‘Yes,’ Malcolm says. ‘That’s probably it.’
He stares at his wife. All sorts of unwanted thoughts are running around in his head, mutating the object of his affections into someone he no longer recognises.
Damn that Cody!
But he can’t stop himself. He has to ask.
‘And then the other bit I can’t figure out is why he went upstairs and found the girls. That bit is really worrying me.’
Harriet blinks. Doesn’t answer.
‘Think back,’ he tells her. ‘Think back to when he was here. Are you sure you didn’t say or do anything? Anything that might make him believe the girls were upstairs?’
She blinks rapidly again. Takes too long to answer. ‘No, Malcolm. I told you. There was nothing. I don’t know why he did that.’
Malcolm licks his lips. He needs more beer. And then he needs to have another conversation with Cody.
He gets up from the table. Harriet studies him.
‘Malcolm,’ she says, ‘have you been drinking?’
He walks away in silence.
67
Cody wonders if they have given up on him as an item of interest.
Malcolm came to him first thing in the morning. He looked him up and down, enabled him to use the toilet, then left again. That was hours ago.
Since then, the door has opened and closed several times. Usually Harriet, tending to the girls. At one point, he heard Poppy asking Harriet what was going to happen to Mr Cody. Harriet told her she’d have to ask ‘Daddy’. Cody guesses that won’t happen.
He feels like shit. Every inch of him seems to radiate pain – mostly from his wounds, but also from the nylon ties cutting into his wrists and ankles, and because of the absence of food and water. His stomach feels like it’s trying to strangle itself, and his muscles and joints ache from the lack of use.
And where are the police? Where are his colleagues? He knows some damn good detectives. Is it really beyond their collective wit to locate him?
You in particular, Megan. Where the hell are you? What’s keeping you? You know me better than almost anyone. Use that. Think like I think. Walk where I’d walk. Come and get me.
He realises he’s crying.
He pictures Megan with her platinum-blonde hair and the dimples in her cheeks, and he wishes he had never split up with her all those years ago. Wishes he had devoted more of his energies to her instead of the job.
Which then starts him thinking about Devon, the only other serious love in his life. The woman who was actually willing to have him as her husband. The woman who did everything she could to nurse him through his trauma after he was attacked. The woman who—
Shit.
Stop that, Cody. Stop being a snivelling, sentimental baby. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Get your act together and find a way out of this.
And then Malcolm enters the room. As soon as Cody hears him talking to the girls about the headphones, he knows he’s in for another little tête-à-tête with the man who holds his life in his cruel hands.
*
Daisy has made a decision.
It’s a risk, but she needs to know.
The two men are about to discuss things behind her, things that Malcolm doesn’t want her or the younger girls to hear. Why? What’s so secret?
Or maybe it’s not secret at all. Maybe Malcolm is just trying to protect her, because what really happens back there is that he hurts Mr Cody even more than she has seen.
She doesn’t want to listen to that. If Malcolm is killing his prisoner, she doesn’t want to hear it.
But what if it’s not that? What if there are truths being uttered that she knows nothing about?
If he catches her, he will punish her. She is fully aware of that. He might even take his anger out on Mr Cody, so she is taking a risk for him too.
Am I right to do that? she wonders. Is it okay for me to put his life in danger?
But if I do nothing, he’s probably going to die anyway. And maybe he should. Maybe he really is a nasty man, like Malcolm said he is.
But I need to know.
*
When Cody spits out the cotton wool this time, it alarms him to see that it is soaked in blood. He touches his tongue to his injured cheek, and balks at the touch of a large jelly-like clot there.
His first request is the same as always. ‘Please, can I have some water?’
He knows he can last without food, despite the stomach cramps it’s causing him. He’d read somewhere that Gandhi once went twenty-one days without eating. He doesn’t want any favours from the Bensons, doesn’t want to make them believe he owes them anything.
Malcolm nods slowly, then fetches a beaker of water from the sink. Cody notices how unsteady the man seems on his feet today, and when he raises the beaker to Cody’s lips, he almost misses his mouth. If those clues weren’t enough, the whiff of alcohol on Malcolm’s breath is unmistakeable.
So, he’s been drinking. In the middle of the day. What, if anything, does that mean?
Is he feeling unusually stressed, perhaps because of the mind games Cody has been playing with him? Is this whole thing getting to him?
And what effect will that have on his attitude? Will it make him more susceptible to losing control?
Cody decides he needs to tread carefully.
As he drinks, a gobbet of the congealed blood breaks loose in his mouth. Rather than appear ungrateful by spitting it out, he swallows hard, fighting to keep it from reappearing.
‘Thank you,’ he says.
Malcolm nods again, then leans back in his chair, studying Cody through half-closed eyes. He lowers his gaze for a second.
‘What happened to your feet?’
A surprising question. The first sign of any interest in his history. An opportunity for Cody to make himself more human in Malcolm’s eyes.
‘I was attacked. I was on an undercover operation that went wrong. A gang of men tied me to a chair – a bit like I am now – and then started chopping off my toes with one of those branch loppers.’
‘Oh,’ says Malcolm. ‘I thought maybe you’d had an accident with a lawnmower.’
He laughs then, a deep disturbing bray that sends shivers along Cody’s spine. Cody forces himself to join in.
Look at us, he thinks. Two drinking buddies having a great time. Him on the beers and me on the blood-stained water.
When Malcolm stops laughing, it’s abrupt. It’s like slamming a large book closed mid-sentence, a violent rejection of all that has just been read. The humour, such as it was, is gone.
‘I’ll bet it was painful,’ says Malcolm.
‘I lived through it. That’s the important thing, don’t you think? We all go through pain in our lives, but sometimes it makes us better people.’
‘How did it make you better?’
Cody thinks about his nightmares, his hallucinations, his violent outbursts, his insomnia, the break-up with Devon . . .
Yeah, Cody. It really improved you, didn’t it?
‘It made me realise that life isn’t all about me. There are people around us, and everything we do affects them, sometimes more than we realise.’
Malcolm looks over at the girls, all staring at the television.
‘I know what you mean,’ he says. ‘I used to be really selfish. Everything was about me.’ He touches a finger to the scars on his head. ‘I got this in an accident at work. Took that to make me start thinking more about making other people happy.’
‘Just thinking about it? Or doing something about it?’
‘Well, obviously doing something. You’ve only got to look at Harriet now to see how happy she is. Most of the time . . .’
He lets that trail off, as though something about her recent behaviour troubles him. But then he snaps out of it again.
‘And then there are the girls, of course.’ He gestures towards them. ‘See how relaxed they are? Not a peep out of them. That’s because of me. It’s because of what I did for them.�
�
‘What exactly is that, Malcolm? What have you done for them?’
Malcolm’s eyebrows arch in surprise, as though the question shouldn’t even need to be posed.
‘Gave them a loving family. Gave them protection. Kept them safe and warm and fed. What more could any child want?’
‘How about seeing the sunshine? Playing on the grass or at the beach? Running around with their friends? Going to school? They don’t have those things, Malcolm.’
Cody wonders as he says this whether it’s a step too far – whether it’s likely to tip Malcolm over the edge again. Yet he seems remarkably calm.
Perhaps he should drink beer more often.
‘They don’t need all that. Sometimes in life you have to make compromises. You have to make tough decisions that are in the best interests of the children.’
‘And what about their parents? I mean their birth parents. Don’t they matter?’
An immediate shake of the head. ‘Not a jot. I don’t give a toss about them. The kids are happy, that’s the main thing.’
‘Are they happy, Malcolm? Are you sure about that?’
Malcolm turns his head to look at the girls again. He seems more ponderous.
‘Sometimes I . . .’ He shakes off the thought, turns back to Cody. ‘I do what’s right. The girls know that. They love me for it. That’s all I need.’
68
Daisy makes her move.
She knows she can’t reach up and take the headphones from her ears – that would be too obvious. She has another trick in mind.
She takes hold of the wire leading from the headphones to the three-way splitter. Starts to pull it taut.
She doesn’t want it to spring all the way out. Just enough to disconnect the audio signal.
Daisy continues to pull. Beads of perspiration form on her brow.
It’s not coming out. If she stretches the wire any more it could break.
She holds her breath. Tries again, praying that her actions aren’t obvious from behind.
But somebody has noticed.
Ellie turns slightly towards her, then looks down at Daisy’s white knuckles gripping the cable. Her eyes widen.
Daisy locks eyes with Ellie. Gives an almost imperceptible shake of her head. Ellie faces front again, but her gaze continually strays to Daisy’s fingers.
Daisy tries again. Makes the wire taut. Tauter still. And then . . .
It moves! Just a couple of millimetres, but enough to cut off the audio. The shrill, joyful singing is replaced by low male voices. Malcolm and Mr Cody. Muffled through the large cushioned phones clamped over her ears, but some of it still gets through.
Scared of moving even an inch, Daisy closes her eyes and focuses all her attention on the voices.
*
‘Why did you take them, Malcolm?’
‘I just told you.’
Cody finds the conversation exhausting. He feels as though his body wants to go into shutdown to conserve precious energy. Simply getting words out takes all his effort. But he knows that his best chances of survival lie in understanding what makes Malcolm tick.
‘No, I mean why these particular girls? You took some serious risks getting them. Why not other children that might have been easier?’
Malcolm smiles. ‘You haven’t worked that one out, then? For all your so-called “intelligence”, you haven’t figured out what makes these girls special to us?’
So there is a reason then, thinks Cody. They weren’t randomly targeted.
‘I have to admit we’re at a loss on that score. Care to enlighten me?’
Malcolm ducks the question. ‘How much else don’t you know? How much else of what you’ve told me is just pure bullshit?’
‘Don’t get complacent, Malcolm. We don’t know everything, but we know a lot. Others will figure out the rest, you can be sure of that.’
The donkey bray from Malcolm again. He raises his arms. ‘Then where are they? All these clever men and women who know so much. Where the hell are they?’
‘They’ll come. It could be in ten minutes, it could be tomorrow, but they’ll come. Whatever you do, don’t make this any worse than it needs to be.’
‘Worse? For you or for me?’
‘For you. For Harriet. Think about what will happen if you . . .’
‘If I what? Kill you?’
‘Yes. If you kill me. That’s not something you should even be contemplating, Malcolm.’
‘Really? I don’t see it like that. I don’t see how it could possibly make things any worse for me if I’m caught. You saw Ellie’s parents, didn’t you? You know what I did there?’
‘Yes. I saw. But from what I gathered from the evidence, they attacked you. You could argue you were acting in self-defence. This is different. This would be the cold-blooded murder of an officer of the law. Do you understand the difference, Malcolm? This would be much more serious. At your age, you would never see the outside of a prison again.’
Malcolm looks up at the ceiling, and Cody hopes he’s thinking seriously about this. No need to tell him he’s going down for a long time whatever the outcome. The bit about self-defence was just to make him feel better; even if he didn’t break into that house with the intention to kill, he went equipped with a lethal weapon, ready and willing to use it if necessary. He knew what he was doing.
Cody says, ‘And then there’s Harriet.’
This jolts Malcolm. ‘What about her?’
‘She wasn’t involved in what you did to Ellie’s parents. She didn’t take part in the actual abductions either. But right now she’s as guilty as you are for keeping me here against my will, and if you kill me, she will also be charged with my murder. Do you want that to happen?’
‘So what are you saying? That I should let you go?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m saying. There’s no avoiding it, Malcolm. You’re going to be tracked down and arrested for what you’ve done. That’s a given. The only thing that should be concerning you now is damage limitation – for you, for Harriet, and for the girls.’
Malcolm goes silent again. He bows his head, rubs a hand across his scalp. Cody can no longer see his face.
‘It’s over, isn’t it?’ says Malcolm.
‘Yes. It’s over. You need to bring this to an end. I’ll help you.’
And then Malcolm looks up, and his eyes are aflame. His eyes are searing.
‘I mean it’s over for you. Your friends aren’t coming. They never were. And yes, you’re right: I need to bring this to an end.’
He stands up, closes the distance to Cody.
‘I need to sober up. You can have one more night of praying to be rescued. First thing tomorrow I’m taking you out of here, away from my family.’
‘Malcolm, I—’
But Malcolm brings a finger to Cody’s lips.
‘Hush now. Don’t make a sound. You won’t feel a thing.’
69
She’s not at all in the mood for this, but she tells herself to be optimistic. She needs a friend this evening. Someone who isn’t another cop. Someone who can make her laugh, but give her the permission she needs to cry.
So come on, Parker. Fix what we had. Tell me you’re sorry. Show me the man I used to know, and make me love you again.
Parker is already there when she enters the busy restaurant on Dale Street. He stands up and waves as soon as he sees her, a massive smile on his face. He doesn’t look apprehensive, and that makes her feel relieved. She could do without more drama today.
She threads her way past the tables. Couples, mostly, who don’t even notice her passing. But then it is Valentine’s Day.
We used to be like that, she thinks.
‘Hi,’ says Parker. ‘You look gorgeous.’
‘I look a mess,’ she answers. ‘It’s been a hell of a week.’
‘You always look gorgeous to me. Have a seat.’
He pulls out a chair for her. When she is seated, he calls over the waiter and
asks for a bottle of Prosecco.
Webley jumps in quickly: ‘Just a diet coke for me, please.’
Parker stares at her. ‘Seriously? You don’t want to wind down?’
Yes, she thinks, I want to wind down. What I don’t want is to get too comfortable, to say something I might regret. The shedding of inhibitions can come later, if and when we sort this mess out.
‘I’m fine. Coke would be great.’
Parker shrugs at the waiter. Orders her diet coke and another large glass of Shiraz for himself. Webley wonders how many he’s already had.
‘I’m surprised you managed to get a table,’ she says. ‘Especially since we’re not eating.’
‘Are we not eating?’
‘Parker, I told you—’
He grins mischievously. ‘I know, I know. Just a drink. That’s fine. I know the owner here. He said we can have the table as long as we like.’
Webley nods. As a hotel manager, Parker has become acquainted with a lot of people in the food and accommodation trades.
‘So,’ she says, ‘how are you?’
‘Okay. Busy during working hours, not so busy in my private life. I’m missing you.’
She raises her eyebrows. ‘Get straight to the point, why don’t you?’
‘Well, I am, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. What about you?’
She knows what he’s asking. He’s asking if she’s missing him too. She chooses to misinterpret.
‘To be honest, things are pretty shitty at the moment. I’m working on the missing girls case.’
‘Wow. That’s a biggie. What is it they’re calling him – the Pied Piper, isn’t it?’
The name conjures up unwanted images in Webley’s brain. She sees a mysterious, sinister figure leading away the city’s children in a long line behind him, never to be seen again.
It’s that ‘never’ bit that worries her. It’s the one outcome she fears most.
The same goes for Cody. It’s been another eternal day without him. Missing Persons have assured her that he is their top priority. They have interviewed her, Blunt and everyone else on the squad. They have talked again to family, friends and neighbours. And still they don’t have answers.
Don't Make a Sound Page 27