He walked back down the steps. ‘We need to check access to that field, Becky. There are no houses up there. Based on Rob’s hastily drawn map, the field backs onto the main road. We need to know if there’s parking nearby, because our killer could have left a car there, jogged along the path that cuts through the field, down these steps and up the other side towards the Strachans’ house. A matter of a couple of minutes, I’d have thought.’
He stood still for a moment longer, looking around, then nodded to Becky and set off along the leafy path. ‘Come on. Let’s go and find Jumbo.’
‘Pretty along here, isn’t it?’ Becky said, a note of surprise in her voice.
‘It is – at least, in daylight. But imagine it in the early hours of the morning. Even if there was a moon those trees would block out what little light was available and dampen any ambient sound. With the high banks on each side it would feel like a tomb. You’d have to be fearless to walk along here at night.’
‘Or desperate.’
With that thought, they walked side by side in silence to where, up ahead, Tom could see the substantial figure of Jumbo talking to another white-suited member of the team. He turned at Tom’s approach. ‘We’re starting with the area closest to the path, checking for bike tracks, footprints. We may even get lucky and find one of the weapons.’
Tom nodded. ‘If it were me, I’d have taken them with me and disposed of them somewhere far away from here, but we know murderers are not always rational. The trouble is, the blunt-force trauma to her head could have been caused by a branch from one of these trees, and there are bound to be a few broken ones lying around.’
At that moment there was a jubilant shout from a CSI up ahead, standing over a culvert where a small stream crossed under the path.
Without a word, Jumbo spun on his heel and hurried towards the man, who was pointing at something with his gloved hand. As Tom and Becky caught up, Jumbo beamed at them.
‘A knife! See, Tom? Not all murderers are smart!’
Without touching the railings, they looked over the side. Another CSI had already climbed down and was taking photos of the knife in situ just under the bridge, on a ledge.
‘It’s out of the water,’ Jumbo said breathlessly and somewhat unnecessarily, but Tom knew why he was excited. With any luck that meant there would still be traces of blood so they could match it to the victim. And there was always the faint hope there might be fingerprints.
Despite rain the day before, there was little more than a trickle in the culvert and it seemed to Tom it wasn’t the smartest place to chuck a murder weapon. If the killer had thrown it right under the bridge, into the dark recesses where the stream bed was full of pebbles, it would have been harder to spot.
‘If it turns out it’s the murder weapon, then it tells us he came this way. Whether on foot or on a bike we still don’t know,’ Tom said. About fifty metres ahead, a road passed over the path. ‘I know this area. Do you remember the girl we found in the woods a few years ago?’
‘Oh God, yes,’ Becky said. ‘That was awful. The poor kid.’
He lifted one hand to point. ‘That road goes right past the woods where we found her. Maybe that’s how Genevieve’s killer got here.’
It would have been easy for him to park close to the entrance to the Loopline, then run down the steps and along the path to the end of the alley where the body was found. It was no more than a couple of hundred metres.
But why did she go out, and why did someone want to kill her?
He had no answers, and until they understood more about their victim, her relationships, her friends, her marriage, they didn’t have a single line of enquiry to pursue.
15
MARTHA
I’ve been so absorbed in my thoughts about who I am and what I have become that I hadn’t noticed Alfie has woken up, but suddenly I realise he’s staring at me. Those beautiful eyes of his seem able to penetrate my thoughts, so I close my mind to what I have been thinking.
‘You hungry, sweetheart?’
Alfie nods. ‘Cos we’re on holiday, can I have pizza please, Mummy?’
I don’t know what we can have, because I’m not prepared to leave the room.
‘It’s going to be more exciting than that,’ I say, trying to make him feel that room service is a delight to look forward to. ‘We get to choose from a menu, and then someone will bring it to our room. How about that, Alfie?’
He’s at that age when my tone of voice and fake excitement can still work magic, but I know the time is coming when he’ll question me more than he has done up to now. The thought of what he might ask terrifies me. I don’t want to lie to my child, but there’s so much I can’t tell him.
I know that one day he will want to know about his father, and maybe want to meet him. That’s when I will have to lie, because it can never happen. I’m surprised he’s not asked already, but the only time he’s shown any interest he simply asked if he had a daddy. I’d answered, ‘No, Alfie. There’s just me,’ and that had seemed enough for him. It won’t be for long, though.
I push the thought aside as I show him the menu, and we talk through the options. Pizza is on the list, and while we wait for it to arrive, I guiltily settle him down in front of the TV and pull out my phone. I head straight for Elise’s Facebook page.
It’s all hotting up! There’s a woman who works here who’s fixated on Niall – our boss and Genevieve’s husband! She tried it on with him at the office party, and he was horrified by the whole thing. Anyway, she arrived at work this morning, but when we said the police were coming to investigate – you’ll never guess what? She did a runner! Guilty as sin, I’d say. What do you think?
I close my eyes. Now everyone will wonder what happened at the party. I can still see Niall’s face, so close to mine; his hands on my hips, the expression in his eyes. Spencer had seen me run from the room, but I hadn’t said a word. I’d been trying to control my panic. I didn’t want to lose my job – I was managing my life to the best of my ability, and everything had been okay. I had been confident I could remain at XO-Tech with no questions asked for the foreseeable future. And then I’d messed up.
It was never mentioned again, but Niall made a show in front of everyone of asking to have the door left open if he was in a room with me, walking out of rooms if I came in. I could see what he was doing: he wanted people to think he was uncomfortable being alone with me.
There’s a knock at the door, and my hand jerks, my mobile clattering to the floor. Then I hear a faint voice: ‘Room service.’
Even though I’ve ordered food, I take care to look through the peephole, certain that this is a trick. But it’s a young girl holding a tray, so I breathe again and open the door.
How long am I going to have to carry on living in fear? Will there ever be a time when I can walk down the street, smile at people, invite them to our home? Or will I forever be the woman who has to check the peephole in every door, change SIM cards in my phone so I can’t be traced, and hide from the world?
16
LAKESIDE
Our first Christmas at Lakeside – a name which even I thought lacked imagination – was difficult. We’d been in our new home for over a month, and it still felt strange. I had a huge bedroom next to Mum and Dad’s, and they’d told me I could decorate it any way I liked. I wanted every wall to be lilac, and it had been fun for a while as I helped Dad slap on some paint.
None of the plans for the downstairs rooms that Dad had talked about had come to much. He’d asked Mum to choose which one to decorate first, and I’d found her more than once sitting on a wooden kitchen chair in a cold empty room, a faraway look on her face. But she hadn’t managed to come to a decision about any of them by the end of the year.
Mum and Dad both tried to make Christmas exciting for me with an enormous tree in the double-height hall, and they had hidden my Christmas presents. I think Dad was disappointed when I told him I didn’t believe in Father Christmas any longer. I hadn’t for
a year or two, but until then it had been more fun to pretend he was real. The treasure hunt took ages, and we all scurried around the house following Dad’s clues, then sat down to a delicious turkey dinner. We’d only been able to afford chicken in the past, but this time we had everything you could dream of for a traditional Christmas.
The strange thing was that Mum had bought everything ready-prepared from the supermarket, and that was so unlike her. She had always loved to cook, and looking back I realise now that this was the start of her problems. Even as a child of ten I could tell she was missing the friends and neighbours who would come knocking on the door bearing a bottle of cheap wine or a few cans, usually with some home-made mince pies to share. Or even a bag of crisps. We didn’t care. Everyone was welcome. Who would have thought that our good fortune with the lottery would change all that?
In Lincolnshire there was no one. It was just us, and it was as if Mum didn’t think it was worth the bother to cook everything from scratch. Dad had tried to persuade her to join in with a few activities in the village, to make new friends, but she said she didn’t want people asking questions, knowing our business.
‘What do I say when people ask what I do for a living – or what you do? If I don’t have an answer, they’ll guess, and then the trouble will start. It will be like it was in London.’
I had no friends either because I hadn’t started a new school. As it was my final year at primary school, Mum said she would home-school me until the summer. Come September, I could go straight to secondary school.
It never happened.
Dad worked hard to get me and Mum excited about the year ahead, and on New Year’s Eve he got us all to sit down and talk about what we were most hoping for in the next twelve months. I knew he wouldn’t want the truth from me – that I wanted to go home – and I could see the concern in his eyes when he looked at Mum, so I did as he asked and pretended to be enthusiastic. Mum was harder to persuade, but he tried.
‘Nic, let’s start planning our new kitchen as soon as the holiday’s out of the way,’ he said, grabbing a pen and paper. ‘We’ll make a list of all the things you’ve ever wanted in a kitchen, and then we can go and look at some showrooms. How does that sound?’
Mum tried to play along, but I could see she wasn’t excited. Later, I heard her talking to Dad about her feelings and although I knew I shouldn’t have been listening, I wanted to understand what was wrong.
‘The house is great, Joel. A fantastic choice and I’m honestly thrilled with it all, but it’s such a big change. I need a bit of time to adapt. I’m sorry, darling.’
‘It’s what you deserve, though. Before you met me, you never had to worry about where the next meal was coming from. You gave all that up – for me! Now it’s my chance to put that right, and you never know – your family might even change their minds about us – about me.’
Mum laughed, but I could tell she didn’t think it was funny.
‘I don’t want them back in my life. Not after the way they treated you. And they disowned their own daughter, Joel. Can you imagine me ever doing that to DeeDee? It just feels strange not to have to go to work or worry about whether we can afford to buy Christmas presents for our child.’
‘I get that, but when we moved to London you adapted so well. You went from a kid going to private school to a mother working as a cleaner to help pay the bills. Now you can change again – have anything you want.’
Mum sighed. ‘I didn’t adapt, though – at least not at first. I fell apart. You know I did.’
‘But you got there in the end, Nic.’
‘Look, I know it’s difficult for you to understand, but all my life I’ve had rules. Growing up, there was a code of conduct. We laugh about “What will they say at the golf club?” but I knew exactly what I was supposed to do, how each day would pan out. I did what was expected of me.’
‘That sounds brutal.’
‘Maybe, but once all of that structure was gone, it felt as if the rug had been pulled from under my feet. After we moved to London, I was in a daze for months – wondering what I was supposed to do, how I was expected to behave.’ Mum’s voice was rising as she spoke, getting more and more agitated. ‘But I had a baby that needed me. If we wanted to eat, we both had to work, so I created my own rules, my own structure. Now I’m back to that lost feeling, as if I’m floating with nothing to anchor me. I no longer have a code of conduct that tells me what’s expected. There is nothing I absolutely have to do each day.’ There was a pause, and when she spoke again, her voice was quieter, but shaky. ‘I’m so sorry, love. It’s not your fault. I need some time to acclimatise, that’s all. I’ll get there, I promise.’
I heard Dad’s deep voice, whispering all kinds of lovely things about how he adored her, and he would do whatever she wanted. And I knew he would, if only he knew what that was. She swore she didn’t want to go back to our old life. She just needed to find some meaning in this new life of ours.
I had no idea what she meant.
The early part of the new year passed quietly, with Dad treading softly around Mum, who was doing her best to smile. She hadn’t found whatever it was she was looking for, until one day she read an article in the local paper.
‘Listen to this, Joel,’ she said. ‘There’s a man coming to the area to give a talk. According to the write-up, he’s inspirational. It says he’s helped many people make the best of their lives.’
‘Mmm. Sounds like a good line in sales talk, don’t you think?’
‘I don’t know, but it might be worth going along to find out.’
‘You’ve said you don’t want to get to know people in the village. So why the change of heart?’
Mum scrunched up the paper and chucked it on the floor. ‘Fine. I won’t go then.’
Dad looked up from one of the DIY books he’d taken to reading, as if we couldn’t afford to pay builders to do all the work.
‘Sorry, Nic. I didn’t mean to be dismissive.’
Mum bent down to pick up the paper again and flattened the pages.
‘I know what I’ve said about the village. But he’s not coming to this village. It’s about twenty miles away, so no one would know me.’
Dad nodded. It was the most enthusiastic we’d seen Mum for a while, and I could see he was mustering his best smile. He put his book down. ‘Tell me about it. What’s he going to be talking about?’
‘The title of the talk is “No one saves us but ourselves”, and the subtitle is “Why no one is ever satisfied with who they are”. It sounds just what I need, Joel. I know I’m lucky in so many ways – I have you and DeeDee, which should be enough for anyone. And we have this fabulous house and all that money. But yet I don’t seem to be able to – I don’t know – find myself, I suppose, if that doesn’t sound too pretentious.’
‘Of course it doesn’t. If it’s what you want, then go, by all means.’
And she did.
I didn’t see her when she got back that night. It was late, and I was in bed. But the next morning I woke to the sound of her singing and the smell of bacon cooking. I ran downstairs without bothering to get dressed, and there was Mum in the kitchen, smiling, make-up on, looking like the Mum I had known for the first ten years of my life.
‘Morning, DeeDee,’ she almost sang. Dad looked up from where he was sitting and gave me a smile. But he looked slightly mystified.
‘Put something nice on today,’ she said. ‘We’re having a visitor!’
‘Who?’ I asked, and I remember how delighted I was that finally we might be getting back to the life I had always understood.
‘The man who gave the talk last night. I had a long chat with him at the end of the evening. He was brilliant! Anyway, I asked if he might have some time to spare, and he said he was hoping to stay in the area for a few weeks, so I invited him to lunch.’
We spent the morning in a flurry of activity. We hadn’t done much to the house, even though by that time we’d been there for several months
. It was mainly due to Mum’s lack of interest, but now she wanted everything to be perfect.
Finally, the moment came, and I heard a car draw up. I looked out of my bedroom window, expecting to see a car rivalling Dad’s, but I was wrong. It was a minicab.
Out of the car stepped a man, and from where I was standing at the window, he looked ordinary. He was tall with closely cropped dark hair, and was perhaps a few years older than Dad. He picked up his bag from where the driver had put it by the steps that led to the front door, turned slightly and lifted his chin to reveal an equally close-cropped beard. He stood still for a moment and seemed to be listening. But then he slowly raised his head and looked straight at me. His pale grey eyes narrowed as they met mine. His lips tightened, and I got the distinct impression that he was angry. But I had done nothing.
Suddenly he turned away, towards the door, a smile on his face, and raised his hand in greeting. Mum had gone out to meet him. The spell was broken, and I felt drained, as if I’d been caught doing something I shouldn’t. I knew I was supposed to go downstairs, but I didn’t want to. I threw myself on the bed and buried my head under my pillow.
17
Becky raised her hand to knock on Niall Strachan’s door, but before she made contact, the door was opened by a woman she recognised as a family liaison officer – FLO, as they were more commonly called.
‘Hey, Charley – I wasn’t expecting to see you here,’ Becky said. Charley Hughes normally specialised in cases involving children, and she did a great job of putting them at their ease, so it was a surprise to see her at the home of a bereaved husband.
‘I know. It’s not my usual type of case, but I was available. Good afternoon, sir,’ she said to Tom. ‘Niall – as he’s asked me to call him – is in the kitchen.’
Tom and Becky both looked at the pale carpet ahead of them, then at each other, and without a word slipped their shoes off. This place reminded Becky of a house she had visited once where there were clear plastic runners everywhere. She couldn’t understand why you would want something so precious on the floor that you were scared to walk on it.
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