Shatter jo-3

by Michael Robotham

  ‘Everyone should calm down.’

  Cray and Ruiz glower at each other in sullen defiance and in some unspoken way agree to back down. The tension is suddenly released and the detectives dutifully turn away, returning to their desks and making their way downstairs to waiting cars.

  I follow the DI back to her office. She clicks her tongue in annoyance.

  ‘I know he’s a friend of yours, Professor, but that man is a prize-winning pain in the arse.’

  ‘He’s a passionate pain in the arse.’

  She stares fixedly out the window, her face fleshy and pale. Tears suddenly sparkle in the rims of her eyes. ‘I should have done better,’ she whispers. ‘Your wife should have been safe. She was my responsibility. I’m sorry.’

  Embarrassment. Shame. Anger. Disappointment. Each is like a mask but she’s not seeking to hide. Nothing I can say will make her feel any better or alter the violent, rapacious longing that has infused this case from the beginning.

  Ruiz knocks lightly on the office door.

  ‘I want to apologise for my outburst,’ he says. ‘It was out of order.’

  ‘Apology accepted.’

  He turns to leave.

  ‘Stay,’ I tell him. ‘I want you to hear this. I think I can make Gideon Tyler stop moving.’

  ‘How?’ asks the DI.

  ‘We offer him his daughter.’

  ‘But we don’t have her. The family won’t co-operate, you said so yourself.’

  ‘We bluff him just like he bluffed Christine Wheeler and Sylvia Furness and Maureen Bracken. We convince him that we have Chloe and Helen.’

  Veronica Cray looks at me incredulously. ‘You want to lie to him.’

  ‘I want to bluff him. Tyler knows his wife and daughter are alive. And he knows we have the resources to get them here. If he wants to talk to them or see them, he has to give up Charlie and Julianne first.’

  ‘He won’t believe you. He’ll want proof,’ says the DI.

  ‘I just have to keep him on the line and make him stay in one place. I’ve read Chloe’s journal. I know where she’s been. I can bluff him.’

  ‘What if he wants to talk to her?’

  ‘I’ll tell him that she’s on her way or that she doesn’t want to talk. I’ll make excuses.’

  DI Cray sucks air through nostrils that pinch and then flare as she exhales. Her jaw muscles are working under her flesh.

  ‘What makes you think he’ll buy this?’

  ‘It’s what he wants to believe.’

  Ruiz suddenly pipes up. ‘I think it’s a good idea. So far Tyler has had us running around like our butts are on fire. Maybe the Professor’s right and we can light a fire under him. It’s worth a try.’

  The DI pulls a packet of cigarettes from her drawer and glances dismissively at the NO SMOKING sign.

  ‘On one condition,’ she says pointing an unlit cigarette at Ruiz. ‘You go back out to see Helen Chambers. Tell her what we’re doing. It’s about time someone in that bloody family stood up to be counted.’

  Ruiz steps back and lets me leave the office first.

  ‘You’re crazy,’ he mutters, once we’re out of earshot. ‘You can’t really think you can bluff this guy.’

  ‘Why did you agree with me?’

  He shrugs and gives me a rueful sigh. ‘Ever heard the joke about the nursery school teacher who stands up in front of the class and says, “If anyone feels stupid, I want you to stand up.” Well this little boy, Jimmy, gets to his feet and the teacher says, “Do you really feel stupid, Jimmy?”

  ‘And Jimmy says, “No, miss, I just didn’t want you standing up there all alone.” ’

  65

  Lying on a thin mattress on the far side of the room I watch the girl sleeping. She whimpers in her dreams, rocking her head from side to side. My Chloe used to do that when she had a nightmare.

  I get up and cross the floor. The dream has taken hold. Her body heaves beneath the quilt as she fights to get away. My hand reaches out and I touch her arm. She stops whimpering. I go back to my mattress.

  Later, she wakes properly and sits up, peering into the darkness. She’s looking for me.

  ‘Are you there?’

  I don’t answer.

  ‘Talk to me, please.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘Go back to sleep.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘What was your nightmare about?’

  ‘I didn’t have a nightmare.’

  ‘Yes, you did. You were moaning.’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  She turns her face to the closed curtains. Light is leaking around the edges. I can make out more of her features. I have ruined her hair but it will grow back again.

  ‘Am I a long way from home?’ she asks.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean in miles. Is it a long way?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Could I make it if I walked all day?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘You could let me go and I could walk home. I wouldn’t tell anyone where you live. I wouldn’t know how to find it again.’

  I move across the room and turn on a bedside lamp. Shadows run away. I hear a sound from outside. I hold a finger to my lips.

  ‘I didn’t hear anything,’ she says.

  In the distance I hear a dog bark.

  ‘Maybe it was the dog.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I have to go to the toilet. Please don’t watch me.’

  ‘I’ll turn my back.’

  ‘You could go outside.’

  ‘Is that what you want?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I leave the bedroom and stand on the landing. I can hear her shuffling across the floor and the tinkle of her urine in the bowl.

  She’s finished. I knock on the door.

  ‘Can I come back in?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I had an accident.’

  I push open the door. She is standing in the bathroom, trying to dab a dark stain from the crotch of her jeans.

  ‘You should take them off. I’ll dry them.’

  ‘That’s OK.’

  ‘I’ll get you something else to wear.’

  ‘I don’t want to take them off.’

  ‘You can’t stay in wet jeans.’

  I leave her and look in the main bedroom, which has built-in wardrobes and chests of drawers. The trousers and sweaters are too big for her. I find a white bathrobe on a hanger. It belongs to a hotel. Even a rich Arab isn’t beyond stealing a hotel robe. Maybe that’s why he’s so rich.

  I bring it back. I have to unchain her feet so she can pull off her jeans. She makes me leave the room.

  ‘The window is locked. You can’t escape,’ I tell her.

  ‘I won’t.’

  I listen at the door until she tells me I can come back in. The bathrobe is too big for her, falling past her knees to her ankles. I take her jeans and wash them in the sink. There is no hot water. The boiler has been turned off. Twisting the jeans into a coil, I wring out the water and hang them over the back of a chair.

  I can feel her watching me.

  ‘Did you really kill Darcy’s mother?’

  It’s a nervous question.

  ‘She jumped.’

  ‘Did you tell her to jump?’

  ‘Could someone make you jump?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’

  ‘Well, I guess you’re safe.’

  Rummaging in my backpack, I take out a small can of pears and open it with a tin opener.

  ‘Here. You should eat something.’

  She takes the can and eats the slippery pieces of fruit, sucking the juice from her fingers.

  ‘Be careful. The edges are sharp.’

  Lifting the can to her lips she drinks the juice, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. Then she leans back, wrapping the robe around her. The sky is growing brighter outside. She can see
more of the room.

  ‘Are you going to kill me?’

  ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Her bottom lip is bitten.

  It’s my turn to ask a question. ‘Would you kill me if you had the chance?’

  She frowns. There are twin creases above the bridge of her nose. ‘I don’t think I could.’

  ‘What if I was threatening your family- your mother or your father or your sister- would you kill me then?’

  ‘I don’t know how.’

  ‘What if you had a gun?’

  ‘Maybe. I guess.’

  ‘So we’re not so different, you and me. We’ll both kill if the circumstances are right. You’ll kill me and I’ll kill you.’

  A tear squeezes silently from the corner of her eye.

  ‘I have to go out again in a little while.’

  ‘Don’t leave.’

  ‘I won’t be long.’

  ‘I don’t like being alone.’

  ‘I have to chain your feet again.’

  ‘Don’t cover my face.’

  ‘Just your mouth.’

  I rip a length of masking tape from the spool.

  ‘I heard you before,’ she says, before I can cover her mouth. ‘You were doing this to someone else.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I heard you pulling tape from a spool thing like this one. You were downstairs.’

  ‘You heard that.’

  ‘Yes. Is there someone else here?’

  ‘You ask too many questions.’

  I push the loop of the padlock until the chains on her ankles are secure.

  ‘I’m going to trust you again not to take this tape off your mouth. If you disappoint me, I will put the hose back down your throat and cover your head. Do you understand?’

  She nods.

  I put a large square of tape across her mouth. Her eyes are brimming now. She slides sideways down the wall until she’s lying curled up on the mattress. I cannot see her face any more.

  66

  The handset rattles on the desk. I glance through the glass partition at Oliver Rabb and William Greene. Oliver nods.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Good morning, Joe, did you sleep well?’

  Gideon is calling from a car. I can hear the road drumming beneath the tyres and the sound of the engine.

  ‘Where’s Julianne?’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve lost her. How careless- losing a wife and a daughter in less than twenty-four hours. It must be some sort of record.’

  ‘It’s not so unusual,’ I tell him. ‘You lost yours.’

  He falls silent. I don’t think he appreciates the comparison.

  ‘Let me talk to Julianne.’

  ‘No. She’s sleeping. What a great fuck she is, Joe. I think she really appreciated getting banged by a real man instead of a retard like you. She went off like a string of firecrackers, especially when I shoved my thumb up her arse. I’m going to do her again later. Maybe I’ll do them both together, mother and daughter.

  ‘Charlie has been a very good girl. Obedient. Subservient. You’d be proud of her. Every time I look at her I go all warm and fuzzy inside. Do you know she whimpers the way a lover does when she sleeps? Have you found my wife and daughter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘On their way.’

  ‘Wrong answer.’

  ‘I talked to Chloe this morning. She’s a bright girl. She had a question for you.’

  He hesitates. Oliver and William Greene are crouched over their laptops. Dozens of police units are in place across Bristol and two helicopters are in the air. I look at my watch. We’ve been talking for three minutes.

  ‘What question?’ asks Gideon.

  ‘She wants to know about her cat, Tinkle. I think she said it was short for Tinkerbell. She asked if Tinkle was OK. She hopes you left her with the Hahns to look after. She said the Hahns had a farm next door.’

  Gideon’s breathing has altered slightly. I have his full attention. Through an earpiece, I listen to Oliver Rabb’s progress.

  [‘We got a powerful level of seven dBm. The signal strength is eighteen decibels higher than the next nearest tower. The handset is less than a hundred and fifty metres away from the base station…’]

  ‘Are you still there, Gideon? What will I tell Chloe?’

  He hesitates. ‘Tell her I gave Tinkle to the Hahns.’

  ‘She’ll be pleased.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Like I said, she’s on her way.’

  ‘This is some sort of trick.’

  ‘She told me about a postcard that she wrote to you from Turkey.’

  ‘I didn’t get a postcard.’

  ‘Her mother wouldn’t let her send it. Remember how you taught her to snorkel? She went snorkelling off a boat and saw underwater ruins. She thought it might be Atlantis, the lost city, but she wanted to ask you.’

  ‘Let me talk to her?’

  ‘You’ll talk to her when I talk to Charlie.’

  ‘Don’t fuck with me, Joe. Put Chloe on the line. I want to speak to her now.’

  ‘I told you, she’s not here.’

  Oliver’s voice is in my ear again:

  [‘We have BMS signals from three towers. I can estimate DOA but he keeps moving, leaving the range of one tower and getting picked up by another. You have to make him stop.’]

  ‘They were living in Greece. But they came home a few days ago. They’re being protected.’

  ‘I knew they were alive.’

  ‘Your voice keeps breaking up, Gideon. You might want to stop somewhere.’

  ‘I’d prefer to keep moving.’

  I’ve exhausted everything I can remember from Chloe’s journal. I don’t know how long I can keep up the charade. On the far side of the incident room, Ruiz appears, half-running and out of breath. Behind him, Helen Chambers clutches her daughter’s hand and struggles to keep up. Chloe looks goggle-eyed at the speed with which she’s been woken, dressed and brought from the warmth of her bed to this place.

  Gideon is still on the line.

  ‘Your daughter is here.’

  ‘Prove it.’

  ‘Not until I talk to Charlie and Julianne.’

  ‘You think I’m an idiot. You think I don’t know what you’re trying to do.’

  ‘She has blonde hair. Brown eyes. She’s wearing skinny-leg jeans and a green cardigan. She’s with her mother. They’re talking to Detective Inspector Cray.’

  ‘Let me talk to Chloe.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Prove she’s there.’

  ‘Let me speak to Charlie or Julianne.’

  He grinds his teeth. ‘I want you to understand something, Joe. Not everyone you love is going to live. I was going to let you choose which one, but you’re pissing me off.’

  ‘Let me speak to my wife and daughter.’

  His cold composed unyielding tone has changed. He’s enraged. Ranting. He screams down the line.

  ‘LISTEN, YOU COCKSUCKER, PUT MY DAUGHTER ON THE PHONE OR I’LL BURY YOUR PRECIOUS WIFE SO DEEP YOU'LL NEVER FIND HER BODY,'

  I can imagine his mouth twisting and flecks of spit flying. Brakes squeal and a car horn sounds in the background. He’s losing concentration.

  Oliver Rabb is also talking to me.

  [‘He’s just been handed on to a new tower. Signal strength five dBm and falling. Radius three hundred yards. You have to make him stop moving.’]

  I nod through the glass partition.

  ‘Calm down, Gideon.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what to do. Put Chloe on the line!’

  ‘What do I get in return?’

  ‘You get to choose if your wife or your daughter survive.’

  ‘I want both of them back.’

  I hear a tight-lipped laugh. ‘I’m sending you a souvenir. You can have it framed.’

  ‘What sort of souvenir?’

  The mobile vibrates against my ear. I hold
the handset at arm’s length, as though it might explode. An image appears in the small backlit square. Julianne, naked and bound, her body as pale as candle wax, lies in a box with her mouth and eyes taped shut and clods of earth crumbling over her stomach and thighs.

  A thin rancid stink of fear fills my nostrils and something small and dark scuttles inside my chest, burrowing into the chambers of my heart. I can hear it now: the sound Gideon talked about. A tiny creature crying softly into an endless night. The sound of a mind breaking.

  ‘Stay with me, Joe,’ he says, in a soft insinuating tone. ‘She was still alive when I last saw her. I’ll still let you choose.’

  ‘What have you done?’

  ‘I gave her what she wanted.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘She wanted to take her daughter’s place.’

  The grotesque image is beyond words. My imagination paints pictures instead. And in my mind’s eye I see Julianne’s breathing body, sipping the darkness, unable to move, her hair spread out beneath her head.

  ‘Please, please, don’t do this,’ I beg, my voice breaking.

  ‘Put my daughter on the phone.’

  ‘Wait.’

  Ruiz is standing in front of me. Chloe and Helen are with him. He pulls two chairs to the desk and motions for them to sit. Helen is dressed in jeans and a striped top. Clutching Chloe’s hand, she sits with her head drawn down between her shoulders, her face a crumpled mask. Worn down. Defeated.

  I cover the phone. ‘Thank you.’

  She nods.

  Chloe’s blonde fringe has fallen across her eyes. She doesn’t push it back. It is a physical barrier she can hide behind.

  ‘He wants to talk to Chloe.’

  ‘What’s she going to say?’ asks Helen.

  ‘She just has to say hello.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Chloe rocks her legs beneath the chair, chewing at a fingernail. A baggy green cardigan hangs down to her thighs and narrow jeans make her legs look like sticks in denim.

  I motion to her. She circles the desk on tiptoes, as if frightened of bruising her heels. I cover the mouthpiece and silently mouth the words I want her to say.

  Then I raise my hand to Oliver, giving him a countdown by closing my fingers one at a time. Five… four… three…

  Chloe takes the handset and whispers, ‘Hello, Daddy, it’s me.’

  …two… one…