“What about her? You ran a check on the wife, right?”
A loud sigh. “I don’t really know what you expect to get on these people, Kev. He’s a school teacher. She works at the bank. They’re both in respectable jobs.”
Kevin frowned. “I arrested a priest last year. You want to know what for? Shoplifting. The year before that I arrested a social worker. She was driving whilst under the influence of alcohol at three in the afternoon. She drove into the back of a double decker bus. Three people were injured. The harsh reality is that even decent people in decent professions don’t have their shit together.”
Jimmy snickered. “You’re probably right. The only thing we’ve ever had on Joanne Wilson was a cat brawl in the city centre after a night out. Somebody tried to steal her place in the taxi queue so she punched him in the face and hit his girlfriend with a bag of chips. It’s hardly grand theft auto.”
Kevin shook his head. “So, she’s got a bit of a temper?”
“Who hasn’t. If we were all arrested every time we lost our temper, we’d need to convert all of those big shopping centres into jails just to keep the streets safe.”
Kevin laughed. Jimmy was right. He really had nothing to go on, but there was something about Dan Wilson that really bothered him. He hadn’t been able to put his finger on it. Could it have been the vagueness in his answers? The way that he seemed so defensive? Maybe it was the way that he offered no comfort to his distressed wife? Or maybe Kevin was just tired and disgruntled because he felt out of his depth. Whatever the reason, he wanted that baby back in his cot as soon as humanly possible.
“Okay, well thanks Jimmy. Listen, I need you to do me one more favour. Can you get me an address for someone?”
He could almost visualise Jimmy rolling his eyes. “Sure, who?”
“Greg Burns. I don’t have any other details other than a former address. He was questioned for a murder here in Golf Road about two years ago, though, so that should narrow it down for you.”
He ended the call and stared down the street. If Greg Burns did have Archie, could that mean that he had also taken Samantha? He ran over the possible scenario’s in his mind. Did Samantha discover him taking Archie? Did she see him from the window? How could he have taken two of them without anybody noticing? Even for a man that size, it was a tall order. There was also the possibility Greg wasn’t involved at all and their original assessment of the investigation was spot on. Or just maybe the two disappearances were unconnected. Maybe Samantha was just a good old-fashioned runaway. From what Irving had told him, it would appear that not everything was rosy in that garden either.
Wallace stepped out of the car and headed back towards the Wilson’s house. Joanne was already on the edge. He decided that he would keep this information to himself for now. He just hoped that Laura Gilfeather could do the same.
ELEVEN
“Mum, did Sammy take the baby from next door?”
Mary had searched Samantha’s wardrobe and found that the only thing missing was the clothes she was wearing and her yellow raincoat. She had wrung herself inside out and now the only thing she could do was wait. Mary remembered being terrified when her marriage broke up and she discovered she’d have to start afresh. She didn’t think it was possible to feel more frightened than that. Throughout the night, she had been introduced to something much worse.
Mary had searched every nook and cranny. In her mind, she had told herself it was possible for Samantha to hide. Why though? She had a perfectly adequate bedroom she didn’t have to share with her sister. That wouldn’t have made any sense. It certainly wouldn’t have been a hiding place that she could bring a baby. The house was reasonably big, but it would be impossible not to hear a baby cry. If Samantha had even taken the baby in the first place.
All these confusing thoughts raced through her mind when she saw Lizzie enter the lounge and she hoped that she didn’t look quite as faint as she felt. She had already insisted that the girl go to bed. She didn’t have it in her to protect one daughter from savage insinuation whilst trying to re-assure the other. One thing at a time, she told herself, longing to wake and find it was a terrible nightmare.
PC Irving had said all the right things. Nobody was jumping to conclusions, he’d said, whilst looking at her with an expression that told her it was exactly what they were doing. She had told the policeman that she fully intended to go out and look for her daughter. He’d looked at her as if she were mad. It was past midnight and the streets were dark and cold. The only outcome of such a rash decision would be to potentially get herself into trouble and that wouldn’t do any good when they found Samantha. The police were doing their job and trying to find both children.
“Lizzie, come in.” Mary ushered the girl into the room and wrapped her arms around her. Lizzie looked as if she had been crying because her eyes always turned rose-red whenever she had been rubbing tears away. Mary tucked away her own despair and reminded herself that parents weren’t allowed to be people. Not now! She lowered Lizzie onto the sofa where she hugged her and ran her fingers protectively through the girl’s hair. “You might hear some bad things about Samantha, but I want you to know that we’ll get to the bottom of it. It’s all been a huge mistake. She won’t have done this terrible thing that they’re suggesting.” Silently, she wondered if she were trying to convince Lizzie, or herself?
Lizzie sighed and wiped her eyes again.
“Now go upstairs and try to get some sleep. You look shattered.” Mary brushed her daughter’s cheek and gave her a gentle smack on the backside then watched her leave the lounge. Then she allowed herself to become a person again. She shook with fear and trepidation whilst biting on her lip to stop herself from falling apart.
She returned to the window and rubbed her finger nails against her teeth. It was the only thing she could do not to chew down on them. Her fear worsened and the sickness in her stomach made her feel more bloated because her other concern was that Samantha was too compliant. Even as a little girl, Mary had feared she would wander off with a perfect stranger because she was so overly friendly. The idea that she had taken Archie was unthinkable and yet what other explanation could there be? Mary’s head felt like it was going to explode as it crashed through all the potential situations; each one more frightening than the last until the only hope was that she had taken Archie and that they’d be found soon.
She stared at the blackening skies and buried herself inside her own thoughts. It was only when the almighty commotion erupted outside that she was forced to come hurtling back to reality.
TWELVE
“Greg?”
He was pushing the trolley up the supermarket aisle when he heard the voice call his name. It had been a long time since he’d heard that voice and the familiarity caught him off-guard. The overhead light flickered for a mere second and he heard the voice in his head tell him to keep on walking.
“This is a nice surprise. What are you doing here so late?”
The pull of recognition made him feel quite anxious. Hesitantly, he turned and found himself staring into the ageing face of the one person who had ardently supported him. “Mrs Webster,” he stuttered. His shoulders had risen so he was almost in defence mode. Had he continued to walk, he would have been left with the mental image of his mother slapping the back of his head and telling him it was rude not to say hello.
“Hello, how are you?” She looked like she might embrace him but must have remembered that he didn’t like to be touched.
“I’m okay. I’m good. I’ve got a job,” he said in the same childlike way that he had always spoken.
“That’s good pet. You know, I miss you on the street.” She had heard rumours that he sometimes returned after dark. She had never seen him herself and she knew all too well the dangers of believing tittle tattle. She looked up at his face and saw his eyelids had dipped. He looked sad. She really had to fight the urge to stroke his arm and ask him if he was alright. Instead, she peered into his trolley. “You
got some visitors?” She realised her smile was probably wider and brighter than it ought to be. She was trying too hard.
He shook his head and then moved to stand in front of the trolley to prevent her investigating further. “You’ve worked here a long time,” he acknowledged as he fidgeted with his fingers.
She wondered if he were trying to divert her attention. “For my sins. I’ll be a hundred before this government will let me retire. Anyway, do you need some help with your shopping?” She had a sudden flashback of the times she would find him at the side of other people’s houses eating from their bins. She hadn’t known how bad things were in that house until then. On one particular occasion, when he was 15, she had found him eating from a half empty can of dog food. She hadn’t known whether to vomit or cry. As she peered round his hulking frame, she wondered if he had any concept of what he was buying.
“I’m okay, Mrs Webster. I only need two more things.” He smiled again and scratched at his chin.
He had grown a foot taller since he’d frequented her house but none of his mannerisms, or the desolate look in his dark fragile eyes, had changed. She recognised it instantly and stepped back. “Well, it’s very late pet. I’ll let you get on with your shopping and if you need anything I’m just going down to the checkouts. You come by and I’ll pop you through on my discount. Okay?” She gave him a wink, just as she used to when she’d slip him extra food and ice-cream, and began to walk away. As she did, she looked back and saw him disappear into another aisle. It was a heart-breaking sight. How could that great lumbering man shell the mind and behaviour of a seven-year-old? It still didn’t equate with her, yet she knew all too well that he was barely more than a child.
As she slipped into checkout number one, she longed to ask him where he’d moved to because she still had that overwhelming sense that he couldn’t look after himself any more than he could as a boy. She still felt anger towards his mother. She knew it was wrong to speak ill of the dead, but Moira had given that kid a dog’s life. The irony of her thoughts struck her and she pushed them out of her mind. Instead she thought about the gossip of other people. How they treated him because of his disability. They were frightened because he stared at their children, but Ida recognised the longing of a friendless boy. They had also been frightened of the way he muttered frantically when he walked the streets alone. Ida only saw his anxiety. There was still a place, albeit tiny, where she had to tuck away all that pointless anger she felt towards her neighbours. Otherwise she would have been tempted to pour it all over them.
Ida had written down her phone number on the back of a discarded till receipt. When he came to pay, she would pass it to him and tell him to call her if he needed anything. She was dismayed to find him slink past with two packed bags of shopping. He hadn’t wanted her discount and he hadn’t wanted to speak to her. She watched him disappear, without making eye contact, out of the automatic doors. He hadn’t even said goodbye. She now noted how awkward the earlier exchange had been although she hadn’t noticed at the time. She straightened up and smiled at the next customer but for the rest of her ten-hour shift, she could not get Greg Burns out of her mind.
THIRTEEN
If Joanne could get her bare hands on Samantha Bradley, she feared there’d be no amount of police officers who would stop her from mauling the girl. In Samantha’s absence, Joanne had decided on the next best thing. The girl’s mother.
She had slipped past Myra and Dan and made her way out the front door. She was already throttling down the icy stairs before anyone realised she wasn’t going to the bathroom. She made her way onto the street and saw Mary Bradley standing at the window next door.
Wallace and Irving had just been knocking on Ida Webster’s door but found that she was either not home or in bed. They were walking back towards the Wilson house when they saw Joanne come tearing across the thick snow.
“Mrs Wilson, that’s not a good idea.” Kevin Wallace ran towards her and grabbed her by the arm. She was standing at the foot of Mary’s garden and could see the woman staring in horror.
“Maybe not, but it’ll make me feel better.” She spat the words at him as she tried to snatch her arm away.
“The only thing that will make you feel better is the safe return of your son. We’re doing everything we can to make that happen. This won’t help.”
Joanne scowled at him and then pointed angrily at Mary. “What kind of monster are you raising? Going into people’s houses and snatching children. If anything happens to my son,” she paused and saw her husband create a human barrier between her and Mary’s front steps.
Dan took Joanne’s free arm and they gently escorted her back to the house. The sound of her screaming through broken sobs made him feel quite ill.
Joanne stared at Mary one last time and howled. “If anything happens to my baby, I’ll tear you and your daughter apart.”
“Get in the house Joanne. Making a scene won’t help anybody.”
Dan sounded more forceful than he had all night. Maybe he did have a backbone after all, thought Wallace as he slammed the Wilson’s front door shut.
Inside, another fight broke out. Dan had been frightened to tip his already fragile wife over the edge and now it had finally happened. She lunged at him and clawed her fingers down his face until she drew blood.
“You bastard. What the hell were you doing when that little bitch took our son?”
He cowered away from her and wiped his face with the palm of his hand. He didn’t answer. He didn’t know how to. It sounded so ridiculous; a grown man so engrossed in a rugby match that he had neglected to keep his son safe. If his face hadn’t been red from the smeared blood, it might have been obvious that she had just shamed him. He looked around the room and then back at Joanne. He had no retaliation.
“I swear, Dan. If anything happens to my boy, I’m holding you responsible.”
FOURTEEN
Joanne was still spitting feathers when Irving decided to go next door to check on Mary. Through all of this she and her missing daughter had been neglected. It was still entirely possible that Samantha had taken Archie. It was also still entirely possible she was also the victim of something more sinister. Where was her police presence, he wondered? Was he as good as it got until they decided that she was the victim rather than the villain?
“Here! You must be shattered.” Irving handed Mary a steaming mug of hot sweet tea. The woman looked as if she were about to faint and Irving could only imagine the hell she was going through. He didn’t partake in tea himself as he’d already had nearly enough to sink a boat.
“You know I saw somebody taking photos of the house a short while ago. Do you think they’re from the newspapers?” Mary wrapped her hands around the mug.
“Who knows? These things don’t stay under wraps for long, so I imagine by tomorrow they’ll be camped out. It just depends on how interesting they think their readers will find the story.” He chastised himself because he realised he must have been insensitive. “What I would say is that if you get phone calls and you likely will, make no comment. You’ve no idea how they can vilify you. I saw it happen here once before.”
“The murder? I heard about that. Samantha had begged me to buy this house because of her morbid curiosity but Lizzie was terrified. She didn’t sleep here for the first few nights. I had to go in and comfort her until the third night. Her bedroom faces onto the back lane. She would come into my room screaming that somebody was watching her.” Mary nodded her head before stifling a yawn.
“Did you look to see if there was anybody there?” Irving wrestled himself into a more comfortable position on the sofa.
“The first time, yeah! Why?” Her eyes narrowed. “It was just the workings of an eleven-year-old’s imagination. There was nobody there when I looked. I even showed her. She soon got over it.”
Irving nodded. “Of course. A new house can be unsettling for a kid that age.” He paused and gave it some more thought. He wondered if Lizzie would recognise
the lurking figure if she saw a photo. Irving was quite sure that it hadn’t been her imagination at all. However, Wallace had insisted that he didn’t say anything yet. This was something they would sit on until they had an address for Greg. The last thing they wanted to do was spook a potentially unstable man into doing something terrible.
Irving looked out of the window. The snow had started to fall once more. The ground was so thick that they could no longer see the black tarmac. Winter had come and it didn’t show any sign of relenting soon.
Mary sipped on the tea and sighed. “You know, I can’t believe she would do this. I’m still struggling to equate any of this with my sweet 15-year-old girl. She’s a good person, you know. She loves babies and animals and hates that there is so much badness in the world. It just doesn’t make any sense to me.”
Mary sounded battle worn and close to tears. Naturally she wouldn’t believe it of her own child. Irving had never met a parent yet who had said ‘Yes it must have been my kid, it sounds just like something she’d do.’
“I don’t know Samantha. I do know that unsettled kids can act out sometimes though. You said you’d only moved here recently. Maybe she needed something to get your attention.”
Mary arched an eyebrow looked as if she might tear off his head. What she couldn’t say in words she said with her expression. Her face softened then. “I grew up on this street, you know,” she said wistfully as she looked away from him. “It wasn’t like this. We lived in an old council tenement. They pulled it down years ago so that they could build this brand new community. Out with the old riff-raff and in with the new. Some of us just keep coming back though. All my memories of my childhood are at the end of this street. That’s what I wanted for the girls. For them to know roots and grow up somewhere that felt like home.”
The Dead Of Winter Page 4