by Sarah Hilary
He went through to the kitchen. Empty bottles of Beck’s by the bin, toast-crumbed plates in the sink. Noah didn’t need to be a detective to figure out how Sol had spent his afternoon. He filled the kettle with the idea of making coffee, then changed his mind and got his own bottle of beer from the fridge. Fucked if he was playing the role of designated driver just because his kid brother was sprawled on the sofa off his head on whatever he’d taken to get up the nerve to come here, knowing how warm Noah’s welcome would be.
‘Hey …’ Dan appeared behind him. ‘When did you get back?’
‘Just now.’ He checked Dan’s pupils when they kissed. Sol liked company when he was on a bender and Dan had been known to indulge, back in the day.
Dan saw him checking and dropped his hands from Noah’s hips. ‘Seriously? Just because Sol’s a bit shiny?’
Noah moved away, to get a bottle-opener. ‘Did he tell you why he’s here?’
Dan crossed the kitchen to close the door, lowering his voice. ‘He just needs a place to crash for a couple of days. I think he misses you. You’re his big brother, and yes, maybe he’s in trouble of some kind, but can’t he come to his brother when he’s in trouble?’
‘Depends on the trouble.’ Noah took a long drink from the bottle. He needed to eat something if he was going to get drunk. And he was going to get drunk.
Dan stood watching him. ‘What happened at work? You look done in.’
‘Yes, investigating dead kids’ll do that to you.’ He hated the flippant score in his voice, but couldn’t help it. Sol wasn’t the only one who reverted to childhood behaviour patterns in the company of his sibling. ‘I spent the afternoon standing in a pit where two little boys were buried alive. Sorry if that disqualifies me from membership of the shiny club.’
Dan weighed his mood. ‘I’ll order pizza.’
‘Sorry,’ Noah said, meaning it this time. ‘I’ll be better when I’ve eaten.’
‘I know.’ Dan smiled at him. ‘I’m sorry about your crap day.’
‘We can fix it. We always do.’
Noah took the beer to the sitting room, dropping into an armchair opposite Sol, who looked half asleep on the sofa. ‘How long are you staying?’
Sol didn’t open his eyes. ‘Couple of days?’
‘What’d you do?’
‘Nothing …’
‘Nothing would be one night. You did something. Pissed off Dad for starters, otherwise you’d be back home.’
Sol cracked an eye at him. Noah smiled, knowing it would unnerve his brother. Sol had come prepared for anger, expecting it, in fact. The smile caught him off guard.
‘Dad’s okay,’ Sol said slowly, feeling his way. ‘He’s good.’
Noah lifted the bottle and drank. ‘And Mum?’
If Sol was welcome at their parents’ house, he wouldn’t be here. He went home when his ego needed a stroke, when life made him feel small and he wanted to be bigger. In their mum’s eyes, Sol was always a big man. Her little boy, all grown up. When he got too big, out of his depth, that was when he came to Noah, knowing he’d get cut back down to size. It was a pattern, predictable. Noah said again, ‘How’s Mum?’
Sol attempted a shrug. ‘You know Mum, bro. She’s always got something going on, always busy with her brushes.’
Which would have been okay had Rosa been an artist. But Sol meant cleaning brushes. He meant brushes and cloths and disinfectant sprays, floor polish and scouring pads.
‘How bad is it?’ Noah drank, steadily, for his own sake. It was just possible that Sol was here because he was scared to be in the house when Rosa was on one of her cleaning binges.
Sol said, ‘It’s bad, bro.’ He wouldn’t look at Noah, searching around the room still. Hiding in plain view. They’d both learned to do that, as kids. The difference was that Sol hadn’t learned when to stop.
‘Where’s Dad?’
‘Away on a job. Just me and her, bro …’ Sol rubbed at his eyes. ‘Me and her.’
‘Should I go round?’
‘Yeah, if you want a shitload of earache.’ Sol risked a glance at him. ‘Wouldn’t, though. Not for a coupla days.’
Wait for the worst of the binge to pass, he meant.
‘If Dad’s away, that means she’s on her own. That’s not good.’
‘Nothing’s good. You know how it goes.’ There was a moment when all the world’s misery was on his brother’s face, but it passed and he grinned at Noah. ‘So, pizza, yeah?’
‘Pizza,’ Noah agreed. He considered his brother’s grin, and the misery behind it. ‘Do you want to come out with Dan and me?’
‘For real?’
‘No, I was winding you up. You can stay here while we’re out on the razz … Yes, for real.’
‘Pizza’s on the way.’ Dan came through from the kitchen, to prop himself on the arm of Noah’s chair. ‘Did I hear we’re going out?’
‘Up to Sol,’ Noah said.
His brother sat up, rubbing the back of his head. ‘Where’d we go?’
Noah drank another mouthful of beer. ‘Up West. If you fancy it.’
Sol squinted at his hoody. ‘Will I need to get changed?’
‘Nope. You’re perfect as you are.’
• • •
Under the lights in Julian’s, the pink hoody blended with everything else on show.
Dan went to the bar, bringing back Mexican beers. Red and gold labels on the bottles, lime wedges in their necks. ‘This one’s got your name on it.’ He passed a bottle to Sol.
‘Thanks.’ Sol pulled a face as he sucked at the lime, shooting a look at a man in a white T-shirt. The T-shirt showed off the man’s tan, and his abs. ‘Shit, is he checking me out?’
‘Sweetheart,’ Dan said seriously, ‘everyone is checking you out. You’re not going to have to pay for a drink all night.’ He reached for Noah. ‘We’re dancing.’
‘To this?’ Noah shook his head. ‘I’m all Madonna’d out.’
Right on cue, the DJ changed the track to Sylvester’s ‘Mighty Real’.
‘Sexy disco man,’ Dan said. ‘Remember?’
He pulled Noah on to the dance floor, keeping his free hand on Noah’s hip until the day’s tension started to bleed out.
Under the rash of neon from the ceiling, Dan’s eyes were the same colour as the beer in the bottles hanging from their hands. He saw Noah glance over his shoulder.
‘How’s Sol getting on with Abercrombie, or is it Fitch?’
‘He looks a bit edgy. I didn’t think he’d come out with us. Not his scene.’
Dan danced closer, his fingers inside the hem of Noah’s shirt, on his bare skin. ‘It’ll do him good.’
‘Getting hit on by cute guys?’
‘Seeing his big brother not-being-a-policeman … And you think Abercrombie’s cute?’ Dan’s eyes gleamed. ‘Maybe I should go to the gym more often.’
‘Oh I think you probably get all the exercise you need dancing.’ Noah rubbed their hips together in strict time to the music. ‘And shagging.’
‘Hold that thought …’
36
Marnie sat on Ed’s sofa, cradling a mug of coffee. She needed to talk about her day, but she didn’t know where to start. With the bunkers, and the Doyles? With Clancy, or Adam, or the Finchers and their blank-eyed daughter who’d been friends with Doug Cole until her parents put a stop to that …
Ed was next to her, close but not crowding. The way he’d learned to be when she was like this, wrapped up in her day, too tired to sleep, and inarticulate, struggling to find the words to put enough of the chaos behind her, so that she could face tomorrow.
‘Do you believe in too much love?’
Ed leaned forward to pick up his coffee mug. ‘Whose love are we talking about?’
‘The Doyles … They have two of their own, another on the way, but Beth says they have too much love for three kids. So they foster an angry teenage boy. That’s not … It doesn’t seem right. Tell me I’m a nasty cynic.’
‘Can’t do that,’ Ed said. ‘I’d be lying.’ He touched his thumb to her wrist, moving it in small circles that warmed her skin.
‘We hunt in packs.’ She nursed the mug of coffee, reluctant to free her hands in case she started to fidget, or make fists. ‘Isn’t that what they say? Maybe that’s what the Doyles are doing. Hiding in plain sight … The big family is their camouflage.’
‘Maybe,’ Ed said.
’I don’t suppose Terry called you. I gave him your number.’
‘Not yet.’ Ed shook his head. ‘Give him time.’
‘How was your day?’ She smiled at him. ‘You know Noah visited Ayana?’
‘Yes, she called me. She’s a big fan of DS Jake. We’re finally making some progress with Witness Protection for her new identity. So … my day was good.’
‘I’m glad.’ Marnie was quiet for a while, holding on to Ed’s news because it was important. ‘I don’t believe in packs. Gangs come together for a reason. For safety, or to hunt. We’re solitary by nature. Aren’t we? Even families … Fundamentally, I mean.’ She leaned in to Ed in case he misunderstood. ‘Maybe it’s me.’
‘It’s not you. Everyone has to work at that. Sometimes it comes off, sometimes it doesn’t.’
The Finchers were working at being a family; at least that was how it looked if she didn’t examine their daughter’s hollow stare too closely.
‘The Doyles are good people. They’re trying to give Clancy a safe place, lots of love.’ Beth’s hands strangling plastic carrier bags, her fingers hunting down staples on the kitchen floor. ‘But you know me, I’d run a mile from that kind of place. Well, I did run.’
I’m still running, she thought, but didn’t say. Stifled, not safe, was how she’d felt in her parents’ house. Stephen Keele must have felt the same, to do what he did. The idea that she and Stephen had anything in common made her sick.
‘The Doyles are into quality time.’ She pushed her curls back from her face. ‘Family values, routine. The kids are growing their own food … On paper it looks like the perfect model for parenting.’
‘But,’ Ed said, ‘you don’t trust them? Terry and Beth.’
‘Actually, I do. I like them, him especially. He’s a good man. If you’d seen him with the boys …’ She shook her head. ‘He’s a good man.’
‘And Beth?’
‘She’s a yummy mummy.’ That wasn’t quite fair. Marnie thought of the woman’s dirty hands tying knots in empty carrier bags. ‘No, she’s an earth mother, one of nature’s real women.’ Cave dweller. Why did her mind twist everything maternal into an insult of some kind? ‘She’s a bit wound up right now, of course.’
‘Because of the boys,’ Ed said, agreeing with her.
Marnie put down the mug, rubbing the chill from her palms. ‘And then there’s Clancy.’
‘The angry teenage boy? How old is he?’
‘Fourteen going on thirty … Teenagers are tricky. The Doyles didn’t want to accuse Clancy of anything worse than acting up. But I think they’re scared of him. Beth more or less admitted it. He has a temper and it’s got worse since they left Blackthorn Road.’
‘What about their own kids? How’re they around him?’
‘I don’t know. Beth found something of his, though. Doodles.’ She reached for paper and a pen. Sketched the shape she’d seen. Circles within circles. Empty eyes.
‘Like this.’ She pushed the paper towards Ed.
He studied it before shaking his head. ‘What is it?’
‘For a long time I didn’t know. But I’ve seen it before. In Stephen’s notebooks. The ones I kept because I thought I could find a clue, an explanation for what he did.’
Ed looked at the shape she’d drawn. ‘Is it some music thing? A logo …’
‘That would make sense, wouldn’t it? Except they’re five years apart, Stephen and Clancy. How likely is it they’d have the same taste in music?’
Or the same taste in anything.
Stephen didn’t have any tastes, as far as she knew.
Ed studied what she’d drawn; it looked like the cross-section of a maze. ‘You said for a long time you didn’t know what it was … When did you find out?’
‘It was Kate Larbie. She knew how much it meant to me, to make sense out of Stephen’s diary. She knew how desperate I was for answers – anything …’
She turned the sketch sideways, so Ed could see. ‘It’s a keyhole garden. You plant intensively for small areas with protected access.’
‘Protected from what?’
‘Trespassers, thieves, rampaging neighbours, starving holocaust survivors … You name it.’
Ed searched her face. ‘Rome?’
‘Keyhole gardens are popular with Doomsday preppers. People preparing for a world-changing event, the collapse of society.’
It was hard to keep the contempt from her voice. The idea of prepping wasn’t just crazy, it was anathema. You couldn’t prepare, not ever, not fully. Life chucked stuff and all you could do was learn to dodge, be quick on your feet and keep moving, because a moving target is harder to hit. Hunkering down is insane. You’ll never be safe, rooted to the spot. It was one of the reasons she wished Doug Cole hadn’t made a playroom underground; too easy for people to throw bricks, trash his doll’s tea party.
‘How do you prepare for the collapse of society?’ Ed asked, looking bemused.
‘You become self-sufficient. You stockpile food, fuel, weapons … It’s big business in the US, less so over here although you can spend thousands of pounds on freeze-dried food supplies, if you’ve got enough cash and the psychosis to match.’ She shook her head. ‘As if these are the people we’d want left alive in the event of an apocalypse, the ones who can’t wait to kill their neighbours under the guise of protecting their property.’
She stopped, wanting to be fair. ‘The internet means it’s spreading. Anyone with access to a computer … I’ve heard of decent people, vulnerable people, buying into it. It’s another way of hiding, I suppose, if you’re scared. Some people have a good reason to be scared.’
She was thinking of Ayana Mirza, and the other victims that Ed helped.
Ed studied the sketch of the keyhole garden. ‘The Doyles?’
‘Not the Doyles, but I think maybe … Clancy’s birth parents? This was in his room. Beth says he has a go-bag. Stephen had a go-bag. He called it a bug-out bag. Everything he needed for a quick getaway. The police found it in his room, packed and ready to go. Six years and he was still ready to go at a moment’s notice …’
‘Stephen’s birth parents were preppers?’
‘It looked that way, yes. I didn’t dig too deep. I know they were paranoid and narcissistic, and that they did untold damage to their only child. Damage they didn’t pay for. Damage my parents paid for.’
She stopped, waiting for the flare of anger to subside. ‘I avoided seeing them after the murders, told myself it was because they couldn’t possibly hold the clue I was after, about why Stephen did it. He hadn’t seen them in six years. I suppose the real reason I avoided contact was because I couldn’t stand the idea of them. My parents were dead because they gave up on Stephen. I didn’t blame them for how damaged he was, but I blamed them for copping out. If they hadn’t done that, my parents would be alive.’
Ed reached for her hand and held it.
‘I know all about the harm parents can do, but even if they screwed him up so hugely he never had a chance … he did have one. My parents gave him six years of chances and he still killed them.’
Ed pressed his thumb to her palm until her fingers stopped jumping, until the warmth from his hand bled into hers.
‘I don’t care how tough his childhood was, how much madness his parents preached, how many tins of peaches they stockpiled … My parents gave him six years. Six years of patience and praise and love. That should have been enough. Why wasn’t it enough?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t. I’m sorry.’
She turned her hand in his, gripping back
for a second before he let go. He always let go before she had to pull free. It was one of the reasons she loved him. ‘Of course it wasn’t enough for me.’ She winced at the sound of her own laugh. ‘And I had eighteen years of it.’
Two of those years spent chasing after Adam Fletcher, craving danger, despising the safe option of her parents’ house. Those poor boys in the bunker had made her realise, again, how lucky she’d been to grow up in a secure, loving home. And made her feel guilty – again – for running from it. Guilty and ungrateful. Her father had told her once that she’d inherited his mother’s rebellious streak, unable to sit still, always on the move. Wherever it came from, it meant she’d wasted what precious time she’d had with them.
Ed said, ‘Tell me about these preppers. It’s more than just self-sufficiency?’
‘Much more, especially in the States. I stopped looking at the websites because they made me want to hurl my laptop through a window. In the UK, it’s lower-key. I found some sites that suggest it dates back decades, maybe even to the sixties. So while the flower-power people were partying and swinging, this lot were preaching the opposite of free love. Monogamy, family values, restraint.’
‘And you’re thinking … what? In terms of this new case.’
‘I don’t know. Except that Clancy is a foster kid, just like Stephen. I haven’t found any other kind of connection.’
‘But you’re looking for one,’ Ed said. ‘A connection.’
‘I don’t believe in coincidences, you know that. And Clancy? Creeps me out.’
‘In what way?’
‘All the time I was in the garden, in the bunker, he was watching.’
‘Kids are ghouls. Rome, I don’t think …’
‘I know.’ She smiled. ‘I do know.’
Ed pressed her fingers. ‘Have you heard from Stephen lately?’
It was a fair question. She wanted to give him a straight answer. ‘Paul Bruton’s called a couple of times. Stephen wants to see me. He’s put in a lot of visitor orders, but it’s not been a good time, with work the way it is.’
She nursed an ache in her shoulder. ‘I’m not sure my visits were helping either of us. I thought a bit of distance wouldn’t hurt. We need to move on. It wasn’t … healthy.’