The Family Lie

by Jake Cross

  He found himself on gravel beside a road. A lock-up garage. Similar garages ran away left and right, and ahead, far side of the road, was a tall hedge before a wide and tall brick building. High up on that building was a sign that said, NEXT. Clothing store, he realised. But he had no idea where he was.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ he said. His eyes flicked left and right, as if seeking the source of his brain’s cry, as if part of him had registered a danger the rest wasn’t aware of. No one around, though.

  Three men flickered into existence and the concrete beneath him changed to grass. But a moment later men and grass were gone. He got to his feet and it happened again. Like a subliminal image in a film reel, grass instantly sprouted under his feet and black-clad men materialised. Just for a flash of a second. He remembered them, he realised.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ he shouted. But the men had gone.

  He started to stagger. The open street once again turned into his back garden and three men in black appeared to block his way. They rushed him, but this time they winked out of existence just as one was swinging something at his head. Still, he jerked back, one arm up to defend himself.

  Then he remembered Josie. Poor Josie. Her window, opened by one of the men. Poor Josie, gone. They had taken her. He dropped to his knees on the gravel and stinging pain knocked the cobwebs away.

  A scraping noise turned his head. Other side of the road, by the hedge, a man and a woman were quickly walking by. They seemed not to have noticed him. He opened his mouth to yell for help—

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ he shouted instead. Their pace quickened, and they didn’t look at him. He tried to approach, but his legs gave way and he tumbled.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’

  The man and woman scuttled past and away. Before he went out again, he heard one of them, probably on a phone, asking for the police.

  ‘And that’s the last thing you remember?’ a voice said. He turned, seeking the source, but saw nothing. ‘Until the police found you stumbling along?’

  It took him a moment to realise his mind had mixed some kind of present/past cocktail. The tall detective sergeant was standing close, looking very much like a guy awaiting an answer. Nick just nodded.

  ‘Nothing in between? All black from the moment you were knocked unconscious and drugged, until the point where you woke up in the garage?’

  Nick knew his pause aroused suspicion. When he shook his head, eyes averted, he expected someone to challenge his memory. But nobody got the chance because the door bashed open.

  Anna was in the doorway, red-faced from tears. He felt awful knowing that she’d been crying out there somewhere, doubtless about his attack on her father, while he recounted his hazy tale. He wanted to apologise, but kept his mouth clamped shut because it couldn’t be trusted while remnants of that damn horse drug still rampaged through his veins.

  ‘I want a moment alone with my husband,’ she said.

  Nick expected refusal, but the DCI ordered her people out of the room. The doctor wasn’t her employee and Anna had to ask him. Twice. When they were alone, she sat close by him and the distress on her face made him realise something that had eluded his cloudy head: he hadn’t considered what had happened to her. They’d told him the basic facts of the night, but not what she’d been through; how she’d learned he and Josie were missing, or what turmoil she felt. Her night had probably been just as bad as his and they’d both suffered alone. He took her hand and knew he had to risk words.

  But she didn’t answer his question of what had happened. Instead, she said, ‘About my dad…’

  He squeezed her hand harder. ‘I’m sorry about saying your dad was to blame. I’m just… messed up.’

  ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Father has already said he’ll put up the money. Maybe that was the plan.’

  Now he understood why she’d fled the room. His claim had struck a nerve. Understandably, because they didn’t have anything close to £50,000 and her father did. So his claim didn’t provoke any ideas other people hadn’t already had. But he tried to backtrack:

  ‘Maybe it was our house. It’s a nice bungalow. Maybe someone came along and saw Josie playing in the garden and figured we had money. They wouldn’t know the house was a gift. Josie might not have been taken because of your dad. Just a random thing.’

  Because she saw the empty conviction in his eyes? Whatever, she was shaking her head. ‘She was taken from her bedroom. This was planned. And you’re right, we don’t have money. Father does. But I don’t get it. Why not take me or take Jane? Why a little girl from her bedroom? Anyone could have got to me out on the street. Much easier.’

  Because subterfuge was unnecessary now, he felt all the anger coming back. ‘Big, fully grown adults? Harder to control, more likely to escape or remember faces. Josie is five and they can manipulate her more. And she’s smaller, so there’s not such a big hole to dig to bury—’

  She yanked her hand away from his with force and tense fingers, so that her nails clawed him. ‘Don’t say that! Josie is coming home to me today. Understand?’

  He rubbed his uncontrollable head and nodded. But he still wanted to rage. He wanted to smash something. He’d never had a child kidnapped before, so maybe this was a natural reaction. Maybe it was just the drug. Maybe he felt impotent, unable to help his daughter from this hospital bed. Maybe this was all a damn nightmare and he’d wake the night before he nearly killed a pal with a stone pipe.

  He closed his eyes to lock in tears he felt trying to escape. He would rest his brain, settle his mind, hope that both would reorient soon. He expected Anna to get off the bed and leave, but she remained there. And her hand found his again. That was the woman he loved, he remembered: she of bottomless compassion, who despite being absolutely overwhelmed with grief for Josie, had still found room to think about tending to her husband.

  He squeezed back hard, and decided he would unleash building rage and hate no more. He would save and store every ounce that knit inside him, and gift wrap it for the man who had Josie.

  When the door opened and Miller walked in, Anna realised she’d lost track of time while gripped by terrible thoughts. A glance at the clock showed only seven or eight minutes had passed. Nick was asleep.

  ‘Anna, dear, it’s time to leave. The consultant, though, he wants your man to agree to see an addiction psychiatrist before we leave.’

  Addiction psychiatrist? Anna realised Miller must have spun a lie to the A&E staff, or just refused to explain how Nick had overdosed and why he had such a big and official entourage. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

  ‘He’s okay to leave? They said that?’ She looked at him. He seemed at peace and she hoped the sleep would clear his head. ‘He won’t have a… a relapse or whatever?’

  ‘They said he can leave,’ was the ambiguous response. ‘The psychiatrist will have a quick word, then we’re heading out the back way. Police presence here – big gossip. Nobody knows about the kidnap and we kept schtum about what actually happened to your man. The consultant is sworn to secrecy. I need you to do the same if you’re asked. We can’t have word leaking out. We don’t know if any of the kidnappers might be in the building. His overdose of ketamine was accidental, okay?’

  ‘They might be here?’ Anna said, shocked. ‘Have you looked at cars outside?’ She stood up, suddenly buoyed by the notion that Josie could be nearby. Nick had a death grip that Anna needed her other hand to break. It woke him up.

  ‘Oh, dear, don’t think like that. Just a precaution, that’s all. I’ve got people out there, just in case, but please don’t think it’s likely. We should get you back to your home, okay?’

  Moments earlier the idea of going home hadn’t appealed. The hospital crowd somehow helped with the pain and the house had seemed like a big old reminder of tragedy, like footprints at a cliff edge. But now she was suddenly eager to get home. It was Josie’s home and being away emphasised their
separation. She wanted to see Josie’s toys, her photographs, touch the lock of hair they kept in a vase and to stand in her room and inhale her smell.

  But Anna remembered something she’d overheard Bennet saying to another detective earlier. ‘You want to move us to a hotel, I understand. To avoid the neighbours.’

  Miller shook her head. ‘No, no, no. That was my superintendent’s idea, but I said no. He was worried about growing public interest. I said we can keep a lid on that, dear. You and your family, well, you need a comfortable place. You need to be at home.’

  ‘And the people who have my daughter will be calling there. They expect us there. We can’t give them surprises.’

  Miller nodded slowly and gave Anna a comforting smile.

  ‘I dreamed Josie got kidnapped,’ Nick said. Both women stared at him. He looked from one to the other, and then around the room, as if he’d never seen it before. Anna’s stomach lurched as an old memory surfaced: her grandmother, riddled with dementia, asking where her beloved dog was and having to be reminded, almost weekly, that the animal had died months before. She was horrified at the prospect of having to inform Nick all over again that his daughter had been kidnapped. Sensing this, Miller put a hand on her shoulder.

  But he rubbed his left eye and added: ‘And the kidnappers would only release her if I got on all the newspaper front pages for a crime the next morning.’

  Anna took his hand again in relief. Miller turned for the door.

  ‘I’ll bring the psychiatrist in. And I’ll get Nick’s clothing. And then we’ll get you guys home.’

  Half an hour later, Nick was dressed in fresh clothing someone had found and had a handful of drug-help leaflets. They took a locked staff staircase down and into a section of the hospital patients never saw, and through a keycard door leading to a fenced car park. Anna felt like a hated criminal being protected from an angry public as she was escorted to trial.

  ‘You asked if one of them could be a woman. Why?’

  After all that had happened, and after being parted from Nick in such circumstances, the last thing she wanted was to be split from him again. But the police needed Anna back home in case the kidnappers called, and they needed Nick at the police station to officially be told ‘No Further Action’ and released. So off he went with Bennet in a panda, while she rode with Miller. In the back seat, because she wanted at least to be able to pretend to be alone so she could think. But she only managed a few minutes before something ethereal that had been niggling at her grew flesh.

  Miller didn’t look round, but said, ‘We’re just trying to cover all angles, dear.’

  ‘So this isn’t something from your Recogniser days?’

  Now Miller turned in her seat, the question in the furrow of her eyebrows.

  ‘I googled you while I waited to see Nick. You knew Nick wasn’t the caller as soon as you heard the voice. But did you recognise it?’

  Internet research on the captivating woman leading the hunt for her daughter had intrigued Anna. Forty-four, never married, no children, a career woman as long as she’d been of an age to watch any classification of movie. Gloucester Constabulary at eighteen, Ministry of Defence Police Marine Unit at twenty-two. At thirty, she transferred back to Gloucester Constabulary and into detective status, rising to chief inspector. Then, in 2016, she was headhunted by Scotland Yard’s Super Recogniser Unit, a new and groundbreaking and unique team composed of officers with an uncanny ability to recognise faces based on part-obscured or grainy images. Eight months there before a desire to return to major crime investigation propelled her into a DCI role with South Yorkshire Police, on whose website Anna had found this information. In her time with Scotland Yard, she showed an ability to recognise voices, not just faces.

  ‘I’d already heard Nick’s voice, dear. An old voicemail message on your landline. But I’ve not heard the other voice before,’ she answered. ‘But I know it was a woman doing a very good impression of a man.’

  ‘A woman?’ Perhaps the biggest shock of all. She didn’t know how to feel about that. At first, there was a sliver of relief, because surely a woman would be less likely to harm Josie. But she quickly lost that hope. ‘Why would she pretend to be a man?’

  Miller said, ‘Apologies on that one. Unsure. But I know accents, you see. She tried to hide it, but I got a weeny hint of a place.’ She paused before adding, ‘Sunderland.’

  Of course, she’d heard Nick’s terrible tale of multiple attackers, but hearing it from someone clear-headed and wise added irrefutable weight. Somehow, things had just taken a turn for the worse. ‘I don’t know anyone from Sunderland. I don’t think Nick does. What does it mean? I can’t…’

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry, we’re looking into it and I’ll get the recording checked out by a specialist. But it might come to nothing, dear, so, please, don’t think anything of it unless I tell you otherwise. I wouldn’t have said if you hadn’t asked. Okay with that?’

  She wasn’t. ‘But what if you’re wrong? Do you know what city? What if it’s not this place you think and you look there and end up missing them? If you’re wrong, Josie won’t…’ She couldn’t say it. But she forced herself to be optimistic. Miller had been headhunted for her linguistic skill, and she’d said Sunderland.

  Sunderland. Where Nick’s van, driven by another, had been clocked by ANPR yesterday.

  They used the dead-end back street where Nick had parked his van, but they didn’t avoid all eyes. Anna spotted neighbours at windows, including at number 18, where the woman who’d called the police lived. Just before they’d left the hospital, Miller had told her that the home phone had received three calls from the six friends Anna had called. Jane had spun these people a story based on her own initial theory: Josie had hurt her leg falling out of bed and Nick had taken her to the hospital, but both were okay and on their way home. They’d tried Anna’s phone first, but she’d been instructed not to answer because she would fail to keep stress out of her voice. Miller had had to post a plain-clothes man on their street with the sole task of having a quiet word with any neighbours who tried to approach the house. So far, so good, but even this tactic had to remain shadowy and, alas, Anna might need to answer the door with a lie of her own if word continued to diffuse. But she wasn’t thinking that far ahead.

  Miller shut off the engine and stretched.

  ‘You should sleep,’ Anna said. ‘I heard Mr Bennet say your team was working all night on a case. Delegate tasks or something and use my bed.’

  Miller gave her a smile in the rear-view, below groggy eyes. ‘True, dear, but we’re on-call this week and we sleep when we can. Like cats. The team got to go home and kip in the afternoon.’

  Anna got out. She noticed a small van parked outside her back fence that said, K9 WONDERS, with a picture of a dog in mid-run. A guy in blue coveralls with the same name on the back was leaning against his ride and smoking a thin cigar. Any other day, it would have appeared to be a company that groomed dogs for their posh owners. Not today. Someone had told her that South Yorkshire Police had only a handful of Victim Recovery Dogs and if none were available they used private companies. But in the hospital, the foul detective, Nabi, had used another term.

  ‘Cadaver dogs,’ she said as Miller exited the vehicle.

  Noting Anna’s interest in the van, she quickly suggested they moved to avoid the neighbours. At her back gate, Anna stopped. Her eyes were on the garden, portions of which had been taped off using sticks driven into the soil, like little plots for planting bulbs. She hadn’t noticed while it was dark, but the police had cordoned off places where they’d found footprints, and that was good. It meant they were trying to identify unknown abductors.

  ‘Forensics think they’ve isolated more than one set of footprints made since the rain started. Three, at least. That goes some way to confirming your man’s story,’ Miller said.

  That wasn’t any sort of good news, because she’d never doubted Nick’s innocence. But the evidence plots weren’t wh
at had caught her attention. It was the K9 guy. She looked at him again. Why was he just standing there, waiting, instead of out with his dog, searching old barns or whatever?

  Miller said, ‘Please, dear, let’s get inside.’

  Anna didn’t move. Miller clearly didn’t want Anna to dwell on the K9 guy, who was watching them. Then she made a connection. ‘He’s not here to search old barns or whatever, is he?’

  ‘Please, Anna, we should go in.’

  ‘He’s been searching my house, hasn’t he? For blood or whatever. For signs that Josie was hurt there. You still think we had something to do with hurting her. That her kidnap is a lie.’

  Miller objected, but Anna tried to tune her out. A police car turned on to the street and they watched it approach. Anna was surprised to see Nick exit it. He did so slowly, still not out of his ketamine funk.

  ‘I called the station to do the release,’ Bennet said as he got out and told the driver to depart. ‘No need to take Mr Carter all the way there for a signature. There were no belongings to collect.’

  Anna looked at the way Miller nodded and didn’t believe a word of it. Only now did it make sense why they’d said Nick needed to be processed at a police station even though he hadn’t been arrested. They had wanted to keep the couple separated during the drive home, maybe so they couldn’t confer. Despite the fact that Nick had clearly been a victim, they still had suspicions.

  She pushed ahead of everyone else to get inside first. While hauling the patio door open, she jumped as someone inside yanked the curtain open. It was her father, and behind him, standing by the sofa, was Jane, who had a mug of tea. From this angle she could see into the dining area, where a number of the bit players lurked and had created a NASA-like control centre with their laptops. They were all watching her, so she stepped to her left to kill their line of sight.