I quickly deduced that the pattern was random. But what most definitely was not random was the series of notches in the wooden frame below the window latch. They were marks from a screwdriver, or perhaps a small pry bar, used to jimmy the window open from the outside.
I took out my phone and snapped a photo, then curled my fingers around a corner of the window and gave it a tug. It didn’t open, but it moved far enough against the latch to be able to get a tool to it.
I slipped back around to the kitchen window and cupped my hands around my eyes to pick out the motion sensor at the corner of the ceiling, draped in silk with what looked like a dead spider hanging from it.
I couldn’t see one in the living room, but I guessed it would make sense for it to be above the window. There was, however, an alarm box secured to the wall above the front door—white, to match the paint.
I made a note of the company name on the front of the box—Abbott alarm activations?—and stepped back through the gate to get another look at those gouges in the window frame. By then, my cigarette had burned down between my lips and was making my throat sore, so I tossed it to the ground and crushed it underfoot.
I spotted something then: a sliver of a particular shade of yellow that fired a flash of recognition and stopped me in my tracks. It wasn’t quite a memory—more of a feeling, the way sounds and smells and colors can sometimes whisk you away to some other time and place. In this case, the incident room at police headquarters.
I crouched down on my haunches and peered under the plastic ledge below the kitchen door, and let a wave of curiously thrilling dread wash over me as I realized what I was looking at.
It was a plastic tag, about two inches in length, rectangular, narrowing to a blunt point at one end, where a small hole was punched through the plastic. The tip had sheared off, opening out the hole and separating it from the split ring I could only presume had once been attached. And on the flank of the tab was a window, behind which was a slip of once-white paper, wrinkled and discolored by damp.
On the paper, I could just make out the faint outline of a handwritten number. 18, it said.
I banged my head on the door handle as I shot to my feet. Somehow, I managed to get my phone out of my pocket, and return Jenny’s seventh call, and not let her get a word in before I said, “I’m at Sarah Abbott’s house and you need to get a CSI team back out here right fucking now.”
Then I hung up, because I figured I’d get away with it, and because I couldn’t quite articulate that the collection of keys we’d recovered from That Man didn’t fit rental properties or remote cabins with cages underneath them, or anything else he might own. They weren’t his keys at all.
They were trophies.
Meanwhile...
Carla turned the dishwasher on, and then she filled the kettle and switched that on, too, and she got a fresh mug from the cupboard, and wiped a smudge from the rim with a tea towel, and poured in a finger of full-fat milk, and added a pyramid tea bag from the box on the counter, and shoveled in two heaped teaspoons of sugar.
She knew, of course, that her daughter was innocent of the crimes of which she’d just heard her accused. That was, after all, her duty as a parent, wasn’t it? It was immaterial whether she’d committed them or not.
There was, however, a fly in that particular ointment, and he’d be home in a few hours.
Erica and her stepfather had never seen eye to eye. She didn’t like his temper, which, objectively, as she stood here alone with her thoughts, Carla had to concede was fair. As much as she told herself otherwise, as much as he made things up to them afterward, as sorry as he always was—and he was always sorry, she truly believed that—he could get a little bit stressed at times.
And Carla knew that wasn’t her fault. She did know that, now, here, without his snarling face an inch from hers, without his hands twisting her flesh into a patchwork of blood blisters, without his pale, beer-sweaty body pummeling hers as she lay silently, biting her lip to stop herself from crying out in pain lest it upset him even more. She knew it wasn’t her fault.
But then, she was still here, wasn’t she? And she still said sorry every time she put too much salt on his chips, or missed a crease when she ironed his shirt, or made eye contact with a stranger in the street.
She still got in the car with him, still sat quietly beside him, listening to his ragged, furious breath as he drove her home to show her who her husband was, to make her picture that stranger in her head while he pinched her and bit her and fucked her on the floor. And she still held him afterward, when he cried and told her how sorry he was, and how much he loved her, and how much pressure he was under. She still said, “I know, baby. It’s okay. I know.” So really, in spite of what she knew to be right and proper and true, who did she have to blame?
Who did she have to blame when he hit Erica?
Who did she have to blame when Erica walked in to see him biting a chunk out of her mother’s arm?
Who did she have to blame, really, when Erica stabbed him in the backside with the kitchen scissors and ended up in court?
Who would she have to blame this time, when he found out there was a reward to be had and set about beating the truth out of her?
The kettle boiled. Carla poured the water and squeezed the tea bag to the color of a digestive, and stirred it for fifteen stirs and threw the spoon into the sink.
She carried the mug by the rim, the way she’d read she ought for the best chance not to spill it. Out of the kitchen, into the hall, up the stairs, carefully, one at a time. Onto the landing. She opened the door to Erica’s room, and set the mug down on the dresser beside Erica’s medals. She breathed in the stale dust, and opened the window to let in some fresh air.
Then she sat on the end of Erica’s bed, with tears spilling again from her eyes, and she blinked up at the hatch in the ceiling just outside the door, and she said, “Erica, honey, you can come down now. The coast is clear.”
Episode 3
Chapter 13
“I don’t care if you did it. You know that. I mean...” Carla scraped her free hand, the one that wasn’t clasping her daughter’s like her life depended on it, through her hair, and swiped the tears roughly from her cheeks. “I mean, of course I care, but what I’m saying is, I love you no matter what, and I’ll always support you. You’re my little girl, you’ll always be my little girl, and whatever’s happened, whatever you’ve done, whatever that...whatever he made you do, I’m going to help you get through it, okay? You understand? Whatever happens, it’s all okay. You know that, right, sweetie? You know I’m here and I’ll help you?”
Erica studied her mother as she trembled and sobbed and sniffed beside her on the hot, uncomfortable leather sofa, and knew as well as Carla did that her promises, while sincere, were hollow. But she nodded, and said, “I know, Mum.” Which lack of a denial caused Carla to curl in on herself and sob even harder.
“Oh G-God,” she stuttered. “My little...” And that was all she could manage. She was too winded to speak, and too small and broken to reach out and stroke Erica’s poor, lost face, so she just cried for the happy, bouncy little girl who got ice cream everywhere but in her mouth, and giggled when a butterfly landed on her knee, and spent hours on end trying to teach herself to tie a shoelace while singing all the songs from The Little Mermaid.
Erica watched her calmly, squeezing her fingers and not knowing what to do or say any more than her mother did. She tried to feel something—anything, her brain frantically flicking through its catalog of emotional responses to try to find one that fit, and coming up empty. That was when she knew—really knew—that she was on her own. That she was the only one she could rely on to fix things. That she was no longer the child she could see Carla mourning right in front of her.
And with that realization came a dilemma. Because Erica had walked into her mother’s house with a plan—a plan to s
et her free, to make her safe, to rid her of the tyranny of her monster of a husband once and for all. But as she sat here now, watching the tears wash the concealer from the bruise on Carla’s cheekbone, she saw her plan for the childish fantasy it really was.
The rational, grown-up part of her brain knew there was a right way to do it—an official way that was going to require research and phone calls and outside help. But not only was that not going to happen before five o’clock, it was also going to get her caught. And if she got caught, she was never going to make things right for herself, or for Sarah, or Kerry, or those policemen, or Rachel, or anyone else.
Erica screwed her eyes tight against the incoming wave of pressure in her head, and let go of her mother’s hand, and reached out blindly to pull her close to her.
“I’m not a murderer, Mum,” she whispered, but she had her fingers crossed tight behind Carla’s back.
* * *
At 3:15 p.m., while Sandra Gaidamaviciene was securing the Abbott house and Annie Fisher was swigging vodka from a hip flask in the stairwell at police headquarters, Erica’s stepfather was looking down Chloe Kimble’s blouse as she slipped her ring-binder and pencil case and smooth-spined copy of Hobson’s Choice into her rucksack.
It wasn’t that he had any particular interest in what was down there; it was more that Chloe’s plunging neckline was the only class note Jack Carnahan had left for him when he’d agreed to cover his first-year GCSE English class.
He’d long known Carnahan was a little on the pervy side; in fact, he’d reported more than one off-color remark to the department heads in this, his first year of faculty, but evidently they were unconcerned as long as he was keeping his hands to himself. No need to rock the boat, Richard. We keep our eyes open, don’t you worry.
But he did worry. There was definitely something not quite right about Jack Carnahan, so as the rest of the class filed wearily out of the room, he guided Chloe to one side—without touching her, of course—and suggested that she might want to think about doing up a couple more buttons during school hours.
Five-foot, nine-inch Chloe craned her neck to look up at the gangly, beardy nerd with his shirt tucked into his supermarket jeans and just laughed and fluttered her lashes. “No one else seems bothered, sir.”
That round went to Chloe. She’d smelled blood, so tomorrow, of course, there’d be recriminations. Some of the more feral students would no doubt insinuate that he was a bumder, because he didn’t want to look at a fifteen-year-old’s breasts. But that was just part of the job, and he’d certainly been called worse in his time. He’d smile and soak it up, and teach his lessons well, and like every other day, he wouldn’t show them even the slightest sign that they were getting to him. He’d bottle it up, just as he was now, and he’d keep the cork in until he was well away from here, well away from anyone who could do him any real harm.
At ease, thus, with his lot for now, Richard was relatively upbeat as he roughly packed his briefcase and headed for the staff room. He’d already plowed through the better part of his marking while he was babysitting Carnahan’s class, so, factoring in gossip and waiting for the kettle to boil, he figured he’d be out of there by half past four, with a whole free evening ahead of him.
The first sign that might not be the case was the sudden solemn silence when he walked into the room. He was used to it in a couple of the pubs in town, the ones where everyone seemed to know and have an opinion about everyone else’s business, but not here. Not that he’d been naive enough to believe that rumors didn’t make it as far as the staff room; rather, given the apathy afforded to those surrounding Jack Carnahan, he simply assumed that no one cared.
That was his first thought as Tim and Peter and Alison frowned and looked away awkwardly—that somehow, some piece of tittle-tattle had found its way back to them. That everything had changed. That soon enough he’d be sitting in front of the school principal, negotiating a quiet parting of ways by mutual agreement. A glowing reference in return for his own discretion. A new job at a new school, two or three towns from home. He’d done it before; he could do it again.
But it wasn’t that. It was something else. Something was wrong. He saw it in the sad smile from Theresa, the school secretary; in the nervous twitch of sympathy in her eyes as she struggled to look at him.
Richard dropped his briefcase at his feet in the doorway and tried to read the detail on Theresa’s lined, doom-laden face, but to no avail.
“Richard,” she said softly, quietly, a voice that reached out and placed a comforting hand on his arm.
“What is it? What’s happened?” Fear rose in him fast, from the pit of his stomach up past his heart and into his throat, and he forced himself to spit out his logical conclusion before it reached his tongue. “My wife? Has something happened to Carla?”
“Oh, heavens, no.” She was by his side then, figurative hand replaced with a literal one and an iPad shuffled into his field of view, browser open to the BBC homepage, Erica Shaw’s passport photo staring sullenly at him from the screen. “Richard,” she said, “it’s your stepdaughter. She’s all over the news.”
* * *
Carla threw her phone onto the kitchen counter and took the stairs two at a time. “You need to get going,” she panted, pain searing the ribs on her left side with every breath. “Richard’s going to be home any minute.”
Erica stood in the center of her bedroom, watching the garden that backed onto theirs. The cheerful American was out on the patio, playing with his toddler daughter in an inflatable paddling pool. He’d spoken to her a couple of times, but not about anything of substance and she’d never asked his name. His wife was in the air force, that was all she knew. “I don’t care,” she said.
“Erica, please. I don’t know how he’ll be if he finds you here, not now, not until he’s calmed down and I’ve talked to him.”
“I’ve got nowhere to go. I can’t live in a bloody car.” Erica could see the fear building in her mother’s eyes as they flitted to her watch and back. “Mum, I’m not scared of Richard.”
Carla laughed, a hollow, ridiculous whinny that made Erica’s teeth stand on edge. “Well, you should be,” she said. “You’re not safe here. I’ve put the spare key to Dad’s caravan in your bag, and some more money for food and petrol, butane, whatever you need. No one’ll find you. Stay there, just until we get this mess sorted out, right?”
“You want me to go camping?”
“Erica, sweetheart.” Her breaths were coming short and sharp now, the fear and pain spreading a toothy grimace across her face. “He can’t find you here. You know what he’s like. He—”
“So come with me.”
“Erica, I can’t c—”
“I’ll make sure he won’t find us.”
“Of course he’ll find us. He always finds me.”
“No, Mum.” Erica fixed her with a hard stare. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t.”
More tears, pooling in the corners of Carla’s eyes, trembling with the rest of her but not quite managing to fall. “Please,” she said. “Erica, that’s not the sort of thing I want to hear from my daughter when she’s trying to convince me she’s not a murderer.”
Erica’s breath caught in her throat, she guessed to keep her heart from leaping out of it. She studied Carla’s face for some sign of regret; gave her a second or two to backpedal. She didn’t, though. “Convince you?” she said finally.
“Erica—”
“Convince you!”
“Please, Erica—” Carla threw her arms across her face as her daughter advanced on her, the switch in her mind flipped in a heartbeat—blank, locked, dark, all of its focus on withstanding the blows that she knew were coming. That she knew she deserved.
“Christ on a fucking bike,” Erica sighed as she brushed past her on her way to the stairs. “I’ve seen it all now.”
She was halfway
down when she saw the shadow fall across the frosted glass in the door and heard the key ratchet into the lock. She froze in place, sensing her mother on the top step, calculating the distance to the bottom versus the time it would take the door to swing open. By the time she realized it was too late, it was too late. Her exits were blocked. Carla behind her, a wall to her left, an awkward fall onto the TV cabinet to her right.
The only advantage she had left was height, and as the door opened, she coiled herself like a rattlesnake and prepared to use it.
Chapter 14
“Ali, it’s Jen. I don’t know where you are. Can you call me, please?”
* * *
“Ali, if you’re in the building somewhere, can you get back to my office? I need a word, and then I need you to go and talk to Carla Cockburn before I release a statement. Uhh...okay.”
* * *
“For fuck’s sake, Ali, you’d better not be pulling some stupid shit on me right now. This isn’t any time to be going rogue. Will you please just bloody ring me back.”
* * *
“Ali, it’s me again. I’m getting worried now. Seriously, don’t fuck about. If you’re getting this, you need to ring me and let me know you’re alright.”
Starting to panic. Where are you? Let me know you’re alive x
“Do you know how close I was to putting a BOLO out on you?”
“Jen, I was out of touch for an hour and a half.”
“Yeah, and you could have been out of the county in the back of a van by then. Are you out of your fucking mind?”
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