at the speedo. Residential streets, but they’re doing forty-five.
‘We’re going to sort this shit out.’
‘No, look, I just wanted to talk about it…’ Luke’s flung against the window as Yardley corners hard.
‘Sorry, Luke. I can’t stand by and let this happen.’
‘But you said.’ ‘Things change.’
Luke works out where they’re going pretty quickly. Out to Muller Road and over. They’re going to Beech View.
‘Please,’ Luke says. ‘Please, Mr
Yardley.’
But he’s not listening.
Minutes later they arrive. Yardley doesn’t park outside. He slows, goes past the house, then pulls into the next side street.
The engine goes silent. He turns to Luke. ‘Listen. Here’s what we’re going to do. You go and get that phone. Don’t do anything to it, don’t tell anyone, don’t show anyone you’ve got it. Just come straight out again. And then we’re going to work out what’s going on. You and me. All right?’
Luke stares at his knees. ‘I want that fucker in prison,’ he says.
Yardley nods. ‘I’m not surprised.’ He puts his hand on Luke’s shoulder. ‘You did the right thing, telling me. All right? We’re going to fix this. For Paige.’
Luke nods. He’s not sure. Then he takes his chance, because something tells him it’s now or never. ‘Mr Yardley, what did Polzeath mean, about you having something over him?’
Yardley meets his eye. For a moment, Luke thinks he’s going to tell him. But then Yardley leans across him, opens the door. ‘I’ll explain, all right? But later. Come on, Luke. Go and get it.’
As quietly as he can, he goes in the house and creeps up the stairs. The piece of paper’s still balanced on his door and the phone is where he left it. He wakes the screen – there’s a single bar of battery left.
He takes it back downstairs and out to the car. Carefully, because there’s no protective case or anything on it, Luke takes the phone with the unicorn sticker out of his pocket, and passes it to Yardley through the window. Then he goes to open the door, to get back in.
But it’s locked.
‘I’ll take it from here,’ Yardley says, and before Luke can argue, the window is rolling back up. And Luke, gaping in confusion, has to jump backwards to get his feet out of the way of the wheels.
The car streaks up to the crossroads, pauses, turns. Its fancy indicator ticking on and off, a line of yellow lights made to look like a moving line.
Luke tilts his head. He’s seen that before. And then—