She lets him in without even being asked. It has become a ritual for her. Bring the policeman in, offer him tea and a biscuit, listen to his news, send him away again. And repeat.
Oxo doesn’t tease. This isn’t the announcement of the winner of a talent show. It would be unfair of him to keep them waiting. He reveals his news as soon as Maria and Craig are sitting in front of him.
‘You’re probably sick of me telling you there’s been a development, but there has. We’ve found Poppy, and she’s alive and well.’
There. All out. He didn’t even pause after ‘We’ve found Poppy’, because he knew they would picture her dead.
Maria’s hand jumps to her mouth. Craig brings shaking fingers to his temples.
‘What?’ says Craig. ‘She’s alive? Our Poppy? She’s alive?’
Oxo nods and smiles, and then he can no longer keep the tears from his own eyes. They all jump out of their chairs, they hug and kiss and dance and cry and yell, and the room spins, the world speeds up, the brightness floods back in.
And then the questions come. Who, why, where, when? Oxo does his best to deal with them without saying what he can’t, but it’s less of a problem now. This couple are more accepting of anything as long as it means they get their daughter back.
‘So when can we see her?’ asks Maria breathlessly. ‘When do we get our Poppy back?’
‘Soon,’ says Oxo. ‘We have to check the girls out, make sure they’re okay, both physically and mentally. And then we have to debrief them. We’ll interview them separately, using officers trained to deal specifically with young children.’
Maria nods. ‘I understand.’ She smiles at Craig. ‘What’s another couple of hours, after all this time?’
*
He waits with them. Chats to them, drinks tea with them, enjoys the moment. He listens to the sheer unadulterated joy in their cracking voices as they phone friends and family. This is a time to savour and to remember.
When the call comes in on his mobile, he sees how the couple shuffle forward to the edges of their seats.
‘Oxburgh,’ he says.
‘Oxo, it’s Megan. I’m outside the house. Do you mind coming out here for a few minutes?’
He’s puzzled, but tries not to show it to the parents. ‘On my way.’
He ends the call. Maria and Craig are almost falling off their chairs in anticipation.
‘Two ticks,’ he says. ‘Just need to confirm a couple of things with one of the other detectives.’
They nod, but he can see how frustrated they are. They just want to cut through all the red tape that lies between them and the daughter they miss so much.
He gets up from his chair, sees himself out of the house. Gives them a reassuring smile as he leaves. Because, to be honest, he’s worried. Something is wrong.
He walks along the driveway, to where Webley is waiting for him on the street. She looks serious, and that causes his stomach to tighten.
Please don’t ruin this, he thinks. Please don’t shatter the happiness I have just given them.
Webley is not alone. Footlong Ferguson is sitting at the wheel of the unmarked police car. When he looks at Oxo, he simply raises his eyebrows in greeting. No smiles.
‘Problem?’ he asks Webley.
‘Yes. A big one.’
‘What’s up?’
She tells him. And as she speaks, he cannot prevent himself glancing once or twice at the house. And he is certain he can see Maria looking back at him through the bay window. He is certain she is trying to read their lips, their expressions, their body language.
He wishes he could send her a signal of some kind – something to comfort her. Because now he knows his own face is betraying a sense of what he is hearing. He can feel his mood darkening, souring. He is turning as grey as the clouds.
And suddenly his moment – his glorious moment – has turned to shit.
He sees the gaudy squad cars coming up the street and pulling in behind Footlong. Uniformed officers pile out, and then Ferguson gets out to join them. He looks at Webley, and she nods back, and then Ferguson leads his pack up the driveway.
Oxo watches the shifting dark figures through the window, and he wants to cry. He feels Webley’s hand rubbing his arm, and that just makes it worse.
Too sensitive, he thinks. I’m too sensitive for this fucking job.
They exit the house then. All very quick and efficient. The real work will be done back at the station. That’s where the recriminations, the accusations will all come to the fore. That’s where fresh tears will be shed as lives are ripped apart again, so soon after they were last devastated.
And one of the things that will haunt Oxo for ever is the look of confusion on Maria’s face as she is brought out behind her husband. Her utter lack of comprehension. Her total astonishment at how the universe could possibly treat her so harshly, so unjustly.
It gets to Oxo. There and then it overwhelms him. He remembers the conversation at the kitchen table. Recalls with burning shame how he allowed himself to be sucked in. He finds himself stepping forward, unable to control his actions.
‘Bastard!’ he says to Craig Devlin. ‘You fucking bastard!’
They manage to drag Oxo off before he can do much damage, and he wishes they wouldn’t. He wishes they would just let him get this out of his system.
Because now it will just sit there, bottled up inside.
79
She thinks he looks pale and thin and broken, even though he has been gone only a few days. Her heart hurts as she looks at him staring out of the hospital window, and she struggles to find the energy to lift his spirits.
‘You swinging the lead again, mate?’ she says.
Cody turns at the sound of the familiar voice. ‘Megan!’
He smiles and seems suddenly to fill out a little. He spreads his arms widely to embrace her. She fills the space he creates for her, encircling him with her own arms – gently, for fear of causing him pain.
She remains there perhaps a little too long, and when they finally break apart, she feels the glow in her cheeks.
‘Bloody hell, it’s hot in here,’ she says in excuse.
‘Hospital wards are always too hot. I’m tempted to strip off completely.’
‘Ew. Don’t do that. Remember there are cardiac patients knocking about.’
He chin-points at the paper bag she’s carrying. ‘That for me?’
‘What? No. I just bought myself a snack for later.’ She pauses. ‘Course it’s for you, soft lad. Here.’
She tosses the bag to him, and he starts to open it.
‘If these are grapes, I will eternally question your ability to use your imagination.’
But then he peers inside and sees the sweets it contains.
‘Chocolate peanuts! I love chocolate peanuts.’
‘I know you do, you big kid. Enjoy them. If you’re allowed to, that is.’
‘I won’t tell if you don’t.’
He pulls open a drawer beside his bed and slips the bag inside.
‘So,’ Webley says. ‘What you in for?’
‘Everything. Various injuries, including the whoppers on my bonce.’ He points to the bandage on his head. ‘Dehydration. Hence this get-up.’ He points again, this time to the drip in his arm. ‘Starvation, exhaustion and severe stress.’
‘Jesus, that’s quite a collection. You’re . . . you’re okay though, aren’t you?’
She cannot hide her deep concern, and she doesn’t care. He should know that people have been worrying about him.
‘I’m okay. They want to keep me in for observation, but they think I’ll live. You can tell Blunt she won’t need to go looking for a new sergeant just yet.’
‘She was upset, you know. Blunt, I mean. We all were. I thought . . . we thought . . .’
Shit, she thinks. Look at me. I promised myself I wouldn’t lose it, and I’m losing it.
Cody reaches out a hand. Grasps hers briefly and then releases
it again.
‘I’m fine. I’ll be out of here in no time.’
She looks away as she wipes her eye, then nods. ‘Are you able to talk about it? About what they did to you?’
‘Sure. How long have you got?’
‘As long as it takes. Since when did I ever refuse to listen to your problems?’
So he tells her everything, from start to finish.
Well, not everything, she feels. The facts, yes. The sequence of events. But not what went on in his head during his time in that house. Not the really intimate stuff – the stuff that might expose his vulnerability and the true extent of the damage done.
But it is dramatic nonetheless, and by the end of the story, Webley is gobsmacked.
‘Frigging hell, they really did a number on you, didn’t they?’
‘I’ve been through worse,’ he says.
Which is true, but it doesn’t make it any better. She wonders how much punishment a man can take. Cody wasn’t in the best of health before he was incarcerated. What kind of state will he be in now?
‘How are the girls?’ he asks.
‘They’re okay, but they’ve been through a lot. They’re going to need counselling. Especially Ellie.’
Cody nods. ‘What about the other two? Have they been reunited with their parents yet?’
Webley hesitates. ‘About that . . .’
‘What? What do you mean?’
And now it’s Webley’s turn to tell a story. The story she heard from Harriet Benson in the interview room. The one that she in turn related to Jason Oxburgh outside the Devlin house.
It’s a story that began more than three years ago, when two disturbed individuals were in desperate need of something to make their dysfunctional lives complete. In the pursuit of his fabled pot of gold, Malcolm turned to the Internet. He spent hour after hour every day there, looking in places most of us wouldn’t dream of looking.
What he found there was a young girl named Daisy Agnew.
He did more research, much of it on the Internet, but a lot in the real world too. He found out all about her family, her school, her hobbies, her friends, her holiday arrangements. He followed her, took photographs of her. Made plans for taking her.
And then he explained his thinking to Harriet.
At first she was horrified. It was too dangerous. They would get caught and go to prison.
But he allayed her fears. Told her he’d thought through every detail. It couldn’t go wrong. They could have the family they’d always wanted.
Above all, he told her, it was the right thing to do. It was the right thing for Daisy.
‘I don’t get it,’ says Cody. ‘Why were they so convinced they were justified?’
Webley takes a deep breath. ‘The place where Malcolm found Daisy wasn’t something like Facebook or Twitter or Snapchat. It was an area of the dark web.’
‘Aw, shit,’ says Cody. ‘Please don’t tell me . . .’
‘Afraid so. It’s a child pornography site. But Malcolm didn’t go there looking to get his kicks. He went there because it made him furious that people could do such things to little kids. He wanted to do something to help those children.’
Cody groans in despair. ‘How did Daisy get on there?’
‘Her mother’s new boyfriend. The way the website works is that to be able to download stuff you have to upload some images of your own. The site organisers tell you how to do it in a way that’s supposed to be undetectable if anyone searches your computer later. I don’t know how true that is – maybe the people at GCHQ or someone like Grace could crack it – but the tech guys certainly didn’t come up with anything on the Devlins’ computer. To be fair, none of us had any reason to think it might contain anything like that, especially once they were dropped as suspects.’
‘So it happened to Poppy, too? And Ellie?’
‘Yes.’
‘How bad? I mean, do we have any idea what these girls went through?’
‘We’re hoping it’s nothing too traumatic. They’ve had enough to deal with since then. According to Harriet, the video of Daisy was of her playing in her paddling pool in the back garden. Perfectly innocent to most of us, I know, but there are some sick bastards out there. Anyway, that’s how Malcolm tracked her down. In some of the images there was a “for sale” sign outside the neighbours’ house, which gave the name and phone number of the local estate agent. Harriet said they could also hear Daisy mentioning the name of her primary school. A quick search of the estate agent’s website was all it took to find out where they lived. I’m guessing there were similar clues in the videos of Poppy and Ellie.’
Cody puts his head in his hands, groans again.
‘What?’
He looks at her. ‘It’s never straightforward, is it? Never black and white. I got out of that house today hating the Bensons. I was glad Malcolm was dead. I could quite easily have punched Harriet’s lights out. But now? In a way, I can understand what they did. They were trying to help little kids. Malcolm told me as much. He said they were doing what had to be done, to protect the girls.’
Webley nods. ‘I guess the Pied Piper was the perfect name for Malcolm. In his head, he wasn’t taking children to hurt them, but to punish the bad parents.’
‘Exactly. Obviously their whole approach was completely warped, but are they the monsters I thought they were? I’m not sure anymore.’
Webley shrugs. ‘Let me know when you figure out what makes people tick. I don’t even know how you work.’
He smiles. ‘I like to be enigmatic.’
‘Yeah, right.’ She glances at her watch. ‘Listen, I should get out of here, let you rest.’
‘Okay. But just before you go . . .’
‘What?’
‘I want to thank you.’
‘What for?’
‘For saving my life. Again.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Cody looks uncomfortable, and not merely because of his injuries. ‘Yeah, I might have left out that tiny detail. Malcolm was about to inject me with the syringe. The tip of the needle was actually touching my arm. And then you rang the doorbell. I was literally saved by the bell. You saved me. For the second time since you joined the team.’
The revelation hits Webley hard. She thought she had accomplished little, believed she could have tried much harder.
But what if . . . ?
What if she hadn’t spent so much time thinking and worrying about Cody? What if she hadn’t realised what was missing from his flat? What if she hadn’t turned up at the Bensons’ house when she did?
It says something profound to her, but she’s not sure what it is. There are few people whose lives we get to save once, let alone twice. It suggests some kind of connection over and above the mundane, physical kind.
It suggests . . .
Well, never mind what it suggests, she thinks.
‘You’re welcome,’ she says, playing it down.
She stands, ready to leave.
Cody says, ‘By the way, how did your date go? With Parker?’
She thinks about telling him. About his central role in that particular rendezvous. And about the outcome.
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘It went okay.’
Because right now that seems the safest reply.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my editors, both past and present, for everything they have done for me: Joel Richardson, who got me this gig in the first place, and who will be sorely missed; and Sophie Orme and Bec Farrell, for their amazingly scrupulous work on knocking this book into shape. A massive shout-out, too, to the rest of the team at Bonnier Zaffre; you are the best.
Big thanks also to agent Oli Munson and the gang at A. M. Heath. Being a member of Oliver’s army is an honour and a privilege.
To family, friends, colleagues and anyone else who has given me support: I owe you my gratitude for keeping me sane enough to do this.
And to the bo
oksellers and the book buyers: you are the ones who make this all worthwhile. Your passion for books is the fuel that drives my fingers at the keyboard. Thank you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Jackson is the bestselling author of Cry Baby. His debut novel, Pariah, was Highly Commended in the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger Awards. He lives on the Wirral peninsula with his wife and two daughters. Follow David on Twitter: @Author_Dave, or via his website davidjacksonbooks.com.
Also by David Jackson
The DS Nathan Cody Series
A Tapping at My Door
Hope to Die
The Callum Doyle Series
Pariah
The Helper
Marked
Cry Baby
A message from David . . .
If you enjoyed Don’t Make a Sound, why not join the David Jackson Readers’ Club by visiting www.bit.ly/DavidJacksonClub?
Dear Reader,
The inspiration for Don’t Make a Sound came from the story of the Pied Piper. As you might recall, the Pied Piper is called into the town of Hamelin when it is overrun by rats. The Piper successfully rids the place of the rodents, but when the time comes for payment, the town’s officials refuse to honour their debt. In retaliation, the Piper leads all the children out of Hamelin, and they are never seen again.
Like many of you, I first heard that story when I was very young, but it has always lingered in my mind. The idea of someone undertaking a mass abduction of children is both terrifying and haunting, and a great premise for a novel.
Turning a concept like that into a modern crime thriller isn’t straightforward, however. It gives rise to all kinds of questions. Who is carrying out the abductions? What is their motivation? How are they committing the crimes, and doing so without getting caught? How does the case unfold for Cody, Webley and the others on the Major Incident Team?
It is in attempting to answer all these questions that I eventually produced Don’t Make a Sound, and if you’ve just reached the end of the novel, I hope it’s whetted your appetite for more books in the series.
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