From the Cradle

by Louise Voss

  ‘No,’ Patrick said. ‘None of that. I just want to give you the chance to talk, and I’ll listen. Because I bet you never get the chance to do that, do you? In your profession, others tell you all their problems, and you listen to them. But I reckon you deserve the chance to do the talking for once. Let others know how you feel.’

  He felt foolish speaking the words, they sounded so clichéd and ridiculous to him, and for a moment he wished he hadn’t insisted on trying to do Fraser’s job for him. If Koppler was a bona fide psychiatrist he wouldn’t for a second buy all that guff – he was a highly intelligent individual who wouldn’t be taken in by impassioned rhetoric.

  But to Patrick’s surprise, Koppler seemed to take the bait: ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Oh, I do, doctor. I know what it’s like to find yourself in a situation that you think there’s no way out of. When all you can see ahead of you is darkness. But I found a way through the darkness – and you will be able to as well.’

  ‘What makes you think I’m facing darkness? Ahead of me I can see the thing I’ve always wanted. A family. A bright future.’ There was a smile in the psychiatrist’s voice and it struck Patrick that maybe he’d got it all wrong. He had assumed that it was Sharon, with her history of losing her family, who would be so desperate to replace her dead babies that she would have pulled Koppler along with her. But what if it was the other way round? If Koppler was the driving force, the one who wanted the children? To do it, he would need a woman to help, and when he met Sharon he saw the perfect, damaged female, someone who would go along with it.

  She was the weak link. She was the one they should be talking to, trying to reason with, not Koppler.

  He groped for something to say, to keep the conversation flowing, but before he could, he heard Carmella gasp and turned around to find her staring at the house on one of the TV monitors in the lorry, pointing at movement behind a window. A shot was fired – they heard it even from inside the artic, a sharp pop – and the curtains billowed outwards on the grainy monochrome monitor. A small boy crawled onto the balcony.

  ‘Go!’ yelled Patrick, and they all piled out of the trailer, running full tilt towards the house.

  Chapter 24

  Helen – Day 4

  Helen could sense Alice’s mood as soon as she walked into the kitchen to start making a dinner that, in all likelihood, none of them would do more than merely pick at. But she and Sean had decided that they had to at least try to keep a grip on normality, and regular meals were a part of that. Sean had even been in his study most of the day, attempting to catch up on some of his backlog of work emails. That’s what he said, anyway, but every time Helen had stuck her head round the door, he had been staring blankly at his screensaver, a rotating collage of photographs of Frankie and Alice.

  Alice had her back to Helen, but Helen could tell the sort of day she was having by the way that Alice was angrily spooning instant coffee into her favourite One Night Only mug. She was still wearing her sleep T-shirt and her black hair was all matted at the back, even though it was five in the afternoon.

  ‘Hi sweetie,’ Helen said, opening the freezer and wondering if she could defrost and marinate pork chops in the next hour. Remembering how much Frankie liked pork and, in the next second, wondering if someone out there was hurting her. The speed at which her thoughts always immediately returned to Frankie made Helen feel dizzy with pain.

  ‘You been in bed this afternoon? Thought you were studying.’ She winced as she spoke the words, realizing immediately that they would be perceived as a criticism. ‘I’m not criticizing,’ she added, taking out the chops and unwrapping them.

  Alice’s shoulders were as stiff as the pork chops as she poured boiling water into the mug. ‘Get off my back, Helen,’ she muttered.

  Helen gritted her teeth. ‘I’m not on your back, Alice, I was making conversation. Are you having dinner with us?’

  Alice snorted. ‘You, Dad, me and Nan sitting round a table in silence? No ta.’

  ‘It’s not easy for any of us, Alice.’

  ‘What – it’s not easy for you to sit at a table and look at me, the person responsible for letting Frankie get taken out of her room while I was in the house supposedly babysitting? That’s what you mean, isn’t it. You hate me, don’t you? Why don’t you just come right out and fucking say it!’

  Alice was already screeching, looking like a mad girl with her black hair all tangled and her face twisted with a rage that had slashed across Helen’s landscape, tearing it up without warning like a tornado. Normally Helen would have fallen over herself to placate Alice, murmuring platitudes and denials, but as she stared at her stepdaughter, something switched in her head. She was not going to be held hostage by an obnoxious fifteen-year-old, not any more, not with so many far worse things going on in her life. She put her hands on her hips and stared coldly at Alice, strangely feeling more in control than she had at any point since the night Frankie disappeared.

  ‘I don’t hate you, Alice. But I’ll tell you something – I’m not joining your little pity party, not this time. In fact, since you brought up the subject, why don’t you tell me exactly what you were doing that night? What was so absorbing for you and Larry – yes, I’m not stupid, you can tell the police or your dad till you’re blue in the face that Larry wasn’t there but I bet you anything he was – that neither of you noticed someone break into our house and steal my baby from under your noses? What was it? Sex? Drugs? Drink? All three?’

  Alice’s mouth fell open and she stood frozen to the spot, with the black coffee in her hand. Helen idly wondered if she was going to throw it at her. Had anyone ever challenged Alice that directly before? She was pretty sure that neither she nor Sean had. A Tiny Tempah song came on the radio, one of Alice’s favourites. It seemed to snap her out of her reverie and she walked up to Helen, still holding the coffee, her teeth clenched in fury and stress.

  Helen wondered which way it was going to go – confession, a plea for understanding, apology – or a resumption of the tantrum?

  ‘You miserable bitch,’ Alice hissed, slamming the mug onto the kitchen table and spilling coffee all over it. Ah, OK, Helen thought, so it’s back to the tantrum. Foolish of her to expect anything else. Alice was standing so close to her that Helen could see the faint constellation of spots on her forehead and see the sleep still in her eyes. Would they fight? Helen itched to slap her, but forced her hands to stay glued to her side, afraid that if they started they wouldn’t stop.

  ‘You can’t handle your guilt, can you, that you left your precious little baby girl with me while you and Dad swanned off to a fancy restaurant because you’re too tight to pay a proper babysitter?’

  Helen couldn’t even be bothered to point out the illogicality of that question. Alice would have kicked up a massive fuss if they had got a ‘proper’ babysitter in when she was at home herself.

  ‘I don’t have anything to feel guilty about, Alice. Do you?’

  Helen had been so determined to keep calm but, face to face with Alice and her rage, she could feel something seismic shift inside her, and the control she’d felt only moments earlier was beginning to desert her. Alice’s question about guilt echoed the words of many of the trolls on the Facebook page, adding velocity and heat to Helen’s rage. She hadn’t taken Marion’s advice; she still found herself compelled to read the comments in the way a tongue will repeatedly poke at a painful tooth.

  Helen took a step forwards until her and Alice’s faces were inches apart like soap-opera protagonists.

  ‘I asked you a question, Alice: Do you? DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO FEEL GUILTY ABOUT? I think you do, don’t you? I’m going to ask you again – what were you doing that night? Do you have something to do with Frankie’s disappearance? How could you not have noticed someone stealing her? HOW COULD YOU NOT HAVE NOTICED?!’

  That was it. The point of no return. Helen was screaming as loudly as Alice had been.

  Alice made a noi
se, a sort of primal, guttural moan. ‘I fucking hate you, Helen, I really, really do. You’re an evil witch and a shit stepmother and I thank God you aren’t my mother. Frankie probably just ran away because she hates you so much! My dad regrets marrying you, I know he’ll never get over my mum, and if she hadn’t died he wouldn’t have looked twice at you and if you think I’m staying here in this house a minute longer with you then you’re deluded, I’m going—’

  ‘GOOD! I’LL HELP YOU PACK!’ Helen screeched back, and they made a lunge at each other just as Sean came running into the kitchen and stood between them.

  ‘What in God’s name is going on?’ he bellowed. ‘I could hear you through my headphones!’

  ‘Dad!’ wailed Alice, tears now streaming down her face, ‘Helen’s being such a bitch! You said she didn’t blame me for Frankie, but she does! She just screamed at me for no reason and said she does blame me!’

  ‘I didn’t say that, I just asked what she was doing that night. Perfectly reasonable question, I’d have thought.’ Helen made a monumental effort to regain control, not wanting Sean to see her lose it in front of Alice. She walked over to the sink and picked up the blue sponge, wiping up the spilled coffee on the table with shaking hands. Sean folded his daughter in his arms, and she collapsed into his chest, sobbing dramatically. Helen gritted her teeth.

  The phone rang, and she rushed into the hall to answer it, desperate to get away from both of them. When she picked up she immediately wished she hadn’t – it was Eileen. The last person she needed to speak to. But when she managed to decipher what her motherin-law was saying, she felt all the blood rush from her head and she had to cling on to the wall to stop herself fainting.

  ‘I’m round Margaret’s.’ Margaret was a woman who lived nearby whom Eileen had befriended. ‘Have you seen it, Helen, on TV? It’s on the news, turn it on, quick, there’s a siege, they’re saying the kidnapped kids are there, it’s only up the road from you in Richmond, oh my goodness, Frankie’s there, somebody’s holding them hostage …’

  Helen dropped the phone and ran back into the kitchen, all her rage gone. ‘They’ve found her! She’s in a house in Richmond, quick, let’s go, Alice – bring the iPad and let’s find out where they are on the way, we have to go now, they’re saying that she and Liam McConnell are both there being held hostage – oh God, oh God, please let her be OK – come on, please, please …’

  Chapter 25

  Patrick – Day 4

  Sharon Fredericks backed up to the edge of the balcony then stopped, looking behind her then down at the street, a dazed expression on her face. Liam McConnell wailed, and she picked him up, holding him fiercely. It was then that Patrick spotted the huge knife in Sharon’s free hand. His heart sank. They were both wielding dangerous weapons, the pair of nutters. And where was Frankie? In the room Sharon had just come out of? Patrick had a terrible feeling that she was going to hurt Liam, then go back to get Frankie. Or worse, that somehow it had been Frankie on the receiving end of the bullet they’d just heard fired.

  Patrick became aware that the voice on the phone still held to his ear had gone silent. ‘What’s going on? Koppler? Are you still there?’

  He thought he heard a reply, but in the heat of the moment couldn’t tell for sure.

  The knife glinted in the sunlight as Sharon raised it above her head, a deranged High Priestess on her second-floor sacrificial altar. Suzanne, Carmella, Mike and Fraser approached the house and stood beneath the balcony, calling up to Sharon, imploring her not to do anything stupid.

  ‘Here, you talk to him.’ Patrick shoved the phone back at Fraser and legged it after the armed police, pushing aside the swinging bashed-in front door. He heard Suzanne call his name but ignored her. He heard barked orders from upstairs, an officer demanding that a door be opened, then a crashing sound, splintering wood, a yell – and more gunshots. Patrick ran up the first flight of stairs and pushed past the half-a-dozen armed police who filled the hallway. At the end of the hallway, an office door had been kicked in. On the floor inside the office, Koppler lay on his back, his shirt blooming red across the chest, a trickle of blood tracing a line from the corner of his mouth to his ear.

  ‘Shit!’ At least it wasn’t Frankie.

  He heard men’s voices and a child’s scream from the next floor, where Sharon was, threw himself back down the hallway and up the second flight of stairs.

  Four armed officers stood in what was presumably the master bedroom. French doors were wide open, revealing the balcony, curtains undulating in the breeze. One of the officers was ordering Sharon to put down the knife she was still holding, but now her hands were shaking so much that she could barely hold either the knife or the child in her arms.

  Patrick raced to the French doors, ignoring the protests of the black-clad officers. ‘Sharon,’ he said. ‘My name’s Patrick. I’ve come to help you.’

  She turned her head towards him. Her face was twisted with confusion, pink and wet with tears and snot. Her expression reminded Patrick of a documentary he’d seen in which a cow was led into a slaughterhouse.

  ‘Where’s Samuel?’ she demanded.

  ‘He’s downstairs. Everything’s OK, Sharon. We’re your friends.’

  She sobbed.

  ‘Put Liam down and come back inside. No one is going to hurt you. I promise.’

  ‘Don’t lie to me,’ she screamed. ‘They shot Samuel. I heard it.’

  ‘No, he’s fine. Just put … the boy down and let’s talk.’

  She shook her head vehemently. ‘I’m not going back to that place, that hospital. I don’t want to be locked up. I don’t want them to pump me full of drugs again, make me feel like I’m evil. I’m not evil.’

  ‘I know you’re not, Sharon.’

  Her voice was choked. ‘I’m a good mum. I was always a good mum.’

  ‘I’m sure …’

  ‘They’re not taking me back there.’

  And in one fluid movement, she turned and spread her arms wide so that there was distance between the knife and the crying child. He was sure that she was just planning to put Liam down on the balcony – but one of the marksmen inside the room clearly thought otherwise, as another shot was fired from inside the room, whizzing past his sleeve. Sharon’s body jerked backwards, a look of surprise on her face, and Liam was suddenly in mid-air. Patrick lunged forwards and caught him before he hit the floor of the balcony. In one swift movement he handed the shocked boy to one of the armed police. ‘Get him out of here.’

  Hardy entered the room. ‘Nice work, detective,’ he said, clapping slowly as they both surveyed the splayed body of Sharon Fredericks, the hole in her belly pumping red. Patrick rubbed his hands together in a washing motion, trying to wipe the blood splatters off them. His head pounded afresh and he had to swallow hard to prevent himself vomiting.

  ‘Shut up,’ he managed. ‘Get the paramedics up here, now. Where’s the other kid? Frankie?’

  ‘There’s no sign of her.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Patrick turned and pushed past Hardy, ignoring his throbbing head and churning stomach. He raced from room to room, looking under beds, in closets and wardrobes. He pulled open the attic door and poked his head inside, and half-fell down the stairs in his haste to find Frankie. As he ran around he noticed that smell again, the one that had been on Isabel’s clothes and in Koppler’s office.

  Opening one door, he found Koppler’s body, zipped into a body bag, momentarily abandoned where the paramedics had rushed upstairs to see to Sharon. The mobile phone Koppler had been talking on to Patrick still lay where it had fallen when he’d been shot.

  There was no sign of Frankie. In the room next to the dead man, Patrick found one bedroom that had clearly been occupied by a child: a single bed, Disney characters on the walls, stuffed toys, a pair of child’s pyjamas on the pillow.

  One child. As he exited the house into the warm evening sunshine, his blood felt cold.

  Sharon was brought out on a
stretcher immediately afterwards – a stretcher, not in another body bag. For a moment, Patrick felt a flash of hope. Carmella rushed over and crouched down on her haunches beside the injured woman, at the same time that Patrick shoved the paramedics aside and joined them.

  Sharon was still alive, just. The blood that trailed from mouth to ear formed a terrible symmetry with what Patrick had seen upstairs on her lover’s face.

  Patrick leaned close to her. She was trying to talk.

  ‘He … promised me … a family. I couldn’t have a baby of my own. They were too fragile …’ Her voice faded and she closed her eyes. Patrick was sure they’d lost her. But her eyes opened. ‘I’m so … sorry … about the little girl. When Samuel brought her to me it was like … like a wonderful gift. He wanted to make me happy. But it all … it all went so wrong …’

  ‘What happened, Sharon?’ Patrick asked, keeping his voice low, respectful of witnessing a life coming to an end, the guttering of the candle that was her spirit.

  ‘She wouldn’t stop screaming. We tried to give her … a bath. But she screamed and …’ Again her words trailed off. ‘It was Samuel. He was worried … the neighbours would hear. He pushed her under the water. Just for a minute.’

  Tears rolled from the dying woman’s eyes.

  ‘And Liam?’ Patrick asked. ‘He was a replacement?’

  Sharon’s eyes said yes. ‘We just wanted a child. Someone to love. I saw him in the car and recognised him. Such a sweet boy. His so-called mother didn’t care about him … She just left him in there, didn’t even lock it …’ She broke off, gasping and coughing.

  So Liam’s mother, Zoe, had been lying about not leaving the car unlocked. Patrick would allow himself to feel angry about all the hours wasted hunting for the man who supposedly bumped her later.

  Patrick leaned closer. There wasn’t long left. ‘And what about Frankie? Where is she?’

  ‘Who?’