We get to the second house in the third row and an older woman comes out to meet us, followed by a teenage boy.
“This about Dara? Have they found her yet?”
It’s obvious we haven’t, but I give her the benefit of the doubt.
“No. We wondered if we could come in and ask you a few questions.”
She’s got a newspaper in her hand, and as we enter the lounge, we see she’s got Sky News on. The scene is almost exactly the same as the one I see from her kitchen window. She sees me looking.
“Weird, isn’t it? All this on your own doorstep. Not that I like Amy very much. Stuck up bitch. But I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.”
The boy points toward the Prices’ house.
“I’m surprised they haven’t arrested Marc yet. He’s a bloody nutter. You sure it wasn’t him?”
Damien looks at me and raises his eyebrows.
“We’re just starting our inquiries. What’s your name?”
“John. It wasn’t me. I keep my head down, after last time.”
John’s mother rushes over.
“He doesn’t mean he’s been involved with anything like this. Just had a bit of trouble with an ex-girlfriend. That’s all. Nothing serious. Got off with a caution and a fine.”
I smile. People can’t help themselves. The moment a police officer appears, they go into confessional mode. The innocent ones, anyway. John sits down heavily.
“You say that like it’s my fault. It wasn’t me who gave your granddaughter away. It was that fucking cow. Go and have a go at her, Mum. Go on. Go and have a go.”
The woman goes to slap the boy across the head.
“Shall we all calm down and remember why we’re here?”
But I’m standing now.
“Gave your daughter away, John. In what circumstances?”
He looks at his mother. She nods.
“I got her pregnant. She was only fifteen. But I was just sixteen, too. I would have looked after her. And the baby. Charlotte. But she had her adopted. This woman came for her and took her away. Kerry said she could get her back anytime, but I kicked off, and they had me arrested. For wanting to keep my own daughter. But she wouldn’t let me look after her. She just gave her away. Like a dog to a good home.”
I stare at him. This is no coincidence.
“Get her back? How would that work? You can’t usually get kids back once they’ve been adopted. And couldn’t you go and get her if it was that easy. Is your name on the birth certificate?”
He’s in tears.
“Yeah. I’m on the birth certificate. Kez had this thing, like a card, that she said she could give to the woman anytime, and she’d get Charlotte back. But she wouldn’t give it to me. She said she’d rather die than me have her.”
Damien opens the back page of his notebook and brings out the paper angel Mrs. Sommers had given us.
“Like this? Was the card like this?”
John jumps up.
“Yes! That’s it. Like a fat angel. A cherub thing. Where did you get that?”
Damien puts the angel carefully back in his notebook.
“Did Kerry tell you where this woman lived? If she was local or not? Anything about her?”
“No. She just told me she’d give Charlotte a good home. Like a dog. Just not fucking right.”
“And where does Kerry live? I’d like to have a word with her. About this woman.”
“You’ll be lucky. She fucked off just after all this happened, about a week after. Never seen her since. Reckon she couldn’t live with herself.” He wipes his eyes. “Does this mean I’m going to get arrested again? Am I a suspect?”
Damien writes all this down, and I take my turn. I shake my head.
“Nothing so far to suggest you’re a suspect, John. So. Back to the matter in hand. Did you see any vehicles on the lane outside the Prices’ house on Sunday afternoon? Parked up? Mrs. . . .?”
“Joanie. Joanie Lord. No. People coming and going all day.”
I look out the side window, between the kitchen and the lounge. There’s a clear view of the side of the Prices’ house across a field. The field has some horses in it.
“Nothing unusual out there? Horses scared? Anyone in the field?”
“No. I was here all day, and there was nothing. How did they get in? Where was she taken from? Only Amy watches her like a hawk. She might be a condescending cow, but she’s a good mum. And that little Dara’s adorable.”
She wipes a tear away.
“Do you reckon they’ll find her? Alive, I mean?”
I nod.
“That’s what we’re here to find out. Thanks for your time. We might want to come back and see you again, but we’ll let you know.”
Joanie shows us out, and we walk toward the end of the terrace. Damien sits on the dry stone wall.
“What did Marc Price call this place?”
I look out across the moorland. It’s beautiful, really. If you didn’t know what went on here. But I do.
“Village of the damned. Clogs and spells.”
A helicopter circles overhead, and I look up. It’s not a police helicopter. It belongs to one of the television stations. It swoops low over the search area and hovers above the Prices’ house. Damien ignores it and opens his notebook.
“So as well as a missing child, there’s one child too many and a woman who’s exchanging children for receipts?”
I nod.
“Looks that way.”
“Attachment theory. Someone giving a security and a way out to someone else who is attached to something. In traditional adoptions, the birth parents give up their rights to the child, leaving little hope of reconciliation and usually means full detachment. Which is perfectly acceptable as a normal social transaction. But attachment theory can be used by people to manipulate others, to play on their disempowerment. Young, desperate single parents given a way out until the time is right.”
I think hard. He’s right, a pattern is forming. But it doesn’t compute.
“Two things, though, Damien. First, the girls went back for their babies. At least Dawn did; it seems, so did Kerry. Second, and again, how does this help us find Dara? For all we know that woman might be a social worker. Even if she isn’t, we’ve no reason to believe that she’s taken Dara.”
He nods and begins to walk toward the car.
“It’ll come together. Give it time.”
“We haven’t got time, Damien. Did the girls go back for the kids? And if they did, where are they now?”
We get in the car and wait on the lay-by about five hundred yards from the media camp. More vans have arrived, and reporters are standing around waiting for any movement. One of them spots us and runs over, followed by several more. Rule eight of professional surveillance—know when to become invisible. I start the engine.
“That’s a whole separate MisPer. Maybe linked to Elise and her mum. Who knows? But we need to do something here. It’s gone national now.”
I drive down to the reservoir and into the car park. The steep sides where the water breaks are built up and protect us from being visible from the road. I see that the reporters with cars have passed the entrance to Dovestones and are heading farther up Holmfirth Road.
I take my phone out and call Jim Stewart. He answers immediately.
“Jan. How’s it going?”
“Not good, sir. We’ve done door-to-door and not really come up with much.”
Damien’s shaking his head.
“Not much to do with the abduction. No one saw anything.”
I hear a slight pause. Displeasure.
“Right. We’ve had the Peters fella in, and he’s saying he was at a karaoke. Backed up with that mobile vid you found. We’ve run your check on Ian Stevens, and he’s the manager of that project, worked there for about nine years, no record. Works part-time. Sent someone to talk to him about the van, and he says he didn’t take it home on Sunday. Took a Grey Mégane? Anyway, traffic confirmed him driving the ca
r along Mossley Road Sunday afternoon, and it’s parked outside his house from then onward. Got street CCTV. Lives on a main road.”
I sigh. Bloody hell. Dead end. But Jim continues.
“Thing is, he said that he was at the karaoke with the blokes for the project. Said he saw Peters do his bit, but when he looked round, he was gone. So he went to look for him.”
“Why would he do that, sir?”
“Said there’d been some kind of an argument. One of the other blokes. You know how it is with them sort. Anyway. He said he didn’t find him. He said he’d looked in the yard and the van engine was warm.”
Silence. I have to make a judgment call. All the evidence points to Peters, but I’m just not sure. Not sure at all. Not after what Damien said. I wait a second longer.
“Jan?”
“Yes, sir. Looks like we’ve got our man then. I’ll come in for an ops meeting tomorrow. Have him formally arrested, and I’ll question him in the morning. I’ll get on to Stan and tell him to up the search around Peter’s house and the project.”
I’m angry. It all adds up, but somehow I’m furious. In any other case, someone would be arrested, questioned, and then there would be a result. Wrap-up at the Red Lion. Drinks all round. But somehow this is different.
I glance at Damien. He’s writing notes again. He’s going to need another notebook at this rate. Damn you with your deepness, Damien. Because of you, I know we’re farther away than ever from finding Dara.
Chapter 16
The old woman, however, nodded her head and said, “Oh, you dear children, who has brought you here? Do come in, and stay with me. No harm shall befall you.” She took them both by the hand, and led them into her little cottage. Then good food was set before them, milk and pancakes, with sugar, apples, and nuts.
I open my eyes and Eva is standing in my room. I’m groggy, and I can feel my pulse banging in my head. There’s a strange pain in my legs, and as I try to stand I feel dizzy. Eva pushes a bucket at me.
“Monday morning. We have to clean.”
She walks out and slams the door.
My head is pounding. This is more than a hangover. I check the sore points on my body and find marks on my hands. They look like they are from a cannula, like the one I had when I gave birth to Elise. Then I realize what Eva had said. Monday?
The last thing I remember was Saturday night and the flashing lights. I must have passed out. I remember screaming and someone pouring vodka down my throat through a funnel and them all laughing. I press my leg. It feels swollen.
In the shower I find out the real extent of the damage. I can see a purple bruise on my thigh. I realize that I can’t even remember what happened. Then I remember my child and crouch down under the warm flow and sob my heart out.
I should have just run. I shouldn’t have left her on the street. I should have walked away and found somewhere to stay. But where? I’d exhausted all my options long ago. Like Eva says, who gives a shit where I am now? No one.
My thoughts about Eva lead back to Saturday night, and I suddenly remember Emily. I suddenly remember her head exploding all over the driveway and the blood pumping. I feel the vomit rise in my throat, and I’m sick.
I’m weak with sickness and hunger mixed, and I retch until just bile comes out. How can this be happening? And how didn’t I know about places like this? About what happens here? Eva’s knocking on the door again. I hurry out of the shower and get dressed in the jeans and T-shirt left out for me. She comes back into the room.
“OK?”
I try to smile at her. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and I’ve got a black shadow under my eye, slightly purple skin stretched across my eye socket, and a bruise underneath.
“Mmm. But . . .”
“Don’t worry about it. It’ll heal. And you’ll be excused until it does.”
She turns to go, but I pull her back.
“What the hell’s going on here?”
She shuts the door quietly and then turns around. Her hands are around my throat, and she pins me against the wall.
“Listen, you just do what you’re told. You kick off and it reflects on me, right? You fucking saw what the score was. What more do you need to know?”
I’m choking. She loosens her grip a little.
“Someone was killed, Eva. Killed.”
She lets me go.
“Yeah. I know. And that’s what happens. That’s what this is. At first you think it’s just like the club. Then you realize it’s something else. Something much worse. Then you find out it’s bigger than you could ever imagine.”
She sits on the bed now and fiddles with a piece of string around her wrist.
“Like what? It’s a house in the outback of Oldham, for fuck’s sake. How do you mean?”
She’s whispering now, her head low.
“Those movies. On the Internet.”
“Porn? Like on the screen?”
“Yes. But worse.”
I shake my head.
“So you’re telling me that everything that happens here is filmed and then . . .”
“Yeah.”
It can’t be. It fucking can’t be. I feel the fear rise, and it all suddenly fits into place.
“So that’s how Jameson gets all his money. I wondered how he financed it all just from the club. All the property. And the girls. The club’s a feeder to here?”
“Yeah. He handpicks the losers.”
She gets up and pushes her hair back.
“Come on then. We need to get going. We need to work.”
I follow her downstairs and the whole place looks normal again. No sign of what went on Saturday. No sign of what happened to Emily or of anything bad. Just a normal house in the country. A couple of guys eating breakfast in what now appears to be a dining room.
More girls appear, and Eva hands them some polish and cloths. I watch what they are doing and begin to wipe down one of the doors. Then I set to polishing a cabinet that’s covered in sticky alcohol. Two of the other girls are bleaching the tables.
I watch as a man with headphones emerges from the room at the back of the screen. I make my way over, polishing the dado rail as I go and start to wipe the door handles of the front door. A large man steps forward as I approach the door but steps away as I begin to rub the handles. He watches me as I move from the handles to the glass, and then I turn toward him.
“Is it OK to open the door to do the glass on the outside?”
He nods, and I open the door. I’m standing directly opposite the room behind the screen, rubbing the clear glass and I can see right into the room. There are laptops and phones. A huge computer with lots of disk drives and some small screens. I turn and look outside. The dark patch of blood where Emily had lain is covered with sand, and I wonder what happened to her body. Suddenly the man with the headphones comes out of the room opposite and talks on his mobile phone.
He walks past me and into the lawn area at the side of the house. He looks up in the air just as a helicopter passes overhead, swooping low. I want to run outside and wave, just for a second, shout for help. Anything to get me out of here. Anything.
I can see that Eva has lost any hope of escaping. She’s so used to being here that she’s become part of it all. She’s survived and will now go out of her way to make sure the situation stays that way. That’s why she didn’t help Emily. And probably many other girls before her. Survival.
I bend down, pretending to polish the door and listen to what the man is saying.
“Just keep them away from here. I don’t want them nosing around. Everything’s clear now. Chaz and Albert took it round the back, up over the hill. Yeah, buried it like the others. Nah. No chance. Who’s ever going to know, though? They’d have to find out first, wouldn’t they? They can’t even find one of them kids from fifty years ago, and they’re looking for that one.”
He’s right. No one will come looking because no one knows anything is wrong. Losers. That’s what Eva said. They han
dpick the losers. Of course they do. I move away from the doors. It suddenly dawns on me that these doors are the nearest I’ll ever get to the outside world again. What if it’s me next time? What if I’m the victim in one of their snuff movies?
I’m already full of morphine. I can feel it in my body, and I wonder if it’s medical morphine or heroine. Or if there’s any difference. I wonder how long it takes to get addicted, until it’s all you care about and you’d do anything for it. Anything.
I’m still wondering about it when the men leave. The area where they were sitting is clear now, and I bring my bucket and a squeegee mop. I fill the bucket from a tap in the back kitchen and leave my hands in the water, just like I did when I was a little girl.
I stay there for a couple of minutes and hope that acceptance will soon sink in. Acceptance that I’ve made a bad mistake. Acceptance that I really will never see Elise again. Acceptance that I could be dead tomorrow. Or the day after. Then I go into the dining room and begin to mop. I pile the chairs up on the table and clear away the plates, brushing a few stray napkins and leftovers into a bin bag. I want to eat the toast crusts and bacon rind, but my stomach wouldn’t stand it. So I throw them away.
There’s a newspaper on one of the chairs. I almost toss it into the bin bag until I see a grainy picture of myself on the front page. And a picture of Elise. My legs almost collapse under me, but I scrub the table and stare at the paper. There’s a picture of another little girl and the headline reads:
WHITE VAN MAN: SEARCH FOR MISSING DARA
I don’t understand. What do Elise and I have to do with a missing child? I read on:
Concerns were raised last night for a missing child. Dara Price, aged two, went missing during Sunday afternoon from the Oldham village of Greenfield. Her parents, property developers Marc and Amy Price, were unavailable for comment. The police are searching for the owner of a white Ford Transit van who was seen at the Prices’ home at the time Dara was taken. Dara’s disappearance follows concerns over the mother of Elise, a little girl who was found in her pram in Ashton-under-Lyne on Saturday afternoon. Police have said that the two incidents may be linked. They have made an appeal for anyone with evidence to come forward. Call the police on Crimestoppers 0800 100000 or post to their Twitter account @gmpolice.
Playlist for a Paper Angel (DS Jan Pearce Crime Fiction Series Book 3) Page 12