‘Hello, I’m Millie,’ she said, though he’d probably worked it out already. ‘I live a couple of streets away. I met Louise through the baby clinic.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Greg greeted her as if they were old friends, the Red Riding Hood’s granny smile shifting up a few kilowatts. ‘Come in, come in,’ he urged. ‘Lou’s just upstairs changing Abigail.’ Opening the door wide he helped Millie manoeuvre the pushchair over the threshold, peering in at the sleeping baby. ‘And this must be Haroon,’ he said, his voice low, so as not to wake him. The buggy parked, he took Millie through to a lounge decorated in pale, neutral tones and spotlessly clean and tidy, with not even a hint that there was a child in the house.
‘Is there anything I can get you?’ Greg asked solicitously. ‘A cup of tea or a cold drink? Lou’s like a fish in human form at the moment. The breastfeeding, I suppose.’ He was trying too hard . . .
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ said Millie.
'We’ve just got back from the hospital, where Abi passed her last check with flying colours.’
‘That’s great news!’ said Millie, genuinely. It had surprised her when Greg had come to the door, and even more that he would welcome her so readily into his house. But then she had to remind herself of how clever domestic abusers could be. It was how they managed to get away with it for so long. She decided to test Greg out. ‘Actually,’ she said. ‘I’m glad to meet you too. Suli, my husband, and I were wondering if you and Louise would like to come over for dinner, perhaps next Saturday, or the week after?’ It was an impulsive invitation and Millie anticipated prior engagements, or at the very least babysitting difficulties, but Greg didn’t hesitate.
‘That’s so kind of you,’ he beamed. ‘And it would be great. I’ve been worried about Lou. She will have already told you how poorly Abigail was when she was born and, for some reason, Lou seems to blame herself for it. Her confidence has taken a real knock — not that it was particularly secure in the first place.’ He lowered his voice. ‘The doctor has alluded to post-natal depression. I’m glad for Abigail’s sake that Lou’s met you and coming to yours for dinner would be lovely.’
‘If babysitting’s an issue, just bring Abigail along,’ said Millie.
‘Oh, I’m sure we can find someone. Louise’s mum would love to, I know, but she lives just that bit too far away,’ he added. ‘Apart from her, I’m all Lou’s got. This Saturday would be fine. It might help to restore us to normal.’
Taking in the obsessively tidy room, Millie wondered exactly what counted as ‘normal’ in his book.
Just then Louise came down the stairs, looking surprised and slightly anxious to see the two of them together, almost as if they might be conspiring against her — which perhaps, in a way, they had been.
‘I thought you and Abigail might like a stroll to the park in the sunshine,’ Millie said. She glanced over at Greg. ‘But if you've got other plans . . .’
‘That would be nice,’ said Louise, checking for Greg’s approval.
‘Oh, don't mind me,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to get straight back to work. No rest for the wicked, eh?’
‘I’ll get Abigail’s coat.’
‘It’s a great idea,’ Greg beamed. He reached out for the baby. ‘Come here, you, and let your mummy get ready. Daddy’s little—’
‘No! Don’t say it!’ Louise snapped, startling both the babies and making Abigail’s face crumple. ‘She’s not Daddy’s little anything. She’s a little girl!’
Catching Millie’s eye, Greg smiled indulgently. ‘It’s all right, darling. I was going to say “angel.” I know what she is, and I’ve no doubt she’ll be a feminist through and through, just like her mum.’
The park was just a short walk from Louise’s home and the day was breezy but mild for the time of year, so after a circuit of the park that had lulled Abigail back to sleep, the two women found a bench to sit on in the sunshine. The wind blew Millie’s hair across her face and she pushed it away in irritation. ‘God, I must get this cut soon. It’s driving me mad.’ Louise’s dark hair was cropped short, elfin-style. ‘Maybe I’ll go for your look. Is that a post-baby haircut?’
‘Oh no, I’ve always worn it like this,’ Louise said, touching the nape of her neck self-consciously. ‘Well, at least since I was quite small. Mum cut it the first time. She said it was more practical. If I let it grow it would be really thick and curly. It did used to be pretty wild, and my brother used to take great delight in pulling it.’ She turned as an ice-cream van tinkled into the nearby car park and children began appearing from all over the playground. ‘Goodness, I didn’t think it was that warm.’
‘That will be our two in a few years,’ said Millie.
‘I suppose so.’ Louise was watching Haroon. ‘I wish I’d had a boy,’ she said suddenly.
It wasn’t the first time she’d said this, but where Millie had previously ignored the comment, this time she said, ‘I’m sure you don’t mean that. You’ve got a beautiful daughter.’
‘I know, but Greg really buys into all the pink, girly princess stuff and I hate it. It feels so wrong. Do you know what I mean?’
Millie wasn’t sure that she did, but she was beginning to learn that her new friend was far from straightforward. ‘Just wait ’til they’re in their teens,’ she said. ‘You and Abigail will have fabulous mum-and-daughter time together, while Haroon won’t want to be seen with me.’
One of the silences that sometimes elapsed between them took root.
‘Your boss seems like a nice man,’ said Louise, suddenly.
‘He’s all right,’ said Millie. ‘For a copper.’
Louise giggled. ‘I’m not sure that he was ready to be confronted with my bare boob though. I felt like saying “I’ve shown you mine now you show me yours.”’
‘You should have,’ Millie said, pleased by this sudden playfulness. ‘It would have really freaked him out.’ Impulsively, she added, ‘And his is worth seeing, I can vouch for that.’
Louise’s mouth dropped open. ‘How do you know?’
Ordinarily, it was a confidence Millie wouldn’t have dreamed of sharing, but she hoped that doing so might help to gain more of Louise’s trust. ‘Oh, we had a bit of a thing, a few years back,’ she said, casually.
‘You minx,’ said Louise.
‘Not really. It was way before I met Suli, and it didn’t last. It wasn’t a very good idea when we were trying to work together.’ Millie gazed out over the park. ‘A bit like you and Greg, I suppose, except that we decided not to pursue the affair. You didn’t seem surprised,’ she said.
‘About what?’
‘That my boss is a police officer. That I’m a police officer.’
‘No.’ Louise avoided her gaze.
‘A lot of people are thrown by that.’
‘Actually, I already knew,’ Louise admitted. ‘Shona told me. Only in passing,’ she added quickly. ‘Not because she thought I needed to know or anything. Perhaps she thought I would understand you were sensible and dependable. But I was glad to find out. It made me come to sit next to you at the health centre.’
‘Why?’ Millie turned to face her, sensing that they were on the cusp of something here.
‘Because at the time I thought I might want to ask for your help, but now . . .’
‘Help how?’ Millie prompted gently.
‘I’m not sure.’ She looked away. ‘It feels as if I’m being disloyal.’ Reaching out, Louise took hold of the handle of Abigail’s stroller and despite the soundly sleeping baby, began pushing it back and forth in quite an agitated fashion. ‘Look, I shouldn’t have started this. Can we just forget—?’
‘Does Greg hit you?’ Millie blurted out.
‘No!’ Louise’s face registered such pure shock that Millie almost believed her. Louise sighed. ‘I am worried about him, though. He’s being secretive, furtive even. I mean, he’s always worked late, as I told you, but it seems to be happening a lot lately, and he’s very vague about where he’s been. If
I ask him any questions, or even just try to show an interest, he gets irritable and evasive, and says he’s “in important meetings.” I happened to ask one of the other partners about one of these so-called meetings and it was obvious that he knew nothing about it. And Greg’s definitely drinking more. Last time I put out the recycling I was horrified by the number of wine bottles there were. I’m hardly drinking at all while I’m breastfeeding, so Greg must have polished off the rest, and that’s in addition to anything he might have while he’s out entertaining clients. The last couple of times he’s come home late there’s been this . . . smell too.’
‘What kind of smell?’
‘He’s been smoking again. He promised to give up when I got pregnant and I thought he had. He thinks I don’t know, but his clothes reek of it. And that’s the other odd thing, I’m fairly certain some of his clothes have gone missing.’
‘Such as?’ Millie was intrigued now.
‘A couple of pairs of jeans, shirts, sweaters — that kind of thing. I asked him about them and he said that they’ve been clearing some of the empty offices, so he had to take in some old things that he didn’t mind getting dirty, but that was a couple of weeks ago, and he hasn’t brought them home again yet. I know Greg puts on this confident front, but he does worry and I know there’s something going on that’s stressing him. I’m scared he’s got involved in something that he shouldn’t have.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know. But he works in the gun trade.’ Louise gave her a meaningful look.
‘And how long has Greg been like this?’
‘I don’t know exactly. Maybe from about the time when Abigail was born, or just before.’
‘It could just be the responsibility of becoming a father for the first time,’ said Millie. ‘Some men take it very seriously and perhaps mixing with the people he does, in his line of work, makes him anxious about how he can keep you and Abigail safe. Her being poorly won’t have helped, either. One of the guys I work with, Charlie Glover, he told me once that when his kids were born he had a terrible time worrying about how he could protect them, knowing what he does about the worst that can happen in the world. I feel the same about Haroon sometimes.’
Louise turned to Millie. ‘There’s something else too. You’ll think I’m being paranoid. I know Greg does.’
‘Try me,’ said Millie.
‘I think we’re being watched. Me and Abigail.’
‘What makes you think that?’ Millie asked.
She glanced quickly around, as if seeking out proof. ‘I don’t know. That’s it. Most of the time it’s just a feeling. I look all around and there’s no one there. But sometimes there’s a van. It’s either parked nearby or driving past . . . I’m sure it’s the same one.’
In Millie’s experience the phrase ‘I’m sure’ often meant just the opposite, but at the same time it was clear that Louise was experiencing some kind of issue. ‘What sort of van?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Colour?’
‘Blue, I think, or maybe green? Do you think I’m going mad?’ she asked now.
‘Of course not,’ said Millie, forcing some conviction into her voice.
‘Is there anything you can do?’
‘How do you mean?’ Millie was taken aback by the question.
‘Well . . . you know. You’re a police officer. Could you ask someone to look into it?’
It was patently clear that Louise had not the faintest idea about how the police operated, but what she needed above all, right now, was reassurance. ‘Well, I’m a bit limited, being on leave, but I might be able to talk to someone,’ said Millie. ‘What’s the name of Greg’s company?’
‘Pincott and Easton. It’s a family business. It belongs to Greg’s uncle. You will be discreet, won’t you? If Greg ever found out . . . he’d go medieval if he knew I’d told you all this.’
‘I’ll do what I can,’ said Millie. The sun had come out and was warm on her back. ‘Now, they might be too little for it, but we’re not. Fancy an ice cream?’
* * *
The only approximations to the name ‘Rosa’ that emerged from Grace Clifton’s friends and family were an elderly great aunt, Rose, and a classmate, Rosie, whose tall, well-padded frame ruled her out of ownership of the second parcel of clothes the moment Vicky Jesson set eyes on her. Nor could Mr or Mrs Clifton identify any further contenders among Grace’s social circle.
Charlie Glover spent the day trawling missing persons data online for Birmingham, the West Midlands and beyond, and checking in with relevant voluntary organisations. Again, the Rose and two Rosemarys he turned up were possible but unlikely, having disappeared over the last few months and in one case, two years ago, from outside the city. Mariner’s next strategy was to get an alert broadcast through the news media to make it known that, in connection with the Grace Clifton case, police were trying to trace a woman known only as Rosa, who may have information relating to Grace’s disappearance. She was being urged to get in touch due to concerns for her safety. The press officer came back to say that the appeal would be put out via local radio and TV news, so until then, where Rosa was concerned, they were largely back to the waiting game.
Chapter Nine
They don’t show this on the glossy telly ads, thought Sam McBride as she discreetly wiped a snail-trail of snot from her sleeve and turned her attention back to the child before her. She regarded Dominique Batista with interest. Thanks to a number of high-profile child deaths, all through her PGCE training, and in induction and CPD, the imperative of picking up any initial signs of neglect — which may in turn indicate a more serious safeguarding issue — had been drummed into Sam and her colleagues. What hadn’t been dwelt on was how hard this could be. To begin with Sam had felt fairly confident. It wasn’t that she was inexperienced in this area. Much of the school’s catchment comprised what the policymakers these days helpfully labelled ‘troubled families’ — a euphemistic way of describing the families deemed to be entirely responsible for society’s ills, as if they bore some biological characteristic that set them apart from the rest of the population. All of which was to miss the point that actually these were simply ‘families in trouble,’ exposed to circumstances that were, in the main, beyond their control. Give any one of those Eton-educated slime-buckets a month in the shit-hole that was the Fen Bridge estate and they’d be troubled enough to want to deaden the sharp edges with drugs and alcohol too — and probably not before they’d taken it out on the wife, girlfriend or kids, either.
But Sam had been badly stung last year when a casual expression of concern had almost led to the Spicer twins being taken into care, after what looked like cigarette burns turned out to be impetigo. ‘Try to step back and see the wider picture,’ Gordon had said at the time, and that was what she’d tried to follow ever since. And now a concern seemed to be popping up in one of the places she would have least expected it.
This afternoon while listening to Dominique Batista read, Sam became aware of several things all at once. Usually so beautifully turned out, today Dominique looked, to put it mildly, unkempt. Her clothes were creased and her school sweatshirt had what looked like an inch-and-a-half dried jam stain running down the front of it. Her beautiful, black, curly hair, normally tightly tied back, was escaping in whole chunks from its badly fastened elastic band and, close up, there was a stale smell about the little girl. But most of all Dominique seemed tense and uncharacteristically quiet. Already identified as a child with a cheeky sense of humour, today Sam’s little quips about the story they were reading fell on stony ground. ‘Is everything all right, Dominique?’ she asked tentatively. ‘How’s Mummy?’ But the little girl had just nodded her head, without looking up, and said, ‘Fine.’
Of all the parents in her class, Dominique’s mum was one of the friendliest, and she and Sam had quickly built up a good working relationship. Perhaps it was that she was not much older than Sam, or that Sam had a natural sympathy towa
rds her as a single parent (an inevitable disadvantage as far as the head was concerned), but she was obviously keen for her daughter to do well in school. The term was just a few weeks old, but she’d already been in a couple of times to ask how she should be helping Dominique at home in the evenings, and she seemed like a bright woman. Sam knew vaguely that she and Dominique had only moved to the area recently, having come up from London, but she knew nothing of the circumstances. By origin Ms Batista had indicated that she was Portuguese.
Sam was only too aware that at the slightest whiff of something amiss the head would haul in social services. Dominique and her mum were very close. It only took half a minute watching them having a giggle in the playground at going home time. If Sam betrayed her to ‘the social,’ how would Dominique or her mum ever trust her again? And she didn’t know for sure that anything was amiss. All she’d got here was a kid who was a bit scruffy and uncharacteristically quiet. At what point did that spill over into being a safeguarding issue? Dominique’s mum was on her own, so today her daughter’s demeanour could mean anything. Ms Batista might be working longer hours, or she could be ill. Maybe the washing machine had broken down. Did they even own a washing machine? The best thing would be to catch Ms Batista at the end of the day for a chat. But then, when three thirty came, Archie Lewis’s mum was there complaining that her son had gone home without his designer baseball cap yesterday, and by the time they had found it (safely tucked away in Archie’s drawer, of course) and Sam got outside, Mr Warren was there, pulling the gates shut on an empty playground.
Missing Lies (Reissue) Page 7