Ralph’s Children

by Hilary Norman

  ‘They’re sending a locksmith,’ Rob told Kate a little later.

  ‘Right,’ she said.

  He knew what she had to be thinking.

  ‘I’ve talked to Helen Newton,’ he told her. ‘She’s certain there’s no link because there’s been a rash of burglaries in the area.’

  ‘OK.’ Kate found she could believe in that. ‘Good.’

  ‘I think we should consider an alarm,’ Rob said. ‘Or maybe a big dog.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Kate said, ‘if that kind of thing wouldn’t just emphasize what I’m trying so hard to forget.’

  ‘Let’s give it some thought, OK?’ Rob said gently.

  ‘Sure,’ she said.

  The burglary notwithstanding, it had all seemed to get just a little better for Kate once Caisleán was on the market. It troubled neither of them greatly that no one had yet made an offer, nor that many of those calling the agents for viewings might be doing so out of morbid curiosity.

  ‘No rush,’ Rob said.

  ‘So long as the agents deal with it all,’ Kate said.

  ‘You won’t ever have to see it again,’ Rob told her.

  ‘Suits me,’ she said.

  She was beginning, she supposed, to heal a little, with time passing and the horror receding. People told her how much better she was looking, which always made her feel guilty about Laurie, which was patently foolish, but thankfully the attacks of shame never lasted too long because Kate was not that much of a fool, and she did, in truth, feel lucky to be alive.

  And then it happened again.

  On a Saturday night at the end of April, when she was home alone because Rob had been invited by Penny to stay for the weekend up in Manchester to talk over their daughter’s education – and Rob must have wanted to leap at the prospect of extra time with Emmie, but he’d felt doubtful about leaving Kate alone just yet.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she’d reassured him. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  She heard nothing while it was happening, slept undisturbed, oblivious until Sunday morning when she found the garden door ajar and knew, with an awful, sickening blow, that someone had been in the cottage overnight.

  ‘The creepiest thing,’ she told Rob on the phone, with the local police already looking around and Michael on his way, ‘apart from the fact that they were here while I was sleeping, is that the only thing they seem to have taken is food. Every single thing that was in the fridge.’

  ‘Hungry burglars?’ Rob said.

  ‘Maybe.’ Kate was still jittery. ‘Or maybe they weren’t real burglars at all.’

  ‘Kate, we don’t—’

  ‘I think they just wanted us to know, for sure, that they’ve been here.’

  More than jittery.

  Rob told her to make sure someone stayed with her till he got back.

  ‘I’m leaving immediately,’ he promised. ‘And this time, we’re definitely getting the alarm, no arguments.’

  ‘None from me,’ Kate said.

  * * *

  Three weeks passed before she discovered that something else was missing.

  An ultrasound picture of their lost son.

  ‘I wasn’t looking for it,’ she told Rob, ‘but I took out our wedding album – had this nostalgic fancy – and it was always tucked in the back, remember, in its little envelope, and I thought it must have fallen out, but it’s nowhere.’

  ‘Let’s have one more look together,’ he said, ‘and if we don’t find it, we’ll call Newton.’

  ‘I was hoping you’d think I was overreacting,’ Kate said.

  ‘I hope we both are,’ said Rob.

  Helen Newton did not think either of them was overreacting, and dispatched a SOMIT technical team to place the cottage under a virtual microscope, hunting for anything that might previously have been missed.

  ‘Not a thing,’ she reported back later to Rob.

  ‘Nothing to send away for testing?’ he asked, disappointed.

  ‘You’ve cleaned the house from top to bottom since the break-in,’ Newton said. ‘More than once, I imagine.’ She paused. ‘It was obviously going to be a long shot.’

  ‘So what now?’ he asked. ‘Can you put a watch on the house?’

  ‘I’ve already got the local patrols keeping an eye on things.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Don’t forget,’ Newton said, ‘we’re only looking at a slim possibility.’

  ‘Don’t you think it might be time,’ Rob asked, ‘to err on the side of caution? Kate’s never been a nervy type, but this is really starting to get to her.’

  ‘You are both certain the picture was there?’

  ‘Kate doesn’t invent dramas either.’ Rob was firm.

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting for a moment,’ Newton said, ‘that she was.’

  Ralph

  ‘No more break-ins possible now.’ Ralph had phoned Jack. ‘You can’t risk it now they’ve got the alarm.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ he said.

  ‘Definitely not,’ she told him. ‘The police are sniffing around too.’

  ‘I know,’ Jack said.

  ‘So you are listening to me,’ Ralph said.

  ‘I’m bloody good at what I do,’ Jack said.

  ‘And you want to be able to go on doing it, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Chief,’ he said.

  Oh, but it was just so good to be speaking again.

  Playing again.

  Kate

  Kate heard a clicking sound on the phone while she was speaking to Bel on the last Monday of May.

  ‘Can’t you hear it, Mum?’

  ‘Not a thing,’ her mother said.

  She heard it again the following evening, when her father called.

  ‘Dad, can you hear those sounds?’ If Rob hadn’t been upstairs taking a shower, she’d have asked him to listen too.

  ‘Maybe,’ Michael answered, ‘but then again, I’m always hearing things these days. Delia says it’s probably old age.’ He paused. ‘How’s the column coming along?’

  She had been doing better, getting back on track, until the second break-in.

  ‘Not too bad,’ she said, lying.

  ‘Better get back to it then,’ Michael told her, ‘and stop procrastinating.’

  Kate did as he advised, and forgot about the sounds.

  Ralph

  ‘Serves two purposes,’ Pig told Ralph. ‘Listening, and freaking her out a bit.’

  Ralph was glad to hear of something giving him pleasure, though she wished it were something more substantial and infinitely happier.

  ‘Please,’ she said, ‘be careful.’

  ‘I always am,’ Pig said. ‘I don’t want to lose my job, Chief.’

  ‘That won’t be all you lose,’ she reminded him, ‘if you get caught.’

  ‘Never have yet,’ Pig said.

  ‘No reason to get cocky,’ said Ralph.

  ‘I don’t think I really do cocky,’ he said.

  * * *

  Pride and falls.

  Ralph heard the news from Roger.

  The worst kind.

  Not the very worst, of course. Not as bad as losing Simon. But awful enough.

  Jack had been on a job in Princes Risborough on an early June evening when he’d tripped over a potted plant on his way out of the house. Which had given a vigilant Neighbourhood Watch type the chance to have a go with a cricket bat – which had pissed Jack off enough to give the bloke a severe kicking – which might have given him time to escape if the man’s wife hadn’t been another ‘have-a-go’ type.

  ‘So now it’s burglary and GBH,’ Roger reported.

  This was what Ralph had dreaded for so long. It was little short of miraculous that their boy had stayed out of prison for so many years, and however often she’d heard Jack brag about his ability to ‘do the time’ if it came to it, she could not help but fear for him now.

  ‘Another one gone then,’ Roger said. ‘He’s on remand.’

  Ralph heard the sorrow in her v
oice. ‘Where?’

  ‘Tayton Park, over in—’

  ‘You mustn’t think of visiting him,’ Ralph broke in, urgently. ‘Officially or otherwise.’

  ‘I won’t,’ said Roger.

  ‘However much you want to,’ Ralph pressed.

  ‘I’m not daft,’ Roger said.

  ‘I know you’re not,’ Ralph said. ‘But I don’t want to lose you too.’

  Kate

  ‘That’s her!’

  It was a late June Saturday afternoon in the cottage, and Rob was marking essays at the table while Kate was lounging on the sofa reading Jon Henley in the Guardian, paying no particular attention to the ads rolling on television, and it had been a relief to find herself becoming less obsessive about listening in the past few weeks.

  But now, there it was.

  ‘Rob, that’s Roger!’

  ‘Jesus.’ He’d already stopped marking, knew immediately that this was for real, was scrabbling for paper, pen poised.

  Kate was staring galvanized at the TV screen, the newspaper dropped on the floor, not a grain of doubt in her mind about the voice, not even greatly chilled by it this time, simply bent on nailing the commercial, which was for a cheap household cleaning product.

  ‘Got it.’ Rob checked his watch and wrote it down. ‘And time and station.’

  The ad was over, and Kate got up and threw her arms around him.

  ‘Thank you – oh, Rob, thank you!’

  ‘My pleasure,’ he said. ‘Do you want to call Newton, or d’you want me to?’

  ‘You,’ she said, and handed him the phone.

  Martin Blake called her two mornings later.

  ‘You have to give the police a little time on this, Kate.’

  ‘How much time? I’ve chewed off most of my nails already.’

  ‘And made just a few too many calls to DCI Newton’s office.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Kate said, not feeling in the least apologetic, ‘but I don’t even know if they’ve arrested her.’

  ‘They’re interviewing a suspect as we speak,’ Blake said.

  ‘Right.’ Kate felt an adrenaline rush. ‘So what’s next? An ID parade?’

  ‘Yes,’ Blake said, ‘though it might not be quite such plain sailing.’

  ‘Because of the stocking masks,’ Kate said. ‘That’s why I’ve been phoning, because I need Helen Newton to realize how much more I remember about Roger than her voice. The way she moved, the shape of her head—’

  ‘Kate, haven’t you heard of VIPER?’ Blake interrupted. ‘I thought, being a journalist, you would have. It’s an acronym for—’

  ‘Video Identification Parades Electronic Recording.’ Her turn to break in, and of course she’d heard about VIPER, but she hadn’t, until now, considered its impact on her case. ‘No real parade, just video clips from some database. Head-and-shoulders, no movement.’

  ‘A little movement,’ Blake amended. ‘The suspect and volunteers move their heads from side to side.’

  ‘And no speaking.’ Anger flashed in her. ‘Worse than useless to me.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Blake said. ‘Your powers of recall may be very strong, and if this woman is Roger, she may stand out in some particular way.’

  ‘What about the stocking masks? Can they arrange that, at least?’

  ‘Probably not,’ Blake said.

  ‘I’ve tried not to let myself imagine them with faces.’

  ‘Maybe that’ll help you come to this with a clearer mind.’

  ‘What if I pick the wrong person?’ The thought appalled her.

  ‘If it’s one of the volunteers, it won’t matter to them,’ Blake said. ‘It’ll simply mean you’ve been unable to pick out the suspect.’

  Kate took a moment, tried toughening up. ‘Worth a try, I suppose.’

  Blake hesitated. ‘There is another potential problem, I’m afraid, raised by the guidelines that cover such things. The time lapse between offence and identification.’

  In her case, almost six months.

  ‘Oh, bloody hell,’ Kate said. ‘They’ll say I’ve forgotten, won’t they?’

  ‘Certainly in a trial, the length of time would be pointed out to a jury, and a decent defence would almost certainly object to an ID.’ Blake paused. ‘But the same guidelines also refer to the amount of time a suspect was under observation by the witness – which in your case was exceptionally long.’

  Kate thought. ‘I’m sure I’ve read about voice identifications.’

  ‘They’d only rely on that if, say, a ransom call had been recorded for comparison,’ Blake said. ‘Also, in a sense you’ve already identified Roger’s voice, and if Newton were to try to push for something more formal, I expect they’d fuss even more about the time frame.’ He paused again. ‘As it is, there’s the possible question of familiarity because of the television connection.’

  Kate understood immediately. ‘They’ll say that if I heard Roger twice on TV, I could have heard her more often before that and be confused.’

  ‘It won’t come to that,’ Blake said, ‘if they can put together a good case.’

  ‘So what does happen next?’ she asked.

  ‘More waiting, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I don’t suppose they’ve told you Roger’s real name?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Blake said.

  Something else occurred to Kate. ‘What if she doesn’t consent to the video parade? It’s her right, isn’t it?’

  ‘In that event the police would have to use her mug shot, and the whole parade would be done using stills rather than moving images.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Kate said sourly.

  ‘I doubt that she will refuse.’

  ‘Because she’ll be confident I won’t be able to pick her out.’

  ‘Let’s hope you can prove her wrong,’ Blake said.

  IT was arranged in a viewing suite at SOMIT headquarters.

  No one present with any involvement in the investigation.

  ‘To avoid suggestions of impropriety,’ Martin Blake had advised her.

  The suspect, he’d added, would not be there, though her solicitor would be.

  ‘And you?’ Kate had asked. ‘Will you be there?’

  ‘Fortunately,’ Blake had replied, ‘you don’t need a lawyer.’

  A good thing, of course, she realized, yet she felt, already, abandoned.

  And intensely afraid, all over again.

  ‘Try not to let them do that to you,’ Rob told her down in SOMIT reception, just before her escort arrived to take her to the suite.

  She squeezed his hand, told him she’d be fine.

  Lying through her teeth.

  She was shown to the viewing room and introduced to the Identification Officer, a pleasant man who told her that the viewing and her reactions would be recorded, told her that she should not feel under pressure, that she should relax and take all the time she needed.

  Relax. With so much riding on this, not just for her, but for the Moon family.

  Kate thanked the officer.

  Flashes of memory already assaulting her.

  The four of them coming at her in their eerie dark masks.

  Roger holding her face down on the sofa, almost suffocating her.

  Kneeling on Laurie’s thighs, pinning her down for Jack to cut her throat.

  Relax.

  The officer read her a formal explanation of the procedure, told her that the suspect might or might not appear on the film she was to see; that Kate was to view the entire film at least twice; that she could, if she wished, see all or any part of the film more often and that if she could not make a positive identification, she should say so.

  Panic ignited, made her feel ill, made her want to run. Without masks, it would be impossible to recognize her – the whole thing was a travesty because Roger would go free, they would all stay out in the world knowing they’d won.

  But then it began.

  Nine images, one after another, on a screen, each image numbered.
/>   Nine strangers.

  But she knew her.

  She half-closed her eyes as she had earlier decided she would to make the line-up fuzz a little, and her heart hammered and prickles of gooseflesh sprang up on her arms, and each time she was shown the film, they had moved Roger’s image to a different place in the parade, her face looking into the camera, turning her face first to one side, then to the other.

  A monster brought to life.

  It was strange beyond all Kate’s imaginings to see how attractive she was, her eyes dark and clear, betraying nothing, her neck slender as a model’s. Remembering that they were recording her reactions, her mind working well now, her fear gone, determined that nothing be allowed to undermine this identification, Kate opened her own eyes fully, examined each image carefully, took her time, though there was no need.

  Because she knew her.

  Knew which of those women was no stranger, which of them had dragged her to the bathroom and pulled down her panties so she could pee, which of them had recited the savageries of late abortion.

  Which of them had helped Jack to kill Laurie Moon.

  She knew her without a shadow of doubt.

  And told them her number.

  * * *

  One of the most significant outcomes of having Roger in custody, charged with the kidnapping and murder of Laurie Moon, as well as Kate’s unlawful imprisonment, was that her detention had swiftly led them to Jack.

  Karen Frost was the name of the actress who had been Roger.

  Not just an actress. Also an official prison visitor who had not long since approached the chaplain at HM Prison Tayton Park – because every voluntary OPV had to apply to each new prison they wanted to visit, to go through all channels each time, including Home Office checking. Frost had given her changed address as her reason, having lately moved from Reading to a flat less than five miles from Tayton Park, and her request had been granted.

  After which she was documented as having paid special attention to one male prisoner by the name of Paul Wilson, presently on remand, charged with burglary from a dwelling and grievous bodily harm.