Pretty Little Things

by T. M. E. Walsh

  The driver of the Ford turned their head as the witness’s car approached and, in the Ford’s wing mirror, revealed their face.

  Alex hit Pause.

  Madeleine stared at the footage.

  Charis came up behind them then. ‘Guv, I’ve got a match for the plates, the owner’s . . .’ She stopped herself as she saw the image on the screen.

  ‘John Hague’s not our man,’ Madeleine said. She felt like she’d just been hit in the gut.

  The phone rang on her desk then.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Charis said.

  She scooted around a bank of desks, answered Madeleine’s phone. After a few seconds she said, ‘She’ll be right down.’

  She hung up.

  ‘Guv? Charlotte Monroe’s in the foyer.’

  Everyone looked at Madeleine, gauging her reaction.

  ‘She’s asking for you.’

  CHAPTER 62

  CHARLOTTE

  ‘This is urgent, important,’ I say. ‘I need to see her now, immediately.’ The woman behind the desk just looks at me with cold eyes, her expression leaving me in no doubt she thinks I’m some raving loony, then points to the seats behind me.

  ‘She’s very busy, Mrs Monroe. She knows you’re here and will be down shortly.’

  ‘But this—’

  ‘You’ll have to wait like everyone else.’

  I slam my hands down on my side of the desk. I make her jump, a small twitch, but it was there. ‘My daughter’s life depends on this,’ I say, and who am I kidding? Maybe she’s already dead. I know it’s not looking good.

  I raise the toolbox I’m carrying and thrust it towards her. She leans back, despite there being a barrier of Perspex separating me from her.

  ‘I need to get this to DI Wood now,’ I say.

  The woman behind the desk pushes her chair back an inch or two and starts to rise from it. She goes to speak, and some fire inside me rises up, and I’m glad there’s a barrier between us, because I feel like I could lash out at her.

  My fingers grip the toolbox handle tighter. The metal of the handle is slippery with my sweat. I lock eyes with the woman now. I’m silently daring her to test me, test my patience, which was spent about a minute ago.

  I feel myself leaning closer, and it feels like I’m being pushed by someone else, and all I can do is watch, a spectator with little control left.

  ‘Get me DI Wood now, you stupid bitch.’

  The words are out before I can stop them. A part of me wants to apologise and tell her I’ve no idea where that came from, but something is holding me back.

  I know people are watching me.

  I can feel their judgemental eyes boring into the back of my head.

  ‘What’s going on?’ a familiar voice is saying. I turn to my right and see DI Wood almost beside me. I wonder how much she’s just heard.

  She cocks her head to the side as she looks at me. She clocks the toolbox in my hand. She knows it’s important from the way my knuckles have turned white through gripping it for dear life.

  ‘Mrs Monroe?’

  I look at her and tears fill my eyes and fall down my cheeks. ‘She’s gone,’ are the only words I can choke out of my mouth. It feels like an unseen force is choking me.

  I look at DI Wood and see the concern on her face. Thank God, someone is taking me seriously. She guides me towards the heavy door she’s just emerged from. She’s speaking to me, but I can’t make out her words. My ears feel strange, like they do when you go swimming and have your head under water.

  I watch DI Wood punch in a code on the keypad beside the door. A thin light flashes green and she shoulders the door open.

  When we’re on the other side, I grip her arm. I feel so faint. My vision has started to blur again. I feel like I have little control over my body. I thrust the toolbox towards her.

  ‘You must see . . .’

  She’s looking at me with a mix of concern and suspicion.

  ‘What’s in the box, Mrs Monroe?’ I make out what she says this time because I force myself to concentrate really hard, trying to claw my way out of the fog.

  What are you doing?

  Did you hear that?

  I look at DI Wood in confusion.

  Did she just say that?

  She can’t have done; her mouth didn’t move.

  You’ll ruin it for us both!

  I drop the toolbox.

  It hits the hard floor with an almighty crash, making DI Wood jump back. She stares at the contents on the floor.

  I look down to see what she sees . . . the lid and tray have come away. An asthma inhaler lies near DI Wood’s feet. A silver, rust-red-stained chain is just visible, poking out from underneath the broken plastic.

  I see the look of confusion give way to a cold realisation on Wood’s face. She reaches out to me. ‘Mrs Monroe . . .’

  I avoid her hand. My own are now either side of my head as the pain rages, gripping tight around my forehead, wrapping back around my skull.

  ‘Iain,’ I hear myself say. I know the voice is mine but it feels like I’m a million miles away.

  ‘Iain? Your husband?’ DI Wood says, edging a bit closer.

  I’m shaking my head at her. I try to find the words. ‘Iain . . .’

  She is frowning at my words.

  Get it together, Charlotte. Tell her . . . tell her.

  You’re fucking this up for the both of us . . .

  Where is that voice coming from? I want to scream.

  I do.

  ‘Who is that?!’ The words are out before I can stop them.

  DI Wood takes a step back from me. She looks at me like I’m crazy.

  In that moment, I fall.

  CHAPTER 63

  CHARLOTTE

  I can see blood and veins.

  I can sense that I’m coming out of some kind of deep sleep, but I can’t seem to open my eyes. I know there is a bright light wherever I am because the blood and veins I can see are in my eyelids.

  ‘Charlotte? Can you hear me?’

  A voice, near me, spoken by someone unknown to me. I murmur, not able to quite form anything coherent yet.

  I have a brief recollection of waking in a bed and being brought to a room then . . . nothing, just vague images, snippets of lost conversations, merging together in and out of focus, like a dream I’m struggling to recall.

  I do recall being tired, so tired. I’d closed my eyes for maybe a second or two . . . didn’t I? Maybe I’ve been here for some time.

  Wherever here is.

  A flash of colour now.

  I remember DI Wood taking my arm at the station, and then everything else is a blank except for the burning sensation on my arm where her fingers curled around my flesh.

  Someone is here with me, I can feel it and hear a distant voice but . . . it’s not DI Wood in this room with me.

  I start to open my eyes.

  Bright light filters through my eyelashes, and I squint. My vision is blurred at first. I can make out shapes, but little else. I see a haze of dark, a figure sitting opposite me. My eyes widen, my pupils adjusting to the light. My vision starts to focus and fuzzy shapes become more solid.

  The figure opposite me is a man. He sits across from me, a table, like a desk, in between us.

  ‘Charlotte?’ he says, head bent, like he’s trying to force my head up, so my eyes look into his.

  They are now and I see him clearly for the first time. Late-forties at a guess, dull skin, wisps of grey in his brown hair, which is in need of a comb. Brown eyes that don’t give anything away behind small, rimless glasses.

  He must see the confusion in my face, because he leans forward now, his arms resting on the table in front of us, hands clasped on top of a brown folder that’s bursting with paper.

  ‘Good evening . . . Charlotte?’ he says.

  Surely he knows who I am? It’s me who has no idea what’s happened since I saw DI Wood.

  ‘Where am I?’

  As soon as the words l
eave my mouth I see his face change. His eyes narrow just a fraction, and he looks up to stare momentarily at a space behind me. I turn my head and see a camera in the far right-hand corner of the ceiling.

  A red light glows beside the lens.

  I look back at the man. ‘Where am I? Who are you?’ For some reason it’s then that I look down at myself and see I am no longer in the clothes I was wearing when I got to the police station.

  My eyes widen. ‘Where are my other clothes?’ I say and sit upright in the chair.

  ‘Now, Charlotte,’ he says, ‘what’s the last thing you remember?’

  I look at him, incredulous. ‘Who are you?’

  He blinks then, slow, meaningful. When he opens his eyes again his stare is intense. ‘Can’t you remember?’

  What kind of question is that?!

  ‘Of course I don’t remember,’ I say, irritated. ‘I’ve never met you before.’ His eyes look beyond me again. ‘Why are you looking at that camera?’

  He sees I’m agitated and holds his hands up to calm me.

  ‘Why don’t you just tell me the last thing you remember?’

  I squint again. The lights really are intense in here. Where is here anyway? I look around again. It’s a small room, square-shaped, walls blank, painted magnolia. I don’t recognise it, yet somehow feel I do at the same time, which I know is insane and makes no sense.

  I look down at my clothes again – well, not my clothes – just what I’m wearing now. Plain, navy-blue jogging bottoms and matching coloured sweatshirt. I have simple white trainers on my feet.

  It’s then that I see a white tag around my wrist. I reach for it. It has a blue cursive script on it, written in biro. Unknown handwriting.

  Charlotte Monroe – 14/04/1975

  A sharp pain then registers in my head, like I’ve been stabbed with something sharp.

  Elle.

  I remember Elle!

  I stand up, hands gripping the edge of the table.

  ‘Elle!’ I say, and a look of uncertainty crosses the man’s face. ‘My daughter, Elle,’ I say again, and it’s like I can’t get my words out fast enough. ‘Iain, my husband, I think he’s hurt our daughter, and those other girls.’

  The man stands now. He reaches out, asks me to sit and calm down, take things slow.

  Slow?

  My daughter might be dead, her killer, her own father, out there somewhere on the streets.

  ‘Ask DI Wood.’ I’m shouting now. ‘Those things I showed her – the trophies – she must understand. Ask her. Go ask her!’

  The man is just staring at me. I’m leaning on the table now. ‘Go ask her.’

  ‘Charlotte, please take a seat.’

  I whirl around, as if DI Wood might suddenly appear in the room and come to my aid. Who is this man who won’t take me seriously?

  I take a step back from the table. ‘Who are you? Where is DI Wood?’

  I have too many questions, even more so when I try to remember what’s happened.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I lift my hand to my head as the pain throbs. ‘Where am I? The station?’ I look down at myself again. ‘What happened to my clothes?’

  A knock on the door startles me. I look past the man, but then he speaks again, and I find myself scared to hear the answers to my questions.

  ‘Charlotte, I’m Dr Eric Seaward. I’m a psychiatrist here at Heath Lodge NHS Trust. You’ve been assigned to my care, remember?’

  I can’t process any of this. Christ, my head hurts.

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ I say, and immediately know it wasn’t what he wanted to hear, because now he’s just staring at me, arms crossed over his chest.

  There is another knock on the door and this time it opens, the person on the other side not waiting for a response.

  This Dr Seaward doesn’t turn around. It’s like he doesn’t need to, he knows who it is.

  Now, so do I, and I’m relieved.

  DI Wood is dressed in her usual smart suit, crisp white shirt underneath. She looks tired. I smile.

  ‘DI Wood, I’m glad to see you.’ I point at Dr Seaward. ‘I don’t know what’s going on here, but I think there’s been some terrible mistake.’

  DI Wood glances at the doctor. He doesn’t turn to face her, his eyes remain focused on me. I feel hot all of a sudden. I hear a voice escape my lips. I know it’s mine, but it feels surreal.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  DI Wood takes a step closer, and now she’s right next to this doctor I’ve never seen before in my life, who claims he knows me.

  The doctor turns to her now, and they are trying to keep me from hearing what they’re saying, because they keep their voices low and turn away from me, but I still hear snippets of what’s being said.

  ‘I’ve been observing the live feed,’ DI Wood says to the doctor.

  My attention turns to the camera behind me.

  ‘. . . thought I’d better sit in, give her a familiar face . . .’ she says.

  ‘You know you shouldn’t be in here,’ I hear the doctor say. ‘. . . need my observations . . . watch in the other room . . .’

  ‘. . . Dr Seaward, I’m not doing that . . . We can’t find where she went after that. We’re checking CCTV . . .’

  I can’t hear any more of what is being said. That doesn’t seem to matter now, because DI Wood has turned her attention back to me.

  ‘You need to talk to the doctor . . . Charlotte, is it?’ she says, as if she’s forgotten.

  I’m shaking my head at her now, because this – whatever it is – is ridiculous.

  ‘Of course it’s Charlotte.’ I snapped. Just a little. I didn’t mean to, but I’m confused.

  DI Wood nods. She’s being cautious. Of me? That doesn’t make sense.

  ‘You need to talk to Dr Seaward and listen to him.’ She makes sure she maintains eye contact, letting me know this is no joke.

  The seriousness on her face makes me let out a nervous laugh. ‘You looked at the contents of the toolbox, surely?’ I say.

  She looks at the doctor, a fleeting glance.

  ‘I’ve had enough of this!’ I shout, making them both flinch. ‘What’s going on?’ The tears are brimming in my eyes now and I make no attempt to hold them back.

  DI Wood’s resolve hardens. She has no intention of showing me any measure of sympathy.

  ‘Charlotte, you need to do what Dr Seaward says, oth—’

  ‘Tell me what’s going on!’

  ‘. . . Otherwise I can’t help you,’ she finishes, ignoring my outburst.

  I stop. I look at her. ‘What do you mean? I gave you the evidence, what I found. Iain, he’s—’

  ‘Iain’s got nothing to do with the disappearance of your daughter or the murders of those girls.’

  I can feel the muscles in my face twitch. In an instant I feel empty. I see the doctor edge closer. His face softens a little, but only a little.

  ‘Please, Charlotte, take a seat and let’s have a chat.’

  CHAPTER 64

  CHARLOTTE

  ‘We met two days ago, Charlotte,’ Seaward says to me, but, hard as I try, I just can’t believe it. Wouldn’t I have some memory of this?

  I look at them both. They are sitting opposite me, the doctor and DI Wood, watching me carefully.

  I shake my head at them. ‘That can’t be true.’

  ‘Charlotte, we’ve been speaking this morning. Do you remember waking up? Having breakfast? Lunch? We resumed after lunch until you got tired.’

  I shake my head. I feel like what he’s saying is familiar yet I don’t remember living it.

  ‘What time is it?’ I say.

  ‘It’s late.’ DI Wood leans forward, her hands clasped in front of her, resting on the table that separates us. ‘Can you tell us the last thing you remember?’

  That’s easy.

  ‘I found Iain’s toolbox, and the . . . things inside.’ I break off, my voice catching in my throat. I can hardly bring myself to say
it. ‘Elle’s necklace was inside, with the other things. It was covered in dried blood, Inspector. Can’t you see what I’m trying to tell you?’

  She doesn’t move. Not even a flicker of emotion.

  ‘Why are you keeping me here in hospital? You should be out finding Iain, making him tell you what he’s done with our daughter.’

  ‘You had a blackout, Charlotte,’ DI Wood cuts in. I just stare at her. ‘Two days ago.’

  Something clicked then. A faint memory.

  Toolbox.

  ‘I fell when I brought you Iain’s toolbox?’

  That made them both more animated. ‘You remember that part,’ DI Wood says. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Where is he? Iain?’

  DI Wood purses her lips now. ‘We need to talk about you, Charlotte.’

  I blanch. ‘Me?’ I look at them both in turn. ‘You need to bring him in before he does it again.’

  My mind flashes an image now, of Kenzie.

  ‘What about Kenzie Dalton?’ I say.

  DI Wood stares at me. ‘We were hoping you might be able to help us with that, Charlotte.’

  I frown. ‘I don’t understand.’

  Dr Seaward is writing something down now. He looks up at me when he feels the weight of my stare.

  I stand up, and the leg of the chair I’ve been sitting on scrapes back across the old linoleum. DI Wood has also got to her feet.

  ‘Can one of you please just tell me what’s going on?’

  ‘Sit down, please,’ she says.

  ‘You can’t keep me here and not tell me what’s going on.’ I’m shouting now. I can’t help myself. ‘I’ve given you evidence of what Iain’s done and what do you do?’

  ‘Charlotte . . .’ she sighs.

  ‘No!’ I snap. ‘You need to start giving me answers!’

  ‘Drop the charade, Charlotte, you’re not fooling anybody.’

  As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Dr Seaward drops his pad down on the table. His hand is on her arm and he hisses something only she can hear.

  Her eyes flick back to look at me and she gestures to my chair. She wants me to sit.

  ‘Charlotte, I’ll do my best to explain things.’ He’s speaking to me now. ‘Please sit down.’