A Cry in the Night

by Tom Grieves

  Magda was right. She wasn’t a very good witness at all.

  He stood up, rubbing his face with his hands, trying to rub away all of these thoughts. They were nonsense. He was tired, it was late and he wasn’t thinking straight.

  He rang the number again. It clicked straight to voicemail. He saved the number on his phone so he’d know it was her if she called again. He needed to think logically about all this.

  He remembered Ricky and the way he talked about this secret army of women who patrolled the streets, who watched everything. It was impossible to tell who was a part of it and who wasn’t. Just like the collection of photos of gaunt women on his bed who stared at the police camera with shark eyes.

  His eye drifted to the side of the bed where the photo of Andrea beamed out at him. Her photo shouldn’t be anywhere near those monsters who now lay on his pillow. Sam took her photo and placed it delicately in the top drawer amongst his socks. Andrea had always bundled the socks together in neat balls, but now Sam had to flick through to find matching pairs.

  He felt the fire stoking again. She was still smiling up at him as he shut her away. He was glad to shut her up.

  The women on the bed stared hatefully at him. He left them there, went downstairs, poured himself a drink, knocked it down in one, rang Ashley again, got no answer and didn’t know what to do. He sat down at the table and closed his eyes. But all he could see were the women. He blinked his eyes open and poured himself another drink. He imagined Ashley sitting opposite him, facing him, staring at him the same way that Helen had from across that beautiful old desk.

  And still, somewhere, out there, little Lily was crying for him to find her.

  He pushed the chair over as he stormed back up the stairs. He heard his mother shout something from the loft, calling out names of people who were no longer alive. He knocked twice, quickly, on Magda’s door and headed in.

  The lights were off and it took him a moment to see her, sitting up in her bed, shocked by his appearance.

  ‘What did you and Ashley talk about?’ he demanded.

  ‘Nothing, Mr Taylor. Nothing.’

  ‘No, no, she said stuff to you. What was it?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she insisted. She clutched the sheets tight to her.

  ‘You tell me what she said to you right now or you’ll be out on your arse this second, do you get me?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Tell me!’

  ‘You call her, you ask her,’ she replied, finally angry and fighting back. ‘I’m not afraid of you.’

  ‘You should be.’

  ‘Well, I’m not.’ She was bolder now. ‘When you go away, I’m the one they all need. Not you.’

  And there was the fear again, slivering around his waist, tightening around his chest. It was too dark to see her properly, but he could imagine easily enough how she was glaring at him. He could feel the same anger that had poured out of Helen Seymour.

  He didn’t reply. He peered at her shrouded figure in the dark. He tried to keep his head clear, away from all of the fears that whipped and whirled around him.

  ‘Dad?’

  He vaguely heard his daughter’s voice behind.

  ‘I am here now,’ Magda said, more determined. ‘I am not going anywhere.’

  ‘Dad.’

  ‘WHAT DID SHE SAY?!’ Sam screamed. He heard a cough of laughter thrown back at him.

  ‘Dad. Dad.’

  A hand grabbed his. He turned, ready to strike, only to find Issy standing there in her pyjamas.

  ‘Issy?’

  ‘Dad. Jenny’s not in her room.’

  It took a moment for the oddness of this comment to hit home. Jenny was meant to be locked away doing her homework, then tucking herself in as she always did. Sam hurried along the landing and entered her room. It was empty and the bed hadn’t been slept in. He asked Issy questions that she couldn’t answer and felt like he was interviewing a suspect.

  His phone rang again and he was certain it would be Ashley. Just as Magda’s taunts had ended, so Ashley’s would begin. A choreographed attack.

  ‘What?’ he shouted at the unknown phone number.

  The voice was male. Calling from the Accident and Emergency Department at the local hospital, which had just admitted an unconscious teenage girl. Her ID informed them that her name was Jennifer Taylor.

  Sam ran downstairs, shouting at Issy to tell Gran what had happened. He grabbed his coat, finding his wallet and car keys in the kitchen.

  When he got to the door he looked up to see Issy crying at the top of the stairs. Magda stood next to her. She had her arm proudly around Issy and stared down at him as his daughter huddled into her for protection. Sam stopped for a second. They stared at each other, enemies within his own home. He didn’t know what to do.

  He left them there together and charged into the night.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Zoe found Sam sitting, ashen, on a small plastic chair in a busy corridor outside A & E. She found a second chair, sat down next to him and took his hand. He squeezed it tight, but didn’t look at her. After five minutes like this, she pulled herself free and used her warrant card to elicit some information from a passing nurse.

  Unknown to her father, Jenny had found comfort in the company of the cool kids at school who tolerated her because she stole money from her grandmother’s purse and bought them all booze. It was a self-loathing pattern of behaviour which had accelerated with each unnoticed outing. That night, Jenny had gone out drinking with these same ‘friends’; swigging from bottles of extra-strong cider and being rejected by clubs, they staggered around the streets. A few hours later, she hit her head when tripping on the pavement and fell into the path of an oncoming car. The good news was that the car had squealed to a halt in time. Less good was that Jenny was concussed and the high level of alcohol in her bloodstream was slowing her recovery. But, ultimately, she’d be fine. Not that you could tell from looking at Sam. His hands were gripped tightly together – a strange mixture of supplication and a giant fist. She sank back into the seat next to him.

  ‘She’s going to be fine,’ she said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So cheer up, you silly old goat.’

  He tried to smile, but just couldn’t manage it.

  ‘Sam. Sam, it’s okay. This sort of thing happens all the time. It’s what young girls do.’

  Sam shook his head. No.

  ‘You’re a great dad, boss.’

  If the words affected him, if he felt any warmth from their kindness, he didn’t show it.

  ‘She’s a good girl, she’ll be so ashamed, won’t touch alcohol again for a year, I bet.’

  ‘She’s a good girl,’ he repeated, flat. He turned to look at Zoe then and his eyes were wide. He looked vulnerable in a way she’d never known before.

  ‘I thought she was sweetness and light,’ he said, his voice cracking with the emotion. ‘I would carry her around when she was little, and she’d hold on to me so tight with her tiny arms. She was just perfect.’

  She didn’t know what to say to this, and they sat together in silence. Finally, he let out a sigh.

  ‘I’m fucking it all up, Zoe,’ he said. ‘Jenny would never do anything like this if I was doing it properly. Being a decent dad.’ Tears welled in his eyes. ‘How can I be angry with her? She’s my little girl. They’re my babies and I love them but they look at me like I’m this stupid … stupid …’

  He ran out of words.

  ‘It was just a couple of drinks,’ Zoe said softly. ‘That’s all. Don’t beat yourself up over a couple of drinks.’

  ‘I just want them to be happy. To be normal. How do I do that?’

  The question dragged him to his feet.

  ‘I can’t give them back their mother, can I?’

  His voice was raised, wet with tears. Two nurses looked up and watched him as he flapped his arms uselessly.

  ‘I can’t magic her back, I can’t stop work. How can I? Jenny should be laughing, she sho
uld be watching the telly and doing … those things girls do. But I can’t make it right. I don’t know how. How do I make all this work? How do I fix it?’

  She didn’t have any answers. Instead she stood up and put her arms out. But Sam pulled away.

  ‘They need their mother. They bloody need their fucking mother!’

  And the grief had worked its way into something else now. The tears were still there but his hands were clenched and his mouth tight, his teeth showing.

  ‘She should be here. She should be here,’ he spat. ‘I can’t fix this. I just need something I can fix.’

  And again he slumped into the chair. Zoe looked around, stared down the two nosy nurses and then sat back down next to him. After a while, he looked up and she could see that the fever had passed.

  ‘So tell me something,’ he said. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Not so much,’ she replied. ‘Did you get a chance to talk to Sergeant Cartmell? About my problem?’

  ‘Sorry. I’ll … I will,’ he said, and then his voice changed and hardened. ‘What do you think of Helen Seymour?’

  She was thrown by the change in direction. She was surprised that he was thinking about her and she wondered if he knew about the meeting she’d had only a few hours before.

  *

  It was in the same cafe as before. Lizzy served the coffee and Helen ordered toast and baked beans. There were the usual pauses and waiting games but the mood now was differently charged.

  ‘I won’t do anything that’ll hurt Sam,’ Zoe had blurted out.

  ‘I wouldn’t expect you to,’ Helen said.

  ‘But you want things from me,’ Zoe said. ‘You want me to tell you about Sam and I won’t do it.’

  Helen chose her words carefully. Zoe could tell that she was wary of letting things slip, and this made her all the more unhappy to be there. But she felt she had nowhere else to go.

  ‘I’m going to have to trust you, Zoe,’ she finally said. ‘This could be some form of entrapment.’

  ‘Why, do you want me to do something illegal?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘So talk.’

  Helen bit on some toast and fiddled with the crumbs on her plate.

  ‘I think Sam is part of a plot to frame me.’

  Zoe snorted at this, but Helen waved her hand to allow her time to continue.

  ‘I know how it sounds,’ she added. ‘And I don’t say it lightly. Can you tell me where he’s got with the investigation?’

  ‘No, of course I can’t.’

  ‘Not Sarah Downing. Me. His investigation into me.’

  Zoe looked at her as though she was insane. ‘He’s not after you. We’re trying to find a missing girl, remember?’

  ‘You might be,’ Helen replied.

  Zoe glanced out of the window and saw two PCs stroll by. The men didn’t glance in through the window, but Zoe’s mouth went dry at the sight of them.

  ‘I need to go,’ she said. ‘They’ll rip me apart if they find I’m hanging around with you.’

  ‘If you want, you can always come and work for me,’ Helen said.

  ‘What? Doing what?’

  ‘As an adviser. As an investigator. It will be the same sort of work, but you’ll be part of a team you can trust and your pay will be infinitely better.’

  ‘I like my work, I’m not throwing it away on you,’ she said.

  ‘I keep trying to tell you, Zoe. I’m the one trying to help you.’

  Although she felt the need to get out of there, Zoe didn’t move. Helen had always been friendly, and her words were kind and thoughtful, but still she didn’t dare trust her. But then she didn’t feel she could trust anyone else right now either, and it was this that paralysed her.

  ‘It shouldn’t be this difficult, should it?’ Helen said, noting her sadness. ‘Just being a woman, doing a job, living a life. Why has it become so tough these days?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Zoe replied. But she did. She felt it the moment she stepped out of her front door. No, before that, she felt it the moment she stared at her bleary eyes in the mirror, the moment she worried about her choice of clothes. She felt it in the eyes of the men she’d pass as she ran to work, on the way she’d laugh too loud at other guys’ jokes, at the constant, pumped-up performance she gave just so she could feel she belonged. It had always been this way. She’d grown up with four brothers who had instinctively pushed her away as they became older, not fully understanding why, but never feeling the same sense of comfort as they did with each other. Plenty of friends had pointed out that her career choice was an attempt to recreate those old feelings, but Zoe wasn’t interested in such cod psychology.

  ‘I find it tough,’ Helen said. ‘And so tiring. I’ve found that having friends around who understand and who are on your side can make all the difference.’

  ‘I’ve got plenty of friends,’ Zoe scoffed. And she did, it was true. But she had allowed work to consume her so completely that she felt apart from them all now. She had subscribed to the theory that only other cops could understand her because of their shared experiences, and so had pushed away the rest of the world. More often than not, she was alone. She’d grin feebly at herself in the bathroom mirror and pretend she was happy as can be.

  ‘I’m fed up being told how much I can drink, how loud I can laugh,’ Helen said. ‘I just want to turn my back on all of that. Stick close to friends who don’t care about the bits of me that are fucked up, because they’re fucked up too.’

  ‘And who are these special friends?’ Zoe asked.

  Helen caught Lizzy’s eye and smiled.

  ‘I guess I have friends in interesting places.’

  Interesting places. Zoe could imagine knowing looks all over the city. It felt like she was collecting them.

  ‘I think you would be an interesting friend to have too, Zoe. And I think you would benefit from the friends I have.’

  Zoe didn’t need to be alone. But she also knew there would be a price.

  You don’t have to agree to anything yet, she told herself. Just find out the cost. You don’t have to hurt Sam. You don’t have to do anything wrong. Not yet. Just find out more.

  Helen sat patiently opposite her.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ Zoe finally asked.

  *

  She frowned as she remembered the conversation, and worried about why Sam, sitting so sadly next to her, had asked about Helen.

  ‘I guess she’s probably pretty great at her job,’ she replied, tucking her hands under thighs as she spoke. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I hate her,’ Sam said.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she asked, alarmed, but he said no more. They felt so far apart. It was as though she’d been ‘repositioned’ somehow so that Helen was more clearly in focus and it was Sam who was blurred and hard to trust.

  ‘She’s dangerous,’ he said. She watched his hands twist and his mouth word silent curses. It reminded her of the bad times when he’d appear at her door, drunk and morose, his eyes red with tears, howling his wife’s name. She had thought those days were over.

  All around them, nurses and doctors marched by with their duties. A patient on a stretcher was wheeled past and Zoe saw a loose hand flop to the side as it went by. A tannoy announced something inaudible.

  She left him to stay with Jenny overnight at the hospital and promised to check in on Issy at the house. Sam had rambled on about not trusting the nanny, and she was grateful that he was making it easier for her. She got to his house in the middle of the night, used the key he’d given her and stepped inside without making a sound.

  Issy was asleep in her bed, her long hair dragged over her face. Zoe watched her for a moment, remembering days gone by when she would babysit for Sam and Andrea. She used to do ‘nail sessions’ with their daughters and enjoyed the girliness of her time with them. It seemed so long ago now. Work had dragged her into darker places. She looked around the room, the same way she did wherev
er she went now – checking, clocking, noting – and then slipped out, glad to be able to tell Sam that she’d checked up on Issy and all was fine.

  But that wasn’t really why she was here.

  She trawled the house, past discarded clothes, tennis rackets and stinky trainers, wondering where Sam would keep the files. Eventually she ended up in his bedroom. The sight stopped her dead.

  It wasn’t just the papers that were littered all over the floor. Nor was it the heavy scrawls and frantic circles that Sam had drawn on each and every one. It was the collection of photographs – police mugshots – of the women who were laid so neatly on the pillows that made her queasy. Maybe there was some sense in the way Sam saw it all, the way some people know just where things are in piles of junked paperwork. But Zoe knew that Sam was an orderly man, and this was not the way he usually worked.

  She didn’t touch a thing. She stepped gently amongst the papers and took in every detail. Women, murdering children, connected somehow to water. She remembered the way that the news reports and newspapers had wailed at the dangers of women at the time. And she thought about Helen’s words. In this room, they made perfect sense.

  It was later when she realised that all of the papers formed a circle and that the effect was rather like a spider’s web. And at the centre of all of this was another photo. And the face that smiled serenely up from the bed was Helen Seymour.

  Zoe didn’t move for quite some time. She knew that the next decisions she made would change everything, irrevocably.

  She didn’t move. She didn’t move for quite some time.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Sam returned home with Jenny early the next morning. She was pale and withdrawn, possibly ashamed, maybe just stubborn and angry. He couldn’t tell. They drove in silence. He wanted to say reassuring words, but they fell hopelessly into the footwells. Jenny sat still, her hands folded on her lap, her head bowed like a nun.

  Eventually they parked up and he stopped her as she reached for the door.

  ‘Jenny, honey.’

  She sat back, staring forward, waiting for the lecture.