by Alison Bruce
Goodhew had a stab at sounding positive. ‘At least they’re taking you in.’
Brett grunted again and they both stared at the road ahead without speaking for most of the next mile. Goodhew was about to raise the subject of Rosie and Nathan but Brett beat him to it.
‘You know they’re looking at my kids’ deaths again?’
Goodhew nodded.
‘Is it simply a review to make sure nothing was missed, or is there really a serious reason to think someone killed them?’
Goodhew didn’t reply immediately as he wasn’t comfortable with either answer and was struggling at first to find the diplomatic way to reply. But then he couldn’t ignore the question either. ‘Did DI Marks explain that there are a number of deaths under review?’
‘Yes. He said they were linked because of a connection to the Manor School. He didn’t say more than that though.’
Goodhew could see that made sense. Marks hadn’t divulged anything to Brett that wasn’t already in the public domain; as long as the families were kept ahead of media briefing, all the information remained contained.
He glanced over at Brett for any sign that he felt aggravated because details were obviously being withheld. Brett’s head was still tilted back and his eyes were almost shut, but Goodhew had no doubt that he was awake. ‘If you have any questions, I can relay them to DI Marks.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Or any thoughts that might help us?’
‘Nope.’
‘I’ll leave you my number, and maybe after you’ve rested . . .’
They drove past the Carlton Arms, and Brett managed to open his eyes wide enough to stare across at it for a few seconds. ‘Actually, I do have a question. What do Meg DeLacy and Shanie Faulkner have in common that connects them with the Manor?’
The pub slipped out of sight and Goodhew swung left into Perse Way. ‘Meg DeLacy wasn’t connected, as far as we know, but Shanie’s mum went there. Sarah, Sarah Sumner?’
Perhaps Brett grunted again, perhaps not. Goodhew had the impression he’d made some kind of noise, but when he glanced over to see, Brett was back in his earlier half-asleep mode.
‘You knew her?’ Goodhew asked.
‘Huh? No, not really. Hung out with Matt’s mum Amanda at school.’
Somewhere in that last sentence the subdued lilt to his voice had slipped away. If he still wanted Goodhew to think he was disinterested, he needed to stop drumming his fingers against his thigh. Eventually he noticed what they were doing and stilled them, but whatever was now bubbling in his head needed an outlet so he started talking instead. ‘Of course, they must have kept in touch. I saw Mandy right up to the end, you know, but she never mentioned Sarah.’
‘You were good friends?’
‘Matt and Nathan had been in the same class all the way through school. They were best mates. Mandy and I ran into each other because of the kids. But were we friends?’
Goodhew waited for him to answer his own question, but instead Brett just repeated it again with a little more uncertainty in his tone.
‘Mr Brett, is something on your mind?’
‘No.’
‘You seem to have become agitated.’
‘I’m tired, not agitated.’
‘Is it something about Amanda Stone and Sarah Faulkner?’
‘Like what?’
‘That’s what I’m asking you.’
Goodhew had pulled up outside Brett’s sister-in-law’s house, and his passenger’s hand was already on the door handle. ‘Sarah left Cambridge years back,’ he said. ‘And Mandy’s dead.’
Goodhew pushed a card into Brett’s free hand. ‘Phone if you think of anything else we should know.’
‘Appreciate the lift.’ Brett slammed the door behind him and didn’t look back.
Tony Brett’s sister-in-law, Sandra, opened the front door and stood there with folded arms. She scowled. ‘I only agreed to this for Libby’s sake.’
From then on, her mood deteriorated and Brett resolved to ignore it. ‘Is Libby here yet?’
‘She’s running behind, but she’s on her way.’
‘Did she phone you?’
‘Texted.’
Sandra uncrossed her arms and pulled a mobile from her back pocket; she tapped the screen a couple of times, then pushed it towards Brett. He pulled it from her hand and held it away from his face so he could read it. See you in 40. ‘That was almost an hour ago.’
‘So call her.’ She took her phone away from him. ‘On your own mobile, not mine. Vicky dropped it off, it’s in your room.’
Tony Brett retreated to the eight by seven box room that was now his palace and sat on the edge of the narrow single bed. From there he tried Libby’s mobile four times. Her home number too; it went to answerphone – his own answerphone – and he left himself a message, asking for an urgent return call. In between calls his thoughts swung back to Amanda.
Each time he failed to locate his daughter, his sense of panic rose a little higher. Maybe he was being paranoid. He wasn’t stupid – or perhaps he was. The drowning of Len Stacy’s children had sent shockwaves through the estate. He imagined the death of his own had done pretty much the same, but he hadn’t made a connection. Why would he?
He checked the street outside his window. No sign of her.
He’d thrown Goodhew’s card on to the bed, alongside his clear-plastic bag of personal items. He didn’t want to call the police; he owed it to himself to deal with this. Just so long as he knew Libby was safe.
He thought about Mandy again. She’d had cancer, had known she was dying. He understood what she’d done – it had come to him just now in the car, like a vision. Her sallow skin. Her fading days. Now he knew what she’d meant when she’d whispered that she wanted to leave everything in order. He’d replied, I know, I know. But he hadn’t known at all.
He’d said it, anything to offer comfort.
He didn’t even question what she meant. If he had, he would have assumed she was talking about her will, instructions for the children, maybe concerning the funeral. He’d had no idea what issues someone facing death felt compelled to address. Until today. Until the terrible truth had made the remnants of his world self-incinerate before his eyes.
If he couldn’t get hold of Libby, maybe phoning the police was already too late.
He checked out the numbers on Goodhew’s card, both a landline and a mobile. Or 999?
Libby, Libby, Libby . . .
His hands were shaking now. One last try. He dialled Matt’s home number and after three rings, Charlotte answered.
‘Is Libby there?’
‘She left earlier.’
‘When?’
‘This morning. She’s coming back after the race.’
‘What race?’
‘The King Street Run.’
‘She’s supposed to be here. She was supposed to be here over an hour ago.’
Charlotte had already adopted the tone of a telephone support worker, polite and only pretending to understand his sense of urgency. ‘I just said, they’re doing the King Street Run.’
‘Libby’s not. She’s coming here to meet me.’
‘She’s with Matt.’
‘She was. Now she’s not. She’s not here. She’s supposed to be here. I need to find her. It’s urgent. Get hold of Matt. I have to find her.’ He finished the call abruptly, pressing the end button when their conversation had done one circle too many. Nothing had changed, except his decision. There would be no phone call to the police. Goodhew was well intentioned, Marks was diligent and knew about the Cambridgeshire force as a whole. But there was one thing for sure: not one of them would deal with the situation the way it deserved. He set his mobile to vibrate and dropped it into his pocket.
He wanted Libby safe, and he would kill to achieve it.
And if she wasn’t safe, he’d kill for that too.
Charlotte replaced the handset in its cradle then continued to stare at it for several more seconds.
She didn’t know what to do. Either as a neighbour or as her brother’s best friend’s dad she’d known Tony Brett her entire life. Okay, so that didn’t give her the same insight as a close relative or colleague could claim, but it gave her enough perspective to know that the man she had just spoken to on the phone was behaving like a totally different person.
Clearly, something had happened. An event that had affected him more than a period of custody. More even than the deaths of his two other children. His fear for Libby was palpable and all-consuming.
She texted phone me NOW to both Matt’s and Libby’s mobiles. Libby of all people knew what she put her parents through when she went out of contact. She’d been due to meet her dad and must have been planning to return here too – why else would she have gone off without her laptop?
It was on the kitchen worktop, next to the kettle. By the time Charlotte had dragged one of the kitchen stools across the room, she’d written off any moral debate about interfering with it. That laptop might hold nothing more than contacts, social chit-chat, emails, downloads and receipts of purchases – in fact, the typical life of the average seventeen year old – but Charlotte couldn’t think of any better place to start. The police were hardly going to scramble the Force helicopter for a teenager running a couple of hours late and ignoring a couple of texts.
The odds of accessing Libby’s computer were high. Charlotte knew that there was no password set on the screen name, and Libby had often explained the advantages of agreeing to let the operating system auto-save the login details for every website. Fine until, like now, when the intruder had charge of the laptop.
Charlotte started with the hard disk, scanning all the directories, from the newest files backwards, searching for anything that might prove interesting. Several Word documents had been recently accessed, but they were all college essays and most were incomplete.
Charlotte moved on to photographs, selected thumbnail view and browsed them all, scooting down the pages as swiftly as possible. The pictures that whizzed by were mainly of Matt and Libby. With friends. With their other housemates. Out and about in Cambridge. At their house or Libby’s. Matt with Nathan. Nathan and Rosie.
Too many dead people for someone Libby’s age.
Charlotte’s heart began to thump and she turned off the stream of images, closed her eyes and drew a couple of deep breaths. She couldn’t afford to cry right now. She was still fighting this surge of emotion as she began trawling through Libby’s mailbox and web-browsing history.
The emails were bland, mostly updates from ASOS and Dorothy Perkins on their latest in unmissable offers, Facebook notifications and eBay updates. The Web-browsing history was illuminating but ultimately fruitless. Libby had spent more time on news sites and search engines than anything else. Her search parameters always included phrases like Cambridge student deaths, patterns of teenage suicide and signs of suicidal tendency. The next most frequently visited site was Facebook, and although the home page came up immediately, the username and password did not auto-fill. Charlotte used Libby’s email address and made a couple of attempts at guessing the password; she applied her own habit of middle name plus year of birth. No luck. Charlotte stared at the log-in screen for a few seconds longer, willing the same inspirational luck that blessed characters in film and TV.
Nothing.
Except that seeing Libby’s Facebook page now felt like a priority.
Charlotte reached for her mobile and tried both Matt and Libby again.
Nothing.
She tried calling Libby’s home number then the number Libby’s dad had used when he’d called her. No reply on either. That was weird. Surely he’d be desperately awaiting news. Or if Libby had turned up, surely he or Libby would have answered? It was too much for Charlotte to deal with. It wasn’t for her to second-guess the seriousness of the situation, or to hope she’d suddenly see something that would give the answers.
She found DC Goodhew’s number and called him, instead. And in the time between her pressing ‘call’ and the moment he replied, she reopened Libby’s emails and went into the folder marked deleted messages. At the top of the third page, the title of an email caught her eye: NEW MESSAGE FROM LIBBY BRETT.
From? How did that make sense?
She opened it just as Goodhew answered. ‘No one knows where Libby is,’ she explained to him rapidly. ‘I can’t get hold of Matt, or her mum or dad. It’s not making sense, and I’ve just looked on her laptop and found something odd.’
‘Where are you now?’
‘At home.’
‘I’ll be there in a couple of minutes. Bring the computer and come straight out.’ He hung up.
She grabbed nothing but her phone and Libby’s laptop, and waited on her doorstep. This time there was no convenient distraction that would stop her heart from thumping. The fear she’d just heard in DC Goodhew’s voice had sounded far greater than her own.
FORTY-NINE
When Goodhew received the call from Charlotte Stone, he was still nearby.
Half an hour earlier, he’d dropped off Tony Brett. The more direct route back to Parkside would have been to turn right round and go back the same way. Instead, he drove straight on, thinking about Brett and wondering why the mention of Sarah Sumner had hit him so hard. This route out of the Arbury estate was lengthier, but at the next junction he realized that he was close to Arbury Road and therefore the Manor School.
It was a dated building, a low-rise development on the King’s Hedges side of the road. A few years back it had had a poor reputation, but its recent fortunes had seen a complete turnaround and, apart from the location, Goodhew doubted there were many similarities between this school and the one Brett, Stone and the others had attended. Even so, he pulled into the empty school car park in order to call Kincaide.
‘Are you still with the Faulkners?’
‘Just leaving.’
‘Tony Brett seemed strangely shocked that Mrs Faulkner was the same person as the Sarah Sumner that he’d known at school. Something rattled him, possibly connected with Amanda Stone.’
‘Did you actually ask him?’
‘Yes, I actually did and he wasn’t up for discussing it. Can you bring up Tony Brett and Amanda Stone with her and let me know whether Brett’s reaction means anything to her? Ring me back as soon as you can.’
Kincaide didn’t sound pleased but agreed.
Goodhew finished the call and stared across the car park to the dimly lit buildings. One of the side doors opened and a short man in a boilersuit raised his hand as he walked in Goodhew’s direction. Goodhew stepped from the car and waited.
The grey-haired man looked about sixty. He wore Buddy Holly glasses and Doc Martens that looked as though they were polished regularly. ‘No evening classes tonight, sir, they’ve been cancelled.’
Goodhew introduced himself. ‘Do you work here?’
‘Caretaker. Harry Groves.’
‘I’m wondering whether there are any teachers here who would have been here in 1984.’
Harry Groves thought. ‘Mr Durant, maths, and Mrs Lawrie, geography. And me, but obviously I don’t teach.’
‘Would you remember pupil names that far back?’
‘Names like Johnnie and Vincent Wren?’
Hearing their names caught Goodhew off guard, Groves gave a small smile and continued without Goodhew saying anything. ‘That’s all that year became. The kids were traumatized, even the ones that didn’t know those boys. It was the worst year we’ve ever had for children changing schools, also for kids fighting with each other.’
‘I’m curious about some of the other pupils who were here at the same time.’ Goodhew reeled off the names.
Groves nodded at each. ‘Yes, can’t get all the faces clear, but Stone and Wren were mates. The two girls hung out together too, sometimes on their own but often with the boys. You named three, there was a fourth. You know they were a particularly tricky bunch.’
‘Tricky?’
‘L
et’s just say I’m charitable. I know Joey McCarthy died but I’m not even sure I can put the right description with the right name. Have you got a minute or two?’
Not really. ‘Fine.’
Harry Groves led him into the foyer and flicked on a panel of overhead lights. The walls displayed framed school photos going back about thirty years. Goodhew wondered how the younger students felt if they had to face a dodgy adolescent snapshot of one or both of their parents each time they sat outside the Head’s office.
Groves found the 1984 photo and almost pressed his nose against the glass as he studied the tiny faces. ‘There.’ He had picked out Len Stacy. ‘A thug. Not without his good moments, but liked to talk with his fists. I didn’t have much of a problem with him; I knew where I stood and he was never smart enough to get away with much. That one . . .’
‘Joey McCarthy.’
‘Thought it might be. Nasty boy – and I rarely think that. Most have redeeming features, and maybe McCarthy changed, but I doubt it. Spiteful child. Selfish but charming too. It was the charm I hated. When he wanted something, he had no conscience. The other two were younger.’ He moved his fingers, one in between Len and Joey and the other to a scrawny kid in the row in front. The in-between kid was Tony Brett, the one in front Goodhew was sure he’d never seen before. Groves tilted his head to one side, frowning until the missing answer found its way into the correct part of his brain. ‘Tont Brett and Ross Viney!’ He sounded triumphant. ‘Younger than the other boys. Stone was hot tempered, but not that tough. I could understand why he hung around with the other two, I suppose. No doubt looked up to them in some way, but that kid . . .’ Groves tapped the boy’s face. It was hard to see detail, but it was obvious that Ross Viney had been small for his age and his complexion was the shade of pale pink that went along with freckles. ‘Always so quiet, tagging along with the others like some sort of shadow. I don’t think many people even noticed him.’
‘Any idea what happened to him afterwards?’
‘No. Once they’ve left it’s only the spectacularly successful or the spectacularly criminal that we hear about. And sometimes when they die.’ He shrugged. ‘There’s about four hundred and thirty kids in this school and I’ve been here for twenty-eight years now – you work it out. I’m shocked I remember as many as I do.’