The Taken: DI Erica Martin Book 2 (Erica Martin Thriller)

by Alice Clark-Platts

  ‘Can you shut the curtains?’ Sera asked. ‘Make it cosier?’

  ‘I like them open. I want to see the sky.’ Violet answered, leaning back against the window. ‘When can we leave this bloody place anyway? It’s almost as bad as being in prison.’

  Sera met her daughter’s eyes but said nothing.

  ‘Eh?’ Violet persisted. ‘When is this nightmare going to be over?’

  Sera swung her legs round into a sitting position. She patted the bedspread next to her. ‘Come here, darling. Come and sit down.’

  ‘I don’t want to sit down.’ Something in Violet was taut, stretching over a chasm of fear. What was happening to this family? Her father was dead. She shuddered to remember the image of his head encrusted with blood. Her aunt was in the hospital . . . Fraser was in their face as much as ever, his breath rank with garlic. It made her want to heave. And her mother . . . her mother was mute, as usual. She had refused to allow them to visit Antonia – which Violet thought was stupid. It made them look even more suspicious.

  And now, she just sat with her hands folded, smiling to herself, singing the songs they had sung in the church when Violet was a girl. When she had learnt about greed and sin and lust and longing and how the Devil would reach down into her throat and grab all of those things which lurked inside her, and yank them out on a bloody string. Whatever she had said to Inspector Martin, she still lived in terror of that, the Devil coming dark and hooded in the middle of the night.

  Sometimes, her bedroom door would open in the darkness when her night light’s timer had switched itself off. A sliver of light would arc across the carpet through the gap. Violet would lie still as a statue, hardly daring to breathe, her eyes tight shut. She would hear the Devil’s breath; loud and uninhibited. She could feel him watching her, his bug eyes travelling over her shape under the covers. Please, she would whisper in her head, please, oh Lord, protect me. I trust in you, my Lord. Our Father who lives in Heaven, hallowed be thy name; deliver me from evil. She would say the prayer repeatedly, until the words fell into each other and she couldn’t find any meaning in them. Then, she would hear the door gently close.

  And he would be gone.

  ‘Well, what do you want?’ Sera asked, breaking into her thoughts.

  Violet strode to the telephone on the desk by the door. ‘Hello, room service? I’d like a double gin and tonic please. Room 114. Thank you.’ She put down the receiver and glared at her mother, her eyebrows raised.

  Sera bent her head to study her hands.

  ‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’

  ‘What do you want me to say? You can have a drink if you like.’

  ‘Ugh!’ Violet tore her hands through her hair. She pulled up suddenly as a thought struck her. ‘Where’s Dad’s cross? The gold one he always wore?’

  Sera stared at her. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He wasn’t wearing it in the morgue. Did they give it back to you?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so . . .’ Sera moved her head a little. ‘I can’t remember.’ She lifted her head to meet Violet’s gaze, her irises yellow like a cat’s, in the dark of the room, with only reflections of the city lights illuminating her face. ‘What are you insinuating?’ she asked.

  ‘Did you kill him?’

  Sera was silent.

  ‘I mean, I don’t blame you if you did. But, if it was you, why did you stick that cross in my nightdress, smear blood on it? Dad’s blood!’ Her eyes shone with tears. ‘Did you do that? Because, if you did, I have to leave you now. I can’t stay here any more. I can’t live this life. You’ll get on all right without me.’

  ‘Of course I didn’t kill him. How could you say such a thing?’ Sera said quietly.

  Violet waved her arms at her mother. ‘This is what drives me insane. You! You’re always so reasonable about everything. When do you ever get angry? When? I’ve never seen it.’

  ‘Why do you want me to be angry?’

  ‘You sound like a fucking shrink.’

  ‘Just calm down, Violet.’

  ‘Saying that is the surest way to wind someone up, don’t you know that?’ Violet perched on the side of the desk. ‘You weren’t even angry when . . .’ She held up a finger to her mouth.

  Sera said nothing, a vein twitched in her temple.

  ‘Don’t you want to know when?’ Violet threw at her, her voice hitting a screech. Sera looked at the door. ‘Worried someone will hear, are you? That’s always the main priority, isn’t it? Keeping everything under wraps. Making sure no one knows our family’s little secrets?’

  ‘We don’t have any secrets, Violet. You know everything,’ Sera said. ‘Everyone does.’

  Violet spoke quickly, agitated. ‘You have got to be kidding me. Seriously? If that’s true, then why have I been having a nervous breakdown inside – ever since Dad died – worried about protecting us from the police? Even though I’ve fucked that up, obviously, given I’m on fucking bail!’

  Sera stood slowly and faced her daughter. Her hair hung either side of her face in the dusky gloom. Something passed across her eyes – a pitiful look – but underneath it, just spiking through, was a point of hatred. ‘Tell me what you mean.’

  ‘What do you think, Mum? What do you think happened to Antonia?’ Violet sank on to the bed, exhausted. ‘You must have known. The way you spoke to that policewoman.’

  Sera seemed to sink in relaxation, her shoulders dropped, and she smiled. She moved to sit next to her daughter and took her hand. She brought it up to her lips, kissing it, closing her eyes. ‘Oh, my darling girl, I was hoping you’d tell me,’ she said.

  ‘I hate her,’ Violet spat. ‘For everything she’s done to you.’

  Sera shook her head. ‘She loves you. And me. She just doesn’t know how to show it.’

  ‘I don’t know how you let her get away with it. All those years. With Dad. It makes me sick.’

  ‘She’s my sister.’

  ‘She couldn’t give a shit about you! All she cared about was getting one over on you. Like she was his fucking queen or something . . .’ Violet looked at her mother. ‘When we came here . . . you know, I’d already planned it. I wanted to hurt her and then I was going to leave.’

  ‘Leave?’ Sera asked, a vague tremor discernible in her voice. ‘What do you mean, leave?’

  A knock came at the door and Violet stood to open it. She took the glass and the bottle, signing the chit before drinking greedily. ‘God, that’s better,’ she said, coming back to her mother.

  ‘Leave, Violet?’ Sera said, a knife-edge sharpening in her voice. ‘What do you mean by that?’ She got up herself and moved in front of the hotel room door, her arms folded. ‘Tell me what you meant just now. When you thought I should have been angry.’

  ‘Jesus, Mum! Mercy? Remember her? All of that,’ Violet shuddered. ‘All of what was going on back then.’

  For a moment, Sera was frozen, her pounding heart the only sound in her ears. ‘What do you think I should have done about it?’ she forced herself to say.

  ‘Um, I don’t know? Called the police, perhaps?’

  ‘You were never hurt.’ Sera’s face was rigid.

  ‘Sure,’ Violet looked sorrowfully at the ice cubes revealed in her finished drink. ‘What have we been doing, Mum? All these years? Why have we put up with it? Isn’t it time to put an end to it? I can’t do it any more.’ She glanced over at Sera, who was motionless, lit up by the city lights easing in through the window.

  ‘What could I have done? Answer me. Where would we have gone? We would have been destroyed. No money, nowhere to go . . .’

  Violet ignored her, woozy from the alcohol. ‘You never bloody well speak, Mum.’

  ‘I’ve never defended him,’ Sera said.

  ‘You didn’t defend me either.’

  They looked at each other as the low hum of traffic carried on outside the window, sounds of life shuttling past beyond the door.
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br />   ‘What did you want, Violet?’ Sera asked at last, her eyes fixed on her daughter’s. ‘More fights? More shouts and violence and sadness?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Violet answered. ‘But now he’s gone. It just seems – all of it – so pointless. Why are we here? Why did we come here?’

  Sera bent her head.

  ‘Was it you? Did you want us here? Was this all a plan?’

  ‘No. You’ve got it wrong.’ Sera wobbled on her feet, her head rolled a little, her eyes glazed.

  ‘Mum? Look . . . let’s . . . are you okay?’ Violet crossed the room and went to hold her mother’s shoulder.

  Sera shook her hand off, staring coldly into her daughter’s face. ‘You’re talking rubbish,’ she spat. Her face had changed, the momentary blankness had drained away, leaving fury in its place.

  ‘What?’ Violet asked, suddenly uncertain. ‘What’s wrong? You look . . . different.’

  Beyond Violet’s head, Sera could see a satellite moving across the sky, its red and gold lights marking a trail, observation on the move. It would see everything eventually. Soon, nothing would be unknown. Sera moved to the phone, the realization coming to her of what she had to do.

  She spoke in a low voice, ordering another gin and tonic. Then she replaced the receiver and looked at Violet.

  ‘Mum . . .?’ Violet’s voice had changed. Something in Sera was frightening her. She was cold, standing in the shadows. Violet was grateful for the lights outside the window. The room felt too dark, oppressive. ‘Please, Mum. Tell me . . . what’s wrong? Talk to me.’

  But once again, Sera retreated into silence.

  29

  Jim Lacey sat at the back of the Indian restaurant, his hands cradling a huge bottle of Kingfisher beer.

  ‘Either your hands have suddenly got tiny or that is the largest beer bottle I’ve ever seen,’ Martin said as she sat down opposite him. He had his back to the wall, leaving her to sit facing away from the door – her most hated position, as he well knew.

  ‘It was all they had,’ he shrugged. ‘Long day. Could do with a drink.’

  Martin gestured to the waiter and ordered a Coke. ‘Me too. But I’ll be up at five. I’m in the middle of a murder.’

  ‘When are you not, Erica?’ Jim sighed, and pushed his bottle away. A few seconds passed. ‘Let’s not do this. I don’t want to.’

  Martin nodded. ‘All right.’ She called back the waiter. ‘Can I have another glass? And . . .?’ She looked over at Jim, who acknowledged the implied question with a smile. ‘And chicken tikka, yellow dhal, garlic naan – times two please.’

  She poured some of Jim’s beer into the glass that was brought to her and drained half of it in one gulp. ‘How are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, you know. Ticking on.’

  When did it get like this? Martin wondered. Other than knowing what Jim would want to eat in an Indian restaurant, most of the time she felt she didn’t know him at all any more.

  ‘You look good,’ he said. ‘You’ve got some colour in your cheeks. Have you been away?’

  ‘Crete. Long weekend.’ Martin’s face flushed with the beer and what she knew was coming.

  Jim looked surprised. ‘That’s unlike you,’ he said. ‘Managed to tear yourself away from the bad and the ugly of Durham?’

  Martin chewed her lip as the waiter put a bowl of poppadoms on the table in front of them. She took another gulp of beer. ‘Yep,’ she said. ‘Anyway, how’s the new flat?’

  ‘All right. Small. Empty.’

  ‘You can come and take anything you want, I’ve told you. The spare bed. Saucepans. Whatever.’

  ‘I don’t need saucepans, Erica. I’ve got a bed. But . . .’ He suddenly looked tentative, staring down into his glass before clearing his throat. ‘What I’ve been thinking about lately, is that what I haven’t got . . . in my flat, is . . .’

  Don’t say it, Martin thought. Please don’t say it.

  ‘. . . you,’ he finished. ‘You know? I just think . . .’ He reached his hands out across the table. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t sign the papers. Maybe we’re making a mistake.’

  The laugh came out of Martin’s mouth before she could stop it. ‘Mistake? Jim . . . a mistake is buying a pair of trousers in the wrong size. It’s booking a flight on the wrong date. It’s not going a year barely talking to me and seeing a solicitor and getting papers drawn up to put into court to actually ask a judge to declare your marriage over!’ She shook her head, her eyes blazing.

  A mistake?

  Jim drank some beer and moved the condiments dish around. ‘Tom-ay-to, tom-ah-to,’ he said at last.

  ‘No,’ Martin said firmly. ‘It’s not how you look at it, how you say it. Whatever word you use. It isn’t a mistake. It wasn’t one and it isn’t. We decided. We thought about it and we agreed. We agreed that it was what was best. For us both.’

  ‘We haven’t really spoken, though, have we? We’ve just let it go on and . . . now it’s just sort of happening.’

  ‘You know how to contact me Jim,’ Martin said. ‘You know where I live. You just haven’t been bothered. Living the life of Riley in Newcastle . . .’

  ‘Then why does it feel like shit?’ Jim interrupted, before waiting a beat. ‘You feel it, too. I can tell.’

  ‘I don’t.’ Martin tucked her hair behind her ears angrily. ‘Don’t be so fucking arrogant! I mean, yes, I feel sad about it. You know, like it’s something I failed. And I miss you. You were my friend. I loved you . . .’

  ‘Loved?’

  ‘Yes. Past tense. Now . . .’ she stopped.

  Jim looked at her. ‘Now, what?’

  Martin glanced down at her left hand, at her third finger, where there was no longer a faint tan line caused by her wedding band. ‘I’m seeing someone else,’ she said. ‘Someone from work.’

  Jim leaned back in his chair, saying nothing, as the waiter returned yet again with plates and cutlery and the sizzling tikka plates.

  ‘Thanks, that’s great,’ Martin said as she gazed at it all, her stomach so sick that she knew she couldn’t eat a bite of it. How could he say this now, after all this time? Right now? In the middle of everything, when she was tired and stressed and . . . a mistake?

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  He shut his eyes briefly. ‘I suppose not.’

  She frowned at him. ‘And you’re telling me you’ve been in bed by 8 p.m. every night, are you? In that fancy flat of yours overlooking the water? No girls coming back from The Boat, down on the Shore?’

  Jim rubbed a thumb over his mouth before answering. ‘Who do you think I am, Erica?’

  She said nothing.

  ‘Really? You think that’s what I’m doing? When I left . . .’ He exhaled, looking round the restaurant, the strained notes of the sitar his backing track. ‘I thought it was for the best. I just . . . I thought you weren’t invested in us any more. And I wanted to get back to work. To focus on that, not always be worrying how I was messing things up with you.’

  ‘You make it sound so reasonable. Really . . . But it wasn’t like that.’ Tears crept into Martin’s eyes. ‘You were so cold and then you just said divorce, like it was the only option. I shut down. I didn’t have time to argue. Do you have any idea what I see? What I do?’ She shook her head in exasperation. ‘It’s like you expect me to be a certain way, like a certain kind of woman. And I can’t.’ A tear fell down Martin’s cheek as she sank back into her chair. ‘I just can’t.’ She lifted her head as Jim stood up. ‘Don’t . . . don’t go,’ she said.

  ‘If that’s what you think, then I have to. I’m not going to persuade you,’ he replied, getting out his wallet and putting some money down. ‘You think what you want and you’ll do it whatever I say.’

  ‘No,’ she shook her head. ‘That’s how it was . . . how you made it.’

  ‘Then it looks like we don’t know each other at all,’ Jim said sadly, as he moved out from the table. He touched Martin briefly on the
shoulder. ‘See you, Erica.’

  And that was the trouble, Martin thought, as she poured the rest of the bottle of beer into her glass. The trouble was that deep down inside her sat a dark and dangerous fear.

  A fear that, of everyone, Jim Lacey was actually the one who understood her best.

  Martin threw her bag on the sofa and walked into the kitchen to get a drink to rid her mouth of the taste of the beer. As water splashed into the glass, the sound of the doorbell broke into the thrum of her thoughts. Carrying the glass, she opened the door to find Sean Egan standing on her doorstep, a bike helmet in his hand, the smell of booze on his breath.

  Martin cocked her head to one side. ‘Don’t recall giving you my address, Egan.’

  ‘Ah, you’ve forgotten. It was on the back of the envelope with your Christmas card last year.’ He threw her a raffish smile, holding out a bottle of Talisker. ‘I promise I’ll get a cab home.’

  ‘I’ve been putting off coming to see you, as it happens.’ Martin’s voice was cold. She glanced back along the hallway, debating whether to let him in or not. ‘Suppose you’ve saved me the joys of hunting you down in all the pubs.’

  ‘Intriguing,’ Egan said. ‘Shall I come in, then?’

  Martin raised her eyebrows. ‘I’m sure I’ll live to regret it,’ she said, leaving the door open for him to follow.

  ‘Nice place. Redecorating, are you?’

  Martin didn’t respond as she considered the tall, awkward figure of Egan coming into her space. As she led him into the sitting room, she saw it as he must view it and felt suddenly and unaccountably embarrassed. When Jim had left, she had wanted to peel away any vestige of him in the little house they shared. One solitary weekend, after admittedly too much whisky, she had ripped the carpets up, angrily rolling them back into the corners to reveal the grey and splintered floorboards underneath. Since then, she’d never had the time to rent the sander needed to renovate the floor, and the only rug she owned – bought long ago, on a random trip to Turkey – wasn’t big enough to hide the paint splashes and bent nails that adorned it. The walls were clean and freshly painted a chalky white, but they were bare apart from a large silver-framed film poster of It’s a Wonderful Life above the empty fireplace. The whole place looked like a student flat; a shrine to minimalism and loneliness.