by Adam Croft
A slight feeling of nausea starts to rise up from my stomach, but I manage to push it back. I know it’s because of a number of things – adrenaline, alcohol, drugs and a huge amount of excitement. I know the excitement is perverse, but that doesn’t stop it from feeling good. It’s the sense of knowing that you’re about to get justice.
Over the past couple of years I’ve been writing a lot of poetry and some short stories. In one, a man is kidnapped from his bed, taken out to the woods and tied to a tree, where he’s left to reflect and atone for his sins. I had the idea in the early hours of the morning a couple of months back. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t relax. So I went for a walk. I know the woods like the back of my hand, and they were strangely peaceful at that time of night. I didn’t feel any of the menace or unearthly feelings that might have been expected. I felt comfortable, lucid.
I really get into the heads of characters when I’m writing. I become them. I feel their pain, their anger, their elation. I like it. It means for a few short hours I’m no longer me. When she made that comment earlier tonight, I was transported straight back into the mind of the kidnapper in my short story. He’s silent as he waits for the right moment, calm as he carries out his business, does what he has to do. But inside, a fire is raging. He thinks of all the things this person has said and done to him over the years. And he knows he’s about to get his justice.
I glance into the rear-view mirror, just for a second. Her head is lolling about, her chin bashing off her shoulder as her weight pulls against the seat belt. I chuckle at the realisation that I actually went to the length of sitting her up in the seat and putting a seat belt on her. At least she can’t say I didn’t look after her.
As I steer the car off the road and into the opening between the two copses, I switch the headlights back to just the sidelights, trying to make sure I don’t attract any more attention than I need to. I slow the car – I need to, because of the lack of light – and drive in a little further until I find the perfect spot.
I kill the engine but leave the car’s sidelights on. I’m going to need to see what I’m doing. The soft glow of the car’s lights illuminates the tree like a shining beacon.
I get out of the driver’s side and walk around to the back of the car, opening the door and releasing her seat belt. I struggle to get my arms under hers and haul her out of the car, but eventually I manage it. She’s a dead weight. Her shoes make two loud knocking noises as her feet slip off the back seat and against the metal of the car as I drag her out, before there are two much softer sounds of them hitting the mud.
I smile inwardly as I become the character in my short story again. I feel everything he feels: the anger, the sense of unjustness, the growing pleasure at the imminent restoration of justice. It gives me the extra strength to do what I know I need to do. I drag her the few extra feet from the car to the tree and place her down on the ground before going back to the car to fetch the rope.
It takes me an eternity to prop her up against the tree and free my own hands to focus on the rope. Even though she’s only small, she feels like she weighs five times what she usually does. Eventually, I manage to lean her backwards against the tree at an angle and lock her knees, which stops her falling down just long enough for me to tie her hands behind the tree and then tie her feet to it. At that point, I know she’s going nowhere. I lean forward and plant a kiss on her forehead. I don’t know why, but it seems right.
Before I realise it, I’m back in the car and I’ve restarted the engine. It purrs into life beautifully, greeting me like an old friend. The headlights flicker as the engine starts and I look over at Angela, her head resting on her chest. The first thought that comes into my mind is that she’ll have a sore neck in the morning. Maybe I’ll pop by with some painkillers. Maybe I won’t.
18
Nick
‘It was years ago,’ I say, closing my eyes and wishing this whole situation would go away. ‘It’s not even relevant. I was a different person back then.’
‘It’s very relevant, Nick,’ McKenna says. ‘And I want to hear it from your point of view.’
Why? I want to say. So you can tell me which aspects of that don’t match what you’ve been told by other people? I wonder whether this is a deliberate ploy from McKenna, asking me in front of Tasha, trying to find out if I’m the sort of guy who’d keep something like this from his wife. She’s just found out that I am.
I’ve never kept it from Tasha, exactly, but it’s just not something that’s ever come up in conversation. It happened in a dark period in my life, and it’s not something I’ve been keen to talk about at any point.
‘What is she talking about, Nick?’ Tasha asks. This is what I really don’t need.
Tasha and I have never really been talkers. There’s a lot of stuff I haven’t told her, but it’s for her own good. I know how she reacts to things. And I know that the police know what happened. Now I have no choice. I swallow hard and take a deep breath.
‘I had a girlfriend. Angela. It was years ago. I’d totally forgotten about it,’ I lie. ‘It was a stupid, immature relationship that should have ended long before it did. We both drank too much and smoked too much shit and one night things got too heavy. I did something stupid and that’s the end of it.’
‘What did you do?’ Tasha says, quietly.
I swallow and shake my head. I’m ashamed to even recall it. It’s not something I’ve sat and thought about for a long time. I’ve changed so much since then, it seems pointless. Looking back, it’s like seeing someone else’s life. Someone who preferred drinking and smoking drugs and living the good life instead of being responsible. Someone out of control. ‘I waited until she’d drunk so much she passed out, drove her out to the woods, and tied her to a tree and left her there.’
Tasha’s mouth hangs open as she blinks at me.
‘I know. It was fucking stupid. I got pulled over on the way back home. Obviously I blew over the limit so I was taken in. When they asked me where I’d been, I told them. Apparently that’s the only reason I got a suspended sentence instead of time inside. I was banned and fined for the drink-driving.’
Tasha makes a small choking noise. ‘Oh my god. That’s why you didn’t want to go to America, isn’t it? You wouldn’t have got in.’
I nod without looking at her. ‘I was young and stupid. And I was bloody lucky, too. Another judge might have sent me down. But believe me,’ I say, holding eye contact with Tasha for as long as I can, seeing the tears misting her eyes, ‘I have never done anything like that before or since. That was the last time I got drunk.’ I look at McKenna. ‘Other than the occasional glass of wine every now and again, I barely drink.’
‘That’s why?’ Tasha says, quietly and delicately.
‘Yeah. That’s why. Because I never wanted to become that person again. When I drink I get stupid. That was the line in the sand, Tash. That was when I became the new Nick.’ I look at McKenna. ‘And that’s why it’s got absolutely nothing to do with what’s happening here and now.’
‘I’m afraid the law doesn’t quite see it that way,’ McKenna says. ‘As things stand, what happened yesterday morning is your word against your neighbour’s. And he doesn’t have a history of violent crime.’
‘I don’t have a history,’ I say, stressing the word. ‘It was a one-off incident. Years ago. It is history.’
‘You have a criminal record, Nick. For a violent crime. I’m not saying your word’s any less valid than his, but you’ve got to look at it on paper. We don’t know either of you personally so all we’ve got to go on is what we see.’
I take a deep breath and pace towards the window. ‘Well, can you not just take my word for it, then? I’m telling you the truth here. You might not know me but Tasha does, and Tasha knows I wouldn’t lie.’
I turn to look at Tasha, but deep down I already know what I’m going to see. She’s looking at me, the tears still misting her eyes, and she says nothing.
It’s McKenna wh
o speaks. ‘Nick, I’d like you to come with me.’
19
Nick
I feel like it’s all over. As though whatever happens now, they’re always going to suspect that I’m somehow involved in Ellie’s disappearance. That makes me want her back even more desperately, knowing it’ll clear any suspicions they have about me.
I think back to what the police said about mirroring my laptop and mobile phone. I wonder how that works, whether the emails to and from Jen Hood can be seen or whether the police just see what was on each device at the time they mirrored it. I know I need to be much, much more careful from now on. No more contacting Jen Hood from my mobile or laptop. I’ll need to think of something else. I’ve got the email address the messages were sent from memorised – not that I’ll ever be able to forget a single pixel of that first email for the rest of my life.
The problem is, I’m not the most tech-savvy bloke in the world. I can find my way around, but for all I know I could have landed myself up shit creek and not known about it.
I can’t blame the police. I was hoping they wouldn’t find out about the Angela incident, but now they have I’ve got to deal with the consequences. I need them to believe that was the one and only time anything like that ever happened. They have to believe that. Otherwise, things are going to get a whole lot tougher and I’m even less likely to get Ellie back.
It’s not that I think they’re going to find out anything else about me. It’s that the time they’d be wasting digging around in my past is going to detract from their efforts to find Ellie. I don’t even want police officers going to the toilet or blowing their noses – I want them all out there, pounding the streets, knocking on doors, doing absolutely bloody everything they can to find my daughter.
The police station isn’t far from where we live, but it seems to take an age to get there. Again, this is all wasted time as far as I’m concerned. I know that every minute counts when a child goes missing, and every minute lost makes me more and more desperate to have Ellie back with me.
The thought has crossed my mind that it might be someone from my past who’s taken her. There aren’t many people from my past who’d dislike me enough to do something like that, nor be unhinged enough to actually do it, but I do wonder whether Angela might be one. The problem is that she always seemed so meek and innocent. She never said boo to a goose. The drink and drugs were her way of letting her hair down and not having to live constantly under the watchful eye of her parents.
People change – I know that more than most – but I really can’t imagine that Angela would’ve become some sort of deranged psychopath who goes around kidnapping children. Then again, did I ever really know her? We weren’t together long enough. Which leads me to assume that she’d have no reason to track me down and kidnap Ellie. The last I heard, she’d moved to Australia. I can’t see that she would have come back from there to deal with the pissing rain and heavy traffic here.
It was a stupid thing to do. Even to this day, I still don’t know why I did it. I vaguely recall her saying or doing something and the ‘red mist’ descending. In those days, I wasn’t the sort of person who was able to deal with anger very well. I used to react. Why I reacted in that particular way, I’ll never know, but it’s been hanging like an albatross around my neck ever since, and things are only going to get worse now that it’s come out.
Oddly, what Tasha thinks of the whole thing just doesn’t concern me. I know she’ll be livid, which is her way of covering up the fact that she’s actually devastated but unable to show her real emotions. She’s always been the same, trying to put across this image of a strong, powerful, career-oriented woman. It’s all an act, though, and sooner or later she’s going to have to break. There are some things that even the strongest people can’t handle.
Coupled with that, I know that this will probably end up breaking us. I’ve seen the statistics on how many married couples whose children are kidnapped or killed actually end up divorcing not long after. It’s a lot for any marriage to handle, and ours has never exactly been the strongest. Plus I know Tasha will never forgive me for what happened with Angela. I can already hear her words in my head. It’s the fact that you didn’t tell me. How could you keep something that big from me? I had a right to know.
The problem with Tasha is she thinks she’s got a right to all sorts of things. She thinks she’s got a right to put all of her time and effort into her bloody job and to expect everyone else to fawn around her.
We had a huge argument about six months ago, not long after Ellie started at school. I made the mistake of calling Tasha selfish, accusing her of putting Ellie’s development at risk by never being there. Sometimes I think Ellie would be better off with me as a single parent rather than nominally having two but never knowing when the other one will be coming home. Uncertainty isn’t a good thing for a five-year-old girl. It’s not great for anyone.
And it’s the uncertainty of what’s happened to Ellie that is killing me now. I’m a planner. I like to know what’s going on. And right now I have no idea what’s going to happen next. I don’t even know if the police are taking me in to talk about Angela or about Ellie. Part of me doesn’t care – Angela was years ago and I can’t help them with Ellie. That’s the problem: they’re meant to be the experts at sorting out things like this, and I’m losing confidence in them with every passing minute.
I think back to the emails from Jen Hood. And a growing part of me wonders whether there might be another way out of this.
20
Nick
They tell me I’m not under arrest, but that it’s a formal interview. I don’t know what the difference is, and right now it doesn’t really matter. The journey to the police station took place in stony silence. Out of the corner of my eye I occasionally caught McKenna glancing at me in the rear-view mirror, perhaps looking for some giveaway or telltale sign.
The interview room is much as I’d expected, but perhaps a little more comfortable. The chairs are padded and there’s a carpet, which is a start. There are cameras in all four corners of the room, leaving nothing uncovered. I don’t feel nervous, but I really don’t want to have to go into any greater detail about what happened with Angela. It was stupid. I know that. But it was a long time ago and it has nothing to do with what’s happened to Ellie.
‘You’ve got to see things from our point of view, Nick,’ McKenna says. I want to tell her I do. ‘Your five-year-old daughter goes missing. You tell us you put her in the car and went back inside. Your sole witness tells us you didn’t. You react by ransacking the man’s house. We dig a little deeper and find out you’ve got previous for abduction.’ She leaves that hanging in the air for a few seconds before speaking again. ‘Do you have any idea how many missing children turn out to have come to harm at the hands of a family member?’
I shake my head. I don’t know the exact number, but I know it’s a lot.
‘Most of them,’ she says, pausing again before she leans forward towards me and clasps her hands. Brennan is sitting beside her, watching me with great interest.
‘Nick, if you want to tell us something, you can. We always find out what happened eventually. Modern policing isn’t about if we catch the perpetrator; it’s about when. The longer things drag on, the more difficult it’s going to be for you and the rest of the family to deal with what’s happened.’
I raise my head and look her in the eye. ‘Nothing has happened. Everything I’ve told you is true. I don’t know where my daughter is, I don’t know why Derek’s lying and I don’t know any more about anything than you do.’
Okay, so that last bit wasn’t quite true.
‘What are you hiding, Nick?’ McKenna asks, throwing me off balance. I must have given away some slight involuntary twitch, as Brennan cocks his head to the side and raises an eyebrow.
‘I’m not hiding anything,’ I say, sounding a little like the lady who doth protest too much. ‘Like you said, you’ll find out what happened eventually. Y
ou’ve already been through my phone, laptop and car. What more do you want?’
‘We want the truth, Nick.’
I laugh. ‘I can’t help you with that. I’m afraid that’s your job. What have you found in the car, exactly? Hmm?’ McKenna says nothing. ‘What about on my phone? My laptop? Anything at all? No. Nothing. So what the hell am I here for?’
‘We’ve been through this, Nick. We have every reason to treat you as a person of interest.’
‘No. No, you haven’t,’ I say, feeling increasingly agitated. ‘My daughter is out there somewhere. She’s five years old. I don’t know if she’s alive or dead, and we’re here, wasting time investigating the one person who cares most about Ellie in this world, rather than actually finding her and catching the bastard who took her! Or would that give you lot too much paperwork to actually get off your fucking arses and find her? I mean, why the hell would I report her missing if I had something to do with it? Have you asked yourselves that?’
‘Calm down, Nick. We’ve allocated all the resources we possibly can to—’
‘No, you haven’t!’ I interrupt, now shouting. ‘You two are meant to be leading this investigation and you’re doing the square root of fuck all. Why has it all dropped off? You were so good at first, and now everything’s gone quiet. Why’s that? Where are you focusing your efforts? On bullshit like this, that’s where. If you think I’m hiding something, arrest me. Arrest me and hand me over to some pen-pusher to take a statement from me, then lock me up for twenty-four hours. That’s what you’re allowed, isn’t it? At least in the meantime you can get on with actually trying to find Ellie.’ McKenna and Brennan say nothing. They just look at me. ‘Well, go on. Are you going to arrest me or what?’