by Tom Bale
The other mail had been opened and discarded. Only the tiny padded envelope remained untouched. Despite all the recent trauma, her social conditioning made it almost impossible to consider opening a letter intended for someone else.
But the minutes ticked by, and Renshaw did not come.
Alice wondered if he’d already fled. It might be that he knew nothing of this second delivery. But its presence forced her to make a decision: deliver it to 43 – because that seemed the likeliest place for him to be hiding – or keep it here. Open it or throw it in a bin. Call the police or stay silent.
None of these options seemed wiser or more appealing than any other. None offered the promise of a safe resolution. And if she were to hang on to the package, and the gang returned and found it in her possession, she might be signing a death warrant for her family …
She heard a car approaching, rose to take a look and glimpsed a slender woman at the wheel, a spray of long red hair over her shoulders. Was it Sian, from last night?
Alice gasped and ducked below the window. But as she waited for her heart rate to steady, it struck her that this might be a positive development.
Maybe – just maybe – the police officers were genuine, and DC Cassell was patrolling the neighbourhood in case the gang returned?
She weighed up that idea for a minute, then reached for her phone and Googled Sussex Police. The website didn’t seem to list contact numbers for different departments, so she dialled the non-emergency number: 101.
A pleasant female voice answered. Alice asked if she could speak to Detective Inspector Warley.
‘Do you know where he’s based?’
‘Um, Brighton, I think.’
‘Transferring you now.’
A few seconds to wait, Evie choosing this point to let out a warning cry: I’m getting bored, Mummy …
A man answered this time. Alice repeated the request and there was silence for a moment: silence and an awful foreboding on her part.
‘Name doesn’t ring a bell.’
‘Dean. DI Dean Warley.’
‘Are you sure he’s based here in Brighton?’
‘Uh, that’s what I thought …’
‘Afraid not. What case are you calling about?’
‘Oh, it’s, uh, a personal matter. Sorry to have bothered you.’
He was speaking again as Alice cut the connection and dropped the phone on the bed, shuddering with pent-up fear.
A personal matter. Well, you got that right, she thought, shaking off an image of the man with the knife, his filthy mouth bearing down on her breast.
Back to the window: there was no sign of the woman who might or might not have been Sian Cassell. Alice picked Evie up, glancing nervously at the phone. She was almost expecting the detective – the real detective – to ring back and say he knew there was something wrong.
But he can’t help you. It’s too late for that.
Evie refused to be soothed in her mother’s arms. Alice tried to laugh off the rooting mouth.
‘Oh, baby, surely you’re not hungry already?’
Evie met her eye, looking remarkably certain. Milk on demand, buster: that’s the deal.
Alice fed her on the bed, the parcel still within reach. She was thinking that it represented evidence, so maybe there was still time to go to the police.
But what if it contained something illegal? Perhaps they’d believe what Alice told them, or perhaps, it occurred to her now, they would seek other explanations.
Like Harry, for example.
We appreciate that you reported this in good faith, Mrs French, but have you considered that your husband might be involved, without your knowledge?
She found herself questioning Harry’s measured reaction last night, when she admitted to the delivery. Shouldn’t he have been more shocked? Angrier?
Oh God, this was madness. How could she even think such a thing?
Evie fed ravenously for what seemed like an age, shook off her drowsiness while being changed, then fed again and finally went off to sleep. Alice stood up, rocking her gently as she moved to the corner of the window. Her gaze homed in on 43, just in time to catch a ripple of movement behind the bedroom curtains.
He was in there. Hiding.
Alice came alive with a sudden fury. How dare he do this to her!
And with that, the decision was made.
Evie grumbled in her sleep as Alice wrestled her into a pramsuit. The walk would soon send her back off, especially as she was going to be in her baby carrier rather than the buggy.
Alice checked the street before locking up, then made a cautious circuit of the neighbouring streets to be sure the car she’d seen wasn’t waiting nearby. Back in Lavinia Street, her temper still high, she strode up to number 43 and knocked on the door.
No answer. Alice knocked again, hard enough to rattle the door in its frame. Luckily, Evie stayed asleep. Leaning out of the recess, Alice surveyed the street once more, then crouched down, being careful not to squash Evie, lifted the letterbox flap and shouted through the narrow slot: ‘Mr Grainger! I have another letter for you.’
She waited, still squatting, ignoring the discomfort and the fact that she would present an ungainly sight to anyone walking past – the massive arse that Harry valiantly insisted wasn’t massive at all – and although there was no sound from within the house, she was sure she could sense a presence.
He was listening.
She lowered her voice. ‘We went through hell because of you, Mr Grainger, or should I say Renshaw? Now come to the door and face me.’
Still nothing. Her knees were aching. Evie’s feet were digging into her abdomen. Holding the door for balance, Alice straightened up, her other hand reaching for the envelope in her back pocket. Perhaps she’d just shove the packet through the door and pray that was the end of it.
She could hear a car some distance away; in Buxton Road, maybe. She was turning to look when the front door was wrenched open to reveal the man from the other morning, a horrified expression on his face.
‘Quickly!’ He motioned her inside, but Alice had frozen in shock. When she failed to move he grabbed her by the arm. She tried to back away but saw a car at the end of the street and knew it was the same one from earlier – driven by the woman with long red hair – and it was this more than Renshaw’s physical strength that pitched her through the doorway and into the house.
Like her namesake falling down the rabbit hole, she thought – except that Lewis Carroll’s creation hadn’t had the most precious human being on earth strapped to her chest. Alice was dimly aware of Renshaw pushing past her, still growling, ‘Get in! Get in!’ even as he slammed the door shut and slid a heavy bolt into place.
Twenty
Harry didn’t know what to make of Ruth’s revelation. If it was true, it made his own family’s ordeal seem trivial by comparison – but it also brought home just how much danger they were in: dealing with men who had killed before.
‘When? I mean, how? And why haven’t they been prosecuted?’
‘Oh, Harry.’ Her tone suggested that he was being hopelessly naïve.
‘Well, if you were a cop—’
‘I didn’t say I was.’ After a tense silence, she added: ‘In any case, my husband was a police officer. He worked in Intelligence, though his investigation into Nathan Laird was off the books. That’s one of the reasons his death couldn’t be tied to the gang.’
‘How did he die – if you don’t mind me asking?’
‘He was stabbed, in Ipswich, eleven months ago. It was staged to look like a mugging gone wrong. Late at night, in a bad part of town. The official investigation got nowhere fast.’
‘But surely, with him being a police officer, his colleagues would go all out to find his killer?’
‘Sure. But if there’s no evidence, no witnesses, there isn’t a lot more they can do.’
The question had obviously stung her, and Harry had the impression she was holding something back.
; ‘If you told them about Laird …’ he began.
‘Look, it’s not like a normal homicide. If a member of the public is murdered, you rule out immediate family and friends, and then you ask who else might have wanted them dead. In most cases you’re lucky to find even one or two people with a serious grudge. When it’s a cop with nearly twenty years’ service, you have the opposite problem. Way too many suspects. You have to look at practically everyone he ever investigated, everyone he helped to put away, as well as all their families and associates.’
Harry was happy to concede the point, but he said, ‘In that case, how can you be so sure that Laird was behind it?’
‘I know, all right.’ Her voice was like steel. ‘I just know.’
She changed the subject back to the visit by the fake detectives. She could make a few calls and hopefully get some information later today.
‘Then you can put your wife’s mind at rest – or not, as the case may be.’
‘Probably not,’ Harry said glumly. ‘What you’ve told me about the gang is bound to freak her out.’
As he said it, he was thinking: The parcel. Are you going to mention the parcel?
Ruth gave him a quizzical look, as if she sensed there was something on his mind. In a clumsy attempt to divert her attention, Harry said, ‘So, why no wig today? That’s your real hair, isn’t it?’
She nodded, shrugged. ‘Wigs get itchy.’
‘Okay. And since you’re answering my questions for once, another thing that intrigues me is your accent.’
‘It’s a mess, that’s for sure.’ She fixed him with a sardonic grin. ‘Don’t think I can’t see what you’re doing.’
‘Can you blame me for wanting to know more?’
‘I guess not.’ She glanced at her watch, then stood up. ‘My father’s American. He was in the military. He met my mother while he was stationed in Germany. That’s where I was born. We transferred to the UK when I was thirteen, to Mum’s home county of North Yorkshire. At eighteen I moved down south for university, so that’s why it’s such a godawful mix.’ She snorted. ‘Mostly I get mistaken for a Canadian.’
They walked back across the beach. The fine weather had attracted tourists and school parties, parents with young children.
Harry drew in a breath. ‘Do you think I should even be here, leaving Alice and Evie alone when these people are still at large?’
‘Only you can decide that. But you can’t stay home forever, can you?’
‘No, I suppose not.’ He sighed, unable to dispel his unease; a sudden conviction that he had abandoned his family just when they needed him most. ‘The worst thing is the uncertainty, the fact that there’s no way of knowing when – or if – this will be over.’
‘It’ll be over when they get what they want.’
‘Or when someone stops them?’
Ruth made a noise; not quite a laugh, not quite a cough.
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘But that’s my job to worry about. Not yours.’
Twenty-One
After bolting the door, Renshaw produced a set of keys and used one to lock the mortice on the front door. Alice watched the keys go into his pocket and knew that her hopes of escape had just vanished with them.
‘Why have you … ? Let me go.’ She tried to make it sound like a command, but it came out as little more than a frightened croak.
‘Have you any idea what you’ve done?’ Renshaw was a short, rotund man, humming with nervous energy. He wore a grubby-looking suit with a thick sweater beneath the jacket. His accent seemed more distinctive than it had when he’d collected the parcel, the words thick and unformed.
He wouldn’t be used to speaking, Alice realised. Not if he spent his days hiding in here.
She dug the envelope from her jeans, working hard not to let the fear show. ‘This is for you. Now let me out.’
Still furious, he snatched it from her. ‘If you have led them to me, we will be lambs to the slaughter.’
‘They broke into our house,’ Alice snapped back. ‘They terrorised us, because of you.’
Renshaw acted as if he hadn’t heard. ‘Who did you see, just now?’
Alice shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. A woman with red hair, maybe.’
‘A young woman? Thin?’
‘She came to the house last night, claiming to be a detective. DC Sian Cassell.’
He groaned. ‘Sian.’
‘You know who she is?’
Renshaw nodded, fear in his eyes. ‘And she saw you come to this address?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Alice found the courage to take a step towards him. ‘You have to let us go.’
Her use of the plural confused him. Then his gaze dropped to the carrier and he gave a start, swearing under his breath.
‘Please. This isn’t anything to do with us—’ Alice moved to go round him but he blocked her path.
‘You are part of this now. You cannot walk away.’
It wasn’t a threat: if anything, she thought, his tone was slightly regretful, as if he didn’t wish her or Evie to come to any harm. Stepping back, he held out his palms in a placatory gesture. With the bushy beard and crinkly eyes, he reminded Alice a little of Anthony Hopkins.
‘Forgive me,’ Renshaw said. ‘This must be very upsetting. But we are in danger here; that you must believe.’
‘I do,’ she said hotly. ‘I told you, they woke us in the middle of the night. They wore masks, gloves. And they knew about the parcel.’
He winced. ‘What did you tell them?’
‘Nothing. I was so shocked, I didn’t even make the connection to the other day.’
‘Good. But if they are watching now …’ Tutting gravely, he shook his head. ‘I will see.’
As he turned to climb the stairs, Alice quickly took in her surroundings. The house was bitterly cold and had a damp, fusty smell. In the hall the Anaglypta wallpaper was peeling and dotted with mould; white gloss on the woodwork had faded to yellow. The carpet was threadbare, coated with dust and grime.
An instinct to flee propelled her along the hall. The kitchen was home to piles of cardboard packaging and empty cartons. Renshaw appeared to be living on baked beans, Pot Noodles and ready meals.
The back door looked less sturdy than the front, with a couple of glass panels, but Alice quickly spotted another mortice lock – the key doubtlessly in Renshaw’s pocket. And something odd: above the door, on a narrow makeshift shelf, a bucket with a cord tied to the handle. The cord was stretched across the top corner of the door. A booby trap.
There was a second when she contemplated climbing out of a window, but with Evie in the carrier it wouldn’t be easy. Then she heard Renshaw calling softly: ‘Come. Please.’
She returned to the stairs, noticing that folded towels had been laid on some of the treads. Soundproofing.
On the landing, Renshaw waited with a grim smile. ‘You are safer with me than out there.’
Alice didn’t trust him, particularly, but on this issue she didn’t doubt him, either. She climbed the stairs to find the narrow landing was made more cramped by the presence of a pull-down loft ladder. The opening to the roof space yawned above her.
Renshaw had moved into the front bedroom. It was empty except for a broken chest of drawers, the panels of laminated chipboard slowly regressing to their flat-packed state. The curtains were drawn but pinned at each side to leave a sliver of glass visible. Moving closer, Alice noticed a strange dullness to the window and saw it had been coated with a layer of what looked like cling film.
‘Tell me more about Sian.’ Renshaw was standing to the left of the window, examining the street in the direction of Alice’s home. ‘A detective, did you say?’
‘She was with a man called Warley. They knew about the break-in, even though we hadn’t reported it. I think they were trying to check if we’d been lying the night before.’
‘And they were satisfied with your answers?’
‘I think so.’ She gestured at the window. ‘I’m not e
ven sure if that’s who I saw just now.’
‘We have to pray it was not.’
‘Look, what is this about? Why are they searching for you?’
He shook his head, then Alice saw his shoulders jerk. He swore under his breath.
‘It is them. A blue Audi.’
‘I don’t think that was—’
‘There will be several people. More than one car.’
Alice tried to remember the man on the phone who’d spooked her yesterday morning. He’d got into a blue car, hadn’t he?
Renshaw made a fist of his right hand and turned towards her. Alice wrapped an arm around the carrier to protect her sleeping baby, but with a dismissive sigh Renshaw hurried out of the room.
That was when Alice realised she wasn’t completely helpless. She had her phone.
Before she could do anything, there was a distressed moan from a room at the back. Alice eased past the loft ladder and found Renshaw in his bedroom. There was no furniture except a single bed. The floor was littered with clothes and dozens of tatty paperbacks: Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy, John Grisham. The same curtain arrangement as in the front, Renshaw peering through the narrow gap.
‘They have us penned in.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘See for yourself.’
Alice made sure her phone was hidden as she picked her way across the room. The gardens on this side of the street were deeper than her own, backing on to an alleyway with another set of gardens beyond that. Renshaw’s property was bordered by a high wall, but Alice glimpsed the head of a man in the alley. He had a phone at his ear.
Renshaw moved alongside her, his breath foul on her face when he spoke.
‘He will summon others. When they have enough people, they will come for me. Do you see?’
Ending the call, the man placed his hands on the wall and boosted himself up. Alice gasped, taking a few steps away from Renshaw before she lifted her phone into view.