The Family Lie

by Jake Cross

  But he was moving, and breathing, and because of it he looked beautiful, perfect. She put her head against the door and closed her eyes.

  ‘He didn’t take any clothing. They’re his pyjamas.’

  But the happy moment was gone the next instant, because Josie was still missing. She tried to open the heavy door, but all four police officers grabbed her. Three had forceful words, but Miller’s soothing tone cut through it all. Before Nick was ripped from her view, she saw his face turn to the door. One eye opened and seemed to stare at her. The other was welded shut by dried blood.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ he shouted. The effort seemed to drain him, and he fell back against the wall.

  ‘Let me in there,’ Anna screamed, fighting against six hands holding her. Adrenaline strength got her close enough to the viewing panel to see him again. ‘Nick! Where’s Josie? What happened?’

  In the second she managed to remain at the door, he stared right at her and again shouted: ‘Use a towel for that, I told you. Who the hell are you?’

  There was a bench against the wall and she shrugged free of the hands clamped to her flesh and sat down, hard. More like a collapse. Everyone was breathing hard, bar the unflappable DCI, who sat next to her. But the older woman didn’t get chance to say a word.

  The officer watching through the viewing panel gave a shout. As Anna jerked her head round, the officer rushed to open the door. Both women leaped up at the same time. Anna got to the door just in time to see all three police officers bending over Nick, pinning his arms and legs.

  ‘Nick!’

  He was on his front, thrashing like an epileptic, and there was vomit under his head, his face rubbing back and forth in the mess. Screaming his name again, she tried to move forward, but Miller grabbed her arms.

  ‘Don’t go in. Anna, stop!’

  ‘Look at him! Do something.’

  She pushed Anna aside and rushed to Nick. Anna tried to copy, but the behemoth Bennet stepped up to block her way, and snatched an elbow in his bear-trap hand as she tried to slip by. Stranded, Anna watched as Miller lifted Nick’s head by his hair and jammed her fingers into his mouth, seeking a swallowed tongue.

  ‘What’s happening? Is he having a fit?’

  Miller twisted Nick’s head, leaned hers close, and pinched a portion of neck flesh between two fingers covered in his saliva. Anna saw a red welt and, even at this distance, a small hole.

  ‘Get a damn ambulance, you muppets,’ Miller yelled.

  It was that moment, a rare burst of anger from the ever-calm detective, that made Anna’s thighs lose power.

  ‘He’s just drunk,’ one of the PCs mumbled, shaking his head as if Miller had requested something stupid. Still on her knees, she actually kicked out at his ankle to get him moving. And then she looked straight at Anna, who was being kept upright by Bennet.

  ‘He’s been drugged.’

  * * *

  Middleton’s home was three miles northwest of the Carters’, just past Loxley. It was on the edge of a road overlooking fields, but the three-storey stone house was denied the view by a high hedge atop a grey stone wall running the length of the road. You had to enter the grounds to determine where his land gave way to the neighbours’, which was achieved through a stone archway barely wide enough for his car. Detective Constable Ella Hicks was instantly jealous because she lived in an end terrace with walls so thin she could hear her neighbour’s microwave oven beep. And those fools swore by ready meals.

  The old stone garage had a single sliding door, made of serious metal, that curved around the inside wall when open, but when this modern safety feature was installed, an old wooden door in the side got overlooked. The floor was linoleum, the walls tiled, ceiling painted, as if it had once been a kitchen. Now it was just a room for junk. Big boxes lined one side wall and the back, and a long bookcase of smaller boxes filled the other side wall. In the centre were two long standing racks of clothing in polythene to create aisles. It was all pretty neat and clean. Ella walked between the racks, skimming a hand across clothing that rustled. Middleton sat on an ornate stool she hadn’t noticed in one corner.

  ‘Don’t pull things out, please. Point and ask and I’ll clarify.’

  She didn’t point, though. She opened each of the big boxes and peered in. To reach the bottom, items had to be removed and stacked on the floor. There was more clothing, and there were items she imagined were useless because they were doubled up: when two households became one, nobody needed a second teapot or an extra toilet brush, and there was such a thing as too much cutlery. Most of it was stuff that should have been thrown away, but on the drive over Middleton had already pointed out that Anna’s mother, swept from the world by bowel cancer three years ago, had been a bit of a hoarder, loath to discard anything because you never knew when something might have a use once again. None of it gave a clue as to Nick Carter’s character or where he might run if he snatched his kid.

  Another big box had three trophies lying atop a mass of items, each depicting what looked like two people wrestling. She didn’t pull them out. ‘Are these Anna’s or Nick’s?’

  ‘Jane’s. She was the best female of her weight in South Yorkshire until her elbow played up. It was the only sport she could really do.’

  ‘I’m impressed. But why are the trophies in here?’

  ‘I taught my girls to look to the future, not dwell on the past. Hell, tried to, anyway. Look, there’s nothing in that box belonging to Nick.’

  Planning to check it if the remainder yielded nothing, she moved on. In the next box she found paperwork and trinkets, and here the couple got laid out. She held up an empty milk bottle.

  Middleton explained: ‘That’s Nick’s. Lucky charm, he reckons. Silly if you ask me. He came out of a shop, realised he’d forgotten milk, and went back in. While he was in there a car skidded and hit his motorbike. He reckoned he would have been just sitting on it at that time. Like I say, silly. But he keeps it for luck.’

  ‘I have a lucky rabbit’s foot hanging in my car. I haven’t crashed yet. You’re a non-believer?’

  ‘You make your own luck. Anna had one, too. It was a five-yen coin her mother gave her when she left school, for luck in life. My wife believed in it and Anna promised to pass it on to Josie when she was older. It was supposed to go down the generations, but she lost it just before she moved out of London. Did that work?’

  He might have meant the irony of losing a so-called lucky coin, or the events that had even made this conversation possible. Both were impossible to argue against.

  A photo of Nick and some mates on a street backdropped by chip shops and a beach. She recognised the North Promenade of Cleethorpes. Four of them on motorbikes, clad in jeans and black T-shirts that said ANGELS. An Asian-looking boy at the front seemed to be the leader, given how the others were arranged behind him.

  ‘Nick as a teenager. He used to hang out with some ruffians. I think they saw Easy Rider and wanted some of that. Kids being silly.’

  Sounded about right. Wannabe Hell’s Angels. ‘Know any of their names?’

  ‘No. That guy in the middle, I think he was from the Philippines. You think one of his old cronies could be involved?’

  ‘We’re soaking up information, that’s all.’

  He shook his head.

  She took a photo of the photo with her phone and dispatched it to Sergeant Bennet. Next, a picture of Anna with a girlfriend in a café.

  ‘Jubilee Café. She would sometimes work there, waiting for her boss.’

  ‘Marc Eastman? The man who’s now Secretary of State for Education? She mentioned him. Back when she lived in London?’

  ‘Back when she had promise,’ he sneered.

  ‘Promise?’

  He got off the stool, clearly agitated, and peered out the door, his back to her. ‘It was a good job. She had prospects. She met the prime minister. She got to travel. The money was good. She did half the work that Eastman’s wife did.’

  ‘Iliana
Eastman? I’ve heard about her. Supposedly controls him like a puppet. Seemed to forgive him when the newspapers ran that Witches of Eastman exposé last week. But your daughter did a lot of the work Eastman’s wife probably got credit for?’

  ‘And she did it without seeking praise or reward.’

  ‘And then she gave it up. Why did they leave London? Anna told me about some kind of animal cull scandal and threats against her boss?’

  He loosed a frustrated laugh, which told her this was a touchy subject. ‘I wish that were the reason.’

  ‘Something worse?’

  ‘To me, yes. I was aware that Eastman came under fire for statements made during the Bovine Tuberculosis crisis. Anna might have been weighed down at times during that period, but I believe she’s fooling herself, or she tried to fool you, if she claimed that was the entirety of her reason for throwing away the good things she had. She went to King’s College to study International Relations. That was set to cost me £25,000, although she quit after the first year because she met Marc Eastman. At a nightclub, strangely. Anna and Marc started talking, got on quite well, and then he offered her a job as his personal assistant, right there on that night. When the Conservatives won a few years later, she was overjoyed. Anna was smart and Eastman often asked her advice about matters. He even appeared in public a few times with her, in part because his wife kept to the shadows. In effect Anna was making a difference. She was working for the country, working to better it. Being important.’

  He seemed to want her to ask for more about this ‘important’ work, but she was more intrigued by another aspect of his tale. ‘Offered a job at a nightclub? Were they sexually connected?’

  He groaned. ‘You mean was she one of his Witches? Just because an anti-Conservative journalist is trying to sell newspapers and undermine Eastman’s recent promotion by exposing his fondness for extramarital affairs, it doesn’t mean he slept with every woman he came across. And certainly not Anna. She was very good at her job.’ His face grew grim. ‘And then she quit.’

  ‘I’m not sure I heard an answer to my question there.’

  ‘The Lotus Eater, Detective. That was the reason.’

  ‘You mean she quit to get married and start a family? Why do you call him that? I heard you say it before. And right in front of your daughter.’

  ‘In Greek mythology, the lotus eaters—’

  ‘Please,’ she cut in. ‘I know it means a waster. I called my own brother that once. I didn’t ask the meaning. I asked why you call Nick that name.’

  ‘I have no idea what she saw in him. I don’t even know how they met. She moved in powerful circles, mixing with people who shaped the country, and he worked as a personal trainer at a dingy gym. How do those worlds cross?’

  That annoyed her. ‘You make it sound like Nazi Germany. Should people like Nick wear armbands so the elegant like yourselves can avoid them in the street?’

  ‘She had a good job. She could have made something of herself. London was the place for her, the hub of the country. She had a home, a good house I rented for her. I was making plans for starting a business down there. Even Jane was thinking about a move south to help run it. The Conservatives had just won and her boss was riding high. And then the Lotus Eater came along and started sleeping there more often and ruined—’

  ‘She gave up a good career to get married and have a baby, that’s your problem? And she did make something. A little girl, who will be a woman, who might just cure cancer. Some of those genes are from Nick, by the way. But you got your daughter and granddaughter back close to you. You bought the house for them. You’ll note I’m pregnant, right?’

  He turned and glanced at her belly. His eyes quickly went back to his kingdom. ‘It was her mother’s idea. She never wanted Anna to leave South Yorkshire. And we both wanted to make sure any grandchildren were nearby.’

  She said, ‘And Nick was part of the deal, of course.’

  His response was a shrug.

  ‘My partner wants me to give up work. He doesn’t want me running around after criminals in my condition. He doesn’t want his little daughter worrying each night that Mummy will be hurt. I plan to do just that – quit work. And my job is important, just like Anna’s was. How do you feel about that? Will I be wastefully throwing my important life away to bring up a child?’

  He said nothing.

  ‘My partner runs a little computer shop. He fixes them. Our worlds crossed because he was hired as a strip-o-gram for me. That might be your answer.’ She tried to hide a cheeky grin. ‘Girls love a fit man. If Nick was a personal trainer, he might have been ripped and hot. Got any photos of him topless from back then?’

  He turned again, probably just to show the disgust on his face. It only made her laugh. But she got serious. ‘At least you’re not one of those men who thinks a woman’s place is in the kitchen, making the home sweet for the breadwinner. There is that. And consider this. If your daughter hadn’t made that decision, there would be no Josie, would there? No granddaughter. Look at the magnificent gift she gave you. Why do you still treat her like a failure after so many years?’

  He was facing away again, his head lowered and his voice was quiet. ‘I don’t even know.’

  But there was no time for drama or family guidance. ‘Please, Mr Middleton, let’s get a move on. Come and talk me through these things.’

  They didn’t get chance. Her phone rang. Bennet. After the call, she picked up the photo of Nick and his friends. ‘Not Hell’s Angels.’ Reminded of that famous outlaw biker gang, she had misread the word on the T-shirts.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Middleton said. He stopped and bent close for a serious look at the photo. ‘Angeles, not Angels. Like Los Angeles?’

  ‘Like the Spanish name.’ She tapped the Filipino’s grinning face. ‘This man is called Angeles.’

  ‘So it was his gang, maybe. A play on the Hell’s Angels? What does it prove?’

  ‘Maybe nothing. But my boss just found out who owns the phone number Nick Carter called before Josie was taken: Fitch Alicante Angeles.’

  * * *

  ‘Ketamine overdose, most likely. But he’s going to be okay, dear.’

  Anna stared at Miller. ‘What is that? I’ve heard of it. He’ll definitely be okay?’

  ‘They gave him benzodiazepines, and he responded awesomely. And they got the bubblegum out with mayonnaise. Someone stuck bubblegum in his hair, right on the laceration on his head. Some kind of joke. But he’s doing well, dear. But they want to keep him for a bit. Not too long. Precautions.’

  ‘It can cause a coma, though, that ketamine stuff,’ a uniformed officer standing at the door said. ‘And he’ll be addled for a bit. My brother’s mate, he once—’

  ‘Go check the car park for pickpockets,’ Miller said.

  When the foul man was gone, Miller apologised and told her Nick would be moving from A&E to a private room in the hospital shortly. And that the uniformed idiot was right about one thing.

  ‘Your man might be a bit confused for a bit. So we might not get many good answers from him. But he’s agreed to talk to us. We’ll go up shortly. You really should stop clawing at your flesh like that, dear.’

  Again, almost of its own accord, her hand had crept to her neck rash, fingers grinding back and forth. She wiped and saw a faint smear of blood on her palm. Or, like before, was it just dirt?

  ‘Nick told me to scratch through a towel. He had eczema as a boy and that’s what he did.’

  Miller’s jaw muscles tightened. Anna realised she was stifling a yawn. ‘We can get a nurse to look at it.’

  ‘Do you think they tried to kill him?’ The abrupt shift of subject didn’t even make Miller flinch, as if she’d been awaiting the question. Her answer backed this up.

  ‘It’ll be money, just money they want. That line about your Nick paying his dues, well, perhaps they were simply referring to paying the ransom.’

  There it was again, that reference to money. But at least Miller ha
dn’t accused Nick of complicity. Anna still wasn’t convinced this was someone’s get-rich-quick scheme, and the detective hadn’t really answered her question. And had no plans to: claiming she was going to oversee Nick’s move upstairs, Miller left the small staff kitchen, where Anna had been placed because she wasn’t allowed by Nick’s bedside while the doctors tended to him. When another uniform arrived to man the entrance, as if Anna needed observation like a patient, she shut the door on him. She ran water to splash her face and burning neck. She tidied the worktop where someone had spilled sugar and coffee granules. But no mundane activity would shift her mind from Josie, the terrible danger she must be in and her own helplessness, and the possibility that the kidnappers might have tried to kill Nick by overdose, so after that she sat to wait. She pulled out her phone and typed a name into Google.

  The uniform knocked fifteen minutes later and let in DS Bennet, who said he would escort her to see Nick. Like Miller, he warned her that her husband might not have many answers for her. He also gave the same answer she’d sought a dozen times since leaving the police station: no news about Josie, but we’re following leads.

  As she expected of patients in Intensive Care, Nick was connected to plastic and rubber and electricity, but she was buoyed to see him awake and sitting up in bed all by himself. And cleaned. A big laceration above his eye had already been stitched. She sat by his bed, with four police officers in the room and more uniforms outside. And an emergency medicine consultant, who she’d been told had refused to leave the police alone with Nick.

  He was groggy still, but his eyes recognised her. Earlier he hadn’t seemed to – Who the hell are you? – but apparently he’d been screaming that line to all and sundry before and after his arrest. But not because he recognised no one, as she would soon learn.